Having recently looked into the way we use story to inform, influence and manipulate others , I was interested to see how Mara Einstein would take on suggested parallels between the techniques of marketers and those used by cults. Technically this is a business book, but it takes an academic approach to the subject. I found the description of the techniques used by cults to reel in and keep victims, and the parallels with some types of marketing, notably multilevel marketing (MLM) and influencers, was fascinating. For those unfamiliar with the term, MLM refers to what is effectively a pyramid scheme, but one where there is a product involved rather than just finance. Where pyramid schemes are usually illegal, MLMs aren't despite their manipulative nature. It's worth saying that this a very US-centric book. All the examples are from US companies, most of which I'd never heard of. This isn't a negative, though - it gives an impressive insight into US culture. Many of the ...

Bruce Sterling is one of the key figures from the cyberpunk phase of SF. In a way, that term is misleading - unlike punk music, cyberpunk is an intellectual take on the genre - it just had the kind of spiky edginess we associate with the music. The only Sterling I'd read before was The Difference Engine , his alternate Victorian steampunk collaboration with William Gibson, but the novel Schismatrix , along with a handful of short stories in the same future included in this collection, has a solidly future setting. In Sterling's strangely sterile future, the interesting societies are all based in space habitats - some circumlunar, others extending to the outer planets. Earth itself is left to a regimented society that has abandoned advancement. There are multiple, splintered societies, though many are either Shapers, who use genetic/biological modifications to produce enhanced humans and Mechanists who take the cyborg route. The storyline itself is relatively simple - what explo...

This introduction to the relatively short-lasting Kepler space telescope's search for exoplanets from a researcher on the team opens with the now familiar (and, dare I say it, rather dull) image of people standing around celebrating a mission launch. This type of 'they're just people, folks' intro is supposed to make science more approachable, which made me concerned it would be one of those books that focuses mostly on 'what I did at work and the lovely people I worked with'. Thankfully, though, Jason Steffen, an associate professor of physics and long-term member of the science team on NASA's Kepler mission, keeps his focus mostly on the discoveries, rather than the warm fizzy wine. We are taken through (perhaps in a bit too much detail) the design of the probe and related missions before settling down on the telescope's use: how planets orbiting other stars are detected and behave, and common but sometimes unfamiliar types of planet. I very much liked...

There are many interpretations of the word 'classic' - in the context of science fiction many would assume this referred to the 'golden age' of the 40s and 50s, but Adam Roberts (who knows his stuff) has plumped for what might otherwise be regarded as proto-SF - science fiction-like stories that predate the concept. The earliest here is Micromégas by Voltaire from 1752 and the latest Stanley Weinbaum's 1934 A Martian Odyssey . Before we go any further, I ought to mention the physical book itself - when it arrived I felt a bit like someone who buys dolls' house furniture thinking it's the real thing. It looks like a big grown up book in its picture, but in reality it's tiny, less than 16cm in height. Admittedly not doll friendly, but uncomfortably small to hold (though it does fit in most pockets). I really want to give it both three stars and five stars, so the final outcome is something in between. As someone with an interest in the history of science ...

When I first saw The Bright Side (the subtitle doesn't help), I was worried it was a self-help manual, a format that rarely contains good science. In reality, Sumit Paul-Choudhury does not give us a checklist for becoming an optimist or anything similar - and there is a fair amount of science content. But to be honest, I didn't get on very well with this book. What Paul-Choudhury sets out to do is to both identify what optimism is and to assess its place in a world where we are beset with big problems such as climate change (which he goes into in some detail) that some activists position as an existential threat. This is all done in a friendly, approachable fashion. In that sense it's a classic pop-psychology title. For me, Paul-Choudhury certainly has it right about the lack of logic of extreme doom-mongers, such as Extinction Rebellion and teenage climate protestors, and his assessment of the nature of optimism seems very reasonable, if presented at a fairly overview leve...