Ready Player One

Fantastic, as good as people said.

Despite the dystopian negative pessimism I enjoyed the book and recommend it.  5 out of 5 stars.

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mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936

Troika

​I am a huge fan of Alastair Reynolds' space operas.  Troika does not disappoint.  It has enormous "awe and wonder" at a glimpse of amazing technology we cannot understand.  It has great "Soviet Russia" characters and situations.  The story is compressed into a dense short novella, a quick 2-hour read.  5/5 stars.

Foundation and Chaos

The 21st century foundation trilogy sponsored by Asimov's Estate employed fantastic authors -- the "killer B's," Benford, Bear, and Brin."  But the first book published in 2000 was bad, 2/5 stars and messed up the entire trilogy.  I really dislike the "sims" (simulated personalities of Voltaire and Jean d'Arc).  And the introduction of extra new elements, including tiktoks, mentalics with specific super-powers, new casts and cultures, and especially worm holes really messed up everything.  If you write inside a masters universe, don't completely change his universe.  So anyway, Bear's novel was not as terrible as the first one, 3/5 stars.  I am now on to Brin's final book in the series. . .

Start with Why

Pretty good ideas and very similar to all the career advice books, but for business culture and organizations. 4/5 stars.

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mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936