Interworld

#262
Title: Interworld
Authors: Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves
Publisher: Eos (HarperCollins)
Year: 2007
246 pages

A thin offering from Gaiman (of whom I expect better) and Reaves (whose work I'm not familiar with). It's reminiscent  of a second-tier Heinlein juvenile novel, down to the "Old Man" who is revered by all and whose mission everyone would sacrifice to carry out. The plot is enjoyable enough, though it will seem fairly derivative to most F&SF YA readers. Character development is weak and rushed, and some characters who seem important (like Nigel) simply disappear, and we learn about Binary but not enough to explain why we had to learn it.There is a little trouble with world building--for example, why wouldn't the crew of the Lacrimae Mundi know who/what Joey was (p. 40)? It's clear later that they know exactly where people like him fit into their world. More problematic is a bit of fabricated difficulty where Joey narrates that "I couldn't find the key that would let me go back to Base Town" (p. 170), though 14 pages before it "burned clear and bright in my mind" (p. 156) and by page 232 he knows it again, for no particular reason.

One is left with the overall impression that in its present incarnation, Interworld was not adequately edited to stand alone. It feels like an action-adventure opener that didn't warrant a sequel to fill in the gaps.

Jennifer Government

#261
Title: Jennifer Government
Author: Max Barry
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2003
333 pages

A book to read in the bathtub, or as I used to call it when I worked in hospitals, "night shift reading"--something to keep you awake, but easy to put down if there's a need for your services. Jennifer Government is science fiction even if you find it shelved as literature. It's a fast read, entertaining enough, light on characterization and plot. When I say "light on plot," I mean that although events unfold and resolve, the reader is left with a sense of hollowness and many questions. Jennifer's tattoo, for example, poses a question that is answered but not well enough to justify its existence except as a flourish. Since much of William Gibson's oeuvre takes on corporations and their power, one might do better to look there instead for a more satisfying and complex exploration of these issues.

A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

#254
Title: A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last
Author: Stephen Levine
Publisher: Bell Tower
Year: 1997
192 pages

Audiobook: here.
I usually like Levine's work so I was disappointed with this rather weak offering. Composed more of exhortations and pronouncements about the qualities and meaning he ascribes to dying (but states as reality) than of activities and practices for a "one year to live" exploration, it lacked the intellectual rigor and logic that the Buddhist texts demonstrate. It was disorganized, and though at times I found it interesting, I primarily found it annoying. I do not believe in the continued existence of consciousness or a soul after death, so many of Levine's comments were jarring, especially as he referenced atheism fairly positively. What I take from Levine is that I am incorrect or somehow not ready for death (though Levine's version of getting ready seems to be less about learning to be in the here and now rather than living in fear, and more about being ready for a post-death journey of transformation). It is certainly his prerogative to hold whatever view he holds, but sermonizing about the character of the afterlife is not convincing when supported by neither logic nor evidence. Many Buddhist writers manage this elegantly.
In the audiobook version, Levine pauses ponderously (even when playback is sped up) in a manner that took me out of contemplation rather than into it.

In Our Village: Kambi ya Simba Through the Eyes of Its Youth

#259
Title: In Our Village: Kambi ya Simba Through the Eyes of Its Youth
Editor: Barbara Cervone
Publisher: Next Generation Press
Year: 2006
Country: Tanzania (not my first)
82 pages

In photos, text, and interviews with local adults, the youth of Kambi ya Simba ("Lion's Camp"), Tanzania describe their lives. Published by Next Generation Press, this charming and informative book ought to make readers immediately fantasize about what the teenagers in their lives could produce and what they would have to say, if only they had the invitation and the forum. A nice introduction to village life in Tanzania, and also a terrific stimulus for discussions about youth competencies and how to build and share them.

Jamilia

#258
Title: Jamilia
Author: Chingiz Aïtmatov
Translator: James Riordan
Publisher: Telegram Press
Year: 1957/2007
Country: Kyrgyzstan
96 pages

Following up Burkett with a Kyrgyz novelist. Jamilia is more a novella than a novel. It appears to be a love story set against a backdrop of war, with multiple and conflicting loyalties and alliances, but is also an allegory about fighting for and longing for one's homeland. An enjoyable if brief novel that depicts a pastoral Kyrgyz village of more than half a century ago.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time

#260
Title: Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time
Authors: Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2006
Country: Pakistan
361 pages

Both emotionally satisfying and deeply engrossing, this is the history of Mortenson's many years of building schools in Pakistan and, more recently, Afghanistan. A nurse by profession and mountain climber by avocation. Mortenson literally stumbles into the school-building trade. I especially enjoyed the parts of the book that describe the futility of making infrastructure decisions without input from the community, and the necessary buttressing or creation of other infrastructures to support the target project. In an early example, Mortenson raises funds for a school but can't get the materials to the site until he builds a suspension bridge. These connections illustrate the importance of collaborative, mutual community projects and serve as an object lesson in village development. It's also a good conversational starting point for combating anti-Muslim sentiment.

Read with Kidder's Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World and van Bruggen's Flowers on the Cactus: AIDS and Orphan Care in Cambodia for a more comprehensive and far-reaching analysis of the context required to create and sustain superficially simple interventions.

So Many Enemies, So Little Time: An American Woman in All the Wrong Places

#257
Title: So Many Enemies, So Little Time: An American Woman in All the Wrong Places
Author: Elinor Burkett
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Year: 2004/2005
334 pages

Burkett's chronicle of her Fulbright year teaching journalism in Kyrgyzstan, with regional peregrinations, rebuts easy criticisms of the United States' behavior in the region. I appreciated this perspective, while at times finding Burkett a little jingoistic. Most tellingly, I am hard-pressed to remember any positive appraisal from her of this region's politics, governance, or infrastructure. Therefore, read with some skepticism; it is too easy an analysis for the U.S. to be basically helpful and put-upon and the former soviet to be inefficient and oppressive.