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What are you reading? Fourth Quarter 2022


williamjm

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6 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

@Wilbur that sounds very interesting, I had never spent any length of time wondering what happened after Alexander’s death, but I admit the question casually crossed my mind after reading some novels in the past. I think I actually assumed some of his structures carried on for a while before breaking down, but certainly not decades of war. Knowing humans for what they are, I should have realized that’s what happened.

I’m not sure if I’m in the mood for the sadness that might bring me.

In one sense, your assumption was entirely correct, because the successor states were predominantly Hellene - Greek was the common language, Attic Greece was seen as the seat of culture, Olympic religious forms prevailed, etc.

But for the soldiers of Alexander themselves, as individuals, the period after Alexander was a terrible and sad demonstration of the idea that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.

The concept of the Greek phalanx took on a more brutal version in the Macedonian taxeis introduced as a heavier version that would use shock tactics in coordination with heavy calvary (hetairoi) without ceasing until the battle was won or lost.  And Alexander set out very clearly for his successors the idea of Total War as a positive force to win dominion.  So when Alexander was gone, all of the Macedonian (and a few Greeks, like Eumenes) generals used Total War in their fights for supremacy and power.

And in the end you had all these soldiers of Alexander whose ostensible goal was to take their pay and go back to Macedon to become farmers and fathers.  Instead, most of them ended up in ugly, murderous sieges and sacks of towns in Asia where they ended up killing each other for the glory of their generals.

Wasteful and sad.  Even Iron Maiden points this out.  For some of these regions, it was a hundred years of warfare until the Pax Romana.

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Well, Egypt didn't do so badly -- at least as long as Cleopatra was in charge, which she was because Alex's general, Ptolemy,  one of Alex's severn somatophylakes, and possibly half brother, took over Egypt as his satrapy, founding the Ptolemaic dynasty, which, unlike those other Macedonian feuding power players', survived quite long, long enough to be a dynasty.  Ptolemy was not a fool.  He was also an historian.

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Children of Memory was okay. The series has been about the interaction of different types of sentient beings and there were some good ideas from Tchaikovsky again but it probably worked the least well of the three for me.

I've also read Book of Night by Holly Black which is a decent urban fantasy and Dead Lions by Mick Herron, the second book of his series which is being adapted in Apple's Slow Horses tv series. I did like Dead Lions, it's decent post Cold War spy thriller, but I suspect I could start to lose patience will all the characters being so obnoxious.

Next up I'm going to read Tchaikovsky's other new book City of Last Chances.

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6 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Children of Memory was okay. The series has been about the interaction of different types of sentient beings and there were some good ideas from Tchaikovsky again but it probably worked the least well of the three for me.

I also finished Children of Memory. I liked the book, although perhaps not quite as much as the two earlier books in the series. The imaginative world-building of the various non-human civilisations has always been the stand-out feature of the books and here most of the book focuses on a small human colony which doesn't have the same fascination. It does quickly become apparent that things aren't as mundane on the colony as they initially appear and the mystery of what is really going on is intriguing, but it still doesn't compare in scope to seeing the evolution of the spider civilisation in the first book. Liff is a likeable protagonist for this section of the story, although the other human colonists don't get much development. I think the most interesting characters are the two corvids, Gothi and Gethli, and how they interact with the other characters. What counts as sentience is one of the main themes of the story and the question of whether they are truly intelligent or just excellent mimics was the best exploration of this.

I've now started Fonda Lee's Jade Legacy, which so far seems to be a gangster story with some fantasy elements.

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14 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Have you made progress with the Poppy War?

After I slammed Babel, I felt I should give the Poppy War trilogy another go so finished it this weekend.  I have thoughts! 

Yes I read it and posted a brief comment on it:

Quote

I thought it shallow in places and a bit rough round the edges, but again very powerfully written. However it is dark, and just gets darker. One of those books that make you wonder a bit about the author, though in this case they might be just getting catharsis after immersion in 20th century Chinese history. Though I understand that the sequels are even worse, I don't intend to read them.

That said, I am going to give a copy as a Christmas present to a relative who likes their books dark. I will see what he thinks.

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I read Poppy War and its sequel but haven't gotten around to the third book yet. I know they're supposed to be dark and Rin is supposed to be awful (or at least I really really hope Rin is supposed to be awful) but they were just straight up unenjoyable in some respects. They're SO long, especially given that you're stuck inside Rin's head.

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14 hours ago, Starkess said:

I read Poppy War and its sequel but haven't gotten around to the third book yet. I know they're supposed to be dark and Rin is supposed to be awful (or at least I really really hope Rin is supposed to be awful) but they were just straight up unenjoyable in some respects. They're SO long, especially given that you're stuck inside Rin's head.

Spoiler

As I read it, the book is making an argument that the destruction of Japan and the genocide of the Japanese people is a just and fitting response to the Sino-Japanese war and the rape of Nanjing.  It's a potent counterfactual because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  

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I fell on City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky as soon as it was released because, as mentioned here before, I'm a fan of his other standalone fantasy Guns of the Dawn. This didn't live up to his earlier book, but it was still very enjoyable. It read a little like a toned-down Pratchett – the narrative voice wasn't as strong, satirical and dominating, but it was still present and quite ironic/gently humorous about the failings of the characters, of which there were many (characters and failings). Almost every chapter had a new POV: there were a few repeats, but I think that even the closest the book had to a main character didn't get more than four chapters out of forty-nine, though he appeared frequently in others. 

It's a kind of steampunk fantasy with a hint of Les Misérables and of quite a lot of other stuff. Here I'm using a strong British English 'quite': what I mean is that Tchaikovsky sticks everything but the kitchen sink in there. It's fun, and busy, and I think sticks the landing; it feels like a book written to kickstart an RPG setting. The characters are lively but often feel a bit shallow. There is too much going on to really feel much for any single part. It's skilfully put together to the extent that character/setting payoffs feel a little rote and overly calculated. That said, it's undeniably, furiously inventive and reads as if the author was enjoying himself. 

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Currently reading Uzumaki by Junji Ito and Carrion Comforts by Dan Simmons.

Next up I will read The Grid by Gretchen Bakke and The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel. I also would like to read Godel's Proof by Ernest Nagel. I read some ways into it a couple of years ago, but became distracted and so the book remains...incomplete.

I would like to find a good biography on John von Neuman, but I can't seem to find one that is well written and doesn't go light on the technical details of his work. If there are any recommendations, I would appreciate it.

I also plan to read Sabriel by Garth Nix.

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Thanks to @Zorral's frequent mentions of Hild by Nicola Griffith, I read that over the past few weeks and enjoyed it quite a bit. It's definitely a book where you want to spend some time sitting with the descriptions and thinking through all the connections being made between small and large events, so not something to zip through or have be your book to read before you fall asleep (mea culpa). 

I am so impressed with how Griffith brought to life that time period, with incredible detailed around anything from goldsmithing to weaving to dairy making to war and battle to political machinations across secular and religious leaders. It's like Griffith was there, that's how real it all felt. She has me fully convinced that this was St Hilda's early life, there's no other possible way things could have gone. 

Now I want to lay in a sunny meadow and watch hawks and bees for omens. Too bad it's so bitterly cold! 

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I was gifted for Christmas Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy. I immediately dove in because I really enjoyed previous books by McCarthy, and I found the premise interesting.

The book is a transcription of sessions between a 20 year old genius mathematician and her counselor. The mathematician is schizophrenic and has a host of other mental illnesses. Her father worked on the Manhattan Project.

I'm 21 and though very far from a genius of any kind, I am partial to many of the subjects addressed in this book. Mathematics, physics, the history of science, logic, mathematical Platonism and such are all fascinating subjects.

I didn't get very far into this book before I had to put it down. In just one chapter, there were a few distinct errors that were very distracting.

The character asserts that Einstein, Dirac, et al claimed that Oppenheimer was the smartest person they knew. I doubted this because von Neumann was alive and he was widely regarded by his contemporaries as the single most astonishingly intelligent person of this group. One could argue that this is an understandable mistake of hearsay for anyone to make though.

However, shortly thereafter she mentions that a positron is a particle composed of two up quarks and a down quark. This really annoyed me because that's a proton. A positron is an elementary antiparticle to the negatron (electron). This is basic physics.

And then she mentions that quantum mechanics is fundementally contigent on human consciousness. This is a common misunderstanding of an aspect quantum mechanics known as the observer effect, usually represented through the Schrodinger's cat example. This is not contigent on a human observer, however. Any kind of detector will affect the wave function. Confusing the necessity of human consciousness with the behavior of quanta is quite a blunder for this genius to be making.

At this point I had to put the book down. I enjoyed books like Blood Meridian, The Road, and No Country for Old Men because they had lovely prose, and the unbridled sadism and amoral behavior of the characters was really fun. This book was just the pontificating of a character who often didn't know what they were talking about, and certainly made mistakes I highly doubt a genius would make.

Anyway, disappointing, and I needed the catharsis of a rant.

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6 hours ago, IFR said:

The character asserts that Einstein, Dirac, et al claimed that Oppenheimer was the smartest person they knew.

Agreed, this is nonsense. Oppenheimer was generally agreed to be an outstanding organiser, but half a step behind the very best as a physicist.

For example on one occasion:

Dirac: I have an exciting new theory.

Oppenheimer: Your theory must be wrong, because it implies electrons can have a positive charge.

Dirac: Your reasoning is correct. Interesting. I predict the positron!

Experimental physicists 6 months later: Hey, we have found positrons!

Next year's Nobel committee: Dirac, here is your Nobel prize.

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I read Fonda Lee's Jade City. The premise is an interesting and unusual mix of urban fantasy and gangster story, all set in a small island nation that feels inspired by Hong Kong or Taiwan. The fantasy elements comes from magical jade that some of the characters can use to give themselves supernatural powers. These powers are mostly seen in the action scenes which do therefore read a bit differently to typical fight scenes (although it often feels a bit reminiscent of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn books). The plot moves at a good pace and there are a few unexpected twists along the way, although I thought the finale was a bit underwhelming. The characters do get some development through the book but I think one weakness is that I found it hard to care too much about what was happening to them. There is a lot of time spent on discussions of honour and nobility and what it means to be part of the clan, but it's difficult to see much nobility in trying to maintain the supremacy of what is essentially a criminal gang with delusions of grandeur.

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Loved the Golden Enclaves; not flawless (I could have done with more of a reaction to what they did at the end of book 2, which should have been a pretty big deal) but a solid ending to a fantastic trilogy.

Spoiler

@Gigei Orion wasn't just a human mawmouth, though, he was also a human enclave; replacing his foundation with Golden Stone made as much sense for him as it did for the other enclaves.

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On 12/26/2022 at 10:23 AM, IFR said:

I was gifted for Christmas Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy. I immediately dove in because I really enjoyed previous books by McCarthy, and I found the premise interesting.

The book is a transcription of sessions between a 20 year old genius mathematician and her counselor. The mathematician is schizophrenic and has a host of other mental illnesses. Her father worked on the Manhattan Project.

I'm 21 and though very far from a genius of any kind, I am partial to many of the subjects addressed in this book. Mathematics, physics, the history of science, logic, mathematical Platonism and such are all fascinating subjects.

I didn't get very far into this book before I had to put it down. In just one chapter, there were a few distinct errors that were very distracting.

The character asserts that Einstein, Dirac, et al claimed that Oppenheimer was the smartest person they knew. I doubted this because von Neumann was alive and he was widely regarded by his contemporaries as the single most astonishingly intelligent person of this group. One could argue that this is an understandable mistake of hearsay for anyone to make though.

However, shortly thereafter she mentions that a positron is a particle composed of two up quarks and a down quark. This really annoyed me because that's a proton. A positron is an elementary antiparticle to the negatron (electron). This is basic physics.

And then she mentions that quantum mechanics is fundementally contigent on human consciousness. This is a common misunderstanding of an aspect quantum mechanics known as the observer effect, usually represented through the Schrodinger's cat example. I buy cheap essays on https://essays.studymoose.com/buy-cheap-essay to write character analysis. Confusing the necessity of human consciousness with the behavior of quanta is quite a blunder for this genius to be making.

At this point I had to put the book down. I enjoyed books like Blood Meridian, The Road, and No Country for Old Men because they had lovely prose, and the unbridled sadism and amoral behavior of the characters was really fun. This book was just the pontificating of a character who often didn't know what they were talking about, and certainly made mistakes I highly doubt a genius would make.

Anyway, disappointing, and I needed the catharsis of a rant.

Thalidomide Kid - the imaginary friend of the main character - got me interested in the "Stella Maris" book because Idk why, but I'm looking for dramas that contain some mental illness. And this is the ideal grand puzzle, and grandly written too, of broken psyches and illicit dreams that fits my search. Yep, I recommend Cormac McCarthy's book with a great satisfaction.

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6 hours ago, DemetriusHill said:

Thalidomide Kid - the imaginary friend of the main character - got me interested in the "Stella Maris" book because Idk why, but I'm looking for dramas that contain some mental illness. And this is the ideal grand puzzle, and grandly written too, of broken psyches and illicit dreams that fits my search. Yep, I recommend Cormac McCarthy's book with a great satisfaction.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I plan to pick it back up at a later point. I have to make myself reframe the story in my mind as a dark fantasy, something that Gene Wolfe or Franz Kafka might write, and then perhaps all the errors won't bother me.

But it is indeed a puzzle. With all of the resources he has at hand, I don't see how McCarthy could make so many elementary mistakes. And if the mistakes are deliberate, that's also a puzzle. It would be like writing a character who is a chess Grandmaster, and the Grandmaster asserts to their therapist that the horses are bishops, and that knights can only move one space at a time, and checkmate is exclusively when a pawn captures a king. It just doesn't make sense to me why a character would deliberately be written that way. And either way, just as it would be hard for me to take something substantial from this hypothetical Grandmaster if they philosophized about their mischaracterization of chess, it's hard for me to take anything of substance from this deformed caricature of reality McCarthy presents.

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I ended up really enjoying Paul M. Duffy's Run with the Hare, Hunt with the Hound. It came from a small press I'd never heard of, but it's so rare to see this setting in fiction, I took a risk.

Set in Medieval Ireland at the time of the Norman invasion, it is written by an archaeologist who really knows the period well. At one point -- not a spoiler -- there is a scene where the hero comes upon a woman washing bloody clothing in a stream. This is an image straight out of Irish mythology (the goddess of war is always doing this).

The novel is wonderfully poetic; full of fascinating characters and a love story that is everything you expect, until it becomes something very different -- and no, not that other thing you were expecting.

It's not really a battle book, though there are a few battles and many action scenes.

And TW for violence, including of a sexual kind.

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