What I've Been Reading
May 12, 2011
As usual I received a lot of books for Christmas and my birthday. Here's what I've been reading so far this year.
The Wind-up Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi. I never wanted to visit Thailand or try exotic fruits as much as while reading this novel. A depressing look at a future world of high global temperatures, a complete collapse of the globalized economy, and biological nightmares. The setting was very well thought-out and the characterizations among the best in science fiction. It deserves its many awards.
Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I’ve been avoiding Stephenson for years now, not because I don’t always enjoy his books, but because I so much hate his endings. I’m happy to report that the ending of Anathem did not leave me with the usual feeling of incompleteness. Set on a world where intellectuals self-select into quasi-monastic communities to study and contemplate without worldly distractions, the fictional intellectual tradition is incredibly detailed. Stephenson must have invested a great deal in research. It is also the most Platonist novel I’ve ever read. Stephenson might not have set out to reinvigorate Plato’s metaphysical concepts, but he certainly persuaded me that perhaps they deserve a second look and deeper study.
The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich. One of the more experimental novels I’ve read. This novel is told from the point of view of a homeless teenage runaway and sometimes prostitute. She thinks of herself as a kind of vampire sucking away at the life-force of middle-aged men in roadside bathrooms. The prose is hypnotic in the same way that a slow-paced film is after 1am.
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. Time travel stories have a long history in science fiction, with each author taking up the paradox and resolving it in new ways. In this story, Joe Haldeman presents a time travel machine without any apparent paradox since it can only move forward in time. MIT graduate student Matt Fuller accidentally invents such a machine and begins to use it to run away from his problems. Because the machine moves exponentially farther ahead each time it is activated, he eventually ends up far in the future.
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. I wrote about this novel previously.
The Big Short by Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis profiles several people who made huge winning bets during the 2008 financial crisis. While many people predicted calamity, few people had enough foresight to see the impending disaster combined with the confidence and resources to act. As usual, Lewis focuses on the human side of the financial system while simultaneously explaining the technical intricacies of mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps in a way that laymen can understand.
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds. Reynolds is known for his space operas featuring long-dead alien races, ancient interstellar puzzles, and massive orbital superstructures. This novel features all three, but combines it with an alternate history version of Paris 1959 in which the Germans failed to invade France preventing the full scale of WWII. It seems some alien race, for unknown reasons, has been preparing “back-up copies” of the Earth and storing them in massive spheres of unknown composition. Since the original Earth has been destroyed in a nanotech plague, the discovery of a backup leads to fighting between the remaining human factions.
Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal. A dangerous book in the sense that it makes me want to quit my job and start an indie game studio. This would likely be a financial disaster. However, McGonigal’s argument, that games provides more tools for happiness than real life and that, rather than abandon real life to games, we should work to provide real life with more ludic experiences. I’ve often joked that real life needed more progress bars, and indeed this is one of her points. Real life does not measure progress well, it doesn’t provide good feedback, and goals are often poorly defined. McGonigal herself has developed several games with the goal of improving on everyday experience.
Moxyland by Lauren Beukes. Wow I didn't know people were still writing cyberpunk. Beukes picks up the mantle perfectly, updating the genre with mobile phones, corporate schools, and third-world globalization.
Masterminds of Programming by Federico Biancuzzi. A collection of interviews with the writers of popular programming languages. There were some good insights and anecdotes here. It was interesting how often my impressions of a language coincided with my impressions of its author in the interview. For example, Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++, comes across as very precise, business-like and somewhat verbose. I learned a lot about early UNIX culture from the chapter on awk.
X-Men and Philosophy by William Irwin, Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski. A collection of philosophical essays inspired by the X-Men comics and movies. An entertaining way to approach some thought-provoking material. I especially enjoyed the essay on the ethics of affiliation.
The Player of Games by Iain M Banks. I’ve enjoyed all the Culture novels I’ve read, but this one is definitely my favorite. The protagonist is a masterful game player and is invited to play an incredibly complex game in a tournament in a faraway galactic empire. The winner of this tournament becomes the new emperor. As usual the scope of Banks’ imagination is impressive.