Book Recommendations?

bekkilyn wrote:
Grenn wrote:

Question for bekkilyn. You're reading Don Quixote. Just about every depiction I've seen of that portrays him as a dreamer ahead of his time, but recently I saw a video where the person referred to the titular character as a menace and the overall story as a cautionary tale. Having never read the source material, I wanted to ask what your take on it was.

I'd say he's both a dreamer and a menace depending on the perspective of who is observing him. He has a pretty violent temper when he believes his knight errantry is being offronted, and seems to often take out the offenses on innocent people who he mistakes for monsters or people they aren't. I'm not sure I'd agree with him being "ahead of his time" because he primarily causes a lot of trouble for people while oftentimes thinking that he is being helpful. I believe Cervantes is poking fun at all the chivalry tropes through these adventures.

I'm only about halfway through the book though, so my perspective still has plenty of time to change.

As usual, bekkilyn is correct, from what I can tell. It's the *novel* itself that is ahead of its time, and this in mid-2020! And yes, the Don himself picks fights with prisoners, herds of sheep, and just about anybody and gets his butt kicked as a result. It really does contain multitudes, and some sections are right out of the Marx Brothers.

Mary Shelley wrote:

A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Ceasar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

I'd say Frankenstein holds up as a the 'first work of science fiction'. An artificial human serves as both an exaggeration of and a naive point of view on the human condition.

Similar to Don Quixote, I think the typical modern version suffers for obfuscating some of the original intent: the Romantic appeal to the human soul, a primary emphasis on Frankenstein's 'creation' as opposed to 'monster'. The "don't play god" message is present but not necessarily dominant. Really I thought the primary theme was how the pain people inflict upon each other isn't born in any one person's heart, but in the neglected relations between them. If we have to throw out one of the themes I think we chose the wrong one.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/LRbp5mr.jpg)

Also I liked that there were pictures in it! The hatchy ink style of Bernie Wrightson works really well with the pastoral and bleak environments.

Based on Bekkilyn’s recommendation I’ve started the audiobook of Don Quixote. The person reading is excellent! This book is freaking hilarious! Which I attribute largely to the delivery of the reader. I’ve LOLed more times than I can count and I’m only in the middle of chapter 2.

I’m puzzled as to the nature of Quixote’s absurd behavior. Is he senile? Mentally ill? I’ve seen dreamer mentioned earlier in the thread. Is he hopelessly naive? It reminds me of Dumb and Dumber.

DQ: TMFLM is very much ahead of its time. The humor also reminds me of The Importance of Being Earnest. You know what I mean, Verne? Another narrative which is ahead of its time.

I wonder if Frankenstein actually was the first SF novel, or if we think of it as the first example because it became famous, meaning that we're familiar with it? Basically, I'm wondering if some other random person might have published a total flop that we've forgotten.

If not, being both the first SF and being wildly successful in its own time makes it even more impressive.

Malor, I know there are some earlier works that one could argue might count as science fiction.

No clue of the names but I recall reading about a few late medieval books with a traveler to other planets and stars meeting the folk there. However those were more morality tales than something with a scientific what-if approach.

Yes. For one thing, to have “science fiction”, you have to have science and the widespread cultural framework that accepts or at least understands it, which was definitely not the case before the late 18th century at best.

So I finished Neal Asher's latest trilogy, starting with "The Soldier", and I was left pretty meh with it, overall.

It's far future science fiction with extremely advanced beings of various sorts. AIs run things, they took over from humans a long time ago. There's a broad variation of power levels and a lot of interesting tech ideas, but I found that, for the most part, I just didn't care very much about what was happening. I was imagining how you might represent many of the ideas in a coherent rule system, and was thinking it could be made into a pretty fair RPG with enough thought, but the actual story? It's pretty meh.

Here's the synopsis: "And then an even bigger thing/more destructive force entered the fight."

I mean, sure, that works fine as a plot element. But it's three longish books of mostly that.

I mentioned upthread that reading Neal Asher felt like reading Iain Banks with sand in my shorts. (which is what actually prompted me to read these, to see if that was still true.) In his earlier books, he did a lot of body horror, which seems to have been some of it. This one wasn't actively irritating in the same ways, but there's a fundamental lack of humanity on anyone's part. I think Asher may see the world as a very transactional place, because people in these books don't seem to actually like each other much at all, and most of the really powerful people are super selfish and Machiavellian.

I've read a lot of his stuff now, and the tech ideas are cool. If you're running any kind of SF RPG, you should read some of them to go fishing for material. You might get some pretty good adversaries out of it, too.

But will you enjoy them? I don't know. I'm not sure I really did.

Robear wrote:

Yes. For one thing, to have “science fiction”, you have to have science and the widespread cultural framework that accepts or at least understands it, which was definitely not the case before the late 18th century at best.

Natural Philosophy Fiction, then!

Actual science in Science Fiction is pretty rare, so if pre Shelley fantastical conceits as a lens for examining people are considered more Utopias or Gothic novels or whatever, shrug. I'll leave the heartfelt taxonomizing to those with the heart for it, I cast my lot with some underpaid Barnes and Noble employee who has to decide which shelf things go on, assuming they haven't turned into an algorithm already. In this case I think they decided on 'Classics' if I recall correctly. Clever categorical cop-out?

Maybe it should all just be ordered chronologically.

Maybe The Blazing World should get in line.

Mary Shelley's usually tagged as the first modern SF author; Cyrano De Bergerac has earlier works that are SF-ish, as are aspects of some of Plato's works (primarily the Atlantis story).

There are entire genres of science fiction today that use “actual science”, so I wouldn’t call it rare. That thread goes all the way back to Jules Verne, at least.

I’m watching a Great Course on science fiction and doing the reading from it. Frankenstein is considered the first “science fiction” work. Verne is kind of fascinating because he has explorations in Antarctica before anyone had been there.

More’s Utopia is discussed but it’s considered more satire than science fiction.

A number of the Great Courses are available for check out from libraries via Kanopy or Hoopla. I keep on buying them for he guidebooks and reading lists

RawkGWJ wrote:

Based on Bekkilyn’s recommendation I’ve started the audiobook of Don Quixote. The person reading is excellent! This book is freaking hilarious! Which I attribute largely to the delivery of the reader. I’ve LOLed more times than I can count and I’m only in the middle of chapter 2.

I’m puzzled as to the nature of Quixote’s absurd behavior. Is he senile? Mentally ill? I’ve seen dreamer mentioned earlier in the thread. Is he hopelessly naive? It reminds me of Dumb and Dumber.

DQ: TMFLM is very much ahead of its time. The humor also reminds me of The Importance of Being Earnest. You know what I mean, Verne? Another narrative which is ahead of its time.

I'm still trying to figure out Don Quixote's behavior and I think that it may just be one of those things that will remain a mystery as to exactly what it is. He's obviously not in the same mind as other people.

bekkilyn wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out Don Quixote's behavior and I think that it may just be one of those things that will remain a mystery as to exactly what it is. He's obviously not in the same mind as other people.

I’m on book 2 chapter 3 now. Without knowing too much about the author’s intentions, I wonder if the main point of Quixote’s absurd behavior is to do insult to knights and crusaders. If I was going to pin a specific diagnosis on him I might choose paranoid schizophrenia and possibly early onset dementia. Every character seems to be a horrible person or incredibly flawed in their own way.

I’m pretty sure that Monty Python’s writers were largely inspired by Don Quixote, especially the Holy Grail movie.

Just got an email from Audible stating that my account is now Audible Premium Plus which adds a huge library of 'free' titles. Not checked it out but sounds similar to Kindle Unlimited.

So far I am super pleased. Loads of new and free stuff. This is great.

ranalin wrote:

Just got an email from Audible stating that my account is now Audible Premium Plus which adds a huge library of 'free' titles. Not checked it out but sounds similar to Kindle Unlimited.

SallyNasty wrote:

So far I am super pleased. Loads of new and free stuff. This is great.

Maybe we need a Hidden Gems of Audible Premium Plus thread.

I used Don Quixote as an example in a sermon yesterday about how NOT to react to an offense or perceived offense.

ranalin wrote:

Just got an email from Audible stating that my account is now Audible Premium Plus which adds a huge library of 'free' titles. Not checked it out but sounds similar to Kindle Unlimited.

I got the soft launch info a couple of weeks ago. Several things in my wish list show up, which is good.

BTW, to know what is eligible in your wish list, they'll have a "Play" icon by the title. And I think an "Add to Library" option.

bekkilyn wrote:

I used Don Quixote as an example in a sermon yesterday about how NOT to react to an offense or perceived offense. :)

That’s awesome!!

Are you a pastor or reverend? Maybe a different title?

RawkGWJ wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

I used Don Quixote as an example in a sermon yesterday about how NOT to react to an offense or perceived offense. :)

That’s awesome!!

Are you a pastor or reverend? Maybe a different title?

Both actually (though many folks just use "the preacher" though they can just call me by name too), but I don't use reverend except when it's required for something. I'm not very formal.

Haven't gotten in much reading today in Don Quixote, but hoping to get to at least another chapter later tonight!

I kind of fell off in the middle of book 3 of Don Quixote. I’ll get back into it at some point.

Did you see the Google doodle of The Count of Monte Cristo a few days ago? It was a pretty cool slideshow of cartoons that kind of spoil the story.

RawkGWJ wrote:

I kind of fell off in the middle of book 3 of Don Quixote. I’ll get back into it at some point.

Did you see the Google doodle of The Count of Monte Cristo a few days ago? It was a pretty cool slideshow of cartoons that kind of spoil the story.

I need to reread Count of Monte Cristo at some point soonish! But no, I haven't seen the doodle.

The City We Became by NK Jemisen is $4 on kindle right now.
I loved it!

MathGoddess wrote:

The City We Became by NK Jemisen is $4 on kindle right now.
I loved it!

Thanks! I've been interested in that book.

I just finished her The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms a few weeks ago. I didn't love it like I did the Broken Earth novels, but I may go back to finish that trilogy at some point.

I enjoyed Gideon the Ninth. I'm at 46 books for the year.

The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish turned out to be a whole thing. Fantastical lands, anthropomorphic bipedal animal people (did she invent furries?), a pretty transparent retelling of the author's visit to the Royal Society, war and conquest with future tech like submarines, direct info dumps of Natural Philosophy and socio-political observations thinly integrated into the narrative.

Half way through, the author that enters her own story as a spirit-ghost in what I think is an intended critique of Cartesian dualism, then she and the spirit-ghost of the Empress of the Blazing World travel to Earth, get a little voyeuristic with Margaret's Duke husband as he does manly things until they enter his body and share it in a spirit three-way (with a little warning that if you're getting hot and bothered in the 17th Century, don't worry this is Platonick, and that means it is okay).

It ends with a direct appeal to the reader to consider that she has just created to fanciful worlds. If we should like to consider ourselves subjects of her fictional realms, we may. Or we may construct our own worlds in our minds as she has done, which is a fun thing to do. But do not interfere with her worlds -- no Blazing Fan Fiction!

Altogether I'm reminded of 20,000 Leagues, Harry Potter, The Magic School Bus, Frankenstein (forgot to mention the zombie army), Lost Horizon, and Alice in Wonderland. No matter how you want to classify genres, it definitely feels like there's a lineage here, except it is also plausible that none of those future creators were even indirectly influenced by The Blazing World as it wasn't very popular. By the time of its publication Margaret was already considered Mad due to her eccentricity, fashion, and repeated attempts to do philosophy while being a lady.

It's easy to imagine a more toned down version of Cavendish that has a greater impact on philosophy and fiction, but that also seems like an oxymoron, "...for my Nature is such, that I had rather appear worse in Singularity, than better in the Mode" She's doing her own thing, and a more popular equivalent would just be less.

Recommend? If you're not intimidated by a little antiquated writing, I think so. Its more readable if you scale down the punctuation. Sentence breaks convert to paragraphs, semi-colons turn into sentence breaks, commas into semi-colons. Also it helps to dig into Cavendish's biography and personal metaphysics. I think this WhatsHerName podcast would be a good intro. Be warned a lot of it is just Cavendish talking to her imaginary friends about how the world works, which I think is kinda fascinating. And a Bear-man I think is a little dig at Robert Hooke.

Reading more of her work has led me to believe that that ghost three-way may have been a little more than Platonick.

I've been thinking about getting my nephew books on Norse and Greek mythology. Does anyone have recommendations on good ones for elementary age kids? D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths looks good but it was written in the 60s and I was thinking there might be a more recent book that could be better.

Not elementary age kids, sorry. High school and older I would recommend Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes.

Didn't Neil Gaiman do a book on Norse mythology? Not sure how approachable that would be for elementary kids, I have not read it, but might be worth looking into.

I listened to that one and it was fine. Library rather than purchase.