The Parallax View (Short Circuits)

Book Description

The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism.

Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today's theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today's brain sciences (according to which "nobody is home" in the skull, just stacks of brain meat--a condition Zizek calls "the unbearable lightness of being no one"); and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics--including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.

The Parallax View not only expands Zizek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes.

Customer Reviews:

little-a-ness.......2007-05-31

"The clue to this book is in the little-a-ness: the simulacrum of the [...] is PARALLAX , the vernacular translation of the text itself being DOUBLE VISION. Well, fair enough, after a whole magnum of opus anyone's focus would be a little ,er, shall we say inconsequential."

Nice Cover!

There are some other things I might say about this book but Zizek, along with Bartleby, would probably prefer not.

Instead let me use my amazon review as an open letter to the Man. Listen man, you inspired a lot of people, showed them how to delegitimate the text of the default culture, took the argument forward. But now what you doing? This aint dialectics man. Maybe you are on the wrong drug, try some mellow green. It's not all about twos and ones it's about ONE NO ( not a dithering decline) and MANY YESES ( affirming transcendent autopeoses).

Use your head not your eyes and your appetite, come back and join the human race in our struggle to save ourselves and our world. Another World is Possible!

One Earth One Love One Struggle

I've never met a man who knew so much about nothing.......2006-11-14

Any supposed shortcomings or uneven passages in this brilliant book are more than made up for by the sustained, detailed analyses of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and recent developments in brain and cognitive science. What do these things have to do with the phenomenon of parallax? Everything.

In other respects, this book covers familiar pop-cultural ground --- Lynch, cartoons, star wars episodes 1-3, etc --- but it does so with renewed vigor and further insights. I'm thinking particularly of the chapter entitled "a boy meets a lady." This chapter contains probably the most perverse --- and therefore most accurate --- interpretation of Hegel's "absolute knowledge" I have ever heard. Please read, you like.

As to the skepticism my fellow reviewers express over Zizek's appropriation of Bartleby, all I can say is "not the letter but the spirit." He is clearly NOT suggesting that you never leave your workplace and try to subsist only on pine nuts until the authorities cart you away. He's interested in the negativity of Bartleby's gesture/motto as a double retort to both the frenetic activity that the capitalist epoch compells in its subjects and to the obsessive half-measures of the "resistance" movements that are the inherent supplement of global capital.

What is to be done in 2k6? The answer is seinfeldian: "everybody's doing something; we'll do nothing." What does this mean in real terms? Take voting in America for instance, as Zizek pointed out years ago, the choice for us is between coke and diet coke. Sure diet coke won't start a war in Iraq; it's healthier than that. It'll will wage an economic one instead, i.e. nafta, ftaa, etc. As Kerry seemed to always be implying in his election bid: I can make this a even BETTER empire. SO what is the way out of this forced/false choice? DON'T VOTE. Take America's already existing, statistical apathy (50% voter turn out) and turn it into a statistical boycott (somewhere near the mid-30s in percentile). This would make our elections invalid according to international election authorities insofar as the result cannot be construed as the will of the majority of the people. Does that bear legally on our government? Of course not, but it would be a hell of a lot more interesting than voting democrat and republican for another 150 years.

So remember, tell the green party it needs to commit suicide by advocating that no one vote. It's time to subtract logical positivism from out poltical thinking. And it's time to have Zizek as a guest on The Daily Show.

Fall into the Gap.......2006-08-24

_The Parallax View_, which the ever-prolific Slavoj Zizek has declared the "magnum opus" of his substantial _oeuvre_, is a generally rewarding, if uneven, work.

I took from it this: every posited antinomy, opposition or other binarism conceals in itself a more pluriform nature, the terms themselves irreducible to themselves (a challenge to Western thoughts principle of identity: an entity is identical to itself[?]), leaving an irreducible bare difference(the old Derridean stand-by) that remains largely unaccountable but ontologically substantial nonetheless -- a locus of "the Real." Ultimately uncognizable, this difference, which for Zizek is the Lacanian "_object petit a_," opens a parallax gap wherein this difference, though uncognizable, nevertheless serves as a common referent among the actors of any ideological disagreement.

I found this a compelling thesis, and Zizek, though often given to an over-reliance on rhetorical questions, ellipses, and anacoluthon (this latter tendency perhaps inspired by St. Paul, himself an inveterate employer of anacoluthon, whom Z. frequently discusses in the early portions of _TPV_), is in the main persuasive. (I have to balk, however, at Z.'s frequent recourse to pop-cultural examples -- are overwrought, pandering summer blockbusters like _The Matrix_ and _The Revenge of the Sith_ really so fraught with important theoretical implications?) The real shortcoming of _TPV_, as I see it, comes in the final pages, wherein Z., having explicated his theory, waxes prescriptive, encouraging his readers to embody the "Bartleby-parallax" in order to avoid being caught up in the Hegelian pseudo-negations of counterhegemonic practices. We must be as resistant to the latter in our "preferring-not-to's" as to the hegemonic ills the latter are intended to redress -- "I prefer not to eat factory-farmed, adulterated, GM food; I prefer not to purchase food from an organic farming co-op." Because not to do so and to remain, rather, in the old dialectic of resorting to alternatives to dismaying hegemony, is to remain ensnared in the Foucauldian circuits of power that result in the eternal recursion and reinscription of extant relations. The parallactic Bartleby disrupts the workings of ideological apparatuses by cultivating an inner disposition of refusal until, according to Z., there opens up possibilities that are not determined by the dialectic.

This is precisely where Z. lost me. I recall Bartleby's fate: blind, starving, homeless, jailed ... eventually dead. And, for all of Z.'s hostility to what he calls "postmodern techno-gnosticism," Bartleby seem an odd exemplar, given the fact that Herman Melville, Bartleby's creator, often mused upon the tenets of Gnosticism (He composed a poem on gnosticism, and _The Confidence Man_, his last published novel, arguably lends itself to a gnostic reading). Z.'s recommendation here seems too close to Baudrillard's injunction to "be silent" in the face of popular media -- essentially to choose a mode of resistance likely futile, all while consoling oneself that futility is inevitable, until from the murky parallax gap of the Real messianically springs, like Athena from the head of Zeus, the possibility of truly efficacious revolution.

Provocative yet awkwardly unsatisfying.......2006-04-10

(Again, I feel guilty for such a short review, but aside from lack of time, who am I to say "what the text is saying"?)

Zizek refers to this work as his magnum opus. This is a curious remark for a few reasons. For one, the book does not come across as "climactic"; neither does one envisage a future decline in either productivity or quality in Zizek's writings. Just based on memory, this book is Zizek's longest and most sustained single engagement, but that fact in itself is not particularly relevant. It is undeniably one of Zizek's better books, but not an absolutely singular occurrence in his oevure (such an occurrence would have to be phenomenal).

Needless to say, the reader needs to come to this work with a background in Hegel and Lacan (as well as others, but these are the central presupposed figures). Zizek has been criticized for merely "regurgitating" Lacan or "applying" Lacanian ideas to various topics. This criticism is a little unfair, but it's also true that in this particular work, Zizek tends to string together a series of readings of various texts (which of course includes films, books, thinkers, novels, poems, and even Schumann's Humoresque). Zizek is usually insightful in his readings, even if he occasionally takes tendentious liberties and occasionally falls into obscurity; he is always provocative, however, even if one disagrees with his readings. Some reviews have faulted Zizek for making "too many" references. Although Zizek occasionally cites an obscure author (better known to Europeans than Americans), most of Zizek's texts are familiar to anyone reasonably versed enough in academic and popular culture at least to be able to get the point of a reading even if one has never seen Chaplin's City Lights. Zizek never *simply* refers to something by saying something exasperating (like some other academics) like "Adorno makes the point more emphatically when he claims, with Ibsen, that forms of moral purity are often nourished by a 'hidden egoism.'" At least Zizek explains the comparison or point he is trying to get across. In any event, Zizek writes in a way that demands breadth of knowledge from his readers, but in a way that is not merely an exercise in virtuosity.

On the other hand, one problem with this text is that the argument tends to get lost by virtue of the fact that Zizek moves from the reading of one text to another text such that it feels like all he is doing is either giving examples or arguing by a series of analogies. While there is nothing inherently wrong with analogical thinking, the problem is that it can be easy to miss the point. Zizek is most certainly not just giving examples, but the narrative tends to get buried under the readings.

These readings, however, traverse the gambit from the usual Kant (including an ingenious reading of his ethics), Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, and Lacan to Heidegger, Kafka, Mozart, Kierkegaard (problematic but interesting), Bernard Williams, Henry James, Wordsworth, Damasio, and Badiou (his most recent interlocutor).

The central idea is, of course, that of parallax, but it is easy to miss the point here. Zizek is *not* primarily interested in the perspectival aspect of parallax. While this feature of parallax often emerges in this discussions throughout the book (for example, he speaks of the political parallax in this way: "all [that] is needed is a slight shift in our perspective, and all the activity of "resistance," of bombarding those in power with impossible "subversive" (ecological, feminist, antiracist, anti-globalist...) demands, looks like an internal process of feeding the machine of power, providing the material to keep it in motion"), the "shift in perspective" is not the main point.

The main point is that when we take this shift in perspective, what becomes evident is the *parallax gap*, which is irreducible to either one of the two perspectives in parallax or even to perspective itself. The gap is the mark of the *noncoincidence of the One itself*. Here Zizek enters into the ontological debate between Deleuze and Badiou by proclaiming that "the pure difference is itself an object. Another name for the parallax gap is therefore minimal difference, a "pure" difference which cannot be grounded in positive substantial properties". (And, of course, we must turn to Lacan for the full importance of this: 'L'objet petit a' is the pure parallax object.)

It is this absence in the center of parallax that is key to Zizek's so-called "rehabilitation of dialectical materialism". The parallax is the key to his "materialist theology" in chapter two, but the relationship of parallax to (Hegelian) dialectics is precise: the parallax does not allow for synthesis to occur. In fact, it seems like Zizek has either given up on the very idea of synthesis or is arguing that synthesis entirely misses the point.

The encounter with Hegel thus continues Zizek's prior work, and he (more or less) explicitly updates his arguments in The Sublime Object of Ideology and The Ticklist Subject. Continuities, however, are apparent from other works such as Tarrying With the Negative (which is among my own favorites of his works and probably his most "theoretical" work despite the claims of The Parallax Gap).

What I personally found the most interesting in this book is the idea of pure ontological difference in itself--i.e., the very idea of parallax which is rather underdeveloped in the work. (Perhaps Zizek is simply relying on Badiou's kind of ontology, but this itself is not unproblematic.) Zizek devotes only a few pages in the first chapter to it before mobilizing the concept of the parallax in his readings of ontology, epistemology, and politics. (Of the three, the second seemed the weakest and Zizek's argument about the irreducibility of brain processes and conscious experiences added little to current debates in the philosophy of mind, even if the text was illuminating in some parts. In this light, chapter three was more interesting than chapter four, even though it was the latter on which Zizek placed the most argumentative emphasis.) Hence my first reason for this rating: the most interesting idea of this book from a philosophical point of view was underdeveloped before it was deployed (even if the critical exercises were stimulating). (Or, another way of saying this is that Zizek is at work in this book as a critic and not a philosopher.)

The other main reason for my rating is the surprising number of typographical errors throughout the book. These include misspellings, missing words (such as the one I added in brackets in the quotation above), some formatting errors, and so on. Some sources are also cited as "unpublished" or "forthcoming" which are indeed published (one such work, for example, was published in 2005, which should have been enough time for the printing of The Parallax View).

I used the word "provocative" several times in this review, and I did so consciously: it seems the best adjective to describe this work as a whole. The work "calls forth" insights in the reader in just about every page, even if they are not the insights Zizek is communicating. There are moments when obscurity muffles this call, but on the whole it is not a waste of time for anyone who thinks Zizek is on to something (on the other hand, if you don't think that, this work will not convince you otherwise).

Ride the Cyclone with a Bag on Your Head.......2006-03-29

For some overeducated in philosophy, like myself, particularly from the left (which I am not) Zizek is pure pleasure. It is inconceivable that Zizek's readers get all of his references, explicit or implicit, but that is part of the experience. And reading Zizek is an experience: his primary point is that human beings, try they may, cannot fully understand the world in an intellectual sense. You either get it or you don't, and either way, you won't get it all, but hopefully you'll get just enough to enjoy the first drop that leaves you wanting more.

Elements of Photogrammetry with Applications in GIS

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Excellent Resource
Book Review: Elements of Phtogrammetry

Elements of Photogrammetry with Applications in GIS
Paul R Wolf , and Bon A. DeWitt
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Accessories:

Schaum's Outline of Introductory Surveying (Schaum's)

ASIN: 0072924543

Book Description

The first new edition in 13 years incorporates recent changes on the subject of streamlining from advances in computers. Their ever increasing speed and storage capabilities have directly led to an entire new approach in photogrammetric mapping known as “Soft-Copy” photogrammetry. Digital Imaging systems, including those used in modern satellite programs, scanners for digitizing photographic images, and digital image processing techniques are new topics to be covered that are fundamental to soft copy photogrammetry.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Resource.......2001-06-20

This book is an excellent resource and covers all topics in a sufficient and easy to read manner and definitely covers all the "elements". Anyone that is interested in Photogrammetry will find this book quite useful.

Book Review: Elements of Phtogrammetry.......2000-09-27

This book is substantially revised from the previous edition in 1983, some 17 years ago. Consequently, new topics are added, particularly on GIS and digital photogrammetry. The appendixes on least squares adjustment, co-ordinate transformations, collinearity equations and digital resampling are particularly useful.

This book is clearly one of the best ones around in the area of photogrammetry. The chapters are properly organised and the concepts are explained clearly.

Of course, every book has to focus on its intent and target audience. The authors did this with flying colors. If there is anything missing in the current photogrammetric literature, it surely must be a book that reorganises the chapters into an operational book of case studies on photogrammetric practice.

I strongly recommend the book to you.

Book Description

Is there a significant difference in attitude between immersion in a game and immersion in a movie or novel? What are the new possibilities for representation offered by the emerging technology of virtual reality? As Marie-Laure Ryan demonstrates in Narrative as Virtual Reality, the questions raised by new, interactive technologies have their precursors and echoes in pre-electronic literary and artistic traditions. Formerly a culture of immersive ideals--getting lost in a good book, for example--we are becoming, Ryan claims, a culture more concerned with interactivity. Approaching the idea of virtual reality as a metaphor for total art, Narrative as Virtual Reality applies the concepts of immersion and interactivity to develop a phenomenology of reading.

Ryan's analysis encompasses both traditional literary narratives and the new textual genres made possible by the electronic revolution of the past few years, such as hypertext, interactive movies and drama, digital installation art, and computer role-playing games. Interspersed among the book's chapters are several "interludes" that focus exclusively on either key literary texts that foreshadow what we now call "virtual reality," including those of Baudelaire, Huysmans, Ignatius de Loyola, Calvino, and science-fiction author Neal Stephenson, or recent efforts to produce interactive art forms, like the hypertext "novel" Twelve Blue, by Michael Joyce, and I'm Your Man, an interactive movie. As Ryan considers the fate of traditional narrative patterns in digital culture, she revisits one of the central issues in modern literary theory--the opposition between a presumably passive reading that is taken over by the world a text represents and an active, deconstructive reading that imaginatively participates in the text's creation.

Writing History, Writing Trauma (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)

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Writing History, Writing Trauma (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
Dominick LaCapra
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0801864968

Book Description

Trauma and its often symptomatic aftermath pose acute problems for historical representation and understanding. In Writing History, Writing Trauma, Dominick LaCapra provides a broad-ranging, critical inquiry into the problem of trauma, notably with respect to major historical events. In a series of interlocking essays, he explores theoretical and literary-critical attempts to come to terms with trauma as well as the crucial role post-traumatic testimonies--particularly Holocaust testimonies--have assumed in recent thought and writing. In doing so, he adapts psychoanalytic concepts to historical analysis and employs sociocultural and political critique to elucidate trauma and its after effects in culture and in people.

In the first chapter LaCapra addresses trauma from the perspective of history as a discipline. He then lays a theoretical groundwork for the book as a whole, exploring the concept of historical specificity and insisting on the difference between transhistorical and historical trauma. Subsequent chapters consider how Holocaust testimonies raise the problem of the role of affect and empathy in historical understanding, and respond to the debates surrounding Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. The book's concluding essay, "Writing (About) Trauma," examines the various ways that the voice of trauma emerges in written and oral accounts of historical events. Theoretically ambitious and historically informed, Writing History, Writing Trauma is an important contribution from one of today's foremost experts on trauma.

Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)

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The Frankfort School and Critical Theory

Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
Douglas Kellner
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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ASIN: 0801839149

Book Description

Kellner explores the effects of historical crises of capitalism and Marxism on critical theory and reflects on the continued relevance or obsolescence of Marxism and critical theory. Kellner writes, "As we move into the 1990s critical theory might help produce theoretical and political perspectives which could be part of a Left Turn that could reanimate the political hopes of the 1960s, while helping overcome and reverse the losses and regression of the 1980s."

Customer Reviews:

The Frankfort School and Critical Theory.......2000-04-22

This book provided an excellent analysis of the Frankfurt School including the contributions of Horkheimer and Habermas. There were also three very interesting chapters that focused on the mass media and technology. For someone looking to develop a critical perspective of the media this book is a great start. Also, it was fairly easy to read.

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More excellence from Sawyer
high praise, indeed
Enter the World of a parallel universe
Excellent Parallel Universe Story
For fans of Neanderthals.

Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax)
Robert J. Sawyer
Manufacturer: Tor Science Fiction
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0765345005

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Hominids examines two unique species of people. We are one of those species; the other is the Neanderthals of a parallel world where they became the dominant intelligence. The Neanderthal civilization has reached heights of culture and science comparable to our own, but with radically different history, society and philosophy. Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist, accidentally pierces the barrier between worlds and is transferred to our universe. Almost immediately recognized as a Neanderthal, but only much later as a scientist, he is quarantined and studied, alone and bewildered, a stranger in a strange land. But Ponter is also befriended-by a doctor and a physicist who share his questing intelligence, and especially by Canadian geneticist Mary Vaughan, a woman with whom he develops a special rapport. Ponter's partner, Adikor Huld, finds himself with a messy lab, a missing body, suspicious people all around and an explosive murder trial. How can he possibly prove his innocence when he has no idea what actually happened to Ponter?

Customer Reviews:

More excellence from Sawyer.......2007-09-22

I've read several of Sawyer's books, and this book is as enjoyable as the others, if not more so. Sawyer's got a clean smart style thats easy to read, and he keeps the pages turning.

This books strengths (great characters, social commentary, solid world building) far outweigh any weaknesses.

This is SciFi thats should appeal both to SciFi fans, as well as mainstream fiction readers; or readers of Joe Haldeman and Robert Charles Wilson.

high praise, indeed.......2007-08-05

I'm not usually much for science fiction, but I loved Hominids. The concept of an alternative universe in which it is the Neanderthals who surived rather than Homo sapiens sapiens is incredibly clever. And Sawyer's assumption that, had they survived, Neanderthals would have, like us, evolved science, culture, and civilization makes perfect sense.

Sawyer spins a modern tale of Gulliver among the Lilliputians, a naif who is both inspired and appalled by the good and bad in human civilization. I won't spoil the novel by giving too much away -- suffice it to say that the reader comes away re-evaluating much of society.

When someone who doesn't usually read SF likes a book this much, it's high praise, indeed.

Enter the World of a parallel universe.......2007-07-15

Hominids

In Hominids Robert J. Sawyer introduces you to Ponter Boddit and Mare. Ponter is from a parallel universe to Earth where Neanderthal Man won supremacy over Homo Sapiens or Glikskins as Ponter calls them. In this fascinating world Sawyer introduces you to life among the Neanderthals. One wonders if Sawyer is actually advocating this life. A life that includes homosexuality as the norm, absolutely no privacy. and many other Liberal ideals. Sawyer is, after all, a Canadian. In Hominid you spend most of your time in the Neanderthal world. This is the first in the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy. It is followed by Humans (Volume Two of The Neanderthal Parallax), then Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax).

Gunner July,2007

Excellent Parallel Universe Story.......2007-06-16

I recently discovered Mr. Sawyer's work. Undoubtedly, he is a great hard Sci-Fi writer, I think one of the best among the newcomers. Hominids is not up the quality of "Calculating God", but still a good novel, and his setting of the Neanderthal World is really excellent. The rape story I considered unnecessary and really a distraction on the main plot, but I guess Mr. Sawyer wanted to put an emphasis on the social differences between the two parallel Earths. Also the trial for the supposed murder is hardly credible, as it is driven by feelings and circunstancial evidence only. Overall, once again Mr. Sawyer did his research and came up with a very interesting story based on hard scientific facts and plenty of his imagination.

A good read for hard Sci-Fi fans, and I still wondering if it is worthy to read the whole trillogy.

For fans of Neanderthals. .......2007-03-14

Hominids is about two Earths, one which is ours and one which is a parallel world full of Neanderthals. Or maybe we're the parallel Earth? Anyway, Ponter Boddit ends up trapping himself in our universe as a result of a failed experiment with a quantum computer. On the other hand, he invented a perfect way to travel between universes.
But while he is on our side of the barrier, being hounded by reporters, picking up germs his immune system can't handle and having a great time his male-partner is being put on trial for murder.
That's right. Without a body, or even any solid idea of what happened, Adikor Huld is being put on trial for Boddit's death. All he has is a messy computer lab, a history of violence and a missing partner.
A great sci-fi book and a book for anybody who enjoys Neanderthal related books.

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Disappointing
The Camel is in the tent
More a romance novel than science fiction
All right, having read the previous ones...
Excellent continuation, have to read if you've read the others in this series.

Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax)
Robert J. Sawyer
Manufacturer: Tor Science Fiction
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 076534906X
Release Date: 2004-11-02

Book Description

In the Hugo-Award winning Hominids, Robert J. Sawyer introduced a character readers will never forget: Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist from a parallel Earth who was whisked from his reality into ours by a quantum-computing experiment gone awry - making him the ultimate stranger in a strange land.In that book and in its sequel, Humans, Sawyer showed us the Neanderthal version of Earth in loving detail - a tour de force of world-building; a masterpiece of alternate history.Now, in Hybrids, Ponter Boddit and his Homo sapiens lover, geneticist Mary Vaughan, are torn between two worlds, struggling to find a way to make their star-crossed relationship work. Aided by banned Neanderthal technology, they plan to conceive the first hybrid child, a symbol of hope for the joining of their two versions of reality. But after an experiment shows that Mary's religious faith - something completely absent in Neanderthals - is a quirk of the neurological wiring of Homo sapiens brains, Ponter and Mary must decide whether their child should be predisposed to atheism or belief. Meanwhile, as Mary's Earth is dealing with a collapse of its planetary magnetic field, her boss, the enigmatic Jock Krieger, has turned envious eyes on the unspoiled Eden that is the Neanderthal world . . . Hybrids is filled to bursting with Sawyer's signature speculations about alternative ways of being human, exploding our preconceptions of morality and gender, of faith and love. His Neanderthal Parallax trilogy is a classic in the making, and here he brings it to a stunning, thought-provoking conclusion that's sure to make Hybrids one of the most controversial books of the year.

Customer Reviews:

Disappointing.......2007-09-08

Very disappointing - I waited a long time for all three of these to be in paperback so I could read them all together. They weren't anywhere close to as good as the rest of his work and I'm a big Robert Sawyer fan as well as a feminist. Mary, the primary female character, was not a very sympathetic person although I'm sure she was meant to be. Lots of potential that just never quite got there.

The Camel is in the tent.......2007-08-06

Hybrids

Hybrids is the book Sawyer has been leading up to all along. You should definitely read all three books in this trilogy. Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax)], ][[ASIN:0765346753 Humans (Volume Two of The Neanderthal Parallax), and now Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax).

I mentioned in an earlier review that with respect to Sawyer's Liberalism" he let the nose of the camel come peeking under the tent. Well, in Hybrids the camel is all the way inside the tent and it has taken a dump in the middle. I'm going to have to hold my nose if I read any more of his stories. In fact I'm going to go read[ [ASIN:0743499204 A State of Disobedience]] just to balance out Sawyer.

Points include the old Military Industrial Complex as the boogieman.

Universal homosexuality being apparently espoused.

Anyhow it is a good story ,but...

I noticed that it didn't win any awards like the other two. Now I know why.

Gunner August,2007

More a romance novel than science fiction.......2007-04-27

I thought long and hard over how many stars to give this book and eventually opted for two because it's just not quite good enough for three but it is a fairly strong two. The first books in the trilogy are better however and I would rate them each three stars.

Without going into too much detail about the story, the three books cover what happens when a link to an alternate universe where Neanderthals supplanted humanity as the dominant hominid race opens up. Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist, is transported to our universe and Mary Vaughan, a genetic expert, is appointed to study him and over time they fall in love. As humanity learns more about the Neanderthals, dark forces plot to take their universe over for the human race. Of course everything turns out okay in the end.

Sawyer paints an interesting picture of how different the science and culture in the Neanderthal universe is compared to ours but spends too much time on religion. Apparently the Neanderthal brain is structured in such a way that religious experience is beyond their understanding. What irritated me the most though was the concentration on the love story. At times I thought I was reading a Mills and Boon romantic novel and some of the romantic interaction later in the book came over as just plain silly.

I think that the Neanderthal Parallax could just as well have been fitted into two books. This book has its occasional moments but isn't a real winner as far as I'm concerned.

All right, having read the previous ones..........2006-07-31

Reviews of this book seem to belong to two categories:
A. very negative ones, usually written by ultra-religious folks and
B. very positive ones,written by non-religious folks who had read the other two instalments.
It is my belief one should be somehow more considerate in reviewing this book.
Obviously, it has not got the inventiveness and the fast pace of the first, or of the second.
It does, nonetheless, ask uncomfortable questions and provides also some food for thoughts.
It therefore should not be dragged down.
You need to read the two other volumes first, but once you do, if you are not from a ultra-strict religious upbringing, you are most likely to enjoy this book, which is, inter alia, about tolerance, something in very short supply these days...
After reading all the negative reviews, I first hesitated about buying it and then I expected it to bomb.
I was actually wrong. I quite liked it for the reasons I mentioned above.
Thank you, Mr Sawyer.

Excellent continuation, have to read if you've read the others in this series........2006-07-27

If you read one of this series, you have to read them all. They're very well writte, flow smoothly and provide such a relaxing, quick, and upbeat read (for the most part)at the end of the day.

Average customer rating:

Holl's Project Breakdown
never leaves my bag
en-lightening
Architectural light

Parallax
Steven Holl
Manufacturer: Princeton Architectural Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1568982615

Amazon.com

Steven Holl is probably a pretty cool architect. With its clean, racy curves both inside and out, his recent Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (and biggest project to date) in Helsinki looks like an artfully cut-out chunk of a late '50s sports car, or better yet--given its minty-blue tones and au courant materials--a huge iMac. His very intimate Chapel of St. Ignatius in Seattle (about which he published a previous book, The Chapel of St. Ignatius; he's also put out Anchoring and Intertwining), with its exterior reflecting pool and beguiling interior play of light, curves, and color couldn't be more iconoclastic for a Catholic house of worship, yet it exudes a queer grace in the same spirit as Le Corbusier's famous Chapel at Ronchamp. And surely the banks of Boston's Charles River have never seen anything like the dormitory complex Noll has designed for MIT--the model of which, included here, promises a multicube city unto itself with an intricate, discontinuous façade of overlapping grids and screens, so radical in concept that it defies written description (or a really good one, at any rate).

And yet the reason why the very chicly designed Parallax (with a list price of $40, it's probably the world's most expensive cardboard-covered book) only probably affirms that Holl is a cool architect is that there are simply not enough full-color photographs of his completed work here to tell. Holl is a very conceptual architect, and most of the pages here contain what he refers to as his "liner notes" on his projects--leaden, humorless meditations on such themes as "chemistry of matter," "pressure of light," "strange attractors," and "porosity" as they relate to his work. Beyond that, there's a profusion of computer renderings, simple sketches, and tiny black-and-white photographs of small portions that, alas, also do very little to illuminate his work for the reader.

What little color photography is offered here is excellent, going a long way even in its paucity toward suggesting why Holl has already created a stir (and you can click on our unique Look inside this book! link below the cover image to get a sense of it). Just one limited shot of even a modest project like his 1996 Ikebana House in Makuhari, Japan, seizes the eye with its almost astonishing manipulation of color, texture, and curvature, leaving the beholder hungry for more. If you're already familiar with Holl's work and really curious about his scientific-minded musings on them, you'll appreciate Parallax. Otherwise, keep your fingers crossed that in the next book of his work, Holl shows more and tells less. --Timothy Murphy

Book Description

What makes Steven Holl one of the most celebrated architects working today? As we learn in Parallax, his success comes from his sculptural form making, his interest in the poetics of space, color, and materiality, and his fascination with scientific phenomena. Holl reveals his working methods in this, his biggest and most ambitious book yet on his work-part treatise, part manifesto, and part, as Holl writes, "liner notes" to fifteen recent projects, some never before published.

Parallax traces Holl's ideas on topics as diverse as the "chemistry of matter" and the "pressure of light," and shows how they emerge in his architectural work: "strange attractors" at Cranbrook, "porosity" in his new dormitory at MIT, "tripleness" in the new Bellevue Art Museum in Washington. The result is a book that provides a personal tour of the work of one of the world's most esteemed architects.

Parallax is designed by Michael Rock of the award-winning design firm 2x4. It is our fourth book on Holl's work, following Anchoring, Intertwining, and The Chapel of St. Ignatius.

Customer Reviews:

Holl's Project Breakdown.......2003-10-15

This is a fabulous book for any architect. Holl breaks down the concepts behind his projects and includes several watercolors and photos that provided inspiration for his work. As an architecture student, I found this book to be a wonderful tool to understanding parti and concept.

never leaves my bag.......2002-03-12

the most inspirational book i have ever had the pleasure of reading. as a student i would always depend on this book to help me when i got stuck on a design problem. holl uses connections between essays and real projects to inspire one to think. he does not slap you in the face with some lofty design philosophy of his. he lets you try to make the connections.
this forces you as a designer to think and develope your own ideas without being controlled by what he is doing.
must have for architectural students

en-lightening.......2001-10-22

This book begs to be placed on the shelf of the great Alexandria Library. However you'd never let it leave your side. It is by far one of the most inspiring books to date written on and about the catalyst of light. Holl, brilliantly strings together a tapestry using his own works and interests in science as examples. This book is a must for anyone praciticing or studying in a climate affected by light (that means you!!)

Architectural light.......2000-12-08

Steven Holl's Parallax is the most insiteful handheld account into the world of architecture in some time. Taking architecture to the next realm, Holl has allowed the reader to better understand his process of design through excellent photography and thought provoking essays. More than just describing his latest projects, he uses these projects to illustrate and explain his most fundamental design philosophies.

Book Description

Robert J. Sawyer, the award-winning and bestselling writer, hits the peak of his powers in Humans, the second book of The Neanderthal Parallax, his trilogy about our world and parallel one in which it was the Homo sapiens who died out and the Neanderthals who became the dominant intelligent species. This powerful idea allows Sawyer to examine some of the deeply rooted assumptions of contemporary human civilization dramatically, by confronting us with another civilization, just as morally valid, that has made other choices. In Humans, Neanderthal physicist Ponter Boddit, a character you will never forget, returns to our world and to his relationship with geneticist Mary Vaughan, as cultural exchanges between the two Earths begin.As we see daily life in another present-day world, radically different from ours, in the course of Sawyer's fast-moving story, we experience the bursts of wonder and enlightenment that are the finest pleasures of science fiction. Humans is one of the best SF novels of the year, and The Neanderthal Parallax is an SF classic in the making.

Customer Reviews:

Justice triumphant.......2007-07-15

Humans

In Humans, the second book of the Neanderthal Parallax Sawyer has Ponter Bodditt spend most of his time in the world that we know along with a dozen or so of the Neanderthal best scientist. In the first book,Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax)Sawyer spends most of the time in the Neanderthal world.

Sawyer does introduce a novel method for dealing with crime. Treating it as a genetic disorder. Sounds interesting to me. Be sure to tune in for the third book in this seriesHybrids (Neanderthal Parallax)

Gunner July 2007

Not as good as the first one.......2007-02-23

Humans is not as good as the first book in this trilogy, Hominids. However, much of the book still takes place in the intelligent and imaginative alternate universe populated with neanderthals created by Sawyer. This book focuses on the developing relationship between Ponter and Mary and the obstacles of their separate worlds and cultures, as well as Mary's past sexual assault. The ending alone makes this book worth reading.

Candide gets on his soapbox.......2006-10-15

After the excellent Hominids, Humans is somewhat of a let down. The series remains above the average SF fare, both in terms of contents and execution. But Humans wouldn't win any awards on its own though (PC award excepted).

Rather than exploring new ground, Mr. Sawyer has Ponter (the main Neanderthal character) repeatedly asking questions that highlight how we humans are so unpleasant to each other. This is not a bad thing in itself, but it is not a substitute for a plot either. By the time Ponter asks his 4th or 5th such question, with Mary providing an uninspired pro forma defense, the trick is as stale as my hiking socks. I especially "liked" the cocktail discussion with Mary's colleagues, with verbatim quotes from Jared Diamond's excellent Guns, Germs and Steel.

The Neanderthals' policy of castrating criminals and their immediate relatives smacks of eugenics, despite recent statistical research on the hereditary component of criminality. How did they avoid judicial errors, before the oh-so-convenient alibi machines? Is that policy ever defended? Nope, no need to, they are perfect after all.

Like others, I wonder how the Neanderthals can have such advanced technology, without our population base, our manufacturing base, or indeed our wars. I see several possibilities, and I would have welcomed more insight from the book.

a) Not having civilization collapses is more efficient in the long term (tortoise vs. hare).

b) The Neanderthals are smarter as they have bigger brains. What is Ponter doing with Mary then?

c) Technological research has been long been driven by the military, though nowadays, consumer/business oriented research seems to be more important. But pure science may be less influenced by military spending.

d) Having one language/civilization might speed up the transfer of ideas. More likely, it would introduce serious groupthink.

e) The Neanderthals' socialism implies universal access to education which could maximize the potential of gifted individuals.

All in all, the author rests on his laurels and Humans doesn't add anything fresh to Hominids' storyline. Instead, he falls back into his usual habit of throwing "subtle" barbs at our southern neighbours. Gee, Mr. Sawyer, you live in Canada and prefer it to the US. Living in Canada, I sympathize, to an extent. But, need we be reminded, at length, in _all_ your books??? Hominids was much the better for being unusually subtle on that matter.

Good continuation of Volume One.......2006-07-27

I love this series, it's got just enough science fiction mixed in with reality to make it a very quick and enjoyable read. I recommend this series to anyone from 12 to 112.

Not as good as the first book in the series!.......2006-06-24

I enjoyed reading this, but it was not on par with the first book in the series. Characters were not as believable and the story was not as solid. I'd rate this as average.

The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)

Average customer rating:

Vattimo's hard to accept tesis about a weak thinking.

The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
Gianni Vattimo
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Modern | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Modern Renaissance | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Literature & Fiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Reference | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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ASIN: 0801843170

Book Description

Gianni Vattimo reexamines the roots of modernism and postmodernism in Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Heidegger. Exploring the links between concepts of nihilism and destiny in nineteenth-century humanism, Vattimo follows these trends in aesthetic and scientific theory from Benjamin to Bloch, Ricoeur, and Kuhn.

Customer Reviews:

Vattimo's hard to accept tesis about a weak thinking........1998-10-14

This book is important to understand postmodernism. However, i don't image american readers accepting Vattimo's tesis about weak subjet right to have a place in world. Why modern civilization has impossed to us the obligation of being strong and the first in every action as the only way to be allowed as a member of this society?

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