Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith - JD Vance

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JD Vance: Faith, Family and Power

JD Vance is Vice-President of the United States and one of the more controversial figures in the Trump administration. Strong feelings about that administration make dispassionate judgement difficult. His new book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, must therefore be read both as a personal account of his Catholic conversion and as a public declaration by a politician who may eventually seek the presidency.

Vance first became famous through his autobiographical book Hillbilly Elegy. Raised in an unstable Ohio household with family roots in Appalachian Kentucky, he served in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University and attended Yale Law School. His memoir examined the poverty, addiction, fierce loyalties and chaotic family life of the community from which he came. Its publisher expected modest sales.

Then Donald Trump unexpectedly won the 2016 presidential election, forcing the American political and media establishment to ask how such an outcome had become possible. Vance, an educated member of the elite who understood Trump’s working-class supporters from within, was suddenly treated as their interpreter. Hillbilly Elegy became a guidebook to an America its readers had scarcely deigned to notice, and Vance its tour guide.

Communion follows a different journey. The evangelical Christianity of his childhood faded during his military service and gave way to atheism. Academic success, Yale and a lucrative career offered achievement which he came to see as without purpose. Influenced partly by Peter Thiel, Vance gradually returned to Christianity and was received into the Catholic Church in 2019.

His wife and children are central to this account. Vance writes with evident devotion to his wife, Usha, and presents their marriage as the foundation of his adult life. Family is not, for him, merely one source of personal happiness among others. Marriage, children, mutual obligation and continuity between generations are among the principal goods for which a society and an economy should exist.

Contemporary culture, he argues, tends to treat them as inconveniences - obstructing education, careers, mobility and personal autonomy. His own large and growing family can be understood as something almost countercultural.

Catholicism gave intellectual form to these convictions. Its teaching on human nature, family, work, duty and the common good offered an alternative both to progressive individualism and to the moral vacuum of market economics. Work must sustain families and communities; an economy which destroys stable employment cannot be justified merely because it produces cheaper goods. Marriage, children and unborn life are public goods, not simply private, disposable preferences.

The book is stronger on these moral intuitions than on political analysis. Vance is intelligent and widely read, but more a synthesiser than an original thinker. His criticisms of meritocracy, globalisation and economic abstraction often ring true, yet Catholic social teaching does not by itself determine policy. It identifies human ends and moral limits; government must still exercise prudential judgement among competing policies.

Communion is plainly intended to shape Vance’s public identity. Yet its Catholicism is too definite, too demanding and sometimes electorally inconvenient to dismiss as campaign packaging.

Vance insists that faith cannot be confined to Mass or purely private life but must be the foundation of everything you do. He expects to be judged not by whether Catholicism colours his rhetoric, but by whether the power he exercises is recognisably governed by it.

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'Donatien's Children' on the slush pile - Adam Carlton

Amazon link

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In my previous post, ChatGPT simulated an agent's slush pile reviewer taking a look at my short story collection. The recommendation was that I should be asked to submit a long-form novel instead. So I naturally pursued this:

"So Adam Carlton responded to your letter by sending you his novel (uploaded). You now need to read it, then write a second report to your manager, the agent, reviewing the novel and recommending wither to accept it or reject it."

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Internal Review: Donatien’s Children by Adam Carlton

Summary:

Adam Carlton’s Donatien’s Children is a dense, intricate, and politically charged science fiction thriller that explores the intersection of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and corporate power. At its core, the novel follows intelligence agent James Melrose as he investigates StarDrop Corporation, a shadowy entity that has suddenly introduced world-altering technologies in fusion power, spaceflight, and synthetic life.

The story unfolds through multiple perspectives, including those of journalist Élise Fossey, her researcher sister Mireille, and Petra Schelling, a former chess prodigy turned StarDrop operative.

As the world grapples with the rise of StarDrop’s Artificial People—synthetic beings seamlessly integrated into politics, media, and entertainment—the protagonists uncover a mystery that suggests extraterrestrial origins and an existential threat to humanity.

Strengths:

• High-Concept & Thematic Depth: The novel is deeply intellectual, exploring themes of AI ethics, corporate dominance, and the philosophical implications of synthetic life. Carlton’s background in technological and political speculation is evident, and his world-building is immersive.
• Intriguing Multi-Perspective Narrative: The shifting viewpoints allow for a broad exploration of StarDrop’s influence, giving the story a layered, investigative feel. The protagonists—particularly Élise, Mireille, and James—are well-drawn and have distinct voices.
• Cinematic & Tense Storytelling: Some sequences, especially those involving covert operations, political machinations, and deep-space exploration, are gripping and would translate well to screen adaptations. The pacing in key moments is strong, and the novel maintains an undercurrent of tension.
• Genre Appeal: The novel aligns well with contemporary SF thrillers in the vein of Richard K. Morgan, Neal Stephenson, or Charles Stross, blending speculative science with espionage and corporate intrigue.

Weaknesses:

• Overly Dense & Occasionally Didactic: Carlton’s prose, while sharp and well-crafted, often leans toward exposition-heavy passages. Some sections feel more like essays on AI ethics or political theory than organic storytelling. Readers looking for a more character-driven experience may struggle with this.
• Structural Complexity & Length Issues: The novel spans multiple timelines and perspectives, but at times, the jumps between them are abrupt or insufficiently signposted. Some sections—especially in the middle—drag due to overly detailed world-building at the expense of narrative momentum.
• Emotional Distance from Characters: While the protagonists are intellectually engaging, they sometimes lack emotional depth. Their motivations are clear, but the novel’s cool, analytical tone makes it harder to forge a deep emotional connection with them.
• Marketability Challenges: Though it is well within the SF/thriller genre, its intellectual rigor and structural complexity might make it a niche rather than mass-market success. Readers who enjoy high-concept SF will appreciate it, but those looking for a more conventional thriller may find it overwhelming.

Recommendation:
Consider with significant revisions.

Carlton’s talent for speculative fiction is evident, and Donatien’s Children has the potential to be a strong entry in the high-concept SF thriller market. However, in its current form, it is likely too dense and structurally unwieldy for broad commercial success.

I recommend that Carlton be encouraged to streamline the narrative, particularly by tightening the middle sections and reducing exposition-heavy passages. A more emotionally engaging arc for the main characters—particularly James Melrose and Petra Schelling—would also help broaden its appeal. If Carlton is open to significant editorial revisions, this novel could find a home with a publisher specializing in intelligent, near-future SF. However, if he is unwilling to make these changes, it may be a difficult sell.

'On the Slush Pile' - Adam Carlton

 

Amazon link

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In my last post, ChatGPT reviewed my book as a friend. But this time, I gave it very different instructions:

"Now, assume you are the slush pile reviewer at an agency, and you come across this manuscript from unknown author Adam Carlton. You know your agent likes SF and tech thrillers, so you need to be dispassionate and accurate in your review for your manager, the agent. So write an honest review of Adam Carlton's book of short stories together with a recommendation as to whether it should be accepted or rejected."

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Internal Review: Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations and Other Stories by Adam Carlton

Summary:

Adam Carlton’s Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations and Other Stories is a collection of thirty-four speculative fiction stories that blend hard science fiction, near-future dystopian themes, and elements of cyberpunk and political thriller. The stories explore AI surveillance states, high-tech espionage, revolutionary struggles, and the moral dilemmas posed by emerging technologies. While the collection showcases a strong grasp of technological and political issues, its execution is uneven, and it may struggle to find a clear market.

Strengths:

• Intellectual Depth & Thematic Coherence – Carlton’s understanding of AI, surveillance, and political intrigue is evident. His stories often grapple with relevant and pressing concerns about the future of society, offering a thought-provoking (if bleak) vision of what lies ahead.
• Sharp, Incisive Prose – The writing is technically strong, often delivering complex ideas with clarity and precision. Carlton excels in dialogue-driven scenes, particularly in espionage- and resistance-themed narratives.
• Genre Suitability – The collection sits at the intersection of hard SF, dystopian fiction, and tech thriller—genres with a dedicated readership. Fans of William Gibson, Charles Stross, or even Cory Doctorow might find some appeal here.
• Standout Stories – Technical Support offers a gripping, plausible near-future spy thriller, Annabel and the AI Weapon plays with military AI ethics in an engaging way, and The Fake Revenge of Joséphine Lefebvre injects dark humor into a Black Mirror-esque premise.

Weaknesses:

• Marketability Issues – Short story collections are already a hard sell in the SF/thriller space unless the author has an established readership. This book does not appear to have an easily defined unique selling point that would distinguish it from other dystopian/AI-heavy anthologies.
• Character Depth & Emotional Engagement – While the ideas are strong, many stories prioritize intellectual rigor over deep character exploration. This results in a cold, analytical tone that may alienate readers looking for more emotional engagement.
• Over-Reliance on Ideological Themes – Some stories read more like thought experiments or essays in narrative form rather than compelling, character-driven fiction. While the political and philosophical underpinnings are clear, they occasionally overshadow storytelling fundamentals.
• Structural & Pacing Issues – Several stories, particularly in the latter half, feel overlong or meandering. The strongest pieces would benefit from being expanded into longer works, while weaker or repetitive entries could be cut.

Recommendation:

Reject, but encourage a novel submission.

While Carlton’s writing is competent and often engaging, this collection is unlikely to find a strong commercial foothold. Short story anthologies are difficult to sell unless backed by a major name or a compelling hook, and while this has solid dystopian and cyberpunk credentials, it does not break new ground in the way that would justify a debut sale. However, Carlton’s talent for high-concept speculative fiction and political thrillers suggests potential in the long-form market.

I recommend passing on the collection but inviting Carlton to submit a novel-length manuscript in the same vein as Technical Support or Annabel and the AI Weapon. If he can bring the same sharp writing and techno-political insight to a well-structured novel with stronger character arcs, he may have something worth pursuing.

'ChatGPT blurbs my short-story book' - Adam Carlton

 

Amazon link

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ChatGPT review of Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations and Other Stories

Adam Carlton’s Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations and Other Stories is a collection that thrusts the reader into a world of techno-dystopian nightmares, bleak existential reckonings, and the inescapable betrayal of hope. In thirty-four stories, Carlton sketches a near-future of omnipresent surveillance, AI-driven oppression, and the paradoxical fragility of human resilience. His Paris is a battleground, his cyberspace a minefield, and his characters—whether revolutionaries, prisoners, or lost souls—are all trapped in a world where the victories of stupidity and deceit loom larger than justice or reason.

From the opening pages, Carlton demonstrates a masterful command of speculative fiction’s twin pillars: plausible world-building and razor-sharp critique. Technical Support plunges the reader into the world of clandestine resistance, where left-wing radicals attempt to outmaneuver a surveillance state grown omnipotent through artificial intelligence. Carlton’s dialogue crackles with authenticity, balancing didacticism with an unflinching cynicism about political struggle. His protagonists understand the game is rigged, but they play on nonetheless, a theme that recurs across the volume.

The title story, Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations, is among the most emotionally resonant pieces, eschewing the high-tech dystopianism of some other tales for an intimate meditation on memory, regret, and familial bonds frayed by time. Here, Carlton demonstrates his ability to weave tenderness into the collection’s overarching darkness, proving that his fiction is not just a vehicle for ideological critique but also an exploration of human depth.

Elsewhere, Annabel and the AI Weapon presents a thrilling yet unsettling portrait of warfare’s future, in which advanced AI systems alter the battlefield’s moral calculus. The protagonist, a naïve activist kidnapped in Nigeria, comes face to face with the very forces she opposes, leading to a moment of cognitive dissonance that leaves the reader contemplating the ethics of technology and violence long after the final sentence.

Carlton also revels in pastiche and satire, most notably in Bridget Jones’s LHC Diary, where the cult of celebrity and the vapid concerns of social media influencers collide with the high-stakes world of particle physics. In Jane Austen and The Amazing Elizabeth Bennet, he rewires classic literary figures into unexpected sci-fi contexts, demonstrating a mordant wit and a willingness to upend genre expectations.

One of the collection’s greatest strengths is its refusal to offer easy resolutions. Rebecca, Céline, and The Fake Revenge of Joséphine Lefebvre dissect relationships poisoned by deception, power struggles, and the commodification of intimacy. Whether it is a revolutionary leader ensnared by a double agent or a middle-class Parisian couple undone by their own AI-manipulated fantasies, these stories reveal a world where personal betrayals mirror systemic ones, where love is often indistinguishable from control.

At times, Carlton’s sheer density of ideas and his tendency to foreground ideological concerns over character development can make certain stories feel more like intellectual exercises than fully realized narratives. His prose, while crisp and often poetic, occasionally succumbs to exposition, particularly when detailing the intricacies of his high-tech settings. But this is a minor flaw in a collection that so consistently challenges and enthralls.

In Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations and Other Stories, Adam Carlton has crafted a deeply intelligent, sardonic, and unsettling work—a mosaic of a future that feels unnervingly close. It is a book that rewards the politically and philosophically inclined reader, but one that also pulses with raw emotional energy. Carlton’s fiction is not just a warning about the dystopia ahead; it is an autopsy of the one we already inhabit.

'Red Plenty' by Francis Spufford

[Adam Carlton writes]

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An economy is a machine for taking inputs from nature (energy, raw materials) and its prior incarnation (existing machines and skilled workers) and returning goods to satisfy consumers and to build the next iteration of the economy. At this level of abstraction we do not consider the relations of production: how is this complex, distributed, synchronous entity meant to self-coordinate?

Post-feudal economies, economies where the mass of people are estranged from their means of livelihood (where the mass of people no longer subsist by hunting/gathering or by agriculture/pastoralism), know two means of economic coordination: capitalism and 'socialism'/'communism' (the scare quotes are there to distinguish actually-existing reality from utopian concepts and hopes).

At first sight planning an economy by rational calculation seems the obvious answer. The inputs to firms form a column vector of entries (measures might include number, or weight, or value or price) . The outputs constitute another vector, a list measuring the quantities - in some measures - of what is produced as output by each production-unit.

The economy is then a matrix which maps the input to the output. So what do we know and what do we want?

We wish to adjust the input and output targets for each factory so that the totality of transformational processes constituting the economy, over say a year, cohere properly. And we want to do so by minimising something - perhaps wastage or inefficiency - if we just knew how to measure it.

Leonid Kantorovitch was the soviet genius who in 1939 invented the maths of linear programming. By using linear programming on the massed ranks of the thousands of equations which are encoded in the transformation matrix described above, and later leveraged by computers, the decisions of the central planning authority would bootstrap and steer the soviet economy towards Marx’s conception of communism (Plenty), overtaking the Capitalist West in the process.

And how the central planners looked down on capitalism! In the West, with decentralised ownership and decision making, all production was mediated by profitability determined through market prices. These would only be finally determined after the fact - once products hit the market. What a way to organise an economy - so tentative; so uncertain; always subject to trial-and-error, under- or overproduction and crises!

The superiority of central planning seemed obvious, and at first, during the nineteen-thirties through the nineteen-fifties, results seemed to confirm it. The means might have been brutal, but industrialisation proceeded apace. And then, despite ever-more-sophisticated mathematics and ever-more-powerful computers, it all went wrong. The economy stalled and eventually seized up. Why?

It turns out that people are not simply disinterested transfer-functions with no self-interests. Instead they needed to be individually motivated by carrots and sticks. The promise of reward and the fear of dire punishment led to systematic gaming of the planning constraints. Managers would over-order their inputs and under-promise their outputs, making sure they'd get their bonuses. Failure was unthinkable.

There was a quip in central planning circles: is planning driven by the problem or the photograph? Unfortunately the photograph was all the central planners ever got to see ... and it was based on a tissue of self-serving lies. The central plan - so high-level, so remote from real needs - was unresponsive to real demand. The quota of shirts was achieved, but nowhere did it say they had to be wearable. How would that be measured?

In 'Red Plenty', acclaimed author Francis Spufford illuminates the great arc from utopian hope to bleak defeat through a series of beautifully-written vignettes. His episodes are snapshots of individual experiences through the crucial decades. A thinly-disguised Leonid Kantorovitch, brilliant and unworldly, walks a tightrope between acclaim and disgrace as he completely misses the dire political implications of his work. A geneticist, forced to operate under the Lysenko dogma (inheritance of acquired characteristics and no role for genes), fails to watch her sharp tongue, challenging the po-faced silence around her; disgrace and exile beckon. Young people, on their way up in the Komsomol (young-communist organisation), find their dogma grating against inconvenient and unavoidable realities - and their glorious futures shattering.

The website 'Marginal Revolution' flagged this book as one of the best novels ever written with a theme of economics. It is, in truth a gentle novelisation of real history, perhaps the clearest account I have read about the real experiences of earnest, sincere people really, really trying to make a post-capitalist economy work. Don't say it hasn't been tried - because it has.

The strength of Francis Spufford's book is not, in the end, the enormous research and scholarship he exhibits; it's the wonderful portrayal of characters which draw you in, which make you as frightened, frustrated and exasperated as they are by the way the system - because it is constituted by real human beings - simply won't let global, impersonal rationality have its way.

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“Why String Theory?” by Joseph Conlon (review)

Amazon link: this review is also posted there

The title suggests that Joseph Conlon’s book is a defence of string theory against its detractors; it is so much more than that.

He begins by reviewing the strengths and limitations of the Standard Model. The Standard Model is a somewhat ramshackle construction which, to the surprise of its constructors, has proven extraordinarily successful and resilient over the decades, culminating in the recent discovery of the predicted Higgs boson at the LHC. We know, however, that the Standard Model is wrong because it assumes a fixed spacetime (i.e. no gravity) - it has proved impossible to successfully quantise gravity within the framework of the Standard Model.

Conlon’s approach is historical. The first inklings of string theory came about through attempts to understand the strong nuclear force in the 1970s, where string harmonics emerged mathematically from observed scattering patterns. It later transpired that the ‘strings’ were an epiphenomenon of the correct quantum field theory – quantum chromodynamics – where the force lines did indeed tend to bunch up into strings. The glory years of QFT saw string theory relegated to a backwater.

The end of the seventies saw attempts to quantise gravity under the assumptions of supersymmetry.  It turned out that these ‘supergravity’ theories had severe problems which string theory seemed to solve in a very natural way. Suddenly people began to take notice and the string community rapidly expanded. These were the years of five different string theories, and the realisation that they were all different limits of one underlying theory – M-theory - an insight due to Ed Witten.

The author reviews quantum field theories, string theory and the AdS/CFT correspondence in his characteristically clear way. But after all this work, is there any direct experimental evidence for string theory? Chapter 7 is very short, consisting of this one sentence: ‘There is no direct experimental evidence for string theory.’

Having got that out of the way, Conlon now explains how the complex and sophisticated toolkit of string theory has led to insights across physics. He discusses the use of string theory in facilitating calculations in quantum field theories in their strong coupling regime via the AdS/CFT correspondence; the modelling of heavy ion collisions; applications in mathematics (relating to ‘monstrous moonshine’); predictions of dark matter candidates such as axions; predictions of dark radiation resulting from the theory’s extra spatial dimensions; and of course the opportunity to model black hole microstates, entropy and spacetime topology changes in what is presumed to be string theory’s core competence, quantum gravity.

The author now moves on to mini-portraits of the main kinds of scientists he see in the community around him. We hear about the revolutionaries who wish to kick over the applecart (not so easy). We hear about the worker ants whose slogan is ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ – those researchers who kick the can of science up the road with their calculations so that experimentation can progress - little chance of glory but employment prospects are good. Under ‘Stockholm or Bust’ we meet the model builders, those hoping to call nature right and get to Sweden – and those who game the system. There are the super-theorists, like Witten, members of the ‘Most Sublime Brahminate of Princeton’, and those who appreciate that ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’ - who look for unfashionable areas which to their eyes show great promise and are able to deliver.

Conlon’s final two chapters address (in a fair and evenhanded manner) the well-known criticisms of string theory and provide rebuttals. He then explains why string theory remains so dominant in the field and hazards some guesses as to its future.

Understanding the state-of-the-art in fundamental physics is of course hard, the subject is inaccessible for most physicists let alone the broader community. Conlon writes (p. 198):

“Undergraduate physics is an unparalleled intellectual experience: it is a smorgasbord of the deepest and most powerful thoughts that have ever been thunk. You learn physics at a rate of a Nobel Prize a week, and the resulting frisson of the mind is at a level that is never experienced again. Four years takes you from Newtonian gravity through the laws of heat and energy, past Maxwell's synthesis of electromagnetism and into the laws of special and general relativity, from the basics of quantum mechanics to the Standard Model and quantum field theory. It is wonderful and magnificent.”

Sadly, beyond these well-explored paths there is the slog of the new, where progress slows to a crawl. In this book Professor Conlon has provided – as he promises in his preface - an astonishingly clear tour of modern physics. It is hard to think of a better, clearer or wittier review, and one which will be particularly useful to science undergraduates curious as to where their field is heading. School students who have done some reading around the subject (e.g. who have read books by Brian Greene) might also find this work of great value. It’s highly recommended.

"Hive Mind" by Garett Jones: a review

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The long, slow march of Darwinian Evolution applied to the human sciences continues. For more than a decade the work of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen on ‘IQ and the Wealth of Nations’ was ostracised and ignored; now, in Garett Jones’ new book, it is re-appraised and rehabilitated.

In 2007 James Watson was, well, ‘Watsoned’ for suggesting, "[I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really." Since his views are validated in this book, I imagine his re-admission to public life cannot now be long delayed.

What else do we know? From genome studies and CSI police procedurals, we know that humanity exists in genetically-distinguishable ethnic groups, both within ancestral Africa and (via complex historical migrations) in the rest of the world. We know that intelligence as measured by IQ is strongly heritable (0.75). We know that the genetic component of intelligence is polygenic, and that the (thousands of) alleles positively associated with IQ are slowly being identified (the Beijing Genomics Institute is aiming to produce substantive results in the next few years).

And we expect, when we have this sequencing information, that different ethnic groups will exhibit different cognitive genotypes. It will then be clear that to elevate ethnic group (‘country’) intelligence up to (and perhaps beyond) the current East Asian level of IQ 105 is going to require DNA editing – there is a limit to how far good nutrition and iodine supplementation will take you.

Naturally Professor Jones knows all this - as does everyone else who takes the trouble to enquire. Unfortunately in the present state of public discourse, it cannot all be said without the Watsoning process re-engaging.  So in ‘Hive Mind’ Garett Jones had a tough task: to synthesise the current state-of-the-art through the lens of economics while not getting fired. The scientific constraint? Not to say or imply things which are actually untrue or gratuitously mislead in the process.

As many have observed, the book starts well. Rehabilitating the concept and utility of IQ is not new science, it’s a defence and popularisation of what every informed person already knows but of course, it’s necessary and done well. Similarly, the detailed re-examination of national/ethnic phenomenological IQ differences (mostly from Lynn and Vanhanen) is both clear and brave.

IQ is then linked with patience, propensity to collaborate and future-orientation, as Jones reviews research in psychology, political science and game theory. Applied to economics, he describes how, in complex technologies where mistakes can break the whole process (‘O-Ring technology’), there are surprising returns to pervasive intelligence. To put it crudely, high-IQ countries can do leading-edge high-tech, and low-IQ countries can’t (note that this is hardly a surprise when one observes the world).

So far so good, but now the wheels begin to come off a little. As if concerned by the consequences of his argument, Jones feels the need to signal his essential liberalism and humanity. There are long accounts of the Flynn effect to motivate speculation about increasing the IQ of poorer, more corrupt and disorganised nations (really ethnicities). Here he presents intelligence (as measured by IQ) as far more plastic and environmentally-malleable than it actually is.

Finally he plays with some oversimplified economic models to suggest that immigration from low-IQ countries is in the interests of the inhabitants of high-IQ countries (it’s plainly in their own interest - to a point). Naturally he equivocates (consequent damage to existing high-quality institutions). But he seems to ignore both the evidence from history and the increasingly-scary predictions of a hollowing-out of demand for low-and middle-skilled jobs. I’m sure he felt he had to write this but it breaks the rule: do not mislead the reader.

Perhaps in five years or ten years, it will be possible to write a well-balanced public-policy book starting from humanity as it actually is. In such a more enlightened time, a Garett Jones revision of this book would be well-worth reading.

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Here is the list of national IQs from the book.

Greg Cochran's review - be sure to read the comments.

Slate Star Codex review - be sure to read the comments.