"Two Faces of Tomorrow" by James P. Hogan (1941-2010)

 

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Copyright: 1979

ISBN: 0345296605

This novel portrays a future in which civilization itself is now so complex that a worldwide computer net work is essential, and in which a partial system is currently in operation. As a premise, most people today can probably see this as something that will be coming in their lifetime after all many people nowadays use computers extensively. However today's computers, are unlikely to be able to handle a worldwide civilization.

This then brings up the topic of artificial intelligence, adaptive learning, and a whole host of other speculations with regard to computers. It is determined both by trial and error that what is needed is a universal self-aware, and self programming computer system. One that could make decisions without consulting humans for every routine operation.

Enter Raymond Dyer and his computer team who are experimenting with very rudimentary self-aware computer systems. They are essentially drafted into designing a computer system capable of running the earth, and testing it out in a controlled environment.

This book has some very good characters, that are well developed. I believe the world building however is the more important part of the novel itself as we see what happened to cause this new idea to come to pass as well as logically what might need to be done to test such a program if it were ever to happen.

Once again Mr. Hogan gives us an extremely interesting and thought-provoking book.

"Literature Suppressed on Political Grounds" by Nicholas J. Karolides

 

Publisher: Facts of File
Copyright: 2011
ISBN: 9780816082315

Like the first two titles in this series (Social Grounds & Sexual Grounds), both of which I already reviewed, this one was also very interesting book. When you consider that the United States is supposed to be this beacon of democracy, it seems rather odd that they would suppress political viewpoints. With all the different worldviews in existence today it would seem more logical (at least to me) that these books shouldn't be suppressed, but should be readily available and this material should be critically analysed.

A total of 118 books are examined in this book. A short summary of the contents of each book is given, and then the censorship history is examined. Some of the objections came from parents who were offended when their children were assigned books to read, and school boards as well. A rather odd occurrence through was publishers themselves who refused to publish books due to their own political viewpoints.

There is one final book in this series that deals with religious censorship and I am looking forward to reading those as well. They were all written in 2011, and I believe it is time to update them with new editions.

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" by John Le Carré (1931-2020)

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

Copyright: 1974

ISBN: 0394492196

This novel is considered by many to be the gold standard for espionage novels, and I feel this honour is well deserved.

Some may find the novel hard to get into, but this is primarily the way that Mr.  Le Carré wrote as his goal (at least in my opinion) is to make the reader think about what they're reading. This is a typical writing standard for mysteries, and to a certain point some other genres as well, but compared to these genres doing so in an espionage novels is much rarer, and therefore many people are not used to this form of writing. Mr. Le Carré however excelled at this.

The story for those of you who do not know it revolves around the investigation of a mole that has been planted in British Secret Service by the Russians. The mole has been in place for sometime, and his existence just came to light. The person in charge of what I assume is actually MI-6 but it's called "The Circus" has discovered the existence of the mole but does not know who it is. This leads him to dispatch an agent to acquire this information, however the information he was to require was a plant itself. The plot develops from this premise but I don't want to give anymore away.

The characterization in this novel is excellent, as are the settings. This book is not the first to feature the character of George Smiley, but it is definitely one of the most well known ones.

There have been two movie adaptions made of this book the first from 1979 which starred Sir Alec Guinness as Smiley, and it is by far the best of the two, as it is the closest to the book and is actually a 5 hour miniseries. The second (from 2011) starred Gary Oldman as Smiley is only two hours long and while it has the same general gist as the book they had to leave out a lot of detail. Also, as is typical for Hollywood today they added bits that we're not really necessary to the story.

An excellent read, highly recommended.

Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds by Dawn B. Sofa

 

Publisher: Facts of File
Copyright: 2011
ISBN: 9780816082292

Like the first title in this series (Social Grounds), which I already reviewed, this one was also very interesting book. With the rather cloistered outlook that a large portion of the United States has towards sex it is sort of understandable that these books would be challenged. However, it also gives the reader/researcher a rather disturbing insight into what people can be offended by (remember this was written 11 years ago too). Once again I found most of the objections quite narrow-minded and in some cases just plain silly.

A total of 128 books are examined in this book. A short summary of the contents of each book is given, and then the censorship history is examined. Many of the objections seemed to come from parents who were offended when their children were assigned books to read, and a large portion from religious leaders, and school boards as well.

There are two more books in this series that deal with Political, and religious censorship and I am looking forward to reading those as well. They were all written in 2011, and I believe it is time to update them with new editions.

"Captain Nemo: the fantastic history of a dark genius" by Kevin J. Anderson

 

Publisher: pocket books

Copyright: 2002

ISBN: 07434440 6X

This novel is rather unique in its method of telling the story as well as the way it is constructed (for lack of a better term).

The story follows the life of Andrei Nemo who will eventually become captain Nemo of the Nautilis. In the beginning we see him and Jules Verne as young boys who have grown up together. Verne's father is a lawyer, and Verne being the eldest child is expected to take up that profession even though he would much rather write. On the other hand Nemo's father is a shipwright who intrigues and influences both Nemo and Verne with his stories.

Throughout the story we are meet numerous people who will eventually be represented in name at least by characters in Verne's novels. Some of these are Phileas Fogg, Arne Saknussemm, Ned Land, Cedric Harding, Conceil, and many others.

In both of Jules Verne's (1828-1905) stories where we actually meet Captain Nemo ("20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and "The Mysterious Island") we aren't given a whole lot background information about his past life, so Kevin Anderson had a lot of leeway in how he constructed the history of Captain Nemo, and I believe he did an excellent job as it is quite believable within the world Verne has created for his characters. In addition the way he wove the real life of Jules Verne into the story was extremely well done.