I found The Trial to be 100% weird and mostly confusing, occasionally sprinkled with humor and hints of a cohesive story. If you read the history of KI found The Trial to be 100% weird and mostly confusing, occasionally sprinkled with humor and hints of a cohesive story. If you read the history of Kafka's writing of The Trial and some other novels it makes sense that the plot would be all over the place. It did keep me entertained though, right up until the abrupt and shocking ending. I'm just not sure I knew what I listened to.
In The Trial a bank manager Josef K (referred to as "K" throughout the book) is arrested for an unknown crime by an unnamed organization. He has no knowledge of what he's done and is never informed by his accuser, and is pretty much left to live his life normally while he tries to figure out what is going on and who to deal with to address the charges. His uncle sets him up with an elderly lawyer who is no longer at the top of his game and K, through personal investigation, has meetings with people who have experience dealing with local courts (even the "court painter"!). He gets general information but never seems to understand what his charges are or what his future holds. All the while he continues to work at the bank everyday, although he is understandably distracted and his work suffers. This is a very odd tale.
I had no ideal of Kafka's interesting writing history until I started reading this book. And things even more interesting after he passed away.
The Trial and The Castle are currently both freebies on Audible so I'll probably eventually give the latter a try as long as it remains in my audio library. The themes in his writings appeal to me - understanding what is going on is what I need to work on I guess. ...more
This is my second foray in to the subject of free will, having read Dan Barker's excellent Free Will Explained back in 2018. I enjoyed Sam's take bettThis is my second foray in to the subject of free will, having read Dan Barker's excellent Free Will Explained back in 2018. I enjoyed Sam's take better, as he was more committed to one side of the argument - that we DO NOT have free will - and the fact that he's an eloquent writer. In this book he doesn't get bogged down in the details and makes his case in a short 66 pages, not including the acknowledgements, notes, and index.
Harris makes a convincing argument and addresses his disagreements with others who have written on the subject such as German neuroscientist Martin Heisenberg and the late, great American philosopher Dan Dennett (one of the four horsemen of atheism along with author Harris, Richard Dawkins, and the late Christopher Hitchens). I particularly liked these parts of the books as Harris did a nice job making his points against the theories presented by these great minds.
Harris also uses a number of interesting examples and historical events to illustrate how those on both sides of the free will debate would interpret what went on.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the concept of free will. Short, to the point, and full of thought provoking ideas regarding a concept most people probably have never thought about. Harris makes it make sense. ...more
Thunderbird is the sequel to Ancient Shores which I thought had one of the worst endings of any book I've ever read. I thought Thunderbird was a betteThunderbird is the sequel to Ancient Shores which I thought had one of the worst endings of any book I've ever read. I thought Thunderbird was a better novel but still frustrating and suffered from the same issues as its predecessor, and I'm wavering between two and three stars on this one. I did like the reveal at the end and the shocking final scene but the majority of this novel was frustrating and full of too much meaningless goings on.
Thunderbird picks up right were Ancient Shores left off. The focus of the plot are the too few "away missions" taken by astronauts / scientists / random people through the portal discovered in the first book. Of course we have the continuation of the political drama with a paranoid President and the Native American tribal leaders of the land the portal is located on. For some reason the President wants the portal destroyed because the technology which no one understands would crash the global economy somehow. The tribal leaders want the best for their people and wonder how they'll manage the positive (monetary) and negative (influx of people from all over the globe) effects of having the portal on their land.
Too much of the novel is jibber-jabber between secondary and characters, and not enough time is spent exploring the several locations the portal can transport those who enter. The missions through the portal are fairly dull, with the exception of one where a linguistic expert is able to establish communications with aliens inhabiting one of the worlds. Eventually, the author reveals what the different locations represent. The ghostly spinning-cloud alien returns in this novel as well but we learn virtually nothing of them. There are a lot of questions left unanswered.
I had a hard time getting excited to read this book. It dragged often and wasn't hard to put down. I did like the reveals but there was too much blabbering between people I didn't care about and not enough science fiction. Still, it was interesting having the mysteries reveled somewhat and it least the story arc was resolved....more
The Wanderers was not what this science fiction geek expected. Having just watched and greatly enjoyed (unpopular opinion) the movie Slingshot I was eThe Wanderers was not what this science fiction geek expected. Having just watched and greatly enjoyed (unpopular opinion) the movie Slingshot I was envisioning a similar experience, after all both stories featured a three-person crew on a long-term space mission, although in the book the mission was a seventeen-month simulation in preparation for the real thing.
The Wanderers was more of a character study not only of the three space travelers but also of a particular member of each of their families. The movie was more of a deep-space mystery wrapped in hard science fiction. The book was relatively light on science fiction in comparison.
I think the book was successful in developing the three characters and their featured loved ones. On the mission were American astronaut Helen Kane, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Kuznetsov, and Japanese astronaut Yoshihiro Tanaka. All are employees of a private space company, Prime Space, whose goal is to land the first humans on Mars. To prepare the space travelers for their mission Prime Space constructed a detailed space ships (one to Mars, and one from Mars) in a remote part of the Utah desert to simulate what the actual mission would like. The space travelers were monitored closely around the clock to gauge how well they would get along and how their mental and physical health would hold up.
The three family members consisted of Helen's daughter, Mireille, a struggling young actress trying to cope with the recurring loss of her mother on space missions; Sergei’s 16 year old son Dmitri, who is gay but doesn't feel accepted by his family; and Yoshi’s wife Madoka who doesn't seem to fit in to society while her husband is away. Additionally, there are chapters devoted to the experience of Prime Space employee Lucas who is assigned to be the mission contact for Mireille. He gave an interesting behind the scenes perspective to the mission.
I liked the way the book was structured- short chapters titled by which character would be the focus. I listed on Audible and the narrator did a good job changing accents to differentiate the characters.
What the reader gets in this novel is a deep dive in to the thoughts and emotions of the characters, all of whom were thoroughly fleshed out in flashbacks and current experiences. What would it be like to be in cramped quarters for seventeen months, and on the most important space mission since Apollo 11? What would it be like if your closest family member left for 17 months, only to return and leave again for a slightly longer period? These are the questions the novel takes on, not so much addressing the details of the science behind the simulation and subsequent mission.
There were some odd things which happened during the simulation which I thought would lead to plot twists but they did not. I thought the ending was non-eventful. I'm giving this 2.5 stars as I thought was better than just OK. Another unpopular opinion....more
I thoroughly enjoyed and gave 4.5 stars to Lily Brooks-Dalton's first novel, Good Morning, Midnight which was a well written, melancholy account of anI thoroughly enjoyed and gave 4.5 stars to Lily Brooks-Dalton's first novel, Good Morning, Midnight which was a well written, melancholy account of an astronaut in space and an Arctic researcher coming to grips with their past lives in a post-apocalyptic future in which most and maybe all of the rest of humanity was wiped out. When I saw her second novel The Light Pirate was coming out I added it to by TBR and bought the trade paperback as soon as it appeared on the shelves. It is the November 2024 read for the Apocalypse Whenever Goodreads Group Book Club so it was time to crack it open.
I was captivated by The Light Pirate from the first page to the last. For a relatively short book at 324 pages it felt so much longer as the story telling was so rich. This is another beautifully written book in a genre I can't get enough of if done right. The novel has the same melancholic tone as Good Morning, Midnight and is also set in a dystopian near future, entirely in Florida. The narrative follows the entire life of the main character Wanda who at the book's outset is in the womb. Wanda is born in a future Florida which is battered by hurricanes and and rising sea levels which have combined to ruin infrastructure and cause flooding which becomes increasing worse and ultimately results in uninhabitable living conditions and the start of migration out of the state.
The novel is broken out in to four long chapters, "Power", "Water", "Light", and "Time"; the title of which gives a clue as to what struggles Wanda and those around her are up against. The author is not afraid to kill off main characters and this just added to the increasingly hopelessness and sadness that overwhelmed the plot. As it went on The Light Pirate became a struggle for survival and friendship, and maintaining ones humanity in seemingly desperate times. Also, there is a neat little mystery surrounding Wanda which relates to the novel's title and is never really explained.
I've seen blubs comparing The Light Pirate to Emily St. John Mandel's incredible Station Eleven and I would agree with that assessment. It also reminded me of Into the Forest by Jean Hegland. I'm giving The Light Pirate five stars. This was hard to put down and the ending will be hard to forget. I can't wait to read what Lilly Brooks-Dalton comes up with next....more
Frankenstein is another classic (1818) novel that I'm late to the party for. I've seen a movie adaption or parts of one I think, watched The Munsters,Frankenstein is another classic (1818) novel that I'm late to the party for. I've seen a movie adaption or parts of one I think, watched The Munsters, and eaten Frankenberry cereal but Shelley's book is far superior to all which it has inspired.
I really liked how the novel with structured, with the changing narratives from three points of view with most of the novel told as a flashback by the young scientist Victor Frankenstein who uses human body parts from graves to create an eight-foot creature and reanimates it using electricity. I was surprised how little Shelley describes the process of the creature's construction and animation as the inspired movies spend a lot of time showing how this happens.
Of the three narratives, Captain Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and the Creature, I found the Creature's most affecting. Captain Walton, who is sailing a ship to the North Pole, tells of his encounter with Victor Frankenstein in the form of letters to his sister back in England, and Victor Frankenstein tells his life story to Captain Walton while aboard Walton's ship, and also through letters from his father, cousin Elizabeth, and best friend Henry Clerval. Consisting of 24 short chapters and four letters, I found this to be a quick read. Even though I knew the basic outline to the Frankenstein tale I was pleasantly surprised to find I had no idea where any of this was going.
My copy, maybe all post-1818 editions do(?), contained a very interesting author's note which Shelley wrote in 1831 in which she explains her inspiration for the book and what alterations she made from the original 1818 edition.
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