Category: Uncategorized

by James Wallace Harris, Friday, March 24, 2017

I thought I’d link to recent essays I’ve been writing for Book Riot and Worlds Without End – two sites I like to plug.

Book Riot:

• Shouldn’t Science Fiction Be Scaring Us?
• Researched Rereading
• Coloring With Audiobooks
• The Revelation of Authors’ Faces
• Do You Have Grit With Growth Mindset?
• Are Bookworms Killing the Bookstore?
• Hollywood Fails History: Hidden Figures
• Can Reading Make A Difference?

Worlds Without End:

• A Distance Too Far
• When Did You Discover Time Travel?

I guess I’m neglecting my duties at WWEnd. I’ve started several essays for them that I haven’t finished. In recent months I’m starting a lot more essays for all my writing outlets than I finish. I worry that it might be age related. That I’m not focusing on work as well as before.

I worry that unfinished essays are a sign I’m getting older because I’m not focusing as well as before. But I’m also pursuing more hobbies and I’m enjoying more social activities so it might be I’m just having too much fun. Then again, isn’t focusing on creative pursuits all about ignoring time-wasting fun?

I usually get at least one idea every morning in the shower, and often I get two or three. Completing them is a matter of making myself stick to the task. That means sitting at the computer, writing and rewriting, until the essay is finished. I’m afraid I’ve been more indulgent at playing lately. I am retired. I tell myself it’s okay to do anything I want. Yet, I have a sense of guilt about doing things that don’t produce results. If I go a day without writing it feels like I wasted that day. On the other hand, I might have filled that day with many other wonderful pursuits that are rewarding in other ways.

Just before midnight, I go to sleep wishing I had more time in that day. I can’t comprehend how I ever scheduled a full-time at a job into my life.

JWH

 

 

by James Wallace Harris, Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Does technology improve education? Are people in the 21^st century better educated than those from the 19^th century? If we use current politics as a metric I’d have to say no. We have a president who constantly makes absurd claims and is backed by a majority in congress. Those wealthy, “well-educated” leaders are currently claiming that the loss of healthcare is a gain in freedom. Evidently, they’re depending on Americans being poorly educated to get their treasured tax breaks. The Republicans have made a political movement out of anti-education in era when technology brings us tremendous amounts of information. Obviously, all that availability of knowledge hasn’t helped the average citizen see the con.

Technology has apparently improved all walks of life except education. If schools reflected the productivity we see in agriculture, medicine, manufacturing, and communication, we’d all be Einsteins. Why hasn’t that happened? When I sat down to write this piece I assumed technology was an overwhelmingly obvious benefit to education – but the little devil on my left shoulder started muttering snarky observations. She might be right.

The world wide web has made living on Earth feel much smaller. We can Skype folks from any country in the world, so why aren’t foreign languages skills booming? Anyone can study free lectures from ivy league universities on science and mathematics, yet STEM scores aren’t improving.

We have access to more news, information, knowledge, data, experiments, statistics, scientific studies than ever before in history, yet America elected a human whose grasp of reality is so slight that his observations are the daily butt of comedians. We have more data but not more wisdom. We’re unable process the daily tsunami of information that our tech tools gives us.

This leads me to theorize that being well educated comes from inner motivation and not external tools.

JWH

by James Wallace Harris, Monday, March 6, 2017

Saturday, Susan and I visited the Dixon Gallery & Gardens. I’m teaching myself photography, and so the flowers were an easy target. Any photography advice or tips would be appreciated.

JWH

By James Wallace Harris, Tuesday, September 27, 2016

I’ve always loved dust jacket art on science fiction hardbacks. I also love cover art on science fiction paperbacks, and cover art on science fiction magazines. But what the hell is happening with covers for ebooks? I can understand when self-published authors create their own covers and they look awful. But why are we seeing covers like this:

These new ebook editions have no copyright page or publisher listed inside. At Amazon, under publisher, they give: Robert A. Heinlein. As cheapo ebook covers these aren’t terrible – but they aren’t appealing either. I guess they decided that no art is better than bad art, and I’m thankful for that.

I assume publishers spent money on cover art when the covers often sold books. And I guess, since ebooks aren’t displayed in bookstores, publishers feel little need to sell books by their covers anymore.

If you look at the cover art from 2016 – here’s a selection at the old SF Signal site, and look at a selection of cover art from the 1960s and 1970s at Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations, you’ll notice, at least in my mind, that cover art is less creative.

For fun, I thought I’d give a brief history of these two covers. Tunnel in the Sky has never had any great covers, but some of them were not bad. The Door into Summer has one great SF cover, and a couple interesting ones. Clicking on the covers should bring up larger images.

First off, their original hardback covers from the 1950s:

Now their early paperback covers:

A couple foreign editions:

Later 20^th century paperback editions:

Some 21^st century versions:

And for some extra fun, here’s what The Door Into Summer looked like when it appeared  in F&SF.

These aren’t masterpieces of cover art, but they are a lot more appealing than the current covers. Can you understand why I feel cheated?

I still miss the cover art from 12” LP covers. The art on CD cases were never the same. Is migrating to digital media destroying the wonderful world of cover illustrations?

JWH

By James Wallace Harris, December 31, 2015

Novel of the Year

For most of my life, my all-time favorite novel has been Have Space Suit-Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein. It’s now The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. I guess I’m finally moving past my childhood. The Heinlein novel, which I first read in 1964, gave me a future to think about, but for the past several years, I’ve been looking backwards, especially into the 19th century, and The Signature of All Things captures, at least for the moment, where I’m at philosophically.

Runners Up (no order):

• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• The Broken Bubble by Philip K. Dick
• The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

This was a very good year for fiction. I read many more great novels, but these are the ones that shook me up. If you look at the full list of books below that I read in 2015, you’ll see some astounding novels I’m leaving off. This was an excellent year for new science fiction (Aurora, Seveneves, The Water Knife), but I can’t bring myself to consider them in the runner up category.

Nonfiction Book of the Year

This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein is powerful statement about our future. Klein makes a great case that capitalism is at fault for our environmental problems. This is one of those books that everyone should read but won’t.

Runners Up (no order):

• The Meaning of Human Existence by Edward O. Wilson
• The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
• Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
• Spinster by Kate Bolick

It was also a great year for nonfiction. One of my reading goals last year was to read more nonfiction. I didn’t work as planned, but I do think I’m reading a bit more nonfiction.

Reading Log for 2015

Author	Title	Finished	Format	Year
Timothy A. Pychyl	Solving the Procrastination Puzzle	2015-01-03	Audio	2013
Roger Zelazny	This Immortal	2015-01-06	Hardback	1966
Albert Camus	The Stranger	2015-01-06	Audio	1942
Ray Bradbury	The Martian Chronicles	2015-01-09	Audio	1950
Kevin Birmingham	The Most Dangerous Book	2015-01-17	Audio	2014
Edmond Hamilton	City at World’s End	2015-01-19	Audio – Yahoo	1951
Edward O. Wilson	The Meaning of Human Existence	2015-01-23	Library hardback	2014
Robert A. Heinlein	The Man Who Sold The Moon	2015-01-26	Audio	1951
Elizabeth Gilbert	The Signature of All Things	2015-02-03	Audio	2013
Evan Osnos	The Age of Ambition	2015-02-10	Audio	2014
Hector Tobar	Deep Down Dark	2015-02-13	Audio	2014
Elizabeth Kolbert	The Sixth Extinction	2015-02-18	Audio	2014
Brian Aldiss	Non-Stop	2015-02-21	Hardback	1958
Nick Bostrom	Superintelligence	2015-02-28	Audio	2014
Naomi Klein	This Changes Everything	2015-02-28	Kindle ebook	2014
Yuval Noah Harari	Sapiens	2015-03-12	Audio	2015
Jack McDevitt	Moonfall	2015-03-13	Library hardback	1998
Roxane Gay	Bad Feminist	2015-03-15	Audio	2014
Olaf Stapledon	Last and First Men	2015-03-22	Audio	1930
Lynn Kear and John Rossman	Kay Francis: A Passionate Life and Career	2015-03-26	Kindle ebook	2006
Mary Doria Russell	Epitaph	2015-03-29	Audio	2015
Nancy Kress	Yesterday’s Kin	2015-03-30	Kindle ebook	2014
Eric H. Cline	1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed	2015-04-04	Audio	2014
Emily St. John Mandel	Station Eleven	2015-04-05	Kindle ebook	2014
Atul Gawande	Being Mortal	2015-04-09	Audio	2014
Paula McLain	The Paris Wife	2015-04-14	Hardback	2011
Benjamin Hale	The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore	2015-04-18	Audio	2011
Liu Cixin	The Three-Body Problem	2015-04-27	Audio	2014
Walter Tevis	The Queen’s Gambit	2015-04-28	Kindle ebook	1983
Alan Paul	One Way Out	2015-05-02	Audio	2014
Mary Shelley	The Last Man	2015-05-18	Audio	1826
Madeline Ashby	vN	2015-05-22	Audio	2012
Ross MacDonald	The Moving Target	2015-06-01	Library hardback	1949
Paolo Bacigalupi	The Water Knife	2015-06-06	Audio	2015
Frank Herbert	Hellstrom’s Hive	2015-06-12	Library hardback	1972
Pat Barker	Toby’s Room	2015-06-17	Library ebook	2012
Jules Verne	The Mysterious Island	2015-06-21	Audio	1874
Daniel DeFoe	Robinson Crusoe	2015-07-04	Audio	1719
Marie Kondo	The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up	2015-07-10	Kindle ebook	2014
Robert M. Edsel	The Monuments Men	2015-07-15	Library hardback	2009
Jack Williamson	The Humanoids	2015-07-15	Audio	1947
Harper Lee	Go Set A Watchman	2015-07-19	Audio	2015
Harper Lee	To Kill A Mockingbird	2015-07-21	Audio	1960
Kate Bolick	Spinster: Making A Life of One’s Own	2015-07-30	Library hardback	2015
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle	Lucifer’s Hammer	2015-08-10	Audio	1977
J. A. Johnstone	Phoenix Rising	2015-08-11	Scribd ebook	2011
Kate Bolick	Spinster: Making A Life of One’s Own	2015-08-12	Scribd audiobook	2015
Robert Silverberg	Downward to the Earth	2015-08-15	Scribd audiobook	1970
Andy Miller	My Year of Reading Dangerously	2015-08-19	Audible	2012
Nevil Shute	A Town Like Alice	2015-08-23	Audible	1950
Aziz Ansari	Modern Romance	2015-08-27	Audible	2015
Kim Stanley Robinson	Aurora	2015-09-02	Audible	2015
Daniel Coyle	The Little Book of Talent	2015-09-04	Audible	2012
Barbara Oakley	A Mind For Numbers	2015-09-04	Audible	2014
M. R. Carey	The Girl With All the Gifts	2015-09-16	Audible	2014
Neal Stephenson	The Seveneves	2015-10-13	Audible	2015
Isaac Asimov	Foundation	2015-10-23	Scribd audiobook	1951
Kate Wilhelm	Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang	2015-10-27	Scribd audiobook	1976
Dan Harris	10% Happier	2015-10-28	Kindle ebook	2014
Robert Silverberg	Thorns	2015-11-04	Scribd audiobook	1967
Samuel R. Delany	Babel-17	2015-11-10	Audible	1966
Charles Dickens	Bleak House	2015-11-21	Audible	1853
Clifford Simak	The Heritage of Stars	2015-12-01	Audible	1977
Alan Weisman	Countdown	2015-12-08	Audible	2013
Martin Ford	The Rise of the Robots	2015-12-16	Audible	2015
Philip K. Dick	The Broken Bubble	2015-12-20	Audible	1956
Hal Clement	Mission of Gravity	2015-12-24	Kindle ebook	1953
Philip K. Dick	The Man In The High Castle	2015-12-27	Audible	1962

I read 68 books this year, the most since I’ve been doing these yearly reviews.

Reading Goals for 2016

Every year I make big plans for what I want to read in the coming year, and every year I fail to follow through. So this year I’m not going to make any promises. I want to read more nonfiction, but there seems to be some kind of psychological barrier to how much information about reality I can take in on any given week. I sometimes think I need to read fiction to balance the psychic load.

Past Year Reports

• 2014
• 2013
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008

Essay #992 – Table of Contents