| 1. The Lathe of Heaven -
Ursula K. Le Guin - My first Le Guin book. It was an
interesting story about a man who dreams actually altered
reality and the psychiatrist who tried to use him as a tool
for good. Every time George had a dream that altered reality
he would remember the previous reality but only a select few
others would. Instantly the new reality would take effect
for everyone including George. In some realities George
would have a girlfriend and/or wife but in others she would
disappear. Eventually the psychiatrist (using his Augmentor
machine) learned to have effective dreams like George. Once
he did, George was no longer required for his plan to make
the world a better place so he released George from his
burden by dreaming George could no longer have effective
dreams so George became normal again which is what he wanted
all along. The psychiatrist messed the world up pretty badly
and died as a result. George however had his wife back and a
normal life so he was content to start life over again. This was an interesting and quick read. I may search out other Le Guin books in the future. |
| 2. Project Hail Mary -
Andy Weir - From the author of "The Martian". I so
enjoyed the book and the movie that I had to read another of
his books to see if it was as interesting/inspiring as "The
Martian" and it was. This is a story of a junior high school
teacher who was once a scientific researcher that got
drafted into saving the Earth from a dimming Sun. The cause
of the dimming was an alien lifeform that lived off of the
Sun's energy and used it for food. This, unfortunately, was
causing all kinds of problems on Earth as the temperature
started falling and scientists predicted that half of all
life on Earth would die in 19 years. These dire predictions
caused all nations of Earth to band together and build a
spaceship powered by these alien lifeforms that blasted out
to Tau Ceti as that star was one of a few that weren't
dimming. Three scientists were put into a coma and the ship
was sent to this star to try and figure out why it was
unaffected by this alien life form. The trip was one way
with the three scientists knowing they would die in space as
there was no way to return to Earth. When this spaceship
arrived at its destination two of the three scientists were
dead and only Dr. Grace survived. Also there was an alien
spacecraft there from another planet that was having the
same issues with their star dimming and sent a team of 26
spider like beings to try and solve the mystery. In root,
all but one of the aliens died so the alien which Grace
named Rocky and him teamed up to find the cause of the
problem. Rocky and Dr. Grace became close friends and did
find the cause and a solution after about six months of
investigation. They then parted ways and headed back towards
their homes with the solution. Unfortunately Rocky's
spaceship malfunctioned and Dr. Grace turned around to save
his friend after sending the pertinent data back to Earth so
they could solve the dimming problem. Because Dr Grace was
now getting old, he stayed on Rocky's home planet and
assumed his roll teaching young aliens about science. Both
the alien planet and Earth were saved from the extinction
level event. This was a good read as I like how Weir is always talking about science and doing experiments to understand his environment (and teaching his readers about science along the way). Weir has one other book out at this time so I will try and read it as well. |
| 3. Artemis - Andy Weir - Also
from the author of "The Martian". This is Weir's second
book, I believe. This is a story about a young woman, Jazz,
living in the Artemis colony on the moon, that always seems
to be in trouble. See is a wheeler and dealer and part time
smuggler who lives in a very blue collar portion of the
colony and is always looking for opportunities to make money
to elevate her status. See gets employed by a rich
businessman to cripple a business that is providing oxygen
and aluminum to the colony so that the businessman can take
over the contract. She partially succeeds but doesn't get
paid initially because the business wasn't completely
crippled. In the mean time, the businessman is killed
by Brazilian mafia who come to find out owns the damaged
business. Jazz understands that it is only a matter of time
before more mafia hit men are dispatched to the Moon so she
hatches a plan to finish the job she started. She is
assisted by a group of friends that she convinced that if
the mafia shows up they will take over the colony and life
will change for the worst for everyone. Her new plan to
destroy the business works but in the mean time she just
about kills everyone in the Artemis colony with bad air. In
the end everyone recovers and she gets paid what she was due
from the daughter of the dead businessman and the mafia is
prevented from taking over. This was not a bad story but I would rate it as my third favorite of his books. |
| 4. A Thousand Brains (A
new theory of intelligence) - Jeff Hawkins - This was
an interesting book. Not only did the author talk about his
new theories about how the brain works (currently there are
more questions than answers), he also talks about
translating the brain's architecture which consists of
thousands of cortical columns into working silicon. The
author is no slouch, he was the founder of Palm Inc which
developed the Palm Pilot but he has also started numerous
successful companies and organizations doing brain research.
His writing is very clear and he uses many simple examples
to explain the theories. Two things he discussed really hit
me. First, the brain is constantly predicting what it will
encounter before the encounter actually happens. To
illustrate this, he used the example of items on ones desk.
When you set at your desk you normally don't scan the desk
to see if anything has changed you just go about your
business. If however, someone has placed something new on
your desk, you are immediately made aware of it. He says
this is because the mind has a model of the desk environment
(contained in a reference frame) and if the model matches
what is on the desk there is nothing brought to your
attention. However, anything new on the desk grabs your
attention instantly. He also says this model verification
process happens continuously and subconsciously without any
direction from oneself. The second thing that struck me was
the thought that the brain itself doesn't have any sensors
of its own. It is setting in the dark inside your skull
doing its thing. All stimuli from the outside (vision,
sound, touch, smell, etc.) are routed into the brain via
nerve pulses. The brain uses these pulses to build its model
of its surroundings. The brain cannot see a picture of what
it is looking at. He also talks about the old brain (which
controls our autonomic functions along with sex drive,
anger, survival, etc) and the new brain or Neo Cortex which
is where our intelligence lies. The old brains mission is to
pass on our genes with any means possible. The new brain is
what tempers our sex drive, for example, so that men don't
rape every woman that they come across in an attempt to pass
their genes along. In the second part of the book Hawkins talks about AI. He says the current state of AI is not AI at all because there really is no intelligence involved. He says this because while current AI technology can solve specific problems sometimes even better than humans, it cannot solve any other problems at the same time without being totally retrained. He believes real AI is just around the corner and that is what his company is working towards. Real AI in his mind would mean a machine as flexible in its thinking as human are today and that learns continuously. In the third part of the book he talks about existential threats to humans and life on earth. He interestingly concludes that future AI machine will not pose a threat to humans like many folks fear but that climate change, nuclear war, people in their own echo chambers who don't question the conspiracy theories they believe to be true (Flat Earthers, Anti-Vaxers, etc.) and old brain functions are. Any threats to our survival would be caused by bad actors who control the future AI, not the AI technology itself. This was a very interesting read that I am glad I picked up. It did occur to me that old brain vs. new brain might correlate to the political split in the county today. People driven by old brain functions look to the past when men were controlling, woman were subservient, brown people were in their place, having as many children as possible was a way to pass on their genes, whereas people with new brain tendencies accept that the future will be different and that we must learn to cooperate and adapt. |
| 5.Blind Descent - Nevada
Barr - I picked this book on a whim because it had
something to do with caving. The main character Anna Pigeon
is a ranger with the National Park Service serving at Mesa
Verde. She is called to New Mexico where a friend of hers
has been injured while mapping new portions of the
Lechuguilla cave. Anna, though, not a professional caver,
joins the rescue team because her injured friend asked her
to. They find Frieda who has broken leg and is in shock.
Anna talks to Frieda to calm her down and Frieda tells her
she thinks someone intentionally dislodged a rock that
caused her injury. At first Anna thinks she is delusional
and doesn't think much of it but on the return trip out of
the cave a curious cave in occurs that does kill Anna's
friend and injures Anna as well. Included in the rescue team
are an assortment of cavers from all over the map and they
finally get Anna and Frieda's body out of the cave. Anna
can't stop thinking about what Frieda said and wonders if
she was right. Anna does into detective mode and starts
asking a lot of questions about all the members of the cave
rescue team and if everyone who went into the cave was
accounted for. She spends some time recuperating at another
cavers' house where she continues to dig up gossip about who
is having an affair with whom and who's marriage is on the
rocks. With her leg healing she is summoned to another
lesser known cave where there has been reports of illegal
digging. As she arrives at the cave and heads towards the
entrance, she finds the body of the man who had summoned her
and is nearly killed by someone with a rifle. She uses her
cunning to escape and goes off the park headquarters to
report the killing. Now her mind is working overtime as she
tries to connect the killing in the cave to the killing she
just discovered. She now knows Frieda was right. As she is
checking the background of everyone on the rescue team she
determines that one of the female cavers (unhappily married
to the doctor on the team) was never seen leaving the cave.
She comes to the conclusion that the woman had been left
inside the cave to die and mounts a rescue effort to see if
the woman was still alive. The rescue team consists of only
Anna and Curt the only caver she trusts. After breaking into
Lechuguilla (because she was told to go home and no one
would allow her reentry) they find the woman almost mad as
her light sources and food had run out days ago. Curt and
the rescued woman head for the opening while Anna went
deeper into the cave to see if she could find any clues
about what was causing the murder spree. She then discovers
that a nearby oil drilling company who was supposed to be
digging straight down decided to slant the drill so that it
pierced the wall of Lechuguilla and had destroyed a whole
area of the cave. With this new information she starts
heading back towards the entrance and Curt when the cave
administrator surprises her with his presence. He makes it
clear he is the one running this illegal drilling operation
and is doing it for a large amount of money and that Anna
must die to protect his interests. He was prepared with a
gun and some dynamite to make it look like the cave clasped
and that Anna was buried and died. Unable to fight off the
administrator she starts running towards the exit and hides
along the exit route. The administrator convinces Curt and
the rescued woman to leave the cave quickly so they could
form another rescue team to recover Anna. Anna knew her time
was probably up so when the administrator had just
disconnected himself from the rope used to ascend the cave,
Anna charges him and he slips and falls to his death. Now
Anna understood the whole plot and the oil company was made
to stop the drilling and pay a bunch of money for the
damage. Anna, now free from peril heads back to her park to
recover. This was a good story and I have since found out that Nevada Barr has written a whole series of Anna Pigeon books that take place in many of the parks of the southwest. I will pick up another of her books for sure. |
| 6. Firestorm - Nevada Barr
- Another book by Barr this time situated in Lassen
Volcanic National Park. In this story Anna Pigeon was called
in to assist with medical issues and security for
firefighters who are battling a major California fire. With
the fire almost out and the weather turning cold
firefighters are being dismissed with only one of the
forward bases left (the one Anna happens to be in) to mop
things up and to breakdown the camp. Unfortunately the
incoming cold front brought with it very strong winds that
wiped the fire back to full strength and Anna and her team
are forced to run as a fire storm heads towards them. They
run into a creek bed and deploy their individual fire
shelters to try and save their lives. After a rough few
minutes the fire passes over them and moves on. Many of the
people suffer burns, some serious, but no one died directly
from the firestorm event. Slowly each of the firefighters
emerge from their shelter and go out searching for everyone
who was with them. They find a firefighter in his shelter
with a knife in his back. So someone killed him during the
fire storm. Which means one of the people in their group.
Since Anna is in charge of security she starts to
investigate. She tries to do this on the down low because
she knows the killer is in her midst. Unfortunately the
weather turns bad so her team cannot be extracted by
helicopter until the weather clears and the only road out is
covered with huge burnt trees which are still falling. This
results is her team having to spend many days/nights at
their burned over camp with limited food and water. Tempers
of course start to run high with various team members
accusing each other of the murder and before they are
rescued two more people are killed. In the end Anna and her
FBI boyfriend figure out who did it and why. Since this took place in and around Lassen I thought there would be more mention of the thermal features in the story but there was very little. This was a fast read because it was a somewhat interesting story and it was a short book. |
| 7. High Country - Nevada
Barr - Another book by Barr this time situated in
Yosemite. Anna is undercover investigating the disappearance
of 4 people. She signs on as a waitress at the Ahwahnee
Lodge to try and fit in and to gather info on the missing
people. She is living in the staff living quarters with two
much younger women who are also waitresses. She actually
bunks in the same bed as did one of the missing women. She
has a hard time getting people to open up to her because she
is older than them and they think she is a spy for
management to see who is working and who is not. After one
of her roommates collapses at the beginning of her shift
Anna gets the feeling that the disappearances have something
to do with drugs. Anna then finds a syringe in the arm of
her coat filled with what looks like blood and she starts to
worry that someone is out to get her. During her work she
starts hearing whispers about a gold mine at a lower lake
that is ripe for exploitation so she decides to hike to the
only lower lake around to see what she can find out. When
she gets there she see two people chipping away at bails of
pot that spilled from a plane that was crashed into the lake
and had frozen there. She gets shot and captured by the two
men who are about to kill her before she hits one in the
head with the blunt side of an axe and gouges out an eye of
the other before setting him on fire. Of course she barely
escapes and reports what she found to the authorities. The
rangers get a helicopter and fly to the scene and find two
of the bodies of the people Anna was looking for. Thinking
her job was done she decides to stay on an extra day or two
to wrap up loose ends only to be kidnapped again by the
woman, Tiny, running food service at the Ahwahnee
lodge who turns out to be the head of a drug smuggling ring
who's plane it was that crashed. Tiny was also about to kill
her but first wanted Anna to tell her where an apron from
one of the missing women was. Anna assumed there was
incriminating evidence sown into the apron for safe keeping.
Anna knew she had to string Tiny along because as soon as
she told her where the apron was, she would be killed. A
fight ensues and Tiny is relieved of her gun and taken into
custody bringing an end to the story. This also was a good read. Barr sure researches the locations of her stories to make the story sound real and this did. Off to the digital library for another Barr book. |
| 8. Blood Lure - Nevada
Barr - Another book by Barr with the story taking
place in Glacier National Park. Anna was sent to the park to
take part in a study of Grizzly Bear DNA. While she and her
two colleagues are out camping, a bear visits their site and
rips their tents apart. While Anna and Joan, the head
researcher, stayed put during the attack and were unharmed,
their third member freaked out and ran for cover. While
searchers are looking for their colleague, they come across
a body of a female who had her face cut off. Turns out this
woman was the stepmom of their missing colleague. Due to
staff shortages at the park Anna was assigned to investigate
the mysterious death. She sifts through many seemingly
unrelated facts in her investigation. Turns out a carnival
bear from a closed attraction in Florida was going to be
sold to be hunted so the bears young handler stole the bear
and brought him to Glacier as maybe a place he could be
released and live out his life unharmed. His handler tried
to teach the bear how to find food and protect himself in
the wild but was unsuccessful. It was this trained Grizzly
that killed the woman and the young handler cut off her face
so she wouldn't be easily recognized. Anna finally puts all
of the pieces together to solve the mystery. At the end of
the story the bear was found a place to live safely ever
after and the whole ordeal of the murder was declared an
accident. This wasn't a bad story but not quite as compelling as the other books of hers I have read. |
| 9. The Elegant Universe -
Brian Green - I was in the mood for a book on real
science so I picked this one up. I knew of Brian Green from
his numerous TV shows on all things physics. This book is
about String theory and how, by using multiple unseen
dimensions, it can possibly provide a theory of
everything. I was vaguely aware of some of the claims
that String theorists claim so I thought reading a book
about it could help my understanding (but I am not sure it
did). By extrapolating to multiple dimensions the
theories of the weak, the strong, the electromagnetic and
gravity forces can all be brought together. To Greens credit
he tried to explain the complex topics using simple
analogies which kind of worked for me. Still the topic of
Strings is well above my understanding. Maybe I'll go back
to reading novels (;>) |
| 10. Flashback - Nevada
Barr - In this story Anna get sent to Dry Tartuga
National Park to substitute for the field ranger has he has
mysteriously gone a little crazy. In the park there is Fort
Jefferson which was built right on the water first as a
defensive fort for pirates but later became a prison after
the civil war holding southern war criminals including
people thought responsible for killing Lincoln. Anna's
sister, on learning of her new assignment, sent old family
letters from when their ancestors lived in the prison after
the civil war (as custodians not inmates). Things around the
fort became strange as Anna started seeing ghosts of the
people she read about in the letters. Come to find out Anna
was being fed small amounts of LSD in the bottle water that
was provided to her. At the same time a boat thought
to be used by smugglers blew up and pieces of it sunk
another boat used by a junior ranger. Ranger Bob swam with a
victim in tow to an adjunct key even though he had a broken
leg. Anna gets the idea that she is being poisoned so stops
drinking the water so her mind can return to normal and she
can then figure out what is going at the Fort. It turned out
that mercenaries were preparing to smuggle 300 people from
Cuba to the US. Once these people touched American soil they
were automatically granted asylum and that is why the paid
all their money to be smuggled in. Anna of course gets in
the middle of things and gets captured by the smugglers and
they bring their asylum seeker ashore. Anna gets away and
gets in touch with the Coast Guard who sweeps in and
captures the bad guys. Anna then goes back to Mississippi to
get married and recuperate. This story was written in an unusual way. Each chapter alternated between the letters written by Anna's ancestors and Anna in the present day. Although somewhat interesting it also made reading rather tedious. This wasn't a bad story but not quite as compelling as the other books of hers I have read. I think I am done reading Barr for a while. |
| 11. A Wizard of
EarthSea - Ursula K. Le Guin - This is the first
book in the EarthSea series. It tells the story of Ged a boy
with natural wizard inclination and his education in
wizardly workings. Because of his natural talents he is
invited to attend wizard school on Roke Island. Though
young, he shows great talent that rivals students that are
older and ahead of him in their education. He encounters
Jasper an upper class men who always finds a way of looking
down on Ged to Ged's total frustration. Eventually things
come to a head and Ged challenges Jasper to a magical dual.
Jasper challenges Ged to bring back a spirit from the dead,
something neither boy should attempt with their level of
wizardry. As Ged performs his magic he not only brought back
a spirit from the dead but something else evil and unknown
from the other world which attacks him and tries to inhabit
his body. All of the master wizards on Roke combine their
powers to save Ged from the shadow he has unleashed. As a
result of the effort involved to protect Ged, the head
wizard dies. The new head wizard tells Ged he is in peril
and must stay at Roke for protection and to finish his
training so he might be able to defend himself from the evil
shadow he has unleashed. Ged finally graduates and is
assigned to an island in EarthSea which has no wizard.
Unfortunately the evil shadow attacks him multiple times and
tricks him in attempts to inhabit him. At first Ged flees
the shadow but eventually decides he must turn from being
the hunted to being the hunter so he reverses course and
tracks and attacks the shadow. His quest takes him to the
edge of the known land where he hooks up with an old friend
wizard and together they head out to find and dispose of the
shadow. They get a boat and travel as fast as they are able
to catch the shadow which is now fleeing from Ged. There is
a final confrontation and Ged figures out the name of the
shadow and can therefore control it. The link between Ged
and the shadow is then broken and Ged can return to the
civilized world and this is where the story ends. I have put
a hold on the next book is the series to see if I want to
read them all. |
| 12. The Dispossessed -
Ursula K. Le Guin - One of Le Guin's most notable
works that won many awards. I, however, found it a difficult
read because of the way each chapter changed planets and
times. It was hard for me to keep a timeline and therefore a
story line going in my head. The story touched upon the many
things that were going on at the time the story was written
including: anarchism, revolutionary societies, capitalism,
utopian societies, individualism, collectivism and feminism.
The story tried to answer questions about who are really
free; those that lived with no government or rules vs those
who live in a much more comfortable regimented society. It
is possible the story was too philosophical for me to
appreciate as I am not a very deep person. |
| 13. The Science of Star
Wars - Mark Brake - An interesting read. The author
addresses 50 topics that span the movies' universe such as
battle technology, alien life, space travel, the Force, etc.
He compares each aspect with what is available or known
today and how we might (in some cases) reach the levels
shown in the movies. Examples are faster than light travel
and light sabers. The author was also a Star Wars expert in
that he knows all about the fictional Star Wars universe
from all of the movies including all of the planets and the
battles that took place there, the races of people and the
individual characters. He also writes about how humans might
have spread out across the Star Wars universe as they seem
to be everywhere. His conclusions are we are a long way from
reaching the technology of Star Wars but in some aspects we
are catching up. |
| 14. This
Is Your Mind on Plants - Michael Pollan - I must admit
I enjoy Pollan's writing. It is both enlightening and
entertaining. This is probably the 4th book of his I have
read. In this one he discusses his various adventures with
opium, caffeine and mescaline. As usual he had some
interesting insights about the war on drugs and how
justice for those who deal in drugs vary depending upon how
much money one has. He pointed out that one of his
acquaintances was busted multiple times for just having
dried poppy flowers at his home and eventually became
homeless after all of the legal hassles he had to go through
whereas the Sackler family made billions of dollars off of
Oxycontin which caused many people to become dependent and
many others to die and face no time in prison for what they
did. Go figure. His chapter on caffeine was interesting due
to the research his describes on the good and the bad
aspects of the drug. Before writing this portion of the book
he decided he must get off of coffee and tea (and therefore
caffeine) so he could rationally and realistically describe
its effects. He was off caffeine for 4 months and to this
day only drinks coffee or tea on Saturdays. He says this
make him really appreciate the benefits and the pleasure
these beverages/drugs bring. He also said research shows how
people like himself and others (like myself) wake up
everyday and make coffee not for the uplift it gives us but
to stave off the coffee withdrawals that would occur if we
didn't have a cup. The chapter on mescaline was also very
interesting and I learned that the San Pedro cactus that
grows pretty much everywhere contains mescaline (like the
peyote cactus) and can be easily prepared as a tea which he
describes how to do. Who knows I might be growing some
cactus soon. All in all a good book that I read very quickly as it was interesting reading for me. Well done Michael. |
| 15. Super Volcanoes - Robin George Andrews - Another book on volcanoes to satisfy my need to read about them. The book discussed both terrestrial and non terrestrial volcanoes. Most of the volcanoes he discussed I have read about before so most of the stories the author told are familiar. His discussion of the Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano in Tanzania was very interesting as it is the only known volcano in the world that emits low temperature carbonatitic lava. His discussion of lava and volcanoes on the Moon was also interesting. I had forgotten that the front and back sides of the moon have totally different geologies. The front side of the Moon is covered in mares, which are basins filled with lava, whereas the back side of the Moon is not. The author admits that there are more questions than answers as to why this is true. He said there are also a lot of questions about when the lava flowed on the Moon and where the heat that caused the melting came from. Much of the lava seems to young to have flowed during the Moon's formation. His other discussions of non terrestrial volcanoes I didn't find very interesting not because of his writing but because they don't interest me as much. Not a bad book as I learned some things by reading it. |
| 16. Journey to the Center
of the Earth - Jules Verne - I hadn't read the
original story since I was a kid and interestingly enough it
deviates quite a bit from the movie which I loved and which
starred James Mason, Pat Boone and Arlene Dahl. This book
was a new translation from the original French which get the
geology more correct for the time period the novel was
written in. In the movie, there was a woman who accompanied
Professor Otto Lidenbrock and his nephew on the journey but
in this book that didn't happen. Oh Hollywood. Of course
there must be a beautiful woman in the story to make the
story compelling. Most of the other parts of the story were
consistent with the movie. I had forgotten that they
returned to the Earth's surface via the Stromboli volcano
which I have stood in the crater of while it was erupting.
Good times. |
| 17. The Underground City - Jules Verne - I decided to read another Verne book and found out he has plenty of books I have never heard of. This book goes by many titles like Girl in the Cavern and numerous others depending upon the language and country it was published in. A story summary follows: Covering a time span of over ten years, this novel follows the fortunes of the mining community of Aberfoyle near Stirling, Scotland. Receiving a letter from an old colleague, mining engineer James Starr sets off for the old Aberfoyle mine, thought to have been mined out ten years earlier. Starr finds mine overman Simon Ford and his family living in a cottage deep inside the mine. He is astonished to find that Ford has made a discovery of the presence of a large vein of coal. Accompanying Simon Ford are his wife, Madge, and adult son, Harry. From the outset, mysterious and unexplained happenings start to occur attributed initially to goblins and fire maidens. Soon after the discovery of the new vein of coal, the community is revitalized with a whole town growing up around the underground lake called Loch Malcolm. Suspicious of a malevolent force at work, Harry continues his explorations of the cavern system, where down a deep shaft, he discovers a young orphan girl named Nell. Over the course of the next few years Nell is adopted by Simon and Madge but reveals nothing of where she came from, only that she had never been out of the mine. Eventually, when Harry and Nell announce their marriage, the mysterious occurrences come to a head. It becomes clear that all of the happenings have been caused by Silfax, another former employee of the mine, who along with his trained snowy owl has inhabited the mine since its closure. Eventually Harry and Nell do get married and settle down in a home beneath the Earth. |
| 18. The Mysterious Island
- Jules Verne - Another great Verne book that I hadn't
read since I was a kid. Five union prisoners and a dog
escape in a balloon in the middle of a hurricane and are
blown over the Pacific ocean and crash on an unknown island.
Over a four year period they go from having nothing (not
even a pocket knife between them) to a fully functioning
community complete with iron, steel, explosives and all the
meat and vegetables they can eat and a comfortable cavern in
which to live. They are consistently helped out in perilous
situations by a mysterious entity/person who turns out to be
Captain Nemo who passes away shortly after the colonists
meet him. In the end their volcanic island destroys itself
and they are saved by a passing ship and brought back to
civilization. This story makes clear that Jules Verne was a
very knowledgeable person in natural history as he describes
all of the plants, minerals and animals they come across on
their island. And he describes all of the processes that
Cyrus Harding, their engineer, uses to convert the natural
ingredients at his disposal into substances useful for the
colonist's survival. |
| 19. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne - Another great Verne book that I hadn't read since I was a kid and nothing has changed. During a battle, Captain Nemo accidentally captures a professor, his man servant and a Canadian harpooner and takes them on a journey around the world in his Nautilus submarine. They are basically held captive for almost a year until they successfully escape their confinement. During their voyage, they visited Atlantis, the South Pole, a cavern inside a volcano and many other places and had to fight off an attack by a giant squid. They experienced all of the wonders that the oceans of the world can provide. In the end they steal a boat from the Nautilus and somehow make it to shore in the middle of a terrible storm. The fate of the Nautilus and Captain Nemo is unknown (but I know). |
| 20. Geopedia: a Brief
Compendium of Geologic Curiosities - Marcia Bjornerud
- A book describing various geologic terms, most of which I
was unaware of. The terms were presented in alphabetical
order along with a short description of what they mean and
where the term came from. Most of the terms are from foreign
languages so I doubt that I will remember what they mean but
I am glad to be exposed to them. One thing I did learn from
this book is that diamonds which are deemed "forever"
aren't really. The author states that diamond are not stable
after being mined out of the ground but are slowly turning
to graphite over time. There was also a discussion of
natural atomic reactors which happened a billion years ago
in Africa due to special environmental factors in a local
environment. I had read about this before but it was still
interesting reading. For someone interested in geology, even
at an amateur level, this book is worth reading. |