This was my worldcon reading book, the one I stayed up for a bit even after stumbling in late to read, and finished on the flight home.  I liked it a lot.  Green is ambitious, with a grand scale story that follows Lake’s protagonist from an early age to a very mature, dangerous young woman.  While I have enjoyed Jay’s other work, Green pulled up a notch for me.  Jay is a stylist, and I’m the kind of reader who prefers that the prose not slow me down.  In Green, it almost never did.  Yet it was still beautifully written.  Jay also drew me in close to his main character and I truly cared about her outcomes. 

Green is worth you time.  It’s a bit too weighty to be a summer beach book, but fast-paced enough that most readers will want to keep flipping pages. 

I’m looking forward to the sequel.  I know it’s done since Jay read from the beginning of it recently at the University Bookstore.

Oh - and as a goofy geek grace note, one of the suggestions that word press comes up with to get “worldcon” right is “Whedon.”

Mirrored from Brenda Cooper.

I bought green shirts and I am wearing them.  I have turned my twitter icon temporarily green.  I keep getting up from the middle of other tasks and checking on events in Iran, even though I am usually far more disciplined.  But I thought I should write down some reasons since my family asked, and since it’s useful rumination.

1. The futurist in me is totally fascinated by the role social media and worldwide transparency are playing.
2. The writer is fascinated by the stories and raw emotion.  Everyone is emotional.  I cried when I saw Neda’s death. How pointless.
3. The American in me does not believe religion and government should be all mixed up together.  Both are better and stronger if separated.
4. Watching the unrest in Iran is being part of something, perhaps something big, that is happening in the world.
5. There is a bit of adrenaline in this.  Just being honest.
6. I am hopeful for positive change.  Ahmadinejad with nukes is scary.  I would like Iran to be a country I am not afraid of.
7. (And I think this is the biggest one for most Americans) - I believe in freedom, and I believe that freedom needs honest elections.  If - at the core - that is what the Iranians are fighting for, it is worth it to me.
8. I have found Iran interesting since I read two books.  One was “Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi” and the other was “The Ends of the Earth:  From Togo to Turkmenistan, From Iran to Cambodia, a Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy, by Robert D. Kaplan“

Some things I am not “For”

1. Formal government action by the US.  This is not ours to solve.  It would probably backfire.  Read some of the posts at the Tehran Bureau if you don’t agree - they are in first person and more eloquent than I could be on this subject.  We can help and we can cheer, we can retweet and write, but there is no other useful role for us.
2. I am not particularly “for” Mousavi.  Nor against him.  My vote is irrelevant on this issue, as it should be.

I hope my support is useful to even a few Iranians, or that it helps keep the attention here on the events there.  This is worth watching and helping where we can, as individuals.

What do you think?

Mirrored from Brenda Cooper.