Bloogs

"The Terminal Man" by Michael Crichton

2010-12-26T18:21:00.000Z

Another Crichton. This one is already quite old, published in 1972. The theme is human-machine interfaces and mind control. At the time of publication this was probably a hot topic, given that personal computers were just about to take off. From today's perspective it is not very impressive, but still makes for a somewhat entertaining read. The story is this: A man with epileptic seizures is chosen as a test subject for a neuro-surgical procedure that links the affected brain regions to a computer interface. The wires protruding from the brain can be used to stimulate different parts of the brain, some of which might cause seizures to seize.
The patient, however, is somewhat paranoid, believing that machines are going to take over control. After the operation, he manages to escape, while the machine attached to his brain continues to give stimulating impulses with a different effect than intended. He becomes uncontrollably violent and his doctors find themselves in a race against time to find and fix him.
The book broaches some interesting philosophical topics related to psychiatric procedures. One example would be the notion of 'mind-control' that the public might be afraid of when imposed by doctors, while at the same time parents exert much greater mind control over their children with sometimes catastrophic effects.

All in all a good read, albeit outdated in its technical details. A movie was made based on this book which I haven't seen.

"Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh

2010-11-14T14:43:00.001Z

So, is it possible to write an entertaining book about mathematics, in particular, mathematical proofs? Well, it depends. If you have some inclination towards mathematics and the history of science you might really enjoy this book, like I did. It is also great if you want to brush up on some basic math in an entertaining way.

This non-fiction book is about a mathematical problem that dates back to ancient greece, where the Pythagoreans, a secretive "math club" around philosopther Pythagoras, worked on several aspects of number theory. Probably the most important discovery from that time was the theorem about the sides in a right-angled triangle that every kid in school has to memorise:

.

This relation is easy to prove (several proofs are given in the appendix of the book).The more general equation, aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ however is not. In fact, for n>2 there is no solution for this equation. Proving this has taken until 1995.
The French mathematician Clement-Samuel Fermat claimed a proof in 1670, but without bothering to actually write it down. It is only due to his apparent genius and other achievements that mathematicians in centuries to follow actually believed Fermat's claim. Ever since, brilliant minds have been unsuccessful in coming up with a proof themselves.
Finally, Andrew Wiles, who had become obsessed with Fermat's last theorem already as a child, and after dedicating his entire career to developing the necessary mathematical tools, solved this problem once and for all in a 100+ page long treatise.

The book takes you through the different centuries and acquaints you with the many great mathematicians who have made significant contributions to number theory and thus provided different pieces to the puzzle. You will enter the oddly fascinating world of mathematical rigour, which yields eternal truths that no other discipline of human thoughts can produce. Mathematical proofs, if done correctly, are valid forever. The pythagorean theorem is a great example for that. Also, you will get to know some of the strangest characters science has known. It is fascinating to see the passion and dedication some people invest in solving problems of "pure thought".

Simon Singh, physicist and journalist, does a remarkable job in recounting the history behind the epic struggle of solving Fermat's last theorem. If you are interested in learning more about how math works, this book is a great starting point.

"Next" by Michael Crichton

2010-11-06T12:57:00.004Z

In Michael Crichton's last book before his death in 2008, he attempted to sketch a society a few years from now, taking the currently available methods of genetic engineering to the "next level".

While doing this, he is not so much interested in the details of the technologies themselves, but rather in the implications they have on our society. Most of these implications are already manifesting themselves today. Take for instance the legal consequences of patenting anything from genes to entire cells. If you transfer ownership of a tissue sample taken from your body to some institution (under the pretext of advancing medical research) - does this institution own the rest of your body as well? And is it allowed to retrieve these cells from your body (or that of your relatives) in case the original sample was lost? In the novel, this leads to some absurd bounty hunt scenarios. But gene patents which are in effect today are no less absurd, and fortunately a US court has recently decided that patents on genes are not valid, as genes are so-called "facts of nature" that cannot be owned (NYTimes). Crichton himself was a strong advocate against gene patents. Have a look at this talk he gave in 2006.

Another major theme in the novel is genetic engineering and cross-breeding performed on animals to make them more human-like. This implicitly raises questions on ethical treatment of animals, because the boundary between human and animal is more and more arbitrary if any number of genes could be transfered from one to the other. Try to imagine what happened if a human-chimp hybrid boy was to be adopted by a human family and sent to school along with their own children. You just need to invent some rare gene defect to make it work. Of course some bullying can be expected.

The novel is composed of separate story lines, each of which is concerned with a different aspect of how bio-technologies impact our society. This is interesting in itself, since you can learn a lot and Crichton gives lots of references for the interested reader. But also it s maybe the biggest weakness of the novel. It lacks a coherent story and thus lacks focus. He uses the story to convey arguments in a discussion about how technology will be used in the future. He is not a writer focussing on character development. The technologies themselves are in fact the protagonists of many of his novels ("Jurassic Park" or "Prey" come to mind).

In summary, it might not be his best novel (in my opinion), but it is definitely a good and entertaining read, especially if you want to engage in the ongoing discussions on gene patents and the like.

"Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson

2010-07-04T12:53:00.006+01:00

What an ambitious book! Geek fiction at its best, historical spy thriller and treaty on cryptographic algorithms - what else could you want in a book? Oh, in-depth character devolopment? Nah, that would have been TOO ambitious. It's not a Philip Roth or John Irving novel. More like Michael Crichton, well researched and full of geekish excitement about technical details as well as their large scale implications. After Michael Crichton's "Prey" the second novel I read that contained actual computer code.
The story is complex, to say the least, and told non-linearly. Basically, two different time lines are followed in parallel until they meet towards the end of the book (after 1000+ pages, that is), one is set during World War II and covers Nazis, submarines, lots of gold, and of course the various cryptographic codes used on both sides; the other time line is set in the 1990 (i.e. the present at the time the book was written) and is set mostly in the Phillipines and deals with the business operations of a telecommunications company building undersea internet connections and data storage facilities. But really it's a about gold as well.
The book is a wild and entertaining ride, which makes up for its somewhat hasty conclusion.

"A thousand splendid suns" by Khaled Hosseini

2009-08-05T21:12:00.004+01:00

After "The kite runner" his second novel. Again, it is set in Afghanistan and follows the protagonists through times of peace and, mostly, of war and terror. As his début, this book is full of tragedy and it seems that human suffering can be prolonged indefinitely. This time it's not the children of Afghanistan suffering the most, but its women. As if living through war and occupation wasn't enough, women have to endure not only the discrimination by strict Islamic rules, especially under the Taliban, but also the domestic violence that is hidden behind closed doors. As the reader we can see how a young girl full of hope and ambition is broken by forced marriage, or by the bombs killing her loved ones.

One can not put this book down easily. It is intense, shocking, infuriating and immensely sad. Whatever happy ending there might be at last, it comes at too high a price to pay.

Whether or not this book is better than the previous one is a matter of debate. Hosseini is a master story-teller and both books will take you hostage until the last page. Emotionally you are in for a beating, but at the end it is all worth it, because his stories show us a part of the world today that we cannot easily perceive and that is not well-represented by the breaking-news on CNN. They add the personal, human dimension we all need to fully understand what is happening out there.

"House of God" by Samuel Shem

2009-08-05T20:41:00.004+01:00

I didn't finish this one. I guess the book was quite novel when it came out in the 70's and it probably still is a must-read for everyone interested in joining the medical profession. It is funny and easy to read and full of characters one can probably find in every hospital. First of all of course the protagonists of the book, the interns, full of ideals and textbook knowledge, unaware of what practicing medicine is actually about. "Turf and surf". The book comes with a glossary for all the acronyms, hospital slang and technical terms used. GOMER is one of the most frequently used. It basically refers to the largest population among the patients. Old and immobilised, senile and fragile, but hanging on to life with a force as if immune to death - while the young patients are the ones actually dying.

Besides the interns there are the residents such as "the fat man" - the cynical genius - who deeply cares about his patients and his profession, but who surrounds himself with a wall that protects him against the daily tragadies taking place around him. He is full of wisdom that he hands out to the interns in form of RULES. He believes that the best a doctor can do is to NOT treat the patients.

There is also the over-ambitious resident. She wants to do ALL the treatments there are and is thus the exact opposite of the fat man. She is bitter and lonely, unable to let things just go, she doesn't have a live outside the hospital.

Of course there is a tight hierarchy all the up to the head of the clinic.

Even though the characters are funny and the dialogues witty, there is no real story. The only development is the experience the interns gain as they pass through all the different stations in the hospital. Of course there is a lot of sex, too.

So, to sum this up, I can see why the book has become a best-seller. It gives a more realistic insight into hospital live than those idealised TV series, where doctors are super-human heroes whose only interest is to cure the sick. On top of that it is an entertaining read.

"Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

2008-01-04T10:06:00.000Z

My first Russian, I have to admit... I think I read the first 80 pages (leading up to the CRIME) or so in one go, it's that captivating. After the deed is done (the PUNISHMENT part...), the book loses a bit of its momentum, I found.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikoff, a talented law student in St. Petersburg in the late 19th century, lives in a shabby, small room in a boarding house, broke and down in the dumps. He quit his courses, quit the teaching that earned him some money and can hardly be bothered to get up from is sofa. The chamber maid of the house comes to clean up and brings him tea and food out of pity. He doesn't see people and his health is deteriorating. His fiance died a while ago. His only friend is the fellow student Razoumikhin whom he hasn't seen in a long time. Apart from that, the only people he cares about are his mother and sister who don't live near him.
He sometimes visits an old, despicable woman, a rich moneylender, to trade the few valuables he has for money. For some time he has been developing an idea, a plan so daring that he doesn't really think it possible to actually carry it out. A plan to rid him of his financial problems once and for all... He doesn't pity the old woman or think anyone would miss her - but still, does he have the courage? Is it actually possible for him to do such a thing, can he really be that determined to transform an idea into action? It is a bit like an exciting and ambitious self-experiment. For a while he carries these thoughts while at the same time he becomes more and more delirious as his health declines. When one day he finds the perfect circumstances to commit the deed, he has to make a quick decision....

'The Cider House Rules" by John Irving

2007-09-11T08:07:00.001Z

First published: 1985
600 pages (paperback)

My third "Irving" after Hotel New Hampshire and Garp. Can't really say which one is the best, but the Cider House Rules definitely have the potential of being one of the best books by Irving. It's so full of likable characters, all with their faults and virtues, and the feeling of time passing throughout the book is so real that it's hard to accept parting with it at the end. You wanna know and continue to know those people for real. At least that's something that I felt when reading the Cider House Rules and that I also remember from reading his other books.
More than once, while reading it, I thought something like "damnit, he really IS a good writer". It's not just his characters but also the detailed background information, for instance about obstetrical procedures of that time or about picking and pressing apples on a large scale, that make the story so believable, even though everything still is a bit "larger than life" (at least my life is not THAT interesting, hope that's not just me...).
So if you haven't read anything by Irving yet, it's high time you did! And if for some reason you DON'T like it, please tell me, I'd be really curious as to why that is.
Although there are maybe four or five major characters, Dr.Larch - at least to me - is by far the most interesting, even though I guess Homer Wells is supposed to be the main hero. Dr. Larch is the doctor in charge at the orphanarium in the tiny ex-logging town of St. Clouds. He also is the historian of the place and does not hesitate to throw in a little fiction every now and then whenever it seems necessary. He is a fervent abortionist (which was illegal at that time, the novel covers the time from the 20ies to the 50ies) as well as an ether addict. Homer, starting out as one of the orphans born at St.Cloud's, at last, after several unsuccessful attempts at finding new foster homes, becomes a permanent resident there - and something like a son to Dr. Larch, who teaches him all about his trade (obstetrical procedures, that is).
Besides the two adorable nurses Edna and Angela there is one other long-term resident at the orphanarium: Melony, a big, violent girl who provides Homer with his first sexual experiences and later on makes it her life's purpose to search for Homer, after he finally gets "adopted", as a young man, by a young wealthy couple his own age whom he befriends after they had an abortion. The couple, Candy and Wally, belong to a family in the apple business. They show Homer life outside the orphanarium and he decides to stay. Things become a little more complicated, however, as Homer and Candy fall in love with each other...
The main themes of the book are abortion (the different positions towards it weighed off against each other) and orphans (Charles Dickens' David Copperfield reappears throughout the book), although there is much more in it. It's funny and serious and definitely gripping.

"Endless Forms Most Beautiful - The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom" by Sean B. Carroll

2007-09-02T12:55:00.000Z

First published: 2006
350 pages (paperback)

Evo Devo stands for 'Evolutionary Developmental Biology' and is an emerging field that combines insights from animal development with evolutionary theory.
The book first explains the genetic mechanisms by which complex multicellular organisms could evolve from simple unicellular ones and then goes on to show how "tinkering" with those basic mechanisms could lead to the diversity we now observe in nature.
Carroll himself is an accomplished veteran in the field of fruit fly development and therefore can provide first hand examples from the organism that was first used to elucidate the mechanisms and genes behind animal development. One main insight was that the genes responsible for controlling developmental processes have been conserved across the entire animal kingdom, including the human branch. Another important revelation was that it's not really the genes themselves that make the difference but more the patterns in which genes are turned on and off during development by so-called genetic switches. The examples given in this book of how these switches work include the formation of limbs as well as the formation of such patterns as the stripes of zebras and the spots on butterflies. The book comes with lots of colour figures to illustrate the beauty of animal forms.

"The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" by Philip K. Dick

2007-08-22T09:24:00.000Z

First published: 1964
230 pages (paperback)

Life on Mars is dull. That's why the UN has to draft (i.e. force) people to go live in the colonies there. In order to escape their dead-end existence, the colonists seek refuge in a drug called Can-D, which allows them to enter a virtual reality, where life on earth is still like in the good old days, before global warming made it into a barely inhabitable desert.
Everybody is happy with this until one day the mysterious Palmer Eldritch returns from a trip to the Prox sytems, bringing with him the new and much more potent drug Chew-Z that allows for any fantasy to come true.
The company that (inofficially) sells Can-D to the colonists is of course worried about the new competitor on the market. Barney Mayerson, after having lost both his job at that company as well as his marriage, and therefore volunteering to live in the colonies, is offered his old job back - under the condition that he will help drive Eldritch out of business by faking harmful side-effects of the new drug... As it turns out, however, the drug is more than it seems to be, as is Eldritch himself.

"Minority Report" (and other stories) by Philip K. Dick

2007-03-10T16:04:00.000Z

First published: 1953 - 1969
290 pages (paperback)

Still haven't seen that movie... It's been a little while since I read this book, so the descriptions of the stories might not be a hundred percent accurate. I will also try to avoid spoilers. :-)
And just ignore the cover (unless, of course, you actually like Tom Cruise).

"Minority Report" is the first short story in this collection. You might know the plot from the movie: imagine society were able to tell exactly when somebody is going to commit a crime. Of course, you could arrest them even before they themselves know what they are going to do. Crime in this society is basically non-existent. The only people, however, who know about these "pre-crimes" are the police officers dealing with the prophecies produced by three psychic but otherwise brain dead mutants. So what if one of these officers finds his name on the list of people accused of committing a crime in the near future? How much does he really believe in the infallibility of the system?

The second story, "Imposter", puts us in the position of someone accused of being a robot sent by alien enemies to secretly take the place of an earth scientist. This robot is known to exactly look like that man and maybe even believe himself he actually is the person whose place he takes in order to detonate an atomic bomb of apocalyptic proportion ... so how can you prove you are not a robot and therefore are NOT to be destroyed to save mankind?

"Second Variety". Earth is a wasteland. The last people fight the machines they created and equipped with an artificial intelligence in order to win the arms-race with the enemy (the Russians...). The moon is the last free refuge of humanity. The machines, which were designed to kill, are evolving to become more and more cunning. Cunning enough to get to the moon? This story was made into the movie "Screamers".

"War Game" is set in the Terran Import Bureau of Standards where people test toys from other worlds for their potential harm if released on earth. One toy is a siege game where toy soldiers have to break into a fortress. The game claims to be therapeutic in teaching children (the soldiers) confidence in conquering the intimidating "fortress" of adult life. So that would be a good thing, wouldn't it? - Unless of course the game was secretly designed by its extraterrestrial inventors for a very different purpose ...

"What the Dead Men Say". It has become possible to extend life beyond death. For a limited number of times, people can be frozen and then resurrected. This also happens to Louis Sarapis, one of the most powerful industrialists on earth. Something, however, goes wrong (he does have enemies, after all) and his body cannot be revived. Yet, he does not seem to be dead. His voice is everywhere. On TV, on telephones - his thoughts seem to be broadcast from somewhere deep in space. That way he is even more powerful than ever before. But is he real or is it all just a scam?

"Oh, to Be a Blobel!" deals with the problems resulting from cross-life-form experiments. George Munster is a war veteran. The war against the Blobel home world, that is. The military transformed him into a spy by altering him in a way that makes him change into a Blobel (an amoeba-like blob) for half a day - every day, because the treatment could not be reversed. How can he lead a normal life after the war? How could he possibly have a family?

"The Electric Ant". After an accident, Carson Poole wakes up in a hospital with his hand missing. The weird thing is, he doesn't feel any pain and shortly afterwards he learns that he actually is a machine, not a human being. This comes to him quite as a shock. The reality he perceives is actually created artificially within his circuits. To find out more about how he works, he starts experimenting with himself by manipulating his electronic brain and observing the effects...

"Faith of Our Fathers" is set in communist Vietnam where everyone functions as part of a collective. What an unusual honour it is for comrade Chien to get promoted to work close to the Absolute Benefactor, the nation's great leader. Things, however, are not quite what they seem. Especially the Absolute Benefactor does not seem to be what he looks like, for instance, in the regular speeches he gives to his people on TV.

The last story was made into a movie as well: "Total Recall" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's called "We Can Remember it for You Wholesale". A company makes good money with implanting fake memories into peoples brains. Things that otherwise would never be possible now can be, because you can't distinguish between fake and real memories. The whole package even includes items that the new memories refer to, which makes it even more realistic. Douglas Quail wants to lead the exciting life of a spy on Mars. His real job is rather dull and uninspiring, so he gets the treatment to fix up his memory. And usually, the procedure is successful. Not with Quail, however. For him it becomes more and more unclear, which memories are real and which ones are fake ...

Dick's style is straight-forward, don't expect anything too sophisticated. But the stories he invents are pure fun. He designs fictitious worlds where he examines how ordinary people would deal with problems that we don't (yet) have, but one day might. And somehow these problems don't seem too far-fetched at all, but remind us of things that we can relate to in our own world. For example, take the discussion about artificial life and the change in ethics that are required to incorporate non-human beings. (Sounds like SciFi? The South Korean government seems to disagree, because it's working on exactly that. Read this BBC article.)
In each story there is a surprising turn of events and one constantly wonders where the story will go. In some cases I found the ending a bit too obvious, but the stories are still fun. They are (mostly) from the 50s after all ... If you're into science fiction, Dick is a must-read. And this book is probably a good one to start with.

"The Human Stain" by Philip Roth

2007-03-05T18:55:00.000Z

First published: 2000
361 pages (paperback)

In the second half of the book, a girl tells Faunia this little story about a tamed crow:

"I was dumping some water and he made a beeline for the door and went out into the trees. Within minutes there were three or four crows that came. Surrounded him in the tree. And they were going nuts. Harassing him. Hitting him on the back. Screaming. Smacking into him and stuff. They were there within minutes. He doesn't have the right voice. He doesn't know the crow language. They don't like him out there. Eventually he came down to me, because I was out there. They would have killed him."
"That's what comes of being hand-raised," said Faunia. " That's what comes out of hanging around all his life with people like us. The human stain," she said, and without revulsion or contempt or condemnation. Not even with sadness. That's how it is - in her own dry way, this is all Faunia was telling the girl feeding the snake: we leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen - there's no other way to be here.

You could say it's a book about the extremes of life. What a determined will can make out of it and how an unfortunate beginning can ruin it. The first is true of Coleman Silk, whom we first meet as a 70-year-old, retired college professor; the second describes Faunia Farley's life, a 30-something-year-old illiterate cleaning woman at the very same College. Two apparently opposite characters that nevertheless come to a very deep understanding of each other. While Coleman looses all after he had gained everything in a long life of achievement, Faunia' s life practically ended even before it had really begun. Stripped of everything they once possessed, that's when they begin their short but intense affair. Which, of course, ends in disaster...
It's also a book about America. About racial issues and a public morality that is very eager to accuse and to righteously bring down those who transgress.
All in all it's a very mature book, probably not least because it is written from the point of view of someone who is, like Coleman, in his 70s. Large parts of the book digress from the main storyline (if there is one) to go back in time and explain how Coleman got to be who he became.
The Human Stain is definitely a very good book, but, because of its "literary" style, not always easy. The story is more or less irrelevant, it's the believability of the characters, it's the greater themes it deals with that make it a good book. Not only the main character, Coleman, is brilliantly portrayed but also the others, early abused Faunia Farley, her ex-husband Lester, who is a messed up Vietnam vet and Delphine Roux, the pretty and ambitious french professor, who wants to prove it to everyone and yet succumbs to her loneliness.
And yes, they made a movie out of it, but I haven't seen it.