Capsule Recommendations & My Iron Man #1 Reaction

Capsule Recommendations

The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin, L. Jagi Lamplighter

If you're in the mood for another magical school story, this book (the first of five) is a pretty good choice. The main characters here actually feel like real children with real, child-like points of view, and the suggestion that there are multiple layers to this world (or perhaps a multiverse?) is actually quite intriguing. I do think it took a little too long for the actual plot to get going in this opening installment -- but if you're patient and stick with the long, long set-up, I think you'll ultimately appreciate the potential of the series as a whole.

Pack Dynamics, Julie Frost

Urban fantasy is not generally a go-to genre for me; for some reason, vampires, werewolves, and the like just don't excite me all that much. This particular novel, however, completely won me over purely on the strength of its characterization. In particular, I fell absolutely in love with Frost's incorrigible human disaster of a "mad scientist," who managed to make me smile basically every time he appeared. Very, very fun!

Shiloh, Helena Sorensen

If you're willing to suspend your disbelief and roll with the premise - that the world has been plunged into a spiritual and literal perpetual night by the actions of an evil god - I think you'll appreciate what this particular novel (also the first of a series) has to say about the ways people can fall from grace -- and how they can find their way back to light and hope. The Amazon algorithm recommended this one to me based on my purchase of the Green Ember books, and I think the connection is apt.

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And as for my reaction to the new Iron Man #1, click below...

To sum up my reaction to Iron Man this week: 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

— The Right Geek (@TheRightGeek) September 16, 2020

Video: The Whippersnappers Talk About Diversity in SFF

The kids bring up several good points here, including:

1. You can't use the diversity card in lieu of good storytelling.
2. Diversity goes beyond sexuality and skin color.
3. Indeed, when it comes to writing diverse characters, sexuality and skin color matter far less than personality, life experience, and culture.
4. On a related note, it's nonsensical to assume that, say, the monarch of an African empire would have much in common with an inner-city African American just because they both happen to be black.

If you have an hour and change to kill, go and have a listen!

An Interesting Discussion: What Defines the Superversive?

I'll have to think about making a case for The Martian. I personally think it is superversive, but I have to actually put my finger on why.

Links of Interest: Cultural Appropriation, the Tao, and Math Education Myths

I'm going to be busy with this particular book today, so please enjoy the links I share below!

All Cultures Are Mine, David Marcus, The Federalist

"Nobody gets upset when Yo-Yo Ma plays the hell out of Bach. Nobody asks him to pay homage or royalties to white culture. As a result, white culture is open to everyone. It is the cultural lingua franca that binds together Americans’ understanding of the world.

The proponents of privilege theory and the concept of cultural appropriation seek to decentralize whiteness but, ironically, they are doing precisely the opposite. They are guaranteeing the central role that white culture plays by insisting it is the only culture that belongs to all of us. The price of this proprietary power play is steep. It encourages division and denies all of us the full flower of our shared human cultural history."

I couldn't agree more. Why are SJW's so eager to bring back racial segregation?

Life, Carbon, and the Tao, Tom Simon, Superversive SF

"In effect, the ruling classes of Westeros, and many others like them in recent fantasy, are crime syndicates in a world without law. But it is the law that makes the crime possible. The vast majority of the people need the Tao to do business with one another, and to make the whole society function. Part of that function is enforcing the Tao through laws, and resolving disputes between people when reciprocity breaks down. This is not a function that we ever see the epic gangsters performing. They are too busy planning murders and rebellions. Real criminal gangs are only able to function because someone else does the hard work of holding society together. They never exist as a ruling class; and when they do temporarily become rulers, as with the Barbary pirates of the eighteenth century, or the Somali warlords of our own time, the society breaks down, the people perish, and the profits of crime disappear. Without the Tao, there is no trust between people; without trust, nobody can work and create wealth; and without wealth, there is nobody for the criminals to rob."

A powerful critique of grimdark fantasy. As Glenn Reynolds might say, read the whole thing.

The Myth of "I'm Bad at Math", Miles Kimball & Noah Smith, The Atlantic

"Is math ability genetic? Sure, to some degree. Terence Tao, UCLA’s famous virtuoso mathematician, publishes dozens of papers in top journals every year, and is sought out by researchers around the world to help with the hardest parts of their theories. Essentially none of us could ever be as good at math as Terence Tao, no matter how hard we tried or how well we were taught. But here’s the thing: We don’t have to! For high-school math, inborn talent is much less important than hard work, preparation, and self-confidence."

Yes: Average students can learn algebra. It does require a firm foundation in arithmetic that many of my students do not possess, but the correct response to this difficulty is to fix the gaps in their elementary education -- not to remove algebra from the high school curriculum entirely.

Steph Reads Baened Books: Brad Torgersen's The Chaplain's War

"My sleep schedule is completely messed up now. I woke up at midnight last night and didn't get back to sleep until four."

"Did you do any reading in the meantime?"

"Yes!"

"Well, then at least the time wasn't wasted."

"As a matter of fact, I finished Brad Torgersen's book, The Chaplain's War."

"Did the chaplain win?"

It was here in the above conversation with my father that I paused -- for while the novel does end on a high note, I'm not sure said conclusion could be classified as a "win" in the way Dad intended it. Despite its title and its nods to the traditions of military science fiction, The Chaplain's War isn't that kind of story; it's more about fostering peace than about triumphing in combat.

For Analog readers - and for those of you who have read Brad's first anthology, Lights in the Deep
- some of the ground covered in The Chaplain's War will be very familiar, as the book includes (and then extends) the full texts of "The Chaplain's Assistant" and The Chaplain's Legacy (the latter of which I reviewed here in one of my 2014 Hugo posts).  The story follows Harrison Barlow, a military enlistee who, despite his agnosticism, has fallen into an assignment with the chaplain's corps because he doesn't really fit in anywhere else. Barlow is sent with a Fleet contingent to capture a world held by the mantes - an insectoid/cyborg race that has attacked several of Earth's outlying colonies - and is ultimately taken prisoner when Earth's badly outmatched forces are roundly defeated. In the valley where he and his fellow soldiers are contained by a deadly forcefield, Barlow constructs and maintains a small multi-denominational chapel in order to fulfill a promise to his chaplain and superior officer. There, he stumbles on an opportunity to stop the human/mantes war in its tracks.

The new material Brad has added to this novel includes a series of flashbacks covering Barlow's enlistment and early Fleet experiences and a denouement in which Barlow and the Queen Mother deal with the consequences of the events in The Chaplain's Legacy. And it's funny: Despite this book's piece-wise construction, old and new fit together extremely well. Just one example: In boot camp, a young Barlow encounters a bully who seems to determined to make his life hell. What Barlow does about this - and the lesson he learns along the way - only amplifies the theme of the original tale on which this novel is based. To put it another way: The additions are wholly organic and feel like they've always belonged in the story; they do not appear to be afterthoughts.

And the aforementioned theme, as I noted above, is peace - in particular, how it might be honorably achieved. In a way, I think it's appropriate to see The Chaplain's War as an extended reply to Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. While the earlier work - at least in part - emphasized the sad necessity of violence, Brad invites us to consider a more optimistic alternative. Could we coexist? Could intercultural dialog actually foster understanding? I don't know -- but I think it's important that we don't completely dismiss the possibility. (By the way: The parallelism I see between The Chaplain's War and Starship Troopers is why I can't agree with the one Amazon reviewer who complained that the boot camp scenes in the former were "unoriginal." Brad's use of familiar military science fiction tropes in those scenes, I feel, is a deliberate call-back, not a creative failure -- and when you read said scenes in context, you realize that their purpose actually diverges from the standard.)

There are also several secondary themes that cannot be ignored. For instance, Brad has a great deal to say about God. He doesn't preach, mind you; his presentation is carefully ecumenical and respectful of divergent views. But the sense that there is Something Greater in charge of the universe is an integral feature of The Chaplain's War -- one that, I feel, qualifies the novel for the burgeoning "Superversive" Movement. (Indeed, I invite John C. Wright and his wife to read the scene in the observation dome between Barlow and the Queen Mother and see whether they agree.) Brad also evinces a skepticism in re: transhumanism that deserves to be taken just as seriously. True: These messages may turn off those with more militant atheistic viewpoints, but for me, they made the reading experience all the more enjoyable. Unlike some, I don't believe spirituality and science fiction should never mix -- or that religiosity and rational knowability are in radical conflict.

I could say more, but I'll finish with this: If the "Superversive" or "Human Wave" movements appeal to you, you need to read this book. If you've been following the historical conversation in the science fiction genre in re: "battling the bugs," you need to read this book. If you're just looking for a good, positive read, you need to read this book. Hell -- if you like traditional science fiction, you need to read this book. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Final Verdict: Highly Recommended.