Sea Sick by Alanna Mitchell - Book Review #304

I found this book most illuminating and upsetting.

Being landlocked in Alberta I seldom think about the oceans.  I had never considered how our local agriculture can damage the oceans.  But fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide runoff make it from the rivers to the oceans creating lasting damage to the ocean environment.  Just Google Gulf of Mexico dead zone to get an understanding of how everybody touches the oceans.

Overfishing is nothing new, we've heard about it for decades.  Just think of the shutting of the Atlantic cod fishery in eastern Canada.

The die-off of coral is much more serious than I knew about.

Most alarming is learning how the oceans play their part in the problem of CO2 rise.  I had no idea that the waters of the world absorb the gas, which sounds like a good thing, right?  But once carbon dioxide is dissolved in water it reacts with it, lowering the pH levels and making the water more acidic which has dire consequences on marine life, from the bottom of the food chain all the way to the top and to humans on the land.

I am so thankful I found the book.  It reinforced my desire to reduce my impact on the world.

Every little thing we do as individuals may seem inconsequential but others see what we do.  Somebody may see you picking up a bit of litter and it may inspire that person to do the same or to switch from a single-use item to a reusable one.

Like many of these kinds of books, I found it rather one-sided; there was so much gloom and doom that I kept wanting to just throw my hands up.

On the tenth anniversary of publication, Alanna Mitchell wrote a piece for Canadian Geographic updating readers as to how things have changed in that time.  Both the horror and the hope have expanded.  Read it here:

https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/theres-no-coming-back-why-global-ocean-crisis-threatens-us-all

There were two lines in the book that stood out for me:

Near the end, he leaves me with this, "The scale of the solution has to be to the scale of the problem."

And.

“The problem of the atmosphere and the ocean is a problem of human behaviour.” - Monica Sharma, a physician who works for the United Nations.

Alanna Mitchell's website - https://alannamitchell.com/

Alanna Mitchell

The Canal Builders by Julie Greene - Book Review #301

Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal

I enjoyed the angle the author took on this legendary infrastructure project, that of the people who built it and manged the endeavour.

People from all over the world came to work on it but it was also a product of its time - systemic racism, brutal working conditions, undervalued human needs and American hegemony made the reality of the construction an ugly thing.

But this was the reality of the times, it was normal.  It would never stand today.  Which made me wonder, could it even be achieved today?

The book illustrates just how far we've come in our respective societies from that day and how far we still have to go.  Throughout our history there has always been an "us" and a "them."  Nothing has really changed in that respect just the definition of us and them.

Still, this is an important document to the history of the Panama Canal and it's construction.  It focused on people instead of the engineering and I appreciated that.

Julie Green's website - https://history.umd.edu/users/jmg

Audio book narrated by Karen White

Julie Greene

Spider-Man Noir by David Hine with Fabrice Sapolsky - A Graphic Novel Review

I blew the dust off my copy of Spider-Man Noir before going to see the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Ten years ago I was enjoying the look and tropes of the 1930’s pulp fiction.  Marvel put out a series of Noir books that seemed to lend themselves well to the period.

What they did with Spider-Man was clever in how it was adapted for the 1930's.

I must say,  this is not your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.  Oh no, he is very much a deadly vigilante.

I liked this book very much, from the design of the costume to the nod to that other "Spider" who occupied pulp fiction at the time and to the dark tone of the story.

If you're looking for something different, but still familiar you might want to chase this book down.

I was impressed at how Marvel was unafraid to challenge the cannon of this iconic character.

Well done!

Thwip!

David Hine - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hine

Fabrice Sapolsky - https://fabricesapolsky.com/

Our Choice by Al Gore - Book Report #218

Finally.  A climate change book with actual hope for the future.

Don't get me wrong, I was still immensely depressed reading the thing.  But with every bad thing Gore talks about he also shows the way out.  The hardest thing to realise is just how entrenched our way of life is.  How our economy is based on extraction, destruction and pollution.

But it can all be fixed.  My god!  The opportunity to reinvent our way of life is right in front of us.  It is all low-hanging fruit.

The book opened my eyes to the difficulties of making change but I can still exert influence in the consumer choices I make every day.  As an example, if people start buying electric cars, manufacturers will begin to build them.   But what of the electricity from the coal-fired power plants?  Well that's another story altogether isn't it?  Those utilities have influence in the government and their profits are based on a pollution model.  That's where putting a price on pollution (a carbon tax) comes into play.  A big reason we pollute is because it is free to do so.

The amount of jobs we could create, building an economy that is in tune with our environment, is staggering to consider.

This was a wonderful book and I am very glad I had the opportunity to engage with it.

Al Gore's website - https://www.algore.com/

Al Gore

Swanwatch by Yoon Ha Lee

This was a strange little piece that I really did not get.

People, who could be criminals or dissidents are sent to these ships, or maybe it's a space station, with the understanding that they will eventually kill themselves by flying a ship into a black hole.

But, while waiting for the ultimate day, they are free to pursue their passions, be it art or music or something else.

Honestly, I did not get this story as it blew right over me.

As always, I feel the weak link in the story was me.  For whatever reason I did not connect with it.  The writing was lovely but the characters did not jump off the page and into my brain here.

Yoon Ha Lee's website - http://www.yoonhalee.com/

Yoon Ha Lee

Twilight of the Gods by John C. Wright

This was another cool story that played with an SF trope.

This time it is a multi-generational ark ship.

What if something happens to the ark en route to it's destination?  Here they are attacked and boarded.

Now think of this; the raid is not entirely successful and some of the inhabitants of the ark manage to escape and hide away for a generation.  It's an unbelievably large ship by the way.

Cut off from the technology of the ship, the events of the past fall into legend and the remaining people revert to a medieval society.

I loved how it read like a high fantasy story while being fully aware that the characters are in a ship in space.

It was a nice blending of the two genres.

John C Wright's websited - http://www.scifiwright.com/

John C. Wright

Different Day by K. Tempest Bradford

A three page story that broke with the SF trope of alien races being depicted as one culture occupying a whole planet.

What if?  And I love stories that ask this question.  What if an alien race makes first contact with us on Earth?  Who says it will be in the United States?

Then another race, from the same planet also arrives to make contact, but they are from a different country?

Race and political questions come to play in this very well thought out little tale.

I loved how it just blew apart the conventions of SF always being focused on the United States.

Nicely done.

K. Tempest Bradford's website - http://tempest.fluidartist.com/

K. Tempest Bradford

Terra-Exulta by S. L. Gilbow

This was an odd little story.  It is told in the form of a letter to the Galactic Society of Ancient Languages on how to translate Archaic Planetary English into Galactic Standard.

It told of an interesting story of colonists who have coped with and influx of indigenous life forms that caused people to become sick and die.  Strangely, the focus of the story is the creation of new words to describe the tragedy and how it is important to invent words well.

Like I said it was an odd story.  Kinda cold, kinda interesting, certainly different.

Gilbow's website - http://slgilbow.com/

S. L. Gilbow

Life-Suspension by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

This was more to my liking.

There is a giant big alien threat that the officers of S.R.S Amaterasu are dispatched to deal with.

This could have been all about describing the aliens but instead it focused on the blossoming relationship between the commander of a fighter wing and an officer in charge of the life-suspension systems.

I liked that Modesitt didn't waste my time with explaining how "bad" the enemy was, I can take that as a given.  In the end, stories should be about people and how they are coping in a given situation.  The SF can take a back seat and be in the background and still be very effective as genre fiction.

I liked this story a whole bunch.

L. E. Modesitt, Jr's website - http://www.lemodesittjr.com/

L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

Carthago Delenda Est by Genevieve Valentine

A message from the planet Carthage is received and delegates from every known world send a ship out to meet them.

Honestly, this was a mess of a story, which only came into some kind of focus in the last few pages. 

Once again so much word count was wasted on describing alien physiology and customs that it took too long before the aspect of a multi-generational (generations of clones) mission for first contact emerged.

This was another miss for me.

Genevieve Valentine's website - http://www.genevievevalentine.com/

Genevieve Valentine

The Next 100 Years by George Friedman - Book Report #169

This was a terrific listen.

Once again Friedman put together a compelling case that predicts the United States will be the dominant political power this century.

Predicting the possible path over the next 10 to 20 years sounded very plausible.  Even though the predictions 50 to 100 years out seem too much like fiction, Friedman reminds us that our present day could not be predicted 50 years ago, never mind 100 years ago.

Once again, I found myself getting just a little bit depressed.  The power games will continue, the targets will change but the game will not.

It just reminds me that we seem to be a pointless species; we are forever taking advantage of each other.  We are not united, we war amongst ourselves and that is unlikely to change.

That's not to say that the book flawed, oh no - we are.  Friedman did a terrific job of putting his vast knowledge of geopolitics and took a careful stab at predicting the future.

I recommend the book highly.

George Friedman -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Friedman

Book Report #124 - This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Book 48 of 52
Page count 339

What a wonderful book.

Ordinarily I don't gravitate to literary fiction, not enough happens, but this one was a delight to read.  It was also made into a film that I am looking forward to seeing. 

Judd Foxman's father has passed away and the family has been asked to sit shiva in his memory.  At the same time his marriage is also falling apart.  The ritual brings his entire family together, for a week of conflict, resentment and, ultimately, understanding.

Both my daughter and wife have read it, loved it, and wanted to hear my take on it.  Jonathan Tropper writes with the honest voice of every man.  This is an author who understands how to articulate the way men think and view the world.

Although the foundation of the story is completely sad it is an uplifting, funny and honest look at relationships.    Through the forced proximity of sitting shiva we get to see the cracks in the lives of everyone else.  It is the distance we keep between each other that promotes the belief that other people have their shit together better than we do.  Tropper reminds us that everybody's lives are a mess.

Tropper also has a way of turning a phrase that I fell in love with.  Here is how he opens the book:

"Dad's Dead," Wendy says offhandedly, like it's happened before, like it happens every day.  It can be grating, this act of hers, to be utterly unfazed at all times, even in the face of tragedy.  "He died two hours ago."

"How's Mom doing?"

"She's Mom, you know?  She wanted to know how much to tip the coroner."

In another moment Judd describes just how hurt and angry he is his wife's lover (who happens to be his own boss):

 "Wade could not get enough pancreatic cancer to satisfy me."

These are dark, funny and insightful lines and the book is filled with such gems.

Highly recommended.

Jonathan Tropper's website is HERE.

Jonathan Tropper

Book Report 3 of 26 - Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin

Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin.

Anybody who knows me knows that I am fascinated by peak oil.  My dad lived in fear of losing his job, I fear the decline of oil production and how that is going to effect everything!

The book is sobering but still has and under-current of optimism.  Rubin believes that we will find a way to live with expensive energy and food prices by going local.  He predicts the end of globalization which was only possible with cheap oil.

I thought he did not spend enough time discussing what life would look and feel like post-oil and I thought he could have expanded on alternative sources of power.  But he's not a social scientist or an expert in alternative energy, he's an economist, so he stuck to writing about what he knows.

After reading the book I went downstairs and unplugged the deep-freeze which sits nearly empty nearly all the time.  A tiny reduction in my carbon foot-print.

The book is not all gloom and doom as most other books on the subject are.  It's the first one that has taken the time to look at what life would be like after we reach the oil production peak.

The other consequence that he neatly left out of the book is the possibility that we won't get off the oil bus in an orderly fashion.  The basic assumption he takes is that everybody will simply shrug at higher fuel costs, leave the car in the driveway and either take the bus, bike or simply walk to work.   But the very real possibility is that countries will go to war over access to oil reserves.  Society could easily turn into a pack of wolves fighting over a bone.  But that's another subject.

If you've never thought about the subject of peak oil then I would suggest reading this book.  It's very informative and hopeful.