Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read this for my current MFA work, so my review is more from a writer's craft perspective. Below is a cut and past from a response paper. The Japanese Kanji that I put in to illustrate some things will be (is) lost.







Despite the author’s protestations to the contrary, this is classic—nearly archetypical—quality science fiction. I have been reading science fiction and fantasy for approximately 42 years, at one time probably consuming thirty to forty books per year (albeit not all were quality!). The plot, the technique of revealing slowly rather than giving background, the devolution of man, are all subjects that have been treated—at a surface level—in similar manners. The idea of speaking only in metaphors as a language has been explored in science fiction as has the rediscovery of gunpowder post apocalypse. What makes Riddley Walker unique and worthwhile is the language. More precisely, the depth of the language as a part of the story itself.

Even here I must resist the temptation to dive into the analysis as to whether the language creation approaches believability or not. I had discussions with a close friend whose PhD is in linguistics on this. The short answer is “who really knows and to keep it readable one has to go in some directions.” Reading Beowulf in its original form—or attempting to— shows how much language can change in hundreds of years—let alone the over two thousand that is mentioned in Riddley Walker (125). Regardless as to whether it is accurate or not, it can be accepted and is largely believable.

To what purpose is the massive effort by Hoban directed? He states that Riddleyspeak is crafted partially because it “slows the reader down to Riddley’s rate of comprehension.” Yes, there is no doubt that by creating Riddleyspeak—Hoban’s term—we are forced to slow down. I would argue that Riddley’s rate of comprehension for many things is extremely fast for a twelve year old, but that is a side comment. When two out of three words are Riddelyspeak we are forced to slow down. When we slow down, we start to ponder a number of things: what are the new meanings of the words—in particular the double meanings, why has the language evolved this way, and most intriguingly what subplot and subtext is implied by the language itself.

The latter is what truly distinguishes Riddley Walker from most other writing I have encountered. The evolution of the language is its own story and subtext. The language itself is a metaphor for the change that the society has gone through. The reader knows that he is missing something and it is left to the reader to decide how much to puzzle. The danger is that one can read too much into the words and meaning. For example this sentence that Goodparley utters, “This here yellerboy stoan the Salt 4 it want to be whats in it to be. (143)”

The paragraph and page preceding it is discussing how boys want to become men and Goodparley killed his own mentor, because his mentor was making him boy for him. It is clear that this has a double meaning of being raped, or at least having sex—a bit the way Greeks and Romans did in ancient times—but Hoban gives multiple meanings to the word “man” and “boy.” “Goodparley said, ‘Everything wants to man dont it. Wants to go from littl to big. Wants to be what in it to be.’(142-3)” So when we read “yellerboy” we ponder the meaning of “boy” here. We are told by the language and Goodparely’s description that the “yellerboy stoan” has some hidden power within it that wants to come out. Then we ponder why the word “Salt” is capitalized. Given what we have read earlier this could be simply because it is important-“Plomercy” is capitalized (meaning diplomacy). Or it could have historic meaning from an old name, such as “Parments” meaning Parliament. So then the reader, knowing already that this is post apocalyptic, might be tempted to think, hmm, Salt 4 might be a double meaning, referencing a SALT 4 treaty, because Goodparley thinks it is key to a big bang. But as we start to figure out this is sulfur and then saltpeter (sodium nitrate) is added to it to make gunpowder…and sodium nitrate is a salt. Then one can start to think well the 4 might be simply the way all other numbers are written, or it might be, right next to Salt, if it is saltpeter, the ratio of saltpeter to sulfur. Very roughly, black powder is 4 to 5 parts saltpeter to 1 part charcoal and 1 part sulfer. Or, in the end we simply decide that Salt 4 is indeed the word Sulfur and yellow stoan is a bit redundant. This very simple sentence thus has multiple meanings and layers and there are dozens of these per page. So, the reader has to read slow to say the words out loud and to ponder their meanings and the meanings apply directly to the plot itself.

Although it is never stated, we quickly come to the conclusion that the language evolved due to a lack of writing—we understand that there was a new dark age and this is the age after that dark age. The language we are reading only makes sense if we read it aloud—at least read it aloud in our heads—almost syllable by syllable. This is different than normal reading where you see the entire word at once and absorb the word without reading it letter by letter, syllable by syllable. Additionally, one has to intentionally slur the words and often string them together to get the meaning. We assume this is because of hundreds of years of listening only. The easy examples of the language evolution:

Killed becomes “kilt” (the “t” becomes the new “ed” … which is what you hear when you say many words ending in “ed” quickly.)



Send becomes “sen,” under becomes “unner,” west becomes “wes,” and so on.



I hardly need reference individual words that are used throughout the book. These ring true, or possible, as they are already the way words are slurred orally by (all too) many. With literacy disappearing this seems reasonable as a way for language to degenerate, or evolve. That this then becomes the way it is written by some demonstrates that it has become fully incorporated into the language and that society is only partially literate. This also rings true when comparing to the writings of many in England and the U.S. from even the 1800s. Standard, “correct,” spellings of words is a relatively recent phenomena. Riddlespeak is an oral language that is only weakly reinforced by writing. It hints at all sorts of things that makes us want to explore the language as much as the main story.

Why, for instance, the breaking up of words. Simple compounds are broken into separate words and even what we don’t consider a compound now is broken into two words:

“Littl Shyning Man wer a nother thing and tirely.(149)” and + tirely = entirely is just one of countless per chapter. I recalled the little Japanese and Chinese characters I know and it struck me that in some ways this is similar to the composition of words from sub characters to form a new word. This made it ring true to my mind. Words, or sub words might be used in combination to mean different things similar to the kanji of Japanese. For example in Japanese “hi” (pronounced he) is the symbol it means sun, or day, or fire, depending on the context. The word book is moto . The word for fireplace is hinomoto and in kanji is . Hoban is using a bit of a similar technique. “And” has nothing to do with entirely, but because of the sound is used in a split compound word. I found this interesting and knowing that Japanese and Chinese does something sort of similar made this more believable. I have no idea of Hoban was thinking of this when doing this, but he had a firm enough understanding of language and going back and forth with phonetics to written that he may have come up with it independently.

The beauty of all good fiction is that, like all art, each reader will interpret the work in their own way. Some will see metaphors where the author never consciously intended. The genius of Hoban’s invention of Riddleyspeak is that not only does it slow down the reader as he overtly states as his intention, but it almost forces the reader into thinking about double, triple, or more meanings of the words. Then, by layering on an obvious oral tradition in the culture, where the main character’s role—and his father’s before him—is to interpret a traveling “show” for the listeners makes us as readers consider the entire book as a show, with shows within it, and those shows reference past oral histories. Thus, some metaphors become metaphors within the language that has been invented, which are in turn metaphors for the story itself.

Staying with the same page as before (149) we can see this layered metaphor. Riddley is thinking of a stanza—for want of a better word—from Eusa:



“7. Thay dogs stud up on thear hyn legs & taukin lyk men. Folleree sed, Lukin for the 1 you wil aul ways fyn thay 2. Folleroo sed, They 2 is twice as bad as the 1.”



Riddley tells us explicitly that he is using it as a metaphor for what is happening with him. But, the metaphor itself is a story we are not familiar with in detail, we haven’t lived it as he seems to have through his oral tradition (see my later comments on the Star Trek episode). At the same time this metaphor starts to become the common thread of “bringing things together can be bad” and we are reminded of the sulfur and saltpeter…and that is then applied to bringing the sulfur to Belnot Phist cause his demise.

This oral tradition that comes up over and over—the word “Lissener” (149) has multiple meanings too--is similar to Native American storytelling, or African storytelling is a layer of complexity and metaphor that is omnipresent in the book. It reminds me of a Star Trek Next Generation episode (number 102) where the race encountered speaks entirely in metaphor. The universal translator is rendered useless because the words meanings are only in the metaphor, not in the literal translation. “..the Tamarian language is entirely based on metaphors from Tamarian folklore. They learn that Darmok was a hunter and Tanagra is an island, but nothing else. Without knowing the stories behind the metaphors, the Tamarian language remains indecipherable. (Wikipedia)” One wonders if either of the authors were exposed to Hoban. One, Philip LaZebnik has a Classics degree from Harvard.

Regardless, the analogy is that until one starts to understand the stories behind the oral histories we read in Riddley—or rather “hear” from Riddley’s ears—we do not decipher the full richness of the book. This will be a book I need to return to in six months to see what I catch then.

My issue in citing particular passages is that I can flip open the book to any page and start to explore the metaphors and language. Thus, the ones I will explore will be simply ones that struck me while reading enough to slap a sticky note into the book—I hate writing directly in a book, it destroys the reread later on.

One thing that struck me were the—at first blush—apparent anachronisms. For example, “hes getting his serkits jus that little bit over loadit (51).” Circuit in this usage has only an electronics meaning. Yet we know that this civilization has no real concept of anything so sophisticated. Through this and other phrases, or words, such as “program,” or “gallack seas” (for galaxies) we understand how much the past glory of the human race means to these people. They have tried to preserve through words and oral histories old phrases and meanings, without understanding their full meanings. What is so interesting is that we figure this out, it is never told to us. The use of the language tells this story.

Indeed, Riddley spends a considerable amount of time thinking about metaphors himself. What do the oral histories mean, is fundamentally what he is constantly asking himself, or explicitly asking Goodparley. He (Riddley) gives us the entire Eusa Story (30-36). Each stanza is a metaphor used throughout the story. Stanza 7, which is partially repeated on 149, ends with “Eusa sed, I woan be tol by amminals.(31)” The dogs are telling him something. The dogs are then repeated in Riddley’s world and they are a metaphor for people not listening and having to learn from experience, versus being told, because they don’t trust the people who are below them.

The Eusa Story is a metaphor, or perhaps closer to an allegory to Riddley’s story, which in turn is an metaphor for human history, including the atomic bomb. Stanza 32 ends with “Yu let thay Chaynjis owt & now yuv go to go on thru them. (36)” We see the changes of Riddley himself and of course the change of gunpowder being re-introduced to the world. Stanza 37 has two interesting lines: “How mene Chaynjis are thayr?” and “As menne as reqwyrd. Eusa sed, Reqwyrd by wut? The littl Man sed, Reqwyrd by the idear uv yu. Eusa sed, Wut is the idear uv me? The Littl Man sed, That we doan no til yuv gon thru and yur Chaynjis. (36)” This stanza is itself a metaphor for Riddley’s story, of change and knowing yourself, and of history repeating itself with big changes and doomed to do so until it figures it out, which is the bigger plot of the story and finally note that the capitalization of Chaynjis gives it emphasis and different layers of meaning. The writing technique here that is so interesting in the language combined with the trick of using an explicit oral history that the characters know to represent the story they are living.

These analyses of the writing craft are supposed to be a few pages long. I see I have 25 more sticky notes I have not yet addressed.

I would like to try and address the voice that Riddley has. The first person gives the intimate innermost thoughts common in first person, but beyond that his voice is that of a story teller. An oral tradition voice embedded in the character that highlights an oral tradition society. As with the language itself, there are countless examples of this. The following I chose because it illustrates this more explicitly than some other places:



And stil I aint said all there is to say about that morning in the aulders. The bloody meat and boan of it. The worl is ful of things waiting to happen. That the meat and the boan of it right there. You myt think you can jus go her and there doing nothing. Happening nothing. You cant tho you bleeding cant. You put your self on any road and some thing wil show its self to you. Wanting to happen. Waiting to happen. (154)



This shows the story teller in Riddley and the self-awareness and searching. He sees meanings in everything. That is his job and gift. The voice is unique, something I strive for, but often fail.

In the interest of brevity, I will leave deeper analysis of the meanings behind “stoan” and “hart of the stoan” and “hart of the wud” and the way simple words like “tel” have layers of meaning for a PhD thesis. Suffice to say that in just over 200 pages Hoban weaves not just a tale, but a multilayered story of possible evolutions of language, societies, and cultures, where the reader can decide how deep to dig, but is never sure if the bottom has been reached.





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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was for my current MFA program, so most of this is from the writing craft perspective. Additionally, below is a "combined" response to three books...



Response to Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, Idoru by William Gibson, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Attempting a combined response with these three books does not make sense at first blush, but contrasts are often interesting and illuminating, so I will attempt it. My real hesitation is that Diaz’s writing from a craft perspective brings so much more to the table that it may overwhelm the observations of the other two. That too may be worth knowing and understanding. Why does one book, out of three strong books, strike me as more powerfully done than the others?

All three books do world building. Diaz is building the world of a Dominican immigrant family and Danticat is doing something very similar from a Haitian perspective. Same large island, two very different voices—although the perspectives of violence and history have similarities. Both are first person, giving the personal power to the book, but Diaz’s first person is the more interesting from technique. Diaz writes what I consider a Shakespearian tragedy. You know it is going to end badly, but there are three acts (despite breaking the book into more parts, they feel like three major acts) and they are so well done, that you enjoy the ride toward tragedy. You feel for the characters, but still have fun. This is because of the voice.

What hits you immediately is the constant reference to popular culture of a particular kind—fantasy, science fiction, comic book. This is the vernacular of the protagonist. Yet, what is more interesting is that the protagonist is not the narrator. The first person is actually talking about her brother—or is it her ex-boyfriend who is the narrator, we are not sure until later. What is more interesting is that this first person shifts later on to a different narrator in Acts II and III. We get early warning that familiarity with two things will help the reader have fun: sci-fi culture and a bit of Spanish: “…Oscar showed the genius his grandmother insisted was part of the family patrimony. Could write in Elvish, could speak Chakobsa, could differentiate between a Slan, a Dorsai, and a Lensman in acute detail, knew more about the Marvel Universe than Stan Lee, and was a role playing fanatic. (38)” As our intro to Oscar continues, “Listen palomo: you have to grab a muchacha, y metéselo. The will take care of everything. Start with a fea. Coje that fea y metéselo! Tio Rudolfo had four kids with three different women so the nigger was without doubt the family’s resident metéselo expert. (43)” These two lines alone tell you that knowledge of a certain type of popular culture is important and that the slang and voice is very real. It sounds almost like some Hispanic comedians. Rapid fire, bringing in relatives, the use of slang that if you are not part of the culture would get you in trouble (e.g. nigger) and a mix of Spanish that if you know a little you can puzzle out more, but you have to think about it and puzzle it out. This technique reminds me a bit of Riddley Walker…slow the reader down. I noticed a reference to Diaz somewhere that he did this intentionally, also to mimic the learning experience of an immigrant. There also seems to be quite the set of blogs noting that he got the accents wrong on many of the words. This does not bother me as a reader as most street Spanish is really not accurate.

Danticat does not thrust us into the language of her characters—this does not mean they don’t have a voice, but we are not sing-songing with the character. It does not have that added layer that Diaz has. “’Stay here,’ my mother said to me in Creole. (40)” Denticat keeps the foreign words foreign, “…from now on her name is Manman. (30)” and “ How much did I win? Ten gourdes. (30)” We have no problem understanding and this merely adds flavor to the text and adds a level of authority that the writer knows the language, but does not burden us with it. Two contrasting techniques. Danticat makes for faster reading, but the language is not really part of the voice, nor a layer of the actual book.

Interestingly, Gibson’s work in this regard more closely resembles Diaz’s. They both leave it to the reader to discover the meaning of the world they build. This is where good science fiction tends to overlap into good literary fiction quite often—letting the reader discover the world and figure it out on their own. The new words, whether made up or from a different culture or era are part of the work. They add another layer. That said, as an aside, Gibson’s pacing is pure genre fiction while the pacing of both Diaz and Danticat is slower and more nuanced. Pacing will be the focus of some other response. Examples of words or phrases that force the reader to puzzle out the world in Gibson include, “She propped her feet on the ledge of a hotdesk. (5)” From context we figure out the desk is plugged into the Internet and other systems. More interesting is the virtual reality descriptions. There is no lead in, we just need to figure it out. Chapter 2 starts with:

They met in a jungle clearing.

Kelsey had done the vegetation: big bright Rouseau leaves, cartoon orchids flecked with her idea of tropical colors […] Zona, the only one telepresent who’d ever seen anything like a real jungle, had done the audio …(13).



Context is for both Diaz and Gibson hugely important. We figure out “telepresent” pretty easily, but not completely. It is left for the reader to imagine and learn as one goes on.

Another interesting contrast between Diaz and Danticat is the first person use. Diaz ostensibly starts with the first person—although the first “I” does not arrive for a number of pages. Diaz, in fact, separates the “I” paragraphs from the rest (but does not do so in the footnotes—the use of footnotes in Diaz is a separate subject, but worth noting here. The footnotes are an important part of the work and it is rare to see this in fiction.). Pages 18-19 have the first person and then the rest of the Act I (as I call it) is largely third person, but we feel the intimacy. This is not an ordinary third person, but it is not really a first person, it is an intimate telling you the story from almost an omniscient view. This is really hard to pull off—certainly something I would not dare to yet. One way he does this is by dropping the dialogue quotations. Another is the way that feelings of others are conveyed. Witness the interplay between his friend who is a girl—but not girlfriend:

You have beautiful breasts, he said as an opener.

Confusion, alarm. Oscar. What’s the matter with you?

He looked out through the glass at Manhattan’s western flank, looked out like he was some deep nigger. Then he told her.

There were no surprises. Her eyes went soft, she put a hand on his hand, her chair scraped closer, there was a strand of yellow in her teeth. Oscar, she said gently, I have a boyfriend. (75)



We have already started to suspect (and this is never really confirmed) that the narrator, who comes in occasionally in the first person, as in the footnotes, has interviewed all of Oscars contacts. In fact we as the reader think that the narrator is probably Oscar’s sister, then we decide may it is not. “That night he and his sister fell asleep on the couch. (74).” But, we have “And that is how I ended up in Santo Domingo. (105)” Certainly, we know that later on in the book it is not. We, as readers, are not 100% sure if the writer is a different “I” between the main text and the footnotes, or if the book is really a set of interviews that are then transcribed by the narrator – Lola’s ex-boyfriend. Ultimately, we decide he has written the whole thing, but the POV changes along the way make it interesting. Again, I am being pulled into examining Diaz’s work more than the other two—illustrating that it is the more powerfully written, even from simply the craft perspective, novel.

Both Gibson and Diaz make use of the reader’s knowledge of popular culture in a variety of ways, never insulting the reader, but rather inviting them to explore it more if they have not already. One that I found interesting in Gibson was a reference to “…that country singer her mother liked, Ashleigh Modine Carter. Kind of a meshback thing, but with money. (23)” This is funny at a couple of levels. The reference to the Carter Family in a futuristic book and the slang meshback, which is current and fairly southern (the protagonist in this scene is in Seattle). Diaz litters the entire book with popular reference, which the narrator makes a point of being in your face about. The narrator in Diaz’s is, indeed, using the lexicon of Dungeons and Dragons, sci-fi, comic books in no small part as a tribute to Oscar, rather than because he would use that himself. The point being you need to understand this lexicon if you are to understand Oscar. Most of his references are overt, very often Lord of the Rings, but a few are fairly obscure for the modern reader, but totally accurate for one who was into this in the 1980s and 1990s. “Jack Pujols of course: the school’s handsomest (read: whitest) boy, a haughty slender melnibonian of European stock… (130)” is referencing Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock (who is British). The reference is interesting at many layers. Elric is albino, so not only is he white, he is really white. He is also a bit of a doomed character, which ultimately this Jack Pujols is also. Elric is also of a noble race that views the rest of humans (which are actually a different younger race) as below them. Utterly below them. The Melniboneans also tended to torture and in other ways treat the non-Melniboneans badly.

This trickling in references that have important meanings and do lead us to understand that the narrator is ultimately Lola’s boyfriend and not Lola. “Even your humble Watcher, reviewing her old pictures, is struck by what a fucking babe she was.” The Watchers were part of the Fantastic Four comics—I never really read comics, but knew this—that observed and compiled information without interfering. His references do get quite obscure when he uses “Breasts of Luba” which I believe refer to a common figurine/statue that the Luba tribe of Africa is known for. Then, as is my nature, I did some online searching and I now believe that Diaz may have been referring to a comic book Love and Rockets, with “Luba” by Los Bros Hernandez. The protagonist is fiery woman with enormous breasts. Part of the underground comics scene of the 1990s.

Before moving away from Diaz, which really could take all of the analysis, I have to mention one last reference the narrator makes that made me laugh. “(The fucking of poor prietas was considered standard operating procedure for elites just as long as it was kep on the do-lo, what is elsewhere called the Strom Thurmond Maneuver.) (148)” I remember well when Strom had to acknowledge that not only had he had a child through an affair, but a black woman as well. Strom was once quoted (which I steal from Wikipedia and they take from Timothy Noah’s book) as saying: “I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the niggra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”

All three books have a similar protagonist age—at least to start with. The young teenager. However, Diaz and Gibson never go the ‘young adult’ route in language. Danticat does keep the language simple and short as the young woman/girl is first introduced to us and as she fearfully gets used to New York. The simple, young feeling works in Danticat to emphasize the situation. The language is good, the descriptions good, but there are few hidden layers. The 14 year old in Gibson is rather adult and her language reflects this. Contrast Gibson’s girl of 14 observing the woman next to her in the plane, “Then she smiled. It was a slow smile, modular, as thou there were stages to It, each one governed by a separate shyness, or hesitation. (58)” With Sophie meeting a woman with her mother for the first time, “Jacqueline was wearing large sponge rollers under a hair net on her head. My mother bought some face cream that promised to make her skin lighter. (51)” One feels significantly younger and less sophisticated than the other—as she is. This works, however it does make Danticat’s a bit more of an easy read and one ends up not slowing down for meanings. Yes, the quoted line from Danticat illustrates the discrimination that blacks feel in a subtle manner, but truthfully this has been done to death. Diaz in the early line about the young boy being melnibonese does it much better and conveys not only the skin tone, but a host of other history.

Different authors use parenthesis in different ways. One way that Diaz used that was interesting, within the context of narration and POV, was that often the parenthesis were where you felt you were getting an actual quote from an interview: “It felt unbelievably good to Beli, shook her to her core. (For the first time I actually felt like I owned my skin, like it was me and I was it.) (185-6)” No similar use of parenthesis, or of footnotes, exists in the other two books.

In summary, Gibson uses rather classic techniques and is quite genre, albeit good genre, in his writing style. He has two protagonists and alternates between them every chapter, which is a classic technique. He reveals his world through the story rather than through telling. He has a couple of twists that depend on the new world and technology at the end. Danticat is a rather classic immigrant coming of age story that is well done, but does not have the superb flare of Diaz. It was fun to have rather coincidental similar themes between Diaz and Danticat to contrast similar—at a basic level—stories that are told so differently.

As an epilogue I would state that all three were very readable, enjoyable, and well done, but Diaz’s stands out as the innovative one that conveyed multiple layers and was truly distinctive.

Works Cited.



Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Detroit. Thorndike Press. 2007. Print.



Gibson, William. Idoru. New York. Berkley Press. 1997. Print.



Danticat, Edwidge. New York. Vintage Books. 1998. Print.











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Where is that Chief Knowledge Officer?

The downturn of the past few years has caused a lot of reexamination of the bold assumptions of the 1990s. Recently, Nicholas Carr proclaimed “IT Doesn’t Matter” in May’s Harvard Business review, providing countless responses both with him and against him. Has the Knowledge Officer gone the way of Carr’s IT? Lester Thurow, in "Fortune Favors the Bold," argues that a Chief Knowledge Officer could have saved Kmart. If true it would certainly be worthwhile for companies to examine their own efforts at knowledge management. However, Thurow is probably wrong for two reasons.

The Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) was popularized in the 1990s when all of the consulting firms touted their own CKO and how companies needed knowledge management to give their company the competitive edge. Not surprisingly the consulting company was there to help and somewhat surprisingly the customer company was willing to pay: often at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per consultant per year. Many hired the consulting firms to create “frameworks” to capture and guide knowledge within the company. The CKO runs that framework, modifying it as necessary. This is the generally accepted definition of a CKO. Thurow uses a broader definition that incorporates, for want of a better term, Chief Strategist. He uses Bill Gates at Microsoft as his example of a successful CKO. Bill Gates is not a CKO – but he does make the concept of a CKO and knowledge management work at Microsoft. The difference is a subtle but important one. Bill Gates is the consumer of knowledge management at Microsoft and he mandates that it is a respected discipline—even if he never uses the words “knowledge management.”

The acceptability that knowledge and people are important is nearly universal. Most companies utter the mantra of “people are our biggest asset” – whether they mean it or not. No doubt these words were uttered at Kmart headquarters. One can agree with Thurow’s reasoning that Kmart failed to understand the changing market dynamics vis-à-vis a WalMart. Would a CKO – by traditional definition – have made a difference? No, because there was not a culture of accepting and leveraging a dynamic framework of knowledge management. You could have stuck Bill Gates into Kmart and made him CKO and the exact same thing would have happened.

The need for a CKO has not disappeared. Companies need them more now than ever before. Pressures on productivity continue as companies timidly test the waters of recovery. As a recovery becomes a reality, employees will start to test the waters of the job market—taking valuable knowledge with them.

The issue is not whether or not companies need a CKO, but that they still do not know what one is, or how to use one effectively. A properly defined CKO, with the organization’s full backing, can make a difference. Anything else is nearly irrelevant.

Move to Croatia for good quality broadband!

It is the unfortunate truth that often the country that invents a technology, especially an infrastructure technology, soon lags behind almost every other country that follows. It may be sacrilege to those in the U.S. whose religion is the Free Market, but the free market is actually inefficient for infrastructure.

The U.S. highway system, ostensibly built for security purposes, is an example of where the free market would have failed. Yet, it is one of the most important aspects of a large nation such as the U.S. Without the interstate highway system, we would suffer higher prices, less mobility, less cross fertilization of ideas, and lag behind the rest of the industrialized world. Infrastructure and access to that infrastructure is crucial.

In the past we have realized this with telephone service, electricity, and postal service. This infrastructure used to be the envy of the world. Used to be. Our security lies not just in military adventures, but in keeping our infrastructure top of the line. For those of you in a bubble, your broadband access sucks. That is right, all of you with DSL and cable modems, compared to the rest of the industrialized world, and even the less industrialized world, your broadband access is expensive, slow, and the service is spotty. If you want better broadband access, move to Croatia!

It is hard to feel technological pride over that. I don’t thump my chest too often and say, “We live in a very advanced nation. We have broadband Internet access almost as good as Croatia. Beat that! Oh, you live in Turkey? Well, ok, we’re more expensive than you and slower.” There is always North Korea! We can rest assured that we will stay ahead of them for some time.

I have a cabin in Eastern Washington. Nine miles out of town on a paved road. If I want Internet access there I can get it at the screaming speed of 28KB. That’s right, dial up with noise. Don’t even think about keeping your Windows installation current via the Internet. The new version of Windows would actually ship by the time your service pack downloaded.

In a time of economic uncertainty it is hard to get people too excited about this, but the time to invest is when the world is slowing down on its investments. Now is the time to move out of 15th place for penetration and 22nd place for cost. Demand more and not just from your service provider, who has no incentive to lower costs. This is a real issue. If you started losing your power all the time, you would be complaining. This is the power of the 21st century and I am tired of all the brownouts and blackouts.

Book Review: Hyperion

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hyperion, by Dan Simmons

A number of reviewers focus on a perceived likeness to Canterbury Tales. This is only one aspect of the writing and a loose one at that. Chaucer wrote most of his tales in verse, this is all prose. The “frame” technique is certainly older than Chaucer and the fact that Chaucer uses pilgrims is probably the only other similarity to Hyperion.



The title is probably a reference Keats' poems Hyperion and the fall of Hyperion, which referred to the Greek titan by that same name. I believe Simmons also liked the direct reference to the titan, as so little was "known" about this titan and thus it was a mystery--just as the planet and its main "god" the shrike is a mystery.



This is science fiction, not fantasy, yet as with most science fiction authors the boundaries are stretched. This novel does come close to five stars, but as it is part of a series it needs to be viewed as the first in the series and wholly on its own. The style in the rest of series is significantly different, which also makes for an unequal read.



Hyperion can be viewed as an excellent set of short stories where you are always left wanting more: more of the individual story and more of the frame story. Part of what makes this such a great book is that Simmons has obviously worked out the universe and back story and yet is willing to not give you all of it. This gives what you are reading the feeling of fullness that is not found in most short stories. It feels rich. You want to read more about something that is mentioned only once in a sentence, but you know you will never need to.



Each short story centers completely on its main character. The main characters are all quite flawed, with the possible exception of Sol Weintraub, a former professor of ethics. His story, centering on his daughter, is almost cliché in the love of a father for his daughter knowing no limits, but it still works. For those of us with a daughter, it is hard not to empathize and shed a tear in shared agony.



The intriguing “character,” if one can call it that, is the Shrike. It is an enigma of a creature that is pure destruction, but not necessarily evil. It is also timeless and exists outside of time. It is worshiped, but may be the cause of the destruction of the universe. The technique of never quite letting on what the Shrike is, is exactly what makes it work.



I recommend reading the first book all the way through and then deciding if you want to read the other two. It can be read as stand alone, but only if you enjoy good writing, good characters, and a mystery left unexplained. If you must know more, you will be reading three books, each ever so slightly inferior to this first one.




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Review: Power of Myth

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is really a compilation of Campbell's interview(s) with Bill Moyers. As such, it is conversational in style and a fairly easy read of Campbell's more complex ideas captured in his many other books. Campbell was a scholar and loved his subject, which comes through.



The only reason this gets a 4 and not a 5 is because it is an interview. Think of this as a survey class for all of Campbell's other work.



For those who do not know the impact of Campbell--beyond the rather well known fact that Lucas consulted him for Star Wars-- his concept of the Hero's Journey is taught by most creative writing teachers, almost as if it were gospel.



This is a rather simplistic way of viewing fiction and oversimplifies Campbell's teachings. I recommend his other books, if you can find them. Many are out of print and most are not light reading.






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Book Review: Lord of Light

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Roger Zelazny is one of the few science fiction authors that John Gardner, in his book On Becoming a Novelist recommends. Gardner tends to dislike most science fiction as he focuses on characters and superb writing in his recommendations.



Lord of Light has been on my top ten list for over thirty years, when I first read this at seventeen. I re-read Lord of Light every two years or so, to re-inspire my own feeble efforts at fantasy and science fiction.



Lord of Light blends the two genres—Fantasy and Science Fiction—together. This was written during Zelazny’s “beat” period, when he was exploring other religions and using his interests as stepping stones to his novels (another one is Creatures of Light and Darkness, written two years later, 1969). It was also three years before his huge success, Nine Princes in Amber, which to some extent type cast him and trapped him into a series that by the sixth book was weak at best. But, I digress.



It won the Hugo award and illustrated Zelazny’s graduation from short stories to full-fledged novelist—although he never fully abandoned the short story structure and even this was originally a shorter story/novella. It is told in flashback, my least favorite of techniques, but in the hands of Zelazny I soon forget. It is ostensibly about Sam, short for Mahasamatman, once a god, but now a Buddha doing battle against the gods. It does not take long for the reader to discover that the gods and reincarnation are due to technology brought to the planet millennia in the past. Sam is one of the original colonists, who has become disillusioned with the others who are taking on the airs of Hindu gods. He preaches the teachings of Buddha as a calculated method of bringing down the gods, but his teachings are embraced as the truth. This is a bit of phenomenology similar to that employed in John Carpenter’s Dark Star, where Doolittle talks the bomb (temporarily) out of exploding. The source of the idea may be suspect, but if it is truth it does not matter, the idea is still sound.



As with any great book, this succeeds not just because of the plot, which is good, but because of the characters and writing. The heroes are flawed, but interesting. The villains are hardly fully evil, in fact many are likable, or even empathetic. Ultimately, Zelazny is poking at religious institutions that exist for their own power. Along the way he gives a fun overview of the Hindu pantheon and all the gods are nothing, if not interesting. Well worth reading, by an author that shaped a huge number of authors for years.




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