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Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another great effort from John C. Wright. Just like his Golden Age trilogy, this isn’t a book I would recommend to SciFi newbies unless I know them to be a bit of a polymath in interests if not in full expertise. This book is full of big ideas, large philosophical musings, long time spans and wondrous, galaxy spanning mysteries. If Hunger Games is your idea of sci-fi, then don’t bother with this book. If you couldn’t put down the Foundation trilogy by the awesome Isaac Asimov, then get this book now.

This story is certainly able to stand on its own, but as with the Foundation series, contains such huge ideas and time lines that an “ending” is impossible. That said, I did finally find an article where John C. Wright himself states this is the start of a new series. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/12/20/the-big-idea-john-c-wright/

I can’t wait for more!

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Side Jobs: Stories From the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a little better than book 2 of the series, but still didn’t live up to the quality of the first book. Given that this book is written for the teen female demographic and that I’m about as far from that as you can get, your mileage may vary. I felt much more kinship with Katniss in the first book, but as the story went along, I felt her character weakened or at least her inner monologue and resulting actions seemed to swing wildly. Yeah, that happens to us all as teenagers, but this seemed over done and many of the explorations of her inner conflicts seemed too long drawn out, uninteresting and in the end immaterial to who Katniss is. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what made her so remarkable to everyone else around her after book 1.

The final book does tell a more interesting story than book 2, but waits till about the last 20% to actually tell it.

I also have problems with the mismatched technology of the capitol. They have wondrous technologies to create the arena and manipulate complex environments, but couldn’t figure out how to apply this to improving not only their lives, but the total economy they lived in with the districts? For some, in this type of novel, this is a nitpick, but it is the kind of glaring unreality of a world that really causes me problems when rating books. It makes me quite suspicious of the writer’s worldview and I’m unlikely to try any of her other work without strong recommendations as I got for the Hunger Games from those I trust.

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The End of Sparta: A Novel by Victor Davis Hanson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great way to get into ancient history from a great historian without working through all the various source materials used to write it.

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Square’s App Refresh Makes Mobile Payments Hands-Free | Epicenter | Wired.com.

100 meters seems a pretty long distance, particularly in a mall where you could be in multiple fences simultaneously.  Then there’s the security angle of who defines and secures access to the fences?  I’d need to see this actually backed and supported by the credit card industry and get built into the processes and procedures there before I’m going to jump on this functionality.  This is one mobile app I’ll pass on for now.