Another bad back pain episode

Making a note here, huge success minor failure: I've been dealing with another episode of worse than usual back pain; my first recorded note of it is two weeks ago, so I imagine I'm actually at the three week point now. I'm not sure if it's an independent episode or another "this condition keeps getting worse" escalation (see: old entry describing the escalation-plateau cycle). I do know it's resistant to naproxen sodium, and I don't have access to the big gun painkillers for another week. I do know it's at least as bad as the episode I had in 2012 (the one where my hotpad broke from overuse). I do know it's interfering with sleep, because everything (sitting standing lying down sleeping) hurts. And I know that with my period starting, I have ~36 hours of cramps to look forward to on top of/aggravating the preexisting pain.

That's it, no deep thoughts about how my back makes me feel, because I'm exhausted; but I know I want to have these episodes recorded and tagged for future access.

Book Review: The Companions by Sheri S. Tepper

Title: The Companions
Author: Sheri S. Tepper
Published: New York: HarperCollins, 2009 (2003)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 464
Total Page Count: 160,358
Text Number: 468
Read Because: mentioned in this discussion of the companion animal trope, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Bioengineered dogs are brought to the newly-discovered planet Moss, whose inhabited status is still under debate. Tepper is a conservationist author, but in an embarrassing way: lofty, extremist, frankly unresearched; reaching for an untenable and romanticized ideal while painting the opposition in such exaggerated and villainous strokes as to obscure the real problem. The tone here is satirical but flat, like humor that's missed the mark. And to call the ending a deus ex machina would be a vast understatement—it's a miracle fix for humanity's problems as diagnosed in a grandiose climax, heavy-handed and without real-world analog. There are some human/dog interactions which—despite the comical dog-speech—work; the rest of the book is a disappointment, crowded with ideas but largely deprived of depth.

This isn't the first time I've had this reaction to Tepper. I love Grass (largely for its concept), but Beauty, The Family Tree, and now The Companions all feel overlarge and unrefined. I sympathize with much of the underlying intent, but in both concept and tone Tepper has lost me, and it's time that I put down her work.

Book Review: Adulthood Rites by Octavia E. Butler

Title: Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis/Lilith's Brood Book 2)
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Published: New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2012 (1988)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 277
Total Page Count: 160,635
Text Number: 469
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: With Human/Oankali settlements established on Earth, one construct child—born of a mix of both species—obtains a clear view of the resisters, humans who refuse to be a part of the cross-species assimilation. Adulthood Rites feels like the least successful of the Xenogenesis series, which hardly means it's bad. Much is an issue of pacing: the first half is slow and meandering, the second half crowded with action. But it's also that the initial novelty of the premise has passed, and I've grown critical of the book's rules. Humans are defined by their hierarchical tendencies and their ability to develop cancer, and they're all heteronormative and gender essentialist, and the sum effect feels both simplistic and insufficient—if for no other reason than the fact that this could as easily and more accurately describe non-human animals: it fails to capture what makes humans unique, or explain the Oankali obsession with them.

Yet Adulthood Rites serves a valuable function. Lilith's story was about a human taking the alien's side, with caveats; Akin's story is about an alien taking the human's side, with caveats. It's an extended devil's advocate, yet capable of surprising sympathy. Butler excels at this—at interactions which are as rational and justified as they are insidious and harmful, which are all the more unsettling because they wield such conviction. This series is impressive—so even if Adulthood Rites is the weakest installment, it's still worth reading.