Mystifying in the way good scifi should be. More fun to think about than it was to read, but so many good ideas! Also, the closest you’ll come to reading a book In a foreign language while still reading a book in English. Reminded me a lot of cities of salt.
The best book I’ve read so far about society-level changes that are happening due to internet technology. That would be higher praise if I had read more books, but so far I’ve only covered The New Digital Age and Alone Together, both of which were bad. The conclusion about the pernicious nature of siren servers (Facebook, Google, Napster, Hedge Funds, Wall Mart etc.) controlling our information and shrinking the economy is not entirely convincing. Lanier’s siren servers seem more different than alike, but even the author admits, when all you have is a hammer… ...
This book definitely has a target audience - somebody who hasn’t read anything about theoretical physics, doesn’t want to think about it too hard, but at least wants to know what everybody is talking about when they say quantum mechanics, big bang, or general relativity. I was not a part of this audience. I’ve read a few pop-science books before, The Elegant Universe about 7 years ago, and From Eternity to Here a few months ago. I enjoyed Eternity to Here much more; it went in to better detail about the mechanics of the questions that the author was trying to answer. A Brief History of Time covers nearly all the same subjects, but in a more general and useless fashion. ...