I thought I would have more time than ever to read once I retired. That has not been the case. My news still comes from the internet including a daily dose of the Desert Dispatch on line. Smithsonian, National Geographic, Knowledge (replacing Science News which I cancelled because it degenerated to something not as good as My Weekly Reader [an elementary school magazine decades ago]), and more recently the Wilson Quarterly and technology review are magazine subscriptions that I can more or less keep up with. Authoring does take up much time and reading novels and non-fiction has taken a serious hit. However, writers must also read. I am attempting to adjust the laziness developed in reaction to the constant preparation for classes that I no longer must do. Most recent book finished is on top.

I have decided that I should interpose reading a book between every rewrite of my own creations. The third volume of my trilogy, The Elder Saga, is beyond the rough draft and first rewrite.

Finding an agent or a publisher is a different job, slow moving, and infuriating.

Betrayer

By C. J. Cherryh

Part of a long and expanding(?) series, Betrayer falls into science fiction by the slimmest of definitions: mention of a space station half a dozen times. Half the book is needed to define, and characterize the interacting tribal leaders, their bodyguards, and the human negotiator. The reader is implanted in a Japanese feudal system complete with characteristic multiple honorifics for nearly everyone and battling egocentric warlords. Once negotiations are complete with the normal disbelief of all involved, attacks from all excluded parties, including a rebel splinter group of a recognized continental “military” force, place the tenuous negotiated agreements in greater jeopardy. Perhaps this was an aberration from a recognized prolific author. I don’t intend to find out. (February 2012)

Owl Dance

By David Lee Summers

Steampunk is not my preference, but this anachronistic tale is a fun read and it is not without important lessons. Ramon Morales and Fatemeh Karimi are unusual heroes who get caught up in everyday questionable behavior fostered by those in charge of Socorro’s population and elsewhere some hundred and twenty-five years ago. Their innate sense of fairness and justice keeps them in conflict with the powers-that-be. Their adventures, beginning and based mostly in New Mexico, soon reach notable destinations: Grand Canyon, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Denver. A secondary plot carries the reader to Russia and back. Summers manages to weave southwest history with the presence of an alien existence wishing to learn about humanity. Instead of hands-off observation the alien, intending to save humanity, soon unleashes the baser motivations powerful humans must guard against. Presented as a sequence of cliff-hanger episodes that our pair of heroes must survive (and of course do), Owl Dance manages more insight to human nature than we can witness in the daily news or gain from a psychology class. (January 2012)

Prophet

By Mike Resnick

And the Penelope Bailey saga ends. But not before Resnick has managed to provide a continuing evolution of characters that will become the basis for his later work The Outpost, which is a “tall tale” expose of how heroes saved the galaxy from a takeover by an invading force from another galaxy. Resnick’s old-time Saturday serial sense continues as Penelope’s existence is hardly more than a nebulous fearful presence haunting and determining the action of his heroes. More than just the shoot’em up, sequences that have flowed through the trilogy, a treatise on a human with omniscience or precognition, as Resnick describes Penelope’s ability, provides a clear demonstration of the irony and difficulty of possessing such a talent. The conclusion ties the story up with a nice bow after the only ending possible has taken place. Resnick never fails to provide the reader with a thought-provoking kernel. Penelope’s revelations should not be totally astonishing, but they are properly critical of many of our culture’s aspirations.

Certainly each volume in the trilogy might be read independently of the others and the whole tale might be a single volume—very large. However, beginning with Soothsayer is the only way to read about Penelope Bailey. No book is particularly long and, as Resnick normally writes “page-turners,” the reader is compelled to see what happens next. The trilogy is dashed through. How could one not enjoy? (January 2012)

Oracle

By Mike Resnick

Volume two of Resnick’s Penelope Bailey series has little to do with the title character. Rather it heightens Penelope’s mystery and causes galactic wonder and fear. Set sixteen years after Soothsayer, this part of the tale concerns two bounty hunters and their tribulations to get to the alien planet, not of the Democracy, where Penelope is living. In the background the Democracy is fearful that the prescient young lady may still attempt to take over the galaxy, and it wants her out of the picture. Yet killing her, let alone getting to her, seems insurmountable. Only at the end of Oracle is the reader provided with one more twist: Penelope may be imprisoned and unable to leave. Reminiscent of Mad Magazine’s “Spy vs Spy vs Spy” the reader is carried along with the exploits of the most famous bounty hunter and another who is most able but inept. Oracle ends with Resnick giving a glimpse of why the Democracy’s fears are serious, not only for its own control but for the sake of the galaxy. (January 2012)

Soothsayer

By Mike Resnick

Penelope is a young child and she knows what can happen—all of the possibilities in the near future—and she manages to work toward those that are advantageous for herself. And the whole galaxy is after her because with her in their control, they will corner incredible power and wealth. Except one man who sees farther and knows she will be a menace when she eventually grows up. He wants her dead. In his normal fast-paced style Resnick weaves the first novel of a three part tale. Chases, captures, and escapes follow one after another until the surprising end, that is a little un-Resnick. Mostly the reader is taken on a tour of the questionable trait and its impact of seeing the future. (January 2012)

Spin

By Robert Charles Wilson

It’s hard to imagine this first volume of a trilogy as a Hugo Award winner, unless the award speaks to the temporal (and unexplained) physics of the Spin. The main characters are well-drawn. However, we are presented with a sketchy “end of the world” scenario seen only through their eyes and it looks little different than the catastrophe represented by When Worlds Collide. If one looks beyond the unexplained (and we are offered all sorts of reasons for the lack of explanation) the “what if” seems a rehash of the regular doomsday scenarios the media foist on us and we are at long last provided with the first conclusion (two more volumes each have a conclusion, one presumes), an almost deus ex machina that allows the main characters escape. The format of the novel provides the reader short and discrete and current narrative information that the escape is probable interposed with long chronologies of the history of Earth’s problems and the characters involvement with each other. The tale might end with this part, but a follow story is obvious. (January 2012)

Fuzzy Nation

By John Scalzi

Exploration, worldly wealth, emerging sentience, and intense corporate greed: Zara XXIII has it all in this rollicking adventure of life on a distant planet. Jack Halloway is the unlikely hero, a disbarred lawyer from North Carolina, who discovers way beyond a fortune of sunstones and immediately discovers trouble from all directions. Naturally it all works out, the good win, the evil lose and what’s right happens—unfortunately only on the pages of an enjoyable read. Would that things worked so well in the real world. Scalzi moves his story forward with the technique of the old Saturday serial. Things fall apart, get remedied and are destroyed even worse. The conclusion is never in doubt, just how it’s going to happen. Good dialog and short on description that would take from the action, Fuzzy Nation is a good read that leaves the reader shouting for joy.

The Unincorporated Man

By Dani & Eytan Kollin

Far in the future, centuries after a world economic collapse and a nuclear spat that defied the TAPS report, earthlings are all satisfied and reasonably well off. The solar system has been explored, inhabited in many places, including the Ort Cloud, Mars and Venus terra-formed, and the asteroids and moons of Jupiter and Saturn are inhabitable destinations. Into this seeming utopia, a cryogenic capsule from five hundred years early is found and the occupant, a high-powered business man is reanimated to the fear of all the ruling corporations on Earth. Jason Cord refuses to be incorporated as all humans are at birth, thereby becoming an outcast in the business-style world of humanity. Written several years ago, but after the turn of the century, The Unincorporated Man offers a lesson and a prediction about our financial dealings. The current economic woes the planet faces can be found hinted at throughout this novel. Justin Cord, destined to be a folk hero, presages the end of a “comfortable” world order that has existed for centuries. A bit slow at times, this tale weaves itself around the good, the misinformed (mostly illiterate and unthinking), and the tyrants (corporate executives) who refuse to yield their selfish control for the best of all. The book is long, but the necessary financial narrative ties exciting intrigue and action with a love story. A sequel follows, The Unincorporated War.

Second Contact

By Mike Resnick

This shorter, more entertaining older work by Resnick is in his full dialog and rapid moving story format. This mystery has but two main characters who are involved in discovering why the government wants them dead because one, a lawyer, is willing to built a case to defend a space ship captain’s confession that he killed two of his crew who he thought were aliens. This high pressure four-day adventure includes a female computer wizard who introduces the lawyer, who has many of the characteristics of Wilson Cole of the Starship saga, to the intricacies of espionage and underhanded dealings necessary to stay alive while they touch the lives of more and more officials up the chain of command. This page-turner is a quick read and demonstrates the enjoyable facility Resnick has with moving a story with dialog only.

Paradise

By Mike Resnick

Star Trek’s Prime Directive has been bandied about for more than four decades; however, seldom are we offered an example of why the directive is so important. Humans in their quest for discover and expansion have no empathy or understanding for the needs of “lesser” societies or alien civilizations. We can recognize the failing from the colonialism humans undertook on Planet Earth and generally messed up the enterprise because of selfishness, greed, and lack of concern for cultural differences. Humans seem arrogant enough to believe their ways are best and everyone else should adopt them. Resnick’s Paradise pictures how human exploration and expansion on an alien planet provides nothing but destruction for the inhabitants of Peponi. Nor is his narrative far from what first world nations have always does to third and fourth world countries on our planet. Not much different thematically from another novel, Kirinyaga, written a decade later Presnick seems to have set the parameters of conquest/exploration clearly enough that the later book should be digested with the idea that even when the best of cultural intentions are engaged, culture and heritage take a beating. It is clear that humans are imbued with the belief that our ways are best and we work hard to educate all to understand them, as complex and conflicting as they are. However, the one characteristic that humans seem to have in great abundance, empathy—engaged only later in relationships—should be brought forward at the beginning of our explorations.

Metaconcert

By Julian May

This second part of May’s Intervention story concludes the Machiavellian workings of O’Connor and Rogi’s nephew Victor. More, the novel depicts the normal human fears of the unknown or different (mental operants established in the first book) in conjunction with the ordinary political problems that this planet must suffer. Reading a story that purports a future that is in fact the past of my reading is an interesting view that repeatedly says that “there is nothing new under the sun.” Rogi’s ghost is finally revealed in startling fashion. We learn that Rogi never at danger. The foreshadowing that a quick reading will pass over lets the reader sigh, “Of course.” Though May’s style drags because she tries to stuff so much at one time and juggles many sub plots, we are offered one more hope that humankind might still have some value and the possibility that we can overcome our character flaws is possible.

Fallen Dragon

By Peter F. Hamilton

An older work from before I discovered Hamilton, Fallen Dragon is no less exciting in his presentation of human desire and fulfillment of aspirations. The story from a different universe than I have encountered more recently from Hamilton, we are presented with the image of multi-national powerful business that works for its own perpetual grasping, regardless of what it espouses, at all costs. Into this mix Lawrence Newton works to discover how he can spend his time space-faring which is nearly a lost need. Along the journey to his aspirations Lawrence joins the company that seems to control civilization among the stars in much the manner of medieval kings: colonies are required to provide a percentage of their product to the company. In Hamilton’s normally complex plots, we are carried along with the hero and his history as he is involved in love affairs, dashed dreams, war-like skirmishes, and the discovery of his most basic belief: the human need to explore and expand horizons. In this smaller story (only one volume, instead of the multiple book sagas) Hamilton is not shy with his characters or details. Written in 2002, there are hints that a following tale might spring from Fallen Dragon, but that is not a certainty.

The Surveillance

By Julian May

The first volume in two parts of a larger work entitled Intervention, the reader is provided with a history of metapsychology and introduced to the alien consortium looking to uplift earthlings who have something to provide the galaxy with. The characters are well developed and the chronology is intermittent from the early 40’s to the early 90’s. This first volume, divided into two parts offers hints of what is to come in volume two, but is more concerned with establishing the emergence of humans who have extra normal mental powers, not excluding ESP or telekinesis. The presence of these “superior” humans who have banded together to bring peace to the planet through their special powers, are made known to the world and immediately seen as a greater problem than the nuclear threat from the two super powers.

The Immortality Factor

By Ben Bova

This effort of Bova’s is a reprint of an older non-spacey novel that was an originally edited novel entitled Brothers. This version contains a previously removed chapter. (Several chapters could have been removed without hindering the story; which chapter was removed is not evident.) The book’s format makes it difficult to become embroiled in the story of potential organ regeneration in vivo. The kernel of the story is a hearing to determine the continuance of research for this possibility. However, the story is frequently broken as Bova has long passages—of many pages—that provides his characters’ backgrounds and thoughts and interactions, all triggered by the brief paragraphs of a five day hearing. This method is far from Bova’s normal technique and not easily followed for one expecting his usual story telling. The conclusion of the tale is typical Bova as all strings are tied together in a pleasing conclusion. Bova’s purpose seems an offensive against the non-scientific elements of society and government and how they are pitted against researchers who are working to make our lives better. This much longer than most Bova is more instructive than entertaining and the reader should be prepared.

With A Happy Eye But …

By George F Will

I took nearly a decade to read this collection of op-ed pieces written from ’97 to ’02. I had read an early collection by George Will, a moderate conservative who writes for the Washington Post and other publications. His earlier book was more interesting. Will is not rabid and that helps. More than anything, his style, vocabulary, and periodic sentences are a delight in an era that has put a premium on short simple statement. The book is exceptionally politically directed and he spends much time on the first amendment challenges and election laws that seem to limit whether all candidates can be heard or should be heard or whether the loudest, richest voice should or should not rule. Much of his writing is tied to his time in Washington, D. C., and to the important people he has been in contact with. In a small way he has managed to let the reader in on some insider understanding of what happens in our Capitol.

Hull Zero Three

By Greg Bear

Years ago I managed about 40 pages of Slant by Bear before I put the book up. I have not opened its pages since. Maybe I will now; it can’t be worse than Hull Zero Three which I should have with Hull Zero Three away after 20 pages. An agent or publisher would have done that with an unfledged writer had they forced themselves that far. I hope that the creative well hasn’t run dry, because from Dinosaur Summer Bear’s writing has been superb, although I questioned killing off his heroes in Mariposa after just two adventures. And The City at the End of Time is more fantasy than science fiction but Bear deserves plaudits for attempting something so ambitious and difficult. His latest effort, however, magical fantasy of a regenerative colony ship, lacks tangible substance and a viable conclusion. Three hundred pages of detail do not a good story make: hot and cold, bubbles that contain forests and environments that morph themselves, monkeys, strange creatures that may be human and who are constantly escaping incarnate evil, and an artificial intelligence that seems more fallible deity that continually takes advantage of its creations. There are some who recommend this effort; I am not one. I have read too many excellent tales from Greg Bear to be conned into accepting this sophomoric drivel.

Leviathans of Jupiter

By Ben Bova

Bova’s latest entry into his tour of the solar system is, like Jupiter, much larger than his normal offerings. One character from the Rock Rats saga continues in this tale and Bova introduces a few others that may populate further stories. Intrigue and political skullduggery underwrite a simple attempt (but technologically difficult) for proving intelligent creatures inhabit Jupiter. Normally Bova provides a clear tale with few “gotcha” events and so it is with this one. Determining the intelligence will, of course, take place and the evil will be countered, maybe completely. However, some of the solutions in this tale include nanotechnology, but the rules that Earth refuses return to any one who has encounter nanites seems to have been forgotten. The chief IAA council member is unaware of that prohibition which is also lost on the heroine who has been promised a scholarship to the Sorbonne. It is unimaginable that Bova has forgotten. Perhaps the next story may annul the nanite prohibition as well as remove the fundamentalist hold on planet Earth.

Pandora’s Seed

By Spencer Wells

Spencer Wells takes an unpopular road: humans need to do with less for their sake and the planet’s. His journey skims the development of humans from hunter-gatherers to technologists and provides us with a thin comparison that shows today’s culture as frightfully on the edge of impossibility, to continue, to back up, to improve, perhaps even to exist. Wells wanders through not an original thought that our deadly diseases are as much a result of our longevity as mutant causes. He suggests that our demand for technology (genetics) to solve problems may have unforeseen consequences that are more drastic that the problems it was employed to solve. Wells decries a loss of morality and wonders if a universal ethic is even possible. In the only definitive belief he holds, he stands firm that global warming is human caused and clearly the result of our greed to have an easy life without concern for the consequences. His message, hinted and stated is that we need to back away from our demands, our rushing, our striving, and learn to relax and be satisfied with less. It’s not a new lesson and he doesn’t offer much hope of its learning.

Talus

By Erol Ozan

Imagine a scavenger hunt looking for clues that humans are not the only rational beings on Earth. Add the paranoid fear that very few greedy speculators are in charge of the world. Mix with the unknown and you don’t have Dan Brown or National Treasure. This is not the first attempt at providing mythological creatures like Yetis and Bigfoots with a place in society, but it offers at least another explanation; unfortunately it’s unrealized. Rylan and Ursula are faint images of Langdon and Sophe (from the DaVinci Code) but the similarities are unmistakable. The book is self-published and consequently contains the typos one might expect without a professional editor. However, the most glaring holes are the jerky transitions, lack of reality in detail and plot, and deus ex machina’s to escape impossible situations. It appears that when the author realizes he has no where to go or the word count will be short, he dumps long pages of background and “translations” that add little to the moment. These tangents might have been eliminated if details, descriptions, and flowing segues were better developed. The underlying concept has merit. It might have been more successful after another dozen rewrites.

Figuring It Out

By Nuno Crato

If you watched NUMBERS on TV, you remember that every episode Charlie pulled out some mathematical theory or equation to help solve the problem and catch the perpetrator. This small book by Nuno Crato is the lay person’s version of math related to every day subjects. Crato manages to explain each puzzle, dilemma, encounter, question or intrigue in less than three pages. Seldom does he lose himself in abstract math so the reader is hardly ever out of his element. Occasionally he explains why our intuitions are correct or provides proof that we are simply off base. This interesting little book might be a good bathroom book, but it provides an avenue to realizing that math doesn’t have to be esoteric.

The Buntline Special

By Mike Resnick

The extended title is “A Weird West Tale” and Resnick does not disappoint. The Buntline Special once again demonstrates Resnick’s ability to create characters who delight. He is humorous, a joy to read. This tale of the west is a wacky narrative of the events around the gunfight at OK coral and spiced with vampires, electricity, and prosthetics. The basic elements of this famous gun fight remain, but the whimsy Resnick adds provides intrigue that makes this small slice of history more exciting that normal historical presentations. A short book, word-wise, one might read The Buntline Special in a single sitting. If not, it will call the reader back.

Heroes of History

By Will Durant

Certainly a longer companion to the Lessons of History, Heroes is more concerned with pointing out the succession of major historical figures who have promoted the elements of civilization through their own presence, imagination, and leadership. If the groundwork to our civilization was fully laid by the end of this book, one might imagine that every element of society had been presented by the end of Francis Bacon’s life. Durant has given the reader a primer for what is necessary for humanity if it wishes to understand how life is sorted out in societies and countries. His heroes are the names most are familiar with if not conversant with after a complete education. All are not the best and most favorable of historical characters, but they are the ones who for well or ill molded the people around and after them. The reader who expects superman and crime fighters will be disappointed early on and throughout. Durant allows the evil to be as much a force for developing civilization as the benevolent ruler or the great philosopher or the strong military leader. Rather Heroes of History presents a complete picture of civilization with all its qualities admirable and detestable. With Durant’s tutelage, readers are left to make the future what they imagine to be the best.

Ark

By Stephen Baxter

We must leave the planet, if we are to continue to exist, to search, to answer questions, to maintain our humanity. Baxter envisions that colony ship in reaction to the earth inundating all land with miles deep-water, more water than in fact is found in the planet’s oceans. However his tale is more than just traversing space to find a new earth, Earth II, while the nearly drowned remnant of humans scrounge for mere existence on what has become a water world. In Ark he attacks and exhibits the facets necessary to undertake such a human quest: who should go, how should they be prepared, how do they live, how do humans on earth deal with inexorable submersion? Ark is a study in human psychology, interaction, indomitable spirit, and ultimate submission to uncontrollable forces.

Although his tale reaches the planned conclusion, he drops enough hints that the story might be a twist on an old Twilight Zone episode of the earth’s destruction. His characterizations are complete and run the gamut of people we know around us. However he is magical with respect to the needs and provisions of everyday items we take for granted: food, clothing, technology, and the basic elements for maintaining that existence. Since most of the book is about events in faster than light travel (covering some fourteen years at warp 3) the earthen remnant has hardly aged much beyond the same time. Of course Star Trek labored under the same difficulty.

What Baxter has given us is a primer for leaving this planet and setting out into the galaxy. He reminds us, again and again, that there is much we have to do before we set off on such an adventure. The first is to put our own houses in order. Humanity, unfortunately, is not yet ready for the trek; we must mature and do so quickly, especially if the earth should decide to make our lives impossible upon it.

Heirs of the New Earth

By David Lee Summers

In the concluding volume of the trilogy, Earth, humanity, and the galaxy faces potential extinction. In a remarkable confluence, the heroes of the first two volumes all manage to cooperate in the defense of humanity and the Clusters are provided with a different alternative than symbiosis with humans that they have undertaken. Summers dashes through the galaxy gathering his characters, bringing them to one final confrontation at Earth. This third part moves more quickly and definitely toward conclusion that will obviously be in humanity’s favor. His denouement ties all into a nice bow but also keeps a few openings for something that might follow. The Clusters are the first appearance of potential danger or imperfection possible in transferring one’s knowledge and history and personality to a computer. This consideration is not, however, a spot-lighted extension of the far-out desire of those who look to download themselves onto a hard drive. It does provide some wonder about such an operation.

Pirate Latitudes

By Michael Crichton

Discovered on his computer after his death, this posthumous novel seems far from Crichton’s normal tales. Historical fiction was never his method. Crichton always took some scientific headline and expanded the logical extreme into his normally long tales. This tale of the 1600’s takes place in the Caribbean as a rollicking jaunt along with privateers. The ending is hardly ever in doubt, but Crichton does manage to throw a few unexpected twists. The resolution of the difficulties along the way, though possible, seem most improbable at times. The tale is entertaining. However given the length and the length (much shorter than his novels for several decades) and the looseness of continuity, I wonder if this is more a very early effort that had not seen publication. And with the word that another novel that had not seen a publisher is waiting for one in the next two years, one must wonder if it is an earlier work as well. Crichton was certainly not without scientific landscapes to write about.

Children of the Old Stars

By David Lee Summers

Volume 2 of The Old Star Saga provides the reader with a twist in sequence. Instead of the hero being demoted, he ends up promoted after doing exactly what was done to be demoted at the end of book one. The mystery of the Cluster is solved but with alarming consequences amid a bit of romance, some subversion and not a little soul searching to provide solid base to the characters who seem always to be at the right place at the right time. However, the cliffhanger for this book is something that provides much greater catastrophe than the mere war on Safiro. Summers has offered us a nice twist on where the intelligence comes from and takes a stab at perhaps explaining, as David Brin never got around to doing, how humans rose to rationality. This volume provides more action and perhaps presages a philosophic twist for the final part to this saga.

The Pirates of Sufiro

By David Lee Summers

This is the first book of a trilogy, founded by a privateer in the galactic federation who is entrapped and eventually lands on a distant planet to begin a new civilization from the ground up. The plot covers many decades as it follows the original settler and his family and naturally glosses over the ordinary lives of the characters as it presents the follies and foibles of humans as we have come to expect them. The conclusion of the book is hardly in doubt, although there are a couple of unexpected twists that allow good to triumph. The grand scheme of things is more important in how civilization or society may develop and Summers manages to introduce the Cluster, an apparent alien probe, that provides the impetus for the tale to continue.

The Year of the Flood

By Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake extended is this droll production by Atwood. In my experience, writers wipe out the planet and the human species at the beginning of their careers, not Atwood. Perhaps there is a bit of hope that our species will make the changes fitting for supposed rational beings. The overwhelming ecological and technological demands by our civilizations are evident, but not dwelled on. The Year of the Flood is clearly an ecology treatise but without the hope that most of them offer the reader. Humans are stupid is the underlying message. Perhaps we are; fostering change can be enjoined by praise or damnation. Atwood offers very little praise.

Evolutionary Void

By Peter F Hamilton

The awaited conclusion to the Void trilogy continues the complexity of interacting characters that only astonishes the reader. Hamilton manages to juggle so many elements with skill and incredible anticipation as all have a part in the conclusion which naturally falls in line with his continual belief that all must end well. Description, detail, and psychology all fall in place as the prescribed, within the chronology of the story, brief time is stretched out with innumerable cliff-hanger potentials. Hamilton is a master at tying all up neatly and the Void series, a simplistic "end of universe" (instead of planet or civilization) idea, is turned, analyzed, dissected, and stretched out for viewing.

One book seller waited for this part to be published before he intended to real all of them. If he started quickly after availability, he's finished now. I can't imagine the story without volume gaps.

Long for this world

By Jonathan Weiner

Let's live forever, or a thousand years, which ever comes first. It's a mantra uttered by biologist Aubrey de Grey in a cogent explanation why aging is more disease than condition and that there are ways to counter the inherent demands that our bodies be mortal. Much of the book is a narrative of de Grey's reasons that biology will eventually provide us with immortality and that living forever is a desirable condition. Not until the end of the book—the last three chapters—does Weiner waver from the mantra. Objections to exceedingly long life are introduced in the normal philosophical concerns over boredom and health and quality of life; then he considers the evils that arise from dictators and autocrats maintaining their empires and people refusing to have children which is a selfish and questionable rational existence, not unlike that of the "Q" presented in a "Voyager" episode of the multi-series Star Trek run. Weiner does not convince the reader to buy into immortality. Rather he offers both yea and nay their fair viewing (de Grey has more space). The reader decides.

The Island of the Colorblind

By Oliver Sacks

This book had been on my shelves for several years before I opened it. I had forgotten the pleasure of reading Sacks but was immediately reminded. His language and flow is intriguing. This book is almost a "throw together" of three or four island in Micronesia. Complete colorblindness is rare but on Pohnpei it is very common. Sacks explains how this apparent lack of sensory perception for these people is hardly a handicap. The second half of this small book, less than 200 pages, is about two neurological diseases (the general expertise that Dr. Sacks possesses) that frequently join to incapacitate select families on Guam. We see the ravages of the diseases and the potential causes—cycads—and the mystery of the vanishing of the disease. In a brief final chapter, Sacks takes us to the island of Rota where he receives in depth instruction of cycad trees which instruction is an extension of his own early childhood interest in uncommon plants.

The Lost Symbol

By Dan Brown

One part of the literary definition of a short story is that it should take as long to read as the action of the story takes to happen. Brown manages that time element better in The Lost Symbol than in his first novels. Except for the final pages that are droll and an unwelcomed humanist presentation for a natural religion tied closely to Free-Masonry, the tale dashes madcap with more twists than he offers in his other novels. Brown does employ deus ex machina in places, but the general plotline is reminiscent of Saturday morning action serials of sixty years ago. The belief that characters will not vanish from the story is occasionally difficult to maintain and his ultimate twist should shock for it is not foreshadowed: the reader has been lied to. Though I am not a Mason, I imagine that his presentation of elements of that order are little different in reality than the amassing of myths and legends and innuendo that he employs in The DaVinci Code.

Mariposa

By Greg Bear

Bear's latest futuristic mystery loosely employs his characters from Quantico as they try to defuse a scheme that will ruin the United States. Seemingly fueled by the current crises the country and world face, a single bad guy has technology, multiple moles in many government agencies, and assistance from questionable governments around the world to aid his nefarious scheme. Mariposa does not take off until nearly half way through, the first part placing his characters in mysterious vignettes that the reader knows will fit together and must either try to sort out or follow along for the ride. Once the action takes over, it runs as it did with Quantico. However, as Quantico seemed more plausible an event that might plunge the world into chaos, so Mariposa lacks the same potential, although it is fair to mention that Bear offers no date line that might allow the reader to extrapolate the technology. Unfortunately, the conclusion is less optimistic than his recent books and seems a nod to his first novels when he was accustomed to destroy the Earth.

Skeptics and True Believers

By Chet Raymo

Raymo manages to create the dichotomy that one may possess either science or religion. Within the realm of religion, without much reason, he drops astrology, extra-terrestrials, fairies and elves, and general misinformation. Unfortunately Raymo's concept of religion is indeed childish and not evolved beyond his elementary school catechism despite having dealt with Frank Sheed's Theology and Sanity (if he actually read it) at Notre Dame. Consequently his "straw" arguments in deflating believers come from notions that are equal in validity to his deflating of claims of anti-science protesters. One might expect more understanding of his Catholic upbringing. However, his statement that once he found science, religion no longer meant anything explains his one-sided presentation that science is superior to God.

It had been some time since I had read what I determine a "garbage" book, one far off the path of serious discussion or is intellectually dishonest. Raymo writes long in the face of consensus of many that science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps he should take his avowed intellectual openness and extend it to an unbiased search of what his early Catholicism really meant.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

By Diane Ravitch

Ravitch knows what is wrong with education in the United States and what must be done to turn things around. The subtitle "How testing and Choice Are Undermining Education" recognizes that test results do not prove education and the emphasis on that data will turn us into a nation of ignorant test takers. Pat Reeb, late English teacher at Barstow High, once wrote that students are not sausages and they are not things on an assembly line. The powerful influences that are controlling education today are not concerned with anything but their own power. They repeatedly see that their methods are not fostering education, but they only adjust the market strategies; they do not seek to educate. Perhaps they want a nation of dolts.

Eifelheim

By Michael Flynn

A second of two books my daughter gave me this year, this historical fiction is a fine example of bringing the middle ages to the modern world with the anachronistic addition of alien encounters. Flynn's details are equal to Ken Follett's detailing of the people of the time and his presentation of Catholic belief and philosophic dissertations is much better. Eifelheim scarcely covers a year's time and the description of the Bubonic Plague is effectively frightening. Almost lost in the story is the appearance of aliens who demonstrate that a species able to travel the universe must be benevolent not malevolent. These Insectoid creatures possess the technology we expect to see from any advanced species and they (some of them) also have the eagerness to learn of and from the creatures they have been stranded with. The book does have some slow spots and it is much longer than one might expect from a story of alien encounters. The original novella "Eifelheim" was reworked and interposed with appropriate chapters of the fourteenth century narrative.

Metatropolis

Edited by John Scalzi

This brief anthology of five long short stories purports to describe the future of cities on planet Earth. The reviews suggest each story provides "hopeful" possibilities. If the intent is to turn the planet into a green society, then they are hopeful. Unfortunately I find them more "Mad Max" descriptions of the destruction of all that is technological and recognizable in our current societies. The poor are everywhere and the wealthy are the ones who still make sure the poor remain so. Some technology is present, but the utopian concept is as it might have been with Brave New World, only for a select few who have gated themselves from the rest. Scalzi's contribution was the best of the lot at the beginning as he described a smartass who did not get rewarded for his refusal to accept education. By the story's end we discover that being a recalcitrant smartass still provided the hero his success in spite of his poor education.

The Lessons of History

By Will & Ariel Durant

This short book of thirteen brief essays recounts the basic elements of human civilization. Written more than 40 years ago, its incisive thought about human beings and what they do has been demonstrated repeatedly since the book was written. We should not be amazed that we have not changed much from the 5,000 year history that the Durants point out as important pegs that we align ourselves with from that distant past. Easily read, it does require a familiarity with historical information from around the world.

Terminal World

By Alastair Reynolds

This novels departs from Reynold's usual fare as he ventures into future holocaust, some magic, animal-machine combination, Mad Max, good angels and bad angels. Imagine Saturday serials and Terminal World fits the genre. Although the story seems to drag some and the book is longer than Reynolds seemed accustomed to create, the extra length is found is tedious descriptions of intricate activity. His cast of characters is about normal and they are well-drawn. However the foundation for his plot is not well drawn and the reader is left without explanations other than "that's just how it is." For those who are willing to accept the unexplained and follow the action, the plot moves well and the reader can almost always stay ahead of the solutions that evolve from the personality of his characters, except for the handful of gotchas that Reynolds uses to get out of "now what?"

101 Theory Drive

By Terry McDermott

The way science works and what goes on in labs is what my daughter told me about this book. If so, it takes a special person to work in a lab and do science. Gary Lynch, a neurophysiologist, seeks to find how the brain remembers and what makes memory. Difficult to read as the science is filtered through the specific personality of Lynch, driven to find the answer to a search that has not altered in three decades, the solution is probably not available to a scientist. Francis Crick in his Improbably Thesis was trying to discover the biological foundation of thinking in much the same way Lynch is attempting to discern the biology of memory. Both fail because their goal is more than biological and they will not admit philosophy and the spirit is involved. The book does offer some insight into what and how treatment for brain disorders can be based on drugs that interact with specific brain chemistry.
More than anything this book offers one graphic demonstration of why "reading someone's brain" will never take place. It is one thing to recognize where the memory may be indicated, but considerable more to imagine what the memory is of and where else it connects.
The Hippocampus is Lynch's playing field and it may be the underlying file system for what is stored in the rest of the brain. This concept was not mentioned, probably because it returns one to the metaphor of the computer which is not the brain.

The Dark Beyond the Stars

By Frank M. Robinson

This tale of a colony, generational spaceship is ponderous. Written from the perspective of the hero, the vision is the despairing belief that only humans from earth inhabit the galaxy or universe. I discovered this book in my pile of books yet to be read and seemed to have started it several years ago and mistakenly left it unfinished. I thought of many possible endings that diverged from Robinson’s who maintained his somber belief until the epilog. The tale does not turn until very close to the end and rushes to the complete explanation of the intrigue, mutiny, and explanation of the currents and riptides that are present throughout. I prefer rosier conclusions, but the presentation of humanity is faultless. Would we had more principled ideals.

Galileo’s Dream

By Kim Stanley Robinson

Perhaps every author has one bad book. This departure from what Robinson does best is one more discussion of the travesty that took place between the Catholic Church and Galileo, except Robinson adds a ridiculous construct of time-travel related to the Galilean moons. One more time the thrust of the accusations are couched in the worst possible light on the Church because the real reason is not only glossed over but omitted. Galileo’s problems did not begin because he said that the earth revolved about the sun, but because he said “The Bible is wrong” referring to the text in Joshua that the sun stood still in the sky while the Israelites were winning the battle. Had Galileo recanted his ‘Bible’ statement, things would have been different. The Church had to prosecute over his accusation of the Bible’s inaccuracy. Except for this traditional discussion that has been hashed too many times, the presentation of Galileo’s problems was reasonably presented although the swooning, syncopes, provide questionable explanation for what transpired in Galileo’s encompassing medical difficulties.

Able One

By Ben Bova

A second novel by Bova that is not happening in the solar system, presents a similar possible scenario of a potential devastating effect for the world as Greg Bear’s Quantico does. This novel developed in short byte-chapters bounces from character to setting from Southern California to the Pacific to Washington D.C. builds the tension until the very end. There is one sidebar that seems completely out of place, as if it were intended as a red-herring for the plot. Fast-paced, Able One is a page-turner that frequently injects fear from the “what if” conjectures.

Islands in the Sky

Edited by Stanley Schmidt and Robert Zubrin

This collection of essays form Analog purports to explain how humanity might leave the planet and continue its existence throughout the galaxy. Zubrin is known for his fostering ways to emigrate to Mars. But Mars is hardly the focus of this book which offers, sometimes very esoteric, ways to leave earth, populate the solar system and move on. The physics and math are not easy, but the narrative are very encouraging despite the impressions that most of the book seems more science fiction that potential. The saving element is that our sun will not destroy Earth for another 5 billion years and assuming we do not destroy our home, there is enough time to create the physics necessary for the outrageous schemes proposed.

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

By Paul Theroux

Thirty-three years after his extended jaunt around Asia, Theroux repeats the trek ostensibly to see what changes have happened to that part of the world. Mostly he discovers that countries are worse and the people, those he comes in contact with are still friendly, kind, helpful, and social: the hope for the world. I have read much of Theroux who is mostly a travelogue writer who shows in vivid description the world to those of us who are too timid, too introvert, too poor to attempt the same personal research. Theroux excels in travel and telling the rest of the world. He is also impossible to read quickly. He uses words interestingly and combines them into long, periodic sentences (an incredibly pleasant discovery during a time of short sentences being the unwritten rule) is captivating and unusual ways that no one else can. Ghost Train is more a series of essays about human beings than it is anything else. It is difficult to be uninterested in humanity and Theroux is unbiased is his presentations.

Assegai

By Wilbur Smith

The Courtney saga, a continuous narrative of the Courtneys who were privateers in the early 1600’s continues with Leon in Nairobi. Smith spins the tale of a willful British soldier who is sheltered by his uncle, while learning to be a hunting guide in Africa and working intimately with the Masai, during the time immediately before the First World War. Leon Courtney soon becomes a spy and finds that there are others around him. Smith’s inimitable style provides the reader with fine description woven around the political climate and an image of the coming European disaster that has implications for Africa. Assegai is a fun read and those who pay attention to the details will not be shocked at the ending.

The Temporal Void

By Peter F. Hamilton

Volume 2 of the Void trilogy spends more time with fantasy inside the void as it is defined by the dreams of Inigo than in the futuristic Federation some 12 centuries older than the time frame of Judas Unchained. The link between the two concurrent tales is made more clear but it continues to be tenuous. Hamilton has revealed some answers and has directed the reader to recognize our society in many ways as he is a master at placing the future in very contemporary concepts. His cast has increased greatly and the arena of his action is truly the galaxy. He does not leave the reader with the traditional “cliff hanger,” many TV series employ, to keep readers anxious for the next installment. However, the only disadvantage to finishing The Temporal Void months before the concluding volume is available—September 2010?—is that his story telling does not continue to entertain.

House of Suns

By Alastair Reynolds

Epic in scope, Reynolds has an unfolding tale of civilization and its galactic implications. Taking, perhaps, a page from Peter Hamilton in creating characters and complex interaction, Reynolds offers a story of the far future of our galaxy as human clones, machine intelligence, and intrigue shape the fears of one line of long-lived creatures. Slow starting, the book does not take off until it is about half over. The flashbacks describing the development of the Gentian line of eon-existing clones does not satisfy the ultimate conclusion of the story.

Starship: Flagship

By Mike Resnick

And so the saga of Wilson Cole ends as it begins: Cole manages to make the galaxy safe for all species while removing the bad guys from their positions of power. And he does it all without killing anyone. He threatens, he cajoles, he persuades and others jump to his side. Resnick’s format for this five part series is much more evident in this concluding book. Dialog carries the story; narrative is practically non-existent, nor are details lacking. Resnick is a master at providing the reader with everything he needs within the conversation of the characters. The solution to Cole’s dilemma does seem to be far afield, but it fit with the aura of “luck” that seems to clothe Cole in all of his adventures.

Resnick is just plain fun to read. Unfortunately I read the book in one sitting and enjoyed it. The problem is, of course, that there is no more to read until he puts something else out. That’s why my reading is eclectic. I have enough authors that I am intrigued by all without entering a void of nothing to read.

The Dreaming Void

By Peter F. Hamilton

Following Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained after a chronology of some 12 centuries, Hamilton continues his epic saga of populating the galaxy with the first of a new trilogy. The intrigue involved in the previous narrative has been increased several fold as the option of downloading minds and personalities into an over-reaching artificial intelligent consortium in the federation is fraught with rejuvenation, superhuman abilities, and multiple levels of ESP. However Hamilton mixes sci-fi with fantasy as the new religion seems to seek a time Hamilton presents as a fantasy medieval Earth society mixed with magical powers. In a mix I have not seen since LeGuin’s The Dispossessed Hamilton alternates the science future with the medieval in what is essentially two stories each of which might stand alone. Occasionally the reader is must recall characters from the previous two part saga, but Hamilton properly provides enough background and brief flashback in detail to make sure the connections are present.

The Greatest Show on Earth

By Richard Dawkins

For several years Dawkins has steadfastly refused to mount a rebuttal to Creationism. Apparently he has finally succumbed to the need, no doubt from the statistical information about the science knowledge of the general public of the United States and his home country, England (which is found as an afterthought chapter). This book does present information about why evolution does found the existence of life on this planet. Dawkins moves slowly and systematically to cover how it formed and branched out into the kinds we know about. Had he stayed with the biology and development of evolution, the book would have been sufficient (except for the expected refusal of creationists to read it) but he let his atheism take control in the last pages where he summarily rejects the concept of “intelligent design” by offering his explanation of why a creator was really a bungler using a few examples of biological development which he says were poorly done—a nerve in the giraffe’s neck, the vas deferens in males—and maintains his critique demonstrates the lack of intelligence, since he would have done a better job.

Human

By Michael S. Gazzaniga

Thirty some years ago, Mortimer Adler in a Great Books Yearbook discussed the differences of humans and other animals and why biologists and animalists and others who thought the difference was one of degree. His approach was basically philosophical as he was the reigning Aristotelian scholar of his time. Michael Gazzaniga has reprised Adler but from the scientific side of the field. Adler mentioned that none of those dealing with the problem were fit to discuss it because they were either scientists or philosophers; the problem was one contained in both areas. Gazzaniga is well-grounded in both areas. His presentation of why and how humans are different and able to do the things we do covers the philosophy Adler was demanding and supports it with the science of brain theory and biology. Human dismantles the concept that humans are different from other animals in degree and demonstrates why our difference is in kind. More than anything, he celebrates us as being separated from other animals because, although some of the biology is similar and some is not, we possess other biology and abilities dependent on that biology that makes us unique and unable to be duplicated. In a brief conclusion he discusses why AI cannot be achieved if it means a mechanical being with human abilities that are superior to human ability.

Hazards

By Mike Resnick

Mike Resnick has to be the funniest author I have ever read. Introduced to him in his novel Kirinaga, a utopia concept that fails miserably as all utopias must, I didn’t know his brand of humor until I read The Outpost, a long series of tall tales of the galaxy’s greatest heros. Hazards seems to be a detour from his Spaceship five part series, but it still resides in tall tales peppered with very old “goaner” jokes. Reading Resnick is just plain enjoyable and unfortunately because he reads so quickly the fun is gone until another book appears. Resnick is also the first author I ever read who carries his stories almost totally through dialogue.

Terraforming

By Martin Beech

More technical than I had hoped for, this relatively short book offered reasons why the Earth is our home and what characteristics we demand for life. Only after a long presentation of why the Earth is as it is, does Beech begin to consider how Mars and Venus (yes!) must be altered to allow humanity a place to live. Then he considers some far future and seemingly incredibly expensive methods for terraforming other bodies of the solar system. He deals with Jupiter and its four major moons, Saturn’s moon Titan, the larger asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. Other bodies of the system, including the Kuipper Belt are shown to have natural resources we might use to make these other bodies habitable. Lots of math and some far out thoughts make the book difficult and exciting. Mostly this concept is something that will take tens of millennia from happening.

Genesis

By Bernard Beckett

A very brief novel from one of New Zealand’s fine writers—150 pages—that presents a good discussion of some of the ideas currently in the forefront of consciousness and mind and free will discussions. Description is almost non-existent as the sequence is dialog which occasionally does drag. A good book that should surprise nearly any reader can be read in an extended sitting.

Science at the Edge

Edited by John Brockman

Human beings, computer technology, and cosmology are the three topics discussed extensively by the leading scientists in each field. Nor do they merely rehash the state of each scientific study; they extend the field and parameters well beyond current status. Theories, premises, and imagination abound as one reads about human development and the possibility of dissecting consciousness and what humans might become, the possibility of conscious machines and their impact on our lives, and the dimensionality of the universe and how we might experiment to show them.

The Golden Torc

By Julian May

Volume two continues the saga of humans and aliens in time past. Still very slow, the humans do show their superiority in the midst of fantasy and magic and abilities that are incomparable.

The Many-Colored Land

By Julian May

The first of a four volume fantasy/sci-fi epic about humans who traveled to the Pliocene era and managed to defeat a group of aliens who had long before taken control of the era. The motley group of characters from the latest exile to the Pliocene carry the plot even though their whole group has been split (second volume dealing with the split). Interestingly the races all cooperate to create the success and without the need to press the issues with strong urging. Pliocene details are reasonable for letting the story flow. Interesting speculations about what humans and aliens might do in this era.

The Pillars of the Earth

By Ken Follett

Historical fiction that is epic in scope and more characterized than Dickens is maddening to read. Good is always trumped by devious evil; good seems never to gain. In that concept is truth and it suggests that the civilization is not much better off now than eight hundred years ago. But good, in its quiet, subdued manner does triumph. Perhaps that is a lesson—the patience—that we all need to recognize. What is just and proper and fitting is not necessarily to be exulted in or splashed over all. The book seems to drag for much of its 800+ pages. Follett is able to make the twelfth century come alive with his detailed descriptions, but that imagery is not particularly exciting, though it is accurate. That mundane interweaving of the characters is what drags: Murphy’s Law exemplified—if justice is achieved, the success is short-lived.

The Black Swan

By Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In the world of finance most believe that there are patterns within which “black swans” are the unexpected singular happenings. Black swans are both good and bad events that impact economics. Taleb does not believe in patterns or axioms, and in the beginning of the book it is difficult to imagine that one should even be reading his own philosophy. Assuming, according to Taleb, that there are no patterns in randomness and that all economics are founded on those who are not manipulative, then one must make one’s choices random as well. However, his belief seems to be that there is no manipulation. Such a belief is hard to imagine given the current spate of economic advisers, companies and other con-jobs that seem all connected with traditional pyramid schemes.

Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things

By Laurence Gonzales

Instead of a general explanation of the stupid things people ordinarily do with great regularity, Laurence Gonzales spends most of the book explaining who humans do not spend much time looking for different solutions to the same problems. According to Gonzales we are our own worst enemies because we are too comfortable with how we live. He begins with several explanations of how we are different from all other animals, especially other primates. Then he shows us that we are unwilling to accept the challenges of the world that have arisen because of our lack of global thinking. Whether he actually believes humans control the fate of the planet in our lifestyle or not, he does present a good case for our considering other cultures and the planet itself as principles that should guide our future.

The Man Who Loved China

By Simon Winchester

Regardless of the subject, Simon Winchester is a delight to read. His research is extensive and we are allowed to pull back the veil of history and become a spectator. Joseph Needham is portrayed as a man obsessed with all things China. Against the snippets of the Chinese and their “magical” culture, Needham is shown to be almost as strange as the “madman” in Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman, the story of the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary. Winchester’s intensity of explaining and picturing his subject is more an exercise in the breadth and depth of his own extensive studies from the geology of Britain in The Map That Changed the World, and volcanology in Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded.

Starship: Rebel

By Mike Resnick

The fourth installment of Captain Wilson Cole, the mutinous hero escapee of the Federation’s Navy finally leads him back to a promised confrontation with Federation forces. Cole’s space armada has grown and it has also begun to create rifts within his own dominion. The fast pace of the first three books has not relaxed and the story is still propelled by pages of dialogue.

Misspent Youth

By Peter F Hamilton

As Hamilton’s other books go, this was a short story. Rejuvenation at the beginning is fraught with problems that are not told to Jeff Baker (or the problems are unknown, leading to the general lack of foresight humans have). More a subdued battle of the generations, the story compares a father and son in their sexual exploits in living and reliving their youth. A quick read and generally transparent, Hamilton does offer a relook at being able to “do that again.”