The Martian

A Martian storm requires a space crew to rapidly depart. One astronaut was injured and his vital signs show that he is dead. Following policy, they leave him there. Alas, he is still alive and must now fend for himself on Mars. 

He uses his skill and training to survive on Mars. He is a trained botanist, and uses his skill to create a Martian greenhouse. He ransacks the available supplies and equipment to help ensure his survival. Mission control on earth eventually discovers that he is alive by through evidence in satellite imagery. He even finds ways to initiate two-way communication via some other equipment that is left.

The entire earth becomes captivated by his fate and the quest to bring him home. (Though they wait some time to alert the other astronauts.) Many people work hard to help bring him back. At times, he tires from the attention. While the narrator has plenty of obscene words to describe his situation, he seems to be generally upbeat regardless of the circumstances. There are a number of different challenges and a few false starts, but the story eventually reaches a satisfying conclusion. 

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

Bill Gates presents a technocratic approach to dealing with climate change. His basic supposition is that we need to get to zero carbon emissions while at the same time increasing net energy use around the world. The primary tool used is a reduction of the green premium. The carbon-free and lower carbon approaches should be equal or cheaper than the high-carbon approaches. He proposes a large selection of different approaches that should start out generally. The government should play a role in regulation and encouragement. However, we need to be careful to not be too proscriptive. The government should encourage specific desired results rather than the specific means to get there. Research should also be encouraged in both the government and private sectors.

His solutions are well thought out. My concern are the basic propositions. Is zero-carbon an appropriate goal? Is that too much or not enough? Perhaps we are so far gone that we need to rapidly scale back the greenhouse gasses. Or maybe we are approaching a cooling and we really need to have a controlled increase in greenhouse gasses. A change of a few degrees temperature could be a very significant. However, it could be harmful or beneficial. We just don't have the ability to fully model everything.  A long term target needs to be easily adjustable.

The bigger concern is the assumption that we need to keep energy consumption to maintain a high standard of living. The general focus of his approach is on "greener" energy and "scrubbing carbon." What about the energy that causes great inefficiencies and reduces are quality of life? In the transport sector, a huge amount of energy is spent just transporting the vehicles. A person is nearly a rounding error in the overall weight of a car. What if we focussed on smaller, lighter vehicles. (More efficient bicycles?) Land use and urban design causes huge wastes. Many regulations force excessive energy use in the urban layouts. A person may spend all their time in 1000 square feet of living space, yet they have a 2000 square foot house on 10000 square feet of land. They need to spend extra energy to maintain the yard and living space. They need to travel greater distances to other destinations because all their neighbors have large yards. The energy consumption requires them to spend more time and more money - just to be able to consume more energy that they do not want. 

Urban development has also had a disproportionate impact on local climatic conditions. The urban heat island can make temperatures a few degrees warmer in cities. Should we do more to combat this?

The Covid pandemic has also shown that many in-person activities can take place fine over video conference. (There do still remain many things that are better done at a distance.) 

Continued focus on research should definitely come into play. However, before enacting vast policy changes, we need to make sure the goal is really the right one.

Ready Player Two: A Novel

Ready Player Two takes place a few years after Ready Player One. The protagonist is a multi-billionaire. His VR video game world Oasis is a dominate force in society. Now they have a new technology that taps directly into the brain for a full immersive experience. They end up with a big battle to find shards and finally have a singularity.

Like the first novel, this book drops endless 80s reference. Alas, the writing and story are even more tedious. A battle with different versions of Prince is way over the top. It feels as if he has just run out of ideas and just tries to throw out whatever he can and hope it sticks.

Armada

I remember watching a movie once where every every movie previewed was about the eminent end of the world. Only one ordinary random person could save us from utter destruction. Reading Armada, I could see it fit directly into that genre. It is a CGI-fest in the making, complete with a hard-hitting soundtrack, one-dimensional characters, and a bit of requisite sappy drama. It is also a nerd fest with references to numerous classic games and 80s music.
The story (if it even matters) is about an alien invasion of the earth. The government has known about the aliens, but has been covering it up. However, they have been using science fiction movies to acclimate people to the possibility of aliens, while using video games to help train them to fight them. Government scientists have been able to reverse engineer some of the alien technology to fight the aliens and want video game players to remotely control drones. Our "hero", Zach Lightman, is a teenager who has struggled with violence at school. His only outlet is a video game shop where he hangs out and works part time. His dad "died" when he was an infant. One day, he is finally let in on the secrets. The shop owner was actually a government agent to watch over and train him. His dad actually joined the secret Earth Defense Force and was is still alive. His last video game mission was a real attempt to blow away the aliens. The space probes had discovered a swastika on a moon on Jupiter and attempted to blow it up, triggering the alien invasion.
In the end, they fight the aliens. He meets his dad. Dad gets together briefly with Mom and produces another baby brother - only to have Dad die for real in the process of saving the world. Zach realizes that the aliens are behaving too much like a video game. They are only escalating the violence in response to earth's escalation. He leads the effort to prevent a mission from destroying the alien homeland. He then discovers, that it is only an AI sent to "test" the earth to determine if they can peacefully exist. The aliens then give the earth lifesaving technology, and all live happily ever after.
The story is hokey, but fast moving. My biggest complaint is on the language side. This is a PG-13 story needlessly filled with R-rated language.

Ready Player One

Read Player One is set in 2044. However, it really feels more like 2010 meshed with the 1980s with a few "futuristic bits" thrown in. Clearly the author grew up in the 80s and enjoyed the classic video games of those days. Modern video games don't play a huge role.

The novel starts with the death of a major video game designer. He is a billionaire who made a fortune from this game (and even the associated schools.) However, he died without any heirs. There are however, easter eggs in his famous video game, Oasis, and whoever finds them first, inherits his money. The novel is the story of the boy who found it.

It seemed like a great topic, but it wasn't executed well. The setting just wasn't convincing. Laptops? Really. Those probably wont make it to 2020 let alone 2040s. I liked the 80s games, and could see this as an alternate universe where we just went straight from that. But this setting is not convincing. Some of the philosophizing and language gets tiring also. It does, however, succeed as an 80s nostalgia piece. Just turn off the part of your brain that wants something at least remotely believable and you'll be entertained.