The Hobbit Hole

Taking a break from the programming and business fare I usually read, I’m knee deep in fiction. Besides just having finished this book, I’m reading the Amber prequels by John Betancourt and the Merchant Family series by Charles Stross. So far both of these are good.

However, I just finished reading the book Soon I Will Be Invincible. As is customary, I liked it. I don’t usually write reviews for things I don’t like. Perhaps I should, but this wouldn’t be one of those reviews. It’s a great read. I read it over 2 days after picking it up at the library because it was on the “New In Your Library” shelf and it sounded intriguing.

I think the best way to sum it up would be to say it does for superheroes in literature what The Watchmen does for literature in comics. That is, it’s a candy coated summer read about superheroes, a supervillain, and their “comic book” relationships. Throw in some twists, shake, and voilá.

The main plot revolves around a supervillian, Dr. Impossible (the smartest man in the world and owner of his own superpowers) versus the dysfunctional super hero team, The Champions. As Dr. Impossible proceeds on his latest plan of world domination (he’s had 12 prior that have all failed), the Champions lose their main superhero, CoreFire. Can the now subpar Champions take on Dr. Impossible?

The book is written in alternating first person viewpoints of Dr. Impossible himself and the newest member of the Champions, Fatale, a cyborg who has an interesting twist in her back story. It’s amazing how interrelated the entire cast is as you proceed through the book. One of the fun things about the book is that it blithely delves into pieces of back story of each cast member at appropriate times. (I will say that sometimes it was hard to know if you were reading a back story or current events, the only real knock I have against the book.)

The conclusion is a little anti-climatic, if not straight out of a comic itself, but still satisfies. I would rate the book PG-13 for (comic book) violence and a few uses of profanity. Nothing gratuitous here, just (mostly) clean fun.

I’ve downloaded and installed the new Google browser, Chrome. I’m using it to write this post. Not that the act of writing this post with Chrome is extraordinary. If I couldn’t, that would be cause for concern.

I like what I see. It’s not going to move me from Firefox 3 in the short term, but I will monitor its progress. I like the bullet proofing they’re doing with separate processes for each window. Should prevent the entire browser from going kaput on me as happens from time to time.

The first thing that keeps me from perhaps switching full-time is the lack of add-ons, specifically ones that block ads. I don’t inherently hate ads, but if I don’t have to see Shoot the monkey for a prize or You’re the 100000000th customer blinking at the top of a page, I call that a win.