Category: Books

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Books

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty

A solid book, very much about economics and driven by thoughtful examination of formulas and lots of historical data, but not dense in numbers and equations. He writes with a lively touch, occasionally appealing to novels of specific eras to illustrate how commonplace some concepts and assumptions were.

In a way the primary argument is pessimistic; it took two world wars and a great depression to claw 1/3rd of wealth away from the top decile. Unfortunately, the fundamental laws of interest on capital have counteracted that spread of wealth; income on investments is becoming ever more the key to a life of extreme wealth.

It’s also interesting how corrosive the lowering of top marginal tax rates proved. From the 1930s to 1970s tax rate was so high that there was no reason to fight for a multi-million dollar salary–you’d lose most of it to taxes. That kept the boundaries of what was acceptable as income much closer to normal experience. Between hedge fund loopholes and wealth hiding, the wealthy today have every incentive to demand more and more, since they get to keep most of it. (In fact, they do such a good job of hiding their income and exploiting loopholes, that they on average pay less as a percentage of their income than the $50,000 to $250,000 per year set.)

The final few chapters bleakly examine ways to counteract the bare math of r > g, which is the law that interest grows faster than the economy as a whole. The most important element that he advances is a wealth tax, both for the obvious reasons (to shift taxation from workers to those living off of investments), but also for informational purposes. One of the big drawbacks to wealth taxes, at the moment, is that even governments have little idea of what non-land wealth people have. Even a tiny tax (say 0.1 percent) would get academics, researchers, and the government the information they need to design better, more targeted taxes.

The fly in the ointment is coordination. Unless done on a large scale (the US, the whole EU, or globally), paper wealth is hard to pin to a specific location. If Germany implements a wealth tax, the company stock may all be assigned to Ireland to dodge it. For everything but land, it’s easy to evade a single country’s efforts–great wealth is multinational these days.

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Books

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

I recently finished City of Stairs, which was good but didn’t impress me as much as others seem to be experiencing. I wonder if the stuff that makes it a step above requires looking more at the world building.

It’s fantasy on the verge of Victorian (though without extensive steampunk). The lead character is interesting, as is the murder she’s trying to solve. The setting is very interesting, and events both recent and a couple of centuries old have resulted in a world with recriminations and colonial resentments.

Well done, there was just something “sparky” missing to make me eager for more.

(Edited to add: Something that came up in conversation, that speaks to the world building, is that it handles colonialism and its backlash directly and well. I agree that it’s well done, and can see how world builders in particular appreciated seeing it handled well in a fantasy story.)

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Books

The Histories of King Kelson (and King Kelson’s Bride)

These four books are interesting in their organization and subject. In many ways, it’s two pairs of books, for the main issues shift gears dramatically between books 2 and 3.

The Bishop’s Heir was probably the first Deryni book that I read. The background is dark and complicated–following The Chronicles of the Deryni the religious debate follows naturally, but I was amazed at it without the background context the first time.

The heart of the book is the developing Mearan secession crisis. We also meet a highland friend of Kelson’s, who was quite absent during the first trilogy, but Dhugal’s pretty interesting fellow. Meara feels like a pseudo-Scottish region of the kingdom; their separate history and politics feel a little “wait, what” when they’re first introduced (since why didn’t they affect the first trilogy more?), but history’s complications soon make this conflict feel fully realized as well.

Both sides get good development, and we even get introduced to Conall more, which begins laying the groundwork for the third book. But first, we need to finish this war…

The King’s Justice does NOT suffer the middle book of the trilogy effect. The Mearan war rages throughout, but it’s resolved completely by the end of the the book. It’s a fierce but unconventional war; this time Kelson has so many advantages, but he has to deal with determined partisans.

It’s well done; Kelson has age appropriate issues with impulse and passion. The war is brutal and feels appropriately so, and the church’s deryni question continues to confound and exacerbate the normal concerns of rebellion.

The Quest for Saint Camber is very different in feel from the previous 5 books. Kelson and Dhugal get an individual adventure feeling book, heavy on the difficulties of survival with limited resources. In parallel, we see Conall struggle with his birthright–the constraints of being raised to rule but thwarted from actually ruling.

The book delivers good development for many characters, and is quite a dark pleasure, though Kelson and Dhugal’s suffering is tricky to read. Much like the dark parts of the last Harry Potter novel, it feels repetitious, but the monotony does a good job of reinforcing their experience, even though it’s not fun in the same way as the Kingdom centered adventures.

King Kelson’s Bride has some parallels to In the King’s Service, in that there’s a lot of focus away from conquest and battles. As the title suggests, marriage runs through the novel as a backbone–sometimes overtly and reduced to geneology debates, often more personally.

The book gives us interesting viewpoints within Torenth and shifts nicely from marriage considerations to politics to action and magic and back around to politics and marriage. The book ends with Kelson and his kingdom set for a glorious renaissance. It’s a nice place to end the timeline–and it feels earned. (Well, Araxie does seem too good to be true, but it’s nice recompense for Kelson’s terrible previous luck.)

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Books

The Chronicles of the Deryni

The first trilogy of Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni books. I particularly like this trilogy; I first read it when I was younger (in my teens, I think), which helped me empathize with Kelson.

The most recent reread of this series followed the last book of the Childe Morgan Trilogy, which was (in the world of the book) the events a dozen years before this book begins.

Deryni Rising was the trilogy’s first book. It’s set in the court of Gywnedd; Kelson Haldane’s father is killed in the first few pages. The book is about Kelson’s struggle to take over; he’s only 14. He’s also the crown prince, heir to magic powers passed down from his father… but even those are complicated.

The world building is extremely engaging. As the first book, some of the specific flavor is contradicted or presented differently in later books, but it’s pretty subtle. (Basically, the magic feels more like a wizard in this book, but more like psionics as the series evolves.)

The church is prominent and a source of divided loyalties. I really appreciated the role of the church; it helped this fantasy world feel very “low magic”… even though Deyrni powers prove incredibly useful and powerful.

Deryni Checkmate continues the trilogy. It’s a traditional middle book of a trilogy, in that the victory of the previous book is complicated and new problems crop up. We learn a lot more about the deryni and their powers–in part because Morgan and Duncan use their powers more generally.

The world that’s sketched is nuanced and very complicated; Kelson’s struggle to balance his many obligations is well done. Of course, nothing’s truly resolved… other than a tragedy in the wings.

High Deryni reveals Gwenydd’s rotten underbelly; there’s yet more treason. Things do get worse before they get better. The ending features a very surprising twist that’s indirectly foreshadowed.

This is a book of war and war-magic. We learn about Torenth and its king… and more about the Camberian Council. The book is urgent, but the pace isn’t a headlong rush.

I love the trilogy for the way they build a world that’s not too far from medieval England/Europe. There are some significant differences, but they’re largely grounded in the specific politics and relations of the region. The people feel… as correctly full of superstitions and prejudices.

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Books

The Childe Morgan trilogy

This is a “bridge” trilogy, between Katherine Kurtz’s Camber and Heirs of St. Camber prequel trilogy and the “modern” Kelson books.

The trilogy begins with In the King’s Service. I read it some time ago and have more pointed feelings about it as a book, largely due to encountering the same misfire in The Princess and the Queen, or, the Blacks and the Greens by George RR Martin. (Its review is here.) The book starts with genealogy, and is a very slow start. As the book accelerates, it rotates among many POV–but not an intimate and limited POV as we see in the other books, but a less emotionally invested, less tied series of POVs.

The plot is interesting (but at least on reread) the lack of POV development for the primary characters feels like a missed opportunity. It felt a little like the author fell in love with the broad sweep instead of getting us to empathize with the main characters and meld with their viewpoints.

The second book, Childe Morgan, is told from much closer and does a better job of getting us to empathize with the main characters. It’s told more from Alyce’s point of view, with de Nore and the Camberian Council getting frequent response or partial chapter POVs. We even get some Alric focused discussions and POV, which is tricky, given that he’s four. But they largely work. Alyce’s end is sad and brought tears; her passing shifts the adult viewpoint near Alric over to Kenneth.

There’s another change; this book is far more “dashing” and “male”. A lot of In the King’s Service focused on women’s struggles–being marriage pawns, womanly competition, child birth and youth mortality issues. Even with so much of the book being Alyce’s POV, there’s more magic and action, a great deal more deliberation and rulership as issues.

The third book, The King’s Deryni, is mostly told from the now 8 year old Alric’s POV, with quite a bit of his Dad, Kenneth, for the second POV. He’s very interested in boy things (war, training to be a page) and his father is making sure that he’s also picking up estate management and similar skills. In many ways this is an even lighter book (so far), despite some grizzly anti Deyrni sentiment. It’s more like the Kelson books, in that there’s a women’s world, but we don’t inhabit it much.

The story continues; we see the hardening of anti-Deyrni sentiment, see Alric develop into a young adult, undergoing formative experiences (like a Deyrni priest being burned alive) and stumbling into magic. The last comes suddenly; he really is poorly trained for much of the book, which corresponds nicely to the council’s opinions in the Kelson books.

There’s some minor inconsistency in the late Alric/Brion experiences versus the Deryni series, but nothing that’s not easily dismissed as minor/nitpicking. The big difference comes from learning Jehena is Bregamani… which raises the question of her self-loathing. It doesn’t seem like she would develop the same deep questioning of herself–unless Bremagne has a similar history of Deyrni oppression. (Or, more precisely, I wonder how an order that teaches Deyrni self-loathing became popular enough that the royal family of Bremagne follows their dictates and keeps them as counselors.)

In the end, it’s a good novel with good POV characters. It’s rewarding to see Morgan come into his own. It’s essentially the first half of his life; the story ends before he turns 15, and he’s in his late 20s as Deyrni Rising begins. That transition–that 10+ year gap–is also interesting, but would be quite constraining to write in.

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Books

Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History

Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History edited by Rose Eox and Daniel Jose Older is an interesting collection of historical and fantasy short stories.

The stories vary in time and place, though most of them are set within the last 500 years. Some of the settings are quite familiar, such as Marigolds, set just prior to the French Revolution. A few of the stories are well outside of my traditional reading, such as Ogres of East Africa, There Will Be One Vacant Chair and The Dance of the White Demons. Many of the others are set since the renaissance, many in Europe or America.

I distracted myself, at times, with trying to identify or predict the element that would make something “marginal” enough to qualify for this collection. That’s a distraction; most of the stories are good, and most offer intriguing new viewpoints.

I’m looking forward to keeping this one in my collection and rereading it. I wonder which ones will stick?

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Books

Bridge of Birds

Bridge of Birds, A Novel of an Ancient China that Never Was by Barry Hughart.

I really liked this book. It is a world that could almost be our own, with some exaggeration. The two heroes, Number Ten Ox and Master Kao Li are vividly drawn do have some stereotypical attributes but vivid personalities.

The quest is grandly heroic, and the characters are vastly overmatched in every way. Watching them persevere and overcome, their cunning and unique problem solving, and the unique challenges they face are all engrossing.

Around the middle of the book, it becomes clear that the first grand quest is actually only one of two quests that they’re committed to–no matter how little they understand or care about the second. But the scope continues to grow and they’re tackling truly legendary challenges by the end.

It’s big and bold and very well done. Very enjoyable.

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Books

Dangerous Women

Dangerous Women is a mixed anthology, with several very good stories, many interesting and good, and a few “meh”. Interestingly, Martin’s story that’s boldly advertised is in the last category. The Princess and the Queen, or, the Blacks and the Greens describes an interesting time, but the POV selected is a historian who confines himself to the broad sweep… which means that there’s no personality; other than that the world is fiction, it’s almost as dry as a real world history book.

A Queen in Exile by Sharon Kay Penman, was a fascinating look into real history, with a solid look at Queen Constance. It’s interesting, and features a strong protagonist–despite her not matching current fantasy fiction, picking up a sword an leading her men. There is a lot of enduring and being moved by outside forces… I really liked it.

Joe Abercrombie’s Some Desperado kicks off the book. It has a very western flavor (despite a lack of sixguns); it’s tense and gritty, well handled.

Rather than going story by story, I’ll just note that there’s a wide range of stories. For a very broad range of action, adventure, noir, fantasy, or sci-fi, there’s at least an interesting story or two for you.

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FATE Games Roleplaying Roleplaying Books

Atomic Robo by Evil Hat

I wish I was more familiar with the source comics… but so far I’ve been good about resisting reading them during work.

It’s Fate, but they have an interesting character creation system using “Modes” that somewhat streamlines character generation by having you pick three of four modes and ranking them +3, +2, +1. The modes have associated skills, and where they overlap (a skill is on both lists), they auto-bump up, so the overlap isn’t wasted. Plus they have weird modes beyond the standard 4, to model specific concepts from the comic (like being an Automaton or dinosaur).

Something I really want to see in play is brainstorming–a structured way to bring science and similar “background” skills into prominence, by letting you influence the problem you’re trying to solve. Plus brainstorming is a competitive/cooperative thing… you’re all working together, but if you win by the most, your idea is true and the other players have to work their ideas around it.

I haven’t played it yet, but I’d like to.

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Books

October & Early November Books: Quick reviews to catch up

Sagan Diary by John Scalzi. I liked the idea of this, but didn’t enjoy the novella much separated from the remainder of the series. It’s an interesting experiment, and it’s so positive in outlook that it stands apart. Writing positively about love seems much tougher than hate, vengeance, and action-y revenge. So for a story on the skew, it’s well done. I want to read it alongside a reread of the series–I bet it works better when the characters are fresh in our minds.

The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley. This is as large and bold as everyone’s been saying. It’s fantasy world building that explicitly turns away from medieval European influences, and it’s vibrant for it.

There are a lot of protagonists; sometimes the queue for transitioning to a new character left me a little confused, getting up to speed over the first page of the chapter. That’s probably due to the sprawling cast and many POV characters.

I’m very much looking forward to rereading this. I suspect that having paid the price to adjust to the world (and fight off my default assumptions), the next read will allow me to focus more on the characters, their story arcs and adventures.

Randall Munroe’s What If is culled from his excellent What If? website. I really like the way that he approaches the questions, and there’s enough science transmitted to me that it checks some of my gut-feeling level assumption. (The rocket fuel/exhaust velocity relationship from the golfing to propel a ship question really illustrated something I’d never thought much about.)

Tobias Buckell’s Arctic Rising is a great near future adventure. It’s a bit fish-out-of-water, in that Anika is a pilot, but her challenges are up close and personal. It builds into a mystery that coheres (until it reaches peak Bond Villain, where it’s suddenly quite fantastic). The world building in the background feels all too realistic–particularly the competing powers in the arctic waters, the need of the navies to justify themselves, and so on.

All in all, it was well written and interesting. I’ll be checking out the sequel, Hurricane Fever, soon.

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercombie. This is a great low-fantasy world, very divided–much like Renaissance Italy, with neighboring powers influencing the local situation, shifting alliances, and mercenary bands.

Monza’s a driven anti-hero, well drawn, engaging, and I could identify with her despite her villainy and willingness to embrace horrific practices in her revenge. The book balances a number of things; Monza’s gather allies are each unique and have a healthy regard for themselves.

One of the great, very subtle things that emerges as the story advances is that Benna gains real heft. We see Monza encounter person after person who challenges her “avenging my innocent brother” story, and we see her flashback to the past with a new read, changing how we see both Monza and her brother.

I just finished Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. I wasn’t a huge fan, mostly for subject and attitude, but did appreciate the pacing and world building. Ironically, as I sat down to write this below Best Served Cold, I realized how similar the plots are. (In each, the protagonist swears to kill their betrayers one-by-one.)

Stark didn’t click for me as well; I suspect looking deeper would be valuable. Quickly thinking about it: Monza begins hale, is broken, and we endure her painful recovery. Stark is better than ever, cocky and confident.

Stark is also consciously posing, almost from the first moment he steps on stage. As the book progresses, we figure out that his pose conceals pain, but it’s a heavy load of snark before it starts coming through. While there’s more to it, that’s what quickly comes to mind. (Though: his magic making things “too easy” might play into the same difference in feel between the Sandman versus Monza.)

Long story short: it was well written and kept me engaged. I read it quickly and mostly enjoyed it. But I’m not going to hunt for its sequels.