Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 44

The Smell of Cedar

I smell the cedar

And the sun’s warming my back

Just let me rest now

Dark, serrated line

Dark, serrated line

And the piercing sweetness of

Clouds between the hills

Five Star Reviews: Redemption’s Blade

Redepmtion’s Blade by Adrien Tchaikovski

Wow. Finally, the thoughtful, exciting, trope-subverting collision of fantasy and speculative biology I’ve been waiting for.

So you’ve got your standard Tolkienian fantasy world with humans, elves, and demigods versus a Dark Lord and his armies of orks and goblins. Except that all happened two years ago. Now, the war is over, but the world is still broken. The woman who won the war and a group of colorful companions (including her orkish boyfriend) are out to put things to rights.

That alone would have sold me, but Tchaikovski’s worldbuilding raises what might have been a pleasant waste of time to an education. How does a dragon work? What would expect a winged humanoid to look like? How do you fence with a sword that can cut through anything? The background of the world is also much less cliche than it first appears. The elves and orks aren’t quite elves and orks, but cultures a lot deeper and more interesting. The Dark Lord and the demigods have a whole thing. There are constructed languages!

The story is funny, exciting, and never loses sight of compassion, even as it unflinchingly plumbs the depths of wartime (or even peacetime) atrocity. It needed more editing, especially toward the end, but I still have to give Redemption’s Blade 5 stars and preorder the sequel.

Five Star Book Reviews: The Nearest

The Nearest by Greg Egan

Oh, my holy hendra virus! How does Greg Egan so reliably reach into my psyche and squeeze? Why is everything he writes such a masterpiece?

I can’t say much about “The Nearest” without giving away the twist. How about this: imagine a body-snatchers-type situation with a gut-wrenching emotional impact, agonizing moral implications, and a rock-solid foundation in biology.

Too clunky? How about this: imagine you wake up to discover your loved ones have been replaced with imitators?

Or even better: Whom do you trust? Your nearest and dearest? Or yourself?

Five Star Reviews: Enlightenment Now

Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker

No, the world’s not going to hell. No this year wasn’t the worst one ever. In fact, in most ways, this year was the best year ever. I can write that with a great confidence that it will continue to be true, regardless of which “this year” you happen to be in when reading this review.

There is a lot of pessimism about our society and its future, but Steven Pinker does a masterful job of demonstrating why our worst fears are unfounded. With painstaking care and attention to detail, he lays out support of his thesis that reason, science, and humanism have improved our world significantly since the Enlightenment and should continue to do so. With equal care, he discusses the cognitive biases, cultural contingencies, and perverse incentives in society that obscure this positive view of the world.

I don’t agree with Pinker about everything, but it is gratifying to see someone applying evidence and logic to the study of society. This is the same pragmatism I found so helpful in Factfulness, a book Pinker cites often. While Pinker isn’t quite as charming as Rosling, and he doesn’t draw on such a wealth of personal experience, there is a sense of humor in there somewhere, and the research that went into Enlightenment now is impressively broad.

The world can’t be perfect, and indeed it is not. We are surrounded by problems. But, as Pinker says, problems can be solved.

Junction to be published in January!

When Japanese nature show host Daisuke Matsumori finds himself on an alien world, he hopes to rekindle his passion for his work. Traveling through a newly-discovered wormhole in the Papuan highlands, he joins biologist Anne Houlihan on Junction, a patchwork planet of competing alien ecosystems. When their exploratory party crashes in the alien wilderness, Daisuke and Anne try to lead bickering soldiers and civilians back to civilization alive. As they trek across one unearthly biome after another and members of the party continue to die, however, Daisuke wonders whether human politics might be more deadly than alien biology. One of his companions might be a murderer.

Preorder here

Five Star Book Reviews: Unsouled

Unsouled by Will Wight

When clans and schools compete use the magical Sacred Arts to compete for esteem and power, what use is a boy born without magic? Nothing. Lindon grows up with no help at all from anyone outside his immediate family, which only contributes to his powerlessness. Anyone older than ten or so could kill him out of hand, and the only reason Lindon can survive is because the murder of such a weakly Just Isn’t Done. That and he cheats.

The magicless character in a magicful world isn’t a new idea, but I haven’t seen it approached before with such brutal honesty. The main character is crippled and in constant danger from a community that either ignores or despises him. I rooted for this clever and pitiful underdog as he slowly put together one careful scheme after another, hording and re-investing each tiny sliver of advantage he managed to accumulate. And the magic system is a fun one, too.

The Lands by the Waters – An Ucaptian Myth (4)

(start, previous)

For the hunt, with his hair he (Ptahh) strung the bow of cedar. For the memory, with papyrus as the writing tablet he painted (words on) it. For the steering, with his hand as an oar he paddled the waters.

n p s.kdar m ʁma p f m p txaʃ s.ɟehh.ɣ.s.f  p thal n p s.nkaʁ m whaɟ m p txa dem.ɣ.s.f  p whaɟ n p s.jha m dʁat p f m p kwab kewb.ɣ.sn.f p mwaʔ.w

On the fortieth day of the flood, the whinny of a horse was heard. With his hand, Clever Ptahh paddled toward the sound and there he was: the blessing-horse on the peak of Habaaz (1). Speedy Ptahh paddled to the horse until his hand touched soft silt.

p hraw ħmaw p sjaw ɟem.s.f p jjn p ɣkaw m dʁat p f kewb.f.f ptaħ pra r p χhaʃ ħnaʕ jeʃ.f.f p ɣkaw jʃa m jɣaʃ p hbaz m kewb.f.f ptaħ dwah r p ɣkaw r p wa.wt debʕ.s.f dʁat p f jʃaj lma

For a servant, with silt, Burning-as-of-Cleansing-Fire Ptahh created a man. For a servant-woman, with silt, Burning-as-of-a-Sacred-Fire(2) Ptahh created a woman. Skillful Ptahh created both their bodies. Then, Baking Shamaak caused them both to burn with living souls.

n hta m jʃaj petħ.ɣ.f.f ptaħ thar hʁaj n hta.t m jʃaj petħ.ɣ.s.f ptaħ ʃmak nʃaw.t petħ.ɣ.sn.f ptaħ dʁat jwaf.wj p sn ħnaʕ m ka.wj ʔnax.wj s.hem.n.sn.f ʃmak s.ɟab.

“I created both of you,” said Lord Ptahh to the man and the woman. “Thus I name you. You are silt that burns as of a sacred fire (3). And you are the new people of The Black Lands by the Waters. You are the people who will build a Palace for (the) Soul of Ptahh.”(4)

petħ.ɣ.cn.f j cn jerɟ.ɣ.sn.f ptaħ ht’ah p hʁaj ħnaʕ p nʃaw.t  ew.s s.megʕ.n.cn jeʃ.cn jʃaj ʃmak ħnaʕ jeʃ.cn p mwat.wj ʃʁaw.wj p wman.wt kam.wt jn p mwaʔ.wt jeʃ.cn p mwat.wj pej.ɣ.s.t ħwa.t n ka p ptaħ

(1) the highest peak of the Air Mountains

(2) the   and are difficult to translate. The noun (pronounced /ta:r/ ?) meant “cleansing by fire,” both in terms of holy sacrifices and slash-and-burn agriculture. (pronounced /ʃama:k/ ?) is of course from Podzran ʃi:meka, the sun god, but here I interpret the word as the nominalization of the verb ( /ʃe:mk/ ?), which meant “to be sacred” or “to burn” (as a sacred fire or the sun). Thus, the image here is of Ptahh cleansing the silt or making it sacred by baking it into a man, then of Ptahh himself burning with sacred heat as he made the woman. This has great implications for the conceptualizations of gender in Ucaptian society, which were very different from our own.

(3) >. The traditional translation is “you are Shamaak’s silt,” but I believe that > here is being used in the same capacity as in , and meant “burning” or “sacred.” There is an obvious parallel here to “dawn-shining silt,” a common formula in many Saharan poetic traditions, symbolizing fertile possibilities.

(4) , probably pronounced /ħowa:t nə ka: pə pata:ħ/. This is the ultimate origin of the word Ucaptia.

You can see all of the Ucaptian vocabulary I’ve got so far here.

Five Star Reviews: The Forest of Time

The Forest of Time by Michael Flynn

Now this is the kind of alternate history I’m talking about! A Pennsylvanische scout on the war-torn border with Maryland discovers a madman in the woods. Or maybe a spy? Various members of the Pennsylvanische military have various theories, but all agree the prisoner should be kept under close surveillance, either to cure his delusions or to pump him for information, or even to explore some of his wilder rantings. What if Pennsylvania had radios? What if it had airplanes?

What if, indeed?

The Forest of Time is exactly the sort of alternate history story I like. An extrapolation of the effects of a change in the history of several centuries ago. By examining how another world turned out the way it did, Flynn throws our own history into relief. And what a relief it is.

Stations of the American Time Line

The Centuries Unlimited>

When penetrated by a Time Line (properly a “para-configuration translation sheath” or “samayve” ), a historical period splits from “canonical history” and moves into the future in parallel with the Line’s terminus in the present day. Such a historical period is no longer properly “in the past,” but part of the present, a Station on the Time Line that one may visit without affecting canonical history.

By convention, therefor, Stations established further in the past are called “up time” from Stations established in the more recent past, called “down time” (e.g. Knickerbocker Station is up time from Crisis Station). By further convention, the current date at every Station has been synchronized with that of the terminus of the Time Line. The year is 2145.

Knickerbocker Station is the newest Station of the American Time Line, established less than a year ago, after the Knickerbocker Crisis and the Panic of 1907. It is the home Station of Emily Gallagher, Samuel James Stewart, Sargent Charles Redmond, Lieutenant James McGuirk, and Clement John Stewart.

Black Station was established 13 years ago, after Black Tuesday and the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It is the home Station of Ruth Hunter, Johnnie Magician, and Emily Gallagher, called “Mother,” by Ruth, and Billy Hunter.

Kennedy Station was established 18 years ago, after the Kennedy Slide of 1962. It is the home Station of Citizen William Hunter, Officer Robert Barnes, Denise Hunter, and Agent Betty Bleirer.

Shock Station was established 23 years ago, after the Oil Shock of 1979. It is the home Station of Officer Vivek Santoshi.

Crisis Station was established 31 years ago, after the Financial Crisis of 2007. It is the home of Officer Michael Pack.

Pivot Station was established 37 years ago, after the Pivot Backlash of 2036. It is the home Station of Agent Rosaline Brizard.

Green Station was established 44 years ago, after the Green Collapse of 2068.

Time Station was established 16 years ago, after the Time Slump of 2104.

The Present date is 2145 and nobody knows when or if the next economic crash will come.