Intro

So we've been on a two week vacation in Africa, starting with Kenya, doing safaris through Tanzania and then flying to Zanzibar for some relaxation. Overall it has been great, with small hiccups, and this is the post that resulted, so enjoy!

The region

Kenya and Tanzania share the same language and approximately the same culture. People from both have said that the people want a joining which is hindered by politics. Tanzania itself is a republic created by the unification of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. However, from my perspective, there are big differences between the three regions, even if the borders between them are pretty much random lines drawn by the British or other colonizers.

A tip driven culture, they expect tips for everything after volunteering to do things no one asked them to do, like carrying bags or doing random welcoming gestures of apparent kindness. We never knew how much to tip and who, so the reactions we got cycled between annoyance and reverent gracefulness, sometimes from the same people.

Tanzania has more food and less economic inequality, but a slower economy and a cheaper standard of living compared to Kenya. However, I've not seen the squalor and apparent lack of self esteem that I saw in Kenya. Tanzanian people are proud of their first president, who attempted to build the nation and keep it safe. An educated man, he came with a political ideology known as Ujamaa, a form of African socialism. For that reason, their houses are neat, no matter how cheap and they believe in the future of their nation. Conversely, in Kenya the poor are really poor and the rich are way richer, their houses are just hobbled together and the people sleeping on the side of the road are a lot more there than in Tanzania.

I won't get into the history or politics or whatever, though. The important part is that people are mostly similar and they speak Swahili in all three of these regions, written with Latin letters. Many African tribes live peacefully within these borders, with the largest being the Maasai.

Also, the climate is not that different from parts of Europe. We went there in January, so summer in the Southern hemisphere, but the temperature rarely went over 30 on the most heated days. Meanwhile, nights were often chilly. They never get negative temperatures at ground level and considering I was coming from a city where nights had -15C at that time and that can easily get to 40C during the summer, I felt it was quite comfortable.

For me, there were two separate legs of the journey, one was the Masai Mara/Serengeti safaris and the other was the Zanzibar island. In one we woke up before the sun rose to get something to eat and then be driven until evening in the natural reserve to see the landscape and animals and the other was pure lazing around and swim in the pool. Yet by far the most satisfying was the safari.

Getting there

In order to get from my home country of Romania to Kenya, we had to take two flights, one to Doha and another to Nairobi. Both were Qatar Airways which I have to say has not disappointed as an airline. Planes were comfortable even for my long legs and the flight attendants very professional. But it was about 500 Euros per person and it took a lot of time.

The Hamas International Airport is a huge place, including all kinds of shops, restaurants and even an Orchard with trees and flowers and places to lay down and sleep in the (artificial) sound of birds singing.

Once we got to Nairobi we found the first obstacle: language. I consider myself a pretty good English speaker, but apparently I am not very good at hearing it. Because when we went through customs there was a scary Black man there telling me "put right hand fofinga the'e", pointing towards a sensor. I've put my forefinger on the sensor and the guy got angry. "Fo fo fo!". I thought that "fo" must be "no" in Swahili and placed my forefinger on the sensor again. Guy got agitated and started Nazi-saluting in a frenzy shouting "Fo fo fo fo!". Jesus, what was I doing wrong? My wife comes from behind and says "Honey, he means four fingers".

And it wasn't the only time it happened. Later on we went to a restaurant and the waiter started to make conversation. I told him I am Romanian and this is how the dialogue continued:

• "Oh, I have a friend from Romahnia. He's pasta"
• "He's passed? I am so sorry!"
• "Ah, no, he's peachy! Cha-cha pasta"
• [me confused] "Oooh-kay. Glad he is well"

My wife comes and says "Honey, he means a church pastor, he is preaching".

I mean, even our safari driver/guide, when I asked him what a secretary bird eats, he told me "Snacks". Well, doesn't everybody?! He meant "snakes". OK, that's the end of the comedic monologue. I won't inflict much more of my dad humor on you further on, so keep reading.

From the airport we got picked up by our first driver/guide who got us to the Masai Mara park, where we were to go on safari. Driving in Kenya and Tanzania is insane! Most cars are Toyota or something similar, a lot of cheap Chinese motorcycles and big trucks that I didn't recognize the brand for, but they are all really old. The average citizen cannot afford a second hand car, and most can't even dream of a new one. If you see a new car on their roads it is usually a government official or some company car. Trucks spew smoke like they're on fire, especially if they have to go on a hill, and old cars also look like hazards, especially with the way people are driving there. Occasionally you may see a "bus" that has a lot of people inside and some hanging over the back of it, only part of their arms being "inside" the bus.

In Europe (and I expect in other developed places) driving is constrained by clear rules which are enforced by authorities. That gives one some consistency of expectations and the luxury of badmouthing or even honking at other drivers. Not there! Almost no one honks (and I expect no one bothers to complain on someone else's style) because there are absolutely no rules. Except, maybe, to never ever stop. What in Romania would be considered a two lane road with each one in a different sense, for them it's more like five virtual lanes. They drive the British way, on the left side of the road, with the steering wheel on the right. If a car is in front of them and moving too slow, they just overtake with little consideration. Meanwhile, someone might feel like you are not overtaking fast enough, so they overtake you while you are overtaking. And in all that time, there are small motorcycles that can come from either direction on any side of the road.

But guess what? I don't think they have that much more road accidents. People don't have the sheltered expectations that the other drivers will follow any rules and have the freedom to drive as they want as well. Their actions have very real and direct consequences that depend entirely on them assuming the responsibility of taking those actions. It feels free and adult. Until the first crash, obviously, but I am just telling you my impression. After fearing for our lives for an hour or so, we kind of got used to it.

It probably helped that our driver was very careful and considerate with the car - which was obviously not his - and with us, even while driving like this.

Oh, and they absolutely love speed bumps, even on the compacted dirt roads, which are probably most of them. Every school has a few of them in front. And there are a lot of schools in Kenya, run by various Christian organizations. Imagine the people that hang on to the outside of a bus, completely trusting the driver will not speed over any of them, throwing them off.

Anyway, the drive to Masai Mara and similar other drives in Tanzania were the only way we would see how most people lived. Houses are small, made of dry soil and wood branches, some times coruscated tin sheets, other times whatever people found to make their houses of. There is no pattern, no homogeneity and there is garbage everywhere. On the side of the road you see all kinds of small business, but also people laying down or sleeping on the grass. When I asked about them, the driver just said "they are waiting for a job".

The weird English they retained from their colonizers is also funny. A farmacist is a chemist, an Internet place is a cyber and apparently the name Ebenezer is very common. I was imagining a small Kenyan old grandma appearing next to me saying "Welcome to Mama Ebenezer's Cyba Chemist!" "The what?!" "Yees, we have free rooms!". I've seen a lot of "hotels" where were just random one story buildings with signs on them, with "star" being a popular motif in their naming. "The star hotel", for example. I thought it would be funny to name it the five star hotel and just a few hours later I've seen a "Five star hotel" which was just like any other star hotels I've seen that far.

A lot of people still live in the old ways, by raising goats, sheep, chicken and sometimes cows, and you can see those just eating around the garbage strewn on the sides of the road. That's the bonus road lane, I guess.

Masai Mara/Serengeti

The first things you notice when you get to the reservation are animals. You see some even before you get there, but inside the reservation there are trees and birds and open spaces that are completely protected from man.

It's worth saying that hunting or domesticating any wild animal, regarding on where it is found, is illegal in Kenya and Tanzania. You cannot just shoot an antelope and eat it or raise zebras in your back yard. There are exceptions where specific tribes have this as part of their tradition. And I do believe those exceptions are not part of the law, just people turn a blind eye to this kind of thing.

A notable exception is the Guinea fowl, colorful funny birds that are related to chickens and which I was told are allowed to be raised just like normal yard birds.

Back to the Masai Mara/Serengeti area, I have to say that to have such a huge place protected from human development and hunting is a great achievement! I know that it's probably something that was convenient at the moment and it will survive until some Trump hears it holds valuable resources underground, but as long as it lasts, it's so very nice. I wish we had stuff like that in Europe. Perhaps only in Russia can we get something similar and with the politics of the place, I doubt we'll get there. Also, while the areas you can go on a safari in are huge, they are just a very small portion of the Serengeti ecosystem.

The Masai Mara name comes from the name of the Maasai tribe and from the word for "spotted" in their language. It thus translates to "the spotted land of the Maasai", called so because of the vast flat plains speckled with the occasional tree, termite mound or shrub.

With the careful guidance of our driver, we saw a lot of animals. The plant life is pretty unimpressive, though. There are some cool trees, but few types and far between, while the small plants are mostly grass and shrubs, with just a few flowering plants.

My favorite animal was, of course, the lord of the savanna, the uncontested champion of smarts, beauty and grace: the warthog. Just like me, he avoided people and was constantly searching for Wi-Fi. Even if the Swahili name for it is ngiri, most people there called it pumba, which means silly, foolish or simple. Apparently, they are very forgetful (just like I am) and even if they spot a predator and run, five minutes later they forget and go back to the same place the predator never left and just got better hiding.

The big cats were beautiful: the lion, the leopard, the cheetah. Our guide told us that lions are considered kings not because they are smartest, most beautiful or more powerful, but because of their attitude, fearless and confident, like everything just naturally belongs to them. I felt like they really put the lion in "lying around".

We've also seen another cat that looked like a serval, but it wasn't according to our guide. He told us the name, but I forgot it. Really beautiful fur patterns, but the photo is not that good.

Hyenas are very smart. They hunt in packs, but then they tear their capture apart and eat separately. They are also considered very cruel, since they don't use suffocation to kill their prey, instead eating it alive until it dies of blood loss. I also considered them cute, but then you know I have a weird sense of aesthetics.

The only canine we've had the privilege to spot was the black-backed jackal, a fox sized and looking animal that always kept watch for something bigger trying to eat it.

Then there are the elephants, of course, which I've seen a lot of. They live up to 70 years old and move slowly and carefully, grabbing grass with their trunks and eating it. They have wise yellow eyes and every time we came near them, they were never afraid, but always moved just the right way in order to put themselves between us and their small ones.

We've seen rhinos as well, but only from afar. There are only black rhinos in the reserve. The white/black name stuck, but it's a mistake, since the defining difference between them is the snout and mouth, not the skin. The "black rhino" name comes from "the black-mouthed rhino". Because they are very solitary animals, their numbers are dwindling and you rarely can see one.

Hippos are there as well. They are considered extremely dangerous, since they are very territorial and very violent when attacking. They sit in the water all day long and go out to graze in the night. They are so efficient at eating grass that they leave these meandering narrow paths behind them where there is only dirt and absolutely no plant.

I don't know how dangerous they were, but for sure there were stinky as hell. They sit in the same stagnant water where they defecate continuously. People say that the defecation is to tell other hippos where their territory is and keep them away. I say they keep everything away with that awful stink.

And from far away we've also seen crocodiles. In the water you see maybe a small shadow under the surface, but on the ground they bask in the sun in all of their three meter length glory. I have the photograph of these two chatting very very very slowly with each other.

Then there are the giraffes, three species of them, but only two in the area: the Masai giraffe and the Rothschild's giraffe, and we've seen them both. Really graceful animals, until they get scared and start running, which felt like they were going to fall and break apart at any moment. It never happened, though.

Zebras are everywhere, as are African buffaloes. A lot of types of grazing antelopes/deer species as well. It would take too long to list them all. I liked the Dik-dik, which is really small and cute. You can imagine my confusion when the guide told us the name the first time and I heard it wrong.

We passed through a migrating group of hundred of thousands of wildebeest and zebras going through the Great Migration to the south. It was amazing to see. A lot of flies, though. When the migration is in full swing, there are millions of these animals in the same place. Buffaloes have good smell and zebras have good eyes, so they migrate together to detect predators better. You often see two zebras one next to each other, but oriented in different directions, resting their heads on the ass of the other. This way they rest and watch both directions for danger.

We saw baboons as well, they are somewhat silly and cute at the same time, until they yawn and they show long sharp canines. Apparently they are "cheeky bastards" and if you let them, they will come into your house and cause havoc. I've always seen them in relatively large families. Not aggressive by default, they can become dangerous if they feel threatened.

At one time I was trying to take a photo of some tribe of baboons hanging on an antenna when I noticed one that was sitting right next to me, a big male. I was on foot, since we were in a gas shop in the Serengeti. Didn't have the guts to look him in the eyes and take a photo, so I only got his butt.

Similarly, there were vervet monkeys, nicer fur but smaller in size. Usually in smaller groups or even just couples, they are beautiful, but apprehensive.

And last, but not least, the mongooses and the hyrax. Quite different animals, but we saw them at the same time. Banded mongooses are striped and always in large groups, the dwarf mongoose (or maybe some other) we've only seen when coming out of their burrow in an abandoned termite mound. The hyrax is a rodent-looking creature, but more related to elephants instead.

Also, birds. Since they were usually small and far away, I didn't catalog them, but they were many and beautiful, ranging from half finger length to huge eagles and vultures. We saw flamingoes. Ostriches, too.

More getting there

The safari car - a specially made Toyota Safari Land Cruiser - drove us from airport to Masai Mara, the lodge there, then on safari, then to the Tanzanian border. Another driver got us from there, because different drivers are licensed for different countries. The Masai Mara and Serengeti areas are basically the same thing, only the first is in Kenya while the other is in Tanzania.

At the border the officer there took a glance at our document and threw them back dismissively "no Visa!". We panicked a little, we learned we had to pay 50 USD on a Visa, filled out the form, only to the guy to take a second look and say "Ah, you're from Romania, no Visa needed".

Then we drove to the Serengeti, even faster and more insanely dangerous than before. The Serengeti name means "endless sea" because it's like a sea of grass. It's impressive to stop in places where any direction you look you only see grass (and occasional trees) to the horizon, then a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. It looks just like the Windows default desktop background, only better.

Again we were hosted in a lodge, spent the next days on full day safaris, went to Ngorongoro, which is an old volcanic crater where animals are a lot more calm and the weather more wet. The surface of the crater is 380 squared kilometers.

Finally we got to the Kilimanjaro International Airport in Arusha from where we were supposed to get a one hour flight to Zanzibar with Air Tanzania. Man, what a shit show!

First of all, the plane schedule had been changed just before we left Romania. We knew that and that it means we had to leave five hours later, but we had nowhere to wait except in the airport. When we got there, we had to remove all things from the pockets and our shoes (which were worn non stop through six days of safari) and put them on the scanner belt *before* we entered the airport. We would have to do the same when boarding the plane, too.

But when we got there, we realized we cannot check in. I had previously tried to check-in online, but the portal asked for a code I didn't have and it seemed like it was designed to be used by airport personnel rather than passengers. At the airport, the check-in process only started two hours before the plane was scheduled. Yet, at the same time, the restaurant and any snack or drink dispenser were after the security gate.

The solution? African way, of course, I had to bribe an airport officer to order us the food and bring it through the check in point. There was also a toilet there, but whenever we were getting close a "welcoming attendant" was shouting "Jambo jambo!" at you (which means hello) and inviting you in. It felt more like "welcome to my parlour, said the spider to the fly" than "go on and tip me" which is probably what he meant. Anyway, we chose to hold it in.

Another fun thing, the flight did not appear on the departures list on the airport monitor. After asking around some really uninformed people, I got to learn I could just ask in the Air Tanzania office which was outside the airport. Could I just exit and come back on? The security guard said that it was perfectly OK. So I went there, where three people were lazing around doing absolutely nothing, and asked them. They answered the plane was on time, that their colleagues in the airport missed updating the monitor and that they were going to tell them to do that immediately. Oh, good!

And of course I had to get out of my shoes, belt and empty my pockets when I got back in the airport, 3 minutes later. And of course that until the check-in opened, three hours later, the departures monitor was not updated with our Air Tanzania flight. It was updated with a similar Air Tanzania flight, though, which was leaving another six hours later, which of course, filled us with confidence. But I am not bitter, I take the higher road, hakuna matata and all that. Motherfuckers!

At the Zanzibar airport, at midnight, our transfer car did not arrive. Chat on the website designed to reach the driver did nothing, calls - from some guy outside the airport because I had no roaming in Zanzibar - to the dispatcher of the company went unanswered. In the end we just took a taxi from a helpful guy. The rideshare driver apologized the next day and promised to come and bring us the money we gave the taxi. But then asked for the voucher code, which we refused to give him until we got the money. Never heard from the guy again.

So the whole "getting to Zanzibar" thing was fun. Not bitter, though.

Zanzibar

Our hotel had small funny huts, a pool with a swim to bar, was next to the ocean, relatively good food - the safari lodges were better - so we got a well deserved relaxing rest.

I was there with the wife, so of course I had to drink less and visit stuff more. But I am not bitter. I take the higher road. It was the right thing to do.

We went to the sea immediately. Such fine white sand, almost like clay, and the tides were phenomenal, the way the waves were coming right close to the hotel and a few hours later you could walk were the water was deep before. But we could not enjoy it much because the beach was infested with jambo-jambos trying to make conversation and sell you things.

Then there were two things we wanted to visit: a Zanzibar spice plantation and Stone Town, where there was also the Freddy Mercury house. I am a big fan of Queen, so it had to be done. So we spoke with a tour agent right there in the hotel who offered us a drive to a spice plantation, a guide there, then a ride back for 75 USD. And my wife refused, but we talked to a guy there who recommended us another driver. I told him that we were offered 75 USD and he immediately called a guy and negotiated a driver, a guide, the spice plantation, Stone Town, all in 80 USD. I guess I could have said 50 USD and he would have sold me the same for 55 or something, but I didn't really mind the price.

The plantation was fun, it was more of a small orchard than a sprawling plantation as we imagined. We saw how they grow pepper, cardamom, ginger, turmeric, dragon fruit, jackfruit, durian, bread fruit, lychee, bananas, some stuff African women use as lipstick and Maasai put on their forehead like the Indians, mandarins, vanilla, cloves, cinnamon, aloe vera, chilly peppers, Zanzibar apples - which are not apples, coconuts and so on.

Stone City was a really hot narrow street place like you see in many a tourist place. Took some pictures, including the outside of the Mercury House. Apparently, since he was Indian-Iranian and he only stayed in Zanzibar when he was a child, people there don't feel Freddy was one of theirs and the "house" is just a place with some pictures, so we didn't get in. We went to a market there, which was pretty claustrophobic. A drunken guy came to us and started repeating he is "Aaaffffrican Aaarrtist". So just like home.

But there were a lot of cats! In Romania there are a lot of stray cats and people have a lot of dogs. Outside of Bucharest you see a lot of stray dogs, too. Not in Kenya and Tanzania until we got to Stone Town. They were laying around, sedated by the sun, you could just go to them and pet them and they wouldn't even move.

Also, we went to the *former* slave market, emphasis theirs, as if we wanted to get there to buy a little African child or a slave for home. Not much to see except a dark damp cellar where stone slabs held the role of beds and the space between them as toilet. The small holes in the walls served as "windows" and toilet flushers when the rains came and flooded the room.

There was a sculpture there that moved me. Four black silhouettes, same chain on their necks, and a fifth, also black, but unchained. The supervisor, also a slave, but "middle management".

I was reminded of so many movies decrying slavery that present some angry aggressive rapist as the master, when it would me much more impactful - and probably closer to the truth - to present them as some calm speaking polite gentleman who has only kind words to speak to slaves, except for when they misbehave, so they sorrowfully instruct the supervisor to administer punishment. And if the supervisor misbehaves, just as politely and following "the rules" they demote the supervisor to a mere slave and promote another, perhaps the one that was viciously punished the day before.

Not different from a modern corporation, I guess. But I am not bitter. I take the high road. At least until I find a job... As I was saying to one of the people I talked to there, rich people don't hurt poor people, they hire other poor people to do it.

We also went for snorkeling! I came back to the boat three minutes later. I heard it was a lot of fun for all the other people. Nuff said.

The food

We never went to eat with the locals, as we were always pampered in a lodge or hotel that was made for tourists. The food was also for tourists. I understand that the regional recipe to enjoy is Nyama Choma - basically grilled meat. They eat it from the bone, taken together with ugali - a white corn polenta specific to the region - and with kachumbari - tomato onion chilly salad - or a blanched spinach like plant (sukuma wiki). It was pretty good at the hotel restaurant, but I ate it with a fork, not with the hand as traditional.

Are the fruits amazing and so different from what you get from the supermarket at home? Sometimes. But mostly no. It's not like you can eat papaya daily or find nice pineapples in Romania, so in that sense it's great, but at least from the restaurant food we've had, fruits are fruits. Perhaps if you take them from the local markets, things are different, but how much can they be, really?

Health and hygiene

I purposefully left this at the end, because I know you would want to know, but since it's health advice, I can't really give it.

What I can tell you is that before going to Africa from Europe, you are being told all kinds of horror stories: malaria, diphtheria, typhoid, yellow fever, hepatitis, sleeping sickness, mosquitoes, tsetse flies, etc. And while some of this might be true, it's increasingly rare in Kenya and Tanzania.

It also depends on whether you are hosted in a "hotel" on the road to Nairobi or a safari lodge. Mosquitoes are there, but in order to infect you with something serious, they have to first sting an infected person then sting you. If you are in a luxury hotel made for foreign tourists that is rather unlikely.

However, we did get vaccinated against the yellow fever - it's mandatory in order to get into Tanzania - and sprayed ourselves with Deet whenever we thought it was required. We also bought - from outside the country - Malarone to preventively treat a possible malaria infection, pills that you have to take daily.

To my very pleasant surprize, there were not many insects in the places we've been to, including the safaris. I was expecting the same thing you get in European plains and forests: a lot of flies and mosquitoes. It was mostly free of them, at least in this period, which marks the end of the dry season. Perhaps during the wet times there are more insects.

On the other hand, in the lodge in Ngorongoro the first thing I asked the reception is what the mosquito situation was and they confidently told me the edge of the caldera is too high for mosquitoes. One minute later I was killing two of them in the bathroom. Mosquitoes, not receptionists.

As for the water, we were given bottled water to drink and to wash our teeth with, but I feel it was mostly to alleviate concerns than from a practical perspective. Maybe in the lodges it was warranted, but in the Zanzibar hotel where you had 3 showers a days and spent most of the time in the pool I doubt the water quality was any worse than at home. Of course, again, it depends where you are.

Conclusion

I recommend everyone to go on an African safari at least once. The animals, the wide plains, the experience of just sitting there (in the car) two meters from sleeping lions. Really great!

And take the lodges, not the camps, even if more expensive. It's worth it for your peace of mind at least.

The Zanzibar hotel experience you can safely skip. I would have probably regretted it if I didn't do it, but now, if I were to return, I would only do the safari, maybe just in the Masai Mara or in the Serengeti, not both, and come back.

Also, considering plane tickets are 2000 EUR for two people at least, it's worth spending enough time there to offset that cost with experience and enjoyment.

While I usually advocate going to a place and living with the locals to really understand it, I can't recommend this for Kenya and Tanzania. They have at least a few decades until they reach a reasonable development level that most Westerners or even East Europeans would consider safe, and that considering they don't have yet a stable region, an African Union or anyone to protect them from themselves and from predators while they grow.

In fact, the opposite is true, with instability and dependence actively being promoted by all major powers West or East. Most Africans dream of becoming protected by and integrated more with Europe. That won't shield them from explotation, but it's their best choice in this insane world.

I felt awkward when meeting with the local population, especially with the tribal people. They made me feel like a colonizer: poor, begging for a bottle of water or a piece of chocolate or a tip, some pushed by law from their lands into others. They are not in reservations, like Native Americans, but they are not free to move anywhere either, having no education that would allow them to blend in with what we call "civilization". Even the people that we interacted with: educated in hospitality schools, speaking English, they had no idea what's outside. They never left their country, rarely watched any movie or series or outside news. They speak the words, but don't understand the memes. In a way, this is good, staying away from the corrupting influence of other cultures, but at the same time it's pointless. I reminded a guy from Zanzibar who was saying that their cultural identity is important, that the same identity was created by a guy who was educated in the UK, went to university in Edinburgh. 

Overall a worthwhile experience that I am glad I had.

  I was saying in the review of the first book that the writing was amazing, but completely opaque to me. I didn't understand the purpose of the book and I didn't empathize with any of the characters in it. I was hoping the The Claw of the Conciliator would shed some light on the matter.

  After reading it, I am just as - if not more so - confused as after reading The Shadow of the Torturer. I am calling it quits. I can't continue to read something that brings me no pleasure, learning or understanding. And yet the writing is, without a doubt, brilliant. It leaves me with the feeling that if I only understood the genius of Gene Wolfe's meaning I would be elevated as a reader and as a human being, but as such I remain just an idiot.

  Gene Wolfe is one of those classic writers that you often find mentioned in the same phrase as Asimov, Moorcock, Le Guin and others like that, however much less often do you find a reader and proponent of his books. His writing is definitely brilliant, but after two books of this cycle I still don't know what he wants to say other than describe the weird world in which the action happens.

  The protagonist of The Shadow of the Torturer is Severian, a torturer. It's exactly how it sounds. He is very conscientious, he is part of the Guild of Torturers and he is proud to provide a service to make his guild proud. Happy to serve, not to inflict pain, but having nothing against it either. He makes friends, enemies, loses some, doesn't seem to mind it much, meets them again. There is a pervasive dream-like quality of the entire book, which pisses me off to no end.

  The world this happens in is somewhere in the vast future, where the Sun is slowly dying and the technological past has been forgotten in favor of a Middle Ages kind of organization. Technology still exists, but how it works and who controls it is completely incomprehensible and indistinguishable from magic, although none of the people see it as particularly divine, just something that is.

  Now the guy walks the land to reach another city, thus revealing this world to us. He says that his memory is infallible and that's how he is able to recount the story and all of its details, but he is also an unreliable narrator. This kind of contradiction is common in the story. The book itself is presented as some kind of manuscript from the future that Gene Wolfe merely translated to the best of this 20th century abilities. The writing is rich, dense, filled with archaic and/or imagined words and has a lyrical quality, as if you're supposed to recite it rather than just read it. Nothing is ever explained and there doesn't seem to be any overarching point to the telling of this story. It just meanders from weird situation to another, always feeling as though it's very smart and transmitting a lot through symbolism, but I never figured out what the symbols were and what they were transmitting.

  It's a very strange feeling, in which I kind of appreciate the book, but I don't understand it to a level I could call "reading". Instead I just go through the motions with Severian and hope to make sense of things, as apparently he does.

  There is a character called Dr. Talos, a travelling play writer and performer who, after a weird and opaque play that even the actors (including Severian) did not understand, split the money between the people involved, all but himself, apparently happy to just write his scripts and have them enacted on stage, regardless if anyone likes or even understands them. I feel that he is a stand in for Wolfe. The book itself feels like a play most of the time, as well.

  Bottom line: amazing writing, have no idea what it means, even if I have a pretty good grasp of the English language. I feel like this is what it would feel to read Joyce's Ulysses. They all say you have to imerse yourself into the reading and the language and multiple rereads enhance the experience. I have no intention of reading it any time soon, so that says something about how I feel about this book.

  Starfish is Peter Watts' first novel and it shows. It starts as something and transforms into something else, to then turn into a series, possibly because of publisher pressure. That doesn't make it less captivating, bleak and capable of getting under your skin and stick there; a fantastic debut.

  The story seems to be about societal rejects being more or less forced to choose to life on the bottom of the ocean, handling gigantic geothermal power stations which feed the never ending hunger for energy on the surface. These people are weird, yucky and very damaged.

  The main character is a victim of abuse that gets off on getting abused, surrounded by people like pedophiles, bullies, murderers, violent criminals and so on that have to somehow work together. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work. However, slowly, being alone on the bottom of the ocean, surrounded by gigantic yet fragile monsters, she realizes she likes it, as do the others. Freed from the artificial pressures of society and surface environment, they almost turn into a different species.

  Then the story changes subject with the interference of the surface people who just naturally assume they know better and driven by a terrible secret. That secret leads to some extreme events which... end the book and prepare sequels. Starfish does psychopathology, brain organelles, deep marine biology, claustrophobic tension, weird romance, social commentary, deep state politics and the banality of human evil.

  Now, I don't think I want to read the rest of the series. By own admission from the author, this was a short story turned novel. I would rather reread the amazing Blindsight and maybe get to that book's sequel instead. However it was a fascinating story, being mostly uneventful, yet also never boring. How does Watts make that happen?

  I will end with the most hilarious review, from Analog magazine:

Watts’s true enemy is human stupidity, the sort of thing that turns children into walking disaster zones, treats adults as interchangeable things, insists that unchecked fertility is a good thing, and blindly trusts that our artificially intelligent creations must share our priorities. As Watts develops that point, he tells an absorbing tale set in a bizarre world and hinging upon intriguing technology. He’s done his homework well, and it shows.

  

  I said earlier that Circle of Inevitability was half the size of Lord of Mysteries. That was a lie. I only had half of the book. Probably the entire thing is going to be as big if not larger.

  It doesn't matter, though. I reached almost the end of Volume 4, where Lumian becomes Fate Appropriator and decided to finally stop. It was a good run, but whatever comes next is unlikely to bring anything new to the table. Let me explain why.

  In my previous hopeful reviews I said that "Cuttlefish" was improving his writing style, by making the stakes higher and the emotional impact more meaningful. After all, Lumian is a young man driven by both revenge and hope, marred by his sister's death, marked by two gods amongst which one is evil, having a corrupting influence sealed within him. I was envisioning a very different story arc, complete with half villainous failings, followed by righteous redemptions. Or, why not, going full villain. But that didn't happen.

  You see, I already mentioned that these novels feel like someone is telling the story of a manga or anime they have in their head. This series made me remember vividly the Jojo's Adventures series and once it was in my head, I couldn't help see the similarities. They both start with complicated worldbuilding, compelling characters and strict rules, only to devolve into a monster of the episode kind of thing, with consistency being thrown out of the window and the "smart" method for victory becoming more ludicrous as we go alone.

  I do appreciate the opportunity to delve into the Asian way of considering life and conflict, though. A stark contrast with American storytelling, the main character doesn't succeed based on luck and the strength of his emotions, but on careful consideration of the situation and preparation in advance. Even the emotional outbursts or violent episodes are actually a facade for the cold calculation beneath. Also the way in which women just can't seem to help being deferential and submissive to their male counterparts, accepting with just a little bit of dismay that they are smarter, more decisive and grow faster than they are.

  Lumian becomes a carbon copy of the character of Klein Moretti, only he "smiles warmly" instead of "smirking". There is another lesbian duo of relatively weak helpers who the story occasionally focuses a lot on for no good reason. The rules established in the first series are completely broken by a new system of "boons" from external gods, making anything and everything possible, except catching Lumian off guard or actually causing defeat. Even the connection between eras and the link between the current one and the one people have transmigrated from is different. And being a transmigrator is just a regular thing now, anyone and everyone seems to be one.

  But what's worse is that the same psychopathic behavior from the first book, where the end goal is paramount and emotion, physical pain or behavior are secondary, comes back in full force and makes the whole experience feel empty, like you are watching some random guy playing a computer game on low difficulty, always smirking about how smart he is, when the story outcome was already ... inevitable.

  Bottom line, I will rate this series 2.5 stars. It's not bad, but it's not good either once the novelty of the point of view wanes. The first one was better and this one feels like a bad carbon copy. Perhaps now I can finally focus on a real book.

  OK, so I started reading the second book of the Lord of Mysteries series. It feels more... experimental. In terms of plot, it's kind of the same, though. Same fish out of water (pardon the pun) starting from Sequence 9 and raising in level, same idea of trying to figure things out, same unexplained quirk that no one else has, even a Tarot Club further on. So, if you expected a continuation of book 1, maybe later?

  Circle of Inevitability starts really slow. Something remotely interesting only happens 15% of this first volume in. But then a lot of mind twisting events go on, ending with an epic twist that I don't want to spoil.

  For me, this is already a sort of challenge, so I will probably finish this book as I did the first, but to be honest I am a bit disappointed. I wanted to know what happened with the characters I knew, not start "a new game" with a different character hoping that maybe I will understand in a few thousand pages how the events in the first book reached any conclusion. Also, the main character doesn't work for me. An orphan saved by a "big sister", a self proclaimed prank master. And if I may pile on that, the story is ridiculous, as it happens in a small village, but with so many high level actors.

  The writing ifeels more experimental: more stakes, more negative outcomes, more emotional evolution, but not that much. The main character doesn't come off as a psychopath as in the first book, but he still veers in that direction when it comes to unbearable pain or personal loss. I personally like the grand god level magic parts, things that would turn a normal person into a quivering mess without any spiritual or mystical influence, but to have characters that just shrug things off and get on with their quest feels like watching someone else playing a video game.

  Bottom line: some improvements, some disappointments. I will continue to read the rest, see how it goes.

  There is no reason to write a post for each "volume" as I have read the whole thing as one book anyway and even the chapter separation is kind of weird, probably because of the serialized nature of the release. Well, I have good news and bad news. Good news is that I've finished this humongous novel. Bad news is that there is a sequel!! :D

  The increase in level of the main protagonist goes on. Not only does he do it faster and easier - in terms of pages dedicated to the difficulty - but so do all of his friends. But there is a catch, of course. First of all the most scary antagonist by far: God of Deceit Amon. Second of all, of course there are levels above sequence 0. And I apologize if me telling you that made you instantly go insane, it's your own fault for not raising to a sufficiently high Beyonder level.

  You see, not only are there gods in the world, but also gods from outside the world, encroaching in. There are some really complicated rules being applied and the final epic battle is truly epic, so I will leave it at that: I finished Lord of Mysteries and I liked it.

  The second book, Circle of Inevitability, closes the story completely and also is half of the first book in terms of size. I wonder if I should be masochistic enough to start reading it as well...

  In Volume 3, the story continues with our protagonist shedding yet another identity and going to Pirate Land. Well, it's called differently, but basically it's a sea full of bad and good pirates, so we're getting a bit of a One Piece vibe. The hero continues to level up with impunity, which kind of makes the story stale, but the new lands and characters are fun enough. Next time, volume 4: Back in Backlund... yeah, it's not called that, but it should have been.

  In Volume 2 the story continues, with the action moving away from the small town of Tingen to the capital of Loen, Backlund. With greater powers come greater enemies and lots of adventure. Cutlefish's style is almost the same as for Volume 1, which means that I can see the manga images in my head while I am reading the text.

  While the fun is still there, it's getting a little old. Our protagonist behaves even more like a gamer advancing in levels in a game playthrough - edited so that we don't see the fails and reloads - and other than the world building which continues to be top notch, it all starts to feel a little repetitive. Yes, the author is moving the action to another city with another culture, with different characters, and in Volume 3 he continues to do so, by moving the action in the pirate infested seas. But even that makes it feel like each volume is another level in a game, compounded by the increase in "sequence" by the lead character. It's starting to get less and less believable that a noob that started "playing the game" a few months before can easily outmaneuver and overpower mature Beyonders, powerful evil spirits, demigods and even gods.

   Yet, you know the feeling. You've read the first 10000 pages, what's 17000 more, right? But I can't stop thinking what this world would have become if the author would have collaborated with a master writer who could have given the plot the emotional depth often found in much less creative works, but necessary for fully involving a reader in the fantastical world. This could have been the Chinese Harry Potter, I kid you not.

   Anyway, going back to reading the series...

  It all started with a Chinese animation, quite nice and flashy, but also very confusing. Also called Lord of Mysteries, I soon found out that it was based on a series of books by an author with the funny name Ai Qianshui de Wuzei (translated to Cuttlefish That Loves Diving) who published all of them as web novels. So I looked for it online and I found it - on the Internet Archive no less, so I guess legally free? - in EPUB format. I had no idea how many books there are and I just thought this was the first. I was a bit surprised that it took a longer time to load than other books, but I assumed it's some weird Chinese format or something. But no. What happened is that the epub contains ALL of the books: 1400 chapters, 27000 e-book pages!

  The writing style is very direct, it's not bad at all, but it feels different from the usual Western books I have been reading, even if it is an English translation. The world building is amazing, a combination of steampunk and interesting magic, with elements from all kinds of myths - ancient and modern. The story is a bit too linear, with the main character being good at everything and being rational and good and strong and ingenious. A bit of a Martin Sue. But I've only read the first volume, so this might change. Overall, I quite like this series!

  The first volume has about 130 chapters and tells the story of a "keyboard warrior" (an Internet troll, basically) who gets sucked in a fantasy world where magic is real. And before you groan and stop reading, even if it does feel a bit like the setup of a video game, it's quite a complex world with many cultures, interesting characters and complicated magic systems. I was saying above that the animation is confusing, that's because the first five one hour episodes cover the entire first volume. It cuts a lot of things off, reorders or combines characters and storylines, so that it kind of makes sense, but without having read the book I couldn't enjoy it. Also, the animation has more of an anime/manga feel with everybody beautiful and flashy and amazing visuals during battle. The book is less so, more grounded and makes a lot more sense.

  I have to say that writing a book like this is not easy at all. The author planned a lot of it before starting writing and it shows. A lot of effort has been poured into this series and it elevates it to levels above most books in the genre I've read recently. If I have one complaint is that the character gets everything right, even if he's just a kid who spent to much time on the Internet and should have very little life experience. He adapts to the new world like he's playing an RPG game and doesn't seem to feel anything amiss. He comes off as a bit of a psychopath that way, or at least high on some sort of autism spectrum.

  I've already promised myself that if the quality of the book doesn't drop significantly, I will read all of the volumes. In fact, there is no real separation of the volumes. It is indeed a book that has 1400 chapters. So if I stop it will be because I got tired or the writer really dropped the ball. I hope that doesn't happen.

  How do books like this get this high a rating? The Wolfman is a pretentious first person narrative from the viewpoint of the werewolf, adding nothing to the genre, telegraphing all of the moves chapters ahead and ultimately being boring and uninteresting. It's basically Dexter (the books, not the excellent TV series first seasons) if he were a werewolf. Also kind of a punk retard.

  I don't want to spit all over Nicholas Pekearo here, he did write a book and it wasn't all bad, but it also was all not good. The main character comes off as an entitled prick, a coward who can't stand up to his principles, a boring werewolf, too. The story is simplistic and tedious. The world building is non existing. All of the characters, not only the main one, are weird annoying people who act like robots.

  No, this is something that, would it be the debut novel of an author, should get some "you can do better" encouragement and be done with it. I don't recommend it.

  P.S. I know that the guy was a cop and he was killed in the line of duty. R.I.P. But the book is still bad.

  Norstrilia, a contraction of North Australia, is a planet of immortal Australian farmers who export a drug that extends life and expands consciousness. They live simple lives - on purpose - as to not be corrupted by the decadent ways of the large universe around. This drug has made them insanely rich and powerful, but they refuse to leave a life of luxury, while the human world is split into those who would want their wealth for themselves and the Instrumentality, a sort of aall powerful human organization whose only purpose is to preserve the essence of humanity through any means, like for example by introducing diseases or threats or risks so people don't devolve into passive comfortable idiots.

  Cordwainer Smith has multiple strange but brilliant ideas in the book. The Instrumentality itself is something that clearly needs exploring, even if this book does not do that. There are the underhumans, animals surgically uplifted to consciousness in order to serve man and who have almost no rights. A society living in a logical extension of the American 1950 capitalism, where anyone seems to be free to do anything, but in fact they are caught in a power game with dangerous rules.

  In all of that comes a Norstrilian boy who, with the help of an ancient AI, manipulates the market and becomes the richest man in the universe, buying Old Earth in the process. This reveals the web of power in the human world and takes us on a wild journey to Earth and back.

  Typical of the era, becoming the richest person ever removes any agency from the boy. From the beginning to the end of the book, he is passively "helped" along a path not of his choosing. The fact that he might have chosen said path if he knew anything about the world is irrelevant. The fact that he feels it's a good path more akin to Stockholm syndrome. The world is huge, amorphous, predatory. Without that "help" he wouldn't have survived anyway. His body is changed to an underperson's, his mind is changed by forced therapy - for his own good, his thoughts are read and analysed, his decisions are made for him. If it weren't also for the drug addled naivete of the 1950s sci-fi, this would and should have been a horror story.

  All in all a very intriguing book that seems to combine interesting ideas, but ultimately not doing much with them. A combination of Dune, if the Fremen were Aussies, and Stranger in a Strange Land, which was also a hard to enjoy book with great drug addled ideas in it.

  Eden is a stupid book. I won't discuss the writing acumen of Tim Lebbon, because it is irrelevant to this. The story is dumb, the characters are stupid, the pretext of an eco thriller is weak as water. There is almost nothing redeemable about this.

  Let me summarize this for you: dumb liberal hippies go into an area they shouldn't have gone, completely unequipped for what they planned to do, illegally, but completely convinced they had all the right to do it, and die. Or at least I think they do, because there is no way they survive after what happens 50% of the book, unless a Deus ex Machina is employed. Wait, what? They employed one? Ugh!

  None of the characters is more than cardboard, but even so it's annoying cardboard! Entitled, emo, incompetent cardboard. There is even a former Israeli soldier who left because he saw a Palestinian parent and his children being gunned down by snipers in his army. And it makes sense, it's horrible, but even so I couldn't empathize and saw him as ridiculous because of all the people he was in the group with.

  Now, there are supernatural or body horror elements in the book, but they are like someone took them from somewhere else and slapped them over this ridiculous story of bleeding heart idiots going into a forbidden zone for no conceivably good reason. The world is a mess, people have polluted it and fouled it close to extinction, but do you know where I know this from? Exposition at the start of the book. There are "evil" guardians of the zones created to preserve biological diversity who kill randomly people who go there. Even without the supernatural element, that would still be quite OK, think of African reservations and poachers. But no, our American friends believe that anyone doing harm to nature is bad, except them. And do you know where I know this? From fictional excerpts of random sources from the beginning of each chapter.

  I could go on and on. As a basis for a number of scathing reviews, this book is perfect. Right now I am making efforts to limit the scope of mine. What would be the point of writing pages and pages of vitriolic hate about something that is the exact opposite of literature? So I stop here. This is a book written by a person inside a bubble which itself is in a bubble, hidden in an enigma of how someone could write then publish this and not realize how bad it is.

  Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions is a short book covering several main ideas, each in their own chapter. You could easily just read the conclusion at the end of each, if you don't care for the details. While the book is nice and easy to read, I've watched most of Sabine Hossenfelder's YouTube videos and the book doesn't bring much more to the table.

  I've read it really fast and I agree with most of its points. Yet I kind of decry Sabine's falling into criticizing bad science most of the time, instead of focusing on the really good one. Yes, people are monkeys and scientists are people. Yes, science is about the search of better questions and funding is for the answers themselves. Yes, personal beliefs will influence and corrupt even the most brilliant scientists. But I don't want to read about this once I am already aware of it!

  Call me escapist, but I would have liked the book more if it has more positive focus than the negative.

  A pretty interesting idea, playing quantum mechanics and the idea of superposition collapse applied to the whole human race. Quarantine is short, but dense, it requires attention to understand the characters and the heavy scientific ideas. I wish it wasn't yet another private eye kind of setup, but it's a good book.

  I have been planning to read some more Egan for decades, so I am glad I did. I do feel that I may have read this book in the past, but it was before I started recording what I read and I didn't remember anything specific anyway. It's a very idea heavy book, though, like most Greg Egan stuff. I liked the book, but I didn't read it as carefully as I should have in order to really enjoy it.

  If you like your hard science cyberpunky sci-fi, this is for you.