Winter Reading
So this winter break I've been keeping busy with fiction and nonfiction.
I first read Swamplandia, which was interesting but the change in tone with the pov chapters gave me a bit of mood whiplash. It's interesting, but I expected it to be lighter than what it ended up being. Still kind of worthwhile though. I think HBO bought rights to it? Seems like it would make an interesting show, though I already associate the feel of it to a junior True Blood sans the sex and blood.
I also read a plethora of election/political books from Game Change to The Selling of the President to the Making of a President 1964 to Nixonland. Game Change drew my attention because of the (again) tv adaptation that is being talked about. It didn't give me any new insights really, but was still interesting for the ground -level view of a campaign. That was so interesting in fact that I picked up Selling the President, which was a bit despairing in terms of showing how media driven campaigns are. You get a sense of how unpleasant Nixon was as a person and how this is hidden over by the media apparatus manipulated by Ailes et al. Since this was just and undertone in McGinniss' book, I tried Nixonland again which kind of disabused me of some of the impressions I had about the mid to late 60s. For instance, I ignorantly saw Civil Rights Act of '64 as the top of the proverbial mountain where in fact, duh there was a lot more complexity involved with regards to a practical dismantling of segregation (which continued in it's de jure form in some places in the South for a while), for example and a lot more. It definitely lead me to think I need to pick up a history book on the Civil Rights Movement to get a better sense of context, both before and after.
Lastly I just finished God's War and Infidel this week. So awesome. I had heard of God's War for a bit in sci fi blogs and knew it was well-received. It made so many end of the year best-of-sci-fi lists that I tried it. My goodness! The heroine Nyx is fucking amazing. She's a bounty hunter, former assassin of this wartorn world, which is different from your futuristic sci fi in that it's culturally coded as middle eastern-influenced (lots of desert landscapes, liberal wearing of tunics, dhoti, etc a religions that closely resemble Islam though it's not mentioned). The technology in the world is driven by bugs which can be manipulated by talented individuals. The writer, Kameron Hurley, makes it all seem natural and organic though. The books are very violent and in that and the sheer tenacity (and roughness) of Nyx, I was reminded of the Acts of Caine books (another Character of color himself), but the Caine saga doesn't really have a good track record with women and it devolves into heavy philosophizing that leaves the plot on the side. Infidel, while not being as strong as God's War, does keep a focus on the action at least. Oh and there are a lot of badass women in it with different levels of baddassery (aka not all of them are sword-wielding action dames). I'm looking forward to the next book. Sad though that something like this would never appear in a movie. T_T It's funny that Hurley mentioned Pitch Black as an influence, because the feel really reminds me of that movie.
I first read Swamplandia, which was interesting but the change in tone with the pov chapters gave me a bit of mood whiplash. It's interesting, but I expected it to be lighter than what it ended up being. Still kind of worthwhile though. I think HBO bought rights to it? Seems like it would make an interesting show, though I already associate the feel of it to a junior True Blood sans the sex and blood.
I also read a plethora of election/political books from Game Change to The Selling of the President to the Making of a President 1964 to Nixonland. Game Change drew my attention because of the (again) tv adaptation that is being talked about. It didn't give me any new insights really, but was still interesting for the ground -level view of a campaign. That was so interesting in fact that I picked up Selling the President, which was a bit despairing in terms of showing how media driven campaigns are. You get a sense of how unpleasant Nixon was as a person and how this is hidden over by the media apparatus manipulated by Ailes et al. Since this was just and undertone in McGinniss' book, I tried Nixonland again which kind of disabused me of some of the impressions I had about the mid to late 60s. For instance, I ignorantly saw Civil Rights Act of '64 as the top of the proverbial mountain where in fact, duh there was a lot more complexity involved with regards to a practical dismantling of segregation (which continued in it's de jure form in some places in the South for a while), for example and a lot more. It definitely lead me to think I need to pick up a history book on the Civil Rights Movement to get a better sense of context, both before and after.
Lastly I just finished God's War and Infidel this week. So awesome. I had heard of God's War for a bit in sci fi blogs and knew it was well-received. It made so many end of the year best-of-sci-fi lists that I tried it. My goodness! The heroine Nyx is fucking amazing. She's a bounty hunter, former assassin of this wartorn world, which is different from your futuristic sci fi in that it's culturally coded as middle eastern-influenced (lots of desert landscapes, liberal wearing of tunics, dhoti, etc a religions that closely resemble Islam though it's not mentioned). The technology in the world is driven by bugs which can be manipulated by talented individuals. The writer, Kameron Hurley, makes it all seem natural and organic though. The books are very violent and in that and the sheer tenacity (and roughness) of Nyx, I was reminded of the Acts of Caine books (another Character of color himself), but the Caine saga doesn't really have a good track record with women and it devolves into heavy philosophizing that leaves the plot on the side. Infidel, while not being as strong as God's War, does keep a focus on the action at least. Oh and there are a lot of badass women in it with different levels of baddassery (aka not all of them are sword-wielding action dames). I'm looking forward to the next book. Sad though that something like this would never appear in a movie. T_T It's funny that Hurley mentioned Pitch Black as an influence, because the feel really reminds me of that movie.