Or Not

I really was intending to starting blogging books on a onesy basis. But, I'm in a period of serious baby-sitting, and after I finished novel #1, it was inconvenient to blog it. Versus, it was very easy to start another book. So, 3 novels and a novella, all very good.

1. "Polostan", by Neal Stephenson, 2024, 320 pages, 111k words. This is Volume 1 of "Bomb Light". I think we're going to get Stephenson's version of "Oppenheimer". This is totally a setup book - the origin story is 1st, rather than get us sucked in & then tell it as a flashback. The heroine of the story mostly grew up in Big Sky Country, working on a ranch that bred polo ponies - that was her mom's side of the family. Her dad meanwhile is a dedicated commie. Nothing says "dedicated commie" like

   For Papa was busy translating the Twenty-One Theses of the Second Congress of the Third International into English, to inform the proceedings of the Red International of Labor Unions, which was preparing an ideological offensive to cleanse its ranks of naïve anarcho-syndicalism.

   The family moves to Russia when she is ~5YO, when grown she speaks fluent, accentless English & Russian. Heading into the race to the A-bomb, & the following cold war, which side will she be on? We'll find out, I guess.

   We get Neils Bohr early on in the story, & our heroine's 1st lover in 1933 is a young New York Jew named Dick - Feynman maybe?

2. "Alien Clay", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2024, 375 pages, 116k words. Tchaikovsky likes prison novels - this is his 2nd or 3rd. Interesting interstellar travel technique, some very, very novel biology on the target prison planet - totally different system of "evolution". As always, a great read.

3. "Spill", by Cory Doctorow, 2024, 103 pages, 31k words. The Bard of the Revolution delivers, as always. This is at least the 4th Doctorow story featuring Marcus Yallow, gifted hacker. These stories are all about civil resistance to the powers that be, & are somewhat reference manuals on how to fight back against police brutality crowd suppression methods.

   Our heroes of the revolution in this story are Water Protectors, trying to stop the latest zombie revival of the Keystone Pipeline. A lot of them are Native Americans. I did not know this:

   Native people serve in the armed forces at five times the rate of the general population.

   Lots of false flag operations, lots of subversion of local law enforcement by corporate $$$, Capitalism FTL!

   The emotional content of this story is outstanding, I gave it 5 stars.

4. "The Naming Song", by Jedediah Berry, 2024, 501 pages, 155k words. This is only Berry's 2nd novel. I enjoyed the 1st, which came out in 2014. He also did a deck of cards telling a story of generations of a weird family living in a weird house, with associated audio with 52 different people reading each card's excerpt - it's surprisingly enjoyable.
   

   This latest I really enjoyed. Post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse has done some strange things. Very much a story about words. A most excellent read! Interesting characters, cards come into it, lots of action, great conclusion. I actually gave this story 5 stars, 2 in a row!

Still babysitting, ready to forge ahead ...