Cyril Maithily Gupta's Blog

I’ve been too busy to write on the blog of late. With launches of the new blogvani and codebix.com and work to do on astrobix.com I couldn’t get any time for the blog.

All I’ve been writing of late are book reviews anyhow. So just to keep the record straight and lest you think I haven’t been reading any book, here’s a list of book’s I’ve read while I was away minding my own business the last month.

1. On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins – Awesome book if you are interested in learning how the brain works on a scientific level. I am enthused by Jeff’s drive to develop true AI. The book also gave me really beautiful insight into what intelligence really is and how the classic Turing’s test is so unequipped to define machine intelligence.

This is definitely a recommended book for you if you have a natural, in-born interest for all things science.

2. Microtrends by Mark Penn – Well, this book was overhyped. I’ve read better books on the topic. Maybe if I hadn’t read them earlier I’d be impressed. I found it very similar to books like Freakonomics, Tipping Point, et al.

3. Superfreakonomics – You’d think that an awesome book like Freakonomics would spawn an acceptable sequel, but nah. Superfreakonomics begins with that classic American insult they have created for the rest of the world. First it was the Japanese, then Chinese and now it’s the Indians who have small penises. Yeah, that’s the result of all that awesome ‘economics’ research done by the guys who wrote Superfreakonomics. I’ve quickly forgotten the authors’ name, but I imagine they would be a bunch of ol’ American Yanks who think Texas is the dominant country on the planet. Yah!

4. Revolt in 2010 & Methuselah’s Children – That’s one book not two. But actually they are two novellas bunched together. The stories are quite different even though the events are connected. I guess this is the beginning of R A Heinlein’s Future History series which is so loved. It’s good.

5. Time Enough for Love – Again by R A Heinlein. I am still reading it.

Hmm… Are they all? Well, these are all the new books I’ve read. I re-read some of the old ones while I was waiting for the new books to be delivered.

The next book I have waiting in line is Revolutionary Wealth by Alvin Toeffler. I read Future Shock and The Third Wave from him earlier and was much impressed. This ought to be good. And yeah, coming in some days is The Door Into The Summer by R A Heinlein.

Wow. Good reading.

Farnham’s Freehold from Robert A Heinlein has upset me a little. Robert Heinlein finds it very hard to be uncontroversial I guess. He apparently wrote every book with a mission to show a different and not necessarily beautiful facet of this world.

It says on the cover of this book that it is science-fiction’s ‘Most controversial novel’. Most controversial? I don’t think it deserves that title, there have been others with more dangerous themes. But it certainly would have been very controversial in the 60s when it was written. But I think it was controversial for all the wrong reasons.

Back in the 60s when the black people of America had only just gained a better standing in the society, a novel like Farnham’s Freehold which turns racism head-over-heels would certainly cause a ruckus. After all which white person could come to terms with a society of black rulers who have mindless white slaves who they consider animals and have doctors called ‘vets’ to treat them. Heinlein’s concoction was a slap on the face to white-supremacists. It was a mirror of the most ugly sorts showing them what they were by exaggerating the treatment they mete out to blacks, only this time the recipients were white.

So it was controversial and it had more than a few people fuming and damning. But that’s not what got my goose. Living in India and in this millennia, I am a bit immune to color-racism, but living in India there is a different picture of family that I have. I think people totally missed that point. They totally didn’t bring family into picture when they struck up a controversy. The family portrayed in Heinlein’s book is more than dysfunctional, it’s a victim. It’s a victim of an overbearing, ego-maniacal, paranoid father figure who apparently doesn’t give a damn about the rest of the people in the family even though he pretends to think that he does. That guy is also the book’s protagonist.

Only in a Heinlein book can a protagonist be so vile, disgusting, selfish, uncaring, and totally get away with it. I didn’t feel much sympathy for the lead in the novel at all even though Heinlein made an effort to make him seem fair and just in many places. But that’s a useless sort of a complain, because why should anyone expect any lead character of any book to be a moral example?

Leaving the characters be, the most interesting aspect of the book is how it compares the contemporary civilization with a possible future, and how the customs and rituals of the imaginary civilization seem so horrific while our own savage and unfair practices can be easily ignored.

Going back two thousand years we are appalled at the savagery of human civilization. Heinlein makes you appalled at the savagery two thousand years on, while the people in the future of Heinlein’s book are just as appalled at ours.

I received ‘The Orphans of the Sky’ by R A Heinlein yesterday. The book is pretty small, pocket-book sized. It didn’t take me long to finish it off again. Again because I have read it once earlier a long time ago and didn’t remember the title so I ordered it again.

I am left with a deep sense of dissatisfaction not because the book was not good, but because I could remember the story before it unfolded and by ordering a book that I had already read earlier I missed reading a fresh Heinlein book. But on to the review:

The book is about a giant spaceship that has set sail for a distant star. It’s apparently a slower than light generations ship because too many years have passed. The residents of the ship have forgotten their origins and believe the ship is the entire world. Operating the ship has become a religion and the society has re-structured itself in accordance. The manuals of the ship’s operation are relics of the past, and hardly anybody understands physics anymore.

Adding to the complexities is a bunch of human beings mutated by radiation who’re outcasts from the society and live hiding in the unexplored areas of the ship. The story is about how one man discovers the truth and prods others to accept and take the ship to its destiny. He is not a politician unfortunately and fails in the game of power. He and some of his friends make it to a habitable planet, but most of the other residents of the ship are still ‘making the trip’.

This is an adventure story by Heinlein, but yet again the book reminded me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. It’s humorous only in parts, but the character Joe-Jim, a two-headed mutant of the story is quite like ‘Zaphod’ of Hitch-hiker’s guide to the galaxy. It is easy to see that Douglas Adams did base Zaphod on Joe-Jim. Zaphod has the same disrespect for others and disproportionate sense of self-worth just like Joe-Jim.

Heinlein has been inspiration to too many people. I can be no exception. I am a big fan of Heinlein’s writing style and I guess I’ve consciously or unconsciously used that style in my own writing. But more than that not a long time ago I had begun writing a fresh story that I called ‘Savants All’, which was also about a bunch of people who are trying to make a similar long journey, but they are immortal humans. The story was about their expectations, disappointments, a trip back home, and a war that was on a brink of being lost. I haven’t finished that story yet. But I hope I will one day.

Are you tired of seeing Robert Heinlein books reviews from me yet? Well, let me apologize now, but it’s not going to stop for quite a while. You see R A Heinelein wrote a lot of books, and I am not quitting until I’ve read the last one.

Not that I haven’t been reading other stuff. I also read half of The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman, but I misplaced the copy in my home, and the jungle of books that I have, I can’t find it for the life of me. So I won’t be writing a review until i find the copy.

Meanwhile, here’s a double Heinlein treat for you:

Double Star by Robert Heinlein

I’ve said it before that Heinlein does not deal with the science of physics, but rather the science of the society and the person. Double Star deals with the latter. It’s a mind-scan of Lorenzo Smythe, an out of work actor who is hired/coerced to impersonate an out of action political figure.

Lorenzo is not your usual ham, he was trained to be a real ‘trouper’ by his now dead dad who wouldn’t have anything less than perfection from Lorenzo.

So Lorenzo might hate politics, have no respect for the policies of Bornforte and be an all-out xenophobe, yet when he begins to act like Bornforte, he becomes Bornforte. It becomes his best performance yet, and eventually he cannot distinguish his own self anymore.

The novel’s catchline says “Every stand-in dreamed of the starring role – but what actor would risk his life for the chance?”

Lorenzo risks his life and he does not lose it, but Lorenzo dies. Being Bornforte does not leave any room to be Lorenzo.

All through this book Lorenzo speaks out to you. You learn about his thoughts, motives, drives, passions, fears. It’s a most beautifully done first-person narrative, and the character is a treat. Of course Heinlein doesn’t leave politics alone either. The Martians or Venusians that humans are reluctant to award equal status to can be taken as a metaphor for a lot of things. The new District 9 is not any better at this.

Tunnel in the sky by Robert Heinlein

I am yet to be bored by Heinlein. I read Double Star within 24 hours of acquiring it and Tunnel in the sky within 18 hours of reading Double Star.

Tunnel in the sky is about Rod Walker, a teenager in a normally defunct family (now don’t ask me what that means) who is thought of not having what it takes to make it in a world which is all about adventure and seeking a life in new challenging planets.

In a high-school survival test Rod Walker is marooned on a distant planet full of unknown dangers and threatening beasts. His aim was to survive for only a week, but when the expected recall-signal fails to arrive Rod realizes he will be there forever.

The story describes how Rod survives, and helps many others also there for the test to survive. He learns to share, lead, follow, build, destroy, challenge, fight and give up. He plays his part in building a community that’s savage in their daily-routine but humane in their hearts.

He becomes the leader of that community and witnesses marriages, deaths and births. The group learns to survive major challenges and eventually reconcile themselves to their new lives, learning how to enjoy it. That’s when the rescue party arrives. But Rod doesn’t feel he can go home any more.

Civilization isn’t built in a day, and it certainly doesn’t evolve the way shown in Tunnel in the sky, but it takes people who sacrifice an innovate. The kind of people who are in this book.

The micro-society in the book is no different than a nation. Each individual can be related to a certain force working in our own society. Reading about how they work together and against each other in the book gives you a look at how our own world gets by.

This is certainly a book worth recommending though it gets a bit repetitive in the middle. You expect more action than there is. Heinlein also lets an important thread  (of the planet’s extinct civilization) unexplored which is very disappointing for a reader like me.

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I’ve already ordered 2 more books from flipkart.com and they should be arriving in 2 weeks. It’s not a short wait for a book-crazy-maniac like  me but I think I ought to wait cause it certainly isn’t a good idea to spend all my money in a go buying all the books at once. Let me go broke one book at a time.

Meanwhile I’ve also read bits from The Clash of Civilizations And Remaking of The World Order by Samuel Harrington but I think The Lexus and the Olive Tree was a better book on the same topic. I ought to find it and finish it.

What would you do if you won a spacesuit in a contest? Wear it in your backyard of course, and then be kidnapped by an alien spacecraft and visit the Moon, Pluto another star and then another galaxy. Sounds like some adventure eh? And what if you could come back from all that in a few weeks time. That’s what Russ does in Heinlein’s epic tale that spans distances that the human mind will break down before imagining.

This is the kind of work that books like Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy are inspired from. Of course HGTTG is much more awesome. After all, Arther Dent just needed his bath-towel robe and multiple strokes of luck to save the galaxy, while it took Russ a spacesuit, a near genius IQ and an ultra-sharp survival instinct to fight off the aliens.

This book strongly reminded me of Douglas Adams’ HGTTG (which was written much later incidentally, and on a bigger scale). It had the same irreverent humor in tough situations. Delightful characters who were a treat to watch. Aliens that managed to be both bumbling and frightful at the same time and a journey that’s beyond anything you’d ever expect.

Heinlein set the bar when he takes you the Magellanic Cloud at the Federation of the Three Galaxies at the meeting of the Security Council which is going to judge whether to kill all humanity by putting to trial on behalf of our race: a Neanderthal man, a Roman Centurion, A high-school pass out boy, and a thirteen year old girl.

Awesome!

This could only be upped by something like The Restaurant at the End of Time.

So like I said this was a wholly enjoyable read which is evident from the fact that I got this book yesterday night and I am through with it today night between Work, food, bath and family.

This is a great book and everyone who is interested in quality space humor should own a copy.

Oh, and the next time you go out into the backyard decked in your space-suit, don’t call on Radio for an imaginary person called ‘Peewee’, no telling who might pick you up.

Reading Heinlein’s astounding science fiction I never thought about how long ago it really was when he wrote them. Reading this book reminded me.

The first and the last manned moon mission till date was in 1969 and over 30 years later we have yet to send human beings to Moon or to any other planetary body of consequence. All the money that should have gone into space research has been eaten by weapons development program, and – television.

The book ‘The Man Who Sold The Moon’ is about one man’s dream to reach the moon and how he makes the journey possible and ultimately fulfills his dream. The story is about the last ‘robber baron’ businessman or maybe the first of the ‘new robber barons’, an individual who can do anything legal or slightly illegal as long as he achieves the end he believes in. The end justifies the means wholly in this book from Heinlein.

The Man Who Sold The Moon is set in the 1950s, the past. The cliched conscience-less businessman was as alive then as he is now. But in Heinlein’s book his purpose is higher, sort of like Arjun in the Bhagvad Geeta.

The Man who sold the Moon is actually a Novella and a short story. The central character is the same, but the stories are set decades apart. In the second story the lead character’s initial excursion to the Moon caused rapid advancements in spaceship technology and humanity fulfilled the dream of establishing a colony on Moon. It’s a dream that still eludes us, and today the number of people who believe we will make it to outer-space are lesser than what they were 50 years ago.

It’s a shame because Heinlein has a splendid vision for the future, and we find ourselves unable to live it.

 Black Swan’s back cover talked about the phenomenon of Black Swan describing companies like Google as the Black Swan that came out of nowhere taking analysts by surprise. I thought this would be a book that would analyze Black swans like Google, describing why they are doing so well, but the book couldn’t be more different.

The book is not about Black Swans but about Black Swan the phenomenon. Nicholas Nassim Taleb talks on unpredictive people, companies and happenings can change the way the world works. His mission is to convince you that ultimately all analysis is useless, the analysts are overpaid louts who are actually no better than unpaid louts and that no matter how much data you have the future is going to make you a sitting duck anyway.

When I started to read this book the most refreshingly different thing that I found about it was the style. Taleb has his roots in the middle east and that’s why the book is written very differently from the usual Western/American authors. His language is different, expression is different and he will have you pausing in some places and reading the sentence again just so that you can have a look at the sequence of words he has used.

If the writing style wasn’t enough he introduces some delightful new ideas. Like talking in great detail about the experiences of a person, citing examples from his life to illustrate his point, and then telling you that the person is imaginary. In a non-fiction book that surprises you because you actually think all the way that the person is very real cause you’ve heard so much about her degrees and her job and everything else. Well that’s one example of Black Swan phenomenon at work.

Even though the book’s premise is not new, the approach is fresh. Taleb has been an investment analyst for a long time and you’ll find that the book talks about the financial markets a lot. He’s an insider and when he tells you that all the guys you’re trusting your money with are actually playing poker with it, you better listen. I for one am not going to put my money in mutual funds soon.

Taleb is also a scholar and he puts you under a slight awe with details of all the classics he has read. Well that’s the undoing of his book. When he goes on about the mathematicians and philosophers who you haven’t heard of and tells you how much he hates or loves them, you just can’t relate. You don’t know those guys well enough to know what Taleb is talking about.

By the second half of the book he also got a bit repetitive and argued the same arguments over. Not that I was unconvinced earlier.

The book is fine, not spectacular, but fine. If you’re deeply interested in economics and how money works like I am you will read to the end, not otherwise.

I would recommend it only to a small selection of people.

 Don’t read this book if you have eyebrows, because you’re going to raise them if you do. Heinlein in his days has caused quite a few controversies for his radical views about a lot of things that most of the world is traditional about. Things like religion, marriage, society, economy, and sex. How can you mention Heinlein and not talk about that.

I Will Fear No Evil is Heinlein’s ode to human sexuality. But it is not graphic and it is definitely not obscene and even without being these two things, this topic still manages to remain the single point agenda of this entire book. I’ve read several of Heinlein’s books and his radicalism filters through in all of them, but I didn’t expect even him to write something like this. So  yes, I was a little taken aback and since I have eyebrows (two of ‘em) I raised them quite a few times.

The premise is simple, a 90 year old filthy-rich (and filthy in other ways too) old tycoon gets his brain transplanted into a young woman’s body after she dies and then is caught in a giant mess of emotions about his/her identity and the carnal aspect of his body.

There is not much ‘science’ fiction in this book, but with Heinlein there never usually is. He deals in the future of the society, not technology and he’s a master when he does that.

In his day 30 years ago, he talked about many things which were taboo then and slowly they are and will be included in the mainstream. I guess Heinlein believed that deep-down everyone wants to be a liberal. He could be right.

This book is readable but I won’t hand it to a minor and I won’t hand it to someone who has not read Heinlein before. They could end up misunderstanding his message.

Read it only if you have faith in Heinlein.

Although I principally believe in Aliens and intelligent life on other planets, I have not yet reconciled to the idea of discreet alien visitations (read UFOs), specially in the form advertised in the world today. After all why should aliens have to abduct, torture, kill human beings, and to what end? That’s why I view the entire UFO phenomenon with a very healthy dose of skepticism, but I am intrigued by the entire affair so I do buy books on on that when I see something interesting.

Confrontations - Jacques Valles

The book ‘Confrontations’ by Jacques Valles is a pretty interesting read. Jacques Valles describes himself as a scientist and the book proposes to give you a scientists analysis of the UFO phenomenon. I can’t deny that he has tried to deliver. There’s no diatribe about little green men talking about nuclear warfare. Instead there is a very real and practical investigation of several UFO incidents reported in the late 1900s by him, particularly in Brazil.

He presents the incidents impartially and through people who actually witnessed things happen. He does not try to put words in their mouth and even more importantly he tries to actually present alternative reasons that could account for their experience. That’s a refreshing change from Whitley Strieber who claims not only to have seen aliens but to have to talked to them. In his book Communion he describes in detail his encounters and even discusses things like the social structure of the alien society and apartheid among them (the blue aliens!). I read it a couple of years ago and thought that he had a rather striking imagination.

But Jacques Valles doesn’t even reject him. He mentions Strieber a couple of times in his book without saying he’s either hallucinating or a fraud, which in my view is a great accomplishment. Valles is also unconvinced that the UFOs are of an extra-terrestrial origin he thinks that the aliens are from a different dimension and that they’ve been here since a really long time. He talks about evidence in different cultures about aliens (though he doesn’t cite anything particular).

While I did not subscribe to his dimensional theory (I am an agnost when aliens are concerned), I found his book quite compelling because of its non-biased dissection of UFOs. He travelled personally to many UFO sites and investigated individual cases, most of which were non-conclusive.

Finally, if you’re going to ask me what are my views about UFOs after reading this book. They are as before: -

UFOs do exist, but we can’t be sure about who’s in them, and where they are from.

Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein is a classic so popular that it is a required reading for any science fiction fan. This book has consistently made it to top ten of almost every sf book list ever conceived and for a reason. This is the original space military saga, everything else came later.

I’ve already watched the three starship trooper movies and I liked them because of their chic originality and their take on society, politics, religion and of course the startling concept of closed citizenship.

Starship Troopers Paperback

The book tells the story of one Johnnie Rico, a young lad who signs up in the army because it’s the cool thing to do, and because the girl he likes is signing up. The story maps the growth of Rico from a fresh recruit in training to a splendid soldier, an officer and then the commander of his platoon.

As Rico tells his story we learn about the times, the lives, the rules, the science, the conflicts and the issues in a society that is like ours and unlike ours in so many ways.

I’ve read three books from Heinlein till now: Friday, Stranger in a strange land and now Starship Troopers. In each one of the books Heinlein creates a new world, a very believable new world where the people are very real even though they think differently and they live by different rules.

That is why Heinlein’s books are so amazing. His future is not just about aliens, ships, planets, galaxies, it’s also about evolving societies and truthfully that’s what he is concerned about the most, the rest just a facade to make the analysis look good.

In this book it was the idea of a closed franchise, where citizenship and the right to elect and govern was not given to you at birth. It had to be earned. Before you could vote or stand for office you had to prove you were ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for Earth if needed.

Heinlein brought out all the glaring failures in our system that gives the election franchise to all and sundry without checking whether they are fit morally or mentally to elect the right leader.

The world that Heinlein concocts in this book has found a solution, but there are new questions.

Read the book, it’s by R A Heinlein.