The New Northern Rambler

2022-04-25

"Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour" by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott

Publisher: Princeton University Press

ISBN: 9780691157245

This was an amazing book that gives the reader an in depth look into the science of astrophysics. The three authors have written their sections in a clear and concise way that explain the concepts very well, and easily gets the message across.

In the first part Dr. Tyson takes the reader on a study of the stars, planets and life in ten chapters that deal with a number of important concepts including explanations of the size and scale of the universe, Newton's Laws, The lives and deaths of star, the classification of solar objects (e.g., Pluto) and the search for life. Dr. Strauss then takes over and takes about galaxies in six chapters which include the Milky Way itself, our place in the universe, quasars, black holes, etc. Then Dr. Gott adds eight chapters in the third section that talk about both the general and special theories of relativity, black holes, string theory, the big bang, etc.

This was an extremely interesting book to read, and even though it is a few years old at this time the information is still very relevant and should be of great value to anybody interested in astronomy or astrophysics. In addition, it is easily readable, and I believe would be a great addition to all school libraries, and would also make an excellent introductory text for first year university students.

2022-04-18

"The Guns of Navarone" by Alistair MacLean (1922-1987)

Publisher: Collins

ISBN: None

This is a novel that I have had in my collection for many years but for some reason haven't read for a long time. I decided to do so however after watching the 1961 movie with Gregory Peck, David Niven, Gia Scala, Anthony Quinn. I was pleased to note that they stayed quite close to the book. They of course made a few changes such as casting two women as the Greek contacts on the island of Navarone, but aside from this Hollywood was quite faithful to the story.

For those who are interested the island of Navarone is fictional, but the overall storyline is based on the history of the war in the Ægean Islands of Greece.

The story itself revolves around a top secret commando raid, that is essentially a last ditch effort to silence the two guns on the island of Navarone, and thereby allow the Allied forces to rescue some 1200 soldiers stranded on a nearby island. The detail in this story is fantastic and it is obvious that Alastair MacLean knew his subject well and his skill at writing easily takes the reader right into the heart of the story.

An excellent read.

2022-04-11

"The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything" by Michio Kaku

Publisher: double day, New York

ISBN: 9780385542746

This is an extremely interesting book, that would make a fantastic introduction to high school or first year university students into the history of physics. In reading this book I have learned a lot that I probably should've learned many years ago when I took physics. Mind you that was a long time ago, and since then the strides that have been made in the field have been huge.

Dr. Kaku takes us on a journey through the history of physics by explaining the idea of unification, Einstein's search for unification, the rise of the quantum theory, a possible theory for almost everything, dark matter and dark energy, and finally string theory.

Throughout the book he explains the concepts extremely well and in plain language that virtually everybody will understand.

I haven't read any of his books previous to this but will definitely be on the lookout for the other nine he has written in the last few years.

2022-04-04

"Phoenix without Ashes" by Edward Bryant (1945-2017) & Harlan Ellison (1934-2018)

Publisher: Fawcett

ISBN: None listed

Some readers may remember a short-lived television program in the early 70s called "The Starlost". Many people including Mr. Ellison would truly like to forget this program ever existed, as Mr. Ellison's original ideas, and concept for the TV program and story were essentially stolen, and completely corrupted by Hollywood and the television industry.

The first chapter of this book is written by Mr . Ellison and outlines the story of what happened, and how the TV program was made, up until the time that he got so disgusted with it that he left the show, and forced the network to remove his name from the series and replace it with the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird. He was soon to be followed by Ben Bova who was the science advisor to the series.

The remainder of this book is written by Mr. Bryant is the actual novelization form of Mr. Ellison's outline prior to various unscrupulous agents, managers, and others who got hold of it.

The story itself revolves around a time in the distant future (2785), after the earth has been destroyed and the inhabitants from selected places have been placed aboard an ark in controlled biospheres that mimic their cultures and lifestyles, and set on course for Alpha Centauri. Devon is a young man who lives in a very strict society (seeming patterned after the Amish), but who questions the authority of the elders and his cast out. Further violations of their extremely strict doctrine forces him to flee, and while a posse pursues him he stumbles across a hatch that leads into the actual Ark itself. He discovers that the crew is dead, and the ship is on a collision course with a star which it will hit in approximately five years.

I can remember watching "The Starlost" when I was young, and at the time I thought it was fairly well done but in my own defence this was before I started reading a whole bunch of science fiction and other types of writing as well. Now I can see how the story arc has been corrupted and this reinforces my previously expounded upon thoughts that Hollywood should never be allowed to get hold of a writer's work. Mind you considering that we are now facing another Batman movie, another Spiderman, and who knows how many other remakes we likely don't have to worry too much about this as the whole movie industry seems to be geared toward mediocrity.

If you remember the TV show this book is well worth the read to see what was intended, mind you if you do remember the show then this book only covers the first episode.

Worth reading, but hard to find.

2022-03-28

"The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves" by J. B. MacKinnon

Publisher: Random House Canada

ISBN: 9780735275539

This was an extremely interesting book to read, and opened my eyes to a lot of things that go on in the world that I never really paid much attention to before. In addition the fact that it is so current takes into account the effects of the Covid 19 virus and how it has changed the world.

The book is divided into four sections First Days, Collapse, Adaption, and Transformation. As you can likely figure out the first talks about what would happen when people did stop shopping. Examples are given from various industries and how they coped or didn't when certain things such as the pandemic happened. It does however look at more than Covid and takes into account things like the Mideast oil embargo that happened in the early 1970s for example. One of the chapters in this section was very interesting and that dealt with the effects of stopping shopping on the climate. When for example residents of some of the world's most polluted cities saw clear blue sky.

The second section deals a lot with the economics of stopping shopping and how this will effect both macro and micro economies. It takes a hard look at the Finnish Depression of the early 1990s. Then goes on to look at advertising, and how people will adapt to not shopping.

Adaption deals with as the title suggests how people will and have adapt(ed) to not shopping as much, and looks at the concept of planned obsolescence and how it has been forced upon us. It also looks at a couple of programs in England called Worn Again and Every On Every Day.

The final section Transformation starts off by talking about whaling and how it decimated the population of Right Whales, and then talks about even when petroleum became common the whaling industry went into even higher production as they could now go further. It gave me a fair bit of insight into the way I consume things and I've found out that I would likely be considered a down-shifter, or a simplifier.

This was an extremely interesting book to read, and I plan on reading the others books that the author referenced within such as Vicki Robin's "Your Money or Your Life" and Michael Lee's "The Simple Living Guide."

2022-03-21

"Domesticating Dragons" by Dan Koboldt

Publisher: Baen Books

ISBN: 9781982125875

This is Mr. Koboldt's first fiction book, and it's a great one.

He previously wrote a non-fiction book entitled "Putting the Science in Fiction: Expert Advice for Writing With Authenticity in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Other Genres" which I reviewed back in December 2021, and which I found extremely interesting as it dealt with exactly what the Science Fiction genre has been lacking in for many years - science. Yes, it's in the title, but that doesn't mean it in the vast number of stories.

Domesticating Dragons looks at genetic engineering and the premise is that dogs have essentially become extinct due to a disease that swept through their species. Because of this, and because human still wanted animal companions a company found a way to custom design and "build" dragons for various roles in society. Enter Noah Parker who has an ulterior motive for wanting to design dragons (a good one) and who gets a job at Build-A-Dragon which is run by Robert Greaves (who has some not-so-good ideas).

As I said in the beginning this is a great book, and I'm looking forward to whatever Mr. Koboldt writes next.

Highly recommended.

2022-03-14

"The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit" by John V. Petrocelli

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

ISBN: 9781250271624

This book was quite informative, and well worth having to wait to get my hands on. The examples, and explanations for how people are fooled, and react when presented with even subtle forms of bullshit was very well done. I've always thought that I was pretty good at detecting false claims, and other misdirections, but this book opened my eyes to a number of things that I had never even considered.

Mr. Petrocelli dives the book into a number of different sections such as the "Costs of Bullshit" in which he discusses price markups, wine tasting, and psychological testing. "Why People Bullshit" in which he discusses how you can detect their lies. He then gives the reader some examples of some rather famous Bullshit Artists such as Douglas Biklen, Donald Trump, and Deepak Chopra. Following this he takes on various common examples of bullshit such as TED Talks (some of which are quite valuable, but others which are ripe examples of bullshit), and more.

Throughout this book I was presented with lots of information that was very valuable, and I would seriously recommend this title to anybody who is interested in getting to the truth.

2022-03-07

"Time's Eye" by Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) and Stephen Baxter

Publisher: Ballantine books

ISBN: 034545247 X

"Time's Eye" is the first book in the Time Odyssey trilogy and is rounded out by Sunstorm, and Firstborn. It tells the tale of a cataclysm that sees the world being carved up in time and reassembled much like a jigsaw puzzle. All over the world different periods in time lie next to each other, and the inhabitants of those times are forced to interact with each other, and survive.

Some of these groups consist of three members of the UN peacekeeping force who's helicopter is shot down, three cosmonauts who have just left the international space station, part of the Indian army from 1885, Genghis Khan and his troops, and the army of Alexander the Great.

The answers are all the quests seem to lie in the city of Babylon, which is a long ways away from where ever they were when the Kataklysm happened.

Very interesting book. Time travel books have always been one of my favorites, as it's always interesting to see how authors perceive the interaction between various cultures, and various time periods. For the most part the culture part is ignored by many authors, typically much to the detriment of their plotting and storyline.

I'm looking forward to reading the next two books in the series.