Kimberly Craft

Fantastic Book

Reviewed: 05-16-21

This is a very engaging story that will give you plenty to think about. The narrator does a great job switching voices and keeping track of all the characters. The

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Short, Sweet, and Powerful

Reviewed: 03-11-21

Before beginning, I'll let you know that I have a math degree and have studied dynamical systems, complexity, and chaos theory before reading this book. I've also read other books on the subject before this one. Although it does not require any math knowledge beyond a middle- or high-school level to enjoy, the subject matter presented here is deep and thought-provoking.

That said, I was delighted by this wonderfully succinct treatment of the subject matter, complete with real-world examples and comparisons. The author has done a phenomenal job of delivering a great deal of information, yet compressing it into a fascinating experience that keeps up the pace and moves us along. I was actually disappointed when it was over, because I wanted more. This is a great book for both beginners and advanced students of the subject alike: beginners, because it presents the critical information in easily digestible steps. For advanced readers/listeners, the author continuously slips in thought-provoking gems that had me hitting the pause button more than a few times to digest and then apply to some of my own research.

The narrator has a clear, deep voice. There were a few stilted moments, especially in the beginning, where the audio engineering left me wondering whether the reading had been mechanically synthesized or actually performed by a human. (It smoothed out later, assuring me that a real human being was narrating.) I'm not saying it was bad, though. The reading style was always clear and paced well. To the narrator's credit, he also read the math correctly! I can't say enough how much I appreciated that. I often regret buying audio books on technical subjects because the narrators sometimes lack a background in the subject matter (for example, rather than correctly pronouncing the function f(x) as "f of x", they read it literally as "f open parenthesis x closed parenthesis"). This narrator even pronounced Poincare's name with a decent French accent!

I understand that this author has also written a 6-book series on the subject matter. That will be my next read (or listen). I'm eager to hear more from Mr. Rutherford and am grateful I found this book. Thank you!

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2 people found this helpful