Book Reviews - September 2011

Not exhaustive, but a few books that have lodged in my brain in the last few months...

Non-Fiction
"The Beautiful Struggle" by Te-Nehesi Coates is on my short list for books you have to read. I didn't know who Te-Nehesi was, ended up being introduced to him for a moment at the Aspen Ideas Festival and saw his book a few hours later in the on-campus book shop. I read the back cover and decided to pick it up, not sure when I'd get to it. Last week I had a cross country plane flight and ended up finishing the book. There were a few times that I was completely choked up, stopped to reread sections just to stare in wonder at what some kids have had to go through growing up, happened upon whole sections that seemed to have been written about my own childhood, realized (again) what a blessed life I had lived. I laughed, smiled, and dog-eared pages that were too beautifully written not to re-read to my wife when I landed (even if it meant waking her up). Coates tells the story of his coming of age in inner city Baltimore with an ex-black panther father/vegetarian/publisher, a flock of siblings across four mothers, a passion for comics and sword play, and a wealth of African American history.

"The Telltale Brain" by V Ramachandran is a fascinating walk through a scientist's thinking. V explains some of the most elegant experiments and some of the most cutting edge thinking about the brain. He is credited with performing the first amputation of a phantom limb and that story alone is worth the price of admission. If you're interested at all in the way our brain sees, in the way our brain works, or at least in what we think we know and how the scientific method works, read this book.

Fiction
"Who Fears Death?" by Nnedi Okorafor is a fantasy of genocide, power, myth, & sorcery set in an alternative post-apocalyptic Africa. It grabs you from the first page and weaves a stark, beautiful story. Definitely worth reading and watching for her next novel.

"EmbassyTown" is classic China Mieville. Read it. It takes on the basic idea of xenolinguistics with a culture that is truly alien. It poses the question of whether language itself, in all the ways that we understand it and live it everyday, is a rare innovation. Whether metaphor and simile are givens in a language, and what happens when we meet a truly alien intelligence. Easily one of the best science fiction novels I've read this year.

"The Magician King" by Lev Grossman is a return to the world he introduced to us in his first novel. Same cast of characters, new adventure. Something about both books strikes me as derivative. I don't mean that in a particularly bad way, just that I felt like I had read it all before. Cotton candy. Well written.

"The Quantum Thief" by Hannu Rajaniemi is the first glimpse of a new mind in science fiction. It's a classic space opera with enough ideas per page to make even the most battle weary reader sit up and take notice. My favorite? A privacy "sense." Gold.

"2030" is a dystopian take on the future by first time novelist but well known actor/director/writer Albert Brooks. If you like that sorta thing it's fun. Not particularly shocking since most of what he predicts sounds pretty much like what will actually happen. Earthquake, young revolt against old, china owns part of US, first Jewish president, you know the drill. Not bad.

"Rule 34" by Charles Stross is not for the faint of heart. Rule 34 is the Internet meme that states that any topic can be turned into porn by someone. At face value the book is a murder mystery procedural that gives Stross a chance to explore the near future world where printing things is as cheap as printing paper and the ramifications for "Rule 34" that result. Read it if you can take it.

"Hull Zero Three" by Greg Bear is your classic amnesiac wakes up to explore big dumb object story of a generation ship gone bad. I like Greg Bear's work so am inclined to give it a good grade. Though it didn't stick with me quite like some of his past work. Cotton Candy.

"7th Sigma" by Stephen Gould is a fun coming of age story of a kid with special talents in the metal free (because of some sort of swarming, evolving, metal eating outbreak) south west. Fun. Not particularly deep or meaningful or extremely well written but a welcome distraction.