Mechanical writing, heavily foreshadowed plot, and multiple povs made this book highly soporific. Only one character had the right motive, making the twist less shocking. After falling asleep for the 8th time while reading, and abut 75% in, just skipped to the wiki summary.
Musclebound Motivation The formula is simple: Work out 5 days a week. Count and restrict your calories. Eat 3x the protein you used to (1). Sleep well, stay motivated, stay relaxed (2). Do this for 3 years (3) and you too can get shredded. Bigger Leaner Stronger (BLS) is a summary of weightlifting gospel, with appendices throughout on improving motivation for the necessary lifestyle changes to maintain a low body-fat percentage in modern America. ...
This is Game of Thrones for biographies, glad there are 3 more left.
**Master’s Advice, with a Whiff of Ass ** Assholes: These are mostly men and sometimes women who come in some flavor of selfish, or deceitful, or cruel. * Tony Fadell may be the worlds most successful builder for world-changing products. I would argue he surpasses both Musk and Jobs, since Fadell was primary driver behind not only the iPod and iPhone, but also showing he could do it independently at Nest. Tony is also an asshole, and that coprolite scent unfortunately has diffused into the entire book. ...
World? Fascinating. Characters? Meh. Plot? Everything interesting happens in the epilogue. Readability? Off the charts. Could read while singing and juggling.
Kingdom of Committee Meetings I fall asleep while reading books. Sometimes this is problematic for comprehension, so usually I find my place the next day. With Kingdom of Characters I didn’t find the material engaging enough to warrant such a second day search. This is a book about the history of creating APIs between English and Chinese, and if that sounds like a dry topic to you, let me assure you: it is dry. Rotten wood that turns to dust in your hands dry. ...
Sanderson fantasy is what Audible 3.5x was invented for. 3.5 stars.
Too much of a page turner. The premise – the capital under siege by 3 competing armies after a successful rebellion – is probably the best premise for a fantasy page turner that I’ve yet encountered. But this is the literary equivalent of a summer blockbuster, all action, little substance. ** 3 stars **
Certainly a page turner, although the parallels to to Stormlight Archives are clear. It’s like Sanderson has found a set of chords that will attract readers and he’s going to keep riffing on that theme as long as the readers keep coming. ** 3.5 stars **
** Ideal Formulas ** In America, math is religion. Its creed might be mostly separate from human affairs, but its method of teaching and acquisition is that of a dogma handed from a higher being. Indeed, mathematics got its Western start with the Pythagoreans, a Greek cult worshipping formulas that carry their name today. Math then became enmeshed in the western philosophical/religious mainstream via Plato and Christianity, fitting nicely into concepts that exist in a world apart from our reality entirely (like heaven!). In a typical classroom, math is taught like the commandments. Why does it work? Nobody has the answer and few ask the question. This is platonic idealism at its finest, and I wonder how many of maths practitioners understand the beliefs they transmit. ...