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Holiday Reading
(A bit sketchy in places but if I don’t post it now I suspect I never will...)
Fiction
Wool (Hugh Howey). An underground post-apocalyptic dystopia, with the punishment for serious crimes being cleaning the cameras providing the view above the ground, an invariable lethal exercise. Not only are the characters trapped a physical bunker but there is a substantial layer of lies surrounding them too. Much of the book is what I think of as “engineering fiction”: the protagonist often overcomes the obstacles she finds by fixing whatever machine is nearest. Followed by Shift which steps back a few centuries to reveal the nature of the apocalypse and some of the history between and before the first book, and then by Dust in which a resolution is reached. The latter pair deal well with some very broken characters and the way even the less damaged individuals cope differently with incomplete and misleading information. I suggest reading all three in one go, while the first stands reasonably well alone it raises a great many questions which take the next two books to address.
Archangel Protocol (Lyda Morehouse). Cyberpunk thriller invaded by angels collides with romance novel. Somewhat dated technological chrome by now, but obviously based on experience with real computers, something you can’t say about everything in the genre! Followed by Fallen Host, in which the characters are on the whole stronger but less sympathetic.
Redshirts (John Scalzi). The non-recurring crew of something very like the Starship Enterprise spot the ridiculous danger of away missions and start to figure out what is going on and wonder if they can do anything about it. A fun read, certainly, but with rather heavy-handed characterization, and completely incomprehensibly, nobody at any point seems to put any thought into why things have turned out the way they have.
The Warden (Anthony Trollope). Somewhat bloodless struggle over a church sinecure in Victorian England. I got on with the (by today’s lights rather rambling) writing style better than I initially expected but must admit that I found several of the characters rather on the wet side.
The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins). Thoughtful and pacey story set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia (oh look, another one) which annually forces a couple of dozen children to fight to the death, from the point of view of a girl attempting to survive this. An enjoyable read. Followed by Catching Fire which explores a bit more of the setting (I’m slightly cheating here since I started this after getting home) and sets up the starting point for Mockingjay which I’m still only a few chapters into.
Non-Fiction
Taliban (James Fergusson). How and why they got started (in reaction to the collapse of Afghanistan into banditry following the Soviet withdrawal), how they ruled (often incompetently and ineffectively) and how they have evolved since their ejection from power. Interesting stuff.
Zealot: The Life And Times Of Jesus Of Nazareth (Reza Aslan). An attempt to get a grip on the historical figure behind Christianity - what he may have thought and done (and why) and how the movement evolved into the religion as it has since been understood. Aslan’s answer is, in short, that he was one of many insurrectionists of the time, and the later development of the movement was essentially a reaction to Roman policy following defeat of the Jewish revolt.
Moranthology (Caitlin Moran). A collection of newspaper columns. Entertaining.
Peter The Great (Robert Massie). Again slightly cheating as I started this some time before the holiday. Detailed and for the most part frankly admiring account of a transformative figure in Russian history.
Debt: The First 5,000 Years (David Graeber). Ranges far beyond its ostensible subject, entirely necessarily since this is much less a history of what happened than why it happened, what people thought was going on, what to make of it, etc.
Cybersexism: Sex, Gender and Power on the Internet (Laurie Penny). Punchy essay about online misogyny, something that seems have had an upswing lately (at the very least, it’s become substantially more public). The author identifies the breadth, depth and hypocrisy of the problem, and explores its implications and some of its connections to specific subcultures. Several points are well made: every threat and slur has a real, often otherwise unremarkable, person behind it (perhaps someone you know?); and this is not a lawless environment, rather it is one in which enforcement is, at least historically, patchy (and while identifying abusers can sometimes be tricky, recent events have demonstrated that it’s not always impossible). While there is analysis whys and wherefores, though, I’m ultimately still left baffled as to what on earth makes someone think typing appalling threats into Twitter (etc) is in any way a good plan. (“Fails to explain the incomprehensible” isn’t a weakness of course...) The conclusion, at any rate, is hopeful that the world can be improved.
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