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mburnamfink's reviews
2016 reviews
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
5.0
It's "The Prince!" The immortal classic of statecraft, Machiavelli might not tell you exactly what to do, but he will tell you precisely what not to do, if you wish to hold power and rule wisely. A fun drinking game is reading the newspaper, seeing where world leaders fail to follow Machiavelli's advice, and taking a shot when it leads to disaster. You may wish to call the hospital first.
Heirs of Empire by David Weber
3.0
Unlike fellow Baen superstar John Ringo, David Weber is fundamentally a nice person, and if he isn't the most adept writer, he's good enough for the beach. The Dahak setting plays to the strengths of Weber's 'war of spreadsheets' style, with truly gonzo weapons (That's no moon, that's a battlestation! And there are thousands of them!) In this book, the action calms down as a plot to destroy the reborn Empire of Man strands the heirs of Empire on a planet ruled by anti-technology fundamentalists. To get back, these smart, decent, (and superhuman) kids will have to launch a holy crusade. Pike and musket battles are interspersed with some fun intrigue, but where this book shines is the simple decency of all the main characters. Reading it, you almost believe that if we just worked together, and got along, we could fix the problems of this planet. Religious fundamentalists are depicted as credulous, ambitious, evil fools, and that's just fine by me.
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.
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))
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.
Smart Power: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities by Peter Fox-Penner
4.0
When was the last time you thought about electricity, where it comes from, and who pays for it? Peter Fox-Penner takes on a lively and knowledgeable tour of our incredibly baroque electrical grid, from the vertically integrated major generators to deregulation of the 1990s. Essentially, the electrical system is based on an illusion of an effect market, carefully maintained with endless red tape. The "spot price" of electricity swings wildly from one day to the next, and even hour to hour as utilities balance demand from millions of appliances with generation from thousands of plants. Yet, even as the market price of electricity varies, consumers pay the same amount, whether it's for expensive power at 4:00 PM on a hot afternoon, or cheap power at 2:00 AM.
The Smart Grid, a combination of consumer meters that can pay for electricity at market rates, along with appliances that adjust consumption to match price, distributed generation, and high voltage lines, might save money, and the planet, but there are immense political and technological barriers in place. The power sector is entrenched, complex, and fully of traps for the unwary. Most of all, this book shows that immense resolve will be required to make a better future.
The Smart Grid, a combination of consumer meters that can pay for electricity at market rates, along with appliances that adjust consumption to match price, distributed generation, and high voltage lines, might save money, and the planet, but there are immense political and technological barriers in place. The power sector is entrenched, complex, and fully of traps for the unwary. Most of all, this book shows that immense resolve will be required to make a better future.
Rule 34 by Charles Stross
5.0
Stross is back in form with the sequel to Halting State, a grimly humorous cyberpunk police procedural set in Tomorrow's Scotland, where nobody knows what an honest job is anymore, and household appliances are murdering spammers.
I won't spoil the book, but Stross is at his best when he takes Big Ideas, twists them upside down, and shows you how they could happen. In Rule 34, he on the relationship between the police state and the Panopticon, and how at the end of the day, our system of laws requires a technological architecture capable of enforcing what the politicians put in place. Business, crime, and government are melding together in Stross' world, something which seems all too familiar given the revolving door between Wall Street, the White House, the CIA, and a shallow grave in Central Asia. And Detective Liz's memetic crime unit seems like something that we already need, given public hysteria about synthetic drugs like Spice and Bath Salts (or maybe we could, you know, legalize drugs that have a long history of Not Totally Fucking People Up, instead of putting police and black chemists in a Red Queen's Race, with ordinary drug users the losers.)
The style is dense, packed full of internet-speak and Scottish brogue, but it's Stross's native tongue and the style fits perfectly. It's a throwback to old-school cyberpunk eyeball kicks, and a welcome diversion from the usual fair. The soapboxes rants at the end are a new and useful perspective on security and power.
I won't spoil the book, but Stross is at his best when he takes Big Ideas, twists them upside down, and shows you how they could happen. In Rule 34, he on the relationship between the police state and the Panopticon, and how at the end of the day, our system of laws requires a technological architecture capable of enforcing what the politicians put in place. Business, crime, and government are melding together in Stross' world, something which seems all too familiar given the revolving door between Wall Street, the White House, the CIA, and a shallow grave in Central Asia. And Detective Liz's memetic crime unit seems like something that we already need, given public hysteria about synthetic drugs like Spice and Bath Salts (or maybe we could, you know, legalize drugs that have a long history of Not Totally Fucking People Up, instead of putting police and black chemists in a Red Queen's Race, with ordinary drug users the losers.)
The style is dense, packed full of internet-speak and Scottish brogue, but it's Stross's native tongue and the style fits perfectly. It's a throwback to old-school cyberpunk eyeball kicks, and a welcome diversion from the usual fair. The soapboxes rants at the end are a new and useful perspective on security and power.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4.0
What is there to say about a book everybody reads in high-school? Certainly, I read it, thought it was "alright", and set it aside. Decided to reread it at the end of summer to see what I had missed. There's no use belaboring what 1000 Cliff's Notes sites have done better, but this is a really beautiful, really sad book. It's about dreams, and memory, and love, and losing, and in its subtle prose manages to capture something quite precious and perfect about how the mistakes we make define us.
It's definitely wasted on high school students. You need to have lived at least a little bit of failure, a little bit of escape, to appreciate Gatsby
It's definitely wasted on high school students. You need to have lived at least a little bit of failure, a little bit of escape, to appreciate Gatsby