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PaperclipPerfector  13d ago (text post)   2946 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 16, 2025

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So, what are you reading?

Still going through my backlog.

Taking another run at Infinite Jest. I've DNF'd it repeatedly, unfortunately. I feel like it might be just the limit of "big challenging book to prove a point." Which has given it its bro-lit reputation. DFW was a really brilliant writer, but it's just sooooooo long.

My wife is going to harass me to read The Kennedy Women, because she's long been a Kennedy fan. Good chance I'll write it up here if I get a chance.

Before bed I'm reading a couple stories from Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, I've never gotten into Doyle and figure it's something I ought to check off my list.

You should absolutely read Infinite Jest. It's not that long, once you get immersed in it. But this takes time. And because of the "fractal" way in which the book is written, you'll be somewhat confused and out of it for the first 300 or so pages. You just have to push on, and the book will open up to you.

Just started, City of Brass of the Daevabad trilogy. I'm curious!

In non fiction I'm reading Meditations on the Tarot and looking to start The Interior Castle soon.

The novelization of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith recommended in last week's fun thread lol. I'm enjoying it. Anakin does want the prestige of being on the Jedi Council, but he's genuinely pissed that he is not granted the rank of Master, which he desperately wants because that would give him restricted library access that he thinks could help him figure out his premonitions.

I'll probably read Storm of Steel later this week, unless I need levity, in which case I'll re-read the fanfic Seventh Horcrux by EmeraldAshes, in which Harry Potter has all the memories, power, paranoia, bigotry, arrogance and other personality of Voldemort but it's very much a comedy.

The novelization of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith recommended in last week's fun thread lol. I'm enjoying it. Anakin does want the prestige of being on the Jedi Council, but he's genuinely pissed that he is not granted the rank of Master, which he desperately wants because that would give him restricted library access that he thinks could help him figure out his premonitions.

This sounds kinda cool. I'm gonna try reading it too. I've had a bit of a craving for some Star Wars material in the last few weeks, and the games seem a bit crappy (Jedi Survivor, SW Outlaws). Maybe a novel will hit the spot.

I once read the Darth Plagueis novel. It was surprisingly good.

As I noted when I recommended the novelization in the other thread, I'd very much suggest picking up the whole Dark Lord trilogy, not just ROTS. There's more exploration of the political friction between Palpatine and the Jedi Council, the ground front of the attack on Coruscant gets a proper setpiece, Anakin and Obi-Wan get some quality adventuring time, the cat-and-mouse of the Jedi coming this close to discovering Darth Sidious, I could go on and on and on. And that's just sticking to Labyrinth of Evil! Seriously consider the whole set.

Will take a look!

Have you read the OG novels by Timothy Zahn (Heir To The Empire etc)? They hold up really well imo.

I read part of the Thrawn trilogy. The main character was a blue skinned Chiss. I liked Plagueis more though.

I finally finished A Memory Called Empire. As requested by @netstack, I come bearing a report. The basic premise of the book is that the heroine is a fresh ambassador from her small independent mining station to their neighboring large militaristic empire. She gets sent when the empire sends word that they need a new ambassador as soon as they can manage, but doesn't say why. Her government surmises that most likely the old ambassador died and the empire doesn't wish to say that, and sends her both to represent their people's interests and to figure out what happened to the old ambassador. To prepare her for the job they implant her brain with a machine that contains the prior ambassador's personality and memories, albeit 15 years out of date (the last time he visited home). Once she gets there she sets about trying to cut through the court intrigue and figure out what the hell actually happened, and if it's something her people need to be concerned about as the threat of annexation always looms large with this neighbor.

Overall, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. The person who lent me this book described it as "space opera, not hard sci-fi", and while it's not super hard sci-fi I wouldn't quite call it space opera (e.g. Star Wars) either. The book does touch on interesting sci-fi themes, such as how the aforementioned personality transfer machines might impact a society. And I really enjoyed the depiction of the foreign culture as it relates to their smaller neighbor. The empire's culture has a considerable influence on the heroine's home, and one of the reasons she was eager for the diplomatic assignment was because she was basically a weeb for this culture. But when she gets there she finds the reality of being immersed in a foreign culture very different from the fantasy, and often feels lost and overwhelmed as she tries to acclimate and play politics with people who consider her a barbarian. The cultural differences were really well done and one of the strong points of the book for me. There are times characters from both side of the divide are shocked at how people from the other side do it. For example: the station dwellers cremate their dead and use their ashes to fertilize crops, while the empire embalms and buries their dead. Both sides are shocked at the way the other side does it, and consider it to be awful that they treat their dead in such a way.

I also thought the characters were well done, with all the leads you spend time with being very likeable. The plot is enjoyable as well, although it took a bit to hook me (one reason why it took me over a month to read this book). Once it did find its stride I quite enjoyed it, but just be aware it's a bit of a slow burn at first. The book ends with hooks for a sequel (and there is indeed a sequel), but it's well done so that the story of this book doesn't feel incomplete. You could stop here and get a satisfying story, which is something I appreciate about the book.

There are only two complaints which come to mind. One is that the book has beginning-of-chapter quotes a la Dune or Foundation, but it overdoes them. They aren't short and sweet like in those other books, but are about a page of quotes each chapter which range from irrelevant (as far as I could tell) to very relevant. Additionally, as the action ramps up it's clear that some of these quotes are referring to the ongoing plot (e.g. news broadcasts and the like), but it's not clear when in the plot they necessarily refer to. They have dates on the quotes, but as I had no idea what date it was supposed to be in the narrative I couldn't place them. My other complaint is that for most of the book, it seemed like there was going to be no obligatory romance story. There was no sign of affection between the protagonist and anyone else, and I thought that was actually kind of nice. I think a lot of writers treat a romance plot as a box they have to check, rather than something which naturally arises from the story, and I was glad to see that this book was eschewing that trend. But no... in the eleventh hour, it turns out not only do we have a romance, but a lesbian romance. I audibly sighed when I got to this point and said "of course she did", because I was kind of bracing for that when I had read the author is a lesbian. It's not a deal-breaker, but it is kind of annoying, moreso because it really does come out of left field IMO. And of course I had been enjoying the lack of a romance plot, so it was unfortunate that this derailed an aspect of the book I liked.

In the end, neither of my complaints are super serious. Those things did annoy me some, but they don't make it a bad book by any means. It's more that it's an 8/10 book instead of a 9/10 book because of my complaints. I definitely recommend reading this book if you're into sci-fi. I'm not sure it deserves the Hugo award it got (I guess I'd need to read the others that came out that year), but it is quite good and worth your time.

I have this on my shelf for after I finish Absolution Gap. Thank you for the review! It sounds like something I’ll really enjoy.

I liked the first a lot! The sequel was definitely a lot more meh but the first one was riveting.

I liked it. The sequel is a little more lesbian, but still alright.

Finished Orbán: Europe's New Strongman. Felt like I learned a lot from it, and it was accessibly written.

On to Kiki de Montparnasse, a comic book I picked up on a whim in a charity shop several years ago. Only about thirty pages in, don't really know what it's about yet.

Long Live Evil: Time of Iron Book I. It's a fun fish out of water trope where the twist is that the MC is a terminal cancer patient transported into a fantasy realm from books she enjoyed with her sister and where she inhabits the body of a villainess that is to be executed the next day.

I've started on way too many books. The over abundance of choice and lack of focus is making me spend less time on reading. :/ Having a hard time deciding what's most important to get through. It's all nonfiction stuff at the moment.

Baridan's Ass IRL

Pretty much!

Today I've started on yet another new book, but this time it's a fiction book that's fun to read. This might help me bring more joy to the thought of reading again - at least that's what I'm telling myself. :)

I cut down from 5 reading projects down to 2 and it's helped velocity enormously.

Worst case, do the "snowball" algorithm and finish what you're closest to finishing.

Good advice. It was nonsensical to think I could switch between 5-10 books. Gonna try to pick out the two most important ones.

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