Reading in June

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I had a good month and read some great books. I’m currently on sabbatical, a three-month paid leave that Automattic awards as an anniversary benefit every five years. I’ll dedicate a separate post to that because it’s a very significant event for me, but until I write it, I wanted to mention it here for context. I’m AFK, logged out of most systems, chilling, and not paying attention to bugs.

So, June.

Best books

  1. Thrawn – a pretty hardcover book with a classic Star Wars space opera inside. 5/5, pure joy. Looking forward to reading part 2
  2. Lost in Math – popular science and part of my journey to discover why certain things happen that shouldn’t, if the math was right. 5/5 but maybe not for everyone.
  3. None of This Is True – an unusual thriller, defining what the new usual looks like. 5/5, but also maybe not for everyone.
  4. Look Alike Twenty-Five – a bit of spice for my month, another Stephanie Plum novel. These are 5/5 if you don’t read them often and degrade quickly if read in succession.
  5. Killer Weekend – a killer has one weekend to execute an order but is facing Walt Fleming. Both will make mistakes. I liked it enough for 4/5 and consider reading the continuation.

Worst

  1. The Proving Ground – Michael Connelly’s take on AI. Not bad but not interesting either. 3/3
  2. Guess Again – I already don’t remember what it was about, other than finding it readable but not memorable.

The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 10 Comments

Michael Connelly is one of my all-time most favorite authors. One of the few, whose books mostly got better over the years.

The Proving Ground is his latest creation, rated the absurdly high 4.5 on Goodreads. Unfortunately, although far more interesting than the last one, we’ve seen better it didn’t qualify for 4* on my shelves.

Mickey Haller is tired from criminal cases and moved to the area of civil law. He’s suing an AI company, whose AI-assistant convinced a teenager to commit murder. The settlement offers go up and down, and the ruthless billionaire behind the company will no spare additional efforts to end the case and hide everything behind a NDA.

The topic is deep and the plot is plausible, actually it could be something that has already happened. I have no objections in that area. The reason why the book didn’t click with me is that it was just uninteresting, and some was even meaningless. But while I have significant tolerance for inaccuracies, reaching page 250 or 300 without anything of substance happening was not good for me.

The plot offered many chances that could develop to be interesting. It had a secondary case. Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard got a shout out. But none of that had a meaningful follow-up, it was almost like it had to be included for the sake of being there, proving that the story is from the Harry Bosch universe. The billionaire wasn’t really a good match for the Lincoln Lawyer or some cat walked on the keyboard and we didn’t get far.

Overall, the book left me with a bad taste. I awarded it with an honest 3/5. Felt like it was written by the late John Grisham, whose stories are written to convince the reader that a certain causes are just. If you want to be convinced that AI is biased and can kill, look no further. The tagline could’ve been “garbage in, garbage out”.

Mood

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

When walking in Sofia, you’re presented with the opportunity to spot things, according to your mood. If you’re in mood to see cats, you see cats. If you’re in mood to see beauty and happiness, it’s everywhere. If you’re in mood to see ruins, that’s what you see. I think the photos below are a good example.