Ookings of d00m

I gave up on Feminisms after about 70 pages. I'll come back to it (or possibly another feminist text) later, and be more selective about the articles I pick - Feminisms had a lot of articles that were far, far too academic for someone of my limited background - I haven't the grounding in academic film criticism, literary criticism or other spheres in the Humanities, so I kept getting frustrated.

9.Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff

mycrazyhair was right - I liked this one. Quick read. I should go get more Ruff.

10.Whiskey and Water by Elizabeth Bear

Faeries! Magic! Doom! I liked this one better the Blood and Iron, possibly because the characters felt that much more like people I'd know. Also, Bear writes killer dialogue.

11.Shadowplay by Tad Williams

Faeries! Magic! Doom! I found it somewhat jarring to go from Bear to Williams. Williams doesn't have Bear's knack with amazing dialogue, so his charcters seemed somewhat wooden after Bear's. Williams does to a wonderful job at painting a vivid image of a complex and compelling world and plot, though, and I eventually got wrapped up in it. There's also an interesting comparison to be done on the two books based on how they handle feminist/gender issues, but I'll leave a deepr exploration of that to someone's Women's Studies paper.

12.Renfield by Barbara Hambly

Dracula retold from the point of view of Ryland Renfield, mad slave of Dracula. Hambly mimic's Stoker's writing style, with much of the book in the form of letters. She also includes a few direct excerpts from Stoker's work, which are identified for the obessive reader.

I'm past due for something serious, so next up will be Michael Pollen's In Defense of Food

Everything You Know is Wrong from Disinformation Press

I couldn't finish this - it was pissing me off too much. The book purports to be a collection of news stories that haven't recieved much coverage by the mainstream media. Most of the articles are badly researched, badly annotated, and come across as crazy conspiracy theories. Even when I read an article where I agreed with the thesis beforehand, I found myself wondering if I should re-think my stance after the article. I got really sick of seeing the word "facts" presented in scare quotes. Also, while it is convenient to dismiss all information that disagrees with your thesis as the result of a global conspiracy, it doesn't help me consider your argument as well-reasoned and thought out.

The article that convinced me to stop reading the book was Mickey Z's "Fear of a Vegan Planet." I agree with the basic thesis, that a vegan diet is a more ethical and healthy choice. The article reads like it was written for a high school assignment.

Nearly all of his references are to video tapes, pamphlets or web sites from a partiuclar set of vegan activists. He dismisses nutritionists who disagree with his claimed protein requirements as being puppets of the meat industry, and the number he claims as accurate is supposed to be from the WHO. When I checked the end notes, his sources for the WHO data is... a pamphlet from a vegan activist group. He couldn't actually get the data directly from the WHO? It's not clear from the context of the quote whether or not the number provided is the amount of protein needed to not die, or an ideal healthy amount, but the context seems to be data on starvation in third world countries, so I am dubious about using that as a lifestyle choice.

My end conclusion, when I finally gave up on the book, is that these stories are not being presented by the mainstream media because thier authors are very poor journalists. some of the short editorials read fairly well, but it wasn't worth the pain of slogging through the longer articles.

The Chains You Refuse by Elizabeth Bear

A collection of short stories. I liked some of the stories better than others, but overall, I enjoyed the book. I liked the stories from the Edda of Burdens world particularly.

Undertow by Elizabeth Bear

An SF novel from Bear. I think this book might have benefitted from being longer - the characters seemed to have a lot more individual background and story than there was room for. I still enjoyed it - I just found myself wanting more time to explore each of the characters. My inner eye seems to be losing some of its anglocentrism - I had a hard time in Carnival not assuming everyone was white until given specific descriptions to the contrary. With Undertow, I found I was no longer assuming that the future would be filled with white people and special guest stereotypes .

Glasshouse by Charles Stross

Handmaid's Tale meets the Stepford Wives at a bathhouse, they do a lot of drugs and wake up in bed three days later with some software engineers they met on the way. Stross explores modern concepts of gender, identity, society and... stuff. Much goodness. Reading Stross' work always leaves my head buzzing for days afterwards.

I've started reading Disinformation Press' Book of Lies, which, unlike Everything You Know is Wrong is primarily essays from various occultists, and thus neatly avoids the problems I had with EYKIW - there's no expectation of journalisitic integrity here, andI enjoyed the hell out of the first essay by Grant Morrisson.

So much so, in fact, that I decided I needed to go buy and finish the Invisibles before I read anything else.

Finally finished American Backlash: The Untold Story of Social Change in the United States by Michael Adams. I read his book Fire and Ice: The myth of converging values a while back, so I figured I'd give this one a shot.

Adams is the founder of Environics, a big market research firm, so he's got a pretty big amount of data to work with. In American Backlash, he looks at values in America. his thesis is that the big culture war in the US is not between the Republicans and Democrats or the Right and the Left. It's between the Americans who are politically engaged, who vote, and the 50-40% of Americans who don't. Red or Blue, Americans who vote are closer to each other than they are to the disengaged. Similarly, the trends both the GOP and the Dems find most troubling about "America today" are frequently lead by the disengaged.

I found the book quite interesting. If you're interested in "what Americans believe/care about/value", then this is probably up your alley. It also does a region by region analysis. I learned that, if I ever wanted to go to the US long term, I'd probably be unhappy outside of Boston. He's also got some interesting analyses of the two parties, and the core and moderate members of each.

Update on books read since November

Iron Council by China Mieville

Another fabulous New Crobuzon book from Mieville. It touches on a lot of the same themes as his previous books. If you found those too depressing, you'll find the same from this one - if, like me, you loved Perdido Street Station and Scar, you'll love Iron Council, too. One of the things I like about the New Crobuzon books is how Mieville deals with a fantastic world full of magic. When power first arises, it's a source of mystery and social change. Before that change can make a real differene, though, it's co-opted by the social power structure, and incorporated into the subjugation of the populace. The lesson? Magic, like technology, is not power, and it is not morality. I like Mieville because his writing reflects the world the way I see it, and nothing is so reassuring as being told that we're right.

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

This took me a lot longer to read than I thought it would (I finished it yesterday). Thanks to the timely birthday intervention of the fabulous corbet, I had my own copy to work through, though, and finally made it. This was a great book, but very informationally dense. Aside from the definite real life applications of the books's material, it's also a great resource for anyone who wants to write complex politcal scheming (or run an Amber game). It's also full of interesting historical bits - I'll wait until neeuqdrazil reads it to find out how accurate thie history is. This was my "serious" book for this cycle.

WorldWired by Elizabeth Bear

The third and final in Bear's genre-straddling series. I was very happy with this book. I find Bear's writing flows just right for my head - I found myself getting irritated with other authors for not being as smooth. WorldWired deals with a lot of characters, as does the Martin book below. I think both do a good job of keeping many balls in the air at once, but of the two, I think I may have been more satisfied with WorldWired. Bear would be my favourite author of 2005, except that I reserved that space for Charlie Stross after Iron Sunrise's description of a supernova.

A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

The very long awaited next book in Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice. Apparently, the book grew too large to publish in one volume, so Martin pulled out half the chapters, and this is the result. The next volume should be out shortly. The books in this series change POV character from chapter to chapter, so A Feast for Crows only covers half of the characters - the other half will be their story for the same time period in the next volume. While I liked the book, I think Martin is overdoing it. He's spending a lot of paper on characters who aren't directly important - while thier actions are significant, I think it would be better if, rather than 5 or 6 chapters, they got a paragraph or two explaining thier actions. The series doesn't need more emotional involvement with more characters - the focus is starting to get blurry. The fact that the book was pulled in half shows in spots - there are bits that come across as a little awkward, or where the character's personality doesn't quite seem right. While still better than all the other Massive Unending Fantasy series, I think A Feast for Crows may be the weakest of the lot. Which isn't to say that I didn't like it, or that I'm not eagerly awaiting the next volume so that I can FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!