Book reviews - stuff people recommended to me on Facebook
I said I had no books, so nice people recommended some. I bought all the ones available on Kindle and have been happily reading through them. No duds.
Dark Matter is a very effective ghost story about an Arctic expedition, that is precisely as long as it needs to be. It has good characters and manages the difficult trick for a ghost story of being both slightly ambiguous about whether the ghost existed or the narrator was simply under great mental strain, and having a conclusion that feels like it matters (not just 'we left the creepy place and never went back'). I read it in a brightly lit spa, which is just as well.
I had read Oryx and Crake but not the sequels, The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam. They portray a universe where me and my husband (who is a statistician designing clinical trials for a large pharma company) have *great* job security - there are solar cars, the basic environmental problems seem broadly solved, and biotech is the real transformative technology. Nearly everyone dies, since nobody said biotechnicians were the good guys (I cannot argue with that). It is surprisingly blackly funny and uplifting, considering. Of course Atwood is great, though I might have to reread to figure out exactly why she's considered better than other authors turning out readable dystopias.
Yes Please is a bit slight, but a divertingly direct authorial voice.
'Susan Greenfield's slightly forced science fiction', as Emily adroitly described it, was longer and less fictional than I was expecting. It does contain three main characters, who exposit extensively to the reader to illustrate neuroscientific principles. I *think* that the point was that the brain is a pretty fluid thing and can be programmed and reprogrammed but we are more than the sum of our programming? Two of the three main characters exemplify extremes (one subsumed by a mechanised, mindlessly hedonistic virtual reality society, one in the reaction to this, the Neo-Puritans, who are more recognisably human but also as it transpires a bit evil) and become more human over the book. (The third starts pretty much like a modern human and then dies).
It is a plausible future although I do find it dubious that, given unlimited virtual entertainment, humans would not choose to interact with one another at all. We are species awfully addicted to using technology to bicker and share with one another. And it would be nice if the future contained characters who were not just exposition.
Delusions of Gender is a reaction to books like Steve Pinker's The Blank Slate, which I got halfway through but found a bit pompous. Fine is a better writer and is quite blackly funny in places. Her central point is that the brain is pretty fluid and that studies that show intrinsic gender differences are not as convincing as is sometimes argued, since socialisation starts very early indeed and is quite all-pervasive (this is clearly true). I do not have the breadth of reading to argue, but have informed Bjoern that we will be attempting gender-neutral parenting should we successfully procreate. And also that being a man doesn't mean he cannot remember what day the bins go out.
Rooftoppers is one of those curious pretty little books that doesn't seem to have much weight but does have serious themes, good characters and a generally charming worldview. (Another one is Frances Hardinge's Fly-By-Night which is only let down by its unrealistic portrayal of normal gander behaviour, since an aggressive gander usually becomes submissive outside his territory). I liked it, but don't have much else to say of it.
Dark Matter is a very effective ghost story about an Arctic expedition, that is precisely as long as it needs to be. It has good characters and manages the difficult trick for a ghost story of being both slightly ambiguous about whether the ghost existed or the narrator was simply under great mental strain, and having a conclusion that feels like it matters (not just 'we left the creepy place and never went back'). I read it in a brightly lit spa, which is just as well.
I had read Oryx and Crake but not the sequels, The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam. They portray a universe where me and my husband (who is a statistician designing clinical trials for a large pharma company) have *great* job security - there are solar cars, the basic environmental problems seem broadly solved, and biotech is the real transformative technology. Nearly everyone dies, since nobody said biotechnicians were the good guys (I cannot argue with that). It is surprisingly blackly funny and uplifting, considering. Of course Atwood is great, though I might have to reread to figure out exactly why she's considered better than other authors turning out readable dystopias.
Yes Please is a bit slight, but a divertingly direct authorial voice.
'Susan Greenfield's slightly forced science fiction', as Emily adroitly described it, was longer and less fictional than I was expecting. It does contain three main characters, who exposit extensively to the reader to illustrate neuroscientific principles. I *think* that the point was that the brain is a pretty fluid thing and can be programmed and reprogrammed but we are more than the sum of our programming? Two of the three main characters exemplify extremes (one subsumed by a mechanised, mindlessly hedonistic virtual reality society, one in the reaction to this, the Neo-Puritans, who are more recognisably human but also as it transpires a bit evil) and become more human over the book. (The third starts pretty much like a modern human and then dies).
It is a plausible future although I do find it dubious that, given unlimited virtual entertainment, humans would not choose to interact with one another at all. We are species awfully addicted to using technology to bicker and share with one another. And it would be nice if the future contained characters who were not just exposition.
Delusions of Gender is a reaction to books like Steve Pinker's The Blank Slate, which I got halfway through but found a bit pompous. Fine is a better writer and is quite blackly funny in places. Her central point is that the brain is pretty fluid and that studies that show intrinsic gender differences are not as convincing as is sometimes argued, since socialisation starts very early indeed and is quite all-pervasive (this is clearly true). I do not have the breadth of reading to argue, but have informed Bjoern that we will be attempting gender-neutral parenting should we successfully procreate. And also that being a man doesn't mean he cannot remember what day the bins go out.
Rooftoppers is one of those curious pretty little books that doesn't seem to have much weight but does have serious themes, good characters and a generally charming worldview. (Another one is Frances Hardinge's Fly-By-Night which is only let down by its unrealistic portrayal of normal gander behaviour, since an aggressive gander usually becomes submissive outside his territory). I liked it, but don't have much else to say of it.