Books of 2012

This is the first year I've kept a close track of my non-work-related reading for the entire year.  I've been using www.goodreads.com; I like the way you can combine your social networks (i.e. your facebook connections) with your book lists and the easy way you can track books you are currently reading, have read, and want to read.

I haven't finished everything I wanted to get to this year (but realistically this would be impossible, there are 300 books on my long list and lately I've been starting books that aren't on either that or my shortlist!).  Here's a quick list of what I did read:

• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Old Man's War by John Scalzi
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann
• The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
• Zero History by William Gibson
• Women of Wonder, the Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s edited by Pamela Sargent
• Choke Collar by Margaret Atwood
• I'm Starved for You by Margaret Atwood
• Feynman by Jim Ottaviani
• The Kingkiller Chronicle (#1 and #2) by Patrick Rothfuss
• Women of Wonder, the Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s edited by Pamela Sargent
• The Hunger Games (all three books) by Suzanne Collins
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• Reamde by Neal Stephenson

I covered a good range of short stories, science fiction, fantasy, and straight up fiction, as well as nonfiction, YA, and graphic novel.  I enjoyed just about everything, but to be honest Reamde was a bit of a disappointment.  I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment of Margaret Atwood's Positron series!

Boldly Going Where No Catanian Has Gone Before!

The day I heard Star Trek Catan had finally been released in North America, I used my lunch hour for a mad dash to Target to get my copy.  I have been looking forward to this game ever since I heard it was coming!

I've had a chance to play it a few times now and I think it will make any Star Trek fan proud.  I'll admit as I was setting it up the first time I couldn't help but hum the theme song.

Pre-game setup!

I really like the introduction of the support character cards, makes the game a lot more interesting and also faster.  Otherwise the game is pretty much the same as regular Catan, which makes it all the more easy to learn!

Catan + Star Trek = WIN

I'm a board game fan and I guess it goes without saying that I'm a huge fan of Star Trek as well.  One of the things that helped us make it through long nights in the lab during grad school was playing Settlers of Catan while waiting for our experiments to finish.  So when I saw a new Star Trek-themed Catan game, I knew I had to try it.  It's due out in March 2012 and you can be sure to see a review here from me!

Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente

I'm in the middle of Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente. So far it's intriguing - the style is different from most books I read. It's more like a collection of related vignettes than a single story with a linear plot. I think the narration matches the writing style very well too. Definitely worth a listen!

As an aside, the Clarkesworld Magazine seems very cool too.  Seems like I'll be adding it to my regular reading routine!

Out of this World

I just finished "In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination", by Margaret Atwood.  Basically this is a collection of essays, short (very short) excerpts of Atwood's fiction in the genre, and what I gather once was intended to become the author's PhD thesis.

I enjoyed the writing, as always; Atwood's style exhudes her wry wit and there are sprinklings of her dry humour throughout the book.  Other reviews I've read lament that there's really nothing 'new' here - if you are quite familiar with SF already you will probably know much of what she describes here.  On the other hand, if you are not familiar with SF (or very well-versed in fiction in general), you will probably miss a lot of the references she makes.

Atwood focuses on the more speculative side of SF rather than the hard-science side.  I would have liked to hear more about her thoughts on authors such as David Brin (his idea of 'Uplift' having some similarities with her use of genetic manipulation in "Oryx and Crake", for example), or other authors like Benford or Bear.  Still, this book was like a romp through familiar territory for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  If you have fond memories of reading SF as a kid you will probably like it too.  Worth the read, but if you have something more pressing I would get to that first.

Latest Reads

In the past few months I've been browsing Seattle's many excellent second-hand bookstores and recently picked up two anthologies of Science Fiction comprised entirely of stories by female authors.  

So far my favorite has been Octavia Butler's "Blood Child".  Although I read a lot of Sci-fi, I haven't read any of Butler's work before, and I think I've been missing out.  

In an effort to get more reading in I've decided to multitask: I'm working my way through "Guns, Germs and Steel" on the side, and am also meandering through the latest Margaret Atwood ("In Other Worlds").  So far she's mentioned Homer, Leonard Cohen, and Ursula Le Guin all within a few pages of each other, so I would say I'm quite pleased with it. :-)

I've had several conversations recently (and coincidentally it seems) about how female Sci-fi authors don't seem to feature [m]any positive/strong male characters in their work.  I disagree in general, but it made me think about how even today there are still not many positive/strong female characters in Sci-fi, and how growing up it was finally refreshing to encounter them in books like Atwood's, or Le Guin's.  One exception I can think of is Gregory Benford's book "Cosm" which features a female physicist as the main character, but I'm having a hard time coming up with other examples.  Can you think of some?  I'm always interested in recommendations!

A trip to Ada

**This post sort of coincides with the arrival of Ada Lovelace Day (on October 7 this year, get ready!).**

I've walked past Ada's Technical Books a few times in the last few months and noticed some very cool window display items (such as Neal Stephenson's Reamde), but I was always there when it was closed. Yesterday however, I happened to be in the area when it was open and got a chance to finally browse inside.

Outside Ada's Technical Books on Capital Hill in Seattle, WA

This store is so neat! It's named for Ada Lovelace, widely thought to be the first female computer programmer. There were little references to technical women throughout the store, including a book about Grace Hopper in the biography section, greeting cards featuring technical women at the front of the store, and of course the name of the shop itself. Besides this, there is a very nice selection of technical books, quirky puzzles and games, biographies about famous scientists, programmers, and mathmeticians, and even a small sci-fi and young adult section. In the latter I spied a Marvel comic version of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game - have any of you read it? Would you recommend it?

I really enjoyed my visit to this shop and if you are in the area, I'm sure you will too. :)

Kindle Update

I promised a review of my Kindle in my last post on e-Readers, but have been totally swamped at work and haven't had time to even think about it until now. I still don't have the time or energy for a full post, but wanted to give a brief update on how I'm doing with it.

So far I finished one fiction book: Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep". I had previously bought a hard copy from Half Price Books (I'm not a big book buyer, being a library lover, but this is my favorite bookstore hands-down). I found I read just as much post-Kindle reading as I did pre-Kindle, but one disappointment is that e-Books are sometimes missing some of the little extras that exist in the hard copies (and often cost the same). For example, Vinge's book postulates a theory wherein the galaxy is divided into 'zones of thought' (basically, computers work differently in each zone, and I wondered if he was trying to put forth the idea that P=NP might be true in some galactic zones and untrue in others - a neat idea). There is a diagram at the beginning of the book that shows what this would look like, but it is absent from the e-version. I think this would probably make the ideas in the book harder for readers to understand, or lead to misconceptions. Differences between e- and hard copies of books is something that deters consumers and should be avoided.

I'm also reading some non-fiction, including "The Boglehead's Guide to Investing", which is perfect as an e-Book. Kindle has a great interface for quickly flipping through books by chapter, it's easy to use the table of contents and also search through books or place bookmarks for easy access later. Kindle might even be better for reading non-fiction than it is for fiction, but I'm undecided on this point so far.

One thing that I only discovered recently was how to access footnotes. In reading "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest", I realized there were tonnes of footnotes, but only once I was about a third of the way into the book. I think Kindle could do a better job of making the footnotes more obvious on the page. Also, instead of flipping you to the back of the book, it would be nice if they could appear like dictionary definitions, which sort of pop up at the bottom of the page. This would make it easier to read footnotes at a glance just as you would in a hard copy book.

Finally, a note about the device itself - unless you have really great lighting, get the case with the built-in light. I find I use it about 90% of the time, since I often read in low-light and the screen's contrast makes it hard to see the letters. I got the case shown in the picture above, and really like it.

Anyway, I'm thoroughly enjoying the Kindle so far and have lots of books waiting in my queue. I still highly recommend this product!

Star Trek in the News

Over the past year, it seems there have been a number of advances in Star Trek-like technology. Just consider the advent of transparent aluminum, the capture of antimatter, and now Vger's latest attempt to go where no one has gone before. So when will the Klingons arrive?

Latest Reads

Whenever I'm on a plane I manage to get through a few books. This latest trip was no different and I had taken two books with me - Larry Niven's "The Integral Trees" and Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men".


Larry Niven is to be commended for the intriguing worlds he creates - most notably the Ringworld, a disc surrounding a star that supports life. In this book he hypothesizes what life would be like within a gas torus surrounding a neutron star, such that the environment would have very low gravity. Unfortunately, Niven's imagination for worlds is not matched for his imagination for characters; they always seem quite two dimensional to me and are very predictable. If you are interested in the different types of worlds made possible by the laws of physics, you'll enjoy his books, just don't expect too much in the way of plot and character development.


As for Cormac McCarthy, I wrote a post a while back about the film based on his novel The Road. Soon after watching the movie I read the book, which I absolutely loved. The same goes for his novel No Country for Old Men, which I also saw as a film before reading. The writing style is spare, like that of The Road, but in No Country you are given a little more insight into its characters. There is a little more dialogue and you are given a sort of diary from Sheriff Bell which poses some of the more interesting philosophical questions in the book.

Even with the leanness of the writing, the story is very compelling; the world is rich with complex characters and events. The book is dark, gritty, and thoroughly engrossing, and I finished it in short order. Highly recommended!

'Star Trek': An exclusive first look at the Enterprise

Wow, so the new Enterprise has been revealed. All I can say is that I have high hopes for this movie, and I hope it lives up to the hype!

Latest Reads

Lately I've gone back to reading science fiction, having received my Dad's collection (at least in part). These books lean more toward speculative fiction and are quite different from hard or modern sci-fi.

The first one I read Samuel Delany's "Dhalgren":

In this book, "The Kid", a strange character who doesn't remember his name, winds up in a city devastated by a mysterious event. If I say any more I'm afraid I'll ruin it for you!

I can quite honestly say this is the weirdest book I've ever read. Cunningly crafted, the writing is compelling and very provocative. At 900 pages it will keep you occupied for quite some time, and figuring out just what it was about will plague you long after you finish it. I would highly recommend it.

The second book was R. A. Lafferty's "Past Master":

In this book, leaders of a sick planet go back in time to bring back the most honest leader: Thomas More. Again, saying more will likely ruin it, since the book is so highly plot-driven.

While completely different from Delany's writing, the book is interesting nonetheless. This book is basically all plot; the characters are entirely two dimensional and exist only to drive the plot. Events happen seemingly inexplicably, but it all makes sense in the end. I think. Worth the read, but many may find it hard to connect with.

What's next on my list? Back to non-fiction. I'm following up my attendance at one of the Massey Lectures by reading Margaret Atwood's latest: "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth".

Slashdot | Sci-Fi Books For Pre-Teens?

So, I saw this post on Slashdot and got to thinking... It occurs to me that the author of this post is asking for advice for his preteen boys, but may have preteen girls as well - how many people just assume girls won't be interested in science fiction? My own interest in science & technology was (in part) fueled by my voracious appetite for science fiction novels, and I was lucky to be able to visit a library once a week and choose whatever I wanted. Could we get more girls involved in science and technology by encouraging them to read science fiction? What books would you recommend for young girls to this end?

I'm thinking of some of the first science fiction books I read when I was younger, which I loved:

• The Tripods (series)


• The Foundation novels (Asimov)


• Dune (Frank Herbert)


• The Heechee Series (Frederik Pohl)


• Fereinheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)


• The Martian Chronicles, as well as other various short stories (Ray Bradbury)


• 2001: A Space Odyssey (A. C. Clarke)

The list goes on. These were nice set-ups for other authors I moved on to: Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Heinlein, George Turner, Clifford D. Simak, Philip K. Dick, Ursula Le Guin, and so on.

X Minus One

I don't think I've ever heard a bad X-1 episode. If you like the Twilight Zone, you'd enjoy this. Tonight I heard "The Sense of Wonder" which is quite a good one. Another favorite is "The Green Hills of Earth", based on a Heinlein story of the same name. Anyway, if you like science fiction, it's worth a listen. Don't get put off just because it's old! ;)

GALACTICA SITREP: Walking Around Earth

Hee hee! This is so funny.

Ok, I'll give you my theory on this 'Earth' business. I don't have much to go on for the final cylon, but what I'm thinking is that when Kara went through the vortex and saw Earth, she somehow also went back in time. We know Ron worked on TNG and leaves little homages to it in BSG episodes, like the NC1701D locker number in the first few episodes of this season. We also know that TNG had lots of these time-space continuum things, and although they've said BSG is different, I wonder if it's too tempting not to do. So, Kara goes back in time and sees Earth as it was. Now, either a) she does something to trigger the devastation on Earth of the present, or b) the fleet goes back to the vortex and goes through it, landing on the pristine Earth of the past that Kara saw. They become the 13th colony - all this has happened before, and all this has happened again. Eh!? Eh?! Not only that, but the 13th colony came from Kobol - and so has the fleet. Maybe once they've landed on Earth of the past, the faction of cylons still hostile to humans show up, there is a war, and everything is destroyed... I'm not too clear on details but that's my theory so far and I'm sticking with it!

Galactica Station's review of The Hub

Interesting review of last week's BSG episode, "The Hub".

Personally, I'm happy that the old Baltar has resurfaced. The new one is quite insufferable at times. It's good to see that deep down he's still the same guy, who is very capable of putting on acts for different audiences. Also, loved how he professed his 'great guilt' to Laura. Funny, don't remember him expressing any guilt throughout the miniseries, season one, season two, well, or even season three for that matter

YouTube - Promo for Season 4.5

Oh man, yesterday's episode was great. Maybe the cliffhanger was a little subtle for my taste, but still, pretty good. How can we possibly wait another year though?

The Last Before the Drought

Another drought is coming...will they really make us wait a whole year to see the rest of season 4?! Well, at least we know it will be worth waiting for; rumour has it that last episode will actually be another 3 hour miniseries! Can't wait!

So, the preview for next week's ep has me a little confused. Here it is (don't watch if you don't like even confusing spoilers):



ARGH. Just clicked on a related video...which has way more spoilers than the one I've embedded above. Don't click if you don't like spoilers!!!

So many things, So little time.

My poor blog! I've been so busy I haven't had any time to update...so here's a recap from the past week.

On Thursday I attended Burnaby Mountain College's "Dialogue with William Gibson". I had no idea that a Burnaby Mountain College even existed, let alone that they had dialogues with such cool guests. William Gibson is a slow and deliberate speaker; you hang off every word he says and know he's carefully chosen them. The ideas we discussed ranged from the Cold War, to Japan, to the privacy of the future, to the rapid development of Vancouver. Memorable ideas from the talk: "Japan is the windshield of humanity" (with reference to Japan's unique history from the rapid industrialization of Japan right up until the end of the Second World War); secrets may not exist in the future; politicians can use complete lack of secrets/total transparency such that they would be harder to attach than politicians with secrets; the main problem with Vancouver's development is that we are destroying cheap, ground-level retail rental space. I realized that I completely missed the release of his latest book, "Spook Country", which I should get around to reading sometime.

Apart from doing research and working on my internship, I've been busy with WICS as usual, helping students apply for funding within the school (Yes! Grad students can apply!), and for the Grace Hopper Conference Scholarship. We had a Technical Interview event last week that was really eye-opening for me at least; I've seen some of the problems before but learned a lot about how to approach them in an interview situation; a fun and valuable experience overall.

Speaking of WICS, a while back I met three other students on a Facebook forum where we were discussing our women's technical groups. We ended up making a proposal to GHC for a Birds of a Feather session, which was accepted! I'm just thrilled to be able to play a [slightly] larger role in GHC this year and show off the work we've been doing with WICS@SFU. :D

In other news: will be attending the SIGMOD conference next week, my first data mining conference. Should be great!

ωραία!

The summer semester started a few weeks ago, but I've been kept very busy so far. So busy, I haven't had time to blog! :(

We are off to a busy semester with WICS, and have already had our semesterly kick-off lunch and a technical workshop: Java to C++. I am pleased to report that both were very well attended, especially the workshop, with 20 students showing up for the low down on pointers and passing by reference.

Apart from WICS, I am once again busy with research, preparing a new user study on PLEDS and a new research project. I have a directed reading course on the go, as well as a part-time intership (hopefully more details on that in the future).

As for the fun department, we are coming to the end of a two week drought in Battlestar episodes, the next one coming on Friday (only four more days!). I've also been kayaking, and sight-seeing with one of my relatives from Greece. είναι πολύ καλά!