Recent reading
Dec. 12th, 2019 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaThe Golden Ocean by Patrick O'Brian (1956)
This is a bit slight compared to the Aubreyad, but hey, even slight O'Brian is worth reading. I did like that the main character came aboard as a midshipman, so that we can see life on a ship from a beginner's perspective.
Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson (2018)
Not my favorite KSR, but not my least favorite either. I do appreciate that he writes optimistic near-future SF that nevertheless takes environmental and social problems seriously; that is definitely not an overcrowded niche. The main character is curiously like a blank slate--his name is even Fred Fredericks which sounds like a sort of placeholder name. I know KSR can write interesting characters, so I'm not sure why he chose a character like that? He also does not exercise much agency--things just happen to him. He spends most of the novel tagging along with a Chinese revolutionary who is pregnant; they are on the run from various power factions while revolutions happen elsewhere. There is thankfully no romance--I'm not sure what to call their relationship. Not really friendship or partnership either, just two people who are thrown together and develop some sort of closeness of necessity, maybe? Also, given that being pregnant is often quite dangerous in SF, I do appreciate that both mother and child are fine. I quite liked the childbirth scene, which happens in a small emergency shelter on the moon.
This is a bit slight compared to the Aubreyad, but hey, even slight O'Brian is worth reading. I did like that the main character came aboard as a midshipman, so that we can see life on a ship from a beginner's perspective.
Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson (2018)
Not my favorite KSR, but not my least favorite either. I do appreciate that he writes optimistic near-future SF that nevertheless takes environmental and social problems seriously; that is definitely not an overcrowded niche. The main character is curiously like a blank slate--his name is even Fred Fredericks which sounds like a sort of placeholder name. I know KSR can write interesting characters, so I'm not sure why he chose a character like that? He also does not exercise much agency--things just happen to him. He spends most of the novel tagging along with a Chinese revolutionary who is pregnant; they are on the run from various power factions while revolutions happen elsewhere. There is thankfully no romance--I'm not sure what to call their relationship. Not really friendship or partnership either, just two people who are thrown together and develop some sort of closeness of necessity, maybe? Also, given that being pregnant is often quite dangerous in SF, I do appreciate that both mother and child are fine. I quite liked the childbirth scene, which happens in a small emergency shelter on the moon.
