The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts (3.5 stars)

Left it too long to review this one. I think the premise was good, but I couldn't suspend my disbelief on various occasions. There seemed far too many situations where they should have been caught, and the plausibility of the forest and music communication for very complex concepts was stretched too thin.

Still, it was a fairly enjoyable read.

“In a way, prey are lucky. Running for your life instead of running for your dinner.” A weak smile. “Better motivation, right?”

3.5 stars.

The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll (3 stars)

Great intro for non-techies into the world of computer security and espionage. A lot of the fundamental concepts remain the same, although the technology and the associated risks have changed dramatically from the early 1990s.

Reading this felt too much like work, so I didn't enjoy it much, it also moves pretty slowly. But I would recommend it to others looking for a basic understanding of computer security with some historical and nostalgic interest for nerds.

The computer has become a common denominator that knows no intellectual, political, or bureaucratic bounds; the Sherwin Williams of necessity that covers the world, spanning all points of view.

Diversity, then, works against viruses. If all the systems on the Arpanet ran Berkeley Unix, the virus would have disabled all fifty thousand of them. Instead, it infected only a couple thousand. Biological viruses are just as specialized: we can’t catch the flu from dogs. 

3 stars

Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia by David Hunt (3.5 stars)

Really refreshing to read a version of Australian history different to the whitewashed version taught in schools. In Hunt's history, no-one is safe from sarcasm, irony, and a darker view on white settlement of Australia.

Some favourite quotes:

No other nation can rival Australia for sheer maritime girtitude.

Each sailor was given a pint of 94 per cent proof rum a day, except for the ship’s boys, who had to make do with half a pint.

So Nepean offered the job to Arthur Phillip, a doggedly unexceptional performer most noted in Royal Navy circles for having two first names. Phillip was the man you would want in your corner if you’d run out of paperclips or your workmates had left unwashed cutlery in the office sink – a man who could boldly requisition new stationery or prepare a dishwasher roster without fear or favour.

Richards insisted that the weevils in the cheap flour he proposed to feed the convicts were a protein supplement and that the government should pay extra for them. The convicts found an unlikely champion in Phillip, who threatened not to leave port unless they were given better rations and luxuries such as clothes.

When the Dutch got adventurous, they’d name their discoveries after bits of the Netherlands and, when they were really on fire, insert the word Nieuw (New) first. The Netherlands is small, which meant Dutch explorers gave the same names to lots of different places. They had christened their Brazilian territories New Holland in the 1630s but Tasman, stuck for ideas, happily recycled the name a decade later. Tasman went on to discover New Zealand, which was named after the Dutch province of Zeeland, or the bit of New Guinea the Dutch had previously named New Zealand, or perhaps Zeelandia, which is what the Dutch called their settlement in Taiwan.

3.5 stars

The Nightingale: A Novel by Kristin Hannah (5 stars)

An incredibly powerful story of a family living through the Nazi occupation of France. It follows two sisters, one joins the resistance and the other fights to keep her family alive through the many hardships of Nazi occupation, including starvation rations and no heat in winter.

This book made my cry. A lot. I had trouble reading the final chapters because I was bawling my eyes out.

Unlike much historical fiction it doesn't fall into the trap of beating you over the head with boring details just because the author spent time researching them. I'm certainly no history buff, so I'm not qualified to judge accuracy, but it felt plausible. It struck what I thought was a good balance of accuracy and poetic license to allow the author to create an emotional connection to the characters.

There's a number of memorable lines, some of my favourites are:

In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I’d like to be known.

“I’m not fragile,” she said. The smile he gave her was barely one at all. “We are all fragile, Isabelle. It’s the thing we learn in war.” 

However, the writing is fairly simple and approachable on the whole. Hannah says she wanted to tell the forgotten story of women's resistance and struggle through WWII, and she did so, spectacularly:

“Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over. 

I was angry at Vianne for handing over the names of the Jews and others in her town with no protest. Of course I have the benefit of hindsight, I know the horror of the traincars and the camps are what's coming, and she didn't. And she was in a very vulnerable position. But I felt she should of at least made Beck threaten her explicitly before giving up her best friend and her family, she just assumed the threat was there and implied.

Minor quibble: Nightingale could not have been a worse code name. It's literally her last name. I mean come on.

I wished there was more detail on how the safe houses were established and worked, and how they had to innovate to cross the border. The first crossing we experience with Isabelle is very precarious, I can't imagine they could continue like that for long. Since this part was based on a true story I would think the details could be found with enough research.

Overall a very powerful and harrowing book.

5 stars.

Exit Strategy: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (5 stars)

Final $10 "novella" in the series.

Amazing, like the rest, and a good ending that still leaves it open for more extortion. I only have one real criticism of this series, and it's the hacking. It's too easy. Murderbot never gets caught, never fails, and it's just a little too perfect. Perfectly hacking yourself out of every different camera feed, owning every security system, weapons detection system, and doing it all with no margin for error: any failure of those perfect hacking skills would pretty much always have led to instant discovery and capture.

Although, I kinda believe this one:

(Humans never think to tell their bots things like, say, don’t respond to random individuals wandering the outside of the station. Bots are instructed to report and repel theft attempts, but no one ever tells them not to answer polite requests from other bots.)

If you can suspend disbelief on the hacking there's still lots to love. In the final scene of the book Dr. Mensah has an incredible conversation with Murderbot. We see how Murderbot appears to act like a teenager (albeit with superpowers), and relates to Dr. Mensah's daughter immediately. Mensah is Mum, the coolest, most in-touch, understanding, challenge-yourself mum.

(“I don’t want to be human.”)
Dr. Mensah said, “That’s not an attitude a lot of humans are going to understand. We tend to think that because a bot or a construct looks human, its ultimate goal would be to become human."
(“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”)

“We have more options now that you’ve changed your appearance, and have been successful at…” She was hesitating over the phrase pretending to be human. I remembered at least three conversations about that. “Let’s say, not being noticed."

5 stars.

Rogue Protocol: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (5 stars)

The spectacular story continues, at 6.25c per page. Ouch. Murderbot gets caught up in more messy human business, accidentally becomes a freelance security consultant, and explores a super creepy abandoned space station with a very "Aliens" vibe. Tons of action, sarcasm, and excitement.

Thank you, next!

5 stars.

Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries by Matha Wells (5 stars)

The amazingness continues, although I'm now wise to the scheme. Carve an amazing novel up into 160 page chunks and sell them all for the price of a full novel. I paid it because the books are great, but I'll grumble along with everyone else on amazon. They aren't novellas, they are just sections from an awesome novel that cost $10 each.

 This is more of the same brilliant AI, now off on an adventure of its own choosing.

I didn’t care what humans were doing to each other as long as I didn’t have to a) stop it or b) clean up after

I'm fairly confused about how it can use TV shows to bribe other bots. Why can't ART just download its own media from the same place as Murderbot? That aside, I loved the scenes of two AIs sitting around critiquing soap operas as unrealistic, while devoting bazillions of compute cycles to watching every single episode:

The depiction is unrealistic.

and getting emotional

When a major character died in the twentieth episode I had to pause seven minutes while it sat there in the feed doing the bot equivalent of staring at a wall, pretending that it had to run diagnostics. Then four episodes later the character came back to life and it was so relieved we had to watch that episode three times before it would go on.

and then using the made up action as advice for real life

I asked ART, How did you know to do that? though I already knew the answer. It knew I knew, but it said, Episode 179 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

 5 stars.