Book Description
For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic insight into a possible, plauible future of humans and the universe.......2007-10-07
This is one the the favorite books I have ever read. It is not an easy read for a non-scientist, but absolutely rewarding. It is surprisingly accessible, despite the technical and intellectual scope. The logical and insightful nature of Kurzweil's arguments make it a compelling and inspirational read. The book has had a huge impact on my thinking and introduced me to the whole subject of futurism. It is affecting my investment and career decisions. There were numerous mind-bending, mind-expanding moments during reading this as the gravity of the concepts sank in. Garreau's book, Radical Evolution, is a great follow-up read, comparing and contrasting Kurzweil's optimism with the pessimism of others. It is a joy and luxury to be exposed to the visions such "big thinkers".
Look-out future here we come.......2007-09-10
I read this book with such optimism for our future. I only hope to live long enough to see some of the exciting events in our future on this planet. Just when you think you have seen it all, you "ain't seen nutt'n yet". Come on world let's work together and solves some of the mysteries that are tearing us apart.
hold onto your hat.......2007-08-29
the future is going to be wild.
ray kurzweil is the leading guru of the not so far off world where key technologies merge to allow us to turn ourselves into non biological humans.
no crack pot he. when kurzweil presented his thesis at MIT the arguments centered on the when, not the if of kurzweils predictions
Not for non geeks!.......2007-07-26
Although the reading is tedious for someone who is not that scientifically or computer oriented, the concepts and ideas the book presents are fascinating and a bit scary!
Most important book of the next 50 yrs.......2007-07-25
At some point I hope that people will stop paying attention to Paris Hilton and read this book. Our species is at a crossroads and we have some very important decisions to make in the next few decades. This book more than any other will prepare us to make the right choices. Read it now, or be devoured by a swarm of nanobots in 2029 when Skynet takes over.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent introduction to bifurcation theory with symmetries
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Singularities and Groups in Bifurcation Theory: Volume 2 (Applied Mathematical Sciences)
Martin Golubitsky ,
Ian Stewart , and
David G. Schaeffer
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 0387966528 |
Book Description
Bifurcation theory studies how the structure of solutions to equations changes as parameters are varied. The nature of these changes depends both on the number of parameters and on the symmetries of the equations. Volume I discusses how singularity-theoretic techniques aid the understanding of transitions in multiparameter systems. This volume focuses on bifurcation problems with symmetry and shows how group-theoretic techniques aid the understanding of transitions in symmetric systems. Four broad topics are covered: group theory and steady-state bifurcation, equicariant singularity theory, Hopf bifurcation with symmetry, and mode interactions. The opening chapter provides an introduction to these subjects and motivates the study of systems with symmetry. Detailed case studies illustrate how group-theoretic methods can be used to analyze specific problems arising in applications.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent introduction to bifurcation theory with symmetries.......2007-05-12
This book provides an efficient and understandable introduction to bifurcation from fixed points in systems with symmetries. Several well established physical examples, which are the focus of active research, are discussed and further references given. It is a must for anyone interested in the subject.
Average customer rating:
- Lovely thing this Eschaton!
- It stinks
- Not Free SF Reader
- Lemonade for the Brain. Tart!
- Grinding
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Singularity Sky
Charles Stross
Manufacturer: Ace
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ASIN: 0441011799
Release Date: 2004-06-29 |
Book Description
Four hundred years in the future, time travel has been perfected and groundbreaking developments in Artificial Intelligence have been made. But is this a great step forward for humanity--or its ultimate downfall?
Download Description
"This much-anticipated debut novel is set 400 years in the future-and in the wake of perfected time travel, the ultimate advancements in technology and information, and the groundbreaking development of Artificial Intelligence. Is this all a great step for humanity? Or will it be our ultimate downfall? Singularity Sky is a truly visionary novel of the future, and already its author, Charles Stross, has become the most talked-about new voice in science fiction... "
Customer Reviews:
Lovely thing this Eschaton!.......2007-09-28
I enjoyed the Eschaton thing. Sentences like "I am not your god," followed by behaviour that indicates that it might very well be for all practical purposes - is just hilarious.
And there is plenty of good Space Opera in this book.
That said I were a bit bored from time to time, I am afraid to say. Therefore it can't be more than 3 stars.
-Simon
It stinks.......2007-09-27
I got through about a third of this book before I just gave up and took it back to the library. Dull, dull, dull!!!!!
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
A close to omniscient AI oversees a large sector of space, to prevent any causality or other events it sees as technology violations.
A group of strange aliens travel around, looking for information and fun, to them. If this is found, they basically give the population replicators to do with as they will.
In a repressive, militaristic society on a planet with an almost Victorian feel this will cause a lot of grief, as their grip on control slips.
As a response, they decide to see if they can sneakily blow some things up and get around the Eschaton's control.
In the middle of this are an interplanetary Inspector (read secret agent), and a hapless engineer she recruits.
Highly entertaining, overall.
Lemonade for the Brain. Tart!.......2007-08-05
Ok, so reading this is a little like going to an MIT rave where everyone is wearing mirrored clothing and chanting various laws of physics to the tune of "I don't feel like dancing", or maybe "Tainted Love". It's very, very weird, fast-paced, and a lot of fun. The characters are nicely drawn, even if it takes forever into the book to really get to know them; everything moves so quickly! The ideology is a little thick at times, although his wonderful writing makes it all very palatable - it can be sort of like one of those old "Carry On..." movies dosed with some cheesy old communist propaganda and a big helping of nanotechnology. There's a great sense of the ridiculous, though, which keeps it from getting heavy - it's a wicked funny book, as well as wicked smart.
Um, what's it about? That would be telling... no, seriously, it's sort of an essay on information distribution and the impact it has on human society disguised as a love/spy story taking place inside a lopsided war based on the inability of a dictatorial & controlling socialist regime to adjust to a sudden influx of technology on a colony world. And it all takes place way way in the future with a big helping of quantum physics and nanotech and space travel, while sometimes referencing the many-angled ones from Lovecraftian horror fame... It's good, ok? I loved it. But I can really, really see why some people would have a hard time with it. It's very....densely packed, at times. It can be a little exhausting after a bit... like a hyperactive super-genius toddler.
Grinding.......2007-07-16
Charles Stross is not a bad author, as such. He is, however, one of the most overrated authors on two continents. The critical community went bananas over his first novel, Singularity Sky - apparently without any consideration of its stylistic merits (there aren't many, by the way). The novel begins with a fascinating premise, but quickly degenerates into an elaborate grandstand upon which the author can pontificate about politics and philosophy. Now, I have no particular aversion to liberal science-fiction writing (indeed, it seems the standard in the medium), but rather than justify his political assertions, Stross begins with the smug assumption that his views are correct. Alright, very well, but I'd like to see him defend himself intelligently rather than endlessly point his fingers at the political right. In addition, the novel is so enamored with its own subtlety that it never makes clear exactly what it is supporting. There are several abstruse references to famous political doctrines, but out of context, they mean nothing to the reader. Descriptions of technology have the same problem: as a regular reader of the genre, I'm used to having to decipher technological terminology, but the scientific exposition in Singularity Sky rolls along ad infinitum with all the clarity of a spinning kaleidoscope. Surely the author knows that his readers haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about; why, then, is it necessary to bombard them with all this extraneous technobabble about light cones? I congratulate Mr. Stross for developing such an intricate technological scene for his future society, but a single paragraph in layman's terms would suffice. Really. But let's speak of the writing: Stross's prose is generally taut, and he inserts vivid glimmers of detail in order to help the setting coalesce in the reader's mind. Aside from those positives, the prose is drab and stultifying; the density of information and the blandness of its conveyance make finishing a single paragraph analogous to slogging uphill through deep mud. This morass is blessedly (if intermittently) relieved by bouts of witty humor - but even that is so dry that it's difficult to determine when Stross is joking. Therein lies the ultimate problem with the entire novel: the author is so anxious to appear literate and artsy that he writes with a dull ambiguity, like the shy kid who's afraid to raise his voice from the back of the choir and so whispers his way through entire stanzas. Singularity Sky is obviously supposed to have some sort of sweeping theme, some Important Didactic Message...but Stross never quite gets the point across. He also repeats himself unnecessarily, which fails to help: repetition of something that didn't make sense in the first place merely makes the reader feel like a patronized idiot. Stross's characters, well, are characters. Sort of. They're actually well-drawn, but the tedious quality of the writing prevents the reader from developing any interest in them. There's more information than there is emotion. Again, Stross does employ small details to his advantage (he includes offhand comments about the characters' preferences and pet peeves, which lends them depth and humanity), but the protagonists would be more interesting if the large details of personality were colored in first. Many secondary players are featured erratically and serve only as convenient straw men for the ongoing one-sided political debate. On the bright side, the extraterrestrials are entertainingly surreal, equal parts macabre and Seussian. Worldbuilding may be limited and uninteresting, but the eye-popping, quasi-alien mutants briefly shock the reader out of his stupor (come on, who doesn't love sadistic mimes wielding lethal pies?). Nevertheless, the sheer, unabashed weirdness of the aliens contrasts rather awkwardly with the serious tone of the majority of the novel. Make no mistake: I like the sheer, unabashed weirdness and wish Stross had kept it at the expense of the arid political wrangling. The two are simply mutually exclusive, although their incongruous juxtaposition is occasionally amusing. Eventually (by which I mean, after six chapters), the mixed-up plot becomes so interminable, so self-indulgent, that the reader awaits its end with groaning eagerness. Oh, wait - the ending is bad, too. There is no climax, merely a continuation of the uninspired, meandering plot stretched putty-like to unbearable lengths. Characters who went unfeatured for hundreds of pages are thrust into pivotal roles while reader struggles to remember who, exactly these people are. The epilogue and incoherent denouement putter out like a deflated balloon. And, at long, sweet last, your aching eyes can relax. On the whole, Charles Stross is a writer of fair but undistinguished technical ability and little talent. Unless you're willing to wait on him for weeks with no payoff, avoid Singularity Sky.
Book Description
- Provides valuable insight into the progress and direction of development of the World Wide Web and its likely future applications in science and business.
- Reviews the prospects for the Web to develop intelligent services (such as online businesses, games, purchases, new search capabilities, and accessibility to trustworthy information).
- Offers a view for thinking about thinking on the Web.
- The companion website offers access to supplemental text, specialized information, additional examples, demos, tools reference material, and advanced applications.
Customer Reviews:
more about AI instead of semantic web.......2007-05-12
I look for a book to learn semantic web, but this one is more about AI. First 70 pages are history ,story of logic, thinking and ...
If you want to learn something proparly don't buy this book.
The only good thing I found is that it is 260 pages and not more than 300 pages
Good Introduction to Semantic Web Concepts.......2006-12-22
The book is a good introduction to the concepts underlying the Semantic Web, and this is why I give it a good rating. But beware, if you are already familiar with taxonomies, ontologies, and inference engines, you are unlikely to learn anything new from reading this book. It is really targeted at more casual readers, IMHO.
On the annoying side, the authors constantly repeat themselves. Many paragraphs seem to be repeated word for word not just two but often three times throughout the book. I guess it is an effective way to ingrain the newly acquired information in one's brain, but it is also a waste of time. Another annoying thing is the number of typos in this text. I do not think I have seen that many typos in a book, ever. Even worse, many of these typos are of the kind that could have been detected easily by a spellchecker. Somebody at Wiley did not do his job. Hopefully, the errors in this book are all of the typo kind and not semantical...
progress towards the Semantic Web.......2006-11-30
The authors give us a lucid view of the future of the Web. The Semantic Web, as named by Berners-Lee. Interspersed in the narrative are the views of Godel and Turing. Two giants whose writings and forecasts are still relevant. Indeed, one aim of the book is to demonstrate this relevance to the modern reader.
The other objective of the book is to show what progress has been made towards the Semantic Web. The problem of how to write meaning into the next Web is indeed very hard. But the book shows intermediate steps, like RDF and how to make ontologies. Understand that the book does not conclude with the goal of inscribing meaning fully achieved. Still, you can understand how far we have come.
Machine Intelligence presented intelligently.......2006-11-02
I liked this book. It actually had three distinctive features: First, the general presentation of the pioneers Berners-Lee, Godel and Turing with the key questions they posed was well done. Second, the chapters on ontology engineering, RDF, and OWL were instructive and had good examples. I found the chapters on semantic search and semantic services particularly interesting. Third, the interludes consisted of several pages of debate in-between chapters.
I particularly enjoyed the interludes - these short debates between two fictitious characters crystallized many issues dealing with AI, thinking and intelligence as they emerged from the chapter material. They were presented with humor and high spirits, but the arguments seemed well-founded and balanced. They included amusing backdrops, such as, the characters playing a chess match while discussing the tournament between Gary Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue computer.
Maybe the Web will be able to "think" some day. You decide........2006-10-30
Although the target audience for this book is most likely comprised of computer science students, those well versed in computer science, IT type professionals and anyone with a vested interest in remaining on the leading edge of Web capabilities, it is my opinion that even a casual reader will benefit from reading this book. Because this book makes one aware of the current Web limitations and describes how it could be significantly more than what it is today and then launch us into the real Information Revolution. Yes, according to the authors we have not yet experienced the full Information Revolution.
This book makes you think about thinking or at least the thinking process as it relates to instilling the Web with enough artificial intelligence (AI) to make it capable of thinking. I learned from this book that the Web, as it is currently structured, it not really very intelligent at all and there are many enhancements that have to be made to bring the Web to its full potential. Those who are in any way interested in the Web achieving its full potential will be well served by reading this book.
The authors take on a sizable task and do an excellent job of interweaving the philosophical with the technical aspects of AI as a driver and/or incremental part of enabling the Web to "think". The authors start from the beginning and bring us up to the current status of web thinking. The beginning here is literally from Aristotle and along the way they spend considerable time laying a foundation that includes the significant contributions of Berners-Lee, Gödel, and Turing. After the first part of the book establishes the foundation, the second part of the book becomes very technical (as you would expect) focusing on Web ontology and logic and a lot more to address the complex superstructure that will be required to establish thinking on the Web.
One aspect of this book that I found refreshing and I believe unique for a technical book are the interludes at the end of each chapter. These interludes are a running interaction/dialogue between two computer science students as they debate/discuss the feasibility of using AI applications, etc. to make the Web capable of thinking. These interludes are refreshing to read and give a real life perspective of how daunting the task is to make thinking on the Web possible. And, indeed will we all ever agree on what thinking on the Web really means and if it is ever fully achieved? My opinion after reading this book is that there will probably not ever be a unanimous agreement. Of course, you will have to judge for yourself.
I gave this book five stars because I really learned a lot, and some of what I learned was more than I bargained for, a real surprise. The authors did a thorough job, and the book stimulates a lot of thinking about something we take for granted --- and that is thinking. Enjoy the book and when you read it, expect to be challenged.
Average customer rating:
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Tubes, Sheets and Singularities in Fluid Dynamics (Fluid Mechanics and Its Applications)
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 1402009801 |
Book Description
Modern experiments and numerical simulations show that the long-known coherent structures in turbulence take the form of elongated vortex tubes and vortex sheets. The evolution of vortex tubes may result in spiral structures which can be associated with the spectral power laws of turbulence. The mutual stretching of skewed vortex tubes, when they are close to each other, causes rapid growth of vorticity. Whether this process may or may not lead to a finite-time singularity is one of the famous open problems of fluid dynamics.
This book contains the proceedings of the NATO ARW and IUTAM Symposium held in Zakopane, Poland, 2-7 September 2001. The papers presented, carefully reviewed by the International Scientific Committee, cover various aspects of the dynamics of vortex tubes and sheets and of their analogues in magnetohydrodynamics and in quantum turbulence. The book should be a useful reference for all researchers and students of modern fluid dynamics.
Book Description
Resolution of singularities is a powerful and frequently used tool in algebraic geometry. In this book, János Kollár provides a comprehensive treatment of the characteristic 0 case. He describes more than a dozen proofs for curves, many based on the original papers of Newton, Riemann, and Noether. Kollár goes back to the original sources and presents them in a modern context. He addresses three methods for surfaces, and gives a self-contained and entirely elementary proof of a strong and functorial resolution in all dimensions. Based on a series of lectures at Princeton University and written in an informal yet lucid style, this book is aimed at readers who are interested in both the historical roots of the modern methods and in a simple and transparent proof of this important theorem.
Book Description
Featuring stellar contributions from some of today's most masterful practitioners of speculative fiction, Beyond Singularity presents fourteen visions of a tomorrow where rapid technological and genetic breakthroughs have rendered humanity obsolete.
Customer Reviews:
interesting views beyond humanity.......2007-02-20
This is a very good showcase for different futures where mankind has changed beyond understanding. Yet the writers manage to maintain our interest for the characters and we can feel with them. Robert Reed's story was really spellbinding, and the ending quite satisfactory. But all the stories have something to recommend them, and if you are looking for a taste of fascinating strange futures, this is the book for you.
Book Description
Erwin Schrödinger’s What is Life? published 60 years ago, influenced much of the development of molecular biology. In this new book Christian De Duve, Nobel Laureate and pioneer of modern cell biology, presents a contemporary response to this classic, providing a sophisticated consideration of the key steps or bottlenecks that constrain the origins and evolution of life. De Duve surveys the entire history of life, including insights into the conditions that may have led to its emergence. He uses as landmarks the many remarkable singularities along the way, such as the single ancestry of all living beings, the universal genetic code, and the monophyletic origin of eukaryotes. The book offers a brief guided tour of biochemistry and phylogeny, from the basic molecular building blocks to the origin of humans. Each successive singularity is introduced in a sequence paralleling the hypothetical development of features and conditions on the primitive earth, explaining how and why each transition to greater complexity occurred.
Customer Reviews:
Never fear, it's not a "Creationist/ID" text.......2006-12-30
This is an excellent, challenging book. Please do not be put off by the suggestion of one reviewer that it is somehow sympathetic to the nonsensical "intelligent design" and "creation 'science'" religions. It is nothing of the sort. This is a good science book for the secular-minded. See the good review in Nature, August 2006.
Unprecedented clarity on the origin of life.......2006-11-06
The purpose of this excellent book is to highlight singularities in the origin of life (p.viii), and evaluate available evidence against the possible causes of chance, deterministic chemistry in a suitable environment, and intelligent design. It requires undergraduate level biochemistry to read it, but I have never come across another book on the subject that gives such precision and clarity to the main issues.
It is not spelt out, so readers need to be aware that a singularity is a unique event that only happened once and is thus indistinguishable from a miracle (because science can only experimentally verify repeatable phenomena). Because `The history of life is marked by a large number of such singularities' (p.viii) then the default explanation must be intelligent design because he provides no other non-natural cause in his list of seven causes in the `General Introduction'. If any natural cause was available then these problems would not be singularities.
The natural causes that he appeals to are unconvincing and/or logically invalid--that is why the problems remain singularities. For example, he attributes nothing to chance and everything to chemistry and the environment (p.238). However he has to invoke all the properties of life to get the chemistry out of the 'dirty gemisch' of the natural environment and into an organized and functional form, so by using life to explain life his argument is circular and invalid--that is why the problems remain singularities.
In regard to the environment, he avoids being specific in most cases, so the only environmental causes we end up with are many references to the chaotic dirty gemisch, and the `starvation, acidification and excessive heat' (p.167) that finally got pre-life over the line to life. Dirty chemistry, starvation, acidification and excessive heat are easily reproduced in the laboratory and none of them produce life!
As a creationist, I can say that de Duve's excellent book will be on my recommended reading list for many years to come. No one else has ever been so clear in describing (i) the singularities underpinning life, (ii) the total poverty of naturalistic explanations, and (iii) such willful disregard for the logical explanation of the evidence.
Book Description
Naber provides an elementary introduction to the geometrical methods and notions used in special and general relativity. Particular emphasis is placed on the ideas concerned with the structure of space-time and that play a role in the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems. The author's primary purpose is to give a rigorous proof of the simplest of these theorems, by the one that is representative of the whole. He provides exercises and examples at the end of each chapter. No previous exposure either to relativity theory of differential geometry is required of the reader, as necessary concepts are developed when needed, though some restrictions ae imposed on the types of space considered.
Customer Reviews:
A Stimulating and Interesting Book.......2000-11-01
This book is concerned primarily with a geometrical and in places, a topological approach to spacetime, leading to a full proof of one of Hawking's singularity theorems.The first part introduces the geometry of Minkowski Spacetime as.. 'a 4-dimensional ral vector space on which is defined a nondegenerate symmetric bilinear form of index one'.Some mathematical maturity is required to attempt this book on one's own.Chapter two develops relativistic mechanics in quite an abstract way (certainly for a first encounter) and chapter three develops spacetimes from the point of view of maps between manifolds.This chapter ends with a statement of one of Hawking's theorems. Chapter four sets out a full rigorous proof. There are no hints/partial solutions for the exercises although there are some 'examples'. The first three chapters were enjoyable and I managed to do quite a lot of the exercises and problems.As someone who works entirely independently at this kind of thing for 'fun',I found chapter four very hard going.Having no-one to ask when stuck made it a bit frustrating.The book was very stimulating though and encouraged me to research other sources for similar material to fill in gaps in my mathematical knowledge.
Average customer rating:
- Hooray for Sleator!
- Singularity
- 8 Years Later and I'm Still Entertained
- Mark- Shanghai
- Let's face it...
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Singularity
William Sleator
Manufacturer: Puffin
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ASIN: 0140375988 |
Customer Reviews:
Hooray for Sleator!.......2006-12-07
Every book has something good about it;however,this book has three good things about it. First of all, the charachters act like real people. You can identify with them. Secondly, it is extremely suspenseful. Sleator puts a master stroke with the "mouth", putting an exiting aimosphere in this story. Lastly, I enjoyed reading it. It was fun to read! Obviously, these three things make this book worth reading.
Lulu in CA
Singularity.......2006-05-05
Everything is faster inside than outside the playhouse! Mrs. Krasner gets a letter telling her that her Uncle Ambrose died and he left everything to her. She and her husband has planned a vacation so they sent their sixteen year old twin sons, Harry and Barry, to go check the place out. When the boys get there, they find a playhouse behind the house. They try to open it and find it's locked. A girl named Lucy, that's about their age, comes over and tells them some stuff about their great uncle. They go inside and Barry finds a key that has PLAY written on it, but when they try that one in the lock to the playhouse, it doesn't work either. Barry ends up finding a key that has HOUSE written on it, but that key doesn't work either. Then, Barry tries using both key (by putting one in after another) and it works. The playhouse is full of spider webs and the floor is coated in dead insects. When they go back outside, Fred, Harry and Barry's dog, is still in the exact same place as he was when they went into the playhouse a few minutes before. They don't really think anything of this and go inside the house. The next day, Harry and Barry decide to clean out the playhouse. After cleaning for a while, Harry goes outside to get the trash bags and the door shuts behind him. When he opens it up a second later, he finds Barry asleep on the bed that's inside the playhouse and the playhouse completely clean. Barry wakes up and yells at Barry for leaving him in there al night, but Harry had only been outside a few seconds. Harry later figures out that the playhouse is a singularity, or a black hole, and that for every second outside the playhouse, a hour goes by inside the playhouse. Barry keeps making Harry mad, so Harry decides that he wants to be the one in command and the only way to do that would be to be older than Barry. Harry figures out that two and a half hours outside the play house equals a year inside it. Harry stays in the playhouse for two and half hours (in Barry's time) while Barry is asleep. This makes him a year older than Barry. When Barry wakes up, he finds that Harry is different. Harry tells him what he did and Barry freaked out. Then, the thing that they have been waiting for to come through the singularity finally comes through. It ends up eating itself. After this, Barry, Harry, and Lucy go inside the playhouse and find a broken stone on the floor. They look outside and find that everything is moving as normal the time zone is no longer there. Lucy leaves and Harry and Barry try to figure out how they are going to tell their parents that Harry is now seventeen. This book has a lot of adventure type stuff, weird stuff, and suspense in it.
Harry has most of the adventure, but some other people do to. Barry and Harry get to go check out their great uncle's house. Their parents go to California. Barry, Harry, and Lucy discover what the playhouse can do. Harry stays in the playhouse for a year.
There are many weird things in this book. The playhouse is weird and that it has a different time zone inside of it. It's also weird because it can transport items from a different universe. It was kind of weird that Harry decide to age himself.
This book is crazy with suspense. It was suspenseful when they were trying to figure out what was going on with the playhouse. The different things to come through the singularity was suspenseful. It was suspenseful while Harry was waiting a year inside the playhouse.
With all of the adventuristic stuff, weird stuff, and suspense, this book was jam packed. It was really good and different from anything I've ever read. I really liked the Sci-Fi stuff, even thought it was a little weirder than I'm used to. I would recommend this book to anyone who like really cool Sci-Fi books.
8 Years Later and I'm Still Entertained.......2005-12-02
Singularity was my favorite book in middle school. I just read it again for a class in college and I still really enjoy it! Below is a review that I wrote for my class about Singularity that may be helpful. **Just a warning - it gives away the ending!
William Sleator writes of Harry and Barry Krasner, twin brothers who could not be more opposite. Harry, the narrator of the story, is the scientific, mathematical, timid brother, while Barry is athletic, out-going, and domineering. When the two are sent to their late great uncle Ambrose's farm to house-sit, they come across a very strange playhouse in the backyard. The brothers find out from Lucy, an attractive female neighbor, that the Krasner's Uncle Ambrose was a very creepy man who could make his neighbor's cows dry up and grow feeble over night.
As a team, Harry, Barry, and Lucy find the keys for the playhouse and being exploring. They soon find that time goes faster within the house, and that there is a portal to another universe that they can see reflected in water in the playhouse's sink. From the portal, strange things arrive such as a small blinking device that Harry realizes must be a clock for another life form. Other things also arrive like a green hairball and a purple furry fruit peel, but the three truly begin to worry when they see a large set of jaws coming through the portal. However, by now, they realize that it will take many days for it to arrive in their world.
In the meantime, Harry and Barry's relationship grows increasingly competitive, and Harry begins to worry that Barry will go into the playhouse at night and stay in there until he ages enough that they are no longer twins. Harry, who's character by now is getting a little annoying because he is so whiny and insecure, does something startling to both the reader, himself, and, later, Barry: Harry goes into the playhouse. He spends a year in "playhouse time" within the confines of the little shed, but in real time it is only a few hours. During this time, Harry develops a regimented schedule to keep himself from going crazy. This part is more interesting than one would expect. Through journal entries, Harry shares his deepest concerns and theories about his brother, the monster coming through the portal, and about life in general. As Harry ages, he truly becomes more wise and confident in himself, and this mini bildungs roman is exciting to view, as a reader, in such a short time.
When the playhouse year is finally over, Harry confronts his brother, which is actually only the next morning. Barry's reaction is satisfying for both Harry and the reader. Unlike many readers might expect, however, the brothers actually get along better when Harry is a year older. Sleator does a good job of emphasizing that Barry's new behavior is not just because Harry is now the older brother, but also because Harry has more confidence in himself and is more controlled in his reactions toward his brother.
That same morning, the monster arrives. As soon as Harry opens the door to the playhouse, the monster violently jumps out, destroying the playhouse and the portal, and consumes itself. Harry explains to Barry and Lucy that it was probably a robot sent to destroy the portal on purpose because it was a danger or an annoyance to have an exposed portal to another universe. Older readers may connect the end of the playhouse's power to the end of Harry's childhood, however, even if they do not fully understand the deeper intentions of this story, it is still an exciting sci-fi journey for readers ages 12 and up.
Mark- Shanghai.......2005-05-14
Mark - Shanghai
Singularity by William Sleator is a very strange and exciting book. It is about two boys, Harry and Barry, who go to their dead uncle's house expecting to just find an old run down house,but when they get there they walk into a playhouse of terror. I have read two other books by William Sleator, The Boxes and Marco's Millions, and I would definitely say that Singularity is the best. Sleator's mix of science fiction and real life is strange in a scary and funny kind of way. His style of writing keeps the reader on tenterhooks waiting to see what will happen next. When I am getting tired I say to myself, "I will stop reading after this chapter," but then at the end of the chapter Sleator will write something like, "but then the creature came." So you just want to keep reading the book. Singularity is very suspenseful and once you start reading it, you don't want to put it down.
I would rate this book 9/10, however, because although it is a good book it is kind of slow in some parts. Overall though, I would definitely recommend this book to middle school students who like stories about aliens and who enjoy mystery and suspense.
A few months ago I had the opportunity to meet William Sleator when he visited my school. At first he seemed just like some guy who was going to be really boring, but he turned out to be funny and mysterious, just like his books. I enjoy reading William Sleator's books and I am definitely looking forward to reading more of his books in the future.
Let's face it..........2004-12-07
Lets face it. Sleator has made a lot of garbage lately. His best books were made in his prime, which ended maybe 7-8 years ago, and include: Others See Us, Oddballs, House of Stairs, Interstellar Pig, The Green Futures of Tycho and, of course, Singularity. In these books he treated the audience intelligently and dealt with science fiction problems in new ways, while keeping the reader sympathizing with the main character.
I'll summarize the plot quickly. Barry and Harry are twins, but Barry is strong and popular, and he bullies Harry, who is weak. Harry, eventually getting fed up, locks himself inside a room that holds a singularity, where time flies inside the room while time slows to a crawl outside. He keeps himself in the room for a year while a night passes on the outside world.
The best part of Singularity was not the psychological rivalry between the twins, but how Harry managed to keep himself sane through a regimented routine of diet, exercise, meditation and reading. I found it very interesting how someone could find inner peace, and grow up to be a man, through such a regimented, solitary program.
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- The Transforms and Applications Handbook, Second Edition (The Electronic Engineering Handbook Series)
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- Understanding Fiber Optics (5th Edition)
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- A Course in Modern Mathematical Physics: Groups, Hilbert Space and Differential Geometry
- A First Course in Modular Forms (Graduate Texts in Mathematics)
- Adaptive Information: Improving Business Through Semantic Interoperability, Grid Computing, and Enterprise Integration (Wiley Series in Systems Engineering and Management)
- Advanced Mathematical Methods for Scientists and Engineers: Asymptotic
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