Month: March 2014

Review – DNA: The Secret of Life

Posted March 2, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Cover of DNA: The Secrets of Life by James WatsonDNA: The Secret of Life, James Watson

This is much, much better than James Watson’s 1968 The Double Helix, which is full of unbearable ego and sexist opinions. It even contains a chapter which explains the discovery of the double helix sans most of the commentary that made the earlier book annoying. Watson has definitely matured, thank goodness, and into a man I wouldn’t mind discussing genetics with. For example, he emphasises choice for pregnant women who know their babies have genetic disorders, insists that women have a right to decide on abortion which it is barbaric to deny, which I wouldn’t have predicted from his earlier book and which suggests a more liberal outlook than I expected.

In terms of the science alone, minus any comments on the writer, this is an excellent primer on DNA, covering most of what we currently understand about DNA. Being published nearly a decade ago now, it doesn’t comment on newer discoveries like the epigenetic control of gene expression, but it does cover just about everything in my college level online genetics class right now, with the added benefit of being something you can take at your own pace and without the horrible quantity of math that actually putting theories into practice requires (for example, he talks about finding a gene by reference to its association with a marker: I can calculate that if you give me half an hour, a calculator and a piece of paper — and allow me to cuss a good bit). It’s accessible to the layman, I think, but I still found it of interest despite my genetics classes and general interest in the field.

Some books leave me feeling that I’ve taken the wrong path in life. This is one of them. We know so many amazing, beautiful, astonishing things about DNA — and we have so much more to learn. This book made me long to have taken the other path in which I forced myself through the sciences for my A Levels, took a degree in genetics or something related, and became a geneticist. Watson clearly evokes the potential for this knowledge, and makes me wish I could add whatever intelligence I have to the process.

Skip The Double Helix, except as a historical document, but I do recommend DNA: The Secret of Life with little reserve.

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Review – Silent City

Posted March 1, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Silent City by Alex SeguraSilent City, Alex Segura

I was hopeful about this one when the publicist contacted me via my blog to offer me a copy. Chris F. Holm and Adam Christopher blurbed it, and I’ve certainly enjoyed their books. Plus there was a reference to similarities between the main character and Matt Fraction’s Clint Barton, which… hmm, I don’t really see.

Anyway, the problem with this is for me, it felt like a pretty standard detective story in style, tone, plot, characters… There’s nothing surprising about an alcoholic PI, though Pete Fernandez is a bit more the worse for wear than most. One aspect I did like was some of the relationships in the story, like Pete’s with his ex-girlfriend. That felt a bit more nuanced than typical for these stories.

It’s a quick read, and if you have a particular affection for the genre or the city-scape of Miami, then it might be worth checking out, but if your tastes in crime fiction are more for the excellent outliers and stuff that breaks the mould, then I probably wouldn’t go for this one.

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Review – Batwoman: Hydrology

Posted March 1, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Batwoman: Hydrology by J.H. WilliamsBatwoman vol. 1: Hydrology, J.H Williams III, W. Haden Blackman

So here I am, jumping into another New 52 title. I was mostly interested in Batwoman/Kate Kane because I know she’s a lesbian, but I knew very little else about her, so it was a bit tough to just jump right in here, even though the New 52 is supposed to be a reboot.

I enjoyed it, though; I like that in contrast to what I normally think of when I think of the Batfamily, without supernatural elements, here we’ve got Kate Kane basically going through an episode of Supernatural. It’s interesting reading that at the same time as I’m getting into Batgirl — and I like that there’s plenty of stuff around in Kate’s normal life, too. More than Batgirl’s, maybe; I got more of a sense of the wider world surrounding Kate, anyway.

The art looks really cool; I love the red/black look Kate’s got going on.

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted March 1, 2014 by Nicky in General / 41 Comments

I thought I wasn’t gonna have anything this week, but then I won some ARCs from LibraryThing and ended up going shopping as well, so, uh. Whoops?

So, as usual, the Stacking the Shelves meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews!

ARCs/review copies

Cover of The Normans: From Raiders to Kings by Lars Brownworth Cover of the anthology Long Hidden

Comics

Cover of Spider-woman: Origin by Brian Michael Bendis Cover of Spider-woman: Agent of Sword by Brian Michael BendisCover of Batgirl by Gail Simone Cover of Batwoman: Hydrology by J.H. Williams

Other

Cover of Derrida: A Very Short Introduction by Simon Glendinning Cover of Barthes: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler Cover of Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody Cover of The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges

Of the ARCs, I’m more enthusiastic about Long Hidden, but a book on the Normans hits me right in my interests too. Of the comics, Spider-woman! Because I’ve loved her appearances in Captain Marvel. And of the other books, well, Barthes and Derrida come from a feeling of, crap, I have an MA in literature and I don’t know much about literary theory, so they’re kind of a guilt thing. Though a bit of an interest thing too, since I’m TAing a class on Coursera where I’ve ended up talking ‘The Death of the Author’ and so on with the students.

I finished The Book of Imaginary Beings yesterday morning, which leaves only Dying in the Wool — which caught my eye because I’ve been looking for a cosy mystery type series since I ran out of Mary Stewart books, and Dying in the Wool is set in an area I know pretty well: Yorkshire. Also features a just-post-war widow, running about being a detective. Uh, so very sold. Incidentally, my copy happens to be signed, presumably because she’s a local author.

What’s everyone else been getting their grubby little hands on?

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