Monday, December 12, 2011

Re-Write Worries

Just converted 'The Burdened Air' into a Mobi file and started to read it.  Needs a lot more work then I'd supposed.  Getting it published by the Fall of next year seems pretty much a pipe dream.  Burdened is going to require a major rewrite. 

Luckily I'm gainfully employed...for now.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Future Babble

I read this work just after reading his 'The Science of Fear' (also published as 'Risk').  Many of the ideas and most of the methodologies have been carried over from this earlier work.  For that I reason I've given this book 4 rather than 5 stars but it is a brilliant piece of work which cuts across ideological frontiers to offer some honest analysis of what futurism generally gets right...just about nothing.  Which ties it closely to the earlier 'The Science of Fear'. 

At the end of the book he offers a bit of a rationale for prediction but warns against reading too closely or discounting variables which could change the outcome.  Mostly, he argues against arrogance and certainty in favour of humility and uncertainty.  In a word predictions are at best: provision.  They may offer direction, suggestions, and ideas worth mulling.  But they can not and should not offer certainty. 

A very useful book in the face of all the futurist books out there...from psychics to environmental armageddon to the rise of China and the fall of America. 

Very accessible....deals with statistics, psychology, neuroscience, general science, political science, sociology, cultural anthropology, current events, and the history of predictions (this was really interesting and made the book worthwhile on its own....but much more made it worth reading as well).

Highly Recommended

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Egg Said Nothing: Review

Shovels and missed opportunities. This was a book which could have risen to the level of literary fiction but flopped about in science fantasy and beta male fantasies. It probably deserves two stars but I've given it three. Where are the problems 1. flat characters with predictable problems 2. no dramatic tension 3. typical three act structure which would have been better as a five act 4. uninspired plotting....kinda reminds me of Jonathan Carroll's "The Wooden Sea" but not as interesting 5. missed opportunities to deepen character and plot....examples: we do not meet his mother until 2/3s of the way through chapter 13 and there are only 16 chapters. She has obviously traumatized him and he feeds off of her parasitically...yet she is only given one solid paragraph and then dismissed to pastiche and cliche. The waitress girlfriend we never learn much of....the whole relationship is the driver of the plot but she's a stick figure. Stealing money to live...there are whole sociological volumes waiting to be exploited here. The multiple selves....who could have missed this opportunity? The great idea is about 'gender relations'....christ almighty are we back in the culture wars where every pathetic idea gets its day? Then this meta-toot is never really explored...even cryptically 6. the prose style was flat and lifeless....all characters sounded the same and little attention was paid to style and dialogue. Was it a bad book...no. But it could have been so much better Okay for a light afternoon read if you don't want to think about anything at all...least of all the story. Yawn.