Book Reviews

Ignorance: How It Drives Science by Stuart Firestein

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Summary: It is ignorance, not knowledge that really drives science.

Stuart Firestein is a professor of Neurobiology and a researcher.  At one point he realized that he loved doing research and coming up with new things to research and questions to ask.  But when he taught his upper level undergrads about Neurobiology he tended to focus not on the questions and what was unknown and where the science was going, but on the facts.

He realized that this gave students the impression that what was important was gaining a foothold in the facts so that they could grasp the concepts of the field.  But what he needed to be teaching them was not the facts (although they did need basic information and concepts that were important), he needed to be teaching them wonder and sparking the creative ideas of his students and helping them understand that no matter how much we will learn, that the very fact of learning opens up new areas of ignorance so that there will never be a point when science has solved all the questions of particular field.

The book is split into two large sections, the first is a description of what Ignorance is all about. Eventually, Firestein started teaching a class on ignorance. He would bring in prominent scientists in their field and talk about what was unknown, what areas were driving their research, what things that scientist would love to know, but can’t because of limitations of equipment or observation.  Essentially, the scientists talked about all the areas of their field that they were ignorant of and how that was driving their science.

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Waterfall: A Novel by Lisa Bergren (River of Time #1)

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Summary: A surprisingly prepared 17 year old gets sent back into time to 14th Century Italy.

I have a pretty high tolerance for cheesy stories. But Waterfall really pushed the cheesy factors. I was pretty tired of all the teen slang that felt like it was included to try and be more authentic, but ended up being annoying and making the book feel younger and less professional.

Gabi is a 17 year old daughter of a pair of archeologists. Her father recently died and she and her sister and mother are on site in Italy trying to excavate an ancient tomb. While exploring the tomb, Gabi and her sister touches the wall and somehow Gabi gets sent back to 14th century Italy. When she walks out of the tomb she is in the midst of a small battle between two neighboring keeps (and her sister is no where to be found.)

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Time’s Echo by Rysa Walker (Chronos Files #1.5)

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Time's Echo by Rysa WalkerSummary: A short novella (about 100 pages) from an alternate perspective to keep interest in the series until the next book comes out later this fall.

I really do feel for authors.  It used to be that authors could write a book a year, or maybe even a book every couple years.  But these days that does not seem to be enough for many.  Publishers and fans seem to want authors to put out a couple books a year or at least have the first couple books ready to published is quick succession.

Timebound was a KindleFirst book in December, but was officially published in January 2014.  Then Time’s Echo is a novella that was published at the end of April.  And Time’s Edge is the second full length book scheduled to be released Oct 21, 2014.  So two full novels and a novella published in the span of just 10 months.

The Chronos Files is a young adult time traveling series.  Kate is a high school student at the beginning of the series and she finds out that her long lost grandmother is actually a time traveler from the future.  And Kate has to learn how to use the time traveling medallion to stop her grandfather and aunt from changing history and maybe making her family cease to exist.

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Mercury Falls by Robert Kroese

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Summary: Did you read Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett? Well this is basically the same plot.

I am trying to give KindleUnlimited a good shot.  As I am posting this, I have finished nine KindleUnlimited books since it was released a bit over three weeks ago.

What is good about a program like KindleUnlimited is that it have a very low threshold to try something new.  There is no cost for the individual book, just the monthly subscription.

Mercury Falls is one of the better reviewed fantasy books on KindleUnlimited and it has free audiobook narration included.

The bad part of subscription book programs is that there is a lot of junk you need to sort through in order to get to the good stuff.

Mercury Falls is not a bad book. I actually enjoyed it, but if you have read Good Omens, it really is basically the same book.  (My review of Good Omens.)

In both Armageddon is about to happen. In Good Omens, an angel and a demon work together to stop it from happening.  In Mercury Falls, an Angel (Mercury, he also was mistaken for a god by the Greeks and Romans) and a human reporter (Christine) decide to try and stop Armageddon.

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The Magicians by Lev Grossman

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Summary: An adult look at what it would be like to be a magician, and get everything you could possibly want, and still not find meaning or purpose in life. I tend to buy audiobook in groups at Audible.com. They often have sales where you buy two and get one free, or buy four and … Read more

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

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Takeaway: An American Classic.

To Kill A Mockingbird deserves all of its praise.  I had not read it since middle school or early high school, so when it came out for the first time as an ebook last month (at a very reasonable price) I picked it up.

It starts a little slow I think. I read the background and first two years of the story and then set it aside and read several other books before returning to  it again.  But once the main story starts with Atticus defending Tom Robinson I finished the rest of the book in two days.

There is no good way to review this book.  The basic story is well known and is one the true classics of American literature.   And Emily Flury is also reading it to review for Bookwi.se, so I will leave the hard work to her 🙂  But I did read the Wikipedia entry just to see what it said and was surprised how autobiographical the novel was.

I knew (but had forgotten) that Harper Lee and Truman Capote were friends.  I did not realize that Truman was the inspiration for the character Dill.  Wikipedia also said that Haper Lee’s father was a lawyer that lost a case defending two African American men on charges of murder.  After losing the case he did not practice law again.  Jem was based on her own brother, also 4 years older.  Haper Lee’s mother did not die until she was 25, but there was an African American maid/cook that worked for the family and her mother was emotionally distant because of some mental health issues.  There was also a real Boo Radley character in her neighborhood, a young man got into legal trouble and the father kept him at home for the 24 years out of shame until he was basically forgotten and eventually died.

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July Most Read Reviews

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Sex, Mom and God by Frank Schaeffer Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites“¦and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media by Bradley R.E. Wright Fangirl by Rainbow Roswell Resolving Everyday Conflict by Ken Sande Evangellyfish by Douglas Wilson Ubik by Philip K Dick

Ubik by Philip K Dick

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Takeaway: Is anyone better at writing paranoid fiction than Philip K Dick?

Philip K Dick was brilliant and deeply troubled.  Which seems to make for a good science fiction writer.  Ubik, a 1969 novel, is set in 1992, when psychic powers are common.  Joe Chip works for a “˜prudence organization’.  Prudence organizations specialize in helping people or businesses protect themselves from psychics.  So they use anti-telepaths to protect people from having their minds read by telepaths or other anti-psychics to counter the variety of different psychic powers.

The other plot point you have to understand is “˜half-life’.  In this future, when people die, if they can be preserved in time, they can live in “˜half-life’, a sort of preserved life of the mind.  You cannot life forever this way, but your body is preserved and you can communicate with people outside your preservation chamber.  But at some point you sort of fade out and are reincarnated.

There is basically no way to discuss this book without spoilers, so if you don’t want any spoilers for this 45 year old book, you should stop reading because I am going to disclose pretty much the whole book.

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Among the Unseen by Jodi McIsaac (The Thin Veil #3)

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Summary: Cedar, the new Queen of Tír na nÓg, is trying to adjust to her new life and new powers.  But all the Unseen (the magical creatures of Earth) have started dying. 

The Thin Veil trilogy is one of the increasing numbers of books published by 47North or one of Amazon’s other publishing imprints.  And I think it is fairly similar to the others I have read, better than most self published books, but still not quite to the upper levels of quality of all books.

The Thin Veil trilogy follows Cedar, her daughter Eden, and others through discovering that the Celtic gods were actually an immortal race from another world, and that Cedar is the lost daughter of the last king.

Similar to Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series or the Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott, this is a modern look at ancient mythology.  But the Thin Veil series is adult fiction (although I would have read it as a teen and I don’t really have any content warning other than some sexual innuendo.)

This is a good light beach read fantasy.  Nothing heavy, but not terribly original either.

The main story arc of the third book is about the sickness and death of the magical creatures on earth.  There was an ancient spell that protected the creatures from humans as long as humans believed in them.  But now that humans have stopped believing in them, they have started dying.

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