[Book Reviews] "Everfair" and "Swimming to Antarctica"

[thewronghands]

Two books I read recently that I really liked:

Comments

Cold water

[girl_on_a_stick]

Swimming to Antartica looks good *adds to list*

Really neat video of an incredible female freediver under ice:
https://vimeo.com/181027959

I actually enjoy freediving in cold water, provided I can get warm after. Freedivers are also really contributing to our understanding of how the human body reacts to the cold, recently a group volunteered to undergo brain scans before and after dives.

Re: Cold water

[thewronghands]

I think you'd like it! Thanks for the video link... wow, it's brave to go under the ice. How the human body reacts to cold is a hot topic at the moment, apparently -- elsejournal a bunch of my friends are discussing the Dutch "Iceman" and his world records/breathing techniques. I would be surprised if there weren't some overlap with freediving.

[wire_mother]

I'd point out that most steampunk is explicitly anti-colonialist, anti-racist, and radically egalitarian. See, e.g., SteamPunk Magazine's FAQ, "We are… dedicated to a steampunk that is fiercely anti-colonial, anti-racist, and pro-gender-diversity. We’ve no interest in glorifying the rulers of our society any further." A lot of it is, in fact, anarchist in orientation. Google "anti-colonial steampunk" or "anarchist steampunk" for further reading. I'm sure that there are some authors out there whose stories are unreflectively along the lines of "white tourist/adventurers among the benighted people of color", but there's definitely a political consciousness and awareness involved in the subcultural movement as a whole.