Another month, another procrastination update...
Last Finished:
Aliens in the Backyard: Plant and Animal Imports into America (John Leland, nature, paperback): The history of imported flora and fauna to America dates back thousands of years, raising questions as to what is "natural" and what constitutes a threat.
An interesting concept, it's a much broader subject than this book can adequately tackle; several imports and invasives get no mention, and other articles tend to ramble at inconsistent levels of depth. The author also seemed oddly reluctant to deal with the multiple migration notion of human colonization of the New World, dancing around the issue inexplicably. Overall, it's a decent introduction to the topic of imported species and their natural and cultural impacts, and how hard it is to draw a clear line between "good" species and "bad," between "native" and "import," when even experts disagree on where some things (particularly plants) originated.
Wild Seed (Book 1 of the Patternist series, Octavia E. Butler, sci-fi, on Nook): A predatory spirit, Doro has lived for thousands of years by stealing human bodies. He's styled himself as a god, gathering special humans - those gifted with mind-reading, telekinesis, and other abilities - in "seed villages" as part of his project to breed a superrace of ideal hosts. He thought he was past being surprised, until he encountered Anyanwu. Herself centuries old, the healer woman can reshape her own body, even taking on animal form. She's the closest thing he's found to an equal. Will they become allies or enemies?
A groundbreaking work of SF, written by a groundbreaking author (among the first "big name" African-American genre writers), it tackles issues of race, slavery, gender, abuse, and immortality, particularly the altered moral code one must, by necessity, live by when one's lifespan is measured in centuries and millennia. At several points, it was difficult to read, as it felt like it was rubbing the reader's face in the horrors of slavery and abuse (physical and psychological) while highlighting how monstrous Doro is to even those he considers most valuable (his concept of "love" having atrophied during his exceptionally long existence.) Even Anyanwu isn't the most pleasant person to be around all the time. Overall, I'm glad I read it, and it fully deserves its status as a classic, but I don't expect I'll read further in the series, and I'm not sure if any of Butler's other titles appeal to me enough to try.
Currently Reading:
Holy Cow (David Duchovny, fantasy/humor, paperback): A dairy cow lives a contented life until she sees a TV show about industrial farms and slaughterhouses, a disillusionment that sends her into a downward spiral of depression - until she learns of a place where cattle are worshipped, the distant land of India.
A fun concept, but I'm having trouble dealing with Duchovny's tangent-prone (if amusing) style to get into the story. I'm also having issues suspending my disbelief; IIRC, dairy cows must have at least been bred, and likely have given birth, before they're useful milkers, yet the MC talks like she's essentially a virgin - and, so far, no hints of artificial inseminaton or other reasons she'd be lactating. It's probably stupid to nitpick a book that's inherently and unabashedly silly like this, but it's still bugging me...
The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (edited by John Joseph Adams, anthology/mystery/sci-fi/horror, on Kindle): A collection of Holmes stories by popular authors, ranging from ordinary mysteries to Lovecraftian encounters.
I'd been under the impression that more of these stories would be "improbable," dealing in SF concepts, but a good chunk aren't even tangentially peculiar. So far, they've been readable, if of varied quality. Only read one thus far that I'd consider a true clunker, one that read more like an insult than an homage - indeed, I'm not even sure why it was included, save the author being a big enough name. (Not one I've read, though.)
Hasn't really been a great month for reading, overall... Partly, I've been trying to get my own writing efforts back on track, along with other projects. Partly I just haven't been feeling like reading lately, what with the National Nightmare becoming all too real with every day.