Monthly Archives: December 2006

World War Z Review

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Brooks. Yes. The various editing (and, I hope, proofing) problems (some typos, two unrelated occurrences of "a millenia", on ne passé pas for on ne passe pas (again, at least twice)) and occasional lapses into preaching were not enough to discourage me from deeply enjoying this book. I was surprised that Brooks (the son of Mel) was not more hampered by the structure he chose in weaving a coherent and compelling narrative. Some of the jargon struck me as unlikely, but predicting slang is fraught with peril.
I was perplexed to find that the Cataloging-in-Publishing puts the book in "War—Humor": the absurdity of its premise notwithstanding, WWZ is straight drama. Not to say there is no humor—I daresay humor is a vital component of any drama—but the book is not, and does not want to be, a laff riot.

Best Short Stories of Ring Lardner Review

The Best Short Stories of Ring Lardner, Lardner. Yes. On Dan Bern’s recommendation, I gave Mr Lardner a try. His frequent use of heavy dialect (I think it was one of his trademarks) was occasionally distracting and sometimes historically revealing (several not-especially-literate speakers said "w’ile", implying that at least some folks in the early 20th century distinguished between "w" and "wh"). The stories overall were well-written, and by and large held my interest.

Software

A while ago I upgraded my Portable Firefox (now called FirefoxPortable) and due to the name change and a significant brain fart, lost my bookmarks. (Annoyed Grunt).

So until I get over the psychic scarring, I’ll be posting a lot of links here. Feh.

Really useful free software for Windows.

Simple index of useful templates for Word.