[books 2007] science fiction, travel

[inulro]

62. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula le Guin (no "K" on my copy)

This month's Bibliogoths selection. General consensus was that there are some good ideas in there but it's not very well executed. I've not read a lot of her stuff before, but I definitely remember that I liked The Dispossessed a lot more than this.


63. Lost Cosmonaut: Travels to the Republics that Tourism Forgot by Daniel Kalder

Obscure ethnic groups and empty places on the map are two things that are sure to grab my interest, so I got quite excited when this book came out. The author, a Scotsman living in Moscow, picks four of the "independent" ethnic republics in the European part of the Russian Federation to visit - he's fascinated by the thought of places that are geographically European but that no Western European has ever heard of. (Tatarstan, Kalmykia, Mari El and Udmurtia, for the record).

This could have been a really good book, but Kalder has a bad attitude (the "anti-tourist manifesto" in the introduction is a give-away) and hates everything. There's some interesting factoids, but this guy is really annoying.

Same conclusion as for The Long Exile - Interesting subject matter that deserved a better writer.

Having said that, I'm not keeping this one so if you want it, it's yours.

Comments

[wehmuth.livejournal.com]

Ok so the book is badly written, but do the countries sound interesting?

Could be an idea for a holiday; visit the four places and spend time writing something better about them. ;)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

They're probably not very interesting for a holiday - the Soviets knocked down most interesting things and built concrete tower blocks, which are also now falling down. There's also the problem that there isn't a lot of the indigenous culture left in any of the places (unless you travel to "the villages", the author is continually told, but he never does) - the result of several hundred years of Russian settlement and enforced Russification.

Tatarstan sounded the most promising, or at least the easiest to get English language resources on.