1) Philip Jose Farmer – A Feast Unknown. One heck of a novel that ‘s half Pulp, a quarter Porno, and the rest Satire. The story of Lord Glandrith – who begins the ninth volume of his memoirs saying “Jack The Ripper was my father.” Heh. He’s an Immortal. He was raised by apes. His “fictional” exploits were romanticised by his biographer. Funny, weird, and extremely disturbing at times ( chewing off and eating human testicles raw only because they grow back fast, orgasming everytime he kills someone – you bet it’s yucky! ) Things begin to heat up when an Unknown Adversary made of bronze start stalking our Lord from his jungle kingdom. White-heat read.

2) Patricia Highsmith – Strangers on a Train Hmm, this was good in the buildup and the premise, I can understand why Hitchcock chose to make a movie out of it. Two strangers meet on a train, trade life stories. Both have people they don’t like messing up their lives. One of them casually suggests that each murder the other’s problem. On with the show.

I especially liked the way Highsmith got me into both the characters’ minds, alternating between guilt-ridden, troubled Guy Haines and the enigmatic Charles Bruno. I didn’t sympathize with either, and I didn’t hate either of them. And yet, I couldn’t put the book down. The problem with the book, of course, is the way it ends. You think it’s all building up to a climactic showdown, and you keep wondering where it will lead, and suddenly, the book ends. Weird. Red-heat read, definitely. Except for the last few chapters when it gets to be a Black-read.

3) John W Alderman – Sonic Boom This was about how P2P and the rise of the Internet changed the music industry. A very good account of the early days of the ‘Net, right from the time mp3 raised the barrier for downloaders and pirates everywhere. Leads you through both the legitimate companies that cropped up (like Liquid Audio, mp3.com, garagetunes.com, IUMA, even OLGA) and then through the growth of P2P via Napster. Of course, the book is a bit dated, it focusses a lot on Napster and how the court case took it’s toll on the company. Throughout the book, the skullduggery of the RIAA is brought to the fore ( I can hate those guys in peace now, bloody leeches, all of them)

Some interesting facts:

• Justin Frankel, who created Winamp, was the same guy who developed Gnutella, the enhanced P2P service after Napster. At that time AOL owned Nullsoft, and they sought to cover-up the developement procedure of Gnutella nad forbade Frankel from doing anything more with it.
• Hilary Rosen is a lesbian. Not that it matters, but still.

4) Wolverine: Origin Technically this is not a book. The story and artwork is great, though. Wolverine, the “hottest” of the Marvel characters, never had a past. The only thing known about him was that he was from Canada, and was a test subject for the Weapon X project, and his memories were obliterated. This book tells us “The greatest story never told”. How James Hewlett, a scared runt of a boy, allergic to dust, ( funny! there is this artist who created Tank Girl called Jamie Hewlett) became Logan. As was expected, this was more of a teaser….we learn small things like – how Logan picked up the word “bub” in his vocabulary, why he likes cigars, his amazing rapport with animals. The highpoint is the artwork, splendid digital colouring by Richard Isanove over Andy Kubert’s pencils. The lowpoint is the scarcity of facts, almost as if things are being set-up for a sequel.

And currently reading…

Michael Stackpole – Star Wars: The New Jedi Order – Dark Tide II : Ruin More fun! The New Republic is in trouble. The Jedi are in Deep Shit. Most of the Jedi warriors are over-confident about the Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen Solo is confused about the difference between a Jedi’s duty and the way of a warrior. On a Vong-conquered planet, it is discovered that the aliens are allergic to a particular pollen from a tree. Cliched, in The War of the Worlds kind of way, but I have no doubt the Vong are going to wangle out of this – it’s an 18-series epic, after all.