Genre: Humour in a Fantasy setting.
The entire Discworld series of book are excellent. Terry Pratchett's books mix humor, good stories and life lessons to make them a fun read. The Discworld novels are a large body of work with 36 published novels and 1 more planned for October 2009. All the novels can be read standalone. However there are a few miniseries and while there is no overarching story line, its fun to read them in order and see the characters grow.
My personal favourite in terms of characters comes from the 'Watch series' followed closely by the 'Witches series', either of these would make a very good entry point into the series. There are also 4 young adult novels, but don't let that put you off, they are good reads too.
Here are the books with links to Amazon. The series are listed in the order that you should read them.
The Watch series (Recommended as a first read of the Discworld series)
Guards! Guards!
Men at Arms
Feet of Clay
Jingo
The fifth elephant
Night watch
Thud
The Moist series (Best enjoyed if read once you have read the Watch series)
Going Postal
Making Money
The Witches series (Recommended as a first read of the Discworld series)
Equal rites
Wyrd sisters
Witches abroad
Lords and ladies
Maskerade
Capre Jugulum
The Tiffany Aching series (Young adult novels, best enjoyed if read after the Witches series)
The wee free men
A hat full of sky
Wintersmith
The Death series (Recommended as a first read of the Discworld series)
Mort
Reaper man
Soul music
Hogfather
Thief of time
The Rincewind series
The Color of Magic
The light fantastic
Sourcery
(Faust) Eric
Interesting times
The last continent
Standalone Novels (Read in any order)
Small gods
Pyraminds
The amazing Maurice and his educated rodents ( A young adult novel)
The truth
Moving Pictures
Monstrous regiment
Link to a Amazon store that list all the Discworld books.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Book review: Untapped - The scramble for Africa's oil by John Ghazvinian
Genre: Non-fiction, Oil and its impact on African nations.
The book does not deal with the whole of Africa, rather it explores the area south of the Sahara desert. Ghazvinian spent some time between 2003 to 2004 travelling around a bunch of these countries,, talking to the locals, Oil company representatives and employees, government officials and any other parties he could get a hold off.
The book points out that Africa has been gaining interest from the rest of the world due to the substantial reserves that have been discovered there along with the current high price of Oil. The chief theme in this book is how discovery of natural resources in a developing country, rather then causing a increase in the standard of living actually ends up reducing this. There is a term for this called 'Dutch disease'.
So the book does not sermonise on big bad Oil companies, rather he visits a country explores the current state of the country and looks like how Oil has changed the current dynamics of the country viz-a-viz development, politics, social order and foreign relations. The locals he meet do complain about the Oil companies but the author does try to get and present the other side of the story.
All this makes for great reading. Ghazvinian is a fine writer and he captures the unique vibe of each country well, the book holds ones attention and I found myself reading it for long spells. The only section not well written is the start where he make all these pop culture references to 'Fargo' - the movie and place. But that is just a bumpy start and it takes of well from there.
Rating: 5 / 5, Highly recommended.
The book does not deal with the whole of Africa, rather it explores the area south of the Sahara desert. Ghazvinian spent some time between 2003 to 2004 travelling around a bunch of these countries,, talking to the locals, Oil company representatives and employees, government officials and any other parties he could get a hold off.
The book points out that Africa has been gaining interest from the rest of the world due to the substantial reserves that have been discovered there along with the current high price of Oil. The chief theme in this book is how discovery of natural resources in a developing country, rather then causing a increase in the standard of living actually ends up reducing this. There is a term for this called 'Dutch disease'.
So the book does not sermonise on big bad Oil companies, rather he visits a country explores the current state of the country and looks like how Oil has changed the current dynamics of the country viz-a-viz development, politics, social order and foreign relations. The locals he meet do complain about the Oil companies but the author does try to get and present the other side of the story.
All this makes for great reading. Ghazvinian is a fine writer and he captures the unique vibe of each country well, the book holds ones attention and I found myself reading it for long spells. The only section not well written is the start where he make all these pop culture references to 'Fargo' - the movie and place. But that is just a bumpy start and it takes of well from there.
Rating: 5 / 5, Highly recommended.
Book review: The match king - Ivan Kreuger, The financial genius behind a century of wall street scandals by Frank Partnoy
Genre: Biography, written from second hand sources.
The rather lengthy subtitle to this book comes from the financial instruments that Ivan Kreuger created, all those fancy derivatives that have come into focus because of the current sub prime mortgage meltdown. Since the book chronicles events in the 1920's and 1930's , Kreuger can also be considered as the granddad of this generations Enron, Bernie Madoff, Allen Stanford etc.
While derivatives have got a bad rap recently, they are legitimate and important financial instruments and Kreuger by (allegedly) creating these instruments has shown that he was extremely astute if not a genius.
Partnoy potrays a case that there is no hard evidence Kreuger set out to defraud investors or banks. Partnoy builds up Kreuger as a figure who did not knowingly do anything wrong but rather ended up getting tangled in all the complex webs that he build. Far more shocking that what Kreuger did was that he could get away with it all for so long. From shockingly lax accounting for a company borrowing money from the average Joe, to shell companies over shell companies, to colossal fund transfers. Kreuger was rarely challenged over any of this.
All this makes for fascinating reading. Partnoy described having gone through a tonne of material for this book and there is certainly plenty of details in the book. Some of these details combined with Partnoy overly florid writting style combine to reduce the allure of this book. I would have preferred Partnoy to have focussed more on the facts he could glean then on interactions between various people. It is hard to believe that Partnoy found any truthful material that made him privy to the behaviours and dialogues he attributes to the characters in the book.
The subject matter of the book is great, the writing is average and often times overly dramatic. Still it makes for a fun read and is recommended.
Rating: 3 / 5, Above average, Recommended if the subject matter interests you.
The rather lengthy subtitle to this book comes from the financial instruments that Ivan Kreuger created, all those fancy derivatives that have come into focus because of the current sub prime mortgage meltdown. Since the book chronicles events in the 1920's and 1930's , Kreuger can also be considered as the granddad of this generations Enron, Bernie Madoff, Allen Stanford etc.
While derivatives have got a bad rap recently, they are legitimate and important financial instruments and Kreuger by (allegedly) creating these instruments has shown that he was extremely astute if not a genius.
Partnoy potrays a case that there is no hard evidence Kreuger set out to defraud investors or banks. Partnoy builds up Kreuger as a figure who did not knowingly do anything wrong but rather ended up getting tangled in all the complex webs that he build. Far more shocking that what Kreuger did was that he could get away with it all for so long. From shockingly lax accounting for a company borrowing money from the average Joe, to shell companies over shell companies, to colossal fund transfers. Kreuger was rarely challenged over any of this.
All this makes for fascinating reading. Partnoy described having gone through a tonne of material for this book and there is certainly plenty of details in the book. Some of these details combined with Partnoy overly florid writting style combine to reduce the allure of this book. I would have preferred Partnoy to have focussed more on the facts he could glean then on interactions between various people. It is hard to believe that Partnoy found any truthful material that made him privy to the behaviours and dialogues he attributes to the characters in the book.
The subject matter of the book is great, the writing is average and often times overly dramatic. Still it makes for a fun read and is recommended.
Rating: 3 / 5, Above average, Recommended if the subject matter interests you.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
DVD review: Battlestar Galactica - The complete series review
Genre: Science fiction.
Boxset info: This is a revamp of the original BSG. The entire BSG run encompassed, a mini series, 4 seasons and a mid season movie "Razor".
In terms of boxsets these would be:
Battlestar Galactica: The complete series - Includes everything.
Or in terms of individual seasons:
Battlestar Galactica - Season One
- Includes the miniseries and season 1
Battlestar Galactica - Season 2.0
- Half of season 2.
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5
- The concluding half of season 2.
Battlestar Galactica - Season Three
- The complete 3rd season.
Battlestar Galactica - Season 4.0
- Includes the movie "Razor" and first half of season 4.
Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5
- The concluding half of season 4.
Whether you like this series or not will depend on what you expect from your TV shows. If you expect logical conclusion and plot lines to be tied up, there is a good chance you will hate this show. If having drama and good acting is enough and you don't care for the plot so much, then this series will rank among the all time greats for you.
I like my plot lines tied up and hence felt cheated on seeing the last episode. It ruined the entire series for me. This is a crying shame, the miniseries and the first season were absolutely brilliant. Cracks began to appear in the 2nd and 3rd season, where we were given more mysteries and twist and turns and one had to wonder, how the writers were going to resolve everything. As the 4th season explained the writers just couldn't be bothered to explain anything.
The acting all through the series is top notch. The special effects and CGI is excellent and really adds to the drama and action. The writing in terms of dialogues and drama is very good.
I would recommend watching the mini series and Season 1 but not the entire series. Considering how good the mini series and season 1 is though I think you would be hard pressed not to watch the rest of the season even knowing that it will disappoint you.
Here is the Amazon link for the series
or you can use the links at the top of the post to get them.
Rating: 2 /5 for the entire series. Don't bother.
Boxset info: This is a revamp of the original BSG. The entire BSG run encompassed, a mini series, 4 seasons and a mid season movie "Razor".
In terms of boxsets these would be:
Battlestar Galactica: The complete series - Includes everything.
Or in terms of individual seasons:
Battlestar Galactica - Season One
- Includes the miniseries and season 1Battlestar Galactica - Season 2.0
- Half of season 2.Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5
- The concluding half of season 2.Battlestar Galactica - Season Three
- The complete 3rd season.Battlestar Galactica - Season 4.0
- Includes the movie "Razor" and first half of season 4.Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5
- The concluding half of season 4.Whether you like this series or not will depend on what you expect from your TV shows. If you expect logical conclusion and plot lines to be tied up, there is a good chance you will hate this show. If having drama and good acting is enough and you don't care for the plot so much, then this series will rank among the all time greats for you.
I like my plot lines tied up and hence felt cheated on seeing the last episode. It ruined the entire series for me. This is a crying shame, the miniseries and the first season were absolutely brilliant. Cracks began to appear in the 2nd and 3rd season, where we were given more mysteries and twist and turns and one had to wonder, how the writers were going to resolve everything. As the 4th season explained the writers just couldn't be bothered to explain anything.
The acting all through the series is top notch. The special effects and CGI is excellent and really adds to the drama and action. The writing in terms of dialogues and drama is very good.
I would recommend watching the mini series and Season 1 but not the entire series. Considering how good the mini series and season 1 is though I think you would be hard pressed not to watch the rest of the season even knowing that it will disappoint you.
Here is the Amazon link for the series
or you can use the links at the top of the post to get them.Rating: 2 /5 for the entire series. Don't bother.
DVD review: Doctor Who - the complete first series
Genre: Science fiction
Boxset info: 5 disc boxset containing all 13 episodes of the first series. This is the newer Doctor Who series that debuted in 2005.
Doctor Who was a successful British Scifi shows in the 60's and has a large cult following. I have not seen the original series so this was my first exposure to Doctor Who. The main protagonist Doctor Who is a alien who has a ship that can travel through space and time. Over the course of 13 episodes we see the good doctor do just that, along the way picking up a human companion Rose and a few other travelers from time to time.
The monster designs and the various set designs for the spacecrafts and space stations, give Doctor Who, a old time almost B movie kind of vibe. This combined with some pretty good special effects ends up giving Doctor Who a unique enjoyable style.
Each episode(or two) ends up being a self contained adventure. The stories are pretty varied and are set in the past, present and future. The writing on the show is very good and the pace of each episode is brisk. As the series goes on the characters get developed and we get to know more about the Doctor and his past. The acting of everyone in the show is very good. Christopher Eccleston in particular who plays the Doctor gives a fine performance.
The only downside to the boxset is the cost which is significantly more expensive then the norm.
Rating: 5 / 5, Highly recommended.
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