I almost expected the guy to be Canadian. :) This series of fantasy books is a masterpiece of writing. Not only it is complex of plot and emotion, but the characters are many, diverse and (most of all) different.

So far, the A Song of Ice and Fire saga, written by American author George R. R. Martin, consists of four books, the first published in 1996 and the last in 2005. At least three other books are planned in this series. The plot is a historical fantasy, but one unlike the books I've read recently. The aspects of magic and otherworldiness are rare, the bulk of the writing being about the feudal world, with kings, knights, low borns, maidens and whores, thieves, rapists and murderers, plotters and honorable men. No wonder that, lacking a lot of special effects, the story has been selected as the basis for a TV series.

But what is more important than anything is that the writing is really good. The characters are all human, with needs, desires, qualities and faults. You can't help but empathise with them, only to suffer at the cruel fate the writer bestows upon them. Not one escapes unscathed from the malice and pettiness of other people or from shere bad luck. You get to like the characters, then Martin fucks them up. I really wanted to use a more elevated language here, but it's the truth: the world he depicts seems horribly real, not a fairy tale of valiant white knights and pure maidens, but of ridiculous people grabbing lustfully whatever life offers them as it is unlikely their fortune is going to last long.

For the bad part, though, I think the author went too deep, got himself responsible for a lot of characters that he must now move forward, in gruesome detail. The fourth book became so large that he had to split it. He did so by character and geography, rather than by time, so a lot of the characters were missing from the fourth book, A Feast for Crows, and left for the fifth, but acting in the same timeline. At the end of A Feast for Crows the author explains his decision to not just split the book in the middle with a "To Be Continued" ending, and hopes for a publication of the second half in a year. That was in 2005. Ahem.

A lot of people are a bit confused by the long wait for the fifth book. Martin keeps making promises that he doesn't keep and, in July this year, he announced that A Dance with Dragons is already 1400 pages long and 5 chapters close to completion. I hope he does finish it quickly enough, although that would only prolong my suffering anyway. I am sure the fifth book will be as brilliant as the others, but then I will have to wait another 5 years for the sixth. I know TV series usually have no plot, but at least they come weekly ;)

Bottom line: The books are great, I recommend them to any lover of fantasy or even historical novels. I can hardly wait for the TV series, A Game of Thrones, as well.

While waiting for the tenth book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen saga, I went and read Prince of Nothing, by another Canadian author, R. Scott Bakker. This is a three book story, first published in 2004, about what I can only describe as a psychopath, member of a rationalizing sect, going out into the world to protect the secret of said sect.

The book is well written, although not nearly as brilliant as the Malazan series. However the subject of it is very interesting, at least from my standpoint. It concerns a human that is trained in the ways of mental manipulation, rationale and causality, something akin to the Vulcans from StarTrek, but with a very human side to it, the one that pushes one to amass power and use their knowledge to manipulate.

No wonder that the "prince of nothing" is the central character in the books, but not the main character, the role being left to a sorcerer, a man that is at the same time keeper of arcane knowledge and the scorn of ordinary humans. I can't help but empathize with the guy: basically a geek in love with a whore, while a psychopath destroys his world with insidious manipulation. ;)

There is another central character to the story, an insane barbarian, like a tortured Conan, who is both terrifyingly strong and ridiculously fragile, both a mindless warrior and a brilliant strategist. He is also, like Achamian the sorcerer, an exponent of humanity.

Prince of Nothing is a very smart book, one that can only get better as the writing skills of Scott Bakker improve. Its assets are both a scientific approach to the human psyche and a veritable intrigue of arcane powers in conflict with each other on the background of huge masses of clueless people. The plot itself is similar to the story in the Berserk manga, at least its start, where the strong warrior chooses to follow the charismatic and ambitious leader only to his doom. The moral, as I saw it, is that while we choose to live our lives with eyes closed, we cannot in good conscience pretend to deserve control over what happens to us.

I hope the series, known as "The Second Apocalypse", continues, since Prince of Nothing raised more questions than gave answers and the plot really caught my attention. A nice book that I warmly recommend.

You know when you are playing some famous game you get millions of pages discussing strategies and solutions to in-game problems? Well, if you think about it, all those pages could be brought together and bound in something like a book. Why not write StarCraft for Dummies or Professional Warhammer 40000? And with that in mind, how would you feel about a book whose entire purpose is discussing Pac-Man?

Curious yet? You can check it out here! It writes about the algorithms used in the game, the tips and tricks for playing, even the different personalities of the four killer ghosts! Everything complete with pictures, diagrams and YouTube videos!

If there was any doubt about the style of writing and book structure for the first novel from Ian Cameron Esslemont in the Malazan universe, the second book: The Return of the Crimson Guard, dispelled any. One can barely see a little more focus on action than on description compared to Steven Erikson, but, having read it, I feel like this is the tenth novel in the series, not the second in a parallel Malazan world.

First of all, it is a full length book, similar in size with the ones written by Erkison. Again we see an amassing of forces, set to converge towards the climactic end. There are the Avowed of the Crimson Guard with a full army of mercenaries in tow, there is Lasseen, empress of the Malazans, there are Seguleh, man-beasts, D'ivers, Soletaken, mages of huge power, Claws, Talons, Seti, Wickans and the all pervading regular Malazan soldier, with focus on our favourite sort: the sapper :)

I have to say that the writing is so similar to Erikson's, that it even acquired the same problems. There is a lack of finality to just about anything. One just knows that a lot of questions will remain ... not unanswered, but simply ignored... and that the next books will bring more wonder, more magic, more characters, all dancing around this huge singleton of a main character which is the universe of the Malazan Empire. It's refreshing, it's great... it's annoying!! :)

Having said that, this was another great book, one of those writings that make me want to abandon programming to start writing, even if I know nothing about it, one of those books that make me want to abandon watching movies altogether, for lack of detail and significance. Now my big dillema is what should I read next...

Forced to wait for the tenth and final novel of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, due to be published this year, I've started to read the books placed in the same universe written by Steven Erikson's friend, Ian Cameron Esslemont. The first of these books is Night of Knives, which is rather short compared with Erikson's novels or, indeed, with the second Esslemont book, Return of the Crimson Guard, which I am reading now.

The book is alert, as it spans a single night on the island of Malaz, during a rare event which weakens the borders between realms. Anything can happen during this night and, indeed, does happen. The island is assaulted by alien ice magic water dwellers, the dead house is under siege and Kellanved and Dancer are making their move towards the throne of Shadow realm. Meanwhile Surly is Clawing her way into the throne, a natural talented girl with too much attitude is trying to get a job and start an adventure and an old retired soldier gives his all once again.

All and all, it was a nice book. The writing style is clearly different from Erikson's, with less descriptive passages, a little more action and a more positive bias, tending to lend people more good qualities and having them end a little better. However, it only takes a few pages to get into the Malazan feel of things and enjoy the book.

The word that I think best describes the book is "naive". That's not necessarily a bad thing; people have been hooked by naive stories since forever. Isaac Asimov had some very simplistic plots where everything was going well for the main character. The Harry Potter series was also what I could call naive; didn't hurt it much. From the same perspective I can say that The Vorkosigan Saga, which now spans about twenty novels and short stories, had its share of success (and three Hugo awards) no matter what the writing style. That writing style should have evolved anyhow as each book was written.

Back to The Warrior's Apprentice, though. It's about a kid, son of royalty on his home backward planet, who singlehandedly buys a spaceship, runs a blockade, creates a mercenary force, fools everybody that he is older, is smarter than anyone and also foils a ploy to destroy his father. And the drama is, as teenagers go, that he doesn't get the girl. Now see why I call it naive?

However, I am sure I would have gobbled the whole series up when I was fifteen, so, even if I have decided to not read the other books in the series, it depends on what your tastes are. The Warrior's Apprentice is an easy to read, easy to follow, shortish book. As a travel book I guess it would be decent.

I've finally finished the book WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008 by Arlen Feldman and Maxx Daymon. Simply put, it was a great book. Most of the programming books focus too much on structure, resulting in very comprehensive information, but giving one little in the way of actual work. WPF in Action is describing features while using them in a few applications that are built almost entirely out of code printed in the book. I think this is the second book any beginner in WPF should read, the first being one of those boring comprehensive ones :)

The book goes from a brief history of Windows Forms and WPF to Hello World in part one, then to describing layouts, styles, triggers, events and animations in the second part. The third goes to create a wiki application using commands and binding, datatemplates, converters, triggers, validation, then custom controls and drawing (including 3D!). I am a big fan of the MVVM pattern, but I liked that in this book, while it got described, it didn't suffocate the other topics, getting only a small subchapter in the binding section. The fourth part explains navigation, XBAP, goes briefly through ClickOnce and Silverlight, then has a large chapter about printing (too large, I believe). The book finishes with transition effects, interoperability with Windows Forms and threading.

All in all I think it was a very nice read. The authors clearly have a lot of experience and are quite qualified to talk not only about the features in WPF, but also the gotchas and some of the problematic implementations or even bugs. The fourth part of the book was a bit of a bore, though. After a pretty heavy 3D drawing ending of part three, I get to read a whole lot about really boring stuff like printing. I am sure that when need arises, though, this is the first book I will open to see what they did.

Bottom line: First three chapters are a must read. Maybe skip the 3D drawing part the the end of part three. The fourth is optional. The authors themselves said that they intended to write something that could be used as a reference, and I think they succeeded. So read the table of contents and see which parts of WPF you are really interested in in those optional parts.

The WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008 link goes to the publishers site, where you can download the source code and even read some sample chapters.

I don't know what to say about Dust of Dreams. It is the first book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series that is only partially finished, only the first part of a larger story, spread over the ninth and tenth books of the saga. Since the last book from the series, The Crippled God, is not yet released, I have to wait for a year until I get to know what happened.

This being said, I don't really know what happened in this book, either! The Adjunct moves all her forces towards Kolanse, the last of the K'Chain Che'Malle are rising up, there is a group of undead Jaghut that work together, two pairs of Eleint blooded ascendants that have yet to betray each other, a bunch of semi-undead (they have their memories) T'Lan Imass, three pesky gods, a schizophrenic Icarium... the list goes on and on... One thing is for certain: I doubt the tenth book will be able to satisfyingly end the story. The huge number of storylines pretty much guarantees it.

So, I liked the book, but I feel I need to reread it to understand it, maybe just before the tenth one is released. Meanwhile, I am oscillating between the Vorkosigan Saga and the Discworld Saga... Whatever should I start reading? Considering they both have about 20 books each...

Update: It seems the release of The Crippled God has been delayed until 2011, even if there were hopes it would appear in libraries this autumn. Damn!

The book started really nice, at a beginner to medium level with which I could not feel neither embarrassed nor overwhelmed. The first chapter was about the expressiveness of Javascript and how different styles of programming could be employed to achieve the same goals. This part of it I would have liked to see expanded in a book of its own, with code examples and everything.

The second chapter was also interesting, comparing the interface style of programming with the options available inside Javascript as well as giving some real life solutions. Personally, I didn't think the solutions were valid, as writing the interface as comments and trying to enforce the interface inside methods and getters/setters feels cumbersome and "unJavascriptish" to me.

The third chapter, Encapsulation and Information Hiding, described object creation, private, privileged (not protected!) and public members, while the fourth was dedicated to inheritance. All these are great reading for a Javascript programmer, as they might teach one or two new things.

From then on, 13 chapters described various software patterns and their application in Javascript. Alas, since this was the explicit purpose of the book, I can't say I enjoyed that part of the book. It felt like any other rehashing of the original GoF book, only with the syntax changed. Well, maybe not quite so bad, but it lacked a consistency and a touch of the writer's personality that makes books easy to read and to remember.

That being said, the technical part was top notch and the structure of each chapter made it easy to understand everything in them. The software patterns described were: Singleton, Chaining, Factory, Bridge, Composite, Facade, Adapter, Decorator, Flyweight, Proxy, Observer, Command and Chain of Responsibility.

Overall, a nice book for reference, but not one that I would call memorable. An easy read and also an easy browse, since one can pass quickly through the book and still understand what it is all about.

The eighth book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, Toll the Hounds was the worst, I think. First, Steven Erikson experimented with a narrator of sorts, all philosophical and moving the "frame" of the story with wise sounding words that actually sounded fake and convoluted like Kruppe's. Second of all, most of the characters started thinking deeply about all kinds of things that had no real relation to the story, all metaphorical and stuff. Third, the stories themselves were vague, disconnected or filled with "his words brought tears into his eyes" scenes. I swear, even Kallor sheds tears at one moment. The ending was a disappointment too, where the convergence of forces that we got used to in the series seems random and pointless. To top it all off, Fisher Kel Tath made his appearance, thus filling the book with bard poems.

As for the story itself... if you wanted closure on something previous, tough luck. Some new characters, some old ones die (including Hood, how cool is that?) most of the action happens in Darujhistan, while the rest is in Black Coral. No Crippled God at all! Also you may find Wiskeyjack fighting in Hood's army. Didn't they ascend? What is he doing there? Pointless battles abound (and I mean pointless, they are not even strategic, just an enumeration of people starting the fight and then, later on, finishing it. Most of the time the result is pretty much known beforehand, but the battle is honorable or something like that.

Mixed news about the ninth and tenth books in the series. First of all, the series ends! Yes, a huge book, with so many open ends and a great mythos, just ends, because the contract was for ten books. That is both brave and insane in the same time, although I suspect that future books will be scoped in the same universe, just not as part of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. The books nine and ten will actually be a single two part story, with the ninth ending in a cliffhanger. Erikson apologized for this:

While I am, of course, not known for writing door-stopper tomes, the conclusion of The Malazan Book of the Fallen was, to my mind, always going to demand something more than modern bookbinding technology could accommodate. To date, I have avoided writing cliff-hangers, principally because as a reader I always hated having to wait to find out what happens. Alas, Dust of Dreams is the first half of a two-volume novel, to be concluded with The Crippled God. Accordingly, if you’re looking for resolutions to various story-threads, you won’t find them. Also, do note that there is no epilogue and, structurally, Dust of Dreams does not follow the traditional arc for a novel. To this, all I can ask of you is, please be patient. I know you can do it: after all, you have waited this long, haven't you?

The ninth book, Dust of Dreams, started cool, though, in a KChain Che'Malle city with a Matron giving a Destriant the task of finding a Mortal Sword and a Shield Anvil. The Destriant is human and the Matron is insane. Promising, huh? I was considering waiting for a year and reading both ending books, but how can I now?

Reaper's Gale, the seventh book in Steven Erikson's series called The Malazan Book of the Fallen made me feel all kinds of things. There was boredom a lot of times, there was uncomprehension in others, there were moments when tears flowed from my eyes as well as great moments of tension. At the end of it, I feel unqualified to actually discuss it. It is still a great book, it ends with a convergence of paths, as all the others have, but it somehow felt different from the previous six books.

I believe that Erikson fell into a well known writer trap. He was so caught in his own world, that he forgot most readers are not, and cannot be unless with great effort. Therefore the characters got out of control. They did things as they pleased, regardless of the reader's need. That is why I think this book was weak compared to the others.

The plot is too complex to expand here. Enough said that Icarium, Karsa Orlong, Quick Ben, Mael, The Errant, Fiddler and Hedge, Bottle and Beak, The Adjunct and Lostara Yil and all the Bonehunters, they all meet in Letheras. Even after reading the book you don't get to know why all that buildup was for, why in the last 50 pages all the characters acted so strangely, where Karsa and Icarium went and, most of all, why did a woman Seguleh have such a small part! The dragons (all of them) are beaten senseless, the Sengars have the worst of luck and the t'Lann Imass are just peripheral characters.

As did the sixth book, but at a larger scale, more avenues are opened than closed. I can barely wait reading the eight book, but I feel cheated a bit. Hope lives on, though :)

Oh, man, what a book this is. Steven Erikson uses a pattern in his epic Malazan Book of the Fallen series, with books that are standalone(ish) and others that continue the humongous story arches started in previous (or, indeed, later) books. The Bonehunters was heralded like a separate story, however that cannot be said to be true in any way. Old characters, patterns that evoke old stories, as is the birth of the Bonehunters, reminiscent of the Bridgeburners, and the sheer number of new characters, races and even gods make this book more of a hinge rather than a singular pillar in the epic. The number of open ended threads and unexplained new characters paves the way for the next four books. I am already starting to fear for the ending of the series.

What the book is about is difficult if not impossible to explain. It starts with a military campaign of punishment against the remnants of the Seven Cities army, but it ends suddenly and quite strange. The leadership of the elder Tavore sister unites the Malazans and binds them to her, in truth becoming hers and not merely an imperial army. There are strange machinations and moves from all the gods one can imagine, most of them hidden and quite hard to understand. What is even harder to explain is the way the empress allies herself with Mallick Rel and Korbolo Dom and starts rumours that make the Malazan population hate the Wickans, in truth war heroes of impecable honor. The ending is explosive but in no way final, leading the path onwards in the story.

The fifth book in the Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, Midnight Tides is separated by the previous four in location, characters and, I would say, quality. We are witness to a battle between a lost enclave of the Tiste Edur and a lost enclave of The First Empire. From the perspective of the Malazans (which have no involvement at all in this book) both peoples would have been seen as ignorant savages, their conflict merely a petty squabble. The only characters we can recognize are the Crippled God, who is indirectly manipulating things, and Trull Sengar. Trull is almost the main character in the story, explaining his tortured past, although little connects this story with his freeing from the fragment of the Shadow warren in the forth book.

The end, another convergence of characters and stories and gods and magical powers, only opens avenues for further development, rather than actually explaining things. There are some interesting parts to the story, mostly the description of the Letherii culture, so much alike the Western culture today, which Erikson is criticising at every opportunity. He has similar ideas in House of Chains, but he really lets himself free in this one.

Aside from that and from the history of Trull Sengar which is surely to have an impact in the next books, the story was not really that captivating compared to previous chapters in the saga, almost like it all was a prop to describe Trull's way of thinking and to berate capitalism; like one of those TV show episodes that happen in the past so that we can understand what the character will do in the next episode that happens today. Still a good book, though.

Another great Malazan book, the fourth in the series, House of Chains starts with the personal history of Karsa, the Teblor, previously known to us as Shai'k's Toblakai guardian. His tale is both brutal and inspiring, as he evolves from a mindless brute to a ... well... slightly minded brute. At the end of the book there is another battle, like I have been already accustomed by previous reads, only it must be the weirdest one yet. You have to read it to believe it.

Since it started with the singular story of Karsa and because of the many characters that were both introduced, developed from the previous stories or simply clashing at the end, the book felt fragmented (like Raraku's warren :) ). That wasn't so bad, however it opened to many avenues that need to be closed in following books.

At this point it is obvious to me that the Malazan Book of the Fallen is not really a series, but a humongous single story with many interlocking threads and characters. Like chains dragging ghosts of books read, I feel the pressure to end the series so I will probably start hacking away at the fifth book this week.

Third book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, Memories of Ice is another masterpiece of epic fantasy from Steven Erikson. What Deadhouse Gates had in shere scope of military strategy, this book has in number of people and characters as well as levels of magic. If in Gardens of the Moon the characters would avoid gathering too much power in a single place, Memories of Ice practically heaps mages and powerful creatures.

I enjoyed the book a lot, even though I think the multitude of important characters and the magnitude of their powers was a bit overwhelming. Also, the battles seemed more chaotic, less strategic, considering they came after the impressive story of Coltaine's campaign in Deadhouse Gates. All this was compensated by troop numbers in the hundreds of thousands, major magic users in the tens, an alliance of the T'Lan Imass allied with Caladan Brood and the Tiste Andii and the Barghast and the Malazans and the Rhivi and so many others against the cannibal army of a Jaghut manipulated by a god and so many other gems.

I started reading the fourth book in the series and I will be reviewing it as fast as I can.