Whatcha Reading?

[Grey_Devil]

Time for me to nerd out and give some manga/manhwa recs that i’ve read recently that i enjoyed. Hopefully someone will enjoy them too. These all fall under power fantasy type of tropes/genre, with very capable main characters but that set up their personality in a way where they are not arrogant pieces of shit and have more going on about their worldview besides “punch thing hard”. These don’t have a ton of chapters but just enough are out right now to be a nice diversion for a couple of days.

First one is the manhwa “Surviving as a Genius on Borrowed Time”. The setting is really interesting to me, it’s the typical Korean martial arts setting… mostly. But it also has fantasy aspects that are sprinkled into it with a level of restraint that makes me want to know more, from the chapters released it does not give you a whole lot of background as to why this martial arts setting has elves, the world tree, etc. I am eager to find out more, and while the character is a literal genius where everything comes easy to him the way he is written works for me.

The second one is the manhwa “Night of the Soulless Heathens”. This one has a more medieval-like fantasy setting, main character is powerful but has an upstanding moral compass that is done well. Maybe the one demerit i can give this one is that the has a male assistant that i found annoying.

Last one is the manga “My Blade Will Lead the Way! Abandoned in a Labyrinth as a Directionally Challenged S-Rank Swordsman”. Yes its one of those with a long title, and more of a typical Japanese fantasy setting but thankfully no isekai or RPG-like system nonsense so far. It’s mostly a comedy where the main character is a very powerful and capable swordsman, but is also an idiot in some ways (but a lovable one thankfully). And has a handicap of having an awful sense of direction and very poor eyesight. The world and character building is really good, and the MC’s relationships and friendships are some of the cutest and wholesome things i’ve read. Unfortunately from what i’ve seen the chapter releases are slow but what is available so far will be well worth your time.

[mindysan33]

George R.R. Martin Is Really Starting to Get Sick of Your 'Winds of Winter'...

We know George… we just love the books and want to have a proper ending to the story is all… Plus, I want to see what happens with the storylines that did not make it into the series (Lady Stoneheart, the other Targaryan heir, etc).

[KarlS]

What makes this so tragic is that I suspect that the same decision that makes ASOIAF so difficult to finish is what made it so successful. He could have made his life so much easier if he had made the series more episodic, but instead he started a monstrosity of a single novel, currently at 5000 pages with no end in sight. People love dozens of plot lines, hundreds of characters but enough time spent with the major ones to fill books of their own, countless settings etc. However all this hinges on the implicit promise of a reasonably satisfying resolution. Sure, he is famously not our bitch and doesn’t owe us any books, but all the same, if he doesn’t deliver them the whole thing will be a failure. He wouldn’t be left with five wildly successful books but with two thirds of a very thick one he wanted to write but could’t.

[Crashproof]

@Crashproof

Currently I’m on Alexis Hall’s The Affair of the Mysterious Letter

Enjoyed it a lot! It got me reading the same author’s Mortal Follies next – a sort of fantasy/mystery/romance set in the early 19th century which is narrated (and interfered with, a little) by the hobgoblin Robin Goodfellow. Who of course, does think what fools these mortals be, and also kind of tedious for the most part except when they’re in hilariously awkward social situations and/or mortal peril. The main character is cursed and also discovering that she prefers women. The writing style on both these books was so much fun, I want to seek out other books by Alexis Hall. They also write non-fantasy romance stuff including… baking-themed romances? I think I will stick to the fantasy ones

…

Have just started on So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color. Not mentioned in that long title: all the interviewees are in their 50s, 60s and 70s and grew up in diverse places (big cities, small towns, a reservation, communist Cuba, Venezuela during the Dirty War…). So they definitely have some stories. Nice to see something other than mostly white, mostly 20-ish folks represented.

[Grey_Devil]

Ok. I have something i can only describe as a guilty pleasure read and i can’t expect others to be inclined to read it but bare with me. The series is called Villains Are Destined To Die (or Death Is The Only Ending For The Villainess)

Yesterday i was looking for something different to read and ran across a Josei (aimed at adult women) manhwa. The genre is isekai reverse harem (romancing/gathering men, instead of women)… kind of. Female lead has a pretty traumatizing upbringing, full of physical and emotional abuse from the men in her family. Nothing sexual, just men being pieces of shit towards her. She gains independence, plays a newly released romance mobile game and really enjoys it. Falls asleep and wakes up as the villainess who has somewhat of a similar backstory to her, not 100% but mainly the emotional and physical abuse.

What i like about it is the villainess is not looking to romance anyone or live a live of comfort in this new world. She desperately wants to survive, every interaction has potential to end with her death, and yet she stands up for herself in small and major ways. Never forgives the unjustified cruelty of the men around her, despite having to vie for their affection.

The characters are well written within a cliche-packed genre, and the main character is flawed but cunning without veering into being a cold person. She threads a fine line in being soft when needed but being unapologetically defiant. Honestly? I high-key love it so far and i’m 57 chapters in. Not really a spoiler but i’m currently at this part in the story and i’m living for it:

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[mindysan33]

Why the Worst People Are So Keen to Wreck Art and Culture

I believe, more than ever, that the humanities are vital to, well, humanity. And that we have to protect them with everything we have, or everything else will slowly slide into the pit.

[mindysan33]

Linked in the above post…

But, but, but - WHY does magic have to make sense? - Epiphany 2.0

[timd]

I quite like the sound of her book.

Magic does not make sense – that’s the sense of magic. I do think there should be a line between magic answering every situation and magic being flawed. I come down on the flawed side.

[mindysan33]

Robots are obsessed with 1990s web aesthetics

Automatic Noodle

[sqlrob]

I still like the corollary to Clarke’s law, don’t recall where I first saw it.

“Any sufficiently arcane magic is indistinguishable from technology”

[FSogol]

Just finished Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford. I typically avoid alternate histories, but this one caught my attention. It’s a detective noir set in “an alternate 1920s America where the Mississippian civilization, including the city of Cahokia, survived and formed its own Native American state.” The story follows Cahokia PD detective Joe Barrow as he investigates a brutal murder. Recommended.

Reminded me of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Cabon.

[RAvery]

This is a pet peeve of mine. Proper books have the title printed on the spine horizontally.

[robmck]

That Analee Newitz piece is fantastic! I am going to read the hell out of her new book when it comes out.

Also want a piece of merch (which is a rare sentiment for me) and may brave the import fuckery…

[Millie_Fink]

Mark Twain’s Disturbing Passion for Collecting Young Girls

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/28/mark-twains-disturbing-passion-for-collecting-young-girls/

In 1905, when seventy-year-old Mark Twain began to collect a bevy of adolescent girls, whom he called his “angel-fish,” he defended his predilection by insisting that he longed for grandchildren. His own daughters were grown—his favorite, Susy, was dead by then—and he was lonely. But grandfathers can have grandsons as well as granddaughters, and Twain, the creator of one of literature’s most famous adolescents, surely celebrated boys’ cheeky energy. There was more, then, to his strange sorority than an elderly man’s yearning for grandchildren, more even than nostalgia for his daughters’ childhoods. “As for me,” Twain wrote at the age of seventy-three, “I collect pets: young girls—girls from ten to sixteen years old; girls who are pretty and sweet and naive and innocent—dear young creatures to whom life is a perfect joy and to whom it has brought no wounds, no bitterness, and few tears.”

Innocent they were, but not as naive as he seemed to think. Certainly they knew that he was a celebrity: that was how it started, when fifteen-year-old Gertrude Natkin saw him leaving Carnegie Hall on December 27, 1905, after a matinee song recital by the German soprano Madame Johanna Gadski. Twain, after all, was instantly recognizable, even before he decided to wear only white. He noticed her, to be sure, saw that she wanted to speak to him, introduced himself and shook her hand. The next day, she wrote to thank him: “I am very glad I can go up and speak to you now … as I think we know each other.” Describing herself as his “obedient child,” she ended her note, “I am the little girl who loves you.” He responded immediately, calling himself Gertrude’s “oldest & latest conquest.” Their correspondence was playfully flirtatious: he called her his “little witch”; she called him “darling.” He sent her a copy of his favorite book, the writings of “a bewitching little scamp” named Marjorie, who had died just short of her ninth birthday, in Scotland in 1811. “I have adored Marjorie for six-and-thirty years,” he confessed in an essay. The child, who confided startlingly sophisticated remarks about books, history and religion in her journal, seemed to him “made out of thunderstorms and sunshine“: “how impulsive she was, how sudden, how tempestuous, how tender, how loving, how sweet, how loyal, how rebellious … how innocently bad, how natively good,” he exclaimed. “May I be your little ‘Marjorie’?” Gertrude asked coyly. That is how Twain addressed her, in letters filled with what the two called “blots,” or kisses—until 1906, when he was taken aback by her turning sixteen. “I am almost afraid to send a blot, but I venture it. Bless your heart it comes within an ace of being improper! Now back you go to 14!—then there’s no impropriety.” Their correspondence ended, and Twain set his sights on younger girls.

Buoyed by Gertrude’s effusive declarations of love, Twain discovered that it was easy to find other young admirers, primarily from among his fellow passengers on holiday trips to Bermuda. By 1908, he had collected ten schoolgirls, dubbed them his “angel-fish,” and awarded them membership in his Aquarium Club. In Bermuda, he had special shimmering enamel lapel pins designed for them to wear on their left breast, above the heart. In the spring and summer of 1908, one biographer notes, Twain’s letters to his angelfish comprised more than half of his correspondence: one letter sent or received every day. Many contained invitations to the girls to visit him in his palatial house in Redding, Connecticut, which he named Innocence at Home. “I have built this house largely, indeed almost chiefly, for the comfort & accommodation of the Aquarium,” Twain announced in a mock-serious document that he sent to his angelfish, containing the rules and regulations of the club. The lair of the angelfish was his Billiard Room.

[Grey_Devil]

Pardon me while i go throw up

[Dogbutler]

The Joy of Gardening

I’d been meaning to read “Parable Of The Sower” for years now. In a quiet moment, I ordered both “Sower” and “Talents” from Abebooks, and also the “Dawn” trilogy (not yet started), for a bargain price. “Sower” had me in tears in places. And then “Talents”, a dystopian vision featuring (thankfully not starring) a fictional president who wants to “make America great again”, well, fuckin’ell. I’ve been a long time waiting to read Octavia Butler. Damn, she was light-years ahead of her time.

Thought I’d cross-post this, as it’s not all that relevant to gardening.
(Well, maybe tangentially)

[mindysan33]

I finally finished reading Elizabeth Sandifer’s Neoreactionary A Basilisk. I definitely recommend it, as it was originally published not long after Trump got elected the first time, and it’s clear that some people could very well see these connections between the alt-right, far right, TERFS, and the MAGA movement way back then.

Now I’m reading this…

The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko by Derek Tyler Attico: 9781803366234 |...

Which is absolutely excellent so far. It very much confirms a lot of what I think about Sisko as a character within the Trek universe. It’s worth a read if your a Trekkie, and even if your just kind of a casual fan.

[Millie_Fink]

Wow. I’m seeing this review making the rounds, by people praising it and finding it funny, but it just strikes me as needlessly and wrongly cruel. I read Vuong’s furst book and thought it was beautifully and bravely poetic. Haven’t read his second yet. Maybe he struck a nerve in such readers?

Tom Crewe · My Hands in My Face: Ocean Vuong’s Failure

[mindysan33]

I heard Ocean Vuong on Fresh Air last week and it sounds like a lovely book…

[Millie_Fink]

Right?

I just don’t understand why that review is so vicious. Unless the writer is some far-right asshole.

I assume it’s this author:

Tom Crewe