Has several linked plots, two of which deal with former offenders released from prison. Plot elements pretty carefully worked out. For once even I managed to spot something in advance.

This was the first novel in a 3-novel omnibus, so will give at least the next two goes sometime.

What I'm Listening To
Latest TTC course was History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts by Robert Bucholz (48 lectures)

Seemed like an odd period to select at first, going from Henry IV right through to Queen Anne, including the Civil War and Commonwealth period in the middle; usually the Tudors, Stuarts and Civil War are treated separately. Actually makes sense though, basically telling the story of how the medieval age became the modern.

Very well presented course, clear and interesting. Covers mostly the stuff that happened, but also has long digressions on the condition of the common people, culture and so on. Quite a few character studies and interesting quotes too. Bucholz manages to keep an overall theme going through the disparate periods by considering how they tried to solve the continuing problems of sovereignty, foreign policy, finance and religion

Found quite a lot that was new here: fortunately I turned out to be much more ignorant of the periods than I thought.

Overall, an excellent course, well worth a listen.

Coming Soon
Still grinding through Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone but it's a bit depressing. Will finish it eventually.

Not sure on the next TTC course: maybe Rome and the Barbarians but haven't completely decided.

What I'm Watching
Saw Dark Knight at the cinema. Pretty good movie: decent action scenes and poor old Heath Ledger did a good job as the anarchic joker, some pretty good lines, mostly from him.

Not much comedy value: tried pretty hard to go for the angst-ridden post-Eighties Batman. Not sure that really works for me: I may just be too old and cynical, but the whole dressing up as a rodent to fight a clown seems a bit too fundamentally silly for it to work. The original Bob Kane Batman always seemed a little big camp, and the whole dead-parents thing was a bit of an afterthought, only appearing in a couple of pages several months in as a half-hearted explanation.

Also went on a bit long: damn these kids today and their enormous attention span.

Still, worth a look, and benefits from the big screen. Just managed to resist the urge to yell out GORDON'S ALIVE! at the appropriate moment.

What I'm Watching 2
Also saw Wall-E. Thought it was brilliant the way they managed with so little dialogue, which kept it from getting too cloying sentimental like some of the other Pixar movies. Funny, nice visuals of the brown and rusted future Earth, quite touching at times too. Go and see it.

Me
Pretty busy at work. Getting freaked out by things that ought not to be freaking me out.

Web
Waiter rant comes out.

The Presto short from before Wall-E, in case anyone turned up late.

Dark Knight and the choppy fight scene.

Gyrojet rocket pistol and the nuclear rifle. (MeFi).

Dare: is Google giving it's Knol precedence in search results?