This book was about a world in which people choose to live in enclaves of like minded people whose autonomy are guaranteed by the international protocols. You still have those who don't believe in any group or choose not to join and end up on the fringes of society as outcasts. I don't agree with the idea that everyone has to belong to a group and follow their rules to the exclusion of other groups and rules, as I don't belong exclusively to any group, but we do usually end up members of at least a few groups as it's easier when you do know the rules.

The main character of the book was Nell, a girl who was born to outcasts and was saved by a book that was devised to educate the grandchild of a top level ruler though interactive technology embedded in a book of fairytales. Nell and the other people involved in the story were interesting and I found the idea of the story reasonably plausible, assuming that the technology involved was ever developed.

I enjoyed the book as it showed not only the possible future of technology but also how the technology is changed and used by people, which some cybertech books are weak in developing. One of the reasons I like cyber tech or real "science "fiction was to see what could be, which to me is the true reason for science fiction.

The other book I read was "Catfantastic IV" edited by Andre Norton and Martin Greenberg. This was a group of science fiction fantasy stories that have a cat as the main character. They were fun and enjoyable as I love cats and these stories just fit my idea of what a cat would be like if it were human.

All of the stories involved various forms of magic and all were set in preindustrial ages which I have a hard time idealizing, but they were still fun just because they were about cats and they were fun stories especially as many of them involved fooling the villian who didn't believe a cat could matter.

The sword and sorcery fantasy books are fun but I have much the same reaction as I do to rennaissance and medieval role playing. It's never as dirty and nasty as it really was back then when people were lucky to live till they were in their twenties and it was all down hill from there. Sorry, but I don't want a simpler life that doesn't involve state of the art hospitals, daily hot showers and vacuum cleaners, not to mention polyester, tv dinners, books and movies.

I went for a walk to the shopping center about a mile from my sons's apartment and was apalled, Apalled!, to already hear christmas music. I walked home humming "Winter Wonderland" and couldn't stop. It's fun to walk around a strange neighborhood as I know the neighborhoods around my home all too well.

My daughter-in-law was getting ready for a craft show tomorrow. She makes beautiful crocheted items and the craft guild she belongs to is having their christmas craft show. I helped a little with a sign and putting price tags on things, but I couldn't really help her much in finishing up her projects. I'm going to help at the show along with her sister. This is the first time I've done something like this so it should be interesting.

We also watched "Clerks" as we are going to see "Dogma" tomorrow. I thought that "Clerks" was just about a bunch of whiny twenty somethings who didn't want to take responsibility for what they did. It was definitely low budget but they all assured me that the guy who made "Clerks", and "Dogma", had improved in his later ones, though they all liked "Clerks", too.