Fourth Quarter 2021 Reading

[polishgenius]

Perhaps The Stars, the fourth and last book in Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota, came out today, so I'm reading that.

[Starkess]

I started listening to Rachel Maddow's Blowout. I'm not a huge nonfiction person usually, and definitely not for audiobooks, but I figured she'd be entertaining enough to give it a try. Plus now that marathon training is over, I'm mostly listening while walking rather than running, so I don't need to be as distracted. I'm only a couple chapters in but it's pretty interesting, if not particularly groundbreaking.

Still only one chapter into reading Project Hail Mary, but maybe this weekend I'll spend some time with it.

[Zorral]

https://www.nytimes.com/section/books

In observance of 125 years of the New York Times Book Review it is putting up all sorts of interesting pieces from the Book Review's Archive, almost all of them first looks at books we have come to know so well, including genre fiction from mysteries to sf/f -- the latter has a review of Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World, which isn't liked as much as the Sherlock tales. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/books/arthur-conan-doyle-the-lost-world.html

The review of Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence -- 1920 -- is a priceless example of complacency and self-satisfaction that classically has been characterized as a book reviewer-critic!    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/books/review-the-age-of-innocence-edith-wharto.html?searchResultPosition=1

My caveat is that all the selections, or nearly all of them, are fiction of one sort or another.  The NYT reviewed at least a many non-fiction works of 125 years.

It's quite an entertaining browse and distraction while waiting for the oven time to ding or constantly checking the progress of a pot of pinto beans. 

 

 

[Wilbur]

I picked up a copy of Howard Waldrop's Them Bones in Prescott last weekend and finished it tonight.  Waldrop is a terrific writer with a very odd sense of reality, and in this book he posits a world in the grip of World War III sending time travelers back to try and fix the problems that started the war.  Except the time traveling machine isn't correctly aimed, so various travelers end up in a pre-Columbian age.

The book follows three narratives, including a single scout time traveler, a military company of time travelers, and a 1930s-era group of archeologists.  In the final climax, the book describes a healthy bit of the escape-and-chase scene from the 2006 movie Apocalypto (a fantastic film, by the way).  I had to check IMDB to see if he got a story credit.

Both that film and the book end with a surprising revelation of the "Oh shit, we are all screwed, and all our efforts were for nothing" type.  The twist in the tail of the final scene for book and movie are different, but both work well.  In this tale, man's inability to escape his self-inflicted wounds works its way through several different story threads to culminate in a thematically true ending.

I particularly liked the treatment of the Mound Builder Native Americans in this book.  The characters in this group are well-rounded, living and breathing individuals, and I cared very much what happened to them.  Also, the funniest character in the book, and the one who has the most empathy, agency, and interest is a Mound Builder.

I wouldn't suggest that Them Bones is the first Waldrop story anyone should read, but it is a good one.  Maybe give a try to Night of the Cooters or The Ugly Chickens as a first Waldrop experience.

[Ser Drewy]

Having a very Vampiric 'spooky month'. Reread Dracula and I think it holds up pretty well, although nothing is quite as good as the incredible opening segment of Harker at Dracula's castle. I also liked my reread of 'Salem's Lot, it actually has a pretty solid ending which isn't always a given with King. Starting good ol' GRRM's Fevre Dream today. 

I also finished up my reread of The Silmarillion before I get the new Nature of Middle-Earth. It's an amazing book, incredibly written with outstanding imagery and imagination. Might just be the season, but I'm curious about Beren's terrible journey through the Dungortheb, seems like a great setting for horror. Tolkien's implications are shudder-worthy. 

I'm also wrapping up Half of a Yellow Sun. Really interesting and sad book although I'm not too familiar with the Biafran War beyond a few basics. Adichie is a very strong writer of character though. 

[Maia]

Is it already The Fourth Quarter?!! How the time flies... Anyway, most of this stuff is from the previous quarter, but since I didn't manage to post then:

I had a chance to read some of SF "cult classics" from a few decades ago that I have been hearing about off and on:

The Kencyrath series by P.C. Hodgell that began with God Stalk in 1982 and continues to this day (11 books with 2 remaining). It is really unique in my experience in that it moves seamlessly between a somewhat grounded secondary world fantasy and weird psychedelic fantasy/horror. However, there is a method to this madness that eventually emerges. I fully understand it's cult status and liked it a lot. Pretty interesting how it first introduced certain ideas that later cropped up in certain massively popular series. I really liked it on the whole, even though the author seems a bit too much in love with her protagonist. Here is to hoping that she manages a worthy conclusion. 

Growing up Weightless and Princes of the Air by John M. Ford. Big disappointments. I just don't understand what the people saw in them? At least in the former there are a lot of interesting hints around the boring and frankly unconvincing main narrative, which never get sufficiently explored. But everything directly connected with the protagonist makes no sense, IMHO. Not his place in the setting, not his relationships, nor the eventual resolution. But the latter book doesn't even have that.

City of Diamond and the Ivory trilogy by Janet Emerson/Doris Egan. It is too bad that that there won't ever be a continuation to the first one, it is really intriguing. As to the trilogy, it is an alright science fantasy adventure.

The Serpent's Egg by Caroline Stevemer. It is an OK secondary world fantasy, though the magical subplot could have been excised without any change to the main narrative. The author has much better books.

And now an eclectic spate of the newer stuff:

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. It had it's moments and moved briskly, but I had some serious reservations about it:

There were far too many idiot balls, and the twist doesn't make up for them.

Spoiler

I.e.: they knew that the crew's brains might get scrambled by the multi-year coma, but didn't bother to include any explanation/refresher briefings?!!! They knew that the team would need to obtain samples from the planet, but didn't provide any means to do so?!!! They only gave the crew supplies for a very few weeks at the target?!!! I mean, even after the tipping point something of humanity still could have been saved, if the team had enough time to fulfill their mission. And finally, after comitting so many resources to the project, they only trained 2 potential crews?!     

The protagonist does far too much of explaining things to people who should have already known them, particularly women.

Also, the protagonist isn't believable as a  scientist - he is not at all curious beyond his immediate goal/predicament, he doesn't document things, etc. He is just another passionate tinkerer, like Mark Watney. 

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey. I really disliked this one. An unpleasant and highly incompetent protagonist marinating in self-pity, the setting that attempts to be in a dialogue with "Harry Potter", but makes even less sense despite it being a book for adults, useless magic  (I hated this in the Magicians, too), etc. And I had such high hopes for it, too.

Questland by Carrie Vaughn. What is this even about? The dangers of LARPing?! Loser boyfriends? ARGH! And I really liked Kitty Norville books, too.

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik. I liked it, although these alleged mortality numbers for magical kids versus 1-2 children families continue to be absurd and jarring. Also, it is painfully obvious that the cliffhanger is just there for show and it is a foregone conclusion how it will be resolved. I am much more interested in how the larger issues are going to be dealt with. Personally, I liked the changes in the protagonist's situation, ditto all the additional info. Now it all has to lead to something interesting in the final volume to stick the landing.

[dog-days]

Finished listening to Masada by Professor Jodi Magness. It was interesting, but - and this effect was perhaps exaggerated by the medium - fragmented. I went into it expecting a book about Masada, and while the site and siege were central, the author hopped around a lot. So the book took in Jerusalem in the time of the Maccabees, and in the time of Pilate, and in the time of Herod Agrippa. (I was exposed to I Claudius young, and still imagine the grandson of Herod the Great looking like James Faulkner in a wig...). Perhaps in consequence of the broad focus, the book, though 312 pages in paperback, felt somehow slight. The detail that most stood out to me was that the dried foods discovered still on Masada - having survived two thousand years due to the dry heat - would have been full of parasites and larvae.  I found myself hoping that this was due to stressors such as the siege, and not just a sign of the general state of preserved food in the ancient world. The people then really had enough problems without finding beetles in every amphora! 

I hadn't realised quite how sparse written sources were for the first Jewish-Roman war. It effectively seems to come down to a choice between Josephus, Josephus and Josephus.

I think I would enjoy a literary-sociological-historical book that enlarged on Magness's discussion of the role of Masada in modern Israel, and went into greater detail regarding Yigael Yavin's excavations of the site - with perhaps a more critical eye. Magness was a pupil of Yavin for a while, and she makes no effort to deny that she's still in awe of him. 

[ljkeane]

On 10/23/2021 at 8:01 PM, Maia said:

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. It had it's moments and moved briskly, but I had some serious reservations about it:

 

There were far too many idiot balls, and the twist doesn't make up for them.

  Hide contents

I.e.: they knew that the crew's brains might get scrambled by the multi-year coma, but didn't bother to include any explanation/refresher briefings?!!! They knew that the team would need to obtain samples from the planet, but didn't provide any means to do so?!!! They only gave the crew supplies for a very few weeks at the target?!!! I mean, even after the tipping point something of humanity still could have been saved, if the team had enough time to fulfill their mission. And finally, after comitting so many resources to the project, they only trained 2 potential crews?!     

 

I had similar issues with this one.

Spoiler

I don't mind the basic premise of scientist sets out to save Earth from magic space microbe, meets an alien and they solve things but I had a few too many issues with how the book went.

In particular the taking samples from the planet bit went a fair way beyond my capacity to suspend disbelief. Firstly of course they were going to have to take samples from the planet, why didn't they have any way to do that? After that I'm pretty dubious about them making a 10 km long chain in a three room spacecraft, the whole bouncing the space ship along the atmosphere bit seems unlikely and they couldn't design a winch which could be turned on and off from inside?

Next up I'm reading Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King. I bought this a while ago when I saw it on offer on Amazon but to be honest I'm a little dubious about it given Stephen King's not had the best track record for a few decades and authors writing books with their kids doesn't really inspire confidence. Still, I might as well read it at some point and the week before Halloween does feel appropriate.

[Peadar]

I'm reading Twenty Five to Life by R.W.W. Greene, a sort of slow-apocalypse road trip.

[dog-days]

Just realised there's a new Penric and Desdemona novella out called Knot of Shadows - that's going to make the first part of the next few days full of bus journeys more fun. Am stocking up on stuff to read to keep me occupied so I don't worry about missing the main connection due to floods, tractors, sheep etc. 

[Kyll.Ing.]

On 10/23/2021 at 9:01 PM, Maia said:

here were far too many idiot balls, and the twist doesn't make up for them.

  Hide contents

I.e.: they knew that the crew's brains might get scrambled by the multi-year coma, but didn't bother to include any explanation/refresher briefings?!!! They knew that the team would need to obtain samples from the planet, but didn't provide any means to do so?!!! They only gave the crew supplies for a very few weeks at the target?!!! I mean, even after the tipping point something of humanity still could have been saved, if the team had enough time to fulfill their mission. And finally, after comitting so many resources to the project, they only trained 2 potential crews?!     

 

I think you (and @ljkeane) might have misread parts of the book. Answers in spoilers because spoilers:

Spoiler

The only reason why a crewman's brains were scrambled was because he was stuffed full of amnesia-inducing interrogation drugs before departure, against his will. The other crewmembers "merely" died of life support failure. At any rate, no brain scrambling was intended to happen.

It also wasn't clear that there was a planet to obtain samples from. The main character (whose name momentarily escapes me) discovers it and names it, after all. One would think the planet would have had a name if it was included in the mission parameters. The way I understood it, the scientists didn't know there was a planet there in the first place.

I also think the spaceship was severely mass-restricted, hence the lack of supplies. Every kg of payload adds quite a bit of required fuel, after all. Everything really was winged together in the nick of time, with a small pool of eligible candidates and limited capability to manufacture fuel, hence the lack of flexibility and the lack of backup. Although, it's kinda strange that they didn't just continue building and sending new ships with more crew. It was a suicide mission they had plenty of volunteers for, after all. Then again, maybe they did, and that the main character simply never learned about all the ships in transit towards Tau Ceti while he was doing his things.

Also, the "bouncing along the amosphere" trick is fairly straightforward. It's just an elliptical orbit whose periapsis dips into the atmosphere. You run into "atmosphere bouncing" all the time if you play Kerbal Space Program. It happens when you enter the atmosphere at so high speeds you go around the earth and up again on the other side, and the atmosphere isn't thick enough to slow you down entirely. Of course, each passing orbit will slow you down a little more until you don't have enough speed to make it back up, but if you can adjust the orbit with your engines after the first pass, you're back in the clear. See also aerocapture.

Now, if I have one issue with the book, it is this:

Spoiler

The Astrophage is seen to affect multiple star systems at the same time, with several neighbouring stars starting to dim quickly after another. It reached 40 Eridani a couple of years before it reached Earth. But it's also mentioned that the Astrophage had evolved on Tau Ceti over millions of years, without spreading in all this time. It clearly didn't have the means to cross interstellar distances until suddenly it did. What made the Astrophage emerge suddenly in every direction at once? This is never brought up in the novel, and it's kinda strange that nobody even mentions it.

 

[ljkeane]

25 minutes ago, Kyll.Ing. said:

I think you (and @ljkeane) might have misread parts of the book. Answers in spoilers because spoilers:

  Hide contents

It also wasn't clear that there was a planet to obtain samples from. The main character (whose name momentarily escapes me) discovers it and names it, after all. One would think the planet would have had a name if it was included in the mission parameters. The way I understood it, the scientists didn't know there was a planet there in the first place.

 

Spoiler

It was absolutely clear that there was going to be a planet to obtain samples from. The lifecycle of the astrophage (so far as was known anyway) was travelling back and forth between a planet with an atmosphere high in carbon dioxide and a star.

 

[mix_masta_micah]

On 10/25/2021 at 3:17 PM, ljkeane said:

I had similar issues with this one.

  Reveal hidden contents

I don't mind the basic premise of scientist sets out to save Earth from magic space microbe, meets an alien and they solve things but I had a few too many issues with how the book went.

In particular the taking samples from the planet bit went a fair way beyond my capacity to suspend disbelief. Firstly of course they were going to have to take samples from the planet, why didn't they have any way to do that? After that I'm pretty dubious about them making a 10 km long chain in a three room spacecraft, the whole bouncing the space ship along the atmosphere bit seems unlikely and they couldn't design a winch which could be turned on and off from inside?

Next up I'm reading Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King. I bought this a while ago when I saw it on offer on Amazon but to be honest I'm a little dubious about it given Stephen King's not had the best track record for a few decades and authors writing books with their kids doesn't really inspire confidence. Still, I might as well read it at some point and the week before Halloween does feel appropriate.

Gotta disagree about King. Revival, The Outsider, and 11/22/63 are very much quality imo. 

[Maia]

10 hours ago, Kyll.Ing. said:

I think you (and @ljkeane) might have misread parts of the book.

Nope, we didn't.
 

Spoiler

 

They had no clue how a multi-year coma would affect the crew's memory and cognition. There was every reason to think that it would, though. Not providing exhaustive refresh briefings and documentation just made the whole enterprise completely absurd. Actually, you'd still do it as a matter of course, just to be on the safe side, even without such considerations. And the twist about Ryland being brainwashed doesn't in any way nullify this gigantic idiocy.

As to samples - as has been already mentioned by @ljkeane , they absolutely knew that going to a planet was part of the  astrophage life cycle, Ryland himself discovered it. But even beyond that - without an ability to take samples bar having to move the whole craft, what could the crew actually accomplish? This stupidity was compounded by the aliens making the same mistake.  

Mass restricted or not, they still needed to give the crew enough time to actually do their jobs or the whole mission was pointless. A couple of weeks doesn't cut it. And they could have also sent supplies in umanned ships - they already had the technology for that with the  return capsules, which were, IIRC, also speedier than the main ship.

And yes, once they cobbled together one mission, it should have been much easier and cheaper to send at least one other. What did they have to lose, after all? Even after the tipping point, humanity might have still survived, if solution was provided.  Not to mention that they should have trained more than 2 teams from the get-go, given the rarity of the coma-survival gene. Etc., etc.

 

 

10 hours ago, Kyll.Ing. said:

  Hide contents

 It clearly didn't have the means to cross interstellar distances until suddenly it did. What made the Astrophage emerge suddenly in every direction at once? This is never brought up in the novel, and it's kinda strange that nobody even mentions it.

 

Yea, it was really weird.

Spoiler

Maybe some kind of massive eruption of the host star? Though nothing like that was mentioned and you'd think that it would have cooked everything in the neighbourhood, dooming the protagonist to failure.

 

[Wilbur]

I listened to the first two Greg Mandel trilogy books by Peter F. Hamilton this past week, Mindstar Rising and A Quantum Murder.

The first is a modern version of a cyberpunk adventure, transposing the action from The Sprawl in Gibson to, in its place, a post-Warming Event England.  It has a sense of urgency that helps it overcome the weaknesses in some of the situations and characters, and although the world it occupies is bleak, there is hope.  The world-building is excellent, the main characters are all engaging, the stakes are high, and the plot continually cranks up the tension and the revelations.

The second is a murder mystery solved by the protagonist of the first book, Greg Mandel, a "gland psychic" who possesses a military-grade implant that enhances his intuition and empathy to make him a "human lie-detector".  This book has less of a sense of urgency or risk or stakes, so the reader (listener) is not distracted from the weaknesses as much.  One of the main weaknesses is the Star Wars factor, where the "good guys" are all connected to each other by formerly serving together in the military, or having worked together in corporate engagements.  The other is that for the most part these characters are incredibly wealthy, but also morally upright.  Recent history makes it more and more difficult to believe that the Ultra-rich are also the Good.

Hamilton is a terrific writer in terms of interesting plots and characters and all-around SciFiness.  The cyberpunk elements are terrific, and his post- and extra-humanity beings work really well.  The idea that England will somehow once again lead the free world seems a little wishful thinking, but it functions well within his books.  But he sure does love his ultra-rich, near-immortal benefactors of humanity.

I look forward to seeing how the final book, The Nano Flower, stands up in relation to the first two.

[Starkess]

On 10/26/2021 at 5:00 PM, Kyll.Ing. said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The only reason why a crewman's brains were scrambled was because he was stuffed full of amnesia-inducing interrogation drugs before departure, against his will. The other crewmembers "merely" died of life support failure. At any rate, no brain scrambling was intended to happen.

It also wasn't clear that there was a planet to obtain samples from. The main character (whose name momentarily escapes me) discovers it and names it, after all. One would think the planet would have had a name if it was included in the mission parameters. The way I understood it, the scientists didn't know there was a planet there in the first place.

I also think the spaceship was severely mass-restricted, hence the lack of supplies. Every kg of payload adds quite a bit of required fuel, after all. Everything really was winged together in the nick of time, with a small pool of eligible candidates and limited capability to manufacture fuel, hence the lack of flexibility and the lack of backup. Although, it's kinda strange that they didn't just continue building and sending new ships with more crew. It was a suicide mission they had plenty of volunteers for, after all. Then again, maybe they did, and that the main character simply never learned about all the ships in transit towards Tau Ceti while he was doing his things.

Also, the "bouncing along the amosphere" trick is fairly straightforward. It's just an elliptical orbit whose periapsis dips into the atmosphere. You run into "atmosphere bouncing" all the time if you play Kerbal Space Program. It happens when you enter the atmosphere at so high speeds you go around the earth and up again on the other side, and the atmosphere isn't thick enough to slow you down entirely. Of course, each passing orbit will slow you down a little more until you don't have enough speed to make it back up, but if you can adjust the orbit with your engines after the first pass, you're back in the clear. See also aerocapture.

Now, if I have one issue with the book, it is this:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Astrophage is seen to affect multiple star systems at the same time, with several neighbouring stars starting to dim quickly after another. It reached 40 Eridani a couple of years before it reached Earth. But it's also mentioned that the Astrophage had evolved on Tau Ceti over millions of years, without spreading in all this time. It clearly didn't have the means to cross interstellar distances until suddenly it did. What made the Astrophage emerge suddenly in every direction at once? This is never brought up in the novel, and it's kinda strange that nobody even mentions it.

 

Spoiler

Actually, we do know about the existence of planets around Tau Ceti! But scientists don't generally name things like stars or planets. The planets are just called Tau Ceti b through g. The whole point about having to name it once they got there was more like naming a mountain after yourself.

I finished Project Hail Mary this week and while I liked it well enough, I definitely had quite a few complaints about it. Not least being an exoplanet scientist myself so having some insight about how stupidly put together as a character the guy was. Also just from a reading perspective, I found the third quarter of the book dragged pretty significantly. Probably the saving grace of the whole book was Rocky, who was just fantastic, and to a lesser extent Stratt.

Next up, I'm tackling The Viscount Who Loved Me, the second of the Bridgerton novels. This has to be the worst title ever but the first was an entertaining enough read so I'll give it a chance. I also picked up Three Pianos, a memoir from my favorite artist (Andrew McMahon) that was released this week. Excited to read that!

I'm over halfway through listening to Rachel Maddow's Blowout. I think listening to it read by the author is helping my enjoyment, but I still find my mind wandering from time to time. It's hard to keep track of all the players and timelines involved, but I'm following the (unsurprising) gist of it.

[dog-days]

Finished Knot of Shadows. (Penric and Desdemona, number...I have no idea). Really enjoyed it - good reading for the time of year, since the story was quite a dark one. Makes me want to reread the Curse of Chalion and compare the way death magic is presented there to how it works here. 

[Wilbur]

10 hours ago, dog-days said:

Finished Knot of Shadows. (Penric and Desdemona, number...I have no idea). Really enjoyed it - good reading for the time of year, since the story was quite a dark one. Makes me want to reread the Curse of Chalion and compare the way death magic is presented there to how it works here. 

In what format did you read it?  I can only find it as an Amazon e-Reader online item, which I don't prefer.

[dog-days]

1 minute ago, Wilbur said:

In what format did you read it?  I can only find it as an Amazon e-Reader online item, which I don't prefer.

Amazon I'm afraid. I'd suggest petitioning LM Bujold to make the books available from more providers, but I imagine she's been tied into the system by her publishers. 

[Winterfella]

On 10/26/2021 at 7:57 PM, mix_masta_micah said:

Gotta disagree about King. Revival, The Outsider, and 11/22/63 are very much quality imo. 

To name a few, others that have been top notch in the time period following the Dark Tower: Duma Key, The Institute, Later, Joyland.