My OCD completionist tendencies have driven me to add this, the earliest book I can remember. My Dad read it to me at bedtime, when I was a small child in the early 1970s. We also had a few sequels. Googling around for them, I'm delighted to realize that I recognize the titles, covers, and illustrations. Amazing what is retained in the old noggin.
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Jonathan Hartley reviewed The Three Pirates Meet (Griffin Pirate Stories) by Sheila K. McCullagh (Griffin pirate stories)
Jonathan Hartley reviewed The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Three-Body Problem Series, #1)
Not just bizarrely nihilistic and cynical, but also pro-authoritarian propaganda
1 star
Content warning This book is intensely political.
Everyone loves this, but I can't understand why nobody seems to be put off, or at least puzzled, but the way that every human individual or organization in the book is just relentlessly awful, ranging from suicidal to genocidal, and everything in-between, without respite.
Most of them, given any chance at all, are trying hard to selfishly save their own skins, with not a moment's regard for the fact that their plans will immediately doom the rest of the human race. Those not intent on self preservation at any cost are instead committed to bitter nihilism, such as the ultimate eco-terrorists, who feel that to save the Earth's biosphere they must collaborate with alien forces to bring about humanity's defeat, and likely annihilation.
These characters and groups are not depicted as outliers. They represent the human race in its entirety. The only thing that holds back this tide of destructive behavior is the government, who keeps everyone in line.
I can't tell how much of this bizarrely one-sided depiction of humanity is a deliberate choice by the author, versus simply being an unplanned exposure of their worldview, shaped as it is by their native Chinese immersion in authoritarianism. Does that form a subconscious backdrop to everything they wrote here, or are they consciously making a deliberate point that strong government is absolutely necessary?
The author Liu Cixin has since gone on record in support of the Chinese government's internment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang. There, people have been rounded up, because of their ethnicity, into over 400 internment camps. The camps administer cultural and religious re-education, forced labor, involuntary sterilization and abortion. This is something Liu Cixin is openly in favor of.
It makes my skin crawl to read that, and then carry on blithely with this story book of theirs, which seems to be an unapologetic justification for an authoritarian government's impositions on its populate. I did finish it, but have no desire to read the sequels - and not just because I don't agree with the politics. I genuinely found the behavior of all the characters to be intrusively bewildering, demented and incessantly frustrating.
Jonathan Hartley reviewed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Splendid tale, in a symbolic setting which is strikingly and evocatively minimal.
4 stars
Content warning Minor spoiler, which reveals a mid-book event which is very different in setting than the consistency of the opening chapters might suggest.
I really enjoyed this. I was captured by the reliable hook of an initially confounding fantastic or symbolic setting, gradually made comprehensible as information is revealed and the reader acclimatizes to the concepts in play. The infinite architectures of The House reminds me of the similarly spectacular House of Leaves, or the YouTube Backrooms phenomenon. It makes me want to revisit the symbolic locations of Banks "The Bridge". It reminds me of deeply evocative late nights, lost in endless videogame worlds.
About 2/3 of the way through, I caught a reference as a character is using childhood memories as part of a ritual to reopen a doorway to a lost world, from the rose garden of his childhood home. As potential doorways begin appearing, he notes "The color of the roses was supernaturally bright."
This is no doubt a deliberate reference to Aldus Huxley's "Doors of Perception" (bookwyrm.social/book/168195/s/the-doors-of-perception-and-heaven-and-hell-perennial-classics), a trip report on the opening of said doors during the psychedelic experience of mescaline, in which repeated reference is made to a supernaturally bright and vivid vase of flowers, "shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged".
Some potential, but didn't gel for me
2 stars
Some interesting ideas, but as perhaps gently hinted at by Gibson's own genial, generous and self-aware introduction, despite his love for the Alien universe, writing a screenplay under contract was not familiar territory for him, he had constraints, and it's perhaps not his best work.
I found both the dialog and the visual composition to be needlessly confusing. I was trying too hard to understand things like people's relative positions in the room, and which characters are even present in the scene, and whether I was even reading the dialog in the right order. Maybe it's whip smart and I'm just not keeping up?
As an example, the first time we see Bishop, his top half has been put back on a cheap set of legs, his memory has been strip mined, he's been through a lot, and his eyes are just pitch black. I thought this was maybe a …
Some interesting ideas, but as perhaps gently hinted at by Gibson's own genial, generous and self-aware introduction, despite his love for the Alien universe, writing a screenplay under contract was not familiar territory for him, he had constraints, and it's perhaps not his best work.
I found both the dialog and the visual composition to be needlessly confusing. I was trying too hard to understand things like people's relative positions in the room, and which characters are even present in the scene, and whether I was even reading the dialog in the right order. Maybe it's whip smart and I'm just not keeping up?
As an example, the first time we see Bishop, his top half has been put back on a cheap set of legs, his memory has been strip mined, he's been through a lot, and his eyes are just pitch black. I thought this was maybe a neat representation of his burned out state - the synthetic who used to have a personality we'd grown to love, but was now just a burned out husk. But then suddenly, over the page, his eyes are fine. I think it was just an accident. They just forgot to draw his eyes for a few panels. Which is fine, stuff happens, I'm already being way too whiny about it. Or maybe his eyes really were gone, and then they got fixed? But, then there is another character whose whole head is just black for a panel, so I guess mistakes like this do happen? I'm just not sure, and while this is a tiny, inconsequential thing, I spent way too long trying to figure out a whole bunch of different things like this. Is it reading right? Or am I just not reading it right? Like I say, needlessly confusing.
Jonathan Hartley reviewed Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist, #1)
I really wanted to like it, but just couldn't
2 stars
I had high hopes, and it was pressed into my hands by an acquaintance, in exchange for me forcing "Watchmen" on them, so expectations were high. But I just couldn't get along with it at all.
On a frame-by-frame level, I'm unused to the Manga style of dialog and presentation (eg overblown reaction shots when a character is outraged, etc), which presumably is all heavily dependant on conventions of Japanese language and culture. To me it just seems, at times, puzzlingly opaque and juvenile. No doubt the fault is mine.
At a higher level, I was failing to pick up on any interesting themes or symbolic content. It's just a ripping yarn about some boys in a world of magic. Which has its place! It wouldn't surprise me if a reader with relevant experience tells me I'm missing important things here. But, lacking that insight, this one wasn't for me. …
I had high hopes, and it was pressed into my hands by an acquaintance, in exchange for me forcing "Watchmen" on them, so expectations were high. But I just couldn't get along with it at all.
On a frame-by-frame level, I'm unused to the Manga style of dialog and presentation (eg overblown reaction shots when a character is outraged, etc), which presumably is all heavily dependant on conventions of Japanese language and culture. To me it just seems, at times, puzzlingly opaque and juvenile. No doubt the fault is mine.
At a higher level, I was failing to pick up on any interesting themes or symbolic content. It's just a ripping yarn about some boys in a world of magic. Which has its place! It wouldn't surprise me if a reader with relevant experience tells me I'm missing important things here. But, lacking that insight, this one wasn't for me.
On of less than ten books I've failed to finish in my lifetime.
Jonathan Hartley reviewed Hyperion by Dan Simmons (Hyperion Cantos, #1)
A smashing, gripping story, with prominent elements I'm unable to decode.
4 stars
Content warning Major recapitulation of the first of the book's six interwoven tales, short phrases describing three characters, one of whom only appears late in the book, and some fruitless discussion of the novel's many connections with John Keats.
The structure, of tales told by a set of traveling companions, is purportedly inspired by Chaucer's 1387 'Canterbury Tales' (bookwyrm.social/book/567942/s/the-canterbury-tales), but this similarity seems superficial. Chaucer may have created a pivotal work that is known for doing it first, but it seems like a common enough device.
Once I got into the first chapters, I realized that I'd started reading this book once before, decades ago in my twenties, but had abandoned it near the start, disgusted by its lack of gritty hard-SF rigor. Coming back to it now, aged 49, that did still ruffle my feathers a little, but not so much that I couldn't plow on, and I was rewarded for it.
The intertwined tales told by each member of the group were all engaging, but they start off strong, with the horrifying initial story told by the disillusioned priest, Hoyt. This stoked my engagement, setting the emotional tone for the rest of the book. Hoyt recounts records made by one of his sect, an older priest, who discovered the Bikura, a jungle village of strangely placid and incurious idiots, regressed descendants of the occupants from a crashed spacecraft several centuries ago. The Bikura are each host to an alien organism, which grows on the walls of a nearby cave, taking the shape of a cruciform. When placed on human flesh, these quickly embed themselves, and grow internal tendrils through the whole human body. Each of the Bikura sports such a cruciform on their chest.
In addition, the Bikura worship at a spectacular cavernous Christian cathedral, hidden deeper within the caves. This construction appears to significantly predate Christ's lifetime on Earth, which the priest interprets as material proof of the objective truth of Christianity. He is elated by the discovery, and looks forward to bringing this news back to civilization.
Eventually the Bikura realize that the crucifix the priest wears around his neck is not, as they initially assumed, the same as their own cruciforms, and force one of the alien cruciforms upon him. When he comes around, it has embedded itself in his flesh.
The priest later witnesses one of the villagers resurrected from death by their cruciform, which reconstructs both body and mind. He realizes that the villagers are not descendants from the old crashed spacecraft, but are instead its original occupants, each resurrected time and again over the centuries. However, the cruciform's reconstructions are imperfect. Over the years this process has rendered them not just mentally regressed, but also sterile and in fact sexless by the process. Degenerate in body, mind and spirit.
Horrified, he attempts to remove the organism from his chest, but fails. He attempts to return to civilization, but discovers that the cruciform induces immense pain when he strays too far away. He speculates that it could be forced to retreat out of his body by sufficient pain or physical damage, and eventually crucifies himself on a "Tesla tree", a native species that induces a continual stream of lightning. There he hangs, crucified, burned and electrocuted, yet kept alive by the cruciform to endure endless agony.
After seven years the charred husk of his remains are found, by Hoyt who is relating the story. But even then, the priest was still alive. The cruciform was easily removed at this point, and upon his release, the priest briefly smiled with joy at escaping from it, before dying "the true death".
It becomes apparent that Hoyt later gained a crucifix of his own, at the hands of the villagers, and he has become desperately dependent on pain killers and medication for its management. All of which will have implications for the group that find themselves travelling with him.
In such ways, this tale bleeds into the ones that follow, from the other members of the group. They are not all quite as electrifying as this initial one, but it has already set the emotional tone, and its momentum carried me, rapt, through them all. The tales all spiral inward towards the nexus of the Shrike, a cruel and deadly creature, composed of the unlikely-looking blades depicted on the cover. The Shrike's mastery over time itself makes the creature unbeatable, inescapable, and each member of the group seems to have an appointment with it, of one sort or another.
There's probably more significance to the symbols and themes in the book, but right now I can't figure out what it is. The recurring Keats references are a prominent sign that I'm failing to understand some major aspect of it.
The name "Hyperion" is an old name for Apollo, god of the sun, distinguished for his brilliant beauty (www.webster-dictionary.net/definition/hyperion). Ill-educated heathen that I am, I had only a nebulous awareness that Hyperion is the title of a 900 line poem by Keats (poets.org/poem/hyperion). Reading it now, I see it depicts Saturn's mourning at being exiled from Olympus by Zeus, while the still-glorious Hyperion, discomfited that the new gods should displace his peers the venerable Titans, rages against intrusive visions which hint at his own encroaching downfall. He struggles with the phantoms of these visions, threatening to wield the mighty power of sun to bring the daytime early, and drive fear into the new Gods, but recognizes that even he cannot upset the balance of Nature so dramatically. He is driven with unaccustomed woe to withhold from the Earth the blessing of his sun, wreathed in a dismal rack of clouds. Coelus, primal god of the sky, whispers to Hyperion about her grief that he and her other sons, including Saturn her first-born, were once unruffled high gods, but are now beheld in fear, hope, and wrath, just like the mortals of the world beneath. Coelus reminds Hyperion that while she is but an ethereal presence in the world, he is an evident god, capable of acting on the world, and she urges him to do so, while she watches his sun in his absence. Hyperion gathers himself, and dives down to Earth to aid Saturn. Meanwhile Hyperion's wife Thea has lead Saturn to the deposed Titans, gathered in a glade. They talk of war, but are discouraged by Oceanus explanation although Zeus lightning and Jove's thunder were the instruments of their downfall, these events cannot be undone by mere struggle. Just as they, the Titans, had succeeded an elder world of chaos and darkness, so they were now in turn deposed by the evolution of Heaven and Earth to fairer powers than they. Wisdom lies in accepting these truths of the natural order. Her words leave Hyperion and the other Titans dejected. We then see Hyperion's successor, Apollo, seek help from the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, with his dejection, and with his struggle to access is perception of his own latent power. Upon looking in her eyes, Apollo is overcome by an agonizing shift into a new consciousness, deifying him. He emerges from the transformation, resplendent and immortal, just as the poem abruptly ends in mid-sentence, unfinished.
What does this have to do with Dan Simmons' Hyperion? There is clearly more to it than simply a throwaway reference. Simmons named one major character after a combination of Keats' lover, and one of Keats' fictional creatures. A second major character is working on an unfinished epic poem. And eventually Keats himself, or a character bearing his inferred memories, is resurrected into the story.
I confess I cannot see the allusions that are being made here. I wish I was smart enough to be able to articulate the intended purpose of these references. Perhaps Dan Simmons just really loves Keats a lot? Does anyone else have any thoughts about this?
Jonathan Hartley rated Fullmetal Alchemist: 1 star
Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist, #1)
Jonathan Hartley rated From Hell: 5 stars
Jonathan Hartley rated Understanding Comics: 5 stars
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics …
Jonathan Hartley rated Jimmy Corrigan: 5 stars
Jonathan Hartley rated Zodiac: 2 stars
Zodiac by Neal Stephenson
Sangamon Taylor's a New Age Sam Spade who sports a wet suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt …
Jonathan Hartley rated Quicksilver: 5 stars
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (The Baroque Cycle, #1/8)
In which Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era …
Jonathan Hartley reviewed Python Beyond the Basics by Al Sweigart
Review of 'Python Beyond the Basics' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This book is a brilliant "next step" for people who are learning the Python programming language. If you've read a book or some tutorials about the language itself, or are writing your first programs, then this book is for you. It will expand your awareness of the sort of things you ought to know about, beyond the basics of the Python language itself.
It collects together wisdom from a wide range of topics, such as characterizing good code versus bad, the absolute bare minimum nuggets extracted from a computer science degree that you really might need from time to time (presented very approachably), and introductions to common tools from the Python ecosystem, like the code formatter "Black", or source control with "Git", and why you might want to get to grips with them. Many other topics are covered - see the contents:
PART 1: GETTING STARTED
Chapter 1: Dealing with …
This book is a brilliant "next step" for people who are learning the Python programming language. If you've read a book or some tutorials about the language itself, or are writing your first programs, then this book is for you. It will expand your awareness of the sort of things you ought to know about, beyond the basics of the Python language itself.
It collects together wisdom from a wide range of topics, such as characterizing good code versus bad, the absolute bare minimum nuggets extracted from a computer science degree that you really might need from time to time (presented very approachably), and introductions to common tools from the Python ecosystem, like the code formatter "Black", or source control with "Git", and why you might want to get to grips with them. Many other topics are covered - see the contents:
PART 1: GETTING STARTED
Chapter 1: Dealing with Errors and Asking for Help
Chapter 2: Environment Setup and the Command Line
PART 2: BEST PRACTICES, TOOLS, AND TECHNIQUES
Chapter 3: Code Formatting with Black
Chapter 4: Choosing Understandable Names
Chapter 5: Finding Code Smells
Chapter 6: Writing Pythonic Code
Chapter 7: Programming Jargon
Chapter 8: Common Python Gotchas
Chapter 9: Esoteric Python Oddities
Chapter 10: Writing Effective Functions
Chapter 11: Comments, Docstrings, and Type Hints
Chapter 12: Organizing Your Code Projects with Git
Chapter 13: Measuring Performance and Big O Algorithm Analysis
Chapter 14: Practice Projects
PART 3: OBJECT-ORIENTED PYTHON
Chapter 15: Object-Oriented Programming and Classes
Chapter 16: Object-Oriented Programming and Inheritance
Chapter 17: Pythonic OOP: Properties and Dunder Methods
Experienced programmers won't find anything new here, which in itself is a testament to how each of the topics presented really are foundational to becoming a better programmer.
For everyone else, this is a sensible guided tour, written in straightforward, demystifying text, that will improve all the programming you do from this point on. Read this book, and add computer programming to your skill set.
The Python community is booming, friendly, and diverse, and includes people from all walks of life, from academics, hobbyist game developers, cutting-edge machine-learning and data-scientist people, commercial folks who build websites and online services, and all sorts of people who just want to get something done, quickly and easily. Welcome aboard - we're very glad to have you.
Jonathan Hartley rated House of Leaves: 5 stars
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Nothing, in all it's entirety.