Dragon politics, not-so-contagious ungodliness, and acceptable Mary Sues
Ehm… possible offending of feelings? Just sayin’. *whistles nervously*
Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory, Victory of Eagles, Tongues of Serpents.
A new translator from the fourth part and, wow! suddenly the text is tidy! Miracles happen. *g*
A few good ideas giving interesting possibilities for the universe's history. In Temeraire's XXth century I foresee in Africa quite a turmoil starring the Dragons Awakening Movement (Stop stealing our identities and washbraining our eggs!) vs. the Heritage Respecting Traditionalists (You ungrateful scoundrels, we have been genuinely caring for you!). And the World United Cattle Front in some future ages yet, I'm waiting for it from the first parts, really. I grinned reading this thought coming to Temeraire too.
I hope in the following parts Iskierka will either a.) be eaten by a sea serpent (can be a horde of rats, I'm not so picky), or b.) gain some brain at last. Or any features one can like a character for. She terribly grates on my nerves. A hot-tempered hatchling is funny, but a thoughtless adult beast is just thoughtless. Not to mention her approach to Granby. “Here, have a pound of gold and you have to wear it, and shuddup at last. Oh, and I love you.” How cute... But I liked Perscitia. I'd like to get more of her. She's a complex, original and likeable (at least for me) character with interesting possibilities for the further development and use, who got little of the stage. By the way, I liked a lot switching the POV to Temeraire. Not that I have or ever had anything against Laurence who, quite the contrary to Iskierka, is easy to like, but when it occurs for the first time, in Victory of Eagles, it gives the thought 'Hey, why it wasn't before! Now I see it was missing!' Dragons as the group also were improved and enriched by moving the 'camera' between them and showing them without human characters.
I’m not as much as fan, but I can easily see why the series has fans. I'd like the rumour proved true and the film was realised, one of my reasons being that it would add also the realistic branch to the styles of fanarts; the most of what I've seen was cartoon-like.
Stieg Larsson, Millennium. Män som hatar kvinnor, Flickan som lekte med elden, Luftslottet som sprängdes (Millennium. The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest)
I tried it to see what for is all that fuss, with a dose of wary skepticism (around Dan Brown there was fuss too), and I can't say I was blown out immediately, but gradually I found I like it. And then love it. A little digression: David Eddings in The Rivan Codex says you won’t be able to abandon his Belgariad once you went through the first hundred pages. According to his wish I had read a hundred pages, and only then I threw the book aside, not without a smug satisfaction and certainly with relief. Ending the digression, in the case of Larsson's Millennium you do need at least a few chapters. That is, in case it feels uninteresting in the first chapter. If it definitely repels and annoys after ten pages, no sense in struggling more, of course.
There are books which you... OK, me. Books in which I pick at fails, cause those fails annoy me, and there are books which have fails too, which I could list as well and I often do it, but in spite of that I don't care for those fails in the least. Don't try to find sense in this, it's the crazy logic of falling in love... Millennium has the list of fails long like from here to the North Pole and back, with the overwhelming product-placement on the first place. (Product-placement is a miserable understatement; you'd need some quite new term for it. A character never sits on a chair and drinks coffee. He/she always sits on the Birk chair from Ikea and drinks TerraMokka coffee. Or something. I'm a pitiful failure of marketing, cause I never notice TMs in films/books/whatever, so if I say I've noticed, you can be sure it dances cancan on pages and throws up fireworks.) The next points would list the least surprising (after the first three or so) and most useless romantic threads ever, and miles long descriptions and actions having nothing to do with the plot or anything in general. If you count it as fails, you can add also the style as lively as a dried herring, and less humour than college textbooks have it. And at last, as someone grumbled in a discussion I've read, Lisbeth Salander is Mary Sue. Like hell, she is. So what?
There are books at which I'm annoyed when the hook snaps, dumping my suspended unbelief down. There are also books (or whatever) at which I hurriedly grab a hammer and drive in another hook, hang the unbelief again, and support it with a some pole or two, just in case, everything without stopping reading and grinning madly. Mary Sue? Fine, no problem. The unbelief has just fallen like a stone? Where's my hammer... Humour and style? The plot doesn't need them. Product-placement, redundancy, and fanfic-like 'let's see what pairing hasn't been covered yet and fix it'? That's building of background, and building of background, and ANY QUESTIONS? Thought so. All in all it makes one (OK, OK, me...) care for characters and keep reading, and that's all what matters.
Russell Blackford, Udo Schüklenk, 50 Voices of Disbelief. Why We Are Atheists
The book is an anthology of fifty essays on the theme which is clear, as I suppose. Some of them I read with interest, some - little - with a smile, some with agreeing 'uhum', some - too many - with irritation, some with yawning and the longsuffering longing to reach the final sentence at last. Fifty persons gives explanations of their atheism or agnosticism, as they see them. And you know what? They're unconvincing. That's in case you happen to be a believer and are afraid that such book can spoil your mind, or threat your soul, or something like this. No worries, it's as dangerous as a scraggy, tasteless diver for a shark.
As the answer for the 'why?', the book would have the same worth if it was twenty five or a hundred essays. Just twice more personal experiences and reasons, all of them valid only for their respective owners. Asking people about their choices in this matter, usually you get something in the line of “Oh, I've read this and experienced that, and I thought long time, and finally I am where I am.” It's the part of the answer, yes, but personally I think the conclusion “He has read this and experienced that, and it made him an atheist” is false in some way, or at least overvalued. I don't think that any amount of ungodly readings can turn a believer into a non-believer. And I don't think that any amount of holy and pious scriptures can turn a non-believer into a newborn lamb. As long as they feel OK with their lives and views, you can dump on a religious person a heap of arguments which could crush a basalt slab, and you'll always get back only “Oh, all that reason, and logic, and whatnot. Who cares, don't you see the Lord loves you?”, and you can feed a non-believer with Holy Bible (or Holy whatever) all day long, and you'll always get back only “Ugh, it's even more cruel and nonsensical than I thought... Wait, you mean there are people taking it really seriously?! Argh, time to dig a safe shelter before they'll come for braaainz!” The thing is believers and non-believers use on each other arguments which work only for themselves... And somehow they seem to not notice that. No wonder it's so frustrating for the both parts. I think the deepest core of believing/non-believing is the given person's psychic construction and general way of looking at the world, rather than taking or rejecting of arguments and reasonings, whatever they are. As one friend of mine once told me: “Yes, I see your point, but I simply prefer to long for the really 'magical' magic in the world.” (We discussed Pratchett's words about the magic of reality.) OK, the honest way of putting the matter, as far as I'm concerned. And no smirks, please. She's one of the most kind, thoughtful and tolerant persons I've ever knew. Also one of the most religious. The stereotype 'religious = dumb' is as stupid and unjust as the 'atheistic = immoral' one.
I doubt there's many real believers (meaning: such who chose to believe, knowing about other possibilities and having the matter considered), and maybe also not so many real non-believers. Seems that for the most of people it's not the matter of choice in the first place. For them it just isn't a thing one thinks about, same as one doesn't think about everyday putting clothes on, to do it or not? It's just 'I do it, cause others do it'. And when someone, say, one in a thousand people, begins to ask questions and muse over the all matter, I think the most is decided just in this moment, long before the conscious conclusion, and all 'reading and musing' is just explaining and reasoning of his/her feelings, making it more precise and shaped. Otherwise how it could be explained that two persons can get different conclusions from the same book or experience? I think the choice is not in the point 'is it sensible or nonsensical' but in the point 'do I feel better with belief than without it, or not'. And what belief anyway? There's more gods than any encyclopaedia lists; in fact, there's at least as many of them as believers. Otherwise atheists wouldn't hear so often “Oh, but you tell about an erroneous, out-of-date image of [put here whatever the given believer worships]. I believe the real [whatever] is [whatever the believer deems positive]”. That's why atheists' life is rather frustrating in discussions. It's difficult to be a-[what's the newest twist'n'turn these days]. I prefer to be irreligious. It saves a lot of terminological troubles. *g* (Ei! But I don't buy any “Oh, there must be some Absolute of course, but that's not religion, not at all,” savvy? I'm talking about the paradigm of reality, is kneeling and praising in it or not, so quit these back door breakings. *glares*)
Sometimes I'm annoyed with the complexity and intricateness of many atheistic reasonings (on the other hand, no wonder, since they're replies for theistic ones...). Also in this book many times you want to groan at last, “Man, but what are you talking about at all???” Yeah, a bit of horribly convoluted philosophy is a nice play, but that's all - mind game. Interesting (or not, if the given philosopher has a lead quill), but I rarely identify with it, and I never (almost never?) see in philosophical essays my reasons. In fact, there's more of them in musings of 'usual' non-believers, but they also rarely (never?) hit the spot. The most of non-believers tries to prove the non-existence of gods (a hopeless task, as long as religious/theistic ideas keep being more vague and changeable than smoke in air). My personal approach is more basic: if you're not writing a fantasy novel, why to invent any gods in the first place? That's all. *shrug* (Yes, I acknowledge the psychological causes, but they're only that: causes. It doesn't and shouldn't make them reasons. At least not objectively and certainly not for everyone.)
How about some excerpts?
What I do suspect I once shared with a great many religious believers is not so much the core of mystical experience as the larger package that was wrapped around it: the belief that the universe has a purpose, and that, despite the unspeakable horrors of our history and the smaller miseries of everyday life, there is a promise that everything will be put right in the end. This is a powerful and appealing notion; once you have it in your grasp, it’s hard to let go, and some of us will go to very great lengths to rationalize holding on to it. Greg Egan
We are cosmically insignificant, a speck in space and a blink in time, inconceivably unimportant - except to each other, to whom we should therefore be unspeakably precious. Dale McGowan
I have no wish to deny mystery, but I am unable to see why it should warrant belief. The only thing that follows from mystery is ignorance. Tamas Pataki
… we are imprisoned within our own creation. Sumitra Padmanabhan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your thoughts welcomed, as always. :)
Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory, Victory of Eagles, Tongues of Serpents.
A new translator from the fourth part and, wow! suddenly the text is tidy! Miracles happen. *g*
A few good ideas giving interesting possibilities for the universe's history. In Temeraire's XXth century I foresee in Africa quite a turmoil starring the Dragons Awakening Movement (Stop stealing our identities and washbraining our eggs!) vs. the Heritage Respecting Traditionalists (You ungrateful scoundrels, we have been genuinely caring for you!). And the World United Cattle Front in some future ages yet, I'm waiting for it from the first parts, really. I grinned reading this thought coming to Temeraire too.
I hope in the following parts Iskierka will either a.) be eaten by a sea serpent (can be a horde of rats, I'm not so picky), or b.) gain some brain at last. Or any features one can like a character for. She terribly grates on my nerves. A hot-tempered hatchling is funny, but a thoughtless adult beast is just thoughtless. Not to mention her approach to Granby. “Here, have a pound of gold and you have to wear it, and shuddup at last. Oh, and I love you.” How cute... But I liked Perscitia. I'd like to get more of her. She's a complex, original and likeable (at least for me) character with interesting possibilities for the further development and use, who got little of the stage. By the way, I liked a lot switching the POV to Temeraire. Not that I have or ever had anything against Laurence who, quite the contrary to Iskierka, is easy to like, but when it occurs for the first time, in Victory of Eagles, it gives the thought 'Hey, why it wasn't before! Now I see it was missing!' Dragons as the group also were improved and enriched by moving the 'camera' between them and showing them without human characters.
I’m not as much as fan, but I can easily see why the series has fans. I'd like the rumour proved true and the film was realised, one of my reasons being that it would add also the realistic branch to the styles of fanarts; the most of what I've seen was cartoon-like.
Stieg Larsson, Millennium. Män som hatar kvinnor, Flickan som lekte med elden, Luftslottet som sprängdes (Millennium. The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest)
I tried it to see what for is all that fuss, with a dose of wary skepticism (around Dan Brown there was fuss too), and I can't say I was blown out immediately, but gradually I found I like it. And then love it. A little digression: David Eddings in The Rivan Codex says you won’t be able to abandon his Belgariad once you went through the first hundred pages. According to his wish I had read a hundred pages, and only then I threw the book aside, not without a smug satisfaction and certainly with relief. Ending the digression, in the case of Larsson's Millennium you do need at least a few chapters. That is, in case it feels uninteresting in the first chapter. If it definitely repels and annoys after ten pages, no sense in struggling more, of course.
There are books which you... OK, me. Books in which I pick at fails, cause those fails annoy me, and there are books which have fails too, which I could list as well and I often do it, but in spite of that I don't care for those fails in the least. Don't try to find sense in this, it's the crazy logic of falling in love... Millennium has the list of fails long like from here to the North Pole and back, with the overwhelming product-placement on the first place. (Product-placement is a miserable understatement; you'd need some quite new term for it. A character never sits on a chair and drinks coffee. He/she always sits on the Birk chair from Ikea and drinks TerraMokka coffee. Or something. I'm a pitiful failure of marketing, cause I never notice TMs in films/books/whatever, so if I say I've noticed, you can be sure it dances cancan on pages and throws up fireworks.) The next points would list the least surprising (after the first three or so) and most useless romantic threads ever, and miles long descriptions and actions having nothing to do with the plot or anything in general. If you count it as fails, you can add also the style as lively as a dried herring, and less humour than college textbooks have it. And at last, as someone grumbled in a discussion I've read, Lisbeth Salander is Mary Sue. Like hell, she is. So what?
There are books at which I'm annoyed when the hook snaps, dumping my suspended unbelief down. There are also books (or whatever) at which I hurriedly grab a hammer and drive in another hook, hang the unbelief again, and support it with a some pole or two, just in case, everything without stopping reading and grinning madly. Mary Sue? Fine, no problem. The unbelief has just fallen like a stone? Where's my hammer... Humour and style? The plot doesn't need them. Product-placement, redundancy, and fanfic-like 'let's see what pairing hasn't been covered yet and fix it'? That's building of background, and building of background, and ANY QUESTIONS? Thought so. All in all it makes one (OK, OK, me...) care for characters and keep reading, and that's all what matters.
Russell Blackford, Udo Schüklenk, 50 Voices of Disbelief. Why We Are Atheists
The book is an anthology of fifty essays on the theme which is clear, as I suppose. Some of them I read with interest, some - little - with a smile, some with agreeing 'uhum', some - too many - with irritation, some with yawning and the longsuffering longing to reach the final sentence at last. Fifty persons gives explanations of their atheism or agnosticism, as they see them. And you know what? They're unconvincing. That's in case you happen to be a believer and are afraid that such book can spoil your mind, or threat your soul, or something like this. No worries, it's as dangerous as a scraggy, tasteless diver for a shark.
As the answer for the 'why?', the book would have the same worth if it was twenty five or a hundred essays. Just twice more personal experiences and reasons, all of them valid only for their respective owners. Asking people about their choices in this matter, usually you get something in the line of “Oh, I've read this and experienced that, and I thought long time, and finally I am where I am.” It's the part of the answer, yes, but personally I think the conclusion “He has read this and experienced that, and it made him an atheist” is false in some way, or at least overvalued. I don't think that any amount of ungodly readings can turn a believer into a non-believer. And I don't think that any amount of holy and pious scriptures can turn a non-believer into a newborn lamb. As long as they feel OK with their lives and views, you can dump on a religious person a heap of arguments which could crush a basalt slab, and you'll always get back only “Oh, all that reason, and logic, and whatnot. Who cares, don't you see the Lord loves you?”, and you can feed a non-believer with Holy Bible (or Holy whatever) all day long, and you'll always get back only “Ugh, it's even more cruel and nonsensical than I thought... Wait, you mean there are people taking it really seriously?! Argh, time to dig a safe shelter before they'll come for braaainz!” The thing is believers and non-believers use on each other arguments which work only for themselves... And somehow they seem to not notice that. No wonder it's so frustrating for the both parts. I think the deepest core of believing/non-believing is the given person's psychic construction and general way of looking at the world, rather than taking or rejecting of arguments and reasonings, whatever they are. As one friend of mine once told me: “Yes, I see your point, but I simply prefer to long for the really 'magical' magic in the world.” (We discussed Pratchett's words about the magic of reality.) OK, the honest way of putting the matter, as far as I'm concerned. And no smirks, please. She's one of the most kind, thoughtful and tolerant persons I've ever knew. Also one of the most religious. The stereotype 'religious = dumb' is as stupid and unjust as the 'atheistic = immoral' one.
I doubt there's many real believers (meaning: such who chose to believe, knowing about other possibilities and having the matter considered), and maybe also not so many real non-believers. Seems that for the most of people it's not the matter of choice in the first place. For them it just isn't a thing one thinks about, same as one doesn't think about everyday putting clothes on, to do it or not? It's just 'I do it, cause others do it'. And when someone, say, one in a thousand people, begins to ask questions and muse over the all matter, I think the most is decided just in this moment, long before the conscious conclusion, and all 'reading and musing' is just explaining and reasoning of his/her feelings, making it more precise and shaped. Otherwise how it could be explained that two persons can get different conclusions from the same book or experience? I think the choice is not in the point 'is it sensible or nonsensical' but in the point 'do I feel better with belief than without it, or not'. And what belief anyway? There's more gods than any encyclopaedia lists; in fact, there's at least as many of them as believers. Otherwise atheists wouldn't hear so often “Oh, but you tell about an erroneous, out-of-date image of [put here whatever the given believer worships]. I believe the real [whatever] is [whatever the believer deems positive]”. That's why atheists' life is rather frustrating in discussions. It's difficult to be a-[what's the newest twist'n'turn these days]. I prefer to be irreligious. It saves a lot of terminological troubles. *g* (Ei! But I don't buy any “Oh, there must be some Absolute of course, but that's not religion, not at all,” savvy? I'm talking about the paradigm of reality, is kneeling and praising in it or not, so quit these back door breakings. *glares*)
Sometimes I'm annoyed with the complexity and intricateness of many atheistic reasonings (on the other hand, no wonder, since they're replies for theistic ones...). Also in this book many times you want to groan at last, “Man, but what are you talking about at all???” Yeah, a bit of horribly convoluted philosophy is a nice play, but that's all - mind game. Interesting (or not, if the given philosopher has a lead quill), but I rarely identify with it, and I never (almost never?) see in philosophical essays my reasons. In fact, there's more of them in musings of 'usual' non-believers, but they also rarely (never?) hit the spot. The most of non-believers tries to prove the non-existence of gods (a hopeless task, as long as religious/theistic ideas keep being more vague and changeable than smoke in air). My personal approach is more basic: if you're not writing a fantasy novel, why to invent any gods in the first place? That's all. *shrug* (Yes, I acknowledge the psychological causes, but they're only that: causes. It doesn't and shouldn't make them reasons. At least not objectively and certainly not for everyone.)
How about some excerpts?
What I do suspect I once shared with a great many religious believers is not so much the core of mystical experience as the larger package that was wrapped around it: the belief that the universe has a purpose, and that, despite the unspeakable horrors of our history and the smaller miseries of everyday life, there is a promise that everything will be put right in the end. This is a powerful and appealing notion; once you have it in your grasp, it’s hard to let go, and some of us will go to very great lengths to rationalize holding on to it. Greg Egan
We are cosmically insignificant, a speck in space and a blink in time, inconceivably unimportant - except to each other, to whom we should therefore be unspeakably precious. Dale McGowan
I have no wish to deny mystery, but I am unable to see why it should warrant belief. The only thing that follows from mystery is ignorance. Tamas Pataki
… we are imprisoned within our own creation. Sumitra Padmanabhan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your thoughts welcomed, as always. :)