Steve's Bookshelf 2014

[Timstar]

Good effort! I would have just hit it until it got cooler and quieter

[Athena]

Wow Steve! It's strange they didn't plug the case fans in , why else would you have them . I'm so glad you managed to get it sorted though .

[Signor Finzione]

Well, I'm glad you finally managed to get it sorted! Good thing you knew what you were doing . . . I probably would have done the exact same thing as Tim, or just turned the game off and sat there with a sad face.

[Karsa Orlong]

I managed to sort out the side panel of the case that I couldn't get back on properly last night, so now everything is as it should have been in the first place

 

I'd still recommend Quiet PC, though.  They've been very good to deal with and their website is excellent.  I suggested to them that they might want to maker whether or not to connect the case fans an option during the ordering process - I wonder if they will

 

Needless to say, my reading has suffered over the past couple of days.

[Little Pixie]

Oh dear, why have fans then, if they`re not needed ?

 

Glad you got it all fixed.

[Athena]

Needless to say, my reading has suffered over the past couple of days.

I hope your reading will pick up in a bit .

[Karsa Orlong]

Oh dear, why have fans then, if they`re not needed ?

 

My thoughts, too

 

I understand that their selling point is that they're 'quiet' PCs, but with the fans connected it's barely a fraction noisier at idle and actually quieter (and cooler) when gaming, cos the heat from the cpu and graphics card isn't sitting in the case.  I told their tech support guy about this yesterday and he replied with "So connecting the case fans has actually made the system quieter because the graphics card fans are working less?" - which is kind of worrying, cos you'd hope he'd know this!

[Little Pixie]

My thoughts, too

 

I understand that their selling point is that they're 'quiet' PCs, but with the fans connected it's barely a fraction noisier at idle and actually quieter (and cooler) when gaming, cos the heat from the cpu and graphics card isn't sitting in the case.  I told their tech support guy about this yesterday and he replied with "So connecting the case fans has actually made the system quieter because the graphics card fans are working less?" - which is kind of worrying, cos you'd hope he'd know this!

 

You`d also think they`d run some tests before letting the PC go to its new home. 

[Karsa Orlong]

You`d also think they`d run some tests before letting the PC go to its new home. 

 

Apparently they did!  I'd love to know exactly what the tests involved

[Karsa Orlong]

# 42

 

The Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle & Steven Barnes 

 

 

1987 - Sphere paperback - 400 pages

 

 

From Goodreads:

 

The colonists from Earth have spent a century in cold sleep to make the first journey, one way, to settle a planet in another solar system. Avalon seems perfect, a verdant, livable world still in its prehistoric age. The biologists and engineers who busy themselves planting and building scoff at the warnings of professional soldier Cadmann Weyland - until a large, unnaturally fast and cunning predator begins stalking the colony. 

 

 

Thoughts:

 

I first read this book about 25 years ago.  I remember it because it came out in the wake of Aliens and, as a huge fan of that movie, the somewhat similar plot described in the book's blurb appealed to me immensely.  I think I must've read a review of it in Starburst that put me onto it, but I bought it, lapped it up, and then sometime in the intervening years I must've given it away because, after talking about it on another forum recently, I got the urge to re-read it and found I didn't have it anymore.  Thank goodness for Abe Books 

 

Anyhoo, I decided to read Beowulf before re-reading this because of all the references to the epic poem contained within, not the least of which is the plot itself (the colony terrorised by a monster, which soon comes to be known as a 'grendel').  And then there's the title of the book, Heorot being the name of Hrothgar's mead hall in the poem.  The sequel to this book is even called Beowulf's Children.  I haven't read that one yet but, happily, it being so long since I first read this one I had mostly forgotten the detail of the story.

 

The set-up and the story are no doubt quite familiar territory.  A crowded Earth has driven mankind to send its first colony ship to the planet of Tau Ceti IV.  Refreshingly, the story doesn't get bogged down in this set-up - the colony is well-established when the story starts, so well-established that the colonists have become somewhat complacent, and their security chief, Cadmann Weyland, stands aghast at the slacking of defensive measures.  On an unexplored world far from Earth, hmmm, he could be right and, naturally, he is, because something is stirring in the undergrowth beyond the colony's perimeter, and it's none too friendly.

 

I think what follows is a truly excellent thriller.  If you've seen movies of the likes of Aliens, Predator and The Thing then it may seem a little over-familiar, but the main characters are good, the colony suitably vulnerable, and the creature and its life cycle are well worked out.  It's like those movies but with some actual science thrown in.  One aspect I particularly liked is the effect of so-called 'hibernation instability', where some of the colonists have either died or suffered mental degradation during the cryo-sleep on the long journey from Earth.  Some of the frustrations these individuals go through having lost the knowledge they were brought along for are very well handled.

 

The plot is tight and the pacing very good - the escalation of events is sprinkled with quieter moments that I think made the action sequences have more impact.  Perhaps my only criticism is that the secondary characters are largely cardboard cut-outs and their names become a bit of a blur, meaning that their survival or otherwise doesn't mean perhaps as much as it should.

 

Otherwise, it's a tale of courage in the face of adversity, of tension and terror, and of a relentless killer stalking the night.  Highly recommended.

 

 

9/10

[Little Pixie]

Apparently they did!  I'd love to know exactly what the tests involved

 

" Hey, it looks really cool !  End of test."

[Athena]

Great review Steve! I hope you enjoy the sequel just as much .

[bobblybear]

The Legacy of Heorot sounds brilliant. I love Aliens and Predator (though I find the latter quite scary), so it looks like something I'd enjoy. I've just bought it for Kindle, and will get to it soon.

[Karsa Orlong]

The Legacy of Heorot sounds brilliant. I love Aliens and Predator (though I find the latter quite scary), so it looks like something I'd enjoy. I've just bought it for Kindle, and will get to it soon.

 

Hope you enjoy it, bobbly 

[Karsa Orlong]

# 43

 

Half a King (Shattered Sea Book 1) by Joe Abercrombie 

 

 

2014 - Harper Voyager ebook - 333 pages

 

From Amazon:

 

Prince Yarvi has vowed to regain a throne he never wanted. But first he must survive cruelty, chains and the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea itself. And he must do it all with only one good hand.

 

Born a weakling in the eyes of his father, Yarvi is alone in a world where a strong arm and a cold heart rule. He cannot grip a shield or swing an axe, so he must sharpen his mind to a deadly edge.

 

Gathering a strange fellowship of the outcast and the lost, he finds they can do more to help him become the man he needs to be than any court of nobles could.

 

But even with loyal friends at his side, Yarvi’s path may end as it began – in twists, and traps and tragedy…

 

Thoughts:

 

A new book by Joe Abercrombie is now something of an EVENT for me as, after a shaky start, he has rapidly become one of my favourite authors.  Yet I still approached this one with some trepidation, as it is his first foray into a Young Adult series.  This doesn't mean I have anything against YA novels, not at all, but I did wonder how the absence of Joe's penchant for writing dark, dark stories with graphic violence and sex, and his often hilarious gallows humour would affect the outcome.

 

I don't really want to say more about the story than the blurb above already gives away.  The plot is pretty simple.  It's a coming-of-age story, with murder and betrayal and a quest for revenge.  The set up is pretty hackneyed, tried and trusted, seen it all before stuff.  It is Joe Abercrombie toned down, with all the grit and genre-upside-downiness of his previous work left far behind.  Abercrombie-Lite, if you will.  It is for me, to be perfectly honest, a recipe for disaster, mainly because I love the darkness in his stories.

 

And for the first 30 or so pages, whilst I never thought it was going to be completely that - a disaster, it was disappointingly . . . ordinary.  The opening is one of generic fantasy that usually makes me run a mile.  It was only the occasional neat turn of phrase or wording of a sentence that made me think "yeah, that's Joe", otherwise it might have been written by some bog-standard fantasy hack, the type of which there are far too many, in my opinion.

 

But it's Joe.  And somehow, after that first 30 pages, he does it again.  I managed to steer clear of all spoilers for this, didn't read the long extract that was released some months ago, didn't even read the blurb on the Amazon page until just now, so I knew nothing about what was going to happen.  So, when that first major twist in the plot came along, my eyes were suddenly nailed to the page.  Oh, Joe knows how to write this sort of thing for sure.  Suddenly I couldn't put the book down.  Suddenly, characters who had seemed at first tired and cliched became fully-formed individuals who I wanted to spend time with.  Suddenly the story was moving at such pace that it made it impossible to put down (Joe has this way with chapter lengths that make you think 'Oh, just one more chapter before I go to bed' ).

 

The humour is there, dialled back for sure, but there.  The violence is turned down several notches but it works.  The twists are plentiful (I did not see a couple of them coming at all).  And Joe's knack for characterisation is, imo, second to none in the genre and, even though this is a short book with a simple story and the characters begin invariably in stereotypical fashion, soon he had me eating out of the palm of his hand.  From Yarvi himself to Sumael to Rulf, he has created a winning cast.  There's a character called Nothing who is brilliant and, perhaps best of all, Grom-gil-Gorm, self-proclaimed 'King of Vansterland, bloodiest son of Mother War, Breaker of Swords and maker of orphans'.

 

The book is full of wonderful descriptions such as:  

 

'They bristled with weapons and puffed with menace, glared daggers and spoke swords.  They wore their scars as proudly as a princess might her jewels while, by way of music, a woman's voice shrill as a whetstone keened out a love song to Mother War, of spilled blood and notched steel and lives lost too soon'. 

 

And dialogue such as:

 

'If you have a plan,' hissed Sumael from the corner of her mouth, 'now would be the time.'

'I have a plan,' said Nothing.

'Does it involve a sword?' asked Jaud.

A pause.  'All my plans do.'

'Do you have a sword?'

Another.  'No.'

'How will your plan work without one?' muttered Sumael.

A third.  'Death waits for us all.'

 

 

I ended up loving this book.  It may be a familiar old plot (hell, Joe's already done similar himself in Best Served Cold), and it may be short (hell, it's too damned short - I want more now!!), and it may not be quiet as good as his last three books in my opinion but - by populating it with such wonderful characters - he has, I think, raised its standard above the crowd and all should flock to it.

 

So, in the end, is Half a King the start of a new fantasy trilogy that will, hopefully, reach its target audience as well as his existing fans, and maybe pull in a few Abercrombie doubters as well?  Who knows, but I think this is a book that deserves your time.  It's a cracker.  Again.

 

 

9/10

[Athena]

Great review . I'm glad you enjoyed this book (coincidentally I have ordered the First Law trilogy, it's not here yet though).

[Timstar]

Fantastic review! My feelings at the moment are pretty similar to yours before you read it, excited but with a hint of scepticism, gradually getting less so as I read all the positive reviews.

[Anna Begins]

That review makes me want to read it!  Not out here in Kindle format til the end of July.

[poppyshake]

Great review of the new apple crumble Steve I saw it today somewhere and was wondering about it ... and then lo and behold you have already read it Sounds brilliant .. a must read

 

I really loved the First Law trilogy Gaia .. though not sure Steve was that keen?? 

[Athena]

I really loved the First Law trilogy Gaia .. though not sure Steve was that keen?? 

I'm glad to read that you enjoyed it, Kay .

[Karsa Orlong]

 

I really loved the First Law trilogy Gaia .. though not sure Steve was that keen?? 

 

I liked it, but I didn't see what all the fuss was about.  I'll re-read it one day and see if I change my mind

 

 

 

Oh my gadz, this has just made my day (doesn't take much, admittedly  ):

 

BBC adapting Bernard Cornwell's Saxon novels for tv

 

Uhtred?  On tv?     

[Timstar]

Brilliant! Really need to get around to starting that series... like so many others

[Signor Finzione]

Great review of Half a King! I finally picked it up this morning (pre-ordered it months ago, but it's been sat in the post office for a week because I wasn't home when they delivered it . . .) and can't wait to get started.

[Devi]

Nice pc Steve! I just built my very first one about two weeks ago. I had a cooler master tower that I no longer liked, so I bought a new one and swapped the parts into my new tower. I was very proud of myself for doing it. I was so scared that I would break something the whole time.

 

My partner helped me as well, took us about six hours to do, we had a little stumble with the water cooler kit (it was pre-filled), but everything worked on first go! Its so quiet compared to my old tower, like you I had to check the fans were actually working.

 

I bought new fans that are meant to be super quiet, and they are! I also had a mate do some custom sleeving for me, and for the first time ever, I put in led lights! I thought it might look tacky but it shows off the sleeving work nicely. I can change the colour of the leds with a remote.

 

Oh and I bought Half a King the other day. Came in here to tell you about the book but found you've already read it!

Edited July 16, 2014 by Devi

[Karsa Orlong]

Nice pc Steve! I just built my very first one about two weeks ago. I had a cooler master tower that I no longer liked, so I bought a new one and swapped the parts into my new tower. I was very proud of myself for doing it. I was so scared that I would break something the whole time.

I know that feeling!  Well done for taking that on    What was wrong with the Cooler Master case?  You've got me concerned now, as mine is a Cooler Master

 

It's years since I took a pc apart, so getting the fans working was a bit stressful.  And now I'm going to have to take it apart again.  The base spec of the pc included a 1TB solid state drive but I changed it to a 250GB ssd (for Windows specifically) plus a 2TB regular hard drive (for everything else), which seemed like a good idea at the time, but I've found the regular drive is a little slow for gaming and is causing occasional pauses whilst it loads up a sound effect or whatever.  So that was a mistake on my part when I ordered.  As a result, now I've ordered a 750GB ssd which I am going to have to install myself - and of course installing it will mean taking the graphics card out again, doing cable runs, and fighting with the side panel I had problems with when I attached the fans.  Then putting it all back together and praying that it works.  Joy!  The new ssd is being delivered today, so I imagine there will be lots of cursing and swearing this evening    Like you, I just hope I don't damage anything because the pc is otherwise running like a dream at the moment  

 

 

 

My partner helped me as well, took us about six hours to do, we had a little stumble with the water cooler kit (it was pre-filled), but everything worked on first go! Its so quiet compared to my old tower, like you I had to check the fans were actually working.

 

I bought new fans that are meant to be super quiet, and they are! I also had a mate do some custom sleeving for me, and for the first time ever, I put in led lights! I thought it might look tacky but it shows off the sleeving work nicely. I can change the colour of the leds with a remote.

  Apparently my graphics card has LEDs on its fans, but there's no window on the case so I've never seen them

 

Sounds like you've done a brilliant job.  I just hope, after today, I don't have to open my one up again for a loooooong time

 

 

 

 

Oh and I bought Half a King the other day. Came in here to tell you about the book but found you've already read it!

 

Oh jolly good, I hope you enjoy it