The popular 1632 series is a shared universe of alternate history, where the small town of Grantville, West Virginia has somehow been trans­port­ed in a Ring of Fire to central Germany in 1631, during the middle of the Thirty Years' War. The towns­peo­ple adapt fairly suc­cess­ful­ly and im­me­di­ate­ly and ir­rev­o­ca­bly change the course of history, thanks to their advanced technology.

The Ring of Fire has spawned an active community at 1632.org, leading to a great deal of fan fiction, developing plot lines, fleshing out major and minor characters, …continue.

This is a rather strange, rambling essay about the state of the computer industry, historical accidents, and Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux, favoring Linux. Written in 1999, it has not aged well. Stephenson has a fas­ci­na­tion with the command line and a disdain for GUIs.

By using GUIs all the time we have insensibly bought into a premise that few people would have accepted if it were presented to them bluntly: namely, that hard things can be made easy, and com­pli­cat­ed things simple, by …continue.

This is the second mystery featuring Nora Gavin, an American forensic pathol­o­gist living in Ireland. The body of a ritually murdered Iron Age man is found preserved in a bog, and Gavin is called in to examine the body. Shortly thereafter, another similarly murdered body is found in the bog, but this one is wearing a wristwatch.

Hart writes lean, clear prose, with believable characters, and a not-completely improbable plot. Her Irish characters sound and act like Irish people, rather than refugees from a Lucky Charms outtake.

My main …continue.

This is the seventh volume of the Camulod Chronicles, Jack Whyte's sprawling retelling of the Arthurian legend. Whyte is consumed by the backstory of the legend, so much so that the sixth book The Sorceror Meta­mor­pho­sis ends with young Arthur drawing Excalibur from a stone. The first two books, The Skystone and The Singing Sword, tell of the founding of the Colony of Camulod by two far-sighted Romano-Britons, Caius Bri­tan­ni­cus and his brother-in-law Publius Varrus, who foresee the collapse of the Roman Empire. The third book, The Eagles' Brood, tells of their grandsons, Caius Merlyn …continue.

Ed Loy has returned to Dublin after 20 years in Los Angeles to bury his mother. An old friend asks him to find her missing husband. This sends him into a viper's nest of corruption among property developers and upwardly mobile gangsters, as he confronts the demons of his past.

Loy, after his long, self-imposed exile, finds a very different Dublin to the one that he left. The economic miracle known as the Celtic Tiger has wrought huge changes over the last 15 years, cat­a­pult­ing Ireland from a country that …continue.

Fifty years hence, Janus, one of the moons of Saturn, suddenly leaves its orbit and starts heading for Spica, 260 light years away. Only the mining ship Rockhopper can intercept what is now apparent as a long-dormant alien artifact and learn something about it. Things go wrong and the ship crash lands on Janus, as it heads towards Spica at near-rel­a­tivis­tic speed. The crew splits into factions led by the captain, Bella Lind, and the chief engineer, Svetlana Barseghian, once the best of friends, now implacable enemies.

Reynolds tells an exciting tale of big …continue.

The first of three equally long volumes of historical fiction by Neal Stephenson, who is better known for his spec­u­la­tive fiction. This is a prequel of sorts to Crypto­nom­i­con, featuring the distant ancestors of the Waterhouse and Shaftoe characters.

Quick­sil­ver primarily takes place in late 17th century Europe, the baroque era where giants such as Newton, Leibniz, Hooke, and Huygens brought about a new un­der­stand­ing of the world. Daniel Waterhouse, a Puritan scholar, moves among them, knowing that he is not a good enough …continue.

Three very screwed-up Londoners kidnap a Rilke-spouting busi­ness­man and hold him for hostage. There's a horrified fas­ci­na­tion as it inevitably goes pear shaped. Written in a spare, first-person style, it's short, but certainly not sweet.

The fourth in­stall­ment in Traviss's series about the wess'har, which began with City of Pearl. The plot is too complex to summarize here, and would make little sense if you haven't read the preceding books.

This is in­tel­li­gent, character-driven SF, written for adults. A small cast of humans interact with four very different alien races, far from home. These aliens are not Americans with green skin; they live by different rules. The humans are flawed people who struggle with complex issues.

Traviss's themes include ecology, ethics, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. She also throws in some action …continue.

Inspired by Keith Martin's Reading Notes, I've decided to try writing a short review of every book that I read, starting today. I expect that most reviews will be 100 to 250 words.

Why? Like my Picture of the Day project, it should help me think a little harder about what I'm reading, if I know that I'm going to have to say something pithy about it. I'm a better pho­tog­ra­ph­er than I am a reviewer, so the exercise should be good for me.

Now you know why I put together a way of Rating with Stars for dasBlog yesterday.

The first two reviews have already been written and will …continue.