Books in July

Well, I started the month with Niven and Pournelle's Footfall. Like Lucifer's Hammer, I found it overlong with characters I didn't much care about. The aliens, however, were seriously cool. Still, after that I had to take a Niven break.

So I plunged into some nonfic I've had lying around for a while now. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber was a very engaging read. It's about the history of textiles from the advent of string to the Industrial Revolusion, but it also has a lot to say about archaeology and how it's done. I found it interesting on both levels.

A Stranger to History by Aatish Taseer is a memoir by the son of a Pakistani father and an Indian mother who was raised in India by his mother. It's about his journey through Islamic lands starting in Turkey and ending finally in Pakistan, trying to discover what it means to be a "cultural Muslim". It's wonderfully written, explores countries I would love to visit someday but probably never will, and brings to life the people who live there and what they think and feel about their own countries. I got my copy from the UK, though; I'm not sure if this had a US release or not.

How To Win a Cosmic War by Reza Aslan is also about Islam, and about how democracy and personal freedom are good things. Between these two books, I got to thinking about cargo cults, and about how any theocracy can only ever be a large scale cargo cult. You can't know what goes on in someone else's mind, you can't force them to have faith. But you can force them to show outward signs of faith. Which is as effective as making a radio out of coconuts. But then I've always thought secular, pluralist societies were the way to go. Still, these are both books well worth reading.

Back to fiction and YA at that: Unwound by Neal Shusterman had a completely unbelievable premise: that pro-life and pro-choice people would agree to a middle ground of carrying every pregnancy to term, but having the option of scrapping them for parts when they become teenagers (unwinding). Everything that follows on that is well thought out, and the story is fast paced and engaging. I might have liked it more, but I just never bought the premise.

Back to Niven and Pournelle, but in a good way. The Mote in God's Eye I really liked. Niven always does cool aliens, and the moties are top notch. This is worldbuilding at its best, I think, an entire society where all the parts fit so perfectly. The sequel, The Gripping Hand, I liked less well. In terms of plot it followed well from the other, but in The Mote in God's Eye I had quite liked the character of Kevin Renner. He reminded me of Hughes in Full Metal Alchemist; the man content to stay in the background and make sure the right people were in the right places and did the jobs they were meant to do. Plus he was sarcastic/funny. Unfortunately in The Gripping Hand he became just any other Niven main character and I missed my Hughes.

OK, back to writing my own terrible, terrible book. I have it on good authority that when you hate the sound of your own words, it means you're nearly done. Ye gods I hope that's true!