Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 33

Cursive Cuneiform

Iiše tuuneetaššuiilefa

Šiiuenašušuan parunašušuan

Ḫunašušuan oommueetaššuan.

Iišee tuuneetaššuuaniilefa

Oomiinnašuušše faḫunašuun

Ameetauan.

If you heed me,

waters and grains and

houses you will enjoy.

If you do not heed me,

Your lands to ashes

I will burn.

— The Pataḫai Ḫuḫa

Remember the Sahara Seas project? Before I shelved it, I talked with Damátir Ando (aka Conciliarityoftepat, aka Yuk-tepat) about making a writing system for the Hurro-Urartian speaking people who invaded (a wetter, greener) northeastern Africa and founded the Ancient Podzran (Pataḫai) culture (see here for a look at Ancient Podzran’s daughter, Classical Podzran (Pto’a)). There’s also a rather nice myth cycle of the Ucaptians, an Afro-Asiatic people from the central northern coast of Africa, who would eventually conquer and scatter the Podzrans.

I shelved Sarah Seas because I realized how enormous it was going to be (it took me six months to get through the first two languages in a list of at least five). I do have a story idea for it, though, and someday I may even write it.

I owe many thanks to Cody of AlternateHistoryHub, who introduced me to Sean McNight‘s Saharan Seas map, and to Damatir, who was very patient with me. Stay tuned, we might be working together in future.

4 Star Book Reviews: Soldier of the Mists

Soldier of the Mists by Gene Wolfe

I got this book recommended by none other than Adrien Tchaikovsky (author of Children of Time and Redemption’s Blade among many others), who called Wolfe “the master of the first person.” He’s right.

Latro is a book supposedly translated by Wolfe from a diary kept by a 5th-century-BC Roman mercenary in Greece who received a wound to the head and can’t remember much earlier than twelve hours ago. It’s a delightful conceit, as the main point of view from the book (some chapters are written by other people) doesn’t speak Greek perfectly, doesn’t have the context to understand most of what’s going on, and is prone to hallucinations.

There are quite a lot of gods popping up in the story, lots of magic and ghosts, characters disappear, reappear, change sex, and swirl around the main character, who because he can’t remember anything anyway, just sort of shrugs and replies pleasantly to whatever is happening to him right now. There’s a very charming sense of trying to do the right thing in impossible situations.

It’s also nice that there are no villains. Certainly there are people whose actions run counter to Latro’s quest, or who behave badly. Very badly in some cases. But we’re never left in doubt that everyone Latro meets is a person, with their own internal story — usually one that doesn’t make any more sense than his. The book has moments of piercing compassion, even for tiny bit-characters. There’s the foreigner who tried to speak Greek once, was made fun of, and now only communicates with hand signs. The general who has mastered his emotions so thoroughly that he isn’t aware of it when he’s angry. The god who hopes his wife will teach him mercy.

The book does drag on a bit. Like other Wolfe stories I’ve read, it has a tendency to wander across the map, searching for itself. And there’s the weird way characters speak, although with Latro, it’s easier to interpret that as awkward translation from Greek to Latin to English. You (or at least I) also have to read this book with wikipedia on your other tab (who the heck is “the King of Nyssa”? Oh, okay. And where is Nyssa? Uh huh. And who were his parents? And so on.) But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

4 Star Book Reviews: Extreme Medicine

Extreme Medicine by Kevin Fong, MD

An astrophysicist-turned-doctor writes about frontiers in medicine and human endurance. The tone strikes just the right balance between compassion for the victims of formerly untreatable medical problems and fascination with the techniques that saved them. The historical accounts are given with as much verve as Fong’s own experiences. He’s been to great places, and has brought something back for us.

Taking out the Trash

Taking out the trash

A kestrel on a cool breeze

I’m glad I looked up

Bees lick maple leaves

Bees lick maple leaves,

Aphid honeydew, and dust.

Don’t waste that sugar.

Facebook Live: Orbital Biome

Here’s something new.

Watch me experiment with Facebook Live! Thrill as I make hand-wavy explanations of aliens and try to make my finger work. What do you think? Should I make more of these?

4 Star Book Reviews: Adrift on the Sea of Rains

Adrift on the Sea of Rains by Ian Sales

Adrift on the Sea of Rains is beautifully written and exquisite in its commitment to accuracy. The sharp-lined realism, the towering wonder, and the depths of emotion of an astronaut who stands on the moon and looks up, waiting for the Earth to turn blue again. It’s everything I want from science fiction.

My only complaint is that this little novella isn’t a novel. That initial tableau – astronaut, moon, and Earth – seems to promise an epic voyage of desperation and discovery across the timelines. What we get instead is still very good, very psychologically believable, but I wish their could have been more. Maybe that was the author’s point?

4 Star Book Reviews: Arrows of Time

Arrows of Time by Greg Egan

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Greg Egan is one of the few authors whose books I can re-read. Arrows of time certainly rewarded me for re-reading it. The first time, I was amused by the concept of reversed time. Now that I’m more grown up, I got the discussion about our deserpate search for meaning in a cosmos that assures us it has none. The balance between what we must and must not know. The terror we have for the part we play in making the future. What will I discover next time?

Don’t read this one without first reading the first two books (The Clockwork Rocket and The Eternal Flame). It’s a different universe in which the speed of light depends on its wavelength. People are amorphous blobs with very strange reproductive politcs. Their politicians are still kind of dumb, though. You tell ’em, Egan!

Arrows of Time by Greg Egan. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13352266-the-arrows-of-time This was a re-read, which I don’t do much. Egan rewards it, though. This time I could remember the “human” story (they’re actually squishy, alt-universe Barbapapa-people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbapapa ), and spend my mental energy trying to wrap my mind around time moving in different directions. It should tell you something that the whole “what of free will in a deterministic universe” problem gets about a paragraph before it’s solved and we move on to other, more interesting exercises. Such as determining whether the cosmos has positive or negative curvature.

The Wind in the Night

The wind in the night

Rustles the leaves of beach trees

Above them them: the stars

Video! After the Skunk Trees

The great and powerful Kim Moravec turned one of my mental health haikus into a picture! A MOVING picture!

Thank you, Kim! I’m going to try to do some of this art stuff myself. Let’s see how it goes.