Gods of Risk by James S. A. Corey

This is my kind of Science Fiction.  Humans live and work in space, on Mars, in the asteroid belt.  No big deal.  We figured out how to do that.

However, people are people and they have the same troubles and desires we do today.  And that's what makes the whole Expanse series so compelling for me.  Sure, there is an alien baddie.  But humans used it, without understanding what it was, for their own desires; money & power.  The classic corrupters.

David Draper is a young student trying to get through a tough patch in school to get a good placement in university.  His aunt is ex-marine Bobby Draper, an important character in the previous novel, Caliban's War.

Somehow, he got tied up with a dangerous drug dealer by cooking the drugs he sells.  David falls for the drug dealer's girl, Leelee.   She gets in trouble and David tries to help.

This book is much like a tie-in novel or fan fic, but provided by the authors themselves.  It expands The Expanse, if you will.   It is an excellent story and fills in the gaps between Book 3 and Book 4.

I would love to see the spread sheet the authors must have had to create before writing a word.

Well worth the effort to read this story.

Travel Writing by Peter Ferry - Book Review #319

This was the strangest most satisfying book I've ever had the pleasure to experience.

It was narrated so very well by Anthony Heald.  His voice kept me coming back to the story especially when I was on the verge of giving up on it after I had put it down for a number of days. 

It was a complicated novel.  The very first lines established that our narrator (the actual author in this case) admits that he's making all this up, except for the parts that are true.  It's not often I've experienced the breaking of the fourth wall in a novel.  I certainly enjoyed it here.

The point of view changes from Ferry teaching a class, to the story of a car crash and how he becomes involved in it and then obsessed by it.  The genres also evolve from a literary fiction of his obsession and the effect is has on his relationships and professional life, to an investigative crime fiction. 

Through it all there are interludes of actual travel writing, which I enjoyed very much for it's observations of people.

Flipping through all of these "realities" sometimes left me confused, but I just allowed the narration to continue and let it wash over me.  I had faith that I would be able to pick up the threads later on.

Peter Ferry is an accomplished and very skilled writer.  To learn this was his debut novel astounded me.  I was left in awe of his skill to pull off such a complex story structure.

A surprise of a book.

Recommended for sure. 

Might I suggest a much more thoughtful review of the book?  If you find yourself unconvinced by me to pick up Travel Writing try, reading this review from the good folks at Bloom.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers - Book Report #310

AHWOSG has been on my TBR for as long as I can remember.

It was a wild ride through the mind of a young man going through a wild time in his life.

Heartbreaking to be sure.  The opening sequences of Dave coping with the illnesses of his parents was difficult to take.

Eggers captured perfectly the voice of the North American human male in his early 20's.  The scattered thoughts, the manic flood of conscious thinking, the wild, world-changing ideas of youth and the resilience of human spirit are all here.

It took me some time adapt and accept the flow of the book.  It is not a linear thing.  Is it memoir?  Sure, kind of.  Is it fiction?  It often felt that way.  Is it true to life?  Absolutely.

True to American life, which is not universal.  And manic in its own way.

Many times, the narrative made me feel embarrassed to be male, white, and lucky to live in a country like Canada.  But it is nonetheless a valid experience.

Eggers has an inspiring grasp on honesty.  He, as the character in the book, is not easy to like, but I came to understand him.

The book is a roller coaster ride in the dark.  I could not predict where even one sentence was going to go, never mind a chapter.

But it was worth the ride.

Recommended. 

Dave Eggers' website - https://daveeggers.net/

Dave Eggers

Thrive by Dan Buettner - Book Report #307

Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way

Dan Buettner originally set out on a National Geographic research project to discover the commonalities of pockets of human population that has historically lived longer than the average.

He discovered many things; people generally are physically active, they eat primarily veggies & fruit, they have close personal connections with family and friends.

One of the byproducts of his investigations was general happiness.

It makes sense that if you are healthy, active and are surrounded by people you like, you'd feel pretty happy.

That is what this book explores.

I like the premise.  Sure, we are all looking for a diet to improve our health and to lose weight.  Wouldn't it also be terrific if you would somehow become happier too?

I'd buy that book.

Check out Dan Buettner's TED talk, if you find it interesting you will find all of his book are too. - https://www.ted.com/speakers/dan_buettner

Dan Buettner's Blue Zones website - https://www.bluezones.com/

Peak Everything by Richard Heinberg - Book Review #305

Narrated by Edward Dalmas

To be honest I felt like there was no hope for humanity after hearing this book.

The world is a big giant mess, I already knew this.  It's why I picked it up.

I've said it before, with a lot of these books they are heavy on problems and light on solutions.  Heinberg simply made me feel like everything was hopeless and I just wanted to give up.

But as the eternal optimist, Peter Diamandis, often says - "The world's biggest problems are the world's biggest market opportunities."  Keep that in mind.

A book like Peak Everything will shine the light on the problems.  It will be up to you to decide which ones you'd like to tackle and to go out to find the solutions yourself.

To be fair, Heinberg does have some solutions, but they mostly revolve about returning to an agrarian life.  Who knows, maybe he's right.

Do I recommend it?  Sure.  Why not?  Just be warned that it's a very one-sided read.

Richard Heinberg's website - https://richardheinberg.com/

Richard Heinberg

Dissapointment River By Brian Castner - Book Report #303

Finding and Losing the Northwest Passage

I love stories like these.  

This is a real-life, modern-day, canoe journey of the Mackenzie River.  The author decided to follow in the footsteps of Alexander Mackenzie who paddled the river in the hopes of finding an inland Northwest Passage.  "The Mackenzie river is the longest river system in Canada, and includes the second largest drainage basin of any North American river after the Mississippi." (Passage from Wikipedia)

From his starting point at Great Slave Lake all the way to the Arctic Ocean Brian Castner weaves his voyage to that of Mackenzie's.  At certain points in the trip Castner and Mackenzie stood on the same spots, on the same dates, 227 yeas apart.   

Blending history to the modern day by replicating an event, is an effective way to bring history alive and to compare the two worlds.  At times, the author is vividly imagining what Mackenzie and his party went through only to be knocked back into the present by the passing of a speedboat or a container ferry.

In many ways, life has not changed at all in the Canadian north in 1779 Mackenzie was trying to find his fortune, the industry of the day were furs.  Today, oil, gas and mining dominate.

I was thankful for the trip Brian Castner took and glad he chose to write about it.  I was thrilled to shoot the rapids with him from the safety of my couch.  I was happy to learn a bit more about Canadian history and to simply answer the question as to how the river got its modern name.  It is traditionally known as the Deh-Cho by the way.  I was also very happy to learn that no way in hell would I want to take a similar trip.

This was a terrific story.

Brian Castner's website - https://briancastner.com/

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson - Book Report #302

If you look back to my previous reviews of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy I raked him over the coals.

But, as time went on, I kept thinking about those books and what became obvious, is the unbelievable amount of research Robinson put into them.  This is a hallmark of his writing.  He researches his topics to death, to the point of probably being an expert himself.  And this becomes the gift of his novels.  When I reach for something by KSR I am usually interested in the subject, be it climate change or Mars or deep space travel and I know I will get a factual education along with a narrative to hang the details onto.

New York 2140 places a cast of characters in the city after the global oceans have risen by disastrous amounts.  It is a story of survival, adaptation and how the current financial systems and the machinations of globalism, consumerism and capitalism persist.


It was a stunning look at how things could drastically change and some not at all.  It's a well-researched warning as to what could happen if we don't change everything quickly.  Climate change does not necessarily mean the end of humanity, but it could.  Robinson only looked at the effects of sea level rise and not the consequences of pollution, temperature increase and acidification of the waters.

I see it as a call to action to get things right - today.  The decisions we have made to stem the wreckage of the global financial crisis have lasting effects into the future.  In the future of the novel decisions are viewed as short-sighted and lacking.

I loved this story as it helps to crystallize a view of the world as it could be.  Visions of the future are very difficult to imagine and we only try to correct things with images of the present.  This is a trap.

Robinson takes on gigantic topics and did a tremendous job of not spinning this into a trilogy too.  By keeping the subject to one book he has made a strong and potent case for solving our problems now and into a future we can barley grasp.

Well done sir.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson

The audio book was narrated by - Jay Snyder, Robin Miles, Suzanne Toren, Peter Ganim, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Christopher Ryan Grant, Caitlin Kelly, Michael Crouch, Robert Blumenfeld

Kim Stanley Robinson

The Canal Builders by Julie Greene - Book Review #301

Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal

I enjoyed the angle the author took on this legendary infrastructure project, that of the people who built it and manged the endeavour.

People from all over the world came to work on it but it was also a product of its time - systemic racism, brutal working conditions, undervalued human needs and American hegemony made the reality of the construction an ugly thing.

But this was the reality of the times, it was normal.  It would never stand today.  Which made me wonder, could it even be achieved today?

The book illustrates just how far we've come in our respective societies from that day and how far we still have to go.  Throughout our history there has always been an "us" and a "them."  Nothing has really changed in that respect just the definition of us and them.

Still, this is an important document to the history of the Panama Canal and it's construction.  It focused on people instead of the engineering and I appreciated that.

Julie Green's website - https://history.umd.edu/users/jmg

Audio book narrated by Karen White

Julie Greene

Star Trek: Titan: Fortune of War by David Mack - Book Report #300

I'm always a bit torn when I read, or listen, to Star Trek books.  On the one hand it's terrific to catch up with those characters but on the other, it can be a bit frustrating, because so much has gone on in the books that I feel like I've missed out on a lot.

And that should be okay.  Why shouldn't dedicated readers be rewarded for sticking with the franchise and supporting it?  The Titan series is not a bad one to drop into as the books are pretty much stand-alone adventures but with a narrative arc that spans over all the books.  The authors are usually pretty good about catching a new reader up with details from previous books.

And there's the rub; I'd love to read them all but there are so many that it's daunting.

In any case, this story picks up a thread from an episode of the TNG television series and that is always satisfying.

A superweapon is discovered and the race is on to make sure the bad guys don't get their hands on it.  There are a lot of bad guys, not-so-bad guys, opportunists and the Federation here.

This is a David Mack story so be ready for lots of action, good humour and a high body count.  My only frustration with the Titan series is that I wish they'd get Admiral Riker off the fucking ship.  He is constantly second-guessing Captain Vale's decisions that I am surprised Star Fleet continues to allow the situation.

Other than that quibble, this was a terrific yarn, jammed full of the stuff that makes Star Trek fun.

David Mack's website:  http://davidmack.pro/

David Mack

Nudge by Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein - Book Report #297

Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

This was an excellent book about the power of suggestion, default choices and inertia.

The basis for the whole theory of nudging is called Libertarian Paternalism, an oxymoron to me but well enough developed and explained that I bought into it.

Now I see examples of nudges everywhere and it makes me smile.

There is nothing more rewarding to me than reading a book (audiobook in this case) and having it fundamentally change the way I see the world.

Excellent stuff.

Richard H Thaler's Wiki Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Thaler#External_links

Cass R Sunstein's Wiki Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein#External_links

Cass R Sunstein

Richard H Thaler

Black Wind By Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler - Book Report #292

A Dirk Pitt Adventure

World War II was a pivotal event that formed our present reality.  I find the period fascinating.

In this novel, during the war, the Japanese created a biological weapon and were en route to launch an attack before the submarine was lost sending the toxin to the bottom of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The present-day bad guy now wants the weapon for his own nasty plans.

Sometimes the plot of a Cussler novel doesn't grab me as much as the part of history he dug up to start the story.  In this one, the Japanese submarine also had a launcher for an aircraft.  This was the first time I've heard of this combination.

All kinds of questions came to me; how do you travel underwater with a plane attached?  Once in flight, how does the plane return? Or does it?


Cussler did me a favour by opening a part of WWII history I had never know.

I'm sorry to say, but it was the history lesson that captured my imagination.  I felt a bit like Julien Perlmutter in that I put the novel down many times to search out books about the Japanese Imperial Navy.

So, yes I enjoyed the book very much but not for the usual reasons.

Clive Cussler's Website - https://clive-cussler-books.com/

Japanese submarine history Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarines_of_the_Imperial_Japanese_Navy

Clive Cussler

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut - Book Report #288

A legendary classic of science fiction.

I was blown away by it.  It was nothing like I expected and I felt that I was truly in the hands of a genius and I was grateful for it.

The narrative bounces all over the timeline of the story but once I got used to it I loved it an enjoyed every jump forwards or backwards

Is it Science Fiction?  Sure.  Kind of.  It explores World War II, the bombing of Dresden, Germany and death.  Boy, does it explore death.

Slaughterhouse Five helped me to understand that death is just part of life.  And, wonderfully, because the Tralfamadorians do not experience time the way humans do, death really isn’t all that bad.  It is comforting to think and see things their way.  I was happy for the experience.

I am also happy that I chose to listen to the audiobook.  It was read by Ethan Hawke who did a  terrific job and gave the story a voice I would not have.  His inflections and emotion gave the book such depth.

I highly recommend the book.  Buy it any way you like, secondhand or new, you will want to keep it on the shelf to share and talk about.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Wiki Page - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut

Trojan Odyssey by Clive Cussler - Book Report #287

I grew up reading Clive Cussler in the '80s.  The man has only increased his output by teaming up with other authors.  I've decided to try and catch up as quickly as possible.  To that end, I've gone as far back as the Edmonton Public Library goes with downloadable audiobooks.

Dirk Pitt adventures are best approached like a James Bond movie; the hero will always win and the bad guy is typically a mustache-twisting character bent on world domination.  But that's okay because there is much more going on in between the lines.

First off, there is always a true historical element to these books,  Cussler will fictionalize these events to suit the story but, because they are real moments in history, they anchor the adventures extremely well.

What makes his books work are the relationships with his main characters; Dirk & Al are the best of friends, trust each other with their lives and always have fun while defying death.  They always believe that things will turn out just fine.

The NUMA team is so incredibly competent I often wish I worked with such dedicated people.

And there is an arc to the lives of the characters that progress from book to book.  Recently, Dirk discovered he had twin children.  In this volume, the relationship of his love progresses as does the growth of NUMA itself.  It's a very satisfying construct to the series.

In this particular adventure the evil genius is secretly plotting to divert the Gulf Stream in order to bring on climate change.  Sure the idea, is silly but it plays with the “what if?” question that all good speculative fiction does.  Any movie or fiction relies on a suspension of disbelief by the person consuming it.  Some stories demand more of it than others

This particular one demanded a lot.

Still it was silly fun.

Borrow the book or buy it second hand.  It's not a book I'll go back to but it pushes the overall arc of the characters’ lives forward and that was satisfying.

Clive Cussler’s website - https://clive-cussler-books.com/

Clive Cussler

Mars Rover Curiosity by Rob Manning and William L. Simon - Book Review #285

An Inside Account from

Curiosity's Chief Engineer

I love these kinds of behind-the-scenes books.

It is staggering to consider the amount of work and struggle that goes on to get a planetary mission approved, designed, funded, delayed, built, tested, re-tested, mated to a rocket, launched, testing while in flight, the Seven Minutes of Terror (see the video below), landing and testing on the ground before the rover moves at all.

This is the story of how the Mars Curiosity Rover came to be and how it made it to Mars.

If your one of those people who likes to learn how things are made, or you watch the DVD extras on the production of your favourite movie then this is a book you'll enjoy.

It was well written and engaging throughout.

The NADS Mars Science Laboratory website - https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/

Rob Manning

William L Simon

Armada by Ernest Cline - Book Review #282

I was a big fan of Ernest Cline’s previous book, Ready Player One which was turned into a Steven Spielberg movie.  (I really should see that)

This book was a nice blend of console game history, pop culture and science fiction movies.

What if the rise in popularity of the First Contact SF trope was really a way to get the population of Earth ready for the reality of an alien invasion?   What if all those video games were really training simulations to teach people how to engage the enemy without causing a panic?

I enjoyed this novel as an audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton who was simply terrific in it.

The story itself was rather predictable.  However, the humour that was woven throughout and the gaming history was a perfect vehicle for it.  I can easily imagine Spielberg making a movie of this one too.  And that is because Cline writes vividly and cinematically which made the text disappear and the imagery pop into my imagination.

It’s a fun read so long as that is what you want - fun.  Zach Lightman, who is the narrator and a high school senior, is obsessed with the passing of his father when he was an infant.  He discovers a box of his dad's things in the attic and begins to read his old journals.  In them, he discovers his father's theories about video games and what their functions really are.

I was very happy with this book.

Ernes Cline's website - http://www.ernestcline.com/

Ernest Cline

Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov - Book Review #272

Apparently, this was Isaac Asimov’s first published novel but certainly not his first published work.

It’s a terrific time travel novel, where an accident at a nuclear research facility sends an unsuspecting, retired tailor into a distant future where Earth is a backwater planet in a galactic empire.

Fish out of water stories are always captivating to me because they are a perfect vehicle for new readers to grasp a world they are unfamiliar with.  Instead of having to read through chapters of exposition the world building is achieved through the eye of a character who is as new to the environment as the reader.

Joseph Schwartz is minding his own business, walking down the streets of Chicago, when he is instantly transported thousands of years into the future.  What transpires next is a story of his wandering the much-changed Earth and how his chance meetings with people change his destiny entirely.

He learns that the Earth is a radioactive wasteland, apparently WWIII did occur but it is never mentioned because it is so far in the past that it is nearly forgotten.  In this time Earth is not alone, it is part of a galaxy-spanning empire which has changed the culture completely.

I found the story held up rather nicely for one published in 1950. In books this old it is often the female characters that make me cringe. They are usually looked down upon, weak, unintelligent, quick to fall in love with a man, or any combination of those traits.

In this book, the woman is a capable person who does fall in love rather quickly but, to be fair, the male character does too, so it’s a wash.

I found the story bogged down in the last quarter where a scene in a prison cell went on far longer than it needed to.  It felt like Asimov was padding his word count, something a lot of authors are forced to do and it drives me crazy.  Publishers need to get over trying to make books a certain length and allow a story to be well told.

Anyway, it was a cozy story and I liked it very much.

Isaac Asimov

Suicide of the West by Jonah Goldberg - Book Report #270

Wow!

This is a deep, twisting and mind-numbingly complicated topic.

Why does the world seem so angry?  Why are there so many trolls on the internet?  Is our democracy eroding?  Has capitalism reached its end days?

All of these questions and possible paths to take to avoid war and anarchy are addressed.  Yes, I found some of this impossible to follow but I simply allowed the narrative to continue and to glean the broader concepts.

All-in-all, it was a frightening subject to contemplate considering that our economy (meaning money) is completely decoupled from nature, which is where our economy comes from.

Faced with the realities of crushing national & personal debt, climate change, a growing economic gap between the rich & poor and immigration, humanity is swinging back to populism, read tribalism, in order to cope with these overwhelming problems.

I am unable to give the book its just review here because I am simply not as smart as the author.  I can say that I found it to be a well researched and well-argued subject and that I am richer and more informed for having “read” it.  (It was the audiobook version, thanks to the Edmonton Public Library)

Highly recommended.

Jonah Goldberg 

Leviathans of Jupiter by Ben Bova - Book Report #266

I always intend to start Bova's Grand Tour from the beginning but have yet to accomplish it.

According to Bova, every book in the series is a stand-alone in its own right.  However, part of the payoff from reading a series is the recurring characters and a sense of understanding of how the world works.

What keeps bringing me back to his work is how plausible his vision of the future is.  Since there is no FTL technology, his stories show just how enormous the Sol system is.

The only complaint I have is something I've found in all the books; his antagonist is always a mustache-twisting egotist who suffers from some kind of mental break.  Oh, and the women.  Yikes!  Why does the author feel that every female must fall in love with one of his male characters?

Okay, that's the complaining.  As a science fiction adventure, it's a pretty darn good read.  It centers around a research station orbiting Jupiter.  Below the clouds, there is an ocean thousands of kilometres deep where life exists.

Robotic probes and lives have been lost in trying to learn about the leviathans that inhabit this strange place.  But now, after a secret project to build a better human-rated ship is completed, the station manager must work against time and his superior to launch the mission before he is ordered to stop.

It is a rather unlikely crew that makes the dangerous trip but that doesn't matter as I was treated to a terrific yarn below the clouds.

After reading the book I still want to experience the series from the beginning.

Ben Bova's website - http://benbova.com/

Ben Bova

Star Trek: Into Darkness by Alan Dean Foster - Book Review #258

This was my first experience with a movie novelization and I must say that Foster did a terrific job of it.  As a matter of fact, he made tolerable, even enjoyable the never-ending fight scene from the movie between Spock and Khan.

Foster had a terrific way with the narrative that touches on the old pulps without crossing into purple prose.  I could feel that I was in the hands of a confident writer.

All in all, this was a terrific way to experience the movie in another form.  I liked it very much.

I found the narration of the book by Alice Eve to be refreshing and I thought her take on the characters was spot-on.  I could listen to her voice all day.


Recommended.

Alan Dean Foster's website - http://www.alandeanfoster.com/version2.0/frameset.htm

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson - Book Report #256

Steve Jobs was an amazing individual.  He was a colossal asshole.  A visionary.  And changed the world.

To say he was a complex individual is putting it mildly.  I am surprised people didn't just punch him in the nose at every opportunity.

More than anything Jobs wanted to “make a dent in the universe.”  He wrestled and fought to make his visions reality.

He was responsible for much of the following:

The Graphical User Interface.
The computer mouse.
The personal computer. He helped to bring computers into the home.
The iPod.
iTunes - which helped to tame illegal downloading.
Pixar Animation Studios
iPhone
iPad

Through all of this, he simply was not a pleasant person to be around. He tended to see the world as either fantastic or total shit.  He yelled a people a lot, he stole the credit for ideas and he alienated people.

But his story was completely fascinating.  It is amazing to think about how much he changed our modern-day lives.  Without his vision, we could still be using flip phones.

I am writing this post on an iPad which, interestingly, has an Apple Pencil attached. Jobs hated the stylus and now that I have one I can see he was right.  I hardly use the thing and it actually gets in my way.

The author did a terrific job of showing the real Steve Jobs.  He had permission and was unafraid to show his dark sides as well as his genius.

This is a big read but should tell you something about how much influence Jobs had.

Highly recommended.

Walter Isaacson's Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Isaacson

Walter Isaacson