Two Brief Reviews

The Gangs of New York is a gruesomely fascinating book that demonstrates--just like the movie, a substantially fictionalized version of the orignial 1920s title--demonstrates just how gruesomely violent and poor 19th century New York City was. People complain about crime in Rio de Janerio, or Moscow, but those cities are First World compared to the grimy narrow sunless alleyways of Manhattan's slums.

The White Abacus is an entertaining recasting of Shakespeare in a far-future setting where a brilliant asteroid civilization has been humbled by the development of a superluminal interstellar teleportation technology that doesn't work on low-mass worldlets. The recasting comes uncomfortably close to copying at times, and homage a lack of originality, Still, it's quite fun.

Recent Events

• My formal letter of acceptance was dropped off by the local Royal Bank, proof I'm going to Queen's. So, yes! I'll have student debt.


• Two more inoculations today--one the second of three hepatitis-B shots, one a menjugate shot against meningococcal bacteria.