What are you reading?

[Niahak]

I've been reading Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light which won a Hugo award back in the day.

Technically this is a re-read, but I think it was nearly 20 years ago that I last read it so I only remembered a little bit.

The premise (trying to avoid spoilers that aren't found in the first pages of the book) is that in the far future, early settlers of a planet discover body-transferral technology resulting in (functional) immortality. They use control of both this technology, as well as other "sufficiently advanced" technology to institute a Hinduism-inspired rule over the planet, with the bulk of "The First" taking on aspects resembling Hindu gods and controlling the "karmic" reincarnation cycles. The protagonist, Sam, cheekily introduces Buddhism to the people of the planet in the hopes of inspiring a rebellion to free the descendants of The First from their rule.

While I find Zelazny's writing flows very well in the novel, it does still feel very much a product of its time. Like other Zelazny protagonists, Sam is a wise-cracking, endlessly competent guy who's always thinking ahead - but unlike others, he does have some interesting "lectures" here and there, mostly plucked from Buddhist ideas.

[Kong Wen]

Considering moving on to one of my Eddas next.

And indeed I did. I just finished The Prose Edda by Snori Sturluson, written and/or compiled in the 13th century and translated in this edition by Jesse Byock in 2005. Pretty good! Somewhat lighter and fluffier than some of the mythic classics I'm accustomed to (i.e. the Greek & Roman ones), but good fun. I especially liked the story about the time Loki "tied one end of a cord to the beard of a goat and tied the other end around his own testicles" to win a bet by making a giant laugh.

And two years later, almost to the day, the prophecy has been fulfilled.

01. 2023-06-07 The Poetic Edda (800-1300), trans. Carolyne Larrington (English), 321pp

[Kong Wen]

And just fired through a novel that was recommended to me by an old friend and professor from my past. It was a wonderful and touching story about love and loss and death and legacy. I don't know if it's exactly the kind of classic existentialist novel that Share would enjoy, but it's definitely one of their heirs.


01. 2023-06-07 The Poetic Edda (800-1300), trans. Carolyne Larrington (English), 321pp
02. 2023-06-08 Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), George Saunders (American), 343pp

[Niahak]

Finished Lord of Light. It was good, but I think the first Amber series is still my favorite Zelazny.

I have picked up Eragon for the first time in around 15 years. Thus far (1/3 in) it has blended LOTR, Eddings' Belgariad and Jordan's Wheel of Time (with a couple fresh ideas) into something that's an easy enough read, although not particularly provocative. Despite my criticism, there's no way I could have written something this good at the same age. I've heard the sequels are better, so I am looking forward to that at least.

[Pluvius]

If you liked Lord of Light, you'd probably also like the earlier This Immortal. It has pretty much the same strengths and weaknesses.

Rob

[Sharecrow]

I beat Mother Night. Broke my heart but great book.

https://www.wheredreamsescape.com/post/mother-night


1. Polgara the Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte
3. The Weekend that Changed the World by Peter Walker
4. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. The Book of Five Rings by Musashi Miyamoto
6. Friday by Robert Heinlein
7. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
8. Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100 - 300 by Ramsay MacMullen
9. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
10. Mars by Ben Bova
11. Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt Bell
12. Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture by Larry Osborne
13. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
14. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
15. Whirlwind by James Clavell
16. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
17. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
18. Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton
19. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
20. Answer to Job by C.G. Jung
21. Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
22. King Lear by William Shakespeare
23. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
24. Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert Heinlein
25. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
26. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
27. The French Revolution: Volume 1 by Thomas Carlyle
28. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters by J.D. Salinger
29. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

[Kong Wen]

For whatever reason, the mood struck me to knock Thomas More off my shelf. Writing from around this period is quite varied and interesting, but unfortunately for me, Utopia is in the vein of regurgitation of the classics (pouring English satire into a mould of Plato), thick rhetoric, and religious dogma. More's insufferable christianity must of course be read with an understanding of his political context: in 1515 the English were still papists, and More was executed for refusing to recognize the Act of Succession. Last fall, I hung out on the lawn where he was beheaded.


01. 2023-06-07 The Poetic Edda (800-1300), trans. Carolyne Larrington (English), 321pp
02. 2023-06-08 Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), George Saunders (American), 343pp
03. 2023-07-17 Utopia (1516), Thomas More (English), trans. Clarence H. Miller, 182pp

[Sharecrow]

Knocked out Inferno for my first time. Interesting book…. Thoughts later.

1. Polgara the Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte
3. The Weekend that Changed the World by Peter Walker
4. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. The Book of Five Rings by Musashi Miyamoto
6. Friday by Robert Heinlein
7. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
8. Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100 - 300 by Ramsay MacMullen
9. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
10. Mars by Ben Bova
11. Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt Bell
12. Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture by Larry Osborne
13. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
14. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
15. Whirlwind by James Clavell
16. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
17. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
18. Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton
19. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
20. Answer to Job by C.G. Jung
21. Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
22. King Lear by William Shakespeare
23. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
24. Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert Heinlein
25. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
26. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
27. The French Revolution: Volume 1 by Thomas Carlyle
28. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters by J.D. Salinger
29. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
30: Seymour: An Introduction by J.D. Salinger
31. Inferno by Dante Alighieri

[Kong Wen]

I was in the mood for some uh genre fiction after my last few reads, so I pulled off the shelf American mathematician Yoon Ha Lee's Ninefox Gambit, recommended by a friend of mine from grad school, who also warned that it was dense and brainy and not an easy read. She was correct, but it was also a very satisfying yarn. I'll probably move right on to the sequel when I go on vacation. I have more to say about the way this story unfolded, but maybe later.


01. 2023-06-07 The Poetic Edda (800-1300), trans. Carolyne Larrington (English), 321pp
02. 2023-06-08 Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), George Saunders (American), 343pp
03. 2023-07-17 Utopia (1516), Thomas More (English), trans. Clarence H. Miller, 182pp
04. 2023-07-31 Ninefox Gambit (2016), Yoon Ha Lee (American), 317pp

[Claytone]

It's been a big year for me and books. I've already read two, doubling my total from 2022.

The first I read was GoldenEye 007: The Making of an N64 Classic (2022) by Alyse Knorr from Boss Fight Books. It's a nice document of how the game got made, of Rare, and in some ways, of game development in the '90s in general. It focuses a lot on the individuals involved, which is a nice touch. It also, unfortunately, confirms that truly backbreaking hours were required to make it. Most of this was done by enthusiastic young people who seem to look back at least somewhat fondly on the crunch, but it's a shame that that's the way it was. Anyway, if you like these books, this was a solid one.

The second I just (finally) finished today. Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (2009) by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort. It's the first of a series of books called "platform studies," whose mission is to analyze the role platforms play in digital media, how they influence culture (and vice versa), etc. It was a really nice read about a platform I've really taken to lately. The 2600 is a machine of fascinating and unique constraints that forced its developers to use some real ingenuity to squeeze quality software experiences out of it. It was nice to work through a chapter here or there as I developed my own Atari games. I highly recommend it if you care about video game history and/or are interested in the way platforms dictate interactive experiences. Or if you just want to read a book by a (then) Georgia Tech professor.