30 second book reviews
by John at 3/25/2004 07:52:00 AM
Singularity Sky - Charles Stross
This is a pretty good book. Set in a post-Singularity universe where a Sublimed emergent strong AI enforces causality to preserve its own existence and other AI travel the galaxy raining cell-phones and wishes on unsuspecting human societies, this story is a combination of a space opera and a morality tale about libertarianism, totalitarianism, information, and technology. If any of that makes sense, you should give it a try. It's short.
Teranesia - Greg Egan
With a focus on one of my favorite subjects (evolution) this book starts out promising as a boy begins his life with an island adventure in Indonesia. Its stays promising through the middle, and then falls apart completely in the last chapter. Disappointing, so don't bother even though it's short. Maybe you would like Diaspora instead?
Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich
Another short one, you will either hate this book, or like it, or feel mixed up about it. You will hate it if you are a free-marketer. You will like it if you are a bleeding heart liberal unless you think about how the author made it too much about herself, in which case you will have mixed emotions. I'm in the last category.
Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser
This one is longer, and is a detailed discussion of the growth, mechanisms, employment practices, sanitaton, and social impact of the fast food industry. There is a lot of talk about Colorado Springs. You will probably dislike this book if you are pro-big-industry. Likewise, this book will tell you everything you want to hear if you are anti-globalization, anti-agribusiness, or anti-big-industry. In any case, you'll think twice before eating a hamburger again.
Why Things Break - Mark Eberhart
Supposedly a study about the recent discoveries concerning why materials break, this book is actually 50% about the authors personal and professional life (consisting mostly of academic slights he has suffered), 3/8 about lawsuits and society's changing attitude to broken things, and 1/8 about why things actually break. If you had a material science course in college you know the technology stuff already, and if you didn't there have got to be better places to find out about it than this book. Don't read it even though it is short.
Tatja Grimm's World - Vernor Vinge
Vernor Vinge is great! But don't bother with this book, which is actually a collection of three stories in which a major character is a super-genius girl named Tatja Grimm, stuck on a backward-ass, low-metal planet on the verge of a renaissance (or maybe just a naissance). Mostly boring. Read A Deepness in the Sky instead.
Eastern Standard Tribe - Cory Doctorow
A good followup to Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, this short novel is set in the near future where the time-zone you walk around in is not necessarily the time-zone you live in. A man is betrayed, struggles with his personal demons, and comes out ahead in the end. Or does he? If you think this sounds like the plot of Down and Out, you are right, though the similarity is mostly superficial. Everything Doctorow writes about in this story is going to come true within ten years (it's all possible now, I think), except for all the methane cars.
Everything and More - David Foster Wallace
This book is long and feels long. I took three weeks to finish it. Nonetheless, it is an engaging study of the theory of infinity, and the implications of infinity in mathematics from the Greeks to the early 20th Century. If you have an affinity for math, the first five chapters are fun, the sixth and most of the seventh are hard, and then it all comes together at the end. I felt like I learned something, though I can't remember much of it now. I can tell you that the Pythagoreans hated irrational numbers, and defined the number 2 to be 49/25 so that its square root would be rational. Did they actually think they were fooling anyone?
Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson
This is a long novel, only the first of I think three, and a sort of prequel to Cryptonomicon (which you won't need to have read to enjoy this). My general stand is that I don't enjoy literary series, especially ones that don't really finish a story at the end of each book. This book is that kind of book, yet I liked it. It takes place in late 17th and early 18th century Europe and America; deals with alchemy, war, calculus, vagabonds, The Restoration, and the philosophy of science; and stars Enlightenment luminaries such as Newton, Leibniz, Hooke, etc. This review is getting too long, so I'll finish with recommending you read it if you enjoy historical fiction and don't mind making a big commitment.
Save some trees and cash and borrow these books from your local library. And if you have some spare cash you want to get rid of consider supporting your local library, because some states are reducing funding for these kinds of valuable services.
Also, you can sometimes find electronic versions of these books.
Update: I've added my review of Quicksilver because I forgot to include it the first time.
This is a pretty good book. Set in a post-Singularity universe where a Sublimed emergent strong AI enforces causality to preserve its own existence and other AI travel the galaxy raining cell-phones and wishes on unsuspecting human societies, this story is a combination of a space opera and a morality tale about libertarianism, totalitarianism, information, and technology. If any of that makes sense, you should give it a try. It's short.
Teranesia - Greg Egan
With a focus on one of my favorite subjects (evolution) this book starts out promising as a boy begins his life with an island adventure in Indonesia. Its stays promising through the middle, and then falls apart completely in the last chapter. Disappointing, so don't bother even though it's short. Maybe you would like Diaspora instead?
Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich
Another short one, you will either hate this book, or like it, or feel mixed up about it. You will hate it if you are a free-marketer. You will like it if you are a bleeding heart liberal unless you think about how the author made it too much about herself, in which case you will have mixed emotions. I'm in the last category.
Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser
This one is longer, and is a detailed discussion of the growth, mechanisms, employment practices, sanitaton, and social impact of the fast food industry. There is a lot of talk about Colorado Springs. You will probably dislike this book if you are pro-big-industry. Likewise, this book will tell you everything you want to hear if you are anti-globalization, anti-agribusiness, or anti-big-industry. In any case, you'll think twice before eating a hamburger again.
Why Things Break - Mark Eberhart
Supposedly a study about the recent discoveries concerning why materials break, this book is actually 50% about the authors personal and professional life (consisting mostly of academic slights he has suffered), 3/8 about lawsuits and society's changing attitude to broken things, and 1/8 about why things actually break. If you had a material science course in college you know the technology stuff already, and if you didn't there have got to be better places to find out about it than this book. Don't read it even though it is short.
Tatja Grimm's World - Vernor Vinge
Vernor Vinge is great! But don't bother with this book, which is actually a collection of three stories in which a major character is a super-genius girl named Tatja Grimm, stuck on a backward-ass, low-metal planet on the verge of a renaissance (or maybe just a naissance). Mostly boring. Read A Deepness in the Sky instead.
Eastern Standard Tribe - Cory Doctorow
A good followup to Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, this short novel is set in the near future where the time-zone you walk around in is not necessarily the time-zone you live in. A man is betrayed, struggles with his personal demons, and comes out ahead in the end. Or does he? If you think this sounds like the plot of Down and Out, you are right, though the similarity is mostly superficial. Everything Doctorow writes about in this story is going to come true within ten years (it's all possible now, I think), except for all the methane cars.
Everything and More - David Foster Wallace
This book is long and feels long. I took three weeks to finish it. Nonetheless, it is an engaging study of the theory of infinity, and the implications of infinity in mathematics from the Greeks to the early 20th Century. If you have an affinity for math, the first five chapters are fun, the sixth and most of the seventh are hard, and then it all comes together at the end. I felt like I learned something, though I can't remember much of it now. I can tell you that the Pythagoreans hated irrational numbers, and defined the number 2 to be 49/25 so that its square root would be rational. Did they actually think they were fooling anyone?
Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson
This is a long novel, only the first of I think three, and a sort of prequel to Cryptonomicon (which you won't need to have read to enjoy this). My general stand is that I don't enjoy literary series, especially ones that don't really finish a story at the end of each book. This book is that kind of book, yet I liked it. It takes place in late 17th and early 18th century Europe and America; deals with alchemy, war, calculus, vagabonds, The Restoration, and the philosophy of science; and stars Enlightenment luminaries such as Newton, Leibniz, Hooke, etc. This review is getting too long, so I'll finish with recommending you read it if you enjoy historical fiction and don't mind making a big commitment.
Save some trees and cash and borrow these books from your local library. And if you have some spare cash you want to get rid of consider supporting your local library, because some states are reducing funding for these kinds of valuable services.
Also, you can sometimes find electronic versions of these books.
Update: I've added my review of Quicksilver because I forgot to include it the first time.
