Category: books

Wilbur Smith – Desert God (2014)

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Wilbur Smith is a great story teller. He’s now age-81. But still writing.

I’m totally enjoying his latest.

The Ancient Egypt series is an historical fiction series based in a large part on Pharaoh Memnon’s time, addressing both his story and that of his mother Lostris through the eyes of his mother’s slave Taita, and mixing in elements of the Hyksos’ domination and eventual overthrow.

River God (1994)
The Seventh Scroll (1995)
Warlock (2001)
The Quest (2007)
Desert God (2014)

Desert God

Amazon

“My life is as good now as it’s ever been, if not very much better since I met Niso,” he says, and so it should be, as his Tajik-born wife is 39 years younger than he is, and startlingly pretty. They met 14 years ago, when he stalked and bagged her in WH Smith’s, catching sight of her browsing the John Grishams and directing her to the shelf groaning under his own novels. …

He has an appropriate level of modesty for a man whose books have sold more than 120 million copies – that is, minimal. …

Wilbur Smith interview for Desert God: ‘My life is as good as it’s ever been’

paddling the Congo River

On By Rick McIn books, travel1 Comment

No, not me.

coverformer Royal Marine Commando Phil Harwood from England.

Canoeing the Congo: The First Source-to-Sea Descent of the Congo River (2014)

His book and an amateur film “Mazungu Canoeing the Congo” document his five month adventure.

It was harrowing. I’m surprised he made it. Surprised he lived to tell the tale.

How many times did he face possible death on this journey?

Dozens of times.

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The Congo River … the world’s deepest … It is the second largest river in the world by discharge (after the Amazon). …

It looked pretty impressive from Brazzaville.

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One of the very worst sections is just below the cities. Harwood put his canoe on the roof of a bus and drove around.

The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga

On By Rick McIn books, travel, travel IndiaLeave a comment

Not great, despite prizes and rave reviews.

The White Tiger is the debut novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga.

It was first published in 2008 and won the 40th Man Booker Prize in the same year. The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India’s class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy. In detailing Balram’s journey first to Delhi, where he works as a chauffeur to a rich landlord, and then to Bangalore, the place to which he flees after killing his master and stealing his money, the novel examines issues of religion, caste, loyalty, corruption and poverty in India. …

white tiger

Amazon

I did like the vision of modernizing India as seen through the eyes of one of the poorest Indians.

But – as is the case in many prize winning novels – there is weirdness for the sake of being original.

The protagonist is writing to the Premier of China. Admitting to murder.

Why?

In order to be considered for the Man Booker. It’s stupid. Makes no sense. I won’t read his follow-up novels. 😦

Nov 2nd, 2014

On By Rick McIn books, hiking, travel2 Comments

I spent my 57th birthday tenting in a stone Yak shack at 4110m, close to the Tibet border in Nepal.

Langtang campsite

Next morning I scrambled up that gap towards Tilman’s Pass.

During the long, cold night cocooned in down and nylon, I listened to one of my favourite authors, Peter Matthiessen, read one of my favourite books, The Snow Leopard.

It’s his classic philosophical account of a November 1973 Nepal trek to Shey Gompa, Crystal Mountain. A spiritual journey.

If you wonder why I keep returning to Nepal, read Snow Leopard. Matthiessen is most eloquent on the joys and challenges.

Sex Lives of Cannibals

On By Rick McIn books, humour, travelLeave a comment

J. Maarten Troost 2004

Hilarious.

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At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost—who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs—decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better.

While his wife worked, Troost planned to write:

It would be a big book. Tolstoyan in scale, Joycean in its ambition, Shakespearean in its lyricism.

He ended up with this. 🙂

He and his stalwart girlfriend Sylvia spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity, and a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis); and contending with a bizarre cast of local characters, including “Half-Dead Fred” and the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (a British drunkard who’s never written a poem in his life).

AMAZON – The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

another book by Troost – Lost on Planet China

Peter Hessler – driving in China

On By Rick McIn books, travelLeave a comment

Peter Hessler (born June 14, 1969) is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of three acclaimed books about China …

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze 2001

Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present 2006

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory 2010

countrydriving
Amazon

I read his third book while in China. It’s excellent. Hessler does a terrific job of painting a picture of how China has changed since he first arrived 1996 with the Peace Core.

Emulating the USA, China built many roads before the population had cars to drive them.

Chinese road

Surprisingly, the stories of what happens to him while driving rent-a-cars across the new roads of the emerging nation are fascinating and informative.

Every Province is different. Every town within a Province is different. And every Chinese citizen he meets is a unique individual with their own story.

So different than the simplistic stereotypes assumed by myself and most other westerners.

In 2011, Hessler received a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in recognition and encouragement of his “keenly observed accounts of ordinary people responding to the complexities of life in such rapidly changing societies as Reform Era China.

Those 3 books are highly recommended for anyone visiting China.

Maura Elizabeth Cunningham, in 2010, posted a review of all the writing by foreigners who have lived and traveled in China. She rates Hessler high.

FreedomTM – Daniel Suarez

On By Rick McIn books, economics, governmentLeave a comment

Highly recommended. The plot of the Daemon (book series) is brilliant. And important.

Picking up a few months after the end of Daemon (2009), Suarez continues his popular technothriller and SF saga.

The computer program Daemon has taken over the Internet, and millions have joined its virtual world. Now the effect is spilling into the real world as Daemon assumes control of financial institutions, and the program’s real-life converts flock to small towns to re-create a sustainable lifestyle amid the agribusiness monoculture of the Midwest. …

Amazon

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It would make a great movie. But nothing is in the works yet.

who’s honouring my brother now?

On By Rick McIn books, McCharles familyLeave a comment

Seems he’s collected an Aurora Award (say that fast 3 times) for Best Fan Organization for WWC.

You know it’s true when you see it in Wikipedia:

Best Fan Organizational: Randy McCharles, Chair and Programming, When Words Collide, Calgary.

Randy Aurora

Congrats Bro.

Auroras 2013

The Prix Aurora Awards are given out annually for the best Canadian science fiction and fantasy literary works, artworks, fan activities from that year …

Rebus – Saints of the Shadow Bible

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Saints of the Shadow Bible (2014) is 19th in the Inspector Rebus series. More evocative Scottish intrigue.

Amazon

Rebus is back on the force, albeit with a demotion and a chip on his shoulder. He is investigating a car accident when news arrives that a case from 30 years ago is being reopened. Rebus’s team from those days is suspected of helping a murderer escape justice to further their own ends.

Malcolm Fox, in what will be his last case as an internal affairs cop, is tasked with finding out the truth. …

SAINTS

Amazon

Good. But not as good. More complicated than the plot deserved.

book review – Daemon

On By Rick McIn books, internet, product endorsements1 Comment

I’ve decided to read this book again, something I do not often do.

It’s stayed with me, frequently coming to mind. We need this kind of technology in the future in conjunction with hardware like Google Glass.

___ original post Aug 2010:

A daemon (pronounced /ˈdeɪmən/ or /ˈdiːmən/) is a computer program that runs in the background, rather than under the direct control of a user.

Daemon (2006), the book, by Daniel Suarez, has a cult following amongst geeks. It was recommended by Leo.

Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer–the architect behind half a dozen popular online games. His premature death from brain cancer depressed both gamers and his company’s stock price. But Sobol’s fans weren’t the only ones to note his passing. He left behind something that was scanning Internet obituaries, too–something that put in motion a whole series of programs upon his death. Programs that moved money. Programs that recruited people. Programs that killed.

Confronted with a killer from beyond the grave, Detective Peter Sebeck comes face-to-face with the full implications of our increasingly complex and interconnected world–one where the dead can read headlines, steal identities, and carry out far-reaching plans without fear of retribution. Sebeck must find a way to stop Sobol’s web of programs–his Daemon–before it achieves its ultimate purpose. And to do so, he must uncover what that purpose is . . .

Amazon

Loved it.

I guess I’m a geek. It’s dense, complicated and has a plot line that kept me guessing from cover to cover.