Permutation City Blog

Not a great book but it's all based around the idea of Form Change. All humans have the ability to change shape through bio-feedback techniques. Most forms are simple varients of the normal body. New form change experients are risky but some could change the world.

A tale of two island cultures, the first where colourblindness is common, the second a degenerative condition that affects mind and body. A doctor who has is colourblind and also studies the condition describes a further appriciation of luminance and texture. In their island their is a common understanding these abilities. On the other island many families have lost large number to this mysterious disease. However there is tremendous support amongst the people even in the face of this. On a positive note the younger generation is disease free.

A tour of Tasmania looking for traces of the supposedly extinct Tasmanian tiger, a large carnivorous marsupial. There are wild places left where it might be sheltering and there have been unofficial sightings. It was an interesting to hear about the animals but the tour itself was less interesting.

The setting was the most interesting part of this book. People could fly planes through the interplanetary aether to visit nearby moons and take ballon rides to other planets. Rather than develop this fully it started asking questions about reality instead.

This is the first of the Tiffany Aching series I've read. It was nice to have a new set of characters to read about. Although I enjoyed it enough it isn't as good as his earlier books. I may read some more of them, I may not.

You don't hear much about training cats but they do learn things. Sometimes it's cute, like knowing when you pick a laser pointer it's time for a game. Sometimes it's not cute, like scratching the carpet will get you to open a door. Clicker training is about using positive re-inforcement to encourage certain behaviours. Later on these behaviours can be extended or chained together to make something more complex. This was fun to read and I'd like to see it in practice some day.

A sequel to The Ropemaker this book continues the story 20 generations after the last one left off. It has a similar formula but doesn't manage to pull it off as well. The main character should have had a more active role but her companions ended up doing most of the work.

I'm not sure how to classify this collection of short stories. I think overall there is a sort of dark undertone to them all, often of some fantastic nature. Most stories only lasted a few pages and there are some gems but more of them didn't hit the mark.

When this went through the cinema I think I discounted it. A film about roleplaying and games probably would probably be too full of inacuracies. However it turns out to be much more about autism. I'd liken it to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime.

This book is set in a universe where nano-technology has transformed humanity. Bodyshape has become a matter of fashion and human necessities are taken care of. Crime is all but unknown except that the main character is a murder now being employed to commit a mass murder. A reasonable read, I might check out some of his other books.