on the path

Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: I'm not sure what bliss Professor Chandra is following, or how he's following it, but he's an interesting guy to read about.  A distinguished professor of economics, has just been denied the Nobel Prize (again), he is hit by a bicycle and suffers a heart attack, forcing him to take a break, under doctor's orders.  And he does try.  He tries to reconnect with his children, and attends a mindfulness retreat.  He learns a lot about himself, and his children, but I didn't really see where the bliss comes in, since he's mostly just as conflicted at the end as he is in the beginning, if a bit gentler about it.

Bliss, not so much, but Chandra himself does come to understand and accept a lot about himself and his past mistakes.  His journey, with all its missteps and imperfections, is very believable, and you'll find yourself rooting for Chandra to find a way, not to bliss, but to more happiness.  Or maybe just contentment?  Or self-awareness?  Whatever he's on the path to, it's an enjoyable journey, for the reader, at least.

One thing that really stood out to me is the very subtle way that Balasubramanyam points out the ways in which Chandra was a terrible father.  His casual cruelties to his children are reported as straight facts; there is no extended narrative exposition explaining the effects of his words, allowing readers to make their own judgments without interference.  This is a mark of a good author, one who truly shows, rather than tells, and he does this with aplomb throughout the book.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

Lunacy: how science fiction is powering the new moon rush

The Guardian recently ran an interesting article about the impact of science fiction on current pushes to return to the moon.  Read the full article here.

"Science fiction is often seen as an anticipation - a fiction peculiarly expected to graduate into fact.  But if technologies once found only in SF do sometimes become real they do not, in so doing, always cease to be science fiction.  SF is not, after all, simply a literature about the future; it is a literature about the shock of new capacities and new perspectives, about transcendence, estrangement and resistance in the face of the inhuman.  Its ideas shape and contrain the ways in which technological possibilities are seen, understood and experienced long after those possibilities are first tentatively realised."

flat on the page

The Tubman Command by Elizabeth Cobbs
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: Any student of Civil War-era history has some basic knowledge of Harriet Tubman, but perhaps not much beyond her role on the Underground Railroad.  If nothing else, this book will deepen the reader's understanding of her ongoing role in liberating slaves throughout the War itself.  Cobbs focuses on Tubman's actions as a scout for the Union Army at their camp in Beaufort, South Carolina.  Tubman, or "Moses", as she was known by the "contraband" freed slaves, both recruited other scouts and helped to organize the slaves on the nearby plantation so that they would be ready to move when the Army came to free them.

A good novel of historical fiction makes the past come alive in a way that non-fiction can't.  Unfortunately, I can't really say that Tubman leaps off the page in this book.  Rather, it reads more like a work of narrative non-fiction from a close third-person point of view.  However, readers interested in either the Civil War or Harriet Tubman will learn a lot from Cobbs's research and the information goes down very easily.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.