Update Schedule

There was once an update schedule. It lived a good life, a peaceful life. A quiet life. But then... things began to change. It became more and more erratic, sometimes completely disobeying its very reason for existance. And at last, the update schedule could take no more. It cast off its chains and went free, seeking new lands where it would be appreciated. This message it left where once it had lived, to warn other schedules of the peril.

Friday, June 12, 2015

And The Doomsday Book


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Every so often, my father digs up some ancient tome from the basement and tells me I should read it. For the most part I ignore him for several weeks. This time it was only a few days before I realized that I had no other books with me and reluctantly cracked this one.
It immediately made me fall in love while getting on my nerves more than any book has in a long while. Here's why: there were no periods. Luckily, this was a printing error or the book was old or something of that sort ( it was definitely not on purpose), they soon reappeared, and I could enjoy this book free of trying to figure out whether the numbers were supposed to have decimals in them or not.
The writing was awesome, and it was amazing how British it was since the author is American.
The characters were amazing. I have to say that Kivrin was not particularly likable for me, but I did respect her as a character and she really rose to the challenges set for her. Dunworthy was awesome. I liked Mary, Colin was cool (I actually found him not at all annoying, contrary to popular opinion), and I maintain that Kivrin was probably dating William anyway. They were all real people- Father Roche is an amazing priest (in my humble, Jewish opinion...) yet is no more perfect than any of the other, Montoya is annoying and yet when I imagined her sitting there in her dig searching for Kivrin's bones I can't help but like her, and there's no way I can list everyone and how awesome they were (have I mentioned I love Roche?) but they were all amazingly realistic and just great people (even the ones who weren't terribly nice or brave or good).
The plot wasn't anything awesome, but it was solid, and that's the most important thing anyway. I do wish it hadn't ended quite so abruptly, but other than that all is good.
I have to say that I was amused by the author's view of the future (especially since it wasn't written that long ago). The book is set in 2055 and the only things that are at all futuristic are the time travel, "locators" (read: GPS) that apparently works without satellites, and some medical equipment with fancy sounding names that's unlikely to be anything special. Forget self-driving cars or even the internet- cell phones aren't in existence. It was quite amusing that their video calling didn't work properly, though- there's one thing she got right.
Anyway, this was a great book. Go read it.
Or, actually, don't, because you probably won't like it. I personally love books mostly filled with people running around trying to contact other people and where the author isn't afraid to murder important characters (although it could have been onscreen... I liked those characters!) when it's written as well as this is, but probably some people don't. The search for Basingame was one of my favorite subplots (although, spoiler, they don't find him and that bothered me). I also liked how straightforward it was- no subtle plot twists here, it all made sense and yet wasn't boring. Anyway, rant over, it was awesome and you should read it but don't blame me if you don't like it.