Month 31: The introduction of non-fiction

Month 31 of 260 (11.92 percent)

Size of list: 86,513 pages (9.8 percent above start)

Pages read: 15,858 (18.33 percent)

H-list: 4,464/23,114 (19.31 percent)

N-list: 6,211/36,694 (16.93 percent)

O-list: 5,595/26,705 (19.41 percent)

Finished: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Reading: The Fires of Heaven, Masters of Modern Soccer

In order to get out of entirely genre fiction, and even out of entirely fiction, I read Maya Angelou's memoir (or at least the first volume of said memoir). This also got me into a book club my wife organizes, which is nice, because this reading has been a solitary activity, so it was good to vary it, and sit down at the end with a bunch of other readers who highlighted themes of the book.

The book deals with Angelou's life from her earliest memories at about age four to the end of her adolescence, in the period of the Depression to World War II. Like most stories about the era of segregation and before, I feel an impotent rage at the cruelty of white people, especially the dentist who won't care for a child with a raging toothache.

The highlight of the book is a trip to Mexico with her father, who gets so drunk that young Maya has to drive a car down a mountainside. This is where she spends the most time on any one day; it stands in sharp contrast to the revelations of the last three pages or so.

Another highlight was a series of parallel stories in which blacks worked to prove to themselves their superiority, first through Joe Louis' boxing, then through religious revivals in which they assured themselves of their status in heaven. It's part of the human situation, I guess, that those who are oppressed seek ways to fight back even if only spiritually, to restore their own pride.

Month 30: The Chinese style of science fiction

Month 30 of 260 (11.54 percent)

Size of list: 86,513 pages (9.8 percent above start)

Pages read: 15,250 (17.63 percent)

H-list: 4,464/23,114 (19.31 percent)

N-list: 5,953/36,694 (16.22 percent)

O-list: 4,833/26,705 (16.22 percent)

Finished: The Three-Body Problem
Reading: The Fires of Heaven, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Added: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Masters of Modern Soccer

The Three-Body Problem is the only Chinese fiction I’ve ever read, and it was a fascinating read. It stars out with the Cultural Revolution, about which I knew practically nothing, and it was horrifying. Then it slowly turned up the science fiction.

There is a lot of narration in a style that we would expect from a historical narrative and not a novel;  I figure that’s the difference between Chinese and English fiction. The last several chapters unravel in a sequence of holy-shit moments and really creative ideas.


It’s a trilogy, but it’s more self-contained than a lot of first volumes. The story could end here and still be great. I want to read the sequels, though, partly because the second volume has a different translators and I want to see how it’s different, but mainly because I want to see what Cixin Liu, the author, comes up with next. 

Month 29: The Permanent Institution that is the Catholic Church

Month 29 of 260 (11.15 percent)

Size of list: 85,470 pages (9.8 percent above start)

Pages read: 15,050 (17.61 percent)

H-list: 4,352/23,114 (18.83 percent)

N-list: 5,953/36,694 (16.22 percent)

O-list: 4,745/25,662 (16.33 percent)

Finished: A Canticle for Leibowitz
Reading: The Three-Body Problem, The Fires of Heaven

This month's read was the 1961 Hugo winner A Canticle for Leibowitz. I came in expecting it to have not aged well, but I enjoyed almost all of it. It's a postapocalyptic tale, and like Foundation shifts point-of-view characters as it advances through time. The characters are part of the Catholic Church, which a thousand years after the apocalypse is the institution holding on to what knowledge can be saved, and restoring it. Even as civilization rebuilds and prepares to destroy itself again, the Church preserves.

I ended this book feeling that it made a good case for the Church as an enduring institution -- not religion, not faith, but the Church itself, its structure of authority and support of monasteries, the small institutions that carry out the larger institution's work. It's 2,000 years old now -- why wouldn't it be the one thing to live through the fires of nuclear annihilation?

Month 28: The Overworld

Month 28 of 260 (10.77 percent)

Size of list: 85,470 pages (9.8 percent above start)

Pages read: 14,385 (16.83 percent)

H-list: 3,968/23,114 (16.17 percent)

N-list: 5,672/36,694 (15.46 percent)

O-list: 4,745/25,662 (16.33 percent)

Finished: The Eyes of the Overworld
Reading: A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Fires of Heaven

The Eyes of the Overworld is the sequel to Jack Vance's The Dying Earth. Unlike the first book, Eyes of the Overworld is a single story about a single character on a single quest. Caught burglarizing a wizard's treasures, Cugel the Clever is sent to procure a magical item, the Eyes mentioned in the title, and then must find his way back, dreaming of revenge the whole time. Vance is a competent writer, and this would be a perfectly fine D&D adventure, which is one reason why Vance is so important in D&D history. But its real value is in the creativity of the world; the society that uses the Eyes, and all the others Cugel finds on his odyssey. Cugel is not a wizard but a thief, like Bilbo but with more malice and less heart.

One interesting angle is that the Overworld has been adopted by D&D offshoot 13th Age, but there it's the world above us, the cloudscape; Vance's Overworld is the illusory world seen through the Eyes, in which every building is a palace and every food is delicious, despite being hovels and slop in reality.

Month 27: Trump in Space

Month 27 of 260 (10.38 percent)

Size of list: 85,470 pages (9.8 percent above start)

Pages read: 13,956 (16.33 percent)

H-list: 3,729/23,114 (16.13 percent)

N-list: 5,482/36,694 (14.94 percent)

O-list: 4,745/25,662 (16.33 percent)

Finished: Foundation and Empire, Life Debt
Starting: The Eyes of the Overworld, The Fires of Heaven

Life Debt is the second of the flagship trilogy of the new post-Return of the Jedi continuity. This one featured more of the classic characters — Leia and Han play a major role in this story, merging the classic characters with the new ones created by Chuck Wendig in the first volume, Aftermath. The first half of this book was pretty good; the second half was really good, after a twist is revealed. Wendig's writing still doesn't have the same tone I associate with Star Wars novels, which is to say he's neither Zahn nor Stackpole. 

The second Foundation book, which is not Second Foundation but Foundation and Empire (and oh how that drives me crazy), is almost as good as the first. Unlike the first, it's a single story about a single set of characters. I've seen people saying "Trump is the Mule," and I think I understand how — he's the individual that political science or psychohistory can't predict and thus can't guard against. Anyway, the book is about the Foundation and Empire both under attack by a force they can't predict, and both falling; at the end, the only hope is the Second Foundation, which I expect the third book will be about.

Month 26 / Year 2

Month 26 of 260 (10 percent)

Size of list: 85,470 pages (9.8 percent above start)

Pages read: 13,244 (15.50 percent)

H-list: 3,729/23,114 (16.13 percent)

N-list: 5,482/36,694 (14.94 percent)

O-list: 4,033/25,662 (15.72 percent)

Finished: The Shadow Rising, The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft 
Starting: Foundation and Empire, Life Debt

I'm ahead of pace, but not enough ahead, and certainly less than I was a year ago. This was a year of spending too much time on video games; with the World Cup coming, I'll have to cut back on that if I want to keep up. I'm also starting the year with a pair of books that are relatively easy, per page, to pad my numbers early.

The second of three volumes of the complete Lovecraft is marked by At the Mountains of Madness, but what really stood out for me was The Street, a very short story that was just dripping with racism. The other short stories were generally all the same; only The Horror at Red Hook, taking place in New York City, really stood out from the rest. At the Mountains of Madness was good for the first half -- it felt like the long exposition had a purpose for once, and the mystery was slowly revealed. But halfway through it strained credibility with a detailed description of the history of the Old Ones, based on viewing a few galleries of sculptures, and then the last third didn't advance the story any further.

The Shadow Rising, the fourth volume of the Wheel of Time, continued the pattern of being interesting as long as it wasn't about the main characters. Perrin returns home to defend it against both the fanatical humans and the evil beasts; Elayne and Nynaeve go hunting for the Black Sisters. Both those stories were interesting. Less so, of course, is Rand, although events at the very end hold promise for the next book. Jordan is terrible at writing relationships; Egwene basically passes her romantic interest in Rand to Elayne at the beginning, but there's never any feeling for why Elayne suddenly loves Rand. 

Month 25: You are someone else

Month 25 of 260 (9.62 percent)

Size of list: 85,470 pages (dropped 8 pages from Cyteen based on actual page count)

Pages read: 12,559 (14.69 percent)

H-list: 3,729/23,114 (16.13 percent)

N-list: 4,797/36,694 (13.07 percent)

O-list: 4,033/25,662 (15.72 percent)

Finished: Cyteen

Reading: The Shadow Rising, The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft 

My working definition of good science fiction is a story that changes something about the world and then explores the consequences. Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination are my Platonic ideal of this idea, but Cyteen also matches it.

What if you were someone else, a duplicate, a clone? C.J. Cherryh's answer is that you'd be someone cloned on purpose because the original was someone extraordinary, and we wanted another. But nature and nurture, so you'd be raised in a way that matches the original's childhood, even if that means your mother disappears when you're eight. And you would have the pressures of being a replica of the original, inheriting allies and enemies. And the society that created you would be able to create other people, as well, and to shape their personalities, creating not just more extraordinary people — "Specials," in this world — but people designed to be servants. They're called azi in Cyteen, and they're basically slaves. Cherryh doesn't fully deal with the issue of azi slavery as we would expect in today's political climate, but there are abolitionists in the story. 

Cyteen took forever because it's huge — 680 pages, but large format, so it'd be something like 1,200 pages if it were mass-market paperback dimensions. So even bigger than The Shadow Rising, which is pretty much tied as the largest Wheel of Time book, which I'm also reading.

Also, I've started the second volume of the Complete Lovecraft, and while I've been aware of people talking about his racism, "The Street" is a filthy piece of racism-dressed-as-patriotism, the kind of bilge I'd expect from today's white supremacist websites. Blech. I proceed onward, noting that it's listed as one of his early stories, and hope he at least hides it better as we go on.