[Fandom] should be celebrated for what it can provide in individual lives, but it should also be taken seriously for what it can do at scale - not bec[Fandom] should be celebrated for what it can provide in individual lives, but it should also be taken seriously for what it can do at scale - not because I like it or because being a girl is cool now, but because fans are connecting based on affinity and instinct and participating in hyperconnected networks that they built for one purpose but can use for many others. We need to know what fandom can do and what it can't, and we need to figure out who might try to manipulate it and why. Everything we need is right in front of us. We should talk about how we went online, driven by some sort of longing, and why we stayed there, pushing that want outward, over and over, until it couldn't be ignored. - From Everything I Need I Get from You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as we Know It by Kaitlyn Tiffany
Everything I Need I Get From You is a dive into the culture of the early internet, how it shaped commonly used websites before those sites became mainstream, and how fans are still influencing internet culture and the wider culture offline today. It started off with the same sort of wondering 'why are girls considered weird and freaky when they're fans but boys aren't?' that I also heard in Yve Blake's TEDx talk about fangirls (she's not cited, but the themes are so similar!) as well as interest in 'what does this actually mean in the context of the real world?'
I thought the introduction and first five chapters were really well written and insightful; in my copy of this book, this entire section is covered in pen where I starred paragraphs and wrote comments (usually pertaining to similar behavior/incidents in other fandoms that the author was not referencing) and has a bunch of dog-eared pages where folded down corners so I could easily find specific passages again. Then the next three chapters - numbers six, seven, and eight - are largely about conspiratorial thinking in the context of fandom and...well, to say they could have been done better is generous. The author makes the comparison to Qanon once and then never revisits or elaborates on the similarities or any associated research, which I thought was disappointing. The next section - chapters nine and ten - are about inclusion and political activism in the context of fandom, which I didn't think were as good as the first five chapters but also weren't nearly as slow or shapeless as the middle three chapters.
Also, for a book that's supposedly not about One Direction, there's a whole lot of One Direction in this book. Part of that probably because the author is most familiar with that fandom - she became interested in the collision of fan culture and the internet because of her participation in the 1D fandom - but it also means that large swathes of this book read less like sociological analysis and more like memoir. I'm never fond of that sort of thing (I don't care about that time she hunted the down the shrine to Harry Styles vomit or Mary Roach's commentary on some interviewee's hair or...), but it seems to be common in all sorts of books that aren't explicitly labelled as memoirs so it might be just the way authors think they're supposed to build rapport with readers or something. Ultimately, what annoyed me most about it is that she missed really great examples just because they weren't One Direction ones or, in other cases, because they weren't associated with the music world. Sherlock Holmes is the oldest example of what we would consider a modern fandom, but the thing she cites as the oldest modern fandom is the Beatles; there are persistent rumours that DC's Jason Todd was killed because one fan kept paying to repeatedly call in and vote for his death, similar to the manipulative tactics stans use to try to artificially prop up songs on the Top 100 Billboard; and Supernatural had widespread conspiracy theories regarding destiel and the show's finale, similar to the elaborate edifice of "babygate." Some non-music fandoms were mentioned in passing - Star Trek for its zines, Supernatural for the origin of tinhats, and Holmes gets one mention in a single sentence that he shares with four other fandoms - but I felt the book would have been better if it pulled in examples from lots of other fandoms with broadly different fanbases because it would have strengthened the implicit argument that the behaviors she examines aren't unique to the One Direction fandom with its stereotypically young and female fanbase. I also would have preferred it if she included more references to academic material and explicitly made links between existing sociological and psychological studies rather than relying primarily on interviews and anecdotes. Those have their place as examples (ie: this is how what this paper is about actually looks in the real world) but understanding the basis of what you're talking about first is important, even when your message is to say 'this is what the existing research doesn't cover and why that needs to change.'
Overall, Everything I Need I Get From You is a pretty good book. It could have been better, but enough parts of it were excellent that I will keep my copy for later reference. ...more
Watson began his remarks by repeating the Eagle pub story he told so famously in The Double Helix. This time, however, he finally admitted to inventinWatson began his remarks by repeating the Eagle pub story he told so famously in The Double Helix. This time, however, he finally admitted to inventing Francis Crick’s exclamation of having discovered the secret of life—"for dramatic effect." Two years later, in the summer of 2018, sitting in the shadow of the Cold Spring Harbor double-helical bell tower, he explained his word choice more emphatically: "Francis should have said it and would have said it. So, it was totally in character when I wrote that, and everyone would think it." - The Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and the Discovery of DNA's Double Helix by Howard Markel
There's a pretty well-known meme among science enthusiast groups that goes something like this: What did Watson and Crick discover? Rosalind Franklin's notes. Real life is more complex and nuanced than a two sentence meme, but this book recounts the controversy over proteins vs DNA and which was the carrier of hereditary material, the frantic race from multiple groups to beat Linus Pauling – the preeminent scientist in the world at the time and who was working on DNA – to the punch with regards to publishing a structure for the molecule, and how that meme is more true than not.
Central to this story are four people: Maurice Wilkins, head of the King’s College lab and who came up with the idea to study DNA by x-ray crystallography; Rosalind Franklin, the x-ray crystallographer specifically hired to do DNA work because Wilkins couldn’t do it well; Francis Crick, a somewhat undistinguished biophysicist who worked at the Cavendish lab and got pulled into Watson’s orbit; and James Watson, the American zoologist who was convinced he was fated to become a scientific legend, decided DNA was his was his way to do it, and who was determined not to cite a woman as the actual originator of his model.
No matter how you slice it, these three men (and others who played smaller roles in the events of the DNA race) stole Franklin’s work and then did everything they could to try to deny the reality of what they’d done to themselves and everyone else. Wilkins was jealous of Franklin’s professional competence and may have been harboring unrequited romantic/sexual interest, but that is no reason why he should have shown off her work to a known rival without her knowledge, let alone her permission. Watson should have known better than to ask after it in the first place, and when he used her crystallographic images as the basis for his and Watson’s model anyway he should have cited her as a contributor. Crick knew all of this and deliberately chose to keep his mouth shut. So that put the three of them in a bind, especially once it became known that Watson and Crick’s ‘discovery’ of DNA was based on the stolen and uncited work of another scientist: they had to try to posthumously smear Franklin’s reputation in any way they could. Leading the charge on this was Watson, with his well-known and widely read autobiography that claimed Franklin was a dim and verbally abusive shrew of a woman and which tried to characterize her as more of an assistant than a scientist in her own right. Infamously, he also all but claimed that Franklin was physically abusive – that, during the last discussion Watson had with her, she ‘moved as if to strike him’ and only stopped because a coworker entered the room – despite such behavior being wildly out of character and highly unlikely considering she was a short, slight woman and her male colleagues were all more physically imposing. Additionally, the fact that the coworker in question, another scientist, was deceased at the time The Double Helix was published and was obviously unavailable to challenge Watson’s version of events or deny its happening, just increases suspicion that such an altercation never occurred. Combined with Watson’s view on bending the truth as quoted above – “Francis should have said it and would have said it. So, it was totally in character when I wrote that, and everyone would think it.” – I’m disinclined to believe anything he’s ever said about Rosalind Franklin unless his statements were corroborated by similar testimony from an uninvolved third party.
Overall, this book was both enlightening – I knew the broad outlines of the events but not the details or their ongoing implications – and INFURIATING. It is beyond GALLING that the academic malfeasance was known even at the time and Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were allowed to get away with it because Franklin “was too aggressive. She was too proprietary with her research. She was too independent. She was too stubborn. She was too antagonizing. She was too feminine, or not feminine enough. She was too prickly and difficult. She was too unwilling to work with others. She was too focused on obtaining hard data to substantiate theory, rather than the other way around. She was too upper-class and condescending. Even more offensive in an Anglican nation with only 400,000 Jews (a mere 0.8% of the population), she was too Jewish. On and on, the ‘She was too …’ arguments have creeped along, depending on the wounded perspective of the teller of the tale,” and – ultimately – they all boil down to ‘she was too nothing that would have mattered if she’d been a man.’...more
I read Winter’s Orbit earlier this year and got very excited when I saw this was coming out because I very much enjoyed that book. I wasn’t really surI read Winter’s Orbit earlier this year and got very excited when I saw this was coming out because I very much enjoyed that book. I wasn’t really sure how the author was going to transition from book to book (because Orbit’s plot was pretty well wrapped up, with no sequel hooks I noticed), but wanted to see what the author would do with Ocean’s Echo.
Ocean’s Echo takes place in a completely different empire with the same culture, though here society is continuing to grapple with some deeply unethical science experiments the military did on their own people a generation ago that gave them – and their descendants – mind control and mind reading powers. The book centers on Tennalhin (the nephew of the current PM-equivalent who’s being done away with due to persistent scandal; his aunt plans to have him conscripted into the military and forcibly synced – that is to say: mind controlled – by an officer), Surit (the son of a notorious rebel leader referred to multiple times ‘as if he were a recruitment poster come to life’; he’s the officer in question), and the fact that they get caught up in a new rebellion caused by the lingering issues of the old.
As it turns out, the plot of Ocean’s Echo has absolutely nothing to do with Winter’s Orbit aside from being set in the same general universe as that story at some unspecified point in time in relation to it. Did the events of these novels happen concurrently? Does it matter? Who knows? This confused me a bit but didn’t seem to be super important so I was able to put the issue aside until noticing that the author specifies the books are standalones set in the same ‘verse, which would have been helpful information to have in, say, an author’s note in the book rather than posted to an author-originated review on the GoodReads page. That relatively small annoyance aside, I really enjoyed Ocean’s Echo, more so than Winter’s Orbit, in large part because I thought Tennal was hilarious. In general the characterization was excellent, the pacing was great, and I liked that it went much heavier on the military/political intrigue than the romance. There is romance in this book, but the MCs basically ignore it until about three-quarters of the way through the book aside from one instance early on where interest is made known and then put aside. The slow burn feels realistic – because there’s no way a captain who refused to forcibly mind control someone would accept sex as a ‘thank you’ (it would have broken Surit’s character if he had) and because Tennal was busy trying to organize his own underground railroad out of the sector (away from the perpetual threat of enslavement by mind control) – and, by the time we eventually get to the romance, it feels earned.
And speaking of: this book deals with coercion, imprisonment, substance abuse, mental health issues, mind control/brainwashing, and some descriptions of mind/body sharing that are deeply weird and some might find disturbing. Please read – or not – with care.
Overall, I very much liked this book and do highly recommend it. ...more
"Praise to the Parents. Praise to Trikilli, of the Threads. Praise to Grylom, of the Inanimate. Praise to Bosh, of the Cycle.
Praise to their Children"Praise to the Parents. Praise to Trikilli, of the Threads. Praise to Grylom, of the Inanimate. Praise to Bosh, of the Cycle.
Praise to their Children. Praise to Chal, of Constructs. Praise to Samafar, of Mysteries. Praise to Allalae, of Small Comforts.
They do not speak, yet we know them. They do not think, yet we mind them. They are not as we are. We are of them.
We are the work of the Parents. We do the work of the Children. Without use of constructs, you will unravel few mysteries. Without knowledge of mysteries, your constructs will fail. Find the strength to pursue both, for these are our prayers. And to that end, welcome comfort, for without it, you cannot stay strong."
- From The Insights of the Six, a religious text in the world of the Monk & Robot duology
So, I read A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet before this and was not super impressed with it. It was okay, but I finished it out mostly so I could count it for a reading challenge. But A Psalm for the Wild-Built, the reflective and contemplative story of an emotionally struggling tea monk and an unexpected but curious robot, was AMAZING. I read this book in less than a day (not counting the time it took me to sleep and do other necessary stuff), and I love it to bits. This is a book that I have purchased for my personal collection (I originally read it out as a library book) so I can mark passages I want to revisit and reread it whenever I want. It is a book that highly recommend.
On the second time through: After something made me think of this book (specifically: a movie poster momentarily terrified me into thinking that Hollywood tried - undoubtedly terribly - to adapt this), I picked up A Psalm for the Wild-Built again and it is still amazing....more
I'm a Jurassic Park fan. The first book I can remember reading was a kiddie novelization of the second movie, and have religiously followed the seriesI'm a Jurassic Park fan. The first book I can remember reading was a kiddie novelization of the second movie, and have religiously followed the series since then. I originally read Crichton's book back in middle or high school - I can't remember which - and recently decided to reread it. With the original read, I remember noting that (1) the book is - unsurprisingly - significantly more detailed than the movies and (2) some characterizations are different. Upon rereading, I have decided that the latter is an understatement: the characterizations of two major characters - Hammond and Wu - are so radically different that their movie versions are the same character in name only; pretty much all the rest has been flip-flopped. Especially after the depiction of Dr. Wu in the most recent Jurassic Park installment, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the Dr. Wu of the book - the one who has serious second thoughts about what they're doing with the park and who tries to talk Hammond out of it - kind of gave me whiplash. That, combined with a Hammond whose death by compy made me cheer, made for a reading experience that made the series feel new again.
While some other reviews have noted serious issues with the science and that the vast majority of...well...everything is more science fantasy than science fiction. Perhaps my total lack of knowledge regarding paleontology, genetics, and computer science is showing, but I find that I don't mind. As is pointed out by Dr. Wu in the story, entertainment has nothing to do with reality, and Jurassic Park is a great example of successful entertainment. ...more
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