Loki As Philosopher; Brave Max; Aurora Women

[maribou]

Come As You Are, by Emily NagoskiSo when I read this I was all "Well, this is extremely interesting because it has case studies and stuff but I already knew most of the science and it's not like I have EVER had any issues having orgasms." Then like a month later I went on a new medication and I had to relearn how to have an orgasm (until that side

Comments

[randomdreams]

I will have to remember "your dreams are a crock and won't work."

[maribou]

It's a pretty good genre though sometimes (not in this case, IMO) it gets rather depressing. Also good is "your dreams are a crock, would turn out to be nightmares, but are still weirdly attractive even once I've debunked them" (cf. much of Octavia Butler though I'm oversimplyifing a bit).

[gfish]

Yesyesyesyes to Philosopher Kings. Or anything Jo Walton has written, really.

I found Aurora to be a particularly powerful rebuttal to Seveneves, even if it wasn't intended that way.

[maribou]

Having been warned off Seveneves as possibly ruining Stevenson for me, I haven't read it yet. (I have a lot more Stevenson to read first, at least.) Did you like it?

Also, do you listen to the Coode Street Podcast at all? I really enjoyed their interview of KSR earlier this year (and all Jonathan Strahan's subsequent burbling about Aurora in other episodes). One point they've made a lot since it came out is how much it engages with / rebuts specific bits of the whole generation starship tradition (even if other people have since attempted to rebut the rebuttals).

[gfish]

I liked the first 2/3rds, in a frenetic, pulpy romp that doesn't stand up to close scrutiny kind of way. And then it makes a big jump and I was far less into it. The last bit is really the focus of the book, with the first bit just being there so you can understand the founding mythology of the culture. (Imagine if we had had years of high resolution video of Jesus and all the apostles for the last 2000 years, and how deeply that would inform our culture.) And it just didn't really work for me. So much of the biology is almost childishly naive, particularly in comparison with Aurora.

That aspect of Aurora, how strongly it makes a statement in the history of generation ships, is what really blew me away. SF needs a lot more of that kind of nuanced, modern understanding of complexity!