A fairly funny detective story with time travel and a little chaos theory. The mystery writer is present in the story in the form of the “continnum”, a never-explained phenomenon which attempts to prevent historians who travel back in the past from messing up history too much by arranging for all kinds of doubtful coincidences in order to fix things and solve the crime.
In addition to numerous references to 1930’s mystery authors, like Agatha Christie, there are quite a few references to a 19th century novel called Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog). Having never read that book, I probably missed a number of nods to that, apparently famous, British comedy by Jerome K. Jerome.
An engrossing discussion of selfishness and altruism from the point of view of evolutionary theory. Most of the ‘selfishness’ and ‘altruism’ in the book are unconscious evolutionary strategies for individuals and for genes rather than the conscious intentions normally implied by those terms.
In the last chapter of The Selfish Gene (added in the second edition) Dawkins summarized The Extended Phenotype, but recommended skipping the chapter and reading the whole book. So that’s what I did, and I was not disappointed. Dawkins considers this book to be his best and Daniel Dennet, in the afterward for the second edition, says it is required reading for modern students of neo-Darwinism.
Although set in the future, this book is more like high fantasy than sci-fi and technology is basically treated like magic. There are also strong mystical overtones throughout. I do like high fantasy, but that genre has to walk a fine line between earnestness and just pure silliness. I think this book is more of the latter than the former. The book is also told from the point of view of a single character and with 900 pages to get through the single reference point gets old fast, or at least it did for me.
A devastating account of the war on drugs in the US. If you think the current approach to the war on drugs is basically correct, you need to read this book. And if you don’t, this book will confirm your suspicions.
A good sci-fi adventure with interesting and well-drawn characters. The book leans more towards plot and character development than technological speculation.
A riveting account of United States history from the point of view of those not in power. A nice antidote to traditional histories that focus on politics, wars, and “great men”.
I love reading about the theory of evolution. Darwin’s first book which set the theory of evolution on its feet is still good reading after almost 150 years. The prose is more verbose than modern readers are used to, but the arguments and explanations presented are still clear and compelling.
