There comes a time in every DBA’s life, that he needs to add functionality to his database software. To most DBAs, and indeed for most databases, this amounts to writing a few stored procedures or triggers. In extremely advanced cases, the database may provide an API for direct C-language calls. PostgreSQL however, has gone above and beyond this ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

As far as post-apocalyptic dystopian novels are concerned, Robert Gleason‘s End of Days is unique mostly because it’s mid-apocalyptic. Some of the blurbs on the jacket proclaim Gleason as the “Dante of our age,” so it must have been worth reading. I’m not sure what kind of hyperbole inspired a comment like that, but I really hope it’s sarcasm.

( Read more... )

Alastair Reynolds has been both one of my favorite, and most hated authors. I tend to enjoy his one-shots more than his series, maybe because he doesn’t have time to write himself into a corner. So too with House of Suns, a book I neglected reading for over a year because I was so put off by Absolution Gap’s meandering nonsense.

Gladly, House of ( Read more... )

I don’t believe I’ve read anything by Iain M. Banks before, and after Consider Phlebas, I’m not sure I want to.

Now, this isn’t a matter of a terrible novel that made my eyes bleed, or some horrible techniques that drove me insane. I’m not even sure Mr. Banks writes books like this as a matter of course, or simply in a study on methods to ( Read more... )

I just finished reading Daniel Suarez’s Freedom (TM) in about three days. This is much more a statement of the novel’s quality than my own somewhat glacial reading pace.

There’s a lot in here I really love. Mr. Suarez has clearly done his research, even listing many of his sources, along with the universities and labs inventing the technology he ( Read more... )

Having recently finished the excellent Honor Harrington series, I decided it was high time to peruse David Weber’s backlog of other titles. The war-related books didn’t really interest me, but In Fury Born snared my attention.

Alicia DeVries a girl who excels at many things, and being the granddaughter of an infamous marine, one of those things is ( Read more... )

Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series is an interesting beast, but The Final Empire is a great introduction. I normally stay away from fantasy sans notable exceptions, yet a friend of mine recommended it and I trust his judgment, even if he’s a fan of Robert Jordan.

But what do we really have, here? We have a magic system where a person can “burn” ( Read more... )

Charles Stross wrote Accelerando while high on meth, I think. Not only is it densely packed with author-coined terminology loosely based on the underlying technological innovations, but it’s a meandering plotless testament to its own existence.

It follows the trials and tribulations of Manfred Macx and his descendants before, during, and after ( Read more... )

I’ve never really been a fan of crime thrillers. Sometimes the mystery is enticing, but by and large, it always boils down to the motivation. Why did the killer do it? Most authors answer this as an afterthought. Whether it be an insane, megalomaniacal contrivance, or just plain avarice or one of the other seven deadly sins, they hardly explain or ( Read more... )