STG's

I've recently finished Honor of the Clan, by John Ringo and Julie Cochrane. This book is part of the Legacy of the Aldenata series, and, in fact, I read it out of order, after Eye of the Storm. Because of that, some pieces were less shocking, since I already knew it would happen - - particularly the death of a major character. Nevertheless, it was quite enjoyable, with all the usual fun battles the series have.

One book that was a pleasant surprise was Diamond Star, by Catherine Asaro. I got it on one of the excellent book packs from Webscription.net . While I'm a bit of of a fan, specially because of Fool's War, from the description I really didn't expect to enjoy the book much. Fortunately, I was very wrong and really liked it. It's part of a saga, which I'm pretty sure I've read some of the stories before, but have no real recollection of. The story is about a prince with empathic powers, held as a hostage on Earth, which ends up a rock singer. There is plenty of action, and the style of AI/EI and mesh tech was quite enjoyable. Very recommended.

On the paper Evolution of Adaptive Behaviour in Robots by Means of Darwinian Selection there is a very cool section on Predator/Prey Coevolution . It's pretty short and well worth reading.

Browsing Steam, I noticed a new(ish) demo - Magnetis. It's a dropping block game where instead of forming lines, you form lines with Magnetis. It's cute and well done, as far as I could see in my limited play time, but I didn't find it very interesting or fun.

Eye of the Storm is another book in the Posleen series. After the posleen storyline is pretty much gone, here comes another invasion, of even more dangerous aliens... And the Galactics are very unprepared, due to the greed of the Darhel. The preparation for the war is a very large focus of this one, although there is a nice (if a bit short) battle in the end. If you liked the rest of the series, you will probably like this one. Recommended.

In the Stormy Red Sky , by David Drake, is the latest books in the RCN series. As usual, Daniel Leary (now Captain), goes around wreaking semi-unbelievable havok on the enemy, with very creative plans. Silly, but quite fun.

I've just downloaded Zombilution demo, after hearing about it on Gamersgate. However, I just uninstalled it, because I really didn't like it. The base concept is cute - not so much the pro-zombie part, which has already been done several times, but the air photo level style. I don't believe I've seen it done before for desktop games, albeit there were a few browser games. However, the graphics other than the levels were tiny and the difference between zombies and the people shooting at the zombies was hard to see. I didn't find the gameplay to be any fun, either.

I've just finished reading the latest book in the Honorverse - Torch Of Freedom. This is another Zilwicki/Cachat/Torch story. It does cover interesting pieces of the Manpower/Mesan Alignment events, and of course, has a nice battle at the end, with technology surprises on both sides. It wouldn't be an Honorverse book otherwise . There were some overly verbose sections, as usual, too. One tiny side story I liked was about Brice and the gypsy clan. I would be surprised if they didn't appear again in other books. The revelations about the alignment gained at the end of story (not to mention the tech) should have large consequences for the whole series. Definitely recommended for fans of the series. PS: I've added the Amazon link. It is a US$17 hardcover. I feel compelled to mention that you can get it as an e-book at Webscriptions for just US$6 or potentially even better, as one of their monthly bundles (I say potentially because the bundle only makes sense if ...