Having seen the film, I decided to read the book. Now I can understand why so many people said the film was not like the movie, but also why the film itself seemed so episodic. In a nutshell, World War Z is a collection of more than 50 interviews of witness accounts about a fictional war against the zombies. This makes the only connections between the book and the film be the zombies and the episodic nature of it. In rest the stories are different, the way zombies behave, the take on how humans react and of course the shitty ending.

Now, about the book... It was easy to read, mostly because I could just take the PDA in my hand and read one of those mini stories in 10 minutes and then do whatever I wanted to do. Some of them were really great, too, but after reading the book I think I can safely say that it wasn't about zombies at all. Instead it was about the way people live now and the war was just a prop to make us see things clearly from a different perspective. Of course, some things never change: the great American spirit, the Russian brutality, the narrowmindedness of Asians and so many other clichés. Not that they are not believable, but it so shows that the author is American, even when he makes fun of his own country's flaws. Anyway, I encourage you to see the book as social commentary rather than a zombie or a horror book. That is also because the threat of "regular" zombies - you know, slow and dumb - can't really be that scary. So there are a lot of technical flaws with the zombies in the book. The situations described show the difficulty mainly in fighting millions of city dwellers now turned zombies and the war of attrition that the zombies were actually enabling, since they destroyed everything in their path, yet needed no food or supplies. Also a lot of the stories have this "I don't know why zombies don't die from bombs, water pressure, frosting, etc. I am just a dumb whatever telling a story". At some point it got a little annoying.

The bottom line is that I enjoyed a lot more the personal descriptions of how people live in other countries than the zombies, stories about them or the rather weak speculations on how people would react to their attack. The book was nicely written, but clearly amateurish; it lacked the depth of seasoned writers and had too many "props", like you see in screenplays. No wonder: Max Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks, he lived in the world of movies his entire life and this is only his second book.

Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 is a strange enough book. It is not a book for beginners, as the title would have you believe, but only something that gives you a taste of new HTML and CSS features. Some of the things discussed are not very thorough, but may be very detailed (like when they talk about a hard to spot bug for a specific browser version). They talk very little of some often used features, but very in detail about something that will probably not be used by many people, like data annotation.

What is immediately obvious, though, is that the authors are professionals with a lot of experience. They see things and think about them in a way that a person with no design experience like myself has never thought about. Their explanations are backed by a lot of links and downloadable code, so it can be used like a reference. I would say that about a third of the book relates to HTML and the last two are about CSS. Awesome and weird things are being discussed, from custom fonts to 3D transforms, from data annotation of any HTML so that is machine parseable (like Google crawlers and such) to pagination control for layouts that need to look like books or be used in e-readers. It is also a modern book, the type that lets you know about various features, but instead of rehashing a subject, they give you a link to more information from someone else.

You can get example code from the book's site, as well as see the table of contents and details about the authors. What immediately jumps into mind is that the page is HTML5 and uses CSS3, but is not nearly as carefully crafted, data annotated or awesome as they advise in the book, which validates a little my view of the book: an interesting book to read about features you will probably rarely use. It certainly made me experiment some with my blog and think of ways of implementing many of the features, but in the end nobody wants something very over the top, so only small changes were made.

I've had some changes in my life lately and more are coming so I took a break from chess, but I found a bit of time to finish this chess puzzle book that I started reading a few months ago, but never quite got around to complete. Chess Tactics for Champions is not really for champions, but for beginner to intermediate level, or at least this is what it felt like to me. Susan Polgar chose to structure the book into chapters of about 25 puzzles or examples, each covering some important aspect of chess tactics. Here is a list of those chapters:

• 01 - Forks and double attacks
• 02 - Pins
• 03 - Deflection/removing the guard
• 04 - Discoveries
• 05 - Double check
• 06 - Skewers
• 07 - Trapping pieces
• 08 - Decoys
• 09 - Intermediate moves
• 10 - Pawn promotion
• 11 - The back-rank problem
• 12 - Destroying the castled king's protection
• 13 - King chase
• 14 - Mixed checkmates in two moves
• 15 - Mixed checkmates in three moves
• 16 - Mixed checkmates in four moves
• 17 - Game-saving combinations
• 18 - Perpetual check
• 19 - Stalemate
• 20 - Traps and counter traps
• 21 - Sibling positions
• 22 - Twenty-five famous combinations

The last two chapters are presentational only, but the first 20 contain puzzles that the reader must solve, with solutions at the end of the chapter. The authors tried to order the chapters by complexity, so that beginners could understand and solve the first chapters and then move over to the more advanced positions, but it is not always so. It seemed to me that, for most of the chapters, the last two puzzles are especially chosen for the "wow!" factor.

The bottom line is that the book is not just something you read. You solve the puzzles, some are frustrating, some are beautiful, most can be "seen" without a board in front of you - for the last chapter I would advise a board, though - but one can return to this book again and again. For example myself, once I get around to chess again, I might go through the book, just to get into the solving mindset that is essential to beautiful play. Now, I don't know how other chess puzzle books are, this being my second chess book I have read, but I imagine some could be a lot better. However, the structure of Chess Tactics for Champions makes it very easy to use as a reference book. One thing I felt was missing was pawn play. Of course, that often enters the category of strategic play, rather than tactic, but still.

More about the authors at Wikipedia: Susan Polgar and Paul Truong. They have been married since 2006.

Oh, finally Herbert breaks the pattern up. His sixth and final Dune book, Chapterhouse, is brilliant, on par with the first, if you will. At the end of the book there is this little dedication to his wife, recently passed away, in which he thanks her for the beautiful years they had together. He describes her as his muse, basically. Perhaps that tragedy was what prompted such quality in the book. Or maybe it is just my personal preferences that make me see it as such a masterpiece.

The basic plot is that the Scattering is encroaching upon the centre, with the Honorate Matre being these vindictive tyrannical bitches that destroy everything in their path while flaunting a parody of Bene Gesserit organization. They are many and they have a lot of wealth and ships. Teg Myles returns as a ghola, Duncan Idaho is sexually bonded with the Honorate Mater Murbella, only bidirectionally, and there is only one last Tleilaxu master (thankfully Scytale, not that dolt Waff) under the protection of the Bene Gesserit. The book is all about survival; I liked that.

Now, there were some issues I had with previous books. The supreme arrogance and pomposity in Prophet of Dune and God Emperor of Dune was one. The ridiculous behaviour of Tleilaxu masters was another. Others can be overlooked, but these were really annoying for me. I am happy to say that Scytale appears as a cunning and intelligent opponent of the Bene Gesserit in Chapterhouse, while the supreme confidence the witches flaunt is proven to be a front, something that allows for their survival, rather than separate them from the human race. The ending is also quite interesting, but I can't spoil it for you.

Unfortunately, the year 1985 was the end of Dune and Frank Herbert. He died of a pulmonary embolism while fighting cancer. He had just re-married and Lynch's Dune movie had just been released. The film had little success in the US, but a lot in Europe and Japan (proving again that their audiences really stink :) ). Just in case you are considering watching the movie rather that reading the book, remember that, while Lynch really got the feel of the Dune book, the script makes the story unrecognisable.

Getting back to the book, it was a shock, the first time I read it, to know that it was the last. There are other Dune books, though, written by Brian Herbert, the son of Frank Herbert. I read none of those. The reason is that I believe the depth and subtlety in Dune was more important than the story itself. Instead I would urge the reading of other Frank Herbert books. Some were rather banal, but others (and here I include the WorShip universe and Hellstrom's Hive) were brilliant.

Reread in 2022

This was not supposed to be the last book of Dune. A seventh one was planned, but death stopped Herbert from achieving his goals. There was an old childhood friend of Herbert's who described him as always ahead, blazing trails, one step ahead. After reading all of the Frank Herbert Dune books, I feel that this is how the man really was, always thinking of the consequences of the past going into the far future. You would learn as much chess as you could, but when it was time to play Herbert, he would be inventing a new game.

I can't help but feel a sense of loss for everything that he didn't get to write. He died at 66 years old. He had at least ten more good years left. I am planning now to read the Brian Herbert books, as well, and then maybe continue with rereading all of Frank Herbert's books.

The man was not perfect - I know that there are people out there who write much better than he did - but Dune is truly a masterpiece, an ode to human ingenuity, a manifesto against stagnation, bureaucracy and the trap of repeating the past. Packed with some really astonishing wisdom, I do believe is one of the most rereadable books out there.

Indeed, the pattern holds: Frank Herbert creates a very beautiful book after the bore that was Emperor of Dune. One good book followed by a bland one and then again. Heretics of Dune has more action, more of the Bene Gesserit introspections and revelations and a bunch of diverse heroes, each with their own "powers". It's basically the superhero Dune book.

Well, I am obviously oversimplifying here, but the gist of it is right. The book is entertaining, with many characters to identify with and a compelling storyline. A new pattern emerges, though: after many pages of setting the stage and keeping the reader on the edge of the seat with anticipation, Herbert just quickly reveals his hand and finishes the game. It's like, for him, the mystery of the story was all that mattered and, once exposed, the book must end. That was a bit frustrating.

The book follows the exploits of yet another, better and improved, Duncan ghola, a weird desert girl who can command worms, a Tleilaxu master, many Bene Gesserit and the loyal Bashar Miles Teg. All in the face of terrible danger from "the Scattering", the many flavours of humans that spread out from the centre core after the death of Leto II and the ensuing chaos. The Tleilaxu are shown as bumbling buffoons, which somehow bothered me, because they are always shown as a powerful force, on par with the witches of Bene Gesserit, yet on every occasion they are outclassed, outsmarted and outmanoeuvred by them. Also the Zensunni Sufi angle was a bit of a stretch. The priesthood of Rakis was somewhat similar, and although it was normal for them to be idiots, they were presented as a powerful force as well, which made no sense. There were other things in the book that were not perfect, but one can easily overlook them.

Overall I loved the book, it was one of the most entertaining for me in the saga. More stretches of the imagination, though, and some felt a bit like special effects. Although the universe is the same with Dune, Heretics feels differently. In a way every Dune book was an extension of the original universe, trying as much as possible to not thread the same path as its predecessors, but this book really shifted the perspective of the reader towards a completely different awareness, while expanding some elements from the original Dune book, like the Bene Gesserit inner dialogue and deep perception and also hints of ecological laws, only this time applied to the entire Universe. At the end I resented that it had finished so quickly, which after all, is the hallmark of any good book.

2022 reread

  I did not remember my own reaction to this book and now, after rereading both the book and my previous review, I am content to see that I have kind of the same feelings now. I do believe I maybe liked this book most of them all. I know that's kind of... ahem... heretical, but at the same time it was more complex, had many interesting characters, introduced many new ideas that were presented in an exciting and more technical way.

  The main problem with Dune books so far is that they are a bit inconsistent, like crafted together from bits written slightly differently and not always clicking with each other. I mean, what the Bene Gesserit do is amazing, how they manipulate people via their words, their actions, their manufactured myths. Yet at the same time it stretches belief that no one caught on to how they are doing it. The Tleilaxu master knows that the sisters are doing something, he acknowledges as much, then falls pray to hope and then unjustified certainty that he was wrong. And then the book itself explains, in that certain preachy way, that people evolve to become immune to powers used against them, but it only affects the Honored Matres! And what about Ix? They are amazing engineers in one book, an afterthought in the other, even when they are the builders of space travel machines.

  The same can be said about societies, technologies, natural habitats, science in general, which are very well crafted, but don't stand to scrutiny from the knowledge we now possess.

  In that same vein, Heretics of Dune is both amazingly incredibly smart ( I LOVE how Herbert views people and groups and societies as a whole ) and carelessly inconsistent. But since it leans more towards the smart, I liked the book quite a bit, especially the first half.

Here is another example of how even apparently clear memories aren't really that accurate: I almost didn't like this book. I don't know why I remember that I liked God Emperor of Dune, I probably did, but for the sake of me I don't know why. The entire span of the book Leto is whining of how much he sacrificed and his Golden Path, oscillating between total arrogance, self pity and angry fits. Probably part of a good book/bad book cycle, the second and the fourth books of the series felt weaker to me.

Anyway, the plot is not really convoluted, nor does it feature greatly trained people with extraordinary qualities. Instead, most of the characters are mostly ridiculous: a rebel that has nothing but hate and youth to drive her, but somehow Leto allows for her and even likes her for reasons I can't fathom, a Duncan Idaho ghola who acts like a spoiled and angry brat all the time, a bureaucrat that seems to have always in mind the possibility that The Worm could kill him and navigates his life around that, museum Fremen, an army of hysterical women, some remnants of the Bene Gesserit, but not enough to make a difference in that universe and in the course of the book, some Tleilaxu, but acting desperately and illogically and some Ixian machines that seem to be pervasive even when prohibited by that ridiculous Jihad. The rest of the book Leto is lamenting his situation, ponders deep philosophical questions and always wants to be surprised by the people around him, even if he trained, conditioned, bred or even cloned them himself, so he has as few chances as possible. All in the name of avoiding a horrible future when machines hunt and destroy all humans. No, really: Leto II playing John Connor.

Maybe I was more impatient or less likely to open up to the book and so I couldn't empathise with any of the characters, but maybe it was as much a pretentious book as I thought it was. Filled with pompous quotes from the Leto journals and internal dialogues that seemed to have no other purpose but to belittle the other characters in the book, God Emperor of Dune was actually boring to me. There is no question that Frank Herbert writes well, so I will not say I hated the book or that it is a bad one, but compared to others in the series it pretty much stank. I started reading book 5: Heretics of Dune, which started well with Bene Gesserit witches having some devious plans and always assessing one another. I don't seem to remember much of it, which is good, as I start with no expectations.

2022 Reread

  There is no question of the power of the central idea in the book: what would you do if you knew the past and the possible futures and was omnipotent and immortal? Isn't that a god? What would a god do, how would he really feel and think and make decisions? How would you treat humanity if it felt like a curious pet to you?

  I think Herbert had a design in his series of books. He started with an idea, perhaps a popular idea, then deconstructed it and turned it on its head. The first book was almost a classical hero arc with superhumans ruling a feudal universe. The second book revealed the weakness in the hero and the hubris of the superhumans. The third book was also a kind of a hero story where the main character defeats evil and chooses to go transhuman. The fourth book, this one, shows what that actually means. The loneliness, the unavoidable cruelty of total control and power, even when done with the best of intentions. It is humanity who had become the hero and must also change. As the book says, if you must label the absolute, use it's proper name: temporary.

  It is difficult to like this book and impossible to dislike it. The god-like protagonist is pompous, brutal and dismissive, but you have to consider what it is like to be surrounded by inferior beings, stuck in all too obvious patterns yet assuming free will and personal power. On the other hand, he sounds like a villain in movies, you know the one, who pretends to give options to the victim, only to take them away at the last moment. The scale of the book is truly epic, which is why it has many flaws, inconsistencies and even contradictions. But it doesn't matter, because the magic is there.

  I both agree and disagree with myself from 10 years ago. I almost didn't like the book, but I also liked it a lot. The fact that it had this visceral effect on me every time I've read it shows it's a great book. 

  P.S. the discussion in which Idaho is disgusted by two women kissing was hilarious, but even more hilarious was Moneo's admonition, followed by an explanation on how homosexuality is something experienced by young people and then quickly outgrown, if no one feeds it by opposing it. There might be something there, but I imagine how some people will react to it and can't help but chuckle.

The third book in the Dune saga is a strange mix between the first two. It has the epicness of the first, the setting up of the next book like the second and a length that is between the lengths of the previous books. It becomes obvious that Herbert has become too connected to his own characters and he is sometimes talking, so to speak, to himself. Characters say obscure lines that somehow strike a strong emotional or intellectual cord in their interlocutors, giving the impression they are very smart and perceptive, but that's all it is: an impression. There is a strong mix (not to say melange) of behaviors in single characters or of interactions between them that makes no sense at closer examination. If there is a word that would most fit with Children of Dune, it would be "pompous". The characters are wallowing in their hidden powers and arrogantly spewing big words that ultimately mean nothing.

That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book. I remember when I was younger I was debating if this or the next, not the first, were the best books. Now I believe that it was somehow a rushed release. A little more effort, maybe even with a splitting of the book in two smaller ones with more substance, would have made this a contender for the title. As such, though, it only mirrors the shine and edge of the first Dune book, while being less powerful. How much time did the idea of Dune mature in Herbert's head before he put it on paper and how much time did he have for Children of Dune, under the pressure of fans and publishers?

If something really hurt the consistency of the story it was the larger than life characters introduced at first: the Bene Gesserit legacy of memory and terrible training, the prescient, the Tleilaxu, the indomitable Fremen. Hard to keep the pace with such monsters. What mistakes could one do having the entirety of their ancestors' memory at their disposal? What effect would knowing the future or taking any shape you desire have on you? What would happen to fierce desert warriors when presented with a life in comfort? These are the questions that the book tried to ask, while it couldn't keep up with the immensity of the described universe and characters. Hard to describe specific bits without spoiling the story, but a good example is The Preacher, or the childish fits of anger on people that were supposed to be weathered by hardship, training and past lives.

Now, Frank Herbert is no fool. He not only noticed that the book he wrote is a little too arrogant, he has a plan. The next book will take that arrogance and throw it in our faces like a sin of all humanity that must be punished. I remember the God Emperor of Dune as a fantastic book and I can hardly wait to read it. But I also thought Children of Dune was bigger than life and now I have changed my opinion. We'll see.

Reread at 45

I thought the plot of the book was too convenient, with people who have no connection to one another suddenly making plans that consider all of the others. Also, a great inconsistency between the declared training and ability of some people and their behavior. But maybe that was the point: they are all superhuman, but they are still human. They have extraordinary skill, but also make mistakes. In their greatest moments of despair or triumph, they falter. I don't know.

I am certain that in this book I hated the Fremen, all arrogant and rigid, with their laws and their world view that never changes, all the time heralded as some great examples of humanity. They were psychos! The entire empire was a cesspool of ignorant religious fanatics. While in my youth I considered that annoying, now I found it creepy, maybe right down terrifying, because I can see it happening around me so easily. I do remember that I expected a better end for Alia and that was my impression now, as well. They had prescience, the knowledge of all past generations and a clear solution to the problem, but they just decided it was too late or too complicated to do anything.

This time I got more of the pompous utterances in the book. It didn't seem so empty of meaning anymore. Yet it still is pretty dense and pretentious, with many thing left just unexplained, just happening for the sake of the plot.

I am looking forward to rereading God Emperor of Dune.

Dune Messiah is the second book of Frank Herbert's Dune saga. It is two and a half times smaller than the first book and it feels almost completely different. Paul has been emperor for some time, not much, but enough for his jihad to bring the death of tens of billions. The government of the universe is now his, a combination of religion and bureaucratic despotism that he foresaw, but could not have prevented. The house of Ix and the Bene Tleilaxu make their appearance. There are conspiracies against Muad'dib and his family from every corner and, if the first book was of his victory over his enemies, however painful, the second book is all about his defeat at the hands of the future. He walks the edge, loses almost everything, all in the name of a better future for human kind. All the characters are weaker, more human, some less human but still weak.

All in all, it is a nice book, well written and interesting, but it felt like a kind of bridge between Dune and the next two books, which have their focus on Paul Atreides' children. We are certainly looking forward to brilliant stories and great writing, but Dune Messiah seemed a little too melodramatic, less focused, with less work done on it. Compared to its predecessor, it seems a disappointment; compared to most other books, it is still great.

Reread at 45

  It is amazing to me how each decade these books are telling me something different. I still see the flaws, but they are subtly different, I still see the greatness of it, but also altered by time. Every time I read Dune it changes me, like the spice melange, makes me more introspective and extrospective. I look at things with more depth, I examine myself with more care. I love that feeling and I enjoy myself more.

  One thing remains the same, though: I immediately identify with the Bene Tleilaxu and the House of Ix while reading the book. They are the tinkerers of their time, but without the whole ideology and set in ways behind the Bene Gesserit or the Fremen. Are they evil? Who cares! Therein lies freedom.

Anyway, back to the book. Just like in the first one, there are some important events that happen out of sight and we only hear from them or are explained by the characters. In Dune, the killing of Chani's first child was almost an afterthought. In Dune Messiah we just have to accept that Jessica, the loyal mother of Paul, just decided it's OK to leave Arrakis and move to Caladan, accompanied by Gurney Halleck, no less, the man who hated the Harkonnens with his whole being. Some important characters are summarily executed off screen, too, once they've done their job. I guess that's how the world works at any time, but as a reader, I would have liked more meat on those bones.

My instinct above, where I said it was a bridge between Dune and Children of Dune, was right. Even Brian Herbert wrote about this in his introduction. Many people were let down when they read Messiah, and the general view was that once Paul has become a classic hero, readers were not entertained by his downfall. But I don't think it's that. I think it was the vagueness of the book, the pompous implications of words that did not explain anything. That's both good and bad. Let me explain.

At first read, you feel like you are part of some mystical universe where each moment, each gesture, each word has world shattering implications. Coming from the boring world we feel we live in, it's a revelation. You feel like with just a little more attention to detail, a little more thinking about it, you will also glimpse the path things take. At second read, you are used to the feeling and you kind of know you will not get to the hidden truths of the book, but you still hold hope that a better person could see them, so it's still somehow inspiring. At later reads, you just understand that Herbert intimated secrets that he himself never deemed necessary to invent. You see the inconsistencies, how characters that had complete control of their minds and bodies act like children, or how the universe is ruled absolutely by Paul, with no constitution or legal organisms that are not subservient to him, but then he must obey the Fremen law whenever the plot sees it fit.

For me, this remains a thing of hope. The Dune series is great, but it could have been improved upon. Some writer somewhere will manage to write something similar that would upstage it by the sheer personal effort to be attentive to details and to imagine a world greater than our own.

  Dune, a mega-classic of sci-fi books, written in 1965 by the ecology obsessed Frank Herbert, tells the story of a future world that is dependent on the substance known as spice, of a vast stellar empire led by an emperor and the noble houses and shaped by religion. Dune is the first in a series of six books, each one increasing the level of "epicness" of the story. There is no way I can do justice to the book in my review, it is that good and that complex. All I can say is that I've read it every ten years from the time I was 15, and every time I read it, I interpret it differently. This also shows how different we are at various ages.

  Anyway, I was saying that Frank Herbert was obsessed with ecology. I am saying this after having read all of his books a while ago and noticing the pattern. The Dune Wikipedia article claims that this book was the result of events that started Herbert's interest in ecology, while he was working for the Department of Agriculture, trying to stabilize sand dunes using plants. Herbert is also the author of brilliant books like the Pandora series or like Hellstrom's Hive which, for many reasons, I consider masterpieces as well. However most of his books and short novels feature some interest in ecological systems.

  The story is set twenty millennia into the future. As it was written in the sixties, it had to solve the problem of exponential technological advancement that was obvious even then. How can one write a book about the future, when the future moves so fast? Herbert solved it in a simple way: he imagined a world where humans rebelled against the use of intelligent machines, for religious reasons, thus removing computer advancements from the equation. Also, in order to solve the issue of ever evolving weaponry, he imagined a world where energy shields were cheap and small and could be used personally or on buildings or ships; these shields would stop any object or energy moving fast enough. This reduces battles to hand to hand combat, with knives and slow needles that can penetrate the shield. It's not like Herbert had all the answers: there are obvious technological devices that would have rendered this version of a shield useless, as well as clear reasons while perfect control over technology could not have been enforced. But the way he envisioned this future world, where everything important was the human being - as a thinking, feeling, believing creature - made it close to timeless.

Now, the plot is vast and the beauty of the book is in its minutiae, not in the overall story. This has been proven, I think, by the way people have received the 1984 David Lynch film adaptation versus the 2000 version. The first took "poetic license" to change the story and make it more script like, but preserved the feel of the book, with the interior dialogues, the epic scenes and careful attention to minor details. The 2000 adaptation was completely faithful to the book in the way of following it scene by scene, but the lack of attention to punctual details made it unappealing and bland. There is a project called Dune for 2014, maybe that will give us another point of reference. So I will not talk about the plot and let you discover it for yourself. Enough to say that it is a great book.

It is important for me to talk about the difference between my personal interpretation of the book at different ages. When I was 15 I thought it was a glorious story of personal achievement, where Paul Muad'dib and Leto II were becomes gods by the sheer power of their thoughts and feelings. At 25 I thought it was a deep analysis of human interaction, of how logic, emotions and belief clash to mold our beings. And now, at 36, I feel like the book is brilliant, but I can read between the lines, see how the structure of the story was created from various sources; a bit of the mythos has lost its power, but gained more respect. If at 15 I was identifying with Paul and at 25 I was dreaming to become Leto II, now it's easier to me to identify with the likes of Gurney Halleck or even Feyd Rautha Harkonnen. I am not saying that I like them more, I just feel I gained more insight into the other characters. I say it again: Dune is a book of details (without being boring with them).

I cannot end this review without mentioning the Dune video games. I spent many an hour playing the adventure game Dune and many a day playing Dune II, the real time strategy game that was to inspire all others in the future. The game was so primitive that the controls were not designed for ease. Each unit was controlled individually and had very little autonomy, the result being that one rarely had time to blink when many units were constructed. This prompted my father to take me to a mirror and show me my own eyes. They were red and irritated. "Oh", I said, "it's from the spice!".

Review at 45

In between Villeneuve movie adaptations of Dune, it was time for another reread and, amazingly, I got something else out of the book, again! This time I saw through many of the flaws of the book. Small flaws, to be sure, but some contradictory facts like when to unsheathe a crysknife or where the origin of a mind altering substance was and stuff like that.

I also understood why it is so difficult to make an adaptation of the book to movie form. First of all, because the people in the Dune universe are supposed to be superhuman. They remember much, think fast, feel deeply, move fast, after going through harsh training regimens and being subjected to exotic substance, strange rituals and being subject to strong religious and political forces. I can even say now that I think Herbert didn't write well enough to convey what he wanted, as his book is inconsistent in how it portrays the abilities that noble people use at every moment of their existence. Lynch tried to make it work, while all others glossed over it. On paper you are shocked by the way the characters take in the world, observe and analyze minutiae, only to then act with ruthless swiftness. On the screen, you just see normal people in a fantasy world that makes little sense.

The first part of the book is also more consistent that the second. From the moment Paul and Jessica meet the Fremen, everything is done quickly, based on rituals and knowledge that is somehow common to characters from completely different cultures and, when that fails, there are premonitions or instincts that tell them how to act in order to move the story exactly as the author wanted. And failing that, there are always coincidences that help. The Fremen themselves are described in wildly oscillating ways: they are the noble savages, but they also have a very old culture, but they are also violent simpletons that are blindly driven by ritual and implanted religion, but they also have technology, they are honorable, unless they kill stabbing you in the back or in a fit of rage. They are superb fighters, but they are not trained, so Paul can defeat them, but not the super trained Sardaukar. And so on and so on.

At the end, some particular important events are written as happening "off screen", like Herbert wanted to get it over with.

And I understand that, too. The complexity of the story and characters, the careful (superhuman?) effort that must have been necessary to make this work - while writing it on typewriter 70 years ago and also trying to get people from that time to accept it - must have been titanic. Did you know that Dune was the first best seller science fiction novel? Before this book was (repeatedly rejected and only then) published, science fiction was a niche for people to write for themselves and not others.

I am not sure if I will, but I am thinking already to continue to read the entire Dune series of books, not only the mandatory first six, but also those written by Herbert's son - the biography of his father and the collaborations with Kevin J. Anderson.

This book (complete title: Wired for Love - How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship) is a layman's terms summarizing of research done in the area of romantic relationships. Stan Tatkin is not the greatest psychologist ever, but he does a good job in writing this reference book. He lists ten principles that would help people retain their relationship and improve on it. Simple things like making eye contact, hugging till the other relaxes in your arms and fighting smart - for the couple, not against your partner, can make huge impact with little effort. Tatkin suggests that we are all untrained in this relationship crap and so he goes towards making a sort of abridged manual in how to proceed.

Now that I've said all those nice things about him, Tatkin is clearly not God in all matters relationshippy. He admits that the reason why he started the research was the fact that he went through a divorce. That must be especially jarring for a psychologist. Wasn't he supposed to know about people? What happened? He then proceeds fast pace to categorize people and tell them which parts of the brain and which bits of education made them like that and what to do in order to get to the "good" category. I particularly disliked that he branded people into three categories, then was obviously biased towards only one. That doesn't mean he is wrong and certainly when going for simple straight results you just have to put caution aside and go all in. But that's just it: this book is not THE solution, it's just a solution, one that felt right to Stan Tatkin, and so you must take it with a grain of salt.

The basic ideas of the book start from brain structure. We have parts of the brain that are wired for war, what he calls primitives, like the amygdala, who is responsible for the fast reactions that keep us alive. When we get into fights, for example, the amygdala gets excited and furiously fires neurons that prepare your body for a physical conflict. At this time other parts of the brain are more suited to assess the situation and define danger and behavior, parts he calls ambassadors, like the hippocampus. If we are too focused on our basic emotions, we start arguing and hurting the other in order for us, the individual, to come up top in the battle and miss important cues on how our partner feels and what are the correct measures to make the couple get through the situation. Tatkin makes the simple case that as long as we go through episodes where we fight for us and against our partners, this hurts, obviously, the relationship. The thing we should strive towards is the "couple bubble" (I know, terrible name) where both parties can feel protected and safe together with the other significant.

The author splits people into three categories. There is the island, which in childhood was not engaged by their parents, not hugged enough, they did not feel protected. They come out as individualists valuing their personal space and sensible to any close or intimate contact. They believe that as long as two people are self reliant and have a good life, they can have a good relationship without actually needing each other, only enjoying the company. There is the anchor, someone who was loved and engaged during childhood, with lots of attention and careful interaction with caregivers. They are balanced in their emotions, easily empathize with others and form natural couple bubbles, are fond of affection and close personal contact. And there are the waves, who oscillate between the two, alternatively needing affection and intimacy, only to run away when they receive it, for fear of being rejected or abandoned. From all three categories, the anchor is "the way", while the others something our childhood regretfully forced us to be. Thankfully, treating our partner right and being treated right back can change our affiliation.

Needless to say, I don't wholly agree with the guy. The categories feel arbitrary and unidimensional. Of course that restricting your metric restricts your vision of the world, but at the same time one can take this book as an advocate for a specific system. It is the job of others to find and validate others. This is what worked for Tatkin and so he shares it with the reader.

Here are the ten guiding principles of the book. For details, read the book. It's pretty short.

1. Creating a couple bubble allows partners to keep each other safe and secure
2. Partners can make love and avoid war when their primitives are put to ease
3. Partners relate to one another primarily as anchors, islands or waves
4. Partners who are experts on one another know how to please and soothe each other
5. Partners with busy lives should create and use bedtime and morning rituals, as well as reunion rituals
6. Partners should serve as the primary go-to people for one another
7. Partners should prevent each other from being a third wheel when relating to outsiders
8. Partners who want to stay together must learn to fight well
9. Partners can rekindle their love at any time through eye contact
10. Partners can minimize each other's stress and optimize each other's health

Conclusion: A book that can open eyes. One must be careful not to close them in other directions or look only this way. As I said earlier, it seemed as a theory based on a single dimension, the need to feel safe, with little bleedthrough in other areas. Some of the things in the book are so easy to do that not trying them to see if they work would be a shame. Also, whenever something feels too obvious, try to remember when (and if) you actually rationalized this before. Sometimes obvious things need to be said.

Finally, it is all over! The Dark One is defeated and all the character stories have come to an end. Funny enough, having Brandon Sanderson write the last two books made me want to read more. You may have noticed that in the title I give no credit to Robert Jordan; I know it's his story and that he left a lot of notes on how the book would continue before he died, but Sanderson has made it a lot better and it feels a waste to end it just when it got good.

The last book of the Wheel of Time saga, A Memory of Light, continues where Towers of Midnight left off, pits everyone against everyone and ends all threads. The battle of the end is epic and, except some slight miscalculations, is pretty much consistent with the other books. No Nynaeve braid pulling or needless spanking or otherwise humiliating women in this one, instead a lot of characters blooming from the dried up husks that they were becoming in the last Jordan books. As before, I loved Mat's character, but also Perrin is now a lot more involved, intrigues abound, people die (even important ones) and the ending is... let us say intriguing. One may still hope some offshoots of the story. There were some unexplained or otherwise inconclusive bits. For example there is a scene where Mat sends a lot of villagers to die protecting a river, then, when it matters most, the same villagers return through a gateway. I have no idea what that was about. Also there was a little bit of a story with some soldiers that had all their metal turned to something squishy. It just went and gone without much continuation. Then some ideas of the battle seem brilliant at the end of it, but not used during it, making the entire "Mat's strategical genius" idea a bit flimsy. Also, Demandred almost kicked his ass (and a lot of others as well) before he got killed. If there is something that felt a bit off, it was the women. Robert Jordan was obsessed with the women and he often wrote the story from their point of view. Sanderson is clearly a man's man :) Women had pretty small roles and little introspection.

Bottom line: a fourteen book saga is a lot to read. As much it pains me that it is over, it makes me even more glad that it is over. Sometime you just have to learn to let it go. The quality of the writing is very good and I dare say that this is probably the best book of them all, which makes it a fitting finale. It is also very long, the third in length from the entire series, at approximately 360000 words. If you have read The Wheel of Time so far, there is absolutely no reason to not read the last book. If you haven't started to read the series, you might want to think it over if you want to spend so much time doing it, but I don't think you will regret it. And lastly, if you have started to read it and then abandoned it for whatever reason, the last two books are a level higher than the rest of them and should provide motivation to carry on.

Oh, and you if you wonder if I am going to read the prequel and the companion books: no, I won't! If you do, though, please make the effort to comment on one of the Wheel of Time posts. Thank you!

I was waiting for the moment when I would be reading a new sci-fi book. Based on a suggestion from some source I have long forgotten, I chose David Brin's Existence, a futuristic hard science fiction book.

And at first it felt good. It described a cyberpunk near future, after some sobering disasters that rallied the world against nuclear war and global warming. It was dialog based, like the books of Asimov. It delved into the political, economical, technical and personal aspects of the world. It even started with the discovery of an alien artefact and started an exploration into the Fermi paradox, the philosophical conundrum that asks: "if there are many civilisation in the galaxy and they all reach the sophistication to go to space, where are they?".

But soon it started to feel all wrong. The different stories were fragmented, in some parts badly written, in some parts conflicting, some never connecting to one another, like Brin got some texts he had worked on and mashed them all into the book. Then the "chapters" all starting with a little media announcement or quote that explained bits of the world, but in a reporter editorial style that said nothing and brought nothing new to the table. And then it started with the goading: an idea was forming, the characters were reaching a realization or another, and before the reader got to see what it was, another chapter was starting.

My conclusion after finishing the book is that, while filled with interesting ideas and also having a main plot that is, indeed, ingenious, this was not a good book! I've spent the time to read the acknowledgements at the end only to find I was right: Brin did publish a lot of the stuff in the book in short stories here and there. And after finishing all that material, he speeded things up to show the "future", because he really had been disconnected from all the stories he started, reaching that annoying fast-forward effect one often finds in the works of writing amateurs. And the thing is, David Brin is not an amateur - at least he shouldn't be after all the books he has written and prizes he has won. One possible reason is that it is the first book after a hiatus of 10 years. I hate to say it, but it looks like he needed some money and this is the way he chose to do it: frame a couple short stories, a couple essays and an old Usenet into a longer novella that feels like the patched mess it actually is.

The bottom line is that I can't recommend this book. The main idea is interesting, but it can be summarized in a few words, which I won't do for fear of spoiling it for you in case you do decide to read Existence.

We live now in a world where people get the same education, see the same movies, read the same books - if at all. We then watch the ones around us and see only ourselves and we get bored. That is why, I believe, we start to see various mental illnesses or strange behaviours as interesting. That is why, I think, The Drowning Girl, by Caitlín R. Kiernan has received so wonderful reviews.

That doesn't mean the book is not brilliant. Kiernan paints the world as seen from the eyes of a lesbian paranoid schizophrenic, combining ideas from paintings, old legends and written stories into a whirlpool of staggering creativity. However, I do have to wonder, would the book have received the same amount of positive reviews if the main character was a straight man?

All that aside, I have tried to keep an open mind when reading the book and I have found that the way the author mingles stories and goes back and forth, keeping the reader on their tows, is both excellent and terribly irritating. It builds up a lot of tension that needs to be released into a grand finale. However, the climax of the book seemed to me to be somewhere in the middle, with the ending lagging and wasting into pointless mental delusions.

It is hard for me to recommend or not recommend this book. It is clearly well written and very inspired. It not only delightfully weird, but also draws information and data from all kinds of art fields and mingles them together in an interesting way. The construction of the book aside, though, leaves a plot that doesn't really mean anything. It's the maelstrom of thoughts and feelings of a mentally troubled person with a slight mystical component which, even till the end, is not really clear if it is only in her mind or has some factual truth.

I did enjoy one thing, though, the idea that something can be "true", but not "factual". If you think about it, it makes sense, but usually words like "truth" hold an objective mask on them, when most of the uses of those words are actually subjective. Yep, it's true :) I also liked the way details about the artists led to connections to other works and facts, that a thorough analysis of art can show hidden worlds and interesting perspectives.

As a conclusion, what leapt into mind when trying to find a book that is similar to this was Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn. In a word: freaky. The Drowning Girl is much more interesting, though, and doesn't try so hard to shock with the character's sexuality or personal weirdness. But in the end, having read it, I felt like it said nothing. An interesting journey towards nowhere in particular.

Oh, the monster of a book! If you want to learn to do genetic programming, then this is the book for you. If you need an interesting presentation of what genetic programming is, then this book is way too heavy.

Let's start with the beginning. Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection (Complex Adaptive Systems) is a scientific book written by John R. Koza to explain why, how and what to do to make your computer find solutions to problems by using natural selection algorithms to automatically create programs to solve them. This is not a new field and a lot of research has been done in it, but this book takes it almost to the level of encyclopaedic knowledge.

First, Koza submits the idea that genetic programming can be used in most problems where computers are been used. That's a bold claim, but he proceeds on demonstrating it. He takes problem classes, provides code to create the programs that solve them, shows results and statistical analysis on the results and explains what the algorithm did to create said program at specific iterations. That's a lot to take in. If you are working on a program and you are using the book, you are more likely to find it extremely useful, both as a source for information and as a reference that can always be consulted.

However, if you are a casual reader like myself, reading all that code and statistical analysis in the subway can be difficult. And it's a lot of book, too. So, after some consideration, realising that I have no current project on which to apply the knowledge within the book, I've decided to stop reading it. I got to about a quarter of it, so I can safely say that it is a very thorough and well written book. You just have to need it in a certain way.

I have to say that most of the books I start reading, I am also finishing, no matter how bad they are. I will not be finishing Guns, Germs and Steel, but not because it is a bad book, but because it is too thorough.

I know, it sounds bad for me, but this book, as with the next one I am going to review, are true science books, going through all the arguments, all the proof, anecdotes and theories before making a point. It is not an overly large book, but each passage has meaning and there is a ton of data that must be assimilated in order to be able to say I read the book. Alas, I don't feel like assimilating this much and reading it to the end, just in order to pretend I've read it would be pointless.

The book, written by Jared Diamond, is trying to explain why some regions of the world are more developed than others, why some people are oppressed, while other are the oppressors, why some people get along fine having farms and cities and a thriving economy while others are fighting to stay fed or secure. The author immediately dismisses the idea of racial superiority. Given the biological incentives to stay alive and the selection process that still goes on in less developed areas of the globe, it would be silly to consider those people genetically inferior to well fed Westerners from countries where the leading cases of death are random diseases or accidents. So the reason must be something else.

Having done a lot of living and studying in Papua New Guinea and Polynesia, he has direct knowledge of the way people live there and extensive knowledge of their history. Especially Polynesia he considers a rich bed of "natural experiments" as the many islands have spawned numerous social, political, military and food systems that eventually had to interact. He doesn't stop here, though, giving examples from all parts of the world, the native Americans, Africa, Eurasia, etc.

As far as I could ascertain reading only half of the book, the reason the world looks like it does today is because of a lucky assortment of domesticable animals and crop plants that appeared in the Fertile Crescent. The advantage of such a food surplus allowing for all kind of social and administrative developments was too great to compete with. The culture that spawned from that area quickly overwhelmed the world. In the few areas where resistance appeared, technological advances, immunity to disease that they would still spread and the general historical knowledge gained from the written word made the dominance of said culture a certainty.

For a sociologist, a historian or a palaeontologist, this book should be a must read. It explains a lot, using a lot of arguments on very well documented facts. The style is sometimes too formal, eventually repeating some questions and answering them with overwhelming detail, but none of it is superfluous. As such, it was an interesting read, but a very difficult one. Something that would have ended up eating a lot of time and yielding little lasting knowledge.

So, having faith that I got the gist of it and hoping that maybe I will watch the PBS documentary based on the book to get to the end of it, I will end by recommending it to anyone in the field, but not so much for a casual reader.