324 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
324 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
[1]
|
||
|
||
• [2]Now
|
||
• [3]Giving
|
||
• [4]Offsets
|
||
• [5]About Me
|
||
|
||
Some Favorite Reads From 2022
|
||
|
||
January 15, 2023
|
||
|
||
Another year, and another [6]blog post (singular). Oh well. I always have
|
||
aspirations to publish more! But you know, one of the joys of being
|
||
semi-retired is not having to do anything. You know, it’s been a hard few
|
||
years. So I tried to take it easy on myself in 2022. I spent a lot of time
|
||
exploring, a lot of time reflecting, and a good bit of time just doing whatever
|
||
felt right at the time.
|
||
|
||
For example, going on a road trip with my mountain bike
|
||
|
||
Recently I’ve been reflecting on some of my favorite things from last year.
|
||
Maybe as a way to focus on the positive. Maybe as a way to keep track of time
|
||
in our time sick world. Maybe just to get back into the habit of writing. So
|
||
here’s some of my favorite reads of 2022.
|
||
|
||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||
|
||
Books
|
||
|
||
I really enjoy reading, but this year I kind of gave myself a pass on anything
|
||
too serious — mostly sticking to my trusty home base of science fiction.
|
||
|
||
• [7] [this-is-ho]
|
||
|
||
This is How You Lose The Time War
|
||
|
||
• [8] [rendevous-]
|
||
|
||
Rendevous with Rama
|
||
|
||
• [9] [elder-race]
|
||
|
||
Elder Race
|
||
|
||
• [10] [artifact-s]
|
||
|
||
Artifact Space
|
||
|
||
Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone’s [11]This is How You Lose the Time War
|
||
|
||
From the publisher:
|
||
|
||
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a
|
||
letter. It reads: Burn before reading.
|
||
|
||
Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on
|
||
securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what
|
||
began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something
|
||
epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the
|
||
future.
|
||
|
||
I fucking loved this book. I started it based on a recommendation from a
|
||
friend, and didn’t really look into it much before I started. This book is much
|
||
less about the plot (which is a play off The End of Eternity) and more about
|
||
the writing and world building. The best way I could describe it is a spy story
|
||
told through love letters in a poetic universe.
|
||
|
||
Think of birds as a comms channel I can open and close seasonally; fellow
|
||
operatives relate their work to me at the equinoxes; Garden blooms more
|
||
brightly in my belly. There’s enough traffic that it’s a simple matter to
|
||
disguise incoming and outgoing correspondence, misdirect, hide in plain
|
||
sight.
|
||
|
||
It’s also a short read, which was a nice breath of fresh air after finishing
|
||
off the Dune series prior to picking this one up. I have a feeling this is
|
||
going to be one of my most recommended books going forward.
|
||
|
||
Arthur C. Clarke’s [12]Rendevous with Rama
|
||
|
||
From the publisher:
|
||
|
||
An enormous cylindrical object has entered Earth’s solar system on a
|
||
collision course with the sun. A team of astronauts are sent to explore the
|
||
mysterious craft, which the denizens of the solar system name Rama. What
|
||
they find is astonishing evidence of a civilization far more advanced than
|
||
ours. They find an interior stretching over fifty kilometers; a forbidding
|
||
cylindrical sea; mysterious and inaccessible buildings; and strange
|
||
machine-animal hybrids, or “biots,” that inhabit the ship. But what they
|
||
don’t find is an alien presence. So who–and where–are the Ramans?
|
||
|
||
I’d never read the Rama books before, so when I heard that Denis Villeneuve was
|
||
going to be [13]tackling Rendevous with Rama, I took the opportunity to read
|
||
the whole series (Rendevous with Rama, Rama II, The Garden of Rama, and Rama
|
||
Revealed).
|
||
|
||
Rendevous with Rama is a fantastically Clarke book. A team of highly trained
|
||
professionals all work together to explore a mysterious object in space. Does
|
||
much more need to be said? This book went down like a peanut butter and jelly
|
||
sandwich. My only criticism is that it left me wanting for was more.
|
||
|
||
Rama is a cosmic egg, being warmed by the fires of the Sun. It may hatch at
|
||
any moment.
|
||
|
||
And unfortunately, there is more.
|
||
|
||
Clarke teamed up with Gentry Lee to write three more novels — Rama II, The
|
||
Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed and I all I can say is: I do not recommend
|
||
them. They are upsetting in very odd child-bride wedding night kinds of ways.
|
||
|
||
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s [14]Elder Race
|
||
|
||
From the publisher:
|
||
|
||
A junior anthropologist on a distant planet must help the locals he has
|
||
sworn to study to save a planet from an unbeatable foe.
|
||
|
||
I loved Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time, so when I heard Jason Snell offer up
|
||
Elder Race on The Incomperable, I decided to give it a go. I absolutely love
|
||
the premise of this book. It’s a singular story told from two different
|
||
viewpoints, one of them science fiction, and the other fantasy — both happening
|
||
in parallel — because the two main characters don’t share enough dialect to
|
||
explain themselves to each other.
|
||
|
||
They think I’m a wizard. They think I’m a fucking wizard. That’s what I am
|
||
to them, some weird goblin man from another time with magic powers. And I
|
||
literally do not have the language to tell them otherwise. I say,
|
||
“scientist,” “scholar,” but when I speak to them, in their language, these
|
||
are both cognates for “wizard.” I imagine myself standing there speaking to
|
||
Lyn and saying, “I’m not a wizard; I’m a wizard, or at best a wizard.” It’s
|
||
not funny.
|
||
|
||
And who doesn’t love an old, cranky wizard anthropologist?
|
||
|
||
Miles Cameron’s [15]Artifact Space
|
||
|
||
From the publisher:
|
||
|
||
Out in the darkness of space, something is targeting the Greatships.
|
||
|
||
With their vast cargo holds and a crew that could fill a city, the
|
||
Greatships are the lifeblood of human occupied space, transporting an
|
||
unimaginable volume - and value - of goods from City, the greatest human
|
||
orbital, all the way to Tradepoint at the other, to trade for xenoglas with
|
||
an unknowable alien species.
|
||
|
||
This was another recommendation from a friend, and I’m glad I picked it up. At
|
||
it’s core, it’s about highly competent people all working together, pushing
|
||
their limits, and achieving success. It’s the kind of genre someone once
|
||
described to me as competency porn — Star Trek: The Next Generation being the
|
||
ultimate example.
|
||
|
||
There was very little drama in Space Operations. In fact, every station
|
||
projected an elaborate aura of calm, as if they were competing to be dry
|
||
and emotionless. No one swore, no one spat, no one was angry or afraid.
|
||
Nbaro loved it.
|
||
|
||
This book pulls from a lot of familiar ideas — the Greatships are an obvious
|
||
call back to Battlestars, while a lot of the socialist themes call back to Star
|
||
Trek’s economy. My biggest criticism of this book is the maddening way Cameron
|
||
switches back and forth between using character’s first and last names — even
|
||
within the same scene! It makes it incredibly difficult to keep track of who is
|
||
who with such a large cast, and toward the end I caught myself not even
|
||
remembering who a certain person was.
|
||
|
||
Dennis E. Taylor’s [16]Heaven’s River (Audiobook)
|
||
|
||
From the publisher:
|
||
|
||
More than a hundred years ago, Bender set out for the stars and was never
|
||
heard from again. There has been no trace of him despite numerous searches
|
||
by his clone-mates. Now Bob is determined to organize an expedition to
|
||
learn Bender’s fate—whatever the cost.
|
||
|
||
The Bobiverse is probably my favorite audiobook series of all time. It’s all a
|
||
part of a grand space opera spanning the galaxy… but also pretty sarcastic and
|
||
silly? Ray Porter does an amazing job of narrating these books, and is a large
|
||
part of why I enjoy them so much.
|
||
|
||
Heaven’s River finds a way to pull the series back from the infinite and
|
||
focuses back down on a single planet for a great little beaver adventure.
|
||
|
||
Well, space beavers.
|
||
|
||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||
|
||
Even More Books
|
||
|
||
Neal Stephenson’s [17]Termination Shock: Okay, I actually like Stephenson, and
|
||
this is a very good book about the inevitable future of Geoengineering and it’s
|
||
political consequences. Coupled with a very weird Queen fetish. It’s weird.
|
||
Weird enough to take away from the story line. But if the climate angle of the
|
||
book interests you — I highly recommend [18]After Geoengineering as a
|
||
follow-up.
|
||
|
||
Baoshu’s [19]The Redemption of Time: A semi-official 4th book of the Three Body
|
||
Problem. This is a great continuation of the series, and a good way to answer
|
||
some lingering questions about the Trisolarians.
|
||
|
||
Frank Herbert’s [20]Heretics of Dune (Dune 5): I was a little shocked at how
|
||
much I loved this book. I mean, I love Dune. But this one ended up being one of
|
||
my favorites of the series. Great new characters, new technologies, and a whole
|
||
new set of powers for the Atreides genetics.
|
||
|
||
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s [21]Children of Time: This was actually a re-read in
|
||
preparation of reading Children of Ruin and the upcoming Children of Memory.
|
||
What can I say? It’s one of my favorite science fiction books of all time —
|
||
even if only for the worldbuilding. Sentient spiders? Sentient spiders!
|
||
|
||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||
|
||
Newsletters
|
||
|
||
Alex Steffen’s [22]The Snap Forward
|
||
|
||
From [23]Discontinuity is the Job:
|
||
|
||
To be alive right now is to find ourselves flattened against the fact that
|
||
the entire human world—our cities and infrastructure, our economy and
|
||
education system, our farms and factories, our laws and politics—was built
|
||
for a different planet.
|
||
|
||
I can’t remember exactly how I stumbled on Alex Steffen’s The Snap Forward but
|
||
the idea instantly clicked with me. His newsletter focuses on how climate has
|
||
affected our infrastructure, our society, and our relationship to the world. I
|
||
love his newsletter because it makes me feel more sane in a world that keeps
|
||
trying to sell a new carbon offset marketplace as the solution.
|
||
|
||
From [24]Tempo, Timing, and the Translucence of the Future
|
||
|
||
The tempo of change, and our refusal to acknowledge its acceleration, has
|
||
turned our visions of continuity, stability and value into fantasy worlds.
|
||
We’re cosplaying people who live in past decades before discontinuity ate
|
||
our societies.
|
||
|
||
I wouldn’t classify The Snap Forward as doomerism, either. It’s a focus on
|
||
accepting the world as it is and looking for solutions within that framework.
|
||
Even if all emissions were cut to zero tomorrow, we’d still be facing a myriad
|
||
of very challenging futures. What do we do with that knowledge? How do we
|
||
prepare for the transapocalyptic now?
|
||
|
||
Matt Levine’s [25]Money Stuff
|
||
|
||
I’ve been reading Money Stuff for a few years now, and I can’t really put my
|
||
thumb on why I love it so much. Sure, it’s about finance… but kind of the weird
|
||
stuff in finance. More about the cogs of the machinery and the weird
|
||
personalities in the news than it is about whether the S&P 500 is going to go
|
||
up or down next week.
|
||
|
||
From [26]FTX’s Balance Sheet Was Bad:
|
||
|
||
But then there is the “Hidden, poorly internally labeled ‘fiat@’ account,”
|
||
with a balance of negative $8 billion. I don’t actually think that you’re
|
||
supposed to subtract that number from net equity — though I do not know how
|
||
this balance sheet is supposed to work! — but it doesn’t matter. If you try
|
||
to calculate the equity of a balance sheet with an entry for HIDDEN POORLY
|
||
INTERNALLY LABELED ACCOUNT, Microsoft Clippy will appear before you in the
|
||
flesh, bloodshot and staggering, with a knife in his little paper-clip
|
||
hand, saying “just what do you think you’re doing Dave?” You cannot apply
|
||
ordinary arithmetic to numbers in a cell labeled “HIDDEN POORLY INTERNALLY
|
||
LABELED ACCOUNT.” The result of adding or subtracting those numbers with
|
||
ordinary numbers is not a number; it is prison.
|
||
|
||
It’s an understatement to say I don’t love finance, but I do enjoy me some
|
||
Money Stuff.
|
||
|
||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||
|
||
What’s Next?
|
||
|
||
I’ve really been enjoying re-visiting some of my favorite authors and finishing
|
||
off big series I never quite got around to. Last year I finally finished off
|
||
the whole of Frank Herbert’s Dune (never having read 5 & 6 before), and this
|
||
year I’m getting the itch to do the same for Foundation. To be frank, I don’t
|
||
even remember where I ended with that series. But it does feel like a good
|
||
opportunity to maybe just re-visit the entirety of the Asimov Universe… [27]in
|
||
chronological order. I’m also getting a terrible itch to revisit a bunch of
|
||
Vonnegut’s work after watching the excellent [28]Unstuck in Time. But I like
|
||
new authors too!
|
||
|
||
I’m also interested in finding more books and newsletters about… I guess you’d
|
||
call it urban design. Stuff like [29]Strong Towns and other sources of how to
|
||
adapt our cities into resilient communities. I actually have background in city
|
||
planning from my Civil Engineering days, but I feel like there’s been a big
|
||
surge in new thinking that goes farther than the YIMBY/NIMBY noise of the past
|
||
decade.
|
||
|
||
Have some recommendations? Hit me up on Mastadon: [30]@kneath@indieweb.social.
|
||
|
||
Est. 2003 • Do Hard Things • Build. Learn. Explore.
|
||
|
||
|
||
References:
|
||
|
||
[1] https://warpspire.com/
|
||
[2] https://warpspire.com/now
|
||
[3] https://warpspire.com/giving
|
||
[4] https://warpspire.com/offset
|
||
[5] https://warpspire.com/about
|
||
[6] https://warpspire.com/posts/money-pit
|
||
[7] https://bookshop.org/p/books/this-is-how-you-lose-the-time-war-amal-el-mohtar/18270911?aid=13508&ean=9781534430990&gclid=CjwKCAiAy_CcBhBeEiwAcoMRHMYspqPk88ZoP8--CUUbXYfJi5-1npSPEUSq-QroPTijJK-cIC1CAxoCIGsQAvD_BwE&listref=this-is-how-you-lose-the-time-war
|
||
[8] https://bookshop.org/p/books/rendezvous-with-rama-arthur-c-clarke/8296887?ean=9780358380221
|
||
[9] https://bookshop.org/p/books/elder-race-adrian-tchaikovsky/15877279
|
||
[10] https://bookshop.org/p/books/artifact-space-miles-cameron/18367466?ean=9781473232617
|
||
[11] https://bookshop.org/p/books/this-is-how-you-lose-the-time-war-amal-el-mohtar/18270911?aid=13508&ean=9781534430990&gclid=CjwKCAiAy_CcBhBeEiwAcoMRHMYspqPk88ZoP8--CUUbXYfJi5-1npSPEUSq-QroPTijJK-cIC1CAxoCIGsQAvD_BwE&listref=this-is-how-you-lose-the-time-war
|
||
[12] https://bookshop.org/p/books/rendezvous-with-rama-arthur-c-clarke/8296887?ean=9780358380221
|
||
[13] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/denis-villeneuve-rendezvous-with-rama-movie-1235062337/
|
||
[14] https://bookshop.org/p/books/elder-race-adrian-tchaikovsky/15877279
|
||
[15] https://bookshop.org/p/books/artifact-space-miles-cameron/18367466?ean=9781473232617
|
||
[16] https://www.amazon.com/Heavens-River-Bobiverse-Book-4/dp/B088C51F5H/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
|
||
[17] https://bookshop.org/p/books/termination-shock-neal-stephenson/18272978?ean=9780063028067
|
||
[18] https://bookshop.org/books/after-geoengineering-climate-tragedy-repair-and-restoration/9781788730365
|
||
[19] https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-redemption-of-time-a-three-body-problem-novel-baoshu/6986329?ean=9781250306005
|
||
[20] https://bookshop.org/p/books/heretics-of-dune-frank-herbert/7513860?ean=9780593098264
|
||
[21] https://bookshop.org/p/books/children-of-time-adrian-tchaikovsky/113411?ean=9780316452502
|
||
[22] https://alexsteffen.substack.com/
|
||
[23] https://alexsteffen.substack.com/p/discontinuity-is-the-job
|
||
[24] https://alexsteffen.substack.com/p/tempo-timing-and-the-translucence
|
||
[25] https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/money-stuff
|
||
[26] https://newsletters.feedbinusercontent.com/818/8185a1196937308adee75e80f544a29a36b34a5f.html
|
||
[27] https://gist.github.com/kneath/27a2772f5e1871e3c314ef05a4cacd44
|
||
[28] https://www.vonnegutmovie.com/
|
||
[29] https://www.strongtowns.org/
|
||
[30] https://indieweb.social/@kneath
|