The Inmates are Running the Asylum

Title: The Inmates are Running the Asylum
Author: Alan Cooper
Genre: Non-fiction
Published: 2004

Recommendation: An interesting read for software developers who do user interface design.
Rating: 8/10

Summary:  The Inmates are Running the Asylum spends most of its pages expounding on the importance of interaction design and provides insight into some interesting techniques interaction designers use to create user interfaces.

Reactions: I've been highly recommended this book, and to my surprise actually found the reading going at a good pace, whereas I tend to drag my feet a lot with non-fiction books. This book is a bit repetitive in its message, but since it's written in a fairly entertaining manner, the reading goes smoothly.

Beware, if you are a software engineer reading this book. The author does not take kindly to programmers in this tome despite being one himself. His stereotypical approach to programmers did rub me the wrong way as I was reading the book for being overly stereotypical and condescending. Cooper calls developers "Homo Logicus" for seeking complex problems and insists that most programmers emphasize with the computer they are programming rather than with the users. Certainly there are grains of truth to both of these statements, but I would certainly not agree with all the claims presented in the book to the extent they have been expounded.

Most of the book goes to show how programmers are the last people who should be designing the software interaction and how programmers have fostered a lot of unusable software on the poor humans already. The last fact is hard to argue as there IS a lot of bad software out there, but I would personally claim programmers get affected by bad software just as much as anyone else and I would have really liked a little less vilification on that point.

The author's primary suggestion in the book is to institute a mandatory design phase for each software project that happens before any programming is done and is completed entirely by a team trained in interaction design. This idea does seem to have merit and I found it fairly interesting to read the 3 chapters where Cooper describes the types of techniques interaction designers use to create interaction specifications. In particular he goes into detail on specifying personas, goal-oriented design, and creating scenarios.

The book is a bit dated, having been published in 2004. Some particular references are especially amusing as they are forward looking. For example, he bemoans a lack of a mail system that would thread pieces of mail together based on replies and speaks of Apple needing that one good product to turn its luck around. Overall though, the book presented some food for thought and I feel that reading the book made me question how I approach certain design decisions myself. I would definitely recommend it to others interested in the subject of user interaction design.

Royal Blood

Title: Royal Blood
Author: Rhys Bowen
Series: A Royal Spyness Mystery, book 4
Genre: Mystery
Published: 2010

Recommendation: Fun and funny whodunnit set in a Transylvanian castle. Enjoyable!
Rating: 7/10

Summary: Lady Georgiana, 34th in line to the English throne and penniless is sent to Romania to represent the royal family at a wedding between a Romanian princess and Bulgarian prince. Only a murder occurs on the second night in the castle where everyone is snowed in and one of the guests must have done it, but who?

Reactions: I've enjoyed previous books in this series and this was a refreshing quick read after Acacia. The 30's atmosphere and English humor make the book enjoyable, so I read the whole thing in about two sittings. I certainly do like this style of whodonnit, especially with all the suspects in an ancient Transylvanian castle and jumping at each noise.

There is a good dose of mystery, though unlike the main heroine, I didn't consider the supernatural explanations for the murder. There's plenty of humor with a maid who just cannot get anything right. There's some romance as Darcy appears and prince Siegfried from the previous book continues his advances. The strangest inclusion in this book is Belinda who doesn't belong and doesn't really contribute much to the plot. And while I did figure out the killer ahead of our heroine, I still enjoyed the antics in the castle. Will definitely be picking up the next book in the series when I need some more enjoyable diversions in my reading.

Acacia

Title: Acacia: The War with the Mein
Author: David Anthony Durham
Series: Acacia, book 1
Genre: Fantasy
Published: 2007

Recommendation: Good series for those who enjoy political epic fantasy with swords, wars, and betrayals.
Rating: 6/10

Summary: For hundreds of years, the Akaran family has ruled over an empire of nations. However, a plot is hatched in the far northern lands inhabited by the Meins to end the Akaran's rule and begin a new empire. Leodan Akaran, the King, and his four children will have to follow their destinies to resolve this conflict.

Reactions: Acacia has been sitting on my bookshelf for awhile now since I was avoiding epic fantasy and the massive scale of the book intimidated me. However, I have been talked into reading the book recently and I do hate having unread books on my bookshelf.

At first the book was going really slowly for me. It takes a really long time to get to the meat of the plot and two hundred pages in, I was still slowly wading through the back story, hoping that the main plot will finally take off. It does around page 300 or so where I could finally read more than a chapter at a time without an irresistible desire to doze off. And once it starts going, it actually continues at a pretty good pace. I definitely enjoyed the second half of the book better than the beginning.

My biggest issue with the book is that it's really the standard epic fantasy stuff that I am tired of reading. There are children with destinies, mirroring plotlines that have way too much symmetry to them for me to find it believable and a pretty obvious distinction between the good and evil characters. There is plenty of idealism and some of the plot points were poorly motivated or I found them hard to believe (e.g. Corinne's side of the story towards the end of the book).

On the other hand, I did think some aspects of the world building and the characters themselves were rather neat. The concept of island people revering a sea eagle was pretty interesting. I also found it fascinating to have a King character whose primary focus were his children. He ended up being a much better parent than a King and I thought that was pretty unusual and rather interesting to see. There are also quirks in various other characters that I tended to like.

Altogether, Acacia took me over 3 weeks to finish reading and sadly the 700+ pages served to just lay the foundations of the story. While I am somewhat curious about the rest of it, I don't feel like the book was interesting enough to spend another two months reading the sequels. Off to some pacier reading now.

April Recap

My big hopes for reading a ton in April just didn't come through. Despite a week's vacation that included lots of travel time, I only finished two books. Both were installments in the series I've been reading, so I guess this blog is not a very exciting place at the moment.

1. Master of Heathcrest Hall by Galen Beckett
2. A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley

I can't even pick a favorite book this month since I enjoyed both of them, but wasn't swept off my feet by either.

In my defense for abandoning the blog and the books, I just had too much fun on this beach to spend too much time reading.

And now I am off reading Acacia which is a pretty hefty tome. So my reading goals are flailing behind, but the summer is still young and hopefully the blogging rate will pick up later. Until then, adieu!

A Red Herring Without Mustard

Title: A Red Herring Without Mustard
Author: Alan Bradley
Series: Flavia De Luce, book 3
Genre: Mystery
Published: 2011

Recommendation: Enjoyable continuation to the mystery series.
Rating: 7.5/10

Summary: Flavia sets a gypsy's tent on fire and ends up offering the gypsy to stay at Buckshaw's grounds. The gypsy gets attacked during the night and of course Flavia is in the midst of the investigation.

Reactions: This installment in Flavia's story went by pretty quickly for me. It was fun and I enjoyed following Flavia's adventures, her relationship with her family, and her deductions. I didn't necessarily feel that the overarching series story line progressed too much in this book, but we did get a few interesting tidbits about Flavia's mother.

In terms of the mystery plot, I thought it was well done, though some things became apparent towards the end of the book even before they were really revealed. The book timeline strains credulity a bit by placing Flavia in the way of so many murders in the span of some months, but I guess the author really doesn't want Flavia to get past the magical 11th year of her life.

All-in-all, it was a fun quick airplane read that drew me further into the story and made me want to pick up the next book in the series. I am definitely hooked.

Master of Heathcrest Hall

Title: The Master of Heathcrest Hall

Author: Galen Beckett

Series: The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, book 3

Genre: Fantasy

Published: 2012

Recommendation: An enjoyable conclusion to the series.

Rating: 7.5/10

Summary: The war with the Ashen is coming closer and closer as the red planet draws into alignment. At the same time, the political situation in Invariel is heating up with the new powers at play that Mrs. Quent and Mr. Rafferdy have to face.

Reactions: I've been looking forward to the conclusion of the series and haven't been disappointed. It turned out to be a fairly hefty novel that took me quite a bit of time to get through, but it was enjoyable throughout.

The novel returns to the same characters of the first two books: Mr & Mrs Quent, Lord Rafferdy, his magician friends, Garrit, and various magicians associates of Mr. Lockwell. Together they try to fight the upcoming long night and prevent Ashen from taking over the world. Lots of mysteries started in the first volume finally get revealed and the ending is complete and satisfactory.

Even though it was clear that this is the type of novel to have a happy ending, I did enjoy watching all the different threads of the plot come together and resolve themselves. The author does a pretty good job with the pacing and gets everything resolved in the nick of time. There are some small details of the plot resolution that I find a bit strange (e.g. Lily's fate) and I felt the happy ending was a bit too happy given the circumstances, but overall it's a well written conclusion.

All-in-all, I would definitely recommend this series to anyone who likes Victorian fiction or character-driven fantasy. It's fun, it's easy to read, it has interesting world-building and a likable main heroine.

March Recap

Hello, April! My March turned out to be a fairly successful month for reading and I am looking forward to reading even more in April since I will be on vacation for a week next month and heading to a tropical beach. In March, I finished the following four books:

1. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley
2. And Blue Skies from Pain by Stina Leicht
3. Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks
4. The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett

Favorite book: Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks, but I really enjoyed all four of them.

This month also marked the release of The Hunger Games movie, which I was pretty excited to watch. It didn't turn out to be as good as I hoped, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I thought the costumes were great. My biggest complaints are about the casting of President Snow and how some of the character relationships are portrayed in the movie.

Next month, I have plans to finish Galen Beckett's last novel in the Mrs. Quent series, The Master of Heathcrest Hall. The book is already sitting on my table waiting since I pre-ordered it. I am also in the mood to continue reading Alan Bradley's series about Flavia De Luce. And as usual I will be reading whatever catches my eye.

Have a good April, and may the odds be ever in your favor.