robertrivasplata's Reviews (631)

Starts off with kind of a “NPR people in the Wilderness”, or maybe “New York novel in the Wilderness” vibe. Imagine all the novels where people are just so bored to be with one another at another glittering party, except here they're deep in the backcountry & someone's just died in a flash flood, or from eating a bad mushroom, or in a rockslide (well, they assumed he died, eventually). There's also a healthy dose of Lord of the Flies style tribal politics. The New Wilderness is a book where I'm always wondering if the characters' interactions are supposed to be odd because they're all mentally ill or a little brain-damaged, or if it's supposed to be a relatable representation of what anyone would be like given the circumstances, or maybe something else I'm not picking up on. Anyhow, The New Wilderness is in large part about the American idea of “Wilderness” as a place & a natural environment untouched & unaffected by humans. Implicit in The New Wilderness is the idea that wilderness without human impact has never been a reality. The wild landscapes of the Americas were greatly shaped by the Indigenous people who lived in them, & the empty wildernesses the 19th & 20th century conservationists were trying to preserve or re-create had been only recently depopulated. A thing I felt could have used more explanation was winter difficulties: how they stayed warm enough at night, how they moved through or over snow, etc. I like how we get to know the various characters better through Agnes's eyes in the middle part of the book, & but I wish that continued into that last part of the book as well. I'm glad Cook never really spells out anything about the “Study” & also left the Rangers to be menacingly mysterious. In that way it reminds me a little bit of The Employees, or even TV's Severance. Not sure why Cook decided to bring back the 70s-style overcrowded & generally unlivable city trope, with its related overpopulation hobbyhorse. 

Very horrifying stream-of-consciousness horror novel. Establishes early on that everyone's getting killed, usually in a stupid way. Plenty of gore for everyone, but the dog always dies. Like all good horror, it is sad as well as horrifying (which is why I didn't like horror as a kid). High wtf factor. Never quite know where this book is going. Even the sentences don't always go where I expect them to. I kept having to re-read lines because they kept making me ask “did he just say that?” Towards the end it gets like a horror movie with death fake-outs, an unstoppable killer, & a final girl. 

A good picture book to scare the children with. Features a very basic monster, inhabiting a basic world. I like the cartoon style, especially the cat and dogs. 

Dualling illustrated diaries from the first year of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, by a Ukrainian reporter & a (anti-war, anti-Putin) Russian artist. Each week has an entry from each of the diarists on facing pages, accompanied by Krug's art. The art is an evocative modernist-(almost) medievalist style, that reminds me a little bit of the cover art from my parents' edition of the Foundation Trilogy. This is not a history book, but a chronicle of the emotional states of two individuals intimately affected by the war. My main takeaway from the Russian narrative is the complete despair of the outlook of anti-Putin Russia. I will want to look for Krug's other works, Belonging & Kamikaze. I worry about both of the diarists, but I think I'm more worried about “K”. 

Dystopian dark vibes piece dealing with the morality of building a refuge for the few in the face of environmental catastrophe. Seems relevant for a Scandinavian author. Feels similar to The Buried Giant in the way it is about a society built upon a crime. That & the pubic execution hinted at in the beginning make me think of Graeber & Wengrow's comment in Dawn of Everything that mass executions in the archaeological record are signs of state-building. Artificial habitats, a deadly & depopulated surface world, ruins old & new, unspoken memories of before-times, etc all echo 12 Monkeys. Creepy, almost photo-realistic visuals, with the human figures being the creepiest of all, perhaps because it takes more than half of the book to get to where we even see anyone's face. Before then, the faces of all of the characters we see are hidden or masked. The interiors & objects have a kind of retro-80s-90s-institutional-futurist aesthetic. I think I'll look for more by Stalenhag. 

A down-to earth progress report for the state of human space colonization. A fascinating & humorous round-up of the technologies & sciences (including social sciences) that would be required to create colonies on the Moon, Mars, Lagrange Points, etc. The Weinersmiths make it clear throughout that they believe no aspect of the required science, technology, & even philosophy is anywhere near mature enough to establish or maintain actual sustained (let alone self-sustaining) outer space habitation, pointing out that many of the questions (e.g. human reproduction outside earth gravity) that remain haven't been & aren't being seriously researched. Explodes many myths about space madness, space mutiny, & Antarctic brawls. The book spends a lot of time on the hypothetical effects of international law on space settlement, & on space settlement's potential implications for international law. I am a little skeptical of the durability of the international legal regimes in this era of climate change & right-wing/fascist ascendancy, but I enjoyed their treatment of the topic & they make some important points, especially the importance of remembering that events on Earth can't be ignored when thinking of going to space. This is especially important to keep in mind because so much of the enthusiasm for building the proverbial city on Mars is in its escapism. I have indulged in fantasies about the minimum space & amenities I would require for my Martian or Enceledean habitat. Of course, the lessons from designing that habitat for on the dry wastes of Mars or the freezing ocean Enceladus will serve me well designing habitats for the ruins & boiling seas of future Earth. The little comics & illustrations by Zach are wonderful. Makes me want to re-read Tom Gauld's Mooncop, & read the Forever War comic by Marvano. I really appreciate the Weinersmith's skeptical & critical viewpoint. Definitely the strongest work I've read by them. I could read more of this; I'd be down to read the “gigantic dossier on literally everything about space settlement” version of this book hinted at in the acknowledgments. 

Portrait of the kind of people who are able to stumble into law school & then skate on into a career in law. Dorn paints herself as a bitchy stoner contrarian approval & drama junkie. The tone keeps it light even with all the messed up things going on, so that it almost reads like some character's adventures in law-land, except it's all stuff that really happened! I once read a quote from the great Walter Mosley where he said something like “the most important thing a writer can add to a character is a bit of himself”. If I hadn't read Exalted, I'd be like “who's this weirdo”? But having read her other book, I recognize this person from all the characters in Exalted. The main difference between Anna (as she portrays herself) & the exalted characters is that she actually is as talented & accomplished as Emily & Dawn pretend to be. For me, the biggest revelation in here are Dorn's insights into attorney brain, which I believe her odd chapter defending Tao is but one manifestation. (I'm with her that life is not black & white, & prison isn't the solution to rape culture, but you can still give some some side-eye for a guy who's a little creepy.) That said, I do appreciate her anti-carceral stance. Goes well with watching Better Call Saul. 

The story of the crack epidemic told through the eyes of an addict, a white small-time dealer, a less small-time black dealer, & former Mayor Schmoke of Baltimore. I really liked reading Lennie's, Elgin's, Shawn's, & Kurt's stories. I wish this book could have included more people's stories from more places. The biggest revelation to me was that Gary Webb's 1996 San Jose Mercury News report's claims about the CIA's ties to the crack trade had already been reported in 1989 by a Senate committee led by John Kerry (who went on to vote for Clinton's 1994 crime bill). The news media's role as uncritical stenographers for police & government authorities is a pattern we still see today. Implies that the same forces that brought us Reagan's America brought us crack. I kind of wish there had been some comparisons to the spread of meth. Overall this is a solid history of the era which cuts through the sensationalism that pervaded media coverage at the time. 

First (or second) installment of Tolkien's mythologically-based invented languages song and poetry vehicle. The novel quickly transitions from the lighter tone of The Hobbit to the darker tone of the rest of the Lord of the Rings books. It takes almost half the book for Frodo & his friends to make it all the way out of the Shire. The various settings the fellowship pass through (familiar lanes, magical woods, lonely hills, desolate roads, jagged mountains, ancient ruins, mines, dales, duns, downs, vales, valleys, & so on) are often more characterized than the fellows themselves, especially during the journey between Rivendell & Moria. Merry, Pippen, Legolas, & Gimli hardly say anything during this time, & they aren't even mentioned that much either. At least Merry & Pippen got to have some personality during Frodo's flight from the Shire. Gimli had to wait until they were most of the way to Moria, & Legolas had to wait until they were all the way through it. Boromir got more characterization, but that's because he was constantly being kind of a prick. I forgot how much of a prick Boromir is! (However, the line “One does not simply walk into Mordor” does not seem to be in the book). The landscapes & settings really are a big reason to read this book. The desolate ruins of long vanished kingdoms combined with the elves always saying they should be leaving now creates the vibe of a workplace that is going out of business. Makes me remember my old neighbor Richard saying how the landscapes in Lord of the Rings are always friendly or hostile, but almost never neutral or indifferent. The death of Gandalf makes me think about what kind of book it would be if Gandalf stayed dead, which makes me wish we'd seen more of Radagast. I like Tolkein's speculation in the Forward about how the plot of Lord of the Rings would have been different if it had been an allegory for World War 2. 

I can't believe I read the whole thing!
More than 5 years after starting on Pat Barker's great introduction from 1979, I finally finished Life of Johnson, & commenced to re-read the introduction, which made more sense having read the work. Life of Johnson really is a good book to read in little bits and pieces over the course of five years or so. Now that I am finished with this great work, the time has come for me to embark on the great work of writing the goodreads review of The Life of Johnson. Good book for picking up and reading random excerpts. Perfect read to look like you are engrossed in a cerebral read & not interested in conversation, similar to the Accidental Tourist's use of "Miss Macintosh, my Darling". If you want to return to your place, you just flip back to the beginning of whatever dinner party, conversation, you left off in the middle of. Perhaps the most true biography in that it highlights how much of even an extraordinary life is mostly a show about nothing. Scratches my itch for Georgian-era literary English & also has very many quotable quotes, such as: "Never impose tasks upon mortals. To require two things is the way to have them both undone", or, "Sir, your wife under pretense of keeping a bawdy-house, is a receiver of stolen goods." That second quote has the advantage of being both humorous & puzzling. There are actually very many hilarious moments in the Life of Johnson, with many other quotes too long & too numerous to reproduce & still have a readable goodreads review. Apart from the amusement factor, The Life of Johnson is also provides a great look at the publishing & literary world of 18th century London. Boswell also shows some of the work that went into historical & biographical research, showing us his & Johnson's letters to librarians, scholars, & acquaintances of their respective biographical subjects. Questions such as the distinction between a Physician & a Doctor of Medicine are also of interest, at the very least shedding light on the fact that those were the types of things people talked about in 1775.