Reentry by Eric Berger (2024)

I read Eric's articles and weekly column in Ars Technica. So I had low expectations that much new material would be in his book.  I was therefore thrilled that everything in the book was never published before.  The details of the people and events at SpaceX (not Elon), at Nasa, Spaceforce, and US regulatory bureaucracies are exciting and enlightening.  There are many deep biographical sketches of the real heroes behind the company and their successes. The book is gripping, well-written, extremely interesting for any space nerd, and highly recommended. 5/5 Stars.

Out of the Dark by David Weber (2010)

The story starts out as a standard alien invasion archetypal structure with the usual tropes of the scrappy preppers, the hero's journey, and interesting space aliens. The magic system is a typical David Weber galactic space travel until the end that I did not enjoy.  The ending and abrupt change to the magic system ruins the world building. 2/5 Stars.

Live Suit by James S.A. Corey (Ty Franck & Daniel Abraham) (2024)

I enjoy when successful authors publish  the writing exercises and cutting-room scraps that were left behind when publishing a series of books.  I remember trying to write in the early 1980s and going through an exercise to figure out how one of my characters should react to some event in my story; I wrote a short vignette about her from 10 years in her past to flesh out her personality and sensibilities so that I could understand her well enough to write the section of the story I was working on.  The expanse authors have published some of their writing that was cut from the expanse series and this short novella appears to be another writing exercise or snippet that was cut from their new series.  It's a great stand-alone story. 5/5 Stars.

Deception - The Great Covid Cover-Up by Rand Paul (2023)

The Wuhan Lab's "gain of function," including cover-ups, deception, and the people behind the odd lockdown policies are brightly illuminated in this interesting book.  The silly politics are distracting and boring, but the information about the corruption, censorship, and the conflicts of interest within government funding agencies and EcoHealth Alliance are very good.  4/5 Stars.

Raft by Stephen Baxter (1991)

I am very interested in the Xeelee sequence of books. This first book is an expanded short story with an interesting alternative universe that has a huge gravitational constant. The book is not good. I did not like any of the characters, and the gratuitous deprivations served no purpose. 2/5 Stars.

Polostan by Neal Stephenson (2024)

Fantastic!  I am so happy Stephenson is writing another immersive historical fiction series again.  Polostan is the best I have read this year (so far).  I bought extra copies for my kids. 5/5 Stars.

Screens are *still* worse than Paper for reading retention

My first published academic paper in 1987 explained an elegant experiment I ran using SAT test questions that measure retention to discover if humans retain and understand information better by reading on paper or reading from screens.  Of course the overwhelming measurements and evidence indicate that reading from paper is much better than screens.  Recently, Amy Tyson published an in-depth study about the use of books and paper versus devices (phones, tablets, computers) in classrooms and looking at test scores.  She validated my measurements in school settings.  If you have a kid in school, get them to use books and printed materials.

Icehenge by Kim Stanley Robinson (1984)

I have no idea how or why this book appeared on my stack to read.  The book holds up surprisingly well after 30 years.  I did not like the authors "Mars" books that follow this original one, but I enjoyed this story. The story explores the insane conspiracy theories, alternative facts, fake news, and other modern topics over a centuries long time line. It's interesting how human societies treat history.  The objective truth never matters.  4/5 Stars.

Starship flight 5

I am very grateful to live in a time when we have exceeded the wildest imaginative concepts of science fiction to catch the biggest rocket ship ever built with chopsticks. I have not been this excited about watching space flights since watching (live) as Neil Armstrong descended the lunar lander. Go watch the 4K videos.

Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (2003)

This high fantasy book, second in a series, deserves all the prizes it won (Hugo, Nebula, Locus). I enjoyed the story, the characters, and the consistent but mysterious magic system. 4/5 Stars.