Books: Future Prefect, Past Perfect, Games, Events, Frightened Men, and Sex Advice For All Creation

The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds

A prequel to many of his Revelation Space stories, this detective novel is set in the Glitter Band around the planet Yellowstone, during its golden age. Our heroes are something like the FBI, with the primary mission of investigating voting fraud. Then a habitat is destroyed . . . and it turns out this is just the opening move in a plan to control the whole system. Gripping, disturbing, recommended.

In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent

darxus, this one should interest you. It's a history of "the mad dreamers who tried to build a perfect language", from Wilkins' Language of Truth to Klingon. Reading about the numerous failures is a bit depressing, but the moderate successes (like, there are apparently several thousand native speakers of Esperanto) are fun, as is the sheer art of creating langauges. Recommended.

Things We Think About Games by Will Hindmarch & Jeff Tidball, plus others

A Pez dispenser of gaming wisdom (in a good way), including fair methods for determing first player, "All variations on gameplay stem from two core types of alterations: expanding choices and restricting choices," and, "If you want to play again, you should probably not act like a f***wit." Recommended.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

I saw the Unfortunate Events movie, and was moderately entertained. I have now read the first book, and was moderately entertained. However, I have it on good authority from two sources that the series ends without resolving many of the main mysteries, so I think I won't commit any further.

The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout

One of the early Nero Wolfe mysteries, and therefore less formulaic than later books, but also more prone to the weaknesses of its era. (Like, Archie using ethnic slurs.) Mildly recommended.

Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creation by Olivia Judson

A nonfiction book about sex in its many forms throughout the animal kingdom, written in the style of an advice column. E.g., "I'm just a little fruit fly, and I've heard that it's going to take me three weeks to make a single sperm. Apparently this is because it's going to need a tail twenty times longer than my whole body. This seems unfair. Can I get a prosthesis?" Occasionally disturbing (lots of weird-@$$ cannibalism goin' on out there), but recommended nevertheless.