A speculative mind

  A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine is one of those gigantic worlds in a book. An epic start to what will surely be an epic series (the Teixcalaan series). But if epic series scare you, don’t worry. This book has a nice resolution and is a complete story unto itself. The main character, Mahit is an ambassador from a small system with no habitable planets (everyone lives on space stations, and they call themselves Stationers). She has been assigned as an ambassador to the gigantic Teixcalaan Empire. Her job is to keep her system from being gobbled up by the empire. She is replacing the previous ambassador who is dead. How he died is one of the first things she must figure out. The Stationers like Mahit may not have the rich culture of the empire, but they have a secret. They have a machine (an Imago) infused in their brain that gives the host access to the memories of a previous host. It’s not really immortality, but it is a way to keep memories and experiences alive. In ...

  It takes courage to tell people what they don’t want to hear. Often times doing the right thing is not doing the easy thing. Politicians struggle with this and usually fail. It is a rare politician who tells an inconvenient truth to his constituents. With good reason; said politicians are usually not reelected. And that serves to reinforce the problem. “You see, I told you not to tell people that bridge needs to be replaced. You deserved to lose!” “But it’s going to collapse and kill people!” “That’s somebody else’s problem.” The fault is not really the politician’s. The fault is the voters. As Walt Kelly’s character said “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We enable this behavior.   If you are not willing to vote for, or even listen to someone who is telling you bad news, then you are in trouble. If you only listen to a news source that reports the stories you want to hear, then you are deluding yourself. This problem is not limited to one political party. It appl...

  Andy Weir, best known for writing The Martian , wrote my latest read: Project Hail Mary . I have seen the movie The Martian , but not read the book. After reading Project Hail Mary , I think I need to read it. Andy Weir is a good writer. Project Hail Mary begins as a “how did I get here” kind of a story. The mystery slowly unfurls as the story progresses. We gradually see that because of an unexpected development, the Earth is facing a mass extinction event that will drastically change the habitability of Earth over the next 30 to 40 years. There are two ways humanity can react to a situation like this. They can deny it. Or they can take it seriously and throw every resource at it. In this story, I am glad to say, they took it seriously. This is good because in this case anything less than total commitment would be the end. The world leaders have given administrator Stratt almost total power to acquire whatever team and resources she needs. She latches onto our hero, Ryland Gr...