OOF

This afternoon, I bought a used book.

The path to doing so was a little out of the ordinary. We were on our way back from a parent-teacher conference, at which, once again, the school had a book fair, and at which, again, we ended up funding some purchases for our daughter. Its a weak spot; neither of us can easily resist a request to buy just one book -- the best we can do is negotiate (Okay, but its expensive, you have to pay half) and I'm sure that people who teach negotiation tell you that if your opponent is starting with the assumption that he's going to have to give something up, then you're ahead of the game. I don't say that our daughter does this consciously, but does it she definitely does. We expect that we'll come away with two or three more books than we expected.

The PTC was as usual. Her grades were pretty consistent -- As and Bs. One had gone from A to B, and one had gone from B to A. She freely admitted getting distracted easily in class, and promised solemnly to pay strict attention to the teacher's every word. I think she meant it, just like the last time, and I doubt it will happen, just like the last time. I did find myself wondering if her difficulty in paying attention came from a lack of fiber in her constitution -- what my mother would have called an inability to Sit Up Straight and Pay Attention -- or whether it might come from being smart enough to grab the concepts and then become bored as they were repeated for the Other Kids. No points for guessing which I thought more likely.

On the way home, I thought of the local college that had had a used book sale over the weekend. Today was the final day, and it was their Two Bucks a Bag day -- fill up the bag, pay two bucks. As a friend of mine used to say, you could buy the books as doorstops and still come out ahead. So I was noodling around, poking through the half-empty tables, thinking Theres a damn good reason these particular books are still here, when I found a section of science fiction. I pawed through them, half heartedly, and came across a couple I'd read before. And then I found one that I thought hey,isn't that -- yep. One I'd read, and liked, and had occasionally looked for, so as to get again. My golly, there it was. Oath of Fealty.

OF (or would it be OOF?) revolves around the creation of a massive cube structure in the desert near Los Angeles -- an arcology, to use a word I didn't know before I read the book, with about a quarter million people resident in its multiple levels. The city is named Todos Santos, so the residents are nicknamed Saints. And like the other place where there are saints resident, there are those who don't like the concept, and want to bring it down. The book has lots of touches that delighted me then, and still do. The coffee makers were bought en masse by the bright woman who is their financial genius, because they make good coffee, which makes the people working there happy, and that makes financial sense. The advertising signs in the massive central Mall are all of much the same style, so that rather than jarring, they are pleasing to the eye. The security force is regarded as working for the residents, not against them. The heads of the corporation have implants that allow them to talk directly to the main computer. The building is powered by hydrogen pumped up from Mexico, so it pollutes almost not at all. There's a diving board off the roof.

I don't know much about city planning, and I'll bet the book glosses over a lot -- after all, its intended as entertainment, not a tract on how to do it -- but I liked it then, and I like it now.