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And so we are still all about the books in 2018. For those of you who care, I’ve decided to keep my 2018 reading target at 42 books, which is the same as last year. And as you will see, we’re off to a pretty good start.
How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays by Umberto Eco
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Like a lot of people, my introduction to Umberto Eco was The Name of the Rose. This collection of short writings is my second time reading Eco, and it’s a remarkably different experience. Where The Name Of The Rose is a dense philosophical murder mystery, this is a collection mostly of “minimal diaries” in which Eco uses the advice-column format to satirize everything from travel, library rules and computer jargon to gadgets, Amtrak, art catalogs and the blurring of fact and fiction in media, as well as more fantastical ideas like the challenges of creating and updating a 1:1 scale map. It’s often funny and playful in a way I didn’t expect from the same guy who wrote The Name Of The Rose – with minimal editing, many of these could have passed for entries in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. The most interesting (and longest) piece in the book is a science-fiction(ish) story comprised of intergalactic communiques, declarations and documents between various human and alien military organizations dealing with various culture clashes, misunderstandings and bureaucracy. There’s no plot as such but Eco has a lot fun with the premise. A few essays either don't work or are too over my head, but overall I was delightfully surprised to discover Eco has a lighter side to his writing.
The Panchronicon Plot by Ron Goulart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is one of Goulart’s books I read way back in the 80s. This is the second of three novels featuring Jake Conger of the Wild Talents Division – a government agency that employs people with particular superpowers (Conger’s is invisibility). Here, Conger is called out of retirement by his boss Geer to stop the President of the United States, who has apparently gone loopy and is somehow getting rid of his political enemies by sending them back in time and brainwashing them with new identities. Conger’s mission: find out how he’s doing it, stop him, and rescue the people marooned in the past. As usual, Goulart takes a great idea and applies it to his standard template: straight-man hero encounters a succession of oddball characters that advance him towards his goal. Also as usual, Goulart’s humor is the kind that few would dare to write today (such as Vice President Runningwater, who speaks Hollywood Indian when he drinks too much). The main weaknesses here are the time travel bits, which don’t make much sense if you look too closely, and the ending, which even by Goulart standards is too rushed. That said, it’s not meant to be taken seriously, and it’s mostly fun while it lasts.
So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve read Jon Ronson before and I generally like his work. Here, Ronson looks at the resurgence of public shaming via social media platforms (particularly Twitter), and the impact it can have on the targets of such shamings, from psychological and emotional stress to losing their jobs and, in extreme cases, suidide. As with most of Ronson’s work, the book is as much about how he went about investigating the topic as the topic itself, which may not be “proper” journalism, but I’ve always liked his approach – it’s like he’s learning all this along with you.
Consequently, the book takes a non-linear path, bouncing back and forth between contemporary examples of shaming victims, historical precedents (from Colonial-era public whippings to the Stanford Prison Experiment and Judge Ted Poe’s infamous shame-based sentences), why some people can recover from public shaming while others can’t, and the somewhat shadowy world of online reputation management.
Ultimately Ronson’s message is that we need to give serious thought to the phenomenon of public shaming on social media, its impact on victims (who are real people, not imaginary Twitter handles), and its impact on all of us – for example, does Twitter’s collective unforgiving nature force us to self-censor and be more conformist lest we find ourselves trending on Twitter (in a bad way) over some throwaway comment? Criticism and argument is one thing – ruining someone's life over a tweet is something else. In short, I can’t recommend this book enough, if only to get people thinking more seriously about this issue.
From a Certain Point of View by Ben Acker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
One of the many ways that Disney/Lucasfilm marked the 40th Anniversary of the original Star Wars film was this anthology of 40 short stories (or really, 38 stories, one cartoon and a Shakespearian poem) that retell key scenes from the film from the point of view of minor characters. It’s a great idea, and it mostly works, although a quite a few stories take place “off camera”, so to speak, which is how characters like Yoda, Lando Calrissian and Qui-Gon Jinn end up making appearances. Also, while the stories are arranged in chronological order according to the film, it’s not quite the same thing as telling the actual story arc of Episode IV – if you’ve never seen the film before, I doubt you would get the whole story from this, so a good familiarity with the source material is a prerequisite.
For the fans, it does place the story in a much wider scope in terms of both fringe characters and references to past episodes (with a heavy emphasis on Rogue One, naturally). With 43 writers, it’s a wildly diverse collection in style and tone – and ironically, while the majority of writers are vets of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, it’s mainly the writers visiting the universe for the first time that contribute the more imaginative tales, such as Nnedi Okorafor’s story of the trash compactor monster, Ken Liu’s take on Imperial Bureaucracy paperwork, Matt Fraction/Kelly Sue DeConnick’s cantina caper, Adam Christopher’s story about the people on the other end of Han Solo’s “boring conversation” in the prison block, and Mallory Ortberg's official complaint filed by Admiral Totti over being Force-choked by Darth Vader, among others. But that’s not to put down the other contributions – even the average ones are still pretty good.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this – it’s a fun alternate take on the most influential film/story of my childhood. One minor complaint is that it probably provides a little too many POVs on the cantina scene. On the other hand, it’s interesting that despite multiple POVs, there seems to be a consensus on what actually happened between Han Solo and Greedo. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.
View all my reviews
Hokey religions and ancient weapons,
This is dF
How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays by Umberto EcoMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Like a lot of people, my introduction to Umberto Eco was The Name of the Rose. This collection of short writings is my second time reading Eco, and it’s a remarkably different experience. Where The Name Of The Rose is a dense philosophical murder mystery, this is a collection mostly of “minimal diaries” in which Eco uses the advice-column format to satirize everything from travel, library rules and computer jargon to gadgets, Amtrak, art catalogs and the blurring of fact and fiction in media, as well as more fantastical ideas like the challenges of creating and updating a 1:1 scale map. It’s often funny and playful in a way I didn’t expect from the same guy who wrote The Name Of The Rose – with minimal editing, many of these could have passed for entries in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. The most interesting (and longest) piece in the book is a science-fiction(ish) story comprised of intergalactic communiques, declarations and documents between various human and alien military organizations dealing with various culture clashes, misunderstandings and bureaucracy. There’s no plot as such but Eco has a lot fun with the premise. A few essays either don't work or are too over my head, but overall I was delightfully surprised to discover Eco has a lighter side to his writing.
The Panchronicon Plot by Ron GoulartMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is one of Goulart’s books I read way back in the 80s. This is the second of three novels featuring Jake Conger of the Wild Talents Division – a government agency that employs people with particular superpowers (Conger’s is invisibility). Here, Conger is called out of retirement by his boss Geer to stop the President of the United States, who has apparently gone loopy and is somehow getting rid of his political enemies by sending them back in time and brainwashing them with new identities. Conger’s mission: find out how he’s doing it, stop him, and rescue the people marooned in the past. As usual, Goulart takes a great idea and applies it to his standard template: straight-man hero encounters a succession of oddball characters that advance him towards his goal. Also as usual, Goulart’s humor is the kind that few would dare to write today (such as Vice President Runningwater, who speaks Hollywood Indian when he drinks too much). The main weaknesses here are the time travel bits, which don’t make much sense if you look too closely, and the ending, which even by Goulart standards is too rushed. That said, it’s not meant to be taken seriously, and it’s mostly fun while it lasts.
So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon RonsonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve read Jon Ronson before and I generally like his work. Here, Ronson looks at the resurgence of public shaming via social media platforms (particularly Twitter), and the impact it can have on the targets of such shamings, from psychological and emotional stress to losing their jobs and, in extreme cases, suidide. As with most of Ronson’s work, the book is as much about how he went about investigating the topic as the topic itself, which may not be “proper” journalism, but I’ve always liked his approach – it’s like he’s learning all this along with you.
Consequently, the book takes a non-linear path, bouncing back and forth between contemporary examples of shaming victims, historical precedents (from Colonial-era public whippings to the Stanford Prison Experiment and Judge Ted Poe’s infamous shame-based sentences), why some people can recover from public shaming while others can’t, and the somewhat shadowy world of online reputation management.
Ultimately Ronson’s message is that we need to give serious thought to the phenomenon of public shaming on social media, its impact on victims (who are real people, not imaginary Twitter handles), and its impact on all of us – for example, does Twitter’s collective unforgiving nature force us to self-censor and be more conformist lest we find ourselves trending on Twitter (in a bad way) over some throwaway comment? Criticism and argument is one thing – ruining someone's life over a tweet is something else. In short, I can’t recommend this book enough, if only to get people thinking more seriously about this issue.
From a Certain Point of View by Ben AckerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
One of the many ways that Disney/Lucasfilm marked the 40th Anniversary of the original Star Wars film was this anthology of 40 short stories (or really, 38 stories, one cartoon and a Shakespearian poem) that retell key scenes from the film from the point of view of minor characters. It’s a great idea, and it mostly works, although a quite a few stories take place “off camera”, so to speak, which is how characters like Yoda, Lando Calrissian and Qui-Gon Jinn end up making appearances. Also, while the stories are arranged in chronological order according to the film, it’s not quite the same thing as telling the actual story arc of Episode IV – if you’ve never seen the film before, I doubt you would get the whole story from this, so a good familiarity with the source material is a prerequisite.
For the fans, it does place the story in a much wider scope in terms of both fringe characters and references to past episodes (with a heavy emphasis on Rogue One, naturally). With 43 writers, it’s a wildly diverse collection in style and tone – and ironically, while the majority of writers are vets of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, it’s mainly the writers visiting the universe for the first time that contribute the more imaginative tales, such as Nnedi Okorafor’s story of the trash compactor monster, Ken Liu’s take on Imperial Bureaucracy paperwork, Matt Fraction/Kelly Sue DeConnick’s cantina caper, Adam Christopher’s story about the people on the other end of Han Solo’s “boring conversation” in the prison block, and Mallory Ortberg's official complaint filed by Admiral Totti over being Force-choked by Darth Vader, among others. But that’s not to put down the other contributions – even the average ones are still pretty good.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this – it’s a fun alternate take on the most influential film/story of my childhood. One minor complaint is that it probably provides a little too many POVs on the cantina scene. On the other hand, it’s interesting that despite multiple POVs, there seems to be a consensus on what actually happened between Han Solo and Greedo. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.
View all my reviews
Hokey religions and ancient weapons,
This is dF
