Farthing Party, etc.

I'm just back from Farthing Party, papersky's small science fiction convention/large party in Montreal. cattitude and I had a wonderful time, and I think julian_tiger is in the process of forgiving us.

( long con/travel write-up, in no particular order )

not a book post

Apparently both of these are due today, so no chance to review them, but:

The Statues that Walked, by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo: Everything you think you know about Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is wrong, especially if you've been reading Thor Heyerdahl (whose dates are hopelessly wrong and whose assumptions were deeply racist). Rats, climate problems (breadfruit won't grow there), lithic mulching, and the colonialist attitudes that blame the natives for the state of the landscape after they've been evicted so Europeans can raise sheep on their land. Well enough written that I was halfway through Appendix B before I realized I was in appendices; also well-footnoted, which is very useful under the circumstances.

The Psychopath Test, by Jon Ronson, about psychopaths, the ways the term is and isn't well-defined, treatment such as it is, or isn't, and a brief history of the DSM-III and IV.

With luck I'll manage something more coherent than "yes, this is good" on Ken MacLeod's The Night Sessions, which I borrowed as prep for a con panel, but didn't finish until a day after the panel. Probably won't post about Dorothy Dunnett, but I've enjoyed the first two of her books about Francis Crawford of Lymond. Anti-spoiler: a historical novel that talks about well-known historical figures has limits to its suspense, because the reader knows, for example, that Mary Queen of Scots did not die as a child, so the episode becomes "how did they save her?" rather than "will the queen live?"