Lunacy: how science fiction is powering the new moon rush

The Guardian recently ran an interesting article about the impact of science fiction on current pushes to return to the moon.  Read the full article here.

"Science fiction is often seen as an anticipation - a fiction peculiarly expected to graduate into fact.  But if technologies once found only in SF do sometimes become real they do not, in so doing, always cease to be science fiction.  SF is not, after all, simply a literature about the future; it is a literature about the shock of new capacities and new perspectives, about transcendence, estrangement and resistance in the face of the inhuman.  Its ideas shape and contrain the ways in which technological possibilities are seen, understood and experienced long after those possibilities are first tentatively realised."

flat on the page

The Tubman Command by Elizabeth Cobbs
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: Any student of Civil War-era history has some basic knowledge of Harriet Tubman, but perhaps not much beyond her role on the Underground Railroad.  If nothing else, this book will deepen the reader's understanding of her ongoing role in liberating slaves throughout the War itself.  Cobbs focuses on Tubman's actions as a scout for the Union Army at their camp in Beaufort, South Carolina.  Tubman, or "Moses", as she was known by the "contraband" freed slaves, both recruited other scouts and helped to organize the slaves on the nearby plantation so that they would be ready to move when the Army came to free them.

A good novel of historical fiction makes the past come alive in a way that non-fiction can't.  Unfortunately, I can't really say that Tubman leaps off the page in this book.  Rather, it reads more like a work of narrative non-fiction from a close third-person point of view.  However, readers interested in either the Civil War or Harriet Tubman will learn a lot from Cobbs's research and the information goes down very easily.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

who likes audiobooks?

An interesting article on the increase in people listening to audiobooks.  I always have an audiobook on in the car, when I'm folding laundry, when I'm playing mindless games on my phone...
https://bookriot.com/2019/04/18/audiobook-listenership-in-2019/

what to do for your 101st birthday

The Accidental Further Adventures of the 100-Year-Old Man by Jonas Jonasson
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: In The 100-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, Jonas Jonasson, gave us Allan Karlsson, a man who seems, Forrest Gump-like, to be present at most major historical events.  Allan finds himself in a lot more sticky situations though, but continually gets out of them through sheer luck and his own lack of a filter when talking to world leaders.  He relates the story of his adventures as he bumbles through yet another misadventure as he turns 100 years old.  The humor in this first book is wry and subtle, and it was a real pleasure to read.

The next installment of Allan's life, as he turns 101, is a bit less enjoyable.  I can imagine that the humor from the first book would be hard to sustain, especially as we must largely confine ourselves to Allan's present circumstances, as Allan encounters Donald Trump, Kim Jong-Un, and Angela Merkel, among others officials.  Unfortunately, although Allan himself seems little changed, his companions now seem to find him more annoying than anything else, and that rubbed me the wrong way.  When did he suddenly become a troublesome old man?  Maybe it was just the little black tablet that he insists on consulting all the time...

Still, for all that this installment wasn't quite as good as the first one, it's very enjoyable, if for no other reason that Allan's continued lack of filter as he deals with current world leaders.

conversations in a hayloft

Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: A small group of women gather to decide what to do after it is revealed that they, along with most other women and girls in their community, have been repeatedly drugged and raped by the men of their small Mennonite colony.  Will they forgive the men, stay and fight, or leave the colony?  Their discussions range over what it means to have the freedom to choose, whether one can be a pacifist if one harbors a desire a kill, how best to protect one's children, and many more philosophical topics.

It was somewhat jarring that a book that seemed as though it was to be about female empowerment was told from a man's perspective, but it worked.  He is privy to the women talking as an amanuensis; none of the women can read or write, but want their deliberations preserved for posterity.  He's an outsider in the colony, for reasons that aren't entirely clear, but his outsider status allows the women to trust him for this task, and makes him appropriately sensitive to them, in a way that no other man of their acquaintance could, or would, be.

And perhaps this is a realistic notion of what could happen when such an insulated group of people is threatened in this way.  But I found it troubling to read about a group of women facing such a threat to themselves and their children and spending two days sitting in a hayloft debating the finer points of free will, rather than making actual plans.  The lack of action in the books gives it a claustrophobic feel, which seems appropriate under the circumstances, and that feeling of clautrophobia helps keep the pressure on throughout the narrative, having the effect of sucking the reader through the story, rather in the manner of a pneumatic tube.

So what will the women decide to do, and will they be able to follow through on that decision?  That is what they are talking about, and the question of whether they will be able to sieze their freedom, no matter what they decide, will leave the reader thinking long after the last page.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

more than just a sequel

Daughter of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: Alan Brennert doesn't pull his punches when it comes to some of the more shameful aspects of history.  In Moloka'i he explored the segregation of Hansen's Disease patients in Hawai'i, through the eyes of Rachel Kalama who was removed from her family and sent to the leper colony on Moloka'i at a young age.  Now, in Daughter of Moloka'i, Brennert tells the story of Ruth, the daughter Rachel was forced to give up for adoption.  And his unstinting gaze falls on the racism against Japanese immigrants and the Japanese internment camps of WWII.

As always, Brennert's gaze falls beyond the immediate drama to give us the full and rich sweep of a life.  Ruth's life is fully imagined, from her time in an orphanage and her dreams of finding a family to her happiness with her adopted parents and brothers to the hardships they faced as farmers in rural California to their internment and beyond.  Once Rachel is re-introduced into the narrative, it is fascinating to watch Brennert tell the same story, even many of the exact same scenes, but told from Ruth's perspective.  Reading the books back-to-back turns them into a wonderfully faceted multi-generational story that is a pleasure to read.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

all the synonyms for debauchery

Cape May by Chip Cheek
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: In most books, one expects there to be some character growth.  In this book, the characters just get more and more debauched.  Our main characters, Henry and Effie, are newlyweds from Georgia on their honeymoon in Cape May, NJ.  It's September, so the summer resort community is largely empty, but soon Henry and Effie find another young couple in a house down the street.  But their new friends are neither as young nor as innocent Henry and Effie, and soon they find themselves going inexorably down the path to dissipation and lasciviousness until they both doubt whether their marriage will outlast the honeymoon.  Cheek saves most of his answers for the last chapter of the book, where the reader can trace the effects of their licentiousness.

Ultimately, this book is very readable (if you're in the mood for reading about a lot of sex) and the action (pun intended) is fairly continuous, making it feel as though things are moving along at a good pace.  The descriptions of the town and the ocean are evocative (as are the descriptions of the sex) and the characters are believable, if not very likable.  But there's not much movement in this book, either geographical or metaphysical, giving the book a somewhat stagnant feel.

Cheek shows his prowess (I just can't help myself) much more in the last chapter than in all the preceding ones, when he focuses on the emotions of a relationship more than the sex.  He shows definite promise as a novelist (certainly anyone who can write a good sex scene is a promising novelist) but hopefully his future books will focus more on the growth of his characters than on their sex lives.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.