books and books review – Page 94

Bruce Sterling

Published on May 29, 2002Leave a comment

I love him, as a writer that is. Always thought he was far better then that poseur, William Gibson. He is what Neal Stephenson wants to be when he grows up. Sterling’s a cool hip technodude, so of course he Has his own blog. Also has his own “megalomanic but it might just work and at least it’s interesting” project for world improvement.

All of which is just a preamble to say that I’ve just read two of his novels, Heavy Weather and Involution Ocean together with one of Tom Holt’s comedies, Wish you Were Here. Made the usual sort of comments at the usual place, do take a look.

After that, you could do worse then download his 1992 non-fiction book about what happened when the Secret Service went on a
Hacker Crackdown.

Charles Horman

Published on May 28, 2002Leave a comment

Just a quick note that I’ve once again updated my booklog, adding a review of the non fiction book Missing, the story of how Charles Horman, an US citizen got caught up in the 1973 coup in Chile led by Pinochet. He was arrested, killed and very likely tortured because he accidentaly learn of the US support for and involvement with the coup. He was of course not the only one, thousands more, Chileans as well as foreigners would disappear, be tortured and eventually murdered by the brutal Pinochet regime with the full knowledge and often support of various US governments. But at least Chile was out of the hands of that dangerous Marxist, Allende.

For those of you who have wondered in all innocence why the rest of the world seems so suspicious of the US’s “War against Terror”, this is one of the reasons why.

Want more information on Chile? Read this overview of Chile under Allende’s government, take a look at the Chile documentation project, read Christopher Hitchens on Henry Kissinger.

Books

Published on May 22, 2002Leave a comment

I hope y’all have checked out the link to my booklog to the left of this post? Just in cased you hadn’t, I’ve put up new reviews/musings of two books: Poul Anderson’s The Corridors of Time, a science fiction time travel novel and Dutch author Nescio’s classic collection of three novellas. Martin sez, check it out.

Courtesy of the Guardian comes another book review, of China Mieville’s latest fantasy novel, The Scar. Apart from being a fantasy and sf writer, China is also active in politics, having been a candidate in the UK parliamentary elections last year for the Socialist Alliance.

For the Fantastic Metropolis webzine China put together a list of fifty fantasy & science fiction works that socialists should read, which is probably also of interest to non socialists. For the Guardian he also put together his top ten of weird fiction.