The Art of Meditation.

Meditation is a practice. What is there to say about a book on mediation, other than "Do it."

 

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Surface Details

 

Another book from the Culture Series.  It continues the tradition of having almost no links to the other books other than the background.

 

It also has a bit of a tendency to come across as a bunch of short stories all linked together by the same theme—virtual life, downloading personalities to avoid death and virtual hells.

 

There are some parts of the book that a really good. As usual, Banks just drops them and moves on to the next topic. I'm thinking here about section where Yime was on the Unfallen Bulbitan. The Bulbitan attacks a Culture ship. That sequence is very exciting. But it just ends. In fact, Yime could have been edited out of the book completely.

 

 

Use Of Weapons by Iain M. Banks.

I am slowly going through Bank's Culture novels.

Some thoughts on the Culture series. There doesn't appear to be an overall narrative arc. He uses "The Culture" as a background to tell whatever type of science fiction he wants. He doesn't have to recreate the universe when a new idea hits him. The Culture is big enough that many sci-fi ideas can fit into it.

Use of Weapons follows a man who the Culture has hired to intervene in wars of non-Culture societies to help them end with less bloodshed. Or maybe that's end to the Culture's advantage. Zakalwei (The protagonist) can never really tell.

There is much in this book as it alternates between the main-story, and the background story of Zakalwei. There is a lot of powerful and exciting writing in this novel. But the shifts in location and story line are very abrupt.  I'm also not a big fan of the final "Twist" With a good twist, you can go back and go over the clues that you missed. No so much here. The twist felt bolted on, like something that occurred to Banks at the last minute. Not something that was woven into the story from the beginning.

 

Redshirts...

This is the first book I've read in a while that I've really had fun with. It riffs on the infamous Red shirt mem from Star Trek—that the unknown guy with the red shirt is always the guy to die on an away mission. In the book, the red shirts realize what's happening to them—that one of them will die every time they go on a mission with the captain. They begin complex and funny schemes and plans to avoid away missions at all costs.

 

 

 

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Lafayette in the Somewhat Unite States

By Sarah Vowell.

 

The Revolutionary war got off to a rocky start. After rebelling against Britain for raising taxes, it was difficult to raise the taxes needed to pay for the army needed to fight that rebellion.

 

Along come the French and Lafayette. Looking for glory. Looking for discount ways to harass the English.

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Against the Gods

The Remarkable Story of Risk. By Peter Bernstein.

 

Over the centuries, risk has evolved from God's will, to something that can be analyzed and thought through. While much of the future is unknowable, parts of it do obey the laws of probability. Warning, warning… parts of it do not. You can't manage risk away. That has a habit of blowing up.  

 

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The Game Theorists Guide to Parenting.

 

This book looks at many common child rearing problems through the eyes of Game theory.  What works. What are the pit falls.

 

How should you split chores?

How should you split cake?

How do you decide what movie to watch?

 

The book points out that the common cake splitting strategy—one child cuts, the other chooses—can be used in many situations. One child creates two lists of chores, the other chooses. One child creates to piles of toys. The other chooses.

 

All of these break down with three or more children, though there are complicated ways you can deal with this.

 

The book also has a section on voting and it's pitfalls. When you are voting for more than two things, then there are many corner cases were less preferable options will win.