"I don't want to talk about it" by Terrence Real

I read this book on a recommendation, and I found it very valuable, but not in the self-help paradigm which the title would suggest. The author is a Harvard-trained psychotherapist specializing in family therapy, and both his vast knowledge, clinical experience and a very bitter personal experience growing up as a boy and having to learn first-hand that 'boys don't cry' and 'a real man shows no pain' despite the circumstances. The main value of this book is in the fact that for the first time clearly and succinctly states that men are just as depressed and just as vulnerable and just as oppressed by the society growing up, as women are. Enough of the bullshit about 'the stronger sex', about men being somehow more able to control their feelings and less prone to being emotional, depressed or irrational. That is all baloney! Real cites studies that show during the first two years of development of babies, that is before they start understanding they are of one sex or another, male babies are actually more emotional, more sensitive and more vulnerable than female babies. It is only through the oppression of the societal stereotypes, often in the hands of well-meaning, but hopelessly ignorant, parents and relatives that the societal stereotypes for men and women are forced upon the children. The children are literally chiseled, with all the blood, gore and pain to accompany it, to fit into the societal stereotypes, and being forced to castrate entire segments of their personalities and sensitivities and their full self-expression, just because 'the society' has its own ideas of how exactly men should look like and act like.

This book is a great addition to the fledgling Men's movement, and goes a long way to show grizzled feminists that the man's side of the story is no fairy tale, and is just as full of pain, denial and oppression, albeit in a different manner, than the woman's side. Real goes on to show how socially 'adapted' men, who look great from a distance, and seem to have everything under control and going great for them, are actually internal wrecks, who medicate themselves with intoxicants, relationships, workaholism and abuse. The book shows how covert depression in men is much more dangerous than overt depression in men and women, as covertly depressed men numbed their senses to such an extent that they are not even aware that they are depressed, and would never admit to it in a million years.

The only critique of the book would be that, although it provides plenty of case studies and personal experiences of the author, it leaves little material to men/readers to work with. I guess it was never imagined to be a self-help book in the strictest sense of the word, but more of a 'realization' book, intended to make the male reader realize his problems, and then seek professional help. Recommended to all men, and the women who love them, out there.

"Foundation" by Isaac Asimov

So, I finally got around to reading this seminal work (actually a trilogy) in science fiction, and literature in general. The vision of Asimov is breath-taking! Thousands of years, hundreds of parsecs, millions of light years, galactic empire (all human), psychohystory... what else could one ask for? The book has very interesting plot twists and surprises, but the vision itself is what is astounding. It consists of five shorts stories, all of which excepts the first have been published before. With the first story 'Psychohistorians' Asimov establishes the universe and the underlying theme of the entire series, and then adapts his previously published stories (already in a similar universe) to fit the Foundation timeline.

The idea of Psychohistory, that the future of large masses of population could be predicted with mathematical precision, is definitely original and thought-provoking. Hari Seldon, the founder of psychohistory figures as a living person only in part of the first story, his other appearances being in the form of hologram with messages left for the Foundation people after they've gone through one of the many 'Seldon Crises' he predicted. Using his own psychohistorical mathematchial methods, Seldon predicted with 98% probability that the Galactic Empire, in existence for 12,000 years, will come to an end in the next 500 years. With the same methods, Seldon discovered that 30,000 years of barbarism will ensue before another empire arises. To shorten this period down to 'only' 1,000 years of barbarism, Seldon organizes 'The Foundation', an organization that will catalog all available knowledge and publish it in the form of Encyclopedia Galactica, thus shortening the period of barbarism.

Unbeknown to all, Seldon did not care much about the encyclopedia, but wanted the 'Encyclopedists', the scientists and learned men that are going to write the encyclopedia, and their planet 'Terminus', to become the nucleus of the new galactic empire and thus shorten the interregnum of barbarism. This was to be presented to all on the 50th anniversary of the Foundation, when the first edition was supposed to be published, and also the time of the first 'Seldon Crisis' where the scientists and their families and support staff populating Terminus are faced with their first major independent decision and all-threatening situation.

The other stories in the book describe several more 'Seldon Crisis' or turning points where the very existence of the Foundation and the future of human civilization with that is in danger and also parallels major developments in the past of the human civilization, especially the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, which was inspiration for Asimov in writing this book. The first crisis emphasizes the importance of managing your enemies instead of trying to defeat them directly. The second crisis shows that it is always much easier to control people and entities through religion and spiritual means, than through direct force and confrontation. The third crisis shows that at a certain level of civilization development religious control becomes undesirable as most civilizations start to see through it and its real purposes. At this time control through trade, supply and demand, and simply - money, is to be introduced.

Different characters realize the different Seldon Crisis and they are always universally opposed by the old regime and the old timers who want to keep the status quo, however the changes cannot be stopped and are always implemented according to Seldon's original plan and psychohistorical predictions, ultimately for the greater good of a species, even if to the detriments of certain (powerful) individuals. Amazing book, and very captivating, even without ANY trace of sex, love or amorous interest and with great emphasis on non-violent resolution of conflicts (Seldon's favorite quote is "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent").

"Conan the Invincible" by Robert Jordan

I wanted to read the original Conan books, the source of all the comics, graphic novels, games and movies I have thoroughly enjoyed as a teen and adult. Somehow I stumbled on the Conan books by Robert Jordan and decided to start my reading with them, wrongly assuming that he is the original Conan author. Only later I will learn that Robert E. Howard was the inventor of Conan, back in the 1930s, and he only wrote a set of short stories, never completing a real novel, before he killed himself. Then the Conan intellectual property was lent to many authors, who all tried to write Conan stories in Howard's style, never really succeeding completely. Jordan is probably the closest to Howard's style and vision of Conan the Cimmerian. Jordan wrote his Conan books in the early to mid '80s, before he started his magnum opus, The Wheel of Time series, which brought him worldwide fame.

Conan the Invincible is Jordan's first Conan book, also having as a side-main character the beautiful, violent, and scantily-clad (often naked) Karrella, the Red Hawk, brigand and leader of a gang of thieves, who appears in many other Jordan's stories. The book is very easy reading, entertaining, Conan-like, with the usual dose of evil wizards, demon-gods, snake-men, drinking, sex, debauchery, treasures and adventures. It is about the evil wizard Amanar, who learned a lot from the Wizard Circle, but chose to dabble in dark magic that even the other wizards (all wizards/sorcerers are evil in Conan Universe) were afraid to touch. Somehow his soul trapped in a jewel (for protection) was given to a king and he sends his snake-men, the Sitha, to retrieve it. Unbeknown to him, the Wizard Circle is angry that Amanar ran away with most of their knowledge, and have sent one of their own wizards to find Amanar's soul and destroy it, and to this effect this wizard hires Conan, the best known thief, far and wide, to do the actual work.

Things don't go as planned, and Conan goes on a trek around the desert, meeting Karella on the way and her gang, and ends up in Amanar's magical fortress in the middle of the desert where Amanar is toying with them for a while, but makes a big mistake underestimating Conan, which leads to his doom. Conan is not yet 19 in this book, so it takes place at a much younger age than Howard's stories, or the novels of other Conan authors where Conan is usually in his 30s, 40s, even 50s. An entertaining, though not overly engrossing reading (don't expect Harry Potter or DaVinci's Code experience), but great to see a good perspective on Conan lore from yet another talented author.

"Neuromancer" by William Gibson

This is my second reading of this novel, this time as an audio book, the first being a .txt file printout when I was an undergrad. This is the seminal novel starting the 'cyberpunk' genre (which was already taking form at the time Gibson published it) and creating an entire subsection in literature. Let's be honest though, the book is hard to read. If you go on amazon, you will find dozens, if not hundreds, of negative comments complaining about jargon, density, unclear plot, unlovable characters, etc. etc. Newsflash: that's EXACTLY what the book was supposed to be. Some people even complain that the book is full of cliches. If they used their brains for anything else but mindless entertainment they would realize that this was the first book in the Cyberpunk genre (in 1984) and all of the things that are considered cliches today because they were repeated so many times over the past few decades were INVENTED by Gibson in this book. Saying this book is full of cliches is like saying 'The Lord of the Rings' is full of cliches.

This book invented terms and concepts we take for granted today, like cyberspace, jack-in, visual representation of computer networks and data, corporations ruling a technically advanced but morally and socially deteriorated world, also cloning, cryogenics, orbital resorts, black leather and chrome wardrobe were brought into the mainstream of science fiction after 'Neuromancer' became famous. The only problem is that we still today do not have enough special effects technology to make a movie out of it, though one attempt is scheduled for 2011, but may be shelved like many before it.

It is a very dense book. It is small, about 250 pages, while describing a whole new world, thus, by necessity, it is very dense. It is full of jargon which is not explained anywhere because Gibson invented it. The reader needs to be very careful, note all the references and new words and keep them in his mind at all time, as there are contextual clues later on where they become more clear. This is one of the beauties of this book, not for the feeble of mind and intelligence or imagination. There are no positive characters in the book. Everyone is an anti-hero, even the artificial intelligence Wintermute, which kills mercilessly and indiscriminately, including an 8 year-old boy in order to achieve its goal. There is very little to no moral fiber left in the world of the 'Neuromancer'; prostitution is almost a regular job (for both men and women), everyone is on some kind of narcotics, the world is polluted and dangerous and the rich are richer and more evil than ever.

The story follows the resurrection of a hacker, or 'cowboy', Case, who is saved from his last leg of life in Chiba City, coastal Tokyo suburb, and crime-capital of Gibson's Japan, by a brainwashed ex-special corps colonel Armitage, helped by a street-samurai, surgically-enhanced assassin Molly, with retractable razor-blades under her nails. Add to this a psychopathic performance artist who can materialize his thoughts holographically, a Rastafarian orbital space station, where the smell of ganja and the rhythm of Dub are the only constants, an illegal Artificial Intelligence with split personality disorder, cloned ninja assassins, and finally an alien artificial intelligence from the Alpha Centauri system which is only hinted at, and you get a milestone in science fiction and literature, a work which sole purpose is not entertainment, but expansion of the limits of the mind, something that all entertainment was supposed to do before the invention of reality television.

I am looking to read the second and third novel of Gibson's "The Sprawl Trilogy", the Sprawl being an unified metro area from Boston to Atlanta, which although do not mention Case again, and have a minor role for Molly, still happen in the wonderful, intricate and disturbing universe Gibson has created. A final note: although the book is a gem of literature, that cannot be said for the science part. Since the beginning of science fiction there have been two kinds of sci-fi writers: scientists and all the others. Scientists sci-fi writers, like Asimov and Clarke, take meticulous care to base their fiction on actual scientific theories, research, probabilities and possible directions. Their novels are based on hard science, their speculations could actually be true and possible one day, like the geocentric orbit for satellites which was first proposed ('invented') by Clarke. The other kind of sci-fi writers, to which Gibson belongs, do not care much about the scientific justification behind their work or speculations, but only use scientific concepts and facts as a jumping board into developing fantastic stories, characters and plots, which have little to no base in present or future reality or scientific research. Although many concepts and words from Gibson's novels became commonplace today (cyberspace, jack-in, etc.), most of his proposed concepts are unfeasible and unworkable, beginning from self-conscious Artificial Intelligence or machine in general, which is a favorite plot of non-scientist sci-fi authors, but has no basis in any scientific fact or theory. To put it simply, Artificial Intelligence is a branch of computer science concerned with studying function derivatives, and the probability of any kind of program, machine or construct achieving self-consciousness through this technology is equal to a big, round ZERO.

"Snow" by Orhan Pamuk

It took me a long time to finish this book. One because I was studying for GMAT while I was reading it, and the GMAT practices took priority, but also because the book is quite slow itself, probably on purpose, like the slow falling of the snow in a quiet mountain meadow. The title of the book in Turkish is 'Kar', the city in which most of it happens is Kars, and the main protagonist nickname is Ka. Take note of that if you are interested in symbolism, as there is plenty of it throughout the book, not the least being mapping emotions and poems to the axis of a snowflake.

Pamuk has been accused of being overly intellectual, intentionally obscure, too philosophical, combining too many things into one novel, not paying attention to character or plot development; and while many of these things might prove themselves true in certain specific cases, "Snow" is a marvelously written book and righteously brought the author the Nobel Prize for literature in 2006. The book is about a poet returning from political exile in Germany, becoming a journalist for an Istanbul newspaper which sends him in the most remote northeast corner of turkey, the city of Kars, on the borders with Georgia, Armenia and Iran, it's glory days long gone and buried in the last century when it was one of the southernmost points of the Soviet (and before that the Russian) Empire.

The city boasts many architectural remains of a better past, but they, alike the current denizens, are out of maintenance, made into something else, hastily put together in a hope for semblance of something better, but failing miserably. Snow starts falling the day Ka arrives in Kars, and the entire books happens in the 3 days of a thick snowstorm when all the roads to Kars are blocked and the outside world is locked out. Pamuk has deep love of Turkey and the Turks, regardless of their origin, beliefs, status or social standing. We see marching through the book's pages people from the military with strict secularist views, Islamic fundamentalist which do not shy from murder in order to further their goals and the Glory of God, former Communists and present Socialists who are not really sure what political beliefs they hold currently, small-time merchants, business owners, Kurdish separatists, secret police spies, religious high school students and plenty of unemployed, bored, future-less, hopeless people who form the amorphous bulk of the citizenry of Kars.

Ka also has a romantic interest in Kars, his old love Ipek, who is more beautiful than ever. Her former socialist father, her Islamic fundamentalist sister, the enigmatic and charismatic Islamic terrorist Blue, his little cohort of followers and admiring women, the mayoral candidate of the Islamic party, the failed Ataturk actor and his fat wife, who turn to political and military coup to end his not-so-glorious acting career, make the cast of the novel motley and drawn from every corner of Turkish life. The novel is written from the point of the author, Pamuk, who finds the diaries of Ka and re-traces his story, both going to Kars and to Frankfurt, putting the pieces together as he discovers them, leading up to the murder of Ka in Frankfurt, and unsuccessfully trying to find Ka's notebook with the 19 poems he wrote while in Kars, the first writing he has done in many years, and his last before his death.

The book might not be the easiest read, and definitely not an easy-reading novel with Turkish setting, but for those willing to spend the time, it rewards the reader with deep insight into the complicated situation of being a Turk in Turkey, on the crossroads between east and west, the only secular Muslim country but with a strong religious Islamic movement, the remnants of an empire, still containing many peoples and elements from all the corners once that empire stretched to, trying to look to the west, but not willing or unable to leave behind its eastern past, unsure as of where it stands, but still chugging along the best it can. 'Snow' will be a rewarding adventure for any open-minded reader willing to give it a chance.

"The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson

A post-cyberpunk book, meaning it has cyberpunk setting and elements, but those are not the primary focus of the book which can also be classified as 'SteamPunk' as much of the content deals with Neo-Victorian mores and morals. Very interesting vision of the future of nanotechnology and what would it cause if left unchecked and unregulated and completely within the domain of the corporations. Quite a bit of social critique thrown in, from classes in the society and different cultural norms and prerogatives, to the dissolution of nation-states and subsequent formation and grouping of individuals by beliefs, rather than genes.

The book follows the early life of a 'thete' a non-affiliated low-class girl who gets into a possession of a nanotech book, which is actually and educational and virtual reality supercomputer, made to instill values and train the owner to be independent thinker, empowered to tackle pretty much anything life throws at her, which is in stark contrast to the amorphous mass of pleasure-seeking, self-indulging, brain-atrophied mass of commoners and fiercely indoctrinated various 'phyle' members.

Extensive descriptions and explanations, of technology as well as of the social evolution/devolution and norms, take large runs of the book, and make it less dynamic and accessible than it should be, but add to the depth and breadth of the narrative. This is definitely not 'entertainment' sci-fi book, but closer to the intent and structure of books like 1984, although definitely not in the same class.

The story starts slow and the plot only fully develops by the middle of the book (around page 250), and new elements are added all the way to the end, while the conclusion of the book takes only the last 10-20 pages in which many storylines are left unfinished and the fate of many characters left hanging in limbo, unresolved, but this is part of the attractiveness of this book. While violent during the entire length, this violence reaches climax in the last 50 pages of the books with descriptions of rapes, mass murders, corporal dismemberment, etc.

The title of the book is a story in itself, having had the stone, bronze, iron, and the current, steel age, the author presupposes that the next age will be the diamond one, called by the predominant material used in society, as in the nanotechnological era, nanomachines and 'matter compilers' will be able to construct virtually any material directly from molecules and atoms, so producing large quantities of diamond walls, windows, pillars and other structures would be very cheap and commonplace.

The book presents an interesting and disturbing vision of the future of humanity as brought by new and uncontrollable technology, and is definitely a good read for people who also like to think while reading a book.

"Annals of the Heechee" by Frederik Pohl

This is the fourth (and final?) installation of the Heechee saga, and by far the most mind-numbingly boring! I have no idea how and why I finished this book. I guess I wanted to learn more about the Heechee and 'The Foe' or 'The Assassins' but on a second thought I should have stopped at book 2.

90% of the book happens in the virtual reality of the memory banks of the 'gigabit space' and most of the protagonists are 'stored personalities' - digital equivalents of memories and consciousness of dead people, and their silly life which looks (and feels, apparently) as the outside world, with parties, drinks, sex, etc. etc. Ridiculous!

Much of the rest of the book is spent in conversations between the stored Robinnette Broadhead and his data retrieval system, Albert Einstein, who teaches him junior-college level science, and various other 'stored' personalities. The Heechees now live among the people and the Heechee kids go to school with human kids and even fall in love. There are a couple of old terrorists, one of them child molester who has his paws on a fragile Japanese 10 year old girl, and they get appropriately killed with knives in their throats/hearts.

At the end, the Heechee/Human alliance attacks the foe, but get a slap on the wrist instead and the big revelation that we all will one day become energy-based non-corporal consciousness like 'The Foe'.

That's it. That was the entire 400+ pages book. What a horrendous waste of time!