Current reading.

Well, I'm reading quite a selection at the moment (as per usual, but possibly even moreso).

I've just finished Years best SF2 edited by David G Hartwell. It has several top-class stories in it, with "Out of the mouths" by Shelia Finch, "Tobacco Words" by Yves Meynard, "First Tuesday" by Robert Reed, and "Bicycle Repairman" by Bruce Sterling being the best of the bunch. Most of the other stories introduce interesting ideas, especially Damon knight's "Life Edit", and all are competantly written.

Going Solo by Roald Dahl. The continuation of his "Autobiography" begun in "Boy". An entertaining read, as all Dahl's works were. The early chapters on Africa are particularly interesting.

Discourses on Livy by Niccolo Machiavelli. A medium to hard slog, although he does write very nicely, certainly more readable than most modern philosophy. Less famous/infamous than "The Prince", but equally important to understanding Machiavelli's political philosophy. It's a lot clearer in some sections than it is in the Prince that it's "popery" and not christianity that Machiavelli objected too, and that the common wisdom about him beleiving "The ends justify the means" is a load of pig-swill. Very pragmatic / reasonable examples, and generally recomended to anyone interested in the Philosophy of Politics / statecraft. Some rather nice roman history too, from a reneisance perspective.

Analog magazine, May 1999 edition, nice editorial on predicting the future from current trends, and how hard this is. Also the start of a three part serial "The Quantum Rose" by Catherine Asaro, which is nicely written. If you check dejanews you'll find a nice argument about hard vs soft sci-fi in which Catherine uses this story as an example of a hard-science story which reads like fantasy. The discussion took place in rec.arts.sf.written earlier this year, and is interesting enough to be worth tracking down if you're interesting in the hard/soft sf distinction, or want to know what Catherine was thinking when she wrote this story.

Crayon Shin-chan Comic trade collection #24 Everyone's favourite obnoxious kid. It's all in Japanese of course, and difficult to find outside of Japan, but if you're lucky enough to get ahold of it it's as much a hoot as all the rest of the Crayon Shin-chan offerings to date. I got some very odd looks laughing out loud to this one in the train from Hiroshima to Hamamatsu.

Executive orders by Tom Clancy. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a political techono-thriller, and Clancy is better than most in the Genre. Not a bad thoughtless read at all, although Clancy's political rants are fairly obtrusive (though on the money in many cases, and the central idea is a good one).