Lara Amber's comments (member since Apr 18, 2008)

Lara Amber's comments from the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group.

I got tired of searching for Kindle editions of books to add to my shelf, so I applied for Librarian status. So if you notice an edition of a book you want on your shelf is missing, or messed up, send me a tell and I can fix.

Lara Amber

I ended up reading it pretty much non-stop until finished.

My non-fiction book ended up being NurtureShock New Thinking About Children. I'm really caught up in it.

Lara Amber

Kathy wrote: How are you liking the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher?

I'm really into it. Let me put it this way, I buy each book as soon as I finish the one before it. Book 1 10/25, Book 2 10/30, Book 3 11/3, Book 4 11/7. I'm 53% of the way through Book 4, so I may find myself finished with Book 5 before Book 6 is even released.

Lara Amber

I like Big Brother in my DVR. I seriously think Tivo should give Nielsen a run for their money by providing more detailed and real numbers versus extrapolating from a select number of households. Hey it could drive down costs of owning a Tivo and give us better programming. The networks need to get caught up with the times and realize we are not going back to being tethered to our televisions, and if they want a shot at putting something before our eyeballs, they better be more fraking flexible.

I think cost is a bid deal for scifi shows. Not only do you need top notch writers, but a slew of technical advisers, a really top notch set designer and costumer, and a crew of talented CGI and special effect artists. That's a lot of money to pour into an hour timeslot where you could just throw on another silly reality TV show which skips all those costs. The networks seem to put more value on raw numbers then having faithful followers. You would think they would value a show that has a following that NEVER miss an episode and will follow actors, directors, and writers to other shows. Eyeballs you can count on don't seem to matter.

Lara Amber

Meghan,

A slight correction on your post. They didn't have to change the Constitution to allow FDR to run for a third and fourth term. The Constitution didn't have any term limits on the president. Presidents kept to two terms because of the tradition set by President George Washington who refused to run for a third term in office. The Twenty Second Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1947, two years after FDR's death, and it instituted term limits on the Office of the President.

I also believe that only Congress can declare martial law. The President doesn't have that power, or the power to disband Congress. Congress is equal in authority as the Office of the President.

Lara Amber

P.S. I'm really enjoying this discourse. I love a good intellectual debate.

MB,

Your examples prove my point!

Iran: A homogeneous population. Almost everyone is Muslim, a highly regimented religion, and believe in following the directions of living holy men. In addition you have a country's history that includes several dynasties with strong caste systems and absolute rule. Contrast that to the United States, where you have a country that has promoted religious freedom and individual accomplishment over birthright since day one. Every voice counts since everyone can vote and hold office. Every religion is protected. It's a completely different mindset being passed down from generation to generation.

Germany after World War I: The German monarchy had just collapsed, creating a power vacuum. The country went from the absolute rule of the monarchy to a power struggle between multiple factions, including the communists, who were trying to continue the ideas of absolute rule and obedience. In the case of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler was legally appointed to power and supported by many people in the beginning. The Republic of Gilead is presented as a terrorist coup, not a mandate by the people.

In both cases you're still talking about much smaller countries with mostly rural and uneducated populations and smaller educated urban elite populations with limited communication abilities across areas. In both cases you're talking about countries with a ongoing indoctrination over generations of the state being absolute and willed by God. Since Americans don't grow up believing that, we would have a harder time accepting a leader who attempted to tell us he or she was ruling by divine right. Nope, we're rude little people who think our opinions matter no matter what our station in life. That's what makes us so lovable and frustrating.

My degree is in sociology, which is why I'm looking so much at underlying factors in each country's makeup. Do I think something like the Handmaid's Tale could happen in modern times. Sure. But as it was written with it taking place in the United States? No. We don't have the right raw material.

Lara Amber

Okay, I love that definition of a cult.

Chilling as a female reader should almost be its own thread. That would be a very interesting discussion.

Carolyn,

You bring up some great points.

In response: I don't think comparisons to communist Russia work that well anymore. We are primarily a service based economy with a highly educated population instead of a manufacturing based economy. So people aren't interchangeable behind the plow.

I would point out in response to the "there are still people who believe women belong in the home" that while there may be a great deal of people who would like to return to "magical perfect time" the majority of power, education, and money in this country is in the hand of that "elite" they are always railing against. We live in a country where a majority of our OB-GYNs are now female. Taking women out of the workforce would remove a lot of our doctors, lawyers, power brokers, elected officials, civil servants, and financial experts. So any attempt to remove those women from power would meet with some backlash. (Especially the whole banking thing, there are a LOT of women in banking as managers and VPs.)

One would need a heck of a charismatic leader to pull off something this large. Waco, etc. were all small, and were put down by the government. There is no evidence that there is a charismatic leader in the book, just a bunch of interchangeable males (hints of communism).

I also argue against comparisons to the Patriot Act/post 9-11. The reason the Patriot Act got passed was it required so little of us. The second the government starts crossing the actual threshold of homes and ripping apart families, expect revolution. We're talking about taking away spouses, kids, sisters, daughters, etc. The second someone started spouting that nonsense, my dad would be calling every friend he has in the Navy command and CIA about resistance. I already have my license to carry concealed, and would continue to do so, no matter how they changed the law. With our large Catholic & Hispanic population, could you imagine the response to "we're taking away your daughters to hand them over to be sex surrogates". It would be open war. It's one thing to say "women belong in the home" but when it crosses into "and we get to make them have sex with whoever we want" now you're in enraged dad & brothers territory.

I just can't imagine the Republic of Gilead involving more then a few thousand people and probably less land then Rhode Island. We're a country that firmly believes in government stay off my lawn, individual freedom, religious freedom, marrying for love, and cherishing parenthood for both parents. Now if we lived in a country where we were taught from birth that the good of the state came before personal fulfillment, that we weren't valued as individuals, or if 90% of us believed a dogmatic religion with a clear religious leader, that would be different.

Lara Amber

Rachel wrote: First all of their money was tied to a government issued card, which had their sex identified on it.

See that would stop me right there. I could never see the people agreeing to that sort of setup. Oh heck, let's be honest, I could never see the corporations agreeing to it. Pass up the opportunity to have branded cards in people's wallets? Give up all control of your client's information and accounts to a goverment entity? There would be ads non-stop on the air paid for by Visa and Amex using front groups like "concerned citizens for card diversity" about how this program was a "bad idea" and asking for identity theft from pickpockets and hackers. Then you've got the privacy advocates screaming about why the government or one of their subcontractors should have access to every transaction of private citizens.

Plus, I could see no reason at all for investment accounts and retirement accounts to be tied into this. Especially for people like me who invest in foreign markets in addition to domestic.

I also didn't see the killing of the president and congress being more then a shock factor. In reality our line of succession for the presidency only involves congress for two slots out of 18 outlined successors to the presidency. The governors have the right to appoint replacements to the Senate. So you might have seats sitting empty for a few weeks, but there would be no need for national elections for the vacancies. Some people would be appointed by governors, some by state legislatures, and some by state election. Even if all 18 successors to the presidency were assassinated, the governor appointed replacements to the Senate would just vote and elect a new President Pro Tempore of the Senate, who would fulfill the term. (Of course, good luck getting your hands on 100 Senators, 435 Representatives, and 15 additional people in line for the presidency, because they don't spend their days all in one room, or even in one city.) You would also likely have to kill the Supreme Court, since they would likely be providing oversight to the whole thing. I'm pretty sure our government has several contingencies plans already written up for "someone explodes DC".

Lara Amber

Liz wrote: As easily as they took over the bank accounts and stopped the women from working, I think whoever took over could also disable cellphones and the internet. Of course, that in itself would cause riots. I was working in a public library on 9/11 and had some really pissed off people because the internet was slow.

See I found the bank account takeover completely unbelievable. Banks would fight back because of the negative press of taking accounts away from the signed account holders (and possibly find themselves barred from international business). Credit card companies would scream because legally they can only go after the person who signed the credit card agreement, so if the credit card is in the wife's name, they can't go after the husband for payment. Plus all the people who aren't married, or keep completely separate finances.

Lara Amber

Rachel wrote:I don't think that Utah would join a Gileadian type society either, because the majority of their conservative base are LDS and part of that faith is having freedom of choice, freedom of religion, and equality among the sexes (I am speaking as an LDS person myself). I would be more concerned with Southern states, geographically speaking and because they seem a little more fanatical in their beliefs (abortion, etc.).

I was only speaking to the fact that Utah is an area where a large percentage of the population is one faith, not the particulars of the faith itself. Think about major cities like Los Angeles and New York where you have people from many different countries and religions.

LDS I think still remains a good example because of some of the behaviors exhibited. There is a strict religious hierarchy with deep pockets. There is quite a bit of oversight over members (visitations to the home, expected to take part in various groups beyond "show up on Sunday", expectation to tithe), but also a lot of support for members (which I consider a good thing, but in theory, could be twisted) and from some people I know, in smaller areas the threat of ostracism for leaving the church or not being a member in the first place still exists.

One of the southern megachurches might be a possibility, but they don't have the same amount of funds and organized structure.

Lara Amber

I loved this book, but I DON'T see it as probable in the slightest in my lifetime.

1. We have a workforce that is so integrated with both parents working that people wouldn't be able to survive on one income.
2. We are so used to instant messaging, online access, cellular service, and 24 news channels that the SECOND something happened to our government people would be questioning everything in sight.
3. We have a highly armed population. Armed revolt would be almost guaranteed, with a lot of our military and national guard against a group like Gilead.
4. We now have a generation entering the workforce that consider the women's movement to be ancient history. To them women have always been able to hold any job a man could, there was always anti-sexual discrimination policies in the workplace, women as supervisors, etc. Heck I was born in 1977 and to me its practically ancient history.
5. Our country is too large to assume that any group could take over all of it. A small section sure, but all? No way in heck. The size of force needed to organize to attempt a coup like this nationwide would have been raided by the FBI years before they had the numbers needed.
6. Other countries would not blindly sit by as this happened. A coup like this would destabilize the world market. Not only are we a major importer, but we also owe quite a few countries money. They would be offering all sorts of support to any kind of resistance to bring back a country that will pay those debts and continue to import their products.
7. Men would argue with the idea of handmaidens. Most men would be having "econowives", and anything that took away their existing wives & girlfriends (second marriage, etc) and reduced the number of available spouses would lead to revolt.

So while I find the book incredibly emotionally stirring, the odds of it happening in a country as advanced and heterogeneous as ours is nil.

Lara Amber

Since I live in Colorado The Republic of Gilead has me thinking about The Promise Keepers and Focus on the Family. Both groups like to talk about how they are "family centric" and about "getting men involved in the church" but in reality they do things like yell horrid things at women without wedding bands pushing strollers (in this case she was the NANNY) and force movie theaters in small towns to stop running movies with "gay themes". Both groups meddle in the law, tell families what to do, and promote "traditional roles" in the family (apparently only 1950's middle class tv shows count as traditional).

I'm not sure the lack of action by people would be as believable today. With everyone having cellphones and web access I have a feeling that once something like this started people would be resisting, and considering we are a nation that's over 50% armed, it wouldn't just be complaining behind closed doors. Plus geographically we're such a large country, I'd believe several states forming the Republic of Gilead, while others would splinter off (remember the map of the US in Jericho?). It would just most likely be the states that already have a large conservative and homogeneous religious base (Utah for example).

Lara Amber

I'm continuing with the Jim Butcher books.

Academ's Fury
Cursor's Fury
Captain's Fury
Princeps' Fury

It's times like this that I just love my Kindle. I hated going to a bookstore and realizing they had volume 2 & 4 of a series, but not 3. So I'd have to order and wait for it to arrive. Not anymore!

I haven't picked my nonfiction book for the month, but I'm thinking about this:
When Everything Changed The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present

Lara Amber

I just reread The Handmaid's Tale for next month, which I hadn't read since high school and barely remembered.

I'm now reading Furies of Calderon.

I haven't been reading much, too tired with the pregnancy and busy with projects.

I liked the ending because it wasn't caused by humans rallying and doing the standard "we can defeat anything" drivel.

The idea that space aliens that developed in an entirely separate ecosystem could assimilate our blood and would be susceptible to our germs is rather entertaining with today's knowledge of biology. It would take an interesting organism that could take blood from any species and inject it in their own veins as life support. (If they were blood drinkers that would be more plausible to me, that they would be breaking it down into essential components in a digestive system, reconstituting into what they could use.)

Lara Amber

So much for that toe!

Sheri S. Tepper just went from having one book The Margarets available for the Kindle to having EIGHT. Guess going in each month and hitting the "I want this book on the Kindle" on all her books is starting to have an effect.

Additional Titles: The Gate to Women's Country, Shadow's End, Grass, The Visitor, The Family Tree, The Companions, and The Fresco.

Personally I love her work and I'm happy to pass my paperbacks along to someone else (yes if you pay postage I will ship to you, I'm in Colorado).

You're not the only one Steve. My husband knows when it rains, there is a good chance he's getting pounced.

Lara Amber

I just finished Queen Isabella Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England, I highly recommend it for anyone who likes reading history.