![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Boys Volume 4: We Gotta Go Now, Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson (2009) (graphic novel)
Grandville, Bryan Talbot (2009) (graphic novel)
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
The H-Bomb Girl, Stephen Baxter (2007)
An Infinite Summer, Christopher Priest (1976-79)
Black Juice, Margo Lanagan (2004)
The Evolution of Co-operation, Robert Axelrod (1984)
The Boys is a gritty, gory story of superheroes where they're not regarded in quite the same way as Superman. In volume 4, our (non-super) hero infiltrates what is basically a frat house for the supes before they're ready to join the main teams. It's not very nice. I started with this book so don't know how representative it is.
Grandville is just gorgeous, beautifully drawn and produced to a high quality. There are anthropomorphic animals, such as badger Inspector LeBrock of The Yard, and a crime to be solved. It is stuffed with references, and you can spot cameo appearances from Rupert the Bear. I will happily come back to this for rereads.
The Lovely Bones is for Book Club, where I'm hoping to expand on my reaction of "Ick! But it kept me reading"; An Infinite Summer is five short stories, three of which I've read previously, and this collection layers and reflects the themes in a Priestian manner. I think the whole is more than the sum of its parts, but I don't think I'm clever enough to see quite how. I feel like the Square in Flatland, who's being visited by the Sphere. Black Juice - finally I read the story "Singing My Sister Down", and appreciate the stir over it.
The Evolution of Co-operation is about how successful the Tit For Tat strategy is in the Prisoner's Dilemma, and what factors are important in establishing stable cooperation. It has been particularly interesting to read as yet another account is published of sexual predators at fandom conventions, the difficulty in stopping this behaviour before it gets out of hand, and the way the community generally does not act to punish the exploiters. There are useful things to be said from examining this scenario and what factors act to make exploitation attractive, thus identifying ways to reduce it. But that, I think, is another post. Do go away and think "Ooh! Increase the durability of interactions! Improve people's ability to recognise exploitation and thus retaliate swiftly and appropriately! Work out what the hell an appropriate retaliation is! Be somewhat forgiving of clumsy approaches to give the well-meaning clueless an opportunity to redeem themselves! Widen the sharing of people's behaviour history so a sequence of one-off exploitation of many different individuals can be seen as a pattern by members of the community and future attempts can meet with swift retaliation!" amongst yourselves if you are so inclined :-)
Grandville, Bryan Talbot (2009) (graphic novel)
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
The H-Bomb Girl, Stephen Baxter (2007)
An Infinite Summer, Christopher Priest (1976-79)
Black Juice, Margo Lanagan (2004)
The Evolution of Co-operation, Robert Axelrod (1984)
The Boys is a gritty, gory story of superheroes where they're not regarded in quite the same way as Superman. In volume 4, our (non-super) hero infiltrates what is basically a frat house for the supes before they're ready to join the main teams. It's not very nice. I started with this book so don't know how representative it is.
Grandville is just gorgeous, beautifully drawn and produced to a high quality. There are anthropomorphic animals, such as badger Inspector LeBrock of The Yard, and a crime to be solved. It is stuffed with references, and you can spot cameo appearances from Rupert the Bear. I will happily come back to this for rereads.
The Lovely Bones is for Book Club, where I'm hoping to expand on my reaction of "Ick! But it kept me reading"; An Infinite Summer is five short stories, three of which I've read previously, and this collection layers and reflects the themes in a Priestian manner. I think the whole is more than the sum of its parts, but I don't think I'm clever enough to see quite how. I feel like the Square in Flatland, who's being visited by the Sphere. Black Juice - finally I read the story "Singing My Sister Down", and appreciate the stir over it.
The Evolution of Co-operation is about how successful the Tit For Tat strategy is in the Prisoner's Dilemma, and what factors are important in establishing stable cooperation. It has been particularly interesting to read as yet another account is published of sexual predators at fandom conventions, the difficulty in stopping this behaviour before it gets out of hand, and the way the community generally does not act to punish the exploiters. There are useful things to be said from examining this scenario and what factors act to make exploitation attractive, thus identifying ways to reduce it. But that, I think, is another post. Do go away and think "Ooh! Increase the durability of interactions! Improve people's ability to recognise exploitation and thus retaliate swiftly and appropriately! Work out what the hell an appropriate retaliation is! Be somewhat forgiving of clumsy approaches to give the well-meaning clueless an opportunity to redeem themselves! Widen the sharing of people's behaviour history so a sequence of one-off exploitation of many different individuals can be seen as a pattern by members of the community and future attempts can meet with swift retaliation!" amongst yourselves if you are so inclined :-)