Monthly Archives: January 2018

Books

“Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance” by Lois Bujold (2012)

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(This is 2018 Reading Challenge Book #1.) 

I still love the “Vorkosigan Saga” books, but recent events have caused me to reflect more on what is in them and I am finding some aspects uncomfortable. I had tried reading the “Ivan Book” once before and gave up halfway through, but this time I knew I had to power on and it was worth it, in the end. We have a fun, if meandering, science fiction adventure which ends with a literal bang. Ivan isn’t my favorite protagonist as he just lets things happen to him much of the time, but when he needs to be crafty, he is. Tej, the second viewpoint character, is craftier but she gets completely subsumed when her family reappears in the midpoint of the book. (I had given up just prior to that point, during a long section of continuity-porn as Ivan had to interact with as many of the established Vor Saga characters as possible.) That said, I love her love of languages and only wish that Ms. Bujold had gone deeper into how languages evolved on the planet… but maybe no one else wants that.

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Books

My 2018 Reading Challenge

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Stated briefly: I don’t read enough anymore. In my youth, I could eat books like candy and go through multiple novels a day. Now, I hardly read at all except for research. Most of my information today gets digested in podcasts and audiobooks. In 2018, I want to change that. Naturally, I want to do it in an overly-complicated way.

My goal will be to read 24 books, fiction or nonfiction. Not that many, still doable even with a schedule of work, teaching, blogging, and family time. I’ve decided to select the books by somewhat randomly rotating through four categories:

  1. Books my wife recommends. She gets the lion’s share and she has never led me wrong before.
  2. Books that I want to read. This consists of a few that have been on my list for years (“Journey to the West” as a prime example) as well as books written by my friends. I am gifted to know many authors and a few I have not read more than a sampling of their work.
  3. Books that I buy. I am not permitted to buy any books this year which I will not read. For that reason, I already have “The Storm Before the Storm” by Mike Duncan on the reading list, as well as the new “Fire and Fury”. I am also going to randomly pick out books that I own but have never got around to reading.
  4. Finally, but most importantly, books selected by my friends earlier this year. Since they suggested 50 books, far more than I may get to, I have an overly complicated process for randomly picking which I will read.

As I read each one, I will write a little thing– not a full fledged book review, but my thoughts. This may interest no one but me, but writing it will help me to cement the book in my brain before moving onto the next one. I want to make sure that I savor each one, not just consume and throw away.

Onward to the first book: “Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance” by Lois Bujold (2012), selected by my wife. (Always the right way to start!)

Books, The Adventure Gamer

“Tom Swift and His Atomic Earth Blaster” by Jim Lawrence (1954)

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As I prepare to play Seastalker for The Adventure Gamer, I am continuing to read Jim Lawrence’s earlier juvenile fiction. Last month, I took a look at my first Hardy Boys story, The Ghost at Skeleton Rock. This time, I wanted to jump back to Mr. Lawrence’s very first (that I have been able to find) published novel, 1954’s Tom Swift and His Atomic Earth Blaster.

Tom Swift was, like the Hardy Boys, a Stratemeyer Syndicate series. Like all Syndicate series, Tom Swift stories were written by a pseudonym consisting of a collection of writers and editors rather than a specific individual. Individual stories could be outlined by one author, written by a second, and edited by a third before having a finished product. (And, in a few cases, completely rewritten by a fourth for re-releases.) Tom Swift stories were actually among the oldest of the series, with the first novel, Tom Swift and his Motorcycle, published in 1910. In these early stories, Tom Swift was an adventurer and inventor who solved problems using the power of his intellect and his increasingly sci-fi inventions. Unlike most of the later series, Tom Swift was allowed to age over the course of his adventurers, eventually getting married and having a son, Tom Swift Jr. His son then became the star of the stories from the 1950s onward, although from that point the characters did not continue to age through their original runs. The original continuity ended in 1971 although three further Tom Swift series were released through the mid-00s. It’s likely the stories will be picked up again.

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