This week: 5. for the symbols at your door 4. for the Gospel makers 3. three, the rivals 2. two, the lily-white boys, Clothed all in green, O

  1. is one and all alone And evermore shall be so

The Lost World of the Dinosaurs by Armin Schmidt 📚

Who doesn’t like to read about dinosaurs? This contemporary book might not have the impact of classics like The Dinosaur Heresies by Robert Bakker — published almost forty years ago now — but it gives a fairly short and mostly entertaining overview of more recent discoveries and controversies, along with numerous biographical anecdotes of the author’s experiences as a paleontologist. It is remarkable how much we now know about the dinosaurs, from their social behaviors to the color of their eggs and feathers, while at the same time having so many basic questions unanswered, such as exactly how many distinct species are represented by any given set of fossils, or when, where, and how modern birds diverged from the doomed main branch of the clade.

The writing intended for general readers but can be a bit dense at times, with Latin names flying fast and furious and the introduction of numerous technical terms, but there were enough interesting facts embedded in the narrative to keep me reading to the end of the Cretaceous. There are a couple of handy timeline diagrams at the back of the book which are a help to the non-expert in keeping track of which geographic age is which. The author has some opinions about several undecided questions, but does a good job of making clear the distinction between established facts and the various theories which attempt to explain them.

Recommended for all dinosaur fans.

Book cover for The Lost World of the Dinosaurs by Armin Schmidt, a picture of a large toothed orange and black carnosaur against a distant forest background, a pink cloudy sky above.

The new iPhone 16e uses a lower case e in the name, not the upper case E that all the news sites are using.

Trying out the Orion browser on macOS after listening to the discussion on The Talk Show 416. It looks good but I don’t think I can set command-click to open a new window as I can in Safari.

Time to clean the house, which I seem to be doing by figuring out NSImage scaling factors. The trick is to inspect the underlying bitmap representation when present.

Lent by Jo Walton 📚

Jo Walton is a wonderful writer, in all senses of “wonder,” and this story exhibits many of her skills. It shares a deep connection to the city of Florence with Or What You Will, and also references the Platonic philosophy embodied in The Just City and its sequels, including the early humanist Pico della Mirandola as a character. But it is mainly a reflection on the confluence of faith and philosophy in the Italian Renaissance, and the protagonist is another historical figure, the monk Girolamo Savonarola, who tries to guide the city away from the corruption of the Church and towards a more equitable and faith-based society.

But this is not just an historical novel, it is set in a fantasy universe where demons are real and Hell is an actual place, and Girolamo has to deal with matters of faith, opposing the Pope, but also matters of politics and kings to keep Florence self-governing, and matters of deep metaphysics, including the important question: can a demon ever be forgiven after the Fall, and return through good works and faith to the love of God? The mechanism for this reflection is metempsychosis, where the story doubles back on itself to repeat Girolamo’s life, not always in the same way; and as the book goes on the variant lives telescope together, each new narrative building on the last.

Girolamo himself is an interesting person, at times kind and considerate of others, sometimes prideful and overly devoted to the trappings of faith, a sin he frequently acknowledges to himself and others. I found it somewhat challenging to accept a world in which God works in such mysterious ways, and puts so many people through so much suffering; but there are also moments of peace and serenity amidst the pain. And although the stories are not directly linked I suggest reading this one before Or What You Will.

Recommended.

Book cover for Lent by Jo Walton, a seated figure of a monk holding an open book on the right, being threatened by a large hairy demonic figure on the left with glowing eyes and batlike wings, framed by white marble pillars in the foreground.