The Reading Room - 2018-04-19

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12:03 AM

Dammit @scalzi ! I got two copies and I can’t send one back because the corgi immediately licked them both. Did you two plan this together? WHAT KIND OF BURRITO DID YOU PROMISE HIM, JOHN?

Tweeted by lasrina on April 17, 2018 at 11:43 PM

Hey so periodical reminder that a single person isn’t “diverse.” You can’t have a “diverse protagonist” in your story. You can have a protagonist from a marginalized or underrepresented group, who can and should be part of a diverse *cast.*

Tweeted by teaberryblue on April 18, 2018 at 7:25 PM

user15026

12:15 AM

@BESW Thiiiiiiiiiiiis

@Ash BTW, "Wind Will Rove" is probably the first generation ship story that didn't make me really mad.

Goodreads review of Chandler Klang Smith's The Sky is Yours: "Jane Austen meets Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH in an early post apocalypse setting with dragons."

Sign me up.

12:43 AM

(The other reviews all seem to be variants on "amazing!" and "could not finish.")

1 hour later…

1:46 AM

"Disability Writing & Journalism Guidelines," resource by the Center for Disability Rights.

user15026

1:56 AM

@BESW ooooh I will have to check it out then

2:37 AM

0

Q: Examples of non-fiction stories written from a biased perspective?

I am looking to find the extent to which literature is autobiographical. In order to do this, I am looking to compare a fiction story based on true events with a trusted/mainstream non-fiction story written from a biased perspective. The Crucible by Arthur Miller seems to be an obvious choice for...

6 hours later…

8:16 AM

@BESW I just want to say: this is a great story. A real page-turner (or rather a metaphorical one, since an online story doesn't have pages): I started idly reading it and then couldn't stop thinking about it until I'd finished.

Also very thought-provoking, and even immersing: I caught myself almost thinking subconsciously that everyone in the rooms and buildings around me were copies of myself.

Of course, if I organised a convention like that, it would be called "I Have Won Again, Lews Therin" ;-)

I've only read two works by Pinsker so far, but I've had similar reactions to both of them.

9:00 AM

@BESW I'll let you know what I think of the other one you linked here, when I have time to read it.

Thought-provoking fiction is the best.

As I said above, it's a generation ship story that didn't make me want to throw the book against the wall.

So, high marks right there.

Even a short story can inspire a lot of philosophical discussion, if it's based on a good enough idea.

(See also: Borges.)

I mean. A short story is better suited for that than a novel or series, broadly speaking.

Long-form stories are good for exploring themes, but shorter stories are much better at maintaining symbolism and allegory.

@BESW Off-topic for this room, but I've also recently been discovering the joys of short-form films. I guess you know about the Youtube channel Dust?

Aye.

I'm very much looking forward to Hello, Rain coming out later this year.

9:09 AM

I liked the way @Napoleon put it in this answer: "the purpose of the story seems more to lay on depicting a crucial moment in this setting, throwing you right into the events. [...] Concentrating too much on [detailed worldbuilding] might distract from the overarching themes [...] and the immediacy of the story."

That could describe a lot of short-form narratives, whether written stories or films.

"Hello, Moto" is a good example of a short story making powerful statements through elision and reference, where a longer story would have to say too much and constrain the scope of its subject.

I'm also fascinated by longer-form storytelling which manages similar feats--several stories form the days of multi-episode stories in Old Who managed it, as did Sapphire & Steel to great effect.

in RPG General Chat, 2 days ago, by BESW

Taking Tolkien as a template for speculative fiction is bad for a lot of reasons, but normalizing his brand of unnecessarily deep worldbuilding is probably one of the nastier tricks pop culture has played on speculative writers in the last century.

@BESW Got a link? (Google isn't helping.)

@Randal'Thor See the Hello, Rain link.

(I think one of the underlying reasons the Stack infrastructure is a poor choice for a literature Q&A site, is that the Stack's epistemology considers ambiguity an enemy.)

@BESW Whoa. That's intense.

[grin] We expect nothing less from Nnedi Okorafor.

9:46 AM

The last four questions posted here have been off-topic :-/

user image

2 hours later…

11:37 AM

0

Q: What is steampunk?

I've long been confused about what exactly comprises the steampunk genre. Of course I realise that genres aren't usually things for which one can pin down exact definitions, but I don't even have a proper 'feel' for the steampunk genre or where its boundaries are. The Wikipedia article is full o...

12:15 PM

@Randal'Thor But make sure the gears aren't too bulky or you'll end up with dieselpunk. ;)

Shout-out to the typos that make it through three rounds of content edits, copyedits, and two rounds of proofreading. I am inspired by your dedication and tenacity.

Tweeted by calixofcoffee on April 17, 2018 at 9:33 PM

This is Just to Say I have eaten the sailors that were in the cave and which you were probably leading from Troy forgive me they were delicious so Greek and so lost

Tweeted by dee_bee_h on April 18, 2018 at 12:11 PM

12:45 PM

Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk)

1:09 PM

@BESW I linked to that in the question :-)

But it's thanks to you that I was introduced to the joys of Reginald Pikedevant videos!

4 hours later…

user15026

4:44 PM

@BESW I love this one

10:12 PM

"Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse," by Jim C. Hines. (free chapter one at link)

user15026

@BESW Oooh, I hadn't read that yet, but I did now. That was intense, in a good way. But Nnedi Okorafor is good at that .

Did you see the images for Hello, Rain?

posters, BTS video, interview.

user image

user15026

@BESW I am reading this right now and I am having ridiculous piles of feelings about it

user15026

@BESW IT IS SO....fuck, I don't know. Pretty seems like not enough word.

10:31 PM

> My intention is to make African beauty look cool, fun and sexy - as it is! It’s our time now, and I wanna see my people looking damn cool, and doing cool things on the big screen. I need that so badly.

user15026

@BESW I think it is succeeding in that

Speaking of black women's hair as text, did you see the A Wrinkle in Time film?

user15026

I haven't yet, no

user15026

Also, still reading Wind Will Rove

user15026

and this bit where they're talking about recreating media (specifically, Titanic) struck me:

user15026

10:36 PM

" As the ship sank —it's not real, there's no sea,
nothing sinks anymore— and the lifeboats disappeared and the two
lovers were forced to huddle together on a floating door until
their dawn rescue."

user15026

It just kinda to me emphasized teh whole "repeating to remember but things changing" bit the story keeps discussing

user15026

because in the movie, they dont share teh door

user15026

augh

user15026

This is good stuff

@Ash The whole story is sprinkled with that stuff!

user15026

10:38 PM

@BESW I am enjoying it greatly

> I pictured a real farm, the way they looked in pictures, and let the song tell me how it felt to be in the place called Oklahoma. A sky as big as space, the color of chlorinated water. The sun a distant disk, bright and cold. A wood-paneled square building, with a round building beside it. A perfect carpet of green grass. Horses, large and sturdy, bleating at each other across the fields.

The sun is cold because she's used to non-incandescent lights, and the horses bleat because the only farm animal she's heard is a goat. Using modern context to fill in the historical blanks.

@Ash "Ava DuVernay on Meg Murry’s Hair Journey in A Wrinkle in Time," article by Kyle Buchanan for Vulture.

(Storm Reid's hair is still more Type 3 than Type 4 on the Walker scale, alas.)

#OnThisDay 15 April 1912 the RMS #TITANIC tragically sank in the early hours of the morning. #ThomasHardy penned 'The Convergence of the Twain', one of his most enduring poems, in aid of the Fund set up for the survivors and the families of the deceased. http://www.facebook.com/notes/the-thomas-hardy-society/hardy-and-the-titanic/1829798833731769/

Tweeted by hardysociety on April 15, 2018 at 7:18 PM

As @hardysociety know, #ThomasHardy was an architect before he became a published writer. He designed his own house @nationaltrust #MaxGate Read more in #HouseofFiction, hear about it @hexhambookfest and @campdenlitfest

Tweeted by _HouseofFiction on April 16, 2018 at 7:20 AM

user15026

11:03 PM

@BESW Oh, I like that.

user15026

Finished Wind Will Rove. I think I liked it despite getting frustrated by generation ship stories in general because it's less about the being a generation ship and more about history and remembering

@Ash Yeeeah, I really get the impression that people who thought Wrinkle was confusing or poorly structured or whatever were having a hard time remembering that it's a YA film for marginalized girls.

The pacing, the text and subtext, the visuals--it's designed for kids who haven't learned to expect the movie shorthand and tropes that film critics have internalized, so the film has to explain some things.... and can completely bypass other things.

@Ash ...another friend just finished reading Wind Will Rove at the exact same time.

user15026

@BESW I haven't seen it yet, but I am curious if I watch it with that sort of mental lens if it makes a difference in how I percieve it.

user15026

@BESW laughs Nice :) It's a good story.

@Ash I don't know how much Pinsker intended to draw the parallel, but I thought a lot about indigenous groups trying to reconstruct culture that was eliminated by colonizers.

Like, Chamoru dance was completely eradicated. Forbidden for generations until it was forgotten and all we have left are the descriptions and texts of the early colonizers. So they're looking at other cultures from nearby island groups, and comparing that to the old descriptions, and thinking about what they DO know about the culture's old values and practices, and re-constructing something that everyone knows isn't the original.

user15026

11:10 PM

Right, which is a lot of what the story talks about too

Yeah, how it matters anyway. It's important to have your own dances that are connected to your history and your ancestors and which you can pass down to your children.

And the debate about new music, that's in the Chamoru discourse too.

11:41 PM

@justbeing_ayo I got back into leisure reading with @Nnedi books! They’re super interesting with juju and science and strong female leads so you could check them out. Enter dms 😘

Tweeted by UrennaE on April 19, 2018 at 3:59 PM in reply to justbeing_ayo

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Apr '1819

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