The Dog Stars

I could not get into this book. The main character lives out in the sticks. Most of the world dies in the apocalypse. He has one neighbor that he is on relatively good terms with. He also has a plane that he keeps to fly around and watch out for perpetrators.

They have some way to create electricity. He keeps the lights on in his house at night. But he does not sleep in the house. Once in a while, some perpetrator(s) will come for him. Luckily they get tricked into thinking he is at home. Our guy can shoot pretty well.

There is a group of people that live somewhat nearby. He helps them out sometimes, although his neighbor is suspicious. Like I said, I just could not get into this book, which is weird because I like dystopian future books. Only made is a little beyond 10% of the way through before giving up. Life is just too short to read books you don't like.

The Tracker

The Tracker is the story of fictional character Sam Callahan. Sam is an orphan who bounced around between the orphanage and many bad foster homes. He initially went down the path of crime. Became a car thief. But once he got caught and served some time, he was ready to be reformed. He had some help from a local pastor that helped pave the path to success at college.

After college, Sam finally found his biological mother. Mom had cancer and a lot of bills. So Sam takes a job being a tracker. He follows a politician on his campaign trail to pick up any newsworthy details or scandals. Sam does not know what he is in for. He gets an anonymous tip that leads him to witness and video tape a murder by the politician he is covering. What follows is a chase where more people are killed, with Sam being framed as the prime suspect.

This book is the debut release from author Chad Zunker. Very exciting. Lots of mystery. It seems like this is the first book in a series about the lead character Sam. I know I am going to be tuning in for the sequel. I consider this a must read book and author.

Red to Black: The Making of Rogue Legacy

I am a huge fan of Roguelike games. Not a big fan of this book. This book documents the path taken to produce Rogue Legacy. It was developed by two brothers. One of them kept a side job to pay the bills. The other programmed the game full time. They had previously made smaller Flash games..

This book did cover a bunch of details. An example is the story of how they hired musicians to produce the music for the game. But interesting details were missing. Game development itself is not such an exciting subject. I was hoping the author could make it exciting.

I can say that I have never played Rogue Legacy. This book did not make me want to run out and download the game. Too bad. I am working extra hard to choose a better book to read next time.

The Making of Prince of Persia

This book chronicles Jordan Mechner's life, through the time he made and helped market his game Prince of Persia. Jordan had made a game for the Apple called Karateka. His follow up was Prince of Persia. Surprisingly, he made the game for Broderbund, but his compensation was a percentage of sale. He was not an employee.

Prince of Persia was something special because Jordan used a video camera to capture how a real life person looks while running, jumping, and doing other Prince of Persia acrobatics. He developed the game near the end of the era for any demand for Apple II computer games. Of course there were ports to other systems like Nintendo and the PC.

The book goes on to follow Jordan after he finishes the game, as he pursues learning how to shoot movies, and also his consulting on Prince of Persia 2. By the end we find out that he forms his own game development company. Quite a thrilling read. Makes you want to run out and develop some video games.

#Girlboss

This book tells the story of Sophia Amoruso, CEO and founder of Nasty Gal Vintage Clothing. She started out reselling vintage clothes on eBay. Then she moved on to selling the clothes on her own website. This was pretty amazing as she barely made it through high school, and quit or was fired from a myriad of jobs.

Sophia does also introduce you to her outlook on life. The book is somewhat geared towards young girls who might grow up to be girl bosses themselves. I really wanted to read this book because, in the end, Sophia's company went bankrupt. This book was written when her company was near it's highs.

I would tell anyone to read this book for enjoyment. There are some annoying bits. But it is written well.

Why Not Me

This is Mindy's second book. I recommend her last book too. Mindy is really funny. Obviously she knows how to write. It is her profession. I feel like I am getting to know her better by reading her books. I want her to write some more.

Mindy has a section in this book where she puts together a hypothetical story if she had turned out to be a teacher. Good stuff while she stocks another older teacher on the staff. The real laughs is when she sprinkles in some chatter from her hypothetical friend who works on Wall Street.

The book also has a section where she met president Obama and starting to fall for one of his bodyguards. LOL. Typical Mindy Kaling. Later parts of the book talk about her weight, and America's obsession with it. The closer is hard hitting information on how to really be confident.

Steve Wozniak - Inventor of the Apple Computer

This is a short book. Comes in just over 100 pages. It is a good overview of Woz's life. Of course I liked that part about his cofounding Apple Corporation. And his work on the Apple computers was genius. Not as interested in his attempts to put on music festivals.

The one thing that resonates in this and other books about Woz was that he is a nice guy. In this case, the nice guy does not finish last. Woz is rich. And he is loved by fans like me. He is the consummate engineer and hacker.

The bonus is that I purchased a used copy of this book and found that it was a signed copy. Woz actually signed my book. Not actually all that rare. But I consider it a treasure. Just wished he signed my copy of iWoz though.

Creativity, Inc.

Could not finish this book. Too boring. I am a Pixar fan. Loved the last book I read about Pixar by the former CFO. It had all the juicy details about Steve Jobs, the great minds behind Pixar, and going public. This book was a management text on how to achieve great results like Pixar. Unfortunately it was a dud.

Normally I finish books that I start. Not this one. Like is too start to endure the pain of reading past page 100. I am surprised I made it this far. Just goes to show you that even with an exciting subject such as Pixar, you can fail if you do not have the writing chops.

The Hidden Relic

This book is the second in a series about The Evermen. It picks up where The Enchantress left off. This time we are in full scale war. The primate has used his elixir plus promises of "The Hidden Relic" to draw clans to his side of the battle.

Miro has proved himself to more than just a blademaster. He is leading the good guys into battle. Occasionally he needs to go off on a secret mission. But he is dealing with strategy and tactics to win a war where he is outnumbered.

Ella was "captured" by a neutral third party, but finds that once again she must aid her captors to help with the war effort. We do find out about her friend Amber who was taken prisoner by the enemy. Odds are against her. But she must do what she can to lead a rebellion from inside the enemy ranks.

We finally get more info on who the Evermen are. Plus we actually get to meet one. Although he is old and gets weak due to battle and abuse, he has the knowledge that was lost over the years.

Enchantress

This was one of the first books I got under Kindle Unlimited. There is a monthly charge, but not a per book charge. I really liked this book. Felt like it was a lesser Lord of the Rings. Brother Milo and Sister Ella live in a world divided by "houses". That is, the people are split up by clan. Although their clan is known for its magic, Milo is an expert swordsman. Ella dreams of uses magic.

Milo and Ella are raised by an uncle or something. Their parents were allegedly killed in a great revolutionary war. They are dirt poor. But Milo shows promise in the fighter training school. Ella sells flowers and works hard to save up to enroll in magic school. Both of these siblings excel in what they do.

We meet the other clans, and also other races that live nearby. It seems that there is treachery afoot. The enemies of Milo and Ella's clan are joining forces to take over the world. And while they think the emperor is behind this, it is actually something else. Something more wicked.

This is the first novel in the Evermen Saga. I am already reading the sequel.

To Pixar and Beyond

This book was written by Lawrence Levy. He was recruited by Steve Jobs to be Chief Financial Officer at Pixar. When Levy was first summoned, he did not know much about Pixar. It was far away from his home. And he knew about the bad rumors about Steve Jobs - got kicked out of Apple, failed with his NextStep company, and was known to be a ruthless leader.

Levy did join. He found out that Pixar was involved in a lot of projects. Most of them were not making money and were not good choices to grow the company. Steve Jobs was funding the company out of his own money. The people at the company were worried that Jobs was going to come in and screw up their magic. Plus the employees were grumbling because they were promised compensation in the form of stock options that never showed up.

The big thing going on when Levy arrived was that Pixar was under contract to produce Toy Story for Disney. Levy studied the situation and came up with a plan to grow the company and take it public. Steve Jobs wanted to do that to make his investment return some value to him. Taking a firm public is a tough job, and only works if people want to buy into your company. Not many people knew about Pixar. And Jobs/Levy were not experts in the Hollywood industry.

As history knows, Toy Story was a smash hit. Pixar did go public at a high price making Jobs a billionaire. And then Jobs went on to return to Apple, get cancer, and die. Levy did spend a lot of time working closely with Jobs. But that is not the entirety of this book. In fact, Levy also traces his path after he left Pixar.

This book was really a slam dunk. It gave many details about what it was like to be at Pixar after Steve Jobs essentially bought the company. There was a lot of dealing with Disney, especially since Pixar was already wrapped up in a multi-movie deal with Disney once Levy arrived. Luckily, the success of Toy Story allowed them to renegotiate go to infinity and beyond with the company.

The Radioactive Boy Scout

This book tracks the tale of David Hahn. He was a boy in Michigan who was on his way to building a nuclear reactor in his back yard shed. The amazing thing was that David was just a below average student. He had trouble spelling relatively simple words. But he somehow got ahold of some books on chemistry and radiation and went to town.

David's first inspiration was the story of Marie Curie and the experiments she did with her husband. He was able to collect items and extract radioactive elements to use in his experiments. Of course he had to do a number of suspicious activities, such as stealing and misrepresenting himself to assorted companies and agencies.

Things came to light when some cops pulled him over one night and found his the trunk of his car filled with strange items. They thought he might be building a bomb. Specialists came in and determined the items were radioactive. Eventually a tiger team came to dismantle the shed in the back of his house where he conducted his experiments.

The real crazy thing is that he has stashed a lot of his materials inside his parents' house. They were worried that the federal agencies involved in the removal might fine them or even take their house away. So they go rid of much of the radioactive evidence into the local trash collection. Fail. Still the book was a great insight in the live and activities of eagle scout David Hahn.