It Rhymes with Takei by George Takei and Steven Scott (2025)

I read this in a digital version. Nice clean art and beautifully laid-out for a graphical presentation.  I knew that George Takei had a history of activism in California, but this book goes over all of his biography. The through-line is having to hide his homosexuality for a large part of his life.

It’s a bit of a spoiler to say that his brother didn’t accept that he was gay. I found this to be the most emotional part of the book.  I enjoyed reading how he met and fell in love with his husband.

“It’s easy to hate from afar.”  George has done a lot in his lifetime to ease the hate.

When HARLIE Was One by David Gerrold (1972)

I picked this one up at a library sale in New York and it took a few months to get to it.  Like most authors I follow, I’ve been reading David’s work very much out of order.  This is an early work, and one that David refers back to in later works. HARLIE is an artificial intelligence–but referred to absolutely as an artificial human (my emphasis).  I ran into David at the 2025 Worldcon and told him I had just finished this book and exclaimed “How did you get so much of it right IN 1972?” He just shrugged.

The book’s not perfect–the subplot with the main scientist getting a girlfriend is fairly by-the-numbers but the relationship is necessary for development of an understanding about HARLIE.

All in all, an amazingly prescient story that is still relevant.

Collisions by Alec Nevala-Lee (2025)

Since I have a passing acquaintance with Alec, I look at his new projects with interest.  Collisions is a thorough biography of Luis Alvarez, a physicist who was involved with several interesting discoveries and applications of work.  He’s probably best-known as one of the scientists in the Manhattan Project.

The work covers a lot of ground while clocking in around three hundred pages.  I read the NY Times review of the book which thought it needed to go into more details about Alvarez’ character and personal actions, but the key thing I realized in reading the acknowledgements is that the first people to be thanked are his children.  That kind of access probably comes with a natural inclination to temper the view of the subject (if the children liked/respected their parent).  Since I knew nothing of his accomplishments, I found it to be an even retelling of his life and achievements.  I especially appreciated the Afterward that served as a summary/commentary of the man and his approach to science.