Amph What book are you reading right now?

Read: Shattered by Teri Terry
A nice end of to the Trilogy, it was a reasonably happy ending and everything fell into place. The only issue I had with this one was that the end of the book did feel a bit rushed, a lot happened in a small number of pages. This didn’t overly ruin the experience though.

Read: The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
This book was incredibly funny in places, a nice change from the previous read, which had very serious topics. The basic premise is that this cat, which can talk, calls on the help of someone to save books, and this someone is also in-need of help. The cat was very snarky, and outright rude in places. A very sweet book on the whole though. It is a book in translation, which I have read a few of now, and the writing style is always very similar, very to the point, but beautifully written.

Reading: Fated by Teri Terry
A prequel novel following the life of the main protagonists mother in the Slated Trilogy, and a new character in who seems to be severely effected by the resent government changes.

 

President James Buchanan: A Biography, by Philip S. Klein. Buchanan is regularly listed as our worst president, which has always seemed a bit unfair to me given that Andrew Johnson, hands down the worst president at least until Trump put himself into the running, is right there at the other end of the Civil War ****ing up Reconstruction. But if not the worst, Buchanan is certainly one of our worst presidents.

There is some irony to this, as Buchanan boasted one of the best resumes of the presidents. A state representative, congressman, senator, ambassador to Russia and to Britain, and secretary of state, in the running for the presidential nomination four elections in a row, he had an over forty-year career in politics that boasted everything except executive experience, including the outstanding nickname “the old public functionary.” With this extensive background, I rather expected him to follow the trend I have pointed out before, of seemingly minor and forgotten presidents being much more interesting and significant than they seem, given their role at the pinnacle of politics in their day. Instead, I found that he joined fellow bottom-rung president Kennedy in being a much smaller man than he seemed. In Klein’s work, Buchanan comes off as just another working politician, with a career longer than most, but entirely undistinguished. He has a devotion to constitutional law, but no particular intellectual eminence, imaginative power, moral vision, or record of accomplishment. Buchanan, the only president who never married (and consequentially, given his close friendship with Rufus King, often suggested to be a gay man, a speculation for which there is no hard evidence one way or the other), comes off as an entirely political animal in Klein’s telling, a man with virtually no personality whose consuming passion is politics for politics’ sake, whose life was devoted mainly to controlling political patronage and factional balancing in Pennsylvania state politics. He is, in short, an uninspiring bore.

But that’s not his most significant shortcoming. As a purely political creature, Buchanan was incapable of seeing slavery as anything more than a divisive issue he would prefer to put to bed. As a consequence, while claiming to personally oppose slavery, he blamed abolitionists for the political uproar as extremist agitators, and came down firmly on the side of supporting southern slavery defenders; his answer was always to protect slavery. As the president who had to manage the Kansas constitutional contention and oversaw the lead-up to the Civil War, the elderly Buchanan (the oldest president elected aside from the short-lived and only months-older Harrison until the election of Reagan, and still in the top five) was incapable of providing real leadership or a solution to the slavery issue, and only made things worse with his reflexive sympathy for the south. He was a lousy person and lousy leader, and deserves ignominy.

But that’s not Klein’s opinion. Klein points out the real difficulties Buchanan faced in devising any kind of solution, his lack of cooperation from Congress, and the ways in which Buchanan’s legalistic values and prioritization of national unity led him to attempt to keep the peace in a way that was unable to succeed. Buchanan is an honorable if sometimes mistaken man, victim of circumstances and political opponents, to listen to Klein. It’s certainly worthwhile to have Buchanan’s perspective presented, to understand why he did what he did, how he saw himself and the nation’s situation, and to get some understanding of the real difficulties he was in, rather than simply painting him as a villain and walking away. But Klein goes beyond that; he’s so defensive that he appears willfully obtuse, stubbornly refusing to engage the criticisms of Buchanan or to see from perspectives beyond Buchanan’s (and also refusing to engage with the suppositions about Buchanan’s homosexuality, which to be fair cannot be brought to any kind of conclusion, but Klein doesn’t even bring it up and minimizes his coverage of King). Klein, publishing in the early sixties, appears excessively influenced by a Lost Cause historiography in which Radical Republicans are the real villains of the story. It’s not that there aren’t points that could be made in defense of Buchanan, but Klein seems blinkered and an excessively partisan biographer. Combined with Klein’s dull prose and uninspiring portrait of Buchanan, it’s a frustrating read even if it sometimes provides a tantalizing sense of challenges that could be made to the conventional narrative by a less obtuse historian. Not a favorite president, not a favorite biography.

 

Actually, Havac, I would rate Buchanan as one of the mediocre presidents (even if he wasn't namechecked in the song):

 

To credit Buchanan with mere mediocrity would indeed be to do him a favor.

 

If you haven't had the opportunity, I highly recommend reading James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, as it heavily delves into the decade prior to the Civil War, and especially on the Buchanan administration.
The bits about the "Know Nothing Party" reads like the blueprints for the MAGA movement.

 

Doctor Who: To the Slaughter (2005). In many ways, the paratext around this book was more interesting than the text itself. The book was a perfectly serviceable slice of corporate espionage, set in the future on and around the moons of Jupiter. Many are scheduled to be destroyed as part of an artistic project to restore the solar system's fung shei. It was a pretty decent read, though nothing outstanding. Slightly dents the run from Halflife to The Gallifrey Chronicles, which was otherwise full of gems, but this was no dud at least.

But some of the stuff surrounding the book was intriguing. Apparently it was only conceived in the first place to fix a science error in Revenge of the Cybermen (1975), which as novel pitches go is hilariously petty (the Doctor gives the number of Jovian moons as 12, ignoring the over 60 now currently known about). Kinda funny that a whole book went out of its way just to blow up all those moons and bring the numbers down, but it does hang off the flimsy premise decently well.

The other interesting thing is that this was the last Eighth Doctor book published before the New Series with Christopher Eccleston began airing. Other than a pair of audios it was the last story period to come out before Rose, making it in some ways the last word on the Wilderness Era. There was one more book, the finale, The Gallifrey Chronicles, but that came out between eps 11 and 12 of Series 1, in a post McGann era. So To the Slaughter is the last of its kind in a way. There was only one short section in the book that felt like it was commenting on this end of an era, this dialogue from the Doctor:

‘From time to time we may all come to resent the clutter of the past. The thought of clearing it all out can be irresistible - it can feel liberating to let it all go. You could say you’re left with a blank canvas, a fresh start... Or you could say you’re left with nothing at all.’

Quite a nice message to have right near the end of this book range, a simple desire to be remembered as Doctor Who forged forwards into a brave new world.

 

Doctor Who: The Gallifrey Chronicles (2005). This is one of my favourite Who books ever written. It's both delightfully light and breezy, while also somehow summing up the messy, tangled EDAs in a way that feels perfect. It's also a very meta book, using the confusing state of the post-Time Lord universe as a parallel to the diverging state of the Doctor Who canon in the wake of audios, books, and comics all splintering without a tv show to anchor them. It hinges greatly on important events from the book The Ancestor Cell (2000), reinterpreting it slightly to improve it and offer a hopeful solution. Fitz and Trix get a lovely small-scale (not-quite) departure where they choose to stay with each other on present-day Earth, finally finding a place in the world to settle down. There are numerous shorted vignette chapters as interludes, telling short fragments of wider stories. Even knowing so much of what came before these are still tantalising little snapshots of how expansive the range could be, raising tantalising questions to make you ponder and think on what it could all mean.

It's hard to describe what makes the book so good, so mired it is in the ongoing lore of the EDAs (despite the fact that the past few books since Halflife had barely any story arc to speak of). It feeds off the best of what came before, tying it into an, if not coherent then at least unified, whole. It even includes a small bit with the Seventh Doctor, going back right to the start of the Wilderness Era to cap it all off. It's a masterpiece, a really great send-off to the book line.

 

Read: Fated by Teri Terry
This was a prequel to the Slated trilogy, and delivered in a way where the chapters alternate between two characters perspective; Sam, the daughter of the deputy prime minister, and Ava, a poorer student who takes up the role of study buddy for Sam. Initially I wasn’t too sure about the story itself, but soon got very into it. It tied in really well with the main series, and answered a lot of questions and gave further background knowledge about one major character. Overall, an engaging read, and one I couldn’t put down!

 

Doctor Who: Fear Itself (2005). But wait, the Eighth Doctor's adventures in print aren't over quite yet! Yes, in the vanishingly small space of time between the his own range ending and the Past Doctor range also shuttering to a halt, the Eighth Doctor snuck in one last story, set back when he was with Fitz and Anji (it's explicitly set between two EDAs, neither of which I've actually read). Usually the Past Doctor range was for the first 7 Doctors, with books slotting in between their TV episodes, but here it's nestled earlier in the book range, so its essentially a period piece for what Who was like in 2001. Feels weird to historicise something from only 4 years prior, but here we are.

So, this odd quirk of publishing brings us a story set in the near-future, in orbit around Jupiter, and hey weren't we here already two books ago? It does feel like it shares a lot of superficial aspects with To the Slaughter (which even had a foreshadowing shout-out to Fear Itself, with Fitz mentioning the main setting of the latter book, cause it came out after but was set before and man this is Timey-Wimey). Stylistically though it's a much more serious tale, and seeks to analyse the Doctor's amnesia once again (in the same vein of Halflife), by, you guessed it, giving him another case of amnesia and seeing how it affects him. I can't complain too much about the repetitiveness though, it's done quite uniquely here, with the Doctor being brainwashed into a mindless soldier.

The book is split into two main strands, one with Anji exploring the aftermath of a big catastrophe on a space research station, and the other 4 years before with Fitz and the Doctor leading up to the same catastrophe. It did cause my interest to flag at times, neither individual strand was quite gripping enough on their own. By the last third or so things pick up a bit, with a compelling explanation behind all the mysteries, involving a war between two intelligent viruses (making it a stealth prequel to The Invisible Enemy (1977), and it also builds a lot from The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) too ). There was even a sweet 'everybody lives' moment near the end. So the strong climax did redeem the slow middle for me.

Anji gets a whole 4 years where she falls in love and lives on Mars, and I thought it would be too much to retroactively insert at that point in her arc (it would be her third adventure chronologically), but there was some clever finagling near the end that made it thematically resonant and gave a narrative cheat so she wouldn't remember it clearly. That's right, everybody gets amnesia! I'm tempted to make a joke about how there was so much amnesia floating about the Eighth Doctor books that even the publishers forgot about this novel, explaining why it came out when it did

And thus truly ends the Eighth Doctor Adventures range (not that I've read the totality of the range, just scattered earlier books and a sustained burst from 2002 to 05). Apart from a single 30 minute Big Finish audio starring Fitz, this is the final word on the range's strengths and weaknesses, and it was a pretty good footnote summing up the whole thing, if a little odd coming in the wake of both The Gallifrey Chronicles and Series 1 of the revival.

 

A review of Green Rider said, "There are books that will change your life. This is not one of them." It is a good book. Had way too much deus ex machina, but makes for good light reading. But nothing compels me to read more of the series.

Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler.

Long ago, a magical war destroyed an empire, and a new one was built in its ashes. But still the old grudges simmer, and two siblings will fight on opposite sides to save their world, in the start of Django Wexler’s new epic fantasy trilogy

 

Has anyone here read the Wheel of Time books ? What do you think of them?

I just got the first one out the library and it's like 800 pages ! That's quite an investment of time .

 

The final book has a chapter that itself is over 100 pages long.

 

The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner

In a Polish town during World War II, a Jewish mother and daughter hide from imminent Nazi persecution in a neighbor's barn. To shield her daughter from the terrors that accompanying them in their present circumstances, the mother tells her child a story about a girl in an enchanted garden where a bird's song is the only sound heard. Inspired by true stories of Jewish children hidden during the war, it's certainly no fairy tale by any stretch of the imagination.

 

I liked the first 3 books a lot. There was a lot of interesting world building and the story seemed to be going places. After that, it just seemed like the characters were wandering around and doing stuff for no good reason, and more characters kept appearing and not adding to the story. I gave up after about 6-7 books, IIRC. But I still recommend the first 3.

 

I heard it has a good beginning and ending, and just a slow middle.

 

The slow middle was also due to the fact that people had to wait 2 years between books and then some books backtracked to align timelines. Reading it now makes it less sloggy.
I still struggle because there are more politics as the books go on and even when someone on a podcast is explaining it to me while I'm looking at the words, I just don't get it.

BUT I reread the series last year and I'm relistening to them this year.

 

I am enjoying Ashes of the Sun so much that even though I am one third of the way through I bought its sequel, Blood of the Chosen.

 

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, by Jung Chang. Cixi had a long and fascinating career at a time of rapid change in China. The emperor’s concubine and mother of his heir, she and the empress took power from the designated regents in a coup after his death, with Cixi steering China through most of the next fifty years through regencies over two emperors. This was a period in which China rapidly opened up to the outside world and modernized, though not successfully enough to avoid its collapse as a power. Cixi has often been vilified as a reactionary, but in this revisionist biography Chang paints her as an enlightened reformer and capable ruler who never received credit because of her womanhood and the success of her political opponents in smearing her. Chang’s depiction of Cixi is interesting and of value, but it’s also so deeply sympathetic that it’s hard to fully trust. Her Cixi may be a needed corrective, but it also feels like a Cixi that Chang wants to believe in, a progressive, wise female ruler, more than an impartially considered reconstruction of the record. It’s a fantastic read and well worth consideration, but it’s not going to be the last word on Cixi.

 

Reading: Endling: The Only by Katherine Applegate
Listening to: Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

 

Ashes of the Sun was outstanding. Siblings are separated when one has some sort of magical sickness and is taken away by the Jedi...uh, the Centarchs, the brother losing his sister and an eye to an arrogant agent. As a result he walks the dark path intending to bring down the current civilization. His sister goes on to become a Centarch. They wield bladeless hilts that ignite into blades according to their unique gifts, in the case of the protagonist a sword of white fire. Through this weapon they wield magic of various sorts. the author does a good job of bringing fantasy together with some light technology and writes a well built world. The author says this is not a Star Wars book but admits to the influence, especially Star Wars on Trial. On to the sequel then.

Blood of the Chosen by Django Wexler.

 

The Story of Christianity, Volume I: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, by Justo Gonzalez. Gonzalez’s two-volume history of Christianity starts out well, covering a fascinating period of history. From the first believers, through persecution, to the establishment of the faith under the Roman Empire, religious schism, the Crusades, the many religious developments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, there’s a lot of religious history to cover. Gonzalez can’t go too far in depth on any of it, as is usual in these sweeping overviews, but he ably conveys the many developments, theological controversies, and overall trends in about 1500 years of history. I enjoyed it a lot, both highly readable and informative.

 

I finished some Daoist texts.

Might move on to some Confucian texts.

What should I read next?

 

Bhagavad Gita?

 

Ah!

I was hoping to get to that one.

Any Mohist texts though?

 

Marvel's Star Wars Vol 2: Operation Starlight