The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The story is short, but it’s pretty good. The writing is clever and surprisingly witty, even today. It’s clear that the protagonist is not the famous "headless horseman”, but Icabod Crane; whether we are supposed to like him or despise him is less clear. He is described in terms at times contemptuous, at times in jest, at times making excuses for him. Maybe he is just a product of the times. Most likely the author intended him as a caricature. But in any case, the descriptions are great, and the setup is done slowly and carefully. Bear in mind that the story is pretty much just one short event; everything is in the setup. The only fault is how short it was!

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"The Three-Body Problem" by Liu Cixin

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Three-Body Problem tells the story of an Alien Invasion; but it’s an unusual invasion, told in an unusual way. The book was a big hit in China where it was written, and it has gained lots of critical praise and achieved international success. I can see the appeal of the book right in the first few pages. It has an explosive start, right in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, giving an unprecedented look into modern Chinese history - at least unprecedented for Western readers, where a deep look into Chinese history and culture might feel like a look into an alien empire! It is a horrific setting, full of corruption and threats.

Its appeal might also stem from its first main character: a strong female lead, incorruptible and stoic, surrounded by corrupt men using the revolution for their own political gain, or at least to protect themselves from the witch-hunt that was the revolution.

The book seems to have been written by someone who likes physics, but is not a physicist; and from its tone, it seems aimed at people in the hard sciences. It uses a lot of jargon and scientific details. I am a physicist, and I don’t see how other people can appreciate all the details and nuances (could a lay person understand the importance of chaotic systems?). At the same time, the science has been dumbed down - for accessibility sake, I hope, rather than a failure of the author. Also, it has a grandiose prose that no physicist would use when describing his/her work; it sounds the kind of language a physicist would use when giving an interview to a non-scientific publication, and is trying to get an impressive soundbyte in; but instead of just a few grandiose lines, it’s the entire book. Perhaps this is indicative that the author has learned everything from popular publications, rather than actual study.

Then we get to the revelations of the second and of third part, when the author really seems to have no idea how physics works - both the science and how physicists work. First of all, the book describes a four-body problem, not a three-body problem - it’s hard to tell if the author is aware of that. He then talks about physicists hushing the results from accelerator experiments, as if the work wasn’t completely public (just look at the amount of press and information leaked about the LHC, and the big hoopla every time there is a hint of something weird). Towards the end, there is a lot of talk about extra dimensions, and it’s so out there that it feels more like wizard fantasy than science fiction.

The whole second part is very weird, and reads like one of those Japanese existentialist/fantastical mysteries, with a little bit of sci-fi thrown in. The characters behave in very “arbitrary” ways (that is, serving the purpose of the narrative, but not in a way that normal people would behave), and talk in a very flourished manner, so their behavior and speech is not natural at all (although that could be due to the translation from Chinese to English). Another thing I didn’t like is that the whole book also feels very elitist; it explicitly says several times that only the elites matter.

Despite its faults with the science and characters, the *story* is good. It has an incredible scope, starting in our history, bringing us to the present day and flinging us out into space. It keeps a good pace, and it’s constantly introducing us to new concepts and plot points. It builds slowly, but never slows down. There are several big reveals, but the plot never feels convoluted (only the science). It’s the kind of story in which there is a secret history / secret truth behind everything, and only a few are involved. On the other hand, it goes on the opposite direction of the “Chosen One” trope; the main characters are important to the world because of the work they do, because of the choices they made, and because of their sacrifices. The characters might speak and act in a weird way, but they aren’t flat at all; they have complex desires and driving forces. They get confused, they despair, they make mistakes, and they aren’t all good nor all bad. The conclusion is also just as ambiguous as the characters, and it feels satisfying. All in all, a good read.

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Redshirts, by John Scalzi

Redshirts by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very entertaining book!

It has a very strange story - actually, strange is the wrong word, it’s a *wild* story. It’s wild, crazy, mad! And it’s a lot of fun!

On top of all that, it has a serious philosophical discussion on the nature of reality, perception, and the anthropic principle; in this aspect, it’s like the Matrix movie, in that it manages to add some real philosophical questions to your entertainment.

And just when you think it’s all resolved, when you think that the meta-story has been told, you realize there are still a lot of pages left, and then you go up another level into another meta-meta-story, and who know how deep this thing goes. And *then* things go even further the deep end!

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"Smoke and Mirrors" by Neil Gaiman

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, but I found this to be a strange collection of tales. A lot of the stories are dark and depressing. While his work is mostly dark (he seems to specialize on retelling of myths and legends, with a twist), they are not usually this depressing. Also, they were not as interesting as most of his work. The problem might be that I had already read most of the short stories in this collection elsewhere, and the stuff that was new for me (that is, that didn’t make it to other collections) is exactly the least interesting of his stories.

I liked that H.P. Lovecraft kept popping up in a number of the stories, Gaiman makes good use of the Cthulhu mythos. The best stories for me were “The Price”, “Only the End of the World Again”, and of course “Murder Mysteries”, one of Gaiman’s all time greats; but I had already read these stories elsewhere, so as a whole, the collection was disappointing.

If you haven’t read Murder Mysteries, then by all means pick this book up and give it a try, otherwise, you’re safe skipping it.

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"The Best of H.P. Lovecraft", by H.P. Lovecraft

The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre by H.P. Lovecraft
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Excellent collection of the master of horror! I had read this already back in high school, but I didn’t remember much of it. I decided that since there are so many references to Lovecraft’s work all over the place (books, movies, games, comics, etc…), I should give it a re-read. One of the things I do remember was that it was scary. It’s not easy for a book to be scary - movies can easily make you jump, but without the benefit of graphic scenes and loud noises, a book has to do a lot more work to get you scared - and Lovecraft manages just that.

I was surprised by the variety of stories in this collection. A lot of the stories (and none of the earlier ones) stories have nothing to do with the Cthulhu mythos, and are your typical horror stories - an anecdote with a horror twist at the end. But it’s when he gets to the Cthulhu mythos that he really shows his mastery. Some of the stories start as a mystery or adventure story, salted heavily with allusions to hidden things, great mysteries, and “unspeakable horrors”. Despite the exaggerated foreshadowing, Lovecraft does construct a good story, with interesting plot devices (at one point, doom is predicted not by a person having a vision, but by a *statistical analysis* of dreams and visions over a period!), and cliffhangers. His stories sometime link in subtle ways too - you will recognize things in one story that got mentioned in another that in principle had nothing to do with it (they are not sequels), so you slowly get the feeling of a larger world with a lot going on underneath. Another things that surprised me is that this is very much a sci-fi book - the monsters are usually characterized as aliens, be it from other planets or from other “dimensions”. There is a lot of space travel, travel through the folding of space, and the importance of physics and mathematics to the stories. There are even mentions of Einstein, relativity, quantum physics !

The major downside of the book is how melodramatic his prose is, specially his use of adjectives. Halfway through the book, it starts getting repetitive, as there are only so many ways to preface the word horror: "indescribable horror”, “Cyclopean horror”, "realms of unfathomable horror and inconceivable abnormality”, etc…

There are also an immeasurable number of incongruences to his plots and plot devices. For example, in a few of his stories, there are all-powerful antagonists, ancient beings who have mastered all sorts of dark arts and can destroy all of humanity at a whim, and yet are foiled by dogs (“The Dunwich Horror”, “The Whisperer in Darkness”). Another example is how his characters are always getting horrified by architecture, geometry and language - really, how bad can it be? It makes it difficult to relate sometimes. When someone says how they were paralyzed with fear because of the horrible architecture of the place, it’s not easy to feel sympathetic. A passage says: "My head was aching, and I had a singular feeling that someone else was trying to get possession of my thoughts” You know that feeling that someone is trying to get possession of your thoughts? Yeah, me neither.

In the end, if you do get past all the melodrama, you get treated to a vast mythos, with creatures and legends that pop up all over the place (“ah, so this is where that comes from!”), and that have laid important foundations to the genre of horror and sic-fi.

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"The Gates", by John Connolly

The Gates by John Connolly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Good book, it felt a lot like a Neil Gaiman story, but with a lot more pseudo-science, and a lot less obscure mythology.



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"Burnt Tongues", edited by Chuck Palahniuk

Burnt Tongues by Chuck Palahniuk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is a collection of short stories, edited by Chuck Palahniuk, the author of "Fight Club", or more relevantly, of “Guts” and “Haunted”. He characterizes these stories as “transgressive literature”, stuff that pushes the edge and sometimes go right past it. Basically, it’s stuff that should be taboo, or disgusting, or from the mind of a disturbed individual, definitely something you do not talk about in polite conversation; and it’s eye-opening and wildly entertaining!

If you have read “Guts”, “Haunted”, or some of Palahniuk’s short stories, then you know what this is about (“Fight Club” is tame by comparison). But while I love Palahniuk’s work, this collection is only so-so. The quality of the stories vary a lot. There are a few stories there (like the first one, “Live This Down") that feel like something that Palahniuk would have written himself, from the subject to the style to the dialogue, and most of them have themes that must make Palahniuk proud (like a Special Ed class revolting against a bully, with terrible consequences). But while all stories are “transgressive”, not all are entertaining. They touch on a taboo subject, describe it, then peter out. Most of them end in an anti-climax. They are good, but not great.

Still, there are some gems in there - again, “Live This Down”, and also “Ingredients”, “Dietary", “Heavier Petting” and “Zombie Whorehouse”, among others. They are not for everyone - they are twisted, messed up stuff. If you like crazy and you like it with style, pick this up, it’s a good read.

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The Martian, by Andy Weir

The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The book tells the story of Mark Watney, an astronaut left for dead in Mars. In his words:

“It was a ridiculous sequence of events that led to me almost dying. Then an even more ridiculous sequence that led to me surviving.”

It’s the early years of Mars exploration, humans have just reached it, and are doing some exploratory missions, very similar to the lunar missions. The author skips right over the question of why we went to Mars, and starts with the premise that we went, and are still sending a few more missions. An accident happens during the current mission, and one of the astronauts is left behind, his crew thinking he died. Now he is in Mars, alone, with very little supplies and no communication with Earth, and nobody knows he is alive! Somehow he must find a way to survive. Since it takes place in the near future, the book doesn’t have any apparent futuristic technology - some new materials used for construction, but everything else is pretty much current technology. It makes all the challenges and solutions very believable and relatable. The author goes to great lengths to describe the technical aspects of the problems that the Watney faces, and of the solutions he finds, but in a really interesting way - rather than dull commentary, he uses the descriptions as a way to build tension, or to make the action seem more fast-paced than it is (sounds counter-intuitive, but he really manages to do it). Watney is a really funny guy, and makes not only a great character but a great narrator. The book is quite an exciting and enjoyable adventure. It’s one of my favorite books in years.

(view spoiler)[

These aren’t going to spoil the plot, but are quotes from the book, so they might spoil some punchlines:

I love how many good quotes it has. A couple of examples:
“-it is a dangerous idea; i ran it by the crew, and they not only accepted it, they are pushing for it.
- Of course! Astronauts are inherently insane!”

From the mission log (delay due to communication lag between Earth and Mars)
“11:49 JPL: […] You are clear to start drilling.
12:07 Watney: That’s what she said!
12:25 JPL: Seriously, Mark? Seriously?"

(hide spoiler)]

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Dark Matter Beer!

Finally some proper recognition: Dark Matter beer, in honor of the LUX Experiment!

Project 8 na mídia

O 1o eléctron do Project 8

  Publicamos nosso artigo na Physical Review Letters (PRL), e deu uma boa repercussão na mídia! A PRL escolheu nosso artigo como uma das "manchetes" e fez um artigo especial, e se prestarem atenção, vão ver que a figura de capa é minha ;) :

http://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/36

Este site tem a lista de revistas e jornais em que saiu notícias sobre a nossa experiência:

http://aps.altmetric.com/details/3924136/news

Contexto: Desde que vim para Santa Barbara (UCSB), tenho estar a trabalhar na experiência Project 8, que tem como objetivo medir a massa do neutrino. Para fazer isso, primeiro é preciso medir a energia de eléctrons com alta precisão, e para isso desenvolvemos uma nova técnica que permite medir a energia de eléctrons individuais sem pertubá-los, detectando a energia ciclotron emitida por um único eléctron. A foto acima mostra o nosso primeiro electron - é uma figura da frequência da radiação ciclotron vs tempo.  Publicamos o nosso artigo na Physical Review Letters, e teve uma boa repercussão na mídia científica, aparecendo em várias revistas e jornais. O único problema é que em vários dos sites eles só dão crédito ao MIT, que é só um dos colaboradores fazendo a experiência...

The Last Hero (Discworld 27), by Terry Pratchett

The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another masterpiece by Terry Pratchett! Ok, maybe not “masterpiece”, but a really, really fun book! The Last Hero is a great adventure taking place in the Discworld, with the titular “last hero” (Cohen the Barbarian) climbing Cori Celesti, the “Olympus” of the Discworld, to return that which the first hero stole - fire, and lots of it!

The book is a unique blend of fantasy, sic-fi, and satire. This time Terry Pratchett has some of our favorite heroes, the wizard Rincewind, Captain Carrot, and a surprise stowaway (among others) become astronauts! In order to save the world, they have to race to the top of the Cori Celesti, before Cohen and his Silver Horde reach it, and the fastest way there is going around the world, flying in a in a dragon-powered-spaceship after it has dropped off the edge of the ocean - remember, this is literally a *disc* world, it’s flat and the ocean just falls off the edges!

The book is structures so that the two narratives intertwined, and each has its own separate sets of characters and separate themes. While the narrative of Carrot and Rincewind focus on engineering and science (mixed with magic), and the adventurous spirit of explorers and astronauts, the narrative of Cohen focus on themes of old age, of what it means to be a hero, and pokes fun at staples fantasy novels. I think one of the readings of the story is that although we don’t have heroes like in the ancient mythologies (like Hercules or Beowulf), we have heroes like the watchmen (police) that put their lives on the line for the safety of citizens with no rewards, or explorers (astronauts) that fling themselves into the unknown.

When I picked it up, I was a little surprise with how short it was, but in the end it felt just right. Although the story is fas-paced, it does not feel rushed. It’s full of wit and fun, and with an excellent ending (which turns out to be yet another satire, this time of cliffhangers and ambiguous endings).

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"The War of the Worlds", by H.G. Wells

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The War of the Worlds tells the story of the Martian invasion of Earth, written at the end of the 19th century. It is a classic of sci-fi and literature in general. But it is written before man had ever gone to space, had computers, radio communication, or airplanes, so it’s both amazing that the author H.G. Wells can write about alien invasions, but also very, very dated in both the science and ideologies. As I read it, my opinion kept going back and forth between finding it good or bad: sometimes he gets sic-fi, and shows good imagination; sometimes the book just shows how antiquated and limited the authors ideas were.

One example where the lack of imagination of the writer shows is the means of travel from Mars to Earth: a cannon bullet, which opens with a really tight screw-on lid. Maybe it's clever for the 19th century, but really implausible for today. The author would have been better served by coming up with some fantastical device that he couldn’t explain, but that would be more likely for an advanced civilization. However, we must keep in mind that the author is trying to present an alien invasion before we knew anything about space flight, or even normal flights. Even tanks weren’t commonly used in war at the time, and Wells’ martians use walking war “mecha” (the tripods), before anything remotely similar was used. So he can come up with some pretty good sci-fi.

The aliens themselves are another good step in the right direction: there is nothing human about them, they are no little green men, they are truly alien lifeforms. It’s incongruous to me when sic-fi stories come up with all sorts of aliens lifeforms and technologies, but the intelligent life is still humanoid. *That* is a sad lack of imagination, and Wells manages to avoid it here.

The book has a fantastic opening - it’s really well written, and it’s an exciting set-up for the story. The book is very descriptive; this is very unlike Wells other famous book, The Time Machine, in which lots of pages are filled with the narrator’s musings, opinions, and monologues. In this book, there is a lot more action (not in the sense of adventure or fighting, just in the sense of things happening), it’s just one thing after the other. Having heard about the famous radio broadcast by Orson Welles based of this book, this is something I had expected - I was expecting a good description of the invasion, with lots of facts, and with the reactions of the people. The authors delivers in this point, even if it doesn’t read like a news account of events.

I listened to the audiobook read by Roger Watson, and the reading is superb. His voice is very pleasant, he is easy to understand, and his narration adds the proper nuance and excitement when needed.

In summary, you should read it because it’s a classic, and shows the foundations of the genre, not because it’s great sci-fi. But take heart that it’s actually good and well-written, and explores great themes, like the place humanity might have in a larger universe.

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"Rabbit, Run" by John Updike

Rabbit, Run by John Updike
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ok book. It tells the story of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a middle-class American, married with one kid and another on the way. He is a former star basketball player in High School, who is no longer the star and doesn't know what to do with his life. He starts hating his life, so he leaves his wife, and takes up with a part-time prostitute for a little while. The book is mostly about his conversations with the people around him, and about him fumbling around without knowing what to do. The book is insightful and uncensored, taking a hard look into the concepts of family and marriage. The problem is, it's mostly boring. The first half of the book was extremely boring, and I was tempted to stop listening to it many times. Halfway through, things start becoming a little more interesting, mostly because that's when things get harder, and Updike starts looking at what is going on with the other characters a little. But it's just a little, he doesn't explorer them too deeply nor for too long a time. In the end, it was just ok.

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Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very good book. The characters were interesting, and the back-and-forth narration managed to add a lot of mystery and thrill to a fairly simple plot. However, I didn't like the use of the Prophet as the main antagonist. It was just irritating to have someone like him (a religious fundamentalist) given such an important role. We already have too many of those around in the US before the collapse of civilization, so it's annoying to have to deal with another one. The one small consolation is that a few comments by the main characters make it seem that these zealots are very common, and they are basically just a pest, not really that important, so that made Prophet-plot less annoying.

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The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke

The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke by Arthur C. Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An amazing collection of short stories. It's so vast that it's impossible to actually review it here, as it contains way too much to do it justice in just a few lines. I love that his histories are so positive about science. Most sci-fi is negative about science - we played at being gods, disaster ensues, etc... But his stories are generally about the great things we can achieve, about the wonders that we might discover, and about a brighter and better future. But towards the end, he also has some criticism of man's destructiveness, and a few disaster that might still happen if we don't improve.

One set of stories that I was particularly delighted with was the material from Tales from the White Hart, which were really funny. These stories were supposedly told by a Harry Purvis, who seemed to be an old scientist of some kind, who claimed to be privy to all sorts of peculiar and outrageous stories involving mad scientists and nutty professors. I particularly liked this character because it reminded me of another physicist named Harry who is always telling stories...

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"The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s incredible how *not* dated it is. I was surprised to hear a discussion of time-space equivalency, how time is just another dimension in physics, 10 years before Einstein’s theory of relativity! (it was my belief that “spacetime” was popularized only after Einstein’s physics revolution, but now I know better). I was equally surprised by his use of evolution in all of its nuances as such a fundamental part of the plot.

Of course, he doesn’t get it right: evolution works way too fast on his story, and a few things aren’t quite right regarding how stars work, among other things. But the biggest problem are his ideas of how society and people work. A lot of the story revolves around the premise that the higher classes are better, in general, than the working poor - not just better in terms of how well they are doing, or how schooled, prepared, etc… Actually better, in some innate sense, such that the poor could never rise above their stations because they lack something. That the poor do the hard work because they are better suited for it, they even like it, they are happy to do the hard labor. Wells devotes a lot of pages to describing his ideas of society, and speculations on how it will evolve in the future. Maybe it’s part of an elitism inherent to 19th century England, but it was irksome. At the end, though, the dynamics between the Eloi and the Morlocks might be pointing that exploitation of the workers will lead to disaster, and some social justice is served.

Despite the long, sometimes repetitive and boring monologues, it was not a bad read.


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The Quantum Thief - Terrible physics, great sci-fi

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Terrible physics, great sci-fi.

Initially, my inclination was to hate the book. My main problem is the self-importance that seems to exude from the book and the protagonist: the protagonist is “the one”, the cleverest, most intelligent, most charming, most handsome, bravest, etc…, rogue in the universe. It’s annoying because it’s a mix of the usual tropes of the Gentleman Thief and the Lovable Rogue, a bit like Robin Hood. The best parallel is almost every thief in RPG games and books, but this time in a pseudo-sci-fi setting. I call it pseudo sic-fi because it feels more like a fantasy setting, with warriors and wizards, using some physics-sounding names so that it’s not obvious that all this stuff is pure magic. This gets pretty annoying, because a lot of the stuff sounds like it should made sense, but it really doesn’t. For example, the author throws around the word “quantum” without any care for what it means, like when he mentions that there is a "quantum link” between two characters; it seems that you can safely replace “psychic” for “quantum” anywhere in book! And the use of the latest jargon does very little to mask what are obvious crappy sci-fi staples, like “nano-missiles” (“photon-thorpedoes”?), WIMP beacons, neutrino scanners, etc...

If you stop thinking of this less as sic-fi and more as fantasy, it gets less annoying; magic is magic, it doesn’t have to make sense. Once you get through that, you can see how great the book is. The story itself is not necessarily great - I am not sure I cared much for the plot, and certainly didn’t care for the main protagonist, the Thief (although I liked a lot the secondary protagonist, the Detective). However, the book presents an incredibly rich world, with new concepts that deconstruct and break all traditional sense of society and self.

Although terrible on physics, the book excels when it comes to things taking place in the realm of the mind: communication, augmentation, consciousness, resurrection, and tons of other features that go completely unexplained. There is a meshing of the physical and virtual world, like the Magic Leap augmented reality concept, but it seems to include not only vision and the other physical senses, but also memory and consciousness. It seems that it’s on all the time, and people can use virtual screens to hide or to keep private - and other people are obliged to comply with these virtual screens. People brains have been digitized, and their bodies (and brains) seem to be artificial. It all makes very little sense, but that’s ok; here the author is pushing the envelope, developing new ideas, and I think we can forgive him if he doesn’t know how something would work; the point is not the how, but what happens next, how things could be. Here he is creating something new and just beyond our understanding, offering us glimpses not only of the future, but of a fantastic new reality where things work very different from ours (like cavemen would see the our world). It is a truly revolutionary and evolutionary look into humanity’s possible future, and the highest caliber sci-fi.

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Thief of Time

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thief of Time tells the story of the construction of the world's most accurate clock, and how that will bring about the end of the world! Like the previous Discworld books, this is a fantasy novel in a medieval-like and magical setting, but this time it mixes in some science fiction to the story. It liberally uses concepts from relativity and quantum physics, and although it's only very superficial (and "stretched" to fit the Discworld style), it still makes good sci-fi. In fact, and very surprisingly, it's one of the best "sci-fi" books I have read recently!

Also, it's a very entertaining book. On my last review of a Discworld novel (I am going through the whole series), I complained about Terry Pratchett losing his initial spark, getting a little repetitive, and how that was understandable, after more than 20 books... Well, turns out he still has that spark, and can still write brilliant stories in the Discworld!


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Good reads

I haven't posted here forever, so now I am resurrect this blog with a new purpose.  Previously, I used it to document my travels, but that ended up being too much work.  To keep it alive until I start having new comment, I will post my book reviews from Goodreads.  Not great stuff, but it's the only non-physics stuff I have been writing lately, so here it goes.