Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates by Katie Barnes

I'll start by saying that I think a more accurate subtitle for this book would be something like "A discussion of the gender controversy in sports in the United States, and how it has been weaponized by the Trumpian Right Wing" 

That makes the book a bit of a puzzling read for me because:

• I am not an American
• I am not a sports person

But given how the very existence of trans people (particularly trans children) has become a key way for current "conservative" parties to generate outrage, I thought this book could be a timely and perhaps informative read.

My thoughts? 

First of all, Katie Barnes is an excellent journalist.  They have been covering trans folks in American sport since 2016 (the book was published in 2023), and bring their in-depth knowledge, personal experiences, and full professionalism to the discussion. This feels particularly impressive given that Barnes was a child athlete and is trans themselves. No matter how understandable it might have been for Barnes to write either a rant or a polemic, they have not done so.  Instead Fair Play is a thoughtful and well-informed book that benefits from Barnes' empathy, insight, and deep knowledge of the subject matter.  Throughout they go beyond the obvious to tell the human stories of people like Lia Thomas or Mack Beggs (who are more often treated as talking points than people), while also diving into what we know about the science of gender-based athletic difference, the history of post Title IX American women's sport, and the known history of trans/intersex people's involvement. 

In other words, Barnes did an excellent job with Fair Play.  

Does that mean that I think everyone should read this book? The answer for me would have to be, yes but. And the reasons for that but really boil down to the fact that fundamentally, this is a sports book and an American book:

• Example #1:   Barnes expresses as a supposed truism that "Sports are important; all kids should be able to play them".  This sounds admirable, but I don't believe sports as a whole actually believes that in any real way.  For example, when some of the trans/gender-non-conforming athletes interviewed for this book speak about how they felt isolated or excluded within their sports, my gut reaction was "I'm so sorry you experienced that, but that's sports and sports people for you. That's exactly what they're like." 

In other words,  I find it sad but unsurprising that gender-non-conforming kids have the same experience within sports that I did as an unathletic nerdy child. 

• Example #2:  The book is full of "inside baseball" details about American sport. The most literal example comes when Barnes describes the experiences of a kid who started their sports career playing girls softball before transitioning. I have sympathy for the difficulties that kid faced, but:

•  the idea that softball is gendered as a female is weird (which Barnes acknowledges. Unlike in Canada or Australia, in the US softball is purely a women's sport.)  
•  the idea that softball and baseball are somehow completely different sports is hilarious to me. (I played league softball as a kid.  IIRC, the differences are underhanded pitching in softball vs. overhand pitching in baseball, a different ball, and a few minor rule differences around strikes and outs. In other words, softball and baseball are essentially the same sport! We aren't comparing rugby and rhythmic gymnastics here.) 

In other words, as with many books, its specificity is both its weakness and its strength. Which is to say, once again, that fundamentally Fair Play is both an American book and a sports book.  

My last observation is that I found the discussion in Chapter 8: The Breakup in Women's Sport heart-breaking.  This is where Barnes covers the attempt of a group of 'old school feminist sports advocates' and a group of 'new school LGBTQIA+ activists' [my words, fwiw] to come up with a common position and an agreed-upon set of policies around trans inclusion in women's sport. 

They failed. 

The resulting fracture was seized upon and weaponized by those who wanted nothing more than to stoke hatred and division (ie/ Trumpian politicians). You could say that we are seeing the repercussions of that failure everywhere today (including in the despicable laws recently enacted by the Alberta government).

What happened?  

A reductionist view is that one side favoured "fairness" while the other favoured "inclusion". But in some ways the division reminds me of a division that I've seen in the world of computer programming.  

To be a good UI designer (and to make a truly awesome user interface), your designs must make the tasks that most people do most of the time easy and intuitive. Sure, there are less-common tasks, and there are people who need to do unusual things. But if your user interface focuses on that 20%? Disaster. Most people will dislike your software, avoid using it, use it incorrectly, or even hate it.

On the other hand, to be a good back-end programmer, you need to obsessively concentrate on edge conditions. If you don't account for every 'uncommon' case that could possibly happen, your code will fail -- probably spectacularly and at the worst possible time.  In other words, to make a system work you need to spend 80% of your time concentrating on the 20% of edge conditions that could make everything fall apart. 

 In the world of computer programming, the best software comes from teams with both sets of skills, of course, where each kind of expert can focus on their area of expertise. Then the team can work together to build something great.  

But outside of the technical sphere? Well, even within it we live in a world with UIs built by back-end specialists, and back-ends that fail because they don't account for easily predictable situations. And outside? I wonder what kind of software we'd have if every bug was treated as a deliberate provocation and if stoking outrage was a goal written into the product specs?

Overall, Fair Play is an interesting and often thought-provoking read. 

The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi

One of the reasons that I write these blog entries is that they help me clarify my thinking about a book. That means that writing them is work -- I'm not just putting my thoughts 'on paper', I'm thinking things through as I write, which typically means a fair number of false starts and rewriting. I see words on the screen and what I've written leads to new thoughts, or sometimes I realize that what I've written is not really what I meant.  After that there's the process of making the sentences and paragraphs into a coherent narrative.

None of this is really a problem, but as I was writing an entry on The Third Rule I started thinking about generative AI. I used to follow a Tech Writing blogger, who is now all in on using AI in his work.  A relative told me this summer that he uses AI to help him generate Linked In content to support and promote his business.  Could I use AI to make writing a blog entry easier?

I put what I'd already written and some bullet points outlining what else I might add into Claude AI.  

I'm sharing the results below.  <spoiler alert>  I didn't actually complete a blog entry using Claude. </spoiler alert>  In fact, the whole experience soured me on completing this blog entry at all!  But I thought I'd share the process in case anyone finds it interesting.

-------------my original opening paragraphs and notes---------------

Here's what I fed into Claude, with the instructions to complete a blog entry for me.

First rule of time travel: You can only travel to a point within your own personal past. Second rule: Your trip can only last 90 seconds. Third rule:  You can only observe.

This is a fast-paced SF thriller. As the book opens we are time travelling to the plane crash that killed the protagonist's immediate family when she was a teen. From there the pace rarely falters as The Third Rule follows its scientist heroine as she struggles to keep her professional and personal worlds from unwinding.

Parts of this book work really well -- I literally gasped when I realized (via a throwaway line) that one of the rules of time travel had just been broken.  The science of time travel is well-done too, and the explanation of how it all works is interesting and plausible. I also liked the way Fracassi added the time travel explanation to the story by introducing a journalist who needs things explained to them -- because the presence of the journalist is a key plot point in Beth's struggle to save her life's work from rapacious capitalists. In the end, the explanation ratchets up the tension rather than slowing down the action. 

Beth's grief at the death of her husband and the impact of that grief on her life 

Points I want to make:

Good Side

• The premise of this kind of limited time travel is interesting.
• I literally gasped when I realized (via a throwaway line) that one of the rules of time travel had just been broken.  
• The science of time travel is well-done too, and the explanation of how it all works is interesting and plausible. 
• I also liked the way Fracassi plausibly added that explanation to the story by introducing a journalist who needs things explained while making the very presence of the journalist a key plot point in Beth's struggle to save her life's work from rapacious capitalists. In the end, the explanation ratchets up the tension rather than slowing down the action. 

Bad Side

• Beth was one note emotionally: she is constantly devastated by past trauma, angry, impatient, stressed and always falling apart
• Jim, the billionaire owner of the Langan Corporation (and Beth's boss) is a cartoon capitalist villain
• Supporting characters are inconsistent/not well drawn
•  Tariq is Beth's assistant,  and is mistreated / ignored by Beth until he suddenly reveals himself to be her biggest supporter and a holder of critical info
• Jonathon the therapist: is he supporting Beth, or betraying her to corporation? There are mixed messages, and in the end I honestly wasn't clear. 
• There is a Chekov's gun situation with Abigail: she takes Beth aside to tell her that despite appearances, she has Beth's back, and then nothing comes of it

• Means of resolving the story was unsatisfying: basically, 'there are some things humans just can't understand', and then everything is mysteriously resolved, the end.

------------Claude's First Draft ----------------

And you can see below what Claude gave me.  My reaction -- OMG this is terrible.

A Time Travel Tale That Almost Sticks the Landing

Book Review: "The Third Rule of Time Travel" by Philip Fracassi

Philip Fracassi's "The Third Rule of Time Travel" presents an intriguing take on temporal mechanics wrapped in corporate thriller packaging. While the book delivers some genuinely clever moments and solid scientific groundwork, it stumbles when it comes to character development and narrative resolution.

What Works Well

The premise itself is compelling—Fracassi constructs a limited time travel system with specific rules that feel both innovative and plausible. Rather than the usual "anything goes" approach to temporal manipulation, these constraints create real tension and stakes. The science behind the time travel mechanism is surprisingly well-researched and explained in ways that enhance rather than bog down the story.

Speaking of explanations, Fracassi makes a smart narrative choice by introducing a journalist character who naturally needs the complex concepts spelled out. Rather than feeling like an exposition dump, this device becomes integral to the plot as the journalist's presence directly impacts Beth's struggle to protect her life's work from corporate exploitation. It's elegant storytelling that actually ratchets up tension instead of deflating it.

The book's standout moment comes when a seemingly throwaway line suddenly reveals that one of the established time travel rules has been broken. I literally gasped when I caught it—a testament to how well Fracassi had established the rules and their importance. These moments of realization make the reader feel genuinely clever for paying attention.

Where It Falls Short

Unfortunately, the character work doesn't match the strength of the concept. Beth, our protagonist, operates on a single emotional register throughout: devastated, angry, impatient, and constantly falling apart from past trauma. While trauma responses can certainly be persistent, Beth's one-note emotional state becomes exhausting rather than sympathetic.

Jim, the billionaire antagonist and owner of the Langan Corporation, feels like he stepped out of a cartoon about evil capitalists. He lacks the complexity that would make him a truly compelling villain—he's simply rapacious capitalism personified without nuance or believable motivation beyond pure greed.

The supporting characters suffer from inconsistent development. Tariq, Beth's assistant, spends most of the book being mistreated and ignored by Beth, only to suddenly emerge as her biggest supporter with crucial information when the plot demands it. Jonathon the therapist sends mixed signals throughout—is he Beth's ally or will he betray her to the corporation? Beth's trust in him wavers without clear reasoning, leaving readers unsure whether this ambiguity is intentional characterization or simply unclear writing.

Most frustrating is the Chekov's gun situation with Abigail, who takes Beth aside for what feels like a significant moment to assure her that despite appearances, she has Beth's back. This setup promises a payoff that never comes, leaving the scene feeling pointless in retrospect.

The Unsatisfying Resolution

The book's biggest disappointment comes in its resolution. After building intricate rules and complex corporate machinations, Fracassi essentially throws up his hands and declares that some things are beyond human understanding. Everything gets mysteriously resolved without clear explanation, leaving readers who invested in understanding the system feeling cheated. It's a frustrating cop-out that undermines the careful worldbuilding that came before.

Final Verdict

"The Third Rule of Time Travel" succeeds as a thought experiment about temporal mechanics and corporate overreach, but fails as a fully realized story. The clever premise and well-integrated exposition show Fracassi's potential, but the weak character development and unsatisfying resolution prevent the book from reaching its full potential. Time travel enthusiasts might enjoy the novel approach to temporal rules, but those seeking rich character work or a satisfying conclusion should look elsewhere.

Rating: 3/5 stars

A promising concept that doesn't quite deliver on its potential.

---------------------- Michelle edits Claude --------------------------

I thought what Claude came up with was terrible, but both the blogger and my relative had said that in order to get something usable they needed to edit the AI's initial output and/or do a second prompt with feedback on the initial AI output.  

So I started editing. But I gave up in despair before I was done because:

• it wasn't fun
• it wasn't going to be less work than actually writing an acceptable blog entry myself.  And it felt like the end result was going to be inferior too.

When I gave up on editing the AI output, I also decided not to try doing a second prompt.  (See reason #1).

Overall I'd have to say that using AI for a writing task was a fail. Even if you could argue that the failure is on me because I didn't try a second prompt. But I'm willing to live with that.  :-)

<I originally had the text of my attempt to edit Claude below.  But I removed it because I didn't get very far and it wasn't very interesting.>

Night Shift by Natalka Burian

 I found Night Shift on the Science Fiction shelf at the library, but reading the book has made me reflect on book genres and categories of fiction. 

The protagonist of Night Shift lives in 2000s era New York City, working both as a bartender and as a baker. That means that after serving the last drinks of the evening, she dashes across town to a bakery where she makes fine pastries for the morning 'coffee and a pastry' crowd. She can't be late for her second job -- the cafe opens at 6am whether the pastries are ready or not -- and she can't afford to lose the bakery gig because she needs the money to make rent.  But the bar job often runs late and the subway is unreliable, so she is pleased and relieved when a new acquaintance shows her a 'shortcut' between them.

'Shortcuts' are mysterious portals that let you transition between fixed locations within the city -- say from a storage closet in a diner to the backroom of a bar miles away.  Iggy tells Jean that 'everybody knows' about these secret passageways, but all that means is that a few insiders know that they're there (including the staff of the relevant businesses), and that everyone believes that these shortcuts are dangerous, although no one really knows why.

The novel revolves around Jean discovering how the shortcuts really work, how they were created, and who made them.  

So far so good. That's a solid SFF premise. If the explanation leans mystical, the book is Fantasy. If the explanation leans scientific, the book is Science Fiction. Clear, right?

But somehow the book doesn't feel like Science Fiction (even though the explanation turns out to be hand-wavingly sciencey). Instead, I think this is the kind of book agents are looking for when they say that they represent "Speculative".  Sure, the book includes an element of the fantastic (whether scientifically explained or not), but the characters live in the real world that we all share, the protagonist's personal journey and relationships are the heart of the story, and while the fantastical element is important to the plot, it's not important to the protagonist? I'm not sure how to else to explain this last part, except to say that what matters to Jean is the well-being of her former boss, her missing friend, and reconciling herself with the traumas of her past. She fundamentally does not care about the portals. It doesn't even occur to her to say "Teleportation. Holy shit!" And when it becomes clear how the shortcuts were created, no one starts thinking about how TELEPORTATION of all things could be useful or threatening or transformative for society. 'Shortcuts' are simply dangerous, uncomfortable things whose existence needs to be covered up, even for the corporate evil-doers who caused them to exist in the first place. 

That's not a very science fiction way of telling a story.  

There are probably other markers that make this feel more like 'contemporary fiction with speculative elements' than SF that I might be able to figure out if I spent more time thinking about it -- pacing? story arc? -- but in the meantime all I can say is that despite appearances, this is not a genre novel. I find that interesting and a little puzzling, despite my analysis that claims to explain why.

Killers of a certain age by Deanna Rayburn

I've tagged this one "mystery" but it's really more in the vein of "thriller".  

Our heroines are just-retired assassins who were employed by a private organization that was originally founded to hunt down and kill Nazis who had escaped ordinary justice. Now the four sixty-year-old women are reunited for a retirement cruise. We see their glory days as assassins in flashbacks that show them posing as stewardesses, nuns, archeology students and more to carry out elaborate killing plots that rid the world of various drug dealers, crooked bishops, and yes, even elderly Nazis.

In the present day, the women reminisce about their past while commiserating about lost loves, post-retirement life, and the inexorable symptoms of aging -- until one of them notices something that seems wrong, and they are launched into an adventure that requires them to use all of their skills to survive.

This book has a light-hearted tone at odds with the rather brutal murders that are sprinkled liberally across its pages. Because (of course /s) the very idea of a deadly 60 year-old woman is ridiculous.

I could fault the premise, but it seems to form the basis of the entire 'unlikely assassin' genre: it's certainly the rationale behind books like An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good and the entire Mrs Polifax series.

Killers is entertaining despite its many improbabilities and numerous plot holes, and delivers pretty much exactly what you'd expect on every page.  3/5 stars.

Trees against the wind: The birth of prairie shelterbelts by William R. Schroeder

 When you drive across the Canadian prairies, you'll soon notice that most farmyards are surrounded by trees. This isn't an accident. For 111 years, the Canadian government operated a prairie agroforestry program to support homesteading, control erosion, and enhance agricultural production. Over its lifetime  the Prairie Shelterbelt Program (its final name) gave away 175 million trees, free of charge, to Canadian farmers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. It changed the face of the prairies.

Growing up in Saskatchewan, I was familiar with shelterbelts. Some farms, particularly in the south of the province, had fields bordered by long hedgerows.  Almost every farm had a rectangular box of trees surrounding its farmhouse, barns, and equipment sheds.  I never questioned this: it's just how farms were. 

Trees Against the Wind explains.  The Indian Head Forestry Nursery Station (and later the Saskatoon Forestry Farm) were founded by Norman Ross, who oversaw a research program that identified the best trees for planting on the prairies and established the horticultural techniques needed to successfully grow them. Ross also created a nursery program that grew millions of trees annually, devised shipping techniques for seedlings that ensured the trees reached farmers alive (even in the days when they were transported by train and horse cart), and created an outreach/extension program to mentor farmers in tree husbandry so that most shelterbelt trees survived and thrived. He also publicized and promoted the tree planting program and cultivated the political support that saved it from budget cuts more than once. He also also never hired anyone with a non-British background to a responsible position on his team, and was known for being a bit of a martinet -- and didn't earn enough money to send his only son to University.

Other things I learnt by reading this book:

• Carragana hedges are ubiquitous in the oldest parts of Saskatoon, so I've always known about carragana. As it turns out,  carragana shrubs are originally from Siberia, and were the single hardiest tree produced by the shelterbelt program. During the severe drought of the Great Depression, the program focused on growing and distributing carragana because it was the plant most likely to survive.
• The Forestry Farm Park in Saskatoon -- d'uh!-- was originally a secondary tree plantation that was founded to expand production for the shelterbelt program. It operated as a tree farm until 1966, when operations ceased and it was transferred to the City of Saskatoon.  The main park area you visit today was conceived as a 'demonstration project' to show farmers what they could achieve by planting on their farms.
• The shelterbelt program originally focused on foresting farmyards.  Most of the prairies (especially the southern prairies) were flat and featureless.  By creating a treed farmyard, famers could not only shelter their homes from the ceaseless winds, they could capture snow over the winter, and create a tiny oasis where they could grow food plants (fruit trees and vegetables) that would otherwise not survive.  In the early years of the program, homesteads with farmyard shelterbelts were much more likely to remain occupied, because they made the farm much more hospitable for farm families.
• The husbandry techniques identified by the program meant that most trees could survive without watering, even in their early stages.  The techniques included soil preparation, the depth of planting, tree spacing, the mix of species used, and frequent weeding/inter-row cultivation during the seedlings' first three years.

Who should read this book?  Anyone who wonders why the Canadian prairies look like they do today, or who is interested in the history of horticulture and forestry in this part of the world. 

Stars and Bones by Gareth L. Powell

 Another space opera!  I'm not sure why I haven't heard of Gareth Powell, because he's published many books and has been nominated for or won multiple British Science Fiction Association awards. 

Apparently Stars and Bones is the first in new series for Powell, but it reads like a stand-alone. Well-written, well-plotted, with both some interesting original ideas and some borrowed ones (there were elements that reminded of both The Expanse and Ancilliary Justice.)  

The book grabbed me harder than Stina Leicht or L.M. Sagas, although I'm not entirely sure why. Because it had a gripping adventure plot? (instead of centring the relationships? Not that relationships aren't important -- our heroine takes some foolish risks to rescue people that she cares about.)

I'd be up for reading more books by Powell, although for me they fall into the category of "that's  entertaining" rather than "that's amazing".

Psalms for the End of the World by Cole Haddon

 Why?  Why do I feel compelled to finish books?  The world is full of books, my time on this earth is limited, and there is no reason on earth to spend any of it reading books that I'm not really enjoying.  (Other than my recent obsession with meeting my Goodreads/Storygraph annual reading goals. Four books ahead of schedule as of today!)

Yes, I struggled to finish this one.  Yes, I did finish it.  

Was it a bad book?  Not at all.  The cover quotes reviews saying things like "Mind-bendingly clever and utterly gripping" and "Ingenious" and I can see where those comments come from.  It's well-written too.  

What's my problem? A number of things. The book has to overcome the fact that it leans into a couple of tropes/conventions that are not generally my favourites:

• Multiple characters, multiple timelines, multiple storylines that have no clear connection
• Reader is lost amongst a random, confusing set of situations in a universe where much of what happens makes little sense.  Rules of the world need to be inferred over many pages (Reader only begins to understand the overall situation about 125 pages in.)

Basically, Psalms 'buries the lede'. Which is not all bad.  Not every book needs to be (or should be!) an adventure full of characters saying "As you know Bob, if the graffelgrommit fails we're all DOOOOOOMED!"  

Equally though, does any book need to be stuffed full of graphic descriptions of post-WWII torture murders of Nazis?  Alongside conquistador murders and slavery torments and beatings by racist cops? Especially when all of these gruesome storylines are actually pretty peripheral to the main plot? They're more in the line of illustrations of the fact that we are operating in a universe with  <spoiler>  many parallel and interconnecting simulated worlds </spoiler>.

Why did I finish?  Because the 125 pages point was well-calibrated. (Any later and sorry, I'm not intrigued, I'm frustrated and bored.)  Because the writing was vivid, and the situations were gripping and/or intriguing (especially the ones that didn't feature graphic violence).  Because I wanted to see how everything came together. (Hallelujah. It did! In books like this it doesn't always.) Because the book had an editor (my guess :-) who insisted on the rare chapters that included clear explanations.  Because I could skip the most graphic descriptions of horrible things.

But mostly, because I'm stubborn.  Otherwise I'd have stopped at about page 250 (of 538).  

The Emotional Brain: Lost and found in the science of emotion by Dean Burnett

I wouldn't rate this one more than 3 stars out of 5, if this were Goodreads or Storygraph, mostly because I didn't find it a super-engaging read.  This is ironic because the author structures the entire book around his personal story of trying to understand his own emotions after the death of his father during COVID -- and one of his conclusions is that humans are wired to be more engaged by personal and emotional stories than by 'pure facts'.

I do have a few take-aways though:

• There is no 'scientific' definition of what an emotion is. Emotions are complicated.
• Many brain structures are involved in the creation of emotions, and emotions influence most brain functions
• Cognition (rational thought) is dependent on emotion: how else are we to identify what is important to focus on (of the literally overwhelming number and variety of things we can sense, remember, or identify)?  Without emotion, on what basis would we make decisions? (after all, what is a 'good' or 'bad' outcome without emotion? what would those words even mean?)
• Emotions evolved from our most primitive evaluative functions, deep in our evolutionary past. How do we know?  Emotions are fundamentally linked to our sense of smell i.e./ the part of our brain that evaluates chemical inputs. (The author imagines a single-celled organism in the primordial ooze being attracted to or repelled by chemicals that are useful or dangerous.)
• Sharing emotions, understanding others' emotions, being influenced by others' emotions....these are the basis of human cooperation, human survival, and ultimately, human evolutionary success. 
• Which is why we are more likely to believe information conveyed by someone we have an emotional connection with....and that's why anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists. climate deniers....

So, informative and worth reading, even if I found a few of his conclusions trite (no, I don't think we are attracted to rational thought because we find it emotionally satisfying. I think we are attracted to rationality because it works.)

 

The York Factory Express: Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay, 1826-1849 by Nancy Marguerite Anderson

You aren't as tough as a voyageur.  No, not even if you run marathons.  Not even if you run ultramarathons.

The York Factory Express is a non-fiction book based on the journals kept by Hudson's Bay Company 'gentleman' (company administrators). It documents their annual trip from the HBC post at modern-day Vancouver, Washington to the main HBC depot at York Factory Manitoba on the shores of Hudson Bay.  Remarkably, they made this 2,700 mile (4300 km) trip by paddle, sail, horseback, snowshoes, and foot without benefit of railroads, roads, or engines of any kind.  The main motive power was the voyageurs who paddled and rowed the boats upstream, except when the current was so strong that they needed to 'line' the boats through rapids with ropes or carry them across portages. To cross the Rockies they left the boats behind and snowshoed up and across Athabasca Pass (https://www.alltrails.com/trail/canada/alberta/athabasca-pass-from-jasper claims total elevation gain of 2500m), carrying packs of up to 70 pounds.  Days were long too: the journals document daily start times ranging from 2:30am to 4:30am, with days ending at 8 or 9pm -- except when they travelled all night to find better conditions for snowshoeing of course.

The trip typically took 3.5 months each way.  

Why?  Well, I also don't want to hear anyone complain about their work meetings again.  Sure, maybe that meeting could have been an email, but at least you didn't have to travel across the continent to attend.  It took sailing ships from England two years to reach Fort Vancouver. By travelling overland to to the annual HBC administrator meeting at Norway House (or the Red River colony), central administrators could get an annual accounting of the activities of Western fur traders, and the Western fur traders could make more timely requests for the right amounts and varieties of trade goods (which were  delivered by those annual ships from England).

The York Factory Express tells a remarkable story.

How about the book itself? The author quotes extensively from fur trade journals, and the book has a number of helpful maps to illustrate the path taken by the Express. However, I have to sympathize slightly with the reviewer on Goodreads who says "Like the voyageurs, my main feeling on finishing was relief that the journey was finally over."  The book would have been much improved if the author had added more analysis and context.  I found myself turning to the internet repeatedly to understand where locations mentioned in the book are in terms of modern landmarks, a task made more difficult by the fact that most of the rivers the Express travelled have since been extensively altered by Hydro developments.  I also struggled sometimes with fur trade terminology and history -- when there are explanations, they often appear well after the terms, events, or people in question are first mentioned.  

Who should read this book?  Anyone interested in the history of the land we all now share, or who wants to understand why Cumberland House (1774) is the earliest European settlement in the province of Saskatchewan.  But it would help if you already knew something about the history of Western Canada and the role of the Hudson's Bay Company in that history, as the author assumes a lot of knowledge on the part of her readers.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinsin

 Well, this is a change of pace. You know how I said I like 'cozy' books? The Traitor Baru Cormorant definitely doesn't qualify.

Baru Cormorant is a story of colonization, told from the point of view of one of the colonized people (like Mission Child by Maureen McHugh).  As in all stories sympathetic to colonized peoples (like Ancilliary Justice by Anne Leckie), the background of the book is quite grim.  Baru is removed from her family as a child and is educated in the colonizer's school to teach her both the values of the colonizers and the specific skills that will make her useful to Empire. As in The Poppy War by RF Kuang, our protagonist overcomes her disadvantaged background to excel in the imperial service exams.  From there Baru takes up a challenging post in service to the Falcresti empire. Her secret goal is to remain true to her family and her birth society.  She wants nothing more than to find a way to free Taranoki from imperial rule.

This is a morally complex story with a morally complex protagonist and a surprising but inevitable conclusion.  And while the book has its moments, overall it's very dark from page one through to the end.  As a writer I admire and hope to learn from Dickinsin's skilled use of foreshadowing, but I am not planning to read the two sequels.  At the moment I'm not up for reading more dark stories set in dark worlds.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3)

 Or, in other words, a three volume omnibus that includes All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Fugitive Telemetry, and System Collapse.

Yes, of course I've read Murderbot before.  But the books are mostly novellas and were previously released only as hardcovers at ~$26.99 each (or $99 CAD for the first four volumes).  And while I admire and very much enjoyed Martha Wells fantastic adventure series -- ouch.  I originally read all of these in library e-book editions.

When I discovered that the Murdot Diaries had finally been released in a more affordable paperback omnibus edition, it was time for an immediate purchase and an immediate re-read.

What do I think, five years after I first discovered our snarky, anti-social, but very much anti-murdering-humans rogue SecUnit?  

Firstly, and most embarrassingly, that I was unwittingly highly influenced by these books as I composed my own latest novel.  It's not that I didn't know what Murderbot was like as I wrote.  It's more that I absorbed rather more Murderbot than I realized or intended, and it came out on the page.  Oops.

Not that being like Murderbot is a bad thing in and of itself.  The books crackle with energy and personality, and you can't help but sympathize with SecUnit's desire to stand in a corner and watch media in preference to watching the humans it's trying to protect do their very best to get killed. Murderbot's snarky but relatable personality is why the series was such a hit, and why I (very much hope) that Martha Wells is now financially secure.

Highly recommended, even though by Book 6 I was starting to feel that it was time for Murderbot to have a little peace and happiness instead of another adventure.

A Pale Light in the Black by K.B. Wagers

I picked this up book up and put it down about three times when I was at Powell's in Portland.  I'd managed to squeak in an extra 3/4 of an hour for myself in the bookstore while everyone else was occupied, and I spent most of that time in the SFF section torn between the books that seemed like great comps and the books that I most wanted to read -- with the added complication of the question "will I ever find this again elsewhere?"

In the end, Loki's Ring is one of the books that made it home with me (on the 'I may never see this again' principle), while the K.B. Wagers books were at the top of the 'I guess I can't buy ALL THE BOOKS' pile.  But I made a careful note of the name and titles and managed to find the first book of Wagers' NeoG series at the public library recently.

If you want a brief summary of A Pale Light, you could do worse than the pull quote on the front cover "If The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet had more kickboxing matches and death-defying space rescues, this would be the book. -- Max Gladstone, author of Empress of Forever".  To whit:

• Protagonist is the rebel daughter of a powerful family who is following her own path -- CHECK
• Narrative centres a 'found family' of loveable misfits -- CHECK
• Female, NB, and queer characters are central -- CHECK
• Spaceships and adventure -- CHECK

But of course A Pale Light in the Black is its own book.  Our loveable band of misfits are members of the interplanetary Coast Guard (the NeoGs, or Near-Earth Orbital Guards), making this book a kind of modern Military SF.  In sharp contrast to most space operas, the team's immediate goal is not saving humanity or fighting aliens or protecting Earth.  The crew of Zuma's Ghost really wants to do well in the Boarding Games, an inter-Service Olympics that features events like computer hacking, cage fighting, and simulated 'take over the occupied space station' competitions.  Of course that's not the only plot -- the main drama involves the prodigal daughter finding her confidence as she becomes a fully integrated member of her NeoG team, while simultaneously uncovering a nefarious plot that OF COURSE involves her family and its business interests.

What did I think of the book?  Unlike some of the SFF I've reviewed lately, this is not a debut novel.  Wagers published five books before this one,  and their experience shows.  Characters are all three-dimensional, dialog is seamless, description is well-chosen, and the action moves along.  You care about Jenks (the tough, orphaned Petty Officer who would much rather get in a bar fight than admit that she might have Feelings for someone), and for Max, our low-confidence high competence protagonist.  Overall the book is very competently done, entertaining, and I enjoyed it a lot.  

My only criticism is a tiny pet peeve -- in real life of course people have full, multi-part names, they have titles ('Commander'), they have nicknames (and sometimes more than one  ('Jenks', 'Dai')).  And of course in real life these names and titles and nicknames might bear no obvious relationship to one another. But in fiction...oy.  Introducing multiple people in the first few pages while referring to each person in multiple different ways?  Realistic? Sure.  Effective?  I dunno.  I'm a person who has trouble enough keeping single names of the real folk that I meet straight. But take this criticism for whatever you think it's worth -- I'm also not a huge fan of the style of high fantasy that throws you into an unfamiliar situation without explanation and expects you to be satisfied by finally figuring out what was happening on page 1 by reading page 452. 

Loki's Ring by Stina Leicht

 Another space opera!  More spaceships, ship AIs (and other artificial persons) as characters, an interstellar crisis, even a ring world.

This one took me a long time to read, and I wasn't sure why.  The writing was good, the characterizations were distinct and consistent, characters were sympathetic, there was lots of action and clear stakes.  So why did I keep putting it down and not getting back to it for days?  Why did I find Doppelganger more gripping?

I think the first reason is the most important, and I'll simply make it by gesturing at the world around me.  If you're reading this in years to come, remember what the first month or two of the Trump II administration was like.  It's hard to concentrate.

The second reason didn't strike me until after I finished the book.  When I thought about the story I'd just read, I realized that at its heart, Loki's Ring is women's fiction.  The central conflict is not between the Norton Alliance and the TRW.  The struggle that drives the book is not Gita's need to rescue her AI daughter.  The mystery is not why illicit miners were trying to harvest something from the surface of Loki's Ring, and the horror is not the dastardly virus liberated by their efforts.  No, the central conflict of the book is internal to Gita:  she has to come to terms with the fact that there was no way to prevent the tragedy that she is haunted by, and she needs to reconcile with her family (including her AI daughters) and her estranged former partner. The mystery is exactly what happened (before our story begins) and how it has affected each character.  The true struggle is for personal growth.  

In other words the space opera elements are merely trappings, in the same way that Calamity by Constance Fay is a romance, even though it features spaceships and scrappy space adventurers and an interstellar villain volcano lair. 

Then it all made sense.  Loki's Ring didn't grab me because while there's nothing in the least wrong with women's fiction, it's not the kind of story that I generally read, and is not the kind of story that generally grabs me.

I have to admit that I don't really understand how all of this works from a writerly perspective.  I mean,  a space opera (or a mystery) without romantic elements or personal dilemmas or character growth would probably be dull.  So why does a romance (or woman's fiction) leave me cold? What makes a story something that I find compelling?   The stakes can't be purely personal?  Hm....maybe that's it.  While the events in Loki's Ring include dramatic escapes from wrecked spaceships, alien attacks, and at least one big spaceship fight -- that's not what *matters* to the characters. What matters is dealing with their colleague's agoraphobia.  Reconciling with their estranged friend.  Letting down their family.  Bringing themselves to say that they're sorry.  Admitting that they were wrong.  You know, the actually important stuff that everyone has to deal with in life.

Hmmm...learning by reading continues.

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

Klein was inspired to write this book by the unnerving experience of being repeatedly confused with Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth.  Both women are authors of a certain age who have written "thinky" books, both women are Jewish, both are named Naomi. 

Klein, of course, is best known for her books No Logo and Shock Doctrine. She is also Canadian leftist 'royalty', being the daughter of feminist icon filmmaker Bonnie Sherr Klein, sister of author and former think-tank director Seth Klein, and wife of progressive NDP activist Avi Lewis (who is himself the grandson of former NDP leader David Lewis and son of NDP icon Stephen Lewis). 

Naomi Wolf, on the other hand, has taken a turn since her feminist days.  As a popular meme goes "If your Naomi be Klein, you're doing just fine.  If your Naomi be Wolf... oh buddy. Oof."  Wolf has gone full conspiracy-theorist anti-vax MAGA.

Klein is at no risk of following in Wolf's footsteps, which is one reason why she became somewhat obsessed with the path taken by her shadow-self, her doppelganger.  How had this once feminist become a regular on Steve Bannon's radio program? What prompted Wolf to start ranting about 'freedom' when faced with vaccine requirements?  Why had Wolf transformed from an advisor to the Clinton administration to a MAGA hanger-on? 

I think that Doppelganger is strongest when it addresses this specific issue.  Why did Wolf and a whole swath of others move towards health conspiracy theories?  Q-Anon?  MAGA politics?  

Two factors in particular struck me.  

The first is that at the core of most of these conspiratorial beliefs is a fear rooted in reality.  For example, during the pandemic one of the anti-vax talking points was that the vaccines were a tool of Big Pharma, being rolled out to maximize profits.  Leaving aside their "arguments" about the vaccine's dangers, Big Pharma is in fact fucked.  We need look no further than the contemptible Martin Shkrelli (2015's most punchable man), who raised the price of a critical antiparasitic drug from $13.50 to $750.00 a pill.  And during the pandemic, as Klein points out, we could have cancelled patents on the COVID-19 vaccines and rolled out a global low cost vaccination program to protect lives around the world while simultaneously reducing the virus' ability to mutate. Instead we protected corporate profits. 

Anti-vax anger at Big Pharma is not wrong.  

Similarly,  Wolf amongst others railed against vaccine passport apps as being an intolerably oppressive Big Brother tracking tool designed to first track everyone and then imprison them.  The riposte of the sane was something like "Just wait until they find out about cell phones."  Klein's response: "They know about cell phones."  In other words, smirk all you like but we all carry an unparalleled surveillance device in our pockets.  We're just mostly being surveilled by unchecked corporations who can and do do anything they like with our data.  (The "mostly" is because of course we've all decided to politely ignore Edward Snowden's revelations about the reality of unrestricted government data capture.)

Anti-vax anger at surveillance is not wrong either.

In both of these cases (and in so many more), the problem is not that conspiracy theorists are afraid and angry at things that are happening in society.  The problem is that they direct their fear and anger towards invented targets, twisted mirrors of the real causes, because their invented targets are easier to understand, easy to demonize, and are less threatening to oppose than the real forces that are causing danger or real harm. 

The second point that really struck me about Klein's description of the attraction of the shadow world is that the shadow world of conspiracies is very welcoming.  When Naomi Wolf first wanted to say something on Bannon's program, she was eagerly accepted into the fold.  "Look, this  feminist and former Democrat wants to talk to us about <insert mild conspiracy theory here>."   Wolf was listened to instead of challenged and received lots of validation (and new social media followers), and step by step she went deeper and deeper into MAGA world.  Similarly, Klein notes that callers to Bannon's phone-ins are treated gently, encouraged and supported in whatever they choose to talk about, and generally welcomed with open arms.

Contrast this experience to Wolf being publicly humiliated by an interviewer who discovered errors in her 2019 book Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love.  (The errors were profound and real: Klein points out that Wolf has never been a meticulous researcher, but I think her publisher also has a lot to answer for.)  Contrast also the stereotypical world of the left, where the People's Front of Judea will fight to the death the heresies of the Judean People's Front (in preference to effectively opposing the Romans of course).  Or to to take a personal example, look at Doppelganger itself, which has an entire chapter pointing out that Hitler's Germany and its final solution was simply a darker doppleganger of Western societies and their "Indian Reservations" and  their Boer War concentration camps, and their anti-Semitic laws.  (My emotional reaction: in this broken and nasty world we live in, isn't there anything we can celebrate? Not even defeating the actual Nazis?)  Or another personal example:  a statement on the Wild Bird Trust website about the harm done by white environmentalists by creating a bird sanctuary at Maplewood Flats without the knowledge or consent of the Tsleil-Waututh people -- in a world in which it feels miraculous that Maplewood Flats exists as a natural area at all. (It's a near-impossibility to preserve any natural area seen as having "economic value".)

The 'left' is not a welcoming world.  Maybe because reality isn't.  Maybe because we really do share a very dark history, and there is much pain for which real amends have never been made (and probably never can be truly made).  Maybe because we are collectively too often genuinely powerless, and it is the only the battles against the Judean People's Front that seem winnable.

Klein, like any good activist, ends her book with a call to action.  She asks us to work together with real people in the real world, where we can see and feel their totality, and can perhaps learn to work with people we don't 100% agree with.  

But as I finished the book all I could think was how much easier it is to shitpost than it is to understand or act.  And that every one of us is vulnerable to the temptation to seek simple answers to complex problems.  

What makes a book 'cozy'? In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

 I've been describing my WIP as a "cozy space opera" as I've been pitching it recently.  This is mostly a marketing decision, given the success of Becky Chambers, Victoria Goddard, T.J. Klune, and others.  

But what does it mean for a book to be cozy?  As far as I know, the term is derived from the "cozy mystery" subgenre.  In a cozy mystery, there may not even be a murder (Alexander McCall Smith).  And I don't think I can improve on the description of a cozy mystery I created for that review:  "There are no graphic descriptions or upsetting details,  you probably didn't get to know the person well or at all before they were "struck down", and you get the distinct impression that a murder occurred only to  give the detective an excuse to poke about, ask questions, and solve a puzzle."  The only thing missing is perhaps that cozies are often series, which means that there is a recurring cast of often quirky characters who help or hinder the heroine.  (Because it is generally a heroine, isn't it?)

So what makes for cozy SF?  I think it comes down to a protagonist is who is flawed but fundamentally decent and relatable, a world that is in at least some ways fair (effort is awarded, villains and plotters can be overcome, most folks are decent and trying to do the right thing, competence is important and appreciated) , there is often a "found family"of characters who love and support one another, personal relationships are an important part of the story, and the stories are generally LGBTQ+ friendly.  Of course there is also a happy ending.

Is In the Lives of Puppets cozy?  On the negative side, to quote the book itself: "Most unfortunately, in the lives of puppets there is always a 'but' that spoils everything".  In this case, the 'but' is the setting.  It's a post-apocalyptic world where all humans except our protagonist have been exterminated by robots.  Post-apocalyptic worlds are not particularly cozy.  Another fly in the ointment -- does it have a happy ending?  Without getting into details, the answer is "yes, but" because whatever else happens, our protagonist remains not only the only human, but almost certainly the very last human who will ever exist.  So even though there are triumphs and the protagonist achieves a number of goals, the happy ending is shaded.  As is the happy ending itself, even on the face of it, because the happiness comes with losses too.

On the positive side, the story is fundamentally a retelling of a fairy tale (Pinocchio), there is a quirky cast of characters (including an over-eager vacuum modelled after the author's Roomba), one of the antagonists becomes an ally, and characters choose good over evil.  

Do I recommend the book?  "Yes, but" again. Yes, I'm not sorry I've read this.  Yes I enjoyed it.  Yes I think it was well-done.  Yes, I think it was an overall positive experience, and no, I don't think there are any glaring flaws (even though there was a bit of inconsistency in the characterization of the supporting cast towards the end).  The only "but" is a relatively minor one, really.  "But I'm not going to rush out and read everything else TJ Klune has written."  The "but" to that "but" is that's a pretty high bar for an author new to me to cross.