Paul Grenyer

Eversion by Alastair Reynolds ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0575090781 There’s little to no sci-fi in the first 30% of this book and you’d be forgiven for thinking Reynolds was just indulging himself in a seafaring romp. There’s only a hint of sci-fi up to about half way through, when it develops into groundhog day. I didn’t enjoy this. I put the book down for a week or two until I forced myself to pick it up again and finish it. I couldn’t put the second half down! There isn’t the usual Alastair Reynolds scope, but that doesn’t matter as there is plenty of his trademark exploration and discovery and a fantastic plot twist I didn’t see coming. By far my favourite character is Ada for her sharp sense of humour and general attitude to life. The other characters are convincing and, for once, there’s a good ending, even if it is a little corny.

ARD Following a nightmare which is parking in Manchester and getting a meal on a Saturday night without booking, we walked into the Bread Shed just as ARD were getting going, minus my vinyl and CDs for signing!. The masterpiece which is Take Up My Bones was instantly recognisable, as were composer and multi instrumentalist Mark Deeks and fellow Winterfylleth band mate Chris Naughton, both on guitar. The latter was centre stage, where surely Deeks should have been? From the off the band, who were put together to perform an album which was never intended to be performed live, were a little loose with the drums too prominent and the guitars not clear enough. There appeared to be a lot retuning necessary, especially from Chris and the lead guitarist who appeared hidden away a lot of the time. This didn’t really detract from enjoyment of the incredible compositions from the album.  By the time the final 10 minutes, consisting of Only Three Shall Know, came along something had changed,...

Glory! Hammer! Were fantastic! They played well and were lots of fun as you’d expect.  I mean who doesn’t like a gig to start with a cardboard cutout of Tom Jones and Delilah playing on the PA. The band were all dressed up - it must have been very hot - and playing their parts. I did find some of the gaps between songs and the interplay with the audience felt a little too Steel Panther. It was too frequent, superfluous and added time to a set which could have been shorter. Sozos Michael is a phenomenal singer and makes it seem effortless and perfect. I’m a big fan of widdly guitar and it doesn’t stand out as much on record as it did live which was a really nice surprise. It’ll be great to see them again when the promised new album is out and they tour again.

React Cookbook: Recipes for Mastering the React Framework by David Griffiths and Dawn Griffiths ISBN: 978-1492085843 This is a book of about 100 recipes across 11 sections. The sections range from the basics, such as creating React apps, routing and managing state to the more involved topics such as security, accessibility and performance. I was especially pleased to see that the section on creating apps looked at create-react-app, nextjs and a number of other getting started tools and libraries, rather than just sticking with create-react-app. I instantly liked the way each recipe laid out the problem it was solving, the solution and then had a discussion on different aspects of the solution. It immediately felt a bit like a patterns book. For example, after describing how to use create-react-app, the discussion section explains in more depth what it really is, how it works, how to use it to maintain your app and how to get rid of it. As with a lot of React developers, the vast majori...

Chasm City Alistair Reynolds ISBN-13‏: ‎ 978-0575083158 Following the announcement of the release of Inhibitor Phase and then Elysium Fire I’ve been rereading some of the previous Revelation Space novels to pick up the thread. First time around I found Chasm City a dark story and it was no different the second time, but I got so much more out of it. I also remember losing the thread towards the end the first time, but not this time! As with most of the series, the thread of the main story is inconsequential to the main Revelation Space arc. It’s the other aspects of the story which tie up with other Revelation Space events which make this such a fantastic book. By the time I read the last page I knew that Sky's Edge was named after the edge Sky Hassausman had over the other ships in the flotilla which settled the planet. I knew that the war had started between the ships of the flotilla and what they were fighting about. I knew how the Melding Plague had got to Chasm City and how it...

Overall I really enjoyed Incineration Fest and would go again if the line up is right for me. What was really great was seeing metallers back at gig with no restrictions and doing what we do best! Winterfylleth I completely fell in love with Winterfylleth when they played Bloodstock on the mainstage and even more so when they released the set as a live album. They are incredible and totally deserved to be opening proceedings at the Roundhouse for Incineration Fest. Actually, they deserved to be much higher up the bill. They’re a solid outfit, played what I wanted to hear and ended, as I always think of them ending from the live album, with Chris saying this is the last song “as time is short and our songs are long!” I need to see them do a headline set in a venue with a great PA soon. Tsjuder Tsjuder was the wildcard for me. I didn’t really know them and had heard only a few things on Spotify before, although what I heard was really good. I had no idea I was going to be blown away. The...

Leprous There’s an obvious pull for me towards Leprous due to the association with Ihsahn and prog, but rock bands generally do little for me these days. I listened to a little of Aphelion before the gig, but it didn’t grip me. They’re an odd live band and some of the time the cello player looked a bit out of place when he was without his cello. The sharing of the keyboards among various band members, often in the same song, was also weird. The singer was wearing a waistcoat and doing some very odd dancing and his voice can grate. For a prog band the lack of any guitar or keyboard lead breaks was also weird. However, I quite enjoyed Leprous! Devin Townsend We’d only seen Devin Townsend a few months ago ( in the summer at Bloodstock ), but my wife loves him so we went again. We should have gone the night before as he played loads of songs we knew, in contrast to the night we went where he played nothing we knew! Most of it, I am reliably informed, was from the Ocean Machine and Infin...

When am I going to learn?  The first two times I saw Decapitated, Bloodstock and then supporting someone in Norwich at the Waterfront, they were incredible.  In early 2020 in London they sounded awful and we left. Last night in Norwich they sounded terrible again.  I don’t know if it was them or the sound system, but there was no definition. It was all drums, vocals and not much else, so we gave up halfway through.  I’m hoping the new album will be amazing, they’ll play at the UEA and it will be amazing. However, if I am going to learn, then I won’t be risking it.

Galactic North Alastair Reynolds ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0575083127 Galactic North is a group of short stories set in the Revelation Space universe starting at it’s very beginning and stretching right to it’s end. Great Wall of Mars I reread the Great Wall of Mars after the Inhibitor Phase to remind me of some of Warren Clavian’s back story. It didn’t disappoint. I should have read Great Wall of Mars again before Inhibitor Phase, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. At least I’ve remembered why Nevile hated his brother and how he was betrayed by him, why Nevile defected to the conjoiners and how Felka fits in. One small story explains so much of why things happened in several of the other stories including Absolution Gap. Glacial   Glacial adds little to the overall story, but does help to explain how the relationship between Clavian, Galiana and Felka developers and how it becomes so strong. Glacial is really an opportunity for Alastair Reynolds to explore the concept of a thinking, possib...

Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds    ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316462761 * * * Warning Spoilers * * * To say I was excited at the prospect of another core Revelation Space novel, more than a decade since Absolutely Gap, wouldn’t come close. In preparation I reread Absolution Gap and loved it on the second reading. I wasn’t inspired by the description of the Miguel character hiding from the Wolves on an unknown planet, but it turns out this was just a minor distraction at the beginning and that The Inhibitor phase plays a major part in advancing the story. The scope and breadth, as you would expect from Alistair Reynolds is vast and intricate. I was a little disappointed that the characters were ping ponging between some of the same old worlds, Ararat and Yellowstone, and the evolution of some of the survivors from Redemption Ark into Merpeople, but this didn’t detract in any way. It either wasn’t clear or I missed what happened to Ana Khouri - maybe she’s still on Hela. It was sad...

A Clash of Kings: Book 2 (A Song of Ice and Fire) George R.R. Martin ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0007447831 I loved the Game of Thrones TV series Even the way the final series ends. Although I’m not sure I would have chosen the eventual king. I was looking forward to reading the books and understanding the stories in more depth and, to an extent, that was the case. More so with the first book than the second. A Clash of Kings just has too much irrelevant detail and quickly becomes laborious to read. A part which stands out is after one of the battles where there are many pages given over to a list of knights who were awarded honours. The vast majority were in no way relevant to the story and just prolonged getting to the end. Fortunately the last 3% (I was reading on kindle) was given over to an appendix so I was able to skim that. There were a number of key events from the TV series, not least of which Bron lighting the wildfire with an arrow, which I was looking out for and were disappointingl...

What: Find My Tea: A technical journey through new product development When: Tuesday, February 1, 2022 7:00pm to 8:30p (GMT) Where:   SyncIpswich (online) RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/SyncIpswich-Ipswichs-Tech-Startup-Community/events/281991960/     After what feels like an age I’m getting back into speaking and of course I’m speaking about Find My Tea! This time it’s technical! As well as online with SyncIpswich I’m also doing the ACCU Conference , nor(DEV):con and one other:     ACCU Conference - 4pm 8th April (Bristol) - 90min version     nor(DEV):con - 24th & 25th June (Norwich)     TBC - July Find My Tea: A technical journey through new product development There is more to having a great idea for an app than just building the app. You’re not only required to be a full stack developer (whatever that means), which doesn’t usually include the skills for building an app, you need to understand and be competent in ‘Ops’ ...