Movies:
Nochnoy Dozor (Night Watch) – This apparently was supposed to be the pilot for a television series. I’m glad they decided to take it to the big screen because it’s totally worthy. Interesting story and characters.
Dnevnoy Dozor (Day Watch) – This feels like the was the television series that would have been, but all crammed into one movie. Nothing has time to develop which by the end makes you think “Really? That’s it?” Just watch the first one.
The Final Season – Yay! A baseball movie! Actually it’s about small town vs larger interests, with the little guy not being listened to. It manages to avoid being sappy or even too cliche. Don’t go out of your way for it, but it was better than expected.
Couples Retreat – Fairly funny. I was thinking all the funny stuff was in the trailer but such is not the case. It’s almost like an episode of The Love Boat, but set on an island. I’m surprised no one has made a movie version of Fantasy Island yet. How, according to imdb.com there is one in production.
Capricorn One – I think this movie is as relevant today as it was when it was made. Apparently someone else thought so too since it appears to be headed for a remake. If they were to re-shoot the old script with modern props, costumes, and effects I think it would be just fine. I can think of a number of good angles to include and explore in a re-make. I hope they think of them too. Anyway, totally worth seeing.
The Final Cut – Good idea, uninspiring execution. It feels like it’s just slightly off from its target. Is this a criticism of today’s funeral industry? Lack of privacy in society? I think it needs to show more motive for the characters.
Be Cool – I like “Get Shorty.” I was hoping I would like this as well. It’s fully entertaining because each character is entertaining to watch. The structure those characters fit in is pretty boring. I didn’t care too much though because the characters are cool.
Marley & Me – This was better than I expected. The family story is interesting and it isn’t just Marley constantly on the screen destroying their lives. The bond between Marley and the family comes across on screen.
My Name is Bruce – Can a movie about Bruce Campbell be a bad thing? If you have enjoyed any Bruce Campbell movie, you will enjoy this. Heck, if you’ve ever enjoyed a B-movie you will enjoy this. Just see it!
Sherlock Holmes – I don’t remember many details from the stories I read long ago, but I like the movie and look forward to a sequel. I like that Watson is more an equal than a sidekick. I like the thoughts before action. I like the film as a whole.

Nintendo DS:
Professor Layton and the Curious Village – I got this as a gift and dove right in. It’s essentially a series of puzzles of varying types you need to solve to move the story ahead. You don’t really have any control over the story. The story is told mostly with textual dialog and occasional animated scenes. They really blend together well and the story works well as a nice reward for the puzzle solving. The puzzles generally aren’t extremely difficult. Most of the times I had problems it was because I was mis-reading what he puzzle was asking for. I have one more bonus puzzle to go and then I’m on to the sequel.

Other

The Family That Couldn’t Sleep: A Medical Mystery – Based against the background of one family with a very rare prion disease the book goes over the history of prion diseases in animals and people. It also covers the people who have been and are the big name workers in the field. There is a lot of good information here and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know about prions or mad cow.

American Sphinx – The Character of Thomas Jefferson – I started reading this after the primaries but before the election and it ended up being frustrating so I had to put it down. After the election I was able to pick it up again and enjoy it. The book shows clearly that our two party system and the style of politics in this country come from Thomas Jefferson. All the divisive attacks and casting everything as good vs evil or right vs wrong come from how he saw and presented his arguments. Good book, but not during elections.

Pathwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Colombus – Published in 1996, this is the first and only Orson Scott Card book I’ve read so far. His research into all the elements Columbus and the period are evident in the story telling and it makes for a good story.  I recommend this one too.

Misquoting Jesus – I always wondered if there were deleted scenes in the New Testament or who got to write it. This isn’t really the material that answers those questions but it’s close. It discusses why changes happened over the years and which people may have been responsible for which types of changes. The author shares his relationship to the bible in the introduction and it’s an interesting story of growth as well. I recommend this to anyone with any curiosity about religious history. The paperback version has some further Q&A with the author and a summary of responses to the book which are also interesting.

Star Wars

I fell behind on my Star Wars reading a bit last year so here is me catching up. Of course I’m starting to fall behind again now.

Star Wars Republic Commando: True Colors – Like the other Republic Commando novels this one is very good, probably even better than the second one. These books would not be a bad place to start reading republic era Star Wars.

Star Wars: Death Star – This book takes every story fragment relating to the death star in all the movies and novels and consolidates them all into one story. The author pair previously wrote the MedStar Star Wars books,  version of MASH set in the Star Wars universe and not done very well. None of those problems are present here and the stitching of the various stories works fairly well. Of course the ending is known in advance so you don’ thave to get too worked up over any characters.

Star Wars: Order 66 – A Republic Commando Novel – The final Republic Commando novel and it’s another good one. The result is a little predictable since it wraps up things you know are coming from the previous novels but it’s still a a good read.

Star Wars: Lecacy of the Force – Inferno – Inferno through Invincible continue the New Jedi Order books and there is familiar conflict in the galaxy but with a next generation Jedi thinking he has to bring peace.

Star Wars: Lecacy of the Force – Fury – This series also seems like a good time to kill off a lot of characters that have become familiar in the novels. The level of destruction is impressive.

Star Wars: Lecacy of the Force – Betrayal – The story told of Boba Fett and Mandalore in this series is a good one and it also ties in with the Republic Commando series. Karen Traviss writes the books that have a lot of Boba Fett in them.

Star Wars: Lecacy of the Force – Invincible – The climax is intense and the very end points the direction that will be taking place in the next story arc which looks to be heading towards the dark future portrayed in the Star Wars: Legacy comics.

The Clone Wars – This is a novelization of the pilot movie for the tv series. I haven’t seen the movie or the series but I have read some of the comics and it seems to stay in line with that. It’s pretty clearly aimed at a younger audience which at time is annoying. The best parts are those involving clone troopers because Karen Traviss, author of the Republic Command novels and Mandalorian authority wrote this.

Shannarah

I fell behind on the Shannarah reading in the last couple of years so I decided it was time to catch up on that too which I think clears me until 2014 when the next trilogy is scheduled to be completed.

Running With the Demon – Set if our time, this takes place a couple thousand years before the first Shannarah books written. It’s a different feeling book than the other Shannarah books and it took a little longer to grab me. I liked the portrayal of demons working among the humans.

A Knight of the Word – Ten years after Running With the Demon and this story is both interesting and frustrating. Frustrating because you know all along what one of the characters is going to need to do but they don’t see it until the end.

Armageddon’s Children – About 80 years after A Knight of the Word is how this “Genesis of Shannarah” series starts. The world is collapsing and it looks like a lot of movies told you it would look. It better highlights the troubles of survival in these times though. I think this is probably the best book of this trilogy. Good cliff-hanger too!

The Elves of Cintra – This book gets everyone where they need to be for the finale and it’s a fun book. You also get to see what the elves have been up to living in our world all this time.

The Gypsy Morph – The opening of this book also tells you part of the end. That’s not a bad thing since I found myself looking forward to it. The on-going allusion to the story of exodus in the series is even stronger in this book and works well. The series as a whole tells the history I’ve been curious about since the few lines of reference to our time in the first Shannarah novel. How did we get from here to there?

Star Wars – Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn – This is the start of the story about how the Sith came to have the rule of two; master and apprentice. One Sith destroying the rest is well done and I look forward to the sequel that establishes the rule of two in Star Wars – Darth Bane: Rule of Two.

Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact – by Karen Traviss – Karen Traviss has defined more of the Mandalorian culture than any other author and now that is expanded to include the clone soldiers. She covers a lot of issues with cloning scattered throughout the story and gives humanity to the human clones. No longer so you look at them on screen and think of them as disposable droids. This was based off a video game and I think it has surpassed that game.

Star Wars Republic Commando: Triple Zero- by Karen Traviss – More growth of the clones from Hard Contact as well as introducing new characters that were only alluded to in Hard Contact. This story doesn’t go exactly where you expect it with awkward love interests for some of the clones and how that impacts the troopers in and out of the relationships. Their sergeant vowing to find a cure for their rapid aging to give them a chance at a normal life. Also seeing how one squad raised with fear and punishment act versus one raised to try and please their sergeant also provides an interesting take on nature vs nurture and what that gets you as an end result.

Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Ppoint in Western History by David Klinghoffer – Not necessarily continuing on the antisemitic themes from Why the Jews? this book covers at all the stages in Christian history the reasons why Jesus was rejected by the Jews and the methods employed on both sides to convert/resist. One of the most interesting parts was the look at early Christian history. The conclusion was the in the beginning the Jews couldn’t have rejected Jesus as a whole because almost none of the Jews at he time knew about him. This goes more in depth in places and fills in nicely in some places where Why the Jews? leaves off.

Finally some fiction!

Chosen by Chain Potok – This is a book about people from different backgrounds learning to appreciate one another even if they don’t fully understand one another. In this case, Orthodox Jews and Hassidim. In it there is a basic history of the Hassidic movement and after reading Why the Jews Rejected Jesus I can see why there was such a big split. Jesus basically taught that the rabbis should be ignored and people should judge how best to serve god by interpreting the Torah themselves. The founder of the Hassidic movement had a similar message except you would go to the Tzadik to interpret things for you. Anyway, to some degree I identify with the character of Danny since I sometimes felt I lived in the intellectual and “had no soul”. I feel like I’ve gone in and out of that over the years and I’ve always worked to help myself in that regard; mostly with success.

Shosha by Isaac Bashevis Singer – This book takes place in Poland just before WWII with everyone waiting for the impending invasion from Hitler. There is a lot going on in this book, liek the kind of goings on that a lit class could analyze for days, but at the same time the story is good. Arele married his past and when he had to flee Warsaw, his past died and he could not take it with him.

With God’s Politics – Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis I was hoping would clarify where religion falls in politics and it does that. It discusses how the right has been allowed to define religious issues to the very narrow scope of abortion and gay marriage while the left has tried to steer clear of any mention of god. The book then goes on to define many other things which are religious issues, like poverty and war, and advocates that the people who believe in that need to get involved and take back the religious discussions to turn it to those “liberal” issues. I agree that it needs to be turned away from what the right has defined as religious issues and I think some of that is happening in this current election cycle. I did have some trouble reading the book because it is so heavily focused on getting Christians involved in politics on the left side. It definitely wasn’t written with the non-Christian in mind and as a result it at times feels alienating and occasional references to Jews and Muslims don’t really help.

The Presidents: Every Leader from Washington to Bush edited by Michael Beschloss is a set of short biographies of every president we’ve so far had in this country. It even includes up to aroudn the 9-11 time frame on Bush so that one is more of a wait and see what he does and we know how that turned out. Reading history fro the perspective of the presidents is definitely different in some cases. Instead of covering what did happen it also can cover the issues and conflicts that president faced. I did find it interesting that even including recent elections the mudslinging of presidential elections hasn’t reached the heights it did in the 1800s.

Before reading Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick I can pretty safely say that all I knew about the pilgrims is that they came over on the Mayflower to avoid religious persecution and the indians helped them survive. In reality the history is full of peril and war and political intrigue! The compromises they had to make with their faith to survive, the changing relationship with the indians over the years, the relationship with other colonies established after Plymouth. Also in reading you start to get in impression of the start of the American character. Many thanks to Cathi for lending it to me for over a year before I got to it.

Another thing I noticed was that most presidents had some legal profession background before becoming president. Of the 42 presidents, 25 have had a background in law while 17 haven’t. Of those, 11 of the non-lawyerly background were in the 20th century. Certainly both groups have their ups and downs, but the ones with the law background tend to have a bigger impact during their presidency (for better or worse).

Presidents without a law background:

• George Washington – He was primarily a planter though he certainly knew how to run things.
• James Madison – Life-long politician
• William Henry Harrison – Soldier
• Zachary Taylor – Soldier and farmer
• Andrew Johnson – Tailor
• Ulysses S Grant – Soldier, farmer, real estate agent, leather store clerk
• James A Garfield – Schoolteacher, college professor, preacher, canal worker, soldier, president of Hiram College
• Theodore Roosevelt – Writer, historian
• Warren G Harding – Newspaper editor
• Herbert Hoover – Miner, engineer
• Harry S Truman – Timekeeper for railroad construction, bank clerk, farmer, haberdasher
• Dwight D Eisenhower – Soldier, president of Colombia University
•  John F Kennedy – Writer
• Lyndon B Johnson – Teacher
• Jimmy Carter – Farmer, businessman
• Ronald Reagan – Broadcaster, film actor
• George Bush – Founder of Zapata Oil and Zapata Off-shore Drilling
• George W Bush – Businessman

The authors wrote in things that are references to books they have not yet written. I don’t plan on reading those because I don’t think the time between “Dune” and “Dune: Messiah” is a story that needs to be told.

Spoilers coming – how I see what Frank Herbert intended:

I don’t think the final enemy is meant to be a machine intelligence. In “Children of Dune” when Paul and Leto confront one another about the future it is just mentioned that the nuclear arsenal is meant for hostile intelligences. I believe the final enemy is how it appears to be set up in “Chapterhouse: Dune” which is face dancers that rule themselves. Throughout “Sandworms of Dune” the machines hardly play a role while the face dancers have infiltrated every top level of human society and are preparing to take over through sabotage and politics within.

I do believe that Duncan was meant to be the Kwisatz Haderach and that’s why he can see the old man and woman, which should be advanced face dancers. I believe part of the God-Emperor’s ghola program for Duncan was that some connection to the face dancers be put in place. The advanced face dancers have a sort of hive mind and I believe that power is what eventually is manifested in Duncan in Frank Herbert’s original outline and notes to allow the defeat or control of the face dancers.

I just finished reading To Infinity and Beyond – A Cultural History of the Infinite by my favorite math historian, Eli Maor. You don’t need a strong math background to enjoy the book, but it probably helps. It covers the various struggles people have had over time with the infinite and how they approached it, starting with the greeks and moving up to current day (though astronomy of the last 20 years makes it look a little dated). I think it provides a good overview of infinity (hehe) and I’m sure there is something new for just about anyone who reads it.

Technology is made use of thousands of years before it is invented. They have ignored information from the last chapter of the 6th book. They have a character running around afraid something will get found out when two other characters know it already and the character afraid of discovery should know they know (again from the 6th book). These things and more can be overlooked to get the story out, and the story telling is entertaining, but seeing these inconsistencies jar me out of the reading. I find it irritating that they didn’t even have someone who recently read the original novels read their new novels to point out any inconsistencies so they could be fixed.

I’ll still read the finishing novel but then I’m done with any other Dune novels they might write. I hope they decide to release Frank Herbert’s outline and notes when they are done. I’d like to see what was intended.

Information wise it’s good. I didn’t know that radioactive sources were used in paper and steel mills to detect that the sheets are the correct thickness. And I didn’t know that we had used radioactive tagging to determine what plants absorb and in what quantities to determine the optimal fertilizer. Some of it is out dated because I don’t think we put small radioactive quantities into gas and oil pipelines to trigger a switch to redirect slow down the line. Seems like that would be some computer control now. It briefly goes over problems and dangers, usually followed by how quickly and effectively they can be cleaned up.

Now after having read it, I can say that for many it is what they look to achieve. They view sex or the illusion of sex as their road to power and popularity. There is a lot of information in the 200 pages but some of what the book covers is the origins of today’s state in the early feminist movement with the split between open sexuality and anti-pornography, the effect on school-aged girls, and the commodity that raunch has become. I recommend it.

The issue of continuity in people is brought up throughout the Dune novels:

• The bene gesserit reverend mothers have access to the memories all the back along their maternal lines.
• In the first three novels, the rich houses can afford spice addiction which extends life 2-3 times its normal length. Which gives those ruled a political continuity.
• The fremen have a set of practucal rules for survival that gives them continuity over the generations in addition to working towards their common goal of Arrakis no longer being a desert planet.
• Leto II redefined what longevity really was with his rule of 3500 years.
• Gholas grown by the Tleilaxu being able to have their original memories restored kept the same bene tleilax leaders in charge for about 5000 years.
• The most recent Duncan Idaho ghola, being grown from all the cells from his previous gholas, is able to remember all the lives he lived across the 5000 years
• And the Jews have maintained their religious continuity largely unchanged since the time on Earth which according to the timeline is about 26,000 years.

The Jews are interesting because they provide the example of why it is necessary to re-evaluate the past in the context of the present so you don’t get stuck in patterns for the sake of maintaining the patterns. All the other groups have that forced upon them or they go extinct. The Jews have hidden themselves so well that their neighbors wouldn’t even know what they are.

The end is as I remembered it, with a big cliff hanger just waiting for the next book, only this time I have that next book.

Leto forsaw a famine and then the scattering of people far and wide. It is the scattering that would preserve humans, but now those people are starting to come back to the old empire. One group in particular from there are the Honored Matres. They seem bent on taking over the old empire worlds and gaining control of the spice. They have their own stimulant drug though it’s no spice.

There is a girl who can control the sand worms. After the worm carried a group to a hidden message for the Bene Gesserit I started thinking about the pearl of consciousness orf Leto that was supposed to be locked in each worm. He seems to still be running things, could the worms as a distributed intelligence still be holding everyone on the path Leto saw long ago? Well yes, that got confirmed later. The more the worms get destroyed, the more the path of humans is free from anyone’s control.

The Atriedes bloodline is still playing a big role in the universe. Their ability to not be seen by the prescient is in large demand, and the prescient abilities of the Atriedes are still right beneath the surface. The awakening in one of them is what shows them what needs to be done to attain freedom for the future.

Still no idea why Duncan Idaho is brought back over and over. This one has been grought back with upgraded reflexes though. He’s fast even for that time, but not as fast as Teg becomes.

The Fish Speakers (Leto’s all woman police force) are all Atreides descendents. It’s not explicitly stated, just that they are faster and stronger than people used to be. Well the only other people that way are those on the core Atreides breeding line. It’s confirmed int eh first chapter of Heretics of Dune though when the Bene Gesserit say that the remaining Fish Speakers don’t have exclusivity on those genes.

You find that Leto, true to his word has become a 3500 year old sandworm and ruling the universe to keep people constrained. The point? To bring about a restlessness in people so they will expand far beyond the boundaries they have reached until that point. Also to make them think twice about what government they will let be in place in the future.

It’s interesting that Leto can see pretty much anything in the future but because he he he cherishes anything that surprises him. Part of that is that he refuses to see how he will die, though he does seem to know when it will happen.

The results of the breeding program poses interesting possibilities for the future books. I’m thinking that Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson didn’t read this too closely before writing their Butlerian JJihad series. One small part in this book contradicts what they wrote in there about the origins of the guild ships and that, along with the end of this book makes be have a dread of the conclusion to the series that they are writing. Maybe I can read it and just remember the basic story elements that are from Frank Herbert’s notes.

As for the author, I haven’t read Karen Traviss’ Republic Commando books but I’m looking forwward to them now. The story started a little slow but when it got moving you had to hold on with both hands. She has a special interest in writing about the Mandaloreans like Boba Fett and I think she handles those parts the best. The other parts aren’t far behind though.

I was going to go into spoilers, but I’m probably the only person I know who knows what’s going on in the stories by now.

More Dune ramblings to skip.

Paul’s children are coming to an age where they can move and act on their own even though mentally they were born as an adult. They have all the memories of everyone who contributed to them genetically which leads to a danger of possession which is happening to Alia, Paul’s sister. She’s not holding up well under the stress of running the empire and solidifying her power. Being children of Paul they have all the memories of Paul including Paul’s future memories from his watching the threads of the future.

Paul and Leto’s eventual meeting is interesting. You learn that Paul saw the path that Leto took and chose against it for what he would have to become and how long he would have to live. Paul grew up with a different moral code than his son. Paul made all of his choices with the hope that the slaughter in his name could be avoided. Paul saw in his empire that the killing would not stop so he left. His sister perpetuated the killings and corrupted his teachings as a tool for her power. Leto sees the slaughter as essential to get to the peace on the other side.

I liked one of the chapter heading talking about man being unique among the animals because you don’t have to do what your progenitors did.

Pre-born consciousness, where your ancestor’s memories live within you, tends to lead to possession. Leto’s sister, Ghanima, has a harder time getting control back from the others and it’s mentioned that women do in general. Up until Leto, it was only women who it happened to because it was a BeneGesserit thing. Thinking back to our pop culture and old tales, I couldn’t think of any male possession stories.

Leto has taken over the Bene Gesserit breeding program but I’m not sure what he wants to make.

There is one commandment that is repeated throughout from the Orange Catholic Bible. “Thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.” Another which is considered the one main commandment from the OC Bible is “Thou shalt do nothing which disfigures thy soul.” I think that is a good goal.

There was a part that talked about atomics not being allowed to be used on people. Every great house has them but they aren’t used. Paul uses one on a rock wall in Dune to let the forces through against the emperor’s forces. No great house would dare use them against another great house because the rest of the houses would band together and annihilate the offender. Of what use are they then? It’s stated that they are there in case humans encounter a hostile intelligence. I think this little one line thing is a reference to what will be coming in the final Dune novels.

Paul knows the end is coming but it isn’t until he loses his eyes that he really branches out into the prescience and can see what is coming. It was interesting that everyone was ok with his seeing the future, but using his power to see creeped everyone out.

It took me awhile to get why the fremen jihadists call themselves the Children of the Moon. Muad’Dib, the desert mouse is also represented by a pattern on the first moon, making Paul the moon.

A huge vortex in the future leaves Paul and his sister blind to the future, but Paul’s son is born and has full knowledge. I think rather than uncertainties causing the vortex as in the past, it is Paul’s son. It’s discussed elsewhere that the prescient can’t see one another, there is a time vortex around them. That also goes with the notion that the prescient can not only watch, but influence the future. Alia does it in Dune when she leaves a message for Paul in the future. Paul does it to some extent in Dune Messiah when he grabs the streams and holds them so no one else can change them. Also in Dune, Paul mentions he is a seed for what is to come and that he is not really the Kwisatz Haderach. His son, at birth, has all of the memories of his paternal line, which Paul didn’t have access to and I believe created such a large vortex that it overwhelms Paul and Alia.

Completing my re-read last week I still feel this is one of the most amazing books I have read. It builds a time and place so completely in politics, economics, ecology, and sociology. I can’t even imagine how much time writing all the notes and backgrounds and histories must have taken before even writing this book, and it is now clear to me that writing that history is how it was done, with the appendices being just a few of these tidbits. I also appreciated the references to events that would happen in future books, like when Paul was telling Jessica that he was only a seed for what was to come and that she (and the Bene Gesserit) wouldn’t understand it until she witnessed it. That’s a pretty clear reference to God Emperor of Dune and the form Paul’s son has taken. I used to think the other books were tacked on to capitalize upon Dune, and perhaps they were, but they were also done with a plan in mind for a good portion of it.

Some interesting parts that I didn’t remember from the first read had to do with the spice bringing about prescient workings of the mind in anyone who takes it, but only a mind trained to handle it or naturally capable of it can make use of that information. The average person’s mind rejects what it cannot understand.

The fremen over time, through the spice and breeding have become more sensitive to the effects. They have a subconscious communication going on with one another which you see when Lady Jessica thinks about a cup of spice coffee and a minute later it appears.

There is a set-up for Count Fenring being prescient or having the latent ability, being one of the discarded lines leading to the Kwisatz Haderach. Paul cannot sense him anywhere he can sense a time line even though he can see those around him. In Dune Messiah it is further explained that those of prescient ability cannot see one another. Their viewing of time and space causes a warping as well that blocks others from seeing them. They can see where one has been and one might be, but not the one itself.

I forgot that Paul’s goal was to avoid Jihad. He puts off choices as long as he can to avoid an outcome that is almost certain, while still trying to gain revenge on the Harkonnens. However, it is this revenge that leads to the jihad that he wishes to avoid by having to train the fremen to his needs and making them feel powerful and showing them a way.

It’s stated early in the book that the Bene Gesserit continuum over the generations is one of politics. I didn’t really understand that as a kid but now it makes perfect sense. They are in all the highest levels of politics through out the imperium and they guide things the way they want them to go when they can.

First up is Fledgling by Octavia Butler. I like stories that give a real world like base for something that stories generally treat as supernatural. It’s not that I dislike supernatural stories, but once something is in that realm, more and more powers tend to get heaped upon them which makes them kind of boring. As usual with Octavia Butler, the characters are compelling and the book is left open for a sequel without requiring one. Unfortunately, this is the last book from her unless she was near completion at the time of her recent death. I’m going to miss her work.

Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner is an economics book, but not with graphs and theories, with situations you wouldn’t normally think could be analyzed. It’s fun to read and it might change how you look at some things.

The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt is focused around a take-off of the Pergolessi Cafe in Santa Cruz and will visit or pass a lot of other places you know in the area all the while leading up to… I think the first chapter was a little awkward but after that, the more you read the more you want to read. I look forward to seeing what Tim Pratt writes next.

After that I read “Outbound Flight” which takes place between “Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones.” Some Jedi want to send a colony ship to the unknown regions of the galaxy and to the next galaxy to preserve the Jedi since some sense dark times coming. Senator Palpatine sees it as a way to eliminate a chunk of Jedi all at once. This covers the back story for Outbound Flight that was laid out in previous books that involved Grand Admiral Thrawn and in turn gives Thrawn’s back story. There probably going to be another book to explain how Thrawn ends up serving the empire though.

I was reading “Fledgling” by the recently deceased Octavia Butler, but when I got to page 129 it didn’t make any sense. That’s because page 129 was really page 161 and the book was missing 32 pages. I took it back to Borders to exchange it and the other copy they had was missing the same 32 pages. So they are ordering me a copy that will be there next week and hopefully that will have all the pages.

Joiner King takes place about 35 years after “A New Hope” and we get to learn all about an insect race outside of republic territory that has been joined by some Jedi thought to be lost. Just what you want, a Force-weilding hive member who can draw on the force potential of everything in the hive. Anyway, this had some good alien race writing that actually made them seem pretty alien and it’s making me look forward to the other two books in the trilogy out later this year.

I remember it being a short book, but it’s really short. Not much happens in it and yet it should make a nice 90 minute movie. There’s nothing to get complicated or difficult that would need to be changed story-wise. In a number of cases he goes into great detail in the book about how the computer graphics should look and if those directions aren’t followed I’ll be pretty disappointed. There isn’t much dialog so you have to throw more of that in there but that should translate fairly well from thoughts they are thinking.

How does it hold up as a book? It’s kind of shallow but it’s still entertaining enough. While I didn’t know the Christian connection the last time I read them, I can see it now, but I hardly think it’s the main focus and I don’t think that interferes. I’m going to continue with the others and see what I think of them.

This is such an enterrtaining book! His story is funny and entertaining and sometimes painful, as you would expect when running long distances. You get to read about the highs and the lows and you get a tiny feel for what your body will be doing under that much stress.

The other things that’s unique to this novelization is that none of the action scenes are the same as in the movie. It’s like he was given a script and some story boards for ideas about what the action would be but then over time the action went to its final form and you can’t change a book as easily.

The author, Matthew Stover what chosen because of his other Star Wars books and his handling of the light/dark conflict among Force users. That continues here and I recommend his other Star Wars books as well.

The basic premise is that there is a theory in physics that explains everything as being an interaction of wave fronts that creat the hologram that we see as reality. There is another holographic theory of mind that is in psychology where a part contains the information of the whole as well, as evidenced by removing part of the brain not destroying the knowledge of how to do something. Memories and other brain functions are not all local to specific portions of the brain.

Now take those and draw links between them and use that to try and explain psychic phenomenon. I’m not saying this isn’t the way things really are or not because there certainly are things out there that aren’t explained by current theories and things that people don’t want to try to address because they are too far out there. I’m glad people are working to try and explain these things even if they are considered the outside fringe of science.

The problem with this book is the support for many claims are anecdotal tales from the author or his friends. The other weakness in the support is in jumping to conclusions. After spending considerable time explaining how people have been shown to be able to manipulate physical phenomenon like which holes balls will fall in statistically vs no concentration, he uses a completely different explanation for how the contents of a tape got changed when experimental subjects were supposed to focus on changing it. The explanation? They changed the past! It’s going to be a lot easier to change a tape than to change a computer generated tape made some time in the past.

The other example was in his explanation that subjects predicted the future by guessing what picture would be shown the next day. This was after a lengthy description on how mind reading and telepathic communication can be explained by this theory. It’s more likely that the subjects were influencing the choices of picture made by the researcher.

If the author had stuck to a the few areas where his points do seem to hold up instead of trying to stretch it to fit any reported oddness that happens his case and book would have been much stronger.

I’d say to avoid this book.

I had no idea such interesting devices were created, like a flute playing statue that really did the playing!