Realm of Measure (Asimov)

Realm of Measure From the yardstick to the Theory of Relativity, by Isaac Asimov, 1960 Removed from circulation from my school library and regulated to the trash pile before I spotted the circa-1960 photo of Isaac Asimov on the back cover (looking younger than I've ever seen him before, so I surprised myself by recognizing him), serendipity brought Realm of Measure: From the yardstick to the Theory of Relativity into my possession.

I'm happy that it did. Though billed as an exploration of mathematics, he veers off a bit into scientific measurements, but I'll still count this toward my goal of reading one interesting book on math each summer, and this one does it without spinning out of control with endless, overly-complicated and overly-ridiculous equations.

Asimov goes into the history of measurements and how certain units came about and how the different units relate to one another. Not only did lengths like palms and feet have to be standardized from person to person and town to town, but also in relation to each so that they could be divided more evenly among people without formal education but who could count and compute the basic operations.

Asimov pushes for the metric system often throughout the book, as it's used a lot in science (where he was quite at home), not to mention in most of the non-English-speaking world. (He doesn't actually mention the measure of the English-speaking world using British units.)

The biggest problem with his arguments is that he presented the beauty of American/British system in its origins. If you were a wordsmith, you might be interested in the etymology of words, where they came from and how they came to be. You wouldn't stand for simplified spellings that are attempted from time to time. (Benjamin Franklin had a serious plan to change the language and simplify spelling, for instance.) When you read the origin of who's foot we use and who's armlength, and why a furlong is 1/8 of a mile, there is a wonder to it that goes beyond, "You see, there's this stick, and it has these two marks in it...."

Further, the system of divisions make sense. Think of the times. Think of the people and how they lived. If they split things, they likely halved them. If they had to quarter something, they halved it again. How often did someone come along with nine of his friends and need things sorted out evenly among them. And for all those divisions, 10 isn't a great number to work with: you can only divide it by 2 and 5, but not 3 nor 4. Dividing 12 by 2, 3, 4 and 6 proved more convenient, if it you lose 5. Moreover, metric conversion is easy in that you can switch units simply by moving the decimal point, but first you had to invent the decimal point! And that didn't happen to, what, the sixteenth century?

Oddly enough, I can sit here and argue that the time for the metric system has passed. We're living in a computer age, ruled by binary and hexidecimal. The number 10 really doesn't fit well into that scheme. And once you get passed 11th year math, base 10 goes out the window in favor of natural logs and e.

Not that any of this took away from my enjoyment of his book, which I heartily recommend to all with the proviso, "Don't try to read it in bed when you're really tired."

And I'll close by considering how close NYC came to allowing 16-ounce soft drinks while banning 500 milliliters. Metric: not even once.

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Apparently, this is the first Asimov book I've reviewed, as his name was not one of the tags, which is odd because I have read some of his books since I started this blog, or at least since I kept track of the books in my paper journal. The most recent Asimov book I read which comes to mind was The Currents of Space. It's an Empire book and I remember wondering when the Robots would show up because I had Caves of Steel on my mind.

Guilty Pleasures (Hamilton)

Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #1), by Laurell K. Hamilton, 1993

Before Buffy was slaying vampires on television, Anita Blake was executing them in a series of novels.

Anita is an Animator, she has the ability to raise the dead, creating zombies who can, briefly, retain their memories and personalities. She also kills vampires, but there's a catch. Vampires have are people, too, you know. They have rights, and they can only be put down by court order. Otherwise, they stay and operate in their own districts of the city. Guilty Pleasures is just your typical vampire nightclub. It isn't hiding anything nefarious. Of course, it's not.

As the story opens, Anita is being hired by a vampire whom she recently knew as a person. They want her to look into a series of unsanctioned vampire killings. She's not a private detective, but they think that she knows her stuff. Who better than someone who kills vampires to deal with another vampire killer.

Oddly enough, even though she isn't a private detective, that didn't stop me from reading the book if, in fact, she were. Actually, in my mind, the narrator had the same voice as the woman who reads the Sue Grafton, "Kinsey Millhone" audiobooks. It made for an interesting but unintended mash-up. I enjoyed the book, although I wasn't riveted. I took my time, mostly reading it on the trains, and occasionally before sleeping. I would recommend it if you like your vampires straight-up evil, manipulative and oozing with power. They may have the rights of humans, but they aren't trying to be human.

I found the first five books in the series on a shelf at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. Unfortunately, I only picked out the first book because I didn't want to spent that much money upfront on a series that I knew nothing about, hadn't heard of before. For all I knew, I was buying "chick lit". You may like that sort of thing, but it's not high on my summer reading list (even if I did buy it in the springtime). It's probably better this way because buying the first book forced me to read it sooner so I could decide to go back for the others before it was too late. A good plan, but I didn't move quickly enough -- someone picked up the rest of them before me.

By the way, had I bought all of them, they could still be sitting there on my shelf. I have bought quartets of books only to return them a year or two later, unread.

Two notes about the series:

First, they seem to have been popular, despite my not having heard of them. I asked online if anyone nearby had copies of the books. I got quite a few responses. Two guys I might've expected had had them, but they're too far away to borrow the books (the tolls just to Jersey are over $20, and let's not forget the gas!). And two women who I wouldn't have suspected both told me that they had read them when they came out, but neither had them any more.

Second, be warned that the series changes after the fifth or sixth books. Fans debate whether or not the change was for the better. What was the change? I don't know, but I could guess. And if I couldn't, my sister's response of "LOL! Oh, yeah, they changed!" tells me that it's probably not in a direction I'm wanting to follow.

That said, if I can find these books, I might have 4 or 5 more good reads this summer.

Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1746-47 (Chesterfield)

Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1746-47, by Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, 1747

I am not kidding about either the title of the book by the Earl of Chesterfield or the fact that I read his letters. There were quite interesting, illuminating even, although I wish I'd had the Internet handy more often when reading it to look up some archaic words or translate some French, German or Latin phrases.

I saw the e-book while perusing the freebies on Amazon.com. This one caught my attention, and I'm glad it did -- so glad, in fact, that I don't mind posting that website, which I usually shy away from doing.

Two reasons to read it: first, a little historical lesson couldn't hurt (and it didn't); second, what better way to write the part of a gentleman than to have one explain to his son how to become one (this worked for me). A couple of the chapters were boring, but others were instructive or downright amusing (and not always intentionally).

It's a short, free book, and I recommend it.

The Giving Plague (Brin)

The Giving Plague, by David Brin, 1987

I don't usually review short stories, but I downloaded this for free onto my iPad and read it with my Kindle app in the same way that I read a lot of books. And since I re-launching my reading list blog, it doesn't hurt to start a little smaller.

First off, if I hadn't read the afterword, I wouldn't have realized that this story was written over 25 years ago. It hasn't dated. What makes that notable is the fact that it was written at the height of the AIDS epidemic, when the public was finally aware of what the disease was and what it was capable of doing. It's not an "AIDS story", but you can see how a plague of that kind influenced it. (Another way of putting that: if it had been written a few years later, it might have been inspired by, say, the ebola virus.)

The story is narrated by a biologist who makes a discovery about a new virus spreading through the population with an unusual property: it makes people more altruistic, starting with a desire to donate blood, which is how the virus seems to spread. Research and ethical questions follow and do consequences and possibilities of accolades and Nobel prizes.

An interesting little story, which isn't dated at all. If anything, now that AIDS is being tamed, it has to make you wonder what could come next that AIDS seem like a case of chicken pox.

"The Giving Plague" should be available for free for ereaders. The story can be found in its entirety on Brin's website in HTML form, usable by any browser.

My Reading List Is Coming Back Online

I've been away from the blog, but not away from reading. Granted, I still don't read as much as I'd like, but mostly because I don't allow myself the time. Moreover, there are too many things sucking time away -- most of them online, but some just on TV.

I will NOT write reviews for the things I've read over the past four years, except for the things I've read more recently. This may tend to get boring, seeing that I'm reading the next book in a popular series, followed by the one after that, but I'd rather write about something from recent memory.

I've noticed that people have stumbled across entries for specific books through online searches. I looked at those entries, and some of them are pretty sad. They date from the time after I wrote little reviews in my little notebook but before I stopped keeping track of the books. After a while, the details fade. Now, you may think that with good books, the details shouldn't fade that much, but if you've read a dozen books since then, it's not hard to imagine that names and details might get muddied or confused.

Right now, I've tracked my most recent books on GoodReads, but I usually just give a star rating, without comments. The reviews there tend toward "it was good/bad" amd what was good/bad about it, and not capsule summaries, which is a good thing, really, because who needs 50 or 500 capsule summaries of the same book. Would anyone read them? It would be quicker to read the book! (That reminds me of the time I discovered that the Cliffs Notes for some book in high school was actually longer than the book itself.)

I'll probably go in reverse order, except for series, until I go back far enough that I don't remember anything. New books as I finish them.

And for those you who found this page because of my comics blog, welcome.
Those of you who didn't know I had a comics blog (where I make math comics, I don't write about other people's comics), check out (x, why?).

Tales of the Slayers (graphic novel)

Tales of the Slayers (graphic novel)

As previously mentioned, I don't usually read graphic novels, but the library had a bunch of them and I had time during the summer. I picked up a few of them.

There were a few Buffy, the Vampire Slayer comics, almost all featuring the characters from the show. Casually flipping through them, I wasn't interested. However, Tales of the Slayers was different. It was a bunch of short stories featuring Slayers from the past and the future, filling in more of the mythos rather than simply supplementing the series. I enjoyed it.

Batman: Terror (graphic novel)

Batman: Terror (graphic novel)

I don't usually read graphic novels, but the library had a bunch of them and I had time during the summer. I picked up a few of them.

This one was quite good featuring Batman squaring off against both Hugo Strange and Scarecrow (who has plans of his own that Strange is unaware of). Catwoman also puts in an appearance. Worth reading.

I'm glad this was the first one I picked up. Otherwise, I might not have read any more.

Star & Stripes Triumphant (Harrison)

Star & Stripes Triumphant, Harry Harrison (2001)

The satisfying conclusion to an excellent trilogy finds the United States at war with Great Britain, with Ireland playing an important role. The rules of engagement have changed as warfare has moved into a new age.

Stars & Stripes in Peril (Harrison)

Stars & Stripes in Peril, Harry Harrison, 2000

Book two of this alternate Civil War tale finds the Union and the Confederacy taking the fight to Great Britain and the rode to freedom may well be in Ireland.

Very well done. Excellent read.
(I believe I give my copy to the guy who loaned me the other two books because he couldn't find his copy.)

Star & Stripes Forever (Harrison)

Stars & Stripes Forever, Harry Harrison, 1998

Standing on line at Barnes & Noble's, I glanced over at the discount books and saw a book called Stars & Stripes in Peril, an alternate history book set during the Civil War, that takes the Union and the Confederacy into Ireland. Sounded interesting, so I scooped it up. It looked so interesting, that I hadn't noticed that it was book two of a trilogy. This was pointed out to me about an hour later by a couple of friends. The first reminded me that he had told me about the series at least a year earlier. The second was the one whom I gave the Net Force books to, and he in return loaned me the other two books in this trilogy. This is the first.

Harry Harrison does an excellent job with alternate history, and this is no exception. The premise is simple: what if Prince Albert had died a month earlier than he actually did. That is no small change for history. Prince Albert was key in defusing a standoff between Great Britain and President Lincoln, which could have ended in the United States fighting a war on two fronts.

Naturally, this would've ended badly for the Union and very quickly, so Harrison adds an extra twist. The British intend to attack Mississippi under cover of darkness. Unfortunately, the ships get lost in the fog and when they invade, they realize too late that they have actually attacked Louisiana, committing unspeakable acts.

The British decide that they'll have to take it all. The Confederacy can only respond by putting aside their differences and joining forces with the Union. And, no, I didn't give away the ending to the book. This happens around the middle, if I remember correctly.

I enjoyed this book. If you like alternate history novels or stories set in the Civil War or just have an interest in General Sherman, read this.

Vulcan! (Sky)

Vulcan!, Kathleen Sky, 1978

One of the original Star Trek novels, and an early edition of it (with the original artwork, not the updated cover). Unfortunately, I don't remember much about it other than the blurbs I found online.

I don't think that this is the only Trek book I've read by Kathleen Sky.

Tom Clancy's Net Force: CyberNation (Perry)

Tom Clancy's Net Force: Breaking Point, Steve Perry (2000)

This was the last in the pile of Net Force paperbacks I'd acquired. Unlike the others, this one had a title that actually had something to do with the plot. There was an online community called Cybernation, which wanted to be an independent entity among other nations. You can imagine what kind of Revolution would be required to bring that about.

Enter Net Force, which once again wins the day, but never entirely nor convincingly. Something always slips through their grasps.

Anyway, I thought enough about these books to pass the bunch of them on to another Tom Clancy reader, even if these aren't technically by Clancy