What Are You Reading??

PROJECT ORION  The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship by George Dyson

Of all the insane things that could have been done for spaceflight, this is #1 on my list of things that should have been done.  We could have explored the moons of Saturn as early as 1970 and would have a colony on Mars by now.

The price - insanely cheap.

The method - Light a cherry bomb under an inverted garbage can and watch how high it goes.  Scale up to 4000 tons (or even much larger) and use very small nukes instead of cherry bombs.

It sounds impossible, but all the engineering problems were well within the capabilities of early 1960's technology.  Weight wasn't an issue.  They were going to build these things mostly out of steel, possibly at a shipyard.  If we built one today (and could find a way around the test ban treaty), it would work even better.

The book goes into great detail about how the idea was developed, how it evolved, and how it was finally killed.  In a way, it's too bad it's a non-fiction book.  A fictional version would have the project rescued from cancellation and lead to the conquest of the solar system.

Instead, the US and USSR stuck to chemical rockets.  The US won the moon race, declared victory, and gave up on human exploration of other worlds (despite repeated promises to get back to the moon or land on Mars "in about 10 to 15 years".  Humanity hasn't gone past low earth orbit since December, 1972.


The author of the book is the son of Freeman Dyson.  Among many interesting things Freeman Dyson did was working on Project Orion for a few years.  Unlike most of the people in the book, he's still alive to be annoyed by the cancellation of Project Orion.

A new novel by a chap called Jonas Jonasson. He previously rocked the literary World with a book entitled "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Walked Out The Window and Disappeared" which was exceptionally funny. If you crave a good laugh in the summer heat of China, I recommend that book. His latest is called "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden".

Presently reading Allegiance, book five in The Remaining zombie series by DJ Molles. But it's been so long since book 4 I forget what betrayal LaRouche did in book 4 that makes him so bugnuts in book 5. And then I discover, like the zombies themselves, no zombie book series ever truly dies. There's to be a sixth book, Extinction, and it'll be released this month. WILL IT NEVER END?!

Meanwhile, what I'm actually going to read next is Ghost Fleet by Peter Singer and August Cole, a very buzzy book at the moment.

How Ghost Fleet Nails The Perfect Vision of World War III

In Ghost Fleet — a scifi thriller set for release on June 30 — Singer and Cole portray a future conflict in which the United States is pitted against an expansionist China. Both sides refrain from a nuclear exchange, instead opting for a “hot war” that features an array of futuristic military technologies, from robots and drones through to cyber attacks and brain hacks.

But given the backgrounds of the authors, it’s fair to say this is no ordinary thriller. Every trend and technology portrayed in the novel is based in reality — so much so that the U.S. military has already taken notice. Indeed, the book features 374 individual citations spanning 23-pages of endnotes.

Make no mistake, however, this is no technical slog — it’s a highly readable and engaging thriller that sets a new standard for techno-thrillers. We spoke to P. W. Singer to learn more about the project, how it was put together, and what their story can tell us about the future of warfare.

Ghost Fleet

So far, one fifth of the way in, the book is still proving hard to read. The cast of thousands, many of them POV characters, are distracting; the technology details are disorienting (they represent real tech, but one or two generations into the future, meaning some parts of them are not real, so DO I SUSPEND DISBELIEF OR NOT?!); and the details of the war are mysterious. China conspires with Russia to encircle the US. Using a combination of massive technological sabotage, a surprise technology that completely undermines the US at sea, drones, and then troops delivered in container ships, they capture Hawaii and maybe some coastal territory and then BOOM, the story jumps ahead nine months and I don't know what's going on. I *think* the story so far is US forces and influence have been restricted to their own mainland landmass because no other nation came to their aid and the economy is much diminished. The "war" is due to enter some new phase.

REAMDE by Neal Stephenson is rollicking adventure, set partly in Shanghai, Fujian and Taiwan.  You will all love it.

About to start my uni courses, so I snacked on a few Terry Pratchett books.

Now I'm reading a section of the Iliad.  Unexpectedly, I'm really enjoying it!

Oh, non-fiction:  if you haven't yet, get your hand on Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, an anthropologist who set out to answer the question 'Why did some regions rise to dominate the world while others didn't?'  He gives a very complete answer.

Currently reading Biomimicry  Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine Benyus.

A great read so far.  Every now and then, she waxes poetic in ways that seem a bit forced, but overall, it flows along nicely.  Loved the first part about sustainable perennial agriculture.  I'm wondering it I can mix that with what I learned reading about Square Foot Gardening.

Night Heron by Adam Brookes

UK spy thriller set in modern China, with journalists and labour camp escapees. Clunky writing, but a page-turner. 

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

I've read & enjoyed many of his Discworld series, but this is not one of those. More drama than comedy & set in 19th century London. Still good, though.

Finished Extinction by DJ Molles, the sixth and putatively final novel in his The Remaining series. They blow everything up. Can't presently bring myself to start Nemesis Games by James SA Corey, the fifth book in their Expanse Trilogy.

So...

Boo by Neil Smith

In 1979, Oliver “Boo” Dalrymple, aged 13, dies of a heart defect and goes to Heaven. In Heaven he discovers everyone else is aged thirteen too and their "Town" which exists in a perpetual early summer is surrounded by impossibly high walls with no way to see outside. Food and clothing arrives in warehouses with no apparent bodily intercession. Transport is by communal bicycle. The buildings and windows fix themselves. Oliver, who wishes to be a scientist, is nonplussed.

Tim Winton, Eyrie..bought it in Melbourne during my recent visit and started it yesterday, just waiting for the kettle to boil to make camomile tea and get into bed and resume. I always enjoy his stories.
Rx

The Incarnations by Susan Barker

"about a Beijing taxi driver whose past incarnations over one thousand years haunt him through searing letters sent by his mysterious soulmate."

Not sure about this one, yet. It's a bit weird.

I finished The Incarnations. It's a slow boil of a story, but it has captured in English something remarkably Chinese, I think. That is to say, it's imperfect as a book, but I don't think I've seen anyone else represent the reach of the culture. People talk, or used to, of 5000 years. This book seems to lift that stone and look underneath, especially near the end.

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

Twenty years post the Georgian Flu Apocalypse, The Travelling Symphony (with numerous flashbacks) tracks year by year between the tiny remaining outposts of humanity in the Great Lakes region to deliver symphonic composition and Shakespeare... "because survival is not enough".

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Scifi. The main character looks human but isn't. It's a several thousand years old AI marooned inside just one of its own ancillary units. The book has a hard scifi coldness, which is okay, and probably is there as part of the main characterization, but it's a bit of a slog. One nifty element is how this AI defaults to female pronouns when describing people. Nearly everyone in the book thus far is "she".

In honour of the forthcoming movie...

The Martian by Andy Weir

An astronaut gets marooned on Mars when a severe dust storm strikes up and his mission has to evac. Since communications are destroyed by the storm and everyone thinks he's dead, he has only whatever food and equipment everyone left behind, and four years until the next mission arrives.

It's kinda cool. The early part of the book is about all the science he does to survive.