Books Blog: books.elliottback.com

There is a killer article by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly called J.K. Rowling’s Ministry of Magic which digs deep into why JK Rowling is an awesome writer, and why the Harry Potter series is more than just a blockbuster of modern fiction. First, Stephen shoots down the hype around the Potter book reviews:

“… the very popularity of the books has often undone even the best intentions of the best critical writers. In their hurry to churn out column inches, and thus remain members of good standing in the Church of What’s Happening Now, very few of the Potter reviewers have said anything worth remembering. […] Most reviewers … bolted everything down, then obligingly puked it back up half-digested on the book pages of their respective newspapers.”

When a Harry Potter book comes up there’s too much pressure to race to the press with a review that all that can come out is a brief plot summary and a bit of gush about the next Harry installment! Second, King points out that Rowling is a talented novelist:

“While some of the blogs and the mainstream media have mentioned that Rowling’s ambition kept pace with the skyrocketing popularity of her books, they have largely overlooked the fact that her talent also grew.”

Coming from Stephen King, “one of the finer stylists in her native country” is high praise indeed. He’s particularly taken with “a sweet but uncompromising view of human nature…and hard reality: NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!” that made it into the finale, a mother protecting her daughter from something evil.

Of course, he ends with a cute little jab at the commercialization of the series–not that King is actually jealous–that almost slipped by without notice:

Mostly Rowling is just having fun, knocking herself out, and when a good writer is having fun, the audience is almost always having fun too. You can take that one to the bank (and, Reader, she did).

Robot Dreams, a collection of short stories by the late Isaac Asimov, is a brilliant, cheery piece of work focusing on human-robot interaction, technology and society, and questions of philosophy in science. From long, heart-wrenching stories about couples endowed with strange technology, explorers finding new horizons in space, the great powers of the universal computer, or logical paradoxes in programming, there’s something here for every SF buff.

The slant is definitely hard sci-fi. This book won’t be easily understood by someone not technically minded, for it deals with computers, physics, and mathematics generally and casually.

Still, if you’ve never read Asimov and are ready to jump right in, this might be a good place to start. The stories are interesting, fresh, and with unexpected endings!

Reading the 9/11 Commission Report, I’m struck by the extent to which they attempt to create heroes of the rescue workers responding to the disasters at the World Trade Center, instead of painting them in a more realistic and foolhardy light. As far as I can tell, the only real hero of the WTC evacuation was Morgan Stanley, who ordered the evacuation of twenty of its floors in the South Tower only minutes after the first impact, around 8:49, while the deputy safety fire director decided to wait until he could contact his boss, around 9:02, to start the evacuation (287-289).

The time it took to get the emergency staff on scene was excellent–perhaps only ten minutes had passed before hundreds of police and firefighters arrived. However, the text used to describe it is unusually melodramatic:

The FDNY response began within five seconds of the crash (289)

Whether or not this statement is actually true–it may be hard to verify–it’s clear that the use of such a sharp time-specifier is intended not convey a fact, but an emotional impression of urgent immediacy. When the commission describes how the second 9/11 plane hit, they create another exaggeration to further their agenda of heroism:

What had been the largest and most complicated rescue operation in city history instantly doubled in magnitude (293)

Actually, striking a second tower does not double the size of the rescue operation, but only the scope of the damage to WTC assets. The rescue operation itself, already mobilized in response to the first plane, does not need to substantially redeploy to respond to a second instance of the same threat. An analogy should be made to a fire breaking out in a residential neighborhood. An excessive number of firefighters respond and begin to put out the fire when the house next door catches aflame, as well. Obviously the “rescue operation” does not “instantly double in magnitude,” as the firefighters who were not fully utilized at the first site will simply divide their efforts and work more efficiently.

I have two last jabs at the Heroism chapter. First, when the commission writes, “Many civilians were in awe of the firefighters” (299), are they intending to impress us with a sort of group hypnosis, intoning the virtue of the firefighters and its (so-called) universal acknowledgement? Second, the commission selectively looks at the firefighters it apologizes for:

Climbing up stairs with heavy protective clothing and equipment was hard work even for physically fit firefighters (299)

Well, this implies that all of the firefighting personnel were in excellent shape, rather than acknowledging that the men were actually a mix of elite troops and fat grunts waiting for their retirement to roll around.

Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, might be one of the best economics / scientific method, explore the world around us books that I’ve read in a long time. It’s got 4 star reviews on Amazon.com, and the authors have their own blog. There’s nothing more that I can say except that this book is a must read book. Just buy it.

If you want to read about how legalized abortion cut crime rates, on the co-dependent cheating of sumo wrestlers across win-lose lines and teams, or about why selling crack really isn’t that profitable, this is the book for you. You who ask why until a reasonable explanation is found.

Set in a mythical land Alagaesia, much in theory like Tolkien’s “middle” earth, Eldest (Inheritance, Book 2) continues the saga that Eragon (Inheritance, Book 1) created. In many ways, it’s more satisfying than the new Potter book, because we see actual development of the attributes of the main character as he is trained by the elves. Eldest also introduces a new subplot where his “brother” from home rallies the villagers to move out of the empire into rebel lands. There again, the great war begins, and a new rider is introduced right before the book ends.

There’s even a romance substory between Eragon and the elf he saved before, which amounts to nothing but frustration. Probably Paolini is saving total release until his last book in the trilogy. And while this romantic tension is irritating, everytime Arya refuses his advances when you expect her to finally give in keeps you hooked nicely along.

Read if you liked the first one, or want a quick throw-away fantasy with more plot movement than fresh ideas.