bluegargantua

Hey,

  I'm clearly off my reading feed.  It's been over a month but I've only got two books to talk about.  I'm hoping summer travel plans will give me some downtime to help catch up my pace.

  Anyway, first up we have Off Rock by Kieran Shea.  This was sold to me as a space heist book and I guess it is, but it's a bit more like "the gang that couldn't shoot straight" kind of deal.

  Jimmy Vik works as a miner and while running some clean-up jobs on a planet about to be abandoned by the company he works for, he uncovers a small seam of gold.  He can easily get it out, but smuggling it back to Earth will take some doing.  He'll need the help of the local fixer and he has to keep his ex-girlfriend (and now his boss) off his tail.  Things go delightfully wrong form the beginning.

  The book was fine, but I really wanted "slick heist story" not "fiasco" so I was a little put out.  Also, the action pretty much stays confined to the mining ship/base where Jimmy works.  It was all ok, but nothing terribly special.  Also, I'm a little concerned that Mr. Shea thinks he can write female characters but can't quite.  Bit of an "uncanny valley" that's hard to describe.

  Following this was The Sculpted Ship by K. M. O'Brien.  This is clearly a self-published book and could've used one more professional editing pass.  There aren't any glaring spelling/grammatical errors and it's pretty well put together but there are a few paragraphs that are heavy paraphrases of a preceding one, leading me to think that one of the paragraphs was from a previous revision.

  Despite those few stumbles, the book is pretty decent.  Anailu Xindar is a young starship engineer who strikes out on her own.  She purchases a rare starship for cheap because a number of parts are missing and then goes about setting up her business and discovering more about her ship in the process.

 I  mentioned elsewhere that this is a sub-genre that's almost unique in science fiction -- adventures in small business ownership.  In most cases (as with this one) it's all about owning/operating a small trading vessel, but there are a few other types where the whole story is about the day-to-day operations to keep things running.  There are larger events going on and the book clearly wants to be the start of a series with all the foreshadowing it drops, but for the most part this is the simple story of a small-time cargo hauler.  I can't think of many genres that have this sort of motif.  Obviously private detectives have their business to run, but we don't get into the minute of that, it's just a simple reason for them to get involved in mysteries.  I think there might be a link to Horatio Alger-type stories, but I find it interesting that we don't see this style in other types of writing very often if at all.  I'm now imagining a whole genre of modern-day fiction explicitly about the small business experience which serves as a bit of a blueprint for people getting started in something.

  Anyway, the book is soothing, but never really goes anywhere and there's a lot of prep work for a sequel I'm not sure we'll see.  If there is one, I might pick it up but I'm in no hurry.

later
Tom

Hey,

So the other day I finished up Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer. This is the sequel to last year's Too Like Lightning which I rather enjoyed. So I was really looking forward to this.

Unfortunately, I think the series finally succumbed to the issues I noted in my review on the previous book. The book is a history of seven fateful days that changed the course of a human utopia. It is also, a lengthy mediation and discussion of Enlightenment-era thinking and personalities. The problem, as I noted in the previous book, is that the world-building and technology on display in the book mean that you can't just shoehorn 18th Century thinking as the power-behind-the-throne as it does here. The book's world, it's plot, and it's philosophical discourses all work at cross-purposes to one another and eventually you finally have to start asking questions the book doesn't really want to answer.

Let me be clear -- there is an enormous value to reading and understanding historical patterns of thought. I love history and I love listening to the thinking of people of the past. It's why I really enjoy Lapham's Quarterly for example. No matter what Big Topic you're thinking about, someone in the past has probably already had thoughts similar to yours and articulated it better, just as someone else probably was more articulate in tearing down that idea.

But those thoughts also existed in a certain context and you can't just wholesale dump them into a new context and expect everything to run smoothly (and yet, you can't also just blandly claim that the new context invalidates all the thinking of the past).

Anyway, with this book, people make a number of decisions that just don't quite hold up under scrutiny (outside of their Enlightenment context...maybe) and a couple of them are actively being assholes, but somehow the other major players shrug their shoulders and let them get away with it.

I dunno, there's a lot of really neat stuff in this book, but it's just doesn't fit together. Also, there'll be yet another book in the series. To it's credit, the book does end at a decent(ish) stopping point, but I'm in no hurry to pick up the next book in the sequence.

later
Tom

Hey,

A couple years ago, I read The Incrementalists by Steven Brust and Skyler White. It was the story of a secret society of people who essentially lived forever by uploading themselves into the Jungian Collective and then downloading themselves into other people (it's not quite a creepy as it sounds). That connection to the Collective means that they are able to persuade an manipulate people with just a bit of research and after some spectacular failures to remake the world in their image, they work more quietly, in small increments to make the world a better place (hence, The Incrementalists). I thought it was an interesting book with a lot of fun concepts that were worth exploring more.

The second book, The Skill of Our Hands, has finally come out and I finished up reading it the other day.

This is a book that I think a lot of people will want to read. Especially if they're feeling overwhelmed by the political situation and wondering if there's anything they can do to help. There's a lot of great moments that touch on the questions around when and how and why we take actions to try and change things. The downside is that if you just jump into this book, there's quite a lot of interesting background/world-building that gets brushed over. They do explain things for new readers, but I remember reading the first book and thinking about all the interesting things their "magic" could do. It's not downplayed or ignored here, but it's not explored in quite the same way as the first book.

Now maybe this is ok, the story isn't about the background or kewl powers, it's about gifted people struggling to use their talents to help people and each other and the ways they get that right or wrong. So it's a bit odd. I think people should read this book, I think they should read The Incrementalists first, and I think that if they're only going to read one book, read this one. It really zeroes in on modern-day issues in a way that people will probably resonate to.

The short version of the plot is that Phil, one of the oldest Incrementalists, has been shot while trying to change immigration enforcement in Arizona. For Phil, that's not the worst thing that could happen, but it sort of throws the rest of the Incrementalists into a bit of a tizzy since no one's sure who killed Phil and they sort of need him around to move their projects forward. Things start fraying from there.

Oh -- the book has one of the most cheerful and positive portrayals of polyamory I've seen in a while.

Anyway, the series is pretty good and this book is the stand-out so far, so check it out.

later
Tom

Hey,

So the ad-hoc bookclub is reaching the end and people are beginning to talk about stuff so let's get some reviews out of the way.

We start with the ad hoc book club book for January, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. It was quite the best-seller in 2016 (and Oprah really liked it), so we decided to give it a whirl.

In the 1820's, Cora is a slave in Georgia. She's a bit of an outcast because her mother ran to freedom and Cora violently defends her only inheritance, a small garden plot, from another slave. Cora doesn't mind too much and lives in a shelter with other women deemed "not right". For the most part, Cora keeps her head down and when newcomer Caesar asks her to come with him in his own flight to freedom, she initially turns him down. When life on the plantation takes a decided turn for the worse, she changes her mind.

The book isn't strictly historical (I suspect that some of the events she encounters weren't from 1820 although they easily could be), but it only really stands out when you discover that the underground railroad is, in fact, an actual underground railroad that ferries people through the dark to new places. Cora and Caesar travel from Georgia to South Carolina and it seems to be a much better place, but the chains are simply gilded. Cora is forced to move on when Ridgeway, a professional slave catcher, shows up. Ridgeway failed to capture Cora's mother and so has a personal interest in returning her to her owner.

There follows a series of events as Cora moves from place to place, but the underlying theme is that there really isn't any safe place in America for black people. In fact, the ending is a tad ambiguous in that we never really find out Cora's fate, unlike many of the other less-fortunate characters in the book who often get their own small chapter explaining their fate or background.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty good book, although I'm much more fond of Lovecraft Country in terms of talking about America's racial problems. In part, because it covers a lot of interesting (to me) issues like how do we enjoy the creative products of racist assholes and in part because the protagonists of Lovecraft Country exhibit a lot of agency. Cora is mostly buffeted about by the winds of fate. Obviously, she makes the decision to run and she does take drastic actions at times to keep running, but it's always a snap decision and it's clear there are times where if she hadn't caught a lucky break, she would've been dragged back to the plantation or succumbed to her own misery.

All of this isn't the best for a strict narrative (we want our heroes to take decisive action and rally from setbacks), but it probably says something more truthful about slavery and those subjected to it. Maybe it should feel unsatisfactory and a little unfinished, since that's where racial issues are right now.

I will say that I was reminded that Colson Whitehead also wrote The Intuitionist about a black elevator inspector and that is a terribly misleading description for what was an amazing book. If you were in ad hoc and thought Underground Railroad was good, you'll definitely want to read The Intuitionist.

Next, a youtube video brought The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. The two political scientist distill their research into how and why leaders make the decisions they do. Like many of these books, the answer is one that took them 18 years to work out and most of us would simply cynically spout off -- leaders want to gain power and then stay in power and everything else they do arises out of that.

In particular, leaders have essential supporters who must be kept happy or they won't support the leader and then the leader won't be leader any more. In non-democratic societies, this is usually a small circle of nobility, family or tribal members, economic or military leaders, or some other small but important group. The upshot is that the leader will only do what it takes to make them happy and no one else (since the members of his small circle can crack down on any dissent). Conversely, in democracies, a politician has a large number of essential supporters (i.e. voters) and to keep them happy, a leader has to support a lot of public goods (police and fire, clean water, good schools, etc.). If he can't keep enough voters happy, he gets kicked out.

This is all well and good, but like a lot of soft sciences, they provide some simple theoretical examples and then proceed to apply the concepts to everything without accounting for the complexities of the real world. In particular, they claim that leader's can't really pursue any policies that don't keep them in power (i.e. that don't cater to their core supporters). However, a leader can use their power to convince their supporters that a pet project of the leader (a war, a change in taxes, an environmental policy, etc.) is something good for their supporters and then they can do what they want because they've convinced their supporters it's what they want too.

They advocate democracies because having a large group of essential supporters forces leaders to help out as many people as they can, but they also acknowledge that leaders want to reduce that group of essential supporters. In fact, the very first real-world case study they open the book with is about how a democratically elected group of town directors reduced their essential supporters to a small block of voters and proceeded to write themselves huge, fat, legal checks. When they talk about ways to increase essential supporter sizes, they don't really talk about how to incentivize leaders to keep increasing that group of essential supporters. Though they do talk about gerrymandering and abolishing the Electoral Collage -- there's not a lot of discussion on how to convince the people who got where they are thanks to those things to give up their winning ticket.

Likewise, they discuss how corporate governance could be improved by using the internet to connect small shareholders and organize them in to a large voting block. The problem is that many corporations are set up so that the essential supporters hold a majority share. The other problem is that most people don't own stocks to run a business, they own it as an asset they hope to see grow over time. There are activist investors who rail against overpaid CEOs and bad business practices and the like, but can they reach and organize every small investor to build a commanding block? I'm not saying they can't, but again, it doesn't seem likely. Mostly it just seems like they're short on answers.

The book is, however, an intriguing lens in which to view the recent elections. Sanders didn't rely on big donors and Trump self-funded a fair chunk (and wasn't terribly beholden to traditional political backers in the first place). Both platforms also directly told voters to ask establishment politicians "what have you done for me lately?" and if they didn't like the answers....

I hope someone else reads this book so I can discuss/argue about it with them. I seem to have a lot of criticisms, but I think that just means they present an interesting case that deserves reading and discussion.

later
Tom

Hey,

Unless I get real ambitious these are probably the final reviews of the year.

First up: Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Mr. Tchaikovsky is best known for this "Shadows of the Apt" series, a fantasy novel in which various groups of humans gain special powers related to their insect totems. It was a fun series, but I kinda lost interest and stopped after a few. Spiderlight is a stand-alone fantasy novel that mostly plays with the tropes.

Nth is a giant spider, one of the multitudes that infest the Mirkwood forest. As the book opens the forest is being invaded by a small band of humans. No trouble except whoops, these are adventurers and they've got a pyromaniac wizard to boot. The spiders rally to defend their Mother, but can't stand against the Forces of Light. But they stop short. They're on a quest, there's a prophecy what needs fulfilling and a spider's tooth and a spider's knowledge are what's required.

To save her children, Mother gives up a venom-filled fang and offers to let them have Nth, into whom, she's implanted the memories the group needs. So now, Nth is an eight-legged member of the party. Hrm...a bit conspicuous that. Luckily, the wizard has an Idea.

The book is fun. It skewers stereotypes and has a bit of fun with the black and white morality of fantasy worlds. If you've read any fantasy at all, you'll probably catch various bits and gags. Luckily, there's still an actual story going on so it doesn't slide into that "forced funny" that a number of parody books suffer from.

Next up: After the Crown by K B Wagers. This is the second in her Indranan War series (the first being Behind the Throne I reviewed a few months ago). The story follows Hail Bristol, former princess, ex-gunrunner, and current Indranan Empress. She inherited a lot of problems when she gained the throne and one of them is a shadow war by a neighboring empire. Hail leads a negotiation team to try and work things out, but, surprise it's a trap and there's a coup on.

The book was fine, but it follows very closely on the events of the first book and since (spoiler alert) a few people die in that book, you've got new staff and half-remembered pre-existing dudes so...it was a little tough to follow in spots. Still, we get to see Hail be a bit more proactive in this book so that's nice. Unlike the first book, there is definitely no real resolution in this book (wait for book three!) so that knocks it back a bit. I'm not 100$ sure I'll buy into the final book of the series, but it continues to be some light, fast reading.

later
Tom

Hey,

Cripes, I've been falling behind on this.

So I christened the month Non-fiction November and that's been pretty much all I read this month. So let's talk about them.

First up is: What to Do When I Get Stupid by Lewis Mandell. This is a book focusing on retirement finances. Basically, Mandell's argument is that our cognitive abilities are going to start slipping when we get older and that opens us up to making bad financial decisions and/or getting swindled by crooks. Therefore, we should try and figure out a good way to protect our retirement savings mostly from ourselves.

His basic recommendations are two-fold -- a fully paid-off, age-in-place home and the use of annuities to provide a steady income stream that can't easily be undone. An annuity is essentially a pension. You give the annuity company a large lump sum and it starts paying out monthly returns. When you die, the company gets to keep the rest of the money. Obviously some of this depends on your family history, but I have some fairly long-lived family members so it's not too much of a stretch to think that I might need something like that. The big upside here is that once you buy the annuity, that large lump some of retirement cash is, effectively, gone. You can't be swindled out of that money, you spent it. You could still get scammed on the income stream, but the prize won't be as big and Mandell even includes some suggestions for how you can enlist the aid of others to track your mental acuity and raise a flag if necessary.

I liked the book, it was well laid-out and Mandell describes how annuities work and the kinds you want and the kinds you want to avoid. My only complaint is that this advice is most useful just as you're about to retire. When you call in that 401(k) or whatever and have a huge some of money, you'll want to channel it into annuities. What I was hoping for was more advice on things to do now in the 40s-60s so that retirement fund is as large as possible (get a higher-paying job, don't spend any money, I know, I know). Still, I think there's a lot of good advice here and well worth looking into. Especially if you have loved ones approaching retirement.

Next up: Roll Call to Destiny: The Soldier's Eye View of Civil War Battles by Brent Nosworthy. Yup, my slide into Civil War buff-ism continues apace. Here, Mr. Nosworthy looks at the technology and tactics of the Civil War and marries it to first-hand accounts of various battles to show how all of it evolved during the course of the conflict. By way of example: it's true that by the Civil War many units started receiving rifled muskets and given their increased range and accuracy, you'd expect increased casualties. Indeed, there was a line of thought that suggested warfare would move towards more of a fire-team situation like you see in modern warfare vs. the old standard of massed firing lines. The catch is that the early rifles were pretty fidgety and to get that increased accuracy and range you had to be well trained and you lost a lot of time. In the dense terrain of Civil War battlefields, an enemy was likely to appear on the run at very close range so mostly the untrained recruits just fired as fast as you could -- which brings you back to massed lines of volley fire. What this meant is that casualties from weapons fire was often surprisingly low during the Civil War.

So the book tries to show how theory and practice met in the crucible of war and in the process you get some great stories from battles both large and small. The other thing that really stands out when you read the book is just how blind field commanders were. You had no communications other than messengers on foot or horseback. You couldn't get a sense of how the battle was going unless you had a high vantage point to overlook the field. A great number of battles could have gone the other way had one of half a dozen small things happened -- a message arriving in time, an accurate assessment of enemy strength or position, or even knowing where friendly units were. It also underscored how miserable soldering was at that time. Lots of night marches in freezing weather get mentioned.

I enjoyed it but clearly it's a specialist subject.

Next, I finished up: The Uskoks of Senj by Catherine Wendy Bracewell. The Uskoks were sort of an ad hoc anti-Ottoman force retained by the Holy Roman Empire. Using banditry and piracy, the Uskoks fanned out along the Adriatic and into the Balkans and stuck it to the Turk...and the Venetians who traded with the Ottomans and who's agreements with them made the Venetians responsible for the Uskok's actions.

This particular book appears to be one of those academic papers repurposed for publication. The Uskoks are an interesting group of people, they (or their fictional analogs) appeared in Children of Sea and Sky which I rather enjoyed. While this book offers quite a lot of factual detail regarding the Uskoks and where they came from and how they evolved over time, there was a lot missing here. There were major raids and military actions that get a clinical or abbreviated description. I was expecting a bit more of "this is what a typical raid looked like" or "here's the story of one of the bandit chiefs" but it was a bit more anodyne than that. Not a disappointment, but a very dry read.

Finally, I just finished up The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West by Peter Cozzens. The book covers the period from late 1860's to the mid 1880's when western expansion pretty much drove the Native Americans onto reservations. It's a sad and fascinating book and quite relevant given the protests at Standing Rock. What's especially heart-breaking is that there are plenty of people, many of them military officers, who are fully cognizant of the various injustices heaped upon the Native Americans who really try to improve things and they constantly get steam-rolled by corrupt government officials and/or business concerns. Divisions between and within Native American tribes meant that even those who tried to work with the government in good faith often got lumped in with "bad actors" and suffered for the atrocities of others.

The book is well-illustrated with maps showing the various campaigns. It ends just a tad abruptly, I think it could've used a bit of an epilogue but overall, it was an interesting, if somewhat depressing read.

So that was non-fiction November
Tom

Hey,

Some books take a while to read and somme you burn right through.

First up The War at the End of the World by Mario Vegas Llosa. We read this book Discreet Heroes a while back and looking through his other works I came across this. It's a fictional account of a very real event in Brazilian history -- The War of Canudos. A wandering mystic gathers a small band of followers and eventually they take over a small town. Soon the poor and desperate are flocking to the settlement and building it out. Local authorities try to drive them out but the villagers hang on leading to repeated/larger attempts until finally the central government sends out an army to starve out the villagers and then raze the settlement to the ground.

Llosa's book is a fictionalized account of that battle although we do see a number of the main historical persons involved and the events in main are generally historically accurate. The book switches between multiple viewpoints showing how various people came to live at Canudos or the people opposed to them. The story kind of sprawls a bit, but there's a lot to cover. Also, I'm not convinced Llosa has a good handle on female characters, but there's possibly a cultural lens I'm not using.

I don't know if this is a great book, but I'm not unhappy I read it (though I did struggle to get through it).

Next up, a shorter book that I blew through much faster, but mostly because I've been a big fan of the series. The Fall of the House of Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard is the fifth book in the Johannes Cabal series of books. Johannes Cabal is a gentleman and a necromancer and he's been applying the scientific method to the black arts in an attempt to revive a lost loved one. This book doesn't exactly end the series, but does ties off a number of loose ends from previous books and short stories. You could try to just jump in with this book, but you'd lose a lot of enjoyment. The series as a whole has been pretty great so if you haven't been following this series, grab Johannes Cabal: Necromancer and get started.

Once you work your way up to this book you'll know what to expect: lots of great dialog and humor and one of the more interesting characters in magical steampunk literature (and just a great character in general). Following up on a clue from the previous book, Johannes and his vampire brother Horst must assemble a team to plumb the depths of metaphorical realms in a bid to achieve their heart's desire. There follows a number of adventures in which our heroes face uncomfortable truths about themselves and kill Satan (well, the new Satan not the one you're thinking of).

I've always loved this series and the writing continues to be strong. I can't get enough of Johannes so I hope a new cycle starts up soon.

and that's what I've read lately
Tom

Hey,

Maybe don't let weeks go by without discussing what you've read.

In that vein, I'm going to talk about The North Water by Ian McGuire. This is a short, punchy book where the journey is worth more than the destination.

It's the mid-1800's and Patrick Sumner, disgraced British Army surgeon, has signed on to the Volunteer, a whaling vessel headed for the arctic. Also on board is Henry Drax, harpooner and sociopath. Pretty much everyone else on board has a secret or two and it's going to be a long, cold, voyage.

There's nothing extraordinary about the characters, dialoge, or plot, but the descriptive writing is so damn good. It's fun to read in your head, it's fun to say aloud, it's got mysterious new words to look up, it never slides into purple prose. It's just really good reading. It's not my usual thing, but I'm glad I picked it up. Plus, unlike most whaling novels I can think of, this one clips along and would make for great afternoon reading.

Fair warning, it's just a bunch of guys (mostly white) and there's a fair amount of (exquisitely described) violence, but if that doesn't bug you, it's worth a look.

later
Tom

Hey,

Sooo...long time no review. Quite a queue of books to get through.

First up The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz and translated by Elisabeth Jaquette. It's a sort of Middle East dystopia book. In an unnamed country, a revolution has failed and the authorities have set up The Gate, a building where people have to go in order to get various Byzantine paperwork filled out. But the gate to the Gate never opens and so a vast line of people are backed up along it. Among them is Yehia, a former student protester who needs some paperwork filled out so he can get surgery to have a bullet removed. Of course, officially, the government never used any bullets on the protesters so...

The book was intersting but I'm not sure if the writing style appeals or if the translation was a little off. The prose felt a bit stiff and the story circled a bit and never really went anywhere. Perhaps that's a deliberate stylistic choice or perhaps it's a more familiar narrative structure in the region. It could be a little hard to get into the characters as real people when the government's surreal activities kind of draws the eye. Still, there were some neat bits in the story. I particularly liked the idea that people had been in the line so long that social customs had grown up and if you made even a token effort to be nice to the people next to you in line, then you could leave the line and resume your place when you wanted. Standing in line became, in effect, a second job. So characters aren't locked to the queue even though they spend much of their time there. I'm not sure I'd recommend this, but I'm not unhappy I read it.

After that we have Los Nefilim by T. Frohock. This is a collected set of a trilogy of short stories in one convenient book. The novel is set in late 1930's Spain just prior to the Civil War. Diago is a Nephilim, the child of an angel and a demon and desperately trying to avoid getting sucked into their battles. Most Nephilim have an angelic or demonic parent and serve as proxy foot soldiers for them. Diago's lover Miquel works for the angels, but he tries to stay out of it.

That all changes when he discovers that he has a son and that he's being sacrificed to the demon Moloch in exchange for the concept of an atomic bomb. Things kinda escalate from there.

Despite the divine-level powers these guys work for, the magic stays strong but not overpowering. The Nephilim really do deal with most of the day-to-day "real world" stuff while the angels and demons are more abstarcted (though they do take forms on Earth).

By the way -- the title immediately brought to mind the old Nephilim role-playing game from the 90's and while I enjoyed it the back-story was so arcane (in reality the Nephilim are basically dinosaur energy farts or somesuch) that it was hard to formulate adventure plots. Now I'd be completely ready to run a game so long as I used this book's setting wholesale. Putting the PCs to work under an angel or demon and then layer on their own hopes and ideal would be a fun story soup to stir.

Back to the book. I liked it. The story moved along briskly, the characters were interesting and the plot was solid. It's cheap on the Kindle and worth picking up for some supernatural/historical fiction.

There was a bit of a gap until the next Kindle book I wanted so I decided to tackle some non-fiction I'd picked up in dead tree format back in May. You may remember me reading about the American Civil War last year and this year I wanted to focus on a particular campaign so I was pleased to see a nice used copy of Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign by Peter Cozzens. Basically in the spring of 1862, Jackson's small army tied up several larger units of Federal troopers in the Shenandoah Valley and scored decisive victories in several engagements. The book discusses the campaign and tries to show how and why Jackson succeeded.

The short answer is that while Jackson was a pretty competent (if fanatically secretive) commander, he won mostly because he had full discretion to give whatever orders he wanted whereas his opponents were often hobbled by order from up the chain of command (sometimes as high as the White House). Jackson also seemed to be ready to put up a fight at any time though he also knew when to pick that fight, while his opponents often lost their nerve.

The big takeaway from this book is that life as a Civil War soldier sucked hard. The men are constantly away from their baggage trains so they don't have tents or camping gear. They were often barefoot or without coats during late spring storms. Having enough beans and bullets was a real issue and whole battalions would quit battle simply because they didn't have any more bullets to shoot. There are plenty of letters, journals and diaries where each side gets to grouse about the conditions.

Clearly it's a bit of a specialist subject, but I did enjoy the book and it's a solid source of info on one of the more celebrated campaigns of the Civil War.

Finally, this morning I finished up White Elephants by Katie Haegele. It's mostly a memoir about a young woman going to various yard sales/garage aales over several summers with her mother and what the various objects mean to her. It was...charming but a bit flat. I suppose I'm old so a lot of her navel gazing doesn't seem particularly interesting to me, but it had it's moments.

later
Tom

Hey,

So I read/listened to more books.

First up, I listed to We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea by Arthur Ransome. This is the 7th in the Swallows and Amazons series about British children having outdoors-y holiday adventures. I'm completely in the tank for this series so you can assume I enjoyed it.

This time around, the children are on holiday in Harwich awaiting the return of their father, a naval commander. With a few days to kill they fall in with a young man who agrees to let them help crew his boat on a simple voyage around the harbor and rivers that flow into it. Because they need to stick close in case Father returns home early, the children and their babysitter promise not to leave the safety of the harbor for the open sea.

There's a series of unfortunate events and...yeah, the kids go out to sea on their own.

So I did like this book, but it suffered a bit because usually the kids have some self-directed idea about what they want to do and they go do it. In this case, there's an accident and things are forced on them. As always, they rise to the occasion with pluck and spirit but I'm a little sad it wasn't an imaginative play-adventure for them. Still, we get to see Father for the first time and get to know him a bit better so that's nice.

Fun series, well worth it for kids and adults alike.

Next up is Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. It's a sci-fi book written by Mycroft Canner a Servicer living the 25th Century. A servicer is a convicted criminal who is stripped of all rights and serves at the whim of the public for his sustenance. He is also deeply enamoured of the 18th Century and the Age of Reason and his writing reflects that style. This causes a bit of tension because in the future, gender has been smoothed out and gendered pronouns are Just Not Done. He apologizes to the reader (because of course in the 18th Century style, he addresses himself to the reader), but after defending his choice to use gendered pronouns promptly assigns those pronouns to people based on how he perceives their gender not on what it actually is. Which leads to a few amusing surprises when you realize the "she" has a beard. Shades of Ancillary Justice and well done.

So Mycroft has done some terrible things, but he's too valuable to simply execute and as a result all the major power-players in this future world have need of him. The person who needs him most, however, is Bridger, a young boy who has the power to magically bring any toy or representation to life. He draws pictures of food and makes it real. He's protected by toy soldiers who remember a vivid past fighting their green/yellow foes and are fiercely devoted to Bridger even in this strange new world of giants.

All of this is miraculous and miracles are expressly verboten. After the last War of Religion that re-shaped the world's structure into the form we see in the book, you keep your thoughts on religion (or non-religion) to your own damn self. And if you want to talk to someone, you talk to a sensayer -- a sort of all purpose chaplin/psychiatrist who is trained to debate the divine with you -- in private.

Carlyle has been sent to the home of the Saneer-Weeksbooth family where he accidentally encounters Mycroft, Bridger and Thisbe Sanner-Weeksbooth trying to clean up a magical problem. Things escalate from there.

So this book was written by a history professor who's using sci-fi to re-examine hot issues from the Age of Enlightenment to see how they may apply to our present-day concerns. It's an interesting application of sci-fi and it's a pretty interesting read. The future Ms. Palmer envisions doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, but those aren't the questions she wants you to ask and the world-building is sufficient to stop you from asking them.

Instead, she wants to point you towards great thinkers of the Enlightenment and the things that were important to them. Mycroft's affection for the period is shared by a number of others and that allows these themes to get woven through the story without being too badly lamp-shaded.

Although Mycroft intends to recount a momentous week in Earth's history, the book only covers the first seven days so...sequel. However it does seem clear that the book is driving towards a conclusion in that second book. Overall, I found it an interesting and thought-provoking read and it's worth checking out.

later
Tom