Paul's journal

The book got off to a slow start but it was a good story. A very scary time seen through the eyes of a child. Some of that was cute (the Fury, Out With) but it did start to grate after a while. The ending was very scary and sad and actually left me a bit shaken. Of course I knew a book about the holocaust wouldn't be a happy ever after but still I wasn't quite prepared. I don't know how kids reading this would handle it. I don't think I knew about the Holocaust until our VCE books (Ellie, Night) or if I did I didn't realise it really meant.

After a shaky start, Greg Cox's trilogy about Kahn has been really good. While the second book which focused on the Eugenic Wars was the best, this latest one was an interesting but somewhat depressing book. Kahn's followers are abandoned unknowingly on a doomed planet and it's soon a fight to survive. It's disaster after disaster but it's still an interesting tale, more so than I thought it would be. The true climax to this story is The Wrath of Khan and I don't have a copy of that handy but wouldn't mind seeing it again now. Overall the book works well for one which doesn't have many established characters nor the Star Trek technology.

Or by it's full title The Search (How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture). An interesting overview of the search industry over the past few years. Some stuff I remember and some feels like once known knowledge (like ARCHIE). I like that the final goals will be Star Trek like search, that will be cool. I wish I could remember when I found Google. I do remember the Altavista breakthrough, and then I used ANZwers a lot. When did I realise that Google was the search to use?

Minimum of Two by Tim Winton
Rainbow Road by Alex Sanchez
Star Trek Captain's Glory by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Kahn Noonien Singh by Greg Cox
A Young Man's Passage by Julian Cleary
The Search by John Battelle
Cell by Stephen King
Rainbow High by Alex Sanchez
Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez
Christ the Lord by Anne Rice
The Turning by Tim Winton
Memory Prime by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969 by William Mann
Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart
Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

Aborted
Molvania
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers

I spent the morning reading through to the end of this book. This is the quickest I've finished a book in ages, but it was a gripping narrative that made me want to keep reading. I didn't like the telepathy angle, it made it seem a bit more like The Stand and there were other superficial comparisons as well. For sure though this was the first book about zombies I've ever read and it was pretty good. I even had a jump moment, from a book! The ending wasn't exactly how I thought it would go which was nice too.

I'm racing through Cell because it's really good. I'm loving it. The short chapters make me more keen to keep reading, as I still like to stop at chapter breaks, and the story is pretty intriguing. Scary? Hmm, not really, but somewhat thrilling and engrossing. I read it on the train last night, in bed last night, on the train this morning, at lunch and on the way home. I'm thinking I should have bought it last week after all.

I've put down Julian Clary's book tonight as it approaches talk of the 80s AIDS crisis. It's something I find hard to read about, it's really scary even twenty years later. There wasn't much on tv, and I'd done my internet and playstation time for the day so I read a couple of chapters of the book. It is quite interesting, and I'm a little suprised to find that he didn't come out to a later age.

This was a really interesting take on the life of Jesus. The voice was an authentic young person. This wasn't a story of a young god, it was the story of a young boy with potential he's not even aware of. The insight into the Jewish world of the time seemed very authentic. And the events of his birth were treated with the mix of miraculous and realistic. The gossip in Nazareth, the length of time in the stable, the clothing of the shepards. I think this would be more interesting to those raised with christian beliefs, even if they have waned, as it's the most overlooked part of the story.

I'm a little annoyed that the message of the book is come out, come out, come out. Maybe I'm just a bit sensitive about that at the moment. Otherwise it was a good read. Maybe a bit of fantasy (Kyle getting the man of his dreams) but it was countered with some realism too (violent bullying, unsafe sex dramas). I tried to I'm keen to read the follow up books.

After I watched the second 50 to 1 show last night I was ready for bed, but since that wasn't going to happen that early, I tackled a bit more of the Samurai Sudoku puzzle from this week's Age. I got three of the puzzles out and could easily have finished it off last night but saved some for the train today. I then finally picked LoveSmart up again. Looking at the docket I find I bought this a few weeks before I met Mark, and obviously when I did meet Mark I put this down thinking I didn't need it again. I've been meaning to go back to it and now's probably a good time. I'm trying to work out exactly what I want in a man and reading this is going to help me be more constructive. I read quite a bit of it before I went to sleep, lots to ponder about the mistakes I've made.

Have started a new book, Tim Winton's The Turning. Short stories so an easy read so far, but I liked the first story and the second one's alright too so far.

Took me ages to get around to reading this, but once I actually got into it I found I liked it. A little short though, and more episodic than some of their later works but good still. They are fannish writers, so guest star crew reappear and other fannish stuff gets in, like McCoy grumbling about how long it will take for him to be an admiral so he can get shuttles rather than using the transporter (as the same time the TNG pilot is showing this happening). The showdown in Transition was a bit quicker than I expected from the build up, but it's interesting to read a take on cyberspace long before the Internet and the Matrix.

An ok story but a bit depressing. Too much of the book was straight storytelling, this happened then this happened then this happened, which made the word seem more artificial. Not sure if this was a style choice, something meant to emulate the black and white silent comedies that were a key part of the plot. Then there was a whole chapter devoted to a review of those films, an extract from the book the fictional narrator and main character had read. The lack of quotation marks on dialogue, making it blur into the text might have been done for the same reason. As the story went on I was expecting a twist, some sort of cruel twist, life imitating the art.