Book Review 2020
2020 Book Review
Finished: 13 (3 DNF) Pages: 7,305
| Book Title | Author | Series Name | Genre | Rating | Date | Pages | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Demon In The Freezer | Richard Preston | Dark Biology | Science/Biology | 5 | 2020 | 306 | Non-Fiction |
| Sandworm | Andy Greenberg | Cyber | 5 | 2020 | 370 | Non-Fiction | |
| The End Is Always Near | Dan Carlin | History | 5 | 2020 | 293 | Non-Fiction | |
| The Book of Lost Things | John Connolly | The Book Of Lost Things | Coming of Age/Fantasy | 4 | 2020 | 352 | Fiction |
| Aurora | Kim Stanley Robinson | SciFi | 4 | 2020 | 512 | Fiction | |
| Black Elk | Joe Jackson | Biography/Cultural | 4 | 2020 | 830 | Non-Fiction | |
| Exhalation: Stories | Ted Chiang | SciFi | 4 | 2020 | 362 | Fiction | |
| Raven Rock | Garrett M. Graff | History/Warfare/Nuclear | 4 | 2020 | 561 | Non-Fiction | |
| Reamde | Neal Stephenson | Technothriller | 4 | 2020 | 1055 | Fiction | |
| Underland: A Deep Time Journey | Robert Macfarlane | Science/Ecology | 4 | 2020 | 495 | Non-Fiction | |
| The Andromeda Evolution | Michael Crichton | The Andromeda Strain | SciFi | 3 | 2020 | 383 | Fiction |
| All Systems Red | Martha Wells | Murderbot Diaries | SciFi | 2 | 2020 | 156 | Fiction |
| The Starless Sea | Erin Morgenstern | Fantasy | 2 | 2020 | 487 | Fiction | |
| Too Like the Lightning | Ada Palmer | Terra Ignota | SciFi | DNF | 2020 | 433 | Fiction |
| The Happiness Hypothesis | Jonathan Haidt | Psychology | DNF | 2020 | 416 | Non-Fiction | |
| The Social Leap | William von Hippel | Evolution | DNF | 2020 | 294 | Non-Fiction |
Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers
It's really good. Seriously.
The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses
I love Dan Carlin's 'Hard Core History' Podcasts. So I picked this up. It's equally good, but I can't help but think I would have enjoyed it more as a podcast? It's fine for what it is and it covers a decent number of little-known historical facts combined with the theme that society is always on the brink of collapse. Cheery stuff, really.
If you read this and like I advise you listen to 'The End Of The World' podcast with Josh Clark.
Aurora
The intro was a little rough. I struggled to get through the first few chapters. I do recognize they are important for character development, though and they set the stage well for the remainder of the book. Once the plot picks up, I couldn't put this down. (I was also in the Las Vegas Airport for 4 hours waiting for a flight with it to be fair). But still, It's awesome. I loved the ship AI character. The ending could have been more interesting - it felt a bit overly long in the last few chapters.
The Andromeda Evolution
I think I enjoyed the first Andromeda more, but this was a worthy sequel. The scifi concepts got 'bigger' if that makes any sense, and the scale of the book is both somehow very small, and quite large all at the same time. It had a little of everything, which I enjoyed. I also read it incredibly quickly, so I think that's a good sign. If you read Andromeda Strain, also read this.
Exhalation: Stories
This is a collection of short stories, so the rating is sort of an average.
"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate"
A fun 'prince of persia' style time-travel scifi story set in Persia/Middle eastern setting. It was a good start to the book.
"Exhalation"
My favorite story out of the whole book. Maybe it's the authors, too, because he named the book after it.
"What's Expected of Us"
Cool little story on free will. I thought it was fine for what it was.
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects"
This was the longest story of the book, and I wish it wasn't. It's not that it wasn't interesting, but it dragged on before it really got to the point/theme/moral. It was intertwined with weird themes about growing up, humanity, sexuality, and romance. I sort of wish this was replaced with 3 smaller stories about different subjects.
"Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny"
For some reason this reminded me of 'Amnesia: Justine' but I'm not sure why. It was fun to read, if not a bit strange?
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling"
Sort of reminded me of "Things Fall Apart" somehow. Interesting look at how society shapes what we consider truth.
"The Great Silence"
If I recall, it was like 3 pages long. It's good, but nothing to write a review about.
"Omphalos"
Maybe my least favorite in the whole book. It wasn't engaging for me, and I found myself bored until the end.
"Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom"
I enjoyed this one a lot. The concept of the prisms was interesting, and for a short story the character development was impressive.
The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story
Scary. I read this during COVID-19 (June 2020) and it puts into perspective (perhaps) how prepared we are as a Nation to handle a large-scale biological event. To make it worse, this was written in 2002...a lot has changed in 18 years, but is it all for the better? Hard to say, we almost need a Demon in the Freezer #2 to update us on the current state of affairs post-COVID. I can't recommend this book enough to someone interested in this topic. If you haven't read about Smallpox or Anthrax - read this!
All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries
I read this for a book club. It was only 176 pages, and was $13, so not a huge fan of that price-per-page, but not a deal breaker. However, the fact that there's 4 (technically 5) of these, and they are all
BLACK ELK
American History. Glad I took the time to read this one, even though Biographies aren't my normal choice. Interesting, depressing, enlightening. It slows down in the last 1/3rd, but that almost normal since biographies follow the path of someone's life, and life tends to slow down in the last 1/3rd I think? Regardless, super good. If you are interested at all in Native American History, read this!
The Book of Lost Things
Like 'The Starless Sea' but better. Good character development. A story of fairy tales, horror, and adventure. Grief, loss, trust, betrayal, and love. I wasn't 100% sold for the first few chapters, but the story eventually grew on me and had a great ending. One of the few books I think would make for a great movie as well (if done properly).
The Starless Sea
Read this for a book club. Where to start exactly?
This book is chaotic. The first half is harder to read than the second half due to every chapter being interrupted by a fairy tale / story. These stories do eventually loop back to the main plot - sort of. The book is ultimately confusing, and I found the conclusion generally unsatisfying. There were a lot of things that were brought up that seemingly had very little impact on the overall plot.
The plot structure was wildly non-standard. The main character was sort of dry. Most of the material was cool in premise, but felt like it was included because the author came up with a list of things she found cool and decided to try and write all of them into a single novel. The result is a little disjointed, and has a lot of convenient writing throughout.
Why did X happen at time Y? Because the author said so and it was cool, and we can use magic to explain anything anyway so no need for any real logic or flow. The book had some literary vibes: Alice in Wonderland, InkHeart, Inception (That's a movie but whatever). Lots of pop culture references - almost too many. Will date the book in 10 years. It felt like the author was trying really hard to make the book relatable. She didn't need to do that - just write an interesting story and it will be relatable. The ending was also vague (in my opinion) and left me with more questions than answers. This is bad for what I assume is a standalone novel (no sequels coming) - especially in a book that begins with questions without answers. So the whole book is sort of just a giant question mark. The book felt a bit overwritten - perhaps longer than it deserves. I'll give it 2.5 stars instead of 2 because at least the world building and visual descriptions were sort of interesting/fun. Anyway, not something I'd personally recommend to someone, but certainly appeals to certain folks more than me.
Underland: A Deep Time Journey
Amazing read. It covers all things underground. It's a history book, an environmentalism book, a geology book, and an anthropology book all in one. I love the allure of underground spaces, and the interesting and less known features of our planet. This hit all the marks for me. Highly recommended!
Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die
Super interesting cold war history book that doesn't really focus on the cold war, but rather focuses on the continuity of government planning from ~1950 - 2001. Closely follows presidential changes between administrations, ongoing war efforts, and CoG events and how they shaped the way the govt handles situations. Pretty interesting actually!
Reamde
What a fun book. MMO, Terrorists, Spies, etc. Bit dated in spots, but it holds up.
The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy -- DNF ❌
I may come back to this one, I just found myself getting bored so I moved on. For whatever reason anthropology always makes me sleepy.
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom -- DNF ❌
I think I heard about this on the Joe Rogan podcast?
I can't remember, but yet again I found myself bored so I moved on. I may revisit, there was nothing wrong with the book per se, it was interesting enough.
Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota) -- DNF ❌
I just thought it was confusing and awful? I wouldn't revisit, only started reading as part of a book club that dissolved shortly after this book won the popular vote. I'm not sure anyone managed to finish it, but I didn't ask to confirm. I think people in the club just got distracted by life which is fair. The writing was overly description, but confusing. The whole book struck me as pretentious scifi designed to be unapproachable or obscure. 🤮