I hadn’t read Brave New World since high school, but it had always left an indelible mark in my psyche, so I was eager to see it with adult eyes and see if it lived up to my memory. And yep, still brilliant.
People usually refer to Brave New World as a dystopia, speaking about it in the same breath as 1984, but I’d argue that satire is a much more accurate description. Huxley himself said that he was lampooning American culture, and the citizens of the World State aren’t oppressed by a brutal regime, they’re happy. We just find it frightening because of what they give up in exchange for happiness. Still, I think Huxley would feel rather vindicated to see how much Americans (and the rest of the world) have leaned into that bargain in the last century.
But socio-politics and genre definitions aside, the writing is just sharp. The prose sings, the images stick. It’s a great read.
A book about books—you’ve got my attention. A book about the design of books—now we’re talking!
Berne does a great job of explaining all aspects of book design, from the physical artifact and materials, to the principles of typography, to the process of working with a publisher and designer. And though this is targeted at authors and others in the publishing industry, she does a surprisingly great job of outlining the core skills of typography and composition. So much so that I think I’m going to recommend this to all my design students, even those without any particular interest in books.
I love the idea of a cultural history of a typeface, and this book does a good job of leading us through Futura’s origins and many uses throughout the last century. But it fails at giving this story any sense of meaning. It’s mostly just a list of brands and campaigns that have used the typeface. There’s always this looming sense that something greater is implied by those uses, but whatever it is never quite comes into focus.
It’s still a worthwhile read for type nerds like me, but temper your expectations.
As familiar as I am with the novels and the mini-series, the original Hitchhiker’s Guide radio series is pretty new for me (though I think I listened to it once long ago). Apart from the joy of hearing one of my favorite stories brought to life by voice actors and sound effects, it’s also fascinating to observe the differences from the story’s final form in the novels. There are a few gags that were replaced by better ideas, a few that work great but were changed for reasons unknown, and even a few places where the original adds a bit of explanation to elements that felt disconnected in the books.
Hilarious, smart, and just pure joy. (But I hope you find a version with better audio fidelity than I had.)
A lot of the best authors have pet themes that they return to again and again. Sometimes it gets repetitive, but never with Heinlein. He’s concerned with asking how people should be governed, and he’s endlessly inventive in how he explores the question. Double Star is a great example, with a silly plot device that leads to unexpected depth. It’s fun, it’s poignant, it makes a self-important protagonist really work.
My only quibble—and it’s a small one—is that the first few chapters are pulpy in a way that the rest of the book just isn’t. It sets you up for a very different kind of story.
A bit uneven and a little too cozy for my tastes, but still strange, creative, and compelling.
At times hilarious and at others poignant, this is a fun read. Still, the mystery and the big twist fall a little flat for me. Though I do enjoy that Miss Marple barely appears and most of the investigation is done by quite competent police detectives. For me, that’s a bigger subversion than the lauded twist ending.
I love the kind of science fiction that considers a speculative technology and extrapolates startling and paradigm shattering outcomes. I won’t say that the plot of this book is perfect, but it takes you places you never expected. Egan is brilliant.
This is the kind of book I say is a three-out-of-three stars. It’s not shooting for the moon in terms of literary merit, it’s just a pulpy little story told reasonably well. The three time frames are balanced, the telling draws you in, and things escalate enough to keep you going. I can’t say I care too much for all the baseball stuff, and the end is a mite anticlimactic, but I had fun reading it.
One of the best know Holmes stories for a reason, The Hound of the Baskervilles makes great use of the juxtaposition of the detective’s logical, worldly perspective against the phantasmagoric specter of an infernal hound. What’s more, Conan Doyle cleverly tucks away his genius detective for much of the story so that the mystery can deepen and confound as we explore it through the eyes of the more human (but still admirable) Watson. Delightful.
There’s a lot of talk these days about cozy fiction as a new phenomenon, but I’m in my happy place with Holmes and Watson. Their comfortable Victorian lives, intellectual repartee, and the way they never seem to let the stakes of the mystery get in the way of tucking into a good breakfast curtesy of Miss Hudson; it’s all just wonderful. And of course, this particular collection has the added drama of “The Final Problem” as the last story.
Picking up right where I, Claudius left off, the story of this accidental emperor finds its tragic conclusion. Far more than the first book, this one brings home its themes of inevitability and the blind selfishness of human nature. And because over the course of the two books you’ve learned to like Claudius so much, every betrayal he faces lands like a sting in your heart.
Lem has an incomparable imagination for the alien, for the unknowability and incompatibility of the infinite unknown. The Invincible takes us to a world where something inhuman, unthinking, something that isn’t even really alive lurks waiting. We follow a no-nonsense crew of space professionals who must struggle to fathom what is going on. And I love the careful, scientific way they approach the problem — none of the insufferable trope of them making obviously stupid choices for the sake of drama.
My only complaint is that the ending is rather unsatisfying. But in way, that is appropriate; how can you find a satisfying resolution with something so truly alien?
This book does a good job of exploring the historical context in which the christian religion found its way to ascendency in the Roman Empire. It includes some astute observations, most notably that at the time the idea of a proselytizing, theologically exclusive faith had never before existed, and that alone can account for much of the way this new cognitive meme was able to spread so quickly. No one yet had any mental framework against which to pit such a thing.
That said, it never really lives up to the grandeur of the title. What I was really after was not an explanation just of the triumph of christianity over paganism in Rome; I wanted the whole story, with two thousand years and the vastness of the entire globe accounted for. I suppose that is asking a lot, but it seemed to be the promise the title was making.
Like every Asimov novel, The Naked Sun is imminently readable and somehow manages to explore ideas that are incredibly expansive at the same time.
I love the way Asimov explores the neuroses of entire cultures in this one, with Elijah Baley at once the mirror and the reflected. At once boisterous and terrified.
I think this may be the tightest writing of any Asimov novel I’ve read so far, and I think the semi-noir mystery setup really helps.
The Wayward Bus doesn’t have a protagonist. Instead, it drifts between the perspectives of a cast of characters who range from the despicable to the merely sad. Small people with small lives playing out their small dramas. That’s the point, I think, to explore the limited minds of characters just living their lives. There’s a poetry in that, but this novel is not for me. I’m all too aware of the pettiness and paltriness of human nature without spending time inside the heads of these characters.
There’s a lot of fascinating history in this book. Sadly, Larson has no idea how to structure it, how to edit it down, or how to make it satisfying in any way. It’s just an endless cavalcade of facts and events, centered around a pair of vaguely related topics. But his prose is indulgently self-satisfied, so that you’re sure he thinks he’s writing the greatest thing ever put down on paper.
I think I’ve said it before, but Adrian Tchaikovsky excels at depicting cultural disconnects and the fear we feel when we misunderstand the other. This book may be one of his greatest achievements in that vein. He makes a lot of weird choices, but they all really work at building to a climax of difference. Plus, the guy really likes sentient spiders.
I was pretty disappointed by this book, not least because I enjoyed the first one in this series quite a bit.
Even if not for the character issues I’ll mention shortly, the best I could say for this book is that it’s more of the same. The Riverworld scenario is set up, and we once again follow a man driven to find out the truth as he navigates and negotiates a landscape (riverscape?) squabbled over by petty warlords. We see technology emerge and political alliances come and go, but the situation changes little.
But what really doesn’t work for me is that Farmer chooses Samuel Clemens as his protagonist. As a big Twain fan, I feel I have a certain understanding of the man, and I just can’t buy him as someone involved in statecraft, political intrigues, or grand obsessions. Put as many folksy witticisms in his mouth as you like, this just doesn’t feel like Clemens and the attempt is incredibly distracting.
There are also some attempts to unravel mankind’s struggles with race that are pretty cringey by modern standards. In a way, this aspect is the most like Twain’s own writing in that the intentions are good, but the specifics don’t stand up to today’s sensibilities.
I can see themes emerging in the series about the difficulties of achieving something worthwhile in a world controlled by those who lust for power and wealth, so I hope those lead somewhere in subsequent installments.
Very much a potpourri of assorted facts and anecdotes, this book still does a great job of teaching you about what the Classical world was like, both at the everyday level and in terms of broad historical events. More than that, Garrett Ryan’s style is so easy to read, that I enjoyed it even in the chapters that didn’t teach me much I didn’t already know. I’ll definitely pick up the second in this series at some point.
This book is perhaps somewhat unclear in its organization and primary thesis, but it’s about libraries and language and printing and learning, all things I love. Full of fascinating facts and anecdotes, I never really minded if the overall point was somewhat obscure.
