[nesfa-reading-group] My suggestions for a December vote I won't be at

[David G. Grubbs]

On December 6th, our next reading group meeting, I have a chorale rehearsal
(for pieces I know well) that I thought I might skip. But just yesterday
*another* group I plan to sing with for a concert declared a rehearsal for
the same time that I can't miss.

Below are two things for the reading group's December 6th meeting: my
review of the December 6 book (*System Collapse* by Martha Wells) and the
three choices you will vote on for the April reading group.

I'd appreciate it if someone recorded and sent to me:

   - the people who show up at the December meeting
   - their scores for System Collapse
   - the vote tallies for the three books I suggest below.

The main reason for the list of people is that I'd like to pick someone
from that list to make suggestions at our January meeting for our May book
to read.

I have a list of the suggesters for the past 48 books we have read. The
person to suggest three books for the May meeting, to be voted on at the
January meeting, should be the least recent suggester who
attends the December meeting. Someone who isn't on that four-year list of
suggesters (or who has *never* suggested a book) should get precedence.

============================================
==== My review
============================================
*System Collapse* by Martha Wells 9 out of 13

This is the seventh story in the Murderbot series. According to my records,
I
have read the previous six. But I don't remember anything about any of them.
Maybe that contributed to my initial confusion when reading this book.

At the beginning, the reader is dropped into a complicated situation with a
dozen actors of various kinds, all without explanation or introduction. I
had to
reread the first chapter to see if I could make guesses about what kind of
actor each name represented: our viewpoint SecUnit; ART; two ScoutDrones;
the
ag-robot called Hostile One; Mensah, Seth, Martin, and Karime (who weren't
really present); Whatever "Three" was (I think another kind of robot --
maybe a
spaceship, but it wasn't clear); three humans (Ratthi, Iris, and Tarik); And
that was in the first four pages.

Then, the Barish-Estranza group showed up with their own band of humans,
SecUnits and their "explorer", which had a confrontation with ART,
presumably
in orbit.

I find all this complexity a neutral contribution, neither raising nor
lowering
my opinion of the book. But when the context of a book takes serious
concentration, I get the feeling the author is writing to her tolerant fans.
For me, it was a thick cloud to get through at the beginning, which lowered
my
evaluation by a point or two compared with the second half of the book.

On the other hand, it *seemed* interesting enough that I *wanted* to figure
out
what was going on, which makes this book different from some others I've
read
recently, where I simply stopped reading because the book made too little
initial sense.

As I read along, I kept thinking that there was simply too much information,
too thinly explained. And some variant of "redacted" sprinkled around, with
the
apparent purpose of obscuring some things that might have better explained
what
was going on. Some of it was explained later, but "redacted" is always
irritating.

Then they started searching for the split-off group at the pole and ran
into a Pre-Corporation Rim site. It seemed to me that a cloud lifted from
the
language in the book, making it easier to understand.

And then we had to contend with cyborgs (well... SecUnits) with
psychological
problems and disabled governor modules, which injected a form of randomness
to the whole story.

And then we veer off into Ken Burns territory, producing a documentary
trying to
counter Barish-Estranza's story with evidence that they really are slavers.

After all that, the rest of the book consisted of light-speed,
multi-layered,
violent action using all the details laid out earlier in the book. Every
aspect
of ART, ART-drones, shuttles, SecUnits, and other technologies (such as body
armor, communication protocols, network security modules, and even breathing
apparatuses) were used to drive the action, which developed and concluded
in a
satisfactory way, as long as you read it all fast enough.

There were also all sorts of thoughtful, even philosophical, paragraphs
slipped
into place, with the explanation that the SecUnit, ART, and the drones all
thought so fast that they could slip a considerable amount of contemplation
into a tiny gap between tenth-second physical actions.

Not higher than 9 out of 13, mostly due to the difficulty I had in getting
into
the story at the beginning.


==============================================
==== And here are three books to vote on.
==============================================
*Some Desperate Glory* by Emily Tesh

This year's (2024) Hugo Winner. 2023, 438 pages.

Taken from a review on the Chicago Review of Books: The backstory, as we’re
initially given it, is that humans fought, and lost, an interstellar war
against an alien civilization. Earth is destroyed, and the remnants of
humanity make their peace and resettle elsewhere—with the exception of Gaea
Station, a last hold-out of idealistic warriors who have vowed resistance
undying.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58388343-some-desperate-glory

==============================================

*2312* by Kim Stanley Robinson

A book I've suggested before but still haven't read. 2012, 561 pages.

The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened
gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity's only
home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons,
planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will
force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11830394-2312

==============================================
*This Case Is Gonna Kill Me* by Melinda Snodgrass (writing as Phillipa
Bornikova)

A book I've been meaning to read for a while. 2013, 336 pages. First in the
Linnet Ellery series.

In Phillipa Bornikova's *This** Case is Gonna Kill Me*, law, finance, the
military, and politics are under the sway of long-lived vampires,
werewolves, and the elven Alfar. Humans make the best of rule by "the
Spooks," and contend among themselves to affiliate with the powers-that-be,
in order to avoid becoming their prey. Very loyal humans are rewarded with
power over other women and men. Very lucky humans are selected to join the
vampires, werewolves, and elves-or, on occasion, to live at the Seelie
Court.

https://www.amazon.com/This-Case-Gonna-Linnet-Ellery/dp/0765365553
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