Still in Denial

It is hard for me to make myself study Economy of Plenty / Post-Scarcity Utopia with the world descending into fascism. The climate crisis is responsible for a lot of it in Europe, with unlivable temperatures and crop failures driving millions of climate refugees out of the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the Evil Orange One continues to search for yet another manufactured crisis to drive the ratings of "President of the US Apprentice". Ah well, I'm sure the other shoe will fall soon enough, and we will #lockhimup.

But, please, sooner rather than later. So many people are saying the damage is irreparable - here's an example. Well, let's acknowledge that Putin is a genius who was able, via electing and then blackmailing a childish idiot with an incredibly overrated opinion of himself, to destroy the US hegemony which was created after WW II. Dictators of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your loser populace!

I mentioned I had bought the latest novel of E.J. Swift: "Paris Adrift", 2018, 320 pages. This woman writes really well. I highlighted a dozen or so passages I thought were really evocative, enough that I will leave discovering them as an exercise for the reader. A very enjoyable read, plus it is set in 1 of my fav cities, Paris! I will say though, that the plotting was not the best. Stuff that should have been explained never was, and stuff that seemed to be forbidden later on was A-OK??? There was a small subplot at the end that smelt like something an editor suggested.

Despite my philosophical aversion to dystopias, I did in impulse buy on "The End of the World", subtitled "Stories of the Apocalypse", edited by Martin H. Greenberg, 2010, 328 pages. This short story collection was recommended for me by BookBub. BookBub sends me an email/day with 5 recommended cheap eBooks. I buy maybe 1/month tops, but that is enough that I think the 10 seconds/day to read the email is a worthwhile investment of my time.

This collection had stories dating back to 1950. The last story was the longest, from 1950 by Poul Anderson (a fav author of mine for decades). Haha, a principle of writing sci-fi - never mention real technology by name - seriously, vacuum tubes??? And of course a lot of the societal attitudes are embarrassingly dated.

This collection was definitely slow getting started, but did wind up with some good stories. A few of the older ones had the groaner punchline or deus ex machina ending that in my youth I would have thought was really cool, but now just seems very dated. I did like the subdivisions of the book:

• Bang or Whimper
• The Last Man
• Life After the End
• Dark, Distant Futures
• Witnesses to the End of the World

Next up, a just released fantasy by Hannu Rajaniemi, "Summerland", 2018, 304 pages. This seems to be Hannu's 1st novel after the most excellent "Quantum Thief" trilogy, blogged here, here, and here. I was somewhat surprised he tried a fantasy. Set in 1938 and mostly in England, it is a spy story in a world where the dead and living can communicate, and Queen Victoria still rules the British Empire from the spirit world. There is a lot of action and a somewhat convoluted but satisfactory ending, but, throughout the whole book I kept thinking "Hannu has written a Tim Powers novel". Just before reading this book, I had been thinking about how I greatly preferred Tim Powers to Neil Gaiman for magic realism, so having the new Hannu read pretty much like something Powers would write really threw me off. No kudos to Powers in the book either. Oh well, still an enjoyable read.

Back to science fiction: I read "Dark Lightning", by John Varley, 2014, 352 pages. This is the 4th book of the Thunder and Lightning series, which started in 2003 - it says here I read the 1st 1 "Red Thunder" in 2004. No sign I read the other 2: "Red Lightning" and "Rolling Thunder". Varley was one of my favorite authors in the early 80s.

I guess this is a YA book - the narrators are 18 YO twin sisters. They are on an asteroid ship heading for the New Sun currently traveling at 0.77c when ... plot happens. Nothing particularly inspiring, libertarian overtones, but a page turner. Varley seems to be getting old, he's 70 now. Apparently this whole series is a tribute to Heinlein, oops.

I wonder how I missed the middle 2? Oh well, I don't think it's worth revisiting. Funny, old singer/songwriters seem to keep on keepin' on, old SF authors - Heinlein, Herbert, now Varley, seem to fall prey to DOM (Dirty Old Man) syndrome. It's disappointing, and a cautionary tale for my increasingly aged self.