Sunday Morning Book Thread - 08-20-2023 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(HT: Stacy0311)

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

KUDOS TO THE COBS

Before we go any further, I'd just like to give a massive shout-out to the COBs that keep this place going. They all did a stellar job filling in for Lamont the Big Dummy while he was away for a couple of days. I still believe he was hunting big game hoboes on the Serengeti. Anyway, the COBs do a fantastic job keeping the rest of us entertained and informed on a daily basis, so hats off to all of them!

They are also very supportive of one another and are an endless supply of encouragement and enthusiasm behind the scenes.

THANK YOU!

Now back to our usual Sunday Morning Book Thread shenanigans...

PIC NOTE

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a random internet pic of a kitty cat reading a book. Well, Stacy0311 sent me in the pic above. This cat looks like my own Kaylee, who has always been a bit on the plump side. Now I know why...

ON THE EVOLUTION OF LITERARY FICTION AS A GENRE

I sometimes stop by John C. Wright's blog because he usually has interesting things to say. Wright is a science fiction author, a staunch conservative, and a devout Catholic. When he's not discussing the projects in which he and his wife (author L. Jagi Lamplighter) are involved, he's pontificating about the same cultural and social issues we talk about around these parts. He also has insights on writing and storytelling which are usually worth reading. Earlier this summer, he posted an essay (from 1997) by author Dave Wolverton, who achieved his start writing mainstream literary fiction, but moved over into the modern fantasist genre because Wolverton ultimately disagreed with much of what was being done in the literary mainstream.

On Writing as a Fantasist by Dave Wolverton

It's a fairly long essay, so I'll try to summarize the high points and provide my own commentary...

Wolverton's essay begins with fundamentally disagreeing with another author, James Gunn, that the "distinguishing characteristic of mainstream fiction is that it has no distinguishing characteristic." This sparked Wolverton's analysis of the modern literary fiction movement at that time (1997).

Wolverton traces the beginning of the movement to William Dean Howells (1837-1920), known as the "Father of Modern Realism." According to Howell's philosophy, literature should--nay, MUST--reject any fantastical elements, instead focusing solely on the plight of "the common man," just living an ordinary existence. Like Wolverton, I fundamentally reject this premise because it leaves out the stories of uncommon men achieving remarkable goals. Where does a story about a man struggling against nature in the bleakest winter in Alaskan history fit in? Or a story about an otherwise average man (or woman) succeeding against the odds to defeat a significant challenge? How can stories about "the common man" just living an ordinary existence inspire us to better ourselves?

Unfortunately for literature, Howells was the editor of the most powerful magazine of the time (The Atlantic Monthly) and had a tight grip over the stories that were included in the magazine, as well as influence over the stories that were told in competitor magazines.

Howell also maintained that "good literature" (in his eyes, at least) consisted of three things: 1) Settings are restricted to the real world, 2) Characters are likewise restricted to the real world, and 3) The scope of conflicts must also be restricted in some way. No epic fantasy or space opera for this guy, that's for sure.<

The end result of stories that have been written under these constraints has led to a genre of stories that are just as well-defined by their lack of interesting content as science fiction is defined by epic space battles. "Literary fiction" is clearly its own genre by this point, even if its adherents claim otherwise. It is possible to categorize something by its lack of characteristics, after all. According to Wolverton, the "literary fiction" genre became "literary Novocain", stories that ultimately became about nothing at all.

At the end, Wolverton describes what he values in stories, disregarding Howell's proscriptions on storytelling entirely:

A story that fascinates is better than one that bores. A story that is eloquent is better than the babboon howlings [sic] of the verbally damned. A story that is profound, that transmits valuable insight, is better than one that is pedestrian or that is opaque. A story that speaks to many is better than one that speaks to few. A story that is beautiful in form is better than one that is inelegant, rambling or clumsy. A story that transports me to another world or that transmits experience is better than a story that leaves me sitting alone and troubled in my reading chair. A story that artfully moves me emotionally or intellectually is better than one that leaves me emotionally or intellectually anesthetized.

I'm tempted to go poking around the Interwebz to see if this Howell character is truly the paragon of a socialist, nihilistic, post-modernist literary movement as Wolverton describes. It would not surprise me to find out that he still has a strong influence, more than 100 years after his death.

NOTE: If you enjoy literary fiction, as always, I say, GO FOR IT! I'd be very interested to hear your take on Wolverton's views of literary fiction. Does he have a point? Or are his own biases towards fantastical fiction coloring his judgement?

I'm NOT here to judge anyone on their reading habits. Y'all know the kind of trash I enjoy reading!

MISCELLANEOUS

AOSHQ WRITERS' GROUP UPDATE

OrangeEnt has started a semi-official AoSHQ Writers' Group. Anyone interested in joining can send him an email to either orangent -at- cox -dot - net or his Proton Mail account maildrop62 -at- proton -dot- me (NOTE: He's using the first email address for creating a distribution list for information to participants. The free Proton Mail account does not allow him to do that.). I really would be interested to hear how the Writers' Group goes. Maybe OrangeEnt or another participant can send me a summary/review of what they are up to that I can share on the Sunday Morning Book Thread. Good luck to all of you!

E-BOOKS BY MORONS

Also, that Sci-Fi book I keep rambling on about is as finished as it's going to get, and I went ahead and uploaded the whole thing onto a rebooted website in pdf format, sized about A5 so it can be read on a tablet.

Let Us Now Be Famous Men can be seen in its entirety by clicking the title link. Anyone having an interest can look it over if they want:

http://leneal.com

Posted by: LenNeal at August 13, 2023 11:06 AM (43xH1)

FROM THE AWFUL HUMANS PILE

This has been mentioned in the comments recently, but a man named "Dr. Miles Stones" published a book supposedly about the recent Maui wildfires.

Fire and Fury: The Story of the 2023 Maui Fire and its Implications for Climate Change.

UPDATE: Looks like that page has been taken down. Probably because the comments were brutal.

It came out just a couple of days after the wildfires started. I took a look and this book is very fishy. "Dr. Miles Stones" doesn't have any real Amazon profile, even though he's listed as the author of a number of books, mostly biographies. Fire and Fury is already available as a paperback for the low, low price of $17.09 or on Kindle for $8.99. There is a "Look Inside" available, but all you get is the table of contents. Not even the introduction is available for preview. Somehow it's listed as a "best seller" in Environmental Science. It has a 100% 1-star rating from reviewers. I just can't imagine anyone being stupid enough or gullible enough to buy this book. However, it's also encouraging in its own way to aspiring authors: Amazon, at least, will publish ANYTHING. (HT: djladysmith courtesy of CBD for bringing this awful book to my attention.)

A further investigation into "Dr. Miles Stones" on Amazon shows he's published around 10 books or so since May of this year. Most of them are biographies of some sort or another. it's worth noting that the same two people give any of the "5-star" ratings, while anyone else gives them "1-star" ratings. I suspect that they are, in fact, being written by AI in some form or another. How else to explain publishing ten books in just a few months? Granted, most of them are less than 100 pages, but still, that takes a lot of time and effort for a human. Even Brandon Sanderson can't publish that quickly.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

I read Glenn Beck's latest book, Dark Future. Beck discusses the Great Narrative which is behind the World Economic Forum's Great Reset. The purpose of the Great Narrative is to formulate a completely new way of thinking about virtually every part of life, all within the context of a new technology-rich industrial revolution. Topics such as the fifteen-minute city, artificial intelligence, and central bank digital currencies among others are discussed. As with all of his books, it is well-researched and heavily footnoted back to primary sources.

Posted by: Zoltan at August 13, 2023 09:08 AM (2EGBR)

Comment: I've read a few of Glenn Beck's books in the past. They really are pretty well researched. They almost have to be because of the criticism folks like Beck tend to get from all sides. Of course, the problem with reading books by Beck is that they are unlikely to change anyone's mind, no matter how factual they may be. People tend to look at a statement he makes and then discount it because he said it. You can say the same about a lot of pundits (e.g., Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, etc.). Sure they sell books, but they don't seem to move the political needle in the desired direction among undecided voters.

This week's book is The Forgotten Room by Lincoln Child. Professor Jeremy Logan is an enigmalogist, one who studies the unexplainable. He is asked to come to his old employer, a scientific think tank in Newport Rhode Island that occupies a huge old mansion. Several of the staff have had severe mental breaks, and there is a fear that one of the facility's experiments has gone awry. During his investigation, Logan stumbles upon a room without doors or windows that is not referenced in the original blueprints. Inside the room is a sound wave generator of unknown purpose. Perhaps the experimental results weren't an accident after all? Child's Jeremy Logan stories are explorations of psychological and mental phenomena and tackle interesting theories. Like his books cowritten with Douglas Preston, there is good character development and engaging stories that make for an enjoyable read.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at August 13, 2023 09:24 AM (gr1T9)

Comment: I've noticed the Preston and Child, when writing together, tend to draw upon a variety of horror traditions in their stories. Some of them resemble Scooby-Doo mysteries (seriously). Others are about alien invasions or body horror or things that go bump in the night. Without reading anything more than the blurb above, I get a very strong H.P. Lovecraft vibe, as Lovecraft lived in Providence, Rhode Island for many years. Many of his stories involved people locked up in a sanitarium for witnessing something beyond human understanding.

Speaking of space and books, I'm about 1/2 way through Failure Is Not an Option by Gene Kranz.

I have found it fascinating for the history, technology, and management aspects. Good bit of humor thrown in as well.

Posted by: db at August 13, 2023 09:56 AM (wu87C)

Comment: The mid-twentieth-century space race was chock full of failures, of course. A number of people died in furtherance of the mission of achieving space flight, but they accepted that risk and continue to do so to this very day. Failure is ALWAYS an option, though how we deal with failure and learn from it is important in shaping our character.

I finished rereading The Sun Also Rises and understood much more than I did in high school. It's much more anti-Jewish than I remembered. (I didn't know any Jews in high school although it later turned out several of the people I knew were Jews.). The villain, if there is one (they're all pretty bad) is a villain because he is a well off Jew who refuses to give up on a brief affair with an alcoholic nymphomaniac because he still believes in love and honor. The alcoholic nympho, on the other hand, is just fine because she's a nihilistic hedonist, like the other cool kids. There's also bullfighting, the sport of the sadist.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at August 13, 2023 11:25 AM (FVME7)

Comment: I had this experience as well when I read John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men when I was a graduate student a few years ago. I had read the book in high school and vaguely remembered some parts. But when I read it *mumble* years later, I found it to be a very enjoyable experience. I understood so much more about the characters, the settings, and the plot, based in no small part to the amount of knowledge, wisdom, and experience I've gained since then. The ending was very sad...quite tragic. The story could have used more bullfighting, though.

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (925 Moron-recommended books so far!)

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

• The Changing Land by Roger Zelazny -- A weird combination of Lord Dunsany, Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, and L. Sprage de Camp. What happens when a mad god dreams?
• The Man Who Used the Universe by Alan Dean Foster -- Chronicling the rise of a psychopath who manages to dominate two races (human and alien) in a grand scheme that will save both races from extinction.
• Flinx's Folly by Alan Dean Foster -- Flinx finally starts to unravel the purpose behind Flinx's ever increasing empathic abilities. Let's just say cosmic powers have big plans for him, whether he likes it or not. SPOILER: He doesn't. Not one bit.
• Knights of the Black Earth by Margaret Weis and Don Perrin -- Xris Cyborg hunts his former friend who tried to kill him for unknown reasons...only to discover that his former friend went from a he to a she to avoid detection...

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding the Sunday Morning Book Thread. This is a very special place. You are very special people (in all the best ways!). The kindness, generosity, and wisdom of the Moron Horde knows no bounds. Let's keep reading!

If you have any suggestions for improvement, reading recommendations, or discussion topics that you'd like to see on the Sunday Morning Book Thread, you can send them to perfessor dot squirrel at-sign gmail dot com. Your feedback is always appreciated! You can also take a virtual tour of OUR library at libib.com/u/perfessorsquirrel. Since I added sections for AoSHQ, I now consider it OUR library, rather than my own personal fiefdom...

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