Kavinay
Robinson's a good writer, so it would be nice to believe the jingoism, racism and imperialism, etc. that permeates the book is the author rendering true 80's era military swank. And then you get a chapter where he extemporaneously goes off on the gloriousness of the Koch brother empire and you realize he's not rendering depth and flaws of his protagonists. Rather Robinson and his ilk of techno-thriller fanboys are too blinkered by American exceptionalism and the like to realize how stuff like this comes across as Team American World Police without being in on the joke.
It's not really a spy book, or at least, that's the least detailed aspect of the narrative. A Fabulist Father would be more on the nose. :D
This book isn't really about the punctuation mark; rather, it's a response to grammar pedantry.
Good idea, but a bit of a slog until you get to Hera's ship. Feels like a very drawn out first act, though I'm liking the “Rogue One” feel compared to the X-Wing series.
Yes, robots, etc. but the amazing thing about Asimov is how he constructs the political and social pressures of post-rationing Earth.
I worry about how much Epstein's writing appeals to me since it often feels like confirming biases and suspicions I already harbour. But if you've ever spent any time invested deeply in long-term development (sports, kids, yourself), so many of the topics covered in Range are likely real issues you've encountered. Do I specialize early, am I missing out by not committing down one path, should I even bother with some interest that isn't directly applicable to my work or field of study? There's a lot of pop psych about head-start approaches to development but not much which validates what you come to realize with age is still a valid and useful path to success: breadth and experimentation.
The next time some coach or trainer tells you how imperative early specialization is, this is the book that will help you feel more comfortable at dealing with a culture hellbent on being first rather than growing into skill and talent.
Let's be honest, this book is basically gossip. You don't need the first hand accounts of administration lackeys to understand Trump and his government. This administration is fairly transparent about its xenophobic and economic priorities.
There's this point about 2/3rds through Woodward's book where you start to wonder if his key sources really get challenged for being part of the policies of the Trump administration. It never happens. It makes for a strange lack of accountability in a book that subscribes to “a great man” theory as the theme, but with Trump being a grand buffoon. Doesn't this make the story not Trump's lies and stupidity but rather the utter moral failure of the cabinet and hangers-on that enable his rule?
Maybe history will be kinder to Woodward's expose of the inner workings of the White House. To me, Fear seems like a cautionary tale in regards to how access journalism misses the real story of Trump's political fortunes: adjacency to power turned Woodward's sources into craven enablers, not “adults in the room.”
It's weird when even the writer admits he's kind of lost the plot and then needs to wrap it all up.
Spent the entire second half of the novel wanting to punch the antagonist in the face...
“Pointillist empire.”
There's a point in the middle of the book where Immerwahr transitions from Puerto Rico and the Phillipines to capitalism abroad. It seems to wander until you realize how badly foreign bases and the soft power of commercial and cultural dominance has resulted in so many own-goals in American foreign policy. Where colonial powers held land and conceded to independence movements, the US model held to strategic military and economic hooks that ultimately kindled insurrection via insurgency. The resulting terrorism hence is a direct and inevitable outcome of America's particular method of exerting imperial control across the globe.
It's weird how quaint this book comes across in 2020. Merlan's account isn't chronological or proscriptive but rather an interesting survey of how Americans are prone to conspiracy due to the nature of their state. The legacy of Cointelpro, MK-Ultra, Tuskegee trials and so on is that even the majority and powerful often see the possible influence of government subterfuge and secret society false flags. It's this bizarre collision of exceptionalism and paranoia that creates a distinctively American brand of conspiracy cultist that both abuses victims and reaps a profitable grift.
Quite a fun adventure. Again, if the colours and inking were a bit more orthodox, I'd give it another star.
I was disappointed by Coates' original run on Black Panther. It felt like he was suffocating under the weight of so much continuity baggage and just couldn't get out of his own way to tell an engaging story or even hit upon a theme with any force.
In contrast, what a brilliant idea the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda is! It does two magical things right off the top: clear the deck of Marvel canon and allow Coates to really create and explore a setting that's baked-in with a lot of the ideas of his political work.
Empire, Imperialism, Colonization. These are all issues that are difficult to do with a contemporary Black Panther without being really on the nose. That Coates' Afro-future turns this on it's head, with Wakanda as the conquerors for “pre-emptive peace,” is just so much the more intriguing.
Also, whereas previous BP books were basically monologues with little to advance the plot, Coates cleverly relies on Acuña's stellar art for kinetic panels that convey so much action and emotion clearly and effectively.
BTW, holy crap, a Venom tie-in that isn't crap!
A really exciting start. I genuinely hope this setting gets a long and fruitful run.
Some of it is cutting edge, some of it, as Ben himself warns, is “woo.”
Most of the training information is pretty solid, though it should be familiar if you have a strength training background. Since the book is aimed at endurance athletes, I guess it's would be incredibly useful to broadening their overall program. Fundamentally, the idea of black hole training is very useful.
Where it gets weird is with all the gadgets and supplements that Greenfield recommends. Leave alone the fact that I'm never going to buy all that stuff, he doesn't really prioritize the lengthy list of recovery techniques and supplements he covers. In other words, I don't really know what's the “Creatine” equivalent of a no-brainer technique for many of the broad training concerns he covers.
Overall, still a useful book, but use your own judgement (just as you should with all training advice).
It makes perfect sense when you reflect on it, but Groopman's description of the Bayesian indoctrination of doctor training provides a lot of insight into the common conflicts or deficits of medical interaction. The takeaways aren't simplistic so much as simply reinforcing that patients and peers should remember that doctors are human. Cognitive errors are common, no matter how elite and trained a professional is. Patient advocacy and a deeper engagement with a specialist's rationale is not easy to appreciate or apply until you realize just how often common medical conventions prevent them from even being considered.
There's two important points to make about this book:.
1. Harris is a good writer. His research and narrative work effortlessly guide you through six or so years of epic change.
2. Consoles just have no soul. Harris and his principal sources seem to never question how ultimately the console industry boils down to marketing brinksmanship and how hollow that makes the entire endeavour.
Maybe this isn't really Harris' fault, but the world of 80's-90's consoles (and probably still today) is so hopelessly full of corporate hagiography that we're led to believe everyone previously fabulously rich executive is a genius in this emerging world of video games. Tom Kalinske, Sega of America's president and Harris' messiah in a suit, is treated like a trailblazer for what–thirty years later–really just amounts to edgelord marketing. It's a weird lens on the industry that seems to gloss over how commodified and exploitative these same suits made their arena.
There are no creatives here. This isn't Masters of Doom or any other history of the creative rise of video games, but rather the celebration of corporate gaming. Even Sega's rise is ultimately depressing in that context. Console Wars is a great history... it's just that it's a documentation of the most banal process of extracting wealth from games rather than any form of creativity beyond ad-wizardry.
Henry Kissinger writes a birthday limerick, a megalomaniac plays at 4-dimensional patent application, and they're not even the principal criminals detailed in Carreyrou's investigation into Theranos' amazing scam.
Obviously the major takeaway from this book is the vaporware applied to medicine is a chilling novelty of Silicon Valley's questionable moral culture, but I wonder if the most stunning revelation of Carreyrou's research is how Palo Alto seems to nurture world-class psychopathy as a business virtue. Nearly every major player selected in this story is an elite, privileged douchebag. No doubt Elizabeth Holmes is a marquee villain, but so much of this story is about the rank and file weakness of character in pursuit of glory that animates Silicon Valley.
If there's a downside to this book, it's that Stallworth's issues with anti-racist activism could really be explored further. Like most works that cover hate groups, there's a lot of false equivalency applied to people working for civil rights because they upset law enforcement sensibilities.
“It was as if Dennis the menace was running a hate group.”
The meat of this story though, Stallworth's infiltration of the KKK, oh my! On one hand, you want to laugh at the buffoonery of David Duke and his co-conspirators. On the other, the terror of the Klan is that they somehow manage to survive and succeed in their terrorism despite their idiocy.
If nothing else, you come out of Black Klansman deeply aware that the powers that be do not take racist hate groups seriously enough. If a lone municipal investigator like Stallworth could comprehensively discombobulate regional Klan activity, why aren't more resources applied to hack such cancerous growth back to the root?