No Middle Name

I've made a list of things I need before I can start writing properly: * a coffee * a nicer chair * a nicer desk * a laptop, so that I can work at a different desk * a different word processor * different music to listen to, music that's more "writer-y" * another coffee * a biscuit * a plot * some talent * command of the English language I've suddenly found all manner of interesting things that need investigating on the internet: * ABC's iView, never needed to look at it before, but now... * what my Flickr contacts have been up to * their favourite photos * their favourite's favourites... * places one can buy obscure British sci-fi in Australia * a review (with spoilers) of the next Dr Who episode * articles about vaccination and dodgy science * the NaNoWriMo website ( http://www.nanowrimo.org ) * articles about strategies for avoiding procrastination * people twittering about Hallowe'en costumes * other people twittering about NaNoWriMo and how they...

The Internet made me buy "Boneshaker", by Cherie Priest. Much lauded by electric curmudgeon Warren Ellis, geeky actor Wil Wheaton, amongst others, this steampunk/zombie adventure proved to be a good read. Exciting, different, fun. I'd steered clear of "The Time Traveller's Wife" for no particularly good reason other than that stupid form of snobbery that dictates that the popular isn't cool. I'd read reviews that essentially said this was science fiction that's ok to like even if you're not a sad geek. I'd also read reviews from the other side that said it wasn't SF enough, and merely recycled old tropes. Usually, people who use the word "trope" are wankers. It happened to be on prominent display, thanks to the film I suppose, when I wandered into Borders so I gave it a go. It is good. Really good. Funny, likeable characters. A simple love story complicated and enlivened by the main character's temporal disability. P...

I've just realised that I've got on the train still carrying the book I finished yesterday. Nothing to read, so I'll write a review. I picked up "Tales of Pirx the Pilot", by Stanislaw Lem, in the same stack of secondhand books from Woodend that I got the classic Fritz Leiber Lankhmar book and Chalker's Well of Souls. This one I picked up because I'd loved "The Cyberiad" by Lem. It's a compendium of three of Lem's books from the Sixties: the Pirx the Pilot stories, "Return from the Stars", and "The Invincible". The Pirx the Pilot stories are closest in tone to the Cyberiad, and have a hint of the same gentle mockery of human silliness. They're a set of short tales about the career of Pirx, a spaceship pilot. Similar to some of Asimov's early works ("ingenuity and applied science save the day"), they differ in that Pirx is no super-competent science hero - he's more of an everyman. Most are funn...

Day four began with the breakfast of champions, coffee and a pork pie: Thing2 thoughtfully sent us a text to let us know that the clocks had gone forward. Which was handy, otherwise he'd have been waiting an hour for us to turn up for Yum Cha at Big Thumb on Allen Street. Tasty treats were had by all, apart from Owen who seemed a bit scared by the squid tentacles and rubbery looking dumplings. We bade our friends goodbye, and headed for Te Papa again. Outside the museum the Wellington Porsche owners club had decided to congregate. We had a quick look, then nipped inside, where a band was playing: Which was nice. We wandered, pondered, examined, until we'd all had enough and went for some pudding at Strawberry Fare (a place that specialises in desserts): Feeling stuffed and slightly sick, we waddled home. Tomorrow we get up early and catch the ferry to Picton. There may not be any internet on the South Island, so you might not get to find out what happens next for a whil...

We arranged to meet up with the confusingly named Gareth (henceforth Thing2) this morning. Last night's attempt to get hold of him having been thwarted by his having an actual life and going out of an evening. Weirdo. We drove through Wellington's hilly streets, only getting lost once. Not bad considering we were running on cached maps on my iPhone (it's a work phone, so no international roaming for me). Thing2 and his lovely lady friend Dorrit took us around the corner to the beach: Lunch was had at the Bach cafe: greasy fry-up for me, eggs on toast for the missus, pancakes and noodles for the kids, along with several litres of milkshake. Then we spent some time throwing stones around the rockpools, while Owen built up a collection of rocks: We drove along the coast, a kind of mini Great Ocean Road - only without the busloads of tourists, then scaled a small hill with the Ataturk Gallipoli memorial on top. More driving, until we got to the top of Mount Victoria, for a ...

We started with a walk along the sea front: We found a play park, a restaurant that used to be a boat, and a swimming pool. We wandered further into the city. Lunchtime, so we selected a cafe based solely on what was on all the tables: Turned out to be yummy. We accidentally found the cable car and so took a ride to the top: Great views, botanical gardens, bit of a stroll, cup of tea, job done. Back down, bit more of a wander. Found the civic centre where Wendy squeezed some giant kiwi balls: We wandered around the museum for a bit, but by then everyone was knackered so we headed home. Up the cable car: Had a cup of tea while Wendy slipped into a coma and the kids watched Cartoon Network. Then a trip back to town for a curry at Massala on Allen St (very tasty), where they also serve this: Very light, refreshing, almost a sweet taste. Returned home, failed miserably at getting in touch with a friend, although we did find out that text messages sent from Australian phones can t...

We got up at 4am, a time which is in fact illegal, and rightly so. Sleepy kids, suitcases and sleepy parents were crammed into the car and off we went to the airport. The flight was on time, mostly uneventful, apart from the landing which turned the rest of the family grey. I am made of sterner stuff, and have selfishly not passed on those genes to my kids. We flew with Air New Zealand, so we got to watch some telly. I watched Slumdog Millionaire, which turned out to be awesome, and two episodes of Big Bang Theory, which also turned out to be awesome. My lovely wife could be seen singing along to High School Musical 3, indulging her pervy Zac Efron fetish. We picked up the hire car from Apex, the only hire firm which will let you take a car on the interisland ferry - the others all make you swap cars and heft your luggage onto the ferry. The guys there were quite friendly, and operated out of a little house just next to the airport - it felt a little like we were borrowing somebody...

Previously on my meaningless meanderings: my headphones broke.  A friend recommended Bang & Olufsen's A8 headphones, saying they were a bit pricey, but really good quality. I'm always happy to have other people make decisions for me, and clutching my end-of-year bonus letter in hand (if not the actual money, then surely the next best thing), I toddled off to the posh end of Collins Street.  The B&O shop was everything I had imagined whenever I'd walked past one in the past. Well, hurried past, just in case I got charged for looking at their high-end displays. Inside there were large televisions, hooked up to to matt black boxes with only a single LED and one switch (labelled "mmmmm"). Speakers dotted the landscape, shaped like the robots that should have been bringing me my martini after a hard day's work, if only those 1950s scientists had worked harder.  The sales lady was explaining the function of what looked like a silvery wall tile to another cu...

This morning was the first time I'd been brave enough to go running since breaking my rib at karate. It's still sore, but I can move around and breathe normally now, unlike the first few days of last week. Sneezing and coughing still hold the prospect of an accidental sucking chest wound.  This was also the first time I've used the headphones that came with my iPhone. My trusty apple in-ear ones finally gave up after over three years of being stuffed in my waxy canals and have been given a decent burial in the bin. Rather than shell out for a new set (they seem to have doubled in price since I bought mine), I gave the free ones a try. I was a little wary; the headphones that came with my iPod nano were useless and uncomfortable, and prompted the in-ear purchase.  Apple seems to have improved their headphones since then. These are no longer uncomfortable, and stayed in for the whole of my run. The sound is ok, but doesn't cope very well when there's a lot of backgro...

The evolving Guardian.co.uk architecture Presented by Mathew Wall on Aug 28, 2009 10:33 AM Summary This presentation covers how to rapidly evolve a web site that receives over 25 million unique users and 218 million page impressions a month using a "just in time" approach to architecture. The site was guardian.uk with a long history of innovation that has enabled it to lead the market. The "just in time" approach to architecture introduced complexity into the architecture only as needed. via infoq.com Posted via web from Gareth's posterous

Three quick book reviews, and a test of http://posterous.com thrown in for free.   A couple of weeks ago we visited some friends on the other side of the city. On the Sunday we had lunch in a little village called Woodend, strolled around and visited a little secondhand bookshop. I spent a lot of money on some old SF classics, as well as a few other books. Then we went to the Holgate Brewhouse for a couple of pints of rather delicious chocolate porter.   So, the first of the classics of pulp fantasy I read from the pile was the awkwardly titled " Swords and Deviltry ". Try saying deviltry out loud. See? Awkward. This is the first outing in a long series for Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, two rogues with hearts of gold that thieve and charm their way around their world. This is low fantasy, filled with muck, grime, seediness and populated by prostitutes, beggars and thieves. The dynamic duo provide plenty of witty banter, quaff ale and fight bad guys. It is e...

Last night I helped my lovely wife finish off setting up our new bookshelves. We were running out of space on the old ones, and so decided to cover a wall and a bit of the study with Ikea's finest . Wendy bought them, got them delivered, assembled them. I was used mainly for heavy lifting and for swearing practice (she's getting really good). We now have a lovely expanse of shelving, acres of wide open, bookless, tracts of self-assembled glory. Now, clearly, I have to go shopping for books to fill the space. Book shopping! About the only kind of shopping I'm good at. I've just finished the last of the three books I bought a few weeks ago, so I've got nothing right now. " The Cyberiad ", by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, reminded me of all the asides in Hitch Hikers - mainly the Deep Thought parts. Cyberiad is all about a universe populated mainly by robots, and two in particular: Trurl and Klapacius, constructors of marvellous machines. Their adventures are...

I think I may give up on writing book reviews on here, and just stick them straight onto goodreads instead. I'm reasonably diligent about keeping that up to date with what I'm reading, but I just can't be bothered to write anything here. I suspect that is because I don't think my reviews are particularly useful ("it was good, read it. it was not good, don't read it"). That does mean I'll have to come up with something to put on this blog, otherwise it will fester and rot. In the meantime, here is a a set of one-line reviews for the 8 books I've read in the last 8 weeks or so. The Fantasy Writer's Assistant : Collection of Jeffrey Ford's older stories (up to about 2003), one of my favourite authors, mixture of unsettling, weird stories and uplifting fables. Great stuff, but if you've not read anything by him before, try him out here: Empire of Ice Cream . McSweeney's Issue 18 : short stories for hipsters and poncey fans of "lit...

Evil Robot Monkey , by Mary Robinette Kowal. It'll take you about 5 minutes, don't worry.

Review backlog again. " Thirteen " (or "Black Man" outside the US), is another Richard Morgan techno-noir thriller, with all the kick-ups, shagfests and beatings you expect from his previous work. Takeshi Kovacs Carl Marsalis is a chiseled killing machine, a hit with the ladies, and a genetic experiment. Complicated plot involving lots of violence, shagging, more violence ensues. Keeps ensuing. Never seems to stop. Eventually does, pointlessly. If you've read "Altered Carbon", stop there. The rest of his books are pretty much the same. His prose style hasn't improved much, there are still viewpoint changes mid-paragraph which dump you out of the action and make you re-read to work out who's thinking what about whom and whose leg just got splintered by someone's obscure martial art technique. At 600 pages, this book could have done with a hell of a lot of trimming and a lot less plot. " Behemoth ", the last of Peter Watts' Rif...

As of this morning, Google Reader tells me I have 947 unread articles to view. Of these, a third are from the BBC news website telling me things about politicians I no longer recognise, celebrities I've never heard of, and sporting events in which I have no interest. Over a hundred each are from TechCrunch (companies I've never heard of going bust while trying to do things I don't understand), Wired (ditto), io9 (providing me with spoilers for programmes I'll never watch and the plots of films I'll never get around to watching), and SciFi Wire (ditto). My twitter feed tells me all about the mundane lives of Graham Linehan , Stephen Fry , Jonathan Ross , Lily Allen and other people I don't know, doing things I'm not really that interested in. Let's not get started on Facebook. Time for a cull. Blogs down to a minimum, twitter down to people I have communicated with in some form.

can we still say that, it went straight to video, in DVD age? a raft of big stars, a fantastic location, no sign of a plot.

Review backlog to clear. Let's keep it short. " Clean Code ", by "Uncle" Bob Martin , is a manual for programmers that care about their craft. I went to one of his tutorials at JAOO last year in Sydney , where he successfully explained the Liskov Substitution Principle to us. Lots of good advice in this one, and I'll be recommending it to all my minions. " This Modern Life " is the third in Steph Swainston's series of books that started with "The Year of Our War". As always, interesting, different and exciting fantasy, with a little sneaking in of SF via the backdoor. " Maelstrom ", by Peter Watts, is the second of his three (maybe four) Rifters books. Lenie Clarke rampages across America, spreading a deadly microbe in her wake. Good stuff, with plenty to think about like all good SF. " Mainspring ", by Jay Lake, a master of short fiction. I was hoping for great things from this story, and while the worl...

Vegetable recognition Originally uploaded by No Middle Name Turnips on the left. Swedes on the right.

Adelaide's old town, north of the CBD, is beautiful. Quirky architecture, nice restaurants, bars, walking distance to the botanic park and the CBD, warm weather all year. Only a tram ride away from the beach, so that I may disgust the pretty young things with displays of my wrinkly, saggy body.

Badges? We don' need no steenkin' badges Originally uploaded by No Middle Name Tim at work got to see the Watchmen, and interview the stars, and all I got were these badges. He says the film is awesome, but isn't allowed to say any more. I have to wait until March 6th.

I have just finished reading " Free Culture " by law professor and Internet hero, Lawrence Lessig. It is, of course, available as a creative commons licenced download from his website. I read it on my iPhone, using Stanza , one of the technologies that didn't exist when he wrote the book but whose existence he was trying to foster. Stanza's great feature is the ability to download copyright-free books to read on your phone. This feature uses the public domain to give access to thousands of books that otherwise would be out of print. It also gives you an easy way to buy books, but I haven't used that because I don't want my books encumbered with nasty DRM. Lessig describes the problems with current copyright law, how by extending copyright terms indefinitely at the request of big corporations we are destroying the public domain, losing the 98% of works that make no money and are out of print so that the 2% left can be milked. All art borrows from the past, b...

" Brasyl ", by Ian McDonald, is the second of my bargain 50% off purchases from Reader's Feast. I wasn't sure about it, having given up on "River of Gods" after a couple of chapters. I'd heard good things though, and it was half price. I'm glad I did. It is three narratives, all taking place in Brasil, but separated by time. There's a modern day tv producer, a wide boy in 2030 wheeling and dealing, and a Jesuit missionary in the 18th century. You know these stories are related, the fun is working out how. While River of Gods annoyed me with far too many characters rolled out at the start, making it hard to remember who was who, Brasyl is a lot more focussed, the characters and settings more distinct. The culture of Brasil is made to sound exciting, different, and dangerous. The heavy use of Portugese words in the text deftly immerses you, although I've read reviews where this turned people off. If you read SF a lot, you're used to imputin...

Oy, have we got a bargain for you: two reviews for the price of one! First up is " The Yiddish Policemen's Union " by Michael Chabon. (My apologies to my large(ly imaginary) Jewish readers for my first line. I've never met anyone that talks like that, but I've seen them on tv and tv would never lie to me) Meyer Landsman is a detective in an alternative future where the Jewish homeland is in Alaska. He's investigating the murder of a heroin-addicted, chess-playing, deadbeat who may have been the Messiah. Or just a very naughty boy. Excellent writing, as always from Mr Chabon, that perfectly immerses you in Sitka, Alaska. A good plot, twisty and turny just like a good detective story should be. Loved it, great book. Next, Bradbury's classic collection of short stories, " The Illustrated Man ". I found this in the 50% off pile at Reader's Feast in Melbourne (thanks Tessa ). I don't think I'd have picked it up if it wasn't a bargain ...

Surfr Originally uploaded by zenera [ Ficlets is being turned off by AOL on January 15. Here's one of my ficlets that never got posted here.] Leaving gooey destruction in its wake, Snailzilla oozed back into the turquoise depths from whence it came. Who knows why it chose to erupt (slowly) from its watery slumbers? Who can tell what provoked it into the (rather sedate, and quite beautiful) mating frenzy with New York? Perhaps only Professor Limpopo Flatnat, international playboy and mollusc expert. Even now, the National Guard are combing the sticky ruins, searching desperately for a trace of the gallant Professor. Last seen leaping onto the writhing gastropod from the top of the Empire State building, a rusty letter-opener in one hand and a salt shaker in the other, his last words screamed over his shoulder to his faithful assistant, Juan: “I’ve always loved you, you know!” He gave his life for the city, and the assistant, he loved. Perhaps his rapid application of salt caused t...

" Fast Ships, Black Sails " be a treasure trove of tales from the high seas. Oh, and the high skies, some ice, and a noggin of vacuum. They's all yarns of a piratical bent, as generous with adventure as the first mate is dispensin' licks o'the cat. Standout examples of swashbucklin' are from Howard Waldrop (pirates of penzance meet captain hook), Garth Nix and Conrad Williams. Fine seamen all, and I'd be proud to sail with 'em.