Another month, more books. A large part was taken up by recovering from Battle Under the Mountain (there really were a lot of people!) and intensive work in the European Parliament, but I managed to read something.
Krásná temnota / Beautiful Darkness
Fabien Vehlmann, Marie Pommepuy, Kerascoët
The basic idea is both super gross and weird, and super cool. Various small little beings live in the decomposing body of a dead girl in a forest, and very soon it turns somewhere toward Lord of the Flies, except among sprites. And the progression of hatred, alienation, brutality, and pure weirdness is very creative here.
But that’s about it. Only a few characters go through even some basic development, individual episodes somehow end, and it all turns out… also terribly. And that’s all, life goes on. There was potential for something truly exceptional; what we got was a strange little evening read. And you want to read it on an empty stomach.
Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks
Scott J. Shapiro
An excellent book about cybersecurity and law, whose longer review will soon be published on Voxpot. So for now just a recommendation.
Podivuhodná dobrodružství Rafana Mendonçy a poslíčka s pizzou
Filipe Melo
An ironic pulp affair. The first story hits really hard, the rest are… more of the same. A slightly exhausted formula, but ok, offensive at most in its insistence on pop culture references and quips at all costs. A solid 4 stars within the genre.
Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
Daron Acemoğlu, Simon Johnson
Acemoglu is one of the world’s leading political scientists and scholars; his Why Nations Fail? is one of those books that would deserve a place — at least in elevator pitch form — in every politician’s library. And here he surprised me.
The authors describe the problems of wealth concentration and technological progress together, noting outright that both might have some benefits, but concentration is practically always bad and technological progress alone doesn’t bring prosperity — political action is needed to share it across society. Given that Acemoglu can at minimum be seen as a typical centrist, almost a technocrat, these are somewhat surprising words, but as an observation of reality it works brilliantly. What’s problematic are the proposed solutions (of the more realistic ones, strongly progressive taxes), and what’s outright exhausting is the historical introduction, which also sometimes oversimplifies to the edge and didn’t need to be there at all.
Also problematic is the uncritical adoption of some concepts — echo chambers, for instance, aren’t necessarily such a big, fundamental thing as we long thought based on Christopher Bail’s research. And this tension would deserve confrontation. Otherwise certainly recommended.
Clive Barker
Perfectly average Barker, as if just rolled off the Barker assembly line. There are great things. The story of a rich man who built his own hell is a very entertaining fable. Revelations are traditionally full of evil and filth, but actually nice. Body Politics is an overstretched joke, but still funny. Inhuman Condition is a perfectly predictable occult detective story that after 30 years honestly doesn’t pack much punch anymore, but what can you do. Age of Desire is then just boring and tries to compensate with a MASSIVE amount of sexual violence.
Decent evening horrors that won’t totally disappoint, but that’s about all.
Odkaz rodu Blacků 1 / The Unsound
Cullen Bunn
A modern urban fantasy comic with undertones of the deep American South and a fairly original idea about what magic is and how it works. A pleasant surprise with the added value of relatively interesting characters.
The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?
Michael J. Sandel
For me, one of the peak books of the year so far. Sandel is one of the world’s leading philosophers with a long-term interest in justice as a concept. He has now tackled why society (primarily American, but by extension European and Japanese/Korean) is rapidly drifting apart.
The concept of meritocracy and the lie it tells about itself is to blame. He doesn’t reject quality, effort, exams, and so on — not at all — but he clearly says that from the philosophy of “rising up” and “you only have yourself to blame for everything” grows not only enormous frustration but mainly it doesn’t work. What starts with the example “why are people so nervous about college admissions” moves to what in life is and isn’t controllable and how much the concept of “everything is your fault” is an actively harmful element. Proposals for how to fix the situation range from provocations to very solid ideas, but first societal thinking must change: and it’s worth trying step by step. Highly recommended, especially if you feel you’re a clear fan of “meritocracy” before reading. It significantly changed my perspective.