Cannibalism / Bill Schutt

 

Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History by Bill Schutt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a book club selection, but it's something that I probably would have willingly picked up of my own accord eventually. (When as a teen I was finally able to choose my own books from the extension library that sent books to farm families, one of the first ones I picked was a book on cannibalism, the title/author of which is missing from my memory banks.)

I find that geologists and biologists have a similar sense of humour to mine, making their nonfiction fun to read. When you're dealing with a sensational subject, a little lightness doesn't go amiss. (I assume that those who would be offended by the humour probably wouldn't pick up the book in the first place.) One of my personal difficulties is fear of spiders, but I found the spider chapter particularly amusing. For example, [M]ale wolf spiders become extremely picky when females show up and initiate courtship—which they do by alternately waving their forelegs around in the universal signal for “Pick me! Pick me!”

I was pleased to see literary works like Daniel Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus referenced, not to mention The Odyssey and the histories of Herodotus. I had never considered before where our taboo against cannibalism originated, but it makes sense that it would be rooted in both the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and our veneration of the Greco-Roman world.


The use of the European taboo as an excuse to enslave, murder, and otherwise abuse non-Christian indigenous peoples is undeniable and the accounts of early colonizers have permanently muddied the waters on whether cultural or ritual cannibalism was ever practiced in the New World. To think about a culture uncontaminated by Christian values, the author includes chapters on Chinese and Pacific Island history, which were interesting.

Schutt was willing to go to greater extremes than I am—he chose to try a menu dish that included human placenta. The consumption of placentas is a trend which I simply do not understand! As the author documents, it is very rare and mostly practiced by privileged individuals. Texture of food is a major issue for me, so do not sign me up for such a menu item. (BTW, is this something that vegans are allowed to do? Just curious…)

The last chapters on Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies may be the most compelling argument for the position that Eating People Is Bad (the title of chapter 13). Ranging through several TSEs like Kuru, BSE, scrapie, and CJD, Schutt explores the mechanism of infection with these horrible diseases. I was completely unaware of the current questioning of the prion hypothesis in favour of a viral vector. Whichever source it turns out to be, this seems to me to be an excellent reason to avoid a Soylent Green type future.

This is a difficult topic to address, as it tends toward the sensational even when the researcher is trying to be clinical. Like other highly emotional topics, it tends to get mixed up with cultural and religious beliefs, rendering us very unobjective. Examining the issue throughout the zoological world gives the reader a more neutral frame of reference. Not a book for everyone, but entertaining if you view humans as part of the natural world.



View all my reviews

Revelation Space / Alastair Reynolds

 

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I'm not an enormous fan of “hard" science fiction, which is how I would classify this book. Reynolds was a space scientist first, then a writer. There's an audience for this kind of thing, but it ain't me.

The characters in Revelation Space reminded me of the people in Stephen Donaldson's Gap into… series. All remarkably unlikable. I kept reading this novel to try to figure out the murky motivations behind all the paranoia. Nobody really stands out as less reprehensible, just varying degrees of gray. The aliens of both series are suitably incomprehensible too. They seem to understand humans much better than we understand them. That's well done, as it's difficult to make truly alien characters. Too often they're just humans with unusual features.

Reynolds also seems to take the idea of the malevolent ghost-in-the-machine idea of Arthur Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey and push it several steps further. The ship itself is huge, but run by a very small crew, sometimes just by Volnovya alone. However, it is infected by viruses and as a result portions of it have become uninhabitable. There are horror elements here, what with rat janitors by the horde and buckets of ship slime.

I think the aspect that I liked the most was the angle that it explored on the Fermi Paradox. The ancient remains of the Amarantin on the planet of Resurgam are the focus for our exploration of this puzzle and the culmination of things at book's end was satisfying.

I'm giving this 3 stars for the occasional brilliance of the language. I loved the portmanteau “warchive" for the one-stop weapon shop on the ship where most of the action takes place. I also adored the description of the bridgehead, part way into Cerebrus, the artificial planet: “It looked like a biology lesson for gods, or a snapshot of the kind of pornography which might be enjoyed by sentient planets." There are flashes of genius, much as you would expect of a former space scientist.

Book number 415 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.




View all my reviews

Murder Must Advertise / Dorothy L. Sayers

 

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is what I expect of Dorothy Sayers! A good twisty mystery combined with a shrewd insight into human behaviour. Plus details about things like cricket (about which I know nothing), dog racing, the use of the catapult (sligshot), the role of cocaine in the early 20th century society, and of course the advertising industry.

Talk about the best use ever of personal experience in a novel! Sayers parlays her nine years experience in the advertising biz into an excellent novel. She writes office politics that you can totally see happening. The personalities, the rivalries, the in-fighting, and the gossip. Ah, the gossip! And of course, the morality (or lack thereof).

”Of course, there is some truth in advertising. There's yeast in bread, but you can't make bread with yeast alone. Truth in advertising,” announced Lord Peter sententiously, “is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal. It provides a suitable quantity of gas, with which to blow out a mass of crude misrepresentation into a form that the public can swallow.”

And what a look at the supposed “good old days,” when everybody smoked and even a very moral sort like Mr. Pym could advocate encouraging more & more smoking, particularly for women. The women are still just beginning to kick against the restrictions of their gender roles—the women at the agency provide cleaning, food services, and typing. Only one of them seems to contribute to the advertising biz. Vices are more easily available to women than fulfilling employment. Not to mention the class divide which I guess is being replaced today by the wealth divide.

Wimsey gets to indulge himself with a lot of masquerading, as his own illegitimate cousin, as the Harlequin, and (briefly) as a policeman. There is zero presence of Bunter (he is mentioned only once). Harriet Vane is also referred to once indirectly. Despite the absence of these two usually crucial characters, I enjoyed this rumpus very much.




View all my reviews

The Seven Dials Mystery / Agatha Christie

 

The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars?

I really don't know what possessed me last night—I went to bed a full hour earlier than usual out of sheer boredom. But that meant I was awake and staring at the ceiling at 5 a.m. Finally, I gave up, got up, put the coffee on, and picked up my Christie book of the month. It was a good choice.

I know that many people aren't thrilled with this particular book, but I really enjoyed it, mostly because I really enjoyed Bundle Brent. She is one of those characters that I think Christie had a wonderful time writing. She has a mind of her own, more intelligence than she lets on, bravery, quick thinking, and a dashing driving style. A thoroughly modern young woman. She often out thinks and surprises the men around her.

I have to confess that I found the ending weak. I can't discuss the details without spoilers, but I just couldn't see Battle sanctioning, let alone participating, in the final revelation. This may be why there are so few novels featuring Superintendent Battle. Christie must have realized that she had rather backed him into a corner, plausibility-wise. I think this was written during a stressful period of the author's life, so it is perhaps understandable that she was more concerned with making a living than with writing a book for the ages.

I must say that I'm sorry that Christie didn't pen more adventures for Bundle. She would have been a much more suitable main character for a series than Battle. I can't see marriage slowing her down, merely giving her a partner in investigative endeavours. Farewell, Lady Eileen! Has any one else taken up the torch and written the further adventures of Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent?


View all my reviews

Strip Jack / Ian Rankin

 

Strip Jack by Ian Rankin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ian Rankin's Rebus books remind me strongly of both Scandinavian crime fiction (dark, rainy, and everyone is hiding something) and P.D. James' Dalgliesh series (Rebus is educated and has excellent instincts). John Rebus can see both sides of any crime—why it was done and why it was a poor choice. He has some sympathy for the people that he's hunting.

This is the most engaging novel so far in the series. Rankin uses the plot device of the complicated relationships of a group of school friends. Are they really friends or just frenemies? Who's sleeping with whom? Whose marriage is in danger? Who is short of cash? Who can be blackmailed and who might be perpetrating it? Who will spill the details? Rebus questions everyone, keeps his eyes open, and pieces together the picture like an excellent jigsaw puzzler.

There's just enough office politics to keep us on our toes, but not so much as to bog things down. Likewise with Rebus' domestic arrangements, although it's my prediction that Patience will have to live up to her name. I think she's merely a pause in Rebus' perpetual motion.






View all my reviews

The Midnight Bargain / C.L. Polk

 

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Love needs to be free or else it's just ownership.

This book was one of the entries in the 2020 competition “Canada Reads.” As a result, I waited a long, long time for my turn for a library copy. The author lives here in my city and I wish I could invite them for coffee.

This is a world of magic, with the intricate society of Jane Austen. Women with sorcery abilities are fitted with a collar upon marriage to protect their unborn children from spirit possession, but this also suppresses the woman's magical abilities. Men control the keys to the collars and, of course, see no reason to change the way of things. Sound familiar? Feels familiar to any woman who doesn't want to get married or have children. Or wants to fully develop her talents and be a mother.

Beatrice desires magic more than anything. Meeting Ianthe makes her decision difficult, because she wants him too. But she can't face years in a collar, even for the man she adores. This is her struggle—to use her abilities without getting caught and to wrest control of her life out of her father's hands. If she can save her family's future & fortunes, so much the better. How many women have been pulled in multiple directions trying to please everyone else, even those people who just want to use her and don't care about her aspirations?

This is Margaret Atwood lite. Mx. Polk must have read The Handmaid's Tale. This is not quite so harrowing, but I found it very emotionally engaging. Possibly because I've been renegotiating this aspect of my own life. I find myself surprised that this novel isn't identified as young adult, but that label bamboozles me a bit.

Well worth the wait. I will definitely read more by this author.


View all my reviews

Indians on Vacation / Thomas King

 

Indians on Vacation by Thomas King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So we're in Prague…

This becomes the tag line of the book, much as Kurt Vonnegut used ”So it goes.” This is not going to be my favourite among King's books, but since it's one of the last ones (if you believe him), I had to read it. The last two interviews of the author that I've heard, he claims to be done writing. Maybe something will inspire a new book. I can hope.

King mines his own life experience for details of this novel. The narrator, Bird, is a man of Cherokee and Greek heritage, as King is. King's wife, Helen, is fond of travel just like Mimi and King is grumpy about it just like Bird. While traveling in Europe, King and his wife encountered a scene with refugees as described in the book. I wonder if that travel experience didn't form the seed of this novel.

”Nothing,” said Mimi. “We did nothing. Oh, we were sympathetic and we were outraged, but we didn't do anything.”
“We thought about it.”

And that's the rub, isn't it? There are all these intractable problems in the world and what are we as individuals supposed to do about them? This is what contributes to Bird's demons of depression and self-loathing that follow him around, ready to ruin any part of any day. Especially these days, when more residential school locations are being scanned in search of unmarked graves, that's how many of us are feeling. I just can't believe that people still claim to be surprised by these findings. Have they not been paying attention for the last several decades? Truth & Reconciliation Commission, anyone?

I think we must come to the same conclusions as Bird does—what we do may not change the world, but it changes us, mostly for the better.



View all my reviews

Waistcoats & Weaponry / Gail Carriger

 

Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

***2021 Dog Days of Summer***

It's time for my summer theme and this year I have chosen to read books that include canine companions. This series includes a mechanical dog (a mechanimal), Bumbersnoot. He's a semi-illegal contraption that our main character, Sophronia, has smuggled into her finishing school.

This is not your regular finishing school, but a training ground for espionage. Sophronia is acknowledged as a very talented pupil, but she will need to choose a patron or a husband to support her as she pursues her calling. Being rather even handed, seeking to balance events, Sophronia is having a difficult time choosing. She has received scrumptious gifts from a well connected vampire, she has a good friend who is related to a prominent werewolf pack, and she is being romantically pursued by a Pickleman's son (the Picklemen oppose the two supernatural groups).

Sophronia goes home for her brother's engagement ball and becomes embroiled in a couple of interlocking peccadilloes. As usually happens. They must get Lady Longair back to her Scottish werewolves, figure out what the vampires are up to, and deal with Flywaymen associated with the Picklemen, all while keeping the peace between the two young men interested in Sophronia, Lord Felix Mersey and Soap, one of the boiler room boys from the finishing school dirigible. Not to mention doing it while trying to maintain a masculine disguise.

If anyone can pull it off, it is Sophronia! Bumbersnoot accompanies her every step of the way and seems to understand her commands better than a regular mechanimal. Will he save the day or will his coal eating habits sabotage their escapades?

Thank you, Gail Carriger, for a fun alternate history where schools for female espionagers and male evil geniuses are par for the course.


View all my reviews

Death in Dark Blue / Julia Buckley

 

Death in Dark Blue by Julia Buckley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

***2021 Dog Days of Summer***

It's summer and this year I have chosen to read books that include canine companions. This series includes two German Shepherds, Rochester and Heathcliff. They don't feature as much here in book 2 as they did in the first volume, but they are still very much in evidence.

Cozy mysteries usually feature amateur sleuths who should really butt out of any murder investigation, but somehow Buckley makes Lena and Camilla more respectable than most cozy heroines. After all, it is this duo who manage to dredge up information on Sam's missing ex-wife that the FBI doesn't seem to be able to find. I think that was the most unrealistic part—imagining that you or I could find out more with Google than FBI analysts would be able to uncover.

Nevertheless, Buckley managed to managed to mess with my head enough that I started to doubt many of my previous conclusions! She toyed with my emotions mercilessly and even when the perpetrators were revealed, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not many authors can shake my certainty like that. Not only that, she has set the hook--I'll be glad to read on to see where she takes Lena next. Though the big issues are resolved, there is something hinky going on with two newly introduced characters and I hope my suspicions will be addressed in book 3.

Like a combination of small town mysteries and a gothic romance, this is an entertaining series and I plan to binge it this summer.





View all my reviews

Winter's Heart / Robert Jordan

 

Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars?

It's been a bit odd to be reading about snow and cold during a heat wave, but that's what I've been doing. Perhaps because I've had a bit of a break from the Wheel of Time, I enjoyed this volume more than the previous couple. Mind you, I was also hiding from the heat and this was a good distraction.

There's still a strong focus on the women of the tale, but we also get a good helping of Rand and Mat, as well as a quick check in on Perrin. Maybe its my imagination, but I thought the relationships between the sexes shifted a bit too. Rand can admit that he loves three women and they have decided that they can share. I found the sisterhood ceremony between Elayne and Aviendha to be very moving, so I think they can make it work. I was surprised that Rand didn't fuss more when the three women asked to bind him as their Warder, but he did say it would allow him to worry less, knowing where & how they are at all times. (I also enjoyed Far Madding, where the women are firmly in charge, men are treated as pretty featherheads, and they can figure out how much women put up with on a regular basis.)

There are several unresolved issues at book's end to draw the reader along to the next installment: can Perrin rescue Faile? Will Mat's scheme to get a ragtag group of refugees out of Seanchan controlled territory work? Are Rand and Nynaeve okay and will their purge of the Source make any difference in the grand scheme of things?

I will definitely be reading the next book, but if I stick to my reading schedule, it won't be until next year. That’s just as well, since I'm not sure that I could stand to read these books one right after another. They are best enjoyed with some space and time between them!

Book number 414 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.



View all my reviews

Fire from Heaven / Mary Renault

 

Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It has been a number of decades since I studied classical history at university and my memory of those lessons is pretty dim. However, looking at Mary Renault's source materials, I think she did a fabulous job of incorporating the facts of Alexander's life into her fictional account. As Tom Holland notes in his introduction, ancient historians weren't too concerned with the childhood years. That is a modern interest.

It is this interpretation of what details are available, combined with knowledge of human nature which makes the early chapters of the novel spellbinding. Renault makes it feel so real, and yet she also allows for the numinous. Alexander clearly believes that gods influence his life (as do many people today) and he sees signs of answered petitions. As a reader, I became aware in the first few pages that Alexander was already exceptional, making it almost inevitable that he would earn his epithet “the Great.”

There are prodigies in this world, some talented at music or mathematics. It seems sure that Alexander was a military prodigy. He had a natural feel for the conduct of battle and for the treatment of his army to get the best effort from them. This is a rare talent, thankfully, or we would be studying even more wars than we already have.

Once past childhood, Alexander's life is more documented and the tale for me lost a bit of its luster, at least until Alexander and Philip have their falling out. Although I think I enjoyed The King Must Die slightly more than this novel, there is no question that I will read the next two Alexander books. Renault's lovely writing guarantees that they will be worthwhile.


View all my reviews