You are currently viewing all posts tagged with books.

steampunk, review, magazine, books, apocalypse, survival

SteamPunk

Steampunk

Steampunk: a history that wasn’t quite. At once both Victorian and Dystopic. A world filled by brass gears, pin-stripe suits, and a steam powered Deus ex Machina.

I’ve been familiar with steampunk as both a literary spin-off of cyberpunk and as a modding community, but only recently – through SteamPunk Magazine – come into it’s aberration as a subculture.

This third issue of SteamPunk Magazine is my first. I found it to be a most delightful mixture of short-fiction, interviews, tutorials, and rants. My preferred rant was My Machine, My Comrade by a one Prof. Calamity, in which he sees steampunk as “seeking[ing] to liberate the machine from simply existing as an instrument of work, while at the same time not elevating mechanical forms above all else… Steampunk seeks to find a relationship with the world of gears, steel, and steam that allows machines to not only co-inhabit our world but to be partners in our journey.” My favorite fiction was Margaret P. Killjoy’s Yena of Angeline in “Sandstorms by Gaslight” which (very much like mine own fiction) seems to go nowhere. It has no direction, and does not leave its reader with a sense of anything being accomplished, which makes it a disappointing first read. But, again and again, I find my mind wandering back to the world that Killjoy crafted and the characters that inhabit them. Ant that, I think, is some element of praise.

A SteamPunk’s Guide to the Apocalypse is a survival manual of sorts, covering basic aspects of shelter, water, and food. It should provide nothing new to the established crazy and serves as no replacement to In the Wake (or any of the works listed in the Guide’s Appendix B), though features thoughts on reclaiming urban resources that are lacking in other guides. But, like In the Wake, it is available as a free download, thus nullifying any excuse to not peruse the contents and keep it as a handy reference. I purchased it partly to support SteamPunk Magazine, but mostly for Colin Foran’s artwork, which provides a wonderful backdrop to the gritty subject of post-Civilization apocalyptic survival. Beyond comparisons to other manuals for outliving Civilization, my main criticism is that of the style of writing. Writers in the Victorian era were much more liberal than us in their use of capitalization, but there was a system. When I read those works, I feel the capitalization adds a certain emotion to the writing. Being a SteamPunk’s Guide, the author of this work (by happenstance, the same Margaret Killjoy whom I praised above) attempted to duplicate this capitalization, but failed. Whether there was or was not a system, it feels arbitrary, and detracts from the overall work. The Guide does present an attempt to emulate that era’s vocabulary, and I think does a good job of that – combining a sense of Victorian grace with modern punk and a bit of wit, for an agreeable solution of steampunk.

review, books

An Unexpected Light

Jason Elliot’s An Unexpected Light: Travels In Afghanistan is a beautifully written book, on par with The Places In Between. The author’s aimless wanderings in Afghanistan during the rise to power of the Taliban record the country and its people in an undeniably alluring way. He captures the daily life of Afghans throughout the country and, in his honest and provocative writing, the impact of decades of war.

review, books

My War

Colby Buzzel’s My War: Killing Time in Iraq falls into the category of books that I’m not sure what to say about – it leaves one stunned upon completion. Reminiscent of Jarhead, this book version of the author’s blog is a hard-hitting depiction of the war. There’s no coating or attempts to depict false senses of glory and honor and the rest of the recruiter’s material. The poor grammar serves to reinforce the raw vision. The highest praise I can give the book, I suppose, is that I burned through it in 8 hours.

review, books

On the Road to Kandahar

Jason Burke’s On the Road to Kandahar despite its title does not deal exclusively with Afghanistan and the former power-seat of the Taliban. It is the author’s account of his experience reporting, for the last decade or so, from the Islamic world. Focusing on the rise and nature of militant Islam, Burke puts forth his theory on the dispersed and autonomous nature of the groups, analyzing the cause of their rise and their increasingly lacking support from local communities. Though I’ve yet to read his first book, Al-Qaeda, this one seems to be in large part a rehashing of the same, but updated, broader in scope, and, after the attacks on the author’s home city of London, more personal. I quite enjoyed it. A recommended read for those interested in the region.

review, books

The Prince of the Marshes

The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq, Rory Stewart’s second book, is a depressing read. Detailing Stewart’s time as CPA governor in two of Iraq’s southern provinces, it gives a clear view of the mess of politics in the country. Despite intentions, any action taken by any party is turned negative, or at best futile – demonstrating the failure inherit in a people who do not wish to be governed, being governed by a people who do not wish to govern.

review, books

A Sense of the World

Jason Robert’s A Sense Of the World is a biography of James Holman, the Blind Traveler. Living in the early 19th century, Holman traveled the world, not letting his blindness come in the way of his successful career as a writer or his circumnavigation of the globe. I found the book itself to be wanting in detail – the sense of adventure in his travels is often missing – though this is more likely due to the lack of source material than the author’s talent. For those stricken with a case of wanderlust, or, as Roberts so skillfully puts it, the “freedom of abandon”, this account of “poet turned warrior turned wanderer”, the clear predecessor to Burton, is a recommended read.

review, books

The Punishment of Virtue

The difference between journalists and writers is that journalists report events after the fact, constructing images from rumor and hearsay, presenting it as fact. Writers live in the moment. They pen what they see, hear, feel, taste, and smell – not purporting it to be fact, but only what was experienced.

Sarah Chayes begins The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban as a journalist and ends as a writer: the difference is starkly obvious. As such, I found the beginning of the book slow and mundane, but the rest an exciting and rich source of information. Overall, the book is a marked second to The Places In Between, but her summation of the history of Afghanistan, focusing particularly on the city of Kandahar, is well worth the read. And her exposure of the weakness of the Karzai government, the meddling of Pakistan, and the critique of post-Taliban U.S. policy is a crucial piece of insight into the region’s modern standing.

quote, review, books, conflict

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Having seen the film, I had been familiar with T.E Lawrence, the man and his story, before reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom: but I had no idea of his skill with the pen. This book – excelling not only in historical and military account, but also in literary merit – establishes himself as one of the greatest men and truly one of the most talented writers of the 20th century.

A recommended read, Lawrence’s book is a crucial work in understanding the conflicts in Arabia today.

In these pages the history is not of the Arab movement, but of me in it. It is a narrative of daily life, mean happenings, little people. Here are no lessons for the world, no disclosures to shock peoples. It is filled with trivial things, partly that no one mistake for history the bones from which some day a man may make history, and partly for the pleasure it gave me to recall the fellowship of the revolt. We were fond together, because of the sweep of the open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes in which we worked. The morning freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up with ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.