Reviews and Comments

I just reread this book, which is in the tradition of easily readable and digestible style guides (not, for example, The Chicago Manual of Style that sits on my shelf waiting to referenced while I instead do web searches and fend off dubious AI results). It's similar in form and length to the venerable Strunk and White but more entertaining, especially the jabs at Trump (during his first term), which I had forgotten but now are especially appreciated during the sequel. As for the style stuff, I find it mostly agreeable (he admits a lot comes down to personal preference and often bows to modern convention), a bit nit-picky here and there, a bit baffling here and there (he says he had to deal with default-white characters in novels early in his career, but I haven't noticed that's changed), and plenty of interesting etymology and cultural trivia. It's much more educational and entertaining than my interactions with actual (and self-designated) editors, but a large part of that problem is they don't cite style guides a la Grammar Girl (one editor a technical publishing house said the change he was pushing was an industry standard but he didn't have time provide a reference, I guess they just write them and don't cite them). In any case, one reason to read style guides is so you can avoid those issues when you publish your Great American Novel, so, especially if you're anticipate submitting to Random House, give this one a read, and hopefully you will stop using literally to mean not literally.

Although technically the third of a trilogy (but the end leaves plenty of room for more), this is really a direct sequel to the first book, A Fire Upon the Deep, which was somewhat hazy in my memory. So at the very least, this installment provides a valuable service in reminding me of the cool worldbuilding - all three stories are based in the clever Zones of Thought universe, but the first two books have different sets of aliens. Or rather, humans are the aliens, since they're the ones who drop out of the sky on these worlds. The native species here are the warm fuzzy doggy telepathic group intelligence type, which I might have found a bit confusing if I hadn't read the first book, and it's hard to read without constantly thinking "puppy! puppy!" but just like my neighbor dog who's always trying to take a bite out of my shin there's not all nice, the villains resembling a mixture of Cujo and a Bond villain. So there's some violence, not graphically depicted but pretty clearly stated, and, now I remember this from the first book, since most of the protagonists (and some antagonists) are youngsters, this did bother me (ever since the Hunger Games, it seems all YA novels are like The Purge). And there are huge stretches of everyone's falling for the villain's lies like they're a bunch of dummies, which is also irritating in real life. In fact, if I didn't know the publication date, I would have assumed the story's broad strokes were directed at the current political situation (there's even a group called The Deniers). So I wonder if the author was still with us today, what would he be writing?

Somewhat drily written, not to the extent of an academic paper but long sentences and some with semicolons, so this was a long bit by bit read for me. The authors are anti-indoor cat (which I gather is the general sentiment in England, but maybe living by an LA freeway will change your mind) and, somewhat interestingly but kind of bothers me, propose more selective breeding for cats to tone done their hunting instincts. Admittedly, they are experts who cite a lot of research (and point out the lack of some, e.g. with the accusations that cats are decimating endangered species), have actually trained their cats in a non-forceful manner that respects their independent and paranoid natures (the elaborate training prescriptions may have you thinking might as well get a dog instead), and obviously love their cats. I could have used this book two cats ago, and if I break down and get another one I'll give this a refresher read.