205 reviews found
Showing 161 to 180 of 205 results
Whole brain emulation and mind uploading are science-fiction concepts that I love, because they raise really complicated questions related to philosophy of mind, a particular field in philosophy that I find very fascinating. Moreover, it’s scary how close we might be to achieving these in real life. Some critics have made very compelling cases for why this isn’t possible—but no one has been able to prove it, one way or another. Where scientists cannot yet…
Suppose the United States never gained its independence from Great Britain. Instead, George Washington and King George III forge an alliance that results in the North American Union. Instead of a war that weakens Britain’s grip on North America and contributes to the gradual decline of its world-spanning empire, peace ushers in an era of near-total British domination of North America, Africa, China, and Australia. Only Russia, and the Franco–Spanish “Holy Alliance” can possibly challenge…
There is a new buzzword making the rounds these days: gamification. It refers to the trend of turning quotidian tasks into games. Usually the end goal of the game maker is profit, of course, but often gamification has benefits for the players—it turns an otherwise boring or dull task into something fun. CBC’s Spark has explored gamification. They’ve also interviewed Jane McGonigal, who has some interesting ideas about how gaming is changing…
Reality 36 is a mystery novel wrapped inside a science-fiction story wrapped inside a fun, technologically-oriented thriller. Richards & Klein are PIs in 2129. Richards is a Class Five AI, while Otto Klein is an ex-military German cyborg. And their day gets complicated when they have to solve the murder of Zhang Qifang—he was murdered twice, you see.
The stakes are high. Qifang’s disappearance and murder have sent ripples throughout the Grid, and the people…
I have an itch when it comes to artificial intelligence. Guy Haley scratches that itch, and then some. My hang-up on AI probably has to do with my interest in the philosophy of mind, the nature of consciousness itself. Will we ever be able to model human consciousness? Will we ever be able to create sentient AI? (These questions are related but not necessarily equivalent.) AI brings with it difficult issues that we will have…
I like to try to pretend I’m not a literature snob. I like to try to pretend that all I care about in a book is a good story, that genres are meaningless, and that authors who are experimental or who go to great lengths to show off their vast intellects are, generally, more trouble than they are worth. I like peeling back the layers of hype and praise piled upon popular books and to…
Two years ago my friend Vivike gave me Kafka on the Shore for Christmas, assuring me that I would like it—and she was right. I also found it confusing and daunting and knew that, in Haruki Murakami, I had found yet another author whose works I will continue to digest long after I devour them with all the tenacity my love of reading requires. So for this Christmas as I considered which book to inflict…
This book is not about physics.
Of course, if you are not shallow (like me) and did more than just judged the book by its title and cover, you would know this. And don’t take this as an indictment of the book for its non-physics focus. I just thought I should warn anyone who, like me, mistakenly begins reading the book by thinking it’s about physics. It isn’t.
Attempting to describe this book to people…
Can we take a moment to bask in how far the Dresden Files, as a series, has come? From its humble beginnings in Storm Front, this urban fantasy series about a Chicago wizard/private detective has become my golden standard for urban fantasy. Over the course of 13 books, the Dresdenverse has expanded from wizards and sorcerers to an epic mythology comprising monsters and magical beings of all kinds—and its characters, plots, and themes…
Let me begin with a huge disclaimer: I have not read any other books in the Vorkosigan Saga. And it's all Lois McMaster Bujold's fault.
Well, that's not strictly true. It's the fault of her fans for getting Cryoburn nominated for a Hugo Award, which is why I am reading it now. But ultimately it's Bujold's fault for garnering such a huge fanbase. So there. I had intended to start with the first book and…
Obsessions are dangerous, yet they are also so human. They drive the most amazing and visionary projects—and fuel the darkest, most horrible passions. Obsessions play a fundamental role in The Cutting Room, both in the actions of the dead antagonist and in Rilke, the protagonist and auctioneer who stumbles across snuff photographs while processing an estate and begins to wonder if they are real.
I'll call this a mystery, because it is, but it's…
Here we go again. I had no intention of reading Dan Brown's new Robert Langdon novel; torturing myself twice was enough. However, my mom gave it to me for my birthday last year—and my birthday is in a week, so I have delayed long enough. I'm not going to apologize for this review, and if you like Dan Brown's novels in any way, you might well be offended.
When considering how I would review this,…
I love Regency and Victorian fiction. In those halcyon days of a declining empire, men and women of rank fused scientific exploration with military daring. The blank spaces on the map were shrinking every day, and as such, this age of exploration and adventure was also an age of introspection. Strict notions of propriety and visible class barriers contributed to meditations on what makes one human, on the roles of birth and upbringing in the…
The title of this book, breaking as it does Jim Butcher's pattern of two words of equal length for each previous title in the Dresden Files, says it all. There are definitely changes; as such, the spoiler warning here is not to be taken lightly.
If you haven't read the book and at all plan to read it, turn back now.
So it's just me, the people who have read it, and the people…
As with my review of Small Favor, I will refer you to my first review for this book. I'm not even going to add many notes, because I like my original review that much, and I doubt I could improve upon it significantly.
The only thing I have to say is that re-reading the series in quick succession has given me a better context in which to appreciate Turn…
When I re-read a book I've already reviewed, I tend to write a new review to reflect how my opinion of the book has changed with a second reading. In this case, my opinion hasn't changed much. If anything, my admiration of Small Favor has increased. I stand by my original review, and I recommend you read that for my full thoughts on this book.
Some addenda though.
…
When I began re-reading White Night, I wondered why I had previously given it five stars. The plot didn't sound very interesting from the description on the dust jacket; it certainly didn't compare to Proven Guilty, which is now my gold standard of Dresden. Had I slipped into an alternate universe where I mistakenly gave out five star ratings to four star books?
Turns out, no, I was still in my universe…
Proven Guilty is probably my favourite Dresden Files novel my second-favourite Dresden Files novel, after Small Favor. It has almost all of my favourite parts of the Dresdenverse in it: Murphy, the Carpenters, Faerie, and sticking it to the White Council. Jim Butcher manipulates the relationships he's developed over the past seven books to play on motifs of love, family, and temptation. If Dead Beat showed us how much Harry has changed, Proven…
Let us take a moment to look back at how far Harry Dresden has come from busting a sorcerer in Storm Front. Since then, he has started a war between the wizards and Red Court vampires; he has killed a faerie queen and prevented a war between the Summer and Winter courts; he has been offered the mantle of Winter Knight and picked up the Blackened Denarius of Fallen Angel Lasciel. Last time we…
Vampires on the set of a porno! Vampires who feed through sex rather than blood, no less! And one of them is Harry's half-brother.
Yeah, that's right. I dropped a major S-bomb in the third sentence of the review. You see that spoiler alert? I don't fool around with those things. Deal with it.
Speaking of dropping bombs, Jim Butcher does that a lot in Blood Rites. As with Death Masks, the story…
Showing 161 to 180 of 205 results