I Am Completely Serious

SHE DID

IT'S CALLED "CATALYST"

OH NO WAIT IT'S A SERIES oh god

Barque cats - for those who didn't spend middle-school reading horrible science fiction novels about the love lives of space psychics - are large, intelligent telepathic cats who enjoy being in zero gravity and can warn you when there's a problem with your spaceship. I totally wanted one when I was twelve, though I unfortunately didn't have any zero gravity to keep it in.

This sentence is in the synopsis:

When corrupt government officials declare a plague and plan to destroy animals across the galaxy, including the Barque Cats, two young people (a veterinarian and a cat person), a clever Barque kitten and the boy who is its special person, an ancient Egyptian cat with mysterious powers and a hidden agenda, and a con man join forces to try to prevent the tragedy.

You know, I don't think that's a sufficiently rag-tag band of rebels. We still need, like, a disillusioned ex-cop with a drinking problem, a quick-witted halfling thief, a robot who wants to learn to love, and the Doctor. Get with the program, McCaffrey.

Actually, sorry - Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's name's on there as co-writer. Given McCaffrey's recent health problems, Scarborough may be the actual author of this excellent work. Especially considering the whole "an ancient Egyptian cat with mysterious powers and a hidden agenda" business. That is a very Scarborough kind of idea. Also, this is the sequel (which is called Catacombs):

The barque cats, mistaken for a public health hazard, flee Earth for the feline-dominated planet, Mau, with the help of Pshaw-Ra, a mysterious cat with his own spaceship. Oddly, no one--including the humans--is bothered that he plans to take over the universe on behalf of felinekind.

Yeah, I see the invisible hand of the Scarborough in that storyline. It sounds like it might actually attempt humor, a property which McCaffrey has always scorned.

...I admit at this point that I'm kind of thinking about reading these.

This is not an original observation, but: In terms of worldview, at least, Rex Stout was a way nicer person than Agatha Christie. Archie and Wolfe were both kind of jerks sometimes, and Archie racist, but the sorts of stories he told make it clear that Stout himself was aware that women and black people were, you know, people. (I don't know about other ethnicities; I think there was a Hispanic guy who was skeevy once? Otherwise, non-existent.)

Christie, I don't know! She was pretty okay with women who were, like, virgins. Or old and meddling. The others seem to have presented some kind of problem. I think she thought people who weren't white and English were probably off eating babies and carrying on about something, and should be left to that, elsewhere.

If mysteries are fantasies of justice - I think that that is generally a fair statement - then there's still a lot of room for variation when you get down to the author's idea of what justice is. The Wolfe books are rarely particularly interested in punishment for their villains; that stuff gets, like, one paragraph at the end, if that much. (The major exception I've run into so far being the Arnold Zeck arc, which is about revenge, and feels extremely unlike the rest of the series.) There's the scene where everyone lines up in Wolfe's office and Wolfe verbally takes the villain apart, and then it's on to presents. Because what the books are really interested in is comfort for the victims. Large piles of money, the removal of romantic barriers, the awarding of desired careers and living situations, and emotional validation from authority figures - mainly Wolfe himself, Cramer, and various rich old white businessmen.

(Not really any politicians or lawyers getting to act as the authority figure, I think? Stout kinda treated successful entrepreneur guys with ethics the way some fantasy writers treat Good Kings/Queens - as possessing great moral authority and great potential for being betrayed. - I unfortunately think the female equivalent here is generally the entrepreneur's wife, and I can only think of one instance of that one off-hand. There was a brilliant Machiavellian executive assistant once, who basically pushed every single one of my narrative buttons; but she ended up getting murdered and having to metaphorically come back and haunt everyone to achieve her goals.)

Anyway, I find these books pleasant to read because this aligns closely with my own personal sense of justice. Maybe I would feel differently if anyone had ever messed with me in a really serious way, but while I see the appeal of punishment, I don't see that I have the right to insist upon it. Honestly, I hope someone would stop me from doing so if I were far enough gone to change my mind about that; I don't want to wake up some day with the knowledge that someone's dead because I pushed for the death penalty for them.

Remedy for past harm and prevention of future harm are the goals; if the remedy (say, money) and the prevention (say, jail time, or a large enough sum of money to make anyone else think twice about whatever it was) cause pain to the person who caused the harm in the first case, then as long as that pain is not disproportionate to the harm, then that's fine. But pain for its own sake is revenge rather than justice. It doesn't strike me as a good goal.

(This from someone who's read nearly everything that Anne McCaffrey, master of Inhumane Wish Fulfillment, wrote before 2000. I'm confused myself. Maybe I just overdosed?)

Unrelatedly, I've been back at work two days and am already exhausted. Two days because I had to skip yesterday due to an extremely stupid decision to try to climb a set of stairs up the hill at the park in one go. As of today, upon application of muscle relaxants and heating pads, I can again stand up and sit down without undue difficulty. I even climbed a small set of four stairs today, though I did it sideways and leaning on the banister after the first time. There was a period last fall when I was climbing that hill almost every day. Apparently sitting around doing nothing for three weeks has consequences on your muscles!

You know the XKCD guy and his issues with velociraptors? I still automatically vet every structure I come across for its ability to protect me from Threadfall. When I'm stressed out I frequently move to the optimal Thread-safety point.

I’m rereading the Dragonriders books. Yes, I am perfectly aware of the foolishness of this course of action.

They’ve actually aged worse than Mercedes Lackey. I don’t know if it’s that Lackey’s big fetishes (the H/C and the angsty slash and the didactic liberalism) have actually retained their cultural relevance more than McCaffrey’s (the bodice-ripper alpha-male rape-romances and benevolent fascism); or if they’ve just retained their me-relevance better; or if it’s just a matter of the politics.

Because you know something about Lackey? She really does try.

(Assume spoilers for pretty much every single Mercedes Lackey book under here, if that bothers you.)

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