Soundtrack Optional (July and August Reading)
That took entirely too long.
JULY
The Yiddish Policeman's Union(Michael Chabon): Noir set in Sitka Province as the clock ticks down toward its reversion from a Jewish resettlement state to the governance of the United States. Meyer Landsman must fight his alcoholism and his superiors to solve the murder of a chess-playing heroin addict with surprising connections. The afterward, where Chabon essentially says, "I'm proud of my 90's work [which was Serious Lit], and now I'm having an adventure" endears Chabon to me.
Short Fiction for the WSFA Short Fiction Award:
"Bufo Rex", Erik Amundsen
"Orm the Beautiful", Elizabeth Bear
"The Wizard of Macatawa", Tom Doyle
"Harry the Crow", John Kratman
"Mask of the Ferret", Ken Pick and Alan Loewen
"The Third Bear", Jeff VanderMeer
Down the lis: "Bufo Rex", um, didn't do much for me. "Orm the Beautiful" was slightly elegiac, a little fond story that might be about family and community, and a touch creepy, but would benefit from a reading and discussion group. Also, notice all the "small" words used in that one-sentence reaction. "The Wizard of Macatawa" is Wizard of Oz fan fiction, and assumed I knew who the heck the people on the flying bed were. Until then, it was pretty cool. "Harry the Crow" I'm mixed on; it feels like a chance to get in a fight about cultural appropriation, but it also feels like an opportunity to talk about non-Euro/Americentric approaches to modern technology. More than anything, it feels like a trickster story to me. I disliked "Mask of the Ferret": the theme of the eternal, compassionate, subtle and wise Father Church is one that does nothing for me. I wasn't impressed by the protagonist associated with the Church, or the writer's approach to the human-or-not ferret chick. "The Third Bear" is written in a gory style influenced by horror and the Stephen King phenomenon, and I am entirely too creeped out to comment with anything more substantial than a deep, visceral, "ewww, intestines."
Black Powder War (Naomi Novik): Reread. The adventures of William Laurence and his dragon Temeraire, volume three: overland Asian trip to Sharpe territory by way of Turkey. I was struck by my own weaknesses when reading the Lien and That Guy cameo in this book. Briefly - short, crazy smart, adaptable: why are we fighting Napoleon again? I'm having warm and fuzzy Bujold flashbacks here.
Ciao, America!: An Italian Discovers the U.S. (Beppe Severgnini): Short essays written during a year living in Georgetown, in DC. Lightweight reactions to shopping, neighbors and the house. I was hoping for some deeper reflection on the people Severgnini interacted with during that year, but alas: deep like puddle.
In the Shadow of Islam (Isabelle Eberhardt; Sharon Bangert trans.: Bangert translated someone else's (edited) publication of Eberhardt's journals, so who knows how much truth is left. But the imagery that survives the double translation is pretty cool, and some personal color remains. Eberhardt's attention to the desert is worth mentioning; so is her unrestrained racism towards black Africans.
Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson): Hiro Protagonist: hacker, pizza Deliverator, greatest swordsman in the world, versus an insidius virus that turns computer programmers into drooling vegetables and just enslaves everyone else.
A quote:
After that - after Hiro gets onto his motorcycle, and the New South Africans get into their all-terrain pickups, and The Enforcers get into their slick black Enforcer mobiles, and they all go screaming out into the highway - after that it's just a chase scene.
Snow Crash suffers from the ur-language conflict that's supposed to motivate the plot making no sense, but that's almost a plot point in itself: the book is one giant meta joke that works best if you don't think about it too hard. Things like the dentata makes pretty much no sense, unless you're seriously invested in vaginal purity or coitus interruptus punchlines. Some parts, however ridiculous on the surface, resonante nearly 20 years later: compare the spread of franchises to the big box store phenomenon, or reactions to the Raft to contemporary feelings about immigration, or the Metaverse versus the internet.
Empire of Ivory (Naomi Novik): So possibly I rotted my brain this summer with rereads of beach-worthy novels. My absolute favorite character in the entire book is and may always be Hannah Erasmus, who is living an entirely different story that Laurence does not notice until it's forced down his throat. Oh, Will. You never see it coming!
AUGUST
Throne of Jade (Naomi Novik): Reread. More entertaining fluff than I remembered; Novik isn't deep, but she has a very smooth writing style. What impresses me is that I remember this as "the book set in China", but 2/3rds of the action happens before the protagonists get anywhere near that country.
Victory of Eagles (Naomi Novik): The reason I was rereading Throne of Jade. I got about as far as Perscitia independently discovering and naming "e" after herself and completely lost it. I think I recognize this character type from somewhere!
After adjusting my goggles to "crack, with a side of are you insane?!" I gave in and rocked the book. I mean, Napoleon invades England: it's the insta-"What If?" of Age of Sail alternate histories. Novik seemed a little over her head - cast of hundreds, action spread across half a dozen theaters, working on matters military, social and political - and sort of sidelined Laurence as a result. Poor man spent the whole book sort of moping, which is sad: for about 30 seconds, he'd let his sense of ethics superceede his sense of duty, and was possibly the most dangerous man in England. Then he lasped into being a slave of duty once more, and - moping. Meanwhile, Temeraire rocked the world. (To AU the AU: what if that French ship had delivered Temeraire's egg to Emperor Napoleon?) The Australia reset should help reduce the scale back toward the small-group stuff Novik seems to have a better handle on. Iskierka is getting to be a Problem; she and Perscitia are both arguments that some dragons are seriously not cut out for military service. (I harbor a quiet, insane vision of Perscitia and Iskierka setting things on fire a lot in the name of SCIENCE, between Iskierka's privateer-ish exploits and making Granby miserable. Poor Granby.) So there's plenty of things that could happen in the next book, and I look forward to Temeraire getting to Australia (and probably finding a new stage from which to foment social change) and hope Laurence adjusts to having internalized the rulebook, and then thrown it over as sometimes wrong. I really wish I'd written this right after I'd read the book, so I could dig more into the bits I liked, but you'll just have to hit me up in comments.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Tennessee Williams): Play/script. The family gathers for "Big Daddy" Pollitt's birthday, and to vie for the money he'll leave when cancer kills him. I picked this up on a half-considered "hey, educate yourself" impulse, and was struck by how crystal-clear the staging directions were. williams has a Vision, and is very clear in describing that vision, which helped me reconstruct his intentions to my enjoyment. It's interesting to notice that, for the purposes of the play, it makes almost no difference whether Brick Pollitt is gay or straight; what matters is what everyone else thinks about him. There something about assumptions and scandal in there I'll pick apart some other time.
When the King Comes Home (Caroline Stevermer): Set in the same world as A College of Magics, but in the medieval era. A runaway apprentice encounters Good King Julian, 200 years after his death. If you like Stevermer, you'll like this. If you're kind of "meh" on Stevermer, you'll remain "meh". I found parts interesting - more of the apprenticeship would have been cool, for example - and should have liked things like the battle. Entertaining, but not deep.
Marvel 1602 (Neil Gaiman and many other awesome people): The thing about comics is that they're a pain in the neck to log. Writer. Artist. Inker. Colorist. But sometimes the results are pretty cool. This makes more sense now, after some wiki-enhanced knowledge of the Marvelverse, than the last time I tried to read it, in 2004. (On a side note, it's hysterical how much I haven't changed in four years. Same authors, same themes. Letting the android loose in Vegas is still hysterical.) Very pretty, and makes me feel bad for Steve Rogers, but like Snow Crash works best if you think about the pretty pictures and maybe the themes, but not the world construction.
A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams): Play/script. Blanche DuBois stays with her sister Stella and Stella's husband Stanley Kowalski. I was completely distracted because I saw Due South before I ever read the play, so I have skewed associations for Stanley and Stella Kowalski. Blanche reminds me of some of my relatives, so I, um, find her really chilling, and suspect that in a different era Stella and Stanley would be filing for divorce sometime before their kid turns five. Domestic violence is bad.
Good play. Lousy at analysis here. Go read it yourself.
JULY
The Yiddish Policeman's Union(Michael Chabon): Noir set in Sitka Province as the clock ticks down toward its reversion from a Jewish resettlement state to the governance of the United States. Meyer Landsman must fight his alcoholism and his superiors to solve the murder of a chess-playing heroin addict with surprising connections. The afterward, where Chabon essentially says, "I'm proud of my 90's work [which was Serious Lit], and now I'm having an adventure" endears Chabon to me.
Short Fiction for the WSFA Short Fiction Award:
"Bufo Rex", Erik Amundsen
"Orm the Beautiful", Elizabeth Bear
"The Wizard of Macatawa", Tom Doyle
"Harry the Crow", John Kratman
"Mask of the Ferret", Ken Pick and Alan Loewen
"The Third Bear", Jeff VanderMeer
Down the lis: "Bufo Rex", um, didn't do much for me. "Orm the Beautiful" was slightly elegiac, a little fond story that might be about family and community, and a touch creepy, but would benefit from a reading and discussion group. Also, notice all the "small" words used in that one-sentence reaction. "The Wizard of Macatawa" is Wizard of Oz fan fiction, and assumed I knew who the heck the people on the flying bed were. Until then, it was pretty cool. "Harry the Crow" I'm mixed on; it feels like a chance to get in a fight about cultural appropriation, but it also feels like an opportunity to talk about non-Euro/Americentric approaches to modern technology. More than anything, it feels like a trickster story to me. I disliked "Mask of the Ferret": the theme of the eternal, compassionate, subtle and wise Father Church is one that does nothing for me. I wasn't impressed by the protagonist associated with the Church, or the writer's approach to the human-or-not ferret chick. "The Third Bear" is written in a gory style influenced by horror and the Stephen King phenomenon, and I am entirely too creeped out to comment with anything more substantial than a deep, visceral, "ewww, intestines."
Black Powder War (Naomi Novik): Reread. The adventures of William Laurence and his dragon Temeraire, volume three: overland Asian trip to Sharpe territory by way of Turkey. I was struck by my own weaknesses when reading the Lien and That Guy cameo in this book. Briefly - short, crazy smart, adaptable: why are we fighting Napoleon again? I'm having warm and fuzzy Bujold flashbacks here.
Ciao, America!: An Italian Discovers the U.S. (Beppe Severgnini): Short essays written during a year living in Georgetown, in DC. Lightweight reactions to shopping, neighbors and the house. I was hoping for some deeper reflection on the people Severgnini interacted with during that year, but alas: deep like puddle.
In the Shadow of Islam (Isabelle Eberhardt; Sharon Bangert trans.: Bangert translated someone else's (edited) publication of Eberhardt's journals, so who knows how much truth is left. But the imagery that survives the double translation is pretty cool, and some personal color remains. Eberhardt's attention to the desert is worth mentioning; so is her unrestrained racism towards black Africans.
Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson): Hiro Protagonist: hacker, pizza Deliverator, greatest swordsman in the world, versus an insidius virus that turns computer programmers into drooling vegetables and just enslaves everyone else.
A quote:
After that - after Hiro gets onto his motorcycle, and the New South Africans get into their all-terrain pickups, and The Enforcers get into their slick black Enforcer mobiles, and they all go screaming out into the highway - after that it's just a chase scene.
Snow Crash suffers from the ur-language conflict that's supposed to motivate the plot making no sense, but that's almost a plot point in itself: the book is one giant meta joke that works best if you don't think about it too hard. Things like the dentata makes pretty much no sense, unless you're seriously invested in vaginal purity or coitus interruptus punchlines. Some parts, however ridiculous on the surface, resonante nearly 20 years later: compare the spread of franchises to the big box store phenomenon, or reactions to the Raft to contemporary feelings about immigration, or the Metaverse versus the internet.
Empire of Ivory (Naomi Novik): So possibly I rotted my brain this summer with rereads of beach-worthy novels. My absolute favorite character in the entire book is and may always be Hannah Erasmus, who is living an entirely different story that Laurence does not notice until it's forced down his throat. Oh, Will. You never see it coming!
AUGUST
Throne of Jade (Naomi Novik): Reread. More entertaining fluff than I remembered; Novik isn't deep, but she has a very smooth writing style. What impresses me is that I remember this as "the book set in China", but 2/3rds of the action happens before the protagonists get anywhere near that country.
Victory of Eagles (Naomi Novik): The reason I was rereading Throne of Jade. I got about as far as Perscitia independently discovering and naming "e" after herself and completely lost it. I think I recognize this character type from somewhere!
After adjusting my goggles to "crack, with a side of are you insane?!" I gave in and rocked the book. I mean, Napoleon invades England: it's the insta-"What If?" of Age of Sail alternate histories. Novik seemed a little over her head - cast of hundreds, action spread across half a dozen theaters, working on matters military, social and political - and sort of sidelined Laurence as a result. Poor man spent the whole book sort of moping, which is sad: for about 30 seconds, he'd let his sense of ethics superceede his sense of duty, and was possibly the most dangerous man in England. Then he lasped into being a slave of duty once more, and - moping. Meanwhile, Temeraire rocked the world. (To AU the AU: what if that French ship had delivered Temeraire's egg to Emperor Napoleon?) The Australia reset should help reduce the scale back toward the small-group stuff Novik seems to have a better handle on. Iskierka is getting to be a Problem; she and Perscitia are both arguments that some dragons are seriously not cut out for military service. (I harbor a quiet, insane vision of Perscitia and Iskierka setting things on fire a lot in the name of SCIENCE, between Iskierka's privateer-ish exploits and making Granby miserable. Poor Granby.) So there's plenty of things that could happen in the next book, and I look forward to Temeraire getting to Australia (and probably finding a new stage from which to foment social change) and hope Laurence adjusts to having internalized the rulebook, and then thrown it over as sometimes wrong. I really wish I'd written this right after I'd read the book, so I could dig more into the bits I liked, but you'll just have to hit me up in comments.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Tennessee Williams): Play/script. The family gathers for "Big Daddy" Pollitt's birthday, and to vie for the money he'll leave when cancer kills him. I picked this up on a half-considered "hey, educate yourself" impulse, and was struck by how crystal-clear the staging directions were. williams has a Vision, and is very clear in describing that vision, which helped me reconstruct his intentions to my enjoyment. It's interesting to notice that, for the purposes of the play, it makes almost no difference whether Brick Pollitt is gay or straight; what matters is what everyone else thinks about him. There something about assumptions and scandal in there I'll pick apart some other time.
When the King Comes Home (Caroline Stevermer): Set in the same world as A College of Magics, but in the medieval era. A runaway apprentice encounters Good King Julian, 200 years after his death. If you like Stevermer, you'll like this. If you're kind of "meh" on Stevermer, you'll remain "meh". I found parts interesting - more of the apprenticeship would have been cool, for example - and should have liked things like the battle. Entertaining, but not deep.
Marvel 1602 (Neil Gaiman and many other awesome people): The thing about comics is that they're a pain in the neck to log. Writer. Artist. Inker. Colorist. But sometimes the results are pretty cool. This makes more sense now, after some wiki-enhanced knowledge of the Marvelverse, than the last time I tried to read it, in 2004. (On a side note, it's hysterical how much I haven't changed in four years. Same authors, same themes. Letting the android loose in Vegas is still hysterical.) Very pretty, and makes me feel bad for Steve Rogers, but like Snow Crash works best if you think about the pretty pictures and maybe the themes, but not the world construction.
A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams): Play/script. Blanche DuBois stays with her sister Stella and Stella's husband Stanley Kowalski. I was completely distracted because I saw Due South before I ever read the play, so I have skewed associations for Stanley and Stella Kowalski. Blanche reminds me of some of my relatives, so I, um, find her really chilling, and suspect that in a different era Stella and Stanley would be filing for divorce sometime before their kid turns five. Domestic violence is bad.
Good play. Lousy at analysis here. Go read it yourself.