My first and probably last Culture excursion. Too many ships with (granted) funny names write each other lots of emails but it's hard to track who's wMy first and probably last Culture excursion. Too many ships with (granted) funny names write each other lots of emails but it's hard to track who's writing about what. Also Jesus the acronyms. Enough....more
The writing did it for me on page one. I'm a sucker for vernacular. The polemical bits about Appalachia being the most forgotten demographic were a biThe writing did it for me on page one. I'm a sucker for vernacular. The polemical bits about Appalachia being the most forgotten demographic were a bit tiresome. Forgotten, sure, but moreso than anyone else seems like a steeper hill to climb, even for a climber, to borrow the book's recurring metaphor. Maybe not a novel's responsibility. I wish I got the Copperfield analogies but it's been a long, long time since I've read that, but I wish even more I could read Demon's comics. Once again, the best comics seem to be imaginary....more
Remembered almost nothing about the previous installments so there was some early whiplash. More fun ideas and world building, but ultimately I suspecRemembered almost nothing about the previous installments so there was some early whiplash. More fun ideas and world building, but ultimately I suspect this will be as forgettable as its predecessors. Did it make the slow creep toward the grave a little more amusing? Sure....more
Continuing a trend in Image lines that look real pretty but are mostly hollow. This mishmash of manga tropes didn't quite have enough story or charactContinuing a trend in Image lines that look real pretty but are mostly hollow. This mishmash of manga tropes didn't quite have enough story or character to keep me from falling asleep for several consecutive nights, but it was diverting enough for me to keep trying. The art is luscious, but the action was kind of hard to follow in parts. It does feature a nearly all-female cast and was made by two women, all of which are great, but winning the Bechdel Olympics is really just a good start. And yes, I mostly just bought this for the Neil Gaiman blurb. Weirdly, there's also a Cosmo blurb. Cosmo?!
Totally unrelated: while I was perusing this at my local comic book shop, the guy at the counter received an unmarked package of monkfish from a friend. He was quite pleased, and I was quite pleased that he was quite pleased.
Merged review:
Continuing a trend in Image lines that look real pretty but are mostly hollow. This mishmash of manga tropes didn't quite have enough story or character to keep me from falling asleep for several consecutive nights, but it was diverting enough for me to keep trying. The art is luscious, but the action was kind of hard to follow in parts. It does feature a nearly all-female cast and was made by two women, all of which are great, but winning the Bechdel Olympics is really just a good start. And yes, I mostly just bought this for the Neil Gaiman blurb. Weirdly, there's also a Cosmo blurb. Cosmo?!
Totally unrelated: while I was perusing this at my local comic book shop, the guy at the counter received an unmarked package of monkfish from a friend. He was quite pleased, and I was quite pleased that he was quite pleased....more
Continuing a trend in Image lines that look real pretty but are mostly hollow. This mishmash of manga tropes didn't quite have enough story or charactContinuing a trend in Image lines that look real pretty but are mostly hollow. This mishmash of manga tropes didn't quite have enough story or character to keep me from falling asleep for several consecutive nights, but it was diverting enough for me to keep trying. The art is luscious, but the action was kind of hard to follow in parts. It does feature a nearly all-female cast and was made by two women, all of which are great, but winning the Bechdel Olympics is really just a good start. And yes, I mostly just bought this for the Neil Gaiman blurb. Weirdly, there's also a Cosmo blurb. Cosmo?!
Totally unrelated: while I was perusing this at my local comic book shop, the guy at the counter received an unmarked package of monkfish from a friend. He was quite pleased, and I was quite pleased that he was quite pleased....more
Charming from start to finish, though perhaps mainly of interest to locals. I am more ambivalent about our city than Alden is, but what it lacks in hyCharming from start to finish, though perhaps mainly of interest to locals. I am more ambivalent about our city than Alden is, but what it lacks in hygiene or administrative competence it almost makes up for in wonderful resources for understanding its past, from the Oakland Museum's watershed maps to the Oakland History Center at the library to East Bay Yesterday to Hella Town: Oakland's History of Development and Disruption and now, wonderfully, this paean to the Town's foundations. One could argue that a city is too small an area for a meaningful geologic treatment, its boundaries too arbitrary to tell a complete story, but Alden's intimacy with Oakland, and particularly with the way its human population has intersected with and altered its geology, serves as a quiet but effective rebuttal. There's a lot of great geology here, but also a lot of history. It definitely deserves a permanent place on the bookshelves of Oakland.
One of the things I liked most about this book is the space it gave to the region's Quaternary history, like not the multi-million-year-old rocks up in the hills (though they get their due), but the stuff most of us actually live on top of: the Merritt Sand, the marine terrace, the Piedmont block, the Fan. Looking at the USGS geologic map of Oakland and its surrounding area (yes, there is one, and it's wonderful), it can be easy to gloss over some of these more recently-formed, less rock-like structures because USGS cartographic standards color them in similar shades of yellow, but in Alden's hands they are differentiated and rich with stories of an empty or brimming Bay, gushing creeks, and eons of aeolian sands. Sometimes older rocks can be harder to interpret, having formed under conditions so extreme or so distance they can be difficult to imagine, but the Quaternary units seem like easier extrapolations from our current landscape.
My one critique is that this book could have used more maps, diagrams, and photos. Geology requires great feats of imagination that words aren't always able to inspire. Laura Cunningham's illustrations are wonderful, but I would have loved to see more of them. Sadly this is true of almost all books on geology.
I didn't actually take too many notes (aside from laughing at fish doing "fish things"), but I was alarmed to learn that the veined green rock you see used in many buildings in Oakland, called verd antique, is a form of serpentine but most of ours comes from Vermont. Serpentine is our rock! Can't we use our own? I guess I'm glad we don't have any worth quarrying because that would almost certainly drive some rare plants to extinction, and yet I'm still a little miffed....more
**spoiler alert** Lots of fun in this book with lots of pairs: Sophie / Bianca, Sophia / Mouth, day half of the planet / night half of the planet, Xio**spoiler alert** Lots of fun in this book with lots of pairs: Sophie / Bianca, Sophia / Mouth, day half of the planet / night half of the planet, Xiosphant / Argelo, human / gelet. The slow reveal of the gelet and their culture and Mouth's slow demystifying of the Citizens were the best parts for me. Bianca and Sophie were a bit of a stretch. Hard to summon much sympathy for a narcissist and her stan. Mouth's relationships had more potential, but I didn't feel like I'd gotten to know Alyssa very well by the end aside from her snarky badassery.
I wish some of the many ideas had been developed further. The inherent dualism of a tidally locked planet kind of just went to "find your person" which seems like a waste of a great set. The obsession with time in Xiosphant and the adamant rejection of time in Argelo could have structured its own commentary about over- and under-acknowledgement of universal constraints, but it too was left on the drafting table.
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