BookWyrm

GenericMoniker reviewed The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (Paperback, 2021, Vintage)

In his most extraordinary book, “one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century” …

Taking our brain for granted

3 stars

The case studies of patients who had strange neurological conditions was fascinating -- people who couldn't sense their bodies, people who couldn't form new memories, a pair of twins who could perceive numbers of things without counting them and several others. The author's philosophizing was less interesting.

GenericMoniker reviewed The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson: The Sunlit Man (Hardcover, 2023, Tor)

Years ago he had comrades in arms and a cause to believe in, but now …

Something strange about this planet

3 stars

A Bridge 4 soldier from the Stormlight Archive is skipping across the Cosmere and ends up on a planet whose sun destroys (nearly) all life it touches. The planet's inhabitants live in cities that are made up of a bunch of conjoined hovercraft that keep the people moving perpetually within the safety of night.

The soldier joins up with a small group of revolutionaries as they seek out a refuge that would allow them to stop constantly moving while resisting an evil dictator who wants to unify/enslave all the planets inhabitants.

As a story the book was fine, but I had a hard time accepting the setting. I wouldn't expect life to have been viable on a planet where the sunlight destroys what it touches, yet somehow there are indigenous animals that live there (mentioned only briefly). The humans living there aren't native, but assuming some of the people that …

A Bridge 4 soldier from the Stormlight Archive is skipping across the Cosmere and ends up on a planet whose sun destroys (nearly) all life it touches. The planet's inhabitants live in cities that are made up of a bunch of conjoined hovercraft that keep the people moving perpetually within the safety of night.

The soldier joins up with a small group of revolutionaries as they seek out a refuge that would allow them to stop constantly moving while resisting an evil dictator who wants to unify/enslave all the planets inhabitants.

As a story the book was fine, but I had a hard time accepting the setting. I wouldn't expect life to have been viable on a planet where the sunlight destroys what it touches, yet somehow there are indigenous animals that live there (mentioned only briefly). The humans living there aren't native, but assuming some of the people that decided to go there survived the discovery of the sun's destructive power, its unclear why they didn't immediately pack up for somewhere better.

Also, a major plot point was the need to get the rebel city to fly over some mountains to avoid having to fight the dictator's forces, and through a major engineering effort, that is accomplished. A secondary project was to build weapons for the city so that they could fight the dictator. It seems like if they had made the weapons the primary project, they could have skipped the "fly over the mountains" project entirely.

Given the number of pre-release readers Brandon Sanderson has for his books, I have to think that it all made sense to lots of people, but I guess I missed that understanding beyond "magic". Or maybe Brandon just liked the setting and didn't want to get bogged down in justifying it, thereby ruining the story.

GenericMoniker reviewed The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (Penguin classics)

Bernal Díaz del Castillo, J. M. Cohen: The Conquest of New Spain (1963, Penguin)

Recollections of the conquest of New Spain describes the various expeditions, marches, embassies, important leaders, …

Learning of the conquest

4 stars

Content warning Spoilers (but it is history, so...)

I've only had a vague sense of what the Spanish incursion into the Americas was like, from school or whatever other sources I've happened upon. Something about them forcing Christianity and generally massacring the peaceful indigenous people with guns. I got a different sense of things reading Bernal Díaz' account. These are some of the things that stood out to me:

Hernan Cortes' campaign was only undertaken with the thinnest of government authorization, with several parties actively trying to stop him -- not because they thought it was morally wrong but because they wanted the spoils for themselves.
There were a lot of people in Central America, with a large civilization.
Díaz and his fellow soldiers seemed fairly devout in their faith, often ascribing their survival in battles or other good fortunes to the grace of God.
Despite that, they seemed pretty OK with accepting Aztec women as gifts of diplomacy or trophies of war. Was chastity not an important virtue?
Although they taught Christianity, one of their primary goals was steer the Aztecs away from their religion based on human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Cortes was deft at diplomacy, gaining allies among various groups of Aztecs and generally tried to avoid fighting (until he got himself in such a precarious situation that taking Montezuma hostage was maybe the only way of surviving).
Yes, there were muskets, but crossbows were also heavily used in battle by the Spanish.

The story is well told, including a "darkest hour" in the siege against the lake city of Mexico, when the Spanish have lost a battle wherein Cortes was nearly killed, many Spaniards were captured and sacrificed to idols, and their native allies abandon them.

GenericMoniker started reading The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (Penguin classics)

The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, J. M. Cohen (Penguin classics)

Recollections of the conquest of New Spain describes the various expeditions, marches, embassies, important leaders, sieges, and captures.

GenericMoniker reviewed Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (Hardcover, 2023, Tor Books)

Yumi comes from a land of gardens, meditation, and spirits, while Painter lives in a …

Yumi and Painter

3 stars

Yumi and Painter, "practical" artists in two different cultures become somehow bound to each other such that they experience each other's worlds.

This story took me a little while to get into, and required a fair amount of "let me explain what is going on..." from the narrator to understand some Cosmere concepts that in other books/series are meted out more slowly.

Still, I enjoyed the characters and their self-exploration as well as the imaginative world.

GenericMoniker finished reading Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Yumi comes from a land of gardens, meditation, and spirits, while Painter lives in a world of darkness, technology, and …

GenericMoniker started reading Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Yumi comes from a land of gardens, meditation, and spirits, while Painter lives in a world of darkness, technology, and …

GenericMoniker reviewed Without the Mask by Charlie Bird

Charlie Bird: Without the Mask (Paperback, Deseret Book Co)

A positive outlook

4 stars

The author, Charlie Bird, had been Cosmo, the Cougar mascot at Brigham Young University while he was a student there, and had some of his dance videos with the Cougarettes go viral.

He is also gay and struggled to reconcile that at a religious school and as a member of a conservative faith that didn't have a very good track record of accepting that. Things were very difficult at times.

Ultimately he came to feel that his religion and orientation didn't have to be in conflict, that being faithful and gay is being true to his entire self. Also, while he had tremendous anxiety coming out to his friends and family (usually one-at-a-time), it was a positive and affirming experience when he did. Charlie was lucky to have people who loved him and supported him, even when it took some learning on their part to understand Charlie's experiences.