Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second time I’ve read this book. This first time was something around 20 years ago and it was definitely a 5-star book to me at the time. I’d never read anything like it. Reading it in 2020 is very interseting. Some of the things have come true and other, like the Metaverse, seem to be on the cusp of actually happening.
Given the way 2020 is going, Stephenson’s neo-liberalistic view of the world with burbclaves (an idea he continues in The Diamond Age) seems realistic and every time I read about for-profit prisons I think back on this book. Yet, for a book “in the future” it’s just so interesting to see the anachronisms - lack of smart phones, in fact stating that very few folks have computers or internet access, the fact that hackers would necessarily be affected due to being able to understand binary. Not so much anymore - there are many hackers like myself who primarily use higher level languages. Even game designers, who used to be the last holdouts of C are using C++ and C# (in Unity) and even Python-like languages (in Godot).

Apex Magazine Promo Issue 2020 by Jason Sizemore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A mini issue to get folks ready for the relaunch of Apex Magazine. I truly enjoyed the stories in here and I can’t wait until the next real issue in January. Below is what I thought of each story:

The Legacy of Alexandria: a dystopia with elements of afro-futurism that seems every so prescient with the moment we’re in right now. The biggest bummer of the author now being an editor in Apex is that the magazine won’t be graced with this work for the foreseeable future.

The Brisket Chronicles: How to Barbecue, Braise, Smoke, and Cure the World’s Most Versatile Cut of Meat by Steven Raichlen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I first heard about this book, I was slightly skeptical. An entire book on brisket? Really? Isn’t it just (maybe) two ways? Dalmation rub and spicy rub. Maybe 4 ways if you count low and slow and Texas Crutch style. But no, Raichlen presents nearly every way to make brisket from around Planet BBQ; from Texas smoked to Jewish braises to sandwiches from all nationalities - it’s all here. The result is a book that takes you from the practical to the impractical (brisket chocolate chip cookies? really?) and gives a little history throughout to explain the history behind various dishes. I put lots of recipes on my list of dishes to try; I’m especially excited to try the German bierfleishe. He’s also got a bunch of recipes to use up leftover brisket including breakfast hashes, ramen, and salads.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this short story collection about Maester Aemon’s brother when he was a squire for Sir Duncan the Tall. I think, perhaps, because these short stories didn’t have to do the heavy lifting for the main narrative in A Song of Ice and Fire, they get to be lighter and more fun fare. At the same time, it does fill in a bit of backstory for Westeros and provide the ability for GRRM to give us examples of how history repeats itself.

Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I was a kickstarter on the campaign that provided an early copy of this novella a reward

This was a great book. It is also fascinating in the sense that, as I was reading it I kept thinking that you could about 80% read this book without having read the preceeding 3 books (and 1 novella) in The Stormlight Archive. You wouldn’t understand ANY of the implications of the final chapter or epilogue, but I think you probably could have enjoyed the story anyway.

Bait by Annie Nicholas

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’m not a huge romance person. This is my second romance, and coincidentally, also my second paranormal romance. But I’ve got acquired some romance books via giveaways, Humble Bundle, Story Bundle, and Amazon’s Kindle First giveaways. I am trying to read “all” my books rather than constantly spending money on the next new thing. So I ended up getting to Bait.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Reading this book was very interesting. I don’t know what edition I happened to pick here, but the edition I read was a Barnes and Noble giveaway from years ago when I first got my Nook. As such, it had a nice, long intro into Louisa May Alcott’s live, the story, and some modern interpretations of the story. As to Ms. Alcott’s story, I was already familiar with it from an episode of The History Chicks - it was bonkers and she knew most of the literary geniuses of the time as family friends. The book also had tons of footnotes to explain slang and other terms that have fallen out of disuse.

Thrilling Adventure Yarns by Robert Greenberger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I participated in the Kickstarter for this anthology because of meeting Crazy 8 author Mary Fan at Farpoint. I’m quite glad I did because nearly all of these knocked it out of the park! And those that didn’t were still good stories that I enjoyed reading.

I’ve been into pulp fiction ever since picking up the Big Pulp series at Baltimore Comic-Con nearly a decade ago. There’s something really fun that can come from allowing a story to go whereever it goes - even if that ends up being a prurient place. Additionally, the tropes behind these stories have been done to death - so in 2020 you know that authors are going to be playing with reader expectations to provide new kinds of twists. Or they will bring to the surface what was only coded before - like LGBT characters (for which you could actually go to jail for having in your stories back in the day).

Indian-ish: Recipes and Antics from a Modern American Family by Priya Krishna

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s not quite as Indian as I’d hoped, but that’s not what it claimed to be. It actually is exactly as promised: an American-Indian fusion collection of recipes consisting mostly of recipes from the author’s mother. I did write down a few recipes to try.

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Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This year one of my goals was to learn a new programming language. Ruby is supposed to be pretty easy for beginners so I figured it’d probably end up being a snap for someone like me who’s been programming for a while. The only book I happened to already own was this kids’ book that I had bought for my kids. They haven’t yet wanted to use it (although they’ve gotten into Scratch)k but it worked fine for me. Indeed it was, and I couldn’t help making comparisons between Ruby and Python the whole time. The two languages are incredibly similar. Ruby clearly seems to be inspired by Perl, but is still a lot more readable as almost plain English. (Although some of the shortcut refactorings can be pretty hard to get if you’re not a Ruby person)