Someone’s Read it Already

(Review by DP.)

COULD THIS BE YOU?

Did you read the Twilight series, even though the lack of plot and the terrible writing made you secretly hate yourself and weep in the night?

Are you now pining, even BURNING, for more gorgeous aloof rich heroes with funny-colored eyes to sweep you away to magical lands where you will discover your special destiny and incredible beauty, but you don’t know where to turn because Midnight Sun has been delayed indefinitely?

Would you like to recover at least SOME of your self-respect?

Then RUN, don’t WALK, to find C.L. Wilson’s Tairen Soul series.

Four books about the incredible, magical, soul-bonded love between a rich, powerful, sexy fairy king with glowing purple eyes who can turn into a gigantic flying cat and his too-thin, too-red-haired ordinary girl soulmate who turns out to have the power to RESTORE SOULS, heal wounds and generally to be the most Unique and Special Elf/Person in the Universe.

Together, they fight crime argue a lot about whether she’ll be able to love him enough to keep him from going insane, whether she deserves his magnificent love, whether her family will let her go, who loves who more, whether she’ll make a good queen of Fairyland and other riveting topics.

BUT WAIT, there’s MORE!

UNLIKE the Twilight series, these books come pre-loaded with two-dimensional characters (one more than Twilight!), a standard set of fantasy plots and subplots involving evil wizards and politicking, and actual attempts at world-building!

PLUS, for a limited time only, the writing is actually OKAY and doesn’t make you want to GOUGE YOUR EYES OUT every other page.

Are you INTERESTED? YOU SHOULD BE!!!!

C.L. Wilson’s Tairen Soul series: The (sort of) thinking person’s Twilight. READ IT NOW!

Brown papers to obscure the lurid cover graphics not included. Offer void where better fantasy books are available. Self-awareness, complexity and realism sold separately.

Critical Praise:

**Four star review** “It’s crack, but at least it’s good crack.” – DP, Grad Student Escapism Weekly

“… It blows my mind!” -Mike, Testosterone Review (no stars)

Review by DP

Laurie R. King is best known for her two long-running mystery series, one set in the England in the Roaring Twenties and starring Mary Russell as Sherlock Holmes’ feminist wife and the other set in modern-day San Francisco and focusing on lesbian detective Kay Martinelli. In addition, King writes the occasional stand-alone novel—most recently, Touchstone. Common to all of King’s writing are vividly written and painstakingly researched portraits of place and time. While her series focus on more conventional mystery plots, the majority of King’s standalone novels are psychological meditations on obsession, integrity and the cost of the human search for truth.

In Touchstone, King returns to England in the 1920’s, this time in the midst of the economic and political disruption that preceded the General Strike of 1926. Harris Stuyvesant, an American federal agent, has traveled to England on the tail of an anarchist bomber responsible for crippling his brother and killing his fiancée. In order to gain access to his potential bomber, Stuyvesant is led to Bennett Grey, also called Touchstone. After being nearly killed by a shell in World War II, Grey has developed an intense sensitivity to the cues and details of his environment, making him a human lie detector. Grey’s former lover, Lady Laura Hurleigh, is currently involved with Stuyvesant’s suspected bomber, and Stuyvesant uses Grey to infiltrate the high-class anarchist’s social circle. Unfortunately, a sinister operative named Aldous Carstairs is trying to coerce Grey into his service, while simultaneously plotting a Machiavellian overthrow of the British government. (more…)

Review by DP

Probably best-known for his hard-scifi series starring Honor Harrington, David Weber is a classic science fiction writer of the old school. His stories investigate the ways in which humans are changed by the technology they invent and the new experiences, decisions and possibilities opened to them by the discovery of interstellar travel, artificial intelligence, time travel or non-human forms of life. Worlds of Weber is a new Subterranean Press collection of 9 previously-published short stories and novellas. The collection is a kind of appetizer sampler, representing not a particular culinary idea but the style of an entire restaurant. Weber fans may find this collection an ideal gateway drug for creating new fans, as almost every story included is only the first of a series or the germinating seed for a larger novel. It will be released in October of this year. (more…)

Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and intuitive explanation of one of Unix’s most venerable networking utilities. Even more stunning is that they were clearly working with a very early beta of the program, as their book first appeared in 1933, years (decades!) before the operating system and network infrastructure were finalized.

The book describes networking in terms even a child could understand, choosing to anthropomorphize the underlying packet structure. The ping packet is described as a duck, who, with other packets (more ducks), spends a certain period of time on the host machine (the wise-eyed boat). At the same time each day (I suspect this is scheduled under cron), the little packets (ducks) exit the host (boat) by way of a bridge (a bridge). From the bridge, the packets travel onto the internet (here embodied by the Yangtze River).

The title character — er, packet, is called Ping. Ping meanders around the river before being received by another host (another boat). He spends a brief time on the other boat, but eventually returns to his original host machine (the wise-eyed boat) somewhat the worse for wear. (more…)