text:
Экологическая обстановка в Омске связана с величиной города-миллионника и наличием в нём большого числа крупных производств. Недостаточно развит контроль над изменениями геохимического фона вследствие воздействия техногенных факторов. Городские памятники природы «Зелёный клин» (ландшафтный комплекс ОмГАУ) и «Птичья гавань» уникальны уже потому, что смогли уцелеть в такой неблагоприятной экологической обстановке и просуществовать не одно десятилетие.

Загрязнение воздуха
В прошлом обилие предприятий приводило к многочисленным выбросам в атмосферу. 58 % загрязнения атмосферного воздуха в городе приходилось на автотранспорт. Из промышленных предприятий наиболее проблемной в плане экологической ситуации была Омская ТЭЦ-5, работающая на угле (в то же время и на ней была проведена установка двух фильтров очистки дыма). В воздухе города периодически обнаруживают диоксиды, формальдегиды и, чаще всего, бензпирен (вырабатываемый автотранспортом). На особом контроле в связи с охраной атмосферы деятельность таких омских предприятий, как «Омскшина», «Омскагрегат» и ПО «Полёт». В 2010 году Омск занимал первое место среди городов-миллионеров России по выбросам в атмосферу загрязняющих веществ, отходящих от стационарных источников — 198,2 тысяч тонн. У других миллионников, таких как Красноярск, Уфа, Челябинск и Новосибирск, выбросов оказалось меньше.

С 2011 года рейтинг экологического развития города значительно поднялся, и к 2014 году из аутсайдеров Омск превратился в одного из лидеров. Это стало результатом масштабной модернизации многих крупных производств (в том числе Омского нефтезавода, «ТГК-11» и пр.). Если прежде наибольшее загрязнение воздуха отмечалось в Советском округе, концентрирующем основные производства, то в феврале 2016 года уровень загрязнённости воздуха в нём стал низким, равно как и в Ленинском и Октябрьском округах. Проблемными оказались Центральный и Кировский округа с наиболее интенсивным автомобильным движением.

Загрязнение воды
Великая Отечественная война привела к эвакуации производств из европейской части России, что в итоге сказалось и на экологическом состоянии Омска. Для обеспечения нужд оборонных предприятий в городах Западной Сибири некоторые малые реки и овраги согласовано с горсоветами были превращены во временные коллекторы для стоков предприятий.

Степень загрязнения омских рек — Иртыша и Оми — значительно не меняется. Купаться в них запрещено на протяжении последних десяти лет. С промышленных стоков, которые становятся всё более экологичными, внимание экологов постепенно переводится на состояние городских ливневых коллекторов, расположенных на территории города. Часть из них не имеет владельца, и оттуда в Иртыш попадают различные отходы, в том числе солярка и нефтепродукты. Источником загрязнения являются также многочисленные свалки в водоохранной зоне. В Омской области нет ни одного мусорного полигона, где бы стояли специальные испарители и системы очистки талой воды, поэтому каждую весну растаявший снег уносит в Иртыш мусор, дорожную соль, грязь и газонный дёрн. Всё это забивает городскую канализацию. Заместитель руководителя регионального управления Росприроднадзора Сергей Еремин считает, что крупные города (и Омск в их числе) не способны самостоятельно профинансировать восстановление и модернизацию очистных сооружений, в то время как федерация выделяет недостаточно средств.

Некоторое улучшение качества иртышской воды связано в основном с экономическим спадом: сниженной мощностью городских предприятий и кризисом водного транспорта. Также с усилением контроля резко снизилась добыча песка из прибрежной зоны, а акватория реки очищена от восьми затонувших речных судов и двух десятков вагонов с углём, попавших в реку несколько лет назад после аварии на железнодорожном мосту. Красногорский гидроузел на Иртыше может улучшить положение дел, однако после банкротства НПО «Мостовик» его строительство остановилось. Кроме того, в результате возведения плотины может возникнуть угроза затопления ряда экологически опасных объектов, размыва берега, подтопления многочисленных дачных посёлков и подпора воды в устье Оми.

Утилизация отходов
Дважды в год проходит генеральная уборка города с участием горожан. Ежедневно Омск производит около 6000 м³ бытового мусора, на одного жителя его приходится в три раза больше, чем в Москве.

В 2009 году в Ленинском, Кировском и Советском административных округах города действовали полигоны по захоронению твёрдых бытовых отходов. В 2010 году начала работу линия по сортировке и переработке мусора, считалось, что это позволит отказаться от необходимости выделять дополнительную территорию для размещения свалок.

Проблемы с муниципальным решением мусорных вопросов сопровождают Омск давно. Так, в 2013 году огромная свалка, образовавшаяся в центре города на месте бывшей ярмарки «Омский привоз», стала антропогенной кормушкой для чаек-хохотуний, число которых увеличилось в четыре раза и стало угрожать безопасности полётов. Мусор месяцами лежит на многих улицах, особенно в частном секторе, садовых и гаражных кооперативах. В ряде мест целые кварталы старых жилых домов барачного типа становятся свалками, так как мусор из них не вывозится годами. Городская система сбора и вывоза твёрдых бытовых отходов, а также система контроля за этим неэффективны, и в результате после ликвидации несанкционированных свалок со временем мусор снова появляется на том же месте.

К 2015 году положение со свалками стало критическим. Ещё в апреле 2014 года компании ООО «Норма плюс» и ООО «Экотехнологии», контролирующие около 80 % мусорного рынка в Омске, потеряли лицензии на работу из-за того, что город сильно приблизился к расположению их мусорных полигонов, и те должны были быть вынесены за пределы населённого пункта. Однако вместо того, чтобы сделать это, муниципалитет изменил границы города так, чтобы не нарушать закон и уйти из-под судебного решения, обязывающего перенос и рекультивацию свалок. В итоге из трёх мусорных полигонов два (Ленинский и Кировский) оказались закрыты, а оставшийся в селе Надеждино в 20 километрах от города не справлялся с объёмами. Впрочем, этот полигон представляет экологическую угрозу, так как не соответствует проектной документации и не имеет никаких защитно-очистных сооружений и представляет собой попросту котлован.

В апреле 2016 года полигон в Надеждино, последний принимавший отходы города, также был закрыт. Ни у муниципалитета, ни у региональных властей нет конкретного решения для мусорной проблемы областного центра: не строится ни один полигон, нет ни одного договора с компаниями-инвесторами. Всё это ведёт к наступлению «мусорного коллапса», о котором экологи предупреждали ещё несколько лет назад.

Озеленение

С 1967 года до распада СССР Омск носил статус город-сад, однако в 1990-х годах из-за массовой вырубки деревьев статус был утерян, а недовольные омичи придумали ему шуточный статус «Город-пень». Причин для ухудшения состояния зелёных насаждений было много:
 Массовое озеленение проводилось в городе в середине XX века, и деревья того времени являются уже старыми и аварийными (так, в 2014 году во время апрельского урагана упало более 500 деревьев).
 За последние два десятилетия система содержания и воспроизводства зелёных насаждений была разрушена: не проводилось никакой инвентаризации, не было должного ухода (обрезки) за деревьями, высаживались плохо приживающиеся деревья и кустарники и не было контроля за их восполнением.
 Появились изменения законодательства, связанные с охранными зонами инженерных сетей, а также принадлежности тех или иных территорий.
 Отсутствие муниципального питомника вынуждает городских озеленителей закупать саженцы у частных фирм, которые иногда срывают сроки посадки.
В результате вышеперечисленного в городе производятся многочисленные вырубки, а также кронирование деревьев «на пень» для увеличения их продолжительности жизни (такие деревья восстанавливают крону уже на третий год). 60 % деревьев в городе требует замены. Однако муниципалитет не всегда имеет средства на высаживание новых деревьев, которым было бы 7-8 лет и которые могли бы сразу начать выполнять свои экологические функции, взамен больных. Скудный бюджет и малое количество работников тормозят работы по озеленению, поэтому одним из решающих факторов остаётся массовое вовлечение в этот процесс горожан. Озеленение проходит также за счёт общественных организаций и отдельных инициаторов, и площадь зелёных насаждений в Омске каждый год растёт. На начало 2016 года она более 13 тыс. га, или ~110 м²/чел. всех зелёных насаждений, или 15 м²/чел. зелёных насаждений общего пользования. По последнему параметру Омск превышает федеральную норму.

Пыль
Степное расположение Омска делает его уязвимым для пыльных бурь. Это обстоятельство, бывшее актуальным и в довоенное время, во время Великой Отечественной войны привело к тому, что даже при недостатке ресурсов заготовка полноценных дров в лесах вокруг Омска была запрещена Облисполкомом уже в 1942 году. Окружающие леса считались зелёной зоной города.

Зелёные насаждения важны для защиты города от пыли, которая ежегодно становится проблемой после схода снега. Она включает песко-соляную смесь, которую зимой используют на дорогах и не полностью вывозят вместе со снегом. Кроме того, пыль появляется после аварийного ремонта дорог инертными материалами, в том числе шлаком, который в результате пыльных бурь оказывается в квартирах жителей. Пыль также скапливается на обочинах дорог, где с ней вынуждены контактировать велосипедисты. В составе омской пыли встречаются почти все металлы, включая ядовитые для человека (самый вредный из них свинец, обнаруженный в больших количествах). Однако дорожной техники в городе со скудным бюджетом не хватает. Недостаточно пылеуборочных машин, в результате чего убирать землю с прибордюрной части приходится вручную, а подметально-уборочные машины с водяной системой имеются только в двух округах города — Кировском и Центральном.

Примечания

Омск
Омск

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Great shoe for Latin practice and for WC swing. Comfortable and light, and runs true to size. Mesh helps keep foot from slipping in turns.
An elegant shoe. Love the suede sole that allows smoother turns. I also like the enclosed back on the heel- helps to keep shoe firmly in place especially since my feet are somewhere between a narrow and medium width so the shoe is slightly loose on me... but they all over. Overall, very pleased with this product and plan to purchase another pair from this site in future.


text:
HRU Global
Get to know the founders...
HRU Global (HerRiseUp PTY LTD), is the business brainchild of Mercy and Letisia, born out of witnessing the struggles of women deprived of opportunities, and aspiring to empower and promote female entrepreneurship.
I sat down with Mercy and Letisia to answer some questions about their inspiration, their friendship, and their motivation.
Name your most influential business mogul? What facet of their career made them so influential?
Mercy: I really admire Michelle Obama, her education background in law and the career woman that she is. Additionally, I am also inspired by her consulting work, and the coaching that she does through this is inspirational.
The second person that comes to mind is Oprah. I saw an old interview with her, where she spoke about being fired from a news station. This is something that I've also experienced, but I really like how she's gone on to build her own show and even her OWN channel. She has still managed to be very successful in an industry that didn't see her value. She's also generous, especially to young girls, which is something that I've wanted to do in my professional life, to always give to others.
Letisia: Jeff Besos, the one element I like about his career is how he's always trying to meet customer's needs with Amazon. He sought out the pressure points and changed his model to meet his customer expectations. I like that his business model is driven by people's needs, but if I had his immense wealth, I would donate half to charities.
How would you each describe your relationship with the other? How does your working relationship differ?
M: We met as friends doing our MBA at the University of Adelaide. Letisia would say I gave her attitude when we first met, and we always have this rivalry because we come from two countries that are similar, but different. Me being from Kenya, and her being from Uganda (I'd like to say Kenya is better). We've lived through similar experiences, growing up in multiple countries.
Now we work together professionally, we know not to take each other's criticism personally, because things always work out. We trust we can work in our own areas and rely on one another when necessary.
L: When we met, we didn't hit it off right away, despite me being excited there was another African woman in my program. Then we started connecting, when we found out we have similar backgrounds, religious beliefs, and a shared passion for improving the lives of women where we're from. We also have the whole Kenya-Uganda feud (I'd like to say Uganda won). We have similar goals, which is empowering women to discover their potential. I also come from a STEM field, and I was surprised I was one of only a handful of girls in my IT class, and I want to get more women involved in STEM.
We created HRU, which has involved a lot of iterations of our model to meet the needs of our target audience, women entrepreneurs in Australia and beyond.
What business strengths do you believe the other possesses?
M: I pay a lot of attention to detail, and Letisia looks at it and says, 'It's 80% done, let's get it out there, let's finalise it.'
With the business, I can be a perfectionist, which in terms of getting things done with a start-up, you're never going to get the project out there. But having someone there to say, 'Let's launch it, let's test it, let's figure out the problems as we go", that's a really good strength that Letisia has.
L: Our backgrounds complement each other, because we've studied together, we've also learned a lot about the other's fields. Our skills complement each other, she's from an accounting background, I'm from an IT background. I'm a logical thinker, she's a creative thinker, a lot of those skills fill in my blind spots. With our gaps in knowledge we try and get our network involved as well.
As women entrepreneurs yourselves, what specific instance in your life led you to see the importance of assisting others similar?
M: When I visited Kenya in my early twenties, after moving to Canada when I was 12, nine years had passed. My country had changed, and things had progressed, but not for girls and women. Education, women's health, opportunities for females had yet to advance despite Kenya progressing so much since I lived there. Visiting my cousins in the village, a lot of them became mothers, taking away their potential to be career-driven.
That propelled me to think about initiatives that can be set up to impact women and girls. In my current job outside of HRU Global, I work to make a difference in the lives of women and girls, so it's something I love doing.
L: My upbringing and the women who raised me have really influenced me. On my mum's side there's single mothers who studied. My grandmother was someone I always looked up to, she was a schoolteacher and a single mother of 12. On my dad's side, he was from more of a poorer background where women are treated like second class citizens, they lacked education and work opportunities. They would work as farmers to support their children, while the men spend their earnings on themselves. I thought, why not educate these women, because through that they can uplift their family.
A lot of women are interested in STEM fields, they are interested in making money, but they don't have the opportunity to do so, and we want to do that at HRU Global.
Four inspirational women receive the Australian of the Year Awards
2020-21 Australian Budget
©2021 by HRU Global. Proudly created with Wix.com

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


As for Harper – she's great! At the very youngest, she is 18 now, but she is likely over 20. That is friggin' old. But she is tough. And she's hanging on. Still kicking, still stinking up the place. Still barking her head off at doggie passers-by (my sweet Alpha female, though enfeebled, is still a dang Alpha – and she makes sure the world knows it). She is slowing down, for sure. She snuggles up at my feet while I write. She still gives the stink-eye to the gaggles of boys who tear up and down our stairs and pretend to be slain by lasers and fart on purpose and for no reason. (She is not alone in her stinky-eye, I have to admit.) And while she can't go as far as she used to, she still enjoys a hike in the forest, and still enjoys her yard, and still eats her food (and the occasional peanut butter sandwich crust, should the Universe provide) and still seems perfectly happy to be here.
There is a truism among parents that one of the benefits of pet-ownership is that it helps to teach kids about death. I think this is true, but it is not the most important lesson that our dogs (and other furry family members) teach us. They teach us about compassion, too. They teach us to be patient. They teach us that life isn't just short, it's also fragile. They teach us that it's important to be a noticer. To put into words what we see in others. Leo is incredibly aware of Harper's good days and bad days. Sometimes Harper moves more slowly than others. Sometimes she shakes. Sometimes she is in pain. On those days, Leo slows his feet. He asks me when the last time she had her pain meds. He sits down on the floor and rests his arm on her back. Sometimes, he reads her a story.
Having an aging animal teaches us to hang on to each day.
Having an aging animal teaches us to find moments of grace in very small things.
Having an aging animal teaches us to take our responsibility as pet owners incredibly seriously. They look at us, these animals. They see us to our centers. They demand that we do the same.
Look at me, Harper's eyes say. I'm counting on you.
I know, honey, my eyes say back. I'm here. I'll be here with every wobbly step. I'll be here with every good day and bad. I'll be here with every rattly breath and every contented sigh. I'll be here when you're sick. I'll be here when you're well. And I'll be here at the very end.
When kids love pets, they learn how to promise. They learn how to care. They learn how to notice. They learn how to empathize. They learn how to nurture. They learn how to tend. They learn how to love. They learn how to say good-bye. These are good things to learn.
Haper is still alive. For now. As we all are. We will hang on to each day until we can't. It is a blessed thing, really. And I am grateful.
Thank you to everyone who wrote in and told me your stories. I really appreciate them. I honor them. Thank you for sharing your great love with me. Honestly, it means the world.
So I've been complaining a lot lately about the impact that my daily writing habit has on my hands. Not only (being that I am now at the ripe old age of 37) am I noticing the first inklings of early arthritis, but what's even more problematic is the cold.
Typing makes my hands cold. Really, really cold.
I imagine them crystallizing, cracking, and shattering into bright, sharp shards.
Writing longhand makes my hands cold too, but I don't notice it as much because I can tuck my left hand between the chair and my thigh to keep it warm. I've also done this with my right hand, too, opting to write (slowly) with my left. I can't recommend this. It makes the editing process an absolute nightmare.
Still, though I write my first drafts of my novels in longhand, I do all of my revisions on the computer, I compose blog posts on the computer and I compose short stories on the computer as well. The point is: I type a lot.
And so my hands are ice cold a lot. Thus my ceaseless complaints.
First of all, for those of you who don't know my mom, let me assure you: she rules. Second of all, after poking around on the internets for a while, she finally stumbled on Etsy.com and for that we can all rejoice.
Oh, Etsy! How I love you! How I love your gentle pull towards time wasting! How I love your persistent insistence for beauty! How I love your assertion that beauty has a place on all things – on the body, in the nooks and crannies of the home, in the yard, in the world. How I love your simple democratization of beautiful things – from my hands to your hands and back again.
So my mom found these.
Fingerless gloves. Soft wool. Beautiful colors. Made by a lovely lady from Lithuania, hand-wrapped with an inscription on the package, and sent to me.
To turn my pain and discomfort into an occasion for beauty. An occasion to that which is pleasurable, body-affirming and good.
Thank you, Etsy! And thank you, my wonderful mom.
Tomorrow, I turn thirty-seven. I'm particularly excited about it.
Now, I'm typically excited about birthdays – that prospect of newness, that feeling of standing at the cusp of limitless space, that sea of possibilities. (Except twenty-nine. Turning twenty-nine sucked immensely. In retrospect, I think that twenty-nine – as an age, as a concept – can go screw itself) Anyway. In general, I like the age that I am, and always have. It has never occurred to me to lie about my age or to pretend myself older or younger. I'm proud of every blessed day I've had on this earth, and I will wear them like a badge.
Still, there's something significant about the step between thirty-six and thirty-seven.
When I turned thirty-six, I was ridiculously thrilled about it because thirty-six is a unified number – a square that is also the product of squares. It is solid, amenable, and sure-footed. It gets along well with others. Thirty-six is wide hips and floured hands and words spoken carefully at a PTA meeting. Thirty-six carries weight. It fits into pre-existing groves and keeps things moving along. Thirty-six is a team player. It is an integral piece. Thirty-six is an age that isn't likely to get kicked around. And while it hasn't been perfect, I'm very happy with thirty-six. All in all, it's been a good, good year.
Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven is prime. It cannot be cut, diced or broken. Thirty-seven is a singularity. It asserts itself, announces itself, and does not bow. Thirty-seven accepts its edges – sharp, jagged, and lovely. Thirty-seven resists classification. It is shadowed, inscrutable, and vaguely dangerous. Thirty-seven is both promise and sting; it is a curve and a blade; a beacon, a comfort, and a threat. I think I'm going to enjoy this age.
Yes. I think I'm going to enjoy it very much.


Share your greetings and well-wishes with the Christmas Kitty Full Note Boxed Cards from Galison. This adorable kitschy kitten is sure to make your friends and family smile. The interior greeting reads: "May your days be furry and bright."


Once upon a time if you wanted to play games on a PC you needed to buy an ATX desktop tower. A huge, ugly thing that dominates your life and is almost impossible to move around the house if need be.
Those days are finally gone with the arrival of notebooks (really we should call it a desktop replacement) like the P100. Thanks to a combination of powerful dual-core processor and top-end graphics chip, this machine can handle pretty much any game you care to throw at it.
It's packed with other features too, such as fingerprint security and handy shortcuts on the touchpad. This is a very complete system, and what it lacks in looks it makes up for in power and versatility.
The key to the power of this machine is the graphics chip. It's an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900GTX, one of the most powerful chips you can cram into a notebook. In desktop land, the 7900GTX is still pretty close to the top of the line, and accounts for a decent chunk of the P100's price premium.
It's interesting that Apple seems to be electing to use faster Core 2 Duo chips than PC manufacturers, because even this high-end notebook is still only using a 2.00GHz chip instead of the 2.16GHz unit seen on the lower-end MacBook.
Fact is, the 2GHz model is still very, very powerful and the lower cost means you get better graphics, a better optical drive, more expandability and Harmon Kardon branded speakers.
Luckily for Toshiba, the company has decided to make the most of the P100's bulk. There's a DVI video output, as well as SVGA and a composite TV-out plug too. Four USB ports also puts it ahead of the competition.
There's certainly a lot of stuff that needs setting up on this machine. The fingerprint scanner is fiddly but seems to work once you get the hang of it (a tutorial is provided). Wireless was switched off out of the box, so to anyone struggling with this, look for the switch on the front of the unit! Bottom line is this is a Windows machine, so a familiarity with PCs will make set up much easier for you.
The performance of this machine is difficult to fault. Thanks to its very powerful innards, it chews through pretty much any task you put to it. The power of the graphics chip can't be overstated in a PC of this nature, while the inclusion of 2GB of RAM means you rarely encounter slowdowns as the hard drive thrashes to keep up with virtual memory and pagefile demands. Impressive stuff.
We dream of a world with notebooks that are as powerful as the P100, but as pretty as, say, those from the Apple stable. It seems so strange that a machine this powerful has to be so plain in its looks. Still, it's a long way from ugly. A desktop PC of this spec will be much cheaper, but it won't be nearly as convenient. Even the battery life isn't too bad. An impressive piece of kit.
Awesome graphics performance. Plenty of system memory. Excellent display.
Strictly traditional design. Heavy and bulky. Custom power plug.


text:
A Aquitânia () foi até 2015 uma região administrativa do sudoeste de França, e que hoje integra a região da Nova Aquitânia. É limitada a oeste pelo Oceano Atlântico e a sul pela Espanha. Compreende os departamentos de Dordonha, Gironda, Landes, Lot e Garona e Pirenéus Atlânticos. Os gentílicos desta região são aquitânico, aquitano e aquitanense.

História

Provavelmente o primeiro homem que chegou à Aquitânia foi o homem de Cro-Magnon mais ou menos há 40 mil anos. No paleolítico superior, os Aquitanos deixaram vários vestígios entre eles pinturas nas cavernas Lascaux e um busto chamado Vênus de Brassempouy ou Dama de Brassempouy. Do período neolítico são achados vestígios humanos pela presença de dólmens (espécies de túmulos) e pelos menires (monumentos em pedra).

Durante a conquista romana da Gália por Júlio César, a população que lá residia era chamada de ibérica pelo imperador romano. Na verdade eram os vascões, prováveis antepassados dos bascos. Não se sabe ao certo em que época eles começaram a habitar a região. A Aquitânia foi conquistada pelos romanos em  por Marco Licínio Crasso a mando de Júlio César. Sob o Império Romano faziam parte da Aquitânia o sudoeste da Gália dos Pirenéus ao vale do rio Loire incluindo Auvérnia. Saintes e Bordéus foram capitais da Gália Aquitânia.

Os visigodos chegaram a região em 412-413 vindos de Provença e da Itália pouco antes do início da Idade Média. A região foi posteriormente conquistada pelos Francos e finalmente estruturada como um ducado independente, Ducado da Aquitânia. Em 671, a Aquitânia conseguiu sua independência liderada pelo duque Lupe. O Duque da Aquitânia, Eudes, vence uma batalha contra os Sarracenos que invadiam a Aquitânia. Entre 742 e 743, os filhos de Carlos Martel fazem campanhas contra a Aquitânia.

Em 781, Carlos Magno (rei franco) nomeia seu filho, Luís I o Piedoso (aos três anos de idade) Rei da Aquitânia. Com a morte de Carlos Magno, Luís passa seu trono a seu filho, Pepino. Com a morte de Pepino, Luís nomeou outro filho (Carlos II, o Calvo) como rei mas com sua morte surgiu uma guerra pela sucessão do trono entre o filho de Pepino (Pepino II) e Carlos, o Calvo. A disputa só terminou em 860.

Em 877, a Aquitânia se dividiu em dois ducados: Gasconha e Aquitânia. Em 1058, eles se uniram novamente.

No , a Duquesa Leonor da Aquitânia casou-se com o rei Luís VII de França com quem teve duas filhas. O casamento foi anulado com a alegação de laços de consanguinidade, causa frequente quando a nobreza queria desfazer um casamento, porque Leonor queria se casar novamente mas com o rival de Luís VII, o rei inglês Henrique II. Com a morte de Henrique II, seu filho Ricardo Coração de Leão assumiu o trono e o título de Duque de Aquitânia sempre ameaçado pelo seu irmão, João I de Inglaterra -o João Sem Terra- que não poupou esforços na tentativa de usurpar o trono enquanto o irmão lutava contra Saladino na Terceira Cruzada.

Com a morte de Ricardo, atingido por uma flecha numa batalha sem nenhuma importância, João tornou-se o Rei da Inglaterra assumindo também o Ducado de Aquitânia, contra a vontade dos seus opositores, que preferiam seu sobrinho Artur, filho de seu irmão Godofredo com Constance de Bretanha.

Um século mais tarde a França e a Inglaterra se enfrentaram na Guerra dos Cem Anos , quando o rei inglês  (descendente da Dinastia Plantageneta e do rei Henrique II) reivindicou o trono de França. Com o fim da guerra, a Aquitânia passou a fazer parte definitivamente de França.

Geografia
Área: 41 400 km² (7.6 % da superfície total de França).
População: 2 967 000 (4.97% da população total de França) (2002).

A região é banhada ao oeste pelo Oceano Atlântico (golfo da Biscaia ou da Gasconha) desde o estuário da Gironda até à desembocadura do rio Bidasoa (Costa da Prata). Ao sul, está atravessada pelos Pirenéus que a separa de Espanha (Aragão, Navarra e País Basco).

As cidades mais importantes da Aquitânia são: Bordéus (Bordeaux), Pau, Baiona (Bayonne), Agen, Mont-de-Marsan, Biarritz, Périgueux, Bergerac, Dax e Libourne.

Economia
 Agricultura: cultivo de uvas é uma das principais produções da região.
 Indústrias:
 Petróleo e gás natural são encontrados e produzidos na região.
 Produção de vinhos: a produção dos famosos vinhos de Bordéus.
 Aeroespacial

Língua
Fala-se principalmente o francês. Alguns falam a língua Occitana  (de origem românica), Gascão (língua própria da Aquitânia) e Euskera ou Língua basca.

Aquitanos famosos
 Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), compositor e pianista
 Francis Cabrel (1953-), cantor
 Pascal Obispo (1965-), cantor
 Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), pensador e político
 Montesquieu (1689-1755), pensador e filósofo
 Papa Clemente V (1264-1314), Papa
 Henrique IV (1553-1610), Rei de França
 D. Jordan
 Leonor da Aquitânia (cerca 1122 - 1 de Abril 1204) foi Duquesa da Aquitânia e da Gasconha, Condessa de Poitiers e Rainha consorte de França e Inglaterra.
 São Vicente de Paulo
 Aymeric Laporte (1994-), jogador de futebol

Ver também
 Gália Aquitânia
 Guiena
 Gasconha
 Aquitanos
 Nova Aquitânia
 Aquitania (Colômbia)

Ligações externas
 Página do Conselho Regional


text:
Poets and Dreamers
Dreamers and Displaced
Poetry...more...
Late Summer Light >
Treasure in Red >
Poets and Dreamers Literary Journal >
Blue Stars
Poets and Dreamers
from The Whole of the Moon
Brian Rogers
It's possible to leave California.
Not all migrations must go west. Just hop on Interstate-210 and head out past the Miller Brewing Company ("Miller, the Champagne of Beers"), cross the Los Angeles County line and drive through the Inland Empire with its vast swatches of rock and dead earth.
If it is wintertime and there has been rain, the reigning mountaintops might be dusted with snow, almost California postcard pretty. Ignore it. You have other destinations, beyond San Bernardino and Redlands.
You can cut up the 15 and head toward Barstow and before long Las Vegas, that gangster mirage in the desert, will appear, or you can keep going to where the 210 merges with the 10 and head out to Cabazon, people riding dirt bikes and other off road vehicles and gambling in Indian casinos.
You'll come to the Banning Pass with the windmills and the trains moving along a mountain ridge that is now on your right, and you could go all the way out to Indio or you cut could up through Joshua Tree and really feel like you are leaving, like you have entered alien territory, that it is all behind you . . .
The Whole of the Moon consists of six crisscrossing narratives set along the old Route 66, from the Inland Empire to the terminus just off Sunset Boulevard. The stories span the years from the late 1950s to the present, and the characters are bound by a fact unknown to them: they have each checked out the same public library copy of The Great Gatsby.
An actor sits poolside waiting to hear whether he has been cast in a television pilot. Two kids ditch school in 1964 and go for a hike in the woods that turns dangerous. A woman named Dot remembers her husband who spent years working on a musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby. A young woman Felicity deals with the consequences of an unexpected pregnancy. Mike, a former high school star, attends an open tryout for the California Angels baseball team. And a boarding school teacher tells the story of his cousin, a social climber who has disappeared in the wake of a murder. These are the characters that populate The Whole of the Moon. Brian Rogers' novel is about determination and failure and life in Southern California away from the red carpet.
So we travel on earth seeking the terrain of Poetry, walking through wilderness and empty landscape or visiting those ancient sites like Dholavira in far-western Gujarat, or Mykenai in the Greek Peloponnese, or the Arawak campsite on eastern Carriacou in the Grenadine Windward Isles, pursuing that authenticity of experience in a form of antique material reality...
These are places, strange and vague situations where death is manifold and thoroughly extant to the careful eye. There are women's bangles made of shell to be picked up from the saline dust or small copper beads and thin chert blades, or tiny obsidian arrow-heads that can be unhidden and disclosed beneath those bloody grey walls about the Lion Gate, or beautiful indented potsherds and ceramic fragments at the waterline where the Atlantic rolls out its long blue visceral waves...
Kevin McGrath Yoga of Poetry
"Dare to live the life you have dreamed."
What began as a series of literary salons and writing workshops is now a worldwide circle of literary & fine artists who believe that words, art, and music act as a transcendent bridge, and allow us to create the lives we have imagined. Poets and Dreamers Literary Circle and the Poets and Dreamers Literary & Fine Arts Journal exist as opportunities for authors and artists to actualize themselves through collaboration and the circulation of literary and fine arts.
"Remember...the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you."
Receive the Poets and Dreamers Literary Journal


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Economic Contagion: A Targeted, Timely and Transparent Policy Response
06 March 2020 by Gerard Lyons
The predicament we face now is unlike 2008, which was a Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This is a Global Health Crisis. Then the focus was on addressing financial issues. Now the focus is about addressing health issues.
One similarity to 2008 is that there will be a significant economic fallout. The outcome in 2009 was a deep global recession but policy prevented something far worse, a depression. Now there is likely to be a significant but temporary slowdown, possibly lasting half a year, but because of the uncertain nature of this virus there is a danger the downturn could last longer.
Although governments across the globe provided a fiscal stimulus at the 2009 G20 London Summit, in the aftermath of the GFC the main focus of the policy response was on monetary policy. It acted as the economic shock absorber, so much so that now, over a decade later, rates are low and central bank balance sheets are bloated and there is not as much monetary ammunition left to deal with new shocks, such as this virus.
Central banks likely to do more
Yet as we have seen over the last week, central banks remain in the front line of the policy response. The US Federal Reserve (the Fed) cut by 0.5%, resulting in an upper bound for the Fed funds rate of 1.25%. Further Fed easing is inevitable as inflation is not a concern and given the economic uncertainty and risks – a cut to 1% is likely and potentially lower the longer the crisis lasts. In fact, 32 central banks have already cut rates this year. More are likely to do so, including the Bank of England.
While monetary policy still has an important role to play as the crisis unfolds, there needs to be a 'Whole of Government' approach involving fiscal, monetary and prudential policy. Fiscal policy easing is already underway globally, spearheaded by emerging economies. While helpful now, it will compound an existing challenge, namely over the high level of global debt.
This whole of government approach is needed in the UK and needs to be: Targeted, Timely and Transparent.
Targeted at areas needing immediate help. A significant aspect of this crisis is that it impacts the supply side of the economy, as it hits supply chains, exposing small firms who rely on cash flow to survive. But like previous such shocks it impacts the demand side, too, as trade slows and discretionary spending weakens. Demand and supply side policy responses are needed.
In addition, specific sectors may be more exposed, such as point-to-point travel by Uber or taxis, retail spending and tourism. Targeted measures must also focus on those whose cash flow would be impacted if they are forced to self-quarantine for two weeks and who may be laid off from work as demand slows. Last week, for example, the Budgets in Singapore and Hong Kong responded with targeted measures for these groups, including cash handouts for those on low incomes.
Timely, in the sense of when to implement policy stimulus and for how long. The UK is fortunate that the Budget is imminent as this will allow immediate support to be provided. Also, on the monetary side it makes sense for pre-emptive measures, outlined below, and for them to remain in place until the economy has turned the corner for the better.
Transparent, with policy measures being clear and well communicated. The lesson from previous shocks of this type is that, while they are not all identical, the impact on the economy can be thought of as being V-shaped or U-shaped. The maximum economic impact is in the first two quarters after the initial shock and then there is recovery, often helped by policy, although sometimes policy may only feed through after the economy has turned the corner.
China's economy was at a standstill in January and February. Although the official message there is that it is over the worst, it is clear the economy will take time to recover. Last week there were suggestions the economy was back to 60-70% strength and the high frequency economic data is still weak. Our expectation is of a return to normal there in Q2.
A challenge is that the contagion has been evident already and other countries will likely experience similar temporary hits as China did. Japan (especially with its elderly population) may grind to a standstill, too. South Korea is unveiling major economic policy measures. Supply chains globally will be impacted for some time even if China recovers soon, especially if the US is impacted, as seems likely, as we move into Q2.
The UK approach
This week the UK Government outlined its approach to the crisis. In all likelihood there will be a surge in cases, and only time will tell whether enough has been done to contain the virus.
The official message stated, "Once the virus becomes impossible to contain, it will take six to eight weeks to reach its peak, with the peak period lasting four weeks, perhaps at different times in different parts of the country, before a decline lasting up to 12 weeks."
This would point to the virus hitting the UK economy hard in Q2, in all likelihood bringing it to the type of temporary standstill seen recently in China. This prospect would justify significant fiscal measures in the imminent Budget as well as action by the Bank of England (BOE).
The BOE should have a bias to ease. Previously the market consensus was that a large fiscal stimulus in the Budget would remove the scope for rate cuts. Now, however, fiscal and monetary easing is justified. I would expect policy rates to be cut from 0.75%. An immediate cut to 0.5% seems likely at the March meeting, and I would favour a reduction to 0.25% in Q2 but the Bank will likely wait to see how the data unfolds, perhaps with a focus on other measures.
To ease supply side pressures the Bank is likely to add liquidity and could consider lending schemes or loan guarantees for small firms.
Other measures could also include easing prudential measures such as capital requirements on banks or measures that limit people's ability to borrow. They could work with banks to ease forbearance or credit conditions for those facing cash flow problems.
The policy measures taken will be driven by the path the virus takes and by the economic data.
Challenges are hard to quantify
No one should be complacent, especially as cases will rise and deaths occur. There are no economic silver linings to this crisis, although there will be lessons learned.
If one is looking for positives: the virus appears to have peaked in China; the sequence of the virus was detected quickly and a vaccine is expected to be available in a year; over 82% who catch it will not be impacted too much; a drug may be used on the seriously impacted (Remdesivir). Plus, in the UK, people here are not panicking (yet) and so will likely self-quarantine and that may mitigate its spread.
The UK challenge is the scale of the population (the old and vulnerable) who may be impacted seriously if the coronavirus is not contained – the government this week said in this case 80% would be affected, which is effectively assuming most people will be exposed to it but some will be immune. If so, the numbers impacted here will have a wider contagion impact (on services and public mood). The economy will likely follow the path of China and grind to a temporary halt.
This week the IMF repeated its view that world growth would be severely impacted; it now expects growth to be less than last year. That should not be a surprise as, at the start of the year, China and the rest of Asia were expected to account for around two-thirds of global growth this year. The OECD this week, reflecting the shift in economic thinking, cut its measure of global growth this year from 2.9% to 2.5% but stated that a longer-lasting and more intensive outbreak could reduce this to 1.5%.
While the focus here is on the immediate, there will be longer-term consequences. Following the 2008 crisis regulation focused on faults in global banking. Now it should be about strengthening the global health response while also posing a challenge to economic globalisation and a likely preference for localism over just-in-time global supply chains.
Even ahead of this crisis, one of the issues for the market was where we are in the economic cycle – the issue being whether we were near the end of the cycle and if so, was there enough policy room to respond? Now, it seems inevitable that this crisis will result in rates being lower, liquidity more abundant and debt levels even higher.
Safe havens continue to perform well. Yields will stay low. Equity markets, whilst currently volatile will potentially offer good value if we are right that economies will rebound later this year.


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Piper's at Galway Hooker closes while developing a 'new concept'
By Newsroom ⋅ January 17, 2023 ⋅ Post a comment
Filed Under Cornelius, galway, hooker, irish pub
Jan. 17. By TL Bernthal. Piper's at Galway Hooker closed this month, but a new concept is promised for this spring at 17044 Kenton Drive in Cornelius.
"We thank you for being a great guest. Keep a look out for a new concept this spring," the message on its voicemail says.
The website explains it this way —
New Hours Of Operation:
Temporarily Closed:
Look for us Spring 2023
An email and phone call seeking comment were not returned on Tuesday.
The space also houses the banquet room Waterford Hall and the Comedy Zone on the second floor. A message to Comedy Zone on its status was not returned, but no tickets are available for the Lake Norman location.
Galway's original owners opened Galway Hooker in 2002 and sold the restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic. New owner Dan Reynolds changed the establishment's name at Piper's at Galway Hooker, in honor of his late sister.
The restaurant and pub were a bastion of Irish food and Guinness beer; it even had a small doorway for leprechauns.
Other drinking and dining news
—Bin 110, 19712 One Norman Blvd. Suite 110, Cornelius, will be taking a two-month hiatus, starting in March, to renovate and expand before re-opening this spring. The renovation will triple capacity and include a new sound and light system. Additional food items are planned as well. Owner Andy Upchurch did not respond to an email seeking additional information.
— Work is continuing at Red Rocks Cafe in Birkdale Village, Huntersville, with a mural completed by Charlotte artist Nico Amortegui , who was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Some of the new awning will be up in early February. The expanded outdoor seating area and other renovations will mean the popular restaurant will close temporarily, probably in March. No work is being done in the kitchen so the closing will not be long, possibly a week, owner Ron Herbert says.
—Seven months after an early-morning fire at the Tropicana on West Catawba Avenue caused extensive damage, Cambridge Hospitality, the operator of the nightspot, says it will not reopen. After considering the costs of reopening and staffing, the owners decided to focus on the three remaining eateries they operate: Kat's Seafood Kitchen, Peninsula Prime and Jack's Corner Tap.
The new mural at Red Rocks Cafe is complete. Courtesy photo
7 Responses to "Piper's at Galway Hooker closes while developing a 'new concept'"
Bin110 is NOT closed. The post read, "Spring 2023, Bin110 will be taking a 2 month hiatus…" It's important to get those details correct.
Posted by Andy Upchurch | January 17, 2023, 5:04 pm
Andy, we did not say Bin 110 is closed. We said Bin110 would be taking a 2 month hiatus. We also reached out via email for details before we published anything.
Posted by Newsroom | January 17, 2023, 6:02 pm
The original owners of The Galway Hooker were john Bisson and Russ and Melanie Jones. Chris bought out the Jones a few years after it was open.
I hope they don't paint over the beautiful mural outside the building. It's of Galway Bay and was one of the last paintings by Tara, who sadly passed away not Ling after completing this work.
Posted by John J Oshea | January 18, 2023, 9:41 am
We tried to support Galway after Chris sold it and in the beginning the staff was great.. it later deteriorated.. the girls were mostly interested in talking to one another and often drink orders came with or after the food! The food was consistently good. Kudos to the chef! Changing the will not help unless the staff is trained. Good luck.. we will give it a try once Galway reopens.
Posted by Nancy Brand | January 18, 2023, 9:52 am
Hope that happens before St Patrick's day
Posted by Kitty | January 23, 2023, 10:39 am
As a group of about 40, we traveled to different venues every Friday for Happy Hour. Galway and Al's was our favorite. Great food, great staff at both. Then Chris sold. Downhill from there. Terrible management, moved on from a great Chef, tried to fix something that didn't need to be fixed. The outdoor patio was the only good thing that came out of it. what a shame to a great venue.
Posted by randy dalton | January 18, 2023, 1:45 pm
My sentiments exactly.. the hooked, that lovely boat is used up on GALWAY Bay!- Hence the uniqueness of the restaurant.Now we go the the Harp and Crown for delicious Irish food with an English touch!
Posted by Nancy Brand | January 20, 2023, 2:31 pm


Last week I had the privilege of sitting on a panel discussion at the 2014 TSAM New York conference.
Are you ready to support IBOR?
Do you have a variety of front-office users with different business needs? Do you struggle to support those needs because you are managing multiple sources of data? The process by which your portfolios are reported is often as diverse as the end-users of this information and likely includes data fed from a myriad of vendors. There is no best single source for all your investment data and many portfolio managers are hindered by system limitations due to how data is structured and stored.


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Q & A: Benetech's Anh Bui on Global Literacy Product Strategy and Innovation
By Benetech, posted on March 28, 2014
For this installment of our Q & A with Staff series, we sat down with Anh Bui, Director of Product Strategy for the Benetech Global Literacy Program, and Director of the DIAGRAM Center.
Q: You're wearing two hats at Benetech—could you explain to our readers what your job on both Global Literacy product strategy and the DIAGRAM Center involves?
A: As director of product strategy for the Global Literacy Program, I lead the team of product managers that helps drive the development of Global Literacy products. These include Bookshare, Route 66, as well as tools that content creators can use themselves in order to incorporate accessibility properties into the content creation cycle. We are building these tools as part of our most recent Global Literacy initiative—Born Accessible—whose aim is to ensure that all digitally produced content has built-in accessibility and is instantly usable by all readers, including those with print disabilities. Some of these tools, like our Poet image description tool—are developed by the DIAGRAM Center, which is another Global Literacy initiative.
My work as director of the DIAGRAM Center is related to the above. In this capacity, I leverage a community of technologists, educators, accessibility experts, standards experts, and toolmakers, who have come together under the DIAGRAM Center to push the frontier of accessibility of images and graphic content. Benetech is part of that community, and also leads the management of the Center. DIAGRAM is funded by the U.S. Department of Education; our two primary partners are Boston public broadcaster WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media and the U.S. Fund for DAISY. The DIAGRAM Center is a research and development center, so there is, of course, a fair amount of development work involved in it. Some of that work Benetech does, as, for example, in the case of Poet. Other tools—such as tactile graphics, or description templates for common graphics—our partners develop through DIAGRAM sub-contracts.
Q: How do you describe the DIAGRAM Center to someone you don't know?
A: Imagine you're a student in a science class—say, biology—and you're told to turn to a lesson in your textbook. You do so, but then discover that your book has only the text, and all the images are missing. What key information would you be missing out on?
There's so much information critical to educational content that remains locked in textbook images, posing a high barrier for students who cannot see them.
Benetech launched the DIAGRAM Center in order to rectify this accessibility problem.
The rise of ebooks and of digital reading devices is significantly solving the problem of the accessibility of text. Making images accessible, however, is the next frontier. The DIAGRAM Center is conducting research and development with the goal of making it easier, cheaper, and faster to create and use accessible digital images. We're also working with the nation's top community of cross-sector experts in the field of image accessibility. This space includes a broad range of challenges. One such issue is math, which is largely presented as images in textbooks in a way that equations can't be read by someone who can't see them.
Some of the solutions we're working on include image descriptions, touch screen versions users can explore, and tactile graphics one can touch and feel (as, for instance, the contours of a map).
Q: Betsy Beaumon, Benetech's VP of Global Literacy, often says that her vision for the program is based on the premise that "all content that is born digital should be born accessible." Could you explain some of the things the DIAGRAM Center does to advance this vision?
A: One important thing we have done is issue guidelines that help production personnel in publishing mark up digital images in textbooks so that they are made accessible to people with visual disabilities. Another area is the development of resources and trainings for authors and other content creators to help them determine how and when to describe an image, so that they can do it themselves. We are also exploring new technologies, like tactiles and interactive widgets, and the creation of a registry or repository where content creators can find accessible images to incorporate into their works or be inspired by. Our goal is to ensure that publishers and educational content creators can easily use these technologies and can make images accessible from the outset, instead of having to retrofit them later.
Q: What is the one accomplishment of your team over the past year that has truly made you proud?
A: This is a difficult question, as there have been so many accomplishments! The teams I work with have been able to achieve so much over the past year. I see their impact everyday; it's astonishing and humbling.
Our teams' successes range from delivering better experiences for our users, to creating more opportunities for them to get more accessible materials in a timely manner, to improving data infrastructures by leaps and bounds, to becoming key partner to groups passionate about transforming the approach to images as the world goes digital. Consider this very partial list of accomplishments:
We have rolled out Bookshare Web Reader, which delivers an instant "read now" experience to our Bookshare members by allowing them to directly open and read Bookshare ebooks with a web browser, without having to download any files or use additional software reading tools.
We have worked with publishers on issuing initial guidelines for creating accessible content based on EPUB3, a distribution and interchange format standard for digital publications and documents—a tremendous step forward in realizing the Born Accessible vision.
We've created an Accessible Image Sample Book that allows anyone to understand how a digital image can be made accessible today, with code samples so they can now make the images in their ebooks accessible.
We completed a major redesign of Route 66, our online literacy program for adult and adolescent beginning readers, making it easier to use than ever.
Q: What is your greatest challenge?
A: The speed at which our industry is moving is fantastic, but challenging. It means that we have to be increasingly more agile and nimble in the face of technological innovation, and place our bets very carefully in terms of how we invest our limited capital.
I wouldn't trade this innovation at warp speed. It's a blessing for social enterprises, for it opens up so many opportunities to make greater social impact that touches more people faster. But it's also definitely a challenge.
Q: What is an example of a user story that has truly moved you?
A: Many gratifying stories cross my desk each month, but here's one that comes to mind particularly because I've been thinking a lot recently about accessibility of math. It came from a participant in a DIAGRAM Center's webinar on tools for creating accessible math. That person wrote us:
"I am newly blind, totally blind. I went from eagle eyes to total darkness. I went from teaching basic math thru pharmaceutical math as a sighted teacher to tutoring at a math outreach center as a blind volunteer. Your webinar has jumpstarted my imagination, as I will soon be tutoring blind children for the first time. I am in a unique position of seeing in my mind what the presenters are saying and at the same time understanding the children's frustration, as it is also mine. I am happy to hear that many people are working on math accessibility. It gives me hope."
This kind of feedback is something you can't put a price tag on. And that's why we're here.
Q: What advice would you give to women in the technology industry?
A: Even if you can't "have it all," you can have what you deem important and right for you. Whatever it is that you choose, know your worth. Don't underestimate your skills. Speak up for your accomplishments. Recognizing your own achievements can help you create even greater impact.


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Category Archives: space travel
Review 195: Redshirts
Redshirts by John Scalzi
The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once said, on the meaning of life, "Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself." Frederich Nietzche said, "If we possess a why of life, we can put up with almost any how." And Stephen King wrote, "Life sucks, then you die."
It'll take a far better philosopher than I to really look at this book from an existentialist viewpoint, but I strongly suspect that it would be a lot of fun to do. After all, one of the major questions that philosophy – and existentialism in particular – tries to address is that of why we are here. What is our purpose in life? What, in the end, does it all mean? For us out here, that's a question we can't really know the answer to, and thus a whole branch of philosophy exists to tell us that it doesn't really matter. That maybe we don't have a purpose imposed upon us from outside, but that's okay. We can create our own. We can contribute our own verses to the powerful play of life, as Whitman would have it, and in the end we are responsible for our own lives.
For this guy, going out of existence is probably more important…
But what if we weren't? What if there was a being that orchestrated our lives, willing them into – and more importantly out of – existence? What would you do with the realization that your life is not entirely your own? And even worse, the realization that the person in control of it doesn't really care all that much about you?
That is the problem faced by Ensign Andrew Dahl of the Universal Union flagship Intrepid. It is the 25th century, and things couldn't be better. He has a chance to see new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go… Well, you know the rest. Dahl is at the frontier of science and exploration, and is determined to make the most of it.
If he survives.
Alone among the ships of the UU, the Intrepid loses crew at an alarming rate. Dahl soon discovers a fact that has been known for years by those crew members who are bright enough to spot the pattern: people who go on away missions with the command staff will, almost inevitably, die. Toxic gasses, killer machines, Borgovian land worms – these are just a tiny sampling of dangers that have done in ensigns and miscellaneous crew for years, and no one seems to know why. All they can do is make sure they're not in the room when the Captain comes in, looking for someone who'll pop down to a planet's surface to find out why that mining colony hasn't reported in recently.
Nope, he's going to die too.
Dahl, of course, just can't let himself and his friends die, so he begins digging into the true nature of their lives on the starship Intrepid. What he discovers is a truth almost too mad to be believed: their lives are not their own. A greater power is directing events on the Intrepid, dictating who lives and who dies, and that greater power doesn't seem to be very good at what it does. So Dahl and his friends have to bet everything on the power of the Narrative, meet their makers and try to find a way to secure their freedom. Or, failing that, a way to see to it that their lives have more meaning than they had before.
As always with John Scalzi, I recommend picking this up. It's a very fast read – I finished it in under a day – and it has the tight combination of humor, thoughtfulness, and genuine emotion that I have come to expect from his work. From a premise that is incredibly simple – "The crew of a starship realize they're doomed if they go on away missions and try to change their fate" – he's built up a multi-layered exploration into the meaning of life and death. The universe he's given to us is one where people are denied the ability to give meaning to their own lives, and have to rely on an unseen force to do it for them. The fight, then, is to acquire that ability to decide. To gain agency, as it were. They want to be able to control their own existence so badly that they risk their existence entirely.
The corollary, then, is very simple: what are you doing with your life? We, the readers, have that agency. We can make decisions for our own lives and our own purposes. If we succeed or fail, we can do so knowing that we made those successes or failures possible. [1] In a sense, we don't know how good we have it, something that is brought up in the second of three codas to the main novel. We can choose. We can create meaning in our lives without hoping that some higher power will do it for us. So why don't we?
For a book that presents itself as a quick, fun read, there are certainly layers upon layers of meaning in it that could be a lot of fun to explore. The only complaint, really, is that it wasn't long enough. And I don't mean that he skipped essential scenes, or that he should have opted for a Tolkien/Jordan/Martin-esque style of describing every goddamn thing that showed up on the page, but there were points where I just wanted him to slow down a bit and let us appreciate the moments for what they were. There's a scene in chapter 21, for example, that should be really emotional and meaningful, but it's almost entirely dialogue. Good dialogue, yes, but I wanted to linger over it a bit, and that's true for a lot of scenes in the book. Scalzi writes wonderful banter, and makes his characters sound real, but I want to see things as well as hear them.
Also, to be honest, I expected the last page to just be a picture of Scalzi at his computer, turning to the camera and winking. It would have been hilariously meta, but I guess he's not as gimmicky as that.
Buy the book and enjoy it. If you're a fan of Star Trek – which was, given the title, a huge inspiration for the story – you'll no doubt appreciate it more than most. Even if you haven't watched every episode of the original series, though, the Red Shirt character is one that has permeated all levels of fiction, and has died many times in order to advance the plots that you love so well. He even has one poor guy who's not only a Red Shirt, but nearly at the end of his tour and about to get married. There was no way he'd survive. Take some time out for these poor, expendable bastards and give them a chance to shine.
In conclusion, I'll leave you with the song that Jonathan Coulton wrote for the book. Quiet, poignant, and touching. But also really funny.
"The [Borgovian Land Worms] were in a frenzy. Somebody was now likely to die. It was likely to be ensign Davis."
– from Redshirts by John Scalzi
[1] There are plenty of external, uncontrollable factors, of course, which can all be lumped together under the term "luck," but you know what I mean.
Filed under existentialism, humor, John Scalzi, meta-fiction, quest, science fiction, space travel, story
Tagged as book reviews, existentialism, John Scalzi, meta-fiction, podcast, science fiction, Star Trek
Review 184: Ender's Shadow
Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card
This book made me wish I could forget that I had ever read Ender's Game.
Not because it was necessarily a better book – though it is longer – but because the two books offer different views of the same events from two distinctly different perspectives.
Ender Wiggin is brilliant and empathetic, a boy torn apart by his own doubts and fears and driven to greatness by a government that sees him simply as a means to an end. It is only his ability to understand and come to love those around him that gets him through his trials, endure his isolation, and which ultimately allows him to put together the team that defeats the Buggers. Ender seems to be more human than human, and not in that ironic Blade Runner sort of way, but in a way which makes us want to see him succeed and do well.
Bean, on the other hand, is about as different from Ender as it's possible to get. He's introduced in Ender's Game as a foil, a character designed to show us how far Ender had come in the short time that he had been in Battle School. When we meet Bean, Ender is using the same techniques of isolation and constructive abuse that were used on him, making us wonder if Ender will turn out to be just a copy of the adults who were tormenting him. We learn that Bean, like Ender, is brilliant, but he is also strong-willed and ambitious and takes well to the atmosphere of Battle School. In the end, Bean shows himself to be a vital part of the team that Ender assembles to stop the Buggers and cement humanity's place in the cosmos.
Ender's story is all about empathy and self-understanding and his desire to be the person he wants to be, rather than the person humanity needs him to be. He has to give up some of his essential humanity in order to save the world.
Bean's story comes from the opposite direction. More brilliant than Ender, Bean learns to find his humanity. He has to learn to see people as people, rather than a means to an end or a puzzle to solve. The hard lessons that he learned on the streets of Rotterdam as a small child were vital in preparing him to become a commander, but they have to be put aside if he's to become a human.
Bean's story is much bigger in scope than Ender's, which gives the book as a whole more depth than Ender's Game. We start out in Rotterdam, which has become a center of poverty and violence among rival gangs of street children. Bean, tiny and starving, manages to prove his worth to one of these gangs by suggesting strategies by which they can get more food and more respect. He gains the attention of Sister Carlotta, a nun who is working for both God and the International Fleet, and she is the first to see his full potential as a student in Battle School. But in the course of trying to understand Bean, she learns that his origin is one of horror, and that his future is even worse.
As a character, I liked Bean more than I liked Ender, possibly because on a scale of Complete Misanthrope to Bodhisattva, Bean and I are pretty close to the complete misanthrope end of the spectrum. To be fair, though, Bean has a lot more reasons to feel that way, and he's a lot worse than I am. As we meet him, Bean views people as means to an end or as problems to be solved. He doesn't reform the street gang culture of Rotterdam because it's the right thing to do – he does it because he needs to eat. When he does experience attachment or fondness for others, he doesn't know how to deal with it, and turns it into just another problem to be solved.
That hyper-analytical way of looking at the world makes Bean a much more aware character than Ender as well. While Ender spends most of his book wrapped inside his own head, Bean is constantly testing the world, analyzing it and trying to figure out what's really going on. So while Ender was exploring the computer fantasy game, Bean was crawling through air ducts in the Battle School. While Ender was researching the battles of the past, Bean was learning how to spy on his teachers.
In the end, just as Ender is learning to put aside his humanity for the common good, Bean discovers a deep well of compassion that he never knew he had. Ender becomes more isolated, and Bean becomes more connected to others. The two characters come at each other from different directions and view the world in vastly different ways, giving us a kind of parallax view of the same events, to use Card's preferred terminology.
Most interestingly, many of the revelations that were revealed to Ender in his book were discovered by Bean in this one, which creates a whole different reading experience.
And that's why I wish I could delete my memory of having read Ender's Game,, or at least put it away for a while. Reading this book, I constantly compare what's happening to Bean with what happened to Ender, looking for those scenes that are shared between the books and others that we only get to see once. Whether it's the early days of Battle School or Ender's fight with Bonzo Madrid or the climactic end, there are enough similarities and differences to make each book worth reading.
But at the same time, I want to read each one for the first time, without knowing what's going to happen next. I want to share Bean's ability to see plans unspool before him without already knowing what those plans are. And then I want to read Ender's Game the way I read Ender's Shadow and have those wonderful moments of revelation as new light is shed on topics that were only briefly mentioned before – like Locke and Demosthenes, or the true fate of Mazer Rackham.
Card has done a difficult job very well in this book, and I can't imagine it was easy at all. As he noted in his forward, a dozen years passed between the first book and this one, and a person changes in that much time. He learned new things and gained new perspectives, and that naturally had a great influence on how he chose to write this story.
And then there's the enormous popularity of his other Ender books. Between Game and Shadow, he wrote Speaker for the Dead in 1986, Xenocide in 1991, and Children of the Mind in 1996. That means he had a much more solid understanding of his world by the time he got around to Ender's Shadow in 1999, and a much larger fan base as well. Writers will always say that they write for the story, not for the fans, but every writer wants in their heart of hearts to have people love what they write. Revisiting your most famous work and exploring a popular character brings great risks with it.
Fortunately, I think Card succeeded with this book. It both compliments and contrasts with Ender's Game, offering enough new information and new viewpoints to merit a second novel, while being faithful to the story that fans had come to love over a decade and a half. What's more, it feels like the work of a more experienced writer. The scale is larger, the characters have more depth, and he takes more chances with the story than he did with Ender's Game.
All in all, if you were a fan of the first, you'll like this one. If you haven't read either, you really should. And if you start with this one, let me know how it goes.
"Ender was what Bean only wished to be — the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you. I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don't want to go through what you've been through to get there."
All images are from Marvel Comics.
Ender's Shadow on Wikipedia
Orson Scott Card on Wikipedia
Ender's Shadow on Amazon.com
Filed under adventure, aliens, coming of age, identity, military, Orson Scott Card, science fiction, space travel, teenagers, war, young adult
Tagged as book reviews, Orson Scott Card, podcast, science fiction
Review 152: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
What would you do if you had access to the greatest supercomputer ever built? A computer so complex and intricate that it finally gains full consciousness – and only you knew about it? Would you use it for your own nefarious purposes and hack your way to riches? Would you try to teach it how to be human? Would you tell it jokes? Or would you use it to start a revolution that frees your people in the Lunar Colonies from the yoke of Terran oppression?
Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis never really meant for that last one to happen. One of Luna's best computer technicians, Mannie's philosophy was "Keep mouth shut" when it came to matters political, and never considered the political fate of the Moon to be something he needed to worry about. When he attends a meeting of Lunar dissidents, people protesting against the rule of the Earth-based Lunar Authority, he goes more out of curiosity than cause. An attack by Authority troops drives him together with lifelong revolutionary Wyoming Knott and anarchist professor Bernardo de la Paz, and together they hatch a plan to take down the Lunar Authority and make Luna into a sovereign nation above Earth.
Would he have been as scary if he'd been named Mike? Probably.
To do so, they'll need the help of Mike, the world's first – and only – sentient computer. He knows the odds, he can run the scenarios – with Mike on their side, the people of Luna can gain their independence and create a new nation in the grand tradition of old.
A friend of mine said that this was the best political science textbook that she'd ever read, and in many respects she's right. This book packs a lot of social philosophy into three hundred pages, and Heinlein requires you to be pretty quick on the uptake. From Manny's clipped way of narrating the story to all the new lingo and concepts that are necessary for Lunar life, the reader needs to pay close attention in order to get the full impact of what's going on in the book.
In a way, this book is Heinlein asking the question, "How do new nations begin?" Historically, there are two ways: top-down and bottom-up. In the first case, a person or people of strength brings a group of citizens to become a political entity. In the second, the people themselves rise up to overthrow their former masters. Most revolutions are a mix of the two, really, and Luna's is no exception. The very charismatic Adam Selene (Mike in disguise) and the brilliant Professor manage to bring the people of Luna together in order to rid themselves of the Lunar Authority.
What makes it very interesting is that the book is pretty much a how-to book on insurgency and revolution. They work out an improvement on the traditional cell system of a conspiracy, and how to make it as stable and secret as possible, while still maintaining reliable communications. They figure out how to involve people in the revolution indirectly, harnessing the energies of everyone from children to old people. Working against a better-armed and more powerful enemy, Luna's revolution is a textbook model of how to overthrow your oppressors and gain your freedom.
Of course, once you have your freedom, then what do you do with it? How do you run your new country, and how do you make sure that your freedom can be maintained? How do you build a government and write a constitution and establish trade and do all the other little things that have to happen if you want a country all your own?
What's more, Heinlein puts forth a new society that is radically different from the ones we know now, and by necessity. With drastically different demographics and gravity, life on Luna cannot follow the same rules as life on Earth. This new life includes a near reverence for women, marriages that span not only multiple partners but multiple generations, and a spirit of individualism that would make the most grizzled pioneer proud. Life on the moon, as the title implies, is not easy. Many of those who come to Luna do not survive. Those who do, however, become the backbone of a new nation that will one day be the crossroads of the solar system.
It's a dense read, but fun, once you get used to the narrator's mode of speech. Manny often leaves off pronouns and articles, making him sound very choppy and direct. And a lot of it is done in speeches and Socratic dialogs between the Prof and whomever is unlucky enough to get in his way. I'd say that the greater part of this book is discussion of how to have a revolution from the point of view of the moon, and a look at how Heinlein thinks a society should be ordered.
Other than being very narrative-heavy, which modern readers might find somewhat tiring, there is one point about the book that didn't sit right with me. It didn't ruin the book, necessarily, but it put a big asterisk next to everything that Heinlein was trying to say. That asterisk is Mike.
Mike is a truly marvelous AI. He is not only self-aware and blessed with a rather rudimentary sense of humor, but he is tied into all of Luna's main systems. His processing speed and memory are exceptional, and while he doesn't really care one way or the other about rebelling against his owners, he does think that organizing a rebellion might be an entertaining diversion. He's a good character, really, but he is entirely too powerful.
RTR-9000 would have liberated the Earth while he was at it, just because it was in his way. (via Cracked.com)
All of the problems that traditionally plague conspiracies, undergrounds and rebellions are solved by Mike. He knows the probabilities of success and can run thousands of scenarios in a moment. He is able to set up a moon-wide communications system that is completely secure. He can tap into the Lunar Authority's database while at the same time keeping the Rebellion's data secret. What's more, he can be trusted to know everything about everyone in the group – he cannot be bribed or drugged or forced to name names under interrogation. He can organize the bombardment of Earth with pinpoint accuracy, bring down attacking ships and organize attacks all over the moon.
With Mike at their side, the rebels couldn't help but win, and I found that a kind of hollow victory, in a narrative sense. I kept waiting for Mike to be compromised – his power disconnected or his actual intelligence uncovered – or for him to change his mind about helping the rebels. One way or another, I wanted the rebels to win Luna without the help of their omniscient computer conspirator. As it is, Mike pretty much delivers the Moon to its people, and then vanishes without a trace. That's not to say that the human element isn't necessary – even Mike couldn't have won independence without them – I would rather have seen a wholly human revolution.
The flag of Luna. Seriously.
Other than that, though, it was a very good read, and it's a book that ties into a lot of Heinlein's other works. Many concepts that are key to Heinlein's vision of the world are in this book – the freedom of the individual to direct his or her own life, the benefits of polygamy over monogamy, and of course the notion of TANSTAAFL – "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" – which is arguably one of the governing principles of the universe. In this book, Heinlein asks the reader to do more than just enjoy a good story – he demands that the reader think about the message as well. And that's what makes Heinlein one of the greats.
If you're looking for some essential science fiction and you like your politics rough-and-tumble, check this book out.
"At one time kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity chose the right candidate. In this age the myth is 'the will of the people' … but the problem changes only superficially."
– Professor Bernardo de la Paz, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Filed under colonization, economics, futurism, politics, revolution, Robert Heinlein, science fiction, society, space travel, technology
Tagged as book reviews, moon, revolution, Robert Heinlein, science fiction
Review 149: Speaker for the Dead
In his introduction to the book, Card says that the main reason he wrote his most famous book – Ender's Game – was so that he would one day be able to write this. I think this is something that probably happens a lot to authors. They get a Big Idea in their head, something with great depth and complexity and meaning, and quickly discover that they don't actually know what they're writing about yet. There's too much to say, there's too much that even the author doesn't know yet, and to go forward from that state of ignorance will result in what is, ultimately, an inferior narrative.
Andrew Wiggin, the Speaker for the Dead, comes to the human colony Lusitania in order to speak the death of a local man, Marcão. While given the same reverence and privileges as priests, Speakers are not the same. Their job is to learn about the dead, to understand who they were and who they wanted to be, and then tell the truth as plainly and as clearly as possible. They do not give eulogies, where they try to paint the dead in as good a light as possible. They reveal who this person was, and in the process try to help those left behind understand them. It's a calling that requires an insightful mind, great empathy for others, and the ability to tell the truth despite how hard that truth may be to hear.
As a Speaker for the Dead, Andrew Wiggin is very good at his job. It was he who was the first Speaker, who wrote a text that is as revered as the Bible – The Hive Queen and the Hegemon – in order to understand how humankind could kill the only other intelligent species it had ever encountered. The book reveals who the Buggers were and why they attacked humanity. It tells how their understanding of what it means to be intelligent led to a century of warfare and, ultimately, their own destruction. The book also reveals humanity, the dreams and fears that it faced when it met the Buggers. And it tries to understand why humans were so afraid that they took one of their own – a little boy named Ender – and turned him into the greatest monster in human history. The Xenocide. The one who destroyed an entire alien race.
This book changed the way humankind saw the universe, and themselves. With the Buggers gone, but their technology still available, humans expanded out to a hundred worlds. Though their starships could only go just under the speed of light, the ansible provided instant communication between the stars. It formed a communications network that held the Starways Congress together and allowed humanity to become a multi-system species.
Ender – Andrew – is ultimately responsible for all of this, and is therefore the linchpin of this entire universe. In order to write this book, to understand the culture and the history and the politics that would be necessary to write Speaker for the Dead, Card first had to understand who Ender was. So, with the blessing of his publishers, he was able to turn Ender's Game into a full-length novel. Once that was done, he was able to turn back to this book and craft it into what it has become.
Question: Will the aliens wear hats that are sillier than ours? No? Good.
The colony of Lusitania is a small place, a group of Catholic settlers who live in a small and insular town. They have all the troubles that any new world would have, except for two that make it truly unique. The first is the descolada, a virus that nearly destroyed the colony and, thousands of years before, life on the planet. This illness literally unzips and recombines your DNA, ravaging your body utterly. If not for the dying work of the colony's two great xenobiologists, everyone would have died. As it turned out, Gusto and Cida were the last to die, leaving their sad, strange daughter Novinha behind.
Even that wouldn't be enough to make Lusitania a truly remarkable place. No, for that, we must introduce the Piggies – the third intelligent life form known to exist in the universe. They're small, look like little pig-men, and are indisputably intelligent. They learn quickly, even despite the law forbidding xenologists from influencing their development, and present humanity with an important chance: the last time we encountered an alien intelligence, we obliterated it. Let's not do that again.
This becomes harder, however, when the Piggies kill two of the xenologists in what appear to be a horrifyingly painful method. Now it looks like humanity may have to revert to type again, and that there truly is no way that humans can share the same space with other intelligences.
Into all this steps Ender. His years of lightspeed travel have kept him young while three thousand years have passed, and he has wandered from world to world to speak for the dead. Now he is on Lusitania to speak for Marcão, an investigation that will lead him to uncover secrets kept for decades, and to once again change the way humans understand their universe.
There's really so much to say about this book that it's hard to decide what to leave out and what to keep in. For one thing, Card is trying to write a very different kind of science fiction story. In his introduction, he says that a lot of fiction is adolescent in nature, science fiction especially. It's about adventure, about people seeing a way out of their conventional lives and going off alone. It's about being freed from responsibility and living a fast and crazy life. When that loneliness of adventure finally becomes too much, the hero settles down, but that's usually the last chapter of the book, if ever.
Isolation. Not just for murderous adolescent geniuses.
Card wanted to go the opposite way, to take a lonely adventurer and show him trying desperately to become responsible, to become a member of a community. In class, where I'm teaching Ender's Game, we've identified isolation as being one of the overriding themes of the novel. Ender is constantly taken away from those he loves or held apart from others. In the end, he becomes a solo wanderer. Even more than that, he is made into a monster, a name on par with Lucifer itself. He is virtually thrown out of humanity, and it is only because no one knows who he really is that he can travel unmolested.
So we're seeing Ender in that stage where the loneliness and the wandering have become an unbearable burden to him, and all he wants is a place to belong. But as a Speaker, as a man speaking a death that could completely upend the lives of everyone in the colony, he has his work cut out for him.
There is also the element of redemption. In his years of travel, Ender has carried a very special package with him – the cocoon of the last Bugger hive queen. In exchange for her story, he promised that he would find a home for her, a place for her to rebuild her vast family. And on Lusitania, there is that chance. But first he has to save the Piggies, to prevent them from suffering the fate of the Buggers at the hand of a fearful and suspicious Humanity. If Ender can do this, perhaps he can make up for the horror that he unknowingly perpetrated.
There's a lot going on in this book, to say the least. It's a great book, better in many ways than Ender's Game. It is more complex and adult and difficult, with moments of true emotion, a well-built socio-political system befitting a species that spans hundreds of worlds, and addressing the needs for changes in culture, politics and even language that would arise from the need to define relationships between worlds and between species.
Ender would have been a natural for the Indigo Tribe. You listening, Geoff Johns?
Fundamentally, though, this book is about what the Speaker for the Dead does best – understanding. It's about how we deal with The Other, even when that Other is completely alien to us. Humans and Buggers, Humans and Piggies – hell, Humans and Humans, we have a hard time understanding people who are not like us. We find it very difficult to look at the world from their point of view and to see the world through their eyes. Understanding what they love and fear, what they value and honor, or what they abhor – and more importantly, understanding what they see in you and how they understand you – is the best and surest road to making peace with those who are different from yourself. And that's a lesson that is valuable for all of us.
"No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one's life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins."
– Ender Wiggin, Speaker for the Dead
Filed under children, colonization, death, disease, empathy, family, friendship, morality, murder, Orson Scott Card, science fiction, sins, society, space travel, teenagers, women
Tagged as book reviews, Ender Wiggin, Orson Scott Card, science fiction
Review 127: The God Engines
The God Engines by John Scalzi
There is not, to my knowledge, a whole lot of theological science fiction. Madeleine L'Engle's books may qualify, but to be honest, it's been years since I read them so I don't know. The Golden Compass books, too, but they struck me more as fantasy, seeing as how there were no spaceships. My only successful foray into National Novel Writing Month produced some theological sci-fi, but it was questionable at best and is still fermenting on my hard drive somewhere.
In any case, that is what John Scalzi has given us, and if you're a regular reader of his blog and his other books then you may find this one to be a little… off. You see, like many accomplished writers, Scalzi has a Voice, a way of writing that is immediately identifiable as his own, and which a lot of his fans have gotten used to. There's no single thing I can point to that really illustrates what this is, but trust me – it's there. A certain whip-quick sarcasm, a way of looking at old questions from a new angle and the ability to cut through the requisite fuzzy thinking that seems so endemic to the human race.
Not quite like this... but kind of.
In this book, he tries on a new voice, something that sounds kind of like his, but at the same time like he's trying on something new. It's as if Jonathan Coulton started doing Manowar cover songs. It's not bad, it's just something that takes a little getting used to.
Captain Ean Tephe is the commander of a great starship, the Righteous, one of the many ships in the fleet controlled by the Bishopry Militant. He and the other captains in the fleet are charged with carrying out missions for the Bishopry in the name of their God, a being of immense power who uses the faith of millions to rule them. Their Lord is a powerful and active god, one who brooks no dissent from His followers and who will suffer no challengers to His dominion. Long ago, the Lord battled countless other, smaller gods, and won, chaining them to his will and turning them into the engines of the great starships that carry His people out into the universe.
Some gods are less tractable than others. (art by Evolvana on DeviantArt)
The god that powers the Righteous, however, is not cooperating. Some ships' gods are quiet and obedient, others chatty, some cowed into good behavior by fear. The god on this ship is defiant, despite the prayers of priests and acolytes, and the horrible whip that the captain wields to compel obedience. This god soon reveals itself to be part of a greater plan, one which enfolds both Tephe and his crew and reveals a truth about their God that is enough to drive men mad. It is a test of faith for the men aboard the Righteous, and if they should fail, their lives will end in short order.
It's a very cool concept, really, one which I haven't seen done before. Scalzi has powered a civilization by faith, quite literally, in a God that not only exists, but it quite active in the lives of His worshipers. His high priests exert complete control over a population that rightfully fears for their souls, and manage to channel the God's power into various science-like applications. Through the use of amulets called Talents, the God facilitates communication over great distances, compels obedience, and opens gateways. He has a civilian population whose faith nourishes Him, and a military arm that travels the galaxy spreading His word and destroying His enemies. And it all makes sense.
As cool as the idea is, though, the book itself felt like a rough sketch rather than a fleshed-out novel. It's quite short, as novels go, and we are introduced to a lot of concepts and characters in a fairly brief amount of time. The Bishopry Militant, for example, sounds like a great place to see intrigue and double-dealing, lies upon lies that somehow manage to get things done, and we do see a bit of that when Captain Tephe gets a secret mission to a new world. Scalzi showed us in The Last Colony that he can handle this kind of multi-layered politicking, and I think it would be even better in a place like this. Add to that the Rookery, a kind of church-sanctioned brothel/therapy center aboard the ships, where the women who work there have nearly as much power and influence as the Bishopry itself. What would happen if these two institutions came into conflict, and what weapons would they wield?
This god has some opinions he'd like to share.
The chained gods, too, are a wonderful chance to explore a lot of ethical questions. They are undoubtedly sentient beings of great power, enslaved by a God that is stronger than they. Is this kind of slavery justified? Would it be possible for a ship to work with its god-engine, rather than compelling it with whips and prayers. What do these gods know, and how reliable are they? The god powering the Righteous seems to know a lot about how this universe works, including some terrifying tales about the God that Tephe follows, but how much of what it says can be trusted?
And what are the powers and limitations of a faith-powered science? Much in the way that engineers and scientists in our world manipulate a few basic laws of nature to achieve amazing things, what could be done in a world where prayers have power and where a high priest's whim can decide the outcome of an entire mission? How do you creatively solve problems in a reality like this one, where they deal in belief and faith, rather than wavelengths and mass?
So yeah, there was a lot that I wanted from this book once I figured out what Scalzi was doing with it. After a great opening line (and a third line that just left me confused), the learning curve was a little steep. Once you figure it out, though, the possibilities seem endless. Unfortunately, the book itself ends rather sooner than it should.
The less said about this album, the better.
It's not my favorite book by Scalzi, not by a long run, but since he's said he's going to lay off the Old Man's War universe for a while, I should be thankful that he is willing to experiment and try new things. As many music lovers know, it's sometimes very hard to accept that an artist you love wants to try to do things that are new and different, rather than keep doing the things that made you love them in the first place. I remember when U2 put out Achtung Baby and my friends who fell in love with The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum were almost personally offended. Zooropa, of course, was not to be mentioned aloud in their presence.
That kind of experimentation and risk-taking, however, is ultimately what helps an artist grow. You may not like what comes of such experimentation, but that's tough – it's not about you.
I don't know if Scalzi will return to this universe or not, but I hope he does. If he does, I hope he lingers longer than he did in The God Engines, and brings forth another wonderful and complex universe.
"Faith is not for what comes after this life. Faith is for this life alone."
– A God, The God Engines
John Scalzi on Wikipedia
The God Engines on Wikipedia
The God Engines on Amazon.com
John Scalzi's Blog
Filed under gods, good and evil, John Scalzi, morality, religion, science fiction, sins, space travel, theocracy, theology, totalitarianism, war
Tagged as book reviews, gods, John Scalzi, science fiction, space travel, theocracy, war