Khadaji's Whatcha Reading Thread--July 2019 edition

Cafe Society
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July! Fireworks for the US… books for the rest of us. :smiley:
Currently I am reading:

Competence by Gail Carriger, the best so far of the Custard books, but stil not even visually up to the quality of the Parasol books.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, much to my surprise, I am enjoying it a lot.

Killing Pretty by Richard Kadrey, someone tried to kill Death…

Shade Chaser by Sara COulson, the present tense narrative is fun, I’m not far into it but I enjoyed the first book in the series a lot.

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Khadaji was one of the earlier members of SDMB, and he was well-known as a kindly person who always had something encouraging to say, particularly in the self improvement threads. He was also a voracious, omnivorous reader, who started these threads way back in the Stone Age of 2013. Consequently when he suddenly and quite unexpectantly passed away, we decided to rename this thread in his honor and to keep his memory, if not his ghost, alive.

2

Yay summer vacation! I’ve finished three books over the past few days, all good:

Unholy Land, by Lavie Tidhar, is an alt-history in which a Jewish Homeland is established in eastern central Africa well before the Holocaust. Shades of City and the City, shades of Zelazny, shades of Phillip K. Dick, shades of Yiddish Policeman’s Union, but also Tidhar’s voice. Well worth reading. (And after writing that paragraph, I find this review, with a nearly identical paragraph in it. Heh.)

Storm of Locusts is the second in Rebecca Roanhorse’s series about a post-apocalyptic world in which the Dine/Navajo have come out way better than most other folks, due to their help from Coyote and other morally ambiguous gods and monsters. It’s not groundbreaking literature, but the setting is pretty great, and the action doesn’t disappoint.

The Bird King, by G. Willow Wilson, begins in 1491 Grenada, with the Sultan under siege and his concubine (the point-of-view character) trying to figure out how to save her magical gay cartographer buddy from the Inquisition. It’s a lot of fun. Some Goodreads reviews ding the book for being slow, but I definitely didn’t think it was–not sure what they’re talking about.

3

Last month’s thread: June is but a memory…

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I’m in the middle of B. Traven’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It’s good but pretty long-winded. I’m guessing that by the end I’ll appreciate John Huston as a genius for his adaptation and condensation skills in creating the screenplay for the movie.

Next up: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

5

OOO! That’s one of my favorites! It’s creepy and very understated.

6

I’m about 40% of the way into Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and am enjoying it (thanks, zimaane!).

7

I’m almost done with Raising the Fleet by Ernest Arroyo and Stan Cohen, about the US Navy’s ambitious and surprisingly successful salvage operations of its damaged and sunken warships after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Lots of pictures, reprinted detailed reports from ships’ officers and other interesting stuff, but it’s very poorly edited, with many typos.

Now about a quarter of the way through A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick, a novel about an arranged marriage in 1907 rural Wisconsin. The author is going on a tangent (a major character takes a trip to bustling St. Louis) that looks less and less like it’s going to be a tangent; not sure where he’s going with it, though.

8

Finished Applied Minds: How Engineers Think, by Guru Madhavan, which was interesting.

Just started Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which I’m enjoying so far.

9

Did not finish Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart, by Steve Erikson (author of the acclaimed Malazan series which I also did not finish).

The premise is fine: first contact with aliens comes from an AI sent to our solar system, which decides that humans are the equivalent of recalcitrant kindergarteners and put us in the equivalent of time-out, using force-fields to expel us from all sensitive earthly ecosystems and preventing every individual act of violence. Presumably their plan goes on from there.

However, it’s the most obnoxious “author smarmily lectures the reader through characters that are thinly veiled mouthpieces” science fiction since Starship Troopers. In this case, I broadly agree with the author’s point of view (humans are engaged in widespread and very serious ecological destruction, our tendency to violence is out of control, the rise of nationalism and fascism is really fucking awful), but he’s just goddamned terrible at making the case.

Doctors literally refer to themselves as “being in the pocket of big Pharma.” Murdo, a barely-changed parody of Rupert Murdoch, calls viewers of his TV network “rubes.” The parody of Donald Trump is even more outrageous. Every point of view character either represents Erikson’s beliefs, acts as a foil to characters spouting his POV, or are ridiculous stereotypes of what he imagines his political opponents to be like.

Meanwhile, the protagonist is–wait for it–a Canadian science fiction author, deemed by the aliens to be the best conduit for communicating the aliens’ message to earthlings, since she’s a leftist with an active blog who’s already an expert at thinking about aliens (by virtue of being a SF author). Erikson even takes the time to tell us that, because she’s a smoker, she’s an expert at humility, because reasons reasons.

The only thing I can say in its favor is that now, when people think I hate Heinlein just because I disagree with his politics, I can hold this book up as a hypocrisy shield. Nope, I can say, I hate shitty polemics barely disguised as fiction.

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I’ll be interested to see what you ultimately think of it. I read it a few months back (and believe I posted briefly about it), and though it has its moments I found it less than I had hoped for various reasons.

I read Alex Kotlowitz’s newest book, An American Summer, mostly while in Chicago. Murder and violence in the inner city during one especially dangerous summer in Chicago, much but not all having to do with gang activity. Sobering, sad, and rather depressing; not the sort of book you turn to for answers in How to Stop the Shooting, in part because Kotlowitz recognizes that these are extraordinarily difficult problems to solve. But very well written and extremely insightful, and there are some people in the book you can’t help but root for despite the things they’ve done. Glad I read it (I think).

11

Almost a quarter of the way through Misery, by Stephen King. Looking like one of his better ones.

B. Traven was a shadowy figure. I saw a special on the movie version in which they said at one point a mysterious stranger visited the movie set, and later on they all figured that must have been him.

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Just finished it, and was a bit disappointed. Overlong, and the three main characters did stupid things that seemed out of character just to keep the plot moving along. I started counting the times the author made dramatic declarative statements, especially using the word “never,” and soon lost count. Great atmosphere, though, and I didn’t see the key plot twist coming about halfway through. All in all, a mostly-interestingly dark retelling of the parable of the Prodigal Son, but probably not something I’d recommend to others.

13

On a two-week vacay on the Maine coast and decided to indulge in mystery fiction.

Just finished Black Wings Has My Angel, a 1953 noir by Elliot Chaze. Recently reprinted by New York Review Press, which does the most fascinating reprints. Highly recommended. Well-written story of an ex-con planning an armored car caper partnered only by a terrifying femme fatale.

Just finished Thereby Hangs a Tail, the second “Bernie and Chet” novel by Spencer Quinn (pseudonym for thriller writer Peter Abrahams), 2009. Bernie is a SoCal private eye, Chet is a hundred pound mongrel dog. Told from Chet’s POV. I normally hate this sort of thing, but Abrahams does a fine and witty take on life from a working dog’s mind. Not quite s good as the first, Dog On It, but good enough to eventually read #3.

Currently reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928), a top-notch Lord Peter Wimsey novel I hadn’t gotten around to yet. I read the first three Wimsey/Harriet Vane novels last year, which whipped up the appetite to finish off the Wimsey stand-alones, most of which I read in my teens. Might pick up a copy of Busman’s Holiday to complete all four Vanes.

14

Still working my way thru Battle: The Story of the Bulge and it is not disappointing. I mentioned the first chapters establishing the “it’s quiet out there - too quiet” atmosphere. That atmosphere has given way to a horrifying mix of War with a Capital W. Mass confusion, nobody knows what is going on, there seems a realistic chance of disaster for the Allies, interspersed with moments of heroism and real tragedy - the general forced to abandon to destruction the division that holds his only son.

Toland excels in presenting both surrender, and “fight to the death”, in relatable terms. The moral courage of a commander ordering another to stand his ground and fight, no matter what, and the physical courage of the commander receiving the order, who accepts that it will probably mean the deaths of his whole company - and probably himself as well. And the agony of the commander who has to surrender, because no object will be gained by sacrificing his men, and the derision he expects, and receives, from himself, his other officers, and even from some of his men.

As well as the juxtaposition of attitude among the soldiers. Some of them saying, “I am out of ammunition, I haven’t slept in three days, I haven’t eaten in two days, Panzers are killing us like flies - fuck this, I am going to the rear” and some others who are just as hungry, just as tired, just as scared - but saying “I joined this army to kill Germans and that’s what I am going to do” and joining back up with companies heading back into the thick of things. And you can see yourself doing both.

And George Patton - as documented elsewhere, a jackass and a blowhard. But at least he’s not a defeatist. Maybe even he is grossly over-confident, but Eisenhower seems to need someone who will take what he’s got, put together a plan, and commit to victory. Is that going to get a lot of guys killed? Oh my yes. But a lot of them are going to be German.

Very good stuff.

On a totally un-related note, I found an audiobook of The Further Adventures of Doctor Syn and I am going to give it a shot. Maybe that will be more like the Disney Scarecrow of Romney Marsh I remember from my childhood - if not, let’s see what the psychopath does next.

Regards,
Shodan

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Nope

16

Finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which is very good.

Next up: Pleasures of Nature: A Literary Anthology, edited by Christina Hardyment. It begins with a quote from a Discworld novel, which I did not expect.

17

Picked up this book on a whim, though I’d never heard of the author: The Mausoleum, by David Mark. I’m only on page 29, but finding it interesting and well-written.

18

Started David McCulloch’s The Pioneers .
I also have Steven Silverman’s new book Amusement Parks. I corresponded with him recently, because I’ve been trying to get my own book on an amusement park published. Looksvery interesting.

I picked up a used copy of W.J. Humfreys’ Physics of the Air, a book heavily cited by Jearl D. Walker and a good source on rainbows and the like. I’d heard about it for years, but only looked at a few copies in libraries.

I also picked up a used copy of E.E. Smith’s ** The Skylark of Space**, which I don’t think I’ve read, despite having read the Lensman series. The first magazine installment of Skylark also contained the first “Buck Rogers” story.

and I still have that new copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh to read.

19

Took a long road trip this weekend and heard most but not all of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin book of Napoleonic naval adventure, The Surgeon’s Mate, which is great, including an exciting expedition to win over the Catalan garrison of a French fort. But still no explanation for the title of the book!

20

Oh, yeah. On audio I finished Preston and Child’s White Fire. I was disappointed that I’d figured out the solution(s0 way in advance, although it wasn’t clear to me which characters were responsible for what. they threw a Sherlock Holmes story into the middle of the book, which was diverting, but didn’t feel Holmesian enough, and especially not like a “late” Holmes story, which this purported to be.

I’m now more than halfway through Clive Cussler’s latest, The Oracle. This one feels different from his other Fargo stories. Robin Burcell, who has co-authored at least two of these with Cussler, also wrote this one, but maybe Cussler’s letting her have more leash.