Book Review

Star Wars
The Force Unleashed
by Sean Williams

A book based on a video game!  (I've not always had good experiences with this type of thing in the past, but in this case, it's a book based on a video game that I haven't actually played before.  Maybe that helped...)

Interesting book.  It's about Darth Vader's secret apprentice in the days before the Death Star is finished.  He travels the outer rim, sent on missions by Vader.  Then he has an accident, and retraces his steps.  (Spoilers redacted)

I thought it was an interesting book.  The main character's name throughout most of the book was "the apprentice".  He's got a shape shifting robot pal whose primary objective is to kill him in combat.  (Teaching him in the process.)  There is a ship pilot used as a foil to the main character.  They just wander the galaxy and think about their angst.  Then land and start fighting.

The main thrust of the book is the apprentice retraces his steps in the second half, and starts learning the results of his actions.  In the end, we all learned a valuable lesson.

It was a good book, and I see that the author wrote a book called "The Force Unleashed II", I'm guessing based on a second video game I never played.  I'd read it if I ever came across it, just based on this one...

Book report

Doctor Who 
More Short Trips
edited by Stephen Cole

This book is a collection of short Dr. Who stories (some very short) from the first Doctor to the eighth Doctor.  Each story had a different combination of Doctor and companion in some random adventure. I think they managed to get every Dr. Who companion in the book, with the corresponding Doctor for that companion.

Because it was a collection of short stories, it took me something like six weeks to read the thing.  I thought it was interesting.  They didn't compile the thing in any kind of chronological order, which is appropriate, really.  What they did do, however, is do a good job switching between very short, and slightly less short stories.

There were only a couple of weird stories, most of them were interesting in their own right.  I was a good book.

The last story was quite weird.  The story jumped back and forth in it's own timeline, it took about 12 pages to really figure out what in the world was going on.  I guess that's sort of appropriate as well, if you think about it...

Anyway, good book, may be out of print, found it at the University library a while back.

More to come...

Book Review

Ready Player One
Ernest Cline

At the end of July, in his weekly trivia contest email, Ken Jennings had a question about the book Ready Player One, which I had never heard of.  The question, and answer:

What 2011 best-seller by Ernest Cline about 1980s geek culture takes its title from the phrase that opened many old coin-operated video games?  This novel--a must-read for '80s refugees, and now in development at Warner Bros.--is called Ready Player One.

I took a little mental note about the book, and in my head I saw it being some sort of historical look at the word of video games in the 80's.   A few things I remember about video games in the 80's:

• My grandma in Indiana had an Atari system that I think was my aunt's at the time.  When we visited, you could find it hidden behind the television.  (likely in an attempt to keep us kids away from it...)  I would play pac-man when I got the chance, until we were chased out of the house, after which I usually hung out in the barn.
• At one point, we had a Colecovision, with it's odd little wheel and button controller.  For a while, my parents kept it in the sun porch room, in the Winter it had no heat.  I spent plenty of hours sitting in there with my coat on, try my best to beat Donkey Kong.  We also had Defender, and I think Frogger, but I preferred Donkey Kong...
• At one point, we had an IBM PC, or a clone, with a turbo button.  Later, we had several.  I don't remember all the games we had, but I know we had two, Zork and Digger.  I you forgot to underclock for Digger, the thing went massively fast.  Lots of time playing Digger...
• I had a paper route went we lived in North Buffalo.  There was a Pizza place on the corner of Kenmore and Delaware, with a couple of video game machines.  There was a penny candy store a few doors down from that.  If I hurried on some days, I could run down to the penny candy store, and get in one game on the video game machines at the pizza place, before I went home.  Later, I had a paper route with a bowling alley at the end of it.  I spent way too much time on the pinball machines in there, and got into trouble for being there late on a number of occasions...

Anyway, our local public library participates in a statewide online ebook lending site.  I found this book there, reserved it, and eventually got to check it out.  It ended up being the first ebook I have actually finished reading on my iPad. I've started a few others, but haven't finished them yet.  By the time I got this book, I had a little time to read, and popped it off in a weekend.

The book is set 30 years in the future, where the world has used up all it's fossil fuels, people largely spend all their time in this online system - work, school, play, etc.  A virtual reality visor and haptic feedback clothing is used with the system, called Oasis, to immerse the people in whatever virtual world they were in.

In this future world, a video game tycoon, who built Oasis, decides to leave his fortune to the person that could figure out his puzzles, beat his games, etc - to collect the three keys.

In the end, this book spent plenty of time paying tribute to different 80's 'stuff' - games, movies, video games, books, music, tv, stuff like that.  A lot, but not all, of the book was spent in the virtual reality world, so the author simply had fun with that.  The main character at one point acted out the movie "War Games", played and talked a lot about video games, etc.  At one point, the main character went to a world based on Zork, with hundreds of little white houses...

It was a relatively short book, and seemed to me like it ended kind of abruptly.  Not abruptly ala "The Sphere", where you finished, and wondered what just happened, and if the author was late for an appointment when he was trying to get done with the book, but this book was going and going, and just sort of wound down quickly at the end.  I suspect some publisher wanted to leave the door open for a sequel (or a trilogy!  How about a trilogy?), and had the book ended that way.  This is a soap box issue for me, I don't like that.  Especially when the next book takes fifty pages getting you caught up, in case you didn't read the first book.

I liked the book, it reminded me of lots of video games from my youth.  I haven't gone out and played any of those, although I did dust off Age of Empires III a few days ago.  Not the 80's, but not a 2012 game, either...  I recommend this book to anyone who spent more than a little time playing video games in the 80's or watching cartoons of that era.

If the author does do a sequel, and it ends up being about the 90's, I am likely to be disappointed.  I don't know why, really, I just figure I will.  Maybe it's because the 80's seem so much further away these days...

Book review

Windows Server Administration
Self Paced Training Kit
by Ian McLean and Orin Thomas

I am a Linux Systems guy sitting at a Windows Systems guy's desk. Or something like that. At the beginning of the year, I started working on our Windows systems here at work. I must have been sick the day I made that decision, or something. (And it hasn't stopped me from continuing to work on Linux machines when I can...) My laptop is Linux, I haven't booted into Windows on it in over two years, I think since me, my Dad, and my brothers stopped playing Age of Empires on Saturday mornings...

Anyway, I picked up some Windows books online earlier in the year, and have been reading through them when I have some time. I recently finished this book. It's a training book to get the reader ready to take the MCITP Exam #70-646, the first in a string to become a "Microsoft Certified IT Professional". I'm not sure I am interested in taking the Microsoft certification exams, but this book was good for gaining a broad knowledge of Windows server administration, of all things...

The chapters of the book flow from topic to topic, and at the end of each chapter they include "Labs" of a sort, where they talk you through practising the lesson topic on development machines they have you build early in the book. I didn't do any of the labs. I suppose I would want to go back and do them if I decided to take the exam. The end of the chapters also have multiple choice (sometimes in the form of 'choose all that apply') questions related to the chapter topics, to see if you were paying attention. The questions are also supposed to be of the type you would get asked in the certification exam. In going through the book, I was able to pay attention, I guess, and did fairly well in answering.

The book was good for giving a good overview of the differing types of things you might have to do with a Windows server. I feel like I at least have a good foundational knowledge of what is going on at this point, even if I might not have the in depth knowledge.

The book also comes with a practice exam CD, which I tried installing on a VM I installed on my laptop after I finished the book. I couldn't get the practice exam to come up properly, and didn't bother taking the time to figure out why.

Book Review

Called of God by Prophecy
Dennis Horne

In the church, we belief that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.

This book addresses this topic, giving lots of examples in the history of the church, in explaining the topic. Now, usually in the past when I have come across a church book that gives so many stories about things like this, I tend to not like them so much, because usually they just leave the stories there, and have no narrative. The stories are not there for any good reason than to be there. In this book however, the author is explaining points about being called of God, and has a narrative in the chapters of the book. He uses a lot of little stories, but these are there to reinforce points in the book, and he does it in a way that becomes faith promoting, rather than just being sensationalistic.

I like this book, the author does a very good job in explaining the topic. Being one that has both received and extended callings in the church, it was a good reminder that at all times, we try to receive revelation through the Spirit before calls in the church are extended to people. As a result, we can move forward with faith and confidence in the church when we accept calls and extend them, knowing that the revelation has occurred first. It's been a good thing for my in the past year in the Bishopric of the ward to extend these callings, praying about them first as a Bishopric, and proceeding from there. I also have enjoyed seeing people that may have been hesitant at first to accept a calling, going ahead and trying, and really coming to enjoy the calls that were extended.

Anyway, this book is a really good treatment of the fact that in the church, we are called of God. Those in a position to extend calls would do well to read this book.

Book Review

A Journey
My Political Life

Tony Blair


I don't know much about British politics. If asked, I could name Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair as recent Prime Ministers, but before reading this book, I wouldn't have had a clue as to the names of the current Prime Minister and his predecessor.

This book took me an embarrassingly long time to read. Maybe it was because the first two chapters talk about British politics in a way that if you are an outsider to how things worked, you had to focus to figure out what he was talking about. Or maybe it's just a reflection on my American way of talking, thinking, etc. Whatever. I eventually figured out what was going on, and the story kept going anyhow.

Anyway, Tony Blair was Britan's leader during many of the major events in recent world history. He was Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007. Some of the memorable events during he tenure include: The death of Princess Diana, Kosovo, 9/11, Iraq II & Afghanistan, peace with Northern Ireland, and others. Lots of recent history.

I remember him most for standing by America after 9/11, even when others didn't want to. I thought his observations and recollections on things like Iraq were very interesting. And it's true that he stuck with it, even when it wasn't necessarily the popular thing to do. He still believes in using hard force when necessary, and using diplomacy when that tactic is more appropriate. Once the book got going, the stories he told were very interesting. I feel like I know lots more about what happened in England during the recent past, the last three years excepting...

The book wasn't just about British international relations during Tony Blair's tenure. He also pushed lots of domestic reform over his years in office, which were also interesting to read about. It sounds like the media hated him by the end of his time in office, so I guess that's a reason to like him, right?

Anyway, one of the things he talked about that I thought was interesting involved his feelings towards building peace in the world. Basically he believes that we need to understand people of other faiths, not just fear them or distrust them on principle. When we start to understand the way they think, it becomes easier to understand their point of view, and you can work towards peace. Many times, extremism from a small minority is the driving believe that is presented, which can be damaging.

It's a very large book, not one to try to rip through solely on a Saturday afternoon, but it's interesting, and provides lots of insights to British and International events over the past 14 years, give or take.

Book review

Hope in Our Hearts
Russell M Nelson

This book is a collection of talks from Elder Nelson over the years, on the three general topics of 'Relationships and Family', 'Doctrines of the Kingdom', and 'Personal Growth'. A couple of the talks I remembered, at least generally, but most I didn't. In the introduction, Elder Nelson says that everyone encounters challenges and frustrations in life, but faithful people can be produced by 'continuous consistency in keeping the commandments of God'. I think that was kind of a theme in all the talks in the book. It was an interesting and inspirational book.

Book review

VMWare vSphere 4.1
HA and DRS
technical deepdive

by Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman

A coworker recommended last week that we get this book and read through it. He had heard someone else talking about it on a business trip he took.

As the name implies, this is a technical book related to the concepts of HA and DRS inside VMWare. I might have titled it "HA and DRS - technical 'very thorough overview'", because when I hear the word 'deepdive', I think about internals, this book was more about concepts, 'best practices', and practical setup and use of HA and DRS.

The book is kind of smallish, 200 pages with lots of illustrations. One of the things they did throughout the book, that was kind of funny to me, was they kept talking about different setting available to you to change, then they strongly recommended leaving the default. At least they did it in a way that you could understand why to leave the default setting.

Having said that, even with all the things going on this week at work, here it is on Thursday, I got the book on Monday, and I've read it. I found it to be a very good overview of HA and DRS, written so that even the novice with VMWare can pick up the book, read it, and feel like they know what is going on with HA and DRS. We have been running VMWare for five years now in our environment, and are nearly completely virtualized, I would say we have quite a bit of experience in these areas, and there are a few things we need to talk about from this book.

I plan to have everyone on my team read it, and would recommend it to anyone running VMWare in their business environment, whether they are just starting out, or have been running for a while now...

Book Review

52
Greg Cox

Another Comic Novelization!

I've been reading a non-fiction book off and on for longer than I would like to admit. I don't know why it's taken so long to finish, maybe it's because the author is British, and he is writing with an accent. I've got maybe a half dozen books I am currently somewhere in the middle of, and will eventually finish up. Last week I got this book from Amazon, and decided to take a break from the other book I was reading.

This book is a novelization of the year long DC comic series that followed "Infinite Crisis", but came before "Final Crisis". (I wonder what the next 'Crisis' event for DC will be.) After "Infinite Crisis", Superman didn't have his powers, Batman was away trying to be less paranoid or something, and Wonder Woman was busy trying to be a normal human for a while. The world was left to other heroes for a year.

The book primarily deals with the Booster Gold, Batwoman, The Question, and Black Adam story lines of the comic book series. The book is pretty violent, and the there were things about the book I definitely didn't like, but they are also story elements that are being pushed in the comics these days, I hear.

Reading the book makes me wish there was a way for the comic novelization genre to succeed. It would be nice to have some well written comic novels to read from time to time. I don't have the time, money, or really the inclination to collect comic books. I do like Superman / Batman / etc, we have on DVD a number of the TV series that have been done.

Anyway, the day was saved without Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. But only barely. We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

Book review

The Blue Moment
Mile's Davis's Kind of Blue and the remaking of modern music

Richard Williams

In High School, I played the baritone saxophone, in both the concert band and the jazz band. I rarely practised. The music the concert band played wasn't particularly hard, at least not the parts I had, and Doc, our teacher, spend countless time screaming at the percussion section and others for not staying on rhythm. (It was kind of comical at times. When I broke my collarbone, I spent some time banging on the bass drum. It was only one mallet, and one drum, but at least I kept it on rhythm.)

Anyway, I can only remember a few of the pieces of music we ever played. "Sleigh Ride" - in the concert band, which we had to play every year, and was very boring for me, for some reason. The one piece of music I remember from the Jazz band was "So What", Doc had written the basic rhythm for everyone out, had us listen several times to it, then tried getting us to play solos in the thing. I took one, or was told I was doing one, or some thing of the sort. Doc wanted me to make a solo up, but I could never really come up with anything. Then Doc wrote me a solo, and I never really stuck to it, and played it a bit differently every time. (I rarely practised, after all.) I think this drove Doc crazy.

Anyway, I liked that song, the way the basses and horns had their little back and forth dialogue, and stuff like that. Years later, I came across "So What", on Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, which I bought on CD. It's the one Jazz CD I own.

This book, "The Blue Moment", talks about Miles Davis' career leading up to the creation of the album. This was pretty interesting, although the author clearly knows a lot more about music and music history than I do. He talks about lots of different people in the early days of Jazz (at least recorded Jazz, I assume) that he expects the reader to be familiar with. (I am not) It was interesting reading how the album was recorded in two days. It turns out that all recording of the album were inadvertently played slightly too fast until about 1993. (If Doc had slowed us down just a bit, I might have played that solo just like he wanted me too...)

Anyway, I liked the book up to the point of the recording of the album, even though I had to just kind of take what the author was saying about some of the music on his word. After writing about the recording, the author tried to tie the record into lots of other music and pop culture that followed. Some of it was about the artists that contributed to the album, some of it was a little weird, some of it I just didn't know what the author was talking about. He seemed to just be off on his own little tangents for the last hundred pages of the book, most of which just weren't all that interesting to me.

Anyhow, the first half of this book was very interesting. I listened to the album quite a few times while reading the book. It certainly made me appreciate the discussion of the recording session that created the album a bit more.

Book Review

Final Crisis
Greg Cox

This book is a comic book novelization of the DC comics 'event' from two years ago. As opposed to the previous book I read, which took several months, this book only took me a couple of days to read. I couldn't find it around here anywhere, I think the book buying tastes of my local library have shifted a bit in the last little while. Iended up buying the book on Amazon.com. Amazon is great.

Anyhow, the book starts out pretty violent. Heroes die. Villains prevail. Heroes become villains.

Then the book picks up speed. Dead heroes come back. The Earth is doomed. More heroes die. Some villains help out. There ends up being more than one major villain. And in the end, Superman, and his alternate reality Superman doppelgangers, all team up to save the day, just in time.

I hope that's a spoiler free review. I thought the book was pretty good, although I got the feeling that the author was carving out side pieces of the story to keep the book a normal size. I don't know that for sure, having not read the comics as the story unfolded, but that's the idea I have in my head.

Oh, and Batman dies, sort of. I hear they are bringing him back right now...

Book Review

Bottom of the Ninth
Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the daring scheme to save baseball from itself

Michael Shapiro

I've been reading this book off and on for the past few months. Not that it's not a good book, just that I haven't focused terribly hard on finishing the thing.

The book covers the period in baseball from 1958-1960, at a time when a third league tried to form and join the major leagues. This was after the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants left New York. The book is largely about Branch Rickey (the same guy who helped get Jackie Robinson in the majors.) and his efforts to build to new league. This league was called the Continental League, which I had never heard of before.

The New York Yankees had had the most success in the 1950's, one of the reasons was that the owners had all the control over a team. They essentially 'owned' the players, and held all the cards. There was a huge disparity in money between the large market teams and small market teams in the league. (Sound familiar?)

Rickey's idea (with the help of others) was to build a league where all the teams shared equally in profits, allowing for everyone to compete. In the end, the existing owners were able to squash the new league, and in most cases, eventually expanded into the markets that tried to first be a part of the Continental League. All except for (of course) Buffalo, who was firmly in place as one of the cities in that third league, but never got an expansion team.

It was an interesting idea, sharing the wealth to encourage competition. Because the owners were able to kill the league and it's ideas, it never happened. That's why today, you still have teams, like the Yankees, that have tons more money than other teams.

And Casey Stengel? He was the manager of the Yankees during this period of time. He was ousted just about the time the new league was scuttled. (At the end of the 1960's World Series, when the Pirates beat the Yankees. Interestingly enough, a tape of game seven of that series was recently found in Bing Crosby's wine cellar. Coming soon to a TV near you!)

Anyway, Casey Stengel had nothing to do with the Continental League. He just happened to get fired not long after the league was gone. It felt to me like the author didn't quite have enough material for a book, until he started talking about Stengel, and then give his own play-by-play description of the 1960 World Series. Not that it was a bad thing, just that I thought the flow was a bit off...

Anyway, it was an interesting book, talking about something I didn't even know happened in baseball. At it gave another reason as to why Buffalo is a cursed sports city.

Book Review

Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu
Devin Grayson & Flint Dille

A little while back, I was at the library with Adam poking around. I looked for comic book novelizations, or whatever you call those things. A lot of them were books people wrote "Based on the hit movie..." Just about all of these were not incredibly interesting sounding. Then I found a Batman book "based on the hit video game." Now there's an interesting idea. I've never played the game, so I decided to try out the book.

This book was interesting. It's about a super villian that unleashes lots and lots of criminals on Gotham one night, including a few super villians. His plan? keep Batman busy all night, and in the end, fight him. (Boss level.)

An interesting book. But also a bit of violence. Batman wins the day, with a little help from his friends. Maybe I should have told you that. Maybe you've played the game, but never been able to finish it, and I ruined it for you. Sorry about that.

In the end, the book reads a lot just like what you'd think a book based on a video game would read like.

Book Review

Justice League of America: Batman
The Stone King

Alan Grant


I've been trying to figure out what to call these type of books. they aren't really "comic books", there are no pictures. Not a "graphic novel", for the same reason. "Trade paperback" would be a name you would think would work, but in the world of comics, that seems to collide with "graphic novel", I guess. "Comic novelization" and seems to sound about right, but doesn't sort to the right results, really, on Amazon or Google.

Anyway, I read another of these books. It's a Batman book with the Justice League of America as supporting characters. Poking around on the internet, trying to figure out what to call these books, I think there is also a Superman of this type, with the JLA as supporting cast, but I'm not sure how to find it. It's a little odd. I actually like reading books like this, as long as they are written well, and don't bother too terribly much with back story and just get on with their own story...

Anyhow, in this book, Batman has to save his friends, and the rest of the world, from a ancient shaman who has taken over the body of an archeologist and is trying to destroy all life from the Earth. Just a typical day in Batman's life, really.

I thought the book was good, although there was a little more death and violence in than you normally get in these kinds of books. A quick little read, a DC Comics novelization, a Batman story. (Anyone got an idea of what to call these things, or search for them?)

I'm not going to say anything else about the book, to not give stuff away, except for the fact that at one point, Batman punches Green Lantern out cold. (Hilarity ensues...)

Book Review

Batman and Philosophy
The Dark knight of the soul

Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

I found this book at the University library a while back while Adam and I were tooling around one night. (The library lets me check out books for six months at a time, which might be a little too convenient...) It sounds like the Blackwell Series of books tries to make philosophy accessible to the lay reader, by making comparisons to fictional environments and settings. Does anyone else besides me think this is hilarious. "We aren't sure how to explain philosophy's impact in your life, so we'll stick to talking about Batman." Or something like that.

After reading the book, I actually find parts of their approach oddly effective. I didn't go near philosophy in college, I still recognized a number of philosophers they talked about for some reason.

I guess the fact that the world of Batman is something many people have in common makes it easier to relate to the things the authors are talking about. I don't agree with some of what they said, but I understood for the most part what they were talking about. Interesting stuff. (Ethics, Who is the Batman, Being Batman, The roles of the Bat, that sort of thing.) In the end, it turned out to be a good introduction the the world of Philosophy.

The book is divided up into 12 to 15 page essays, by people from all over, on differing topics. They all seem to have a firm grasp from what I could tell on both the world of Philosophy and the world of Batman. Because they were essays, it is easy to pick the book up, read a couple, then come back to it whenever. I read a third of it on the plane today, between naps...

The Blackwell Series has books in all kinds of topics, lots from TV or movies. I might someday go try the "Heroes and Philosophy" or the "X-Men and Philosophy" books, but not right now, I need a break from it...

Book Review

Batman: No Man's Land
A Novel by Greg Rucka

A number of years ago, DC Comics ran a thing where Gotham City had a huge earthquake. The President of the US decided to not repair the place, just cut it off from everything and declare it "No Man's Land".

This book writes about the year Gotham spent as No Man's Land, detailing Batman and his friends efforts to keep the place in one piece.

I liked the book. I never read the five issue comic series when they did this back in the day, so I don't know how they did it in the comics, but in the book, they had Oracle (the former Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon's daughter) writing little journal entries to her Dad that she planned to eventually give to him. This usually moved the story along pretty well, then the author went back to the action.

In the end, it all worked out well, mostly, for the heroes at least. I liked the way the author wrote the story. He didn't bother trying to insult anyone by telling every character's backstory, he just told the story and assuming you knew who the characters were and what they were about.

Book Review`

Tarzan of the Apes
Edgar Rice Burroughs

I have a confession. I have never watched an entire Tarzan movie, no matter what format. I have watched parts, but never a whole thing. I know the basic story, but that's about it.

Having said that, I picked up this book on a deal. (Dover Thrift Editions are great.) I read the book on my way back from Oklahoma. I thought it was pretty good.

Tarzan grows up among apes, fights cannibals and pirates, and has a wild time. It was an interesting story, even though it clearly showed some of the prejudices of the day. (Cannibals and gorillas are bad. Rich American dudes are jerks. Pirates are stupid. That sort of thing. Maybe not much has changed, I guess.)

I thought the book was good, lot of action, a well told story. It is clear that the author intended to write more books after this one, which he did. Again, maybe things haven't changed that much.

Will I read more Tarzan books? Maybe, but not right now. For one thing, there are no other Dover Thrift editions in the series right now. I would have to go down to the library and look for them...

Book Review

700 Sundays
Billy Crystal

Tara bought me this interesting little book about Billy Crystal's childhood. I read it on one of the planes I was on the other day. (I slept the rest of the time, one flight was only 25 minutes one was 70 minutes, both seemed like nothing with the nap...)

Anyway, Billy Crystal's father died when he was 15. He worked 2 jobs the better part of his life, and spent plenty of time on Sundays with his boys. This book was about Billy's years growing up.

He had an interesting family. (I think that could sum up any comedian's family. Interesting.) His dad and Uncle were big in the Dixieland Jazz scene in New York back in the day. The family owned the "Commodore" label, and produced lots of Jazz music. He has some pretty funny stories about the rest of the family.

He once wanted to be a baseball player, which is no surprise to people that know a little bit about him, and ended up playing a lot of baseball with his brothers. He talks about how his dad threw curveballs to him every Sunday for months until he learned to hit them.

The book is funny, interesting, and just a little bit sad (The sad part when his dad dies and the effect it had on him.) It was a quick little book, worth the read if you come across it. I guess there is a play of the same title that Billy Crystal wrote, I think the book is based on the play, or both are based on real life...

Book Review

Infinite Crisis
Greg Cox

Back in the 80's, DC comics had this thing called "Crisis on Infinite Earths", where they tried to resolve the fact that they had gotten lost with all the alternate realities in their comics. They ended up having one Earth at the end, and kind of melded the characters they wanted to keep into the one place.

A couple of years ago, they revisited the story, I think mostly to try to boost comic book sales. (Why else would they do it?) Something called Infinite Crisis was the result. This book is a serialization of those stories. I didn't actually read the associated comics with this thing, sort of just followed the outline of the thing on the internet a bit.

The author does a good job of telling the story of the thing without having the associated pictures from the comics. Now I really know what happened with Infinite Crisis. It kept me occupied through both plane flights yesterday, I finded the book just after landing in Buffalo.

Lots of characters were killed off, DC afterwards jumped everything forward a year. Basically, the multiple Earths are brought back, and eventually the single reality and single Earth is restored again.

I thought the book was interesting to read, I actually prefer books like this to read, rather than comics themselves, I think, when the author does a really good job with descriptions and just writing the story out. It lets you picture what is happening a little better in your head than just looking at the comic itself. Plus you get the entire story all packaged up in one book. They did an audiobook dramatization of the book, it sounds like with a full cast, 13 hours long. That might be interesting to listen to.

Last year they did something called "Final Crisis", I don't really know what happened, maybe this guy will write a book...

Book Review

The Bourne Sanction
Eric Van Lustbader

I read the three original Bourne books and Van Lustbader's first Bourne book all in the course of a week. I wasn't all that impressed with Mr. Van Lustbader's first book, mostly because I think of the change in writing style, more than anything else.

Three years later, I found myself sitting in an airport, with the two books I brought finished. I went to one of the bookstores, and saw this book. I couldn't really remember at the time if I liked the other book, but I got it because I had a lot of time on my hands...

This book was pretty good. I seem to have missed a book in there somewhere, the author alluded to stuff that happened before, but not in the books I read. It was fairly fast paced, had a couple of surprises in there that weren't too hard to figure out before the big reveal, and didn't feel all that labored to read.

Some things I didn't like all that much about the book: The author has seemed to abandoned the angst Jason Bourne had about his past. He sort of tried, but I didn't think it was there anymore like the origonal books. Maybe it was something I missed in the book I didn't read. There was a good deal of language in the book. The author didn't bother to tie up all the loose ends by the end of the book, he is writing another that picks up where this one ends. he even added a loose end or two at the end of the book. They had an excerpt at the end of the book for the next one, titled The Bourne Betrayal. (Released two weeks ago, according to Amazon.)

Anyway, it was an ok book, I finished it in less than 36 hours, not reading all that time. I was interested enough in what happened that I will likely pick up the next book and read it, just to see where it goes...