Enjoyable Local-to-DW Reading

[jesse_the_k]

ilanarama is such a talented writer. Enjoy these haikus for celebrities who've died:

https://ilanarama.dreamwidth.org/tag/celebrity+obituary+haiku

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Sparked by a link to royal burial goods found with disabled humans, there's a 50-comment discussion of how/why social animals value each other, love, and also Ghanaian coffins.

https://rydra-wong.dreamwidth.org/554520.html

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SF Books for Adults

Jo Walton posted this at her blog
http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/sf-books-for-adults/
and wild_irises has turned it into a meme!

++ IDs titles I've read & recommend
& for those I've read
% did not finish

% Ada Palmer Too Like the Lightning (2016) and sequels
++ C.J. Cherryh Cyteen (1987)
Samuel R. Delany Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1986)
++ Ursula K. Le Guin The Dispossessed (1974)
Gene Wolfe The Shadow of the Torturer (1980) and sequels
++ Robert Charles Wilson Spin (2006)
Karl Schroeder Lady of Mazes (2003)
++ John Brunner Stand on Zanzibar (1968)
Greg Egan Permutation City (1994)
& Octavia Butler Xenogenesis (1987)
++ Kim Stanley Robinson Icehenge (1984)
Andreas Eschbach The Carpet Makers
% Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep (1993)
Candas Jane Dorsay Black Wine (1997)
Raphael Carter The Fortunate Fall (1999)
++ Ken MacLeod The Star Fraction (1995) and sequels

I want to particularly plug The Dispossessed, which I just reread for the 3rd time and I learn something new with every re-read. This time there's a sexual assault plot point I didn't notice before, and I believe UKL included it to make a character less shiny.

Also, John Brunner's predictions of the future are remarkably spot on, while his sexism burns.

Comments

[luzula]

I wonder why Icehenge in particular? It's been a long time since I read that one, and I don't remember much of it. A lot of his other books have made more impression on me.

[wendelah1]

I was going to ask the same thing. I've read everything KSR has written and I don't remember anything at all about Icehenge.

Maybe I don't understand this meme.

[jesse_the_k]

I have to say that "grownups" has always been a slippery concept to me: something just out of reach, whose definition is constantly changing.

[wild_irises]

Jo's original article doesn't explain her thought processes (though she will usually do that on request). Icehenge is a book about historiography, the history of history, and maybe that piqued her interest. I liked it when I read it, but it would never be the KSR I would put on any kind of recommended list first, or even third.

[jesse_the_k]

That's an excellent question. It's a stand-alone? But she has other series in her list. I enjoyed it--anarchists in zeppelins!--but it doesn't have The Big Picture the way most of his work does.

[luzula]

I don't even remember the anarchists in zeppelins. Maybe I should reread--it's been a long time.

[jesse_the_k]

Well, my memory is as spotty as a leopard.

[cheesy on-hold music]

I just checked, and I'm wrong! I conflated the balloonists from Antarctica with this work.

Evidently, I haven't read Icehenge at all; here is Jo's non-spoilery review.

https://www.tor.com/2011/02/25/the-work-of-disenchantment-never-ends-kim-stanley-robinsons-icehenge/

[luzula]

Ha, well, I have read Antarctica too, and I don't remember them from there either. I should probably reread both books, then. : )