reading , watching , listening
We finally got to the end of Yes Man by Danny Wallace last night , its a 5CD rambling story of random events all started by Danny saying ‘Yes’ instead of his usual ‘No’
Pretty shallow and meaningless.
Recommended by Dave Jenkins.
The main theme within this book is “Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”. A simple statement that anyone can understand, but to fully understand, get the evidence, the answer to why this is so then it is highly recommended that you read this book.
Dawkins looks at the theory and then identifies thorough examples as to why we are here and not by design but by chance/natural selection. It looks at other theories and examples and he uses rational thinking and logic to explain the results. It’s taking the idea of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and holds that idea with comparing against other ideas of evolution by mutation or any other effects.
It’s a heavy read like his God Delusion book, and something I feel I would have to read twice to fully understand and explain things in detail. But I have to say my favourite quote from the book is “The Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Easter herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants”.
I still wonder why so many humans still cling to the creationist idea of our world, questions is who created the creator? Sometime we must accept the simple fact that we do not know, and that’s it without filling blanks with fake ideas.
Available on Amazon
Ken Macleod has to be one of my favourite authors as I have read close to all of his books. Does that make me a fan? So I looked forward to the latest offering that was served up by the man which was Night Sessions, best described as a futuristic thriller based in the ‘not-to-distant’ future were climate change has occurred meaning that Edinburgh is now warm and tropical.
It all begins with a New Zealander flying to Scotland to meet up with a secret order without truly knowing that he is being used as a part of a wider plot to bring down the current world order and return to a world that is dominated by faith. The back drop is that this is all taking place after the world has recovered from the Faith Wars and put in place actions to prevent climate change by putting in place giant disc’s that cover the sun over to stop the world warming up to much.
Yet a series of murders takes place, which appear to be actions of terrorists aiming at tipping the scale back to world of fear and religious indifference , the search for the murderers opens up a wide network of secret orders & cults. The robots end up becoming a focal point of this plot as the creationists some how make them think that they should have some king of holy sprint.
Good and very enjoyable read, recommended purchases for reading or in audio book format.
Available on Amazon
| Cryptonomicon is a novel written by American author Neal Stephenson. As the title suggests, the main theme to this is about cryptography but also the runs deeper with the very human instinct for greed and power.
This book is based in two different time zones, the first being World War Two which follows the exploits of a young American mathematician who is sent across to Bletchley Park in England to help with the cracking of the Axis codes. This then involves him being set-up with detachment 2702 who are a crack unit who have highest level of security clearance. The creation of detachment 2702, then involves many other characters who play a large role within this story. He also has to outwit his old University friend Rudy von Hacklheber who is trapped in Germany working for the Nazis. The other side to the book is the modern story line or should that now be mid to late 90’s where it follows the descendants of the main characters from the world war two time zone story. This group is attempting to use modern cryptography to build a data haven within a fictitious state of Knakuta, or like an electrical money exchange that would handle all payments. The two main characters within this section have had many attempts before of marking a business work, but his time it seem they could be on to something. Until the dentist get’s involved and law suites and secret government agencies is watching and tracking they movements. The good thing about these two is they are using Finux (Linux to you and me), now that was cool. The two story lines are completely separate to start with and it’s only later on in the book that you start to see some of the connections that will link both together. This was the second Neal Stephenson book that have read, and it’s very close or is the best book to date. It’s just gripped me from start to finish and was disappointing when I finished as I felt that more needed to be said. So I’m looking forward to reading some more of his books in the future, I think the next one will be Anathem and then back two one of his old books In the Beginning was the Command. 10 out of 10. |
I’m not taken to reading many or any fantasy novel, but as this book was written by Richard Morgan who wrote Altered Carbon it was about time that I gave this fantasy genre a try.
The main plot is set ten years after the Human-Kiriath Alliance fought against the invading Scaled Folk who appeared as ghosts and lived in a different realm. From this three of the main characters came back as war heroes are having problems adjusting back into normal pace of life and also renewed conflict between the Northern League and Yelteth Empire has returned which could break out into total war. But beyond this something is lurking that is far more dangerous and worrying then the current problems.
The main character is in self-imposed exile, but is approached by his mother to go and search out her missing daughter, from this he finds something fat more worrying and dangerous that could lead to the collapse of the Yelteth Empire and bring darkness down on the whole planet that may lend to the end of normal physical beings.
Not being a normal fantasy reader, I did find the book hard going to start with and the language was of a different nature. But once over that it was overall a very interesting, deep and edgy read that at times pushed the bounders as to what I really what'd to be reading. Warning this book contains explicit sex and violence throughout, so if you are weak and narrow minded you best stick with Peter Pan.
The Foundation Series is an science fiction series written by the great Isaac Asimov who was Russian born but lived most of his life in the USA. The series in question is made up of seven different books, that all interlink but could be read in any order and separately. Below is the order in which I would recommend the books be read in.
It has taken me around 5 months to read all the series, and that does include some other books added in for good measure (I'll update media with those soonish). You can still get them from your local book shop and of course online, but the best route is to search your local second had bookshop and you may be able to buy the whole series in one go.
So you may be asking what all these books are about, well it's the story of psychohistory which was the concept of one mathematician call Hari Seldon who spent his life developing psychohistory using mathematics and the law of mass action to predict the future, but this would only work on large scale. With this idea in he headed to Trantor the capital world of the then Galactic Empire to showcase his findings. So for the next 500 years the books cover the story of what happened and was Hari Seldon right or was he wrong. Could psychohistory fail, and all the work be for nothing. What else was out there that could stop this from reaching it's conclusion ?
I recommend this to anyone to read as is classic science fiction that will not seem out of date, even thou it was writtern back in the 1960's to 1970's time. I never got bored with the books, and found it a pleasure to read, that it was able to keep your interest at all times. The Foundation Series is sometimes used more generally to include the Robot Series and Empire Series, which are set in the same fictional universe, but in earlier time periods.
I was in a struggle trying to select a new book to read a while ago, and then came across Dies the fire by S M Stirling. I have previously read one of his other books called the conquistador and remembered how much I enjoyed it, as it was more about an alternate earth history.
This time it was about when the lights went out, without warning or any understanding as to what happened. It turns the worlds physics up side down, as now no electricity will run or work, no composition engine will work or stream power. In short it was like going back to the middle ages in blink of an eye.
The setting is the Portland region of USA with the book following a pilot who is flying a rich family to their ranch and a folk singer and her friends who head out from the city on a quest to survive the sudden change. It focuses on how humans can change to different ways of living, but also highlights how difficult it would be for the majority who have no skills in self-sufficiency etc.
Dies the fire is an enjoyable read on the whole, and keeps you interested in what happens. But it does feel a bit to much fantasy like for me and seems again to dwell on relationships / love to long which really has no place in this book and seems just a filler. Also it could have got a bit more in depth on why it changed and the over all global effect would have made it more interesting, and not just focusing on a small set area.
So if you after a good enjoyable read, that is not to heavy and good for the train or aeroplane it's a good one to get.
Now before you start to read Pirates Dilemma, the one point to note that this is not about sailing pirates in boats. It's more a review of the history of piracy and the effect that is has had on youth culture , pop culture, innovation and on society as a whole.
The author Matt Mason himself has been a pirate DJ on the London pirate radio scene, so he does have a personnel insight on the inner workings. It follows the story of how the pirate culture started and evolved over the decades and it shows that it had a large influence on the world we know today and the impact into the future. It looks how modern day piracy started, the areas, characters, reasons behind it and the effect that is has had. “If it was not for a Nun back in the late 40's/50's we may never have had disco, rave, dance etc”.
Many people will view piracy as a evil thing that should be stamped out and people imprisoned for stealing or copy what other people have done. That's a very poor trap to let yourself fall into, piracy has help change and innovate new ways of thinking. It has changed many systems and developed things for the better in most case. Without this the world would have stagnated and many things we know of today would simply not be here. In other words it challenges the establishment which is why it's always viewed as a bad thing.
Over a decade ago Earth's Colonial Forces battled in a bloody war against the blue-skinned Ha Jiin people. Now, the hard-won peace is about to crumble as the work of an Earth-owned biotech corporation goes disastrously wrong. It's up to a retired forces veteran and now private detective to save the day.
Jeremy Stake the private detective is brought in to go to Sinan, which is a planet in another dimension to work for the corporation to investigator why this small village is now growing by it's self using smart matter and duplicating it's design on Punktown in every detail. The locals are now calling it Bluetown and the fear is that it will wipe out all the other towns and cites and start a new war between Ha Jinn, Jin Hass, and the Earth Colonies.
Why would such a war start, well it something to do with the special gas which is find within Sinan and fuels the dimensionally travel system. With it the earth colonies and it allies will loss the power it has gained. Now this does sound a bit like the problem on earth now with the oil supply running out ?
This is fourth in the series of Punk Town novels by Jeffery Thomas, and not having read any of his books before I was impressed by the imagination of the author taking many elements from earth based ideas. The only problem with the book was a bit too much lovely duffy stuff which just bores the pants off me.
Overall this very good read and I may go back and try some of his other books out soon.
Having been a fan of Ken Macleod and read ever other book he has published, I was looking forward to reading his latest. This was not his usual foray into the pure space science fiction, but more of now time approach but with a altered past to how we know things are now that has also changed the future. In short this a near future book.
This does sound very intriguing and from Kens previous books I was expecting something good! However this book did not live up to my expectations as it felt like a main stream book style running with the west's current fear of terror or terrorists to sell the book, with the action film to follow within the next year (not really). May be that is a bit rough, as it does stand out as a thought provoking book that some how does feel too close to what reality is or could be very soon.
It's set within the post 9/11 world where terror won so to speak and the world order is different to now, or it's different to now but could be the future within the next couple of years. The United Kingdom has had to overcome many different national challenges and only just survived the flu pandemic. The food crisis has happened and millions of people have been displaced with camps being set-up, does sound like this could already be about started? The USA is struggling to stay as the Ione power with China and Communist India being the powerhouses of the world.
It starts in Scotland with suspected terrorist attack on an air base, but with local activists spotting something odd before the explosion and the chase by the security forces things start to hot up. Another attack on the Grangemouth refinery, then on motorway bridge and the UK goes into meltdown. But the key figures are all involved to some degree with one family playing key roles within it.
I may have said this book was a let down, but that was to my expectations of the author and previous books which I have read. Overall it's a good book, fast moving and partly of twist and turns to keep you hooked. The idea to the ending of this book, comes from another well know science fictions book that it should not fit in with this, but it does and does Ken know something about China we do not.
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