Science fiction and fiction about science
Wednesday, 8 April 2015 23:57![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aletheiafelineaI haven’t posted anything about books for long time, so these are picked out from a few recent months.
The Martian
by Andy Weir
2014 (first published in 2011)
READ IT!!!
No, seriously. This. Was. Wonderful.
The narration in dialogue scenes was a little stiff, and it had a tiny teeny plot hole or two (why Mark never mentions his own entertainment store? he brought nothing, like Martinez, or what?), but these are really minor flaws in the whole wonderfulness. Too bad it was so short… (Over 350 pages. What. It was too short. 600 would be too short as well.)
I never really wondered why I like survival stories (and I do). Now I think it’s for they have such nice, solvable problems. Unlike the books with socio-psychological stuff.
Blindsight
by Peter Watts
2006
I was curious of it for some time, in hope of some good hard sci-fi. Turned out to be one of those starting with an overload of information with no meaning (from this perspective, not in the hindsight, of course). Not uncommon in this genre, so usually you just keep going on and wait until it makes sense. It began making, but it still had me totally indifferent (at this point already tilting toward annoyed). I gave up after a quarter. Anyway, I didn’t really see in this quarter anything particularly original, though it sort of promised to be later (mostly the neurological things). But whatever could be there and whatever I lost, I see no sense in wading through something I just don’t give a damn for in terms of characters, plot and setting. I enjoy reading when I actually enjoy it, dammit. I don’t know, perhaps I’d like it more if the author just told the story instead trying to make up some oh-so-deep and melancholic quasi-poetry. I hoped it to be great in the conceptual layer, and I guess it is, judging on what people say, alas, the narrative layer prevented me from getting to it. Just not my thing, I guess… *sigh*
50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions About Human Behaviour
by Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio and Barry Beyerstein
2011 (oryg. 2009)
After reading I've judged it worth of my money (though I'd rather some prettier cover in my edition...). Many of the described myths I've known as debunked already (like the "We use 10% of our brain!" one; not that it really needs much hard-proved debunking anyway, when two minutes of consideration is enough in this case), but still there was a surprise or two (or twenty). Some of them were surprising even as myths: I don't think I've ever heard before that people think turkey meat makes you drowsy or that your brain can hurt from eating cold things, but it's most probably the matter of cultural differences. Also, some of these myths (and non-myths) fall more under the field of medicine, anatomy or biology than psychology (how alcohol works, or whether we see 'cause our eyes emit some rays or whatever), but I'm not picky. Still, I'd swap one of these for a myth I'd like to read about, and which I haven't found there, namely "Denying is confirming". You know, "If you say you're not crazy, it's the best proof you are," or "He swears his innocence so vigorously that it's suspicious," and so on. Also, I draw a general conclusion that scientists using the survey method sometimes (or often) should be more specific and precise in their questions. "Do you think human memory works like a camera?" Had I have a chance, I'd ask for clarification, or if I couldn't, I'd tentatively say "More or less, yes". But then it turns out the survey's authors meant "camera" as the exact synonym of "a perfect recorder, providing records that never change with time," which is very much not my own idea of camera, at least if we talk about real cameras, not some abstract "dream about a camera as it should be". So, if researchers want to know what I think, why on earth won't they just ask exactly this: "Do you think human memory is a perfect recorder and its recordings can't change?" This wasn't addressed in the book as an issue...
Looks like I'm mostly picking at disadvantages here, but actually I really enjoyed the book. It had many interesting notions and was reading nicely. And many things were really surprising and debunking: I liked the chapter about criminal profilers (totally, and sadly, ineffective), or the one about problems of adolescence (much less common than we think), or the one about the idea that venting anger helps (apparently not), to mention some of only those I thought otherwise or was more hesitant before. I can recommend it, especially for those who like to know not only "how it really is," but also "what people think about how it is".
The Martianby Andy Weir
2014 (first published in 2011)
READ IT!!!
No, seriously. This. Was. Wonderful.
The narration in dialogue scenes was a little stiff, and it had a tiny teeny plot hole or two (why Mark never mentions his own entertainment store? he brought nothing, like Martinez, or what?), but these are really minor flaws in the whole wonderfulness. Too bad it was so short… (Over 350 pages. What. It was too short. 600 would be too short as well.)
I never really wondered why I like survival stories (and I do). Now I think it’s for they have such nice, solvable problems. Unlike the books with socio-psychological stuff.
Blindsightby Peter Watts
2006
I was curious of it for some time, in hope of some good hard sci-fi. Turned out to be one of those starting with an overload of information with no meaning (from this perspective, not in the hindsight, of course). Not uncommon in this genre, so usually you just keep going on and wait until it makes sense. It began making, but it still had me totally indifferent (at this point already tilting toward annoyed). I gave up after a quarter. Anyway, I didn’t really see in this quarter anything particularly original, though it sort of promised to be later (mostly the neurological things). But whatever could be there and whatever I lost, I see no sense in wading through something I just don’t give a damn for in terms of characters, plot and setting. I enjoy reading when I actually enjoy it, dammit. I don’t know, perhaps I’d like it more if the author just told the story instead trying to make up some oh-so-deep and melancholic quasi-poetry. I hoped it to be great in the conceptual layer, and I guess it is, judging on what people say, alas, the narrative layer prevented me from getting to it. Just not my thing, I guess… *sigh*
50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions About Human Behaviourby Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio and Barry Beyerstein
2011 (oryg. 2009)
After reading I've judged it worth of my money (though I'd rather some prettier cover in my edition...). Many of the described myths I've known as debunked already (like the "We use 10% of our brain!" one; not that it really needs much hard-proved debunking anyway, when two minutes of consideration is enough in this case), but still there was a surprise or two (or twenty). Some of them were surprising even as myths: I don't think I've ever heard before that people think turkey meat makes you drowsy or that your brain can hurt from eating cold things, but it's most probably the matter of cultural differences. Also, some of these myths (and non-myths) fall more under the field of medicine, anatomy or biology than psychology (how alcohol works, or whether we see 'cause our eyes emit some rays or whatever), but I'm not picky. Still, I'd swap one of these for a myth I'd like to read about, and which I haven't found there, namely "Denying is confirming". You know, "If you say you're not crazy, it's the best proof you are," or "He swears his innocence so vigorously that it's suspicious," and so on. Also, I draw a general conclusion that scientists using the survey method sometimes (or often) should be more specific and precise in their questions. "Do you think human memory works like a camera?" Had I have a chance, I'd ask for clarification, or if I couldn't, I'd tentatively say "More or less, yes". But then it turns out the survey's authors meant "camera" as the exact synonym of "a perfect recorder, providing records that never change with time," which is very much not my own idea of camera, at least if we talk about real cameras, not some abstract "dream about a camera as it should be". So, if researchers want to know what I think, why on earth won't they just ask exactly this: "Do you think human memory is a perfect recorder and its recordings can't change?" This wasn't addressed in the book as an issue...
Looks like I'm mostly picking at disadvantages here, but actually I really enjoyed the book. It had many interesting notions and was reading nicely. And many things were really surprising and debunking: I liked the chapter about criminal profilers (totally, and sadly, ineffective), or the one about problems of adolescence (much less common than we think), or the one about the idea that venting anger helps (apparently not), to mention some of only those I thought otherwise or was more hesitant before. I can recommend it, especially for those who like to know not only "how it really is," but also "what people think about how it is".
