Ship Breaker a Novel By Paolo Bacigalupi

Ship Breaker a Novel By Paolo Bacigalupi

Paolo Bacigalupi just won the Nebula award for his novel, The Windup Girl. This is his second novel. He also wrote an excellent collection of short stories, Pump Six and Other Stories. This novel is a young adult novel, but after reading it, I think it will appeal to all ages.

The writing is extremly fast paced and suspenseful. I was glued to the book and finished it in a single sitting. There is a lot of swearing, violence, and some drug references. However, these do not detract from the story. The violence is not sensationalized, it is portrayed as being a necessity to survive, or as a form of hardness.

The setting is fascinating. It is a near future where the age of oil has ended. Empty oil tankers line the coastlines, there are massive hurricanes, and New Orleans is a drowned city. In this setting is Nailer, a teenage scavenger of shipwrecks who makes his living collecting copper wire, tin, and other light metals.

Nailer contrasts well with Nita a rich girl who he rescues from a shipwreck. This brings a life changing adventure. We travel by bullet train and solar clipper ship to escape the bad guys.

I like the technology, it is completely believable. Paolo Bacigalupi even makes reference to a Buckell cannon designed to shoot sails into the upper atmosphere where they will catch strong winds to pull a ship quickly. At the end of the book, he acknowledges Tobias Buckell, another one of my favorite science fiction writers for technical help.

This is a superb, fast paced, adventure novel set in a dystopic near future. Read it, enjoy it, tell others about it.

Daily Thoughts 5/16/2010

pen and ink drawing of the royal library in Königsberg, circa 1815

Daily Thoughts 5/16/2010

Last night, I read some more of War At The Wall Street Journal. It is different than most business books I have read. The focus is on deal making, who talked to whom, when they met, who are the parties discussing business transactions, and why they would meet. There is no dry theory. It is about phone calls, exchanging papers, talking to lawyers, being obsequious, fawning, or demanding, and sizing up the competition.

Television and Books

I have a television, but it is hooked up to a dvd and video player. The only way to get regular reception where I am is to buy cable. This means I watch television once a week at the laundromat while I am folding clothes. It is hard to read and fold clothes at the same time.

A lot of the television shows are now on computer. I watched the Roughnecks Starship Troopers on Youtube as well as a variety of clips from the news. A lot of the news websites will have video clips as well. It is easy enough to get any video coverage you might want to see of events on television on a computer these days. It is also very easy to read the news on Yahoo news, so you see and hear the same news everyone else is getting even if you are not watching television.

Also, I sometimes check out entire series of television shows from my library. I checked out the first season of Star Trek out, I Claudius from the BBC, and a variety of different PBS dvds. This is less bothersome than watching the shows each day. It allows me to watch what I want, when I want to.

This does not mean that television is not connected to the book world. There is even a Book TV, I have never watched it, but it is there. http://www.booktv.org/ Also, many library websites have Books on the Air which http://library.booksite.com/5936/nl/?list=NLAIR which contains a listing of when various authors are presenting each week. You sometimes question whether Youtube is really a separate thing from regular television these days. Almost all television shows are now born digital like books are increasingly becoming born digital.

It is important to think of a book as a package. For example, I read Star Trek novels, but I also watch the shows, and read the comic books. I haven't played the video games. I also have not played the video games for Halo. However, I recently purchased Halo Helljumper written by Peter David which is a graphic novel, as well as the book, Halo: The Cole Protocol by Tobias Buckell. Halo will eventually come out as a movie and after the movie, I can easily imagine it as a Saturday morning cartoon. I read it because I like Peter David's and Tobias Buckell's writing.

This is true for more than just fiction. Ken Burns Civil War is a PBS documentary and a book. So is the Julia Child cookbook. If they can turn a cookbook into a movie starring Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia, they can find out how to package most books.

Think of media packages being born digital as a document, maybe something like an ebook. First they get turned into an ebook, then a physical book, then other products are spun off from them; audiobooks, films, music, posters, website skins, and other things. This can be true of anything from books on horses to horror novels. It does not have to happen this way. Sometimes the movie will be produced first, or the music, or even art work. What matters is that everything is now open to multiple formats of our choice.

This choice will lead to options when we purchase items, we will have a choice, ebook, book, audiobook, and then maybe related films, television, and music.

The line is also becoming blurred between what exactly is a television show, if it is a show you can watch on television or a computer, is it a television show. I don't see programs like authors @ google, http://www.google.com/talks/authors/index.html being that different from watching television. Nor do I see online conference videos like the TED conference being that differenct from watching television http://www.ted.com/ . The lines between the different types of media are blurring.

Other Thoughts

I put Steamed by Katie Macalister on hold, it is a steampunk romance novel. I also put Ship Breaker on hold by Paolo Bacigalupi. This is a young adult novel. Paolo Bacigalupi just won the Nebula Award for The Windup Girl, yesterday. He is a fantastic writer. I was pleasantly surprised, Paulo Bacigalupi's novels are very inclusive and international in flavor and have a strong environmental and political message.

I read some more of War at the Wall Street Journal. The author is describing the merger between News Corp owned by Rupert Murdoch and Dow Jones owned by the Bancroft family. Dow Jones owns the Wall Street Journal which is one of the two most influential newspapers in the United States, the other being the New York Times. Rupert Murdoch is often criticized for his biased reporting to the right, much like Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is criticized for his reporting to the left with the New York Times. Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal essentially polarized news reporting in the remaining newspapers.

I also started reading a bit of Readers Advisory Service in the Public Library. The author describes how to do book lists, bookmarks, and other readers advisory tools in this book. I am hoping the book will give me some ideas on how to improve our bibliographies and bookmarks. I just subscribed to Fiction_L which is a readers advisory listserv listed in this book. http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html

Daily Thoughts 12/12/2009

Roman study Showing scrolls or books in a "scrinium", also lamp, writing tablets, etc. Source: Illustrated History of Furniture From the Earliest to the Present Time By Frederick Litchfield Available from www.gutenberg.org Published: 1893

Daily Thoughts 12/12/2009

I watched the new Star Trek film today. Although, it was an enjoyable film, I did not like the changes they made. Destroying the planet Vulcan and changing the time line was not that appealing. The person who played Captain Kirk did not seem strong or decisive enough for the role.

Also, the villain, the Romulan miner Nero was not very convincing. I was hoping for a stronger villain. The movie was a disappointment. I am hoping that they do not continue the new Star Trek with this story line. I liked the old story line much better.

I had a chance to walk up to my local library today, but I did not check anything out or use the computers. It looks like they have had a considerable reduction in funds to buy new material.

Right now, I am reading more of Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. The author was discussing the concept of I-It (treating people as objects to reach a goal) versus I-You (trying to create relevant social connections between people. He is describing how it is important to talk about the other person early in conversations.). The book is quite substantial. I can finish a chapter or two a day. Much of the writing is worth pondering.

This is why I like Paolo Bacigalupi so much. It is a link to the short story, The Gambler. http://pyrsamples.blogspot.com/2008/11/fast-forward-2-paolo-bacigalupis.html

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Paolo Bacigalupi is a Locus award winning author. He was also nominated for the Hugo award for his short story, The Calorie Man. This novel is set in the same setting as the short story, The Calorie Man. He has also writen another book which I reviewed earlier on this blog, Pump Six and Other Stories.

The setting is a dystopian future. The world has run out of oil and global warming has devastated the environment. Giant agricultural companies use crop plagues to control the food supplies. The setting is in Thailand one of the few places that is not under the thumb of the agribusiness giants.

I like the characters; they are very diverse. Andersons Lake works for the calorie companies, Emiko is a genetically engineered servant, and Hock Seng is a Chinese refugee and business man. The characters are portrayed differently than most science fiction stories I have read. They are more fleshed out and human.

There are plenty of interesting ideas; mastodons used to power electrical equipment, coal powered tanks, and environmental troops used to protect the borders. The descriptions of the future technology are completely believable. The book is in a near future setting.

I hope that Paolo Bacigalupi continues to provide other interesting novels. If you want science fiction in the new style very much tied in to now he fits in with Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, and Bruce Sterling. The book is published by Nightshade Books. Paolo Bacigalupi's web site is called Windup Stories http://www.windupstories.com

Daily Thoughts 10/3/2009

From New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Daily Thoughts 10/3/2009

Today I am at my local library. I returned three books and did not see anything which I wanted to check out. Right now, I am sitting at the public computers.

I also picked up a few bookmarks. One is on green jobs and another is on jobs based on the stimulus package. They look like something which we might want to redesign for our library. I like picking up material from other libraries occassionally for ideas. It is a practical thing to do.

I am reading The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. This is a different kind of science fiction with strong social commentary. It is a dark future where giant agribusiness companies control the food supply with crop plagues and genetically tailored seeds. Smaller countries try to keep control of their seeds and food. The sea levels are rising, and money is measured in calories. The setting is in Thailand which makes it even more interesting.