Some Short Book Reviews

I'm trying to up my reading game, spending more time reading (which includes having the book read to me by Google Play or the Kinde app), and less time listening to podcasts or doom scrolling. This was also motivated by the need to read a few of the nominees for the Hugo Awards, since I bought a supporting membership to get the voters' packet.

So here are some short reviews of some of the books I've read in the last few months.

• Children of Time/Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky: I've been meaning to read something by Adrian Tchaikovsky for quite a while after recommendations by friends and family members, and I'm glad I did. Both Children of Time and Children of Ruin were highly readable SF with interesting and believable aliens, solid world building, and well-developed characters. I found the plot of Children of Ruin a bit hard to follow in places, but other than that I thoroughly enjoyed both books. 

 

• The Regicide Report by Charles Stross: With The Regicide Report, Charles Stross finally completes the main story arc of his long-running Laundry Files series. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't read at least some of the other books in the series. Given that the events in the book take place before the sequel New Management trilogy, it felt a bit redundant. 

• Death of the Author by Ndedi Okefor: This is a Hugo nominee and I might not have read it otherwise. In the near future, a university teacher of creative writing gets fired after criticizing a student and decides to write a science fiction novel. The book becomes a huge success, completely altering the author's life. In alternating sections, Okefor includes parts of the author's novel, gradually integrating the two stories. It's well done and very readable, if a bit heavy on family drama. 

• The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow: I am not a big fan of fantasy novels, but decided to read this based on some glowing reviews and its Hugo nomination. It's a riff on the Arthurian legend, with a time travel loop thrown in. I found it quite compelling; the setting, pacing, and characterization are first rate and Harrow is a top flight prose stylist. It may win the Hugo award this year and it would be well deserved. 

• Ancestral Night/Machine by Elizabeth Bear. I have read and enjoyed several shorter stories by Elizabeth Bear but have not read any of her novels until now. These are space operas with a large cast of aliens and a diverse human culture spreading through the galaxy. I liked the setting and stories but there was too much character introspection for my taste, and I found myself skimming a lot. I will read the third book in the series, Folded Sky, soon.. 

 

Coming soon, a review of Biological War: A Scenario, by Annie Jacobsen.

Photo of the Week - August 23, 3026

Today's photo is of marigolds that we planted along the side of our garden to attract pollinators. We've planted them before, but this year they really took off. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro.

Marigolds

Saturday Sounds - The Tragically Hip - Live July 22 - August 20, 2016

Today's musical treat is something very special, especially if you are Canadian. Live July 22 - August 20, 2016 is a live album culled from the last concert tour of Canada's most beloved band, The Tragically Hip. 

That isn't hyperbole, by the way. Their last concert was broadcast live over the CBC and watched by an estimated 11, 700, 000 people, about one third of all Canadians. (The CBC will be rebroadcasting it tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern, on TV and radio, CBC GEM on the web, Sirius XM and YouTube. I will be watching, with beer and Kleenex in hand).

As for the album, I think it will eventually become known as one of rock's greatest live albums. The band, and especially lead singer and lyricist Gord Downie, who was dying of brain cancer during the tourn, gave it their all. It's far more than a greatest hits album; the hits are there, but so are a large number of deep tracks from their catalog, all brilliantly played. If you are new to The Hip, check out "Nautical Disaster", "50 Mission Cap", "New Orleans Is Sinking", or "Bobcaygeon", to name a few of their most popular songs..

Play it often and play it loud.

 

Getting a Better List of Styles in Word

Styles are one of Microsoft Word's better features but Microsoft has never made them particularly easy to use and especially never easy to manage. In my last job, I eventually created a small set of templates with a common set of style names but with differing formats. Some documents could have more than thirty styles. Tracking changes to the styles across differnt documents was painful. 

Office Watch points outs that you can use AI tools like Copilot or Gemini to help you analyse and manage your styles. 

Copilot or any AI (Claude, ChatGPT etc.) can read a Word styles document and reorganize the contents into something more useful, such as:

• Hierarchy table
• Grouped Styles
• Style Guide
• Design System Diagram
• Visual Table
• Style Compliance Table

The article includes a sample prompt and some examples of reports and diagrams that you can create. 

As I recall, Adobe FrameMaker doesn't have many features for reporting on style properties, but there are third-party tools that you could probably use in conjunction with AI tools to create similar reports.

How Journalists Are Using AI

The Nieman Journalism Lab has published an article showing how several Pulitizer Prize-winning journalists used AI tools in their work. 

 A translation of a mass shooter’s cryptic journal in the days after an attack. A public records review that revealed failures to install flood warning systems in Central Texas. An exposé of American technology companies’ complicity in building the Chinese surveillance state. An audit of the SEC’s crypto lawsuits that showed weakening enforcement under the second Trump administration.

On May 4, the Pulitzer Prizes recognized these stories among the winners and finalists across 15 journalism categories. The reporters behind each of these stories also disclosed using AI to the judging committee. Ultimately, five award winners and three finalists this year disclosed AI adoption in their submissions — the most since the disclosure requirement was added in 2024.

The journalists use of AI fell into several key categories:

• Searching for information in a large number of public records
• Translating under deadline pressure
• Making a trove of documents searchable
• Checking other writers' work

Looking at the details of how these tools were used really makes me wish I had had them available when I was working as a technical writer at the TSX. Just the ability to search through the job control system or QA test databases would have been very useful. 

Photo of the Week - August 16, 2026

This week's photo is of our garlic harvest for the year. It wasn't our best; we got 30 heads out of about 36 planted, and they were mostly on the small side. Still, it's not a lot of work and they taste better than most of the supermarket garlic. 

Our garlic harvest for 2026

Saturday Sounds - Girma Woldemichael - Nafqóté

This week's musical treat is from Girma Woldemichael, an Ethiopian-Canadian saxophonist living in Toronto. I was completely unfamiliar with him or his music until hearing an interview with him on CBC radio. His music synthesizes African elements with jazz, and funk and I quite like it. Nafqóté is his most recent album. You can find several more on YouTube Music.