Category: Books

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Very minor and silly epiphany

I realized today that a big part of why I never got into fanfic is that so much of it is so poorly edited I can’t get through it.

I almost put down ACOTAR because of “parameter” on page 1. I’m not exaggerating. (I instead got out a pen and corrected it.)

I read Manacled because the text was, by and large, legible. I bounced hard off another fanfic my friends recommended because it was not.

And I want to be clear: being like this does not make me morally superior. It just makes me someone who needs the writing to be basically invisible in order to suspend disbelief and immerse myself in the story. Poorly edited copy takes me out of that world as I try to figure out what the author was trying to say (usually by converting the letters into sounds in my head to guess what the homograph or malapropism was supposed to be).

I wonder if this is related to how, when I hear a word, my brain converts it into the visual “word on a page” in my head?

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Omelas

Many years ago (high school?), I read “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” by Ursula K. LeGuin.

I have been appreciating (perhaps “enjoying” is the wrong word) the recent short stories that build on this concept.

Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole


by Isabel J. Kim

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

The Ones Who Stay and Fight

by N.K. Jemisin

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/

They are worthy reads.

I think of Omelas as a sort of koan; I think this is because I cannot bear the responsibility of what it would mean to accept the reality of the world we live in. I can try to reduce my dependency on items manufactured with slave labor, my need for things that objectively make the world a worse place; but I don’t know if I can rid myself of all that entirely.

I am not a follower of Christ. I have not sold all my possessions to take up my cross and follow him. I chose a different path, many years ago. Around the same time as I read Omelas, in fact.

But I can still try to get as close as I can to that ideal, in reasonable small incremental steps.

It’s not enough. But it’s not nothing, either.

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Long books

My friend just shared with me a video where a man is complaining about how Alchemized is 1000 pages, but then he realizes that it’s about the same length as many fanfics he’s read.

But all I could think was: this man needs more Brandon Sanderson in his life. 🤣

(I exclusively read Sanderson in digital format, because my house is only but so big…)

Anyway. I read Alchemized when it was just fanfic, not its own separate book, and: it was DARK but it was GOOD. It’s the kind of book that hollows you out inside, but leaves a nice little fire inside. Like a jack-o’-lantern. Or something. Anyway, go read this book.

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Shopping local: the Novel Refuge

The Novel Refuge is a local used bookstore that sells books to benefit local refugees. You can donate your books (gently used) there, and you can shop the books they’ve already got (digital money only: credit card or tap-to-pay, no cash transactions). They also have a decent selection of donated board games.

https://novelrefuge.org/

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Shopping local: Queen Takes Book

I’ve been trying to buy my physical (paper) books from Queen Takes Book, even if they have to order them, rather than ordering them from Amazon. I’m not doing any kind of complete boycott (I lack both the executive function and the certainty that it would accomplish anything useful); but actively purchasing from a local store is something I love doing.

https://www.queentakesbook.com/

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Not saying no

A friend recently reminded me of this frustratingly evergreen Pratchett quote:

“Down there,” he said, “are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.” (Guards! Guards!)

This pretty much sums up my feelings about people who don’t vote. A lack of vote, in our zero sum system, is a vote for whoever wins.

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Surrendering to hope

Tonight I went looking for the thing Sam says in the books, and I found this:

Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.

But then I also found this:

https://xkcd.com/847/

The duality of man.

Get some sleep, friends.

Of note:

https://www.tumblr.com/hachama/766361087361875968/theres-also-states-being-called-with-0-or