Raft by Stephen Baxter (1991, ISBN 978-1-473-22405-6)

Science fiction novel. 

Stephen Baxter''s highly acclaimed first novel and the beginning of his stunning Xeelee Sequence finally enters the SF Masterwork series!

A spaceship from Earth accidentally crossed through a hole in space-time to a universe where the force of gravity is one billion times as strong as the gravity we know. Somehow the crew survived, aided by the fact that they emerged into a cloud of gas surrounding a black hole, which provided a breathable atmosphere.

Five hundred years later, their descendants still struggle for existence, divided into two main groups. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star, which they excavate for raw materials. These can be traded for food from the Raft, a structure built from the wreckage of the ship, on which a small group of scientists preserve the ancient knowledge which makes survival possible.

Rees is a Miner whose curiosity about his world makes him stow away on a flying tree - just one of the many strange local lifeforms - carrying trade between the Belt and the Raft. And what he finds will change his world...

Purchased 2022-02-18 from Amazon for $11.91
 

Use Of Weapons by Iain M Banks (1990, ISBN 978-0-316-03057-1)

Science fiction novel. Part of the Culture series. 

The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action.

The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought.

The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a lost cause. But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past.

Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, Use of Weapons is a masterpiece of science fiction.

Purchased 2022-08-17 from Powells (Hawthorne) for $16.99
 

The Player Of Games by Iain M Banks (1988, ISBN 978-0-316-00540-1)

 Science fiction novel. Part of the Culture series. 

The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer, and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game... a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.

Purchased 2022-06-13 from Amazon Marketplace for $6.95
 

The Astronomy Book by Jacqueline Mitton, Robert Dinwiddie (+3 co-authors) (2017, ISBN 978-1-4654-6418-7)

 Contains a series of short articles about various Astronomy related topics.  Planets, Stars, Galaxies, etc. The articles are arraigned by date, so the first is about Aristotle, the last is about LIGO.

Aristotle believed the Earth was the center of the Universe. (He was wrong.)

 Since the dawn of humankind, people have looked upward to the heavens and tried to understand them. This encyclopedia takes you on an expedition through time and space to discover our place in the universe.

 History of Astronomy 

Purchased 2020-01-24 from Powells (Burnside) for $12.98
 

 The Fascism This Time And The Global Future Of Democracy By Theo Horesh (2020, ISBN 9780578732930)

A new wave of fascism is inundating the world under the guise of rightwing populism, but the fascism this time has little to do with taking down elites—and it is every bit as dangerous as the fascism last time.

Purchased 2022-06-29 from Amazon for $16.81

 The State of the Art by Iain M Banks (1991, ISBN 978-1-85723-030-7)

 This a collection of short stories.

Purchased 2022-10-14 from Amazon for $13.11

The Three-Body Problem from Pythagoras to Hawking by Mauri Valtonen (+5 co-authors) (2016, ISBN 978-3-319-22725-2)

This book, written for a general readership, reviews and explains the three-body problem in historical context reaching to latest developments in computational physics and gravitation theory. The three-body problem is one of the oldest problems in science and it is most relevant even in today’s physics and astronomy.

 Great book I loved it. lots of science but not too hard core.

Purchased 2022-07-19 from Amazon for $38.56
 

 The Biggest Ideas In The Universe space, time. and motion by Sean Carroll (2022, ISBN 9780593186589)

Popular science explanation of Mechanics from Newton to Einstein.

Purchased 2022-10-25 from Powells (Hawthorne) for $23.00

Against A Dark Background by Iain M. Banks (1993, ISBN 978-0-316-03637-5)

Scifi novel.  See the wikipeda article for plot summary.

When I bought this I thought it was part of the Culture series. It is not. Still was interesting.

Purchased 2022-11-20 Amazon $17.99
 

Introducing Hinduism By Vinay Lal and Borin Van Loon (2010, ISBN 978-184831-114-5)

 Subtitle-- A Graphic Guide

 I found this to be a good introduction to Hinduism. Easy to read and many great illustrations.

Purchased 2023-07-15 at Powells for $5.98

 

 

 

 

 

Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari (2024, ISBN 9780593734223)

 

Subtitle--A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

 Like his previous books this was a great read and very thought provoking.

About the future of humanity and AI.

 He discusses how humans communicated in the past and how this affected history.

Listed two examples of Social Networks that were used to cause problems Facebook (Rohingya) and Youtube (Brazil, Carlos Jordy). 

"Everything old was once new. The only constant of history is change." page 393.

 

Purchased 2024-09-19 at Powells for $35.00