Neil Fein's Blog

I've recently added on older book reviews I've written, here and here. Blogger will show them as posted on the date I wrote them, which is, I feel, appropriate.

For a while I was sending out reviews by email, but these two are the only ones I've retained. If anyone has copies of the earlier reviews I'd appreciate it if you could send them back to me; my email archives only go back to September 1999 or so.

Mom just had what is known as partial knee replacement surgery. She's came through the surgery okay, but she's been queasy since after the operation, likely from the anaesthetic. Hopefully this will pass out of her system soon.

"Partial" knee replacement surgery means that instead of cutting the knee joint out of the leg and reattaching it with a prosthetic, they only — only! — replace the parts of the knee that are damaged. Yes, this seems like a much better alternative; in this case, it's the cartilage that's being replaced.

The immediate family spent the day in St. Peter's hospital while the procedure went on, and until she was out of recovery. Hence the recent review of Cryptonomicon.

Cryptonomicon
by Neal Stephenson

Don't even think about getting the flimsy paperback printing of this book. Cryptonomicon is 910 pages long in hardcover, not counting the all-too brief appendix, and it'll fall apart halfway through the first reading. The trade paperback should be okay.

Understand, this is not an easy book. If books were operating systems, this book would most definitely not be a fuzzy warm GUI OS, it would be industrial-strength UNIX or Linux -- or "Finux", the fictionalized Linux of the book.

Let's start back at the beginning, here.

I started reading this book over a year ago and loved it. Because I had many other comittments on my time I put the book aside for a while like the lazy reader I am. When I picked the book up again last week, I fully expected to have to start all over from the beginning but, surprisingly, Stephenson's prose is clear enough that I was able to just dive right back into this sea of text. He writes well enough that, for example, even if I can't remember just who the shady figure of "The Dentist" is, after reading half a page of a conversation between him and Randy Waterhouse and wondering what's going on something to do with my brain will turn a switch and -- oh, yeah, he's that scary dude who owns a rival corporate interest and wants to put Randy and Avi out of business, by any means neccesary. Yeah, I remember this guy.

Cryptonomicon is a cinder block of a novel about Lawrence Waterhouse, a mathemetician and Naval officer in an NSA/CIA-like organization being formed during World War II. This division has created "Detachment 2702", the mission of which is to keep the Ratzis unaware that the allies have the key to the Enigma code. This is pretty standard fare up to here, are you with me so far? Another storyline involves Japanese soldier Goto Dengo, and yet another storyline is that of Randy Waterhouse, silicon valley hacker.

The intersections between these characters are what keeps the novel fascinating. Randy interacts with America "Amy" Shaftoe, daughter of Bobby Shaftoe's son Doug Shaftoe, Goto Dengo's engineering works influence the eastern world up to the present day, and the Axis codes prove integral in Randy's opus -- a data haven, which essentially means a medium for electronic, untraceable currency. Oh, and there's a whole plot with a cache of axis war gold.

Stephenson has managed to transcend plot, characters and dialog. This is done while providing excellent conversations dripping with insinuations, a plot that reads like an enigma machine wheel twisted on itself, and characters that have stayed with me well after reading the book. This last is a good thing, as the dust jacket calls this an "extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epoch-making masterpiece". This book was regularly discussed on Slashdot, and for all I know still is.

The 1940's feel like the 1940's, as seen through the lens of an historian with an information fetish. There are bits that I'm a little unclear about... and I can't decide if this is because I missed something, or because I read the book in two parts, with a chink of time in between. Or these are perhaps meant to be dangling for a future book to plug into? Hell, maybe Stephenson's just a sloppy writer. But I don't think so.

Actually, the next book has come out... sort of. Stay tuned, I have yet to read Quicksilver. It fits Neil Gaiman's definition of good art even better than its predecessor, said definition is that it can be used to stun a burgler. It's also a prequel of sorts, the first in a three-book cycle. Cryptonomicon does have an ending, a good one, and it doesn't need anything else; it stands on its own very well. But there are those open-circuit plots...

Get over it. Cryptonomicon has transcended mere fiction. Highly reccomended to hackers, wannabees and hackerphiles as an entry point into the cult of Neal Stephenson.

Other links of interest:

Review by the Association of C & C++ Users
Review at Slashdot
Review at The Modern World, wordy but insightful.
What's up with Enoch Root? This is an interesting look at one of the more enigmatic characters in the book. I imagine many of the questions raised here will be answered by Quicksilver.
In the Beginning was the Command Line An essay by Stephenson about operating system paradigms. Outdated, but still well worth reading as Stephenson finds his supporting arguments and analogies in the most unexpected of places.

Mountains Beyond Mountains
by Tracy Kidder

Like most Americans, I have been until recently unaware of Haiti, beyond the bare CNN facts and parodies of Baby Doc Duvalier in the panels of Doonesbury. This tragic lack is more than remedied in the pages of Kidder's most recent book, Mountains Beyond Mountains. The cover elucidates this uncharacteristicly poetic title, calling this "The quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a man who would cure the world". Not the man, a man. If Farmer were the man who would cure the world, this would imply him to be one of a kind; Kidder's diary of his travels with Dr. Farmer and subsequent, disquieting research into the man have left him hoping that he will not be the sole inheritor of this title.

This distinction is important to Kidder, and in this, his best work to date, the reporter-novelist has become more personally involved with his story, and the observer has become the observed, as much as he tries to stay on the sidelines. For the first time I'm aware of — and I've read most of Kidder's books — he's writing in the first person. The story of Paul Farmer is a story of poverty, death, waste, and one man attempting to remove social inequalities, all the time knowing he is destined to fail.

By setting an unreachable goal for himself, Dr. Farmer has ensured he will always have something else to strive for, a new inequality to address, another plane to catch to another needy country. As Doktè Paul, his handle to many Haitans, he has brought medical treatment to those who could not afford a doctor, let alone the level of care he has made available to Haiti, Peru, Russia and by the duplication of his programs, much of the world. The truth and the scope of the programs Partners In Health, Farmer's organization, have gestated, is staggering.

Mr. Kidder has not written a story about medicine, nor a story about the politics of world health organizations, although these play prominently in Dr. Farmer's life. He has written a critical examination of western, American values, a criticism of the maldistribution of wealth, and of the uses of guilt. This book is, while easy to read, one that will change most readers at least a little, and cause more than a few tears to be shed. The author would not be unhappy, I think, if he loses sales due to people lending out the book.

While Mountains Beyond Mountains is the diary of a man who has come out of his experiences less comfortable with his place in the world, the main theme of the book is its constant attempts to reconcile this discomfort with the fact that not every human being can be a Martin Luther King, a Mother Theresa, a Paul Farmer. Stretching this paradox may be another unattainable goal, but Kidder implies that the human race has a hope of producing many Doktè Pauls, if not in the concrete than through results. Let us hope he is correct.

This is very disturbing. It's an illustrated verison of a short-short story by Neil Gaiman. Although hearing him read it is even creepier.

Ever since Isabel blew through the area, we've been having static on our phone line. We've done the usual checking with a corded phone, blah blah blah. This is the third time we've had these line problems.

The Verizon repair people are fixing the immediate probelms as best as they can, but as one of the repair tech told Martha, the wiring in the area is very, very old.

I wonder if others in our area are having similar problems. And, if they are, if Verizon will ever put two and two together and realize that, in the long run, reqiring the area will end up being cheaper than sending a tech out every three to four months. The tech are quite friendly and do their jobs well, but they're just putting bandaids on the problem.

I'm relearning the skill of reading with many distractions buzzing around me. Until recently, I've needed ab-so-lute quiet to really get any reading done; considering that I used to read with music blaring, this isn't much of a surprise.

This morning, I missed my train by about thirty seconds and I ended up waiting for my train at Newark Penn Station for about 40 minutes. Sometime in the last several years, it subtly transformed into a pretty nice place, with security and nicer shops and satisfactory coffee all available. I read through a book chapter while watching the main board with one eye, sipping at the satisfactory coffee, while the almost-yuppie next to me was jabbering away on her cell phone. But even better, was when I read while walking all the way home yesterday, watching the sidewalk in my peripheral vision.

Years of reading work-related documents may have fostered in me the mindset of concentrating exclusively on the text, lest I miss something. Perhaps with this relaxation, my reading speed will go back up to what it once was. Although what I'm relearning is really just a compartmentalization technique, it makes me feel like I'm back in school: Taking the train into the city with a large not-yet-dry oil painting under one hand, my school bag in another, all while reading a novel held in yet another. If I had been drinking coffee back then (I'd not yet tasted any that was decent), I'd have been a insectoid art student.

Going back through this blog, I realized I never reviewed this. As I only skimmed the book, mostly skipping the bits I'd already read, here's a quickie review:

Scatterbrain
Written by Larry Niven

This is a retrospective of Niven's recent work, similar to previous retrospectives N-Space and Playgrounds Of The Mind. There are short stories and novel excerpts and essays by Niven -- IMHO, the best part of the book, as I have most of the novels and have read the short stories. It can be argued that this series adds nothing new to Niven bookshelves.

The presentation is nice, and the novel excerpts are generally well-chosen, although not taken from his best work; his recent novels are not to my taste. Nevertheless, the excerpt from The Ringword Throne is outstanding, even if nonrepresentative of the rest of the book.

As usual, his recollections about collaberating with Pournelle, Barnes and Cooper are quite good -- although I get the sense he's starting to repeat himself. However, these essays are the best part of these retrospectives; this is the closest to "Larry Niven Annotated" we yet have.

If you're a Niven fan, by all means get this; you'll have a blast. If you're a Niven newbie, start out with one of his more accesible works, perhaps Ringworld, A World Out Of Time, or The Mote In God's Eye.

Throat is dry and scratchy, and I'm sweating sitting at my desk. If this doesn't get better I'll go home. This started up late last night when Graz and I were working on a 1-page comic book concept. I'm better today, but not by much.

Taking the train in was nice, though. I was able to sit there like a zombie commuter for the entire ride to Newark. For the second half I read some of Kidder's book.

Y'all may have noticed that most of my book reviews are of books I liked; this is because I'm not paid to review them, and if I don't like a book it usually ends up abandoned on page 70 or therabouts. So these are more book reccomendations, although if for some strange reason I end up reading a terrible book, well, I'll post that also.

I'm currently reading Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure The World by Tracy Kidder; will report back.

Singularity Sky
Written by Charles Stross

What happens if civilization as we know it is an anomoly, and the proper state of human beings is to be free from the shackles of govenment? That's one of the questions asked by Charlie stross in this, his first published novel in the states. The book follows several characters, and I managed to keep them all straight, each having a well-defined personality.

Having read criticisms, particularly on the author's site, that the novel suffers from first-novel blues, I was pleasantly suprised to find this a well-rounded and -crafted story. Stross does have a tendency to polarize his characters a bit, creating artificial divisions, which is doubly ironic as one of the book's themes is the elucidation of the grey areas between "right" and "wrong". In addition, this book in particular reads somewhat like an open-source-movement manifesto, even more than the popular story "Lobsters".

Most background themes in science-fiction novels -- or, for that matter any novels -- tend to be along the lines of social criticism, rather than criticism of what we now regard as business practices. However, as copyright issues and intellectual property laws become increasingly part of everyday life, that puts it in the same ballpark as criticizing voilence or the "war on drugs"; Stross names a shipboard system "MP3" to make this point.

While Stross can be confusing at times, it always seems to be in areas where he wants the reader to pay attention; it's worth going back a few pages to check something. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Singularity Sky immensely. I thought it was clever, fun, and kept me turning the pages; the pacing is perfect. And even though there's a sequel meant to come out next year, there are no plot threads left obnoxiously dangling, just a damn solid universe left for the author to play in.

After some discussion, Martha booked us plane tickets to London for this December. Yeah, it's the busiest time of year, but it's when I have off work without using up all my vacation time.

We're staying with Asad, who's kindly agreed to put us up. He called around 1am our time on Friday; Martha was asleep, but I was up with Grazina, designing her fantasy coffee shop. I asked him was how difficult it would be to take a smallish acoustic guitar onto the plane; at his suggestion, I later checked carry-on regulations on the airline's site, and my guitar is quite a bit longer than the maximum dimensions for a carry-on. However, Asad assures me he's taken a Steinberger guitar on a plane with no difficulty.

Anyone know anything more about this, from recent personal experience?

Hurricane Isabel was pretty tame in our area. About the most significant event I personally experienced was when, as I was taking the garbage to the curb this morning, I found my cell phone lying in the gutter next to my car -- I'd been looking for it since Wednesday, and assumed it was in one car or another under a seat.

There are power outages throughout some of New Jersey, and I know of at least one death (by falling tree) and a nursing home is being evacuated.

Endless Nights
Written by Neil Gaiman
Art by Glenn Fabry, Milo Manara, Dave McKean, Miguelanxo Prado, Frank Quitely, P. Craig Russell, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Barron Storey.

When asked, "What is Sandman about?" in the pages of The Sandman Companion, Gaiman replied, "About 2000 pages." Sandman takes place in a universe that's both deep and wide, and this book exists to show it off.

Endless Nights is built in seven chapters, one for each of its title characters. The seven Endless, meant to be beings both greater and lesser than gods, are the personifications of particular ideas. Death, Destiny, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delerium, formerly known as Delight.

I found this book slightly uneven, but still very good. If you enjoy the Sandman series, or are considering reading it, this is a good book for you. It doesn't have anything to do with the story of the main series -- "off to the side", as Gaiman puts it -- so won't spoil anything for you.

The book is only out in hardcover, in what my local comic shop calls a "limited" edition. While there will likely be a trade, I haven't heard either way. The hardcover is gorgeous, and is money well spent.

Note: Here's another review of this. While I don't quite agree with the rave Ihnatko gives the book, he sure writes pretty.

We recorded some more of The Bile Song last night. It was difficult going, as both Bruce and myself can't figure out how to set the monitor levels for tracks coming out of the computer. I'm tempted to go back to the MD8 until we can figure this out.

We also got a demo of Never Had A Brother onto disk, but we had to leave the monitors on while I sang. Not exactly hi-fi.

Ouch. When I brought the car into the dealer for its 100,000 mile service, Saturn came up with a list of items needing to be fixed that came to $1,800 dollars. They said that only $836 of that list needs to be done right now, but that's still a lot ofmoney; I had budgeted $500 for various small repairs and service. Perhaps this is part of owning an old Saturn, no?

Makes me glad I took the train into work today. Maybe I can turn this into a more regular thing, a day or two a week to start with.

I got through the opening bits of Charlie Stross's new book Singularity Sky, a book that's been sitting for me to read it for some time. Good so far, will report back.

We went down to Craig and Paula's place; he's considering buying my old guitar Leslie, formerly my travel guitar and now replaced by Millicent. The name is courtesy of Grazina, who reasoned that a Parlor guitar should have the name of someone who would maintain a parlor. I like that, particularly because it's a nice, flexible name. (Millicent, Millie, Mil.)

Anyway. Craig is considering Leslie (named after a rental agent, BTW, who said I could play guitar if I wasn't too loud) as it's his favorite of my guitars and, having just bought a house and a car, I suspect my asking price of $200 with the case is about right to him. We jammed after dinner on Millie and Leslie (it's great that I can say that and have it be perfectly innocent), playing with Welcome Home and Career Opportunities, amongst other songs, while we were waiting three hours so we could go and have ice cream.

Warning: Gearheads only. (Others will be bored to tears.)

The new guitar seems to be doing well. I put a new set of strings on last night and I'm getting decent sound out of it; the new strings sound a bit metallic, though. That could be because they're new, but it could also be that the action's too low.

Bob Norman thinks raising the action might be the way to go. I'm also thinking, mixing up the strings might be a good idea. In other words, using the 4 lowest strings from an .012 set, but using the trebles from an .013 or even an .014. New guitars always take some fiddling.

Raising the action: I have two choices, the obvious being to replace or shim the saddle. It's a nice saddle made of Tusq material; it'd be a shame to replace, and shimming it would cut the midrange/bass response -- I think. Perhaps a truss rod adjustment could curl the neck up a hair; I'll have to read up some.

Bruce and I spend last evening recording. Actually, that's only sort of true; Bruce and I hung out in the studio and he spent most of the time working on a click track for the Bile song. Apparently he can't function efficiently without a 21" monitor.

I did get one take of the acoustic guitar down, but it was pretty horrendous. We stopped after that due to the extreme lateness.

To be continued, likely next Wednesday night.

Speaking with Amy is having an effect; I wrote another verse of Welcome Home yesterday evening, and the song is most definitively about my divorce. Hmm.

Interestingly, this is the first song I wrote on the new guitar. When I printed up lyric sheets of the draft to take along to the Princeton Songwriters' group the next day, they were a hair too wide to fit in the guitar case! This is a little guitar, my readers. Odd, but it's growing on me.

The instrument needs a name. It's a Seagull S Grand, a fingerstyle-only guitar, which means no pickguard; very light finish, which means almost a matte surface. Any suggestions are welcome.

Last evening after work, I stopped at a music store in Rahway that's listed on the Art & Lutherie site as being one of their dealers; I was searching for one of the Ami guitars. They didn't have one, but I did see a very nice Seagull parlor model, what they call a Grand guitar. Which is odd, as it's a smaller guitar.

Nonetheless, I played it and it felt just like the A&L Ami; but the sticker price was $300, as opposed to the $160. I went into deal mode, which I imagine the salesman recognized; after I asked if that was a firm price, he fiddled with a calculator for a bit and then said that he would either go down to $250, or he could add a hardshell case. I thought to myself, he probably pays about $50 fof the case, but I'd pay twice that retail, so it would end up being roughly the same; I brought the guitar home.

I like it, but I'm still getting used to it. It's definitely a fingerstyle-only guitar, which is what I wanted. If i still like it in a few months, maybe I'll install a pickup. (I'll need someone with tiny hands to get inside the soundbox; this is a small guitar.

The improv group got together this weekend for a post-show party, my last event with them as I've left the group. I was expecting some grand announcement about splinter groups, or at least get to see someone storm off in anger.

One person in the group, who shall remain nameless, was intolerably rude to more han one person. I've used my powers as former moderator to ban him from the mailing list; bwah haa haa. (It's the little things...) I'm kind of hoping he reads this at some point, because I don't know if he realizes just how rude he is.

It was a very conventional party, with a poker game, a video viewing (of the show), and that was it. The group will continue, and I've already started the process of transferring the web/email stuff over to Bruce, who I understand will be the next head of the group.

I'll miss seeing these people, but will work with some of them again, I hope. And of course I'll see Bruce and Carrie and Graz and Jake.

I've been looking all over my area for an A & L Ami parlor guitar, and haven't found one. (This is the guitar I found in Lambertville.)

A & L has a list of dealers in New Jersey, but I've been through all the local ones. If I haven't found anything soon, I'll end up going back to Lambertville, but that won't be for a few weeks. Has anyone seen this guitar for sale anywhere in Central NJ?

That's pretty bad. And it's not a song, really, it's an almost-limerick.

Last night I did... laundry. Which I generally don't write about. But, if I wrote a song about laundry, it would look something like this:

There once was a pile of clothing
That was almost old 'nuff to be moving
But this near animation
Went outside creation
'Cause now I am washing my clothing

At a bowling alley in North Brunswick, we discovered that the lane had kiddie gutters; that is, the gutters had some sort of rubber guard in them, so it was pretty much impossible not to hit something on your first ball of the frame. We decided to leave them there -- I suppose we could have asked for a different lane, they weren't that crowded -- and we played bowling with bumpers. Or rubber bowling. Or whatever you want to call it. I'm surprised we didn't bounce balls into the next lane, or into the parking lot!

I found a wonderful guitar this weekend. Martha and I were in Lambertville, NJ this past Sunday, and we went into a walkup guitar shop. I of course gravitated to the steel-string acoustics, and found a rack of mostly parlor-sized guitars.

For anyone who's not keeping up on the current state of parlor guitars: This is a smallish guitar, with an extraordinarily good sound, not only for a small guitar, but for any guitar. Most players prefer larger models, but I'm finding lately that less is more. Unfortunately, parlors are "out of fashion" right now, which means finding one is a little difficult. Back to the story.

I found a few by put out by Art & Lutherie, which I hear is a division/breakaway/whatever company of Seagull guitars. Oddly enough, the "low end" guitar had the best feel and sound. I'll go back -- maybe -- if I still want to get the guitar in a few days. I think it's this one.

Four of us sat around the dinner table on Friday night, passing around a copy of the children's book The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Phony British accents were popular, as was the Black Opal Shiraz. Great fun.

Amazing book; I've read it a few times, now. The overwrought visuals contrast perfectly with the understated prose.