Book: "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" by Richard Feynman (5/5 stars)

This is a brilliant book, full of cool science and cool stories, some exceptionally funny.

Feynman looks at not only science and what science is, but at religion and the supernatural. He also looks at "cargo cult science" and how it goes through the motions of science but isn't science at all.

I was thoroughly entertained by each and every story, and recommend it to anyone who is curious at all about the natural world.

I recently read "Six Easy Pieces", another of Feynman's books, but it didn't capture Feynman's voice the way this one ones. I reviewed that book here.

If you are interested in this book, I highly recommend Feynman's 1979 lectures at Auckland University. They are well worth watching if you are even remotely interested. They are apparently one of the few freely available videos of his lectures.

Hi statement that "science is irrelevant" in the modern world held me for an entire chapter while he waited to explain it. It is too sad, but is true anyway. Today's modern world isn't a scientific one at all. It would be better if it was.

Feynman's attitude towards the world, one of accepting the unknown and having doubt about everything is one that deeply affects me and I strongly agree with. The NEED to know everything is just silly and we should be accepting of the unknown. Too many people feel the need to fill in the unknown with silly things that aren't necessary - that's where astrology comes from and who need that?

Book: Wild Seed by Octavia Butler (3/5 stars)

I heard about this book from Orson Scott Card's book "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy". It is being held up as a shining example of good writing. I read it in the middle of Nanowrimo month in November.

I have to agree with Card, the writing is very well done. There is a lot implied in each sentence and you can infer much about each character by their actions. I don't know if Butler does this on purpose, or has gradually internalized the process, but the more I look at it, the more impressive it is. She is a real master of point of view and implying important points without actually saying it directly.

We see an immortal man, Doro, who has been around for more than three thousand years who wanders the planet breeding a new race. Through this book, we get to see many of the results of the breeding program. We see ordinary, we see extraordinary, we see strange and even stranger.

Doro, our immortal, finds another immortal, a woman. They have several disagreements over the morals of the breeding program and how Doro treats his seed. This tension builds over the century and a half of the story. I found the characters well developed and deep.

That being said, if you were to graph the excitement versus time on this book, it would remain mostly flat. It is a subtle book in more than language, and I found it interesting, but mostly dull.

I'm still glad I read it, since it taught me that great books are more than just nice language and even an excellent premise. There is something more that I have yet to identify.