Robert

I am a layman interested in math and science, and I expected this book to dig down into some of the philosophical roots. Instead, I found that it treated subjects in a series of brief vignettes, with little in the way of interesting or exciting concepts. It really did not stay with any particular subject very long. I did not find the brain teasers I was hoping for.

clocking in at just over 40 hours. You certainly get your money's worth of quality sometimes majestic story telling. Sgt. Bobby Shaftoe is an American cryptanalyst. His orders are under no circumstances to place himself under possibility of capture. Skipping two generations, Randy Price Waterhouse is a 1990s cryptanalyst working on the cutting edge of cyber-law, and is in love with America Shaftoe, Bobby's granddaughter. Goto Dengo is a Nipanese Officer and Engineer, and Rudy von Hacklheber is a mathematician and cryptographer who befriends Waterhouse and Turing as they explore and develop early computing and crypt analysis. Gunter Bischoff is a U-Boat commander, and Glory Altamira is the mother of Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe. Brilliantly narrated by William Dufris. This novel along with Stephenson's The Diamond Age are two of the most impressive novels I've listened to in the scale of Lem and Dick. However, his Snow Crash is something I just didn't cotton onto.

A company of alien travelers is stranded on Earth, but not in our time, in the 14th Century during an outbreak of the Plague. In the near future to our own time, an archaeologist and a physicist are searching for traces of their visit. Using much learning and strict hard history and science, Flynn explores the philosophical, scientific and human mysteries that surround this encounter of worlds. Highly interesting and warmly recommended.

The narrative starts out very well, with dramatic and interesting perspectives on the EMP disaster, and the people and systems involved. I really enjoyed the first third or half. But when the journey begins, the plot thins out. Events become a little arbitrary and loosely connected. Something similar happens with the other journey narrative, The Road. The Journey is a difficult form to write, because it is inherently loosely structured. Things begin to happen for no connected reason, just because we have journeyed down the road a little further. However, these two narratives give an important view of the post-apocalypse world, in that the protagonists are not together at the moment when the disaster occurs, but in fact are far apart from each other. This is an aspect of the post-apocalypse that needs to be examined, because it is probably far more likely than the tidy plot in which the protagonists are all conveniently together from the beginning.

The novel describes an ecosystem that develops in a vast, zero gravity environment. The narrative seems to release you from the bonds of our fundamentally horizontal and comparatively miniscule world. Because it stretches your imagination in this way, I think that the novel is worth reading. However, the the environment that is described does notsufficiently follow the laws of physics. And story line, the things that happen in this remarkable world, is thin.

It gives a very full and comprehensive account of the events from many perspectives, including victims, the student body, parents, police and of course the perpetrators. There were many accusations of blame going around at the time, and the author of this book looks at these with fairness to all concerned, but does not shy away from the controversies. If you remember the original events, then this book, with access to the journal, detailed interviews and information long kept secret, will fill out your knowledge of the story immensely. The author answers, as far as is possible, the question of why.

Yes, it's a classic. But the science is weak and the plot line is flat. The apocalyptic event occurs off stage and is over and done with. He's not really trying to get somewhere, and nothing much really happens along the way. The characters and events are just not very captivating.

It begins with giving some scientific analogies for the layman, but it soon leaps into calculations and language that I couldn't hope to follow.

Sproule gives a luminous description of the contributions of every major philosopher in chronological order. I am familiar with the history of philosophy, but I still leaned some things and got some clarity from this book. A second volume on Catholic philosophy is also included.

An instructive and extremely copious explanation of contemporary scientific and mathematical concepts explained in reference to repetition and simultaneous processes in nature. The author clearly loves to teachy and pitches it just right for the informed layman. Any time a concept or tangent arises the author provides a whole new line of explanation. Very generous and instructive.