Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Recent reading:

Rex Stout, And Four to Go. I thought I'd read all the Nero Wolfe books, but I think this one was new to me. It's a collection of four novellas, none of them impressive. "Easter Parade" does odd things with Wolfe's orchid obsession, and contains some anti-Asian racism, what feels like a mix of Wolfe (and the author) being aware of how that racism affected a Chinese-American woman, and Archie's literal and straightforward use of "inscrutable." (Authors aren't responsible for the opinions of their characters, but sometimes it's hard to tell whether they share them.) An character's actions being with both Wolfe telling one character that he understands that she knew the police wouldn. There's one ("Fourth of July Picnic") that's more Wolfe-tricks-the-killer than usual one where he and Archie Goodwin figure out who did it, but learn the motive in Wolfe's usual meeting of all the suspects. "Christmas Party" is layers of deceit, including Goodwin and Wolfe lying to each other, but didn't quite work for me.

Steven Brust, Vallista. This is the fifteenth of the Vlad Taltos/Jhereg books, and not a good starting point—a lot of it assumes the reader knows who people are, and what happened in many of the previous books. The story starts when Devera finds Vlad and says something like "Uncle Vlad, help me" before vanishing, leaving him trying to figure out what's going on, how, and why, in a building that makes Escher's "Relativity" seem straightforward. (Slightly grumpy spoilers here: ( Read more... )

Brust has said there will be 17 of these, which leaves two after this, and I'm not sure where he's going to take it from here (which I think is a good sign).

Current reading:

The Glass Universe, by Dava Sobel
So Far So Good, by Ursula Le Guin

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.

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.

What are you reading now?

Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell. I'm about two pages into this, so all I can really say is that I like the narrative voice so far. Again, recommended by papersky and downloaded from Project Gutenberg

Liars and Outliers, by Bruce Schneier. Nonfiction about trust and security; again, I'm only a few pages in.

What did you recently finish reading?

The Spy Princess by Sherwood Smith. A fun story about an 11-year-old princess who gets tangled in rebellion> She spends a chunk of the story in a magical valley, but while it's a refuge, she and everyone else there is well aware of what's going on outside. [This has some implied spoilers for Smith's Inda tetralogy, but not sufficient that I would worry about reading it first.]

The Story of Julia Page by Kathleen Thompson Norris. This one was worth reading for the characterization, and for Norris's ability to keep surprising the reader. It's an early 20th century novel about a woman who grows up in a working class family with relatives who are mostly resigned to their circumstances, but manages to educate herself (in appropriate behavior more than the math/history/grammar sense), and marries a well-off doctor, and what happens afterward. Norris has a good eye for double standards and the limiting effects of sexism: realistically, the protagonist sees that it's unfair, but also sees that no men and few women will agree with her. She's also very much a woman of her time, thinking not that extramarital sex is no big deal, but that it's unfair that while such things are wrong for everyone, socially men get away with it and women don't. Note: there's some careless stereotyping of Chinese-American speech. I will probably read more Norris.

The '44 Vintage, by Anthony Price. This is one of a couple of dozen thrillers about the same characters, of which I have now read three or four; it's set the earliest, but I think was written relatively late. The viewpoint character is a British infantryman, sent to France in early 1944, and given "detached duties" after admitting to knowing German; from there, everything gets rapidly out of control, as many of his apparently comrades turn out to be untrustworthy, and almost everyone's motives are unclear.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Another Barrayar novel, with Miles (and the rest of the Vorkosigans) entirely offstage. Ivan Vorpatril is very much the same Ivan we've seen in previous books, trying to do well enough to satisfy and never well enough to get noticed. There's a romance tangled into an adventure novel here, but it's not the standard romance plot. It reminded me of John Dickson Carr's The Bride of Newgate, which also involves a hastily arranged wedding (to save the title character's inheritance, in that case) between two people who take for granted that they won't be married in any meaningful sense. Ivan and Tej both find her family somewhat overwhelming, but she does rather better with his mother than he does with hers.

This book is definitely better than Cryoburn; they overlap in time, and neither would be a spoiler for the other. I don't think I'd start with either.

I also read several short stories, one online, a few in back issues of Fantasy and Science Fiction when I had a couple of extra hours at the library, and about a third of an Elisabeth Vonarburg collection, while visiting Montreal last weekend.

What Do You Expect to Read Next?

Hallucinations, by Oliver Sacks, if I don't have to return it to the library too soon. I took out this and the Bujold at the same time, on two-week loan, and have another eight days for it. The Schneier book is the current hardcover/read at home book, and the Gaskell is the kindle book.

[meta: I'm doing these posts only in weeks when they wouldn't be "same as last week."]

The remark that airships are a sign of alternate history--and possibly that world-splitting generates them the way splitting uranium generates neutrons--has been around for at least a few years. Does anyone remember who first came up with it, or when? My vague memory suggests either Dave Langford or james_nicoll.

Also, can anyone think of an alternate history story with airships earlier than Leiber's "Catch That Zeppelin"?

[Edited to add important qualifier.]

New Scientist is talking about possibly anomalous physics, but tucked into the article we have an early instance of the field that Vernor Vinge has dubbed "software archeology." (It's under the "Volunteer programmer" subhead.)

I was going to write a lengthy post on Armageddon Rag, but it's been sitting half-formed for a couple of weeks, so I'm combining it with some shorter book notes:

Armageddon Rag, by George R. R. Martin, is rock and roll, and fantasy, and feels a lot darker than War for the Oaks. (That's not a comparison other people seem to be making, and it's not in the books themselves, but "rock and roll" and "fantasy" put together reminded me of the Emma Bull.) The fantasy stuff--visions and possible magic--is secondary to writing about rock and roll, and the power music can have, and what music meant to a generation of people slightly older than I am, as part of the whole collection of things that are shorthanded as "the Sixties."

Martin almost makes me believe in the Nazgul, an incredibly popular rock and roll band that never was; he does make me believe in Sandy Blair, and how powerful the dream of a reunion tour can be, and Larry Richmond, who played in a cover band because he so much loved the old band's music, and wanted to be Pat Hobbins, the musician he grew up worshipping, and the way people believe in magic, good and bad, and the power of music. Thanks to rysmiel for the recommendation. The book is full of snippets of music, mostly Sixties and early Seventies, epigraphs on the chapters and sometimes quoted in the text; the long list of acknowledgements at the front was handy for identifying things I didn't recognize or couldn't quite place. (Martin also uses a lot of Yeats, slightly rearranged as rock lyrics, but that's out of copyright.)

Martin doesn't quote "Do you believe in rock and roll/Can the music save your mortal soul?" but he doesn't need to. Another song not quoted also seems apropos, from a different piece of the musical tradition that I grew up with: "Which side are you on, boys? Which side are you on?" Sandy Blair runs into both those questions, and his answers make sense--not necessarily as "this is the way the world is" but as "this is what he would do."

Who Goes Here,, by Bob Shaw, is rather a romp: someone joins the Space Legion to forget, and then tries to find out what it is he wanted to forget. Everyone in the Space Legion has joined to forget, in many cases because they appear to believe that if they forget something, they can't get in trouble for it. The Space Legion has access to memory-erasing technology, which usually removes only the specifics that the person feels guilty about, and in his case has left him with no memory at all. There turns out to be an explanation for why he's called Warren Peace, but there are lots of silly names like that: the next character met is a Capt. Widget. In the course of trying to find out, Peace runs into a variety of mad inventions and inventors; Shaw is playing with cliches, like the mad scientist's beautiful daughter, but he doesn't ask us to take it more seriously than he does.

The Rebirth of Pan, by Jo Walton, is the unpublished novel she put online as part of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, with commentary beforehand. And yes, the parts from the POV of the widowed boat are excellent. I found the plot easier to follow as I went along, as the strands came together. I like the ending, both in the sense that it's well-written and fits what came before, and that I like the mood and expansiveness of the last couple of chapters.

Tripoint, by C. J. Cherryh. I borrowed this from adrian_turtle, at her suggestion, because we were discussing Cherryh and she thought I'd like this one. (I read Cyteen ages ago, liked it, and wasn't moved to continue, and the first of the atevi books, which I didn't care for.) The world-building is good (and I gather is part of a many-book thing). I found myself putting it down every few pages near the middle, and then realized this was because there were lots of characters I disliked and almost none I liked (though the protagonist is sympathetic, albeit not someone I'd have wanted to be around). Also, partway through, I was saying things like "God, those are dysfunctional family dynamics." Adrian pointed out that it fits the world-building, and that this is exactly what could happen in that sort of society if one high-status person was that kind of crazy. And then I went on, and it turned out there was more than one likeable character. I liked this; it's coming-of-age in a context that's sort of cousin to space opera.

I found this call for papers on Octavia Butler's work in nnaloh's blog.

This volume aims to bring together for the first time a comprehensive collection of critical essays on Butler’s writing. The anthology will combine previously published work that was influential in shaping much of feminist and – more recently – queer debates on Butler’s fiction with new scholarship engaging with Butler’s writing. Those approaches may involve readings of any of Butler’s works in terms of e.g. feminist theory, queer theory, science fiction studies, postcolonial theory, lesbian and gay studies, and critical race studies.

E-mail proposals for new articles as attachments to:
Patricia Melzer
Women’s Studies, Temple University
pmelzer@temple.edu
phone: 215.204.6953

Deadline for proposals (ca. 1000 words): March 30, 2007
Deadline for full manuscripts (ca. 8000 words): June 15, 2007

I suspect I'm the only person whose reaction to that "50 significant sf/fantasy books" list/meme is the increasing feeling that it's time I reread Dhalgren.

I am also wondering why Shiras's Children of the Atom is on there, since nobody is saying they've read it.