[Book Reviews] Cyberspies, fascists, priests, terrorists, poets, warriors
I'd had Elizabeth Bear's fiction recommended to me before, particularly "Carnival". However, I happened across her AI sci-fi war story "Worldwired" first. It's a solid book with a pleasantly gritty alternative future. Superpowers Canada and China are grappling for ascendancy; as we enter this story, China has just crashed a meteor into Ontario, entirely screwing Toronto (and most of the planet) over and earning themselves the anger of the rest of the world. As one might expect on the heels of such an event, the atmosphere is full of particulate crap, and winter is coming. The story mostly tracks the activities of Canadian military spacers and their nanotech-savvy AI in their attempts to navigate the political and scientific processes involved in, well, saving the world. Oh, and there are aliens too. A good read, but not a great one, with a reasonable protagonist and some interesting tech. (I gather that there are books that come before this that I haven't read; that might affect my opinion.) Three and a half gravity wells out of five.
I was creeped out entirely by Jo Walton/papersky's magnificent "Farthing". Incisive political commentary in the guise of an English country murder mystery, "Farthing" manages to do well at evoking feelings of horror from the reader without clobbering one over the head with "HERE IS THE POINT, FASCISTS ARE BAD, DEFEND YOUR RIGHTS". Little turns of phrase strongly contribute to the Anne-Frank feeling of the book, and the author builds a ton of sympathy for her two viewpoint characters. She also excels at showing the small moral compromises that allow individuals and nations to slide into evil, and how they don't seem quite so bad to those on the wrong side of them. It's an excellent and thought-provoking read which is obviously very relevant to current events. Five moral complexities out of five; I'd buy copies of this book for school libraries if I could.
After reading about how many of the dojo etiquette traditions in Japanese martial arts are derived from Shinto, I decided that it would behoove me to learn something about the religion. When reading about religions and traditions of non-English-speaking countries, I generally try to read something from as close to the authentic source as I can to cut down on interpretive skew. Accordingly, I picked Motohisa Yamakage's "The Essence of Shinto: Japan's Spiritual Heart". Mr. Yamakage is the 79th Grand Master of Yamakage Shinto and the author of several books in Japanese on the topic. I found the book to be enlightening, and a good introduction to many of the spiritual concepts of the religion. It wasn't until the end that some of the dojo etiquette became clear, but that's okay -- I was looking for something that would explain the religion on its own terms more than something that would address my preconceptions of how it fit together, and "Essence of Shinto" does that. Given my general interest in both Japanese culture and nature religions, I would have expected to be fonder of the practices, but they just didn't speak to me that much. I suspect that this is in part an enumeration thing; I've read so many different opinions on how we have n souls, and this one does this, and that one does that, and it's just not compelling to me except in a metadata-reveals-framing way. As far as I can tell, the book is a good introduction to Shinto for a newbie, and I'm glad I read it, but I felt very distanced from the content until the last chapter. Three shimenawa out of five.
ObBias: rezendi is a personal friend of mine; we tooled around Black Hat and DefCon together while he was doing the research for this book. (Clearly he was paying attention: his gloss on hacker culture is great.)
After reading and enjoying rezendi's online serial Beasts of New York, I decided to give his bound fiction a try. (Despite liking rezendi, I had avoided it previously due to an aversion to serial killer fiction. He correctly assured me that "Invisible Armies" wasn't too bad on that front, so I gave it a shot. [grin]) The opening is a little choppy, and it took me some time to get sucked into the voice of the story... short sentences plus a third-party POV contributed towards that, I think. (It's certainly typical of the genre. Action happens. Guns shoot. Motorcycles roar. It doesn't turn and turn in on itself, akin to an elaborate Victorian dance of courtly regard, while full skirts sweep, young bucks giggle, and matrons look on disapprovingly from behind their opera glasses. It blows shit up.) But the story is fast-paced enough to drag you along, and the protagonists are sympathetic if at times a little dim. I'm probably biased on that, being a security geek -- there were definitely times where I was yelling "Don't you see what a manipulative bastard $character is, don't confront them with your evidence, get out, get out!" at the book, all in vain. [grin] The characters are well drawn, though, and behave in really believable ways. (Most people *wouldn't* see what a bastard $character was until it was too late.) I absolutely loved his depiction of the hacker scene -- that was painfully, hilariously spot-on. I'm pretty sure I know those people; I may even be those people. I picked out P2 right away, but again, most people not in security probably wouldn't. Finally, the technology in the story is refreshingly accurate -- go rezendi go! Most authors screw that up, and I found his portrayal of what's possible, how things work, and how information gets used to be far superior to most representations thereof. Four international conspiracies out of five; I'll read anything else he writes that doesn't feature a serial killer. [grin]
I greatly enjoyed Kuno Meyer's translations of "Ancient Irish Poetry", and devoured the book in little bites and pieces. His rendering of the text is lyrical and sensitive, and despite normally being a fan of rhyme, I prefer well-done unrhymed translation to a lurching and labored rhymed one. There were several pieces in there I was already familiar with (Pangur Bán! And, of course, the Isle of the Blessed), but also many new ones I hadn't previously encountered. ("Arran" was my favorite of those.) One can dive through the whole thing in a sitting, but it's much more fun to take slowly or to read aloud. I only wish he'd included the original Irish on facing pages; my favorite translations are those with both tongues side by side. Four tossing waves out of five.
It was really bizarre to read "Navajo Weapon: The Navajo Code Talkers" with its depiction of fervently nationalist Shinto in parallel with the above peaceful old-style Shinto. I picked up this book on a reservation near Albuquerque... given my interest in crypto, it was almost a no-brainer selection. Simply written, the book contains some excellent first-person accounts of the code talkers' experiences and does a good job of framing how and why the program began and what its role was in the Pacific theater. It's a fascinating story, and one that I found really compelling, but unfortunately the book doesn't quite do it justice. There's a little too much drum-beating, and in the latter part of the book the focus expands and loses some of the focus on the code talkers. However, I'm still glad I read it... there are some priceless historical gems in there. (The picture of the Navajo elder at the end wearing a T-shirt that says, "Marines Never Die; They Just Go To Hell And Regroup" and cackling wins everything.) Additionally, interested readers may find the dictionary of adapted Navajo terms useful, and linguistics geeks can have fun analyzing the language structural differences, particularly versus Japanese. Three and a half courageous warriors out of five.
I was creeped out entirely by Jo Walton/papersky's magnificent "Farthing". Incisive political commentary in the guise of an English country murder mystery, "Farthing" manages to do well at evoking feelings of horror from the reader without clobbering one over the head with "HERE IS THE POINT, FASCISTS ARE BAD, DEFEND YOUR RIGHTS". Little turns of phrase strongly contribute to the Anne-Frank feeling of the book, and the author builds a ton of sympathy for her two viewpoint characters. She also excels at showing the small moral compromises that allow individuals and nations to slide into evil, and how they don't seem quite so bad to those on the wrong side of them. It's an excellent and thought-provoking read which is obviously very relevant to current events. Five moral complexities out of five; I'd buy copies of this book for school libraries if I could.
After reading about how many of the dojo etiquette traditions in Japanese martial arts are derived from Shinto, I decided that it would behoove me to learn something about the religion. When reading about religions and traditions of non-English-speaking countries, I generally try to read something from as close to the authentic source as I can to cut down on interpretive skew. Accordingly, I picked Motohisa Yamakage's "The Essence of Shinto: Japan's Spiritual Heart". Mr. Yamakage is the 79th Grand Master of Yamakage Shinto and the author of several books in Japanese on the topic. I found the book to be enlightening, and a good introduction to many of the spiritual concepts of the religion. It wasn't until the end that some of the dojo etiquette became clear, but that's okay -- I was looking for something that would explain the religion on its own terms more than something that would address my preconceptions of how it fit together, and "Essence of Shinto" does that. Given my general interest in both Japanese culture and nature religions, I would have expected to be fonder of the practices, but they just didn't speak to me that much. I suspect that this is in part an enumeration thing; I've read so many different opinions on how we have n souls, and this one does this, and that one does that, and it's just not compelling to me except in a metadata-reveals-framing way. As far as I can tell, the book is a good introduction to Shinto for a newbie, and I'm glad I read it, but I felt very distanced from the content until the last chapter. Three shimenawa out of five.
ObBias: rezendi is a personal friend of mine; we tooled around Black Hat and DefCon together while he was doing the research for this book. (Clearly he was paying attention: his gloss on hacker culture is great.)
After reading and enjoying rezendi's online serial Beasts of New York, I decided to give his bound fiction a try. (Despite liking rezendi, I had avoided it previously due to an aversion to serial killer fiction. He correctly assured me that "Invisible Armies" wasn't too bad on that front, so I gave it a shot. [grin]) The opening is a little choppy, and it took me some time to get sucked into the voice of the story... short sentences plus a third-party POV contributed towards that, I think. (It's certainly typical of the genre. Action happens. Guns shoot. Motorcycles roar. It doesn't turn and turn in on itself, akin to an elaborate Victorian dance of courtly regard, while full skirts sweep, young bucks giggle, and matrons look on disapprovingly from behind their opera glasses. It blows shit up.) But the story is fast-paced enough to drag you along, and the protagonists are sympathetic if at times a little dim. I'm probably biased on that, being a security geek -- there were definitely times where I was yelling "Don't you see what a manipulative bastard $character is, don't confront them with your evidence, get out, get out!" at the book, all in vain. [grin] The characters are well drawn, though, and behave in really believable ways. (Most people *wouldn't* see what a bastard $character was until it was too late.) I absolutely loved his depiction of the hacker scene -- that was painfully, hilariously spot-on. I'm pretty sure I know those people; I may even be those people. I picked out P2 right away, but again, most people not in security probably wouldn't. Finally, the technology in the story is refreshingly accurate -- go rezendi go! Most authors screw that up, and I found his portrayal of what's possible, how things work, and how information gets used to be far superior to most representations thereof. Four international conspiracies out of five; I'll read anything else he writes that doesn't feature a serial killer. [grin]
I greatly enjoyed Kuno Meyer's translations of "Ancient Irish Poetry", and devoured the book in little bites and pieces. His rendering of the text is lyrical and sensitive, and despite normally being a fan of rhyme, I prefer well-done unrhymed translation to a lurching and labored rhymed one. There were several pieces in there I was already familiar with (Pangur Bán! And, of course, the Isle of the Blessed), but also many new ones I hadn't previously encountered. ("Arran" was my favorite of those.) One can dive through the whole thing in a sitting, but it's much more fun to take slowly or to read aloud. I only wish he'd included the original Irish on facing pages; my favorite translations are those with both tongues side by side. Four tossing waves out of five.
It was really bizarre to read "Navajo Weapon: The Navajo Code Talkers" with its depiction of fervently nationalist Shinto in parallel with the above peaceful old-style Shinto. I picked up this book on a reservation near Albuquerque... given my interest in crypto, it was almost a no-brainer selection. Simply written, the book contains some excellent first-person accounts of the code talkers' experiences and does a good job of framing how and why the program began and what its role was in the Pacific theater. It's a fascinating story, and one that I found really compelling, but unfortunately the book doesn't quite do it justice. There's a little too much drum-beating, and in the latter part of the book the focus expands and loses some of the focus on the code talkers. However, I'm still glad I read it... there are some priceless historical gems in there. (The picture of the Navajo elder at the end wearing a T-shirt that says, "Marines Never Die; They Just Go To Hell And Regroup" and cackling wins everything.) Additionally, interested readers may find the dictionary of adapted Navajo terms useful, and linguistics geeks can have fun analyzing the language structural differences, particularly versus Japanese. Three and a half courageous warriors out of five.