Wednesday is for reading
Teju Cole gets to the core of the narrative about the kidnapped girls in Nigeria. Alexis Okeowo provides more of the political context. Frankly, I'm terrified: I don't see a good ending here.
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Noted for later:
The Christian Science Monitor did a long report with video on the US military's efforts to prepare women soldiers for combat. I am bothered, at first glance, by the use of "females" for "women" in all the direct quotations. Why not call female soldiers women?
This article about sex abuse in Christian fundamentalism just depresses me.
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Recent reading: I just finished Heavy Ice by Ankharet Wells, a third book in the Require sequence. I found it difficult to get into, but about the 1/3 mark I was hooked, and I sat up late last night to finish it, even forgetting to watch Agents of SHIELD. It's just such a wildly creative universe she's invented, I almost don't have anything to say. The characters are awesome and flawed and annoying and beautiful, and one of my favorites is a twelve-foot-tall velociraptor (barely) domesticated for riding, named Hawkwood Strategem. I really enjoyed it, and I look forward to reading whatever Wells writes next.
I also just the other day finished Tobias Buckell's Arctic Rising, which is pretty much the polar opposite of the Requite books in terms of how the world-building is conveyed. It's a thriller on the surface, and a warning about allowing Big Men With Ideas and major western governments to make all the decisions about issues with global impacts; but it's bogged down by the periodic way Buckell stops the narrative and describes the climatological and political changes that resulted in the current situation. Lots of infodumps, lots. Nice theory; poor execution. But I liked the lead character, a Nigerian airship pilot who goes looking for the men who shot down her ship and gets in over her head. She was cool.
Current reading: Over lunch I started Erich Maria Remarque's Arch of Triumph for book club next week. So far it's well-written, with a vivid sense of Paris in 1938.
Up next: Possibly Elizabeth Bear's Range of Ghosts, which the library kindly purchased in ebook form at my request. I bounced off Bear a while ago, but people I respect (like Liz Bourke at Tor.com) are saying really good things about this trilogy, so I'll give it a try.
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And I watched Agents of SHIELD, and I gotta say, Did you have to kill the dog? Seriously? Poor Buddy. But if Ward killed the dog, he wasn't going to not kill FitzSimmons, to whom he would have felt far less emotional attachment.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.
*
Noted for later:
The Christian Science Monitor did a long report with video on the US military's efforts to prepare women soldiers for combat. I am bothered, at first glance, by the use of "females" for "women" in all the direct quotations. Why not call female soldiers women?
This article about sex abuse in Christian fundamentalism just depresses me.
*
Recent reading: I just finished Heavy Ice by Ankharet Wells, a third book in the Require sequence. I found it difficult to get into, but about the 1/3 mark I was hooked, and I sat up late last night to finish it, even forgetting to watch Agents of SHIELD. It's just such a wildly creative universe she's invented, I almost don't have anything to say. The characters are awesome and flawed and annoying and beautiful, and one of my favorites is a twelve-foot-tall velociraptor (barely) domesticated for riding, named Hawkwood Strategem. I really enjoyed it, and I look forward to reading whatever Wells writes next.
I also just the other day finished Tobias Buckell's Arctic Rising, which is pretty much the polar opposite of the Requite books in terms of how the world-building is conveyed. It's a thriller on the surface, and a warning about allowing Big Men With Ideas and major western governments to make all the decisions about issues with global impacts; but it's bogged down by the periodic way Buckell stops the narrative and describes the climatological and political changes that resulted in the current situation. Lots of infodumps, lots. Nice theory; poor execution. But I liked the lead character, a Nigerian airship pilot who goes looking for the men who shot down her ship and gets in over her head. She was cool.
Current reading: Over lunch I started Erich Maria Remarque's Arch of Triumph for book club next week. So far it's well-written, with a vivid sense of Paris in 1938.
Up next: Possibly Elizabeth Bear's Range of Ghosts, which the library kindly purchased in ebook form at my request. I bounced off Bear a while ago, but people I respect (like Liz Bourke at Tor.com) are saying really good things about this trilogy, so I'll give it a try.
*
And I watched Agents of SHIELD, and I gotta say, Did you have to kill the dog? Seriously? Poor Buddy. But if Ward killed the dog, he wasn't going to not kill FitzSimmons, to whom he would have felt far less emotional attachment.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.