Kingdoms of Death by Christopher Ruochio (2022)

This book is an exceptionally dark chapter in Hadrian Marlowe’s journey, yet I found the darkness purposeful rather than gratuitous. Ruocchio subjects his protagonist to sustained torture, humiliation, deprivation, and physical agony, using suffering as a crucible through which Hadrian’s identity and will are forged. I did not enjoy watching Hadrian endure such prolonged misery, but I could see the narrative necessity: the ordeal functions as a classic hero’s-journey descent into destruction and transformation, forcing Hadrian to discover what remains of himself when nearly every external source of strength has been stripped away.

I particularly enjoyed how the novel expands the larger mythology surrounding the Cielcin, revealing more about the alien antagonists and the internal political tensions that complicate their society. Ruocchio also continues to develop the saga’s intriguing treatment of possible futures, with Hadrian’s awareness of branching possibilities increasingly resembling the prescient visions associated with Paul Atreides -- Kwisatz Haderach in Dune. I find the trope effective here because Ruocchio treats foreknowledge less as a convenient superpower than as a source of ambiguity: knowing that multiple futures exist does not necessarily reveal which future will occur, and the distinction between prediction, possibility, and inevitability becomes increasingly important. The final portion of the novel provides a welcome tonal shift, offering a reasonably upbeat transition after the sustained brutality of the preceding chapters.

I did not enjoy the book because it requires me to endure Hadrian’s suffering alongside him. Nevertheless, I found the ordeal well constructed and important to the larger arc of the character and saga. Ruocchio successfully turns degradation into transformation, while simultaneously deepening the Cielcin, expanding the political and metaphysical dimensions of the story, and pushing Hadrian toward a more fully realized understanding of himself.

4/5 Stars

The Nowhere Man by Gregg Hurwitz (2017)

I loved the first book in Gregg Hurwitz's Evan Smoak series, so I approached The Nowhere Man with considerable enthusiasm. I found the sequel kept the first novel's clean prose, brisk dialogue, and kinetic action. Even so, I found the book less satisfying, because Hurwitz trades ingenious action and covert problem-solving for sustained suffering and psychological torment.

I trace my main frustration to Evan's prolonged torture and the story's excavation of his traumatic childhood. I appreciate psychological pressure in a thriller, especially when a villain attacks a protagonist's identity rather than his body; but I found Evan's anguish burdensome rather than illuminating. I also found the antagonists implausibly dominant: instead of the cat-and-mouse tactics that drew me into the first novel, I watched Evan absorb punishment while superhuman villains piled up victories. I found the late contrivance resurrecting a character who died in the first novel unpersuasive. Rather than a satisfying, well-earned surprise, I felt the resurrection worked as an artificial device for extending the story.

I still enjoyed Hurwitz's thriller machinery: I found the confrontations, dialogue, pacing, and action entertaining, and I still find Evan an appealing protagonist. I attribute my disappointment to the series' direction rather than its execution; I wanted the resourceful, high-stakes thriller that made the first novel fun, with less torture and childhood trauma. I hope the third installment restores that balance, giving Evan room to outthink and outmaneuver his adversaries rather than simply endure them.

3/5 Stars

Context, Pragmatics, Culture, Background, Under-specification in Language

"Is there water in the fridge?"
"Yes."
"Where? I don't see it."
"In the cells of the eggplant."

     -- Terry Winograd, 

     Computers and Cognition, 1987

In human language, wants and desires are always underspecified.  It is impossible to list all caveats, all limitations, exceptions.

Language alone, and the current "AI" large language models cannot ever be "psychic" and divine our intentions.  There will always be frustrating communication gaps. Barath Raghavan and Bruce Schneier have proposed yet another AI benchmark to measure the gap between the human's unambiguous intentions and the AI's responses or actions. When we define and measure, we can start to understand better what is needed and engineer solutions. 

To measure is to know.

"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be."

    -- Lord Kelvin (William Thomson)

    Electrical Units of Measure, 1883

Trust by Herman Diaz (2022)

Trust by Hernan Diaz (2022) turned out to be another unexpectedly fantastic read, and a particularly welcome second birthday present from my sister. I have always enjoyed the "Rashomon" narrative device of presenting the same underlying events through competing perspectives, but Diaz uses the technique with unusual structural discipline: each successive account does more than add information; it subtly destabilizes what I thought I understood about the preceding version. The gradual accumulation of apparently disconnected details creates a slow intellectual tension that culminates in a sudden reconfiguration of the entire story. I found the delayed realization especially satisfying because Diaz trusts the reader to recognize the implications rather than announcing them.

I also enjoyed the remarkable depth and breadth of the characters, along with the immersive "slice-of-life" detail of the 1920s and 1930s settings. Financial markets, Manhattan society, domestic life, art, and personal relationships are rendered with enough specificity that I felt immersed in the social world rather than merely observing a historical backdrop. Diaz's prose also contributed substantially to my enjoyment: his writing is controlled, elegant, and stylistically varied, with each narrative perspective possessing its own texture and implied relationship to the truth. I found Trust especially successful because its formal construction and subject matter reinforce one another; the novel asks how wealth, power, memory, and authorship shape the stories people tell about themselves, while its own structure makes me experience the instability of those stories firsthand.

5/5 Stars

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1924)

I was surprised by how closely Zamyatin's We anticipated Orwell's 1984: nearly every major dystopian theme is already present, particularly the conflict between an omnipotent state and the irreducible complexity of human nature. I found Zamyatin's achievement especially striking because he was writing in 1924, before Stalin's regime had fully developed the apparatus he seemed to anticipate. The novel's vision of scientific management, centralized planning, bureaucratic rationality, and socially engineered conformity reads in retrospect like an uncanny prefiguration of the Soviet system that followed. I also recognized a broader pattern: repressive regimes repeatedly exhibit the same institutional symptoms and provoke remarkably similar psychological and social reactions among the people subjected to them.

Some of Zamyatin's science-fiction devices have inevitably aged, yet most remain surprisingly effective after a century. I found his attempts to ground political and metaphysical certainty in mathematics less convincing; mathematical truth has a distinctive epistemic status that does not transfer neatly to moral, political, or social propositions. A broader appeal to "science" might have made the intellectual conceit more persuasive. The narrative itself, however, gathers considerable momentum, particularly during the final third, when the conflict between individual desire and collective control becomes increasingly dangerous. I thought Zamyatin's greatest strength was his ability to render the struggle rather than merely announce it: D-503's transformation from an intellectually obedient functionary into a romantic, irrational, and increasingly self-aware individual gives the abstract conflict an intimate psychological form. The adversary is consequently more interesting than a conventional collection of villains; the real antagonist is an entire system that has converted bureaucratic rationality into an ideology and treats deviations from its mathematical conception of order as defects in the human organism. I found We less polished than 1984, but historically more astonishing for having anticipated so much of the dystopian vocabulary that later writers would make familiar.

4/5 Stars

This too shall pass

A sudden penchant for right-wing populism or hardcore socialism is somewhere between a Hula-Hoop and a face tattoo in terms of self-harm now and regret later.

Raumschlacht im Wega-Sektor - Perry Rhodan 10 von Karl-Herbert Scheer (1961)

Ich habe weiterhin großen Spaß an der Perry Rhodan-Reihe, und mit diesem zehnten Band entwickelt sich die Geschichte endgültig zu einer echten Space Opera. Die Menschheit, eher aus Notwendigkeit als aus echter Einigkeit zusammengeschweißt, wagt einen Vorstoß fast dreißig Lichtjahre von der Erde entfernt, um herauszufinden, ob eine feindliche Invasion bevorsteht oder ob sich irgendwo Verbündete finden lassen. Der Roman liefert genau die herrlich altmodischen Raumflottenschlachten, auf die ich bei Science Fiction aus den frühen Sechzigern hoffe. Trotz aller technischen Naivität und des leicht nostalgischen Tons wirken die Himmelsmechanik und die strategischen Manöver überraschend glaubwürdig. Gerade diese Mischung aus Politik, Taktik und militärischer Aktion verleiht der Handlung ein Tempo, das die früheren Bände nur angedeutet haben.

Mehrere offene Fragen werden beantwortet, gleichzeitig öffnet der Roman den Blick auf ein noch größeres Universum. Eine uralte galaktische Zivilisation, längst verschwunden und nur noch durch rätselhafte Technologien greifbar, erweitert den Hintergrund um eine weitere Schicht von Staunen und Geheimnissen. Diese Mythologie lässt das Perryversum immer größer erscheinen, obwohl die eigentliche Handlung angenehm straff bleibt. Besonders gefallen hat mir das Zusammenspiel aus Diplomatie, politischer Abwägung und Flottenstrategie. Weniger überzeugen mich dagegen weiterhin die Mutantenfähigkeiten. Telepathie, außersinnliche Wahrnehmung und Teleportation wirken auf mich eher wie praktische Handlungshilfen als wie glaubwürdige Bestandteile dieser Welt und nehmen einigen Konflikten ihre Spannung.

Trotz dieses Kritikpunkts gehört dieser Band für mich zu den stärkeren frühen Romanen der Reihe. Das hohe Erzähltempo, die spannenden Gefechte, die politischen Intrigen und die ständig wachsende Hintergrundgeschichte überwiegen meine Vorbehalte gegenüber den paranormalen Elementen deutlich. Nach dem letzten Kapitel wollte ich sofort wissen, welche Geheimnisse als Nächstes auf Perry Rhodan warten.

4/5 Sterne.

The Directory by Daniel Kehlmann (2026)

I read the German original book and reviewed it here. This translation is quite good but lacks the texture and some of the undertones of the original. 4/5 Stars.

Licht Spiel von Daniel Kehlmann (2023)

Lichtspiel hat mich von den ersten Seiten an gefesselt. Kehlmanns Prosa ist elegant, ohne sich in den Vordergrund zu drängen, und jede Szene trägt zu Figurenentwicklungen bei, die sich mit bemerkenswerter Subtilität entfalten. Weil der Roman den historischen Tatsachen mit großer Sorgfalt verpflichtet bleibt, wirkt die Handlung zugleich wie Fiktion und wie ein überzeugender Ausschnitt gelebter Geschichte. Anstatt moralische Urteile auszusprechen, lässt Kehlmann alltägliche Gespräche, berufliche Rivalitäten und gesellschaftliche Rituale die zunehmend monströse Verwandlung des zivilen Lebens im Dritten Reich sichtbar werden. Diese Darstellung erinnert an Stefan Zweigs Die Welt von Gestern; beide Werke stellen den kulturellen Reichtum und die Zuversicht der Friedenszeit dem geistigen Zusammenbruch des totalen Krieges gegenüber.

Die eigentliche Tragödie entfaltet sich in einer Folge, immer verzweifelterer Rechtfertigungen, während der Protagonist ein moralisches Prinzip nach dem anderen seinem künstlerischen Ehrgeiz opfert. Kehlmann gestaltet jeden einzelnen Kompromiss zunächst nachvollziehbar, doch gerade ihre allmähliche Häufung macht den Niedergang erschütternd. Aus dieser Entwicklung erwächst gelegentlich ein pechschwarzer Humor, weil die Selbstrechtfertigungen ihre eigene Absurdität offenbaren. Besonders beeindruckt hat mich die Darstellung Goebbels', dessen Umgang mit Künstlern bürokratisches Kalkül, theatralische Eitelkeit und politisches Gespür zu einer Figur verbindet, die gerade wegen ihrer Menschlichkeit verstört und nicht wegen einer überzeichneten Bosheit. Das Rätsel um den verschollenen Film verleiht der Handlung zusätzlich eine leise Spannung und bleibt dabei sorgfältig mit den historischen Quellen vereinbar.

Ich habe den Roman mit großer Bewunderung für Kehlmanns handwerkliches Können und seine historische Zurückhaltung beendet. Diese Erzählweise vertraut darauf, dass die Leserinnen und Leser die sich ausbreitende moralische Finsternis ohne aufdringliche Kommentare selbst erkennen, und gerade aus diesem Vertrauen entsteht eine außergewöhnliche emotionale Wirkung. Meine Schwester hat mir nach der Lektüre eine englische Übersetzung geschenkt, auf deren Lektüre ich mich bereits freue. Unter den historischen Romanen über das Leben von Künstlern unter einer Diktatur gehört Lichtspiel für mich zu den besten, die ich gelesen habe.

5/5 Sterne

The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life after AI by Cory Doctorow (2026)

I am a regular reader of Cory Doctorow's blog, so relatively little of the material was new to me. Even so, I appreciated seeing his ideas gathered into a more coherent argument with additional historical and economic context. As always, Doctorow's prose remains energetic and accessible, although I do not rank this volume among his strongest books.

Doctorow's analysis proves most persuasive when he writes about subjects that intersect his own advocacy and research. His discussion of the AI hype cycle, the incentives driving technology companies, and the disconnect between technical experts and the managers who increasingly dictate their work illuminates a familiar but destructive organizational pathology. This failure, in which decision makers ignore the expertise of the people they employ while prescribing how those experts should succeed, predates artificial intelligence; the current AI boom has merely amplified the consequences. I also share Doctorow's belief that information workers should retain greater agency over the products of their labor and the economic value they create. My reservations arise when his arguments extend beyond those well-researched domains. Too often, his political commentary relies upon hyperbole, one-sided interpretations, or claims that I found insufficiently supported. Throughout the book, managers, executives, and investors frequently appear as villains motivated primarily by greed or malice, whereas I see those groups as playing an indispensable role in organizing capital, accepting financial risk, and creating the conditions that make technological innovation possible. That imbalance weakens an argument that is otherwise grounded in careful observation.

Despite those frustrations, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life after AI remains a worthwhile contribution to the ongoing debate over artificial intelligence, labor, and economic power. Doctorow challenges many assumptions that deserve scrutiny, even when I disagree with his conclusions, and his ability to identify institutional dysfunction remains among his greatest strengths. I finished the book valuing its insights while wishing its political analysis had reflected the same nuance that characterizes its discussion of technology.

3/5 Stars.