Books read: short reviews
Books I would read again.
An Island Filled with Alphas:
* Jane Poynter, The Human Experiment: Two years and Twenty Minutes inside Biosphere 2. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006.
Very nice internal history of a big project's rise and fall, written by one of the 8 people who lived in it the first time around. Shows the good and the bad, but left me with respect for the science that did come out if it, and sadness for what could have been. [I might write more later on this book]
What this could inspire:
Any story about either or both of smart people living together for a long and isolated time, or how a Big Project gets going. With the Biosphere only a charismatic leader could have gotten it going. But the same charismatic leadership ran it into the ground. An example of the former done right is K.S. Robinson's showing how (political) tensions start in Red Mars: if you'll need to do the same (spaceships, long journeys), read T.H.E. Also good for if you're about to work for a startup or non-profit with a charismatic founder.
300 million years of California:
* John O. Sawyer, Northwest California: A Natural History. University of California Press, 2006.
What this could inspire:
Take this book, add well-done characters, and you have Always Coming Home moved 200 miles NW. Good for reminding you how world-building should go... deep.
4500 million years of Earth:
* David Roots et. al., The Nature Companions Rocks, Fossils and Dinosaurs. Fog City Press, 2002.
What this could inspire:
A run to the store for a pickaxe, a roadtrip, a profound sense of deep time... and who doesn't love dinosaurs?
Hey, We Do Live in the 21st Century:
* Editors of Scientific American, Atomic Power. Simon and Schuster, 1955 (articles c. 1948-1954).
* Editors of Scientific American, Automatic Control. Simon and Schuster, 1955 (articles c. 1948-1954).
* Editors of Scientific American, Twentieth-Century Bestiary. Simon and Schuster, 1955 (articles c. 1948-1954).
Futurists have claimed that a person living on an exponential curve isn't going to feel it, because wherever you are at the time feels flat. Or, if you do look out further, there's a long flat plain behind you, and a wall in front.
It won't feel flat after these books. Each of these is a short collection of articles that'll bring you up to speed as of 1955. As a biologist, I was impressed with the neurotic twin sheep- one with their thyroid removed- experiment. Then that was a result worth a chapter in the book. Now, it would be a week-long lab in 'Mad Scientist Elementary.'
"Within the next five years the Atomic Energy Commmission will invest $200 million in a program to develop economical nuclear power plants."
"We now possess at least a first approximation to an adequate theory of automatic control, and we are at a point of history when the practical application of that theory begins to be conspicuous and widely felt. The future of automatic control, and the significance for human weal or woe of its extension to fresh areas of modern life, are still obscure. But if the future is not to take us completely by surprise..."
"Whatever the future of automatic control, governmental regulation of social institutions is certain to increase-- population growth alone will make further regulation imperative. It does not necessarily follow that liberal civilizations must therefore disappear... The crucial question is not whether control of social transactions will be further centralized..."
"The everyday behavior of monkeys seems plainly to be motivated in considerable part by something akin to curiosity." But how do you prove that monkeys have a fundamental curiosity drive?
On the Yerkes Chimpanzee Lab in Florida:
'Asked to name the most important single contribution that has come from research at in the Labs, Lashley answered that he would unhesitatingly select "Carlyle Jacobsen's discovery of the reduction of temper tantrums in chimpanzees by brain lesions." This discover, which led to the human operation of prefrontal lobotomy, is indeed a landmark in modern neurological history.'
They also report on another experiment- letting 12(!) chimps grow for their first 16 months without light. "Examination indicated that the optic nerve had degenerated." That was worth doing? Reporting? Republishing?
What this could inspire:
You, for seeing how much things have changed, even though we don't have flying cars (delivered from the production line) yet. Good for anyone writing about mid-20th-century life.
21st Century Plus 20 Minutes into the Future:
* James Canton, PhD, The Extreme Future: the Top Trends That Will Reshape the World for the next 5, 10, and 20 years. Dutton, 2006.
An introduction to life on an exponential curve. Very readable. Catches all the big topics, and eases the reader into how significant these changes will be by 20 years from now without leaving the reader in a state of existential horror.
What this could inspire:
Anyone writing near-future SF should at least indirectly acknowledge these topics, which means knowing about them. This is a compact summary of the social impacts from these technology and science developments.
Meh.
Tobi Zausner, PhD, When Walls Become doorways: creativity and the Transforming Illness. Harmony Books, 2006.
A 'feel good even though you feel bad' book. Didn't do to much for me, but I could see this book helping inspire a person who is still in the first four stages of grief regarding their personal health.
[7 posts this week, 3 locked, 4 public]
An Island Filled with Alphas:
* Jane Poynter, The Human Experiment: Two years and Twenty Minutes inside Biosphere 2. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006.
Very nice internal history of a big project's rise and fall, written by one of the 8 people who lived in it the first time around. Shows the good and the bad, but left me with respect for the science that did come out if it, and sadness for what could have been. [I might write more later on this book]
What this could inspire:
Any story about either or both of smart people living together for a long and isolated time, or how a Big Project gets going. With the Biosphere only a charismatic leader could have gotten it going. But the same charismatic leadership ran it into the ground. An example of the former done right is K.S. Robinson's showing how (political) tensions start in Red Mars: if you'll need to do the same (spaceships, long journeys), read T.H.E. Also good for if you're about to work for a startup or non-profit with a charismatic founder.
300 million years of California:
* John O. Sawyer, Northwest California: A Natural History. University of California Press, 2006.
What this could inspire:
Take this book, add well-done characters, and you have Always Coming Home moved 200 miles NW. Good for reminding you how world-building should go... deep.
4500 million years of Earth:
* David Roots et. al., The Nature Companions Rocks, Fossils and Dinosaurs. Fog City Press, 2002.
What this could inspire:
A run to the store for a pickaxe, a roadtrip, a profound sense of deep time... and who doesn't love dinosaurs?
Hey, We Do Live in the 21st Century:
* Editors of Scientific American, Atomic Power. Simon and Schuster, 1955 (articles c. 1948-1954).
* Editors of Scientific American, Automatic Control. Simon and Schuster, 1955 (articles c. 1948-1954).
* Editors of Scientific American, Twentieth-Century Bestiary. Simon and Schuster, 1955 (articles c. 1948-1954).
Futurists have claimed that a person living on an exponential curve isn't going to feel it, because wherever you are at the time feels flat. Or, if you do look out further, there's a long flat plain behind you, and a wall in front.
It won't feel flat after these books. Each of these is a short collection of articles that'll bring you up to speed as of 1955. As a biologist, I was impressed with the neurotic twin sheep- one with their thyroid removed- experiment. Then that was a result worth a chapter in the book. Now, it would be a week-long lab in 'Mad Scientist Elementary.'
"Within the next five years the Atomic Energy Commmission will invest $200 million in a program to develop economical nuclear power plants."
"We now possess at least a first approximation to an adequate theory of automatic control, and we are at a point of history when the practical application of that theory begins to be conspicuous and widely felt. The future of automatic control, and the significance for human weal or woe of its extension to fresh areas of modern life, are still obscure. But if the future is not to take us completely by surprise..."
"Whatever the future of automatic control, governmental regulation of social institutions is certain to increase-- population growth alone will make further regulation imperative. It does not necessarily follow that liberal civilizations must therefore disappear... The crucial question is not whether control of social transactions will be further centralized..."
"The everyday behavior of monkeys seems plainly to be motivated in considerable part by something akin to curiosity." But how do you prove that monkeys have a fundamental curiosity drive?
On the Yerkes Chimpanzee Lab in Florida:
'Asked to name the most important single contribution that has come from research at in the Labs, Lashley answered that he would unhesitatingly select "Carlyle Jacobsen's discovery of the reduction of temper tantrums in chimpanzees by brain lesions." This discover, which led to the human operation of prefrontal lobotomy, is indeed a landmark in modern neurological history.'
They also report on another experiment- letting 12(!) chimps grow for their first 16 months without light. "Examination indicated that the optic nerve had degenerated." That was worth doing? Reporting? Republishing?
What this could inspire:
You, for seeing how much things have changed, even though we don't have flying cars (delivered from the production line) yet. Good for anyone writing about mid-20th-century life.
21st Century Plus 20 Minutes into the Future:
* James Canton, PhD, The Extreme Future: the Top Trends That Will Reshape the World for the next 5, 10, and 20 years. Dutton, 2006.
An introduction to life on an exponential curve. Very readable. Catches all the big topics, and eases the reader into how significant these changes will be by 20 years from now without leaving the reader in a state of existential horror.
What this could inspire:
Anyone writing near-future SF should at least indirectly acknowledge these topics, which means knowing about them. This is a compact summary of the social impacts from these technology and science developments.
Meh.
Tobi Zausner, PhD, When Walls Become doorways: creativity and the Transforming Illness. Harmony Books, 2006.
A 'feel good even though you feel bad' book. Didn't do to much for me, but I could see this book helping inspire a person who is still in the first four stages of grief regarding their personal health.
[7 posts this week, 3 locked, 4 public]