Could not find the wheel of time thread to put this in.
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Itās on the old forum:
During my beach time I read āBabel, or the Necessity of Violence.ā
This is one of those alternate history novels, but not a kind Iāve personally encountered. Most of the ones Iāve seen are the Harry Turtledove style with ridiculous what if scenarios that dramatically change the course of things. They spend most of their time speculating on how things would have played out had they gone differently.
In Babel, thereās only a very small what if. What if there was a form of magic that involved silver-working, required fluency in many languages to work that magic, and the academics at Oxford University during the industrial revolution had a near monopoly on it?
You would think magic is a huge what if, not far off from aliens invading during WWII, but itās not a very powerful magic. The magic is not really any more powerful than the industrial revolution itself. It mostly just makes existing things more efficient, rather than let people do things that are otherwise impossible.
Also, despite being an alternate history, this book is mostly a history. Thereās no huge turning point where magic is discovered and history plays out differently. The magic isnāt a fantasy wish fulfillment thing. Instead, the magic is just there, a powerful tool of British Colonialism, and history plays out mostly the same. Napoleon, Queen Victoria, Opium Wars, Luddites, etc.
The magic serves as a tool to etymologically and allegorically link all the threads of the plot and the authorās message. That message is a surprisingly comprehensive discussion of colonialism, racism, misogyny, white supremacy, etc. This might not be much new material for people who live on the Internet and care about social justice. But for those who are not well versed, Babel could potentially be quite the eye-opener.
On a more minor note, this book is literally about children who go to wizard school. The tropiest trope that ever troped. And yet, it somehow avoids just about every cliche and aspect of that trope. Once I realized early in the book that it was going to be a wizard school situation, I had lots of expectations due to my experience with that in the past. Iām sure people who read Harry Potter would have even more. And yet, none of those expectations were met. I think thatās pretty cool.
Should you read this book? I say yes. Itās not a masterpiece of literature by any means. But it is the novel for our people in our society at this point in time. The bare minimum that someone needs to participate in the conversation is contained within. And you get some varied likeable relatable characters with an exciting story to go along with it.
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What format did you read it in? I saw somewhere that it has a lot of footnotes, that didnāt translate well into the ebook version?
Dead tree from the library. It does indeed have a lot of footnotes. They are at the bottom of each page that has them. There are quite a few instances of 2 or more on a single page. You donāt have to go looking for them at the end of the chapter or the back of the book.
I didnāt even consider how that would work in an eBook until you mentioned it. If the eBook isnāt formatted well, then absolutely go for the papyrus edition.
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Itās fine on Kindle. You poke the footnote number in the main text and it opens a mini-window with the footnote text that you can exit out of back to the original page when youāre done. No idea how it works on other ereaders or eBook formats.
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I imagine itās similar to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
Iām listening to it as an audio book on my commute into work and the footnotes are handled immediately, with a different voice actor reading them to help keep them āseparateā
EPUB now does it the same as Kindleās formats.
Finished reading the entire Expanse Series yesterday, except for the short stories anthology book.
Overall, I loved it and thought it was some of the best sci-fi Iāve read in a while. Without giving any spoilers, I liked the ending a lot and also like that it keeps the door open for future stories Iād the authors want.
Now that Iām done with the books, I can finally watch the tv show.
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I read about a third of the Trophy Gold rpg, and now Iām watching some Actual Play to really wrap my head around it. Itās pretty rare for me to seek out AP. In particular, I want to set expectations properly for players, and perhaps the book alone doesnāt do thatāor if it does, it didnāt for me.
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I reread the FreeMarket rpg and ran an introductory game for friends.
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I just finished This Is How You Lose the Time War, somewhat coincidentally with the Book Club Book. I requested an ebook from the library after the shout-out from Bigolas Dickolas, but it was already on my short list. All in all, it was good but for not for me. Exactly in the same way House of Leaves wasnāt for me.
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Now rereading Good Omens, which I last read twenty years ago. Just watched season 2 and then rewatched season 1.
Finished reading The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K le Guin. This is a collection of short stories most of which relate to her Hanish Cycle of sci-fi books (Iāve read all of them). I really enjoyed the last story in the book, Paradises Lost. It follows a colony of humans on a multi generational spaceship to a new world and in part plays out what might happen spiritually and politically.
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Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. Itās been on my list for years. A ārealisticā look at how we might begin human settlement on Mars. A little exploration, a little engineering, a little (ok not a little) politics, a little relationships.
I enjoyed it enough, but I donāt think Iāll be reading Green or Blue. One was long enough!
Wait, what? Is it justā¦ the boys hanging out together?
Pretty much. Lots of familiar faces are backāsome in new rolesāand there are no boring witchfinders or antichrist.
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A quarter into Memory Called Empire, I am enjoying it. However, some interesting choices:
Spoilers for 100 pages or so
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The old ambassador never communicated home in 15 years? Because new ambassador knows nothing about the state of affairs.
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They only send one person, who doesnāt know anything about ambassading?
- And is revealing state secrets within one day on the job?
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Cool voice-in-your-head technology, just kidding
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I guess diplomatic immunity isnāt a thing here
Finished Memory Called Empire, I stand by my previous objections.
I got hung up on the no-diplomatic-immunity. And 20% in
she's no Kel Cheris
I figured Mahit was a patsy because she was so unprepared. Everything is so dumb dumb dumb!
I rate it 2 out of 6 Directions.
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A Memory Called Empire is a book I mostly enjoyed (despite some major flaws) due to massively lowering my expectations going in.
Itās classic example of the modern movement of American science fiction known variously as āTor Waveā or (more negatively) as āSqueeCoreā.
If you think the main character reads like a dumb young adult fiction lead? But is otherwise meant to be a competent adult in an adult book? Youāre probably reading SqueeCore.
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Yeah, I went in not knowing this.
In my notes I had āwriting is kind of YA-ish. This thing won the Hugo?ā
Is this related to the Clarion cartel you mentioned before?
Itās all related.
As a reviewer I kept on picking up on the same aspects of these books and authors, and discussed the kinds of things they had in common with Juliane on my podcast. Itās interesting to see a dominant literary movement develop in real time, even before it gains a label or name.
(Dominant in terms of success in the USA and American scifi awards)
That a lot of the authors in this movement are Clarion participants/tutors isnāt a coincidence, I donāt think.
Thankfully thereās plenty of other science fiction out there written by more talented authors, aiming to entertain actual adult readers with more sensible main characters, so I donāt really mind that Tor.com authors are sweeping the awards every year.
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Who the hell named it this with TorCore right there!
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Finished. The season 1 show follows the book a lot more closely than I remembered! Crowleyās plants are still the best bit from the book.
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