Another slow month for reading, only getting through two large, slow books. The first was The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide. It had a good introduction to TCP/IP, which I needed, and a good, detailed overview of Firewalls, file- and printsharing with Samba, email and web serving. It is an excellent reference, but it is a was a hard slog to read through. My fiction reading was The Difference Engine, by cyberpunk icons Bruce Sterling and William Gibson. The premise is an interesting one, in which Charles Babbage discovers the trick of computing engines in the first half of the 19th century. The computers are steam-powered and mechanical, and the world of 1855 London after twenty years of computers is an interesting one. Unfortunately, Gibson and Sterling thought it would be a good idea to write the book in the florid, awkward prose of the period, and it slowed the reading of the book drastically. Also, the tone and direction of the book was terribly uneven, likely because neither writer had the foresight to plan to novel in enough detail. Another problem is that the "parallel character" model of collaborative fiction doesn't work well when the chapters are over one hundred pages long. All in all I wish I'd read something else. I also read a few more of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher collections, numbers 2, 3 and 4. The writing is still poor, and the characters and dialogue hackneyed and cheap, but the ultraviolence and the cheap thrills make for nice fluff.

In my recent tradition of reading one technical book and one recreational (well, they're both recreational, but fiction is lighter than technical computer tomes) I read, on Mike's recommendation, the MCSE Training Guide: Networking Essentials. I'm trying to learn enough to be able to build and manage networks, including my own, and it's been slow going. The mountain of my own ignorance is steep and tall, but I think I have a good shovel. Anyway, the book was interesting, but covered the material at too low a level to be really useful. I know a whole bunch more about protocol stacks and wiring schemes than I used to, but not much about TCP/IP and network security.

My fiction reading was another Don DeLillo, this time Mao II. It possessed the same distinctive style as White Noise, but it didn't seem to have the same kinetic drive, a sense of impending. The resolution seemed tacked on, and it grated against my sense of propriety that the childish beliefs of the gangling youth are vindicated rather than repudiated. Part of the problem was that the blurb writer reveals too much, leaving the novel's surprises with little impact. One thing that I did take from the book is the disturbing fact that I do not know who is fighting in Beirut, or why, and no one I ask can answer either. We are so accustomed to conflict in that city that it has lost all meaning, and has become merely a black hole in the world into which attention and understanding fall and cannot escape.

It's been a slow month, the books that I read were slow and turgid. The first was Hackers, by Steven Levy. It was a very interesting look at the beginning of the personal computer, especially those zealots and fanatics who made it possible for machines like the one I'm using to exist. I found it fascinating that as recently as 1985 all or almost all significant programming on home computers was done in assembler. By my count that means that the prevalence of high-level languages in personal computing is less than fifteen years old. I can't even imagine trying to build the programs I use every day in assembler.

I also read a collection of short stories by Connie Willis, Fire Watch. Several of the stories are excellent, showing the poise and ease with which Willis crafts characters and weaves fanciful technology into cogent plots. Several other of the stories, however, show promise but a discomfort with the form of the short story, with passages written because they are necessary to the art rather than because they fit and flow. I also read Willis' breezy novel Remake, which is quite characteristic of Willis' work. The story is about relationships rather than actions, dreams and desires rather than conflict. It is full of interesting jargon and some nicely invented technology. In addition, there is an excellent, plausible, satisfying happy ending for Casablanca, which shows Willis' sense of story, propriety and the breadth of her invention.