Permutation City Blog

I already love the movie adaptation of this. I think that colours my reading of the book. It has a couple of additional storyline, one in the past and one in the future of the main storyline, which was distracting. The searcher is a writer rather than a collector. This is both a less unusual past time and provides one less link with the past he finally finds. What I can't do is go back and read the book before the film and find out if it would change my opinion.

I've read a couple of books about earth and straw building techniques before. This one was most concerned with numbers. The sort you need to make sure your building really doesn't fall down. A lot of test still needs to be done and there are a lot of variables which make a difference: grain type, baling machine, particle sizes. If you need this sort of detail it seems like a great book.

Live-for-a-day clones do the work while archies persue hobbies. Real people's only job is to keep their body in shape. It all balances out when the clone's memories are transfered back at the end of the day. If only the world were that simple: clones are a new underclass, they're customised for different jobs, they're stolen and copied illegally. A detective thriller set against a background of future technology. A lot of interesting ideas, thought through, that got confusing at the end.

A classic tale that I hadn't gotten round to reading. Although I knew the gist of it already his calamities before and after the island were a surprise. Once he's on the island everything seems to go his way. Everything he needs can either be gathered from the shipwreck or foraged. The classic footstep he finds on the beach has nothing to do with Friday.

The beginning of the story presents a child highly religious upbrining and her differences from others in the community. As she grows and finds love with other women her family and religon reject her. A very easy to read book. P.S. Apparently there's pineapple as well.

An alternate history book where early Europeans are wiped out by the plague. Reincarnation features and the story follows the same people through many lives. It was interesting to see different possible cultures coming out of the middle east, the orient, and the americas. While each piece was interesting all together they were too slow. It would have been better slimmed down by a couple of hundred pages.

A look at how science works by examining how it is done badly. Individuals, companies, industries, media, governments, the public all have problems following and presenting science.

Nobody Owens is boy brought up in a graveyard by ghosts. I really liked this. Interesting characters and an intriguing world. I'd be nice to see more like this.

A compendium of three stories, two of which are Hugo Award winners. It feels surprisingly old fashioned for something written at the beginning of the 1990s. Sort-of shlocky space fiction. It's full of lucky coincidence and fast talking. The first story, the non-award winning on, was a bit of a chore. The middle story is a planet-side detective story which felt more sensitive and interesting. The last story was similar to the first but I think with a better polish.

A city is struck by a plague of white blindness. The story follows the first to be infected as they are quarantined and conditions breakdown in an inadequate facility. Some very good blind acting and well shot scenes.