January Booklist
Feb. 6th, 2019 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuranaI spent quite some time in last last month rereading books I already knew and loved (mostly Harry Potter and Dresden Files audiobooks). Getting back to stories I already know and spending time with characters I know I like has something deeply comforting for me. But since I spent a lost of time on the train everyday I also need new material. So here are my thoughts on the books I read last month:
1) Quidditch Through the Ages: Short and nothing too special. I only read it because I needed to read a book about sports for a reading challenge and this is as close to reading about sports as I’m likely to get. Rowling really likes her alliterations, doesn’t she?
2) The Tea Dragon Society: Another short one for a reading challenge, but considerable higher quality. A cute little comic about small dragons that grow tea on their scales. It’s fluffy and sweet and just very lovely all around.
3) The Basilisk Murders: The third book last month I read because of a reading challenge and the worst one. It’s a murder mystery set in a conference of Silicon Valley dudebros and similar people. It’s full of libertarians, tech millionaires, red pilled internet trolls and rationalists and there are obvious stand-ins for people like Elon Musk. And if you now think that the basilisk is Rocko‘s you would be exactly right. The thing is, I don’t know who this was written on for. It’s an obvious parody of the Silicon Valley culture, but if you’re not already in the know about it, the references will go over your head and if you do know the people referenced, you will probably be offended. Not least of all because the parody paints with very broad strokes and frequently goes the "Big Bang Theory"-road of „look at the smelly nerds that can’t get girlfriends“. It also doesn’t help that the protagonist is a polyamorous lesbian written by (as far as I can tell) a straight man. Her identity feels more like a coat of paint then something meaningful. As if the protagonist was written as a straight man and then the pronouns were just changed and a couple a sentence put in about how the dudebros really personally offend her because of her identity.
4) The Calculating Stars: Alternative History in which a meteorite hits earth in the 50s and the human race has start the space program in order to flee to other planets to survive, written from the perspective of one of the first female astronauts. A really solid hard scifi book and a surprisingly insightful portrait of someone suffering from anxiety.
5) The Machineries of Empire: Yes, I read the whole trilogy in a couple of days. It was that good. I probably missed some things because I raced through the books and a reread will probably be necessarily at some point. But with these books something happened that only comes along maybe once a year, I just fell in love with the world, with the characters and when I was done with the books, it felt like I lost a friend. So what are these great books about? It’s a military space opera about math and revolution. To massively simplify some very complex world building: The books take place in a world where you can basically do magic by using calendrical math. However, this only works if all the people in an area practice the same calender, so the society this takes place in has to brutally repress anyone who deviates from those calendrical norms, otherwise their weapons and space ships an so on don't work. And in this system we of course have people, who will try to challenge the current repressive order (and anything more gets into spoiler territory, I think). The books are written largely from the perspective of people in power, mostly military leaders who make the "hard choices" to sacrifice some people to safe others. What makes this series special, is that it never lets you forget the real human cost of these choices. Even the people you might like and root for will make some horrible decisions that get a lot of people killed and this series will not gloss over that. The moral stance of the books might be best described as "a life is a life, no matter who you are talking about, it's always worth preserving" and then it takes that stance and puts it in a world that where thousands of people are habitually sacrificed to keep society running. Also, fair warning, these books have all the triggers. There is a lot of death and torture and also some pretty heavy physical and mental abuse. In my opinion those themes are handled with care and taken serious in their implications, but your millage might vary on that count.
1) Quidditch Through the Ages: Short and nothing too special. I only read it because I needed to read a book about sports for a reading challenge and this is as close to reading about sports as I’m likely to get. Rowling really likes her alliterations, doesn’t she?
2) The Tea Dragon Society: Another short one for a reading challenge, but considerable higher quality. A cute little comic about small dragons that grow tea on their scales. It’s fluffy and sweet and just very lovely all around.
3) The Basilisk Murders: The third book last month I read because of a reading challenge and the worst one. It’s a murder mystery set in a conference of Silicon Valley dudebros and similar people. It’s full of libertarians, tech millionaires, red pilled internet trolls and rationalists and there are obvious stand-ins for people like Elon Musk. And if you now think that the basilisk is Rocko‘s you would be exactly right. The thing is, I don’t know who this was written on for. It’s an obvious parody of the Silicon Valley culture, but if you’re not already in the know about it, the references will go over your head and if you do know the people referenced, you will probably be offended. Not least of all because the parody paints with very broad strokes and frequently goes the "Big Bang Theory"-road of „look at the smelly nerds that can’t get girlfriends“. It also doesn’t help that the protagonist is a polyamorous lesbian written by (as far as I can tell) a straight man. Her identity feels more like a coat of paint then something meaningful. As if the protagonist was written as a straight man and then the pronouns were just changed and a couple a sentence put in about how the dudebros really personally offend her because of her identity.
4) The Calculating Stars: Alternative History in which a meteorite hits earth in the 50s and the human race has start the space program in order to flee to other planets to survive, written from the perspective of one of the first female astronauts. A really solid hard scifi book and a surprisingly insightful portrait of someone suffering from anxiety.
5) The Machineries of Empire: Yes, I read the whole trilogy in a couple of days. It was that good. I probably missed some things because I raced through the books and a reread will probably be necessarily at some point. But with these books something happened that only comes along maybe once a year, I just fell in love with the world, with the characters and when I was done with the books, it felt like I lost a friend. So what are these great books about? It’s a military space opera about math and revolution. To massively simplify some very complex world building: The books take place in a world where you can basically do magic by using calendrical math. However, this only works if all the people in an area practice the same calender, so the society this takes place in has to brutally repress anyone who deviates from those calendrical norms, otherwise their weapons and space ships an so on don't work. And in this system we of course have people, who will try to challenge the current repressive order (and anything more gets into spoiler territory, I think). The books are written largely from the perspective of people in power, mostly military leaders who make the "hard choices" to sacrifice some people to safe others. What makes this series special, is that it never lets you forget the real human cost of these choices. Even the people you might like and root for will make some horrible decisions that get a lot of people killed and this series will not gloss over that. The moral stance of the books might be best described as "a life is a life, no matter who you are talking about, it's always worth preserving" and then it takes that stance and puts it in a world that where thousands of people are habitually sacrificed to keep society running. Also, fair warning, these books have all the triggers. There is a lot of death and torture and also some pretty heavy physical and mental abuse. In my opinion those themes are handled with care and taken serious in their implications, but your millage might vary on that count.
