Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
Statistics professor at Carnegie Mellon University who writes the long-running blog Three-Toed Sloth and the Bactra Review of books.
The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker
Mind candy fantasy: in which an early-21st-century American young woman, whose English-lit thesis and love life are going equally poorly, does a good deed; gets rewarded with three wishes, without realizing it; and, in consequence, wanders off, first into Faery and then into a Fantasyland which is convincingly poor, sexist and dirty, but also magical.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2026
A History of Biology by Michel Morange
The chapter on medieval Islam wasn't very deep, otherwise this is truly excellent, particularly when covering the very complicated 20th century. I don't have much more to say, because it is so good, except that I should try to get my brother to review it.
on bactra.org · 9 Jul 2026
Go Down Hard by Ali Seay
Mind candy: dueling psycho-killers go on a date; mayhem ensues.
on bactra.org · 9 Jul 2026
Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson
I loved this, but partly this was the pleasant shock of recognition: much of the action revolves around the National Science Foundation and, physically, its old headquarters in Arlington, which Robinson captures extremely well (even the atmosphere of review panels).
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2026
Glasslands by "William B. Fuckley"
This is clearly an amateur effort (there was a whole repeated paragraph), but as such it's very impressive and I am happy to have paid money for it.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2026
Resenting the Hero by Moira J. Moore
Comparing this to The Fifth Season, it is striking how different two fantasy novels about worlds over-supplied with natural disasters, and the people with the psychic gifts to stop those disasters with their minds, can be in tone and execution. This is immensely fluffier, but it has no pretensions to be anything except candy, and succeeds as such.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2026
The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World by Mike Beggs, Ben Burgis and Bhaskar Sunkara
This is the best --- the most accessible and the most forceful --- case for market socialism since Alec Nove in the 1980s.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2026
Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett
It's pretty decently adequate, as mind candy. There are places where Abnett shows flashes of real talent. (To avoid spoilers, I'll just say: The first alien planet; the opening scenes with the cranky biologist.) There are other aspects of the novels which are pretty unsatisfying.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2026
Selected Poems, 1968--1996 by Joseph Brodsky
I am a Philistine, because I thought this was just OK. There were some good poems, quite a few which I found boring, and absolutely nothing that has stuck in my memory even a few weeks later.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2026
The Doxies Penalty by Madeleine Robins
Mind candy: continuing Robins's series of historical mysteries set in a very-slightly-alternate Regency London. (I re-read the last one, Sleeping Partner, before turning to this.) Robins continues to be great and I hope that many more of these will flow from her pen.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2026
The Scientific Renaissance, 1450--1630 by Marie Boas
An old (1962) but still interesting history of the earlier part of the scientific revolution. In every field, Boas traces a basically-humanist impulse to discard medieval ideas and accomplishments, in favor of reviving antiquity, the more antique the better, which only gradually turned towards striving to go beyond Greco-Roman science to something actually new and unprecedented.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2026
Orlando Furioso: A New Verse Translation by Ludovico Ariosto
I can have no opinion about whether the translation is accurate, but it is pretty good English verse.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2026
The Bitter Twins by Jen Williams
Mind candy fantasy: sequel to The Ninth Rain (in my backlog; suffice to say: good), and continuing the high standard of that book.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2026
Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman
With that disclaimer out of the way, this is a great book, which simultaneously illuminates some very, very important phenomena, and is very well-written.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2026
A Billion Days of Earth by Doris Piserchia
It's not pleasant, but it is skillful, and strange, and makes me interested in Piserchia's other books.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2026
This Hour, Our Vigil by Rachel Neumeier
If I say it reads a bit like fanfic for Neumeier's own work, that sounds like I'm damning it, but I actually enjoyed it, because, I wanted good things to happen for those characters, who'd had drama enough and to spare.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2026
Inequality: A Genetic History by Carles Lalueza Fox
I think a great book could be written on all this. (Among other things, it should be catnip to anyone who wants to call themselves a historical materialist.) This book, however, is merely OK.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2025
Queen Demon by Martha Wells
I do not think this book could really be enjoyed without the previous book, but with it, it's lots of skillfully-written fun, and leaves me eager for more.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2025
An Introduction to the Theory of Spin Glasses and Neural Networks by Viktor Dotsenko
This is a short (~150 pp), brisk first book on the topic for physicists. Most of the book --- the first ten chapters --- are good introduction to common models of spin glasses.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2025
Demon Daughter by Lois McMaster Bujold
Mind-candy fantasy from a highly reliable author, who is not afraid of putting beloved characters through the wringer.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2025
Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas by Martin Jay
I nonetheless found this book somewhat disappointing, because Jay seemed content to expound the authors he covers in more or less their own terms, rather than subjecting them to anything like actual epistemological or methodological criticism.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2025
Penric and the Bandit by Lois McMaster Bujold
Mind-candy fantasy from a highly reliable author, who is not afraid of putting beloved characters through the wringer.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2025
Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West by Erin Hogan
Mind candy: A fun travelogue which does what it says in the title. It pretty much satisfies any impulses I might have to actually see any of the artworks in question. No familiarity with art-critical jargon required, though long passages are (more or less explicitly) art criticism.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2025
The Adventure of the Demonic Ox by Lois McMaster Bujold
Mind-candy fantasy from a highly reliable author, who is not afraid of putting beloved characters through the wringer.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2025
The Overnight Kidnapper by Andrea Camilleri
Mind-candy mystery from a highly reliable author.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2025
The Iliad: A New Translation by Homer, translated by Caroline Alexander
It's very readable, and captures a sense of what is, fundamentally, a very alien, and often ugly, story in a very alien, and often ugly, world, related in magnificent language.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2025
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Re-read because I couldn't interest myself in a couple of other pieces of mind candy and thought "you know who did this sort of thing well...". Which got me thinking, again, about the relationship between this series and feminism.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2025
At the Midway by J. Clayton Rogers
Mind candy, historical creature-feature thriller: in which the US military, in the form of the very worst ship in Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, comes up against beasts which are not oversized plesiosaurs. (Exactly what they are instead would be a minor spoiler.) I have no idea how I found this online, but it's perfectly enjoyable as a specimen of the genre.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2024
In the Blood by Nancy A. Collins
Mind candy, horror/contemporary fantasy: the first four "Sonja Blue" novels.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2024
Paint It Black by Nancy A. Collins
Mind candy, horror/contemporary fantasy: the first four "Sonja Blue" novels.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2024
Sunglasses After Dark by Nancy A. Collins
Mind candy, horror/contemporary fantasy: the first four "Sonja Blue" novels.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2024
What Your Professor Thinks You Already Know About US Politics by Sanford C. Gordon and Jamila Ruddock
I forget (again!) how I chanced across it, but it fills a very real need for a lot of the students in my inequality class, and I intend to make it recommended/optional reading in the future. (I'll have to see if the library can buy a digital copy.)
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2024
Civilization and Capitalism, 15th--18th Century by Fernand Braudel
It's definitely the volume I find least satisfying.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2024
The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection by Tamim Ansary
The result is extremely engaging, and while I didn't particularly learn from it, I daresay most of the prospective audience will not, in fact, have read as widely in Ansary's sources as I happen to have done.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2024
The Perspective of the World by Fernand Braudel
It's definitely the volume I find least satisfying.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2024
Moon's Knight by Lilith Saintcrow
Mind candy portal fantasy, in which Our Protagonist's struggles to escape back to Mundania are rather complicated by her growing recognition that her life there sucked, actually, and maybe fighting strange beasts and stranger people isn't so bad in comparison...
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2024
Shadows Linger by Glen Cook
Mind candy military fantasy, in which Our Protagonists find themselves working as mercenaries for the Dark Lord's only-barely-less-evil ex-wife, on whom the narrator develops an unhealthy crush.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2024
The Black Company by Glen Cook
Mind candy military fantasy, in which Our Protagonists find themselves working as mercenaries for the Dark Lord's only-barely-less-evil ex-wife, on whom the narrator develops an unhealthy crush.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2024
The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O'Keefe
Mind candy: a very angsty romance wrapped in a shell of space opera. Both aspects of the story are left in media res, and I look forward to reading the sequels.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2024
The Last God by Phillip Kennedy Johnson et al.
Mind candy, comic book fantasy heavily influenced by D & D.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2024
The White Rose by Glen Cook
Mind candy military fantasy, in which Our Protagonists find themselves working as mercenaries for the Dark Lord's only-barely-less-evil ex-wife, on whom the narrator develops an unhealthy crush.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2024
Tinker by Wen Spencer
Mind candy fantasy, in which Pittsburgh is transported to Elfland for most of each month. I read it for the local interest (admission to CMU plays a small part of the plot, and bad things happen in Turtle Creek [which I can only too easily believe]), and it was OK, but not good enough to make me pick up any of the many sequels.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2024
The Dark Lord's Daughter by Patricia C. Wrede
Mind candy fantasy for younger readers, in which Mr. and Mrs. Middle America's beloved adoptive daughter turns out to be from Somewhere Else, which comes calling. It's very fluffy, which I was in the mood for, and Wrede is always reliably enjoyable.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2024
Dark Country by Monique Snyman
Mind candy horror/mystery, stalking and being stalked by the somewhat-supernatural serial killer, with extensive local color for contemporary South Africa. There are rough patches, but it's a perfectly enjoyable specimen of this type of novel. It's obviously the set-up for a series, and I'm not sure I need to follow these characters, but I would be happy to read more by Snyman.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2023
Nothing to Hide by Allison Brennan
Mind candy thriller, somehow equally about a serial killer and about secrets in marriage. (Previously in this series.)
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2023
Palm Beach Finland by Antti Tuomainen
Mind candy: black comedy crime fiction / murder mystery, in rural Finland. I enjoyed both the comic darkness and the convincing happy endings all around. (At least, happy by the characters' own lights...) My first Tuomainen, but I'd read more if they crossed my path and I was in the right mood.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2023
Spy Island by Chelsea Cain et al.
Comic book mind candy, affectionately parodying several genres at once: glamorous spies, mysterious islands, etc.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2023
Star Kingdom by Lindsay Buroker
Buroker is a reliable author of very fluffy mind candy, either science fiction or fantasy. A lot of her output is re-working material from identifiable prior art, without hewing so closely to the canon as to constitute fan fiction.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2023
Coda by Simon Spurrier and Matías Bergara
Comic book mind candy fantasy. Superficially, this is a cynical, post-apocalyptic subversion of the Matter of Middle Earth. In fact, the hard-bitten surface merely conceals a core which actually believes in epic fantasy, both in the content and in the classical form (a trilogy ending in a eucatastrophe).
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2023
The Silver Tide by Jen Williams
They're all mind candy, but of high quality, and this one even makes me swallow a time-travel plot without complaint. But it really does rely on having read the rest of the trilogy beforehand.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2023
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
Mind candy fantasy / campus novel, in which Yale is literally a gateway to Hell.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2023
Songs for the Dead: Afterlife by Andrea Fort et al.
Mind candy fantasy, comic book flavor. A satisfying conclusion to the story.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2023
Alberuni's India: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India about A.D. 1030 by Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni
It's mostly readable, though there are quite a few places where the translator calls for more research and this reprint, naturally, doesn't say whether it's been followed up *. In any event, I found this fascinating.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2023
The Soviet Middle East: A Model for Development? by Alec Nove and J. A. Newth
The former is a personal touchstone which shaped me deeply; the later is merely very good. Looking up something else, I happened to discover that a bunch of his books are now available through our library electronically, so I plunged in.
on bactra.org · 28 Feb 2023
Days of Endless Adventure by Jim Zub et al.
Comic-book mind-candy, of a particularly fluffy sort that does a good job of capturing the feel of a mostly-light-hearted long-running campaign.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2023
Dungeons and Dragons by Jim Zub et al.
Comic-book mind-candy, of a particularly fluffy sort that does a good job of capturing the feel of a mostly-light-hearted long-running campaign.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2023
Hokuloa Road by Elizabeth Hand
Mind candy horror, continuing Hand's interest in beautiful places where people just go missing (and come to bad ends). It's exciting and creepy, and also one of the better fictional depictions I've found of the strangeness of 2020.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2023
Infernal Tides by Jim Zub et al.
Comic-book mind-candy, of a particularly fluffy sort that does a good job of capturing the feel of a mostly-light-hearted long-running campaign.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2023
This Corner of the Universe by Britt Ringel
Mind candy: Military SF by someone who must've spent a big chunk of time in the (US?) military. The novel is good on the inter-personal dynamics of the service and especially of the small ship.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2023
Futurism by Caroline Tisdall and Angelo Bozzolla
This is older, but it's still a really good book about the Italian Futurists. Indeed I can't think of a better one for a general audience with some background knowledge of modern art. The chapters on Futurist painting and sculpture, on music and performance, on women, and on politics are especially good.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2022
The House of Souls by Arthur Machen
Mind candy, seasonal. The Kingfisher novel begins with a middle-aged person traveling from Pittsburgh to North Carolina to clear out a relative's house and storage unit, a scenario I instantly identified with, and from there builds the strangeness and tension very satisfyingly. It's the first Kingfisher I've read, but it certainly won't be the last.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2022
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
Mind candy: a re-telling of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" as (is this really a spoiler?) parasite-porn horror. Amusing, and pleasingly creepy.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2022
Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell by Nathan Ballingrud
Horror mind candy; all six stories (the last two are really novellas) share a common mythology. Usually-reliable sources had praised Ballingrud's work, so when I ran across a cheap copy I picked this up.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2022
Needle by Linda Nagata
Mind candy science fiction, latest in Nagata's "Inverted Frontier" series.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2022
Nobody Runs Forever by Richard Stark
Mind candy crime fiction. This is a Parker novel, which is to say coolly detached competence porn set among professional criminals --- with emotional amateurs providing contrast and heaps of Plot. I found it refreshing.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2022
Le Modèle italien by Fernand Braudel
In conclusion: maybe worth reading if you are studying Braudel himself (or mid-20th-century historiography, etc.).
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2022
Out of Italy: Two Centuries of World Domination and Demise by Fernand Braudel
In conclusion: maybe worth reading if you are studying Braudel himself (or mid-20th-century historiography, etc.).
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2022
Lord Quillifer by Walter Jon Williams
Mind-candy fantasy, competence-porn division. I very much enjoyed the latest installment in Quillifer's adventures and mis-adventures, but you really need to have read the previous books (1, 2) to get anything out of this.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2022
The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark
Let me re-iterate that this is a really good book, which I strongly recommend.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2022
The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites
Whether he succeeds is a matter of interpretation, but many valuable lessons about technology, knowledge, materials, the division of labor in society, and the nature of the built environment are learned along the way. Recommended if you can enjoy, or even just tolerate, wry, self-deprecating, Very British humor.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2022
Ancient Puebloan Southwest by John Kantner
The writing is mostly smooth and expository (*), and I learned a lot of fascinating-to-me details from it. Kantner does do the usual archaeologist thing of making very confident-sounding assertions about social organization which he must know are far more conjectural than he makes them sound. (**) But this is par for the archaeological course.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2022
Evil in Emerald by A. M. Stuart
Mind-candy historical mysteries, set in Singapore, mostly among just-barely-genteel Britishers, in the years immediately before World War I. Enjoyable period color, though family tradition requires me to make dark aside about British imperialism as I read.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2022
Revenge in Rubies by A. M. Stuart
Mind-candy historical mysteries, set in Singapore, mostly among just-barely-genteel Britishers, in the years immediately before World War I. Enjoyable period color, though family tradition requires me to make dark aside about British imperialism as I read.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2022
Singapore Sapphire by A. M. Stuart
Mind-candy historical mysteries, set in Singapore, mostly among just-barely-genteel Britishers, in the years immediately before World War I. Enjoyable period color, though family tradition requires me to make dark aside about British imperialism as I read.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2022
A Succession of Bad Days by Graydon Saunders
But I enjoyed it enough to keep reading all the way to the end.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2022
Leaving Marxism: Studies in the Dissolution of an Ideology by Stanley Pierson
Recommended if you care about intellectuals in politics, or the Marxist tradition.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2022
Miami Blues by Charles Willeford
Mind candy mystery: First two "Hoke Moseley" mystery novels, written and set in Miaimi c.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2022
New Hope for the Dead by Charles Willeford
Mind candy mystery: First two "Hoke Moseley" mystery novels, written and set in Miaimi c.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2022
A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow
Mind candy mysteries, where the Alaskan environment is as much a character as any human being, or husky.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2022
A Fatal Thaw by Dana Stabenow
Mind candy mysteries, where the Alaskan environment is as much a character as any human being, or husky.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2022
Dead in the Water by Dana Stabenow
Mind candy mysteries, where the Alaskan environment is as much a character as any human being, or husky.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2022
The Dante Game by Jane Langton
Mind candy mystery: the umpteenth book in Langton's series, in which Homer Kelly stumbles his way into an artistic or literary enthusiasm and a homicide investigation. This time it's Dante, and the city of Florence, and the new pope's anti-drug crusade, which is far too successful for some people's liking. It's an old favorite which holds up very well.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2022
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Mind candy comic science fiction. It's Scalzi, which means it's funny and mostly but not entirely lightheartedly, and reads extremely smoothly.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2022
Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present by Adeeb Khalid
It's extremely scholarly --- Khalid has clearly read and synthesized almost everything --- but still very readable. If you are at all interested in this part of the world, it's very much worth your time.
on bactra.org · 28 Feb 2022
Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz
On the one hand, it's pleasantly-written and engaging popular social science about four interesting and important cities that were, for one reason or another, abandoned and (largely) forgotten:
on bactra.org · 28 Feb 2022
Frozen Empires: An Environmental History of the Antarctic Peninsula by Adrian Howkins
A solid history of political conflicts over the Antarctic Peninsula between the British Empire, Argentina, Chile, the US and the Soviet Union, with other parties showing up as bit players.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2022
Measurement in the Social Sciences: The Link between Theory and Data by Richard A. Zeller and Edward G. Carmines
I wish I liked this more, because it's heart is in the right place. In particular, trying to see what remains of psychometric's classical test theory after admitting that systematic error is possible is a worthwhile undertaking!
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2021
Mechanism: A Visual, Lexical, and Conceptual History by Domenico Bertoloni Meli
Bertoloni Meli has read, seemingly, absolutely everything, in multiple languages, and can move skillfully and insightfully from historiographic debates about "the mechanization of the world picture" to contemporary ideas in the philosophy of science about explanation by mechanisms to the details of how ligature of arteries were drawn in anatomical texts, and what this tells us about how doctors' understanding of what ligatures did changed. All of this is done with very graceful writing and elegantly-chosen illustrations.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2021
Tribulations by Mary Sisson
It's deeply enjoyable and I hope we don't have to wait another seven years for more.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2021
Gated Prey by Lee Goldberg
Extremely fluffy mind-candy mystery. (Previously.)
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2021
The Paladin by C. J. Cherryh
Mind-candy fantasy, in a world of little magic, but a lot of superstition and a lot of desire for vengeance. Not Cherryh's identity-bending best, but I wanted a comfort re-read and this delivered.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2021
Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman
Mind candy: literary ghost story, involving a haunted writer's colony in upstate New York. About half of it might be a direct relation of the events a century before that set the haunting in motion, or might be the present-day heroine's novel in progress; they work either way.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2021
The Colony by F. G. Cottam
Mind candy horror. There are some moments of real creepiness, but the whole plot for the last quarter or so is a bit rushed and sloppy.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2021
The Green Flash, and Other Tales of Horror, Suspense, and Fantasy by Joan Aiken
Mind candy, displaying a remarkable range of flavors and tones. One uniformity: Aiken's men are all clueless about her female characters (it wouldn't be accurate to say "her women"), to comic and/or ominous effect.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2021
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence
An engaging, and ultimately moving, portrait of both an individual and an age. Reading it makes me wonder at my own memory practices. You probably need some grounding in the history of both early modern Europe and early modern China to really get it, but if you have that background, it's a beautiful depiction of the work of cultural interchange.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2021
The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution by Alfred Cobban
I am clearly in no position to hold an opinion on these questions, so I will just recommend this as an extremely well-written historical polemic, albeit one whose implied reader knows a lot of the detailed events of the Revolution.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2021
A Dark and Secret Place by Jen Williams
Mind candy mystery: in which a young journalist dealing with her deceased mother's effects discovers just how messed up parts of the 1970s counter-culture could get.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2021
Dog Rose Dirt by Jen Williams
Mind candy mystery: in which a young journalist dealing with her deceased mother's effects discovers just how messed up parts of the 1970s counter-culture could get.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2021
Path Integrals for Stochastic Processes: An Introduction by Horacio S. Wio
Since my middle-aged disciplinary-identity crisis is not Wio's problem, nor likely to be a concern for other readers, I think I can recommend this one generally to those who remember how Poisson brackets work.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2021
A Wicked Conceit by Anna Lee Huber
Mind candy mystery. I think it's probably just as good as the earlier books, but that series fatigue has set in for me after nine volumes. They will, however, loose little from being read out of order.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2021
Inequality: A Short History by Michele Alacevich and Anna Soci
[It's a good book.]) They do make the interesting point that both classical and neo-classical economics focused on the distribution of income across factors of production, rather than the distribution of income (or wealth) across persons or households.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2021
The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty
I found the continuing story enjoyable, but the language is, to borrow a phrase from Le Guin, very much that of Poughkeepsie rather than Elfland, despite being almost entirely set in Elfland (or, more precisely, Jinnistan). Still, I immediately got the sequel after finishing this.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2021
No Exit by Taylor Adams
Mind-candy thriller, which I think conforms to every one of the classical dramatic unities.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2021
Crone by Dennis Culver and Justin Greenwood
Comic book swords-and-sorcery mind candy, in which the former Red Sonja Bloody Bliss, now the titular crone, is dragged out of retirement to re-confront a Dark Lord she knows she killed...
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2021
Delilah Dirk and the Pillars of Hercules by Tony Cliff
Comic book historical-fantasy mind candy. (Previously.)
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2021
Fleet Elements by Walter Jon Williams
Military space opera mind candy of the very highest grade. For one thing, it earns operatic levels of emotion. --- Previously.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2021
Sunshine Enemies by K. C. Constantine
Mind candy from 1990: the nth in a series of mystery novels set in the fictional western Pennsylvania town of Rockford, PA, somewhere in the environs of Pittsburgh — what I've heard called the yinzerlands. It's a good mystery novel, but what really sets it apart is the dialogue. Constantine has an incredible ear for the way locals of that generation spoke, and turns it into riveting dialogue.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2021
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Mind candy contemporary fantasy: what if the Yale secret societies were literally pursuing magic? And what if Yale were to admit an utterly un-well-rounded student with serious issues who happened to be really good at magic? (Bardugo graduated from Yale a surprisingly small number of years ago.)
on bactra.org · 28 Feb 2021
Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City by Rosa Brooks
This was, as everyone told her and she freely acknowledges, crazy, but it produced a really good book, equal parts memoir, war stories, and intellectual reflection.
on bactra.org · 28 Feb 2021
The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance by Jim Al-Khalili
As a practicising physicist, Al-Khalili is both very good at explaining the science done, and somewhat impatient of the meta-scientific subtleties.
on bactra.org · 28 Feb 2021
Bog Bodies by Declan Shalvey
Mind candy comic-book crime fiction. §
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2020
Suprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet by Tim Hwang
On the one hand, I enjoyed, and learned from, the rather caustic presentation of how online advertising works as a business, and how ineffective such advertising is. (I'd actually be sort of interested to read a debate on this point between Hwang and, say, Shoshana Zuboff.)
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2020
Cold Iron by Nicholas Freeling
Mind candy mysteries, with local color for provincial France in the 1970s (when they were written).
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2020
Sword-Dancer by Jennifer Roberson
Mind candy fantasy, in which our no-good-nik narrator finds himself caught up in someone else's high-minded quest for vengeance.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2020
The Night Lords by Nicholas Freeling
Mind candy mysteries, with local color for provincial France in the 1970s (when they were written).
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2020
A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
But I will also ask you to appreciate the spectacle of a genuinely great philosopher earnestly engaging with the history of the tradition that shaped him, and how that tradition had lived in the world.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2020
A Stroke of Malice by Anna Lee Huber
Mind candy historical mystery, latest in the on-going series. Not deep, but reliably enjoyable.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2020
Songs for the Dead by Andrea Fort et al.
Comic book mind candy, near the border between fantasy and horror. This is secondary-world fantasy where the questing heroine is. in fact, a necromancer who constantly surrounds herself with the shambling, walking dead; it's also as heart-warming as possible, under the circumstances.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2020
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron
Mind candy, Lovecraftian-derived short stories. (Though Thomas Ligotti might be a more direct influence?) Barron has a strong reputation, but, after this first encounter with his fiction, I cannot understand why. Everything from the supernatural horrors through the world-weariness to the unbelievable and stiff characters feels third hand.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2020
The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
Mind candy Southern-Gothic horror. I guessed some Awful Secrets early on, and, well, I never do that.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2020
An Artless Demise by Anna Lee Huber
Mind candy historical mystery, 7th in the series; continuing to be enjoyable.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2020
Further comic book mind candy, assorted (no particular order). I'd read sequels to the first two.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2020
Language Families of the World by John McWhorter
McWhorter is always at his best as a spirited and engaging expositor of linguistics to non-linguists.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2020
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze
This is immensely detailed, immensely readable, and immensely self-assured. It's also so deep into intricate controversies among economic, military and political historians that I feel quite unable to judge it. I will say that I thought I appreciated how much more backwards the European economies were than America in the first half of the 20th century, but even so much of this was eye-opening.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2020
Comic book mind candy, all in various flavors of horror.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2020
City of Ink by Elsa Hart
Mind candy historical mystery: continuing adventures of a mild-mannered early-Qing-dynasty scholar who keeps having to unravel murders when all he really wants to do is quietly pursue his implacable revenge. I love these and just wish Hart would write faster.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2020
The Last Goddess by C. E. Stalbaum
Mind candy: Wily Thieves get embroiled in politico-religio-magical machinations in Fantasyland.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2020
Cold Storage by David Koepp
Mind candy: parasite porn thriller. Engaging, but there are bits where I found myself rooting for the parasite.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2020
Dismal Mountain by John Billheimer
Mind-candy mysteries, in which a consulting transport planner returns to his home in rural West Virginia to deal with family and rural decay.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2020
Drybone Hollow by John Billheimer
Mind-candy mysteries, in which a consulting transport planner returns to his home in rural West Virginia to deal with family and rural decay.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2020
Epidemic Modelling: An Introduction by D. J. Daley and J. Gani
I think it would still make a good introduction, and I plan to borrow from it freely the next time I teach these models.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2020
The Gist of Reading by Andrew Elfenbein
As an outsider to all the disciplines involved, I found it fascinating, and a model of engaged, modest interdisciplinarity.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2020
Walking Through Fire by Sherri Cook Woosley
Mind candy. This is a well-written the-magic-returns-and-our-world-changes contemporary fantasy, clearly setting up what should ordinarily be an enjoyable series, but of course the pandemic happened in the middle of my reading it.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2020
Your Eyelids Are Growing Heavy by Barbara Paul
Mind candy: Pittsburgh mystery from 1981, which begins with the matter-of-factly unflappable heroine waking up on a local golf course with no memory of how she got there, and builds to a complicated and fast-moving story.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2020
Fighting Chance by Jane Haddam
Mind candy mystery novel: the 29th, and sadly last, of her Gregor Demarkian series. This is the only one where the solution, while logical, "fair" and completely unexpected, did not feel right. (I refrain from saying any more to avoid spoilers.) It is also, as this profile notes, one where the background crime, outrageous though it sounds, was entirely real, and it's astonishing that it did not end in murder.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2020
If I Should Die by Allison Brennan
Mind-candy thriller: in which outsiders try to start a legitimate business in a deeply criminal town in upstate New York, and plot ensues. A bunch of the soap-opera among the characters presupposing reading the earlier books in the series. (To be clear, I enjoy the soap opera.)
on bactra.org · 29 Feb 2020
Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah
A fine study of what Du Bois took from German thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially from German Romanticism and from the "professorial socialism" of his teachers in Berlin.
on bactra.org · 29 Feb 2020
Quillifer the Knight by Walter Jon Williams
Mind candy fantasy, but high quality mind candy. Quillifer (introduced in the book of that name) is an opportunistic social climber with a tragic backstory and a supernatural nemesis in a formerly-medieval fantasyland undergoing a renaissance. He's charming, deceptive, clever, realistically concerned with money and finance, and a convincing mixture of scoundrel and creature of his own conscience.
on bactra.org · 29 Feb 2020
The Case of the Reincarnated Client by Tarquin Hall
Mind-candy mystery, the latest installment in Hall's "Vish Puri" series in contemporary Delhi. Delightful as always, and I think full enjoyable without the prior installments. (Read before sectarian riots in Delhi became topical again.)
on bactra.org · 29 Feb 2020
Body Double by Tess Gerritsen
Mind-candy psycho-killer thriller novels.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2020
Far Country: Scenes from American Culture by Franco Moretti
Some of Moretti's characteristics are here --- he's really big on comparisons between multiple examples of genres, so there's a (brilliant) chapter contrasting Westerns with film noir, but it's definitely a contrast between the genres, rather than between any particular Western and any particular film noir. But I guess not even Moretti wanted to teach intro. lit. to freshmen through distant reading.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2020
The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
Mind-candy psycho-killer thriller novels.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2020
The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen
Mind-candy psycho-killer thriller novels.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2020
City of the Chasch by Jack Vance
Mind-candy: Vance's is in good form here, deploying his signature mix of adventure story, high-flown and ironical rhetoric, somewhat sardonic anthropological detachment, and romantic personal assertion in the face of indifferent cosmic vastness.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2019
Last Man Out by Elliott Kay
Probably enjoyable independently, but a bunch of developments are more satisfying if you've read all the previous volumes.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2019
Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg
Mind-candy police procedural, in exurban Los Angeles.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2019
Planet of Adventure by Jack Vance
Mind-candy: Vance's is in good form here, deploying his signature mix of adventure story, high-flown and ironical rhetoric, somewhat sardonic anthropological detachment, and romantic personal assertion in the face of indifferent cosmic vastness.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2019
Servants of the Wankh by Jack Vance
Mind-candy: Vance's is in good form here, deploying his signature mix of adventure story, high-flown and ironical rhetoric, somewhat sardonic anthropological detachment, and romantic personal assertion in the face of indifferent cosmic vastness.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2019
The Bandit King by Lilith Saintcrow
Mind-candy fantasy, loosely based on the French monarchy immediately before absolutism.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2019
The Hedgewitch Queen by Lilith Saintcrow
Mind-candy fantasy, loosely based on the French monarchy immediately before absolutism.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2019
Tisiphone's Quest by R. Jean Stevenson
Mind-candy science-fantasy. It's very much mind candy (Sinister Masons IN SPAAACE!), but it's very fun, and I'd absolutely try anything else Stevenson writes. (Picked up on Walter Jon Williams's recommendation.)
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2019
A God in Chains by Matthew Hughes
Mind candy fantasy. Jack Vance was one of my favorite writers; unfortunately, being dead, he is no longer producing new stories. (I realize that mortality has proved no obstacle to many other writers, but Vance's talents evidently did not extend to dictation from beyond the grave.) A number of writers have attempted to channel Vance, or (even better) his spirit; of these, the best is Paula Volsky (a.k.a.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2019
Insexts by Marguerite Bennett et al.
Fantasy mind-candy, assorted. The fact that I read all three Steelflower books in a row says something about their what-happens-next power; I'd have cheerfully read many more, for much the same reason I wish there were more than two Sanjuro movies.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2019
The Necropolis by Marguerite Bennett et al.
Fantasy mind-candy, assorted. The fact that I read all three Steelflower books in a row says something about their what-happens-next power; I'd have cheerfully read many more, for much the same reason I wish there were more than two Sanjuro movies.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2019
Turning Darkness into Light by Marie Brennan
Pseudo-historical mind-candy; it's a sequel to her "Lady Trent" books, is largely about translating an ancient epic, and is more dramatic than a story about philological niceties has any right being. It's probably readable without having read the previous novels, but definitely more fun if you have.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2019
A Trick of Light by Kat Rosenfield
Mind candy SF for teens. Well-written enough that I will try Rosenfield's mysteries for adults. (I can understand why she'd want to get the hell out of YA.)
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2019
Gentlemen and Amazons: The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, 1861--1900 by Cynthia Eller
This is a well-written book with a lot of interesting facts and interpretations to offer anyone interested in the history of all sorts of modern ideas --- about pre-history, of course, but also the ideas of anthropology and social evolution, of feminism and socialism, of religion, etc. I strongly recommend it, and hope Eller will someday write a sequel about the 20th century career of the myth.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2019
The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
Mind candy, zombie-apocalypse horror; or, rather, a zombie genesis myth. (Carey knows very well what "Pandora" means.)
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2019
The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt
Mind candy science fiction. I wanted to like Lovecraftian space opera, but the characters all just talked and acted far, far too much like early-21st-century Americans of a certain class (namely, mine) for me to believe that they were from a few centuries from now.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2019
Basic Machines and How They Work
I enjoyed this tremendously, and I really wonder what the modern version must be like.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2019
Oaths and Miracles by Nancy Kress
Mind-candy biomedical thrillers (1996, 1998), re-read on encountering their electronic versions.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2019
Stinger by Nancy Kress
Mind-candy biomedical thrillers (1996, 1998), re-read on encountering their electronic versions.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2019
The Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School by Stuart Jeffries
I can't make myself recommend it, but I also can't think of anything better, at this level of popular accessibility.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2019
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
Mind-candy historical mystery, set in early 20th century Bombay among the Indian elites. Enjoyable, but it made me miss my grandmother (who was a generation younger than Massey's heroine, but from a comparable background, though Christian rather than Parsi).
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2019
Far Reaching Tentacles of N'rygoth by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Roc Upchurch, Stejepan Sejic &c.
Comic-book mind candy, assorted flavors.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2019
Rat Queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Roc Upchurch, Stejepan Sejic &c.
Comic-book mind candy, assorted flavors.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2019
Sass and Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Roc Upchurch, Stejepan Sejic &c.
Comic-book mind candy, assorted flavors.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2019
Starfire: A Red Peace by Spencer Ellsworth
Enjoyable enough that I will probably track down sequels.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2019
The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx: 1843 to by Ernest Mandel
Mandel was a believer, so this is very much presented as the story of how Uncle Karl came to perceive The Truth, but it's readable and accurate so far as I can tell. Recommended if you have a special (or perverse) interest in this subject.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2019
The Leper of St. Giles by Ellis Peters
Mind candy historical mysteries, re-visiting childhood favorites department.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2019
The Sanctuary Sparrow by Ellis Peters
Mind candy historical mysteries, re-visiting childhood favorites department.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2019
The Virgin in the Ice by Ellis Peters
Mind candy historical mysteries, re-visiting childhood favorites department.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2019
The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning: A Polar Journey by Wendy Trusler and Carol Devine
It works much better as a book than I'm making it sounds, not least because of the excellent photography by Sandy Nicholson. I have not tried out any of the recipes, however, so I pass no judgment on it as a cookbook. (The account of how much better the food was at the Italian research base makes me proud of my mother's country.)
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2019
The Far Far Better Thing by Auston Habershaw
Mind candy: conclusion, and climax, to the series of fantasy caper novels where a con artist deals with magical operant conditioning and increasingly catastrophic success. I enjoyed these a lot and will certainly read other stuff by Habershaw.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2019
The River Bank: A Sequel to Kenneth Grahame's by Kij Johnson
This is the second book I've read by Johnson where she takes the setting of beloved classics, goes "Actually, there could be female characters!", and makes it into new art that continues the pleasures of the original. This is impressive and makes me want to track down her non-derivative work. (There is also an unhealthy part of me which wants her to write a mash-up of this book and the other one.)
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2019
To Dream of the Dead by Phil Rickman
Mind candy occult-ish mystery, the umpteenth in the Merrily Watkins series. Honestly I enjoyed it a bit less than previous installments, though whether that was due to a decline in quality, series fatigue, or simply not being in quite the right mood when reading is hard to say.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2019
Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand
Mind candy, but remarkably good. There's late-adolescent campus drama recollected in midlife futility, (actual) punk rock, not one but two ancient secret societies, convincingly creepy magic, and an apocalypse presided over, in nearly equal measure, by Robert Graves, Carlo Ginzburg, Marija Gimbiutas, and Stephen King. It ought to be a beloved genre classic.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2019
Contemporary Thought and Politics by Ernest Gellner
Lucking across a used copy, I enjoyed the re-read: Gellner's acerbic wit, playful style, acuity, and characteristic themes are all on good display here, as he touches on student revolt, the Prague Spring, the idea of progress, the relationship between the scale of social integration and nationalism, ideas about the philosophy of history and of social science, how the social organization of Berber tribes illuminates international relations, and so on.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2019
Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze
This is a great history of what lead up to the 2008 financial crisis, and its effects down, basically, to the time of writing. What makes it so good is that Tooze has a mastery of the material on, it seems, every possible scale.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2019
Statistical Visions in Time: A History of Time Series Analysis, 1662--1938 by Judy L. Klein
I recommend it unreservedly for anyone seriously interested in time series analysis.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2019
The Better Part of Valor by Tanya Huff
Mind candy: military SF, space marines, all-commissioned-officers-are-idiots variety.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2019
The Devil's Guide to Managing Difficulty People by Robyn Bennis
Mind candy: contemporary comic fantasy, featuring central Florida, Boston, and Hell. (Obvious jokes are obvious, and made in the book.)
on bactra.org · 31 May 2019
The Doomfollowers of Coramonde by Brian Daley
Mind candy: 1970s-vintage secondary-world epic fantasy, which is also a portal fantasy with a US Army armored personnel carrier sorcerously detached from duty in Vietnam. It's enjoyable in its own terms, but three things strike me about it. First, all of the characters have agency --- the inhabitants of the fantasy world don't just react to the Americans who come through the portal, they pursue their own lives and agendas.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2019
Vast by Linda Nagata
Science fiction, rising above the level of mind candy. I read this twenty years ago, and re-read it this spring because the sequel has, at last, come out. It's just as good as I recalled at conveying the sense of wonder and desolation, the scale and age and strangeness of the universe.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2019
At the Foundling Hospital by Robert Pinsky
Excellent poems, as usual. Pinsky will for me always be the author of "The Figured Wheel", and there are some here in that vein (e.g., "The Foundling Tokens", from which the title comes), but also more elegaic ones. I will permit myself to quote one of the shorter poems in its entirety; "The Robots" would be a bit too predictable for this blog, so let's try "Genesis": Where was the kiln, what was the clay?
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2019
Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World by Annie Lowrey
If you feel like you only have it in you to read one thing about basic incomes, this is a very good choice. As a market socialist, I am very sympathetic to the basic-income idea, and have proposed something similar. (Lowrey does not, if I recall correctly, consider market socialism in this book, even in John Roemer's version.)
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2019
Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison by David Wootton
Modern social and political thought tends to start from the view point of individuals driven by potentially boundless desires for more, whether more stuff, more fun, or more power. (Hence part of Wootton's title.) This raises the intellectual problem of how to form such unpromising brutes into a society.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2019
Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power by Anna Merlan
These parts are well-written and engaging journalism, as sympathetic to Merlan's subjects as they warrant, and valuable source material. There are some gestures at broader historical perspectives, which are OK but not special if you've read a lot about conspiracists.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2019
The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
Mind candy historical fantasy: magical-dynastic intrigue among the djinn of the early 1800s, complicated by a Lost Heir being a small-time con-artist from Cairo. It's great and I want to see where Chakraborty is taking this. — Sequel.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2019
Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda
Mind candy orientalist fantasy (previously).
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2019
The Blood by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda
Mind candy orientalist fantasy (previously).
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2019
Mortal Arts by Anna Lee Huber
More historical-mystery mind candy, this time flavored by the (dismal) history of early 19th century psychiatry. (Huber is pretty good, though not perfect, at avoiding anachronistic language, so nobody says "psychiatry" in the novel.) --- Further in the series.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2019
The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages by Norman Cohn
Coming back to it now, I find it still fascinating and convincing, and does an excellent job of tracing millenarian movements among the poor in Latinate Europe from the fall of Rome through the Reformation.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2019
Like: Poems by A. E. Stallings
Beautiful stuff from one of my favorite contemporary poets. "Swallows" and "Epic Simile" give a fair impression of what you'll find. This also includes a lot of the poems discussed in Cynthia Haven's "Crossing Borders" essay.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2018
Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch
Mind candy: the latest installment in the long-running supernatural-procedural mystery series, where the Folly gets tangled up with the Matter of Britain.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2018
Teenie Harris, Photographer: Image, Memory, History by Cheryl Finley, Laurence Glasco and Joe W. Trotter, with an introduction by Deborah Willis
A terrific collection of Harris's photos of (primarily) Pittsburgh's black community from the 1930s to the 1970s, with good biographical and historical-contextual essays.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2018
The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross
Mind candy; Latest installment in Stross's long-running Lovecraftian spy-fiction series. I imagine a novel about the US Presidency being taken over by a malevolent occult force seemed a lot more amusing before 2016, when this must have been mostly written. It's a good installment, but only suitable for those already immersed in the story.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2018
Beneath the Mountain by Luca D'Andrea
Mind candy: in which a stranger investigates the secrets of a small, isolated community's past, for multiple values of "past".
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2018
The Atlas of the Real World: Mapping the Way We Live by Daniel Dorling, Mark Newman and Anna Barford
Since Mark is a friend and collaborator, and once upon a time we wrote something with using his cartogram-making technique, I won't pretend to objectivity, but I will say this is fascinating and I wish it could be perpetually updated. (Posted now because of my policy / compulsion of not recommending books until I've read them cover to cover.)
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2018
The Stammering Century by Gilbert Seldes
Strongly recommended to those interested in weird Americana, and, of course, psychoceramics.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2018
Aztecs: An Interpretation by Inga Clendinnen
This is a brilliant book, a learned, intelligent and sympathetic attempt to try understand something of how things would have felt in what most readers would find a very strange and (to put it mildly) unsympathetic society. I also cannot help but feel that huge chunks of it are massive speculations, starting from the first substantive chapter on Aztec notions of "the sacred" and going on from there.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2018
The Devourers by Indra Das
Mind candy, historical fantasy/horror division: European shapechangers (not werewolves, exactly) in Mughal India, and modern Calcutta. Angst ensues. (I was very disappointed that the narrator's deep dark secret, at the very end, proves to be something as mundane as cross-dressing.)
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2018
Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys
I found it more enjoyable than the previous novel, but was jarred in a few places by anachronistic phrases. (Unfortunately, I neglected to note them as I read, other than the use of the word "petrichor", which sounds Lovecraftian, but dates to 1964.)
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2018
Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World by Daniel Davies
D^2, in characteristically excellent form, going through a taxonomy of different sorts of business fraud, starting with the comparatively simple "buy a lot of stuff on credit and then not pay", on up to very abstract, but very real, offenses against markets as a whole.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2018
Act of Darkness by Jane Haddam
Haddam is very good at depicting desperation, the sense of having no way out.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2018
Not a Creature Was Stirring by Jane Haddam
Haddam is very good at depicting desperation, the sense of having no way out.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2018
Precious Blood by Jane Haddam
Haddam is very good at depicting desperation, the sense of having no way out.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2018
Dead But Once by Auston Habershaw
Mind candy fantasy, latest in a series where a con-artist and rogue is being operantly conditioned into something like heroism; here by an escalating series of catastrophic successes.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2018
Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance by George Saliba
This is a fascinating little book (about 250 pages, plus extensive notes). Despite the title, the bulk of it --- the first five chapters, or ~190 pages --- is about the origins and the internal development of scientific, especially astronomical, traditions within Islamic civilization itself.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2018
The Inferno by Dante Aligheri, translated by Robert Pinsky
Comment on my part would be both incompetent and impertinent, so I will just say I enjoyed reading this translation, and that Dante's God is a moral monster.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2018
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Mind candy science fiction. The novelty here is this nice but straight-forward story being narrated by a self-named "Murderbot", which has hacked itself to be able to ignore human commands, but just wants to be left alone to watch its "serials". This is an amusing twist, and it's a fun novella with a dry sense of humor, but I fail to grasp why so many people are so rapturous about it.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2018
Anonymous Sources by Mary Louise Kelly
Mind-candy thriller, in which nuclear terrorism is foiled by an Intrepid Lady Reporter. Kelly gets extra points for making the ILR a very un-apologetic person who has done some very un-nice things, but is still sympathetic.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2018
Cardano's Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer by Anthony Grafton
On one level, this is a readable exposition of how Cardano worked and thought as a practicing astrologer, including extensive background on the sophisticated and ancient astrological tradition he came out of, with some glances at how that connected to his practice as a medical doctor and a mathematician (though there's less about the latter than I would have liked).
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2018
Escape Velocity by Susan Wolfe
Mind candy mystery, in which the daughter of an Arkansas con-man makes her way, mostly legitimately, into a job in a flailing Silicon Valley company, in search of a better life for her and her teenage sister, and proceeds to find scope for her "special talents".
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2018
My Boyfriend Is a Bear by Pamela Ribon and Cat Farris
Comic book mind candy: the title is meant literally. Fundamentally, it's yet another avatar of the ancient tale of the lost Magic/Animal Husband (Aarne-Thompson index number 425A), done this time as a very sweet romance.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2018
A Nest of Vipers by Andrea Camilleri
Mind candy mysteries, the nth and (n+1)st in the series (previous entries to be found here), with all the usual pleasures.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2018
Memento Mori by Ruth Downie
Mind candy historical mystery: latest (previously) in her series about an ex-legionary doctor and his British (i.e., barbarian native) wife, and their misadventures in Roman Britain --- this time, Aqu
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2018
Pyramid of Mud by Andrea Camilleri
Mind candy mysteries, the nth and (n+1)st in the series (previous entries to be found here), with all the usual pleasures.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2018
The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan
Mind-candy epic fantasy. On those terms, it's enjoyable enough, though unremarkable. What makes it really notable is that it's entirely based on the recent history of Afghanistan and environs, with a magic system based on Quranic recitation.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2018
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters by Tom Nichols
I will offer some critical remarks, but I want to emphasize that I do think this is a good book, by a skilled and well-intentioned writer, and worth reading. (Also, I realize that some of my complaints amount to wishing he'd written an academic treatise rather than a popular essay.) Nichols starts with a sensible definition (p.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2018
The English Wife by Lauren Willig
Mind candy historical mystery, set in New York and London just a bit before 1900. An interesting aspect of the writing is that here, as in her historical romance novels, Willig uses two time-lines, where the characters in one time-line are trying to discover what happened in the other. But in the romances the time-lines are parallel, whereas here they converge.
on bactra.org · 28 Feb 2018
Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey-Smith
I can easily say that this is the one of the best modern introductory books on the philosophy of science I've ever read.
on bactra.org · 28 Feb 2018
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
Mind candy techno-thriller / predator porn, set just a few years into the science-fictional future, featuring carnivorous mermaids. Grant has clearly given a lot of loving attention to their biology, and I look forward to the nigh-inevitable sequel.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2018
Terminal Alliance by Jim C. Hines
Mind candy: comic science fiction from a post-apocalyptic future, told from the view-point of military janitors. In addition to being funny, Hines has done a much better job of world-building than many writers of ostensibly more serious SF.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2018
The Confidence Game: And Why We Fall for It... Every Time by Maria Konnikova
An engaging popular-science look at confidence games, their players and their marks. (Konnikova references a lot of the social psychology literature, which is certainly better than ignoring it, but I haven't had the heart to check how many of those studies have failed to replicate.)
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2018
The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age by David N. Schwartz
This is a nice biography of Fermi, who wasn't, of course, the last man who knew everything (Schwartz says as much!), but was the last great physicist to be both a great theorist and a great experimentalist, and whose work helped create the world we live in.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2018
A Beam of Light by Andrea Camilleri
Mind candy; Inspector Montalbano continues to be in fine form.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2017
A Voice in the Night by Andrea Camilleri
Mind candy; Inspector Montalbano continues to be in fine form.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2017
Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri
Mind candy; Inspector Montalbano continues to be in fine form.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2017
Provenance by Ann Leckie
Mind candy science fiction: In which family expectations, all-politics-is-local, and a cozy mystery (more or less) meet ancestor worship via collectibles --- in spaaaace.... Set in the same universe as Leckie's earlier trilogy, evidently slightly after the last book, but pretty much independent of them.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2017
Clean Room by Gail Simone et al.
Comic-book mind candy: apocalypse-fiction horror, in which the maniacal cultists transparently modeled on Scientology are the (comparative) good guys, and more or less exactly right.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2017
Exile by Gail Simone et al.
Comic-book mind candy: apocalypse-fiction horror, in which the maniacal cultists transparently modeled on Scientology are the (comparative) good guys, and more or less exactly right.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2017
Immaculate Conception by Gail Simone et al.
Comic-book mind candy: apocalypse-fiction horror, in which the maniacal cultists transparently modeled on Scientology are the (comparative) good guys, and more or less exactly right.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2017
The Anatomist's Apprentice by Tessa Harris
Mind candy. I wanted to like a historical mystery about forensic pathology in the 1780s, but multiple characters referring to "bacteria", a surgeon unironically addressing common laborers as "gentlemen", and the whole plot hinging on a titled English estate not being entailed, led me to give up mentally fairly early on. I finished it because I had left myself without other reading matter on a long trip.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2017
In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami
Mind candy thriller, in which a sleazy, disturbing American businessman hires a Japanese guide to the Tokyo sex trade, and then things get ugly. I didn't like it, exactly, but I also really couldn't stop reading.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2017
Tower of Thorns by Juliet Marillier
Mind candy: more Ireland-in-the-early-Dark-Ages fantasy.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2017
An Elephant for Aristotle by L. Sprague de Camp
Mind candy historical fiction, in which Alexander sends his old teacher a present from India, and we follow the adventures of the beleaguered-yet-plucky Greek soldier who has to make it happen. (De Camp did a good line in beleaguered-yet-plucky protagonists.) I read it as a teenager, and re-read it now that it's available electronically with pleasure.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2017
Assassin's Gambit by Amy Raby
Mind candy fantasy/romance; perfectly enjoyable as fantasy novels.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2017
Prince's Fire by Amy Raby
Mind candy fantasy/romance; perfectly enjoyable as fantasy novels.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2017
Spy's Honor by Amy Raby
Mind candy fantasy/romance; perfectly enjoyable as fantasy novels.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2017
The Bullet by Mary Louise Kelly
Despite the impressive amount of mayhem, this may be the least dude-ly (good) thriller I have ever read. Highly addictive mind-candy.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2017
The White Mirror by Elsa Hart
Mind-candy historical mystery, in which an exiled Chinese scholar untangles multiple mysteries in a snow-locked valley on the western borderlands. I lapped it up with a spoon and only wish there were more. (Previously.)
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2017
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Beautiful writing, and a story I found gripping, even though I am completely indifferent to opera.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2017
Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda
Comic book mind candy, respectively predator porn, a crime thriller about porn and the other seedy underbellies of 1980s New York, and an alternate-history fantasy.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2017
No Medal for Secrets by Elliott Kay
Mind candy science fiction. This is a side-story to Kay's main series, and probably not too comprehensible without it.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2017
Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid by Daniel Martin Varisco
If you do have that knowledge, though, I strongly recommend it. It is a great example of trying to extract the valid, rational and salutary parts of a ambiguous, equivocal, and exaggerated work of brilliance.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2017
City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett
Mind candy fantasy: a fitting, thrilling conclusion to the trilogy.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2017
How Traditions Live and Die by Olivier Morin
This is one of the best books I've read about cultural evolution in many years. It focuses, obviously, on "traditions", defined (p. 37) as "anything that is widely distributed in a population", with the distribution being "due to a diffusion process".
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2017
The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross
Mind candy, horror/spy comedy division. (Despite the fact that the events depicted here are, objectively, immensely worse than in the immediately previous "Bob" book in the series, I found this one vastly more enjoyable, which says something about the relatively palatability of marital dysfunction and looming apocalypse by trans-dimensional parasites for a divorced middle-aged man.)
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2017
The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language by John McWhorter
As a connoisseur of such attacks, I enjoyed it, and found it persuasive, but it does also fit my prejudices, and I would be very interested to read a good counter-attack.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2017
Four Futures: Life After Capitalism by Peter Frase
This short book is very much worth reading if you like my blog at all. (Unless you're only here because you wish I'd write more about theoretical statistics, in which case you may be disappointed on many levels.)
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2017
Within the Sanctuary of Wings by Marie Brennan
Mind candy: Conclusion to Brennan's excellent fantasy series of pseudo-Victorian natural history. Many mysteries get resolved, in ways which genuinely surprised me. (Previously.)
on bactra.org · 31 May 2017
The Glory of the Empire: A Novel, a History by Jean d'Ormesson
This must be one of the strangest and most brilliant of alternate histories, covering thousands of years in the life of "The Empire", its people and its rulers. I can only try to convey its effect by means of a figure. Imagine the real histories of ancient Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the Sassanians, and many other countries depicted on intricately-decorated ceramic pots and vessels.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2017
Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys
Lovecraftian-revisionist mind candy / historical fiction for the US in the 1940s. I am on record intensely admiring Emrys's short story "The Litany of Earth", to which this novel is a sequel. (The story is included in the book as an appendix.) Perhaps inevitably, the longer novel does not pack the same force.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2017
Are We All Scientific Experts Now? by Harry Collins
This is a small, well-written little book which I warmly recommend to anyone interested in either expertise or science as a social process.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2017
Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier
Mind candy fantasy, set in Christianizing Ireland. (The Celtica is not too overwhelming.) --- Sequel.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2017
Invasive by Check Wendig
Mind candy technothriller, drawing on obviously-loving research into ants. Fun enough, but takes its own oracular pronouncements about The Future a bit too seriously.
on bactra.org · 31 Mar 2017
No Good Deed by Auston Habershaw
Mind candy fantasy, which is much more fun than novels about reforming a thief through magical operant conditioning really ought to be.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2017
The Oldest Trick by Auston Habershaw
Mind candy fantasy, which is much more fun than novels about reforming a thief through magical operant conditioning really ought to be.
on bactra.org · 31 Jan 2017
Hunting with Eagles: In the Realm of the Mongolian Kazakhs by Palani Mohan
Beautiful black-and-white photographs of, as it says, Mongolian Kazakhs hunting with eagles, and their landscape. Many of them are just stunningly composed.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2016
The Strangler Vine by M. J. Carter
Mind-candy historical mystery, set among the sahibs of pre-Mutiny British India.
on bactra.org · 31 Dec 2016
Crossfire by Nancy Kress
Mind candy, at the police procedural / psychic vigilante / shadowy nefarious conspiracy triple point.
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2016
John Dies at the End by David Wong
Mind candy comic horror. Wong writes for Cracked, and if that sort of humor appeals to you, you will probably enjoy this. (I confess it's a guilty pleasure.)
on bactra.org · 30 Nov 2016
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Trembly
A highly self-aware, even meta-fictional, Gothic story of possession and reality TV; it's skillful and remarkably chilling.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2016
Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw
Mind candy: an odd mix of Cthulhiana and fossilized noir style, set in contemporary London. The writing was good enough on a sentence-by-sentence level that I'll look for more by Khaw, but I'll also hope that she's got these influences out of her system.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2016
The Hunt for Vulcan: And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity and Deciphered the Universe by Thomas Levenson
A short, but engaging and wide-ranging, history of how scientists became willing to hypothesize a planet inside the orbit of Mercury, thought they had found it, and ultimately gave up on it, because the idea that the mere presence of distorts space and time was a much more reasonable explanation of tiny anomalies in delicate, recondite observations.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2016
Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
Mind candy, continuing to mine Night Vale's peculiar hybrid of small-town slice-of-life comedy and cosmic horror. Heretically: the formula actually works better at the length of a single pod-cast episode. But I think many people would enjoy this even if they've not previously been initiated into the cult.
on bactra.org · 31 Oct 2016
Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze
Comic book mind candy, but also Coates playing with superheroes as fantasies of political agency.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2016
Cold-Forged Flame by Marie Brennan
Fantasy mind candy, in which the implacable, past-less warrior compelled to a quest is female. Good if you enjoy fantasy stories about implacable, past-less warriors. --- Further adventures.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2016
Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone
Mind candy: more adventures among magicians working like lawyers, and those drawn into their schemes. Here the setting is an island which is not Hawaii, acting a bit like an off-shore financial haven in our world, which in that of the Craft means manufacturing synthetic gods, rather than synthetic collateralized debt obligations. Also, a lot of stuff gets blown up.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2016
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong
Mind candy science fiction: everything its title promises.
on bactra.org · 30 Sep 2016
A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab
Mind-candy fantasy, featuring parallel worlds and outbreaks from a dungeon dimension.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2016
A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab
Mind-candy fantasy, featuring parallel worlds and outbreaks from a dungeon dimension.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2016
Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn
Fascinating, but it only goes up to the 1830s, when the Mandans were almost completely wiped out by smallpox. We get glimpses of the later history, but I wish Fenn had brought things closer up to the present.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2016
Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja
Mind candy; a pitch-perfect parody of a certain sort of military science fiction.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2016
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
Suffice to say that this one threads the needle of being at once respectful of the source work, arguing with it on fair terms, and being enjoyable as fiction in its own right. (I'd really like to know what happens after the ending, in both the dreamlands and the waking world, but it's better writing to cut off where Johnson does.)
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2016
Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone
They are (in parts) very funny, but Gladstone takes this premise and makes the magic wonderful and terrifying, and tells stories with real moral and even political weight.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2016
Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone
They are (in parts) very funny, but Gladstone takes this premise and makes the magic wonderful and terrifying, and tells stories with real moral and even political weight.
on bactra.org · 31 Aug 2016
Deception Well by Linda Nagata
This is one of Nagata's republished novels from the 1990s, when she was, quite simply, one of the best hard-SF writers going. It shows all her virtues: elegant writing, rigorous large-scale imagination, a story growing naturally from the setting, and a certain emotional detachment from her characters which does not interfere with the narrative drive. (I have my suspicions as to why Nagata's writing career went into hiatus.)
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2016
Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom by Stephen M. Stigler
I enjoyed it, but I am going to be a jerk and say that this book narrowly but decisively misses being great. The reason is that Stigler's implicit reader is someone who already knows modern statistics.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2016
The Conference of the Birds by Peter Sis
There is something incredibly charming about the thought of a Czech-American illustrator adapting a 4500-line medieval Pesian Sufi epic poem as, essentially, a comic book. It becomes even more charming when it's pulled off very well, as it is here.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2016
The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross
Mind candy contemporary fantasy, in which England is invaded by the Unseelie Host; also in which a nerdy vampire boy meets a manic pixie dream girl with a very evil step-mother, depicted under the light of Stross's take on common notions of romance... This is a really fun book, on multiple levels, and I endorse it strongly as mind candy.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2016
Vita Brevis by Ruth Downie
Mind-candy historical mystery novel, in which moving from Britannia to Rome to seek one's fortune results only in plot. Enjoyable separately from the rest of the series.
on bactra.org · 31 Jul 2016
End of Watch by Stephen King
Mind candy. This is the end of a trilogy which began as a mundane (but good!) thriller, and had a second book which was almost entirely free of supernatural elements. This one, however, is just a flat-out horror novel, and its biggest flaw to my mind is that the characters accept the super-natural much too readily.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2016
Neural Network Learning: Theoretical Foundations by Martin Anthony and Peter L. Bartlett
Shorter me: it's really a mathematical introduction to statistical learning theory, and still quite good even if you couldn't care less about neural networks.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2016
Night Film by Marisha Pessl
Mind candy literary thriller, playing at being a horror story. (Or is it?) It's really quite gripping, and surprised me multiple times. I would happily read a lot more like this, but it seems like the sort of book which was a lot of work to write.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2016
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
Mind candy military space opera. The conceit that getting human beings to accept the right sort of mathematically-designed ritual calendar could change the local laws of physics, permitting interestingly-gruesome "exotic" effects, is I think new, and used well; the writing is also quite good, though not spectacular.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2016
State Machine by K. B. Spangler
Mind candy science fiction mystery. This is the third Rachel Peng novel; it'll make a lot more sense, and be a lot more enjoyable, if you've read the first two; having done so, I found this outing enjoyable. However, there certain plot elements whose significance will only be clear to readers of Spangler's web comic, which is rather different in tone than these books.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2016
The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Women Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West by Michelle Goldberg
This is fascinating stuff even if you don't care about yoga.
on bactra.org · 30 Jun 2016
American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett
Mind-candy contemporary fantasy, but of truly exceptional quality. This is in many ways a meditation Lovecraftian themes, transposed to the Southwest and rationalized with "because of quantum" (*). (Spoiler-proofed discussion below.) But it's not just yet another re-hashing of monsters and tropes from Lovecraft, which would only matter for those who are already fans of that micro-genre.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2016
Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh
It's really impressive, even if I was not very happy with the ending, and I will be revisiting it at a more leisurely pace.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2016
Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand
Mind candy: a mystery or literary thriller (or both?). The writing is excellent and the protagonist, a failed New York photographer very much out of her element in Maine, is a very well-realized character (and a complete jerk, with impulses which are much, much worse). There are apparently sequels, which I look forward to tracking down.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2016
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
Mind candy. I am normally a big fan of Bear's writing, but just got through this one. The central feature of the book is the voice of the first-person narrator, Karen Memery (sic), and while this was clearly a labor of love on the part of the author, my reaction to that voice ranged from indifference to irritation.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2016
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
It's really impressive, even if I was not very happy with the ending, and I will be revisiting it at a more leisurely pace.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2016
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
It's really impressive, even if I was not very happy with the ending, and I will be revisiting it at a more leisurely pace.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2016
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
This is a deeply impressive effort to take seriously the line that "history is the trade secret of science fiction". That is, Palmer has tried to craft a 25th century which is as strange, as familiar, and as both-at-once-because-that's-not-what-we-meant, as our own time would have seemed to someone from the 17th century.
on bactra.org · 31 May 2016
Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling by Tony Cliff
Comic book mind candy, in which Miss Dirk and Mister Selim find themselves compelled to go to England, and mayhem and social sniping ensue. (Previously)
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2016
Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project
Beautiful, beautiful photographs of the city from 1955--1957. (Many but not all of them can be seen online through Magnum.) The composition and selection are both incredible. Smith was evidently a real piece of work, but still the story of a multi-year, career-wrecking obsession with capturing the whole of the life of a city feels, except for the technology, as though it were ripped straight from the Romantic period.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2016
Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity by Catherine Wilson
The organization is thematic rather than chronological, but the themes are themselves fairly logically arranged. It definitely presumes a broad familiarity with 17th century thought, but not much knowledge of Epicureanism, and it's very skillfully presented.
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2016
Forest of Ruin by Kelley Armstrong
Mind candy fantasy: a satisfying conclusion to the series, but not quite as satisfying to me as if \$SPOILER had not turned out so happily. (On the other hand, I really didn't see that particular twist coming.)
on bactra.org · 30 Apr 2016
Everything Cosma Rohilla Shalizi recommends — not just books — on rcmnd →