Book Report: Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett

As usual, when I'm not ready to plunge into new reading but still want something to read, I turn to Pratchett. This is another chapter in the story of Rincewind, the most incompetent and cowardly wizard on the Discworld. When he's set to the distant Counterweight Continent, he stumbles into an ineffectual rebellion, a sinister plot, and the theft of a kingdom by a group of elderly barbarians. As always, his desperate attempts to avoid becoming involved lead directly to his playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of the mysterious Aurient.

Even after repeated readings, I find myself lingering over his phrases, his puns, the spin he puts on words that make you stop and think about what they really mean. Combined that with a comical action plot and themes that include aging, grief, and the true nature of courage, and you have a book that I come back to again and again.

Ulysses Rating: 5 - I'll read this again and again.

Schrodinger's Cat

Current Reading: Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett

Inspirational Quote: "Let me outta here!" -- Schrodinger's Cat

For those of you unfamiliar with the theory, Schrodinger's Cat is the title of an absurd illustration of one of quantum mechanics more bizarre corollaries. Put a cat in a box with a vial of poison that will open if a radio-active atom decays. Choose your atom such that there's a 50% chance it will decay within an hour, then seal the box and wait an hour. During that time, the state of the cat is indeterminate. It can be said to be both alive and dead. The universe doesn't know.

Any prediction of the future here requires you to account for both possibilities.

At the end of the hour though, you may open the box and examine the cat. It is not the cat's state, but our observation of that state which causes probability to become certainty. Only when we look can we predict whether the cat's future contains a shovel or a bowl of kibble.

So let me introduce you to Shrodinger's Cat.

His name is Ash (that's his real name. I usually avoid real names here because I don't think it's fair to expose my family publicly without their consent. Ash, however, seems to have no objection. No matter how many times I explain the concept of the internet, all I get is the standard cat look of contempt mixed with the resignation that comes from realizing that without people there are no scratches behind the ears or bowls of food. I take his silence as consent). A week ago he started moping and acting out of character. I took him to our vet, who determined that something had caused his kidneys to stop working. His urea and creatinine (is that the right term?) were so far above normal they couldn't see it with a telescope. We figured that was it. Finito. Kaput. The fat kitty was meowing, and it was best to spare him (and us) further suffering. Penelope and I went to the vet's with every intention of seeing Ash to his final rest. Then Penelope looked into his face and said, "He's not ready to go yet."

He wasn't. They dosed him with intravenous fluids to the point where he either had to pee or dissolve, and he peed. The numbers came down into the normal range and we brought him home. He's been here for four days now, eating and drinking and moping a bit but still active and aware. I don't know if he's been peeing. Short of following him around, I don't know how I could find out. And even if I did follow him around, how many of us can pee when someone's watching?

Anyway, it's into the vet's again tomorrow for a blood test to see if how well his kidneys are functioning. There are three possible states: they're working well enough, they need medicinal assistance, or they're toast.

The future is indeterminate.

If Erwin Schrodinger were alive today, (and there is no probability of his continued existence: his death was observed, and therefore his current state is determined), I'd book a ticket to Vienna for the express purpose of giving him SUCH A KICK.

Update:

Tests show his creatinine is still a little high, but the rest indicates that his kidneys are functioning again. We take him back in a month to see if there's any change.

Nine lives indeed.

Argh.

Penelope's uncle passed away, and was buried on Saturday. She's taking it hard.
Aeneas has been suspended from school for three days for missing classes.
One of my two cats has just undergone acute kidney failure. We're attempting last ditch treatment, but we'll likely be putting him down before the end of the week.

I wish I had something more... interesting to say, but at the moment it's taking all my concentration not to go fetal and stay that way until the meteor arrives.

I hope you've had a better week.

Book Report: Chill, by Elizabeth Bear

The sequel to Dust, in which the Jacob's ladder is now in flight and trying to repair itself. Unfortunately for the new captain and her companion AI, there are still the ghosts of old angels with which to contend and something insidious is taking over areas of the ship.

This was a slightly easier read, as I was now familiar with the setting, and it delivers on the promise of more of the same that one expects from a sequel. I'm looking forward to the next book, Grail, which has yet to be released.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this.

Book Report: Dust, by Elizabeth Bear

I had some difficulty with this at the beginning, and it was entirely due to an orientation issue. The back promised a story of a generation ship in jeopardy, but the opening read more like a medieval fantasy complete with swords. It's the story of a servant girl who rescues a princess from captivity and tries to help her return home.

But that's not all it is.

The story does indeed take place on a generation ship, the Jacob's Ladder, marooned by some ancient accident in orbit around a black hole/red giant binary system about to go nova. The engines have been damaged and the ship's artificial intelligence splintered into a dozen different personalities ("Angels"), each vying to be the one to control that intelligence's eventual reintegration. "Magic" is the result of advanced nanotech which enables some fantastic capabilities in those who possess it. "Monsters" are evolved plants and animals or machines modified by AI and nanotech. The whole is presided over by the warring kingdoms of Rule and Engine, removed from their origins as Command and Engineering by hundreds of years.

The story is fascinating, and what seems a straight-forward "rescue the princess" fantasy twists itself into a story about love, loss, heroism and family in which the fate of the "world" really does lie in the balance.

Bear writes some beautiful passages, and mixes SF and Fantasy in a way that manages to remain loyal to both without devolving into "Star Wars" style melodrama. My only complaint here was that I had difficulty understanding the setting.

Ulysses Rating: 3 - I enjoyed this.

Book Report: Metatropolis, ed. by John Scalzi

I've been reading an interesting swath of books lately. Among the authors are Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, and John Scalzi... so when I discovered Metatropolis through Mr. Scalzi's web site and it became widely available through Tor, I decided to check it out.

Metatropolis is a collection of stories set in a shared future world where fossil fuels are near exhaustion and urban decay has begun to tip over into urban collapse. The collection focuses on the recreation or resurrection of cities, about what can be done with them when the infrastructure that made them possible begins to decay. It's an interesting and extremely thought-provoking read. I read this just after completing the Tales of Ibis, and Metatropolis does for green cities what Ibis did for A.I.: presents a vivid, compelling future where the logical extension of human drive and capabilities leads to some startling insights.

This, like Ibis before it, is thinking person's science fiction. It's not space opera. It's not fantasy with robots. It's a plausible exploration of societal evolution and its effect on the individuals caught up in it.

If I've made it sound dry, it isn't. Each story stands perfect by itself, with believable characters and gripping plots that make for a great read.

Ulysses Rating: 4 - I loved this.

*Addendum: Lake, Bear and Butcher are all represented by agent Jennifer Jackson. It seems we have similar taste in authors.

Time Marches On...

...and it's left footprints all over my face.

Whaddaya mean it's been 2 weeks since my last post? Impossible. It's only been... a couple of... days. Right? Days? Maybe a week, tops. Ten days at the outside.

Reader's Digest version of things going through my head:

November is National Adoption Month here in the True North. Adoption is a cause near to my heart. Think about it while I try to find time to compose a suitable missive.

James Frey is up to no good. Again. Why is a respected academic institution inviting a fraud to speak to its students anyway?

Nathan Bransford, a man whose endeavors in the blogosphere are directly responsible for my own efforts, abandoned agenting for a "real" job. I wish him well. I also wish I'd sent him a query just so I could have one of his rejections. I suspect they're going to become collector's items.

There's a "new" black hole in the sky. They're fascinating objects: little knots in space-time, pin pricks in the universe.

I've read some good books lately, so my Book Reports are behind too. While I'm collecting my thoughts about stuff, tell me:

1) What are you reading right now?
2) How many books do you read a year?