Merchants of Madness: The Methamphetamine Explosion in the Golden Triangle

#268
Title: Merchants of Madness: The Methamphetamine Explosion in the Golden Triangle
Authors: Bertil Lintner and Michael Black
Publisher: Silkworm Books
Year: 2009
176 pages

Also available here. I picked up my copy at the airport in Bangkok.

Merchants of Madness is a brief but densely-packed overview of the history of methamphetamine production and distribution in Burma/Myanmar, and the military/governmental/criminal systems that support it. To explain why yaba ("crazy medicine") is the substance of choice for regional manufacture and sale, the authors describe the former opium/heroin operation and show the comparative ease of methamphetamine production, as well as the overlap in personnel. Many pages are spent introducing the reader to the key players and the progression of events, as well as marshaling the evidence to support the authors' assertions. For this reason, the book often reads more like a background briefing than like a history. At times it is repetitive, and while the glossary of major actors is interesting, it may not be necessary since the authors go into such depth in the text each time one of these people is mentioned. What is missing is much description or analysis of the social effects on the country and region of so much methamphetamine traffic. While this is clearly not the focus of the authors' inquiry, it strikes this social scientist as a large omission.

***
Answer to the reader who asked why methamphetamine production would be lucrative given the opium fields of Afghanistan: Opium has to be grown, so it's subject to the vicissitudes of weather, eradication by outside authorities, and the effort of transporting it to a refinery, whereas methamphetamine can be made in a lab with great ease. Part of what's missing from this book are questions like "where do the toxins from meth manufacture wind up?" and "does the populace see meth as a drug of abuse, as a medicine, or is it simply off the radar of most subsistence farmers?"

I'll add too that the world's tallest mountains are between Afghanistan and Southeast Asia.

Vietnam: A History

#267
Title: Vietnam: A History
Author: Stanley Karnow
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1983
784 pages

Audio product here.

A rather lengthy and dense history of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. While generally chronological, there are a number of points where this is not strictly adhered to. Karnow's narrative is methodical and not stylish; on the plus side, he incorporates quotes from numerous interviews with politicians, U.S. and Vietnamese military personnel, and others.

Others' reviews are generally positive, but some fault Karnow's scholarship or perspective. I can't evaluate the legitimacy of these concerns, but can say that in relation to other histories and memoirs, Karnow appears to do a good job of representing Vietnamese as well as American accounts.

Two deficits associated with the audiobook are the obvious omission of Karnow's many photographs and the reader's frequent mispronunciations (e.g., NEE-po-tism).

Read with Born on the Fourth of July and A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath or other memoirs with a military emphasis.

Born on the Fourth of July

#266
Title: Born on the Fourth of July
Author: Ron Kovic
Publisher: Pocket
Year: 1976
224 pages

Though not well-written, Born on the Fourth of July is still worth reading. The best aspect of the memoir is Kovic's struggle between his patriotism and his indignation. Kovic's patriotic feelings are expressed in the language of treacly 1950's stereotypes, which may express how he actually formulated it, or his wholesale and uncritical swallowing of a widespread fantasy of the American Dream, or poor retrospective description. It remains the case, no matter which is true, that Kovic's disillusionment, despair, and anger are intimately related to the betrayal of a cultural promise in which he (as well as many others) deeply believed.

Some reviewers fault Kovics for his repeated discussions of his injury-related impotence. It's hard for me to imagine that a 21 year old who lost his sexual functioning wouldn't ruminate over this; in fact, given his angry outbursts about this, it's surprising how coy he is about the character of his later romantic relationships.

Ender in Exile

#265
Title: Ender in Exile
Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Tor
Year: 2008
380 pages

A non-stand-alone novel that slots into the end of Ender's Game, this is enjoyable enough for Ender fans and irrelevant for anyone else. At a structural level, I enjoy the idea that a whole novel can be hidden in the interstices of another. I appreciated the detail on Ender's missing years, especially because I got bored with following Bean in the "Shadow" series (another way to hide a novel in a novel: Retell events from a collateral perspective). For people who haven't read the "Shadow" books, there's enough clunky exposition to fill you in.

The emotional tone was flat for this series, and  overall the book seemed a little perfunctory. However, it was still a pleasant diversion.

The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest Book

#264
Title: The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest BookAuthor: Robert Mankoff
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Year: 2008
202  pages

This volume gathers the first set of contest-winning captions generated by readers of The New Yorker. Some of the second place captions are funnier than the winners, but there are more hits than misses in this enjoyable collection.

Little Brother

#263
Title: Little Brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
Publisher: Tor
Year: 2008
384  pages

A fun young adult dystopia, though it doesn't seem like enduring fiction of the sort that warrants a Hugo nomination. Marcus, a 17-year old gamer, has trouble with an authoritarian school and culture. However, these difficulties pale beside those he encounters when terrorists blow up a bridge in the Bay Area, providing the grounds for Homeland Security to swoop in and begin abrogating civil liberties. Subjected to the sorts of intrusions, threats, and indignities with which Americans have become increasingly familiar, Marcus vows to take down Homeland Security. His attempts to do so are engaging, though sometimes for a smart adolescent he doesn't think through consequences well. The narrator's tone never seemed quite natural to me, and the concluding sequence was fast enough to be somewhat flat. If you like to learn your science from hard science fiction, you should be reasonably satisfied with this quick but entertaining read. Doctorow makes his texts available free through Creative Commons. Download this book from http://craphound.com/littlebrother/downl

oad/

Interworld

#262
Title: Interworld
Authors: Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves
Publisher: Eos (HarperCollins)
Year: 2007
246 pages

A thin offering from Gaiman (of whom I expect better) and Reaves (whose work I'm not familiar with). It's reminiscent  of a second-tier Heinlein juvenile novel, down to the "Old Man" who is revered by all and whose mission everyone would sacrifice to carry out. The plot is enjoyable enough, though it will seem fairly derivative to most F&SF YA readers. Character development is weak and rushed, and some characters who seem important (like Nigel) simply disappear, and we learn about Binary but not enough to explain why we had to learn it.There is a little trouble with world building--for example, why wouldn't the crew of the Lacrimae Mundi know who/what Joey was (p. 40)? It's clear later that they know exactly where people like him fit into their world. More problematic is a bit of fabricated difficulty where Joey narrates that "I couldn't find the key that would let me go back to Base Town" (p. 170), though 14 pages before it "burned clear and bright in my mind" (p. 156) and by page 232 he knows it again, for no particular reason.

One is left with the overall impression that in its present incarnation, Interworld was not adequately edited to stand alone. It feels like an action-adventure opener that didn't warrant a sequel to fill in the gaps.