The Inexplicables by Cherie Priest
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love this series. Cherie Priest, the Queen of American Steampunk, has created this big wonderful world that keeps getting bigger and more wonderful.
In The Inexplicables, Cherie Priests brings us back to walled up, zombie infested, Seattle and this time there’s no weapons of war, and only a few zombies but there’s a new “something” (that which is the Inexplicable) and the main protagonist/anti-hero (which most of Priest’s characters seem to be) Rector, is actually one of the first character’s we met in the first book, Boneshaker. Rector didn’t get much time in the first book and he wasn’t ever heard from again (that I can remember) until now.
The Clockwork Century world, that Priest has created consists of four books (Boneshaker, Dreadnought, Ganymede and The Inexplicables) two short stories Tanglefoot and Reluctance) and a novella (Clementine).
This is a series about exploring what’s possible in the steampunk genre. If you’re a fan of scifi/fantasy and haven’t read any steampunk yet but are curious, this is actually a good series to start with. The stories are excellently written and very accesible despite their scifi/fantasy nature.
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“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”
- Tyler Durden
We’re stuck thinking about change as the kind of change we’ve already experienced. But why? It could equally well continue to accelerate. Digital change may be slowing down, but synthetic biology and quantum computing could easily do this…
My fellow Americans! You need to read this book. Nick is a brilliant guy and you can only get this book in the US in digital format. But this is a really good book and I highly, highly recommend it.
The First Book Sold On Amazon Was About Artificial Intelligence
I find this incredibly interesting for some reason.
Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought
You can read the response to the Quora question asking what the first book sold was by the man who bought it and subsequently got a building named after him.
I just pre-ordered my copy of An Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology. w00t!
Book a week challenge update
One of my late New Years resolutions was to read a book a week (average) this year. as we approach the end of the 27th week of the year, I’ve now read 32nd books and am now half way through my 33rd. Let’s hope I can keep up the pace.
If you so choose you can see which books I’ve read and follow my progress here on Goodreads.
Seth Godin is Using Kickstarter to Launch His Next Book
This is interesting. Get enough people to fund the early costs of the book and then it sounds like the publisher will kick in during the later stages to get it in bookstores. This creates a low level of risk for the publisher and (I imagine) high reward for Seth if it works out. It’s great that Seth is doing this and it seems unlikely that Seth would fail given his popularity, but hopefully it can become a new model for other authors.
I’ve decided to re-read George Orwell’s 1984. The last time I read the book was in 1984 when I was 12. It was. Bit of a stretch for my reading level at the time and I’m sure I’ll get much more out it now.
Culturematic: Building Your Own Fast Fail Labs To Get Ahead Of The Change.
My review of Grant McCracken’s new book, Cultermatic.
