The Aeronaut's Windlass

I really liked this book.  I read it all in a day and I will re-read it a couple of times, I am quite sure.

The plot flew, the characters were interesting, the world building fantastic.  I read it all in a day, mostly on the treadmill.

My only quibble, and I wish I didn't notice it, is that although there are a several female POV characters, the book is missing women in the background, and older women.  The Master Mage is an elderly male with a younger female apprentice, the older guard is male with two young women trainees.  Our ship has a male captain and apparently and entirely male crew, but his ex-wife commands another ship.  Although we see no women in the crew on her ship.

The military of the enemy spire exhibits casual sexism, but "our guys" are only a little better.  The ex-wife makes a comment about the engineer allowing women in the engine room.  I wasn't sure from that if we were supposed to see women in public life as a new thing in Albion.

One of the trainee's mother gets a short POV.  A major villain is female but she is the puppet to an unknown master (whose gender may not yet be specified).  And the exterminators are mentioned as being male and female, although the two named ones (the guild master and the dead guy) are male.

I really doubt that this was intentional on the author's part.  It didn't keep me from enjoying the book, but as a middle-aged woman in the background, I'd like to see more of my own.  There were a number of minor characters that could have easily been made female, Esterbrook, either ship's surgeon, the inn keeper, the guild master, the Spirearch, Barnabus....

I really like this author and I would love to have a skillful way to bring it to his attention without risking offending him.  Ah well.

P.S. The only people specifically mentioned as black or brown are foreigners at the docks.  Albion could be a multi racial society, but it seems unlikely as the black and brown folks are presented as "other". Is the guy on the cover the ship's captain, who is explicitly middle aged in the text?  Also, when did I start noticing this shit?  I really wish I didn't, but I also think unless people notice it won't change.

Good Government as Fantasy?

Yesterday I started reading California Bones by Greg van Eekhout.  I stopped a few chapters in and switched to re-reading The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.  I realized when I continued reading this morning that the books have in common that a POV character in each has as a revolutionary goal, Good Government.  Not conquest and empire, but infrastructure and opportunity.

This says something about our world.  I was thinking back on SFF books I've read recently:

John Scalzi's The End of All Things and Harry Connolly's A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark both have good governance as aims of major characters.

It's a form of competence porn, I suppose, and one I find attractive and like to read.  Hmmm.

Iceland and Refugees

I think....

1. Iceland should limit themselves to 300 to start with (that's 1/1000 citizens).
2. It might be nice if they picked a region or an ethnic, linguistic or religious minority and tried to take all of that group, to provide some cohesion to their new community.
3. They should be spread out over Iceland like a finely knit shawl, with a little clusters and lines.
4. They should have to agree to learn Icelandic.
5. There should be a matching service, so that farmers took in people interested in learning to farm, and teachers with teachers...

I'm not a professional at any of this.  Just a day dreamer.  We could do the same thing in the US.  If we took 1/1000, we could take 318,900.  The population of Iceland.

Hugos 2016

I was a first time Hugo voter. I paid for my own membership. I did not vote in every category (I ran out of time & energy). With one exception, in every category in which I voted I attempted to read every entry. With one exception if I didn’t finish it, it went below No Award. In no category in which I voted was No Award ranked first. I will be nominating for Worldcon74. Give me a list of things you think are good, and in the novella, novelette and short story categories, I will read them. I am not promising to read a 10-20 novels.  And I am probably not interested enough in FanCasts and related works to be useful.

Some of the puppy choices were excellent. ‘Totaled’ and ‘Ashes to Alluvium’ stood out. Some didn’t interest me. Some were awful.

I will not boycott any publisher for anything less than slave labor.  I will not “boycott” any author, I just don’t read what I don’t like.