USB Drive Not Seen by Boot CD

If you run Windows XP and have an external USB disk drive that is not recognized by your recovery CD, then this post is for you.

I recently got an Acomdata Samba 2.0 external USB drive enclosure to use with a Western Digital disk for system backups. Windows XP sees the USB disk fine, if the drive is turned on after XP is running. So there's no problem using my Acronis True Image to create backups. The problem is that the Acronis restore CD boots into Linux, which does not see the USB drive. A little research revealed the problem is common between backup or disk image programs and USB drives.

The solution I found is complex, but it works. It took me so long to find, understand, and implement the solution that I thought I should write up what I did in order to help others who have the same problem. My steps won't exactly match yours, but hopefully they'll be close enough to what you need to do that you will be able to solve the problem.

The basic concept is that since Windows recognizes the USB disk, you need to make a boot CD that boots into Windows rather than Linux. The boot CD must also include software that can restore data from your backup. With such a boot CD you will be able to boot up and restore a system backup, either to a new replacement disk or to overlay the programs and data on a working disk.

What You Will Need

Your original Windows XP CD.
A working computer.
A high-speed Internet connection.
The means to burn a CD (or several).
The ability to use a file manager to find and manipulate files.
1 to 6 GB of free disk space, depending on which steps you perform.

Basic Steps

1. Download and install PE Builder from BartPE.

2. Get a BartPE plugin for your backup software.

3. If your original Windows XP CD does not include XP service pack 2, then you must merge SP2 files into your XP installation files.

4. Use PE Builder to generate a PE (preinstallation environment).

5. Boot into the PE and test it.

If your computer boots from the CD, sees the USB disk, and lets you run your backup software to restore data, then you're done. If your external drive is not recognized, then more steps might succeed (as they did for me).

6. Download and install UBCD4Win.

7. Use UBCD4Win to generate a PE.

8. Boot into the PE and test it.

More about Each Step

The following remarks are based on what worked for me. I'm not going to attempt to give click-level details. Hopefully, the following comments will be enough to help you find your way through the process.

1. Download and install BartPE.

Go to BartPE.
Read the introduction and download the latest version.
Install it. I used BartPE version 3.1.10a.
(Warning: I messed myself up by installing BartPE in my "Program Files" folder. BartPE does not allow spaces in a folder name. Accept the BartPE location defaults.)

2. Get a BartPE plugin for your backup software.

I decided to use Macrium Reflect Free as my system backup software. It allows you to make a disk image of your system disk even while Windows is running. It also provides a BartPE plugin, so you can add Macrium Reflect Free to your BartPE CD. Here are Macrium's instructions for creating the BartPE plugin.

3. Make a slipstreamed version of XP Service Pack 2 (if necessary).

BartPE copies the files it needs from your original Windows XP CD. If your XP CD is a version earlier than SP2 (which was released in August 2004), then you must create a copy of your XP files that includes SP2 files. That process is called "slipstreaming" and BartPE makes it easy. The slipstream screen is accessed by clicking "Source" on the BartPE menu bar. The slipstreaming screen has three fields: the location of your Windows XP installation files, the location of the XP service pack you want to merge into your XP installation files, and the location where you want the output of the slipstreaming process to be written.

You should create a folder for your original XP installation files. For simplicity, the folder should be in your root directory and its name should not contain spaces. Copy your entire XP installation CD to that folder. That will be the source for the slipstreaming process.

Next, download a copy of XP Service Pack 2. For simplicity, the file should be saved at the root level with a simple name. This file will be in the second field on the slipstream screen.

Run the slipstream. If it is successful, you will use the output file as the input for creating the BartPE boot CD.


I decided to go ahead and make a slipstreamed copy of XP SP3 using the same process used for SP2. Download a copy of XP Service Pack 3. The input field on the slipstream screen should be the output from the SP2 slipstream. The service pack location will be for SP3 instead of SP2.

The final output location of your slipstreaming steps will be the source location on the PE Builder screen.

4. Run PE Builder to generate a PE (preinstallation environment).

The source field on the builder screen should be either your copy of your XP installation CD or the output of your final slipstreaming process. Due to the slowness of CD drives, you may have problems if you try to use your XP CD as the source.

I did not use the custom field.


I recommend accepting the default output location and name.

Under "Media Output" there are three choices. I'll describe my understanding of each one.

None: Writes the PE files to a BartPE folder on your hard disk.

Create ISO image: This will create the entire boot CD as one ISO image file on your hard disk. If you choose this option, you can use your favorite CD-burning program to burn the image to a CD later.

Burn to CD/DVD: If you choose this option PE builder will attempt to burn the CD for you.

I chose "None" because I didn't want to waste CDs until I knew the process worked and would solve my problem. If you choose "None", you can follow some more steps to enable testing the PE from your hard disk.

You might want to check the plugins by clicking the "Plugins" button on the PE Builder screen. If you enable too many, the resulting PE might not fit on a CD. If you want to test from your hard disk, make sure the BartPE Installer plugin is enabled. Make sure your backup program's plugin is also enabled. My backup program was "Macrium Reflect".


When all the fields and plugins are ready, click the "Build" button to build the PE.

If you burned a CD, then proceed to step 5. If you want to test from your hard disk continue with the following steps.

Optional: Install PE to hard disk for testing

BartPE provides a DOS program that sets up your PE for booting from your hard disk. Use your favorite file manager, like Windows Explorer, to navigate to the folder containing program "peinst.cmd", which in my case was "C:\BartPE\programs\peinst". Double-click on the file "peinst.cmd" to run it.

Peinst lets you specify the necessary parameters, one at a time, prior to the actual installation. You must press Enter after selecting each menu number and then again after typing the appropriate data. My answers follow.

1
C:\BartPE
2
C:
5
1

Several thousand files will be copied. Two new folders will be set up and populated in the root directory -- C:\minint and C:\programs. When the copying is complete, press any key to return to the peinst menu. If this is the first time you've gone through the menu, you should make a backup copy of your boot.ini file. Then select 5 again "Install BartPE to C:" and then 2, to add the BartPE option to your boot.ini file. You only need to do this step once.

5. Boot into the PE and test it.

If you created a boot CD, load the CD and reboot the computer from the CD. On my computer, I have to press F8 several times during the boot process until I get a menu that lets me tell the computer to boot from the CD.

If you installed the PE to your hard drive, simply reboot your computer and select "Boot BartPE (by PE Builder)" from the boot menu.

Whether you boot the PE from your hard disk or from a CD, the result should be that you boot into the BartPE environment. I booted into BartPE from my hard disk and noticed the menu entries were duplicated many times. This is a bug I didn't feel the need to pursue, since the menu items worked.

I didn't take notes on my activities during this part of my test, so I can't give specific steps. All I can say is explore the menus until you find the program that lets you see the equivalent of "My Computer" in XP. It may be called Manage Computer, Disk Management, Management Console, or something similar. See if your USB drive is shown. Mine wasn't. Try turning your external drive off and back on again. (My USB drive is not recognized by XP unless it is turned on after XP is running.) If you find your USB disk partition listed with the drives, with no drive letter assigned, you might be able right click the volume and then assign a drive letter. Experiment.

During the BartPE boot process, I requested that it set up my Internet connection. That request failed and I had no Internet capability. Internet access isn't necessary to restore files from an external disk backup, but I wanted the Internet access to work anyway. I had to find the exact model of my Broadcom network hardware (which was hard), go to the Broadcom web site, and download the latest drivers for my specific model. Then I followed the PE Builder instructions for adding drivers. On my next test the Internet setup worked.

I tried several potential solutions to get BartPE to see my USB drive. I downloaded and installed the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). I downloaded and installed Paraglider's hardware plug-and-play plugin (HWPnP). I kept adding plugins, rebuilding the PE, and testing the new plugins with my USB disk, but nothing worked.

If you burned a CD, your BartPE test worked, and your external drive was recognized, you're done. If you tested from your hard disk and your external drive was recognized, you need to run PE Builder again and burn a CD. Then you need to make sure you can boot from the CD and use your USB disk.

If like me, your external drive was not seen, then proceed to step 6.

6. Download and install UBCD4Win.

Go to the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows, read the introduction, download the latest version, and install it. Accept the default names and locations. Don't use folder or file names containing spaces. I used UBCD4Win version 3.50.

7. Use UBCD4Win to generate a PE.

Most of the instructions in step 4 above, apply here as well.

8. Boot into the PE and test it.

UBCD4Win has more utility programs and more drivers than BartPE. These additional programs and drivers are what made UBCD4Win work for me, whereas BartPE alone did not work.

Go to Start, Control Panel, Computer Management, Disk Management.

If your USB disk is not shown, try turning the external drive off and back on.

If your USB disk is still not shown, leave that window open and go to Start, System, HWPnP, Install USB Devices. This step made my external drive appear in the Disk Management window. My drive had two partitions. Both partitions showed up in Disk Management, but no drive letters were assigned to the volumes. Right click each volume and select "Change Drive Letter & Paths...." Click Add and then click OK to accept the new drive letter. Do this for every volume on the external drive. Now you should be able to use the USB disk in whatever program needs to see it.

If the above process worked for you, make some notes on the required steps and put them with your UBCD4Win CD so that if you ever need to use it to restore your hard disk, you'll know what to do.

I tested my backup and recovery process successfully. I made two disk images, one using Norton Ghost and one using Macrium Reflect. I booted using my UBCD4Win CD, assigned letters to my external drive's partitions, ran Macrium Reflect, restored the disk image to my hard disk, and rebooted the computer normally. Everything worked fine.

I noticed a bug when I was running the UBCD4Win PE. System information utilities reported that Windows XP SP2 was the operating sytem even though SP3 files had been used to build the PE.

If the steps in this post don't solve your problem, I suggest seeking help at one of the following forums: UBCD4Win Forums or The CD Forum.

I hope this post helped you solve your external drive problem. If you found BartPE and UBCD4Win helpful, please consider donating to those sites so they can continue to help others. Thanks.

[Update, October 26, 2009: I realized I had made the assumption that since the Acronis True Image Linux boot CD didn't recognize my external drive, then other Linux boot CDs also wouldn't recognize the drive. I created the Macrium Reflect Linux rescue CD and tested it. It recognized my USB drive! Amazing. If the external drive was turned on before booting with the CD, the drive was seen. If the computer was booted with the CD before the drive was turned on, then the drive was not seen.

I almost deleted this entire post because the fact that Macrium's rescue CD recognizes my drive makes the use of BartPE and UBCD4Win unnecessary. This post might help other people with their external drive problems, so I'll leave it up.]

Copyright © 2009 by Jon Maloney

Paid Surveys: My Experience

Before 2007 I filled out online surveys whenever I had the chance. There were several benefits. Surveys were fun to fill out, gave me a chance to voice my opinions, and influenced decisions made by companies. In January 2007 I realized I might be able to fill out surveys for those benefits, and get paid too!

I researched many online survey sites and subscribed to several. For the next two years I filled out several surveys a week. I wish I had kept detailed records so that for each survey company I could report statistics including the number of surveys I received, the number I was screened out of, the average time per survey, the average earnings per survey, and more. The only record I kept was a spreadsheet in which I recorded payments I received during a period of about two years. Those totals follow.

American Consumer Opinion  $26.00  (4 surveys)
Brand Institute             $0.00  (0 surveys)
Esearch                    $22.00  (5 surveys)
Global Test Market         $95.35  (many surveys)
Greenfield Online          $16.00  (many surveys)
MySurvey                   $60.00  (many surveys)
Opinion Outpost            $50.60  (many surveys)
Survey Savvy                $3.50  (2 surveys)
Technology Advisory Board   $0.00  (0 surveys)

Total earnings for 2 years  $276.45

Survey Companies

I'll list the companies I joined and make some comments about each one. Since I didn't keep detailed records, these comments are my impressions based on memory. I apologize for any errors.

American Consumer Opinion
This is one of my favorite survey companies. I am still a member. They don't send me many surveys, but I often qualify for the surveys they do send, and they pay well.

Brand Institute
I never qualified for one of their surveys. Their surveys always included a screening question asking if I had participated in any market studies recently. (I don't remember the exact wording or the time period they used.) I assume every survey is a market study, so I always answered yes. I was screened out of every survey.

Esearch
I am still a member of Esearch. They don't send me many surveys. Occasionally I qualify for a survey and they pay me for my time.

Global Test Market
I earned more money from this company than from any other, but I also probably took more of their surveys. They sent me a lot of surveys, sometimes several per day. Overall I decided their surveys took more time than they were worth. I am no longer a member.

Greenfield Online
This company sent me a lot of surveys, sometimes several a day. Often the surveys redirected me to OTX, which wrote surveys that were incompatible with my browser. I am no longer a member.

Harris Poll Online
I didn't list Harris Poll Online above because the points they give you for completing surveys have no monetary value. Harris Poll points work like S&H Green Stamps used to work (for those of you from the US who are old enough to remember). There's a rewards catalogue from which you can choose items to get for your credits. I think Harris Poll Online was the first survey site I joined, many years ago. I am still a member. I don't think I have ever traded in any points.

MySurvey
I am still a member of MySurvey. They send me several surveys a week. The surveys are generally short and usually earn 10 points. Frequently, my answers to a short survey qualify me for a longer survey worth more points. A thousand points is worth $10.00. It takes a lot of surveys to earn $10.

NPD Online Research
I didn't list NPD Online Research above because they pay in points, which cannot be redeemed for cash (or products). The points you earn are only good to buy entries in sweepstakes that are always in progress. I have never won anything. I am still a member.

Opinion Outpost
This company sent me a lot of surveys. I came to resent the way this company wasted my time. I cancelled my membership. Here's what happened the last time I received a survey invitation from Opinion Outpost. (I took notes.) I clicked on the survey link and was given several questions to answer on the first screen. After completing those questions I was given demographic questions to answer, one question per screen. After completing those I was asked a series of questions about health insurance. When I finished answering those questions I received a message saying their quota for the survey had already been filled.

Survey Savvy
This company pays you for referring people to Survey Savvy and for filling out surveys. That sounded good to me. Of course before I recommended them to anyone I wanted to do business with them for awhile to make sure they were worth recommending. In two years I was only able to fill out two surveys for Survey Savvy, worth $3.50. I never recommended the company to anyone. I am no longer a member.

Technology Advisory Board
They sent me very few surveys. I never qualified for one of their surveys.


Recurring Issues

1. Several companies require that you fill out the same classification data at the beginning of every survey. The data includes personal information -- age, gender, income, employment status, number of adults in household, number of children in household, country, state, zip code, and more. The companies should store that data, use it to determine which surveys to send you, and automatically use it in surveys as needed. The data is not secret if you're willing to give it. The question is whether you should have to give it once or over and over.

2. Some surveys have so many screening questions that you think you've almost finished the survey only to reach a screen that tells you you're not eligible for that survey. I found that survey behavior infuriating. It was not uncommon for me to spend 15 minutes answering questions only to then be screened out. Companies should store the screening data about you and not even send you surveys for which you aren't eligible.

3. Some surveys only work in Internet Explorer and don't let you take them in Internet Explorer if you've attempted to take them in another browser first. My default browser was Mozilla 3.72. When I'd click a survey link in an email Mozilla would open and the survey would give an error saying Internet Explorer was required. So I'd copy the link, open Internet Explorer, paste the link into the address bar, and the survey would give me an error saying I had already taken that survey.

4. Surveys crashed way too often. Sometimes surveys got stuck in error loops. Some surveys redirected me to another company conducting the survey. Some of the other companies I remember are BrainJuicer, Nielsen, and OTX, for example. All three of those companies crashed my browser more than once. BrainJuicer locked up my browser so often that I just stopped taking surveys when BrainJuicer was involved.

5. As part of a survey's screening questions, several companies started asking about the topics of surveys I had taken in the past so many weeks or months. There was no way to answer those questions without keeping a list of dates and surveys that I could refer to whenever I received a question about recent surveys. In a given week I might receive surveys about cell phones, automobiles, coffee, hotels, restaurants, grocery shopping, etc, but only pass the screening questions for one or two surveys. Without a record there was no way a week or a month later to know what surveys I had taken.

6. Occasionally a survey would let me make it all the way to the end and then refuse to accept my answers saying the session had timed out.


Copyright © 2009 by Jon Maloney

List of Time-Travel Books

I like stories involving time travel, in spite of time travel's unbelievability. I maintain a list of time-travel novels divided into four groups: I have read, I own but have not read, I want to acquire & read, and I might want to get later. The list reflects my own tastes. It is not intended to be comprehensive. In general, I exclude books for children and teens, books intended to be humorous, and fantasy romances in which someone mysteriously travels into the past and falls in love. Also, the older a book is the less likely I am to include it.

Shown below is my list as it is today. Perhaps it will evoke memories of books you have read or introduce you to books you would like to read. I hope you enjoy the list. The books in bold font are the books I enjoyed the most. A few short stories are included, indicated by quotation marks around the titles. Short story links go to books that include the stories. Please let me know in the comments if you see any errors. Thanks.

Time-Travel Novels (and a few good short stories)

I have Read

1895 The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
1941 Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp
1951 The Weapon Shops of Isher by A. E. Van Vogt
1952 "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury
1957 The Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein
1961 The Big Time by Frtiz Leiber
1962 A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
1962 Worlds of the Imperium by Keith Laumer
1969 Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
1969 Times without Number by John Brunner
1970 Time and Again by Jack Finney
1973 A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle
1973 Time-Jump by John Brunner
1976 The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
1976 Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
1977 Once Upon Another Time by Robert C. Lee
1980 Timescape by Gregory Benford
1981 "The Pusher" by John Varley
1982 No Enemy but Time by Michael Bishop
1983 The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
1986 Replay by Ken Grimwood
1987 "At the Cross-time Jaunters Ball" by Alexander Jablokov
1987 "Forever Yours, Anna" by Kate Wilhelm
1987 "The Forest of Time" by Michael Flynn
1988 Lightning by Dean Koontz
1989 "Great Work of Time" by John Crowley
1989 "The Price of Oranges" by Nancy Kress
1990 "Invaders" by John Kessel
1991 Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
1992 The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
1995 Over the River and Through the Woods by Clifford D. Simak
1995 The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
1995 Time Scout by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans
1997 Einstein's Bridge by John Cramer
1998 Island in the Sea of Time by S. M. Stirling

I Own but have Not Read

1955 The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov
1958 The Time Traders by Andre Norton
1968 Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg
1969 The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
1977 Time Storm by Gordon R. Dickson
1980 Thrice Upon a Time by James P. Hogan
1981 The Many-Colored Land by Julian May
1983 Millennium by John Varley
1991 The Time Patrol by Poul Anderson
1999 Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer
2001 The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson
2007 The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman

I Want

1973 The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
1978 The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser
1985 The Proteus Operation by James P. Hogan
1986 The Cross-Time Engineer by Leo Frankowski
1991 A Bridge of Years by Robert Charles Wilson
1991 Across Realtime by Vernor Vinge
1991 Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper
1998 A Fold in the Tent of the Sky by Michael Hale
2002 Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick
2006 14:40 to Midnight by Shawne Baines
2006 Sojourn by Jana G. Oliver
2006 The Cube Root of Time by Herbert Cohen
2006 The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas
2006 Wireless in the Fabric of Time by E. I. Johnson
2007 Across Time: Mystery of the Great Sphinx by O. J. Harp III

Maybe Later

1938 The Legion of Time by Jack Williamson
1965 The Other Side of Time by Keith Laumer
1968 The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg
1969 Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
1979 Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
1986 A Time to Remember by Stanley Shapiro
1992 The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove
1996 Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card
1997 In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker
1999 Timeline by Michael Crichton
2003 The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
2004 Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham (1 of 3)
2005 Mammoth by John Varley
2006 The Time Travelers by Linda Buckley-Archer (1 of 3)
2007 Wired (Shomi) by Liz Maverick


Copyright © 2009 by Jon Maloney

List of Apocalyptic Books

I have always enjoyed stories of the apocalypse -- before the apocalypse, during the apocalypse, and post apocalypse. The apocalypse may be from war (man against man, machines against man, aliens against man), natural disaster (global warming or cooling, polar shift, flood, storm, plague, drought, earthquake, volcanism), space disaster (comet, nova, meteor, orbital change, solar flares), or experiments gone awry (black hole creation, nanobot replication, genetically-engineered organisms). I enjoy all types of apocalyptic fiction.

I maintain a list of apocalyptic novels divided into four groups: I have read, I own but have not read, I want to acquire & read, and I might want to get later. The list reflects my own tastes. It is not intended to be comprehensive. In general, I exclude books for children and teens, books intended to be humorous, zombie books (although I am including a few samples), and books whose reviews indicate that they are very-poorly written. Also, the older a book is the less likely I am to include it.

Shown below is my list as it is today. Perhaps it will evoke memories of books you have read or introduce you to books you would like to read. I hope you enjoy the list. The books in bold font are the books I enjoyed the most. Please let me know in the comments if you notice any errors. Thanks.

Apocalyptic Novels

I have Read

1898 The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
1901 The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel
1933 When Worlds Collide by Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer
1949 Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
1951 The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
1952 Daybreak - 2250 A.D. by Andre Norton
1957 On the Beach by Nevil Shute
1959 A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
1959 Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
1959 Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald
1960 Dark December by Alfred Coppel
1962 The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard
1965 The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch
1969 Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny
1976 The HAB Theory by Allen W. Eckert
1976 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm
1977 Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
1980 IQ 83 by Arthur Herzog
1981 The Survivalist #1: Total War by Jerry Ahern
1986 O-Zone by Paul Theroux
1986 This is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow
1988 Dark Advent by Brian Hodge
1990 Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand
1993 The Deus Machine by Pierre Ouellette
1995 Blood Crazy by Simon Clark
1995 Distress by Greg Egan
1996 Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
1996 The Third Pandemic by Pierre Ouellette
1997 Einstein's Bridge by John Cramer
1998 The New Madrid Run by Michael Reisig

I Own but have Not Read

1980 After the Fall edited by Robert Sheckley
1999 Moonseed by Stephen Baxter
2006 Plague of the Dead: The Morningstar Strain by Z. A. Recht
2007 Plague Year by Jeff Carlson
2007 The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2008 Infected by Scott Sigler
2008 Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams

I Want

1936 Wild Harbour by Ian MacPherson
1955 The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett
1955 The Year of the Comet by John Christopher
1956 The Death of Grass by John Christopher
1960 The Drought by J. G. Ballard
1962 The World in Winter by John Christopher
1965 A Wrinkle in the Skin by John Christopher
1974 Walk to the End of the World by Suzy McKee Charnas
1976 The Survivors by Terry Nation
1977 Empty World by John Christopher
1979 Down to a Sunless Sea by David Graham
1983 The Burning Book by Maggie Gee
1984 Emergence by David R. Palmer
1985 Blood Music by Greg Bear
1985 Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence
1989 Deus Ex Machina by J. V. Brummels
1998 Moonfall by Jack McDevitt
2003 The Third World War by Humphrey Hawksley
2004 The Long and Winding Road by Jeffrey J. Hoy
2005 Angel Dust Apocalypse by Jeremy Robert Johnson
2005 It's Only Temporary by Eric Shapiro
2005 The Empire of Texas & The Star of India by Rodger Olsen
2006 Burning Stones by Steven Mills
2006 Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse by James Wesley Rawles
2006 Summer of the Apocalypse by James Van Pelt
2007 Last Light by Alex Scarrow
2007 Blackjack by Lee Singer
2008 Contagious by Scott Sigler
2009 One Second After by William R. Forstchen

Maybe Later

1954 I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
1957 The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle
1961 Dark Universe by Daniel F. Galouye
1964 Davy by Edgar Pangborn
1967 Ice by Anna Kavan
1978 The Stand by Stephen King
1980 Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
1984 Warday by Whitley Strieber & James Kunetka
1985 Fiskadoro by Denis Johnson
1985 The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
1987 After the Zap by Michael Armstrong
1987 Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
1987 The Last Ship by William Brinkley
1988 The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
1989 The Folk of the Fringe by Orson Scott Card
1990 A Gift Upon the Shore by M. K. Wren
1994 Vanishing Point by Michaela Roessner
1995 Mother of Storms by John Barnes
1996 The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino & George Zebrowski
1997 The Alien Years by Robert Silverberg
2000 The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya
2003 Clade by Mark Budz
2003 Idlewild by Nick Sagan (Carl’s son)
2003 Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
2004 Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
2004 Earth, the New Frontier by Adam Celaya
2004 The Snow by Adam Roberts
2006 World War Z by Max Brooks
2007 The Book of Dave by Will Self
2007 The Pesthouse by Jim Crace
2008 Flood by Stephen Baxter
2008 Night Work by Thomas Glavinic
2009 The Rapture by Liz Jensen
2009 The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Copyright © 2009 by Jon Maloney

Woman On the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy

SPOILERS WARNING. This post contains spoilers about the book. It is intended for people who have already read the book. If you have not yet read Woman On the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy you probably don't want to read this post.

I found Woman On the Edge of Time to be difficult and unpleasant. I almost stopped reading the book more than once. I don't remember any book I have read to the end, for which I disliked the main character as much as I disliked Connie, the woman in this book. The story is told from Connie's perspective. Most of the first hundred pages consist of Connie's whining and complaining. I am glad I stuck with it though. The book contains many thought-provoking ideas regarding population control, technology, mental illness, the structure of society, death, mental hospitals, ecology, the family, child-rearing, the role of men and women, the future of capitalism, and more. Much could be written regarding the concepts presented, however, my intention here is to describe two possible interpretations of the overall story.
Here's a synopsis of the story on the surface, the story advertised on the book's cover. Connie is unjustly committed to a mental hospital against her will and mistreated there. She visits the future in her mind and witnesses a utopia where people never have to do anything they don't want to do, everyone works together for the good of the community, everyone is open and honest with one another, no one is selfish or greedy, and everything anyone needs is provided for free. She also witnesses an horrific alternative future that she believes is more likely to occur if her doctors' research is allowed to continue. So she murders four of her doctors, sacrificing herself in an attempt to save the utopian future.

In my alternate interpretation, Connie is mentally ill, can't control her violent tendencies, talks with imagined visitors from the future, hallucinates her own visits to the future, and murders four of her doctors. In this interpretation the author uses the tragic tale of an insane woman as a vehicle for espousing her beliefs about society, technology, ecology, etc.

Piercy provides clues to the alternate interpretation and is careful not to invalidate it. The author leaves both interpretations open as possibilities. If Piercy wanted to seal the obvious, superficial interpretation of the story, she would have written an epilogue showing the utopian future flourishing with no war against the evil technological forces. That would have proven the utopian future had an existence outside of Connie's mind and that Connie's murdering the doctors had saved the future. However, if the good future only existed in Connie's head, then no such epilogue would be possible. There's another easy way the obvious interpretation could have been made concrete. Someone else in the present could have seen Luciente or Dawn during their visits to the present. No one did, which supports the interpretation that the visitors only existed in Connie's head.

I loved the ending, which encouraged the story's ambiguity. There were two reasons the ending caused me to reinterpret the story. First, the inclusion of Connie's hospital records at the end forces the reader to view Connie objectively. For the first time the reader sees Connie's case from a perspective other than Connie's, which inspires the reader to review the story from this new, objective perspective. Second, the lack of an epilogue showing the results of Connie's actions in the future, seems significant. Such an epilogue would have been so easy and natural, if Connie's visions had been real. The omission of such an epilogue implies that the author wanted the story to remain ambiguous.

When I mentally reviewed the story, I realized several things I had not realized as I read. If Connie was really insane, then we had an unreliable storyteller. During the first hundred pages I disliked Connie because she was so messed up. I thought she was intensely negative, unstable, extremely self-centered, and expressed abnormal views of right and wrong. I also thought she revealed unhealthy views of the roles of men and women. I noticed all these things as I read, but I never attributed them to Connie's insanity. In retrospect, the aspects of Connie's personality I disliked may have simply been symptoms of her illness.

I had a mentally-ill friend that Connie reminded me of. Like Connie, he enjoyed his hallucinations and delusions. He imagined a world in which he had cured AIDS and in which he had invented a three-dimensional crystalline computer memory so that laptops could contain terrabytes of RAM. The doctors prescribed medications that killed his imaginary world, so, like Connie, he refused to take his medications whenever he could. Also like Connie, his actions slowly and surely alienated his family and friends, until they were no longer willing to go out of their way to help him get out of jails or mental wards. They realized he was probably where he needed to be.

I remember another example supporting the unreliable-storyteller interpretation. At one point a hospital nurse got angry and flippantly ordered an extra sedative injection for everyone on the ward. I don't think that would happen. Hospitals have to keep records, controlled substances are monitored and audited, patients' records show billable medications and therapies (even if the state pays for them), doctors must approve medications... Including such an unbelievable scenario implies that Connie's accounts of events in the hospital may not be accurate. We are forced to reevaluate Connie's story through her insanity rather than as a reliable record of events.

Here's another consideration that bothered me during the story. Insanity is defined and measured by means of numerous psychological tests. Test results are evaluated as being within the normal range or outside the normal range. Prisons are filled with drug abusers, people with multiple assaults on their records, child abusers, and people who committed all the crimes that Connie committed. Doing the things Connie did results in prison time, not a lifetime in a mental hospital. Simply having a brother who says his sister is crazy is not enough to result in prolonged, involuntary hospital commitment. I am a layman, but I believe patients are thoroughly tested and then treated based on their test results. Connie was given a battery of psychological tests, and then kept in the hospital. The obvious conclusion is that her test results indicated she was mentally ill and needed treatment. Otherwise she would have been released, or transferred to a jail to stand trial for assault.

I think the interpretation that Connie is mentally ill and hallucinates the future has enough support to make it a valid interpretation. I also think that Piercy is careful to leave both interpretations open as possibilities. To me, this ambiguity improves the book and gives it more depth.


Copyright © 2009 by Jon Maloney

Why do I get an unwanted new line in this simple HTML?

I have a problem that I haven't been able to figure out. I have hundreds of web pages that include a Google AdSense block followed by an image. The ads and image should appear side by side if the browser window is maximized and if the screen resolution is at least 800x600 pixels. Here's a reduced copy of a sample page that shows how the page should look.



The above image is from Firefox 3.0.8, but the page also displays properly in my old Mozilla 1.7.12 browser. Next is how the sample page looks in Firefox 2.0.0.20, Internet Explorer 6.0.2800.1106 and Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13.



The total width of the ad block plus the picture is less than the screen width of 800 pixels. Plus, the code has the same problem if I use a smaller picture or if I increase the screen resolution to 1024x768. So it's not a wraparound problem related to width.

The code is very simple HTML as follows.

<p align=center>

[javascript Google AdSense code]

<img src="brp-sunset.jpg" alt="Picture of a sunset from the Blue Ridge Parkway"></p>

There is no <br> nor paragraph change between the ad code and the image, so why does it start a new line?

Here's a link to the actual page on the Internet:
http://www.jdmpics.com/trails/hiking-trails.htm

Thanks to anyone who can explain this and tell me an easy way to fix it. I could rewrite the code with a table or something and force it to not go to a new line, but like I said I have hundreds of pages so the simplest solution is what I'm looking for.