Review: Robopocalypse

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the acknowledgement section at the end of this novel, the author mentions that a major motion picture studio was enthusiastic about the work. That was not really surprising to me since this book reads as much like a movie treatment for the next big sci-fi thriller as a science fiction novel. Like many action thrillers, this book has the planet Earth going all to hell with something hunting down all the human beings. Instead of zombies like in AMC's well-known The Walking Dead television series or alien invaders like in TNT's less-well-known Falling Skies, the threat here comes from computers, robots and various computer-controlled devices like cars and tanks. That can easily be surmised from the book's title plus the cover art featuring a zoomed-in robot face. With its robot antagonists, the novel resembles The Matrix and Terminator movie series.

Unlike all of the previously mentioned works which mainly focus on a lone hero or small group of co-located characters, this novel jumps between groups of characters dispersed across the globe. Outside of the initial coalescing of the core groups, the various groups rarely interact directly with the other groups. The primary characters are a pair of Boston brothers. One of the brothers is a sergeant with the local National Guard unit and a natural-born leader. The other is a screw-up and would-be photojournalist. Other protagonists include a United States Congresswoman and her two young children, a construction worker and his wife in New York City, a policeman who is also a Native American tribal leader in Oklahoma, his son who is a robot wrangler in the Army and stationed in Afghanistan, an über-geeky phone phreak in London, and finally a brilliant robot repairman in Japan who is much more comfortable around his robot companions than other flesh-and-blood humans.

The final outcome is known from the prologue, but there are plenty of surprising twists and turns as the story unfolds. Along the way, there are several moments of the hopeful Rodney King "Can we all get along?" variety. Again, this book reads more like a movie than a novel. The characters are the barely-developed, two-dimensional type that are expected in the cinema world but are disappointing in a full-length novel. Of course, I expect fleshing out personalities is difficult with such a widely spread ensemble cast. In summary, this book was an exciting thrill ride but quite disappointing on the character development side.

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The Big Winner

A few Fridays back, my girlfriend Sara and I attended an evening beer tasting event at the Wine Merchant of Cary. We were to be tasting five different beers. Sara is friends with the guys that work at the shop, and her friend Justin informed her beforehand that the selected brews would have a minimum of 7% ABV. We wisely elected to have some dinner ahead of time. It turns out the minimum ABV of the five selections was not 7% but a hefty 9%. I also expected the pours to be in the two-ounce range based on previous beer tasting. We told the pours were to be half pint, but the pours seemed to be more like three-quarter pint.

My descriptions of the five beers borrows heavily from the tasting sheet that was given out at the beginning. The first beer was Hoppy Daze IPA which is a 9% ABV Belgian-style IPA from Coronado Brewing Company. From the tasting sheet, this West Coast "unfiltered IPA is combined with a unique blend of European grains, a variety of hops, and Belgian yeast to create a lasting and unforgettable taste to its very bitter end."

The second beer was Robert Johnson's Hellhound On My Ale from Dogfish Head Craft Brewery which is located in Milton, Delaware. The tasting sheet says that this 10% ABV beer is a tribute to the legendary blues artist Robert Johnson. Again from the tasting sheet, "100% Centennial hops were used to accentuate and magnify the citrusy notes of the centennial hops."

The halfway point of the tasting lineup was Bourbon Barrel-Aged Wee Heavy from Thirsty Dog Brewing Company located in the tropical paradise that is Akron, Ohio. This 9.7% ABV Scotch ale "is a deep red, malt-driven, caramel bomb of a beer that has acquired a gorgeous vanilla oak character from time spent in bourbon barrels." Also from the tasting sheet, this brew is "super smooth and rich with layers of toffee and dark fruit." Considering my general distaste for wood-aged beverages of any type, it is no surprise that this was my least favorite of the five.

Duck-Rabbit Baltic Porter was the next offering. The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery is located in Farmville, North Carolina which is about 70 miles east of Raleigh. The tasting sheet says this 9% ABV beer's "full-blooded roasty character is balanced by complex alcohol notes," and its taste has "lots of chocolate and roasted coffee bean notes come through."

Bringing up rear was B.O.R.I.S. "The Crusher"  from Hoppin' Frog which is another brewery from Akron, Ohio. According to the tasting sheet, B.O.R.I.S is short for "Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout." This 9.4% ABV oatmeal imperial stout has been described with words like "chocolate, creamy oatmeal, coffee, vanilla, and smoke."

The highlight of the evening for yours truly was the raffle. Everybody was entered to win one of five mystery bags from the shop. I seldom win raffles and drawings, so I actually told Sara to put herself down twice. She declined to do so, and my name was entered. I was surprised to hear my name called as the first "Big Winner." The mystery bag contained a four-pack of mixed beers which included a bottle of Green Flash Grand Cru, a bottle of Moinette Brune from la Brasserie Dupont in Belgium, a bottle of Rodenbach Classic (also from Belgium), and a can of Evil Twin Hipster Ale. I had previously tried the Hipster Ale, so that can happened to end up in a marinate for some tasty steaks.

Review: The Little Drummer Girl

The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having read several of John le Carré's works, I feel that his particular forte is creating for his characters environments that have an amazing amount of stress. He ratchets up drama by putting his characters in extremely difficult situations and then continuing to crank up the stress level. Of his novels that I have read, the previous epitome of these super stress levels was The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. However, I think the stress in The Little Drummer Girl tops even that work.

The title character in this book is Charlie, a aspiring English stage actress. While on holiday in Greece with some fellow struggling thespians, the young Charlie encounters a tall, dark and handsome stranger who turns out to be an Israeli spy. The job of Gadi Becker (aka Joseph) is to convince Charlie to take an unique acting opportunity. The Israelis know that Charlie has left-leaning views and through a previous boyfriend has had encounters with members of some extremist groups. The Israeli groups's plan is to have Joseph emulate a captured Palestinian terrorist known as Michel. In this role, he will train Charlie to infiltrate a leftist terrorist group with links to Palestinians. The Israeli spy group's ultimate goal is Michel's brother Khalil who is a major leader in a Palestinian terrorist group. Charlie accepts the opportunity and delves into what she terms "the theater of the real."

I think that the book does a great job of presenting both sides of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. There is much doubt as to Charlie's true sympathies. In the end, the central question of the book is not on which side of the conflict Charlie will end up or if her mission will be a success. The question is if Charlie will just survive the mission with her sanity intact.

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Number 500

While I was busy, I managed to blow past the nice round number 500 on my Beer List. The list currently stands at 505. I have previously lamented about not including dates on the list. I could have also maintained the list in a nice chronological order instead of alphabetical order by the name of the brewery and then the particular brew. Regardless, I believe I have done a good job of using Twitter to record my beer consumption.

Based on my Twitter account, beer number 505 was Fuller's Black Cab Stout. #504 was Fireside Chat from 21st Amendment Brewery located in San Francisco. Number 503 was Luciernaga (or "The Firefly") from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales which is located in Dexter, Michigan. I enjoyed #503 at the Wine Merchant of Cary. Number 502 would be a bottle of Oatmeal Porter from Highland Brewing Company which is located in the up-and-coming brewery town of Asheville, North Carolina. Palate Wrecker from Green Flash Brewing Company in San Diego was number 501 on the Beer List.

Finally, number 500 on the list was Blue Law Porter from Epic  Brewing Company which is located in the not-so-well-known brewing town of Salt Lake City. According to the brewery's homepage, they are the first brewery in the state of Utah since Prohibition. Not surprisingly, this is the first beer on the list from that particular state. More surprising is that Utah made the list before 21 other states. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming are still missing from the list.

Random note #1, the single entry on the list for the state of Minnesota is Crispin Cider which is technically not a beer. Random note #2, Rhode Island, the smallest state by area, has one beer on the list, Narragansett Lager from Narragansett Brewing Company located in Providence. Random note #3, South Carolina does not have a beer on the list, but Hipster Ale from Evil Twin Brewing in Denmark is actually brewed by Westbrook Brewing which is located in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina which is right outside of Charleston.

Tour of Italy

Happy Washington’s Birthday/Presidents’ Day/President’s Day/Presidents Day or whatever this holiday in the middle of February is actually called. For this first time that I remember, the company for which I work has decided to include this day as a corporate holiday. Every year, our company give its employees twelve days off from work to celebrate holidays. Several of those days are fixed. The list of fixed holidays varies from country to country and from year to year. In the United States, the list of fixed holidays always includes Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. Other fixed days are primarily based on what day of the week holidays fall. In previous years, fixed holidays have included New Year's Day, the days before or after Independence Day and Christmas, and New Year's Eve. The remaining unfixed days out of the twelve are flexible holidays for the employees to use as they want. For some reason unknown to me, it was decided this year that today should be a fixed holiday.

I am using part of this day off from work to do a blog post. I have previously posted on and about holidays. I suppose that is when I have the most free time. In comments to my previous post, I mentioned that while I have not been posting as much as I did back in 2010 and 2011, I am hoping to post more this year than I managed last year. My stated goal was two posts per month which would be a total of 24 for the year. We are more than halfway through February, and I am working on only my second post. I will hopefully be cranking up my production in the following months.

I am titling this post "Tour of Italy" after the sampler dinner from the Olive Garden. I have never been to Italy however. Instead, I was recently on a business trip to Orlando, Florida or at least the Orlando area. The conference was at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort. The conference was in the convention center connected to the Dolphin while I stayed in the Swan. Some of my coworkers enjoyed the local golf courses, but I am not much of a golfer. The conference also hosted a night at Universal's Islands of Adventure, but I passed on that opportunity.

After spending the day standing in a trade show booth, some of my coworkers and I would invariably end up at Il Mulino New York which is one of the restaurants in the Swan. Il Mulino is an Italian restaurant and thus features Italian wines and beer. Their bar menu included five different brews from Italy. I intended to try all five but instead only tried four. Three of the five beers were from Birrificio Ostiense Artigianale which is located in Rome, Italy. ("Birrificio" is Italian for "brewery.") I had two of the three. Pictured to the right is 'na Biretta Chiara which is a pilsner-style lager. As would be expected, I found it tasty. The second was 'na Biretta Rossa which is tasty bock. I did not try the 'na Biretta Kuasapa which is a pale ale.

The second picture on the right is a bottle of Taquamari which is a unique hefeweizen from Birrificio Pausa Cafe. One of the bartenders at Il Mulino told me about the organization that brews the beer helps rehabilitate inmates from local prisons by giving them an occupation. Pause Cafe is a cooperative located in Saluzzo, Italy that produces coffee, chocolate and beer. The beer itself is made from tapioca, quinoa, amaranth, and basmati rice. The bottle has a good bit of sediment at the bottom. I thought the other bartender had erred when she poured the whole bottle including the sediment into my glass. Interestingly enough, the sediment was not yeast (at least not all of it) as I had expected, but tapioca et al.

I also tried a bottle of ViaEmilia which is another pilsner. This one is from Birrificio Del Ducato which is a craft brewery located in Roncole Verdi Di Busseto, Italy. As I have previously stated, pilsners are easy to drink and this one was. Thus concludes my tour of Italian beers from a bar in a hotel located at Walt Disney World.