Albert

I’m glad to report that my journey with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series is ending on a positive note. I wasn’t a fan of the previous entry, so I was a little worried about Foundation and Earth. Fortunately, I thought it was a huge improvement. It’s a direct continuation from Foundation’s Edge, so in hindsight, it’s almost as if the previous book was all a setup for the truly compelling part of the story.

I didn’t like the messy parallel plotlines in Foundation’s Edge, and so the main thing I appreciated about this one was its focus on a single group of characters, who are embarking on a single quest. We have Trevize, a member of the Foundation who’s got the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders, and his best bud, Pelorat, a scholar and all-round chill guy. Pelorat’s romantic partner, Bliss, is also part of the crew, and it’s in this three-sided dynamic that I got most of my enjoyment. It’s surprisingly sweet and relatable, how Trevize distrusts Bliss, simply because she’s Pelorat’s new girlfriend, and he doesn’t want his pal to get hurt. Add to that the conflict between Trevize’s and Bliss’s viewpoints about the fate of the galaxy, and you have some real satisfying character development.

The book is by no means perfect… I think it could have used some editing, because the debates between Trevize and Bliss, while thematically relevant, often feel repetitive, hitting the same beats over and over again. And any time a new female character was introduced, I cringed in anticipation of the inevitable tasteless description of her body.

As for how this pair of sequels ties into the whole of the series, my reaction is a bit mixed. Since I read the prequels first (prequels which were written after this book), I kind of knew what the ultimate reveal was going to be. Spoilery thoughts ahead:

I’m pretty disappointed that the central concept of Hari Seldon’s psychohistory is basically discarded after the original trilogy. Seldon’s plan was supposed to be a prediction of how a thousand years of human history would play out, based on the behaviour of large populations. In the sequels and prequels, we find out that there is a single god-like entity pulling the strings the whole time. On the one hand, it’s cool that this one character is connected to Asimov’s other novels, creating a shared universe; but on the other hand, I would have really liked to have an answer to the question: did the Seldon Plan actually work? More to the point: did it matter?

I tried to tell myself not to read this book when I first heard what it was about. I’m already quite cynical about Big Tech, and I thought that this would only entrench my biases further, with no real benefit to my mental health. But I saw it sitting on the shelf at my library and I just couldn’t help myself.

The author, Sarah Wynn-Williams, worked at Facebook in the global policy department, where her responsibility was (ostensibly) to help the company negotiate with countries around the world. She started with the optimism typical of tech companies in the early aughts, believing that she would “make the world a better place.” But over the course of the book, she becomes disillusioned by Facebook’s relentless pursuit of growth and profit, which came at the high cost of creating political instability in countries like Myanmar and ultimately the US.

None of this is very surprising, if you follow the news about social media companies over the last few years. But Wynn-Williams’ position gave her access to the top brass at Facebook, Cheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg, and she reveals some really bizarre behaviour by the leaders of the company. For example, Zuckerberg once asked her, on a visit to Indonesia, to organize a “gentle mob,” for no apparent reason other than to make himself look cool. These sections were both hard to read and hard to put down, having the feeling of learning some juicy gossip about someone you don’t like. You kind of have to take her word for it, because corroboration from other sources is not really built into the narrative style, but if it’s true, these incidents confirm the old adage that power corrupts.

Foundation’s Edge was published almost 30 years after the original Foundation trilogy, and you can feel that distance when you’re reading it. The sociological ideas that were at the forefront of the original books are kind of in the background now, replaced by a more conventional sci-fi adventure.

The setup of the novel doubles down on the mind-control conceit introduced in the previous books: Trevize, a councilman of the Foundation, suspects that the Second Foundation is secretly pulling the strings of human history using their “mentalic” powers. At the same time, Gendibal, one of the leaders of the Second Foundation, also suspects that there’s yet another more powerful force out there, mentally controlling them.

For me, this made the mind-control plot device feel tired: if there’s always the possibility that some unseen force is actually calling the shots, then as a reader, I lose track of the characters’ motivations. I also found the two protagonists too similar: they’re both young and arrogant iconoclasts who don’t toe the party line, hunting for a hidden adversary, and to me, the two parallel storylines started to blend together.

(spoilers ahead)

The ultimate controlling force turns out to be a planet called Gaia, and most of the middle of the book is spent hunting for this mysterious world. But then, the characters are also preoccupied with finding Earth, which in the far-future timeline of the story, is an ancient world that has been forgotten. I got confused, thinking that Earth and Gaia were actually the same, but it turns out that Earth doesn’t play a role at all (until the next entry in the series, apparently).

For these reasons, this ended up being my least favourite of the series so far. It really dragged in the middle for me, and the plot is somewhat messy. The ending does introduce an interesting choice for Trevize to make, but we’ll have to see how it pays off in the next book.

Based purely on the title, I went into this book expecting something different. Maybe it’s just where my mind is at these days, but I thought it would be a treatise against the democratic backsliding associated with certain world leaders that I won’t name. But it turns out that Dave Meslin’s book is an exploration of the actual governing process, and reads more like a business/management manual, but applied to the systems of democracy. It’s more about logistics than political ideology.

Personally, my experience with democracy is somewhat intermittent: just go vote whenever there’s an election. It’s not very satisfying because it doesn’t feel like you’re contributing much, especially if your choice doesn’t win. Meslin agrees, and puts the blame on the systems and institutions of the government. And from there, he suggests tons of ideas of ways for those systems to change. I had many “a-ha!” moments reading this book, and I appreciated that the book is Canadian through and through, filled with examples and stories from nearby places.

Meslin is an excellent explainer, and simplifies complicated ideas, making them easy to digest. For example, he spends a lengthy chunk of pages describing alternatives to the first-past-the-post electoral system that we use in Canada. It’s kind of a geeky subject, but he makes it really clear how our current voting system leads to polarization and unfair election results.

I’ll spend the rest of this space listing some of the more enlightening ideas in point form:

• The government suffers from poor UX (user experience). I mostly associate this term with software design, but it can be applied to real world settings. Government spaces are unwelcoming, making it intimidating for ordinary people who want to participate. For example, city council meetings that are supposed to be open to the public are held behind closed doors. The simple act of opening the door and having clear signage would make a huge difference.

• In the Canadian parliament, the legislators are seated according to their party. This automatically sets up a confrontational vibe of one side vs. the other, and leads to the embarassing shouting matches that we often see. Meslin suggests random seating, which would force a sort of mingling between adversaries and a more respectful atmosphere.

• There’s a subtle difference between charities and non-profit advocacy groups. The former is a legal designation and allows donations to be tax deductible. However, in order to receive the designation, a charity has to refrain from advocating for policy changes, and instead focus on band-aid type solutions. For example, a food bank is a charity, and while it is important to help feed those in need, a food bank is not allowed to advocate for preventing the upstream root causes of poverty. Advocacy groups, on the other hand, purposely avoid registering as charities, so that they can be more critical of systemic problems. Donating to these groups is a vote for change, even if you don’t get a tax deduction on the donation.

There’s a lot more in the book, and I would recommend it to anyone who’s interested in how the government works, beyond the rhetoric.

In Consent, author Jill Ciment reflects on her relationship with her late husband. They got together when she was 17 and he was 47, and stayed together until he passed away in his 90's.

At the core of the book are the questions:

Does a story's ending excuse its beginning? 
[...]
 Can a love that starts with such an asymmetrical balance of power ever right itself?

Half a Life

May December

It's a bit overstuffed, going on a lot of tangents about technology, e.g. social media, online dating, deepfakes/AI. It's all very insightful, but it does distract from the core of the story.

I've watched so much Nerdwriter that I heard his voice the whole time I was reading this book. 

Stylistically, it can be a bit hard to follow, but the story is strong and propulsive. The characters are haunted by past actions that are so specific to their culture that at first, I didn't think that what they did was a big deal. But the journey to understanding why it was a big deal for them is exactly why I love reading.

An old favourite. This time around, I found myself getting impatient towards the latter half. The first act setup is probably my favourite part, how it creates the setting and introduces the concepts of the Metaverse. As a software guy, I love that “hacking” is like a superpower in the book. Once we get into the long discussions with the Librarian, I started skimming.

Really liked it until the husband's infidelity. After that point, it got a little chaotic, which I guess is part of the point.

A highlight for me in the Little Blue sections was all of the invented titles of other movies or songs.

As a foreign exchange student at Beijing University during the Cultural Revolution, Jan Wong ratted out a classmate who expressed a treasonous desire to leave the country for the West. The classmate disappeared and Wong, driven by guilt, embarked on a mission to find her and make amends.

Full review: https://alchoi.com/blog/2022-01-20-beijing-confidential

I didn't love every story in this collection, but the ones that I did, I loved a lot. I want to point out the two that I enjoyed most, both of which deal with anxieties around motherhood: the desire to become a mother, but on the flipside, an honest examination of the hardships of motherhood.

Full review: https://alchoi.com/blog/2022-01-09-glorious-frazzled-beings/

Picked this up for the first time in ~20 years. I read this many times at an impressionable age, and I credit it for influencing me to start the career path that I'm still on, and further, influencing me to be the type of computer user that I am (a Morlock, in the book's terms). I've internalized so much of the book that I don't feel like I'm really reading it anymore... it's more like, I'm watching sentences go by that are already in my head.

On the other hand, there are some sections that rub me the wrong way now. There's an attitude of elitism that doesn't feel right for me. I know that I was full of conceit and superiority when I was younger, so it would have appealed to me then, but it's kind of abrasive now.

Overall, this book contained a lot of insights about the biological and evolutionary reasons behind human psychology. There's one section, about the US gun problem, which seemed a bit off-topic to me, because it doesn't relate to the main theme of loneliness. It's kind of sad, that the gun issue is so ingrained in American culture that it just has to be commented on.

The Free Willy one was my favourite. It's disturbing to me that hype around a movie can move so many people to act, without regard to whether it's really best for the animal. 

Reminded me a bit of Flowers for Algernon or The Curious Incident of Dog, due to the narrator's voice. He's a naive mind who doesn't understand the world around him, but cares greatly about being good. Combine that with a cool magical setting, and I was hooked. 

I could have done without the repeated references to historical Transcendentalists. It would have left a more focussed look at her personal life. I was blown away by Fun Home, but this one didn't hit as hard. 

I picked up this book after my company hired him to do an interview with our CEO, and I was struck by his charisma. His charm comes through in the book, making it an easy read, but he also deals with South Africa's dark history of racism in a refreshingly blunt way.

Beyond the impact of racism, there's also the huge personal cost of not fitting in with any particular group. He's not Black (though he identifies himself as such), he's not white, and that's hard enough. But there's also the colored people who are the result of race-mixing long ago, before it was illegal. He doesn't fit in with them either, even though he looks like them.

Effectively captures the anxiety of day-to-day life, and then manages to layer climate anxiety on top of that. Best read in small chunks.

A bit disappointing because it is dominated by ideas over characters. “The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne” from [b:Little Kingdoms 229581 Little Kingdoms Steven Millhauser https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403175298l/229581.SY75.jpg 1117182] hit me emotionally, and nothing in this book had the same effect.

Do we romanticize the Mennonite and Amish lifestyles because they live in simpler times? Seems appealing, but this book reveals the downsides. The women essentially have no freedom.

My favourite little bit is when Okonkwo's daughter is taken by the priestess for some ritual, and Okonkwo desperately wants to go after her and make sure she's okay, but forces himself to wait a “manly” amount of time before going. Nice dig at male insecurity.

It's simultaneously too long and too short. Too long because it repeats vague descriptions of its ideas multiple times, and too short because it illustrates those ideas with superficial anecdotes. I would have liked to read more about the author's experiences in how he applied these ideas.

I was affected more by the large-scale tragedy than by any of the personal suffering of the main characters. The final personal loss did not hit me very hard because I was already numbed by the descriptions of the horrors happening to secondary and background characters, like the beheaded servant, or the malnourished children.

Throughout, I had the sense that the main characters were a bit contrived to be in an optimal position to cover all aspects of the war. For example, Olanna happens to have an ex from the north, who ends up on the opposite side of the war.

The Part 3 section was particularly jarring, an extended flashback focusing on soap opera-like subplots, which interrupts the story of the war.

All in all, despite the flaws in characterization, it was still a powerful account of a period of history that I was ignorant about.