Hernando

Read the Peter Green translation.

This was my gateway to Greek mythology and has been one of my favourite books since those high school years. Read it in Spanish at the time in something called "prosa", which is not bound to any poetic structure, removing any kind of literary intention that the original wanted to achieve. Nevertheless, I did not care at all about that but was sucked into the story.

Now with this reread I kind of appreciate the way the original was composed. Still, I enjoyed it as much as the first time, and it remains a favourite of mine.

After reading multiple reviews of the most known translations, I selected this one because it had the best balance in rhythm and strict literalism.

It is hard to be more explicit and graphic than Cormac McCarthy written words. But this graphic novel adaptation does justice to the book.

Marcenet honors the original with each singular panel. Incredible work.

Straight to favorites.

As much as it looks like a longer A Canticle For Leibowitz, it is not. They are quite different in basically everything. 

There is no way to tell what this book is about without spoiling it. Understanding it slowly is one of its joys. So it is better to avoid reading most reviews because they possibly contain some spoilers. 

This is one of those books I wanted to reread immediately after finishing it—almost a thousand pages of pure metaphysical speculation.

A bit of patience is needed to get through it, as by the 200-page mark is when everything just starts unwrapping. I mean this in the sense of understanding what the book is about and the meaning of the made-up words.

It will get some more complexity, but in the form of concepts. There will be ideas from Plato and Socrates on philosophy, Pythagoras and Einstein from mathematics and physics, and religion from St. Augustine and others, just to name a few. If you are familiar with that, it will be cool to make the connections, and if not, you can look up after finishing to match which current of thought belongs to the Earth counterpart.

By the last third of the book there will be more than that, just pages of dry academic discussion, materialism, metaphysics, interpretation of quantum mechanics, mathematics, and philosophy all thrown in the form of discussing-over-a-meal.

If you like reading and watching all those "old" debates and discussions about these themes, you will certainly enjoy this; if not, this might be another mountain to climb to finish the book, but by this point you might be enjoying the ride already.

PS: Iolet (The Music of Anathem) is an album that collects sequences and chants from the ones described in the book, which apparently come from mathematical formulae.

A book about the lives of the first emperors of Rome, plus Julius Caesar. Written by Suetonious, a historian who, at the time, had access to Emperor Hadrian's library.

It has been framed as a historical book and some other times just like a gossip account about the emperors.

Suetonius describes their most famous achievements, some disgraceful actions, and even how they look physically. Though the very first characters get more time, I guess mainly because he was not Hadrian's personal secretary anymore before finishing the book, or because there was not much interest in the later ones, or maybe it's just that they did not do much in Suetonius's eyes. For instance, Julius Caesar and Augustus will get more ink pages than Vespasian, Titus and Domitian combined.

A good accompanying material for this book is listening to the first 30–40 episodes of the podcast Emperors of Rome by La Trobe University, roughly up until episode XL or so, where they talk about Emperor Domitian. In this podcast, Rhiannon Evans talks in detail about other significant events during this period of Roman history, including commentaries on not only Suetonious work but also Livi, Tacitus, etc. 

Comencé a leer este libro simplemente porque estaba basado en los inicios de la vida pública de Julio Cesar y desde hace mucho había querido leer a Posteguillo.

Al inicio mientras leía me tomó desprevenido el uso de onomatopeyas, no me lo esperaba, pero no influyó en nada mi apreciación por el libro en general.

Es un libro elegante, en el cual creo que la forma de contar la historia que realiza Posteguillo es lo mejor. Quizás se deba a mi parcialidad de mi interés por la Roma antigua, pero en esas 700 algo páginas el libro nunca se hace aburrido, aun siendo del tamaño que es.

No hay mucho en los libros de historia sobre Julio Cesar cuando era abogado, por lo que el hecho de que el libro vaya contando los eventos desde esa perspectiva es algo que en lo personal me gustó.

Aquí también se encuentran interacciones interesantes entre Silas (Sulla), Mario, Dolabela, Cinna, la familia de Julio Cesar y hasta un joven Cicerón.

El único pero (que muy mínimo) que le encuentro es que hay un suceso específico (relacionado con Dolabela), que se describe como algo sobrenatural, algo que no esperaba ya que todo lo acontecido había sido sin ningún tinte fantasioso.

En términos generales, excelente libro.

Note: There is finally an english-translated version of this book called 'I Am Rome'.

It is quite surprising that at this point there has not been english translation of any of his books, considering that he is a best selling author.

Here is hoping for more to come.

What a chore.

Finally got around the very first book of this acclaimed novel series.

So unfunny and pointless, even by its own internal standards.

Well, at least I can now understand some of the references from other sources. I guess.

I believe this book is misunderstood in some way, as people expect it to be a love story of some sort or took it as a chore due to it being assigned as an English class task.

It's slow, a tiny bit complex, and not as relatable as a story of today as it was written for another epoch.

But even more, it reflects the tragedy (or beauty) of the flow of time and the nostalgic longing for better times in the past.

The book rests on an interesting hypothesis that aims to reconcile the traditional creationism account from Christianity with the account of evolutionary science regarding Adam and Eve , common ancestry and human evolution.

Joss tries to focus in three creationist premises:

• We all descend from a pair of ancestors.
• These ancestors (Adam and Eve) were de novo created.
• These ancestors are recent, 10.000 to 6000 years ago.

On the surface, his conclusions seem fully compatible with the mainstream science of evolution and common ancestors, which states that we arise as a population (not a couple) in the distant past and through an evolutionary process.

How so?.

He bases his assumption on the fact that both accounts are talking about different things. 

While the creationist account focuses on Adam and Eve, who were a couple created de novo by God in a specific place (the Garden), there were actually other people before them, who were living outside this Garden, and are the ones that evolutionary science is referring to.

As long as you can accept the assumption that the creationist account "could" be true, then I would definitely agree with him that you can in fact make that hypothesis altogether with the one accepted by evolutionary science. There are no conclusions for or against it. So a genealogical ancestry approach instead of genetic ancestry is a good way to make sense of this. 

There are more details to it, but everything comes down to a set of established prepositions we have to accept beforehand. For example, what is the actual definition of human? For philosophy, theology, and biology, it could mean different things, and where they draw the line in the evolutionary process in which the first "human" really appeared is also different.

I like the author's willingness to accept the evidence while also trying to find (if any) common ground between his Christian faith and science regarding evolution, especially when he (as a computational biologist) understands the latter is a very solid, widely accepted, and hard-to-disprove theory.

The main problem I have with this book is actually the writing and not the hypothesis. Though I understand the author is not a writter , there are just too many repeated words in a single page and even in the same paragraph.

What's a better way of reading about Rome's conquest of Gaul than reading from the man himself? Julius Caesar.

This, of course, is not an exercise in getting the facts of the event. Lots of propaganda from the author. Instead, it is an exercise in getting into the mind of one of the most famous historical figures.

I liked this book for what it was. An inaccurate but personal account of Julius Caesar and his troops during their time fighting, living, and conquering Gaul.

A preambulatory event of the civil war.

Excelente recuento histórico de la era pre imperial de Roma. Desde Rómulo y los primeros reyes hasta las conquista de Grecia en las batallas macedónicas, alrededor de unos 140 años antes de cristo.

El libro relata de manera entretenida las diferentes guerras que enfrentaron los romanos desde sus inicios, pero no solo eso, sino que también nos brinda una detallada descripción de su armamento y estilo de combate en aquella época, como también de alguno de sus primeros hitos de ingeniería y de la estructura social que gobernaba a la ciudad.

El tiempo abarcado incluye además de su legendaria fundación, y las intermitentes guerras con alguno de los pueblos inmediatos como los Etruscos y Samnitas, las de Pirro y su imperio helenístico, como también el periodo de guerra contra Cartago y Aníbal.

Lo más decepcionante que puedo decir en contra y que definitivamente dañaba un poco la lectura es que el autor en ciertas ocasiones no usa a.C  o d.C según convenga, sino que, por el contrario, escribe la fecha tal cual, ejemplo,  año 103. En ese punto vas intuyendo que quiere decir a.C, pero se vuelve fastidioso el cambio.

A pesar de eso, el recuento que da Javier Negrete de esta parte de la roma antigua es bastante satisfactoria y elegante. 

Like its predecessor, this is a very predictable book, but this time without the surprise element.

I am pretty sure this book was written to get some prospect contracts for screen formats or something.

The worst thing is reading it right after Dark Matter, because then its flaws are easier to spot. But that's what most people actually do.

PS: The author does not seem to know what recursion really is. I had to force myself to give it another definition in order to finish the book.

Tried this book just for the sake of wanting to dig a bit more into fantasy stuff.

Well, I enjoyed the writing style, and that was most of my takeaway. No idea what's happening until way past the middle of the book. Very cool.

The plot is not very deep. It is basically a tale of a mercenary band full of unusual characters going places. Places not so easy to spot by the reader. You literally don't know where these guys are until you see some hints here and there.

Also, even though the scope is not huge, the world-building (from what you can understand) is good enough.

I am not an avid fantasy reader, but in summary, the puzzle writing and the diverse cast were the best here.

Not sure if I want to continue the series, though.

3.8/5

The fact that it has the worst cliffhanger I've ever read and that I pretty much dislike books with that sense of ‘buy the next in the series to know what happen with this very important event', made it a bit difficult to enjoy it 100%.

4.7/5

A classic.

Reading a short stories book can be a roller coaster. The very nature of this kind of books is that more than 50% of the stories must be excellent to keep you reading, otherwise if 2 continuous stories are boring, then is easy to give up on the book.

The thing is, here we have a few weak stories for sure but they are still good, and the good ones, are just top quality SF and I’ll eventually read them again. There was not a single one that did not put my brain to work , I liked that.

This one and Timelike Infinity are my favorites from Baxter.

Después de leer Señores del Olimpo, la cual no me pareció gran cosa, decidí continuar leyendo a Negrete por el simple hecho de que me pareció un excelente relator-escritor y que además, es bastante preciso en sus descripciones.

En esta ocasión, creo que el único punto negativo de la obra es que el último trazo del libro, luego de la batalla final , me pareció un poco plano y sin un climax a la altura de todo lo que venía siendo el libro hasta ese punto.

4,4/5 sería la nota.

Un libro bastante entretenido, pero nada más.

Pienso en mi yo adolescente cuándo leía todo tipo de relatos mitológicos y creo que si hubiese leído este libro en ese entonces, quizás algunas de las situaciones me hubiesen irritado aún más que ahora.

Ejemplo, Ares, Hades y Poseidón tienen los papeles más ridículos que nunca antes haya visto de ellos.
Ares = guerra, pero resulta que es el más estúpido para la guerra según el libro. Hades comportándose cómo una niña adolescente daba bastante pena. Poseidón, con solo dos líneas de diálogo en todo el libro y un retrato bastante ‘meh'.

Pensé que también le darían más importancia a los Titanes, de hecho, me esperaba algo un poco diferente en esto. Quizás, Zeus ciertamente abatido ó Prometeo y Atlas consiguiendo redención, no sé. Pero lastimosamente lo diferente que tuvo el libro, no fue tan satisfactorio.

A slog of a book, very so, but is so unique in itself.

The following are probably one of the best lines I've ever read in a SF book:

“We are the centuries.

We are the chin-choppers and the golly-woppers, and soon we shall discuss the amputation of your head.

We are your singing garbage men, Sir and Madam, and we march in cadence behind you, chanting rhymes that some think odd.

Hut two threep foa!

Left!

Left! He-had-a-good-wife-but-he

Left!

Left!

Left!

Right!

Left!

Wir, as they say in the old country, marschieren weiter wenn alles in Scherben fällt.

We have your eoliths and your mesoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient-impregnated) artifacts.

We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do– Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris, telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eveand a traveling salesman called Lucifer.

We bury your dead and their reputations.We bury you. We are the centuries.

Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon's slap, seek manhood, taste a little of godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb:

(Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.)

Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens– and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn't the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH!–an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)

Hear then, the last Canticle of the Brethren of the Order of Leibowitz, as sung by the century that swallowed its name:

V: Lucifer is fallen.

R: Kyrie eleison.

V: Lucifer is fallen.

R: Christe eleison.

V: Lucifer is fallen.

R: Kyrie eleison, eleison imas!”

Side note, the way Miller found death and looking at this book and see how he wrote the discussion about euthanasia is indeed staggering. Depression devours.

First half of the book is pure gold in an epic scale but I somehow did not like when the handwavium Extra Super FTL hyperdrive appeared, it wasn't that bad to compromise the whole book but I was not expecting that at all. Probably it made sense in some way for the plot but It also made the universe looks like a small city and it sort of broke that sense of wonder you got when you reading about the Ring, super strings, etc.

Apart from that, it could be a full 5 star book.

3.4 rounded down to 3.0.

The blurb/synopsis of the book is not 100% accurate, actually I would say not even 70% accurate, or did I read another version of the same book?, another manifold maybe?. So just a heads up and don't be mislead by the blurb.

Update: They finally updated the whole blurb.

This guy Malenfant wakes up from coldsleep to find a more advanced world where all the basic needs are covered (health, food, education, etc.), a sort of utopia (for many) and also a creepy world to live in. There is not purpose for the future to come , instead the people just focus in the present as that is what really matters for them.From here until around 150p is worldbuilding, and exploration of this 25th century world, then things start going weird and the book changes completely from what the synopsis actually says.

I could see here Baxter forcing himself from giving loads of info dumps until he couldn't anymore, so this book is not as hard SF as some of his other books and will probably appeal to those who wants something a bit different in that sense, but there are still a lot of Hard SF on it, in the last third specially, just not as much as many are used to when reading him.

This is the first installment of a duology , the second book World Engines: Creator to be published next year, so to describe this first book as a whole I would say it was enjoyable and did not feel I wasted my time.

This book can be confusing at times, specially because there are like 5 characters you have to keep track of and they often hop into different planets and star systems without much continuity between them (the characters). So is recommended at least to write down the name of each character and where they are at the moment when reading the book.

It can be also engrossing and slow, mainly because of the above or because the big chunks of Hard SF in each chapter/page.

I would not recommend this book to people who don't have that much of patience for engrossing details or want some more of human drama or a light and easy to follow story because that would be difficult to find in here. It delivered what I was looking for, and I liked it overall.

Quick read with one of the best finales I've ever read.

I've been wanting to dig into the Revelation Space for a while so I finally did it with this first installment. This is truly a great book with extremely good ideas.

I really dig it but somehow I had the feeling that some of the characters were painfully annoying (Volyova specially) and were almost ruining the satisfying atmosphere set in the story.

A while ago (circa 6 years) I read a book called something like “Linux for dumb, naive and extremely clumsy people”. It got my attention as the tittle was really weird for a learning book, but I picked it up and read it.
It was interesting to read all the things the author said about those people who are not actually stupids but when you try to explain them something as hard as you can they just don't get it , they just simply don't understand that easily and that can happen to any people with any other topic.

This book reminds me that, in the way that many people don't really understand what's the deal with general relativity and then quantum mechanics and then with thermodynamics and then again with a world full of probabilities. But still, there are people out there with a profound gift to teach (like in this case ) who want to explain all those topics in simple words; The author here make things very simple, kind of like ELA5.

He gets quite emotional towards the end but I can understand why. He seems to be loving what he is doing as a theoretical physicist.

All the best for him and his team with that weird theory of loop quantum gravity.

First time reading something like this. It is sort of a debate book but with footnotes and without the proponents interrupting each other, and I actually liked the format. It would be nice to find something similar but not only focusing on religious proponents.

About the book itself, Ken Ham's is the guy which most conservative Christians will relate the most as it is basically Christian religion as taught in schools (or were) . I find his essay the weakest of all four, also the guy is quite annoying sometimes as he believes whatever he says is the true because “That is the true”, I later saw him on YouTube and he is even worst. Even the editor of the book had some trouble dealing with him that it made me laugh. Citing the editor:
“The most obvious discrepancy that remains is in the initial essays, where Ham's is noticeable longer than the others. He was unwilling to cut anything further, believing it only fair that he should be given more space than the others since he was the only one defending the young age of the earth and the authority of Scripture vs the authority of the scientific majority”. Quite a guy eh?.

Hugh Ross is an interesting case, as an Astrophysics he believes in like 99% about all the scientific consensus related to cosmic stuff, but he differ in the evolution and origins of life. Researching through his footnotes I see he has an interesting views that few non-religious people also consider, specially that about Fine-tuning of the universe. His weakest point I would say that is that he is actually making the bible to concord with everything Astrophysics find and that is why many people say that he tends to much to Concordism.

Haarsma is a proponent of almost everything that non-religious scientist believe, so most of those people will find her point of view the most compelling of all, but she add God into the equation. So she believes in the Evolution, Origins of life, the LUCA, etc as the scientific consensus says but also that God guided everything in any way. Her weakest point is actually the obvious one, what God has anything to do in all this if all this looked as He was unnecessary. Though Her reply to this opposition is quite interesting. She works for that organization (BioLogos) that is actually run by geneticist Francis Collins which it happens that he is the guy in charge of the NIH in the US and who led the Human Genome Project.

The last guy, Meyer, only based his essay on Intelligent Design so nothing to add to this as even though he has his own position on the age of the universe and origins of life most of his essay is basically explaining everything about ID including why it is not Pseudo-science.

Finally, the editor finish the book saying: “It takes enormous effort, then, on our part to listen to others and consider their critiques of our own positions. But if we're serious about pursuing the truth in the matters, it is important.”