The summer's about finished as is, even if I have more events set up than the usual. Nonetheless, I found a link to a book list, and thought I should follow with some of what I've been reading. I've mentioned probably all, or the majority, of these elsewhere on this journal.

But, anyway.

First, Revelation Space, and the sequel Redemption Ark, by Alastair Reynolds. I have the other parts of the series around the place for me, but the series is so intense and Gothic that too much at one time would be very mindblowing.

Second, and the reason that it feels as though I haven't been reading very much, anything that Greg Rucka's written, particularly Batman: No Man's Land, the Q&C comics, and the Atticus Kodiak series. I've read one volume of Checkmate and had to temporarily stop reading him, because I would simply get too familiar with him. He's very much like Jim Butcher, and finding a better compliment would be thoroughly difficult.

Third, Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Freelancer Manual, on the Internet. She posted it because she thought that a series of people would be freelancers, in the Rabid Economy, whether they would like to or not. I knew some parts of this, and before I entered college, I think I was a freelancer, but one with no idea at all what I would need to achieve.

She mentioned that freelancers, unlike many people in the world, need to take risks, I'm feeling like I have a big risk in front of me. I've diminished my amount of things to what I really need, and a vague feeling what the risk is. It's an eerie sensation.

I have, thanks to getting things from other places, many books that I'm partly into and not finished reading yet. So I won't mention them!

Ellen Kushner and Holly Black design a new Bordertown book! ROCK! I point people toward its original books as a sort of mythic approach to urban fantasy, sort of cyberpunk with a fantasy rather than scientific flavor. More reason to get running.

Welcome to Bordertown from Boing Boing

Kris Rusch has a fascinating post on what she refers to as the "Noise", and what I refer to as the "Voices", or, referring to the bond with my Sedai, the "Machin", the demonic voices between the Ways. I'm rereading The Wheel of Time at the moment, and Robert Jordan really wrote good insanity.

The thing that I've begun to realise, and what Bruce Sterling said on his journal, is that journals become more pathetic when they include comments. I don't know about pathetic, but I've realised one thing, at least.

Every webpage in existence includes a comment board.

I have blasted literally years getting into the middle of partisan wars, and knowing, now, the entire history of RPGnet. Sometimes I wish I could get that time back - but in the world of information time is the most precious thing around.

It's made me realise that in a swarm of information, which is never going to leave, no matter what, you have to learn to concentrate. Find the people who are important. Find the ideas that are important. Chase them.

And one of the ways to concentrate is to never add another comment to a board, and hold against reading all of the other ones. If you have something to say, you can say it in a long giant post. But I like immersion.

And really, there's madness nonetheless.

Kris Rusch: "What's Louder Than Noise?"

On my working computer, the background matches my project, and that's a fresco from one of the Old Decayed places online. I don't think it's from Hagia Sophia. I think it's from a Russian church.

On the net computer, my new background: this one.

Adama, not yet a commander, packing up and moving to Caprica. I saw the comic on a trip to Minneapolis, and felt really tempted to get it. But I must save up.

The name of this town is amusing, but the resemblance to the origin for my all-consuming, absolute panic at the moment is probably one of the most frightening things I've ever seen.

25 miles south of London. Replace with 150 miles west of Minneapolis, set the location as the main hub of a rural region, with a couple of really strong libraries and nothing else...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorking

Like Stross said, nuke it.

Were I a really ambitious person, I would post about this as frequently as the BoingBoing group, but that point is still a bit of a way away. Nonetheless...

Minnesota woman found guilty of filesharing twenty four songs, and fined 1.92 million."

Wired's followed every part of this thing, but courts aren't my idea of a really fun thing to keep my eyes on. The surveillance had some attention on here, but, in my mind, that was a little different. And you might notice I mentioned the finale of it more than the procedures of the court.

This information gets some attention. It's from Minne-freaking-sota.

The Time Shark found it, on this post, but I suspect the Boing types'll be mentioning it. Me, I simply think it's disturbing. The hell is going on?

Guy on RPGnet posted a Wired instance where greatly-known writers published a complete story in 6 words. They're a really small summary of the writer's usual writing subject, and, once again, I realise I might need to read up on Stross's novels.

I wondered what my small, and summarizing, story might be. Dishonesty, betraying, and insanity...

Betray me? Excited or mUtt3r ins4n3333?

A thought, whatever else it might be. :D

Warren is a contributor to Wired Britain. Oh my. I think I should read more of his stuff. Should I read Transmet? Or the Freakangels webcomic? More webcomics. Aiee.

"We're Living in the Last Days of the Roman Empire"

From Beyond the Beyond

I now have everything in my room, other than the laptops and clothes and People Things and the sanity-inducing little things, in boxes. The 'legendary book' pile is now in boxes, but the box hasn't been shut at the moment. Those boxes, the research box, and the laptops, are the only things roaming with me for the move.

None of those, not the clothes, nor the legendary, nor the clothes, once they get inside the box, leave the box before I get where I must be. That isn't the only reason, certainly, as that would be a little bit bizarre. Rather, like Dad, and Sterling, said, get yourself mobile.

For all I know, it'll be a while. But my rural upbringing got blasted apart.

I know who I am, and who I've been made to be. Time for some revenge.

EDIT: I think some readers of this journal are slightly disturbed by the intense posts at the moment. If anything, I'm surprised I wasn't this intense about a year ago, after college graduation. Like the Traveler's also noticed, I'm changing, too. I realise what those who fight in the world are fighting against, and I need to get mobile, and join.

I read the first two manga published in the Starcraft setting, and found them satisfying. I especially appreciate Hector Sevilla's art, the story "Weapon of War", about a senator and his psychic son, and Grace Randolph's not-quite-short story "Newsworthy." I liked it so much I mailed her and mentioned what I thought. Everyone needs some boosting, and she really liked my reply.

I didn't inquire about the outcome of Newsworthy, though, as I think it's supposed to be haunting.

Thus, it's neat that Randolph, Sevilla and a sequel to "Weapon of War" appear in the next book of the series. Kate Lockwell, from Newsworthy, gets a cameo! Starcraft is the rockin'.

While I learn what it means to be a warrior genuinely in a fight against the darkness, I've, as I've scribed on here, been sending resumes so I can join the party in the local sprawl. I ran across an "Office Manager" position that told me I should post my resume online.

I did, as it seemed a reliable mail, and included all of my information. It's the New Web at this point, and secrets feel like a thing of long ago. For someone small like me, at least, and the amount of SF writers that have online journals really shows you how small you can be.

The Internet IS a big city.

While I was roaming around, I searched, anxious whether that information was easily accessible. It wasn't, but all of my newpaper work at the college newspaper, and other parts of my work, are posted online. Including odd bits where I've used my name and forgotten to use an alias.

The point of all that, and this post, is that I realise how it feels for a writer, finding his novels published wherever he might be. I mean, even my old fanfictions, and my roleplay, is still online. I know this feeling, and mention it often, but holy bog, it really feels strange.

Forward motion with the war.

All right, the borer situation genuinely has that type of desperation.

Willmar paper, where my best friend Zarnok lives

They're getting frightened about it, and they're apparently concluding the DNR in that area. Okay, the situation is now or never, ich or no one. Now I'm furious.

The project "Become a Citizen Journalist So I Can Become A Statesman" surges even further.

I roamed around looking for information on the Red River Floods in northern Minnesota, thinking that, if I wasn't able to go up there and help, I could at least understand the trouble. And... the Wikipedia has an entry on it. And the Boston Globe. And the NY Times. Sigh.

The Cedar Rapids flood I haven't looked up.

And, on a very unnerving level, the Emerald Borers roam even further into the Minnesotan state. Which means, the trees, at home, where my parents really like the quiet, could have some trouble. Which means, BoingBoing-esque research. Time to get busy and find a hackery solution.

I get up in the morning, and I look up jobs in Craigslist. I wander into bed at night, but first I send the resumes out. This'll probably be the same for a long time, even at the point at which I do achieve a job. Like I've been saying, war.

I feel like I should have been doing this a long time ago, and the high strung tension both worries and thrills me. It feels especially weird, considering Bruce Sterling concluded his Viridian Design movement. I describe it as "changing every frelling aspect of the globe, because the alternative is apocalypse", although the Wikipedia has a further description of it. No surprise that the Wikipedia pointed me toward Sterling and the Bright Green movement. VD's ideas have been picked up by its descendants, Worldchanging.

I'm bringing him up again for two reasons. One, that Sterling's new idea, strangely, connects into what I'm shooting to aim toward. He says that he's living between three polities - the US, the European Union, and (bugger if I remember). And he suggests finding the important stuff in the chaos. So you can be mobile. Because, one way or another, like it or not, you're going to be.

The second reason is that I picked up another book on climate change out of the public library. I think I get what Sterling talked about in one of his States of the World- that, paraphrased as usual, "when the movement becomes popular, the underground has to find something else to rail against."

Reading about climate change feels like I'm treading ground people smarter than me already have! I'm pretty sure he said, with his weird way of speech, he wants to be one step ahead of the rest. We're, right now, living climate change. So what's after it? It appears that he thinks mobility, but what's the reasoning there? Don't know, but I'm certainly pondering it.

I wrote this when Galactica 2K3's finale hadn't aired. It says everything for itself, but the series, and the finale, affected me really deeply and genuinely altered me.

At some point in this second half of Battlestar Galactica 2K3's fourth season, I felt that a series with its particular distinctive traits probably wouldn't be created ever again. That eerie sense is probably partly a result of the show's melancholy air, which is appropriate, I mean, it began with the genocide of mankind!

But, as usual, everything is distinct, and it's simply the way of telling the story that's different. 2K3's particular style has affected me deeper than I thought it could when I first watched it. I've been intensely anxious for the final season's episodes, and I haven't felt that short of Farscape's final miniseries.

For me, anyway, I think the primary storylines are the main part of my odd feelings about the series. The combination of political and religious ideas, presented with real emotion and understanding, came at almost the same time as when I had realised similar themes often come up in my own stories. And everything was set up in the miniseries. Even if 2K3 sometimes misplaced its stories, the intensity didn't calm down, and the characters were just as confused as me.

As I keep saying, I like confusion. If a fictional narrative flings hordes and hordes of chaos at me, either beneficial or frightening, and I can't understand it, chances are I might like it. The more overwhelmed I am, the better. 2K3 gets that, and has shown it, even in the more disliked episodes.

But mainly, 2K3 showed itself at a time when I became weary of anime and MUSHing. 2K3's people are mature. One side has Lee Adama, a pilot and politician mired in a conflict between the worlds he wants to pursue and Kara Thrace, a deeply troubled, headstrong and courageous pilot who is precisely the person mankind required to help save it.

But the people who really transformed a part of me were Commander Bill Adama and Madame President Laura Roslin. Adama's maybe 60, the father of a crew of a decommissioned ship, and a man forced, for a while, to be the leader of a despairing race. Roslin's his counterpart, the President, and she learns that she might be destined to save the traces of mankind. I can't get into her mind, usually. I really like that.

And they're also middle-aged. They're older people.

I felt this strongly about Thom Merrilin, a witty, cunning gleeman from The Wheel of Time. I'm not sure I can think of any other examples, and not with this level of recognition.

And, actually, this is just the edge of the iceberg. I could ramble about 2K3 with no pause, but, distressingly, there is work to be done.

Like I said, let's see if I can't keep up with this. Maybe I might shut up and get to work on that which I need to do.

Here's some of the current books on the pile, which I might be finished with reading after I grab them from the library again:

IPCC Report 2007
With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change
Ignition: How You Can Stop Global Warming and Spark a Revolution

Any other climate change books to suggest? I need more.

I know now what I have to do. I might get in the habit of saying this, like I do in real life, and if I do, it's simply a statement of how much I mean it.

So, this is a temporary measure, but it's important. All of my thoughts are going online, rather than used up on those who don't reply. The Traveler said she'll read my ideas, anyway, so here we go.

Spinning my cyberpunk attitude into a state of war, I've been reading BoingBoing, as the majority of my entries show at this point. I finished reading Robert Neuwirth's "Shadow Cities" with Cory's recommendation, and though I didn't completely understand it, it simply accentuated my fascination with the rural-urban shift. My sister and I are going to be a part of it, after all. We had better understand who we are.

Shadow Cities showed me life in the slums, or, as Neuwirth says, "squatter communities." His examples include communities within Rio De Janeiro, the home of Venus De Sirius, on the cyberpunk boards, Nairobi, Mumbai, which is, Neuwirth says, more than half made of squatters, and Istanbul.

Mentioning so many cities feels stranger than it ever has, because a good chunk of the people I talk to in the small town don't know geography. And, which terrifies me more than I can describe, in our tiny noncorporated town of three hundred people? Mom said that she thinks a guy who went six feet under a while ago was illiterate! Is there any other description for this, for a writer, than 'toxic'?

To the original idea, "Shadow Cities" made me think of urban fantasy. There's parts out there that no one has touched. How about the squatters, hmm?

The tags on the Livejournal have been altered, and the tags of some of the old posts.

The new tags include "newslocalmn" and "newsnationus" and "newsglobe", and perhaps other tags like "newsnationbritain" or "newnationgermany" or "newslocal_state_".

Apparently the Feds are hounding Bruce Sterling and his wife Jasmina. According to them, they don't have the paperwork to show that they genuinely have a marriage.

They need physical materials - pictures, letters celebrating their marriage, or a testimony that, yes, in fact, you have seen them together.

They need them by April 15th.

I doubt anyone on my list knows, but someone might find this. Who knows!

Sterling's Post

From BoingBoing

Some of my followers might remember I said I might weep bitter tears if an event occurred.

Bittersweet man tears.