Armada, by Ernest Cline. It's basically a sort of cross between The Last Starfighter and Ender's Game, the idea being that a near future MMO space sim is actually a trainer to help humanity stave off an alien invasion. And since it's by Cline, it's full of gratuitous pop culture references, mostly to stuff from 1980 onward.

It has some cute moments but it's mostly a slog. The characters are thin and I don't quite buy some of the psychology behind the story, and it's really heavy on exposition instead of plot. Ready Player One in an overrated book, IMO, and Cline has shown little growth from that in this one.

The Hidden Reality (Brian Greene)

This is a popular science book dealing with multiple universes and their role in many modern theories in physics. The author is very good at explaining complicated ideas in a simple and easily understood way. Overall I found this book to be not as good as his previous book (The Fabric of the Cosmos) because it’s a bit lighter on the math/physics and delves more into philosophy at the end. Still, it’s an interesting read.

Just finished "Dance Dance Dance" by Haruki Murakami, which was quite excellent. I can't think of anyone who's better at writing about detachment. Every book of his thus far I find myself saying "Hey, that's me!"

The Glass Key, by Dashiell Hammett. Set in an unnamed small city that's somewhere relatively close to New York (so...maybe Albany? I dunno...), it's about a gambler who's also a high-ranking member of a political machine who's looking into the murder of a senator's son. Hammett's a great writer and this is full of great hard-boiled prose and dialogue, but I rate this one a little behind Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon, mostly because I think the main character here is kept a little too distant from the reader. He says stuff and does stuff but it's tough to get a handle on why he's doing it in some situations. It's still an excellent book, though.

The Confusion - Neal Stephenson. Second book in the Baroque Cycle (I finished the first last year, but took a side trip into the Dune universe before continuing). Now about 100 pages into the third book, The System of the World.

Lord of the Rings for the second time.

I'd say I have a fairly good knowledge of the precious.

If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens … Where is Everybody? (Stephen Webb)

This is a popular science book dealing with the Fermi Paradox. Overall it’s light reading and enjoyable.

John Carter of Mars The Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burrough's

A book meant to be played in the theater of the mind; I don't believe it could succeed in any other medium.

It (At it's core) is really just a simple tale of a man out of place who become the superior native. Simple stuff with prose almost too elegant for the subject material. But I loved it and will most likely read the rest of the series.

Now on to Mary Shelly and the eponymous Frankenstein.

Ooops, edit. I put down two books on the go and not finished.


Books I've finished in 2016 sofar are The Rum Diaries by Hunter S Thompson and Misery by Stephen King.

Are you now his number one fan?

I like Stephen King a lot, but my name is not Annie Wilkes. lol

I just picked up a 12-story "megapack" by Harry Harrison on Amazon for a buck too. Working my way through "Deathworld". I always enjoyed his Stainless Steel Rat stories so I thought I would give it a try. I really like this style of book, for some fun.

I recently found an old copy of Make Room and am reading it right now. Excellent stuff.Even picked up A Stainless Steel Rat.

I was reading Frankenstein but quit because the narrator read like the biggest windbag of the 1800's. The opening was good but that was told through a different character. No way am I reading through 120 pages this prick's perspective. It's like listening to one long rant that doesn't go anywhere and takes itself way too seriously. Maybe that was the point.

I think back then there was a lot of foundation that needed to be laid that we take for granted now. I haven't read it but you gotta give her credit for inventing a genre.

Make Room Make Room by Harry Harrison

A good read well informed by the research done on population control that the author used to construct a believable world. The characters are real and react honestly to the situations they find themselves in.

The research done in preparation for the book was sadly not spliced in as much as I would have liked; making this work veer further away from "Hard" Science Fiction in my categorization. This is evidenced by the recommended reading list at the end of the book and the realization that the message and cautionary nature of the tale would have had more weight if the real life work was actually referenced during the the story.

In spite of that I really enjoyed it all and will probably choose "A stainless Steel Rat" as my next book.