On a Roll

It seems like I'm tearing through books lately. I got a unwelcome boost this past weekend, when my youngest daughter & her 3 boys stayed with us and gave me and my wife a very nice cold. I went through 1/2 box of kleenex Wednesday and had a nice scratchy cough and achiness yesterday. Today I'm feeling like I'm over the worst of it.

1st up, "Escape from Yokai Land", by Charles Stross, 2022, 65 pages, 17k words. I thought, maybe based on the price ($10.99), that this was a novel. No, it is a novella, and a fairly short 1 at that. Our 1st view of Bob Howard, the original protagonist of The Laundry series, in several books. The story seems to end very abruptly. I seemed to me that it could have used a little follow up to the main action.

2nd, "Lord Quilliver", by Walter John Williams, 2021, 612 pages, 166k words. The 3rd in the series. Our butcher's son here is now a lord and the queen's favorite. He continues to confound and outthink the upper-class twits of this oh-so-feudal society. It is an engaging read. It's too bad it forced me to ignore my "no feudalism" reading guideline.

3rd, "Galaxias", by Stephen Baxter, 2021, 530 pages, 144k words. I have liked a lot of Baxter's novels - definitely very sciency science fiction. Some interesting speculations about what a galaxy-spanning intelligence would look like. Plus, great plotting, interesting characters, etc. I'll have to review his stuff, see if I can harvest any I missed.

4th, "The Sins of Our Fathers", by James S.A. Corey, 2022, 74 pages, 20k words. Billed as "the last novella of The Expanse", it looks at a character from early in the series in his advancing years. I have liked these novellas, I think it is a good way to flesh out a fictional universe. Note, this novella was slightly longer than the Charles Stross 1 ($10.99), but was only $2.99.

5th, "The Kaiju Preservation Society", by John Scalzi, 2022, 292 pages, 79k words. More LOLs than anything else I have read lately, from the King of Snark. Who knew that nuclear blasts weakened the barrier between our world and an alternate earth populated by Godzilla and his ilk? A rousing story, plenty of action, "movie" written all over it.

6th, "The Book of All Skies", by Greg Egan, 2021, 265 pages, 72k words. Egan again gives us a world with some way weird physics: a world with 1 giant ring at each end, passing through which takes you to a different world. Repeat as often as desired. An interesting concept, a nice tale of adventure & trying to return home. This one also seemed to end rather abruptly. Since I've been talking about $$$, I should note that this was a good value, a full length novel for only $2.99.

7th & last, "Zeroes", by Chuck Wendig, 2015, 414 pages, 120k words. The government forces a group of 5 losers (2 hackers, 1 con man, 1 troll, 1 aging cipherpunk) to hack for them. But, oops, little do they know that their work is freeing an AI who will rule the world in the name of security. Well paced, good characters.

1 thing I have not been doing much of is watching TV or films. The new Matrix movie I found meh; "Nightmare Alley" was engaging, but the irony was way heavy-handed. (Word to the wise - do NOT betray the carnie code). I can't think of anything else I've watched recently, much less a movie I have really enjoyed. Oh well, there're plenty of books out there.

Lake #1 Birding

[Updated Tuesday, March 8, 2:12pm]
[Updated Thursday, March 10, 4:49pm]

Sunday, March 6, 2022, was a walking day for me. I walked X2 (the hourglass), 5.4 miles, and counted birds.

I got home ~11:40am. I cooled down starting the NYT xword puzzle, and then entering the bird counts into ebird.org. I showered, shaved (1st of 4 nights of jams), ate lunch, and was back out in 1 of the comfy chairs on the lanai by 2ish to finish the xword puzzle. I was there until ~5, when I went in to eat supper before going to Jimmy Allen's Beach Box jam.

Straight on I noticed a spontaneously organized hunting group on the other (east) side of Lake #1: 2 tricolor herons, 1 great egret, & 1 double-crested cormorant about 15' offshore. Normally I think that means they're herding a school of minnows between them & feeding. The cormorant was diving frequently, the waders weren't making many strikes.

Then, a great blue heron flew in. It flew right at the great egret - I think just to tell it "Hey - notice that I'm bigger than you." - and then landed and joined the group.

Next - weird, this really seemed incongrous - ~2 minutes later, a brown pelican comes in from the north & lands in Lake #1 10' from the cormorant. That seemed to throw the others off, they kind of disbanded.

The pelican was around 3x on Sunday. On my IslandWalk birding walks, I have seen pelicans dive for fish ~20x. They normally dive from 15-20' straight down, & just before their bill hits the water, they fold their wings completely back.

This guy was flying 5-6' above the lake and then making a 30 degree dive over a distance of 10-12'. I don't think it had near the speed when it hit the water as with the straight down dive, but out of maybe 5 tries, it caught fish at least 2x.

A 2nd cormorant showed up, & the 2 of them were diving pretty regularly. Whenever they dove, a tricolored heron and a snowy egret flew to their location and swooped to the water, particularly when a cormorant surfaced. My guess, trying to steal a fish the cormorant might expose in its bill. Theory #2, trying to grab fish fleeing towards the surface to escape the cormorant.

Note, re stealing freshly caught fish from a bird smaller than you, within the last year or so I saw a good sized osprey, with a good sized (18") fish in its talons, flying north over Lake #1 with a great blue heron right on its tail. The heron liked the looks of that fish.

A kingfisher took 1 dive out in front of me. They dive like the odd pelican, from ~5-6' off the water, on a 30 degree angle. Frequently they will dive again ~6' away. A few weeks ago I saw 1 make 6 straight dives.

Twice I was treated to an extended period of song from a shrike in our live oak tree. Their songs are mostly 2 note, repetitive, & sweet. They have a good number of them. I taped 5-6 different shike songs a few weeks ago. I think this 1 today was singing some new songs.

4ish, an osprey flew in from the south, with a bald eagle ~30' behind it. I have 2x in the last few weeks seen a bald eagle attack & drive off an osprey. They flew up to the north end of Lake #1, then turned around and flew back south, the bald eagle in the lead?!?!?

Just after, had an anhinga drying its wings on the other bank maybe 30' north.

No ducks swimming on Lake #1, but 3x pairs flew south over the lake.

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Next day, Monday, March 7, 2022, I was reading on the lanai after lunch. The pelican was back. Same diving style. It got 1 fish.

There was more shrike song, & then there were 2 shrike chasing each other around the live oak tree. 1 (the male?), did 80% of the pursuing, but the other (the female?) also did some pursuing. Looked like courtship, I think we will have shrike nesting in the live oak again, as they did 2 yrs ago.

A bluejay was in the live oak 1x, the shrike weren't offended? There were 2 mockingbirds drinking from (& pollinating) the bird of paridise tree on the south side of our cage. A shrike flew towards them & they flew off to the northwest with the shrike following/pursuing?

Later there was a very creative mockingbird singing from the live oak. I recorded a bit of it.

Here's the bird of paradise, on the right, with our neighbor's live oak behind it. To its left is a pigmy date palm stand, then a very hardy shrub I wish I knew the name of, then our live oak.

Had 1 glossy ibis on the east bank today. The white ibis are generally 10x as common as the glossy, but I have 1-2x counted 10 or so glossy ibis.

At least 1 pair of mottled ducks swimming.

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Re "spontaneously organized hunting group" ...

I think this was in December, 2010-11 or so, observed several x. There would be 50 or so waders working the shore, & 20-30 divers working 10-15' offshore. I always presumed they had a school of minnows or fish between them, & the fish would flee from peril to peril, & the birds would be dining well. The waders: great egret, snowy egret, great blue heron, tricolored heron, little blue heron, 1x a wood stork. Divers: lesser scaup, ringnecked duck, hooded merganser, pie-billed grebe. Unbelievable, 10 species (of dinosaurs) spontaneously working together so that everybody eats. The human race should be so inclusive.

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[Updated 2022-03-08]

There was a squirrel in the live oak. A shrike ran it off. It chased it out on a limb from which the squirrel crossed to the palm tree.

Here's the live oak and the palm.

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[Updated 2022-03-10]

For the 2nd time in a few weeks, we had a great egret eating a lizard just under the live oak. I have over the years seen the great egrets come up by people's houses. I thought they were curious - nope, they were lizard hunting. Here's the video:

Lest I Forget

"Lest I Forget" should be my new motto - maybe even worth a tatoo! I continue to try to beef up my exocortex to supplement my ever fading memory.

I messed up my system by mentioning a book before its review. I finished the Stephenson weeks ago and am just getting around to blogging it.

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So here is the delayed review: "Termination Shock", by Neal Stephenson, 2021, 890 pages, 242k words; subtitled "A Novel". Stephenson's tale of climate crisis and geoengineering. It really didn't seem like 890 pages. There were I think 4 disparate narrative threads that eventually were all brought together. This novel screamed "Movie!" at me.

My daughter Erica asked me how it compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's "Ministry for the Future". I think I told her that MFTF was a much more serious book, covered way more ground, and raised serious and weighty issues. It was also written to explore a scenario where we to escape the climate crisis. The Stephenson is much more of an action movie. She said that she heard an interview with him where he emphasized he was writing to entertain - at which he of course succeeds. This difference definitely shows in my reviews. The review of MFTF linked to above was much longer than these few paragraphs.

There was an odd turn about how the real heart of the MAGA US comes from the philosophy and outlook of the Commanches, who were not a Native American tribe but were instead a mix of many races and cultures. That's were we get the "freedumb" attitude that crippled the US response to the COVID pandemic.

I also liked the term for a new virtual nation of every place on earth threatened by climate change: the Netherworld. Nice!

Another bonus: trained eagles vs. drones, FTW!

Stephenson's novels usually have lots of LOL dialogue and prose. Not so much this one.

Hah, 1 thing he briefly touches on is a portrayal of the US as feckless:

“It’s an asset, you’re saying. The sheer incompetence of the United States.”

...

India had announced formal cessation of their Climate Peacekeeping action in the lawless, war-torn tribal region of West Texas.

China, India, and Europe are the main players. I'm guessing this novel was written when Agent Orange was in office, when US foreign policy was indeed a shambles.

A fun and enjoyable read that sure didn't feel like 890 pages. I was sorry when it was over.

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I got offered an eBook for cheap featuring 2 Frank Herbert novels: "The Dosadi Experiment and The Eyes of Heisenberg", 508 pages, 138k words. I went for it.

"The Dosadi Experiment" was 1st published in 1977. I have read it several times. The Gowachin, one of the galactic civilization's dominant races, carries out a highly illegal experiment in social engineering. On a poisonous planet, they place Gowachin and humans in 1 megacity of astronomical population density. A Malthusian experiment in Social Darwinism to the nth degree. They breed a population of CEOs psychopaths - oops! What to do with it?

"The Eyes of Heisenberg" was 1st published in 1966. I'm guessing my 1st reread of the book since it 1st came out. It definitely reads as an earlier work. All humans (mostly sterile) are genetically engineered to try and add to the ruling group of Optimen - genetically optimized for potentially immortal lives. The Optimen are opposed by their old rivals, the cyborgs of course. The Optimen are autocrats, while the cyborgs are mostly assholes. It's an OK read, but dated.

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Finally, I read the annual free eBook short story collection, "Some of the Best of Tor.com 2021", 2021, 590 pages, 160k words, 22 stories. A very nice collection, many very good stories.

Here is a nice line from the Catherynne M. Valente story, a modern tale of Orpheus & Eurydice, with lots of interesting portrayals of figures from Greek mythology:

Music is just the sound of time blowing across the lip of their nothingness.

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I have so many eBooks to read: Unread collection is at 105. Lots of good stuff. Guess I need to try to read more.