The Reading Room

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bobble

01:00

I drafted this review and then re-read it and went, wow, that is really negative.

Fairly quickly into Darwin’s Cipher it became, if not a hate-read, then an amusingly frustrated read. I suspect that I was not the target audience: I’m studying graduate-level genetics. Mr. Rothman’s novel uses very, very incorrect genetics.

The main bad-pop-sci-genetics element is also the novel’s premise. One of the main characters, a geneticist named Juan, creates an algorithm which can predict millions of years of evolution. To be clear, evolution does not move “forward” over time. Evolution does not go in the same “direction” across all species. And that’s not the only such egregious …

6 hours later…

Rand al'Thor

07:10

@bobble Negative but mostly in a fair way, I'd say - you describe some actual mistakes (from scientific/geopolitical viewpoints) and acknowledge that your opinion is subjective ("I expect" ... "for my taste").

An amusing irony: my only critique of your review is a critique that you also make of the novel: "hinting that bad things are happening, without specifics" :-) You do mention some specific errors regarding genetics, but the geopolitics blunder and the illogical character actions are left vague. That's also fair though: maybe it would be spoilery to say too much, and it's only a one-minute review after all.

Bookworm

07:44

Q: Why does the relation between Jake and the gunslinger change during book 1?

I've recently finished reading The Gunslinger, book 1 in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. What confused me is why the relation between Jake and Roland changed, with both of them apparently foreseeing how it would end later on in the story. When they first meet, despite a lack of trust that's na...

Q: What does "Time and again my fiery spirit drove me to win a wife" mean?

In Book 9 of the Iliad, when Achilles is rejecting Agamemnon's offer as brought by Odysseus, Achilles says: If the gods pull me through and I reach home alive, Peleus needs no help to fetch a bride for me himself. Plenty of Argive women wait in Hellas and in Phthia, daughters of lords who rule t...

meaning greek-language homer the-iliad

3 hours later…

Bookworm

11:08

Q: Who is the "Celebrated New Zealander that is to be"?

In Henry Dunbar: The Story of an Outcast by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, set around 1850 and published 1864, we have the following: This diary-keeping is a very foolish habit, after all. Why do I keep this record of a most commonplace existence? Is there any use in such a journal as mine? ... Will th...

identification-request mary-elizabeth-braddon henry-dunbar

4 hours later…

bobble

15:11

@Randal'Thor one version of the review had brief descriptions of both the geopolitics blunder and a particularly odd antagonist decision, I'll put them back in

3 hours later…

Bookworm

17:58

Q: The three trees is Mistral's Tres árboles

In Gabriela Mistral's poem Tres árboles, the speaker says he or she came across three fallen trees that have been left behind by the woodcutter. The third stanza describes how one of these trees stretches out its "huge arm with trembling leaves" (Ursula K. Le Guin's translation) towards one of th...

poetry spanish-language interpretation gabriela-mistral

Q: Thriller book with a climactic scene where the protagonist knows that weapons are being smuggled in the coffins of deceased veterans/POWs

This popped into mind for some reason during Veteran's Day services. The part that has stuck with me was a scene near the end of the book, but I think it featured a military investigator who encountered a scheme to smuggle munitions onto the black market by flying them onto US soil hidden in the ...

identification-request

Tsundoku

@Bookworm Sorry not sorry for the tongue twister in the first question ;-P

2 hours later…

Rand al'Thor

20:22

@Bookworm 'Twas gode this reached HNQ.

@Bookworm The chronology of the posts of HNQ.

@Bookworm My fiery spirit drove me to HNQ.

@Bookworm New Zealander celebrated on HNQ.

Tsundoku

21:12

@Bookworm Celebrated New Zealander pondering over the ruins of HNQ.

Tsundoku

22:07

The German poet and radio drama author Jürgen Becker died on 7 November. (It wasn't in the news until today.)

Bookworm

22:30

Q: In old versions of the "Robin Hood" tale, what is a "gren-wode shawe"?

A Gest of Robyn Hode is one of the earliest surviving texts featuring a tale about the Robin Hood character. In contemporary English, what is a "gren-wode shawe"? Please consider the following excerpt: loke ye do no husband harme That tilleth with his plow. No/know more ye shall no/know gode yem...