Book Review: The Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy

The Remembrance of Earth's Past is a trilogy written by the Chinese science fiction author, Liu Cixin.[1] It consists of three novels: The Three-Body Problem (2006), The Dark Forest (2008), and Death's End (2010). Ken Liu's English translation of The Three-Body Problem won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel and Liu's translation of Death's End won the 2017 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. These two novels also won the Chinese Galaxy Award.[2] Some spoilers ahead.

Book Review: The Year's Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection

I've previously read at least one of the The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling: the 7th (1993). I suspect that I've read another, but if I did I don't remember which one it was. Anyway, I generally enjoyed the 1993 edition (with the glaring exceptions of "Dying in Bangkok" by Dan Simmons and "The Last Crossing" by Thomas Tessier—I had to stop reading both of them before finishing because they were so vile), so when I spotted this in a thrift shop I decided to purchase it. I will review each story separately and then the collection as a whole at the end.

Book Review: Ishmael

[This is a guest book review from my dad. The footnotes are mine.]

I read the book, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, at the suggestion of a colleague of mine who had read it. The quick-and-dirty substance of the book is the angst of a lost child of the 1960s whose desire to change the world was not realized. In a hard-to-believe scenario, he falls under the spell of a telepathic gorilla.[1] To wander further down the path of unbelievability, the monkey has been educated by a wealthy Jew who has purchased him. The Jew dies and his surviving spinster daughter continues to be the monkey’s patron until she dies, at which time he is sold to a circus. The storyline, as dictated by the gorilla, is that through the evolutionary process, from the lightning strike in the primordial ooze to present day, everything was all right until a faction of the Homo sapiens line decided to abandon the wandering tribal life (the “leavers”) to form an agrarian society. This society then proceeds to destroy the whole system in their quest for stability. The endgame of the book is that the unfulfilled, lost, 60s throwback fails again to find fulfillment in saving the world and the bad guys (the “takers” [2]) win again, only to face the specter of the telepathic monkey’s prophecy that they will self-consume as a society.[3]

Television Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 4

Those of you who know me know that I am a big fan of Star Wars. When this cartoon series began, I was quite excited and diligently watched each new episode as it came out.[1] But since then I've fallen behind, and since then the series has wrapped up. Apparently there is more material, but further work on the series has been cancelled following the sale of the Star Wars franchise to Disney.[2] It is unclear how that material will be made available to the public.

On Truth and Revolutions

Revolutionism will ultimately fail. By revolutionism I mean the belief that the current social and/or political order will always need to be overthrown.[1] This is not simply a belief in the need for any given revolution. Rather it is a belief in the constant need for overthrowing the status quo—regardless of what that status quo is. I envision three possible outcomes of serial revolutions:

1. Total or near-total annihilation
2. Endless revolutions with no net progress
3. A culminating revolution that eliminates the need for further revolutions

Let's discuss each one.

Responsible Environmentalism

A little over a year ago I finished reading Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail by Jared Diamond.[1] In the introduction Diamond admits that he set out writing the novel with the intent to show that environmental damage was the only major factor contributing to the collapse of ancient societies such as the Maya and Angkor Wat.[2] However, his research [3] forced him to conclude that there were other variables which could not be ignored: climate change (such as El Niño or the Little Ice Age [4]), hostile neighbors, friendly neighbors/trade partners, and how a given society responds to environmental damage.[5] His tone throughout the book is generally panicked, though ends by claiming "cautious optimism" about the future of global society. At the end of the book he encourages everyone to engage in efforts to improve the environment, both globally and locally.[6]

Book Review: The Masks of Time

In an introduction he wrote for his own book, Robert Silverberg lauds himself for deviating from his "past transgressions" of writing sci-fi pulp and foraying bravely into the new frontier of literary sci-fi. What makes it literary? I can't tell. But I have some candidate details: it's quite accepting (and possibly even encouraging) of all forms of sexual behavior [1]; it treats Christianity (all religion, for that matter) as nothing more than a pernicious variety of mass insanity; it's anti-capitalist [2]; it doesn't really have a plot; and because, in his words, the main character is Jamesian.[3] It details the life of one man assigned to accompany a time traveler (named Vornan-19 [4]) as he explores the world of (his) past (which is roughly our present). They keep thinking Vornan-19 has some other purpose, but his pure hedonism and unwillingness to discuss anything about the future eventually convinces them that he's just a tourist.[5]

Book Review: The City of Ember

I first learned about this book by watching the movie. This is not unusual. I generally learn about children's books either from my family members or from the film adaptations. The City of Ember seems to be one of many young adult fantasy works that rode its way to fame on the coattails of the Harry Potter series.[1] It deals with an underground city that is dying. And no one seems to be doing anything about it. And for some reason no one is aware that they're underground.

Global Warming: An Unfortunate Misnomer

Amid all the global warming controversy, it's not hard not to notice when it's colder and there's more snow than in previous years. So imagine my mother-in-law's surprise a year or two back when a cashier informed her that people misunderstand the term "global warming": it doesn't mean the planet is getting warmer, it means the planet is getting colder.[1][2] In honor of that confusing statement, I took many of the graphs and images produced by global warming proponents and doctored them to show global cooling. Since it's April Fools' Day, I'm providing them for your enjoyment.

Realigning Elections

The Founding Fathers of the United States did not envision that the politics of the new nation would fall naturally into a two-party system.[1] However, a two-party system is an inevitable outcome of the concept that every person should have one vote.[2] This, in turn, leads to parties which devote most of their attention to courting centrist voters in order to defeat the opposition during elections. As party ideals move to the center of the political spectrum, eventually the party rank-and-file become dissatisfied with the party leadership.[3] This leads either to the formation of a third party which eventually displaces one of the original parties or to the reinvention of an existing party. This is known as a realigning election.[4] There have only been a handful in the history of the United States.

"Organic" Food, Part II

Last time I discussed whether "organic" foods contain more nutrients than conventionally-grown foods. When reports started coming out that there was no reliable scientific evidence that "organic" foods were more nutritious, "organic" food proponents immediately fell back on their other two claims: "organic" foods contain fewer toxins and "organic" farming methods are better for the environment. The primary argument for fewer toxins is centered around the use of pesticides. Let's look at this in more detail.

"Organic" Food, Part I

The sales of "organic" food have been growing by about 20% every year for nearly two decades.[1] This is bolstered by claims that "organic" food has more nutrients, fewer toxins (including synthetic pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides), and is better for the environment. That's a pretty bold set of claims. Now consider that the word organic originally meant: "Having organs, or an organized physical structure; of, relating to, or derived from a living organism or organisms; having the characteristics of a living organism."[2] Well, all plants and animals fit that definition, so technically all food is organic. Labeling a certain type of food as "organic" is just a clever marketing ploy to make you think it's better than other types of food.[3] (And now you know why I put it in quotes.) So if the very name is dishonest, what about their claims? Can they be trusted? Or is it just more hype? Let's investigate.

Book Review: Next

I recently finished reading Next, by the late Michael Crichton. It is a fictional account of the legal and moral complexities posed by genetic engineering. The biotech industry is booming and Crichton was disturbed by the legal morass that has been growing up around it. And, as is his style, he felt like addressing the issue in a fictional format would be more powerful and have more far-reaching effects than doing so in a non-fictional format would.