Ooh, Jane Jacobs! I just learned about her from the Origin Story podcast about 15 minute cities. I see you can do walks in Toronto based on her writings (she moved there after she got arrested protesting developers in New York.
According to the podcast, she spent a lot of her childhood having Jefferson, Franklin, and a Saxon warrior called Cerdic as imaginary friends to whom she’d be explaining the modern world, discussing why things were the way they were, and so on. Sounds like a childhood well spent.
Funny, I just read an article that sort of excoriated her that on the topic of why she moved to Canada said they moved when her sons were draft age in the late 60's to avoid them getting drafted.
Jane Jacobs has been so widely ignored in practice because the people she (largely correctly, IMHO) identifies as sources of destructive action have immediate economic and social clout. It takes a lot to weaken them enough that people advocating alternatives can get any leverage. The story is long and depressing.
I blew through a re-read of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, enjoying it and being disappointed and/or annoyed by parts of it as ever. Mister, we could use a man like Marcus Aurelius again.
I’m currently listening to Worlds of Exile and Illusion by Ursula K. Le Guin, an omnibus of the first three Hainish novels, Rocannon’s World, Planet Of Exile, and City Of Illusions. Ahh, these are such a pleasure. It’s been so long since I read them. Even early in, Le Guin was superb. It looks like I may be alternating Le Guin and Tolkien do a while.
I finished reading Maddox's Halo. Really a shame that he only wrote one novel. It packs a lot of questions into its short length, and the author clearly did some heavy reading as part of the creation process. From it I learned that the Uncanny Valley term comes from the roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970.
Now it's over to the golden age of sci-fi with Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. Never read it before.
My search for books by Jane Jacobs in the library because of this thread led me to A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska, which are the memoirs of a lady called Hannah Breece who taught in various schools in Alaska in the early 20th century. Jacobs was her niece and edited the book, including a foreword and several notes.
It’s a very impressive read, because Breece was clearly an outstanding teacher who got on very well with pupils from a wide range of backgrounds, such as Russian (the Alaska purchase had only happened 40 years earlier) and indigenous (mainly Aleut, Tlingit, and De’daina). She’s remarkably casual about the number of times she nearly died (falling through ice, generally) and is careful not to mention some of her tribulations (such as having a racist boss who was big on residential schools and general eradication of indigenous culture, or dealing with swindlers and criminals).
Just read Absolute Wonder Woman vol 1, which is an absolute masterpiece by Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman. The writer takes the premise of the Absolute universe - Darkseid has twisted and reset the DC universe so that evil is in charge - and makes Diana the logical response to this, a child raised in Tartarus without her Amazon heritage but who is nonetheless overwhelmingly kind and compassionate, a heroine steeped in mythology and magic who is determined to fight injustice in every way. Everything the Azzarello run wasn’t and should have been. Full marks.
The first chapters were some of the strongest I've ever read - I was INSTANTLY hooked. So good. I also enjoyed how effortless the worldbuilding was woven in the tight and fast-paced plot, exposition done right.
But in the middle it kinda lost its steam a bit, some characters developed in such a sudden and jarring faction and the plot took SUCH an unexpected turn, I had to get used to it.
When the term "vomit zombie" was utterred for the first time, I needed a hundred pages to adjust my expectations and accept in what direction this story goes
And not just the general story direction, the whole dimension of the story. I understand now why it is categorized as "space opera". In the finale
Earth fires their COMPLETE nuclear arsenal on the asteroid full with alien life that is threating all human life.
In other series, this would be the grand finale of the last volume, here it is basically only the prelude? I am sooo curious in what direction this series will go now.
Regarding the sudden character development: Miller and Holden went from grounded realistic characters to almost caricatures in a few chapters (Millers silly hat should've been a warning to me), and the whole "Alien" like blue-collar crew of Holden and the surrounding "low-level grounded" vibe went away so quickly when the crew act as a highly-trained military crew who wins every combat no matter how dire the chances are. Seriously, why are they so good at space warfare when most of them have never fought a single battle before?
But the space warfare is so damn good. The battle where the Roci crew tries to overcome the defensive force of a black op research facility was SO good. It feels "realistic" and is exciting and even when I criticize where the crew sudden got their combat proficiency - It is so exciting to read about it in combat. Its competency porn. A crew working good together to overcome all odds. So fun.
I am definitely excitied in what direction the conflict in this series will develop as the stakes are MUCH higher than I anticipated in the beginning.
reviewcanada.ca
