The Peripheral (Jackpot #1)

William Gibson (2014)

Definitely a book in the recognisible style of Neuromancer, based on a complicated premise of multiple worlds and semi-shared histories. It’s possible for the inhabitants of one world (which may or may not be the “original”) to visit the parallel versions at different points in their histories, and vice versa, but not in such a way as to affect their own history: a neat way to avoid paradoxes.

I came to this book after watching the TV adaptation – which I have to say I think is better, although it strips-away some of the philosophical explanations in pursuit of a more rapid plot.

3/5. Finished Friday 14 April, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Islands of Abandonment

Cal Flyn (2021)

A book one perhaps shouldn’t enjoy as much as I did, but as an exploration of what happens when humans leave a landscape – whether one they’ve polluted or simply one they’ve abandoned – it’s actually quite reassuring even in the midst of it’s being shocking.

There is alost nowhere that’s so polluted that life of some kind can’t regain a hold, given enough time. That (as Flyn herself is at pains to point out) is not an excuse or a invitation to more spoliation, or to not prosecuting polluters; but it is a reminder that we avoid pollution and climate change for ourselves, not because the natural world will be irretrievably damaged if we don’t: the climate emergency is about saving ourselves, not about saving the planet.

4/5. Finished Saturday 1 April, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape

Cal Flyn (2021)

A book one perhaps shouldn’t enjoy as much as I did, but as an exploration of what happens when humans leave a landscape – whether one they’ve polluted or simply one they’ve abandoned – it’s actually quite reassuring even in the midst of it’s being shocking.

There is alost nowhere that’s so polluted that life of some kind can’t regain a hold, given enough time. That (as Flyn herself is at pains to point out) is not an excuse or a invitation to more spoliation, or to not prosecuting polluters; but it is a reminder that we avoid pollution and climate change for ourselves, not because the natural world will be irretrievably damaged if we don’t: the climate emergency is about saving ourselves, not about saving the planet.

4/5. Finished Saturday 1 April, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

The Plot Against America

Philip Roth (2004)

A carefully-constructed counterfactual of a fictional Lindbergh presidency and of America’s descent into fascism – before being saved from itself by the entreaties of a revered and bereaved widow. It’s clever and evocatively written from the perspective of a 9-year-old surrogate of Roth himself, and so convincing that the author feels the need to include a summary of the real historical figures he mentions as an appendix.

Reading this book in 2023 brings out some echoes that perhaps wouldn’t have been apparent on an earlier reading. There’s a lot of consideration of fake news, of misinformation and questionable government initiatives, and even of a “Big Lie” that populists and fabulists can lock onto. And it’s shocking that some the anti-Semitism that existed before and during the war still exists today, in an increasingly-less-camouflaged form.

3/5. Finished Saturday 1 April, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

James Gleick (2011)

A popular history of information, and of information theory and computing in particular.

Like Gleick’s other books, this book walks the fine line between too much science and too little depth. It avoids the maths entirely without ever abandoning the core insights that the maths provides. That’s something many scientists long to achieve, but seldom do: focusing on the concepts and treating the maths as a machine that’s only valuable once the concepts have been assimilated. Richard Feynman would have approved.

This book is strongest on Shannon and Babbage, two of the geniuses (along with Turing, von Neumann, and a few others) of the information age as it emerged over the course of a century from mathematics and engineering. The excursion into physicists’ treatment of information is less convincing (at least from my computer scientist’s perspective), not least because of the inevitable confusions thrown up by quantum information.

4/5. Finished Wednesday 1 March, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)