Book Review – Neurotribes

NeuroTribes: The Untold History of Austim and the Potential of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a journalist, Steve Silberman takes a badly-needed neutral approach to a topic that’s frequently the subject of considerable axe grinding. As the author recounts, defining and determining the nature of autism has been a long process with many false steps, and some folks can be downright hostile about sticking to whatever stage they happened to get stuck on. Though the text identifies dead ends as what they are, it’s still reasonably respectful even to theories that turned out to be wrong. Indeed, in some places it’s a little too respectful. I would love to see a new edition of this book that reflects some of the changes in conventional wisdom, particularly about Hans Asperger’s level of collaboration with the Nazis’ eugenics agenda. Also as upper middle class parents were historically best able to advocate for their children, there isn’t a lot of focus on any other populations until toward the end of the book. Drawbacks aside, this is an excellent job of explaining the history of medical diagnoses and popular perceptions of people on what’s now known as the autism spectrum.

View all my reviews

Book Review – Never Flinch

Never Flinch by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m sorry Holly Gibney didn’t come along earlier in Stephen King’s career. She’s a likeable, multi-dimensional character, so if nothing else she could have been a welcome relief from all those books about writers with writer’s block. Sadly, her series didn’t get underway until the author was painfully past his prime. This one reaches novel length only by awkwardly intertwining two different antagonists. And as neither villain has any kind of supernatural abilities, the tale rarely rises above mediocre crime thriller. Further, King seems to be leaning into the cliche about the trouble he has with endings, as the finale here is so abrupt that it makes the preceding 400 pages seem kinda pointless. This is a reasonably entertaining summer read, but it’s a high point neither in the author’s overall career nor the Hodges and Gibney sets in particular.

View all my reviews

Review – Predator: Killer of Killers

The quality of both the animation and the storytelling strongly resemble extended cut scenes from a Predator-themed video game. Or maybe even more than one game. The first two subplots combine easily enough. Who wouldn’t want to see a badass viking and a badass ninja team up to battle Predators? But the protagonist of the third story is a World War Two era pilot. Within the episode, the Predator spaceship WW2 dogfight theme works well enough. But when this guy shows up in the arena of death with two hand-to-hand combat experts, it takes some awkward plot twists to effectively work him into the drama. When it comes to low-budget tack ons to famous franchises, I’ve seen worse. Mildly amusing

Review – Predator: Badlands

A wimpy Predator and the upper half of an android – both of whom talk too much – team up to locate and subdue a monster on a death planet. I found it innovative that all of the human-appearing characters are played by only two actors, which must have cut way down on the casting budget. Which is a good thing, as clearly they needed as much money as possible for the effects-intensive action sequences. The result is slick and clever without being particularly interesting. Mildly amusing

Book Review – The First into the Dark

The First into the Dark: The Nazi Persecution of the Disabled by Michael Robertson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As the title indicates, this is a consideration of the krankenmorde, the Nazis’ formal and informal systems for murdering sick people. The authors divide their work into two parts. The first half is a fascinating yet hard to read history of Aktion T4 and other efforts to murder anyone too physically or mentally disabled to serve a purpose in the reich. This turns out to be one of those experiences where just when you think it can’t possibly get any worse, it gets worse. The second half focuses mostly on debates about definitions and ethics. It’s important stuff, but it isn’t as compelling as the history.

View all my reviews

Review – Fear Below

The parts with the shark in it were fun. The rest of it was a vaguely unsatisfying 1930s era caper movie about divers trying to recover stolen gold from a van at the bottom of a muddy river. The acting and production values were good enough. Even the script was okay. It’s just that most of the story didn’t do much beyond bridging the gaps between moments when the shark swam in out of the murk and bit someone. Mildly amusing

Book Review – Practical UX Design

Practical UX Design by Scott Faranello
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read this while on a quest for a textbook for a freshman-level User Experience Design class, and wow was this ever not what I was looking for. The author serves abstruse design theory buried under a blizzard of baffling buzzwords. The result appears to be aimed at MBAs and MFAs without really meeting the needs of either (let alone the beginning-level students that are supposedly part of the target audience). The illustrations were a further obstacle to understanding, mostly screen caps from popular (in 2016) web sites that either did or didn’t clearly illuminate the point at hand. A sprinkling of errors – both typographical and factual – didn’t add to the credibility of the text. If you’re headed to a cocktail party where you’ll need to sound smart (without actually being smart) about UX, these lessons will do nicely. For other approaches to the subject, seek elsewhere.

View all my reviews