Author Ernest Cline’s debut novel, an homage to video games and 1980’s geek/pop culture, has been burning up the internet since its release in August of 2011. I have the distinct honor of being the very last person in the world to read it.

Yes, I’m being facetious, but that is the way it feels.

We all have those novels we can point to that we finally get around to reading, realizing all the while that it is inexplicable that we didn’t get to it long ago. I came of age in the 1980’s. My nostalgic hold on that time period has only grown stronger with each passing year. I have loved video games since the first time I sat in my uncle’s bedroom and played Pong. So really, any excuse would be a lame one.

I chose to experience Ready Player One via the unabridged audio for one very important reason: Wil Wheaton. I have become such a big fan of his over the last few years, first and foremost because of his autobiographical writing, and secondarily because of his ambassadorship of the geek culture that I love. I had checked this out from the library earlier in the year, had listened to five out of the thirteen CD’s, and had finally returned it unfinished after discovering that Witness Protection was my last option for dodging the tenacious library constabulary. I never got back to it, until this week when blogger Cori mentioned it in her Holiday Book Buying Guide. I did a drive-by on Monday, abducting the audio book from the library once more, and finished it last night after a five-hour listening marathon.

To Cori and to all of my other friends IRL and online: You were right. Ready Player One is a book I couldn’t help but love, debut issues and all. I will try to do a better job of listening to you next time (before making other inexplicable choices and missing out on discussing a book while it is a hot topic). 😉

Continue reading Ready Player One ~Ernest Cline →

Who better than a brilliant paranoid to expose the devious plots of others?

Who indeed, agrees Sigmund Ausfaller, one of Earth’s few remaining “natural” paranoids. His bosses feel likewise. Sigmund Ausfaller is the ace up the sleeve of ARM, the Amalgamated Regional Militia, whose Bureau of Alien Affairs on Earth employs a group of paranoid agents, most of them drug-induced, to ferret out the secrets of the Citizens, an alien race known unaffectionately by humans as the Puppeteers. Ausfaller sees conspiracies within conspiracies and his fearful distrust of everyone, most notably the Puppeteers, makes him the ideal agent to seek out the location of the Puppeteer homeworld.

Niven and Lerner’s series of prequel novels to the seminal classic Ringworld began with Fleet of Worlds, an excellent blend of interesting scientific concept and engaging adventure story, and continues with Juggler of Worlds.

This second novels builds upon the first by examining events of Fleet of Worlds largely from the viewpoint of a handful of key characters centered in and around Earth’s solar system. Intrigue and espionage viewed through the eyes of a brilliant paranoid agent makes for an exciting ride in which the reader quite naturally finds him/herself looking askance at every twist and turn in the plot.

Continue reading Juggler of Worlds ~Larry Niven, Edward M. Lerner →