Praise also then light, and creation unfinished

What I've read recently:

The Glass Universe, by Dava Sobel. This is a history of photographic astronomy using glass plates--photometry, spectral lines, and how the photos they were used to study variable stars--and of the Harvard Observatory and the women who did much of the work. Many of the women were first hired as "computers," doing calculations for (originally only male) astronomers, before starting to do astronomy on their own. The group included Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who figured out the luminosity-distance relationship in Cepheid variables, and thus the distance to the Magellanic Clouds and the Andromeda galaxy; Annie Jump Cannon (of the OBAFGKM star classifcations); and Cecilia Payne Groposchkin, who became the first person of any gender to get a PhD in astronomy from Harvard, with a dissertation showing that our sun is made mostly of hydrogen and helium.

The book is about both the astronomical work, and the lives of the people doing it, including the ways the women involved had to fight to do it, and be recognized for their work, in both the US and Europe. It weaves together several lives, and stories, over more than half a century. One important thread is Mary Anne Palmer (Mrs. Henry) Draper, who dedicated many years, and money, to support and fund the Henry Draper Memorial to carry on her late husband's cataloging work. (All those "HD" star catalog numbers are from that work.)

Tricks for Free, by Seanan McGuire. This is another InCryptid story, this one about/narrated by Antimony Price (younger sister of Verity, who introduced the series). She's on the run from the Covenant, and thus separated from all her living family (though her dead aunts visit occasionally), fighting sorcerers in an amusement park. She has a team of Cryptid allies, her boyfriend Sam comes back (and they decide/declare that they are boyfriend and girlfriend) and everything moves fast. This was fun, but leans significantly on what happened in previous books.

Around the World in Eighty Trees, by Jonathan Drori. Drori gives us eighty brief pieces about eighty trees he finds interesting, either for botanical or cultural reasons--with locations, usually at the level of "Morocco" but sometimes US states, and for ailanthus it's "Brooklyn, USA." Each tree's essay is illustrated with color drawings. The book discusses trees I hadn't known of, and includes some things I hadn't known, or thought about, and is pleasant, mostly restful reading, a few trees at a time. (The articles on some trees sections talk about global warming or near-extinction from overuse). Recommended by mrissa.

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard to Talk about Race, by Robin diAngelo. This is more or less what it says on the tin, from the viewpoint of sociology/activism: why it's difficult for white people to talk about race, and the ways that silence about race maintain white supremacy--and that this is not accidental. DiAngelo offers some suggestions about how white people can talk about race, including both ways to talk to (and sometimes challenge) each other, and ways to listen respectfully and not shut down people of color who are taking about racism. The book looks at both structural racism and microaggressions, and how people (don't) talk about hate crimes. I have this as a library ebook, and may need to buy a copy so I can reread it, and maybe use some of her bibliography. It's shorter, and easier to read, than I'd expected. (Your mileage may vary, either if you're less familiar with sociology and some of the terminology, or if the topic is especially stressful for you.) Note: diAngelo is writing from an American viewpoint, and points out both that other parts of the world will be somewhat different, and that American movies, magazines, music, etc. are part of the environment all over the world.

Current reading:

• So Far So Good, by Ursula Le Guin (still, I'm dipping into it, a few poems at a time)
• Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin, a collection of short pieces, including humor and reporting
• At the Mouth of the River of Bees, short stories by Kij Johnson

Books finished relatively recently:

Tove Jansson: Fair Play and Finn Family Moomintroll. These two have little in common except that in each book, each chapter is a different episode, and that they're both about people who like each other. Jansson is best-known, at least outside Finland, for the Moomin series of children's books. I thought I'd read all of them when I asked the library for Finn Family Moomintroll, but there are things in there I think I'd remember if I'd read it before, including the Hobgoblin's Hat, and Too and Ticky showing up and becoming part of the household. Fair Play is an adult novel, or series of stories, about two women, an artist and a writer, who live separately but in the same building, and ongoing events in their relationship. (It's at least somewhat autobiographical, and was written long enough ago that it could be read as a platonic friendship, absent the known context, which includes that the "about the author" on all her books falselu said she lived alone, rather than mentioning her long-term partner.) I'd recommend both of these, if you're at all open to both mimetic fiction and playful fantasy about non-human characters.

Marjorie Allingham: Look to the Lady and Policemen at the Funeral. This is two-thirds of a kindle "box set" of Allingham's Albert Campion stories. Look to the Lady is plot-driven rather than character-driven; not so much that it feels as though the characters are moving around to fit the needs of the plot, as that they're somewhat flat. Policemen at the Funeral is weird, in ways that I think would be spoilers even to hint at, so have a cut: ( Read more... )

Alma Fritchley: Chicken Run. This was recommended by rachelmanija and is, as she said, a cozy lesbian mystery about a chicken farmer, set in England a couple of decades ago. It's at least as much about shifting relationships as about the mystery, and the pacing of the plot is weird in terms of that genre. I enjoyed this enough that I have a sequel waiting for me at the Somerville Library.

Charlie Jane Anders: All the Birds in the Sky. This one is weird, and I'm not sure I'd say I liked it. The first part of the book is emotionally difficult, parallel/intertwined stories of two children/teens who are being abused by their parents and school systems. There's witchcraft and science/technology, the latter with a sort of hacker ethos, and a character who I'm fairly sure is based on Elon Musk, with the riches and intelligence and egocentricity. It's hard to really like either group or their cavalier way with everyone else's future, even realizing that they're dealing with a series of escalating natural disasters.

Currently reading:

Nick Lane: Life Ascending: the ten great inventions of evolution. Bits I've enjoyed so far include the discussion of how the DNA-->amino acid coding isn't random, and the explanation of how the two photosystems that make up oxygenic photosynthesis work, and how such an odd-seeming thing could have evolved.

Not exactly reviews, but here's what I've read in the last couple of months, with notes I jotted down at the time:

Death in a White Tie, by Ngaio Marsh. Part of her long, loose series of mysteries starring Roderick Alleyn, who is both a police officer and from a well-off upper-class British family. In this case, the victim and many of the suspects are friends of his; this book is where the slow romantic plot arc gets to "yes, I'll marry you." My note on this is "Plausible mystery plotting, though the past [in this case 1930s Britain] is a foreign country—gur zbgvingvba sbe n ybg bs guvf vf oynpxznvy, naq gur ynetrfg frperg vf gung, haorxabjafg gb ure, bar bs gur punenpgref jnf obea bhg bs jrqybpx.

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. I like Maia, and enjoyed rereading this. And would like reading more about him, beyond the first months of his reign, but have no idea if she's considering writing that.

The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilman. Third in a series about a widow from New Jersey who winds up working for the CIA in the 1960s. Mrs. Pollifax i getting more confident, and still worrying the actual CIA agent she works for, Carstairs, while letting circumstances take her well away from her assignment. Once again, impressive results; I'm glad that the pattern in the first two of "she is assigned a minder, and he's killed quickly in the course of that" isn't replicated here.

Swing, Brother, Swing, by Ngaio Marsh. Alleyn is (coincidentally) at the scene of the crime in this case; complicated intertangled motives and plotting, a purloined letter bit—and yet another book where things would be so much simpler if the characters talked to each other. Though at least here there are plausible reasons why not (both expectations against honesty between the genders, and that two of them are a long-married couple who either like nor trust each other, but are stuck being married and for halfway-plausible reasons living together).

Dancing at the Edge of the World, by Ursula Le Guin. I reread probably about 2/3, dipping in and out of a library ebook copy; skipped most of the travel writing this time, and I'm going to sync the kindle now that I've either reread, or decided I'm not in the mood for, everything except the last section of book reviews. [I own almost all Le Guin's books in hardcopy, but most of them are still in boxes.]

Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire. Sequel to Every Heart a Doorway: a quest, of course, since these are portal fantasy. Starts at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. Some of the students there, missing their own portal worlds, offer to help Rini get her mother back, after Rini falls out of the sky and tells them that the villain from her world has undone her mother's successful quest and made Rini not have been born. Not as silly as that sounds (although Confection is a nonsense world). Rini and Sumi get a happy ending, as does Nadya, who stays in the Land of the Dead so the others can take Sumi's ghost with them; the other questers come back to the school here on earth.

Women and Power, a Manifesto, by Mary Beard. Beard discusses the ways that politics and public speech have been gendered male at least since the Odyssey, and the extent to which that's still true, and still a problem, now. "A manifesto" suggests more suggestions for action, along with the (interesting) examples of the problem, past and present. The book is short, and in two parts, based on lectures she gave in 2014 and 2017.

All Systems Red, by Martha Wells. On this year's Hugo ballot; the first-person story of a murderbot [sic], a part-organic construct that's supposed to act as a sort of guard. This one has hacked its governor module, and just wants to watch video dramas. Murderbot doesn't exactly like its humans, but dislikes them less than many other humans and wants to protect them. At one point, it observes that it doesn't like any real humans as much as the fictional ones, but if there were no real humans, there'd be no more entertainment programs. Good story, obviously room for a sequel (even if I didn't know the next one is coming out this spring).

At the moment I am most of the way through Eleanor Arnason's Hwarhath Stories, in hardcopy, and just started on a very odd book called S, by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst; the latter is a complex and slightly fragile artifact, which may slow my reading. Those are both library books. On the kindle I just started Le Guin's last nonfiction book, No Time to Lose, and have a variety of other things to keep me company on the bus to and from Montreal.

We have been to the self-storage place in Medford, and have a specific unit and a signed contract. That was annoying, not because of anything the storage company did—they were organized and helpful—but because of transit stuff. We didn't want to wait half an hour for one bus, so we took a different one, and got to wait half an hour there. And on the way back we were late for lunch, and had a plan, and then cattitude said "get off here" and then "no, really, we overshot" convincingly enough that we were off the bus before I clarified that we hadn't overshot, except that the app he was using had suddenly decided we wanted the 89 instead of the 90. *sigh* But we eventually got back to Davis Square and had smoked salmon crepes, and bought some plums at the farmers' market, and came home.

Then I did another round of book sorting. (The categories for now are "I want this in the apartment, given limited space there" and "I'm fine storing this for a while.") I continue to be surprised at how few books I'm putting into the first category; it's not just because Cattitude did a first pass while I was in Montreal, because he hadn't looked at the paperback shelves. Once I've gone through the rest of the hardcovers, and he's looked at those paperbacks, we may do a second round and add some things that we might read, or that we'd be okay storing because we can borrow them from the library if we want. It is very weird to be thinking "why do I own all these books?" I have read about sixty books this year, with significant rereading, but relatively little of that has been rereading my own physical copies of books (rather than borrowed books, library or ebooks, or purchased ebook copies of things I'd forgotten I owned).

I've been trying to spare my hands, in part by using pens and my keyboard less, for the last few weeks, and have read a lot of books (compared to my pattern over the last few years). Books finished since the beginning of June:

Lunar Activity, by Elizabeth Moon. Collection of short stories, which I read over several weeks during visits to adrian_turtle, because I tend to wake up before she does. Fun, some with a good sense of place,

A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers. This is a sequel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: it has some of the same warm emotional feeling, which I was looking for, but I don't think it was as good as the first book. There are two timelines, one starting right after the end of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet [spoilers for that book] ( spoilers for that book )

I enjoyed this, but I liked the first book better, in part because we get to spend more time with interesting aliens.

In the Labyrinth of Drakes and In the Sanctuary of Wings, by Marie Brennan: volumes 4 and 5 of Brennan's "Memoirs of Lady Trent" series, set in an alternate world that contains many species of dragons, and the relics of an ancient, lost "Draconean" civilization. I recommend these, but read them in order unless you don't care at all about spoilers, because it's a continuing narrative, though with natural break-points: each book is about a different major expedition, what was discovered, and the adventures along the way.

It's an odd sort of alternate world: the geography is visibly not that of Earth, but is very similar to it, as are the cultures: Scirland is very much based on Britain, the Akhians are desert nomads, and so on. These aren't presented as an alternate history—there's no divergence point along the lines of "what if Lincoln hadn't gone to the theatre that night?"—so I didn't find myself objecting to the "wrong" degree of similarity with our actual history, but I know different people's tolerance for that sort of thing varies. (If you can buy Novik's Napoleonic Wars with dragons, you'll probably like this series.)

I was a little disappointed by In the Labyrinth of Drakes because it felt as though there was more archeology and politics, and fewer dragons, than in the first three volumes of the series. In the Sanctuary of Wings gave me plenty of dragons and natural history, along with the politics. (There's politics throughout the series, and that's part of what I like about it; I just felt the proportions were a bit off in volume 4.)

Tremontaine, season 1, by Ellen Kushner et al. This is an episodic, because written for serialization, prequel to Kushner's Swordspoint. Each chapter is by a different author (though some people wrote more than one, nobody did two in a row). A lot of this takes place in and around the University (though we do see both Riverside and the Hill. If you liked Swordspoint, give this a try (N.B. Nobody here is as bloodthirsty as Alec).

Crocodile on the Sandbar and The Curse of the Pharaohs, by Elizabeth Peters: mysteries against a background of Egyptology, or maybe vice versa, set during the beginnings of archeology as a scholarly pursuit. Fun, relatively light fare, with detective plots I was satisfied by,and I gather her Egyptology is basically sound. (The main characters' relationship isn't one I can imagine being happy in, but I can believe that they are, and don't find it unpleasant to read about.) This is told as first-person narrative, by an Englishwoman who took up Egyptology, and then detection, more or less by chance.

Georgiana Darcy's Diary, by Anna Elliott: a "what might have happened next" fanfic set after the end of Pride and Prejudice. It's competent enough that I finished it, but not enough to make me want to read the next volumes, because the author (wisely) doesn't even try to pastiche Austen's narrative voice/style, and I'm not nearly invested enough in that book to otherwise care much about the doings of Darcy's sister and aunt, or Elizabeth Bennett's family. (I got this free via the web: a lot of what I've read in the last few weeks was either from the library, or free or low-cost "try one, maybe you'll get hooked" ebook offers.)

If Death Ever Slept, by Rex Stout. A Nero Wolfe mystery novel I don't remember having read before. It's from the mid-1950s, and well done (within the pattern of the series in general). Archie Goodwin's attitude toward women can be more than a little annoying, but there isn't too much on display here. (One reader's opinion, probably based in part on my mood a week ago, YMMV.)

Welcome to Bordertown, edited by Ellen Kushner and Holly Black. I found this because after reading Tremontaine I decided to ask the library what else it had by Kushner: it's a (relatively) new Bordertown anthology, set in the same world as the previous volumes (edited by Terri Windling). Bordertown has dealings with the human world as well as with Faerie; the book deals with the gap in real-world time since the previous books by having Bordertown cut off in the interim (under a version of Elf Hill) so when the border reopens the residents are dealing with new tech (what's a blog?) as well as people in the World looking for long-lost relatives.

Most recently read:

So You Want to Be a Wizard, by Diane Duane. The book starts with twelve-year-old Nita fleeing bullies, taking refuge in a library, and finding the eponymous manual in with a series of books about careers, like "So You Want to Be a Pilot."

The book is fast-paced, and good, and has a strong sense of place; Nita and her friend Kit look for a stolen pen, which plunges quickly into high-stakes adventure, with advice from older wizards and some local trees, ( cut for possible spoilers )

Thanks to whoever suggested I read this.

Up next: the sequel, Deep Wizardry.

Recent books (both borrowed from the library, and read while sitting under a cat):

Pocket Apocalypse, by Seanan McGuire
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, by Lois McMaster Bujold

I enjoyed both of these, and they are both part of ongoing series; neither is a good place to start.

The McGuire is part of her inCryptid series, involving over-the-top magical cryptozoology and the narrators' family's attempts to protect the cryptids from an organization that thinks all cryptids are dangerous and evil. This is I think the second with Alex Price as the viewpoint character/narrator; I'm not sure if the series is running out of steam, or if I just like the ones told by his older sister Verity better.

( possible spoilers for this and others in the series )

The Bujold is part of her Vorkosigan/Barrayar series, finally focusing on Cordelia again after umpteen books about her son Miles (though he does turn up unexpectedly, with Ekaterin and their children).

( cut for spoilers for previous books, just in case )

I saw a criticism of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen on the grounds that "nothing happens"; quite a bit happens, but it's true that there aren't many explosions. If you want a one-threat-after-another story, Pocket Apocalypse is more what you're looking for. I said above that neither is the place to start; in the case of the McGuire it's because you might be confused, and I think the Bujold relies more on the reader already knowing and being interested in the characters.

A few other people's posts that include "I am posting even though it feels like not much is going on" remind me that it's been ten days since I posted anything. The freelance stuff continues, today's most exciting moment was querying the kind of nail polish used (for a paper on medical applications of nanotech).

Recent reading, two books that are second in series where reading order does matter:

Prairie Fire, by E. K. Johnston. If I say more than "read this unless you need your dragons to be sympathetic, but read The Story of Owen first," there will be spoilers for that book, so have a cut tag.
( Read more... )

The Philosopher Kings, by Jo Walton. This starts ten years after the end of The Just City, and a lot of the chapters are from the viewpoint of Apollo's now-15-year-old daughter Arete. I recommend it highly, but read The Just City first. ( I think this needs a cut tag, too )

Having waited several weeks after it was published to buy this, I am now impatient for the third volume.

Recently read:

Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan. This is the third in a series of alternate-history and alternate-natural-history books about a woman who is fascinated by dragons, traveling around the world to study them. She has to put quite a bit of her energy into being allowed to do the work, and dealing with various sorts of scandal based on nothing she has done, just sexist assumptions and the desire for interesting gossip. "Widow travels with her son and studies dragons" isn't nearly as good gossip as assumptions that she has taken a lover. What actually goes on is quite enough material for a story or fifty, between exploration, dragons, and shipwrecks.

This volume had, it felt like, more politics, more musings on taxonomy and relatedness, and fewer actual dragons than the previous two. This time around she spends a lot of time on sea serpents (are they dragons?), is blocked from some other research by politics, and takes a side trip to see komodo dragons (the ones that exist in our world); and once she gets a good look at a komodo dragon she concludes that, name aside, those are not dragons, or especially interesting. Definitely a page-turner, but this is a series to read in order: volume 1 is A Natural History of Dragons: a memoir by Lady Trent.

This is a few weeks' worth at once, because I was staying at adrian_turtle's home two Wednesdays ago and in a hotel in New York last week.

Recently read:

The Housewife Assassin's Handbook, by Josie Brown. This is a weird, fast-moving mix of adventure story and romance. Not really "what it says on the tin," though the first-person narrator is a housewife and CIA assassin. I found this as a freebie for the kindle, and will likely read more of these if I remember before my next long plane trip.

Naked Came the Manatee, by Carl Hiaasen et al. This was also fast-moving, but oddly flat: I thought I was getting a Hiaasen novel, and what I actually got was a 13-chapter book in which each chapter was written by a different author. If you like that sort of thing, and like the Miami background, this might be the sort of thing you like.

Neptune Crossing, by Jeffrey A. Carver. This is good—a first-contact story set on Triton, about a former space pilot who was injured in an accident that cost him his ability to connect to the net and thus to be a pilot, and was left with other neurological issues. And then the alien contacts him, and won't let him tell anyone, at least not until they save the Earth.... This works as a stand-alone but is also the first in a series, and I will be reading more.

Terms of Service, by Irina Rempt. Secondary world fantasy, with actual gods getting involved in things, some people with magical talents, and two rival guilds devoted to specific gods, but with quite similar practices when they aren't attacking each other's members. There's also quite a bit of intrigue within the viewpoint character's guild. I found this one because the author is someone I'd known on alt.poly; it's been sitting untouched on my kindle for I don't know how long. (Creative commons licensed, so if you're interested and can't find it, leave me a comment here.)

A Stoop to a Rake, by A. J. Hall. Part of an ongoing set of fanfics based on the tv show Sherlock and the Bronte sisters' Gondal juvenilia, but I find it works despite not knowing either. Adrian and I have found that these stories work well for her to read aloud to me; I think we did the first half of this one in April.

Nine Hundred Grandmothers, by R. A. Lafferty. Reread of a short story collection; I'd say this is a good place to start with Lafferty's decidedly odd writing, which derives quite a bit from the tradition of tall tales, rather than high fantasy.

Currently reading:

Bryony and Roses, by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon). I started this today, and am enjoying it so far.