Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play by Morgan Ramsay

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

On the negative side, I didn’t realize beforehand this was written by a venture capitalist guy from the point of view of running companies. That made it less fun than if it’d been about the amazing and revolutionary games these companies made. However, it still ended up being pretty interesting in two main ways for me. First, seeing how much money was needed to start up changed through the decades. Second, seeing that there is no one right way to run a company. Some were family-friendly and others were time-sucks. But all of them made innovative games and were successful. One other takeaway is that some companies lasted a long time and others were closer to one-hit wonders before they either closed or were bought.

Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach To Successful Growth And Innovation by Aaron J. Shenhar

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve been involved in projects from all levels: developer, Project Manager, Manager of PM, and customer of project (technically this is everyone everywhere, but I’m talking about at work). This book has really changed the way I view Project Management. On the next project I start (or inherit), I want to make sure I try out the diamond principles mentioned here. Even if they aren’t a panacea, they appear to change the way everyone involved thinks about the project. Often perspective changes like this can have huge knock-on effects in large companies. Results that previously seemed random now make sense when viewed in this framework.

Gamers by Thomas K. Carpenter

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For some reason, I’ve found myself reading a lot of YA fiction over the last couple years. On the negative side, it appears that Dystopias are the genre du jour. Nothing wrong with them, and I think something about them speaks to teens. When I was a teen, that was my favorite genre - 1984, A Brave New World, and many others. But I think there can definitely end up being a bit of fatigue from reading books where the conflict is with the evil government rather than internal or with other peers.

Irregular Creatures by Chuck Wendig

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was my first Chuck Wendig book. If I’m thinking of the right author, all I knew about him before going into this is that he apparently likes to use a lot of profanity in his books. This one had more than most, but not an obscene amount.

If I had to describe this book in just one sentence it’d be: Irregular Creatures is like a bunch of Twilight Zone episodes if Twilight Zone was rated R. That said, most of the stories were probably closer to PG-13. I’d watch a one-season HBO TV adaptation of this book.

Just a little under five years ago, I started looking at the possibility of Ebooks again. Two months later I bought a Barnes and Noble Nook. For a long time I was very casual with my Ebook reading. I had the Cory Doctorow books and several months worth of free Nook books which more than made up for the cost of the hardware. Really, the best part of fully digital distribution of books (and games) is revolutionary in the way it can allow the purchase of giveaway of media which would be cost-prohibitive if the company had to pay for the physical object or shipping fees. I installed Calibre for the free EPUBs, but it didn’t touch my Barnes and Noble purchases.

Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James K. Morrow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

That is definitely not what I thought it was going to be. I was sure that somehow this actor would be transformed into a monster.

What we got instead was a short, witty, and fun book that posited an alternate World War 2 strategy to win the war - (view spoiler)[ create Godzilla (hide spoiler)]. The book’s main character is great, especially when trading verbal barbs with an anti-semetic FBI agent.

Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In my Homeland review, I mentioned that many of Doctorow’s novels post-Eastern Standard Tribe are depressing reads; especially Little Brother, Homeland, and For the Win. Since he’s trying to spur people to action by making them realize how the world works, they can be pretty dark. Thankfully, while Pirate Cinema did have some moments of depression, there was some hope. While Homeland describes the world as it is - the dirty tactics used to arrest protestors and keep us from expressing ourselves as outlined in our constitution/Bill of Rights - Pirate Cinema describes the world as it could be. So it’s possible that, with some work, we can prevent Trent’s world from coming about.

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don’t know what’s different this time. Maybe it’s me; maybe it’s Sir Pratchett. This book just never seemed to have a climax. Had the journey not been sufficiently fun I might have scored it 2 stars.

This book reminds me of what was to be Five Iron Frenzy’s last album. The ska band had its fair share of joke songs - at least one per album. For its final album it had one song that tied together all the joke songs and references from the past decade. Similarly, this book seems to have a cameo or mention of everyone you’ve ever seen in the Discworld. Anyone who is in Ankh-Morpork makes an appearance. From the newspaper guys to CMOT Dibbler to the Wizards. The main plot even references Small Gods. I would have to say that this is the first Disworld book that cannot be enjoyed if you haven’t read most of the old ones.

I know there are a lot of weird things in legal documents that aren’t actually enforceable. It’s one of the reasons every contract has a part that says invalidation of one part of this contract doesn’t invalidate the whole contract. But this one makes 0 sense to me for eBooks:

“You may not:copy or burn the book or extract to a device whose principal function is to act as a storage device, for example, a CD/DVD or USB stick;”

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So, we have book one: satire of reality TV, book two: propaganda, and now book three: the reality of revolution and civil war. This trilogy is a perfect example of how YA and children’s literature is often subversive - this is why there are so many book burnings and book censorships.

The first book is an entertaining satire of the 2000s-2010s told through a futuristic hellscape. But taken together the trilogy is somewhat of a primer for the YA reader to begin to question ideas of propaganda - is everything I see on TV real even if it’s the news? It also is a good introduction to a very hard idea - often both sides of a revolution contain despicable people. To tie it back with the first point, there are no guarantees that the freedom fighters will treat people any better than the “evil” government.