Ari Turunen tuottaa selvästi melko runsaasti tällaisia silppuhistoriallisia kirjoja, joissa valitaan joku raflaava aihe ja käsitellään sen aiheen "hisAri Turunen tuottaa selvästi melko runsaasti tällaisia silppuhistoriallisia kirjoja, joissa valitaan joku raflaava aihe ja käsitellään sen aiheen "historiaa", käytännössä siis ilmeisesti etsitään kourallinen historiallisia anekdootteja aiheeseen liittyen ja kirjoitetaan niistä kirja. Ainoa tämän alan kirja, jonka olen lukenut, on Mulkerot. Siinä Turunen kertoo synkät ja alhaiset puolet suurmiehistä, joille on pystytetty patsas jonnekin päin maailmaa.
On tästä kirjasta aika paljon valittamista. Ennen kaikkea minulle on täysi mysteeri, millä perusteilla tähän on valittu henkilöitä. Esimerkiksi Napoleon on päässyt mukaan kirjaan, koska hänen sotiensa vuoksi kuoli niin paljon jengiä ja Grande Armée aiheutti tuhoa Euroopassa. Mutta täysin samoilla perusteilla olisi yhtä hyvin voinut ottaa mukaan aika monta muutakin sotapäällikköä, esim. Kustaa II Adolfin, jonka sotajoukkojen toimintaa 30-vuotisessa sodassa muistellaan vieläkin pahalla Puolassa. Kirjassa on Lenin ja Mao - mutta ei Stalinia. Mukana on Luther mutta ei Khomeinia. Ja niin edelleen.
Tämä epäjohdonmukaisuus häiritsi minua niin paljon, että aloin miettimään, mitkä olisivat voineet olla järkeviä syita valita joku tietty henkilö tällaiseen kirjaan. Yksi valintaperuste olisi voinut olla ottaa mukaan vain kaikkein kuuluisimmat suurmiehet, mutta näin Turunen ei tehnyt: mukana on myös suhteellisen tuntemattomia hahmoja. Eikä kyse ole siitä, että mukana olisi henkilöitä, joita yleisesti arvostetaan suuresti: mukana on myös Iivana Julman ja Attilan kaltaisia henkilöitä, joita enimmäkseen muistetaan kauhulla.
Tutkimus on selkeästi ollut vähän leväperäistä. Kirjassa on takana lähdeluettelo, mutta ilman sitäkin olisi selvää, että monen henkilön kohdalla nojataan vain yhteen lähteeseen. Tämä näkyy myös siinä, että toisista henkilöistä Turunen kirjoittaa toistakymmentä sivua pitkän osan, toisista vain parisivuisen. Se tekee kirjasta entistä silppuisemman ja epäjohdonmukaisemman oloisen.
Plussana täytyy todeta, että Turunen valitsi kirjaan henkilöitä ympäri maailmaa. Eurooppalaisten lisäksi tässä kirjassa on useita aasialaisia hahmoja, muutama afrikkalainen ja yksi esikolumbiaanisen ajan mesoamerikkalainen hallitsija. Henkilöitä on myös pyritty valitsemaan eri aikakausilta, vaikkakin 1700-luvun jälkeiset ajat dominoivat kirjaa silti....more
I kind of avoided Corey's books for many years, since I got them mixed up in my head with some other series: I thought the Expanse was some generic anI kind of avoided Corey's books for many years, since I got them mixed up in my head with some other series: I thought the Expanse was some generic and not particularly good space opera with aliens, FTL travel and all that. I only realised my mistake after the TV show (which I've never watched) started and I read some reviews of that.
Suddenly The Expanse books were on my TBR pile. A space opera about the colonisation of the Solar system? With an emphasis on the cultural aspects of life on the asteroid belt? This sounds like a cross between The Prefect and Schismatrix, both of which I loved.
I wasn't disappointed with Leviathan Wakes. It's a self-contained story, so you don't have to continue with the series - but the worldbuilding was so good I definitely want to have more.
The story was good enough: perhaps a little too bloated - there were scenes that could've been cut. Perhaps a bit too "cinematic": it feels a bit like the writers were already selling movie (or TV) rights in their heads and were including lots of scenes that would look good on film.
But I'm not complaining. I just feel irritated I didn't read these books years ago: I would've loved this series even more when I was a bit younger....more
An Iranian dentist takes a citizenship test, but suddenly events take a violent turn. This is a book where it's impossible to talk about the plot any An Iranian dentist takes a citizenship test, but suddenly events take a violent turn. This is a book where it's impossible to talk about the plot any longer without walking deep into spoiler territory, so let's just say the book had good themes - how people behave in dire straits, what people are willing to do to each other, how people justify their actions to themselves - but it didn't explore these themes quite as deeply as I would've wished. Still, it was good enough.
I can recommend the audiobook version: the narrator is really good and this is a story that works exceptionally well in audio format....more
Nykyisin tuntuu taas olevan suosittua kirjoittaa populaarihistoriallisia kirjoja, joihin kerätään pieniä ja erikoisia anekdootteja eri ajoista jonkin Nykyisin tuntuu taas olevan suosittua kirjoittaa populaarihistoriallisia kirjoja, joihin kerätään pieniä ja erikoisia anekdootteja eri ajoista jonkin teeman mukaan. Odotin kirjan nimen perusteella, että tämä olisi yksi tämänkaltainen teos, jossa luetellaan anekdootteja menneisyyden hassuista tai yllättävistä tapahtumista, tällä kertaa sääilmiöistä jotka vaikuttivat historian kulkuun. Ja onhan tässä muutamia sellaisia: rankkasateen vaikutus Waterloon taisteluun, myrskyt jotka häiritsivät Caesarin ja Kublai-kaanin valloituksia, Amsterdamin nousu maailmankaupan keskukseksi Grote Mandranke -myrskyn muokattua Hollannin rantaviivaa niin, että Amsterdamista tuli suotuisa satamakaupunki. Triviatietoa, jota lukiessa voi olla ihan hauskaa, mutta joka ei muodosta sen kummempaa kokonaisuutta. Kirjallista popkornia.
Pääasiassa Rosenlundin kirja keskittyy kuitenkin ilmastoon, ei niinkään säähän. Suurin osa kirjasta kertoo menneistä ilmastonmuutoksista: jääkausien lopuista, tulivuorenpurkausten aiheuttamista kylmistä kausista, viileän sään takia hylätyistä asutuksista. Nämä olivat kirjan kiinnostavimmat osat. Jos minä olisin ollut tämän kirjan kustannustoimittaja, olisin kehottanut Rosenlundia leikkaamaan kaikki säätapahtumakohdat pois ja kirjoittamaan koko kirjan pelkästään ilmaston muutoksista menneisyydessä. Se olisi ollut paljon parempi kirja....more
This is Vonnegut's second novel, and it shows: it has some hallmarks of "the difficult second novel": you can see Vonnegut trying to expand his repertThis is Vonnegut's second novel, and it shows: it has some hallmarks of "the difficult second novel": you can see Vonnegut trying to expand his repertoire beyond the themes of his first book and him trying to find his own unique voice. It's rougher than his later works, yet recognizably Vonnegut.
At first I was underwhelmed: it felt like some mediocre writer tried to write like Vonnegut on a dare, without really capturing his wit or genius. But about third of the book in I started to enjoy it better, the book found it's rhythm and the major themes started to emerge.
The story is very convoluted. It features Malachi Constant, the richest man on Earth, and Winston Niles Rumfoord. a tycoon that was caught in a "chrono-synclastic infundibulum" and as a result becomes a waveform existing in an undefinite place in space and time. Malachi hears a prophecy that seems unlikely to ever fulfilled, but through a series of unlikely events the prophecy naturally comes true.
The major themes are powerlessness, incapability to choose your destiny and absurdity of everything. Malachi can't be said to make any decisions on his own that have any results: he has no agency. But then again, neither really has anyone else in the story, either. Sometimes this is taken to an extreme: the Martian soldiers have an antenna in their head that forces them to obey orders. But other times it's more subtle: (view spoiler)[Rumfoord seems to make grand plans and execute them flawlessly, but in the end he, too, is just a pawn of the Tralfamadoreans (hide spoiler)].
Very many things that feature more prominently in Vonnegut's later works see daylight in Sirens of Titan. There is the mock-religion of the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, which can be seen as a precursor to Bokononism of Cat's Cradle. We meet the Tralfamadorians of Slaughterhouse-Five, as well as a man unstuck in time. There is even a short scene featuring lead-shot handicaps that form the core of Harrison Bergeron....more
0% read: I've read some really bad reviews, so my expectations are super low.
20%: Oh hey, this isn't so bad. There are three viewpoint characters and0% read: I've read some really bad reviews, so my expectations are super low.
20%: Oh hey, this isn't so bad. There are three viewpoint characters and I kind of enjoy two of them. The Gileadian girl is interesting enough; through her we see how people always consider their childhoods to be "normal", no matter how dystopian an outside observer would consider their society. Aunt Lydia's story is not as interesting, but still it has good themes on what people will do in order to survive under an oppressive regime. The third storyline about the Canadian girl is trash, though. It's going towards an extremely predictable twist.
50%: This is getting worse by the page. The super-obvious Canadian twist happened. All storylines are deteriorating in quality. But still, it's not a complete wreck - there are some good moments, as well. I'm just hoping the ending doesn't have one twist that's been perhaps hinted at, because that would be moronic.
75%: I feel like I'm reading a very hastily written YA story. The plot doesn't make any sense anymore. All the characters except protagonists (no, wait, the Canadian protagonist included) are behaving like complete idiots. If anyone would act like a normal-IQ human, the plan would pop like a soap bubble. But for some reason everyone is completely gullible and naïve - not really traits you'd except from people living in a totalitarian state.
100%: And of course the ending DID include the extremely moronic twist. I don't know what to say anymore. I guess I've read worse books, but not often - normally I quit at page 50 or so if I don't like the book. The trouble is at page 50 I did enjoy this book. It wasn't good, exactly, but not bad, either. It's only about halfway through the book's quality takes a nosedive. Oh well....more
There were many books I was reminded of when I read Babel-17. First of all there was Embassytown, which was also all about linguistics and language. TThere were many books I was reminded of when I read Babel-17. First of all there was Embassytown, which was also all about linguistics and language. The discorporate crewmembers reminded me of the Shadow Operators in Light. The weapons collection of Baron Ver Dorco made me think of Use of Weapons and other Culture books. The zero-G wrestling arena and the whole seedy pub reminded me of... well, countless cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk stories.
This book has lots of great ideas and it has very obviously inspired many other SF writers. Very worth reading, if you're interested in the evolution of SF.
The story is good enough. The poet/linguist/space-ship captain Rydra Wong gets a commission from the military to crack a code some unknown saboteurs are using, only it turns out not to be code but a whole new language. And not just any language, but so perfect language that to formulate a problem in Babel-17 means realizing it's solution. Wong gathers up a crew and they head into space, after the enigmatic saboteurs.
There were some problems that lessened my enjoyment. The Babel-17 language was just too unbelievable: I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to believe that such language would be possible in any way. The other is (view spoiler)[the pretty much unnecessary inclusion of telepathy into the story. I can't understand why the authors in the 60's felt compelled to always have psychic powers in their SF. (hide spoiler)]. ...more
Kontula kirjoitti ihan hyvän etnografisen tutkimuksen eduskunnasta työpaikkana kansanedustajien näkökulmasta. Tässä kirjassa ei niinkään esitellä otsiKontula kirjoitti ihan hyvän etnografisen tutkimuksen eduskunnasta työpaikkana kansanedustajien näkökulmasta. Tässä kirjassa ei niinkään esitellä otsikon mukaan ystäviä ja vihamiehiä, vaan puhutaan eduskunnan paradoksista konfliktien suhteen. Toisaalta koko eduskunnan idea perustuu juuri konflikteille: edustajat ovat erimielisiä ja eri puolueet haluavat saavuttaa eri asioita. Toisaalta ihmispsyyke ei oikein kestä jatkuvaa konfliktia. Näin ollen eduskuntaan on syntynyt huomattava määrä toimintasääntöjä ja kirjoittamattomia lakeja, jotka säätelevät konfliktien määrää.
Erilaisten sääntöjen esittely oli kiinnostavaa: en esimerkiksi tiennyt, etteivät kansanedustajien avustajat saa missään tapauksessa astua täysistuntosaliin. Kansanedustajat eivät myöskään puhu toistensa henkilökohtaisista ongelmista talon ulkopuolelle, vaikka muuten antaisivatkin vuotoja lehdistölle.
Kirjan ongelma oli lähdeaineiston vähäisyys: Kontula oli haastatellut 16 kansanedustajaa kirjaansa varten, mikä on aika vähän,etenkin kun osa on vastannut hyvin ympäripyöreästi. Tämän huomaa kirjasta: usein jäin kaipaamaan lisää anekdootteja ja sitaatteja eri kohtiin....more
This is a hard one to rate. On the other hand, in the end I enjoyed the book quite a lot. On the other hand, on page 150 I was seriously considering qThis is a hard one to rate. On the other hand, in the end I enjoyed the book quite a lot. On the other hand, on page 150 I was seriously considering quitting the book.
The first half of the book is not bad, exactly, but it is frustrating. From the blurb I assumed this book is "Warhammer 40K meets Murderbot", and it's not far removed from reality - or at least, that's what this book tries to be.
Alas, the main character, Gideon, is no Murderbot. She is supposed to be wry and edgy, but it feels forced. She makes references to smutty magazines that she's supposedly hoarding, but nowhere we see her actually reading those magazines or behaving like she's especially horny or anything like that. She uses foul language and boasts how she wants to kill the necromancer she's stuck with - but when the opportunity arises, she does nothing at all. All the edginess is pure surface. It's pretty irritating, but luckily in the latter half of the book the author seems to forget that Gideon is supposed to be edgy badass, so she becomes much more tolerable character. Poor continuity, but since it's a change for the better, who am I to complain?
The setting is not pure Warhammer 40K, either. Sure, there is an immortal God-Emperor and his Primarchs Lyctors, there are Gothic castles and necromancy, it all sounds properly grim and dark. But everything is less menacing and brooding and more... dingy. The evil nuns are decrepit and rather pathetic. The Holy Castle of the Emperor is falling apart and is in a pretty shabby condition. The scions of the Nine Houses are brats or jolly matrons. It's not really so gloomy as you'd expect, and that is a good thing.
A slow and irritating start, but the book picks up it's pace near the middle and the ending was pretty good. I doubt I'll read the sequels, though....more
I've never read The Handmaid's Tale before: I haven't even seen the TV show. You know how it goes when you somehow missed a book that everybody else bI've never read The Handmaid's Tale before: I haven't even seen the TV show. You know how it goes when you somehow missed a book that everybody else but you has read, and then you just never seem to remember to pick the book up at a library or something, and then it just becomes sort of weird and you start to unconsciously avoiding reading the book? No? Well, anyway, that's how it went with me and THT.
But now that The Testaments was published, I finally figured it was high time to overcame my inertia and just read the damn book.
And I was actually pretty disappointed at first. It's not that the book is bad: it's not. It's actually rather good. But since so many people had been raving how great THT is, my expectations were perhaps a mite too high. Had I read this when I was 20, I probably would've loved it: now, I merely liked it.
There are some things that keep it from reaching greatness. First of all, the worldbuilding is weak-ish. If you want to create a dystopia, you can use Nineteen Eighty-Four as a template and explain almost nothing: there is a dystopia, now you've got to lie in it. That's fine and dandy. You can also use the satirical approach of Tender is the Flesh and give a backstory that is so over-the-top and ridiculous that the reader understands the whole story is meant as an allegory, not as a warning of a grim future ahead. That's fine too.
But Atwood obviously wants THT to serve as a warning of a grim future that could happen at any moment, so she gives glimpses of the story how USA turned into Gilead. And what we see is not impressive. The transition doesn't feel plausible at any level. There are way too many open questions: how did a little clique like Sons of Jacob take power, anyway? Why, exactly, did the military go along with it? How do you go from "women aren't allowed to work anymore" to "every woman wears color-coded dresses and isn't allowed to read" in just a couple of years? How does the administration even work - what happened to "deep state" I keep hearing about? And so on. It was really distracting. Atwood would've been wiser if she hadn't explained any of this.
But that aside, THT is pretty good. Offred is a good character: she doesn't really do anything, but her passiveness can be seen as learned helplessness. She knows there really isn't anything she can do. The commanders wife, Serena Joy,is at least as passive as Offred. While she is nominally in charge of the household, she obviously doesn't have anything to do.
The masterstroke of the book was how decently Offred was treated in the house. While the Commander does abuse his position, it's much milder than I expected. Serena Joy is unhappy at her existence, but never treats her particulary badly. She even offers to help her, after a fashion! The Marthas are either symphatetic or indifferent.
This, in my mind, was the thing that separated THT from lesser works. It's so easy to depict people abusing power: it's much more interesting when bad things happen even though the people are basically nice, since the system is so horrible.
I listened the story as an audiobook, and I had to remind myself constantly not to dislike the book because I didn't like the narrator. She emoted way too much: there is no need to add little laughs to every second sentence, or to switch from whisper to a shout to show how emotional things are. You can just read the damn story and rely on the reader to pick up the emotional cues! Especially since I sometimes disagreed with the reader what the mood of the scene was....more
Pitäjän pienempiä kokoaa samoihin kansiin lyhyehkön romaanin "Ylistalon tuvassa" ja neljä pitkää novellia.
Ylistalon tuvassa kertoo Alastalon naapuritaPitäjän pienempiä kokoaa samoihin kansiin lyhyehkön romaanin "Ylistalon tuvassa" ja neljä pitkää novellia.
Ylistalon tuvassa kertoo Alastalon naapuritalon toimista parkkiretareiden tapaamisen jälkeisenä päivänä. Alastalossa kokoontui toimekkaita isäntiä, joilla oli suuria suunnitelmia. Ylistalossa sitävastoin lojuu laiskoja äijiä. Useimmat ovat merimiehiä, joilla ei ole talveksi tointa, joten he viettävät sen loisina Ylistalossa. Talon isäntä itse on laiskoista laiskin, joka ei pistä tikkua ristiin, vaikka vaimo muistuttaa häntä toistuvasti kaikista tekemättömistä töistä. Emäntä itse on toimelias mutta toimettomaan mieheensä ja hänen joutilaisiin kavereihinsa suoraan sanottuna kyrpiintynyt. Parkkisuunnitelmista kuuleminen saa miehiin hieman eloa, kun tajuavat talvella olevan sittenkin tienestiä tarjolla metsän kaadossa ja rakennustöissä. Yksi joukosta lähtee jopa Alastaloa jututtamaan ja liittyy omistavaan luokkaan. Mutta muuten elämä ei paljoa muutu joutilaassa talossa.
Alastalon salissa ja Ylistalon tuvassa olivat molemmat melko hyväntuulisia, humoristisiakin teoksia, mutta "Aurinkotytin tanssissa" Kilpi osoittaa kykenevänsä kirjoittaa myös toisenlaista tekstiä. Tämä on hyvin surumielinen tarina. Suutari Solenius tekee töitään Alastalossa, tietäen samalla itsekin, ettei hän ole erityisen hyvä työssään. Alastalon pieni Viikka-tyttö kuitenkin seuraa suutarin töitä lumoutuneena. Molempien ajatukset kääntyvät menetyksiin. Solenius on jo vanha ja jäänyt yksin, hänestä eivät tytöt kiinnostuneet, osittain hänen oman sosiaalisen taitamattomuutensa vuoksi. Viikalla taas on suru siskostaan. "Paha, paha Aksa" meni kuolemaan ja jätti Viikan yksin leikkimään. Mutta kaikesta huolimatta aurinko paistaa ja auringonsäde saa esineet loistamaan ihmeellisesti. Tämä tarina sai melkein kyynelet silmiin.
"Kaaskerin Lundström" on sekin traaginen ja synkeä tarina. Alastalon salissa mainittiin moneen kertaan, kuinka kapteenit olivat olleet "Lundströmin penkillä logaritmeja oppimassa". Nyt tapaamme tämän Lundströmin, joka on itsekin entinen kapteeni. Hänelle vain viina maistui enemmän kuin kapteenille pitäisi, joten vahtivuorolla hän uinahti ja ajoi fregattinsa karille. Koko miehistö hukkui kokkia ja Lundströmiä itseään lukuunottamatta. Tätä kohtalokasta virhettään Lundström on 30 vuotta synkkänä pyörittänyt mielessään. Hän opettaa nuorille matematiikkaa ja navigointia viinapalkalla, mutta on menettänyt selvästi elämänhalunsa. Kaikesta huolimatta Lundström yrittää takoa nuorten poikien kaaleihin logaritmien lisäksi myös elämänviisautta, vaikka hänen katkeruutensa ei teekään siitä kovin helposti sulavaa oppia. Mutta kohdatessaan Pihlmanin Jannen kaltaisen terävän laskijan Lundström innostuu ainakin hetkeksi, ja vaikka hän on jo veistänyt oman arkkunsa, saa se vielä odottaa tyhjänä.
Yksi Lundströmin viinanhuuruisen virheen uhriksi joutunut merimies oli Kustaa, jonka lesken Riikkan tapaamme "Merimiehen leskessä". Myös Riikka on jäänyt lapsettomaksi, kuten Solenius ja Lundströmkin. Näissä tarinoissa on paljon yksinäisiä ihmisiä. Riikka on 30 vuotta tehnyt tiivisteitä laivoihin ja murehtinut omaa kohtaloaan. Hän vain rukoilee Jumalaa, että saisi tavata Kustaansa taas taivaassa. On hän ylpeä omista "triiveistään" eli hampputiivisteistä, jotka ovat tärkeitä laivanteossa, mutta tämä ylpeys lohduttaa vain vähäisesti.
Viimeinen tarina, "Jäällä kulkija", kertoo myös yksinäisen vanhuksen tarinan. Taavetti Lindqvist sai kyllä lapsia, mutta näistä osa kuoli ja osa lähti talosta ovet paukkuen kasvettuaan tarpeeksi vanhoiksi. Kun Taavetin vaimo kuoli edellisvuonna, jäi Taavetti yksin taloon ruumisarkkunsa kanssa. Kyllä, kuten Lundström, on Taavettikin valmistanut itselleen arkun valmiiksi, ettei tarvitse muita vaivata! Onkohan tämä ollut yleinenkin tapa? Tämä päätöstarinakin on traaginen, mutta parhaimpien kreikkalaistragedioiden tapaan päähenkilön onnettomuus on pitkälti hänen omaa syytään. Taavetti on selvästi onnistunut pilaamaan välinsä kaikkiin lapsiinsa ihan itse, jääräpäisyyttään, itaruuttaan ja kovuuttaan. Hänkin on joskus nuorena ollut onnellinen, mutta kova elämä on kovettanut häntä vähän liiankin kanssa....more
It's finally over. I complained earlier that this series has at least two books too many, but at least the ending was ok. I didn't really like the whoIt's finally over. I complained earlier that this series has at least two books too many, but at least the ending was ok. I didn't really like the whole "mysterious aliens" plotline: it felt superfluous and unnecessary. But if we're going to have some mysterious aliens, at least they were mysterious enough. It wasn't bad.
That's actually the main feeling I was left with Victorious: it wasn't bad. I was pleasantly surprised, because it could've been so much worse. But the plotlines ended in more-or-less satisfying manner, we had some politics and a few actual character moments, as well - I surely didn't expect those from this series!
I don't regret I read the series, but I don't exactly recommend it, either....more
This is a book grand in scope: it tells the history of international trade, starting all the way in Bronze Age Sumer, ending in Seattle round of the WThis is a book grand in scope: it tells the history of international trade, starting all the way in Bronze Age Sumer, ending in Seattle round of the WTO talks in 1999. All this in less than 400 pages!
There are some sections that felt a bit too hastily summarized (e.g. the Portuguese just seemed to take over Indian Ocean trading, without much explanation as to how they were able to do so), but overall I was impressed by Bernstein's ability to condense and still manage to include lots of detail. Not an easy task.
On the other hand, it is true the book sometimes jumps centuries (or even millenia, in the beginning of the book) ahead, skipping some bits of history that could've been included. And that would've been fine - after all, you can't include everything - except Bernstein sometimes scrutinises some relatively unimportant tafiff or trade law for page after page. It felt odd and threw the pacing.
Still, this was a good book. Bernstein often compared past situations to globalism and it's malcontents. Trade brings prosperity, but it also creates losers, and that had been true since the dawn of civilisation.
The forces of protectionism have battled against the ideology of free trade for centuries, and even longer than that. So today's situation, with trade wars starting to pick up steam, is really nothing new under the sun....more
Tämä on hyvä esimerkki "high concept"-kirjasta, eli teoksesta, jonka perusidean voi kuvata yhdellä kiehtovalla lauseella: Virus on tehnyt e3,5 tähteä.
Tämä on hyvä esimerkki "high concept"-kirjasta, eli teoksesta, jonka perusidean voi kuvata yhdellä kiehtovalla lauseella: Virus on tehnyt eläinten lihasta tappavaa ihmisille, joten siirtymäajan jälkeen ihmissyönti laillistettiin.
Tästä on vaikea sanoa, mikä tämän kirjan tyylilaji on. Lähtöasetelma on liian absurdi, jotta kirjaan voisi suhtautua dystopiana, mutta kirja on liian vakavamielinen ollakseen varsinainen satiiri. Ehkä "synkkä allegoria" kuvaisi sisältöä parhaiten.
Rotukarjan teho on teurastuskohtauksissa, joiden nerokkuus on siinä, että Bazterrica kuvaa ihan tavallisia teurastamon prosesseja, mutta sijoittaa teurastettavaksi eläimeksi ihmisen. Se auttaa paremmin huomaamaan, kuinka brutaaleja menetelmiä käytetään eläviä olentoja kohtaan koko ajan, tälläkin hetkellä. Tämä kirja epäilemättä käännyttää joitain lukijoitaan kasvissyöjiksi.
Rotukarja ei kuitenkaan käsitellyt varsinaisesti eläinoikeuksia, vaan sitä, kuinka helposti ihmiset päätyvät tekemään kammottavia asioita toisille ihmisille. Ihmissyönnin laillistaminen on satiiria, mutta se toimii, koska historia opettaa, miten helposti ihmiset alkavat suhtautua toisiin ihmisiin kuin nämä olisivat pelkkiä vieraita olentoja, joille voi tehdä mitä vain. ...more
Four women are sent to explore weird Area X, where... something... has happened. They are the twelfth expedition: the earlier expedi3,5 stars, really.
Four women are sent to explore weird Area X, where... something... has happened. They are the twelfth expedition: the earlier expeditions met varying fates. They are forbidden to bring with them any advanced technology and they are discouraged to use names.
At times I felt like I was reading a really long piece of creepypasta. The book evoked a pervading feeling of something being wrong without showing much of anything that could be described as "scary". Indeed, the scariest thing was the psychological horror when the protagonist becomes unsure about the true nature of their expedition.
The book had a good atmosphere, but it didn't really go anywhere. That's pretty inevitable with this kind of book: if you want to preserve the weird and creepy feeling, you can't well explain the things the protagonists encounter. That's why New Weird often feels pretty hollow: there's good images, but not really much more.
Novaja Zemljan saarelle rakennetaan jonkinlainen tutkimusasema, jota miehittää sekalainen joukko omituisia hahmoja. He löytävät ja rakentavat uusia elNovaja Zemljan saarelle rakennetaan jonkinlainen tutkimusasema, jota miehittää sekalainen joukko omituisia hahmoja. He löytävät ja rakentavat uusia elämänmuotoja ja valmistavat salaperäistä Moottoria.
Salminen käyttää 1800-luvun romaaneista tuttua metodia, jossa kirja on "koostettu löydetyistä dokumenteista", lähinnä henkilöhahmojen työpäiväkirjoista tai omaelämäkerroista, jotka on sitten järjestetty enemmän tai vähemmän kronologiseen järjestykseen. Joka dokumenttisivun lopussa on myös ristiviitteet vastaavanlaisiin dokumentteihin, jotka toisinaan olivat valaisevia, toisinaan... eivät.
Mutta toisin kuin 1800-luvulla, nämä irtonaiset fragmentit eivät muodosta selkeää kokonaisuutta, jota lukijan olisi helppo seurata. Salminen seuraa Annihilation-kirjan tyylistä uuskumman perinnettä, jossa outoja asioita tapahtuu ilman sen suurempia selityksiä. Tämän kaiken päälle Lomonosovin moottori on vieläpä puhdasta postmodernistista kirjallisuutta, jossa fragmentaarisuus on ihanne ja jokainen kertoja on enemmän tai vähemmän epäluotettava.
En ihmettele, että tämä on Poesian julkaisema: koko kirja liikkuu hyvin usein enemmän proosarunouden kuin varsinaisen romaanikerronnan puolella. Silti kirjassa on jonkinlainen juoni ja jopa juonikäänne loppuvaiheessa.
Varsin usein Salminen syyllistyy kummailuun kummailun vuoksi eivätkä aika ajoin ilmestyvät humoristiset kohdat oikein sovi yhteen muun kokonaisuuden kanssa. Näistä puutteista huolimatta Lomonosovin moottori on ihan kelpo teos....more
This was interesting. I don't always agree with the author, but she writes lucidly and her arguments are food for thought, at a minimum. She also has This was interesting. I don't always agree with the author, but she writes lucidly and her arguments are food for thought, at a minimum. She also has the best definition for feminism: it's a movement that opposes sexism and sexist oppression. No mention of women or men, just sexism. That's brilliant.
She does share the unfortunate tendency of leftist thinkers to proclaim that all movements would best reach their goals by focusing on traditional leftist causes. Therefore it is a problem when some "power feminists" used feminism to advance their own careers, when they should've used their class privilege to help struggling minorities and lower-class women, and while doing that, abolish the whole white-supremacist capitalist patriarchal system.
(She always says "white supremacist capitalist patriarchal system" when referring to society, except when she discusses foreign policy and adds "imperialist" to the litany. It gets pretty repetitive / absurd, especially when listening to an audiobook.)
Hooks valiantly criticizes feminists when they have made mistakes, such as excluding men from the movement or claiming that women are always victims in domestic abuse, ignoring the fact that when children are victims of domestic violence, the perpetrator is more often the mother than the father.
She also doesn't really like the way gender studies has turned feminism into just another academic discipline, causing the jargon to become more and more incomprehensible to the common people, while at the same time divesting energy from a popular movement attempting to change the (white-supremacist capitalist patriarchal) system....more
Rovelli explains the evolution of our concept of time starting from the common-sense meaning of the word, through the mistaken Newtonian idea of absolRovelli explains the evolution of our concept of time starting from the common-sense meaning of the word, through the mistaken Newtonian idea of absolute time, to the Einsteinean insights about the relativity of time and how there is no common "present" or "now" in the universe, and beyond. Indeed, the tentative equations about quantum gravity have no such thing as "time" in them, which means that time is not a fundamental part of the universe. Time, as such, doesn't really exist. Only macroscopic objects such as humans, who must follow the laws of thermodynamics, can perceive the rise of entropy - and percieve that as "time".
This book had some good insights, like the ideas about why the universe was in minimum-entropy state when it was born: if you shuffle a deck of cards, it will get further and further away from it's starting order, so it's entropy increases. But this is true regardless of the initial order of the cards! If the deck is large enough, if we percieve the starting order as meaningful, the deck will always be less meaningful after we shuffle it. But the "meaningfulness" of the starting order is only a matter of viewpoint: it feels meaningful to us, since this whole event gave birth to the universe that gave birth to us, but from another viewpoint it was just an event, and the cards are not in any way "less" or "more" ordered now than in the beginning. That was very interesting, food for thought for a long while.
Rovelli also manages to explain Special and General Relativity pretty lucidly, which is no mean feat. I've seen many other writers stumble there.
I wasn't a fan of his writing style, though. Rovelli too often sounds annoyingly paternalistic. For instance, when he talked about thermodynamics, he actually wrote: "Dear reader, I'm sorry, I had to include this one equation in this book". As if his readers are ignoramuses who will throw away a book in disgust if it includes *shudder* EQUATIONS! The horror!...more
There is a long and proud tradition among the leftists to lament how the Left has lost it's course and purpose, and how the leftist parties need to reThere is a long and proud tradition among the leftists to lament how the Left has lost it's course and purpose, and how the leftist parties need to reinvent themselves for the new decade/century/millennium. Mark Lilla carries this tradition forward with his short analysis about the failings of the Democrats in the United States for the last four decades.
According to Lilla, the Roosevelt years were the heyday of Democrats and liberals in general. Back then, the liberals were the ones with a vision. But as the 20th century moved on and the 60's and the 70's happened, the Rooseveltian vision started to be hopelessly out of touch of the new realities. The USA in the 1970's wa a coutry without a vision.
Enter Reagan, who galvanised the Right with his vision of "Morning in America". This was an optimistic, individualistic and at it's root anti-political message. The time for Big Government was over; as Thatcher said, "there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women".
The Democrats, who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, didn't react with a positive, pro-political message of their own. Instead they retreated to identity politics, where "personal was political". Instead of creating a new vision for America, the liberals focused on dividing the nation into smaller and smaller segments and urging people to focus on the problems of their particular identity group. As Lilla said succintly, identity politics is Reaganism for leftists.
But now the Reagan era is over. Donald Trump is the POTUS, and he surely doesn't have any vision of his own. This is an opportunity for the left, but Lilla is concerned the liberals spend all their time opposing Trump without creating a positive vision of their own.
His proposal is to once more focus on the citizenship. A black lesbian lawyer from New York and a out-of-work middle-aged white former car industy worker from Detroit might not have very much in common - except the fact that they are both citizens of the same nation. And this is the message the left should empathize: we are all in the same boat; if one citizen is treated badly, what's protecting other citizens from the same fate later down the road?
This was an entertaining book. The audiobook was less than three hours long, so it was fast absorbed. I'm not an American, so I don't identify with the particular issues Lilla is discussing, but the sorry state of the Left is not unique to the USA. Indeed, the European leftists have made much of the same mistakes Lilla is attributing to Democrats: too much focus on the divisive identity politics, too much reactions to right-wing advances and not enough proactive programs of their own. Therefore I could find lots of substance in the book even as a non-American....more
I wish I had found this book back in 2007, when it was just published. I heard about behavioral economics and the study of human biases first in 2006 I wish I had found this book back in 2007, when it was just published. I heard about behavioral economics and the study of human biases first in 2006 or 2007, and it blew my mind. Suddenly I found the science that explains human behaviour in terms I could understand. People are not, in fact, idiotic apes behaving randomly; we are reasonably smart apes who have very consistent biases in our thinking processes. I can honestly say that blogs such as Overcoming Bias and books such as Thinking, Fast and Slow changed the way I looked at the world.
It's been over 10 years now, and I've read several books and countless blog posts on human (ir)rationality. I've even taught the subject to school age kids. That's why I'm having trouble reviewing this book: I have heard it all before. Back in 2007 this would've been a five-star book for me, but now I don't know.
It doesn't help that some of the studies Ariely is referencing haven't replicated in later attempts. Indeed, the whole field of "priming studies" is nowadays called into question, if not dismissed outright, since so many of the seminal studies didn't replicate. "Stereotype threat" isn't looking so hot, either. That means that many of the conclusions Ariely draws in this book are not, in fact, reliable.
But all in all, this is not a bad book. I can't really wholeheartedly recommend it, due to the prominence of those later-falsified studies I mentioned above. But if you remember that whenever Ariely talks about "priming" you should just skip ahead and forget about those parts, this is an okay book and a good introduction to the subject....more
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