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Acts Of The Apostles
Rob noticed this guy at April's Geek Pride Festival in Boston. The guy in question was obviously trying to reach Rob and talk to him, but was having a hard time getting there. (CT:I think John and I suffer from the same problem: We're both pretty shy, and this was a really crowded place) When he did finally reach Rob, he gave him the book, asking him to read it -- or pass it on to me for reading.
That's very similar to the opening of the book, in which the book's protagonist has a computer disk dumped into his world, after enduring some interesting testing times. From there, the thriller develops ranging the world, encompassing favorites like nanotechnology gone bad, mind control, multinational corporate intrigue, computer chip design, seances, and running from the law.
The book is purportedly about Gulf War Syndrome and its causes, but that's only the starting point: The plot itself is believable, for a thriller. I've described it to friends as "What Tom Clancy would write if he were smart." The plot devices, the characters and topics are all very familiar to the geek audience, and it's quite refreshing to read a book that understands the mindset its audience will have.
There a few drawbacks to the book -- as the author's bio states, this is Sundman's first book, and that is readily apparent. While it's well written, there are sections of the book that feel stilted and artificial, and portions of the dialogue feel unnatural. But in light of it being a first novel, I think these are forgivable. Lastly, the story line suffers from some too-familar devices, including the overused theme of an evil multinational corporation as bogeyman.
I salute the publisher and author for their decision to put the first 13 chapters online. Acts of the Apostles comprises 7 "books" with 62 total chapters, so the online chapters give you a very good feeling for the book. I will also say that the writing and story get better as the plot unfolds, something worth keeping in mind while reading the initial section of the book. One of the more amusing parts of the book's Web site is the section regarding John's travels. I would imagine he's quite a guy.
Summary: Good book. It's easy to pick up after being away from for a while, but good enough that you'll want to read it straight through. Support small publishing and purchase this book from fatbrain. With summer coming up, and a bit more free time, this is a good book to keep around to read during kernel compiles.
You can also grab the book from Softpro.
Bwahahahahahahaha!
Got Rhinos?
The problem is how do you get an unbiased person to review it? Since the dominate religion in our cultur is based on it, it is hard to be unbiased. It was hard enough for me to take greek mythology, and nobody has belived it in a thousand years or so. (With some exception I suppose, but not a significant number)
We are clouded by out culture. When I read a new book by an unknown author I can expect the reviewers are honest. When the culture has knowlege of the book things are different. The Phantom Menance is a perfect example, those I know who have seen it tell me that it was a good movie, but because of our culture people expected too much of it. The orginial Star Wars really wasn't much better (Though they tend to agree it was better), but our perspectives are different, we went into Star Wars not expecting as much as we got, so we set the level higher.
I can give a simple review: a long book, that gets tough going. The book is orginized out of order, and no attempt was made to make it easy to tell which events came first. Mixed in with prophsies of doom against cultures that nobody remembers outside of this book are wonderful short stories.
Everyone should read the bible. As a christian I say that with the hope that you would convert (or grow stronger in faith), but even if you are an athiest. The bible has had a great impact on our culture, and you should know about it. I took Greek mythology in college for the same reason, it has an impact on our culture. Someone once said that 50% of all references in [western] litature comes from the bible, and 30% from greek [and roman] mythology. A significant part came from Shakesphere, but he based off of the eariler works himself. If you don't understand orginal you won't get the reference. Besides, it is fun to laugh at authors who don't understand that which they make reference to.
Now if there was just time to do all the reading I want to do as a geek.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
I was prodded with many, many needles before I was shipped off to the Gulf. I fortunately only spent about 2.5 weeks there, in Saudi Arabia. 3 days after I got there, Saddam threw in the towel.
About a month after I got back, I got mono. Then I got strep throat. Then the mono returned. Then I felt like crap with no energy for about 3 months. Then the mono came back.
I had a sore throat every day for 7 months. Does that sound normal to you? Previous to the vaccinations and so-called "flu shots" that the military requires you to "volunteer" for, I never got sick. I hadn't had a cold in almost 3 years. I lived in Southern California, so it sure wasn't the weather.
Now, several years later, I no longer get "flu shots." I no longer get anti-CBR (chemical-biological-radioactive) vaccines.
Oddly enough, I don't get sick much anymore.
Gulf War syndrome is a crime perpetrated by our own against our own.
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
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First sentence of the book:
:)
"Todd Griffith was going to debug Kali or die trying."
Heh, my first thought was of the time I spent so many years ago trying to get Descent working through Kali across a Compuserve connection...
at Bennington. He's a real nice guy, gave out a bunch of copies of his book, and used to work for SUN.
:)
As I understand it, it's self published, Rosalita Publishing is his creation and named after their dog. I kept on telling him to get it reviewed on slashdot, hopefully now he won't starve to death
when Push Comes to Shove
first, let me say that i've also read this book.
i notice that a lot of the comments here involve one of the issues that i had while reading the book: that, in a science fiction/conspiricy novel set in something very similar to the modern day, it's hard to keep separate where the real world setting is supposed to end and where the fictional parts begin. so in this case, while some parts are clearly slighly-modified fact (using the gulf war syndrome example, the fact that the syndrome was reported and its existence and cause questioned and/or denied), and others clearly fiction (the particulars about the cause of gulf war syndrome in the book), there is a third set (such as the assertion that there really is a coverup) which.... well, it's not clear whether they're supposed to be fact or fiction. in these cases, if the particular part is something you don't believe is true in the real world, you'll probably have a negative reaction, while, if the world were more (or entirely) fictional, you'd just accept it as something which happened the the book and go on.
i feel that i should mention this because there are some politics in the book (which you can probably guess from the kaczynski reference) which, while i certainly think are interesting, i don't really agree with overall. as such, i found myself hesitant to recommend the book to others, since i didn't want to advocate the 'message' that may or may not be present in the book.
anyway. that all having been said, it is a really good read, especially for anyone in the tech industry (and if you're in the boston-area tech industry, then doubly so). and it's published by a small publisher and has a good view of copyright and distribution (which are politics i do agree with). so, overall, with the previously mentioned reservations, i'd also recommend the book.
-allen
(too lazy to even create a slashdot account, much less log in)
Incidentally, that last throws the Fundies into a real snit. Which i think is good for them.
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-- Slashdot sucks.
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-- Slashdot sucks.
This author is creating a dangerous precedent which will threaten Intellectual Property!
If people can read books for free, all authors will starve!
And what's this "library" I keep hearing about?
</sarcasm>
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Don't ever run from the law. . . You'll only end up going to jail tired.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
A friend of mine had actually pointed me to the online chapters a few days ago.. and my copy is already on order.
In a way, I wish I kinda hadn't peeked yet, though, because the way he builds the story is terrific, and I am half-afraid of losing the pacing. Not to mention the HUGE delay (TWO DAYS!) in being able to read more.
My suggestion: If Hemos' review is good enough to get you interested in buying it, buy it blind, and then read it from beginning to end.
Check out Magic Firesheep!
>"What Tom Clancy would write if he were smart."
"if he were a geek" is better, Tom Clancy's smarter than most people I've ever read.
>a book that understands the mindset its audience will have.
How can a book understand the mindset it's audience will have? If I buy this book, it will be directed to me, but every book I buy my g/f eventually reads, this book may not appeal to her. So it didn't understand the mindset of it's entire audience. Of course I understand what was meant, it is nice to see books written for geeks, but the book may not have been written to do that.
BTW> I'm sure other books have been available where you can read the first few chapters online for free before, but has there ever been an option to download the rest of the book for a nominal fee?
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
I had to buy this book after I read the online chapters. I wasn't disapointed. As an avid reader of Tom Clancy and Dale Brown and other techno-thrillers, I totally recommend this book to any one with like taste. This guy must have talked to Bill Joy!
When I saw the title, I thought Hemos was reviewing the Bible or something. Made me look twice, anyway.
tcd004
Here are my Microsoft and AICN parodies, where are yours?
"What Tom Clancy would write if he were smart." Hey now! Clancy is one of my favorite authors, just because he goes with the military themes instead of computers doesn't make him less intelligent. The first few NetForce books were okay, but it's obvious that his partner wrote most of the rest.
In the Introduction the author quotes "Industrial Society and Its Future," better known as the Unabomber Manifesto, but credits the author as "Ted Kaczynsky"....
I believe it's spelled Kaczynski, at least that's the way the court documents read....
In The United States District Court
For The Eastern District of California
United States of America,
Plaintiff
v.
Theodore John Kaczynski
aka "FC"
Defendant.
But that's a small caveat, hopefully the publisher will catch that before it goes into the next printing.
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
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This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I found this book to be a very good read-- the manner in which it ties together Gulf War Syndrome, nanontechnology and software design is most amusing. I was particularly interested in his descriptions of hardware design and debugging.
I'm not sure if Sundman is writing from first hand experience, but it would seem to me that several of the comapanies mentined in the book are rather thinly veiled parodies of existant companies. Digital MicroSystems seems very similar to DEC, for instance.
Oh, and the title-- "Acts of the Apostles" has little of nothing to do with religion and everything to do with megalomania.
Yeah, supposedly, when Hunt for Red October came out, the CIA knocked on his door and said "who leaked you this information". He had actually figured out a lot of the capabilities of US subs from published sources (who's contracting with whom, what tests are done, published specs, etc.).
Pretty impressive.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
-cwk.
Whatever you do don't put "cdidisc" in for the discount code or whatever they call it that would be wrong because you don't work for http://www.cdicorp.com so don't do that it will get you free shipping and stuff but that would be wrong.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Is the author the guy who was sitting right inside the Castle doors at Geekpride?
If it's the same guy, he handed me the book, almost in a used car salesman kind of way, and pretty much watched me as I read the back.
Kind of strange, I felt bad handing the book back to him.
If I don't find it easier to read do I have to... I don't know, give it back?!
*Nick
Stands for Quality Paperback. Usually go for between $13-18 each. Larger than the standard paperback, still massmarket. Better binding, and usually better covers (usually not glossy). Better paper (not so pulp-y). Kinda silly compared to a $6 paperback, but it is a higher quality book, and usually you get more "literary" fiction (which I happen to be into).
Not having seen the book, I can't say if that's the deal, but given the price, that would be my guess. Hit the local bookstore and ask.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
I don't understand the fuss the reviewer makes about web-available sample chapters. Baen Books has been doing that for over a year now. In fact, Jim Baen has gone even farther with what he calls "Webscriptions." For $10/month, you can download full, copy-edited HTML copies of what he's publishing that month. That works out to $2.50 a novel, which is *CHEAP*. I've been stuffing the HTML into my Palm Vx and carrying them around to read.
Use the code 2000CELEBRATE and you will get 10% rebate. They are doing this to celebrate a new new piece of software they put together.
Help fight continental drift.
As an ex-Navy surgical technologist who served onboard a ship off the coast of Mogadishu, Somalia, about 5 years ago, I disagree with your statements.
Since that was in 1994, many of the men (there were two women pilots onboard, but otherwise it was exclusively male) were stationed in the Middle East for Desert Storm. Part of our daily routine was to operate a "lumps and bumps" clinic, where we operated on and removed various lipomas, sebacious cysts, etc. on sailors and Marines who wanted to be rid of them. While I don't have any official numbers, we typically did 2 or 3 of those per day. I would say, over the 6-month duration of the "cruise", that we performed roughly 150 benign mass excisions.
Now, think about the math on that one. There were approximately 2400 men onboard the ship, and we performed surgery on about 16% of them. That means that during that one particular 6-month period, 16% of the otherwise healthy men of an average age of, say, 22, had growths that bothered them to the point that they wanted them removed.
Look around your class/office/hangouts. How many of your 22-year-old friends have had surgery in the last 6 months? A full one-sixth of them? Personally, I feel that the numbers would be pretty statistically significant. I don't have any hard numbers to compare the number of surgeries on Desert Storm personnel versus those who weren't there, and can't compare that to the percentages in the general population of the ship, but don't you find that a little strange? I do.
Flame away, but as someone who spent a bit of time living and working with Gulf War veterans, I firmly believe that there's more to the story than the government is telling us.