I'm one chapter away from finishing Ancillary Justice.
I'm about to re-read Perdido Street Station by China Mieville to get inspiration for my new steampunk campaign. It takes place in a city on top of a giant beanstalk, surrounded by a perpetual storm, and growing out of a lake in the middle of a floating continent that is filled with Stone Age and Bronze Age tribes and city-states and vast jungles and smoking volcanoes and crumbling ruins and ancient temples dedicated to cults worshiping elder god-things.
One of my colleagues just lent me Elsevier's two-volume The Geologic Time Scale 2012. The various divisions have been refined (and in some cases totally re-defined) quite a bit since I was learning them in the early '90s, and I look forward to seeing how the discoveries people like me make in the field translate to adjustments in the units used to reckon the history of the planet.
Kobold Press' "Southlands Adventures Beneath the Pitiless Sun". Just arrived in the mail today.
Slavery and the Founders blew by well ahead of schedule. Followed it up with William Cooper's Liberty And Slavery: Southern Politics to 1860, which was so good that I think it took me three days. I was excited enough to immediately look for more recent stuff by him, wherein I found out that he's gone full white power in his old age. His most recent historical publication, so far as I can tell, argues that total Northern capitulation to the South and permanent extension of slavery would have been infinitely preferable to the civil war.
Which is possibly the mightiest whiteness an Americanist can muster. Lots of historians will throw shade on the abolitionists, though not nearly so many as in past generations. More will argue that the war wasn't inevitable, though few will carry that forward and say it ought to be evited, but Cooper goes the whole way. Unless he's radically changed his understanding of the South since what I read, Cooper believes the section was unconditionally committed to slavery in perpetuity circa 1790, so he wouldn't even have the excuse of thinking slavery would fix itself in ten or twenty years. Jebus.
So I went over to Finkelman's The Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History with Documents. Therein I quickly discovered that I've priced myself out of the market for that kind of book. It was pitched as a reading for undergrad surveys and it shows. I picked up very little from the introductory matter, which analyzed the case, and realized as I got into the documents that there was little point in my continuing just now. I might mine it for sources when I get to 1857, but I'm not even out of April of 1856 yet and when I do get to the court I know I'll have better books to read. None of this is a dig on the book. It does exactly what it wants to. That's just not what I wanted out of it. I'm only out two bucks to the local junk store for it.
What I ought to have done was pick up a copy of Finkelman's An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity instead. But that's a bit pricey so I spent a few hours grappling with option paralysis before settling on Rothman's Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South. I'm about a third of the way through. It's pretty good, but not quite as much new information as I'd hoped.
It looks like this is going to be the third or fourth book in a row that's all about white politics, so it's probably time to look at another slavery study. Probably Johnson's River of Dark Dreams, which I understand is very slavery-centric.
Downbelow Station was written first, though right? The prequels are retroactive?
See, Embassytown reminded me of CJ Cherryh's SF. She's a linguist and archaeologist, her specialty is crafting truly alien psychologies and cultures (her stuff is often called anthropological science fiction), and even some of the place names and characters reminded me of her stuff, particularly Bren/Dan. She's very prolific, and I've read 50 or 60 of her novels, so I'm a little obsessed, and might be reading into things that aren't really there.Read Embassytown a few months ago and reading Downbelow Station right now. This one doesn't really have a lot of Aliens in to but the ones that are there are considerably more comprehensible than the Arieki.
What other Cherryh books would you most strongly recommend? Sounds as if you've read most or all of them...
Chanur's my favorite for aliens. They're not all the least comprehensible, but the Hani are the viewpoint characters so you get really deep into their view, including how they see the other, stranger, aliens.
Personally, I couldn't really get into Foreigner, but a lot of people like it.
If you like Downbelow Station, there are both loose sequels and prequels. Not a lot of aliens, though the azi, as cloned and programmed humans get pretty close.
Yes. Heavy Time & Hellburner are set in Sol system during the building of Mazian's Fleet. They focus on down on their luck asteroid miners and politics.
The sequels follow soon after Downbelow Station and generally focus on merchanter's dealing with the new state of things.
Tripoint and Finity's End are sequels to Downbelow Station set 15-20 years later, too. Just about everything she wrote previous to the Foreigner series fits into the Alliance-Union setting in one way or another. The introduction to Cyteen, for instance, mentions Earth having discovered xenophobic alien races, who the reader will recognize as the Compact Space species from the Chanur series.
I enjoy the hell out of the Foreigner books, but I miss Alliance-Union.
Just finished the most recent Stephen Jones "Years Best" anthology (have you picked up a pattern in my reading habits?). This is the first volume since the Mammoth book of best new horror ended, and it now has a new less well known publisher. It was good although of late I find Ellen Datlow's a bit better.
Other than that:
Currently reviewing a book about the Cenozoic South American fossil record for work
reading a couple of races a night from the Advanced Race Compendium put out by Kobold Press
and started a new horror anthology for my commute, Things from Outer Space, which collects various horror stories involving threats from beyond the stars. Mostly picked it up for "Who Goes There?", the story that inspired the movie(s) The Thing, and which I had never read previously.
Currently reviewing a book about the Cenozoic South American fossil record for work
This would fascinate me.
Tripoint and Finity's End are sequels to Downbelow Station set 15-20 years later, too. Just about everything she wrote previous to the Foreigner series fits into the Alliance-Union setting in one way or another. The introduction to Cyteen, for instance, mentions Earth having...Downbelow Station was written first, though right? The prequels are retroactive?
See, Embassytown reminded me of CJ Cherryh's SF. She's a linguist and archaeologist, her specialty is crafting truly alien psychologies and cultures (her stuff is often called anthropological science fiction), and even some of the place names and characters reminded me of her stuff, particularly Bren/Dan. She's very prolific, and I've read 50 or 60 of her novels, so I'm a little obsessed, and might be reading into things that aren't really there.Read Embassytown a few months ago and reading Downbelow Station right now. This one doesn't really have a lot of Aliens in to but the ones that are there are considerably more comprehensible than the Arieki.
What other Cherryh books would you most strongly recommend? Sounds as if you've read most or all of them...
Chanur's my favorite for aliens. They're not all the least comprehensible, but the Hani are the viewpoint characters so you get really deep into their view, including how they see the other, stranger, aliens.
Personally, I couldn't really get into Foreigner, but a lot of people like it.
If you like Downbelow Station, there are both loose sequels and prequels. Not a lot of aliens, though the azi, as cloned and programmed humans get pretty close.
Yes. Heavy Time & Hellburner are set in Sol system during the building of Mazian's Fleet. They focus on down on their luck asteroid miners and politics.
The sequels follow soon after Downbelow Station and generally focus on merchanter's dealing with the new state of things.
I wish there was some way to connect those two 'verses together.
Tripoint and Finity's End are sequels to Downbelow Station set 15-20 years later, too. Just about everything she wrote previous to the Foreigner series fits into the Alliance-Union setting in one way or another. The introduction to Cyteen, for instance, mentions Earth having discovered xenophobic alien races, who the reader will recognize as the Compact Space species from the Chanur series.I enjoy the hell out of the Foreigner books, but I miss Alliance-Union.
Many of the connections are pretty tenuous though. Even the Chanur link is easy to miss. With that, the Faded Sun trilogy and most of the one-shots, it's more like Easter Eggs than actual plot.
The Morgaine/Gate books are also apparently linked in - though it's even more tenuous.
I'd actually say the Morgaine link is less tenuous, given that one of the section of the introduction to the first book is a Union Science Bureau brief, but I'm afraid pointing that out will set you off on a rant about how there should be no walls between hard science fiction, space opera and heroic fantasy because you hate and detest segregated sub-genres. ;)
And yeah, totally, Dan. Actually, given the examples of human beings surviving jump without jump drugs in a few Alliance-Union books, I've just decided to believe that the are the same universe no matter what the author says.
I still have about 150 or so pages of A Dance with Dragons to go. And have been at that point for a couple of years now.
I just started Queen of Thorns from Pathfinder Tales. This is my first reading of a Tales book.
I just finished volume 1 of Monstress by Marjorie Lu last night.
After Queen of Thorns I will be reading Death's Heretic.
I also read several other comic book series.
Next year I'm looking to read more steampunk. Any good recommendations?
Hoo boy. Some people on these boards may be sick of my saying it by now, but I can never pass an opportunity to recommend one of my four favorite novels of all time, The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. I mentioned it on these boards time and time again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
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Still in Slave Country, but there's something else relevant to my reading. I'm on a podcast, talking about the Kansas-Nebraska Act because of my reading.
So...that happened.
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So every year I tend to read along a theme. Next year I'm looking to read more steampunk. Any good recommendations?
Have you heard of The Anubis Gate by Tim Powers?
Gail Carriger's Soulless and its sequels and prequels.
Scott Westerfield's Leviathan and its sequels.
Jim Butcher's The Aeronaut's Windlass.
Mark Hodder's The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack and its sequels.
Cherie Priest's Boneshaker and its sequels.
Chris Wooding's Tales of the Ketty Jay series (Retribution Falls and its sequels).
Railsea by China Mieville. Also Perdido Street Station and the rest of the trilogy.
Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World and Thunderer are pretty good.
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and what's-his-name, of course.
The Powder Mage trilogy by Brian McClellan.
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Still in Slave Country, but there's something else relevant to my reading. I'm on a podcast, talking about the Kansas-Nebraska Act because of my reading.
So...that happened.
Huzzah!
But I got the Paizo Golem when I clicked your link.
Think I fixed it in my quote.
EDIT: Seems to work. Huzzah!
Still in Slave Country, but there's something else relevant to my reading. I'm on a podcast, talking about the Kansas-Nebraska Act because of my reading.
So...that happened.
Huzzah!
But I got the Paizo Golem when I clicked your link.
Think I fixed it in my quote.
EDIT: Seems to work. Huzzah!
Bah, looks like I accidentally dumped part of Paizo link in there somehow. But you got the right one.
Here it is again for anybody who mistrusts goblins. More than you ever wanted to know about the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and we didn't even get to it becoming law. :)
Next year I'm looking to read more steampunk. Any good recommendations?Hoo boy. Some people on these boards may be sick of my saying it by now, but I can never pass an opportunity to recommend one of my four favorite novels of all time, The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers.Seconded. (or twelthed, I suppose.)
I never really thought of it as steampunk, but I guess it fits. Doesn't matter. Read it anyway.
I'll also throw Elizabeth Bear's Karen Memory out there.
Seconding this post, and adding that Maurice Broaddus's upcoming Buffalo Soldiers might fit the bill, based on the cover, at least.
The Age of Unreason series by Gregory Keyes is some steampunky alternate history. Newton and Franklin and their shenanigans. (The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone by him are like Song of Ice and Fire, but complete and slightly less grimdark, but not steampunky.)
Ian Tregillis's The Mechanical is some more steampunky alternate history.
This would fascinate me.
Currently reviewing a book about the Cenozoic South American fossil record for work
I'll talk more about it when I finish the book, but it's actually pitched towards laymen, and although thick a good chunk of the book is artist reconstructions and gorgeous photos of fossil sites, so pretty awesome.
It's enough to make me wish that South America's land bridge never formed, and all the weird and unique mammals the continent had were still around (some are, but all the endemic marsupial carnivores and endemic larger herbivorous mammals are gone).
Given the repeated appearance of white supremacists, heavily armed Oathkeepers and Soldiers of Odin at our local BLM rallies and demos, our topic for our commie branch meeting tonight is Fascism. Last night I re-read a pamphlet of Trotsky excerpts:
FASCISM: What It Is and How To Fight It
Then I read a couple of chapters in A Clash of Kings.
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So every year I tend to read along a theme. Next year I'm looking to read more steampunk. Any good recommendations?Have you heard of The Anubis Gate by Tim Powers?
Jim Butcher's The Aeronaut's Windlass.
Cherie Priest's Boneshaker and its sequels.
Seconding all of these. Of them, The Aeronaut's Windlass is my favorite, so far.
Who I Am by Pete Townshend.
Also whatever Numenera stuff I can get my hands on.
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The Unwilling Warlord, by Lawrence Watt-Evans. I picked it up from a Little Free Library kiosk for the awesome technicolor 1989 cover illustration.
The illustrator also did the Wheel of Time covers: Darrel K. Sweet
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Given the repeated appearance of white supremacists, heavily armed Oathkeepers and Soldiers of Odin at our local BLM rallies and demos, our topic for our commie branch meeting tonight is Fascism. Last night I re-read a pamphlet of Trotsky excerpts:
FASCISM: What It Is and How To Fight It
Then I read a couple of chapters in A Clash of Kings.
It's not from a communist perspective, but I've heard good things about Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism. Only read parts myself, mainly on the Klan, but it's pretty approachable.
Horus Heresy series
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The illustrator also did the Wheel of Time covers: Darrel K. Sweet
Dude is the most prolific fantasy illustrator of all time. He must have worked fast, and for peanuts. I have old paperbacks by Jack Chalker, Sterling Lanier, Clifford Simak, L. Sprague deCamp, Robert Heinlein, probably a dozen others -- all with that unmistakable cover style.
I still prefer Michael Whalen.
One of my colleagues just lent me Elsevier's two-volume The Geologic Time Scale 2012. The various divisions have been refined (and in some cases totally re-defined) quite a bit since I was learning them in the early '90s, and I look forward to seeing how the discoveries people like me make in the field translate to adjustments in the units used to reckon the history of the planet.
Partway into Vol. 1. I'm impressed at how solar cycles (Milankovitch) and resulting climatic shifts have now been correlated against the fossil assemblage, and the two tied to magnetic reversals and (independently) radiometric dating. Anyone who thinks the Earth is 6,000 years who read this would probably have a stroke.
It's really complicated. Each chapter could have easily made for a long book and some of them feel like they are one. There's so much going on that it's ridiculously good and gets almost impossible to follow just from having so many moving parts.It must be great to have such an embarrassment of riches when it comes to data on New World slavery. Government statistics, slave narratives, contemporary accounts...
On that topic, I recently read an article on New World slavery, The Demographic Cost of Sugar: Debates on Slave Societies and Natural Increase in the Americas. Not too recent an article (2000) but it got referenced in antiquity scholarship as comparative evidence that Roman slavery (which had nothing to do with sugar) would likely also have been at least demographically stable. The article itself is a comparison of population and slave import data for some of the few U.S. sugar regions (in Louisiana), and found a sharp decrease in demographic outcomes for sugar parishes as compared to neighboring cotton parishes - the suggestion is that a uniquely demanding sugar labor regime was primarily responsible for the trend of demographic decrease seen in non-U.S. New World slavery.
Coming back to this now. Turns out my memory was faulty. My slavery studies guy agrees that sugar was especially costly in lives, though he's not sure that lowcountry rice is any better. The main thing he objects to is the narrative you see sometimes in American slavery studies that the Caribbean is a unique death trap. It's probably still worse to a degree, but not quite that far gone. I misremembered him as holding that sugar cultivation and Caribbean slavery were about on par with US mortalities. My screw up, not his. He even cites Tadman!
Anyway, finished off Slave Country. Turned out pretty good, though I feel like for such a short book it had a mite too much stage setting. Starting River of Dark Dreams tonight.
So every year I tend to read along a theme. Next year I'm looking to read more steampunk. Any good recommendations?
I would just like to second (or maybe it's third) SmiloDan's recommend of Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century series, beginning with Boneshaker. I've enjoyed all of them so far.
Currently reading the last of Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis' (yes, they are still writing together after all this time) current Dragonships series, Doom of the Dragon. It has some interesting interactions between the gods and humans of the setting; we'll see how the ending turns out.
Got out of work early and headed over to the Intersectional Feminist Fondue at UMass Lowell and was three hours early. Finished reading Chapter 15 of Das Kapital for tomorrow's readers circle and then realized I didn't have any of the other books I was reading. Popped the trunk open (everybody has three boxes of books in their trunk, right?) and opted for a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories, a Del Rey collection from the seventies called At the Mouth of Madness and Other Stories. Read the two shortest ones in the collection ("The Statement of Randolph Carter" and "The Shunned House." Liked 'em a lot.
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The Unwilling Warlord, by Lawrence Watt-Evans. I picked it up from a Little Free Library kiosk for the awesome technicolor 1989 cover illustration.
The illustrator also did the Wheel of Time covers: Darrel K. Sweet
DKS had an annoying tendency to put frilly Renaissance-type garb on people for whom it was totally inappropriate (*cough* Riddle-Master trilogy *cough*), but OTOH I never saw a cover of his that didn't in some way show that he'd read at least some part of the actual book.
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I've just finished a biography of Fats Waller, which was a bit over-written and light on detail, and 'Dragon' by Steven Brust, which was great.
Now reading 'The Torture Garden', by Octave Mirbeau
More hanging around, waiting, this time at the Commie Office, led me to pick up Empiricism and Its Evolution: A Marxist View by George Novack.
Locke, Berkeley and Hume, oh my!
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Just started Theieves' World. Finding it hard to believe I'd somehow never read this before now.
Just started Theieves' World. Finding it hard to believe I'd somehow never read this before now.
You'll definitely enjoy it!
I got 'Titan: The World of Fighting Fantasy' through the post.
London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets by Peter Ackroyd. Next I resume reading my copy of The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London, which I inexplicably left a third through, and if time permits Georgian London: Into the Streets. I arrive in the city 1st January for my first ever trip abroad, so reading wise I'll have London on the brain for months.
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Finished Downbelow Station (a standalone that also servers as the first of many books set in the same universe, by C.J Cherryh), and am about to start on Infernal, book 9 of the Repairman Jack series.
However, the book covers up for that with some of the smartest and most nuanced politics I've ever read in a book. There's a wonderful complexity, with over a dozen factions and individuals working their angles. Most of them had some combination of cunning, initiative and guts, and the book is essentially composed of long stretches where all the players carefully set up their pieces - punctuated by explosive segments where some external event forces everyone to make their moves all at once. The result is a strongly satisfying tale full of true suspense. I was truly unable to predict how things were going to shake out at any point of the book.
The setting itself is also worthy of praise. I love the idea that the long distances of space would bring back some things that we, in the modern and hyper connected world, already forgot. Humanity will splinter and change in the separate regions, and information will be carried by merchants and travelers rather than relayed instantly. The various factions and are all well represented and interesting, and I'd certainly like to read more of the setting in the future.
I do have some divergences. The pace is not perfect, with some not-so-interesting parts being longer than they must and some crucially important and interesting parts feeling somewhat rushed or are left mostly undescribed. The writing was somewhat odd and, I am ashamed to admit, a bit hard to follow at times, with some sentences feeling as if words were dropped from them. I also wonder why Pell Station was apperantly run by a monarchy, as a single family appeared to be entirely in charge of just about anything, something that will never come from a democratic process. Even with all the other changes in how people in the beyond live, I think the book should have included some more detailed justification of how the rulership of Pell was granted to a family, across multiple generations.
On the bottom line, though, Downbelow Station was a very impressive and satisfying read that makes it well desrving of the billion awards it won. I would recommend it with the caveat that patience is crucial for the slower parts.
Downbelow Station is like the first episode of a TV series. It throws a lot of introductory material and just gives you a taste of how deep it will eventually get.
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'Some Summer Lands' by Jane Gaskell, which features a couple of very unusual ways to put out a candle.