Jeff McNeill
Fantastic! A collection of essays (nearly 30) by a variety of authors, each provides fundamental insight into Japanese culture. Well worth the read
Excellent work with a vivid Mars backdrop. This book has legs and is set up for the next in the series. Can't wait. For those who loved the Altered Carbon series, this is another excellent sci fi adventure. Thoughtful and taut.
Not bad, a decent writer, he does a good job of setting up motivations, though he spends little time on the canonical characters (Han, Leia). A decent read.
A bit thin on psychology but this works out because it is mostly first person with someone young. The later novels get better. Worth the read, and not bad really.
Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, though one done completely willfully, and without any sense of reflection. Anyone who still believes in the cult of Elon after reading this is truly out of their mind. You can almost feel sorry for him, except for the scale of the damage to humans that he has wrecked and continue to wreck. A book for the times.
Very different from the first two. Still spellbinding, but in a different way. The first two get five stars, this gets 3 when compared with them, but did have its own sense of suspense and thrill, so four stars. However, the relationship with the sister is so 1-dimensional and tiresome, it really gets old by the end of this novel.
Important and interesting, but ultimately with a disappointing ending that resolved nothing.
Vital, and worth the 1,000+ page slog. The data is excellent. The difference between income disparity and wealth disparity is worth the effort alone.
Excellent, excellent explanation and account of how history works (at least the agrarian societies). Quite a number of insights. The only letdown is in using obscure neologisms instead of coining more memorable terms. The concept of the frontier, “asabiya” (the degree to which a society can cooperate), and showing how a frontier can increase or decrease this element, as well as how classical economic theory cannot account for cooperation whatsoever. Secular cycles of rise and decline and father-son cycles of war and peace all account quite readily for much of history, amazingly enough. The well discussed point of modern empires being China, the US, and the EU are quite relevant. The real punch is when dealing with how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in agrarian societies and how it is based on inheritance and population growth. Inequality perpetuates and is occasionally reset (when the elite are decimated in one way or another). The most sobering element of this work is how we are now in an elite/anti-elite clash that has to play out as the government itself has become more incapable of corrective action due to the clash (the levers of government are rendered inoperable through the clash itself). Trump is a unique symptom and set of circumstances, but the underlying mechanism is there to be clearly perceived and understood for those who would read this excellent work.
The Han and Leia characters are not very well crafted, but some of the others, especially the mad b1 battle droid are pretty neat. Worth a read.
The author does a good job of getting everyone to a single place for a showdown, but in the end it is not very satisfying. Setting up a planet to blow and having it easy to shut down is a big plot hole. But worse is the fact that all the casualties among the main characters are all weak-willed men (or at least, their female companions are portrayed as stronger than them). It is basically the same thing as if the genders were switched so it is as unsatisfying. Really the weakest of the three books in the series, though of course the necessary conclusion.
Possibly the lamest of the series. Yes, I get that there has to be a “final book” ... or does there? Recycled search for Worm, and then swapping children when they are teenagers? Makes little sense. I'd skip this.
Important and vital work to read and understand. Minor errors in discussion of intellectual property, and lacking an actual set of actions to take. Nevertheless a necessary read for today.
Some amazing language, and then around halfway through, the plot is completely lost. Enigmatic book, perhaps on purpose? Meh.
Some good ideas but others completely overlooked (microplastics are not biodegradable, hello). This is not the place to start, or to polish off the simplification process. Much more research and much less ego are needed.
It runs a little longish at times, a bit wordy, but the ideas shine through, and more than a few important insights. An important, worthwhile, and timely read.