State Tectonics

State Tectonics, Malka Older, conclusion of the Centenal trilogy (I talked about Infomocracy here and Null States here). This was very good although I think I still liked the first one best. These books are "small" in a way - people's personal life choices, office politics - but also "big", about the political system and the media, and part of the interesting work Older is doing here is looking at that interplay, how those things affect each other. And thinking about how the natural cycles of generations and aging interact with the rise and fall of institutions, and a bunch of other stuff - Older is one of those authors who I think is just very smart and thoughtful (and actually knowledgeable), such that even when she doesn't deliver exactly what I might have wanted (more swashbuckle in the climax, perhaps) I think there were actually solid character and thematic reasons for exactly what she did. It's a little weird to read something *so* comparatively utopian in 2018 - the political upheaval in Older's future never seems to be a matter of life or death for most people (with the exception of a few assassination or attempted-assassination victims), just preference and optimization, while meanwhile here in the real world today we're teargassing toddlers, denying aid to wildfire survivors, starving Yemen, I think Russia is invading the Ukraine or something, etc etc. But I definitely recommend the trilogy to people interested in smart near-future science fiction.