Spirit of the Wind

Really the first edition, since I've never done this before.

Nonfiction:
The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China -- Truly excellent and a fascinating look at how fox legends have evolved over time. Prior to reading the book I didn't know the extent to which foxes were poised as anti-establishment figures and conflated with popular discontent or people (particularly women) who didn't fit in with society's strictures.
The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals--and Other Forgotten Skills -- The tips in this book were very useful (I'd never really put together that snails being dependent on calcium carbonate to make shells meant that they were more common in chalky environments), but while I read most of it this is the kind of book that you're better off buying and consulting when you need to rather than reading in one sitting.
The Secret History of Sharks: The Rise of the Ocean's Most Fearsome Predators -- Deeply fascinating and in-depth enough that I was able to enjoy it. I've finally found out how Helicoprion used their sawblade.
The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist's Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life -- This was a decent beginner's look at astrobiology, giving very general overviews of the possibilities of life on other celestial bodies. Most of it is focused on the solar system, but it talks some about exoplanetary systems. But for me this was the very problem. I'm no astrobiologist, but I want something more in-depth that talks about how alien life might deal with the challenges of alien environments.
Rescuing Science: Restoring Trust in an Age of Doubt -- Every scientist should read this. Especially recently when our fields have been under threat, there's a tendency to circle the wagons. That's understandable, but as Sutter points out there are deep problems with how our fields are structured and how we communicate with the public, and we should try and tackle those problems. Some parts will ring familiar to anyone involved in science.
Rewilding: The Radical New Science of Ecological Recovery -- This one is probably pretty good if you're not an ecologist. I am so it had nothing to offer me; it was too general.

Fiction:
The Many Selves of Katherine North -- This one was really good. The segments of the story showing how it feels for Katherine to become different creatures are beautiful, as are her dealing with the mental bleedover from spending time as other species.
The Mountain in the Sea -- Brilliant. I've always loved xenofiction, and Nayler gives us a book about first contact with a sapient species of octopus in a cyberpunk dystopia, complete with robots and corporate espionage. The octopi carried the book, though, and he doesn't skimp on showing the difficulties of trying to communicate with an entirely new sapient species (that doesn't even have vocal chords) or what the octopi would think of humans.
North is the Night -- Tried to read this one. I got most of the way through. Eventually I couldn't help but give up. A good portion of the book--it feels like the majority, really--can be described as "woman demands supernatural being give exposition to her, is denied, asks again, gets it." It's clunky and it drags down the narrative. Rath includes a list of characters and glossary of terms; it would've been so much of a better choice to just let us use that rather than wasting them explaining things.
Open Throat -- Short and blunt. The problem is that the mountain lion at the center of the book doesn't come off as very mountain lion-y. Mostly they meditate over what-ifs. These don't wear out their welcome, but in large part that's because the book is short. I wouldn't recommend it but also it's a novella so it takes a couple hours to finish.
Servant of Earth -- I was prepared to not like this book--the back made it sound like romantic fantasy, which in my experience is usually quite bad. But I was pleasantly surprised that rather than romantic fantasy with some court politics, I was getting court politics with a tiny amount of romance.
Station Six -- AK Press generally publishes anarchist nonfiction but started getting into fiction recently, so we get this novella about an anarchist group unionizing on board a space station. It's okay, but the ending felt too abrupt.
Strange Beast of China -- Yan is definitely trying to say something deep and metaphorical but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is. Certainly you can interpret the beasts as minority groups, but it feels like there was more to it. My interest in the book petered out pretty rapidly once I was unable to determine what the more is. Call me pedestrian.
Sundial -- Excellent psychological horror. This one provided twists until the end, despite the fact that I skipped ahead to skim sections.
The Naturalist Society -- Vaughn wrote a story where knowing taxonomy gives you magic powers. Naturally, I loved it. It's a wonderful look at natural history in a fantasy setting, as well as a tale of a woman attempting to overcome the sexist attitudes of the time.
The Navigating Fox -- A fox goes on a trip to Hell. This one didn't land with me. I'd read Rowe's story on Tor that was published first and was in the same setting, and I'd enjoyed it, but I was unsatisfied at the end of this since what I saw as the central mystery (where did the Navigating Fox come from) went unanswered. This was the point, and it's a good point, but in the absence of an answer the rest of the narrative wasn't compelling enough.
The Nightward -- They tried to do a post-apocalyptic science fantasy, but they don't do a good enough job of leading up to it and sort of spring it on the reader at the last moment (there are a few signs earlier, but not that many). It's the first book in a series, so a good sequel might help.
Playground -- This one was alright, I guess. Powers weaves a decent narrative about four people united by one island, but the main character was a regretful tech CEO and while he was compelling I felt like much of the narrative was missing. I never actually found out why two of the characters ended up on the island in the first place, and while that could be because I had to finish it really quickly I don't think it was.

Just finished Life on the Rocks by Juli Berwald and Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet​ by George Monbiot. The former was an interesting look at the science of coral conservation. The sections on coral resilience were both fascinating and uplifting, even with the caution that the science on the subject is still far from resolved--but I felt that it was greatly dragged down by Berwald's habit of going into long, personal anecdotes about her daughter's struggles with OCD. Some may find that compelling or something that gives a more personal touch to a book about science. I don't. It felt voyeuristic and out of place, and while her daughter did consent to her portrayal in the book after the first few anecdotes I found them too difficult to read through.

Regenesis, on the other hand, I liked more. Monbiot's explanation of the science behind food production seemed pretty well put together and avoided easy answers, which is a frequent flaw of anything that looks at food production. He certainly has his biases, but they influence his writing less than some of the other authors I've read (Savory, for instance, is pretty infamous for misrepresenting science in his talks on his grazing method).

I'm in the middle of reading Dazzling by Chikodili Emelumadu.

[Reposted from the Werelist.]

Got contacted about a job. No firm commitments on their part, but it's more interest than I've gotten in months. We'll see how it goes. I think I'm going to be a pretty good candidate.

I have finally finished Shadows of the Apt, after several months. If that sounds like a long time, well, it's a series of ten novels. My ultimate verdict is that it probably could have used fewer fight scenes, but was still pretty good. I'd recommend it if you like military fantasy that is more than just a themeless slugfest, morally ambiguous heroes and villains, and an examination of the ultimately self-defeating nature of totalitarianism.

There are several other books I'm in the middle of reading. The Otter's Tale, which I actually finished, is a fascinating semifictionalized account of a family of otters, mixed in with information about the natural history of the British population. How to Tame a Fox is one I've barely started, but it's a rare popular science book which was written by one of the scientists involved; I am very keen to see how that changes the quality of the work. The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is a fascinating anthology by a master of short stories--you can read some of his stories for free online, like "Good Hunting" or "The Paper Menagerie".

Also, made a new flower arrangement! I think the orchid's flower spike goes well with the sprays of pine needles.



RPGs go well. I'm still running the war plot on Kaerwyn. Since it occurs to me that I've never described the plot despite talking about it: The PCs are on my character's homeworld to try and stop a war from breaking out between Kemet (revanchist ancient Egypt) and the Southern Basin (anarchist cheetahs with hands). They're currently in Kemet, having traveled across the Republic of Aksum to get to Kemet.

Unfortunately, preventing war will be very hard, because the Sassanids want a war since it will weaken Kemet, the Nubians Kemet conquered want a war because they think it will allow them to revolt, and some Kemetics and people from the Southern Basin want a war because they think it will advance their own position or they just really hate the Pharaoh.

I think I've set up one of my players to eat the Pharaoh, actually.

If you could call these 'reviews.' Really they hardly deserve to be dignified with the term.

Basically, I read a lot of books when I was in Belize, and a lot since then. Here's my thoughts on some of the new ones I read.

Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark -- It's your standard "magic comes back to the world, someone gets murdered, and magic cops go figure out whodunnit," except it's set in Egypt, dispenses with the usual urban fantasy creatures and magic, and happens during the late Industrial Revolution. These are sufficient to make the book stand out, and P. Djeli Clark is a good enough writer to make it stand out well.

Echoes of the Fall by Adrian Tchaikovsky -- Very good. The author's worldbuilding and characterization are well done. Obviously I like anything having to do with shapeshifters (though the characters came off, unfortunately, as mostly human), by Tchaikovsky's plenty adept enough to draw my interest without waving metaphorical catnip under my nose.

I've seen other people say that the series portrayed romance well. I'd agree with that assessment. Most romance in fantasy tends to fall under very traditionalist lines and comes off as staid as a result; this does not. It's also low-key enough that it doesn't wear out its welcome.

Children of Time Adrian Tchaikovsky -- Another book by Tchaikovsky. It involves giant intelligent spiders, so what is not to love? Don't read if you suffer from arachnophobia. Unlike Echoes of the Fall, Children of Time is a good example of xenofiction; the alienness of the spider's society and psychology is a major theme of the novel, and despite that strangeness they're shown in a very sympathetic light.

Tchaikovsky also clearly knows his invertebrates, and his work works in a lot of minor biological details that warm my zoologist heart.

Outlaw Road by Emily B. Martin -- This was listed under fantasy and science fiction. It is neither. It's a Western, albeit one that doesn't take place in the Wild West. I'm actually glad it's misclassified, because if it was classified correctly I would have never read it. But I did, and while I didn't particularly care for the series' emphasis on family ties (it's a theme that doesn't particularly resonate with me), the author knows how to write about the natural environment--makes sense, because they work as a ranger.

I wouldn't call it ecofiction, but she definitely integrated the challenges and beauty of the environment into her writing.

Birds of Paradise by Oliver K. Langmead -- This is ecofiction. Adam, the First Dude (my phrasing), has lost a lot of his friends from Eden over the years, largely to human activity. The theme of the book is grief, and seeing those you love fall out of contact or die. It's pretty easy to empathize with, at least for me.

It doesn't pull its punches, and it does wrap everything up in a bow and make it nice and pretty at the end of the novel. And I'm thankful for that. Sometimes the only true endings are gray ones.

Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms by Richard Fortey -- Not fiction, but natural history. Fortey writes an excellent book about several of the longest lasting living fossils on this planet, writing with evocative detail and careful attention paid to the science. He doesn't disrespect the reader by dumbing things down, but also writes without the use of much jargon and without boring the average lay audience.

Cheetahs of the Serengeti Plains: Group Living in an Asocial Species has arrived. Expect to see an essay on cheetah sociodynamics and how they apply to me soon.

And my site's up again!