Books

I haven't been reading as much lately, too much of my time was getting sucked up by the insatiable internet vortex. I have read a couple of books and started a couple more. One that I really enjoyed was:

"To Serve Them All My Days" by R.F. Delderfield. This was a great a book from the git-go. Something about the tone or style felt very comfortable right from the beginning. Lots of insight into human nature, lots of good characters. Also a smattering of views of the first World War. There was so much good stuff in it that I started making notes intending to write something longer about it, but that hasn't happened.


"What Is The What" by Dave Eggers. I started this one about a month ago and I am about a third of the way through it. It starts off with a robbery, and then veers off into reminicing, and then comes back to the robbery in progress. After about 50 pages I was getting tired of this. "Come on, dude" I'm thinking, let's get this robbery over with so we can get on with the story. But then I talk to my daughter who has already read it and she tells me that is the way it is for the whole book, so I resign myself to having to cope with these two story lines. The story is pretty engaging, but the subject matter is very unpleasant. First there is the story of survival in Southern Sudan. Then there are the robbers in the U.S., and now we are into the craven behavior of some of the refugees when they come to the states. All in all a pretty sad bunch of people.

I was walking by the bookstore in downtown Hillsboro the other day and they had a bargain bin of books out front. I stopped to look and found three Science Fiction authors I recognized:

• Fred Saberhagen, of Berserker fame
• Robert Silverberg, and
• Gordon R. Dickson, author of numerous stories about Dorsai soldiers.

I read "Octagon" by Fred Saberhagen yesterday. Not a great story, but easy enough to get through. About a computer intelligence playing a game and becoming a physical menace to other players. It's set back in the early 80's and it's interesting to see what is considered high-tech back then. Amazingly prophetic on some issues. Similar story line to the recent movie "Eagle Eye" which was a terrible movie, though John and I disagree on whether it is worse than "Jumper" or not.


"Valley Beyond Time" by Robert Silverberg is a collection of four stories. I read the first one, which has the same title as the book. Not a bad story, but not much to it.


I started "Soldier, Ask Not" by Gordon R. Dickson. So far I have found some good bits and some tedious bits.

Update: I finished "Valley Beyond Time". I am not sure but I think all four stories ended with the protagonist killing people. Solved his problems, but since the stories are all hypothetical, it's okay.

I gave up on "Soldier, Ask Not". Supposedly the last third of the book was a prize winning novella, and the first two thirds were grafted on to make a full length story. I kept hoping it would get better, but the protagonist is making too many mistakes, and he is too angry and I just got tired of it.

Update July 2019 replaced missing image.