Author Archives: Craig

Erasure Review

Erasure, Everett. Yes. I wish I had had a book club to read and discuss this one with, as I strongly suspect Everett was doing things I remained blissfully unaware of. Mechanically very strong, though I was deeply disappointed to see “y’all” rendered as “ya’ll”. There was also a weird OCRish typo: “stones” for “stories” and an instance of “Here, here” for “Hear, hear”. I wondered whether perhaps that last defect was a comment on the speaker; if so, it was too subtle for me.

Last Colony Review

The Last Colony, Scalzi. Yes. This is the third volume in Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War” series. After I had become accustomed to the primary mode of conflict in the first two books, I was a bit disappointed by the change-up at the beginning of this one. But damned if Scalzi didn’t find a way to suck me right back in again (and yes, he cheats a little, but only in a good way).
Little mechanical things continue to distract. The odd typo here and there is sadly expected these days, but opening a chapter with a sentence in which the word “plant” appears when the word “planet” is intended is egregious.

Old Man’s War and Ghost Brigades Review

Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades, Scalzi. Yes. Scalzi has some genuinely big ideas here, and has written stories that are nearly worthy of them. To be fair, it would take many, many volumes to explore even a fraction of the central idea, and Scalzi does eventually at least nod to some of the larger implications, so I don’t hold that against the works. I do hold against them their lack of mechanical and editorial perfection, but editing and mechanics are no worse than I have come to expect from Tor.

A Brief History of Every Worker Comp Claim Ever

Three workers are pulling cable through the ceiling.
Senior worker, to junior worker teetering atop a stepladder: Don’t stand on the ladder like that. Get your feet planted or get an 8-footer.
Junior worker shifts somewhat
Senior worker: That’s not planted. Just go down and get an 8-footer.
Junior worker starts down the ladder.
Other senior worker: Hey, don’t stop, I need more cable!
Junior worker resumes his teetering position.

The future is confusing

More a Twitter- than blog-worthy story, but I couldn’t get it down to 140, so here’s the long version.
I’m on the bus, on my way home, and a guy gets on. He’s mid-20s, tie, no jacket, and he starts asking the driver and many passengers if they know where business x is. The consensus seems to be that it’s on the route, and I think they even narrow it down to an intersection.
The guy keeps asking every new boarder, though, and occasionally one of them will say “oh, no, that’s down by [other stuff, quite far away].” My policy in these situations is to prevent the confused party from doing anything unrecoverably wrong but otherwise not get involved, so I Google business x on my phone, and find it is, indeed, at the intersection that had been suggested. Since the guy shows no sign of getting off, I figure he’s good to go. But he does not share my sanguinity, and continues his course of inquiry, mostly pestering the guy who gave him the best information. Finally, the informative passenger (I fancy with some impatience) says “Don’t you have [a popular model of smart phone]?” and the answer is at least somewhat in the affirmative, because Uncertain Guy pulls out a [probably more common but less sexy model of smart phone]. I think to myself “Finally, he can Google the address and relax.” But no. He uses his phone to call someone and ask for directions. And he still gets off the bus two stops (four blocks) early, despite the driver’s assurances that he’ll get closer.
Most of the reason I found this noteworthy at all was my shock and dismay that Uncertain Guy was using his phone as a phone. I was thinking something very like “You idiot, you have a perfectly good phone in your hand, and you’re using it to talk to someone?” And I’m still not convinced it was an entirely ridiculous thing to think.

I [heart] @DellCares

Some months ago, my laptop monitor developed a one-pixel-wide vertical line. It was intermittent for a little while, and I did a little web research to find out how to get to the connectors and reseat them. With the intermittent nature of the problem I was unable to tell if the reseating made any difference, and eventually the line was there to stay. A few months later, it was joined by another. The intermittent period with the second was much shorter. My web research indicated that some Dell laptops of mine’s model and vintage (Inspiron 6000, shipped August 2005) had defective screens, and that Dell was extending the warranty for those screens to three years and refunding money to those who had paid for repairs. This, of course, did me no good, my machine being more than a year out of even the extended warranty, so I thought no more of it.
Then, a few weeks ago, the lines started multiplying more rapidly, and I thought, why not at least drop them a line? So I found the @DellCares twitter account and gave them a brief description of the problem. The representative asked for my service tag, which I forwarded via direct message, and shortly got back to me with the information that there was a chance mine was one of the affected machines, and that though they hadn’t seen the problem surface after so long, they were going to swap out my display. They offered me the choice of performing the installation myself or having a tech install it (at no charge to me). Fancying myself somewhat handy, I opted to do it myself. They shipped a new (well, refurbished) display overnight, with a pre-paid label for me to return my old display, and I made the swap. And now my machine is as pretty as new.
So, my thanks to Dell. I wouldn’t have been surprised had they said “Sorry, too late,” and I honestly wouldn’t have held it against them. Instead, they went above and beyond, and that is how a company builds loyalty in its customers.

Blackout Review

Blackout, Willis. Yes. In the acknowledgments (I think it is), Willis mentions that this story grew from one book into two, and I think I saw quotes from her talking about how there was a lot of material that she had to discard. I mention this because I frequently got the notion while reading Blackout that it had been padded, like maybe the story grew to about a book and a half, and Willis’s editor encouraged her to round it up to two. I just don’t remember feeling quite so impatient with previous stories in this setting.
That said, it’s Willis, and therefore worth reading. It may be my least favorite of the Oxford time-travelling History department works thus far, and I certainly hope that All Clear makes me happier, but none of that changes the fact that Willis is an extremely strong writer.

Long for This World Review

Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality, Weiner. Non-fiction. Review is based on a publisher-provided pre-pub proof. This is a survey of the state of the science of life extension, with particular focus on the work of Aubrey de Gray, an optimistic (relatively) young man who believes that aging (more specifically, the problems that crop up as age advances) can be solved with a relatively simple, seven-pronged approach. It’s a pretty standard “science for the populace” work, in that there’s a lot of reprising of the various threads. As far as I can tell, Weiner does a creditable job of explaining what must be awfully complicated molecular biology, and I feel like I learned a lot that I will probably forget in another week or so. After the jump, various items that struck me one way or another while reading.
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