The last four things I read (I’ve been reading a lot lately, wonder why?) 
I don’t think I’ve successfully read a Kim Stanley Robinson book since Galileo’s Dream, which I had mixed feelings about. I couldn’t get through Shaman at all, nor Forty Signs of Rain, and didn’t much care for Antarctica at the time. But I really loved The Memory of Whiteness and The Years of Rice and Salt.
I enjoyed this one, even if the stuff about cryptocurrency/blockchain struck me as already dated and naive. It honestly seemed a little lightweight for Robinson and that suited me fine. Mostly I enjoyed the perspective, on America and other things, that came from having Chinese main characters and the one outsider, world- (and moon-)traveling American guy.
Recommended by a few people here. There were sections I was really into, others not so much, and I’m not quite sure it met my expectations for what it was going to be. Worth it for the good parts though. Diogenes should be more of a hero in our culture, along with Emperor Norton 
There are a whole lot of books with a very similar title. It’s a bit misleading in that this girl is pretty much the secondary protagonist, who we’re not introduced to until a little ways in. Light fantasy stuff, a little on the cheesy side in places but a fun read. I like their folk belief in an afterlife on Earth instead of the crapsack world where the story is set (and the “it’s going to have a Planet of the Apes ending, isn’t it?” thought that comes with it).
I have mixed feelings about Wendy Carlos, and a completely different set of mixed feelings about this book. She never wanted to be famous for her gender, and yet this book tells the story of all the wrong sort of publicity so thoroughly that it ironically became much of the book’s focus. It also repeats entire paragraphs at times, and generally feels like it needed more beta readers and editing. It also doesn’t seem to know whether or not its audience is familiar with synthesizers – making a hash of some brief and basic descriptions, while occasionally tossing terminology around without explanation. There’s a sort of “Trans 101” appendix but no glossary of electronic music terms, nor a complete list of her compositions or album releases.
What bothers me about her is what seems like bitter disappointment in the rest of the world. Granted, in some areas the world certainly earned that disappointment. But she seemed to think of synthesizers as frustratingly crude and unmusical, with even her heavily customized Moog modular barely adequate. That sort of view seems alien to me, in a world where people love vintage synths and embrace lo-fi tape and Game Boy trackers and such, and where most electronic artists play to the strengths of their instruments rather than fighting against them.
But then her “First Law” – any parameter that can be controlled, must be controlled – is also very much counter to how I think as a musician. Maybe that is what set her up for disappointment?
She was frustrated that people didn’t “get” Digital Moonscapes, and frankly I still don’t – it was a painstaking attempt to imitate Western orchestral instruments with the crude digital technology available at the time yet without sampling… but neither sounding accurate nor expressive was somehow the point? She wrote off Silver Apples of the Moon as “a poor performance of a brilliant composition” but honestly, I feel that is far more true of Digital Moonscapes (which I’d love to hear recorded by an orchestra) and TRON (brilliantly covered in prog rock style by Stemage). She was disappointed that the world didn’t much share her interest in alternative tunings, although making it very difficult to access any of her recordings doesn’t exactly help her cause. And of course she hates it that everyone loved Switched-On Bach more than everything else she has done since, which I suppose is only natural. Honestly, I want to find my copy of it and listen to that, and then switch to Tomita.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to turn this into a Wendy Carlos post specifically. I’ll just say I found the book both fascinating and frustrating.
