Naming Nature : The Clash Between Instinct and Science by Carol Kaesuk Yoon, a book review

Naming Nature caught my attention primarily because I have just recently started working on learning some of the scientific names for various creatures around the neighborhood, and I was curious about the "clash" mentioned in the title.

The book turned out to be a moderately interesting discussion of the history of scientific naming and categorization coupled with the argument that, at some point (pretty much with the combination of cladistics and computers), most people decided that "nature" was something best left to scientists and let themselves be distanced from experiencing themselves.

Yoon is earnest, almost painfully so. There were plenty of new things to learn from the book, but little sense of excitement or wonder; I am glad I read it because I personally wanted to know more about categorization, and I definitely wanted to know more about cladistics (not that it turns out to be anything I'll likely use myself; Yoon is right; that particular method of categorization is well outside the amateur's range), but I'm disinclined to recommend it to other people for casual reading.

I don't entirely buy her premise, either; I'd say that city life--which she does mention--and increasing busyness have more to do with the disconnect than whether or not science is currently recognizing fish.

One thing that really did bother me was the way endnotes were handled: There were endnotes, but in-text, there was no indication that they were there. That is, in the back, the first few words of whatever sentence would be listed, and then the note would follow--but in the chapter itself, absolutely nothing indicated that there might be a relevant comment in back. Not good.

All of which winds up with me giving it a lukewarm recommendation: Naming Nature is not a book I hated, but it's a book I might not have finished if I had had other books left in the library bag at the time.

Split-Gilled Mushroom

A split-gilled mushroom taking advantage of the recent rains. I must say, I think it deserves a nicer name.

Plants in Bolsa Chica

A sunflower. I do not think it is native, but I suspect the birds will enjoy the seeds all the same.

A native coastal sunflower. There are fields of these.

Coastal Prickly Pear

I like these, but I do not know what they are. I think they are native, though.

Another purple wildflower.

Beach Evening Primrose

Osprey

Finally saw one for sure at Bolsa Chica!

Busy Bees

Bees buzzing at the Shipley Nature Center.

Blue Heron

Looks like there will be blue heron babies in Bolsa Chica's future.

 

Spineless Wonders and Every Creeping Thing by Richard Conniff, a double book review

Richard Conniff is now on my list of authors to watch forever. I recently read Spineless Wonders:Strange Tales from the Invertebrate World and Every Creeping Thing: True Tales of Faintly Repulsive Wildlife are some of the best nature writing I've read, broad-ranging, informative, and funny. Conniff is endlessly curious, asking about and traveling to see eels, tarantulas, possums, moths that live in opossum fur and feces, fire ants, weasels, and common house mice.

Thanks to the wide-ranging focus of his work, there are plenty of those "backyard biology" moments I've been looking for in addition to more exotic animals, and his writing is full of readable and memorable bits. There's the tale of the mole that dug its way out of the herring gull that had swallowed it, for example (both died), for example, and then there are bits like this from Every Creeping Thing:

Whether we like them or not, mice are a hit, an improbable success story, if only that they have distributed themselves more widely across the planet than any other mammal apart from Homo sapiens. They have done it with short legs and bad eyes, too, and with less help from us than we generally choose to think.

I kept stopping to read pieces like this out loud to whoever happened to be around.

Conniff respects his subject and he respects his audience, he knows what he's talking about, and he has a sense of humor. This is a rare and wonderful combination, and I plan on keeping an eye out for future books.

Squirrel!

A squirrel enjoys a midday meal at Bolsa Chica.

Project Gutenberg

I've written (and written, and raved) about LibriVox in the past. I don't think I've talked yet about its older cousin, Project Gutenberg, which is a grave oversight and for which I apologize profusely.

In this era of the (almost) affordable and (nearly) ubiquitous ereader, everyone should know about Project Gutenberg. It's an entire library of free ebooks, and it keeps growing! The volunteers there have spent years digitizing every out-of-copyright books they can get their little hands on. That means works by  Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, all the Brontes, Thackeray, Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Alan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and hundreds of others are all right there, free any time you want them.

Even if you don't have an ereader, it's a really useful site for looking up half-remembered phrases, hunting to see just how many times an author used a particular phrase and where, and sometimes for reading out of print or hard to find books.

And there are, I learned recently, people who haven't even heard of this wonderful site.

Well, now you know, anyway. Go tell other people! It's almost a duty!

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, a book review

Is it possible to resist a title like The Disappearing Spoon? I sure couldn't!

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, to give it it's full name, has an unlikely title and an unlikely subject. Seriously: A history of science as seen through the periodic table? Is this going to work?

Oooh yes. It works.

It took me a little while to get into The Disappearing Spoon. I spent the first thirty or so pages thinking it interesting but a little bit dry, but after that moved to "fascinating, but not necessarily something I'll suggest to others," and quickly past that into "I must make sure everyone I know reads this!"

As the title suggests, the book covers an incredible amount of territory, everything from the disappearing spoon of the title (Gallium spoons melt when placed in tea; various scientists at various times have amused themselves by watching people's response to this), to the characters of different researchers, to the discovery of new elements, and then there is more in the footnotes--lots and lots and lots more.

Highly recommended.

Cthulhu's Day Out by Ursula Vernon

Happy Valentine's Day!

Cthulhu's Day Out by Ursula Vernon

Just thought I'd pass on a picture someone pointed out to me a few days ago.

Ursula Vernon has several more cute little Cthulhu-kin over in her gallery "Happy Cthulhu and Friends."

Urslav's deviantART gallery has a remarkable range of styles and subjects, and she has more here, on Red Wombat Studio. Enjoy!

Book Anticipation: Wicked Bugs by Amy Stewart

Yay! Amy Stewart (she of The Earth Moved and Wicked Plants) has a new book coming out! Wicked Bugs should be out in May.

Quick book note/also artist mention: Kinuko Craft Drawings and Paintings

Ooh, I just noticed: Kinuko Craft, the artist who has drawn all those beautiful covers for Mckillip's work lately, has a collection of her work out: Kinuko Craft Drawings and Paintings.

As you can see above, I'm most aware of her as a cover artist, particularly with McKillip's work--she's done most of the recent covers (1), and they are gorgeous, baroque, dream-like works that capture the essence of the books.

It does make me want to go look again at some of the other stuff she's illustrated; there's a stunningly beautiful rendition of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, for one.

Anyway, I thought I'd mention it. It's not new (2007), just new to me.

(1)Not Solstice Wood, which is odd, and makes me sad, too, because I get a lot of pleasure out of my style-coordinated covers for McKillip; she's one of the few authors I buy in hardcover partly from the sheer beauty of the book-design. The row of books just makes me smile when I walk by.

Solstice Wood by Patricia McKillip, a book review

Recently, I went back and reread several Patricia McKillip books, something I do every now and again. I hadn't read Solstice Wood in some time and thought I'd give it another try.

It had been some time since I read Solstice Wood because my first look at it(1) was disappointing. Oh, I liked bits of it--the fairy changeling, for example, and the meetings of old friends--but overall, I was disappointed. Winter Rose has long been on my list of "favorite books ever" in part because of the marvelous, terrible, magnificent Queen of Faerie(2). She is sidelined for large parts of Solstice Wood, and that made me mad.

On the other hand, it is by McKillip, and I had recently reread almost everything that I and the library own between us had, so I tried again.

And I liked it much better than I expected. Relyt (the changeling) is awesome. His response to chocolate chip cookies made me laugh, and his reflection on the Queen was pitch perfect; he spoke of her the way a plant might talk about the sun, if it could. If I had never read Winter Rose, I would have really loved the sewing circle magic, and I did like the meeting itself, and the form of magic. Iris/Gran is an admirable matriarch, working to protect her people. The cousinly friendship between Tyler and Sylvia is wonderful; very few books manage family relationships this comfortably.

The book's writing is a little more plain prose than McKillip usually writes, but still has plenty of poetry and power to it. The point of view switching is unusual for McKillip only in that she only switches with chapters rather than moving freely among them every few pages. In fact, I found myself relaxing into the story and thoroughly enjoying it, right up until near the end.

And there we come to the sticking point: Right at the end, the regal Queen of Faerie steps out and asks the local women if they would mind terribly relaxing the boundaries around the town and letting her in and does a quick sort of show to demonstrate that she can be the lovely spring as well as the terrible winter, and really, everyone needs her sort of wild, untamed mystery around. And... that's where the book derails. I had gotten the point a while ago, without anyone needing to spell it out. Also, I have a certain amount of trouble with the Queen being fully blocked by one town (though the implication is that she's kept out of cities as well) and finding this quite such a problem, so I got sulky again and decided maybe I didn't like the book after all.

And then I looked at Relyt on chocolate chip cookies and cheese sandwiches again and thought maybe I did.

So it's still not one of my favorites. Maybe it's better than I thought at first.

Mostly, though, I'll probably stick to rereading The Tower at Stony Wood, Od Magic, and Ombria in Shadow. Other books, too, of course, but those happen to be my favorite McKillip books. Bards of Bone Plain might make their number. I'm not sure yet, though. It will take another reading or two.


(1)Found here on Amazon, if anyone is interested. I very occasionally have posted reviews there. Every now and again, I consider cross-posting the book review parts of the blog there.

(2) Though it has also been a really, really long time since I read it, mostly because I wrote a serious, scholarly, literary critical article on it, and now I'm not sure I'll be able to look at it again with the same wonder. Probably I shouldn't worry. Most books come through the process either unscathed or improved by the process. But... I still find myself not picking Winter Rose up when I reach for McKillip.

Blood Maidens by Barbara Hambly, a book review

Having long ago read, enjoyed, and reread Those Who Hunt the Night (Immortal Blood in the UK) and Traveling with the Dead, I was delighted when the series finally continued with Blood Maidens.

"But what is it about?" a friend asked recently. It's a fair question. The series is set in the early 1900's (1911 for Blood Maidens, somewhere around three years earlier for Those Who Hunt the Night). In all three books, James Asher, philologist, professor, and former spy for Great Britain, finds himself dealing with politics and mysteries present in the human and vampire world and the approach of the Great War.  Partnered with him are Lydia, his wife, a medical researcher, and Don Simon Ysidro, a several hundred year old vampire who keeps some of the courtly manners of 1555, the last year he was alive. In Those Who Hunt the Night the partnership is involuntary: Ysidro having made it clear that he is a vampire makes it equally clear that he will kill Lydia and James both if James does not agree to his demands. In the later two books, the partnership is more equal: There are threats to both humans and vampires that take both to resolve and the three have achieved a level of trust.

I wondered how well a sequel written five years later would pick up the threads of the former books. It wasn't a problem. Blood Maidens takes place about a year after Traveling with the Dead and the relationships are picked up without a hitch. This time, it looks as though the Germans might be recruiting a vampire to their side, a problem for both humans and vampires because vampires rely largely on secrecy for their safety and because the human political balance of power could be drastically shifted if one side had an army of immortal, powerful vampires on their side (and recruiting one vampire means recruiting all the vampires s/he chooses to make). Asher quickly begins to suspect, however, that Ysidro has non-political reasons behind his decision.  Motives aside, they quickly discover unexpected plots and plans in the vampire kingdoms and difficulties in the human political arena that are more than enough to keep Lydia, Asher, and Ysidro occupied and often in danger.

I love these books partly for their atmosphere; Hambly has a degree in medieval history which gives her a good grounding in research and a knack for knowing just which details to include to create the world of the early twentieth century. Her characters are also very much of and from their time, not twenty-first century caricatures standing outside and criticizing(1). The cautious friendship between the Ashers and Ysidro is also well-portrayed. How can you be friends with someone who regularly kills people for food? Who is going to go on doing so, unless you kill him? How can you not be friends with someone who has consistently and honorably kept his word and who has saved both your lives on more than one occasion? Or, from Ysidro's point of view (which is, wisely, never given), how can you be friends with food? And, of course, there is a mind-bogglingly layered set of plots, counterplots, and plans, plus the worry that James Asher will be recognized by people who knew him under another name, from his time as a spy.

I think Blood Maidens could be read as a stand-alone; the story is complete in itself, but reading the first two books made it better.

Certainly it was worth waiting for. Now, maybe, just maaaybe we'll get a sequel to Dog Wizard. Please?

(1) Twentieth/Twenty-first century women in Victorian clothing is a pet peeve of mine. I've never really been able to really enjoy Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody series, for example, because Amelia is so modern in her views; there's no trace of the Victorian anywhere in her. Lydia, in contrast, is a medical researcher at a time when women were not commonly allowed to get medical degrees, and she is a very capable person, but she still reflects beliefs of her time, has struggled with her decisions, and works to be "beautiful" by the standards of her time.

The Bards of Bone Plain by Patricia McKillip, a book review

I always look forward to new books by Patricia McKillip, so I was excited to learn about Bards of Bone Plain and read it as soon as I possibly could(1).

It lived up to the anticipation.

Phelan Cle, bardic student, is looking for a simple topic to write his final paper on before graduating. He chooses to discuss the location and events on Bone Plain, a legendary place where a long ago bardic challenge cost a legendary bard his music and condemned him to an endless life without it. Phelan figures there is so little history behind this legend that he will easily be able to sift out the few bits of truth, write a paper, graduate, and think no more of it. Meanwhile, he also has to deal with his father, Jonah Cle, who is constantly drunk and/or lost in the archeological digs he sponsors. Princess Beatrice is busy at the digs, far more fascinated with discovering the past than in attending parties and behaving as a princess should. Her father encourages this; her mother is less pleased. In the course of the dig, she finds a piece of metal engraved with a strange sign, one which fascinates her and leads to the further discovery of a strange doorway. Enter also a mysterious bard (present day) whose appearance angers Jonah and who appears to be bringing magic back into the kingdom and then, through Phelan's researches, the past bard Nairn, who is fascinated by similar mysterious bard in his time.

The lines between legend and history slowly blur and the significance of the two converging timelines becomes apparent as Phelan and Beatrice work to unravel the significance of their finds and to protect their kingdom from magic that may or may not be threatening it.

This being a McKillip book, there are also several minor characters, each with their own concerns and point of view. This being McKillip, everything does pull together to make a coherent, cohesive, elegant tale with a satisfying end.

This being McKillip, I will need to read it more than once to fully appreciate it; one of the reasons I love her work so much is that there is always a good surface story and a number of layers to be uncovered through rereading.

Bards of Bone Plain is one of her more complex tales and weaves in a number of familiar elements: There is a mysterious language, a powerful figure who may or may not be menacing, a riddle from the past influencing the present, music that is more than melody, complicated father-son relationships, and mild romance. It does not feel like a repeat, more like there is a slow buildup of layers, a new angle and a new jewel each time a book comes out.

It used to be a rule that I loved all of McKillip's books but especially "every other" book . I've now lost track of which book I'm on, but I'd put Bards of Bone Plain into the "especially" category.

It's also a book where a number of her favorite elements come together: There are multiple towers, some in the same place, strange languages needing deciphering,

(1) As with the Pegasus review, he timing of thi book review reflects holiday busy-ness and bad colds, not the timing of the reading.

Book Anticipation: Anthem for a Doomed Youth by Carola Dunn

Hurray! Carola Dunn has written a new Daisy Dalrymple mystery! Anthem for Doomed Youth is due out in March of this year!

1920's England is such fun, and Daisy Dalrymple is wonderfully cheerful company.

Hurray!

Feedburner

Ok. I just signed up for feedburner which is supposed to make things easier on people who want to subscribe. Some of the "What this does" went over my head, though, so I'm not sure what it will do to people who are already getting this site via feed.

If you're having trouble, let me know, please, and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks!

Pegasus by Robin Mckinley, a Book Review

Last year, I mentioned how much I was looking forward to Robin McKinley's Pegasus(1). The short version of the review: It was worth looking forward to. Now I'm looking forward even more to the sequel.

The book's basic premise is that the humans of Balsinland formed a mutual-protection pact with the pegasi long ago, at the kingdom's founding. Ever since, high-ranking humans have bonded with high-ranking pegasi. Generally, this is a formal matter; the pegasi visit occasionally, on state occasions, and specially trained court magicians provide translations between the two races. Everyone is shocked when they find that Sylviianel, the human princess, and Ebon, the pegasus prince, can speak to one another clearly, without translators, and that they are not just formal acquaintances but friends.

I admit, in addition to my anticipation, I was a little worried: Some of the official descriptions and blurbs made it sound a little... silly. A princess and a pegasus with a special close bond? Riiight.

I need not have worried, even a little bit. This is Robin McKinley we're talking about. In a McKinley book, being a princess means dealing with a whole host of responsibilities. Having a special bond with your pegasus means having to explain to everyone why you're different, having to worry about court magicians who see their status threatened by the difference, and always fighting the niggling worry that someone will decide the friendship is too close and you should be separated for your own good.

In short, Sylviianel's position and her gift is not glamorous or comfortable. It has its compensations, but they are of a down to earth variety rather than the sparkles and hearts kind. Sylviianel and Ebon become close friends, they share a sense of humor, and Ebon takes Sylviianel flying when they think they can get away with it unspotted--despite the cautious approval both sets of royal parents given their friendship, both are pretty sure Sylviianel isn't really supposed to ride Ebon.

Oh, and that mutual protection pact? Pegasi are not the only intelligent, magical beings out there. There are nastier sorts, like rocs and norindours (Actually, I'm not sure the norindours are intelligent; the rocs certainly are), and they are attacking. This means that, as things get worse Sylviianel's beloved older brothers and her mother spend more and more time away, fighting, and she adds worry about them to her other concerns.

It is a McKinley book, so the emphasis is not on the action. A lot of time is spent exploring the pegasus and Balislander cultures as Syl becomes the first human ever to visit the pegasus home.

Pegasus holds world rich in magic and with multiple, interesting cultures. I really appreciated the depth of the cultures and the interpersonal relationships. Ebon and Sylvi are believable as friends, both Sylvi's and Ebon's family have close bonds and read well as families. Also, it has a lot of myth, and I love expanding myths.

Minor complaints: Most of the cultural explanations came easily as part of the plot. Occasionally, however, there was a "Sylvi and Ebon in the schoolroom" dump. I was more troubled by the length of time it took me to decide whether or not rocs were, in fact, intelligent, and by a single aspect of roc culture (rocs never lie) that "everyone" knew and which became important toward the end of the book--just after the readers were finally informed of this. It didn't spoil the book, but I'd have liked to have seen this mentioned earlier. This is a minor matter, however, in an otherwise excellent book.

Overall, Pegasus is a very good first half of a book, and I am very much looking forward to seeing the second half--soon, I hope!

(1) The timing of the book review reflects holiday busy-ness and bad colds, not the timing of the reading. I have a terrible backlog of book reviews now!