One of the things I ran into when I started looking into Aristotle was Aristotelian logic, and particularly the Aristotelian syllogism. You’ve seen at least one of these, I’m sure, probably this old chestnut:

Major Premise: All men are mortal.
Minor Premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

I’d run into this one any number of times…but most of the descriptions I’d read got about as far as, “This is what an Aristotelian syllogism looks like. There’s a major premise and a minor premise, and a conclusion, and if the major and minor premises are true the conclusion is guaranteed to be true.”

OK. I can look at the example above and see quite clearly that the conclusion follows from the major and minor premise; but what is it about this form that guarantees the truth of the conclusion? I had no idea. There was clearly a lot more to be known. I went looking, and found this book, which looked like it covered the topic in sufficient detail, along with a whole lot of other stuff about logic. It went with me on several of the numerous business trips I made this past year, and I had a lot of fun with it.

Bennett’s aim is twofold. First, to tell the story of how the study of logic developed over the last three millenia, and second to discuss the relationship between formal logic and the kind of reasoning most people use when confronted with logical problems. It succeeds very well at both, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in such things.

But about those syllogisms. Here’s what I discovered. The statements in an Aristotelian syllogism have forms like “All X are Y“, “Some X are Y“, “No X are Y“, and “x is a Y“, where “X” and “Y” are categories and “x” is some particular entity, e.g., “is a man”, “is mortal”, and “Socrates”. What Aristotle did was categorize all possible combinations of these kinds of statements involving three terms “X“, “Y”, and “Z“, and then painstakingly showed, by other means, that a subset of them (well under half, if I recall correctly) will always yield a true conclusion if the premises are true. By remembering and sticking to those valid combinations (to which the Scholastics gave such charming names as “BARBARA”), one could be sure that one’s reasoning was correct.

Now on the one hand, this is cool: Aristotle was dealing with existential qualifiers two-thousand years before they were first defined in mathematical logic. On the other hand, the examples I saw seemed fairly obviously true without any particular analysis of their syllogistic structure. Hmmmm.

And then, in the next chapter or so, I found out why I’d never before had occasion to learn about Aristotelian syllogisms: modern logic, the kind I learned about in geometry class, I kind I’ve been using daily as a working programmer for two decades (and as a hobbyist before that), isn’t based on Aristotelian logic, but rather on the logic of the Stoics. The Stoics had only two syllogisms, the modus ponens and the modus tollens, the form of which is so absurdly simple I’d never thought of them as syllogisms. Given two statements, “p” and “q“, modus ponens says:

Major Premise: If p is true, then q is true.
Minor Premise: But p is true.
Conclusion: Therefore, q is true.

The modus tollens is simply the contrapositive of this, “if not-q then p.”

On these two syllogisms hang, if not the law and the prophets, then all of the programming I’ve done and all of the math I studied as a math major.

At this point I began to realize that I while I might enjoy finishing the book, I wasn’t likely to learn anything both new and useful, and I was right on both counts. For example, did you know that Venn diagrams were invented to help analyze Aristotelian syllogisms? Neither did I. Now I realize that the real descendant of Aristotelian logic is not logic per se, but set theory. Such an amazing epiphany, you can’t imagine.

But it’s still a good book, and if you have any taste for logic or logic puzzles it’s worth your time.

An RAF pilot is patrolling the English Channel, looking for threats to British shipping. A submarine is spotted, and the pilot moves quickly to sink it with his plane’s torpedoes. When he returns to shore, he’s accused of having sunk a British submarine. The pilot claims otherwise, but fragments of a British sailor’s uniform are found floating on the surface near where the submarine went down.

That’s the set-up of this wartime novel; the pilot’s career then takes an abrupt right turn, and therein hangs the tale. Naturally, there’s also the love of a good woman involved, and a lot of interesting stuff happens.

On the one hand, this is probably the weakest Shute I’ve read. On the other hand, I stayed up late one night to finish it. You do the math.

This is an intriguing book. Miller’s first, it’s a remarkably clumsy endeavor; the character development is uneven, the characters’ temperaments shift with the winds of the plot, and Miller exhibits the worst ear for names I’ve run into since The Sword of Shannara. I got it to read on a plane, and otherwise might not have gotten very far with it, as the first few pages did not bode well for the rest of the book.

And yet, for all its faults I soon found myself wanting to know what was going to happen. And then there were some really neat bits of misdirection toward the end of the book, where Miller was clearly telegraphing X and then did something from another alphabet entirely. And then it ended with a cliffhanger…well, not exactly a cliffhanger…and so I had to go buy the second book, The Awakened Mage, which finishes the story. So it’s clumsy, yes, but Miller’s skill clearly increased during the writing of it, and I’m curious to see where she takes it.

It takes place in the magically protected Kingdom of Lur, a land inhabited by two races: the Olken and the Doranen. The Doranen, the ruling elite, are nearly all gifted with magical talents; they came to Lur as refugees from a sorcerous war that destroyed their home. The Olken, the native folk of Lur, are the common folk; and they don’t do magic. It’s a capital offense for them even to try. And that’s important, because magic is all that’s protecting Lur from Morg, the evil wizard who conquered the Doranen’s homeland.

Morg. I ask you.

Enter Asher, youngest son of a large family of Olken fisherman. Tired of being under his brothers’ thumbs, he sets out for the capital to seek his fortune…which naturally he finds, far more easily than you might expect. (There are prophecies involved.) And then, of course, Morg is released, naturally, and, well, it doesn’t sound particularly fresh, does it?

And yet there’s something there. I’ll let you know how it comes out.

This is the recently released fourth book in Novik’s “Temeraire” series. I had some reservations about the previous book, Black Powder War, but this one did not disappoint. It’s not perfect—the pacing could use some work, I think—and the darn thing ends on a cliff-hanger, but on the whole I was well pleased.

One of the interesting features of Novik’s world is the effect of the existence of dragons on world history. The Dutch colonists in South Africa, for example, can only settle so far north before the feral African dragons become a nuisance. Spain completely fails to dominate the Incas because of their dragons. Stuff like that. The difficulty, of course, is that under those circumstances I can’t see the Napoleonic Wars arising to begin with. But be that as it may.

My one complaint—other than the cliff-hanger—is that the centerpiece of the book, in which Laurence and Temeraire sojourn somewhat painfully in a central African kingdom, is too short.

And then there’s the cliff-hanger. Black Powder War ended on a somewhat inconclusive note, but I didn’t mind because I knew that Empire of Ivory was coming out in a month or so. But now we’ll be hanging from that cliff for at least six months, and more likely a year. Humph.

In Making Money, confidence-trickster-turned-Postmaster-General Moist von Lipwig is named to the position of Master of the Royal Mint by Lord Vetinari of Ankh-Morpork, and much comic mayhem ensues. At least, that’s the idea. And indeed, there’s a fair measure of comedy; but I’m afraid I found this to be Pratchett’s least book in years.

Pratchett’s one of our favorites; when a new Pratchett comes out, I always read it aloud to Jane over a period of a week or two. In this way we can savor both the comic writing, and also the vagaries of the plot as it comes slowly to fruition. Terry Pratchett is typically the master of both: he knows how to write in a funny way, and he knows how to design plots for maximum effect with excellent comic timing. (Anyone who’s read Thud! will know exactly what I mean by the latter when I say, “Where’s my cow?”) In Making Money, alas, only the former is present. There are lots of funny lines, situations, gags, and so forth; had I not been reading it aloud I’ve have been forced to read so much of it aloud that I might as well have just read it aloud to begin with. But the plot is, frankly, a disaster, especially compared with Thud! or the preceding book about Moist von Lipwig, Going Postal.

As a confidence man, Moist is adept at improvising in tough situations. He doesn’t get to do nearly enough of that here, and when he does his improvisations often don’t make much sense. He spends too much of his time passively reacting to what’s going on, if that’s possible. There’s a lengthy subplot involving some ancient golems found by Moist’s girlfriend that is almost entirely unconvincing. Important plot points seemed forced; nothing quite works. It’s as though the Laws of Narrative Causality made sure that the broad outlines of the tale went properly even though the small details weren’t quite all in place. Lots of interesting things were pulled in and made a big deal of—I’m thinking of the Men of the Sheds, who work in the Royal Mint, in particular—and then almost dropped, with no real payoff.

On the one hand, it was fun to read anyway, and I don’t regret spending the money to buy it in hardback. But Pratchett is capable of much better work than this, and so on the other hand it’s a real disappointment. Oh, well.

This is the direct sequel to Dies the Fire and The Protector’s War, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, though not without reservations. Somehow, with Stirling’s work, I always have some kind of reservation. But more of that anon.

Eight years prior to the beginning of this book, everything Changed. All high-technology ceased to function—electric power failed everywhere, cars were no longer driveable, guns no longer worked. Overnight, the tech level dropped alarmingly, and as recorded in Dies the Fire, almost everyone died. A variety of nascent states were born, including Clan Mackenzie, the Bearkillers, the Faculty Senate of Corvallis…and the Portland Protective Association, an ugly amalgam of SCA members and street gangs patterned loosely after the realm of William the Conqueror and driven by unbalanced ambitions of one Norman Arminger. Clan Mackenzie and Bearkillers bring about an uneasy stalemate in The Protector’s War when they capture Arminger’s daughter Matilda; the present volume covers what happens after.

My reservation about A Meeting At Corvallis are not, for a wonder, religious; yes, Clan Mackenzie are still wiccan, and yes, Arminger’s puppet pope, Leo, is overseeing a horrid rebirth of all of the Catholic church’s worst sins. But there’s nothing new here over the previous books, and Arminger’s diseased sect is more than balanced by the warrior monks of the Roman Catholic Abbey of Mount Angel, a group still loyal to the true pope (one former Cardinal Ratzinger, as it happens). There are serious, devout, and praiseworthy Christians galore.

Nor will I have much to say about Stirling’s tendency to highlight gay and lesbian relationships. There’s some of that here, certainly, and it plays a major role in the story, but less so than in the Island in the Sea of Time books.

No, my concern is about the story itself. There are, for a wonder, insufficient horrors. That is to say, the foreshadowing led me to expect horrors…which then failed to eventuate. At one point, for example, young Rudi, son of Juniper Mackenzie and the Bearkiller leader Mike Havel, is captured by Arminger’s forces. He’s a wiccan, like his mother, and Arminger’s demented Pope Leo dearly wants to get his hands on him.

And then, realpolitik and good sense win out. Arminger might be a nut, but his wife, Lady Sandra, is anything but. She might not have a better nature for anyone to appeal to, but she’s got a firm grasp on reality. And so, the horrors fail to eventuate.

In one sense, though, it’s appealing to read a book in which the bad guys are not all bent on evildoing for its own sake or for their own sadistic pleasure. And I enjoyed it thoroughly while I was reading it, as I said. And the ending was genuinely moving. Nevertheless, it all seemed just a little too easy.

Am I picking nits? Probably.

The next book in the series, The Sunrise Lands, is out in hardcover; it takes place quite a few years later, but involves many of the same characters. I’m looking forward to it.

I just realized that I hadn’t posted anything about S.M. Stirling’s The Protector’s War, which is the sequel to Dies the Fire. I won’t try to summarize it at this late date; I’d only get it wrong, which would be embarassing. But I liked it, and had fewer qualms about it than its predecessor, and I’m looking forward to the next book, A Meeting In Corvallis, which is just out in paperback.

Digging a little deeper, I find I’ve also neglected to speak of Against the Tide of Years and On the Oceans of Eternity, which are the follow-on books to Island in the Sea of Time. I liked those, too, and would buy them again. As before, I won’t try to say much about them months after having read them…but the series is worth finishing, which is really what you wanted to know, right? Of the two, I’m enjoying the Dies the Fire books a little more, though.

(As you might have guessed, I’m tidying up my study. I’ve got six months or more of books to put away. Just because I wasn’t posting doesn’t mean I wasn’t reading.)

One reader’s summer with Jane Austen and Jack Aubrey, courtesy of Mark Shea.