Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/11/dr-peter-watts-canad.html

Ten Ways Space Travel Isn’t Like Television or the Movies
http://www.satelliteinternet.com/news/ten-ways-space-travel-isnt-like-television-or-the-movies/

The Funniest Reasons Customers Reject Books
http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/660000266/post/210048821.html
“I don’t do books about elephants set during the Depression.”
If you look in the comments, you’ll also find this gem:
“You know books that expand your mind, make you want to think, make you question the nature of humanity and wonder why and how we do the things we do? Yeah, I hate that s**t. Gimme something with dinosaurs or a war.”

Hospital study shows full moons werewolf effect
http://www.theage.com.au/national/hospital-study-shows-full-moons-werewolf-effect-20091213-kpwl.html

Che: the graphic biography
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/10/che-the-graphic-biog.html

A Day in the Internet

http://www.onlineeducation.net/internet/

Monkey calls give clues to language origins
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8405806.stm

The Language of Avatar (Creating an Alien Language)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8408245.stm

The Link Between the Transgender Community & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
http://andy-social.blogspot.com/2009/12/huff.html

50 Beautiful Watercolor Paintings
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/12/09/50-beautiful-watercolor-paintings/

20 Best SF Books of the Decade
http://io9.com/5423847/20-best-science-fiction-books-of-the-decade

Japanese ladies long for date with brutal men of history
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6954029.ece

The Longest Way: Walking Across China
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1945171_1945161,00.html

Deadline: Stop Motion

Yarn Bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarn_bombing

The 50 Most Interesting Articles on Wikipedia
http://copybot.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/the-50-most-interesting-articles-on-wikipedia/

A nice way to be remembered…
“This woman who had everything is dead because she wanted to have a slightly firmer ass”
Former Miss Argentina dies after plastic surgery
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/former-miss-argentina-dies-after-plastic-surgery-20091201-k1ih.html

Book about extreme fashion subculture in The Congo
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/04/book-about-extreme-f.html

How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

Smile Like You’re Dead Inside
http://smilelikeyouredeadinside.tumblr.com/

A Visit to a Steampunked Home
http://steampunkworkshop.com/visit-steampunked-home

Avatars Dressed in Klan Robes Usually Belong to Unpleasant People
http://kotaku.com/5414681/study-avatars-dressed-in-klan-robes-usually-belong-to-unpleasant-people

Man Beats World of Warcraft
http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/games/man-beats-world-of-warcraft-20091204-k9ly.html

Faux Quasi-Centurion Neo-Feudal Merovingian Ultra-Hyborean Men of Yore Action Flicks
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/dec/03/hollywood-classical-literature

The AV Club’s Best Books of the Decade
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-best-books-of-the-00s,35774/1/

The AV Club’s Best Films of the Decade
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-best-films-of-the-00s,35931/

Sweden woman’s ‘murder’ committed by elk not husband
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8384143.stm

Man in Japan weds anime game character
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/24/footage-from-the-fir.html

Why Don’t Vampires Act Like Old People?
http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/11/23/the-virtues-of-vampires/

Abstinence-only rappers sing about the “Christian Side Hug”
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/25/abstinence-only-rapp.html

Where No Travel Writer Has Gone Before
http://www.worldhum.com/print/item/features/star-trek-where-no-travel-writer-has-gone-before-20091103/

Rare Charles Darwin book found on toilet bookshelf
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_britain_darwin

Shatnerquake: bizarro novel about every Shatner character sucked into reality to hunt down William Shatner
http://boingboing.net/2009/04/30/shatnerquake-bizarro.html

Every backpacker conversation, ever
http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2009/11/every_backpacker_conversation_ever.html

What Earth Would Look Like With Rings Like Saturn

Mussolini’s ‘brain and blood for sale on internet’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8371171.stm

Darwin photo competition winners
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8364761.stm

Heavy Metal Monk Quits Rocks
http://media.smh.com.au/world/world-news/the-metal-monk-quits-rock-860243.html

The Metal Monk at the height of his powers

Sounds like an urban legend, but the BBC thinks it’s true.
‘Fat for cosmetics’ murder suspects arrested in Peru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8369674.stm

The Best Science Fiction Titles
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/nov/19/best-science-fiction-titles

The big trip is coming up soon.  I leave for Japan on Friday.  3 Months exploring Asia and Eastern Europe.

In preparation for my visit to Russia and Ukraine I’ve been reading some Russian and Ukrainian books.  I think you always get more out of a visit to the country if you know a bit of history.  Plus I like to have read some popular authors from that country.

Of course Russia has plenty of the giants of literature (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, etc).  I haven’t read them this time, I’ve been aiming at more contemporary work.

Some of the books I’ve read recently:

* The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

Victor Pelevin

A Chinese fox spirit working in Moscow as a prostitute gets involved with a Russian werewolf.  It started off interestingly and has some fun ideas, but the story drags to a halt to allow for an endless amount of philosophical discussion. (I like philosophical asides, but some story action is also appreciated).

* The Winter Queen

Boris Akunin

The first in a series of very popular Russian detective novels.  The historical detail is interesting, but I found the main character unlikeable and the prose stilted.

*A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

Marina Lewycka

An elderly pensioner living in the UK brings over a young Ukrainian wife.  Some humorous moments, but wasn’t a standout for me.

* Death and the Penguin

Andrey Kurkov

In synopsis it sounds great: a Ukrainian obituary writer lives with a penguin (because the local zoo couldn’t afford to feed it).  His editor asks him to prepare obituaries of well-known public figures in advance and then these people start dying.

But it’s not nearly as much fun as it sounds and I lost interest halfway through.

* Putin’s Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy

Anna Politkovskaya

A Russian journalist’s look at the nastier aspects of the Russian political and military systems.  The writer was murdered on Putin’s birthday, a couple of years after the book came out.

* Russia: A Journey to the Heart of a Land and Its People

Jonathan Dimbleby

Some interesting historical details, but the writer spends a lot of time complaining and although he does lots of interviews with people all over Russia, he can’t seem to ask them anything except whether they think they live in a democratic country.

* Stalingrad

Antony Beevor

All the details you could ever want about the siege of Stalingrad, supposedly the battle that has cost the most lives in human history.  Grim, but fascinating reading.  Great source material if you wanted to write a battlefront story.

So, overall the fiction was pretty disappointing.  I still have The Secret History of Moscow (Ekaterina Sedia) and The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov) to read.