Pun Salad

Consumer note: $5.99 for the Kindle version at Amazon.

I, however, shelled out $9.99, because I put in my order when the book was announced. It's the third book in his "Nick Mason" series, previous entries being The Second Life of Nick Mason and Exit Strategy.

Spoiler for that last one: Nick's "exit strategy" from his life as a gangster's "ninja" (i.e., hired killer) didn't work out well: he's simply been transferred to a different puppet master, even shadier than the gangster. But one thing doesn't change: Nick's being coerced into his violent behavior by credible threats against his ex-wife and daughter.

So: Nick is sent off to Indonesia to take out a terrorist. He's working with a small team of people, and nobody seems to like him much. And, worse, his assassination attempt ends in dismal failure (but much carnage). So they must regroup and try again. (And again. And again.) Nick goes through a lot of mental and physical anguish, and a lot of bodies pile up along the way. And, yes, there's a setup for the next book in the series.

I got a chuckle out of some dialog on page 168, where the bad guy snarls at Nick: "You need to stop acting like this is some kind of cheap American action movie." For better or worse, I'd been thinking that this book was extremely suitable to be made into an American action movie. Maybe not a cheap one, but…

The Dewey Decimal number was 535, placing it solidly as a physics book, so I checked it out without much further investigation. Reader, there's some physics in here, and I can understand they had to put some number on it, but it's really all over the place: history, occultism, literary and movie criticism, biology, military strategy, materials science, even a quick bit about economics, …

That's not a bad thing though. The author, Philip Ball, takes the reader down a bunch of unexpected paths, and tells a lot of good stories. The concept of invisibility has been with us for a long time. Even in pre-scientific times, people noticed the invisible forces of magnetism and static electricity causing things to move without being touched. Imaginative as we humans are, that was quickly generalized, given healthy doses of fantasy, superstition, and grift …

Right at the beginning, we're told Plato's story of Gyges, who discovered a ring that, when you turned it on your finger, made you invisible. Gyges quickly used this power for schemes of rape, murder, and usurpation. (Wikipedia mentions this yarn as a possible source of Tolkien's One Ring.)

There were a lot of early magical recipes for turning yourself invisible; they were inevitably gross. ("One involves grinding together the fat or eye of an owl, a ball of beetle dung, and perfumed olive oil, and then anointing the entire body while reciting a selection of unlikely names.") PETA would not approve.

Interestingly, the advent of science seemed to give fantasies of invisibility more credence. Telegraphy and radio worked invisibly to send information hither and yon. If that works, why not telepathy? Over the years, people have speculated about phlogiston and the luminiferous ether, both undetectable to the eyes.

And (of course) today we have "dark matter". Which meets the very definition of invisibility: it doesn't seem to interact with light much, if at all. And not to mention: efforts to "visualize" quantum reality yield nothing but frustration; as near as we can tell, there's nothing to see, it's just math down there.

H. G. Wells and his The Invisible Man get a number of pages; like Gyges, Wells' titular character was quickly corrupted by his invention, turning to murder and mayhem. Fun story about the movie: Wells' deal with the movie studio gave him veto power over the screenplay. And (as a result) the project went through four directors and ten screenwriters! (Still turned out pretty decently.)

Also considered is the different sort of invisibility pictured by Ralph Ellison in his Invisible Man.

Other neat stuff: a discussion of how Hamlet's father's ghost was handled over the centuries. Should the ghost be played by an actor, or should it be invisible everyone except Hamlet? We learn about hydraulic fright wigs.

I mentioned economics above: Ball briefly mentions Adam Smith's "famous invisible hand" metaphor. In a confused passage, he attributes the "true provenance" of the metaphor to the notion of the hand of God taking an active role in human affairs. But, one sentence later, he partially disclaims that "provenance", saying that's clearly how his readers would have read it, "whether Smith intended it or not." With an asterisk leading to a snarky footnote about neoliberalism.

Without going into detail, that's just wrong. There's nothing necessarily supernatural about Smith's use of the term. And it wasn't particularly "famous" at the time; it was pretty much ignored until the 20th century.

Other than that clunker, though, I enjoyed the book.

A very good overview of the concept of "democracy" by Jason Brennan. With a philosopher's care, he sets out the book's purpose (pp. 4-5):

My goal is to give you a guided tour of the best and most important arguments for and against democracy over time. I want you to understand why a reasonable person might think democracy is the ideal form of government and that all the problems of democracy can be fixed with more democracy. I also want you to understand why a reasonable person might think democracy has built-in flaws that must be contained, or why democracy is simply bad. I want you to see why a reasonable person might think democracy is the end of history, and why a reasonable person might think the era of democracy should give way to something better.

Brennan looks at five values that thinkers have, at one time or another, held up as reasons to value (or criticize) democracy: (1) its stability; (2) its ability to promote virtue in the citizenry; (3) the wisdom of the choices it produces; (4) its effects on personal liberty; and (5) its effects on equality. Each value gets two chapters: one cheering for democracy, the other booing. There's some overlap between the chapters, and some of the thinkers he discusses resist his pigeonholing, but overall it's a decent way to proceed.

Caveat: You might get an idea of Brennan's own views on the matter if you check out his previous book, provocatively titled Against Democracy. And just so you know where I'm coming from, I liked that one a lot too. So I'm perhaps not the best one to judge how fairly Brennan presents his for/against arguments. Are Spooner's and Nozick's views presented too sympathetically? Rawls' and Rousseau's too critically? Judge for yourself.

For people concerned with personal liberty, I found the strongest pro-democracy argument to be a strictly empirical one: the strong correlation between (independently-judged) levels of democracy and freedom in international comparsions. Can't argue with results! Well, you can, and Brennan does, but…

Whatever, I found Brennan's "guided tour" to be approachable and jargon-free, perhaps appropriate for the fabled "bright undergraduate" in a political science course.

The author, Becky Chambers, won a Hugo for this book, in the "Best Novella" category. In Googling around, I learned that it's part of the "solarpunk" genre, which is an optimistic look at a world devoted to sustainability, small-is-beautiful solar power, etc.

The protagonist, "Sibling Dex", is a "tea monk", traveling in a pedal-powered tea wagon to various communities on the idyllic moon of Panga. That civilization used to be industrial, relying on fossil fuels and AI robots. But centuries previous, the robots decided to self-exile from humanity, and nobody's seen them since.

Except Dex. Because, on a perilous quest to explore the once-inhabited "wild" lands that are in the long process of reverting to nature, Dex meets Mosscap, a robot on its own quest to find out how humanity is holding up these days.

Reader, Mosscap does not show up until page 50 in this 147-page book. Sorry for the spoiler, but it's also revealed on the book flap, so…

Dex's interactions with Mosscap are charming and occasionally funny. Things wind up with an exploration of an ancient temple/inn and a discussion of the "purpose" of people and robots.

It would be a good book for the kiddos, except for Dex dropping occasional f-bombs.

Chambers consistently refers to Dex with "They/Them" pronouns. Which I, as an old fogy, found slightly grating. But Dex, when speaking, refers to "themself" as "I/Me" instead of the expected "We/Us". So we are left unsure what we are supposed to think about that, or what the point of this particular usage is.

I am an unabashed Jim Geraghty fan, been reading his stuff for literally decades. (First reference here at Pun Salad was when the blog was only a few weeks old back in 2005; unfortunately the link no longer works.) When he branched into writing fiction. I was on board. My reports on his previous books: The Weed Agency; Between Two Scorpions; Hunting Four Horsemen; and Gathering Five Storms.

I'm sorry to report that this one falls solidly in the "wish I liked it better" category. That's me, I may just have been grumpy, you can read all kinds of rave reviews at Amazon.

It starts out in roughly present-day Ukraine, where Alec and Katrina, members of the CIA's loose-cannon "Dangerous Clique" are off to interview a heavily-tattooed terrorist, held in custody. After nearly getting blown up by a Russian bomb, they arrive at the prison… only to find the terrorist has been brutally slain.

Then nothing much happens except talk, talk, talk for way too long. And I'm not sure they ever figured out who killed that guy. I could have missed it.

Eventually, the main plot point is revealed: a working, practical quantum computer has been developed and is initially used to break through the cryptographic safeguards on CIA computers blow the cover identities of its spies all around the globe. Including our heroes, putting them in even more danger than usual.

The problems I've had with Geraghty's previous books continue here: clunky dialogue, too much reliance on wisecracks and pop-culture references, yet another ludicrous plot. The CIA mole (who's been completely obvious to readers for a long time) is finally revealed to our protagonists, and they are surprised for some reason. And it seems to have become a trademark: a final action-packed showdown in a skyscraper, this one in Taipei.

But this time the plot has weird seemingly-supernatural overtones. Really? Well, it's left as a loose end, so I guess we'll see more in the next installment.

Which, yes, I plan on buying.

Mary Roach is a journalist who takes her own (as near as I can tell) unique angle on science and technical subjects: concentrating on the gross, disgusting, horrible, edgy, pretty close to dirty, details.

Reader, if you're sensitive to such things, she's also put out Packing for Mars for Kids. Amazon says it's OK for ages 8-12. And also much shorter, 144 pages.

Mary—and I call her Mary, because if she's gonna talk dirty to me, I'm gonna use her first name—doesn't really do a lot of Mars-specific stuff here, despite the title. She interviews a handful of actual astronauts, but she's also interested in the army of mostly-unsung scientists, engineers, and medical personnel involved in getting the astronauts up, keeping them alive in a strange, often hostile, environment, and bringing them back safely. There's a lot of history, going back to the V-2 flights. (Didja know: "In May 1947, a V-2 launched from White Sands Proving Ground headed south instead of north, missing downtown Juarez, Mexico, by 3 miles.")

Weightlessness has always been an issue, with a lot of uncertainty about its short-term and long-term effects, and continuing health issues. (Not to mention vomiting.) Mary gets to take a ride on the "Vomit Comet", and reports on the pluses and minuses.

What are the psychological issues about being cooped up in a relatively small space with your co-workers? Experiments in this area are not without amusement, although usually not to the experimental subjects.

There's a lot of information about space pooping and peeing, and what happens when such things, um, get out of control. Urine collection involves a condom-like, um, attachment. But: "No one is excluded from the astronaut corps based on penis size." (Did that factoid get included in the "for kids" edition?)

And, at the (literal) other end, space nutrition. And booze? Beer is a no-no, or anything with bubbles for that matter; bubbles don't work well in zero-g. They tried cream sherry, and the reviews were poor.

And there's a chapter about sex in space. With a diverting aside about how dolphins, um, do it in their buoyant environment. And I learned something about guy dolphins that involves the word "prehensile".

Mary keeps things light, with only one exception. In her research about how astronauts might "bail out" of a damaged spacecraft, naturally the Columbia disaster is discussed. And as Mary interviews one of the researchers involved, she realizes he's the widower of one of those astronauts. That's a very somber note.

I've read a number of space books over the past few years, and this is a very valuable entry, simply due to Mary's down-to-earth honesty and relentless curiousity.

Superficial me, I was unimpressed with the lackluster cover art. Which is maybe why I waited so long to read this 2017 novel by Derek B. Miller. Ah, but what's between the covers is just fantastic.

The opening scene is 1991 Iraq. Saddam has been driven out of Kuwait, but remains in power. And is ruthlessly hanging onto power by sending out troops to ruthlessly suppress any possible Shiite sources of opposition. And murder their wives and children, just to be sure.

American policy is to not get involved (further), so Arwood Hobbes, US Army machine gunner has little to do at Checkpoint Zulu, 240 kilometers inside Iraq, just outside the town of Samawah. Which has had the temerity to overthrow their Sunni government. Arwood meets British newspaper journalist Thomas Benton, and (sort of) goads him into entering Samawah to report on the locals. Unfortunately, hell picks that time to be unleashed. Benton and Hobbes attempt to save a girl (wearing green) from the carnage, but tragically fail.

And then, twenty-two years later, Hobbes notices the girl in green again. In Syria. Under mortar attack. He contacts Benton and they inject themselves into that carnage, and things threaten to unfold tragically once more.

There's a lot going on here, and I've only skimmed the surface. Miller has a vast and detailed knowledge of the various forces and ethnicities in the Middle East, and also knows how NGOs and the UN play their roles.

Miller's also an expert at mixing horrible violence and offbeat humor. Sometimes on the same page. Seems like a difficult thing to bring off, but it worked for me.

This (sigh) means I've read all Miller's novels. Hope another one will drop soon.

Mrs. Salad was a Deanna Raybourn fan, she liked her "Veronica Speedwell" series a lot. And Pun Daughter had read this and recommended it, so I picked up the Kindle version.

I don't think she got to read it, unfortunately. And I don't know if she would have liked it. I finally got around to reading it, though, and I thought it was a decent page turner.

It's about a team of profressional assassins. And the gimmick is that they are four ladies (see title) "of a certain age", and that age is well past middle. They work for a shadowy organization called the "Museum", originally formed to hunt down and kill escaped Nazi war criminals, since expanded to other villains the law, for whatever reason, can't touch.

But it is a cliché of the assassin genre—there's even a TV Tropes page about it—that the organization you work for will eventually put out a contract on you. The ladies (Billie, Mary Jane, Natalie, Helen) are sent on a retirement cruise; they are enjoying themselves, but by sheerest lucky coincidence discover that they've been targeted. And escape by the skin of their dentures, but they are (of course) concerned, and somewhat peeved, that they've been marked for death.

The book is a weird combination of its absurd premise, lighthearted wisecracks, and explicit, sometimes gory, violence.

But it's a definite chick book. And it wouldn't be a chick book without irrelevant commentary about home decor. Example: they break into their victim's home via a bathroom; Billie, the narrator, observes the "vanity was a modern slab of concrete studded with tiny fossils". And there's a "flokati rug" on the floor. She disapproves. But things get better as they approach their target, sleeping in his "wide, low California king" bed, in a room which has the original parquet flooing: "After the modern atrocity of the bathroom, I'd been afraid he had remodeled the heart out of the old house."

And a few seconds later, there's blood all over the California king and the parquet, so… oh, well.

This book was on the WSJ's list of the best mysteries of 2022; took me awhile, but now I've read 'em all. This one… could have been better.

That is, by the way, similar to what I thought about the other Joël Dicker novel I read ten years ago, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. I said that one had a good, twisty plot, but it was accompanied by "cardboard characters, plastic dialog, and leaden prose."

Same here. Although the plot is super twisty, the characters less plastic. And (let's be charitable) the dialog and prose woes could be due to a lackluster translation from the original French.

It's set mostly in Switzerland. A discovered corpse in Room 622 is right on page one. Although we are not told the victim's identity until much further on, and the perpetrator isn't revealed until the very end. Otherwise, the story concentrates on three characters in a love triangle stretching back decades: Lev, son of a failed comedian and actor; Anastasia, whose mother wants her to marry rich; and Macaire, scion of a banking family, who's wangling to take over the bank presidency when his father kicks the bucket.

Ah, but it's an example of autofiction as well. To add another layer of plotting, parts of the book are narrated by an author named Joël Dicker, who's in mourning for his longtime mentor/publisher, and also moaning about a tough breakup with his girlfriend. He takes off to the Hôtel de Verbier, in the Alps, where he makes the acquaintance of Scarlett Leonas, also staying there. They notice an oddity on the resort's sixth floor: room 622 is missing! (Replaced by "621A".) It is soon revealed to them that the room was the site of that murder years back. What happened? Scarlett and Joël turn into amateur sleuths, determined to track down the truth behind the enigma. Might make a good book!

The book's plot, other than the mystery, is very soap-operatic. The characters mostly behave foolishly and dishonestly, engaging in absurd subterfuges that never seem to work out to their satisfaction. Betrayal, jealousy, envy, self-sabotage, irrational hatred, fatal misunderstandings, and many more: they are all here. I assume Dicker ties up all the loose ends that pop up throughout the book by the last page, but I couldn't swear to it.

Reader, here's something I noticed: If two characters arrange a future rendezvous and one says "I promise to be there", then it's a foregone conclusion that he or she won't show up, and the consequences will matter.

Disclaimer: this is one of those books where, in my case, the author, Coleman Hughes, is pushing on an open door. I found myself in violent agreement with just about everything he says here. I'm in no mood to be critical, and have nothing to be critical about.

One of my longtime puzzlements is how counterproductive the "progressive" attitudes toward racial issues in the US are. Their criticisms are unbalanced; their proposed "solutions" seem designed to worsen social ills rather than mend them, stirring up suspicion, resentment, and hostility on all sides.

(When I say "longtime": I recall the 1970s strife accompanying the judge-ordered busing of black and white kids in Boston. This accomplished less than nothing, education-wise.)

This book defends an honorable, and simple, principle: "we should treat people without regard to race, both in our public policy and in our private lives." This ideal has a long and noble history, but has been under attack from the people Hughes dubs "neoracists". He concentrates fire on Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi, who have probably made the most off their anti-colorblindness. But (as we know) the neoracist ideology really worked itself into schools and (even) public libraries, to the exclusion of opposing viewpoints. (I got this book from the UNH Library, but only via Interlibrary Loan from Brandeis.)

Hughes' criticism of neoracism is intense (and convincing). He shows that the neoracists reject the principles encouraged by MLKJr ("content of their character"); they favor racial discrimination, engage in invidious racial stereotyping; redefine the term "racism" to fit their ideology; are "committed to race superiority." All in all, not that different from the nastiest white supremecists.

Solutions? Hughes has worthwhile suggestions:

First, stop thinking of "diversity" as an end in itself, but as a tool to help achieve actually worthy goals. His example is policing, where folks of color would tend to see a lily-white police force as illegitimate. But in most cases, judging on colorblind merit is the way to go.

Second, "racist talk" should be stigmatized no matter its direction.

Third, racial discrimination against minorities should be stopped. For example, the anti-Asian bias in school admissions.

Fourth, the notion that statistical racial disparities are "proof" of racial discrimination needs to be debunked, and ineffective "affirmative action" plans should be junked. Hughes is hard on the term "affirmative action", noting that, taken by itself, it's a meaningless euphemism. ("If you didn't know what it meant, the words themselves would give you no hint.")

So: another sensible book that will be mostly ignored by the people styling themselves as "anti-racists". I wish it were in every library, shelved next to the Kendis and DiAngelos.