![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It’s looking a bit grim, isn’t it?
My reading pace, I mean.
Ah well. At least I’m enjoying myself.
Can You Feel Anything When I Do This? by Robert SheckleyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
After reading and enjoying two novels from Robert Sheckley, this is my first time trying out his short stories. This collection, published in 1971, illustrates clearly that while Sheckley was known mainly for science fiction, he also expanded his absurdist take into modern-day social satire and surrealist dream worlds.
This collection starts off with a woman being courted by an AI-powered vacuum cleaner and ends with a satire on two-fisted Golden Age SF in which veteran space Johnny Draxton is saddled with a green co-pilot. In between, we have a space explorer matching wits with a logical security robot, literal deals with the devil, a doctor creating hybrid monstrosities in his Mexico City apartment, a time traveller selling cures for a plague that hasn’t broken out yet and a Rashoman-style story of a regular customer in a failing Indonesian restaurant.
The main consistent thread is Sheckley’s penchant for the absurd, which he deploys to good effect through most of these. Like with most collections, a few don’t quite work for me, and some linger in the memory more than others, but at least I was entertained while I was there. I will say the story "Cordle to Onion to Carrot" – in which a guy tries to improve his life by becoming a complete asshole to everyone over the slightest inconvenience – is practically prophetic, given how things seem to be going in America in 2025.
View all my reviews
Feel me,
This is dF
Well, look, you get what you pay for.
War with the Newts by Karel Čapek
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Though I’ve known for some time that Karel Čapek is credited with coining the term ‘robot’, I’ve never read him before, mainly because I’ve never come across any copies of his books – until I found this, arguably his other famous SF book that doesn’t involve robots. War With The Newts is a dystopian satire centred around the discovery of an intelligent, evolved breed of sea-dwelling salamander in Indonesia.
The newts are discovered by Captain J. van Toch, who finds a capitalist backer, G.H. Bondy, to exploit the newts’ talent for pearl-diving and their ability to learn speech and use tools. As the newts multiply exponentially and absorb human culture, Bondy eventually expands the operation into the “Salamander Syndicate” that turns the newts into a global hydroengineering workforce for hire – or, in plain terms, slaves. The newts are simultaneously exploited, exoticized and fetishized, until finally the newts decide to push back.
Along the way, Čapek uses this as a platform to satirise racist colonialism and rampant, exploitative capitalism and the politicians, media pundits and academics that facilitate and justify both. And he does it well – to the point that much of the novel still resonates today, particularly the ending, which (without giving anything away) postulates that at the end of the day, when the world is hurtling itself towards a global catastrophe of its own making, sooner or later, it’s going to be your problem, and you’ll have to pick a side.
View all my reviews
This means war,
This is dF
War with the Newts by Karel ČapekMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Though I’ve known for some time that Karel Čapek is credited with coining the term ‘robot’, I’ve never read him before, mainly because I’ve never come across any copies of his books – until I found this, arguably his other famous SF book that doesn’t involve robots. War With The Newts is a dystopian satire centred around the discovery of an intelligent, evolved breed of sea-dwelling salamander in Indonesia.
The newts are discovered by Captain J. van Toch, who finds a capitalist backer, G.H. Bondy, to exploit the newts’ talent for pearl-diving and their ability to learn speech and use tools. As the newts multiply exponentially and absorb human culture, Bondy eventually expands the operation into the “Salamander Syndicate” that turns the newts into a global hydroengineering workforce for hire – or, in plain terms, slaves. The newts are simultaneously exploited, exoticized and fetishized, until finally the newts decide to push back.
Along the way, Čapek uses this as a platform to satirise racist colonialism and rampant, exploitative capitalism and the politicians, media pundits and academics that facilitate and justify both. And he does it well – to the point that much of the novel still resonates today, particularly the ending, which (without giving anything away) postulates that at the end of the day, when the world is hurtling itself towards a global catastrophe of its own making, sooner or later, it’s going to be your problem, and you’ll have to pick a side.
View all my reviews
This means war,
This is dF
Starting late on this year’s series, mainly because I spent most of January either moving or being sick with a headcold. Which is as well since I only managed to read one book that month anyway. Hopefully normal service resumes as of now.
Beyond a Binary God: A Theology for Trans* Allies by Tara K. SoughersMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was assigned reading for a class, and I’m glad it was, because I fully admit to being rather ignorant on the whole transgender topic to the point that I tend to stay out of debates about it. To be clear, I have always believed that trans people should be treated with love, dignity and respect – I mean, that’s just an obvious baseline to me. But a lot of the debate tends to focus either on the science of gender, the whole TERF thing, the supposed Biblical arguments against trans people, or the political trappings that these views tend to be wrapped in. I don’t know enough about it to argue on those levels, and I’m disinclined to debate about stuff I don’t know anything about. And while I’d like to educate myself, it’s hard to find reliable information or know what sources to trust, given the aforementioned political tropes and the general state of disinformation.
Anyway, Tara Soughers wrote this book after finding out that her 20-year-old daughter was actually a trans man. While Soughers understood transgenderism from an academic POV, she struggled how to process it as a parent, a trans ally and an Episcopal priest. The latter was especially tricky, as very few resources were available that looked at where trans people fit into from a theological stance, apart from conservative Christians who use existing theology to persecute everyone in the LGBTQIA+ community. So Soughers decided to write her own book to explore this issue.
Consequently, the book is less of a concrete theology and more of Soughers processing her own thoughts about her trans son, the transgender community and how they might reflect God’s image (as we all do) from a theological standpoint. I can’t say how successful she is in terms of the theology, but it’s a decent start, should anyone care to listen or follow up. I do think she makes a very strong argument that God’s creation is far too complex to be reduced to binary dualities, and that people who do not fit the binary are not problems to be solved, but gifts from God to help us gain a deeper understanding of Him and ourselves. I also learned a lot about transgender studies, so there’s that. To risk stating the obvious, what others make of this will depend on what political or theological baggage they bring to the table.
The Destroyer of Worlds by Matt RuffMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I rather enjoyed Lovecraft Country, which juxtaposed Lovecraftian horror with the real-life horrors of Jim Crow America. Whereas that book employed the structure of a television series (separate self-contained stories comprising a broader story arc), The Destroyer of Worlds is more of a straightforward novel, although Ruff still juggles a number of different storylines that somehow merge by the third act.
The story kicks off with Atticus Turner and his father Horace traveling to the Swincegood plantation in North Carolina to celebrate the centenary of their ancestor Hecuba’s escape from the plantation where she was a slave (described in the prologue) by retracing her route to freedom. Things start to get weird, which may be due to Hecuba having had magical abilities.
Meanwhile, Atticus’ aunt Hippolyta is traveling to Las Vegas with teenage son Horace and her friend Letitia Dandridge to retrieve a magical item for the ghost of sorcerer Hiram Winthrop, who is currently haunting Letitia’s house. Hippolyta also intends to acquire a mystical transport unit that allows the user to travel to other planets, having done some planet hopping in the first book.
Meanwhile, her husband George – who, unbeknownst to her has been diagnosed with terminal cancer – recruits his Masonic lodge brothers to help him steal a corpse for Winthrop in exchange for a cure.
Meanwhile, Letitia’s sister Ruby, who is still using a magic potion to pass herself off as a young white woman, realises that her brother Marvin, who recently turned up on her doorstep in Chicago, may not be Marvin at all.
All of this somehow comes together in Part 3, and it more or less works, although the climax seems to come out of nowhere, as it relies on one of the story arcs that ended a third of the way through the book. Somehow it doesn’t quite match the intensity or weirdness of the first book, though that may simply be the product of The Destroyer of Worlds leveraging an established world and cast rather than building it from scratch. I also think Lovecraft Country’s episodic structure was a more effective way of juggling this many characters. Still, it’s a decent story with a solid and likeable collection of well-rounded characters, so while it may be a case of diminishing returns, it’s still entertaining.
Terminal Boredom: Stories by Izumi SuzukiMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Izumi Suzuki is a cult legend in Japan – a model and occasional actress in early 70s “pink” films who also wrote science fiction stories, and hanged herself at age 36. Her work was never translated into English until this volume was published in 2021, which is when I first heard of her. Between her bio and the fact that her SF was more in line with the western New Wave than the usual space operas and giant robots and whatnot, I was keen to give her a try.
The seven stories here cover a variety of scenarios: acts of rebellion in queer matriarchal utopias, cryogenic population control where the frozen can live in your dreams, aliens trying to live like Earthlings by referencing pop culture, relationship advice from talking furniture, rapidly ageing drug addicts, the strain of geo-planetary tensions on a human/alien couple, and teenagers that can’t distinguish television from reality. The common theme throughout the stories are anxiety, alienation and a general inability to relate to other people or society in general.
There’s a lot of neat ideas here, with varied execution, but pretty much all the characters are defined by a kind of extreme, hopeless nihilism that makes for rather bleak reading – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and Suzuki doesn’t wallow in it to the point of self-indulgence, but still, I probably would have liked this more when I was younger. Anyway, I found it interesting, but a little goes a long way, so I’m not sure how soon I’ll try her again.
View all my reviews
Chairman of the bored,
This is dF
ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE
Feb. 14th, 2025 12:41 pmIt’s Valentine’s Day again. Flippy doo!
Whether the day means anything to you or not, you’ll need a playlist.
Possibly this one.
Possibly not.
But possibly yes.
Whether the day means anything to you or not, you’ll need a playlist.
Possibly this one.
Possibly not.
But possibly yes.
Another year, another Best Albums list. Wabba dabba!!!
And yes, I’m late with this. I spent the last two weeks of 2024 looking for a new place to move to, and then spent pretty much all of January packing, moving, unpacking and so on and so forth, and then I got sick.
Did that stop me from compiling a year-end list that only three people will read? It did not. That’s how much I love you.
As for the year in music summary, apart from there being more Amelia Earhart content than usual, it seems like I picked up on more (relatively) new bands than usual this year. Still, I’m not sure that matters so much anymore. At the end of the day you like what you like, and there will always be some new band or songwriter who will qualify. The whole “is new music still any good?” meme is about as relevant to me as the “is rock and roll dead?” meme. The music is always there and always will be, and it doesn’t always have to be the life-changing bands you heard in high school/college.
As David Bowie once said, “Let’s face the music and dance.”
And so:
dEFROG’S TOP 20 ALBUMS OF 2024
A Certain Ratio
It All Comes Down To This (Mute)
13th album from English band that explored the funkier side of post-punk, and continue to do so today, if somewhat sporadically. That said, this is their third release in four years, so ACR seems to be having a renaissance moment. Last year’s 1982 was a mixed bag for me songwise, but this one seems to press the right groove buttons more often than not. I can sure dance to it, let’s put it that way.
Laurie Anderson
Amelia (Nonesuch)
This year saw not one, but two concept albums about the last flight of legendary aviator Amelia Earhart. Anderson’s approach is characteristically artistic, dreamy and kaleidoscopic, with sound effects, journal entries and inner dialogue interspersed with guest vocals from Anonhi into what is essentially one 34-minute piece comprising 22 segments. You won’t get a lot of insight into Earhart or her last flight, but then that’s like saying you won’t learn anything about Mona Lisa’s life from looking at a painting of her. Anyway, it’s captivating.
Los Bitchos
Talkie Talkie (City Slang)
Second LP from UK-based band that blends surf, psychedelia and Cumbia into one big dance party. This time around, they feed those influences into a 1980s disco, and the result is arguably even more groovy than their debut. As the title implies, there’s slightly more vocals here, but (as the title also implies) it’s more talking than singing, and there’s not all that much – it’s still mostly instrumentals, and Los Bitchos do it better than just about anyone else right now.
The Bug Club
On The Intricate Inner Workings of the System (Sub Pop)
Third LP from Welsh duo that get lumped into the current wave of “RIYL The Fall” post-punk revivalist bands (which I’m told is called Crank Wave now by order of NME), though musically it’s more like fairly straightforward indie rock with snarky observational lyrics – closer to bands like Ween (only less offensive) than, say, Yard Act. Whatever label you want to slap on it, it’s done well, and it’s a lot of fun.
John Carpenter
Lost Themes IV: Noir (Rodeo Suplex/Sacred Bones)
Fifth album from film legend John Carpenter along with son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies (son of Dave), and the fourth to serve up themes to John Carpenter films that haven’t been made yet and probably never will be. For me, it’s been diminishing returns since the first one, but this volume reverses that trend with more tracks that spark the imagination rather than tread water. Recommended mostly for people who like John Carpenter films, or at least the soundtracks (and I like both, so there you go.)
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Wild God (Play It Again Sam)
18th LP from Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds, in which Cave continues to ruminate on death (which he’s had to deal with a lot lately, especially two of his sons), but with a striking and inspiring optimism that oscillates between earthly transcendence and bubble-bursting reality checks. It’s arguably the opposite of how Cave might have approached this material 30 years ago, which is what makes the album that more surprising and moving. Calling it Cave’s “Christian” phase is probably pushing the analogy too far, and yet Cave captures his recent spiritual transformation more convincingly that a lot of mainstream Christian artists. Who would have guessed?
Electric Eel Shock
Heavy Metal Black Belt (Double Peace Records)
It’s nice to know that EES are still around – they kind of dropped off my radar after 2007’s excellent Transworld Ultra Rock, and they’ve only recorded three albums since then, including this, their ninth. Essentially it’s more of the same, which in this case is a good thing – deliberate lunkhead hard rock with a very Japanese sense of humour that most metal bands probably don’t wish they had but could certainly use. Black belts earned!
Gustaf
Package Part 2 (Royal Mountain Records)
Second album from New York no-wave band and entirely new to me. It’s probably too simple to lump them into the same category as “sounds kinda like The Fall” bands (see: Yard Act, Dry Cleaning and Wet Leg, none of which sound like The Fall, but you get what I mean), with Lydia Gammill speak-singing and whatnot. For me, it’s closer to 80s bands like Pylon, early Talking Heads or Gang of Four, or what bands like New Young Pony Club were trying to do 15 years ago. Anyway, it’s wonderfully sparse, funky art-punk with a dark, sardonic sense of humor. I dance to this on the train because I can’t help it.
Klangphonics
Perfect Opposure (Klangphonics)
First full-length from German trio mostly known for playing techno with mostly live instruments and found objects like leaf blowers, steam cleaners and blenders. And they do it so well you’d never know it from listening to this, which musically sounds like what you expect techno to sound like. In other words, if you didn’t know they were playing live, you might mistake this for just another techno album, albeit a pretty good one with decent tunes. Which is another way of saying it’s easier to appreciate what they do in a live performance than on record. Still, I do find myself getting lost in the music anyway, which is what good techno does.
Liela Moss
Transparent Eyeball (Mother Figure Records)
Liela Moss – front person for UK band The Duke Spirit – follows up last year’s wonderful Internal Working Model with her fourth solo LP that pursues a similar template of electronic pop that forms the foundation for Moss’ creative vocal arrangements. This one has more of a Gothic feel and it slightly underwhelms in comparison to Internal Working Model. On the other hand this came out late in the year and it only hit my radar a month ago, so I need to sit with it a little more. Anyway, I do like it, if only because Moss is one of those people whose voice really captivates me.
The Linda Lindas
No Obligation (Epitaph)
Second album from LA punk band that were ubiquitous three years ago after a video of them performing “Racist Sexist Boy” in a public library went viral, but lately it seems they’ve dropped off the mass pop culture radar. Or maybe I don’t keep up as much as I used to. Anyway, their latest LP shows they’re still a good punk band that’s also evolving into something relatively more mature in terms of music and perspective (they’re still teenagers, after all) as they deal with trying to forge their own identity in a world that expects them to conform to the usual expectations or live up to the hype. Which I think is why the best songs for me are the ones that deviate from the pop-punk formula.
Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets
Indoor Safari (Yep Roc)
The “Jesus of Cool” returns with his first album of new songs in 11 years, and his first full-length LP with lucha-mask surf band Los Straitjackets, who have served as his touring band for the last six or seven years. A few of these songs were released as singles or EPs as far back as 2018. Musically it’s exactly the way you’d expect a Nick Lowe/Los Straitjackets team-up to sound, and while it’s a relatively calm affair, it’s also the most amiable album I heard this year. Extra points for Lowe writing a song about going to parties and being mistaken for Robyn Hitchcock.
Messer Chups
Dark Side of Paradise (Hi-Tide Recordings)
Album #18 from St Petersburg-based band that started off trading in experimental surf rock combined with Russian folk music and old film soundtracks, but lately have become more of a straightforward horror-themed surf-rock band, at least on record. And yes, surf-rock bands (horror themed or otherwise) are a dime a dozen these days, but while Messer Chups pretty much sticks to the formula, they do so better than most, or at least with more of a sense of humour.
Public Service Broadcasting
The Last Flight (SO Recordings/Silva Screen Records)
PSB’s fifth LP is also the second of two Amelia Earhart concept albums on this list. Where Laurie Anderson is more meditative and artistic than informative, PSB take their usual cinematic indie-rock approach mixed with guest vocalists, historical soundbites and – as there’s not a lot of recordings of Earhart talking – voice actor Kate Graham reading Earhart’s journal entries and communications transcripts. The result is surprisingly emotional. The Race For Space remains PSB’s greatest achievement for me, but this is a close second.
Pylon Reenactment Society
Magnet Factory (Strolling Bones Records)
Not a Pylon reunion, but an incredible simulation! Pylon was one of the unsung post-punk legends of the Athens scene that produced REM and the B-52s. In 2017, Pylon singer Vanessa Briscoe Hay formed PRS to perform songs from her old band, and perhaps inevitably they started creating new songs as well. After an EP and several singles, PRS released this debut LP, featuring seven new songs and two unrecorded Pylon songs. It may not be a proper Pylon reunion, but it really captures the spunky energy and arty playfulness that made Pylon such a joy to listen to. Possibly my most favourite release this year.
Shadow Show
Fantasy Now! (Stolen Body Records)
Second album from Detroit band that dives even deeper into fuzzy psychedelic grooves than their debut LP, and they’re a better band for it. It’s a familiar template, but Shadow Show knows how to use it, with hypnotic vocal harmonies and righteous power chords deployed in just the right places. Sometimes they veer into Dandy Warhols territory, but without the cynical hipsterisms, which is a good thing.
Swamp Dogg
Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th Street (Oh Boy Records)
For his 26th album, Swamp Dogg goes full-on country – which is not as weird as it sounds when you remember that he was pals with John Prine, and Johnny Paycheck’s version of Swamp Dogg’s “She’s All I Got” was a #2 hit in 1971. Lyrically it’s about what you’d expect from Swamp Dogg, but musically it’s pretty good straightforward country, thanks to a sharp string band and added value from guest stars Margo Price, Jenny Lewis and Vernon Reid. It’s also better than most “proper” country albums released this year, if you ask me.
Teenage Riot
We Are Full (Harbour Records)
Third LP from Hong Kong band that describes itself as “copy rock” – an apparent reference to the fact that they started off as a Sonic Youth cover band (which is also where they got their name from). The SY influences remain dominant in their own music, with shoegaze another obvious reference point, but it’s the jazzy horn section that puts them a level above their derivative influences. Doesn’t always work, but it’s very interesting when it does.
The The
Ensoulment (earMUSIC)
Matt Johnson returns to duty with The The after a 24-year break, and he’s clearly got a lot to say. Ensoulment covers a lot of ground musically to deliver Johnson’s ruminations on the state of things in 2024 – from rising authoritarianism in the UK and US to the empty experience of dating apps. Johnson also gets personal with reflections on love, mortality and death. In most cases his gravelly baritone suits the material perfectly, even when it occasionally feels like he’s trying a bit too hard to be clever. But as late-career comeback albums go, this is reassuringly good.
X
Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum Records)
Ninth and final album from punk legends X, in which they spend a lot of time ruminating over their own history and how far they’ve come since their hungry days. What’s remarkable is how well they’ve managed to retain that spark that makes their music compellingly energetic, even when it doesn’t quite work. In terms of song quality, I personally think that their comeback album Alphabetland would have been a stronger note to go out on, but this will also do nicely.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Ibibio Sound Machine
Pull The Rope (Merge Records)
Fifth album from London-based electronic Afro-funk band that started as a music project to combine 1980s afrobeat with '90s drum-and-bass, but have since evolved into a full band fronted by Eno Williams that blends post-punk, electro and classic West African funk and disco. I first heard them via their previous LP Electricity, which had a great leadoff track (“Protection From Evil”) that the rest of the album didn’t live up to. For this one, the quality still varies but with less filler.
New Model Army
Unbroken (earMUSIC)
Justin Sullivan’s New Model Army is perhaps the only British band that has been pigeonholed as punk, post-punk, Goth, metal and folk, mostly inaccurately. That tradition continues on album #15, which doesn’t quite live up to their best work in the late 80s, but it occasionally comes close, and there’s still some good stuff here.
Shannon and the Clams
The Moon Is In The Wrong Place (Easy Eye Sound/Concord)
Seventh album from Shannon and the Clams, and one created under difficult circumstances, with Shannon Shaw’s fiancé (and a close friend of the band) Joe Haener being killed in a car accident before the band started recording. So grief is a central theme here, although some of the songs were written before Haener’s death. SatC don’t shy away from it, but they don’t let it overwhelm the music either. It doesn’t quite match the magical, delightful creepiness of their previous album, but that would have been inappropriate for this one anyway.
TsuShiMaMiRe
Mizumono (バンドは水物) (Mojor Records)
I wouldn’t call myself an aficionado on Japanese indie rock, but TsuShiMaMiRe has somehow escaped my radar for 25 years, despite being one of the more successful Japanese all-girl trios that isn’t Shonen Knife. But better late than never, I suppose. This is their 20th album, released to mark their 25th anniversary, which also features a re-recorded version of fan favorite “Baka Moto Karee” (“Stupid Curry”). It’s a pretty solid set of fun art punk.
BEST EPS
Baby Rose and BADBADNOTGOOD
Slow Burn (Secretly Canadian)
I confess I’m not familiar with Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Baby Rose, but I am familiar with Canadian jazzy-hip-hop instrumentalists BADBADNOTGOOD, which is how this came across my radar. Like it says on the tin, this is a slow-burn groove best listened to whilst sipping whiskey at 2:30am after a long night. BADBADNOTGOOD are at their best when they do collaborations like this – Baby Rose might be too, I dunno.
Fulu Mikiti
Mokano (Moshi Moshi)
Congolese band that takes the junkyard band concept to the next level – literally every instrument they play is made from stuff recycled from the dump, from petrol cans and flip-flops to car parts and plastic tubing. Hence their name, which in Lingala means “music from the garbage”. They also describe themselves as an Eco-Friendly Afrofuturist Punk collective. In any case, it’s a joyous, raucous noise. Great stage costumes, too.
The Klittens
Butter (self-released)
Second EP from Amsterdam-based quintet that started as a creative and political outlet for the band members and eventually became a full-time music thing. Musically they’re sort of a tighter, more polished version of The Raincoats, albeit with a penchant for unexpected noisy guitar feedback every so often. Catchy tunes, great name.
BEST SINGLES
Altın Gün
Vallahi Yok / Kırık Cam (Glitterbeat)
Dutch-Turkish band Altın Gün continues its quest to concoct psychedelic new wave covers of old Turkish folk songs and create new songs based on same. They released several singles this year, but I picked this one by flipping a coin, basically, though the A-side is the better of the two. But it is groovy.
Nanowar of Steel
Afraid to Shoot into the Eyes of a Stranger in a Strange Land (Napalm Records)
Hard to believe Italian parody metal band Nanowar of Steel have been around 20 years now. They released a Best Of retrospective this year that also contained this new track, which more or less accurately distills the entire Iron Maiden catalog into one almost seven-minute tribute song.
Leenalchi
Lesser Gods and Chimeras (HIKE)
Leenalchi is possibly South Korea’s most unusual indie-pop band – three traditional folk singers, two bassists and a drummer that perform pasori (traditional storytelling in song) set to modern dance-rock music, and the results are generally wonderful. They released a few singles in 2024, mostly K-drama themes, but this is from their upcoming second album, and it’s an absolute banger.
my little airport
威士忌 (Whiskey) (Self released)
Hong Kong’s favorite underground twee-pop band with a political edge (shhh!) released two singles this year, and both are good, but this is my favorite of the two – at face value, a rumination on how we turn to alcohol to deal with grief, loss and change, but also perhaps a low-key lament for all the people who have left HK and feel guilty about it. Possibly. My Cantonese is extremely basic. Anyway, I like it.
Nusantara Beat
Mang Becak (Les Disques Bongo Joe)
Indonesian band based in Amsterdam that gives psychedelic makeovers to classic Indonesian folk and pop songs from the 70s and 80s. If you dig bands like Cambodian Space Project or Altın Gün, this could be for you. It certainly is for me.
THE PLAYLIST
Wanna sample the above? Well you can.
Same time next year,
This is dF
CALL ME SNAKE
Jan. 29th, 2025 01:09 pmKung hei fat choi, as we say in Hong Kong.
The Year of the Wood Snake begins today.
Would you like a playlist to celebrate?
Cos I have one right here ready to go. And it doesn't give a f*** about your war, or your president.
You’re welcome.
Get on the snake,
This is dF
The Year of the Wood Snake begins today.
Would you like a playlist to celebrate?
Cos I have one right here ready to go. And it doesn't give a f*** about your war, or your president.
You’re welcome.
Get on the snake,
This is dF
And so much for 2024.
Read 23 books this year, which is enough to complete my Goodreads Reading Challenge, and you know, I’ll take it. Plus I went out on a relative high note, which is nice.
And so:
The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde by Norman Spinrad
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve been reading and (mostly) enjoying Norman Spinrad’s novels, but the only short fiction of his I’ve read is “Carcinoma Angels”, his excellent contribution to Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthology. That story also appears in this volume, which is also Spinrad’s first collection of short stories, and of course I had to pick it up.
One striking thing about this collection is that even within the SF wheelhouse, it’s strikingly diverse. Spinrad covers a lot of ground – space opera, space madness, corporate caveman satire, alien honeypots, alien wars, alien invasions, dystopian utopias, immortality, avant garde psychotherapy, time-travel tourism and (of course) experimental drugs.
Another striking thing about this collection is how accessible most of it is. The title track is one of the few stories here that points toward the experimental, Kerouacian lyrical writing style Spinrad would embrace for some of his more famous novels. But most of these are relatively more conventional, style-wise, which is not a bad thing. Anyway, a few stories don’t quite work for me, but overall this is a solid collection.
Babel by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my first time reading R.F. Kuang, and I confess my interest was piqued at least in part by the kerfluffle over the World Science Fiction Society declaring it ineligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards, despite having enough nominations, because that year’s awards were being held in China, and the jury head apparently wanted to avoid any authors that Beijing might not like. Which is odd, since this book – an alt-history set in the 1830s just before the Opium War between Britain and China – clearly portrays the British Empire as the villain of the story.
In Kuang’s alt-history, the British Empire is thriving thanks to its use of silver bars with magical properties that leverage “match pairs” of translated words – the idea being that all translations are imperfect, and what gets lost in translation between words with similar but not identical meanings can be harnessed by the bars to, say, increase crop yields or make warships move faster. Britain is also using its economic and military power to corner the silver market by exploiting poorer nations. The story follows Robin Swift, a poor boy in Canton who is adopted by Professor Lovell and brought to England to raise him as a translator to study at the Royal Institute of Translation in Oxford (a.k.a. Babel), where silver-bar technology is being developed and refined.
Robin eventually enters Oxford with a first-year cohort that includes Indian Muslim Ramy, Haitian Victoire, and Letty, the white daughter of an admiral who sent her to Babel as a grudging replacement for her recently deceased brother. Despite the overt racism of Oxford society, Robin is happy at Babel until he is contacted by half-brother Griffin, who wants to recruit him into the Hermes Society, a global underground organisation that wants to undermine Britain’s silver supremacy. Once Robin realises Babel is exploiting non-white foreigners like Robin, Ramy and Victoire on the grounds that translations using their native languages have more power than European ones – and will enable Britain to plunder their home countries – he waffles over which side to take until his hand is forced.
There’s a lot to chew on here, from Kuang’s deep-dive explanations of how translation works (which I found fascinating) to her fairly blatant critique of the white supremacist mindset of British colonialism told from the POV of the colonised. And then of course there’s the debate over whether violence is necessary to change systemic injustice, and if so, how far should it be taken. While Kuang covers the arguments on both sides fairly thoroughly, it’s tricky to evaluate them in a modern context vs the context of the 1830s, when attitudes towards justified violence were somewhat different than they are today. That said, Kuang seems more interested in provoking discussion rather than answering questions (apart from her clear assertion that colonialism is evil), but it’s arguably a discussion worth having. What’s really remarkable is that she makes all of this quite readable – which is a good thing for a doorstop book like this.
View all my reviews
Babel on,
This is dF
Read 23 books this year, which is enough to complete my Goodreads Reading Challenge, and you know, I’ll take it. Plus I went out on a relative high note, which is nice.
And so:
The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde by Norman SpinradMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve been reading and (mostly) enjoying Norman Spinrad’s novels, but the only short fiction of his I’ve read is “Carcinoma Angels”, his excellent contribution to Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthology. That story also appears in this volume, which is also Spinrad’s first collection of short stories, and of course I had to pick it up.
One striking thing about this collection is that even within the SF wheelhouse, it’s strikingly diverse. Spinrad covers a lot of ground – space opera, space madness, corporate caveman satire, alien honeypots, alien wars, alien invasions, dystopian utopias, immortality, avant garde psychotherapy, time-travel tourism and (of course) experimental drugs.
Another striking thing about this collection is how accessible most of it is. The title track is one of the few stories here that points toward the experimental, Kerouacian lyrical writing style Spinrad would embrace for some of his more famous novels. But most of these are relatively more conventional, style-wise, which is not a bad thing. Anyway, a few stories don’t quite work for me, but overall this is a solid collection.
Babel by R.F. KuangMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is my first time reading R.F. Kuang, and I confess my interest was piqued at least in part by the kerfluffle over the World Science Fiction Society declaring it ineligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards, despite having enough nominations, because that year’s awards were being held in China, and the jury head apparently wanted to avoid any authors that Beijing might not like. Which is odd, since this book – an alt-history set in the 1830s just before the Opium War between Britain and China – clearly portrays the British Empire as the villain of the story.
In Kuang’s alt-history, the British Empire is thriving thanks to its use of silver bars with magical properties that leverage “match pairs” of translated words – the idea being that all translations are imperfect, and what gets lost in translation between words with similar but not identical meanings can be harnessed by the bars to, say, increase crop yields or make warships move faster. Britain is also using its economic and military power to corner the silver market by exploiting poorer nations. The story follows Robin Swift, a poor boy in Canton who is adopted by Professor Lovell and brought to England to raise him as a translator to study at the Royal Institute of Translation in Oxford (a.k.a. Babel), where silver-bar technology is being developed and refined.
Robin eventually enters Oxford with a first-year cohort that includes Indian Muslim Ramy, Haitian Victoire, and Letty, the white daughter of an admiral who sent her to Babel as a grudging replacement for her recently deceased brother. Despite the overt racism of Oxford society, Robin is happy at Babel until he is contacted by half-brother Griffin, who wants to recruit him into the Hermes Society, a global underground organisation that wants to undermine Britain’s silver supremacy. Once Robin realises Babel is exploiting non-white foreigners like Robin, Ramy and Victoire on the grounds that translations using their native languages have more power than European ones – and will enable Britain to plunder their home countries – he waffles over which side to take until his hand is forced.
There’s a lot to chew on here, from Kuang’s deep-dive explanations of how translation works (which I found fascinating) to her fairly blatant critique of the white supremacist mindset of British colonialism told from the POV of the colonised. And then of course there’s the debate over whether violence is necessary to change systemic injustice, and if so, how far should it be taken. While Kuang covers the arguments on both sides fairly thoroughly, it’s tricky to evaluate them in a modern context vs the context of the 1830s, when attitudes towards justified violence were somewhat different than they are today. That said, Kuang seems more interested in provoking discussion rather than answering questions (apart from her clear assertion that colonialism is evil), but it’s arguably a discussion worth having. What’s really remarkable is that she makes all of this quite readable – which is a good thing for a doorstop book like this.
View all my reviews
Babel on,
This is dF
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT JIMMY
Dec. 30th, 2024 05:20 pmJimmy Carter is gone at age 100. And the internet is full of what you’d expect in this day and age in terms of tributes, damnations and other hot takes.
For me, I should start by saying that I was 12 when Carter took office, so inevitably much of what I remember about his term at the time was all the jokes about peanut farming and his brother Billy. And this brilliant comedy album.
Which is why I I’m not that emotionally invested in his legacy, and why for years I felt it was ironic that he went on to be more respected as an elder statesman than a President.
And having grown up with the truism from historians that his presidency was a failure, it’s been educational to see some of the Carter apologetics being posted over the past ten years or so. And the more I've read about him, the more I realised that his term hasn't been retconned so much as assessed more fairly with the distance of time. Which is usually how it works.
I’m not especially convinced of the more hagiographical takes on his presidency, but I think it’s fair to say Carter was an average POTUS – he did some good things and some not-so-good things. And much of his legacy is down to bad luck as much as anything else – as others have pointed out, 1976-1980 would be a tough period for any POTUS.
In the end, Carter comes across to me as someone who was nobody’s fool, but was also a decent person with good intentions who was almost too honest to be President.
Which is why he sounded like a good deal in 1976 when the other option was Jerry Ford, who was a castoff of the Nixon Gang. But by 1980, most people apparently preferred someone who could act like an honest President rather than actually be one.
We’ve apparently devolved since then – nowadays, ppl prefer a POTUS who don’t even bother to hide his dishonesty. Maybe that’s why looks so good Carter in retrospect now. That said, Carter built up plenty of goodwill with his post-POTUS career, so maybe there’s more to it than being nostalgic for an anti-Trump.
Still, the contrast is stark.
Meanwhile, the left or right of Carter will insist that he was a horrible/evil POTUS because [insert hyperspecific grievance here], or out of the usual ideological purity. Even some people on the far left still haven’t forgiven him for that one thing that pissed them off.
Well, there will always be ppl like that. Carter would say a prayer for them. Which just goes to show.
Anyway, I think we were lucky to have Carter when we had him, if only because it shaped the statesman to come. Respect.
Looking forward to Trump trying to make this all about him.
Trust me,
This is dF
RING THEM BELLS
Dec. 23rd, 2024 11:00 pmAnother year, another Christmas playlist. Which you probably won’t need, but I got you one anyway, cos I’ll bet the other ones you got don’t sound quite like this.
PRODUCTION NOTE: Posting this now because I may not have time to do it on Christmas Eve.
Merry merry,
This is dF
Well, I am …
Earthlings by Sayaka MurataMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is my first time reading Sayaka Murata, and I picked it up because someone else had name-dropped it somewhere, and the pitch sounded right up my street: Natsuki is an 11-year-old girl who believes she has magic powers granted to her by her toy hedgehog, and later thinks she may be an alien waiting for a spaceship to come pick her up and take her home. I’ve felt that way many times in my life, and I figured, okay, quirky Japanese novel about not fitting in. Well, it’s quirky alright – but it’s also a horror story, and it’s one of the bleakest, disturbing and nastiest books I’ve read in a really long time.
Natsuki gets the idea of being an alien from her cousin Yuu, who lives with his family in a remote house in the mountains where her family goes once a year on holiday. Yuu thinks he’s an alien, and soon Natsuki thinks she might be one too. She’s also in love with Yuu, mainly because she has no one else she can trust – her parents are psychologically abusive to her, and her cram-school teacher is molesting her, and nobody believes her when she tries to tell them. Yuu and Natsuki make a vow that has consequences immediately, and then decades later when Natsuki returns to the mountain house with her husband, who also thinks he’s an alien.
On one level, the book is a well-paced and reasonably effective absurdist commentary on the cost of refusing (or being unable) to conform to society’s expectations, as well as the alienating effect of sexual abuse on victims who are blamed for what happened to them. However, for me the dark humor is offset by Murata’s disturbingly graphic depictions of violence, underage sex and child abuse as seen from the POV of the child, while the final act veers into a climax so depraved and gruesome that it cost me a night’s sleep. Maybe 20 years ago I would have liked this, but these days I don’t have the heart or stomach for this sort of thing. If you do, go for it. Just be advised: if trigger warnings are a thing for you, this book has pretty much all the triggers except cruelty to animals.
Shakespeare for Squirrels by Christopher MooreMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the third of Christopher Moore’s Shakespeare parodies/homages featuring court jester Pocket of Dog Snogging on Ouze. Whereas the first two books took on King Lear and The Merchant of Venice, this one tackles what’s said to be Shakespeare’s most-performed play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream – in this case, with an added murder mystery, lots of bawdy sex jokes and, of course, squirrels.
Moore keeps a lot of the basic elements, including the location of Athens, where Pocket, idiot apprentice Drool and hat-shagging monkey Jeff wash ashore after being set adrift by pirates. In short order, the trio encounter Nick Bottom and the mechanicals rehearsing a play for the wedding of Theseus (Duke of Athens) and Hippolyta (Amazon queen). They also meet fairy folk, including Cobweb, who helps them survive in the woods, and Robin Goodfellow (a.k.a. the Puck), who is abruptly murdered. Pocket and Drool are arrested, but Pocket ends up commissioned by Hippolyta and Theseus to find out who killed the Puck, and why.
To explain what any of this has to do with squirrels would ruin the surprise, but in any case, this is Moore once again retelling Shakespeare as a madcap sex comedy that’s easier to read and a lot funnier, whilst somehow managing to stay more or less true to the original characters despite taking a lot of comic liberties. While Moore’s sequels can be a mixed bag, I do think he’s managed to keep the quality level pretty consistent in the Pocket series. The story gets somewhat convoluted (although so was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so fair enough), but it’s an awful lot of fun to read.
View all my reviews
The play’s the thing,
This is dF
ELECTION SPECIAL 2024
Nov. 4th, 2024 10:19 amHere we go again.
Final election Q&A:
1. Who do you want to win?
I gave my endorsement to Kamala Harris back in 2020, so no mystery who I’m endorsing this time around. Granted, I’d have given it to Biden or even a horse over Donald J. Trump, Billionaire. But I’m fine with the prospect of a Harris presidency.
Many people aren’t, and not just the MAGA cult. That’s fine, and I understand why in many cases. But I will say that voting for Jill Stein won’t accomplish anything except put Trump in the White House, and Stein’s campaign has been fairly open about the fact that this is basically what they hope to achieve. If you really think that voting Stein/third party/your conscience will stop the genocide in Gaza or whatever your primary issue is, okay, but I think you’re in for a bit of a shock.
2. Who do you think will win?
Personally, I think the only way Trump will win is the same way he did in 2016. Which is to say, another electoral college fluke. But the polls are close enough that he could actually squeak by. But I think the former is more likely.
Failing anything technically legit, I think he’ll cheat and try to flip results everywhere he can. And unlike in 2020, he’ll have the weight of most of the GOP behind him to help out. There’s talk that Mike Johnson will be his Hail Mary play on Jan 6, but of course that hinges on whether the GOP can keep the House, and there are enough tossup seats that a GOP House majority is not guaranteed.
Point being, don’t assume he can’t be POTUS again. He can. And I think there’s a good chance he will.
If nothing else, Trump has obviously been laying the groundwork to convince his MAGA cult that his loss will be proof the election was stolen, so even if he loses definitively, he won’t go quietly, and the MAGA cult will make the Demos pay dearly for it.
3. Did you make a playlist I can listen to on Election Night or while I’m standing in line?
Why I sure did. How did you know?
PRODUCTION NOTE: I originally intended to use the same playlist I made in 2020, but that was back when we all thought it was going to be a Biden-Trump rematch. Then when I started finding a few new songs, it occurred to me that the 2020 playlist didn’t really fit the vibe or the stakes, so I ended up redoing most of it. I kept the PSA bumpers and a couple of songs, but mostly it’s a different set.
Choose or lose,
This is dF
Well, I’m trying, anyway.
What Are Biblical Values?: What the Bible Says on Key Ethical Issues by John J. Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another reading assignment, so even though I’ve read John J. Collins before (also for a class, and that was a textbook), that’s probably irrelevant to my decision to read him again. But this one, while academically inclined, is not a textbook, but rather a critique of politicians and other people who justify their positions and policies on hot-button ethical and social issues (gender, gay marriage, abortion, climate change, etc) by claiming they’re based on “Biblical values”. The problem, argues Collins, is that the people who say this sort of thing either cherry-pick their “values”, or apparently haven’t studied the Bible very deeply. Or possibly both.
Collins looks at what the text of the Bible has to say about the above topics, plus things like violence, social justice and slavery, with the caveat that his objective isn’t to declare which side is right, but to highlight the problem of relying on what is in essence a complex and often contradictory anthology of writings – what Collins describes as less of a unified, cohesive treatise and more of a running argument written and edited by dozens of different people over the span of a few thousand years – to justify a given modern-day position.
Overall, Collins makes a good case that (1) anyone who wants to talk about Biblical values in any meaningful way must at the very least engage with that text in depth with a reasonably open mind to identify consistent and objective “values” from the text, and (2) anyone who does so may find themselves surprised to find how little support the Bible may provide. Obviously, what the reader makes of this will largely depend on how literally they take the Bible in the first place. Others may be put off by Collins declining to settle scores for them. For me, I got a lot out of it, but then I’m not a fundamentalist, and I also agree with one of his key points: “To treat the Bible as a magic book of answers to modern problems amounts to refusing to grapple with it seriously.”
Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy by Shibani Mahtani
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
English-language books about the 2019 Hong Kong protests tend to have a specific hook or angle based on the personal experience or expertise of the author, so while each volume may not be comprehensive, they do add up to a broader picture when you put them together. This one illustrates the complex history of the pro-democracy movement in HK and how it evolved over time before 1997 (when Britain gave the city back to China under the “One Country Two Systems” principle that promised to preserve HK’s freedoms and common-law system for 50 years, and allow it to become a proper democracy) and after, until the National Security Law 0f 2020 crushed it.
Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin – who covered the 2019 protests at street level – tell that story by focusing on four key people – Rev. Chu Yiu-ming, one of the pioneers of the pro-democracy movement; “Tommy”, an art student on the front lines of the 2019 protests; Finn Lau, who played a key role in the decentralised, online side of the protests; and Gwyneth Ho, a journalist who gave up her career to run for election and went to jail for it. Each of their stories serve to ground the overarching narrative of the pro-democracy movement at the human level – it’s not just about the politics, but what drives people to take a stand against creeping authoritarianism, and the human cost of doing so.
As always, it feels weird to read about events I’ve only recently lived through, but it’s good to be reminded of what really happened – not least because the HK govt has already recast the 2019 protests as a violent, foreign-funded terrorist revolution that came out of nowhere and was masterminded by newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, rather than what it actually was: a decentralised grassroots movement 30+ years in the making that was finally pushed too far by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, whose cold, harsh handling of protests against a controversial extradition bill made everything progressively worse. Mahtani and McLaughlin tell the real story, and they tell it well. It's by no means comprehensive (which would require it to be at least twice as long), but they cover all the necessary bases to understand what happened and why.
NOTE: Ironically, I actually managed to buy a copy of this in Hong Kong, which one could take as a sign that we still have freedoms, etc. That said, the store I bought it from, Book Punch, is one of a shrinking number of independent bookstores who sell books like this as well as other political books, and are constantly harassed by the govt over technically unrelated minor things like building, health and fire safety codes. So it's hard to say how much longer books like this will be available here.
View all my reviews
Be water, my friends,
This is dF
What Are Biblical Values?: What the Bible Says on Key Ethical Issues by John J. CollinsMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another reading assignment, so even though I’ve read John J. Collins before (also for a class, and that was a textbook), that’s probably irrelevant to my decision to read him again. But this one, while academically inclined, is not a textbook, but rather a critique of politicians and other people who justify their positions and policies on hot-button ethical and social issues (gender, gay marriage, abortion, climate change, etc) by claiming they’re based on “Biblical values”. The problem, argues Collins, is that the people who say this sort of thing either cherry-pick their “values”, or apparently haven’t studied the Bible very deeply. Or possibly both.
Collins looks at what the text of the Bible has to say about the above topics, plus things like violence, social justice and slavery, with the caveat that his objective isn’t to declare which side is right, but to highlight the problem of relying on what is in essence a complex and often contradictory anthology of writings – what Collins describes as less of a unified, cohesive treatise and more of a running argument written and edited by dozens of different people over the span of a few thousand years – to justify a given modern-day position.
Overall, Collins makes a good case that (1) anyone who wants to talk about Biblical values in any meaningful way must at the very least engage with that text in depth with a reasonably open mind to identify consistent and objective “values” from the text, and (2) anyone who does so may find themselves surprised to find how little support the Bible may provide. Obviously, what the reader makes of this will largely depend on how literally they take the Bible in the first place. Others may be put off by Collins declining to settle scores for them. For me, I got a lot out of it, but then I’m not a fundamentalist, and I also agree with one of his key points: “To treat the Bible as a magic book of answers to modern problems amounts to refusing to grapple with it seriously.”
Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy by Shibani MahtaniMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
English-language books about the 2019 Hong Kong protests tend to have a specific hook or angle based on the personal experience or expertise of the author, so while each volume may not be comprehensive, they do add up to a broader picture when you put them together. This one illustrates the complex history of the pro-democracy movement in HK and how it evolved over time before 1997 (when Britain gave the city back to China under the “One Country Two Systems” principle that promised to preserve HK’s freedoms and common-law system for 50 years, and allow it to become a proper democracy) and after, until the National Security Law 0f 2020 crushed it.
Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin – who covered the 2019 protests at street level – tell that story by focusing on four key people – Rev. Chu Yiu-ming, one of the pioneers of the pro-democracy movement; “Tommy”, an art student on the front lines of the 2019 protests; Finn Lau, who played a key role in the decentralised, online side of the protests; and Gwyneth Ho, a journalist who gave up her career to run for election and went to jail for it. Each of their stories serve to ground the overarching narrative of the pro-democracy movement at the human level – it’s not just about the politics, but what drives people to take a stand against creeping authoritarianism, and the human cost of doing so.
As always, it feels weird to read about events I’ve only recently lived through, but it’s good to be reminded of what really happened – not least because the HK govt has already recast the 2019 protests as a violent, foreign-funded terrorist revolution that came out of nowhere and was masterminded by newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, rather than what it actually was: a decentralised grassroots movement 30+ years in the making that was finally pushed too far by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, whose cold, harsh handling of protests against a controversial extradition bill made everything progressively worse. Mahtani and McLaughlin tell the real story, and they tell it well. It's by no means comprehensive (which would require it to be at least twice as long), but they cover all the necessary bases to understand what happened and why.
NOTE: Ironically, I actually managed to buy a copy of this in Hong Kong, which one could take as a sign that we still have freedoms, etc. That said, the store I bought it from, Book Punch, is one of a shrinking number of independent bookstores who sell books like this as well as other political books, and are constantly harassed by the govt over technically unrelated minor things like building, health and fire safety codes. So it's hard to say how much longer books like this will be available here.
View all my reviews
Be water, my friends,
This is dF
WITCHING TIME
Oct. 30th, 2024 07:15 pmYou know and I know there’s a million playlists for you to choose for your Halloween shenanigans.
But if you need one focused on witches … well, there’s probably a million of those too, but I just happen to have one right here that’s fresh from the cauldron.
NOTE 1: If your favorite witch song isn’t here, that’s likely because I curated this from a pool of 284 songs that adds up to over 15 hours of music. And that’s not counting the hundreds of black/death metal songs about witches. So you’re lucky I whittled this down to three (3) hours, is what I’m saying.
NOTE 2: I’d planned to keep it at two hours, but, well, see Note 1.
NOTE 3: Feel free to add your own witch songs in the comments.
NOTE 4: Why witches? Why not?
Bewitched,
This is dF
Momentum arrested!
Ah well.
Impossible Things by Connie WillisMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I generally enjoy Connie Willis’ novels, so when I came across this collection of novellas and short stories (all initially published between 1988 and 1992), I was keen to give it a go. And it’s a pretty diverse set of stories that cover a lot of the usual bases for Willis – bureaucratic chaos, science nerds, politically correct dystopias, Shakespeare conspiracy theories and comedy of errors and screwball comedies. Sometimes all in one story.
It would take more time and space than I have to go through each story, and in any case I enjoyed most of them. I will say the opener, “The Last Of The Winnebagos”, is the most difficult story in the bunch, and a daring one to put at the front – partly because of the depressing background premise (a plague has killed all the dogs), and partly because Willis opts to shift to flashbacks with no warning whatsoever, which keeps you on your toes but slows down what is otherwise very good and accessible prose.
If you can get through that, the rest of the collection is more or less a breeze. “Chance” (about a woman returning to her college alma mater and being haunted by her past) is perhaps the weakest and bleakest story here, and “Jack” (a vampire story set during the London Blitz) is a bit too predictable. And for some of these, it helps if you love gabby screwball comedy with lots of running gags as much as Willis does (which I do). Anyway, I enjoyed it, and will be reading more Willis in future.
Brighton Rock by Graham GreeneMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I like Graham Greene’s novels more often than not, but despite this being one of his classic titles, I’ve tended to stay away from it, mainly because I had the impression it was about teenage gangs, which is a subgenre that doesn’t interest me as much as the spies, hit men and whiskey priests Greene often writes about. Still, I figured I’d read it one day, and it turns out the only teenage gangster in it is the sociopathic anti-hero, Pinkie Brown, who has just taken over a small gang in Brighton from his predecessor Kite, who was killed by a hitman after newspaper reporter Charles Hale exposed his illegal slot machine racket.
The story opens with Pinkie’s gang killing Hale, who is in Brighton distributing prize cards for a newspaper contest. While Hale’s death is ruled a heart attack at the inquest, Pinkie discovers that teenage waitress Rose unknowingly has information that can blow his alibi. Meanwhile, boisterous pub entertainer Ida – who was with Hale right before he disappeared – believes he was murdered and decides to investigate herself. The plot follows Pinkie’s increasingly paranoid attempts to cover up the murder (which includes pretending to romance Rose to prevent her from talking to the police), whilst also dealing with the fact that Colleoni, the boss of a rival gang (whose success Pinkie is jealous of) wants to take over all rackets in Brighton.
This was Greene’s first novel to explicitly explore themes related to his Catholic faith regarding the nature of sin and morality – both Pinkie and Rose are Catholics, although Pinkie mainly sees it as another system he can game. Their beliefs in the nature of Good vs Evil – and Pinkie’s cruel misanthropy – is pitted against Ida, who is driven by a more secular, humanistic and equally strong morality of Right vs Wrong. For me, the only real problem is why a gang of older, experienced mobsters would allow an unbalanced 17-year-old sociopath to run their gang in the first place. On the other hand, I love the twist of Ida being the “hero” of the story, which drives Pinkie nuts because he can’t for the life of him understand what she wants or how she fits into all this. Bits of it have certainly aged poorly, but overall it’s a solid entry in Greene’s work.
View all my reviews
So you wanna be a gangsta,
This is dF
COOK WITH FIRE
Sep. 2nd, 2024 09:35 amIt’s Labor Day in America, not to be confused with International Labor Day on May 1. In theory, both are a holiday to honor and recognize the labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements at home and around the world.
In practice, International Labor Day does exactly that, while Labor Day (US) is an excuse to have a barbecue on a three-day weekend.
You’ll need a playlist for that. And there are plenty to choose from, although most of them are basically classic rock/block party stuff.
This is not that. But it’s just as pointless. Just like Labor Day (US).
Light my fire,
This is dF
In practice, International Labor Day does exactly that, while Labor Day (US) is an excuse to have a barbecue on a three-day weekend.
You’ll need a playlist for that. And there are plenty to choose from, although most of them are basically classic rock/block party stuff.
This is not that. But it’s just as pointless. Just like Labor Day (US).
Light my fire,
This is dF
