'Dead Aid' by Dambisa Moyo/'Visions of Heat' by Nalini Singh
Two radically different books for me to review today.
First of all, the one I started first, and finished last.
'Dead Aid' by Dambisa Moyo
I picked this book up randomly in Waterstones. Dambisa Moyo is from Zambia, but left in her teens to pursue her education. She's studied economics at Harvard and Oxford, and worked for the World Bank. She also believes that international aid is currently destroying Africa and needs to stop.
First of all, I have to say that I feel like I am far far to uninformed on this subject to be able to critique this book properly, or really at all. I don't know enough about Africa, or enough about the aid industry there, although a lot of what she said was both painful (as a well meaning western liberal) but seemed to ring very true.
Moyo argues that the current situation, in which aid is poured endlessly in to Africa, is actively harming the economic development of the continent. She believes that because the money is given directly to governments, and shows no signs of being stopped (I was staggered at how much money the US and UK gave to Robert Mugabe as late as 2006) it means that governments become less accountable to their people - their people don't pay for them to stay in power, after all. Taxation pales into insigificance beside the income these governments are getting from foreign countries. She also feels that because the west won't stop giving these blatantly corrupt governments money, there is no incentive to stop the corruption. One comment she makes is that if you receive a million dollars from a bank and then siphon it all away in to your personal bank account, you won't receive any more money. It's that simple. However, if you do that to money received from the west, then nothing really changes.
Moyo believes that the west needs to stop giving money to Africa. Her suggestion is that they give a deadline after which point the aid stops - she wants a five year deadline. She works through the objections - people will starve? Well, they are starving now. Most of the large scale aid isn't getting to the poor. War will break out? Not if there isn't any money to fight over.
I don't know if this book is right. I really really don't. I do think, however, that it's an important book to read, if only because it challenges white western views on Africa so thoroughly, and because it's the first book on this subject I've read which hasn't been written by a white European. It is quite a complex read in places - I am not an economist, and I have to admit I did rather dip in and out of it - but it's very rewarding and well worth working through.
And now the other, slightly less brain-worky read of the week.
'Visions of Heat' by Nalini Singh
'Visions of Heat' is a sequal to 'Slave to Sensation' which was one of the book recs I picked up here. It follows a few months on from where 'Slave to Sensation' left off, and although it does feature the same characters Sascha and Lucas are no longer the focus. Instead it's the story of a new couple - Faith DarkStar and Vaughn, the were-jaguar.
The main thing I loved about this book was the development of the world. I'm rapidly realising that what Nalini Singh is doing with these books is telling a single big story arc - the rise of a rebellion against the Psy Silence, I think - through the medium of a series of romances. So, yes, the last book was the story of Sascha and Lucas. It was also the story of an E-Psy, which tells us of the entire designation of Psy that were wiped out because no one wanted Empaths, and also that Silence is deeply flawed. This book is the story of Faith and Vaughn, but is also about how the loss of the Empaths - the E-Psy class - has devastated the F-Psy designation - those who can see the future - and who have gone from losing maybe 5%-10% of their number to insanity to 75% since the E-Psy designation was removed.
More Psy characters are brought on, and we see more of a range in emotional deadness. I'm beginning to think that in this world Sascha wasn't a special little snowflake at all, which I'd kinda assumed was the writer's intent originally. Now, I think Nalini Singh is actually carefully making her point that the Silence has always been entirely flawed and just doesn't work. Some Psy genuinely feel emotion. A lot keep their emotions repressed, with all the damage that entails. Others - such as Faith's father - channel their emotions and deal with them as subtly and as carefully as they can. Others are just sociopaths.
So, many kudos on the world.
As for the romance - I am left with mixed feelings. I loved Faith NightStar as a character. I found her really interesting and a brilliant contrast to Sascha. Sascha is tough, controlled, and icy with all this warmth underneath, and a power she doesn't know she has. She's had to fight to function from a position of weakness all along. Faith, by contrast, is aware of her own worth and power, but is very fragile within that, for all the book talks about her being strong. I didn't read her as actually quite tough. She's small, and a lot more broken in many ways that Sascha is.
Vaughn is a lot more like Lucas, but even more of a macho alpha male. And that was something that made me slightly uncomfortable. The power balance between the two leads in this book was slightly off. Vaughn was too forceful with the very broken girl, even when she was saying "no". And OK, she didn't really want him to stop, but that was what she was saying and it made me uncomfortable that him basically ignoring all her carefully set up boundaries was presented as so very positive.
I also worried slightly at how the whole 'mating' thing was presented here. In 'Slave to Sensation', with Lucas and Sascha, mating seemed to be something that was like marriage - you met someone, you liked them, you fell in love, and if you took a mate that was a massive once in a lifetime commitment, but it was something you chose to make, and it did require both parties to consent and engage in it. I have nothing against eternal psychic bonds formed consensually between lovers.
However, here it seemed to veer into territory last trod by Stephanie B Meyer and her 'imprint'. Vaughn mated with Faith without her really being aware of it, and then angsted that she might reject him and he'd be alone for ever. That kinda touched a little on my 'mmmhhhhmmm?' buttons - it felt kinda dubious.
Yet, for all that, Faith and Vaughn did seem to work as a couple, and I did enjoy the book. I've now ordered the third one, so await more updates..
First of all, the one I started first, and finished last.
'Dead Aid' by Dambisa Moyo
I picked this book up randomly in Waterstones. Dambisa Moyo is from Zambia, but left in her teens to pursue her education. She's studied economics at Harvard and Oxford, and worked for the World Bank. She also believes that international aid is currently destroying Africa and needs to stop.
First of all, I have to say that I feel like I am far far to uninformed on this subject to be able to critique this book properly, or really at all. I don't know enough about Africa, or enough about the aid industry there, although a lot of what she said was both painful (as a well meaning western liberal) but seemed to ring very true.
Moyo argues that the current situation, in which aid is poured endlessly in to Africa, is actively harming the economic development of the continent. She believes that because the money is given directly to governments, and shows no signs of being stopped (I was staggered at how much money the US and UK gave to Robert Mugabe as late as 2006) it means that governments become less accountable to their people - their people don't pay for them to stay in power, after all. Taxation pales into insigificance beside the income these governments are getting from foreign countries. She also feels that because the west won't stop giving these blatantly corrupt governments money, there is no incentive to stop the corruption. One comment she makes is that if you receive a million dollars from a bank and then siphon it all away in to your personal bank account, you won't receive any more money. It's that simple. However, if you do that to money received from the west, then nothing really changes.
Moyo believes that the west needs to stop giving money to Africa. Her suggestion is that they give a deadline after which point the aid stops - she wants a five year deadline. She works through the objections - people will starve? Well, they are starving now. Most of the large scale aid isn't getting to the poor. War will break out? Not if there isn't any money to fight over.
I don't know if this book is right. I really really don't. I do think, however, that it's an important book to read, if only because it challenges white western views on Africa so thoroughly, and because it's the first book on this subject I've read which hasn't been written by a white European. It is quite a complex read in places - I am not an economist, and I have to admit I did rather dip in and out of it - but it's very rewarding and well worth working through.
And now the other, slightly less brain-worky read of the week.
'Visions of Heat' by Nalini Singh
'Visions of Heat' is a sequal to 'Slave to Sensation' which was one of the book recs I picked up here. It follows a few months on from where 'Slave to Sensation' left off, and although it does feature the same characters Sascha and Lucas are no longer the focus. Instead it's the story of a new couple - Faith DarkStar and Vaughn, the were-jaguar.
The main thing I loved about this book was the development of the world. I'm rapidly realising that what Nalini Singh is doing with these books is telling a single big story arc - the rise of a rebellion against the Psy Silence, I think - through the medium of a series of romances. So, yes, the last book was the story of Sascha and Lucas. It was also the story of an E-Psy, which tells us of the entire designation of Psy that were wiped out because no one wanted Empaths, and also that Silence is deeply flawed. This book is the story of Faith and Vaughn, but is also about how the loss of the Empaths - the E-Psy class - has devastated the F-Psy designation - those who can see the future - and who have gone from losing maybe 5%-10% of their number to insanity to 75% since the E-Psy designation was removed.
More Psy characters are brought on, and we see more of a range in emotional deadness. I'm beginning to think that in this world Sascha wasn't a special little snowflake at all, which I'd kinda assumed was the writer's intent originally. Now, I think Nalini Singh is actually carefully making her point that the Silence has always been entirely flawed and just doesn't work. Some Psy genuinely feel emotion. A lot keep their emotions repressed, with all the damage that entails. Others - such as Faith's father - channel their emotions and deal with them as subtly and as carefully as they can. Others are just sociopaths.
So, many kudos on the world.
As for the romance - I am left with mixed feelings. I loved Faith NightStar as a character. I found her really interesting and a brilliant contrast to Sascha. Sascha is tough, controlled, and icy with all this warmth underneath, and a power she doesn't know she has. She's had to fight to function from a position of weakness all along. Faith, by contrast, is aware of her own worth and power, but is very fragile within that, for all the book talks about her being strong. I didn't read her as actually quite tough. She's small, and a lot more broken in many ways that Sascha is.
Vaughn is a lot more like Lucas, but even more of a macho alpha male. And that was something that made me slightly uncomfortable. The power balance between the two leads in this book was slightly off. Vaughn was too forceful with the very broken girl, even when she was saying "no". And OK, she didn't really want him to stop, but that was what she was saying and it made me uncomfortable that him basically ignoring all her carefully set up boundaries was presented as so very positive.
I also worried slightly at how the whole 'mating' thing was presented here. In 'Slave to Sensation', with Lucas and Sascha, mating seemed to be something that was like marriage - you met someone, you liked them, you fell in love, and if you took a mate that was a massive once in a lifetime commitment, but it was something you chose to make, and it did require both parties to consent and engage in it. I have nothing against eternal psychic bonds formed consensually between lovers.
However, here it seemed to veer into territory last trod by Stephanie B Meyer and her 'imprint'. Vaughn mated with Faith without her really being aware of it, and then angsted that she might reject him and he'd be alone for ever. That kinda touched a little on my 'mmmhhhhmmm?' buttons - it felt kinda dubious.
Yet, for all that, Faith and Vaughn did seem to work as a couple, and I did enjoy the book. I've now ordered the third one, so await more updates..