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This book was an accident. I needed a new book to read, because I was going to be waiting for something. The cover looked like a decent military technological drama. Since Tom Clancy cannot write books as fast as I can read them, I thought I would give it a try. It was a decent choice.

The premise is that Russia wants to sell Kilo class submarines to China. At $300 million a boat, it is much needed income for Russia. However, if China does get a fleet of Kilos, they can shut the US out of the region with this quite electric/diesel boat and possibly eventually retake Taiwan. The book contains some interesting black ops submarine work, some ground based special ops action and a cool under ice crossing of the north pole that I didn’t know was possible.

I you like Clancy, you will enjoy this book. If you don’t like Clancy, what is wrong with you? (Just Kidding.) It wasn’t a great book, but a good read. Also see H.M.S Unseen by the same author.

Kilo Class ISBN: 0061096857 at Amazon

The Da Vinci Code was the first book of Dan Brown’s I read. It seemed like your only choice was to read the book, due to popularity. I really enjoy Brown’s style of writing, but didn’t like the far stretches required to make The Da Vinci Code a suspenseful novel and much of the false history. I guess it didn’t really bug me when reading the book. The thing that bugged me was people thinking it was the truth after reading a fictional novel. Despite this, when seeing Deception Point for sale at our United Way book sale at work, I decided to give it a try.

Deception Point involves the discovery of an astonishingly rare object buried deep in arctic ice in the far North. NASA, in dire need of a success to halt a funding cut or complete elimination of the organization, are careful to pull in civilian scientists to validate their discovery beyond a shadow of doubt. In addition, NSA analyst Rachel Sexton is brought in as a professional skeptic.
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Recently I’ve started writing again. In the last few years, all my writing was on screenplay style for short films. Some of these we actually shot and produced, most just sit on my computer in final PDF form. Writing in screenplay format is different than novel, novella, or short story forms. Screenplay is all about dialog and character actions. There is no exposition of character thoughts. I think this experience makes you a stronger dialog writer, when you switch to fiction. I decided to read a few books on the subject of writing fiction before starting up again. Seeing good reviews on Stephen King’s On Writing, I decided to read it. I’m glad I did.

The book is broken into a few sections: C.V., Toolbox, On Writing, On Living: A Postscript, and a final edit example. C.V. or Curriculum Vitae is normally a list of job experience and education for use in an interview. At first, this seemed like a strange title for the section. After I finished reading, it was a logical name. The section is split into 38 mini-chapters or “snapshots” of times in history, as Stephen puts it. Descriptions of points in his life, which influenced his focus and style as a writer, help give perspective on all the rest of the book. King is very open with his battles with drugs and alcohol over the years. He laments about those books written while under the influence, with no lasting memory of the creative process.
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I have not found a way to better describe this book than the first sentence inside the dust cover. “It’s as if Dave Barry and Charles Kuralt squeezed together onto a bicycle to pedal across America and around the world, filing outrageous dispatches along the way.”

Indeed, many times while reading I felt as if I was watching the well done Sunday morning stories where the common man or the small town are shown in all of their glory. Those stories that aren’t as touching will give you a great laugh.

As an aspiring bicycle tourist, this book was hard for me to put down. I can give a book no better compliment than to say that it followed me to lunch and dinner every day for a week. The only problem I had was trying to cope with the fact that I would not be able to start any serious bicycle touring until I left on my Trans-Am tour in May of 2002. This book made me want to be out on the road NOW!
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I really wish I had ran into this book before I purchased my “utility” sewing machine. I got a no frills home machine with a few stitches. It was a floor model, but I would have been better to spend the money on a light weight industrial sewing machine with only a straight stitch. Louise was talking about me when she mentioned those who buy a machine with all of these cool stitches. They play with these stitches for a month and then only sew straight seams. I now wish I had a machine that just sews straight seams like a champ. I’m glad I got my machine pretty cheap, as I’ll most likely upgrade now that I am having fun making stuff. (I’ll eventually be loading on the page describing my bicycle panniers that I sewed using this book.)
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