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mburnamfink's reviews
1323 reviews
The Last Legion by Chris Bunch
2.0
Somewhere between David Drake and John Ringo (oh, John Ringo, no!) on the scale of mediocre mil-SF writers lies Chris Bunch. The Last Legion is an eminently forgettable book about two to five (see, I've forgotten already) young men and women who join up with a military unit that is pretty much exactly like an American Air Cavalry Division, circa Vietnam, except that they're stuck at the ass end of the galaxy defending an exploitative and racist plutocracy. That, and the collapse of the galactic empire, and immanent invasion by hostile aliens and expansionist warlords doesn't seem to matter much, as our protagonists gripe their way through bootcamp, beat up armed muggers, take on 10 times their number in firefights, and sleep with improbably well-endowed young women. I'd call the combat sequences awkward and incoherent, but then I wouldn't know how to describe the sex scenes. The whole book reads like a pastiche of Starship Trooper pastiches. It's not even so bad it's good, just thoroughly dull. At least I don't get the sense that the author was typing one-handed at any point.
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by Jonathan Shay
5.0
This book is a tour de force of psychological analysis and literary criticism. In it, Dr. Shay blends the Illiad with the heartbreaking words of veterans to develop a theory of post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is caused by a breakdown in themis, the internal sense of "what is right" that allows people to belong to an ordered society. Confronted by the betrayal of their superiors, the deception of the enemy, grief at the deaths of close friends, the privations of the battlefield, and finally the corrosive rage of the berserker state, many soldiers lost an essential part of their humanity. By drawing on both classical literature, and his professional knowledge of the challenges that returning veterans face, Dr. Shay paints a detailed portrait of the human cost of war.
The Professor and Other Writings by Terry Castle
3.0
Literary non-fiction is the most self-indulgent of all styles of literature. Really, does anybody care about some writer's (lesbian) lovelife, vacations, or taste in art? Terry Castle redeems the inherent self-indulgence of the genre, but only just. She actually has interesting taste in music, drops literary references in a way that makes the reader feel more cultured, and the lesbian-ness of the bad relationships makes them a little more enjoyable. The wordcrafting is good, and occasionally sparkling, and what the hell, everybody like lesbians.
((I only mention lesbians, because that's about the frequency at which Terry Castle mentions her sexuality))
((I only mention lesbians, because that's about the frequency at which Terry Castle mentions her sexuality))
Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem
3.0
,A hardboiled sci-fi mystery, Gun keeps it moving fast and light, choosing to play with references to Raymond Chandler and Philip K Dick rather than the deep implications of its 'too-true-too-be-strange' setting. Not a great book, but it kept me interested to the end, which is enough.
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks
4.0
Journalism is history's first draft , and Thomas Ricks explores in exacting detail the errors in planning, judgement, and strategy that lead to America's misadventure in Iraq. From the beginning, the war was hampered by poor analogies, cherry-picked intelligence, and an division at the highest levels of the Pentagon. There is more than enough blame to go around; Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Franks, Powell, etc, but if any person is truly to blame, it's Rumsfeld, who sabotaged effective planning for the occupation, failed the military, and failed the American people. L Paul Bremer, as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, deserves another large helping of blame, but an effective plan would have never put him and the CPA's unending stream of short-term contractors in charge to begin with.
The most killing indictment of the Bush administration's plan for war is that there was a very real chance that the war could have been won in 2004 or 2005. Saddam was crushed, the insurgency weak, the Iraqi people desperate for real change. But because the Bush administration was focused on non-existent WMDs, and didn't provide a real strategy for reconstruction, they gave the insurgency time to organize and to fight. The bloody peak of the conflict in 2005-2007 is entirely due to failures in the opening days of the war. Military boldness is often to be commended, but with the Bush team, lead instead to a quagmire, and an expanded civil war which has cost millions of lives, incited hatred for Americans, and trained our enemies in the hard school of insurgency.
If there's any weakness to this book, it's that it was published in 2006, and so doesn't cover the surge and General Petraeus's successful counter-insurgency strategy. But you can't fairly blame a book for not being prescient. "The Gamble" is Ricks' sequel, and has been added to the pile.
The most killing indictment of the Bush administration's plan for war is that there was a very real chance that the war could have been won in 2004 or 2005. Saddam was crushed, the insurgency weak, the Iraqi people desperate for real change. But because the Bush administration was focused on non-existent WMDs, and didn't provide a real strategy for reconstruction, they gave the insurgency time to organize and to fight. The bloody peak of the conflict in 2005-2007 is entirely due to failures in the opening days of the war. Military boldness is often to be commended, but with the Bush team, lead instead to a quagmire, and an expanded civil war which has cost millions of lives, incited hatred for Americans, and trained our enemies in the hard school of insurgency.
If there's any weakness to this book, it's that it was published in 2006, and so doesn't cover the surge and General Petraeus's successful counter-insurgency strategy. But you can't fairly blame a book for not being prescient. "The Gamble" is Ricks' sequel, and has been added to the pile.
White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine by Carl Elliott
5.0
This book is a tour de force investigation into the deeply complicated and corrupt nexus of science, medicine, and money. From barely paid professional human guinea pigs, to feted key opinion leaders, Carl Eliot exposes a medical system that is far from transparent and scientific. Medicine has become a business, driven from the top by pharmaceutical marketing agents on the search for the next blockbuster lifestyle drug. Science, supposed the ultimate arbiter of truth, has been coopted with ghostwritten articles, and company approved presentations. Ironically, precisely because doctors believe they are too intelligent and impartial to be swayed by mere marketing, they are vulnerable to the simplest ploys of free pens and a little gilded prestige.
The key observation of the book is not that this medical system is inherently bad; markets are very good at providing many goods. Rather, people approach medicine half as patients and half as consumers. The traditional role of the doctor is being supplanted by medical technicians and salesmen. To me, it appears that efforts to remove money from medicine are already doomed to failure. Rather than trying to restore a halcyon past, we should instead ask how the strengths of corporate medicine can be used to improve access, care, and outcomes.
The key observation of the book is not that this medical system is inherently bad; markets are very good at providing many goods. Rather, people approach medicine half as patients and half as consumers. The traditional role of the doctor is being supplanted by medical technicians and salesmen. To me, it appears that efforts to remove money from medicine are already doomed to failure. Rather than trying to restore a halcyon past, we should instead ask how the strengths of corporate medicine can be used to improve access, care, and outcomes.
The Jasons: The Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite by Ann Finkbeiner
3.0
The Jasons are the most powerful people you've never heard of. An elite advisory group composed of a veritable who's who of American physics, the Jasons have been providing cutting edge scientific expertise to the Department of Defense and other agencies for nearly fifty years.
Finkbeiner manages to depict both the personal charisma and fascination of the Jasons, and their murky ethical role. True genius is strange, and appealing, and a large part of why Jason persists is the pleasure that it's members take in working with each other; a pleasure echoed in Finkbeiner description of interviews with luminaries such as John Wheeler (many worlds interpretation, black holes) and Freeman Dyson (polymath of the 20th century).
However, at the same time that they break new intellectual ground for the sheer joy of it, Jason is an integral part of the defense establishment, and works to improve weapons. Smart bombs, combat sensors, and strategic missile defense can all be traced back to Jason, and this book does an excellent job putting a human face on a scientist's many obligations: to knowledge, to humanity, and to his or her country. Jasons see themselves as patriots, but have been labelled as war criminals. On balance, even as advance the science of death, the Jasons have injected sanity and reason into nuclear armaggedon. The science that makes the comprehensive test ban treaty possible was pioneered by Jason, while adaptive optics and oceanic tomography have advanced natural science.
For good or ill, Jason is a unique organization, and one that any scholar of science policy should be familiar with as an exemplar of what can be done at the very top of science.
Finkbeiner manages to depict both the personal charisma and fascination of the Jasons, and their murky ethical role. True genius is strange, and appealing, and a large part of why Jason persists is the pleasure that it's members take in working with each other; a pleasure echoed in Finkbeiner description of interviews with luminaries such as John Wheeler (many worlds interpretation, black holes) and Freeman Dyson (polymath of the 20th century).
However, at the same time that they break new intellectual ground for the sheer joy of it, Jason is an integral part of the defense establishment, and works to improve weapons. Smart bombs, combat sensors, and strategic missile defense can all be traced back to Jason, and this book does an excellent job putting a human face on a scientist's many obligations: to knowledge, to humanity, and to his or her country. Jasons see themselves as patriots, but have been labelled as war criminals. On balance, even as advance the science of death, the Jasons have injected sanity and reason into nuclear armaggedon. The science that makes the comprehensive test ban treaty possible was pioneered by Jason, while adaptive optics and oceanic tomography have advanced natural science.
For good or ill, Jason is a unique organization, and one that any scholar of science policy should be familiar with as an exemplar of what can be done at the very top of science.
The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea by James Brady
5.0
"Marine platoon leader memoir" is one of my favorite micro-genres of literature, and among stories of leadership, heroism, maturation, and fear, The Coldest War stands a cut above for its clarity, candor, and writing. More Americans died in 3 years in Korea than in 10 years in Vietnam, and the war is still not officially over, yet most civilians are entirely ignorant of the conflict, let alone what it was like to serve in the coldest war.
Sent to Korea in November of 1952, Lt Brady faced a bloody, static war more remiscint of World War I than anything else. Americans and Chinese faced off across frozen mountains, where artillery made it too dangerous to move by daylight. In this war, men died by dribs and drabs, in raids, shellings, and accidents. There was no strategy, just a slow grinding of privates and platoon leaders against the communist adversaries.
Brady went onto to make a living as a novelist, and it shows in the precisely written descriptions of characters, terrain, and combat. A truly amazing story.
Sent to Korea in November of 1952, Lt Brady faced a bloody, static war more remiscint of World War I than anything else. Americans and Chinese faced off across frozen mountains, where artillery made it too dangerous to move by daylight. In this war, men died by dribs and drabs, in raids, shellings, and accidents. There was no strategy, just a slow grinding of privates and platoon leaders against the communist adversaries.
Brady went onto to make a living as a novelist, and it shows in the precisely written descriptions of characters, terrain, and combat. A truly amazing story.
One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw by Witold Rybczynski
4.0
Ryczynski had simple assignment: write a history of the most important tool of the last millennium. But as with all simple assignments, it turned out to be far more complicated than expected. Most hand tools are ancient in origin, and power tools too specialized to count as ‘the most important tool’. But every household has a drawer full of screwdrivers, and nobody seems to know where they come from. “One Good Turn” is a quick and easy history. Not particularly deep, but fun and very readable.