tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60367876276405582422024-02-08T10:16:22.668+08:00Balancing FrogsBrendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.comBlogger303125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-91322609568473477162021-06-17T19:04:00.000+08:002021-06-17T19:04:09.937+08:00Books I've read, May-June 2021 edition<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Since the beginning of May it seems I have read four complete novels, all of them existing in very different areas of a large, amorphously defined supergenre that we may call “speculative fiction”.</span></span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-7ccd9976-7fff-2c90-1833-0cc68d77c9db"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrGbIhvbo3R68QAZja_2MKCPHW7rYdoTX9kcFbA4XPwdc2O30AxkC87u9-UKJzzYyP9BmJG4M7IVDoyQnxbmsKKA1t1FeaBz4s5Z54B4j3CBxUpNZl4ccfjjBHE-mJbnUX6qTJDaRntRNN/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="499" data-original-width="326" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrGbIhvbo3R68QAZja_2MKCPHW7rYdoTX9kcFbA4XPwdc2O30AxkC87u9-UKJzzYyP9BmJG4M7IVDoyQnxbmsKKA1t1FeaBz4s5Z54B4j3CBxUpNZl4ccfjjBHE-mJbnUX6qTJDaRntRNN/w262-h400/image.png" width="262" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Song of Achilles</b></span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Madeline Miller (2011)</b></span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The story of the life of Achilles, told from the viewpoint of his lover Patroclus. A 3,000-year-old tale full of gods and warriors and heroic blood being shed, told as a modern novel with modern-day storytelling conventions.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">First, just on its own terms this is a very readable and enjoyable novel based on Greek myth. An engaging quick read. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">But second, this sort of novelistic treatment is very helpful for me. The truth is that never at any point of my formal education did I get taught the Greek mythology that Western culture has been referencing ceaselessly for millennia, and although obviously I picked up bits and pieces over the years, I never got it to really cohere in my head in a memorable way. It didn’t help that I never had a clear entry point, just a mass of stories about gods or humans or both, existing in a world without clear rules.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Repackaging Greek myth as a concrete story told with the conventions of a modern novel helps me build a mental scaffolding that makes it much easier to keep things straight in my head. Miller’s novel has really helped in this regard, as did her novel </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Circe</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which I read last year. (Mary Renault’s fiction is also good for this.) This version of the story does have its idiosyncrasies, but as even a cursory look at Wikipedia makes clear, the story has existed in multiple versions since ancient times.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One thing that even I knew about the Achilles myth was the origin of the phrase “Achilles heel”: the notion that his heel was his weak spot because his mother had dunked him in magical water everywhere </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">except</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> there, and then had thought “eh, good enough”. This always struck me as extremely stupid and I was gratified that Miller gave this part of the story exactly the attention as it deserved: none, save for a solitary bit of mockery.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjySy0gLziBbXWD58wd1WVKFjCDT6z75h-3y-qAaPHn24LZQbMCKZrcQ6bp4oqih3uhGG6ysExwBE6Bck5cj5L6WosYuaQbCrWXNxS3up_bgFIMK14Qzc1g198Ifll16_uScAw4E3bR5jNH/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="349" data-original-width="220" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjySy0gLziBbXWD58wd1WVKFjCDT6z75h-3y-qAaPHn24LZQbMCKZrcQ6bp4oqih3uhGG6ysExwBE6Bck5cj5L6WosYuaQbCrWXNxS3up_bgFIMK14Qzc1g198Ifll16_uScAw4E3bR5jNH/w252-h400/image.png" width="252" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />Against a Dark Background</b></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Iain M. Banks (1993)</b></span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sci-fi action adventure. Laser guns and spaceships. Iain M. Banks. This story of a wealthy noblewoman who gets the news that a religious sect that wants her dead has been granted a one-year period during which it can legally kill her is as much of a page-turner as any Banks thriller, and I pretty much raced through its nearly 500-page length on my Kindle.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is some quintessential Iain Banks, set in a one-off universe: an isolated star system that’s been teeming with people and technology for tens of thousands of years, a palimpsest of wars and atrocities. In parts of the story he seemed to be channeling Douglas Adams, sometimes Adams in his more whimsical moods and sometimes in his existential angst.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_GHfXz3kq0fRrfu20I9RxFh4gVKxlEQSwlyM6eCg-4WiwKH-3c6iFVAaWS04BfGZKGxYWdWNd0ZQdUcOef5QIRRAiulbAx36DsfWEVwMcOqr2JmT9Ta7Y-ufwqj0DcBMEHuWkVOgTJ7h/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1387" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_GHfXz3kq0fRrfu20I9RxFh4gVKxlEQSwlyM6eCg-4WiwKH-3c6iFVAaWS04BfGZKGxYWdWNd0ZQdUcOef5QIRRAiulbAx36DsfWEVwMcOqr2JmT9Ta7Y-ufwqj0DcBMEHuWkVOgTJ7h/w272-h400/image.png" width="272" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />Lincoln in the Bardo</b></span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by George Saunders (2017)</b></span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A very odd novel, full of historical tidbits and meditations on death, that I am frankly at an absolute loss as to how to describe. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The plot could be described as a bit of supernatural-tinged historical voyeurism: President Lincoln’s young son Willie has just tragically died and his body has just been interred at a Washington DC cemetery where the spirits of the dead interact at night. These spirits inhabit the cemetery because they are still tied to the world of the living; they don’t even think of themselves as dead, only ill. Lincoln is so despondent over young Willie’s death that he visits the corpse at night, causing quite a commotion among the spirits.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I picked it up wondering if it would turn out to be unremittingly sad, but it’s not. The quirkiness of the point-of-view, alternating between the eccentric spirits of the dead, Abraham and Willie Lincoln themselves, and snippets from various actual nonfiction sources, is very lively and the fact that I genuinely never quite knew where Saunders was going with the narrative helped me deal with the morbid subject matter.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Anyone who screams “but </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lincoln in the Bardo </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is not speculative fiction!” gets a glare from me; I can make the tent as big as I want.)</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1hSjxUwoikGBzd2BAeErv4kZYXGuzJ8DizHifB-BOzhWq3_mqHz8h073pUMY-3bsYknqiPLLQv_t_4C9520Po-PEnjriaAgTnS5noVHLoHJekL2B5WJpLMrfmyNhWCNmh6KGvOKNGjFzA/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="475" data-original-width="309" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1hSjxUwoikGBzd2BAeErv4kZYXGuzJ8DizHifB-BOzhWq3_mqHz8h073pUMY-3bsYknqiPLLQv_t_4C9520Po-PEnjriaAgTnS5noVHLoHJekL2B5WJpLMrfmyNhWCNmh6KGvOKNGjFzA/w260-h400/image.png" width="260" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />84K</b></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Claire North (2018)</b></span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Theo Miller works for the Company, the conglomerate to which the government has outsourced much of its governing apparatus. Theo’s job is to calculate indemnity payments that convicted criminals must pay to the victims -- for instance, murderers have to pay more if their victim was actively trying to improve their health by joining a gym, or if the trauma of the murder means survivors must attend expensive counseling sessions. If you can’t pay, it’s the “patty line” for you -- not necessarily flipping burgers, but some kind of menial work must be done to help pay off your debt.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The setting is a dystopian England, but one that doesn’t come across as a future so much as a different version of the present, in which certain qualities have been exaggerated to bring them into stark relief. <i>The world we see here is one that already exists for many people</i>, is the unspoken message as I understood it. This story is not rainbows and roses. Rebellion against the Company means that a lot of innocent people get hurt, and the narrative does not shy away from that. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The plot is launched when Theo runs across Dani, an old friend and lover from before he was Theo -- his whole adult life he has been living with an assumed identity. He really has no choice but to help her in her plan to bring down the whole corrupt Company structure. Dani has a daughter, who may or may not be Theo’s and who has spent her life in indentured servitude, and suddenly Theo has something to live for that’s more than just keeping his head down and surviving.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">From reading other people’s reviews, I’ve gleaned that apparently many people are put off by the slow pace of this story. I thought it was just right, but then I’m a sucker for stories that effectively dig into the characters’ minds and psychology. If done well, it’s as compelling to me as a fast-paced plot.</span></span></p><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-2059131740612887762021-06-11T12:29:00.002+08:002021-06-11T13:52:01.434+08:00Taiwan: A New History<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmu_oJ3NopomG3dLDvcfuNHTMyntybiCc2Xg1x5RFJAheWkmWL4REGyMraag3mzSGlF1CUsKa183rSkmgvnV8rM5BVNsf4YWAd65oc_YPHgENG1peUG8_Z6g62gR5aumz4P-26_86eF8gN/s500/TaiwanANewHistory.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="332" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmu_oJ3NopomG3dLDvcfuNHTMyntybiCc2Xg1x5RFJAheWkmWL4REGyMraag3mzSGlF1CUsKa183rSkmgvnV8rM5BVNsf4YWAd65oc_YPHgENG1peUG8_Z6g62gR5aumz4P-26_86eF8gN/s320/TaiwanANewHistory.jpeg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /> </span><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Taiwan: A New History (Expanded Edition)<br /></b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Edited by Murray A. Rubinstein</b></span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This is a collection of seventeen articles on the history of Taiwan, from before the Dutch colonial period to the end of the 20th century (the expanded edition adds an updated chapter that takes us to the year 2007). Compiled by Murray A. Rubinstein, who also contributed two articles on modern Taiwan, the book covers politics, economics, society and literature.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">The chapters take us through a more-or-less comprehensive history of the country, though as a collection of articles by multiple authors, the coverage can be a bit idiosyncratic. Some chapters go into wonky detail, others less so. A novice to Taiwanese history may find it tough going at times, but there’s a lot here to interest a reader who’s already broadly familiar with the overall arc of Taiwanese history and would like to learn more.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">I read the book sequentially, but the fact that it’s a compilation means the reader can jump in at any point without compunction. As most of the book was completed in the 1990s, much of the language and description comes across as a bit dated: in the introduction, Rubinstein writes of Taipei as the “stronghold of the ‘ethnic’ mainlander population that still dominates the central government”, and a bit later refers to the pre-MRT Taipei suburbs as “choking sprawl” (p. ix-x). Thinking historically, though, this is not an unfair description.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">The unusual second chapter is one I will remember. “The Politics of Taiwan Aboriginal Origins” by Michael Stainton outlines three theories of the origins of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples: briefly, that ancestors of the Indigenous people migrated to Taiwan from Southeast Asia (the “southern origin” theory); that they migrated from China (“northern origin”); and that the ancestors of Taiwan’s Indigenous people, having migrated from what is now China in remote prehistory and after a long cultural incubation in Taiwan, eventually spread throughout Southeast Asia and became the ancestors of today’s Austronesian peoples.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the purpose of Stainton’s article is not to weigh the evidence for and against the different theories; rather, he looks at how the different theories have been championed by various modern political ideologies, to justify Japanese hegemony in the first half of the twentieth century and Chinese dominion over Taiwan in the second half. As the chapter’s true focus is on modern politics, strictly speaking this breaks the chronological order that the book is arranged in, but in my opinion the chapter nevertheless makes sense here. It is inevitable that history will be appropriated and interpreted for political ends, a place like Taiwan will certainly be no exception, and Stainton’s chapter gives the sequential reader a foretaste of modern ideological battles.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">From here the book progresses roughly chronologically, with various experts on Taiwanese history (mostly Westerners, with a few exceptions) sketching out overviews of their particular eras and topics. As I mentioned, some chapters are wonkier than others, and authors come in with their own biases and preconceptions; I felt I detected a pro-KMT slant in “A Bastion Created, A Regime Reformed, An Economy Reengineered 1949-1970” by Peter Chen-main Wang, but not so in other chapters.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most chapters focus on the political, economic and/or social aspects of a particular era of Taiwanese history, but some are more idiosyncratic. One early chapter, “Up the Mountains and Out to the Sea” by Eduard B. Vermeer, describes Fujianese economy and society in the 1600s and barely mentions Taiwan (the relevance to the book is that this was the era of the first large-scale Han migration to Taiwan, which was largely from Fujian). Later in the book, Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang contributes two chapters on Taiwanese literature, a topic that I had been mostly unfamiliar with.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then there's Robert P. Weller’s “Identity and Social Change in Taiwanese Religion”. In the book’s sole chapter that occasionally uses a Taiwanese romanization system (I’m not savvy enough to tell you which one) rather than Wade-Giles, Weller writes a fascinating overview of Taiwanese religion that fits in not only Tudi Gong and Matsu (or Tho-te Kong and Ma Co, in the chapter’s orthography) but also modern religious organizations as well. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">Weller credits the “amorphous” quality of Taiwan’s folk religion, with its variety of gods and beliefs in ghosts, as helping it survive social and political changes: “Had it ever achieved a truly systematic orthodoxy, this religion might have faced a crisis during Taiwan’s centuries of constant transformation. Instead, there has been a regular reproportioning and reinterpretation of the complex elements that had always been there.” (p. 353)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">The narrative history chapters that form the bulk of the book contain lots of fascinating nuggets that I was formerly unaware of. For example, “Between Assimilation and Independence, 1945 - 1948” by Steven Phillips gave me an interesting look at Taiwan in the brief year-and-a-half window between August 1945 and February 1947, when the press was freer than it would be at any point prior to the 1990s, possibly because (oddly, considering</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; white-space: pre-wrap;"> official fears that after 50 years of colonial rule the Taiwanese were more Japanese than Chinese) </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">the ROC authorities were surprised at the level of criticism they were receiving from their new Taiwanese subjects. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Taiwan’s Socioeconomic Modernization” by Murray A. Rubinstein, amid its general coverage of Taiwan’s development, gives us a fascinating description of Guanghua Market in Taipei in the 1970s: “a two-story bazaar where one could buy cheap antiques, old books and magazines, and student paintings. It was a delightful and always busy site that one could enjoy walking through, searching the stalls at one’s leisure.” (p. 374) A far cry from today’s electronics market that stretches far beyond the original structure. Later in the chapter, Rubinstein describes Taiwanese urban sprawl in the 1980s and 1990s, and while the intent is to stress the amount of growth and urbanization, it all seems positively quaint from the standpoint of 2021.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the final chapters, authors Rubinstein and Cal Clark describe the period that laid the foundations of modern Taiwan politics, the Lee Teng-hui and early Chen Shui-bian administrations. I was reminded that while I like to think of myself as a politics nerd, I really am an amateur, and there is much I am unfamiliar with. I read of a strange time, not so long ago, when the National Assembly still existed, the Legislative Yuan was far larger than it is now, and the New Party was not only seen as a major force in Taiwan party politics, but occasionally teamed up with the DPP in short-lived anti-KMT coalitions, which needless to say would be unthinkable today. I need to read up more on how the structure of the ROC government evolved during this transitional period.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sections on the evolution of cross-strait relations during the Lee Teng-hui and early Chen Shui-bian era also intrigues me, although I would like to read something more meaty than the tantalizing but short tidbits that these chapters provide, such as the interesting diplomatic case of Liberia, which tried to maintain full diplomatic relations with both China and Taiwan in the 1990s. I did notice the book never mentions the ‘1992 Consensus’, either the phrase itself or any particular agreement that the phrase could refer to, but to be fair the relevant chapter was completed in 1999, when the 1992 Consensus did not exist yet.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;">All in all, “Taiwan: A New History” filled in several gaps in my understanding of Taiwanese history (while making me aware of many other gaps), and exposed me to some interesting new perspectives. It’s not quite the English-language general introduction to Taiwan that I have been pining for, but the reader who already knows a moderate amount about Taiwan will find plenty of interest here.</span></p>Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-66620541261782999602021-05-24T13:39:00.000+08:002021-05-24T13:39:40.642+08:00Recent novels I've read, 2021<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am reviving these little book blurbs, because I need something to hold myself accountable to my intention to read more and read faster...</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-05eef3bf-7fff-ee4b-20e2-432dc7e54985"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #14171a; font-size: 12.5pt; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwlvEjiwMiLppqJYbKltyiS8kj0heHJEKiLkxaap0mHa0obegS7m19A34dyFArWHB5aS28xnTaXaCFl2SCXjigrl6LPUkWzTZFbSf5UQ3XjDTZGA0wNqPTYs4fScU9m7HMN-AlQqGt3VQ/s1360/infinitedetail.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="907" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwlvEjiwMiLppqJYbKltyiS8kj0heHJEKiLkxaap0mHa0obegS7m19A34dyFArWHB5aS28xnTaXaCFl2SCXjigrl6LPUkWzTZFbSf5UQ3XjDTZGA0wNqPTYs4fScU9m7HMN-AlQqGt3VQ/s320/infinitedetail.jpeg" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="color: #14171a; font-size: 12.5pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><br /></b></span></p><b><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;">Infinite Detail</span></b></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;">by Tim Maughan, 2019</span></b></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the near future, the Internet goes down. Suddenly, completely and permanently.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s the premise in a nutshell of this near-future novel. The motivations of the people behind this deliberate attack are treated with some sympathy, but at the same time, the consequences are clearly portrayed as disastrous and tragic, as the global economy collapses and lives and relationships are torn asunder.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The narrative effectively brings home the effects of this global event by focusing on the local. Most of the story takes place in English city of Bristol, several years after the Internet’s destruction. (There are also flashbacks to New York City in the “before” times, where we see how the increasing online-ization of life is making the lives of people on the margins of mainstream society so much more difficult.) </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The very local setting is what I may end up remembering most about “Infinite Detail”. Post-collapse Bristol is described in sufficient detail that, if I ever find myself in the city with time to spare, I could easily spend a day on a “Places of ‘Infinite Detail’” tour. I know next to nothing about the city, but by reading about its post-collapse state as described in the novel I feel as if I’ve learned something about the urban culture that exists there now. </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #14171a; font-size: 12.5pt; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0xNpVKg_sUrJiITDNZtZ4tesRe7DPTsl4kIu6f0Pg24JhtyK8FWP6uTcYK49OvUhKfmROx10iQ9990RGDHEFUkZn3mKOxrxVJnBt2A5WCyrMh1Usg9G6XNwh7jDYtoJ-LJWrbuUoyfW56/s2048/nameofwind.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1262" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0xNpVKg_sUrJiITDNZtZ4tesRe7DPTsl4kIu6f0Pg24JhtyK8FWP6uTcYK49OvUhKfmROx10iQ9990RGDHEFUkZn3mKOxrxVJnBt2A5WCyrMh1Usg9G6XNwh7jDYtoJ-LJWrbuUoyfW56/s320/nameofwind.jpeg" /></a></b></div><b><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;"><br />The Name of the Wind</span></b><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;">by Patrick Rothfuss, 2007</span></b></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Possibly the most famous fantasy novel yet published in the twenty-first century, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Name of the Wind</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the first part of the life story of the omnicompetent Kvothe, a man who now wants to live a quiet life despite the fact that he has become a legend across his faux-European-medieval continent.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be honest, my big problem with this going in was that I knew it’s technically the first book in a trilogy, whose second volume appeared in 2010 and whose third still hasn’t made an appearance, which is the kind of thing that really puts me off a series. But, impressed by the book’s fame, I decided I would mentally pretend it’s a singleton.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rothfuss is a skilled writer, I’ll give him that. Faux-European-medieval settings honestly don’t excite me much anymore, and our hero is way too much of a larger-than-life, good-at-everything-he-puts-his-mind-to fantasy figure, but the prose drew me in and I enjoyed this world and its logical, carefully-worked-out system of magic. At its end, the story is obviously only about a third of the way through, but I felt sated. (I will pick up the second book only when the third book has appeared in this world.)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCM2Ed9xAOimaUs_Qn24ZKAoSkvXWksTcR-9MoonhVwejKjSDG4OBHETFIiC_-lrsDy3ANhFcVQfttirlT5ty6yIua8DtNFXRgHUVduAlGpFfG3zg88zHpk-gFWI5oSVAnxJf-R3osqcX7/s475/numbercaste.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="309" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCM2Ed9xAOimaUs_Qn24ZKAoSkvXWksTcR-9MoonhVwejKjSDG4OBHETFIiC_-lrsDy3ANhFcVQfttirlT5ty6yIua8DtNFXRgHUVduAlGpFfG3zg88zHpk-gFWI5oSVAnxJf-R3osqcX7/s320/numbercaste.jpg" /></a></span></b></div><b style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;"><br />Numbercaste</span></b><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;">by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, 2017</span></b></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is the very near future, and the quantification of our lives has reached its logical conclusion: we all have a Number, an algorithmically generated figure that represents our cumulative worth to society. Explicitly inspired by the Chinese social credit system, one’s Number is both an incentive to do good in society and a reward for having done good.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The novel is written as a tell-all memoir about larger-than-life Number mastermind Julius Common, from the perspective of his associate, the down-to-earth Patrick Udo. Udo’s narration uses spare prose that centers the near-future setting and the epic entrepreneurial figure of Common. NumberCorp uses questionable ethics as they bully skeptical governments into letting them become entrenched throughout the world. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Befitting the truly global nature of the Number enterprise, the non-Western world is put front and center, including but not limited to the author’s native Sri Lanka. It’s an unambiguously good thing that, more and more, non-Western locales are being centered in English-language SF without being exoticized or otherwise reduced to local color.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #14171a; font-size: 12.5pt; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ_qYmnNik9NJwiZL51eLQjWnNl27H9ZxBiMV0_8RSjK5a9F-8rQiDxluZMF39qqJJce-PvcTjR6j2oRHI4xTbZ0fOGxqFuU7HgvpCsQVygTrJf426QmeBC7XKrnNmrGd_vQYhok5FHlFa/s1815/a-memory-called-empire-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1815" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ_qYmnNik9NJwiZL51eLQjWnNl27H9ZxBiMV0_8RSjK5a9F-8rQiDxluZMF39qqJJce-PvcTjR6j2oRHI4xTbZ0fOGxqFuU7HgvpCsQVygTrJf426QmeBC7XKrnNmrGd_vQYhok5FHlFa/s320/a-memory-called-empire-1.jpeg" /></a></b></div><b><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: 12.5pt;"><br /></span><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;">A Memory Called Empire</span></b><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;">by Arkady Martine, 2019</span></b></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The interstellar Teixcalaanli Empire is militaristic and expansionist, a fact that the smaller nations on its periphery must constantly be hyper-aware of. Lsel Station, a small sovereign state that values its independence, is in a delicate geopolitical (galactic-political?) situation, made more complicated as their erratic Ambassador to Teixcalaan, Yskandr Aghavn, hasn’t returned home in fifteen years and no one knows what he’s been up to. When Teixcalaan informs Lsel without explanation that they require a new ambassador, young diplomat Mahit Dzmare gets a fifteen-year-old copy of Yskandr’s mind installed in her head -- not the ideal plan, but one must make do with what one has -- and departs for the Teixcalaanli imperial court.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mahit has spent her life studying Teixcalaanli language and culture in the classroom, but actually landing on the Imperial capital planet (a world-spanning city in the Trantor/Coruscant style) makes her feel like an uncultured foreigner. Her Yskandr-copy is unexpectedly unreliable, and interstellar communication is not speedy (Lsel and Teixcalaan seem to have very little awareness of each other’s current affairs), so Mahit is on her own and must figure out quickly who her potential allies are. On top of all this, the Teixcalaanli imperial court is in a particularly unstable period right now…</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a sensitive and engaging work of science-fictional palace intrigue, occasionally reminiscent of Katherine Addison’s “The Goblin Emperor.” I’m a sucker for a very specific sort of worldbuilding where there’s neither a clear connection to our Earth nor any culture that’s supposed to be a sci-fi analogue to Westerners (Yoon Ha Lee is also great at this). As for the characterization, Mahit’s a sympathetic viewpoint character as she tries to both survive and accomplish her goals as a fish-out-of-water. The followup novel, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Desolation Called Peace</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, is out now and is on my reading list.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #14171a; font-size: 12.5pt; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn9j7zk9lomAr65hzuStmS0h9bL7KF2JEmGoqVH_b8Vwl73zqgtkpVPkql-Cuvt3Z2z5fa3U_iDQiku6cA0t2j1LyXLMYXpmDZne3K2ONedA4kaa-yfOmELqlKl7wveaNhfyHVp3hK953s/s499/quarry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn9j7zk9lomAr65hzuStmS0h9bL7KF2JEmGoqVH_b8Vwl73zqgtkpVPkql-Cuvt3Z2z5fa3U_iDQiku6cA0t2j1LyXLMYXpmDZne3K2ONedA4kaa-yfOmELqlKl7wveaNhfyHVp3hK953s/s320/quarry.jpg" /></a></b></div><b><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: 12.5pt;"><br /></span><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;">The Quarry</span></b><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: #14171a; font-size: medium;">by Iain Banks, 2013</span></b></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The Quarry” was Iain Banks’ last novel; he died just as it was being published. It centers on a man named Guy and his teenage son Kit, who live in a rickety, soon-to-be-demolished house on the edge of a quarry. Guy has invited a group of old friends back to his home to reminisce about old days and hunt for a missing videotape that may contain something highly incriminating. He is dying of cancer, and the reader may morbidly wonder (as I certainly did) how much of the narrative had been completed when Banks received his own terminal diagnosis.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like most of Banks’ books, I found it to be a very engaging page-turner, though this one was low-stakes and small-scale. Kit is the novel’s sole viewpoint character; I liked how Banks narrated the view from inside his head, as Kit is clearly on the autism spectrum and tends to consciously think through his social interactions in a way neurotypicals often don’t. Meanwhile, Guy spends his final weeks long-windedly bemoaning the rotten state of the world. In-universe, this is presented as unpleasant angry ranting, but as far as I can tell Guy’s rants are Banks’ actual opinions, and I had the thought that there’s little room for doubt what Banks would have thought of subsequent political developments had he lived (the book even works in some jabs at then-London mayor Boris Johnson).</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My final observation is, as both </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Quarry</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and Banks’ penultimate book, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stonemouth</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, contain references to the work of Seth MacFarlane, I have no choice but to conclude that the great Iain Banks, creator of the legendary Culture universe, probably watched </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Family Guy</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in his downtime, which for some reason I find very strange to imagine.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p>Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-80434951508800019652020-08-23T10:08:00.000+08:002020-08-23T14:56:40.414+08:00Novels I've read -- first half of 2020 edition<span id="docs-internal-guid-4192d456-7fff-1614-e13c-b73734b24214"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve fallen out of the habit of writing about fiction I’ve recently read. I don’t know why -- there is no coronavirus-related reason. But I’ve decided that it would be good for me to keep it up. I don’t write for an external audience, not really -- this blog doesn’t get enough pageviews for that to make sense. I write this because it forces me to take my half-formed impressions of what I’ve read, and process them into a form that (I hope!) is comprehensible to other people. That, I think, is valuable for me.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-1376768f-7fff-5022-116a-89fba349b88c" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I write for myself, but it’s crucial that I know other people can see what I’ve read.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMFIazwoh30iDd2UQ936ukxneMNI2sRhVqqS2M200e6Ddc0bUrk4ZFilmVlopBSDbwO156eI5OJzSl3Q2tq6yUvzGGy-aqgVzZVHfC5HqmZYUeXo-RSHzwri4txGQnOgDCzR4CzoWbaJF/s223/pots.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="223" data-original-width="145" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMFIazwoh30iDd2UQ936ukxneMNI2sRhVqqS2M200e6Ddc0bUrk4ZFilmVlopBSDbwO156eI5OJzSl3Q2tq6yUvzGGy-aqgVzZVHfC5HqmZYUeXo-RSHzwri4txGQnOgDCzR4CzoWbaJF/w181-h279/pots.jpg" width="181" /></a></div><b><i>Parable of the Sower</i></b><b><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Parable of the Talents</span></i></b><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Octavia E. Butler</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Butler is a new author for me, though I’ve heard her name spoken with respect and reverence by the SF community for years. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Parable of the Sower</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> takes place in a 2020s California that has slid, through accumulating entropy, into a dystopia that would have struck me as unlikely and overblown if I’d read the book in the 1990s when it was newly published, but reading this story in the real 2020 has made me fidget uncomfortably.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Parable of the Talents</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> picks up where the first book left off, and main character Olamina passes through darkness that is even more painful and horrifying than what she went through in the first book. The story ends on an upbeat note in some ways, less so in others. Butler did an excellent job crafting both the setting and the characters (which cannot be said for every book I’ve read recently) and at the end of the story the reader will be left with very mixed, contradictory emotions. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s ironic that I feel as if I should have more to say about these two books. They will probably stick with me longer than anything else I’ve read recently.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhZOh85V8DglbnqNRyYy_wIt7gSGCnlypDNXGKHkdSTmaaCqDYCZNIf3044Pf2iatHlmxDp2wvZq08tFON_B8NYZ0aSL68SzRCBHh_gIIY27zBCI7zn7UI2xv4qyFrkvkXNx0kKFG19vWS/s220/windup.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="146" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhZOh85V8DglbnqNRyYy_wIt7gSGCnlypDNXGKHkdSTmaaCqDYCZNIf3044Pf2iatHlmxDp2wvZq08tFON_B8NYZ0aSL68SzRCBHh_gIIY27zBCI7zn7UI2xv4qyFrkvkXNx0kKFG19vWS/w183-h275/windup.jpg" width="183" /></a></div><b><i>The Windup Girl</i></b><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><i> </i></b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Paolo Bacigalupi</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s 22nd-century Thailand and brutal necessity has shifted the world’s economy away from dependence on fossil fuels. Various forms of bioengineering rule the day, ranging from algae to full-blown humans. Our title character Emiko the “windup girl” is bred to serve the wealthy and powerful. Reduced to living in a brothel in Bangkok, she is seen as less than human, by the law as well as the average bigot in the street. Other point-of-view characters highlight different sides of the main plot-based conflict, an internal struggle within the future Thai government that involves the giant Western agricultural conglomerates that wield tremendous power.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some parts of this book rubbed me the wrong way. I could have done without the hoary East Asian tropes, such as the internal narrative of Chinese businessman Hock Seng whose attitudes towards laowai could have come straight out of the 1900s. This strikes me as unimaginative in this setting where so much has changed since our day. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That being said, overall this is a novel where the characters exist to serve the setting, rather than the other way around, and this look at a hypothetical post-fossil fuel world through the lens of the political situation in a non-Western country is an interesting one. More than anything, this book is a portrait of future Bangkok, a vast city below the rising sea level, which is being kept dry by the heroic engineering efforts of the Thai government.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZsc1u0nFi1PUnzqDHV_bSVB-m3k-SGgLrI5qyVCtEE_5NyHuRBUWAJl49wa0VHfS_8QGHC3T0iJhwhq_NpfIlCtlR3WaGAbRyIlPV3nhhiQrM3Bm8zExRdOO9YAT89YwHqWuod0_9UTua/s277/fall.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZsc1u0nFi1PUnzqDHV_bSVB-m3k-SGgLrI5qyVCtEE_5NyHuRBUWAJl49wa0VHfS_8QGHC3T0iJhwhq_NpfIlCtlR3WaGAbRyIlPV3nhhiQrM3Bm8zExRdOO9YAT89YwHqWuod0_9UTua/s0/fall.jpg" /></a></div><b><i>Fall; or, Dodge in Hell</i></b><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><i> </i></b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Neal Stephenson</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stephenson delivers nearly a thousand pages of Stephenson prose here in a hefty novel that delivers everything Stephenson fans could want and also could have really benefited from a very merciless editor. Despite the feeling that the book is at least 20% longer than its optimal length, there’s a lot of stuff here that I will remember. A mid-21st century setting (where QAnon-type theories have won the information wars) eventually gives way to an almost exclusive focus on a vast electronic afterlife: the Land. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I actually could have done with more time spent in the novel’s middle section set in the 2030s. The breakdown of consensus reality is disturbingly ludicrous, in the same sense that “President Trump” would have been considered a ludicrous future ten years ago. This is a world where the Utah legislature believes the town of Moab has been obliterated by a terrorist nuke and everyone living there now is a paid crisis actor, and so refuse to issue license plates to Moabites (who roll their eyes, shrug, and make their own). </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The latter half of the book increasingly takes place in the Land. The most interesting parts of the narrative are the questions which are unanswered. What happens if the residents of the Land start interacting meaningfully with the physical world? (I’m picturing a future of Greg Egan-style crewed interstellar ships where the crews lack physical bodies, which makes the logistics of space travel far easier.) And what if that never happens and the bulk of the Solar System’s resources eventually go towards supporting an entirely inward-focused society? (Could it evolve into something resembling the religion of the Chel in Iain Banks’ </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look to Windward</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7lsVIC2BgVi8B6BYdjO8y1el_GjX_2QD54ll11oQcVQlQ4bFEsny86E6pNFiciuIB710Tk8aJde0az4zeAcUQJBZrOVfuPNlyuRuNQ2gmRLY6onfu4aAaV0kgtp3aBYxIBh4GaHvjNMUY/s259/tihylttw.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7lsVIC2BgVi8B6BYdjO8y1el_GjX_2QD54ll11oQcVQlQ4bFEsny86E6pNFiciuIB710Tk8aJde0az4zeAcUQJBZrOVfuPNlyuRuNQ2gmRLY6onfu4aAaV0kgtp3aBYxIBh4GaHvjNMUY/s0/tihylttw.jpg" /></a></div><b><i>This Is How You Lose the Time War</i></b><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What a thing it is, to pick up an SF novel written in this day and age that’s only about 200 pages long, like a genre novel of fifty years ago! But this is no fast read; El-Mohtar and Gladstone’s rich use of language is something to be read slowly and savored. Two agents working for opposite sides of a conflict of epic proportions start leaving taunting notes for each other, but this progresses to the mutual realization that they have fallen in love. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The details of this time war are labyrinthine and Escheresque, but the war itself is only a backdrop to the relationship between the two characters, which also eventually unfolds in very non-linear ways. This is the sort of book I want to go back and re-read, to pick up myriad details that eluded me the first time.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A week after I read it, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This Is How You Lose the Time War</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> won a Hugo for Best Novella; I haven’t read the competition but El-Mohtar and Gladstone definitely deserve the recognition.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj909xqX3h14DJncDcN7KcLjPLQkrPJ1LMwqO18dep_BWqh4vOlysl6gWSwy4sLV1KAv_4m4yqlmINvHOx8dCGDvPjRofsbEIY8C0hSG-MyMTxe0ewsBBLjiKTXzA0NRtCURpp8j2Rt4OHc/s287/tsatg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj909xqX3h14DJncDcN7KcLjPLQkrPJ1LMwqO18dep_BWqh4vOlysl6gWSwy4sLV1KAv_4m4yqlmINvHOx8dCGDvPjRofsbEIY8C0hSG-MyMTxe0ewsBBLjiKTXzA0NRtCURpp8j2Rt4OHc/s0/tsatg.jpg" /></a></div><b><i>The Steep Approach to Garbadale</i></b><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Iain Banks</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Banks is one of my favorite authors of page-turners, and I’ve read enough of his work that I know what his favored tropes are. Strategy games. Dark family secrets. Incest. (Face it, more than a few Banks novels feature incest, whether overt, implied, or symbolic.) The young protagonist of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Steep Approach to Garbadale</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is from a Scottish family full of secrets whose family wealth comes from a popular strategy game, and he has also been pursuing an on-again, off-again romance with his first cousin. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is familiar Banks ground. It kept me turning pages to get to the inevitable dark final revelations, but the plot is on the whole rather prosaic and never reaches the heights of weirdness of some Iain Banks novels (even if you only count the stuff he wrote with no middle initial). </span></p></span>Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-69455642312454634012020-07-21T13:00:00.003+08:002020-07-29T08:53:27.284+08:00A New Illustrated History of Taiwan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A New Illustrated History of Taiwan</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">by Wan-yao Chou, translated by Carole Plackitt and Tim Casey</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Looking for a good, easy-to-read book to provide a general overview of Taiwanese history? </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This book is not a comprehensive history of Taiwan, nor does it pretend to be one. Powerful figures from Koxinga to Lee Teng-hui are mentioned only in passing, because Chou’s focus is instead on the ordinary people, and how their lives were shaped and impacted by historical events. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And the book does a stellar job tracing the history of Taiwan’s people, from the Indigenous inhabitants up through colonization from Fujian and Guangdong in the 1600s and 1700s, to the effects of 20th century politics on Taiwan’s people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Areas where I felt my knowledge needed beefing up and this book was informative included a concise summary of distinctions between Taiwan colonization from Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Guangdong; good overviews of the two big rebellions against Japanese rule in Taiwan (the Chiaopanien [aka Tapani] rebellion of 1915 and the Wushe [aka Musha] rebellion of 1930); a survey of Taiwanese domestic home rule movements of the 1920s and 1930s; and a brief discussion of pro-democracy stirrings in the 1950s and 1960s.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Early on in the book, Chou writes “Sometimes one’s understanding of history increases if one stops using modern concepts” (p. 50). This is a great line which I wholeheartedly agree with. In the text, it refers to the fact that the close association between Taiwan and Penghu in fact got a relatively recent start; Penghu was closely tied to China’s Fujian Province for centuries before any Chinese government gave much thought to colonizing Taiwan. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But of course, the idea that “sometimes one’s understanding of history increases if one stops using modern concepts” is a great lesson that should be hammered into the head of people around the world. For more on this general area, see <a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2019/04/why-learn-history-when-its-already-on.html">my review of Sam Wineburg’s book </a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2019/04/why-learn-history-when-its-already-on.html">Why Learn History (When It’s Already on your Phone</a>)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> what I wrote about thinking like a historian.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The book’s title highlights the fact that this is an </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">illustrated</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> history of Taiwan, and the illustrations are the main feature of the book.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The illustrations highlight and shape key moments in Taiwan’s history. I looked and couldn't find most of them online, but some of the ones that I will specifically remember include:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A group of young Taiwanese musicians at an outdoor pavilion in Kaohsiung in 1934. They’re all smiling, joyful even -- many are laughing. Among them are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Wen-yeh">Koh Bunya</a>, a singer and composer who would eventually live in post-1949 China and face persecution during the Cultural Revolution. I wonder if the other men and women would have similarly complicated life stories. (p. 247)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A linguistically fascinating 1944 photo of a sign saying to 常用國語. Nowadays in Taiwan, 國語, which literally means “national language”, refers to Mandarin. But in 1944 Taiwan 國語 would have meant Japanese -- the pronunciation is different, but “national language” is written the same way in the two languages. So this sign extorted Taiwanese to speak Japanese, using exactly the same written word for Japanese that nowadays means Mandarin! (p. 273)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A striking image from an Atayal village in 1950. Chiang Kai-shek, dressed in a fedora and black cape, making an inspection tour. His son is a few steps behind him in military fatigues. Among Chiang’s retinue is Atayal leader Losin Watan, easily recognized in a dark suit, who would be executed along with five other Indigenous leaders four years later. (p. 338)</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-61946033897735575132019-12-29T11:15:00.001+08:002020-02-17T10:46:36.266+08:00Red Moon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Red Moon</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2018</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Fred Fredericks is an American engineer who travels to the moon in the year 2047 and soon finds himself entangled in the assassination of a Chinese official up there. His life becomes even more complicated when he runs into Chan Qi, the daughter of one of China’s top leaders who appears to be on the run from the government, for some reason that he does not yet understand.</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-2897d285-7fff-697d-bf99-9d422cb8fba9" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The plot then consists of Fred and Qi going back to Earth, on the run, hiding, almost captured, on the run again, hiding, almost captured, returning to the Moon, on the run, hiding, almost captured… look, the plot’s not what we’re meant to focus on. The plot is just Kim Stanley Robinson’s vehicle to show off the setting (his depiction of the future) and an exploration of society and politics. Just as in all of his novels.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’ve realized that I am really bad at writing up my impressions of Kim Stanley Robinson novels. But I feel compelled to write up my immediate reactions to this one, which is so heavily about the near future of China. I live in Taiwan, a land that fits snugly in the liminal space between the Chinese border on one side and the Nine-Dash Line on the other. So safe and cozy.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So what do I think of the setting of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Moon</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For someone who has included plenty of Chinese people and settings in his fiction before and so has had many chances of getting all the China cliches out of his system, Robinson sure includes a lot of China cliches in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Moon</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. To be fair, most of them come via the thoughts of supporting character Ta Shu, an elderly poet and celebrity whose musings reference topics ranging from Feng Shui to 5,000 years of history, and perhaps Robinson simply didn't have space to include the many younger Chinese who roll their eyes and mutter “Okay, Grandpa” at his cliches.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It’s extremely difficult to glean what Robinson thinks of the real-life PRC regime in Beijing. I should make it clear that I certainly don’t see him as one of those Westerners who feels the need to make excuses for the PRC government’s misdeeds. After all, his future-China suffers from serious problems which directly stem from 2019 China. What's more, he breaks realism and invents unlikely surnames to tell us that China is currently led by President Shanzhai (President Knockoff?) who seeks to be succeeded by an official named Huyou (Flickering? Swindle?).</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’m curious about what Taiwan is like in this universe, but Robinson doesn’t make it easy to extract that information from the text. At one point the China-ingenue Fred Fredericks gets up to speed about Taiwan from characters who are not from there: it seems the status quo of 2047 is basically the status quo of 2019, and Beijing is playing super-nice to Taiwan to entice it into closer ties. But then just a few chapters later, Ta Shu hears some official Beijing propaganda calling on the people to resist the poisonous lies of the Tibetans, the Uyghurs, the Taiwanese. So it’s very hard to tell what’s “really” going on with the Taiwan of this world, and I suspect Robinson never worked it out because Taiwan’s not what he’s actually interested in.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Regarding his Hong Kong of 2047, we hear there are protests surrounding the end of the fifty years as an SAR, but there are no details. Robinson published </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Moon</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in 2018 -- in other words, this future Hong Kong was written after 2014 but before 2019. I frankly find it a bit curious that Robinson went to the trouble of setting </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Moon</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in China in the portentous year 2047 but left his depiction of Hong Kong so vague.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Finally, there’s Xi Jinping, who is remembered by several characters as a positive force, a strong leader who tried to improve China before he had to eventually step down and was replaced by a succession of weak leaders culminating in the current President Knockoff. On the one hand, this is clearly meant to be some characters’ subjective opinion and not objective fact; on the other hand, it’s all we ever hear of the Xi Jinping of this universe. Does it reflect Robinson's own opinion? No idea.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But to be fair, Robinson thinks globally, and in the final chapters of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Moon</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> we see a worldwide revolt against the moneyed ruling classes. This is a global movement, far too big to be defined by one country, even China.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What I kept comparing </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Moon </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to was another China-centric futuristic novel written by a Westerner, <a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/04/sf-ive-read-first-chunk-of-2018-edition.html">Maureen F. McHugh’s </a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/04/sf-ive-read-first-chunk-of-2018-edition.html">China Mountain Zhang</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. That book, written in 1992 and set in a 22nd Century where China is the global hyperpower and the USA is a backwater, will linger in my mind longer than </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Moon</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it’s got a more varied plot and, frankly, is lighter on the China cliches.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-48674198891233407672019-11-27T13:41:00.000+08:002019-11-29T10:08:00.012+08:00Machineries of Empire<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm8JP1nnXtEdnMdQsiskIyULZZDnRJdnO3XnX_nO7QzCrQyA1gUbm7NKV8fF_V0LE-3rZF1CnHT4vCyJPWtGbEZYonDTz7Oau5BVrwDdZ8vbtaXVj0yLSkZGz2g2juIMqfuxd5jFBOyVLx/s1600/moe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm8JP1nnXtEdnMdQsiskIyULZZDnRJdnO3XnX_nO7QzCrQyA1gUbm7NKV8fF_V0LE-3rZF1CnHT4vCyJPWtGbEZYonDTz7Oau5BVrwDdZ8vbtaXVj0yLSkZGz2g2juIMqfuxd5jFBOyVLx/s400/moe.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Machineries of Empire</b></div>
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<b style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit (2016), Raven Strategem (2017), Revenant Gun (2018)</b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Yoon Ha Lee</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After I read </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the first in Lee’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Machineries of Empire</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> trilogy, I wrote <a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2019/04/ninefox-gambit.html">a blog post where I kicked off by immediately saying</a> “I know it looks like a space opera, but maybe you should think of it as high fantasy.” Frankly, now I re-read that and I’m embarrassed. I think I sound like Comic Book Guy.</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-167f452e-7fff-9571-111c-423521ebf833" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But all the same, the amorphous and possibly irrelevant line separating science fiction and fantasy is something that I’ve been thinking about lately. Every work of speculative fiction presents the audience with a universe and asks them to accept it on its own terms. In Yoon Ha Lee’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Machineries of Empire</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, that universe runs on strange indistinguishable-from-magic technology that doesn’t quite work like anything that the reader has seen before. There’s a lot for us wrap our brains around in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The remainder of the trilogy, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Raven Strategem </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Revenant Gun</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, do spectacular things with the foundation the first book lays. Trusting that the reader is now up to speed on how this universe works, Lee delivers a tightly focused story and fewer viewpoint characters than the first book to describe an insurrection that could mean the end of the brutal interstellar empire known as the Hexarchate.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Hexarchate is named for its government split into six factions, each ruled by a Hexarch. Each division has a well-defined function within the empire; for instance, the Kel supply the troops and are known for their mental conditioning that renders them obedient, while the Shuos are the spies and schemers. (The author has <a href="https://www.yoonhalee.com/?p=836">this spoiler-free cheat sheet on the six factions on his website</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which I unfortunately didn’t know about until I had finished the series</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">)</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Hexarchate’s weird technology relies on everyone following and organizing their thoughts around an incredibly intricate calendar, which happens to require people’s death by slow torture on specified holidays for the full effect. Rival calendars constitute an existential threat to this system, so the Hexarchate stamps out these heresies with overwhelming force.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And that was what spurs the plot of the first book, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, in which the Hexarchate was forced to bring out a reserve weapon to deal with the latest heretical rebellion: infamous general Shuos Jedao. Hundreds of years ago, Jedao was executed following a battle that he won after he unnecessarily caused over a million collateral deaths and murdered his command crew. But it would be a shame to let such a tactical mastermind just simply </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">die</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, so one of the Hexarchs kept his soul around through technological means of his own devising. (This particular Hexarch is a 900-year-old mad scientist who the reader should keep an eye on because he is important.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The technology requires a body to tether Jedao’s spirit to, which brings us to the first book’s main protagonist: Kel Cheris, a military officer with a good head for the bizarre math this universe’s technology runs on. The plan was for Cheris to cautiously use Jedao’s experience and guidance as she led the Hexarchate forces against the heretics.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The events of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> did not go according to plan.</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the start of book two, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Raven Strategem</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Jedao appears to have fully taken over Kel Cheris’ body, and he has taken advantage of the Kel’s obedience conditioning to gain possession of a formidable Kel military force for his rebellion against the Hexarchate. Cheris/Jedao cease to be a viewpoint character for Book 2 (keeping it uncertain who is actually in control of Cheris’s body), as new protagonists come to the forefront, including both military officers and a Hexarch with a decadent and incestuous personal life whose schemes are a main driver of the military and political strife that continue through the end of the final book, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Revenant Gun</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first book was heavy going with all the weird worldbuilding to wrap my head around, but now that the setting is established the second and third books are real page-turners. The setting is strange, the technology is unusual and often upsetting (some of the calendar-based weapons are pretty nasty), and the stakes are high, as the Hexarchate is a violent, brutal entity. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Machineries of Empire</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, at its core, is a work of military SF, though one that’s set in a universe where physics follows very strange rules.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And there are numerous other angles I could discuss here but others might be better qualified, such as the exploration of queer sexuality. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the whole, this world is unlike any I have read about before, and I will remember it.</span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-5946786566659487172019-10-31T10:53:00.001+08:002019-10-31T13:16:38.067+08:00The Empty Throne: Those Above & Those Below<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhblh_xHpvO-b2LYuvnsvLPYRsTNv3ASgiyhBAph1nZamiKIaFFr3bv_SB1RQtUJ-QQp0ItY1R6gPm0PD7Bm-9jbJMpcHSa2-SR1meXLwQicYpOg3nVSxLQABCVDkIFh8NoZsY6H9VpnN5W/s1600/TATB.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhblh_xHpvO-b2LYuvnsvLPYRsTNv3ASgiyhBAph1nZamiKIaFFr3bv_SB1RQtUJ-QQp0ItY1R6gPm0PD7Bm-9jbJMpcHSa2-SR1meXLwQicYpOg3nVSxLQABCVDkIFh8NoZsY6H9VpnN5W/s400/TATB.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Those Above & Those Below</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>by Daniel Polansky, 2016</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine a series with all of the low-fantasy political intrigue of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Song of Ice and Fire</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and it’s two books long and then it’s done because the author finished the story. Sound good?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Empty Throne</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> duology, Daniel Polansky introduces us to a continent of medieval feuding states. Aeleria is a militaristic expanding power, reminiscent of ancient Rome. The steppes of the Marches are inhabited by fierce nomadic peoples, whereas the cities of Salucia are run by traders who prefer to hire mercenaries to fight their wars.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And yet none of these petty human states will ever amount to anything compared to the Others, also known as Those Above, or Eternals, or as demons, depending on one’s point of view. Majestic, strong, agile, long-lived beings, Those Above have claimed suzerainty over the continent for thousands of years, allowing the human nations to bicker and argue while they live lives of leisure in their vast city, the Roost. Why should they meddle in the affairs of puny humans, whom they think of as insects? After all, if a human nation gets out of hand, they can swoop down from their mountaintop abode to effortlessly crush them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Others are the sole bit of magic intruding upon this universe. We never really find out what they are, or where they came from, but it doesn’t really matter. They’re not tyrants, and they don’t rule with anything close to an authoritarian iron fist. In fact, they are utterly unconcerned with human welfare. Their beautiful mountaintop city is surrounded by a teeming human slum, a place of squalor and misery ruled by organized crime. They don’t care. Most of them don’t even notice.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The story of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Empty Throne</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> duology -- </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those Above</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those Below</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> -- is the story of the human rebellion that aims to topple these complacent, sublimely perfect creatures from their position.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The story is told through the eyes of four main protagonists, two Aelerian and two at the Roost. Bas is a grizzled veteran of Aeleria’s army, famed as the only human to have killed an Eternal in combat. It’s through Bas’s eyes that we see most of the story’s battle scenes, which uncompromisingly depict war as a brutal, unglamorous endeavor. Eudokia is a brilliant, ruthless, amoral woman who has risen through her own efforts to become the most powerful figure in Aeleria’s male-dominated government. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the Roost, Calla is a privileged human who lives among Those Above on the mountaintop. She is essentially a pampered slave, not that she would see herself that way. It is Calla who eventually emerges as the most sympathetic of the four main protagonists. And Thistle is a young thug who grew up in the vast slums on the edge of the city. Thistle’s eventual character arc is not difficult to predict, but it is difficult for him to break out of the patterns of behavior that he grew up with.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those Above</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those Below</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are best thought of as a single long novel arbitrarily split in two. The pacing might not be everybody’s cup of tea, as the first ¾ of the story slowly, methodically builds toward a conclusion that, when it comes, feels thoroughly inevitable. But the slow buildup is important; it gives meaning to the tragedy that finally unfolds.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The final chapters of this story are unremittingly grim and sad. There is a sense that this was the only way the story could possibly play out, with human nature being what it is, and with the Eternals seemingly unwilling or unable to compromise. The violent end might have come at a later date, if things had gone differently, but it would still have come eventually. It’s not pretty when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It may be tempting to find parallels between this story and the state of the world in 2019. If there is a lesson here, it is a warning of the horrific consequences if those at the pinnacle of power cannot change course or compromise with those they deem weaker.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-83045325222470146372019-10-30T10:44:00.000+08:002019-10-31T12:15:19.754+08:00Haven't updated since May, ugh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I haven’t updated this in several months! It’s a bad habit to let this blog lie fallow. I should read more and write more.</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-d16ec7c9-7fff-2906-6cbf-8d946e801d21" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, I’m going to try to update more regularly, now that I’m back from a 2 ½ week trip to Europe. What can I say? It was good to see family. Ate a lot of Western European sweets that put Taiwan to shame. We spent several days in Paris and nobody was rude to us -- it seems we missed out on a classic cultural experience. For the record, Marseille is a delightful, underrated city. And if you’re going to see immensely popular European tourist attractions, buy your tickets ahead of time whenever humanly possible.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Flying long-haul airlines is a good time to see movies. On the way to France I saw:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Toy Story 4</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I like Pixar. I’ve never disliked a Pixar movie (bear in mind I’ve never seen any of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cars</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> movies). Oddly enough, I’ve never seen the very first </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Toy Story</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a weird omission that I’ll have to rectify at some point. I’ve never really had an emotional connection to the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Toy Story </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">series, so I feel unqualified to say if it’s a good thing that they keep making movies after </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Toy Story 3</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> seemed to provide a definitive and satisfying end. But I can say that </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Toy Story 4</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is quality entertainment and is as inventive as I would expect from any Pixar film.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Rocketman</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: An enjoyable look at Elton John’s music, though to be honest if you strip away the music and costumes there’s not much here. Actually, that’s a silly thing to say. The music and the costumes are the whole reason to watch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Vice</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I was curious about the oddball casting, especially Steve Carrell as Donald Rumsfeld, which kinda works if you accept he’s creating a new character rather than impersonating a real person. Overall though, although </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vice</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has a few genuinely clever bits, it also has a lot of sarcastic snark that thinks it’s more clever than it actually is. A sober look at the Late Ante-Trump Era of the Republican Party could make for an interesting movie; whatever </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vice</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is, it is not sober.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And on the way back I watched:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Amélie</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I saw this one on the way home from Paris, feeling that I may as well watch it as it’s a well-known film, it hadn’t crossed my path before, and I’d just been in Paris. My verdict? I see what they were aiming at, but it wasn’t really to my taste. But allow me this one flight of fancy. Upon arriving in Paris I had managed to immediately lose my wallet (long story short, I’m an idiot). No one ever found it; it might as well have vanished into thin air. Watching </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amélie</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it suddenly occurred to me: Amélie is a real person, she found my wallet, and she was taking her time trying to think of the most whimsical, quirky way she could return it to me! Well, screw you, Amélie, I just wanted my wallet back.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Stan & Ollie</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Having seen a bunch of Laurel and Hardy’s films as a kid, I was suitably primed for this film about L&H’s attempts to revive their career in the 1950s. As with all films of this type, great liberties have been taken with the real-life chronology, but the main thing most viewers will remember will be the acting by Steve Coogan and John C. Reily. The two actors, especially Reilly, do a superb job channeling L&H -- it’s an astonishing oversight that neither one received an Academy Award nomination. This is a low-key, understated film produced by people with an affection for a bygone era of show business.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">As I said, now that I am back in Taiwan I shall try to post things more semi-regularly...</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-6156544281506182222019-05-01T23:25:00.000+08:002019-05-02T00:52:24.654+08:00A People's Future of the United States<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBABuD9DxfNBj-lSpIAxMvFNIHKyDQIVKM6vxbVWIgN2yrGGz69GOvx-x_-Xf5fXDYG2MbpHQbKL_qivEM_uhHd0F9qQVhMYGg0RoerY9PQmIxmzTW41LKlZP1Bh8zKq-rYz5vlqMP8OWP/s1600/pfus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBABuD9DxfNBj-lSpIAxMvFNIHKyDQIVKM6vxbVWIgN2yrGGz69GOvx-x_-Xf5fXDYG2MbpHQbKL_qivEM_uhHd0F9qQVhMYGg0RoerY9PQmIxmzTW41LKlZP1Bh8zKq-rYz5vlqMP8OWP/s400/pfus.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A People's Future of the United States</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>2019</b></span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">There’s some great writing in this SF anthology, covering a range of sub-genres ranging from fantastical allegories to realistic extrapolations from the world of today.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And as the title implies, this anthology is heavy on the politically charged stories. The degree of explicit relevance to today’s politics varies depending on the story, but it’s safe to say none of the authors mean to inspire anyone to run out and work for the reelection of the current President of the United States.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A large proportion depict a United States that has taken a hard turn towards right-wing authoritarianism. I’ll get to those in a moment.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">My favorite story in the collection is probably the first one, “The Bookstore at the End of America” by Charlie Jane Anders. This is a tale of a quirky bookstore straddling the border between an independent California and a reactionary United States of America, and its owner Molly, a memorable character doing her best the keep the peace between the two groups of customers. The worldbuilding is not black-and-white (the USA may be Gilead-lite, but some of the glimpses we get of techno-utopian California are highly unnerving in their own way) and the political barbs the bookstore’s customers exchange ring true. As an aside, I really ought to read some of Anders's novel-length output.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Other memorable stories include (among others):</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Chapter 5: Disruption & Continuity [Excerpted]” by Malka Older, an academic account of the societies that replace the disintegrating United States of the 2030s and 2040s, written with subtle but mind-bending temporal quirks.</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“By His Bootstraps” by Ashok K. Banker, in which the President of the United States (clearly meant to be the office’s current 2019 inhabitant) watches with incomprehension and dismay as government research into time travel backfires, creating a USA that has retroactively been inclusive and tolerant from the beginning of its history.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“No Algorithms in the World” by Hugh Howey, a portrait of an older conservative man who believes strongly in values of hard work and having to earn one’s living, who cannot cope with the transition to a post-scarcity economy.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“ROME” by G. Willow Wilson, in which high school students take a high-stakes exam that absolutely cannot be rescheduled despite the massive fire ravaging their city and coming awfully close to the exam center.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">As mentioned above, there are also many stories set in near-future USAs that have turned towards right-wing authoritarianism. I’m uncomfortably aware that in many of these settings, as a white cis hetero guy, I’d be allowed to live a relatively privileged life, especially if I kept certain opinions to myself.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of these reactionary futures, I think the one that left the biggest impression on me was A. Merc Rustad’s “Our Aim Is Not to Die”, about Sua, a young, non-gender-binary teenager on the autism spectrum in a future USA where such perceived non-conformity is prohibited. Sua has a state-mandated medical checkup looming in a few days and the inevitable results will cause them to lose everything they have in their modest life. Sua is such an inoffensive character, utterly terrified. The ending gives Sua a reprieve from their fate, and leaves open the possibility that Sua might rise to a traditional notion of heroism -- or might not, and let the heroism to others, and that’s okay too.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">These stories about dystopian American futures range from extrapolations based on contemporary politics, to far-out weirdness. “The Referendum” by Lesley Nneka Arimah looks at how a small group of people reacts to the government’s stripping away of rights for African-Americans, presented as a scarily plausible scenario; in “Calendar Girls” by Justina Ireland, a young purveyor of banned birth control products gets sucked into political intrigue surrounding a powerful politician who helped ban them. Meanwhile, in “Give Me Cornbread or Give Me Death” by N. K. Jemisin, oppressed communities turn the tables on their oppressors by taming the dragons that have been bred to intimidate them.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">These future authoritarianisms hit me, personally, uncomfortably. Although I am an American citizen, I’ve lived abroad for most of my adult life. For the last 12 years I’ve lived in a country that could (arguably) be called the least authoritarian in Asia.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It’s not perfect. For one thing, the free press -- possibly the freest in Asia -- tends to focus on bloody sensationalism and partisan politics; for another thing, the lax libel laws are often misused by those with money to spare to harass people they don’t like. And that’s not even getting into the scary intersection of local politics and organized crime, or the blatant racism towards certain groups of outsiders (and I don’t mean Westerners). I’m not looking at this country with rose-colored glasses.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">But for every problem mentioned above, there are local people working to make it better, and they have the freedom to do so without a tyrannical government harassing them and making their lives miserable.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And yet, it terrifies me that every knowledgeable person agrees that there is a real chance this country’s democracy could collapse within a few years. Not just degrade, but utterly collapse.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I don’t deny that, if that happens, as a non-citizen with a foreign passport I’ll have the opportunity to pick up and leave. And that does give me a degree of privilege. That doesn’t make me any less concerned about the place I have lived with my wife for twelve years, with our neighborhood, our friends, our jobs, our two cats.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And this has forced me to become more politically aware than I might have been otherwise. There is a lot to worry about, in many countries, not least the United States. The stories, characters and ideas in this collection can inspire us to go out there and work to improve things.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-52019009223925932862019-04-24T10:01:00.001+08:002019-05-05T14:43:12.888+08:00Ninefox Gambit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8_J8iHkiKa692tCgww4351KQmXpXibdj8hdshYIvem66_Qg0gOxysDw26CS3FlHA4REyNdGpvq0TqDQkmpI6kXIqKrfvUDRbJxdBKmuN4kcgVg00EtdBd-jf-2-YMFcm_bYBAOBcJrExX/s1600/nfg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8_J8iHkiKa692tCgww4351KQmXpXibdj8hdshYIvem66_Qg0gOxysDw26CS3FlHA4REyNdGpvq0TqDQkmpI6kXIqKrfvUDRbJxdBKmuN4kcgVg00EtdBd-jf-2-YMFcm_bYBAOBcJrExX/s400/nfg.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ninefox Gambit</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Yoon Ha Lee, 2016</b></span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-3075d206-7fff-bace-1000-fe102c145250" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The line between science fiction and fantasy is a hazy one. This is why we have the useful catch-all term “speculative fiction,” filled with sub-genres that fade and bleed into each other.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That said, if I see anyone in a bookstore looking at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Yoon Ha Lee, I'd have to fight the urge to say: “I know it looks like a space opera, but maybe you should think of it as high fantasy. I’m not saying it’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> space opera. Those categories don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then, a moment later: “No, not like </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Star Wars</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.”</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I feel like saying this in order to to set expectations. It’s not just that the technology used in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is well within the “indistinguishable from magic” realm; it’s also that it is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exceptionally weird and strange</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and the reader faces a steep learning curve to figure out just how things in this universe work. Judging from comments I’ve seen online, more than one reader has found this universe difficult to get into and has left </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> unfinished.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So my suggestion is to approach </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as a military novel in a very non-Tolkein high fantasy setting, with a magic system that may take a bit of mind-stretching to get one’s head around but is worth it in the end. That way, you’ll find it easier to enter the world of the Hexarchate, whose magic, er, I mean technology depends on the reality-defining effects of their calendar system. Calendar system? Yes indeed. In this world, if we all believe in the consensus calendar, it can be exploited using arcane mathematics to create reality-bending effects.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Hexarchate, as its name implies, is divided into six primary parts, each led by its own ruthless genius called the Hexarch. (It used to be the Heptarchate, but one division was stamped out centuries ago.) One of them, the Kel, provide the bulk of the Hexarchate’s troops, and one of their specialties that we see in the novel is arranging themselves in various formations that bring about reality-bending effects within the Hexarchate’s calendar system. Our protagonist, Kel Cheris, has better-than-average skills for a Kel grunt at the exotic math one needs to master this, and so she is recruited to help fight an existential threat to the Hexarchate.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A heretical calendar is being propagated by a group that wants to restore the Heptarchate, and they’ve occupied the vast and heavily defended Fortress of Scattered Needles. At this point, I’m going to turn it over to Aidan Moher, who <a href="https://www.tor.com/2016/06/15/stealing-the-future-ninefox-gambit-by-yoon-ha-lee/">in his Tor.com review explained what’s going on much better than I can</a>: “the heretics (the so-called “badguys”) are twisting this “reality engine” by breaking away from the hive-mind agreement that gives the government, the aforementioned heptarchate (which is the hexarchate by the time </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ninefox Gambit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> begins), authority over the people and high-level technology.”</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Hexarchate’s secret weapon is Shuos Jedao, legendary tactical genius who was executed centuries ago after unnecessarily killing over a million people in the course of winning a battle. Jedao is too useful to rot in the grave, so the Hexarchate keeps his spirit around for when there’s an emergency that requires his skill set. Cheris is to be his vessel.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">So now our hero Cheris has an insane undead general who has taken up residence in her shadow (and she is given alarming instructions on what to do if he starts misbehaving), and she is given command of a military force that heads for the Fortress of Scattered Needles. This is a violent and grim novel, and the exotic flavor of the weaponry does not make it any less so. It’s very bloody and a lot of characters die. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s also weirdly brilliant, and as it is the first novel in Yoon Ha Lee’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Machineries of Empire</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> trilogy, the remainder of the story is now on my reading list.</span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-60502421354910659552019-04-20T10:39:00.000+08:002019-05-05T14:47:18.936+08:00Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbebpNI2rbEAK4pIhnWoOlx_FnRQ7KelCs1YA57Bs8hE3O9oRFFJ-0a0uq0r3oucK4vC96j5rI6DR-0v1ulx0ccooBzxTHhj_xzvjAKEeSwHMRYdpmvHk-T2H4X2keAHYAtRURamMZm0R/s1600/jsmn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbebpNI2rbEAK4pIhnWoOlx_FnRQ7KelCs1YA57Bs8hE3O9oRFFJ-0a0uq0r3oucK4vC96j5rI6DR-0v1ulx0ccooBzxTHhj_xzvjAKEeSwHMRYdpmvHk-T2H4X2keAHYAtRURamMZm0R/s400/jsmn.jpg" width="229" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">by Susanna Clarke, 2004</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t have much to say that is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">new</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> about this novel. It’s deservedly quite popular, and the fact that it’s been adapted for TV by the BBC (I have yet to watch) means that it has a cultural reach extending beyond those of us who read 900-page novels. It’s enjoyable, and very English (in a good way), and Susanna Clarke is the kind of writer who can make me feel unironically happy when I turn the page and see a wonderfully long explanatory footnote awaiting me. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-e434bb05-7fff-0bb2-771f-b52a7a791681" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But there’s a question that I really have to ask: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What about the rest of the world?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jonathan Strange travels to Portugal and Spain, Belgium and eventually Venice, but the only magicians we ever hear about are English ones (with the exception of a Scottish magician who is briefly discussed late in the book). The specific phrase “English magic” is used dozens of times, but we never hear “French magic” or “Venetian magic”. Magic is something English magicians and English magical beings use on each other. And no one ever remarks on the fact that all the magic in the world seems to center on Great Britain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This kind of worldbuilding blindspot grates on me, because there’s no good reason for it and it makes the world less interesting than it could otherwise have been. I realize that the novel is specifically focused on England and English magic, but some indications that magic and magicians also exist elsewhere could’ve made the world seem more vibrant and teeming with possibility, and the story could still be focused on England.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Did Napoleon make any efforts to find Continental magicians of suitable talent to counter Strange and Norrell? Do Lisbon and Venice have their own eccentric histories of magic? Are there rumors of magic being done in remote lands such as India and China? Hints in these directions wouldn’t have distracted from Clarke’s story of England, but the world would have seemed richer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And if all magic in the world does revolve around England (and Scotland), shouldn’t this be seen as noteworthy? Shouldn’t somebody mention that Great Britain is the most magical land in the world? But no, no one ever explicitly says this.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This just seems like bad worldbuilding. It doesn’t spoil the novel for me, but it gives me something to be mildly annoyed about.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-45711962379052743622019-04-16T14:42:00.002+08:002019-05-01T12:40:07.234+08:00Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkd2WcyziJIyQlXVXugjarxAAhjk_FtrXSGo0nSufCmywuoOPFfwXbXwFYQyrL5ejFoPPZm3Gj4gvabjOVib5BwLA7qP1JhKj3bMb0i3DN0WqER3zCUhk65BeCwPpXMxouvCWUKvLpXC-J/s1600/wlh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkd2WcyziJIyQlXVXugjarxAAhjk_FtrXSGo0nSufCmywuoOPFfwXbXwFYQyrL5ejFoPPZm3Gj4gvabjOVib5BwLA7qP1JhKj3bMb0i3DN0WqER3zCUhk65BeCwPpXMxouvCWUKvLpXC-J/s400/wlh.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone)</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">by Sam Wineburg, 2018</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m a history geek. I like learning about history for its own sake. But I don't expect everyone to share my geekery and there’s always going to be some student asking their teacher “When am I ever going to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">use</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> this stuff in real life?” So let’s start with the title of the book. “Why should I learn history? I can look it up on my phone!” Does Wineburg provide a snappy, meme-worthy response?</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c6630af6-7fff-e341-2f0e-2e2384e667a0" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Well, no, he doesn’t, and that’s fine. Instead, he gives us a book. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I first heard of Wineburg last September, when I came across <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/09/howard-zinn-in-history-class-teachers-and-a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states.html">his critique of Howard Zinn’s </a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/09/howard-zinn-in-history-class-teachers-and-a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states.html">A People’s History of the United States</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Wineburg is careful to note that he is not critiquing Zinn’s political stance. Rather, Wineburg’s point is that Zinn’s book should not occupy the central place it has in many American history curricula, because it is a polemic that doesn’t invite the reader to weigh historical evidence or really consider any interpretation besides Zinn’s own. That, Wineburg says, is not how to train students to think historically.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, I’m not going to weigh in here on whether this is a fair critique. I read Zinn’s book more than a decade ago, and I don’t want to evaluate what Wineburg wrote based on my spotty memory. But I liked the way Wineburg wrote about historical thinking enough that his book </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone)</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> went straight on my Christmas list. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I read the book in under two days. It’s smart, and engagingly written, although I'm not fit to comment on large swathes of it, specifically the parts dealing with American education. My own high school experience ended long before the advent of today’s classroom guidelines that Wineburg critiques. Come to think of it, I don't think I've even set foot in an American public school in well over a decade. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Despite my lack of familiarity with the current state of American education, I enjoyed this book because I'm convinced that history is worth studying. I might be an American by citizenship but I live abroad, in a country with a very peculiar history that one really must understand in order to grasp the local culture or politics in any substantial way. (But maybe every country is like that?) And, not just here but everywhere, so many of the political appeals we hear are grounded in a particular interpretation of history. One </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can’t </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">properly</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">evaluate an a Facebook political meme referencing something Franklin Roosevelt did in 1933 without thinking like a historian.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Why learn history when it’s already on your phone? So you can know how much credence to give to political memes that reference history, for one thing. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What do we mean by thinking like a historian? Wineburg gives one example where high school students were given <a href="https://www.whatsoproudlywehail.org/curriculum/the-american-calendar/proclamation-on-the-400th-anniversary-of-the-discovery-of-america-by-columbus">President Harrison’s 1892 proclamation declaring Columbus Day a national holiday</a>. Asked to analyze the document historically, students did a fine job seizing on, for example, the fact that Harrison’s proclamation made much of Divine Providence and “the devout faith of the discoverer”, which certainly contrasts with the fact that by our standards Columbus’s actions were hardly those of a good Christian. This fulfilled school guidelines that the students engage with the material critically. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But as Wineburg explains, this isn’t historical thinking. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;">A historian would focus more on the document’s cultural and political milieu, and Harrison’s motivations in proclaiming this national holiday in 1892, which most likely involved pressure by Catholic immigrant groups who were interested in seeing this symbolic bit of Catholic cultural heritage integrated into the fabric of American life. More specifically, 1892 was an election year and Harrison must have hoped Columbus Day would please Catholic voters, particularly the important Italian vote.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In the next chapter, Wineburg considers <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0091">George Washington’s 1789 proclamation establishing a national day of Thanksgiving</a>. He showed it to a range of historians and non-historians, and the non-historians all thought the tone of the proclamation was strikingly religious. Depending on their own views on religion in public life, this met with varying degrees of approval, but all of them interpreted Washington's words through 21st-century lenses. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But the historians -- and only the historians -- recognized that Washington’s contemporaries would have had a very different reaction. At first glance, we moderns seize on the document’s religious tone, but note that Jesus Christ is nowhere to be found. There’s nothing specifically Christian here. Historians contextualize Washington’s proclamation as a Deist document, giving thanks to a remote Creator while avoiding sectarian language, and it is peppered with references to science and technology that mark it as a product of the Enlightenment.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Why learn history when it’s already on your phone? So we can better understand what people in the past were thinking. That’s awfully important when the past is constantly being invoked in order to justify modern-day views.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And Wineburg takes aim at the way schools are teaching this stuff, notably the idea, inspired by Bloom’s taxonomy, that children have to first be fed a large amount of factual information, then learn to think critically about it. Wineburg says this approach “distorts why we study history in the first place”, as it “implies the world of ideas is fully known and that critical thinking means gathering accepted facts in order to render judgement” (p.92). Later on, he criticizes the notion, apparently common in American history classrooms nowadays, that students should be taught to engage in “close reading” of historical texts, while the context these texts emerged from is downplayed (p. 99-100). This notion leads to people sizing up George Washington’s thanksgiving proclamation ahistorically, and reading its religious content in a very different way then was originally intended.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Wineburg gives us glimpses of history classes, taught to pre-teens and teens, that do encourage historical thinking related to topics such as Jamestown and the story of Pocahontas, and Rosa Parks’ act of civil disobedience. My own classroom teaching at the moment does not include much history, but it’s not impossible I’ll find myself teaching history at some future point, and Wineburg’s descriptions of of teaching methodology -- and references to the useful work he and his colleagues have done at the <a href="https://sheg.stanford.edu/">Stanford History Education Group</a> -- are something I shall keep around for future use.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, Wineburg brings up the ability to critically evaluate online sources of information, a skill that’s important to more than just history. Wineburg has written about this topic at length -- most recently, <a href="https://psmag.com/ideas/how-we-can-teach-gen-z-a-better-kind-of-media-literacy">he’s written in </a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://psmag.com/ideas/how-we-can-teach-gen-z-a-better-kind-of-media-literacy">The Pacific Standard</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://psmag.com/ideas/how-we-can-teach-gen-z-a-better-kind-of-media-literacy"> on the importance of media literacy</a>, and how we should be teaching young people to approach the Web in the same way as professional fact checkers.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In the book, Wineburg takes, as an example, the websites of the <a href="https://www.aap.org/en-us/Pages/Default.aspx">American Academy of Pediatrics</a> and the <a href="https://www.acpeds.org/">American College of Pediatricians</a>. Both organizations have professional-looking websites. Both publish very similar-looking content. But they are very different. The former is “the world’s largest professional organization of pediatricians”. The latter is “a splinter group that broke away from the main group in 2002 over the issue of adoption by same-sex couples”. The former has a paid staff of 450 and “offers continuing education on everything from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) to the importance of wearing bicycle helmets during adolescence”. The latter has one full-time employee, offers no continuing education, and has “come under withering criticism for its virulently anti-gay stance” (p. 146). </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yet they both maintain very professional-looking websites, and to a student doing online research, they both appear to be established, reputable organizations. A professional fact-checker can quickly suss out the differences between the two; a high school student might not have been taught to. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">A high school student might be taught not to trust Wikipedia as a source of information, but this is far too simplistic; a professional fact checker will look up both of these organizations on Wikipedia, and focus on the references section and the “Talk” page, sometimes barely even skimming the main body of the article. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(To Google's credit, when I searched for both organizations, it brought the true nature of the American College of Pediatricians prominently to my attention. But, of course, we can't trust Google to consistently do this.) </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Needless to say, on any politically contentious issue, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> runs a website is particularly important information if you want to know whether to trust it, and many websites do not make that information particularly clear. To properly judge these sites, a well-trained student will look up the organization purportedly behind it, probably opening up several new browser tabs in order to compare different takes. And yet, apparently many high school students are still taught to look for spelling mistakes, banner ads, and the like as “telltale signs of digital dubiousness”, based on an article, amazingly, from 1998 (p. 156). This is utterly disconnected from the reality of the contemporary Web, where untrustworthy sources of information are just as slickly produced as any.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now to end my post with my own bit of ill-organized ranting. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In our current media landscape, we’ve got people getting airtime on cable news and creating social media memes saying things like: “The Nazis were actually National </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Socialists</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, you know” or “Did you know the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Democrats</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> used to be the party of slavery and then segregation?”. These people clearly do not have an audience of history buffs in mind -- their whole schtick assumes we’re </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> history buffs. (If you're feeling irritated that in this paragraph I'm picking stuff that American right-wingers tend to say, rest assured I have no doubt you can think of examples of liberals and leftists doing the same thing. I'm not trying to play a silly game of Liberals v Conservatives here.)</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Incidentally, in my high school American history class (which wasn’t even AP or Honors history), our textbook went into great detail about how the platforms of the major parties have changed and evolved between the mid-1800s and the present. You can imagine how ridiculous it looks to me now when some clown tells me something I regurgitated on a quiz in 10th grade and acts like it's something I didn't know because it's been deliberately suppressed. But I recognize that some people will be more susceptible to this sort of thing.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It’s not that people aren’t taught enough facts about history at school. It’s that they’re taught plenty about history, and then it all goes the way of the quadratic formula, the basics of molecular chemistry, the conjugations of French verbs, and everything else that gets memorized for a test and then is never needed again. Lost in the recesses of the brain.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is why, as Wineburg argues, teaching students to think like a historian is so important -- rather than teaching history by filling students’ brains with loads of facts, then checking knowledge via multiple-choice tests. Wineburg is right that multiple-choice tests are easy to assess by machine, but I suspect there might be another factor at work. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Any teacher who seeks to give their students a worthwhile lesson on, say, the Emancipation Proclamation could potentially offend parents who might object to their child’s teacher “bringing politics into the classroom”. But it’s impossible to separate history from politics, and to argue otherwise is to misunderstand the nature of history, or of politics, or both. So how do you teach kids about history without leaving yourself open to charges of bringing politics into the classroom? Well, you teach a bunch of facts that no one can reasonably dispute and then you give a multiple choice quiz:</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in: a. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">1861, b. 1862, c. 1863, d. 1864</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">See, no one’s going to be offended by the political slant of THAT question! I genuinely suspect this is a factor behind a lot of boring history teaching.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">How do you <i>really </i>teach kids about history without leaving yourself open to charges of bringing politics into the classroom? I think the answer is: you can't. And how to deal with that reality is a whole different discussion.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-16145198846574157292019-03-29T14:09:00.001+08:002019-05-01T12:39:39.190+08:00State Tectonics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrT07kSbb1ZoUGFySXVIPGTmgQ6DpaZrG8P0AFzJX0UjGmlyBskU_OIguqBrKD3TiRLcAfdShphjxtJHTzVK5F6kTIUpJT0hT3Ti8QyyX6R3N8_dVZkdM64jkW2Qy4Ssom76L0MIK7gMrg/s1600/st.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrT07kSbb1ZoUGFySXVIPGTmgQ6DpaZrG8P0AFzJX0UjGmlyBskU_OIguqBrKD3TiRLcAfdShphjxtJHTzVK5F6kTIUpJT0hT3Ti8QyyX6R3N8_dVZkdM64jkW2Qy4Ssom76L0MIK7gMrg/s400/st.png" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>State Tectonics</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>by Malka Older, 2018</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A little after the halfway point of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">State Tectonics</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> comes a scene that has stuck in my mind precisely because it is not far-fetched.</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-76cfe098-7fff-dcac-8768-996503ff220a" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">We see a recording of a middle-aged father and politician, Gerardo. He’s having an argument with his teenage daughter. His daughter sullenly accuses him of not listening to who she really is, of just wanting her to be an accessory to his photogenic political family, reserved, quiet, and pretty. Frustrated, Gerardo says he never told her to be pretty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">However, his daughter is a digital native of the late 21st century and knows exactly how to conjure up a damning video that she triumphantly plays for him on the spot, proving that he has done exactly that: telling her to be pretty. All her father can do is grumble: “When I was a kid, we didn’t have a perfect record of everything our parents had ever said to throw in their faces whenever we felt like it!”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It gets worse. Because this family quarrel happened in a public space, it was recorded and is publicly available, and because Gerardo is running in a major election, some activist has found it and boosted its profile. Now it is going viral. The teenage daughter is mortified and has holed up inside her home. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Gerardo and his kid aren't major characters in the story, but our main protagonist, the analyst, intelligence operative, and diplomat Mishima, watches this recording and is horrified. She has been recruited to run for office, largely against her better judgement. She has a young child. She doesn’t want this for her family.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">What politician would want to run for office if every public spat or embarrassing moment they’ve ever had is fair game for signal boost? We’re already in a world where it’s relatively easy to dig up odd or dumb things a politician put online years ago -- heck, I can think of several examples, at varying degrees of weirdness, just since the beginning of 2019. Now combine that with remarkably complete publicly available feeds of public spaces everywhere. Who would ever want to be famous in this world?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speculative fiction writers are generally uncomfortable with the notion that they’re trying to predict the future. Ursula K. Le Guin famously denied the notion in her introduction to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Left Hand of Darkness</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In a trivial sense, that’s true of Older’s work: the centenal system makes for a great thought experiment but it’s not easy to see how we can get there from here. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet, just as Le Guin’s work gave us glimpses of alternate political and social systems that expanded our sense of the possible, Older does the same, not only with issues of governance but also the knock-on effects of her late 21st-century information technology. As I wrote in <a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/12/null-states.html">my post on </a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/12/null-states.html">Null States</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: “These people are plugged into the online world to such a degree that it borders on telepathy.” You take this level of connectivity, combine it with a surveillance-heavy world, and a whole range of possible situations opens up, not least the ease with which anybody can be publicly embarrassed if enough people are willing to care about it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">State Tectonics</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the conclusion of Older’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Centenal Cycle. <a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/08/infomocracy.html">Infomocracy</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> introduced this world of statelets of roughly 100,000 people each that democratically choose their governments in global elections, overseen by the benevolent force of Information, the independent entity that has effectively replaced Google, Facebook, and the entire news media. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Null States</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> explored this world some more and gave new depth to Information.</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">State Tectonics</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Information, with its effective monopoly on, well, information, finds itself under direct attack from shadowy forces who would like to see its monopoly broken and small-i information made more democratic. As a reader, I have found the centenal system to be fascinating, but Information as depicted to be potentially sinister at best, even as Older takes pains to show us all the well-meaning, hard-working, competent people working there. I wonder what horrors occured in the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Centenal Cycle</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> world in the past that made people ready to accept Information. (And yet is Information really objectively worse than the situation we have in real-world actual 2019? Information as Older describes it isn’t a clear dystopia -- it’s more complicated than that.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mishima, analyst, spy, diplomat and politician, is once again front and center. Meanwhile, Information techie Maryam, a supporting character in the previous books, is now a full co-protagonist. Would it be fair to say that the gender breakdown of this series slants heavily female? Well, let’s just say that if you gender-flipped each and every character, the male-to-female ratio would be just about normal for a near-future technothriller. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">s</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> how many female characters there are.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">What’s more, Older doesn’t assume her readers will put the book down and wander off if they don’t get an American protagonist to root for. Off the top of my head, I don’t think any of the major characters of any book of the trilogy speaks English natively.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having finished the</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Centenal Cycle</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I can stand by what I wrote in my </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Null States</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> post: “Its world of centenals, and global governments that compete for the right to govern them, feels like something </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">new</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, not just familiar extrapolations from current geopolitical trends.” The information technology of this world is more of a clear extrapolation from what we have now, but it is well-thought-through and very well-integrated into the novel political setting. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is good political speculative fiction, it expands my sense of what is possible, and I would like to read more like it.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-27182711422186397452019-02-28T12:32:00.001+08:002019-03-02T22:38:43.183+08:00Whit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmzJ8H91TzfTRjx4KSSZdEag-shU9B9a1dMdDw9XtUgxbcoU2EILL_XoIuJre7-ujkftD3t3ZIFMG8Gk3VgNxPJ-mqsm7njLWUVy35nxFxE6tsDw0NKNhJrmmeeBCIArvMaO_3skZCLwX/s1600/Whit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmzJ8H91TzfTRjx4KSSZdEag-shU9B9a1dMdDw9XtUgxbcoU2EILL_XoIuJre7-ujkftD3t3ZIFMG8Gk3VgNxPJ-mqsm7njLWUVy35nxFxE6tsDw0NKNhJrmmeeBCIArvMaO_3skZCLwX/s400/Whit.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Whit</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Iain Banks, 1995</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ever since I realized that I really liked Iain Banks’ writing style and ought to have read all of his books years ago, I’ve been erratically making my way through his body of work. His “Iain M. Banks” novels I’ve been (unnecessarily) trying to read in order, but his no-middle-initial novels I’ve been picking up at random as I find them at used bookstores.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Therefore, I'm drawing on a somewhat arbitrary knowledge of Banks' other work when I say </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Whit</i> is</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the first Banks novel I’ve read with an honest-to-goodness female protagonist. (I don’t count Dr. Vosill of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/09/inversions.html">Inversions</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> -- Banks never took us inside her head.) As a plucky, resourceful teenage girl, Isis Whit doesn’t exactly break new literary ground, but she’s an agreeable companion.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>Whit</i> is also the least violent Banks novel I’ve read. It's not exactly child-friendly, but I kept waiting for something over-the-top bloody and brutal to happen and it never did. It's misleading to say that this is a kinder and friendlier Banks novel given that there's more than one highly disturbing scene, but it's good to learn Banks was actually capable of writing a whole novel without spilling a great deal of fictional blood.</span></span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Whit family business is a cult, the Luskentyrians, founded in the 1940s by Isis’s grandfather, the family patriarch Salvador Whit. The Luskentyrians live fairly isolated lives at their base in rural Scotland, where they abstain from most modern technology to keep their lives uncluttered, but they’re proud of Luskentyrians who go out into the world and set a good example among the “Unsaved” (also known as the “Bland” or the “Obtuse”). </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">One such Luskentyrian is Isis’s musician cousin Morag. The Luskentyrians have high hopes for her, but now they are worried that she might be leaving the faith. So Isis, granddaughter of the cult founder and next in line to lead the church (due to her February 29 birthday), is sent on a holy mission to London to find Morag and persuade her to remain in the faith…</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But little does Isis know that she is being lied to, about many things, from many people. And over the novel’s second half, she puts the pieces together. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> doesn’t really have the stunning ending plot twist or revelation common to many Iain Banks novels, but Isis does have to deal with a cascade of new information over the book’s latter chapters, and she does a commendably good job of calmly handling it (far better than I would have at her age). </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the end, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is pleasant and engaging. I’ve never encountered an Iain No-Middle-Initial Banks novel that failed to be pleasant and engaging. It's got a fair number of signature Banks authorial touches: the set piece where Isis accidentally discovers her cousin Morag's true vocation through a contrived, improbable coincidence is pulled off with narrative flourish, for example, so I shrugged and said "You get away with it this time, Banks!"</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many of the Luskentyrians’ beliefs and practices are presented as rather silly, and the cult itself turns out to be riddled with lies, but there’s still a sympathetic depiction of the sense of community that the Luskentyrians have built, and a sense in the final pages that the community can reform and improve itself if bad behavior is called out and deceptions at the heart of the community are exposed. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and all that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is all well and good, but part of me suspects that if we somehow got a peek at this fictional community 20 years later, we’d find that the new generation of leadership has become just as bad, and plucky teenage Isis has grown into cynical manipulative adult Isis. Maybe I'm too cynical for this story.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-20647441308209651492019-02-22T10:41:00.004+08:002019-03-12T10:26:51.733+08:00Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEHQZNylb0BshxMf-ZTrYYJPDssNBDL7SfoC_bNHQ4EOzzZJRVVoJuevbwXTdSF-MdEuk1QojjflZipL6wxXOZP5LO4U_urAIpnQcMVL93-3jAQ3yTUtid52JVeTtfc_ny6Rp2ZmvEjID8/s1600/TMoaE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEHQZNylb0BshxMf-ZTrYYJPDssNBDL7SfoC_bNHQ4EOzzZJRVVoJuevbwXTdSF-MdEuk1QojjflZipL6wxXOZP5LO4U_urAIpnQcMVL93-3jAQ3yTUtid52JVeTtfc_ny6Rp2ZmvEjID8/s400/TMoaE.jpg" width="256" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">by China <span style="font-family: sans-serif; white-space: normal;">Miéville</span>, 2015</span></b></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-6c024862-7fff-7e9d-eea3-3a926b5e3ecd" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Perhaps </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">understanding</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s overrated,” says William, a medical student assigned to study a cadaver whose bones, as he discovered, are inexplicably decorated with carvings. “Some of us are observers by nature, not philosophers.” He’ll never know where the designs came from, so he is content to work secretly in a rented room where he keeps the cadaver he stole, carefully stripping the man’s flesh from the bones.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The attitude, held by William in the story “The Design”, is also held by many other inhabitants of the stories that China <span style="font-family: sans-serif; white-space: normal;">Miéville</span> wrote and collected in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three Moments of an Explosion</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In “Polynia”, icebergs appear floating in the air above central London; in “Covehithe”, sunken oil rigs have come to life, laying their eggs on the coast like they've always been members of Earth’s ecosystem. This is not to say <span style="font-family: sans-serif; white-space: normal;">Miéville</span> is writing solely ecological metaphors: more mind-bendingly strange than either of these is the behavior of the corpses described in “The Condition of New Death”, which have taken to behaving like dead bodies in video games.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">By the time we catch up with them, the inhabitants of these stories are no longer asking about the whys and hows. The uncanny new situation is a fait accompli; the question is, what are we going to do now? How will we react and evolve now that consensus reality has become something that used to be unthinkable? </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Not every story quite fits this pattern; a very few don’t use speculative-fiction tropes at all. “Dreaded Outcome”, about a therapist whose methods make use of her skills as a trained assassin, could make a good TV or film adaptation, though the dark humor would have to be calibrated exactly right. </span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are the first <span style="font-family: sans-serif; white-space: normal;">Miéville</span> short stories that I’ve read. I’ve enjoyed four of his novels in the past, and in these stories <span style="font-family: sans-serif; white-space: normal;">Miéville</span> has struck me as a writer who prioritizes setting and situation over characters (not that he </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can’t</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> write characters; he just doesn’t seem to prioritize it), and this suits the short story form perfectly.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three of the shorter stories are actually blow-by-blow descriptions of movie trailers for imaginary movies. As a storytelling device, this impresses me a lot (</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why didn’t I think of that!</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">): <span style="font-family: sans-serif; white-space: normal;">Miéville</span> is utilizing the well-known tropes of the movie trailer (“In a world where…”) to convey the outline of a story that he’ll never tell in detail. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">There were a few stories that left me cold, generally because I felt I didn’t “get it”. For instance, “The Dusty Hat” will be better appreciated by someone with experience as a political activist. (I find politics fascinating, but if I were involved myself the frustration would drive me batty.) But that is a matter of personal taste more than anything. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-5dc314b4-7fff-ca75-c7d9-6b607c1527e1"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">In this post, I’ve used adjectives like “uncanny” and “mind-bendingly strange”; of course, what most people do with his fiction is call it “Weird”, often with a capital W because the weirdness defines a whole sub-genre. (His Wikipedia bio does this in the second sentence.) <span style="font-family: sans-serif; white-space: normal;">Miéville's</span> situation-creating skills are second to none, and I ought to read more of his fiction. It’s been six years since I read </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Embassytown</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> -- what should I pick up next? </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">x</span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-6066961723333275452019-01-12T11:50:00.001+08:002019-01-27T12:11:34.621+08:00Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Before I read the book, I wrote this:</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-7fc853f5-7fff-b34f-54e7-80504fae46f5" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I like living in an industrial civilization. I like living indoors and not having to gather, harvest, or hunt my own food. I like having electronic devices and the Internet. I like the fact that air travel to almost anywhere in the world is at least moderately affordable. I like all these things, and I would like them to continue indefinitely into the future. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is why we need to minimize the effects of climate change on human civilization and make every effort to keep our planet’s ecosystems vibrant and healthy, and we </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">must</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> allow every human to have a meaningful stake in our civilization, and not have a permanent underclass of exploited workers anywhere in the world. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hope environmental calamity, together with social inequality and instability, doesn’t ruin everything I selfishly want! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now, is this relevant to the book I just read?</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwyQQUJdPwV-w6tmvHHiSD8b1Lo_ycP2sT1fa9S_El5oaAPoyRa61E68KkHpZs3Q5kjNBbo0rnkcjGt1oRi4QoQfVcgQbBV89i4rzhkMvAhoQPX-HcnSkalUlR9ySk16EqTQeZYdiFzdyt/s1600/AusterityEcology.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwyQQUJdPwV-w6tmvHHiSD8b1Lo_ycP2sT1fa9S_El5oaAPoyRa61E68KkHpZs3Q5kjNBbo0rnkcjGt1oRi4QoQfVcgQbBV89i4rzhkMvAhoQPX-HcnSkalUlR9ySk16EqTQeZYdiFzdyt/s400/AusterityEcology.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Leigh Phillips, 2015</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">As it turns out, yes, Leigh Phillips’ book is relevant to what I wrote above. Through occasionally angry, often colorful prose, Phillips tears into environmental rhetoric and solutions that he calls “a series of romantic proposals from the green left that at best to very little to deal with the issue and at worst are counterproductive -- climate change is too grave a crisis to leave it to the greens” (p. 5).</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Phillips is a left-wing socialist who likes living in an industrial civilization, does not want climate change to undo all of the progress humanity has made, and thus is deeply frustrated with the current state of lefty rhetoric when it comes to environmentalism and technology. He criticizes many (not all!) modern-day leftists for embracing an anti-technology and anti-growth ideology, which he sees as actively harmful to the pro-human-being values that left-wing politics ought to hold paramount. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Collapse porn” is how Phillips characterizes material catering to the idea that we’d be better off if industrial civilization just fell apart and we all went back to living on the land. Granted, people have been grumbling down this road ever since the first stirrings of industrialization, but Phillips is concerned that this way of thinking is becoming way too prevalent today, when in fact we </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">need</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> technology and economic development to avert (or deal with) the most catastrophic effects of climate change. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’m personally unfamiliar with the books and ideology that he characterizes as “collapse porn”, so I was forced to take his evaluation largely on trust, but the rhetorical points he makes against this way of thinking are striking. Economic “degrowth”, he writes, cannot be differentiated from the economic austerity that leftists correctly despise -- they are the same thing. In response to Naomi Klein (a frequent target of his throughout the book), he says her “degrowth arguments stand opposed to the interests of working people, and are a barrier to labour’s advance” (p. 28). Comparing the proposals of various “collapse porn” fans, he asks if we need to scale ourselves back to the 1970s? The seventeenth century? The stone age? The answer “appears more to be based on aesthetic affinity rather than any evidence of resource equilibrium” (p. 21). And towards the end of the book, he reminds us that anti-modern rhetoric can also be a tool of right-wing authoritarian governments.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He also attacks what he sees as the left’s fetishization of the local and the small-scale. When it comes to food supply, localism is often </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> damaging to the environment, not less. For one thing, it results in less efficient use of land than more intensive agriculture; for another, the production of food has a much larger energy appetite than the transportation of it, so localism has limited benefits. His conclusion is that “localism is ultimately presenting the instant gratification and easy option of ethical consumerism as a solution rather than the hard, years-long slog of society-wide organization for structural change” (p. 128).</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Phillips criticizes the common claim that we humans have overshot the Earth’s carrying capacity, as it’s not the vague group “humans” who are to blame -- by doing so, you ignore class differences. Phrases such as “per capita consumption” contain absolutely no useful information and obscure the differences between rich and poor. This rhetoric can inadvertently hide the true causes of environmental damage. For instance, he opines that it’s misleading to characterize the 2010 BP oil spill as the result of an exploding human population’s insatiable demand for oil; rather, it was the result of irresponsible decisions made in BP executive offices, and blame should be assigned accordingly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Calling the left’s obsession with collapse “a politics of despair” (p. 131), he feels we are at risk of succumbing to the sense that building a better future just won’t work. (This echoes very similar sentiments in Rutger Bregman’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Utopia for Realists</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.) If we celebrate the collapse of industrial civilization, it’s because we can’t imagine any realistic alternative. We’re still submitting to the dominant paradigm.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Phillips argues that some level of alteration of Earth’s environment is inevitable -- we simply cannot go back to some imagined state of nature without bringing widespread misery and death to literally billions of people. So we must develop technological solutions to minimize the effects of climate change and provide the people of Earth with the means to live meaningful lives. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">He is unabashedly pro-technology, and slams left-wing activists who reflexively shun nuclear power and GMOs. He points out that it’s long been a common position on the left that “technologies used in the context of colonialism and exploitation in another political and economic context could be liberatory” (p. 156), and says the left must embrace scientific and technological innovation again. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I find it difficult to evaluate Phillips’ economic arguments, as I don’t have the requisite knowledge. He argues for a democratically planned economy, without going into the details of exactly what that would look like. I get the feeling that he’d say it’s on me to educate myself -- which is fair enough. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">As for his environmental stance: “to put it bluntly, the goal can only be to maximize human flourishing”. Environmentalism shouldn’t be about saving the Earth (whatever that means), it should be about saving ourselves. If you were to dip into this book at random, you might come away with the mistaken impression that Phillips thinks we shouldn’t worry so much about the environment -- but this would be a terrible misunderstanding. His stance reminds me of the following cartoon:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjdjyIs2LhwRXhCLvr2emfkXQB8kIuZccYxfN_q8FkjIr-C2DglqnubRZ9AyyG7oxz0aolDqkxvkC5OKEYF050xYg24E3vVg9sRuc6EOsXdcD3qOWc08oXciTQr4P_AURJxoNLxmqwVMhD/s1600/Gaia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjdjyIs2LhwRXhCLvr2emfkXQB8kIuZccYxfN_q8FkjIr-C2DglqnubRZ9AyyG7oxz0aolDqkxvkC5OKEYF050xYg24E3vVg9sRuc6EOsXdcD3qOWc08oXciTQr4P_AURJxoNLxmqwVMhD/s400/Gaia.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>From <a href="http://humoncomics.com/">Humon Comics</a></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Click on the comic to read the fine print.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">It also reminded me of Charles C. Mann's recent book <i>The Wizard and the Prophet</i> -- well OK, I haven't read the book yet, but <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_c_mann_how_will_we_survive_when_the_population_hits_10_billion">here's Mann's 12-minute TED talk</a>, which is basically a trailer for the book.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">To tell the truth, there are several areas, from economics to science, where I feel my lack of knowledge very keenly and I don't feel qualified to comment on Phillips' ideas. But I can definitely reiterate what I said in the beginning, that I like industrial civilization and I want it to continue. What I don't want, in the words of cartoon Gaia above, is for humans to fuck themselves over big-time.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-3501697983776932142018-12-16T13:04:00.001+08:002018-12-16T21:18:38.550+08:00Null States<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Null States</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Malka Older, 2017</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Book two of Malka Older’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Centenal Cycle</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It’s the second half of the 21st century, and most people live in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>centenals</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: political units of 100,000 people each, who democratically elect their chosen government every 10 years from a panoply of choices.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Centenal Cycle</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has gotten under my skin -- in a good way -- more than most fiction works I’ve been reading lately. Its world of centenals, and global governments that compete for the right to govern them, feels like something </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">new</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, not just familiar extrapolations from current geopolitical trends. It’s like a very well-done thought experiment, but Older’s succeeded in populating the world with well-written characters that fully inhabit it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(By the way, I have not yet opened book three, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">State Tectonics</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and so every bit of this post is written in perfect ignorance of what happens in it.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two years after the events of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Infomocracy, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we begin in Darfur, where emissaries of the planetwide network known as Information have arrived to meet with a local governor, but find themselves witnessing an assassination instead. Our main protagonist is Roz, an Information agent who’d been a prominent secondary character in the first book. The investigation into the murder involves untangling the political situation in Darfur: who wanted the governor dead?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanwhile, two of the stars of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Infomocracy</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are crisscrossing Eurasia. Mishima used to be a full-time Information employee, but now she’s doing freelance analysis work based out of Saigon. Ken was a Policy1st operative, but he’s left his old organization now that it’s the global Supermajority -- the most powerful government worldwide. Now they’re both hopping round the hemisphere, with only time for an occasional romantic rendezvous, dealing with the residual scandals of the old Supermajority government Heritage and the ramifications of an expanding war in central Asia.</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, everything is connected, and Mishima and Ken find themselves drawn into the expanding Darfur investigation. Something low-key that I like about this series is that our main protagonists are primarily </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">analysts</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. There’s some old-fashioned violence, and a couple of action scenes, but Older is very clear that our heroes spend a huge amount of their time bent over screens, and they are all very competent at their jobs, and while we never get too deep into the number-crunching aspect of what they do, the narrative never loses sight of it either.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few months ago <a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/08/infomocracy.html">I read and wrote about </a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/08/infomocracy.html">Infomocracy</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and I am embarrassed to re-read that post now, as what I didn’t think worth mentioning then is exactly what becomes important in the subsequent book. “Imagine there’s no countries,” I said in my flippant way, but I shouldn’t have, as the world of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Centenal Cycle</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> still has some traditional countries. Saudi Arabia’s one, as we learn in the first book. We see in the second book that Switzerland’s another. And there’s still a rump Chinese state, with its capital at Xi’an. And there are still nation-states in Central Asia -- Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have gotten into a shooting war that threatens to spiral out of control and drag surrounding centenals in.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">null states</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of the title. At least, that’s how Information sometimes refers to them, a bit snarkily. In my review of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Infomocracy</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I called Information “an independent entity that has apparently replaced the news media”. That’s not wrong, but it’s also much more than that. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The people of this world are so connected that we humans of the 2010s look ridiculous by comparison, with our clumsy, clunky “smartphones” and other “gadgets”. These people are plugged into the online world to such a degree that it borders on telepathy, as they wear miniaturized computers 24/7 that they can control with eyeball movements and they tap out messages with their fingers onto virtual keyboards. AI has become good enough to understand real-time speech with all the nuance, and honest-to-goodness universal translators that actually work well are now standard.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And they are constantly plugged into Information. Reading something -- anything -- in the “real” world? If you like, Information will helpfully annotate it with explainers, context, and fact-checking. Need video of something that happened in a public place? Fortunately, we’re all under constant Information surveillance. This is why the surviving old-timey states are nicknamed </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">null states</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> -- Information doesn’t have its usual level of sophisticated data on them.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is likely to sound horribly dystopian to many of us, but we readers aren’t being pushed to see it as such. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Older never insists that this world should be seen as a dystopia. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of the viewpoint characters are so accustomed to Information and this hyper-connectivity that they see it as the natural order of things, and so we readers will find ourselves doing so as well. </span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Within the narrative there are “outsider” characters who resist Information’s panopticon world, vindicating those readers who see it as nightmarish. For instance, there’s one very small government in this world that has ideological objections to Information surveillance, and one of its citizens is a minor character who gives her land’s point of view a voice. I can think of many ways the Centenal system is better than what we’ve got right now, and many arguments why Information as presented here is a positive thing. And yet, the downsides are real, not least the potential for malfeasance. Bad people can exploit this system in so many new and ingenious ways.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I noted in my review of the first book, Older never delves into how we got from our world to the Centenal system, and I think it's wise of her to present this world to us readers as a fait accompli. If I were to speculate, I suspect some elites might be receptive to such a radical re-organization of political power as long as they’d continue to be the elites under the new system, but they’d have to be spooked into doing so under threat of chaos and violence and annihilation. Older does make a brief fleeting reference to large-scale wars that took place in the final years of the pre-Centenal system -- and so I wonder if there are bustling cities in our universe that our globe-trotting heroes in the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Centenal Cycle</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> never visit because they are now radioactive rubble.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I read </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Null States</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> shortly before the local elections here in Taiwan, and so I naturally pondered what sort of government I’d be living under in this universe. I imagine there’d be some sort of patriotic Formosa government, but as I live in a politically very “blue” area of Taipei, they probably wouldn’t win my centenal. There’s a good chance my area would go for the global technocrats of Policy1st, but I could also see the center-right Heritage government doing very well here, at least before they sank under scandals at the end of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Infomocracy</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (The Heritage-built Tokyo-Taipei tunnel in that book implies they had a presence here.) Or the commercially-oriented Chinese-dominated government called 888 would also be a strong possibility. They wouldn’t be my first choice, but I would deal with it. On the other hand, if my centenal elected 1China, I would be very unhappy. Actually, I’m very curious how cross-strait relations have evolved in this universe.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-31503624221429562942018-12-01T10:28:00.000+08:002018-12-01T10:28:17.517+08:00Oryx and Crake<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMhSOHTc8CZAXwyh3bnaiO8_6q6GzOcq8CbEZKnc_-XfwhGuk8xGFLhrsyWY6HELxLI0cngOjcVCZlOgnen8xb_pkUKWe5xu6tJng97V7BBsLj_AYE3rXdWQQwMTZovUy8_y6CpBoJ4ms_/s1600/oryxcrake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMhSOHTc8CZAXwyh3bnaiO8_6q6GzOcq8CbEZKnc_-XfwhGuk8xGFLhrsyWY6HELxLI0cngOjcVCZlOgnen8xb_pkUKWe5xu6tJng97V7BBsLj_AYE3rXdWQQwMTZovUy8_y6CpBoJ4ms_/s400/oryxcrake.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oryx and Crake</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Margaret Atwood, 2003</b></span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-37c45eb6-7fff-638a-b1a2-848380f20d40" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Grim end-of-civilization fiction.</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Our protagonist Jimmy grows up in a world, a few decades hence, where the super-rich live and work in vast corporate-owned gated communities and everyone else lives in the world outside. Jimmy’s dad has a sweet corporate job working in the lucrative and rapidly developing field of genetically modified organisms, and Jimmy’s childhood friend Crake turns out to be a budding genius in this field.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">But we know from the start that everything’s doomed. Chapters that describe Jimmy’s childhood alternate with chapters about Jimmy’s later life. Civilization has collapsed and nearly all humans are dead. Jimmy lives near a settlement of people called Crakers, genetically modified humanoids who live an Edenic existence, pure and innocent and ignorant of all trappings of civilization. They call Jimmy “Snowman”. Crakers are the creation of Jimmy/Snowman’s old buddy Crake.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oryx and Crake</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> describes how we get from point A (Jimmy and Crake’s childhood) to point B (planetwide apocalypse).</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is Margaret Atwood at her most science fictiony. I know Atwood pushes back against calling her books ‘science fiction’. Frankly, I see that as a cynical attempt to not get pigeonholed into what she sees as a literary ghetto, and since I’m not her literary agent I can call her book what it obviously is all I want. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">In this sci-fi world (oooh, I’m calling it not just ‘science fiction’ but ‘sci-fi’), humans are reshaping the animal and plant kingdoms: “chicken” meat that grows on tree-like organisms; porcine creatures called “pigoons” with human-like physiology, perfect for growing transplantable organs. This tampering with nature, as we can surmise early on, eventually helps lead to the collapse of human civilization. </span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m sure some see this as a grim warning of the dangers of genetically modified organisms, while others see it hysterical anti-GMO alarmism. Personally, I don’t think the biotech of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oryx and Crake</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> necessarily needs to be interpreted in either of these ways. Atwood is clearly fascinated by this technology, and she’s engaging in the time-honored science-fictional tradition of extrapolation. People who choose to read it as a big unsubtle moralistic message about GMOs are, of course, free to take it in whatever way they want; I choose to read it differently.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I haven’t mentioned the enigmatic Oryx (half the title!), because she’s weird and I’m still not sure how to think about her character. Keeping this spoiler-free, I can say that it’s hard for me to get into her head, and if </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oryx and Crake</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> were written by a generic male author rather than by the great Margaret Atwood, he’d be mocked over how he wrote the novel’s most prominent female character.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But my wife has advised me that Atwood is playing a long game here, and I should read the remainder of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MadAddam</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> trilogy before rushing to judgement on Oryx. OK, that’s fair.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oryx and Crake</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a self-contained story, but it ends on something of a cliffhanger, and I’m genuinely interested in what happens next. We have the second book in the trilogy on our bookshelves -- I’m interested to see how </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Year of the Flood</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> expands on this universe.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-45357580183140623312018-11-06T11:48:00.002+08:002020-09-04T13:31:53.420+08:00Taiwan, China. Taiwan, Province of China.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-J5zjTao9yNUR9-Lvcj-bqmD6YVbJB5hiXy5DDxzYIMCqXZiwpS33AkZwclQGJj09l3B1QAG07x4rqxcYJDxZicextxHMNV37DbvVlrXH8dPSH3G46Uw1Ld6HJr_0dXmkorEBQNqS3oK/s1600/AirCanada.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-J5zjTao9yNUR9-Lvcj-bqmD6YVbJB5hiXy5DDxzYIMCqXZiwpS33AkZwclQGJj09l3B1QAG07x4rqxcYJDxZicextxHMNV37DbvVlrXH8dPSH3G46Uw1Ld6HJr_0dXmkorEBQNqS3oK/s400/AirCanada.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is Air Canada.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9v2BWWNfykBGrW2NAW8nasMsgpuLTI3iPaKZrau0BnhMTN9Zc8r8gWYoUCkOvXgexqCydoxIbWL1lzVS14FOa0J5eYut_s37Nm_ayhX_EIC1YlGnyClegstpkacaxbT82dkeb2fN7yDx6/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-10-14+at+12.28.58+PM-1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9v2BWWNfykBGrW2NAW8nasMsgpuLTI3iPaKZrau0BnhMTN9Zc8r8gWYoUCkOvXgexqCydoxIbWL1lzVS14FOa0J5eYut_s37Nm_ayhX_EIC1YlGnyClegstpkacaxbT82dkeb2fN7yDx6/s400/Screen+Shot+2018-10-14+at+12.28.58+PM-1.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">This is the website of the IELTS exam.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzAYj5i0C7GMt10TAj8nVZBxjwCwf1y3xYIpD-XLajbWaa6ss8GysNrrdZZRcxlGcdM65bDoqb-79wtJIMUhEA2EiRIMB8rMlg2BwUzKc_gGrPe0IbizOphJ_RrTxy_lgTzIK7BHLwtj-2/s1600/MaineMenu.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzAYj5i0C7GMt10TAj8nVZBxjwCwf1y3xYIpD-XLajbWaa6ss8GysNrrdZZRcxlGcdM65bDoqb-79wtJIMUhEA2EiRIMB8rMlg2BwUzKc_gGrPe0IbizOphJ_RrTxy_lgTzIK7BHLwtj-2/s400/MaineMenu.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine how you would feel if, every time you had to fill out an online form, you had to cross your fingers because you knew your country’s name might be twisted in a insulting way.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are some people who will say “It’s technically correct”. Well, I am something of a persnickety pedant myself. And I wrote this post to express exactly what I think of claims that it’s “technically correct”. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's fine to not be an expert in East Asian geopolitics. No one is an expert in everything. So here is a brief explanation of why we are so angry about this.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Q: Isn’t “Taiwan, China” technically correct?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A: You’re thinking of the “Republic of China”, the official name of Taiwan’s government. (Why is it the Republic of China? Long interesting story, well worth reading up on, but I won’t insert a history lecture here.) If Taiwan were designated “Taiwan (Republic of China)” or “Taiwan (ROC)”, there would be no anger and outrage. At worst, there would be some eye-rolling, as the Republic of China is a contentious issue here in Taiwan and I can assure you many Taiwanese people have strong opinions on this matter.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">But none of the screenshots above say "Taiwan (Republic of China)". </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Q: So why is “Taiwan, China” so offensive?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A: First, ask yourself this. When someone hears the word “China”, do they think of the Republic of China, de facto capital Taipei, population 23 million? Or do they think of the People’s Republic of China, capital Beijing, population 1.4 billion? Most people outside of East Asia aren’t even aware that there’s an entity called the “Republic of China” that’s separate from China. The Chinese government is well aware of this and uses it to its advantage.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not going to mince words here. The government of the PRC would like nothing more than to take over Taiwan and incorporate it into their territory (and it’s easy to see why -- geopolitically it would be a wonderful strategic prize). This is not the ranting of a conspiracy monger -- China isn’t even trying to hide its intentions. Publicly at least, they won’t rule out the use of military force to conquer Taiwan. But as</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d469c; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china/">that would be extremely risky</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, they would much rather wear Taiwan down, demoralizing it so that its people see annexation as the inevitable choice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whether China takes Taiwan by force or by “peaceful” coercion, it doesn’t want the rest of the world to see it as a larger country taking over a smaller, less powerful country. That would look very bad. Instead, China wants the rest of the world to see Taiwan as a recalcitrant part of China that needs to be brought to heel. That’s why (among many things) it’s got people pushing to change “Taiwan” on those drop-down menus to things like “Taiwan, China” or “Taiwan, Province of China”. It’s all about changing the world’s perception of Taiwan so that if Invasion Day comes, the rest of the world doesn’t see a large aggressive country invading a smaller country.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">And every airline that lists Taiwan as China and every educational institution that forces students to declare their country as “Taiwan, China” is complicit in this. With Beijing -- not politically neutral.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I said above, imagine if you knew that every time you filled out an online form, there would be a moment of uncertainty before you learned if you would be forced to render the name of your country in a deliberately insulting way, And the hopelessness you would feel if you knew that it wasn’t an aberration, but rather fast becoming the norm.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Incidentally, in two of the three examples above that I provided screenshots for (all but Air Canada), Hong Kong, which is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">actually</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ruled by China, is just “Hong Kong”, not “Hong Kong, China”. I suppose there’s no need to insist on adding the word “China” if it’s actually part of China.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Q: What about “Taiwan, Province of China”? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, everything I wrote above applies to the weird variant “Taiwan, Province of China”. But for everyone who says “It’s technically correct if you assume ‘China’ means ‘the Republic of China’, I have something to show you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Republic of China does indeed include an administrative area called “Taiwan Province”. And here are its borders, courtesy of Google Maps:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFhVrC7ohCyTzU5tLOYUk6OeECjiseRTQY44SG9Syy44sXYlAydqrrID4t_mZKSJWYi-DQf3SP00285l7iinR9wmzvbFjUL1pbnAgeCqLZmudFf05-OvETsVNZzseWS_4VOhFxKp3-rXzf/s1600/Province.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFhVrC7ohCyTzU5tLOYUk6OeECjiseRTQY44SG9Syy44sXYlAydqrrID4t_mZKSJWYi-DQf3SP00285l7iinR9wmzvbFjUL1pbnAgeCqLZmudFf05-OvETsVNZzseWS_4VOhFxKp3-rXzf/s320/Province.png" width="246" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Taiwan Province” covers part of the main island of Taiwan, but not the parts under the administration of the largest cities: Taipei, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung. So someone living in Taipei or Taichung does not live in any “province,” no matter how generous and flexible the interpretation of “Taiwan, Province of China”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course this is all somewhat beside the point; I’d be mad as hell if I lived in Hualien or Hsinchu and an online form forced me to say I lived in “Taiwan, Province of China”. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Taiwan, Province of China” was never an attempt to be “technically correct”; rather, like “Taiwan, China” it’s just trying to denigrate Taiwan in the eyes of the world and make people think it’s already in some way under the thumb of Beijing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Q: Hey, wait. You’re making out Taiwan to be a separate country, but didn’t I hear somewhere that the Taiwanese government sees itself as the rightful government of all of China?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A: You’re just not letting me get away without giving a history lecture, are you? Look, back in the 1950s and 1960s, the rulers of Taiwan were the same guys who ruled China before Mao took over in 1949, and they absolutely saw themselves as the rightful rulers of China and produced loads of official propaganda to that effect. They also headed a terribly unpleasant military dictatorship and Taiwan is much better off not being ruled by them any more. There are still a few “retake the Mainland!” guys around, but today few people under the age of 80 seriously think the Republic of China ought to retake its old territory.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Taiwanese government’s claims on China are a relic of an earlier age. They still maintain them because the Chinese government has threatened war if Taiwan makes a break with its past -- that would, in China’s eyes, mean Taiwan was officially taking steps away from eventual unification. It’s possible that China is bluffing. But it’s awfully easy to say Taiwan should call China’s bluff when you’re not the one with missiles pointed at you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, a minority of Taiwanese genuinely want Taiwan to be a part of China. This is because human beings are capable of holding a variety of political positions, and Taiwan is a free country where people can be open about their political beliefs.</span><a href="https://medium.com/american-citizens-for-taiwan/being-taiwanese-being-chinese-f186c81a3f2a" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d469c; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not the opinion of most Taiwanese</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Q: But aren’t Taiwanese people (culturally/ethnically/linguistically) Chinese anyway?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A: OK, there is a lot that can be said here, from the fact that this is an extremely reductionist and ridiculous way to decide if a country should legitimately exist or not, to the fact that not all Taiwanese have Chinese ancestors. But I’m just going to make an observation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to Wikipedia, nearly three quarters of the population of Singapore is of Chinese heritage. But no Singaporean is afraid that they’ll have to start telling foreigners that they’re from “Singapore, China”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Singaporeans, and the millions of people in Thailand, Malaysia, etc. who also self-identify as Chinese, have a luxury that Taiwanese people lack. They can call themselves Chinese all they want and no one will think that de-legitimizes their actual native country. Beijing’s not putting out disinformation that Singapore is a wayward Chinese province. As far as I know, Beijing doesn’t have missiles pointed at Singapore to keep them from acting too independent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Q: Who are you? You’re not even Taiwanese, are you?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A: I’ve lived in Taiwan since 2007. I try to play a role in the civic life of the country where I’ve had legal residency for the past eleven years, though I admit I’m not always as active as I know I should be.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Currently, in my day job, I work with Taiwanese students who want to study abroad in English-speaking countries. Therefore, I am angry that both IELTS and TOEFL, the two biggest international English proficiency exams, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2167279/taiwan-condemns-chinas-barbaric-intervention-another">both have switched online designations</a> to “Taiwan, China”. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Q: So why don’t we hear from Taiwanese people, rather than a Westerner like you?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A: Taiwanese people ARE speaking up. But let me point something out, just as an example.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In August, as I said before,</span><a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2161167/students-revolt-over-taiwan-china-switch-english" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d469c; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the TOEFL exam</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> changed Taiwan’s designation to “Taiwan, China”. The protest from Taiwan was impressive, with “an open letter that claimed to have the backing of more than 5,000 students”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">As of today, TOEFL hasn’t changed anything. Honestly, can you blame Taiwanese people if they are becoming fatigued at fighting the same battle, again and again, and nothing happens?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Incidentally, I sincerely hope no one reads this post as "Westerner explains to Taiwanese how they should feel about their own country". It is absolutely not my intention to tell Taiwanese how they should feel, and in fact I hope Westerners seek out Taiwanese voices on this issue. Rather, my intention is to counter to any Westerner who thinks "Taiwan, (Province of) China" is in any way "technically correct", and is anything other than an insult.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note: This post </span><a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/10/ielts-and-taiwan-china.html" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; white-space: pre-wrap;">began life as a rant directed specifically at IELTS</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when they changed Taiwan to “Taiwan, China”. People seemed to like it, so I reposted it after making it more general in focus, and adding a bit more on “Taiwan, Province of China”. </span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-31488796011447193852018-11-04T12:28:00.000+08:002018-11-06T11:58:56.605+08:00Voting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">As Election day nears in the US (and another Election Day is coming up in three weeks here in Taiwan), I have some thoughts on voting.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some people say you should go out on the street and protest rather than vote. Some people say you should organize rather than vote. Some people say you should riot rather than vote. But these are all false dichotomies -- they should read “and”, not “rather than”. Except perhaps for the rioting one. I’m not sure rioting is a productive idea, but who knows what the future will bring. I may change my mind on that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">So yes, I am saying “voting is good”. I am saying “as many people voting as possible is good”. I bet many of you have cynical things to say in response to that. Be aware I’ve probably heard it all before.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think I've been swayed by the literature I’ve read this year. Yes, <a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/04/three-on-politics.html">I did read Achen & Bartels’ </a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/04/three-on-politics.html">Democracy for Realists</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> earlier this year (scroll down if you follow the link), which argues that aggregate voters are really really bad at making coherent choices. But <a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-dictators-handbook.html">I also read </a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-dictators-handbook.html">The Dictator’s Handbook</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://balancingfrogs.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-dictators-handbook.html"> by Bueno de Mesquita & Smith</a>, which argues that it’s good for the country if the electorate is as large as possible, so the government is accountable to as many people as possible. The arguments the two books make do not actually contradict each other -- you can agree with both at once.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just because you vote does </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> mean you shouldn’t participate meaningfully in your democracy in other ways as well -- I’m talking about getting out there and protesting, or donating money to organizations, or just becoming more aware of what’s going on (TV news is bad for this, by the way). I won’t shame people who don’t do any of this (we all have our own busy lives to lead) but I’m absolutely flabbergasted at those who love to denigrate people who show their dissatisfaction after an election -- they say things like “Your side lost, get over it”. As if they were talking about a sports game rather than something with real-world consequences. As if politics only happens when there's an election. There’s nothing wrong with cheering for your “team” when watching election returns (even if I did disapprove, it’s still probably human nature, ingrained into most of us), but it’s important to remember that </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">democracy doesn’t end when the election is finished</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Civic engagement is what a democracy runs on, whereas voting is what we should all be doing anyway. The more I think about this, the more infuriated I get at voter suppression. The government should not throw up unnecessary barriers to make it more difficult for some people to vote. This simply should not be happening. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">My parents both voted several days ago at their local town hall at a time of their convenience. I voted absentee, and when I had doubts whether my ballot had been accepted, I emailed my state government and I quickly heard back from a real person who wanted to help me make sure my vote would count. This should be the norm everywhere, but unfortunately it’s not.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">To summarize, we should all be voting, AND we should also remember that there’s much more to civic engagement than voting. I don’t live in the USA, but the country where I do live seems to be on the front lines of democracy versus authoritarian tyranny. I can’t vote here, but I ought to make up for it with more civic engagement. My wife is good at that; I am less so. I should do better.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-16478628300775881192018-10-30T12:32:00.000+08:002019-01-26T21:51:08.135+08:00Look to Windward<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Look to Windward</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>by Iain M. Banks, 2000</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My standard description of Iain M. Banks’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Culture</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> books goes like this: The Culture is an advanced and enlightened interstellar society where everyone lives a life of ease and gets to develop their potential. That makes for boring fiction, which is why the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Culture</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> stories are actually about the Culture’s incredibly problematic foreign policy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Culture is very good at covertly interfering in other nations. In fact, they’ve elevated the practice to an art form. Just a few years ago, for instance, they interfered in the politics of a powerful spacefaring people known as the Chelgrians, rigging elections, manipulating the media, and basically doing everything that we Earthers in 2018 are all too familiar with, only far more subtly and with a much defter hand.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Minds -- the powerful superbeings who rule the Culture -- were astonished and dismayed when their actions unexpectedly triggered a massive Chelgrian civil war that killed billions of people. (Yes, billions. One thing you can say about Iain M. Banks: he didn't think small.) The chastened Culture publicly admitted their role in starting the war and brokered a peace deal, essentially saying “Our bad. Usually when we interfere we make things better. We have no idea what happened this time. Oh well, apologies and all that.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apparently some Chelgrians are still mad at the Culture, even though the war’s been over for more than a year and the Culture already said they were sorry. (I know, right? Totally inexplicable! Why don’t they just get over it?) This is how things stand when we join the action of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look to Windward</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look to Windward</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has a fairly large number of viewpoint characters, but unlike </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Excession</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the action here is firmly centered on a few core characters and one primary setting: the gigantic Culture orbital Masaq’. The Culture is far too vast a civilization to limit itself to puny little planets, and Masaq’ is an artificial habitat that is home to over fifty billion Culture citizens, along with a fair number of foreigners, one of whom is a Chlegrian composer named Ziller. A musical celebrity whose fame spans the galaxy, Ziller became disgusted with his own people years ago and has been living in self-imposed exile ever since. He watched his native culture’s self-destructive frenzy from the safety of his home on Masaq’, and he has no desire to return any time soon, if ever.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, Major Quilan of the Chelgrian military is on a collision course with Ziller. Quilan has been utterly traumatized by the loss of his wife in the war, he has nothing more to live for, and he would very much like to die -- a mental state that his his government’s special forces division found that they could make use of. Now Quilan is on his way to Masaq’ to persuade Ziller to return to Chelgrian space. That is absolutely the real reason Quilan is traveling to Masaq’, and it is a very believable story that everyone should believe. Why shouldn’t they believe it? After all, no one else can see the high-ranking military officer residing non-corporeally in Quilan’s head, whose mission is to make sure Quilan does what he’s supposed to do, which has nothing to do with persuading Ziller to return home with him. Ziller tells people that Quilan's been ordered to kill him, but maybe he's got an inflated sense of his own importance. Maybe Quilan's orders are to kill far more people than just one galaxy-renowned musician.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">As for the fifty billion Culture natives living on Masaq’, we never really get inside their heads, or get to know any of them terribly well. The only viewpoint character who’s a native of the Culture is a solitary researcher named Uagen studying bizarre giant creatures in a surreal environment far away from Masaq’, who stumbles across evidence of the Chelgrian plot and tasks himself with getting a warning to the Culture in time. Uagen is the only one who can save the people of Masaq’! It’ll certainly be unfortunate for Uagen if the author has a taste for dramatic irony...</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Masaq’ society is seen through the eyes of the two Chelgrian characters (and an amiable alien named Kabe who befriends both of them). The people of Masaq’ perform death-defying feats of aerial acrobatics flying through vast cloud environments, and they ride ceramic boats down rivers of lava. They passionately take sides over whether to string up an utterly useless cable car through an artificial desert, and the debate goes on for years. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In short, the people of the Culture have a LOT of free time on their hands, and another author would get all preachy about their luxurious, frivolous lifestyle, but fortunately Iain Banks is not that author. Really, who among us wouldn’t want to live a sweet, cushy life in the technological wonderland that is the Culture? The Chelgrians are bemused that these urbane fun-loving aesthetes are the same society that put their own society through such horrific trauma. The political allegory at the heart of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Culture</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> novels is clear without being simplistic.</span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There's a sense among Banks aficionados that </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look to Windward</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> closes out the main cycle of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Culture</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> novels. (After an eight-year break, Banks would go on to write three more novels set in this universe, which I’ll get around to reading sooner or later.) Eight hundred years have passed since the sequence began with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Consider Phlebas</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The epic war between the Culture and the Idirans that was the setting of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Consider Phlebas </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bookends the saga -- the war is now long consigned to history, and yet the lingering effects of the war are remembered throughout </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look to Windward</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The Mind that runs Masaq’ is a traumatized veteran, still dealing with guilt over atrocities it committed centuries ago, and it ends up playing a key role in the story’s climax.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-43effc17-7fff-edcd-6a48-f00da9ad3731"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Now that I’ve reached the end of the initial run of </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Culture </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">novels, I appreciate what Banks has accomplished. The Culture is a wonderful place to live, but a supremely uninteresting place to set stories (‘May you live in interesting times’ applies here), which is why the focus is always on the Culture’s relations with societies that aren’t quite so damn perfect. The Culture is a high-tech socialist-libertarian paradise, where everyone is free to live the life they want, and the whole thing is ruled by near-omnipotent Minds who can and will commit horrific acts to ensure the society keeps running smoothly. Nothing’s simple in this universe.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">I can see where the <i>Culture</i> novels might not be everyone's cup of tea. He doesn't even try to make his universe scientifically plausible (which is better than trying and failing), though I see that as painting boldly, without restraint, across a magnificently broad canvas. Also, Banks was clearly more confident writing male characters than female ones -- this includes the no-middle-initial Iain Banks novels I've read, not just Iain M. Banks. And I could imagine people turned off by his liking for grotesque violence (somewhat toned down in <i>Look to Windward</i>, apart from a nightmarish Culture assassin we meet near the end) and shocking plot twists late in the game (present in <i>Look to Windward</i>, though not remotely on the same level as, say, <i>Use of Weapons).</i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><br /></i></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the man could <i>write</i>, and write engagingly, and write scenes that stay in my mind long after the book is finished. Even <i>Consider Phlebas</i> and <i>Excession</i>, which I found slightly more of a chore to get through than the others, are full of incredibly engaging stretches and highly memorable bits. It's easy to see how this particular Scotsman found so many readers, among SF fans and non-fans alike.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-16777354454938741382018-10-21T10:25:00.002+08:002018-10-21T16:43:42.690+08:00The Affinities<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEi2vqbD8jK5cZBVnl3kwIa3PEO2OaW7RPIvPyBlXRmrVKoRwMiQC1-JSzn-g-VauCVU06WrZQH_Vd_RreNWxtOs7LofbEYTmSk8Pu9-SJNDnF5zYcnrk7L3Jn-GHPNL6XwR81UFGWTtdp/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEi2vqbD8jK5cZBVnl3kwIa3PEO2OaW7RPIvPyBlXRmrVKoRwMiQC1-JSzn-g-VauCVU06WrZQH_Vd_RreNWxtOs7LofbEYTmSk8Pu9-SJNDnF5zYcnrk7L3Jn-GHPNL6XwR81UFGWTtdp/s400/download.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Affinities</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Robert Charles Wilson, 2015</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our hero, Adam, is a graphic design student in Toronto. He has an unsettled home life and uncertain finances, but things begin to look up for him when he takes the Affinities test and learns that he’s a Tau.</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-ec5e6cd1-7fff-52fa-35a8-da5e959ea6aa" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">You see, there’s a company called InterAlia that claims that by giving you an intensive personality test, they may be able to sort you into one of twenty-two Affinities. These will be people whose minds work like yours. They will think like you and you will think like them, and the social cohesion will allow you to make the closest friends you've ever had, and easily work together on collaborative projects.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When Adam meets up with other Taus in the area, they do indeed change his life, as he finds a warm, welcoming community that he’d never realized existed. Tau Affinity provides him with a network of contacts that he can use to find work and achieve financial stability, and his new friends help him free himself of his dysfunctional family.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Judging from online discussion that I’ve seen, it was at this point that many readers began to feel dissatisfied with the novel. InterAlia's test has a Sorting Hat feel to it, but this book won’t inspire any Facebook quizzes promising to reveal your true Affinity, because the Affinities aren’t really about classifying human beings into easily caricatured groups. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Taus have an in-universe reputation as laid-back potheads who are good with money, and another major Affinity is said to be rigidly hierarchical, but Wilson’s intention for this book has little to do with the distinctions between different Affinities and therefore he barely mentions any details about most of the others.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Instead, what interests Wilson is how society reacts to these Affinities, which can appear to outsiders to be cult-like or elitist, as Taus have access to a range of services not available to those who don’t qualify based on the personality test, and this exclusiveness is only magnified by the fact that a large segment of the population don’t qualify for membership in any Affinity at all. Wilson also looks at how these Affinities react to stress: the Affinities eventually outgrow the for-profit corporation InterAlia, and when this happens their agendas come into conflict.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In other words, this is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sociological </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">speculative fiction: what interests Wilson is how our sense of community may evolve in the future. We’ve all heard the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bowling Alone</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-esque worries that life is becoming more fragmented and humans are becoming more isolated, and in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Affinities</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Wilson gives us a glimpse of a society that is inventing novel frameworks for humans to work together.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When people of the same Affinity work together, they are capable of doing great things, but as long as they continue to work the way they do, they will always be exclusive clubs. As long as the Taus exist, outsiders will always look at the advantages their members enjoy, advantages which are closed to outsiders, and feel envy, even contempt. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While one could imagine further books being written in this universe, I felt that Wilson intends for </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Affinities</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to remain a singleton -- the end of the book gives the strong impression that human society is continuing to evolve and the Affinities will ultimately turn out to have been merely a stage in society’s development.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But really, this is the story of our protagonist Adam. Remember him? I last mentioned him five or six paragraphs ago. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Affinities</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> follows Adam through his twenties and thirties, as he falls in and out of love, gains and loses employment, and gets involved in more than one dangerous scheme -- and during this time his life is completely bound up with Tau Affinity. Wilson’s a good enough prose writer that the book’s engaging even when dealing with the most ordinary details of Adam’s life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you pick up </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Affinities</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> imagining you’ll be able to say “I think I’d fit into ________ Affinity!”, you’ll be disappointed. If you’d like to explore an alternative way human beings can find community, you’ll have much more realistic expectations.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-70586396430450478542018-10-14T12:32:00.003+08:002020-09-04T13:23:02.343+08:00IELTS and "Taiwan, China"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOf30zC5OSh2GxwqyiSLzhSzXZbfG3R8_CT-oA3GGh9LTWRHjmdsf0-u9UONcomR5euU0ug-cciVO15SiMCVaQakjYpSfnhsbFCvpha3yB5K77VDtsk0La3Kp_zpkzigS8zq9flSAbdzFT/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-10-14+at+12.28.58+PM.png"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOf30zC5OSh2GxwqyiSLzhSzXZbfG3R8_CT-oA3GGh9LTWRHjmdsf0-u9UONcomR5euU0ug-cciVO15SiMCVaQakjYpSfnhsbFCvpha3yB5K77VDtsk0La3Kp_zpkzigS8zq9flSAbdzFT/s400/Screen+Shot+2018-10-14+at+12.28.58+PM.png" width="400" /></a></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>www.ielts.org -- screenshot taken on October 14, 2018</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;">Last weekend, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2167279/taiwan-condemns-chinas-barbaric-intervention-another">the UK-based English examinations service IELTS changed its designation for Taiwan to “Taiwan, China”</a>. This has caused a huge amount of outrage in the IELTS community over the past week.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">IELTS is an English proficiency exam, taken predominantly by people who wish to study in English in foreign countries. As of one week ago, a young Taiwanese person using the <a href="http://ielts.org/">IELTS.org</a> website to register for IELTS needs to declare they are from “Taiwan, China”. That is, frankly speaking, insulting.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It's fine to not be an expert in East Asian geopolitics. No one is an expert in everything. So here is a brief explanation of why we are so angry about this.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Q: Isn’t “Taiwan, China” technically correct?</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A: You’re thinking of the “Republic of China”, the official name of Taiwan’s government. (Why is it the Republic of China? Long interesting story, well worth reading up on, but I won’t insert a history lecture here.) If Taiwan were designated “Taiwan (Republic of China)” or “Taiwan (ROC)”, there would be no anger and outrage. At worst, there would be a lot of eye-rolling, as the Republic of China is a contentious issue here in Taiwan and I can assure you many Taiwanese people have strong opinions on this matter. But that’s not what happened here.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Q: So why is “Taiwan, China” so offensive?</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A: First, ask yourself this. When someone hears the word “China”, do they think of the Republic of China, de facto capital Taipei, population 23 million? Or do they think of the People’s Republic of China, capital Beijing, population 1.4 billion? Most people outside of East Asia aren’t even aware that there’s an entity called the “Republic of China” that’s separate from China. The Chinese government is well aware of this and uses it to its advantage.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not going to mince words here. The government of the PRC would like nothing more than to take over Taiwan and incorporate it into their territory (and it’s easy to see why -- geopolitically it would be a wonderful strategic prize). This is not the ranting of a conspiracy monger -- China isn’t even trying to hide its intentions. Publicly at least, they won’t rule out the use of military force to conquer Taiwan. But as </span><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china/" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">that would be extremely risky</a><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;">, they would much rather wear Taiwan down, demoralizing it so that its people see annexation as the inevitable choice.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whether China takes Taiwan by force or by “peaceful” coercion, it doesn’t want the rest of the world to see it as a larger country taking over a smaller, less powerful country. That would look very bad. Instead, China wants the rest of the world to see Taiwan as a recalcitrant part of China that needs to be brought to heel. That’s why (among many things) it’s got people pushing to change “Taiwan” on those drop-down menus to things like “Taiwan, China” or “Taiwan, Province of China”. It’s all about changing the world’s perception of Taiwan so that if Invasion Day comes, the rest of the world doesn’t see Xi Jinping as another Hitler invading Poland. </span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And every airline that lists Taiwan as China and every educational institution that forces students to declare their country as “Taiwan, China” is complicit in this. With Beijing -- not politically neutral.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Imagine how you would feel if, every time you had to fill out an online form, you had to cross your fingers because you knew your country’s name might be twisted in a deliberately insulting way. And the hopelessness you would feel if you knew that it wasn’t an aberration, but rather fast becoming the norm.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;">(It's worth noting that, as of October 14, IELTS still lists Hong Kong as Hong Kong and Macau as Macau. No need to change them to "Hong Kong, China" and "Macau, China" -- because they're </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">actually</i><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ruled by China.)</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Q: Hey, wait. Didn’t I hear somewhere that the Taiwanese government sees itself as the rightful government of all of China? </span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A: You’re just not letting me get away without giving a history lecture, are you? Look, back in the 1950s and 1960s, the rulers of Taiwan were the same guys who ruled China before Mao took over in 1949, and they absolutely saw themselves as the rightful rulers of China and produced loads of official propaganda to that effect. They also headed a terribly unpleasant military dictatorship and Taiwan is much better off not being ruled by them any more. There are still a few “retake the Mainland!” guys around, but today few people under the age of 80 seriously think the Republic of China ought to retake its old territory.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Taiwanese government’s claims on China are a relic of an earlier age. They still maintain them because the Chinese government has threatened war if Taiwan makes a break with its past -- that would, in China’s eyes, mean Taiwan was officially taking steps away from eventual unification. It’s possible that China is bluffing. But it’s awfully easy to say Taiwan should call China’s bluff when you’re not the one with missiles pointed at you.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, there are some Taiwanese (a very small minority) who genuinely want Taiwan to be a part of China. That is because human beings are capable of holding a variety of political positions, and Taiwan is a free country where people can be open about their political beliefs. </span><a href="https://medium.com/american-citizens-for-taiwan/being-taiwanese-being-chinese-f186c81a3f2a" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not the opinion of most Taiwanese</a><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Q: But aren’t Taiwanese people (culturally/ethnically/linguistically) Chinese anway?</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A: OK, there is a lot that can be said here, from the fact that this is an extremely reductionist and ridiculous way to decide if a country should legitimately exist or not, to the fact that not all Taiwanese have Chinese ancestors. But I’m just going to make an observation.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">According to Wikipedia, nearly three quarters of the population of Singapore is of Chinese heritage. But no Singaporean is afraid that they’ll have to start telling foreigners that they’re from “Singapore, China”. </span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Singaporeans, and the millions of people in Thailand, Malaysia, etc. who also self-identify as Chinese, have a luxury that Taiwanese people lack. They can call themselves Chinese all they want and no one will think that de-legitimizes their actual native country. Beijing’s not putting out disinformation that Singapore is a wayward Chinese province. As far as I know, Beijing doesn’t have missiles pointed at Singapore to keep them from acting too independent.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Q: Who are you? You’re not even Taiwanese, are you?</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A: I’ve lived in Taiwan since 2007. Currently, in my day job, I work with Taiwanese students who want to study abroad in English-speaking countries. A significant part of this job involves teaching IELTS preparation classes, which gives me a look at how Taiwanese young people view this and other exams.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Q: So why don’t we hear from Taiwanese people, rather than a Westerner like you?</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">A: Taiwanese people have definitely noticed and I can anecdotally say that people are very concerned and angry. But look, let me point something out.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In August, </span><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2161167/students-revolt-over-taiwan-china-switch-english">the TOEFL exam did the same thing</a> -- they changed Taiwan’s designation to “Taiwan, China”. The protest from Taiwan was impressive, with “an open letter that claimed to have the backing of more than 5,000 students”.</span></span><br />
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<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">As of today, TOEFL hasn’t changed anything. Honestly, can you blame Taiwanese people if they are becoming fatigued at fighting the same battle, again and again, and nothing happens?</span></span><br />
<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is a battle that I have watched over the past few years, and I felt I just had to say something.</span></span><br />
<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">It boils down to this: challenges to Taiwan's international nomenclature happen as a result of China's push to make people think Taiwan (or the Republic of China, if you prefer that name) is not a legitimate country. That way, if it gets forcibly taken over, there won’t be so much outrage. When I put it that way, it sounds like the mad ravings of an unhinged person. But not a single part of it is disputable.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;"><b>ADDENDUM 10/17:</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-d59bb2c2-7fff-565f-acaa-53654fa4183e" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;">This went viral more than I thought it would! Thanks to everyone who helped spread it around.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;">I hope this post actually does some good.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;">Thank you to all who commented. I published all comments that made sense. I did not publish the “comment” from the person who copied-and-pasted a paragraph about the U.S.’s One China policy. I know what the One China policy is, I do not think it’s relevant to IELTS, and if you think it’s relevant, you need to make that case, but you’re not doing so if you just copy-and-paste a paragraph and you submit it with no added commentary of your own.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="" style="font-size: large;">Finally, for people who wish to send an email of complaint, the address is globalielts AT ielts DOT org.</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6036787627640558242.post-53888616731021293632018-10-10T13:16:00.001+08:002018-10-11T11:40:33.334+08:00Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Rutger Bregman, 2017</span></b></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-5ebbb10e-7fff-d6b4-621f-248c9dd25206" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Rutger Bregman is a young Dutch writer (uncomfortably younger than me!) who has become prominent in recent years for his proposals for how developed nations can significantly improve living standards for both their citizens and, in fact, all of humanity.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Does he have a TED Talk you can watch? <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lack_of_character_it_s_a_lack_of_cash?language=en">Of course he does</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In his book </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Utopia for Realists</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Bregman advocates: </span></span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Universal basic income (UBI). Wealthy countries should have implemented this years ago to alleviate poverty; in the future, as more and more of our jobs are automated, it will become even more important. </span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Shorter workweeks. You can’t make workers more productive by making them work longer, as you hit a point of severely diminishing returns. Additionally, less overworked people make better citizens, more engaged in the life of the community. </span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dramatically liberalized immigration. Open borders would be ideal, but if wealthy countries admit even a modestly higher number of immigrants from poor nations, it could pay impressive dividends in economic growth and poverty reduction.</span></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This book is written to convince the layperson and does not presume any specialist knowledge, although that means many people will find it regurgitates the basics. I’ve already read a fair bit on UBI -- I think the best overall introduction is</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/17/15364546/universal-basic-income-review-stern-murray-automation">Dylan Matthews’ 2017 article on Vox.</a> And as it happens, I was midway through reading Bregman’s book when Rose Eveleth put out <a href="https://www.flashforwardpod.com/2018/09/25/money-for-nothing/">an episode of her “Flash Forward” podcast</a> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">also exploring the topic of UBI. It’s definitely in the zeitgeist these days.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So why read Bregman’s book when one could cobble together the same material from online articles?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Put simply, Bregman knows how to frame an issue, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he chose the title </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Utopia for Realists</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Bregman feels that we have lost our ability to think big, to dream that the world could be better and to believe that we have the ability to make it so. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Frankly, I think his first chapter makes a few tone-deaf statements that could turn off some readers; writing of today’s politics, he says “what now separates right from left is a percentage point or two on the income tax rate” (p. 15), and I’m sure many of us would dearly love to live in a place where that’s true.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But he means well; his point is that policies that could dramatically improve our lives and forestall misery are out there, but just beyond the reach of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window">Overton window</a>, a concept that he defines in the final chapter, and frankly should be in more people’s mental lexicons anyway.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">He repeatedly makes the point that the policies he would like to see implemented are less radical than many of us imagine. Richard Nixon, no one’s idea of a leftist radical, would have liked to see some form of UBI implemented in the 1970s, and Bregman devotes a chapter to the idea’s slow death. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">He blames the failure of basic income on our cultural reservations about giving poor people money, which he says are not based on any empirical foundation. We have this prejudice that people shouldn’t get money they haven’t worked for, but this is counterproductive if we want a society that functions for everyone. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In short, he thinks that we’re being held back by irrational prejudices and distrust of ideas that feel different from what we’re used to. This is, essentially, his core argument, which he also applies to some other issues that don’t fit neatly into the three biggies that I laid out above: the growth of the financial sector (he’s not such a fan), and foreign aid to developing countries (let’s do what’s been empirically shown to work, he says).</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In the end, he calls on us to follow in the footsteps of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman -- not in terms of their ideas, but rather the confidence and willingness that these prominent economists had to reshape the world in the 20th century. As he writes, “ideas, however outrageous, have changed the world, and they will again” (p. 250).</span></span></div>
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847368266562961223noreply@blogger.com0