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lkedzie's reviews
318 reviews
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
It's like the Anishinaabe Parable of the Sower.
Soft collapse book about an indigenous community in central Canada. The writing is plain, but the characterization is good and the plot effective..for a while at least. It is the most stereotypical thing for a white guy critic to complain about the white guy's portrayal in a book by a non-white author, but I am not complaining about the racism - wait, that came out wrong - I am not complaining about the characterization of the racism, which seems spot on to me, but in terms of storytelling, it drains all the dramatic tension. Then again, the twist at the end of the storyputs the whole thing into a the field of fable, and on that kind of account it works: the antagonist is a clownish, storybook villain because this is a mythological field . So maybe? But even if that, it runs in opposition to the quality of the rest of the earlier books grounding.
Then there are the real oddities. One section of the book takes us within range of Rorschach's "no" speech from Watchmen, putting this book in accord with right wing pulp versions of this topic. There was some casual ablism that I disliked (the approach to some of the deaths), and the ending is a bit mystifying. It feels like a rejection of community, in a micro and macro sense, and my suspension of disbelief-o-meter is strained under the logistics (we avoid the invaders by becoming invaders? ), even as I get the meaning of the message that is there.
The damn with faint praise here is I can see this working as a screenplay for TV or movies. The spareness would make it easy to film, and there is much that could be communicated visually more effectively than is deployed in a written version. And in general, while I can (and have) nitpicked at it, there is something good here, I just am unsure that it is framed up correctly.
Soft collapse book about an indigenous community in central Canada. The writing is plain, but the characterization is good and the plot effective..for a while at least. It is the most stereotypical thing for a white guy critic to complain about the white guy's portrayal in a book by a non-white author, but I am not complaining about the racism - wait, that came out wrong - I am not complaining about the characterization of the racism, which seems spot on to me, but in terms of storytelling, it drains all the dramatic tension. Then again, the twist at the end of the story
Then there are the real oddities. One section of the book takes us within range of Rorschach's "no" speech from Watchmen, putting this book in accord with right wing pulp versions of this topic. There was some casual ablism that I disliked (the approach to some of the deaths), and the ending is a bit mystifying. It feels like a rejection of community, in a micro and macro sense, and my suspension of disbelief-o-meter is strained under the logistics (
The damn with faint praise here is I can see this working as a screenplay for TV or movies. The spareness would make it easy to film, and there is much that could be communicated visually more effectively than is deployed in a written version. And in general, while I can (and have) nitpicked at it, there is something good here, I just am unsure that it is framed up correctly.
Like: A History of the World's Most Hated (and Misunderstood) Word by Megan C. Reynolds
funny
fast-paced
3.75
It's like Candice Bushnell's The Anatomy of Melancholy.
The book is about the word "like," specifically in its form of a filler word. It is about filler words in general, but the book unmakes filler words as filler words in its analysis of the different connotations and shades of like in usage.
The book is concerned with gender, as the critiques of the use of the word like often have a gendered component, but also in politics, as critiques often have a political component, albeit a second order one. The paradox is that the most frequently critiqued for using the word like, young women, are also the engineers of linguistic meaning, setting the tone (literally, sometimes) for conversation throughout a culture.
My disappointment here is that the scope is limited to the usage of like as a filler. Like is a rich word for usage, including the term for romantic attraction and as the fundament on which all social media springs. The exception that proves the rule here is discussing earlier usages of the word like: the prior moral panics over agrammatical usage of like, which are now used today without blush from purists.
It is not academic, but it does not profess to be. It is a quick read, but dense in is areas of coverage. I liked it; while not novel, it provides a good grounding.
But...so...like...okay, so at one point, the book starts in on Marisa Tomei's Academy Award winning performance as Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny. And while you should never explain the joke, the book explains the joke and how the joke works, which essentially mirrors much about the word like in its divergence between the content of speech and the verbal tics of speech. We should always be glad to explore anything about the exquisite piece cinema that is My Cousin Vinny. But this exploration highlights the metafictional turn, as the structure of the book operates in the form of the rebuttal to the complaint about the use of the word like.
This book is impossible to review, not because it is impossible to review, but because it is impossible to review. The acerbic critic in me would toss off how if the blog parts were left out, this would be term paper length, but that is wrong, not because it is wrong, but because it is wrong. The diversions are multiplicative, not subtractive. Often insightful, they are often not insightful for their connections to the specific material in the text but to the mise-en-scène of the book, literally so in terms of the structure of the writing on the page, but equally figuratively, or whatever writerly word you want to use to reflect that concept in written form. The text itself is an extended like. It is filler, but not in a way that would improve the sentiment by its removal. It works, not always, but often enough, and I ran out of proverbial tabs for the bits of sidelong insight that function wholly apart from but necessarily within the context of the thesis. Additionally, or alongside, or on top of, I will have zero surprise if the reviews skew based on the reviewer's age. The writing here has a generational architecture. You may feel put off by it but for some of us, but for me, this is cozy, so it may be that it is too similar to my own internality to function out of deep critical conserve, but this is a feature not a bug, and the sort of cool thing that words can do, all of which, again, works to reflect the light of the core, an inverted disco ball, the summary of madness, a roller coaster of a book. I like it.
My thanks to the author, Megan C. Reynolds, for writing the book and to the publisher, HarperOne, for making the ARC available to me.
The book is about the word "like," specifically in its form of a filler word. It is about filler words in general, but the book unmakes filler words as filler words in its analysis of the different connotations and shades of like in usage.
The book is concerned with gender, as the critiques of the use of the word like often have a gendered component, but also in politics, as critiques often have a political component, albeit a second order one. The paradox is that the most frequently critiqued for using the word like, young women, are also the engineers of linguistic meaning, setting the tone (literally, sometimes) for conversation throughout a culture.
My disappointment here is that the scope is limited to the usage of like as a filler. Like is a rich word for usage, including the term for romantic attraction and as the fundament on which all social media springs. The exception that proves the rule here is discussing earlier usages of the word like: the prior moral panics over agrammatical usage of like, which are now used today without blush from purists.
It is not academic, but it does not profess to be. It is a quick read, but dense in is areas of coverage. I liked it; while not novel, it provides a good grounding.
But...so...like...okay, so at one point, the book starts in on Marisa Tomei's Academy Award winning performance as Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny. And while you should never explain the joke, the book explains the joke and how the joke works, which essentially mirrors much about the word like in its divergence between the content of speech and the verbal tics of speech. We should always be glad to explore anything about the exquisite piece cinema that is My Cousin Vinny. But this exploration highlights the metafictional turn, as the structure of the book operates in the form of the rebuttal to the complaint about the use of the word like.
This book is impossible to review, not because it is impossible to review, but because it is impossible to review. The acerbic critic in me would toss off how if the blog parts were left out, this would be term paper length, but that is wrong, not because it is wrong, but because it is wrong. The diversions are multiplicative, not subtractive. Often insightful, they are often not insightful for their connections to the specific material in the text but to the mise-en-scène of the book, literally so in terms of the structure of the writing on the page, but equally figuratively, or whatever writerly word you want to use to reflect that concept in written form. The text itself is an extended like. It is filler, but not in a way that would improve the sentiment by its removal. It works, not always, but often enough, and I ran out of proverbial tabs for the bits of sidelong insight that function wholly apart from but necessarily within the context of the thesis. Additionally, or alongside, or on top of, I will have zero surprise if the reviews skew based on the reviewer's age. The writing here has a generational architecture. You may feel put off by it but for some of us, but for me, this is cozy, so it may be that it is too similar to my own internality to function out of deep critical conserve, but this is a feature not a bug, and the sort of cool thing that words can do, all of which, again, works to reflect the light of the core, an inverted disco ball, the summary of madness, a roller coaster of a book. I like it.
My thanks to the author, Megan C. Reynolds, for writing the book and to the publisher, HarperOne, for making the ARC available to me.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The Thing as a romantic comedy.
It is your usual girl meets girl, except girl is monster, and the real monsters are the humans, except thatthey are also monsters , skewing into Space Whale Aesop territory. And did no one think about the Unfortunate Implication that the protagonist and love interest are sisters, with the same mother and the same father but in different ways ? I guess that skews from porntastic territory due tothe one being asexual and the other being a parasitoid .
Anyway, it gets billed as horror-romance but it is strictly romance, just with more organ-shuffling. Which, yes, there is a lot of in romance, but no, not like that. It is not a criticism, mind you, but I could see some great unhappiness coming out of someone going into this and expecting something different. The plot is paper thin and utterly adorable. It moves along at a spry pace and is just right in terms of length.
There is a lot of comedy, but it is only one joke. The author was aiming for The Murderbot Diaries but twee. It lands in Autism played for laughs. This got old after the first section, but as relegated to quirky observations and one-liner non-sequiturs, it can be easily put to the side.
A disposable take on a banger of a concept - someone rewrite this as only horror, please - with writing good enough to carry it.
It is your usual girl meets girl, except girl is monster, and the real monsters are the humans, except that
Anyway, it gets billed as horror-romance but it is strictly romance, just with more organ-shuffling. Which, yes, there is a lot of in romance, but no, not like that. It is not a criticism, mind you, but I could see some great unhappiness coming out of someone going into this and expecting something different. The plot is paper thin and utterly adorable. It moves along at a spry pace and is just right in terms of length.
There is a lot of comedy, but it is only one joke. The author was aiming for The Murderbot Diaries but twee. It lands in Autism played for laughs. This got old after the first section, but as relegated to quirky observations and one-liner non-sequiturs, it can be easily put to the side.
A disposable take on a banger of a concept - someone rewrite this as only horror, please - with writing good enough to carry it.
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
It's like what if (early) Heinlein tried to write like Murakami, who was trying to write like Dickens.
More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity by ADAM. BECKER
This is a beautiful mess of a book. It is a critique, really a polemic, of Silicon Valley. Yet it is not limited to Silicon Valley in any scope. It uses individuals, usually those associated with Silicon Valley, as a way to focus its discussion.
It is about Futurism, but not in general, and not exclusive. It is about an ethos, associated with Silicon Valley and the wealthiest of its cohort. This ideology always has some relationship with Futurism. It often has a relationship with Rationalism. Dropped into a closing footnote is TESCREAL, standing for “Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singulatarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism” a cluster that frustrates my computer’s spell checker in its and per the author, is more of a ‘yo dawg, I heard you liked jargon’ ism-orgy. Maybe sum it up as ‘Why the Rich are Wrong."
The chapters are grouped by concept. Largely about potential futures, such as extra-planetary (or -solar) exploitation, General AI, and Existential AI risk, they also include chapters on things like Rationalism or Effective Altruism. It describes each, usually using one of its figures as a framing device, then brings in the critics to elaborate on the feet of clay each has.
The journalistic qualities here are unimpeachable. The author does the work that so few have, in finding credentialed responses or knowledgeable complaints. Most writers on these subjects perform more of a Naked Emperor act, frequently with an exhortation to touch grass. This book takes them seriously as a threat, and finds people who are capable to engage them: think “here is why the math is wrong.” This is invaluable. It does the work that allows you, dear reader, to do the same and talk to someone who holds one or many of these beliefs and provide a substantive argument.
The author manages to include interviews with many of the figures here. These are impressive, not takedowns or gotchas, but doing what a good interview should do in allowing someone to present a reasoned articulation of their ideas, while providing what the reader needs to vet those ideas. It is too bad that more of the people did not accept an interview request as all the people interviewed come off better than they appear from the facts, maybe still wrong but still reasonable.
I do not feel bad about burying the lede here as the book itself does it, but the thesis is that the futurism of contemporary silicon valley is evil. The surprise is always racism: eugenics, specifically. The philosophy amounts to the idea that colonialism is great, but real colonialism has never been tried.
(The funny aside is that, <a href="https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/57e1279f-bafc-499f-aca1-b6784bfd1b8c">Character Limit</a> established that Musk has one plan. He used it in Twitter and is using it as Czar. But the “One Plan” is not limited to Musk, as others like Andreessen share it. Not the having one plan, and not that one plan being something that would make the Elders of Zion blush but dressed up all capitalisty. They all have the same plan. They all want to be the same sort of global government. I feel that the only reason why the whole tech sector does not realize it is one massive Molotov-Ribbentrop scenario is how under-reported some of this is.)
There are two problems. The first is that the book is inconsistent in its evisceration from a structural sense. It feels more like a reference book than an consistent take, as different topics get different degrees of scrutiny, most notably the ones with too much rather than too little.
I feel like I overuse the 'if you are like me, you will love this book' formula, so let me be precise. This book fills a need. It is <a href="https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f91d22b2-8d41-4716-b26b-917dca66e337">not unique</a> in doing so, but it is rare. If you want a detailed exploration of the contrary position to contemporary futurism, this is ideal. It is clear to read and well-sourced investigation. As an introduction it is scattershot; as a manifesto its call to action needs developing, and as a persuasive text it will not change hearts and minds. It is still cool and readable.
My thanks to the author, Adam Becker, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Basic Books, for making the ARC available to me.
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
The future, contra Graves and Riding, is what it used to be. And that is a bad thing.
This is a beautiful mess of a book. It is a critique, really a polemic, of Silicon Valley. Yet it is not limited to Silicon Valley in any scope. It uses individuals, usually those associated with Silicon Valley, as a way to focus its discussion.
It is about Futurism, but not in general, and not exclusive. It is about an ethos, associated with Silicon Valley and the wealthiest of its cohort. This ideology always has some relationship with Futurism. It often has a relationship with Rationalism. Dropped into a closing footnote is TESCREAL, standing for “Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singulatarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism” a cluster that frustrates my computer’s spell checker in its and per the author, is more of a ‘yo dawg, I heard you liked jargon’ ism-orgy. Maybe sum it up as ‘Why the Rich are Wrong."
The chapters are grouped by concept. Largely about potential futures, such as extra-planetary (or -solar) exploitation, General AI, and Existential AI risk, they also include chapters on things like Rationalism or Effective Altruism. It describes each, usually using one of its figures as a framing device, then brings in the critics to elaborate on the feet of clay each has.
The book is a great example of where the last chapter ought to have been the first. The introduction and first few chapters come off as a series of independent essays. Patterns arise, and are paid off in the conclusion, where the author talks about those patterns.
The journalistic qualities here are unimpeachable. The author does the work that so few have, in finding credentialed responses or knowledgeable complaints. Most writers on these subjects perform more of a Naked Emperor act, frequently with an exhortation to touch grass. This book takes them seriously as a threat, and finds people who are capable to engage them: think “here is why the math is wrong.” This is invaluable. It does the work that allows you, dear reader, to do the same and talk to someone who holds one or many of these beliefs and provide a substantive argument.
The author manages to include interviews with many of the figures here. These are impressive, not takedowns or gotchas, but doing what a good interview should do in allowing someone to present a reasoned articulation of their ideas, while providing what the reader needs to vet those ideas. It is too bad that more of the people did not accept an interview request as all the people interviewed come off better than they appear from the facts, maybe still wrong but still reasonable.
I do not feel bad about burying the lede here as the book itself does it, but the thesis is that the futurism of contemporary silicon valley is evil. The surprise is always racism: eugenics, specifically. The philosophy amounts to the idea that colonialism is great, but real colonialism has never been tried.
It is extreme to write it that plainly. It is not. The bigotry and old-timey wrongness here is not hidden in dog whistles. It is not merely that the originators of the ideas were wrong, but now we can separate the good parts from the bad. Rather, the book has the receipts. The number of shocking quotes from public figures will leave you irate at the U.S. media. Not since <a href="https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/10bbee57-d606-44e0-b3a1-6ffa3f4596fe">Postman</a> have I been upset in this way.
(The funny aside is that, <a href="https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/57e1279f-bafc-499f-aca1-b6784bfd1b8c">Character Limit</a> established that Musk has one plan. He used it in Twitter and is using it as Czar. But the “One Plan” is not limited to Musk, as others like Andreessen share it. Not the having one plan, and not that one plan being something that would make the Elders of Zion blush but dressed up all capitalisty. They all have the same plan. They all want to be the same sort of global government. I feel that the only reason why the whole tech sector does not realize it is one massive Molotov-Ribbentrop scenario is how under-reported some of this is.)
There are two problems. The first is that the book is inconsistent in its evisceration from a structural sense. It feels more like a reference book than an consistent take, as different topics get different degrees of scrutiny, most notably the ones with too much rather than too little.
The second is a few bad arguments on the part of the author. I am omitting them from the review. It is a polemic, and should be read in that spirit as someone out to make a point (but I will probably blog on them and link that here). The one one that I must mention is, comparable to the "poetically true" of <a href="https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/5f9a59f2-e4fb-4d89-8e11-e3ca70b290e2">the previous book</a> is when the author has a ‘just [expletive] Google it moment. I mean, I understand that they are not here to educate me OH WAIT THEY ARE THIS IS A NON-FICTION BOOK I PICKED UP TO DO JUST THAT. Worse, the underlying assertion is, as far as I understand, “aggressively technically correct.” It is right, but through reductive phrasing. It would have been better as a citation to someone else.
I feel like I overuse the 'if you are like me, you will love this book' formula, so let me be precise. This book fills a need. It is <a href="https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f91d22b2-8d41-4716-b26b-917dca66e337">not unique</a> in doing so, but it is rare. If you want a detailed exploration of the contrary position to contemporary futurism, this is ideal. It is clear to read and well-sourced investigation. As an introduction it is scattershot; as a manifesto its call to action needs developing, and as a persuasive text it will not change hearts and minds. It is still cool and readable.
My thanks to the author, Adam Becker, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Basic Books, for making the ARC available to me.
Threads of Empire by Dorothy Armstrong
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
As an aficionado of 'A History of X in Y Z's' - A History of Venezuela in 5 Candelabras, A History of Finance in 9 Libraries; A History of Distilling in 12 Steps - this book stands out.
First, it puts as much emphasis on the artifact as the process. It is about who made the carpets and how. This looks at people ignored in Horses and Trumpets history, but also includes them when relevant. Mostly, it cuts through lies and marketing. One of the features of Orientalism remains that what was hated was also what was desired, and so the contortions around understanding the meaning and provenance of different carpets was (and is) a significant effort, even if innocent.
Second, it is not a global history as much as an imperial history. This is what I suspect will draw the most flak to the book. It is not 'the world' as it is strictly Eurasian in scope. But it is always Eurasian, reaching Japan at one point, as the carpet is the product of a small group of cultures amidst East and West that acquired its cache through export to East and West, but also between East and West. You could take the carpet out of this history. It would be weird, but it would still be a great survey on empires. But with a focus on this one trade good, we get concrete examples of the complexity of empire, as different powers trade, plunder, and destroy carpets. And complexity is the key there. No empire stands alone, and they are always in contact and conversation. All uses of imperial power are abuses, but some are more benign than others. Thus, someone is going to be upset about "world" not being global and about textiles elsewhere, and someone is going to be upset about a contemporary take on imperialism that challenges its charm and its color. Whatever. If you are like me, this is how you wish it was taught. Presumably you can hit up the bibliography if you want something different.
Third, it is never linear. There is some chronology, but the story here of each of the objects requires linear study. Each chapter throws us back to the beginning, learning about something new or a facet that was mentioned previously but not explored. This is where the material history is allowed to shine. Each chapter has the feeling of a favorite short story where you find more things in it each reading. There is only one chapter where this fails, and that has to do with the narrative being too much of its own story to fit within the confines of the frame. The point is not a singular line of history but several that work through comparison, with different facts and themes reinforcing the other chapters.
Fourth, the carpet itself is a compelling thing to focus on. It is the perfect sort of item for a material history in its odd status as a bifurcated object. Even unto today it exists as something of both high art and of low culture, its function and beauty linked in a manner that I cannot say about a lot of other goods. So we have a sort of intuitive grasp of them as a thing, which the author only goes to emphasize in providing that initial sense of context of each of the carpets. (In other words, I too would be devastated to learn it was not a dowry.)
Overall, a stellar read. Other than being extremely informative. It clarifies lots of errant wrongness in conventional wisdom without being iconoclastic or confrontational. It presents history as a consistent interaction of cultures. And it is specialized enough of a field that the scholars and others involved feel more like characters in fiction, since the same ones reappear and we get to see them develop in different ways. And all of this without any slack in the value as scholarship.
My thanks to the author, Dorothy Armstrong, for writing the book, and to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for making the ARC available to me.
First, it puts as much emphasis on the artifact as the process. It is about who made the carpets and how. This looks at people ignored in Horses and Trumpets history, but also includes them when relevant. Mostly, it cuts through lies and marketing. One of the features of Orientalism remains that what was hated was also what was desired, and so the contortions around understanding the meaning and provenance of different carpets was (and is) a significant effort, even if innocent.
Second, it is not a global history as much as an imperial history. This is what I suspect will draw the most flak to the book. It is not 'the world' as it is strictly Eurasian in scope. But it is always Eurasian, reaching Japan at one point, as the carpet is the product of a small group of cultures amidst East and West that acquired its cache through export to East and West, but also between East and West. You could take the carpet out of this history. It would be weird, but it would still be a great survey on empires. But with a focus on this one trade good, we get concrete examples of the complexity of empire, as different powers trade, plunder, and destroy carpets. And complexity is the key there. No empire stands alone, and they are always in contact and conversation. All uses of imperial power are abuses, but some are more benign than others. Thus, someone is going to be upset about "world" not being global and about textiles elsewhere, and someone is going to be upset about a contemporary take on imperialism that challenges its charm and its color. Whatever. If you are like me, this is how you wish it was taught. Presumably you can hit up the bibliography if you want something different.
Third, it is never linear. There is some chronology, but the story here of each of the objects requires linear study. Each chapter throws us back to the beginning, learning about something new or a facet that was mentioned previously but not explored. This is where the material history is allowed to shine. Each chapter has the feeling of a favorite short story where you find more things in it each reading. There is only one chapter where this fails, and that has to do with the narrative being too much of its own story to fit within the confines of the frame. The point is not a singular line of history but several that work through comparison, with different facts and themes reinforcing the other chapters.
Fourth, the carpet itself is a compelling thing to focus on. It is the perfect sort of item for a material history in its odd status as a bifurcated object. Even unto today it exists as something of both high art and of low culture, its function and beauty linked in a manner that I cannot say about a lot of other goods. So we have a sort of intuitive grasp of them as a thing, which the author only goes to emphasize in providing that initial sense of context of each of the carpets. (In other words, I too would be devastated to learn it was not a dowry.)
Overall, a stellar read. Other than being extremely informative. It clarifies lots of errant wrongness in conventional wisdom without being iconoclastic or confrontational. It presents history as a consistent interaction of cultures. And it is specialized enough of a field that the scholars and others involved feel more like characters in fiction, since the same ones reappear and we get to see them develop in different ways. And all of this without any slack in the value as scholarship.
My thanks to the author, Dorothy Armstrong, for writing the book, and to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for making the ARC available to me.
The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire: Why Our Species Is on the Edge of Extinction by Henry Gee
funny
informative
fast-paced
1.75
The Rise and Fall of the Human Race is about the end of humanity. Not in the sense of a catalog, or as a prediction, but in a statistical or ecological (in the formal sense of the word) sense. If we take what we know about extinction as a process, and direct that analysis towards humans, what do we come up with?
The discussion of extinction science is the highlight of the book. The key observation is that the usual methods of looking at the end is wrong. Someone talking about existential risk has a risk in mind, and usually solution at a reasonable cost, but extinction is not about an extinction event as much as it is being in a state of vulnerability to extinction. This puts humans with a small amount of time, geologically speaking, like 10K years.
The writing is delightful. I want to go drinking with the author. The endnotes are frequently hilarious. The book is an introduction to great concepts like extinction debt. This is a book where the brevity is a problem. I wanted more writing and more detail on more things, and there are plenty of places for the author to expand.
Well, maybe. This book is an expansion of an article that the author wrote. Most of the best parts are shared with that article; the rest is the book-lentgh version of the difference between science and the humanities, sometimes memed as the difference between a high INT stat and an high WIS stat.
The author's solution to preventing humanity's extinction is for humans to expand into space. The reason this is the solution is a tautology: humans should go into space because they should go into space. Humanity will outstrip the carrying capacity of the earth, and the way to fix that is to go into space, which will require vastly expanding the carrying capacity of the earth, based on what will be required to support people living in space. Gay Space Communism is unexplored.
This might be an idle problem. The book could pass as a polemic with a few more expletives and polemics grade on their own curve. I share with the author the view that Ehrlich deserves contempt, but less than he gets*. It becomes a real issue because of the various fragments of argumentation in the book that feel like no one is minding the till.
The author posits our future as a vegan matriarchy on the basis of efficiency (rather than a fetish comic), that animals products are an inefficient way of getting calories and that the potential of women's contributions to society are historically untapped and must be in order for humanity to survive. However, this comes up in the context of solving the problem of food via artificial photosynthesis, which okay, cool, but at that point, you might as well just posit a cheesburger tree.
Similarly, the need for action now is due to the demographic cliff and its knock-on effects on human ingenuity and resources: the most people provides us with the most chance of having people who can solve the problem, and having too few people presents a possibility where there aren't enough people to provide the surplus necessary to allow people to investigate those problems as opposed to toil in the fields. The cause of this is multi-variable, but one elaborated on is 'female emancipation.'
That sound you are hearing is a thousand conservative influencers readying their keyboards.
A blanket statement of women had no rights, and now they do, deserves scrutiny. Technically correct it becomes an oversimplification to the point of misleading. Similarly, the expression of the crucial role of women in solving the problem is so causally engaged and unsupported that it achieves vaulted technically correct status.
A lot of the statements about history deserves scrutiny. The author accepts the 'own goal' view of Rapa Nui, sending the critics to an endnote. The author presents both The Great Hunger and 1995 Chicago in purely environmental terms. Neither are. Both are more in line with the author's extinction thesis, where the catastrophic event is ancillary to the systemic failure. People died en mass because of policy, not because of reality.
To that end, the book's conceit operates in a sort of twilight zone around Edward Gibbon. Yeah, it is what he wrote, but devoid of context before or hence, either of what Gibbon was doing or the way that the idea of decline, its uses, abuses, and intellectual or ideological history. This is no huge complaint, but it does start to feel like horseshoe theory on the wooification of science.
Oh, and it plays fast and loose with the science. I am not going to violate the terms of the ARC by a full quotation, but in the discussion of the concept of an evolutionary bottleneck applying to humans, the author raises the idea, notes that it is currently disfavored, and then uses it anyway on the basis that it is true "poetically."
Poetically true science? Is this like Justice Roberts' court of public opinion as regards Korematsu?
I get the core of the author's point. Humans, particularly in their status as the water sprouts on the otherwise dead branch of homo, exist in a sort of genetic risk that does not apply to other species. So why not eugenics? You cannot say eugenics does not work. We've established that the poetic truth of science is the important bit. Every bit of the argument here works for eugenics. It works better in fact. No need to worry about radiation's effect on developing children if we just kill the diabetics and autistics. Sure, they did not do it right before, (though I am certain you could find some human biodiversity folks to claim that they actually did), but this time it will be different.
Did any science fiction author read this manuscript?
In closing, I return to the tautology problem. The only reason that I can see that space travel was chosen is because extra-planetary living is "in" with the existential risk crowd. The same people looking to sell timeshares on the Moon are the most vocal about the author's concerns (and usually trying to get you to use crypto). But as far as I am concerned, the author has as good an explanation for why space will not save us. If the bottlenecks from founder effects are bad on earth, think how much worse space will be.
I loved the writing, and I loved the science. I now have a whole new scientific sub-discipline that I am interested in learning about. But - unintentionally - the author has written a pitch sheet for Bond villains.
My thanks to the author, Henry Gee, for writing the book, and to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for making the ARC available to me.
* - There is a sidebar here that I may return to via blog about the author's use of The Population Bomb in general.
The discussion of extinction science is the highlight of the book. The key observation is that the usual methods of looking at the end is wrong. Someone talking about existential risk has a risk in mind, and usually solution at a reasonable cost, but extinction is not about an extinction event as much as it is being in a state of vulnerability to extinction. This puts humans with a small amount of time, geologically speaking, like 10K years.
The writing is delightful. I want to go drinking with the author. The endnotes are frequently hilarious. The book is an introduction to great concepts like extinction debt. This is a book where the brevity is a problem. I wanted more writing and more detail on more things, and there are plenty of places for the author to expand.
Well, maybe. This book is an expansion of an article that the author wrote. Most of the best parts are shared with that article; the rest is the book-lentgh version of the difference between science and the humanities, sometimes memed as the difference between a high INT stat and an high WIS stat.
The author's solution to preventing humanity's extinction is for humans to expand into space. The reason this is the solution is a tautology: humans should go into space because they should go into space. Humanity will outstrip the carrying capacity of the earth, and the way to fix that is to go into space, which will require vastly expanding the carrying capacity of the earth, based on what will be required to support people living in space. Gay Space Communism is unexplored.
This might be an idle problem. The book could pass as a polemic with a few more expletives and polemics grade on their own curve. I share with the author the view that Ehrlich deserves contempt, but less than he gets*. It becomes a real issue because of the various fragments of argumentation in the book that feel like no one is minding the till.
The author posits our future as a vegan matriarchy on the basis of efficiency (rather than a fetish comic), that animals products are an inefficient way of getting calories and that the potential of women's contributions to society are historically untapped and must be in order for humanity to survive. However, this comes up in the context of solving the problem of food via artificial photosynthesis, which okay, cool, but at that point, you might as well just posit a cheesburger tree.
Similarly, the need for action now is due to the demographic cliff and its knock-on effects on human ingenuity and resources: the most people provides us with the most chance of having people who can solve the problem, and having too few people presents a possibility where there aren't enough people to provide the surplus necessary to allow people to investigate those problems as opposed to toil in the fields. The cause of this is multi-variable, but one elaborated on is 'female emancipation.'
That sound you are hearing is a thousand conservative influencers readying their keyboards.
A blanket statement of women had no rights, and now they do, deserves scrutiny. Technically correct it becomes an oversimplification to the point of misleading. Similarly, the expression of the crucial role of women in solving the problem is so causally engaged and unsupported that it achieves vaulted technically correct status.
A lot of the statements about history deserves scrutiny. The author accepts the 'own goal' view of Rapa Nui, sending the critics to an endnote. The author presents both The Great Hunger and 1995 Chicago in purely environmental terms. Neither are. Both are more in line with the author's extinction thesis, where the catastrophic event is ancillary to the systemic failure. People died en mass because of policy, not because of reality.
To that end, the book's conceit operates in a sort of twilight zone around Edward Gibbon. Yeah, it is what he wrote, but devoid of context before or hence, either of what Gibbon was doing or the way that the idea of decline, its uses, abuses, and intellectual or ideological history. This is no huge complaint, but it does start to feel like horseshoe theory on the wooification of science.
Oh, and it plays fast and loose with the science. I am not going to violate the terms of the ARC by a full quotation, but in the discussion of the concept of an evolutionary bottleneck applying to humans, the author raises the idea, notes that it is currently disfavored, and then uses it anyway on the basis that it is true "poetically."
Poetically true science? Is this like Justice Roberts' court of public opinion as regards Korematsu?
I get the core of the author's point. Humans, particularly in their status as the water sprouts on the otherwise dead branch of homo, exist in a sort of genetic risk that does not apply to other species. So why not eugenics? You cannot say eugenics does not work. We've established that the poetic truth of science is the important bit. Every bit of the argument here works for eugenics. It works better in fact. No need to worry about radiation's effect on developing children if we just kill the diabetics and autistics. Sure, they did not do it right before, (though I am certain you could find some human biodiversity folks to claim that they actually did), but this time it will be different.
Did any science fiction author read this manuscript?
In closing, I return to the tautology problem. The only reason that I can see that space travel was chosen is because extra-planetary living is "in" with the existential risk crowd. The same people looking to sell timeshares on the Moon are the most vocal about the author's concerns (and usually trying to get you to use crypto). But as far as I am concerned, the author has as good an explanation for why space will not save us. If the bottlenecks from founder effects are bad on earth, think how much worse space will be.
I loved the writing, and I loved the science. I now have a whole new scientific sub-discipline that I am interested in learning about. But - unintentionally - the author has written a pitch sheet for Bond villains.
My thanks to the author, Henry Gee, for writing the book, and to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for making the ARC available to me.
* - There is a sidebar here that I may return to via blog about the author's use of The Population Bomb in general.
Character Limit by Kate Conger, Ryan Mac
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.0
Some men will destroy the third pillar of governance rather than go to therapy.
This book is the narrative of the purchase of the Website Formerly Known as Twitter by E. Musk. It includes more than that, specifically into the history of tWFKaT and Musk's initial period of control over the site. It starts as solid business history, then veers away. Some of that is necessary by the virtue of when the book is written. The end, and so by extension, the beginning is arbitrary in the sense that this feels like an ongoing story, so as the text shifts to the more recent tWFKaT gossip it reads as a burn book or tell-all.
J. Dorsey, one of the founders of tWFKaT, is the surprise anthologist of the piece. J.D. and E.M. each act in ways fitting to parody rather than reality, but at least Emmuy has the place of mind to act the Bond villian as opposed to JDo, who is an anime villian from one of those shows that starts off all robots and swordplay but swings into sophomore philosophy.
The biggest take from the book is that, in light of EM's current ?career? ?!?shift?!?, is this dude definitely thinks that he is Archilochus' hedgehog, possessed of One Good Trick and a monomaniacal end goal. But the end, in comparison to the blood and treasure spent it is pursuit, has only the most moderate of success. Yes, I write that even on his status now of Czar Czar. As such, more than a lesson or clever source of information, the whole thing feels like a drinking game for contemporary U.S. politics: take a shot whenever Mr. M. does the same thing again.
The highlight of the book are all the outlandish stories. Again, the choice of doing this now presents certain problems, namely that a lot of things are semi-anonymous and there is some to none participation from the principals. But the receipts are there, and the outlandishness is often the point. If nothing else, I will be thinking about the saga of Esther Crawford for some time. But I did, surprisingly, find myself wishing that this was more of the book it started off as, a much more solid and technical story of a corporation and a purchase of it.
Billed as a devastating piece of investigation reporting, at the end, I ended up feeling sad, sympathetic to Musk's self-built prison. Not in a redemptive or exculpatory way, but in the way that
This book is the narrative of the purchase of the Website Formerly Known as Twitter by E. Musk. It includes more than that, specifically into the history of tWFKaT and Musk's initial period of control over the site. It starts as solid business history, then veers away. Some of that is necessary by the virtue of when the book is written. The end, and so by extension, the beginning is arbitrary in the sense that this feels like an ongoing story, so as the text shifts to the more recent tWFKaT gossip it reads as a burn book or tell-all.
J. Dorsey, one of the founders of tWFKaT, is the surprise anthologist of the piece. J.D. and E.M. each act in ways fitting to parody rather than reality, but at least Emmuy has the place of mind to act the Bond villian as opposed to JDo, who is an anime villian from one of those shows that starts off all robots and swordplay but swings into sophomore philosophy.
The biggest take from the book is that, in light of EM's current ?career? ?!?shift?!?, is this dude definitely thinks that he is Archilochus' hedgehog, possessed of One Good Trick and a monomaniacal end goal. But the end, in comparison to the blood and treasure spent it is pursuit, has only the most moderate of success. Yes, I write that even on his status now of Czar Czar. As such, more than a lesson or clever source of information, the whole thing feels like a drinking game for contemporary U.S. politics: take a shot whenever Mr. M. does the same thing again.
The highlight of the book are all the outlandish stories. Again, the choice of doing this now presents certain problems, namely that a lot of things are semi-anonymous and there is some to none participation from the principals. But the receipts are there, and the outlandishness is often the point. If nothing else, I will be thinking about the saga of Esther Crawford for some time. But I did, surprisingly, find myself wishing that this was more of the book it started off as, a much more solid and technical story of a corporation and a purchase of it.
Billed as a devastating piece of investigation reporting, at the end, I ended up feeling sad, sympathetic to Musk's self-built prison. Not in a redemptive or exculpatory way, but in the way that
Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James
funny
fast-paced
2.75
The pedantic complaint about this book, a history of axe murder, is that it is not about murder. It includes both lawful and unlawful killings.
It is also not about axes, or it requires a sort of acknowledgment of the concept of the axe in conceptual rather than material form.
That is also what makes the subject interesting, in the sense that the axe exists as an ancient, prosaic tool that also has utility for death. But on the third hand, that is what makes the mixture of the types of killing awkward. It is not, strictly speaking, about the misuse of the tool, but also (considering war and executions) use of the tool as designed. It is like if a history of the fork included the history of the trident. In contrast to its subject, the read is short and breezy. Too much so sometimes, with abbreviated takes that walk right up to misleading, and odd springs where the author decides to police her own tone.
The emphasis here is on murder. Having been ...axe...pilled? by a previous book, I expected more of the material history. This is true crime primarily, a story that moves through time, starting in prehistory with what we think might be death via axe of hominins, and ending in the contemporary world.
The stories are good. The storytelling is good. At worst, it tries too hard, landing more sentimental than sensationalist. But the author blends cultural study into the facts of the cases to look at the way that the deaths were perceived, specifically since 'axe murderer' is a trope, and that trope itself has a history. This is why I think that the later chapters are stronger than the earlier ones: the author is having a more enjoyable time with more extrinsic material to work with. Likewise, the tone of the book is nonchalant in a way that plain meshes better with more densely framed material, which the author has in the present and does not have in the past.
My thanks to the author, Rachel McCarthy James, for writing the book, and to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for making the ARC available to me.
It is also not about axes, or it requires a sort of acknowledgment of the concept of the axe in conceptual rather than material form.
That is also what makes the subject interesting, in the sense that the axe exists as an ancient, prosaic tool that also has utility for death. But on the third hand, that is what makes the mixture of the types of killing awkward. It is not, strictly speaking, about the misuse of the tool, but also (considering war and executions) use of the tool as designed. It is like if a history of the fork included the history of the trident. In contrast to its subject, the read is short and breezy. Too much so sometimes, with abbreviated takes that walk right up to misleading, and odd springs where the author decides to police her own tone.
The emphasis here is on murder. Having been ...axe...pilled? by a previous book, I expected more of the material history. This is true crime primarily, a story that moves through time, starting in prehistory with what we think might be death via axe of hominins, and ending in the contemporary world.
The stories are good. The storytelling is good. At worst, it tries too hard, landing more sentimental than sensationalist. But the author blends cultural study into the facts of the cases to look at the way that the deaths were perceived, specifically since 'axe murderer' is a trope, and that trope itself has a history. This is why I think that the later chapters are stronger than the earlier ones: the author is having a more enjoyable time with more extrinsic material to work with. Likewise, the tone of the book is nonchalant in a way that plain meshes better with more densely framed material, which the author has in the present and does not have in the past.
My thanks to the author, Rachel McCarthy James, for writing the book, and to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for making the ARC available to me.
Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread by Leila Taylor
funny
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Sick Houses is an examination of the haunted house, but is not limited to the horror sub-genre. The haunted house is a reference point for the examination of the uncanny in lived space, or the representations of lived space, such as with a dollhouse.
As is usual with a book like this, the quality of the chapters varies, but I found it stronger than most. The strongest is on formal architecture and haunting as a part of the city, specifically the designed city. The weakest is the one on the concept of the Witch's house, which has interesting reference points but has trouble relating to the core concept. In general, the chapter weaknesses are in the forest, not the trees, with the individual concepts studied with care and profundity the spine not working to connect them.
The book has the right amount of personality. It includes authorial commentary and lived experience, which accelerates the already readable into the unique. In reading this, I started to wonder about this in comparison to the times I have read an author doing something similar, but where I disliked it. I think that there are two distinctions, the lesser being that the author writes with humor, or the right balance of humor to seriousness. The important one is that it fits the material. The special quality of the haunted house is the invasion of the interior world. It is about violation, even if Aristotle-style the violation is unintended. And that invasion is into the the most ordinary: the domestic versus the extraordinary. The author's comments, stories, and narrative fulfill a similar duty. A text about hauntings that is itself haunted.
The complaint here is spoilers. I would make this blink Geocities-style if I could, so let me be plain: THIS BOOK IS FULL OF SPOILERS. SERIOUSLY, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE GENRE. Or at least be prepared to skip a few paragraphs now and again.
This ought to be obvious. You cannot do work like this without including the facts of narrative. I did not complain about this for books doing the same with Jane Eyre or Moby Dick. However, the media here often relies on the twist or other surprise. So you are warned.
I would also mention how much is not covered that could be. I could list works that I wish were included, because I want to see how the author would apply her theories to them, but the scope of the project is such that this is okay. And while the reason why is discussed in the introduction, the book is restricted in terms of its discussions about race. The explanation is persuasive, but I also suspect that it will be a point of criticism.
Ridley Scott referred to his movie Alien as a haunted house movie in space, which never made sense to me. If anything it is a workplace drama, premised on the confines of the ship like a house, sure, but its look is unfamiliar to us and the matter at hand is much more invasive in character. And if that is the sort of thing that you like to think about, you will love this book.
My thanks to the author, Leila Taylor, for writing the book and to the publisher, Repeater Books, for making the ARC available to me.
As is usual with a book like this, the quality of the chapters varies, but I found it stronger than most. The strongest is on formal architecture and haunting as a part of the city, specifically the designed city. The weakest is the one on the concept of the Witch's house, which has interesting reference points but has trouble relating to the core concept. In general, the chapter weaknesses are in the forest, not the trees, with the individual concepts studied with care and profundity the spine not working to connect them.
The book has the right amount of personality. It includes authorial commentary and lived experience, which accelerates the already readable into the unique. In reading this, I started to wonder about this in comparison to the times I have read an author doing something similar, but where I disliked it. I think that there are two distinctions, the lesser being that the author writes with humor, or the right balance of humor to seriousness. The important one is that it fits the material. The special quality of the haunted house is the invasion of the interior world. It is about violation, even if Aristotle-style the violation is unintended. And that invasion is into the the most ordinary: the domestic versus the extraordinary. The author's comments, stories, and narrative fulfill a similar duty. A text about hauntings that is itself haunted.
The complaint here is spoilers. I would make this blink Geocities-style if I could, so let me be plain: THIS BOOK IS FULL OF SPOILERS. SERIOUSLY, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE GENRE. Or at least be prepared to skip a few paragraphs now and again.
This ought to be obvious. You cannot do work like this without including the facts of narrative. I did not complain about this for books doing the same with Jane Eyre or Moby Dick. However, the media here often relies on the twist or other surprise. So you are warned.
I would also mention how much is not covered that could be. I could list works that I wish were included, because I want to see how the author would apply her theories to them, but the scope of the project is such that this is okay. And while the reason why is discussed in the introduction, the book is restricted in terms of its discussions about race. The explanation is persuasive, but I also suspect that it will be a point of criticism.
Ridley Scott referred to his movie Alien as a haunted house movie in space, which never made sense to me. If anything it is a workplace drama, premised on the confines of the ship like a house, sure, but its look is unfamiliar to us and the matter at hand is much more invasive in character. And if that is the sort of thing that you like to think about, you will love this book.
My thanks to the author, Leila Taylor, for writing the book and to the publisher, Repeater Books, for making the ARC available to me.