Don't Hurt Me: Ansari's "Modern Love"

For the most part, Ansari’s book can pass as a contemporary social science book.

It is so conventional, in fact, it cites both Iyengar’s “Jam Study” and the Aron / Dutton “Bridge Study”. It does not invoke Philip Zimbardo, Milgram, or the Marshmallow study, as far as I know. For what it is, it is an interesting look into the dating scene for the contemporary lonely-hearts in terms of modern courtship. It is, at its heart, a larger explication of the book “Dataclysm” by Christian Rudder (who the author cites).

What makes the book stand out is the credited author is the famous comedian Ansari (His coauthor makes the inside flap copy, but not the cover). Ansari’s voice is very noticeable throughout the text – but I had the feeling that on reading that the authorial intrusions would be relatable to people who know the speech cadences of the comedian, but perhaps off-putting to those who were unfamiliar. Aside from the fact that the argument could be made that the book’s look at modern love is one that is highly privileged to the urban and straight first world, the book works for what it is.  Fans of both the comedian and contemporary social science books should find something that is interesting and entertaining stories to pass on.

Unto The Light: Kim Stanley Robinson's "Aurora"

This is the first book I have read by the author.

I’m pretty sure I will read more.

Overall, the book was very easy to read. The plot worked. The main characters worked.

The setting: I had a bit of trouble conceptualizing the ship, which is basically a ship that is sent out with all the known biomes of earth so that the ship can seed a new planet. In the descriptions, the ship didn’t seem big enough for all the author wanted from it. But I realized that it was mostly a metaphor for earth. The idea was cool and all, so in reading I gave my world-building issues a bit of a pass.

Until the end.

I don’t want to spoil things, but the plot worked – until the end (for me, because reading is a subjective experience shaped by all my own experiences which may or may not be shared by you).

But the thing felt tacked on as if the author had created this wonderful detailed painting, but didn’t leave enough space anywhere for him to sign it. It didn’t feel true to the characters or the plot and it felt a little fantastic. Though the world at the end is interesting and worthy of more interest, how the characters got there isn’t as important.

So, like, I’ll read more.

This just may not have been the best introduction.

Vaughn et al: "The Private Eye" - The World Stars

I have convinced myself that there is a trilemma when it comes to science fiction writing.

Either you have a good plot, or you have a good setting, or you have interesting characters. You can have two of the three, but never all three. The action and the people can be awesome, but usually for me the setting is off, there’s a failure of world-building because the author was trying to tell an interesting story but forgot that the economy wouldn’t really work the way they described it and maybe there’s a handwave or something to make it work. This kind of thing lessens my enjoyment.

That didn’t happen here. In fact, and for the first time I can remember in my readings, in “The Private Eye” the world is the star. In this future, the world has gone analogue after the “Cloud Burst” happened which revealed everyone’s secrets and society decided as a whole to unplug and find the joy in books and records. There is a character from our present, who is by this future an aging hipster with faded tattoos who is the most interesting character in the book because he shows the tension between the world as it is now and the imagined world. Alas, he is just a side character in the larger plot which involves an unlicensed reporter (in this world, the press has combined with the police as the arm of justice) solving a mystery. In the process, the big wall holding the Pacific gets a hole blown in it. That’s what I want to see and read about. The plot, for me, lacked tension that would pull the story forward and the world was the star. I definitely want to see more of this world from Vaughn and company. I just don’t care about most of the characters that live there. It’s an odd tension I’m not entirely used to.