Eversion, by Alastair Reynolds

 What a strange book, but not so strange considering the author's education. Reynolds has a PhD in Astronomy and worked in the European Space Agency until quitting for full-time work as author. (Read his Revelation Space series, and you'll see how good he is at hard sci-fi.)

Spoilers:

This one, however, weird. I didn't know what I was reading at first. Three masted wooden sailing ships, exploring the fjords of Norway? Steam-ships doing the same, but in the Pacific off Patagonia? Airships a la steampunk? 

But then the sci-fi creeped in. Were these simulations? Holo-deck? What was the reason, though? Reynolds cleverly introduced the conflict(s), without insulting the reader's intelligence by simply telling us what the dealio was. Nicely done, sir. 

I guessed early that Coade was a computer code, or could be, yet the author still didn't confirm till much later, which was nice. Kept me guessing. Ada threw me, so that was nice. And Coronel Ramos was well-done, one of my favorite characters, not just in Eversion. 

When the reader finally is brought to "reality" s/he can see where the earlier simulations paralleled (that's not the right verb, but I can't find one now) what the crew actually were going through. Spelunking, diving, water, small passages, claustrophobia. And finally: Death.

Spoilers end.

Eversion, btw, despite the squiggly red lines under the word as I write, is an actual word, with many definitions, including scientific ones. And this won't ruin the novel (thus this paragraph outside my spoilers): Eversion is the act of turning inside out, scientifically if you flip your upper eyelid up, that's eversion of the eyelid (and gross). If you want to really get deep into the math of eversion, way down a rabbit hole, go here to discuss sphere eversion with other 50lb-heads. 

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

 What a great read! My SIL picked this for our family book club and I'm so glad she did. Why did I not read this as a youth? What a fantastic, exciting, adventurous novel. The kid was the hero. And so brave...

To be clear, I listened to it, and narrator Richard Williams was wonderful. He did great voices, especially for Long John Silver and Captain Flint /snort/. Audible, oh how I <3 you.

I'm not going to do any spoilers. Most people know this book, have read it or seen some sort of cinematic adaptation of it. (I haven't, but might try to find one. Which movie is best?) 

October's been slow for me, reading-wise. I've been terribly into houseplants lately and have been reading books on that subject. (Which I may or may not review, but I'm not fully reading them; more like poking around in them.) I've also been busy with language study (still Serbian/Croatian) so that's been a drag on my time. I am just about done with an Alastair Reynolds, which I'll review here soon. 

Mosquito Coast, by Paul Theroux

 This book was the selection for Classics Spin #31. I got it out of the library over two weeks ago! My God, this book took me forever.

The reason is, I've become obsessed with plants lately, and any free time during the day is spent reading up on all the various, and interesting, plants there are and that I want. In my house. Now. Then when my head would hit the pillow, I'd manage maybe 3-5 pages and zonk out. Frankly, I got most of my reading done while working out, between sets. 

But finish I finally did. Not sure how I feel about this book. Again, a character I really grew to loathe (cf Rabbit Run). SPOILERS, possibly: Theroux did a great job of making Allie interesting at the start. An everyman, renaissance man, whatever you want to call him, he could make or fix anything. Sure, he's caustic, point-blank, but didn't that farmer come back to him begging him for help? 

But he had crazy ideas. Even worse, he was horrible to his family. I'd never seen the movie but I have the feeling he isn't so bad on the silver screen. Who would want to see Harrison Ford playing such an awful man? I sure do hope vultures take part in his death though. SPOILERS DONE.

My first Theroux and not my last. I have Dark Star Safari on my 50 Classics List, perhaps I'll read it before or during a trip to Africa? 

September 2022

 September, complete tonight. Here's the book count.

Books read:

• The Changeling, by Victor LaValle. Easily one of the best this year.
• How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphics, by Collier & Manley. For my class I started back in November. Excellent book for those who want the basics.
• Putin's Playbook, by Rebekah Koffler. If you want to know what Putin's thinking, read this. It'll sound outrageous, but history has proven Ms. Koffler right.
• Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut. His weirdest? How to measure that. Each one of his I read is weirder. 
• The Mating Season, by PG Wodehouse. Great Jeeves & Wooster novel. Loved this.
• Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. A must read. 

Books bought:

• Cocktails on Tap. Been experimenting with cocktails here at Chez Eels. Wife has loved it, as have I, although I'm still leaning preferably toward beer.
• The History of the Siege of Lisbon, by Saramago. The two of his I read were so good, I pretty much just buy his whenever I see them on sale. Two bucks.
• The Old Fashioned. See above in re: cocktails. Two bucks.
• All These Worlds are Yours, by Jon Willis. Book about search for extraterrestrial life. Sounded interesting. Two bucks.
• Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism of Revolutionary Russia, by Brigid O'Keeffe. She wrote the intro to a great book in Esperanto about WWI: Antau Unu Jarcento (One Century Ago). I pre-ordered this one months ago. So looking forward to reading this one. Not two bucks.
• Project Hail Mary, by Weir. Two bucks.
• The Multiethnic Soviet Union and its Demise, by O'Keeffe. Again, in my wheelhouse. Definitely not two bucks.
• Fall of a Cosmonaut, by Kaminsky. #13 in the Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov mysteries. I've only read #1, but when these come up, I buy them. Two bucks.
• February House, by Tippins. Story about a bunch of great writers and poets under one roof in Brooklyn. Two bucks.
• Rostnikov's Vacation (#7), Blood and Rubles (#10), Hard Currency (#9), Tarnished Icons (#11), by Kaminsky. See above. Each two bucks. 
• House of Suns, by Alastair Reynolds. I'll always buy a Reynolds. $3.
• The Changeling, by Victor LaValle. My pick for family book club. Fifteen bucks and worth every penny. 
• The Writer's Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands, by Lewis-Jones. Maps to fictional places you wished you could visit. 
• The Alexandrian War, by Caesar. I've read his other two Loeb Library "war" books, now it's time to read his last one.
• The Old Fashioned, by Simonson. Can you tell what our new favorite drink is?

Doing an additional chapter in Middle Egyptian, which'll be done by the end of October. And the Serbian/Croatian course. That's still going twice a week. Here's hoping for a 2/2.

Finished some books

 I'm a little behind on the book reviews, and for my dear reader(s) who follow this blog: this ain't in-depth reviews. Anyway, I've read the following since my last "review" post (for The Changeling).

How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs, by Collier & Manley. Finally finished the book for the moderated "class" I've been taking. Started back in November (October?) and learned a lot about tomb offering formulas. Started a translation (moderated) course too, but am woefully lacking in knowledge of other grammar points in Middle Egyptian. Thankfully, the moderator for the C&M class has created a chapter 9, which we're working through now and through October. Someday in the future I'll take Glyphstudy's Hoch or Allen course (22-ish months long). 

Putin's Playbook, by Rebekah Koffler. Preaching to the choir, of course. I already know Putin is a bastard, but Ms. Koffler has much more background than I. Was a nice "read" (Audible). 

Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut. Continuing my reading of this master. This author is so cray-cray. A made-up religion, made-up Carribean island, particle that could destroy the Earth...what else does a reader need? Looking forward to the next Vonnegut in the list (Galapagos).

The Mating Season, by PG Wodehouse. This was the September read. This is a Jeeves & Wooster novel I'd never heard of before, but parts of it were in an episode of the A&E series. 

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. I'd read this maybe 15 years ago. Still the same. Was my wife's choice for the family book club. Remembered it towards the end. Sad. 

Got my spin number for Classics Spin #31

 My spin number is 2, which means I have to read Paul Theroux's The Mosquito Coast by 30 October.

In a breathtaking adventure story, the paranoid and brilliant inventor Allie Fox takes his family to live in the Honduran jungle, determined to build a civilization better than the one they've left. Fleeing from an America he sees as mired in materialism and conformity, he hopes to rediscover a purer life. But his utopian experiment takes a dark turn when his obsessions lead the family toward unimaginable danger.

I'm looking forward to this one. And it's a movie, so that'll be fun! 

Classics Spin #31

 My Book Spin list for the Classics Club:

1. American Pastoral
2. The Mosquito Coast
3. Solaris
4. In Patagonia
5. King Lear
6. Love's Labour's Lost
7. Dead Souls
8. The Fellowship of the Ring
9. Orlando
10. Of Human Bondage
11. The Guide
12. Cakes and Ale
13. King Soloman's Mines
14. The Stories of J.F. Powers
15. The Professor
16. Homage to Catalonia
17. Kidnapped
18. The Turn of the Screw
19. Out of Africa
20. The Monk

Will find out Sunday which book I have to read between then and 30 October!

The Changeling, by Victor LaValle

 I picked LaValle's book for our family book club. After reading Children of Cain, I had "changeling" on my mind. When I saw the author of The Ballad of Black Tom (one of my best reads from 2021) wrote a book about a changeling, I just had to read it.

Spoilers hence:

Since early in our marriage, I think when we started having kids, my wife has mentioned the changeling. I think she first learned of changelings from the Charlotte Mary Mew poem of the same name. I read it years ago when she pointed it out to me, but about 60% through LaValle's book, I had to read it again. Was this the influence for Maurice Sendak's Outside Over There? Possibly. (No, I'm not going to look it up.)

What can I say here? Great story, only slight negative I have is the (tendency nowadays?) inclusion of "white folks are racist" themes. I am so tired of reading this in books. It ruined Rushdie's Quichotte for me so much that I quit reading it halfway, and it'll be a hard sell for me to read any other book by him. In this book, I dropped it one star due to this. I highlighted several areas in the book where the author's characters insisted that we're all racist. Sorry if you experienced that in your life, but it's not common. No, not even in the south.

But this book is more than that, thankfully. It is magical realism, just like his other book. This one takes the poem farther. And it doesn't hold back on the killin'. 

Spoilers, what they are, complete.

Well worth your time. I'm going to keep reading LaValle: he's creative and original. Two things I adore in an author. 

Earth Alone, by Daniel Arenson

 Bleck. Probably would have loved it when I was 15, or 22. Blatant rip-off of Starship Troopers, both the book (from what I can remember of reading it in 1990) and movie. A couple quick examples:

They stomped centipedes--these ones Earth centipedes, only a couple of inches long--under their shoes. "That is why we fight!" they chanted.

Insert in comparison the scene in the movie with the kids stomping on bugs and the narrator saying something just like that quote.

Most of the platoon was already there, naked under the hot water, boys and girls alike.

cf the shower scene in Starship Troopers the movie. Also present in this book: the girl who is just a friend but maybe she could be more (Dizzy Flores in Heinlein's book, and Addy Linden in Arenson's). The sweetheart back home who goes to officer training while the main character goes enlisted (never again to meet? Nope, in an army of 300 million, yep, they meet only 6 weeks into his basic training: YGTBFKM). And of course: the alien race massacring the humans? A bug-like race. (And don't get me started on this being set 200 years in our future, yet everyone knows all the 20th c. references. Worked for Ready Player One, as it had a basis & purpose, but not in this book.)

And oh dear God, there are 14 more in this series. No thank you.

I'm probably being too hard on the guy. It's a fun, juvenile read, and that was probably his intended audience. But the reviewer who said "If you're a military veteran...you'll be able to associate with this story very, very well," I don't know WTF he's talking about. Uh, yeah, you'll associate it with an author who has no idea how the military works. No enlisted soldier, let alone an E-1, is going to worship an ensign. Period, dot. And, lieutenants are dumb, too. They're not perfect. Many do stupid shit, but don't get written up in base newspapers. No military is going to give people right off the streets weapons and live ammo only a couple weeks into their military service. Even a military who's been training draftees and volunteers for 50 years. Not. Gonna. Happen. 

Ugh. Still, not the worst book I've ever read. But I wish I could have spent those 300+ pages on something else. 

August 2022

 Another month has come and gone. I more than doubled last month's, despite being busy in Vegas the last four days. 

Books read:

• How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, by Corinne McKay. 
• The New Plant Parent, by Darryl Cheng. We're getting houseplants again and this time, I don't want to kill them.
• From Here to Eternity, by James Jones. One off my 50 Classics list. Very good.
• Civil Wars, by Caesar. Also good. One more Caesar "war" book to go.
• Mulliner Nights, by PG Wodehouse. Great, as usual.
• Children of Cain, by a friend. Really good. Can't wait to see in print and listed in Goodreads.
• Earth Alone, by Daniel Arenson. Not good. A bad version and obvious plagiarism of Starship Troopers. 

Books bought (all $2 deals this month!):

• Extinct Languages, by Johannes Friedrich. I can't pass up a book on language for two bucks.
• Fear: A Novel of World War I, by Gabriel Chevallier. Ditto for war books in NYRB editions.
• The Smell of Night, by Andrea Camillieri. My wife read his first in this Italian detective series and loved it, so now I buy his whenever I see the $2 Kindle deals. I need to read one thought, to see if I've wasted my money.
• Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America, by Rebekah Koffler. Reading this on Audible. Preaching to the choir.
• The History Man, by Malcolm Bradbury. I heard he's a good author, so why not for two bucks.
• Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide, by John Cleese. Yes, that John Cleese. 
• Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages, by Gaston Dorren. I hope this one is better than the traveling 60 language one I read (again) several months ago.

Almost done with the Middle Egyptian class and they've announced the next translation group. We'll be translating The Instructions of Amenemhat. Can't wait to start it. It'll start sometime in September. 

Speaking of September, my Serbian/Croatian refresher with the DLI instructor starts again in a couple weeks. I plan on taking the DLPT the week of Thanksgiving. Fingers crossed for a 2/2. I've got to get back to watching Novine, but have been busy this trip. I might start reading Agatha Christie's A Cat Among the Pigeons, which I've got in a Croatian version.

I paused the Esperanto book for a bit so I could beta-read my friend's book and finish the family book club choice. I'll jump back in it after BCS. I am still reading plenty of the language, though, as I'm still translating Mi Stelojn Jungis al Revado, by Mikaelo Bronstejn. 

Classics Club 10-year anniversary

 The Classics Club, which I joined 11 months ago, turned 10 years old this month. They've asked members to answer the following questions, so here's my input:

1. When did you join the Classics Club? I joined back in October, 2021, when I composed my list of 50 classics to read in the next 5 years.
2. What is the best classic book you’ve read for the club so far? Why? I've only read 8 since joining, so out of those: Empire of the Sun. I'm a big fan of "war" books and this one, about the Pacific, which I don't read about much, was a great read.
3. What is the first classic you ever read? Oh wow. The first that I remember was Idylls of the King by Tennyson, in 9th grade (1981). Will probably re-read it here in the next year or so.
4. Which classic book inspired you the most? Wow. That's quite the question. I'd have to say The Iliad, but the version that I love the most, have read twice, and will probably read again this year: War Music. The most incredible translation ever. Simply put. And the Audible version is just so wonderful, I could listen to it annually.
5. What is the most challenging one you’ve ever read, or tried to read? Oh dear God. I know Middlemarch is supposed to be good. But holy crap, I hated it. Granted this was back in 2005? 2006? Still, you'd have to pay me to try it again. 
6. Favourite (sic...ha!) movie adaptation of a classic? Least favorite? Thirteenth Warrior (Beowulf, and don't tell me it isn't) for my favorite. If my dear reader(s) claim that doesn't count, then I'd have to say the Daniel Craig-led version of The Sword of Honour is smashingly good. Undeniably it is the "updated" version of The Great Gatsby. Horrible.
7. Which classic character most reminds you of yourself? What? OMG. I'll take a pass.
8. Has there been a classic title you expected to dislike and ended up loving? Respecting? Appreciating? Bright Lights, Big City. My wife chose it for our family book club and I thought, Ugh, I'll muscle through it. Holy crap it was so creative and great.
9. Classic/s you are DEFINITELY GOING TO MAKE HAPPEN next year? The War of the End of the World, by Llosa Vargas. Not in Kindle, or Audible, sadly. Library?
10. Favorite memory with a classic and/or your favourite memory with The Classics Club? The Name of the Rose was a pivotal moment in my life, where I realized "real" literature could be worth the time, and could be incredible. I still re-read it every 10 years or so. Love this book. 

Classics Club is a great group and I'd highly suggest interested readers out there join.