@Tak@reading.taks.garden Oh, I like this exercise. And thank you for the reminder of the opening line. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the book now, and appreciate this line even more in hindsight.
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I'm currently the coordinator of the #SFFBookClub so a lot of what I'm reading is suggestions from there.
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el dang replied to screamsbeneath's status
Content warning ch15 spoiler
@screamsbeneath@bookwyrm.social Yeah. And I think part of it is that Lovell doesn't think of himself as any of those things, though he clearly is. He's so solidly speaking and acting within the bounds of the system that made him, that he can sincerely believe he has the moral high ground through and through.
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History …
Content warning ch15 spoiler
Yesterday I read the scene in which Professor Lovell browbeats Robin into pretending contrition and giving up a scrap of information about Hermes. A different part of it is haunting me: the way Lovell never engages with a single moral claim Robin makes, just mocks and dismisses them out of hand. That part of the conversation, I've had personally with so many relatives and the occasional coworker / fellow student. And I keep reading reports of political and media figures doing the same - Lovell might as well have just said "woke" with that sneer they all do.
None of which is a criticism of the book! It was a painfully well-observed scene. #SFFBookClub
el dang
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mouse quoted Nose Dive by Harold Mcgee
The ultimate guide to the smells of the universe – the ambrosial to the malodorous, …
We usually describe the smell [of blood] as "metallic" because it's similar to the smell left on our fingers when we handle coins, or in the air when we scrub a bare metal pan or sink. ... Our hominid ancestors would have known that molecule [epoxy decenal] and smell long before they paid much attention to rocks and ores, so for much of our prehistory, they may well have experienced metals as bloody-smelling.
— Nose Dive by Harold Mcgee
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History …
London at the time of... approximately chapter 15: sciencemastodon.com/@oldmapgallery/111931878489659575 cdn.masto.host/sciencemastodoncom/media_attachments/files/111/931/866/556/732/629/original/197a25046f337b05.jpg
among other things, it really underscores how separate Hampstead would have felt back then.
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History …
Content warning ch12, non spoiler
I'm enjoying how much Kuang ties the fantasy world of the book to the real world unrest that was happening at the same time, and how timeless the attitudes of the people fully bought into the system are. #SFFBookClub
el dang reviewed The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty
Nahri’s life changed forever the moment she accidentally summoned Dara, a formidable, mysterious djinn, during …
moar Daevabad!
5 stars
Book 2 in a series, and a wonderful fleshing out of things that were introduced in City of Brass. The politics get more complicated and feel more real as a result, the focus characters get more developed, and the city feels more alive. It feels like such a sharp analysis of the ways resentments and conflicts get stuck and self-feeding that I kept seeing real-world stories reflected in it. But it's never as narrow as an allegory for any one thing in the real world, it's much more an exploration of the whole type of thing.
It does have weaknesses: never getting Ghassan's perspective lets him feel like a cartoon villain, and never getting Muntadhir's makes his growth feel lurching and unpredictable... which in fairness it probably would have done to people around him too. And where the ending of City of Brass deftly managed to stand on its own …
Book 2 in a series, and a wonderful fleshing out of things that were introduced in City of Brass. The politics get more complicated and feel more real as a result, the focus characters get more developed, and the city feels more alive. It feels like such a sharp analysis of the ways resentments and conflicts get stuck and self-feeding that I kept seeing real-world stories reflected in it. But it's never as narrow as an allegory for any one thing in the real world, it's much more an exploration of the whole type of thing.
It does have weaknesses: never getting Ghassan's perspective lets him feel like a cartoon villain, and never getting Muntadhir's makes his growth feel lurching and unpredictable... which in fairness it probably would have done to people around him too. And where the ending of City of Brass deftly managed to stand on its own at the same time as leaving a clear opening for a sequel, the end of this one doesn't stand on its own at all.
I'm very glad that the teaser for Empire of Gold makes clear that we'll get some chapters from Manizheh's perspective, and I hope it also gives Zaynab a bit more space, since she feels a bit like a plot mechanism so far. But I couldn't put this volume down and it took some self control to not launch directly into the next.
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History …
Content warning minor spoilers for book 1 / the first 4 chapters
I'm thoroughly enjoying this book so far, including among other things the descriptions of Oxford through the eyes of some new students. It's clear that Kuang has a lot of affection for the place even as she's setting the story up to be very sharply critical of it in important ways. And that's striking a very personal chord with me.
I interviewed at Oxford as a potential undergrad, and didn't get in. It was the one university I applied to that required an interview, and even though the interview itself was frustrating [I seemed to be evaluated on prior subject knowledge, for a subject they advertised as not needing prior background to study], the 3 days in Oxford in an autumnal fog around it were lovely. Looking back I'm reasonably confident that I was better off studying elsewhere, but every now and then I do get some longing for the place because it is so beautiful, and it is possible to fall for the illusion it has of itself as a town-sized temple of pure learning.
I think Robin and Rami's 3 days of freedom before term starts managed to capture a lot of that feeling. It's already clear the place isn't going to be as good for Robin as he thinks, but oh it's such a beautiful place it's easy to be charmed by it.
el dang reviewed How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work …
How High We Go in the Dark
4 stars
A very emotional and structurally interesting book - somewhere between a set of short stories and a set of chapters with very varied styles and points of view.
I loved the ways the stories were connected to each other, and the best of them were absolutely heartrending pictures of grief, fear, and mourning. Many of them did live on in my mind for some time afterwards. But towards the end I felt like some of the broader attempts to pull it all together in one arc didn't quite land for me.
@calor It's open to anyone, but it's a bit confusing at the moment because hashtags don't quite sync right between Bookwyrm and Mastodon (probably true for Misskey, Pleroma, etc too, Mastodon's just the one I have experience with). All you have to do to participate is to post about the book with the tag. But:
1) We all really appreciate it if anything at all spoilery is behind a warning that says how far into the book you are, so people can wait until they've reached the same place to read it.
2) If you also have a Mastodon account, you'll see more traffic on the #SFFBookClub tag over there, and you'll get more replies if you use that one.
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History …
#SFFBookClub February pick.
el dang commented on The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty
Nahri’s life changed forever the moment she accidentally summoned Dara, a formidable, mysterious djinn, during …
CW for this book: a big piece of what it's about is stuck conflicts and deeply ingrained oppression, and the ways in which mutual fear / the fears of the people currently on top keep them stuck with horrifying consequences. Reading it right now I keep thinking about Palestine, which I think is partly intentional but there are also strong echoes of many other things. I'm about 2/3 of the way through and I think it's excellent, just also a very grim read.
To some extent this applies to City Of Brass too, but this volume paints a lot more of the history of the trilogy's world and goes a lot harder on the political themes.
el dang wants to read Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming …
Adding this to the #SFFBookClub poll; go to weirder.earth/@eldang/111807462468721007 to vote
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History …
Adding this to the #SFFBookClub poll; go to weirder.earth/@eldang/111807462468721007 to vote
el dang started reading The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty
The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty, S. A Chakraborty
Nahri’s life changed forever the moment she accidentally summoned Dara, a formidable, mysterious djinn, during one of her schemes. Whisked …