Sharknife

Sharknife is a boy who works in a factory. A nemesis has placed monsters in the walls. When the monsters come out, the boy turns in the Sharknife defender. He needs to eat a fortune cookie to make the transformation.  He works with a girl that he seems to like. The latest monster from the wall was very powerful. The boy needed assistance to defeat it.

The bad guy boss was disappointed that his latest monster could not defeat Sharknife. His minion was optimistic that Sharknife had to draw his blade to defeat the monster. The big boss seems to think his own sword is better than Sharknife's dagger. I guess it will be tested in the sequel.

This was a black and white graphic novel. Dialog was written in small font. Many pages were dedicated to the battles. The author seems to have been drawing for over 10 years. His Instagram is filled with tons of drawings.

IBM - The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon

This book covers the history of International Business Machines, the company. Also know as IBM. It initially started as three companies. I was surprised to find that the early CEO was Watson. I only know about the AI product named Watson from IBM.

I was hoping this book would cover the IBM PC. Unfortunately, this book dedicated just one chapter to the PC. The earlier IBM was more about mainframe computers. They were very successful at that.

The company sold to German Nazis. The Nazis even presented IBM's CEO with a medal. He later had to return it due to bad PR associated with it. 

Recent CEOs from the 2010 to 2017 era were more interested in stock value. They would lay off employees, sell off parts of the business, and buy back stock to prop up earnings per share. They stopped trying to grow the business. Trouble ensued.

Game Changer

This book is about Alpha Zero, a computer program to play chess. The program was just given the rules of chess. Then it learned how to win by playing tons of games against itself. It kept getting smarter until it could crush the other chess computer programs out there. Namely, it took over Stockfish as being the best.

There are some themes for this program. It is aggressive in attacking the opponents king. It does not seem to have a known opening playbook like other programs and humans use.It uses sacrifices liberally. There were a lot of games shown explaining details about how Alpha Zero acts in assorted scenarios.

There were also comparisons of like chess games between grand masters of chess.

Cherub: Mission Two - The Dealer

James has been in the CHERUB program for almost a year. They are a set of young orphans who are recruited to do undercover work. James is chosen for a mission infiltrating kids of a drug dealer. His friend Kyle is chosen for the team too. James' friend Kerry begs to be included on the mission as she is green.

James finds it easy to befriend Junior, the son of the main drug dealer. They skip school and do all kinds of hooligans. Junior asks James to come by the boxing gym. James is a shoe in, as CHERUB members are taught martial arts and are fit from training.

Kerry wants to prove herself and gets info from a boy whose father is aligned with this drug trade. Kerry has James and his little sister Lauren come and help break into a warehouse where she thinks there are drugs. It is a grand success. But the cops just monitor the place now for info.

James accepts an invite from Junior and his dad to fly to Miami. Apparently some cartel broke ties with Junior's father, and they come in strong to try to beat info on his hidden money. James and Junior come upon the scene. James runs. A gunman follows. James uses a broken piece of plaster to stab the perpetrator, steal his gun, and fire one bullet to kill him. James later drives a Range Rover out of the compound.

The DEA in the USA arrest Junior's father. He gets sent back to Britain after cutting a plea bargain. The British court system was not as lenient. He got 18 years in prison. No parole until at least 10 years served. James is benched because he was on two big missions this year. Plus his school work has fallen behind.

Unsettlers

This book chronicles the author meeting three families who wanted to escape. They were against many things including government, taxes, and the grid.

One family set up some sort of community. They worked to grow food they could eat. They had a hard time attracting anybody to join the community long term. There was a rule that the community voted on things together. However the wife seemed to think she could overrule the votes. They had a neighbor who ran a cow farm that helped them out when they needed things like an emergency ride in a car to the hospital.

Another family focused on the young daughter. She was in a bad part of Detroit. She was not allowed to walk outside alone due to crime. She loved agriculture. She went to school for it. But she could only find a minimum wage job at a government place that was doomed to go out of business.

The third was about a family that strove to make money from their farming. It was rough. They lucked out when they could get businesses to buy from them. They also sold they produce at a market. Even though they had some sales, it was hard to make ends meet. They needed to adapt to sell the items that made the most profit.

Violin

This was an Anne Rice book I picked up for $3 from a second hand store. It starts with the death of Triann's husband. She hides in her house with the dead body. She spots a tall lanky man outside who plays the violin like a master. Trianna used to live with her little sister Faye in the house. But Faye left and had gone missing.

We find out the man with the violin is named Stefan, and is a ghost. Trianna steals his violin. The ghost is too weak to take it back. The ghost pulls Trianna into scenes from his memories. They include his death. Trianna finds that she can play this ghostly violin, and she is a master at it.

Trianna goes on your. Her deceased husband was rich. Her concerts makes her even richer than her husband was. The ghost keeps trying to reclaim the violin. The ghost eventually talks Trianna into going to Rio. It is there that an old friend said Trianna's deceased daughter was reborn.

Trianna and Stefan see a light from heaven. Trianna talks Stefan into going towards the light. The violin disappears with him. Back home, they get word from Trianna's lawyer that Faye called. The whole family rushes home to find Faye. Trianna finds that she has the ability to play grand music with other violins too.

Epic

This is a tiny book I got as a gift. The author talks about our lives being a story. He compares it to the great stories in books and TV like Lord of the Rings, The Titanic, and the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe series. Likewise, the author compares the life of Jesus as a story. He identifies Satan as the villain. He warns us to make sure we end up on the right side of the spiritual story.