It's Wednesday. Whatcha Readin'?

[pantryslut]

Just Finished: Genocidal Organ by Project Itoh. Basically, I really wish that more contemporary SF was like this -- I'd be reading it a lot more on the regular. It's got all the plusses and minuses that the science fiction I grew up on did. It's thick with near-future technological and political speculation, philosophical rumblings and linguistics. Yes, linguistics -- the central conceit is that there's a "grammar of genocide" or, if you prefer, the "genocidal organ" of the title, an organ not quite as literal as the appendix and not quite as useless, either. It doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, which considering the viewpoint character is a Special Forces veteran might not be surprising except see: women in combat. I mention this mostly to show that it's not a novel without flaw or blind spots (see also: one sentence acknowledging Africa as maybe not always a dark primitive land of turmoil :P ), because it's also so casually ambitious in a way I wish more stuff was. So, yeah, I liked it and I surprised myself a little by how much I liked it.

Reading Right Now: Full Service. I like the fact that Scotty Bowers is not at all prurient in tone -- I think that's what makes this book a winner. The only time so far that he shakes a disapproving finger at anyone, it's at Rita Hayworth for not helping her brother out financially. Whatever people do in bed, though, that's OK by him.

Coming Soon: Probably Eddie Huang's memoir Fresh Off the Boat.