Science - Victor J. Stenger - The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning (2011)

You know that stupid thing that comes up on your ignorant relative's Facebook statues where they assert that if the Earth were ten feet closer to the sun we would all burn up? And then you try to explain to them that our orbit isn't a perfect circle and we often drift both closer and farther from the sun throughout the year, and then they accuse you of either not taking a joke or picking on them? (Unless they are truly lost, which is when they say, "Duh! How else would we have summer or winter? Stupid!")

That Facebook argument has taken form.

It is this book.

I told Steve (Sorry Steve!) That The Name of the Wind was going to be the next book I read, but I decided to get this one done and over with. I don't really know the circumstances it entered our library. Most of the science books in our possession (and we have quite a few) are Bryan's, and this one is definitely no exception. It's primarily his because it has been sitting on his nightstand for as long as we've had nightstands, and by the bed before that. It always frustrated me that he wasn't making any progress on it, but he said that it was a snorefest and riddled with too-hard math. I'm here to tell you that he is 100% not wrong when it comes to that.

I don't have any problems with you believing what you want, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, physically or emotionally. I'm an atheist. I come from Christian stock. I married into a Jewish family. One of my best friends is Catholic. I don't care. Don't proselytize, don't hurt anyone, and I don't care. I will admit that I get frustrated by some of the ladies in group therapy that talk about praying and mantras and reiki, but I don't care, really. My frustration stems from them wasting our valuable time with their bullshit. But I don't go around arguing with people.

This guy not only doesn't believe in a higher power, but he is dedicated to proving that believing, and specifically believing that science has proven the existence of one, is bullshit. Whatever. That's fine.

Apparently, the idea surrounding "science has found God" is that the numbers in physics have been "fine-tuned" by some designer entity to make our universe perfect for life to grow. This book is intending to disprove all of that.

Unfortunately, it is very dull.

What could be an infinitely interesting book is bogged down with all of the math and none of the explanation of what a lot of the holy math even means. He gets so caught up in his equations and constants that the layman's mind reels, and when Stenger finally comes up for air, ages after the reader has already pantingly done so, he speaks in vague terms that he asserts are proved by the math, repeats word-for-word assertions made in the preface, and claims we will understand better in a later chapter.

The whole thing flows more like a textbook that a book for the regular populace. That isn't because it's a science book. There are plenty of science books that still have the ability to hold the interest of the reader. But not this one.

Did some supernatural entity fine-tune the numbers in our physics models for life? Probably not. Would life have been able to form without fine-tuning? Probably. Is there any life to speak of between the covers of this tome?

Absolutely not.

2.5/10

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Franchise Fiction - Richard Castle - Naked Heat (2010)

I've already talked at length in my previous post about how weird it is to be giving authorial credit to a fictional entity, so let's just move on, shall we?

This entry into the series is much longer than its predecessor and flows differently, as if a different writer worked on this one from the last one. While each chapter in the previous entry ended like a commercial break, this one seems to be in love with ending chapters with the characters knowing one important piece of information that the reader will have to read on, even one more sentence into the next chapter to find out.

I'm not a fan.

Don't get me wrong, the story here was, at least for me, more compelling than the previous one, possibly because of the long suspect list to keep you guessing. But this "the characters read a name and then move into action; you want the name? Better read the next chapter" thing is bullshit. I wouldn't have such a problem with it if it just happened once or twice. But as the book goes on and the stakes get higher, the author relies on this device as if it was the only thing he has ever learned from creative writing classes or critiques.

Maybe there's a person out there that eats that shit up. It doesn't appetize me. It just gets my frustrated. Granted, I'm easily frustrated, especially by books, but it feels so much like a cheap trick that I want to rebel against their manipulation. I actually stopped part of the way through for a week to get over being mad about this.

The real lesson here is, if you have a trick, don't overuse it. You'll just piss your audience off.

7/10

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Franchise Fiction - Richard Castle - Heat Wave (2009)

I also borrowed this bad boy from Nadia (which I never would have forgotten because of the mildly saccharine inscription just inside the cover written by her husband). I expressed an interest in watching this show, but at the time that it started it fell off the radar, as many shows did when I moved out.

First off, let's talk about the really weird universe ABC is trying to create with this book. It is a real book that was written by a real person. But everything--acknowledgements, copyright, accolades, even author photo (Nathan Fillion himself)--points to it being the work of this fictional character. So I genuinely had to do some digging, and found this article where an exec asserts that it was the labors of a fictional person who created the book.

I understand the logic of a ghostwriter. Many of those teen novels everyone liked (for example, Sweet Valley High) were written by ghostwriters to share the load. But the dedication to this "fact" is really kind of astounding, if you think about it. The problem is you may end up spending too much time thinking about it.

When you actually read the book itself, the real writer of the novel appears, although not in name or face. This was clearly written by one of the show's scriptwriters. That isn't to say that it is formatted like a script or lacks in description or anything like that. It really does just read like a novelization of an episode of a somewhat humorous crime-drama. Each end of a chapter even feels like a commercial break. But some of the effort put forth by those making sure the book exists doesn't really translate into the effort of writing the book. The Richard Castle allegory in this book is a character named Jameson Rook. Rook? Really? That's hardly trying at all. Was Fortress taken?

At less than two hundred pages, it flies by rather quickly. And I do give them credit for including a scene that could never be on network TV in a million years. But the book is average. And you can't really shake the feeling that some poor bastard is being stiffed with this position that ABC is taking.

7/10

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Chick Lit - Alexandra Potter - Calling Romeo (2002)

This is another title I borrowed from my friend Nadia, two of four. I don't exactly recall why she wanted to lend this one to me, but I'm sure it wasn't to write this scathing review of it.

But scathing it shall be, because it is vile.

First off, note that the genre up there is chick lit, which I will let Wikipedia define here. If that page doesn't give you pause in regarding the novel, allow me to compound it: this book is chick lit for realz. There are more designer names dropped than an outlet mall, and the whole idea list for this book is like a Sex and the City fanfiction checklist. Unmarried, independent women in enviable, high-powered, and creative careers with men issues? Check. Male characters who talk about their feelings and relationships as if they actually give a fuck? Check. Heavy descriptions of clothes and other fancy luxury items, but almost nothing else? Double check. Trying to have it all? Checkity check check. Using too many references to Romeo and Juliet in order to justify the title, including rival advertising companies respectively containing the names Capulet and Montague? Oh yeah.

Mary Sue main character? I think the ink is bleeding through on this checkmark.

I wasn't kidding earlier when I said that it felt like fanfiction. I personally cannot believe anyone actually published this drivel, let alone the fact that this author has eight more novels. The main character, Juliet, is early on established as a victim of shitty-boyfriend-disease (because only the shittiest of boyfriends forget Valentine's Day, right girls? >:( ) and has her high-priced clothes ruined by a fancy car running through a puddle near her. As it goes on, she starts an affair with the guy who soaked her because she felt neglected by her boyfriend and yet didn't say anything to him about how she felt. Like he's supposed to be a mind reader.

There are a couple other storylines here too, but I have to get spoilery in order to talk about the biggest crime of this novel. This is your last warning.

Six chapters (and chapters in this novel are surprisingly long if they are past the average of a page and a half) before the end of the book, her boyfriend, who had decided to stop taking her for granted and proposed, discovers she had been having an affair. Up until this point, it looked like not only was she able to have her cake but also fuck it too, and she was going to get away with it. I was overjoyed to learn that he immediately left her, made her move out of their shared domicile, and didn't want to see her again. Finally, she was getting her comeuppance for this indiscretion.

And then, in the last chapter, on the last page even, he takes her back and they all live happily ever after.

FUCK. YOU.

And the typos! Holy shit. There were so many, including "tirarmsu" for tiramisu. Did an editor even run through this at all? I cannot understand what happened. Somebody failed here. And I can't help but place at least 70% of the blame on the author. You did a bad job. I don't give a shit how popular you are or how many reviews say that your work is hilarious and brilliant. This was garbage.

I can't believe I bought this for my friend's birthday. I am so sorry for that, Nadia.

1.0/10

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