WaveSpace - Books

Even Frogs Get The Blues

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:51:08 -0400

In Frog Mountain Blues, Tucson author Charles Bowden makes a passionate argument for the conservation of the Santa Catalina mountains. The largest and highest peak, Mt. Lemmon, towers a mile and a half above the adjacent city of Tucson and was known by the Tohono O'Odham as Frog Mountain. I really liked some of his quotable quotes regarding conservation. Here are my favorites.

"Any proposal for a national forest that means there will be less national forest still standing in the end is a bad idea."

"What kind of national forest are we running where the existence of black bears is a problem and the existence of a bunch of cabins, ski runs, and a lodge is not?"

"Land Of Many Uses is the slogan of the Forest Service. But so far as I can see, there is actually only one use: anything goes for one species, human beings."

"The way we live and work kills wild ground and when the wild ground is gone, we will vanish also."

"All the wild ground our ancestors called tractless wastes--now those spots are our last memories of a better world."

Written a quarter century ago, the book is still timely. Luckily, not much has changed. Well, let me qualify that. The city has sprawled right up to the edge of the national forest, the road has been widened, the village of Summerhaven is still rebuilding after a disastrous wildfire. Restrictions have apparently failed to prevent the extirpation of bighorn sheep. A horrible bear attack some years ago led to many being captured and relocated to more remote areas. People have completely freaked out when mountain lions showed up in a popular recreation area.

But a lot of what Bowden poetically writes about in the book, the remote canyons and rocky peaks, remain completely wild. Many have been decimated by fire, but are slowly coming back.

Continue reading "Even Frogs Get The Blues"

The Forever War

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:22:37 -0400

Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is, I imagine, to Heinlein's Starship Troopers as Vietnam-era Army grunts are to WWII roughnecks. Written in the mid-1970's the story follows the rise through the ranks of space marine William Mandella, drafted by the world government of Earth circa 2005. We're at war with an alien race, the Taurans, for control of a network of wormholes ("collapsars").

My interest was piqued after finding out that director Ridley Scott has had his eye on it for 25 years and by 2011 it could become his first sci-fi movie since Blade Runner.

It's a good story, made better with plausible descriptions of how society changes. Due to the relativistic effects of time dilation, what is a few years in Mandella's reference frame is centuries on Earth. The bulk of the novel is told through first-person narrative so it'll be interesting to see how it is translated to the screen. (FWIW Scott's Body of Lies opens by employing two devices: the protagonist narrating notes to a computer and testifying to a committee).

There's a number of other things that Haldeman does really well such as describing activity on cryogenic worlds or battles at near-light speeds (with computers controlling, frozen in near-statis and encased in gel, the soldiers can endure accelerations up to 25g). As in Troopers, barracks are coed and fraternization is accepted; a large part of the human interest is provided by Mandella's relationship with a female compatriot.

I won't give away the ending, but one interesting and imaginative thing was that in its last look at Earth, a millennium in the future, a transhuman or posthuman society has taken over. The clone of a single person, multiplied into the billions, residing on many worlds, is a hive-mind entity. The Taurans, likewise, have a collective mind. Mandella, returning from the Large Magellenic Cloud, asks how the Tauran and the Human are able to communicate mind-to-mind. The human immediately replies that Mandella is incapable of understanding (implying that it's by a post-human mental power).

Cool stuff. If Ridley Scott puts anywhere near the effort he put into Blade Runner, it'll be an amazing movie!

Man Plus

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Sun, 10 May 2009 23:19:59 -0400

Frederick Pohl's Man Plus has been on my want-to-read list for about, oh, 22 years. That's when I first saw it in the school library. I don't recall reading the jacket, but the title conjured visions of sweeping, far-future science fiction. Well, I finally got around to it; it is every bit as good as I had hoped. It's not the epic novel of my lofty imagination, but is something more fun and accessible with a great story and fantastic characters.

Just a brief description of the setting: it's the near future, an Earth near the brink of WW3, and the President of the U.S. is staking his legacy on an extremely unconventional space initiative: surgically altering and augmenting astronauts so they can live on the surface of Mars. With humanity on this planet in it's 11th hour, such radical steps are deemed necessary, and polling seems to strongly support the initiative when details of it are leaked. Roger Torraway ends up being the astronaut chosen for the trip to Mars. Most of his body is upgraded with prostheses, such as bug-like eyes that can see beyond the visible spectrum, and collapsible wings to capture solar or microwave radiation. A backpack supercomputer augments his reality in extraordinary ways.

There's one horrific or funny scene (depending on point of view), where NASA bureaucracy fouls up, almost destroying the program (and for it to seem funny, you've got to see it as a parody of the long history of NASA's disdainful attitude towards how much astronauts needed to know). It is summed up in the official-ese: "We had not properly estimated the trauma Roger Torraway would receive from the loss of his genitals...."

The story centers around his transformation into a superhuman creature. I don't think it'll be giving too much away to say that he eventually does reach Mars. There are some almost poetic descriptions of what Mars might be like.

...He really wanted that very much, to stroll the ebony surface of a Barsoomian night, with the stars pinpoints of color in a velvet black sky. It was easy enough to see the brighter stars even by daylight, especially for Roger, but at night they were fantastic... steel-blue Sirius, bloody Aldebaran, the smoky gold of Polaris. By expanding his visible spectrum into the infrared and ultraviolet he could see new, bright stars whose names he did not know...

It's a character and plot-driven work, with technology described only as far as suits the story. There are several sex scenes, each leaving a judicious amount (nearly all) to the imagination. The final chapter broaches the topic of transhumanism (without specifically naming it) in a clever way that ties it in with the plot and leaves the reader amazed. Written in the mid-1970's it still seems contemporary in language and, for the most part, in technology. This is a classic work of science fiction; highly recommended!

Tarzan In Space

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:28:00 -0400

I just finished reading Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales Of A Space Shuttle Astronaut by Mike "Tarzan" Mullane. An apt title, this book was a great read, with laugh-out-loud funny anecdotes on nearly every other page, plus sobering looks into the culture of NASA plus the aftermath of Challenger, and glorious descriptions of the Earth as viewed from space.

Mullane entered NASA as part of the first class of astronauts after Apollo-Soyuz, a group that included the first female and the first non-military astronauts. The culture clash is extreme between these "post-docs" and Mullane and his cohorts cut from the old-school military 'Right Stuff' jock mold. And by his own admission, his attitude towards Sally Ride, Judy Resnick and the other female astronauts starts out as condescending and sexist, but he gradually overcomes his biases. Ultimately he becomes a good friend of Resnick's and they share a flight prior to her death in the Challenger accident. His respect and admiration for her is evident, and an effective eulogy.

One thing that surprised me was how willing the astronauts were to accept extreme levels of risk, fueled by hyper-competitiveness and the desire to earn their astronaut wings. He says something like 'if God himself had told be there was a 90% chance I would die on my rookie flight, I would have taken it.' The way he describes the intense emotions leading up to launch makes the statement totally believable. He talks about how this attitude played into the Challenger disaster, with the secrecy regarding crew selection boosting the effect, so there was incredible pressure to not jeopardize your flight, if not your entire career, by not speaking up.

Of course, similar pressures were going on in NASA's bureaucracy, leading them to dismiss calls to scrub the Challenger launch (and not inform any of the astronauts of the discussions). His frank opinions include a relative lack of surprise that history basically repeated itself with Columbia. His own flights included a near burn-thru of an O-ring and the worst foam strike damage prior to Columbia's destruction. The latter story was recently summarized on spaceflightnow.com.

This autobiography is remarkably candid; he let's it all hang out. I think the word "penis" must appear a hundred times in the book. If you're curious about how the astronauts (of both sexes) go to bathroom in space, then this is the ultimate reference. He casually mentions things like how the pre-flight quarantine gets Playboy TV, and how waking up in zero-G gives guys the ultimate morning wood.

I loved his stories of staying awake in the shuttle cabin to float and watch landscapes, cities, sunrises, sunsets, storms and all manner of other phenomena. They are well written, conveying the grandeur without being overwrought.

Continue reading "Tarzan In Space"

The God Particle Accelerator

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:38:53 -0500

Douglas Preston's Blasphemy is a whodunit wrapped in a thriller infused with the ultimate questions (of Life, The Universe, and Everything) and sprinkled with cutting-edge science. And, it's a fun, fun read, a real page turner that'll have you hooked from the first page to the last. I read the 400+ pages in two evenings, and I probably haven't read that quickly since I was a teenager.

I don't want to even come close to spoiling it, so I'll just outline the opening chapters. The U.S. has built the world's largest supercollider by brokering a deal with the Navajo Nation to use Red Mesa in northeastern Arizona. A team of the best physicists, engineers, and computer scientists has assembled to begin ramping up to full power. Their plan is to investigate theories about the Big Bang, black holes, dark energy & dark matter, and possibly reveal new ways of producing energy. The president has championed the project and, facing a re-election battle, his reputation is on the line. A prominent televangelist sees this as an opening to promote the agenda of the religious right and take his ministry to new heights, by attacking the project. Navajos are getting upset that they are seeing little benefit from the giant project and are organizing protests against it. Washington insiders are taking advantage of both sides for political gain. In the first trial runs, an unexpected problem arises when a mysterious entity begins communicating with the scientists....

Is it a hacker, as is first suspected? Is it an alien intelligence, transmitted through the tiny rift in space-time that the immense energies of the supercollider are creating? Is it the first artificially intelligence, emerging through their computers, the world's most powerful supercomputer? Or is it... could it be... God????

It is light on the science, but that's not a fault. Instead, you do get very concise descriptions of the big unsolved mysteries in cosmology. And some occasional thoughts on the struggle of science versus religion, whether they are truly opposites, or at the deepest level, different approaches to uncovering truth.

But most of all, it's a great read.

Total Recount

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:02:24 -0500

Down & Dirty: The Plot To Steal The Presidency is an inside account of the Florida election debacle of 2000. The author, Jake Tapper, reported for Salon.com, was very close to the action, and delivers a detailed chronological analysis of those two months when America watched and waited for Bush or Gore to become the President-Elect.

Tapper has plenty of negative things to say about both Democrats and Republicans in the recount struggle. I've had to revise some of my opinions of the mess. For instance, it's not clear that the statewide undervote recount (that the U.S. Supreme Court decision halted) would have resulted in Gore overturning Bush's lead.

You've got to look at this problem as one of signal vs. noise. There's always noise in any vote gathering system (though particularly with punch cards). "Counting all the votes" i.e. determining the intent of each & every last voter is not possible. It should be completely up to each state, county, or local canvassing board that, when asked to do a recount, they decide whether to do it at all, and (if so) the methods that they will choose.

It is clear that the Supreme Court's majority opinion was one of the worst in modern times, that the equal protection argument was bogus. Tapper points out that at least one conservative writer has put aside partisan loyalty and acknowledged this. But the end result, of stopping the swirling madness and going with the certified result, was probably the right thing to do. If the lead were reversed I do (now) think that the Supremes would have made the same decision (by the same flawed arguments). The Constitution ultimately gives the State legislature the power over choosing electors, so it's likely the result would have been the same in any case, given the Republican dominance there.

Fuct Country

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 11:42:24 -0400

As I read the Tucson Weekly review of God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre, I knew this was one book that was going straight to the top of my reading queue. And, wow, it does not disappoint. I've had a fascination with the Sierra Madre for a number of years. This huge mountain range, which begins just south of the Arizona-Mexico border, is home to some of the roughest terrain on Earth... and some of the roughest people on Earth. Richard Grant tracks through it; despite many who warn him of the dangers, he's pulled like a magnet into the heart of darkness, and almost doesn't escape to tell the tale.

Along the way, the book is full of wild tales that he experienced first-hand and fascinating insights into the cultures of the region, and Mexico in general. A multi-day drunken Tarahumara Easter rite. Searches for lost gold and Apache descendants of Geronimo. Getting drunk and high with narcos and law officers alike (they are often actually the same people, an inextricable and ever-shifting mix of corruption). A gay wedding planner who reveals the secret sex lives of super-macho gangsta-narcos. A nice recount of Tarahumara ultramarathon exploits here in the U.S. The lawlessness that has been a constant for centuries in this region, and continues unabated. The surreal character of everyday life, where nothing can be believed to happen for natural reasons, and the elusive character of history in such a region.

Somewhat oddly, this book was filed in the 'True Crime' section at Borders, though it really belongs in Travel/Adventure. It's a really fun read, and will leave an indelible impression. I supplemented it by doing Google Image Searches on the town names he travels through. You'll find a few good sets of photos by folks who traveled through on motorbikes (sounds like a fun way to do it, though no doubt just as dangerous).

The Air Age

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:46:41 -0500

I just finished reading The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, John McPhee's 1973 account of a company (Aereon) attempting to develop a new generation of rigid airships. If only the Zeppelins hadn't used (what we now know was) explosively flammable paint, air and freight travel today might be radically better. They successfully design, simulate, build, and test fly a small scale (26 ft. long) version of an "aerobody", a powered dirigible with a shape like a lifting body; it's quite an intriguing story.

The full scale versions would have been the size of a football field on up to an ocean liner and capable of carrying enormous amounts of cargo, with longer range, and at considerably less cost (and energy use or carbon footprint) than what we use today. Alas, it was not to be.

One interesting fact pointed out is that, following WW1 & the U.S. wouldn't sell helium to Germany, forcing them to use hydrogen (apparently this was a policy decision and not a condition of the Versailles Treaty). Further, though this was a factor in the Hindenburg disaster, it has now been demonstrated (on Mythbusters, no less!) that static discharage setting off the Titanium Oxide lacquer was more likely the ignition point.

The book includes a number of testimonials to the capabilities of the great airships, both from the days of the U.S. Navy fleet and from zeppelin passengers. They had the ability to fly in conditions that would cripple most aircraft: flying in blizzards, encrusted with tons of ice, flying with so much stability that an inverted bottle didn't tip over on a trip across the Atlantic.

Remarkably, the company profiled in the book still exists. You can read more about it (and see a picture of their craft taking off) here.

Grand Canyon: Today and All Its Yesterdays

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 01:05:57 -0400

Joseph Wood Krutch was a naturalist, writer, Tucson resident, and author of (among many other books) Grand Canyon: Today and All Its Yesterdays. A nifty cactus garden on the UofA mall is named in his honor.

Though out of print, you can find some copies on amazon. Though published fifty years ago, it is not outdated. I found it to be a great introduction to the geology of the canyon, with vivid portrayals of the vast epochs involved, the life that flourished and is preserved as fossils. It concludes with a genteel proto-environmentalist call for conservation, at a time when plans for damming the Colorado within the canyon where being seriously considered.

The Man Who Walked Through Time

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 00:51:54 -0400

It's been 18 months or so since I've been up to the Grand Canyon, am thinking of planning a hike for June. In the meantime, I'll review some Grand Canyon books. Here's the first (taken from my Amazon review).

This book suceeds on every level and is one of the best adventure books I've read. Much more than a hiking guide, it is an amazingly well-written of a journey more mental than physical, as Colin shares deep insights into life, geology and the history of the Earth as revealed by the Grand Canyon.

Backpackers will appreciate his accurate portrayals of hiking: the mixed emotions before setting of on a long and possible perilous journey, the still moments feeling at one with Nature, the way everyday minutia and worry eventually recedes into the background. If you have friends who want to know what backcountry hiking is all about (without actually going on one), this is the book to read.

Also, for Canyon afficionados (such as myself), Fletcher's book captures the majesty, awe, and grandeur of America's (or at least Arizona's) crown jewel.

Although written in the 1960's, this account does not feel dated. It is very much more than a 'been-there, done-that' journal of a record-setting performance, but instead has much to offer to any reader. Highly recommended.

Genius Times Two

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:51:55 -0400

Two of the books I read this summer were the autobiographies of Ray Charles ("Brother Ray") and Bob Dylan ("Chronicles Vol. 1"). I've never been much into the music of either, but the stories intrigued me. The movie Ray, with Jamie Foxx, was a little disappointing. Although Foxx definitely earned his Oscar with the amazing performance, the movie otherwise seemed too straightforward, linear, unimaginative, like a docu-drama you'd see on VH1. So I hoped the book would provide more insight, more heart, more soul. I recall the book caused some controversy back in the 70's when in came out. Now I see why: Ray is very up-front and unapologetic about a lifetime of drug use (though he kicks the hard stuff) and wild sex (we're talking Wilt Chamberlain numbers here, while still married). Suffice it say he had a very addictive personality, and rationalizes it all throughout the book. The passion for music comes across a little clearer in the book, but basically you can see the movie was directly adapted from it. I've never understood why Bob Dylan was such a phenomenon. Don't get me wrong: there's a few of his songs I like, and clearly his lyrics went light-years beyond anyone else's but his popularity as a generational icon baffles me. I guess it baffled him too: he talks about what became essentially a entire second career attempting to destroy the image of his first career. And then a third career trying to recapture the ambition of the first. The book goes back and forth along these arcs, touching down to certain places and times with a seemingly eidetic memory, while all the rest is haze and shadow. He's very clear about this moments of great focus where ambition crystallizes and career directions are set, but beyond a few thoughts about his hometown, the intervening decades are blurred over. Maybe he'll fill them in when subsequent volumes come out. Both of these guys popularized changes in their chosen genres, Dylan with folk and rock and R.C. with blues and gospel. These changes seemed radical to everyone outside of their points of view. To them, they were just doing what came naturally. It's the mark of genius, to make significant advances look easy....

"The Business"

nospam@example.com (Guy McArthur) — Tue, 17 May 2005 01:20:23 -0400

I just finished reading Merchants of Deception (the book can be freely downloaded from the site in PDF format). It's a true, insider look at Amway / Quixtar by a man who follows the lure of wealth and independence for ten years. Now, it should be obvious (to anyone who's looked at it, however briefly) that Amway is basically a pyramid scheme. How well you do is based on how many you recruit, how many they recruit, and so on. But could it also be a cult? One of largest, most insidious cults in the U.S? It sounds unbelievable, but by the end of this book, you'll be convinced of the affirmative answer to that question. It's a shocking, gripping story, one I couldn't put down until the very end. A friend once talked me into attending an intro seminar on a similar organization (either it was Amway / Quixtar itself, or one that had cloned their methods). The promise was part-time hours, not doing a lot of direct selling but instead recruiting and eventually achieving wealth.
Continue reading ""The Business""