Dusk Before the Dawn

By day, I masquerade as someone who knows a thing or two about digital security and identity.

So when my friend and collegue Charles mentioned wikiscanner to me, my split personality showed: one side cheered that the media manipulaters could no longer hide; the other side jeered because privacy and anonymity took another blow.

Wikiscanner, through the usage of computation and knowledge about who (which corporations or ISPs) own what blocks of IP addresses, takes away some of the anonymity that can be associated with changing a Wikipedia post. Kudos to wikiscanner creator Virgil Griffith for his creativity; because of his invention he can no longer remain anonymous, as media rags show how his creation reveals corps like Diebold editing Wiki articles on e-voting machines.

Identity and the concept of “authoritative” are interesting topics to discuss in terms of Wiki, and also in terms of other community sites such as Digg, eBay, Amazon, MySpace, dating sites and others. (more…)

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A first time novelist’s first time at the show

I went to BEA (and took my wife and son) for many reasons:

• My first book (Dusk Before the Dawn) was up for a 2006 Book of the Year Award from ForeWord Magazine;
• I love books;
• I wanted to meet a few of the friends I’d made in the book business;
• It was in New York City and we like to visit;
• Did I mention we like books?

I’ve visited and exhibitted at many software and technology conferences, but few had the excitement and sheer hectic nature of BEA. It was a three-day conference preceeded by meetings and seminars; we only attended the first day (Friday), and we were worn out, my son especially for playing sherpa and carrying the books!

Now, let me emphasize that we did not go to BEA with the intention of grabbing every book in sight. It just felt like that is what we did! We ended up with forty books, some ARC/AREs (Advanced Reading Copies/Editions), some unedited, some fully released. I have almost one hundred reviews on this site, with more coming, so hopefully the authors and publishing houses will feel some benefit from the publicity. My wife and son are going to contribute some reviews as well.

Some of the books we got (that we will be posting reviews for) were:

• The Dark River by John Twelve Hawks (the book after Traveler); my review
• The Orc King by R. A. Salvatore (the next Drizzt novel);
• The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson (the book after the Army at Dawn, about the liberation of Europe in WWII);
• The Almost Moon by Alice Seybold (author of The Lovely Bones); my review
• The Crocodile and the Crane by Authur Rosenfield (from YMAA books, publisher of some of the best martial arts books available);
• Exit Ghost by Philip Roth;
• The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax (story summary reminds me of The Shadow and the Wind);
• How Life Imitates Chess by Garry Kasparov
• The Human, The Orchid and The Octopus by Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein
• Dragons of the Highlord Skies by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (The Lost Chronicles Vol. 2)

I also got to meet in person several author friends, including: (more…)

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4 stars: Written by a New Yorker, in this day and age eyes and ears are everywhere

It’s obvious from reading this book (and a lot of Paul’s books) that he is a New Yorker. He describes the cityscape, sure, but he also details how Phil D’amato, his main character, feels about New York: the pride he takes in the skyscrapers, the way he knows the traffic and the subways, and what will get him faster where, and the particular city politics that is New York.

And from someone who has seen their city attacked, a novel about eyes and ears being everywhere, including the rodents that inhabit the city, isn’t paranoia, its just precautionary forward thinking. The explosions in the novel, though on a smaller scale that what we have witnessed, are strikingly real.

The book dives right in with a squirrels as spys theory, going through a high level scientific explanation of whether the hearing and sight of rodents could be mapped, recorded and replayed. The pace meanders somewhat in the beginning, but it seems to fit D’Amato’s character, as he meanders to put the pieces of the case he is solving together.

The ending, however, is wide open, with some conclusions reached, but no criminal apprehended. Maybe that is as it should be, depicting the war on terrorism as a battle that is hard to win, or even to determine if you are winning.

Another good D’Amato read.

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A fast paced book that moves quickly though time

The first three chapters of The Plot to Save Socrates take place in the years 2042, 150 and 1889. After getting through the initial disorientation that this caused, I raced through the rest of Paul Levinson’s page turner. It is an enjoyable read that I would recommend to science fiction fans and non-scifi fans alike.

The premise is a complex web of events started by someone out to save Socrates through time travel. The paradoxes of time travel (that changes in the past can change you in the future) are interweaved with the story of people both historical and fictional, some who believe they are nobly trying to save one of the greatest minds ever, some who believe they have no say in events and are just following along paths to destinies already set out before them, and others who are determined to change their fates by changing the past.

Although many ancients (Greek and otherwise) appear in the story, the fictional character (at least fictional in the beginning) of Sierra Waters (a paradoxical name in and of itself!) is the most intriguing. She becomes interwoven in the plot, but determined to make decisions about what paths she takes based on personal choices, not waves of the future or patterns of history.

I enjoyed the pace of the story, once I got used to the back and forth of the time and place settings. I also enjoyed the ancient characters brought to life, always a struggle and Paul does this well. Others may nitpick about some facts (how to people survive in different times? aren’t people who left one time never to return missed by parents and others? why aren’t there many more time travellers than there are in the book). But I enjoyed the story.

In addition, I believe Mr. Levinson leaves the story open for a sequel (or, because of time travel, would this be a prequel??), but I will not give the details of how as I do not want to spoil the story. I, for one, would certainly welcome a follow up.

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5 stars: LARGE ideas, excellent first novel

Paul Levinson mixes LARGE ideas, from Amish scientists manipulating genetics the old fashioned way, to immortality and worldwide encoded plagues and immunities. The novel focuses for the most part on Detective Phil D’Amato, who is trying to determine why seemingly healthy people, including some Neanderthal-esque folks, are keeling over to violent allergic deaths.

There is a detour that takes us back in time to Neanderthal’s, the Silk Road and some further clues. This break in the narrative threw me at first, leading me to see this first part as one short story and this as a second. But the last half of the novel moves quickly and pulls all of the ideas together nicely, while leaving events open for a follow-on story (I haven’t yet read the rest of Paul’s books, don’t spoil it for me!).

Excellent hard-core sci-fi, especially in describing the Amish scientists doing in-depth gentics without lab equipment. The lanterns are especially cool.

Skipping ahead to read Paul’s “The Plot to Save Socrates”, then back to the other Detective D’Amato books.

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