Matter by Iain M. Banks

So, yes, I take back what I said about Culture novels - they're actually good, even with all the idiosyncratic ideas characteristic of Banks.  It is not a pure Hard Science Fiction like Greg Egan or even Stephen Baxter, but it is still a ultra high-tech society with amazing science, even if it is "wave of hand" in many cases, which Egan absolutely hates. 

 This book also starts with a medieval society, as several other Culture novels, which I am not a huge fan of - if I a wanted medieval novel, I'd go get one -  and you have to wade through half a book of mediocre medieval+20th century guns prose to get to the good part.  I never read any of the Banks' non-science fiction novels, but I suspect they are medieval too.  

Anyways, the novel gets good about half-way and it continues to be good. The shell world Sursamen is front and center and we learn a lot about how it works and about its creators, the Involucra/The Veil and the destroyers of the Shellworlds, the Iln. We also learn about the Oct and the Altrudia, who have developed from parasites on the body of a 2km-long Xinthian Aeronathosaurus which lives in the core of Sursamen and is worshiped as its World-God.   

We further learn about the Involved Optimae like the Nariscene and the Morthanveld, and of course, the Culture and its Special Circumstances section of Contact, which seems to be quite very involved in the affairs of the Galaxy and its inhabitants. The main protagonist, Anaplian, is a princess of the 8th level of Sursamen, of the Sarl, but moves to the Culture as a young woman and eventually becomes an operative of Special Circumstances.  At the end she dies by sacrificing herself to kill the Iln machine which is generating enough anti-matter to destroy the entire shell world.  Yes, I love spoilers!

Other characters, like Ferbin and Holse, remind a bit of Frodo and Samwise, and the parallel that Banks intentionally draws with The Lord of the Rings. There's murder and intrigue, and shitty people with power being shitty people with power, and Nameless City and Caude and flying beasts, and artificial water world built to enclose a small star and super intelligent aliens communicating by changing color of their spiniforms, and many other interesting things, because it is a very dense book, but the end feels a bit unsatisfying, as it ends abruptly and the bad guys are not explicitly punished.  Still a good read. Four books to go to finish the entire Culture series! 

Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks

This is one of the most convoluted Culture novels (9 in total plus State of the Art about Earth).  I read it awhile ago, but forgot to write about it since I skipped through it as some parts are barely readable, and I suspect the skipping made it even more unreadable. 

It is about a mercenary called Zakalwe, who does the dirty work for Special Circumstances, but there are two narratives, one going forward in time, depicting Zakalwe's current mission, and another going backward in time, depicting previous missions and eventually back to his childhood.

To save you the effort, eventually we find out Zakalwe is not Zakalwe, but Elethiomel, Zakalwe's childhood friend who eventually becomes an enemy in a Civil War and murders real Zakalwe's sister Darkcsense, and as if that is not horrible enough, makes a chair from her corpse (the Chairmaker) and sends it to Zakalwe to sit on.  Zakalwe kills himself out of grief and Elethiomel is possessed by guild so he takes Zakalwe's name and identity and becomes high-danger mercenary for Culture's Special Circumstances' most dangerous missions, secretly hoping he will die and be released from the constant guilt and regret for being responsible for the death of his childhood's best friend.

It doesn't go that way though, and Zakalwe becomes a highly important asset for SC and the current mission is also very dangerous and he only accepts it if SC can help him find Livueta, real-Zakalwe's last remaining sister.  He is wounded in the conclusion of the current mission and SC keeps the promise and brings him to Livueta whom he begs for forgiveness, but she recognizes him as Elethiomel, his brother's and sister's murderer, and does not forgive him and he gets a major brain aneurism from desperation, but still doesn't doe as the SC drone who is there performs emergency surgery and saves his life. 

So, the fake Zakalwe is still alive and continues to suffer from his guilt for the murders, and SC goes back to business conducting secret operations, assassinations and coups, as long as the Minds say it is in the best interest of everyone. 

I stopped reading Culture novels after this one, since it is very dark and sordid, and yet still with the most incomprehensible names for characters, just because, but Iain Banks seems to have been a great guy, dead of 59 of bladder cancer, which might or might have not been partially caused by his love for Scotch Whisky. He married his nurse 6 months before his death and asked her 'would you do me the honor of becoming my widow?" How cool is that in the face of certain death? So, I will read ALL Culture novels after all.

Candy House by Jennifer Egan

This is the 'second part' to the Pulitzer-prize winning 'A visit from the goon squad' and like all sequels - it is not as good as the original.  It happens, mostly, 30 years in the future, and main protagonists are the children of the protagonists in the first book and some side characters.  This also gives Egan a chance to throw some science fiction in the mix, including the mandatory AI hate, but it doesn't work all that well. 

There are a bunch of stories, with characters appearing in several and connecting them, mostly about families of the characters from the previous book.  The first one with the invention of the Mandala Cube consciousness upload machine is a little far fetched and Egan chooses it as a connecting thread through most of the stories, the Cube being a literary device for hearing character's thoughts (one critic long ago said "characters don't walk around speaking their thoughts" - well in this book, they do!).

The two stories that stayed with me were about the recovering heroin addict, Lou Kline's daughter with the anthropologist (that they went on an Africa trip in the previous book), since it is very genuine and seems like it is drawn from real life; and also the Citizen Agent story about Lulu, which can be sordid at times, but it is quite powerful and knowing that initially was released on Twitter (Yes, X for you, Musk!) in continuation, it makes it even stronger. Def better than the PowerPoint chapter in the previous book.

Also the guy who yells in public to elicit authentic responses is pretty cool and the Counter story is kind of ok, but predictable.  Overall, the stories are not of the same high quality as the previous book, but they are interesting in their own right and are kind of a closure to the previous stories.  Worth the time to read, especially with Egan's supremely flowing style. 

Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

 Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

An interesting book. Published 11 years after the author's suicide in 1969 at age 32. Toole was a successful and popular professor, but, maybe triggered by the rejection of this book, he sank into paranoia and psychosis which lead to him killing himself by inhalation of car fumes. How quickly can lives change and forever. Reminds me of my own episode, which, thanks God, didn't end in permanent damage.

The book is about Ignatius Reilly, a 30 year old, Master of Arts in History, medieval-Boethius-obsessed, giant, overweight lazy ass. The Pulitzer prize was awarded posthumously and mostly for the detailed descriptions of New Orleans in the 60s and the New Orleans downtown accent of various ethnic groups.  It is a very faithful imagination of the city during that time period. 

It is a satire humor, hinging on understanding of context and mentioned events and literary works and pop culture references.  Ignatius starts the book by waiting for his mother (who drinks) in front of a department store in his green hunting hat (in Tropical New Orleans) and attracting the attention of policeman undercover, office Mancuso.  His mother, drunk, crashes their car (old Plymouth) and Ignatius needs to find a job to pay for the damages she caused to the building in which she crashed. 

After lots of unsuccessful attempts, Ignatius gets a job at Levy Pants, but loses it after trying to start a black riot to impress his university girlfriend Myrna. Then he becomes a hot dog seller and has many adventures which eventually land him in a hospital and with his mother wanting to put him in a mental institution. 

The book is not laughing-out-loud funny, but more of a grunting-funny, yet it still manages to be an interesting read.

Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

 The second volume in "The Song of Ice and Fire". Also not as good as the first one, though it follows faithfully the second season of the HBO show.  It is surprising how young all the characters in the book are, Denaris being 13 years old. At least the HBO show aged them to the late teens or twenties, since otherwise it would have been even bigger scandal (than the open nudity and sex). 

This is my gym-read audio book, as I only read it when I go to the gym, so it takes a while to finish. The book is quite large, having much more material than the show and showing different perspectives like the Meister from the beginning of the book trying to poison the Red Woman. 

The rest of the book mainly concerns the battles for the throne, especially Renly and Stannis, and also the Lannister's - Tyrion fighting battles and becoming the Hand of the King, Jamie getting caught and the horrible conditions in which he's held (force to shit in the corner of his cell, eventually creating a small mountain of stench and rot), and Tywin winning battles and becoming the Hand towards the end of the book. 

It delves much deeper into Theon Greyjoy's point of view and development - in the show we mostly see him as the castrated "Reek".  Also Sir Davos Seaworth is quite developed, who, although well played in the show, was never given the enough screen time for his character climbing from a common smuggler to a nobleman.  Still, the entire book feels much slower than the previous volume and some would say also weaker. 

The Battle of Blackwater is the pinnacle of the book, though I was not that impressed, as I liked the social and cultural aspects of the show much more than its militaristic parts.  The show actually downplayed and deemphasized the battle and military parts which was a smart move.  Onward to A Storm of Swords now!

Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer

  Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer

So, this is the second part of Less, the previous Pulitzer winning novel by Greer, but no wonder it didn't win another Pulitzer as it is not as good.  Feels like Greer wanted to make some money from the same topics of the previous book and using the same characters, like a bunch of extra chapters.  Freddy is now announced as the narrator in the beginning which makes the book less interesting as it is not a surprise uncovered at the end like in the previous book.  Also the tour of the US South and East is not as interesting as the international tour Less did in the last book.

The characters he meets and the events he attends are also less interesting, with the exception of his meeting with his father and their relationship.  The worst part is at the end when he meets the black Arthur Less and realizes he attended many events which were meant for him. The "Financial Peril' plot seems very forced, as why wouldn't Robert pay the back debt for the house where they lived together? Very unbelievable. 

Having Freddy both as a narrator and a character doesn't work.  His travel to Maine, the island and 'the widow' is strangely disconnected from the rest of the narrative and doesn't add to it in any meaningful way. 

All in all, I read this to the end, but I wasn't impressed.  Another proof that sequels rarely work (but they're amazing when they do!)

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

 Less by Andrew Sean Greer

I read this book because my psychotherapist was aghast that I've been reading Oscar Wao, especially during a period where I was experiencing physical and psychological distress.  He did a search on Pulitzer and comedy and this book came on top (only two comedy books ever won the Pulitzer fiction prize, all the rest are traumatizing, dark horrors).  

The book is not exactly a comedy, more like social commentary with comedic touches, but definitely brighter than my previous horror experience that is still traumatizing me.  It is mostly a meditation on gay love and turning 50, i.e. being decidedly middle age with no way to deny it and fast walking towards the inevitable ultimate death and perishing forever in this universe.  Maybe when the universe is recreated from the breath of Vishnu you'd exist again, but then you would be remembering previous existence and you don't.

Less is a middling famous writer from SanFran who lost his love Freddy to another man and is taking a trip around the world on other people's expense to forget about it.  He goes to Mexico, Italy, India, Morocco and Japan, of all places, always doing engagements with his writer fame and getting into different happenings, mostly funny, but not all of them.  The ones concerning aging are depressing, especially if you're over 50 when everything in your body suddenly starts to fail in various non-funny way.  

It is a good book and kept my spirits up during the lead up to my hospitalization even though I skimmed through some parts as I was too psychologically distraught to pay attention to the written word.  It impressed me so much that I read the next one, which turned out to be a disappointment. 

Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

 Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

I finished this book back in March and it was a part of my new initiative to read Pulitzer-prize winning fiction,  Because of the health and life happenings of the past few months (including the month-long hospitalization, thanks wife!) I haven't written any reviews, though I have definitely continued reading. Now that I am reinstalling THERIPPER in order to erase any possible hacks, I have time while BitDefender is running full disk scan (12TB), so here I am.

Well, one thing I didn't count with was that Pulitzer prize winners are dark, bleak and traumatizing, describing the worst of human nature, which I cannot stomach at the best of times, let alone in probably the worst psycho-physical situation I've been in my life so far.  The ENTR mechanical keyboard feels good, but not as good as I remember from a lot of typing. Well, this book is supposedly satirical, i.e. funny, but describes some blood-curling scenes like Oscar being beaten to almost-death and the perps jumping on his head with both legs and his great-grandfather being tortured in Trujillo prison by having wet rope tied to his skull and then dried in the hot sun, causing permanent brain damage. Shit, I'm going to have nightmares about those for life.  Definitely not a good idea to read it in this condition, but my condition was not bad when I started. 

Anyway, the book is describing horrifying events through the lens of satire and sci-fi/fantasy obsession of the main character, the obese, love-hungry Dominican-American Oscar who wants to fall in love, but no girl in the US would have him so he goes back to Dominican where he falls in love with a former prostitute who is currently banging a corrupt police chief who orders the cruel beating and eventual murder of Oscar. The US authorities couldn't care less, of course, as long as the Trujillo regime is hunting 'commies'.  Commies were more important to the US than the lives of its own citizens. 

The books goes several generations back, with Oscar's mother, grandmother, and great-grandfather and what happened to them as a result of that animal Rafael Leonidas Trujillo being left to run amok since the US wanted him to kill more 'commies'. If you think Trump's regime is bad, checkout the US from the 50s and 60s - unbelievable.  Google Operation Condor too.

Anyway, very well written book, very flowing style and funny parts, but certain scenes are lifelong traumatizing, especially when you know that it was all actually true and most of these perp animals were never punished (El Dentista).

Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

​Never read anything by Jennifer Egan before, but it won the Pulitzer Prize, so was on my reading list. Very well written book, with short sentences, all five senses present, descriptive details where it matters and interesting events. It says it is a novel but it is actually a set of short stories with overlapping characters and voices. Works better than Cloud Atlas though. 

Sasha and Bennie seem to be the main characters, as most of the stories touch on them. It is interesting to see them described in vignettes from their teens to their 60s (in Bennie’s case). Ups and downs in life , from teenage prostitution and drug use for Sasha to a Midwest housewife life. For Bennie from teenage pink rebel with a band through a record executive which snorts gold flakes for potency and still manages to cheat on his wife multiple times , until a second marriage and kid in his 60s with an ethnic wife half his age. 

We also hear about Alex and Scotty and a few other characters , but their stories (in their voices) are just there to support Bennie and Sasha. The 12th chapter (PowerPoint) is a bit too much , even for an experimental novel. 

It is a good and fast read, but it feels like something that was intended to be good and fast , rather than a life work that the author felt compelled to write regardless of commercial success. This was written to be a commercial success and be in top lists. 

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

​Yes, I know, I’m late to the party. However I was deeply unimpressed by the movie in 2012, so I postponed reading the book by a decade and a half. Decade and a half passed quickly. The book is much better than the movie. At least it makes sense. Each story is connected and fully told, not just snippets like in the movie.  

The book has Matrioshka doll structure, while the movie is more of a mosaic. I’m not sure I’d call this book a novel as it is 7 interconnected short stories. Yes, the characters are “reincarnations” but they are not aware of their previous lives in details , so they just might be completely new humans. Their old selves are dead forever. 

As many have noted , this book is very pretentious. Starting with the structure and especially with the language and style of each short story, Mitchell tries to impress us with how educated and skillful he is , but falls mostly flat. The middle story with Zachary is the most pretentious one with the made up language which sounds like a four year old tried to remake English. Absolutely unnecessary and the worst story in all the book. 

I liked the Robert Frobisher epistolary story the best, although I did not see his suicide at 24 coming, as there’s not enough happening for him to want to kill himself - and definitely not because of the spoiled brat Eva. The rest is very interesting and Frobisher’s voice is very well defined with all the musical metaphors, although using obsolete Britishisms is redundant and only serves the pretentiousness of the author. 

The Timothy Cavendish story is also pretty good and fun to read and thank God, it has the least pretentious language. The Sonmi 451 story is also very weak, second weakest probably, as Mitchell is not a very good sci fi writer. The future where North Korea conquers most of Asia and turns into corporatist Unanimity is not very imaginative or interesting and the twist where the resistance is actually the regime is lifted straight from 1984. 

The Louisa Rey story is Mitchell’s attempt to write hard boiled detective fiction and it fails flat. Neither the inclusion of the Triads at the end counts as some big or interesting twist although we loved to hate the Fay woman. 

Overall this book wasn’t bad, even though it is an exercise in style rather than than substance , but the sheer length and pretentiousness would stave me off from reading it a second time. Still much better than the disjointed nonsensical movie. 

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

I'm a big fan of PK Dick, although he was a crazy bastard, always high on drugs, paranoid, probably schizophrenic, and a curse to everyone who knew him (like his newfound friends in Vancouver found out).   Hollywood has discovered PK Dick , but completely misunderstood or willingly misrepresented him.  Blade Runner is not about hunting androids - it is about religion and what religious feeling means - is it about empathy that only humans can feel?  Minority Report is not about high octane Sci Fi action, but about repressive state and police apparatus, where a man is never free until he dies.  It is good that this book has not been made into a movie yet, as it is probably going to turn into some commercialized Hollywood bullshit.  I always wondered why Hollywood didn't make into films William Gibson's books, since they are amazing, but I think now because it is difficult to put a twist on the dark nihilism in the books.  And dark nihilism in movies doesn't sell. 

Anyways, in Flow My Tears (a medieval flute song) Jason Taverner, a famous talk show and singer, dating the hottest singress on the planet, suddenly wakes up in a dingy hotel room without any IDs and no one knows who he is.  The hotel clerk (a police snitch who plants a tracker on Jason) leads him to a fake document girl maker, Kathy, who is also a police informer (US is a police state at this time, after the Second Civil War), who makes him some documents, then removes the transmitter dots from them in lieu of sleeping with him.  But Jason never sleeps with her because he discovers that she's batshit crazy and has a police handler who eventually sends her back to an asylum. 

Jason tries to hook up with his previous acquaintances but no one knows him. He doesn't exist. He's an unperson.  Eventually the police chief Felix Buckman, who is in an incestious relationship with his sister and claims to be a 'seven', which is above the 'six' than Jason is, a eugenics, genetically engineered human to be good looking and smart.  Buckman finds the circumstances Jason's in funny, and knowing the police state of which he was once a Marshall, knows that the fame or money will not help Jason if he gets caught in the "system". The system destroys people. 

Alys, Felix's sister, picks up Jason after he's released by Felix and she takes him to their house (they have an incest son in Florida), and tells him he was there before and they took drugs together.  She's always on drugs and does some occult shit.  Eventually she overdoses and dies on the new drug KR-3 which not only changes reality for the person who takes it, but for everyone around them as well.  Since Alys was jealous of Jason's fame, she imagined a world in which he doesn't exist and it happened.  

Jason escapes but Felix sets him up with the murder of Alys (which was an OD) and he goes to trial, but is exonerated and becomes even more famous that before.  Felix is fired and goes into retirement on Fiji where he is murdered by the USA Police State when he writes a book exposing them.  Eventually the police state fails and democracy comes back, forced labor camps area abandoned, and police checks and raids are things of the past. 

What PK Dick is trying to say is that we are all Jasons Taverners. We can all be disappeared in an instant and no one is ever going to find us. 

The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

 Murakami remains my favorite writer of all time, however the last couple of books have been lower quality and this last one has been a chore to read through.  Still, good, but highly unreadable, especially compared to his masterpiece "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle".  

The book comes in three parts and the first part is the most unreadable as it is written in second person.  Murakami often writes in first person and sometimes in third person, but never before in second person.  One gets tired from "You did this, you wrote this, you said this...". The first part is about when the narrator was in high school, 17 years old, and met a girl, 16, at an essay competition and fell in love with her (and she with him).  They write very long letters to each other and are together, except for sex, as the girl tells him her real self is in a walled city far away from here.  Eventually the girl disappears and the author is devastated.

In the second part the narrator is 45, had some middling career in book trade, but never formed a family and is still brooding over the 16 year old girl from high school.  He quits his job in Tokyo, moves to the sticks and boonies of Fukushima prefecture.  There he becomes the head librarian and is coached by the ghost of the previous head librarian, Mr. Koyasu, who died a year before the narrator arrived.  Here he also meets a 16 year old boy who read voraciously and never talks to anyone except to ask them their birthday. Mr. Koyasu used to be the boy's mentor and the narrator tries to become his substitute.  The boy reveals that he knows about the City with the Uncertain Walls and wants the narrator to take him there, but he doesn't know how. 

In the third part the boy dies in the real world and his wooden corpse is discovered by the narrator in a dream in a dark closet in a mountain cabin and the narrator goes back to the City with the Uncertain Walls, which his real self never left, but only his shadow, and here he decides to leave and leave the boy, who inhabits his body, to be the Dream Reader.

Very allegoric and parabolic book with thoughts on life, youth, love, identity, self, shadow (in Jungian sense).  However, it seems to follow a Murakamian formula of dream self, split identity, non-identification with reality, etc.  These topics have already been espoused on in previous Murakami books to a great extent, so this one seems superfluous.  It is very voluminous, with not much to say, yet not like the other "slice of life" Murakami books - it is not easy to read and it doesn't flow easily.  

Murakami is still my favorite author, and it is nigh time he gets the Nobel prize in literature, but this book could have been better. 

King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

So, another re-read, but this time inspired by re-watching the "True Detective" Season 1 with my wife.  The best season, aside from 5. Season 2 is the worst. 

This is a book of short stories, and although only the first four have relationship to the Mythos with Hastur and the Yellow Sign which strongly influenced H.P. Lovecraft.

The best story is the first one "The Repairer of Reputations" which was written in an Unreliable Narrator style, where the narrator turns out to be the perpetrator. 

In the "Forbidden Play", which links the first four stories,  the King in Yellow is in Carcosa, the lost city on the Lake of Hali and everyone who sees the second act dies. Fortunately, just the first act is in this book. 

In the other stories "The Mask" and "In the Court of the Dragon" and "They Yellow Sign" - the supernatural horror that Lovecraft writes about in his famous essay is not as present as in the first story, and they are more of embellishments to the Mythos than creating them.  In the "Mask' a genius artist invents a solution that turns people into statue.  It doesn't work out well when his girlfriend is turned into a statue and the artist commits a suicide.  In the "Court of the Dragon" a cursed church organist claims the the soul of an unfortunate Parisian and in the "Yellow Sign" two people read the cursed play and an undead churchyard watchman comes to kill them.

The first story is the most important in the collections - the rest can just as well be skimmed through. 

Ready Player Two by Ernst Cline

So, yes, I read this book right after the first one in May 2025.  But I never wrote a review. Why? Because. Many things. Did my TOGAF study and training and exams, then played a lot of video games, then just stressed about life, job, money, future, life.  For months. Month after month. Didn't write anything anywhere. I don't really know why. I just didn't feel like it. For months. I still read.  The newest Murakami book took months to read.  It is not great. It is good, but I am used to only great books from Murakami. I read others too. Some I forgot. Some I will write about in 2026. This year. Typing on my DROP ENTR keyboard with Yellow switches.

So, about the second player book from Cline. A disappointment.  A great one.  Come 'on Cline. You could have done better than "Rogue AI is taking over the world".  Anorak's avatar became a "self conscious" AI and is taking over the world through the ONI VR glasses (taking a shot at Oculus here, Cline, eh?)  which have immobilized and can kill most of the world population (who got addicted to the VR world and don't  want to live in the Real One). 

So, it is three years later and Wade has already fallen out with Art3mis, and lo and behold he finds a new message in an old easter egg with ONI VR headset which transports the user into a full VR world without the need for a bodysuit. Here we have the evil AI Anorak (Halliday's Shadow) take over the world by removing the 12 hour safety limit on ONI and causing everyone brain damage.  Anorak wants Wade & co to complete the 7 shards quest in order to resurrect Kira's consciousness.  Apparently, ONI also makes duplicates of users consciousness which can then live on as their own beings. This doesn't mean the original body doesn't die, so the new consciousness is more of a simulation. The old guy is dead as a nail. 

So, eventually we get to the part where Kira's copied consciousness becomes an entity on its own, which is very unbelievable, as consciousness doesn't just 'arise' on its own.  We see a different side of Halliday, selfish, egotistic, no empathy; which is interesting on its own, but doesn't develop the character significantly.  Eventually Wade creates an AI copy of himself and sends him on a starship to explore the universe.  

Overall, not a bad read, but way lower quality than the first book.  Entertaining though, especially for us 80s kids. 

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I watched the movie, and since it was produced by Disney and directed by Spielberg, I know it was made family-friendly and I expected the book to be more edgy. I wasn't disappointed.  While the movie is enjoyable, the book is much better, more adult oriented and with way more "retro" trivia of video games and movies.  The characters are the same, but the major events are quite different.  Cline says because he used way too many copyrighted references in the book, which would cost a fortune to obtain rights to show on screen. Also, all characters in the book are much less pretty, all being overweight and Wade being completely hairless, from top to bottom.  

There is no race for the first key, instead it is a dungeons and dragons game that is found on the planet Ludus where all public schools are and playing a game of "Joust" (classic video game from before my time, never played it). The first gate opens by doing full "flicksync" of the movie "War Games" playing as Matthew Broderick, having to know the full dialogue.  The second key has to do with the legendary "Zork" video game and the 1983 classic SciFi "Blade Runner" and the gate is opened by playing the 1987 game "Black Tiger" (another I've never played, slightly before my time as a gamer).  Wade also plays a perfect game of PacMan with the maximum obtainable High Score, which awards him an extra coin.

The third key is hinted by a song from the Canadian band "Rush" and their concept album "2112" and the thirds gate is the actual Castle of Anorak that Halliday used as an HQ while alive. Of course the "IOI" are always following Wade, trying to kill him (they kill his aunt and everyone in the stack vertical where Wade lived), and also kill Daito, one of the "High Five" who were first at the top of the Scoreboard. Not funny and not for kids.

There's a battle for the Third Gate, and the top players, including Sorrento with his Mechagodzilla, and just when Wade is about to win, IOI detonate doomsday device which destroys the entire planet and everything on it. However, the Pacman coin Wade won gives him an extra life and he enters the third gate where his plays character in the classic movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and obtains the easter egg from the early video game "Adventure."  Wade wins and shares his winnings with the other 3 remaining of the "High Five". Also loses his virginity to Artem1s.

The book is a joy to read, especially if you are a video game (and movie, and space rock) geek, and get all or most of the bountiful references.  I am ready to read the sequel "Ready Player Two" although I've read that it is not as good as the first book. 

Gurdjieff, a Master in Life: Recollections of Tscheslaw Tschekhovitch

 Another book by a direct pupil of Gurdjieff.  Tscheslaw was a Polish soldier in the Russian Imperial Army.  After their defeat by the Red Army, Tscheslaw joined Gurdijeff's Moscow and St. Petersburg groups who were slowly migrating south towards Turkey, through the Russian Caucasus. Tscheslaw was with Gudjieff in Constantinople and gives us first had accounts of Gurdjieff's time there and how he fed the Russian emigres and encouraged them (pushed them) into starting their own viable businesses. 

The author was on his own for moving to Germany and had a bad situation in Hungary where the Ukrainian consul betrayed him and tried to exchange him as a deserter for Ukrainian hostages in the Red Army.  After a short stay in Germany, the author joins Gurdjieff in France, The Priuere castle and property near Fontainbleu and describes all the events there through its existence, including Gurdjieff's car accident, and how the weasel who helped them settle in France was instrumental in them losing Le Prieure with the human weasel appropriating most of the money from the purchase. 

The author also describes the work while Gurdjieff lived in an apartment in Paris, although he didn't accompany him on his trips to America. The book is a rare jewel of first hand accounts of Gurdjieff and the life he led.

The Sicilian by Mario Puzo

 Since I read the Godfather, it was my duty to read this one as well, but it was a big disappointment. While "The Godfather" had boring parts, it was essentially a good book, and especially the movie made it even better, with the great Marlon Brando being the quintessential Don Corleone. 

Well, "The Sicilian" is not a good book. It is boring as hell. That's why it took me almost two months to finish it. Too boring. Michael Corleone appears only in the first and last few chapters, while the rest is about Turi Guliano, a bandit and a type of Robin Hood in Sicily, who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.  The majority of the book is about Turi's exploits as a bandit and a lover of middle-aged widows, while trying to go against the government "in Rome" which is the most corrupt government, which is typical for Italy. 

Nevermind, the ending is that Turi's best friend betrays him and kills him (Aspano) and then he's poisoned by Don Croce, the 'cappo di tutti cappi' of Sicily's "Friends of Friends", as the Mafia is known locally.  The majority of the book is about the exploits of Turi, kidnappings, murders, the occasional massacre, and similar uninteresting stuff about some backwards sticks and boonies in Italy. All in all, a waste of time, but when I start something, I have to finish it, so I did.  

Oh yes, Michael Corleone eventually escapes Italy and returns to America where he is appointed successor of the Family, since his brother Sonny was killed.  So, this book ends at about 2/3 through "The Godfather", where the last 1/3 happens after the events of this book.  

2061: Odissey Three

 It seems that the quality of the writing is just going down with each subsequent book. While 2001 was a revolutionary book and a movie, the 2010 was a very good book and a movie, the 2061 is pretty forgettable book which is unlikely that anyone would make it into a movie anytime soon, because it is just not worth it.  

Europa is in again, but also the Haley's Comet, which I didn't really see (or I don't remember) in 1986, when I was a kid, but apparently it was a big deal for A. Clarke and the first half of the book is about a mission landing on the comet and finding the regular stuff (gasses and geysers) there. 

After a crash landing on Europa and some meetings with advanced local life, the Haley's comet crew is sent to save the Europa's hapless crew, which eventually happens.  And yes, the core of gas giants is made of humongous diamonds.  Maybe.

Eventually a message gets sent to the over-lord-uber-mensch-non-corporeal-anymore aliens, which is not good for the human race, as we've been deemed 'bugs', just like in the 'Three Body Problem.' 

But we will have to wait for 3001 to see how that turns out.

The regular fear of death topics that Clarke cannot escape abound throughout. Clarke had a very long and pretty peaceful life (buried next tot he love of his life in Sri Lanka), but the fear of death is the defining characteristic of all humans, especially the little bit more accomplished ones.

2010: Odyssey Two

 The second odyssey happens about 10 years after the action in the first book, the Cosmic Baby comes back, now as an emissary/servant of the mysterious god-like aliens that left the monoliths 3 million years ago. This book follow the events of the film, not the actual first book, so the action is centered on Jupiter, not Saturn.  Russian and American expeditions get on a Russian spacecraft "Leonov" (after Alexei Leonov, first human to conduct a spacewalk).  They want to go to the previous spaceship "Discovery" and recover anything that was left, including the disconnected HAL 9000, and also to examine the much bigger monolith (called "Big Brother" or "Zagadka") which created the "Cosmic Baby" in the previous book.

The Chinese send a spacecraft of their own, to overtake the Russians and Americans, and get to "Discovery" before them (and claim it as their own).  Since they had to take less fuel to make haste, the Chinese spacecraft is supposed to refuel on Jupiter's moon "Europa", but that does not pan out when it turns out that under the ice of Europa is not only water, but living beings, not microscopic, but huge, which destroy the spaceship. 

This is the main plot of the book, alien life forms on Europa, which the god-aliens of yore are trying to save (although one might wonder why it took them 10 years), by making Jupiter another sun (salaciously named "Lucifer").  The new sun thaws the ice on Europa and creates an atmosphere (not Oxygen/Nitrogen based), which accelerates the evolution on the planet, and in only 20,000 years, the "Europans" walk on the surface, have language and culture and are fully fledged sentient beings.

Overall, this book is much more boring than the first one, since the supercomputer going rogue plot is absent, and that plot is what made it huge success, and relevant even today. The plot of godlike aliens "seeding" and "weeding" planets with life is a very tired trope and somewhat of an escapism, religion-like, putting ones hopes in a higher power which should solve all of our problems including our unavoidable, final and immutable cessation of existence. 

Arthur C. Clarke died in 2008 at age 90, so 26 years after this book, but it is obvious that his unavoidable death was a deep inspiration and influence on writing this novel.

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

 Clarke was my favorite sci-fi author, and definitely my favorite from the Big 3, as I found Asimov too dry and academic, and Heinlein too militaristic and self-indulgent.  My all-time facvorite book by Clarke is his first novel "Against the Fall of Night" even though it is not reflective of his later style that he used for the rest of his life.  I read the story "The Sentinel" that was the base of Kubrick's movie, but I did not find it compelling.  Until now, I haven't read this book, which was written in parallel with the movie, but differs from it.

The ape with the bone in the first part has a name in the book - "Moon-Watcher". In the second part "Discovery" is going to Japetus, a moon of Saturn, not Europa, a moon of Jupiter like in the movie.  Also, the movie extends the middle part the most; the interaction with HAL 9000 and the ultimate disconnection. While the third part in the movie is a very generic sequence of images, the "Cosmic Baby" in the book is very well developed, including the voyage to the space station with a sight of hundreds of different spaceships belonging to different races (including the huge derelict) and the pure-gold space ship encountered in hyperspace. 

The three parts go well together, but it is obvious they were derived from three separate short stories.  This is not a bad thing, Raymond Chandler did it all the time to great success.  The ideas are great, as always with Clarke. His Childhood's End is a masterpiece, both conceptually and as execution. I am not sure about the ending, as what is the "Cosmic Child" doing going back to Earth (which shoot a barrage of nuclear missiles at it)? Is it trying to destroy Earth? Or make it better? Unknown.

Anyways, the second book continues after the movie, not the first book, i.e. the "Discovery" landed on Jupiter's moon Europa and the "Cosmic Child" never came near Earth.  I guess that is better, since there is more continuity.