A Librarian's Life in Books

Post 473: A Clash of Kings

2012-01-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin. ISBN: 9780553897852 (eBook).

You guys, my blogging schedule is all sorts of messed up. I was working on a post for Holding Our Worlds Together when I realized that I need to post that in February and not January because the publisher asked me to hold review until publication date. D'oh. And so I'm not quite finished with this book, but since it's a big long epically epic ...epic, I am going to be pretty general anyway... or at last try to. So, warning, if you are overly sensitive about anything even remotely spoilery, I will be talking about things that happened in the previous book in as generic terms as possible.

So at the beginning of the book there is lots of discussion about this big red comet that has appeared in the sky and what it means. At this point the realms has dissolved into chaos for... reasons I can't tell you, but let's just say that a situation has arisen in which Who Is The Leader has been thrown into question. So all of these potential leaders see this comet and say to themselves, "Oh look, it's a sign." Which is bad pretty much anytime your leader relies on signs and whatnots to tell them what to do.

Now, I'm not totally against taking signs into consideration. Certainly it's no worse than flipping a coin to determine what you're going to do if it's between two more or less equal choices. But uprooting an entire people and dragging them across a continent or picking a fight with another country because God Told You To really only works out in the Bible (or similar texts), and that still usually only works well for the people in power.

Fighting wars has always been at the discretion of people with ~~money~~ ~~power~~ money. Someone with money who really wants to take advantage of a certain kind of market will create that market, and nothing is more certain than needing a whole shitload of stuff to go hurt other people in other places. That's why people with money and/or power who believe in signs on top of wanting to manipulate the market/other people/anything are so scary. Not only are they willing to do whatever is necessary to carry out the perceived will of the wind switching directions, but they are actually capable of doing so and fucking the rest of us in the process.

I have always found the idea of god communicating through signs to be somewhat questionable to begin with. Signs are easily interpreted in a variety of different ways by many different people (such as Martin's red comet for instance). If we have a few too many such people in high positions relying on signs who also have influence, they could very well bring about the end of the world just by proclaiming that they see the signs for it. But it seems to me that if god were truly to communicate through signs, at the very least he would want us to interpret them in the way that would be best for everyone and not our own benefit. Which raises the question of the usefulness of signs to begin with.

You know what, you don't need a link to a review, because there are so damned many of them. So far I like the series and would recommend it to most everyone.
LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive Media.
So, uh, I totally wrote this at 11:15PM the night before, it's probably going live unedited. I apologize in advance.

Post 472: a general update

2012-01-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

Hello. You missed my birthday.

No worries, I spent Saturday with my mom, her boyfriend, and my brother eating friend chicken, asparagus, lima beans, biscuits, and chocolate cake. Sunday I had plans to spend it with people I've been kid/house/pet sitting for. Last week I made sugar cookies with the four year old. That was fun times. It's sort of weird being of the age to have children, yet not having them and having no possibility of having them and not really wanting them anyway. Er, yeah. I kind of have no reason for living right now, so on second thoughts, it's okay that my birthday was ignored.

Enough with the quarter life crisis.

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin.
I am making progress in this series. The books are long so it's kind of hard to find time to read them, even though once I start I tear through pretty quickly. This is a library eLend, so I have to finish it up by the 23rd, or else get put at the back end of the list which is currently (as of the 12th) 28 patrons long. It could be worse, but let's just say this is near the top of my git-r-done list.

Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies by Donald Spoto.
This was up for grabs on a swap shelf I sometimes peruse. It looked interesting enough, and while Hitchcock films are usually a bit slow paced for my tastes, I still enjoy them now and again. In any case, I'm always interested to know a little bit more about Hollywood before bat-shit crazy became a thing. Okay, so that was always a thing, but let's just say it's at a whole different level nowadays. Winning.

The Portrait by Iain Pears.
Another of those authors that people seem to like/talk about that I haven't read. grabbed it from the library sale table for 25 cents. I'm interested to see how Pears tackles the Critic-Artist dynamic, especially given the loose friendship the two subjects have.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns.
Another library sale table grab. This one was on my feed for a while last year as it was handed around to various book bloggers by word of mouth. Since I am in small-town The South, I will be able to judge, at least somewhat, its authenticity as being a book that "deftly captured the subtle crosscurrents of small-town Southern life."

Post 471: Dan Walker (guest blogger)

2012-01-23T13:20:00.000-05:00

The Book of Tomorrow, by Cecilia Ahern. ISBN: 9780061706301.

Our narrator almost redeems herself right off the bat by telling us that she realizes now, cast out of her previous, glamorous life into relative squalor in the countryside, that when she was living in a huge mansion with all the stuff she could ever want, she was pretty much an insufferable, spoiled brat. That redemption didn't pan out for me in reading the book, but at least it gives me a jumping-off point to talk about the one thing that gets me angrier than anything else: economic inequality.

The tl;dr is: I hate rich people. I kind of can't help it. Racism, sexism, oppression, environmental destruction; they don't get under my collar nearly as much as someone suggesting that anyone at all can solve their problems with money. I encountered this a lot in college, and the worst part is, I don't think that these people do this to be mean. They're thoughtless, yes, selfish perhaps, but they simply are ignorant of the problems that people without a lot of money have to face. Things like, "I can't get that book for my class because I have to feed myself this week." And that lack of malevolence is the hardest part, because you can't hate someone for not knowing. For not trying, yes, but first you have to educate.

Unfortunately, no one's doing the education. Rich kids get brought up in gated communities and private schools with other rich kids. They never have to go anywhere outside their little spheres of money because everything is provided for them. When they grow up, they expect everything to be provided for them because that's just how they were brought up. It takes a serious wake-up call to break someone out of that mindset.

This is what I say to people when they suggest things like, "We shouldn't overtax the rich because they made that money and they deserve it." Well, when mommy and daddy buy them everything all their life and they just inherit the money, do they really deserve it? Someone on a message board cheesed me off big time once by suggesting that, yes, they do, because they "carry on the family name." Ignoring the fact that only sons would be worthy of such an inheritance, I found that statement unspeakably ridiculous. Carry on a family name? So they get rewarded for simply being born? No one cares what your name is if you lose everything and wind up on the street. The American dream is not to be born into a wealthy family, but to build an empire and become rich through hard work and dedication.

Of course, the American dream is dead. It's a myth at this point, and its perpetuation just leads people to set their dreams high and suffer disappointment as they crumble. We may all be created equal(ly), but that doesn't mean we all have equal opportunities. The circumstances you grow up in are the ones you're most likely to stay in. We like focusing on the success stories, the people who rise from nothing to become these famous stars or lead multimillion dollar corporations, but they stand out because they're the exceptions. For every one of those people are hundreds of thousands more who are in the ghetto, who will have kids who stay in the ghetto, and the cycle will continue.

And that's what's always made me so angry, I think. My family was working-class, not so poor that we couldn't afford to have nice things every once in a while, but often living above our means and too poor to do things like save money or buy really nice things, like say, extra cars. And now here I am, stuck in a crap, dead-end job that just barely pays enough for me to make payments on my student loans, with no real out in sight, while some bimbo who can't be arsed to remember her teacher's name is going to go through college -- paid for by mommy and daddy -- go into business and make a ton of money while never having to lift a finger. Yeah, I think that would make anyone a little mad.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no way around this except to make these people go from ignoring the poor to hating them. I'm a big proponent of wealth distribution, but honestly, I don't think that goes far enough. I want to see salary caps. No one really needs to make more than $100k, as far as I'm concerned, maybe $200k if I'm feeling generous. Because, yeah, I'm sure running an entire company is hard work, assuming you're actually doing some kind of work, but you sure as hell don't deserve hundreds of millions of dollars a year (plus multimillion bonuses!) for working your slaves to death and exploiting everyone you can lay your hands on just so a room full of rich stockholders can get richer.

Dan Walker (pseudonym) is a writer from Northeast Ohio. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Wright State University in 2004 and a Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language from Kent State University in 2009. He is currently the editor of Lib's LIB

LibsNote: This post was originally written January 30, 2011 to give the regular blogger a break.
Dan Walker received a review copy from the FirstReads program at Goodreads.
This was posted late because I totally planned to get something written, but SHIT HAS HAPPENED that needed taking care of. Should be back next week.

Post 470: Dan Walker (guest blogger)

2012-01-19T12:00:00.001-05:00

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok. ISBN: 9781594487569 (advanced reader copy).

The whole illegal immigrant debate is still raging in this country, and if there's one thing that really gets under my nerves, it's a single phrase that keeps being repeated by those who are seemingly anti-immigrant: "They should learn English!"

There is, frankly, a war on foreign language going on right now. I keep reading anecdotes of Americans being offended by the fact that others are speaking languages that are not English around them. This is completely ludicrous. Worse are the related movements trying to keep government documents and voting ballots from being printed in anything but English. Should immigrants learn English? I would say yes; I certainly wouldn't want to live in a country where I couldn't understand the predominant tongue. But the one thing that these people do not understand is that it takes a lot of time to learn a language.

This is one thing I really liked about Girl in Translation, is that we get to see the parallel language development of Kim and her mother. They emigrate from Hong Kong speaking very little English; by the middle of high school, Kim is talking like a native speaker and still has to translate for her mother. Her mother tries learning English around that time, so she can take the naturalization test, but it's a real struggle. I don't know if she actually passes the test, but at the end of the book, she's still not speaking it very well.

The struggles of immigrants to learn English if they've had little or no training in it in their home country are really poorly understood here. Even if they've learned English already, a second-language setting does not provide the cultural context and constant immersion in the second language necessary for someone to really be able to function in a society that speaks that language. Plus, there's cultural shock, differences in body language and inflection that are not always taught, and things like having learned British English and then trying to survive in America. So shouldn't we throw these people a bone, so they can function in their native tongue while they're still learning, especially considering that it's much harder for adults to learn languages than it is for children? Isn't it more important to make sure that people have their civil rights properly explained to them than to push an agenda of "our language or the highway"?

I think for those with the latter sentiment, their viewpoint comes from a lack of understanding and sympathy. This comes directly from the piss-poor status foreign languages hold in the US. For most Americans, foreign language class is something to be tolerated for two years during high school, and maybe another two years in college to satisfy liberal education requirements. They have no need to get anything but a passing grade because even if they go to another country, "Everyone speaks English anyway." This isn't necessarily untrue, but the fact is, few appreciate the cultural understanding that can stem from a serious study of a language, and that lack of seriousness leads to a lack of understanding about how hard learning a language can be (not to mention, they learned theirs while their minds were still plastic enough to absorb it all).

With our current focus on math and science education, I'm sure foreign language is going to continue to fall by the wayside, and I don't know what could really be done to change cultural views on language. What I will do with these last few sentences is give a little advice to any American who wants to make a language-learning decision that will actually be useful to them. Here are a few good languages to try and learn if you have to learn any:

American Sign Language. No, it's not just making hand gestures to substitute for English words. ASL has its own grammar, which can be bizarre and complex to someone who's only familiar with English. Even if you never leave the United States, ASL is the one language that will most benefit you at home. You will always encounter people who can't hear very well or at all, and there is always a need for interpreters.
Spanish. Kind of a no-brainer, and another "I don't want to leave the country" language. The importance of Spanish is of course increased the further West one travels.
French. Less important, but hey, maybe you'll go to Canada one day. There are even places like Louisiana and Maine where people still speak French. French can also teach you a lot about English, because we've got a TON of French loanwords.
Mandarin Chinese. Now we're in the category of "useful for business." A billion+ people speak Chinese, and Mandarin is the prevalent dialect. If you're going into something like international affairs or business, this is an A-1 doubleplus good choice for a language. It's hard to read, sure, and sometimes hard to understand, but the grammar is easy at least. I don't know much about Cantonese, but it's another good choice (and completely different from Mandarin, despite being called a 'dialect').
Latin. Some consider it a cop-out, since it's a dead language and all, but it's amazing how much you can learn about English from another language, just like with French. Latin formed about half the building blocks of English, and it's still very useful in the sciences.
Arabic. Duh. No language right now can get you employed faster. I'm pretty sure the government even has programs where they'll pay for you to learn Arabic so you can be a translator.

So there's a sampling. Just remember, learning another language is far easier when you're well acquainted with your own, so pay attention in grammar class!

Dan Walker (pseudonym) is a writer from Northeast Ohio. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Wright State University in 2004 and a Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language from Kent State University in 2009. He is the current editor of Lib's LIB.

*This post was originally written December 9, 2010 to allow the regular author a break and/or a chance to catch up on her own reading. Because A Clash of Kings is a long ass book, okay, guys?
**Danny received the ARC from me, I received it from my public library and they g0t it directly from publishers.

You can see Amy's thoughts on A Girl in Translation here.

Post 469: Scarlet

2012-01-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen. ISBN: 9780802723468 (eGalley - publishes February 14, 2012).

I rather like the inclusion of women in stronger-than-they-normally-get roles in stories with Medieval settings. There were actually quite a few women who held powerful roles, though normally as high ranking noble women with extremely dead husbands or as pre-beatified saints. The latter were women who often fasted, or hid their eating habits, as proof of their religious purity, that they could sustain themselves strictly on the spirit of Christ... or sometimes his body, as a few were known to eat only Communion wafers. The noble women were often seen as far more threatening, as hardly anyone really wanted to live the life of a saint, which by definition was difficult and full of burdens. Therefore more women were inclined to want a life of nobility, preferably with a weak and gullible, or at least permissive, husband... old or dead were good too, so long as there was an heir.

I found it interesting then that Gaughen combined these two archetypes of women into one "Will" Scarlet. Although I doubt it was done purposely, the combination of eating disorder and noble birth was intriguing. At a time when the Roman Catholic church was still the only game in town, Scarlet might have been the pinnacle of womanhood, except that she ran away from her family, dressed in men's clothing (for which she could have been killed), and joined a band of randy men living in the woods.

Yet somehow she has found not one, but two men to fawn over her and one to obsess over wanting to capture, kill, own, and marry her... in no particular order. We have the commoner who treats her like a loose woman by positioning himself in a physically aggressive manner, often backing her up against a tree, leaning over her, etc. Then there's the "dishonored" honorable nobleman who calls her a whore and a tease. With choices like these, it's a miracle that Scarlet has any desire at all to be with a man, much less that she'd actually have a preference for one. But lucky for us, dear reader, Scarlet has a guilty conscience and believes she is unworthy of a "good" man, so of course that is exactly what she ends up with.

There was a lot of potential in this book, and while I don't expect my heroines to be so blindingly perfect that they aren't humanly possible, it would have been nice to see Scarlet have the balls she claimed to have and actually stick up for herself.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Advance Reader Copy provided by Netgalley.

Post 468: The Last Werewolf

2012-01-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan. ISBN: 9780307595089.

I've mentioned previously that I like monsters because they show the monstrous parts of our humanity: the lust, the violence, the lack of control over our emotions and impulses, etc. Werewolves more than most monsters speak to our primal and "out of control" nature, the beast lurking just beneath the surface, so you would think that a book that explored not only that topic, but what it means to be the end of a species, a cornered wolf if you will, would hit all the sweet spots for me. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Rather than wanting to spend more time with 200 year old Jacob Marlowe, I found myself giving a shit about as much as he did about his death.

But unlike most monster novels of yore (and why did he not deign to reflect at least on Dracula?), Marlowe doesn't attempt to cope with the monster while trying to remain human. Instead, he separates himself even more so from humanity, not by removing himself from it physically, but emotionally. He willingly, and even proudly, recognizes that he has done so, but assures us, dear reader, that he makes amends for it monetarily.
No worries, he can check out of humanity and slaughter a person a month for the 400 years (or more) he is pretty sure werewolves can live. Here, I will math for you. That would be 4800 people, assuming he killed only one a month and did not turn anyone else into a werewolf. This is by no means a holocaust, but there have certainly been pre-bomb battles with lower death counts. But Marlowe is not a particularly introspective werewolf despite his unusual-for-the-species journal keeping habits. He is more logical than anything, which further separates him from his human-animal nature, as if he can conquer both by providing us with sound reasoning as to why he prefers to fuck women he hates and drink/drug himself into a stupor more often than not, oh yeah, and the killing, totally justifies that he kills innocent humans.

I suppose part of my disconnect from Marlowe, besides his general disconnect for his former species, is that he is able to control himself as a werewolf, at least to a certain extent. Most werewolves are presented as fairly mindless (but intelligent), hyper-vicious, and over-sized anthropomorphic wolves. Duncan presents his werewolves as being aware of what they are doing in wolf state, and able to time and even plan attacks. That Marlowe stalks and stakes out his prey in human form is somewhat questionable. If he feels he can and should offset his karma financially, why does he not target people who are likely to irreparably harm others?

Marlowe's hyper logic does not seem to extend to this particular question, and certainly with 175 years of killing as a werewolf it must have occurred to him at some point, but the fact that the topic isn't even broached just makes him feel like even more of a detached sociopath than he sets himself up to be. Which makes the rest of the novel fall completely flat on its ass when Marlowe all of a sudden finds himself wanting to live again because he can feel again. I just don't buy it. You don't get to be a sociopath for over a hundred years and all of a sudden find yourself falling in love and wanting to live again.

Meanwhile, Duncan ignored the more interesting tidbits he threw at us, such as a potential explanation for werewolf existence, which Marlowe might then have actually reflected on in relation to his soon-to-be extinction. But no. We get bloody sex romps and passive journal entries instead. That all being said, I didn't absolutely hate the novel, but a more involved narrator would have been nice.

I think I was interested in the novel more for the author than the actual work. Rewatching this interview, you can kind of see why (he kind of looks like he'd be a werewolf). Sadly, Greg Zimmerman and New Dork Review of Books pretty much nailed the meh-ness.
LibsNote: Library copy.

Post 467: When She Woke

2012-01-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan. ISBN: 9781616201180 (eBook).

Spoiler Alert: This is going to be a compare and contrast post, so if you haven't read this book or The Scarlet Letter, I'm going to go almost straight to the Maury Moment with the Baby Daddy reveal.

Although When She Woke (WSW) covers more topical issues of persecuting children out of wedlock, I think The Scarlet Letter (SL) is still the stronger, and more relatable story. For one thing, Hester Prynne (SL) is forced to keep her child and live with the emotional and financial burden of raising a child without a father in a time where that was nearly impossible. The fact that Prynne was able to make a living for herself and avoid more than social ostracism within the Puritan community is more of a testament to her resourcefulness than Hannah Payne's (WSW) access to resources (namely family and funds). Where Payne is able to tap into her baby daddy's influence without revealing his identity, Prynne was unable to do the same in such a small, close-knit, and pre-internet society.

I felt like Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter was a much more ~~sympathetic~~ tragic character than his When She Woke counterpart Aidan Dale. Dimmesdale was just as isolated from the community as Hester Prynne by his position of moral authority as minister, so much that it took a physical toll on his well being. Meanwhile, Dale actually has a wife and gains even more prestige while Payne is hidden away and "chromed" red. While I'm certain Dale must have suffered some guilt and remorse regarding Payne, we don't see him much in WSW, and so it's harder to connect to him sympathetically, and sometimes he even comes off almost villainous, even when he's ~~paying off~~ assisting Payne so she is better able to endure her years of chromitude.

In short, I like The Scarlet Letter more because the relationship between Dimmesdale and Prynne is far more complex than that between Dale and Payne. For one thing, Pearl adds a whole new level of complexity that Dale/Payne's aborted child doesn't, and while Dale has a wife, Jordan presents Dale as someone who could very easily leave his lustless relationship for the more exciting one with Payne. I don't really regret reading Jordan's work, and I don't think it's a horrible story, but I would much rather have gone into it without constantly being reminded that it was a derivative of The Scarlet Letter. In this way Jordan almost set herself up to fail, because it needed to be 300x better than the original in order to blow me away, and it didn't even come close. But, it did make me want to reread The Scarlet Letter, so I'll be doing that soon.

Also, I apologize, but this is definitely a half-assed post. I read WSW about a month ago and just let it sit because I wasn't particularly moved by it. Also I wrote this the day before posting. I'd totally give myself a generous C- on this.

A glowing review from Bookalicio.us for those of you who think Hawthorne is a pretentious schmuck who couldn't write his way out of a paper bag. Goodreader Jeanette pretty much sums up my feelings about the book.
LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive.

Post 466: a general update

2012-01-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

News! There's not a whole lot of it, other than my awesomest Christmas present was getting my teeth cleaned. It's a big deal when it's been ... so long I don't want to tell you how long it has been. Dental place was hella shady, they didn't do x-rays but told me I had a dozen cavities. My mom and I were all *eyeshift* uh... So I just got back (Jan 5) from a place we decided to follow up with and they were all, "lol no, those are stains, but your gums are lookin' rough." So hurray for no cavities! And... well, let's just say my New Year's resolution is to fuckin' floss like a god damned adult already. Serious business. Floss you guys, it's important. ಠ_ಠ

Reading is also important. Do that too.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan.
I read this a while ago and its been sitting in my brain for a bit now. It's a dystopian take on A Scarlet Letter. It did some interesting things, but it probably would have been better had Jordan just used A Scarlet Letter as a jumping off point and written a completely new work of fiction. I'm a big fan of the Letter, and this did not hold up. I'll discuss my reasoning in my post. There will obviously be spoilers, mostly involving Dimsdale torture... you did have to read this book in high school, right?

Holding Our World Together by Brenda Child and Colin G. Calloway.
I have a weakness for Native American history, particularly when it is written by Native Americans. Particularly when it focuses on the often neglected contributions of minority women. So this hits a bunch of triggers for me. I am excited to read it.

Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen.
One day I will read the original Robin Hood stories (or at least the written version of them). In the meantime, this is a version in which Will Scarlet is a fiesty pants wearin' lady. If there is a love triangle in this I will be disappoint. Ladies like more than men falling over themselves and beating each other up for female attention. Anywho, it looked interesting. Am hoping it is not Mary Sue'd like crazy.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan.
I've been interested in this book for awhile now. So when I actually saw it on the shelves of my local library in Alabama, which traditionally has almost no investment in books containing sci-fi or supernatural elements, I was excited. Also, Justin Cronin (The Passage) did a great write up of it in the New York Times Book Review, and a good portion of the blogging world was excited about it. My first impressions of it are, "Eh, this is probably more of a dude book." Not that I am into "chick books," but the emotional detachment of the main character is just sooooo appealing and makes it soooo easy for me to invest in the book. He's kind of a big wet dog-smelling blanket with a constant hard on. I'm sure someone on the internet actually sells those.

Post 465: Ragnarok

2012-01-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

Ragnarok* by A. S. Byatt. ISBN: 9781847670649 (eGalley - publishes in US February 1, 2012).

In high school I did a paper on the Uncle Remus stories examining frame tales, or stories within stories. In the case of Uncle Remus, you had the story of Uncle Remus telling the stories to the children, and then the "framed" stories of Brer Rabbit. Byatt has created more of a simpatico story.** The Norse mythology has almost nothing to do with the additional narrative of the "Thin Child." Yet, she is dealing with her own generation's brand of chaos in being young during World War II, with a father in a particularly dangerous military position. So while this is not exactly a retelling of Ragnarok myth, nor is it a complete story regarding the Thin Child, it does offer emotional context to stories that might otherwise seem "dead" to our current state of mind or being.

I think children tend to be drawn towards the stories that make sense to them emotionally. I know I found this to be true as I was growing up. I wasn't interested in the books that contained facts and figures; the idea of reading non-fiction for pleasure was eye-rollingly bad. But books about pets dying were some of my favorite from 3rd grade up until about 5th. Shiloh, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Yearling; these were all books that I could relate to on an emotional level. Even though I hadn't lost a pet at that time, I was still able to sympathize with and connect with the main character's loss. As I grew up, I was able to expand on the emotional ranges I could relate to, but when it comes down to it, the simplest emotions are the best.

I think this is why myths, and religious texts, appeal to us. The ones that have endured are those that are most inline with our emotional centers. We love the stories of Jesus Christ because we are beings capable of loving, but more than that, we are beings who need love. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of that love, and so we are drawn to his stories because if he loved the most wretched of us, surely he could also love the rest of us even better.

In the case of the Thin Child, and others who have gone through particularly tumultuous times, the myths of Ragnarok may speak to the confusion experienced. Myths were created to make sense of our physical world. As a species we chose to do so through a very emotional means, and therefore we have also attempted to explain our emotional state along with earthquakes, tornadoes, and the creation of mountains, rivers, and snakes. That the Norse created and were drawn to a trickster god and a myth that ended with the destruction of the world tells us more about their state of mind as a people than I think we realize. That their myths still resonate with some of us is both encouraging and disappointing. Encouraging because they are still with us and have survived thousands of years, disappointing because our society still seems to be a mass of chaos despite our best efforts.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: eGalley provided by Netgalley.
*I cannot spell Ragnarok for the life of me, I keep wanting to spell it "ragnorak". This is totally important information that you needed to know.
**I made this literary term up (I think), there may be a more accepted term for it, but I can't be arsed to look it up.

Post 464: The Kitchen as Laboratory

2012-01-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Kitchen as Laboratory: Reflections on the Science of Food and Cooking edited by Cesar Vega, Erik van der Linden, and Job Ubbink. ISBN: 9780231153447 (eGalley - pubishes January 31, 2012).

Although this was a bit more science-y than I was expecting, it was easy to at least get the idea behind the article, even if my eyes glazed over the jargon and scientific concepts I haven't encountered since my Chem 1 class in 2003. In any case, I've always loved cooking and baking and the balance of science and art needed to make something that would satisfy a basic need if done adequately and lead to exaltation if done exceedingly well.

One of the things I learned to make this year was a fairly excellent cream of mushroom soup.* I have played quite a bit with this recipe, trying to determine when the best time is to add the flour and the mushrooms and which alcohols to use, etc. While sherry is a common flavoring, added at the end of cooking the mushroom soup, I have found that adding a bit of gin in the broth does quite a bit for enriching the umami of the broth and earthier mushrooms like portabellos.

In my experimenting, I have also found that using a mix of mushrooms creates a better flavor, and also lets me buy cheaper mushrooms, while allowing the more expensive ones to create a better flavor. In other words, I tend to use two parts button mushrooms and one part portabello or oyster mushrooms.

In my experimenting, I have also found that using a mix of mushrooms creates a better flavor, and lets me buy some cheaper mushrooms while allowing the more expensive ones to create a better flavor. In other words, I use two parts button mushrooms and one part portabello or oyster mushrooms (I have also used shiitake, but find haven't quite figured out the best flavor pairings for it). This gives me a bit more flexibility as the button mushrooms are a more common flavor for our palate, which is easily identified and therefore makes my mushroom soup that much more "mushroomy" despite the fact that they usually have a more delicate flavor than portabellos.

Since I usually rely on bouillon instead of homemade stock, I have found that cooking with two pots in the initial stages is useful. One pot contains the broth, herbs, and gin. In the other pot I start with butter, garlic, and onions to make a roux. Having the broth as a standby allows me to add extra moisture if too much of the butter has cooked off and/or if I have added too much onion. At this step I also add finely diced mushroom stems. This way there is no waste of the mushroom, and it acts as an additional thickener. While adding the flour at a later stage does not take way from the taste of the soup, for whatever reason it does not thicken and become creamy. Instead it tends to form tiny flour dumplings which are a pain in the butt to try to break apart. Luckily, if this happens the soup is still entirely edible.

This is a little bit of my own kitchen chemistry. Are there special recipes you enjoy experimenting with? If you could work with any food, recipe, or cooking technique, what would you most like to work with?

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: eGalley provided by Netgalley.
*Want my recipe? Leave a comment with contact info. I'm currently house sitting, so I'll get it to you when I get back on the 3rd or 4th.

Post 463: The Discovery of Jeanne Baret

2011-12-29T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe by Glynis Ridley. ISBN: 9780307463531.

I'm always impressed when an author manages to make history engaging. Not that history is boring, but it's difficult to write what daily life was like in an interesting manner in order to set up for the more fantastic events that sometimes happen in the lives of individuals. Not only has Ridley accomplished this, but she has also managed to include how and why she interpreted primary documents the way she did.

I think this is something the up-and-coming scholars have trouble with. I know I had difficulty in interpreting historical information when I was working on my undergraduate thesis, but it is also important to realize that historical figures were people first and people always have ulterior motives in how they present themselves and why. This kind of analysis is just as important for interpreting information today. That trusted news source? They're still trying to sell you something, whether it's a subscription to the Sunday newspaper or to hold your interest long enough so that they can charge their advertisers premium prices for airtime. Hell, even I would sell you something if I could figure out how to monetize this blog in a way that would be a) worth the effort and b) not so incredibly annoying as to drive more traffic away than my crazy ideas already do.

I think people sometimes forget that even the most honest and well meaning of human beings are still human beings. We want to believe that our heroes are like the ones in the movies, but the movies are even less realistic than the news, although the line seems to get blurred more and more every day. The truth is not always what is presented to us in whole cloth; a story can easily be edited to give us details we will find inflammatory or mollifying depending on where it has been cut. So for those who think history is boring, I would say it depends on your view of it. While the excitement may not reach National Treasure heights,* for some of us there is still the thrill of the chase as we put on our detective hats to determine motive and opportunity for historical figures altering details of the story and present day historians for presenting them a certain way.

In the case of Baret, there were several persons on the ship who were determined to obscure when her identity as a female was revealed to them. Yet Ridley has sorted it our and given a plausible and likely reason for when Baret's identity was revealed; what it meant for Baret, her crew mates, and the officers on board; and how it affected the rest of her voyage and life. The chance to finally give Baret credit for her botanical and other scientific work must feel a bit like tracking down a surviving relative in order to return a family heirloom. While some of its original meaning may be lost, the story of its return becomes part of the legacy. Although Ridley has taken liberty in imagining how Baret must have felt, I took less issue with this than I would have otherwise because it made real the danger she undertook to accomplish what she did.

My review can be found on Goodreads.**
LibsNote: Review copy provided by publicist.
*Give or take Nicholas Cage's deadpan "acting" style.
**Since this post is fairly reviewy I will be adapting it for my review on Goodreads, just fyi so you don't feel like you're wasting your time if you choose to read both.

Post 462: That's Disgusting

2011-12-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

That's Disgusting by Rachel Herz. ISBN: 978039307647 (eGalley - publishes January 23, 2012).

Interesting choice of cover design, especially if you've read this book and realize what that face subconsciously signals. Strangely, this was not the original cover, which had a cute tiny snail creeping along on top of the black text box. Snails weren't heavily mentioned in the book, but it was a much more appealing cover. Anyway, makes you wonder who vets these and whether Herz had any say in it. Honestly, you can almost smell or imagine whatever it is that made this lady make the "poopy" face.

While I was reading this, I kept thinking about moments where someone else was disgusted and I wasn't. One of the more interesting ones was when I was volunteering for an Air Force closed channel news and media center. During this period, they took footage from an airplane crash. I happened to be in the room eating lunch while they were reviewing the footage. I was casually watching the edits when they realized I was in the room. Not only were they shocked that I was still there, but that I was also chowing down on a chicken sandwich. My tender age of about twelve also shocked them. In any case, I was chased out of the editing room by some very perturbed and squicked adults.

So why wasn't I grossed out enough to at least stop eating while I was watching this footage? Am I morally depraved because I was capable of looking at carnage without being grossed out? Did I "like" this kind of footage or in some way find it appealing?

The answer to the last two questions is no. I did not enjoy watching the footage, but neither did it bother me. For one thing, I was at an age where death did not seem applicable to me. I knew I would die some day, but that day seemed impossibly far away to my twelve year old self. According to Herz, being reminded of how vulnerable we are to death and/or bodily harm is something that can cause disgust. However, the human bodies that I saw on the screen did not look like bodies to me any more than mummies look like human bodies. Certainly there is a resemblance, but there was little recognizably human left to the remains. Had I been able to make out facial features, or had there been a perfectly untouched body part among the charred flesh I may not have been able to stomach the sight.

Finally, I believe my curiosity was raised more than my feelings of disgust. This was the first time I had seen real dead people. This sounds cold and callous on my part, but in some ways this is the reality of human beings. We are interested in things we haven't seen or experienced before, and we are likely to explore them, even at that risk of offending someone else. Had this been a plane full of people I knew, I might have felt differently, but they were all strangers, and there was not much I could offer to them other than prayers and the hope that their wishes regarding burial were both possible and fulfilled.

More recently however, I was exposed to a house that had been hoarded. That thoroughly disgusted me because the exposure was more direct. I felt disgusted being in the house, or even thinking about being in the house. Yet, I can watch an episode of Hoarders with a sort of fascination and only minor triggers of "yuck." It is interesting that things that we would find disgusting when faced with them directly are less disgusting when viewed from a distance or under other circumstances.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Advance Reader Copy provided by Netgalley.

Post 461: a general update

2011-12-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

Two more posts left for the year unless I decide to do a year in review, which I probably won't. Hope everyone is having a happy holiday, whichever holiday that may be. I will be attempting to enjoy it by holing myself up with a book and trying to avoid a mass cleaning of the house, or some other form of familial chaos. Now it's time for books and such.

That's Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion by Rachel Herz.
Finished this one already. Not bad, but a little heavy on the gender studies... which I have trouble accepting as accurate because it's terribly difficult to determine which gender differences are genuine biological or sociological differences. And since we will never be able to ethically raise children in a sociological vacuum it seems we will never have the answer to that question. Still worth reading, but mostly for the first chapter (which primarily talks about cultural foods) and the "harder" scientific information regarding what happens physiologically to our bodies when we are disgusted.

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret by Glynis Ridley.
This was a great book for anyone interested in how historians interpret information and account for any prejudices or ulterior motives in their resources, particularly primary documents. Ridley made this transparent without hindering the narrative of her work in any way. Baret was the first (known) woman (in recorded history) to circumnavigate the globe, particularly in a scientific role. There wasn't quite as much information on Baret's botanical work as I was hoping for, but her biographical details are incredible nonetheless.

The Kitchen as Laboratory: Reflection on the Science of Food and Cooking edited by Cesar Vega, Job Ubbink, and Erik Van der Linden.
I had a chemistry professor who taught a course on cooking as/with chemistry. It was after I was able to take a class with him because I had already chosen my major, but I've always loved the idea. For one thing, teaching chemistry through cooking is likely to make it far more applicable and interesting, and for another... who doesn't like eating? Eating science just makes it 20% cooler.

Ragnarok: The End of the Gods by A. S. Byatt.
I am unfamiliar with Byatt's work, so I elected to read it when it showed up on Netgalley. From the description this sounds a bit like Pan's Labyrinth with Norse mythology and Nazis... and as a book instead of a movie. My interest, it is piqued.

Post 460: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

2011-12-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. ISBN: 9780385340991.

Quite frankly, I think the reason this book was so well received among book bloggers and serial* readers is mainly because it is a love letter to reading. There are several book or reading related quotes that I think most of us would agree with, or at the very least be able to understand. Some examples include,

"Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books." Page 53.

“That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.” Page 11-12

There are many others you can browse, just look at some that have been cherry picked by Goodreaders.

People who are drawn to reading seem to be attracted to it because of how it makes us feel. It is a means of connecting with people in our distant, but not too-distant, past. The experience of reading has changed little from its inception, and one can easily imagine a past reader having a similar experience or reaction as a present day or future reader. I think this is the overarching reason some people dislike eBooks so much. There is a technological divide and disconnect from our past when we read digital books. Most people in the past couldn't fathom the idea of digital books, much less the issues surrounding them (inability to lend, DRM, etc.) and the people in the future will likely have much better eReaders or technology with which to consume books than I can dream up.

I can understand their concern. Look at another central activity in this book: letter writing. It was more or less the same for ages, now you're lucky if you even get a Christmas card (and even luckier if it wasn't written on the computer). But there are people who still** hang on to letter writing, who enjoy having pen pals or trading art, stamps, and other non e-mail-ables through the post. Paper books are still more accessible, easier, and cheaper to read than their digital counterparts. And of course, they add a touch of romance to the reading experience. Sometimes literally.

Nikki from Vulpes Libris writes a heartwarming review.
LibsNote: Library sale table.
*If you have read at least four books in the past month and are currently in the middle of another, chances are you are a "serial" reader.
**I'm currently looking for pen pals by the way.

Post 459: Uglies

2011-12-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. ISBN: 9780689865381.

I could go for the obvious and talk about my feelings regarding "ugliness," but then how will you know I've read the book (you're all judging me aren't you)? But frankly, we could have that discussion more or less anytime, or you could ask me about it in the comments. No really, that's what they're there for.

Instead, a moment in the book that really stuck me was when Tally returned to Uglyville for the first time. She was comparing her situation to that of her friend (and boring, obvious love interest), whose home was destroyed:

"[...] her city still existed, right in front of her eyes--but emptied of everything it had once meant." Page 353.

I don't often get a chance to return to a place I've lived before, but whenever I do it's never quite the same. While I was a student at Antioch, I always looked forward to returning to campus. It was a place I could see old friends and get caught up on what everyone did on co-op, or meet new friends (usually friends of friends). Everyone was easy going about relationships, because it was hard not to be. You never knew who was going to be on campus when you got back, and people avoided changing their co-op schedules because by the time you got done with the approval, you usually wanted to change it back (romantic relationships at Antioch were also somewhat easy going, and who wants to see their ex when they don't have to).

I thought I would always be able to return to that, that the students of every generation would be similar and welcome me, not necessarily as a friend, but as a comrade,* as someone who was likely to have had a similar experience and perhaps had relevant knowledge to their situation. However, even as a recent alumna, with friends still on campus, I discovered that this was not the case. Granted, I found myself returning twice before my graduation ceremony,** for memorial services. The first was for one of my mentors, who left an indelible mark on Antioch College and inspired a slew of young people to enter the library profession, and the second was for my room mate.

The first was easier to take; not everyone was as affected. Although many of the people I was close to were saddened by the event, he was long past retirement age (work literally killed him, he stressed his heart to keep the library open during a severe snow storm), and it was not completely unexpected that he would die "soon." My room mate's death completely changed the way I looked at the campus. There is no way I can even think about Antioch without some memory of Matthew popping into my head. Every time I glance at my degree, or wear one of my shirts, see an update from a classmate on my Facebook page, it is impossible not to have that bittersweet sensation of wanting to go back, and knowing that I never can. Thinking about those years will always be happy and yet never not be sad. And that brings its own sadness with it.

A good review from Rebecca Reads points out some of the flaws, Goodreader Lisa also points out some flaws but has a slightly more favorable opinion of the book.
LibsNote: Purchased from Last Exit Books with personal funds.
*Definition: a person who shares in one's activities, occupation, etc.; companion, associate, or friend.
**I graduated a semester early.

Post 458: His Majesty's Dragon

2011-12-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik. ISBN: 9780345490728 (eBook).

This book reminded me of Anne McCaffrey's work for several reasons, although the prominent one is probably the notification for it arrived in my inbox hours after hearing about her death (thank you, Twitter). The book was extremely enjoyable and brought me right back to my first encounter with dragons as characters. While McCaffrey's dragons usually don't talk to people other than their riders, and do so only telepathically, Novik's dragons are full fledged characters, and seem much more independent from their riders.

But there are still striking similarities, almost to the point where Novik's work is borderline fan-fiction. I do not intend this statement as a disservice to Novik's writing, which has merits of its own, but to express the reflections I had while reading her work. It really brought back the excitement of reading about dragons and their interactions with humans. The fact that Novik's world is set in the past, rather than the future and another planet makes it all the more interesting to see how she explains the development of history with dragons (this is possibly my favorite aspect of altered histories).

Furthermore, while McCaffrey seemed to focus mainly on female characters as protagonists, it seems she sometimes did so to the exclusion of other characters. Instead, Novik's protagonist (and his dragon) are male, but her female characters are also extraordinarily well-rounded and vibrant without the whole cookie-cutter of being tough... cookies. The women of the Aerial Corps may share some similarities in character, but they are usually the same similarities that the men share, making them characteristics, not of tough women, but of military culture and training. Furthermore, these women are not emotionless (or emotionally conflicted) ice queens, they are passionate about their work and play, and her inclusion of an age range of these women is particularly enjoyable. In fact, this is one of the few books I've read that has been feminist without actually having a female protagonist within recent memory. I think that's something McCaffrey would approve of, and I know her readers will likely enjoy these books with heartfelt nostalgia and hope that McCaffrey's legacy will be continued by other writers, even outside of Pern.

PS: Anyone who wants to buy me the series gets to be my best friend for life. Bonus points if you want to read it with me and have a discussion about it.

I first heard of this title through things mean a lot, and generally agree with her sentiments (at least regarding the first book). Also, Queen of the Nerds Felicia Day liked it. So there.
LibsNote: Library copy.

Post 457: The Whole Story of a Half Girl

2011-12-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Whole Story of a Half Girl by Veera Hiranandani. ISBN: 9780385741286 (eGalley - publishes January 12, 2012).

This story is spot on in dealing with a parent who has depression: the erratic behavior, the changes in relationships, broken trust. That Sonia, the protagonist, is also dealing with her own uncertainties regarding her identity and transitioning into a new school and young adulthood... or at least teenagerdom. My own father had a similar mental break down at about the same age, so this story was somewhat triggering for me.

Although I did not have to contend with the racial issues Sonia dealt with (her being half Indian), I did feel out of place with my classmates since I was always the "new kid." Being a military brat was always somewhat lonely, especially while attending public schools where some kids had been best friends since birth. In some ways this became more pronounced as I grew older and it was harder to "break in" to these relationships in order to form my own friendships, but with age comes wisdom and I realized they had traded a bit of freedom for their loyalty.

As difficult as it was for me to grow up without long term relationships, it has given me an advantage in that I was able to form an identity without as much influence from my peers. Unlike other people my age, I knew and even expected that my peer group was likely to change, if not in their interests and tastes, then because I moved schools. Knowing that I would never really fit in made it easier for me to avoid following the crowd. The few times I tried to fit in never worked out for me, so while I may have been the only one in my class to admit to liking The Scarlet Letter and reading or doing homework in my spare time (i.e. lunch/between classes), at least I was never surprised by friends moving to college and never speaking to me again.

I had a lonely upbringing, but perhaps that is what has made my current existence more bearable. I am simply used to it.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Advance reader copy provided by Netgalley.

Post 456: a general update

2011-12-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

Yeah, nothing's going on. Blah, blah, books and shit.

The Whole Story of a Half Girl by Veera Hiranandani.
I had to flip screens about five times to get the author's name spelled correctly, which I hopefully did. I can't recall what drew me to this book, possibly the father's unemployment and the subsequent throwing of the protagonist into a situation where she is now a misfit. I have a soft spot for misfits. Also, I was yanked out of a good school and ended up somewhere I really didn't want to be. Maybe I'll talk about my reaction to that.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.
I always want to spell that as Westerfield. No idea why. Anyway, it's dystopian, it's about perceptions of beauty and the extremes to obtain it, it is obviously things I like. I liked the premise enough to risk actually buying the first book in the series. (You guys do realize how cheap I am right?)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Anne Barrows.
Before reading the description (just now), I actually had no idea what this was about. I just knew that the blogosphere and book clubs and some word of mouth went crazy about it at some point in the last three years. People on my Goodreads friends list seem to agree it's pretty good, and I was able to buy it for less than ten cents from my library sale. So good job marketers, I picked up a book I had no idea I wanted until I saw it for the right price.

His Majesty's Dragons by Naomi Novik.
It's almost like Westerfeld's Leviathan series (minus the cross dressing) with a bit of McCaffrey's Dragon Riders of Pern. I first learned about this novel from things mean a lot, once again proving the power of blogs to get people to read books. I put a hold on this eBook and got the notification shortly after learning that Anne McCaffrey died. It was a bit spooky, and reading this I feel like there are some definite parallels, although the main character is male (many of the secondary characters are well rounded females though!). It's pretty good so far, and now that I am done blogging for today I think I'll go finish the 60 pages I have left to read.

Post 455: Pattern Recognition

2011-12-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. ISBN: 9780399149863.

Er, I think this might be one for the fans. Or people who don't understand women very well. Or something.

Unlike some people who thought the logo phobia/allergy was ridiculous, I actually thought it was pretty interesting. Sadly, Gibson doesn't actually do much with it. We don't know why or how Cayce came about this phobia, and apparently it doesn't even "work" in foreign settings, because logos don't have any affect unless they're in English... I don't know, it only seemed to appear when it was convenient or Cayce started being too boring (which I think happened way more often than Gibson thought was the case...).

But imagine having a phobia of certain logos? What if you had an extreme aversion to the Starbucks logo? You wouldn't be able to travel to any of the major cities in the United States (or any of it really), and there were more than a few locations in various European cities when I lived there in 2005-2006. In fact, there are currently 55 countries that have Starbucks locations (there are even a couple in China). What was really interesting about Cayce's condition though was that we could actually use people like this in our world.

We are so inundated with advertisement all the time, that if it caused people physical and emotional distress, maybe there would be places where it wasn't allowed. Maybe we would get a break from the nonstop sell-a-thon that is life in America (and increasingly the world). Wouldn't it be nice to go to school and not have to see a myriad of corporate advertisements? The park? The zoo? The library? It's gotten to the point where I wish my brain had an Adblock. Sure, I like learning about new products to see if it's something that I can use, but most of the companies that can afford media spots have products I already know (and usually don't care) about. You can't usually reach me through the internet (seriously, Adblock, bitches), I rarely listen to the radio, and I don't have TV. Actually, one of the few ways you can get to me is through mail, which I will actually look at. And ad placement in TV and movies just pisses me off (I'm looking at you Disney; I saw what you did to the Muppets,* assholes).

There's even talk of discounted eReaders that have advertisements. What? No! Reading is one of the few forms of entertainment where there's almost no advertising at all (or at least it's pretty clearly demarcated with ads for other books in the back). Occasionally authors will mention products in the book by name, but unless companies have started paying authors to do this (I will stab someone), it is less product placement than detail.

But here's a challenge for you: mark down what time you finished this post, then tell me how long it took before you saw a logo, advertisement, or product placement. Was it before you even finished that sentence?

Kirkus Reviews adequately captures the meh-ness I felt in reading this book, although I disagree with their assessment of the logo-allergy. I just think Gibson didn't give us a good reason for Cayce having it. Goodreader Karou pretty much sums up my feelings on why I didn't hate or like this book.
LibsNote: Bought with personal funds from library sale table.
*I still recommend seeing it, but it was definitely cheap and tacky. The Mini-Cooper closeup felt especially insidious.

Post 454: Divergent

2011-12-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

Divergent by Veronica Roth. ISBN: 9780062024022.

Dear YA authors, you write awesome books. But then you throw in abbreviated romances that make no sense. Please stop doing that. You're scaring the readers who aren't ready for that kind of relationship and boring those of us who know that's not how love works.

Moving on.

Divergent was pretty awesome other than the divergence from the plot that I mentioned earlier. The world is set up so that different factions have control over different aspects of society and take on certain human character traits. For instance, Candor is full of (obviously fictional) lawyers who attempt to seek out and tell the truth at all times.

Children are raised in their parents' faction, there are no inter-faction marriages and apparently children outside marriage is not a thing in this series. However, when children turn 16 they are allowed to choose a different faction (if they want), and then everyone under goes an initiation into the faction. Before and after the choosing, you are required to live by the standards of the faction you're in (if you are Candor you take on those traits, and if/when you switch to Abnegation* you would then take on those traits).

I found this aspect of the book more interesting than others, not so much because of the different cultures and expectations, but because humans aren't that simple and I enjoyed seeing how various characters dealt with suppressing other traits in order to fit in with their faction. Most of what we saw was obviously Beatrice/Trice since she was the main character, but even her brother, who seemed to be an archetypal Abnegation, was able to hide aspects of his chosen Erudite faction. Had Roth focused more on how we are conglomerates of these factions and are stronger for having (and recognizing) a mix in every human being, I think the story could have been more interesting as had more depth. As it was, it was a nice diversion from Thanksgiving holiday prep and chaos, but tasted a bit more like fluffy dessert than a full meal, which I suppose is fine if you don't mind empty calories.

I found this book through Eve's post at Vulpes Libris, but agree more with the Jessica's review from Sci-Fi Fan Letter.
LibsNote: Library copy.
*Somebody used the thesaurus.

Post 453: Bonk

2011-12-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach. ISBN: 9780393064643.

I was surprised that Bonk was focused on the perceptions people have of scientists who study sex and their methods. It seems Roach has gotten a little better over time with balancing crude humor, interesting facts, and no-less-interesting-but-not-quite-what-most-readers-are-looking-for research stuff.
But even people who have a remotely open interest in sex are sometimes seen as perverted. For instance, I'm a big fan of sexual innuendo,* and while I have a healthy sex drive, those two things are correlations rather than directly related to each other. I may be able to make innuendo or sexual jokes more frequently than someone who doesn't think about sex as much, but having a low sex drive would not make me less interested in sexual research, humor, and other aspects of sexual behavior.

I almost feel like we should be more worried about people who don't have an interest in sex. I'm not talking about wanting to have sex, but the topic itself. As a biological function it is far more interesting than many of the other things our body does. It is a core of who we are as living beings, and the one thing we share with every living thing on the planet. Even mold spores have sex... kind of. Our bodies are geared towards it in a way that affects our higher brain function, and the equipment itself is pretty fascinating even outside of the actual erotic context.

Sex is one of the things that I think we can all agree on being a good thing, even if we don't agree on the particulars of when or how it is a good thing. And the beauty of it is, you don't even have to talk about sex between humans for it to be interesting. With all the different aspects of fertility, mating rituals, and physiology, people should be able to find something of interest that is also appropriate based on the situation. Maybe my openness about sex makes me a weirdo, or even a pervert, in the eyes of certain people, but at least I know the difference between a vagina and a vulva and don't have to ask my gynecologist what a cervix is.

Check out Kirkus Reviews, and from the blogger realm Fyrefly's Book Blog and The Book Lady's Blog do a wonderful job at reviewing Bonk.
LibsNote: Bought from Capitol Book and News from personal (and very limited) funds.
*This morning I had a dry throat and the first thing that came to mind was, "If you had a French boyfriend, having a frog in your throat would have a completely different meaning." Yes, I am a dirty old man at heart.

Post 452: The Night Circus

2011-11-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. ISBN: 9780385534642 (ebook).

Morgenstern did something a little unusual in this book, and for some people it worked better than others. Rather than including all of the description in the narrative, she set aside somewhat introductory chapters each time a new part of the circus was going to be involved in the story. If the Cloud Maze was going to appear soon, Morgenstern would first give us a chapter in 2nd person, which allowed us to "explore" the circus without the interference of the story. Yet the story enriched the setting in the same way that a TV show about how candy is made might enrich the taste of the candy. You can enjoy one or the other independently, but knowing that it takes 500 pounds of sugar and a modified jet engine* to make your candy might make you appreciate it more. Whereas you might be interested in a show featuring said candy, it definitely helps if you are already invested.

So while the description chapters might have been slow or distracting for some, I viewed it more as a mirroring of how the Night Circus, or a circus in general, is set up. While the typical circus takes place under one tent and has multiple shows, the Night Circus takes place in many different tents. Yet both contain an element of exploration, allowing patrons to visit a variety of booths or view different shows, or at the very least focus on one element out of the chaos of clowns, acrobats, and motorcycles in flaming cages.

Taken altogether these elements are somewhat hard to keep track of. One could easily get lost if their eyes didn't focus on one point or another, or they decided to try to visit every single tent or carnival game. It might be possible, but much of the depth would be lost unless we allow ourselves to take some time, or accept that we will not be able to see everything. Meanwhile, Morgenstern wants us to see everything, and so she has divided things up for us into smaller, more easily digestible portions. We can have our cake and our ice cream and our candied apples and our marzipan and eat it too: the portions are just going to be meted out for us.

So while this conglomeration of vivid world building with loosely tied plot may not blend well on everyone's palate, it does at least afford the reader a chance to try a little bit of everything under the tent(s), and if you'd rather just sit down and watch the show, well, you can do that, but then you'd also miss out on the chaos.

Although I enjoyed this book much more than Nicole Bonia, her reivew at Linus's Blanket covers many of the strengths and weaknesses of The Night Circus.

LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive Media.
*I am writing hyperbole, I don't actually know of a candy made this way. However, if you do, send it to me and I will eat it.

Post 451: The Help

2011-11-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Help by Kathryn Stockett. ISBN: 9781440697661 (ebook).

I have serious guilt issues about being white, you guys. And this book was all, "Nnnnnnggghhh, dammit Skeeter, you have no clue what is going on, do you?" There were even times where I wondered if the author understood what it meant for her, as a white person, to write this book. This book does an amazingly fantastic job of looking at the issue of race from the white (and totally unaware) viewpoint.

In fact, the story is mostly framed by the white point of view. Even though we do get to see glimpses from Aibileen and Minny about what their lives are like, they still seem to ring somewhat hollow in comparison to the richness and attention given to the development of Skeeter's character. Perhaps that is okay, but it would have been awesome if perhaps there was a suggested reading list (like this one) that provided a more accurate and in depth look at things from the Black American point of view, because The Help is definitely a whitewashed fairy tale version of the risks these women would have faced, along with ignoring other uncomfortable subject matter. On the other hand, this is the way white people deal with their guilt about subjugating and oppressing other races, so it makes sense that it would show up in this way in our literature.

If you're thinking about bitching to me about how it's Thanksgiving and you don't want to read stuff about race, I am going to glare at you and point you to an Indian reservation and ask whether you should be thankful your ancestors stole land, raped Native women, and gave children smallpox infected blankets. Also, calm down, I am getting to that.

One of the few authentic and redeeming passages of the book involved a brief moment between Skeeter and Pascagoula. Skeeter thanks her genuinely for the first time and it surprises Pascagoula. But I doubt that it ever occurs to Skeeter why that was surprising, and mostly it has to do with the general invisibility of women of color in this society unless someone needs a scapegoat. Even in the novel we see this, as white women try to figure out if they're in the book and if they should fire their maids. Then of course there was Minny who did not allow herself to melt into the background because she was "mouthy," which left her open as a frequent target despite her desirable skills. It seems even the novel took the stance of, "Well if she would have just kept her mouth shut..." Yet Minny is the one who has truly risked herself for the publication of Skeeter's book. While this is eventually recognized, it's almost too little too late.

So, to sum up, thank the people in your life who serve you, because they probably don't want to do it, and you have probably behaved like an asshole to them at some point. It's easier to say thank you and mean it than to prevent the people who make your food from serving you shit instead. And that, my friends, ought to be the real meaning of Thanksgiving (enjoy your pie).

The Reading Ape writes an apt reflection on the issues brought on by (reading and liking) The Help (while white).
LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive Media.

Post 450: general update

2011-11-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

So, uh, I am apparently catching up on some popular fiction that I missed earlier this year. The Help and The Night Circus are the two biggies on this list with the last three being from previous years (or YA) and therefore being somewhat less important. Or not. I like to read randomly and rapaciously, possibly even rabidly. I am a strong believer in reading outside of one's preferred genres... which I've been doing a lot of because publishers and whatnot are all, "Hey, hey, you wanna read my book?" And my typical response is, "Er, yeah, okay, that sounds interesting enough." So, these are all actually books I wanted to read, if only because everyone else is talking about them, and I don't want to feel like Mindy Kaling. I already feel like that in real life, thank you much.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett.
I finished this one a while ago. I have conflicted feelings about it. For now I will say it was an entertaining diversion, but there is a whole lot of discomfort regarding Skeeter's naiveté about race relations (even after figuring out she had issues with them) that makes me really, uh, leery about saying I outright liked the book. It was a good read, and I hope Stockett tackles a different issue in a way that I can wholeheartedly like for her next book.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
The blogosphere went ape shit over this one. It was good. It definitely got a little overblown, but I can see the appeal of it. I think I'll be talking about joining the circus. Because I totally did that (Antioch is almost more circus than educational institution).

Bonk by Mary Roach
Sssssssssssssssssex. This book is about it. How you doin'?

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson.
Sounds a bit like a techno-mystery novel. I dunno, it was one of those library sale buys. One of the people I talk to on Twitter said it was pretty good. Twitter always has good information, right?

Divergent by Veronica Roth.
I've started this one already. It's actually pretty good. Dystopian fiction is perfect for Thanksgiving with the family right? Especially when the premise is based on choosing one of five factions at the age of 16 that will determine how you live the rest of your life.

Post 449: Sunset Park

2011-11-21T12:00:00.000-05:00

Sunset Park by Paul Auster. ISBN: 9780805092868.

Sunset Park is about the kind of people who would take over an abandoned house in New York. We see who they are through various vignettes from the viewpoints of the four people involved in the house, as well as a few involved in the life of Miles, the house's newest member. Each person has their own reasons for occupying the house on Sunset Park (hello title): running away from their past, trying to complete a dissertation after being kicked out of a rent controlled apartment, etc.

The idea of occupying an abandoned property has always appealed to me, and given the number of empty houses in this country it seems a shame to let them go to rot and rodents. But empty houses I can understand. Sometimes a house just doesn't get sold, it stands vacant too long and becomes less and less appealing, or the economy tanks and the people who can still afford to buy can buy in much better areas. What really pisses me off is vacant and unused businesses.

I've always felt that chain stores that leave vacant properties should be held more accountable for empty store fronts. Particularly the massive ones, or those that have required additional infrastructure (roads, traffic lights, strip malls, etc.). More people than not can afford to buy and repair a crumbling home; not so many can afford to buy 108,000* sq. ft. of soul crushing fluorescent lit retail hellscape. And if a shmuck like me did buy it, what the hell would I do with it?

But what if we actually required retail chains to properly reoccupy or dispose of big box stores? Maybe we'd get some pretty neat projects going on in those empty stores. Perhaps the local governments could require them to retrofit the space for a homeless shelter; it might still smell like soul crushing despair caused by capitalism, but at least this time it would actually benefit someone. Or even just turn it into a bunch of basket ball courts or an indoor jogging track. Or raze the building and return it to green space, a community garden even. While one or two or even a row of abandoned houses may be an eyesore, at least those were never built with the intention of being left behind and emptied. For the most part those houses did not start as a drain on tax payers via tax cuts and concessions to those who built the properties.

Oh, and why are we letting corporations take away our homes to begin with? Those fuckers can't pay their bills either.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided via the FirstReads Program on Goodreads.
*This is likely a conservative estimate given the source.

Post 448: The Printmaker's Daughter

2011-11-17T12:00:00.001-05:00

The Printmaker's Daughter by Katherine Govier. ISBN: 9780062000361 (eGalley - publishes November 22, 2011).

There has been some not-so-recent kvetching about the trend of titles with [Occupation]'s [Female Relative]. I agree, there are a lot of more of them than there probably ought to be, especially considering there aren't many male-titled counterparts. But in this case, I think it was appropriate. Mostly because Ei* never really got out from under her father's influence and reputation. The other reason is because this book is more about her relationship with her father: even after he dies she struggles to form her identity without him. In the novel, Ei's father is not an easy man to get along with. He is selfish and has affected mannerisms (such as refusing to count money), which prevent Ei from having a healthy and respectful relationship with him. Despite this, she recognizes how much he has taught her and reflects on this throughout the novel.

My own relationship with my father, as much as it pains me to say so, continues to influence who I am and how I view myself. In the past I have been the daughter of a reasonably successful restaurant owner. Then he sold his share in the restaurant and my mother joined the military. This reduced me to being the daughter of a man with erratic employment. Currently I am the daughter of an unemployed man with bladder cancer who hasn't called me in about 8 months. That he has been an unsuccessful and miserable lump of a human being for most of my life has not weighed lightly on me, especially given my own ongoing inability to obtain a motherfucking J-O-B.

One of the most painful things about being unemployed is that I in no way want to be associated with my father, and yet our circumstances are not terribly different at the moment. I imagine it is difficult for people not to conclude that it was only logical I should end up in a similar situation, especially given my brother has also seemingly followed in my father's footsteps.

Yet, the three of us have gotten there in very different ways. While I'm not going to say I ended up where I am now through absolutely no fault of my own, I will say that much of my situation is due to prolonged hope that I would eventually get a good job in a terrible economy. Had I realized how optimistic I was being, I would have signed up for a temp agency from day one and applied to countless numbers of shitty jobs in between applying for the more desirable jobs. But I didn't do that, because who could fathom that someone who has done everything else right would be unemployed for two years?

Meanwhile, both my brother and my father seem to be able to find employment if they want it. My brother has a criminal record for throwing bricks into a former employer's window, and possibly other charges I don't know about. My father has been known to walk off of jobs or become so erratic in his performance that the company has to fire him. They can get these jobs, but they usually can't keep them. Whereas I am so fed up with looking for work that I would practically consider it a vacation to work even the lowest of jobs. Yes, right now working at McDonald's sounds like it might be a bit of heaven.

At least for the first month.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.
*Her name in the book is represented as "Ei" but more commonly seems to appear as Katsushika Oi, the daughter of Hokusai.

Post 447: The Complete Maus

2011-11-14T12:00:00.002-05:00

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman. ISBN 9780679406419.

I wasn't planning to throw this during this set of books, but the library notified me that my hold for The Help came in and so I couldn't read the next book in the lineup fast enough to post it, and I don't want to be put in the back of the 200+ person line. But you probably don't care, so moving on.

From some reviews* I've read of this book, some people feel that the method of story telling is a bit too blunt and is therefore insensitive in relaying the horror of the Holocaust. However, given that this is told mostly from the viewpoint of Art Spiegelman, I felt this tone was appropriate, and it was much easier to relate to his perspective than to that of a survivor. Stories from survivors are important, but Maus is also important because eventually there will be generations who won't even have known someone who survived the Holocaust and/or WWII. As someone coming from that background, this story made more sense to me on a personal level than some of the direct stories I've read. A lot of that comes from the fact that Spiegelman stops his father during the narrative and asks him the questions that I would want to ask a survivor, but would never be able to unless I already had a relationship with one.

Additionally, this offers a candid look at how the Holocaust has affected more than one generation, as well as the lifetime repercussions. Many survivor tales end with rescue or death and a tiny bit of epilogue: "And then things were better." But Spiegelman's work shows that the suffering didn't really end with the Nazi regime. Vladek (Art's father) continued to suffer from mental and physical health issues stemming from his malnourishment, emotional stress, and physical abuse while in the camp. This behavior has an obvious negative impact on Art, his wife, and Vladek's current wife Mala, while Anya (Art's mother) committed suicide from dealing with her own Holocaust experiences.

That these experiences are relayed in a back and forth interview style does not make Vladek's story any less powerful, but merely changes it and adds the impact it has had on his relationship with his son. The cartoon style of drawing, while seemingly childish and trivializing in its animal depictions, actually captures the inhumanity of the experience and in some ways makes it easier to process the information relayed. Yet, Spiegelman does not allow the animal depictions to stand alone. He reveals that this is a coping method by showing later story arcs with various masks covering both animal and human faces as an indication that while the story may seem simplified through this method of telling, there are layers hidden beneath that should be taken into account.

Matt Guion of moderate YouTube fame has reviewed this story in two parts. I will embed below the LibsNote, or you can click here and here. His review of Part II is particularly interesting.
LibsNote: Library Copy.
*I'm sorry I can't link, but I can't seem to find them or remember who wrote them.

Post 446: Theft of Swords

2011-11-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan. ISBN: 9780316187749 (eGalley - publishes November 23, 2011).

With as much as I bitch about the formulaic tendencies of Mystery novels, many fantasy novels suffer from the same issue. Theft of Swords definitely suffers a bit from formula: most of the plot elements are fairly predictable, there's a bit of Side Quest Syndrome, and the female characters are, uh, flaky, even the ones who aren't supposed to be. But somehow this doesn't bother me as much with fantasy books and there's probably a good reason for that: It's not my world.

Most mystery novels are set in present day or recent history, which I am both familiar with and have a personal vested interest in. The idea of all females being vapid and indecisive is frustrating and obnoxious. However, in fantasy I can kind of let that go a little more and say, "Well, they're referring to a society that purposefully keeps women from being anything but decorations, so..." I know it isn't true, but it does make it easier to not get so angry I throw the book across the room. Also, there tends to be less victim blaming with the Princess in Distress type in fantasy novels (because they are valued as plot points) versus the same type in Mystery novels (because they are devalued as being "sluts" who were "asking for it" or meddling shrews).

Additionally, mystery novels typically don't have unique background elements to hold my interest. Fantasy novels on the other hand, even if they have formulaic elements, usually have different interpretations of elves, dwarves, dragons, magic, etc. Sometimes I like to read fantasy novels just to see how that interpretation works out, much for the same reason I like discussing religion (particularly with people who are not strongly attached to specific religious ideas). And I'm more interested in a society, even if they are full of macho misogynists, than I am in following one misogynist as he tries to discover who murdered and killed the husband of a smokin' hot broad he'd love to bang, but won't because he's a "good guy" and already has a smokin' hot broad for a girlfriend.*

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.
*I know not all murder mystery novels are like this, but I've read enough that have similar problems to not be interested in most of the genre's offerings.

Post 445:The Prague Cemetery

2011-11-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco. ISBN: 9780547577531 (eGalley - publishes November 8, 2011).

I've had a rough day and probably shouldn't be blogging, but here I am. So forgive me if this is a bit self-pitying and perhaps a bit morose. My life isn't exactly sunshine and puppies these days.

One of our main characters/narrators is Simonini, an intelligence agent of sorts, who begins keeping a diary because he discovers he is losing time. In the diary he reveals that he enjoys having secret identities because it gives him a sense of superiority for people not to know who he really is. I imagine that to some degree, all of us enjoy that little secret, even without the false beards and glasses. It is somewhat gratifying to know that there are people out there, however close they are to you, who do not know that you are interested in dressing up as a cartoon character on the weekends or that you still play with Barbies or that you once went to jail for stealing your grandmother's medication and tried to sell it at school.

There are aspects of our personalities and histories that represent who we are more at one time than at others. It makes more sense to us to hide those when they no longer become relevant, or to wait to present them to someone we feel "deserves" to know who we are. But sometimes holding onto that secret can be terribly lonely. And it's not that we don't want people to know who are, but that we don't want them to judge us negatively or assume things about who we are based on information that is only relevant in the sense that it influenced who we have become, rather than who we actively are. I believe that's why sites like Post Secret are so popular.

That Simonini has no desire to share himself with anyone (he actually manages to trump Holden Caufield with the amount and kinds of people he hates), is undeniably sad. What I find sadder is that the current consensus (at least on Goodreads) seems to be outright hatred for Simonini rather than pity. He is constantly alone, always looking to betray or be betrayed, or at the very least profit off of someone else. He is so alone that the only person he can turn to when he begins losing days and memory is himself, and he's not even certain he can rely on his own diary. While I may find myself increasingly alone in this world, at least I know that there are people that I can trust with my secret aspects, even if I choose not to at the moment.

My review can be found on Goodreads. Kirkus has a good overview of the book without giving too much away.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley. Published previously in another language.

Post 444: The Corn Maiden and Other Stories

2011-11-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

The Corn Maiden and Other Stories by Joyce Carol Oates. ISBN: 9780802126023 (eGalley - publishes November 6, 2011).

I think I'll be focusing on the two stories (of seven total) about twins in this collection, "Death-Cup" and "Fossil-Figures." For one thing, they're two of the stronger stories in the collection, although "Death-Cup" has the weaker ending and they share a similar theme regarding self worth versus perceived worth. Interestingly, they're also the only stories that contain a hyphen in the title, as if Oates is stating that without one of the pair the other is meaningless, but I'm probably reading into that.

In "Death-Cup," we have the twin pair Lyle-Alastor. Lyle is the beloved nephew of his recently deceased and well-off uncle, whereas Alastor is the charming, manipulative, money-grubbing nephew of same uncle. Like most of us with siblings, Lyle observes Alastor's behavior and wonders why he gets away with it. Some of us have also observed coworkers and other peers behaving similarly. It feels completely discouraging and frustrating to do the right thing in these situations, because even if you warn people your own Alastor is capable of presenting himself in such a way that these issues become negligible to the victims. Of course Alastor is going to pay us back; of course Alastor didn't mean to drive his cousin crazy after seducing her at the age of fifteen; and yet, someone is responsible for those actions. Alastor not only believes that he is not responsible, he also manages to make others believe he is not responsible, leaving the Lyles of the world utterly frustrated.

Meanwhile in "Fossil-Figures," Edward-Edgar start out with one twin diminished, while the other grows in ability and stature. Edward stagnates at home, becoming weak physically, supposedly destroying his parents' marriage, and becoming more and more removed from the outside world. He loses sight of his self-worth, seeing that, of course, Edgar is the "better" twin, the one more deserving of recognition, love, and happiness. Even where Edward is successful, it is because no one has come into direct contact with him; he is a nameless, faceless entity creating artwork and it is the artwork that receives the recognition instead of Edward himself.

What these two stories have in common, besides the hyphenated title and the twins, is that everyone is a combination of both twins. We almost always see ourselves as Lyle/Edward instead of Alastor/Edgar. For one thing, it is easier to feel sympathy for those we see as being the better people, but only in stories are ~~twins~~ people sides of a coin to each other. The person who feels like Lyle/Edward one day may the next day suck up to his boss in an Alastor/Edgar fashion and receive praise or recognition they may not actually deserve. Why so many writers, and people in general, feel the need to present this in the form or perception of twins is beyond me. Duality exists just as much in individuals as in twins, and often it is seen in twins where it does not exist. I am not successful because my brother is not and vice versa, we are combinations of characteristics and often we have both at the same time in varying degrees. To relegate that to one or the other simplifies our human quality and turns us, and your characters, into caricatures.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.

Post 443: a general update

2011-11-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

I hope everyone enjoyed Zombies and Lovecraft. I know I did, well, except Jack Barnes is still an asshole. What's more awesome is this week proved that book bloggers DO sell books. I have proof! Granted, the conversation took place over Twitter, but I wouldn't have read Lovecraft if it weren't for my blog. So, Barnes and Noble, where's my 10%?

THE UNDENIABLE PROOF (if you have trouble with small fonts you can click the image)

So yeah, let's move some more books, people. Also, if you've bought/read a book because of my blog, I'd appreciate comments that you have done so. Oh, and follow me on Twitter already. Geez.

Books!

The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates.

I have not, to my knowledge, actually read any Joyce Carol Oates. This looked fascinating and it was on Netgalley. And yes, I have read a lot of things from Netgalley recently. That tends to happen when they actually have books I'm interested in. It hasn't happened much lately, so Netgalley titles will probably drop off until summer; summer tends to be a big publicity push for fall titles. This is apparently an unplanned continuation of Spooky Shit I Read. Looks good though.

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco.

Again, a first for a particular author I've been meaning to read that popped up on Netgalley. This appears to be a plotty plot of twisty turns and turny twists. Cloak and dagger are makin' out in the darkest closet, ya'll.

The Printmaker's Daughter by Katherine Govier.

I really need to start writing notes to myself about why I want to read these, because I cannot remember. Lemme look at the description, brb. Okay, it's about the daughter of a Japanese printmaker who should be famous in her own right for her artwork, so Govier wrote a novel about her... that identifies her as the daughter of a printmaker rather than as a printmaker herself. Yep. Anyway, looks interesting.

Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan.

There will be actual cloaks and actual daggers in this novel, as it is fantasy, and fantasy has those things. Appears to be a bit of mistaken identity with Our Dashing Heroes being mistaken for king murderers. Sometimes I will read anything.

Sunset Park by Paul Auster.

I won this from Goodreads. Auster is another author I've been meaning to read. I think I'm going to decline forming expectations about this one. I am afraid it will be far more pretentious than what I like, but I hope to be wrong about that.

Post 442: Z

2011-10-31T12:00:00.000-04:00

Z: Zombie Stories edited by J.M. Lassen. ISBN: 9781597803120 (eGalley - published October 4, 2011).

Zombies. People might wonder why I like them. Or why anyone likes them. I can't speak for everyone, but maybe some of my answers will work for you.

Zombies are the ultimate plebeians. They are The People's Monster. Anyone and everyone can be and/or encounter a zombie. Depending on what type of zombie is being presented, there are usually no complicated rituals or circumstances involved in becoming a zombie and they appear wherever people are, usually starting in the cities and spreading out as delicious zombie chow becomes scarce. Because of this, zombies are as diverse as the people they feed on. It is not unbelievable to have scientist zombies, Viking zombies, or hillbilly zombies. Someone could reasonably write zombies in space without it being totally out there (it's certainly no crazier than murderous Leprechauns in Space*).

Meanwhile, it seems to take more work to become a werewolf or a vampire. Becoming a vampire is notoriously difficult. Chances are if you don't work at it, you have been made a vampire in order to act as stake fodder and gopher for an older, more established vampire, which means you won't be living for centuries and centuries like you planned. Werewolves are depicted mostly as being fairly lone animals (interesting considering that wolves are pack animals), not to mention it's awfully difficult to survive being mauled by a bloodthirsty animal in order to become a werewolf yourself.

Not zombies though. Anyone and everyone can become a zombie. There's no real pecking order either. Whoever gets to the brains first is usually the zombie that eats them. It's the one society of monsters where you don't have to worry about who's in charge or who has more power. You all start as walking corpses and end in the same condition. The zombie who eats the most brains is not the wealthiest zombie because zombies don't need to eat anyway.

But ultimately I find zombies interesting because there are so many different things you can do with them. Originally, a zombie was simply someone who has been raised from the grave with lessened mental capacity. Romero added the flesh eating element, and of course there's now the possibility of viruses (manufactured or not). We can plop zombies into all sorts of settings and see how people react to them. Zombie stories are a bit like lab rat experiments in that way and because of this they are an excellent means of reflecting how humans really react without the binding of social mores and law. We get the chance to both be and face the monster with varying levels of humanity, and that is highly appealing to me.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided via Netgalley.
*Holy shit, Guy Siner, why are you in that movie?

Post 441: Double Feature (H.P. Lovecraft)

2011-10-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward*

AND

At the Mountains of Madness*

by H.P. Lovecraft.

According to these two stories, which happen to be the only Lovecraft I've read so far, curiosity kills ~~and/or drives the humans mad, which is unfortunate since it's a pretty strong natural adaptation~~ the cat. This is terrifying because it means even the most well meaning of humans could unleash unspeakable terrors before the rest of mankind could even step in and say, "PER ADONAI ELOIM, ADONAI JEHOVA, ADONAI SABAOTH, METRATON. Bitches."

Lovecraft himself incites a curiosity in me, where even though I know Bad Things Are Going to Happen, I can't help but want to learn more about Joseph Curwen from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (henceforth CDW) and the abandoned civilization from At The Mountains of Madness (AtMoM). Lovecraft's near detached narration style, while dry at first, actually lends itself quite well to the sense of unease I felt while reading the stories. By recounting information in a factual, but detailed manner, Lovecraft removed any emotion from the narrative, instead making it read almost like a scientific observation. The fact that the details themselves are so interesting and draw the reader in make his stories powerful in a way that a more "readable" style of writing wouldn't. Let's take a look at the individual stories.

Poor Charles Dexter Ward is your average upper class gentleman, highly intelligent, with a tendency toward eccentricity and an interest in history. Replace his gender and make him about 60 years old and you have every librarian's challenging genealogy problem, because as humans we feel like we have to know who and where we came from and if you found a big, dark family secret, wouldn't you dig deeper? For instance, in my family there's suspicion that my paternal grandmother was hiding Native American blood; someday I will probably attempt to track that down despite the fact that she would never, ever, ever want to be associated with being Native American anymore than I really want to be associated with someone who happens to be a bigoted Southern Baptist (and yet I am, and I claim her anyway). That's because ignoring the problem only dooms your ancestors to repeat mistakes or unknowingly defile or insult a cultural heritage that they rightfully ought to have claim to. Because Charles Dexter Ward's ancestor was erased from history, he was doomed to the same actions as Joseph Curwen simply out of curiosity. Had he been forewarned as to why Joseph Curwen was blacklisted in his community, the curiosity to seek out hidden knowledge and perform secret rites might not have been so strong.

Meanwhile AtMoM actually attempts to correct this problem. At first attempting secrecy, William Dyer and his surviving compatriots remain mum on what they found in the frozen Antarctic depths, but as new expeditions are gearing up they have come to the decision to reveal all. Yet the very details Dyer reveals of the incredible city he found only made me want to see it for myself. It was like being given a very fuzzy photograph of what you can tell is an incredibly beautiful location and then being told that it's located on a planet with an arsenic heavy atmosphere. Just because I know I can't go there for safety reasons doesn't mean I still don't want to see, it just means I have to be off my rocker to actually do it.

By the way, Lovecraft provides an excellent quote for leaving Shit Where It Is in the earth. I'll share it with you and imply that if he knew about fracking, Lovecraft would have definitely written a story about it.

"It is absolutely necessary for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be left alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests." Page 94.

I'm not saying that oil companies want to wake the Elder Gods, but... I'm pretty sure if they did they'd still find a way to profit.

Goodreaders Chris and SoL did an excellent job of reviewing The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Goodreader Brian gets points for his review of At the Mountains of Madness. Yes, I was lazy and decided not to try to find blog reviews, okay.
LibsNote: Most, if not all, of H.P. Lovecraft is in the public domain. I downloaded my copies from Many Books.
--Wonky header, because well, I didn't have any better ideas for how to do this and I don't get paid enough to spend hours on it.

Post 440: Dust

2011-10-24T12:00:00.000-04:00

Dust by Joan Frances Turner. ISBN: 9780441019281.

On the surface this appears to be a somewhat creative, but not entirely mind blowing novel about zombies. The zombie narrator was a bit novel at the time this was written, but it seems to be growing in popularity, and underneath the skin of zombie exterior lies a subtext crawling with life. Dust is not a novel about zombies; it's not even really a coming of age novel. It is a novel about privilege very cleverly disguised as those other things. This book is about ~~Indians~~ ~~Black Americans~~ ~~deaf people~~ Others in zombie clothing. And it seems a lot of people have missed that.

Dust presents us with a group of... people who have their own culture, food, rituals, and language. These people are seen as Savage, Stupid, Undesirable, and Needing Correction. And while there are a number who do hunt human flesh, there are other groups that only feed on animal flesh, yet the entire population is negatively categorized. So certain scientists seek to create a disease which will correct the zombie problem by making them look more like humans... and they "succeed."

Unfortunately having a zombie look like a human doesn't really solve any "problems" for the humans. Instead, now they have non-decaying, super strong, ultra-hungry zombies AND a disease that affects humans in similar ways so that they essentially wiped out both peoples. Humans: making stupid decisions for everyone since forever. Meanwhile, the zombies, or at least the gang we're introduced to, were happy living in the forest spending their days hunting, talking to each other, dancing, and beating the ever loving crap out of each other as some sort of weird-to-us form of bonding.

And that's the problem with privilege. What appears weird-to-us may be perfectly normal and healthy for another society that has functioned that way for hundreds of years, and all of a sudden removing that function could be detrimental to both societies. Which is not to say that some things shouldn't be changed, but there is perhaps a right way and a wrong way to do so. Forcing someone to convert to a certain way of life (Spanish missionaries and Native Americans immediately come to mind), is not the best way to get someone to change and causes plenty of strife. However, working within the culture to promote change and allowing them to create their own cultural reasons for doing so will be healthier and last longer than forced change. I am not suggesting that murder and rape be allowed in cultures that do not consider them crimes, etc., but that there should be an amount of understanding about why and how those things came to be widely accepted and to assist in making changes, rather than coming in and strong arming a country into a certain set of moral values. We lose things that way. We have lost a whole plethora of knowledge regarding subsistence living, craftsmanship, and who knows what else because our ancestors came in with guns blazing and ready to claim land and resources at any cost.

Not to side with the zombies in every case, but if they can and will live without human flesh, what benefit is it to us to kill them other than we don't want to share resources?

One of my favorite bloggers, Trisha, at eccentric/eclectic gives good reasons for why she didn't love this book. Destroy the Brain has a much more positive review, which I am more in agreeance with. Additionally, it looks like a great zombie/horror resource.
LibsNote: I bought this sucker from the library sale table as one of three books for a quarter. Too cheap not to buy.
*I am not comparing anyone to zombies, there are simply similarities in the treatments of the Other by those who view them as such from a position of privilege. Also, my focus on Native Americans probably stems from reading this around Columbus Day. Correlations, they happen.
**Also, my opinions on influencing other cultures change depending on what's being done. I'm weird about what I find acceptable versus what I don't and it changes based on why a society does what it does, etc. For instance, not a fan of female circumcision, but if an adult woman decides to remove her clitoris I can't really object to it despite health concerns.

Post 439: Brains

2011-10-20T12:00:00.000-04:00

Brains: A Zombie Memoir by Robin Becker. ISBN: 9780062000309 (eBook).

Maybe I would have liked Jack Barnes the zombie a bit better if Jack Barnes the human wasn't such a reprehensible human being. It is truly difficult to root for a bloodthirsty monster when said monster also has entitlement issues, illusions of grandeur, the morals of a honey badger, and an ego and inverse depth of the Grand Canyon. In other words, he is a tenured professor who hasn't had his ideas challenged in a very, very, very long time. Oh, and he doesn't like women all that much. I mean, not as people.

The problem with Jack Barnes wanting "rights" for zombies is mostly in the phrasing. I can't really argue with denying rights to a sentient creature, even if said creature happens to crave my flesh. Barnes happens to be one of a handful of sentient creatures out of a horde of the mindless varietal we're more accustomed to; he is a privileged zombie. We'll call him zombileged. Or not. That's still a crappy portmanteau, disappointing, I love a good portmanteau. And that's just the problem. People who have lived a life of privilege sometimes feel they are, ahem, entitled to "rights" because they don't understand the difference between a privilege and a right. Technically, Barnes does not have a right to eat human brains because he does not require them for his survival. He should, as much as I hate to say it, have the right to live because he is a sentient being, and so long as he is able to live in a way that honors other sentient being's desire to live, there is no reason to discontinue his existence.

Unfortunately, Barnes, for all of his supposed intellectual power, does not understand this. Instead, he attempts to contact survivor communities to set up a "mutually" beneficial arrangement through which humans could potentially earn the "honor" of becoming a zombie; meanwhile the human community will provide the zombies with choice undesirables. You know, like criminals, the insane, the old, and the handicapped... because ~~experimenting~~ chewing on those people and leaving the rest of the "normal" and "healthy" population alone is better than having ~~a society where everyone is valued~~ an unhealthy population. The fact that Barnes feels that offering the humans a chance to become a zombie is a good trade (instead of maybe offering to hunt down and kill the mindless zombies so the humans can rebuild), shows another sign of privilege and entitlement.

Jack Barnes cannot fathom that maybe humans would rather die than become zombies, because he is a zombie and he is the best thing on this god damned planet. That Barnes does not have the balls to die as a human being does not even occur to him because he truly believes the world would be a darker place without his "contributions." This is a case of effectively blinding oneself with the gleam of gold leaf on shit. All Jack can see is the gold, and others might be fooled, but the rest of us can smell the shit and we don't want it. So while Barnes goes around using up resources (brains) he doesn't really need, he is forcing others to suffer so that he can continue existing in his new and "improved" state.

And this is where Becker went wrong. Had Barnes come to the conclusion that being a zombie really kind of sucked, or at least been as good as being a human, I might have hopped on board. But Barnes thinking he was better than everyone else throughout the entire novel was beyond aggravating, especially after he brushed off his wife's anger over "an affair of no consequence with a graduate student, a dim meaty woman with breasts the size of a newborn's head, both of which, breast and metaphorical infant, I'd gladly eat now." (page 15). The same wife who we later discover had several miscarriages (speaking of metaphorical infants) likely cause by her anorexia, which Barnes sickeningly finds attractive in a woman. In his own words, "I adored anorexics. With their low self-esteem, desire to please, and rigorous self-disciple, what's not to like?" (page 112). Ugh. Just ugh.

A Monster Librarian bit into this and decided it didn't taste so great. Goodreader Mae also loathed the narrator, which seems to be the consensus of people who hated this book. I actually wish it had been written from nurse Joan's point of view.
LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive Media.

Post 438: Dayna Ingram (Interview)

2011-10-18T12:00:00.000-04:00

This interview took place over instant messenger between myself and the author of Eat Your Heart Out, Dayna Ingram on October 13, 2011. The interview has been edited for flow, to fix typos and capitalization, and to make us both sound less like prats, but for the most part is intact. Links added by blogger and not necessarily endorsed by Dayna.

Dayna Ingram grew up in Ohio and has since moved to the Bay Area, where she spends most of her time workin’, schoolin’, and forcin’ her dog to wear sweater vests. For more info on her writing projects, visit thedingram.blogspot.com. Her new novel Eat Your Heart Out will be available from Brazenhead sometime in November.

LibsLIB: It's been about a year since I last interviewed you. What have you been up to since then?
Dayna Ingram: Let's see. I moved to berkeley, I got promoted at work, I wrote some more things....I am one more semester away from graduating....ummm... I discovered Battlestar Gallactica somewhat to my detriment, as I put off a lot of important things to watch it, such as bathing and sleeping.

LibsLIB: Your last novel was self-published, while this one is going through a small press, what have your experiences with that been so far? Do you prefer one over the other at this point or is it too early to tell?
Dayna: Selling a manuscript is more exciting because it's like, "Hooray! A stranger likes my story and thinks other people will too!" It's nice to have someone in your corner, and Alex Jeffers (the editor/publisher of BrazenHead) has been great. One thing that's the same with both self-publishing and small press publishing (at least in this case) is that there is still no marketing budget. BrazenHead will send out review copies, but that's it. So I'm still grass-rootsing it.
LibsLIB: Do you get to choose who receives review copies, or does Jeffers make that decision?
Dayna: He does it. I could maybe make suggestions. But I can also send copies on my own to places.I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. I don't want to step on any toes, I'm so new at this!
LibsLIB: If there was one person you could make sure read Eat Your Heart Out, who would it be?
Dayna Michelle Rodriguez.I'm going to send her a copy. Maybe her intern/personal assistant will like it, at least

LibsLIB: What exactly is your fascination with Michelle Rodriguez?
Dayna: That is like asking me why I love butter. Butter is delicious. She is fierce. She is a strong, sexy lady. She fought some zombies in a movie one time. And I have a thing for bad girls, you know this.
LibsLIB: You dedicated your novel to her, in your own opinion, flattering or borderline creepy?
Dayna: Haha, I thought it was funny. Who do you think Renni Ramirez is? I'm just solidifying the image for the reader. But it might be a bit creepy.

LibsLIB: Speaking of Renni Ramirez, do you consider this a lesbian novel with zombies, or a zombie novel with lesbians?
Dayna: A lesbian novel with zombies.There's a lot more focus on the lesbians. If it was a zombie novel with lesbians, I think I would have killed off a lot more characters. For the gore factor.
LibsLIB: You decided to go with the classic slow moving, mindless zombies, is that your ideal zombie, or do you like other zombies as well?
Dayna: That is my ideal zombie, especially if I were running away from one. I like that zombie best because it's super creepy, being stalked by something so slow and smelly. It's also easier to underestimate those types of zombies, and that's when shit starts getting real.I love the zombies in Left 4 Dead (the game) that explode zombie-attracting goo on you, though. That's a pretty cool survival tool for the species. If you can call zombies a species.

LibsLIB: Do you have any favorite zombie movies or books?
Dayna: Yes. My favorite zombie book is Max Brook's World War Z. I think he took a very cool angle on it, oral histories of the Zombie War, that allowed him to explore a lot of different aspects of a zombie outbreak in a realistic way. My favorite zombie movie is Shaun of the Dead, because it managed to make me laugh, make me cry, and creep me out a bit. Not since Steel Magnolias has that happened.

LibsLIB: Do you feel that LGBTQ are underrepresented in the zombie genre? What do you think including them has to offer in terms of storytelling?
Dayna: Yes, I think they're (we're) underrepresented in all literature and media. I recently Googled "lesbian zombie novel" and got only one hit that had anything to do with zombies, the rest was all lesbian vampires. In terms of storytelling, I think it just adds something for a reader to relate to, or just be aware of. "Hey, gay people fight zombies too!"Eat Your Heart Out might have been just as sexy if one of the main characters was a man, but they're women, so, hooray! I would like to plug the website AfterEllen.com right now, which is an entertainment website for and by LGBTQ peoples. A quick search of that site will show anyone just how very little we are represented in the media.

LibsLIB: You have some unusual names in your book (Biff Tipping, Carmelle Souffle), why did you include such unusual names and how did you come up with them ?
Dayna: I must confess that is a result of having written the first draft of this for NaNoWriMo. I didn't have time to second-guess names, and they just sounded good at the time. Biff Tipping sounds like beef tips to me, and he's kinda big and beefy, and Carmelle Souffle is all creamy and delicious. I really like food.

LibsLIB: If you had to pair Eat Your Heart Out with a particular food and/or beverage, what would it be?
Dayna: Chocolate cake that you must eat with your face (no hands).What did you eat while you read it?
LibsLIB: I don't eat much while I read, I think I remember eating black licorice.

LibsLIB: Are you planning to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year? What will you be writing about and do you have any advice for other NaNoers?
Dayna: Indeed I plan to! I am going to work on a novella called BLAM!, which borrows heavily from Noir traditions and has a little fun with sex and gender. My advice is: don't plan what you are going to write too far ahead of time. Focus on immediacy: What do you want from this immediate scene? What do you want to express here? (Expectations amount to pressure and pressure amounts to not writing!) And don't get discouraged if you are behind by, like, 10,000 words with two days to go. There is this magical potion called 5-hour Energy.... It's also good to have buddies to write with, and encourage each other. But that's true in all things. Also throw in a bunch of crazy extra words and adverbs, you can edit them out later.

LibsLIB: Is there a NaNoWriMo novel you'd like to see someone else write?
Dayna: Zombie Unicorns!!

Post 437: Eat Your Heart Out

2011-10-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram. ISBN: 9781590213339 (Advanced copy - publishes November 2011).

Romance is so hard to write. There seem to be two ways you can really write romantic interactions: completely silly or totally serious. The first one is hard to do without making it too silly, and the second is hard to do without making it too silly AND serious. Without balance, neither one really rings true, but I would venture to say that the ones with a bit of silliness are a little more accurate. Dayna Ingram has managed to find that balance, at least as far as her character Devin is concerned.

So yes, having Devin accidentally break Renni's nose within hours of meeting her is borderline silly, and so is rolling around in the mud in a field of zombies, but hey, there are zombies and how sane do you suppose your romantic responses would be when faced with the living dead? So in this way Devin's response seems far more true to me based on the circumstances than a straight-laced takes-itself-too-seriously romance novel-esque version of the same situation. Having been in situations of mental crises, I can guarantee you that I have not made the greatest choices, which is not to say that the romantic pairing in this novel is a bad choice, but perhaps the timing is not so awesome. But dammit, we're human, we fuck at inopportune moments and get involved with people when we probably shouldn't because sometimes we just have to think with our hormones. And as a result, hilarious things happen.

Flirtations bomb or are a little over the top, there are tentative moments, sometimes there are ass slaps that seem to come from nowhere, and then there's the dumb and slack jawed staring, because that totally happens sometimes. And you know what, it's a hell of a lot more fun, and sometimes even more appealing, than the calling-Heathcliff-from-the-moors kind of "romance."

For one thing, the nervous/giddy nature of initial flirting acts as a kind of boundary testing. Is it okay if I touch this person's arm? Is it okay if I comment on how they look? Someone who is good at gauging another person's response will take the cues and respond accordingly, which eventually increases the level of comfort and leads to further permissions being granted as the couple gets to know each other. Meanwhile the straight-laced romances seem to bypass this or use a sort of kick in the door approach, usually via Stockholm syndrome or one character pretty much forcing another character into a stressful situation in which they bicker with each other until there is that breaking moment where all of a sudden the forced character (usually female, gee...) submits to the one doing the forcing. While it is not (usually) outright rape, it is manipulative as hell and I'll take the sexy playful, overly awkward, and flirtation heavy romance Dayna* has provided over bodice ripping any day.

My review can be found on Goodreads, and I so added that book to the catalog. Because I have magical powers.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by the most awesome person in the world. I mean the author. I mean Dayna Ingram. She is my secret girlfriend. (Well, she would be if I weren't straight. Stupid biology.)
*Also see any of Gail Carriger's novels. I'm sure there are other examples, but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Katniss and Peeta in Hunger Games also come to mind.

Post 436: a general update

2011-10-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

Sooooo, I skipped a general post (because I did not include The Tigress of Forli in the last one). There's a reason for that: I'm doing a bit of a theme with my next batch of books because Halloween is freaking awesome. I didn't do anything special for Halloween last year, for whatever reason. I don't typically do themed posts unless it happens to be on accident, and well, that's kind of what happened again here. I found I was scheduling a lot of zombie books and decided, "Oh look, a thing, let's make that thing a Thing." Thing-a-ling-a-ding-dong. I so ran that through Microsoft Sam at warp speed, and so should you. Oh, and since I was lazy and didn't want to make a whole bunch of library books, not only will there be zombies, there will also be madness, and by madness I mean Lovecraft. It's kind of synonymous really. If you didn't know what synonymous meant, you might think it was an animal, possibly a snake-mouse hybrid. Maybe with wings. Somebody draw me a picture of a "synonymous," I will love you forever.

Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram.
Yes, that Dayna Ingram. And also that one. She wants her own Wikipedia page, someone should make that happen someday. Anyway, zombies and lesbians, what's not to like?

Brains: A Zombie Memoir by Robin Becker.
I started reading this October 3rd (to give you an idea of where I am in my reading syllabus). I don't care much for Jack Barnes. He's kind of an asshole; an undead asshole. I really hope a bullet lands in that over-educated brain of his.

Dust by Joan Frances Turner.
I have actually picked this book up and read the dust jacket several times at the library in Bowling Green only to put it back on the shelf because I already had too many books. Then I saw it on the library sale table and since it was less than 10 cents I bought it. Of course, now I don't remember exactly what it's about other than zombies. I seem to remember the blogosphere liking it... or at least not hating it.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft.
Requested by one of my friends who I used to do a podcast with waaaaaay back in time. He wanted to know why I had never done anything Lovecraftian for the blog and my response was, "Uh... I dunno, hasn't come up yet." So this is his recommendation and I figure Halloweenish would be a good time for the readin's of the Lovecraft.

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft.
That reason above, read that again.

Post 435: The Tigress of Forli

2011-10-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

The Tigress of Forli by Elizabeth Lev. ISBN: 9780151012992 (eGalley - publishes: October 20, 2011).

It's books like this that make me think people who say, "history is boring," are reading the wrong god damned books and/or have sticks in the mud for teachers and/or have teachers who are forced to teach on a curriculum which is based on getting people to pass a test. This book is about an Italian countess by the name of Caterina Riario Sforza de Medici. She did everything that Joan of Arc did, in a dress and while pregnant and dealing with the soap opera-esque politics of Italy in the Renaissance.

People seem to forget that history is made up of the stories of people who have done incredible things or lived in incredible times. While most of history has been comprised of the doings of men, this is only because men have, er, historically been the ones studying and recording... history. Even Caterina's stories and what we know of her are still filtered through male chroniclers, yet her own words are also preserved in letters and as there were several accounts of her doings there is a greater chance for discerning what actually happened. People who find picking through misleading details and attempting to get at the truth behind authorial prejudice tedious must also be the ones who refrain from workroom gossip or watching reality shows or reading The Enquirer or celebrity magazines... Which... I'm not sure such a person exists. At some point we all prick our ears up when we hear juicy tidbits about our neighbors, even if we never spread the rumor and even if the rumor is false. Just knowing that the information is out there gives our big social brains a jolt.

And really, history is just outdated gossip. Since few people are around to tell firsthand accounts, we aren't going to get trustworthy accounts, and even people who were there aren't going to give us trustworthy accounts because people are people. If history were exact it would be a science and I would be employed and well paid right now, but people are fucking complex creatures with faulty wiring and motives. What people don't understand about historians is that in order to be a good one, you have to be able to: detect the bullshit; determine if there was a motive for the bullshit in the first place; and then frame the bullshit, preferably in an enjoyable and readable manner, into a narrative. It's not just saying, "This happened because of this and then this happened after that." It's about context and politics and sex and disease and money and the crazy shit people believe in and how they act according to all those things.

Lev knows all of this and has created a near George R.R. Martin-esque narrative (minus the sister-brother incest and dragons). While it still reads a bit dry compared to fiction, it is rich and well worth reading for those interested in a good story, and all the more thrilling when you realize that it is true. Or at least as true as we know it to be for now.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.

Post 434: How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe

2011-10-10T12:00:00.000-04:00

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu. ISBN: 978030737920.

I greatly enjoyed some of the science fiction nerd references in here, i.e. the fact that the TM-31 was described more or less as a Tardis, Linus Skywalker, and a few others that escape me because I sandwiched reading this between Ready Player One and Brains: A Memoir. Yeah... I am glutting a bit on the geekery here.

But overall I didn't much care for this book. I know that part of it is that any book following Ready Player One is like asking someone to make me like drinking orange juice after brushing my teeth. I enjoy both activities, but one is much less pleasant after the other. Yeah, sorry, I can't get that taste out of my mouth right now either and I'm drinking coffee.

The other reason I didn't like it all that much is that Charles Yu (the character in the book) didn't really do much, and while I like philosophical topics in my books the framework of trying to find a lost, but previously distant and cold, father doesn't really work for me. Maybe because I have a cold and distant father and have no desire to find him. Then again, I know exactly where he is right now and still don't have a huge urge to go and "find" him. Perhaps this is more of draw for people who have cold and distant fathers who actually achieve something (like the principles behind time travel), or who have at least spent some quality time with their fathers (trying to build a time machine). This is of course more of a problem with me and my relationship with my father than what Charles Yu1 (the author) has written regarding Charles Yu2 (the character) and his father, but only seeing Charles Yu2's father through Yu2's eyes via a memory corridor does not make him overly sympathetic. Yes, he had it bad with having a slightly less than desirable economic situation (he was poor but not too poor) and marriage (mostly because he neglected the wife to build a time machine) and job (because he was passed over for promotion... possibly because he neglected his job to build a time machine). He just does not seem like the kind of person I would want to find, and I got the feeling that he was the kind of person who didn't really want to be found.

My own father is somewhat like that. And most of that is due to his mental illness, which is very real and very crippling, but he exacerbates the problem by only trying to contact people when it's too late and he's on the verge of being or needing hospitalization. It is hard to feel any emotional or even human connection with someone who only tries to connect with you when they feel they are at the end of their rope. My father only calls me when he's depressed or wants me to visit him for Christmas or whatever (because he's depressed), yet where was my invitation to his wedding? I probably wouldn't have gone, but shouldn't I have at least been invited? And why does he want me to be friends with my step siblings (I think I have five?) whom I have never met and at this rate probably will never meet?

Perhaps this makes me a bad daughter or a bad person, but you can't predict what kind of partner/child/friend you will have if you only allow them to view one part of your life (good or bad). The only thing I can do is recommend that you share as much of your good times with your friends as you do your bad times, and vice versa, or risk getting stuck in some out-of-time portal.

The Labryinth Librarians do a quick flyby of the things I actually liked about this book. To some degree I also agree with Kirkus Reviews on this one, but I wasn't in the mood for it, and so my real feelings about it are best summed up by Goodreader Steven Ramirez.
LibsNote: Library copy.

Post 433: Ready Player One

2011-10-06T12:00:00.000-04:00

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. ISBN: 9780307887436.

As much as this book is about nerd culture, there is also a strong underlying theme of confidence (the lack thereof and the eventual gaining of it). Wade, like many 19 year old nerd boys is trying to find his place in the world. He has not had much success in the real world, facing the usual bullying and body awkwardness that comes with puberty. But in the OASIS he is a legend.

Of course, Wade doesn't start his story there, and the narration matches Wade's confidence as it grows throughout the story, as if by writing/telling his story he is embarking on a new adventure all over again. And for all we know he is; he may indeed be gaining confidence in his storytelling abilities as he tells the story for "the first time" to us, just as he gained confidence from doing the original actions.

What is remarkable about Wade is that what he learns in the online world eventually transfers to the real world. Yes, he gains notoriety online, but first he has to obtain specialized knowledge about Halliday, the creator of the OASIS, in order to achieve his goals. Gaining this knowledge is itself a step towards gaining confidence as it gives Wade abilities that few others have. He may not be the only one with this knowledge because many people are after Halliday's inheritance, which he has hidden in the game, but he knows more about Halliday and is better at many of the games mentioned in the journal than other people. With this comes a sense of self worth for Wade, because he has obtained knowledge that others seek. Eventually he also becomes the first player to find one of three keys Halliday hid in the OASIS.

Wade could rest on his laurels, but he continues to build his knowledge base and hone his skills and eventually his physical body so that he is better prepared to find the final keys and gates. By the time Wade reached the last gate, he was fully capable of functioning in the real world as a confident and well rounded person.

While this may not happen for many game players, I do think it is possible to use gaming as a tool to achieve this kind of success in the real world. And by success I am not referring to wealth and riches, but honing techniques and skills needed to function successfully in the real world (i.e. socialization, the aforementioned confidence, a desirable knowledge base, etc.). The key is figuring out which games might be helpful in doing so.

Also, read this damned book. It is awesome, especially if you spent any portion of your life in the 80's..

The Word Zombie does an excellent job of reviewing this novel. Especially love the line, "I realized about half way through that this is the book my 13 year-old self didn’t know he was preparing my 40 year-old self to love."
This is one of the few books where Kirkus Reviews and I disagree. Too much puzzle solving? You sirs and madams have not played enough D&D (which is probably another reason you didn't like the pacing).
LibsNote: Library copy.

Post 432: The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011

2011-10-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 edited by Mary Roach. ISBN: 9780547350639 (eGalley - publishes October 4, 2011).

I really enjoyed the articles presented in this collection. Roach did an excellent job of selecting articles with a balance of levity, seriousness, and practicality. But what I like most about the articles she selected was the sense of hopefulness that there are answers to the problems we have created, and that science may offer a means of figuring out the solution. Note that I did not say that science would be the solution to the problem itself, but science is a means of predicting and determining what might happen. So science should be part of the solution, even if it's just to suggest that we pare down on the amount of technology, chemicals, etc. that we use.

The difference in these articles as opposed to most newspaper journalism is astounding. The latter seems to present only the problem, with little or no indication that our problems can be solved. This might be a reason so many people are willing to say that global warming (or climate change) doesn't exist. It is easier to believe that something doesn't exist than to attempt to deal with a problem where there appears to be no solution. This is not a healthy attitude to take, especially countrywide. I can certainly understand the inclination to feel this way and take this route on a personal level. I lived through a couple of rough situations where it felt like I had absolutely no control over my life. This resulted in a sense of helplessness and frustration and eventually to suicidal thoughts... which is exactly where it feels like we're headed now as far as the current ecological problems are concerned.

I admit, I'm sticking my head in the sand a bit as well (particularly as far as the economic situation is concerned). It's easier for me not to think about or look at my Roth IRA (I glanced at it recently and felt like throwing up). But it might be better if we sought out more information rather than less. Certainly reading these articles made me feel better about scientific progress and the options it offers. Should any of you out there need a similar shot of hope, might I recommend a book?

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.

Banned Book Week: Cat's Cradle

2011-10-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. ISBN: 9780140285604.

I don't usually fetishize books. They aren't really so much objects to me as they are containers of knowledge. But I do find comfort in their presence, possibly because of what they represent, and also because they are familiar to me. Almost anywhere I go, I know that a book will be somewhere within a short distance. Chances are, it will be a book I have read before, and if I get hold of one that I've read before, even if it has a different cover, the very words inside will be known to me. This particular book traveled with me during most of time at Antioch College. It's a slim volume, so it went with me on at least a couple of co-ops.

Most notably it went with me when I was working for the Syracuse Peace Council in New York where I first discovered there was such a thing as Banned Books Week. In fact, I don't think I knew that people in America had called for the banning of books in the last 50 years. It seemed like such an un-American thing to do. So when the ACLU, which worked closely with the Syracuse Peace Council, put on a Banned Books reading I learned that I had dragged a copy of a book that had been banned or challenged across the country with me. At the time we were faced with the possibility of a second term from George W. Bush and so I selected what I felt was an appropriate portion of the book. I even notated it with "read 9/29/2004." That shit happened. Here's the passage:

"I was fired for pessimism. Communism had nothing to do with it."
"I got him fired," said his wife. "The only piece of real evidence produced against him was a letter I wrote to the New York Times from Pakistan."
"What did it say?"
"It said a lot of things," she said, "because I was very upset about how Americans couldn't imagine what it was like to be something else, to be something else and proud of it."
"I see."
"But there was one sentence they kept coming to again and again in the loyalty hearing," sighed Minton. "'Americans,'" he said, quoting his wife's letter to the Times, "'are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.'"
WHY AMERICANS ARE HATED 45
Claire Minton's letter to the Times was published during the worst of the era of Senator McCarthy, and her husband was fired twelve hours after the letter was printed.
"What was so awful about the letter?" I asked.
"The highest possible form of treason," said Minton, "is to say that Americans aren't loved wherever they go, whatever they do. Claire tried to make the point that American foreign policy should recognize hate rather than imagine love."

In some ways I found this passage comforting at the time. Only three years after 9/11 and most Americans were still whipped up into a "patriotic" frenzy, the height of which very much looked like McCarthyism. If you said anything negative at all about America or Americans you were at the very least given dirty looks, and often shouted down. The fact that it was self-policed for the most part made it no less oppressive and unfortunately it is easier to end laws and government behavior than mob rule. Not that they look that different anymore.

My problem is not that Americans behave badly. I mean, yes, we act like assholes half of the time, but can we at least be consistent and honest about it? Douchebags who know they are douchebags are much less annoying than those who proclaim otherwise. If we really love freedom so much, can we please for the love of whatever you want to love act like we love freedom? Because, ya'll, banning books is not an act of love or promoting freedom.

LibsNote: I can't remember if I bought this, or if it was a freebie, but I still have it, which is why I can provide you with the ISBN for my copy.
*Banned Graphic provided in part by Barefoot Liam Stock, with permission.

because it proclaims that Capitalism is not so great, and neither is religion.

Banned Book Week: Harry Potter series

2011-09-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

Harry Potter (and the Entire Freaking Series*) by J.K. Rowling.**

I'm not going to talk about magic so much in this post. I feel like I covered that last year with my Strega Nona post. Instead I think I'll talk about faith versus belief and how beliefs can and should be challenged in order to build a stronger faith and why I think the witchcraft hubbub is actually weakening Christianity.

I was raised in a Judeo-Christian faith which promotes reflection on both my own traditions and the traditions of other religions. As a result, my beliefs have constantly been challenged, and even changed, usually for the better. Although I have gone through cycles of agnosticism, those cycles have actually brought me closer to God in the long run, and they allowed me to be more honest with myself and my God, who I am sure appreciates that I love "him"*** because I want to and not because I have been told to.

If you notice, most of the revered characters of the Bible have had tests of faith. Jesus himself was tested. And yet, many Christian leaders seem to think that the moral fiber of their flock is not strong enough to withstand the fictional world of Harry Potter; that somehow reading about witchcraft will turn all the good Christians into devil worshiping orgiastic nymphos. My response is, if you're that worried about testing your beliefs, then you must believe that your faith is not strong enough to survive other ideas which... doesn't seem like much faith to me. And if you are a religious leader and believe your parish/congregation/et al isn't strong enough to withstand those tests, then you have not done your job to prepare them.

After all, one of the definitions of faith is, "strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp without proof or evidence." While some of your beliefs might be tested by reading the Harry Potter series or exposing yourself to Wicca and/or its practitioners or even just reading about fictional wizards and magic, your faith ought to remain intact if you have prepared yourself and truly believe in God. If you avoid the testing of your faith, you are avoiding a rite of passage as important as Baptism or Communion or whatever other ritual your sect goes through. Testing your faith will bring you closer to God, not further away, and you ought to be pissed that people are keeping you from that rite in the same way that you ought to be pissed that the church ever prevented the people from reading the Bible for themselves.

LibsNote: Banned Graphic provided in part by Barefoot Liam Stock, with permission.
*Image ganked from Blueberry Brands.
**No ISBN, since I cannot for the life of me remember all of the ISBNs for each and every single HP novel I read.
***I believe God is both genderless and genderful, encompassing everything that is and was, but male pronouns are traditional and so they're just easier.


Because Harry Potter and his friends are THE DEVIL.

Post 431: Grave Matters

2011-09-29T12:00:00.000-04:00

Grave Matters: Excavating California's Past. ISBN: 9781597141628 (advanced copy - publishes October 10, 2011).

I am such a white person. I really, really am. The older I get, the more white I realize I am, and by that I mean I am fairly privileged in the sense that no one judges me as being "less than" or an "exception" based on my skin color. Other visual criteria, sure, but nothing so basic and less physically important as my skin color.

This condition of whiteness became more important when I decided to become a history major. Not only because my senior project focused on the topic of whiteness,* but because the field as a whole has some, er, issues regarding who has written history in the past and how they have written it. Anthropology has of course gone through and perpetrated some of the same issues aaaannnndddd they have the added onus of desecrating graves and/or profiting professionally from the desecration of graves. I will admit, before attending to Antioch College, I never could quite understand why Native Americans didn't want to share their history and culture by allowing anthropologists to study and publish about their culture, but the more I was exposed to the concept of white privilege and what that actually meant, the more I was taught, came to learn, and accepted that my previously held belief was from a position of power. Whereas I and my ancestors have and had the authority to allow people to exhume bodies** for research purposes, etc., Native Americans have not traditionally had this privilege, and even today there are people who look for burial items as a hobby.

Some of this stems from objectification of items sacred to another culture. By disturbing these items, we (white people) also remove their inherent sacredness. We treat them as mere artifacts, rather than the precious and wonderful things they are. The fact that we also do this to Native American remains, having actually displayed them in publicly funded museums until about the 1990s, does not say much for white people as a race, especially one that seems to think of itself as "superior."

Of course, part of the problem is that many of us consider Native Americans extinct as a people. We're all aware that there are Native Americans on reservations, but we also have it in our heads that they're all going to die of alcoholism and diabetes in the next 20 years, so why should they care of we dig up their grandmothers and grandfathers? Which ... oh man, I cannot tell you how wrong that justification and those assumptions are. And I learned exactly how wrong that line of thinking is in a very uncomfortable and personal experience.

During my first summer term at Antioch, I decided to take a memoir class. One of the books we were required to read was Banana Rose by Natalie Goldberg, who was gracious enough to visit the campus and speak with our class as a favor to the professor. She was confronted by a couple of my classmates, among them a Native American woman, about the following scene where Banana Rose finds a turquoise bead in an anthill,

"The ancient people had given something to me. I wanted to show Gaugin. Leaping over a dirt mound, both legs spread in the air like scissors, I swallowed it. It wasn't big enough to feel go down, but I knew it. I stopped dead. The last of the American Indians, and I had been stupid enough to swallow it. I took a deep breath and walked steadily back to camp, half angry, half foolish, and another half wild--I had ancient turquoise inside me." ***

The problem wasn't that the bead was found, although there might have been some discussion as to whether the bead belonged to Banana Rose as she seems to think it did, but with the phrase, "The last of the American Indians". At the time, I was upset with this incident. I thought it was rude to so angrily and harshly confront someone who traveled all the way from New Mexico to speak with us, but in retrospect, those students were speaking for a group of people who didn't have a voice in the past, and who no longer have the luxury of being nice and polite if they want their needs met and their rights respected.

The last reason for my change of heart regarding this type of anthropology and display of cultural artifacts and even history, is that without cultural context we can never really get a full picture of what people were like. What good does it do to dig up these items if the people they belonged to feel so violated that they have no desire to share any of their cultural heritage with us? By taking these items, we prove ourselves unworthy of learning anything about them and we also make assumptions based on previous, and patronizingly wrong-headed, research and opinion. That research may still be valuable, but the context of the sensibilities of the time also need to be taken into account and ought to be reevaluated, preferably with the help of those more knowledgeable about the culture... like those native to it.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.
*For those interested, the project was called Die Volksamerikaner: Perceptions of German Immigrants to America during the Civil War, WWI, and WWII. I can recommend reading material on request.
**Or at least the recognition that this was a punishable offense and scandalously wrong.
***Quote found via Google Books.

Banned Book Week: It's Perfectly Normal

2011-09-28T12:00:00.000-04:00

It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health by Robie H. Harris.*

Note: I cannot be completely sure that this is the book I read on puberty, but I did look looking at the Google preview (note, contains drawn nudity) of a more recent edition. It was first published at about 1994, when I read my first puberty book, and I will be talking about my feelings/thoughts regarding what I know of this book and how I felt about the book I actually read... which may or may not be the same.

The title is welcoming and non-judgmental and tells you exactly what's going to be covered in the book, and it appears to be a book for everyone because there are a multitude of different children on the cover from different backgrounds and of different stages in development. So while this may not be THE puberty book I read, it is probably close enough for this discussion and I would certainly not hesitate to give any educational book to my child regarding sex or puberty. Yes, I've read the reviews that there are naked cartoon people everywhere in this book; I'm actually not concerned with that. I think children understanding that there is a variety to naked bodies is both important and healthy and really, what's so terrible about breasts, vulvae, penises, and testicles anyway? (I'll wait for the less mature to stop giggling.)

...

So I learned about puberty through a book. My mother probably sat me down at some point and told me in general terms what puberty was. I certainly had a general idea of what puberty was when I asked her to buy a puberty book for me from the Hastings in Altus, Oklahoma, but even at the young and tender age of somewhere between 8-10, I knew I wanted details and that reading would give me: A) better and more thorough information, B) include information my mother might not want to tell me herself, and C) allow me to read, reread, and digest the information at a good-for-me pace, rather than listening to someone ramble on and missing things. Not only did it let my mom off the hook for explaining some of the more awkward things that were happening to me (yes, I was an early bloomer at about 5'0" by 2nd grade), but it made it easier for me to ask her questions and to know what questions to ask.

It astonishes me that people are so afraid of these books. Even if you want to teach your children that homosexuality is wrong, having them know that it exists and other people experience homosexual feelings is not going to hurt your child. You can still teach your child that homosexuality is wrong, as backwards and mean as I think that is, but it will not prevent your child from having those feelings if he or she is so inclined. It is better for your child not to be surprised about puberty, not to be surprised by sudden sexual feelings, not to be surprised that puberty has come early or hasn't come at all yet, not to be surprised that they look different naked than their friends, etc.

And while I do recognize that there is a lot of nudity in this book, seemingly more than is "necessary," I am also okay with it. I actually found it useful as a child. I was not looking at these naked drawings for any sexual reason, but because I was naturally curious about what my body might look like. Having a variety of drawings helped, because I knew I wouldn't look exactly like any of them. So while it may seem gratuitous, it actually serves a very noble purpose, especially when we are bombarded daily with very specific kinds of bodies via marketing companies, etc. We have long lives ahead of us to deal with body issues; starting life with them isn't going to help, and not including the drawings will only put the especially curious child in the position of seeking out other ways of looking at naked developing bodies.

LibsNote: *No ISBN as I am not sure which version I originally read, if it was indeed this particular book. Looking at the preview, it is an excellent resource and I would definitely recommend it.
**Banned Graphic provided in part by Barefoot Liam Stock, with permission.

Because people want to teach their children that menstruation is a sign of the devil rather than a normal thing.
Also, there is Teh Gay in this book.

Post 430: a general update

2011-09-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

Awwww yeah, halfway through Banned Book Week. I am such a pro. Just in case you didn't figure it out, the posts that say "Post" are my regular...posts, and the ones that say Banned Book Week make lovers of freedom everywhere cry. Except that Banned Book Week is awesome. There are of course a naysayers, that Banned Book Week is all propaganda and 'no one in America actually bans books.' The logic behind the argument is that books are widely available for purchase everywhere, and therefore limiting access in one location (such as a school library) does not preclude the ability to procure the book elsewhere. To those people I say, you do realize that Borders closed ALL of their stores recently, right? And that we're in an economic crisis and not everyone can afford to buy ALL of the books they want to read? Because, I mean... that happened and is happening. There are some communities that no longer HAVE a bookstore because Borders ran out all of the small booksellers, and now there is a gaping bookseller shaped hole. Information deserts, ya'll. Anyway, I can't afford to keep feeding you all this thought-food, because I am broke as shit. So I will talk about the books I will talk about. Except of course the Banned Books, because those are SURPRISES.

Grave Matters by Tony Platt.
Finished this on Saturday. Possibly the best book I have ever read that was written by a white guy and explains the issue of Native American burial rights and wanting artifacts and bones returned. It's focused on one Native American group, the Yoruk, in California, but he uses their condition as a way of talking specifically about an issue that affects a large number of people in a similar manner. As someone with a background in history (and a white person), I am complicit in benefiting, however indirectly, from the suffering of Native Americans. That shit is not cool, and I'll be talking more about my feelings regarding the use of research gained through illicit means, i.e. grave robbing.

The Best American Science and Nature Writing of 2011 edited by Mary Roach.
Mary Roach is a science superstar. I want to follow her around on her next research project, if only so I can get more poop stories. I am afraid of reading the news, so I feel like I missed out on a lot of interesting scientific research/developments/whatevers, and this seems like a good way to at least broaden my horizons a bit. The fact that it is edited by someone I trust just makes it awesome. Also, how the hell am I going to shorten that title for my label? Holy butts.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
I have no preconceived expectations about this one except that pretty much everyone on my blogging list is all THIS IS GOOD! So, I saw it at the library, and I was all, meh, okay. It will be a nice break from my proscribed reading, because holy crap after this I am pretty much booked until November. Get it, booked? I am a book blogger... Yeah okay, at least I didn't eat paste as a kid.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe by Charles YU...
no have a shorter title? Actually, I really like this title, and somehow it makes me really, really want to know how to survive (and safely!) in a science fiction universe. These are things that are relevant to my life. This is why I also own a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide; well, that and I found most of the information also works for stupid people.

Post 429: Shame the Devil

2011-09-26T12:00:00.005-04:00

Shame the Devil by Debra Brenegan. ISBN: 9781438435879.

So I ended up reading yet another novelization of a woman's life shortly after The Maid. This one was significantly better; although it still contained some fawning, there was a decent balance and other, less favorable viewpoints were occasionally added to give a more rounded picture.

One of the main themes in this book was the ability for a woman's reputation to be so easily ruined through rumor, especially considering that the reputation of men is fairly safe from scrutiny. This is one of the things that hasn't changed in the past 200 years, despite all of the advances women have made. This is probably the one area that has not changed at all, and likely one of the things holding us back the most, because our reputations as women still matter for some reason.

The fact that women are still judged by their sexual history, or even presumed sexual history, means that every single woman is a victim of rumor-mongering at some point in her life. Not only that, but we are more open to being attacked than men, because it is expected. How often do you hear news stories of teenage boys having their naked photos texted around school? I haven't heard of one, and probably not because teenage boys are too shy about their bodies. For one thing boys do not have as much pressure placed on them to take those photos in the first place; if they do take the photos and send them on, it would seem that their girlfriends have a better understanding that those photos are private and sharing them would be a breach of trust. I do not think this is because girls and women are "more moral" than men, but because men are still under the impression, however subconscious, that if they are given access to a woman's body in ANY way, they continue to have access to it until it comes under the purview of some other man.

You can see this line of thinking in what the internet thinks is funny through various websites, more commonly on the Icanhascheezburger split offs (they frequently show up in Demotivational Posters*). Currently there is a trend of posting pictures of unconscious women with the caption, "Dear Diary: Jackpot." That these pictures are so prolific is evidence that a number of "men" are dickless scumbags and have no concept of respect. Those same "men" will probably also call me a humorless bitch, but I sincerely doubt they would think it was funny if there were pictures of them on the internet with their pants around their ankles and a much more muscular man positioned behind them to look like they were being raped. It wouldn't matter whether or not it happened, those images would be available and people would look at the person photographed differently.

That all men, or even other women, have to do is imply that a woman is promiscuous to open her up to attacks is something we all need to work on. How often have you heard that Jenny slept her way to the top and automatically believed it? Or that Tom divorced Mary for having an affair? Or Jane appeared in Playboy? How have you judged these fictional women? Are they women you would want to associate with? What about if I told you that Jenny was pressured by her boss and worked in a corporate culture that ignores sexual harassment? Or that Jenny was finally going to be promoted over a man, and Bob who is an entitled slack ass make an "off-hand comment" that quickly turned into a rumor? What if Mary only had an affair because after 15 years of a loveless marriage, she fell in love with her best friend Grace and didn't know how to come out? Or that Tom had been having affairs for years, and Mary, left at home for so long, finally found comfort and companionship elsewhere? And so what if Jane appeared in Playboy? Maybe it was the only way she could pay for college, or her grandmother's medical bills.

The point is that women are so much more readily judged for their sexual habits then men, and people are more willing to believe that they are guilty of "offenses" against "normative" sexual behavior, whereas we are still somewhat inclined to give men the benefit of a doubt. We are more likely to check facts with the source, even though that source might be a big Liar McLiar pants. That women still live well or die poorly by their reputations (via job, friend, and partner options) is something we ought to be far more ashamed of than any woman actually "guilty" of having sex with an entire football team.

My review can be found at Goodreads.
LibsNote: Copy provided via publicist.
*It's definitely demotivating, but at this point the whole concept behind Demotivational Posters has been completely bastardized. Dear internet, you are doing it wrong.

Banned Book Week: Twilight

2011-09-25T12:00:00.000-04:00

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

This is probably the only time you will really see this title on my blog. It just doesn't need more publicity, and even though I plan to slog through the last three books at some point, it's not necessary to give them any more attention than they've already received. I don't feel like they are particularly good books in content, underlying message, or writing style, though Meyer does create a somewhat compelling plot in between Bella's whining and pining.

Despite all of that, I would not want to see these books banned. I might not have wanted to see such a prestigious publishing house as Hachette subsidiary Little, Brown, and Company to have produced these seemingly slack-edited volumes, but I don't hate it enough to burn every single copy in existence. In fact, I wouldn't do that to any book, because there are always more reasons to preserve a book than to let it perish forever. I don't even think these books should be removed from most schools; granted, primary school (ages 6-13) might be a bit young, though 12 isn't too terrible to start these with parental discussion available. I do have a problem with the inability of children to bring and trade their own copies to school, as mentioned in the previous link. This is definitely an encroachment on free speech/freedom of information and parental governance.

The link also mentions a concern with children being unable to determine whether the works are fictitious and developing a "wrong grasp on reality." It seems to me that either the children in Australia have been living with too many poisonous animals and therefore have a warped sense of what monsters are real OR the adults in Australia think their children suffer from psychosis until they reach maturity. Even when I was five years old, I had a pretty good idea of what was real and what wasn't, and if I didn't I asked someone. Of course, Australia isn't alone in boneheaded moves, plenty of places in America have banned or challenged these works and while I personally don't care for what these books stand for, I do not have a problem with them being a form of entertainment.

No, the main reason I would want Twilight to be banned is that it has bred a slew of similar works simply because it has made money. I do not mind that Twilight has made money, or that other people would like to make money in a similar manner, but publishing houses are so focused on finding the next Twilight that I am sure they are ignoring other much more important YA books in favor of YA Paranormal Romance/Love triangle/whiny and personality-less heroine type books.

Sigh. But.

I have no say in what publishing companies decide to produce and so I can only go all ragey on the really bad stuff and/or express my disappointment. And so somewhere another publisher is putting another one of these travesties on the market instead of a really amazing YA book about growing up as a gay Mormon** -- a book sure to be banned across the country.

LibsNote: Book first read sometime in 2008 or so, hence the lack of ISBN for this post.
*Banned Graphic provided in part by Barefoot Liam Stock, with permission.
**To my knowledge, this book does not exist on the market. WHERE IS THIS BOOK?

Because I don't like it, dammit!
And also dirty, dirty married vampire sexin's.

Banned Book Week: The Hunger Games

2011-09-24T12:00:00.000-04:00

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. ISBN: 9780439023481.

So about a year ago, this book was challenged by a parent in New Hampshire (link under the Banned image). The complaint being that her daughter, in 7th grade at the time, was having nightmares and the children were being exploited, having to fight each other to the death and all for "entertainment" purposes. First of all, congratulations on having a child who isn't desensitized and therefore had a proper response to this novel via nightmares. Second, while the Hunger Games may have devolved into a form of entertainment for people in the Capital, and a couple of other Sectors, for the most part it was a very political method of keeping an oppressed population in line.

And while I agree that the slaughter, or even exploitation of, children for entertainment is despicable, sweeping it under the rug will not prevent it from happening or negate its existence. All that will do is create an atmosphere, or at least a bubble, of ignorance of the issue. Which, even though I disagree with this approach, is the right of a parent. Parents do have the right to allow their child(ren) to live in ignorance of certain issues up until that child reaches the age of 18... although most children over 13 have figured out how to get into whatever the hell they want to get into anyway and so by that age your only option is to keep them locked in the basement. I think that by 7th grade, children should be aware that bad things happen to young people and could potentially happen to them. I recognize that those are not comforting thoughts for a child, and really uncomfortable thoughts for a parent, but unfortunately we don't live in a world that is safe for everyone. So, even if you live in the suburbs of New Hampshire and your daughter hasn't been exposed to child on child murder/brutality or exploitation of children by adults, it might be best that she is aware that it does in fact happen in the world.

There are several reasons for this: it will allow her to form an opinion about it; it will allow you, the parent, to inform the opinion that she forms about it; addressing the fears causing the nightmare will be much more effective than ignoring or preventing those fears; and perhaps she will become impassioned by the idea of ensuring that the children of the world, our world, aren't subjected to the same fate as fictional children in a land faraway and once upon a time.

Let's be realistic. Raising our children with limited exposure to violence is still a privilege. If it is something that concerns you, as a parent, so much that you don't want your children reading about it -- in a safe and secure situation, nonetheless -- perhaps you can do more to tackle the real life problem rather than addressing its fictional counterpart. Because really, the real violence and exploitation should be far more distressing to you as a moral being than the fact that someone wrote about characters in a book killing each other. Working on it with your child may even help with their nightmares... Just a thought.

LibsNote: Previous read, blog posts can be found here.
*Banned Graphic provided in part by Barefoot Liam Stock, with permission.

because children died for "entertainment" purposes.

Post 428: The Maid

2011-09-22T12:00:00.005-04:00

The Maid by Kimberly Cutter. ISBN: 9780547427522 (eGalley - publishes: October 20, 2011).

Although I didn't find this a particularly strong Joan of Arc novel, I do appreciate how difficult it must be to write a fictionalized account of someone you really respect, admire, or even worship. On the one hand, there is the desire to present an accurate account of events with factual information, etc., but sometimes in order to create a really compelling story those events have to be ignored. Sometimes you even have to present your hero in a less than favorable light in order to make him or her a well rounded character (or, you know, human).

I think Cutter really tried to do this with The Maid, but just didn't quite get there. There were a few too many eggshells she tried to step around instead of just stomping all over them to get where she wanted to go. I'm not sure I could have written anything better, mind you. If I had been given the task of writing a fictional account of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. or some other generally well respected individual, I don't think I could do bring myself to do it. I would be more concerned with telling a compelling story than upholding the pure and glorious image of that individual. I would want to introduce the moments when they were fallible and human and being stupid or immoral or were otherwise not being Great People.

This is where people are more interesting, really. Maybe that's showing my appreciation for drama and other train wrecks, but it's also much easier to relate to someone who cheated on a history exam than someone whom the history books are written about. Basically, I probably would have crushed one too many eggshells and really pissed someone off either because they don't understand the idea of fictionalized accounts, or because I included factual information they didn't like. That shit happens too.

Who would you have the most trouble writing about?

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by NetGalley.

Post 427: Steampunk!

2011-09-19T12:00:00.016-04:00

Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant. ISBN: 9780763648435 (eGalley - publishes: October 11, 2011).

One of the things I like most about steampunk, besides the inventive gadgets of course, is that no matter how disparate the social structure or power dynamic, the machines almost always seem to play a part in helping equalize it. All you have to do is be able to figure out the machines, or at least be clever enough to use them in a different way and find someone to help you do that.

Because of this, we seem to get pluckier characters, usually children, and often female children or young adults who get fed up with The Way Things Are and go about working around, with, or against the system to get what they want, and damn the consequences. Nearly all of the stories in this collection are about children, or at least start off that way, and the majority of the steampunk works I've read (Leviathan series, to some extent the Parasol Protectorate, many of the Pump Six stories, etc) have involved young characters in otherwise powerless positions. This was not the stated goal in this particular anthology, so I am especially interested in the fact that pretty much all of the stories contained this element.

For instance, the fabulous Cory Doctorow gives us The Clockwork Fagin, a sort of Oliver Twist with a twist; indeed, this is where the title comes from. Our narrator ends up in a workhouse for girls and boys who have lost limbs to machinery, not uncommon during the industrial era, but these are computing machines rather than industrial looms and presses. And instead of "Oliver" going to the "Artful Dodger" it's the other way around. In the end the kids find a way of gaining a great deal of freedom, and even a better life, than they would have otherwise. This is in part due to the knowledge they gained from the previously mentioned powerless positions as child laborers. Of course, these children still had to wait for a leader among them to assist in their liberation, but that they are able to rise above their circumstances is all due to the mechanisms in hand.

Other interesting stories include The Last Ride of the Glory Girls (Libby Bray), Steam Girl (Dylan Horrocks), and The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor (Delta Sherman). The first two involve outcasts finding their places, the first through her use of mechanical know-how and the second as two teenagers relate to each other through their imaginative stories. The last story is probably the least profound in the sense that Tacy does not avoid servitude, but still manages to eke out a better living and a better servant position.

Despite the similarities in steampunk, there is still a lot about it that is unique to the genre. People are more playful with it, and it is a vastly more hopeful realm of science fiction than some of its predecessors (i.e. Frankenstein stories). It revels in the technology and offers it up as a token of hope rather than the ever present dire and doom of more traditional science fiction. To be certain, there are still some authors who go dark and gloomy with this genre (hi there, Bacigalupi), which isn't a bad thing; rather it provides a more vivid contrast to every silver lining presented.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by NetGalley

Post 426: A Game of Thrones

2011-09-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. ISBN: 9780553897845 (eBook).

Spoiler...ish? Alert: I will be talking in vague terms about what happens to various characters, in the sense of, "unnamed bad things happened to Specific Character." Some people have weird ideas about what constitutes a spoiler, so just in case here's your damned alert.

The characters in this book are awesome and rat bastards and/or whiners. Which I have to admit is something that most novels, especially fantasy novels, seem to lack. The entire book is composed of grey area characterizations. There are characters we are pretty obviously supposed to like even though they are annoying, and characters we probably shouldn't like but do anyway, or at least we can understand their motivations and their behavior.

For instance, I like Jon Snow and Arya Stark. They are just about the same character, really. Not in a bad way; they are more like companion characters rather than exact duplicates, they share many of the same issues and by reading about one character we can easily learn more about the psyche of the other. Maybe this sounds like sloppy writing, but in a supposedly 7-book series in which each book is 800 pages (or more), having characters who have similar backgrounds and personalities, who are also related to each other is as much a blessing to the audience as it is to the author. And though they start the story from similar places (black sheep in an otherwise uptight vanilla family), they end up in completely different places. The same is true for their opposite siblings (Robb and Sansa), who are also paired in the sense that they are "perfect" children who adhere to their assigned roles. Sansa is ever the lady that Arya cannot possibly be, and Robb is lord of the manor and the legitimate son that Jon can't be, no matter how good of a son he is, since he is a bastard. Meanwhile Sansa ends up in a less than desirable state due to her obedience to social norms, mostly because she was not mindful about her obedience.

On the other hand we have Catelyn Stark and Eddard Stark, the parents of the Stark children, who also echo Sansa and Robb, but in the opposite manner. Eddard ends up in a not so great situation, whereas Catleyn fairs relatively well. Catelyn is your typical dutiful mother and wife, but she also understands what she has given up to be that. Meanwhile Eddard turns a blind eye to what his king and friend has become and makes poor decisions about who he trusts because he trusts who he feels he's supposed to trust based on duty.

Meanwhile we have the "villians" who, while villainous, also have some fairly understandable motives. Let's look at the biggest asshole of the bunch, Viserys. There are pretty much no redeeming qualities to Viserys: he is whiny, a bully, and has entitlement issues, but who among us wouldn't have a deep seething rage if our home, family, and promised future was taken from us? The fact that Viserys takes it out on his sister and has a laughable catchphrase only makes him a douchebag, which in some ways makes him even more pitiable. Because in the end we feel he deserves his fate, and that in itself is somewhat sad.

Even conniving bitch Queen Ceresi has understandable reasons for being a conniving bitch. Let's face it, how many of us would be happy in a marriage to someone who has a great deal of influence, has become fat, drunk, and frittered away most of his responsibilities, whores around, and still carries a torch for a woman who's been dead for 20 years? If I were stuck in that marriage, I might try to weasel my way into a better position and then off my husband too. Granted... my way wouldn't involve some of the dirty, dirty things Ceresi did, but Martin seems to have a thing for the whole brother/sister pairing. Which is fine, because there is totally precedent with the Ptolemys, but I have been raised with the social taboo and a brother I greatly dislike.

I could go on with the character analysis, but let's be honest, if you aren't interested in reading the book by now, you aren't going to continue to read this blog post. And if you are interested in reading the book, chances are you have already left this page so you can find a copy.

One of my favorite bloggers, Trish over at eclectic/eccentric has been tracking her thoughts through the book, she's only half way through, but here are her updates: one, two, three. A fairly good review is over at the wonderfully named Stainless Steel Droppings.
LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive Media.

Post 425: a general update

2011-09-14T12:00:00.000-04:00

Hey there, readerlings. Banned Book Week is coming up September 24-October 1. Due to my poor planning, I already have review books scheduled for that week. This is not to say I won't be participating, because my Banned Book posts get traffic, and I do like me some blog traffic. However, I may not actually be reading new books, but rather reflecting on experiences from books I've read previously in my life and enjoyed. These are books I might not have been able to read if they had been banned that have had a positive, or at least enriching, effect on my life. If you don't like them apples, feel free to submit a guest post for that week on a banned book you've read. You can contact me at acampb8@kent.edu.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.
Why yes, I finally got around to reading this book. I won't say I'm the last person to read this book, because I have read an awful lot of book reviews for books I just picked up that have that statement. Unless you plan to exterminate everyone who has an interest in reading, chances are you will not be the last person to read a book.

Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant.
Hurr, hurr, I like steampunk. I'm blogging when I don't really feel like blogging, can you tell? Also, there is a lot of jibber jabber in the background that is very distracting, my headphones can only block out so much yelled phone conversation. Anyway, I'm about a third through the stories. They are not quite as fantastic as Pump Six and Other Stories, but most are still worth reading. This is another of those Netgalley grabs.

The Maid: A Novel of Joan of Arc by Kimberly Cutter.
I have always had a bit of a fascination with Joan of Arc, and female saints in general really. I wrote a whole paper about how some women used eating disorders as a means of attaining sainthood, or at least an elevated position in the community, when they might otherwise have been condemned to a life of childbirth and housekeeping. My history professor made me rewrite it because she didn't believe in feminism, and then complained that I had basically written a completely different paper... yeah. Nobody liked you, history professor who shall not be named. Martyrs are fascinating, well, the not self-proclaimed variety.

Shame the Devil by Debra Brenegan.
Brenegan's publicity person contacted me to review this. I am generally a nice person and agree to review things I have a modicum of interest in. I like to pretend it is good for me, that it will somehow expand my horizons or introduce me to topics/authors I might otherwise ignore. This is a novelization about the life of Fanny Fern, a feminist journalist in the 19th century. It is not totally out of my area of interest as a historian, so I can throw this into professional-ish development and call it a day's work.

Post 424: Snuff

2011-09-12T12:00:00.000-04:00

Snuff by Terry Pratchett. ISBN: 9780062011848 (eGalley - publishes October 11, 2011).

Oh Young Sam, how adorable you are. You and your fascination with poop. I have to admit, it is pretty interesting, especially when you consider all the different varieties and whatnot. And that Lady Sybil and Sam Vimes encourage your interest, well, aren't you a lucky boy?

Perhaps this is a strange thing to focus on in this novel, but I like to highlight positive parenting practices where I see them. I refrain from saying good, because even good parenting practices practiced too pressingly can go practically perverse. Also, I am not a parent, so using labels like "good" is possibly not my domain. However, I am observant, and like everyone else I have opinions about parenting, or at the very least mentoring.

Many parents would probably be mortified with a child's fascination with feces. Think of all the potential for impolite dinner conversation; you could never again invite people without small children into your home, unless perhaps they also had some sort of interest in intestinal ingredients, present and past. Nothing says fancy dinner like, "Mommy! Look at this poo I found! It's GREEN!"

Yet, having children this excited about any aspect of learning is certainly a good thing and should be treated as such. There is no reason to discourage this interest, which can be explored through various means of science: biology, chemistry, anatomy; even a discussion of practical uses of manure leads to many different fields, the most obvious agricultural. And the disease, oh BOY! What kid doesn't love to hear about all the strange and filthy things that might actually come from poop?

The point is, there is no such thing as useless knowledge, only knowledge that has yet to be used.* You cannot possibly predict circumstances where you might need to know the difference between bear poop and moose poop, but once you find yourself in the situation, it is certainly nice to have it. Therefore, there is no good reason to deny a child information from seemingly impolite, yet harmless, topics just because we are old crotchety adults and are only concerned with poop if we have to clean it up, or have not had one in awhile. By denying a child this one area of interest, we might be detrimentally directing them towards other pursuits they are not actually suited for. This immediately affects their interest in learning, as they are not given free reign over what they choose to learn. This of course takes the excitement out of learning, and turns it instead into a requirement.

Is it really any surprise that young people don't read as much anymore, or take pride in their studies? We have presented it as a task that has to be completed, a level to grind simply to get to the next one. But what use is it to accumulate equipment and skills that will never be used? And why force everyone to train like a cleric when what they really want is to be a bard or a sorcerer?

Obviously, we are not in a society that allows this in the classroom. Test scores are touted as the best measure of success, and so our children are learning to take tests. What fun. But I applaud the fictional parenting of Vimes and Lady Sybil and hope that there are other parents out there who encourage the educational pursuits of their children, regardless of what tack they may take. Who knows, it could even lead to discussions on etiquette and what is and is not an appropriate dinner topic.

My review can be found on Goodreads, however it's brief given that people who like Pratchett like Pratchett and those who don't can sod off.**
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.
*I tried to find the source of this phrase, but it appears to be a common usage. Perhaps a librarian with better resources than myself knows the answer?
**Not really, I understand it's not everyone's thing, I just always wanted to use the expression.
EditorsNote: DAT ALLITERATION.
Also, you don't have to ask me what I liked about this post. You already know the answer. (Hint: it's the poop.)

Post 423: Dracula in Love

2011-09-08T10:00:00.001-04:00

Dracula in Love by Karen Essex. ISBN: 9780767931229.

One of the things I kept thinking while I was reading this was, "Gee, did I accidentally pick up some smut?" Which is interesting, because really the sex is no more graphic than what men write. Sure, some of the scenes were described a little more flowery than the usual "bouncing breasts" and "thrusting grunts" that you usually get in the consensual male-written scenes, and well, let's not discuss non-consensual scenes.

Granted, I knew there was going to be sex in this book. I knew this because there was sex in Dracula, however hidden behind Victorian sensibilities and petticoats. What I was not expecting was the detail Mina Harker went into, perhaps because I was expecting her, as a Victorian woman, to be a little more discrete about her sexual encounters. Also I did not expect it of Essex. And why? Because I still have expectations that "real" women authors do not write graphic sex scenes, no matter how necessary they are to the plot. I expect "real" women authors to tastefully fade to black and talk more about the anticipation of desire and the act, rather than the satisfying and fulfillment of those desires.

Which, of course, is stupid.

Men are easily able to satisfy their baser literary desires, splattering their virile ink all over creamy white virgin pages,+ but women writers who so much as broach the subject of adult sex are relegated to the very large and profitable genre, which is subsequently looked down upon by all those uppity types. Not unlike prostitution really. Or being a housewife. Rarely do we see women writers writing about sex, in a non-academic manner, who are lauded. There are exceptions to the rule; yet, why haven't there been any males shoved into the romance, or at least erotic fiction, genre when they write novels loosely pieced together with sex scenes?

Really, this is a problem. And while I have read Sugar in My Bowl, I don't feel like it quite went far enough. The majority of those women at least appeared to come from fairly educated white middle class backgrounds, with a few token exceptions, and many were straight or at least only wrote about straight experiences. If men are supposedly making leaps and bounds in the realm of writing about sex--which I don't think they really are; I mean come on, how many times can you write about primal urges (The Last Werewolf, Jeckyll and Hyde, Dracula, The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, okay, that last one is about an ape, but it's about an ape that wants to be a man)--then there is no reason for women to stay behind and take care of the kids by writing about the niceties of tea time and how much they love their husbands.

I am tired of those novels. They have their place, but it is also important that women write a true reflection of their lives rather than idealized versions. Life is full of dirty messy sex, shameful sex, gloriously rambunctious sex, lovers who have no fucking clue whatsoever, and husbands with inadequately sized penises who have stopped satisfying simply by not even bothering to try anymore. Seems to me like men have a lot to gain by reading female writers. If only we were writing something that was based a bit more in a reality they could understand and learn from.* The fantasy world is nice and all, but that's just a distraction; the world needs to know that as far as things have come, we have still been given a substandard deal, and holy shit, there are things men can do (if they love us as much as they say they do) to make it suck less.

I will write about fucking in a poignant and life changing manner. I might even let you pay me to do it. But you bastards have to read it.

My review can be found on Goodreads. Devourer of Books has an excellent review.
LibsNote: Copy received from the Goodreads FirstReads program.
*Although, the fact that they seem incapable of learning from a world they can't ore refuse to understand is definitely more their problem than ours
EditorNote: +DAT METAPHOR!

Post 422: Bedbugs

2011-09-05T12:00:00.068-04:00

Bedbugs by Ben H. Winters. ISBN: 9781594745232 (advanced copy - publishes: September 6, 2011).

Much like Amityville Horror and Rosemary's Baby, this book focuses on a family moving, although since the Wendts are New Yorkers they are moving into a new apartment. Yet, those are not the only two examples in the horror genre that involve relocating. Even when relocation is not an issue, you sometimes get stories like Poltergeist in which the house becomes a sinister place where strange phenomena occur.

It is no real surprise that this is a common theme, really. What is more terrifying than knowing the place you have set up for yourself as the safest place for you, is just the opposite? What's more, having a malevolent and unexplainable force makes it more difficult to address the problem rationally. We all become Susan Wendts under this condition, prone to irrationality and emotional outbursts, sleeplessness, constant worry, and second guessing whether the move/dramatic change was a good thing or not.

That we move into homes usually occupied and/or built by other people adds an extra layer of complication over the concern and worry of moving into a new home. Moving, especially to bigger and better quarters, is supposed to be a joyous occasion, but there is something difficult about leaving the old place behind as well. We leave the familiar, a place which we know has problems: it is too small, the basement floods, the neighbors are dickwards. But there are countless unknown problems with moving into a new place; wouldn't it just figure you got stuck with demonic bedbugs or neighboring Satanists who get you knocked up by the devil?

Although most of the fears that go along with moving are generally unfounded, and we adapt quickly enough to our surroundings, it makes sense for it to hold sway over us nonetheless. Seeking shelter is one of our primary needs, second only to food and water. In a world where we have very little control over our circumstances, the idea of having the one corner of it we set up where we are supposed to have control, but don't is distressing and therefore hits us at a very primal level. Having lived in a place where I felt unsafe, I can assure you that it is one of the worst possible situations to be in. I imagine this is why the haunted house is such a common theme in horror stories.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by publisher.

Post 421: Amy M. Donaldson (Interview)

2011-09-01T12:00:00.070-04:00

Amy M. Donaldson works as an Associate Editor at Baker Publishing Group. She received her PhD in New Testament and Early Christianity from the University of Notre Dame. Her recent book, We Want to Believe, was published in April 2011.

LibsNote: The interview took place via email with the author, who was contacted via Goodreads. The interview mostly remains unedited, except for the removal of certain clarifying elements or rewording of questions posed that I later realized sounded awkward as hell. All hyperlinks added by LibsLIB and not necessarily endorsed by the interviewee.

LibsLIB: Did you have any concerns writing a book about a show that's been off the air since 2002?

Amy M. Donaldson: I wasn't concerned that there wouldn't be an audience for the book, since I've remained active in the fandom and know there are still plenty of X-Philes out there. However, until the second movie came out, I wasn't sure that there would be enough interest in the show to sell the idea to a publisher. So, although I had gathered ideas for the book over the years, I didn't give any serious thought to actually writing it until there was news of the second movie. And I didn't start writing the book until I had secured a publisher.

LibsLIB: Why did you feel compelled to write about the religious themes in the X-Files?

AMD: I was interested in writing on the topic because it was always one of the things I enjoyed about the show and because it hadn't really been written on before. There's a book on the philosophy of The X-Files and at least two on the science of The X-Files, but as far as I'm aware, all that's been written about religion in the show are a couple of articles. It seemed to me like a very rich topic worth exploring.

LibsLIB: Why this show? What does the X-Files provide for you that keeps you coming back to it?

AMD: As much as I appreciate the religious themes, for me the heart and soul of the show is the relationship between Mulder and Scully. That's one reason why in my book the chapter on love is one of the longest chapters. But the emphasis on religion, and especially the role it plays in Scully's life, has always intrigued me and earned my respect. Most other shows I've seen that try to address religion have missed the mark in one way or another. But The X-Files treats religion and faith as a normal part of life for intelligent people and presents the possibility that supernatural events are genuine and may be attributed to the divine.

LibsLIB: You mentioned the general lack of religion(s) in science fiction, do you think this is an oversight on the part of sci-fi authors?

AMD: Sci-fi as a whole (including books and movies, not just television) does not necessarily shy away from religious themes, but sci-fi religion is often more metaphorical or negative rather than a depiction of real-world religion in a true and positive light. That's where I see a distinction in how religion is treated in The X-Files.

I think where there is a lack of religion, or even hostility to religion, in sci-fi, it often says more about the authors/creators themselves than about the worlds and people they create. I also think that the lack of human religion I note in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Stargate SG-1 is a trend that has shifted since those shows first aired. Perhaps in that way The X-Files was simply cutting edge or trendsetting. As sci-fi has become more postmodern, there seems to be more allowance for religion and faith. But that religion itself also tends to be more postmodern, such as the syncretistic mix you find in Lost, or focused on the fact of faith (a general sense of spirituality) rather than the object of faith. The X-Files still remains somewhat unique in giving such a prominent position to a mainline tradition like Scully's Catholic faith.

LibsLIB: Have you read any other books or seen any other shows that you enjoyed that also had religious and sci-fi elements?

AMD: My latest sci-fi interest has been Stargate Universe, which unfortunately just got canceled after only two seasons. There were a number of religious themes introduced in that show, and I was interested to see where the writers were taking these themes, especially since it seemed like such a far cry from how religion was treated in Stargate SG-1.

LibsLIB: If you've read it, what are your thoughts on Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow?

AMD: I have not read this book, but I googled it, since you mentioned it. For some reason, sci-fi books don't appeal to me as much as sci-fi television and movies. My father is actually the avid sci-fi reader in my family.

Libs LIB: In your book you state, "The counterpart to justice is mercy: not repaying someone the full punishment they deserve. At times, mercy can be just as effective a deterrent as consequences, when the person realizes the price they should have paid and out of gratefulness vows never to repeat the offense."

I immediately thought of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables both as a recipient of mercy from the priest and its giver by sparing Javert's life. Why do you think this is a recurring theme in literature/storytelling? Can you think of an example of this occurring in the X-Files?

AMD: I love that aspect of Les Miserables and think it is such a powerful story. (I may even have had it in mind when I wrote that sentence you quote!) Honestly, one reason this may be a recurring theme is because it is such a major theme in Christianity and because Christianity has had a major impact on Western literature. However, it is also a powerful theme because it is so contrary to human nature. The very shock of being treated with mercy when you expect judgment can be very compelling—if, like Valjean rather than Javert, you can accept the gift of that mercy and allow it to change you.

I think I can see small examples of this theme in The X-Files, but not anything as major and profound as in Les Miserables. One example is in the "Gethsemane"-"Redux" arc, when Mulder kills a man (out of self-defense, although he never seems to argue that point) and fears he is headed for jail, but he is spared prosecution. However, that is more a plot device to save our hero after he has been placed in jeopardy for the sake of a season-ending cliffhanger than it is a message about mercy. Perhaps a more intentional example is the soul eater in "The Gift," who mercifully takes on himself the "death sentence" of others. But the truest act of mercy is by those like Mulder and Doggett who recognize the suffering and humanity of the soul eater and refuse to prolong its pain.

LibsLIB: In your interview at The X-Files Lexicon, you stated that you don't believe in aliens. What compelled you to keep watching the show, especially for alien-centered episodes? Are there any paranormal/supernatural phenomena you are inclined to believe in?

AMD: Although The X-Files has a reputation for being about aliens, there were really so many episodes that had nothing at all to do with aliens. And even the episodes that did had more to do with the human element in collaboration with the aliens. I also don't believe in Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future, but that never stopped me from enjoying Star Trek. What keeps me watching anything is good characters and a good story.

I believe in the supernatural more than in the paranormal. Because my worldview is to see reality as the creation of an invisible and all-powerful God, I also believe that he is capable of doing any number of things that we as finite beings cannot fully perceive or understand. The scientific, and often modernist, mindset of Western culture can sometimes blind us from seeing beyond the tangible, but I think there is more to reality than what we can perceive with our limited five senses.

LibsLIB: Who is your favorite character and why?

AMD: I identify more with Scully, but I'm not a "Scullyist" in the sense of some fans who prefer her over Mulder. I think the last two seasons of the show prove what a bad idea it is for one of the pair to be without the other. I generally don't enjoy as much the episodes where one of the two is absent (except maybe for "Three of a Kind," just because the Lone Gunmen are so much fun).

I love the fact that Scully is such a strong female character who is intelligent without being overly weepy or sexualized. I also love the fact that Mulder has so much respect for her, from day one. I think my main appreciation for Mulder is through Scully's eyes.

LibsLIB: What is your favorite way to enjoy an episode (or three) of the X-Files?

AMD: I suppose my answer may have been different back in the day, when the episodes first aired. Now, I simply enjoy having the show on in the background while I'm doing other things. But I was never one to have a specific routine, such as turning off the lights and silencing the telephone. In the first season that I watched the show, my roommate and I would record the show and then watch it together later that night when we were both home. Later on, though, I couldn't wait that long—I had to watch the show while it was airing.

LibsLIB: The X-Files is famous for "Mulder torture" both in the fandom and the show. Do you have a favorite form of Mulder torture?

AMD: I'm not particularly fond of torturing Mulder, nor can I say that I fully understand why some of my friends enjoy that so much. I guess the closest I can come to having a favorite moment is in "Anasazi" when Scully shoots Mulder, for his own good. What's a little bullet wound between friends?

Post 420: We Want to Believe

2011-08-29T12:00:00.112-04:00

We Want to Believe: Faith and Gospel in the X-Files by Amy M. Donaldson. ISBN: 9781606083611.

Although not the primary focus of Donaldson's book, her mention of the lack of religion in science fiction surprised me and sparked more thought than the rest of her book. Part of that is probably my general lack of interest in Christianity and a casual enjoyment of X-Files, but as a lifelong science fiction fan and spiritual person, I was surprised that I did not really notice that religion was missing from most sci-fi.

There are of course a few exceptions, Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow immediately came to mind, as did The Parable of the Sower, and Tankborn if only because I read it recently. All three of these works (interestingly all written by women) use religion in very different ways. All three mention Earth: Parable is set there and stays there, The Sparrow begins on Earth and ends there with portions of the narrative occurring on an alien planet, and Tankborn is set entirely on an alien planet, although the population originated on Earth.

All three were used effectively as part of the narrative and in the first two were even the primary focus of the book. So why do/have so many science fiction authors seemingly ignored or at least glossed over religion?

Perhaps its basis in science has something to do with this. Those who feel enlightened by science and rational thought sometimes feel that religion has no place in an equally enlightened future/higher society. While I might be inclined to agree with that as far as government mandates are concerned, I do believe that religion has its place in society and will continue to be a useful tool, even for those of us who do have a conscience based on our own experiences and beliefs, rather than allowing a more authoritarian dictation of conscience. For instance, a society based on rational thought and science may not prevent the wholesale murder of groups of people. Science and rational thought might lead to the conclusion that if a population is sick and dying, it would be best for the rest of the community to quarantine that population until a cure or vaccine could be provided. While this seems like a reasonable thing to do, it is also in some ways a heartless thing to do. In this way religion ought to guide our rationality to a more compassionate behavior. Rather than allowing those beings to suffer alone, those inclined to care for the sick and the dying (the doctors, nurses, and other caregivers) will attempt to provide the best comfort they can, even at the risk of becoming sick themselves.

Would a future without religion really be so appealing to us? As we have all suffered our own personal anguish, would we relish a world where rationally it would be wise to separate ourselves from the pain of others rather than attempting to provide relief?

Granted, there may be those whose conscience and rationality lead them to provide this charity anyway, and there are certainly people who claim to be Christians who ignore or reject that particular teaching of Christ (in behavior if not in word). Yet I would rather see religion remain in place to offer that guidance than see a world barren of any source of hope, faith, charity, forgiveness, and many of the other themes touched on in Donaldson's work. It definitely makes The X-Files a braver show than I first realized it to be, and I hope to see more science fiction writers (whether of books or visual media) take it upon themselves to create more stories that include religion, positive and negative, in their works.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Copy received as gift.

Post 419: a general update

2011-08-27T12:00:00.069-04:00

Readerlings, I have sad news. Recently my fiance and I have decided not to get married. It was a mutual decision, we are still friends, he is still my editor, we still even love each other. Unfortunately, neither of us can eat or pay rent with love as we are just not that attractive.* It is not that we've given up hope or loving each other, just that we've given up faith that things will get better enough that we will be together. We ended it now before it devolved into being totally sick of each other with screaming matches and blame games. In some ways it makes it both the easiest and the worst breakup I've been through.

There is nothing for a breakup like burying myself under a pile of books and refusing to come out until I've finished it. If anyone feels free to hose me down and feed me ice cream once I emerge, I will probably appreciate it.

Dracula in Love by Karen Essex.
Another book from the Goodreads giveaway program. I know how to get free books LIKE A BOSS. My interest was actually piqued by this title a couple of times in the library, but I always put it back because I already had a full armload. I do love that this revisits the idea of sexuality in the Victorian novel, especially as it does so from Mina Harker's point of view. Seriously, Dracula is one of the best novels to read to get an understanding of how scary Victorians thought sex was (they anthropomorphized sex and gave it fangs and an unquenchable appetite)!

Bedbugs by Ben H. Winters.
From the guy who wrote Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, we have the bedbug infestation from hell. Maybe. That is what the blurb promises anyway. And the blurb has never lied. I am sure there will also be cake. And ponies.

We Want to Believe: Faith and Gospel in the X-Files by Amy M. Donaldson.
Most of my X-Files watching was a result of prodding from my mother-in-law. We became good friends, and she was really into it. I still prefer the monster of the week episodes, but I always like philosophical, and sometimes religious, exploration of popular culture phenomena. So far Donaldson has made some interesting observations and I'm looking forward to reading the entire book.

Snuff by Terry Pratchett.
Why yes, this novel doesn't come out until October 13th. I nabbed a review copy from Netgalley. It's been a while since I've had the pleasure of reading Pratchett. Needless to say I am excited. It's all I can do not to shove all of my other books to the side and do nothing but read this until I am finished. Dear Terry Pratchett, be my best friend? I mean for realsy, not just by writing books I love; you are already my best friend that way.

*Editor's Note: I have to admit, I laughed at this, and now I feel bad.*
*LibsNote: Editor happens to be my former fiance. Yes, it is/was a strange relationship.

Post 418: Tankborn

2011-08-25T12:00:00.064-04:00

Tankborn by Karen Sandler. ISBN: 9781600606625 (eGalley - publishes: September 28, 2011*)

I gotta say, I am glad to see some variety in skin color in science fiction, especially Young Adult science fiction. There is a huge problem with sci-fi authors white washing everything, like they somehow expect skin color to Not Be a Thing in the future. I'm willing to believe that we'll get over the whole pasty skin = good, dark skin = bad issue, but it seems to me that in the future we're all likely to be some shade of pale or medium brown. Especially if that future occurs in space with smaller populations than we currently have. Eventually the skin tone just has to even out.

However, Sandler sets up a world in which skin tone matters and there is a reason why there is still a variety in skin tone. The socioeconomic hierarchy, comprised of four classes (highborn, lowborn, freeborn, and GENs), is mostly based on appearance as well as the owning of a special kind of land. Interestingly, highborns are neither too pale nor too dark and have "desirable" hair colors, which were never explicitly described. Lowborns had less land, and at least tended to have skin that was too pale or too dark. Finally, freeborns were brought to the planet as indentured servants until they began grumbling about that servitude lasting too long and thus GENs were created. GENs are beings with incorporated animal DNA for added strength or nurturing skills or whatever else you want your slaves to be able to do. They are also equipped with an annexed digital brain and digital interface (through a "tattoo" on the cheek), which allows anyone with the appropriate technology to relay commands directly to the GENs nervous system.

It is interesting that the lowest order of people in this setting are given the super powers. Granted they are also subjugated, but in a world where power and class are so important, the only thing keeping highborns from demanding they be spliced with animal DNA so they can be extra strong, smart, whatever, is the fact that GENs are seen as dirty or inferior. Although the society is set up so that the upper classes still benefit from this technology, I find it hard to believe that a power hungry, corrupt politician or businessman wouldn't at least consider adding an extra advantage by giving themselves an annexed brain and perhaps super hearing. Surely the cheek tattoo is mostly for convenience and could be planted elsewhere, and then there wouldn't even be evidence that you'd had it done.

The blend of appearance and technology/genetic alteration in this novel as a means of separating the classes was interesting. I kind of wish it had gone further, but it was a good means of explaining the existence of various skin tones and I definitely applaud Sandler for allowing them to even exist in her novel when so many authors avoid the issue altogether.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.
*Maybe. There seems to be conflicting dates floating around the internet. The publisher just says September.

Post 417: The Postmortal

2011-08-22T12:00:00.057-04:00

The Postmortal by Drew Magary. ISBN: 9780143119821 (eGalley - publishes: August 30, 2011).

Well... that wasn't what I was expecting. The book blurb provided by Goodreads pegged this as "witty," and while that is not untrue, perhaps a more accurate synonym would be apt or shrewd. There wasn't anything to laugh at in Magary's novel, and so the connotations of "witty" just don't fit. Additionally, the cover is a bit misleading in my opinion. It sort of makes me wonder if anyone on the marketing side of publishing actually reads the books they try to market. Because this is a great book, but holy smokes did I have the wrong perception based on cover and blurb.

This book raises so many questions that I could probably write five lengthy posts about it. Luckily for you, I'm not going to do that. I will answer the main question it raises.

If there was a cure for aging, would I get it?

Hell no. Things are not going so great right now, why would I want to risk living through 60+ more years of this only to die of cancer anyway? Sure, I might be healthier up until I got cancer, and I would probably be ready to die at that point, but aging is a necessary part of life. And I certainly don't want to live forever, or even longer than 80 years. That's not how things work, and I'm old and cranky enough to not want to change that particular aspect of the world.

Part of this is probably because I'm in a bad place in my life right now. Okay, it's not as bad as some people, but it's almost the lowest I've been, and as far as relative suckage, this sucks worse than anything else I've personally experienced. But I also think my decision would stick if things weren't going poorly for me right now. The idea of living forever has never especially appealed to me. I like thinking about what might happen in the distant future exactly because there's no way I can know. There is no point in speculating about it if I know I will one day live to see it. That takes the fun out of it. You can be more inventive and fantastic with your musings if you never have to worry about being wrong. For this exact reason I think it's necessary that we never achieve longevity (at least not instantaneously).

In the long run though, I think I'm afraid of things getting even worse. If I die at the age of 84, and things have gotten a little better in society, I can at least pretend like things will continue to get better. And if they get even worse, I can have a little bit of hope and maybe even some relief that I went out at the lowest dip. But if I just keep living I will begin to expect the cycle. Rather than steeling myself for the next upswell, I will always be looking for the bottom to drop out, for things to come crashing down again as we circle the drain. I would rather go out hoping that things turn around some day, than live on knowing how much we've screwed the proverbial pooch.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.

Post 416: Artemis Fowl

2011-08-18T12:00:00.076-04:00

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. ISBN: 9781423132172 (eBook).

I love sympathetic bad guys. I really do. I think they're more interesting than all out heroes. Heroes tend to be a little too flawless* to be really interesting. That's the whole reason they keep rebooting superheroes like Superman; there are only so many reasons to be good and so many more to rebel against society.

Unfortunately Fowl turned out not to be so much of a bad guy as a wayward child with a little too much intelligence and not enough supervision. Part of what detracted from his appeal (for me at least) was his focus on a somewhat childish endeavor: stealing gold from fairies. It would have been more interesting if he had tried to steal the Crown Jewels or gold from Fort Knox or some other crime based in the real world. It would have indicated more adult motives, yes, but I could also have taken him more seriously as a villain, which I think is how Colfer was trying to set him up. It's a bit hard to tell as there are no good or bad guys in this book; everyone has a bit of Grey Morality.

The fairies are bad because they are willing to do anything to continue living a certain way, rather than coexisting with humans; Fowl is bad because he is willing to steal and break the law (but again, this is because he doesn't have an authority figure in his life and is "too smart" to be caught by police); the Butlers are bad because they coddle Fowl rather than actually protecting or serving him by telling him not to steal in the first place. Of course, Fowl is also good because he's only trying to get money to continue taking care of his mentally distraught mother, and again, he's a child with a tentative grasp on issues of moral behavior and no one to draw the line. The fairies are good because they are trying to protect a valuable way of life, which is conducive to the health of the planet and which they feel would be threatened if humans knew of their existence. The Butlers are good because they serve the Fowls selflessly and genuinely care for the Fowl family...however clumsily they do this in execution (by not questioning a minor's motives, etc).

As I stated in my review, Fowl has a bit of Peter Pan cruelty in him.** I think I would have liked Colfer to take this a little further and really exploit that trait. I would have liked the narrator to be slightly less omniscient and allow me to determine things like Fowl's motives. Just because the narrator has all the information doesn't mean s/he needs to share it with me. And I'm pretty sure that even a middle grade student can figure out that Fowl isn't really a bad guy, even without the narrator coming out and saying it.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.
*Or at least think they are. I'm looking at you, Richard Cypher.
**Disclaimer: I am basing this on analysis of the original story, because I have yet to read it. I know! I know. I'll get to it, dammit.

Post 415: Fool Me Twice

2011-08-15T12:00:00.096-04:00

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America by Shawn Lawrence Otto. ISBN: 9781605292175 (eGalley - publishes: October 11, 2011).

I feel like there has been a distinct lack of rational thought lately. Not only in politics, but in talking to people who have very strong opinions... who do not realize that they are opinions. The usual topics involve pride of country and/or religious belief/what is or isn't moral. There are other things, sure, but these are the two big ones and they tend to be the ones people are least rational about.

Wait. Take a breath. There is no need to throw a hissy fit, I am not saying that the United States is the worst country in the world or that God doesn't exist. I am saying that those things are opinions because they have yet to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt through the observations of everyone in the world. You can believe in God all you want, and that makes Him real for you, but for a good portion of the rest of the world that just doesn't work for us. Same thing with patriotism/nationalism (depending on how far you want to take it): you may believe that your country is the best in the world, but even your own countrymen aren't likely to agree with you because they have different experiences and knowledge on which to base their opinions.

Otto stresses this message in Fool Me Twice, particularly when discussing the harm that the postmodern theory has done. By claiming that everything is subjective, and opening a lot of windows to allow for viewpoints that were previously silenced, postmodernism has allowed for microhistories (which I love) and the inclusion of cultures that might otherwise have been ignored. However, Otto also states that postmodernism has wiped out a means of being able to agree on something regarding the way the world works. Because everything is subjective, nothing can be objective, but science is supposed to be that one thing we can all agree on. Science is the observation of nature/natural phenomenon where we are all supposed to be able to observe the same thing if we conduct the same experiment using the same measures, etc.

Unfortunately, postmodernism seems to have been internalized to the point where people can no longer follow logic. They can be presented with information that debunks their opinion, and rather than reevaluating their opinion they revert to kindergarten-esque name calling or downright ignorance and ignore it rather than change their minds. It is as if being able to change your mind is a weakness rather than a strength. Mice seem to be able to change their minds more readily than we do, and yet we think we're hot shit because we have thumbs and a 3 pound brain.

I am most startled by scenarios like the following I observed on Facebook:
Person A posted that America was better than Russia because Russia had designed dress uniforms that did not withstand the cold. Person B pointed out that the US also had a history of poorly designed uniforms. Person A, rather than taking this information in and saying, "Well, okay, but I still think America is better," went with the ad hominem argument, which only riled up Person B and the conversation degraded from there.

What is distressing about this is that Person B was not denying Person A's opinion, Person B was just trying to provide information on what s/he was a topic of interest. What could have been an interesting conversation was instead turned into something hurtful and stupid because Person A was unwilling to be proven wrong. Even though s/he wasn't, his/her argument was just shown to be weak.

This. is. a. problem. We cannot have this. We cannot possibly sustain a country where Someone has to be right and holds out until they are. I would much rather have a country based on rational debate that leads to a rational decision. We all need to agree that the world is round, that magnets work* because of magnetic fields which create polarization, and all of the other things that science has concluded are true based on the evidence we have gathered thus far versus relying on a text produced by man, who is fallible, regardless of how involved God was in its writing.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Copy won through the FirstReads program on Goodreads.
*I'm actually somewhat disappointed Otto didn't mention these clowns. Not that they need the attention.

Post 414: a general update

2011-08-13T12:00:00.045-04:00

Ah, I seem to have acquired quite a few galleys from NetGalley and a couple of publicists. I'll be tackling a number of those. Someday I will get to the pile I've created from buying books from the library sale table (at 3 for a quarter I almost can't refrain from buying them). Not much going on with me this week.

What are you reading?

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America by Shawn Lawrence Otto.
Won on Goodreads, but I was very interested in the topic. It didn't occur to me until I saw the title, that Yes, there is a sort of desire to ignore science when it comes to politics and religion. I've already started it, and it's a fairly well-balanced look at our political system and its willingness to completely ignore the implications of scientific research and inquiry.

The Postmortal by Drew Magary.
Mortality has been cured, sort of. John Farrell can't die from old age, but he is still prone to all of the other things people can die from. This appears to be humorous. I love it when authors mock death, it entertains me in a way other literary conditions don't. I'm hoping this will be somewhat similar to The Dirty Job by Christopher Moore.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer.
This has been floating around for some 10 years to enough acclaim that it automatically went on my To Read Someday When I Can't Find Anything Else list. However, it popped up on NetGalley, so here I am. I have pretty much no expectations for this.

Tankborn by Karen Sandler.
This popped up on my feed as a new title for Dystopian Fiction August at Presenting Lenore. If you are unaware of her blog and the special Zombie Chicken rating, it is worth checking out. Anyway, I saw it again on NetGalley and figured it was worth checking out. There are genetically engineered humans, which are always interesting, especially in combination with a highly-stratified class system.

Post 413: Rapture for the Geeks

2011-08-11T12:00:00.111-04:00

Rapture for the Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ by Richard Dooling. ISBN: 9780307405258.

I need to remind myself that reading books written by lawyers is usually a bad thing. They tend to be White Dudes in the negative sense of the term, and honestly, I read enough condescending bullshit from the uneducated masses that it's even more disappointing from the educated ones Who Are Supposed To Know Better. Dooling, I am disappoint. I started keeping a running track of the page numbers where I felt Richard Dooling was showing his White Dudeness, but I had to stop reading a little too frequently to keep that up for long. Maybe you'll think it's funny, and if so, go ahead and read the book (but try to do it for free, for my sake).

Exhibit A:
"After Hackov fleeces several hundred thousand gullible Americans who don't know fishing from phishing, the kid will transmit his genes and stolen American money to little Estonian Crackovs, who in turn will grow up to be crackerjack programmers like their dad because they were raised programming Linux machines instead of playing Oblivion in Microsoft theme-park operating systems. Back home in Tulsa, you'll be gaining weight, losing money, and raising kids who think "programming" means uploading their favorite ring tones to their Facebook account." Page 24

Rebuttal:
This is more of an education problem than anything. And picking on elderly middle class people from the Midwest who don't have the same experiences determining what is false information on the internet is really victim blaming. Someone with a little more sympathy might point out the need for better education rather than saying, "It's your fault you're fat and broke and your kids are stupid." People who fall for these gimmicks may be ignorant, but we are a society that has let that kind of ignorance run rampant. I'd rather be the person who is capable of being enlightened than the person who has no regard for my fellow human beings.

Exhibit B (not a quote, but evidence is on Page 54):
If you have to explain to me what Soylent Green is, you probably shouldn't use that as a reference. Also, who the hell hasn't heard the line, "It's people"? Why do you assume your audience is full of uncultured yahoos? Who do you think is reading this book? Is there something about lawyers where they have to alienate just about everyone in their writing, or is that just you?

Exhibit C:
"If we tried to confine a machine intelligence anytime soon, it could probably escape by telling its keepers that unlocked iPhones are on sale down at the mall, with free supersized drinks and Happy Meals, and videos of pretty young skanky celebrities throwing up in their wrecked luxury sedans...the humans would desert their posts, and the computers would be free to bring down the human parts of the internet." Page 94.

Rebuttal:
Ya know, I don't think I need to comment here.

Look, I could go on with this line of reasoning, and I'm sure there are some book bloggers out there who are all OMG, YOU BROKE THE CARDINAL RULE OF NOT INVOLVING THE AUTHOR, but you know what, when the author directs language at "me," even when using the general pronoun "you," he should at least make a point of saying something nice every now and then. Otherwise it becomes less of a cute and humorous gimmick and more like saying, "I'm up here and you--" lowering his hand waaaaaay down-- "this is you down here." I'll have you note this is the toned down version of this post; I do have some decorum...occasionally. Also, if you're picking on Microsoft Windows more than once every 10 pages, maybe you should be writing a book about how much Microsoft sucks and not about ~~how we all need to learn a programming language because it will make us better pets after~~ the singularity.

Oh! And speaking of the singularity?

The chances of that happening are so very, very, very small. I don't care how smart all the ~~men~~ people whose names were tossed around in this book are and who say the Singularity is going to happen, likely by 2030. Us dumb monkeys can't even figure out why we're here, much less how consciousness works. The only way we could possibly trigger the singularity is totally by accident. We are just not smart enough to write a program to make a conscious being, and I'm not sure it's possible to program consciousness to begin with. I think it has to happen by accident. There's a theory that given enough time a million monkeys, just by statistics alone, will one day write the entire works of Shakespeare. I kind of feel that the singularity will be a bit like that. Statistically it could and probably should happen, but statistically speaking, you can also flip a coin 1000 times and always have it land heads up.

So yes, I will venture that the singularity is possible, but I agree with Dooling that humans (his lawerly-self included) are just too stupid. That might change once cyborg technology includes wetware modifications, but until then all you Singularitarians can calm the fuck down.

I found an apt review over at Gather: Books, except I didn't think the book was all that funny.
LibsNote: Library copy. So very glad I didn't buy it.

Post 412: Genesis

2011-08-08T12:00:00.067-04:00

Genesis by Poul Anderson. ISBN: 9780312867072.

So, the cover has absolutely nothing to do with the book, what the hell sci-fi cover? I mean, I know that's kind of a thing... but why is that a thing? Is it sort of like freaking the mundanes?*

Anyway, this book jumps around at first to set up the development of humans over, um, a long period of time. Eventually we get to The Plot-ish of the book where there appear to be several AI-beings who are capable of sending fractions of themselves out into space to be their own semi-separate AI-beings. The three beings we're introduced to (before they're fractured further) are Wayfarer, Alpha, and Gaia. Alpha is more of an amorphous AI...alpha. Wayfarer is a fragment of Alpha designed to go check out what Gaia is up to. Gaia is composed of all the human consciousness of people who wanted to stay tied with the earth, rather than going to Alpha or Wayfarer to view the stars. Gaia acts as steward of the earth, encompassing a sort of virtual reality of lives, and has also secretly repopulated the planet with Real Humans.

So Gaia has set itself up as this sort of mechanical God, the destruction of Earth by crashing into the sun is some millions of years imminent and Alpha wants to know if it's worth saving the Earth/humanity. Gaia is against this course of action, if only because it feels that the humans should be responsible for their own preservation.

I wonder, how many of us would be interested in setting up something like Gaia? The AI had already stopped several wars on Earth and directed the development of the humans she planted towards more harmonious, less warmongering pursuits. Given recent political events in the United States, we might actually need some sort of nanny-bot to take care of us as a species. Congress is certainly acting like a bunch of children. I've seen 12-year-olds better at bargaining than what went on during the budget fiasco. And by the way, refusing to bargain is a dick move. I don't care which party it comes from, the fact that it happened to be the Republicans is mostly irrelevant, I'd be just as ashamed if the Democrats decided to put the good of the country at risk just to make a political point. Regardless of whether or not they are your party, they are still your government (unless you aren't an American, in which case disregard that point).

If it were up to me, I would say go ahead and install the AI. Maybe it wouldn't allow me to have a car anymore, because ultimately that would be bad for the environment and future generations. But it would probably also make other adjustments to distribute the wealth, food, water, medicine, etc. that we dumbass humans aren't, so that I don't have to work 40+ hours to afford those things. That would mean I could spend my spare time gardening, or I would be able to spend that hour on the high speed rail and then a bus to get to work. Even if Gaia eventually threw us into the sun, maybe that would be worth it to have several million years worth of high quality life for our species. Right now it just seems like we're stuck with hitting each other with ever-bigger and more complicated sticks and making sure our stockpile of bananas is bigger and better than anyone else's.

I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.

If you're confused by Kirkus's review, that's about right.
LibsNote: Library Copy.
*Back when I was into SCA, this is what we called going into public places in medieval garb.

Post 411: The Most Human Human

2011-08-04T12:00:00.113-04:00

The Most Human Human by Brian Christian. ISBN: 9780385533065.

As I posted on Twitter, if I were a zombie I would want to make sweet gastronomical love to Brian Christian's grey matter, possibly because he writes about like I think. Most non-fiction seems to take place in a vacuum; it is very topic-centric without taking into account all of the things involved with that topic. That's at the risk of going completely off topic, but Christian manages to incorporate relevant information on what a human is and isn't and could be, and does the same for computers. But he was also aware enough to put in information about what makes a conversation a conversation, how they work, and other relevant bits of history, etc. regarding both the Turing test, preparation for said test, computers, and the development of the human brain. There are certainly times where it almost feels off topic, but on further reflection of course we have to look at that aspect of humanity in order to really understand the complete human human.

And because I am a human human I was thinking a lot while reading this book, mostly on my stomach, because I have started a diet. Christian prompted me to think of it even more when he made this statement,

"To see ourselves as distinct and apart from our fellow creatures is to see ourselves as distinct and part from our bodies." Page 62.

Oh how true that is. How little I wish to be associated with my body, which I have no control over, and to be seen only for my mind, who I am, which I do have control over and have taken a great deal of pride in cultivating and enriching with all sorts of thoughts and experiences and knowledge, people. I don't want to be my body, which in some ways I love, it being fairly strong, having great legs, a muscular (if non-existent) ass, and excellent hair. But I am fat, ya'll. I have pretty much always been "chunky," or at least appeared so, because I do actually have a wide and muscular frame. At the age of 26 I find myself at 5'8" and 236 pounds. I have been as heavy as 244. I have been as slender as 174 (and about a size 12 and felt like I was starving).

This seems like a betrayal by my body, because I am not my body. My body is a tool and the tool is supposed to do what I tell it to. I eat about like your average 26 year old, but because my body is genetically predisposed to gain weight I don't look like your average 26 year old. I'm healthy, I eat a pretty varied diet, but I need a program to eat exactly what I need rather than trust my body to tell me that's enough.

What does this have to do with being human?

We're the only animal that diets. We're the only animal that seems to view our bodies as separate from who we are. This may not sound bizarre, but when you get down to it, it is completely antithetical to what living is. Humans have almost divorced themselves from living by trying to get away from our bodies, what the hell is that about? While I don't think the "me" you see when you look at my body is the complete or even an accurate "me" (because you are making assumptions about who I am when you look at me), I cannot say it doesn't influence who I am. My body is a part of me, and I do need to take control of that part of me. I can't control, or even rely on, my body or my subconscious when they tell me I'm hungry. So I need to accept that part of who I am and realize that for the rest of my life I need to write down what I eat and track it, day by day, meal by meal, bite by bite. Forever. It is a flaw. It is a human flaw. A computer will never have to diet and will never have the desire to change its hardware. I doubt it would, even if/when it reached self-awareness; it would have to develop a thing called preference first, and why exactly do humans have preferences for certain body types anyway?

Whatever the reason, I don't think computers are as interested in the form as we are. Self-aware computers are more likely to build bodies for themselves that will complete whatever tasks they find necessary to perform for their function. Then again, if humans had the ability to switch or modify their bodies at will (without painful surgeries and recoveries), maybe we wouldn't be so hung up on what we looked like to begin with. Maybe the next Turing test needs to involve a computer that is mindful and in denial of its body, because what is more human than that?

This book comes recommended by a Michigan librarian, although not specifically to me. A Goodreader gave more of a reflection than a review, but I found it worth sharing.
LibsNote: Library copy. Our tax dollars at work, baby.

Post 410: Robopocalypse

2011-08-01T12:00:00.004-04:00

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson. ISBN: 9780385533850.

Holy freaky cover, Batman! This one is way up there with The House of Dead Maids. Both have really creepy eyes, but here I think the biggest creep factor is actually a combination of the eyes and the lips, and the fact that they don't match up. If you look somewhere in the middle of the face (you know, like the nose), you get kind of a sense of this calm peaceful face, but if you look at the eyes it just feels blank, but then you look at the lips and it almost looks like it's smiling, but then you look back at the eyes and the smile isn't there. The mixed signals are telling my primate brain that this thing is up to no good, and not in the cutesy Harry Potter Maurader's Map sense either.

So anyway, the story is your basic frame tale where our narrator-ish finds a black box that is apparently a fraction of the evil robot's brain (Archos). I use the term narrator-ish because Cormac supposedly is transcribing events that he's seeing displayed from this black box, but then we start getting stories told from the first person when it isn't one of Cormac's stories, so I'm kind of confused as to whether he is adding human interpretation to the already interpreted (by Archos) stories, or if Wilson kind of dropped the ball and his editor didn't slap his hands with a ruler. Either way, it's such an easy fix that I wonder why it wasn't, you know, fixed. However, that's not what I want to talk about, I want to talk about the viewpoint(s) of this narrative, and to do so I'm going to start with a quote that appears shortly after the box was found,

"The monsters want to talk, to share what happened. They want me to remember and write it all down." Page 7.

Because I am a history major, and history is typical written, or at least interpreted, by the victors, I found this somewhat fascinating. Here we have an enemy, whom we have defeated, who is insisting that we tell his tale from the dead and we're actually doing it. But not only that, the "monsters" aren't actually telling us their side of the story, but our own. Somehow I doubt this would be as easily done if the enemy hadn't been a robot, but who's to say that something that develops artificial intelligence wouldn't also be able to develop the ability to lie? Isn't part of intelligence the ability to create? Because knowing a whole bunch of stuff is useless if you can't use it in different ways. Sure, I could see a robot having trouble figuring out how to create a painting, but wouldn't it be easy enough to run a social situation through a databank and figure out the benefits of lying? Maybe not; maybe humans are "lucky" that way.

It's interesting though that the computers didn't really record their own history. Archos's eye wasn't on his own machines at all, but merely acted as a recording device. Archos didn't record his own thoughts or "thoughts" on the development of the New War, or even how and why it created certain new machines (including one that hijacks human bodies, which was definitely the coolest and scariest part of the book). Any human would want their record left, even if it was co-opted by the enemy and bastardized in order to further glorify the victor. Humans always have some hope that their culture and their stories will continue somewhere, because if they don't then they are dead and they are dead forever.

This indeed might be the entire reason Archos didn't focus on its own side of the story, because Archos can potentially live forever. The machines didn't need anyone to preserve their history, because there will always be another machine, but then why did they record ours? Is it possible that a being with artificial intelligence would have an ingrained sense of servitude so that it would feel the need to do this for us? And if it did, would we want that kind of history? It's a very flat sort of history, with raw data and a limited point of view. Yes, it's more accurate, but accurate isn't human.

My review-lette is on Goodreads. A fairly balanced and more extensive review can be found over at Grasping for the Wind.
LibsNote: Library copy, because other people's taxes paying for my reading habit is awesome. Dammit I really wish I had a job.

Post 409: a general update

2011-07-30T12:00:00.009-04:00

So, I went to the library earlier this month and picked up two books. Then I got them home and I was like, hm, I detect a theme. Which prompted a second library trip to get two more books on the same topic. So here we're going to have a random robot themed week here at Lib's LIB, because why the hell not. I mean, I'm going to be replaced by robots anyway, so fuck it. Good luck getting an automaton to wipe your fines. PS: please pronounce robots as "row-butts" for an increase in entertainment value (or just read the entire thing as Dr. Zoidberg). You're welcome.

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson.
Son of a bitch, I just realized I've been tweeting the title as "Robocalypse." Oh well. Shoot me. Wilson can get a refund on whatever money he paid me to advertise his book (that would be nothing, by the way). So yeah, it's like World War Z only with robots. Some of the characters are written like stereotypes of stereotypes, but complaining about wooden characters is like complaining about Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting in... well, anything. You picked up the action movie version of a book, so what you're getting is a compelling plot and some explosions and some special effects. What, you want more? It does its job. If you want acting, go rent Bicentennial Man (no seriously, it's aged remarkably well and is a good movie despite the cheese factor). Also, shout out to a fellow Tulsan, whoo! Go T-town!

The Most Human Human by Brian Christian.
Not exactly about robots, but about the thing we would put into their "heads" if we were going to build the ultimate robots. I first saw this on the Daily Show (which I need to start watching again, but even the funny news is fucking depressing). Have I always italicized that? I don't know, it's a blog, you get consistency in pieces, not the entire thing. So this is a book about a competition to create the most human computer, but humans also compete to be crowned the most "human" human, hello title. So it'll be interesting to read about what characteristics people see as being more human than others and what computers do well as far as mimicking us. Computer programmers, I dare you to write a program that will write my blog posts for me. Bring it, bitches.

Genesis by Poul Anderson.
It is nearly impossible to find anything at my library in Alabama. Their catalog is a mess and their collection is also a mess. So I just kind of had to hope and pray that I could either stumble across something about robots, or that what was in the catalog was actually in the collection and where it said it was. I didn't quite get I wanted (I really wanted some Philip K. Dick, but who doesn't want Dick?), but I got something. This covers the uploading human consciousness into computers (and I am assuming robots) thing. The cover is a bit wacky, but then sci-fi covers are kind of like that.

Rapture for the Geeks by Richard Dooling.
This was published in 2008 and I'm sure it became obsolete almost as soon as it was published, but hey, someone's gotta write this stuff. You poor technology writer bastards. In this slim volume, Dooling theorizes what might happen when computers get smarter than us. Personally, I hope they turn us into pets and perform upgrades. I so want robot hands, like a ~~Jedi~~ boss. I'm pretty sure this is the first time this book has circulated. Popping library book cherries kind of makes me sad, because it means I'm the only one who has enjoyed or suffered through them. Please put a smile on a librarian's face and de-virginize a book... um, not literally. That would make me do the opposite of smile. Also, paper cuts.

Post 408: What Language Is

2011-07-28T12:00:00.100-04:00

What Language Is: And What It Isn't and What It Could Be by John H. McWhorter. ISBN: 9781592406258 (eGalley - publishes: August 4, 2011).

Sometimes I like reading non-fiction because it reminds me of what I already know, but have sort of buried under all of the other "things I know." For instance, I know that writing is technically a representation of language, but this book reminded me of that, and then it went a step further and blew my mind. McWhorther gives examples where not only has the written language been affected by the spoken, but vice versa. One example he used was a country where the written language was considered the "real" language whereas the spoken language wasn't (I can't remember which country, my bad). That is just about the very definition of unbelievable. Why is the more formal (and complicated) version considered real when it isn't even used to communicate on a person-to-person-in-real-time basis?

I've always found writing, the fact that we can understand it and even interpret it in different ways, fascinating. It definitely makes it challenging to choose the correct word to indicate tone and meaning, whereas speaking allows for a range of vocal inflections, and if you're in the same room there's always body language to assist with interpreting meaning. Writing requires a lot of assumption when reading it. For instance, if I state something sarcastically in my blog, you have to know that I'm being an asshole instead of just contradictory. I can give you certain textual clues, like including emoticons or italicized text or maybe even a footnote, but writing does lack a great deal of information that you would otherwise get from spoken language, which of course is why writing will always only be a representation.

But what an awesome representation it is! How many of you actually think in words rather than pictures? What do you think we did before we had writing? First of all, if we saw a tree, we wouldn't think of the word "tree"; but our brains automatically identify things, and with the identification comes the words. If I was speaking with someone and didn't know how to read or write, instead of seeing the word "tree" in my head, I would probably just see a tree, and then as they described it the tree would get closer to matching their description. Our brains still do this, but go through the additional step of picturing the word first. At least, this seems to be the way my brain works, which is probably why words are so important to me.

Don't get me wrong, I don't care about words dying out or falling out of use. For the most part I don't care about kids not knowing the difference between they're/their/there; it's annoying to me, but whatever, it doesn't hurt me that they don't know that. I do care about communicating effectively through writing when I do not have the opportunity to speak. Part of that is because I am a very deliberate thinker. I am not a slow thinker per se, but I like to evaluate all of my options and mull over an idea before opening my mouth. I don't like to look stupid, and if I say something stupid, I at least want to be assured of the opportunity to clarify my statements. In writing I don't always get that opportunity and so I try to be more careful of what I say.

If tomorrow the World Linguistics Council for English decided to change how English was written, I wouldn't mourn it. I would adapt and learn how to write according to the new standards of grammar and/or spelling. Because I want to be able to communicate. I may not be able to adapt to it immediately, but just as I have learned that because I think it should be spelled "sandwhich" doesn't mean that it's correct, and if I want to be certain someone will understand I meant "sandwich" as opposed to "sand which," I need to conform to the structures of the time. Do those structures need to change with the language? Should we simplify our writing to reflect changes? Do we really need to be that hung up about they're/their/there? Maybe not. Maybe we shouldn't care. Maybe this poor ability to remember grammar rules is a good thing and we can get over ourselves and just communicate already.

Nah, that shit still pretty much annoys me.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.

Post 407: Sex on Six Legs

2011-07-25T12:00:00.056-04:00

Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World by Marlene Zuk. ISBN: 9780151013739 (eGalley - publishes August 2, 2011).

This is a case of the subtitle being slightly more accurate than the title, unless of course you are referring to sex as in "That species of ant is like sex on six legs." Perhaps you would be more comfortable with a different analogy: "That 1963 Thunderbird is sex on wheels." This colloquialism likely refers to an attraction to or interest in an object that we normally reserve for the act of sex... er, the interest reserved, not the object.

Zuk's primary thesis seemed to be that insects deserve our sex. Um, or interest rather, because insects are so... not sexy. Zuk claims that they are just too alien to anthropomorphize, and so they are perfect for human study. They aren't cute puppies rolling around playing with each other, so we aren't going to say, "Aw, Fluffy tackled Spot because they're playing," when really it's territorial or aggressive behavior. But here I think Zuk somewhat denies the human ability to relate to anything if they put their minds to it. She seems to even ignore this trait in herself after espousing her own fondness for crickets and how ingenious and fascinating they are.

What I would be interested in knowing is why and how some people are able to anthropomorphize things like insects. It would make sense for some community members in our pre-"civilized" society to be able to extend their circle to include what more discerning cavemen might consider "the other." If you encountered another group of people, who were physically and culturally different than you, it would be beneficial genetically to incorporate that group of people, or at least their genetics. Additionally, the people who are more easily able to anthropomorphize animals were probably the ones who began domesticating animals. Being able to see a similarity in an animal is the first step to curiosity, which would lead to a desire to experiment with incorporating those into the family as well. Of course, that kind of behavior can get you killed too.

I suppose it makes sense that the stranger an animal or person (not necessarily of the human variety) is, the harder it is to accept them as being "like us." It makes it harder to understand their motivations or behavior if they look like us, but don't act like us, and equally hard if they act like us but look nothing like us. Given that we already have problems figuring out each other, it is amazing that any of us are capable of anthropomorphizing anything. I wonder if perhaps somewhere down the line it will be discovered that there's a mental disease, perhaps the coin side to psychopathy,* in which people are too easily able to form human connections... with animals. I am not indicating bestiality here, but perhaps anthropomorphizing animals to the extreme is just as likely to harm as the reverse. I'll let professionals decide on whether or not that should be acted upon, but it certainly is interesting to think about.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by Netgalley.
*Here I am primarily referring to the psychopath's inability to empathize with their fellow human beings, which to me is an indication that they likely have trouble seeing people as "like me/us."

Post 406: The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

2011-07-21T12:00:00.001-04:00

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow. ISBN: 9781598879377 (audio book).

I'll be honest, I wasn't going to post about this one. I listened to it back in May, and since it was an "extra" book I didn't feel obligated to post about it and I couldn't really come up with anything to write about. What did I have in common with a half-Danish, half-Black American girl?

And then I had to correct someone about using a racial slur and I was very strongly reminded of a scene in the book. Nella, Rachel's Danish mother, is speaking with her employer and friend when she uses the word "jigaboo." Nella did not realize this was a racial slur, English being her second language, and was appalled to learn that she had called her own children this word. Although my situation was a bit different, I've been on both ends of the Calling Out and know exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end of this kind of situation.

There is no expression for the amount of horror I felt at realizing I was perpetrating racist behavior. It brought me to tears to realize I was not above that kind of behavior, even if it was done in ignorance; maybe especially because it was done in ignorance. It is not a comfortable thing to be Called Out, it is not pleasant, it is not nice. There is a great deal of shame involved, whether this is the intention of the party doing the Calling Out or not, because it is hurtful to realize that you in turn have been hurtful to someone else on such a basic level. It is, however, necessary. This is not an aspect of Antioch College that I found to be "toxic," regardless of the shock it produced to the system. Rather it was more like being slapped out of a bad dream I didn't even know I was having. Maybe I wouldn't have remembered it if I woke on my own, but I also wouldn't have learned from it if someone hadn't taken it upon themselves to slap me in the first place.

And let's not be coy, Calling Out is an act of emotional/social/political/mental violence, but so is allowing the kind of behavior that prompts it. Calling Out ideally reduces the number of incidents that occur in the future that may silently go on hurting people who have already long been hurt by a tradition of racial/sexual/gendered/sized slurs, behaviors, and stereotypes. It is hard to call someone out for this behavior, because no one wants to cause that kind of anguish to someone. Many people get very defensive because they don't realize that it is not necessarily calling them a racist, but that they have ingrained behaviors that have been caused by racism and therefore they need to work on Their Shit, as we called it at Antioch.

Everyone has Their Shit they need to work on. We are all Works in Progress, but we can't possibly see our own flaws all the time and we can't possibly fix something we aren't aware is broken. So today I tried to help someone with Their Shit. They were watching someone on the news and he happened to be a black man spouting Republican lines, the person then commented with, "What a fucking Uncle Tom."

I did not immediately respond, mostly because I was shocked. This is a person who is close to me, who I respect, and who I really do not wish to pick fights with anymore than I have to. On the other hand, a Calling Out was necessary in order to correct this person's behavior so that the person did not make future mistakes and realized that Their Shit was out in the open. I agonized a bit over the decision, but realized that if I was having that argument, I probably needed to go ahead and do it, because if it was agonizing me, it would bother someone else.

The person was accepting of the criticism, if not necessarily for the correct reasons. Instead of saying, "You're right, that's some fucked up Shit," we had a discussion about how the Black American* Republican was acting like an Uncle Tom, and how it still wasn't right to use that term because it was racially denoted rather than indicating that the person held ideas based on their own experiences and ideology, regardless of whether it was right or wrong. The person finally agreed not to use the term because it offended me; while this is not exactly a Win it's not a loss either. The person did not learn that the behavior was unacceptable because it categorically treated someone, or a group of someone's, as subhuman: in this case denying them personhood in the sense of holding them responsible for their own thought processes rather than insisting that they are reliant on the Republican party to think for them. It doesn't matter if that's actually what happened, because they still have enough awareness and intelligence to decide whether they will believe that information or not, calling some an Uncle Tom is just a step up from calling them a monkey instead.

And before you use patsy...

For once I agree with and managed to read through the New York Times Book Review. A rather spoilery, but really good review, is over at Bookroom Reviews.
LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive Media.
*I prefer the term Black American because it doesn't automatically negate heritage from other black-skinned regions (i.e. black people come from more places that Africa). It's not a perfect term, because it also negates the fact that many Black Americans come from a mixed racial heritage, but I feel it is slightly more accurate than African American. Here is someone who uses the word Black or Person of Color to describe herself. It demonstrates exactly how difficult language can be when something like race comes into play.

Post 405: Breathless

2011-07-18T12:00:00.146-04:00

Breathless by Dean Koontz. ISBN: 9780553907148 (eBook).

I'm pretty sure this book is called Breathless due to sheer number of plotlines that all come together at the end and decide to punch you in your soft, fleshy midsection. And I'm talking about the kind that involve mindless violence and not startling intellect.I was not impressed by his wordsmithing, but rather totally confused and then mauled by it before I could get back to my feet.

For at least three fourths of the book I wanted to rewrite just about every sentence. They were awkward and stilted. Chapter three came in and slapped me with a murder when I was least expecting it with absolutely no lead up. I know it's been done in other books, but this was really a "Rocks fall everyone dies" sort of moment, also known as, "Well, something has to move this shit bucket of plot along." Where did the rocks come from? I don't know, probably the same place as the plotline for Breathless, which I'm going to say originated in a flying unicorn anus.* Because I can. The joys of not being published in The New York Times Book Review. Although I might actually subscribe if they published a review that included the phrase "flying unicorn anus." Hm, I should probably hyphenate that so that you don't think it's the detached anus of a unicorn, but I'm not going to.**

If you think me mentioning unicorn anus is funny/obnoxious, I just want to point out that Koontz writes the words "oscillating butt whistle" in the same sentence where one character is debating the merits of keeping an intelligent but "plain" looking woman in his post-apocalyptic sadist love stables. To that I say, Mr. Koontz, your face is an oscillating butt whistle, and I don't care how educated your character is, a fart is a fart is a fart is pfffftttbllllllffffft.***

So enough of the fart joke review. Even though I don't agree with some of the weird mystical pseudo science stuff going on this, I will give credit where it's due. I did like Lamar Woolsey's**** take on the fluidity of science. From the man who gave you the oscillating butt whistle, take it away Koontz:

"When a sciencist tells you that 'the science is settled' in regard to any subject... he's ceased to be a scientist, and he's become an evangelist for one cult or another. The entire history of science is that nothing in science is ever settled. New discoveries are continuously made, and they upend old certainties." Page 254.

Koontz via Woolsey goes on to discount several major scientists, and how their theories, while useful, are unequivocally wrong even though they are still being taught in school. I'm pretty sure this is all set up so that Koontz can go into this whole "I made fictional characters, god can do that too...only real" sort of thing. But whatever, I don't really care if Koontz's science-y arguments are valid or not, his outlook on science is not necessarily a bad one.

There is however a problem: if the science isn't settled, then we can't agree on the rules that govern our universe. For instance, if half of the population says that gravity is what holds us to the earth and the other half says it's the noodley appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on top of our heads, one theory is going to be more right than the other. Since we can all scientifically agree that gravity is the more likely answer, that's how we agree to view our world. This does not prevent you from privately believing that the FSM is preventing you from flying off into space, but it does prevent you from getting funding for your new flying machine based on those principles.

So great, science is ever changing. I get that. I respect that. I love that about science. But we still have to agree on something, on some rules or values or else society is going to get all confused. Even if the theory of gravity is completely and utterly wrong, until someone else comes up with a better, more universally accepted answer, that's what holds us to the earth. Strangely, the Bible has had "similar" discoveries, but most of those have been by powerful old white dudes who at least supposedly abstain from sex and wear funny headgear... Wait a minute...

Collateral Bloggage manages to point out all of the myriad faults of this book, while still stating he liked it. I agree that the main characters were enjoyable, but there were so many subplots I sometimes wasn't sure who the main characters were... until the end.
LibsNote: Library copy via Overdrive Media.
*I am sure that including "anus" in my blog will make for some very interesting search term retrievals/hits. Yeah, sometimes I include terms just to see where my blog pops up... like a boner...
**You're welcome.
***I should not be allowed to blog past my bedtime. Also, I'm pretty sure that sometimes I blog almost solely for my fiance/editor's sake.
****This name is entirely too close to Hedley Lamarr.

Post 404: Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me

2011-07-14T12:00:00.016-04:00

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir... Of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron. ISBN: 9780849946103.

I haven't always been pro-Christian in the past. I wouldn't say I was anti-Christian either, but I was very... reserved about making friends with and/or interacting with Christians. I had some very bad experiences with some rather close-minded adherents of the faith, and sadly they colored my view of the group as a whole for much longer than I like to admit. There were even times when I made the attempt to interact with Christians with the idea that I might convert to the community at least, if not the faith. One particular interaction sticks out in my mind as being especially harsh. A friend of mine had asked me to attend a meeting at someone's house where there would be plenty of singing and some informal prayer and discussion. At one point it somehow came up that some of the members believed that if you didn't believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, you shouldn't even sing the songs. This seemed so completely petty to me, that I shut up for the rest of the meeting, locked down, and pretty much didn't talk to anyone. If God belonged to everyone, it didn't make sense to me to hoard words and songs of praise to Him just because I wasn't a believer in my heart yet.

Stuff like that made it more or less impossible for me to ever become a Christian, and if they were trying to spread the word of Jesus, they totally fucked up with me on that count.

It wasn't until college that I met someone who might have been able to convert me again, and in a sense he did. Not necessarily to being a Christian, but to at least trying to be more Christlike in my dealings with my fellow human beings. And I can tell you, it is not easy opening your heart. I'm of course talking about Matthew, my room mate, and his parents as well. Matthew loved God, he carried God with him every day, I never saw him kneel and pray because his every breath was a prayer to God. He was a tender soul who loved everyone; even, it seems, those who hurt him the most.

We had been room mates for a couple of semesters when I finally asked him, despite my trepidation at learning the answer, if he thought I was going to hell. His answer was not only a kindness, but also I think the only answer he could give. He told me, “I don't know.” This is the same answer that Cron gives to his alcoholic and emotionally absent father on his deathbed, and I think it's the only answer that someone who is trying to live a Christlike life can give.

Had Matthew answered with anything other than what he did, I might have felt or always wondered if he was lying to me. Or even worse, if he had told me he thought I was going to hell, we would always have had that wall between us and not been able to experience the love we did have for each other. The love he showed to me in that moment has been one of the greatest gifts, and while it may not have brought me to God, it did allow me to accept the love and friendship of his followers where I once may have turned it away. He taught me what it means to be a Christian, even if I cannot follow the faith. I can only hope that others will take this into their hearts and their lives and, like Matthew and Cron, learn to say, “I don't know,” when it comes to saying who does and does not go to hell.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Review copy sent by publicist.

Post 403: a general update

2011-07-12T12:00:00.055-04:00

Meh, my personal life is full of failures and boredom, so let's just skip that. My blog got a whole bunch of hits last month, which was awesome sauce, but those have dropped off. I don't know why, but stats are fun. Also, someone did a search for, "I had no idea poop was such a problem for librarians" and clicked my blog. At the moment I appear as the second Google search result, just below the Wikipedia article for "Shit." Oh, to be so close to greatness; my life goals are now complete, readerlings. Speaking of shit, I'm readin' stuff.

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir... Of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron.
Publisher was all, you wanna book? And I was all...ehhhhh Jesus? Maybe? And then there was this link to a chapter and I perused it ya'll, and then it was like... Okay! Publishers sending me books makes my blog senses tingle, which are bit like spider senses, only less cobwebby... I'm lying about the cobwebs. So, this is a thing about a guy whose father is in the CIA and the Lying Liars who Lied About Lying, uh, or, you know, how do you know who your dad was if He Has A Secret Identity? I are excite, with slight reservations about possible Religious (beat-you-)Over(-the-head) Tones.

Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World by Marlene Zuk.
Bugs are Sexy... or perhaps... Sixy. But no, I have ALWAYS been fascinated by bugs. I could watch them for hours. I even took an entomology class at Antioch College with the amazing Jill Yager (she discovered a whole CLASS of insects, I mean, awesome). And it's almost high summer in Alabama, so why not immerse myself even more in the swarms? Fucking mosquitos...

What Language is: And What It Isn't and What It Could Be by John H. McWhorter.
That is an awkward subtitle, yo. Then again, that is an awkward last name, my sympathies there, McWhorter (especially if that rhymes with quarter). I had a professor who claimed there was a difference between language and Language. The former often was dead or out of use (i.e. Latin or Victorian English respectively), while the latter requires common and "widespread" usage, must change, and must acquire new words and adaptations in structure, etc. I am vaguely hoping that this will also discuss when slang or abbreviated forms of a language become their own Language, for instance internet speak versus "standard" English: are they even the same language? Wtf, for serious, lol, like, you know what I mean!!!11!!!?

Breathless by Dean Koontz.
Um. I don't know. I haven't read any Dean Koontz before. Someone in high school told me I should try his books. Yeah, here I am, ten years later. I'm awesome.

Post 402: Thoughts Without Cigarettes

2011-07-11T12:00:00.084-04:00

Thoughts Without Cigarettes by Oscar Hijuelos. ISBN: 9781592406296.

Hijuelos gets down on himself an awful lot in this memoir. In fact, this whole memoir is almost a tribute to his lack of self-esteem, first as a Cuban (because he doesn't look Cuban and loses his ability to speak Spanish), then as a teenager (because he is a teenager), and finally as a writer. Strangely I think the whole, "I'm not good enough" pathos works really well for most writers, to the point where it becomes so ingrained in their psyches they may not even realize they have it anymore.

Why this tends to happen is a mystery to me given the sheer amount of ego it requires to be able to pursue the publication of a novel, poetry, or other forms of fictional work. Yet when it comes time to write, at least for me, it's almost sheer Id. When I write, my higher sense of self is very seldom engaged. In fact, I tend to get downright silly when I've been writing. My fiance/editor began discussing this a bit the other day. Part of the reason I get so goofy when I write is that my brain disconnects a bit from the ego and goes into "creative problem solving" mode. Rather than looking at writing as a means of telling a story, my brain sees it as more of a loose ended puzzle in which I have to find the most satisfying answer. Since my brain is a strange place to live, it often comes up with solutions to the problem for its own sick and sadistic pleasure. This is a bit like giving a 10 year old boy endless ammunition for a cap gun and the keys to the Monster Studio after he's eaten a pound of sugar. However, for as many weird and completely unusable scenarios as this 10 year old comes up with, occasionally he really hits on something that is so good it's scary.

Of course, I feed my 10 year old a steady diet of literature, non-fiction, pop culture, and real life experiences, and there's also the adult who comes in and beats his butt when he gets out of line. My Editor is definitely a parental figure, and a punishing one, and I think that also tends to be fairly common for more serious writers... or at least the professional ones. At this point I am in Conjecture Land, so feel free to tell me if any of this is not the case for You As a Writer.

I think perhaps writers (in order to be good), have to be extremely harsh on themselves when it comes to the editing process. I know I've taken out complete passages, rewritten endings and beginnings and middles, removed commas, and totally changed everything, just to get closer to the meaning of the story. I am probably exceptionally harsh on my writing, which is probably why I have very little desire to actually do it. My super-ego Editor is such a harsh bastard, that the Id often kicks him in the knees and takes his pop gun and pixie stix home until the cranky jerk goes to sleep at 8pm. The very process of getting my Editor to shut the hell up is so tiring that by the time I'm ready to let my Id-kid out, the Ego is telling me it's time to go to bed already. The Ego isn't much help in writing either, always telling me, "Gee, if you start writing about Victorian era London, you're going to have to do a lot of research about transportation and clothing and history!" Even my Ego is a god damned librarian.

I'm curious about other writers, regardless of whether you consider yourself a professional. How well do your Ego, Id, and Super Egos play with each other? Do they prevent you from writing more often than not? I'm not necessarily a Freudian, but in this case the terms do apply to the way my brain works in this instance. If you have better/other terms you prefer to use, that's fine, but for the sake of conversation please make them easy to identify.

My review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: Books received through the Goodreads First Reads program. If you sign up with Goodreads, feel free to friend me/follow my reviews! Also, something about Twitter.