2023, book 17: Showa 1926–1939: a history of Japan, Shigeru Mizuki

OK, but not great. It's a mix of autobiography (pretty good) and history (pretty mediocre). Mizuki was a troublemaker as a kid, and clearly never got anywhere academically. His research for the history section appears to have been limited to "here's a bunch of events, what order did they occur in?" Too much reads like an "and then, and then, and then" timeline, with too little to distinguish the relative importance of events.

Van nul tot nu did this much, much better.

2023, book 16: Night of the physicists: Operation Epsilon: Heisenberg, Hahn, Weizsäcker and the German bomb, Richard von Schirach

OK. Less annoying than Bernstein's Hitler's uranium club.

There is some sketchiness in some of the technical details, but I cannot tell whether it's due to von Schirach not knowing anything about science and not doing his homework or whether the translator is to blame.

2023, book 15: Blood, sweat, and pixels, Jason Schreier

Hey, it's OK. Mostly. The writing is solidly meh-plus, which is pretty good for this kind of book.

Most interesting chapters: Stardew Valley, Diablo III, Shovel Knight, and The Witcher 3. Random thing I was unaware of: GOG is part of CD Projekt, the developers of The Witcher series. Huh.

Page 121, Microsoft screws up a promising RTS by insisting it use the Halo universe:

"Halo was incredibly hot at the time," said Peter Moore. The first two games had sold millions of copies, and Halo 3, coming in 2007, was one of the most anticipated games ever. "We felt that [Halo] was IP that lent itself well to a real-time strategy game, given the way that the universe was constructed. Good guys versus bad guys. All the stuff you needed in an RTS. And I think that probably the data and the evidence lent towards a lower-risk opportunity in Halo than in new IP."

Holy hell, Peter Moore is a complete idiot. Even if I assume that he's being quoted out of context here, he's still a colossal tool. He shows such a complete misunderstanding of what makes good RTS games good that it boggles the mind. Is this man a parody of the clueless marketing drone? Peter, do the world a favour and shut up until you've played some Starcraft. Good versus bad guys? Sheesh... At least have the honesty to say you were scared of new IP and that you had no other reason. (OK, I've now read the Wikipedia article on this clown. EA Sports? Liverpool FC? Yeah, no doubt, I'd hate his guts and I'm unsurprised he'd defend a braindead decision like this.)

Page 160, quoting Cameron Lee:

"It didn't do the story help," said Lee, "because you've closed the rift, so what's the urgency to keep going?"

"Didn't do the story help"?! Don't quote broken-ass english like this! That's what paraphrasing is for.

In contrast, on page 171 we find this footnote:

Recalled Ian Flood of their creative process: "It's like, 'That's really cool that you think that's what Batman should do, but you know what Batman really needs to do? Be out by Christmas.'"

Now that's a good quotation! That should be in the main text.

2023, book 14: The Martian, Andy Weir

Jules Verne meets Douglas Coupland.

Enjoyable enough, if a bit scientifically rushed at times. I would have enjoyed more Verne-like geeking out over how things work, exactly. Some weirdly pathetic attempts at fleshing out characters (Martinez being Christian, Beck and Johanssen getting it on) that are unnecessary and detract rather than add.

Kinda want to see the film now.

2023, book 13: Iron Widow, Xiran Jay Zhao

Fun, easy, quick.

2023, book 12: Pitcairn, Herbert Ford

Flimsy little thing that's a half-assed collection of news reports originally delivered by ham radio. If that sounds stupid, you're right on the money. This could have been a very interesting booklet, but that would have required an editor actually doing, you know, anything at all to the text. The current text is uneven and repetitive. It's also seeped through with Seventh Day Adventist religious nonsense.

2023, book 11: The war magician: how Jasper Maskelyne and his Magic Gang altered the course World War II, David Fisher

Things I want to learn more about:

Desert training for troops in Germany:

[...] since 1936 the Nazis had been training officers for an elite desert army inside two huge hothouses in the distrcit of Schleswig-Holstein in the north and in Bavaria in the south. The soliders live inside these buildings under desert conditions for weeks at a time. They ate desert rations, drilled in breath-sucking heat, slept in bone-chilling cold and trained on a sand-covered floor.

Part of the supernatural nonsense Himmler (and Hess) were into:

[Himmler] supported an expedition to Tibet to search for the fossilized remains of giants.

The bit about Rommel spending the night in a British camp seems particularly sketchy:

By the end of the day the situation was so hopelessly confused that 13th Corps briefly battled its own friendly forces. A British military policeman at a desert crossroads found himself directing German traffic. Late in the afternoon 7th Armored [sic] was drawing supplies at the south end of a depot while enemy troops were replenishing at the northern end.

The commanders were just as mixed up as their troops. General Cunningham was almost captured while visiting 30th Corps, and his plane was shelled as it took off. Rommel's staff car broke down and he hitched a ride with General Crüwell in a captured British armored car. The driver got lost and drove into a British camp, where the generals quietly spent the night. (p. 174)

The British military using chambers inside the pyramids—again, seems sketchy:

He was alone [inside the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid], although he could hear the electronic buzz of Eighth Army's headquarters communications center at work in a nearby chamber. (p. 312)