Darth Bane: Path of Destruction: A Novel of the Old Republic
© Drew Karpyshyn 2006
324 pages
The Star Wars story is not limited to the two trilogies: books, video games, and other media create an Extended Universe deemed canon by LucasArts. People have been writing books and fleshing out the history of the Star Wars universe. This book is set -- according to Wookiepedia, a Star Wars wiki -- a thousand years before Luke Skywalker blows up the Death Star in A New Hope. That action ("The Battle of Yavin") is the Star Wars universe's calendar's origin: events are labeled as being B- and A- BY, or "Before" and "After" the Battle of Yavin. In that time, according to the intro flap of the book, the Sith numbered in the thousands and they fought the Republic and its guardians, the Jedi, for control of the Galaxy.
The book is set during that battle, although for the first third of the book it is pure background. The first third of the book takes place on a small mining moon. Its lone settlement is the Star Wars equivalent of a Pullman town: the workers work all day for Pullman, they sleep in Pullman homes, they buy their supplies at the company store. The company uses its power to its advantage, and workers often become deeply indebted to the company and become literal wage-slaves. This is a man called Des' spot in life: thanks to his father's gambling debts, he works all day in abysmal conditions, with no hope of escape. Republic transports come through and ocassionally lure the miners into joining the Army of the Republic, but little do they know that their wages will be garnished to pay the SW-Pullman company. The Jedi are not concerned with the plight of the workers, and it is this that makes Des resentful and contemptuous of both the Republic and the Jedi.
Circumstances beyond his control turn Des into an outlaw, and he seeks refuge in the armies of the Sith, who are fighting a war against the Republic. His ability to use the Force is strong, and is quickly noticed by Sith lords, who reccommend him to the academy of the Sith Masters. There, he learns the ways of the Dark Side and begins to forge his own destiny. This book and the book that follows is his story. He adopts his father's contemptous name for him -- Bane -- as his own name. The story woven is rather captivating. This is a different universe, almost, than the one we see in the trilogies. The Sith here are not the sophisticated masters of evil that Palpatine and Darth Maul are: they're unrefined, crude almost. They struggle to recreate themselves in hopes of gaining more power.
The author shows Darth Bane's progession from a bitter, abused, but socially healthy miner to a Master of the Dark Side, capable of murdering whoever gets in his way. It took three movies to do this for Darth Vader, but here the author is limited to one book. He succeeds, though, and fairly well. The journey to the dark side is not a smoothly-running one: Bane will moralize with himself, attempting to figure out what is happening to him. The author does a fairly good job of building his character, but of course the readers know where it will lead. Along the way we meet interesting characters, which of whom are struggling with their own issues. The various personal and political struggles meet their climax in the Battle for Rusan, where an army of Jedi and an army of Sith fight a bitter battle to the end, where both sides are beginning to lose track of the ideologies that bring them there.
In sum, a captivating story that is well written and a worthy contribution to the Star Wars universe. I enjoyed it more than I have many other SW novels.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
The Four Agreements
The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book
© 1997 Don Miguel Ruiz
15o pages
The Four Agreements is one of those books I discovered rather randomly while clicking about in my public library's category system. My curiosity was piqued by the TOLTEC PHILOSOPHY description. Being interested in both Mesoamerican history and philosophy, I decided to get it a go. The book begins by describing the Toltecs*, who were according to the author a society of a scientists and artists who got together to preserve the knowledge of the ancients. Fearing abuse of it, however, they deliberately kept it hidden, teaching it only to their sons who would then pass it on to their sons. Prophecies said that one day the time would come when the wisdom of the Toltecs could be shared freely. Fortunately for the reader, "Don Miguel Ruiz" happens to come from that line of priests. Aren't we lucky?
What follows is a lengthy introduction and a chapter of New Age cosmology. All is God, God is all, we are all God, etc. I don't have a bastard clue as to how it's supposed to fit into the rest of the book. In the first chapter, Ruiz lays out his central idea: everything is a dream. We're constantly dreaming, even when we're awake. All that we call reality is in fact a dream. This entire chapter appears to me to be an explanation of how socialization works, wrapped -- smothered -- in New Age garb. After this is a bit of New Age psychology, which explains the effect of this socialization, or "human domestication" as Ruiz terms it. According to him, our minds have a Judge and a Victim: our Judge judges us based on our Book of Law, the summation of all our learned behavior, and determines that we are to feel bad when we break the rules. The Victim is the part of our psyche that "carries the blame, the guilt, and the shame" and detracts from our self image. The result, Ruiz says, is that we create hell for ourselves and others: our judges are constantly criticizing ourselves and others while their judges criticize us. Everyone is miserable because they're ruled by fear of not being who they're "supposed" to be. The foundation for this is that people agree that this is the way this ought to be, and Ruiz writes that what we need to do is disregard these old agreements and replace them with new ones: the Four Agreements.
The First Agreement is "Be impeccable with your word". Ruiz reads a lot into the power of words: "Every human is a magician, and we can either put a spell on someone with our word or we can release someone from a spell. We cast spells all the time with our opinions. An example: I see a friend and give him an opinion that just popped into my mind. I say, "Hmm! I see that kind of color in your face in people who are going to get cancer." If he listens to the word, and if he agrees, he will have cancer in less than one year." Ruiz' opinion is that our word is super-powerful and that we should use it very carefully -- use it to cast "white magic" and not "black magic". If you boil away all of the mysticism, you can arrive at an agreeable principle: what we say does impact other people and we should be mindful of what we say. Not that we'll cast a "spell" on them, but we can cause pain.
The Second Agreement is "Don't take it personally", in which Ruiz states that anything anyone does to you is done for them: if they compliment you, it's because they're happy. If they tear you down, it's because they're angry. Because they are doing this for their sake and not for yours, you should not take it personally, even if -- and he uses this example -- someone shoots you in the head. This chapter is quite short.
The Third Agreement is "Don't make assumptions". This is valid advice, I think, and he makes the point that many problems can be avoided if people stick to operating on what they know instead of what they're reading into a situation. This chapter is about clear communication, for the most part.
The Fourth Agreement is "Do your best", in which he advocates living in the moment and doing your best to excel in what you do. Oddly, the amount of newage language fades as we go through the Agreements to the point where this chapter is practically bereft of them. There is a thoughtful anecdote in this one, though:
If you can strip away all of the New Age coverings, you can find a philosophy here that is similar to Stoicism or Buddhism in some respects. The problem is that there's so much of the newage stuff. This book has been checked out about a dozen times, according to the "Date Due" paper in the back -- and phrases were underlined by previous readers. My mind goes to them, and I wonder -- wherever they are -- if this has helped them. The kind of philosophy under all of the newage soup is good stuff, and is practiced by many people throughout the globe to their betterment. It's an interesting book. If philosophy is your interest and you don't mind wading through a lot of "woo" for some interesting thoughts to ponder, you may want to give it a go.
* The actual identity of the Toltecs is unknown. According to Aztec myths, they were a race of people (the children of the gods) living in northern Mexico who gave birth to the Aztecs.
© 1997 Don Miguel Ruiz
15o pages
The Four Agreements is one of those books I discovered rather randomly while clicking about in my public library's category system. My curiosity was piqued by the TOLTEC PHILOSOPHY description. Being interested in both Mesoamerican history and philosophy, I decided to get it a go. The book begins by describing the Toltecs*, who were according to the author a society of a scientists and artists who got together to preserve the knowledge of the ancients. Fearing abuse of it, however, they deliberately kept it hidden, teaching it only to their sons who would then pass it on to their sons. Prophecies said that one day the time would come when the wisdom of the Toltecs could be shared freely. Fortunately for the reader, "Don Miguel Ruiz" happens to come from that line of priests. Aren't we lucky?
What follows is a lengthy introduction and a chapter of New Age cosmology. All is God, God is all, we are all God, etc. I don't have a bastard clue as to how it's supposed to fit into the rest of the book. In the first chapter, Ruiz lays out his central idea: everything is a dream. We're constantly dreaming, even when we're awake. All that we call reality is in fact a dream. This entire chapter appears to me to be an explanation of how socialization works, wrapped -- smothered -- in New Age garb. After this is a bit of New Age psychology, which explains the effect of this socialization, or "human domestication" as Ruiz terms it. According to him, our minds have a Judge and a Victim: our Judge judges us based on our Book of Law, the summation of all our learned behavior, and determines that we are to feel bad when we break the rules. The Victim is the part of our psyche that "carries the blame, the guilt, and the shame" and detracts from our self image. The result, Ruiz says, is that we create hell for ourselves and others: our judges are constantly criticizing ourselves and others while their judges criticize us. Everyone is miserable because they're ruled by fear of not being who they're "supposed" to be. The foundation for this is that people agree that this is the way this ought to be, and Ruiz writes that what we need to do is disregard these old agreements and replace them with new ones: the Four Agreements.
The First Agreement is "Be impeccable with your word". Ruiz reads a lot into the power of words: "Every human is a magician, and we can either put a spell on someone with our word or we can release someone from a spell. We cast spells all the time with our opinions. An example: I see a friend and give him an opinion that just popped into my mind. I say, "Hmm! I see that kind of color in your face in people who are going to get cancer." If he listens to the word, and if he agrees, he will have cancer in less than one year." Ruiz' opinion is that our word is super-powerful and that we should use it very carefully -- use it to cast "white magic" and not "black magic". If you boil away all of the mysticism, you can arrive at an agreeable principle: what we say does impact other people and we should be mindful of what we say. Not that we'll cast a "spell" on them, but we can cause pain.
The Second Agreement is "Don't take it personally", in which Ruiz states that anything anyone does to you is done for them: if they compliment you, it's because they're happy. If they tear you down, it's because they're angry. Because they are doing this for their sake and not for yours, you should not take it personally, even if -- and he uses this example -- someone shoots you in the head. This chapter is quite short.
The Third Agreement is "Don't make assumptions". This is valid advice, I think, and he makes the point that many problems can be avoided if people stick to operating on what they know instead of what they're reading into a situation. This chapter is about clear communication, for the most part.
The Fourth Agreement is "Do your best", in which he advocates living in the moment and doing your best to excel in what you do. Oddly, the amount of newage language fades as we go through the Agreements to the point where this chapter is practically bereft of them. There is a thoughtful anecdote in this one, though:
There was a man who wanted to transcend his suffering so he went to a Buddhist temple to find a Master to help him. He went to the Master and asked, "Master, if I meditate for four hours a day, how long will it take me to transcend?"Following this is a chapter called "The Toltec Path to Freedom" which involves breaking old agreements and adopting the new Agreements. There are three ways to become a Toltec: the first is to become aware of the dreams (or socialized beliefs) that hold us. The second is the "Mastery of Transformation" in which people become aware of how to change and free themselves from those old beliefs. The third way is to die to the old self, to kill the "parasites" of the old beliefs. The concluding chapter, "Heaven on Earth", sees the author speculating on how people can create heaven on Earth if they practice the Toltec Path. The book ends with a few prayers to the "Creator" and advertisements for Ruiz' other books, to better practice.
The master looked at him and said, "If you meditate four hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in ten years."
Thinking he could do better, the man then said, "Oh, Master, what if I meditated eight hours a day., how long will it take me to transcend?"
The Master looked at him and said, "If you meditate eight hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in twenty years."
"But why will it take me longer if I meditate more?" the man asked.
The Master replied, "You are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life. You are here to live, to be happy, and to love. If you can do yoru best in two hours of meditation, but you spend eight hours instead, you will only grow tired, miss the point, and you won't enjoy your life. Do your best, and pehaps you will learn that no matter how long you meditate, you can live, love, and be happy."
If you can strip away all of the New Age coverings, you can find a philosophy here that is similar to Stoicism or Buddhism in some respects. The problem is that there's so much of the newage stuff. This book has been checked out about a dozen times, according to the "Date Due" paper in the back -- and phrases were underlined by previous readers. My mind goes to them, and I wonder -- wherever they are -- if this has helped them. The kind of philosophy under all of the newage soup is good stuff, and is practiced by many people throughout the globe to their betterment. It's an interesting book. If philosophy is your interest and you don't mind wading through a lot of "woo" for some interesting thoughts to ponder, you may want to give it a go.
* The actual identity of the Toltecs is unknown. According to Aztec myths, they were a race of people (the children of the gods) living in northern Mexico who gave birth to the Aztecs.
The Lightning Thief
The Lightning Thief
© 2005 Rick Riordan
375 pages
I began this week with Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, a recommendation from a friend. The Lightening Thief is work of fantasy-fiction, set in a world where the Greek gods are real and ruling over the affairs of mortals -- and, like in the days of Heracles and Perseus, are ever-busy chasing mortal skirts and siring half-god half-mortal offspring, called (appropriately enough) half-bloods. The book is the first in a series of books for children and young adults called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Percy Jackson -- Perseus Jackson in full -- is our hero (a term that originally applied to the mortal sons of the gods like Heracles), and when the book begins he has no idea who he is. He will soon find out, though, as he flees from Furies and Minotaurs who want to destroy him. Forced by circumstances beyond their control, the young Percy's protectors are forced to bring him to Camp Half-Blood so that he may learn who he is -- and his destiny.
Young Percy has entered an extraordinary world, but like Harry Potter as entered it at a rather inconvenient time: darkness is stirring, and an epic battle between good -- or at least, not evil -- and evil is about to begin. As Percy learns about his identity as a demigod and his new role in relation to the world, he will be caught up in this struggle, beginning with being tasked with returning Zeus' thunderbolt to him, which someone else has stolen. Percy will engage in his adventure accompanied by Annabeth, a daughter of Athena, and a satyr named Grover. Once they set off, it's hard not to compare the book to Harry Potter: here we have a young protagonist who is constantly in trouble with the "real world" because of his abilities, who is whisked away to his kind's hideaway to learn about his "heritage", who is forced to take an active role in the growing battle because of who his parents were, who is aided by an intellectual girl and an endearing if somewhat clumsy sidekick.
The story was published by a company that does books for older children, although I was told it was a Young Adult book. It's a fun story to read, if not as "sophisticated" as the Harry Potter books. I enjoyed the story, but unlike the Harry Potter books, it did remind me of the books I read as a child. Beyond that, my only real trouble with the book was the idea that all of the gods were involved in accidentally impregnating mortals -- including gods like Athena, who are supposedly virginal. Athena's virginity isn't up for discussion, either: the Greeks built a temple to her and called it the Parthenon (from the Greek word for "virgin") in her honor. Interestingly, the author paints the Greek gods as being deeply involved in western civilization, so much to the point that they move Olympus and Hades every time the heart of western civilization moves. One character says that Olympus has been in Germany, France, Spain (for a time), England (for a long while), and is now in the United States. Despite this, the Pantheon maintains its Greek origins: demigods are dyslexic in all languages but ancient Greek and understand Greek automatically. The currency of choice is Drachmas.
One of the more entertaining aspects of the book is how the gods have changed as western civilization has changed. Zeus dresses in a business suit, Ares as a biker. The gods constantly comment on humans and their relationship to them. One repeated commented is that humans have a spectacular talent for interpreting what happens to them according to what they already believe. There's also a slight environmental message in the book: Grover constantly laments about the way humans are treating the wilderness, and says that these abuses will only cease when Pan (protector of wilderness) is found by the satyrs and wakened from his lengthy sleep.
All in all, a fun little story. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading other books in the series.
© 2005 Rick Riordan
375 pages
I began this week with Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, a recommendation from a friend. The Lightening Thief is work of fantasy-fiction, set in a world where the Greek gods are real and ruling over the affairs of mortals -- and, like in the days of Heracles and Perseus, are ever-busy chasing mortal skirts and siring half-god half-mortal offspring, called (appropriately enough) half-bloods. The book is the first in a series of books for children and young adults called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Percy Jackson -- Perseus Jackson in full -- is our hero (a term that originally applied to the mortal sons of the gods like Heracles), and when the book begins he has no idea who he is. He will soon find out, though, as he flees from Furies and Minotaurs who want to destroy him. Forced by circumstances beyond their control, the young Percy's protectors are forced to bring him to Camp Half-Blood so that he may learn who he is -- and his destiny.
Young Percy has entered an extraordinary world, but like Harry Potter as entered it at a rather inconvenient time: darkness is stirring, and an epic battle between good -- or at least, not evil -- and evil is about to begin. As Percy learns about his identity as a demigod and his new role in relation to the world, he will be caught up in this struggle, beginning with being tasked with returning Zeus' thunderbolt to him, which someone else has stolen. Percy will engage in his adventure accompanied by Annabeth, a daughter of Athena, and a satyr named Grover. Once they set off, it's hard not to compare the book to Harry Potter: here we have a young protagonist who is constantly in trouble with the "real world" because of his abilities, who is whisked away to his kind's hideaway to learn about his "heritage", who is forced to take an active role in the growing battle because of who his parents were, who is aided by an intellectual girl and an endearing if somewhat clumsy sidekick.
The story was published by a company that does books for older children, although I was told it was a Young Adult book. It's a fun story to read, if not as "sophisticated" as the Harry Potter books. I enjoyed the story, but unlike the Harry Potter books, it did remind me of the books I read as a child. Beyond that, my only real trouble with the book was the idea that all of the gods were involved in accidentally impregnating mortals -- including gods like Athena, who are supposedly virginal. Athena's virginity isn't up for discussion, either: the Greeks built a temple to her and called it the Parthenon (from the Greek word for "virgin") in her honor. Interestingly, the author paints the Greek gods as being deeply involved in western civilization, so much to the point that they move Olympus and Hades every time the heart of western civilization moves. One character says that Olympus has been in Germany, France, Spain (for a time), England (for a long while), and is now in the United States. Despite this, the Pantheon maintains its Greek origins: demigods are dyslexic in all languages but ancient Greek and understand Greek automatically. The currency of choice is Drachmas.
One of the more entertaining aspects of the book is how the gods have changed as western civilization has changed. Zeus dresses in a business suit, Ares as a biker. The gods constantly comment on humans and their relationship to them. One repeated commented is that humans have a spectacular talent for interpreting what happens to them according to what they already believe. There's also a slight environmental message in the book: Grover constantly laments about the way humans are treating the wilderness, and says that these abuses will only cease when Pan (protector of wilderness) is found by the satyrs and wakened from his lengthy sleep.
All in all, a fun little story. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading other books in the series.
This Week at the Library (29/12)
Books this Update:
Last week's ready was deliberately heavy on nonfiction, done to balance the growing amount of fiction I've been reading, particularly science fiction. Nevertheless, I began with science fiction: namely, Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel, the first in his Robot series of books. I've been looking for this book since the beginning of November, and the anticipation heightened my enjoyment of it. The Caves of Steel takes place in 23rd century Earth in which cities have become Cities -- enclosed environments of steel, concrete, and technology. Their structures reach far into the sky and far down below, reminiscent of Asimov's Trantor. is a detective novel set in this environment, in which Elijah Baley must work with a robot partner to sort out who killed a sociologist. The book is written in Asimov's style: simple language focusing on the story. In his Buy Jupiter and Other Stories, Asimov comments that the strength of books is that they allow the reader to use his or her imagination to build a world for themselves -- unlike in television where users are restricted to the producer's imagination. Asimov's own "unadorned" style of writing may be a deliberate way of minimizing his own intrusion into the reader's imagination. This generally works very well, but there's one scene where the logistics of what was happening was lost to me. This is the one dark mark -- and it's not much of one -- against the book.
Next I continued in Asimov, reading the first volume in his Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Asimov maintains that he wrote the book to examine the secular side of the Judeo-Christian bible and its connection to other human thinking: to Sumerian and Babylonian culture, to history, to language, and so on. He does so by using his own strengths (knowledge of history, science, Hebrew, etc.) and by building on the works of others: translations of Assyrian and Egyptian documents, for instance. The book is close to seven hundred pages and so is quite the read. Asimov works through the books of what Christians call the "Old Testament" one by one. The books receive commentary proportional to their length in most cases. There are some exceptions (Joshua and the Psalms are two). To read this book is to become versed in the etymology of various words, to read about the history of the ancient and early classical world, to learn about the history of the early Jewish faith (which Asimov terms "Yahvism", after Yahveh), and to learn about Jewish mythology. Bible literalists would object to that description, but the Bible has giants, "unicorns", angels, and takes seriously astrological tales. I see no problem in dealing with Jewish religious instruction and Jewish mythology as two separate elements of the same culture that subsequently influence one another someway. There's much more to say about the book, and so I urge you to read the more-lengthy commentary I made when I first read the book. The book has evidently upset bible-literalists. I imagine one particular complaint they have with him is that his opinion is that Isaiah and Daniel's "prophecies" refer to events that have already happened and were of only localized concern to the Hebrews -- the rise and fall of various middle-east empires. His description of the prophets is sometimes romanticized, but that's my only real concern. He was careful to point out that his opinions were his own, and not necessarily those of those who make study of these ancient texts their livelihood.
Next I read Edith Hamilton's The Echo of Greece, in which she examines the history of Greece -- and more particularly, Athens -- in the fourth century BCE. Hamilton begins by examining Athens' role as the world's only free city and writes that freedom and moderation were the foundation of the Greek (Athenian) mind. She then writes of Athens' downfall, its promise corrupted by its growing power. Subsequent chapters examine the schools, literature, political life, and historical life to convey to the reader how the Greek mind changes from the fifth to the fourth century. The reader will learn about Plutarch and Demosthenes, about Stoics and Menander. She paints an eloquent picture of Athens, one that is very romanticized. She ends by detailing Greece's absorption into the Roman Empire, then compares the Greek mind and the Roman mind and laments that the Roman Catholic Church -- which eventually subjugates Greece and the Greek mind -- chose to pattern itself after the Roman mind instead of the Greek. Not all is lost, however: she points out that the Greek mind is still with us, echoing in various aspects of western civilization. The book is very readable, very eloquently written, and quite romanticized -- even to a Hellenophile like myself.
Next I turned to science -- to Scientific Frontiers, the last book in Spangenburg and Moser's updated-to-2004 History of Science series. The book tells the story of particle physics, DNA, and the space race. The authors' approach and style are identical to their previous books, and so there's not much I can say that hasn't already been said. I haven't found their latter books as interesting as their books on 18th and 19th century, but the same was true for their previous history of science series and for history-of-science books in general. The 17th an 18th centuries are not as familiar to me as the 20th and 21st century, and so I naturally enjoy reading about those forerunners more.
Next I returned to science fiction with a collection of short stories that Asimov edited: Where Do We Go From Here? Asimov chose the stories on two qualities: one, their value as interesting stories; and two, their value as science fiction that raises questions and interest in their subject matter. At the end of every story, Asimov comments on it, its scientific worth, and its historical context, looking at the assumptions and predictions it works on. He ends by asking questions of the reader to encourage thought about the subject. If the author makes a mistake, Asimov asks the reader to find out why why that mistake is a mistake: if the author makes an assumption, Asimov asks the reader to look up information to see if the assumption might be valid. His experience as a science professor shows through.
Lastly, I read a book called The Pinball Effect, which concerns itself with the "web of knowledge" and focuses on how knowledge tends to advance in random ways, often resulting in curious coincidences. There are eighteen chapters, ranging in subject matter from cathode rays to anthropology, and taken in full they cover just about every aspect of human thought from philosophy to science. The author writes well and presents a lot of interesting (if trivial) information, but the book doesn't seem as focused as it should be for presenting the ideas within. The author seemed to ramble. Beyond this, I don't know what else to add. There is one interesting anecdote in here I like, though. Burke writes about an abolitionist preacher who presented his audience with a book that looked like the Bible, and railed to them that if that their attempt to justify slavery was so contemptible of their Lord that they might as well stab him in the face, just as the preacher does to the book. Little does the audience know that the book is hollowed out, and in the hollow is a kidney filled with blood and tied. When the abolitionist stabs the book, it breaks the bag and splatters blood across the face of onlookers. I thought it very dramatic.
Pick of the Week: Ooh, toughie. There are three instant favorites in this list, but I think I have to go with Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Caves of Steel and The Echo of Greece are the runners-up.
Next Week:
- The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
- Asimov's Guide to the Bible Volume I, Isaac Asimov
- The Echo of Greece, Edith Hamilton
- Science Frontiers, Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser
- Where Do We Go From Here?, ed. Isaac Asimov
- The Pinball Effect, James Burke
Last week's ready was deliberately heavy on nonfiction, done to balance the growing amount of fiction I've been reading, particularly science fiction. Nevertheless, I began with science fiction: namely, Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel, the first in his Robot series of books. I've been looking for this book since the beginning of November, and the anticipation heightened my enjoyment of it. The Caves of Steel takes place in 23rd century Earth in which cities have become Cities -- enclosed environments of steel, concrete, and technology. Their structures reach far into the sky and far down below, reminiscent of Asimov's Trantor. is a detective novel set in this environment, in which Elijah Baley must work with a robot partner to sort out who killed a sociologist. The book is written in Asimov's style: simple language focusing on the story. In his Buy Jupiter and Other Stories, Asimov comments that the strength of books is that they allow the reader to use his or her imagination to build a world for themselves -- unlike in television where users are restricted to the producer's imagination. Asimov's own "unadorned" style of writing may be a deliberate way of minimizing his own intrusion into the reader's imagination. This generally works very well, but there's one scene where the logistics of what was happening was lost to me. This is the one dark mark -- and it's not much of one -- against the book.
Next I continued in Asimov, reading the first volume in his Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Asimov maintains that he wrote the book to examine the secular side of the Judeo-Christian bible and its connection to other human thinking: to Sumerian and Babylonian culture, to history, to language, and so on. He does so by using his own strengths (knowledge of history, science, Hebrew, etc.) and by building on the works of others: translations of Assyrian and Egyptian documents, for instance. The book is close to seven hundred pages and so is quite the read. Asimov works through the books of what Christians call the "Old Testament" one by one. The books receive commentary proportional to their length in most cases. There are some exceptions (Joshua and the Psalms are two). To read this book is to become versed in the etymology of various words, to read about the history of the ancient and early classical world, to learn about the history of the early Jewish faith (which Asimov terms "Yahvism", after Yahveh), and to learn about Jewish mythology. Bible literalists would object to that description, but the Bible has giants, "unicorns", angels, and takes seriously astrological tales. I see no problem in dealing with Jewish religious instruction and Jewish mythology as two separate elements of the same culture that subsequently influence one another someway. There's much more to say about the book, and so I urge you to read the more-lengthy commentary I made when I first read the book. The book has evidently upset bible-literalists. I imagine one particular complaint they have with him is that his opinion is that Isaiah and Daniel's "prophecies" refer to events that have already happened and were of only localized concern to the Hebrews -- the rise and fall of various middle-east empires. His description of the prophets is sometimes romanticized, but that's my only real concern. He was careful to point out that his opinions were his own, and not necessarily those of those who make study of these ancient texts their livelihood.
Next I read Edith Hamilton's The Echo of Greece, in which she examines the history of Greece -- and more particularly, Athens -- in the fourth century BCE. Hamilton begins by examining Athens' role as the world's only free city and writes that freedom and moderation were the foundation of the Greek (Athenian) mind. She then writes of Athens' downfall, its promise corrupted by its growing power. Subsequent chapters examine the schools, literature, political life, and historical life to convey to the reader how the Greek mind changes from the fifth to the fourth century. The reader will learn about Plutarch and Demosthenes, about Stoics and Menander. She paints an eloquent picture of Athens, one that is very romanticized. She ends by detailing Greece's absorption into the Roman Empire, then compares the Greek mind and the Roman mind and laments that the Roman Catholic Church -- which eventually subjugates Greece and the Greek mind -- chose to pattern itself after the Roman mind instead of the Greek. Not all is lost, however: she points out that the Greek mind is still with us, echoing in various aspects of western civilization. The book is very readable, very eloquently written, and quite romanticized -- even to a Hellenophile like myself.
Next I turned to science -- to Scientific Frontiers, the last book in Spangenburg and Moser's updated-to-2004 History of Science series. The book tells the story of particle physics, DNA, and the space race. The authors' approach and style are identical to their previous books, and so there's not much I can say that hasn't already been said. I haven't found their latter books as interesting as their books on 18th and 19th century, but the same was true for their previous history of science series and for history-of-science books in general. The 17th an 18th centuries are not as familiar to me as the 20th and 21st century, and so I naturally enjoy reading about those forerunners more.
Next I returned to science fiction with a collection of short stories that Asimov edited: Where Do We Go From Here? Asimov chose the stories on two qualities: one, their value as interesting stories; and two, their value as science fiction that raises questions and interest in their subject matter. At the end of every story, Asimov comments on it, its scientific worth, and its historical context, looking at the assumptions and predictions it works on. He ends by asking questions of the reader to encourage thought about the subject. If the author makes a mistake, Asimov asks the reader to find out why why that mistake is a mistake: if the author makes an assumption, Asimov asks the reader to look up information to see if the assumption might be valid. His experience as a science professor shows through.
Lastly, I read a book called The Pinball Effect, which concerns itself with the "web of knowledge" and focuses on how knowledge tends to advance in random ways, often resulting in curious coincidences. There are eighteen chapters, ranging in subject matter from cathode rays to anthropology, and taken in full they cover just about every aspect of human thought from philosophy to science. The author writes well and presents a lot of interesting (if trivial) information, but the book doesn't seem as focused as it should be for presenting the ideas within. The author seemed to ramble. Beyond this, I don't know what else to add. There is one interesting anecdote in here I like, though. Burke writes about an abolitionist preacher who presented his audience with a book that looked like the Bible, and railed to them that if that their attempt to justify slavery was so contemptible of their Lord that they might as well stab him in the face, just as the preacher does to the book. Little does the audience know that the book is hollowed out, and in the hollow is a kidney filled with blood and tied. When the abolitionist stabs the book, it breaks the bag and splatters blood across the face of onlookers. I thought it very dramatic.
Pick of the Week: Ooh, toughie. There are three instant favorites in this list, but I think I have to go with Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Caves of Steel and The Echo of Greece are the runners-up.
Next Week:
- The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordian
- Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, Drew Karpyshyn
- The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz
- Atom, Isaac Asimov
- Great Books, David Denby
The Pinball Effect
The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible and Other Journeys Through Knowledge
© James Burke 1996
277 pages plus index and bibliography
This latest book is a bit hard to comment on, and harder still to classify. The book concerns itself with the "web of knowledge", and focuses on how knowledge tends to advance in random ways, often resulting in curious coincidences. There are eighteen chapters, ranging in subject matter from cathode rays to anthropology, and taken in full they cover just about every aspect of human thought from philosophy to science. The author writes well and presents a lot of interesting (if trivial) information, but the book doesn't seem as focused as it should be for presenting the ideas within. The author seemed to ramble. Beyond this, I don't know what else to add.
© James Burke 1996
277 pages plus index and bibliography
This latest book is a bit hard to comment on, and harder still to classify. The book concerns itself with the "web of knowledge", and focuses on how knowledge tends to advance in random ways, often resulting in curious coincidences. There are eighteen chapters, ranging in subject matter from cathode rays to anthropology, and taken in full they cover just about every aspect of human thought from philosophy to science. The author writes well and presents a lot of interesting (if trivial) information, but the book doesn't seem as focused as it should be for presenting the ideas within. The author seemed to ramble. Beyond this, I don't know what else to add.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Where Do We Go From Here?
Where Do We Go From Here?
ed. Isaac Asimov, © 1971
Where Do We Go From Here, a short-story collection assembled by Isaac Asimov, is more than the usual collection of short stories. Asimov introduces it in this way: "I have long maintained that science fiction has potential as an inspiring and useful teaching device. For this anthology, therefore, I have selected seventeen stories which, I think, can inspire curiosity and can lead the students into lines of questioning of his own that may interest and excite him, and may even help determine the future direction of his career. [...] [T]he seventeen stories included are all good ones, clever and exciting in their own right. Anyone who wishes can read them for themselves alone, need make no conscious effort to learn from them, and may totally ignore my own comments after each story. For those who would probe a little deeper, I have placed after each story a few hundred words of commentary in which I talk about the scientific points made in the story, pointing out their validity, or, sometimes, explaining their errors. Finally, after each comment, I have appended a series of suggestions and questions designed to direct the reader's curiosity in fruitful directions."
As said, this is a collection of seventeen science fiction short stories, chosen for both their worth as stories and as science fiction. Asimov believed that good science fiction must have within it good science. The stories come from a variety of authors. A few are well-known names -- Lester del Rey, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke -- but most were new to me. Two stories are by a Hal Clement, and at least one story was written by John Campbell, the editor of Astounding Stories under a pseudonym. After each story, Asimov reveals the year in which the story was published and comments on the author's predictions, assumptions, and so on, ending his commentary with three or four questions that are intended to jog the reader's mind. For instance, at the end of "The Cave of Night", he writes "Gunn has the rescue vessels designed, built, and launched in the space of thirty days. Do you think this is practical? Look up data on the space program and find out how such things take." Another example follows "Dust Rag" : "It is likely that Venus has an iron core, yet it has no magnetic field to speak of. How do we know it has none? Why should it not have one despite the iron core? What about other planets: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn? How do we know?"
Only one story ("Proof") escaped me completely. I was able to enjoy all of the others to varying degrees. The stories seem deliberately chosen to cover the full range of scientific knowledge: in "Omnilingual", the readers join a team of scientists on the surface of Mars as they attempt to learn about a long-dead Martian civilization. This particular chapter concerns language. In "Dust Rag", two men on the surface of the Moon encounter problems with electromagnetism in that their visors become charged and attract lunar dust that is being charged by the Sun. The result is that the visors and the outside of their suits (including air filters) become covered in lunar dust and the astronauts -- in bulky space suits -- have to figure out how to return to their camp or shuttle before they run out of air. In "The Day is Done", we see speculations on human-Neanderthal interaction. Here Asimov posits in his commentary that the Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals may have interbred to produce humans, but this is quite dated. (Asimov died nearly twenty years ago, so he can be forgiven for not considering the last two decades of evidence in regards to Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.) One of my favorite stories was "Surface Tension", which shows the results of humans modifying the human genome for life on other planets. The particular planet that the story is set on is covered in water and the largest animals are crayfish, so the humans are designed to be microscopic and interact with amoebas and so forth in a story that is completely implausible but very interesting.
I found the book to be tremendously enjoyable: the stories as well as the questions Asimov probed. I wonder if he did any other projects like this.
ed. Isaac Asimov, © 1971
Where Do We Go From Here, a short-story collection assembled by Isaac Asimov, is more than the usual collection of short stories. Asimov introduces it in this way: "I have long maintained that science fiction has potential as an inspiring and useful teaching device. For this anthology, therefore, I have selected seventeen stories which, I think, can inspire curiosity and can lead the students into lines of questioning of his own that may interest and excite him, and may even help determine the future direction of his career. [...] [T]he seventeen stories included are all good ones, clever and exciting in their own right. Anyone who wishes can read them for themselves alone, need make no conscious effort to learn from them, and may totally ignore my own comments after each story. For those who would probe a little deeper, I have placed after each story a few hundred words of commentary in which I talk about the scientific points made in the story, pointing out their validity, or, sometimes, explaining their errors. Finally, after each comment, I have appended a series of suggestions and questions designed to direct the reader's curiosity in fruitful directions."
As said, this is a collection of seventeen science fiction short stories, chosen for both their worth as stories and as science fiction. Asimov believed that good science fiction must have within it good science. The stories come from a variety of authors. A few are well-known names -- Lester del Rey, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke -- but most were new to me. Two stories are by a Hal Clement, and at least one story was written by John Campbell, the editor of Astounding Stories under a pseudonym. After each story, Asimov reveals the year in which the story was published and comments on the author's predictions, assumptions, and so on, ending his commentary with three or four questions that are intended to jog the reader's mind. For instance, at the end of "The Cave of Night", he writes "Gunn has the rescue vessels designed, built, and launched in the space of thirty days. Do you think this is practical? Look up data on the space program and find out how such things take." Another example follows "Dust Rag" : "It is likely that Venus has an iron core, yet it has no magnetic field to speak of. How do we know it has none? Why should it not have one despite the iron core? What about other planets: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn? How do we know?"
Only one story ("Proof") escaped me completely. I was able to enjoy all of the others to varying degrees. The stories seem deliberately chosen to cover the full range of scientific knowledge: in "Omnilingual", the readers join a team of scientists on the surface of Mars as they attempt to learn about a long-dead Martian civilization. This particular chapter concerns language. In "Dust Rag", two men on the surface of the Moon encounter problems with electromagnetism in that their visors become charged and attract lunar dust that is being charged by the Sun. The result is that the visors and the outside of their suits (including air filters) become covered in lunar dust and the astronauts -- in bulky space suits -- have to figure out how to return to their camp or shuttle before they run out of air. In "The Day is Done", we see speculations on human-Neanderthal interaction. Here Asimov posits in his commentary that the Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals may have interbred to produce humans, but this is quite dated. (Asimov died nearly twenty years ago, so he can be forgiven for not considering the last two decades of evidence in regards to Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.) One of my favorite stories was "Surface Tension", which shows the results of humans modifying the human genome for life on other planets. The particular planet that the story is set on is covered in water and the largest animals are crayfish, so the humans are designed to be microscopic and interact with amoebas and so forth in a story that is completely implausible but very interesting.
I found the book to be tremendously enjoyable: the stories as well as the questions Asimov probed. I wonder if he did any other projects like this.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Science Frontiers
Science Frontiers: 1945 -
Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser © 2004
246 pages including index
This week I resumed my reading of Spangenburg and Moser's updated "History of Science" series, finishing it off with Science Frontiers, which examines science since 1946. After an introduction on the scientific method, the book is divided into the Physical Sciences, the Life Sciences, and Science in Society, following the same pattern established in their preceding books in this series. The physical sciences are dominated by particle physics and quantum mechanics. The authors didn't seem to do the excellent job they usually do of explaining the topics: perhaps I was off. This first part ends on amuch more easy note, that of the solar system and Earth. Thanks to the satellites projects of the seventies and eighties, we have a wealth of data on the other bodies in the solar system. The last chapter, "Mission to Planet Earth", includes the topics of plate techtonics, dinosaur extinciton theories, ozone depletion, and the greenhouse effect.
In The Life Sciences, one chapter is devoted to the discovery of DNA. The next chapter concerns the origins of life, and examines viruses, AIDs, genetic eingeering, cloning, and the possibility that life arose from clay. The last chapter in this section concerns human evolution. Part 3, "Science and Society", was very interesting. It consists of two chapters. In one, "Hot and Cold on Science", the authors look at a curious situation: while the atomic age create fear and distrust about science and scientists, the space age turned them into heroes. The last chapter concerns the rise of superstition, post-modernism, and the new age.
As usual, the book is concise and presents a very readable narrative, especially beyond the chapters on physics which I thought fell short of their usual superbness.
Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser © 2004
246 pages including index
This week I resumed my reading of Spangenburg and Moser's updated "History of Science" series, finishing it off with Science Frontiers, which examines science since 1946. After an introduction on the scientific method, the book is divided into the Physical Sciences, the Life Sciences, and Science in Society, following the same pattern established in their preceding books in this series. The physical sciences are dominated by particle physics and quantum mechanics. The authors didn't seem to do the excellent job they usually do of explaining the topics: perhaps I was off. This first part ends on amuch more easy note, that of the solar system and Earth. Thanks to the satellites projects of the seventies and eighties, we have a wealth of data on the other bodies in the solar system. The last chapter, "Mission to Planet Earth", includes the topics of plate techtonics, dinosaur extinciton theories, ozone depletion, and the greenhouse effect.
In The Life Sciences, one chapter is devoted to the discovery of DNA. The next chapter concerns the origins of life, and examines viruses, AIDs, genetic eingeering, cloning, and the possibility that life arose from clay. The last chapter in this section concerns human evolution. Part 3, "Science and Society", was very interesting. It consists of two chapters. In one, "Hot and Cold on Science", the authors look at a curious situation: while the atomic age create fear and distrust about science and scientists, the space age turned them into heroes. The last chapter concerns the rise of superstition, post-modernism, and the new age.
As usual, the book is concise and presents a very readable narrative, especially beyond the chapters on physics which I thought fell short of their usual superbness.
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