About The Bactra Review

The Review is a hobby of a single person, an evidently-underworked physics post-doc named Cosma Rohilla Shalizi; to drop out of the third person, me. Reviews are posted on no particular schedule though (as the chronology indicates) I tend to work on them in batches of three or four reviews over the course of a week. There are no particular limits on subjects, though I try to refrain from venting opinions in public on matters about which I know little or nothing. Sometimes I read to rectify this, and then review the books I read... Some of the books I review are related to my research; I try to keep those reviews comprehensible to J. Random Educated Public, though some are so specialized it doesn't seem worth the effort, and I make no promise about being interesting.

Since 1998 I've gotten review copies from some publishers. I add a disclaimer to those reviews mentioning this. (If that disclaimer isn't there, I either bought or borrowed my own copy.) I'm happy to accept review copies of just about anything --- I won't promise to review it, but I will promise to send two hard-copies of any review I do write. Write me before sending a review copy.

All the reviews are copyright 1994--2005 (as the case may be) by Cosma R. Shalizi. The contents of the Bactra Review can be reprinted for noncommercial purposes with permission of the author (address below). Authors, editors, or other people who are inordinately wealthy and intend to refer to these reviews for blurbs or testimonials or to damage their competitors, or otherwise make money off of them, should get in touch with Bill Tozier, bill at williamtozier.com, who's my agent in such matters.

The contents of the reviews are entirely my opinions. (Well, and some facts, too. But the rest is opinion.) It's really not fair to blame anyone else, or any institution --- the Center for the Study of Complex Systems, the University of Michigan, the Office of the Senior Minister of the Republic of Singapore --- for anything in the reviews which offends you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why "Bactra"?

The word has strong associations for me (which I shan't bore you with); and nobody else was using it, it being an ancient name of a long-ruined city in the middle of a war zone.

Why do you write the reviews?

I started because (1) I was deeply envious of Danny Yee and his Ramblings of a Pathologically Eclectic Generalist, and (2) I was spending too much time on the phone telling my father about what I'd been reading. I kept it up because I've found it a good way to clarify my own thinking about what I've read, because some people have been kind enough to tell me I'm good at it, and because I like spouting off.

Why'd you stick your name on all the reviews?

At first I didn't, since it seemed egotistical (they're all written by the same person, after all), but enough people suggested that it'd be helpful for those reaching the reviews from outside links and search-engines that I caved in.

How should I cite a review?

I suggest: Cosma Rohilla Shalizi, The Bactra Review N (XXXX), URL, where N is the review number, serving as the volume number of a regular journal, XXXX is the year, and URL is the of course the URL of the review. Editors are often particular about citation formats, however.

Why do you only review books?

They're the only medium I really know enough about that my views are at all worth listening to. When it comes to music (or movies), I know what I like of course, but I couldn't tell you why to save my life.

Do you have any qualifications to review books about X?

If by "qualifications" you mean "academic credentials," the answer is usually "none whatsoever". I have credentials in physics, math, and some parts of computer science, chemistry and engineering. My academic research (i.e. the stuff published in peer reviewed journals) is on self-organization, cellular automata, and statistical inference for non-linear dynamical systems; my Ph.D. is in physics. I have (going over my subject list) no formal training at all in anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, cultural studies, ecology, economics, education, evolutionary biology, genetics, geography, history of any sort, linguistics, literary studies, logic, methodology, military science, philosophy, political science, religion, sociology or women's studies. I've taken survey courses in cognitive science, neuroscience and general psychology, which is a completely inadequate basis for writing about them.

So long as we're playing the humiliation game, I may as well confess to never having read Moby Dick or Henry James, and to never having gotten beyond page 100 of Gravity's Rainbow, despite three tries. All told, a shocking series of omissions for someone with a bachelor of arts degree.

Does anyone edit the reviews?

I spell-check 'em, and try to fix all the mistakes I can see. But we all know about proofing our own work. Typo reports are deeply appreciated.

Do you take submissions?

No. (Note to the amateur publicity flack who keeps sending "submissions": what part of that don't you understand?)

Do you take requests?

Sure, but I mightn't do anything with them.

What's your address?

E-mail: cshalizi at umich dot edu.

Do you have an e-mail address for X?

Probably not. Even if I did, it's not the kind of thing I'd pass on. If you want to get in touch with an author, send them snail-mail care of their publisher. If they're an academic, hunt down their departmental web-server.

How do I get a publisher's snail-mail address?

Open the book and look at the copyright page. Failing that, you could try the (incomplete) list of Web pages in the index of reviews by publisher.

Can I link to your page on X?

Of course. It's not like I could stop you even if I wanted to, but I actually like being read and being linked to. Thanks for letting me know about it, though.

One/several of my students lifted large chunks of one of your reviews/handed in the whole thing as their own work. What do you have to say for yourself?

That was not what I had in mind. As a fellow teacher, I urge you to show no mercy towards the cheating bastard(s).

[Long message, often as not a mime-attachment of MS-Word, or HTML in duplicate, and reading "RATAK! Crustaceans * OF * Mars!" or something of that order.]

Thank you for your generous donation to the Archive of Particularly Unsolicited Manuscripts.

Do you want to learn how to Make Money Fast?

Not really.