Sun, 17 Feb 2008

Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East

I normally don't write a review of a book until I've finished it (which means I hardly ever write book reviews, because I've been so bad at finishing books lately), but I really wanted to post about how much I am enjoying Jared Cohen's Children of Jihad. While its subtitle, A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East, sums up the book's subject nicely, it doesn't convey how truly insightful the book is. Cohen gained this insight by doing a seemingly simple thing: he listened to people. He sat with them, ate with them, and listened as they told him about their lives, their dreams, their aspirations, their problems. By doing this, he gained a much more complete, coherent picture of the Middle East than any of number of "political analysts" or cultural experts. This is a great book if you want to understand more about the true plight of people in the Muslim world. I'll write a more complete review when I finish the book.

Update: I've finished Children of Jihad, and I have to say my opinion hasn't changed; it's excellent. If you've ever asked yourself how millions of people in the Middle East can hate the entire Western world, this book reveals the truth: they don't. Cohen knows this because he went to the Middle East and talked to them. Even when some groups have grievances with America, they most often were with the US government and US policy than with Americans themselves. (Let's face it: who doesn't have a beef with the US government right now?) Based on Cohen's travels, the problem mostly lies with that small minority of people that do hate the West as a collective, for various reasons. Unfortunately, in several countries those hardline "Death to America" people are in control of their governments, keeping a stranglehold on power and thus being the most visible people in the news media. Not that "the media" is the sole reason for the distorted view that the Middle East and the West have of each other, but doesn't seem to have helped matters much. Reading Children of Jihad definitely gave me a better perspective on the Middle East and its people. Most importantly, it gave me this perspective by using the best source of all: the people themselves.

Posted at 03:29 [/books/completed] (0 comments) permalink

Thu, 10 Aug 2006

MechWarrior: Dark Age #15: Sword of Sedition by Loren L. Coleman

Admitting I'm a science fiction fan is no hard task; anyone who knows me already knows that. However, novels like Sword of Sedition are somewhat below the quality of the greats like Asimov and Niven, often closer to pulp fiction than a novel. (And if you thought that term was invented by Tarantino, please go read a real book). However, I have a soft spot for the BattleTech Universe. Some of the authors that have written BattleTech novels are excellent; the best (and my favorite) is undoubtedly Michael A. Stackpole. Loren L. Coleman is a good author too, so I decided to give Sword of Sedition a chance. This book deals with some of my favorite groups of BattleTech characters (House Davion and the Federated Suns), so I wanted to see what was happening in their neck of the Universe. Quite a lot, it seems. I've only read the first few chapters so far; I'll post a full review when I've finished it.

Update: I finished reading this book a while ago, but didn't post an update. I liked this book pretty well for a BattleTech book; it's definitely the best MechWarrior: Dark Age book I've read so far. I liked the characters and plot surrounding House Davion, which is at least half of the book. Most of the other half deals with the continuing problems in the Republic of the Sphere. Those parts left me a bit cold; the Republic does not have the depth of development as House Davion's Federated Suns, and I felt the Republic characters in the book were more one-dimensional than some from the other factions. If you're into this kind of fiction, Sword of Sedition might provide some diversion. If you're not, you should probably avoid this book like the plague.

Posted at 04:02 [/books/completed] (0 comments) permalink

Mon, 12 Jun 2006

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Second Foundation is the last book in Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation Trilogy. Though he would eventually go on to write more Foundation books, and incorporate his Robots and Empire collection into the Foundation Universe, the first three Foundation novels (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation) are unique and stand as, well, the foundation for all of his other work. I won't go into detail about the Foundation series here; if you need background info the Wikipedia article on the Foundation series is an excellent resource.

I actually had not planned on reading Second Foundation just yet. The first two books were originally published as short stories and still carry that format. Since the first books were short stories, I decided to take Second Foundation on a recent trip to read during the car ride. However, this book is much different from the other two in the trilogy and is not divided into short stories like the rest. However, this change in style enhances the plot. Foundation and Foundation and Empire detail significant times during the history of the First Foundation. Usually at the end of each short story, Hari Seldon's hologram appears to reassure the Foundationers (and the reader) that everything that just happened had been predicted by Seldon's psychohistorical Plan. But toward the end of Foundation and Empire, Seldon's Plan is wrecked by a telepathic mutant, throwing the Foundation's goals and beliefs into jeopardy. Second Foundation details the efforts of the Seldon's Second Foundation to eliminate the mutant dictator and salvage the Plan. In addition to the longer, more cohesive plot, the tone of this book is different; the self-assured, almost arrogant air of inevitability has been replaced by the uncertain pensiveness of a plan gone wrong, and the drive to find answers to questions long unanswered.

I was really interested in how Seldon's Plan, entirely based on the science of psychohistory in the first novel, by this book has evolved into a sort of religion. The First Foundationers believe they will succeed because Seldon said they would. Many come to believe that if they do make a mistake, the unseen Second Foundation will step in and save them and the Plan like some sort of gods or angels. Even the Second Foundation, which actually possesses the Plan, views it with a certain awe and devote their entire lives to its preservation. This transformation of science into belief system only underscores in my mind that humans have a fundamental need to believe in something, and their quest for meaning will erroneously incorporate science if more effective belief systems are not extant.

I liked this book a lot. I thought the story told by the first two books was intriguing, and this book continued the story well. I really wanted to find out if Seldon's Plan ultimately succeeds, but then I did some research and realized that Asimov never actually answered that question in his writings. After Second Foundation, the Foundation series lay dormant for 30 years, until Asimov published Foundation's Edge in 1982. That book and its sequel, Foundation and Earth, only take the reader about halfway through Seldon's thousand-year plan. Apparently unsure of how to end the series, Asimov then started writing prequels to the series to expand on certain aspects and to retroactively join the Foundation series with his Robots series and Empire series (there's a great timeline of all the books here) So we never really find out what ultimately happens in the Foundation Universe. Was Seldon's Plan carried out? Was a new Empire formed after a thousand years? Was it the "right" Empire according to the Second Foundation? Knowing that the series never really completes the story, I'm less anxious to immediately read the remaining books. I probably will someday.

Posted at 02:27 [/books/completed] (0 comments) permalink

Thu, 18 May 2006

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is Douglas Adams's second book in the (ultimately misnamed) Hitchhiker trilogy. The sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this book continues the misadventures of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox across the hilarious universe of Adams's imagination.

Ultimately, I did not like this book as much as the original, mostly because it is obviously a middle book in a trilogy. While some of the things from Hitchhiker's Guide are resolved, other situations are introduced, but not dealt with. This includes the main characters, as by the end of the book Trillian and Zaphod have disappeared and Ford and Arthur are stranded. Do not think you will be able to read this book without also reading its sequel, Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Zaphod Beeblebrox gets a lot of character development in this book. After reading Restaurant I'm even more convinced Sam Rockwell's version of Zaphod in the H2G2 movie was spot-on. This book is also where Zaphod utters one of my favorite lines: "Don't you try to outweird me. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal."

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is funny, but not as funny as the original. If you really liked H2G2, go ahead and give it a read, but realize you'll also have to read Life, the Universe, and Everything in order to understand the story (or so I've been told by others; I've not read the third book yet). If you didn't like Hitchiker's Guide, then you'll be wasting your time with this book.

Posted at 04:16 [/books/completed] (0 comments) permalink