November 29, 2007
Basics
Soup Up Your Cellphone By KEVIN C. TOFEL
It is all too easy to get caught up in the hype that comes with the latest and greatest cellphones. And right now, the latest and greatest are the iPhone and the iPhone clones that, with a touch of the finger, open up maps, restaurant listings and the weather.
If those phones are too pricey for your budget or you've got more months on your contract with your carrier, there might be another way to get some of those handy services on your phone: widgets. (For a touch screen, you'll just have to wait.)
Widgets are small applications, most often free, that appear on your phone's menu pages. They deliver news or information to most handsets. You can use them to track down a cab company or follow stock prices. Other widgets deliver maps or headlines from media sources like the BBC, Bloomberg and this newspaper. For anyone with a smartphone that has the ability to connect to the Internet, it might make sense to simply use the included Web browser to visit Google Maps, YouTube and such, but if you're looking to extend the life of an older handset, widgets are a good option.
Widgets will not turn your vintage Motorola StarTAC into an iPhone, but they will add features and functions that you didn't think your phone could ever possess. There are several Web sites that offer widgets like GetMobio.com, Plusmo.com, Openwave.com and WidSets.com.
WidSets is one of the most popular such places because it has a large library of more than 2,650 widgets that work on more than 300 devices from all the leading manufacturers, even though the site is affiliated with Nokia, the world's largest maker of handsets. Most phones made in the last three years are supported by WidSets, including golden oldies like the Motorola RAZR V3.
GetMobio has fewer widgets and supports about 90 phones, but among its widgets are a cheap-gas finder, a store locator and something called the Panic Kit, which locates locksmiths, cab companies and pharmacies at the spur of the moment. Plusmo's roster is not as extensive, but among its widgets are applications to bring in news from CNN and a daily Peanuts cartoon.
Why would you use widgets when your carrier might offer similar applications? To save money. Cellular providers do not make much money selling handsets to consumers; in fact, they typically subsidize your handset purchase. By paying for a portion of your device, they're investing in you for the next two years. Over the contract's life, the real money is made in monthly service plan fees, overage charges and the extra services they can offer you.
That's where free widgets come in. You can avoid paying for extra services like news headlines and sports information that carriers typically bundle in packages for $5, $10, $20 or more. Often, you do not need the whole bundle, just one small feature like a stock price ticker or a weather update. Single-purpose widgets might serve your purpose (and your budget) better since you're installing only what you need.
While widgets are usually free, you can still end up paying your carrier for data transfer or airtime. The widgets need to piggyback on your cellular connection for data. Verify with your carrier that you either have some data allowance included in your plan or that it will charge only a nominal fee for small amounts of data. (Afterward, you can use the Traffic Feature in WidSets widgets to track how much data airtime you use.) Occasional updates of text data may seem small, but they add up quickly, so prepare accordingly with your service provider and monthly plan.
It does not matter whether your phone is on the CDMA network that Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Alltel use or the GSM network that AT&T and T-Mobile use. The determining factor for widget compatibility is whether your phone supports Java software, or more specifically what is known as Java MIDP 2.0. With a few notable exceptions, like the Apple iPhone, Java is fairly commonplace in handsets because it gives the wireless carriers a flexible and easy way to add services. Smartphones that run on Windows Mobile, Palm and even BlackBerry operating systems also support Java, though on some phones you may have to download it first.
It is easy to install widgets. Go to WidSets.com to verify whether your phone can accept widgets. Widgets that you select are sent directly to your handset along with a WidSets application to run them. The process should take less than five minutes.
Here are some popular and most recommended widgets to get you started:
¶AccuWeather. One of the most useful widgets is also one of the most popular; at last check, more than 125,000 people were running this widget. And why not when you can get the weather forecast, including local current weather, extended forecasts and even radar maps?
¶Google Calendar. The Web-based calendar is with you everywhere with this widget. The best part? Update your calendar in one place on the Internet and the changes are viewable on other devices.
¶Wikipedia. There's an option to turn off images in this encyclopedia and provide just text to speed up the information download as well as reduce the amount of data transferred.
¶YouTube. This widget might be a little more limited than the iPhone's YouTube application, but you can still catch recently added videos and more.
¶Flickr. One of the most popular photo-sharing services on the Internet is right in the palm of your hand. You can view your photos and those that your friends and family have uploaded or search by a keyword to see what's out there.
¶Private Chat. Those instant-message fees add up quickly. Get your closest friends to install this widget and pay for just the airtime in real-time chat sessions. With over 350,000 users, you'll never be lonely again, but you might want to invest in an unlimited data plan for this one.
¶Twitter. If you want a wider audience than just one chat participant, Twitter is the answer. This short-messaging service allows you to "micro-blog" your life in 140 character bursts.
¶Sudoku. You've got a number pad on that phone, so why not use it to exercise your brain?
¶EBay. Searching for that special item? Now you can do it all the time and everywhere.
¶Newsvine. A combination of mainstream news and user-generated opinions that offers up wide viewpoints on current topics. Start with headlines in the widget and read any story with a single click. You can also choose to have news that focuses on a keyword of your choice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/technology/personaltech/29basics.htm?sq=&st=cse%22Soup%20Up%20Your%20Cellphone=%22=&scp=1&pagewanted=print
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Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Rewritten, in a Language of Its Own By FRANK BRUNI
November 28, 2007
Rewritten, in a Language of Its Own By FRANK BRUNI
MORE than a few chefs have spent more than a little time trying to turn carpaccio into an intricate production that reflects and trumpets their ingenuity.
At the restyled Fiamma in SoHo, Fabio Trabocchi joins the challenge in an original fashion. He wraps thinly sliced Australian wagyu beef around columns of tofu, which support a crunchy Parmesan tuile and, over that, a teetering quail egg. On a long, thin rectangular plate he lines up three of these delicate towers, interspersed with ovals of wagyu tartare that wear caps of chopped mushrooms and Parmesan.
Is it carpaccio? Sort of. But not really. And so what? It’s crazily enjoyable, and that’s what counts.
Mr. Trabocchi relishes the finer fowls and isn’t inclined to let them be, so both roasted poussin and roasted wild Scottish pheasant come with fatty lobes of foie gras. The dark sauces pooling beneath the meat have an almost staggering richness.
Would you find these entrees in Italy, even up north? Maybe, in a very fussy restaurant. In most others, no. And who cares? They’re prepared with finesse and they’re the definition of luxury, no matter the geography, no matter the language.
Since Mr. Trabocchi took over the kitchen at Fiamma in September, much of the response to his cooking has been perplexed, centering on questions of nomenclature and ethnic fidelity.
Can a lasagna with as little sunshine and as much stormy intensity as Mr. Trabocchi’s justly call itself lasagna? And can a restaurant with food as ornate, saucy and creamy as Fiamma’s rightly call itself Italian?
That’s a chewy topic for debate, and I cast my vote this way: Fiamma is about as Italian as a poodle in a Prada scarf.
It owes its accessories — the olive oil, the balsamic vinegar, many of the cheeses (fontina, burrata, ricotta salata) — to Italy. It owes its classically indulgent soul to France.
It owes apologies and explanations to no one. When a restaurant turns out this many dishes that make you stop mid-chew, nudge a companion and nod your head vigorously — because you’re excited; because you need to start working off the calories any way you can — it needn’t worry about fitting into a tidy box.
Fiamma has been around since 2002, when William Grimes gave it three stars in The Times, solidifying its reputation as the lone thoroughbred among the many New York workhorses that belong to the restaurateur Stephen Hanson. He also owns multiple branches of Ruby Foo’s and Dos Caminos.
But in a shakeup this year that has turned out well for the city’s gastronomes, Fiamma’s chef, Michael White, decamped to the restaurants Alto and L’Impero, both of which are turning out distinguished food. And Mr. Hanson lured Mr. Trabocchi from Maestro, a restaurant near Washington, D.C., where he had established himself as one of the most dazzling chefs around the nation’s capital.
Mr. Hanson also spruced up the SoHo town house the restaurant inhabits, giving it not so much a new look as a fresh glow. The main, second-floor dining room, with its warm colors of orange and red, nimbly splits the difference between elegance and unceremonious comfort.
Elegance is getting extra attention these days. Previously called Fiamma Osteria, the restaurant has lost the second word, which evoked informality. (The remaining word is Italian for flame.) And there’s a fanciful array of new plates and cutlery, meant to cast the food they showcase in an artistic light.
That food is indeed artistic but seldom precious, the key to its success. Mr. Trabocchi delivers bold, resonant flavors; if anything he goes overboard with them, making you wish there were a more varied rhythm to his meals.
He comes out swinging and goes constantly for the knockout punch. An appetizer of various cuts of rabbit includes leg meat stuffed with prosciutto. The Romanesco broccoli around it is sautéed with guanciale. And the broccoli purée beneath everything includes a generous dose of rabbit jus.
Take a deep breath. You’ve got at least two courses —and maybe more — to go.
Although Mr. Trabocchi produces terrific gnocchi in way that uses less flour, he offsets their lightness with a goat ragù that, like so many of his sauces, has the kind of haunting intensity a laboriously made reduction does.
He takes flour, too, out of what might otherwise be a béchamel for the lasagna. What does he leave in? Well, a reduction of chicken stock and cream, which is layered with noodles and with a ragù of veal sweetbreads, chicken livers, chicken gizzards, prosciutto and more. Around the lasagna goes veal jus. And chanterelle mushrooms, for some additional dark magic.
For Mr. Trabocchi, more is more. He puts poached bone marrow on a saffron-flavored risotto. He puts fried bread crumbs on a whole lot, including monkfish liver and, separately, thick-cut, gorgeous Dover sole. He puts crushed Alba hazelnuts, sautéed in butter, on top of braised veal cheeks, which accompany a hunk of roasted veal rib-eye.
There’s nuance in the mix, the tofu in the newfangled carpaccio providing one example. It lends volume, shape and a chewy element to the silky beef without muffling its flavor.
And what you find on impeccably roasted rack of lamb isn’t rosemary but nepitella, an Italian herb that does the work of mint in a less assertive manner.
Mr. Trabocchi scatters such surprises throughout a meal, and he scatters luxuries, too: black and white truffles; porcini mushrooms; sea urchin (in a dish of spaghetti); langoustine (as an amuse-bouche).
In the context of that, and of Fiamma’s lofty prices, it’s a happy shock to find a wine list with dozens of bottles under $50 and scores under $75. And they’re interesting wines, from more countries than Fiamma’s list previously represented.
The desserts by Thomas Wellings, the pastry chef, tend to be fastidiously composed. My favorite was a so-called salad of roasted pears and pine nuts, accompanied by ice cream flavored with Corbezzolo honey, from the nectar of a shrub found in northern Italy.
The shrub’s provenance, I suppose, makes the dessert Italian. I’ll certainly go along with that, provided I get a second serving.
Fiamma
***
206 Spring Street (Sullivan Street), SoHo; (212) 653-0100.
ATMOSPHERE Equal measures of warmth and elegance enliven dining rooms on the ground floor and upstairs of a SoHo town house.
SOUND LEVEL Moderate.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Carpaccio; tuna crudo; mussels and cuttlefish with polenta; lasagna; gnocchi; squash agnolotti; Dover sole; veal cheeks and rib-eye; poussin; pheasant; lamb; pear salad; chocolate ganache with pistachio; chocolate torta Caprese.
WINE LIST Interesting, sophisticated and nicely varied in geography and price.
PRICE RANGE Three-course prix fixe, $75; five-course prix fixe, $100; six-course tasting, $110; à la carte dessert, $12.
HOURS Dinner from 6 to 10 p.m. Monday, to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, to midnight Friday, and from 5:30 p.m. to midnight Saturday. Dec. 3 through Jan. 31, lunch from noon to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Closed Sunday.
RESERVATIONS Call at least two weeks ahead for prime dinner times.
CREDIT CARDS All major cards.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Entrance at street level, with elevator service between floors and accessible restrooms.
WHAT THE STARS MEAN Ratings range from zero to four stars and reflect the reviewer’s reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices are subject to change.
Rewritten, in a Language of Its Own By FRANK BRUNI
MORE than a few chefs have spent more than a little time trying to turn carpaccio into an intricate production that reflects and trumpets their ingenuity.
At the restyled Fiamma in SoHo, Fabio Trabocchi joins the challenge in an original fashion. He wraps thinly sliced Australian wagyu beef around columns of tofu, which support a crunchy Parmesan tuile and, over that, a teetering quail egg. On a long, thin rectangular plate he lines up three of these delicate towers, interspersed with ovals of wagyu tartare that wear caps of chopped mushrooms and Parmesan.
Is it carpaccio? Sort of. But not really. And so what? It’s crazily enjoyable, and that’s what counts.
Mr. Trabocchi relishes the finer fowls and isn’t inclined to let them be, so both roasted poussin and roasted wild Scottish pheasant come with fatty lobes of foie gras. The dark sauces pooling beneath the meat have an almost staggering richness.
Would you find these entrees in Italy, even up north? Maybe, in a very fussy restaurant. In most others, no. And who cares? They’re prepared with finesse and they’re the definition of luxury, no matter the geography, no matter the language.
Since Mr. Trabocchi took over the kitchen at Fiamma in September, much of the response to his cooking has been perplexed, centering on questions of nomenclature and ethnic fidelity.
Can a lasagna with as little sunshine and as much stormy intensity as Mr. Trabocchi’s justly call itself lasagna? And can a restaurant with food as ornate, saucy and creamy as Fiamma’s rightly call itself Italian?
That’s a chewy topic for debate, and I cast my vote this way: Fiamma is about as Italian as a poodle in a Prada scarf.
It owes its accessories — the olive oil, the balsamic vinegar, many of the cheeses (fontina, burrata, ricotta salata) — to Italy. It owes its classically indulgent soul to France.
It owes apologies and explanations to no one. When a restaurant turns out this many dishes that make you stop mid-chew, nudge a companion and nod your head vigorously — because you’re excited; because you need to start working off the calories any way you can — it needn’t worry about fitting into a tidy box.
Fiamma has been around since 2002, when William Grimes gave it three stars in The Times, solidifying its reputation as the lone thoroughbred among the many New York workhorses that belong to the restaurateur Stephen Hanson. He also owns multiple branches of Ruby Foo’s and Dos Caminos.
But in a shakeup this year that has turned out well for the city’s gastronomes, Fiamma’s chef, Michael White, decamped to the restaurants Alto and L’Impero, both of which are turning out distinguished food. And Mr. Hanson lured Mr. Trabocchi from Maestro, a restaurant near Washington, D.C., where he had established himself as one of the most dazzling chefs around the nation’s capital.
Mr. Hanson also spruced up the SoHo town house the restaurant inhabits, giving it not so much a new look as a fresh glow. The main, second-floor dining room, with its warm colors of orange and red, nimbly splits the difference between elegance and unceremonious comfort.
Elegance is getting extra attention these days. Previously called Fiamma Osteria, the restaurant has lost the second word, which evoked informality. (The remaining word is Italian for flame.) And there’s a fanciful array of new plates and cutlery, meant to cast the food they showcase in an artistic light.
That food is indeed artistic but seldom precious, the key to its success. Mr. Trabocchi delivers bold, resonant flavors; if anything he goes overboard with them, making you wish there were a more varied rhythm to his meals.
He comes out swinging and goes constantly for the knockout punch. An appetizer of various cuts of rabbit includes leg meat stuffed with prosciutto. The Romanesco broccoli around it is sautéed with guanciale. And the broccoli purée beneath everything includes a generous dose of rabbit jus.
Take a deep breath. You’ve got at least two courses —and maybe more — to go.
Although Mr. Trabocchi produces terrific gnocchi in way that uses less flour, he offsets their lightness with a goat ragù that, like so many of his sauces, has the kind of haunting intensity a laboriously made reduction does.
He takes flour, too, out of what might otherwise be a béchamel for the lasagna. What does he leave in? Well, a reduction of chicken stock and cream, which is layered with noodles and with a ragù of veal sweetbreads, chicken livers, chicken gizzards, prosciutto and more. Around the lasagna goes veal jus. And chanterelle mushrooms, for some additional dark magic.
For Mr. Trabocchi, more is more. He puts poached bone marrow on a saffron-flavored risotto. He puts fried bread crumbs on a whole lot, including monkfish liver and, separately, thick-cut, gorgeous Dover sole. He puts crushed Alba hazelnuts, sautéed in butter, on top of braised veal cheeks, which accompany a hunk of roasted veal rib-eye.
There’s nuance in the mix, the tofu in the newfangled carpaccio providing one example. It lends volume, shape and a chewy element to the silky beef without muffling its flavor.
And what you find on impeccably roasted rack of lamb isn’t rosemary but nepitella, an Italian herb that does the work of mint in a less assertive manner.
Mr. Trabocchi scatters such surprises throughout a meal, and he scatters luxuries, too: black and white truffles; porcini mushrooms; sea urchin (in a dish of spaghetti); langoustine (as an amuse-bouche).
In the context of that, and of Fiamma’s lofty prices, it’s a happy shock to find a wine list with dozens of bottles under $50 and scores under $75. And they’re interesting wines, from more countries than Fiamma’s list previously represented.
The desserts by Thomas Wellings, the pastry chef, tend to be fastidiously composed. My favorite was a so-called salad of roasted pears and pine nuts, accompanied by ice cream flavored with Corbezzolo honey, from the nectar of a shrub found in northern Italy.
The shrub’s provenance, I suppose, makes the dessert Italian. I’ll certainly go along with that, provided I get a second serving.
Fiamma
***
206 Spring Street (Sullivan Street), SoHo; (212) 653-0100.
ATMOSPHERE Equal measures of warmth and elegance enliven dining rooms on the ground floor and upstairs of a SoHo town house.
SOUND LEVEL Moderate.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Carpaccio; tuna crudo; mussels and cuttlefish with polenta; lasagna; gnocchi; squash agnolotti; Dover sole; veal cheeks and rib-eye; poussin; pheasant; lamb; pear salad; chocolate ganache with pistachio; chocolate torta Caprese.
WINE LIST Interesting, sophisticated and nicely varied in geography and price.
PRICE RANGE Three-course prix fixe, $75; five-course prix fixe, $100; six-course tasting, $110; à la carte dessert, $12.
HOURS Dinner from 6 to 10 p.m. Monday, to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, to midnight Friday, and from 5:30 p.m. to midnight Saturday. Dec. 3 through Jan. 31, lunch from noon to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Closed Sunday.
RESERVATIONS Call at least two weeks ahead for prime dinner times.
CREDIT CARDS All major cards.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Entrance at street level, with elevator service between floors and accessible restrooms.
WHAT THE STARS MEAN Ratings range from zero to four stars and reflect the reviewer’s reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices are subject to change.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Out of This World: Great Sci-Fi and Fantasy by Nancy Pearl
*
Fiction
Out of This World: Great Sci-Fi and Fantasy by Nancy Pearl
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Book covers
Nancy Pearl's Picks
* 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson
* 'Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians' by Brandon Sanderson
* 'The Name of the Wind' by Patrick Rothfuss
* 'The Last Light' of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay
* 'The Thief' by Megan Whalen Turner
* 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldeman
* 'Gateway' by Frederik Pohl
Morning Edition, November 12, 2007 · I am not overly fond of the word genre. Sometimes, of course, it is simply used to describe a type of book that makes use of certain conventions. However, for many people, the word has a pejorative taint — they see genre fiction as being somehow "less" than non-genre writing.
When these people find that they really like a particular work of genre fiction, they're inclined to use phrases like "transcends the genre." Though I am not a particularly violent person, hearing this always makes me want to throttle the speaker. Genre labeling not only ghettoizes particular books, but it narrows the world of literature for readers, rather than expanding it.
And speaking of genre, although I don't consider myself at all a science fiction/fantasy fanatic, I must say that selecting the books for this topic was harder than any of the others that I've done. There is simply so much excellent stuff out there — both new and old — that I know people would enjoy, that the list could have been at least four times as long. As it is, I know I've omitted some wonderful novels, like Ursula Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea, Dahlgren by Samuel Delany, George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, Robert Heinlein's novels for young teens, like Between Planets and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Clifford Simak's Way Station, Dan Simmons' Hyperion and sequels, and on and on and on.
'Cryptonomicon'
* Read an Excerpt
'Cryptonomicon'
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, paperback, 1,168 pages
Because Neal Stephenson is probably best known for his classic science fiction cyberpunk novel Snow Crash (first published in 1992 and generally thought to be a major inspiration for the online virtual world, Second Life), he's thought of as a science fiction author, but that's a rather limiting (not to mention wrong) way of looking at his writing. Cryptonomicon is my favorite of his novels (and one of my top 10 favorite books of all time). I press it on friends and strangers alike who are looking for a book that's not only a page-turning adventure, but will offer them food for thought as well (randomness and cryptanalysis, among other nuggets, in this case).
This wildly ambitious, brilliant novel is difficult to describe briefly because of its complexity and its large cast of characters. It's set in various times and places, including the Pacific Theater during World War II, Bletchley Park in England (where men and women worked around the clock to decipher Nazi codes), and a fictitious country called Kinakuta, where a group of computer geeks are attempting to set up a data haven. Stephenson's main protagonists are invented, but they mix and mingle with historical characters like Admiral Isokuro Yamamoto, Douglas MacArthur, Ronald Reagan, and Alan Turing, among others. Stephenson deftly moves the action back and forth among time periods, locations, and into and out of the lives of his sundry characters, many of whom the reader develops a huge fondness for. Perhaps Stephenson's closest literary compatriot is David Foster Wallace, with whom he shares a wicked high intelligence, a well-developed sense of humor and a prodigious imagination. Don't miss this book.
'Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians'
* Read an Excerpt
'Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians'
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson, Hardcover, 320 pages
Perhaps there are some people (even librarians) who could resist reading a book with the enticing title of Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson, but not me. Written for 10- to 13-year-olds, it's the story of Alcatraz Smedry. He has spent his short life in foster homes, moving from one to another as each set of foster parents gets fed up with his clumsiness, despite his protestations that he doesn't break things on purpose. On his 13th birthday, Alcatraz receives a strange sort of present — a bag of sand! — from his real parents. However, the gift is soon stolen by a group of evil librarians bent on world domination. Only Alcatraz, assisted by his grandfather Leavenworth (who always shows up late for everything) and assorted other characters, can prevent the librarians from fulfilling their dastardly plan. First, of course, the good guys have to infiltrate the local library….
This is an excellent choice to read aloud to the whole family. It's funny, exciting, and briskly paced. Best of all, the message it gives young readers is that a person's flaws — being late, breaking things, etc. — can sometimes turn into useful talents. (Alert science fiction and fantasy fans will recognize the authors memorialized in Grandpa Smedry's exclamations, like "Blistering Brooks" and "Rumbling Rawns.")
'The Name of the Wind'
* Read an Excerpt
'The Name of the Wind'
The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicles: Day One by Patrick Rothfuss, hardcover, 662 pages
Fans of the epic high fantasies of George R.R. Martin or J.R.R. Tolkien will definitely want to check out Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicles: Day One. When a traveling historian/writer, known as Chronicler, stumbles into the Waystone Inn, he sees through the proprietor's disguise and recognizes him as Kvothe (pronounced more or less like Quothe), the most talented, and infamous, magician of his day. At Chronicler's behest, Kvothe begins to relate the story of how he came to be at the Waystone Inn, which turns out to be a rags-to-riches-to-rags story of murder and a desperate search for truth and knowledge through study of the arcane arts. I don't want to give away too many details of the plot, since one of the great pleasures of this remarkable first novel is the meticulously detailed unfolding tale of Kvothe's life. This is a true page-turner, with an engrossingly complex hero (or is he an antihero?) and set in a particularly well-imagined world; it's set a high standard as fans will eagerly await the next two installments, Day Two and Day Three, due out, respectively, in 2008 and 2009.
'The Last Light of the Sun'
* Read an Excerpt
'The Last Light of the Sun'
The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay, paperback, 400 pages
Guy Gavriel Kay has made a name for himself among readers who love historical fantasy (another term might be alternative histories), but even those who don't consider themselves fantasy readers should take a look at Kay's novels. To write these books (two of my other favorites are The Lions of Al-Rassan and Sailing to Sarantium), Kay first immerses himself in the study of an historical era. He then invents characters, throws in a bit of magic, and, voila! — a novel that is totally fictional but always true to the essence of the period. (And who knows, perhaps his version, magic and all, is the true one.)
The Last Light of the Sun describes three groups of people living through a period of great upheaval. History buffs will recognize the action as taking place in the ninth century, when the Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts fight (and die — often gruesomely: this is not always pleasant reading) for primacy in the land that would be later called England. The characters are all three-dimensional, and their choices and their fates will come to matter deeply to readers. For those who enjoy well-written, well-researched historical fiction, there are few who equal Kay's inspired recreations of the past.
'The Thief'
* Read an Excerpt
'The Thief'
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, paperback, 304 pages
Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief is a supremely satisfying book for kids 10 and up (and a good choice for adult readers as well). It's the first in a trilogy, followed by Queen of Attolia and King of Attolia. The eponymous protagonist, Gen, who's been caught with the King of Sounis' gold ring, is imprisoned deep in the king's dungeon. His chance of freedom comes when the king's magus sets off on a dangerous journey that requires a thief's talents to succeed. Gen is being brought along to steal Hamiathes' Gift (a precious stone that gives its owner the right to rule over a country). If Gen succeeds, he'll be rewarded; if he fails, he'll die; and there's to be no escape from the magus, who promises to track him down wherever he might try to hide.
There are many adventures and not a few surprises in store for both Gen and the reader, before the last page is turned. Gen is a terrific hero — a mixture of bravado and cunning. The well-evoked settings — three warring kingdoms, Eddis, Sounis, and Attolia — loosely resemble the city-states of ancient Greece, and some of the most interesting parts of the books are the myths and legends of the region's gods and goddesses.
'The Forever War'
* Read an Excerpt
'The Forever War'
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, paperback, 288 pages
When I think about terrific anti-war novels, there are three that come to mind: Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. Of the three, Haldeman's is the only one that's labeled science fiction, which means that a lot of people have probably missed it. Published in 1974, it won both of the major science fiction awards — the Nebula and the Hugo — one of the few books to achieve this honor. It's hard not to believe that Haldeman, who fought in the Vietnam War, drew on his own experiences of combat in this story of William Mandella. Mandella and other men and women with genius IQs are conscripted into an elite United Nations strike force whose mission is to track down and wipe out a group of aliens known as the Taurans from their presumed home planet as punishment for attacking ships carrying Earth's colonists in space.
The action ranges from the 20th to the 34th century, as William and his fellow soldiers engage in a series of battles to the death with the enemy, about whom they know very little. Haldeman also makes good use of the time distortion that presumably occurs when you travel at near the speed of light. So that while subjectively Mandella feels only a few months have gone by, decades have actually passed on Earth, with all the attendant changes that time can bring to governments, customs, and beliefs. Haldeman makes clear that soldiers returning home from any war, after however long or short a time, inevitably find the world they come back to far different from the one they left.
'Gateway'
* Read an Excerpt
'Gateway'
Gateway by Frederik Pohl, paperback, 288 pages
Gateway by Frederik Pohl is also part of the short list of books that won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. It's been one of my favorites since I first read it in 1978, the year of its publication. Robinette Broadhead relates the story of his life on (and off) the asteroid Gateway to his psychiatrist, a robot whom he's nicknamed Sigfrid von Shrink. (I must say that I've often thought that the AI Sigfrid sets the gold standard for psychotherapists.) When Broadhead wins a lottery in his native Wyoming, he takes the first spaceship available and heads for Gateway to make his fortune prospecting. Gateway, now run by a huge multinational corporation, appears to have once been the home of aliens known to humans as Heechees. (What they called themselves is anyone's guess; Heechees is what we call them.) These aliens quite clearly left Gateway millennium before, but they left behind a large number of spacecraft, as well as other artifacts that continue to puzzle scientists as to their original function and/or use. Any prospector who comes to Gateway can choose to take out any of the available spacecraft.
The only catch is that these ships are preprogrammed, and no one can figure out where they're supposed to go, how long the trip is going to be, or how to change destinations once you're underway. When you're in a Heechee craft, you're forced to put your faith in Heechee know-how. Which can infrequently lead to fame and fortune for these risk-taking prospectors, but more often can lead to tragedy. And nobody has ever been able to figure out a foolproof way to know whether the outcome will be either tragedy or triumph. What happens to Robinette turns out to be a mix of fame, fortune and tragedy, all of which involve Klara, his fellow prospector and the great love of Broadhead's life. (Hence the necessity for his visits to Sigfrid, many years after the events he's describing.) The novel also includes excerpts from Sigfrid's notes, classified ads from the local Gateway newspaper, and even sections of lectures on what's known about Heechee life and culture, all of which deepen our understanding of the situation Broadhead finds himself in. Interestingly, it's never been the characters in and of themselves that keeps me re-reading Gateway, though they're well-drawn and interesting, but rather wondering, down through all the years since I first discovered this novel, if I would ever have the nerve to take one of those Heechee spacecraft out into unknown, uncharted, and oh-so-dangerous territory. Probably not.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16159971
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Fiction
Out of This World: Great Sci-Fi and Fantasy by Nancy Pearl
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Nancy Pearl's Picks
* 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson
* 'Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians' by Brandon Sanderson
* 'The Name of the Wind' by Patrick Rothfuss
* 'The Last Light' of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay
* 'The Thief' by Megan Whalen Turner
* 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldeman
* 'Gateway' by Frederik Pohl
Morning Edition, November 12, 2007 · I am not overly fond of the word genre. Sometimes, of course, it is simply used to describe a type of book that makes use of certain conventions. However, for many people, the word has a pejorative taint — they see genre fiction as being somehow "less" than non-genre writing.
When these people find that they really like a particular work of genre fiction, they're inclined to use phrases like "transcends the genre." Though I am not a particularly violent person, hearing this always makes me want to throttle the speaker. Genre labeling not only ghettoizes particular books, but it narrows the world of literature for readers, rather than expanding it.
And speaking of genre, although I don't consider myself at all a science fiction/fantasy fanatic, I must say that selecting the books for this topic was harder than any of the others that I've done. There is simply so much excellent stuff out there — both new and old — that I know people would enjoy, that the list could have been at least four times as long. As it is, I know I've omitted some wonderful novels, like Ursula Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea, Dahlgren by Samuel Delany, George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, Robert Heinlein's novels for young teens, like Between Planets and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Clifford Simak's Way Station, Dan Simmons' Hyperion and sequels, and on and on and on.
'Cryptonomicon'
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'Cryptonomicon'
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, paperback, 1,168 pages
Because Neal Stephenson is probably best known for his classic science fiction cyberpunk novel Snow Crash (first published in 1992 and generally thought to be a major inspiration for the online virtual world, Second Life), he's thought of as a science fiction author, but that's a rather limiting (not to mention wrong) way of looking at his writing. Cryptonomicon is my favorite of his novels (and one of my top 10 favorite books of all time). I press it on friends and strangers alike who are looking for a book that's not only a page-turning adventure, but will offer them food for thought as well (randomness and cryptanalysis, among other nuggets, in this case).
This wildly ambitious, brilliant novel is difficult to describe briefly because of its complexity and its large cast of characters. It's set in various times and places, including the Pacific Theater during World War II, Bletchley Park in England (where men and women worked around the clock to decipher Nazi codes), and a fictitious country called Kinakuta, where a group of computer geeks are attempting to set up a data haven. Stephenson's main protagonists are invented, but they mix and mingle with historical characters like Admiral Isokuro Yamamoto, Douglas MacArthur, Ronald Reagan, and Alan Turing, among others. Stephenson deftly moves the action back and forth among time periods, locations, and into and out of the lives of his sundry characters, many of whom the reader develops a huge fondness for. Perhaps Stephenson's closest literary compatriot is David Foster Wallace, with whom he shares a wicked high intelligence, a well-developed sense of humor and a prodigious imagination. Don't miss this book.
'Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians'
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'Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians'
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson, Hardcover, 320 pages
Perhaps there are some people (even librarians) who could resist reading a book with the enticing title of Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson, but not me. Written for 10- to 13-year-olds, it's the story of Alcatraz Smedry. He has spent his short life in foster homes, moving from one to another as each set of foster parents gets fed up with his clumsiness, despite his protestations that he doesn't break things on purpose. On his 13th birthday, Alcatraz receives a strange sort of present — a bag of sand! — from his real parents. However, the gift is soon stolen by a group of evil librarians bent on world domination. Only Alcatraz, assisted by his grandfather Leavenworth (who always shows up late for everything) and assorted other characters, can prevent the librarians from fulfilling their dastardly plan. First, of course, the good guys have to infiltrate the local library….
This is an excellent choice to read aloud to the whole family. It's funny, exciting, and briskly paced. Best of all, the message it gives young readers is that a person's flaws — being late, breaking things, etc. — can sometimes turn into useful talents. (Alert science fiction and fantasy fans will recognize the authors memorialized in Grandpa Smedry's exclamations, like "Blistering Brooks" and "Rumbling Rawns.")
'The Name of the Wind'
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'The Name of the Wind'
The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicles: Day One by Patrick Rothfuss, hardcover, 662 pages
Fans of the epic high fantasies of George R.R. Martin or J.R.R. Tolkien will definitely want to check out Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicles: Day One. When a traveling historian/writer, known as Chronicler, stumbles into the Waystone Inn, he sees through the proprietor's disguise and recognizes him as Kvothe (pronounced more or less like Quothe), the most talented, and infamous, magician of his day. At Chronicler's behest, Kvothe begins to relate the story of how he came to be at the Waystone Inn, which turns out to be a rags-to-riches-to-rags story of murder and a desperate search for truth and knowledge through study of the arcane arts. I don't want to give away too many details of the plot, since one of the great pleasures of this remarkable first novel is the meticulously detailed unfolding tale of Kvothe's life. This is a true page-turner, with an engrossingly complex hero (or is he an antihero?) and set in a particularly well-imagined world; it's set a high standard as fans will eagerly await the next two installments, Day Two and Day Three, due out, respectively, in 2008 and 2009.
'The Last Light of the Sun'
* Read an Excerpt
'The Last Light of the Sun'
The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay, paperback, 400 pages
Guy Gavriel Kay has made a name for himself among readers who love historical fantasy (another term might be alternative histories), but even those who don't consider themselves fantasy readers should take a look at Kay's novels. To write these books (two of my other favorites are The Lions of Al-Rassan and Sailing to Sarantium), Kay first immerses himself in the study of an historical era. He then invents characters, throws in a bit of magic, and, voila! — a novel that is totally fictional but always true to the essence of the period. (And who knows, perhaps his version, magic and all, is the true one.)
The Last Light of the Sun describes three groups of people living through a period of great upheaval. History buffs will recognize the action as taking place in the ninth century, when the Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, and Celts fight (and die — often gruesomely: this is not always pleasant reading) for primacy in the land that would be later called England. The characters are all three-dimensional, and their choices and their fates will come to matter deeply to readers. For those who enjoy well-written, well-researched historical fiction, there are few who equal Kay's inspired recreations of the past.
'The Thief'
* Read an Excerpt
'The Thief'
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, paperback, 304 pages
Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief is a supremely satisfying book for kids 10 and up (and a good choice for adult readers as well). It's the first in a trilogy, followed by Queen of Attolia and King of Attolia. The eponymous protagonist, Gen, who's been caught with the King of Sounis' gold ring, is imprisoned deep in the king's dungeon. His chance of freedom comes when the king's magus sets off on a dangerous journey that requires a thief's talents to succeed. Gen is being brought along to steal Hamiathes' Gift (a precious stone that gives its owner the right to rule over a country). If Gen succeeds, he'll be rewarded; if he fails, he'll die; and there's to be no escape from the magus, who promises to track him down wherever he might try to hide.
There are many adventures and not a few surprises in store for both Gen and the reader, before the last page is turned. Gen is a terrific hero — a mixture of bravado and cunning. The well-evoked settings — three warring kingdoms, Eddis, Sounis, and Attolia — loosely resemble the city-states of ancient Greece, and some of the most interesting parts of the books are the myths and legends of the region's gods and goddesses.
'The Forever War'
* Read an Excerpt
'The Forever War'
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, paperback, 288 pages
When I think about terrific anti-war novels, there are three that come to mind: Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. Of the three, Haldeman's is the only one that's labeled science fiction, which means that a lot of people have probably missed it. Published in 1974, it won both of the major science fiction awards — the Nebula and the Hugo — one of the few books to achieve this honor. It's hard not to believe that Haldeman, who fought in the Vietnam War, drew on his own experiences of combat in this story of William Mandella. Mandella and other men and women with genius IQs are conscripted into an elite United Nations strike force whose mission is to track down and wipe out a group of aliens known as the Taurans from their presumed home planet as punishment for attacking ships carrying Earth's colonists in space.
The action ranges from the 20th to the 34th century, as William and his fellow soldiers engage in a series of battles to the death with the enemy, about whom they know very little. Haldeman also makes good use of the time distortion that presumably occurs when you travel at near the speed of light. So that while subjectively Mandella feels only a few months have gone by, decades have actually passed on Earth, with all the attendant changes that time can bring to governments, customs, and beliefs. Haldeman makes clear that soldiers returning home from any war, after however long or short a time, inevitably find the world they come back to far different from the one they left.
'Gateway'
* Read an Excerpt
'Gateway'
Gateway by Frederik Pohl, paperback, 288 pages
Gateway by Frederik Pohl is also part of the short list of books that won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. It's been one of my favorites since I first read it in 1978, the year of its publication. Robinette Broadhead relates the story of his life on (and off) the asteroid Gateway to his psychiatrist, a robot whom he's nicknamed Sigfrid von Shrink. (I must say that I've often thought that the AI Sigfrid sets the gold standard for psychotherapists.) When Broadhead wins a lottery in his native Wyoming, he takes the first spaceship available and heads for Gateway to make his fortune prospecting. Gateway, now run by a huge multinational corporation, appears to have once been the home of aliens known to humans as Heechees. (What they called themselves is anyone's guess; Heechees is what we call them.) These aliens quite clearly left Gateway millennium before, but they left behind a large number of spacecraft, as well as other artifacts that continue to puzzle scientists as to their original function and/or use. Any prospector who comes to Gateway can choose to take out any of the available spacecraft.
The only catch is that these ships are preprogrammed, and no one can figure out where they're supposed to go, how long the trip is going to be, or how to change destinations once you're underway. When you're in a Heechee craft, you're forced to put your faith in Heechee know-how. Which can infrequently lead to fame and fortune for these risk-taking prospectors, but more often can lead to tragedy. And nobody has ever been able to figure out a foolproof way to know whether the outcome will be either tragedy or triumph. What happens to Robinette turns out to be a mix of fame, fortune and tragedy, all of which involve Klara, his fellow prospector and the great love of Broadhead's life. (Hence the necessity for his visits to Sigfrid, many years after the events he's describing.) The novel also includes excerpts from Sigfrid's notes, classified ads from the local Gateway newspaper, and even sections of lectures on what's known about Heechee life and culture, all of which deepen our understanding of the situation Broadhead finds himself in. Interestingly, it's never been the characters in and of themselves that keeps me re-reading Gateway, though they're well-drawn and interesting, but rather wondering, down through all the years since I first discovered this novel, if I would ever have the nerve to take one of those Heechee spacecraft out into unknown, uncharted, and oh-so-dangerous territory. Probably not.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16159971
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