Ken Newquist's Blog at Lafayette College
The second book in the Vatta’s Peace series (itself a follow up to the excellent Vatta’s War books) finds its hero, Admiral Kylara Vatta, in desperate straits. She and others maroon on an arctic island have escaped certain death, finding a secret base in the process. But now the shadowy organization who’d been exploiting that base is … Read more
The follow-up to the DevOps novel The Phoenix Project looks at the growth of the movement over the last five years. It’s packed full of great information about DevOps, Agile, and Lean practices, and could easily spawn a summer reading list of its own. The “book” is an audio recording of two of Gene Kim … Read more
Alex White’s A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe is a curious mixup of space opera and fantasy arcana, with a dash of military SF thrown in. I missed the “magic” bit when I was adding it to my Christmas wish list, and I was surprised when I read the first few pages in the … Read more
I accidentally read the sequel to this book, Elysium Fire, as part of my 2018 Summer Reading list. That wasn’t a big problem; the book stood fine on its own and I’m already familiar with the larger “Revelation Space” universe in which it was set. That said, I wanted to go back and see what … Read more
Oathbringer is the third book in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series, a work of epic fantasy in the vein of The Wheel of Time … though with a tighter, better-focused narrative. As with the previous two books, I’m listening to the novel as an audiobook during my morning walks and workouts. I broke my right … Read more
In anticipation of the ATAC 2018 conference I’ve dusted off my old Feedly account and started replenishing it with education blog and news sites. Back in the day, when the ITS Coffee Break was an ongoing concern and I had a lot more free time than I have now, catching up on my feeds was a … Read more
The teaser for this novel sold me instantly: “Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying world-ships known as the Legion is traveling in the seams between the stars. For generations, a war for control of the Legion has been waged, with no clear resolution. As worlds continue to die, a desperate plan … Read more
After spending two weeks in August reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s hard science fiction novel 2312, I returned to lighter fare with the space opera Forsaken Skies. It’s your standard aliens-invade-human-space-for-unknown-reasons story but that’s exactly what I’m looking for to wind down the summer. This is the last book on my Summer 2017 reading list; if I can finish … Read more
The final book in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Mautrin series, which follows the adventures of the H.M.S. Surprise in the 1800s. It’s a bittersweet end that provides a satisfying conclusion to lead character Captain Jack Aubrey’s career, but it’s also the last book that O’Brian wrote before his untimely death.