About the only thing most people know about the life of Jesus Christ is that he was born in a manger, disappeared for about 30 years, and then had an interesting time just before his death. Christopher Moore fills in the gap with his masterpiece "Lamb," an unauthorized (obviously fictional) biography of Christ written by his childhood buddy Biff. It's a hilarious tale featuring magic, philosophy, and the occasionally bawdy adventure that Moore includes in many of his books. (As near as I can tell as no expert on biblical matters, the story doesn't contract the bible. Although if you're easily offended by ribald humor, give it a pass.) I wish Moore would write more in a similar genre, but there probably can't be a sequel (for obvious reasons).
It's a fantastic read, but I also highly recommend the audiobook. Moore gets the most amazing readers for his books and Fisher Stevens puts in an amazing performance! Each of his characters has a distinct, perfectly tailored voice that fits like a glove and never leaves you wondering, "Who said that?"
The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years - except Biff, the Messiah's best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in this divinely hilarious, yet heartfelt work 'reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams' (Philadelphia Inquirer). Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes, Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the…
"The Vacuum of Space" is the first in the "Triana Moore, Space Janitor" series. The main character, Triana Moore, is a smart but mostly ordinary janitor on an orbital space habitat who stumbles across a murder. Striking a work/life balance is always hard but it's even harder when you're trying to solve a murder while getting to know the handsome rich guy who buys you expensive chocolate.
Some books have trouble striking a good balance between making a heroine relatable (particularly to a male like me) and moving the plot forward. Some treat the heroine as basically a man who happens to be female or they get bogged down in picking the right dress for a gunfight. In this book, Julia Huni does a fantastic job of making a character that's believable, engaging, and downright likeable.
This is the first book in a long series, so if you like it, you’ll have many hours of fine reading ahead of you.
Triana Moore programs the robots that clean the glitzy Station Kelly Kornienko. Avoiding the wealthy inhabitants on the upper levels of the station is her number one rule. Well, number two, right after "eat all the chocolate."
But when one of her bots finds a dead body, all the rules go out the window. Or the airlock, since the windows on SK2 don't open.
Come along on a crazy ride through SK2 and across the galaxy with Triana Moore, Space Janitor.
This ebook contains the complete Space Janitor series…
This is the story of a rogue SecUnit, a mostly non-organic cyborg, that calls itself Murderbot. The mega-introverted Murderbot just wants to be left alone so it can watch its favorite video serials, but it's repeatedly forced to interact with its clients as it fights to protect them in hostile situations.
The thing I find most engaging about this Hugo and Nebula award winner is the way author Martha Wells crafts a believable inhuman character that still contains a nugget of humanity buried inside.
This is the start of a series so there are more Murderbot books to read after you finish this one. The major drawback is that the books are relatively expensive for the page count (this one is around $7 - $10 for 160 pages). You can get a Kindle version of this book for around $5 to see if you want to buy the series.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells begins The Murderbot Diaries, a new science fiction action and adventure series that tackles questions of the ethics of sentient robotics. It appeals to fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or lain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans. In a corporate dominated s pa cef a ring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by…
What did the movies "Cars," "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," "The Matrix Reloaded," "The Matrix Revolutions," "Monsters University," "Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones," "The Day After Tomorrow," "Poseidon," "Avatar," "Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora," "Gravity," "Tron," "Tron: Legacy," "The Hobbit Trilogy," and "Pacific Rim" have in common? Yes, they all made dump truck loads of money (more than $100 million each), but they also all used ray tracing! (Of course, you probably guessed that, given the title of this book. I can tell you’re smart that way.)
If you’ve ever wondered how ray tracing works, then this book is for you! This book will help you:
- Understand what ray tracing is and generally how it works. - See how ray tracing handles reflections, shadows, transparent materials, focus blur, ambient occlusion, and more. - Start with simple classes and follow step-by-step instructions to incrementally provide more advanced features. - Practice your Python skills on a fun and challenging task. - Build your own ray tracer in Python!
When you’re done, you’ll not only have a working ray tracer, you’ll also have a good understanding of how ray tracing works so you can take full advantage of off-the-shelf ray tracing programs should you decide to use them. Your ray tracer starts off simple. Over time you’ll gradually make small modifications that produce surprisingly big enhancements to your program.
When you’re finished, you’ll have a powerful ray tracer that will let you build amazing scenes (although I admit, they won’t be quite as amazing as those used in movies like "The Hobbit Trilogy").
There’s nothing like the incredible sense of accomplishment you’ll feel when you dump a bunch of numbers into your program and have a beautiful artistic image pop out!
