wednesday reading

[boxofdelights]

• What are you reading?

The Summer Without Men, by Siri Hustvedt.

• What did you recently finish reading?

Descender, Vol. 1: Tin Stars, by Jeff Lemire. A robot who is also an adorable little boy survives terrible and mysterious catastrophes. He may hold the key to understanding and preventing their return. The other characters and the settings are interesting. The art is beautiful. I would have loved this if I had read it when I was young. Now, I have read enough stories to notice when the plot is steered by the Rule of Cool, when the answer to "Why didn't the characters do the smart thing?" is "Because the author wanted a torture scene/a robot gladiator scene/a woman dying, gasping a slogan." Also, I have read enough stories that treat women as people to find the Weasley ratio really annoyingly noticeable. There's one female main character, one female supporting character, a few more who get a line but not a name. And only one of these female characters is human: the robot boy's dead mom.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

I've got suggestions to read or reread for my SF economics panel:

The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson
Walkaway, by Cory Doctorow
The Peripheral, by William Gibson
The Marq'ssan Cycle books by L. Timmel Duchamp

More suggestions still welcome!

Comments

[tylik]

Have you read Cherryh's Alliance-Union books? They lay out a whole political map that is largely economically driven (and driven by changing technology) - and have been hugely influential on other writers. But... she also wrote them over a thirty year period, and while you wouldn't need to take them all on to get a sense of the universe, there's a lot there.

[boxofdelights]

Yes! I have read many of them. I think even just in Downbelow Station there is a lot there. A lot of places where capitalism runs up against "But refugees/But existential threat/But very very extended family." I don't think I want to try to talk about how azis collide with capitalism, but I might mention that it's an example of expansionism that requires a command economy. Thank you!

[tylik]

Azi require... their own seminar. I have heard so many really facile interpretation of azi, and yet, there's so much nuance in the books.

(Have you read Regenesis? I was not best pleased...)

[boxofdelights]

>Azi require... their own seminar.

Yes!

Started Regenesis. Decided that I needed to reread Cyteen first. My main takeaway from the part I read was that I should leave good notes on what I did and what I was thinking for whoever takes over my gardens after me.

[lydy]

If fantasy counts, the Long Price Trilogy by Daniel Abraham has some fascinating economics in it.

[boxofdelights]

I have often heard of those but never read them. I will look for them!