So, What Are You Reading?

Stuff I've read since I last posted, sorted from least to most favorite: Homecoming by Claire Legrand, Summerfall by Claire Legrand, Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi, Nan-Core by Mahokaru Numata, Crown of Thunder by Tochi Onyebuchi, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zaffon, The Two Towers and The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien, Winterkeep by Kristen Cashore, and Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore.

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami gets special mention because I still have mixed feelings about it. No idea where I would place it in the above list.

Onward to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

I'm almost through my reread of Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen series.

Edited by Oratel on Feb 25th 2023 at 5:00:51 AM

~ ♪ I know I’m playing with your heart / And I could treat you better but I’m not that smart ♪ ~

Listening to A Christmas Carol right now. It actually holds up pretty well; it's short but very descriptive and evocative, and there are some aspects like the Lemony Narrator that were a pleasant surprise.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

The Saga of Darren Shan and sort of dying to talk about it with someone.

So... these books have been my favorites for over half of my life. My favorite character in these books is my favorite character in anything ever.

The fandom is kind of quiet, and... well, immature— they are middle-grade books after all. But they hold up when you're older than that.

I'm writing a bunch of analysis, criticism, fanfics, various things about the books and just... generally getting excited over them.

I'd highly recommend them to any age. I used to say if you're older, you'd probably find 1-3 a struggle, but get through them because 4-6 are the interesting ones (there are 12 overall), but... re-reading 2 now, I'm surprised at how mature it actually is. It's about a 12-year-old boy practically starving to death (because he's become a vampire but he refuses to drink human blood because he thinks it's wrong). It's like... Adult Fear territory.

And then 4-6 are all sorts of thematically interesting.

I just... highly recommend these. But if you read them, please try to avoid spoilers.

I've starting reading Kingdom Come

New theme music also a box

Finally finished Waechter der Schatten, after like seventeen months.

Started a new book I got fro Christmas: When the Irish Invaded Canada, a book about the Fenian Raids.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

Started reading Lights, Camera, Game Over!: How Video Game Movies Get Made

Help me. I can't get it out of my head.

Re-reading Dungeon Crawler Carl in preparation for the next book, which should be out soon. By the time I'm finished, the new Star Wars: The High Republic should be out.

I finished 11/22/63 (it was great) and I'm starting the extended edition of The Stand.

Finished Death's End in the wee wee hours of this morning.

I feel like The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest were written as a duology, with Death's End being a later idea. The Dark Forest ends on an upbeat note in the future, while Death's End jumps back to the present and follows new characters as they journey into the future, during which the hopeful ending is completely dashed. This leads to a significant chunk of the book being an explicit and incredibnly on-the-nose allegory for the treatment of Aboriginal Australians by white settlers which, given Liu's comments about Tibet and Uighurstan, means he either has a staggering lack of self-awareness, or Winnie the Pooh at some point sent some people to have a chat with him. Given that the book is also surprisingly positive about democracy and free-market capitalism, and appears to have some veiled criticisms the Chinese government, I'm leaning toward the latter.

For much of the book, a running theme is that ubuntu is at best a luxury, at worst a weakness. As Thomas Wade puts it: "When we lose our human nature [ubuntu], we lose much, but when we lose our bestial nature, we lose everything". Cheng Xin chooses ubuntu every time, and every time, things get worse. And yet, ultimately, the narrative rebukes Dark Forest theory as a terrible approach to interstellar relations in favour of an embrace of ubuntu; as the universe winds down, the surviving races, including both Humans and Trisolarans take joint action to ensure the universe will eventually be reborn instead of simply facing heat death, an action which is only made possible by every individual consciously choosing to abandon Dark Forest interactions and embrace ubuntu. Plus, Dark Forest strikes are shown to be gradually destroying the universe, and ultimately destroy even those that use them, a concept that has overtones of environmentalism and conservationism.

Speaking of Cheng Xin, she's a pretty controversial character. Her detractors argue that every action she takes dooms humanity to extinction, yet she gets a somewhat happy ednding. This is certainly the outcome, but condemning her as evil hits one of my pet peeves, which is expecting people to act with future knowledge. Cheng Xin is a fundamentally good person who gets placed in difficult situation. The decisions she makes are reasonable based on the information available to her. She constantly chooses ubuntu, and gets screwed over due to the Dark Forest, but this is ultimately because the rest of the galaxy is so bound up in the Dark Forest they're unwilling to even try a better way.

On the negative side of the writing, dialogue can be rather long-winded and elaborate, but that might be at least partly a translation issue. As in 3001: The Final Odyssey, plot at times takes a back seat to describing the scifi future, though Liu is at least less gushy than Clarke. There is a scene where Cheng Xin and 艾 AA have a detailed discussion about engineering light-speed propulsion entirely though their eyes, which is still silly. And after going into space, Yun Tianming is simply a Deus ex Machina, which means you have to read licensed fanfic to find out what is actually going on with him.

I'm going to read Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits next, and then return to Liu for The Redemption of Time.

Ukrainian Red Cross

Stuff I've read since I last posted, sorted from least to most favorite: Sweet Tea Revenge by Laura Childs, Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, Fairest by Marissa Meyer, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby.

Finished my reread of Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard some time ago. Currently rereading The Empirium Trilogy by Claire Legrand.

Currently reading: Spice and Wolf, Vol. 22 by Isuna Hasekura. Will start Garden of Sins by Laura Joh Rowland and Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore soon.

Edited by Oratel on Feb 25th 2023 at 5:03:37 AM

~ ♪ I know I’m playing with your heart / And I could treat you better but I’m not that smart ♪ ~

I just finished Through the Looking Glass and went to Dracula. I had only read the first chapters (when Jonathan was trapped in the Dracula castle) in a bookstore, and now that I have bought it I'll be able to finish it.

Earlier last year, I read Coisas que o Povo Diz from anthropologist Câmara Cascudo and Os Últimos Quartetos de Beethoven from Luis Fernando Verissimo

Edited by good-morning on Jan 15th 2022 at 9:17:04 AM

oh hey how are you doing?

The other book I've been reading is Astronomy and Calendars: The Other Chinese Mathematics 104 BC - AD 1644 by Jean-Claude Martzloff. It's an academic monograph describing the mathematics of historical, mostly-algorithmic Chinese calendars. It's well-sourced and is probably the most authoritative work on Chinese calendars written with Roman letters, but my God does Martzloff need an editor. There are a lot of fractions and mixed numbers involved in the algorithms, and Martzloff uses a shorthand where he only writes the numerators, leaving the reader to hunt through the book and at times do maths themselves to figure out what the denominators are supposed to be. And yes, he does this even when discussing fractions with different denominators. And sometimes he randomly changes the denominator without telling the reader.

Plus, in the chapters that describe the Xuanming calendar, he uses Λ, λ, and α to refer to two sets of variables, but randomly changes which set each refers to. In one chapter, they're Λ and λ, but in the chapter working out a specific year in the Xuanming calendar, Λ becomes &lambda& while the set previously referred to as λ becomes α (or maybe λ stays the same and Λ becomes α; I spent a few hours yesterday reading very carefully and comparing multiple equations to figure out what is supposed to go where).

This book is frustrating.

Ukrainian Red Cross

> Plus, Dark Forest strikes are shown to be gradually destroying the universe, and ultimately destroy even those that use them, a concept that has overtones of environmentalism and conservationism.

Given the first book's Anvilicious spiel about those EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL environmentalists who hate humanity so much that they're going to help aliens exterminate the human race, I really don't think those overtones were intentional.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

Out of all of those, I only ever enjoyed Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds, Star Wars: The High Republic - Light of the Jedi, Black Trillium, Star Trek: Picard - Rogue Elements, Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood, The Fall of Deadworld, The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War, Judges: The Genesis of the World - The Avalanche, Halloween Kills and The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor.

This year, I hopefully plan on reading Kiss My Axe! Slaine the Warped Warrior: The Secret History by Pat Mills, Judges: The Genesis of the World of Judge Dredd - Volume Three, Star Trek: Picard - Second Self, The Man Who Died Twice, Rico Dredd: The Titan Years, Dragonplague, the Legends of Dune Trilogy, Run Rose Run, Supernatural Encounters: The Trial and Transformation of Ahrul Hextrophon, Book One of Kim Sherwood‘s James Bond Trilogy, A Child Called “It” , The President Is Missing and the Halloween Ends novelisation (if one ever comes out this year).

I finished Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits today, the third novel Jason "David Wong" Pargin wrote about the themes he explores in his non-fiction. I enjoyed this book; Pargin has a light, breezy style to his prose that is easy to read.

He does a good job of getting inside the heads of libertarians and techbros, and exploring the consequences of their worldviews. I don't know if it was intentional, but he pulled a masterstroke in how he paced what we learn about Arthur. First of all, he's an asshole, but as we spend time with his friends and colleagues, the image starts to soften, and we see that he's done some bad things but ultimately he's a decent fellow... and then we get a flashback to how Arthur met the Suits, and no, he is not a good person at all.

But Arthur truly doesn't think of himself as a bad person. All too often, people think that the key to writing a character like that is to give them genuine, sincere convictions, which they stick to even when it costs them. Arthur is not like that. Like all libertarians, when something bad happens, he simply says "Well that's what the market wants". He sincerely means it, and would repeat it if bound with Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth. But it's clear this isn't a genuine matter of principle - rather, this worldview appealed to him because it allowed him to come out on top, and if he can succeed, the logically the system must work. This attitude is pervasive in Tabula Ra$a, and the book shows in detail why it's a terrible way to run the world.

I also like how, when you get right down to it, the villains are Internet trolls. For all the SQW MRA streamer assholes talk a big game, the novel consistently portrays them as completely pathetic losers, and when you take away their audience, they're nothing. I also appreciated how they were not, in the end, portrayed as insecure, exactly, but rather full of contempt, and enraged at the idea that someone doesn't bow down to them. I've dealt with bullies my entire life, and this book is absolutely the most accurate portrayal I've ever read.

The portrayal of poverty is also a strong point, and it brought to mind a Cracked article which I think Pargin wrote. Much of the time, fiction elicits sympathy for the poor by portraying them as quiet and polite, suffering quietly but with dignity. This is not that book. Zoey and her mother are written as nice women, but the poor people are often portrayed as angry, aggressive, dangerous, demanding, and even picky eaters. It then hammers home that these are still human beings, who are still suffering, and still deserve compassion and help, even when they're being rude; indeed, being a jerk is often a survival strategy when you have to fight for every scrap.

And as for Zoey, writing a character like her in a situation like this is tricky. She spends a good chunk of the book being led around by everyone else before finally coming into her own at the end. One can reasonably accuse her of lacking agency, but she's clearly overwhelmed, while the Suits have a much better idea of what's going on. That said, I think this is intentional character development - she starts off as the bewildered newcomer, and grows into a person who ultimately takes down Molech.

Zoey does have an unfortunate habit of slutshaming and thinking ill of women more attractive than her. I get that this is at least partly a reflection of her own body issues, and such attitudes are not uncommon in real women, but it's a fine line to walk between portraying an attitude and endorsing it, and I don't know how well Pargin walks that line. Fortunately, this only happens on a few occasions, and the rest of the book is funny, engaging, and progressive enough to make up for it.

Oh, and glow-in-the-dark ice cream exists in the future. This would be a novelty in the real world that would wear off quickly, and really just reflects how Arthur is a self-indulgent manchild, but God help me it still sounds like a cool idea which I would love to exist in reality.

Next up, I return to the Three-Bodyverse with The Redemption of Time. Can Baoshu turn Yun Tianming into an actual character?

Ukrainian Red Cross

Meanwhile I'm reading Dune again

New theme music also a box

Currently reading The Boy On Cinnamon Streeet by Phoebe Stone. It's Middle Grade realistic fiction. I'd read another book by Stone when I was younger, and I am finding this book much better than her previous work.

The main character, Thumbelina (nee Louise) Terrace, has been struggling lately. She's a gifted gymnast, but has quit the team and has sold her balance beam. She's changed her name. She's moved town and moved schools. She's living with her grandparents and wants to move into her best friends' basement.

When her grandparents reminisce about her childhood, she says she doesn't remember.

Life has been looking bleak.

She has a secret admirer, though.

She isn't sure who it is, but thinks it might be the pizza deal boy.

Thumbelina's best friends, siblings Reni and Henderson Elliot try to figure out who her admirer is. Reni gets more excited while Henderson becomes more aloof. Thumbelina isn't sure how she's feeling about the whole thing.

Maybe it's because the only crush she ever had was on Frosty The Snowman when she was seven, maybe because she's starting to notice how wonderful Henderson is. Maybe it's because she's attempting to distance herself from a family tragedy so difficult that she can't even think about it.

She'll find out as the Spring arrives and she begins to thaw.

:3

I am, right this second, starting the He Who Fights With Monsters audiobook. I tried reading it normally a while back but gave up early on, and I can't quite remember why. Maybe it will be better to listen to. There are some books I couldn't stand reading, but a decent narrator at least made them passable.

Edited by Discar on Feb 17th 2022 at 6:10:57 AM

A cyberpunk novel on Spacebattles. The author said it’s influenced by Ready Player One and Metal Gear series, but there’s some Liu Cixin style too. One character is supposed to be a Liu Cixin reference, don’t know who yet.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/EncryptionStraffe

Stuff I've read since I last posted, sorted from least to most favorite: Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore, The Whole World Over by Julia Glass, Garden of Sins by Laura Joh Rowland, Before We Disappear by Shaun David Hutchinson, Poirot Loses a Client by Agatha Christie, The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim, Spice and Wolf, Vol. 22 by Isuna Hasekura, and Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters.

Currently reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen and Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

Still rereading The Empirium Trilogy by Claire Legrand. On Kingsbane.

Edited by Oratel on Feb 25th 2023 at 5:04:51 AM

~ ♪ I know I’m playing with your heart / And I could treat you better but I’m not that smart ♪ ~

I'll be the first to admit that I read a lot. My personal collection (not counting my parents' collections, which are just as large) includes a load of cozy mysteries, sci-fi and a lot of old kids' fiction, plus some other genres, and totals between 3400 and 3500 as of this writing (plus over 1500 regular books, plus over 900 manga volumes, on my wantlist). This total includes my active "to read" stack, which currently consists of:

• Fifty mysteries across seven series (which I'm working on troping, along with some other series);
• Three boxes of books I brought out of storage recently (and I haven't counted how many are in the first two boxes, but it's a lot):
  • One box of digest-sized books;
  • One box of mass market paperbacks, and:
  • One box of thirty hardcovers - the Daughters of the Moon series and its spinoff Sons of the Dark, and the core thirteen A Series of Unfortunate Events books.
    
    

It takes a while to get through it, because I have to be in the right mood to read them. (And also to not get interrupted while I'm trying to focus.)

I also have five "gap boxes" of books (around 170, across about 53 series - 24 mystery series, 9 other adult's fiction, 8 media tie-ins and 12 kids' fiction - as of this writing) that I'm waiting to read until I get the earlier books in each series (probably around 200 or more at this point) and can thus fill in the gaps and read them in the proper order. (Most of them come from used book sales, so it's a matter of luck and good timing to find the ones I need.)

Every time I read a new book, it's an adventure, and I look forward to enjoying even more.

Until next time...

Anon e Mouse Jr.

Well, I finished The Redemption of Time, and that is certainly an ending. The book is a whole lot of retcons, some of which work very well, others of which do not. I regard this as the true ending to Remembrance of Earth's Past simply because it turns Yun Tianming from a talking Deus ex Machina into an actual character, and all the stuff from when he was living among the Trisolarans is the sort of thing that should have been in Liu's books.

On the other hand, while I get what Baoshu was going for with the Abyss Gazers, I feel like this diminishes their narrative purpose. In Death's End, Singer's POV section shows that Dark Forest strikes are common and routine, but The Redemption of Time changes this to a divine mission going back to the beginning of time. While consistent with what has gone before, making the Abyss Gazers special in that way I feel detracts from the Cosmic Horror, but then Baoshu does wrench the Cosmic Horror from the application of game theory to truly alien civilisations and into a more traditionally Lovecraftian direction. It does work, and Liu approves of the story, but it's not what Liu was writing about.

Next up, I'm going back to Jason Pargin to answer the question: What the Hell did I Just Read?

Edited by VampireBuddha on Mar 5th 2022 at 1:31:35 PM

Ukrainian Red Cross

I finished Japan 1941. It made for a dense, slow read that took months despite being a little under 300 pages. It's... it's kind of hard to describe just how bad a lot of the decisions made by leaders in Japan in the lead-up to the pacific war were. The book at times seems almost sarcastic in discussing their positions, like how constant saber-rattling was supposed to keep the military's morale up.

I also finished When the Irish Invaded Canada. The epilogue talks about the impact the Fenian Raids had on later Irish independence movements, which is a powerful though and kind of surprising given that the book is a pretty frank look at the often incompetent and fractious Fenian Brotherhood.

Next up: Der Schatz am Silbersee

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

Stuff I've read since I last posted, sorted from least to most favorite: The Dinner by Herman Koch, Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger, The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani, She Would Be King by Wayetu Moore, I'll Be the One by Lyla Lee, Persuasion by Jane Austen, Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie, The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles, and Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

Currently reading: Kushiel's Mercy by Jacqueline Carey.

~ ♪ I know I’m playing with your heart / And I could treat you better but I’m not that smart ♪ ~

I just finished reading the Seraphina duology by Rachel Hartman.

I really loved those books. I know some people didn't like the second one as much, which I do kind of agree with. I thought it had higher highs than the first book. But also lower lows. If I'd rate Seraphina an 8.5, I think Shadow Scale shifts from a 7-9.

It's the kind of series where things I love about the concept made me really enjoy it.

I've also started on reading the Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab. I bounced off it a few years ago, mainly because the only other book I'd read by the author was Vicious. Which I really disliked.

But I've been enjoying this series a lot more. I'm 2/3 of the way though the second book. Although I get the impression this one has a bit of second book slump. At times it feels like there's just a bit too much contrivance in things.

"But if that happened, Melia might actually be happy. We can't have that." - Handsome Rob