Stronger Than a Bronze Dragon by Mary Fan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book I added to my to-read list after meeting Ms. Fan at Farpoint 2019. Even though both Starswept and this one are rated 4 stars, that’s more a consequence of only have 5 stars to choose from, because I enjoyed this book more than Starswept. STaBD had two things going for it steampunk and immediate action. Taking the last one first, as I noted in my Starswept review, the early, slow chapters are key in providing a base from which to deviate in later chapters. But there’s just something so exciting about a book opening up with a bunch of warrior women fighting demons that makes you want to keep going. (By the way, I’ll admit to my unconscious bias - until specifically called out, I’d assuming our main character was a man)
So … Steampunk. I’m not the type of person who cosplays Steampunk or anything, but as a genre it always starts things at a higher level when I find myself in a Steampunk world. Ms. Fan, however, has given me something new and fun here. Most Steampunk takes place in England, The Commonwealth, and occasionally, on The Continent. But this story takes place in Victorian China. And it has demons and ghosts and stuff and my ignorance over Chinese mythology leaves me unsure how much is made up by Ms. Fan and how much is known mythology.
The story turns out to be part mystery, part unwanted arranged marriage, part Mulan, and part romance. And it works! Sure, Anlie is a bit of a Tsundere character and that can get a little tiresome, but she does eventually learn some character growth. If you like Steampunk, but are tired of the same old stuff, check this out and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Because of my age relative to the era of computer, for a good portion of my life computers were Serious Things used for work and school. They also belonged to the family and there’s no way we could have gotten away with putting stickers on them without getting in trouble. So back in 2006 when I went to Blackhat and Defcon, for the first time I saw people’s laptops covered in stickers. The EEE PC (new at the time) had a meetup session where I saw others who’d painted their machines various colors. I’d ended up with a bunch of stickers after Blackhat and Defcon, so I decorated my first-ever laptop, an Acer.

Soleil by Jacqueline Garlick

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

It is a real bummer for me to give this book 1 star. I really enjoyed the first book in the trilogy. The second book was fun. But this book… kind of just felt like perhaps this series should have been a duology instead of a trilogy. While the first third or so was a good bit of fan service, it could have maybe just been a post-script novella? The rest of the book was just full of the introduction of all sorts of new rules and technology to the way the world worked that I didn’t think made sense in the third book of a trilogy. On top of that, the last chunk - from when our main characters end up in a canyon until the end just didn’t make any god forsaken sense. (view spoiler)[Who rebuilt the dead people? I kept thinking it was all going to end up being a dream or parallel universe or something (hide spoiler)]
This book might be great for you. And that’s OK. I don’t want to “yuck” anyone’s “yum”. But it did not work for me. This is why there was such a gap between updates towards the end. This is why I read more than one book at once. So if one isn’t motivating me, I’ve got others to still be excited about. Anyway, a real bummer because I believe Ms. Garlick had a blast creating this series and really seems to love the characters. I enjoyed interacting with her on twitter while reading the first book and going through all the fun twists and turns there. Anyway, I’m rambling…

Sam (4 years old): Can I have a coloring page for a nocturnal creature?

Danielle: Can you give me an example of a nocturnal creature?

Sam: Vampires!

Serious Python: Black-Belt Advice on Deployment, Scalability, Testing, and More by Julien Danjou

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an AWESOME book that has completely transformed the way I code in Python. That might sound like the opening to a parody review, but I’m being sincere. One of the best things about Python is that it has a low barrier to entry and it’s easy to get started programming. One of the worst things about Python is that it has a low barrier to entry and it’s easy to get started programming. I’ve been going through the past 15ish years with just a surface-level understanding of my favorite programming language.
On my biggest, most used (by others) Python program, I’ve gone from code to looks like this ( https://github.com/djotaku/ELDonation…) to a package that’s published on PyPi ( https://pypi.org/project/eldonationtr…) and auto-generated documentation( https://eldonationtracker.readthedocs…), pulling from my Python docstrings ( https://eldonationtracker.readthedocs…) with even more ways I’m going to fix/optimize my code and make it more Pythonic. I think this is the best book I’ve read on Python programming since the Mark Pilgrim book that got me into Python that decade and a half ago.

Over the Wine-Dark Sea by H.N. Turteltaub

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the second time I’ve read this book, the first time being nearly 20 years ago when it first came out. A few key bits had stuck with me, like Menedemos’ womanizing and a battle at sea. But after 20 years, most of the details had faded, so it was almost like reading it anew.
As a history geek, I found it a lot of fun to read historical fiction that isn’t set in one of the traditional time periods like Victorian England or Napolean’s Reign. The two characters also make great foils for each other, impulsive Menedemos and his philosopher/wannabe-historian cousin Sostratos. While it’s obviously a work of fiction, it was neat to see what things are the same about humans no matter how far back you go (haggling, superstitions, balancing desire with prudence) while other things are so different (how they viewed meals, technology, gender relations).
Perhaps obviously, since the main characters are sea traders and the majority of the book takes place during the trading season, it’s structured almost as a series of episodes, each taking place in a new city. There isn’t a truly overarching plot and it’s both metaphorically and literally about the journey, not the destination(s). The biggest narrative momentum comes from Sostratos’ character growth, but even that is relatively minimal.
Overall, I think it’s a pretty fun read, particularly if you’re interested in ancient Greece.

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 134 by Neil Clarke

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wasn’t quite into this one as much as some other recent issues. Here are my reviews per story:

Prasetyo Plastics - Less of a traditional story and more of a meditation on unbridled capitalism that does not descend into a libertarian dystopia. Rather, it’s another that asks if we truly realize what we’re doing to this planet on a scale that we believe has never been attempted before.

Starswept by Mary Fan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I met Ms. Fan at Farpoint 2019 at her booth after seeing some of the panels she was on. We started talking about her books and I was intrigued and put this book and Stronger Than a Bronze Dragon on my To Read list. I also started following Ms. Fan on Twitter, and from getting to know her via tweet, she has put a lot of herself into this book: She went to college for music and has original compositions on her site: https://www.maryfan.com/songs.html. There are silks performances in the book and Ms. Fan is currently attending classes to get better at performing silk (Cirque de Soliel type stuff) routines.
As for the book itself, let me start off with non-spoilery stuff. First off, as you can see, I gave it 4 stars. So if you like YA science fiction and are willing to stretch your definition of what can be in SF, you will probably enjoy this book. This book is very focused on the performing arts aspect of our protagonist, Iris Lei, with mostly backgrounded science fiction elements until the latter parts of the book. And it never becomes hard SF. Again, if you’re OK with that, I think you’re in for a real treat.
The book has a slow start, which can be tough for some, but I think it’s important for many reasons: it really drives home how dedicated to the craft Iris Lei and her fellow students at Papilio are; it serves to really highlight Iris’ relationships, which is a KEY plot point in the second 60% of the book; and it really makes us crave the inevitable scene change, allowing Ms. Fan to really make that an emotional hit.
The only thing that was a bit of a miss for me was Iris’ love story plot points. I don’t have any problems reading YA, but the further I get away from it, the less I can truly relate to the relationship woes of the main characters. Intellectually, I know it feels like it’s the most important thing when you’re that age. But knowing how much it’s not just takes me out of it.
I think the novel comes together well. It was clearly written as a trilogy (almost nothing is resolved at the end of this book), so we’ll have to see how it all works as a narrative, but I liked the story.
OK, Spoiler time now. The rest of this’ll be spoiler-filled so I can better talk about the plot. You should have everything you need to know above about whether to read the book if you can’t stand any spoilers.
The plot has a lot of similarities to A Planet for Rent by Yoss, but with a different set of metaphors. A Planet for Rent was, obviously, a metaphor for a post-Cold War Cuba with the Aliens serving as the First World and the way they treat the Cubans. Starswept felt to me like it contained two separate metaphors. Part 1 of the book clearly seemed like a metaphor for college debt when doing a degree in the arts. The Papilians LIVE for their performances. Some may have more or less intense feelings than Iris Lei, but they seem to all be doing it for a love of performance. Yet, just like in real life, most people who are awesome musicians are not going to be in the London Philharmonic (assuming there’s good pay that comes with that prestige). Some will end up in orchestras where they need a spouse to support them. Many will end up teaching the next generation. And nearly all will end up with crushing debt they don’t have the ability to pay back. But, as long as they’re not starving, the joy of performance may outweigh the financial issues.
Starting in Part 2 of Starswept, the narrative changes to a slavery metaphor. I was a little torn about what the best real-world analogue was. On the one hand, we eventually discover an Abolitionist movement and the characters are treated as little more than objects by the Adryil. So that would seem to point to African slavery of the 1600-1800s. But then there’s the aspect that the Earthling performers are being told they’re getting a better life and their government is complicit in understanding that they’re being sold into slavery. This points to a couple potential sources. The simplest, of course, is modern slavery. There are people right now who were told they should go to the USA, Japan, or the UAE to get better jobs. Once they get there their passports are confiscated and they become slaves and/or sex workers. There may also be a tie to how the Chinese workers who came to the Americas were lied to. They were shipped over to work here and then told they needed to pay their way back, but were paid such a low wage that they were stuck here. This leads to many Chinese populations in the Americas, including the Chinese population in Cuba. Either way, while we have lots of foreshadowing that things are not what they seem (especially once Damiul starts teaching Iris how to not be mind-controlled), I think Ms. Fan does a good job of portraying how bad things can go for those who are unknowingly sold into slavery.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve been really improving my cooking by leaps and bounds thanks to America’s Test Kitchen’s books. They make sure recipes are perfect (or as near as can be) in terms of directions, ingredients, etc. They have truly spoiled me to the point that I often hate other cookbooks. But, as my wife says, you’re not truly cooking until you can just look at the ingredients in the house and come up with food on the fly. Or know how much salt the food needs by tasting it. So, after seeing Samin Nosrat’s Netflix show (which shares its name with this book), I added the book to my wishlist.
I received it as a gift and I’m very glad that I did. While it’ll definitely take me a few times of re-reading the first half of the book (the part that talks about how to use salt, fat, acid, and heat in cooking without presenting any recipes) to absorb all the ideas, I’ve already been able to use some of the ideas (particularly around salt) to improve my ability to improvise in the kitchen as well as finally be able to do that enigmatic part that ends most ATK recipes - “salt to taste”.
If you’ve a 100% beginner cook, I still recommend America’s Test Kitchen as the best training wheels you can find. I’m still planning on using my ATK books and getting more because when you’re doing an unfamiliar recipe (say, from another region of the USA or another country) it’s pretty hard to improvise because you don’t know what the platonic ideal tastes like. But if you want to move to the next level, I’d put this near the top of your list by Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Food Lab (I haven’t read it, but EVERYONE loves it) or McGee’s “red book”.

Because I’ve been busy with programming and other tasks (including getting re-addicted to Cities: Skylines), I’ve got a roundup from about the last week or so in programming.

Python

Python Morsels

I got the mid-tier of the Pycharm Humble Bundle which came with a bit of a subscription to Python Morsels. Every week Trey Hunner, a Python trainer, sends subscribers a problem to solve along with a few bonus questions to deepen the learning. Here’s what I’ve loved so far: