Reviews and Comments

This will be another long term read.

through chapter 7, which covered the Chinese experience in WW2, a brief overview of the life of Mei Ruao (who became China's judge at the war crimes court), and the views of the Nationalists and Communists toward war crimes tribunals.

From the introduction, it's very clear that Gary Bass is not going to spare anyone. He doesn't spare Japan for failing to engage with their own imperialism while being very explicit that much of the court was conducted by European colonial powers because it was their colonies that suffered, not them. The Soviet Union was killing a quarter million Japanese in Manchuria even as the trials went on. and that the United States has faced no serious repercussions for targeting civilians during the war (which is perhaps understandable) or since (which is much less understandable if there is truly to be a law of war).

Checked out from SFPL.

I agree with most of the author's points, but struggled with what is usually anecdotal argument and haphazard reasoning.

chapter 6 explains that we have to allow for oral tradition to be considered good evidence.

chapter 7 explains that people's memories are extremely fallible and biased, and so we shouldn't trust what people say without solid backing evidence.

both can be valuable perspectives, but goddamn if you're going to espouse both you better have a cogent idea of how to reconcile them. (Millar doesn't, so far.)

so far, the author has given definitions of terms like fact, data, information, and evidence. and then gone on to write how evidence and truth are social constructs. which is true, but if this is to be a worthwhile polemic, it will need to advocate for particular social constructions over others. otherwise this is just throwing out words and metaphorically shrugging.

Chapter 1 is pure polemic. ironically, it has no real evidence of the value of evidence. though perhaps this will be a properly outlined book that makes subsequent chapter detail the evidence for evidence.

May be a bit before I get to the review, as I am at a big conference for work this week.

I may DNF this book. The premise is that Asuka is a crew member on a ship traveling to establish a colony on another world. But while on a spacewalk, an explosion rips a hole in the side of the ship, knocks Asuka out, and kills her friend Kat.

We're now a day after the sabotage, and there's no indication of a proper investigation. Just a lot of people moping and navel-gazing about their situations.

I'm all for feelings, but how does a space ship have people who can't work and have feelings at the same time??

Standard Jack Reacher. Teacher blows into town. Gets hassled and rather than move on, decides to mess with the people who hassled him

The preposterous part is the entire town of Despair Colorado is complicit. Even more preposterous is that no one talks. They just run Reacher right out of town for mysterious reasons. But if you can suspend disbelief on that, the rest falls into place.

A police procedural where the police work seems like police work. Looking up documents. Canvassing for surveillance camera footage. Interviewing witnesses. Getting warrants.

The main police character, Manon Bradshaw, is annoying AF with her dating life though. I think that's intentional by the author though.