Book Review: Eragon & Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Very good. Can't wait for the last book in the series.
Very good. Can't wait for the last book in the series.
Still good even 13 years later. I thought it would feel dated, given the whole dot com bubble, and all the changes, but it still feels fresh and relevant.
If you're just about to start Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and it has been a while since you read the first six books, then you may appreciate a review of the story so far. And while we don't have a "Story So Far' book by J.K. Rowling, we do have the next best thing: the Harry Potter Summary on WikiSummaries. Just scroll down carefully so you don't accidentally read the summary of the seventh book!
I've been pondering how technology impacts the culture inside in a corporation, such as HP. While I was in my Sustainable Business MBA program, I wondered if technology could create a set of systems conditions that would foster a bias towards a more democratic and participative workplace, and that that bias would then shape a company to become more environmentally and socially responsible.
I'm still pondering that question. It seems clear that outside the corporation, Web 2.0 is having a cultural impact that is biasing our culture as whole towards greater transparency and participation. And in parallel with that, we see that corporations are increasingly adopting environmental and social responsibility as part of their corporate strategy. But what's happening inside the corporation?
I don't have the answer to that yet, but I did give myself my own reading list as a sort of self-created study at home class. Here's my list:
I've previously written about Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent science fiction novels that incorporate environmental themes. Well his latest novel, Sixty Days and Counting, is absolutely outstanding. In it, he continues the story started in Forty Days of Rain and Fifty Degrees Below about abrupt climate change. But in Sixty Days, we move beyond the abrupt climate change event itself and into the realm of political and cultural change, technical solutions and global environmental mitigation.
This is a book that is entirely about creating a positive future vision. It's about imaging what is possible if we were all working together really address the social and environmental crisis all around us. Having been interested in, and actively studying environmental issues for about ten years, and having studied sustainable business practices in the MBA program at Bainbridge Graduate Institute, I have a respect for the complexity of environmental and social issues: it's usually not as simple as banning this or that, or engaging in confrontations with big corporations. We can't, for example, look at logging as solely an environmental issue when it is also an issue of wasteful business practices, personal choice, and worker's jobs.
It feels as though Kim Stanley Robinson has been reading all the same books I have, been in the same book groups, taken the same sustainable business MBA classes, studied systems thinking extensively. Sixty Days and counting seems to tackle so much - so many issues, the political aspect, the business aspect, the cultural impacts, local impacts, global impacts. It's hard to imagine what someone would make of this book who didn't have the same background. It is even possible to grasp all the incredible concepts on this book? Reading the reviews on Amazon, people definitely do have strong opinions on the book.
Some of my favorite parts of the book are U.S. President Phil Chase's blog posts. Here's one long example, from page 361:
I think for a while we forgot what was possible. Our way of life damaged our ability to imagine anything different. Maybe we are rarely good at imaging that things could be different. Maybe that's what we mean when we talk about the Enlightenment. For a while there we understood that the ultimate source of power is the imagination."Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into the service of
economic royalists. It was natural and perhaps human that the priviledges princes of these new economic dynastics, thirsting for power, reached out for control of government itself. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happines. Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could only appeal to the organized power of the Government."That was Franklin Roosevelt, talking as president to the nation 1936. In the same speech he said, "There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."
But then we forgot again. We went back to imagining that things could only be as they were. We lived on in that strange new feudalism, in ways that were unjust and destructive and yet were presented as the only possible reality. We said "people are like that," or "human nature will never change" or "we are all guilty of original sin," or this is democracy, this is the free market, this is reality itself." And we went along with that analysis, and it became the law of the land. The entire world was legally bound to accept this feudal injustice as law. It was global and so it looked like it was universal. The future itself was bought, in the form of debts, mortgages, contracts - all spelled out by law and enforced by police and armies. Alternatives were unthinkable. Even to say that things could be otherwise would get you immediately branded as unrealistic, foolish, naive, insane, utopian.
But that was all delusion. Every few years things change completely, even though we can't quite remember how it happend or what it means. Change is real and unavoidable. And we can organization our affairs any way we please. There is no physical restraint on us. We are free to act. It's a fearsome thing, this freedom, so much so that people talk about a "flight from freedom" - that we fly into cages and hide because freedom is so profound it's a kind of abyss. To actually choose in each moment how to live is too scary to ensure.
So we lived like sleepwalkers. But the world is not asleep, and outside our dream, things continued to change. Trying to shape that change is not a bad thing. Some present that making a plan is instant communism and the devil's work, but it isn't so. We always have a plan. Free market economics is a plan-it plans to give over all decisions to the blind hand of the market. But the blind hand never picks up the check. And, you know-it's blind. To deal with the global environmental crisis now without making any more plan than to trust the market would be like saving, We have to solve this problem so first let's put out our eyes. Why? Why not use our eyes? Why not use our brain?
Because we're going to have to imagine our way out of this one.
This morning I discovered Communication Nation, a blog on communication, by XPLANE:
Communication is one of the most important skills anyone can have, in business and in life. As individuals and as a species, I believe we will be happier and more productive if we can improve our ability to communicate. This blog is dedicated to that effort. Join the conversation!
That got me thinking about some of the more significant influences on my own thinking about communication and information design. In roughly reverse chronological order:
I saw that MIT Press has made their book Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software available online for free download.
I thought there were some interesting chapters:
Today I put Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language in my "sell to Powell's/Goodwill" pile. I've held onto it for years and years, unable and unwilling to let it go. But when will I ever program in C again?
The fun science essays in this book are picked by Atul Gawande on the basis of "cool". I certainly found the essays fun to read, and in fact had read a few over the course of the last year, such as Michael Chorost's Wired magazine article on his quest to upgrade his "bionic ear" to hear Ravel's Boléro with the same clarity it held before he went deaf.
I've been reading several of Neal Asher's Polity books. I've found that Neal Asher has an incredible ability to imagine and construct entire alien ecosystems that are far outside the bounds of what most writers tackle.
The first book, Gridlinked, is more or less standard Sci-Fi space society fare, but still quite enjoyable. Amazon's editorial review says: "Gridlinked is a science fiction adventure in the classic, fast-paced, action-packed tradition of Harry Harrison and Poul Anderson, with a dash of cyberpunk and a splash of Ian Fleming added to spice the mix. Cormac is a legendary Earth Central Security agent, the James Bond of a wealthy future where "runcibles" (matter transmitters controlled by AIs) allow interstellar travel in an eye blink throughout the settled worlds of the Polity."
But I think Neal Asher really takes off with The Skinner. David Richman writes on Amazon: "As a biologist who likes a good tale of strange planets and creatures, I was quite pleased to find this riveting tale. The book has something for every sci fi fan- a strange world with oceans full of weird predators (not totally unlike our own, but perhaps a bit more dangerous!), alien minds controlling or communicating with humans and machines, galactic conspiracies, viruses that cause infected organisms to be more resistant to injury, a cast of characters with their own secrets, and nearly indestructible sea captains who are the survivors from a human slave industry based on a war between quite different galactic civilizations."
And in Cowl, Asher does for time travel what he did for biology and for space society in the previous two books.
All in all, Neal Asher provides an imaginative treat in every book, wrapped up in a good story.
I've greatly enjoyed the John Rain series by Barry Eisler. This thriller series, about a Japan American contract killer with a conscience, has excellent pacing, and a vivid atmosphere for each of the settings (especially Tokyo). Jane Adam writes (via Amazon.com): "the author manages an unlikely feat; he earns the reader's sympathy and concern for his protagonist, an amoral assassin who is one of most compelling characters in recent crime fiction".
One of my criteria for most series is that each book should stand on its own as a complete story. The John Rain series definitely meets that criteria: each book is a complete and enjoyable story that stands on its own.
Here is the series in order.
I just finished reading The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil. I’ve already posted twice (parallel processing, timing of singularity) about the book, so clearly it is a thought provoking book. There has been some controversy of the risks and benefits, and I especially liked Bill Joy’s back cover comments about the book:
“Ray’s optimistic book well merits both reading and thoughtful response. For those like myself whose views differ from Ray’s on the blanace of promise and peril, The Singurity is Near is a clear call for a continuing dialogue to address the greater concerns arising from these accelerating possibilities”.
For those of you that don’t know, this book explores the idea that exponential growth in computing power will lead to artificial intelligence equal to human intelligence somewhere around 2020 to 2030. And because artificial intelligence is on an exponential growth curve, within a short period of time (ten to twenty years), artificial intelligence will vastly exceed human intelligence.
From this, there are all sorts of related impacts, such as accelerating progress in nanotechnology and genetic manipulation. I think the first half of the book is great fun, but it really starts to drag around the second half as Ray spends huge quantities of pages on extremely esoteric and meaningless exploration of the theoretical limits of computational power in rocks, the solar system and the galaxy and spends countless pages exploring how our civilization will expand our computing power at the speed of light. Sure, it could be interesting to spend ten or twenty pages exploring these way-out concepts, but Ray spends hundreds of pages on these topics towards the end of the book. He also repeats the same concepts dozens or hundreds of times towards the end of the book.
But don’t let that negative criticism keep you away. If you read only the first two chapters, it will be worthwhile, and an exciting, mind-blowing ride.
This book combines both anecdotal and experimental evidence making the case for telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance. It does give some pretty compelling evidence, and in many cases, presents good summaries of the extensive research done into these areas.
Here is an example of one amazing experiment to test the question of how dogs know when their owner is coming home. Is it based on seeing their owner? Here's their owners car/bus/train? Based on an accurate sense of the time of day? Here's how the experiment was constructed: A videocamera covered the area were the dogs normally waited for their owners. The owners carried a pager, and at a random time during the day were paged and instructed to come home immediately. So the experimental question: at what point do the dogs start spending a statistically significant greater amount of time in the place where they wait for their owner? The answer: immediately following the point at which the owner receives the pager notification and plans to come home. The conclusion: The experiment appears to indicate that dogs know their owners are coming home at the moment that their owners have the intention of coming home, way before there could be any physical evidence of their arrival.
Here is another amazing experiment that comes to mind: When subjects are trained to record their dreams immediately on awakening. While some dreams are fluff, many dreams refer to real-world events. About 50% refer to things that have happened in the past 48 hours, while about 50% refer to things that will happen in the NEXT 48 hours. Wow!
From a literary perspective, the book is OK, but I found myself speeding past certain sections. I'd rank it as a 3 out of 5 for writing, but 4 out of 5 for pure amazing of content.
The Sense of Being Stared At: And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind by Rupert Sheldrake: Buy at Amazon or Place hold at Multnomah County Library
Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained are part one and part two of a single story. And what a story it is.
Richard Morgan, writing about Judas Unchained says, "flat-out huge widescreen all-engine-at-full I-dare-you-not-to-believe-it space operate", and I have to agree. Without a doubt, this is the most thrilling humans-meet-aliens book I've read. Though your head may be reeling from the massive list of characters mid-way through the first book, by the end of the first book and throughout the second you'll really be hitting your stride as you are fully immersed in the Commonwealth's universe. The story is audacious in scope and storyline.
I wrote earlier about Pandora's Star: "Great sci-fi novel set in future mankind space exploration and settlement age using “wormholes” that allow instantaneous travel between two places. The story encompasses an encounter with a “Dyson’s Pair” of stars that are suddenly cut off from the universe. Who did it, and why?" I won't say more, because there is a great deal of suspense in the book about what will happen next. After rereading my notes about Pandora's Star, I realized I gave that book a "4 out of 5" rating. But Judas Unchained definitely rates a "5 out of 5" (maybe even 5.5 out of 5) rating.
Pandora's Star: Buy at Amazon or Place hold at Multnomah County Library
Judas Unchained: Buy at Amazon or Place hold at Multnomah County Library
I recently read Hungry Planet after waiting for three months (!!) on the library wait list. It's a very popular book, and with good reason. A collaboration between photographer Peter Menzel and writer Faith D'Alusio, this book profiles the eating habits of thirty families from around the globe. The centerpiece of the book, if you will, are photographs of each family surrounded by exactly one weeks worth of their groceries. These are amazing photographs, and the book is worth getting for the photographs and captions alone. I loved reading about families from Greenland, Bhutan, China, Okinawa, Cuba, and their wildly divergent culinary experiences. 4 out of 5. Buy at Amazon or Place hold at Multnomah County Library
One bookshelf in my office is the one I think of as "The Way the World Really Works". This is a collection of books that exposed me to radically different thinking than anything I had seen in traditional education or traditional media. I think of these books as correcting some knowledge deficiency or inadequacy that exists in most of us in western culture.
Several years ago I converted from primarily doing annual vegetable gardening to primary doing perennial fruit gardening. I love on a 50x100 city lot, so I want to figure out how to make best use of my lot. We grow blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, kiwi, figs, apples, and pears. A few years have gone on since we initially planted and I was looking for some resources on pruning and how to make best use of the space we have.
Two books from Stella Otto looked interesting and were ranked highly on Amazon.com, so I borrowed them from the library. (Sorry Amazon!)
Continue reading "Book Review: The BackYard Berry Book and The BackYard Orchardist by Stella Otto" »
I recently read two books by Joan D. Vinge: Psion and Catspaw. Each of these standalone science fiction books involved the same central character: A man of dubious beginnings that turns out to have powerful telepathic abilities, and get enmeshed in the politics and scheming of interstellar of corporations and the Federation government. Psion is perhaps the weaker book (3 out of 5), compared to Catspaw (4 out of 5). I happened to read Psion after Catspaw, even though it is chronologically earlier, so you may just skip Psion if you have high standards. I'm looking forward to reading Dreamfall, which is the third book with this character.
Psion: Buy at Amazon or Place hold at Multnomah County Library.
Catspaw: Buy at Amazon or Place hold at Multnomah County Library.
Fire by George R. Stewart. This is a very good novel about a California forest fire that follows the fire from “birth” through “death”, telling the story of those who fight it. It’s very well written: George R. Stewart was a prominent professor of literature. It was written in 1948, and although the male and female roles are very typical for that time, it is otherwise a fairly timeless novel. It is also a great insight into the mindset of firefighting as the dominate approach to managing forests, and so it has an important historical perspective from that aspect. It was wonderful to get this book from the public library and have what appeared to be an original 1948 copy . 4 out of 5. Buy at Amazon or Place hold at Multnomah County Library
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. This is a great science fiction novel about a man who survives a plague that kills off 99.999% of the population, and who leads a tribe of people to rebuild society. Great novel, very immersive. Single book, moderate length. It was written in 1949, but nothing in the book dates it - it wasn't until I was finished and happen to glance at the copyright notice that I discovered it was written 56 years ago. 5 out of 5. Buy at Amazon or Place hold at Multnomah County Library.