12. januar 2011

Decembrsko branje

Permakulturni vrt

Graham Bell, Permakulturni vrt

»Drug primer, ki si ga je vredno ogledati, je rod kislic. To so akumulatorji pepelike, ki so se prilagodili razmeram v vlažnih, zbitih tleh.«

Knjiga, katere opis me je pritegnil, vsebina pa dokaj razočarala. Pričakoval sem, da se bo bolj ukvarjala s sobivanjem rastlin na vrtu, pa je temu posvečen le majhen delček. Vseeno pa sem v njej izvedel nekaj zanimivosti – recimo to, da lazarji menda ne marajo pepela. Bom preizkusil spomladi.

Vampire Academy

Richelle Mead: Vampire Academy (Vampirska akademija), Frostbite (Ledeni ugriz), Shadow Kiss (Poljub smrti), Blood Promise (Krvna zaveza), Spirit Bound (Klic duha), Last Sacrifice

»Spring had finally come. It made for good walking weather since I had a ways to go before I made it to the highway. From there, I'd hitchhike to Missoula. Hitchhiking wasn't safe, but the silver stake in my coat pocket made me feel pretty secure about anything I'd face.«

Še ena vampirska zadevščina, bistveno manj dolgovezna in razvlečena kot Somrak. Čisto fino branje, seveda ciljano na najstnice. Privoščil sem si original, ker šesta knjiga še ni prevedena v slovenščino (peta je, a je ta trenutek ne najdem na spletu).

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The Deadline

Tom DeMarco, The Deadline

»Well, our Nation’s Noble Leader, we call him NNL, for short, has proclaimed that Morovia will be first in the world in export of shrink-wrapped software by the year 2000. It’s our grand plan for the future. We’re building a world-class software factory. And we need someone to manage it. It’s as simple as that.«

Roman o vodenju razvoja programske opreme – kakršno bi moralo biti in ne kot ga v praksi ponavadi “izvajajo”. Povedano kot zgodbica o managerju Thompsonu, ki se zaplete v razvoj softvera v izmišljeni Morovii. Krasno napisano in polno zelo dobrih idej, ki se jih v praksi običajno ne držimo, pa bi se jih morali.

Picnic on Nearside

John Varley, Picnic on Nearside

»Now was one of the big moments in her life. She proposed to savor it to the full and refused to be distracted by the hunters. She was giving birth to quintuplets. Uni, Duo, Tri, Quad … Hopelessly trite. Doc, Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy – no, there were seven of those. Army, Navy, Marino, Airforce, Coastguard? That was a pentagon, for an interesting pun. But who wanted to be called Coastguart? What was a Coastguard anyway?«

Praktično “the best of” scifi pisca Johna Varleya. Odlična zbirka, v kateri je tudi njegov Equinoctial, prva njegova zgodba, ki je prišla pred moje oči že pred kakšnimi petindvajsetimi leti in je ostala živo zapisana v mojem spominu. Citat je iz nje.

The Best of Arthur C. Clarke: 1956 - 1972

Arthur C. Clarke, The Best of Arthur C. Clarke: 1956 - 1972

»The story of the first lunar expedition has been written so many times that some people will doubt if there is anything fresh to be said about it. Yet all the official reports and eye-witness accounts, the on-the-spot recordings and broad-casts never, in my opinion, gave the full picture.«

Stare zgodbe starega mojstra, pretežno nekakšni potopisi prihodnosti, ki pa je medtem postala že naša preteklost. Zanimivo, da s tem zgodbe niso izgubile vrednosti, ampak so postale še bolj zanimive.

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Frederik Pohl, Survival Kit

»Let’s see, thought Hardee, staring at the broad white moon. That would be Deimos. Or Phobos. Some said the big one was Deimos, some the little. Nobody knew for sure or nobody had yet convinced the rest of the colony. Old man Tavares was the only one who was really likely to know, and he only laughed when he was asked.«

Še nekaj starih zgodb, tudi te od starega mojstra, ki ga večina pozna po zbirki Gateway (Kapija v trideset let stari shv zbirki Kentaur). Občasno brezupno zastarele, a vseeno prijetne.

Science Fiction of the 50's

Science Fiction of the 50’s

»“Oeil de boeuf!” Aquilla cried. “What a memory. Chryselephantine. Exactly the artist I want. He is my favorite. A monochrome, preferably. A small Jeffrey Halsyon for Aquila, bitte. Warp her up.”«

Še nekaj starega esefa, tokrat v obliki zbirke zgodb starih mojstrov. Nekaj sem jih že bral, nekaj ne. Citat je iz 5,271,009, precej čudne štorije vedno zabavnega Alfreda Bestra.

Universe 12

Universe 12

»“It offers no threat to human life or activity, no danger to bodily health, and only slight danger to mental health,” the great John Chancel had written about it a century before this. “It has almost uniformly ideal climate, though it is not a place to generate sudden wealth. It is serene in environment and in ecological balance, and it is absolutely caressing in its natural beauty. But it does have a strange effect on some of its visitors. It forces them to write things that are untrue, as it is forcing me to do at this moment.”«

Za konec pa še zbirka malce manj starega (a še vedno ne sodobnega) esefa. Moj favorit – Thieving Bear Planet (iz katere je tudi citat).

Berem: Cooking for Geeks, The Society of Mind, Alien Shores

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