I'm David Kennedy and this site mainly contains my book-log. I started this in 2003 as an experiment in making me think a bit more about what I was reading, and also to help me remember what I thought of a certain title when asked about it a year later! I decided I would review all the genre fiction I read (actually working out at ~80%), and maybe mention some of the better non-fiction. This has changed the way I read, making me slow down and pay more attention, and unbelievably some people seem to enjoy my 'reviews'. It's important to note that I don't claim to be a professional reviewer, I am only scribbling down my personal reactions to what I read - feel free to disagree with what I think about certain titles. Tastes Vary and mine are unreliable.
Google knows all, so if any of the authors I talk about interest you, ask it. You'll not find that many external links from me, however the book reviews usually have an Amazon Associate link. If you like the sound of a book and buy via this link it costs you nothing extra, but I could get a micropayment for the referral.
If it's near Christmas or my birthday and you know me well enough to buy a present, here's a wish list of books I'd be sure to like.
If you are still reading this page instead of the main book-log, chances are that you're wondering if I'm the David Kennedy you know. If not, you'll not a get lot from these sections, I only want to help people I've lost touch with find my e-mail address.
I'm the David Kennedy who grew up in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland. I wouldn't leave university for quite a while so you might know me from astrophysics at QUB?
Perhaps you know me from when I was hurting people for fun and profit in QUB's sport centre? Here's a photograph of me trying to look as big as all the other Ju-jitsu coaches, does that help? Update: I'm back training. Sort of. Turns out having dodgy hips does hinder fighting ability. Who'd have guessed?
If the above didn't help, maybe you know me from work? I make my living as a software engineer for Swan Labs (Belfast), but you might have known me when I worked for DST International (Surbiton), or even when I worked at Nortel Networks (Belfast)?
If you do know me from work, I'm a lot calmer in real life. You might also expect to see a lot more technical content on my site. I thought there would be too, but there's a lot of high quality material out there already and besides, I'm keeping Work Dave in work!
I love my library, both in and outside of work. Most of you reading this will know me from the busy Usenet group rec.arts.sf.written where I've been hanging around for years. This is also where I write my 'reviews' for, which is only fair, as I rely on group recommendations as a filter to avoid reading anything covered by Sturgeon's Law.
There's also a small set of technical book reviews, which have mainly appeared on Slashdot. (Warning: the discussions following each Slashdot article, themselves rather variable in quality, feature an inordinate amount of inane commentary by idiots. Use the filters!) There should be more technical reviews, but work has been busy, and any excess technical thinking time I'm getting is going into current projects there.
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