The Lucifer Effect [52 Books #15]

The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo

Zimbardo explores transformations from ordinary, stable, average individuals into tormentors and murderers. His field is social psychology and his theory is that a three parts that define a person's responses to another are the personality, the situational pressures and the system defining the encounter. In theory, he claims, almost anyone can be brought to preform deeds even they reflect later upon as horrid violations of another.

The style is a bit to over the shoulder and preaching, and shows a clear bias against the Iraq war. It is however dense and well explained, step by step documenting experiment, experiment, and analysis of real life situations where people have crossed unthinkable lines and damaged fellow humans, and why the line was stepped over. This is not light bedtime reading: it avoids wallowing in dehumanity, but only just.

First Zimbardo discusses acts of violence and basic principals; the Rwandan genocides, the Holocaust, other such light fare are noted. The basic question is, “What makes a person shift to a new mode that sees their lifelong neighbors as inhuman beings needing to be killed?” His first experiment in this area was the famous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1970.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was supposed to investigate the minds of prisoners during incarceration and in the end got more than anyone bargained for. College students were selected, none found to have any dispositional psychological problems, and then divided by coin flip into two groups: prisoners and guards. 9 were incarcerated in the dressed-up basement of the university's psychology building while 9 guards were put on shifts of 3, with instructions to not physically harm the prisoners, prevent chaos, and preserve order. The experiment was set for a two week duration.

It lasted 6 days before an outside observer slapped sense into the head researcher – conditions had deteriorated so far, just in the first few days, that two prisoners had emotional breakdowns. The 'guards' were tormenting the prisoners because they could, depriving them of beds, sleep, communication, and decency.

There's extensive analysis of the SPE, details of other experiments in the field, like famous shock experiments, derailing conventional wisdom – one experiment had a volunteer shock a small puppy whenever it failed to perform a trick, of increasing intensity the more it misbehaved. Conventional psychologists suspected no woman would take the shocks up to the maximum on a puppy: all women did, for the puppy's own good.

Zimbardo then branches into a real life case. Abu Gharib prison, near Baghdad, was a scene of humiliation and torture, and Zimbardo was called to the defense of the coporal in charge of the wing where these acts occurred. He demonstrated how Corporal Fredricks had a decades experience as a correctional officer without any notable reprimand (he once wore the wrong uniform in his first month, and was noted as slow in counting the prisoners) went to serve in the army reserve without negative review, then was put in charge of a wing of this prison under steady bombardment, with meals only from MREs, no bathrooms, no superiors listening, and having to sleep in prison cells himself. Ocassionally civillian contractors and unidentifyied intelligence agents would drop by to interrogate prisoners – at least once killing a prisoner – and told the guards to soften up the detainees for next time. Still, despite Zimbardo's bleak picture of the stresses all the guards were under, the guards were convicted and judged 'bad apples'.

Corporal Fredricks received 8 years in Fort Leavenworth. By comparison, Second Lieutenant William Calley of the My Lai massacre received 3 and a half years house arrest and was later pardoned.

The analysis points to several factors. Those who are online often may recognize a few:

• Dehumanization – Take away the target's individuality, paint them as something lesser, strip any sense of moral obligation or empathy.

• Anonymity – cloak the attacker's identity, remove the feel that they will be recognized doing these acts

• Authority – lessen the strength of authority or, worse, have authority approve of the actions.

• Pressure – show others doing such acts, and have them presented as positive role models to emulate.

• Step By Step – begin with small steps, a slap on the wrist and escalate the inensity and severity of the actions.

Following these steps, well, I played Ultima Online, when I could point to each of these factors in the early days of the PKs. Solitary characters with silly names roamed the countryside slaying any character they met and robbing their corpses. Origin did little beyond tellign the victims they should band together. The PK problem grew and grew until it threatened to swamp the game and leave nothing but PKs, the victims having fled to Everquest and Asheron's Call. Eventually EA stepped in and made the happy fun land of Trammel where no one could ever hurt another without consent. Then came the great era of scamming....

Can't say I'd recommend the book. It's long, dense, and can ramble for a chapter on its points. There is some psychology here that think people should understand, but perhaps check out the website instead: The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo

The Long Tail [52 Books Quickie]

My next book on the list looks to be long, dense and dry, so I'll through up a review of what s, essentially, an overgrown pamphlet.

The Long Tail is a 30-page presentation available online that discusses the economies of a digital world; no significant limitations from distribution and retail channels. We can see it today with Amazon, eBay and iTunes.

The premise is that with low overhead, niche markets can account for up to half the sales. Walmart can carry about 39,000 top-selling CDs before the low sales on the bottom few make it counterproductive to stock more. Amazon has no retail store rent, so it can stock more. iTunes has no store at all, simply a web page and a server cluster, and can stock, conceivably, every song made and offer all of them to any prospective buyer.

As written in 2005, Amazon makes 22% of it's sales from books that retail stores see no profit on. These books need only sell once or twice a year for Amazon to make their warehouse costs back. For a digital only model (note the push to sell more ebooks with the Amazon Kindle reader) the numbers could approach 50%.

The two things needed to produce a long tail sales market (the name comes from the curve; hits are a giant spike, and obscure books are a long, shallow fallaway on the far end, a long tail to the graph) are the upfront hits - the pop movies, the stars - to get the customers into the store, then the recommendations for the obscurity and niche: "If you like Britany, you may like..." and "Customers who bought this also bought...". With these two factors a business model designed around serving the tiny niche markets - and serving a LOT of them - becomes functional and viable.

Before They Are Hanged [52 Books #14]

Middle book. Sigh. Lots of stuff happens, and I'm still surprised this is Abercrombie's first published work. He's quite good at creating distinct characters and telling an interesting, if a bit standard, fantasy story. The plot is pared down to what he can handle, I believe, and it's a wise choice for a new author. The real love is in the viewpoint characters and the feel of the world he made.

We see his world through the eyes of a northern warrior who's seen more than a decade of constant tribal fighting and has nothing to show for it but scars; the scout from the warriors old band, who believe him dead as they avoid the new chief hunting them down; a woman obsessed vengeance and avoiding any entanglements. Then the last three viewpoints are from three soldiers all on different paths: one traditional soldier, an aide to a marshal leading an army to chase the northern chief out of the kingdom, a former soldier who's hunt for glory a decade ago left him imprisoned, tortured, crippled, and who now serves as a master inquisitor and torturer, and a noble soldier who gets dragged onto the big magic quest and just wants to go home and fight a real war and earn everyone's admiration.

Each view is different, each has a unique voice, and I'm impressed by Abercrombie's debut. The big quest to find the magic widget is more a side show, with the occasional fight, that takes up a third of the book. The other two stories involve a city under siege by the big bad empire and the army – badly needed at the siege – chasing in the north on a punitive expedition against an upstart chief-turned-king raiding villages. There's a deeper plot behind everything, of course, but the true connection among each thread is the violence; Abercrombie keeps the story moving through sheer brutality. No story doesn't have a good fight every few chapters, interspersed with arrivals in new places (and new places to fight) and recovering from the last fight. The fight scenes are good – although all the large scale battles are tossed off-camera – and varied. There's not really and epic magic battles, all are good swords and bows and straight-up fights. There's only four battles with any magic effects, and none come off as flashy or cheap. No false victories are pulled out from nowhere, the characters, as is common in middle books of trilogies, go through some bad times and have no clean victories.

Abercrombie's First Law trilogy holds up with part two. It's a non-gritty realistic style story, much slogging through mud and close combat scenes and there's no problem that can't be solved with a good knife. Or a really big knife. Possible a lot of big axes for tough problems.

“Forgive your enemies, but not before they are hanged.”

Blindsight [52 Books #13]

I really had no idea what I was getting into.

Blindsight looks like a hard science fiction first contact novel; it is a first contact novel. But there's so much musing and ideas on the nature of sentience and so many ideas stuffed into the story it made my head spin. The five characters (and one computer) sent out to meet the stranger at the edge of our solar system are far, far from humans we are used to seeing.

The viewpoint character, Siri Keaton, is a synthesist on board the spacecraft Theseus. Siri can measure people and things by their exteriors, somewhat similar to Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques shown on television with Derren Brown. He judges everyone's mood and thoughts by observation to report back to Earth on the state of the mission. He's incredibly detached, unfeeling, and reminds me of Dexter from the series of the same name. The same constant litany of how he doesn't feel, how he learned mechanical routines to convince others he had emotional responses. Oh, and he had half his brain removed as a child.

The team's biologist is a cyborg who's medical gear is tied into his nervous system. Isaac Szpindel tastes blood and feels samples, his cybernetic body splayed across the ship's equipment. Szpindel is the most human of the crew in outlook; obsessed with work, tunnel-visioned, and distant that he is.

Linguist is a gang of four, or more – Susan James is the primary personality of multiple personalities in her body, all multitasking together and each having their own specialties and desires. She had surgery to divide her brain into a set of different cores but believes such fragmentation can be done naturally and at will someday in the future.

Amanda Bates is the military officer on the expedition. She, like Szpindel, is relatively human in outlook, though she can see and feel and command and fight through a distributed network of her 'grunts', robotic soldiers tied to her mind. She's also a pacifist and chafes under the command of the last two crew members.

The Theseus has a quantical computer on board, monitoring and deciding constantly, and could be in command if the powers that launched the mission didn't decide on a somewhat more human leader.

Sarasti is a vampire. Yeah. Vampire.

Watts worked out the biology and history of vampires in great detail, finding a way to make it work in a hard-SF setting. Vampires: a subspecies of humanity that went extinct about ten thousand years ago that was savant-autistic and predated on humanity due to an inability to produce certain neuro-chemicals. Tetra chromatic, dual-retina, resistant to prionic diseases, and capable of hibernation as it's prey replenished numbers over decades. Amazingly, it works as far as I can read the science.

Sarasti is the mission commander, and he doesn't suck blood. He eats brains. He's a predator ordering his food around, using his hunting mind to work the problem of first contact. He usually wears glasses to avoid spooking the crew.

So these are our representatives to the alien. The alien is far stranger than any of them. It chooses the name 'Rorschach' in first communications.

So, first contact is made, and then Peter Watts spins out every damn theory about consciousness he can in a mad rush of speculation, traps, pondering, torture, confrontation, and communication. The effects of EM fields on human minds. The usefulness of DNA. The distinction between empathy and intuition. The need for self-awareness. Viral talk. Dandelions as a model for space exploration. The last sentient being to exist. A strange, shambling host of mental defects throughout history. The blind playing catch. Blindsight.

The ending, as so often happens, is rushed, in a desperate climax once all the pieces are set in place. Really, the great joy is the ideas, the musings, the questions about what we are inside ourselves and just what is the use of ourselves, all brought up in a menagerie of humanity. The appendix alone is a trove of ideas, and reading all the references in the footnotes could keep you reading for a year.

Strangely, the most similar book I've read recently is 'Stumbling Upon Happiness,' also delving into the processes of our memery.

I'd recommend this book to those that like a hard-SF novel and those who love big questions. Blindsight is now available under the creative commons license at http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

Creating Unforgettable Characters [52 Books #12}

Seiger goes through the steps of creating a character for movies and television in clear,concise steps. It's a good guide for anyone looking to make better characters for fiction, dramatized non-fiction, role-playing games, or perhaps that other personality for 'that' chat room.

Each character is built through broad strokes then adding details to make them consistent with a real person. The next step is to add contrast to make the characters more interesting, then work on how they all relate to each other; who conflicts with who and how. The chapters are livened by real examples from produced works, such as Rain Man, Ordinary People, Gorillas in the Mist, Fatal Attraction, MacGuyver and Cagney and Lacey.

I liked it. It showed a clear process and gave much good advice for making a character from whole cloth, and showing how we -can't- make a character from whole cloth – we look around us to find ideas and kernels for our fictional parts.

Virtual Light [52 Books #11]

Gibson still works wonders with language. He paints landscapes and moods with his choice of words throughout his novels.

Closing his eyes, he centers himself in the background hiss of climate-control. He imagines himself in Tokyo, this room in some new wing of the old Imperial. He sees himself in the streets of Chiyoda-ku, beneath the sighing trains. Red paper lanterns line a narrow lane.
He opens his eyes.
Mexico City is still there.
The eight empty bottles, plastic miniatures, are carefully aligned with the edge of the coffee table: a Japanese vodka, Come Back Salmon, its name more irritating than its lingering aftertaste.
He opens another of the little bottles.
His gaze strays to NHK weather. A low-pressure front is crossing Kansas. Next to it, an eerily calm Islamic downlink ceaselessly reiterates the name of God in a fractal-based cryptography.
He drinks the vodka.
He watches television.

Virtual Light is a basic crime story done up in wonderful makeup and a dress to die for. You have characters filling the old noir roles of the PI, the girl in trouble, the evil plotter, the psycho killer right-hand man. All are twisted to nearly unrecognizable new shapes; the PI is instead a ex-cop, ex-security guard who's a nice guy with a little impulse problem. “Rydell had come to the conclusion that that high crazy thing, that rush of Going For It, was maybe something that wasn't always quite entirely to be trusted.” The girl in trouble starts everything when she steals the macguffin after a guy at a party treats her rudely. The common detective fiction archetypes are all there, including the buddy on the force, but all are done in new, interesting ways.

As a note, I love Sublett. Security guard, lapsed member of the church of television, pacifist, allergy sufferer. Amazing pile of personality quirks; I can imagine Gibson cackling with glee over the keyboard.

The story flows well, quickly, with small diversions to illustrate the San Francisco bridge culture. The item is stolen, the manhunt begins, bodes pile up, the turning point is reached and the story spirals to a climax. The climax is brief, though. It's natural in this world, but it feels rushed in relation to the leise taken over the details of the people and the cultures of L.A. And San Francisco. Really, my only complaint was how the story wrapped up in 10 pages a little too neatly.

To summarize: Gibson's Virtual Light paint a magnificent portrait of a near-future striated world of the powers, the squeezing-by and the semi-homeless. The characters are strong when needed, save for a slightly bland 'hero' mold on Rydell. The story is a bit simple but moves well and leaves you to focus on the portrait, not the message. After more than a decade since reading Gibson's famous cyberpunk stories I'm read to start reading his newer novels again.

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy [52 Books #10]

1987 was how many lifetimes ago? Card's writing guide for speculative fiction still has much good information on what works, what doesn't, and where the traps are for young writers. There's probably as good sources of information on the internet but most writing guides say 'buy this book'. And so I did, and while it was a page-turning drama it did keep my interest.

The chapters on technique are timeless; styles change, but a writer must understand what his audience expects before breaking new grounds. Simply, you need to know the rules before you break them. Managing exposition, finding the right viewpoint, finding the main character, all these lessons matter. I'd recommend the book for these chapters for people interested in writing or looking to critically analyze writing.

The latter chapters on getting published are hurt by the massive cultural shifts the publishing landscape has undergone. Card's advice to start with short stories published in magazines feels outdated. These days, I wonder if a young author could make a start using just Facebook and self-promotion.

The last two chapters dealing with conventions and writer's groups aren't quite so dated. Conventions are good for networking and meeting fans; bad if you make your career about attending conventions and your writing suffers. The pros and cons of writer's meetings, the Clarion workshops, and other circles are discussed, along with all the common problems leading you to quit them.

It's a solid book on writing SF&F. The techniques are always useful; the advice for dealing with other writers and fans is often helpful. The marketing world is different these days but the recommendations are a starting point for the unknowing.

Lamb, or the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal [52 Books #9]

Well... Let's assume no one in the world will be offended by this. 'Kay?

It's pretty damn funny. Lamb is the story of Biff, who first met Jesus when they were six. Shortly thereafter Jesus punches him for offering to make Mary his concubine. That about sets their relationship up for the rest of the book. Biff is Jesus's close friend, watching his back, facepalming when Jesus tells too much of the truth, and tagging along to keep him out of trouble as they set out from their town to cross the world. In short, he's the rascal who keeps the story grounded and funny. The world is researched well. Moore impressed me with a authentic feel, even though we have so little authentic tales of day-to-day life in that era.

The early book is the childhood trio, Jesus, Biff and Maggie (Mary Madelene, recently moved to town) . It's good comedy, Biff fawning over Maggie, Maggie fawning over Jesus, and Jesus really wants the messenger angel to go back and get some clarification on this 'not know the touch of a woman' thing. There's the roman soldier Justus, who shakes his head at the boys and just knows they'll be trouble when they get older. It all comes apart when Maggie s betrothed to the son of a pharisee and Biff and Jesus decide they can't stand to see her married. Jesus sets off to find the three magi who came to him at the manger and Biff follows to make sure nobody conks his friend and robs him.

Their travels tack them to Persia, to China, to the Himalayas and to India. Jesus meets his three teachers, learning compassion and wisdom; Biff learns explosives and kung-fu. Well, Jesus learns kung-fu as well, but he refuses to strike out at anyone, leading to the worst pun of the book.

The humor breaks down near the end. I dare anyone outside Monty Python to make the crucification funny. Still, it's a good book, trading comedy for drama at the end and I'd consider reading more of Moore's work.

The New Topping Book [52 Books #8]

I'm a roleplayer. I'm on the internet. Naturally, sex comes up now and then. One thing I learned from the New Topping Book is that the games people play in real life are nothing like the fantasies spun in a torrid corner of your favorite MMORPG.

The New Topping Book is a brief, carefully written guide on how to be a top, a dominant, a master or mistress in real life without hurting yourself or others. The two authors show experience and love of the dominant/submissive lifestyle in their writing, which is surprisingly tender. There's chapters on why anyone would want to be a dominant and have control over someone and inflict pain, with good answers ranging from surfing the bottom's emotional high to just wanting to 'do it right' after seeing tops not fulfill your wishes, to caring and wanting to act out your lovers dreams. Chapters detail how to be responsible, how the need for open communication and negotiation is so critical. How to start your life as a dominant, how to find others, how performance anxiety can drive you mad, and so much other advice.

Perhaps the best advice is this: you and your partner are doing what the two of you want to do. Don't get caught up in 'who's the best top' and 'if you're not 24/7 you're an amateur' situations. Live the lifestyle you and your partner wish and if others in the community don't respect that, it's not the community for you. Be happy together, explore your limits together, and don't let anyone denigrate or demand you exceed those boundaries.

The Lies of Locke Lamorra [52 Books #7]

I'd heard good things about The Lies of Locke Lamorra. Coming off of Blackfoot Physics, which I had several issues with, this book was a joy. I was caught up in the first chapter and blew through the book in a weekend. Not every bit was great, but it was a solid, unique fantasy novel.

Locke Lamorra is so not a fantasy hero – he's not even a fantasy villain. He's the scum your D&D party trips over in a random encounter. Young Locke is an orphan after a plague. With other orphans he's shuffled off and bought by the, for lack of a better term, thieves training guild. Locke steals, mugs, pickpockets, and quickly becomes too much for his master, ending with the great line only a few pages in the book as this master tries to sell him off to a beggar guild, “Either you buy him or I have to cut his throat tonight.”

We quickly move to an older Locke, now a con man and involved in deep schemes to defraud the rich. His plans are timed, tricky, and always within a breath of disaster – and they don't always work, so there's no sense of him being invulnerable. Locke and his companions, The Gentleman Bastards, are all drawn wonderfully with loves and depth. Locke is clever, smart, ready with a disarming word, but useless in a fight. The twins are like his older brothers, backing him up. Bug is the youngest, newest member of the troupe and is eager to prove himself to his betters, taking risks at every turn. Finally, Jean is the studious one, running the numbers for the gang and also the only decent brawler among them.

As the story progresses the con games become involved in an underworld war for control of crime in the city and things spiral far beyond Locke's control. His Capa faces threats to his leadership from a strange rival, the city's spymaster gets a lead on Locke's latest con game, and the new would-be crime lord picks Locke out to help him overthrow the city, like it or not. Locke dances as fast as he can between all of them. He almost keeps up.

I'd recommend it to any fantasy lover, any who like mafia movies, or anyone who likes the Grifters. My two disappointments are Lynch will draw wonderful characters and then kill them off; I can understand why he does it, but I miss them. The other is that I've heard the sequel is notably weaker, and from reading the preview chapter at the end of this book my interest in continuing this series faded.

Blackfoot Physics [52 Books #6]

Blackfoot Physics was written by a quantum physicist. I expected this book to be more like The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which integrated thoughts on quantum mechanics with eastern principles. Peat instead views the world through the eyes of native american beliefs and attempts to show us the shortcomings in our culture. I felt misled.

Peat raises many valid points about western society's loss of touch with nature; even when we go to 'touch nature' it often by going on a day-long hike or a camping trip, or a walk in a field. A whole books about such thoughts is a worthwhile read. But Peat tries to prove the west's need for a return to nature by invoking the similarity between western science and indigenous sciences of the Blackfoot, Iroquois, Lakota, and other native tribes, painting, well, interesting contrasts of their use of the scientific method. In short, western scientists conduct an experiment to ask nature questions and the data from the experiment is the answer. Indigenous science sit down and speak to nature directly, waiting for the answer to be spoken to them. Peat also decries the conflict-driven, adversarial ways western science reaches a consensus, using the infamous cold fusion announcement as an example. The flaw in his reasoning is he never explains why conflict is bad – we are left to assume that hundreds of scientists arguing over a new theory is by nature less correct than the same people sitting down and discussing it long into the night.

I don't have any objecton to reading about alternative views of the world, from the magic of Casteneda to the beliefs of religious doctrine to self-help meditation guides. What David Peat did annoyed me. He tries to correspond two different belief systems, calling both equally valid science, to demonstrate the inherent superiority of native american lifestyles. I wish he'd simply wrote a book showing how peaceful, empathic and grounded the lifestyle can be. That book would rise on its own merits. He doesn't need to attempt scientific justification of native values.

The Blade Itself [52 Books #5]

Love the simple painting of the characters in The Blade Itself. There's not too many, enough to keep the story going, and each is given depth where necessary, and no more. There's some nice sketching by the author to fill in these people and it feels just right. We first meet a warrior losing a fight and barely surviving, then a interrogator, then a infantry leader, then the warrior's companions. And that's all the viewpoint characters, leaving less than a dozen other significants. Abercrombie paints a whole fantasy world with just these few lines, and I'd like to see more of it.

The overall plot, summarized, is so typical it's a joke. Old empire if faced with an uppity neighbor while some ancient evil is lurking in the background. Like Orson Scott Card said in his SF&F guide, it doesn't matter if the story's been used before, it's your writing and it's what you do with it that counts. Abercrombie does good work in this initial novel of this trilogy. The world is there, the cultures are there, the characters rarely bore, and although it takes a while to start cranking, it gets the motor purring by the end.

I've already ordered the sequel, Before They Are Hanged, and unless I'm quite dssapointed I'll be picking up the finale sometime this year.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland [52 Books #4]

Now this is a fun travel guide. It's arranged more like an encyclopedia of the common fantasy terms. It's damn funny. Some entries are wonderfully snarky, and the book slashes, not pokes, fun at all the tired fantasy cliches. Every bar exists to have fights and give employment to nubile young barmaids, every ancient castle has a dungeon full of monsters except the ones the doddering old king and the big bad evil guy live in. It's also a great tool to look inside and ask yourself, “Am I writing these cliches?”

Halting State [52 Books #3]

Well, I was explaining to my father a few weeks before that books are written in perspectives. First person perspective is 'through the eyes' and immediate. Third person is remote, over-the-shoulder and provides greater view. I explained you really will never find a book written in Second person, and lo, here comes the new book by Chalie Stross.

Halting State gave me a rough read. I started, stopped, started, stopped again, then when I was faced with another book boring me too much to continue I returned to Halting State. I tripped heavily over the use of Second person perspective, even knowing – I assumed – why the author used it. I was close, but ultimately wrong. While first person (“I ducked to the right as his fist went over my head – God he was fast. I needed to get out of here now!”) and third person (“Arleen stood on the ivy-covered wall, looking at the house across the overgrown yard, lost in thought of what she had to do”) are commonly used in writing, second person perspective (“You step into the room, a dozen business-suited employees looking up at you. Their eyes glance over and pause at the badge on your chest. They grow colder, and you know it's going to be a long meeting.”) is almost unheard of outside online chatrooms, and MMOs. But Stross uses it to good effect in Halting State, and I eventually, by the halfway point of the book, came to read it naturally.

The concept of the novel: within a decade a bank is robbed. It's a bank of a fantasy kingdom inside an MMO, and the theft may be of imaginary items but the damage to the company's reputation could be near a hundred million euros when their stock collapses. 'You' the first is a Scottish police office investigating the robbery, coping with the fact you don't have a clue what the techies are saying, dealing with the fact a horde of orcs made off with nothing but binding pointers. Another 'you' is a financial accountant called in to audit the company, the third 'you' is a programmer hired by the accountant to cover her lack of technical skills. It's confusing at first, yes, but each chapter is clear and you can get into the groove; if you've liked Charlie Stross's other works about the upcoming future and the tech industry don't let the style stop you from enjoying this one.

It's a well-written mystery-drama, dealing with issues we can barely see on the horizon today, as Stross does so well. The initial theft is the tip of a significant iceberg, and the end feels much like his earlier works, 'The Atrocity Archive' and 'The Jennifer Morgue', minus the supernatural elements of those novels. In other words it's got some great tech and great spywork.

Soon I Will Be Invincible [52 Books #2]

I grew up flirting with comics. My mother would buy my Archie and Richie Rich (her favorite, as if by sympathetic magic of buying his comic, she could become Richie Rich and have his wealth). After a few years I found the comics I loved – Godzilla and Shogun Warriors. Yeah, most kids liked Batman. I was a purveyor of Japanese culture even back in middle school. Blame Star Blazers. By high school and college I'd found X-Men, Batman, Electric Warrior and Spiderman. I still pick up the occasional comic book to keep in touch.

Liking the comic book universe, and being an online addict, I found City of Heroes and played out every hero and villain type I wanted. It's a fun game, but after 3 years I'm getting a bit tired.

So here we are, with a novel about a super villain and his new plot to take over the world. Soon I will Be Invincible has two viewpoint characters, the incarcerated Doctor Impossible (breaking out of jail due to being underestimated) and the cybernetic Fatale (newly joining a legendary team of heroes). The chapters alternate between each and the staging device works well to show the world Grossman crafted.

Doctor Impossible gives us a view on world-threatening, ultra-threat level super villains never seen in comics; he's stuck in prison garb, on the run, stealing from a laundromat, hiding in a motel room, shopping at Radio Shack for parts to his new weapon. It's deliciously mundane and pragmatic. Fatale, however, is the new girl in the biggest team in the world, and comes in in awe and sees the petty wickedness of her heroes as they argue, fumble of their unresolved feelings, stumble over difficulties with family and constantly play dominance games with each other to establish the hierarchy. Both the heroes and villains worlds are far less pure than we can imagine; this is the reality show of superhumans.

The plot's not overly complex. What story about a comic book world needs to be the Brothers Karamazov? The world's biggest hero, Doctor Impossibles greatest enemy Core Fire, goes missing. Everyone's quick to assume Impossible killed him from his jail cell, somehow. This leads, naturally, to giving Impossible a chance to escape from prison and begin a new plan to conquer the world – but first, since the heroes are after him, he needs to become invincible, as he has a bad habit of getting stopped at the last minute of his plan and pummeled to an inch of his life. He lays out the plan in steps and proceeds methodically, with occasional stops at villainous watering holes and such to show he's still the most dangerous man in the world. Thus, he hides in bushes and changes into his costume. Cops are looking for him, after all.

Fatale has no initial direction to her story beyond a desire to join the superteam. Mostly she shows the cost of being a hero – she had an accident and now has replacement limbs, and her story is echoed in all the other heroes. Each has lost something along the path to power. Family, the world they loved, their friends, their lovers, each paid dearly for what they can do. And most don't seem too happy about the cost.

The story advances, Impossible outwitting the heroes like the supreme genius he is, and yes, he does become invincible. Yes, he is stopped eventually, but it feels like Grossman deliberately didn't have the heroes earn it. Doctor Impossible is struck from the side in a contrivance wonderfully typical of comic books, and yes, the author did set it up well and paid for it slowly through the story, so it doesn't feel cheap. It feels more like Grossman slapped the entire concept of a team of heroes saving the world upside the head.

One flaw I found in the book is one I've seen in a few other places. Everybody knows everybody, everything is connected. Sharp eyes through the story and appendix reveal who made who, who must be connected to who, who is really who, where the magic doohickey came from, and so on. Examples – a young Doctor Impossible accidently created his nemesis, Corefire. A queen of a fantasy land describes a weapon she lost track of decades ago and which is relevant to the world-conquering plot Impossible is constructing. Corefire's girlfriend and perpetual hostage becomes a factor in the story later. A villain who 'came out of nowhere' has a deep origin if you look closely. Impossible's mentor created one of the heroes on the team, and so on. I grew tired of this while playing World of Darkness. Let's not have all events in a neat bundle wrapped up in the author's worldcraft. Instead try to have the chains and connections between characters be a little seperate. I'm not sure if Grossman wanted to have all things tied together deliberately or if it was just a worldbuilding shortcut. I'd like to see this structure twisted into two webs of causality, each competing... but maybe I'll try that ina book someday.

Soon I will be Invincible is only available now in hardcover, but I don't regret paying the full price. It was a fun read of a realistic version of the unreal. I'll read it again in a few years, and would check out more of Grossman's writing. He's not a writer that makes me giddy, but he has good ideas.

I am America and So Can You [52 Books #1]

I received this as a Christmas present from someone who knew I watch the Colbert Report every day. It's a good fun book for a few chapters, better organized than Jon Stewart's similar book. But like Stewart's book the humor seemed to fall away after a few chapters, becoming a haze of similar jokes repeated and recycled for new topics. Colbert's over-the-top ultra-right persona screams aggrandizement and significance on every page, and I worry some people won't get it's a joke. Ah, well. It's pretty funny but I'd like it at half the size and half the price.

52 Books in 52 Weeks

Over at the Quater to Three forums the idea of a reading challenge was presented. I'm a little late to the party but I think I can backdate the books I've already read and come in close to the challenge, so I'll just assume I'm in the running.

Here's the plan: take enough books to challenge your reading speed and finish them all in 2008: the '52 books' is only a title, so don't panic. If you can read 50 books a year, stretch yourself and go for 60. If you read 5, try for 10, and so one. Also, stretch your boundaries and try some genres you've never touched before.

I normally read about a book a week when I'm on a roll, so I'm going to try to maintain that pace for the whole year. I have a pretty big stack of books sitting bedside so when i finish one I'll just grab another from the pile according to my mood and keep going. So far I have the following books bedside or on order from Amazon:

I am America, And So can You by Stephen Colbert et. al.

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

Halting State by Charles Stross

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

Blackfoot Physics by F. David Peat

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

The New Topping Book by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy

Lamb, or the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

The New Bottoming Book by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Old Man's War by John Scalzi

Declare by Tim Power

The Scar by China Mieville

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Virtual Light by William Gibson

Creating Unforgettable Characters by Linda Seiger

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

Sex, Time and Power by Leonard Shlain

Actions Speak Louder by Eric Lichtenfield

Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card

Herotica ed, by Susie Bright

The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joeseph Campbell

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O'Neil

The Idiots Guide to Self-Esteem by Mark J. Warner, Ed.D.

The War of The Flowers by Tad Williams

Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb

Arslan by M. J. Engh

Humanism: An Introduction by Jim Herrick

Finding Your Religion: When the Faith you Grew Up With Has Lost Its Meaning by Scotty McLennan

Become What You Are by Alan W. Watts

Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Matter by Ian M. Banks

The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo

This all started at Quarter to Three