The City & the City, China Mieville

I read this for the Fall 2025 Science Fiction and Fantasy course I took at the U of MN.

I was not enthralled by this book. In fact, at about the halfway point, I misplaced it and did not finish it. I still haven’t found it, though no doubt it will turn up somewhere.

[Spoiler follows]

The City & the City is a competent murder mystery, but with the fantastical twist that the City is a place where an analog of the City in a parallel universe is partially visible and sometimes accessible. Inhabitants of the City have trained themselves to not see traces of the parallel city – if they give it too much attention something will happen — a mysterious force or set of police or something – will appear and remove everyone who was implicated or involved in noticing/acting in the parallel world. Yet, in spite of this, or perhaps because of it, there is an officially managed gateway between the two versions of the City, though much bureaucracy is involved in moving from one side to another.

The murder which drives the plot — well, at least the plot for the half of the book I’ve read — appears to have been committed in the parallel city, and then the body deposited in the other city. This brings police from both ‘sides’ together to investigate what happened. That had just begun to happen when I lost the book…

While it’s an interesting set up, and while the writing is well done, I found (as is often the case) that I don’t really care for the protagonists. There’s one chief detective (or maybe he’s an inspector) and he’s gotten a younger colleague involved to assist him — but he seems to have no life other than work, and no real friends. The most emotional life he shows has to do with his colleague, but even there it is pretty sparse (though perhaps something richer will develop as the book proceeds).

While I finish the book when I find it again? I’m not sure… I don’t find that I care very much or feel very curious.

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The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekara

The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekara, 2023

This is an acclaimed science fiction book that has gathered both critical and popular praise. I read it a couple of years ago — I try to read the ‘best of the year’ books in SF – and it didn’t engage me, although I did manage to finish it. I am now reading it a second time, as part of a Science Fiction and Fantasy course I’m taking at the U, and am going to try harder to appreciate it; or at least to understand what others appreciate in it. And perhaps also reflect on aspects of it that prevent me from appreciating it.

At this point I’ve just started the re-read it. I am noticing some very nice turns of phrase. I also notice that the protagonist begins as, in a sense, an abused child who is being trained to do terrible things by a mother who sees him only as a tool. I’m not really noticing much in the way of love or affection or humor among any of the characters.

Shakespeare course, Fall 2024

I’m taking an introductory Shakespeare course at the U of Minnesota this fall.

Week 1: Intro & Life of Shakespeare, 1

The course looks very promising. The professor, Katherine Schiel, is a Shakespeare scholar and in particular researchers the life of Shakespeare’s wife. The course focuses on literature (rather than TV and move adaptations), and the syllabus shows that we will cover eight of Shakespeare’s works, including the sonnets. I was also struck by how much more talkative and friendly the other students in the course are – both in engaging in in-class discussion, and in engaging with me.

These are more general notes; I also notes on each play read that can be found from the “About this site” page.

Writing Notes: Essay Status as of October 2023

23 December 2023. (was: 19 October 2023)

Notes on where I think the various essays I’ve produced are. This is unlikely to be of interest to others.

Status of Essays

1. Napkin Thief. Unsure. It is a fun story, but not much substance. Not sure what to do.
2+6 A Straight Transect. Nearly done.
3. Mind in the Hand. Final.
4. Body and Mind. Mostly done. Replace lime tree section with exercise at home — retitle as PT. –> I am partway through replacing the lime tree section, but the new section seems a bit boring.
5. Aloha. Unsure. It is a fun story, but not much substance. Not sure what to do.
7. Why I like Hiking. Mostly done. Alter ‘crystal rain’ section. Bring in more Muir
8. Alone Together.

ILSG 2023 Conference Notes

April 23-26, 2023

I attended the Institute of Lake Superior Geology meeting from April 23 to 26, 2023. I provide a brief description of the field trips in my Journal blog entry for May 1. These are notes I made during (and sometimes but not always about) the conference talks.

The conference papers were, for me, something of a mixed bag. Some were a bit too abstruse for me to follow, some ventured in to extreme detail on subjects I didn’t care so much about, but others introduced me to interesting comments, or provided provocative perspectives on what I had imagined were settled matters.

What is this Rock, 3: Course Notes

What is this Rock, 3

I just returned from a weekend up on the North Shore. K and I went up and stayed at Cove Point Lodge, while I took a 3-day course on North Shore Geology, focusing on the Beaver Bay area. The course was taught by Jim Miller, a retired Minnesota Geological Survey person, and an emeritus professor from UMD: he was a great person to teach the course, both because he was a good and enthusiastic instructor, and because he has spent his career focused on the northern Minnesota in general, and the North Shore in particular. Many of the geological maps of the north shore include his name as cartographer.

This is a laundry list of what I learned — however, there are problems with the images which I have yet to fix.

Things I learned from the 2021 Loft Essay course

16 August 2021

Things to pay attention to:

Telling details: One telling detail is preferable to many details
Embodiment. Emotions and actions work best when embodied: gaze, gesture, posture, proprioception, proxemics
Scenes. Scenes should vary in length, and be interleaved with summaries. This gives rhythm and weighting. Think of a scene as a spotlight.
Language: avoid ‘to be’s. Avoid “is” “are” “have” etc. and limit use of adjectives.
“To be” is the weakest verb. Not “He is tall” but “He smacked his head on the door frame”
Language: avoid distancing: Avoid habitually using filtering/distancing language such as “I noticed,” “I heard,” “I saw,”
(That said, sometimes you may want to use it to distance yourself, as when you are uncomfortable and don’t want to be in it.)
Language: avoid adverbs. Use actions and embodiment rather than adverbs:
“Yeah,” she said, stroking his bare arm, “that’s what I heard.” vs. “Yeah,” she said gently, “that’s what I heard.”
Support reader inference. There is something about readers being able to figure something out on their own that is very rewarding.
Revising Tricks: Print it out in a different font. Read it out loud and notice where you stumble, speed up, lag, etc. Replace “to be’s”

What I’ve Learned from Critiquing SF&F

Wednesday, 21 July 2021

These are observations on what works, from critiques I made during my Summer 2021 Worldbuilding Course