Leszek Ciesielski
First: William Hope is a brilliant narrator for this audiobook version. His classical US accent lines really well with the, well, classical US characters in the book.
Asimov published Foundation and Empire in 1952, 7 years after the end of World War 2. Earth at the time had about two dozen computers, one per each major country. That is, electronic computers - and they weren't even called that yet. A "computer" at the time still meant a human who performs calculations in an office, often with the use of a mechanical calculator device - the world still employed hundreds of thousands of them.
This is significant for the book. Once you realise it is chronologically much closer to the XIX century than to today, you can better appreciate how imaginative it truly is. But you can also much more easily understand why everything feels so feudal (including the progressive Foundation). If Asimov didn't include Bayta, a woman from the Foundation, as one of the main characters, the book might have aged much worse.
This isn't a history book - I've been familiar with prof. Snyder's other work and was expecting one, I guess.
It is an ethical treaty. A lament on the now unstoppable fall of the US imperial age. A look into how other empires fell and how countries can be - are - rebuilt afterwards, how actions and decisions shape the land and the people.
It is a book I needed to read, but which made me unbelievably sad every time I got to it.
Prescient. Hard to put it another way. Published in 2019, and not extrapolating that far, Radicalized hits hard. Even though the novellas each end somewhat optimistically, it is hard to not be moved by them. And they're really, really uncomfortably close to reality. Glimpses of the fall of the american empire.
Czy jest to spijanie śmietanki i zbieranie tantiem przez starszego wiekiem pisarza? A jakże. Czy jest na poziomie Sagi o Wiedźminie? No weź wyjdź. Ale jest zdecydowanie lepsze od Sezonu Burz. Warto przeczytać, jeśli jesteś fanem - historia pierwszego roku Geralta na szlaku.
Jest trochę puszczania oka do graczy, jest nieco naśmiewania się z serialu Netfliksa. Gryzie trochę rozmiar - to bardziej długie opowiadanie, niż krótka książka, w oryginalnej cenie wydania musiało to drażnić.
W każdym razie, udany powrót do historii z (dla mnie) nastoletniości, podkolorowany na pewno sentymentem do Sagi.
Now that's a difficult thing to review: childhood story of my grandmother and her family, seen through the eyes of her younger sister.
World war, experienced by civilians, the front and borders crossing through Vilnius multiple times. But also childish innocence of perspective and the nostalgia towards the “good old days”, no matter how hard they were. A window into the world almost hundred years ago.
It's a minor peeve, but it irks me every time I hear it: unlike in English, words in Latin are gendered. “Excidium” is neuter gender (not ungendered!) and it is jarring having it applied to a male dragon - the suffix -um applies to inanimate things. Not male dragons.
I could ignore this one for the sake of an English captain not knowing any better - but then there's “Eroica”! Named by a Prussian captain - when German also assigns gender to all words and such a mistake just could not happen. The word “eroica” is feminine-gendered and, again, is used as a name for a male dragon. Ugh.
I'm going to start with saying I've enjoyed the Mars Trilogy greatly. I've re-read it recently - it does show it age a bit, both by the underlying world moving on and by the narrative structure of a grand epic that feels a bit quaint in 2024.
The Ministry for the Future, though... it's not a book? I mean it's one in the physical sense, but it's not a proper novel. It's a bunch of happy magical thinking stories where everything works out. There's a lot of unconnected snapshot viewpoints, and then Central Banks deploy bitcoin and AI and everything is redeemed, and Russian aircraft carriers save the Antarctic. That's a rather disappointing investor spiel, not a proper sci-fi novel.
I should have known better, seeing as it carries “favourite book of Obama” on the cover. I'm struggling to believe he's read it, as near the middle it calls out the assassinations by drone that his presidency made such wide use of - and blames them on him by name.
Then again, it's nice to fantasize about oil execs getting tagged like that.
I've enjoyed it. Dragon riders, reasonably thought out battles. And a not-quite-regency era romance. Yeah, it's cheesy and happy. It also (at least the first book) doesn't explore much behind the ridiculously class-obsessed setting, which for a recent book is a let down. It's also ridiculously francophobic and painting a horror-like image of Napoleon, which (as a Polish person) makes it somewhat hard to cheer for the protagonists.
I highly recommend. I found the history of the material sciences progress mixed with most modern applications and problems very engaging. Felt a bit more rushed towards the end chapters.
Data ends on 2022, so perhaps an update on lithium would be valuable: after the spike in prices the author mentions, in 2023 lithium prices fell 80% despite the EV car and battery production growing at a high pace. New sites are being brought online.
There's very little Pratchett in this book, unfortunately. It's based on his 30-year old short story, but it feels like Terry had practically no input in growing it into a book. It's really underdeveloped.If you're looking for an interesting read on parallel worlds, go check out [b:The Family Trade 17861 The Family Trade (The Merchant Princes, #1) Charles Stross https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1408262924l/17861.SY75.jpg 930587] by [a:Charles Stross 8794 Charles Stross https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1355510574p2/8794.jpg] (and frankly, Long Earth reads like a fanfic rewrite of parts of this one).
Well that was disappointing. The “self-help” part, promised in the title, takes less than 10 pages in the end of the book. Not that those aren't good ideas - but to get them, you have to wade through the previous part. And that's a half-book-long rant about how most things being wrong is the fault of wokeness and cancel culture.
The “societies” part is also, very clearly, a missed promise - this book does not look, at all, outside the USA borders. Not in terms of problems it looks at, not in terms of influences.
I find it difficult to review this book. It's not particularly gripping or well written, more of a somewhat boring documentary about a small place in the world, from a very personal perspective. But then on the other hand, I share this perspective somewhat, having been in that small corner of Bieszczady every summer since I was a little kid.
Author chronicles, in snapshots, the early ages of re-settling the region after Akcja Wisła. Showcases the personalities of the people who arrived - and stayed - in the wild lands, as Bieszczady were looked at. Does so with clearly visible love towards the places and the characters.
If names like Rajskie, Tworylne, Krywe, Hulskie, Zatwarnica, Sękowiec, Smolnik, Żłobek, Muczne, Wołosate, Wetlina czy Smerek have a place in your heart, if you know how the silence in the murdered villages sounds, you will enjoy this book. And perhaps cry a bit, because things change, and they are not like they used to be.
If you'd had the pleasure of following Oliver Bullough Kleptocracy walk through London, this is more of that, narrated in his own voice.
Chapters on Ukraine oligarch's ties into London upper class (and Russian money laundering) are especially current right now - but so is, surprisingly, the chapter on Suez 1956 crysis.
Disclaimer: I've worked in a place like those described in this book. I'm quite sure the experience will stay with me for the rest of the career, and I'll be judging everything in the future by how close it comes to replicating it. The book gave me a mirror, to look back at how the place was setup, what was intentional about it, what was required for it to function - and what had to be carefully removed.
In a way, perhaps, there's not that much surprise in The Culture Code? Places that make it safe to experiment and give and receive feedback are great to work in. OK. It's still highly unusual to find those places, though.
What is clearly missing - and what will be a revolutionary book for the future workplace cultures, I am sure - is how to build such a place in a post-pandemic (or mid-pandemic), remote-first (or hybrid) environments, when so much of our low-level social cues depend on being physically close with other people.
An international bestseller, hitting a lot of areas I'm interested in. I should have guessed this is going to be a disappointment.When it goes into details, it's often slightly wrong. When it goes into broad overviews, it repeats itself over and over, like a university teacher, trying to make sure his distracted students remember what he says. And when it starts to predict the future, oh damn, then it really shows the author does not read any decent futurologists or sci-fi authors.Looking for a broad strokes history? Read [b: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies 1842 Guns, Germs, and Steel The Fates of Human Societies Jared Diamond https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1453215833l/1842.SY75.jpg 2138852]Looking for an overview of how money and credit shaped human societies? Read [b: Debt: The First 5,000 Years 6617037 Debt The First 5,000 Years David Graeber https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390408633l/6617037.SY75.jpg 6811142]Looking for speculation on how technological changes feed and reinforce cultural and psychological changes? Read [a: Peter Watts 27167 Peter Watts https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png] or [a: William Gibson 9226 William Gibson https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1373826214p2/9226.jpg] or [a: Jacek Dukaj 681591 Jacek Dukaj https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1254912251p2/681591.jpg] or [a: Charles Stross 8794 Charles Stross https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1355510574p2/8794.jpg]...