book reviews and current queues

[anotheranon]

Finally whittled away most of my last stack from the library. Results:

Didn't care much for Queen Christina. Nothing wrong with the book - it was well written and I did finish it, but the historical character was disappointing, IMHO. I had in my mind a powerful personality who did what she wanted, everyone else be damned. Instead, she was an insecure, arrogant woman who intrigued ceaselessly and ineptly, wasted her money on grandiose schemes, etc. I suppose I should be glad that the author wasn't afraid to show Christina's warts, but it just wasn't the story of a strong, independent woman that I wanted it to be.

Vaccine A - regrettably I used up all my renewals and had to turn it back in just as it was getting interesting. Turns out that even though squalene is a simple oil, it has profound effects on the immune system when injected. It seems that vaccine designers tried to make an anthrax vaccine with squalene to get an immune response without having to use actual killed/attenuated anthrax baccili, winding up with a vaccine that did little to prevent anthrax but a lot to screw up the immune system. U.S. soldiers were involuntary guinea pigs for this vaccine during Gulf War I, and the author's argument is that this vaccine is what caused much of "Gulf War syndrome". I will most likely check this one back out to finish it!

Currently on deck:

Sarah Waters' Affinity, a gift from shemhazai which I just started last night. Not very far in but the writing is excellent; already I'm "seeing" in my mind's eye the forbidding prison in which the story is based :)

Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues (audio version), another from Shem that I (as well as just about everyone else) has heard about but I'd never actually heard. Been listening to it on the way to work and it is....disturbingly intimate, tales from many women about their experiences and attitudes towards sex, their sexual organs, and more than I can say - both happy and sad. I've finished the first disc but the 2nd starts with a harrowing story from a Kosovo rape survivor that I just can't make myself listen to.. yet. Necessary because it is so revealing.

Laura Antoniou's The Catalyst and Other Stories. I saw the author speak back in December and chose this as an introduction to her work. Fiction and non, highly revealing, snarky, funny and hot. Go get!

David A. Vise's The Bureau and the Mole, about the career of Robert Hanssen, a CIA employee arrested in 2001 for selling secrets to the former Soviet Union. A local story, I couldn't resist - so far, quite well written, with interviews with family members and colleagues that will hopefully give some idea of why someone would betray their country so horribly.

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

I finished my Xmas gift copy of "Affinity" about a month ago ... LOVED it!!!!! That woman has GOT to write more novels. :-)))) Just picked up the second of the Kage Baker "Company" books at my local library a couple of days ago ... looking forward to it. :-)

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm definitely savoring Affinty thus far - the descriptions are just so rich, it's that "you are there" feeling that makes for such involving reading of Waters' books!

Do let me know what you think of the latest Company. If I remember rightly, the 2nd is less about Mendoza and more about Joseph, her Facilitator. I enjoyed it, especially the section of history she chose to build her story around, because it was something I knew NOTHING about!

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

> It seems that vaccine designers tried to make an anthrax vaccine with
> squalene to get an immune response without having to use actual
> killed/attenuated anthrax baccili

Freaky! So the vaccine didn't use any part of anthrax, at all?

> and the author's argument is that this vaccine is what caused much
> of "Gulf War syndrome".

Definitely let me know what you find out when you finish it. A lot of the alt.medical types think that GWS is related to accidental chemical weapons exposure, but I don't know if anybody's ever really proven anything.

Supposedly Saddam intentionally repainted a lot of his chemical stocks to look like conventional shells, and mixed them in with normal stuff, in outlying ammo dumps he knew we'd capture. Further supposedly, US Military SOP at the time was to detonate such places, thus exposing soldiers to low levels of the chemicals. On the one hand, it is pretty well known that the US warned Saddam, before Gulf I, "If you go chemical, we go nuclear", and many claim that's why he didn't use chemicals in Gulf I. Supposedly the "hide it in the ammo dumps" plan was Saddam's way of getting us to gas ourselves for him.

I really don't know how true this all is, it's just something that I have read from seemingly non-looney sources. One of my big questions is, what are the long term effects from sublethal CW exposure? Conventional wisdom says if you don't die or get seriously sick early on, you'll recover 100%. This seems to be true with natural neurotoxins, e.g. potato and tomato. On the other hand I don't know if this has been studied well, with the actual stuff used in warfare. So this sort of argues against GWS being related to CW exposure, and leaves more room for squalene to be a culprit.

I suppose now I will have to see what I can find about the toxicity of injected squalene.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Freaky! So the vaccine didn't use any part of anthrax, at all?

I think they used one of the ~3 or so toxins that the anthrax virus exudes, but no actual virus, living or dead. You may want to look up the book for yourself, and see what you think.

I actually don't know about the entire range of theories surrounding GWS and what caused it; I figure the theory of a bad vaccine gone awry is as good as any.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rabidwombat_/]

great icon with this post, btw. LOVE it! :)