Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity

Hugh MacLeod has worked a number of creative type jobs. He was somewhat in the dumps when he started sketching on business cards. He got a huge following from that. Now he is writing a book telling everybody else about it. He ignored everybody else and just did what he wanted. It worked for him. It may or may not work for other people. He seems to have a following. This book did not entice me to want to be one of his followers.

Johnny Got His Gun

I discovered this book after learning that it was the basis for Metallica's One. The video includes numerous clips from the movie. (And Metallica is said to have purchased the entire rights to the movie.) I felt the movie clips helped to better understand the book. I had trouble visualizing somebody with no arms, legs, ears or face. The visual clips helped to get a better picture. However, this is the type of work that would be much better in book form. The book is almost entirely within the head of the protagonist. He recalls many past events. He analyzes his current condition. He learns that he does have some limited sensual input. He can feel temperature changes and vibrations. He eventually decides to start tapping morse code. He does that over and over again until he finally gets some morse code communication back. This shocks him. He has spent so much time in the effort that he did not have a plan when it came through. He did quickly hash up a plan, only to have it knocked down by those in authority.

The audiobook includes a couple forwards extolling the virtues of the book as an anti-war novel. While the situation did evolve due to warfare, the story of growth and discovery is more universal. We base our course of action on our past experiences. The loss of mechanisms for carrying out our activities requires us to adapt with what we have remaining. The protagonist took a long time to finally discover ways that he could begin to communicate. Alas, he then got a grand goal in his head, only to have it shot down. The future adaptation becomes the hardest. 

Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America's Role in the World

Earning the Rockies is part travelogue, part history of the importance of geography in the growth of geography. History came alive through the experience with his father and the history of Bernard Devoto. He wrote the type of grand "American Exceptionalism" history that is not very popular these days. America was able to adopt a very individualistic culture because it was settled from the east. An individual could fairly easily farm land with their own effort. Even the big southern plantations were somewhat independent. This was compared to Utah which required the communal effort of the Mormon population in order to irrigate a difficult land.
He also explores the homestead of presidents. Buchanan was a "bad" president in part because he was willing to "appease" rather than make the bold moves that Lincoln made.
In the seocnd half of the book, he explores the United States. He notes that a lot of the "unique" parts of the country have become very homogenous. Rest stops used to have (whites only) table service and gourmet food. Now anybody can get unhealthy fast food at rest stops. The same chains are all over the united states. The author explores many of the small towns that are "dying". Wheeling West Virginia was a poster child for the small town decline. There were other cities in the midwest that experience similar population decline. The retail left the city for the exurban malls. The people live a homogenous "lower class" life, different than the "brewpub" life of those in small college towns and big cities. This did have the advantage of giving the local hotel and restaurants a feel that was "different" from the sameness of the hotels and meals throughout the trip.

Culture of Fear

People love to overreact to sensationalism. I remember hearing scare stories of people trying to kill kids with bad halloween candy. How many times has it actually happened? Uh, none. We have parents paranoid about their child being kidnapped, even though the odds of it happening are next to 0. Even more disturbing is when fear causes a dangerous behavior to be substituted for "safe" one out of fear. In order to avoid all the "danger" out there, parents drive their kids excessively, exposing them to one of the most common causes of death. The media loves to hype up new dangers, because that is what sells. Activists can use this coverage to push for new legislation to "protect" people. Alas, soften the legislation comes at great cost, without significantly increasing safety. Meanwhile, small dangers gradually create greater danger to society. (Banning cars, or limiting their maximum speed would result in a huge increase in safety, but we have gradually become accepting of the dangers.)
The author attempts to present a politically neutral viewpoint. However, his viewpoint comes across as significantly left wing. He criticizes both Republican and Democratic presidents for using the "War on Drugs" to distract from more significant issues. However, he then proceeds to criticize Bush and Trump administrations by heaping praise on Obama. Is this because Obama really did eschew the politics of fear? Or is this because he views the fears that Republicans rely on less pertinent than those of the Democrats? Similarly, the spin on issues tends to favor the more liberal viewpoint. Conservatives have an unjust "fear" of gun control, rather than liberals having an unjust fear of law abiding gun ownership. (Though he does call out working gun legislation that both sides are proud of.) He brushes aside fears of crimes committed by minorities. He also goes on to point out "journalistic objectivity" causes less respected viewpoints to be given undue weight. But how do we determine what the respected viewpoint should be? His examples tend to have a left of center feel. Guns are constantly brought up as a cause of problems, with gun control advocates arguments viewed as missing the main issue. Alas, these are the arguments that tend to strengthen the right wing rhetoric. This inadvertently strengthens the validity of using fear.
The media has generally abused its role in using fear of small probability events into worrisome calamities. Alas, this also makes it difficult to identify cases where there is a need to worried about something. "Fake" experts abuse their power to get their message across, while real experts do not. Things that happen slowly over time do not invoke the fear, and are not properly held in check. A low probability occurrence ends up taking precedence over the true dangers.
Trump has significantly ramped up the blatant use of fear as a political motivator. The left has responded by being more public in their invocation of fear. Perhaps this is a good thing in that it makes it much more easy to identify. Alas social media had made it easier for one-sided fear-based messages to spread without even an attempt at journalistic objectivity. This has made fear an even more powerful tool.

Anathem

Anathem is a long philosophical novel. The world is just different enough from ours to make it difficult to understand what is going on. Most of the book involves conversations with "math monks". They discuss math, philosophy, theoretical physics and their interaction with the secular world. Interspersed with this philosophical discussion is a "mission" and the appearance of alien visitors. They discover that they are similar but different from the humans of their planet. Eventually people from both meet up and explore possible outcomes. In structure and length, the novel feels like a fantasy work. On content, however, it is science fiction write with clear modern day mores. There are plenty of ideas to keep for a long "geek" conversation.

Rising Tides: Destroyerman 5

Rising Tides is the fifth book in the "Destroyerman" alternative history/science fiction series. Some world war 2 ships end up in some alternate earth filled with sentient animals. There are crazy mean monsters as well as cats that serve as crew. The author is obviously a military buff and spends a lot of time talking the details of military equipment. The plot is confusing with a large number of characters and animals doing various things. The book just had no appeal to me.

Robots of Dawn

Isaac Asimov's first two books in the robot series were palatable sci-fi mysteries. Robots of Dawn is not. It comes across as the unedited musings of a lecherous old man. It is much longer than the other robot books, and filled with too much of Asimov's sociological musings. Plot and characters, are, alas tough to find. It does, however, have a nice sounding title.

Naked Sun

Ok, it has been a long time since I read this book. (Nine months can put a dent on an initial reaction.) It is a detective story set in a science fiction future with robots. The key to solving it is figuring out the loopholes in the laws of robotics. It is not a bad story, but not a great one either.

Caves of Steel

Caves of steel in six sentences: A cop is assigned a robot for a companion. They attempt to crack a murder case in "space town". The cop goes down a lot of false paths, manifesting his robot prejudice. Eventually he helps crack the case. The robot was not able to identify the culprit because his brain analysis did not reveal the guilt. However, the human realized an accidental killing would not manifest the guilt.

Caves of Steel in six words: Human outsmarts robot, solves Turing test.

Caves of Steel is OK as a mystery and OK as science fiction.

I wonder if this was one of the things I read in my youth. I remember reading a lot of Asimov, but not reading the foundation books. There must be some good stuff out there. However, it seems a lot of this is merely ok.