VIEWS FROM WEST PID

MUTT-O-METER:

🐾🐾🐾🐾: as good as it gets on the subject.  Drop everything, , sniff out, scramble to catch up and ‘read’!

🐾🐾🐾: well-written, entertaining, or informative.  Worth putting on your reading list.

🐾🐾: Average read, will pass the time but does not exceed expectations – even modest ones. Ultimately forgettable.

🐾: Seriously! There are many far better books out there on this subject. Don’t bother unless it’s a given as a present.

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Over these last few days I have revisited a fav book of mine from 20 years ago, recently revised and republished this year: Atom by Lawrence M Krauss.

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• Publisher : Little, Brown and Company; 1st Edition (11 April 2001)
• ASIN : B000FA5SO8
• Page Numbers Source ISBN : 0316499463

Taking us on a millennia-spanning journey through the life of a single oxygen atom, physicist and author Lawrence M. Krauss traces the history of the cosmos from the Big Bang to the present—and on into the distant future. With wit and insight, Krauss explicates cutting-edge science and reveals the surprising story of matter: what it is, where it came from, and where it’s going. (courtesy amazon.com)

My take: As biographies go, this has got to be one of the most bizarre, longest, and most intriguing of them all.  At the tender age of 60yrs I often complain that I feel as old as the hills.  Oh boy, is that an understatement.  The atoms which constitute my [mine, yours, everyone’s’] body mass are almost as old as the prial matter of the big bang itself – that’s 13.8 billion years folks!  This wonderful little book takes the example of an oxygen atom and tells its story from the beginnings of time – transiting through our own bodies for that briefest flicker of our own lifetime – before continuing on its own way and finally dissolving in the cold, totally empty and dark heat death at the end of the universe, some odd trillion trillion trillion years laters.  Gulp! Wonderful stuff and surprisingly reassuring that we all all part of the same great universal energy construct called Nature.

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In the same week I had the great good fortune to read a big that’s been on my hit list for more than 2 years – oh dogs, why did I wait so long?!  Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill

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• ISBN-10 : 1473212790
• ISBN-13 : 978-1473212794
• Publisher : Gollancz (26 April 2018)

Humankind is extinct. Wiped out in a global uprising by the very machines made to serve them. Now the world is controlled by OWIs – vast mainframes that have assimilated the minds of millions of robots. But not all robots are willing to cede their individuality, and Brittle is one of the holdouts. (courtesy amazon.com)

‘SEA OF RUST is a 40-megaton cruise missile of a novel – it’ll blow you away and lay waste to your heart . . . visceral, relentless, breathtaking‘  Joe Hill, Sunday Times bestselling author

My take: Sci-Fi is my default relax read setting.  Sometimes, however, a book comes along that jolts me right out of my grandpa slippers and causes me to clutch my phaser-shaped Kindle with sweaty paws.  Sea of Rust is one such book.  A brutal, knuckle-crunching, character-driven adventure told with bone dry humor, state of the art AI research, and bang on utter fun.  I know it’s a cliché but if you insist on reading one Sci-Fi book this decade then READ THIS!

Star Wars it ain’t.  Terminator spliced into Hills Have Eyes it is!

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Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to check out the latest MUTTOBER drawing!