The Salvation Sequence by Peter F. Hamilton.

Salvation 

Salvation Lost 

The Saints of Salvation 

👍👍👍👍 

 Not as good as the Commonwealth saga but an amazing story which I binged like a maniac (thanks to the 🎄 holidays!) A story of alien invasion. Interesting science fiction concepts and gripping plots. I liked the aliens a lot! and as usual with Hamilton this growing sensation of starting small but gradually becoming bigger and bigger to interstellar and galactic scopes, travelling hundreds of light years through wormholes with the story developing across thousands of years.

The Invisible Frontier by Benoit Peeters and François Schuiten.

Beautiful art, unforgettable story. I love the fantastic world of the Obscure Cities series. I hope #IDW keeps publishing these books because I want more.

Way Station by Clifford Simak.

Super duper Good!! 

Much more than science fiction and very well written. 👍 This is not a sophisticated, technology-focused story. Most of the story takes place inside the station with Enoch reflecting about the past and future or talking to alien visitors. There is some action outside but not much. I'd say this is a character-driven novel but also a philosophical one exploring the role of humanity in the cosmos, longevity, immortality, civilization and progress. Great read.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft.

Enjoyable and dark. It delves into Lovecraft's insane world of monstrous things. It starts with Charles Ward's disappearance from a mental asylum and then back a few months with his family physician starting an investigation on Ward's secret activities.

The Sandman. Book Four by Neil Gaiman a list of artists.

 

This book is the last in the series and includes stories: the Castle, the Kindly Ones (hated the art), the Wake (loved it), Exiles (my favourite), the Tempest, and the last sandman story. While I'm satisfied I finished the main series I think I will leave Mr Sandman for a while before I decide to continue with the spin offs.

The Coddling of the American Mind. How good intentions and Bad Ideas are setting up a generation for failure by Greg Lukianoff Jonathan Haidt.

This is an extraordinary book. It is an analysis of the problems in US university campuses, of progressive, unsafe ideas, how and why they might have started, and how they can be improved.

The authors define 3 Untruths which are imposed on young people and which are at the root of their unrealistic ideologies and mental problems:

The Untruth of Fragility 

The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning 

The Untruth of Us versus Them 

The authors propose 6 explanatory threads:

1.The rising of Political Polarisation and cross party animosity of US politic 

2.Rising levels of teen anxiety and depression 

3.Changes in Parenting Practices 

4.The Loss of Free Play and unsupervised risk-taking 

5.The growth of campus bureaucracy and expansion of its protective mission 6.Increasing passion for justice, combined with changing ideas about what justice requires.

My take: US mid-class iGen kids (born 1995 and after) were raised in ultra-safe environments, not allowed free play or to take risks, made to believe that they were never safe, always fragile and in need of parental supervision. Add to that the negative effects of social media, which these kids started using in their teens and the lack of face to face socialisation.

When they started college, around 2013, the time when all these problems started, they brought with them their believes and so the ideology expanded. For them, words are violence. Problematic ideas need to be cancelled or else, they resort to what they call self-defence which in fact is real violence. Anyway there is much more in the book. Read it if you are interested.

The Collected Toppi. Volume Four: The Cradle of Life

B E A U T I F U L 

Five tales of folklore set in colonial-era Africa, Australia, and the South Pacific, originally published in the 1970s and 1980s. Included are THE KOKOMBO DOSSIER, BWUMA MY SON, WARRAMUNGA, M'FELEWZI, and PACIFIC ISLAND.

The Searcher by Tana French

Not mind-blowing, thrilling, or even suspenseful, I'd say, but it's surely an entertaining and gripping story. The best of this novel is the character depiction of the protagonist and his relationship with a kid. Both, searching for answers and trying to heal at the same time. I liked French's writing, so I will be looking for more books by her.

The search for the Origin of Covid-19 by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley.

Excellent read. This book is full of facts about the origins of the recent pandemic. It tells the story like a detective novel, putting the pieces of the puzzle one by one together. But the puzzle isn't finished yet. There is more work that needs to be done.

The book explains what is known about Covid-19 and similar viruses. How these viruses are studied in China and elsewhere. Who are the people who carry out and the people who fund those studies. It draws comparisons with previous epidemics (SARS, MERS) and explains how the authorities and scientists acted then.

The book also details the events before and during the outbreak. Who got infected, where, what data was collected, and most importantly, how the Chinese government obstructed the search for truth. Not only this, there is some information about Western scientists and authorities trying to manipulate public opinion, as if there was something big that needed to be hidden.

Viral does not find the origins of the virus because more information needs to be uncovered, but instead, the authors propose two hypotheses: 1. The pandemic originated as a natural spillover. 2. The pandemic originated from an accidental laboratory leak. There is one chapter trying to prove each hypothesis true. The main contribution of this book, I guess, is a long set of questions that are currently unanswered but which need to be answered to find the truth.

Personally, after reading the book and reading the update to the epilogue (with more facts since the hardcover was released) and watching recent developments, I lean towards Hypothesis 2.

The lack of transparency in China, the WHO, the NIH and others is evident. Add to that WIV Scientists and friends trying to conceal information and misleading the public with their Nature and Science papers.

I'm grateful the authors wrote this book. It clarifies so much misinformation and misinterpretations presented by the media, authorities, etc. Now, I'm in a better position to follow the news and have an informed opinion.

Metabolical. The Truth about Processed Food and How it Poisons People and the Planet by Dr Robert Lustig

This is an excellent book. It's about how processed food (ultra-processed food) damages our health and is the cause for modern diseases: noncommunicative diseases-> metabolic syndrome. 

It goes into cellular biology and how cells use energy and how our food should provide for bodily processes which need that energy. Lustig explains how Real Food nourishes us and how processed food doesn't. The book then goes on to explain how processed food is made and how different it is from real food. There are sections explaining how sugars and other poisons (corn syrup, nitrates, trans fats, etc.) affect our body, giving us diabetes, heart conditions, liver cancer, dementia and other mental health problems.

The last part of the book discusses the Food Industry and compares it with the tobacco and alcohol industries. The effects of processed food on our bodies are indeed comparable to the effects of those controlled substances. Sugar is an addictive substance and is everywhere in everything processed. There is also a section on governments and how complicit they are. There is a strong relationship between both - food industry and governments - which isn't necessarily ethical but is financially beneficial for them. 

It seems that the food industry keeps feeding us sugar because it will make us eat more and they will profit from it. Big pharma also make big profit as all these chronic metabolic diseases mean we will need medication possibly for life. These medicines only treat the symptoms but do not cure the diseases. The only cure (and prevention) as Dr Lustig says is: Eat Real Food! 

Science and medicine have been blind to this for years, as Big Food and Big Pharma's interference funding research has distorted the truth. Big pharma has also interfered with medical education enforcing teaching paradigms which benefit their use of prescriptions. An excellent read for anyone who is interested in the food industry, health, and particularly Real Food.

Gateway by Frederik Pohl

Good, good! I like how Pohl intercalates the narrative about the Gateway, the aliens and the trips with psychotherapy sessions of the protagonist with an AI/robot therapist. Actually I found these sessions a very interesting narrative tool of past and present events as well as uncovering the psychological effects the trips and the gateway had on the protagonist. Thought provoking and surprisingly entertaining.

The Collected Toppi. Volume Seven: Sharaz-de.

So far favourite Volume (I've read volumes 5, 6 and 7). 11 stories adapted from The Thousand and One Nights. Love the page layouts. I thought I was going to stop here and be happy with the 3 volumes I have, but I might get more.

Consciousness. Understanding the Ghost in the Machine. New Scientist. Essential Guide N°12. Edited by Richard Webb.

This book doesn't have a definite answer about the nature of consciousness. The reason is that no one has one final answer. The first article starts with "Consciousness is a slippery concept." And the last article starts with "The subjective nature of consciousness makes it difficult even to define." This book explores so many aspects related to consciousness, from subjectivity, experiences, to where consciousness resides in our brains and why we have it. Jump to sleep, anaesthesia and hallucinations. So many different areas of study, so many angles. Hopefully, someday we'll be able to understand. Worth a read.

The Case Against Death by Ingemar Patrick Linden

The main message of this book is: Death is Evil. The author spends 12 chapters to prove his point refuting the main pro-Death/Death is natural/Death is good arguments he finds out there. Linden disects every argument into its atomic parts, and debunks each bit with sometimes relentlessly tedious, dense logic, philosophy and common sense. A bit hard to read but I'm happy I persevered. While the book provides very strong arguments against the belief that death is good, I am still hesitant to 100% favour the Death is Evil argument. I guess my intellectual side kind of favours it, but my emotional side is harder to convince. I do not see any attempt to significantly prolong our lives and/or to reach immortality, becoming real any time soon. So better to accept my, everyone's fate and have the best life I, we can... I guess..

Los Renglones Torcidos de Dios (God's Crooked Lines) by Torcuato Luca de Tena.

 A female private detective who goes into a mental institution to solve a murder case. For that she has to pretend to be paranoid. But, is she really pretending or was she sectioned because she is ill? This novel really surprised me. It is well written, intriguing, addictive. The main character is superb. She makes reading the whole novel worth it. She is intelligent, charming and paranoid? Her situation/condition plays a much bigger role than the murder case and it is what makes you want to keep reading. But it doesn't end there. The setup, among psychiatrists and the mentally ill, is really good. To write this book the author visited several mental hospitals and then got himself admitted in one for 18 days. It is from these experiences that he got inspiration for the many mentally ill patients and psychiatrists in the novel. It's a pity that there isn't an English translation, but there is a Netflix adaptation which might be worth watching.

The Collected Toppi. Volume 6. Japan

 A collection of stories about Japanese folklore, culture and myths. A couple of stories involve samurai/ronin, but the rest are about normal, common people, in some cases peasants, living their lives, with their loses and hardships. I admire Toppi's skill to combine amazing storytelling with outstanding art. The stories are compelling and powerful but touching at the same time. Everyone of them will leave at least some tiny residue of emotion in your brain or heart, wherever you think emotions live.

Blindsight by Peter Watts.

A deep exploration into philosophical issues related to consciousness & intelligence. I’ve been interested in this topic for quite a few years. The novel was suggested reading in Science and Philosophy, a compilation of essays. The ideas in Blindsight are compelling but I did not enjoy the story much. The configuration of the actual mission, which is at the centre of the plot, did not make sense to me.

The little I’d heard about this novel before was that it had vampires in space! And, yes, there is a vampire, but it isn’t a  protagonist. It mostly exists in the background, and when it comes to the front by the end of the story there were other much more interesting themes which overlapped with it which left the poor vampire as a meh character. The main protagonist and the other members of a spaceship crew are trans-humans, highly modified, physically and psychologically, and much more interesting. The aliens of the story are interesting too. The way Watts describes them, the aliens and the main protagonist (who lost half of his brain early in life), helped me reflect on the nature of consciousness, awareness of our own existence, awareness of other people’s lives and feelings and most importantly the concept of consciousness as a precondition for intelligence.

M.C. Escher. The Graphic Work.

A beautiful book by Taschen. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Not much in terms of text. An interesting introduction by the artist and short descriptions of the illustrations. The art though is amazing. Escher's most used techniques were lithography, relief printing and intaglio printing. I can imagine how hard it can be to draw these pieces with pencil but engraving them must by incredibly difficult.

Homo Deus. A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari.

Damn Good! 

This book more or less starts by stating that we “are bringing famine, plague and war under control,” it then goes on to briefly justify these claims. And yes, the justifications make sense. Harari then sets his eyes in the future asserting that next in the agenda for humanity is to achieve immortality, happiness and divinity. 

The rest of the book explains the above claim. Homo Deus is full of information, historical facts, anecdotes, and analysis of ideas and intellectual traditions. I don't know how to summarise it in less that a few thousand words so I will just mention some of the highlights here. 

 Humans, stories and religions: from animism (the world belongs to everyone, humans and animals we all follow the same rules), religion (humans are unique and special, we are part of a cosmic plan), to some evolutionary psychology (a need shaped generations ago continues to be felt subjectively now, even if it is no longer necessary for survival and reproduction, for example: emotions.) Science: emotions, sensations and thoughts are biochemical algorithms. 

What makes humans so special? 

Seen from a religious perspective, we could say we are part of God's plan, that we (and no other animal) have souls which will live for eternity. However, evolution rejects these ideas. Some intellectual traditions think of the Mind: a flow of subjective experiences, made of interlinked sensations, emotions and thoughts, which exist in a short period of time. This is also called Stream of Consciousness. Some believe Humans are the only species with minds. However, we are not really sure if animals don't have minds, or consciousness. Accoriding to science, consciousness is created by electrochemical reactions in the brain which fulfil essential data-processing function. Some people believe that we need subjective experiences (pain, fear) for survival (evolutionary benefit), others believe subjective experiences help us think about ourselves or to make decisions. However, some scientists think consciousness is the useless by-product of certain brain processes.

Connected to mind is the concept of intelligence. Are we the only intelligent species on earth? Have we managed to control earth because of our superior intelligence? Maybe not, 1 million years ago humans were as intelligent as now but they remained insignificant creatures.

What makes us really special, according to Harari, is that we are the only species able to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

Harari states that fictions (e.g. money, gods, nations and values) enable better cooperation at large scales and also determine our goals (e.g. if we all believe in our nation we can cooperate together to make it greater). Religion is a fiction too. It is created by humans, not deities. It is defined by its social function which is to control people. It provides a system of moral laws, not invented by humans (but by God's or nature) which humans have to obey. Although science deals with facts, it needs religion to maintain large scale social order. According to science there is no meaning to our existence. However Humanism provides a platform to find meaning which is not rooted in a cosmic plan. Humanism worships humanity. It believes we (our experiences, our feelings) are the the ultimate source of meaning and our free will is the highest authority. Again science does not agree. There is no Free will. Our desires are the result of biochemical chain reactions. Furthermore, we are not individuals, we are flashes of experiences, which appear and fade (this according to brain studies). What science and technology are doing now is to create some sort of intelligence (no need to be conscious intelligence) which can perform tasks better than us. Particularly, AI can replace humans who professionalise or specialise. AI could not replace a hunter gatherer.

As science needs religious support and as Humanism cannot provide this support anymore, new streams of thought are emerging namely, techno-humanism and dataism. The last two chapters of the book deal with both ideologies/religions. If you want to know more about them, read the book!!

The Sandman Book Three by Neil Gaiman. And a long list of artists.

So far my least favourite of the 3 books I've read so far. Though there were a few stories which I really enjoyed. Best for me is Brief Lives in which Delirium and Dream go on a quest for their older brother Destruction. There were a few short stories at the beginning, which were OK. And another arc: World's End, which I thought was OK but didn't enjoy because I didn't like the art (last 3 photos). Overall, I am still enjoying The Sandman and will go for Book Four sometime in the coming months.

The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai by Wong Kar Wai and John Powers.

 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️   

All you need to know about Wong Kar Wai and his films. His creative processes and inspirations. How he writes his movies on the go. Sometimes writing the scripts in the morning and filming in the evening. Sometimes working on two movies at the same time!

The Collected Toppi. Volume five: The Eastern Path by Sergio Toppi.

B E A T I F U L. An anthology of 6 short stories set in western Asia and eastern Europe, kind of historical fiction, seasoned with folklore, mythology and superstition. The art is superb. Lines, textures, objects invading the next panel.

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Really entertaining story and characters. I like the ideas of ancient civilisations and cosmic mysteries. This book has both and more. I'll definitely go for book 2.

How Religion Evolved. And why it endures. By Robin Dunbar.

This book tries to answer the following questions: 

When did humans develop spiritual thought? 

What is religion’s evolutionary purpose? 

And, in our increasingly secular world, why has it endured? 

Prof. Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford. His book does not touch on the veracity of religious beliefs, spirits, afterlife, parallel worlds or gods, but examines religion as a sociological and psychological phenomenon. From early humans attributing supernatural properties to natural phenomena to the complexity of modern doctrinal religions. 

One of the first premises that struck my mind was that there are no (evolutionary) fitness benefits of religions. Actually, religion is a non-adaptive, by-product of mechanisms designed for other more useful (fitness) purposes. Fitness is a property of a trait or gene (and individuals in a loose sense) which explains why we evolve towards forms which solve the problems of surviving and reproducing.

Historically religions have developed through 2 phases: 1) Animism – belief that animals other than us and other (natural) objects are imbued with spirits. This is, apparently, due to how are minds are designed and to everyday experience. Animist religions are religions of immersive experience and do not have formal rituals. They are sometimes associated with trance states which can be spontaneous, or arising from group rituals (with music and psychedelics) or individually through meditation. 2) Doctrinal religions, with complex rituals and sets of beliefs and which involve populations much bigger than animist religions. 

Mysticism has been a major component of religions. It usually involves individuals drifting into different or higher planes of consciousness. Some people would call it being possessed by god. Mysticism has 3 features: trance state, belief in a transcendental world and a belief that we can call for (supernatural) powers to heal us. Trance states are sometimes described as entering a hole or tunnel and an intense light, similar to descriptions of near-death experiences. Usually trance states are associated with the consumption of mescaline, LSD, Psilocybin, DMT (Ayahuasca being the most famous), tobacco, cannabis and opium. Animist groups usually have shamans. Guides or leaders, who, in trance states can predict the future, heal and manage communal disputes. 

Dunbar identifies 2 kinds of benefits which explain why religion might be good for us: 1) Individual level benefits: religion provides a unifying framework for the world, health-invisible forces, and herbs, plants and shamans. 2) Societal level benefits: moralising higher gods ( a sort of policeman in the sky who makes people comply with societal rules, behave altruistically, etc to preserve societies. On a different line, Marxist ideas see religion as “the opium of people”, a tool of an elite to subdue people. According to Dunbar, religion can be a good tool to preserve states as well. However, religions must exist before the state is formed for this to work. 

0In terms of size of religious communities, Dunbar states that the smaller the church size, the higher the member satisfaction and the longer an individual is part of the group. In this discussion Dunbar (re) introduces his Dunbar number, or the optimal number of people for a group to be cohesive and last for long. For humans, this number is 150 (aprox.) and is calculated from the size of the brain’s neocortex. Dunbar discusses a number of different studies, historical, religious, on social media, etc. which report groups around the world of 150 individuals. 

But how did humans become religious? The explanation starts with animal grooming and then human grooming - an intimate activity/behaviour which triggers the Endorphin system, which calms us down. Laughter, singing, dancing, emotional storytelling, feasting and religious rituals can be consider activities akin to grooming, unique to humans which depend on language. These are ways to groom with larger groups of people simultaneously and which increases human bonding. Dunbar identifies a list of cues or traits people share with family and friends. These traits make large groups possible. They are the 7 pillars of friendship: 1) sharing the same language, 2) place of origin, 3) educational trajectory, 4) hobbies and interests, 5) worldview (religion, moral and political views), 6 musical taste and 7) sense of humour. The pillars are useful to identify people who we can feel emotionally close to, and to assess the trustworthiness of strangers. The second part of the explanation of how religion evolved resides in the Theory of Mind. 

The Theory of Mind, or Mentalising, (or mind reading) is the ability to understand someone else’s intentions. Philosopher Daniel Dennett developed the concept of intentional stance “the suggestion that evolution has designed the human mind to interpret the world in intentional terms”, through the interactions with other people. Dunbar further explains this in terms of language and orders of intentionality. For example, a person who has first-order intentionality knows the content of their own mind. A person who has second-order intentionality, can know that someone else knows something (I know that you know). Humans acquire second-order intentionality at the age or 4. Jump to fifth-order intentionality: I think that you think that X thinks, that Y thinks that God will punish us. The average human possess fifth-order intentionality (overall women score higher mentalising capabilities than men) and this is fundamental for the appearance of religion. The explanation is long but in short, theory of mind determines the complexity of the language we use, the fictional stories we tell, the size of conversation groups we can have. With theory of mind we can build the complex beliefs and share it with other members in our groups. 

Rituals are bedrocks for religions. Religious rituals are highly synchronised and have to be carried out in a specific manner and sequence of steps. Human Rituals have their origin in animal play but unlike those, ours have Meaning. Rituals involve some elements of behaviour which form a central part in social bonding. Ritualistic elements in religions are singing, dancing, hugging rhythmic bowing, emotional storytelling and communal meals. Attendance to religious services and engaging in rituals trigger human’s endorphin system which in turn enhances our sense of bonding. It is said that pain and synchrony of rituals enhance the sense of bonding. This effect is further enhanced if we have a religious purpose. 

And now on to History of Religion. Starting from the prehistorical evidence Dunbar discusses human graves from, as early, as 40K years ago, and neanderthal graves from 100K years ago. Evidence suggests rudimentary forms of religion with deliberate burials , including goods and the positioning of bodies, cave art (sketching and drawings on walls and other kinds of artwork like figurines). Some artwork could be records of experiences in the spirit world during trance. Other archaeological evidence suggest use of psychoactive substances around the world, which could lead to trance experiences (which are connected to shamanic religions). Studies on tribal societies and religion suggest that earliest religions were simple, taking an animist form. Other traits were added later in clusters such as the belief in afterlife, ancestor worship and shamans, and even later the belief in moralising gods (in the neolithic). 

Because of the lack of archaeological evidence from previous periods, there is not much more that can be inferred about early religions. However, Dunbar presents a series of studies which relies on the use of 2 separate anatomical indicators (mentalising and speech) to determine when language evolved and hence a possible origin of religion. Findings explain how fifth-order intentionality is necessary to develop religion as communal practice and how language is needed to explain symbolism and a transcendental world. The conclusion is that religion originated with anatomically modern humans. Religion cannot evolve before language. Even if Neanderthals (and Heidelbergs, and others) had language, it was not as sophisticated as humans’ and did not have high mentalising abilities. This was inferred from cranial volume. 

So, thanks to theory of mind we understand intentionality, and can think of transcendental worlds and spirits. This gave rise to animism. In these forms of religions the aim was to mollify capricious deities through community activities. Thanks to language, hunter-gatherers were able to settle in smalls groups, for defence purposes (not agriculture), to cope with violence from other groups. Yes, hunter-gatherers did not settle because of agriculture. In fact, agriculture is a consequence of this settlement. Agriculture was necessary to sustain settlements. As population size increased, social friction and stress increased. Humans evolved strategies to help them cope with large groups. Doctrinal Religions is one of these strategies. An important one. Other strategies involved community bonding activities, marital arrangements and switch to male hierarchies. Doctrinal religions brought High Moralising gods to ensure community cohesion for mutual protection. Each of us had to respond to their god on an individual basis, join complex rituals, etc. 

All religions start as cults, built around a charismatic leader. [Charisma is something that is conferred on someone by their followers, not necessarily a property of the individual themselves.] Studies show that cult leaders present psychotic tendencies (e.g. time distortion, synaesthesia, auditory and visual hallucinations, loss of self-object boundaries, social withdrawal, etc.) Anthropologist Simon Dien believes that schizophrenia and religious experience draw on the same cognitive process in the brain. Shamans for example are seen as atypical individuals, suffer from psychopathologies which predispose them to trance states. But why do people join cults? Cults appeal to those who are in crisis and offer psychological support. Their rituals offer the calming effects of endorphin activated by rituals. Because of their higher mentalising capabilities women are more likely to be religious and join cults. They end up desiring to be in direct, physical contact with their leaders. This ends up with male leaders taking advantage of them. 

There is more about why and how religions fragment but I’m tired. I’ll finish this post with: Religions and religious institutions are social phenomena underpinned by the same psychological processes that make our social world. This connects with what I mentioned before that for Dunbar, religion is a non-adaptive, by-product of mechanisms designed for other more useful (fitness) purposes. The end. Read the book!

The Sandman. Book Two. Written by Neil Gaiman.

Includes: Season of Mists arc, short stories Thermidor, August, Three Septembers and a January, A Game of You arc, The Song of Orpheus arc, short stories the flowers of romance, Death - a winter's tale and How they met themselves. 

I liked most of the stories. My favourite was Season of Mists, which is fantastic. Morpheous goes to hell to free an old lover but he finds Lucifer quiting his job and closing hell. I also liked Thermidor, about a woman rescuing Orpheus' head during the french revolution and August, a story about Roman Emperor Augustus. 

The chapters are drawn, inked, coloured by a long list of artists. This is one thing that characterises this series: the inconsistency of the art. So much credit to the writer who keeps everything together into coherent, gripping, and interesting story lines. 

Some chapters are good (my favourite in the art department is Kelly Jones, who draws most of the Season of Mists arc.), but there are chapters that are just a pain to read (like most of A Game of You).

The Craft of Dying. The Modern Face of Death by Lyn H. Lofland.

I really, really good read. This book includes a 86 page essay, an excellent introduction by John Troyer and an epilogue by Ara A. Francis, which discusses how (and if) things have changed since the Craft of Dying was first published in 1978. It also includes endnotes and a long bibliography. 

The essay discusses 3 main topics: 

1. The situation of Modern Dying - in the past, maybe until 1 century ago, "dying," the stage in which a person knew their lives were ending, lasted minutes, hours or days. In modern times, thanks to scientific and technological advances, we can know well in advance if we are affected by a terminal illness. This knowledge makes the "dying" stage more prolonged than before. In addition to this, and because of how western societies are organised, death takes place in secularised and bureaucratic contexts (e.g. hospitals.) Because of this the dying are organisationally segregated. 

2. Individual constructions about death - discusses how dying is shaped through 4 dimensions of choice: space (if death takes a central role in the dying's life or if it's only marginal), population (to spend last days with others who are in the same situation), knowledge (who knows about the dying) and stance (attitude towards death). There are also other factors, that could be out of control, but which affect the process greatly: the disease process, the social organisation and culture of medical practice, the available resources, the surrounding others. 

3. Collective Constructions - discusses the Happy Death Movement, which appeared in the mid 70s, and which promoted reforms such as: A. Talk more about death (to oppose death as taboo). B. Rearrange death - less dying in hospitals which are poor settings for dying, promote Dying Places (like hospices) and Home Death. C. Alter the structure of the law - to look into euthanasia, death with dignity, and natural death.

The Fever in Urbicande by François Schuiten and Benoit Peeters.

Part of the Obscure Cities series. ❤️❤️❤️❤️ It's about a cube that grows and grows and grows, invading a whole city. Interesting premise, but obviously, it doesn't end there. The story highlights the implications on the city and its government, on its people, and the inequalities that separate them.

Dog will have his day by Fred Vargas.

Recently, I've been in the mood for crime noir authors from France. After reading Hammet, Cain, and Chandler, I felt like changing countries. A few weeks ago, I read Fatale by Jean Patrick Manchette, and wow 👌 Then I found this book in the public library by super famous writer Fred Vargas. 

Dog will have his day is a standalone following an unemployed detective. He starts a murder investigation after finding a tiny piece of human bone, possibly excreted by a dog. Helped by a couple of friends, he follows the dog traces and voila, ends up in a small town enquiring about the death of an old woman... 

I really enjoyed this read despite a couple of unrealistic coincidences. It is well written and gripping, with a fantastic plot and interesting characters. Sometimes annoying, sometimes funny buy always odd 😁. The solution to the crime was satisfactory.

Fogtown by Andersen Gabrych and Brad Rader.

Gripping and great fun. Liked the story, the art not so much.

The Neutronium Alchemist by Peter F. Hamilton.

😕😕😕 This is the second book in the Night's Dawn trilogy. Found some interesting concepts and some interesting storylines and characters but overall I'd say this was a long, boring experience. I personally found all the storylines and chapters featuring old resuscitated characters (the possessed) uninteresting (e.g. Al Capone). Not for me. However, the concept of the Alchemist is still intriguing (a sort of apocalyptic weapon), I might go ahead and read the third book. Oh and I also want to know how the beyond and the reality disfunction, which allow the dead to come back to reality, works.

The Art of John Harris: Beyond the Horizon

B E A U T I F U L The book comes with a foreword by John Scalzi and an introduction. Then, there are introductory texts at the beginning of every section, explaining an overall topic for a group of paintings. Just enough to explain about the artist's motivations. The topics are: Floating Mass, Dust to Dust, Towers in Starlight, The Ruination of Things, Return to Earth, and Hidden Sun's and the City of Fire which was my favourite section, introducing a kind of story/world with text and paintings. Oh and there a few book covers too!

Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds.

This was a fun read, but nothing extraordinary. I think it is the perfect quick read to take your mind off your problems. 170 pages filled with time travel and time paradoxes.

The Sandman Book One by Neil Gaiman.

I am finally reading this classic. Liked book one. Will read book two soon. The Sandman is the Lord of Dreams or the Lord of the Realm of Dreams (also Morpheus and other names) and the story is a mix of dark fantasy and mythology (Greek and others). So far, the writing is top quality. I've read two short novels and a short story compilation by Gaiman before and didn't like them tbh. I find his writing and ideas much better in comic form.

Ambiguity Machines and other stories by Vandana Singh.

It was a great reading experience. A mix of fantasy, mythology, and science fiction. Each story is different from the others, but one can tell they have the same heart. My favourite was Sailing the Antarsa, about a woman sent to another star system to find a group of colonies who split from hers centuries before looking for new places to live. The woman uses the Antarsa current to propel her ship near half the speed of light. The science behind the Antarsa current and the alt matter is fantastic. But the whole story about her kind arriving on her planet and how their society works is great, too. Here a quote I particularly liked: " 'A kinship is a relationship that is based on the assumption that each person, human or otherwise, has a right to exist, and a right to agency,' she intoned. 'This means that to live truly in the world we must constantly adjust to other beings, as they adjust to us. We must minimise and repair any harm that we do. Kinship goes all the way from friendship to enmity - and if a particular being does not desire it, why, we must leave it alone, leave the area. Thus through constant practice throughout out lives we begin to be ready with the final kinship - the one we make with death.'" 

Second favourite was Wake-rider. In a universe controlled by a galactic corporation that enslaves humans with some sort of drug, the ones who are not controlled fight back. The story follows a woman who wake-rides corporation vessels on colonisation missions, this time on a rescue mission of an old generation ship. She needs to get there first to see if she can rescue any survivors before they are enslaved.

Valuable Humans in Transit by qntm

Anthology of short SF Stories. Strong on SF and Technology concepts, and Philosophy. Not so much on the literary side I guess. Not that I mind this so much because I really enjoyed reading these stories. All of them are thought provoking. 

Lena - about the first consciousness to be successfully uploaded on a computer simulation. It touches on the implications for the original human, and the copies that are made of it. This was my favourite story (1). 

If you are reading this - a man meets with an old astronomer who had previously found a message from outer space. 

The frame-by-frame - it follows an autonomous car computer and how its various functions decide action when a person walks into the road. 

The Difference - it might be about one of those AI apps which are popular nowadays or it might be about a real human being asking for help. This was my third favourite story (3). 

Gorge - a spaceship finds a strange planetoid inhabited by nanobots. Cripes does anybody remember google this is people chatting about Google People. Not the strongest story I think. 

Driver - another story of uploaded consciousness. This time uploads are used to control large numbers of other virtual images. 

I don't know Timmy, being God is a big Responsibility - scientists create a simulation of reality. It's so real and accurate one can see earth develop like it did in real life, and humans and civilisations. One can zoom in and see the scientists themselves working on a simulation within the simulation. This was my second favourite story (2). 

A Powerful Culture - about pollution and clean use of resources and humans from another dimension. Valuable Humans in Transit - AI trying to save humanity. Shares third place with The Difference (3).

The Poe Clan by Moto Hagio.

Short Vampire stories or as Hagio calls them "Vampirnella". The main character is Edgar, a 14 year old who is transformed into a vampire by the leader of a Vampirnella clan. Because of this, he became immortal but will never grow up. Edgar is an interesting character. Sometimes lonely, sad and frail but others cruel and sadistic. He loves his sister Marybelle and his friend Alan and would do anything or everything for them. Themes to think about are immortality, loneliness, life and death. The stories start from Edgar and Marybelle's transformation, in the 18th century, to stories in the 19th and 20th centuries. I think my favourite is one in which a group of people gather in the early 20th century to compare stories about a strange boy called Edgar who is mentioned in various writings and paintings dated since the 1700s. They want to know if this Edgar (and Marybelle) is the same person.

In our own image. Saviour or Destroyer? The history and future of Artificial Intelligence by George Zarkadakis.

From prehistoric Australopithecines to Modern Humans to theories about the future of AI. This book is dense with information. Not difficult to read but I took my time to digest it. I enjoyed very much the discussion on how humans developed social language (social interactions, tool making, hunting) and then, thanks to some mutation of gene FOXP2, developed general purpose language. Zarkadakis says that we developed General Intelligence from General language. General Intelligence gave us high level consciousness. Through history we have referred to this as soul, mind, self-awareness, subjective experience (qualia). Zarkadis discusses how through the ages philosophers, thinkers, scientists have thought about us and our intelligence. This explains why we think the way do about AI nowadays: as if AI will be like us, self-aware... However in reality this won't happen, we are subjective beings but subjectivity is not logic and therefore it cannot be coded. 

... and the Moravec Paradox, Moravec says that it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance in intelligence tests but difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a 1yo when it comes to perception or mobility. In other words coding cognition is easy but coding sensing and action isn't. What this means is that it is (highly) intellectual jobs which will be taken by AI, not manual ones. Janitors from the future will be better off than lawyers.

Fatale by Jean Patrick Manchette.

French crime noir. A short, fun, amazing read. It follows a woman killer, doing her stuff. We know little about her, just enough to "guess" why she might be doing the stuff she does. The world around the killer is as dark as her, maybe worse. At points we might even justify what she does.... Great food for thought! 

I first met Manchette through Jacques Tardi's comic adaptations of his work. I read Fantagraphics fantastic boxset titled Streets of Paris streets of murder 2 years ago. It blew my mind. This year I wanted to read one of the original novels, and at the same time have a quick taste of French noir literature (as opposed to USA Chandler, Hammett, etc.). 

I chose Fatale because it was easily available on kindle but also because it was one of Tardi's stories, which left me wanting more. The fact is that Manchette and Tardi never finished the adaptation, and the comic was published incomplete. (But it is still amazing.)

El Eternauta (The Eternaut) by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López

At last, I was able to read the Eternaut. It took me years to get an edition in Spanish which wasn't printed in microscopic font. This is a recent Spanish release by Planeta Cómic. There is an English translation by Fantagraphics. Anyway, the Eternaut is an epic science fiction, apocalyptic, end of the world type of story. Very well written. Dense with text: dialogue, thought bubbles, and narration, but it never gets boring or tiring. At the character level, this comic is about survival, bravery, and resistance. But if you look at the big picture, you can see some political undertones, Cold War, and nuclear power as well as dictatorships and tyrannies. I guess there are many ways to interpret the story. Personally, I couldn't stop thinking what I would do if I was in the Eternaut's world. Would I persevere or give up with the first challenge? Would it be worth living after the apocalypse? Negatives: obviously, the depiction of women, more or less useless, emotional, incapable of defending themselves, with a limited ornamental role except when they cook your food.

El Informe Monteverde by Lola Robles. (Monteverde: Memoirs of an Interstellar Linguist)

B E A U T I F U L ! ! This is a short, sci-fi novel of under 100 pages. It follows a female linguist who travels to a distant planet to study the native languages. As languages reflect the people who speak them, we learn a lot about the history, culture, and traditions of the locals. Things I loved are the scenes where the protagonist explains how language is limited/conditioned by the environment and by our senses (or our ability to perceive the environment). Felt strong Le Guin vibes here (the Telling), so totally recommend it if you are Le Guin's fan or if you like soft sci-fi.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr.

A murder mystery set in the late 19th century New York. Interesting, gripping story. Great characters, especially the protagonist, a sort of psychologist with a past. The crime, and particularly the serial killer, have a lot to give. Lots of layers are pealed like an onion. Oh and there's a woman detective! Great reading experience!

The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

After reading a Raymond Chandler novel I wanted more noir. Grabbed this graphic novel and was pleasantly surprised. I liked the art. There are no spectacular or breath taking panels, but I enjoyed their fluidity. It's perfect. I guess that's called graphic narrative (?). Well, it was great. I loved character design!! I also enjoyed the overall feeling of the story. The art is really atmospheric, in a realistic rather than supernatural way. It submerges you into darkness. Into the minds of, perhaps stereotypical, noir characters. People with secrets and trauma. People with no ethics who do whatever they need to do to achieve their objectives. 

The highlight for me, though, was the writing. Loved it. It isn't Chandler, mind you, but it has its own charm and doesn't disappoint. A nice narrative, a gripping story, and some awesome literary references, including a cameo by a famous crime noir author. 

The story has a murder. Yes. But the crime isn't necessarily the focus of the story. I'd say the protagonist's downfall (partly because of the crime) was centre stage.

The High Window by Raymond Chandler

This is the third and last novel in this compilation by Everymans Library. After three novels of his I have to say that Chandler is my favourite writer out of the three crime noir authors published by Everyman’s: Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler. 

The High Window is gripping. Not only with an excellent plot and an astonishing protagonist, but with a great atmosphere (noir is all about atmosphere). I loved the descriptions of people and places. The kind of descriptions you never get tired of. That submerge you into the detective’s world and make you think you are in the 1940’s. So vivid are the descriptions that I could smell the tobacco the characters smoke. Great characters also. After Marlowe, the protagonist, I liked Mrs Murdock, an old woman, rich and annoying manipulator. The kind of person you’d want to strangle but someone who you also kind of like because of how well she is written.

Contact by Carl Sagan

First read of 2023! 

A science fiction classic about a female physicist who devotes her life to searching for extraterrestrial life. I loved the story. Particularly, religious and philosophical discussions on the implications of first contact. On knowing that we are not alone in the universe. This is a novel of scientific and philosophical concepts, not strong on character development though the protagonist grabbed my attention because of her genius, strength and spirit to keep seeking for extraterrestrial life. She isn't an empty lifeform though but we get glimpses of the relationship with her family, especially her mother and of how a female physicist was treated in the 1980s.