@booksns I can think of a few science fiction novels where the ecology is a driving force for the story: Alan Dean Foster's "Mission to Moulikin", one of the "Ender's Game" sequels from Orson Scott Card has a culture's funeral rites (designed around an ecological necessity) causes the conflict. Several of Seanan McGuire's InCryptid fantasies concern the intersection of cryptid creatures and modern culture (and has a main family dedicated to preserving them). Lots of Urban Fantasy has humans encountering a personification of spirits of place if not nature or season.
There's a young adult fantasy by Stephanie Barron (I think) built around a lost world that the characters stumble upon and decide to preserve.
I hope you find more!
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Tutanota/116130138605094270
Today the EU Parliament said NO. ❌
Voluntary scanning by Outlook, Gmail, LinkedIn, etc. might come to an end on April 6 in the EU. Keep pushing everyone! 👏🥳
Thanks for the boosts. But warning: I usually have to struggle a lot to write a coherent paragraph for a book review, so you won't see a lot of them from me.
But I love books, and am glad to talk about them. Currently reading books by Fonda Lee, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Kylie Chan, and a *bunch* of novels on https://www.royalroad.com/ - a few of which are quite good.
I was recently asked about my recent reading, and thought I'd share:
I just finished "Ancestral Night" by Elizabeth Bear. My favorite, so far: a stand-alone novel but also book 1 of a SF series. The author wrote in 'vernacular' - although the vernacular was for their huge government (for example, every instance of 'day' was replaced with 'dia' and year with 'an'), but despite that affectation it explored the differences between a truly post-scarcity culture and a very capitalist one existing at the same time. Lots of philosophical discussions, too, about how to handle conflicting beliefs and biologies. And a few space battles.
Number two was 'Project Hanuman' by Stewart Hotston. A bit more philosophizing that I think went over my head as the last remnants of the ultimate utopia try to come to grips with something that has to consume the power source that makes the utopia possible. Lots of cultural references to Hindu myths (which I know *some* of), but it really didn't rely on them beyond the name. (There's no Ram, no Sita, and while the enemy could be called demonic, I couldn't find any parallels with Ravana).
RE: https://wandering.shop/@adapalmer/115798502373418578
Saw this before, and regretted not boosting it. It may not be games, but it's worth knowing!
@Quasit I think there's a growing movement to get rid of him and to restore at least a token of what he's taken away. I also doubt it will go all the way back to the problematic-but-better way it was while Biden was president.
What I'd *like* to see is for people to look at the 70-ish years of changes we made before electing Trump and actually talk openly and on streams about how we'd want to restore each of them. EPA. FEMA. CDC. auditing. judiciary. Military. Supreme Court. Alliances. At the least, we need a reason for allies to ever trust us again.
IF we can jail the criminals currently in government, this will be possible. When Vance takes over, there will be fewer people willing to support or believe him.
@spinning_bird If it helps, I've often been told that most COBOL code was written by people who are no longer available, and it codes in *known working form* huge amounts of policies and legal restrictions that are not easily documented. Any replacement code is expected to be an equally large project that is guaranteed to introduce its own set of new bugs and errors. The rewriting and corrections are just an assumed-unnecessary cost that nobody wants to cover.
I have learned COBOL, but would rather not have to use it. It's apparently still fairly common out here, however.
Tuta