"Venus and Aphrodite: A Biography of Desire" by Bettany Hughes

Publisher: Basic Books, New York

Copyright: 2020

ISBN: 9781541674233

This is the marvellous biography of the goddess Aphrodite, that takes the reader from her origins – which predates her appearance in classical mythology - right through to the present day.

Ms. Hughes examines the history of Aphrodite, as well as her links to the various cultures she was worshipped in. Although Aphrodite is typically considered to be a Greek goddess, who was then adopted by the Romans to become Venus her origins are much earlier than the classical Greek civilization many people are familiar with. Such as "Lady of Lemba" a statue found on the island of Cyprus and dated to approximately 5000 years ago. As most people know the history of Aphrodite revolves around sex, procreation, love, and other forms of spirituality. Therefore this book does focus on that a fair bit, but in an extremely informative and fascinating way.

Since the time of Greek and Roman dominance in the world she has been transformed, and excepted in numerous other cultures up to and including modern day. Is the fantastic book with lots of information, and Ms. Hughes obviously did a fantastic amount of research to put this together.

Highly recommended.

 

"Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang

Publisher: Vintage Books

Copyright: 2002

ISBN: 9781101972120

My primary reason for picking up this book of short stories was after seeing the 2017 movie "Arrival" by director Denis Villeneuve, which was based on the short story "Story of Your Life", and which follows the plot fairly well. Yes, I realize I am totally destroying my record of slamming Hollywood, but in this case they did a good job. Prior to this I hadn't read anything by Mr. Chiang at all, much to my dismay.

This book is a collection of eight short stories: the Tower of Babylon, Understand, Division by Zero, Story of Your Life, Seventy-two Letters, The Evolution of Human Science, Hell is the Absence of God, and finally Liking What You See: A Documentary".

All of the stories are very well written and quite thought-provoking. Of the eight stories though the first four are definitely my favorites. I'm not sure if I can say why they are my favourites, but I think it's possibly due to the fact that the characters and the storyline are very well developed and quite interesting.

Mr. Chiang has written the second book entitled "Exhalation", which I'll definitely be looking to get my hands on to read in the near future.

Definitely recommend it.

"Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail" by Marcus Rediker

Publisher: Beacon Press

Copyright: 2014

ISBN: 9780807033098

This book gives a well researched introduction to the various pirate groups that operated in the Atlantic during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most people know some of characters due to the various pirate movies that have been released over the years, but for the most part these movies deal strictly with what is known as "The Golden Age of Piracy" and focuses on the Caribbean. The range of piratical activities however extends for many centuries prior to this.

Mr. Rediker also gives a great deal of information on what life was likely like onboard a pirate ship (not as bad as typically portrayed in the movies) vs. what life warlike in the Royal Navy (much worse than what is typically portrayed in the movies) - which in a number of cases led to common sailors becoming pirates.

Two examples of this are Edward Barlow and Henry Pitman. The first chose a life at sea at the tender age of 13, while Pitman was transported to Barbados as punishment. Other men were pressed into service, and never saw their families again.

A very good read.

"Neuromancer" by William Gibson

 

Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group

Copyright: 1984

ISBN: 9780441012039

Neuromancer was William Gibson's first novel, and it took the science fiction world by storm due to its realism, interesting characters, and well thought out plot.

The story tells the adventures of Case, a hacker that is being forced to complete a mission to stay alive. In his bloodstream is a toxin that will release after a certain amount of time if there's no antidote given to him. He teams up with an agent (for lack of a better term) named Molly Millions. A lady with Mirror shade implants in her eyes, and 4 cm retractable razors in her fingertips (I haven’t quite figured out how this would work, as the first knuckle on most people is an average of 1.5 cm behind the finger tip).

The story revolves around two artificial intelligences named Wintermute, and Neuromancer. The two AIs, along with Case, Molly and the rest of the crew are also up against the Turing Police, who keep an eye on the doings of AIs, and those that try to hack into them. There isn’t a lot of background information given on why the Turing Police exist, or why they have to watch the AIs, so I found this to be a little off-putting as I happen to like these world-building details.

Molly is a character that also appears in Gibson's short story Johnny Mnemonic, which takes place before Neuromancer, but was written a few years afterwards.

Gibson has also written two more novels set in the same universe entitled Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive. However, I haven't read either of these yet.

This is an excellent book with great characterization, that makes you think and feel with the characters. The plotting is also very tight and well done, and the world building excellent. It however hasn’t quite kept up with the way technology has actually developed and changes since 1984, so I think it might have been better to set it further into the future - but that just my opinion.

Highly recommended to anybody who enjoys good science fiction.

"Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas" by Laura Sook Duncombe

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Copyright: 2017

ISBN: 9781613736012

This is an fascinating book filled with great information on the women who were or at the very least contributed to piracy throughout history. The vast majority of works about piracy never mention but a few women, when it seems rather obvious (at least to me) that there must have been a significant number of them. Unfortunately due to the patriarchy most women have been pushed to the side and therefore written out of history. Even more unfortunately is that this is a common occurrence in virtually all aspects of historical writing, unless of course the author is 1) a woman, or 2) cares about representing history truthfully.

I 'met' for the first time in this book many women pirates whom I'd never heard of before. Most people have I'm sure heard of Anne Bonny, and Mary Reed. But the adventures of women pirates started many centuries before these two ladies came on the scene.

Other notable women pirates included in this volume come from many ages throughout history. Some were forced into piracy due to their circumstances, other chose the life for themselves. Some of the women pirates are fictional, but others were real. Some only aided the pirates in their lifestyle while others were actually crew members. The majority of the ones who were actual crew members dressed as men, in some circumstances this was for disguise, while in a number of cases I'm relatively sure it was for practicality.

This was a very well researched and informative book. As for as I can tell Ms. Duncombe hasn't written any others to date but I would watch out for anything she produces in the future.

Highly recommended.

"The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick (1928-1982)

 

Publisher: Penguin
Copyright: 1962
ISBN: 978-0241246108

"The Man in the High Castle" is set an alternate United States in 1962. The premise behind the story is the United States stayed out of World War II, and because of this Nazi Germany won the war as did Japan, and what we now know as the United States was carved up between these two nations. There is a buffer zone between the two powers, and within that zone lives a man who wrote an underground bestseller, which describes the world in which we live in.

In addition to this rewrite of history things like slavery are once again legal, persons of Jewish descent are hunted down -- but are able to live under assumed names -- however if they are caught they are automatically transported to Nazi Germany and executed.

This book was recommended to me as a great story that demonstrated the fusion between science-fiction and the contemporary novel. I'm not exactly sure how the person that recommended this could possibly have come up with that evaluation but it definitely did not live up to that in my opinion.

I found the blatant racism, and anti-Semitism in this book extremely disturbing, and even though these things are explained within the context of the plot, there was so much of it that I found it overwhelming, and extremely distracting from the story itself. In addition, the plot itself was very disjointed. However, even with these drawbacks it managed to somehow win the 1963 Hugo Award.

According to the website Fantastic Fiction this story has now been made into an Amazon series. It will be interesting to see how they treat the anti-Semitism and racism, as I believe this could turn off a great number of people in the world, however as racism and anti-Semitism are still alive and thriving in certain parts of the world I'm sure those folks will love it.

Due to the content of this book I believe it suitable for adult readers or mature readers only.

"Greek Mythology: The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook" by Liv Albert

 

Publisher: Adams Media (Simon & Schuster)

Copyright: 2021

ISBN: 9781507215494

Liv Albert is the creator, host and producer of the podcast "Let's Talk About Myths, baby!" which has been running now since July 2017. It is one of the most popular podcasts in Canada, as she tells it like it is, and doesn't mince words.

"Greek Mythology: The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook" is written in the same style, and portrays the Greek and Roman myths in an honest, but humourous way that acts as an excellent introduction for those people who have not taken or at least not referenced the myths for sometime.

The first part is a basic introduction to Greek mythology and the creation mythos that surrounds it. The second part deals with biographies of the Olympians themselves, e.g. Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, Here, Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Area, Hermes, Dionysus, and Hestia. Some of these are more important than others, but for the most part these are the ones that most people have learned about in school. There are also related stores about Persephone, Hectate, and Cerebus.

The third part deals with the deities Prometheus, Leto, Daphna, and Erosalong with related stores dealing with Pandora, Echo & Narcissus and Typhon & Echidna. The fourth part is the largest and deals with a number of the Heroes and Mortals, such as Heracles, Perseus, Jason, Medea, Daedalus, Oedipus, and more. Once again there are accompanying stories about the Minotaur, Icarus, Medusa, and more.

Overall this is a great review of classical Greek mythology, with the twist of relating it to the many modern interpretations of the myths.

The artwork in this book is by Sara Richard, and is quite stunning in its styling, and I hope that prints of these panels will eventually be available on her site www.sararichard.com

Highly recommended. Looking forward the the second volume (Yes, Simon & Schuster, this is a hint).

"The Magic Labyrinth" by Philip José Farmer (1918-2009)

 

 

Publisher: Berkley Medallion
Copyright: 1980
ISBN: None listed

The Magic Labyrinth is the fourth book in the Riverworld series, and like the previous instalments: "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", "The Fabulous Riverboat", and "The Dark Design" the story revolves around getting the source of the river. The original characters of Richard Francis Burton, Samuel Clements, Hermann Goering, and many others make return appearances, and most of them end up dying in one way or another.

I personally found this book to not be as well written as the others, but rather than harp on the fact that I had some trouble believing the various developments the Riverworld residents made. I will this say that while the concepts good, the multi-chapter detailed review of how a war is fought between two river boats just way too long to be worth reading. The characters that we'd met before (at least those who were still alive) were written well, but some of the new ones weren't as well developed, and in some cases they played what I felt were significant parts.

This fourth book overall was in my opinion the poorest of the four. This was mainly due to the points mentioned above, but also because of the rather long passages of exposition to I assume explain who certain characters were for those who couldn't be bothered to read the first books or utterly failed history class in school. I still believe the amount of potential the initial premise had it could have been much better exploited in a myriad of ways rather than as a goal to see who could reach the polar sea first, no matter who suffered.

This book concludes the series or so we are led to believe by the book jacket, however it turns out there is another in the series entitled "The Gods of Riverworld" but at this time I don't think I'll be reading it any time soon.