Robynettely

"CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella" by George Saunders In a review of another work (which is still outstanding on my requests list from the TPL), George Saunders was mentioned as writing short stories about work, which apparently not many other people do. I was immediately curious, because a lot of the notes that are stuffed in my "short stories to be written" folder are about work, so I was wondering what the competition was. Were the stories I was contemplating already written? Was there any point? If this volume is representative of George Saunders' work, then I think I can write my stories in peace. These aren't what I would write at all. And that's a good thing, for both him and for me. there would be little more depressing than reading something that got published that I would have written, like literally (wishing I had written something is completely different). The stories are manic and a little bit futuristic. Theme parks featur...

After a couple of searches, I figured I must have read a review of this book on the "How the World Works" blog on http://www.salon.com/ . Interesting, because Andrew Leonard mentioned it there on April 10, 2006 -- so close to a year ago. I got it out of the library two weeks ago, and I didn't have a long wait on interlibrary loan, so I might have requested it two weeks before that. The interesting thing is that it stuck in my mind so long that I wanted to read it. I don't remember what triggered me to request it after all that time. It was really good. I can't comment on the science, but it seemed ripe with so many details -- about the economics of farming, and translation between Spanish and English, and religion, and viruses and immunology and planting transmitter/receivers inside people's brains, and it seemed so fully realized to me. I think it's set in 2061 (that year was mentioned once, though fairly early on; we were discussing when it took place, a...

“Good Omens” by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman To sum it up, I would say: too much Terry, not enough Neil. The plot was entertaining enough, I guess, but I got tired of the sense of humour after a while. "The Dialectic of Sex" by Shulamith Firestone I read this one because I Blame the Patriarchy was doing a readalong. Apparently I am not a participator, because I know they discussed at least the first chapter and I never said anything, but I also hate not knowing what people are talking about, so I read the book anyway. It was far more entertaining than the title and cover made it seem. My favourite chapter was the one titled "Down with Childhood", which asked, among other things, what an adult is, except a larger child with more life experience. Though the book was published in 1970 when Shulamith was about 25, and then she spent a good part of the next 30 years in and out of mental hospitals. My guess is she suffers from Bipolar disorder, though it's not fair...