Book and Movie Reports by Ed

Book report: I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov This book is a collection of tales about robot behavior. Asimov, anticipating a time when autonomous and intelligent robots would have to coexist with human beings, created his three laws of robotics: a robot must not cause or allow harm to a human, a robot must obey a human (except if it involves harming a human), and a robot must preserve its own existence (except where that conflicts with the previous two laws). These laws have been elevated to science fiction canon, and are often quoted and used in other works by other authors. Each story involves robots acting in unexpected ways, and people trying to figure out why the robots are acting the way they are, and setting things right, if possible. They are all good stories, written as clever mysteries, and are well told. But Asimov’s genius goes way beyond creating a world, and its rules, and strange situations in it, and telling entertaining stories about it. His genius is in recognizing th...

Movie report: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 [Spoiler Alert!] In her first scene in this movie, Hermione performs an action that is utterly logical and completely heart-breaking. Knowing that the bad guys will come searching for her and will stop at nothing to catch her, she erases all traces of herself from her parents’ memories. It is so poignant to see this girl, this child, remove her very existence from the people who love her most. To save them. To save her. Maybe. That’s the kind of movie this is. The carefree days of fun spells and hijinks are gone. There are no quidditch matches in this movie, no scenes at Hogwarts at all. Voldemort and his minions have all the power and are all too willing to use it. Their coup of the magical world is complete, except for Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Mind you, the minions are not all happy about this situation. It’s clear that the Malfoys are wondering if it’s such a treat to be so close to someone who is absolutely evil. T...

Book report: Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley This is the 3-issue sequel to Miller and Varley’s 1986 masterpiece “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns”. At the end of that 4-issue work, Batman, after defeating the Joker and a nameless anarchical criminal leader, pretends to be dead to escape the notice of Superman and the authorities. Now, 3 years later, the world is a wonderful place. The Dow is at 50,000. Congress passes laws unanimously. Everyone is happy. Well, not everyone. In fact, most people have it pretty crappy in this world. Wealthy and powerful people and corporations have the world in their pocket. Dissent is outlawed. The President is revealed to be a CGI creation – and nobody cares much. Except for Batman. Enough about plot. It is the style of DKSA that smacks you in the eyeball. It’s like a comic gone berserk. There are almost no settings. Just the people, ma’am. Sometimes just a chin or a finger. It’s like Dark Knight Returns on...

TV report: The Cape (NBC) “The Cape” is a new superhero action TV show that has some interesting aspects, but also some goofy and wrongheaded parts that must be straightened out to achieve success. [SPOILER ALERT!] In this show, The Cape is a superhero along the lines of Batman, namely, that he doesn’t have any super powers, but relies on special prowess, equipment, and inner drive to overcome enemies. The background is that Vince Faraday is an honest cop who is framed for a murder by a local billionaire-slash-criminal-mastermind named Chess. Faraday is believed dead, which makes his wife and young son safe from Chess. Faraday decides to stay undercover to keep his family safe while he tries to take down Chess in vigilante style. It’s almost the reverse of Batman’s origin: Batman’s family was killed, and he dedicated his life to justice. In “The Cape”, Faraday is actually the one believed dead. I like the part where a local circus takes Faraday into the fold and teaches him all...

Book report: The Myth of Stress by Andrew Bernstein I’m not big on self-help books. I certainly need the help, but I’m skeptical. Too often, the book claims to be the absolute solution, and it can’t be: people are too different. Or it demands some absurd commitment of belief and energy that I’m not going to invest. Or it simply doesn’t work. So, for me to pick up, read, and recommend a self-help book is very unusual. But “The Myth of Stress” is an unusual book. It starts by introducing the explanation behind stress that we’ve all come to know – and then debunking it. As we all know, stress is caused by the fight-or-flight response to danger that we evolved to survive. Saber-tooth tiger shows up: we either run, fight the tiger, or become lunch. Only the runners and fighters survived. Now, whenever the modern equivalent of the saber-tooth tiger shows up, we have the same response, but it’s no longer helpful. We can’t run from our work or families. We can’t battle the other commuters ...

Book report: Mort, by Terry Pratchett I love Terry Pratchett’s writing. He does for sword-and-sorcery fantasy what Douglas Adams did for science fiction: makes it howlingly funny. Mort is another in his series of books that take place on the Diskworld, that round flat world supported on the backs of four elephants, all on the back of a turtle swimming through space. These books feature heroes, villains, and wizards in ludicrous situations. One recurring character in the series is Death. You know him: skeletal, dresses in black, carries a scythe? His eternal job is to be there when each person dies and usher their soul to whatever comes next. In this book, Death takes on an apprentice to learn the trade, a fellow named Mort. Mort does pretty well, until he can’t bring himself to harvest the soul of a beautiful young princess. He spares her, which sets off a chain of consequences while Death is off on a pub crawl. Hijinks ensue, along with the usual impossible ending. What’s amaz...

Book report: Extraordinary Knowing, by Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer An expensive harp was stolen from Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer’s daughter in Oakland, California. All usual efforts to find the thieves and the harp failed. A friend suggested that Mayer contact a dowser, one of those guys who find water with a stick, in Arkansas. On a whim, she called him. Over the phone, from two thousand miles away, he described where in Oakland the harp was located. She made inquiries and within two days found the harp where the dowser described. That incident turned her ideas of human perception upside down. A well-known psychoanalyst and psychological researcher, she set out to try to learn more about what she calls “anomalous cognition.” Her grounding in scientific skepticism is evident in the book. She clearly understands good experimental design and proper statistical analysis of results But she is also willing to listen to anecdotal accounts, and the discrepancy between the two is striking. Contrary ...