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30. Sally Mitchell "Daily Life in Victorian England"
"Daily Life in Victorian England" was written as a textbook/school library book intended for high school or maybe 1st year college. It has lots of easily consumable short sections which have a lot of facts, but don't go very in depth on anything. You can't really go in depth if you want to cover the entire Victorian Era in a reasonably short volume. There were certainly some interesting bits, but I wanted more depth and detail. The prose was very straightforward, easy to read, and yes, boring for me. Being for the school market, it irked me in places how the author had to "balance" everything. So, the treatment of natives is balanced. The treatment of the poor is balanced. The treatment of slaves is balanced. There are some workhouses which offered some education to some of the children (got to stretch a long way to get balance on that one). So yeah, it's not entirely Victorian worship, but it definitely only glances and looks away politely at the uglier bits. It's easy to cover terrible inequity up with "overall the standard of living improved so drastically." Yeah, we're still doing that.
uh, 13 revisited
Asimov's March/Apr 2023, I thought I read this earlier, but it turns out I skipped it. I liked that the cover story by Paul McAuley refused to be any of the cliches it might have become. It was complicated and multi-layered. Ray Nayler's language and setting in "The Case of the Blood-Stained Tower" really reminded me of Roger Zelazny. It also had the feel of "there is a lot more here that I'm not telling you about" which Zelazny was famous for. Overall it was a pretty good issue. There were a few duds I could have done without, but the majority were good.
31. Fern Brady "Strong Female Character"
I enjoyed Fern Brady's "Strong Female Character". Reading about her troubles makes me glad that I just find it incredibly tiring to interact in society, hard to maintain eye contact, and depressing to remember everything stupid I've ever done. I have a functional, if begrudging, relationship with human society. So a lot of what Fern went through was familiar to me, but if I had rolling hills she had mountains and cliffs. I imagine a lot of people who read the book will say, "I remember feeling like that" in places. But I think the extremity of the experience makes it a different experience. We all end up having to build our own toolbox, so we can hear the common thread in what she says. But where an average person might need a hammer, Fern needs a sonic screwdriver, multi-tool, sawzall, and vacuum pump. And she got to build them out of fuck all. I was surprised to read how much sexual repression and period shame her generation experienced. I'd have thought people of my generation who had to deal with all those hangups wouldn't subject their kids to it, but I guess it's the gift that keeps on giving.
"Daily Life in Victorian England" was written as a textbook/school library book intended for high school or maybe 1st year college. It has lots of easily consumable short sections which have a lot of facts, but don't go very in depth on anything. You can't really go in depth if you want to cover the entire Victorian Era in a reasonably short volume. There were certainly some interesting bits, but I wanted more depth and detail. The prose was very straightforward, easy to read, and yes, boring for me. Being for the school market, it irked me in places how the author had to "balance" everything. So, the treatment of natives is balanced. The treatment of the poor is balanced. The treatment of slaves is balanced. There are some workhouses which offered some education to some of the children (got to stretch a long way to get balance on that one). So yeah, it's not entirely Victorian worship, but it definitely only glances and looks away politely at the uglier bits. It's easy to cover terrible inequity up with "overall the standard of living improved so drastically." Yeah, we're still doing that.
uh, 13 revisited
Asimov's March/Apr 2023, I thought I read this earlier, but it turns out I skipped it. I liked that the cover story by Paul McAuley refused to be any of the cliches it might have become. It was complicated and multi-layered. Ray Nayler's language and setting in "The Case of the Blood-Stained Tower" really reminded me of Roger Zelazny. It also had the feel of "there is a lot more here that I'm not telling you about" which Zelazny was famous for. Overall it was a pretty good issue. There were a few duds I could have done without, but the majority were good.
31. Fern Brady "Strong Female Character"
I enjoyed Fern Brady's "Strong Female Character". Reading about her troubles makes me glad that I just find it incredibly tiring to interact in society, hard to maintain eye contact, and depressing to remember everything stupid I've ever done. I have a functional, if begrudging, relationship with human society. So a lot of what Fern went through was familiar to me, but if I had rolling hills she had mountains and cliffs. I imagine a lot of people who read the book will say, "I remember feeling like that" in places. But I think the extremity of the experience makes it a different experience. We all end up having to build our own toolbox, so we can hear the common thread in what she says. But where an average person might need a hammer, Fern needs a sonic screwdriver, multi-tool, sawzall, and vacuum pump. And she got to build them out of fuck all. I was surprised to read how much sexual repression and period shame her generation experienced. I'd have thought people of my generation who had to deal with all those hangups wouldn't subject their kids to it, but I guess it's the gift that keeps on giving.
