BOOK NOTE: A Triumph of Genius - Ronald K Fierstein

Pick problems that are nearly impossible to solve. Pick problems that arise from sensing deep and possibly unarticulated human needs. Pick problems that will draw on the diversity of human knowledge for their solution. And where that knowledge is inadequate, fill the gaps with basic scientific exploration. Involve all the members of the organization in this sense of adventure and accomplishment, so that a large part of life’s reward comes from this involvement.

This quote is attributed to Dr Edwin Land, founder of the Polaroid Corporation and one of the greatest inventors of all time. While the attribution to Land is well established, the quotation does not appear to originate from a single published source. It is most likely drawn from internal speeches or memoranda delivered by Land within Polaroid, reflecting his deeply held philosophy rather than a polished public statement.

Ronald K. Fierstein’s book is aptly titled A Triumph of Genius.

Among the many biographies I have read about exceptional individuals, few come as close to a true portrait of genius as this account of Edwin Land. A prolific inventor with more than five hundred patents to his name, Land ranked in his time just behind figures such as Edison and Thomson in sheer inventive output. Beyond this, he was also a pioneer at the intersection of technology and the arts, an area he believed was essential to human progress.

The book traces Land’s early life as an inventor, beginning with his development of polarizing filters, technology that most of us now use daily in products such as sunglasses and car headlights. It also covers his critical role during the Second World War, when he supported Allied war efforts through innovations in optics, including camera systems used on bomber flights and other advanced military photographic equipment.

A substantial portion of the book focuses on Polaroid’s efforts in developing instant photography during the second half of the twentieth century. Fierstein goes into impressive detail explaining the foundational science behind instant cameras and films, effectively showing how an entire darkroom was compressed into a small, handheld device. The chemistry and engineering that the researchers and industrialists brought together in the iconic Polaroid camera is nothing short of genius.

I was reminded of John Collison’s post that the World is a Museum of Passion projects.

This section is one of the most rewarding parts of the book, not only for its scientific clarity but also for its vivid character sketches of Land and the many researchers and executives who helped bring these ideas to life.

The majority of the book, however, concentrates on the landmark intellectual property litigation between Polaroid and Kodak. This section is equally compelling, offering portraits not just of technologists, but also of senior business leaders, lawyers, and judges involved in one of the most consequential patent cases of the late twentieth century. Written by a junior lawyer on the Polaroid legal team, the narrative provides a rare inside view of the legal process, capturing both its brilliance and its unpredictability. As the book itself states, A Triumph of Genius chronicles, in an unprecedented insider account, Polaroid’s legal battle with Kodak, a case whose outcome continues to shape how technological innovation is protected well into the twenty first century.

For me, the deepest satisfaction came from reading about the nature of genius itself and from being inspired by Edwin Land’s philosophy of life and work. Much can be learned from his outlook. One of Land’s personal mottos was “to do what no one else could do”, a principle he lived by consistently.

He stands among those rare figures who combined reclusive brilliance with an ability to perform as a consummate showman when required. He was a true scientist who understood the importance of art and beauty, and who made it his mission to bring beauty into the everyday life.

Steve Jobs is often described as having a reality distortion field, an ability to bend the possible through sheer force of belief. Edwin Land can be seen as his intellectual, commercial and technologist predecessor. It was said of Land that people who worked with him became experts, and that difficult or seemingly impossible problems appeared to yield in his presence.

“My whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring about in people resources they did not know they had” Land once said. This belief runs like a quiet undercurrent throughout the book.

Fierstein’s work is meticulously researched and does genuine justice to the complexity of genius. At the same time, having been immersed in the crucible of the Polaroid Kodak patent battle, he excels at portraying the legal and business personalities involved. I particularly enjoyed reading about Judge Rya Zobel, the sharp and fair minded judge who presided over the trial, as well as Herb Schwartz, lead counsel for Polaroid. The portrayals of Kodak executives Louis Eilers and Walter Fallon were also intriguing, especially in showing how personal animosity toward Land played a role in decisions that ultimately led to Kodak’s costly infringement loss.

In closing, George Bernard Shaw’s words feel especially fitting in describing Edwin Land: 

There are those who look at things the way they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not.

A truly inspiring read. Such an inspiration, that I decided to indulge in his creation and recently purchased my Polaroid camera!

BOOK NOTE: The Old Man - Thomas Perry

 

A boomer Jack Reacher is an easy sell. The Old Man is a gripping and entertaining read that delivers a relatively simple adventure story centered on a capable yet unlikely action hero. I enjoyed the audacious simplicity of the Old Man as a character. His actions feel believable because of his clandestine background, and yet his age constantly works against expectations. You find yourself trusting his skills while doubting his endurance, which adds tension to even straightforward scenes.

At its core, the book is about how the Old Man evades powerful forces determined to hunt him down. Like Lee Child’s Reacher series, he lives off the grid. Unlike Reacher, who actively goes looking for trouble, Dan Chase, also known as the Old Man, is trying to avoid it. His instinct is not confrontation, but escape. The drama comes from his attempt to slip away quietly rather than to dominate every encounter.

What stood out to me in books like Reacher and The Old Man is a distinctly modern anxiety. How does one disappear in a world where almost every action leaves a digital trace. Beneath the familiar adventure tropes lies a simple but unsettling premise. In today’s world, disappearing requires the training of a CIA operative, access to significant resources, and often a willingness to use violence.

We often speak of anonymity on the internet as if it were a given. Stories like this reveal the illusion behind that belief. The surveillance state has emerged as a powerful counterweight to the anonymity promised by the digital revolution. In many ways, the pendulum has swung entirely in the opposite direction. With digital payments, digital identities, and persistent online presence, it is increasingly reasonable to argue that anonymity is no longer viable.

Another thread running through this idea is tied to urbanization. In the twentieth century, as populations moved from small, closely knit rural or semi urban communities to dense cities, a new form of anonymity emerged. In villages, everyone knew who the troublemaker was, and fugitives could rarely remain hidden. Cities, by contrast, offered loneliness and obscurity. People could live for decades in anonymous apartment blocks without knowing their neighbours. Yet the rise of digital surveillance, driven by security concerns, has transformed urban centres into the most monitored spaces of all. Cities may still allow one to blend into the crowd, but never to step outside the digital panopticon.

That said, the book itself does not explicitly dwell on these themes. They sit beneath the high adrenaline exploits of an aging fugitive and his two dogs. Still, there is an underlying sense of lost individual sovereignty, and a quiet lament about how difficult it has become to truly disappear.

It is a strong and engaging read. I would be remiss, however, not to mention the television series adapted from the book. While it deviates significantly from the original plot, sometimes frustratingly so, it explores the difficulty of disappearing more directly than the novel does. I am still working my way through the episodes. The pacing is slow, but at times it feels more contemplative, and occasionally deeper than the book itself. 

I strongly believe that fiction is one of the best ways to peer into the future. By placing us in imagined worlds, it allows us to explore consequences before we encounter them directly. The Old Man prompted me to think about a world where the balance between anonymity and convenience, and between privacy and security, continues to tilt in one direction. It also made me consider what that shift means for individuals, and for a society made up of individuals who have already accepted that trade-off.

BOOK NOTE: Nightshade - Michael Connelly

 

A new Connelly novel, and that too one introducing a new detective into the Los Angeles crime universe, was all I needed to want to devour this book. As a big fan of Michael Connelly’s other creations, including Harry Bosch, Mickey Haller, and Rene Ballard, my expectations were high. The familiar Los Angeles crime setting, a trope I have written about before, is a personal favorite across books, television shows, films, and even computer games.

Nightshade has all the classic Connelly bestseller ingredients. A dead girl, a dogged loner cop as the protagonist, corrupt politicians, macabre gang members, nosy reporters, and dirty, ineffectual cops who serve as rivals to the hero. The story does not disappoint, and it is unquestionably a page turner. That said, it did not leave a lasting mark in the way many of the Harry Bosch novels have. It worked well as an engaging detective story to slot in between more serious nonfiction reading, and for that I was satisfied and have little to complain about.

Detective Stilwell, however, feels somewhat dull for my tastes. His backstory is revealed gradually through fragments and interactions, but it does not feel especially distinct. In many ways, he recalls a Ballard shaped by loneliness and held together by surfing, or the original Bosch with his deeply tortured past that drives his reactions and decisions. Stilwell, too, has a history of internal police politics that leads to his reassignment to a secluded Los Angeles island, where he functions as the primary lawman. He is almost too competent a detective for such a contained setting, which makes the situation feel unbalanced, like bringing an oversized weapon to a small fight.

Catalina Island itself feels too small a stage when compared to the larger Los Angeles canvas on which Bosch, Ballard, and Haller typically operate. To be clear, small and enclosed settings can be excellent backdrops for murder mysteries. The Knives Out films, and even The White Lotus, show how limited spaces can heighten tension and create compelling drama. They succeed by building dread through dense interpersonal politics and layered relationships. Catalina Island, despite its shady wealthy residents and exclusive private clubs, does not quite achieve that effect here. The atmosphere never fully develops the sense of intrigue or unease that such a setting promises.

I was left wondering whether Michael Connelly’s universe might benefit from a genuinely happy detective. One who does not rely on a tortured past for motivation. One whose personal struggles recede into the background, allowing the mystery itself to carry more of the weight. Or perhaps that would make the book feel less like a Connelly novel at all.

BOOK NOTE: The Not To Do List - Rolf Dobelli

Rolf Dobelli is a successful entrepreneur and author. I suspect he is an even better motivational or keynote speaker. He is an accomplished writer, with many books that have catchy, memorable titles. Some of these include Stop Reading the News, The Art of Thinking Clearly, and The Art of the Good Life. While these titles may appear vaguely self-help and are packaged that way, his books clearly have a strong following.

The Not to Do List is one of them, and I listened to it as an audiobook. It takes the familiar “to-do” list genre of self-help and flips it, focusing instead on what we should avoid to lead a successful life.

The idea of focusing on what not to do, rather than on what to do, was not new to me. I first encountered it through Nassim Taleb’s concept of via negativa, the notion that progress is often achieved more reliably by removing what causes harm than by adding new optimizations. In strategy, an area I work in professionally and a subject of long standing interest, this way of thinking is foundational. Strategy is less about expanding options and more about narrowing them, about drawing clear lines around what will be excluded. Peter Drucker articulated this powerfully when he framed strategy as a discipline of choice. Effectiveness, in his view, comes not from doing more things well, but from deciding which things should not be done at all. Seen this way, strategy becomes an act of subtraction, a process of clearing space so that what truly matters can operate without interference.

I have encountered the same idea across different domains, from minimalist thinking to practical philosophies of life that emphasize reduction of friction over accumulation of the next best things. As someone who values clear boundaries, the idea of not burdening the mind or physical spaces by consciously avoiding clutter resonates deeply with me. Leading a simple life is a personal ethos. What may have begun as a necessity shaped by family values has evolved into a deliberate way of life for me. I consciously try to avoid overconsumption, and I have seen many highly successful people adopt this approach and thrive because of it.

Even so, it is not always easy. In today’s hyper commercial world, it is far easier to consume mindlessly than to curate thoughtfully and prioritize deliberately. When I came across this book on my library app, it felt like something worth listening to. Dobelli makes a solid case for restraint, and the book helped me reflect more directly on these themes. That said, while it works well as reinforcement for readers already aligned with this philosophy, I do not think it is the strongest book for introducing or persuading newcomers.

I suspect this is largely due to the book’s structure. Each chapter begins, in a roundabout way, with a story illustrating behavior we should avoid. This is then followed, somewhat formulaically, by what Dobelli calls the “Quiet Voice of Reason,” explaining what not to do instead. This approach works in some chapters, but at times it feels contrived and slightly sardonic.

This format is effective in a keynote speech, where repetition and structure help drive a message home. In a book, however, it feels less satisfying. As I tried to articulate what was bothering me, I was reminded of George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air and his “what is in your backpack” philosophy. That comparison captured my unease perfectly.

BOOK NOTE: You Never Know With Women - James Hadley Chase

 

A typical Chase potboiler, but one that felt more depressing than strictly fun. The title of the book is too much of a giveaway, even by Chase standards, where one usually knows who the criminal is. The cat-and-mouse chase has an interesting survivalist trope to it, hidden in the vast 1940s California wilderness and mileu. I loved the initial part of the story, with a down-on-his-luck private detective, like that of Raymond Chandler’s books already having trouble with the cops, making a shady deal with likely criminal. Hadley Chase does a good job of making you hate all the wrong people initially, and while they all have shades of grey, the real ‘bad guy’ is revealed with a twist.

Some parts are not so believable, like the convenient bombs that go off without hurting the hero, the ferocious guard dogs that do not bite, and the oh so convenient hideaway that is waiting to be used by the fugitives on the run. But this just shows the hardy, ‘make what you can of the situation’ luck that the Hadley Chase’s criminals seem to have.

What struck me, interestingly, is that the survivalist theme also showed up in another book I was reading around the same time. In a similar twist, in Thomas Perry’s The Old Man, the fugitives also make use of a hideaway in the Californian mountains near Los Angeles. Funny how that happens, although Perry’s fugitives are in a luxurious hideout, while Hadley Chase’s are in an abandoned and beat up cabin.

One thing I always find great about James Hadley Chase’s books, which I have commented on before here, is how easy it is to visualize the scenes he describes, and how that is a mark of great writing. This happened again, and I was left imagining whether the hideaway that the fugitives in The Old Man use, at a much later point in time, is the same place from You Never Know With Women, just refurbished for Luxury.

Or it is just my wild imagination.

BOOK NOTE: The Blacktongue Thief - Christopher Buehlman

SPOILERS AHEAD

This book is a strong recommendation for anyone who enjoys Grimdark fantasy. Much like The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, Christopher Buehlman builds a magical world like no other, filled with unforgettable characters. It was recommended to me as a good book for a guy, and that turned out to be true. It is hilarious, and the humour is both simple and layered. I especially loved the wicked humour in the swearing. The curses belong entirely to the magical world, not ours, which makes them wicked and funny at the same time. They feel distinctly otherworldly, yet somehow very real.

The magical system is unique. For a seasoned fantasy reader, this world offers different kinds of magic, and it is wonderfully weird. The protagonist can sense when luck is on his side and can perform small spells to make people trip, among other tricks. As a thief, he uses this in hilarious ways. At first, this may make the magic seem small, almost like a parlour trick. But then the world shifts. There are assassins who can hide inside animals and strike with brutal precision. Giant war birds can be concealed inside tattoos. Magic is both awe inspiring and oddly ordinary. Like the humour, which is both sophisticated and juvenile, the magic manages to be both magnificent and mundane. That mix makes it feel alive.

One of the things I loved most was how the author made the language of the world easy to grasp without long glossaries. The Goblins are eaters of people, so they are known as Biters. Without any explanation, the word tells you they are nasty. It also made absolute sense that Kynd is simply another word for humankind. It is clever, effortless worldbuilding.

The protagonist, Kinch, is loveable not just because he is an underdog but because of his optimism. He is a doer, not a brooder or a whiner. His romance with Norrigal was charming, and the twist at the end caught me off guard.

The institutions in this world are equally interesting. The Guild is evil but a necessary evil. It feels like a mercenary bank slowly taking over everything. You want to hate them, but there are worse creatures to fear. The Goblins are terrifying. They are both pathetic and astonishingly vile. The plot twists keep that dread alive.

What fascinated me most was imagining how this world came to life in Buehlman’s mind. He is an accomplished screenwriter with a strong body of work, but this book feels uniquely different. I also feel it would be difficult to televise, not just because of the heavy CGI, but because the world has a texture that is hard to capture on screen.

A great read.

BOOK NOTE: Smart Brevity by Jim VadeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz

Smart Brevity is a book — or rather, a guide — by the creators of Axios. One that could have benefited from the very advice it gives. It rambles through many disconnected sections and, for some reason, seems to think it’s acceptable to use clunky sentence structures in the quest to demonstrate the “power of saying more with less.”

I’m being harsh. There are many valuable lessons in it. But maybe I’m a snob when it comes to good writing. While I completely see the value of brevity in conversations and communication, I don’t think it should come at the cost of well-crafted sentences — or, more importantly, at the cost of framing thoughts coherently.

I’ll be honest. I need to learn how to communicate more briefly. It’s been a long-standing piece of 360-degree feedback throughout my 20-year corporate career as a strategy consultant. More recently, as someone who does a fair number of presentations and has conversations with senior executives, this is feedback I need to act on. So, I’ve been on a deliberate quest to learn brevity.

Even more so because my Gallup StrengthsFinder has repeatedly identified “Input” and “Intellection” as top strengths — the need to collect, archive, and accumulate information, ideas, artefacts, and even relationships. I’m also a learner, with a strong desire to grow and continuously improve. The process of learning matters more to me than the outcome itself. I love to think (perhaps too much), muse, and reflect.

All this sounds great on paper, but the blind spots are obvious, in hindsight, of course. Pun and inconsistency intended.

One of the most important watch-outs for me has been phrased like this:

You might have a tendency to give people so much information or so many resources that you can overload or overwhelm them. Before you share with others, consider sorting out what is most meaningful so they don’t lose interest.

And another, in the same vein:

Some people might think you create needless complexity during discussions and may want you to make decisions faster. Sometimes it’s better to keep it simple and go more in depth later.

How damning, and how true.

This has been an ongoing area of learning for me. Over the years, I’ve been influenced by Tom Henschel’s advice from The Look and Sound of Leadership: “Short sounds confident.” That has become something of a mantra. But as much as I like that little ditty, I like words too. I like trivia, context-setting, and, above all, a good, powerful sentence.

But the point remains: I need to be brief. So I picked up Economical Writing by Deirdre McCloskey — a great book with some very smart advice — though I haven’t finished it yet. The Just Saying podcast by Joe McCormack has also been helpful.

So when, in June this year, my boss gave me Smart Brevity, I didn’t waste time reading it. Yes, my manager thought it necessary to gift me a book about brevity. And no, I’m not that bad — I take it as a positive gesture.

Anyway, this is a topic I genuinely care about, and I read the book. While it makes some smart points — like simplifying sentences, making them catchy, and using labels — the way those points are communicated feels haphazard. It rambles, trying to connect disparate ideas to its central thesis in roundabout ways.

Here’s an example. The opening sentence of the book is:

Never in the history of humanity have we vomited more words in more places with more velocity.

It’s a strong line, but reading it aloud isn’t a great experience, especially without the advantages of proper punctuation.

Other examples include the before-and-after writing tips:

Before: “The coronavirus variant in California is possibly more infectious and might cause more serious illness than the first.”
After: “California COVID-19 strain is more infectious than the first.”

Is that factually correct? Communicating the probability of might is worthwhile, and it’s lost in this falsely assertive sentence.

Beyond these issues, one stylistic choice really bothered me: the authors refer to themselves in the third person. I understand that’s tricky when there are three authors, but paragraphs like this put me off:

BACKSTORY: Jim and Mike started Politico back in 2007 with John Harris, a friend from The Washington Post. John and Jim were bosses and Mike was the on-the-go reporter, scooping news nuggets and building the little-known Politico brand around DC.

• At dawn every day, Mike would write an email to Jim and John with the subject line ‘How we can rock today’. It was a blueprint for the stories the publication should pursue.
• Mike’s email followed a very specific format. It always started with a burst of fresh news or insight — journalism’s holy grail of ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

This sort of writing goes against the very advice the book gives: never assume the reader knows who you’re talking about. It’s not “skim-resistant.”

In summary, Smart Brevity is a book with solid concepts, but the authors’ insistence on sacrificing good sentence structure for catchy, web-friendly phrasing is a drawback. Not everything worthwhile should be sacrificed for brevity. Brevity is more than that.

Finally, I took away the relevant parts of the book. And now, with the advent of AI, I’ve been using a different workflow to communicate briefly and impactfully. I write in my own way, full of ideas and context. Then I ask AI to edit my writing for brevity — without losing any of the detail. It does a fantastic job. It cleans up grammar, removes redundancies, and helps me structure my thoughts better without losing my style or substance. 

Win-win.

When wealth stops "Making" - the peril of over-financialisation

In my review of The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, I noted a different kind of “eat-the-rich” movement that is portrayed in the fantasy novel. In this revolution it is the merchants who hold the wealth, and it is the nobility—not the poor—who rise against them. This is one unique aspect of the book that I found interesting. But I digress. The focus of what I want to say in this essay is different. It comes from another interesting nugget in Abercrombie’s saga.

The Merchant’s Mansion by the docks - watching one’s wealth from nearby

Merchant's Palatial House: A merchant's grand house overlooks a busy, working-class dock filled with market stalls and ships

What caught my attention most was a smaller detail that resonates beyond the novel. A wealthy merchant builds a grand house near the smelly docks, the only place he can live while keeping an eye on his ships. He does not choose the elegant quarters of the city, too far from the assets he must watch. Later, the merchant is dead and trade has moved on. The house, once palatial, sits decrepit in an unsavoury quarter, unsellable and worthless.

So many real-world investments are made not purely for economic value but because they provide a physical reminder of wealth and control. They allow the owner to see and oversee their fortune. Without that, the sense of ownership feels incomplete. This seems like an archetypal need humans have.

The archetypal urge of visible wealth has always been there

And like most archetypes, the idea runs deep. In Tolkien’s world, Smaug the dragon sleeps upon his hoard to keep dominion over it. In modern pop culture, Disney’s Uncle Scrooge McDuck dives into his vault of coins to reaffirm his control. Both echo the same primal urge: to make wealth visible and tangible and in doing so be in control of it. It is, in a sense, a financial version of Foucault’s Panopticon. The Panopticon was a prison design where inmates never knew if they were being watched, so they behaved as if they always were. Foucault used it as a metaphor for modern systems of control: power lies not in direct force but in visibility. In the same way, dashboards, balances, and ledgers keep wealth under constant surveillance, ensuring its owner never loses command.

Financial Panopticon: A central figure oversees individuals managing their wealth via dashboards in a circular, panopticon-like structure.

That is why, in a finance-driven world, a bank balance is such a powerful status symbol. Why crypto enthusiasts flex their wallets. Why dashboards—Bloomberg terminals, portfolio trackers, real-time net worth calculators—are so compelling. They are the contemporary equivalent of living near the docks, watching the ships as they come and go. Only now, the ships are numbers, charts, and tokens moving across a screen. The owner feels in control precisely because the movement is visible: as long as the dashboard shows the assets, the wealth feels under command.

From making to managing - wealth’s long drift

There is also a pattern worth pausing on. Titans of industry often begin as makers and producers, leading them to their wealth. But once wealthy, their fortunes shift into financial assets, increasingly detached from the act of making itself. This is more than concentration of capital. It reflects how the most productive and creative minds are no longer rewarded for producing or creating, but for managing finances.

Evolution of Wealth: A triptych showing the progression from physical markets to industrial production, and finally to abstract digital wealth on screens.

This drift is easier to see if we step back and look at how wealth itself has been defined over time. We began with barter. Then came fiat money—first backed by tangible assets like gold, or by the means of production. But today, wealth drifts further and further away from the metaphorical dock or market, recast into dashboards, futures, and notional values that exist more on screens than in the real world. The danger is that it squeezes out true creators, replacing them with those who are content to manage charts and graphs without ever making anything. At some point, that bubble will burst.

The numbers illustrate this. Today, the top 1 percent of the world owns about 43 percent of all financial assets. A century ago, wealth inequality was also stark, but wealth was more tied to land, factories, and productive assets. Now, it is increasingly financial, intangible, and concentrated in instruments far removed from production.

Two forces threaten to push this shift further.

AI and the shrinking role of the maker

The first is artificial intelligence. When creative tools—writing, design, music, even art—are programmable and mediated through data, the role of the human maker shrinks. More concerning is if the walled gardens of AI concentrate the access of creative tools to only the select few. Those who build or produce become fewer, while those who control the platforms and dashboards multiply. The value accrues not in what is made, but in how data about what is made is captured and leveraged.

DeFi: Transparency or Abstraction?

The second force is DeFi. At its core, decentralised finance promises to bypass traditional gatekeepers and give individuals more freedom and transparency over their money. On the surface this looks like liberation—capital moving more freely, assets visible to all on the blockchain, and no central authority pulling the strings. But in practice, what it often produces is another layer of financialisation. A house, a painting, or a piece of land can be reduced to a token on a blockchain—valuable less for its use than for its tradeability. Wealth becomes more transparent in one sense, but also more removed, anchored not in production or utility but in speculation and flows of digital transactions. This is financialisation taken another step further, a retreat from the dock into pure abstraction.

A new class of landlords – or shall we say Rise of the Dashlords

Dashlord: A skeletal "Dashlord" figure on a high-tech throne monitors workers and an industrial landscape through digital dashboards.

All of this points to a troubling trajectory. We may be creating a new landlord class—“dashlords,” one might call them—who sit atop dashboards of tokenised assets, feeling powerful while shielding capital, tools of creativity, and even physical assets from those outside.

Over-financialisation is pushing capitalism into a narrower funnel. Wealth is not just concentrated; it is abstracted away from making and producing. AI and DeFi may arise from the right instincts—freedom, access, transparency—but if their development ignores fundamental human needs of power, agency, they will reinforce the problem.

Capitalism in its true sense has to be a win-win: a transaction, an exchange of value. It is not going to thrive if there is hoarding or unjust blocking of access to the tools of production. Efforts at transparency and productivity will not succeed unless they connect to the human psyche—our deep need for agency and control. Without that, the system risks collapsing under its own abstractions, producing not makers but watchers, not producers but Dashlords.

Let us get back to that initial thought about Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself and its unusual “eat-the-rich” movement. At the heart of it all is the vicious, mean Inquisitor Glokta—once a nobleman, now a cripple—who feels righteous in turning the screws on corrupt merchants. Glokta, in this way, becomes a fitting metaphor for what happens when capitalism is drained of its productive vitality. Like a broken enforcer still wielding power, financialisation risks becoming a crippled remnant of productive capitalism—vicious, commanding, but ultimately reducing capitalism to a shell.

Note: All images were imagined and created with Gemini.

BOOK NOTE: City of Small Blessings - Simon Tay

I find it fascinating that many places we now call home or office in Singapore used to be the sea just a few decades ago. Reclamation is the term for the process where geo-engineering is used to create new land where the sea once lapped at the shore. Entire districts have arisen this way, and more will follow given Singapore’s ambitious plans. And with it, what was once a beach road retreats inland.

What has always struck me is the word itself. Reclamation. It carries a sense of assertion, as though we are simply taking back what was ours from the sea. But from another perspective, it may be the reverse: perhaps it is the sea that has been forced to surrender what has always been its own, in the name of progress. I am not complaining, just fascinated by the semantics.

Simon Tay’s City of Small Blessings helped me appreciate this “other side” perspective. Told through the lives of two generations, a father and a son, it spans decades. From the father’s childhood to the son’s adulthood. The novel reflects on change, its pace, and how memory, though personal and mosaic-like, is often painted over by the broad brush of history, leaving a grander but less nuanced canvas.

Without giving away too much, the book is a story of loss and identity, and how physical places serve as artifacts in that journey. The central conflict is the loss of an estate, taken by the powers that be to be redeveloped for foreign interests. For most of us, it makes sense. There is progress, efficiency, development. But for those living there, especially the aging protagonist, it is the taking away of home.

The novel is rich and layered. Through flashbacks, it recalls Singapore’s wartime hardships, the forging of national resilience, and the protagonist’s own rise as a respected educationist which mirrors the nation’s growth from a fishing village to a global cosmopolis. Yet by the 2000s, progress has become institutionalized, a steady hum of growth that often masks in data and statistics, the living memories of those it displaces. The retired protagonist, ousted from his home, becomes a symbol of this tension.

The narrative alternates between father and son, highlighting generational shifts. The son represents a global, hybrid identity. One that is cosmopolitan, yet detached from the pioneer spirit. His loyalties are not to what the pioneers built, but more to the individuals themselves. Their sacrifices, and their worldview, his father’s in particular. What remains for his generation is not so much the physical place, but the personalities and the stories that shaped them.

Amidst the reclamation of the estate, there is the same justification as with land reclamation: progress, executed efficiently and rationally. Yet the novel made me feel that the protagonist is like the sea itself. Pushed back, encroached upon, but no less Singaporean than the land that rises in its place.

One passage captures this beautifully, when the protagonist protests the redevelopment:

The unplanned is a hedge, an insurance policy in times of revolutionary change. The unplanned also has its value…
The places we think peripheral influence and shape evolution in the mainstream.
The unplanned provides surprise, texture and serendipity.
This can be physical. In a modern city, a conserved building, or in the heart of an old city, a gleaming tower. It can be mental and social. In a busy business day in a consumer-centered, rational society, an hour for coffee with a person with an interesting story—or even the prospect of falling in love, like the famous photograph by Robert Doisneau. Amidst the milling, bustling crowd, a couple kisses. The planned schedules are disrupted, put on hold, for something—romance—that no one can really plan for, even if we can hope for it. We can plan our lives, but what happens, will happen. And if we are blessed, what happens will be beyond our grandest plans.

City of Small Blessings itself feels like such an “unplanned” gift. A hidden garden tucked between skyscrapers, a quiet refuge of memory and meaning in the tide of progress. And as the review by the Quarterly Literary Review said, ‘an important marker in the history of the Singapore novel’.

 

BOOK NOTE - The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

As a fan of fantasy books, I have grown accustomed to the slower pace, expansive timelines, and numerous characters that define the great works in this genre. Think G.R.R Martin’s multi-volume A Song of Ice and Fire series, which I have read in full and in the right order. Think of the 20+ volume Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, of which I have managed only three—starting somewhere in the middle. Or the mind-numbingly expansive Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson, which I am reading in chronological order but have only reached book four of the 25+ instalments.

A common thread in all these is the sheer expanse of the universe—the people, lands, and magical systems. They can be enchanting, transporting you to different worlds, complete with maps and side stories to disappear into. But they can also be overwhelming, just to keep pace with the scale and complexity. The Malazan series in particular is so vast and intricate that it can be difficult to get through—and I mean that in a good way. Given my interest in both fiction and non-fiction, committing to such sprawling series can limit the variety of my reading life.

Enter the likes of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicle and Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy—both great fantasy series, but relatively faster-paced and, in subtle ways, less demanding on one’s reading cadence.

Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself is a fine example of this. I had been meaning to get to it for at least two years since it was recommended by someone with a good eye for epic fantasy, and I am glad I finally did.

The worldbuilding is both brisk and evocative. The familiar fantasy tropes are here—the vain and prickly hero, the noble brute, the wise wizard, the tragic mentor, the cheeky dame in distress and the evil forces from beyond the borders and within. There is magic that is taboo, historical figures assembling a fellowship, and wars and beasts at the periphery. But what I especially enjoyed was that the politics and motivations felt very contemporary. Perhaps it is Abercrombie’s language, but unlike Malazan, which feels truly ancient, the characters in The Blade Itself often seem modern. The sense of the ancient is there, but the events feel distinctly of our time.

It is a fine balance to strike. Lean too modern and it starts to feel like sci-fi with magic—a tone better suited to young adult vampire dramas on TV.

One example, without spoilers: the book features merchant guilds that are ruthless capitalist empires, sanctioned by the King. Over time, they have grown in wealth and influence, overtaking the old-money aristocrats. This sets the stage for a different kind of “eat-the-rich” revolution—not from the poor masses, but from the royal and erstwhile nobility. Many fantasy novels I have read have powerful merchants, usually individuals, but I cannot recall another that plays with this almost post-capitalist dynamic. For that alone, the book deserves credit.

A great read, highly recommended.