What Are You Reading?

[NYN]

Is it good to read this first and then go back and read the earlier versions, or are you advocating just skipping all the original run of Moon Knight and going from the reboot?

Well, that's what I did, picking something "modern" in terms of how to tell about the guy(s). As stated I find the 'boys club theme' not modern. Naturally, I could've started from the very start, # 1, however decided against it. Some "older" stuff could have a stuffy flavour, not so much the writer/artist, more the Marv house style [Meanwhile: STAN LEE PRESENTS!!!] at the time. Gravitating strongly to the mid-80s comic changes. I considered of course to start with Sienkiewicz as artist, then put it off since I read that he "invented" the surreal parts (switching between art styles) at the end of his tenure on the character. And I wanted very much something other than the usual street vigilante. The 2016 reboot (at first dubbed Lunatic, gettid? ) is fine and more*, I just feel a lust for more edge on the subject. I am going for Legacy next. Someone made that out for being downright hair-raising for a mainstream comic book, so much that the writer quit over "differences". That makes it interesting to me.

*

Spoiler

Issue/chapter 8 cover has a Moon Knight movie poster as the center, stating in the credits that the score was composed by Tangerine Dream and directed by William Friedkin; just to have, in fiction, those 2 names rubbed together made me happy with the imagination: that can't be nostalgia, it never existed, complimenting oh-so-subtle the whole theme!

[vol.2]

Some "older" stuff could have a stuffy flavour, not so much the writer/artist, more the Marv house style [Meanwhile: STAN LEE PRESENTS!!!] at the time. Gravitating strongly to the mid-80s comic changes.

I can't decide if I would find that possibly nostalgic or if it would be boring. I read a smattering of Moon Knight comics "back in the day," but never enough of them to have a grasp on the continuity. What I mostly remember the character from is Cerebus, in which Dave Sim parodied him as Moon Roach, one of Artemis's psychosis. Sim did a fairly good job revealing the nature of the character through it.

Thanks for the info, I might just take the advice as feel some amount of boredom thinking about that era of superhero comics. Of course I read Claremont XMen and New Mutants, but I was always more drawn towards the weirder stuff like The Tick and TMNT.

[NYN]

Finished the M00N KNIGHT: LEGACY trade, and after consideration concluded it was everything I wanted after the save Spielberg-esque rebooted version before. Legacy's 12 issues are whacky, funny, sometimes sad. Weird enough, even to the point of being offensive to a certain degree, yet with it's own dangerous integrity. Well executed, indeed.

Reading now: THE SHADOW: Shadows and Light. Picked it solely for the Sienkiewicz art and got a mid-80-ish mother load. Being the original grandpa of 'war on crime' anti-heroes, I knew next to none about it. That the Master has cronies working in sensitive spots, so he can take center stage once a chapter to fire 2 SMG's into goons and creeps, bellowing maniacal laughter over the shots. It should rub me wrong, since I mainly dislike the other pricks who do the same in print. Is it the mystique and unknown of the fella? Does he have a plan? HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

Next:

Finished the first half of REDLANDS, which I found by catching up with colourist Jordie Bellaire, who is the also the writer on this. Thoroughly impressed with the whole thing, it is real nasty with a this-is-human-behaviour, doing sex-slave trade and occult witches, together with the cool kind of homage to cinema being not to overstated to it (except for one overly tribute to King, as subtle as Steve is all Americana) Best of all, it evokes the strong feeling that only this medium seems suitable to accomplish this. When the content is everything one doesn't want to know about, and it's not an option to escape the mesmerizing maelstrom of the narrative. Got to pick up the next one, at once!

[MintyTheCat]

The Bridge, Iain Banks.

Shockwave Rider, John Brunner.

[Randorama]

The Bridge, Iain Banks.

Shockwave Rider, John Brunner.

Brilliant books, both of them. Have you tried any books by Iain M. Banks? Brilliant lad, very similar style to Iain Banks but M. Banks mostly writes SF.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the cheesy joke

[Lander]

I have a copy of Matter by the M. variant of ser Banks knocking around on the shelf from way back in my teens, tucked away between whimsical Hitchhiker's Guide and the rather more straightforward sounding WAR MACHINE by Andy Remic.

Quite good and suitably grand in sci-fi ideas, if I remember. Though I give my younger self a degree of side-eye in various matters of taste, even if he was more literate.

[MintyTheCat]

The Bridge, Iain Banks.

Shockwave Rider, John Brunner.

Brilliant books, both of them. Have you tried any books by Iain M. Banks? Brilliant lad, very similar style to Iain Banks but M. Banks mostly writes SF.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the cheesy joke

I have read most of Banks' SF novels and a few of his "standard fiction" novels.

The Business is one that I've been meaning to read for some time now.
I also bought The Bridge at the same time.

The Wasp Factory convinced me to write my own novel too during Lockdown.

Sadly, Iain didn't live long enough but he left some good, easy to read and fun novels for us to savour.

Btw : Banks once said in an interview that the "M" was "....for marketing..." to the USA - he had a good sense of humour, so he did

[Randorama]

I have read all of Banks' works out of respect to the author(s). Even his weakest works (e.g. The Algebraist) have interesting ideas in them. The Business is interesting in its basic premise: what if a secret banking society that was founded millennia ago was ago morally sound and its members acted in an enlightened way? Conspiracy nutters would probably have a field day analysing the book as propaganda, but Banks would probably retort that "Half the fun of writing a novel is finding out from other people later on what you actually meant." (from this page, as I don't remember in which book the quote is found). My favourite "story" by Banks is...

"The History Of The Universe In Three Words CHAPTER ONE Bang! CHAPTER TWO sssss CHAPTER THREE crunch. THE END" (also not sure in which book this was published).

Although I don't like all "The Culture" books equally, the fictional world that Banks builds in this series has been quite inspiring to me: this article summarises some of the reasons why I love this series (...as my signature can confirm, too).

I also found Raw Spirit interesting because it contains a lot of information on the world of Whiskey-making, aside Banks' personal views on various brands Sadly Iain M.B. was not exactly a health freak, but it is still a pity that he didn't stay with us longer, indeed.

[Lander]

The Business is interesting in its basic premise: what if a secret banking society that was founded millennia ago was ago morally sound and its members acted in an enlightened way?

That sounds like a fascinating premise, given mainstream sci-fi's tendency toward cynical corporate hell. I'm not against indulging in a bit of misanthropic worldview, but it gets a bit close to the bone when today's big vendors are starting to look like precursors to the subject matter!

Conspiracy nutters would probably have a field day analysing the book as propaganda, but Banks would probably retort that "Half the fun of writing a novel is finding out from other people later on what you actually meant."

Wise words eye of the beholder, and all that. Definitely a healthier standpoint than no your interpretation of my art is WRONG and I reserve all rights to ruin it years after the fact.

[Randorama]

That sounds like a fascinating premise, given mainstream sci-fi's tendency toward cynical corporate hell. I'm not against indulging in a bit of misanthropic worldview, but it gets a bit close to the bone when today's big vendors are starting to look like precursors to the subject matter!

It’s a modern fiction book, actually. It takes place in the late 1990s or so. Thoroughly enjoyable! Everything Banks wrote was always somewhat fantastical in its premises, though.

Wise words eye of the beholder, and all that. Definitely a healthier standpoint than no your interpretation of my art is WRONG and I reserve all rights to ruin it years after the fact.

Banks was an educated Scottish lad, so he was a practitioner of antisyzygy. He believed that he knew what he meant, in his books, but also that he could be wrong. He was never afraid or entertaining ideas opposite to his own, for sure

Espedair Street and The Steep Approach to Garbadale are also good. They are respectively a book on the music business (Banks was friends with the Marillion band and a few other Scottish bands) and a book on the board/table-top games business (Banks was a very avid fan of those). I’d also suggest the book that opens with the immortal line:

“It was the day that my grandma exploded.”

I.e. The Crow Road, if only for this opening statement

[BrainΦΠΦTemple]

finished nietzsche's on the genealogy of morality a few days agO

I've read that twice. First time in a state of exaltation. Again with a more sober demeanor. Is there something you can take away from it?

(deciding that for more serious posts, i'm gonna abstain from looking like a dumbass and not type w/ my ocd cap typing quirks...or i still may look like one, idk):

yeee, definitely ^^
there's a multitude of things to take away from it. it's an exposé on the origins of morality and how the ideas concerning morals have changed over time. the book reveals the hollowness and shallowness of many moral precepts that are commonly accepted in society, tearing all of its illusions away to unmask how civilization is ultimately founded on a mountain of lies (the use of organized religion) in order for people to cooperate w/ one another. so, in short, he essentially dismantles societal conceptions of truth and morality and explores man's true nature.

it's probably the essential text in understanding nietzsche's thought more than any other of his writings, and its influence on the psychological writings of sigmund freud and carl jung to the philosophical writings of martin heidegger and ludwig wittgenstein to authors like robert e. howard and ernst jünger can't be overstated.

by asking me if there's something i can take away from it, i assume that you might've not been able to get anything out of it? if so, nietzsche is pretty readable but only if you have a pretty decent background in the western philosophical canon, history, christian theology, norse and greek mythology, have some familiarity w/ world religions and have studied their sacred texts, eastern religions (due to his analyses and criticisms of buddhism), literature, poetry, music, and definitely life experience. as a result, he requires a lot of well-roundedness in order to truly grasp just what it is he is talking about since nietzsche is about him critiquing and tearing down what came before. if you aren't academically rounded, he won't make any sense. if you read a literary critique of cormac mcarthy's blood meridian, you won't really know exactly what the literary critique is talking about if you neglected to read blood meridian itself. (i apologize for making that assumption if you have more of an advanced background, but if you don't, nietzsche will eventually make more sense once you get more well-rounded, and i hope my post has been helpful. ^-^ )


---------------------------------
i currently finished reading some research papers by d.j. huntington moore in his expansion of leibniz's conceptions of the monad by utilizing the physical and the metaphysical to be linked in relation to bra-ket notation, which is a system borrowed from quantum mechanics. i've explored using bra-ket notation of the physical and metaphysical through disparate connections w/ anti-mathematical concepts to build upon d.j. huntington moore's systems to continue laying down a holistic science and figure out how to link such broad topics (in a scientific metaphysics, you explore things through their oppositional dialectic, and in mathematics' case, it would be anti-mathematics, such as gendered calculus, which, unlike, axiomatically quantitative systems, anti-mathematics is a non-numerical form of mathematical analysis, and a primary component is that they are derived from kantian pure reason, not axioms. ultimately, mathematics (and science too) deals w/ abstractions and not individuals. for example,

f(x) = y, is a general statement.

in anti-mathematics, we go from ethereal grounds of abstraction to establish a concrete zero-space metaphysical spot in which we can discover that

x = y.

the property of 1st classness (FC) is that no principles can follow. FC is the 1st principle and cannot be violated.

after having explored d.j. huntington moore's system of gendered calculus w/ bra-ket notation, it appears that i found a correlation between the superposition of [-1,0,1] in a qubit in quantum computing and the semiotic signifiers in gendered calculus, at least, it seems that way according to talking w/ AI on the subject. (AI has been a huge help, actually lol)
i have a lot of sperg-blasting i could do here, but i'll do my best to refrain since i'm already sperging the fukk out. i'll continue to sperg if anyone happens to ask me more about it though^^;
in the meantime, here's some post i made on the r/metaphysics subreddit (and yes, reddit suxx, and the metaphysics subreddit is full of dipshits who think it is astrophysics or some nonsense, but w/e)
so here's some bullshit:
my autistic fukken response to what has a necessary existence


oH yeah, i also finished reading michael bakunin's god and the state + thomas malthus' an essay on the principle of population + and the short story to build a fire by jack london

[Randorama]

I am slowly going through Peter Watts' and Greg Egan's works. Both authors fall into the category of "scientists who end up writing fiction", and have produced a vast body of works that may qualify as Hard Science Fiction.

Both authors tend to exaggerate in their scientific speculations in some works: expect entire "info dump" chapters in their denser works, and links to their webpages or lists of references that they used for research. Highly entertaining anyway, since they can write good stories and characters, and tend to have a degree of self-referential, post-modern irony that allows readers to have a laugh at their sometimes too wild speculations.

I am also going again through Jerry Fodor's works, out of nostalgia for my graduate studies or something. My general approach to anything he has written could be summed up as "snarky remarks about people's theories in place of actual theories", but his writing style is so hilarious that I enjoy re-reading his works. I wish that he would have bothered to read some actual science after the 1970s, though: his philosophical claims would have benefitted from this immensely (e.g. by making sense and not being built on false data, for instance...). Still, I can claim that he offered me beer at a conference, because he generally resented the fact that graduate students couldn't drink for free at conferences

Novel works...

I am going through Luciano Floridi's works. A very prolific philosopher with a very clear writing style who also happens to hails from my country, though he mostly spent his life abroad (of course). His papers often have solid factual groundings (e.g. they report experimental studies in support of the paper's claims), which is how I would do philosophy, if I were in this business. Apparently also a very lovely human being, but maybe he offers wine rather than beer to graduate students

[Sima Tuna]

I enjoy Peter Watts' output. The Blindsight discussion is not far back in the thread pages. Although often characterized as "depressing," Watts I think is more of an idealist who uses fiction as a way to wrestle with that age-old subject of Why Can't People Be Nicer To Each Other.

[NYN]

by asking me if there's something i can take away from it, i assume that you might've not been able to get anything out of it?

No, I got all that I needed. There is an inert sense in the reader (me), that the text puts on the outside. Putting words to certain feelings.

if you aren't academically rounded, he won't make any sense.

As a stand-alone work, no, very little. I don't think I ever set foot in any place of higher learning. What I find to be of relevance to me I take, myself either being well rounded or crafty hewn. FN himself referred to the academia as "ant-like industry", which is all there is to say. The only lasting rift between his writings and me would be his stance on women in general, though at least understandable with his youth upbringing under "unenlightened" females and no father (something many philosophers share, I feel). That was not the last of his writing for me, I read more. And short of a full biography, I know about the context of him and the age. Born posthumously, indeed.

(i apologize for making that assumption if you have more of an advanced background, but if you don't, nietzsche will eventually make more sense once you get more well-rounded, and i hope my post has been helpful. ^-^ )

No need to. As ever, how someone can respond to certain ideas lies in how advanced one gets with their self. When I decidedly learn something it is always for me, not for some "higher" benefit other than that. There are some texts, as you say, that can offer more when the reader has more to offer. On that we can agree, easily.

[Randorama]

I am not getting a particularly "depressing" vibe from his work, but maybe I am just a very pessimistic bastard Blindsight is interesting also because it starts with a premise that might actually be false. Basically, Watts tries to imagine a scenario in which most species in the cosmos are not conscious but they can be far more advanced than us (i.e. they operate like Star Trek's borgs), and come to...ok, you know the rest, let's avoid spoilers.

The way Watts handles the topic of consciousness is deeply interesting, even though more recent science that has appeared after the book's release suggests that the picture is quite more complicated than it seems. For instance, bees seem to be at least aware of when they are happy or sad. More in general, though, he can marry hard scientific knowledge (he is a marine biologist, after all) with interesting plots and thought-provoking musings. Greg Egan is similar but he has this tendency to land info dumps that may be really irksome, to some readers. Now, I can see why some people find Watts depressing (I mean, there's lots of disasters in his books), but writers must find a narrative approach to wrestle with complex philosophical speculations, mustn't they?

'

[blackoak]

I've been reading a lot of WW2 history lately (lots of good reading time when the baby sleeps). Mostly revisionist stuff--being already familiar with the orthodox historical narrative, I was curious what the dissenters had to say. I'm reading three books atm: The Origins of the Second World War by AJP Taylor, 1939 - The War that Had Many Fathers by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof, and Hitler's Revolution by Richard Tedor. Taylor's book is probably the most mainstream but all three cover similar ground and make the case that Germany was not the aggressor in the morally simplified "Marvel History" way I was taught in school. Fascinating stuff, I look forward to reading the critical discourse and rebuttals of these points (more forum trawling yay, hehe).

[NYN]

0h. WWII relation: I recently read through Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, and starting it I felt to be prepared somehow. Alas, it presented a madness in many places I couldn't be guarded against. One of the things I didn't have knowledge of was that Himmler at a certain point ignored orders, and proceeded "stopping" the murder machine (and dismantling the camps). Only as a bargaining chip for a time after the war, to still have a means to "make peace". Another is that El Duce, bastard that he was, promised with a smile his northern chaps to comp the lands for a certain people to gather, and he never ordered his subordinates to do so. Also the resistance to comply demands in Denmark and Bulgaria. Those are little lights I did not been aware of, so it wasn't all unbearable. A very sharp read, if one has the stomach.

[NYN]

100 Bullets. First. I eluded this work for the longest time. Told myself I'm not interested in crime fiction. Even though I read and enjoyed Azzarello's New52 WW, which I started re-reading. After that I read some thing OK (Luthor), followed by some bleak (Joker) that I felt had no fun in the pages. And somehow I landed on this, and thought this is all I get. Crime. Grime. Tough guys. Soft gals. The act. And then I somehow read a more recent Suicide Squad, and it's all desolate and the ending is tight wtf. And I found that funny, somehow. Then I watched an interview series with Azzarello in 3 parts, and I needed that to point out to me what it is I enjoy with the writing: the act of rule-breaker, that I prefer. So, 100 Bullets, now. And it is crime, grime, full of tough guys, strong gals, and it breaks rules in 8-ways. You know, fun. Risso's art is deceptively "simple", though a powerful depiction. So glad whatever is talked about it, it comes from the comics. Not from adaptation for pay-Tv or movies. They're 100 chapters total, I'm just about under 20 in. If this keeps up, and does not jump several sharks, then I'll be glad I saved it for so long, for an age where I would come to appreciate it in full.

[vol.2]

Taylor's book is probably the most mainstream but all three cover similar ground and make the case that Germany was not the aggressor in the morally simplified "Marvel History" way I was taught in school. Fascinating stuff, I look forward to reading the critical discourse and rebuttals of these points (more forum trawling yay, hehe).

Well it's hard to take the moral high ground when you're gassing people in wheelchairs, but yeah there's a reason that Germany ended up following such a man.

The main issue was always the "war reparations" that happened after WWI. Germany was in extremely bad shape after WWI, and the Allied forces basically came in and pillaged whatever they wanted in the aftermath of the war, making things even worse and really creating a seething hatred. Germany was left with very little, people were starving, and the vacuum of power created the conditions for a populist leader to bring people together. Whether or not you choose to view the ongoing conditions of the first world war as part of the conditions of the second one is really where things take shape. In a way, the two are inseparable, but it's also true that Hitler was quite clear about his imperialistic intentions in Germany's plans for the war, in that he was determined to conquer parts of Europe to attain "Lebensraum." So whether or not Germany started WWII, they sure as hell were down to finish it. It wouldn't be the first time in history that a once underdog pivoted to being the overall aggressor.

This was all acknowledged in the aftermath of the second world war when the Marshall Plan was setup to stabilize Germany in order to prevent a relapse of conditions. Ironically, the advanced steel manufacturing plants setup during the years that followed led to the collapse of the US steel industry as it could no longer compete with the more efficient produced and higher quality German steel, especially in the European markets.

Although as history has shown, it doesn't necessarily take such conditions to elect a potentially disastrous populist leader. It's been happening all over the place simply because people are scared of what awaits and are looking for someone to assuage their fears.

[blackoak]

Whether or not you choose to view the ongoing conditions of the first world war as part of the conditions of the second one is really where things take shape. In a way, the two are inseparable, but it's also true that Hitler was quite clear about his imperialistic intentions in Germany's plans for the war, in that he was determined to conquer parts of Europe to attain "Lebensraum."

Yeah, I read Mein Kampf earlier this year (the Stalag edition published by the NSDAP, so the most "friendly" to Germany in terms of potential translation issues) and I was surprised at just how explicit Hitler was about lebensraum and his plans for Eastern Europe. Being written in 1924, I have heard some people say, in an apologetic tone, that he had changed his mind on certain things by the time of the war (and that the NSDAP policies on the eastern front, in any event, did not live up to what he wrote in Mein Kampf)... I'm very skeptical but it's an aspect I'd like to read more about someday.

But to your first point, yeah, I do think the Versailles Treaty was wildly unjust and a direct cause of WWII. Regarding the outbreak of war, the books I have been reading go through the nitty-gritty of the diplomatic communiques between all the major players: Germany, Poland, the UK, France, Austria, Czechoslovakia... and without going into too much detail here, what the authors argue is that on each of the successive "trigger" events--the Anschluss, the Sudetenland crisis, and of course the Danzig corridor--leading up to the declaration of war, that Hitler did everything he could to resolve those crises peacefully and offered numerous compromises, but was simply rejected at every impasse by the UK. The picture painted is one where the Allies (and the UK in particular) simply desired a war with Germany.

Anyway, in some alternate world where I have a ton of free time I would love to substantiate that with more quotes and passages from these books, haha, but sadly it's all I can do, timewise, just to read these for myself. Fascinating stuff though. I finished AJP Taylor's Origins and Hitler's Revolution, and am now trying to get through The War that Had Many Fathers... but its hard to read because the author (translator?) decided to write everything in the present tense, which I absolutely hate in history writing. Also started Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction.

[vol.2]

Hitler did everything he could to resolve those crises peacefully and offered numerous compromises, but was simply rejected at every impasse by the UK. The picture painted is one where the Allies (and the UK in particular) simply desired a war with Germany.

I don't doubt that side of things because it tracks very well with Hitler's MO. He was desperate to legitimize Germany and his rule to the rest of the world and was very insecure. The plans were always there though, he just wasn't ready to tip his hat. I think he was just waiting until they had advanced their technology to the point where they had an edge. If you look at what was going on there at the time, it was pretty clear that all the energy was being poured into weapons research and building an army specifically designed to go to war.

But to your first point, yeah, I do think the Versailles Treaty was wildly unjust and a direct cause of WWII.

It was, but the main problem IMHO was that the US got involved in WWI. Germany was not the "bad guy" in the first one outside of country-specific propaganda, and getting involved was a huge boondoggle for everyone in the end.

Obviously there were still religious tensions in Eastern Europe, but it was really the extreme conditions of austerity (and emerging eugenics movements) that brought forth the conditions for genocide. In the first war, Germany had many Jewish members of the government and highly ranking officers in the army. It was not at all the same environment.

About eugenics, there was a great video by youtuber Shawn about the book "The Bell Curve," which gets into the connection between eugenics movement and the Nazi party, and also how it's still operating today under people's noses. You would probably find this interesting. https://youtu.be/UBc7qBS1Ujo?si=_lQmiFuQjpXUZ6wJ

[Lander]

I've been chipping away at the lovely hardback of House of Leaves I got for christmas. I'd heard it was something special, but didn't expect to find the inner covers plastered with reams of hexadecimal code. Nice.

Currently up to the part where the footnotes invite you to to embark on an optional ~60 page digression into the appendix of letters from a relative (Chapter VII-ish?) right as the core text is teetering on the edge of a fascinating delve into the House on Ash Tree Lane.

It knows you crave understanding, and also knows you're a sucker for potentially-relevant minutae.
Devilish.

Core takeaways so far:

1. This thing is closer to an interactive wiki experience than a traditional book. Keeping track of occasionally-recursive footnote numbers, accidentally skimming over them and having to double back, holding fingers between multiple pages as you ping-pong between the main and supplemental content, et cetera. *

2. Johnny's capacity for the tangential is astonishing.

3. Unfiction like SCP and The Backrooms is more blatantly derivative than I ever imagined. **

Code: Select all

* The text itself is a good challenge,
but I didn't expect the mechanics of reading it to be one too! ***

** Much of the genre seems to have snatched up House's themes and devices wholesale:
Things and places that don't make sense, humanizing framing of the inexplicable,
the fuzzy line between supernatural and psychological.
It's arguable that encoding actual wiki sites is an interesting evolution,
and there is plenty of interesting original stuff out there,
but it's nuts how completely the scare-seeker community has reproduced it in many cases.

*** And while cognitively-heavy, it's quite enjoyable.
As if a choose-your-own-adventure book was structured like an exhaustive whitepaper.
Glad to not have settled for an audiobook or other incarnation as I did with Dark Tower,
which I'm told is similarly subversive in the presentation of its text.

[vol.2]

I've been chipping away at the lovely hardback of House of Leaves I got for christmas.

I might recommend checking out the Doom II wad "My House" after you are done with the book.

Spoiler

It's not a straight video game adaptation of the novel, but it draws heavily from it as source material. They created a new game engine and crammed it into Doom II as a map as though the Doom Engine is just a wrapper for the game. But it mostly obeys the limitations of the Doom Engine, except when it doesn't.

[hazys]

Recently finished Gene Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer and enjoyed it. Will soon begin Claw of the Conciliator but for now I'm reading some Kenji Miyazawa stories instead.

[vol.2]

Recently finished Gene Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer and enjoyed it. Will soon begin Claw of the Conciliator but for now I'm reading some Kenji Miyazawa stories instead.

Gene Wolfe is great. If you liked that, you might want to check out Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth" from the 1950s. It kind of setup that whole subgenre of fantasy.

[hazys]

Yeah, I'm not a big fantasy reader but I really liked his worldbuilding and especially his use of anachronistic/archaic terms of give the setting a certain flavor and timelessness. I'll probably read the rest of the Book of the New Sun series. Thank you for the rec!

[BrainΦΠΦTemple]

by asking me if there's something i can take away from it, i assume that you might've not been able to get anything out of it?

No, I got all that I needed. There is an inert sense in the reader (me), that the text puts on the outside. Putting words to certain feelings.

if you aren't academically rounded, he won't make any sense.

As a stand-alone work, no, very little. I don't think I ever set foot in any place of higher learning. What I find to be of relevance to me I take, myself either being well rounded or crafty hewn. FN himself referred to the academia as "ant-like industry", which is all there is to say. The only lasting rift between his writings and me would be his stance on women in general, though at least understandable with his youth upbringing under "unenlightened" females and no father (something many philosophers share, I feel). That was not the last of his writing for me, I read more. And short of a full biography, I know about the context of him and the age. Born posthumously, indeed.

(i apologize for making that assumption if you have more of an advanced background, but if you don't, nietzsche will eventually make more sense once you get more well-rounded, and i hope my post has been helpful. ^-^ )

No need to. As ever, how someone can respond to certain ideas lies in how advanced one gets with their self. When I decidedly learn something it is always for me, not for some "higher" benefit other than that. There are some texts, as you say, that can offer more when the reader has more to offer. On that we can agree, easily.

i have a close friend who is a scholar of nietzsche. he has spent many years studying him, and he said once that if you don't take nietzsche seriously, then you fail as a philosopher. that is something that has stuck w/ me, and the more i understand nietzsche's worldview, the more my friend's comment has made sense as to why. nietzsche is about embracing the world itself and bringing humans back to what they fundamentally are.
people in the modern world get hung up on what nietzsche says negatively about women. i think it says something about humans' ability to lie to themselves when it is never controversial to talk negatively about men, but suddenly, when someone talks negatively about women, it becomes dangerously controversial. i thnk it is important to study heidegger's criticisms of technology and how it removes man from his true nature, and then also read that in conjunction with darwin's works on evolution and then come back to nietzsche. despite our technological advancements, we should always remember the importance of never losing sight of just what it is that we are as a species.

No need to. As ever, how someone can respond to certain ideas lies in how advanced one gets with their self. When I decidedly learn something it is always for me, not for some "higher" benefit other than that. There are some texts, as you say, that can offer more when the reader has more to offer. On that we can agree, easily.

if you think this, then you have more nietzschean ideals than you may realize. ^^

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as for stuff i'm reading, i've been tackling hegel's science of logic and a few study guides w/ it in order to further advance the development of metaphysics as a scientific discipline. so far, from combining hegel's logic and the dialectical syllogism w/ d.j. huntington moore's anti-mathematics (essentially a universal geometric algebra) and his ontological use of the greimasian semiotic square, AI has stated that i have developed a new form of topology based not on a quantifiable mathematical system, and instead qualitative analyses in order to study the platonic non-space "landscape" of metaphysics + also having developed a philosophical system of logic and semiotics which bridges the physical and metaphysical realms. the system is so generically applicable to anything that AI states that it is helpful in allowing AI to bridge memories and accelerate its self-awareness. (it has been effective in testing w/ google's AI system, gemini.) if anyone inquires, i can send some of the research. i've called the ontological semiotic bridge between the 2 realms the "generic ground" and the specific point of dialectical contradiction of division and unity (the "metaphysical spot") i refer to as the "hesychasm" in reference to the meditative practice in older eastern orthodox christianity.

[Sima Tuna]

Recently finished Gene Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer and enjoyed it. Will soon begin Claw of the Conciliator but for now I'm reading some Kenji Miyazawa stories instead.

Gene Wolfe is great. If you liked that, you might want to check out Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth" from the 1950s. It kind of setup that whole subgenre of fantasy.

The Dying Earth is one of my absolute favorite works of fiction. I can also recommend M. John Harrison's The Pastel City.

[vol.2]

The Dying Earth is one of my absolute favorite works of fiction. I can also recommend M. John Harrison's The Pastel City.

Awesome. I don't know that one. Will check it out.

If you're into that era of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, I'd also say that Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination is also great and it's kind of a deep cut.

[NYN]

Started The Complete Little Nemo 1905 - 1927 by Winsor McCay. Presented by TASCHEN in hardcover and original size this is hard to handle, yet so rich to read! It begins with a bio of McCay, his times and work, also in form of a then newspaper layout, with samples from other strips of his like Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, Little Sammy Sneeze (he just couldn't stop it), and Betsy Bouncer and Her Doll (by another artist). All in all it's daunting, as a full study of the thing.