‘I Miss The Culture’ Score: 4/5 It’s not that there’s anything wrong with this book - it’s a good book - but sentient spaceships with consciousness and their own motivations always makes me miss The Culture novels from Iain M. Banks. This book is fun, but it’s not a Culture novel - and that’s not the author’s fault.
‘You’re Doing It Wrong’ Score: 4/5 I love the books these days that delve into the everyday things we thought we knew, bringing in the latest science and investigations, and showing that what we thought we knew may not be true. This book is very much in that vein. Given how much all of us breathe it’s surprising the differences between ‘accepted wisdom’ and new research results. It’ll be interesting to see…
‘Spotting Mega Historical Shifts’ Score: 4/5 Hmm. Lots to think about in this book. It was written over two decades ago, trying to forecast where things would be or at least the direction in which they were heading. It got some things wrong but it got lots right too. The talk of cryptographic payments and identities seems quite prophetic. We have seen a weakening of the nation state, but I felt it wa…
‘More Unlikely Infantry Action’ Score: 4/5 Another cheap book. More poor copy editing, small margins, and - surprisingly - a table of contents that just lists ‘Chapter One... Chapter Two... Chapter Three...’ and so on, with no page numbers. It’s just as well there are no page numbers in the table of contents because none of the pages have page numbers either. I still don’t think space battles will have inf…
‘Really Just Didn’t Care’ Score: 2/5 Another Laundry Files book. The author again shifted perspective/voice for this book, going to a different character. I didn’t like this character in previous books, I didn’t like her in this book. I don’t think we’re supposed to like her. Going through a whole book of this was quite a chore. The sections that weren’t from the perspective of the main character were often voiced…
