Recommended Reading

What The Kids Are Reading

by Major Major Major Major| January 14, 20235:00 pm| 105 Comments

This post is in: Books, Gamer Dork, Open Threads, Popular Culture, Recommended Reading

‘Tis the season for retrospectives. Since I don’t read or watch that much stuff the year it comes out, my annual lists are always about what I consumed during the previous year, regardless of when it was made. Last year I wrote about John le Carré’s A Perfect Spy. This year I have a little more to say. I’ll write my Best Books post later (Le Guin, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Gene Wolfe, this time around); right now I want to talk about the other books.

In 2022, I tried to catch up on some popular contemporary fantasy, and I was sorely disappointed. I hope I simply ran into Sturgeon’s Law—ninety percent of everything is crap–but I suspect I was also dipping into some pretty craptastic wells. Recent trends are… not promising. I took a number of recommendations from the r/fantasy subreddit. It’s Reddit, so a lot of the users either are or act like fourteen-year-olds, but I wanted to see what the youths were up to. It turns out they’re up to two things: loving Brandon Sanderson, and reading self-published anime clones.

Sanderson is fine. I like the writing podcast he spent many years contributing to. His books are, whatever, not to my taste, but I get it. Characters a bit shallow, plots a bit paint-by-numbers, narration a bit overlong on exposition, everything rather unsexy (befitting his devout Mormonism), but he builds great worlds, and is loved in particular for his intricate magic systems. He is one of the best-selling fantasy authors of the modern era. He’s also insanely prolific–during the pandemic he woke up one morning and found he’d accidentally written four extra novels. Good for him! But his success has led publishers to release a lot of high-concept mimicry–it’s like Brandon Sanderson but xyz–which, unsurprisingly, is not to my taste.

I was especially disappointed with Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett. I’d seen its (excellent) cover on shelves for a few years and finally decided to read it. I was sort of excited. I adore Bennett’s City of Stairs, which I’d recommend if you’re in the mood for a good diplomatic spy thriller. But–nope. This book was not for me. The huge Brandon Sanderson blurb on the jacket should have been hint enough. Intricate magic system? Check. Decent action? Check. Bloodless romance… check… twisty-yet-predictable plot… you guessed it. Check.

On to the next trend: self-published anime clones. Let me begin by saying that I am not trying to crap on self-published authors, who have written some excellent books and who we have a number of among our readership. No, this is about a narrow slice of contemporary fantasy, largely written by people who got their start with fanfiction. And it’s an interesting phenomenon.

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There are two major subgenres here, isekai and LitRPG, which are not entirely new ideas, though in this context they share an important attribute: they are not, at a fundamental level, inspired by books, but rather by anime and video games. Add in the tendency for these authors to not use developmental editors, and you get some unusual (or all-too-typical) stories. One fun thing about them is the palpable, insane enthusiasm level of the authors–they love writing these things, and it shows. That’s great! A lot of trad-pub authors don’t manage this. But they can also get swept away by their own, ah, brilliance. Less great. Ultimately, though, what I take issue with is the lack of… I hesitate to say literary merit, barf… let’s just talk about the specific subgenres.

Isekai. Portal fantasy. Not a new idea. A person is displaced from their reality–usually our own–and ends up in a fantasy or science-fiction land. But these particular books are inspired by anime, usually episodic anime, and often originally written as web serials. This works well enough with an episodic structure, if you’re into that, but collected into a ‘novel’, it… does not. Especially when authors don’t try to fix the pacing and arc issues when it’s time to bundle it up for Kindle Direct. The novel is a form, with conventions and expectations, and these often just don’t engage with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a good serial. I’ve been reading Pale this year, a dark urban fantasy story inspired by “magical girl” shōjo anime (e.g. Sailor Moon; Puella Magi Madoka Magica). I’ll pick it up before bed sometimes. But it’s long, and it’s a serial, and it can be a grind, just a constant, episodic ratchet. I wish it felt like a series of novels, but it doesn’t. It feels like a series of cliffhangers. Still, I want to see how it ends.

LitRPG shares many of these flaws. These are stories like Ready Player One and Sword Art Online–a character is in a video game, engages with video game dynamics, gains power in video game ways, does video game stuff. Needless to say there is a lot of Japanese material inspiring these works. Video games usually take the form of episodic loops, so it’s no surprise to find that structure here. There’s a power progression, at least, which shares a lot with traditional hero’s journey stories, but these are mostly still serials with a fanfiction vibe. They also often feel like adolescent male power fantasies, which is hardly new in fantasy, but at a certain point, to quote Stephen King, everything starts to taste like beans.

So yeah. That’s what the kids are up to, I guess. I think I’ll go back to being an old fart who reads classics that have withstood the test of time, and leave the anime and video game stories for when I watch anime and play video games.

They say to end blog posts with a prompt, so: what disappointed you last year? Haha.

What The Kids Are ReadingPost + Comments (105)

MLK: from Dreaming to Reality

by MisterDancer| January 17, 20222:00 pm| 45 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, Black Votes Matter, Open Threads, Racial Justice, Recommended Reading, Taking Action to Defend Democracy, This Week In Blackness, Your Place Is In The Resistance, Cosplay Socialists, Don't Know Much About History, It's Not Too Late, Our Failed Media Experiment, Our Failed Political Establishment, Stuff About Black People Written By a Black Person, There can be no unity without accountability.

Among the most painful bits of Dr. King’s legacy is how so much of it’s reduced to “I Have a Dream.” It’s true that it’s a landmark speech, powerful and moving…

…and always heard out of context of the other, more direct speeches that graced the March on Washington (a March organized by an openly Gay Man, no less – go look up the badass Bayard Rustin, please and thank you!). As if the marchers just wanted to spend all day on their feet, listening to platitudes and winsome ideas!

I’m not going to dive into that context, I assume your Google button ain’t broke. :) What I will do, is talk about a couple of other works by Dr. King, works that ground him in the realities he fought to overcome, and that echo into these times.

The text for the afternoon will be taken from two works from near Dr. King’s passing:

“The Drum Major Instinct,” (hereafter DRUM), which you can listen to here, and read here, and
“A New Sense of Direction,” (hereafter SENSE), which you can read here.

I post all this to encourage you to read/listen to the above in full. To underline that Dr. King was far richer a thinker and even rabble-rouser than gets noticed — that the Hoover FBI feared him for damned good reasons. If you chose to read the above docs, and skip the rest of this? HELL YA!

But for those who want more? Follow…

See, Dr. King did not buy into a color-blind society. That wasn’t the context he gave his “Dream” speech under. The context, the fuller context of his work and life’s mission, is made plain by this remarkable passage in DRUM:

[…]when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, “Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You’re just as poor as Negroes.”

And I said, “You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white.

And you’re so poor you can’t send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march.”

Now that’s a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, (Make it plain) he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white—and can’t hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out.

And there’s so much more.

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One of the positive parts of Dr. King’s approach was in seeing a bigger picture, was in tying together all manner of injustice into a massive framework, what we today would call an attempt at intersectionality. It’s far from perfect; we know he was far too casual about martial relations to see the fullness of sexism. And although he was surprisingly cool with Rustin, he also failed to be vocal at all about what we’d today call LBGTQIA+ issues.

Yet there was a seed of power in his approach to directing white people to look inside themselves, in his challenge to their (and society’s) assumption of inherent goodness. And as critical as he was towards poor whites, that sympathy evaporates completely when you consider his words towards what we, today, might see as Privileged White people. From SENSE:

[…]policy-makers of the white society have caused the darkness. It was they who created the frustrating slums. They perpetuate unemployment and poverty and oppression. Perhaps it is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes, but these are essentially derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

King is far more aggressive – even angry — about calling out white society than he’s usually portrayed as. Reading his dissections of that systemic failure, and ideas on overcoming it, are bracing to this day…sadly.

See, King’s quick to lay the political blame on what I contend are still surpassing the Black and Brown voice in politics:

Negroes became outraged by blatant inequality. Their ultimate goal was total, unqualified freedom. The majority of the white progressives were outraged by the brutality displayed. Their goal was improvement or limited progression.

Obtaining the right to use public facilities, register and vote, token educational advancement, brought to the Negro a sense of achievement; he felt the momentum. But it brought to the whites a sense of completion. When Negroes assertively moved on to ascend the second rung of the ladder, a firm resistance from the white community became manifest.[….] Everyone underestimated the amount of rage Negroes were suppressing and the amount of bigotry the white majority was disguising.

(Not everyone. Ask Malcolm X, or Rev. Shuttlesworth, and you’d get a different answer on this, to name two people right off.)

But Dr. King is hella on the right track. And he knows it. And we’re still talking about the impact white progressives have on the Black and Brown vote, to this very day.

And because he’s on the right track, I can say this: Dr. King is clear that some changes can’t be made by speaking too kindly. That some painful truths have to come to the fore.

That’s what Black Lives Matter did. That’s what the 1619 Project did. That’s (part of) why Critical Race Theory – an academic theory mostly for lawyers – had to be scapegoated.

Dr. King saw that the closer we get to reality, the harsher the blow back. The more we talk about the systemic issues in this country, the more the arc of justice pushes the many folx who’ve suffered under those issues into the light and air we all deserve…and the more the old guard will press and preen and pervert and backstab to maintain power.

And SENSE touches on what kind of people have, and can, overcome those barriers:

[…]there are millions who have risen morally above prevailing prejudices. They are willing to share power and to accept structural alterations of society, even at the cost of traditional privilege.[…]Their support serves not only to enhance our power, but their break from the attitudes of the larger society splits and weakens our opposition.

It’s…not an easy calling, that Higher Calling, y’all. If you say it is, if you think I overstate things, then I ask you to show your work.

To conclude: I submit there are some things we can all learn from studying even a bit of Dr. King. And I hope the above serves as a starter, to that on your part, today.

MLK: from Dreaming to RealityPost + Comments (45)

In Defense of Whimsy

by Major Major Major Major| June 2, 20212:39 pm| 206 Comments

This post is in: Recommended Reading, TV & Movies, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Sci-fi/fantasy author Charlie Jane Anders has a column in today’s WaPo that really resonates with me: Grown-ups, it’s okay to love pop culture for kids. Stop being embarrassed about it. Its thesis: the fans of children’s properties have aged, and, wanting to continue enjoying their favorite characters, have dragged the properties along with them. While this has produced some good works, it has also seen the removal of a vital sense of whimsy and, well, cartoonishness. You may have noticed that we’re now drowning in dark, gritty, sexy takes on everything from Transformers to Batman to Cruella de Vil (who even has a tragic backstory now–it’s been requested that I say this is a spoiler, so learn about this ridiculous idiocy at your own risk).

This has overtaken pop culture to the degree that it extends to non-children’s works that were quite dark and gritty enough already. I’m particularly disheartened-in-advance by the new Dune movie, which appears to be tragically dichromatic and same-y. This is a story written by a man who was tripping his face off half the time, which shows and deserves to shine through; it inspired a whole generation of counterculturistas–so why does it look and sound like it was directed by Christopher Nolan?

What happened to us?

We never wondered why Peter Parker, in addition to his radioactive spider-bite, was capable of inventing miraculous technology like his web-shooters. Or why Batman chooses to throw bat-shaped boomerangs called “batarangs.” We didn’t ask how, exactly, a group of mutated turtles managed to learn martial arts from a sewer rat.

These stories never worried about being taken seriously, or about being “realistic.” That freedom allowed them to take truly beautiful detours, and to defy expectations. To read Golden Age and Silver Age comics, or to watch the original “Star Wars,” is to be intoxicated by a draught of pure imagination, and to feel as though wonders are possible.

Good can defeat evil (and we can cleanly separate one from the other), miracles are commonplace, and lessons are everywhere. A great children’s story has a set of rules that you have to follow — and a sense of gleeful anarchy. Weapons don’t draw blood. Friends and family always come back together.

When adults claim dominion over these stories, they get darker, at the expense some of their innocent fun. Primary colors dim to crepuscular shades, and sexual assault, mutilation and torture become commonplace tropes. Superman once had a pet super-monkey named Beppo who’d stowed away aboard Kal-El’s rocket when he was a baby. In 2016’s “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” Kal-El was beaten to death in a gory fistfight with a bone-knuckled zombie alien.

Her op-ed is not, however, a cranky lamentation. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a dark, gritty superhero movie. The problem is that they are eating up all the big-money resources. It has led to a self-reinforcing stagnation in the industry. From a thread about her piece:

In the article I talk about the rise of the direct market for comics, and the “four quadrant” movie for teens and adults. A lot of structural changes happened starting roughly 40 years ago that helped push formerly kid-focused properties to lose their innocence.

— Charlie Jane “VICTORIES GREATER THAN DEATH” Anders (@charliejane) June 2, 2021

So what’s to be done? Nothing, she argues, that we aren’t already doing, at least as an industry. While the biggest studios may be stuck in a rut, young upstarts like Netflix are investing heavily in fantastical children’s properties. This will help ensure that children have stories to inspire them, just like aging nerds used to, before we collectively decided that whimsy is cringe.

This brings us to what truly troubles me: I feel like it reflects a broader cultural shift away from the fantastical, the non-tragic romantic, the optimistic, the whimsical. We live in a pessimistic era, even as, for most of us, there has never been a better time to be alive. We live longer, we have magic-grade technology, and while we face our share of challenges, humanity always has. But saying this out loud isn’t very hip.

I read a lot and watch a lot of TV. By far the finest piece of fiction I’ve encountered since COVID began is Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I watched for the first time when Netflix picked up the license. For those who don’t know, it’s a children’s cartoon. And it’s got the best storytelling I’ve seen for over a year. The kids, I’m told, will be all right; it’s the adults I’m worried about.

It occurs to me, now that I’ve hit publish, that this is a malaise mostly felt in the US. This might explain the ever-rising Western popularity of anime, a famously romantic art form.

(If you like Avatar, by the way, the head writer has a new original Netflix series, The Dragon Prince, which is also fantastic and fantastical.)

In Defense of WhimsyPost + Comments (206)

Hogfather Reading Club: Talk Amongst Yourselves

by Major Major Major Major| December 20, 20203:00 pm| 98 Comments

This post is in: Books, Recommended Reading

Hello and welcome to a special holiday edition of Recommended Reading! Today we’ll be talking about our Light Solstice Reading Club selection, Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. I’m so happy we could share this reading experience together. I didn’t remember much from my prior read, so this was almost like reading it for the first time. And what can I say? Pratchett is almost always good, but when he’s transcendent, he’s transcendent.

A drawing of Death as the Hogfather — I even made a fanart! Click to embiggen–WordPress made the preview look all mushy.

Hogfather tells the story of the time ~~Santa Cl~~ the Hogfather is, for lack of a better term, killed. By the assassin Mr. Teatime, which is of course pronounced the-ah-tim-eh, though everybody mispronounces it immediately, even if they’ve never seen it spelled. Death must step in and deliver the presents. Meanwhile a surplus of belief is sloshing around the Discworld, giving rise to the Oh God of Hangovers, the Eater of Socks, and more. We follow various heroes and villains as they navigate this new reality. In the end, balance is restored, reality’s humorless scolds defeated (for now).

Hogfather hits a real sweet spot for me: I’m a sucker for holiday specials, and like Neil Gaiman I think Death is Pratchett’s best character. This book is a pile of contradictions, a god-riddled argument for secular humanism, a rationalist’s paean to irrational belief, where Death is the only character who seems to understand the meaning of life. And it’s so well-engineered that it actually works. In the hands of a lesser author, so many things could go wrong. But they don’t, because this is Pratchett at the top of his very considerable game. Everything comes together in the end for a denouement that I’m not ashamed to admit made me cry a little. Especially Banjo’s fate.

When I read a paperback I dog-ear the bottom corners for favorite passages. I ended up with a lot for this one, sometimes on facing pages. So much to love in this book. As somebody who’s attended his share of Episcopal, Jewish, and Neo-Pagan solstice celebrations, I think Pratchett does a great job capturing the true meaning of Hogswatch–fire and blood, annoying relatives in paper hats, ancient rituals to chase away the smothering darkness with lights and pretty pictures. And big, stupid myths we tell our children. The tiniest worm in the ocean, a red flame in the crushing black depths, speaks volumes in this story. Its life is so irrational, striving against oblivion, and why?

Because otherwise, the universe is just a bunch of rocks moving in curves. Without our sometimes ridiculous applications of the anthropic principle–personified here as a professor–when the sun rises after the darkest day of the year, it’s just a ball of flaming gas. Without the Hogfather–or that silly, pointlessly red worm–we forget ourselves.

And that is why, at this time of the year, we light things on fire. Happy Hogswatch, everyone! What did you all think? Opening discussion question: what does Death sound like in your head?

Hogfather Reading Club: Talk Amongst YourselvesPost + Comments (98)

Need A Good Book? Why Not ‘The Starless Sea’?

by Major Major Major Major| June 22, 20208:00 pm| 162 Comments

This post is in: Books, Recommended Reading, TV & Movies

In late February/early March, when everything was juuust starting to fall apart, I read a lovely book that enveloped me in a comfy fantasy world, much like the warm honey that is one of its motifs. The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern’s sophomore novel, tells the story of… well, it tells a good number of stories. The throughline is Zachary, graduate student and son of a fortune teller, who is pulled inexorably towards The Starless Sea, a mysterious land full of stories, every story, all the stories.

Each of the book’s sections alternates chapters between Zachary and another text, often a storybook he has found. While it first seems like these are exposition dumps or thematically-appropriate asides, in the end it all weaves together to be a meditation on love, narrative, and the nature of stories. At its core, it is also a romance. Here is one example of an interleaved text, which should give you a good idea of whether you want to read the other pages; click through to see the end:

?

(from The Starless Sea by @erinmorgenstern) pic.twitter.com/xxfmuit7ue

— ꧁Tynan꧂ (@TynanPants) February 22, 2020

Looking at reviews to jog my memory, now, I’m seeing that some readers found it weird, pretentious, and too intertextual. But I won’t let that stop me! Besides, I have a feeling there are more than a few weird, pretentious lit-crit types here. I can see where the reviewers are coming from, though. And it does take a little work, as with any non-linear narrative. So if you find such things off-putting… you have been warned. I’ll file this one under “it’s not for everyone, but it is for me.”

Consider this a recommendation thread for all your book, TV, movie, etc. needs! I’ve been watching Bosch, which one of you yokels recommended, and it’s pretty good. Going to start Homeland and Upload soon. What about you?

Need A Good Book? Why Not ‘The Starless Sea’?Post + Comments (162)

The words do not have to be perfect.

Second rate reporter says what?

Bark louder, little dog.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Not all heroes wear capes.

“But what about the lurkers?”

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Come on, man.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

What The Kids Are Reading

MLK: from Dreaming to Reality