Bookkeeping
Apr. 22nd, 2015 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stillsostrange1. Dark Places - Gillian Flynn
2. Red Delicious - Kathleen Tierney/Caitlin R. Kiernan
3. The English Girl - Daniel Silva
4. Critical Space - Greg Rucka
5. Foreigner - C.J. Cherryh (reread)
I read Foreigner many years ago, and bounced off, despite loving plenty of other Cherryh. I remember being frustrated with Bren's failure to grok the Atevi, not to mention annoyed by the back blurb. Not a single word for love! My pearls!
Rereading, I appreciate it more for being the sort of quiet political thriller I love, and I can better articulate my ongoing frustration. Dude. Oxytocin. It's not that hard to explain. Explaining human social bonds and emotional reactions in terms of biochemistry is pretty freakin' simple. But it's apparently a huge blind spot for these space-faring humans.
I may be unduly harsh here. I'm not sure what research was available when the book was written. I know I've only learned about oxytocin and serotonin effects fairly recently. (My god, they should be taught in junior high, if not earlier.) But as a person who does not have as much oxytocin as the average talking monkey, I have been frustrated my entire life by the idea that human nature and human relationships are something that everyone intuits, let alone things that should be held as desirable. Ugh. Gross.
But this time I'll pick up the next book and give it a shot as well. I enjoy the politics and the worldbuilding and the characters.
2. Red Delicious - Kathleen Tierney/Caitlin R. Kiernan
3. The English Girl - Daniel Silva
4. Critical Space - Greg Rucka
5. Foreigner - C.J. Cherryh (reread)
I read Foreigner many years ago, and bounced off, despite loving plenty of other Cherryh. I remember being frustrated with Bren's failure to grok the Atevi, not to mention annoyed by the back blurb. Not a single word for love! My pearls!
Rereading, I appreciate it more for being the sort of quiet political thriller I love, and I can better articulate my ongoing frustration. Dude. Oxytocin. It's not that hard to explain. Explaining human social bonds and emotional reactions in terms of biochemistry is pretty freakin' simple. But it's apparently a huge blind spot for these space-faring humans.
I may be unduly harsh here. I'm not sure what research was available when the book was written. I know I've only learned about oxytocin and serotonin effects fairly recently. (My god, they should be taught in junior high, if not earlier.) But as a person who does not have as much oxytocin as the average talking monkey, I have been frustrated my entire life by the idea that human nature and human relationships are something that everyone intuits, let alone things that should be held as desirable. Ugh. Gross.
But this time I'll pick up the next book and give it a shot as well. I enjoy the politics and the worldbuilding and the characters.
