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I accidentally noticed that August 13 has been a particularly productive day for me over the years, with a new entry posted every year from 2002 to 2007. 2008 and 2009 didn’t see any activity, probably caused by my general lack of commitment to force my ramblings on a limited, but surprisingly faithful audience. Since my goal is to write at least 100 entires this year, I’ll try to reboot the an-entry-every-August-13 this year with a short book review.

I came across Max Brook’s “The Zombie Survival Guide” book while surfing reddit where I read that Bras Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment had secured the rights to another of Brooks’ books; “World War Z”. Actually, this happened all the way back in 2007, but sometimes news travels slow – at least it often takes a while before I notice things. I like Brad Pitt, at least as an actor, I have to admit that I don’t know him personally. But he is probably a likable fellow. I also enjoy zombies, but not the fast moving ones you find in Left 4 Dead, I prefer the slow ghouls you can see in movies like the excellent Shaun of the Dead*. Why? Because it’s possible to outrun, or maybe even outwalk them quit easily. The fast ones tend to kill you.

Max Brooks’ zombies are like that: Outwalkable. And when I imagined Brad Pitt in an action movie with outwalkable ghouls, I decided that I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie for once. Even though there is no actual movie being made right now, and there might very well never be, the book could to our to be entertaining. Brooks wrote “The Zombie Survival Guide” before “World War Z”, and even though the books are not directly linked with each other, the guide contains very detailed information about the zombies in “World War Z”. Because of that, I decided to read the guide first. Continue reading "“The Zombie Survival Guide” by Max Brooks." →

In addition to playing a lot of computer games*, I also read a book now and then. Recently I finished the sixth book in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. Despite it only being a mere 400 pages, I used at least half a year to get through it. Sometimes, I’m just a very slow reader. I’m wondering how long the last book in the series will be on my night stand; it weights in at almost 850 pages. By the way, if you like Stephen King or just fantasy fiction in general, then the books about The Dark Tower are certainly something you should read.

After I finished “Song of Susannah”, I moved from fictions to facts for a while. Diversity is good for you. I read through the second edition of “Effective Java” and right now I’m half way through “The Pragmatic Programmer”, a book that should be mandatory reading for everyone involved in software development. The Pragmatic Programmer was written 10 years ago, but most of what the book covers still apply today.

To spice things up a little, Hallvard recommended that I read “The Road”. You’ve probably heard of or even seen the big screen adaption featuring Viggo Mortensen. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where we follow two unnamed characters, the Man and the Boy. An unexplained catastrophe has destroyed civilization and killed off almost all life on Earth. The days are gray as the sky is covered with ashes while the nights are pitch black. The two move south on The Road, with a vague hope of finding warmth and other people. Continue reading "“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy." →

I’ve just (on Sunday, that is) finished reading this book. It took me a mere seven months to do just that. Even though you might think so, the book is not made up of twenty five thousand densely written pages, it weighs in at about 500 pages of quite spacious text.

Some of author Isaac Asimov‘s books are regarded as science fiction classics. His most commonly known work is probably “I, Robot”, not because it’s a great book (I’ve never read it myself, so I can’t tell), rather because it resulted in a movie with the same title starring Will Smith. His work has inspired a lot of people, like the Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese new religious movement that carried out the Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways back in 1995. Continue reading "“Prelude to Foundation” by Isaac Asimov." →

Science fiction is perhaps my favorite genre, not only when it comes to books, but also other forms of entertainment, like movies and computer games. Every now and then a science fiction book comes along that every fan of the genre should read. Alastair Reynolds’ “Revelation Space” is not such a book.

Dan Sylveste is a scientist obsessed with the Amarantin, an alien race that was suddenly wiped out nine hundred thousand years ago. Sylveste lives in a universe where human kind has colonized worlds far from Earth and has evolved into several sub-species like the Ultras who are a mix of man an machine.

Enormous space ships called Lighthuggers move between the colonized worlds at a speed very close to the speed of light while their crew is stored in reefersleep chambers. Aboard one of the Lighthuggers is Triumvir Ilia Volyova, she and the crew on a desperate mission to find Dan Sylveste and his father, Calvin, so they can heal the vessel’s Captain, who is ill with a viral infection that has taken over parts of the ship and is slowly, but steadily spreading. Continue reading "“Revelation Space” by Alastair Reynolds." →