When Fiction is Less Strange Than Science: March Reading

Four books. Four. Including spring break, where inroads were minimal. Bummer of a book month. But I finally finished The Selfish Gene, so I can't say I really care about the count.

The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester): Reread. Because, as we all should know by now, Bester's two Golden Age novels are the best that era has to offer. (His '80's work is considerably less fun, alas.) So you all know what I'm going to say, right? About love for the genre and how much stuff is of its time and how if you think about the '50s, the themes of conspicuous consumption - Victorianism - tenacity - restraint - losing restraint (also sometimes called self control) seem to say less about where '50s America was going than where it was. But blood and money are universal agents of corruption - the trappings of The Stars My Destination may be dated, but the themes at the heart of the novel still speak to the attentive ear.

The Graveyard Game (Kage Baker): Reread. Fourth novel in the Company series: Joseph and Lewis search for the missing Mendoza and poke at the curious life of Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax while the world quietly crumbles toward the Silence.

( Spoileriffic worldbuilding criticism is a terrible thing. Notice how much this is stopping me. )

Other than that, the book is very good. Fast moving plot, vivid characterization, blackly amusing extrapolation of contemporary coddling and PCness into a hyperhygenic ubervegan world where booze and chocolate are illegal. Still very much looking forward to the sixth book.

The Lost Steersman (Rosemary Kirstein): Third book in the Steerswoman series. Definitely not a good place to jump in. If you haven't read the first two, find a copy of The Steerswoman's Road before trying The Lost Steersman. Blurb: back from the Outlands, Rowan searches the disarrayed Steerwoman's Annex for further clues of the wizard Slado's history and plans.

Reactions: ( Spoilers for the series up to book 3. Kirstein is wandering towards Fat Fantasy Epic territory, but so far I'm suffiently amused to trail along and poke at things. )

[Edit: Spoilers for the fourth book, The Language of Power, in comments. Avoid the "Re: The Lost Steersman & The Language of Power" if you want to remain unspoiled for tLoP.]

I would like to note that I started reading a copy of the second edition of The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins) in early January, and finished it at 8:20 AM on March 30th. It was worth it: The Selfish Gene is a lively, detailed argument for the operation of natural selection at the genetic level, a brain-bending concept in chapter one, but eloquently illustrated by the end of the book. Dawkins, a noted evolutionary biologist, politely disagrees with group selectionism and occasionally slams the notion that "contraption contraception is bad" with great ill-will. In the '89 edition, there are also cool "followup" footnotes clarifying concepts and touching on new research (naked mole rats!). There are also two chapters of extra new material, including the "extended phenotype" chapter. (The entire concept is either on crack or possibly very useful. Or maybe both.) The enire book makes me want to dig up early ground-breaking evolutionary bio papers and books, and look at newer research to see what's been done since The Selfish Gene was published. I would encourage anyone who's interested in bio to take a stab at this, because it's interesting, and because it's seminal: my bio prof is basically recapping The Selfish Gene this semester. It makes a fairly painless course very, very easy. Yay Dawkins! And three cheers for my sister, who made me read this.