Category: books

shout out for Climate Change activists

On By Rick McIn audiocasts, blogs, books, friends, health & fitness, philosophyLeave a comment

My buddy Morgen Hartford is on the road (by bike) …

… on a memorial journey through the Pacific Northwest. Honoring old friends, creating new connections. Learning about the systems that power and shape the way we live.

Here he is with a broken spoke on his most recent 1200mi ride.

His excellent blog – A Wild and Sacred Day – documents the trip.

Two of his causes are healthy food and Climate Action.

My main source of information from Climate Change activists is the excellent audiocast Living on Earth, Steve Curwood’s news, features, interviews and commentary on a broad range of ecological issues.

Personally I’m a Climate Change agnostic having done almost no research on the topic aside from reading The Skeptical Environmentalist.

My friend Brian Mason has done exhaustive research concluding that there’s almost no evidence (yet) that man has significantly altered climate. … My gut tells me that’s probably true.

Even if it is, Climate Change activists are doing far more good than harm. Improving Life on Earth. Kudos!

What inspired this post? … I started reading this book, Ectopia (1975) …

The book is set in 1999 (25 years in the future, as seen from 1974) …

Ecotopia, a newly formed country that broke from the USA in 1980. … The new nation of Ecotopia consists of Northern California, Oregon and Washington; it is hinted that Southern California is a lost cause. …

Though the book was a serious vision of ecologists in 1975, it reads as a most hilarious parody in 2010. Funny because the author didn’t intend it to be funny.

Cars are banned. Farms are run by collectives. Women run the government. They enjoy a 20hr work week. And marijuana.

Who today could believe that California would legalize marijuana?

… The link above is an Economist audiocast of Roger Salazar of Public Safety First and Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance debating California’s proposition 19, by far the best analysis of the issue I’ve ever seen.

Invictus – a review

On By Rick McIn books, movies, product endorsements1 Comment

Nelson Mandela is a great hero of mine.

I can’t think of any actor better suited to play him in a Hollywood movie than Morgan Freeman. Nor any director better than Clint Eastwood.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

Loved it.

Invictus is a 2009 biographical drama film based on events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World Cup, hosted in that country following the dismantling of apartheid. …

The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation. Invictus was released in the United States on December 11, 2009.

Here’s the real Mandella with captain François Pienaar. (much bigger than actor Matt Damon, you notice)

Invictus – the poem

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

hmmm …

How do I get to the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand next year …

The Dune Universe

On By Rick McIn books, product endorsements1 Comment

Frank Herbert
The best desert planet sci-fi novel, all would agree is Dune.

Here’s the original series of 6 novels by Frank Herbert, each IMHO weaker and more confusing than the last:

Dune (1965)
Dune Messiah (1969)
Children of Dune (1976)
God Emperor of Dune (1981)
Heretics of Dune (1984)
Chapterhouse Dune (1985)

Much later Frank’s son Brian Herbert and science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson expanded the series, adding many new books. They try to make sense of Frank’s vision.

I’ve now read 6 of the dozen or more Dune books in chronological order:

• Dune: House Atreides (Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson)

• Dune: House Harkonnen (Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson)

• Dune: House Corrino (Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson)

• Paul of Dune (Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson)

• Dune (Frank Herbert)

• Dune Messiah (Frank Herbert)

Frank was a genius in conceiving Dune, I concede.

But the son’s books are far better, more accessible, than his Dad’s.

In Dune Messiah, for example, almost nothing happens … aside from a poorly unexplained nuclear explosion that seems to do no damage except render those nearest to it blind. Was Frank a mad genius? … There was something wrong with his brain, I’m thinking.

I’m not burned out yet. Next up is Winds of Dune.

Last I’ll read the 3 earliest books, the prequels, which look to be excellent.

will humans go extinct?

On By Rick McIn bad news, booksLeave a comment

Eventually, certainly.

But will we go extinct in the next 100yrs?

Professor Frank Fenner thinks we will:

… in an interview with The Australian, the well-respected microbiologist expressed his pessimism for our future. “We’re going to become extinct,” he said. “Whatever we do now is too late.” …

I’m inclined to disagree. Even after reading The Road, a horror story of post-apocalyptic nuclear winter.

In the same article (forwarded me by Dave Adlard) …

In a paper published in the journal Futures last year, researchers approached the question: “Human Extinction: How Could It Happen?”

… “The human race is unlikely to become extinct without a combination of difficult, severe and catastrophic events,” Tobin Lopes, of the University of Colorado at Denver, said in an interview with Discovery News. He added that his team “were very surprised about how difficult it was to come up with plausible scenarios in which the entire human race would become extinct.” …

details on MSNBC – Will humans go extinct within 100 years?

The world might look like this “soon”. …

But some humans will survive.

The Road – Cormac McCarthy

On By Rick McIn books, product endorsements4 Comments

The world will end not with a bang, but a whimper.

I just finished the audio version of Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel The Road.

It won the the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

… a boy and his father lurch across the cold, wretched, wet, corpse-strewn, ashen landscape of a post-apocalyptic world. The imagery is brutal even by Cormac McCarthy’s high standards for despair. This parable is also trenchant and terrifying, written with stripped-down urgency and fueled by the force of a universal nightmare. “The Road” would be pure misery if not for its stunning, savage beauty.

This is an exquisitely bleak incantation — pure poetic brimstone. …

NY Times book review – The Road Through Hell, Paved With Desperation

Highly recommended if you think you have the stomach for it.

Parents of young children may want to pass it by.

I don’t think this book could translate well into a movie. On the other hand, I can’t think of any actor more suited to play the father than Viggo Mortensen.

Robert Sawyer WWW trilogy – Watch

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My brother feels his friend Robert J. Sawyer from Toronto could win another Nebula or Hugo for his WWW trilogy: Wake, Watch, Wonder.

SUPERB.

Thought provoking. Smart. Yet accessible to all ages.

The protagonist is a believable teen girl.

REVIEW by C. Baker:

… WWW: Watch is the second novel of a trilogy about an artificial intelligence, or consciousness that emerges from the World Wide Web.

In the previous novel , WWW: Wake, Catlin Decter, a brilliant 15 year old blind girl is given sight through experimental technology in the form of an implant that interprets visual signals correctly and allows her to see (in her left eye at least). Through this device she discovers a presence in the Web that starts to gain greater and greater cognitive abilities, which grows as the second novel progresses. She dubs it Webmind.

In Watch, we watch as Webmind not only develops cognitive abilities exponentially, but through the help of Catlin begins to develop its sense of ethics and, without being too maudlin, an understanding of “the meaning of life.” This novel is primarily about this development, along with government agencies trying to figure out how to shut Webmind down, fearing it will become so powerful it will destroy mankind. …

Wikipedia

The “story” of this book is that the author feels it’s the strongest of the three. The middle book of trilogy is normally the weakest.

read my review of Book 1 in the trilogy – Wake.

review – A Fraction of the Whole

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Kate insisted I get this book, though I’d not heard of it listed as part of the Dune Universe. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008.

It’s fantastic.

Epic.

One of the great works of literature.

… At the heart of this sprawling, dizzying debut from a quirky, assured Australian writer are two men: Jasper Dean, a judgmental but forgiving son, and Martin, his brilliant but dysfunctional father. …

As philosophical as Confederacy of Dunces.

Laugh out loud funny. Black humour.

The downside? It’s far too long. The sections narrated by the father are much stronger than those narrated by the son.

My best advice is that you get A Fraction of the Whole as an audio book read by Aussies Craig Baldwin and Colin McPhillamy.

… Voicing the character of the father, Colin McPhillamy steals the show with a performance that engages listeners from the start. Everything about his narration seems underplayed and true. This is the perfect mix of comedy and drama …

I feel certain the book is twice as good delivered in a superb Aussie accent.

Amazon lists the audio version at about $39-$51. Crazy. Only stupid newbies pay retail.

Audio books cost about $16. They average about $13 for me, an Audible.com member taking advantage of every “special” that comes along.

______

In contrast, the audio version of Dune is gawd awful.

Rather than have it read by Scott Brick, some idiot decided on an ensemble cast of readers. A blunder.

Dune: House Corrino

On By Rick McIn books, movies, product endorsements2 Comments

Corrino is the 3rd in the prequel trilogy of books leading up to the original novel, Dune.

Dune: House Corrino

Amazon

I enjoyed it so much that I’ll continue with the audio version of the master work, itself.

I see a huge future film epic something like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, the acting and story more important than special effects.

Paramount, I expect, wants to make another Avatar 3D, but … you know, … in the desert.

Chase Palmer has been hired to write director Pierre Morel’s (Taken, From Paris With Love) version of Dune at Paramount. According to THR, Palmer will be working with Morel to stick close to the original source material, which is the 1965 classic book by Frank Herbert. As most of you know, David Lynch took a crack at Dune back in 1984 at Universal.

It’s important to note while Palmer has been hired to write the script, that doesn’t mean Dune is moving in front of the cameras anytime soon. With what has to be a huge budget and complicated source material to adapt, many have tried to get Dune off the ground with little success (Peter Berg). Just because a hot director wants to make the film, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It’s going to take a lot of happy studio executives and some big name stars to get this thing rolling. More as we hear it.

Collider

Dune: House Harkonnen

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Prelude to Dune is a prequel trilogy of novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, set in Frank Herbert’s Dune universe.

The series takes place in the years leading up to the events in the original novel Dune.


* Dune: House Atreides (1999)
* Dune: House Harkonnen (2000)
* Dune: House Corrino (2001)

I’ve just finished the second, Harkonnen, as an audio book read by the masterful Scott Brick.

It’s superb, though not as good as Atreides. There are a few questionable plot points.

Amazon

Highly recommended to any fan of Dune. I can hardly wait for Corrino.

A New History of Gospel Music

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Kate and I were impressed by author Bob Darden interviewed on the CBC radio program Tapestry. (I immediately went and subscribed to the show as an audiocast.)

People Get Ready!: A New History of Gospel Music (2004) is a passionate, celebratory, and carefully researched chronology of one of America’s greatest treasures. From Africa through the spirituals, from minstrel music through jubilee, and from traditional to contemporary gospel, People Get Ready! shows the links between styles, social patterns, and artists.

The emphasis is on the stories behind the songs and musicians. …

Amazon