Summertime reading

I am thoroughly enjoying this summer. Perhaps it's because we had a more wintry winter than is usual for these parts; perhaps it's because next summer is likely to be completely shot; whatever the reason, I'm very happy these days to be sitting on the porch in the cool of the evening, sipping bourbon and listening to the crickets chirp.

My reading has been similarly indulgent. I break into War & Peace on occasion, but mostly I've been dipping into charming ruminations on food and life and reading science fiction. For those who like the genre, it's a great time for SF. There are a number of active writers whose work is getting better and better. Some highlights of my summer reading includes:

1. Lady of Mazes, Karl Schroeder. Schroeder's latest is not an easy book to get into (my colleague on a recent observing run confirmed that it is not accessible when read at an elevation of 14,000 ft in the middle of the night) but it is worth the initial effort. Schroeder explores the question of how life can be meaningful when technology allows all people to craft their environments to their own desires. Livia Kodaly lives on an isolated ring world where the residents band together to form consensual realities. When an outside force begins to break down the barriers between these realities, Livia and her companions must journey into the main populated regions of the solar system in search of a solution, where they find that tailored individual environments have resulted in the proliferation of mutating fads and frenetic change (not unlike some critical views of modern culture). As Livia and the other characters debate how humans should live, Schroeder takes us through the various societies that have evolved in this system, leading up to the dramatic conclusion where the fate of Livia's home is decided. This novel is excellently done.

2. Blindsight, Peter Watts. Watts' latest is equally impressive. Continuing with the theme he first explored in Starfish, Watts examines how humans with extreme physiological and psychological conditions react to dramatic situations. The characters include the narrator, whose childhood brain surgery left him emotionally stunted but capable of processing and relaying extremely complex information between parties, a language expert who gains her skills from an induced multiple personality disorder, two men who have deconstructed their bodies to allow for robotic interfacing, a super-soldier, and a genetically reengineered vampire. They are sent out to explore an alien artifact that has appeared on the edge of the solar system. Even the nature of the aliens and their interactions with the humans is done better here than in most novels of first contact, but it's Watts' treatment of the "aliens among us" idea that is truly original. Not to mention his technical research, which he summarizes in an amazingly detailed afterword, complete with references to peer-reviewed research source materials.

3. Pushing Ice, Alastair Reynolds. Reynolds' novels are less about exploring questions of human nature or the implications of technology than they are straight-up space opera spectaculars. His prose can be hammy and his characters flimsy, but somehow that doesn't make his books any easier to put down. I've liked some of his novels more than others; this is my favorite to date. The comet mining ship The Rockhopper is sent in pursuit of an errant satellite of Saturn, now revealed to be an alien vessel on a fast track out of the solar system. Things go wrong, as they invariably do in any good thriller, and the crew is forced to deal with a much longer trip than any of them had expected. The action in the novel centers around the threats to survival for the crew and the ongoing conflict between the ship's captain and her talented engineer. The overall result is the perfect summertime read for the space opera fan.

4. Glasshouse, Charles Stross. Stross is a prolific writer and the results are hit or miss with me. This is a hit, perhaps his strongest novel yet (though The Atrocity Archives and its sequel were a lot of quirky fun). Glasshouse is another far-future look at a society in which everything -- human bodies, memories, environments -- can be ordered up and changed at will. This is a fruitful topic for SF authors these days, and Stross offers up his vision of the result: a war propagated by a virus that erases memories of the cause of the conflict, machines that can dial in new bodies at will, dueling (with restoration of the body and mind after the death from a recent memory backup) as a way to relieve stress. In the story, the main character, who believes he has a violent past he can't recall and wants to escape, enrolls in a study program that purports to be trying to understand "dark ages" history (namely, the 1950s) by creating a complete archaic society populated by other test subjects. He quickly discovers that the study may have a more sinister purpose and may be harder to exit than originally thought. This novel is entertaining like the Reynolds, but with a bit more of the depth of the Schroeder and the Watts.

These are just the books I've read in the past few weeks, but with authors like Vernor Vinge, Chris Moriarty, Richard Morgan, Robert Charles Wilson, and Kage Baker, to name a few, regularly putting out great work, science fiction is thriving.

Beautiful books

A few weeks ago, the NYT had an article (now behind the TimesSelect firewall but here is a reprint) about a book, Atlas of Creation, that has been mailed to a number of biology professors and natural history museums around the country. It is a gorgeous, expensively-produced argument for creationism from a Muslim author, Adnan Oktar. A few of the recipients were unsure of what to do with it. As one professor put it, he was "just astounded at its size and production values and equally astonished at what a load of crap it is." (Here are some scanned images.)

I sympathize. As an old friend of mine used to put it, "I do judge a book by its cover." The heavy stock paper, the sewn binding, the cloth or leather cover: there is something so sensuous about handling and reading a well-crafted book. Unfortunately, the sensation often extends to sore muscles, as these tend to be heavy.

I don't have many truly beautiful books, but I have a few:

The Riverside Chaucer. From its gorgeous cover illustration to its smooth, white pages, this is one beautiful book.

Essays of Montaigne. The Amazon image is sadly dull, but the hardcover edition of Frame's Essays of Montaigne is a pleasure to read.

The Complete Far Side. Weighing in at 17 pounds, this is a set that calls out for the purchase of a dictionary stand. That would give one time to appreciate the outstanding illustrations before one's arm strength gave out.