Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

📚 Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb

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60/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’d call this a guilty pleasure, except that I don’t think I need to feel guilt about the things I enjoy, even if they have their issues…which this book definitely has. I first discovered it in the early ‘00s, and loved its lighthearted take on a murder mystery at a SF/F convention. At some point I lost my copy, but recently found one at a used bookstore. Re-reading it now, its flaws are a little more apparent, but it’s still mostly enjoyable fluff.

Pros: The general sense of weirdness of the con atmosphere, with its disparate groups of fans connected by their overall fandom. The surreality of the mix of costumes and mundanes, and what it must be like for people unconnected to a con to find themselves in the middle of it. And, yes, the recognizable tendency for some fen to be a little too wrapped up in things. Plus, I really enjoy that because the book was written in the late ‘80s, this is a con of the time, with things like video programming rooms and a “high tech” room with things like demonstrations of personal computers.

Cons: There is a relatively heavy reliance on the “poorly socialized misfits” trope that’s often seen when cons or SF/F fans are part of the setting or plot; though the main characters tend to be real-people-who-are-fans, most of the peripheral characters fall solidly into barely-functional-in-the-real-world territory. But the biggest flaw is the ongoing fat-shaming, where one character exists entirely as an extended “laugh at the overweight woman and her quest to find a partner socially inept enough to accept her” joke. Nothing about this plot line advances or even really engages with the main plot, and it really stands out as a misstep.

Michael holding Bimbos of the Death Sun

📚 Startide Rising by David Brin

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59/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1984 Hugo Best Novel

Dolphins in space! Which sounds jokey, but it’s not at all. Minimal connections to Sundiver, other than being in the same universe, but 200 years later. I really enjoyed this – the uplifted dolphins are a neat choice for a spacefaring crew, and Brin mixes in touches of plenty other alien races as they battle each other and chase the dolphins for the secret they stumbled across. Brin also does a good job of making this part of a much larger universe, dropping in bits and pieces and adding mysteries that don’t get solved, without making it frustrating or feeling like a tease.

Michael holding Startide Rising

Hey, come jump off a bridge with me!

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I think a large part of why I’m so frustrated by the “well, nobody else is bothering with having a mask mandate, so there’s no point” argument is that we’re living through a real-world, literal version of the old parental peer-pressure cliché of “if everybody else jumped off a bridge, would you?”

As kids, it’s such an obviously mockable cliché, because of course not. Jumping off a bridge is an obviously life-threatening activity, so first off, that’s not something that a lot of people would do, and secondly, I sure wouldn’t be so foolish as to do that.

And yet. Here we are. With society at large jumping off every bridge around, and people lining up to jump with them.

Only it’s worse than that, because jumping off the bridge is a solo action that only threatens the life of the person jumping. But refusing to mask or encourage others to mask means that the jumpers are grabbing those next to them and pulling them over the edge of the bridge as they jump.

And here we are.

Keep Masking In Public

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In case you or your organization/workplace has been waiting for the CDC to recommend masks — the CDC is (once again) (finally) recommending wearing masks in public spaces to protect against catching and spreading respiratory diseases such as RSV, flu, and yes, COVID.

The Centers for Disease Control Prevention on Monday encouraged people to wear masks to help reduce the spread of respiratory illnesses this season as Covid, flu and RSV circulate at the same time.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, in a call with reporters, said wearing a mask is one of several everyday precautions that people can take to reduce their chances of catching or spreading a respiratory virus during the busy holiday season.

“We also encourage you to wear a high-quality, well-fitting mask to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses,” said Walensky.

They’re also (finally) pointing out that you don’t have to wait for the CDC to encourage masking to put a mask on.

“One need not wait on CDC action in order to put a mask on,” Walensky said. “We would encourage all of those preventive measures — hand washing, staying home when you’re sick, masking, increased ventilation — during respiratory virus season, but especially in areas of high Covid-19 community levels.”

(And in case you haven’t checked recently, while the based-on-hospital-capacity level for King County is “low”, the King County community transmission level — a better metric to track, as preventing community transmission would do more to keep people healthy than only paying attention to when they’re sick enough to land in the hospital — is “substantial”, and there is no county in Washington that has “low” community transmission levels.)

Out in public? Wear your mask. Keep yourself and those around you safe.

📚 Sundiver by David Brin

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58/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A fun SF concept (exploring into the sun’s photosphere) that turns into an Agatha Christie-ish mystery (lampshaded with a “parlor scene” with evidence and accusations), all against a wider background seemingly based off the idea of “what if Erich von Däniken was right?”, which surprised and amused me.

Michael holding Sundiver

📚 The Nixie of the Mill-Pond and Other European Stories edited by Kel McDonald and Kate Ashwin

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55/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The next in this anthology series. As this one is European stories, it was the first with stories I recognized. Once again, a good selection, with good artwork, and while overall a little lighter than the other two I’ve read so far, still has a few pleasant moments of darkness.

Michael holding The Nixie of the Mill-Pond