Reviews and Comments

Kelson Reads

KelsonReads@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 3 months ago

Techie, software developer, hobbyist photographer, sci-fi/fantasy and comics fan in the Los Angeles area. He/him.

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You Look Like a Thing and I Love You (Paperback, 2021, Voracious) 5 stars

A fun, accessible introduction to how machine learning works...and how it sometimes doesn't!

5 stars

Still relevant despite recent advances in AI-generated imagery and text, because the new systems still work on the same principles as the ones that were around three years ago. They just have a lot more data and processing power. This also means they have the same limitations and blind spots. What was it trained on? How was it trained? (This is the most obvious way human bias can leak into an AI model.) How well is the goal specified? And of course, did the AI actually latch onto relevant details, or did it notice that all the training pictures labeled sheep had green fields and blue skies, and completely ignore the actual sheep?

These are things to keep in mind as we enter the landscape of generative AI tools like ChatGPT: You can train an LLM to write a book review, and it'll give you a great piece of text …

The Time Machine: H.G. Wells' Groundbreaking Time Travel Tale, Classic Science Fiction (2010, Megalodon Entertainment LLC.) 4 stars

The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 …

Thought-provoking speculation about the future of humanity

5 stars

Content warning Not sure why I'm putting a spoiler alert on a book that's more than a century old, but hey, you might not have seen either of the movies, and even if you did, they might not have made it clear what was going on with the Morlocks and Eloi.

The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) (2021, Scribner) 5 stars

From one of the most dynamic rising stars in astrophysics, an accessible and eye-opening look—in …

Engaging read for general audiences on what we know about the history and future of the universe

5 stars

An engaging read for the general audience about what we currently know about the history and structure of the universe and what that knowledge -- and the pieces we don't know -- might mean for its future and eventual end. Katie Mack writes in a casual, entertaining style. It's clear she finds all of this absolutely fascinating. And she sprinkles the writing with funny stories and quotes and side notes to get across the basics of quantum mechanics, Higgs fields, high-energy physics and the like without delving too much into the math. But the math, and the measurements, are important, because as it turns out, very small changes in how things work at the quantum level can have major implications on the universe's ultimate fate.

The last time I read about this topic in anything resembling depth was about a decade ago. Since then there've been major discoveries in …

Chivalry (Hardcover, 2022, Dark Horse Comics) 5 stars

Another delightfully humorous and sweet fantasy graphic novel adaptation of a Neil Gaiman short story, …

A beautifully drawn and illustrated, charming tale of Arthurian legend brought into modern times.

5 stars

A sweet, charming take on Arthurian legend brought into modern times, beautifully drawn and painted by Colleen Doran. Worth it for the art alone, which continues the style you can see on the cover: painted scenes and panels, with borders and calligraphy and margin drawings like a medieval manuscript. I've read other graphic adaptations of Neil Gaiman stories that tried to keep too much of the prose, but here the words and illustration are balanced perfectly to serve the story, and again, the art is amazing.

The story is kind of fantasy fusion comfort food. It follows familiar patterns, mixing the magic-item-found-in-a-shop trope with the Arthurian grail quests.

An old widow picks up the Holy Grail at a thrift shop, takes it home and sets it on her mantelpiece. Soon after, Sir Galahad shows up. He's been looking for a long time. He keeps coming back, offering one thing …

Norse Mythology is a 2017 book by Neil Gaiman. The book is a retelling of …

Entertaining, sometimes gruesome, sometimes funny and sometimes sad

4 stars

collection of stories about the gods of Asgard and the elves, dwarves and giants around them, book-ended by the Norse creation myth and the world-ending battle of Ragnarok. It’s a storytelling approach, not a scholarly description. And it’s not the shiny, techno-magical Asgard of Marvel’s Thor, or the ethereal Olympus we’ve come to think of with Greek myths. For all the magic and impossible feats that get tossed around, it’s still a gritty, harsh world with wars, murders, lust, deception and betrayal.

The stories are mostly separate, but a pattern emerges: not just when stories refer back to earlier events, but the slow transformation of Loki from the kind of trickster who steals Sif’s hair, tricks rival smiths into creating fantastic gifts, and generally outwits his opponents (while finding ways to embarrass the other gods if he can) to the kind of trickster who thinks it would be hilarious to …

The Kaiju Preservation Society (EBook, 2022, Tom Doherty Associates) 4 stars

Jamie’s dream was to hit the big time at a New York tech start-up. Jamie’s …

Escaping the pandemic by learning to survive on a world with gigantic monsters

5 stars

A fun, breezy story about unexpectedly landing a job at a secret scientific base on a parallel world studying giant Godzilla-like animals. Which is about as dangerous as it sounds. Plus, of course, not all humans are interested in the kaijus' welfare, and the KPS has to step up the "Preservation" part of its name.

There's some interesting world-building in terms of what kind of environment and ecosystem would actually support 100-meter-tall animals, what kind of biology would be able to handle the size, the energy, shooting beams of radiation, etc. And what might evolve to protect itself in a world with kaiju. And of course: what role nuclear explosions have in the whole thing, because these are kaiju after all!

It's also weird because it takes place in 2020. Like, real 2020, complete with Covid-19 lockdowns and everything. The main character starts out working for a GrubHub competitor at …

Little Fuzzy (EBook, Standard Ebooks) 4 stars

Little Fuzzy is the name of a 1962 science fiction novel by H. Beam Piper, …

First contact, colonialism, and corparate greed vs. who counts as "people"

4 stars

An enjoyable tale of first contact, colonialism, environmental stewardship, corporate greed vs. ethics, and most importantly, who counts as “people” – all wrapped up around a cute, inquisitive, furry species encountered by humans on what they thought was an uninhabited planet, threatening to upend the status of the humans’ established mining colony.

It’s a worthy classic: engaging aliens, big themes and a high-stakes struggle. But it’s also very clearly of its time (1962). Everyone smokes and drinks highballs (in space!), there’s only one woman of consequence, and it’s much heavier on plot than characterization, which is mostly flat. There’s a twist near the end that feels a bit like a deus ex machina because some of the most important work has been going on off-page. Though I imagine it wouldn’t have bothered me if I’d read it when I was ten instead of as an adult.

hyperborea.org/reviews/books/little-fuzzy/

A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching (2021, Workman Publishing Company) 4 stars

Part field guide, part history, part ornithology primer, and altogether fun.

Fact: Pigeons are amazing, …

A fast, funny, informative read about, well, pigeons

5 stars

A fast, funny, informative read about, well, pigeons (and to some extent other birds). Readers of the author’s webcomic about nature, Bird and Moon, will recognize the quirky humor and the drawing style of the illustrations.

You might think pigeons are boring because they’re so common, but they can be as interesting as any other bird once you start looking. And because they’re found everywhere humans live (there’s a reason for that), anyone can go out and start looking in the real world for the patterns and behaviors described.

The irreverent but enthusiastic style draws you in as the book runs through the long history of pigeons and humans. We’ve bred them for messaging, food, chemistry and as pets since ancient times, and the common pigeons seen today are descended from domestic pigeons that have escaped over the years. It continues through an overview of pigeon anatomy, what types of …

Flashforward (2000, Tor Book) 5 stars

Robert J. Sawyer's award-winning science fiction has garnered both popular and critical acclaim. The New …

What if the whole world knew its future?

5 stars

At the moment a scientific experiment begins, everyone on the planet blacks out for two minutes. For those two minutes, everyone sees through the eyes of their future selves, two decades down the line. The world is transformed: first by the millions of accidents caused as drivers, pilots and surgeons lost control of their vehicles and instruments, and second by the survivors’ knowledge of the future.

What follows is an exploration of the nature of time, destiny and free will. Is this a glimpse of the future as it will be, or as it may be? Did the experiment cause the event, or was it a coincidence? Is foreknowledge a blessing or a curse?

Flashforward is at its best when it focuses on characters’ dilemmas. The novel centers on the personal lives of researchers at CERN, particularly the two scientists who designed the experiment: Lloyd Simcoe, a 45-year-old Canadian who …

Space Opera (2018, Gallery / Saga Press) 5 stars

"Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny. They must sing. A century ago, …

Fun sci-fi social satire: The world is a mess, but we can find the sublime in chaos.

5 stars

Absurdity, social satire, lots of music references, and a fast read that still feels like a wall of words at times. In the same vein as Hitchhiker’s Guide & Year Zero (though in this case humans are the worst musicians in the galaxy). Fun, though it’s got some dark moments. The world isn’t totally awesome or totally awful, it’s both: Everything is messy, and you can find the sublime in chaos.

hyperborea.org/reviews/books/space-opera/

Space Opera (2018, Gallery / Saga Press) 5 stars

"Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny. They must sing. A century ago, …

Fun sci-fi social satire: The world is a mess, but we can find the sublime in chaos.

5 stars

Absurdity, social satire, lots of music references, and a fast read that still feels like a wall of words at times. In the same vein as Hitchhiker’s Guide & Year Zero (though in this case humans are the worst musicians in the galaxy). Fun, though it’s got some dark moments. The world isn’t totally awesome or totally awful, it’s both: Everything is messy, and you can find the sublime in chaos.

hyperborea.org/reviews/books/space-opera/