Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in charlene's LiveJournal:

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Monday, June 15th, 2009
9:13 pm	In which Dag finds out that those cool mathematical objects he came up with are called "matrices" Finally got around to Horizon (Bujold). Well, I liked it fine. It definitely reminded me of Cherryh a bit (though markedly less grim): the big bad was not defeated, or even understood, but a minor (well, relatively) part of the big bad is defeated, with the idea that it may now be easier to defeat the big bad entirely; and a culture is not changed upside down, but nudged, little by little, into a better shape. ( Cut for minor general spoilers - tried to stay away from specific spoilers) ) (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
12:01 am	The Demon's Lexicon (Sarah Rees Brennan) So I was terrified I wasn't going to like this book, because I like sarahtales very much indeed. I should not have worried, as it turns out. So, first: This is a book about family! Siblings! I cannot even describe how happy I am to read a YA novel that does not revolve around romance, because you know how many couples I know who were serious about romance at that age? Two. I was very, very pleased -- and I should really not have been surprised by this, given SRB's book reviews -- that the book didn't fall into any of the cliche traps that I exceedingly hate. In particular, Nick takes some risks, but they're reasonable ones that don't blow up in his face and bring Danger and Doom upon them All! (Oh, man, am I tired of that one. Look, *coughHarryPotter* if your protagonist is more-or-less capable, he's probably not going to screw up too badly, and if he's not, I may not really want to read about his screwups.) The characters are lovely, not cliched or retreads from other fantasy at all. (Jamie bears the marks of a typical mild-mannered SRB hero, but even so transcends those roots.) All four major characters are distinct, non-Mary-Sues, and far more interesting than their first categorization upon appearance (the way that real people are almost always more interesting once you've known them for a while). The mythology seems fairly well-grounded (and I loved the Goblin Market... Christina Risotto, hee!) which is a huge compliment coming from me, as I routinely abandon books in the middle because I don't think they're being consistent or reasonable with the system of magic. The style I found slightly off-putting at first (by which I mean that I was not immediately grabbed by the first couple of chapters). I can't exactly put my finger on what it is; I think it has to do with having to get used to Nick's stylistic voice, and that being slightly jerky (the paragraphs being very short and choppy, for instance). By the third chapter or so, it is clear that this is mostly a reflection of Nick's personality, and did not bother me subsequently. The thing that was pretty much just phenomenally awesome about it, to me, is SRB's plot management. ( Plot management skillz, shading into meandering about Alan and the heart of the book: Book-destroying spoilers here! ) Anyway: yeah. I liked it exceedingly. Go read it. (with the caveat that, should you find it slow at first, you should push through at least three chapters before giving up.) Can't wait to see what she does next! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 1st, 2009
7:01 pm	The Books of Great Alta (Yolen) Sister Light, Sister Dark, White Jenna, and The One-Armed Queen are books I meant to read at a much younger age (especially the first two) and somehow never got around to it. Yolen's great strength, of course, is her weaving of myth and fairy tale, and it's all here. It's the sort of thing that, if you like her other work, you'll like the first two books, and if you don't, you most certainly won't. I like her work, so I like these books. SLSD is, to my jaded grown-up eye, actually a little more interesting than WJ because there is less of a sense (to me) that the myth and story are of course right and the history is wrong; in SLSD it seems that it could go either way, and there's some evidence that perhaps the historians, who strip all magic from the world, are right, and the story is only a story. Or maybe the story really is the truth and the history is a lie. It's hard to tell, which is neat. In WJ it becomes a little more obvious that oh, yes, of course the magic prophetic explanations are the right one, and those stupid silly historians who don't believe in magic are just spiteful and deluded. Eh. Also, I found Jenna's reaction at the end (of WJ) kind of weird. She has this agonizing choice, it's made for her by, basically, death, and she's totally cool with that? No angsting at all? Ooookay. But the myth at the end is beautiful and kind of heartbreaking. The third book was written much later, I believe, and I don't like it nearly as well -- the mythic ideas of the Chosen One and the dark sisters and the prophecies are kind of sort of there, but not nearly as powerful as their incarnation in the first two books. Also, Scillia is a whiny brat, which doesn't go well with myth. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
9:17 pm	Stumbling on Happiness (Daniel Gilbert) A fun book, recommended by lightreads, about why we are so bad (except when we're good) at predicting the future. It's not a bad pop pysch book, though I had my usual pop-social-science problem: he describes an experiment, what it's supposed to convey, and I go, "Yes, but..." Which maybe I wouldn't do if I saw the actual paper, but I don't find the level of detail in pop-social-science convincing. For example, he has this thesis that people deriving satisfaction from having children is a myth propagated by human society, and isn't actually true, which he "proves" by showing a graph of how marital satisfaction diminishes once people have children, and showing that women find looking after kids less satisfying than doing other tasks. Yes, but... but I find working less satisfying than reading books, but I can tell you right now that my overall satisfaction would diminish if I were reading books all the time instead of working, which lets me exercise my technical skills, spend time with interesting geeky people, gives me satisfaction that I'm contributing to society (maybe that is the "myth" part -- but if it really does make me happy because I believe that it should, is it a myth?), and not least, makes me money to buy the books with... And there are lots of things -- he wouldn't even disagree with this -- that can honestly make you happy once you've convinced yourself they ought to make you happy. ETA: Not that I disagree with his hypotheses (certainly, for his hypothesis on child-rearing, it is supported by kids being a Big Pain to raise) but it irks me that his proof standard is as bad as it is, even for my pleasure reading. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
10:43 am	Nothing sort-of-on-racefail Okay, I may actually post a couple of times, for a change! julianyap told me to read Octavian Nothing (Anderson), without telling me anything about it. (It is a YA book, though it's one of those YA books that is perhaps better read after one is a YA.) And he was right, both to tell me to read it and to tell me nothing about it. Because if you know something about it before reading, it does take something out of the lovely first section of the first book (it is a two-book series), which starts out, you think, as one thing, and gradually one finds out one is in another world entirely. This is an astonishing pair of books which tackles some pretty explosive issues (mostly with great finesse, showing and not telling, although Octavian does have a couple of annoyingly anvilicious whines in the first book); I was blown away by it; and I think everyone should read it. I do not love it desperately (it's pretty grim, and I have a hard time loving grim books, which is not really the author's fault), and I do not own it. On racefail: I have been making no secret of the fact that as far as I can tell, racefail is at least 99.9% a complete and utter waste of time. On both sides. But then... there is always that 0.1% (and I'm glad for the people who wade through the crap to bring me the 0.1%, even as I marvel at the black hole of what must be gobs of their free time) that makes me, at least, think about things a little more. It was in the context of racefail raging in the background that I read these books, and it made me think about how I responded to the first and second volumes, and what that means about me as a reader, and I came to some less-than-comfortable conclusions. ( Cut for spoilers that will pretty much ruin the coolest part of the first book, though it's still worth reading otherwise ) (edited to fix annoying typo) (Comment on this)
Friday, May 8th, 2009
9:47 pm	keeping cool The fire hasn't gotten to us, as we live (and work) to the southwest of the major conflagration, and no one expects it to anytime soon (we'd have to have several more windy days... knock on wood). However, about a quarter of the people I work with have been evacuated (and that is a lot, considering how many people commute in and don't live in town at all). My company building is being used as an evacuation site for employees and family (though almost everyone had cleared out by 9pm tonight -- I think there were only a couple of families staying overnight). (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, April 24th, 2009
3:36 pm	What they ought to have been called Perhaps y'all have seen these (and here and here, though I think the first is the best) before, but I hadn't. Hysterically funny especially if you, like me, grew up reading bad 80's SF/fantasy novels (Dragonlance! Xanth! Valdemar! ...hey, why are you running away? Wait, did I actually admit to reading those?) I'll add Katherine Kerr: People Make the Same Dumb Mistakes When Reincarnated Patricia McKillip: Riddles in the Welsh Tradition Kinda Suck Diane Duane: The Door Into Alternative Lifestyles Rosemary Kirstein: Wouldn't It Be Cool If People Revered Their Scientists? Susan Cooper: The Search for Plot Coupons (okay, that one was not original) (and yes, I adore McKillip and Cooper, and have a certain fondness for the others; I mock because I love!) Any other suggestions? Especially for 80's stuff? (Most of the really bad 80's stuff I read has completely escaped my memory...) (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
8:08 am	in which I reveal my apocalyptic leanings (also: go Elizabeth Warren) I have been a fan of Elizabeth Warren since reading The Two-Income Trap, which significantly changed the way I thought about practical economics. In brief: if everyone's income goes up by a factor of 2, this does not make, say, houses cheaper. Because now everyone can bid up the prices of houses to two times what they could before, housing prices will also go up by about that much. Of course I did learn this in first-year economics supply and demand, but this was when-- okay, fine, I am slow-- I really got that yes, this occurs in non-textbook situations, and a similar application to the lax-credit market of the last five years (guess what-- if everyone regardless of income can get a mortgage loan of $500k, houses will cost at least $500k!) helped us to keep our head about it. I am still a fan of hers based on her TARP COP remarks. Transparency in disbursing government money! Oh, my heart. I promise to shut up after this, but let me just say once: I strongly believe things in the financial system (and not just the US's) are Very Bad, people don't realize how bad they are, and things are just going to get worse. Probably much worse. I'm talking about Depression-era worse; I don't think we have staved off a depression, at all, and have probably made things worse. (Note I am not being partisan here; I don't think this is Obama's fault, or Bush's. I do think both of them did/are doing stupid things, but I'm not convinced any other politician would have done much better.) My main sources of gloom-and-doom apocalyptic-ness are Mish and Karl Denninger-- the latter is kind of crazy, but then again look at his predictions for 2008 (scroll down to the bullets)... he might just be crazy like a fox. I'll shut up now and go back to books. You can take all this with a large lump of salt, of course (and I realize I do look silly given this morning's news/stock market surge); I certainly don't claim to have a particularly high batting average with this stuff. Still. Save. Don't take on any more debt than you have to. Don't take your job for granted. Have a backup plan. Always good ideas, but I think now more than usual. I would add, don't invest in stocks right now; my dad begs to respectfully disagree. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
5:54 pm	back from wedding The Kid had a wonderful and beautiful wedding (I guess I need to stop calling her that now that she is an old married lady!). The weather cooperated beautifully. The cherry trees (at least, I suppose that's what they were) were in bloom, which was lovely. She was a beautiful bride (I wasn't close to crying except for the moment she started walking in on Daddy's arm, trailing the gorgeous veil I wore to my own wedding... ohh!). My family was all very happy. In particular, my mom was very happy and mellow (it was the perfect party for her -- music, dancing, excitement-- whereas ours, much more low-key, was rather more suited for my dad, who left the Kid's reception early). It was also fun to meet all her friends I've heard so much about. Some of them were just utter joys, and I feel so lucky that my sister has these amazing friends; and all of them were at least amusing. Now, of course, I'm recovering from both a cold (which I have furthermore transmitted to D) and the stomach virus which I finally got. Oh well! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 27th, 2009
6:58 pm	I am the cheese (Cormier) I read I am the Cheese for the third time today - I seem to have been reading it about once a decade or so. This time, I believe for the first time, I finally totally understood the plot. How is it that this book is classified as teen lit?? Or maybe I'm just slow. Well, at least I'm improving! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 19th, 2009
9:35 am	kindle 2 Yeah, so, I've been busy with frivolosities, and I'm not going to post more than once more until after the Kid's wedding on 4 April. Meanwhile, I've been playing with gadgets! Just the kindle today so I can get it out for julianyap, though I may quickly post on cameras in the near future. A really wonderful co-worker let me borrow his kindle 2 for a couple of days. (He's a tech geek, not a lit geek, so only really bought it for travel.) Oh, man, I so wanted to like this. Some of it is awesome. The free web access? Worth the purchase price. The amazon store easy access is both really great and also will make a mint for amazon once I get one of these things. But. BUT. The buttons are lame, more like pushing a (rather hard) mouse button and not at all like tapping an Ipod button, which is what it should be like. Since I have longstanding struggles with RSI, this was by itself a dealbreaker. If I wanted to push a mouse button to turn a page, I'd read on my computer. Also, I do not read linearly. I read a page, wonder if the protagonist is going to die, flip to the end, decide I can read further since the protagonist still seems to be alive, realize I may have missed a Clew a chapter back, remember that oh, wait, something that was said at the very beginning was relevant... On the Kindle, you have to access a menu to flip to different parts. A menu! ...No. And yet... once I gave it back to my co-worker, I missed it. I missed being able to carry lots of books in one package. I missed having (free!) web access all the time. I missed being able to download free sample chapters on practically anything that struck my fancy. I missed not struggling with a huge hardback book on the reading rack on the exercise machine. Bah. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
11:45 am	Intuition (Allegra Goodman) National Put Quotes in Your Blog Month has expired, but I started writing this post in February... His despair seemed to melt and pool inside him, until he could almost congratulate himself that he was no longer desperate, but simply demoralized and depressed -- emotions entirely accepted, even expected, in the lab. This quotation from Allegra Goodman's Intuition captures a large part of what captivated me about this book -- it shows what it's like to do research. It simultaneously made me miss research (there's nothing like the high of discovering something) and be very very glad I don't do pure research anymore. Yeah, so this book impressed the heck out of me. It's mainstream fic (which surprised me; I was expecting science fiction, but it's actually rather that rare beast, fiction about science) about a research lab and what happens when friction erupts in the lab over a postdoc's experiments, until it has ramifications that go well beyond the one postdoc. But what really impresses me about this book is this: I believe quite strongly that there are empirical facts about the world that do not change. Either an experiment worked or it didn't. But people are complicated. A given empirical fact, say, a conversation between person Alpha and Beta, can to person Alpha say something about herself. Person Beta may look at that same conversation and conclude something different about Person Alpha. And the thing is, they might both be right. Because people are complicated. (And to take it a step further, it may be true that Person Beta's conclusion about Person Alpha says something, moreover, about Person Beta. That may be different from both the way that Alpha looks at Beta, and the way that Beta looks at himself.) And it seems to me that most books assume that there is one right way of looking, not just at facts, but at people and people's motivations. Even in books with unreliable narrators -- well -- it is true I am a sucker for the unreliable narrator, but the whole concept presupposes that there is some underlying truth that the unreliable narrator does not see. No, in this book everyone is a reliable POV, but reliable in different ways, and unreliable to the extent that they do not necessarily see in the ways that others see. Like real life! The result is that there is a great compassion in this book for all the characters, and that there are no villains. Indeed, the magnitude of Goodman's accomplishment can be seen in that the character that abigail_n, in the review that got me to read the book, calls "the closest Goodman comes to an out-and-out villain" is the one I thought of, before rereading her review, as the hero of the piece (though I understand why he can be thought of as the villain as well). I feel like I should add some caveats. I was predisposed to like this book because it describes Cambridge, MA, a city which I love, and even a concert in Cambridge that I actually watched (and which liuzhia was in)! I have no idea if her portrayal of bio-lab work is all right (I only know that her emotional portrayal of science is dead on). And indeed her portrayal of music (which only occurs a couple of times in the book, to be honest) really kind of sucks (excuse me, but no one who learned violin before his teenage years thinks about the violin spot when practicing unless it's infected, so even mentioning it is a bad sign). I found the middle section of the book, which opens up into the wider world, a bit tedious (though I understand why it had to happen). Despite all that, my vote for my best read of the year so far, though it's only March and most of what I've read has been old Asimov novels :) I am not entirely sure about this, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think ebs98, ase, julianyap, and lightreads would like it (and if you try it out and don't, let me know so I can do better next time). joyce I'm even less sure about, but the next time someone starts yapping at you about academia you could do worse than reading the first chapter of this to remind yourself why you aren't in research! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
10:30 pm	NPQiYBM Hmph, February is almost over and I have not posted half as many quotations as I would have liked. Well, here is a sonnet by my favorite poet: The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. ETA: Gerard Manley Hopkins, as julianyap guessed. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 20th, 2009
7:58 am	NPQiYBM/Asimov Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Anyone who does not know that this quotation is from Isaac Asimov should go and read a book of his in penance. I've been rereading a bunch of his stuff lately, mostly because I had a cold and was not feeling up to anything less readable, and whatever else you might say about him Asimov is very easy to read. I had never actually read his robot mystery novels before (though I've read every single one of the robot stories), and the first two are really quite good (in, of course, a Golden Age sort of way-- don't expect psychodrama), though I figured out the killer in the first book after the first third of the book. I have always loved the Black Widower mystery short stories (joyce, you might like these -- they are short and sweet and usually pretty upbeat), though they vary widely in quality. I love them honestly for the afterwords more than anything else. Which realization started me on reading his autobiography (I, Asimov, though there are three others), which is just really charming. Asimov sounds like he was a delightful person, and I am annoyed that he left us after only 300 (!) books. Off to Yosemite for this weekend, yay! hope the weather is nice *crosses fingers* (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
1:43 pm	NPQiYBM/Arthuriana ( My fourth favorite Arthurian poem, after all-of-Charles-Williams, Preideu Annwn, and Winter Solstice, Camelot Station: ) "Nevertheless you, O Sir Gauwaine, lie, Whatever may have happened through these years, God knows I speak truth, saying that you lie." ETA: "The Defense of Guinevere," William Morris. I really like Morris. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
6:50 pm	NPQiYBM/Arthuriana julianyap was the one who had to bring Arthur into it... A poem from my favorite Arthurian poet: Hued from the livid everlasting stone the queen's hewn eyelids bruised my bone; my eyes splintered, as our father Adam's when the first exorbitant flying nature round creation's flank burst. Her hair was whirlwind about her face; her face outstripped her hair; it rose from a place where pre-Adamic sculpture on an ocean rock lay, and the sculpture torn from its rock was swept away. Her hand discharged catastrophe; I was thrown before it; I saw the source of all stone, the rigid tornado, the schism and first strife of primeval rock with itself, Morgause Lot's wife. ( ETA: The rest of Lamorak and Queen Morgause of Orkney, Charles Williams ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
6:42 pm	NPQiYBM She got the which of the what-she-did Hid the bell with a blot, she did But she fell in love with a hominid Where is the which of the what-she-did? My favorite SF writer ever! ETA: "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell," Cordwainer Smith. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 6th, 2009
5:11 pm	NPQiYBM/Ragtime Even people Who ain't too clever Can learn to tighten A nut forever, Attach one pedal Or pull one lever! I was introduced to Ragtime, the musical, by Pandora. It doesn't even try to disguise its blatant and total manipulation of the listener's emotions. So you've got the anti-racism screeds, the stirring ballad of hope (that is crushed! by racism!), the patriotic sentiments, the patriotic sentiments crushed! Crushed! by exploitation of the workers! and so on. And I just love it. I usually hate stuff like that, because it often doesn't make good art, and to be perfectly honest I'm not sure I would call this good art exactly, but Ragtime does have a heart, and even a soul, underneath the pontificating. Some of it is due to the performers, who are almost all incredibly awesome. Peter Friedman in particular must have his own kids, as all his songs relating to his daughter in the play are just heartbreaking (while his other songs left me relatively unmoved). Some is due to the music. The orchestration in particular is exuberant and playful-- the machine-like percussiveness of "Henry Ford" makes me smile and the brass fanfare in "Journey On" makes my heart leap a little. But the thing is-- musicals are not about lofty ideas and pageantry. They are about human connections between people. And these are the moments that I love: Tateh's compassion for another man on another ship ("May you find what you need") in "Journey On" always makes me a little sniffly, as does the interaction between the kids and parents ("What is your name?" "No name." "That's impossible! everyone has a name, even the little Negro baby who lives in our attic!" "Ssh! Edgar, do not be rude!") in "Nothing Like the City." And then there's "Henry Ford," which is just so very playful-- Ford is a man and a machine and a concept and a religion ("Hallelujah!/ Praise the maker/ Of the Model T") and a driving rhythm all rolled into one, with such musical and metrical humor (for example the above quotation, which rather loses something without the driving beat) that I always smile when I listen to it. I don't have much to say about the book, by Doctorow, except that I find it a little drab in comparison, perhaps the only time I have ever said this about an adaptation of a book. Of course, YMMV in spades for this kind of thing. I don't recommend it, necessarily. But I love it madly all the same. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
6:00 pm	National Put Quotes in Your Blog Month/Farthing julianyap has declared this month National Put Quotes in Your Blog Month. Who am I to argue? I love this kind of stuff. So, all my posts this month will have a quotation in them. From something. A Caligula... can rule a long time, while the best men hesitate to do what is necessary to stop him, and the worst ones take advantage. So, let me talk about Farthing (Walton) (which the above quote is not from). I actually liked it, though it sometimes is a little (or, uh, more than a little) heavy-handed in its moralizing (but, hey, lately I've been reading Doctorow and Ayn Rand, so apparently I'm on a kick for heavy-handed political moralizing in my fiction). I liked it because I took immediately to the main character, a woman who tends to start explaining things in the middle-- guess why I liked her?-- and because I just loved her relationship with her (dead) brother. Those were the best parts of the book for me. Farthing failed a great deal in trying to be both a mystery and a political thriller. It did okay in the second, if you're in the mood for reading about that kind of thing, and did very well at depicting the kind of darkening of worldview that happens gradually enough that you might not notice if you're not directly affected-- but the first was terrible. It's a pleasant surprise when a book you don't think is a mystery, like Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, turns out to be, and a rather annoying disappointment when something you thought was a mystery isn't really (no plot twistiness, no actual mystery plot, really). And the characters of the Evil people served the political ends, not the literary ones, and so were less well drawn than Agatha Christie's, and it's not like she was the queen of nuance. (The character of the mother, in particular, was a cartoon version of the way teenagers think about their mothers.) So-- although I liked it, I can't recommend it unreservedly to someone who is like me. Also, the first sexual entanglings were interesting, but by the fifth one I was like, "is everyone in this book entangled in some irritating way??" The book from which the above is taken (and which I cite because I woke up the morning after reading Farthing with it in my head) is somewhat more roughly written than Farthing, but in many ways has a rather more nuanced approach to evil (and evil in families/politics in particular). ETA: Shards of Honor (Bujold). I think half the things that get quoted in our household are Bujold... (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
9:35 am	We need to talk about Kevin (Shriver) This book is... really disturbing. Very interesting, and explores a lot of interesting ideas about the expectations society has about parents (especially moms) and kids, and what happens if you don't fit in that mold (what if thinking of motherhood doesn't suffuse you with a warm maternal glow?), and what makes evil?, and very well written, and never goes for the easy answers, and... and I skipped to the end, about a third of the way through, because it was just too painful. (Also, Franklin, the husband, made me so mad... which he's supposed to. And so is Kevin. And Eva. It's just all a bad situation. But let me just say briefly that my feminist tendencies were highly aroused by Franklin never staying home with the baby and then having the gall to complain to Eva about her attitude! But, of course, that's part of the point.) I do highly recommend it, if you can stomach it (it's not a horror book, but all the same the only reason I didn't have nightmares after reading it is that I'm basically not subject to nightmares), and if you don't have kids (I honestly don't think I would've made it even a third through if I had kids). An excellent summary and thoughts (indeed, the ones that convinced me to read it) here. I'll be picking up more of Shriver's work. (Comment on this)