The Book Thread

[Wookieetank]

for the Halloween season I'm checking out the Titus Crow novels

Hope you enjoy them, they're fun/interesting (and have some Doctor who vibes going on too). Really should get back to finishing those myself, got sidetracked partway through book 2.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm starting another periodic reread of the entire Ring of Fire series in prep for the 1637 book about to come out.

[warty goblin]

Finished The Golden Enclaves last night in a 200 page gulp. This means I liked the book.

Interestingly I think I enjoyed the novel more for the thematic and moral content it explored than the plot or action. I'm not shortchanging those, they were all good, but the series was absolutely unafraid to go some gnarly places with its concepts.

Spoiler

Show

So what the first book didn't really get into, the second touched on, and the third absolutely focused on was, essentially negative externalities. Except in fine fantasy tradition it took something invisible and abstract like air pollution and turned it into monsters eating kids. And then made the best solution to a monster eating your kid turning to magic that diffusely but directly caused more monsters to eat more kids.

This is a really excellent way to explore a sort of positive/negative feedback loop I've always found fascinating; namely where the best move for an individual is the worst move for the group.

What really makes the series work for me is that it never shies away from either thr consequences of wizards using malia or otherwise using other people to insulate themselves, or that them doing so is both justifiable and utterly inevitable. Both the first and second book I think showed this pretty well at essentially the individual scale.

What impressed me about the third book is that it took the same logic, raised the cost (hell-torturing people into maw-mouths) and the scale of the problem (if you don't do that to someone, it's going to happen to your kids).

I think this is the point of the compulsion that comes with the enclave spells; it keeps people from saying the quiet part out loud. Like sure if you think about it the whole point of an enclave is to use everyone outside as a power source and ablative meat shield for little Timmy, but you can't say that. Really, the fact that the enclaves are all built on maw-mouths is almost irrelevant, it's just turning the thematic content into literal plot.

The final interesting bit to me is that you can take this metaphor as far as you want. I think the books are perfectly readable as a tropey high school is hell story with a bit more nuance than most. But you can pretty easily read it as being, if not directly about, then a useful lense for considering issues like climate change, or educational inequality, or outsourced industrialization, or pretty much the entire post WW2 world order if you want. The text doesn't force you to do that, but the metaphor at the core is both flexible enough and broad enough you can use the text to think about a lot if issues. This might be the most impressive thing about the series to me.

Overall I'd say it's like 7/10 for plot, but it's rich enough in theme and so damn much fun to read I'd give it like 9.5/10 overall.

[Bohandas]

Hope you enjoy them, they're fun/interesting (and have some Doctor who vibes going on too).

That's exactly what I thought. That time machine is almost exactly the TARDIS.

[Eldan]

Overall I'd say it's like 7/10 for plot, but it's rich enough in theme and so damn much fun to read I'd give it like 9.5/10 overall.

So, going back to the spoiler discussion last page, what did you think of the ending and how everything was resolved?

Short version:

Spoiler

Show

Glyph and I bought thought it was a bit too clean and neat, and there should have been some cost to saving Orion, instead of what basically felt like everyone coming together and wishing really hard.

[warty goblin]

So, going back to the spoiler discussion last page, what did you think of the ending and how everything was resolved?

Short version:

Spoiler

Show

Glyph and I bought thought it was a bit too clean and neat, and there should have been some cost to saving Orion, instead of what basically felt like everyone coming together and wishing really hard.

Spoiler

Show

I thought it was a bit too neat at first, but it's only personally neat. Sure she saved Orion, but people are 100% going to keep making maw-mouths. That's way darker and messier than I thought it was going to go.

I think saving Orion is also important because the fundamental problem the books are entirely structural. They aren't fixed by big heroic sacrifices, they're fixed by people making different choices. Orion chose.

I've also read reviews that said the ending was too dark and unsatisfying because it wasn't a literal happy ever after which just left me going whaaa?


Edit: more thoughts

Spoiler

Show

So I really appreciate in general how fast the book moved. Fantasy tends to draaag ooon a lot of the time (sometimes for like, literal books) but this, both as a book and series definitely didn't. That's good.

But it made the ending with Orion feel rushed. We learn he's a maw-mouth right before the climax, and that entire plot thread is wrapped up immediately. So it never really has a chance to register as a problem, particularly since he's hardly been a character in the third book.

I feel like there needed to be more space between revelation and resolution there. I think the resolution is basically fine, and in some ways a really excellent capstone to both El and Orion's character arcs (she actually asks somebody nicely, he is actually valued) but it's so close to understanding the problem that we don't get to sit with the alternative very long. There's no failed effort to save him first, no wrestling with needing to kill him, just problem and resolution.

Anyway, after that shocking brush with reading cuurent things that people know about, I've scuttled back to irrelevant and aged obscurity, and picked up The Ring of Ikribu. This is a Red Sonja novel, and is fairly boilerplate sword and sorcery, albeit better written than it has any right to be. Like seriously, this is actually solid and enjoyable prose and character work, with just the right combination of florid and spare muscularity that makes S&S fun. Probably not worth the effort of tracking down, but fun enough if you feel like hot-blooded stories about low fantasy characters chopping winged zombies out of the air in sprays of crimson.

[Velaryon]

I recently powered through the autobiographies of Rob Halford and K.K. Downing from Judas Priest (Confess and Heavy Duty, respectively). It was interesting seeing their vastly different points of view on their careers and success. I got some definite sour grapes vibes from Downing, but there are a few places where it's also easier to believe his version of events over Halford's. For instance...

Spoiler: more for length and sorta off-topicness than actual spoilers

Show

Rob Halford's version of the story about why he left Judas Priest in the 90's was that it was basically an accidental misunderstanding that he just... didn't correct for some reason.

Basically, he says he had been wanting for some time to start a side project to test his own creative chops independently of his Judas Priest bandmates. He claims that all of the other band members were aware of this and all gave their blessing. He then says that a record company executive told him that in order to start his contract for his side project, he would have to formally quit Judas Priest, which he thought was just a technicality and not really true, so he agreed to it. Then word got to the rest of the band that he was quitting, and so he... stayed silent about it? Made not one attempt to contact any of them or set the record straight? Didn't call up the record company to say "hey wait a minute, this isn't what I wanted?" Didn't say anything in interviews? That seems a little hard to believe.

Downing says that Halford was adamant about quitting, and that he (Downing) considered solo projects to be a sort of betrayal of the band. Considering that the band lost their contract without Halford and ended up on a smaller indy label, I'm inclined to think there might be more truth to this version of events than Halford's "oops, I never meant to quit but I was too embarrassed to say anything about it, especially when the band announced they were looking for a new singer to replace me."

On the fiction front, I discovered recently that there was a prequel novella to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, specifically a story about the aeronaut Lee Scoresby called Once Upon a Time in the North. I've started reading it, and so far it's... eh. It isn't terrible, but Scoresby is kind of flat as a character, and the story really just feels kinda unnecessary so far. I'm hoping that it will get better, especially since it's supposed to be the story of how he befriended Iorek Byrnison, the king of the bears who was one of my favorite characters in the series (and who I thought was criminally underused after the first book).

[LibraryOgre]

Rereading "So You want to be a Wizard" by Diane Duane. It is such a joyous book.

However, a thought about the Mercy Thompson Universe... a gray witch could have a ton of power just hanging around werewolves. "Oh, your transformation is 10 minutes of excrucitiating pain? I can use that!"

[Mechalich]

Spoiler

Show

I think saving Orion is also important because the fundamental problem the books are entirely structural. They aren't fixed by big heroic sacrifices, they're fixed by people making different choices. Orion chose.

Spoiler

Show

The fundamental problem isn't structural, or it isn't structural at the human level, it has to do with how the overall magic system works. Specifically, magical power is drawn from living energy. Sometimes that's accumulated freely through physical or emotional exertion and storage by the user, as mana, and other times its just stolen from another organism as malia. There's no natural reservoir of magical power at all, and because the theft of life energy produces mals that both burn through mana and malia simply by existing and also eat it from other sources, it's actually a negative sum system - all magic does is drain the world. This is of course part and parcel with the bad math, the Scholomance fundamentally doesn't work as a universe, there is no sustainable level of wizardry at all and the casualty levels are so high that they went extinct almost as soon as they began.

Insofar as the books offer a solution its a combination of conservation and redistribution empowered by a technological rediscovery and an extremely direct threat that those who fail to adopt will be purged. It's not a complete solution by any means, there's still not enough power to go around and people will still cheat, inevitably, because this is a universe in which you can kill people for power, which is one of the fundamental principles of grimdark.

In many fantasy universes there's an interesting question of: does the existence of the supernatural make the world a better place? In the Scholomance that answer is a resounding, no, no it does not. The outright obliteration of magic would be a massive win for the world at large, and actually the extremely strong natural rejection of magic by mundanes suggests that some sort of universal level everyone knows that. Of course, given the numbers postulated, that should have already happened, which is possibly the joke.

[Thane of Fife]

[spoiler]Anyway, after that shocking brush with reading cuurent things that people know about, I've scuttled back to irrelevant and aged obscurity, and picked up The Ring of Ikribu. This is a Red Sonja novel, and is fairly boilerplate sword and sorcery, albeit better written than it has any right to be. Like seriously, this is actually solid and enjoyable prose and character work, with just the right combination of florid and spare muscularity that makes S&S fun. Probably not worth the effort of tracking down, but fun enough if you feel like hot-blooded stories about low fantasy characters chopping winged zombies out of the air in sprays of crimson.

Mmm. I wasn't a big fan of that one. Aesthetically, it was a bit too fantastic for my S&S tastes (though that's fairly common with Red Sonja), but I also seem tor ecall that she never really did anything - she basically was just working as a bodyguard for another character the whole time.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Rereading "So You want to be a Wizard" by Diane Duane. It is such a joyous book.

However, a thought about the Mercy Thompson Universe... a gray witch could have a ton of power just hanging around werewolves. "Oh, your transformation is 10 minutes of excrucitiating pain? I can use that!"

Love that series. A few years ago, I was surprised to learn that there were two new books out for it: A Wizard of Mars and Games Wizards Play. Well, for a given value of "new", they came out in 2010 and 2016 respectively, but still a pleasant surprise. Also, according to Goodreads there are a whole bunch of short stories set between and after those two, which I didn't know about. I'll have to track those down at some point.

RE grey witches, I think most packs don't transform nearly as often as Adam's and the Marrok's, so you'd only really be raking in power on the full moon (that'd be a heck of a windfall, though, if you could capture enough of it). Even a white witch that was a werewolf themself would rapidly become nightmarishly powerful, though. That's of course why vampires and werewolves are so careful not to turn anyone that's already supernatural; you're almost certainly creating a creature that's more powerful than anyone in your friend group.

[Bohandas]

Just finished Frankenstein. I've been driven to distraction trying to figure out just what, precisely, is wrong with the two main characters.

Victor's account of his early life includes several instances where he suddenly and inexplicably loses interest in things he was previously passionate about, culminating in the inexplicable abandonment of his life's work which sets off the events of the latter part of the book.

As for the Monster, he would have one believe that his murderous behavior was the result of the abuse he continually suffered, but that falls short. The 1800's had no shortage of people who had been rejected and trampled on by society, and the vast majority of them did not turn to murder as an outlet for their sorrows. Furthermore there were vast demographics in that time that had it significantly worse than the monster did, native americans, austrailian aboriginies, slaves, and even just the bog standard homeless, who - lacking the monster's self-sufficiency - are forced by necessity to live within the societies that rejected them and continuously trampled them down. But these wretches did not as a rule turn to murder the way the Monster did. Furthermore still, none of the people that the monster murders are people who have wronged him or whose deaths could ameliorate his position. The Monster has in him some uncommon propensity for murder and bloodshed.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Furthermore still, none of the people that the monster murders are people who have wronged him or whose deaths could ameliorate his position. The Monster has in him some uncommon propensity for murder and bloodshed.

Yeah that was my big hangup with the book too. And then afterwards the monster complains no one wants anything to do with him, like it’s not his fault people are afraid of him.

[LaZodiac]

Just finished Frankenstein. I've been driven to distraction trying to figure out just what, precisely, is wrong with the two main characters.

Victor's account of his early life includes several instances where he suddenly and inexplicably loses interest in things he was previously passionate about, culminating in the inexplicable abandonment of his life's work which sets off the events of the latter part of the book.

As for the Monster, he would have one believe that his murderous behavior was the result of the abuse he continually suffered, but that falls short. The 1800's had no shortage of people who had been rejected and trampled on by society, and the vast majority of them did not turn to murder as an outlet for their sorrows. Furthermore there were vast demographics in that time that had it significantly worse than the monster did, native americans, austrailian aboriginies, slaves, and even just the bog standard homeless, who - lacking the monster's self-sufficiency - are forced by necessity to live within the societies that rejected them and continuously trampled them down. But these wretches did not as a rule turn to murder the way the Monster did. Furthermore still, none of the people that the monster murders are people who have wronged him or whose deaths could ameliorate his position. The Monster has in him some uncommon propensity for murder and bloodshed.

It has been awhile since I've read Frankenstein but this feels like The Point Of The Novel.

[Wookieetank]

It has been awhile since I've read Frankenstein but this feels like The Point Of The Novel.

Pretty much. The ending very much gave the impression of the monster being a fugitive on the run from the authorities (Frankenstien).

Been reading through Needful Things by Stephen King for spooky season. Made it about halfway through so far, and its been an interesting read. Does a rather detailed job of looking at how interconnected small towns can be, and how minor events can cascade into larger more disasterous ones. Also takes a hard look at obsession, and the lengths people will go to in order to get (and keep) what they're obsessed with. Granted there's some supernatural persuasion at work feeding the obsessions, but it does make for some good food for thought to ruminated on what am I obsessed with myself, and where do I draw my lines.

[The_Snark]

Just finished Frankenstein. I've been driven to distraction trying to figure out just what, precisely, is wrong with the two main characters.

So many things!

Although with regards to the monster, I think it's important to remember that he's very, very young. He comes into being with the intelligence of an adult, more or less, but the emotional maturity of a very young child. He's got a lot of feelings (like any kid) and no experience handling them... but unlike your average toddler, his temper tantrums can be lethal for people around him. That's not to excuse what he does, but it does help put it in context, I think.

[Rater202]

Once must also consider the degree of alienation the creature must feel: His first experiance in life was violent, horrified rejection by his creator.

Imagine that being your first memory: Being told that you are a failure, that you are unworthy, by your parent and, in a way, your God, the being who created you from nothing... Yeah.

Compounding that is that the monster is obviously inhuman in body: His eyes are noted to be a strange color and something about his flesh causes an extreme visceral reaction in others—which, considering that he's covered in stitches, is described as being unnaturally pale, with his muscles and arteries and the movements thereof visible beneath it, scans.

It's not simply that he's oppressed and mistreated, and that's everyone who looks upon him instantly and instinctively rejects him outright.

He's specifically treated as a monster unworthy of life, love, or affection by any and all he meets. And, as noted, he's for all intents and purposes a child.

Keep twlling a kid he's bad, and he'll believe that he's bad and grow up to be bad. Tell a kid he's a monster and what's he gonna grow up to be?

and that's just the stuff that Shelly could reasonably know about. We now know that there are certain forms of learning and certain types of cognitive development that can only occur at certain stages in brain development. If Adam was effectively born as an adult he would be all kinds of screwed in terms of his ability to learn to be a person.

[Bohandas]

Once must also consider the degree of alienation the creature must feel: His first experiance in life was violent, horrified rejection by his creator.

No it wasn't. He specifically makes it clear that his senses weren't working when he first woke up. He only finds out about Victor secondhand as a result of accidentally having some of the pages of Victor's journal

[Rater202]

No it wasn't. He specifically makes it clear that his senses weren't working when he first woke up. He only finds out about Victor secondhand as a result of accidentally having some of the pages of Victor's journal

An infant that is deprived of parental affection is highly likely to develop behavioral disorders due to the alienation as they grow older. The lack of conscious memory of such alienation does not mitigate it, the subconscious memory is all that is needed.

The creature was senseless as a newborn is senseless: The lack of conscious recollection of the rejection is honestly irrelevant, he still experienced it and the memory still exists in his subconscious influencing his development going foreward.

The journal pages would have simply explained why the monster felt as he did, and given him someone to seek out for answers.

[warty goblin]

Mmm. I wasn't a big fan of that one. Aesthetically, it was a bit too fantastic for my S&S tastes (though that's fairly common with Red Sonja), but I also seem tor ecall that she never really did anything - she basically was just working as a bodyguard for another character the whole time.

Yeah, the ending was less heroic than expected. Certaibly dark though, and I'd still rate it as pretty fun S&S. I've got the next five books standing by for the next time I need that itch scratched, and I think they'll do a good job of it.

Anyway, that leaves me with In the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. The gimmick of this book is that it's written over the course of October, one chapter a day. Therefore I'm reading it one chapter a day, which requires some substantial self control as it's excellent. I can see reading this over the course of many Octobers to come.

Also dove into Jeff Vandemeer's recent Hummingbird Salamander, since I felt like something a bit more difficult. It's certainly something, and takes unreliable narrators to a new level; this one isn't so much shading the truth as deliberately obfuscating it as a counter-intelligence measure. Fascinating, and I'm rather curious where it goes.

[Eldan]

Ann Leckie is writing another Radch novel and this one seems to be about Translators. Best news I've had in a long while.

[Bohandas]

I'm halfway through Phantom of the Opera. I must say that none of the adaptations I've seen of it have ever captured how much of a self-centered egomaniac Raoul is in the book. Or the fact that he's almost as much of an obsessive stalker as the Phantom is.

EDIT:
Also, it just occurred to me that Eric's posing as a ghost may have been the prototype for the villains on Scooby Doo

[Scarlet Knight]

I did not get that impression; he is, after all, a 19th century nobleman.

Since you are only halfway through:

Spoiler

Show

The Phantom is a pretty casual murderer where Christine is concerned while Raoul is not. Plus I find it interesting that the screen versions seem to always eliminate the Persian.

[LibraryOgre]

Finished "So You Want to be a Wizard", moved on to "Deep Wizardry"

[Bohandas]

I did not get that impression; he is, after all, a 19th century nobleman.

Since you are only halfway through:

Spoiler

Show

The Phantom is a pretty casual murderer where Christine is concerned while Raoul is not. Plus I find it interesting that the screen versions seem to always eliminate the Persian.

I'm not saying that the phantom is better. I'm just saying that Raoul only looks good because the Phantom is there for contrast. Raoul may be a childish egocentric posessive stalker, but at least he isn't also a serial killer and a gangster on top of it the way Eric is.

[Velaryon]

Went on a graphic novel binge over the weekend. I read both volumes of Stickman Odyssey by Christopher Ford, which was cute and sometimes clever but not amazing. I mean, in terms of humorous stick figure comics, it doesn't even begin to approach OOTS in quality. But it was fun.

I also read The Eternal Smile by Gene Luen Yang, which was pretty decent but definitely not his best work. I enjoyed American Born Chinese, The Shadow Hero, and Dragon Hoops much more.

Started in on the first volume of Lore Olympus as well. Journey's still out on that one for me.

[Tarmor]

Finished "So You Want to be a Wizard", moved on to "Deep Wizardry"

I've got four books in that series... not sure if there are more. [Edit: Just did a check, I'm way behind.] Enjoyed them a lot, and it would be good to re-read them, but there's a long list before I get that far.

I'm most of the way through 'Dust of Dreams' (Stephen Erikson, book 9 of 10, Malazan Book of the Fallen.) I've been reading my way through this steadily all year - had to take a break in the middle while I obtained the last few books I was missing. I've enjoyed the range of characters, locations and conflicts, though with so many people, it gets a little confusing remembering who some of them are and what they were doing in the past.

[KorvinStarmast]

Most recent non fiction: The New Map. (Yergin)
Worth a read, although it being published in 2020 misses a few glaring things in current events.

[Ionathus]

Started in on the first volume of Lore Olympus as well. Journey's still out on that one for me.

I have the print edition of volume one as well. LO is very fun but definitely the most fun on an initial binge through the online archive. It's also worth mentioning that the comic was initially designed to be a single continuous vertical scroll - which can only truly be replicated on a smartphone screen (or a set of handcrafted five-inch-wide and 5-meter-long actual paper scrolls!).

The print copy can't quite deliver that experience the whole time - the artwork is still good, but the "vibes" are off.

[Bohandas]

Has anyone else noticed the similarities between Frankenstein's Monster and the Phantom of the Opera?