The City and the City, by China Mieville

I finished reading The City & The City and was impressed, intrigued and am interested in reading some of his other books. A murder investigation in a foreign city which is actually two cities who spend their days ignoring each other... what could go wrong? I found this crime novel to be very creative, and …

Peace on Earth, by Stanislaw Lem

I finished Peace on Earth and I think it's possible that I didn't 'get' this book. I have found afterward that it was meant to be a satire, and though some of it was funny, I took it more of a straight up sci fi adventure/thought piece. Maybe that is why I was a bit …

Weaponized insanity

No, this isn't a political post... I'm still listening to Peace on Earth and in it, they have the idea of a drug or weapon that induces psychosis. This would be a much more effective way of eliminating someone who knows too much. Killing them would draw attention to them, and start an investigation--but if …

Time stopping powers

Very often, unusually often probably, I wish I could stop time and just sit and read or write all day. Now I wonder why our world is such that I need to imagine fantastic powers for myself, just in order to read all day... In the future, unless things change, even when we have robots …

Doers and preservers

I just listened to the section in Crime and Punishment featuring the talk about Raskolnikov's article. (very minor spoilers) The article talks about what Raskolnikov calls 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary' people, and their differences. The ordinary people, he says, are happy to be ruled and told what to do, and have not many exciting or interesting …