The Escapement: The Engineers 03 by K. J. Parker

From The Week of August 28, 2011

Of all human emotions, love does the most harm. For it is love for our mates that drives us into the eager arms of vengeance and revenge, love of country and tribe that provokes us to kill and be killed, love of a cause that motivates us to blind devotion. There is no room for else. This is the argument made by The Escapement, the concluding volume of a bleak and twisted trilogy that examines the root emotions of human motivations before quietly and mercilessly concluding that this singular emotion, cherished, romanticized and venerated in poem and song, is nothing more than ammunition for barbarity.

After readers witnessed the framing and forced exile of Ziani Vaatzes in Devices And Desires, and his elevation from engineer to kingmaker in Evil For Evil, there ought to be little surprise to find the beleaguered but resilient Mezentian engineer thriving in The Escapement. For after setting into motion an intricate plan to actualize his revenge upon the narrowminded civilization that tried to execute him, Ziani is about to see years of plots and schemes, blood and sweat, luck and good fortune come together to deliver into his hands the fate of an entire people. He has not only successfully forged an alliance between the factional forces opposing the normally all-powerful Mezentians, he has manipulated this new alliance into besieging the Great Republic in hopes of forcing from Mezentia concessions that would see him restored to his old life. Not only has he achieved all this without creating enemies, he's succeeded in his aims while simultaneously earning himself the trust of the alliance's leaders. This is no mean feat for an intelligent but unemotional engineer who could have never imagined his life taking such a torturous turn.

The Escapement is a race against time. Will the forces under Duke Valens succeed in destroying the fabled Mezentian defenses, opening up the wealthy city to the tender mercies of savages and soldiers? Or will the Mezentians, unaccustomed to war splaying itself out across their doorstep, hold out long enough that Valens' army will starve itself into defeat? The winds of fate are blowing and, though much is uncertain, the wise man knows this much. Ziani Vaatzes will have a say in the outcome. He's lived this long...

K. J. Parker has penned, here, a difficult conclusion to what was a challenging trilogy. There is brilliance here. Parker has a vivid grasp of engineering, a language of power and exactitude which has no room for mercy. What's more, the author's eagerness to explore man's darkest nature, to reach in and extract the truths underpining his actions, grants the piece an intellectual honesty that, while savage and grim,is engaging and thoughtful. But while there's plenty here to recommend it, the flaws that flirted with Devices And Desires and tormented Evil For Evil make their presences felt here as well. The navel-gazing monologues have slightly more purpose this time, but there are still many more than necessary. More over, Parker's campaign to convince the reader that Ziani Vaatzes is smart enough to manipulate four civilizations into fighting a war against one another is no more successful here than it was in past volumes. This series is built on the premise that men are fallible and limited, that not even the most brilliant mind can conceive of all the answers, that life is made up of colliding events which produce sparks triggering yet more events. All this runs counter to Ziani Vaatzes who is both godlike in his insight and omnipotent in his actions.

There's enough here to interest admirers of dark fantasy, but there is too much slogging to call it great. Innovative but troubled. (3/5 Stars)

How Bad Are Bananas by Mike Berners-lee

From The Week of August 28, 2011

A week does not go by in which we are not reminded of the price Earth pays for humanity's ongoing existence. From mining to deforestation, from oceans polluted by our garbage to landmasses remade for our crops, the cost of civilization is everywhere and, as much as some wish it otherwise, impossible to ignore. But while there is little we can do to put an end to this exploitation, short of returning to the darkness of pre-industrial agrarian life, we can make small changes that may help slow the rate at which we devour the planet. Rather than the guilt and outrage characteristic of large swaths of environmentalist writing, this spirit of pragmatism is what fuses this effort from Mr. Berners-lee.

How Bad Are Bananas is a dogged investigation of the carbon footprint of our everyday practices. From the cars and trains that transport us to the cellphones and laptops that keep us connected, Mr. Berners-Lee meticulously calculates the cost, in greenhouse gases, of producing our food, treating our waste, entertaining our minds, and cleaning our homes. In this, he uncovers a number of fascinating truths that have the power to surprise. For instance, best estimates put cellphone use at less than 1 percent of our total, carbon output per year, vanishingly small for a device owned and used by more than a quarter of the human population. But as much as cellphones, televisions and dishwashers surprise with their economy of carbon output, staples like rice and cheese join newspapers and light-rail trains in a category of products that astonish with their carbon costliness. In some cases, cheese actually produces more CO2E than meat and rice, meanwhile, is only fractionally better than cement, a flabbergasting result which is sure to stun the environmental laity.

But as much as there are surprising results among the products chronicled here, How Bad Are Bananas does not overturn the basic truths about carbon emissions, mainly, that transportation and livestock grown for human production combine to represent an eye-popping percentage of anthropogenic carbon. So while Mr. Berners-Lee helps his readers to understand the small ways in which they can shrink their carbon footprints, the alternately frustrating and depressing reality remains, that, short of grounding our planes, junking our cars and swearing off meat, there is precious little we can do to slow down the CO2 juggernaut that threatens to transform our world.

This is admirably researched work that does what all educational pamphlets should do, entertain and enlighten. I would have appreciated a more thorough effort from the author to compare the products listed here with one another, or perhaps to rate, as a percent of global carbon use, each product so that the reader could have easily measured them against other activities. Instead, each product was measured in kilograms or pounds of emissions, a measurement which means precious little to the average reader. Nonetheless, this is an instructive read. (3/5 Stars)

Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies by June Casagrande

From The Week of August 28, 2011

For most of us, English grammar is a challenging subject. For while brave teachers have been thanklessly instructing us in its fundamentals, for decades now, English speakers have been learning their language without any knowledge of the mishmash of Dutch, French, German, Latin and Norse tongues from which it has been haphazardly assembled. As a result, most of us quickly forget the bewildering (at best) and senseless (at worst) array of rules we were taught in High School, instead, absorbing what laws we can through intuition and common usage. This is far from ideal, which makes our grammar far from ideal. And when some aspect of our character is substandard, we can count on there being puffed-up perfectionists ready to step in and correct us while being aglow with smug superiority. Thank the gods, then, for Ms. Casagrande.

From the semicolon to the subjunctive, from "I"s and "we"s to "that"s and "which"s, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies is a playful and enlightening romp through the maddening world of English grammar. But unlike the school lessons, to which attention had to be encouraged by the threat of ruler-wrapped knuckles, Ms. Casagrande, an American author and journalist, teaches through humor, infusing an otherwise dry subject with entertaining verve.

While Ms. Casagrande's primary purpose here is to educate her readers on some core principles of English grammar, she also devotes considerable time to the castigation of grammar snobs. From Lynn Truss to the anonymous hordes who feel it their duty to correct every error, the author contends that these snobbish, self-styled, gram=mar experts are far from helpful and that they intimidate those with only passable grammar by proudly declaring their arcane knowledge. Ms. Casagrande argues that, in reality, not even grammar experts know all the rules, that some situations have no hard-and-fast rules, and that comprehension ought to be the standard by which we judge communication.

Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies is an enjoyable read. While Ms. Casagrande is overzealous in her criticism of grammar snobs -- I read Lynn Truss as far more humorous than she --, her underlying point, that snobbery only inhibits learning while fostering a dangerous elitism, is both valid and well-argued. Humanity has, at many points in its history, surrendered authority to various priesthoods, all of which claim specialized, doctrinal knowledge of important subjects. But rather than using their esoteric knowledge to educate laypeople, these self-appointed guardians of the arcane sanctified their learning, insisting that only they can properly dispense its wisdom. In doing so, they claim unto themselves power that, by rights, ought to be equally held by everyone. Grammar snobs may not have nice robes or gilded crosses, but this should fool no one into thinking that they are not the newest iteration of this sad practice. Knowledge belongs to everyone and can be accessed by anyone. And whomsoever claims otherwise is only trying to make himself feel special.

Educational, funny and with a bit of intellectual bite. (3/5 Stars)

The Science of Evil by Simon Baron Cohen

From The Week of August 28, 2011

There can be little doubt that the need to know is one of man's most influential virtues. It has driven him to harness fire, fashion weapons, cultivate the land and found civilizations. But as much as this desire to understand has spurred humanity onto new heights and new achievements, its benefits are not enjoyed without costs. After all, the same need to know that ignites curiosity also drives man to find answers to more troublesome questions. Why do good people die young? Why are the righteous defeated by the ignorant? Why are we here? Unsurprisingly, answers to these philosophical queries have not been forthcoming, prompting man to sketch out his own explanations.

Evil. There is evil at work in the world, an evil that strengthens the arms of the ignorant, an evil that causes the good to die young. Evil accounts for all the inequities, all the unfairness. Evil is what infects the hearts and minds and turns them to wicked purposes.

This narrative is as old as human culture, but now, thanks to the rigors of modern science, evil, like so many other boogyman before it, is yielding. It is being brought under the inquisitive light of reason, forced to identify itself as man's inability to empathize with his fellows. After all, if man has no empathy for his neighbors, he cannot imagine the pain of harming them. And if he cannot imagine the pain of harming them, then there is nothing to stop him from harming them. And if there's nothing to stop him from harming them, then he will harm them, and for no reason anyone else can see. This, to his fellows, is evil, violence made inexplicable by an inability to imagine life without empathy. This is, at least, Mr. Baron-Cohen's premise and he argues it logically and effectively.

The Science of Evil is a swift and systematic attempt to classify and understand those among us who lack empathy. After laying out the numerous regions of the brain responsible for empathy, Mr. Baron-Cohen, a professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge, transitions from a scientific explanation of empathy -- feeling discomfort at another's pain -- into an attempt to classify those devoid of empathy.

To this end, Mr. Baron-Cohen's research leads him to divide our subjects into two major groups, Zero Positives and Zero Negatives. The zero represents the amount of empathy the subject displays while the designation of Positive or Negative denotes the bent of the subject's personality. For instance, a Zero Positive might be a harmless Autistic, someone with a mind beset by the beauty and the safety of the world's mathematical constructs. Zero Negative, meanwhile, could be any of a number of antisocial personality types ranging from the psychopathic (P), to the narcissistic (N), to the borderline (B). Such personalities are capable of great harm, ruthlessly deploying weapons of violence and manipulation in order to mercilessly achieve their own ends.

Though brief, The Science of Evil is a fascinating and educational examination of Zero-Empathy personalities and the harm they are capable of. But unlike the prior generations of so-called experts who would have dismissed these humans as misfits, Mr. Baron-Cohen has shed some light on how Zero Empathy comes about and how it can be avoided. In doing so, he does not only enlighten his readers on the role empathy plays in gluing together human society, he helps us to understand that there is no such thing as evil; there is merely that which we do not understand. To call this evil is to allow ourselves to shelter in our prejudices, to dismiss the unknown as unworthy of our exploration. Such narrowmindedness only begets ignorance and that we must not accept. (3/5 Stars)

1848 by Mike Rapport

From The Week of August 28, 2011

since man blundered into civilization, he has been at war with himself. Much as theologians would have it otherwise, this is not a conflict of angels against devils, man's best against his worst, in a battle for his soul. No, this is a war of actual significance that has consequences for himself and for humanity.

Opposing one another across the battlefield of human nature are two powerful antagonists, man's desire for order and man's desire for freedom. The former subverts freedom by electing tyrants to impose peace and structure upon the world. The latter, meanwhile, agitates against order by investing every man with the pains and responsibilities for his own liberty. Unlike conventional wars, this most internal conflict may never end; after all, the wisdom necessary to find the proper balance between such contrary forces may only be found in the divine. But as help from the gods does not seem forthcoming, all we can do is look to past skirmishes and hope that somewhere, within this sea of tyrants and troublemakers, we can find some kind of harmony. In this effort, the revolutions that convulsed Europe in 1848 can be quite instructive.

1848 is Mr. Rapport's meticulous reconstruction of the cries for liberty that thundered across Europe in that most revolutionary year. A generation after the Congress of Vienna restored authoritarian rule to a continent tormented by Napoleonic populism, an entirely new disagreement erupted, putting to an end 30 years of imposed peace. Unlike the Napoleonic Wars which were rooted in a dangerous and ultimately tragic militarism, this new war was social in nature, fuelled by the socioeconomic inequities characteristic of all authoritarian states. The working classes, in want of access to food, capital and self-rule, rebelled, overthrowing a monarchy in France, igniting the spirit of national unity in Italy and the German states, and rolling back the imperialism of the Habsburg Empire which, at this time, governed much of central Europe. These revolutions, influenced both by the democratic success in the United States and the intellectual contributions of Marx and Engels, sought to replace kings and emperors with presidents and prime ministers. Constitutions were written, republics declared, parliaments held.

But while these revolutions achieved many, early successes, it took only a matter of months for discord to set in. The revolutionaries had, in the end, only the revolution in common. They were, otherwise, ethnically, politically and socially diverse. Some wanted only an end to authoritarian rule while others desired democracy. Some favored only a limited franchise while others agitated for universal male suffrage. Some wanted a moderate, progressive actualization of reforms while others advocated that the rotten anthill be kicked over and swiftly replaced with a new and better way. Under these pressures, these once-united revolutionaries fragmented into combative factions, some insisting on order, others shouting for freedom. Against this divided front, it proved surprisingly easy for the washed-out tide of absolutest rule to sweep back across the European shore and obliterate most, if not all, of the political gains of 1848.

It is no surprise that the 1848 revolutions hold little fascination for anyone outside academia. But for Napoleon III and Giuseppe Garibaldi, this upheaval produced no historical giants, men who withstood the rigors of time to be immortalized by our culture. More over, Mr. Rapport's scholarly style, here, does very little to make these uprisings any more accessible; 1848's dryness is on par with most of its characters. But while Mr. Rapport fails to inject his work with the verve characteristic of most popular histories, he has done a wonderful job of both thoroughly reconstructing a tumult of chaotic and confusing events and extracting from them a logical conclusion. For while the revolutions of 1848 may not have given birth to many actual reforms, they sparked in the hearts and minds of the subsequent generations ideas of freedom and universal brotherhood that would culminate in the liberalization of the 20th century.

A solid history. Mr. Rapport does not miss his subject's central dilemma. Man desires to be free, but how free? How much discord is he willing to entertain in order to be free? It is a question that doomed the revolutions of 1848. Will it linger over us for the centuries to come as well? (3/5 Stars)

Evil For Evil: The Engineers 02 by K. J. Parker

From The Week of August 21, 2011

In Devices And Desires, K. J. Parker introduced readers to a mechanical universe in which precision and exactitude are matchless virtues which, if sufficiently mastered, can convey extraordinary powers upon both society and the individual. In Evil For Evil, the author expands upon this theme by arguing that these standards of personal conduct open up the mind to possibilities of perception and manipulation that, when cleverly used against the other players in life's game, can bring both victory and revenge. Though Parker earns points for novelty and for the courage of realizing that novelty in a vivid and interesting setting, he, or she -- the author's identity is unknown --, fails both to convince the reader of this premise and to maintain the reader's interest through to the lengthy novel's modest conclusion.

When we were last with Ziani Vaatzes, the exiled Mezentian foreman, wanted by his homeland for both fleeing his own execution and deploying his knowledge against the Great Republic that taught him, the city state that took him in was being obliterated. Betrayed to the besieging enemy, the hopeless Duke Orsea and his people were attempting to flee the Mezentian mercenaries who, having suffered massive casualties in the taking of the city, were set on slaughter. But whereas Ziani, by rights, ought to have run out of luck and been re-captured by the victorious forces, we find him, now, escaping into the protection of Duke Valens who, out of love for Orsea's wife, rides to the rescue of his fellow duke and his beleaguered people. But while Valens' ride has won them a brief reprieve, the relentless, Mezentian eye will soon turn to his lands where, despite Valens' cunning and extraordinary intelligence, there seems no force capable of stopping them. Or is there?

As Ziani is settling in to work for his second duke in a matter of months, a mysterious stranger arrives, pleading to become assistant to the wanted Mezentian engineer. Dismissive at first, Ziani's impression of this tall and ugly human evolves rapidly when his new assistant proves himself to have an intellect, in some ways, superior to Ziani's own. However, as much as this new stranger may offer Valens and his people a weapon that might level the playing field against the Mezentian armies, his dark past may well make it impossible for that advantage to be realized.

For lovers of dark fantasy, Evil For Evil has much to recommend it. It presents an unrelentingly bleak view of human relationships, deeming them to be based on treacherous emotions. In this universe, love is the most terrible force in the world for it is the only power capable of causing he who experiences it to jeopardize all in order to hold faith with it. While this makes the read unendurable at times, it also provides it a great deal of dark energy which Parker puts to great use by laying waste to the conceits of happiness and heroism. Given that the fantasy genre is all-too-littered with spunky, world-saving wizards and the fluffy, happy fellows who love them, this is a welcome digression into potent, imaginative realism.

But for all this, Evil For Evil must be considered a three-pronged failure. Most importantly, it is interminably long. Its 700 pages are bloated with endless and repetitive monologues on the nature of human failing, the removal of even a handful of which could comfortably reduce the piece by a couple of hundred pages. Secondly, it makes an unsuccessful attempt to convince the reader of its most vital plot point, that one man can, through sufficient foresight and planning, manipulate entire civilizations and their leaders into a succession of actions, all designed to bring about a single, future outcome. Not only is this highly implausible, it directly clashes with another of the author's themes, that plans rarely if ever work out the way their planners expect them to. In a universe based on realism, this is an annoying dependence on deus ex machina. Finally, but for one major incident, the book is almost entirely expository. It seeks more to justify its few developments than to launch the reader towards a satisfying conclusion. I will read on, mostly because I'm sufficiently invested to want to know how the story ends, but my suspicion is that this could have easily been a duology with the first volume concluding with the major event in this piece, and the final volume picking up from that.

Disappointing. Seven-hundred pages is a lot of dead trees for far too little advancement. (2/5 Stars)

Bonnie Prince Charlie by Carolly Erickson

From The Week of August 21, 2011

Though scientists will, I imagine, continue to debate, for some time, the question of nature versus nurture and which plays a more prominent role in the development of a human being, nature must have the upper hand. For it seems, in life after life, that our environment has a profound say in who we are and what we make of ourselves. From the faiths we proclaim, to the morals we espouse, to the biases we hold, and the ideologies we advocate, the things we believe in are imprinted upon us by the society to which we belong. There's nothing inherently wrong with this; after all, there are plenty of societies that inculcate their citizens with kindness and generosity. But of course, in such a scenario, a great deal of importance rests on the quality of that inculcating society. If it is healthy and good, then its citizens are bound to follow in its footsteps. But if it is plagued by inequity and narrowmindedness, then these shortcomings will burden its people with flaws they will struggle to overcome. There can be few better examples of this principle at work than Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Christened Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Silvester Severino Maria Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie was born, in 1720, to the self-styled James III of England and VIII of Scotland whose Catholic father, James II, was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. As a result, the Bonnie Prince was not born in England but at the papal court in Rome where his father James, after two miserably unsuccessful attempts to reclaim the throne for his father, came to reside, exiled from his homeland. Young Charlie was groomed, from an early age, to be the great, Catholic hope, the Stewart who would return to a Britain lost to Anglicanism, raise up the banner of the pro-papal Stewarts and win back the throne for his crownless father. As such, while his younger, more artistic brother threw himself into a pious and Romantic education, Charlie was mastered in the art of combat and infused with the arrogance necessary for a man to overcome all odds in the achievement of a difficult goal.

In 1744, the 24-year-old Charlie snuck out of Italy and relocated to France where the French king, agreed to support a Catholic invasion of England with ships and men under the Stewart banner. But when the vagaries of seasonal weather combined with general incompetence to scuttle the planned French invasion, an impulsive Charlie, believing Jacobite loyalists would rally to him the moment he raised his standard on British soil, ignored the entreaties from his father to return to Rome and boldly sailed to England where a skirmish with the British navy forced him to land in desolate Scotland. Charlie's boldness was born out, however, when, within the year, he had forged a Scottish army capable of marching on London. But when factional infighting forced a retreat at the vital moment, the dream was doomed and, in 1745, at Culloden, the dream died in a decisive and devastating English victory.

Ms. Erickson, a veteran biographer, has done justice, here, to a worthy subject. For while her reconstruction of the Jacobite rebellion is compelling and entertaining, it's her portrait of Charles Stewart himself that captivates. This is a man trained practically from birth to achieve a single, nearly impossible dream, to restore his father to his rightful throne. And so, when circumstances conspire to kill that dream, he is a failure. Without a Catholic monarchy in england, he is nothing more than a nobleman, a man trained to do the one thing he cannot achieve. It's no wonder then that he slowly became a cruel, selfish, licentious drunk, a man playing out the string of life with the knowledge that he could never actualize what he was made for. The pall that would cast over ones life beggars the imagination.

This is as much a study in character and human nature as it is a biography of the death of the Stewart dynasty. In both respects, it is a wonderful success. (5/5 Stars)