Its a long long way to www

I haven't been posting lately as I have been given the task of completing a website for my fiancée. I am doing all of the site myself graphics, html, CSS, Javascript so it is taking a long time and once it is finished it will be like my Everest since this is the first time I have made a site from scratch or to be honest the first site period.
I will be making posts about the adventure over the weeks and months to come.

Smokey & The Bandit

The first Discworld title and a bit of a whirlwind introduction. There have probably been lots of reviews of this book made that compare Terry Prachett’s style to other writers but I wont do that I will just give you my impression of the book. I am writing this review after having reread the book again as I read the first few books some years ago. The first thing to note is that having read these books before I know that you should read the first two Discworld books as though they were one.

The setting of this book and the others in this series is the Discworld which seems to be our earth as described by someone from pre Columbus Europe with a large flat disc with all the continents and sea’s laid out like Sunday lunch with the atmosphere a bubble above the disc like one of those snow shaker things you get at Christmas under the disc and holding it up are four gigantic elephants and they are standing on an enormous turtle which is swimming through space. The social structure and the basic technological level of the inhabitants of this world are similar to that of someone in pre Columbus Europe. Most of the humour in the books plays on the juxtaposition of modern concepts.

The basic plot of The Colour of Magic is that Two Flower has landed at Ank Morpork and has become officially the first ever “tourist” on the disc after landing his first stop on his tour is at the Drum Billet where he meets up with the main character of the book Rincewind: failed wizard and professional coward. Not long after this fateful meeting the madness commences and doesn’t stop till the last page. Along the way they are followed by Two Flowers Luggage a kind of mute third main character. The story takes the form of a road movie however with out an obvious conclusion which is provided by the second book in the Discworld series The Light Fantastic.

My opinion of this book is that it is good but by no means perfect. Its good as an introduction to the Discworld as a hole giving you as much information about the various eccentricities of the Discworld universe and its people and throw’s in some good laughs along the way. The main gripe which is a small one at that is the ha, ha jokes in the book the ones which make you say ha, ha as opposed to actually laughing. One other thing about the book is that about two thirds of the way through the book you start to wonder if there is a plot to the story. The good thing about the book is that you don’t realise that there isn’t a plot until you are two thirds of the way the book!

Alternate Futures / One Past

I really enjoyed reading The Complete Robot. It is a collection of short stories about different types and complexities of robot. Not what you would expect as a riveting (not intended) read but it is there is a lot of emotion in some of the stories The Bicentennial Man being a prime example of this.

However the majority of the stories are of the “what could happen” variety some are simple like Runaround and some are more complex like Satisfaction Guaranteed these are mainly based on the now famous Three Laws of Robotics and what problems may arise by strict adherence to these laws.

One of the other main themes of the stories tends to be human prejudice towards robots. You could say that this has some thing to do with the Nazi's treatment of the Jews during world war 2 and that Asimov believed that Humans are always prejudiced against some thing they don't understand. But I think that is more my personal opinion based on what I have read about Isaac Asimov and a little reading between the lines.

Some thing that seems a little odd in the stories is that the robots in the stories become more advanced in the way that they think and feel and in their attitudes towards humanity. However the attitudes and language that the humans use in the stories never seems to change. It seems that it may be easier to postulate the future attitudes of robots than that of humans.

To summarise I would say that this book makes you think about the problems of creating a new inelegance. But it also shows you how much our attitudes have changed since these stories were first written.

Ice & McDonald's

I have just completed reading Dan Brown's, Deception Point. As always with Dan Brown books they good page turners took me only about a week to read this one for instance (I wouldn't say I am the quickest reader in the world). You can feel the motion in the book the characters never stay in the same place for more than a few hours. As an example he uses a F14 tomcat to fly the main character to the Arctic!? And after that little made for film moment he uses the aurora (fabled alien tech, super secret, super speed spy plane) to transport the delta team back to Washington DC. Not exactly subtle don't get me wrong I do like Dan Brown's books but they are a bit like McDonald's lots of people like it but it feels a bit like you haven't eaten anything when you've finished. I think the word I'm thinking of is shallow but that's a bit harsh, what I mean is that it lacks substance but just because its not War & Peace doesn't mean it's not a good book.

My first post what I want to do with my blog is make a list of the books I have read and am reading. I will make a small review or comment with a link to where you can buy the book if you are interested. I will also be adding in the occasional personal note about what is going on in my life.

I will say now that I am not a professional reviewer so if you think my review is bad then make a comment but make them constructive NO ABUSE PLEASE. I think that the purpose of humanity is to advance our understanding by communication of knowledge. So hopefully over time I will be come a better reviewer and maybe be introduced to books that I wouldn't have heard of otherwise.