El Protoolio wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2024 1:33 pm

Gramsci wrote: Sun Oct 27, 2024 4:48 am Grinding through The Sillmarilion… Christ it’s tough. Like reading the bible but less crazy. The first third is almost unreadable. The “story” kicks from there but it’s still a hard read.

Reading it is very much like that. It is like reading a translation of an ancient text, like The Iliad and Odyssey or Livy's Roman Histories or Caesar's Gallic War reports or Greek classics. A stilted translation of a dead language.

Yes, that’s how I’ve had to frame it to make it readable. I actually think I prefer something like Nerd for the Rings to get the lore from this book. I’ll barrel on.

From further down, Ursula Le Guin is on my to read list.

Gramsci wrote: Sun Nov 03, 2024 7:55 am From further down, Ursula Le Guin is on my to read list.

The book I'm on is the second in the "Earthsea" series - though this one does not start off where the second one ended, and is about other folks in a different place. Will something connect them thematically later? Guess we'll see.

Anyway, the first one called A Wizard of Earthsea had me hooked from the start, and I finished it in a blip. Put her next in queue!

LeGuin cranking out a svelte trio of focused fantasy books building an entire world was incredible. No fat on any of those titles.

I'd wanted to read some essays/interviews in a few issues of the no-longer-published Just Intonation Network newsletter, though Frog Peak Music sells back issues. So I bought four, and they sent me a zip of the whole run of them in PDFs. Long interview with La Monte Young (some inside-baseball just intonation stuff I'd not known, and confirmation of stuff I'd thought), interview with Lou Harrison, an essay by David Rayna (built the synth LMY used in the Dream House), an essay on Branca's JI work... A real wealth of stuff in here.

Leviathan's Wake by James S.A. Corey. Entertaining stuff but I'm not sure I'll read the entire Expanse series. Gonna grab Caliban's War soon.

The Age of Jihad by Patrick Cockburn. It's largely a compilation of his journal entries from 2001-2016 covering the Arab Spring and wars in the middle east. He spent time in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain over this period. It's gripping and every bit as tragic as one would expect, but very well done.

mrcancelled wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2024 5:20 pm The Age of Jihad by Patrick Cockburn. It's largely a compilation of his journal entries from 2001-2016 covering the Arab Spring and wars in the middle east. He spent time in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain over this period. It's gripping and every bit as tragic as one would expect, but very well done.

Noted. Thanks for the rec.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2024 10:22 am Many times I was reminded of Cormac McCarthy’s first novel, which I have a sublime dislike for, even if he is one of my fav authors. Growth of the Soil kicks its ass walking.

I just finished Outer Dark, which is McCarthy's second novel, and it's about as bleak as you can get. Sort of a dry run for Blood Meridian. Absolutely solid work though, and a nice palate cleanser after whatever the fuck he was trying to do with Stella Maris. I love that this is Summer of Love era Cormac....a true miserabilist bastard.

Been burning through a bunch of stuff this last couple of months.

Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell
Joe by Larry Brown
Welcome Home by Lucia Berlin
The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell
News of the World by Paulette Jiles
Light in August by William Faulkner
Smonk by Tom Franklin

Still waiting for the new James Wade jawn to show up on my library app. Might have to go buy it.

The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics by Roger Penrose.

So far a lot of math that goes over my head but the theoretical and philosophical positions are really interesting. Basically he’s proposing that AI within certain frameworks is bullshit, it’s unlikely to be conscious in the way it’s being sold, i.e. “feeling” and aware in the way a human mind is.

If it was you just created a slave and there are are massive moral questions that will likely be so impossible to transcend without accepting slavery as a morally acceptable position that it will be immediately banned.

I’m not far in but it’s really opening up a lot of ideas I hadn’t really considered.