Michael

All background information

Revisado: 05-14-24

I rarely give it out 1 star reviews. Usually a book has something I can appreciate, but this book made me so angry it's going in my pile of worst shit books ever. This pile, off the top of my head, consists of this one, Jimmy the Hand, and Murder in LaMut, all Feist books, while Magician ranks as one of my all time favourites. Yes, Feist has managed to bookend my life's reading experiences, and I don't even read all that much fantasy, comparatively. I'm just trying to finish this series which I started in wonder when I was 11 and the storm had broken and Pug danced across the rocks.

So, my reasons (and there will be some spoilers).

Firstly, there's the same reason as the previous umpteen or so books in the series - the magic is too big now. It's gods and demons and the destruction of worlds at stake. 

Second, the romance is mostly non-existent, and the female characters are props for the men. 

Third, Feist's anthropology is lazy, which isn't unique to this book, but in AKB it just stands out more. Need a desert? Call it Jal-Pur and fill it with arabs with names like "Kaseem abu Hazara-Khan" who talk and act like arabs. This isn't worldbuilding, it's lazy transpositioning of existing earth societies into a fantasy universe. Tolkien didn't do this, he invented societies. I don't even like LOTR that much, but I can respect some of Tolkien's craft for its maturity. 

Fourth, Nakor and Miranda? The main character demons suddenly appear as Nakor and Miranda with no explanation? I was listening to the audiobook at 1.5x at this stage, so did I miss some crucial backstory that made this make sense?? 

Fifth, speaking of demons, I just can't really get into the whole demons as main characters plot line. Sure, use them to support the main story, but they're demons for Banapis' sake. 

And fifth, what completely killed it for me, was that every line of present tense action was interrupted by multiple lines of explanation and background information. It's like Feist has a world building addiction, and not in a good Tolkieny way. It felt so pointless and tacky. He constantly stops the plot to explain what HAD happened and who was connected to whom and why things had gotten to that point. 

'Had' is English's word for background information. You switch from simple past tense to pluperfect when giving background or 'offline' information. It's a form of 'telling' when 'showing' isn't possible. Authors: use it sparingly and with care for the gods' sakes! 

"The storm had broken" - background, we're not going through it or experiencing it with the characters. 

"Pug danced across the rocks" - action! This is the story unfolding. We can see it happening in our minds. 

A Kingdom Besieged was like a book of all offline background information. I did the numbers. AKB has 376 pages, and 785 uses of 'had'. That's 2.1 hads per page, or 1 had for every 132 words. For comparison, Magician has 728 pages, and 1048 uses of 'had'. That's 1.4 hads per page, or 1 per every 201 words. 

It got to the point where I would viscerally cringe whenever Feist would switch to offline narration. Pick any page and look for some action. You'll see how it devolves into background information that goes on and on. When you finally get to a part when SOMETHING HAPPENS, it goes offline again. It's lazy and boring and unnecessary and insulting. It's like salt in food - a little bit adds flavour, but if you keep dumping it in, it's unconsumable.

Here are some example from AKB, with online information in standard text and offline in bold:

Page 26

Henry nodded and said nothing. <b>The death of Montgomery’s elder brother Alexander had always been something viewed with suspicion. No one gave voice to the thought, but his death in a raid by Ceresian pirates had seemed both pointless and convenient. The pirates had raided an estate that was heavily fortified yet contained little of worth. Some trinkets had been looted, but the only notable thing had been the death of the King’s nephew, who was at that time the leading contender for the title of heir to the throne. Fortunately, Oliver had been born soon after and the question of inheritance seemed to subside.</b>

Page 64

Both men fell silent. <b>An entire world, Kelewan, had been destroyed in a barely repulsed attack by powerful forces from another plane of reality. And for more than ten years all members of the Conclave, active or not, had been asked to keep their ears open for any news of demon activity.</b>

Page 141

“Send word, I want everyone back here as soon as possible for a meeting of the Conclave.”

"Everyone?” <b>Since the attack on the island during which his wife, Miranda, had died, Pug had never requested more than two or three members of the Conclave be present at any one time. The mad magician Leso Varen had somehow managed to circumvent the island’s many magical defenses, and Pug had become almost obsessed with never allowing his most important lieutenants to gather and become a single target again.</b>
___

And on and on the book goes. A line of online information, followed by a paragraph of the author telling us what HAD happened in the past. If I were giving a writers' workshop I would use this book as an example of what not to do. 

I'm only reading these last few books in the series so as to finish the series, otherwise there's no way I'd waste my time on these. I'm baffled how anyone could have enjoyed AKB. Nothing happens in the book! There's barely a fight at Crydee. Pug sees a fleet. Hal fights in a sword competition. James goes on a research trip and comes back. Some demons eat demons and grow. And everywhere we turn Feist is telling us things that HAD happened while we ho hum and wait for something to <i>actually</i> happen!* Ughghghhhhghhhhh.....


*split infinitive used intentionally because I like them

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Intriguing

Revisado: 10-14-22

I enjoyed this a lot more than Antiquities of the Jews. The story of Jerusalem's fall was much more detailed and epic than I had expected. Sometimes Josephus' details are eyebrow raising - the speech at Masada? Give me a break.... Makes one wonder about all the other speeches he relates.

But, from what I understand, his details that are verifiable by archaeology have generally panned out more or less accurate.

Josephus discusses the Sicarii somewhat, and I've read that some authors think that this might be etymologically the same as Iscariot - ie, perhaps Judas Iscariot was modelled after the despised and traitorous Sicarii. I think the hypothesis reasonable, because it sounds like the Sicarii were well known for greed and treachery and being the source of Jerusalem's destruction. I'll quote one of Josephus's descriptions at length:

<i>It was one Eleazar, a potent man, and the commander of these Sicarii, that had seized upon it [Masada]. He was a descendant from that Judas who had persuaded abundance of the Jews, as we have formerly related, not to submit to the taxation when Cyrenius was sent into Judea to make one; for then it was that the Sicarii got together against those that were willing to submit to the Romans, and treated them in all respects as if they had been their enemies, both by plundering them of what they had, by driving away their cattle, and by setting fire to their houses; for they said that they differed not at all from foreigners, by betraying, in so cowardly a manner, that freedom which Jews thought worthy to be contended for to the utmost, and by owning that they preferred slavery under the Romans before such a contention. Now this was in reality no better than a pretense and a cloak for the barbarity which was made use of by them, and to color over their own avarice, which they afterwards made evident by their own actions; for those that were partners with them in their rebellion joined also with them in the war against the Romans, and went further lengths with them in their impudent undertakings against them; and when they were again convicted of dissembling in such their pretenses, they still more abused those that justly reproached them for their wickedness. And indeed that was a time most fertile in all manner of wicked practices, insomuch that no kind of evil deeds were then left undone; nor could any one so much as devise any bad thing that was new, so deeply were they all infected, and strove with one another in their single capacity, and in their communities, who should run the greatest lengths in impiety towards God, and in unjust actions towards their neighbors; the men of power oppressing the multitude, and the multitude earnestly laboring to destroy the men of power. The one part were desirous of tyrannizing over others, and the rest of offering violence to others, and of plundering such as were richer than themselves. They were the Sicarii who first began these transgressions, and first became barbarous towards those allied to them, and left no words of reproach unsaid, and no works of perdition untried, in order to destroy those whom their contrivances affected.</i>

Note also that Josephus identifies a certain Judas Sicarii as a prominent ancestor and source of the Sicarii's actions. Again, the themes here are greed, and treachery.

Of note also is the tale of the Stone:

<i>Now the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and further. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space. As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came by its brightness; accordingly the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it, and cried out aloud, in their own country language, The Stone Cometh so those that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone fell down and did them no harm. But the Romans contrived how to prevent that by blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with success, when the stone was not discerned beforehand, as it had been till then; and so they destroyed many of them at one blow.</i>

What language did they speak in Jerusalem at this time? Many say Aramaic, such that 'stone' would be 'kepha'. But some (Buth et al) argue that Hebrew was still used, and this phrase, "stone is coming!!" would then have been, "Eben ba!!" Not far off from "Ben ba!", ie, "[the] son is coming!!" How deeply into defenders' psyches did this terrifying stone lodge, and how well known did this phenomenon become? Had all who heard about the siege also heard about the constant fear and cries of the Stone coming to crush people with no warning?

The renowned and often repeated Jewish prophetic motif of the Stone which the builders rejected is quoted by Mark, Matthew and Luke, but Mark, the first to write and who likely didn't use Josephus, adds nothing to it, while Matthew and his copier Luke add a whole new idea - "Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; <i>but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust."</i> The son is coming....

Where did Matthew get the idea of the Stone falling on and crushing people? Because it's definitely a post-Mark addition. Perhaps the infamous Stone of the destruction of Jerusalem (and this idea doesn't depend on the language used in Jerusalem, just the concept).

Interestingly, the only story that I remember Josephus repeating from Antiquities (IIRC) was about a certain man called Jesus . This story must have really stuck in the psyche of those who were a part of the fall of Jerusalem, and it's worth pasting here for those who have never heard that there was a man named Jesus from a 'blue collar' background, who went around Jerusalem during a major feast time prophesying woe several years before the fall of Jerusalem and the temple, who was handed to the Romans by the Jewish leaders, was whipped but never cried out against his tormentors nor answered their interrogations, and died in Jerusalem while carrying out his prophetic ministry:

<i>[T]here was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple,7 began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!" This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, "Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!" And just as he added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also!" there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost.</i>

How interesting that Josephus writes twice, extensively, about this Jesus, but never wrote about another Jesus who allegedly rocked the holy land and prophesied the destruction of the temple (I don't buy that any part of the (completely unjosephan) Testimonium Flavianum is authentic).

So, while I found Antiquities to be a bit of a chore, the Jewish War kept me interested throughout and I learned a lot. I could also picture many of the events happening having visited most of the places involved.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Profound

Revisado: 07-30-22

This was such a good discussion on how identity is impacted by 'reality', aka science and fundamental features of the things that constitute what we are. I almost didn't get this audiobook because of some negative reviews, but I'm really glad I did. Professor Foeman was the perfect arbiter of such complex and controversial topics. She was able to address topics without infusing unnecessary subjective bias, yet she still included insightful personal experiences. She was able to interview polarising people with professionalism and objectivity. I feel like these issues are going to be really important as humanity moves forward. I might reflect a bit more on some of these topics later.....

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Just not

Revisado: 06-28-22

Amazing narration.

Now for the negatives.

I can't believe how bad this was. I kept waiting for the 'point' of it all, and it never got there. The protagonist was so unlikeable, so petty, and so full of himself. His 'coming of age' moment, when he taps into his self and discovers the depth of his powers, was when a bully broke his lute. His effing lute. And on pretty much every page Kvothe tells you how amazing he is at everything.

This was a freshman attempt at writing. Rothfuss hasn't learned that the first rule of writing is to show the reader, not tell the reader. But over and over he tells us how good something is, how bad something is, how xyz something is.

The scenes are like snippets of side quests from a 90s computer game. Kvothe encounters a dragon. What the heck? It made no sense. And Kvothe decides to kill the dragon. What the heck? Also, there's a girl that keeps appearing and disappearing, and their relationship makes NO. SENSE.

If I sound a little pissed, it's because I invested 27 hours into this book that, in the last 30 mins, declares itself to be the groundwork of what's to come. What's to come is a 43 hour sequel! What. The. Heck!!!!

There were other writing hacks that bothered me, such as when people just don't explain things to each other, because if they explained things it would solve everything, so the characters avoid saying THE THING that would clear everything up. It's lazy writing.

And whole scenes that made no sense, like a fricken demon that walks into a bar looking for narrator Kvothe, a big fight, and then everyone sitting back down to tell more of the backstory.

And the ending, with Kvothe's lover (?) Bast getting all demon-y (literally) with the Chronicler and basically saying he'll eat him if Chronicler doesn't please Kvothe with his Chronicling. This scene is so dumb. So. Dumb.

Oh, and the other writing hack... People always 'know' when someone's lying, when it's useful to the plot. Ughhghg.....

I think I'm done. I don't need to waste any more time on this book. I can't believe it's so highly rated.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Great, but Bayes could help

Revisado: 05-01-22

This was great, and Magness is a really good explainer. She seems to have detailed knowledge about so many different areas regarding ancient Palestine. Although this is just the audio version of this, I've visited and studied most of the sites mentioned, and I was able to follow along well and it added a lot to my understanding of the Holy Land. A few times I went chasing down something on YouTube.

My one criticism is that she's not a Bayesian, meaning that she often suggests that a thing is a certain way because that's the best evidence that we have. With Bayes Theorem, it's not necessary to make conclusions, we can talk about likelihood. A few times Magness made the 'drunk looking for keys under the street lamp because that's where the light is' fallacy. We don't have to uncritically accept the 'earliest' report of an event simply because it's the earliest. Homer is the earliest report that Achilles visited the underworld. So what.

But that didn't detract too much from this. I'd love to go digging with her one day...

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Thanks for talking to me about race

Revisado: 02-21-22

I was constantly nodding and shaking my head while reading this. It was ranty, and rambly, and often self-contradictory. The title makes little sense - who is her audience? There was a hodgepodge of history, and a lot of isolated anecdotes that she tried to make points with, but that's not how you do research. Of course she's allowed to tell her story, her truth; but I don't think that was the point of the book. Some of the suggestions at the end were pretty good, and I appreciated hearing about these issues in the British context, and I agree there's a lot of work to be done to break down the patriarchy, classism, racism, and all forms of oppression.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Revisado: 02-12-22

While this personal style of scientific study is a bit dated now, it's perhaps what gives this book enduring appeal. Sacks saw his subjects as people, and it was their personness and how their lives were impacted that were the focus of his work, not so much their neuropathys.

This book raises a lot of questions of what it means to have a human experience, to be human. Who are we without our memories? What is it that gives value to existence? How do we define disability.

I'd recommend this to anyone interested in pondering their own construct of reality and what gives them meaning.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Lost in Math

Revisado: 01-22-22

Good, generally easy enough to follow, although I got lost in a few places talking about maths (I just realised I wrote that without thinking about the title! :)).

I've kind of been tracking this problem in physics for a while now - theories that are too beautiful, too elegant not to be true. And also too opaque, too untestable, and too naively subjective....

I have this feeling that maths is one big tautology, but not recognised as such. As for physics, I want it to be testable, but it's never going to be 100% testable by humans, because humans are part of the system. And things like multiverses just can't be tested, even if they represent reality.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Lifespan

Revisado: 01-13-22

It's not that I want to live forever; it's that I want to die when I want to, and I don't forsee wanting that for a very, very long time. This book was good - not great, but good. I think I was expecting more science, and less polemic. Sinclair seems to be pitching this to policy makers, trying to win them over and hoping to precipitate a global movement to recognise ageing as a disease, which will pave the way for policies and technologies to treat ageing directly. I hope he succeeds, and I think he makes a lot of good points. I realise a lot of people won't appreciate his positive outlook, and he sometimes comes across as naive. He glows when he boasts about Australia's health care and social systems and life-expectancy, but I've heard that Australia doesn't count 'indigenous Australians' in official statistics, because if they did it would drastically lower their score. In other words, colonising Australia hasn't been good for everyone, just the colonists and their descendants. I'm also uncomfortable with all the experiments being done on mice, who are very social, intelligent, and emotional creatures. I recognise the benefits to me, but it's an ethical conundrum. I don't eat meat, for ethical reasons, and yet I use medications and innovations built upon animal suffering.

Well, since I haven't read much on this topic, I can't really say whether or not this book will be the next Origin of the Species. It might start something though. I'm curious why Sinclair didn't really address what new technologies decades from now would likely do to ageing. It's not that we have the technology now to live to 120, it's that if he makes it there, why would we not expect the technology to have completely done away with ageing as we knew it, giving us lifespans of potentially thousands of years? He alludes to this a few times, but IMO this is fundamental to the whole topic. If you're still alive in the year 2050, then you're likely to be living in a time when no one is dying from ageing.

Anyway, good book. I'd like to try his inner age thing and see how I score.

Narration: I generally like it when authors narrate their own work, although Sinclair puts a little too much passion in his voice and it feels pressurey. Also, as an Aussie-American, I'm pedantically put off by his blended Aussie-American accent. It's not wrong, I just find it jarring to listen to. The inter-chapter commentary between the authors was good, but they didn't really talk about the really interesting things, in an interesting way, so, yeah nah.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Revisado: 12-30-21

The narration was mostly good, although sometimes there was a tone of derision that came through in Stillwell's voice, and the book was ideologically critical of others enough that it should have been delivered without this extra jab.

This is the fourth Dennett book I've read, and I can now say I've understood and enjoyed 1/8 of them. The first half of DDI was painful and waffley, which is how I've experienced Dennett's other books - they promise so much, but they just don't deliver. The second half of DDI was great, in that it was mostly coherent and followable. I find most of Dennett's thought experiment to be convoluted, and his explanations of logical issues to be vague, with perhaps a lot of implied information in his allegories, which are legion, and jarring, and often unnecessary. He uses abstruse examples where clear, logical explanations would suffice.

One of my biggest gripes with DDI is that he didn't, IMO, explain Darwinian evolution as clearly as he should have, nor as often as he should have throughout the book. Evolution isn't a force. Evolution is what we call what gets left over after everything else has died. There are things that can replicate, and there is variation in the replication, and then there is an environment, and some replications survive, and some don't. Whatever survives is whatever survives. I think a lot of books don't make this very clear, and they keep implying that evolution creates something by selecting the fittest. Perhaps this is a remnant of our ancient teleological thinking, because by the time humans came to exist as conscious, rational beings, we were seeing things come into being that were the product of pseudo-teleology, or what Dennett would call a crane (a bottom up process requiring no special, supernatural intervention) that looks like a sky hook (a special case, in which something is inserted into the system that couldn't have come from a natural process). We were designing things, and now we're inclined to see all order as the product of teleological design, rather than sophisticated cranes made from cranes.

Where was I? So yeah, I think he could have reiterated this throughout the book, and it would have been more convincing and more powerful.

Dennett's writing style is often frustratingly unclear. As I mentioned above, he drifts in and out of analogies and thought experiments and logical reasoning while quoting poets and philosophers. Occasionally I would find myself understanding a sentence, but having no idea why he's talking about it. Perhaps I'm just not clever enough for this writing level. I suspect it's all part of his magisterial style of comprehensively addressing something from every possible angle so that by the time he's finished he's sewn together a complete and unassailable argument. To me it feels scattered and incomplete.

That said, he did a very thorough job of critiquing Gould and Chomsky, who for some reason can't give up sky hooks.

Toward the end of the book Dennett tries to talk about morality, and it's a bit weak. He also excoriates religion while suggesting a kind of coexistence with it. His criticisms are valid, but his suggestions are a bit absurd - ie, that religions be preserved in cultural zoos. Besides the fact that many religious people simply wouldn't allow it, what would be preserved wouldn't be the same religion, since many religions have features that require they be followed and proselyted. Dennett is really saying, "I don't want those belief systems because I think they're bad," which is in essence what everyone thinks of everyone else.

I'll add this book to my 'might read again one day' list. Perhaps I'll get more out of the first half.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña