Russell Atkinson's Blog, page 50
January 17, 2020
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The plot of Dark Matter explores familiar territory for any Sci-fi fan: the doppelganger or evil twin trope. The idea of two identical or nearly identical appearing people co-inhabiting the same world and interfering with the life of the other by impersonating them or unintentionally being mistaken for them goes back centuries. Twelth Night by Shakespeare is the earliest one I remember. I did a search online and immediately got a website that lists the 30 best films with twins or doppelgangers. That means there are even more than 30, although not all are science fiction. I can think of Twilight Zone and Star Trek episodes that did it too, not to mention many sci-fi books. So Crouch gets zero points for originality.
The beginning is well-written and exciting as Jason is attacked and kidnapped, not understanding what is going on. [mild spoiler warning – but this is early stuff you’ll learn soon if you read it]. He wakes up in a strange lab where everyone knows him, but he knows none of them. He’s a physicist who in this new world has supposedly won a prestigious prize, but he knows that instead he is merely a physics professor at a mediocre Midwest college. Crouch then leads us to understand that Jason has been subjected to quantum superposition, in effect inhabiting another world, one of the infinite number of possible worlds that exist simultaneously. It seems he, or the alternate version of him, invented a machine that can put objects or people in such a multiverse state. The rest of the book involves Jason trying to figure out what happened to him, why, and how to get back to his old life. The book became more tedious and implausible as it went on. I listened to the audiobook, which had a good reader, but all in all I found it unsatisfying. As I said at first – it’s well-explored territory and there are no new ideas here. Recursion, a later work by this author, has a very similar plot, only in that one, it’s time travel, not quantum superposition. This one is somewhat better written than that one, but that’s the best I can say for it.
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January 13, 2020
Beat to Quarters by C.S. Forester
Beat to Quarters by C.S. Forester
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I read this and loved it in the 1970s and it was just as good this time around. This is the first Horatio Hornblower novel, although later novels were set earlier in his life as a Midshipman and Lieutenant. Here Hornblower is the captain of an English frigate circa 1803. He is sent around Cape Horn to Central America on the Pacific side to assist El Supremo, a local despot who is trying to free his natives from Spanish rule since England and Spain are at war. The idea is to stop the flow of gold and other riches from the New World and Asia that is funding the Spanish war effort. A Spanish ship of the line is patrolling the waters and Hornblower’s tiny Lydia must take on the larger Natividad.
The book is not for the squeamish. There’s plenty of grisly naval warfare, not to mention descriptions of shockingly harsh living conditions and discipline aboard the ship, but the attention to detail is amazing, and very convincing. It’s astounding to think what men went through to amass and protect the British Empire. I found it refreshingly free of political correctness. The author writes in terms appropriate for the day – terms like Dago and Negress abound, and women are treated as incompetent children needing a man’s protection, or at least that’s the mindset of all the men at first. I especially like the ongoing theme of intelligence and good moral character prevailing over evil and brutality. Everything a captain needed to consider and plan for in those days is mind-blowing.
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January 5, 2020
TH1RT3EN by Steve Cavanagh
TH1RT3EN by Steve Cavanagh
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I only read 53 pages of this before I couldn’t take it any longer. I’d give it 1 star based on what I read, but it might have gotten better later on, so I’ll give it another for the benefit of the doubt. Every character in the book is a fantasy supernatural being. The main character is a defense lawyer who refuses to represent guilty clients. There is no such creature. That would be like an emergency room physician who refuses to treat sick or injured people. When I was in law school a criminal defense lawyer – a true believer in civil liberties, etc. – told our class that 98% of his clients “told me a guilty story and most of the other 2% were lying to me.” Another major character is a serial killer who is also a master actor, mimic, skilled makeup artist, accomplished hacker, and all-around genius. He is also willing to change his body weight and break his nose and his arm in order to accomplish his murders. I was in the FBI for 25 years and found that every serial killer was pretty much just a thug. Most of them were stupid although a few were skilled con men and some were good at avoiding detection by operating at night with masks, gloves, etc. In addition to that, the lawyer character was unethical as the opening scene proved, so I couldn’t get behind him from the beginning.
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January 4, 2020
New crossword Cryptic 6
Cryptic 6
Click on grid to go to crossword to work interactively. A PDF file is available there for download.
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January 3, 2020
Critical Raw Materials
I saw this graphic in Science magazine and found it sobering.
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December 28, 2019
Mother Knows Best by Kira Peikoff
Mother Knows Best by Kira Peikoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The very clever plot makes up for a few shortcomings on this book. Claire has defective mitochondrial genes and has lost her first child to excruciating genetic disease. Her husband wants to try again. She agrees, but secretly manipulates him and her doctor into experimenting on her, using an egg donor with healthy mitochondria to implant the altered cell that combines her chromosomes with the good mitochondria and produce the world’s first three-parent baby, which in the story violates federal law. The result is Abby, a healthy baby girl. Claire’s husband Ethan, a prominent academic critic of gene manipulation, is unaware that his own daughter is a so-called “frankenbaby.” The egg donor Jill is the doctor’s research assistant, an ambitious and manipulative vixen who is also the doctor’s lover. She considers Abby her experiment to be “monitored.” Claire is forced to flee with Abby. I’ll leave off the plot summary to avoid spoilers, but it gets considerably more complex as the story unfolds.
The characters are a bit simplistic. The genetic details are surprisingly well-done, although a few inaccuracies pop up, mainly for valid plot advancement reasons. For example, in real life, it is not illegal to conduct such experiments on embryos, at least not in federal law. The states may be enacting their own laws on this. I suspect the genetics can be challenging to follow for those unfamiliar with genetic testing and basic reproduction biology, but they play a crucial role in the plot. Having had my own genome sequenced, I am quite familiar with the process and could point out a few other peccadilloes, but all in all, the author does a good job.
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December 20, 2019
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This wicked, twisty murder mystery is the best I’ve read in a long time. I was surprised several times, which is rare for me. The suspense and tempo are just right, not forced and overdone like so many other thrillers. The main characters include two beautiful women, a couple of preppy rich men, a detective, a blue collar guy, and plenty of murder. The settings are Boston and Maine, mostly the latter. It is told from different viewpoints, each chapter by another character. For the most part it is in chronological order although there are a couple of digressions to fill out the characters’ back stories. The writing is well-done – not elegant, but appropriate for the tone of the story. I’d love to tell you more, but I don’t dare give you a spoiler. I’d rather give you a strong recommendation so you can experience it yourself. I will mention that I liked most of the limericks near the end.
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December 18, 2019
45 Books this Year
Goodreads has a nifty little feature that I enjoy. It provides its members with a list of all the books he or she has read during the year. It also creates a photo montage of the covers. They say I read 45 books over the year. I believe that’s how many reviews or ratings I posted. The reality is that a few of those I never finished or merely skimmed, On the other hand there are probably at least a dozen that I started and didn’t like enough to keep reading, and never posted or rated them, so the number is a loose one. Below is the photo montage reorganized a bit.
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December 13, 2019
Beyond the 1000th Meridian by Wallace Stegner
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West by Wallace Stegner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a biography of John Wesley Powell, a relatively unknown pioneering scientist and naturalist who was immensely important in the exploration and shaping of the western United States. Stegner’s unbridled admiration for Powell damages the historical value of the book as he is unabashedly biased toward Powell’s view of everything. He gives Powell credit for everything good, e.g. correct maps and descriptions, land use policies passed by Congress, pertaining to the region and vilifies all those who opposed him politically or scientifically, especially William Gilpin. Powell might be considered one of the first American environmentalists, but he was also very active in lobbying in Washington and held various positions there and had associations with the Smithsonian Institution and federal departments. Stegner writes well, so I don’t really have any complaints on that score, but I am no history buff so I can’t say I enjoyed the book. I read it only because it’s a selection of my book club. Another factor that turned me off to it is the vituperative descriptions of the politics of the day. We have enough of that going on today.
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December 12, 2019
New crossword: Not Badenov
I haven’t posted a new crossword in quite some time, so here’s a little early Christmas present. Click on the image to start solving. There’s a link to the PDF here and on the web page if you prefer to solve on paper.
Not Badenov
PDF file
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