Books Completed in January 2007

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. by Cory Doctorow (Tor, 2003)

The Yacoubian Building: A Novel. by Alaa Al Aswany, translated by Humphrey Davies (Harper Perennial, 2006)

The Eternal Frontier. by Tim Flannery (William Heinemann: London, 2001)

Only three books this month, two novels and popular science book. I'll only comment on the novels in this post

The Cory Doctorow book was the most interesting, a real honest attempt to describe life in a post scarcity economy. It was pretty convincing, and clever, but some of the plot elements and the brain uploading/downloading were too glib. For example, the hero suffers a malfunction in his wiring and he must lose his most recent memories if he wants to fix it, it is explained that without the hardware functioning his memories can't be recorded, but one has to wonder how he remembers anything from before the hardware was implanted, say in his childhood. The technology here, as in several other places was not consistent, and its limitations seemed more of a plot device than anything else. But I would still recommend it.

The Yacoubian Building, was also interesting but it seemed very dated and predictable at the same time. Parts of it approached tedium, and the expository discussion of homosexuality was quite odd. The only explanation seemed that for the books Arabic speaking audience the gay theme was quite exotic. The rest of the book was too predictable and I thought for awhile I would not finish it despite it short length. The terrorist plot especially felt like it had been taken from an article in a newsmagazine, but in the end I was charmed and left it feeling fondly toward it. I was glad though that I had finished it.