BillP's Book\Miniature\Wargame Blog

First was the three McAuslin books by George McDonald Fraser, The General Danced at Dawn, McAuslin in the Rough, and The Sheikh and the Dustbin. This was my third time through these and they continue to be a delight. For those who are unfamiliar these are a thinly fictionalized account of the author’s experience as a young Lt in a Highland Regiment serving the Middle East and Scotland in the immediate aftermath of WWII. They are (more or less) a sequel to Fraser’s outstanding WWII memoir of his service as a private soldier in Burma Quartered Safe Out Here which I cannot recommend highly enough. If you haven’t read these, you should.

Next up was a pair of hard sci-fi books by Becky Chambers, Record of a Spaceborn Few and To Be Taught if Fortunate. Chamber’s books are kind of unusual in a couple of ways. First they’re very “woke”. They generally feature female protagonists and are heavily populated with gay and/or trans characters, and often, more or less socialist (in the classic ‘from each/to each” sense). Its not a problem for me, but I have seen vehement criticism from those “triggered” by “socialism”, SJWs, females, and non-hetero or non-cis characters. If you’re one of those people you will probably not like anything Chambers writes. Second is the fact that her books are a bit thin on conventional “plots” or story lines. The books do have an overarching story, but its usually not really very important. They’re mostly about exploring the lives and environments of the characters and their interactions with each other.

For example. Record is ostensibly about very advanced alien making an anthropological visit to the “Exodan” fleet. The “Exodan” fleet is the collection of humans who, many generations ago, scavenged Earth’s infrastructure for the resources to build a fleet of multi-generational colony ships to leave Earth which had become resource depleted and uninhabitable due to climate change. But the visit is really just device to tell the stories of the characters and explore several themes including how society would react to such a fleet, how first contact between humans and very technologically advanced aliens would unfold, and how the humans that chose to stay with the fleet would interact with those who left the fleet to join the alien economies. It was a fascinating book.

To Be Taught tells the story of a four-person crew of a crowd-funded ship sent to explore four exo-planets. The ship uses only constant acceleration drives which means the crew spends decades-long periods in “hibernation” between short stints exploring the planets and has to deal with the relativistic effects vis-à-vis Earth of traveling at a significant fraction of light speed for long periods of time. Its really all about exploring the different ecologies and biospheres of four VERY alien planets, as well as how the crew reacts when the entity that originally commissioned and is managing the mission from Earth stops transmitting.

Anyway, I really enjoy Chambers books, if you’re into hard sci-fi and willing to look at it from a totally different perspective, you might give these a try.

Conversations with the Rabbi by Harry Kemelman was another re-read of something I read years and years ago. This time everyone’s favorite murder solving rabbi delivers a comprehensive but casual look at Jewish philosophy and theology framed as a series of conversations between the rabbi and a pair of young lovers of disparate religion (he is a casually secular Jew, she is a childhood Christian who has fallen away) who are exploring the options of conversion and marriage. Frankly this one is probably not for everyone, but (if its accurate) it was a fairly painless way to get a good overview of Jewish philosophy and theology.

44 for the year