en-US Mon, 17 Mar 2025 05:07:09 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review7410516743 Mon, 17 Mar 2025 05:07:09 -0700 /review/show/7410516743 Dominic gave 4 stars to Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) by William Gibson
]]> Review7410515501 Mon, 17 Mar 2025 05:06:27 -0700 /review/show/7410515501 Dominic gave 3 stars to Project Hail Mary (Hardcover) by Andy Weir
]]> Review7393325197 Mon, 10 Mar 2025 19:10:40 -0700 /review/show/7393325197 Dominic gave 5 stars to A Perfect Spy (Paperback) by John Le Carré
]]> Review7301226077 Fri, 07 Feb 2025 22:45:23 -0800 /review/show/7301226077 Dominic gave 5 stars to The Little Drummer Girl (Mass Market Paperback) by John Le Carré
]]> Review7272098213 Thu, 30 Jan 2025 03:22:05 -0800 /review/show/7272098213 Dominic gave 5 stars to Smiley's People (George Smiley, #7; Karla Trilogy, #3) by John Le Carré
]]> Review4944177669 Thu, 30 Jan 2025 03:21:30 -0800 /review/show/4944177669 Dominic gave 5 stars to The Honourable Schoolboy (George Smiley, #6; Karla Trilogy, #2) by John Le Carré
]]> Review4944177669 Thu, 30 Jan 2025 03:20:49 -0800 /review/show/4944177669 Dominic gave 5 stars to The Honourable Schoolboy (George Smiley, #6; Karla Trilogy, #2) by John Le Carré
]]> UserChallenge56702165 Wed, 01 Jan 2025 04:07:13 -0800 /user/show/152779030-dominic Create your own 2025 Reading Challenge » ]]> Review7132817618 Sun, 29 Dec 2024 04:21:12 -0800 /review/show/7132817618 Dominic gave 4 stars to The Wizard of the Kremlin (Kindle Edition) by Giuliano da Empoli
Witchcraft � The Wizard of the Kremlin Giuliano da Empoli, translated by Willard Wood)

What is power? Just when I’m getting tired of the latest mediation on the true nature of it, I get a new one. Power is artistic expression. Power is narrative. Power is expressed as a game in court (okay � this one is a little cliche). Power is a stock ticker. Power is kids beating each other up in the playground. Books about Russia under Putin are always replete with new analogies to highlight on my e-reader.

The one that resonated was power as the perception of power. Not to be trite � I’m aware that the NYRB, Atlantic, et al., whatever, have introduced us all that is post-truth. Vladislav Surkov is generally considered to be a Svengali (par excellence) and the book carries this fine tradition onwards. I’m a little surprised at how much of this seems to be considered original. “Non-linear warfare� and other Surkovisms certainly sound cyber-cool and poet-punk but it’s probably not all that different to what was happening circa 5000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. Bluntly, an autocratic revanchist state is going to try to manipulate everyone, by nonlinear hook or by nonlinear crook.

OK, a background in theatre probably does help one create reality. And reality needs to follow some rules. Painted is a sort of fundamental problem of politics for the illiberal: people fuck each other over, so there’s always anger, and it’s not good for our survival if this anger is directed at the state, so it should be directed at other people (or countries). Stage, audience, now all that’s needed is actors, direction, drama. The forces of Good shall triumph over Evil (tune in next week).

The book is short and sharp. The narrative framing is enjoyable, if purely functional. Cracks do appear from time to time: consider the first conversation between Surkov and Putin and Surkov and Prigozhin. These two would have been better rendered as essays in the FT � in fiction it comes across like fanfiction. That is: the dialogue is stilted, weird, and makes caricatures out of everyone involved. “I won’t be told what to do!� Putin huffs, “wow � that’s so incredibly smart, I never thought of that,� says Prigozhin, slapping his head. I can excuse people speaking in paragraphs (even though I’m too stupid to do so), but not this.

For my own benefit, I found Shiping Tang’s [1] (see review) discussion of “positional markets� (i.e. status, power, hierarchy) versus “material markets� (mercantile, monetary) useful whenever the book talks about rules of power shifting, courtiers, proximity to power, etc. When Surkov is condescending to Prigozhin about wanting to be caught, I found useful [2]. The “subversive effects [of information operations] may be most powerful when they are not clandestine; it is our awareness of the pervasiveness of fake news that does maximal damage to democracy.�

In the final chapters, book-Surkov starts talking about AI gods taking over. It’s a bit off-the-wall. I found it much more entertaining in the videogame Deus Ex (2000): “You will soon have your God and you will make it with your own hands.�

[1] Tang, Shiping (2022). The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development. Princeton University Press.
[2] Rini, Regina (2021). Weaponized skepticism: An analysis of social media deception as applied political epistemology. In Elizabeth Edenberg & Michael Hannon (eds.), Political Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 31-48. ]]> Review5769722925 Tue, 15 Aug 2023 06:07:13 -0700 /review/show/5769722925 Dominic gave 5 stars to Writing with Style: The Economist Guide (Economist Books) by Lane Greene
Use old and short words. Keep sentences short. Write as if you are speaking to a friend. Excellent book. ]]>