I stumbled onto The Culture series of novels a few years ago quite by accident, and haven’t looked back.  The latest scifi novel in Iain M. Banks series is titled Surface Detail.  I have yet to read a Culture novel that didn’t stand on its own, and Surface Detail is no exception.  You need not have read any of the other Culture works to enjoy this book.

In this installment the author explores the idea of virtual heavens and hells, created by high-tech civilizations, to reward or punish members of their respective societies after death (or perhaps before death).  This is a fascinating topic, and as always Mr. Banks puts a plot inside the plot, and then has some sneaky stuff going on behind the scenes.  After reading multiple Culture books, I have come to expect that The Culture is going to do the right thing but probably be very sneaky about doing it.  I think I probably enjoyed Surface Detail more than any other Culture novel, which is saying a lot.  I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys speculative fiction.

The Culture Novels

Iain M. Banks (he only uses the “M.” when writing scifi) has written nine Culture novels including Surface Detail.  While a novel may occasionally refer to a character or event from a previous book, no knowledge of said book is needed to read any given Culture novel.  However, I think you will find it more enjoyable if you read them from the beginning.  In fact Banks hides a character from a previous novel in Surface Detail, which really doesn’t create a plot twist but did provide me with a pretty good smile at the end of the book when the character is revealed.

Here are the Culture novels in order:

• Consider Phlebas
• The Player of Games
• Use of Weapons
• The State Of The Art (Collection of Culture short stories)
• Excession
• Inversions
• Look to Windward
• Matter
• Surface Detail

I recently purchased this book based on some of positive reviews I had read on Amazon.com and elsewhere, and because I read Mr. Lehrer’s blog. I now wish that I had followed the negative reviews. Almost immediately it seemed that Mr. Lehrer was stretching various scientific evidence and theories very thin to match up to his thesis that some artists predicted scientific breakthroughs (such as Proust). I tried to dismiss these instances as artistic fancy, but when the author including information about DNA that is 10 to 15 years out-of-date and flat out wrong, I just could not continue. If Mr. Lehrer is going to compare hard science with art then he should have researched the fields about which he writes, or had better fact-checking of the book.

I ultimately quit this book because while I read a lot about science, and was able to cross-check that things in this book were wrong according to what experts in the field wrote, I am not a scientist nor am I a literary scholar. If Mr. Lehrer is misrepresenting, lying, or simply so bad at science writing that he is giving me bad information, how am I to know? Long story short: Mr. Lehrer lost my trust. I read books by good authors, that are often scientists, to learn more about the world. I *trust* that their professional credentials mean that they will provide me with accurate information. I don’t need to unintentionally poison my mind with outright incorrect information.

There are two Iain Banks.  There is Iain Banks, the Scottish Author of such novels as The Wasp Factory and Transition.  There is another Banks, Iain M. Banks, the Scottish Author of modern science fictions masterpieces such as books from The Culture Series.  Well, OK, the two Banks are the same guy writing under slightly different names to denote when he is writing regular fiction (no M.) and science fiction (M.).  Banks is well respected in the world of literature, and I suspect one of the reasons he has gained so much respect is that he does a lot of non-science fiction.  Banks is an excellent writer in the truest sense; his prose is unusually rich without feeling unusually rich.  I sometimes marvel at coloring he has invented for a particular scene, or his subtle humor sprinkled throughout his works.

Banks, on top of being an exception writer, is also a world-class story teller and science thinker.  His stories tend to be more hard-science fiction while sticking to many traditional science fiction themes.  In short, he draws from the best of various genres when spinning his science fiction tales.  And The Algebraist is no exception.

The world of The Algebraist feels like that of The Culture in some ways, very different in others.  The universe he paints consists of a culture billions of year old, similar in many ways to The Culture.  But unlike The Culture, there are no Faster Than Light drives, no teleportation, and many of the main characters are no where near humanoid.  In these points The Algebraist departs significantly from The Culture.

Banks’s novel follows 3 main characters that grew up together throughout their many-centuries lives.  One, Seer Fassin Taak, serves as the protagonist of the story.  Taak (or Fassin as he is called throughout much of the story) is a kind of futuristic anthropologist, archeologist, historian, and adventurer, all rolled into one.  He is part of a collection of individuals that dive into gas giants with small, personal ships to communicate with the life forms there.

Banks’s inventiveness here is quite fun to read.  The Dwellers, the very strange race that inhabits gas giants throughout the galaxy, is quite different from humans in many ways and strikingly similar in others.  Their technology is far more advanced than the current human culture, yet most live only to party and have fun in a strange economy of “kudos”.  In many ways the Dwellers are more human than us, in other, frightful ways, they are very alien.

The main plot of the book sees Taak sent on a mission for the current human government.  The result of that mission is surprising.  I found the ending to be quite fulfilling, especially the afterward.  Upon finishing the book, I can honestly say that it is probably one of the best written books I have ever read.  While the story line was fairly clever, I have read much more original or through-provoking books.  But fewer books have provided the pure joy in reading that this book did.  The Algebraist is a find story told excellently, and I highly recommend it.

Swedish journalist Stieg Larrson wrote novels, for fun, in his spare time.  Larrson died in November of 2004, leaving three unpublished books.   These were the only novels known to have been written by the man, and they have received many awards and accolades in Europe after their posthumous publishing.  Since their translation to English they have enjoyed great success in the English speaking world as well.  Only the first two books have been released in The United States, though it is not very difficult to obtain a copy of the third online.

The Millennium Trilogy follows the exploits of twenty-something, anti-social hacker Lisbeth Salander and middle-aged, controversial reporter Mikael Blomkvist.  The duo find themselves united in the first book to solve a 30 year old murder mystery, but the plot thickens from there.   The second and third books each tell a story of their own while also telling an overarching story, and bring to conclusion a lot of themes and unresolved issues from the first book.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first in the trilogy.  I found this book to be the best of the bunch, which shouldn’t take anything away from the other books.  Dragon introduces us to a rich set of characters and to locations that are unfamiliar.  The settings in the book are almost exclusively in Sweden, and Larrson goes into some detail about the cities, towns, transportation, restaurants, and general ambiance there.  The characters are well developed and interesting.  The two lead characters both have similar attitudes, and express these attitudes in very different ways.  All of this is stacked on top of a rather interesting murder mystery.

The Girl Who Played with Fire continues on with the characters about a year after the end of Dragon.  Fire continues with many of the themes established in the first book, and jumps into some of the more interesting teasers left hanging.  We soon find the roles our lead characters took in the first book reversed.  This book quickly turns into another murder mystery, but that is not what is really going on.  Blomkvist and Salander separately race to solve related portions of the same mystery, although this time it isn’t so much a mystery for Salander, but history.  The book has a couple of interesting plot twists at the end, and while it resolves the central mystery of the book it does leave at least one character in serious jeopardy.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest concludes the trilogy, and finishes the overarching story started in Fire.  Again Blomkvist and Salander are fighting against unknown adversaries, this time with a more united front.  At the end of the book Larrson leaves the characters ready for more battles together, and one can only imagine what would have come from his mind had he lived.  However, this trilogy does tell a complete overall story and closes all the loose threads.  In the final analysis its a story about friendship and loyalty between many different characters, but mostly between Salander and Blomkvist.

I recommend the trilogy to anyone that enjoys good fiction.  As an avid science and science fiction reader, I am not entirely sure what lured me into reading these books.  But I found them all very good reads.

My wife and I are both currently reading The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, a financial-crime mystery of sorts, on our Kindles.  The book is part 1 of a 3 part series written by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson.  Books 1 and 2, The Girl Who Played with Fire, are available on Kindle and for purchase in bookstores in the US.  Book 3, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, is not available in the US despite the fact that the series is very popular and the book was published in 2007.  In Europe the book is widely available, and is even on the UK Kindle site.  US citizens cannot buy it from the UK Kindle site.  Why is this book being held back from America in such a contrived fashion?  The publisher is trying to create demand for the book, which will be released to the US market in the spring of 2010.  There is just one problem with this plan.  Its easy to get the book.  US booksellers are importing it from Europe.  And digital versions of the book are easy to find, for free, online.  Theoretically I could have already downloaded it, without paying for it, and it could theoretically be sitting on our Kindles right now waiting to be read.

I ran into this same phenomenon tonight with a new show I wanted to view but had missed on television, White Collar.  USA and Hulu only offer the last few episodes.  I want to start from the beginning.  So this leaves me with three options.  I can start from the middle of the season (yuck).  I can decide to ignore it until it comes out on DVD and rent it through NetFlix (if I remember to do so).   The third option should be obvious: its dead simple to find this show on any of the popular torrent sights.  Its widely distributed and quickly downloadable.  If I were to theoretically download it, I would assume that it would be commercial free.  USA has just lost out on potential commercial revenue.  Just as the publisher of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest lost out of a sale.

Media companies, whether they are book, movie, television or music publishers, suffer a stupidity tax when they don’t make their items easily available in a digital format online.  This is (almost) 2010.  The internet as been a big thing for about 15 years now.  If a company is too stupid to realize someone can simply download their stuff if they don’t allow it on their site, then I think they incur this tax.  You can argue morality here, but from a purely-business perspective this is just a futile attempt to hold onto the pre-1994 world.

This isn’t Dr. Dre and Metallica fighting Napster, with everyone trying to figure out the realities of this new economy.  Today it shouldn’t even be an issue.  For example, right this moment Metallica’s entire catalog is available online in multiple stores.  Hell, they have a lot of free and pay concert music on their site ready to be downloaded.  They learned the lesson the entire media industry should have learned 10 years ago!

So why haven’t people learned?  I honestly think it is plain-old stupidity.  I think there are old people running companies that just simple don’t get it.  Nothing else can explain the complete lack of business sense in relation to digital media and the Internet.  But there are bright spots.  There are a number of shows with a significant portion of their catalog available, for free, on Hulu.  These companies and Hulu are making advertising money for what amounts to re-runs.

Make it easy for people to do the right thing and they will do the right thing.  If not, then most people are going to do as they please.  We aren’t talking about murder here; people are usually downloading things that are either overpriced or not available.  Digital distribution is easy; there are plenty of pioneers and a lot of great software to support it.  The trail has already been blazed, and there are working business models to be followed.  Digital distribution should be cheap.  Releasing content digitally should at very least save the cost of producing a physical product.

So, I might watch some television on my laptop tonight then settle into bed with my Kindle for some reading.

I just finished reading a marvelous book titled The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by the eminent biologist Richard Dawkins.  The book is about evolution, if you couldn’t tell from the title. So this review is going to be about evolution.

If you are one of those people that disagrees with the theory of evolution via natural selection, I hope you will read this full review and I hope you will read Mr. Dawkins’s book.  Here in the United States, about 40% of the general public believe that that the theory of evolution is false.   I italicize believe, because discounting evolution must be based on belief, not on evidence.  From a scientific perspective, there isn’t a single piece of evidence, not one, that goes against this well established theory.  It is considered one of the most well-proven theories in all of science.  Mr. Dawkins argues, as others have, that such a well-proven theory should actually have a better name that “theory”.  In science the word “theory” has a very different meaning that in general usage.

Here are the two definitions of theory as provided from the Princeton Wordnet:

1. A tentative insight into the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena.
2. A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.

Can you understand the massive difference between these two definitions?  The first one is the common, everyday, non-scientific one.  It just means a hypothesis, an idea.  The second is the actual scientific one, and it is pretty obvious that it caries with it the implication of proof.  When you read “The Theory of Gravity” or “Einstein’s General Theory of General Relativity”, and yes, “The Theory of Evolution”, the second definition of theory is the one in use.  Because of this confusion a creationist might argue against The Theory of Evolution by saying, “Its just a theory.”  But in scientific parlance, that translates to “Its just a fact.”

Evolution is a fact.  In general, non-scientific speak, that is the crux of it.  Dawkins lays out the evidence, and wow, there is evidence.  We have a rich fossil record that supports the theory of evolution, but even without a single fossil evolution would be proven.  How?  Our very DNA proves evolution.  There is also substantial supporting evidence in the embryology of any animal, including humans.  In the first weeks of gestation a human embryo is not very different from that of a fish.  And it isn’t surprising, because an ancient ancestor of our race is the fish.  Dawkins discusses many other pieces of supporting evidence that are to be found throughout the world, including cases where evolution has actually been observed first hand!

Dawkins also leaves the science of biology and discusses in depth the scientific methodology that proves evolution.  Young earth creationist will be especially horrified to learn of the variety of dating methodologies in use by modern scientists, each corroborated by at least one other.  How do we know a fossil is 10k years old or 100k years old or 1 million years old?  Dawkins discusses the various techniques used to do this dating, in detail.  He leaves no doubt.  And then he repeats this type of discussion, rolling through a number of different scientific procedures.  I really got a flavor of what biologists, geologists, anthropologists, archeologists and other scientists do when they are studying evolution.  Well, I am married to a geologist so I kinda already understood some of that stuff.

Dawkins also spends portions of each chapter debunking various creationist slanders on evolution.  I use the word slander because that is what it often amounts.  However, the creationist isn’t always willfully ignoring the facts and presenting lies.  It would appear from arguments Mr. Dawkins relates that some creationists simply don’t know any better.  Their ignorance of the rich set of data available handicaps them in any debate.  A common example is the creationist attack on the fossil record, the “missing link” argument.  The problem with this creationist argument is that there really isn’t a missing link in the fossil record.  And the fossil record doesn’t matter.  As Dawkins points out, evolution is proved in several different ways that can each stand on their own, alone.  Mr. Dawkins points out these types of logical fallacies over and over.

Dawkins authored the book to try to help fight the fight against ignorance.  Campaigns such as “Teach the Controversy” are often conducted by creationists.  Except there is not controversy.  Evolution is the accepted theory.  As I mentioned earlier, Dawkins points out again and again throughout the book, the areas of science where even one piece of evidence would cast a doubt on evolution, yet we do not find any such negative evidence.  He actually shows where one would go (intellectually) to attempt to disprove evolution.  I think this really shows the true spirit of science.  Of course its easy to do when you do you are right.

I previously reviewed another book on evolution, Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne.  I found Coyne’s book to be an easier read than Dawkins’s book on the same subject.  However, I found that Dawkins covered more material and went into some depth to show how the science is actually done, not just what the science has found.

In the end, I would find it hard to believe that anyone that gave The Greatest Show On Earth an honest read would question evolution.  Not only that, but the proof against a designer fabricating the world is enormous.  This will be a dangerous book for you if you are a creationist.  It will challenge your beliefs with irrefutable evidence.  For the scientifically-minded individual, I think you will discover a number of interesting facts, and find great enjoyment in Mr. Dawkins’s careful explanations of the science around evolutions.

I just finished a great book titled On Intelligence, written by the founder of Palm and Handspring, Jeff Hawkins.  Hawkins is a Silicon Valley genius, having invented several significant technologies.  He has also been a life-long brain and AI enthusiast.  Hawkins begins his book about human intelligence relating his experience attempting to get involved with AI and neurology.  I drew some interesting parallels between his exclusion from the MIT AI program and his great success with start-ups.  Imagine being known as the department that didn’t accept the inventor of The Palm Pilot and Graffiti into your grad program!  If he is bitter he doesn’t show it.  Instead he brings a personal enthusiasm and flavor to a very deep subject.  He dives into his impressions on how intelligence works in the human neocortex.  His description of the hierarchical structure that is used in the cortex was very enlightening.   I have found myself thinking about many of his concepts over the last few days.

How we evolved to have intelligence is a fascinating subject.  How is it we humans are able to do the things we do?  Imagine the art, the science, the great goods and the terrible evils we have done to each other.  No other species has war.  No other species has our rich language.  We have created a technological civilization with our biological brains.  Hawkins wants to use the same techniques to create artificial intelligence, and is putting his considerable money where his mouth is with his own AI start-up.

I would encourage anyone interested in this fascinating subject to pick up a copy of On Intelligence.  Its probably the best pure brain/intelligence/AI book I have read (GEB is a better book but spends much less time on AI and intelligence).