A Short History of Progress

My brother read A Short History of Progress awhile ago.  I was intrigued and wanted to read it as well.  Earlier this month I asked him to borrow it.  I started it earlier in the week (before reading I Am a Truck; I took a break from this because it's a heavy read and I wasn't in the mood for it the night I started the other book), and finished off the last three chapters today (two in the afternoon, the final one just now). 

Ronald Wright looks at human progress, particularly how civilizations have risen and fallen, to show the pattern and ultimately warn us where we're at today.  His central message is that progress isn't always a good thing.  Progress keeps speeding up - learning to tame fire took a long time, learning agriculture happened a bit more quickly, and each subsequent discovery has happened faster and faster, to the point where multiple new things are being discovered/iterated upon within single lifetimes (rather than over the multiple lifetimes previous things happened over).  He also makes the point that when we get good at something, we sometimes take it too far - his best example of this was when humans learned better hunting methods, we slaughtered whole herds of animals.  This was great for awhile, but ultimately ended with extinct animals and a shortage of food (which paved the way for agriculture).  Likewise, we have a history of starting out with small villages in good areas; but the villages grow and we start paving over the good farm land to make more room for houses (not a great plan).  We lack the ability to long-term plan, and ultimately we need to do so if we want our current civilization not to be our last one in the face of ecological collapse.

Wright looks more closely at six civilizations, four of which completely collapsed.  (The other two have fallen but managed to limp along and survive for thousands of years).  He shows the commonalities between them (and pretty much all of the civilizations humans have created) and just how they collapse.  The worst part is, these civilizations have all collapsed in similar and predictable ways: they outgrow what nature can provide to sustain them, because they failed to sustainably take resources from the planet.  Civilizations also end up in "pyramid schemes," with the wealth and power concentrated in the small top proportion.  Sound familiar?  It should.  But this time we won't have the bonanza that the discovery of the other half of the planet was last time...

While I am now left with a bad taste in my mouth, realizing just how much our current civilization is poised near the end (even worse, how much things haven't changed in the fourteen years since the book was released), I think the book is excellent and very much worth reading.  Everyone should read it, particularly if they are politically in power.  If humanity doesn't collectively do something NOW (and admittedly it may already be too late), we'll have destroyed our home.  And for what?  A little more progress and greed?  For a species that prides ourselves on our intelligence, we're quite dumb if that is the answer.

I Am a Truck

My brother sent me his copy of I Am a Truck in the mail the other day.  He was planning on exchanging it at a used book store, but saw that it was on my Goodreads Want To Read shelf, so he sent it my way instead.  I came across it while looking at the giller Prize nominees (it was a finalist); I think the title is hilarious, and it sounded interesting enough, so I thought I'd read it when I got a chance.  The book is a slim volume, so I started reading it the night it arrived and finished it the next day.

I Am a Truck is the story of Rejean and Agathe.  They're about to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary when Rejean doesn't come home.  His Silverado truck, which was his pride and joy, is found abandoned on the side of the road. Agathe can't imagine him leaving her, but when he fails to come home after a few weeks, she takes a job in the mall.  She spends her breaks fondling the shirts she used to buy Rejean in the Big and Tall department of a nearby store until she falls in with her coworker, Debbie.  Debbie shares her knowledge of rock and roll, a genre Agathe always loved but was never able to listen to because of stigma from her family. 

I liked how the narrative was structured, showing us what was happening with Agathe in the hear and now, and showing what happened to Rejean in the past that led to the Silverado being found on the side of the road.  Rejean had struck up a friendship with Martin, a Chevy salesman.  Martin was an awkward little man who had no family and friends; his friendship with Rejean meant everything to him.

I really, really liked the book up to until the point where you find out what happened to Rejean.  I thought everything was great, and the moment was a real gut punch (even though I kind of had an inkling of what might happen).  But then the book kept going.

Rejean had boosted Martin's truck, and was then hit by a transport.  I figured at that point that Rejean was dead.  But he survived somehow, and was nursed back to health by Colonel Weed, some mobster-type of guy who lived out in the woods making cheese (then getting people to sell the cheese and taking a rather large cut of the proceeds).  For some reason, this whole scenario made me think of the patron of Cancun from Dolphin Dreams.  But anyway, Colonel Weed nurses Rejean back to health (and loves that Rejean is French - the two converse quite a lot).  Rejean has lost his memory, and so just stays out with Colonel Weed for quite awhile, until gradually becoming an enforcer (that's why no one has seen Rejean for months).  Rejean is sent to shake up the manager at the store Agathe works at, which is the only reason she finds him.  He comes back to their home, but he remembers nothing.  Eventually, Agathe decides she has to let him go because it is the better option rather than continuing to live in mental agony with him not remembering her.

In my mind, that whole part of the book was ridiculous.  It robbed the emotional impact of when it looked like Rejean was gone.  And rather than everyone just slowly moving on with their lives (or not, as Martin probably would not have), the book took crazy and unwelcome turns.  It's a real shame, because before all this happened, I would have heartily recommended the book as a quick and interesting look at moving on after loss.  But now it's just this weird thing that had the potential to be so much better.

But hey, it still got nominated for the Giller.  So obviously there are people who don't feel the same way as me about it.

A Wrinkle in Time

I read A Wrinkle in Time years ago and don’t remember it very well (with the exception of a scene where the humans were trying to explain sight to aliens who had no eyes). With the movie coming out in March, I decided to reread it. I got it out from the library back in December and started reading it on my break. Then I somehow managed to lose the book. :/

I started getting desperate, and even phoned a few stores I had been to and friends I had visited, just on the off chance that I had left it there. No luck. I finally found it in a weird spot under my bed - it had fallen against the wall by the window, and was behind a bunch of books that were under there. I have since cleaned up under the bed; there are no longer any books under there, so this should never happen again!

So with that whole fiasco behind me, I also had to get through the holidays and another commitment this past weekend. I’ve also been playing video games a lot rather than read. So last night I finally sat down and started rereading A Wrinkle in Time. I managed to finish it a few hours later (I was planning on stopping, but at that point I was so close to being finished that I just continued on).

A Wrinkle in Time is the story of Meg, her little brother, Charles Wallace, and their new friend Calvin. Meg’s father has been missing for about a year and the whole town is talking (they all believe he has run off with another woman). Meg is a bit of an oddball, and has a hard time fitting in. Her younger brother is believed to be mute, but is quite intelligent (he just chooses not to speak much to other people). Their twin brothers (who are between Meg and Charles Wallace in age) are rather average (or at least content to seem average).

During a hurricane, Meg, Charles Wallace, and their mother find themselves in their kitchen when they get an unexpected visitor - a strange lady named Mrs. Whatsit appears at their door, having been blown off course. The next day, Meg and Charles Wallace go to visit her; she and a few other ladies have taken up residence in the nearby haunted house. On their way there, they encounter Calvin, who had a strange feeling that he needed to go to the haunted house as well. After speaking with Mrs. Who, one of the other ladies, the three children head back to their house. Later that night, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which arrive and spirit everyone off through time and space to go and save Meg and Charles’ father (and hopefully save the universe or something? The book kept saying more was at stake but I’m not really sure how or why?)






There was an amusing moment where Mrs. Which lands everyone on a 2D planet.  They can't stay though because the children can't survive there. 

To travel through time and space, the immortal ladies (who are stars? Or something? I don’t really know what they were - Mrs. Whatsit was a centaur-angel or something? But later said she was a star who gave her life? Yeah, it confused me. Were Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which the same things? The book never really said.) “wrinkle” time. This was a concept Meg’s father was working on and had discussed with her mom - that there was a fifth dimension, a tesseract, and that you could travel through manipulating it (I apologize, I’m probably butchering this explanation). It’s a really neat concept - it lets you get somewhere much faster rather than travelling the long way from star to star.


Here's the ant on a string diagram the book used to explain the concept:

So somewhere along the way, Mrs. Whatsit shows the children the big evil black thing (I have no idea what it is beyond a black thing). It is around the Earth, but people fight it with art and science and enlightenment. They then travel to Camazotz, a place ensnared by the black thing. Everyone behaves identically (and if you don't you're punished as an aberration).  The children then encounter IT, the central intelligence that controls everything, first through a man.  In trying to divine ITs true nature, Charles Wallace ventures too deep and becomes lost in IT.  Charles Wallace (controlled by IT) then brings Meg and Calvin to Meg's father.  She manages to get him out of the holding cell he's in using Mrs. Who's glasses.  Charles Wallace then brings everyone to IT.  Mr. Murray manages to get everyone (except Charles Wallace) away by tessering.  They encounter the aliens who cannot see, who nurse Meg back to health (she was the worst off in the showdown with IT).  This is also where that conversation I remember reading years ago happens.

Everyone then makes plans to go save Charles Wallace (with Meg throwing temper tantrums because she doesn't think they're wanting to go save him - she blames her father, who she thought would fix everything, for leaving him behind).  Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which arrive around this point.  Meg figures out that it has to be her to go back to save Charles Wallace, because he doesn't know their father at all and only barely knows Calvin.  Mrs. Which brings her (because Mrs. Which is far better at wrinkling time than her father is).  Meg returns to IT, where Charles Wallace is waiting.  She uses the power of her love to free him from IT.  Then they all go home. 

I found the end to be a super abrupt thing - I expected a little more of something (especially since the black thing wasn't exactly defeated).

So that was A Wrinkle in Time.  I feel about the same reading it now as I did many years back - it's got some super interesting concepts, but as a whole the narrative isn't very engaging (hence why I forgot most of what happened beyond that conversation with the sightless alien about what it's like to see).  I looked a bit into the rest of the quintet, but they honestly don't sound interesting enough for me to continue reading the series, especially since this book itself was really just okay.  If it had grabbed me more, I would have probably continued with book 2, but as things are, no thanks.

"You're in the Wrong Bathroom!": And 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions about Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People

I saw this book awhile ago and was interested in reading it.  I have a close friend who is trans and didn't want to burden her with all of my questions.

You're in the Wrong Bathroom! is exactly what it says it is: the book goes through 21 myths about trans people and gives you the real facts.  A few myths in I was kind of laughing to myself - the facts invariably for every myth are that people are different and no one's experience is the same.  That's true of cisgendered people; why wouldn't it also be true of trans people?

You're in the Wrong Bathroom! was a really fast read.  My major complaint was that it is an American book and focusses mainly on things in the States (although it does bring up some statistics and anecdotes from the rest of the world).  I would be interested in knowing more about how things are in other countries (although it does cover a bit of that, particularly in Myth 19).  All in all, I learned a bit and am glad I read it. :)

Cry Wolf

I love Patricia Briggs’ books.  So I was pretty excited to start reading Cry Wolf, the first book in her Alpha and Omega series.  I got through the prologue, which dealt with a random character, then got thrown into the story at a point that most definitely wasn’t the beginning.  Annoyed, I charged my Kindle, bought and read the novella that takes place before this book, then went back to it.  Now everything made sense (and I knew who all the wolves in the first chapter actually were).

Once I got through that hurdle, I found I had a hard time putting the book down.  I’ve stayed up way too late over the last few nights reading it (I started it at 2am on the 7th, and finished it a little before 4am today).

Cry Wolf is about werewolves Charles and Anna.  Charles is a two-hundred year old very dominant alpha wolf (second to his father, who is the alpha of all the wolves in North America).  Anna is a rare omega wolf, who is sort of like a medicine woman; she exudes peace and can calm the rage of other werewolves.  Anna was turned into a werewolf against her will and brutalized (that all happened in the novella).  She falls outside of pack structure, so dominance doesn’t actually work on her (alpha wolves can normally command more submissive wolves to do things; those commands just slide right off of her).  In her old pack, she was kept ignorant of her powers and was told she was a useless submissive wolf.  With Charles and his father Bran, she starts to realize that she is neither useless nor submissive.

Charles’ wolf decided as soon as he saw her that Anna was his mate.  This is super strange for him as well as her because he’s never had a mate before.  Suddenly he finds himself not only determined to protect her (from danger as well as potential rivals like Asil, an ancient wolf who is almost as old as Charles’ father), but also able to let down his guard and relax (thanks to her Omega powers).

The story alternates between their two viewpoints.  Neither one really talks to the other one (sometimes because they aren’t given the time, other times because they’re afraid to express their feelings).  When they get to Charles’ home in Montana, Anna is overwhelmed and feels like she doesn’t belong.  It doesn’t help that Bran’s mate Leah comes over to make a power play with her, and that Charles keeps wanting to leave her behind on things because he doesn’t want to subject her to seeing him possibly kill again.  Charles is also injured (from the novella - he got shot three times with silver bullets, and one of the bullets wasn’t properly removed).  But he isn’t given a chance to heal because there’s a werewolf attack in the nearby mountains.  As his father’s enforcer, it’s his job to deal with it.  Normally that would mean killing the wolf, but with Anna coming along, there’s a chance they can bring him in peacefully.

But the rogue lone wolf is not the actual problem - he was a man changed when he defended a student in the mountains from an attack.  It seems there’s another wolf running around.  And it looks an awful lot like Asil’s mate who died two hundred years previously. Died to a witch....

This book didn’t do anything amazing, but I still had a lot of fun reading it (like I said, I stayed up waaaay too late while reading it).  I’m looking forward to reading the next one in the series (after a break to catch up on sleep though!)

Alpha and Omega: a Companion

I started reading Patricia Briggs Cry Wolf, the first story in her Alpha and Omega series. But I felt like I was in the middle of the story over the first few pages. So I looked it up on Goodreads and sure enough, there's a novella that happens first. Thankfully it was available on Kindle. So I bought it, charged my Kindle, and read it.

This novella is the story of how Charles and Anna met, and what exactly happened to her. She was changed against her will and told for three years she was a useless submissive wolf. Charles is the one who tells her the truth: she is not a submissive, she's an Omega. Omegas has are rare and fall outside of the regular werewolf hierarchy; Anna wasn't submissive, her pack had to beat submissiveness into her.

Together, Charles and Anna confront her pack. Unexpectedly, Charles' wolf claims Anna as it's mate (after knowing her for only a few hours). Together they discover why Anna's pack was so sick. And now she agrees to accompany Charles and the Marrok back to Chicago.

That was a bit annoying, but now I'm ready to actually read Cry Wolf.

Note: I didn't read the version in On the Prowl, but I like the cover better than what the Kindle version had.

The Integral Trees

Wow was this a bit of a rough read.

I got Larry Niven's The Integral Trees back a few years ago, at a Toronto convention.  Someone had ranted and raved about it, then I found a copy of it on the trade floor. After I finished reading Witchling, I wanted something different.  I debated between The Integral Trees and Ringworld before ultimately choosing The Integral Trees.

The Integral Trees takes place on this world that has no real ground: the atmosphere is a giant smoke ring in orbit around the neutron star, Voy.  In the smoke ring, the thickest part of the atmosphere where life can exist, there's clumps of water and plants.  Most of the plants are fragile and thin; the exception are the huge integral trees, which grow hundreds of kilometers long.  It's on these that humans, the descendants of a starship mutiny, now live.  With the exception of the humans, all the life in the smoke ring has evolved to fly because there is no ground; even the plants are capable of moving about to some degree.  The humans have only been here about 500 years, but they too are adapting: they are now taller than us (because they grow up with less gravity) and some have prehensile toes which are capable of gripping things as another pair of hands. 

I'll admit, I didn't figure out about the height of the humans until it clicked when they were talking about a dwarf character - the dwarf was small enough to fit into a spacesuit meant for one of us....he was small because he was our height.

So anyway, the humans live in the tufts of the giant trees.  The trees have no root structure, just a tuft of branches at either end.  The humans who live in Quinn Tuft have sent a party of people, made up of cripples and people the Chairman of Quinn Tuft doesn't like (like Clave, his rival and son-in-law, the Grad, who is the Scientist's apprentice, and Gavving, who just happened to go on an ill-fated hunting expedition that got the Chairman's son killed), to go on an expedition.  Their village has been in a drought and they are sent to gather food and renew the tribal marks along the trunk.  our adventurers find evidence that the other side of the trunk has another tribe who is still alive; the two sides get into a fight.  During this time, the tree cracks in half, sending Quinn Tuft out of the smoke ring, and the other side back into the smoke ring.  Most of our party, plus one of the women from the other side of the fight, manage to jump free of the trunk.  They collect everyone and sail through space on a piece of bark hooked to a flying alien whale.  The whale leads them to a jungle, where they see two different peoples fighting.  Most of the Quinn Tuft people get captured by the side who has an ancient spacecraft (but one lady who is crippled and Clave, who had a broken leg, get left behind).  The Quinn tribe are further separated at their captor's tree - they are put into slavery and separated based on whether they are men, women, or pregnant women.  The Grad ends up going to the new tree's Scientist (at the Citadel), where he is made a second Scientist Apprentice (much to the annoyance of the current Scientist's Apprentice).

While the Quinn Tuft slaves think of rebellion and try to organize themselves (which is tough because they are separated), Clave and the jungle people plan an attack on the tree.  The entire jungle can move once every 20 years, and the time is now.  They attack the Citadel and manage to capture the spacecraft (thanks in part to the Grad being in the spacecraft at the time and murdering the Scientist).  They save who they can, then accidentally take off into space. The AI on the original spacecraft manages to make contact with them briefly, telling them what to do to get back into the smoke ring.  Then everyone in the spacecraft (which includes a couple of jungle people and a few people from the tree that took everyone captive) settles on a new, younger Integral Tree.

Niven is a hard-science fiction writer.  I wasn't really prepared for what that would mean.  In this case, the first few chapters were really front loaded with heavy hard-science.  There were some helpful pictures to aide in understanding what the world was like, but it still took me a bit to get some of the science.  But that's okay, I understood the basics well enough.

Then the actual plot started happening.  There were way too many characters with similar-sounding names.  In the main group alone there was Jinny, Jayan, and Jiovan; I kept getting confused about who was talking (although in the early part of the book, it was pretty much always Jiovan).  There were also just way too many characters.  The main group that started out from Quinn Tuft had like ten people.  While people came and went, the final group who colonize the new tree had like twelve.  There were also random people coming and going through the rest of the book; keeping everyone straight (while juggling similar-sounding names) was rough.

The story itself was also kind of boring.  The stakes at the beginning didn't seem very high - the only person who suspected the tree was dying was the Grad, and he never really shared much information except under extreme duress - everything was classified).  None of the characters had real character (in the example of Jiovan, he didn't really sound different to me from any of the other characters.  His distinguishing feature was that he had only one leg.  That's not at all helpful in dialogue). 

All in all, I felt that you read this book for the science and worldbuilding, not for the actual story, which makes me sad.

Oh, as a side note, I discovered that this is Book 2 in Niven's series about the State.  I had no idea there was a book that came first.  The first book has nothing to do with the smoke ring though, so that's probably why people were talking about The Integral Trees instead.