Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 207

Putting time in perspective

Here’s a post that caught my eye largely because of the timeline for a ninety-year-old person. It snagged my attention because my parents aren’t ninety, but they’re pretty close, so this is like the timeline for their lives: Start at WWII and march forward. Here’s television, here’s the Civil Rights era right here, here’s the first man on the moon … I was just thinking, because it was Holocaust Remembrance Day yesterday, how the whole Holocaust is sinking into ancient history for young people today.

The liberation of Auschwitz was seventy-four years ago. Can that even be right? Seventy-four years. For someone who’s twenty today, that was fifty-four years before they were born.

What was happening fifty-four years before I was born? Let me see. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, launching WWI. That doesn’t really seem like ancient history to me, partly because for me WWI and WWII happened basically together, a one-two punch of violent struggle and human tragedy.

Julian Huxley was at the height of his career. That does seem like ancient history.

Oh, I see William Carrier patented the air conditioner. Not super important juuuust at this moment, with temps here set to fall below zero in a couple of days, but every July, I bless the name of William Haviland Carrier, as the temps go up above 90 degrees for weeks on end.

Well, now, let me see. From the post I originally linked, I note that the year(s) my parents were born are closer in time to the day Lincoln was shot than they are to today. That is indeed shocking. Lincoln really is back there in the mists of history.

A similar bit of trivia: Cleopatra lived closer to today than she did to the building of the Great Pyramids. Wow. Definitely click through and admire this post, which eventually goes straight back to the Big Bang.

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Recent Reading: Knife Children

Somewhat misleading title and cover, imo. Nobody stabs anybody on-screen or anything like that, and there’s only one child … except in the sense that everyone is somebody’s child, I suppose.

Good story, though! Barr, all grown up! That was nice to see. Classic LMB style, a smooth, fun story with lots of serious threads underlying an often humorous narrative.

One of the nicest things about this story is the picture we finally get to see of a pleasant, supportive Lakewalker family. Sure, it’s not completely smooth sailing for Barr when he’s forced to admit the existence of his daughter, now fourteen and with Lakewalker powers coming in strongly. But compared to Dag’s toxic family, Barr’s is fantastic. Compared to Fawn’s initial reception in Lakewalker society, Lily’s is easy and pleasant — of course the situation is a little different since Lily is truly a Lakewalker, but still. The reader can see how much things have changed in the past twelve years.

I thought I would be disappointed that Dag and Fawn don’t appear in this story, but the complete focus on Barr was actually just fine and probably bringing in Dag and / or Fawn would have messed that up by pulling the reader’s attention in the wrong direction. Barr’s a likable, responsible (!) young man now, and the epilogue makes it plain he’s lived down his youthful follies, not that there was much doubt he was going to.

I liked this novella a lot. Hopefully we’ll see a few more in this world as time goes on.

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D&D with contagious diseases

A startling and funny post at tor.com:

Give Your D&D Characters Strange Diseases With This Brand New Supplement!

Keeping track of a character’s health in Dungeons & Dragons has always been important in regard to keeping said character alive. But the real world doesn’t come at you with hit points and healing potions most of the time. You know what your party needs?

Communicable diseases.

Thankfully, a group of medical students who love tabletop gaming thought about this, and decided to cut the world a break. They’ve created a supplement called The Malady Workshop, which will help your Dungeon Master come up any number of horrible ailments for you and your pals to deal with as you battle unicorns and flirt with orcs. From the  Dungeon Masters Guild :

Inspired by the vast array of diseases, and the medieval myths that once surrounded them, we embarked on a mission; to enrich other worlds with fantastical diseases.

Surely I’m not the only one who find this delightful. Obviously, just what a role-playing game campaign needs — or a secondary world fantasy novel, of course — fantastical, contagious diseases!

My first reaction, actually is, Yeah, do not need another complicated plot element, got enough going on here in this ginormous novel. But I have to admit, I did then start thinking, Sure, but in the next novel …

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“Most unread” book

This is fun and interesting: codifying books as “most unread” by looking at the most-highlighted passages. If they’re all at the front of the book, you can assume readers are not making it to the end.

This is based on an article written in 2014, so for all we know some book from 2018 has toppled the winner, but:

The most “unread” book came out as Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, …. At almost 700 pages long, the last of the popular Kindle highlights end on page 26 – barely four per cent of the way through the book.

Others: A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking — yeah, I didn’t finish that one. Thinking Fast and Slow, which I haven’t tried at all.

I’m somewhat gratified to find here that lots more people finished Catching Fire from the Hunger Games trilogy than finished 50 Shades of Gray.

This line amuses me:

But even The Great Gatsby couldn’t keep people hooked, with an HI 0f 28.3 per cent.

Seriously, does anyone find The Great Gatsby remotely as compelling a page-turner as any book in The Hunger Games trilogy?

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Public service announcement

Just saw this, don’t know how it will look in ten years, but just FYI —

We may finally know what causes Alzheimer’s – and how to stop it

If you bled when you brushed your teeth this morning, you might want to get that seen to. We may finally have found the long-elusive cause of Alzheimer’s disease: Porphyromonas gingivalis, the key bacteria in chronic gum disease.

That’s bad, as gum disease affects around a third of all people. But the good news is that a drug that blocks the main toxins of P. gingivalis is entering major clinical trials this year, and research published today shows it might stop and even reverse Alzheimer’s. There could even be a vaccine.

Alzheimer’s is one of the biggest mysteries in medicine. As populations have aged, dementia has skyrocketed to become the fifth biggest cause of death worldwide. Alzheimer’s constitutes some 70 per cent of these cases and yet, we don’t know what causes it.

It’s looked to me like some families are genetically resistant to Alzheimer’s; for example, in my immense extended family, I know of just one person with Alzheimer’s. Now I wonder about the rate of gingivitis in our family.

If Alzheimer’s is a problem in your extended family, this connection may well be worth paying attention to, and you may want to click through and read the whole thing.

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The art of Middle-Earth

At tor.com, an interview with Ted Naismith, the artist for lots of the art we all think of as quintessential Middle-Earth visual images.

My favorite . . . surely everyone’s favorite?

The whole post is well worth a minute of your time, for the lovely collection of artwork as well as the interview.

UPDATE: Maureen’s comment made me immediately google Alan Lee Tolkien. Here, for those who might like a sample, is the cover to The Fall of Gondolin:

Fine, I have to admit, this is pretty great too. To be even-handed, and since I stumbled across it really fast, here’s an article about Alan Lee.

I still favor Ted Naismith’s work. Now I’m going to probably spend more time than is strictly reasonable looking at their work and trying to work out why.

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Embrace Winter

Here’s a post that I will try to embrace: Embrace Your Friend, the Freezing Cold Temperature

Being cold and wishing for summer is an essential part of winter. It’s what makes summer so sweet. It’s helps make life feel lived. If you never curse the painful sting of winter’s cold kiss, can you really tolerate the annoying burn of summer’s hot sun? …

The cold is nice. You get to wear so many of your clothes. You get to come in from the cold and feel the warm air of indoors sooth your frozen skin. You get to take a deep breath and feel the fresh air in your lungs. You get to smell exhaust from a car, a good smell that smells best in cold air. You get to say “omggg it’s so cold!!,” and isn’t that fun? You get to have a very cold day.

Please don’t wish the cold away unthinkingly. Soon it will be very hot, and then, sometime after that, we will be dead.

Well, that went suddenly deep.

And no, car exhaust is definitely not a nice smell; just no.

But okay, yes, fine. I will now attempt to embrace being cold and wishing for summer; I will appreciate wearing all the nice sweaters and tall boots that I really do love; and I will remember that snow is really pretty. That gives me three things to appreciate.

Which is timely, because today it (a) first rained to remove all the pretty snow; (b) suddenly dropped 20 degrees and skidded through freezing rain and ice on its way to a sort of misty snow, which I’m going to have to drive in; and (c) it’s omgggg so cold! And the dogs and I would really prefer to have weather in which we can actually go for walks.

They did have fun coming in last night and running mad circles around the couch, mostly if not universally missing the laptop power cord and other hazards, so there’s that.

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Recent reading: Confidence Tricks by Tamara Morgan

I’ve had this one on my Kindle for some time and didn’t really expect to like it, so consistent my beginning-of-the-year attempt to whittle down the TBR pile at a brisker-than-usual pace, I gave it a try. I figured I’d read a chapter or two and ditch it.

Nope. Turned out I really liked it.

So, Confidence Tricks.

Incredibly typical romance cover, with the added detail that her attention is clearly more on the fact that she’s picking his pocket than on him. Still, basically, shirtless dude, embrace, yeah, this is your basic romance cover. Certainly the cover is not the draw, at least not for me.

Here’s part of the Goodreads description:

Asprey Charles has always assumed he would one day take his place in the family art appraisal and insurance firm. “His place” meaning he plans to continue to enjoy his playboy lifestyle, lavish money on his Cessna, and shirk every responsibility that dares come his way.

But when a life of crime is thrust upon him, he is just as happy to slip on a mask and cape and play a highwayman rogue. After all, life is one big game—and he excels at playing.

Poppy Donovan vows that her recent release from jail will be her last—no more crime, no more cons. But when she learns that her grandmother lost her savings to a low-life financial advisor, she’s forced to do just one more job.

Fine, whatever. The description is not a turn-off; in fact, there are things I like about it. But for me it’s not especially a draw, either. Plainly I picked this book up because of someone’s recommendation, don’t remember whose. Then the opening suggested that the book might well be too light and fluffy for me and I let it sink down toward the bottom of the TBR pile.

Turned out it’s not too light and fluffy, except for the beginning. Instead, it’s witty and humorous. There’s plenty of depth to the characters and plenty of unexpected turns in the plot, and yep, really enjoyed it.

Here’s a characteristic tidbit that shows off both the wit and the characters: Asprey is inviting Poppy out on a date … to help him steal his brother’s espresso maker. (This will be the sixth time he’s stolen the same model espresso maker from his brother.)

“If I get the machine first, you can ask me anything about what Graff and Tiffany and I are doing.”

That was almost too good to be true. “And you’ll tell me the truth no matter what?”

“Unless you’d rather do something else,” he offered. “Drink a nice Pinot and discuss French cheeses.”

“Oh, I”m in.” There was no use pretending this wasn’t exactly how she wanted to spend the evening. Her, Asprey, a good challenge, better stakes. “But if I find out you cheated, I get two questions.”

The two of them trade questions and answers for the rest of the story, which Morgan uses cleverly to reveal plot and character. The romance is fairly slow-build and pretty believable. Both characters are definitely likable, though at times I did feel that Poppy was being too hard on Asprey. Granted, he plays the insouciant rich playboy pretty convincingly. Still.

The ending had one element I liked, but to say anything about it would constitute a spoiler. Fundamentally a good resolution, though presented at a rather brisk pace considering the relatively slowish pace of the first 7/8ths of the story.

Bottom line: I immediately picked up another book by Tamara Morgon when I finished this story.

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I’m intrigued by what counts as “wasting time”

Here’s a post at the NY Post about reading: Most Americans try to make time to read every day.

A new study of 2,000 Americans found that as many as 86 percent feel they make a conscious effort to read in some way every day.

First: Well, good.

Second: Two thousand is not very many. Which two thousand people did you survey? Urban, rural, young, old, and on and on.

Also: 26 percent of those studied feel they haven’t managed to read a full book in the past year. … Some of the main barriers to reading more were found to be scrolling through social media (49 percent), playing games on a phone (30 percent) and watching TV shows (29 percent) – all things Americans reported “wasting” their time on.

So this is self-perception that you’re wasting your time. That seems odd to me, as if you truly perceive television as a waste of time, why are you doing it? If it’s something you enjoy, is that actually a waste? More than reading a novel?

I mean, I basically don’t watch TV, but I know I’m missing out on some good stuff. I just enjoy reading more than watching TV. That doesn’t mean I don’t realize I’m missing out. I wouldn’t say someone is wasting their time watching TV unless they just sit there gazing at the screen for hours even though they don’t enjoy it.

I think this caught my attention because I know multiple authors who spend quite a bit of time playing video games, and that strikes me as similar: it could be a waste of time, but is that a fair characterization if you enjoy it? Even if it doesn’t lead to you writing, say, The Starfighter Invitation?

The most popular books mentioned include:

“In Death” by J.D. Robb“Jack Reacher” by Lee Child“Robert Langdon” by Dan Brown

So that doesn’t seem to me to count as the kind of novel that most people would consider to be “worthy” of a lot of time. Is anything by Dan Brown more “worth” an investment of time than The Good Place or one of the other excellent current TV shows?

I will add that right there with the other activities that are perceived as a waste of time: sitting in traffic. This is surely not a comparable activity? NO ONE ever sits in traffic voluntarily. No one in the history of the world has ever said, “I could read JD Robb’s new book, but you know what, I’ll just go out and sit in traffic instead.” What a strange thing to include.

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Dancing with your shadow

Here’s a delightful performance by Lindsey Stirling. If you’re not familiar with her — I wasn’t until recently — check this out and see what you think.

I have one of her CDs now, because even without her visual performance, Stirling’s music turns out to be exactly what I like as background music for writing: mostly instrumental, active, strong rhythm. I expect I’ll be picking up other CDs as well.

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