United States of North America: a Comic for the Jade Helmers of Canada

I live in Texas and hear a lot of conspiracy theories. The one about a North American Union is popular. Radio demagogues such as Alex Jones and the recent Jade Helm military exercises keep it alive and the public afraid.

The entire continent of North America — so the tale goes — will soon be one giant country. Washington will force Mexico and Canada, at the point of a double-bladed economic spear, to join their land masses with the United States and create a super country.

This merging will make it easier for the powers that be — the Illuminati, the Bilderberg group, take your pick — to control humanity and impose authoritarian rule. The NAU leaders will put checkpoints on highways, require GPS trackers in all newborns, eliminate personal firearms and outlaw dissent.

It’s a fanciful tale, easily traded over drinks at a bar and rife for exploitation as an adventure comic or action-oriented T.V. series. That’s just what the authors of the comic book The United States of North America aimed to do.

link.

James Nicoll Reviews _The Desert of the Stars_ by John J Lumpkin

link.

my own review is here.

Outies by JR Pournelle: a review

A friend of mine strongly recommended that I read the latest book in the Pournelle-verse. He actually did this a while ago, but I’ve not been reading much these days other than technical literature and what I can quickly read online. I’m too busy. I’d taken to writing to reduce stress, but while it works, there are days when I am too kaput to write and would like to enjoy someone else’s imaginary world. Given that I did the post 4000 on the Pournelle verse and Carlos said that Outies was a very good book. I thought that I ought to dive into that, like returning to an enjoyable restaurant that I used to visit for years. Except, now, the proprietor is the daughter of the owner I knew and there have been changes. For the most part, they are good ones.

Outies is set as a sequel to The Gripping Hand and The Mote in God’s Eye. It has a different flavour than those two works. The first was largely a POV from the aristocracy of the Empire of Man: Pournelle the Elder was probably the stronger voice in the setting and characters. The second was the POV of Bury, Renner and the kids of the aristocracy: Niven was a far stronger voice in this work and it had more akin to his works than the others in the Pournelleverse. Unfortunately, The Gripping Hand was an infuriating work. There was no Heinlein to write a novel length critique on it and it showed. A lot. Outies is a VERY different POV work and this is due to Jennifer Pournelle’s rather different experiences, as an officer and archaeologist in Iraq. Her POV characters are both academics and field personnel that are not exactly of the power structure. The glimpses of Rod Blaine et al are rather different than those in the first two books and there are realistic reasons for it and authorial ones.

Let me come out and say that despite the fact that Pournelle the Elder was one of those that helped found milsf as a genre, this book does not belong to that tradition. There are probably more commonalities with those that explore the great game between Britain and Russia on the frontier which have more in common with this work than milsf does. Likewise, if you are expecting lots of shiny $tech, this is not the place either: it makes a gracing at the end, but by and large its not important to the story. This story is about people. Be warned.

There is too much that is too important to the plot which would be far too easy to give away. The basic premise is that New Utah is being offered a place in the Empire of Man. It was offered one 21 years prior and it turned it down. Normally, this would be a disaster for a world, then being completely colonized by the Empire if it was a weak world like New Utah or being declared an Outie and all trade cut off. New Utah has an intermittent jump point and the Empire won’t be back in force for some time. When New Utah declines, they are declared Outies and trade cut off. However, the Empire is back and offering a chance again. This causes all sorts of hell to break loose. Ascension politics is something not exactly explored much before other than King David’s Spaceship. This is a very different take.

The world of New Utah was obviously deeply influenced by the author’s experiences in Iraq. While Muslims do have their place in the book, instead there is exploration of the factions between an extrapolated pair of religions: the Latter Day Saints and the Himmists. The latter you will recognize from the original book in the series. The former is more familiar. I normally approach authorial treatments of the LDS with dread: either they uber praise them or completely misconstrue the LDS. Caveat: I grew up Mormon, but have not been to church in a couple decades for my own reasons. However, Pournelle treats this with care. There are several LDS churches now and Dr Pournelle has written a nuanced view of them. Given this is over a millennium in the future, I can take misconstrued doctrine as acceptable. The Catholic Church of 1013 is not exactly the Catholic Church of 2013. I also liked that there were heroes and monsters and everything between, but for the most part, they were just plain human.

Of the characters, I rather liked the Librarian and Asach. I’ve known and in some ways been both of them. The scathing commentaries about HG had me in stitches: not because they were outright funny, but because I’d known my share of such people. One of the things that I really liked about Asach was, despite all the experience that this individual had, despite all that this person had seen, mistakes were still made based on preconceptions and assumptions. I really, really liked a very competent person could and would misunderstand despite the fact there was no deception, no hidden agendas. Laurel was not a bad character, but not as relatable for some reason. The hypercompetent are a bane of SF with unrealistic expectations of problem resolution. Its nice to see a more realistic take on the polymath than what I have in the past: Manfred Macx and Carlos Wu, I’m looking at you. Perhaps she was simply not given enough time on page for me to build up some understanding of her past her as an engine of the plot.

I did have an issue with the ending, a bit in certain regards, but it was not one that was out of place for the genre. Unfortunately, in a setting like this, I have an issue in some ways with the basic premise. In a current world of Digital Globe and Landsat and whatnot, I’m more than surprised that, well, anything would be left unfound on a world. We’re entering a world of cubesat sized spysats soon and given that the 2nd Empire of Man has at least 100 years on us…well…if you can accept that, then all else falls into place.

The book in general is good. The beginning a bit denser in the beginning, but once I was in, I was really in. The ending could use some shoring up, but I liked it. I’m intensely interested in a sequel. Whither New Utah under the Empire? Whither the Mote under the Empire? I sincerely hope Pournelle the Younger takes up the pen once more and should she, I’d be delighted to buy the book. I strongly recommend that you do, too.  (ie: Go and buy it!)

The Desert of the Stars, by John Lumpkin: a review

In March, I reviewed Through Struggle, The Stars by John J Lumpkin.  The original book is set in the post American world where China and Japan are the two top powers and Europe and America are the third tier.  Just as important to the idea that this is a post American world is humanity has reached out into the stars and colonized multiple worlds and a major war is sparked over the expansion into interstellar space.  Here I am reviewing the second book, The Desert of the Stars.  This is the sequel to Through Struggle, The Stars.

The first book saw the outbreak of the war and the intrigue that pulls the United States into the war on Japan's side.  The second book continues and focuses on two characters in particular: Neil Mercer and Rand Castillo, both major characters from the first book, while there are several other characters, those two are the focus of the book.

In general, I liked the book.  I did not like it as much as I did the first of the series.  There are a few reasons for this.  For one, the book is significantly smaller than the first, coming in at 350 pages rather than 500+.  The story felt more focused, to be sure, but it lost some of the larger sweep.  The emphasis on the two characters also helped do this.  Likewise, the fog of war has most definitely settled in after the Battle of Kennedy Station.  The emphasis was shifted some from the space battles to the politics and spycraft.  The world building dropped away some.  While Entente was covered more in depth, the rest of the Human Reach universe, with two exceptions, was ignored.  I could have handled the extra length to see more of the universe.  Likewise, it would have been good to have more from the POV of the Chinese; what was present was far more positive than the original book Chinese POV character though (who I found a bit implausible the first time and was corrected by those who are either Chinese or married to Chinese as he is in fact plausible, if not likeable).

The one technical net negative that I have is in the cyber security/cyberwarfare aspect.  There is one event in the book where it becomes important.  Let's just say I didn't, couldn't buy it.  It happens to be another area that I deal with, although as a sysadmin of big iron rather than a cracker/hacker of any sort.  After what has to have been nearly a century and a half of offensive warfare in the digital domain, things like that are...implausible and broke my suspension of disbelief.

There are a lot of big politics, geopolitics or whatever the proper interstellar adjective would be!  The Europeans, Russians and Indians make appearances of differing lengths.  I was rather surprised at the level of absolutely byzantine Machiavellian international politics that take place.  It was almost jaw droppingly surprising.  This one is an antineutral development, you might say.  The reactions I have to it are strong and both good and bad.  It will take a few more reads before I can decide if I like it or not.

On the plus side, Lumpkin does provide information as to why various nations did not grace the first book.  He also hints a lot more.  I found his touching on Mars to be intriguing, in a Bigelow-Vegas run sort of way (some of you will know what that means).  There was a fair amount of foreshadowing in the first book, nothing blatant a la Robert Jordan, but present and picked up on that came to fruition in this book.  The prose also remained good.  I was not bored with the book, though I did not find it as enjoyable as the first.  I hope Passage of the Stars, the next book in the series, is an improvement on this one though.  Oh and bring back the Bayandor. 

I do recommend buying Desert of the Stars.  I'm curious as to the reactions of others, so please post your own reviews and post some comments here. 

Through Struggle, The Stars: a review

In December I was asked to join a group of friends reviewing Through Struggle, The Stars.  Unfortunately, I am a moderately busy guy and missed the window when they did.  Even so, I found the discussion we had with one another over the book to be interesting.  So, I went through and worked out getting a copy anyways and felt I ought to follow through with the review.

The others that have reviewed the book are conversant in politics and economics than I am.  I am a techie.  I am either the worst nightmare of a reviewer for the author or the exact targeted audience.  You see, I work in supercomputers, have worked with military grade lasers, now work with rockets, have worked in astronomy for exoplanet work (caveat, it was radio astronomy and pulsars, but...) and have dabbled in control systems for military hardware.  I am also conversant in paleo topics (really? whodathunkit?) and some bits of history, too.  Could be the daemon geek here for Mr Lumpkin.  Let's see what you think.

Through Struggle, The Stars is set in the early 22nd century.  The world has changed in majors ways from our time.  The United States is now a second tier (tied for third place with the EU) power.  Japan and China are in an increasingly unstable Cold War.  Humanity has spread into the stars and has colonized multiple worlds.  This is done through the use of wormholes.  Nationalism has reached new peaks again as a consequence and the world seems to have been hit by an asteroid or comet at some time in the 21st century.

The book follows a handful of characters as they bounce around the stars and get involved in the first Interstellar War/World War III.  The main characters vary from the newly minted officers just out of ROTC (Neil and Rand) to a grizzled spy (Jim) and young, dangerous Chinese spy (Li Xiao).  Other characters make appearances, but really the main characters that are followed are the above with Neil Mercer being the primary.

The events of the book cover the limited point of view lead up to and beginning of a World War.  Or rather the First Interstellar War.  The Japanese and Chinese go at it and the US gets pulled in.  The whats and whys are obscured until the end of the book, but that may not be the only balls in play here.  It is hinted that there may be more to this than even the bigg-ish reveal at the end of the book.  The spy, Jim, hints as much.

The read itself is quite good: I could put it down, but I wanted to return when I was relaxed or on BART.  The first part of the book evokes earlier Heinlein in a really positive way.  The adventures are plausible and don't always work out for the heroes.  For Neil and Rand, its a coming of age story.  For the others, its a bit different.  Still an interesting read though.

The background has obviously been thought through and much time dedicated to figuring out how the different cogs in the great machine would work and mean.  What's it mean to have space navies?  How does the war get started?  What does the world look like?  How do wormholes work in this universe?  How is interplanetary colonization actually done?  These all have been given some serious skull sweat.  There are a few bits that the author gets serious credits for (demography in the US, frex) and the fusion drives that are used.  And what they are NOT capable of.  Above all else, the fact that hiding in space, stealth in space, is...silly.  Mostly.

The nearest book or story I could compare Through Struggle, The Stars to was "Face of the Enemy" by Don Hawthorne that is a part of the Motie-Pournelle-verse.  It is about a space battle between the First Empire and the Saurons.  I used to like it for its seemingly good take on superships actually slugging it out.  However, the Hawthorne even when I read it as a teenager, obviously didn't understand orbital mechanics whatsoever.  There are some areas like that for Lumpkin, too, but not as egregiously offensive.

Let me outright say, I like the book.  I recommend buying it to friends and readers alike.  Lumpkin ought to be rewarded for his excellent efforts.  Please buy his work.  However, I'm going to critique a bit here on the areas that I do know.  I'll be short and not so brutal.  I hope.

On the general setting, it felt a bit like an mishmash of different time frames put together.  The 2139 time frame was selected to guarantee that there was a wealth of exoplanets settled.  The political time frame felt like it was around 2050, maybe 2060.  The technical time line felt...more like 2030s not counting the space related tech and development.  Even so, computer wise, it felt  like 2020 for that matter (note: I'm not a Geek Rapture type nor do I think Moore's is going on forever and I don't fear our robotic overlords whatsoever.  If you sneeze on Skynet, it'll crash.  I've hugged a proto-Skynet and it did just that).  Whither India?  It could be a bit jarring at times, but its Lumpkin's setting, so I'll just make note of it. 

I have some nontrivial issues with the way land wars would be conducted.  No spoilers though.

The author obviously did a lot of work to research various bits of technology and how he wanted them to fit together for the Human Reach universe; again, kudos, Mr Lumpkin.  Kudos.  There were two areas that I think that the author does need to be called out on.  

The first is the macguffin for some of the plot later on and I'll not spoil it, but the author needs to dig into free electron lasers.  They work.  Depending on the impact of the budget idiocy in Washington, there ought to be the first weapons grade FEL delivered to the Navy in 2018.  In 100+ years, assuming nothing better shows up that is not a laser, then you're going to probably see FELs that tune between microwaves to x rays at least, if not possibly gamma rays. 

The second is part that of exoplanets or more properly human habitable exoplanets will be mapped easily out to 100 light years within twenty years.  This will be done with ever improving space based telescopes that will not require starships to get there to find if its habitable or not.  Kepler, its follow-ons, the infamous Webb, etc are going to have the first worlds that are life bearing within ten years.  Easy. 

Even so, with these two jarring bits, I have to say I really liked the work.  Through Struggle, The Stars is worth every penny.  The scenario is fun, if dire.  The author can write in an engaging way.  I recommend buying it to friends and readers alike.  As I said before, Lumpkin ought to be rewarded for his excellent efforts.  

Please buy.

PS.  My favourite NPC (so to speak) had to be the crew of the Bayandor.  That plucky ship is something that ought to be commendable to the author for multiple reasons that I will not spoil here.

Reading Update (waaay overdue)

I am actually a little shocked when I was looking back through the blog at what I had written and realized I hadn't updated the reading/read list since January. Six months?! Oh geez. I have a lot read even with the much slower pace.

I am currently reading two books. The first is Splendid Isolation about South America's Cenozoic mammals. It's a good read but feels dated. Given its age, that shouldn't be a surprise. Is there a more updated treatise on the subject? I am also reading The Medea Hypothesis. I am holding my cards close to my chest on this one until I am done.

In the recent past, I read Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History. I didn't realize that dogs were a North American lineage (along with horses and camels). The Old World equivalent was the hyena. Which dogs are now pummeling. Continuing the paleo theme, I also read In the Shadow of the Dinosaurs. I didn't realize there was an aquatic sphenodont: tuatara relative for the rest of you. I also read The Beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs. It's interesting to see the intellectual debate raging on back then: competition vs mass extinction opportunism.

I also read The World Without Us and found it underwhelming. Better was The Earth After Us. It was a little too short of discussing what would survive in the strata over time in favor of explaining the mechanics of how geology works. A bit of a bummer. Seems like we need a next step higher: a "yeah we get the basics big time, but we're not quite pros yet" level.

I read Solar Sails and found the last third to be the best part since it was the actual juicy technical part. I still like Starsailing better, but Starsailing lacks a lot of the guts of the last 1/3 of Solar Sails.

Much to my great pissy annoyance, my copy of Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs disappeared part way through. I also read History of the Persian Empire. Wow. Talk about being written in a completely different era. I picked up a copy of Byzantine Infantryman, but not read it yet. Intended as a bit of background for my writing. I am waiting for a copy of The Great Arab Conquests.

I also have the Long Thaw, Principles of Paleoclimatology, Fire and Ice, and An Introduction to Celestrial Mechanics. I also haven't finished Russia's Far East.

Anyways, I'll comment on The Medea Hypothesis. I'm only in a small way and I am already getting "hmmmm" bits. Oh yes, and the number of books may sound like a nontrivial amount, but its not. Prior to marriage, I was reading 3600+ pages per month, which translates into around ten to fifteen books per month. What I read up there is probably about that much over six months.

Ex Mex

As some of you know, Mexico and the politics of immigration have been one of my main reading themes these days. I really want to get a better understanding of what is going on here. There is an awful lot of FUD out there about the illegal immigrants. That said, it is one of the most important issues that we have today. We have 12 million illegals in the country. They're mostly not bad people, just individuals that are seeking a better life. Just like the rest of the immigrants that are seeking to come to the us. Just like Americans, they work for it. Often times they work under some rather nasty conditions and there's de nada they can do because if they complain to the cops, well, they're illegal and could quite probably be deported for it. That said, they are, despite what some corners would like us to believe, criminals: they have most definitely broken the law in a nontrivial way.

Yeah, I am a 'rule of law' stickler and not just here: if you don't like the law, get it changed, but until then, follow it. Considering the immigration nightmares we've faced trying to get Lyuda's family to immigrate, we have some nontrivial biases here too. It really pisses us off that we have been unable to get my sister-in-law here as either a student or under the fact that she is an ubercompetent, trained professional in an in demand field (nurse), yet can get past the evil embassy.

That said, I really want to fill out my opinion with more facts than merely personal experience. There's more to this than merely my personal feelings of frustration, anger, and idealism: there are real people with real hopes, dreams, and needs involved seeking a life that they can't get in their home country. In the vast majority of the cases that would be Mexico.

The books I have read about the subject have been from the right (oy) to the left (ugh) on the political spectrum, but before I picked up Ex Mex the only books on the immigration issue that I had read were all written by Americans. While I had read some Mexican history books that had been contributed to by Mexicans, mostly they too had been written by Americans in Mexico. I do have a tome sitting up on the to-read stack that is a Mexican history written exclusively by a Mexican historian in English, I hadn't gotten to it yet due to its size. I have had a reading cycle that has been going something like this: mischief related reading (normally embedded or real time computing)->paleo related reading->Mexican/immigration politics & history->mischief related reading. I couldn't take too much time between getting back to the mischief related reading since I am cramming as much into my brain as fast as I can, yet still I needed a mental rinse between each lathering so to speak. Hence, Krauze's tome is simply too long at this point.

On the other hand, Castenada's Ex Mex seemed the right length and was explicitly on the immigration issue and written from the Mexican point of view. So! I picked it up and read it as soon as the next cycle came around. Unfortunately, I am very disappointed with the book. Taking a line from my wife as she learns how to appease her English profs, the book was super-repetitious. It kept looping through the same information in different chapters. At times I could swear I was reading the exact same text as from a previous chapter. Perhaps this is a writing style in Spanish, IDK, but since I don't - to my everlasting shame - read Spanish, I can't say. However, when rendered into English, its pretty awkward and makes for a unpleasant read. The total amount of original information contained in the book, and that which is worth making the effort to read, could have been contained in a single, much smaller essay or magazine article.

That said, there are bits that are interesting and worth reading. None of the books I've read to date on Mexican history touched much on the Bracero Program. In fact, I barely knew it existed, nevermind that it was a 'bitter' experience for Mexicans. Castenada highlights this and points out that the idea of a guest worker program is nothing new. I'm not really fond of the idea because of my liberal-ish thoughts that this would lead to the same problems that have arisen elsewhere (frex, the Turks in Germany).

One tidbit that I hadn't heard before is that there is a strong opinion among demographers, according to the author, that somewhere between 2016-2022, the immigration flow will largely stop. Huh?! I hadn't heard that before. My own head in sand? Or something that people in the political debate just didn't want to discuss? The reasons are pretty good that they argue this. The reason is that fertility is continuing to fall in Mexico just as it is all over the world and not just in the first world countries. Virtually all nations are falling to or below replacement levels. Mexico is no exception (fwiw, amusingly, the US is one notable exception). If the trends hold true, Mexicans will reach a population growth that matches their job growth somewhere between 2016-2022. At that point the economy will provide enough jobs and wages that immigration pressure will fall off and probably end completely. That's interesting. I have to think through whether or not I buy it. Castaneda isn't sure he buys it. Even so, it's worth pondering.

One of the other points that make me take notice is that the Mexicans have a looooong history of coming to US illegally and the government - and Americans in general - just looking the other way. When Americans state that we are a nations of laws and that Mexicans, if they want to come here, should follow the rules, the Mexicans have a "huh!? What rules?!" The reason being that even though we had a set immigration policy, when it came to the Mexicans, we haven't enforced it, almost ever[1], over the course of one hundred years plus that the illegal immigration has been happening. Therefore, it has seemed and still does to the Mexicans that they had a special status, a special unsaid exemption and that those of us that talk of the "Rule of Law" are hypocrites. In some ways, they have a point, but only in some. We ought to acknowledge that we shouldn't have done that and that we did, but work to improve the situation, imo.

There's more in the book, but for the most part, I can't say a lot of it was that original. There bits (Mexicans have swung wildly from condemning anyone that leaves Mexico as traitors to declaring them heroes, frex) , pieces (almost ten percent of Mexico's population now resides in the US), and nibbles (Mexico tried in the 1970s to set up cross border cultural associations for the Latinos and Hispanics in the US of Mexican descent, but it failed badly since they viewed themselves as Americans of Mexican descent who loved Mexico, but not Mexican nationals), but by and large I have to say that if you would like to read this one, I'd wait until its in the bargain bin or pick it up used. I felt a bit cheated and disappointed by the book. The insight wasn't that deep. The prose and organization was awkward. The amount of new information, despite being written by the former foreign minister of Mexico, wasn't that large. Alas.

1. Notable exception being Operation Wetback.

Reading & Books Update

I haven't been reading as much as I'd like. Since my last reading update, I've only gotten through three books. My duties as a Papa and spouse have been slowing me down I have to say and long gone are the days of chewing through 3600+ pages a month. Alas. My wife is still astonished at the read I am able to read even so since she has been working on the same pair of books for quite a while now. She hasn't yet mastered the art of squeezing in a few pages at a time whenever she can. Those three books I read were pretty good though even so.

The first was Fastovsky's The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs. It was a good read and I recommend it for anyone that wants to take the step from being a mild to moderate dinosaur enthusiast on the road to a more serious student. However, should you be someone that was already a knowledgeable person, I'd skip this one. You probably know all that's contained therein.

The second book was Preston and Dillon's Opening Mexico. It covers a lot of the evolution of Mexico's politics over time. It bridged a lot of the happenings since the previous book I read about Mexico's politics, Distant Neighbors, was written around 1984 to Vincente Fox's administration. Noel, your books are on the lost. Just needed a little more general info before I delved into what I assume to be deeper works. I do recommend the book. I have been finding I am actually a bit embarrassed that I know so little about our neighboring countries compared to, oh, say, Rome. Or Germany. Or Russia.

A slight tangent here: after doing all that reading about Mexico and how the PRI authoritarian system worked, trappings of democracy w/o the substance, etc. I did realize that there was an interesting parallel in a another nation's unfolding evolution: Russia. The system that Putin seems to be working on there smacks of what the Mexicans did. I'll have to keep watching - and reading! - to see if the parallel holds true. Of course, it'll be a bit more Slavic flavored in its recipe than Latino, but...the shoe, it looks like it fits, at least for the moment.

The last book I finished was The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution. That was a very fast read. It was mostly purely new knowledge for me since I am not that up on the genetic aspects of biology. Oh, I know some, but most of my knowledge is a tad dated. When I read Out of Thin Air, I brought up the surprising crocodilian evolution aspect. I emailed the guys at GNXP at the time - this was before I stopped reading - asking whether or not there might not be 'genetic scars' that could be identified one way or another as a way to test the hypothesis. I didn't hear back. However, upon reading tMotF, I found that my 'genetic scars' are technically called 'pseudogenes' or as the author calls them in the book, 'fossil genes.' They're also quite common in species studied to date. Us included. A way to verify of the idea of archosaurs were basally endothermic would be to compare the genes in birds related to metabolism and those in crocodiles. If there were pseudogenes that matched up in crocs with our avian friends, then there would be solid evidence about the metabolic rate for the dinosaurs as well as testing the above hypothesis. The crocodile genome mapping only recently - this year I think - got under way and there are several efforts to map the genomes of birds already, so there ought to be some information in the relatively near future to start doing research with.

At the moment, I am reading a rather different book, Russia's Far East: A Region at Risk. I get the distinct feeling I'd get more out of it if I had more than the first couple economics classes. I'm about a 1/6th done with it, but it is interesting though. I'm in the midst of the 1998 banking crisis within the book. We'll see home this goes. It's an interesting comparison between this book and the thesis of Siberian Curse. The authors of the book I am reading now are arguing what's needed to develop the far east. SC was arguing that market forces would end up not developing it nor should they. Since my wife is off on her anniversary gift trip to the Bahamas this week, I am sure to be able to read this one and start on the ones I have left and just ordered.

I made out like a bandit this XMas with books. My wife got me a very nice gift card and my uncle did too. Therefore, I went wild buying books. From the paleo side of things, I picked up Polar Dinosaurs of Australia (as an update), After the Dinosaurs, Evolution of Fossil Ecosystems, Supercontinent, Principles of Paleoclimatology, and The Eocene-Oligocene Transition. Related to what Julia did for me, I picked up Designing Embedded Hardware, Programming Embedded Systems, and An Embedded Software Primer. Makes ya wonder what I am up to, eh, Julia? ;)

I also want to pick up Continents and Supercontinents and maybe a book on Puerto Rico, another paleo book, something Byzantine, or maybe Greenspan's book. Not sure. I still have two books on Mexico to read. I need to order more on the KT Event to do the write up on that mass extinction. We'll see.

Gift cards from bookstores are my favorite gifts these days. ;)

Update: Whoops! I forgot that my cousin gave me a copy of His Dark Materials.

Reading Update

With all the traveling, I have actually had a chance to read. It's a little bizarro in some ways that I got as much reading done as I did: I was traveling with a 2 year old after all rather than alone and we were, well, on vacation. Aren't we supposed to go DO things? Yes, we were and, yes, we did. The problem is taht we were traveling with a 2 year old and that means naps. Lyuda gets antsy and needs to run off to do stuff then. I am quite happy to grab a book and read. I need slow down time. My wife needs hyperkinetic speed up time to relax. Because Avrora needed her naps, I got it and so did Lyuda.

I read two books while I was in Hawaii while Avrora napped. One was about Mexico, but a bit dated. The other was only four years old and about illegal immigration. The former book, Distant Neighbors, has been cited by a lot of reviewers of other books on Mexico as something that all the newer books were trying to live up to. Even though it was published in 1989, it seemed like that would be a good place to start.

It was. Having been a Borderer for nine years, it turns out that I knew quite a bit about Mexicans. More so than I thought. Being a close neighbor, you pick up more than I would have thought. I rather liked the book though. Obviously some of the open ended questions from the book have been answered: would Mexico's political institutions survive the economic meltdown of the time? Yeah, it did. It's politics have changed, but its a recent one. NAFTA has had a huge impact and the illegal immigrant problem has taken wings of its own. I do recommend the book though as that it helps give a lot of the background of the politics of that past that you don't really absorb otherwise such as the origin and early evolution of PAN (the political party).

On the other hand, if you are a xenophobe, love Tom Tancredo, and adore the Border Patrol, please, read the book, Illegals. It will fit right in with your thought process. For myself, when I was going into this, I expected a book that was anti-illegal immigration. Indeed, I expected it to be alarmist and rather one sided. However, its fair to say that I was being naive. It was written in such a way as to not only be alarmist, but would imply combinations of dark conspiracies, the foulness of illegals on a deep innate level, and that the Aztlan Reconquista twits are not only more than twits, but are winning (while implying Washington DC wants it to happen). It was also, in my absolutely arrogant opinion, an outstanding example of how to lie with statistics. The book really outraged me, but not in the way that the author intended: I was outraged by the author's pure chutzpah in writing what he did. There was only one time that I agreed with the author at all and that horrified me that even that much agreement with the book happened: it was wrt the shredding of some 90,000 documents at the Laguna Nigel immigration office in California as a way to clear a backlog. I really didn't like the book and I really don't recommend it. I only picked it up - used! thank all that's good and light, because I am trying to read the different perspectives wrt immigration debate. I need a mental bleaching after this one. oy.

To that end, I am unsure what I am going to read next. I was thinking about reading either about Russia's Far East issues or about the evolution of the dinosaurs. I suspect that its going to be the latter. Most of my books to be read right now are about politics and Mexican history. I need a break after that last book. bleh.

Reading Update

I am a little bored in this class. People are asking questions that I already know about. I'm hanging in there, but this was supposed to be a SAN concepts class. Since I have a net connection and I've already worked my way through my email and rss feed, I'd thought I'd do an update on my summer reading. Due to the fact that I was stuck, fuming waiting for my family in the Atlanta airport - which sucks, guys, damn it took a fuckall time to get my bags - I chewed through both the books I took with me to read on the trips to and from. I'd finished the one I mentioned a week and change ago. Also I finished yet another still because it was pretty light weight.

First up was that one that I mentioned was the book on byzantine military history. Haldon's take is very, very interesting. He walks you through the degradation of the military from the Late Roman times through the 9th century. Then he talks about the rebirth of the Byzantine military during the 10th century through the rebellions of the 11th century and then Manzikert and the downward spiral afterwards until the 4th Crusade. It is well worth the read if you're interested in Byzantine or Roman history.

I then went out and read a book on the KT Extinction. I got a little more of the politics of the asteroid vs vulcanism for the KT impact, but there was little more on the science aspect. While Dr Frankel is a PhD and all that, you can tell his day job is that of a populizer rather than a full time scientist. If you want something about the politics with a greater inclusiveness of the French PoV on the KT Boundary, read it. If you are looking for a new perspective on the KT Boundary for the science aspect...erm. Not so good. He is a dedicated impactist fwiw too. He seeks and tries to shoe horn in the impact is the driving reason for all mass extinctions and it doesn't fly. There was one bit of science that made my ears perk: a team of Indian paleontologists found sedimentry layers sandwiched between the flows of the Deccan Traps and they were full of dinosaur fossils. Considering that India was an island continent at the time, that means the Deccan Traps didn't even kill the dinos on the island of India! Ponder that one.

The next book I started was a history of the Cold War. I am a little disappointed with this one. It's not that this is a badly written book. It's not even a poorly informing book for most people. Unfortunately, I already knew almost all of what he included. There were moments of new information, but not a lot. If you were not really a history type or didn't grow up in the Cold War, you ought to start here if you want to do some reading, but if you are well enough read, this is a skip.

Finally, I had far too much fun with my politically kookie book. Oh, it was kookie alright. Right down whacko. Even down to oversize type that rendered what ought to have been 30 pages of type with pictures into 100 pages. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely more than sympathetic to the whole idea, but this guy just wrote a whacked out suggestion that we annex Mexico through force. Good gawd. The writing style found itself closest to a bad blogger rant than anything. It's really not worth paying the $25 that Amazon has as listed. I have to admit that I got a lot of laughs out of it though.

I am unsure what I'm going to read next. I think it'll be something paleo though. It might be Ward's new book. It really ought to be he treatise on ceratopsians and 'duck-bills' though. We'll see. I will figure it out after I get home. I am annoyed though: I don't have anything to read on the way home.

Reading Update

It's been a while since I have done a reading update. In part that is a function of the fact that I haven't been reading as much or as fast as I used to. My library is still growing albeit at a much slower pace. I have started reading a lot more about the Mesozoic extinctions as of late, but also trying to keep myself from burning out wrt mass extinctions at the same time. I am suffering from burnout in general, but I have a couple things I want to do before I start to look for a new scene, so to speak, among those things are to try to do a break-in on the mass extinction scene with a paper or two. To do that, I need the resources at hand here.

First off, my last science fiction book that I read was to finish of Reynolds' Absolution Gap. Eh. There were a few good points to this, butt he character that I actually liked and cared - or perhaps at least found interesting - about from the last book gets offed in a rather nasty way in the first few pages. Then the bad guys are not the bad guys because there are worse bad guys than the bad guys and humanity is about to suffer the same fate as the new bad guys...blah. I think I am going to pass on Reynolds for the time being. At least until there's something noteworthy that's not in the same universe.

To continue my fascination with Rome-Byzantium, I read the dated, but interesting read of Lord Mahon's Life of Belisarius. Wow. This guy is so overrated in the alternate history and science fiction writing department. It's not to say that he didn't do great things. It's not to say that he isn't a character I'd like to read more about in the future. It's just that he's been far overexposed in the specific writing genera and you'd expect him to have at least whupped the Visigothic collective ass handily with the reputation he has in so many ATLs. Oh, and this book dates itself based on the author's opinions. It's soooo 19th century.

Continuing my Deep Time reading especially wrt mass extinctions, I picked up and read a few different books. Readers of my blog, family members, and people I've interacted with online know I find deep time absolutely fascinating. When I was a small kid, not much older than my daughter, I could name some thirty different genera of dinosaurs.

First Deep Time book was Ward's Rivers in Time. I was disappointed with it in some respects just because I ahd been expecting something different. Ward had made a lot of noise about rivers and how they change based on his geological observations while hunting mass extinctions. I had been hoping that there'd be some more expose about the subject as part of the writing. For some reason I had even gotten it in my head that he'd referenced this book when writing about that subject in Gorgon and elsewhere. Well, I was wrong. This was just a general discussion of all the mass extinctions and the ongoing 6th Mass Extinction. Bummer. While the writing was definitely readable, it lacked the solid rock substance of Out of Thin Air and spent far too much time on travelogue. This is a common issue with paleo books: either they spend too much time on the history and personalities of the subject or they spend too much time on the travelogue. Ward's books tend to do the latter.

The second book that I read was a translation of Vincent Courtillot's Evolutionary Catastrophes. It was an engaging read. Courtillot is far more gracious than others in the field wrt mass extinctions and his commentary towards those that disagree with him or his position. He is of the camp of the vulcanists. That is to say that volcanoes are to be blamed regularly and repeatedly for the mass extinctions throughout Deep Time. The other major camp is the impactists who blame impacting bollides, fwiw. Courtillot argues both cases in his book (very well too) and concedes at least for the KT Event that a bollide is probably to blame. He has been vindicated wrt the Permian Extinction though.

The third book was something of a read from the horse's mouth: I read Walter Alvarez's T. rex and the Crater of Doom. As you might guess, Alvarez is a Tolkien fan, hence, the title. It mostly a personal memoir about the journey of the first steps to proposing what happened at the KT Boundary - though that was not the intent at all - and the current state of the debate. It does talk about missteps along the way and some less than flattering moments by people on the team. It's worth a read.

My round out for Deep Time books at this point was Rich and Vickers-Rich's Dinosaurs of Darkness. If you want to read about some pretty extreme field work, by all means, this is the book for you: blasting to tunnel for fossils on a sea cliff! That is the book's primary focus. I knew that was going to be the case before I read it. However, it does include some nifty science bits that make it worth reading. The dino they named for their daughter probably lived through the dark of winter without hibernating while a bird mimic did not. They talk about their mammal discoveries as well and have some very (!!!) controversial speculation in there as well. I'll put up a post on that later today with luck and smiling computational gods. I actually recommend the book, btw, despite what the amazon reviewer stated because there is a bunch of good juicy bits as well as some odd ball field work.

Following Carlos Yu's recommendation of some time ago, I read Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies as a counterpoint to Jared Diamond's Collapse. While Diamond emphasizes the environmental reasoning of collapsing societies, Tainter subsumes that and other theories into an economic theory of how societies fall apart. It's a rather good read. It's a bit heavy at times due to its high info density and needs to be put down and thought about, but I do definitely recommend it. Diamond's book is light and fluffy. This one is a rich, heavy one that needs to be eaten carefully lest you suffer a surfeit. I am really glad that my wife just took two econ classes these last two semesters that I had to read up again on to help with homework at times or I would have been a little lost.

I have started a new book and its back to my Byzanto-Roman curiosity: Warfare, State And Society In The Byzantine World 565-1204. I am about ten pages in, still the introduction, I'm afraid. After this, I suspect I'll be reading Charles Frankel's The End of the Dinosaurs: Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions. I really need to hunt more down for the Late Triassic Extinction and pick up some of Gerta Keller's work. If only it weren't so damned expensive!

We'll also have to see what I order next. It's going to be some more Deep Time stuff, I am sure, some on Russia, and some on cultural politics. I really need to read more on modern China. and even more on Mexico We'll see exactly what.

Reading Update

It's been a while since I've said what I was reading. Not since Avrora was sick in February just before her BDay, actually. I blown through a few lighter fare books (scifi) and found them interesting, but at least in one case, perhaps more humorous than originally intended. However, there was one heavier book (in terms of content if definitely not length).

The light reading consisted of oldies but goodies: Asimov's Caves of Steel and Robots of Dawn (set on Aurora! Sheesh, didn't realize that it was so...embedded in me mentally) and Arthur C Clarke's The Songs of the Distant Earth. I also read two newer authors' works. Alastair Reynold's Redemption Ark (better, Mr. Reynolds) and Charlie Stross' Accelerando.

Oh, Charlie, I can't say I really enjoyed it. it did make me laugh though. A lot. I suspect that it wasn't always intended that way. One that I suspected was meant to was the uploaded Ukrainian that denied the Singularity. Considering my wife is Ukrainian and the character's arguments were something I have used I found it doubly amusing at the coincidence. And, no, I don't think I was the intended target even though I have interacted with Charlie over the years online and I emphatically don't believe in the Singularity.

Interestingly, the place I buy my paperbacks - at the local bookstores in Emeryville when I go one walks with my daughter - haven't had any Ian McDonald or Greg Egan. Very odd. I wanted to read them just to see what I've missed in the New SF Troubles out of Scotland (well, Britain really).

As for my question about what the differences between the older SF and what I am reading with Stross and the new folks, well, it's pretty simple really. The new people are frenetic in their writing and it's packed full of information where as the older stuff moves at a slower pace and is less dense in terms of action, plot, and pure info dump. It's the difference between the internet generations and those that came before. The characters typically are less cardboardish than those before, but they're also more flawed than before. Sometimes the one idea that was highlighted before and explored gets a little lost in the pure unadulterated download that the newer books contain.

The weighty read was Modeling Extinction. This book covers the mathematical models people have been working out to describe the extinction events in the fossil record. There are a few different models covered. It's quite obvious that not that many people have ventured into the arena as of the book's writing in 2001. The models described are extraordinarily simple things compared to what real life is like. My person interest was in possibly coupling this to a climate sim of the time of a mass extinction, but while there is some potential, this is very, very simple stuff and may not make sense to tie together. NOTE: this is not a knock on the people doing the work! This is just very early in the work being done and not worth tying to a supercomputer simulation. You could take the output of an HPC run and use it as input for one of the fitness models, but that's about it. It'd be something that could be done in an embarrassingly parallel fashion with slightly different initial starting conditions for species/genus fitnesses. The only way I might see this being changed is if you were to couple it to the coming biotic modules for CCSM.

I haven't continued Horns and Beaks yet. I will shortly. We'll see. I have to say I'm getting more Deep Time and Byzantine itchings. I am starting to get tempted into reading various books on politics too. heh. Weirdo, I know. Surprised that more of you didn't say it sooner.

Dawn of the Dinosaurs Review

After a brief introduction to the general types of organisms, the geography, and the initial climatic conditions to be encountered, Fraser organizes his book chronologically and geographically through the Triassic. It is a catalog of strange animals and plants, brought alive by the most recent discoveries and ideas of ecology, functional morphology, and behavior. Wisely, Fraser rejects global generalizations of climatic models in favor of regional and even local reconstructions, led by what the fossils tell us and by his analyses of geographic heterogeneity in temperature, resources, and rainfall. This is one of the strongest features of the book. The rapid replacements, rises and falls of tetrapod dynasties can readily be gleaned from this well-limned catalog, and one has the impression of a series of turnovers as rapid as anything in the Age of Mammals. Many sorts of scientists will benefit from it. Those not familiar with paleontology will get a first-rate, accessible introduction to the dramatis personae; those whose interest tends to focus on the critters will be delighted by the comprehensive introduction to the climatic history, geology, and stratigraphy of the Triassic worldwide. Especially useful is the approach by regions and individual geologic formations: if you want a quick introduction to the Molteno, the Chinle, or the British fissure fill deposits, this book is one-stop shopping.

Emphasis added.

I read this one and liked it. Something to think on.

Mini Rant

Can we skip this 'informal empire' bs? There is a word for it. It's been around for a long time. It's 'hegemony' or hegemon. If you think that you're readers are unfamiliar with the word, please define it and give examples and then frakin use it.

Thank you.

blast

I wanted to get the next Ward post out today. Not going to happen until next week it looks like. sorry folks.

Reading Update & Meme

I finished two books recently. However, I am going to take a minute to make a plea for a meme. I would like for everyone that reads this blog to take the time to read a book. And then post about it. It can be here. It can be on your own blog/LJ/whatever. I would like to see and hear about what people are reading and what they think about what they are reading. This is especially pointed at Suzanne. Unless it's a book best left 'inside the box'.

BTW, James, you're semi-exempt.

The first book I read was a series of interviews with Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, called First Person. He makes some interesting points. His rise to power, at least as presented here, is rather inexplicable at face value. There's lots of ways to read between the lines though and its also possible to read too much between the lines. I didn't find him to be a person that I cared for much at all. It's a personal thing. Frex, he's cold: his wife was slipping in and out of conciousness with cracked vertebra (ie bones only) and a fractured skull yet he returned to work. My wife explains that this is pretty common for Russians to treat their wives like that. One insight that I gained that explains a lot of his behavior in power is that he studied judo (and sambo for that matter). He states that judo is not just a martial art, but rather a philosophy. Obviously, Shrubbish shoul have read that one and taken it to heart first, da? If he was even capable of that. It's interesting to see what others would think of Putin through this vehicle.

The second book I just finished I just plain devoured. It was Peter Ward's Out of Thin Air. I've wanted to read this for months. It was well worth it. Everything that I complained about with Gorgon - that it contained almost purely travelogue and zilch science - has just about done a 180 degree turn here. This is almost purely science. Bravo, Dr Ward! Ward's narration is good and goes from topic to topic building the case for different hypotheses about how oxygen levels over the Phanerozoic Eon were one of the most fundamentally important evolutionary forcing element. He makes some good cases. I am not completely sold on the basic idea and I think that the computer modeling needs to be cross checked or at least calibrated based on geochemical analysis. The book is pretty damned short: 282 pages. However, it is so packed with stuff to contemplate, it feels heavier and well worth the time to chew on. I recommend it. Carlos, Doug, get your fscking hands on copies so I can compare notes. (I'll make a separate post on his archosaurian/crocodilian hypothesis in a bit).

I have started reading Horns and Beaks. I am a little disappointed. It's far more technical in the dry 'this is a collection of papers' way than anything. I am only three papers in though. However, Darren Naish is cited already three times. Way to go, Darren!

Revelation Space

I just finished - last night - one of the books my wife gave to me for my birthday. It was an interesting read. Reynolds is one of the British Invasion of SF in recent years. It was an okay read with some bits that I didn't care for.

I should really wait a bit more before saying this, like after I read some of the other Britvaders, but there seems to be a certain flavour to their stories that is not or are not there for the Yanks' versions. it also seems rather distinct from Clarke as well. I am not sure what exactly it is yet, but I am having my suspicions. Namely it's in how they treat the characters and more specifically the endings of their novels. I'll post a bit more on that when I've digested a few more.

The part that I really didn't like about the ending, frankly. The loops thrown about the neutron star seemed like they were tacked on at the end and not where the author originally wanted to go. I was unsure where that was, and it may have been where he planned to go in the first palce, but...oh well. I'll look for another book by him to see if I like/not like his work. A single book isn't fair to judge by.

In Search of the Maya Sea Traders

As far as a books go, this was one worth reading. However, I have tos ay that I am unfortunately rather disappointed. It wasn't the writing style. Dr McKilop's prose is an easy read and definitely not dry or unengaging: itw as definitely not the bane prose that I call Archaeological Dry. What really disappointed me was the content: this was largely Yet Another Travelogue.

I was hoping for more insight into the Mayan seatrading, but it was lightly sprinkled about her adventures off the coast of Belize. That was interesting, honestly, but again not what I was looking for. Much like my disappointment with Peter Ward's Gorgon I had wanted to hear what the experts had to say about their work more than their adventures. Thoser are interesting and ought to be included, but...I'd rather have some solid discussion of what they found and their theories.

That doesn't happen as much.

grr.

On the other hand, it did give me some bits for Epylium Aurelia that will be useful, but only bits.