re: free ebooks

I did a bit of checking on the whole free ebook deal, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it is legit. Brandon Sanderson (he’s the author of the first book offered) even mentions it on his blog and on Amazon.

I also received the email today with the link to download the first ebook, Mistborn. It is the full book in a high quality pdf. Now if only I had an eBook reader of some sort. Guess I will just have to read it on my laptop

Saskatchewan makes it on Raw Story

Raw Story is a left-leaning news website that I occasionally read. For the first time, I came across a story featuring Saskatchewan…and of course it was about drugs. Apparently, the court system there has upheld a decision that it isn’t legal to charge someone for possession of pot based solely on smell. You can read the article here.

Free ebooks!

From the Tor website, one of the largest publishers of fantasy and science fiction books:

Something new is coming. Register to be one of the first to join us, and receive free digital books from bestselling and award-winning SF and fantasy authors. This is just the beginning.

Once you register, you’ll receive our newsletter and a link to download a digital book. And you’ll receive a link to another new book every week.

The first week’s free book is Mistborn, by rising fantasy star Brandon Sanderson. Next week’s will be Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, 2006’s winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Over the next several weeks, other books still.

Sounds too good to be true. I am interested to see how it turns out.

Whew, what a busy weekend

Well, I just can’t believe how busy of a weekend I had. I got stuck the whole time either laying on the bed reading, or laying on the couch reading. Man was it hard work. I did get a lot accomplished though.

I finished reading The Golden Compass, the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. It is kind of Harry Potteresque in that it’s sci-fi/fantasy, follows a school-age protagonist and is supposedly written for children, but appeals to adults equally. The story takes place in a a world based on our own, but differs in having sentient armored polar bears, personal demons, and strange Dust that comes from other universes via the Northern Lights, among other things. The government is a theocracy/dictatorship run by a descendant of the Catholic Church…and the Church does some very bad things. I won’t get into the story here because there are a million reviews and synopses on Amazon, but I will say it was an enjoyable, quick, read that I highly recommend. It has also recently been made into a movie, which I might go see.

I also started and finished another fantasy novel, The Last of the Wilds by Trudi Canavan, the second book in her Age of the Five trilogy. I read the first book last week and wasn’t terribly impressed – the plot was predictable and only mildly interesting, and most of the characters, including the protagonist, were one dimensional. So, it was with some reservation that bought the second book, especially when books are ~3X the price of books in the US. I was pleasantly surprised, however. The Last of the Wilds is 10 times better than the first and I actually read all 500+ pages in less than 24 hours. The story is about one of the members ‘The Whites”, the 5 immortal leaders of a continent who are the chosen representatives of the 5 Gods. The Whites are at war with the Pentadrians, who also have 5 Gods and are led by 5 chosen immortals. The Pentadrians, however, dress in black. Both believe their 5 Gods are the only real gods, and the others are heathens and have to be converted. The first book is pretty much about how the Whites are good and the Blacks are bad, along with some other side plots thrown in. You can see why I wasn’t impressed with the first book (did the author even <em>think</em of the racial overtones of the story????). The side plots following a Wild (a powerful sorcerer who’s obtained immortality) and a Dreamweaver (a persecuted religion in the land of the Whites) are far better the main storyline. Luckily, the second book moves away from the white vs black thing and follows more of the side stories from the first book, and the main character becomes interesting. The Pentadrians are also portrayed in a more believable way and are not just shown as evil invaders. Anyway, I am glad I ended up reading the second book, despite the mediocrity of the first, and I think the third is worth a try. Still, the series certainly isn’t anywhere near the quality of something by Steven Erikson, George RR Martin, Robin Hobb, or Robert Jordan.

Finally, I also started and finished White Tiger by Kylie Chan. It is a fantasy novel as well, but not the typical swords and sorcerers type things. It’s actually a book about martial arts and Chinese gods and demons. It wasn’t terribly well written and was a bit corny, but it was fun and the story and characters were enjoyable. I felt like I was watching a kung-fu movie, and I would be surprised if someone didn’t buy the movie rights to this book. If someone made a movie of it, I would go see it. There are two more books in the series and I am going to pick them up ASAP. I recommend you read this if you get the chance – but I doubt you will because I don’t think the book is widely available outside of Australia.

Oh, in addition to all that reading, I also watched 5 episodes of Battlestar Galactica.

Like I said, it was a busy weekend.

Biofuels now bad

I’ve always been pretty skeptical about biofuels – they seemed a little overhyped to me. My suspicions were confirmed by this article in the New York Times talking about 2 new studies published in Science that found biofuels contribute more greenhouse gases than traditional fuels once all aspects of their production are factored in, especially changes in land use. From the article:

The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land, said Joseph Fargione, lead author of the second paper, and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “So for the next 93 years you’re making climate change worse, just at the time when we need to be bringing down carbon emissions.”

Looks like we might have some unhappy farmers and biofuel investors!

Unfortunately, the papers on which the NY article was based aren’t yet available on the Science website.

The PCR song

PCR (polymerase chain reaction) is a method of amplifying DNA that revolutionised molecular biology. It’s also really finicky and involves a bit of voodoo.
I came across this video (actually, an advertisement by BioRad) which the biologists might find amusing:

I have stuff now

My boxes from the US finally arrived! I only sent 10 boxes of stuff, about half of which was work related (papers and specimens).  The other half was almost entirely books.  I wish I would have sent more of my stuff because it ended up only costing $500 for shipping, about half of what I expected.  The real kicker was when the boxes arrived, it cost another $1000 for customs, quarantine, holding, docking fees etc.  Twice what it cost to ship them!!

I suppose I need to get some bookshelves now. I hate shopping.