Books I've Read This Week

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold is the latest novel in the Vorkosigan  Saga but the twist is this time Miles Vorkosigan barely shows up in the book at all. Instead we are focusing on Miles' cousin Captain Ivan Vorpatril. Ivan rarely enjoys the spotlight and he prefers a desk job that highlight his organizational skills but when Imperial Security Officer needs Ivan's help he is duty bound to repsond. It doesn't hurt that there is a beautiful off worlder to woo. But what Ivan doesn't know is that her family issues make his look small by comparison. Once again Bujold delivers some great characters and a rousing funny story. The best part about this saga is that the books are pretty much stand alone and can be read in any order.

Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow is the type of sci-fi book I really love. He uses the medium of a book set in our very near future to shine a light upon some of the political decisions going on today. In this case the advent of those 3 strike (or similar) laws where families can get booted off the internet if they are caught illegally downloading. Doctorow lays out a number of unintended consequences that can arise when a family is denied internet access. In the book Trent McCauley gets his family booted off the net. So in typical teenager thinking he decides to run off to the city, London in this case. There he falls in with squatters  dumpster divers and makers of all sorts. Hilarity and predictably railing against the government ensues.