Category Archives: Reviews

I’ve always liked reading biographies of discoverers, a trait I think I inherited from my father. When I saw Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World mentioned in the WSJ, I quickly added it to my book queue. I was not disappointed. Jonnes has written a highly readable account of the early development of the electrical industry in America. Two of the principal players are immediately familiar: Edison, the folksy, somewhat egotistical inventor legendary for the incandescent bulb, the phonograph, and moving pictures (he still holds the individual record for most US patents issued) and Tesla, the weird Serbian who gave us Tesla coils and the now-indispensible AC induction motor. George Westinghouse, the third key figure, isn’t nearly as well-known, even though he arguably did more to get electricity deployed than the other two. Westinghouse was a savvy businessman, and I enjoyed the descriptions of his work with his employees– he sounds like a good boss.
Jonnes doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time on explaining electrical technology, but she does a good job of focusing on the revolutionary aspect of electricity and the business battles between the key players (including the famous ploy by Edison and his supporters to put Westinghouse out of the electrical business by emphasizing the dangerous nature of AC systems.)
Jonnes excels at dropping in little details. For example, in the early 1900s, more than 95% of residents of Muncie, Indiana had electricity in their homes, even though at the same time more than two thirds of them still had outhouses. That’s the mark of a revolution. This book is highly readable, and highly recommended.
Update: Amazon recommended Executioner’s Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair. I’ll have to add that to my queue.

I admit to some bias; having grown up in south Louisiana, and with a name like Robichaux, I expected this book (subtitled “Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast”) to be patronizing and smug. It was neither. Instead, Tidwell has written a powerful narrative that clearly explains the beauty and wonder of the Louisiana coastal ecosystem, the rich life of the Cajuns who live there, and the impending threat to both caused by the artificial levees built to provide flood control along the lower Mississippi. Along the way, I learned about the BTNEP project to document land loss and the <a href="http://www.restoreorretreat.org/solution.htmlThird Delta Conveyance Channel (TDCC), an ambitious project to divert a portion of the Mississippi’s flow to restore silt deposition– and thus wetlands– in the Barataria-Terrebone Bay areas. One of Tidwell’s major points is the seeming complacency of Louisiana residents toward this problem; I’m happy to say that in the recent election, a majority of voters chose to support three amendments that will help clear the path for obtaining funding for the TDCC.
Tidwell makes another, really telling, point: the fact that Louisiana is losing thousands of acres of wetlands each year is largely unknown in most of the environmental community. He’s too polite to say so, but it helps reinforce my suspicion that many “environmentalists” are really just “NIMBY-ists” trying to dress themselves up in more appropriate clothing. His book has done a great deal to get the word out, though, and it’s a fine read besides. Highly recommended.

Great show. We had good seats, in row U on the right-hand section, no more than 100′ from the stage. The lawn section was packed; given the amount of beer, the number of teenage couples, and the presence of country music, I suspect a mini-baby boom in 9 months.
Rachel Proctor opened; I’m normally willing to skip opening bands that I’ve never heard of, but she put on an enjoyable show, playing most of the songs off her only album. Her set was pretty quick– call it maybe 35 minutes. After that, we got an extended Merle Haggard set (with “From Graceland to the Promised Land” repeated probably 15 times, thanks to an inattentive sound guy) before Randy came on stage. He brought his whole band– all 8 of them– and they put on a terrific show. I didn’t keep a detailed set list, but he played most of his #1 hits (including “Three Wooden Crosses”, “Digging Up Bones”, “I’m Gonna Love You Forever”, “I Told You So”, and “Deeper than the Holler”.) I don’t remember the first encore; the second was “America Will Always Stand“, which I hadn’t heard before (see, I told you I don’t listen to country music much).
Between songs, he was relaxed and talkative, and he seemed genuinely surprised at the volume and level of crowd reaction. He spent a good ten minutes accepting roses (mostly from women of a certain age) and signing autographs during the two encores, which I thought was a classy touch. (personal to Betty: he’s going to be in Gulfport at the casino on 10/24– you should go!)
This was a country concert; according to the master tour dates list, he also playes “inspirational concerts”, mostly at Baptist megachurches. I might have to dust off my missionary nametag and go to one of ’em.
Getting to and from the venue was a hassle, thanks to construction on I-75 in both directions and a complete lack of parking control at the amphitheater– once the show was over, the parking lot became a huge free-for-all. There were staff on hand to direct traffic, but none of them did. It took us about 2 hrs up and almost 3 coming back, all for a distance of about 100mi each way. Overall, it was quite an enjoyable experience, and well worth even Ticketmaster’s bloated prices ($31 for the ticket, plus another $9/ticket of fees).
Julie wanted to know which Muppet most closely resembles Randy. Judge for yourself…

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It’s entirely possible that everyone in the SF world already knew about this, but it was news to me: Robert Heinlein, dead these sixteen years, has a new book forthcoming: For Us, The Living. The full story of its emergence is here. You can order a copy from Amazon (via a link that benefits the Heinlein Society). I’ve ordered mine. (Hat tip: my sharp-eyed and well-connected brother Tim).

Somewhere, Robert A. Heinlein is smiling. John Varley, whom many of the current generation of sci-fi readers probably don’t know about, has returned with a pitch-perfect Heinlein juvenile, Red Thunder. Calling it a “juvenile” isn’t a slam; it’s a reminder of the time years ago when authors like Heinlein wrote books that were nominally “young adult” in scope but had enough sophistication for adults. (Stephen Barnes is still doing it, bless his heart!) The plot of Red Thunder is simple: idiot-savant Cajun inventor discovers a new physical principle that can be turned into a high-acceleration space drive. A group of plucky mixed-race kidscreative young adults pair up with a disgraced former astronaut, and the team is off to Mars to rescue the American crew of the Ares (and, not incidentally, to beat the Chinese to Mars’ surface). In large measure, the book is predictable, but Varley’s such a good writer, and obviously takes such joy in his stories and characters, that it’s never boring.
If RAH were still alive, this is very well a book he might have written, with a few caveats. Varley is known for larding his work with lots of bad language and graphic sex. I was disappointed to find that in what would otherwise have been a terrific book for young adults; I thoroughly enjoyed it, and when David’s older he’ll probably enjoy it too. (Bonus: there are tons of in-jokes and references to Heinlein’s books… the protagonist is named Manny, for instance.)

Dad’s boat had a radio; I say “had” because someone stole it over the winter, while the boat was in dry storage. This is a little surprising for two reasons: it wasn’t a very good radio, and the thief didn’t take the sleeve that it fits into. For Dad’s birthday, I wanted to get him a replacement, so I went shopping from the comfort of my recliner. First stop was West Marine, where I found a tiny assortment of overpriced, junky-looking radio. Next, I plugged “marine radio” into Google and found Rock the Boat. THis is what I love about the Internet– a niche-focused retailer that concentrates only on one small area and does it really well. They had the radio I wanted, so I ordered it. When I arrived, I found that it was black, despite the website picture that showed a white radio (which was what I wanted, as the boat’s dash is a dazzlingly white expanse of fiberglass). I mailed the Rock the Boat folks, and they quickly dispatched UPS to pick up the black unit while simultaneously sending out the correct unit. It arrived in plenty of time for Dad’s birthday, and they could not have been more friendly or courteous. I would be very happy to do business with them again (as long as it’s not the result of someone stealing this radio…)

Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters is subtitled “What I Learned in Ten Years As a Microsoft Programmer”. If only that were true! Instead, we get about 145 pages of what it’s like to work on MS software projects, followed by another 100+ pages of apologia for various Microsoft-related issues, including out-of-date explanations of the MS antitrust trial and other competitive issues (see for yourself at the author’s site). I really wanted to like Barr’s book, and parts of it (like the list of ancient dialects of BASIC– I remember most of those, dang it!) brought back happy memories of my own time in the early PC world. Ultimately, though, the book doesn’t live up to its billing; Barr spends almost no time talking about the actual experience of being a developer at MS (except to rant about the breaking-the-build process), which is why I wanted to read the book in the first place.
Some good did come of it: I found the Old Computer Museum and went on a nostalgia tear. Final score: not recommended, unless you can find it in a library.

Thomas Ricks wrote one of my favorite-ever books, an account of Marine Corps recruit training titled Making the Corps. When I learned that he’d written a novel, A Soldier’s Duty, I was excited to read it; now that I’ve read it, I think my excitement was mostly justified. Ricks’ book delves into a knotty question, shining a sly, knowing light on the modern military as he does so.
The two primary characters are both Army majors, Buddy Lewis and Cindy Sherman. Each is an aide to a four-star Army general, but the two generals (Shillingsworth, somewhat of a plodder and the Army Chief of Staff, and Ames, a conniving, charismatic, and amoral rival) have very, very different views on the necessity of following the orders of their political leadership. After a debacle in which US troops needlessly die on a pointless mission, the stage is set for the central plot to unfold. Ames directs the actions of a shadowy group known as the Sons of Liberty; their actions skate right along the border between free speech (protected) and violating military orders (illegal)… until they cross that line.
The key to this book for me was that Ames’ portrayal was semi-sympathetic. He doesn’t want to be the President, but he feels an obligation to ensure that the political leadership is not wasting the lives of US troops. I find this attitude to be exactly what one would expect in a senior military leader, but it is unfortunately absent in some notable cases (where is William Westmoreland when you need him? Oh, that’s right; he’s in Hell.) On the other hand, military officers take an oath to uphold the Constitution, and that’s the pivotal question here: do members of the military lose their right to political dissent? What separates legal dissent from illegal failure to obey orders, and what obligation do military members have to follow orders that are not clearly illegal but nonetheless immoral? It’s a thought-provoking question; it doesn’t have an easy answer, and Ricks doesn’t pretend so. There are certainly signs of this being a freshman novel, but they’re relatively minor. Recommended.

I’ve been using Chapura‘s PocketMirror to sync my Palm with Outlook for a while. It has worked well without being obtrusive. Last year I added their KeyContacts application, which replaces the Palm address book with an Outlook-compatible application that understands (and can use) all of the Outlook fields. It’s worked well also, even though the current version doesn’t support direct dialing on the Kyocera 7135.
A couple of weeks ago I got mail from Chapura: as a purchaser of both PocketMirror and KeyContacts, I was eligible to get a free copy of their new KeySuite, which has Outlook-compatible task, calendar, and notes/memo-pad modules. I downloaded it and installed it to give it a try; I’ve been using Pimlico Software‘s insanely great DateBk application for a long time. This isn’t a full review; consider it to be my impressions after using KeySuite for a week or so.
First, a warning: KeySuite doesn’t work right with the beta versions of Outlook 2003. They know about the problem and have promised to fix it, but that’s no consolation for me; instead of using my spiffy laptop with a USB cable, I’m stuck with a serial cradle, which is slower than dirt. Bah.
Next, let me briefly mention the look and feel: Chapura has deliberately made these apps resemble the default appearance of Outlook XP. If you like the yellow calendar background, you’re in luck. Fortunately you can customize the color settings, which I’m still in the process of experimenting with.
Synchronization “just works”. I’ve been very pleased with how seamless it is, and by how faithful KeySuite is at swapping even obscure Outlook fields between Outlook and the handheld.
I’ve spent most of my time using KeyDates, so most of my comments concern it:

1. If you change a recurring appointment in DateBk5, you can choose whether the change applies to all instances of the event, only the current instance, or only future instances. This is very useful. KeyDates only allows you the Outlook-style choices: change the current instance or all instances in the series.
2. The KeySuite applications don’t allow you to set the default category for newly created items. If most of the items you create are in one category, get used to tapping the selector to set them.
3. KeyDates doesn’t support time zones, at least as far as I can tell. Since many of my appointments are meetings or concalls with people in other time zones, this is a mildly serious omission, especially in light of DateBk5’s ability to show the event time in both my time zone and the other one simultaneously.
4. DateBk5 has a very useful two-column view that condenses two work weeks of events into a single screen. KeyDates doesn’t.
5. KeyDates has a spiffy Options | Font command. Unfortunately, all of the standard and tiny fonts have the same 11-point size, so I can’t actually use the smaller fonts. The Large and Large Bold fonts are larger, but that’s the opposite of what I actually want. It’s possible that this is because of some quirk of the 7135.
6. You can’t turn off delete confirmation dialogs. Maybe Chapura thinks this is a feature.

Tim recommended this book, and I heartily second his recommendation. Ringo paints a largely believable scenario (well, believable for people who regularly read SF): an alien confederation is embroiled in an ongoing interstellar battle, and they’re getting their butts kicked because the two major races are both cowards (think Niven’s puppeteers). They reluctantly partner with humans; the deal is that we get some advanced technology that we can use to defend Earth in return for providing infantry. Anyone who’s ever been in the military will appreciate Ringo’s characters and dialogue; he gets the small details right, which makes it a lot easier to suspend disbelief on the big things. I’m looking forward to later installments (in fact, the Borders at CVG had the third book, but I’m resolved to read them in order, so I had to pass it by. Pity.)

I first saw Derailed at Sam’s, but it didn’t look quite good enough to merit buying, so I waited until the library had it. Boy, was I wrong. Siegel has produced a sucker-punch of a novel. Charlie Schine is a Manhattan adman with a strained marriage and a diabetic teenage daughter. In a slow progression of bad judgment, he flirts with, then has an affair with, a beautiful woman he meets on the commuter train, but when their liason is interrupted by an armed rapist-turned-blackmailer, his life goes to hell at amazing speed. Pretty soon, he’s separated from his wife, estranged from his daughter, broke, and unemployed, but then things start looking up again. This book surprised me at several key plot points, even though I’m an inveterate thriller reader and am rarely surprised. The only real quibble I have is with a blatant deus ex machina escape about three quarters of the way through the book, but all in all, I’m able to forgive Siegel this flaw because of the velocity and force of the rest of the book. Highly recommended.

Area 7 might quite possibly be the perfect thriller. It has all the elements. Secret underground military facilities? Check. Cool, collected Marine hero protagonist? Check. Secret genetically-engineered Chinese bioweapons? Check. Not one, but two teams of stupendous badass commandos from unlikely places (the USAF and South Africa)? Check. Let’s not forget exotic weapons, jet-powered trains, the Chinese space shuttle, Komodo dragons, escaped serial killers.. I mean, Reilly has shoehorned every thriller staple (or cliche) into this book and glued them together with a variety of plot twists ranging from the hackneyed (HEY! Look behind you!) to the clever. Despite his gleeful ignorance about most aspects of the military (sample: did you know that the VH-60 Presidential helicopter has a one-man escape capsule in it? Me neither), this is a firecracker of a book. Reilly sets a blistering pace in the first dozen pages and keeps it up for the next 480+ pages. Publishers’ Weekly called it “inelegant yet oddly invigorating” and I couldn’t agree more.

So, I got some email from Mary Roach, who used to write a very funny column for Salon (a few favorites: here, here, and here). She was plugging her new book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. I immediately ordered it, but it hasn’t arrived yet. Anyway, she’s new to the world of blogging, so give her a big welcome by visiting her book site.

I have probably 25 read-but-unreviewed books in various piles around my house. I’m trying to do at least short reviews of each of them; to that end I’ve added a new category for reiews, and I’ll post the reviews both in my database and as entries in that category.

This was one of the worst SF books I’ve ever read; it was equal parts cardboard character, pseudo-scientific handwaving, and hackneyed adventure plot (rogue hacker, sinister government agents, beautiful but untrustworthy assassin from the other side who turns out to have a heart of gold). You get the idea. Put it this way: my brother loaned me the sequel, and I’m not going to read it.