Catching up on books

2023-12-18T23:30:51Z

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Given how much I enjoyed Klara and the Sun, this was a disappointment. Some good character studies as a cohort comes up in school and then leaves for 'the real world' as alliances and friendships and petty cruelties shift back and forth. But that's about all it is. Maybe that's enough. An additional layer of dystopian horror (to which our protagonists are largely blind) is almost irrelevant.

Miskatonic Missives, by the HPL Historical Society.

I ponied up for the kickstarter for this matched set of volumes exploring 3 letters from HPL to Duane Rimel, Barlow (his future literary executor) and Robert E Howard. They are a sui generis take on presenting the letters, sortofa printed/illustrated attempt at a hypertext. Short stories mentioned by Lovecraft are printed in full or part later in the volume. Covers of magazine. Maps of places visited. Occasional commentary. Glosses. News clippings related to mentioned events. At its best, it's like soaking in 1934, giving more context and color to the world from whence the letters come. Additionally, a fourth volume of loose ephemera includes postcards, bus tickets and other tangible goodies. All the art and presentations throughout have the kind of production values one would expect of the HPLHS.

At the same time there are some minuses; it's a little hard to navigate the book. In principle it's no worse than looking at end notes rather than footnotes, but when some of the 'notes' are complete 20 page short stories, it's very different in practice. Of course, there are always going to be questions about editorial choices, but I think the most egregiously gratuitous one was an idle reference to Bob Howard about fisticuffs being 'linked' to a 1930s brochure for self-defense classes. The brochure was authentic and historical, but it had no earthly connection to either man.

The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (père)

Chosen for the work book club, but we maybe should have noticed it runs to 1000 pages. I'm reading it via a free e-book from Project Gutenberg. The translation is very readable, but it doesn't seem to have much verve. I don't know if that's the translation or the work itself. I may slowly push my way further on, but my interest has waned.

The UMBRAL Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry

UMBRAL was (I gather) a journal edited by Steve Rasnic Tem in the 70s and this anthology of poetry that appeared in it was published in 1982.

A lot of it is free verse and flutters past my glazed eyeballs without leaving much impression. One definite exception is Thomas Disch's "On Science Fiction", which seems to balance the warring feelings of "Fans are Slans" and the lack of self-confidence among science fiction fans. Fans are simultaneously better than and inferior to everybody else. A few other good ones, but that Disch poem stand out. And I guess I have good taste -- it won the Rhysling Award in 1981. Most of the poets are unknown to me, but a few (like Disch) are familiar names from science fiction.

Aha, found "On Science Fiction" reprinted here in a collection of Rhysling winners.

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Birth of a Theorem / Archivist Wasp / Pittcon

2018-03-05T00:23:53Z

Birth of a Theorem - A Mathematical Adventure, by Cédric Villani, details the author's long struggle to prove (with a colleague) a theorem about Landau damping in the Vlasov equation.

I had read in reviews that many were dissatisfied in that they couldn't understand the mathematics. I arrogantly scoffed, thinking myself more mathematically sophisticated. However, the actual problem is that Villani makes virtually no effort to explain the mathematics (unlike a couple great popular books on the Riemann Hypothesis I've read over the past umpteen years). And yet, will subject the reader to contextless passages of dense LaTeX. These will alternate with musings about his favorite anime series, or a lengthy list of his favorite songs, or how nice it is to flirt with female mathematics students or sit next to an attractive female passenger on a plane (particularly when you leave your wife at home!).

There are a few passages that give a hint of what it's like to be a working mathematician working closely with a colleague and more loosely with a community, but on the whole I found him insufferable.

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Archivist Wasp, by Nicole Kornher-Stace, alternately intrigued and annoyed me. I think it needed one more go round or a bit more maturity, or something, so I'll keep an eye on her later works for sure. It starts off kind of post-Whoops Canticle of Liebowitz-y, but then no it's more like fantasy and can't be connected to an Earthlike technological past, oh wait but then maybe it is, but now we're in sort of a magic alternate universe, and o bugger it. There's a lot of extreme black and whiteness and Mary Sue-ism. And yet there's some touching stuff and a mystery of sorts. Acceptable for my plane ride to Pittcon.

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Pittcon. Orlando. My lack of god I'm sick of this shit.

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Journal of No. 118

Catching up on books

Birth of a Theorem / Archivist Wasp / Pittcon