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POLAR CITY NIGHTMARE

2009-04-07 00:00

Cover for POLAR CITY NIGHTMARE

Review:

This is a strange book. It takes place in an­oth­er plan­et, but it's about base­ball and race pol­i­tic­s.

Re­al­ly, it felt like it could have been about the De­troit Tigers in the 70s in­stead of the Po­lar City Bears in year what­ev­er in plan­et what­sit­name.

Almost Perfect: How a Bunch of Regular Guys Built WordPerfect Corporation

2009-04-06 00:00

Cover for Almost Perfect: How a Bunch of Regular Guys Built WordPerfect Corporation

Review:

Let's see... death march­es, a com­pa­ny that proud­ly ex­plains the em­ploy­ees that it does­n't care at all about their hap­pi­ness or fu­ture, and that they will nev­er get pro­mot­ed.

The CEO ex­plain­ing that com­ing to work with "a bad at­ti­tude" should be grounds for dis­missal with­out com­pen­sa­tion, or that con­grat­u­lat­ing some­one on the birth of a son is im­prop­er use of com­pa­ny time.

These guys chose wrong ev­ery time they had to make a strate­gic de­ci­sion, and were un­sym­pa­thet­ic hardass­es to boot, but got lucky half a dozen times when their com­peti­tors self­-de­struc­t­ed, or sim­ply did­n't care about the mar­ket, and rode a wave of co­in­ci­dence and slap­stick to the top of the anthill.

All things con­sid­ered, a fine man­u­al on how not to run a com­pa­ny, writ­ten by the guy that ran one.

That said com­pa­ny was ex­treme­ly suc­ces­ful (for a decade!) is per­haps the best part. Had they been even half com­pe­tent at their job, they would prob­a­bly still ex­ist.

The Folk of the Fringe

2009-03-29 00:00

Cover for The Folk of the Fringe

Review:

The au­thor sure is mor­mon. Amaz­ing any­one be­lieves such a sil­ly su­per­sti­tion.

Armor

2009-03-26 00:00

Cover for Armor

Review:

Very char­ac­ter-­driven, slaps you around ev­ery page, and Steak­ley re­al­ly has a gift for writ­ing ac­tion sce­nes: what's hap­pen­ing is al­ways clear, and he gives a feel­ing of ... rush.
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