Kage Baker's Company series is the awesomeest of awesome. BEST TIME TRAVEL SERIES EVER!
But damn it, I want to know what happens next! The last several books have only been inching slowly toward the crisis point in 2355. This one is no better. It's really more a collection of short stories than a novel. They're good short stories, but DAMN! Unsatisfying!
That said, the first story is a really wonderful re-telling of the Gilgamesh epic. And I TOTALLY wouldn't have gotten it if I hadn't read that as one of my very first great books.
In short, READ THIS SERIES! Start with In the Garden of Iden. Then read all the other ones. Because if you aren't reading this yet, this IS the best series you're not reading. Then you can come back here and bitch about this with me, because misery loves company.
OK, I threw myself into slang overload there - I need to go remember that I am 30 for a while. Have a good weekend!
Great Book: How German Is It by Walter Abish
A deconstruction of modern Germany by a post-modern author. Abish is on the list thanks to Bloom's list of the "Western Canon'. I previously read Alphabetical Africa which was a "woah, experimental" work. This has a plot and characters and stuff and in fact is very, very good.
Ulrich Hargenau is a German author, his brother Helmrich an architect, both of them involved in the construction of post-war German identity. But Ulrich's life is built on lies, and the new Germany is literally built on the bones of the victims of the Nazi regime.
Ulrich is trying to restart his life after his involvement in a widely-publicized trial of an anarchist terrorist group which included his (now former) wife. This destruction and subterfuge is a theme that dogs him throughout the book; there is a constant threat of violence and the constant hovering ghost of his past actions and those he betrayed. His father was executed during the war - but by which side? And which side is Ulrich on?
I got more impressed as I read. I'm still trying to figure out the cover image; a man with a striped shirt, wearing a hat, barefoot, on a horse, in shallow water. An image referenced multiple times in the text. Please someone explain to me what this means. And that's just the beginning.
I will be thinking about this book for a long time.
Ulrich Hargenau is a German author, his brother Helmrich an architect, both of them involved in the construction of post-war German identity. But Ulrich's life is built on lies, and the new Germany is literally built on the bones of the victims of the Nazi regime.
Ulrich is trying to restart his life after his involvement in a widely-publicized trial of an anarchist terrorist group which included his (now former) wife. This destruction and subterfuge is a theme that dogs him throughout the book; there is a constant threat of violence and the constant hovering ghost of his past actions and those he betrayed. His father was executed during the war - but by which side? And which side is Ulrich on?
I got more impressed as I read. I'm still trying to figure out the cover image; a man with a striped shirt, wearing a hat, barefoot, on a horse, in shallow water. An image referenced multiple times in the text. Please someone explain to me what this means. And that's just the beginning.
I will be thinking about this book for a long time.
Reading Journal Entry: Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
Over the weekend I read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, participating in the Seattle Reads program initiated by everyone's favorite action figure (with amazing push-button shushing action!), Nancy Pearl.
Satrapi is coming to Seattle at the end of May and there are events throughout spring focusing on Islam and Iran.
For a double local bonus, Persepolis is published by locally-based comics book folk Fantagraphics.
Persepolis is Satrapi's account of growing up under the increasing repressive Islamic regime, ages 6 to 14. Marjane is an independent-minded cute child who starts out with ambitions to be a prophet but who in the end is unable to knuckle under to the religious strictures imposed by the regime. At the end of the book, her parents send her to Austria to finish her schooling. Her parents are liberal and the combination of their subversive viewpoint and Marjane's frank curiosity makes a killer POV combination for Western audiences.
The art is simple and arresting, perfectly suited to the subject matter.
For what it is - a mournful love letter to Iran - it's very good. I can see why the SPL chose it. It's heart-wrenching in places, very accessible, and will appeal graphically to a large audience. Downside: the limited scope makes it frustrating for the reader who is looking for a more nuanced view.
Satrapi is coming to Seattle at the end of May and there are events throughout spring focusing on Islam and Iran.
For a double local bonus, Persepolis is published by locally-based comics book folk Fantagraphics.
Persepolis is Satrapi's account of growing up under the increasing repressive Islamic regime, ages 6 to 14. Marjane is an independent-minded cute child who starts out with ambitions to be a prophet but who in the end is unable to knuckle under to the religious strictures imposed by the regime. At the end of the book, her parents send her to Austria to finish her schooling. Her parents are liberal and the combination of their subversive viewpoint and Marjane's frank curiosity makes a killer POV combination for Western audiences.
The art is simple and arresting, perfectly suited to the subject matter.
For what it is - a mournful love letter to Iran - it's very good. I can see why the SPL chose it. It's heart-wrenching in places, very accessible, and will appeal graphically to a large audience. Downside: the limited scope makes it frustrating for the reader who is looking for a more nuanced view.
Reading Journal Entry: My Neighbor Totoro 4 by Studio Ghibli
I thought I was reserving the DVD of My Neighbor Totoro, an anime film produced by Studio Ghibli. Instead I got a cute little hardbound comic book that is number 4 in a series.
Unfortunately I can't recommend it, even though I enjoy manga and anime. The book is laid-out right to left in a way that makes the sequence of events hard to follow. Japanese exclamations and sound effects were not translated. The art appears to be merely repurposed frames from the movie. No effort has been made to take advantage of the differing medium. And there's about 1/4 of a plot.
Watch the movie instead!
Unfortunately I can't recommend it, even though I enjoy manga and anime. The book is laid-out right to left in a way that makes the sequence of events hard to follow. Japanese exclamations and sound effects were not translated. The art appears to be merely repurposed frames from the movie. No effort has been made to take advantage of the differing medium. And there's about 1/4 of a plot.
Watch the movie instead!
Great Book: the poems of W. H. Auden
Poetry's not usually my bag. But I'm doing this to stretch the old noggin, so I'll try not to complain. Since I read so quickly, I find it difficult to slow down my eyes and mind and enjoy the rhythms. I try to find audio books of poetry whenever I can. Because readers talk more slowly than I read, I tend to get more out of it.
The Voice of the Poet series from Random House is an excellent series of poems read by the distinguished and mostly dead authors themselves. (Never before released recordings!)
I found the Five American Women volume annoying; this Auden collection was much more consistent and enjoyable. He has a wonderful speaking voice. I never felt like I had to get past the performance to the words. And the work is accessible. It even rhymes! Yay, expectations fulfilled!
The overwhelming impression I have of Auden is that he's depressed. We're all going to die eventually, life sucks, people are stupid and frustrating. It was funny, witty, work, but with a despairing, exasperated tone to it.
My favorite individual work was one of the lighter ones, a poem written for Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard in 1946 about the return to college of the veterans of World War II and the coming battle between Apollo and Hermes (knowledge and truth). It seems to fit right in with my recent discussion of academia. It ends with the Hermetic Decalogue:
Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor's thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.
Thou shalt not be on friendly terms
With guys in advertising firms,
Nor speak with such
As read the Bible for its prose,
Nor, above all, make love to those
Who wash too much
Thou shalt not live within thy means
Nor on plain water and raw greens.
If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.
The Voice of the Poet series from Random House is an excellent series of poems read by the distinguished and mostly dead authors themselves. (Never before released recordings!)
I found the Five American Women volume annoying; this Auden collection was much more consistent and enjoyable. He has a wonderful speaking voice. I never felt like I had to get past the performance to the words. And the work is accessible. It even rhymes! Yay, expectations fulfilled!
The overwhelming impression I have of Auden is that he's depressed. We're all going to die eventually, life sucks, people are stupid and frustrating. It was funny, witty, work, but with a despairing, exasperated tone to it.
My favorite individual work was one of the lighter ones, a poem written for Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard in 1946 about the return to college of the veterans of World War II and the coming battle between Apollo and Hermes (knowledge and truth). It seems to fit right in with my recent discussion of academia. It ends with the Hermetic Decalogue:
Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor's thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.
Thou shalt not be on friendly terms
With guys in advertising firms,
Nor speak with such
As read the Bible for its prose,
Nor, above all, make love to those
Who wash too much
Thou shalt not live within thy means
Nor on plain water and raw greens.
If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.
Reading Journal Entry: The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science by Horace Freeland Judson
Who was it who recommended I read this book? Step forward! Someone out there recommended I read this recently, I know.
Horace Freeland Judson is a science journalist who tackles the issues of scientific fraud. The content was interesting, especially in context of in light of the recent stem cell research scandal, but I felt the treatment was scattered and lacked focus.
Judson describes instances of fraud by some of the major scientists of the last two hundred years - Darwin, Pasteur, Haeckel, etc., and then jumps to a description of several high profile modern scientific frauds. How were they perpetrated? How were they discovered? What was the institutional reaction to discovery?
Those institutions and scientists who react swiftly and openly come out looking best. But even some quite prominent and respected figures have been shown to be involved in 'scientific misconduct', which spawns the gamut from tweaking results, to putting one's name on a paper that one has not authored, to outright fabrication and plagiarism.
Judson begins to lose his focus when he goes beyond specific instances of fraud into the wider implications. Clearly he is right when he concludes that fraud in science is not self-correcting; many egregious examples of fraud were discovered only by happenstance. Where he is on less solid ground is concluding that undiscovered fraud is widespread. How many things don't we know about? Hmmmm.
Judson also argues that peer-review of grant requests and refereeing of papers are two institutions greatly in need of reform, leading to greater opportunities to commit fraud and 'misconduct'. Grant requests are so competitive that review boards end up choosing between grants of 'equal scientific value' - demoralizing and an invitation to cronyism. Peer review of papers almost always fails to detect fraud, and is an invitation to plagiarism.
Judson's claim is that within the next ten years both institutions will be clearly different and better. But it's hard to imagine how this will happen without in the first case, grant review, without a huge influx of money from the government or a significant reduction in the number of working scientists. Refereeing of papers, on the other hand, which is currently anonymous, may well become an open process.
Not much of the theorizing was new to me, as I have a lot of academics in my family. Scientists are not all pure-hearted idealists, they are not more or less likely to misbehave than ordinary mortals. The only difference is that in science as contrasted to the rest of academia and the rest of the world, you are dealing with experiments and data.
The book's greatest weakness is that misconduct, bullying, plagiarism, appropriation are endemic in all of academia, and in the business world as well. Judson even throws in brief summaries of the big accounting and journalistic scandals that have happened over the past five to ten years in an introduction, for good measure.
Yes, scientists are people, and more people are cheating, and that means more scientists are cheating, and that is bad! But it doesn't really seem to be about science.
The material would have benefited from a narrower lens and a greater focus on historical cases. Where it succeeds is telling fascinating stories about people who 'done wrong', some of them people we respect. Where it fails is in becoming a generic polemic.
Horace Freeland Judson is a science journalist who tackles the issues of scientific fraud. The content was interesting, especially in context of in light of the recent stem cell research scandal, but I felt the treatment was scattered and lacked focus.
Judson describes instances of fraud by some of the major scientists of the last two hundred years - Darwin, Pasteur, Haeckel, etc., and then jumps to a description of several high profile modern scientific frauds. How were they perpetrated? How were they discovered? What was the institutional reaction to discovery?
Those institutions and scientists who react swiftly and openly come out looking best. But even some quite prominent and respected figures have been shown to be involved in 'scientific misconduct', which spawns the gamut from tweaking results, to putting one's name on a paper that one has not authored, to outright fabrication and plagiarism.
Judson begins to lose his focus when he goes beyond specific instances of fraud into the wider implications. Clearly he is right when he concludes that fraud in science is not self-correcting; many egregious examples of fraud were discovered only by happenstance. Where he is on less solid ground is concluding that undiscovered fraud is widespread. How many things don't we know about? Hmmmm.
Judson also argues that peer-review of grant requests and refereeing of papers are two institutions greatly in need of reform, leading to greater opportunities to commit fraud and 'misconduct'. Grant requests are so competitive that review boards end up choosing between grants of 'equal scientific value' - demoralizing and an invitation to cronyism. Peer review of papers almost always fails to detect fraud, and is an invitation to plagiarism.
Judson's claim is that within the next ten years both institutions will be clearly different and better. But it's hard to imagine how this will happen without in the first case, grant review, without a huge influx of money from the government or a significant reduction in the number of working scientists. Refereeing of papers, on the other hand, which is currently anonymous, may well become an open process.
Not much of the theorizing was new to me, as I have a lot of academics in my family. Scientists are not all pure-hearted idealists, they are not more or less likely to misbehave than ordinary mortals. The only difference is that in science as contrasted to the rest of academia and the rest of the world, you are dealing with experiments and data.
The book's greatest weakness is that misconduct, bullying, plagiarism, appropriation are endemic in all of academia, and in the business world as well. Judson even throws in brief summaries of the big accounting and journalistic scandals that have happened over the past five to ten years in an introduction, for good measure.
Yes, scientists are people, and more people are cheating, and that means more scientists are cheating, and that is bad! But it doesn't really seem to be about science.
The material would have benefited from a narrower lens and a greater focus on historical cases. Where it succeeds is telling fascinating stories about people who 'done wrong', some of them people we respect. Where it fails is in becoming a generic polemic.
Reading Journal Entry: So You Want To Be A Wizard, by Diane Duane
I was familiar with Diane Duane from her early work in Star Trek novels (Spock's World, anyone?). Besides those best-sellers with Leonard Nimoy on the front, she is well-known as an author of young adult fantasy.
Duane has recently started up quite a furor with her new internet installment publishing scheme for The Big Meow. I read Diane's blog (I read every blog) so I heard all about her plans to follow in the trail blazed by Lawrence Watt-Evans with The Spriggan Mirror (in 2004) and Stephen King with The Plant (in 2000).
King's effort failed; Watt-Evans succeeded. King failed and suspended publication of his serial novel after about six months; Watt-Evans succeeded and not only financed the writing of his entire novel but then sold publication rights to a small press for (one hopes) further financial reward. Both King and Watt-Evans are, like Duane, already established authors trading on their existing authorship. King had, obviously, a larger fan base. Personally I attribute the failure of The Plant to the model he used; he set a condition based on percentage of readers paying a fee and required payment for each chapter, instead of basing his decision on overall income and allowing a 'subscription' for the entire book.
Duane has followed in Watt-Evans footsteps by setting an undisclosed 'break-even' point at which chapters will be posted on the internet for subscribers. A week later, the chapters will be made available to the general public.
I did not pay Stephen King any money for The Plant. I did send Watt-Evans some dough for The Spriggan Mirror, once I learned it was the only way I was going to get to see more Ethshar novels.
I find the whole online publishing venture mildly interesting and I might want to participate, but I'm certainly not going to jump into a series mid-swing. That is VERBOTEN! So I reserved So You Want To Be A Wizard (the first book in the first series set in this universe) at the library and read it last weekend.
So You Want To Be A Wizard a fairly typical 'precocious child discovers magical artifact that ushers him/her into a world of magic' scenario. There are a few things that make it stand out (besides a great title).
First, it's set in Manhattan and on Long Island, and set well. The geography is lovingly described in realistic detail that really grounds the action.
Second, ethnicity. The main character's name is short for Juanita. Her little wizard friend is Kit Rodriguez. THANK YOU! It is such a relief to have characters in a fantasy novel that aren't lily white little British kids.
Third, the standard good v. evil schema is given an interesting and somewhat sophisticated twist. Evil isn't some big evil nemesis dude. It's entropy! I can buy into that. Who hasn't railed against the inevitability of death? The horrible thing about the feeling that everything in the world is getting worse all the time is that it's true!
Fucking entropy.
We hate it.
Duane has recently started up quite a furor with her new internet installment publishing scheme for The Big Meow. I read Diane's blog (I read every blog) so I heard all about her plans to follow in the trail blazed by Lawrence Watt-Evans with The Spriggan Mirror (in 2004) and Stephen King with The Plant (in 2000).
King's effort failed; Watt-Evans succeeded. King failed and suspended publication of his serial novel after about six months; Watt-Evans succeeded and not only financed the writing of his entire novel but then sold publication rights to a small press for (one hopes) further financial reward. Both King and Watt-Evans are, like Duane, already established authors trading on their existing authorship. King had, obviously, a larger fan base. Personally I attribute the failure of The Plant to the model he used; he set a condition based on percentage of readers paying a fee and required payment for each chapter, instead of basing his decision on overall income and allowing a 'subscription' for the entire book.
Duane has followed in Watt-Evans footsteps by setting an undisclosed 'break-even' point at which chapters will be posted on the internet for subscribers. A week later, the chapters will be made available to the general public.
I did not pay Stephen King any money for The Plant. I did send Watt-Evans some dough for The Spriggan Mirror, once I learned it was the only way I was going to get to see more Ethshar novels.
I find the whole online publishing venture mildly interesting and I might want to participate, but I'm certainly not going to jump into a series mid-swing. That is VERBOTEN! So I reserved So You Want To Be A Wizard (the first book in the first series set in this universe) at the library and read it last weekend.
So You Want To Be A Wizard a fairly typical 'precocious child discovers magical artifact that ushers him/her into a world of magic' scenario. There are a few things that make it stand out (besides a great title).
First, it's set in Manhattan and on Long Island, and set well. The geography is lovingly described in realistic detail that really grounds the action.
Second, ethnicity. The main character's name is short for Juanita. Her little wizard friend is Kit Rodriguez. THANK YOU! It is such a relief to have characters in a fantasy novel that aren't lily white little British kids.
Third, the standard good v. evil schema is given an interesting and somewhat sophisticated twist. Evil isn't some big evil nemesis dude. It's entropy! I can buy into that. Who hasn't railed against the inevitability of death? The horrible thing about the feeling that everything in the world is getting worse all the time is that it's true!
Fucking entropy.
We hate it.
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