Test post using Goodreads blog promt

The Feast Nearby: How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally by Robin Mather

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a collection of essays, practically journal entries addressed to the the reader that outline though food the author's life on the shores of Stewart Lake in western Michigan. She describes her experience living on a shallow budget, though it seems to me that she manages more through the grace of generous friends and neighbors than through any great skill of her own. What skill we see is her prodigious culinary abilities, shared with her friends and neighbors as a bartered good. The book is arranged into seasons, and following each entry is a collection of recipes alluded to in the essay.
The prose is clear and artfully written in a precise, almost prim tone that flows easily off the page. I would have appreciated the addition of some grit and struggle, seeing the author win through truly difficult trials. I suspect though that including those would've given vent to anger and frustration at the scenarios which led to her lakeside life, putting a whiny tone into the work. As it is, the book is calm , not quite detached, focusing on the positive aspects of living lightly in a communal way. A good, quick read that I'd recommend.




View all my reviews

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Anathem was my introduction to Neal Stephenson. Prior to reading that book, I questioned whether his writing would interest me. I knew of his ginormous Baroque Cycle series filed in fiction, but it was intimidatingly large. I mean, for a fiction series; fantasy epics get ridiculous in size, and I have nothing against them. Then, Anathem came up, and I reaaaly like it. I didn't quite understand it, but I did like it. Then, my friends started telling me how much they like Stephenson, and how I needed to read Snow Crash. So I did.

The book follows
"Hiroaki Protagonist: Last of the freelance hackers; Greatest sword fighter in the world; Stringer, Central Intelligence Corporation; Specializing in software-related intel (music, movies & microcode)"
in his search to find the source and the remedy for a new disease, called Snow Crash. Part computer virus, part pathological virus, part drug, and part sociological meme, Snow Crash has affected Protagonist's close friends. With the help of skatecourier Y.T. and with funding from two "franchulates", Uncle Enzo's Nova Sicilia (aka The Mafia) and Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, Protagonist traces the roots of Snow Crash to media mogul and billionaire L. Bob Rife. Badass Dmitri Ravinoff rounds out the cast and gives an appropriate adversary to the sword-wielding Hiro. The action charges through a semi-futuristic America where the government has fallen to corporations and anarchy is held off by rent-a-cop security forces out to make a buck. It's a pretty wild ride, encasing a fabulous story as told by a master writer.

I was turned on by the high-powered and non-stop action in the book, though I found it just outside the realm of believable. The badass is just a little too bad, and the good guys still manage to defeat him. The setting was more attractive than the action. It's a 20th/21st century America where the government went broke, privatized everything (especially the military) and citizens look to corporations for guidance and protection in life. It's written just far enough past the current reality to require imagination, but close enough to real life that it's believable. However, the plot and the technical aspects of the Snow Crash virus are the real point of the book, and Stephenson put the most work into these aspects. The central chunk of the novel revolves around Protagonist discussing history, philosophy, and technology with the Librarian. This gets pretty dry, but it's sprinkled through with descriptions of Y.T.'s adventures on the ground, seeking intel to forward the discussion. As I said, the action really drives the book forward, and the central discussion balances that quite well.
This book is as great read, especially to those with an interest in the cyberpunk genre. It's one of the first of the genre, originally published in 1992. I predict that the setting will be functionally obsolete as technology outpaces whats in the story (the internets are already as functional, but the visualizations are not yet in place). Stephenson retains a strong hold on the plot, and brings everything together with flair and obvious mastery of the language.

Ringworld Saga by Larry Niven

I sometimes find myself thinking, "How did all this get started??" I wonder who was the first to do something, and how, exactly, we got from there to here. Because of this I lost an hour the other day looking up how RPGs and LARPs developed out of wargames and historical reinactment. (That doesn't relate to anything in this post.) Larry Niven's Ringworld was the first of a scifi genre that has come to be known as The Enormous Big Thing or the Big Dumb Thing. You know the plot: explorers come across a mind-blowingly huge and scientifically important discovery, and them spend the rest of the story trying to figure it out.

Niven's Ringworld is an object that masses the same as Jupiter, stretched out along a ribbon that matches Earths orbit around the sun. The exterior is an unknown material which protects the interior from the dangers of space. The interior is a sculpted landscape with three million times the surface area of Earth. It rotates at 770 miles/second, creating a centrifugal effect similar to that of Earth's gravity. Who built it? Why did they build it? What can we do with it? How can we exploit it to our purposes? These are the questions that the saga in built around, with good plotwork thrown in to create readable books.

Ringworld was published in 1970 as a stand-alone novel. It was well received, winning the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. It describes the adventures of Louis Wu, a space explorer from Earth who is drafted by the Pierson's puppeteer to explore the newly-discovered Ringworld. Speaker-to-Animals, a diplomat from the fierce catlike Kzin race and Teela Brown, a human woman bred for luck make the rest of the expedition.
I'm under the impression that the other books weren't exactly planned when Niven released Ringworld. Ten years later, the second book, The Ringworld Engineers, came about largely because various readers pointed out problems with the science of the Ringworld. The object was unstable, and about to crash into its sun. Wu and Speaker (now called Chmeee) are brought again to the Ringworld, and more is learned about its creators and its inhabitants as the expedition endeavors to save the world from incineration. Book #3 The Ringworld Throne describes the struggle of to wrest control of the world and its peoples out of manipulative hands into more nurturing ones. It was released sixteen years after The Ringworld Engineers. A gap of eight years separates the final book, Ringworld's Children. Niven's voice is distinctly different in each of the books. The first one has a very hard scifi feel to it, with more time given to describing the setting and the objects than to character development. Dialogue is flat, and it ca be difficult to tell who is speaking. In books three and four, the plot is much more character driven and Niven gives voice to more characters, allowing the reader to see from different viewpoints. The fourth book was the easiest for me to read.
I rather enjoyed the series. It exists within Niven's futuristic Known Space universe. There are some points where, arguably, knowing more of the Known Space history would be useful to the reader. I came into it with almost no knowledge of the setting, and was able to grasp the ideas handily. I would recommend starting with Ringworld, because it really sets the stage; the other books spend less time on the description of the Ringworld. The rest of the books are better plotted, however, and more fun to read.

#19 Hunter's Run by George R.R. Martin, Daniel Abraham, and Gardner R. Dozois

George R.R. Martin is quite possibly one of the greatest fantasy/science fiction writers of our time, and his name is what prompted me to read this book. I found it while investigating a different title by co-author Daniel Abraham.

Ramón Espejo is on the run, having killed an important foreign delegate in a drunken brawl. As a prospector on the new human colony at Sao Paulo, he's used to spending his days alone in the wilderness, and finds himself more comfortable away from the concerns of society.
Then, his small mining explosive reveals the hiding place of an alien species unknown to man who take Ramón captive. Forced to hunt a man who escaped their grasp, Ramón quickly realizes that all is not what it seems. The man he is hunting is himself, and he is a clone created by the aliens for the purpose of hunting himself. Yet, the cloning is perfect; he retains his memory, his personality and sense of self; even the scars earned from a rough-and-tumble life appear on his body. Slipping the bonds with which the aliens held him, Ramón guardedly joins forces with his double, hiding the truth of his identity as long as he can.

To popular culture, this book doesn't have much going for it. It's science fiction, the premise is hokey, and the characters aren't sympathetic. Did I mention it's science fiction? Give it some credit, though. Where other than scifi can a badass face off against himself? Ramón Espejo is quite a character. He's mean, violent, sneaky, foulmouthed, and more than a little sociopathic, and the entire book is about him. The character development is slow, kicking in maybe halfway through the book, and it's not exactly subtle. What's interesting is the way that you can see the clone developing alongside the human who is unchanging.

The writing in the book is really good. There isn't unnecessary development or description; everything is to the point, moving the plot at a good pace. The writing is not artistic, but allows you to sink into the reality of Sao Paulo. The plot, while somewhat hard to swallow from outside, is really well handled. There's a small amount of set-up at the beginning of the novel, but just enough to get you into the plot and introduce the players. The only real "complaint" I might make is that the scifi elements are rather weak. There's no deep discussions of fancy technology, no battles through the depths of space, and the world is really quite like our own. However, all of this just allows the reader to focus more on the concepts being presented. Weighty matters like self and identity come up for a rare appearance in a scifi novel. The hokey elements are handled delicately enough that you don't even realize they're hokey while you're reading. By the end of the book, I found myself cheering for the unlikeable Ramón. The book is a well-contained novel that doesn't leave you hanging or really even wanting much more from the story.

#18 The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry

I read a half-dozen or so webcomics regularly (by regularly I mean obsessively) and one of my favorites is Jeph Jacques' Questionable Content. Some weeks back, he plugged this title, calling it a "really cool China Mieville meets Raymond Chandler with a dash of Jasper Fforde fantasy detective story." That was good enough for me!
This book comes with it's own website (and cheesy music, mute button top right).

Charles Unwin is a clerk, a rather predictable man in a very predictable life. He excels at his rather boring position in the exciting world of the Agency, a city-enveloping semiofficial detective firm. As a clerk, he re-writes the reports of star Detective Sivart, dotting I's and crossing T's and cleaning out all of the personal commentary that the gregarious Detective Sivart puts in his reports. Unwin's pride is his work, and he excels at it, right until Detective Sivart disappears from the city. Under strange circumstances, Unwin is promoted from clerk to detective, with a private office and a personal assistant and a watcher ready to give Unwin his first case. Unfortunately, the watcher is murdered before the details of the case can be given. Unwin decides that his best option is to find the missing Detective Sivart and give the case over to him. His clues are the case files that he so carefully edited, and he is helped by a cast of shady characters and suspects through a very fun and tongue-in-cheek story.

This is Mr. Berry's first book, but the writing is crafted much better than that of other debut novels I've read. He uses small details to create a surrealistic setting and give a very meta feel to the book; I'm not going to define that any further because it's fun to discover. With a little imagination, the writing allows you to immerse yourself in his world. I suspect that someone well-versed in the noir genre would find the setting a little over the top and hokey, but to me it was stylistically charming. With the exception of Unwin, the characters were rather flat and undeveloped, but this again came off as stylistic. Unwin goes through a little self-development and I think discovery, though that discovery could simply be the reveal of the solution.

With a small exception at the end of the story, I quite enjoyed the plot. Berry took slightly too long with the reveal; there was too much chasing of loose ends and stage setting when we should've simply been finding out what happened. Throughout the rest of the book, the plot advances at a good pace, with an appropriate balance of puzzles and solutions. The book is full of unobtrusive but clever (okay, perhaps groan-worthy) details. These lift the noir atmosphere into something a little lighter without turning cliche. I think this is a great new book, and look forward to future novels from Mr. Berry.

#17 All The Way Home by David Giffels

This title was featured in the "Great Reads" blog from Columbus Metropolitan Library. I picked it up because of the recommendation and to read a firsthand account of home renovation. I've found that I enjoy journalistic nonfiction, and this looked like a good break from the F&SF stuff I generally read.

Akron, OH saw a boom early in the 20th century fueled by rubber and tire production. Goodrich, Firestone, Goodyear, and others all operated out of Akron. When the automobile industry took off, the executives of the rubber companies all got quite wealthy and many built fabulous homes around Akron.
Fast forward to the 21st century. Globalization has killed the rubber wealth in Akron, and their legacies are crumbling. Giffels career as a writer is becoming more established, as is his family: the birth of his first child means the home they live in is quickly becoming too small. The house on N. Portage Path is full of opportunity: plenty of bedrooms, plenty of yard, and and plenty of opportunity for David to flex his crafting muscles as he renovates the house. You see, the house is crumbling. Wildlife has settled in the upper floors, squirrels and raccoons freely coming and going through the holes in the roof. Water has laid waste to the walls, dripping into collection pans that line the floor. The garage is a deathtrap, spitting bricks from its walls and threatening to topple at the slightest provocation. But, the beauty and elegance once inherent in the house is undeniable. Six fireplaces, a billiards room in the basement. A main staircase, and a back staircase for the help. Servants quarters, and the Giffels are hooked.Upon securing ownership (which came with its own trials) the Giffels budget out the cost of renovations. A quirky contractor brings in a slew of characters (including Rod Stewart as an electrician and a rock-band drywall crew) who make the place habitable for humans. Friend and family all turn up to lend support, and slowly, painstakingly David wrests a home from the wreckage.

I expected a little bit more human interaction from this book. It's subtitled "Building a Family in a Falling-Down House", but would more accurately read "There's This House I'm Fixing, and Oh Yeah I'm a Daddy." Giffels spends much of his book on self-discovery through house renovations. The book includes three interludes written by Mrs. Giffels (about 10 pages out of 312), and these help add a little perspective. Her words give a little insight into David, humanizing him more than he does himself. However, there's very little actual depiction of family life. Their son plays a bit-part throughout, but extended adult family has a much larger role in the narrative than does the immediate family. I was hoping for a more detailed account of how to manage the balance of family and work and hobby renovations, but such did not exist in this book. For one, the project of renovating the house was absurd. This was more than the average "handyman's special" that needs a bit of updating; this was a full-out rebuilding of an effectively condemned building. There can be no balance in a hobby like that, not when it's your home. The project eats your life, leaving nothing for family or recreation. The stress of making the home livable pushes on every member of the family, and with no end in sight from the book, it leaves a reader on a resigned, almost negative note. I'd recommend this title as an example of what you might get into renovating houses, but not as a piece of literature or great writing.

#16 The Apocalypse Reader, Justin Taylor (Editor)

Remember a couple posts ago when I mentioned this idea about stories and the apocalypse and stuff? That idea prompted me to read this book, too. As an anthology, I was thinking that it'd be a great place to find new writers, new ideas, new stories, established greats (Poe! Gaimen! Le Guin! Hawthorne!) and so much more. It didn't exactly live up to this potential. Sure, there were authors I'd never heard of published next to classic authors and a whole book full of apocalyptic tales of all varieties, but it landed off-mark for me. There's a class of fantasy that dives way of the deep end of weird, wandering around in nonsensical realms with all the logic of a Dali painting but none of the artistry; that's how I felt about most of this book.

The stories that stood out were mainly the ones by authors whose names I knew. Neil Gaimen had a characteristically quirky piece; Nathaniel Hawthornes' story was thought-provoking but then proceeded to define all the thoughts for you; Lovecrafts' was typically cryptic and evil-in-the-shadows type. One of my favorite stories was the first part of "Apoca Ca Lyp Se: A Dip Tych" by Joyce Carol Oates. The format broke the story into two voices but one speaker. Brian Evensons' "An Accounting" was enjoyable, well-crafted and twistedly amusing, though kinda without depth. "Miss Kansas On Judgment Day" by Kelly Link was imaginative and fairly well written. I actually enjoyed Grace Auilars' "The Escape - A Tale of 1755", the story of a clandestine religion and a miraculous escape. Similar in appeal, "The Rapid Advance of Sorrow" by Theodora Goss was intriguing, well-written, a complete story among fragments.

A couple of the stories I haven't mentioned were just bad, but most were simply forgettable. Lucy Corin wrote "Sixteen Small Apocalypses", and that's exactly what they were. They weren't great. Dennis Cooper wrote "The Ash Gray Proclamation" which frankly I found pointless, confusing, driven by shock and completely unappealing. Too many stories in the collection relied on content rather than writing, and most of the content was unnecessarily sexual. Though if you took out the sex you'd be left without content, so maybe it was necessary? Either way, I didn't enjoy those. In sum, there are a few gems included in this collection, but I imagine that with a bit of searching, you could find those either on their own or in a better collection than this.