First Quarter 2021 Round up

Blogging continues, though it isn’t clear if anyone is even looking at what I post.

Hits are wa-a-y down.  Where is everybody?

Obviously, the posts are better than ever ( : – ) ), so what’s going on?

Is this pandemic related?  Is this something to do with global politics, e.g., blocking in China or EU? Or maybe changes in WordPress reporting.  I dunno.

Band Names

As always, I noted some Dave Barry tribute band names, taken from real scientific and technical publictions.

Stochastic Parrots
Neanderthal ears
The Laschamps Excursion (Pronounced Las Champs, or in SoCal, LA’s Champs)
The Chicxulub Impactors  (Or just Impactor)

Books Reviewed

Fiction

Smoke by Joe Ide
Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler
Trio by William Boyd
Outlawed by Anna North
Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams
Tropic of Stupid by Tim Dorsey
The Sun Collective by Charles Baxter
Aphasia by Mauro Javier Cárdenas
The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem
Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino by Julián Herbert

Non-fiction

The Light Ages by Seb Falk
Kindred by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
The Last Million by David Nasaw
New Money by Lana Swartz
Extraterrestrial by Avi Loeb

Book Review: “Outlawed” by Anna North

Outlawed by Anna North

The author describes the story as ‘a western set in an alternate reality’.  It’s certainly full of classic western stuff, including the legendary Hole in the Wall Gang.

The ‘alternate reality’ includes a deadly pandemic in the early nineteenth century (gee, what inspired that?), which wiped out the young United States.  The survivors are remnants of European settlers, natives, and slaves, living in scattered settlements.

The mass death has impacted the culture, reinventing Christianity into a cult of babies, and generally worshiping baby making.  Women who cannot conceive are ostracized or even killed. Unfortunately, the scattered, mostly rural settlements are prone to witch panics, punishing victims in response to all kinds of perceived threats, especially to fertility.

The story involves young Ada, who is happily planning to follow in her mother’s path to become a midwife.  Unfortunately, she fails to conceive, and is blamed for several miscarriages and fertility issues.  She is run out of town just ahead of being hanged for witchcraft.

Things happen, Ada and a number of other outcast women set up as outlaws, operating disguised as men.  In fact, they are the all female Hole in the Wall Gang.  Sigh.

The gang becomes her family, but outlawing is a hard business all around.    I wouldn’t say these guys are especially good at it, either.  Of course, the tall tales about the gang grow without bounds.

Ada would still prefer to be a midwife and healer.  Can she ever get away adn find a safe place to follow her true calling?

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1. Anna North, Outlawed, New York, Boomsbury Publishing, 2021.

 

Sunday Book Reviews