Kritikak eta Iruzkinak

Jennifer Egan’s “The Candy House” straddles the line between magical realism and sci-fi—and I am here for it.

Anthropologist Miranda Kane’s 1995 book, “Patterns of Affinity” lays bare exacting formulas for predicting human behavior. She could never have anticipated Bix Bouton seizing on these ideas to expand his surveillance capitalism juggernaut: “Mandala” (the novel’s answer to Meta/Facebook).

Later, in 2010, while fretting about the future of Mandala, Bouton infiltrates a college discussion group of Kline’s work. There he learns of experiments to externalize people’s memories into machines.

Bix uses the research as the inspiration for “Own Your Unconscious”—a way to relive your past (including everything you’d forgotten).

Later, Mandala introduces “The Collective”—a pool of memories users can tap at the cost of releasing their memories for others. The collective is a database searchable by geolocation and time—enter the date and place and watch events unfold through the eyes of any user who’s uploaded their unconscious to the collective.

The novel is a collection of vignettes—memoirs of people connected to Bounton and Kline.

The world Egan builds is addictive and wonderous, but some stories fall flat. In particular, a second-person spy story that goes on way. too. long.

But the novel still has enough magnetic and beautiful moments to be worth your time.

I love Morgan Housel’s blog (at collabfund). Housel tells engaging stories with sharp writing. And this book reads like a collection of his lean, insightful blog posts—which I enjoyed.

But it had a dearth of actionable tips on spending, investing, and saving.

Although, what little advice it does offer aligns with all my biases, which is always a nice feeling.

I think for most investors, dollar-cost averaging into a low-cost index fund will provide the highest odds of long-term success.

– Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money

The title refers to how individuals differ in their approach to money. Housel insists that judging people for their relationship to money is unfair. It’s individualistic, based on their goals and timelines—and, sometimes, their unique blind spots.

The author cites studies showing that people are forever traumatized by the market early in life. If the stock market was crummy in your 20s, you tend to avoid stocks forever.

I found the insight that history is the study of outlier events novel. And that the most crucial part of a plan is what happens when the plan fails.

This was a short, lively read filled with fascinating anecdotes and some modest financial advice. Of course, all advice appears alongside caveats to everything.

“I used to have this crazy idea…” He pauses. “And I guess I still do, that as long as I stay on the ground, the plane will stay in the sky. It’ll keep flying on its normal route to Los Angeles, and I’m its counterweight. They’re all alive up there, as long as I’m alive down here.”

– Ann Napolitano, “Dear Edward”

This is one of those books I found myself ripping through in just a few days. “Dear Edward” was gifted to me this past Christmas, and I was unsure if it would be my cup of tea. But I enjoyed this light, sweet, YA coming-of-age story in sad and surreal circumstances.

Twelve-year-old Edward Adler is the sole survivor of the 191 passengers aboard flight 2977 from Newark to Los Angeles. He was sitting together with his father and brother, contemplating their relocation to LA for Eddie's mother's new TV-writing job. Meanwhile, Jane Adler, Eddie's mom, finishes rewrites to a terrible script alone in first class.

The passengers on flight 2977 include a Forbes richest person, a coked-out business jag-off, a gorgeous flight attendant, a soldier returning from war to ride a desk, a fascinating woo-woo woman in a skirt with bells on it, and a woman who just found out she's pregnant and is hoping her boyfriend will propose when they land.

The novel shifts back and forth—jumping into the passengers' minds during the long flight and following Edward after the crash as he learns to live his new life.

After moving in with his Aunt and Uncle in Jersey, Eddie (who now goes by Edward) cleaves to a neighbor girl his age—Shay. Edward and Shay develop a deep bond that gives him a solid foundation to rebuild his shattered life.

It’s a light read. I found the characters were more interesting than the plot—although some characters are more developed than others (I never entirely understood Uncle John and Aunt Lacey—their marriage seems...singular). The scenes are warm, like a Hallmark movie, and (at times) a bit saccharine. Nevertheless, I found myself persuaded to devour this book—it was a good and touching read.

Plus, I loved the random TILs sprinkled throughout:

• Airplanes mix 50/50 air from the cabin and outside and then pass it through filters before it comes back through the vents.
• The first flying machines—the ones where people strapped wings to their arms to flap—were called "ornithopters."
• Pierre de Fermat's "little theorem" from 1640 helped build the basis of RSA encryption.

John Scalzi's dialog crackles with quick banter that makes his books worth reading:

Corey looked down and furrowed his brow. "Where are my pants?" he said. "We took them from you," Dahl said. "Why?" Corey said. "Because we need to talk to you," Dahl said. "You could do that without taking my pants," Corey said. "In a perfect world, yes," Dahl said.

-- John Scalzi, "Redshirts"

The only other Scalzi book I've read, Kiaju Preservation Society, let me down on plot—even when you remove the expected suspension of disbelief required of all sci-fi.

Fortunately, this book's plot holds up throughout the narrative.

The plot falls right out from the title. Think back to season one of "Star Trek: The Next Generation"—when the show was terrible. Think about all the nameless crew members who died on away missions. All those people had lives and families and worries. And their sad fate was to be devoured by Borgovian land worms. Now imagine those people get wise to the narrative, and you can piece together most of the plot from there.

I enjoyed the irony that the twist of this novel could ALSO be a throw-away episode of Star Trek. And that Wil Wheaton narrates the audiobook—Ensign Crusher in the flesh.

But this novel is funny, heartening, and lovable in the same way as my previous encounter with Scalzi. Plus it won the Hugo award for best novel back in 2013.

The codas were wonderful thought experiments. Imagine reckoning with all the characters you wrote into sloppy deaths. Or owing your life to a fictional version of yourself. Or living a more meaningful life as a fictional character who wouldn't exist except for you.

The idea of inadvertently spawning a fictional version of myself left me thinking of the lines from Whitman:

What I assume, you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

-- Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

I enjoyed this novel. The dialog sparkles, the characters are sympathetic, and the plot is fun and serviceable.

And it gave me a writing gem to take home: you're the general for the army of characters you create.

Sooner or later the Narrative will come for each of us. It'll use us however it wants to use us. And then we'll die from it.

-- John Scalzi, "Redshirts"

Everyone dies. Your characters, if they're mortal, will die. And they may even die in your narrative. But you should never send them into a stupid situation to let them die from a blunder or for a cheap thrill.

If your characters must die, you owe them a good death, at least.

Ansible—the open-source “infrastructure as code” tool—borrowed its name from this novel.

In the story, an ansible is a faster-than-light (FTL) communication device—words typed on one ansible appear instantaneously light-years away.

This factoid was chief among my reasons for reading this book.

I also read it for completeness sake—“Rocannon’s World” is the first novel in the Hainish Cycle—Ursula K. Le Guin’s epic future history, which includes one of my all-time favorite books: “The Dispossessed.”

But this was my least-favorite Le Guin story I’ve read thus far (although that’s a high bar).

The story was nothing more than your average 1960s sci-fi/bronze-aged castles with flying cats mashup.

While that sounds exciting, the actual book was slow.

There needed to be more plot for such a plot-driven story.

Plot

I ride with Olhor, who seeks to hear his enemy’s voice, who has traveled through the great dark, who has seen the World hang like a blue jewel in the darkness.

– Ursula K. Le Guin, "Rocannon's World"

The novel opens with an explosion. The eponymous Rocannon's ship is destroyed by an unknown enemy.

Rocannon (later: Olhor) is an ethnologist of high-intelligence life forms for the League of All Worlds. The League is studying a bronze-age civilization on an unnamed planet orbiting the star Fomalhualt.

The League has managed to catalog three of the five (maybe) species of the planet:

• Gdemiar – dwarves, effectively, who live underground and have telepathy among their own kind.
• Fiia – elves, effectively, who are small and slight and have telepathy among their own kind.
• Olgyior/Angyar – one species divided into two classes.
  • The Olgyior are dark-haired, light-skinned serfs.
  • The Angyar are dark-skinned, yellow-haired high-borns.

As Rocannon explains his ship-explosion troubles to Lord Mogien of Hallan Castle—a high-born Angyar—they cross paths with a lone Fiian. The Fiian reveals his whole village was also decimated by the enemy.

Bound by their common enemy (and the Angyar's unexplainable "All for One" philosophy), Lord Mogien, Rocannon, and Kyo the Fiian join with three of Mogien's Olgyior servants on a quest to the unknown and uncharted South in the hopes of sending a distress signal to the League from the enemy's ansible.

Semley's Necklace

The story opens with its best part: "The Dowery of Angyar" (AKA, Semley's Necklace), which was published as a stand-alone story in 1964, two years before the publication of Rocannon's World.

This prologue is a reimagining of Freyja's Brísingamen necklace of Norse Mythology.

The eponymous Semley, a high-born Angyar, is attempting to track down a family heirloom—the sapphire necklace known as the "Eye of the Sea."

She seeks out the Gdemiar (dwarves), who made the necklace, who agree to take Semley to meet the necklace's new owners—the Starlords, who include a young Rocannon.

The journey teaches us all about time dilation and the deleterious effects of near-FTL travel.

This prologue has all the best parts of the novel and none of the slow, slightly dull, ungainly attempts at character development—highly recommended.