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[OOC] LARK DOES SCIENCE.
May. 9th, 2011 10:05 pmMan this is turning into an OOC journal. :U I should write about Lark's happy new life now that he is no longer the Littlest Death Knight Cancer Patient, but that can come later.
RIGHT NOW, book review/science tiems. I guess this is more about the science than the book review but I've been reading a lot lately and wanted to write about it all somewhere. Some of the science is questionable and I wanted to ramble about that as well, but some of it is just BOOKS, let's talk about books.
Tides, Scott MacKay
( THE TIIIIIIIIIIIIDES -- cut for NSFW descriptions of reptiles with giant hoohas )
Green, Trial of Flowers, Madness of Flowers, Jay Lake
Green is not actually a story of the City Imperishable as Trial and Madness are, but I got the feeling they either happened in the same world or two closely related worlds, since much of the language is the same, both continuities contain references to the Sunward Sea, and the theogony and role of gods are continuous in both stories. I also got the impression that the Factor from Green could have been an alternate reality version of Jason the Factor from Trial/Madness, if he'd escaped his fate in the City Imperishable and made his way to Copper Downs. They also touch on a number of the same themes, although Green is a lot more delicate about them than the CI duology is (and I like it better for that, in fact).
...Actually, while I have not ever finished anything in the Kushiel's Avatar series (which I may pick up again eventually), Green makes me think of it, redone with a lighter touch on the RAW THROBBING SEXUALITY. (Although it does get kind of gratuitous on the sex later in the book. Oh, we're stuck in a prison cell because I may have betrayed my priestly order? TIME FOR A LESBIAN MAKE-OUT SESSION. We're surrounded by a mad proto-god's followers and could be discovered at any time? I THINK NOW IS AN EXCELLENT TIME FOR US BOTH TO DISCOVER HETEROSEX. WITH EACH OTHER.) All that aside, though, Green is a very very lovely coming-of-age/what-measure-a-slave tale and Jay Lake undoubtedly has an excellent ear for the language. (Also, Blackblood's avatar Skinless made me wiggle and squeak little fangirl squeaks. I am sure people who read the book will be able to tell exactly why.)
Trial and Madness are pretty raw and sexy all the way through, on the other hand, whether it's the graphic consequences of male-on-male rape (now with extra commentary from a doctor on the morning after surgical repairs!) to "it's not incest because you stopped being my brother when you died and came back". It is some crazy stuff. I think I prefer Madness to Trial, if only because Trial is pretty slow going and spends a lot of time wandering around site-seeing through the eyes of characters who are not particularly admirable until they mature much later in the story. Jason the Factor and Bijaz are much more enjoyable to read in their incarnations in Madness; Imago gets a lot better near the end of Trial and carries it on into Madness. All in all it's really hard to root for anyone in Trial of Flowers but Madness of Flowers is much easier to engage with.
Even if it is a total WHY IS EVERYONE I LOVE DYING D: near the end. And horrible. And If there's not a third book about the City Imperishable I think I will be very sad.
Infected and Contagious, Scott Sigler
This one is going to be more of a science review than a content review, because the content review boils down to GO READ IT. Biothrillers normally make me curl up sobbing like a little girl or throw them away in disgust because the characterization is dumb and the plot development is too slow, but Sigler. Is. Fantastic. Get these books and read them.
SO. My main quibbles with the science, in no particular order:
( Cut for spoilerssssssss )
Shades of Gray: The Road to High Saffron, Jasper Fforde
Another one that's going to be MOSTLY SCIENCE because again, go read this book it's awesome.
Although this time I can't really say as much on the science because Fforde was clearly not writing a science thriller (it is really more satirical/fantasy), but COULD SOMEONE PLEASE GET THESE PEOPLE A CHART SHOWING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ADDITIVE AND SUBTRACTIVE COLOR? He does credit at least one person in his acknowledgments for sharing descriptions of color blindness with him, but I am going to have to believe that the people in the SoG universe have been secretly bioengineered different, because color perception Does Not Work That Way. Red/blue/yellow is a subtractive color-mixing system like print CMY(K), whereas visual light is an additive system, and human color perception is based on red, blue, and green cones, not the three "primary" colors of the color wheel. (Although I can accept that the Chromatocracy was organized that way because it makes comfortable intellectual sense to them, not because it makes scientific sense--but you need a pair of cones to see color at all, and which means that everyone who isn't a Gray has some sensitivity to all ranges of the spectrum and...augh.)
Okay, I'm just going to leave this one alone because it's too crazy to deal with and I mean, it's a world with carnivorous trees and animals with barcodes and whatnot, so I should not concern myself with the science, but colorblindness just does not work that way.
RIGHT NOW, book review/science tiems. I guess this is more about the science than the book review but I've been reading a lot lately and wanted to write about it all somewhere. Some of the science is questionable and I wanted to ramble about that as well, but some of it is just BOOKS, let's talk about books.
Tides, Scott MacKay
( THE TIIIIIIIIIIIIDES -- cut for NSFW descriptions of reptiles with giant hoohas )
Green, Trial of Flowers, Madness of Flowers, Jay Lake
Green is not actually a story of the City Imperishable as Trial and Madness are, but I got the feeling they either happened in the same world or two closely related worlds, since much of the language is the same, both continuities contain references to the Sunward Sea, and the theogony and role of gods are continuous in both stories. I also got the impression that the Factor from Green could have been an alternate reality version of Jason the Factor from Trial/Madness, if he'd escaped his fate in the City Imperishable and made his way to Copper Downs. They also touch on a number of the same themes, although Green is a lot more delicate about them than the CI duology is (and I like it better for that, in fact).
...Actually, while I have not ever finished anything in the Kushiel's Avatar series (which I may pick up again eventually), Green makes me think of it, redone with a lighter touch on the RAW THROBBING SEXUALITY. (Although it does get kind of gratuitous on the sex later in the book. Oh, we're stuck in a prison cell because I may have betrayed my priestly order? TIME FOR A LESBIAN MAKE-OUT SESSION. We're surrounded by a mad proto-god's followers and could be discovered at any time? I THINK NOW IS AN EXCELLENT TIME FOR US BOTH TO DISCOVER HETEROSEX. WITH EACH OTHER.) All that aside, though, Green is a very very lovely coming-of-age/what-measure-a-slave tale and Jay Lake undoubtedly has an excellent ear for the language. (Also, Blackblood's avatar Skinless made me wiggle and squeak little fangirl squeaks. I am sure people who read the book will be able to tell exactly why.)
Trial and Madness are pretty raw and sexy all the way through, on the other hand, whether it's the graphic consequences of male-on-male rape (now with extra commentary from a doctor on the morning after surgical repairs!) to "it's not incest because you stopped being my brother when you died and came back". It is some crazy stuff. I think I prefer Madness to Trial, if only because Trial is pretty slow going and spends a lot of time wandering around site-seeing through the eyes of characters who are not particularly admirable until they mature much later in the story. Jason the Factor and Bijaz are much more enjoyable to read in their incarnations in Madness; Imago gets a lot better near the end of Trial and carries it on into Madness. All in all it's really hard to root for anyone in Trial of Flowers but Madness of Flowers is much easier to engage with.
Even if it is a total WHY IS EVERYONE I LOVE DYING D: near the end. And horrible. And If there's not a third book about the City Imperishable I think I will be very sad.
Infected and Contagious, Scott Sigler
This one is going to be more of a science review than a content review, because the content review boils down to GO READ IT. Biothrillers normally make me curl up sobbing like a little girl or throw them away in disgust because the characterization is dumb and the plot development is too slow, but Sigler. Is. Fantastic. Get these books and read them.
SO. My main quibbles with the science, in no particular order:
( Cut for spoilerssssssss )
Shades of Gray: The Road to High Saffron, Jasper Fforde
Another one that's going to be MOSTLY SCIENCE because again, go read this book it's awesome.
Although this time I can't really say as much on the science because Fforde was clearly not writing a science thriller (it is really more satirical/fantasy), but COULD SOMEONE PLEASE GET THESE PEOPLE A CHART SHOWING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ADDITIVE AND SUBTRACTIVE COLOR? He does credit at least one person in his acknowledgments for sharing descriptions of color blindness with him, but I am going to have to believe that the people in the SoG universe have been secretly bioengineered different, because color perception Does Not Work That Way. Red/blue/yellow is a subtractive color-mixing system like print CMY(K), whereas visual light is an additive system, and human color perception is based on red, blue, and green cones, not the three "primary" colors of the color wheel. (Although I can accept that the Chromatocracy was organized that way because it makes comfortable intellectual sense to them, not because it makes scientific sense--but you need a pair of cones to see color at all, and which means that everyone who isn't a Gray has some sensitivity to all ranges of the spectrum and...augh.)
Okay, I'm just going to leave this one alone because it's too crazy to deal with and I mean, it's a world with carnivorous trees and animals with barcodes and whatnot, so I should not concern myself with the science, but colorblindness just does not work that way.
