book reviews – Secret Thoughts

Frankenstein

I listened to the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley on Audible. It was interesting.

After discovering the “epistolary novel” in Who Was Jane Austen? Sorting Fact from Fiction, I was eager to read one of the classics for an example of one. Frankenstein is told through the narrator Robert Walton, a sea captain on an Arctic expedition. The introduction of the novel is a series of letters Walton writes to his sister. The rest of the novel is a novel that Walton writes for his sister, relating the story Frankenstein tells him, the story Frankenstein’s monster tells him, and Walton’s own experiences of the two.

In some ways, Frankenstein seems like a deeply flawed novel, at least by modern standards. Arguably, Walton is discardable, and his presence negates the need for Frankenstein and his monster to ever interact or make peace with one another by telling each other their story. Walton serves as the link to reader in telling the two stories.

The melodramatic writing could also be seen as a problem. Today, melodramatic writing is mocked and discouraged, but Victor isn’t shy about telling the reader/Walton repeatedly how dearly he loves his dear friend Henry and his dear childhood friend Elizabeth and how wretched he is without them. His monster is equally verbose is recounting his wretchedness. Both of them go into detail about how pitiable they are, Victor suffering from mental breakdowns and the deaths of his closest friends and family and the monster lamenting what an outcast he is. While Frankenstein (2025) suggests that Victor is the asshole playing the victim, both of them put on quite the pity party for themselves in the book. Walton himself also tells his sister repeatedly how much he pities Victor and wants to help him. The book ends with Victor dying and the monster proclaiming he will burn himself to death on a pyre. It’s such a bleak book with such a bleak ending it’s laughable.

Perhaps its flaws are why Frankenstein has been adapted so many times and in so many different ways. When I think of “Frankenstein,” I think of the image of Victor screaming with maniacal enthusiasm, “It’s alive!” something I can’t imagine the Victor in the book ever doing. Mary Shelley never even says that electricity resurrected the monster, but that’s primarily how adaptations portray it. To name some other changes adaptations have made

Frankenstein is a mad scientist and the bad guy.
The monster is a mindless beast and the bad guy.
Frankenstein actually creates a bride for the monster.
The monster falls in love with Elizabeth.
Robert Walton is discarded as a narrator.
The monster is called Frankenstein.

It’s as if everyone who made an adaptation of Frankenstein saw the seed of a great idea but poorly executed and proceeded to bring what they saw to light. It’s kind of amazing how many different great ideas people imagined from the same source material.

Eragon

I reread Eragon by Christopher Paolini (for at least the third time since it was release in 2002) in preparation to read the latest novel related to the Inheritance Cycle Murtagh. Reading it more than 20 years later, the writing has qualities that feel rushed and amateurish. Dialogue and actions for multiple characters are sometimes crammed into single paragraphs for example. A lot of traveling, training, and other things can happen in a few paragraphs. Scenes can end and focus can change quite abruptly as well.

I don’t remember watching the Eragon movie multiple times, but for some reason, reading this book reminded me so much of it. Perhaps that’s only because of my ruthless mocking and criticism of it. I distinctly remember my brother screaming, “Murtagh, I’m on fire!” in response to a prison scene where a flaming Urgal (or was it just a person?) smashed through a flimsy wooden jail that was somehow sturdy enough to imprison Murtagh. I also remember how Saphira flew away as a baby and returned as a full grown dragon capable of fluent telepathic speech.

I suppose I don’t blame the movie’s creators for not emphasizing the injury Durza gives the protagonist Eragon at the end. This injury serves as a major obstacle for Eragon in the sequel Eldest, but Eragon does end rather abruptly, placing more emphasis on a memory/nightmare montage Eragon has than his grievous injury. Eragon doesn’t even see the end of the last battle.

Still, they screwed themselves, dooming the Eldest movie to never be created. Although, an Eragon TV series is in development for Disney+ now. We’ll see if it actually manifests (which would be neat), but that’s another reason to reread the Inheritance Cycle.

Her Last Christmas

Similar to my thoughts on Silent Hill f–and really any story that features the protagonist’s loveless relationship with their significant other–Her Last Christmas by Claire McGowan made me wonder, “What is this lady even doing with this guy?” The protagonist Emma joins her boyfriend Michael and his fellow wealthy friends for Friendsmas in the Alps. Emma doesn’t know how to ski; Michael’s friends are unwelcoming, drunk, and high; and Michael, seeming to prefer his friends’ company, does little to nothing to help Emma feel comfortable.

In the end, I determined their relationship makes sense in a similar way that Hinako and Shu’s relationship makes sense in Silent Hill f. Her Last Christmas is told from Emma’s distorted, first-person perspective. She claims she doesn’t partake in excessive alcohol or drugs, she paints herself as a victim, and speaks somewhat demeaningly about the other characters’ relationships and careers. That is, she makes herself sound good to the reader, perhaps better than she is in reality. There must be a reason she attracted people like this, including Michael, into her life though. Indeed, the end of the book reveals that Emma is as willing to set her morals aside to protect her career as the other characters are to protect theirs. Emma choosing Michael, a popular politician, was likely motivated by her desire for status, wealth, and career advancement. While she decides to part ways with him, she still participates in covering up a murder.

A couple funny thoughts I had while reading…

Toward the end of the book, Emma runs into a snow storm without proper clothes in a fit of hysteria. She tells the reader repeatedly she knows this is a bad idea but doesn’t know what else to do. I thought to myself of the author, “I can hear you telling your beta readers that you know your protagonist is being an idiot.”

Emma: “[Michael’s] wife had accused him of domestic abuse, and women didn’t lie about that sort of thing.”
Me: Why did you give Ms. Heard muffins!?

Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow

First of all, buying this book as an audiobook was a mistake. It’s a textbook with diagrams to look at, best absorbed through reading. Also, I work as a software engineering team lead. Spending my free time reading books about what I do for work everyday is a quick way to burn out.

That said, the information is interesting. It explains different patterns of structuring teams within an organization based on the organization of the code for the software the business supports and how these patterns ease development of the software. For example, a system for sending and receiving packages might be organized into two teams: one that handles everything about sending packages and one that handles everything about receiving packages. This allows developers to specialize in one area and communicate often with other specialists on their team rather than requiring all developers to know a lot about both areas. This reduction in cognitive load increases the speed and quality of development, reduces mistakes, and improves developer experience. The company I work for has been practicing these principles for the past year and a half. It works well, much better than the team structure we had before.

The book also made me feel like an imposter. It states that toxic team members need to be identified and removed for the health of the team. Individuals must put the team before themselves by, for example, being on time to meetings and helping team members to complete current work before starting new work. Me, I’m chronically late to meetings, I’m a rule bender and breaker, and I split my time between current and future work. I reason that I’m late to meetings when I don’t see the point of them, especially at 7:30am. Developers may have work now, but they won’t have enough or any if no one is figuring out what happens next. I’m a free-minded introvert operating the best I can in an extroverted world. And it’s been working pretty well. My team and I get a lot of work done.

Still, I’m a team lead. I’m supposed to be showing my developers how to behave professionally, even when I think nobody gives a crap about me or needs an announcement that I’m going to be at an appointment for the next hour. It’s very possible that I’m a toxic team member that makes team topologies fall apart.

The Nuremberg Trial

For being a 25-hour-long audiobook about post-World War II, The Nuremberg Trial by Ann Tusa and John Tusa was surprisingly interesting. My favorite section of the book, about the first third, was dedicated to explaining the many complications of executing a fair trial against 22 German military and political leaders. The first decision was who would judge the Germans. The Polish were ultimately excluded, leaving the trial to be overseen by French, English, American, and Russian judges. This required enough collaboration between the four nations, Germany, and their slightly differing views of fair judgement. The Russian view was the most troubling as it came with a preconception that the purpose of the trial was to exact punishment, not determine guilt. That Germans had knowledge that they were committing crimes against humanity throughout the war also had to be established for there to be grounds to even hold a trial. A location needed to be found for the trial to take place, somewhere with prison facilities to keep the defendants secure and comfortable accommodations for lawyers, judges, attendants, and viewers of the court proceedings. Germany was the most appropriate place, but much of it was war torn and destitute. After much reasoning with the Russians, who insisted the trial take place in Berlin, Nuremberg was chosen for its historical significance and for being fairly intact. Lawyers willing to defend the defendants needed to be provided. Food for everyone needed to be provided, of which American provisions were the best. Someone needed to pay for all this. The judges even had to decide such trivialities as what to wear. Wigs and dresses? Military uniforms? Black gowns? After all the previous decisions and coordination, it’s not surprising that they settled on wearing whatever they wanted.

The most interesting complication, however, was solving the language barrier. The trial was conducted in four languages: English, Russian, French, and German. All documents associated with the trial had to be translated into all four languages, which was more difficult to accomplish for some languages than others. For live court proceedings, the trial used IBM’s universal simultaneous translation system. The first time I heard this term, I thought the narrator was going to tell me about some Star Trek-esque futuristic device. In reality, everyone in the court room was provided a set of wired headphones. The listeners could switch between four channels, each connected to the microphone of a human translator for that language. The translators were seated in isolated compartments within the courtroom where they could hear the court proceedings but minimize the noise of each other’s translations. Judges, lawyers, defendants, and other speakers in the court room also had visibility to two lights. Yellow was an indicator from the translators to slow down. Red indicated to stop speaking to allow the translators to catch up. I thought it was an impressive use of technology for the time period but also adorable for its primitiveness.

After all the introduction, preparation, resolution of conflicts, and coordination leading up to and continuing throughout the trial, it’s amazing that this trial happened, and as fairly as it was, at all.

The Way Home: Tales from a life without technology

In The Way Home: Tales from a life without technology, Mark Boyle relates how he created a lifestyle without electricity, plumbing, and other technological commodities. To demonstrate the practicality of living this way to the reader, he builds the cabin he and his wife live in, an outhouse area, a garden, and interestingly, a natural hot tub powered by firewood, presumably on a piece of land he owns and has enough money to pay taxes on for at least the one year he wanted to experiment with living this way. He makes allowances for some technology like pencils and paper for writing but rejects other tools that would make his work easier in favor of more primitive tools or doing the work by hand. I can’t remember specific examples from the book, but as a generic example, rather than using a wheelbarrow to move stones, he would carry stones by hand. Seeming to contradict his purpose, he indirectly makes use of cars to hitchhike to visit his parents, the local pub to visit with his neighbors, and the modern mail service to send and receive letters.

I don’t think the point of the book was to strictly live without technology though. The author’s purpose was rather to connect himself more to nature and people. His selective use of technology seemed to be for the purpose of forwarding those goals. I related to his rejection of the Internet and phones the most. In our ability to connect with people around the world, we’ve forgotten about the people immediately surrounding us. The convenience of speaking to loves ones over the phone means, conflictingly, visiting them in person less. Despite their appearance of creating connections, these things have separated us from people by being too convenient, too far from our immediate reality, and too difficult to resist.

Ironically, the author’s wife left him toward the end of the book. I can’t say I’d want to live like this either. I don’t like living in reality. 😛 Although, I suppose the author also doesn’t like living in reality, the one where humans are naturally inclined toward progress and efficiency. Still, Boyle has some interesting perspectives nurtured by his enjoyment and sense of purpose in living this lifestyle.

400 Things Cops Know

I’ve been reading cop-related books lately for some writing research. Here’s a few relevant things I learned while reading 400 Things Cops Know by Adam Plantinga:

To kick open a door, kick it immediately beneath the knob.

Mediation Clinics offer mediators, often law students, to help resolve disputes between family members, tenants and landlords, neighbors, and other people outside of court. I had created a concept like this in a book I’m writing and was surprised that such a thing actually exists!

Cops don’t advertise that they’re cops outside of work because it attracts the attention of people who don’t like cops. This potentially puts the cop and/or their family and friends in danger.

Police are required to read someone their Miranda rights only after they are in custody, and they have begun interrogating them. They don’t have to tell them their rights immediately, contrary to what commonly happens on TV. What suspects say prior to being read their rights and interrogated can still be used in court.

The best TV show about cops is The Wire created by David Simon.

The best book about cops is Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon.

The Art of War

I was expecting The Art of War by Sun Tzu to be a multi-hour long audio book. When I saw it was only about an hour on Audible, I thought it must be a cliff notes or abridged version. No. Ancient Chinese military experts simply don’t waste words.

I probably knew this at some point and forgot, but the lyrics for “Art of Conflict” by VNV Nation are all The Art of War quotes.

The Demon Next Door

The Demon Next Door by Bryan Burrough tells the story of serial killer and rapist Danny Corwin. Perhaps it was the audiobook narrator’s somewhat goofy voice, but at a couple points, I laughed at how absurd the descriptions of the murders were. And I don’t know if it was intentional.

Danny failed to kill the first woman he attempted to murder, so a long recollection exists in this book of all the things Danny did to her. They are ridiculous. He waited outside her car in the school parking lot. When she arrived, he pulled a knife and demanded she let him drive her car. She laughed at him and refused but eventually allowed him to drive. He took her to a remote location where he demanded she take off her clothes. She refused until he got out of the car, which he did. Later, when he told her to get out of the car, she refused until he gave her her clothes back. After getting kicked in the crotch, he did. She got out of the car, went where he directed, and hoped he’d leave her alone. Instead, they ended up on the ground where he stabbed her experimentally.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked.

The book/narrator described it like two teenagers, which they were at the time, doing something extremely stupid and regrettable while fooling around. Granted, this first victim knew Danny and probably genuinely believed he was harmless and then couldn’t believe what he was doing. A couple other points in the book, however, give the same impression: Danny has no idea what he’s doing and the victim thinks he’s ridiculous.

In a different type of comedic moment, another victim Debra Ewing sees the shadowy figure of Corwin with a knife in the parking lot at her place of work. Panicking, she runs to a bathroom and pounds on the door. Her coworker inside answers the door.

Debra dropped her purse. “I just peed all over myself!”

“Well, what’s wrong?” her coworker asked.

It’s an appropriate response for the victim to have under the circumstances but delivered as if it were a punchline. Why include this detail in the description of events leading to a murder?

Or perhaps it’s just me, and I’m a sadist. O.O

In other news, I found this audiobook more engaging than We Own This City, and I wonder if it’s related to my theory about the lack of mystery in most of We Own This City. In The Demon Next Door, I’m always sure that Danny is the murderer, but for a few of the murders, the writer doesn’t name Danny as the murderer right away. Instead, they are presented from the perspective of the detectives, suspecting Danny but struggling to find the evidence or motive to prove it.

We Own This City

Most of We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption by Justin Fenton follows Sergeant Wayne Jenkins in the series of crimes he and his unit, the Gun Trace Task Force, commit. This includes selling drugs they stole, stealing money, and beating, framing, and even killing people, namely criminals that do about the same things they do.

In the last third of the book, Jenkins and all members of his unit are arrested and prosecuted. This part of the book engaged me the most. In particular, it describes the mysterious death of Sean Suiter, a fellow dirty cop who was shot in the head the day before he was scheduled to testify against Jenkins’ unit. Upon closer examination, his death appeared to be an elaborate suicide, but it is officially classified as an unsolved homicide, perhaps executed by someone Suiter had wronged or done business with in the midst of his dirty-cop dealings.

I admit I listened to this book mostly while I was feeding my cats, and the first two thirds had trouble competing against their persistent meows. It did benefit from a second listen in that I was able to match clues I picked up toward the end of the book with details about crimes committed in the beginning of the book, but it still felt like a collection of stories about dirty cops being dirty. I suppose it was never a mystery that Jenkins was dirty, and it wasn’t presented that way. In fact, it sounded at times like it was an open secret that Jenkins and everyone else in the department was dirty, and yet he was trusted to lead an elite task force anyway. The mystery of Suiter’s death was so interesting in contrast that I wonder if the whole thing would have benefited from being presented as more of a mystery. There are plenty of stories to support that Jenkins was dirty, but what did people who trusted him see?

I wonder what the HBO series is like.