6 Fingers?

It is such a relief to have FINALLY finished my review/ summary/ precis/ Cliff Notes for "Debt - The First 5,000 Years". I think that the longer I am retired, overall, the more of a slacker I am becoming. I don't think that is entirely inappropriate. I am following the Skidelsky's prescription from "In Praise of Leisure". ;->

Meanwhile, back to SFF reading.

1. "The Infinity Link", by Jeffrey A. Carver, 2015, 574 pages, 177k words. A big book, basically about 1st contact, with an AI thrown in. The alien race is very alien - in a cute way. Lots of plot twists, not a bad read.

2. "Made Things", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2019, 142 pages, 38k words. I had just read the short story setup for this novella ("Precious Little Things"). It is a quick and easy read, with a good old-fashioned ending.

3. "Communications Breakdown", edited by Jonathan Strahan, 2023, 249 pages, 77k words, 11 stories. Straham commissioned a collection of short stories with the theme of communications, and what happens when communications fail. Ah, this is the latest of the "Twelve Tomorrows" series of collections put out by MIT Technology Review & MIT Press. Searching the blog, looks like I read these in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2021 - no idea why I haven't done a better job of staying up on these.

   This edition has a mix of new and old authors, including The Bard of The Revolution, Cory Doctorow, whose story, "Moral Hazard" is great post-Capitalism thinking. Good stuff.

4. "Bear Head", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2021, 402 pages, 109k words. Book #2 of the "Dogs of War" series, book #1 blogged here. This book reminded me of Doctorow's "shitty technology adoption curve", where obnoxious software is 1st used on those who cannot choose to opt out - prisoners, students - and then gradually makes its way up the privilege curve to where it is inflicted on us all. So the uplifted cyborg "bioforms" of "Dogs of War" have chips in their brains and software that forces them to follow orders. How long before that is applied to everyone?

   I used to say that I would get a chip in my head as soon as they were available. At this point, I think that actually The Time Machine might be a prereqisite: we'd need it to go back in history to the development of the 1st computers and make security gets built in from the ground up. With security the crap it is now, no way I'd consider putting a (hackable) chip in my head.

5. "Season of Skulls", by Charles Stross, 2023, 387 pages, 120k words. Kobo says this is book #13 of the Laundry Files series. Phew. This is like the 2nd or 3rd of the "New Management" thread, where an elder god becomes prime minister/god of the UK.

   This is not a bad read - Stross is a great writer. But, I think maybe he's been on this series too long. He's used a lot of different writing styles over the years, for this book it's a Regency romance. I emailed Doctorow about something else, I suggested maybe it's time for an intervention ...

6. "The Lost Cause", by Cory Doctorow, 2023, 381 pages, 118k words. This is a work of climate fiction. Set 30 years in the future, the Green New Deal has made great strides, but, just as with the original New Deal, reactionaries & plutocrats want to tear it all down.

   I put off reading this for a while - I didn't want to read about MAGAts. When I finally started I really wanted to get through it. It is a great book, with climate refugees and other characters dealing with PTSD levels of stress, but still keepin' on keepin' on.

   As usual, Doctorow had interesting food tips. I wanted to try frying a grilled cheese sandwich with mayo on the outside instead of butter. I tried it with a dark pumpernickel, pastrami reuben & I couldn't tell the difference - too many strong flavors in the reuben. I'll have to try mayo on a grilled cheese another time.

   This story reminded me of something in "Debt": in Roman times, slavery was such that anyone could become a slave - even the Emperor of Rome, when defeated by an Eastern emperor. But after slavery mostly went away in the Middle Ages, racism was invented to justify the enslavement of black and brown people during the Age of the Great Capitalist Empires which started in 1450.

   The similarity is that, as the anthropocene proceeds, we will increasingly find that anyone can become a climate refugee. Here in southwest Florida, there are many people whose homes were destroyed or damaged by Hurrican Ian over a year ago who still cannot move back. People better figure out how to have empathy for all climate refugees, because all of us could wind up there.

The Unread collection in the Kobo app on my iPad Air is now at 134.