Transhumanist Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares by Maxwell Mehlman

This book deals with issues relating to genetic engineering in humans - more policy/ethics than science.

I wanted to like this book. The subject is something I am quite interested in learning more about. Though the book had a few interesting parts, I was disappointed for the most part.

I'll start with Good Points. The cover art was perfect - made the book very enticing. The book itself was a very sturdy, high quality hardcover - so many hardcover books today are very shoddily constructed. Background information presented for various sections of the book was often interesting and well presented. A few "food for thought" ethical issues were well presented and discussed.

Now for the Bad Points. At the beginning of the book, the writing itself was OK, but it left much to be desired as the book went on. Overly long paragraphs and unnecessarily complex sentence structure made it very hard to follow what the author was trying to say. Did the publisher edit this book or just publish a rough draft? Section subtitles would have helped a lot - they used some odd symbol instead which added very little by way of clarity. Overall, I would have a hard time telling anyone what the author's main points were - that's how confused the book left me.

When I read non-fiction, I prefer books where the author is objective. I find it hard to call this author objective when this book made it crystal clear that he is very partisan politically and which side of the aisle he cheers for, so to speak.

The author is a law professor and wrote this more like a law review article than anything else - I'm a lawyer, so I can tell. That didn't turn out well in this context. It's really the way he handled sources - I have no idea who these people are and information given about them does little to clarify, so why should I care what they think kind of explains how it came off.

Finally, there are factual errors. Other reviewers have commented on several - and added that the author was probably a political science major and way out of his depth here given that so much hard science is involved. I saw two errors that I didn't see mentioned in other reviews. First, an embryo does not turn into a fetus simply by becoming implanted in a womb as the author states - an embryo becomes a fetus after a given number of weeks (some say it's 11) of gestation. Second, in Gonzalez v Carhart, the Supreme Court did NOT uphold partial birth abortions as the author states, it rather upheld a federal law banning them. Do editors not fact check anything anymore?

Though it had some good points, I would not recommend this book.

Claudius the God, by Robert Graves

This is the sequel to I, Claudius. Like some other reviewers, I did not like the sequel nearly as much as the first book. The sequel picks up right after the first book, just after the assassination of Caligula and covers the reign of Claudius as Roman Emperor.

There was so much on Herod Agrippa near the beginning that it was almost like I was reading a book about about him instead of Claudius - there is even a detailed family tree of the Herods given. When the book finally shifted away from Herod, it got a bit tedious in discussing the public works projects and battles of Claudius' reign. The book is over 500 pages and would have been better if it had been shorter/less detailed.

Claudius was a great improvement over the two Emperors who preceded him - the British even worshiped him before he died. He had some really treacherous "associates" and several bad marriages. The last wife seems to have poisoned him at the end. A lot of poisoning and other intrigue was common then.

Keep in mind that this book is fiction, but is supposed to keep close to the historical facts.

I did not like how the book ended. The three historical versions of Claudius' death presented were a bit hard to read - better translations would have been helpful, but maybe these were the best available in the 1930's when this sequel was written. Seneca's satire that follows seemed pretty hateful - apparently, these Romans didn't follow the maxim about not speaking ill of the dead; I think the author should not have included it.

The TV version of the two books in the series spends much more time on period in the first volume. I think I know why now. The TV version is actually pretty good; it is called simply: I, Claudius.

New Terra and Beyond by Richard Michael

I read about this book somewhere - the where escapes me at the moment - and the write-up made it sound interesting, so I bought a copy. It sat a long time on my bookshelf, but last month I picked it up finally and dove in.

I did like the book, but I would say that with some editing the book could have been much better. On the back of the book, the author mentions that he was a fan of some old time Sci Fi serials. This may explain the style of dialogue that he used, and the very short chapters and multiple sections - an editor might have talked him out of this which I think would have made the book much better.

As I said, I did like the book. The story and the characters were interesting and original in many ways. The book chronicles the expansion of human civilization in the universe by following the lives of a close knit set of characters. New technology allows almost instant travel between planets and even to far away galaxies. There are no encounters with aliens, however.

Most of the characters are "mildly" religious. Some are fundamentalist - and the very extreme of these are some of the bad guys. There are some evil communists as well.

There was one portion of the book that I thought the author should drop if he revises. It was not explicit, but concerned a sex slave ring. The author once worked in a state social services office, so maybe he thought this made the story more "realistic".

I did think that the travel beyond the Hubble radius was interesting in its implications.

Overall, the book was entertaining and provides a pleasant distraction.

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

This is a great book. I highly recommend it.

In my case, I watched the TV series before reading the book, so I had a face and a voice in my mind for each of the characters as I read the book. Made it more interesting I think. The TV series is very good, even all by itself.

The book is historical fiction, but (heavily) based on fact. It is written in the first person with Claudius as the narrator. Claudius being the fourth Emperor of Rome. He had a limp and stammered and was thought to be stupid, at least before becoming Emperor, but he was far from it.

After some background, the book covers events in and around Claudius' life up to him being proclaimed Emperor at the death of Caligula. Be ready for the treachery and violence that seems to have been the norm in ancient Rome; the violence is not presented in overly gory detail, but there is a lot of it. The presentation of the violence is kind of matter of fact which was disturbing - it's as if the people at the time took it as unfortunately "normal". Seems like you had to be a stoic or you'd go crazy.

There are so many great parts of the book that it is impossible for me to select a "best" one. Suffice it to say that Livia, Claudius's grandmother and wife of Augustus, was a real piece of work. Caligula was a real nut case. Tiberius was almost as bad. Being in their family might have been more dangerous than being unrelated to them. It is hard to believe that the Empire stayed together given all that went on - maybe things were even crazier elsewhere.

The book is well written and a fast read. Give it a try.

We've Never Been Alone by Paul von Ward

I have read three books in the past that are similar to this one and found them interesting - Chariots of the Gods by von Daniken, the Gods of Eden by Bramley and Everything You Know is Wrong by Pye. I recommend all of these, especially Bramley's book. They are all very entertaining, if nothing else. I was very hopeful about the von Ward book reviewed here.

Basically, von Ward contends that aliens have been involved in our history in some very fundamental ways. This was positive in some ways, but negative in many others. He makes some proposals as to what we should do about the lingering negatives.

I am giving the von Ward book three out of five stars, because it has some interesting parts, but is lacking in other ways. It took forever to get through. The book is just too long for what it has to say. It should either be made more detailed and less rambling/repetitive in the same number of pages or shortened by cutting down on rambling/repetitive parts. A good editor could make this a 4 or 5 star book.

For me, the middle of the book is the best part. There, the author makes some very good points about how many religions evolved - in the wrong direction. It gave me much food for thought, and I thank the author for that. This book is probably not for fundamentalist Christians, but it is not anti-Jesus by any means.

If you only have time to read one book in this subject area, I would recommend Bramley or maybe Pye. They are much faster reads and give more details at the same time.

Realware by Rudy Rucker

This is the fourth/final installment in the Ware Tetralogy. Overall, I enjoyed the series - though it is a bit bizarre. It is a lot of fun, though it has its serious sides if you pay attention.

Here, in Realware, some characters return from earlier installments and some new ones are introduced. Basically, the alien named Shimmer from Freeware (the third book) returns along with others from her corner of the universe. We meet their god, Om, and learn of/see some adventures in hyperspace. Om gives humans a device called an alla that allows the owner to make just about anything from thin air - this does cause chaos. Then there is a hopeful ending.

This fourth book is not as good as the earlier three, but it does close things out for the series. Some people may not find the closure here all that satisfying - I'm on the fence.

Sorry, this is the best I can do. :)

Mr. Bones by Paul Theroux

Twenty short stories of good variety. Nice lengths for the most part for an average commute on bus or train - maybe need the round trip to get through some of the longer ones. Will keep you entertained and might even provoke deep thinking in some cases.

For the most part, the stories are on the dark, dramatic side, even to the point of disturbing now and then, though some are humorous in some sense. Don't let this scare you away.

My favorite quote from the book is, "forgiveness is final". That's something to ponder.

Enjoy.