I guess it’s a credit to Sanderson’s writing ability that I find the main character of this story so annoying. Immature, rash, flippant, lucky. But I suppose the point of the story was the character realizing many of these things by the end and begins to understand she’s going to have to take life more seriously in the future.
Perhaps the next time she shows up I’ll like her more.
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
The non-fiction, biographical narrative of Dr. Paul Farmer. Farmer came from poverty and dedicated his life to providing medical care for the impoverished–not just individually but at the public-health level too. Though “impoverished” isn’t quite the right word. The poor, the abandoned, the abused–les misérables. Those in the worst imaginable conditions throughout the world.
Fascinating story. Inspiring and humbling to consider how Farmer spent his life compared to what pretty much any the rest of us are doing to help our fellow beings.
Then I got bogged down starting Neal Stephenson’s massive Baroque Cycle. I might finish the first book in the trilogy within another week or two.
I’ve read this a couple times before, but wanted something easy to read and familiar while Jess was in the hospital.
What if you’re entire world were a massive silo buried in the earth? Why can’t you go outside? How long has humanity lived this way?
The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall
A tragic, but fascinating, true story. A contest to see who could be the first person to single-handedly sail around the world without stopping. A man who dreams to make his mark on history. The reality of his under-prepared journey on an untested vessel. His ultimate demise.
Blindsight by Peter Watts
I feel pretty certain I didn’t “get” this book. It’s an odd one.
Okay, so vampires are real, and there are solid biological explanations behind their mythology. They went extinct, but scientists recovered their DNA and brought them back. That’s just a given and entirely secondary to the actual story though, which is about scientists detecting an anomaly at the edges of the solar system and sending a team out to investigate. First contact…..with….something. It doesn’t go well.
The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey
I’m excited for another series from the authors of The Expanse. Somewhat interesting to read back-to-back with Blindsight as many similar themes are explored.
A scattered fragment of humanity has their planet subjugated almost offhandedly by an expanding galactic empire.
You get thrown into the deep end and it took a bit for me to get my feet under me in the universe they created, but I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next installment.
The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast by Andrew Blum
This was my pick for my book group at work. It was interesting, but I was hoping for a little more meat.
Interesting to read about how long ago scientists were dreaming of a day that they’d be able to use physics modeling to calculate what would happen in the atmosphere to generate forecasts. And now multiple teams around the world operate supercomputers doing exactly that.
The 3rd book in what-is-apparently the first Mistborn trilogy.
The world continues to deteriorate after Vin assassinates the Lord Ruler. Things are looking bleak as forces they don’t understand ravage the countryside. Then, a hero arises.
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
I really liked Anathem and was hoping for something in a similar vein of uniqueness in terms of world building. However, Reamde takes place in a contemporary setting. Mostly an action-adventure story with some bits of spy novel mixed in.
It was fine, but not quite what I was looking for at the moment. And it’s very long. Spent most of the month reading it.
Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich
A hurricane ravages New York City. One guy predicted the cascading failures and follow-on disasters around the event. But then decides to live a life of isolation.
I’m still not really sure what the point of the story was. The writing was fine, but when I finished it was mostly, “okay, I guess were done now.” But maybe that had to do with being phenomenally distracted by other events while trying to finish the last ~15%.
A British Academic’s attempt at understanding what the experience of “battle” is. He attempts to isolate variables by focusing on three battles for which considerable historical data exists, which all occurred in northern France, and which involved in the fighting the French, the English, and–in the Somme–the Germans.
I found Keegan’s prose to be challenging. Asides within asides made it difficult to parse sentences. Maybe this is a common style of British academia. But it made for difficult reading at times.
While his attempts to characterize “battle” are quite interesting the thing standing out to me most is the incredible scale through which battle has evolved over time. From low tens-of-thousands combatants at Agincourt fighting over the course of hours to more than 3 million combatants at the Somme fighting for over 4 months. It’s staggering how much energy humans will muster to annihilate each other.
Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors by Edward Niedermeyer
This was someone’s pick for our book group at work. Extremely frustrating to read as we watch Republicans give Musk free reign to dismantle our government. The book lays out in excruciating detail how Musk has spent decades flat out lying about anything and everything and getting away with it. Promise after promise and hype after hype he has failed to deliver and simply pivots to a new, shinier, grander lie to distract from his previous failures. And now he’s doing the same thing while destroying our country.
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
Having played the recent board game of the same title a couple of times I figured I should read it. Jess has had the trilogy since before we got married, so they’ve just been sitting on the shelf waiting for me.
While I couldn’t put my finger on why, I feel like I can tell it’s one of Sanderson’s earlier works–that his writing has matured since then.
I still enjoyed it though.
The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
So I went on and read the second book the trilogy too.
While some set up was done in the first book it was clear the first book could have been left to stand on its own if not received well. So it was kind of interesting to get a story that has to pick up from “we defeated the big bad guy and we’re in charge now!” and follow through on “yah, now you’re in charge, how does that work out for you?” It’s not rainbows and sunshine. And then it gets worse.
Looking forward to finishing the story with book three.
Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive #2) by Brandon Sanderson
A hefty tome which spanned over 3000 pages as rendered by my eReader (an “average” book is typically ~400 pages). Took up most of January and February.
High fantasy set in the land of Roshar.
Kaladin continues his journey discovering how to harness the power of stormlight. And we learn more about the history that shaped this world via Shallan’s studies.
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
A book that plays out a possible early colonization of Mars. Unfortunately for me, I was hoping it would be a harder sci-fi focusing on technical challenges. It rather focuses on people and political challenges over decades of colonization and terraforming efforts.
A bit too much political drama in real life to really enjoy artificial political drama.
Also fairly hefty, 1500 pages on my eReader. Took up the rest of February.
