So my life is in well enough order now that I think I can get back to my goal of daily blogging. If I fall behind on writing again, I may duck out for a while, but for now it looks like we’re good.
The last couple of weeks have been a little crazy. Engagement photos, wedding invitations, and then there was FanX this weekend. Future Mrs. Vasicek is finishing up with school, with all exams last week and a group paper due today. But once that’s done, she’ll be working full-time over the summer, so it’s not like her work load is going to lighten all that much. Plus, we have the wedding in June.
In any case, the next couple of months are going to be a bit rocky, but there’s enough of a lull right now that I think I can get into the swing of daily blogging again. Hopefully I can keep it up for quite a while.
I thought this was a really good episode, though I’m not convinced that it’s better (or even possible) to lead through ideas rather than charisma. You need both, and I would argue that principles are more fundamental to human society than ideas. But still.
The part about the Harkonnens ruling through decadence and indulgence was particularly interesting. I see a fair bit of that in society today. Ten-plus years of suppressed or negative interest rates, with trillion-dollar deficits during a supposed economic boom? If that isn’t decadent, I don’t know what is. But I digress.
Everything rises and falls on leadership. A shitty job with an awesome supervisor can be amazing, but even a dream job can be ruined by a really shitty supervisor. I learned that the hard way.
My favorite example of charismatic leadership is probably Genghis Khan. I totally mean that, too. Genghis Khan’s story is amazing. He went from abject poverty and slavery to founding the largest land empire in history, all through the strength of his leadership. Extra History did a series on him, but the best version of his story that I’ve found thus far is from the History of China podcast:
The series is still ongoing, which is why the last two episodes don’t have links. You can find them in the podcast feed, though.
Now, I don’t necessarily advocate making Genghis Khan a role model. The man was responsible for a lot of death and destruction, and his empire did not endure. That said, it’s impossible to question that he was one of the most charismatic and effective leaders in the history of the world. As to whether he was a positive leader, well…
My favorite example of a positive leader is probably Shackleton. Endurance was a fantastic book. The biggest thing that blew my mind was the fact that he hired his crew entirely on the basis of five minute (or less) interviews, where they basically shot the breeze. He was so good at reading people that he could hand-pick a crew that would survive and pull together under the harshest conditions of the planet, and he did it entirely by hanging out with them for a couple of minutes. That’s incredible.
And it gets back to the tension between ideas, principles, and charisma. You need all three. Charisma is basically people skills, and all of the best ideas in the world won’t avail you much as a leader if you suck with people.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a Self-Sufficient Writer post, but I think I’d like to bring that series back, with the goal of turning it into a book eventually. There’s a lot of interesting stuff I’ve learned that would make good content for that blog series, and I still have a lot to learn.
In an effort to map out my own path to self-sufficiency, I drew up a list of all the major things I think I need to learn and/or do to achieve the level of self-sufficiency that I desire. Some of it is mostly aspirational, especially toward the end, but I do think I can achieve most of this stuff, if not all of it.
The list is roughly ordered from easiest to hardest, or else in such a way that one thing builds off of another. It’s still a work in progress, though, so if you have any suggestions or anything to add, I would appreciate it.
Learn how to store and use oats, beans, and wheat.
Learn how to make bread and maintain a sourdough culture.
Start an herb garden and learn the basics of gardening.
Develop a storage system for canned and dry goods.
Learn how to make kraut and fermented vegetables.
Learn how to make yogurt and cheese (this is where I am currently).
Keep a garden for greens, tomatoes, peas, and peppers.
Learn how to can and pickle.
Finalize the garden plan (including compost).
Build a rainwater reclamation system.
Develop a source of off-grid power.
Build a wood-fired oven and learn how to make bread with it.
Learn how to hunt and process game meat.
Develop a plan for livestock.
Secure a source for eggs and milk.
Learn how to make clothing and work with textiles.
Build a shop and learn how to work with wood and metals.
So the problem I have with most “ecological science fiction” is that it draws almost exclusively on the ideas of Malthusian economics—essentially, the argument that Thanos was right. The problem with this is that Malthusian theory has been disproven by every generation of humans to live on this planet for the last 150 years. It’s even more discredited than Marxism, which is another unscientific philosophy that “ecological science fiction” draws heavily from.
I remember an old 70s novel I picked up from the local used bookstore, where by the year 2000, Earth had warmed so much that Antarctica was the only habitable continent, and resources were so scarce that the main character—a buxom blonde—had to go topless. Yeah, very 70s. The premise of the novel was so absurd on its face that I couldn’t finish it.
I also remember an Octavia Butler book that I read. It was the sort of book that makes you chuck it at the wall once you’re finished. The plot went something like this: the main character has been abducted by aliens and drafted into their breeding program, and she spends the whole book trying to escape, only to learn that she’s already pregnant and never will. The end. The writing was pretty good, but the story was so horribly unsatisfying that I haven’t read anything by her since.
From what I can tell, most “ecological science fiction” is like that. Very pretty sentences, but horribly unsatisfying stories, with way too much preaching about how capitalism is evil and humans are destroying the planet. That’s probably why these books tend to win so many Hugo Awards.
Red Mars was okay, but it was less about Earth and more about Mars itself. I was personally more interested in the political intrigue among the colonists than the terraforming project, but both were pretty good. The characters all seemed a little bland to me, though, and I never really latched on to any of them, which is probably why I didn’t read the other books. From what I can tell, they got more preachy toward the end.
Everyone praises Dune for being an “ecological” novel, but to be frankly honest I never really got into that. The political intrigue and the struggle of Paul Atreides with his prescience was a lot more interesting to me, and while the ecological bits certainly played into the plot, I didn’t really care enough to pay much attention to that.
Also, the parts that I did pick up seemed pretty unbelievable to me. From what I remember, there was a second, much smaller type of worm that produced a certain kind of excretion which, if mixed with the spice, would cause a chain reaction that would completely destroy the Arrakis ecosystem. Something like Kurt Vonnegut’s ice 9, which instantaneously freezes any water it comes into contact with, which makes it the most dangerous substance on Earth because a single drop could freeze all the water on the planet. In my (albeit limited) experience, ecosystems always find their own equilibrium, which makes them resiliant against that sort of thing. But of course, that would probably interfere with the preaching that “ecological science fiction” tends to indulge in.
From what I can tell, Dune is one of the few pieces of “ecological science fiction” that hasn’t aged poorly, and that’s not because of the “ecological” bits, but in spite of them. Because the truth is that we live in a fantastically rich and abundant post-scarcity world, where “global warming” had to rebrand as “climate change” because none of the predictions came true, and the science has been so ridiculously politicized that the Green New Deal makes the Communist Manifesto look sane and reasonable.
Thanos was wrong. So too, apparently, is the entire field of “ecological science fiction.”
I’ve been following Astronomy Picture of the Day since 2006, which makes it one of the blogs I’ve followed the longest. It’s also one of the first blogs on the internet. Most days, the picture is somewhere between good to okay, but this one was truly exceptional. Excellent work, Jingyi Zhang and Wang Zheng.
So 2016 isn’t that long in the past, but while reviewing my blog archive, I came across this gem and knew I just had to share it this week, especially with all the flak that capitalism has been getting from a certain former bartender recently. Enjoy!
Dear Ms. Author.
I really like your books. I think they are well-written and I enjoyed
reading them. (So far, so good, right? Hang on.) However, I have
returned them all because you priced them at $0.99 to $2.99, and that is
too much to pay for them. I can’t afford to pay that much for a book,
even though I liked it. In the future, can you make sure you make all
your books free so I don’t have to return them?
Dear Ms. Reader,
Thank you for reading my books. I appreciate your patronage. However, this is why my books are not free:
This is it—the big showdown! The war between the Kingdom of Manticore and the People’s Republic of Haven has come!
I’ve really been enjoying this series. Like I said in my review of On Basilisk Station, the Honorverse is what Star Trek wants to be when it grows up. Where Star Trek is campy, the Honorverse is polished. Where Star Trek is preachy, the Honorverse is nuanced. Where Star Trek relies on hand waving and technobabble, the Honorverse shines with complex, believable world-building and incredible attention to detail. And perhaps most importantly, where Star Trek characters do things that are head-shakingly stupid, the characters in the Honorverse all, for the most part, smart, capable people with very good reasons for everything they do.
In any case, while the third book wasn’t quite as good as the previous two, it did not disappoint. In terms of character development, this may have been the best book in the series so far. Honor Harrington confronts a bunch of her private demons in this book, including her near-rape at the hands of Pavel Yong, and Weber did a really good job of that. There was also no shortage of action, seeing as Honor commands one of the biggest and most ferocious RMN warships in the fleet, and goes head to head with the greatest existential threat to the kingdom itself.
That said, in some ways the ending felt… a little too perfect. There was very little of the underdog stuff that really drove the first book, and while the stakes were definitely high, and lots of people died, the way they pulled it off felt a little too flawless. Without getting into spoilers, this was especially true of the intrigue going on within the People’s Republic of Haven itself. There was definitely intrigue and subterfuge, but it didn’t feel complex enough, or messy enough, to really satisfy me. Everything lined up just a little too perfect.
That’s really my only complaint, though. There was no shortage of crowning moments, and some great come-uppances for the bad guys, especially Pavel Young. Quite a few tear-jerking moments as well, especially in the side stories and peripheral conflicts that didn’t involve Honor directly. More than just big guns and explosions, Weber really knows how to personalize a conflict and get you to feel deeply intimate with the characters. In that aspect, this was probably the best book in the series so far.
Great book, and immensely enjoyable, just like the previous two. I heartily recommend it.
I think I’m going to take a break from the Honorverse for a while. I do intend to come back to it eventually, but there’s a bunch of other similar stuff that I want to get to first, like House of Assassins, the Vorkosigan Saga, and David Gemmell’s Troy series. Baen stories are like a rich chocolate cake, and I can only take so many at a time—and yes, I know Gemmell was never a Baen author, but his books scratch the same itch for me. In fact, they may be the richest chocolate cake of them all.
In Future Mrs. Vasicek’s writing group, we were talking about plotting and I remarked that plotting didn’t seem to be one of Frank Herbert’s strengths in Dune. Looking back on it, though, I think that the plot was pretty solid, but he chose to focus on other things instead—such as all of the machinations and ultimate downfalls of all of the characters, which Extra Credits discusses in this video.
When they brough up the “competent man” trope in the last season, and argued against it, I wasn’t quite sure how to take it. I know people in real life who fit the competent man trope very well, and who actually live up to Heinlein’s ideal:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
In this episode, the folks at Extra Credits argue that Herbert subverts the competent man trope in Dune by showing a bunch of characters who fit that trope failing because they fit it too perfectly. But as you can see from the quote above, that’s actually not the case.
The empaths and mentats in Dune are specialists. In fact, the world of Dune is full of specialists, from the pilots of the spacing guild to the Imperial Sardaukar to the Bene Gesserit—even the Fremen, to a certain extent, are specialists rather than Heinleinian competent men.
The video isn’t wrong to point out that specialization and hubris is the ultimate cause of all of these characters’ downfall. But they miss the trope when they argue that this is a critique of Heinlein and golden age science fiction. If anything, it’s a vindication. Heinlein’s competent man is all about being a jack of all trades, master of one (or two, or half a dozen, as the case may be). In Dune, the characters who do best are the ones who figure this out.
I do have to say, though, it’s kind of fun to revisit Dune, seeing as it’s been so long since the last time I read it. Future Mrs. Vasicek didn’t like the book at all, but I enjoyed it, especially on the second read. Very few things made sense on the first read. My favorite character is probably Jessica, though the folks at Extra Credits are absolutely right about the way that Yueh played her.
