METAtropolis [The Dawn of Uncivilization] (METAtropolis #1)

#1085
Title: METAtropolis [The Dawn of Uncivilization] (METAtropolis #1)
Author:  John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder, Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Tobias S. Buckell, Michael Hogan
Year: 2008/2010?
Publisher: Audible/Tor
Pages: 288

A collection of stories related by the underlying meta-questions of what makes a city a city and how its inhabitants see themselves in relation to it. Though the quality is a little uneven, it holds together well and the stories reflect each others' realities and preoccupations successfully.

A Trip to the Beach: Living on Island Time in the Caribbean

#1084
Title: A Trip to the Beach: Living on Island Time in the Caribbean
Authors: Melinda Blanchard and Robert Blanchard 
Year: 2000
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 295
Country: Anguilla (British overseas territory)

This is beach reading about starting a restaurant in Anguilla, with the travails and triumphs one might imagine are associated with such a venture. It's not deep or emotional, but matter of fact. 

It also provides a shocking contrast to looking around if one reads it in an impoverished Caribbean community, as I did. I wish the Blanchards all success, but it was a very weird thing to read about going to another island for kitchen supplies while watching children wearing nothing but ripped underwear eating beans with their fingers on a dirt street. I'd have been more comfortable with a memoir that more explicitly recognized the poverty around it. There was a start at this, but it remained superficial.

Snakes with Wings & Gold-digging Ants

#1083
Title: Snakes with Wings & Gold-digging Ants
Author: Herodotus
Editor: John M. Marincola 
Translator: Aubrey de Sélincourt
Year: ~400 BCE (excerpted)/2007
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 118

A bit of "travelogue" excerpted from Herodotus. I really like this Penguin Great Journeys series. I bought this and the James Cook excerpt at Daedalus, but might go ahead and pay retail for the rest of it. I deeply love careful descriptions and explanations of scientific and anthropological phenomena that don't make sense to the author. It abounds here.

Zendegi

#1082
Title: Zendegi
Author: Greg Egan
Year: 2010
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Pages: 278

I keep going back and forth on this novel. I liked the scope, I was invested in the characters, I enjoyed the action, and then felt let down by the ending--maybe. Wherever I land on this, there was some sabotage at the end that too tidily disposed of complications. Was the ending earned? Is it sufficiently literarily sufficient that no, what one of the protagonists tried to do couldn't be done? If so, so what? If so, what's compelling about telling this story? In some ways it's like a study that fails to disprove the null hypothesis. This may be useful but it's not, ultimately, exciting to read.

Something to Declare: Essays

#1081
Title: Something to Declare: Essays
Author: Julia Álvarez
Year: 1998/1999
Publisher: Plume
Pages: 314

Autobiographical essays by Álvarez, those of her earlier life in the Dominican Republic being most compelling. A good companion to her novels, the writing of several of which is a topic here.

At the Mountains of Madness

#1080
Title: At the Mountains of Madness
Author: H. P. Lovecraft
Year: 1931 (orig.)
Publisher: ?
Pages: 142 

An incorrect cover, but I like it best of the choices.

While entertaining, and the world-building is fun, I agree with early Lovecraft critics that this is pulp. Most noticeable is the layering of description that means nothing--a thing is horrible because the narrator tells us so, though rarely for any reason other than that it is tautologically horrible. I was pulled repeatedly from my suspension of disbelief by the narrator's ability to effortlessly and seamlessly interpret pictographic murals to make unsupported and narratively suspect inferences about the emotions and motivations of aliens. This assertion of the meaning of things builds the narrator's surface credibility as a reporter and, as for Poe and Wells, I love the pseudo-scientific "factual" presentation of the story. However, it's immediately evident to the reader that Lovecraft is a sloppier writer than Poe or Wells, which dampens the effect significantly.

Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

#1079
Title: Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
Author: Dorothy Allison
Year: 1995/1996
Publisher: Plume
Pages: 112

An extended essay/set of essays that are memoirs of family, and also very much convey their origins as spoken word performances. There's something of Spalding Gray here, though Allison always seems more permeated with a defense against helplessness.