2022 Reading Log
in Reading
Fiction
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
Assassin’s Quest by Robin Hobb
Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb
The Mad Ship by Robin Hobb
Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb
Fool’s Errand by Robin Hobb
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Military
The Pentagon Paradox: The Development of the F-18 Hornet by James P. Stevenson
2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman
The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence, 1939-1945 by R. V. Jones
Declared Hostile by Kevin Miller
Northrop YF-23 ATF (Air Force Legends #220) by Paul Metz
Scream of Eagles: The Dramatic Account of the U.S. Navy’s Top Gun Fighter Pilots and How They Took Back the Skies Over Vietnam by Robert K. Wilcox
Wings of Fury by Robert K. Wilcox
Technology and Management
The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim
Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet (re-read)
Leadership is Language by L. David Marquet
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio García Martínez
Game Engine Black Book: DOOM by Fabien Sanglard
Nonfiction
The Great Beanie Baby Bubble by Zac Bissonnette
Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing by Peter Robison
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (re-read)
Excerpts
The System of the World
P.168
Then he got a look on his face as if he were thinking. Daniel had learned, in his almost seventy years, not to expect much of people who got such looks, because thinking really was something one ought to do all the time.
Royal Assassin
He speaks of a time to come when a blacksmith’s way of setting a shoe, or a shipwright’s knack for pulling a drawknife would be set down in letters, that any who could read could learn to do as well. I do not believe it is so, or ever will be. Some things may be learned from words on a page, but some skills are learned first by a man’s hands and heart, and later by his head.
“Fool, cannot you ever speak plain?” I cried out in frustration. He halted as suddenly as if struck. In midpirouette, he lowered his heels to the floor and stood like a statue. “Would it help any?” he asked soberly. “Would you listen to me if I came to you and did not speak in riddles? Would that make you pause and think and hang upon every word, and ponder those words later, in your chamber?
After a long time she observed, “Our own ambitions and tasks that we set for ourselves, the framework we attempt to impose upon the world, is no more than a shadow of a tree cast across the snow. It will change as the sun moves, be swallowed in the night, sway with the wind, and when the smooth snow vanishes, it will lie distorted upon the uneven earth. But the tree continues to be. Do you understand that?”
The questions about the Fool will always outnumber the answers. Did he ever truly possess any mystical powers, any prescience, any magic at all, or was it merely that his quick wits and razor tongue made it seem as if he knew all before it came to pass? If he did not know the future, he appeared to, and by his calm assumption of foreknowledge, he swayed many of us to help him shape the future as he saw fit.
“The most distinctive part of your fighting style is the incredible way you have of surviving it.”
It was possible to be homesick for a time, and to be lonely for the only other person who could recall it.
Ship of Magic
“It is the nature of humans that we tend to pass our pain along. As if we could get rid of it by inflicting an equal hurt on someone else.”
Ship of Destiny
“Don’t think of the obstacles that lie between now and the moment we confront him.” The ship spoke in a low, soft voice. “Long or short, if you worry about every step of a journey, you will divide it endlessly into pieces, any one of which may defeat you. Look only to the end.”
“Be now what you must be to succeed at the end of your journey, and when the end comes, you will find it is just another beginning.”
“My grandfather used to say, ‘Start out dealing with a man the way you intend to go on dealing with him.’”
“Can’t you feel it?” she asked her in a whisper. “Look around you. We are on the cusp. We are a coin spinning in the toss, a card fluttering in the flip, a rune chip floating in stirred water. Possibilities swarm like bees. In this day, in a moment, in a breath, the future of the world will shift course by a notch. One way or another, the coin will land ringing, the card will settle to the table, the chip will bob to the surface. The face that shows uppermost will set our days, and children to come will say, ‘That is just the way it has always been.’”
Mad Ship
“Berandol used to say that one way to disperse fear and create decision was to consider the worst possible outcome of one’s actions.” After a moment Wintro added, “Berandol said that if one considered the worst possible outcome and planned how to face it, then he could be decisive when it came time to act.”
He smiled at the man, knowing well that insinuating that a man didn’t know what he was talking about was the best way to get him to share all he knew.
“Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die. True courage is facing life without flinching. I don’t meant the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I’m talking about enduring the boredom, and the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.”
“Don’t stop believing in him now, Althea, or we are are all lost. Don’t show him any sign of fear or doubt. Paragon is more child than man. When I give Clef an order, I don’t watch him to see if he’ll obey. I’d never let him believe he had more power over me than I had over him. Boys can’t deal with that. They’ll keep groping for the limits until they find them. They only feel safe when they know where the boundaries are.”
She tried to smile at him. “You speak from experience?”
The smile he returned her was a sickly one. “By the time I found the boundaries, I had fallen off the edge of the world. I won’t let that happen to Paragon.”
The sea trials had exposed every weakness in their crew. Althea now knew which hands wouldn’t scramble, and which ones seemed incapable of it. Some were lazy, some stupid and some slyly determined to do as little as possible. Her father, she was convinced, would have sacked the lot of them. When she had complained to Brashen, he had told her that she could replace any and all of them with better men at her discretion. All she had to do was find such men and hire them at the wages he could offer.
That had ended that conversation.
Ship of Destiny
“Don’t think of the obstacles that lie between now and the moment when we confront him.” The ship spoke in a low, soft voice. “Long or short, if you worry about every step of a journey, you will divide it endlessly into pieces, any one of which may defeat you. Look only to the end.”
Be now what you must be to succeed at the end of your journey, and when the end comes, you will find it is just another beginning.”
My grandfather used to say, ‘Start out dealing with a man the way you intend to go on dealing with him.’
She turned to look at Althea with eyes the color of brandy in firelight. “Can’t you feel it?” she asked her in a whisper. “Look around you. We are on the cusp. We are a coin spinning in the toss, a card fluttering in the flip, a rune chip floating in stirred water. Possibilities swarm like bees. In this day, in a moment, in a breath, the future of the world will shift course by a notch. One way or another, the coin will land ringing, the card will settle to the table, the chip will bob to the surface. The face that shows uppermost will set our days, and children to come will say, ‘That is just the way it has always been.’”
Fool’s Errand
Is time the wheel that turns, or the track it leaves behind? — KELSTAR’S RIDDLE
A while later, I lingered in the hinterlands of sleep. Sometimes I think there is more rest in that place between wakefulness and sleep than there is in true sleep. The mind walks in the twilight of both states, and finds the truths that are hidden alike by daylight and dreams. Things we are not ready to know abide in that place, awaiting that unguarded frame of mind.
I didn’t look at Hap, even when he spoke. Some things are better said to the dark. I waited. Silence can ask all the questions, where the tongue is prone to ask only the wrong one.
That is half of teaching an apprentice: making sure the youngster learns what you said, not what she thinks you said.”
The truth, I discovered, is a tree that grows as a man gains access to experience. A child sees the acorn of his daily life, but a man looks back on the oak.
“If you have, then you not only have a right to the information, but a need. If you are going to educate the Prince, you must know everything that affects him. But if you are not, if you intend to go back to your hermit’s hut, if you are asking but for the sake of hearing family gossip …” He let his words trail off. I knew that old trick of his. Leave a sentence dangling, and someone will leap to fill in the end, and possibly betray their own thoughts in doing so.
Ficciones
p.119
We continued our agreements along the corridor, down the stairs, into the vague streets. The judgements emitted by Moon impressed me less than their unattractive and apoditic tone. The new comrade did not argue: he passed judgement with obvious disdain and a certain fury.
The Name of the Wind
There was a long pause as he cracked his knuckles one at a time. “What are the three most important rules of the chemist?
This I knew from Ben. “Label clearly. Measure twice. Eat elsewhere.”
Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she derserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.
The Wise Man’s Fear
Denna watched the door close behind him. “He’s a sweet boy.”
“You say that as if you regret it,” I said.
“If he were a little less sweet, he might be able to fit two thoughts in his head at the same time. Maybe they would rub together and make a spark. Even a little smoke would be nice, then at least it would look like something was happening in there.” she sighed.
“In each of us there is a mind we use for all our waking deeds. But there is another mind as well, a sleeping mind. It is so powerful that the sleeping mind of an eight-year-old can accomplish in one second what the waking minds of seven members of the Arcanum could not in fifteen minutes.”
I didn’t say anything to that. I must have said it quite loudly too, because Dal gave me a curious look.
“Hold on a moment,” I said. “We’re not done. I don’t know if I could explain music without using it, but that’s beside the point. That’s not explanation, it’s translation.”
Elodin’s face lit up. “That’s it exactly!” he said. “Translation. All explicit knowledge is translated knowledge, and all translation is imperfect.”
“So all explicit knowledge is imperfect?” I asked. “Tell Master Brandeur geometry is subjective. I’d love to watch that discussion.”
“Not all knowledge,” Elodin admitted. “But most.”
Pride is always a better lever against the nobility than reason.
“It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers. […] That way, when he finds the answers, they’ll be precious to him. The harder the question, the harder we hunt. The harder we hunt, the more we learn. An impossible question…”
You find two types of mayor in small towns like this. The first type are balding, older men of considerable girth who are good with money and tend to wring their hands a great deal when anything unexpected happens. The second type are tall, broad-shouldered men whose families have grown slowly prosperous because they had worked like angry bastards behind a plow for twenty generations.
