What I read in 2022

From my reads in 2021, I learned that I enjoy hard science fiction a lot, so I doubled down on this genre in 2022. As I mentioned before in my 2021 review, these provide me with the best exercises reading has provided me. When immersed in these stories I find myself constantly challenging the boundaries of technology and how they shape society and reality. I went once again for well established titles as I haven’t explored more recent releases, which I hope to come back in 2023, in particular Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary”.

To bring myself back to the present Earth - and to remind me of the challenges we are facing as a society in the near future - I’ve finally came round to reading Factfulness, and it and it was truly a delight.

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

This was my first time reading Kurt Vonnegut’s work and I was very delighted with how refreshing his writing was. The non-linear storytelling with abrupt scene changes was surprisingly very easy to follow, and I usually have to go back a few pages when reading more than I want to admit.

Slaughterhouse-Five setting and events are primarily triggered by the bombing of Dresden, which Vonnegut experienced firsthand while serving in World War II. Nevertheless, the majority of the story is around the whole life of Billy, the protagonist, including not only this particular event, but also other accidents, meetings and a once in a lifetime Tralfamadorian experience - which I learned is a Vonnegut special. The narrative jumps in time multiple times in non-linear order to retell the protagonist’s life main events.

While it’s easy and true to say that Slaugherhouse-Five is about life, misfortunes and grim reality of war, it’s also too simplistic. It is impossible to convey accurately the mood and the tone that Slaughterhouse Five reads on, it is a weird and unique experience which I highly recommend.

So it goes…

The Forever War, Joe Alderman

Now on actual military fiction, The Forever War brings a new take on contact with another species and intergalactic war. This species is named Taurans and the war has been going on since an encounter where humans massacred a Tauran colony that offered no resistance. For this title, I have not note that found it hard to explain how the premise worked so well, without getting into some spoilers.

We had just herded them up and slaughtered them, the first encounter between mankind and another intelligent species.

The story follows William Mandela, a diligent private that first fights the Taurans in 1997. While this event takes two years, due to time dilation, it ends up being 26 years on Earth.

Upon returning to Earth, Mandela and his partner - a fellow private that he met during the encounter with the Taurans - find a dramatically different society reshaped by technological advancements and even more polarized by inequality.

This ends up being a recurring occurrence and the most interesting topic of the book. With time dilation and different war fronts to be fought, the main character has to interact with generations and a whole different human species spawning over a thousand years (1998-3143). All this while stripped off his partner and everyone he knows, as he is growing older significantly slower than any other human.

The fact was, Earth’s economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than dividing it.

We, Yevgeny Zamyatin

Zamyatin’s “We” is my last book out of the three most well-known dystopias about a harmonious society in a totalitarian state, alongside Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World”.

“We” writes as the journal of the main character, named D-503. As we follow him at all times, we are given a first-seat view on his beliefs. This is a quite interesting read, as we see D-503 acclaiming and being thankful for the lack of privacy, mass surveillance and absolute control of his daily life by the One State. All stuff that I would find dreadful if they were happening to me.

While walking in the city, D-503 meets I-330. Despite the naming, they are not robots, but it sure stresses the imprisonment feeling. I-330 is seemingly indifferent to several of the One State rules, such as no smoking and no drinking alcohol. This is the turning point for D-503 beliefs, as his less rational side is awakened with the interest in this character. From this point onward, journal entries focus on his internal struggle and the juxtaposition of his beliefs and the fascination with I-330.

Without getting into more details on how the story develops from here, there are several similarities with Orwell’s and Huxley’s work. Once again, it was a great “what-if” exercise in a totalitarian state context, where characters are designed to culminate in thought-provoking developments. Finally, it also served as a remainder that freedom and democracy will always be a work in progress that needs to be nurtured appropriately.

Happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.

Factulness, Hans Rosling

A constant presence on “must-read” lists, Factulness lists ten reasons why we’re wrong about how bad the world is right now, but it reads much more like a guide to interpret and think about the world than actual reasons.

Each chapter presents a couple of anecdotes to support the author’s points. They mainly expose biases deeply embedded in our thinking process to the point that they just feel right - they have become instincts. It all boils down to prioritizing facts, looking at data and rationalizing the situation. Now that I write it out like that, it sounds a bit arrogant and simplistic: “just be rational”, but I can assure you that is not the tone of the book at all.

Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot.

Throughout the book, the author also criticizes metrics commonly used, with the country development classification being the major example. Right off the bat, Rosling defends that “developed world” vs “developing world” is an outdated and simplistic categorization and proposes a four level grouping based on income. This grouping is used all over the book and it holds very well when supporting the argument on each chapter.

I will definitely get back to this book in the future, specially to check if its takes hold. Finally, I highly suggest the thirteen question quiz the book bootstrapped, as these will always be a good reality check.

Look for systems, not heroes. Look for causes, not villains.

Conclusion

During this year, I’ve started to take notes on the books I read after finishing them and before starting the next - or at least when I’m not too eager to start a new one. When the end of the year came, it was very fun to go back to these notes and recall all this content.

While I remembered the main lines of every story, I was happy to recall some details that I had already forgot. This has been very helpful in consolidating messages and lessons of what I read.