Recent Readings
The last few books I’ve read:
Leonard Mlodinow: The Drunkard’s Walk
This non-fiction talks about some of the ways probabilities are often very different from expectations when it comes to various kinds of randomness, and some of the reasons for it. It talks about the origins of mathematical probability theory, and several common cognitive biases such as the Gambler’s Fallacy. It also explains some very unintuitive statistical effects such as regression to the mean, which have caused some famous screwups in the past.
This is a very approachable book and a fun read if you’re interested in such issues.
Tony Rothman: The World is Round
A surprisingly refreshing take on the Big Dumb Object genre, and one I surprisingly only learned of recently. When starting into this book it felt like it was going to be a bit muddy, but it developed pretty quickly and coherently, mostly making sense all the way through. The big reveal turned out to be pretty much what I expected, but with an additional surprise that I think could have just as well been left out.
It does do a good job capturing the size of the featured world and the difficulties of living in an extreme and variable environment. Quite enjoyed this one in the end.
Charles Stross: The Rhesus Chart
It’s been a long time since I read any Laundry novels. One of the previous ones I read kind of put me off as I found it a bit tedious. But I knew I’d have to give the series another chance, and this entry, while not completely redeeming the series, at least will have me trying the next one as well.
I was also kind of put off at first when I learned that vampires were the big bad for this story, because that’s boring, but it ended up being a decent adventure after all.
I think the main issue I’m having with this series lately is Stross’s heavy-handed attempts to load it down with programmer, sysadmin, pop culture and general nerd jokes. Those are the humor of my people, and I employ them all the time myself, but maybe because of that it’s very predictable and overly constant to me.
John McLoughlin: Toolmaker Koan
An interesting an unusual first contact novel that manages to avoid most of the cringe common to that type of story. I only cringed a little bit.
Unfortunately I fully predicted the big surprise backstory bit shortly after the nature of the aliens was revealed. Despite that there was good adventure and the climax and resolution had surprises.
Not bad; I don’t regret reading it, but also not a book I’ll re-read.
Tags: books, reading, reviews, science fiction
