March 2007 Archives

It’s been over a year since I’ve written a book report! Here are the books I’ve read in the past year, and my thoughts on them…

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

This was a silly-fun romp through a future America where capitalism and high tech have been taken to the extreme. This was my first Neal Stephenson book, recommended to me by Brett (in fact I still have his copy of the book!) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Ender Quartet by Orson Scott Card
(Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind)

This was a series of four books, and they covered the full range from excellent to crappy. Ender’s Game was a fantastic book about a futuristic soldier training camp for young boys. I read it on my flight to Tokyo and I couldn’t stop reading it until I finished it. Speaker for the Dead was a decent sequel but it leaves off with a cliffhanger that doesn’t end until the end of the series. Xenocide was forgettable and Children of the Mind was such a terrible book that I had a hard time even finishing it. Read Ender’s Game, it’s great, just don’t continue on with the others.

State of Fear by Michael Crichton

Standard Michael Crichton fare, science vs. man thriller this time about global warming. The story was alright, but it didn’t seem very well planned out or something. And, there was quite a bit of “preaching” about how the threat of global warming is overblown. Not a terrible book, but I wouldn’t really recommend it.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

My second Neal Stephenson book and one of the best books I’ve ever read. The book is about cryptography during World War II, and follows a code breaker, a secret counter-espionage group, and the present day descendant of the code breaker. The book is chock-full of science, math, and adventure! The book would be perfect if it weren’t for those pesky Neal Stephenson endings…

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

This was a really weird book. I’m not going to even try to describe this one; see Defective Yeti for a nice summary. However, I’m not as enthusiastic about the book as he was… I was very intrigued at first, but the odd presentation of the book eventually got tiresome and I was glad when it came to an end. Not to suggest that I was satisfied with the ending, because I most certainly was not. If you are looking for an unusual reading experience, I’d say check it out. But if you are looking for a satisfying story, then skip it.

Camouflage by Joe Haldeman

This was a well crafted story about aliens among us. The story tracks two aliens disguised as humans throughout recent human history, as well as the discovery and investigation of a UFO-ish object in 2012. The storytelling was solid and tight and the author knocked out a nice story in less than 300 pages. I was impressed and very entertained. This was my 4th book by Joe Haldeman and it reminded me that I need to check out more of his writing.

Billy asked me yesterday why I only read sci-fi books… I said something about how sci-fi books often suggest a new idea or new way of thinking about things that really gets my brain going. Then today we were chatting about the difference between sci-fi and fantasy, and why I don’t like the latter. The reason I came up was that fantasy stories have magic which basically means anything can happen. Magic lowers the barriers to deus ex machina where as sci-fi generally has to stick to the laws of the universe.

Anyway, whatever the reason, I tend to enjoy sci-fi books more than standard fiction. I have also noticed that the real top-notch books tend to be either Hugo winners, Nebula winners, or both. So a while back I made a list of all the Hugo and Nebula award winning novels and I keep track of which ones I’ve read.

Well, today I combined the two lists into one list and put it up on my site. You can see the list here, the grayed out titles are the books I’ve read so far. I’m not going to make such a lofty goal as to read all of these, I’m sure there are a few in here that I wouldn’t even enjoy. However, when my current interests coincide with a title on the list, I’ll happily read it and mark it off.

Saturday was an idyllic day at the beach and it deserves to be immortalized on the internet. So, here goes…

Kara and I wanted to hang out at the Beach on Saturday, so we called up some friends that morning and arranged to meet them at Kamaole II Beach around 12:30 or so. Kara and I got there first and laid claim to a parcel of golden sand. Once Marc arrived, Kara, Marc, and I jumped in the ocean and played around a bit. The water was clearer than usual and the waves were pretty small, so we just waded around and splashed each other. After a while we headed back to shore to dry off and warm up in the sun.

Shortly after, Russell showed up and we (he and I) went back into the ocean to play frisbee in waist-deep water. We started purposely making bad throws so that we’d have to dive for it since the water landing was so soft. While Russell and I were out there, James and Maria showed up and joined us. I got Kara and Marc to come back out and we all played keep-away with the frisbee for quite some time. Every once in a while a set of big waves would roll in, at which point someone would yell “WAVE” and the game would stop while some of us would body surf the waves in to shore.

While we were playing the game, someone noticed that whales were breaching pretty close (maybe 200 yards?) from where we were. The game halted while we all stood there and watched the whales. We saw the most spectacular breach when a whale shot straight up WAY out of the water and then crashed back down into the ocean. It was the biggest, closest breach any of us had seen and we were all amazed. Russell and I started jumping out of the water and smashing down like the whales when I noticed something awesome. When my head was under the water, I could hear the whales singing loud and clear! I told everyone, and then we all dunked our heads under and listened to the squealing and clicking for a while.

After that we swam back in and sat on the beach just chatting and playing in the sand until we decided to leave. What a day!

There is a flock of chickens that live behind my work building. (In fact, I can hear a rooster crowing as I type this up.) The bike rack is also located behind the building, so every morning and evening I see the chickens hanging out and doing their chickenly duties. It’s kind of neat to see what they are up to every day. In the last couple of months I’ve seen two chicks grow up (they’re currently in that awkward teenage phase where their bodies are part adult/part chick and wholly disproportionate). It’s also interesting to see how… ‘chicken’ they really are. Anytime I walk back there, the chickens flee in all directions as if I’m running at them with a chainsaw covered in chicken blood.

Well, yesterday I walked back there, and I heard the standard nervous “bock bock bock” sound from the hens. As I walked toward my bike, the tree above me erupted in a “BaGOCK!” as a hen clumsily fluttered its way down out of the tree. I just stood there confused… What the heck was a chicken doing in the tree?!?!

Our three day weekend at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park easily goes down as one of the most memorable experiences in my life. It was incredible to see earth that was still alive! Almost everywhere you went in the park there was hot steam billowing out of the ground. And then there was the lava!

We stayed in the park at Volcano House which is a rustic cabin-like hotel perched on the cliff-edge of the Kilauea crater. It was cold and rainy when we got there on Saturday, so we decided to walk through the Thurston Lava Tube where we could stay mostly dry. The first part of the cave had lights and it was full of people, but halfway down there was a gate where the lights stopped. We had brought flashlights, so we went through the gate and explored the cave further. There was not one single person beyond the gate besides us so it was kind of scary/exciting. I mean here we were hiking down an unlit lava tube all by ourselves on an active volcano!

The next day we spent some time driving around the Kilauea Crater looking down into it from every direction. One really cool place we visited was the aptly named Steaming Bluff. I’d describe it, but I don’t need to because I took a couple videos of it! Slippers and Warmer Than Portland. We also walked to an area called Sulfur Banks where the steam came out of the ground tainted with stinky sulfur. The rocks near the steam holes were all white and yellow, and there were crystals that had formed from the sulfur steam.

But the highlight of the trip was definitely the lava! Our first evening at the park, we drove to the end of Chain of Craters road where the lava overran the road a few years back. Fortunately it wasn’t raining down by the coast, so we decided to hike out to the fresh lava. The hike was grueling; 3.5 miles each way over crumbly, uneven lava fields in the dark. The trip out was tiring but we didn’t notice it too much because we were excited about what we might see. The hike back was truly a painful joyless trudge, but it was SO worth it.

Worth it because we got within 10 feet of red hot lava! We were able to walk right up to it and watch it slowly flow across the rocks. The air was incredibly hot and full of sulfur so you couldn’t stay close for long. We’d move up to check it out, but then we’d have to retreat just so we could breathe. We also saw lava flowing straight into the ocean! Here is a video I took of the flowing lava… It was really windy, so the camera gets blown around a bunch, but you can still see how awesome it was! I was really amazed by how much lava we were able to see. I figured we’d see it way off in the distance, but we were able to walk right up to it. What an incredible experience!

We took a bunch of videos in Volcanoes Park that didn’t end up in my last post. And just like deleted scenes on a DVD, they were omitted with reason. Whether due to shaky camera, poor lighting, derivative dialog, etc these didn’t make it into the official Volcanoes! post, but there’s no reason to leave these clips on the cutting room floor, right? So, here’s the Volcanoes! Deleted Scenes, with director’s commentary even!

SteamVents – Kara warming up in the Steam Vents.

CraterRim – Two clips captured during our trip around the Crater Rim Drive.

SulfurBanks – This one was captured at the stinky Sulfur Banks. For a behind the scenes look of this video, see this picture!

Lava2 – This video was taken a few minutes after the lava video in the original post. This has less dripping lava because the molten rock had piled up in the ocean. This shows some waves hitting the lava which is pretty cool.

SlowLava1 – A 2+ minute video panning around the slow flowing lava. There are some decent close-ups of lava, but a lot of it is just black frame with orange spots.

SlowLava2 – This is three short clips put together, some more decent lava close-ups.

Monday was Prince Kuhio Day here in Hawaii, so this last weekend was a three day weekend for us!! We usually travel to another island over our three day weekends, but this time we decided to rough it on Maui.

On Saturday we met some friends at Ulua Beach for some snorkeling. We saw a turtle, two eels, and a bunch of fish and coral. Koala Moa chicken for lunch and then I had a nice long nap.

Sunday we drove out to West Maui because Kara wanted to play at the Nakalele Blowhole. On the way out, we stopped in Lahaina for lunch at Aloha Mixed Plate. This restaurant has REALLY good local food with outdoor seating right next to the ocean. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a drive from Kihei, so we don’t go very often. The last time we were there was in December when my family visited.

After lunch we drove out to the blowhole only to discover that it wasn’t blowing! It was super windy which chopped up the water, so I guess the waves just weren’t hitting right. So we got back in the Jeep and drove to Honolua Bay for more snorkeling! I finally got to show Kara the huge school of fish that I see every time I go. Seriously, this school of fish has been like my version of Snuffleupagus. But, NO MORE! Kara can confirm the existence of Snuffy… er… the school of fish.

After snorkeling, we headed back to Kihei to go home. But, as we got close, we decided to go to the beach instead. We chose Kam II and laid there in the sun until it set into the ocean.

Monday was ANOTHER beach day! Kam I this time, and though the day started out a bit cloudy, it cleared up by 2pm. We spent quite a bit of time just splashing about in the water, trying to stay cool from the scorching sun.

I definitely don’t regret staying home for the long weekend! Hands down, Maui has the best beaches of any island. If you want to see special stuff like lava, Waimea Canyon, or gridlock traffic you have to go to The Big Island, Kauai, or Oahu. But if you want to relax on beautiful beaches and play in the ocean, then Maui’s your island. And when you’re tired of beaches, there’s still plenty to see in West Maui and on the Road to Hana.

It’s official, Maui No Ka Oi!

Remember last month when I reviewed all the books I read last year? In that one year period I had read a total of 9 books… One month later and I already need to do another book report. I don’t know what got into me, but I’ve read EIGHT books in last month!! And so, without further ado…

The Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson

My third Stephenson book, and I guess it was my least favorite one. The idea of an AI program raising a child was an interesting premise, but I felt like it went on for too long… The side story of the Drummers was just weird and unwelcome and the ending was pretty damn unsatisfying. But the book won a Hugo award, so what do I know?

The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

This was the first Asimov book I’ve ever read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s really three related short stories that progress an interesting tale, but each story is superb (especially the middle story). I highly recommend this book!

Foundation Trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and the Empire, Second Foundation) by Isaac Asimov

This trilogy is really a collection of short stories presented in chronological order covering 400 or so years of galactic history. There are some very fun and interesting stories, but then there are some boring stories as well… I did enjoy reading this series but I wasn’t blown away by it as a whole.

The Best of Isaac Asimov by Isaac Asimov

This is a collection of short stories by Asimov, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the focus of these stories is more on the characters rather than the tech surrounding them.

Neuromancer by William Gibson

This was the one book I read this month that I didn’t like. The writing style was very abrupt so I was never able to fully visualize the scenes I was reading. The characters seemed flat and were not interesting or sympathetic. Even the story really bored me... I was glad when the story ended so I could get back to Asimov.

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

This 2006 Hugo winner had an intriguing setup that unfortunately wasn’t explored to my satisfaction. The opening creates a very interesting ‘what if’ situation that got me excited about where the book might go. But in the end, I felt like it focused too much on minor characters in the situation rather than focus on the situation itself.