David

Woke mess

Revisado: 06-05-21

Cline must be searching for ways to cure a white, guilty conscience after becoming rich and famous, so he shat all over Ready Player One in the second edition. Bet he won't find solace in volume two for his privileged arse, so expect another attempt in which the only way he'll find redemption is by forcing everyone on Earth to be linked to the OASIS and all avatars are morphed into green, androgynous slaves that have to recite a pledge of shared grievance and suffering before a hammer and sickle emoji for the rest of their lives.

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Where's the story?

Revisado: 10-14-19

I've gone through five of Morgan's books, and have only thoroughly enjoyed one, Altered Carbon. The worst is the audio production of Woken Furies, and then this one, Thin Air. Sometimes Morgan is an amazing writer... he can create some of the greatest sentences. But he fails to string them along into a story in Thin Air.

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Worst edition in the series...

Revisado: 11-06-17

I ran the risk of getting this third volume of the series even though there are so many reviews bemoaning how horrible it is. The reviews are right... Morgan did a horrible job writing it, Dufris did a horrible job narrating it, and the producer did a horrible job with sound effects. I'm not sure if Morgan rushed the writing or was too close to his work... because I think he focused too much on the trees and lost sight of the forest. He was very careful with choosing fantastic words, but lost it when trying to string them together in sentences paragraphs and telling a good STORY. Morgan forgot to tell a good story! There's way too many tangents with info dumps to perhaps make it a fat book, but it tortures the reader and listener. That alone is reason enough to not purchase this edition, but the narrator's performance is also enough to not purchase... how can you mispronounce "Takeshi Kovacs"? Then, to make the listener want to reach through his earbuds and strangle the narrator, some idiot producer decided to add an echo chamber to portray memories or "unspoken" thoughts. Whoever had the idea to add the echo chamber should be forced to pay back every one who buys the edition.

Audible 20

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More for Robert Jordan fans...

Revisado: 03-18-12

If Tolkien were still alive, I'm not sure if he would consider this work as plagiarism or as the highest form of flattery. At about 20% into the story, the amount of influence that Tolkien had on Jordan became very distracting and annoying. Needless to say, there is little creativity here. There were a few things of which I was already tired, especially the number of times that the title "Aes Sedai" is used... I mean, come on, make up a thesaurus in this world or be more descriptive about what an "Aes Sedai" is or does rather than continually using the title.

I was also tired of the characters not trusting Moiraine and alluding to her as an Aes Sedai and how untrustworthy all Aes Sedai are -how many times does one have to save another person's life before earning a little respect? I think Jordan should have made the Two Rivers folks on the quest a little less dense. It is not that they just lack experience and are naive, they're pretty dumb. By the middle, I felt that they had better wake up soon and realize the gravity of the situation, otherwise I was going to start rooting for their enemy.

In the end... I didn't find any characters worthy of admiration. I found it rather tedious and boring following characters from town to town to town to town to town without any plot or character development. I can't believe that there are eleven more books following this one, but Jordan obviously had a following. Perhaps Brandon Sanderson was able to add something to the ending of the series worth reading...?

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Happiness is not found here...

Revisado: 02-02-12

Jonathan Haidt is a self professed Jewish, atheist, psychologist. After an existential crisis, he studied philosophy in undergraduate school. Then he went on to study psychology, and then had a hobby of observing morality.

In The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Haidt attempts to present a series of issues (10) about life from the viewpoint of various religions, philosophies, and psychology. Haidt aims to identify psychological ideas discovered by thinkers of the past - Plato, Buddha, Jesus and others - and to examine them in the light of contemporary psychological research, extracting from them any lessons that still apply to contemporary life. Central to the book are the concepts of virtue, happiness, fulfillment, and meaning. His moral foundations theory looks at the way morality varies between cultures and identifies five fundamental moral values shared to a greater or lesser degree by different societies and individuals.

Hadit is much better a talking about the brain than religion and philosophy. Unfortunately, he spent more ink on religion and philosophy. He tries to present various religious tenants and philosophical positions, but he does not do a very good job summarizing those views. At times it seems as though Haidt is just presenting a summary of a viewpoint, but too often he offers a criticism or interpretation that misrepresents the viewpoint. He also presents arguments and conclusions that are not logistically sound. Several times he creates self-referential fallacies.

The most annoying thing is that Haidt is very arrogant. He dismisses the notion of God as a delusion and evil as a myth. Several times he wrongly refers to evil as "pure evil", misrepresenting the religious viewpoint. Because of his prejudice, Hadit's presentation on anthropology and human happiness is underdeveloped to inaccurate. The book is not a complete waste of time, though; I did appreciate the sections that were focused on psychology, especially brain physiology. But he too frequently goes outside of his expertise and comes across as an amateur sociologist and philosopher.

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An interesting hind's sight review.

Revisado: 01-08-12

An interesting hind's sight review of McNamara's memoir/account as Secretary of Defense during Presidents Kennedy's and Johnson's administrations. Some of the details are a bit obscure, so I am not sure why McNamara needed to put so much minutia in the book, but for the most part I think McNamara comes across as genuine. Maybe he wanted to disclose details that had previously been left untold...? I find it amazing that policymakers and military leaders chose strategies but did not follow through with the logistics and tactics to support the operations. I also find it amazing as to how many decisions were made based on fear of hypothetical scenarios rather than known facts.

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I was hoping for so much more...

Revisado: 01-08-12

At the end of Thrawn Trilogy, I am surprised that these three stories had such an impact on the world of Star Wars publishing. I did not find the stories to be very entertaining or exciting. I think all of the characters are flat, and Zahn essentially depends on everything that Lucas put into the main characters. Some of the ideas that Zahn tried to present aren't too bad, but there were plenty of opportunities to grow the characters and it just doesn't happen. The writing on Leia is the worst, because all of her spunky personality is left out. The next worst job is with Han, and then Leia's and Han's interaction just doesn't have any of the enjoyable banter that every fan came to appreciate. I think that Luke has most of the attention, but even though Luke has most of the focus and action, he is the same from beginning to end. There are so many novels and notelets in the Star Wars' industry that I hope to find some better installments.

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I was hoping for so much more...

Revisado: 01-08-12

At the end of Thrawn Trilogy, I am surprised that these three stories had such an impact on the world of Star Wars publishing. I did not find the stories to be very entertaining or exciting. I think all of the characters are flat, and Zahn essentially depends on everything that Lucas put into the main characters. Some of the ideas that Zahn tried to present aren't too bad, but there were plenty of opportunities to grow the characters and it just doesn't happen. The writing on Leia is the worst, because all of her spunky personality is left out. The next worst job is with Han, and then Leia's and Han's interaction just doesn't have any of the enjoyable banter that every fan came to appreciate. I think that Luke has most of the attention, but even though Luke has most of the focus and action, he is the same from beginning to end. There are so many novels and notelets in the Star Wars' industry that I hope to find some better installments.

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Worth a read but not Harris' best.

Revisado: 01-08-12

This was more interesting (earth science) than entertaining, and I think Harris' Imperium and Conspirata were written better on every level. It is still worth a read, but I am betting that the movie will be better than the book, because a lot of the "drama" is more visual than descriptive. I also didn't think that Harris spent enough time developing characters, but the plot moves pretty quickly and I think each act is interesting enough to hold the reader's attention.

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I was hoping for so much more...

Revisado: 01-08-12

At the end of Thrawn Trilogy, I am surprised that these three stories had such an impact on the world of Star Wars publishing. I did not find the stories to be very entertaining or exciting. I think all of the characters are flat, and Zahn essentially depends on everything that Lucas put into the main characters. Some of the ideas that Zahn tried to present aren't too bad, but there were plenty of opportunities to grow the characters and it just doesn't happen. The writing on Leia is the worst, because all of her spunky personality is left out. The next worst job is with Han, and then Leia's and Han's interaction just doesn't have any of the enjoyable banter that every fan came to appreciate. I think that Luke has most of the attention, but even though Luke has most of the focus and action, he is the same from beginning to end. There are so many novels and notelets in the Star Wars' industry that I hope to find some better installments.

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