Various Thoughts

Neuropath is a thriller by R. Scott Bakker I picked up on a whim when I ordered The Judging Eye. Now, normally I don’t read thrillers and so had no idea what to expect. Even if I did… I probably would have been surprised that the book is more philosophical dissertation than novel. The characters are just arguments (or perhaps proofs) and the setting is merely window dressing.

Generally speaking this wouldn’t be a problem since philosophy can provoke interesting discussions. It didn’t work out that way in this case because I already viewed its ‘radical viewpoint’ as self-evident reality. Probably because I’m a sociopath. Regardless, reading it was akin to reading about how the grass is green and sky is blue; not particularly interesting.

There was, however, one point I found myself disagreeing with. A comparison is made between the brain and a computer, which is accurate enough for the most part. The problem comes when it’s inferred that because you understand the brain’s programming language you can accurately predict how it will respond to various stimuli. That is not necessarily true. While I haven’t worked with many different types of programming languages, the ones I have all included at least one "Random" function. A command that would return a random value from between a set of defined boundaries.

Brains, like computers, could very easily have certain responses tied to those "Random" functions depending upon their logical syntax. So while you would be able to predict that one of several actions could occur, you could not predict precisely which one.

The Shadow of the LionThe first book in the Heirs of Alexandria series, written by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer, came as a complete surprise. I read many of Lackey’s books in the past (the Obsidian Trilogy, just about all of the Valdemar series, and the first two of the Joust series),...

Mass Effect: Revelation & AscensionMass Effect: Revelation, by Drew Karpyshyn, reveals some of the backstory behind Captain Anderson and Saren. Including the details behind the exploding refinery fiasco Anderson mentions in the game just before you leave the Citadel. While that was moderately interesting, the majority of the book is rather short on actual revelations....

Secrets in the ShadowsThe second book in Jenna Black’s debut series, and it’s surprisingly better than the first one. Maybe it was due to the lowered expectations, but I didn’t find myself disliking this one as much as Watchers in the Night. A couple of interesting things happen, such as the mystery behind...

Shadows On the SoulThe third book in Jenna Black’s Guardians series, and it’s rather similar to the first book. I found myself liking the Gabriel character from the second book, and still liking him earlier in this book, but about halfway through he becomes a near-copy of the Drake character. Jezebel, similarly, starts...

The Dark Templar SagaFirstborn, Shadow Hunters, and Twilight are the three books that make up Christie Golden‘s Dark Templar Saga. This is an interesting series that follows an archaeologist (Jacob Ramsey) hired by Emperor Mensk’s son to investigate a Xel’Naga temple, and whose life becomes quite complicated after he finds a dying Protoss (Zamara) within the...

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