[Chewbaccus]

Cryptonomicon is a great read, well done.

These are the cream of my library:

Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. Fiction in journal format, the premise is Daniel Underwood, an early '90s Microsoft bug-checker, can't sleep and starts a journal to try and find out what's wrong. It's a blend of metaphysics and a chronicle of early-1990's geek culture. A must-have for anyone who frequents these boards.

Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Levi bar Alphaeus, or Levi who is called Biff, was the close friend of Joshua bar Joseph ish Nazareth, the one who was to be known the world over as Jesus Christ. On the 2000th anniversary of his birth, he's raised up to write a gospel telling the story of the "Lost 18" - what happened during the missing eighteen years of Jesus' life as we know it from the existing Gospels and his ministry from the viewpoint of someone who was "actually there". [One part I loved: "I thought Matthew was bad, skipping right from Joshua's birth to his baptism, but Mark doesn't even bother with the birth. It's as it Joshua springs forth full grown from the head of Zeus. (Okay, bad metaphor, but you know what I mean.) Mark begins with the baptism, at thirty! Where did these guys get their stories? 'I once met a guy in a bar who knew a guy who's sister's best friend was at the baptism of Joshua bar Joseph of Nazareth, and here's the story as best as he could remember it.'"]

Hilarious, smart, witty, impressively researched, just extraordinarily well-written.

Jennifer Government by Max Barry. The pure reverse image of 1984, where the Government can only investigate crime if they can get budget, taxes are outlawed, everything (even the Police and the NRA) is on the stock market, the world is a free-marketer's wet dream. The story starts with Hack Nike (people take their last names from the companies they work for), a Merchandising Officer suckered into a guerrilla marketing contract that leads to him being hounded by Jennifer Government, "the consumer watchdog from Hell". Characters are beautifully written, plot is fantastic, premise is believably outrageous, an all-around great read.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead by Michael Ledwidge. James Coglin, a carpenter turned NYPD officer is working towards getting his detective's shield when he's charged with being a racist cop after defending himself against a coke-dealing kid. One door after another closes to Coglin until he feels he has nowhere to turn. Enter Aidan O'Connell, Coglin's long-lost uncle who was once a "fund-raiser" (read: bank robber) for the IRA. Thinking he has nothing left to lose, Coglin hooks up with O'Connell and his crew on a fundraiser. A study in "the choices we make", Coglin wrestles with doing the right thing and the right thing for him until his choices become all-too-clear in a run from forces city, state, and federal. I'm a very, very Celtic New Yorker so I loved this novel just from reading the title and the summary on the back. Once I opened past the title page, I couldn't let it down until the end. I even read part of it while I was in the chair donating blood during a drive at my HS to kill some time.

Anything written by Harry Turtledove. Turtledove is known as the Crown King of Alternate History - a genre that is defined by the words "What if?" In addition to myriad short stories, Turtledove has two long-running novel series based on separate events. His more fantasy one (and what got me hooked) was centered on the idea that an alien race came to Earth on a mission of conquest during the height of World War II, just after Pearl Harbor. The Axis and the Allies forced to work together, the clash of 1940s tech against 21st century tech, each side trying to gain a psychological advantage over the other, it's a situation that no matter how insane it may seem in the beginning, you can't help but believe it when you finish the book. Such is Turtledove's gift.

The second one, the more realistic one, is based on what if the South won the Civil War? Shortly before Antietam, Lee sent dispatch riders out with his Special Order 181, the detailed battle plan to all his army commanders, wrapped around three cigars. One messenger dropped this bundle which was then picked up by a Union infantryman and passed up the chain of command. End result was the Union knew where the Confderates were set up, engaged them in the Battle of Antietam and came out with a technical (fewer dead) victory. Lincoln used the strength of this victory to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, making the war about slavery and keeping England and France from coming in on the Confederates' side in the war. From there, it was just a matter of when the war would end, and not if.

But what if some Confederate foot soldier just said "Hey pal, you dropped something."?

In this timeline, that's what happened, Antietam never took place, the Confederate invasion of the Union continued, England and France intervened, and two countries were the result, with a legacy of bitter animosity between the two in the decades to follow. The novel series starts with "How Few Remain", then proceeds through the Great War trilogy and the American Empire trilogy which just ended this past July. More, however, is a-coming.

This guy's one of my favorite authors. If you like history, fantasy, or a good "Huh, what a world that would be", this is a perfect read for you.