![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Backlog to the Future (October Reading)
Nov. 25th, 2009 11:38 pmAmerican Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin): I'm starting to notice a trend: I like biographies that do a great research job on the individual, and tie that person into the larger social context. (Case in point: the Alice Sheldon bio.) So take a heavily end-noted biography that does all that and is about science, and I say it is the best thing ever. ( I really liked this a lot. )
An extensive look at a fascinating life. Absolutely recommended. In the land of small coincidences, this was my reading on my San Francisco trip (and for several weeks afterward); my sister and I nearly went to the Exploratorium, founded by Robert Oppenheimer's brother Frank, but couldn't get the scheduling to work. Maybe next time.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel (Mark Haddon): 15-year-old Swindon boy tries to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog. Oh, he's got an unspecified autism spectrum disorder. Someone recommended this a couple years ago, and I just now got around to it. If you have any familiarity with autism spectrum disorders, you can check off the characteristic behaviors as you read. Some cursory googling suggests that people who do not have autism found this interesting and entertaining, but people who are autistic or routinely interact with autistic individuals are a little less sanguine, pointing out that Christopher Boone - the protagonist - is an amalgam of autism spectrum traits, and is remarkably self-reflective, and can't stand in for every autistic person everywhere. So I would say, if you're using this as a Handbook to Dealing With Your Autistic Whatever, you'd do better to google "autism" or "autism books" and do some nonfiction reading, but if you're looking for an interesting story, this may be of interest.
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party (M. T. Anderson): A fictional slave's narrative in immediately pre-Revolution Boston. What people always neglect to mention about the American Revolution is that it was an illegal (if highly popular) guerrilla action against a legitimate (by England's lights) government, and without that little detail it feels like another retelling of first-grade history. I think the focus on how, really, the Boston revolutionaries were in it for the money and property (westward expansion, slaves) makes it much murkier and interesting.
I also flipped through many of Catherine Asaro's Skolia stories: Primary Inversion, The Radiant Seas, The Moon's Shadow, Skyfall, "Stained Glass Heart", "A Roll of the Dice", "Walk in Silence", "Aurora in Four Voices", The Quantum Rose. ( It's a sickness. )
Science Fiction: The Best of the Year (2006) (Ed. Rich Horton): From the dollar rack at the used book store. ( Split into the good, the meh and the ugly. )
Skin Deep (Mark Del Franco): Laura Blackstone: PR director by day, freelance druid and/or high-powered player on the DC scene by night. Now her public and secret identities are on the trail of the same blown drug bust that may have political implications.
So: billed as a thriller, with magic. About a century back, the faerie realms merged/dumped magical beings into Earth, with surprisingly little backlash. Now the Irish and Germanic magical courts interact with the governments of the 21st century, with the Fae Guild - Laura Blackstone's employers - acting as the public face of the Fae Court, based out of what used to be Ireland. Laura works out of the DC branch, which is where my first major bump comes in: where the heck is the Guildhouse? Sort of by the Reagan building? On Capitol Hill? Up and over in NE or NW? del Franco fails the "feels like DC" suspension of disbelief test hard: for one thing, no one complains about the metro. Granted, that's because the milieu is high-powered fae who don't take public transit, but I'm pretty sure at least one of Blackstone's personas - the broke one - should have some familiarity with chronic weekend single-tracking and trying to find a decent grocery store in the city limits. And parking. There is a reason metro is so popular in DC, despite its many failings. Once you've broken the suspension of disbelief, I started questioning more of the setup - so, Farie is now on Earth, circa 1900-ish, how did WW1 go down? Religious implications? Racial/ethnic tensions? And why are all the paranormals drawn from European tradition? - which distracted me from the Burning Hunk of Love subplot, alas. Not sold.
Unfallen Dead (Mark Del Franco):Connor Grey, druid, ex-Guild guy who's lost his magic and is stuck on disability, sometimes Boston PD free-lancer, starts the book with an occult murder and ends it confronting the Opening of the Ways between life and death. ( This was crack. The really good kind. )
Numbers: 6 total plus Asaro rereads. 6 new, ~2.5 reread; 5(+~2.5) fiction, 1 nonfiction. 1 short story collection.
An extensive look at a fascinating life. Absolutely recommended. In the land of small coincidences, this was my reading on my San Francisco trip (and for several weeks afterward); my sister and I nearly went to the Exploratorium, founded by Robert Oppenheimer's brother Frank, but couldn't get the scheduling to work. Maybe next time.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel (Mark Haddon): 15-year-old Swindon boy tries to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog. Oh, he's got an unspecified autism spectrum disorder. Someone recommended this a couple years ago, and I just now got around to it. If you have any familiarity with autism spectrum disorders, you can check off the characteristic behaviors as you read. Some cursory googling suggests that people who do not have autism found this interesting and entertaining, but people who are autistic or routinely interact with autistic individuals are a little less sanguine, pointing out that Christopher Boone - the protagonist - is an amalgam of autism spectrum traits, and is remarkably self-reflective, and can't stand in for every autistic person everywhere. So I would say, if you're using this as a Handbook to Dealing With Your Autistic Whatever, you'd do better to google "autism" or "autism books" and do some nonfiction reading, but if you're looking for an interesting story, this may be of interest.
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party (M. T. Anderson): A fictional slave's narrative in immediately pre-Revolution Boston. What people always neglect to mention about the American Revolution is that it was an illegal (if highly popular) guerrilla action against a legitimate (by England's lights) government, and without that little detail it feels like another retelling of first-grade history. I think the focus on how, really, the Boston revolutionaries were in it for the money and property (westward expansion, slaves) makes it much murkier and interesting.
I also flipped through many of Catherine Asaro's Skolia stories: Primary Inversion, The Radiant Seas, The Moon's Shadow, Skyfall, "Stained Glass Heart", "A Roll of the Dice", "Walk in Silence", "Aurora in Four Voices", The Quantum Rose. ( It's a sickness. )
Science Fiction: The Best of the Year (2006) (Ed. Rich Horton): From the dollar rack at the used book store. ( Split into the good, the meh and the ugly. )
Skin Deep (Mark Del Franco): Laura Blackstone: PR director by day, freelance druid and/or high-powered player on the DC scene by night. Now her public and secret identities are on the trail of the same blown drug bust that may have political implications.
So: billed as a thriller, with magic. About a century back, the faerie realms merged/dumped magical beings into Earth, with surprisingly little backlash. Now the Irish and Germanic magical courts interact with the governments of the 21st century, with the Fae Guild - Laura Blackstone's employers - acting as the public face of the Fae Court, based out of what used to be Ireland. Laura works out of the DC branch, which is where my first major bump comes in: where the heck is the Guildhouse? Sort of by the Reagan building? On Capitol Hill? Up and over in NE or NW? del Franco fails the "feels like DC" suspension of disbelief test hard: for one thing, no one complains about the metro. Granted, that's because the milieu is high-powered fae who don't take public transit, but I'm pretty sure at least one of Blackstone's personas - the broke one - should have some familiarity with chronic weekend single-tracking and trying to find a decent grocery store in the city limits. And parking. There is a reason metro is so popular in DC, despite its many failings. Once you've broken the suspension of disbelief, I started questioning more of the setup - so, Farie is now on Earth, circa 1900-ish, how did WW1 go down? Religious implications? Racial/ethnic tensions? And why are all the paranormals drawn from European tradition? - which distracted me from the Burning Hunk of Love subplot, alas. Not sold.
Unfallen Dead (Mark Del Franco):Connor Grey, druid, ex-Guild guy who's lost his magic and is stuck on disability, sometimes Boston PD free-lancer, starts the book with an occult murder and ends it confronting the Opening of the Ways between life and death. ( This was crack. The really good kind. )
Numbers: 6 total plus Asaro rereads. 6 new, ~2.5 reread; 5(+~2.5) fiction, 1 nonfiction. 1 short story collection.
