Derek > Recent Status Updates

I do wish blurb writers would read the book first: "From the first page readers will be swept up in the story of Mai and Captain Anji…" Fine, except by page 50, neither of those characters have appeared.

"Decker knew that once Alan Turing's usefulness had ended for the British they literally fed him to the dogs."

I despise writers who say literally to mean figuratively! I am fairly certain the British government has not literally fed anyone to the dogs since at least the Commonwealth period, but absolutely not Turing.

If you ever find your interest in Goodreads waning (as if!) don't forget this:

BookVibe, created by a tiny start-up called Parakweet, basically analyzes the tweets of accounts that you follow on Twitter and compiles a list of book recommendations based on which titles those people are talking about.
So, I'm supposed to trust an automated analysis of twitter feeds, over what I get on GoodReads?

Liked Advanced Readings in D&D: Jack Vance | Tor.com http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/07/adva...

Book Titles With One Letter Missing (20 Pics)

Not books, but relating to my on-going love affair with SF: 13 great independent sci-fi films

Aw, shit...
Richard Matheson, 1926-2013

New on tor.com: Jo Walton's Eight Books From the Last Decade That Made Me Excited About SF.

I know from Among Others that I love the same books Walton does, so these should be great (the ones I have read were).

Fowler has no sense of humour? Apparently, Crystal doesn't either...

Liked Say the Magic Word: Lexicon by Max Barry | Tor.com http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/revi...

Liked http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/jack...

tedious...

This isn't going well. At any given time, I can think of three or four other books I'd rather be reading - so I do...

It's easy to catch up on your reading when you have to spend an evening in Emergency...

This line just for my friend Traveller: "...they could find safety on a faraway world called Urth, then help to build a new colony under a new sun."

The more I actually read books with an eye to eventually writing a review on GoodReads, the more I realize that my high school English teachers actually knew what they were doing. It's hard for me to believe, but I can actually find common themes between this - Space Opera - and the last book I read: scientific discussion of cognition in dogs...

For those who read along with me when we did Embassytown recently, we get into how children learn by pointing.

"When scientists began studying animal cognition... Dogs were mostly left out... Domestication supposedly dulled an animal's intelligence." The author's are arguing that dogs are, if anything, smarter (or at least differently smart) because of domestication