Jason Cox
Reading this adventurous romp for the first time since the mid or early eighties reminded me of why this short series was/is so much fun. Brian Daley was, to some extent, a favorite author, with his Alacrity FitzHugh and Hobart Floyt series remaining my favorite “space opera” to this day. On the other hand, on this re-read, some of the blandness of the book is almost painfully obvious. It may just be a consequence of when it was written, or maybe my tastes have changed (almost certainly so).
Still, if you love the characters (and who doesn't love Han Solo and Chewie!), this is a super-fun and fast read.
3.5 Stars
It's been a long time since my first read of Sundiver. On my first read, I remember not enjoying it as much as the other Uplift Saga books, but I also read them out of order (I read Startide Rising followed by The Uplift War, then Sundiver originally). I've been meaning to re-read the series (and the 2nd series for the first time) but am just getting around to it.
At any rate, I enjoyed this quite a bit on my second reading. I had completely forgotten the plot and the twists in the story, which is a good thing because there'd be little re-read value otherwise. That being said, the story is good, with an interesting plot. Characters are really good, especially the primary protagonist. The anthropology-based sci-fi is top notch as well. Overall, a very solid book and a reminder of why I've often thought of David Brin as one of my favorite authors.
One hears so much about this series, so I thought I'd give it a go on audiobook (given it's length).
There are a ton of characters and the story drops you in without a single explanation of anything. I found the Malazan Wiki an invaluable resource to keeping things straight in the early going, but then you get a pretty good sense of the characters and it seems like it went really quickly.
Looking forward to the 2nd installment.
If you're finding it difficult to understand what's going on today, this is probably a book you ought to consider reading. This may burst your bubble a bit, so be ready for that, but given how things are going, more people than not need that bubble burst. There are hard truths here, mostly regarding Elite Theory and this is an excellent primer for that.
If you think we live in a Democracy (or even a Constitutional Republic), but can't understand why our leaders never seem to make laws that serve their constituents, this is required reading.
This was simply phenomenal.
As a Christian man, there are so many ways we are pulled each and every day. It can be hard to maintain focus on what is important. I think even moreso for later generations as the quality of parenting has been progressively worsening over the past 50+ years.
Briefly, this is a great book to put a Christian man's focus where it needs to be to break the chains that seem to be destroying individual men, their families, and even our society. Each chapter covers a particular focus, but all of the chapters point back to Christ, who we need to rely upon to accomplish the goal of being the men God calls us to be in order to accomplish His purpose. There can be no higher purpose or calling than that.
The main purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to the fact that so many times we give people credit for success, we are doing so in error and they have just been the beneficiary of random luck. It's important to note that we all do this ourselves as well and if we don't recognize the truth, we leave ourselves open to risk that we don't even see because we assume better of ourselves than we really should be.
That was all quite excellent.
I was a bit surprised by Taleb's repeated praising of George Soros throughout the book. It didn't really seem tied in to the main theme very well and really seemed to come out of (far) left field. As I read through the remainder of Incerto, maybe the connection will become clearer to me.
Despite this being a fast-paced adventure, which usually falls into my wheelhouse, I just didn't enjoy this story. The characters were all just “blah,” both protagonists and villains alike.
Also, this one was just too hard to suspend disbelief regarding the scenarios and explanations involved. Just couldn't get into it, but plowed through it to get the finish. Not going to move forward to book three.
This final installment of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy is so different that it really just barely is connected to the other two books, until the last quarter of the book.
This is a fantastic book, though it was hard to get into.
I didn't like the characters for the first 2/3 of the book.
For the first 1/3 of the book, it was difficult to tell who were the “good guys” and who were the bad. Maybe all the way to the first 1/2, honest.y
But by the end of the book, you see that this is a social commentary that even in the 1940's or 1950's called out the progressive institution and their war against the values that Christianity holds dear. Honestly, that part of the book is shocking. How clear it is today what has been going on for the past century in the real world. Yet most people either don't see it, or are willingly on the side of the institutions. The Culture War that is so prominent in literally every facet of modern life was pointed out here. Clearly.
If you are a Christian, read this book
If you are in any way a moderate or conservative, read this book.
(It may be helpful to read the previous 2 volumes, but not entirely necessary until the last 1/3 of the book)
Much like Arctic Storm Rising, you'll find Countdown to Midnight just as fun. A super fast-paced romp with international intrigue, tremendous risks and adventure and ultra slim margins for error. You'll find Countdown to Midnight is a worthy sequel with a lot of crossover in characters, both on the protagonist side and the antagonist's.
Well done.
As a Christian, there are always going to be struggles with how best to grow closer to Christ. My number 1 recommendation for any Christian in this (outside of faithfully reading the Bible) is Donald Whitney's book The Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. That book simply transformed my intentional efforts to be a better follower of Christ.
This book, Simplify Your Spiritual Life, is a great addition as well. There is some overlap, so if you start here, there is still a tremendous amount of coverage of the spiritual disciplines as well. But this book is directed at and fully acknowledges the challenges of our 21st century western lives and all of the distractions that may make it difficult to follow through.
The format of this one is interesting in that each “chapter” is 1-2 pages. You could almost use it as a nightly read, just reading 1-2 of the topics and seeing how they apply to your situation. Much like Spiritual Disciplines, I think this is a book I'll come back to from time to time. I've dog-eared several sections that I think would be great for discussion in small group settings as well.
Highly recommended for anyone who wants to grow their relationship to Christ.
This is my first Dale Brown novel and I thought it was a great deal of fun.
We are introduced to the primary protagonist, Nick Flynn as he is part of a team sent to investigate a crash of an American plane in a compromising location and when they arrive, they find they're not the first to arrive. Despite saving the lives of many of both teams he ends up as the fall guy of the failed mission and is banished to a Northern Alaskan outpost to guard a radar station.
On the “other side” we get a glimpse of the Russian stealth bomber program advancing towards completion. The hot-shot pilot of said bomber, the Tupolev Pak-DA has a crazy plan and some high-ranking backers who are backing him in support.
Overall, this is a fun ride. Good, believable characters and situations. High stakes problems, and a somewhat unique (and unforgiving) environment.
Well done.
Discussing the important issue of lack of discourse on hot topics in today's western culture, The Canceling of the American Mind is a fair and balanced review of the phenomenon.
The focus is on how the types of attacks that result in cancellation of individuals on the right and the left create an environment of self-censorship in an unhelpful way. It further describes the 2 main tools in cancellation: The Perfect Rhetorical Fortress and the Efficient Rhetorical Fortress. How both are used and the problem with both.
You may see negative reviews about this book, calling it ahistorical (which is completely incorrect in this reader's view) and biased. There is a very thorough discussion of the history of cancel culture and it's foundation with many explicit examples that clarify each of the points made. Regarding the allegation of bias, I would expect that from one reading it from one particular viewpoint, because the extreme bubble that exists in academia would blind those people from even seeing what is going on. Those within the bubble have no idea how little viewpoint diversity they are exposed to simply due to the nature of their environment.
There are sections of this tome which are hard to stomach for people on either side of the political aisle, but as a person who has been politically neutral for most of my life, I would definitely say these areas are handled in a balanced and appropriate fashion. This issue is NOT occurring equally for people on both sides, nor is the current situation a minor issue. There is currently complete silencing of anyone whose viewpoint doesn't align perfectly with the ruling regime. It's extremely disappointing to see those in academia not standing against this in vastly larger numbers and signals a death-knell for our society and western civilization as a whole.
Well worth a read, but if you go in defensive about it, consider yourself completely captured by “the ideology of the day.” Desist in thinking of yourself as a free thinker or defender of alternative viewpoints. You are already part of the problem.
I really enjoyed this one, the 3rd installment of the Heechee Saga, quite a bit. Detailing the further adventures of Robinette Broadhead and his wife, but also involving crazed lunatic who grew up as a feral human in a Heechee ship, a former acquaintance of Robin's and his wife, and an old flame from the previous books. And ultimately, there is the titular meeting of the aliens spoken of so frequently but never before met in the series.
While I know there are subsequent installments in the series, I don't know if I'll move on to the next ones as this felt like an entirely satisfying ending to the series. What do you think? Is it worth moving on to the next books?
Enjoyable and pretty fast-moving follow up to the Paper Magician by Holmberg. In this one, the protagonist picks up in her 2nd year of training and again becomes embroiled in a crazy series of events resulting from the aftermath of the previous book (trying to avoid spoilers here!). These two books are close enough that it could have been a single volume, honestly. And that's a good thing. The romantic head-talk is a bit much (for a guy), but honestly, that's the only detractor to this one, and is likely something specific to me. Definitely will be following up with the 3rd in the series before long.
I've read a lot of productivity and self-help books through the years (I try to start my year off every year with such a book) and after a while you see the same themes repeated in most of those books. Maybe presented in different ways, but still same/similar.
This book was gifted to me by my boss, and I'm glad she gave it to me! It's awesome and is NOT the typical “same material rehashed” type of book. At least from the reading I've done.
Lencioni uses the first 3/4 of the book to create a story of an individual who advances through his career, with the frustrations and growth that that entails, and ends up running a company. At various stages, he experiences frustration and burnout and even after starting his own successful company, those issues return.
Then his team stumbles upon a system of strengths and weaknesses that they call working geniuses and frustrations. In between the geniuses and frustration are competencies. And the way those all interact can show strengths, weaknesses and needs within the team.
The way it's all explained is completely different from most books I've read. Using characters in a team really helps you identify with the process and hammers home the ideas in a way that I think I'll retain for life.
Highly recommend this for those who are members or leaders of a team!
In so many ways, this book was very interesting, but in so many ways, I literally “hated” it.
Here's my summary of why I feel this way:
1. The quality of the writing/prose is actually quite good and enjoyable.
2. The setting and types of things discussed are right in my “comfort reading” wheelhouse
but...
3. The main relationships in the book are ALL quite toxic and for no good reason.
4. The main character (I would say Sadie is the main character 1a, with Sam being 1b right behind her) repeatedly holds things against Sam based on her own projection onto him, while it appears to be the author's intent that Sam is actually NOT guilty of any of these things. Yet Sadie never owns up to this error. She just treats Sam like crap and expects him to be OK with it.
5. There is a strong element of radical liberal power fantasy to the politics of the book which I would imagine will get it strong reviews from the book-reading mafia, but which are rather ludicrous and unnecessary.
I actually came around to liking Sam Masur and Marks pretty well by the end, but overall, I would consider this book to be a modern tragedy. Maybe a romantic tragedy. In general, that isn't a genre I enjoy (either the romance side or the tragedy side). Those who love those two aspects in fiction will almost certainly love this one as I do feel it is well-written.
This is a fantastic sequel to Gibson's The Peripheral.
Set in a different time period but with some of the same characters showing back up in this one.
These books are a little bit difficult to follow because you're just thrown in with no explanation of anything, but once you get to know the characters and the general concepts the characters are dealing with (alternate reality “stubs”, peripherals, and the like).
Really looking forward to #3 in the series.
So far, this is my favorite WGibson work since the Sprawl series, which I re-read just a couple of years ago.
Interesting concept, but very questionable characters and motives. Couldn't find myself identifying with any of the characters and it wasn't long enough to flesh anything out to justify the decisions made. Felt like the author was trying to make this a political statement, but missed the mark. I'm sure others will think she hit it squarely.
Interesting follow up to Strauss & Howe's The Fourth Turning. Goes into more details with each generation and adds info on generations which have developed since the previous book.
Unfortunately also shows more political bias towards progressivism and fails to highlight the existing regime's responsibility for the current predicaments. I suspect that also limits the vision of the author as to possible ways to mitigate the damage that is likely to result from events of this current Fourth Turning. This is not unexpected given the severity of punishment dealt to anyone not fully and exclusively embracing the current regime ideology and goals. Questioning of the regime is explicitly forbidden.
