The Mill River Recluse

The Mill River Recluse: [I will not copy the description of the novel from any other source. Doing that would only give away the story. If you like, follow the link to Amazon page and read the "Product Description" but it will tell you a lot of the plot.]

Author: Darcie Chan
Genre: Fiction / Literary

I selected this book simply because it was available on the kindle daily deals page for 99 cents and it had good reviews. The character development is very good. The author has decided to tell the story from two ends, the past and present, switching back and forth in alternating chapters. No big deal there, but usually when writers do that, there's a mystery or a "present nicely tied with a bow" at the end, but this book's ending was quite weak. The development of just a few characters, out of a town of 400, intertwined in rather plain (and easy) ways is all that is at the end. I enjoyed the easy reading, but it was sort of like peeling an onion; at the end, there's nothing there. Specially so, since I didn't learn anything new from the historical perspective either. I would not recommend this book, but I've noticed that people have given this book 5/5 stars in quite a few places. Perhaps, those who like reading for the sake of reading may find this appealing.

The Dirty Parts of the Bible

The Dirty Parts of the Bible: A Novel: It's 1936 and 19-year-old Tobias Henry is stuck in the frozen hinterlands of Michigan. Tobias is obsessed with two things: God and girls. Mostly girls. But being a Baptist preacher's son, he can't escape God. When his father is blinded in a bizarre accident, Tobias rides the rails to Texas in search of a lost fortune. Along the way, he is initiated into the hobo brotherhood by Craw, a ribald yet wise black man. Obstacles arise in the form of a saucy prostitute, a giant catfish, and a flaming boxcar. But when he meets Sarah, a tough farm girl under a dark curse, he finds out that the greatest challenge of all is love.

Author: Sammy Conner
Genre: Humor

The title is misleading; this books is not so much about the bible, but it is about a boy growing up and becoming a man. It is sort of like Tom Sawyer meets the railroads kind of deal with a bit of religion thrown in. The religion is, most of the time, the butt of the jokes, so if that's not your cup of tea, don't read this one. A quick read. The language and the subject matter makes is not suitable for the young reader but what do I know, these days, the middle-schoolers can make an old sailor blush. No, I didn't learn a great deal about the 1930's Michigan or Texas or hobos or anything; but just enough to get the feel for it. I liked it. Wouldn't "very highly" recommend it, but if you like old-time stories and a bit of humor, this could be a fast read on a plane ride or something.

The Mote in God's Eye

The Mote in God's Eye: The Mote in God's Eye is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, first published in 1974. The story is set in the distant future of Pournelle's CoDominium universe, and charts the first contact between humanity and an alien species.

Authors: Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Series: CoDominium
Genre: Science fiction novel

With the reference to a bible phrase in its title, I didn't have high hopes going into it. The early chapters, sort of, confirmed my preconceptions that the religion would be used quite heavily. Then there were the characteristics attributed to the aliens that I didn't think were feasible or well-thought-out. Reading more into the novel, I came around both of those concerns and saw how the authors used them. This is actually a very well thought out, hard science fiction novel. A lot of attention to the details of science is given. At the end everything sort of fits together to form a cohesive story that is in the realm of "quite possible" and yet it is based on imagined scientific inventions. One of the best sci-fi novels I've read and I'm a big fan of Clarke and Asimov.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who's yearning for pure, hard sci-fi over fantasy novels. (BTW, the above linked Wikipedia article and most other reports about the book contain many spoilers. You've been warned.)

The Elegant Universe

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory: Part of the review on Amazon says "Superstring theory has been called "a part of 21st-century physics that fell by chance into the 20th century." In other words, it isn't all worked out yet. Despite the uncertainties--"string theorists work to find approximate solutions to approximate equations"--Greene gives a tour of string theory solid enough to satisfy the scientifically literate."

Author: Brian Greene
Subject: String theory
Genre: Non-fiction

This is a book on theoretical physics. But the target audience is the general public. The author tries very hard, and beautifully succeeds as well, to give a layman's explanation of relativity, quantum physics and the evolution of string/m theory. I'd studied quantum and relativity in college, so I had a leg up on the early chapters. That actually prepared me to the author's way of explaining things w/o complex equations. No, you don't end up understanding all the theories and concepts completely. The understanding you get is that how the smart people in our civilization try to fit the jig-saw puzzle together to comprehend it all.

This book and Stephan Hawking's The Grand Design try to explain what's it all made of. Perhaps, evolving intelligent life that can ask how and why questions is the universe's way of trying to understand itself.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to take that first step towards theoretical physics.

Lethal People

This is the first book in the Lethal Series or the Donovan Creed series by the author John Locke (no, not that John Locke the 17th century English philosopher).

Okay, so the wikipedia entry for the author says that "Donovan Creed, the main character of the Lethal Series, is a former CIA assassin and a smart-aleck tough guy with a heart of bronze. Locke's characters are particularly known for their witty dialogue." After reading the first of the series, all I can say is that that's some effing bullshit.

The dialogue isn't particularly witty or funny. Yeah, there might have been about three or four funny lines, and that's about it. All the rest were some attempts at humor but didn't come even close. The Creed character is supposed to be a tough guy. The author tries really hard, artificially so, to make the character a really tough dude. Then he sprinkles in throw-up quality (there's no other way of saying it nicely, really) sentimental and romantic scenes tied to the same tough guy. At times, I found the reading it really difficult with my mind saying "this is 9th or 10th grade level writing."

I've been pleasantly surprised by a couple of Michael Connelly detective/thriller novels which I came across by accident. If Connelly is close to a 10, this Locke guy comes close to 1.5. Don't get me wrong; it is an easy read, easy to follow, and there's a definite storyline. But, the story doesn't have any reality basis, or a real mystery. The bad guys are bad, the good guys are good. The winner camp ends up with all the loot and then-some. Because of the language and the subject matter, I can't say the novel is for the young adult. Like they say, it is a book to kill time, for those who like it better dead. I don't think I'll be wasting my valuable time on other books by this author.

[This was the first book I read off my smart-phone.]

The Grand Design

During last Christmas Kishan and Anusha gave me this book, The Grand Design, by the famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, I think, because the title sort of leans towards the nonsensical theological notion of Intelligent Design. Ha ha ha ... they (Kishan, specially) should not judge a book by the cover or the title. The conclusion of the book is anything but that of the popular American theological ... um ... "ideology."

This is a very well written--yet short--book about modern physics, and the implications thereof. In only about 160 or so pages, Hawking and the co-author Mlodinow talk about where and how the scientific reasoning began and how it evolved. And then, they bring it forward to the modern day theories of Special and General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Yet, in the first page itself, the authors throw down the gauntlet by proclaiming that the "philosophy is dead" and it is up to the scientists to take up the quest for knowledge. Boy, do they ever!

The authors explain quite nicely that in the "model-dependent realism, it is pointless to ask whether a model is real" but it only makes sense to find out if the model "agrees with observation." This concept is quite well and simply explained using the example of what a goldfish sees from a spherical fish-bowl.

For a book which someone can thoroughly read and understand in a few days' time, it isn't reasonable for me to try to summarize the content here. Besides, I will come up well short of the mark, even if I try. In the first chapter, the authors define the task at hand and then go about explaining quite a lot of scientific subject matter in plain language in the subsequent chapters. Within a few chapters, they cover the Newtonian mechanics, the special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, the Maxwell equations, etc. The chapters are quite well organized and the thinking process flow from one to the other. They then show the need for various theories in microscopic and macroscopic levels. After glancing through the standard model, the string theory, the set of M-Theory equations etc. they come to the conclusion that "just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the apparently miraculous design of living forms could appear without intervension by a supreme being, the multiverse concept can explain the fine-tuning of physical law without the need for a benevolent creator who made the universe for our benefit."

The book should be easy to follow even for someone who doesn't have a quantum theory background. This isn't a theoretical physics book. It does not drown the reader with equations and buzzwords. Unlike Richard Dawkins' books, I did not get the sense that Hawking and Mlodinow were itching for a fight with the religious fundamentalists. They just bluntly present what comes out of the science and yet they do not to sugar-coat it.

Even if the future discoveries in various scientific fields change or invalidates the set of M-theories, the central concept brought forth in this book will hold true. It is that we can understand and explain our environment with simple and elegant scientific thought without having to resort to magic, mystery or mythology.

I very highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to understand the principles of scientific discoveries.

The Lincoln Lawyer

I picked up the book The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly from our campus bookstore's discount bin because it had a nice title and an intriguing enough summery in the dust cover. This is the second of Michael Connelly's books I've come across after diving through discount bins (the first being the "Void Moon"). In both cases, I've been pleasantly surprised.

Connelly seems to have done a lot of research for this book. I'm not in the "machinery," as he calls the whole legal process, so I don't know how close to reality he comes but it sounds pretty compelling. There's one part, pretty insignificant to the overall storyline, where he explains what a phising scam is. He does a fairly accurate job of it. The thanks at the end of the book mentions that he spent quite a bit of time in the courtrooms and judge's chambers. I can't find any holes in the descriptions.

The story itself is pretty nicely laid out. I couldn't figure out the plot ahead of time (unlike some of Dan Brown's stories). Moreover, the story takes place in Los Angeles and San Fernando valley where I spent quite a bit of time. It was nice to visit those places in the pages of a mystery novel.

Looks like they the movie version is coming out this year. Matthew McConaughey as the defense lawyer? Wouldn't have been my first choice, but hey, it will work. Wonder if he will have that excessive southern twang as an LA lawyer too.

All in all, I liked this book a lot.

Fahrenheit 451

Over the years, I certainly had heard of, and read of, Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 in various places, I thought, I almost knew the story. [Read the above Wikipedia link for a summary of the novel.]

At first, the novel seemed like the typical dystopian view of the world. Then it dawned on me, that most of the other ramblings that I've read of such dystopian warnings have been based on this novel and on Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The more you read about the wall-to-wall TVs, the interactive programming to keep the viewers (consumers) disengaged from the reality, the bombers going overhead to a distant war that no one in the current society cares about, the lack of critical thinking on the part of the majority of the citizenry, etc. the more I can't help but wonder if we are in the process of becoming that dystopian society in this 21st century. The Brave New World was written in 1931 and Fahrenheit 451 in 1953. Yet both authors had had the foresight to think of various ways of technology could be used to the detriment of the society. And, those technologies barely existed back in the authors' times.

The silencing of the intellectuals, hunting down of the accused like escaped criminals, the TV networks working with the authorities to gloss over the realities, ... we are not too far away. What that means in today's society is that it doesn't take an iron-fisted world dictatorship to bring about a dystopia. The well-meaning technologists along with the relentlessly innovating scientists employed by the money-grubbing corporations can steer all of us in the path towards this dystopia all in the name of making a buck and we in the society don't recognize it until it is too late.

Do we not support the intrusion of a little bit of privacy in the name of security? Do we not say "support the troops" regardless of the cause of the war? Do we, the people, really know the real causes of the wars that the old generals in concert with the "military industrial complex" dream of in order the justify their own existence? Do we not nod our heads when the TV talking heads soothe our own sensibilities? We read tweets, not books. We read blogs, not literature. We read article-clips that fit in our Apps, not well-researched articles in periodicals and journals.

Not only should this book be read several times, it should be re-printed every decade with parallels from the current times alongside very page.

Ender's Game

The front cover of Orson Scott Card's book Ender's Game says that it is the author's definitive edition and that it's a winner of both Hugo and Nebula awards.

Read the above wikipedia link for a synopsis or a plot summary of the story. In its entirety the story is quite good and original. It flows nicely and the story makes sense in itself. However, I have several issues:

After the humans have been attacked twice by the buggers, the general public, and even those who train to fight with the enemy don't seem to know much about them. That is completely contrary to what would happen if an alien invasion were to take place. The first thing that everyone would find out would be all the extraneous details such as what do they look like, what do they eat, how do they talk, how would you kill one, what's inside them, where is their brain, where is their weakest point, etc. etc. At the end of the story, we do find out that those who were in the previous fights did know sufficient details and did have pictures and videos. Why aren't those being released? At least to the trainees? I guess, they didn't have embedded reporters like in present-day wars. This, in my view, the author's refusal to let in an important detail early-on in the story but that would have shaped the story better, IMHO.

The human race, after the first invasion, got technologically better at developing really cool stuff like instantaneous communication across light years of distance and a bomb that totally destroys everything, yet they need a child to command the whole fleet? Seriously? I have a difficult time swallowing the strategy of training a bunch of children from 6 years on in order to command a space fleet at the age of about 17 or so. It isn't like any organization, least of all the military, to give up the command level positions to a bunch of kids. And, in the final battle, Ender didn't make a series of 500 mega-decisions in 15 seconds ... he just made a kill-all decision because he was pissed. BFD.

Any space-faring race, no matter how much mind-share they have, needs a way to keep the history, pass on the knowledge to the next generation, organize, etc. They must develop a communication system, at least, between generations. The claim that they don't understand another race's communications or written words, etc is quite far-fetched. Fine, even if they don't understand another species' communication method, they should be able to see the difference between a herd of antelopes running around and a bunch of ape-looking animals driving space ships! I guess, that's why this is (supposedly) a thought provoking novel, but you don't become a space-faring species by thinking alone with a single mind. You need different ideas to clash and debates and such and that means more than one mind and that means there must be a way to put forth opposing ideas and view points. Whatever!

Written in the early 80s, Card seems to have over estimated the power of what a couple of teenagers can do by blogging from their parent's basement. :-)

This is the thing with me and science fiction novels. I tend to find holes in the theories. But, if you ignore the holes and go along with the claims, then this novel is organized and presented really well. Anyone writing such a story in today's environment would have tried to tie the characters into the military tactics of today's wars and the buggers to the international terrorists.