#and I started terra ignota 2

[asecondglassofcinnamonwine]

The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett

Well it had to end one way or another, as much as I wish Terry had had more time to perfect this book.

4 years to read Discworld the first time, 2 years for the second.

[neuxue]

going to make this a Summer* Of Finishing The Novels/Series** I Have Previously Started But For Various Reasons Or No Reason At All Left Off In The Middle Of (SOFTNSIHPSBFVRONRAALOITMO very concise just like me)

For the sake of accountability, behold! A list

Terra Ignota (previously read book 1; finished)

The Lymond Chronicles (left off at book 3; in progress)

《默读》 / Mo Du (left off at start of book 3)

《二哈和他的白猫师尊》 / 2ha (left off at ch35 lmao this is fine)

The Masquerade (left off at book 2 before the rest were published)

《琅琊榜》 / Nirvana in Fire (left off at ep8)

The Green Bone Saga (only read book 1 before the rest were published)

Imperial Radch (only read book 1)

Okay there are others but this is already overly ambitious

*For a very flexible definition of Summer that could well stretch into Autumn and perhaps Winter it's fine time is fake

**‘Lia aren't you forgetting one?' I don't know what you're talking about do not @ me!!

[incirrata]

my only personal complaint about the terra ignota series so far is that at this point, halfway through book 2, I've actually started to wish there was more world-building. the plot stuff is well-done, don't get me wrong, but as things start to come together and accelerate, I'm starting to miss the "I have no idea what is going on and every new detail is completely unexpected" feeling that I so loved in the first half of book 1 (the part lots of people on goodreads complain about because it's "too slow"). also because I can't quite comprehend the day-to-day economics for normal people in this world and that's bothering me.

[dru-reblogs-stuff]

Get to know you tag

I was tagged by @wispstalk, ty

Do you play an instrument?

My voice? Well, idk, I haven't been in a choir for years. I like singing while I cook, I have a few go-to songs that don't take a lot of brain to sing while I fry.

Once upon a time I started the violin but it's too big for me and I never bothered getting a smaller one.

Favourite book characters?

*cries in having to choose* - William Laurence from the Temeraire series - Nanny Ogg from Discworld - Locke Lamora, Jean Tannen and Sabetha from the Gentleman Bastard Sequence series - Cornel MASON from Terra Ignota series - Rally Vincent from GunSmith Cats (manga) That's probably enough...

What’s your star sign?

If we go by the 12 system, Leo; by the 13, then Cancer. IDK, I feel the same way about astrology as I do most religion.

Favourite colour schemes?

dark claret/ burgundy and coffee-cream; everything in the range from mid green to the end of purple; patinated dark hardwood, brass and baize-green. IDK man. Do you like the colour of the sky.jpg

Naps or long sleep?

Looooong sleep. I can only nap if I'm utterly dead on my feet, and then I tend to have like 2h 'naps'

What languages do you speak?

English native. A smattering of French, a smattering of Danish - enough to get them to say "Merde/ Lort! Stop butchering my language. I'll speak English!"

Dreams/aspirations?

Currently having that fun depression trait of not being able to see past the next 2 months, so currently nada.

Long hair or Short Hair?

Short. I've done long hair and discovered it's just irritating.

Tea or coffee?

...Both? Both is good. Tea (infusions) over coffee, only because I like my heart having a regular sinus rhythm.

Bring a book character to life or go into a fictional world?

Go to a fictional world. I'm sure I'd not survive for long, but just image how much easier it would be to write Fighting Fantasy World of Titan stories when I'm in them.

Tagging: @nostalgicyorkshiregirl @lavender-hued-melancholy and anyone else who fancies it

[theskeletoninthegarden]

7

17

39

johnny why

7. Animorphs, volume 1 was the oldest! It was published in 1996.

17. In no order, really: 1. "A Prayer for the Crown-Shy" Becky Chambers, 2. "Too Like the Lightening", Ada Palmer (I haven't finished it but, yeah, man), 3. "The Hollow Places", T. Kingfisher, 4. "What Moves the Dead'', T. Kingfisher, and 5. every issue of Saga that I read, because they're all muddled there, and I'm conflicted with the series now, but over all it's pretty great,....by Brian Vaughan

39. 1. All of Terra Ignota (this counts, shush), 2. All of the Murderbot Diaries (this also counts, shush), 3. "Oathbringer", Sanderson (I started it eons ago, but dang is it a Chunk), 4. something by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and 5. "The Thorn of Emberlain", by Scott Lynch (fingers crossed that he releases it).

[52onepage]

Terra Ignota

One of the things I'm going to start doing this year is write about the books I'm reading. My first off the bat isn't One book, it's four. The four books of the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer.

Too Like the Lightning

Seven Surrenders

Will to Battle

Perhaps the Stars

Terra Ignota is a science fiction series set in the 25th Century, several hundred years after the Church Wars made large scale religion illegal. The power of nations and religion have waned, and its wake are the Seven Hives, nations of Philosophy who have no set barriers and borders. From the Hive that bases its traditions on Masonic principles to the Cyberpunk Artists reaching for the stars, each live together in the cities and in shared homes with families of birth or choice (known as 'Bashmates')

The story is told of these Seven Utopias as a Chronicle of their coming fall. Mycroft Canner is a Servicer, a criminal charged with performing duties and paid in food to live, he is also a genius hired by most of the Hive leaders to perform various tasks. Through his observations, philosophy tracts, and increasing instability as the series goes on, we see the world is not as perfect as lead to believe.

The series begins with a theft that inevitably unearths several competing conspiracies that keep the world going, of revealing a strange young man who each Hive Leader has a claim on for their successor. And somewhere, in a small little tent, is a boy who can will anything in to existence. Bring toys to life, drawings in to reality, anything.

Terra Ignota is a dense fucking quadrology. Much of its style and heightened language is based on Enlightenment Period style writing (Hobbes and Voltaire get a LOT of love in these books). One part science fiction story decrying the perception of Utopia and One Part Enlightenment Tract, I would not recommend this series for casual readers. Honestly, I could see philosophy and poli sci classes using the text for a class.

I've experienced this series through a combination of audio and reading the paperbacks. The narrators, Jefferson Mays (for the first book) and T Ryder Smith (for books 2-4) are beautifully performed and add depth to the walls of words on the page. I highly recommend the audiobooks, and I heard that a full cast audio drama was made of the first two books. I'll have to check them.

I recommend Terra Ignota for hardcore Sci Fi fans who like to be asked direct, deep thoughts and challenge their perceptions.

[sweetwateriver]

My time at portia is the best game ever EXCEPT that i think it requires too much concentration to listen to an audiobook

[irradiate-space]

A Pokémon region based on North America

(Previously: anime, space colonization, changes, )

Pokémon is a science-fiction settings, transparently. They can turn living matter into digital data and upload it from one computer terminal, and then download it later at a different terminal. This is a setting with uploading of sentient beings.

Pokémon is also a fantasy setting. There are “god” Pokémon to whom are attributed the creation of the universe, and manipulation of time and space, which are friends with preteen children.

Pokémon is a game marketed for children but sold for all audiences, with complexity that is aimed at adults. Yet these games are often linear, with surprisingly on-rails limitations of the player character’s movements. Many times, paths that are closed off to the player are “under construction”, which is a key setting innovation that I will reference later.

The settings of the Pokémon games are also settings which are somehow dynamic. A recurring core conflict is of humanity vs nature, with “nature” often taking the form of a force of nature personified via a Pokémon that represents a force of nature that is being meddled with. Like how Totoro represents the forest, the island guardian Pokémon represent the islands of Alola, Lugia and Ho-oh represent the sea and skies respectively, the legendary bird trio represents the seasons, the legendary beasts represent a disaster at a tower, the weather trio and Heatran represent the air water and sea of Earth, the lake guardians represent lakes, and so on. Beyond the swarms of generic rats and sparrows and onions and rocks, there are Pokémon who represent the essence of a region’s spirits.

So the approximate setting of this Pokémon region based on North America:

The planet is truly terra nullis, a habitable but uninhabited planet with a few continents, accessed through the Ultra Wormholes of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon

The planet is gradually being terraformed through the introduction  of plant and Pokémon species from the home planet of Pokémon.

The player character’s early game includes missions to plant Berries and Apricorns according to the instructions of the Professors, who are shaping the biological environment according to what they think is safe.

Mid-game missions change from planting to weeding improper plants,

Factions include 1) resource extractionists, possibly a Silph Co. subsidiary or competitor, who value the planet only for its mineral wealth and land value, a la Terra Ignota’s Mitsubishis, 2) conservationists who value the planet for its potential new biodiversity, and wish to see it preserved for future balanced human-Pokémon partnerships (The Pokémon Professors), 3) human exclusionists/extinctionists who wish this planet to be free from the menace of humans, letting Pokémon live free from human exploitation

Oh yeah the Officers Jenny are all androids now, and the bad guys subvert the Officer Jenny system when their plan is coming to fruition. The Pokémon Ride system is subverted, so that people can’t call on a Charizard to Fly them to places, so trainers start using HMs or Pokémon abilities to fly from place to place, giving players forewarning so that they can still move around the map once the Ride Pokémon network is down and the Officers Jenny are blocking movement across the land. The player character can battle the Officers Jenny (who can use Aura!) or can simply Fly and Surf places.

The extractionists need a way to transport their resources back, yet the Professors have a hold on the Ultra Wormhole transit system, which relies on a member of the Light Trio or an Ultra Beast to pull the sledges, and that member of the Light Trio doesn’t like them, so they hook up a machine to brainwash it, and the Player Character must fight the Pokémon to free it, as the last item of the boss battle against the extractionists

The extinctionists want to deny the planet to humans, through gengineered plague laboratories and reaction bombs, but it’s fortunate that the Player Character always notices something shady and investigates.

The conservationist plot’s climax is a subtler thing: at some point, the rate of weeding/relocation jobs becomes faster than the Player Character can keep up with, so the game has the Professors throw in the towel: We’ve built this ecology and it’s running on its own; we can no longer force it to our needs but must learn to grow with it. Shortly afterwards, one major settlement is relocated to a place with better harmony.

If it is timed right, the plot climaxes can happen at about the same time.

On Christmas a Delibird arrives to give you a present: a Master Ball. The Professors tell you that you should capture it next year, because it’s an invasive species, but there’s never a mission for it, and it runs away.

16 Pokémon types: 8 Gyms with Gym Leaders, 8 Gym Leaders on sabbatical tending lighthouses or doing other important work. Maybe the Rock Type and Ground Type Gym Leaders are working together to blast a new Panama Canal, trading work and Gym days.

[compartmentalisinghmpf]

Unfinished Terra Ignota essay dump, pt. 2

1.3. Truth Hurts

Then again, is being honest automatically more moral? If reduction of pain is a universal goal, reducing the pain of confronting truth by reducing how much truth is communicated – i.e., being dishonest, lying -  may sometimes be morally good. And while the ethics of lying are often a grey area, most people would agree that reducing actual physical pain is generally a Good Thing. By that criterion, surely the O.S.’ painless way of murdering is “more moral” than Mycroft's. There is no physical suffering, and the victims' peace of mind is preserved right until the moment of death! (Not even the killers themselves suffer too many pangs of conscience...)

But perhaps honesty grows exponentially more important the more existential a matter is – and taking a life is about as existential as it gets. Codes of honour that involve facing your victims when you “have to” kill someone are ancient, widespread, and persistent. They capture the ethical imperative of facing – in both senses of the word – what you are doing when you are committing that most fundamental violation of taking a life -- and of giving the victim of the act the chance to face the perpetrator of it, and death itself, consciously.

[....sth more here....]

There is something subtly horrifying about any well-oiled, “humane”, yet utterly impersonal death machine, and part of that horror is that it’s impersonal - its detachment is fundamentally dehumanising.

We should be wary of our readiness to let “humane”, impersonal killers off the hook.

1.4. Schrödinger's Mass Murderers

I've mostly talked about Mycroft and O.S. above, so how does our last set of (would-be) murderers, the Mardis and Apollo, stack up in all this? They occupy a territory somewhat between both: unlike O.S., they tacitly accepted that atrocities would happen. Unlike Mycroft, they didn't deliberately inflict them, let alone try to maximise them.

Of course, nobody knows for certain how they, individually, would have behaved if their desired war would actually have started when they were alive.

Mycroft is sure that Apollo, at least, would have been “a frontline soldier”, and thus would have fulfilled the “personal involvement/honesty” criterion for “ethical killing” outlined above. Apollo also seems to have been committed as much to limiting the war as to starting it – to actively keeping the damage done to a “necessary” minimum.

For the Mardis themselves, we lack data of that sort. As we haven't observed them actually commit mass murder, they remain Schrödinger's Mass Murderers, for evaluation along the criteria employed here. The jury is out. But there’s a reason we judge people somewhat less harshly for planning to commit murder than for actually doing it. Until an act is committed, there is always the possibility of changing your mind.

Footnote to Part 1:

A word needs to be said about the role of “soldiers” in these books. Soldiers arguably represent the Ideal of Ethical Killing that the book – or at least Mycroft - offers us, who sometimes identifies as a soldier, and is also cast as one by Apollo's prophetic coat. It's hard to evaluate, before actually seeing war unfold in the books, if that is an interpretation of his role that the books themselves uphold, or will eventually undermine. It is significant, however, that Bridger’s “family” is made up to no small degree of animated toy soldiers. It's also significant that they're all infantry – that is, from that part of the army that fights on foot, in direct, immediate contact with the enemy. And it's interesting that the toy soldiers and the Major are quite insistent about not sanitising the kind of war they remember having participated in. When Carlyle tries to draw a contrast between them, as honourable soldiers, and Mycroft-the-monster, the Major objects to the distinction. These soldiers may represent a sort of ideal – but make no mistake, the books say: any war is a Dirty War.

Obligatory Dog Footnote

A note about Mycroft as the human face of killing: interestingly, Mycroft is constantly being identfied as an animal – specifically, a dog... but so are humans in general, to some degree. But the dog imagery in the book certainly clusters most strongly around Mycroft – both in his own words, and in how others talk about, and to him. – And it just occurred to me that this aligns quite well with his identification as a soldier, too. Dog tags and strict social hierarchy…

I remain unsure of what to think of the more general parallel drawn here between dogs and humans, especially in relation to war, and civilisation.

[sigmaleph]

Book recs masterpost

y’all really came through here, thanks! Here’s a collected version, I will continue to update it if recs keep coming. Format will be a little inconsistent but I will try to keep books by the same author together and give the summary if it exists and who provided the rec.

Under a cut cause it gets long:

Gene Wolfe:

The Fifth Head of Cerberus

Three interconnected novellas about life on an authoritarian twin planet system where humans have apparently wiped out the natives. Superbly well written and thoughtful imo

rec by @femmenietzsche

Book of the New Sun 

rec by @napoleonchingon

Octavia Butler:

Dawn, rec by @empresszo, @typicalacademic

Parable of the Sower, rec by @st-just

Kindred, rec by @squareallworthy

Angelica Gorodischer:

Kalpa Imperial

epic fantasy in the style of conan the barbarian, we see the stories of an old empire in some nondescript country, a nondescript amount of millenia ago. small vignettes of different time periods within the country. very light in fantasy, basically an entire book of nothing but lore for a D&D campaign

Trafalgar

comedy sci fi. the life stories of a sales man, a guy who goes door to door selling whatever he can, except IN SPACE. all the stories are framed as him in his little bar in rosario with his friends or drinking mate, telling his latests adventures through space.

La saga de los confines by  Liliana Bodoc

lord of the rings except instead of taking inspiration from nordic folk tales is based on the american conquest. see fantasy races and cultures based on the native american population from south america. lots of poetry, lots of cool classic fantasy with a fresh new flavor

(Already read)

la batalla del calentamiento by marcelo figueras

the fantasy here is very understated to the point of it being magical realism but still my top three favourite book of all time. it starts with a man who suffers gigantism receiving a message from heaven delivered by a wolf speaking in latin. the most colorful and endearing little town with the most wacky of habitants open their arms to the guy who is desperatly in search of redemption

homestuck (by Andrew Hussie)

there is really nothing i can say about this that you havent already heard, so im not even going to bother. just give the first arc (which is about a hundred pages long) a change and see where it goes from there

All of the above suggestions by @fipindustries

Ada Palmer. Terra Ignota series (starts with Too Like the Lightning) (seconded by @youzicha)

(read the first one, have the second one but haven’t read it yet)

Jo Walton, Thessaly series (starts with The Just City)

Yoon Ha Lee, Machinaries of Empire series (starts with Ninefox Gambit) (seconded by @terminallyuninspired)

Ann Leckie:

Imperial Radch series (Starts with Ancillary Justice) (seconded by @youzicha and @squareallworthy)

Raven Tower

N. K. Jemisin:

Broken Earth trilogy (starts with The Fifth Season) (seconded by @typicalacademic)

Dreamblood duology (starts with The Killing Moon)

Seth Dickinson, Masquerade series (starts with The Traitor Baru Cormorant)

(Good rec, already read the first one)

Jeff Vandermeer, Southern Reach series (starts with Annihilation)

Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom

Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire

M. R. Carey, The Girl With All The Gifts

All of the above by @st-just

Le guin:

The Dispossessed, rec by @st-just, @youzicha

The Left Hand of Darkness, rec by @youzicha and @typicalacademic

both also seconded by @squareallworthy

(I love Le Guin, read both of these)

Zelazny: Lord of Light, rec by @st-just

Charles Stross:

Missile Gap.

A Colder War.

Peter Watts, Blindsight

Bruce Sterling, Heavy Weather. (I assume. There are multiple books named such)

All of the above by @youzicha

Fonda Lee, Jade City

Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

Shining Path, more thorough rec here.

all by @typicalacademic

Lois McMaster Bujold:

the Vorkosigan Saga

(rec by @omnidistance, seconded by @squareallworthy. Already read all of them, excellent choice)

The Curse of Chalion, rec by @theorem-sorry

Greg Egan:

Permutation City

Orthogonal

above two and “anything else” by him, rec by @saelf

Diaspora, rec by @squareallworthy

The Clockwork Rocket

Physicist discovers relativity in a Riemannian (as opposed to Minkovskian) universe. Also the world is ending.

rec by @jackhkeynes

Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Gaiman, American Gods

Gibson, Count Zero

Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Liu, The Three Body Problem

Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife

Niven and Pournelle, Footfall

North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Powers, The Anubis Gates

Wilson, Spin.

All of the above by @squareallworthy

Pratchett, Discworld books (going postal, thud!, unseen academicals, or the wee free men recommended by @acertainaccountofevents, Wyrd Sisters rec’d by @squareallworthy)

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon & D.O.D.O.

Ted Chiang, Story of Your Life and anything else by him

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (also suggesting this review)

 C.J. Cherryh – The Faded Sun Trilogy.

Honestly not sure there’s anything groundbreaking or unique about it but a solid scifi tale with aliens and politics and it really fleshed out and made me empathize with all the opposing and strikingly different factions.

Taiyao Fujii – Orbital Cloud

A space-related technothriller, quite fun! If you liked the first 2/3rds of Seveneves you’ll probably like this.

Gwynneth Jones – Life.

Story of a woman trying to be the best biologist she can despite a lot of setbacks, bascially. Barely counts as science fiction, really, but I just really like Anna and Spence as characters and their relationship. This a very feminist book, at times quite preachy–but personally it came across as characters being preachy not the author, and therefore much less annoying, but ymmv.

Katherine Addison – The Goblin Emperor.

Fantasy high politics but nice? Like also pretty level headed but not grimdark like fantasy high politics usually is. Also love the worldbuilding, the linguistics, and my precious cinnamon role Maia who deserves good things.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

the most tumblr print book I have ever read. TBH the cover blurb is better than the book but it’s a quick read and enjoyable.

Paolo Bacigalupi - The Windup Girl.

Ian MacDonald – The Dervish House.

The twenty-minutes-into-the-future setting has aged weirdly since it was written back when Turkey was trying to join the EU, but I reread it recently and the plot and characters are still compelling.

All of the above by @businesstiramisu

"James S. A. Corey", The Expanse series (rec by @justjohn-jj)

Mariam Petrosyan’s The Grey House

kids and minders in a boarding school for the disabled, their relationships and their setting. Mostly a coming-of-age thing but with a lot of weirdness and some fantastic elements. Extremely readable

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky:

Hard to be a God

Inhabited Island

Roadside Picnic

Stanisław Lem:

Fiasco

Cyberiad

Karim Berrouka’s Fées, Weed & Guillotines

what it says on the tin. Pretty fun. I would suspect his other fantasy mystery novel comedies are good too.

The Invisible Planets anthology

extremely hit or miss, but definitely has its hits.

Bernard Weber’s Les Fourmis

All of the above by @napoleonchingon

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells

Sarcastic cyborg tries to avoid humans and watch entertainment media all day and perpetually ends up saving some. With all the snark.

rec by @rhetoricandlogic

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North

Guy is born in 1910s, dies at 80 or so… and is born again in the 1910s, and so on. Also the world is ending.

The End and Afterwards, Andy Cooke

A probe to Alpha Centauri, an idealist Nigerian biotechnician, a humdrum English family – and then the world ends.

Against Peace and Freedom, Mark Rosenfelder

50th century interstellar humanity is mostly doing okay. But socionomics doesn’t cover crises, such as the dictatorship that’s taken over Okura, or the unscrupulous tycoon who’s plotting something over on New Bharat. For that we have Diplomatic Agents. Like you.

all of the above by @jackhkeynes

Meta-recommendations:

worldswithoutend.com, their list of lists, and in particular, defining science fiction books of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.

@squareallworthy

Jo Walton’s Revisiting the Hugos series. (by @businesstiramisu)

[asecondglassofcinnamonwine]

2, 9, 19 and 24 please :)

2: Did you reeread anything? What?

I reread 43 books this year, which is a lot of books and I’ll spare y’all me going through each one individually. Highlights: rereading the Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling), the Invisible Library series (Genevieve Cogman), Terra Ignota series (Ada Palmer), Memoirs of Lady Trent series (Marie Brennan), and Red White and Royal Blue (Casey McQuiston). I read RWRB for the first time this year, and then reread it like four more times.

9: Did you get into any new genres?

I dipped my toe into the romance genre last year and have now, over the course of the last year, managed to go ankle-deep into the genre. And just when I start feeling like this might be a bold new territory to explore, the genre gets hit with a racism scandal. 

19: Did you use your library?

No, sadly. 99% of the books I read, I buy. Which is something of a gamble, because sometimes I read something just because it sounds cool without any research into it and sometimes that doesn’t pay off.

Support your local library, guys.

24: Did you DNF anything? Why?

I DNF’d a few things, none of which I recorded. I DNF’d a murder mystery because I didn’t feel like I was getting into it - I DNF’d a nonfiction book about the Enlightenment because it was too complicated for me - I DNF’d a short story collection because I lost interest. I DNF mostly because I lose interest or don’t feel grabbed by the story early on.

[danafaithwriting]

2, 4, 6, 8, and 10

2. Is it the same story today as it was when you first began working on it?

Kind of? like if you read the original wip (don’t) and the current wip, you’d defs see the similarities. I think it’s a bit more convoluted now though. Actually it’s way more convoluted. the main characters are the same though

4. What’s your main character’s motivation?

Jude wants to save all of humanity from evil vampires. every single human from every single vampire. only then can he rest.

6. If your main character was real, would you want to be friends with them?

Absolutely I defs think we’d get along but mostly bc we’re the same person. But we’re both bad at starting conversations so I’d have to be friends with Oscar or Lenore first and then be introduced to Jude through them. Of those two I think I’d be friends with Oscar bc Lenore is way too cool and also too hardcore for me she’s the acquaintance I’d always want to be friends with but would never do it. Oscar’s chill tho we’d talk shit abt Victor Frankenstein together probably

8. What time period does your WIP take place in?

Ideally, October 31 2017 - October 31 2018

10. What gave you the idea for your WIP?

It was originally a vampire AU for the Adventure Zone, with additional convoluted politics that I probably stole from Terra Ignota 

[tetraspace-west]

I posted 89 times in 2021

10 posts created (11%)

79 posts reblogged (89%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 7.9 posts.

I added 39 tags in 2021

#pmmm - 7 posts

#deltarune - 6 posts

#kirby - 5 posts

#terra ignota - 4 posts

#omori - 4 posts

#madoka magica - 4 posts

#homestuck - 3 posts

#me - 2 posts

#omori aubrey - 2 posts

#chubby white dudes - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 45 characters

#had this as a draft when the chapter came out

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

diluting the homeopathy in non-placebo medicine to amplify its effects even further

3 notes • Posted 2021-11-27 14:00:31 GMT

#4

this really tetraspaces my grouping

3 notes • Posted 2021-09-21 19:03:04 GMT

#3

I went over to the Schelling point but there was nobody there, what gives?

3 notes • Posted 2021-07-11 20:20:01 GMT

#2

You mentioned, in a post about infohazards, "detailed gender" and "monocameralism"

Is this referring to the idea of gender in general (as opposed to, e.g. a sort of neutral genderless tabula rasa) and single house legislatures, or is there a deeper meaning?

“Monocameralism” is in the sense of Jaynes’ The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - that book claims that humans once experienced decisionmaking as an actual voice in their head issuing commands, that’s why religion and literature in ancient times was like that, and that in about 1,000 BC this stopped and people started experiencing consciousness as they do today, as a cultural adaptation to allow them to trade.

If this was the case (I don’t think it is, it’s just a very fun theory), then from the point of view of the last people with bicameral minds, monocameralism would be this terrible thing killing the gods that one could catch just by listening to a monocameral person talking too much about their internal experience.

“Detailed gender” was mostly about some thing I read a while ago where a trans woman learned more facts about cis women and then felt sad because she was a statistical outlier among women and those axes. Maybe this generalises.

5 notes • Posted 2021-01-13 18:36:07 GMT

#1

a christian atheist is someone who professes belief in atheist god, a jewish atheist is someone who’s mother was an atheist

31 notes • Posted 2021-07-11 16:33:50 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[alexfeelyx]

Even more rambles about Alex's Sudden Inability To Consume Fiction, part 3 I think

I think I have read about... 10 books total in the past 10 years. Maybe a couple more, obviously if we don't count non-fiction. There have been years when I consumed TV shows and movies voraciously, but I'd wager than I have seen about 5 movies in the last 2-3 years or so, and about 15 episodes of two different TV shows altogether. In the same time, I finished two video games, although I put a couple hundred hours into one of them and they both ended up becoming my singular obsession and all-encompassing hyperfixation for a good year and a half each. This all means that I think I'm having an awful lot of trouble simply... interacting with fictional narratives altogether.

This is a problem because fiction and escapism used to be like, my dearest form of entertainment and stress relief. Don't like reality? Just fuck off to another place, another time!

Fiction is about... escaping to either an idealised world that's very different from my own, or escaping my own skin to be someone else, to be loved as someone else. So when I'm getting into a work of fiction, I am primarily looking for an entryway into the fantasy of that work. Who am I here? What desires of mine are being fulfilled here?

And for that, I usually need either 1. an ideal world I would enjoy getting lost in 2. a heroic protagonist I would enjoy emulating or vicariously living through 3. an ideal relationship I would enjoy experiencing. I think all of the fictional narratives that I enjoy fulfill at least one of these criteria. (The world doesn't even have to be ideal, it's enough if it is sufficiently more interesting than my own, or if my problems with the real world are replaced by other, more exciting problems. I'd exchange the looming threat of Sauron's armies for the bleak banality of the government steadily taking all of my rights away.)

I guess that's also sort of why Terra Ignota is not working for me right now? I was almost into the worldbuilding as my ideal place but it's starting to show its ugly side (obviously it's still a VASTLY better place than the real world, but I got so angry at it that I'm currently in grumpy toddler mode and I Don't Want It Now, Thank You); I was looking for my Heroic Reader Avatar to live vicariously through but uh... all of these people are terrible and I genuinely don't know who to root for any more; there basically is no romance in this book (or at least none that I can get behind or that I would want for myself). And I'm looking for my wish fulfillment, I'm looking for my escapism, I'm looking for my entry into this particular dreamscape and I just can't find it. And it annoys me because everyone else quite clearly managed to find it, it's just me being... deficient in some way.

There are many fictional narratives that I love in spite of their... perceived lack of idealism (for want of a better term) but those are so ingrained in my psyche that I think my handwaved mental fix-fic is part and parcel of the whole experience. I can just imagine that the necessary therapy that the protagonists will inevitably require happens after the end credits. I can just imagine that the immortal/undead character and his mortal lover found a way to either both live forever or grow old together. Leave it to me to finish up the loose threads of an incomplete happy ending. But I don't know what to do with a story that so far does not seem to be fulfilling any of my wishes through any of its characters.

[cousincarlyle]

Terra Ignota Fancast: Joseph Morgan as Duke Ganymede OK, this one is tough and I’m still looking for someone 100% perfect (particularly if there are photos of them already looking like Ganymede that I can use in photosets etc!) But here’s why I think the casting is not terrible: 1) He could easily be “prettied up” a lot more. 2) Most of the pretty blond male actors I found are way too young looking. Ganymede is in his 40s, and Palmer mentions that his body is starting to age. Anyway, I stand by this, but if anyone has any better suggestions please let me know! I get VERY obsessive about making complete fancasts when I get into a book series, sob.

[lukaina]

The BookWorm Questionnaire!

[Disclaimer: I have not created this questionnaire. I had the post in drafts and completed it today. However, the person that I saved the draft from has already deactivated the account. Their source was: http://bookaddict24-7.com/]

1. What book are you reading right now?

I am in the middle of “The illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy” (the second book: Gormenghast) by Mervyn Peake. I have a novella by Laird Barron left in the “Ominosus” anthology that contained to lovecraftiana novelettes by Elizabeth Bear and Caitlín R. Kiernan. Finally, on Friday I started reading “Too Like the Lighting” by Ada Palmer, the first book in the Terra Ignota quartet and a really challenging text so far.

2. What will you read next? I plan to keep on reading horror anthologies, maybe throw a Tanith Lee novel to spice things up and read the second TP of the comic “Monstress” by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. I am also interested in checking the much hyped “The Girls” by Emma Cline and reading “Sunshine” by Robin McKinley.

3. What was your favorite childhood book? It would be tied between “Glubbslyme” by Jacqueline Wilson (in Spanish: “Babatracio”) and “La auténtica Susi” (in German: “Echt Susi”) by Christine Nöstlinger.

4. What were your reading habits like as a kid?  I read often, went to the library at least once a week and was scolded for reading “too much” by my grandmother, who thought it was damaging my sight. In retrospect, it probably didn’t help that I needed glasses as soon as I started reading.

5. How many books do you have checked out from the library? Right now, none, but when I do I take at least two.

6. What books do you have on hold at the library? None at the moment.

7. Do you have a bad book habit? I have a horrible posture reading and my neck and back suffer. Also, I tend to read while eating now that I work at home and sauces/soups/teas end up staining the pages more often that I would like to admit.

8. Do you read one book at a time, or several? I used to be a strict one-book-at-a-time person (unless one was an essay) by now I juggle at least couple of books. I read the very heavy tomes and the paperbacks with thin binding at home to avoid damaging the books and I usually take the e-reader or a lighter book to read outside (for paperbacks, I use a small cloth bag I bought in Germany for book carrying or a totebag if I have lent the bag to Marc).

9. What is your favorite book you’ve read this year? “The Dispossessed” by Ursula K. Le Guin is absurdly good (and now I want to live on an anarchist moon). Second would be “Radiance” by Catherynne M. Valente, a decopunk novel about b/w cinema in a world where the Solar System has been populated by humans.

10. What is your least favorite book you’ve read this year? I read professionally for a publishing house and some of the manuscripts were subpar. A couple contained very harmful tropes and some had the laziest writing you can imagine.

11. What is your reading comfort zone? Dark fantasy, science-fiction, non-gorey horror, magical realism.

12. How often do you read outside of your comfort zone? Not often. I rarely read mysteries, romance, erotica or historical novels. Lately, I have received a score of YA manuscripts because of my and I have ended up reading many romantic stories and thrillers.

13. What is your favorite place to read? Trains and buses. I don’t usually get motion sickness and the landscape is an interesting view when I need to rest my eyes.

14. Do you lend out books? Not often. My friends live far or have too many books of their own pending.

15. Do you dog-ear books? NEVER. I remember or use one of my billion bookmarks (or random pieces of paper).

16. Do you write in the margins of books? No. I have a notebook for my manuscript reading and I try to take notes on my phone when I really like a quote.

17. What makes you love a book? Non-reliable narrators, a heavy use of mythology and folklore, beautiful descriptions, given names that have meaning, a plot that follows several generations of a family, sorority.

18. What will inspire you to recommend a book? When I realize a book is a perfect fit for a person and they are going to appreciate the style or the theme.

19. What is the one book you will always recommend to everyone? My Tanith Lee proselytism forces me to recommend “Biting the Sun” to everybody. I have also been an enthusiast defender of “The Drowning Girl” by Caitlín R. Kiernan, the comics “The Wicked + The Divine” (by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie), the novel “Embassytown” by China Miéville (translator sci-fi!) and Jacqueline Carey’s “Kushiel’s Dart”.

20. Is there a book you love that nobody else seems to? In high school we had to read “Últimas tardes con Teresa” by Juan Marsé and everybody I know dislikes it violently, while I can still quote fragments.

21. Do you read while you are: Eating? Taking a bath? Watching TV? Listening to music? On the computer? On the bus?  Eating: yes. Taking a bath: never (I would be too afraid and also I have a very small bath). Watching TV: no and I also find distracting if somebody else is watching. Listening to music: not often but I can if it helps drown a worse sound. On the bus: yes, and gladly.

22. What is your favorite genre to read? Dark fantasy followed by anthropological science-fiction (in the vein of Le Guin or Karen Lord’s “The Best of all Possible Worlds”).

23. What genre do you rarely read, but wish you read more of? Historical. I like history but I am not sure of where the good books are between a pile of mediocre and lengthy novels.

24. What is your favorite biography? I have not read many biographies but I like essays with biographical content like Caitlin Moran’s books or Kameron Hurleys’ “The Geek Feminist Revolution”.

25. What is your favorite non-fiction? I remember enjoying “Evil by Design”: The Creation and Marketing of the Femme fatale” about the idea of the fallen woman, the dichotomy Virgin Mary/prostitute, the mythological representation of evil women and the female characterization of absinthe.

26. Have you ever read a self-help book? My friends gifted me a teenage book on self-esteem but other than that I tend to dislike the genre and avoid it.

27. What is your favorite reading snack? Ideally, something that is not messy and does not leave crumbs or stains but I love drinking coffee/tea and eating chocolate while reading.

28. What is the most inspirational book you’ve read this year? “The Dispossessed” has prompted HOURS of speculation with Marc about the feasibility of the political and economic system in the novel. Creatively speaking, the Gormenghast series is so beautifully and evocatively written that some fragments are even painful to read.

29. Are there any books that have been ruined for you by all the hype? I hyped myself too much with Jeffrey Eugenides’ “The Marriage Plot” because I had loved “The Virgin Suicides” and “Middlesex”. I was a bit disappointed and I didn’t engage with the characters.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book? I don’t tend to follow the critics but I check the recommendations of people with a taste similar to mine.

31. How do you feel about giving negative reviews? I used to write reviews for a website and it was really hard for me, as I imaged the impact it could have in the author. I only rate books I really enjoy in Goodreads to get similar recommendations. I feel that the system of stars or points never really reflects my experience with a book and that we tend to focus on objectivity too much while most of my reading experience is REALLY subjective.

32. What book are you most intimidated to begin? It used to be “Ada or Ardor” by Nabokov and it was really challenging. Now I am respectfully waiting for the right moment to start “Perdido Street Station” by China Miéville.

33. What book are you most likely to take on vacation with you? I like tying books to travels (“Game of Thrones” was my Erasmus read, I read “Sabella” by Tanith Lee and “Aniara” by Harry Martinson in Venice, etc.). I tend to plan the books I pack for travels with care. In December I have a wedding and I am already pondering which Tanith Lee novel I will take with me. Probably I will continue the Flat Earth series.

34. What is the longest you have gone without reading? A couple of days.

35. What is a book that you just couldn’t finish? The feminist essay book “Vamps & Tramps” by Camille Paglia. I don’t recall exactly why, only that I feel a remnant of anger when I see the cover.

36. What is the most money you have spent on books at one time? Around 80-100 euros on a couple of very specific occasions.

37. How often do you skim through a book before reading it? Very often. I had to cure me of the impulsion to check the last line of a book because I was spoiling myself often.

38. Do you keep books or give them away once you’ve read them? I tend to keep them and they will make the next time we change flats a living hell :)

39. Are there any books that you’ve been avoiding, or refuse to read? I actively avoid giving money to Orson Scott Card.

40. What is a book you didn’t expect to like, but did? The first stories of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber. Sword and sorcery seems a bit stale for me as a subgenre but I found the stories funny and I loved to spot future Discworld references.

41. What is your favorite guilt-free pleasure reading? In ASOIAF I swooned with the Sansa Stark/Sandor Clegane relationship. I acknowledge he is a troubled character and his whole attraction to youth/beauty/purity is very cliché but I have a soft spot for certain clichés.

42. What reading materials are in your bathroom right now? None. My bathroom is a small wet place and I want my books dry. However, I sometimes bring reading materials to the bathroom.

43. What book do you most remember reading for school? “La plaça del Diamant” by Catalan author Mercè Rodoreda, the story of a poor and very sensitive woman living in a Barcelona cursed by the civil war. It’s a sad book with a glimmer of hope. If you are trying to get into Catalan lit, this one is a top recommendation!

44. What was the last book that you couldn’t put down until you finished it? “Wylding Hall” by Elizabeth Hand.

45. What book is (physically) closest to you right now? I’m in the office/library at home so most of my books are equally close to me now.

46. What is your favorite book series? The first Kushiel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey. It is not that I don’t recommend the other books in the same universe, only that I have not read them yet and I can’t say if they hold up to the original trilogy.

47. What is the longest book you’ve ever read? Shortest? Longest: According to Goodreads, “A Dance with Dragons”, followed by Michel Faber’s “The Crimson Petal and the White”. Shortest: don’t remember. Maybe a couple of small anthologies with Russian short stories by Pushkin and Teffi.

48. Who is your favorite book character?  As a kid, I adored Anne (of Green Gables). Now I admire Granny Weatherwax from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, for example.

49. Who is your favorite author? Tanith Lee.

50. What is your favorite book?  I am not really sure but I started saying “Biting the Sun” by Tanith Lee and it has stuck.