Book review – The Family Trade by Charles Stross

Charles Stross takes a right turn from his more typical Sci-Fi fare with The Family Trade and gets pretty serious with the fantasy stuff. This is book one in The Merchant Princes series and has me hooked for more.

Miriam is the main character and learns a lot about herself the same day she is fired from her job as a journalist at a startup. She plunges down the rabbits hole into a parallel universe that is still in the Medieval Ages. As she goes deeper the hole grabs her and pulls all the way in.

On the other side she learns about her special gift for world walking and her ties into a Clan that rivals the Midici’s. Suddenly attempts on her life begin popping up everywhere and she falls back on her medical and journalist training to stay alive to make it to book two.

Edited: July 2nd, 2009

Tech jobs in Phoenix? Crazy talk…

You wouldn’t really be able to guess that Phoenix is the 16th largest city for tech jobs in the country if you were to read the traditional media here. In the 41 stories published to the Phoenix Biz Journals RSS feed this week 6 of them talk about tech in the valley.
Yet there is this story:

Tech jobs spur some growth in Phoenix area:
The Phoenix area's technology community has seen some growth after shedding jobs for most of the decade, according to a study by the American Electronics Association.

Where is the info about what companies are driving this growth? What are they doing? Who are they?

Of these 6 stories only one of them actually talks about a specific company: Unicorn Media which is a startup by some of the folks who did Limelight Networks.

Where is the story about Limelight’s current issues with patent Lawsuits with Akamai?

This is more and more reason for the grassroot/groundswell action that Refresh, Social Media Club, Tempe Nerds, Refactor, and Ignite Phoenix to name a few.

Edited: June 26th, 2008

Historical Fiction with lots of sex

Hows that for a title?

Just finished World Without End, which is arguably the longest book I have ever read, just over 1000 pages. It was a great read and I highly recommend it.

Ken Follett is a master story teller and weaves so many plots so intricately that you are loathe to put the book down. The historical references are really well done and his description of 14th century England/Europe is mezmorizing. I really feel terrible at how much I missed when i went to school there. Reading this makes me want to go back and revisit my ancestry.

Oh and while the sex scenes are a bit idealistic they are plentiful and make the morning commute go by very nicely.

Edited: March 28th, 2008