Book Journal 2014: 6

Jan 20, 2015 09:12


Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett

Boo.  Not a good book.  Made even less good by the fact that I get kinda twitchy when you combine Japan and China into one fantasy culture.  I know little enough about Europe that if Pratchett is squishing up all sorts of stuff there I just go along with it, but _this_ I notice.

Does have the interesting idea of homeopathic warfare in the fantasy context: the smaller your side is, the more likely you are to win.  And the idea of rite of conquest in fantasy  - you haven’t _really_ taken over unless there’s a lot of blood and it looks proper.  But still, my first bit of fiction in quite a time and it is no good at all.  Boo.

The Island of the Colorblind, by Oliver Sacks

Two and a half non-fiction novellas from tropical islands.  The good Dr. Sacks is, of course, interested in strange diseases and the people who have them.  The first novella is the titular island of the colorblind, where there is a community of people who have, not the common type of colorblindness, but true 'no cones, no colors' colorblindness.  He and two other scientists, one who is similarly afflicted, visit the community.  A travelogue, really.  The second novella is from Guam, where a community of people suffer from one? two? inexplicable neurological disorder(s).  Similarly kind of travelogue-y, it also goes into the disease, the lytico-bodig, and the mystery surrounding it.   Is it genetic?  Environmental?  Why does it only happen to people who grew up on the island, but sometimes not until decades after they have left?  Why does no-one born after a certain date get it?  Is it actually linked with cycads?  This segues into the third chunk, which is kind of about him going to a nearby island to see cycad jungles, but is mostly an essay on cycads, and why he finds them so awesome.  The three together are moderately educational, neither gripping nor boring, in the pleasant style of Dr. Sacks' writing.  There is an awkwardness to the flow, which the author is fully aware of, which occurs if you try to follow the numerous, somewhat tangential, endnotes.  They are endnotes, not footnotes, in an attempt to keep the flow going, but as they are fascinating tidbits I kept flipping back and forth to read them, rather than end up with a third of the book left in weird little snippets with no apparent genesis.
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