Good, Geeky Summer Reading

Overclocked series I have been spending a lot of time reading this summer (I so rarely have time to do it during the school year when I am teaching), and a few titles have really stood out at me so far. I am a big geek, and enjoy stories laced with technology as well as little science fiction thrown in. Here is my current reading list along with links on places to pick them up (some are even free). Enjoy!

Ringworld – by Larry Niven

I must admit this one was not a true “read” book for me. I found it as a free audiobook rental through my local library so I decided to give it a try. I nearly wore my iPhone’s headphones out on it as every spare minute I had to plug in to get the next chapter or two. Ringworld is pure science fiction, set in a futuristic landscape where Earth is no longer alone in the Universe, where matter transporters allow a person to flash from one side of the Earth to another in a milisecond, and where a strange race called the Puppeteers has discovered a Ringworld, a ring built around a star with a fully earthlike ecosystem thriving inside of it. The hero of the story is an adverturer named Louis Wou, who together with a Puppeteer and a strange ratlike warrior creature called a Kzin travel to the Ringworld in search of its secrets. In the process they crash on it and must meet with the locals in order to find a way off.

I Robot – Cory Doctorow

Doctorow is a true geek’s geek. He has released most of his writing under Creative Commons licensing, meaning that anyone who wants to can download his short stories for free. I Robot is probably the most popular, bearing homage to the Isaac Asimov book turned movie by the same name. In it Doctorow tries to tell a story of what actually led to society becoming so reliant on the robots that eventually turn on their masters. It is short but a pretty good read, and is available in many different formats including a free version that you can download to your iPhone using the Stanza ebook reader.

Gadgets, Gizmos, and Other Good Stuff

A collection of cool tech and interesting stories from the web.