What books are you reading?

Babel by R.F. Kuang

Apparently colonialism and racism are bad. There’s an interesting premise in that magic comes from the distance between words in different languages when inscribed in silver and is almost entirely the domain of Oxford philology scholars, but mostly Babel is about the first thing.

It’s terrified of being anything less than entirely and indisputably on the right side. It’s not merely that characters are constantly explaining what’s wrong with empire and colonialism and how it feels to not be white in mid-nineteenth century Oxford, but the footnotes are there to explain how really racist every reference is. Feels very contemporary in that any ambiguity or shade must be avoided in preference for lectures as though it were an opinion piece in the Times.

I've been a fan of cyberpunk ever since I first read William Gibson's short story "Johnny Mnemonic" in Omni magazine in 1981. Cyberpunk has somewhat fallen by the wayside in modern times, as our society caught up with and even passed some of the cyberpunk technology, but cyberpunk was never just about the tech. Cyberpunk is noir cinema translated to print, in a near future of cybernetics, biotech, and oddly specific cultural melange.

I am currently devouring a newish cyberpunk book, 36 Streets, by T.R. Napper. It is a classic cyberpunk style story set in Vietnam maybe the year 2080, featuring a fresh twist on the hardboiled detective story. Weirdly, it feels like this book was written directly for me. The protagonist is a smart, tough, half-Vietnamese woman with a drug addiction. More than 25 years ago, I was in a relationship with a smart, tough, half-Vietnamese woman with a drug addiction, on and off for a few years. The main character in 36 Streets comes across exactly like my ex, except that this fictional character also has extensive HTH training. The book just about jumped off the library shelf at me, because the color scheme of the cover (neon blue, neon pink, and black) matches a large piece of art on the wall in my computer room. And there was an enthusiastic cover blurb from Richard K. Morgan, author of Altered Carbon and just about the only other good modern cyberpunk writer. I'm about 20% into the book so far, and it's a real page turner. Action, dark humor, intrigue, good dialogue, and decent character development.