Books

Currently reading All That We See Or Seem by Ken Liu. I’m a pretty big fan of his, I’ve read a lot of his short stories, but this is the first novel I’ve read. The pacing is great and I feel it’s pretty relevant to things going on in current times. I’m about halfway through and probably going to finish it over the weekend.

I finished Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik and I loved it. I’ll definitely be reading the next 2 in the trilogy.

Titanium Noir. Scifi noir detective story. There is a drug that reverts your age back to about 20 and heals most health conditions.

It causes you to speed run puberty so each time you take it you get bigger. Only the ultra rich can afford it.

It's pretty good so far and an easy read.

Finished "crossing power"by Scott Moon. It's scifi pulp as I mentioned last week. There's also quite a few errors (spelling) in the book, which gets on your nerves eventually. Decided I had enough of that, so finished "The shattering peace" by John Scalzi. It's a great installment in the "old mans war" series, and it has some great humor with a character of the "Obin" race. Not so fun fact; Scott Moon's books get higher ratings on goodreads than John Scalzi's, there's definitely something fishy going on.

Currently reading "service model" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. From what I gather this isn't a typical Tchaikovsky book, but I like this one a lot (I think I have two of his books in the unfinished pile because I couldn't get the hang of it).

Still working my way through Adrian Thatcher’s Vile Bodies.

Finished reading 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, because last month someone here reminded me about it and said it didn't suck. He's right. It's not a best in breed of the alien invasion genre, and some of the YA themes weren't intended to captivate guys who'd cross the street to avoid overhearing teenage girls gushing about dreamy teenage boys. But it's good enough that I can donate it to a neglected little free library and not feel guilty about shortchanging whoever takes it. I think the reason I passed over it earlier was that I thought it was the 5th in the series, not the first.

Now I'm re-reading Bone Collector by Jeffrey Deaver. I've read some of his Lincoln Rhyme mysteries, but couldn't remember which ones. I'm only about 50 pgs in, but it looks familiar. I expect it to end with some unrealistic coincidences, but can't remember what, so I'll continue.

Still reading Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaïkovski. I'm almost halfway in it. For the moment I enjoy it very much. Half being a great sci-fi story, the world is inhabitable, human search for a new planet (not the only book with this plot) but it's brilliantly developed and written. And there is what happens on the terraformed planet, which is interesting as a dive into the development of a civilization. This also, of course, portray the flaws of our current civilizations. If the remaining is as good, in my opinion, it's a great piece of literature on the sci-fi genre.

I started Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Only ~60 pages in so far but I'm hooked. The story is being told beautifully and there's an air of mystery that I'm absolutely loving. Really hoping it sticks the landing and becomes a new favorite for me.

Just finishing Washington At The Plow!

Very fascinating insight into George Washington, as a thinker and as a human being. It really reinforces that his true love was agriculture, and, specifically, trying to find a more 'modern' and scientific form of agriculture of the sort that was cutting-edge in Great Britain at the time. It's very fascinating just how primitive agriculture in the American colonies was at the time, and how Washington hoped to approach a more rational and sustainable mode of cultivating the land. His interest is also wide-ranging and nearly autarkic, or at least vertically-integrated, seeking to process as much of the supply chain on his own as he could. His position seems nearly feudal at points, so totally integrated is his estate - running his own mills, distilleries, clothiers, etc.

A few non-agricultural revelations in particular stood out to me - such as Washington's use of white indentured servants and convicts, and his constant conflicts with white hired labor for failing to live up to his (exacting, excessive) personal standards. He seems to operate with the mindset that everyone should be as much as a workaholic as him, and seems nearly confused when people fail to be so. While new material to me, it certainly fits the image I had developed of Washington's personality while previously reading of Washington's wartime conduct, where his strictness inspired his men to see in him a real military leader and a man confident of victory, but also ran up against the realities of running a rag-tag rebellion and was at times counterproductive. Very much a patrician and an aristocrat with an intensely paternalist streak.

Washington consistently rejects direct leadership positions even in areas outside of governance, giving more context to his reputation as a 'Cincinnatus'. While part of this is certainly that Washington was always a man very concerned with his reputation, he often eschews the opportunity for direct influence in preference of a 'leadership by example' sort of thinking. It may seem contradictory to his perfectionist streak, but I think it's honestly very fitting - Washington ultimately does not want to be the one in charge, he wants everyone running like clockwork on their own initiative - and is consistently and constantly disappointed when they do not end up doing so.

The book, thankfully, does not shy away from the issue of slavery and how core it was to Washington's operations. Washington writes extensively on how violence against the enslaved only 'corrects' behavior as long as someone's eye is on them, and that reasoning with people is far more effective. He's recorded as often bypassing his overseers to speak with the slaves personally, taking into account not only their advice on farming operations, but also complaints of their conditions, including personal recriminations against Washington's behavior and the overseers.

On numerous occasions, Washington sacrifices the prospect of monetary gain for humanitarian concerns, choosing to refuse individual sales because one of his slaves does not wish to be parted from family at Mount Vernon, or buying slaves from other plantations that he professedly does not need and cannot really afford considering the meager profits of Mount Vernon simply to reunite them with families at Mount Vernon. Yet despite this, he still signs off on intermittent whippings and sales of 'troublesome' slaves.

It reinforces, for me, that the core of it is that slavery itself is an irredeemable system, and that even the 'best' slaver, by the very nature of the system, cannot continue to be a slaver and treat people with anything approaching decency, no matter how hard they feel they may try. When you hold people in bondage in such a system, there are only a limited number of ways you can practically deal with them - and not realizing that that is the core and fundamental fault of slavery, not simply a lack of a sufficiently enlightened autocrat-slaver, is a dire failing on a person's part. There is no way to treat them as human beings, fundamentally, without not treating them as slaves and thus dissolving the system itself. It is particularly hypocritical considering Washington's own core role in the struggle against a distant, professedly-benevolent-but-unrepresentative authority in Britain.

In a way, Washington's lack of expressed ideological racism - never seeming to regard the issue of race in anything more than passing, unlike later American slavers and some of his contemporaries (like Jefferson) who regarded Black people as explicitly inferior, and treating his white servants in much the same way as the enslaved - makes this all the more hypocritical. In the context of government, he could see that a failure to offer a people a say in their own conditions was a fundamental failing. In the context of ordinary social relations, he remained a patrician who seemed confused that subordinates were so reluctant to be instruments of his 'enlightened' will. The man seriously bitches about the way his white employees on a fucking farm dress, for Christ's sake. That's not even getting into the absurd expectations of work and record-keeping he had.

We, as human beings, are creatures of habit more than originality, as General Sherman once noted; the vast majority of us absorb the morals and standards of our time more than any fundamentally coherent worldview.

Washington, for his part, seems to regard his overseers as brutal, lazy, or both, and there is a constant turnover of overseers at Mount Vernon for displeasing Washington's constant and failed injunctions to act with restraint or take proper care of the enslaved - yet it does not occur to Washington until after the Revolutionary War, when abolitionism in the US began to pick up steam and Washington was exposed to many early idealist abolitionists, like the celebrated French officer Lafayette, that the core of the problem may not be the overseers but the system itself.

By the 1790s, as Washington was finishing with his presidency and returning to the agricultural life, he became more interested in the prospect of emancipating his slaves, but ran into both practical and personal issues. Personally, he was reluctant to dissolve the lifelong project of his farm to the 'slovenly' practice of ordinary American farmers, and desperately sought a buyer or renter for the land who would not simply ruin it like other American plantation owners, after a lifetime of developing advanced techniques and investing in cutting-edge practices and infrastructure. Practically, he could not afford to free both the slaves he owned and the 'dower' slaves who he did not formally own but did have on his estate who had formed families together, without selling or leasing his land.

He corresponded with several abolitionist figures at this time, discussing the prospect of legislative abolition or making financial schemes for the abolition of the slaves at Mount Vernon if he could not make the sale or lease he needed to.

Ultimately, a very sudden infection took his life, and only the slaves he, personally, owned were able to freed in his will, though his will laments his inability to legally free the dower slaves. His will dedicates much of his remaining estate that does not go to his wife (who unfortunately was very much a dedicated Southern slaver) to the education and welfare of those newly freedmen and women.

A complex and fascinating portrait.

I am re-reading the Expanse series - currently on Nemesis Games.

Love these books - I want to rewatch the show now. I have all the actors / actresses in my head as I read :)

Reading The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes, which I've been looking forward to. So far, so good.

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Read Harrow County, Volume 1: Countless Haints by Cullen Bunn (writing) & Tyler Crook (art) (southern gothic folk horror comic, issues 1-4) | bingo: short HM, steppin' up HM

A teenager becomes tangled up in her community's witch-murdering past.

Picked this out for spooky season, since my current read isn't horror. This volume tells a complete story arc, so while I'll probably read more of it at some point, I'm satisfied for right now. It's fun, though, and the art is gorgeous.

The Muderbot Diaries series. They're very short books I have a feeling I'll be done with them all in a week. Enjoying them so far. Though they are almost entirely from inside the mind of the main character.

I am on book 5 of Cradle series by Will Wight. They’ve been super fun and fast paced, like little popcorn books.

The writing is serviceable, the characters are not super deep, but the world and exploration and discovery have been great. I didn’t think I would like the series but I’ve been pleasantly surprised and I think it’s definitely a good read between more difficult books because it’s a breeze getting through them.

Oh I have What If! One of the last hardbacks I purchased.

It’s really fascinating. I followed xkcd pretty religiously for about a decade before I stopped regularly checking it.

I’m still reading The Shadow Rising. It’s slow going at the moment, but still a solid entry so far.

Been reading white fragility by Robin DiAngelo, it’s been a decent read so far and re-opened my eyes to things I saw but now have more to work with

I’m on book 7 of the expanse. I’m finding this series to be a slog. I almost stopped at book 6, but everyone says the last three are really good and get into more protomolecule stuff. It does get into the protomolecule stuff more, but it’s still a bit of a drag.

I’ve never seen the tv show, but I’m starting to think this is one of the rare cases where the books are NOT better.

:/

Just finished Never the Wind by Francesco Dimitri

1996 - Luca Saracino is thirteen and has been completely blind for eight months when his parents move to a Southern Italian farmhouse they dream of turning into a hotel. With his brother dropping out of university and the family reeling from Luca’s diagnosis, they are chasing dreams of rebirth and reinvention. As Luca tells his story without sight - experiencing the world solely through hearing, smell, taste and touch - he meets the dauntless Ada Guadalupi, who takes him out to explore the rocky fields and empty beaches. But Luca and Ada find they can’t escape the grudges that have lasted between their families for generations, or the gossiping of the town. And Luca is preyed upon by the feral Wanderer, who walks the vineyards of his home. As Luca's family starts to crack at the seams, Luca and Ada have to navigate new lands and old rivalries to uncover the truths spoken as whispers on the wind.

Very much enjoyed this story. Luca has real depth and emotional intelligence. The setting is unique. The magical realism could have been a little better fleshed out.

Currently reading How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barret. It's interesting stuff like about how we interpret internal signals (e.g. rapid heartbeat) as emotions, rather than those signals being the result of emotions. Or how we think we can read other people's emotions via well-known facial cues, but those cues are inaccurate and culturally dependant. But the book could use more editing to cut down some of the repetition and unnecessary length.

I am (still) reading The Scar by China Miéville. It's dead-tree edition which means I read it slower than otherwise.

I went to see the touring show of "Stereophonic" last weekend, and they were selling copies of the script in the lobby so I grabbed one.

The touring production is just under 3 hours while the broadway original is 3 hours, 10 minutes, I'm interested in seeing what was cut.

https://stereophonicplay.com/

https://www.booksonbroad.com/book/9781636702162

The script is interesting in how they convey the stage direction.

The stage is set up with a raised recording booth behind glass, with a control room in front. You often have overlapping dialog between the booth and the control room.

So in the script, all the booth dialog is on one side of the page and the control room is on the other, with overlapping lines marked with "//".

Hey, what a coincidence! I'm reading "What If?" too haha. Started reading his books with "How To?" since I wasn't sure if these two were for me (and if I wanted to buy it when there's a channel), but I'm hooked.

I'm reading Goliath's Curse by Luke Kemp. It was released about a month ago but the premise is interesting. I learned about it from that Guardian article a couple months ago.

I hope you're enjoying What If?. Randall Munroe is a blast.