While reading a business article about retiring in Florida, without a lot of monetary resources, the author was mentioned, hence my purchase. First off, I am a bit farther along this same path. So, I really wanted to like this book. At times I did enjoy her insights, and at times I was rather frustrated. I’m a very practical person, so I was hoping for some tips on how to make the path to retirement and into retirement in a better manner. This book is more about feelings and less about specifics.
Like many of the boomer generation, Ms. Reid moved from full time to part time employment. That’s not always possible, but often recommended. However, like many other boomers, she was less valued by her employer, and ultimately she was pushed into full retirement. (This happens a lot, trust me!) Fortunately, she had secured a second part time position, which gave her both a bit of income and validation. This book is really a series of very short essays, mostly first person accounts, but there are some others sprinkled in which recount similar journeys by friends and colleagues. Boomers will no doubt find something to identify with in these essays.
This book is self published via the Amazon platform, and while there are a few technical issues with formatting, it is overall fairly well done. While I noted a few punctuation issues, probably the average reader would not notice. Spelling and grammar were fine.
My non fiction reading tends to be either “how to” books or an occasional biography, and this is neither. I would liken it to a group therapy session for soon to be or newly retired boomers. There’s quite a lot about feelings, both good and bad, in this journey. Ultimately, Ms. Reid decides to love retirement. I wish her well. And, I hope she will write another book, with some of those practical tips that she must have acquired during her Joyful Passage.
This is a big book in so many ways. Walter Isaacson is known for in-depth biographies of such diverse people as Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, so he is certainly a “big name” author. The book itself is 485 pages long, not including the notes, which brings the page count to 536. As the sub-title indicates, the central figure in this book is Jennifer Doudna, but many, many others have significant roles in this not so brief history of CRISPR (which can be loosely defined as a way to edit genes.)
Jennifer Doudna grew up in Hawaii, the eldest daughter of a college professor. Her father, who doted on her, once left her a copy of Watson’s book on DNA, The Double Helix, and she mentions this book as one of the reasons she pursued a career as a scientist, despite being told by her high school guidance counselor that “women don’t do science.” Rather obviously, she not only did science, but she has done it well enough to earn the Nobel Prize in 2020.
In The Codebreaker, Isaacson follows Doudna’s career, but intersperses it with pertinent information about the gradual unfolding of modern genetic studies, along with brief sketches of the scientists and scholars who influenced Doudna’s work. Two terms which come up over and over are RNA, which is the “worker bee” that carries out many functions in life, and CRISPR, which has to do with the structures which help organisms adapt to needed change (such as when bacteria “learns” to resist a virus.)
There are a lot of pages in this book devoted to what was discovered, by whom, when, and who managed to get published first. That’s the nature of academia. Then there’s the quest for patents and prize money, which is how some academic institutions manage to pay for enormous labs and pay their large supporting staff. Again, this is a book that is about more than a single researcher. Over and over, Isaccson stresses the importance of collaboration in modern science.
There are some really important concepts discussed in the later chapters, including the ethics of manipulating human genes. One researcher took it upon himself to edit the offspring of Chinese couples in an attempt to eliminate the possibility that they could have HIV, which is apparently quite shunned in modern Chinese culture. Other possible reasons to edit offspring would be to eradicate such conditions as Huntington’s disease, which ends in a horrible decline before inevitable death. Eliminating genetic diseases are worthy uses for CRISPR and other genetic engineering, where is the line? Should prospective parents be able to choose the genetic characteristics such as height, intellect, or even hair color of their offspring they way we might choose dishes in a cafeteria? A number of scientists, including Doudna, have had many meetings, discussing such topics, and these are summarized in The Code Breaker.
When the nasty CV hit, a situation that the author sometimes describes as “the plague year,” many of the scientists mentioned in this book, including Doudna, put aside their competition for prizes and first published honors, and collaborated to produce accurate and rapid tests for the pesky illness. Then, in short order, they turned to prevention, and the mRNA vaccines. Not only were these vaccines quick to develop, they also lay the groundwork for more to come, as the same techniques might be used to prevent other illnesses.
The Code Breaker is more than a biography, as the title states, and it is a longish, sometimes challenging book, but like other works by Walter Issacson, ultimately quite rewarding. It isn’t cheap to buy, compared to many of the books I read, nor is it “light reading.” Like a gourmet meal, it is complex, memorable, and enjoyable. Readers are urged to read, then think, and ultimately savor this work.
This is a pretty good novel. The main character, Alex Kayne, is sassy, super smart, and just vulnerable enough to avoid the “heroine can’t die” syndrome that afflicts almost all comic book super hero characters, or Lara Croft (heroine of the Tomb Raider games/films). Alex is a fugitive computer whiz who needs something to do as she hides from all the forces who want to either kill her or “bring her to justice”, so she kinda does her version of “The Equalizer” in that she helps people who have a specific need. The needy person in Shaken is a surfer/marine biologist named Abbey, who lost an arm to an encounter with a shark. Abbey received a prototype bionic arm, in part due to her high profile injury, and someone stole it. The arm and it’s charger, gone. Who the heck steals a limb from an amputee? (Literate folks might respond with another story, “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Conner, but I digress.)
So, we have Alex Kayne, who manages to change her appearance, her lodging, her cell phone, and her method of transportation more frequently than anyone in any spy novel I’ve ever read. In this book, she is mostly hiding out in Disney World. Other characters include Eric Symon, the FBI agent who nearly nabs fugitive Alex, Abbey who needs her arm back, and a cast of suspects or villains, depending on how the mystery unfolds. The action in this novel is well told, and not quite believable, but that’s part of the fun of it all.
Readers who enjoy puzzles and/or action heroines and want to be entertained for an evening (or two) should try Shaken (Quake Runner Book 1.)
Now, for the commentary. This was my first book by Kevin Tumlinson, but I certainly intend to try another. At the end of this book there’s a note wherein the author explains that he didn’t plan to self-publish this novel, intending to put it in the hands of an agent. However, he thought better of it and put it into his self-publishing stable of products. For many authors (yours truly included) self-publishing is better, due to control of the process and potential financial gain. That decision is understandable, but when the author said he wrote the book in roughly 15 days, I was shocked. Shocked.
Y’all, fifteen days is like two weeks. I can’t edit a book in two weeks, much less go from beginning to end. Wow. I had a whole new perspective on the novel after that. I thought it was a good, if not spectacular read, with very few errors. However, the very idea that such a book could be dreamed up and written in such a short time is simply hard to believe. However, as the author of Ecclesiastes says, “There is no new thing under the sun.” Shaken is a bit like that, in that the elements in the story have been used before, but perhaps not in precisely this manner. The author’s website is a feast for those who want to know more about marketing and branding, especially marketing self-published novels. Clearly, Tumlinson is not just prolific, but also understands how to get the product to customers, too.
After an opening which describes the “victory lap” circling Washington on Inauguration Day, which is a taste of one of the final “missions” that the author participated in, the usual chronological approach takes the reader back to the time when the author’s love of flying helped him choose a career path. Lacking the funds to pursue a private education in aviation, Ray L’Heureux (call sign “Frenchy”) decides to join the Marine Corps as a pilot. During his very successful training, he decides to fly helicopters rather than jet aircraft, which most of his fellow Marines sought as their specialty. While on duty in California, Frenchy is in the audience gathered to see President Reagan land at his base. As he is impressed with this unit, Frenchy decided that he wanted a tour of duty with HMX-1, which is the name of the part of the Marine Corps which provides helicopter transportation for the President.
L’Heureux actually served in HMX-1 twice during his thirty year career in the Marines, hence the “Four Presidents” in the sub-title. He was a junior officer during the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations, meaning that he was part of the group that planned the helicopter trips (called “lifts”) and occasionally flew as co-pilot for dignitaries. L’Heureux returned as commander of HMX-1 during the presidency of George W. Bush, with whom Frenchy became friends. When Bush 44’s term was over, the author was still the commander of HMX-1, thus he flew the Obamas for a few months before his assignment ended and the reins of HMX-1 went to another Marine pilot.
While not overly technical, L’Heureux lets the reader know quite a lot about how helicopters work. The focus of the book is on HMX-1 and their two sorts of helicopters, all painted dark green with white on the top, but the author also flew in other types of helicopters with other missions, and that’s of interest. However, the “inside” view is largely about how the military goes to great lengths to insure both the safety, comfort, and efficiency in providing transportation for the President, the Vice President, and heads of state of visiting nations. Whether the reader knows much about helicopters, the military, or just recent history, or not, there’s something for everyone in Frenchy’s book. According to the author, President Eisenhower was the first U.S. President to use helicopters for day to day transportation, as it was faster and far more convenient for everyone. Motorcades require a number of security measures, which, of course, takes time and impacts traffic. When the President boards one of the “white top” helicopters, he can be where he needs to be more quickly, and traffic is unimpeded. So, since Eisenhower, most Presidents have relied upon Marine One for quite a lot of their transportation, whether going to Andrews to board Air Force One, or just a short trip to the Presidential retreat, Camp David.
One of the aspects that I found quite interesting were the stories about Camp David, which is a 45 minute ride from the White House via helicopter. The author describes playing “Wallyball” with Bush 41. Later, L’Heureux, both an athletic guy and a Marine, was invited to ride mountain bikes with Bush 44, and that experience began their friendship. During his time of flying George W. Bush, the author was frequently at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, and helped build a bike trail on the ranch.
Another interesting aspect of the book is that when the U.S. President travels abroad, the helicopters go over first, so that the President is always flown by Marine pilots. The effort necessary to dismantle, load, unload, and reassemble and then test the helicopters before the arrival of the President is a bit mind boggling. In his memoir, L’Heureux describes flying Marine One over Normandy for D-Day anniversaries, landing in Germany so the President could meet with Angela Merkle, and even landing at Windsor Castle, so the President could have tea with Queen Elizabeth.
For readers who enjoy history, insider information, or just an entertaining read, do check out InsideMarine One.
Some years ago, I discovered D.A. Boulter’s ebook series about a family of traders who traveled via space going vessels to various ports of call. Recently, I bought a couple more entries in the series, books 3 and 4, with the respective titles above.
As I previously touched upon earlier books in the series, here are links to Courtesan, Trading for the Stars, and Trading for a Dream. I’ve also read some of his stand alone books and other series, but the Yrden Chronicles remain my favorites in his growing booklist.
In One Trade Too Many, the Clay and Colleen Yrden are doing what their family does, traveling, trading, and raising their kids onboard one of the combo passenger and cargo ships, Blue Powder. During this entry, the Captain of Blue Powder (Clay Yrden) asks the head of security, Adrian Telford, to play passenger in an attempt to ferret out a possible saboteur, and one of the passengers, a widow, begins stalking Mr. Telford. While not boring, the story takes a while to build, but there is significant suspense toward the end of this third volume of the Trading series, and it has a cliff hanger ending. Some folks hate such endings, but as I purchased books 3 and 4 at the same time, I just swiped on over and read Trading for War. The latter is largely about warfare, and focuses on Colleen Yrden, who has a host of problems: her husband is missing, her son is growing into manhood with revenge on his mind, her family’s business is being disrupted by pirates and mercenaries, and her two mothers hate each other’s guts.
Nowadays, authors tend to follow other forms of media and rely upon bad language, sensuality, and inorganic plot twists to entertain readers. D.A. Boulter’s stories do not have any of those characteristics. Indeed, while not written for kids, or even young adults, these stories are entertaining but almost squeaky clean. Honestly, it is quite refreshing to read Boulter’s stories, which rely more upon world building, character evolution, and wholesome themes than anything shocking.
Fans of science fiction and multi volume stories should take a look at the works of D. A. Boulter. He’s one of the first eBook authors I ever read, and he remains a favorite a decade after I discovered his work.
My recent visit to a used bookstore netted me a couple of relics from my past reading, including a paperback of Catherine Asaro’s The Quantum Rose. For those who have not read any of Asaro’s Skolian saga, this book might make a good starting point, but it is probably a better read for those who are already familiar with this rather involved science fiction/fantasy/romance series.
The Quantum Rose won the 2001 Nebula Award
Asaro’s bio is almost as mind-boggling as her stories: She holds a doctorate in chemical physics, and she is a formerballerina, jazz dancer, and sometime singer. Her books include near future science fiction, such as The Veiled Web and the Phoenix Code, the 14 (or so) volume Skolian saga, which begins with Primary Inversion, The Lost Continent series, The Uplift Saga series, and more.
For me, this book is really hard to quantify. One tag line is that it is a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast. Uh, not really. Another is that it is a physics allegory, and the author ‘s note at the end makes every effort to explain the book via that lens, and while interesting, I kinda got lost in her description of particle physics after a while. Certainly this book is a romantic science fiction story, and there’s really not much high brow competition in that sub-genre. While readable, Asaro is never simplistic.
This story does fill in some gaps in the Skolian saga, which generally tells the story of members of the Ruby Dynasty in a book (or two.) Interestingly, the point of view character in The Quantum Rose is Kamoj Argali, a young ruler of an impoverished province on a backward planet, and not a member of the Ruby Dynasty. Kamoj does end up entangled in their saga, because she becomes involved with Vyrl, one of the Ruby Dynasty, who is sojourning on her planet for a while, and they end up falling in love.
The first part of the book is all about Kamoj, Vyrl, and the complications of her previous engagement to a local leader of questionable morals, Jax Ironbridge. This first half is more romance than sci-fi, although sci-fi elements are present. The second half is mostly set off of that world, filling in certain backstory aspects of the Skolian saga, with more science fiction and a heavy dose of fantasy. At this point, the romance takes a back seat to the political machinations that are part and parcel of the Skolian yarn.
While I enjoyed The Quantum Rose once again, I have trouble understanding why it won the Nebula award, which goes to the best science fiction novel of the year (via a vote of the SFWA). Yes, it is skillfully written and the quantum part of the title is justified, at least in the author’s notes after the novel, as “playing with quantum scattering theory.” Still, I have to wonder if it was really the very best science fiction novel of 2000. I like most of the Asaro novels I have read, and I think some of the others are better than The Quantum Rose. Hum, maybe it was the lack of competition.
Visions and Revisions 