#Hero of Two Worlds

[nordleuchten]

Have you read Mike Duncan's Hero of Two Worlds? if you did, do you recommend it?

Thank you!

Dear Anon,

yes, I did read Mike Duncan’s Hero of Two Worlds and although it has been a few years, I knew that I was quite exited when the book was first released. I am not a Podcast-person, but I had been told that Duncan is quite an excellent history podcaster, and his book was a more recent publication then some other works out there. Duncan covers La Fayette’s life from cradle to grave with a marked focus on the American and French Revolution – as was expected. His writing style is very comprehensible and although the book is around 500-ish pages, it still was an easy and fast read.

As to recommending it, that depends a bit on what you are looking for in a book about La Fayette. As a general overview about the Marquis’ life, I can recommend the book. Harlow Giles Unger’s Lafayette is often cited as the best general biography but while Unger’s book is maybe a tad more detailed, I prefer Duncan’s handling of source material. There were a few little things that made me pause while reading but these were mostly differentiating interpretations.

As I said, it is a very general biography that covers La Fayette’s whole life in one book. If you are looking for an insight into a specific aspect of La Fayette’s life or a very detailed analyzes of his every move, Duncan’s book understandably falls flat.

I remember that I liked the book when reading it, but I was not blown out of the water. There was nothing one had not heard of before and by that time I had read enough about La Fayette to not be surprised by the book. But Duncan proofed that he understood the core of La Fayette’s character.

In short, Hero of Two Worlds is a fine book – especially if you are trying to get an overview of La Fayette’s life and this is maybe one of your first books about him.

I hope that helped and I hope you have/had a wonderful day. Happy reading! :-)

[st-just]

As Lafayette approached Versailles, he received a messenger from Louis who said the king was 'regarding his approach with pleasure and had just accepted [Lafayette's] declaration of rights.' This was a surprisingly abrupt concession. The king's message was so nonchalant, it sounded as if his acceptance of the Declaration of Rights was a forgone conclusion, and it's occurrence just as an angry mob of Parisian arrived a complete coincidence. But in reality, the king had been dragging his feet for months. Would he have signed off on the Declaration of Rights if his subjects remained docile and passive? Here again, certainly not. Just as happened in July, direct insurrectionary action secured what months of speeches, negotiations, and polite remonstrances could not.

On the Women’s March on Versailles, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, by Mike Duncan

[literary-illuminati]

Books I Read in May

(Because I’m trying to get back on this wagon after missing April.)

18. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

This is probably not my favourite piece of pop science writing, but it’s really got to be up there. The history of how cancer’s been understood and treated through the last century is just absolutely morbidly fascinating (my roommate has placed a moratorium on any unsolicited ‘fun facts’ since I started reading this book).

But beyond a) an incredibly visceral understanding of what Leukemia is and b) an appreciation for the public health advances of the early/mid-20th century, my main takeaway was that the book was actually just weirdly hopeful? Like, compared to, well, everything (except consumer electronics) the degree to which cancer treatment’s have actually just kept getting better over the last decades gives you back a bit of the old faith in Progress.

Also just both very readable and downright poetic at points (and just. Incredible title.)

19. Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Hugo nominee novel number 2!

I was, honestly, not particularly impressed. Like it’s not bad – really extremely readable, really – but just, eh? 6/10.

It was above all just so very sentimental – believe in yourself! Love conquers all! Happy endings for absolutely everyone! Good bread tastes like home, even if you’re an alien! - which I suppose I’m just allergic to, and so will restrain myself about because it’s just a matter of taste.

Katrina was a good protagonist, entertaining internal monologue, well executed if incredibly predictable arc. But Shizuka and Lan...for the sheer amount of the book their romance took up, it still felt like the romance subplot thrown in as an afterthought in some blockbuster? They fell in love at first sight because the story tells us they do, and then they spend a bunch of scenes together,  so clearly they’re a love for the ages! Never mind the palpable lack of chemistry or real connection between them. (And the less said about the rest of Lan’s family the better, character-wise. Though I mean Shirley was just an embodied cliche but it’s a cliche I like so she gets half-credit).

And yeah I could bitch about this book for ages but that just seems meanspirited (also I already spent like two hours doing so with @toasthaste​) so. The evil violin repairwoman was fun?

20. She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

Hugo nominee novel number 3!

Or, as the friend who lent me it described it, ‘the one with the lesbian fisting in it’. (This wasn’t an exaggeration. Despite the jokes I was not expecting to get a scene of, like, actual porn 300 pages in.)

Anyway, no, this was good! ‘Low fantasy/mythologized retelling of actual historical events’ is a conceit I really love when it’s pulled off well, and Parker-Chan absolutely pulls it off well. Even if ‘If Anyone Finds Out I’m A Girl I Won’t Be Able To Found The Ming Dynasty!” sounds like something an automatic light novel series generator would split out.

Though really at least half the book’s best scenes are the whole revenge melodrama going on with the Mongol prince and general whose names I’m blanking on and aren’t mentioned in the Wikipedia article or goodreads summary. Just gloriously operatically angst-filled self-loathing and obliviousness and killing the only man you love for the sake of vengeance.

Not that Zhang as a protagonist isn’t great, too. I mean partially I just love the whole trope of ‘scheming, manipulative bastard constantly working every angle they can, who hides it all under an act of humble piety/devotion/loyalty and pretending all their successes are just luck/providence/divine favour, and no one’s quite sure how full of shit they are”. But also, you know, got to love any hero dedicated enough to making their own destiny and carving their own place in the world that they just straight-up murder the ten-year-old messiah to make sure there’s no competition at the top.

21. Hero of Two Worlds May: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution by Mike Duncan

Possibly the most middle-class-American-dad-ish book I will ever read (unless I ever get really into WW2, I guess?). Before reading it I had essentially zero interest in the Marquis de Lafayette in particular, but I really like the Revolutions podcast, and I do love reading about the French Revolution, so.

Honestly after reading the book I’m still not particularly interested in the Marquis de Layfayette – beyond a grudging respect for not changing his political opinions one iota after losing control of the revolution and spending four years in an Austrian dungeon after fleeing the country ahead of the tribunal, I suppose – and on the whole I found the book a lot less interesting than The Storm Before The Storm. Though that’s probably mostly just because I went in already knowing a lot more about the Age of Revolution than I did about the Late Roman Republic. (I did learn a bunch of military minutia about the American Revolution that I assume Americans all get taught in elementary school).

Probably because of that, by far the best parts of the book (imo) were the ones describing life in the Ancien Regime and post-Restoration. The latter, especially – the whole early 19th century milieu of revolutionary secret societies forcibly suppressed by foreign arms is just worldbuilding inspiration catnip, really.

The whole thesis of the early French Revolution section (and it’s repeated often enough that I’m pretty comfortable calling it that) about how the ‘salon revolutionaries’ were only ever able to extract reforms and concessions from the King by using the energy and threat of the angry mobs on the streets and the direct, violent, insurrectionary actions does have a certain unsubtle subtext, also.

22. A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Hugo nominee novella number 2!

A book I would not have picked up on my own, honestly – three Wayfarers books have taught me quite clearly that Chambers is not for me, no matter how much normal people seem to love her – but she got nominated twice this year, and a friend already had this borrowed from the library.

I think the best way I can describe this is ‘a solarpunk art book, in prose form’. Like, there’s (exactly two) characters and (ostensibly) a plot, and there are themes (my god does the book want to make sure you know there are themes), but, like, in terms of wordcount and detail and enthusiasm, the animating passion is pretty clearly just detailing the society and physical infrastructure and general feel of day-to-day life in the post-post-apocalyptic solarpunk future. And that’s really very well done! It’s a good prose art book! Personally I don’t really care for the whole rural idyll pastoral aesthetic and the whole implicit ‘life being too easy is bad, actually’ thing, but, like, totally see the appeal.

23. Machinehood by S.B. Divya

And Hugo nominee novel number 3!

This was a slightly odd reading experience, honestly. Like, the best way I can put it is, like, some airport fiction technothriller (Robert Ludlum or whoever) except set a bit farther in the future and also woke? Not, like, didactically so or anything, but the genre and plot formula make it more surprising that the supportive CIA handler is a trans guy or one of the sympathetic showboating mercs/bodyguards is nonbinary or whatever. Or, like, the combat cyborg protagonist whose entire squad got killed in a black ops mission into ScaryMuslimLand when the President pulled the rug out from under them is an atheist latina woman and it’s her (male) partner that is constantly nagging her about staying safe and starting a peaceful life together somewhere new, and etc. Not a complaint about the book in any way, honestly, just really struck me reading it.

But weird politics aside, it was a fun read! The worldbuilding was actually pretty great – near future and familiar enough to seem plausible-ish, but still really alien, and still feeling, like, genuinely future-ish? Also it wove it’s weird supertech politics into a legacy/context of, like, actual modern politics, which I appreciated.

It helps that it’s my favourite sort of future – better than the present in a thousand different ways, but with horrifically dystopian touches here and there that everyone’s long since just shrugged and accepted, and also still just weighed down with the shittiness of life under exploitation and scarcity but, like, somewhat ameliorated. (But really, ‘everyone has access to biotech labs in their kitchens! Which is good, because you need to download the specifications the ministry of health puts up for your daily booster every morning to keep up with all the engineered superbugs” is just a great bit of worldbuilding imo).

Honestly my main actual complaint is that – for all the entire plot of the book is centred around paranoia about the emergence of strong/free-willed AI, and the bad guys treat the bots aboard their space station as persons, it’s just...never really clarified how those bots feel about it/if they feel anything or are too limited to care at all? Like, this is important!

Still, fun read.

[ms-march]

Ok so I wasn’t expecting mike Duncan to look like that

[bluerosefox]

Siblings Behavior

It's shenanigans time guys

So have this DpxDc idea.

So, the Justice League and the Light (OR villains in general) have two newish members, they've both been around for about a year and they're from the same plane of existence (a place called the Infinite Realms according to those who dabble in the occult)

And the two seem to have some serious beef with each other.

Wisp and Wrath are basicly feral cats hissing and hekles raised when they spot the other and their fights normally ends in draws. They're evenly matched and sometimes the two even fight to the point they are out of steam and just fist fight.

Needless to say everyone believes they totally hate each other and might one day kill (or end?) One of them.

So everything gets turned upside down when suddenly both factions of heros and villains are suddenly summoned to the Infinite Realms.

In a throne room.

In front of the Infinite King (or most commonly known as the Ghost King)

A King who looks very, very much like Wisp and Wrath (like yeah the two do sometimes look alike, like when they grin with sharp teeth and their hair color, but one has blue skin and red eyes for crying out loud!)

He's staring at them, glowing green eyes that seemed to just... know.

"Welcome to the Infinite Realms. I am King Phantom." His voice echoing in the throne room and seemed to rattle them deeply, like a sudden chill in the early morning.

"I have summoned you all here for a single reason." He continued to say "Tell me..."

Here he paused, closed his eyes before leaning back on the chair then he smiled big and cheerfully asked.

"How are my kids doing in your world? Dan and Ellie aren't causing too much chaos in their wake are they? They tend to go a tiny bit overboard sometimes but what siblings don't when they rough house you know. Tell me everything."

[litcityblues]

Bookshot this month features #HeroOfTwoWorlds an excellent biography of the Marquis de Lafayette from Mike Duncan...

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 300

Danny squirms and hisses, trying to dig his claws into dark scales as the clouds whistle by. “Wait- Ancients dammit- STOP!” he shrieked, cursing how tiny his own ghost form was compared to his other not-quite-future-self. Wings that could easily dwarf the entire Ops center beat through the air, fast enough to cause his eyes to sting. 

“Dan- bring me back- stop-” he wailed, despite the grip on his scruff not even loosening. Yet the larger dragon didn’t so much as twitch back towards Amity, the city disappearing into the distance like a speck. “We have to go back-” 

The GIW were- were- They had to go back! The portal was gone (exploded, broken and all of Fentonworks a smoldering mess, oh Ancients he’s gonna be sick-), no one could return to the Realms, they were all sitting ducks- 

“Jordan please-” he begged, even though he already knew that between the city, between every other ghost and them, Dan would always choose to keep them safe. But Jazz was hurt, she wasn’t waking up from where she lay limply cradled in Dan’s claws. 

There was so much blood, and he only knew she was still alive from the weak fluttering of her core, growing stronger as her heartbeat faded. She needed help, she needed doctors- he doesn’t know if she would be able to come back, not with how they were leaving the ecto-rich city behind and he didn’t want to lose her- Dan’s blank panic was swamping his own, drowning both of them in the emotion as the dragon tore through the sky. Some part of him knew they couldn’t stay in Amity anymore, but- But Jazz needed help- Danny couldn’t help the tears that dripped from his yes, pretending it was merely the clouds as they flew to places unknown to him.

If you are interested in their designs, here is a link: HERE

Heey mutual @radiance1 Dragon buddy o' mine

[thena0315]

These guys are canon to the main storyline and not just in the movies

[yakny]

who are you to change this world? silly boy! no one needs to hear your words, let it go.

[melodious-tear]

I really want to kill you. If I kill you, there will be no Rongtian Sword Sect anymore.

[myimaginationplain]

I've come to the conclusion that being assigned the fandom-mandated "sunshine character" is the worst possible fate a character could face

[nordleuchten]

Throughout Lafayette’s life, determination, far more than cunning, guile, or raw intelligence, was his greatest strength. But as he struck out toward a new world, on a new adventure, as a new man, he was guided by a new motto: Why Not?

Mike Duncan, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, PublicAffairs, New York, 2021.

[st-just]

Long before the Girondins went down in history as martyrs to idealistic moderation, they were identified as the 'war party,' eagerly leading France towards armed conflict. If, like Saturn, the Revolution devoured her children, it was only after the Girondins sacrificed her to Mars.

Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, by Mike Duncan  

[literary-illuminati]

Also, like, it’s kind of funny how Layfayette’s ostensible abolitionism is kind of like, I don’t know, someone in the modern day who cares deeply about sweatshop labor and buying fair trade. In that he was part of a bunch of organizations devoted to opposing it and always brought it up with his many slaveholding friends. But also he still had many slaveholding friends.

And also in the way all the slaveholders (Washington, Jefferson, et al) he interacted kind of seemed to view his aristocratic abolitionism with, like, indulgence? “Oh of course slavery is bad and it’s admirable he says so but we all live in the real world here, maybe in fifty years it will go away on its own”

Interesting contrast to the vigorously and violently positively pro-slavery discourse that go so dominant in the south closer to the Civil War.

[captn3]

until next time.... stay fresh [plain text: until next time.... stay fresh]

[idk-bruh-20]

Something I love about Spider-Man as a character: even if there's no big villain to fight, he's still a hero.

On days when there's no crime at all, he's out helping someone carry their groceries or giving directions to someone who's lost. He doesn't need anything negative to fight; he's just actively trying to make the world a safer, kinder, better place. That's what makes him a hero.