Sunday Morning Book Thread - 2-16-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

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 (you were warned...). 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?

PIC NOTE

The university library in which I work (but do not work for) had this display near the front entrance to celebrate Valentine's Day. The idea is to select a "blind date" of a book, check it out, and then read it. The books are wrapped in colorful paper and have a short blurb that summarizes the book, but is vague enough that it's very difficult to determine the actual title of the book. I tried it once, but I didn't much care for the book that I selected. Noticeably absent this year is a display celebrating Black History Month. The other display table had various books celebrating "Engineers Week" instead.

TOLKIEN AS A PROFESSOR

J.R.R. Tolkien was not just one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, he was very much an academic as well. Among his many duties as an academic was teaching classes. From the video above, it sounds like students had a bit of a love/hate relationship with him as a professor. Some seemed to really enjoy his classes, while others didn't much care for his teaching style.

At the university where I work, we also have a number of professors like Tolkien. Among my own duties is working with professors who receive low scores on their end-of-course evaluations. One trend we see a lot is that professors who teach both graduate and undergraduate students will often score higher among the graduate students they teach than they do among their undergraduate students. I suspect Professor Tolkien might have seen something similar if he was required to gather that information. Undergraduate students just want to get through the course, especially if the professor has a reputation for being a "hard" professor and if the course is not directly related to their discipline. Graduate students, on the other hand, tend to have a more vested interest in their courses because they all relate directly to their degree program.

WHAT IS POINT OF VIEW

This video popped up in my YouTube feed recently. It's a basic explanation of the different points of view in literature. The video itself appears to be part of a short lecture series from Oregon State University. The speaker makes an interesting point at the end when he describes the "first person shooter" genre video game as belonging to the "second person" point of view with respect to storytelling, as the dialog and action in the game is directed at YOU, the player, rather than a character that you are viewing over the shoulder (third-person). I had never really thought of games in that way.

THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR

The Unreliable Narrator trope is when the narrator of the story may or may not be telling the truth. Most of the time, we tend to accept the account of a story as the "facts" as the narrator knows them. Now, the narrator could very well be deceived because the narrator doesn't understand the full context of events. It's often used by authors to give readers a BIG REVEAL at the end, as there's a key plot twist that demonstrates that what the reader thought they were reading was not, in fact, what they were reading at all. Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and, naturally, H.P. Lovecraft frequently used this trope in their stories. In Lovecraft's case, the narrator may very well be suffering from true insanity at the horrors he's witnessed.

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MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

I read Around the World in 80 Days. I've read it before, but decades ago. I also saw the movie with David Niven, but don't remember it. So here's my review:

Verne starts off giving a description of Phileas Fogg and his strict habits. He has no known means of support, but lives as a gentleman. No one knows what he does, or how he came into his fortune. He's very punctual and never deviates from his plans. That sets up one problem. He fires his valet for bringing his shaving water two degrees cooler than he uses. (A whole two degrees?) Then he hires Passepartout as valet, who, during the story, does a lot worse and makes errors that could cause Fogg to lose the bet. But does nothing to him. Sort of clangs to me. In fact, except for some heroic actions, like a proper British gentleman should do, he acts rather Spockian.

In some ways, he doesn't seem very likeable. He does decide to rescue a young Indian woman, Aouda, from the clutches of her ancient late husbands followers who were about to burn her, although, the actual work and rescue is done by Passepartout.

A lot of the travelog seems correct, especially traveling across the US - city names, their distances from one another, things like that.

As expected, the party meets with things that should derail the trip, but by a lot of coincidences, they aren't stopped, or not for long. Passepartout unwittingly commits an offense in India, and they jump bail after being detained, which didn't cause them any time loss. Fogg also kidnaps a boat's owner and pays the crew to mutiny, but I guess that's forgiven because he buys the boat. I wonder how much Fogg's characteristics may have influenced Conan Doyle, because Fogg acts uninterested towards Aouda, but suddenly marries her?

Of course, there's a false ending, with mistaken information, then the real ending. It's an enjoyable story, but there are a lot of things that just automatically work out, even though the severity of the obstacle shouldn't so easily overcome. But then, the hero has to win, doesn't he? Recommended

OrangeEnt

Comment: I really should get around to reading some Jules Verne one of these days, mainly because of my own interest in science fiction. Verne, along with H.G. Wells, is considered one of the authors that established science fiction as a genre. As I read OrangeEnt's review, I started wondering how long it takes someone to travel around the world today, using only commercially available means? (That is, no private jets or advanced hypersonic military aircraft.) I know the ISS orbits the earth every 90 minutes or so.

This week I read Edward Ashton's first two books in his Mickey 7 series: Mickey 7 and Antimatter Blues. The story follows a man who volunteered to be an interstellar colony ship's "expendable". This person's brain pattern and physical pattern are scanned, and when a dangerous situation occurs that requires someone to sacrifice themselves to solve (say walking into a high radiation situation to fix something) then that's the job of an expendable. Earlier colony efforts learned that robots and drones can fail and the entire colony (or ship designed to create a colony) can fail, and thus the expendable program was created.

The expendable person uploads their current brain pattern at various points during the colony's mission to keep current, and if they have to die, a new body is grown for them, and their mind/consciousness is restored from the most recent backup.

As you can guess, Mickey is up to his 7th iteration when we join the story in the first book, and it takes a look back at how and why he volunteered for this, his first iterations, and then gets into the main story; too late the colony discovers that the indigenous lifeforms are actually intelligent. Now what?

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 09, 2025 09:00 AM (O7YUW)

Comment: The idea of "expendable" clones shows up in science fiction quite often. There's a two-episode story arc in the Sixth Series of the new Doctor Who that involves "flesh" clones that are struck by lightning and develop their own consciousness. The role-playing game Paranoia makes you create SIX characters instead of the usual ONE because Troubleshooters come in "six-packs." It's not unheard of for half the party to be on their second or third clones before leaving the mission briefing. It's that kind of game.

The idea of uploading consciousness into meatsuits does lead to deep implications regarding who we are as people, though. Are we more than just brains inside organic sacks of fluid? If our consciousness can be stored in a machine, do we lose our humanity? Does death lose meaning?

Jumped back into reading Dr. Jon Lieff's The Secret Language of Cells, which shows the insane intricacies of human biological systems, proves that we are "irreducibly complex" organisms that cannot possibly have "evolved" in any fashion postulated by the strict materialist Darwinists, and which also shows sentience at the cellular level. Great stuff.

Posted by: Sharkman at February 09, 2025 09:58 AM (/RHNq)

Comment: Life is amazing. From the smallest bacterium to the human body, cells are just incredible little machines, manipulating molecular energy in subtle, powerful ways. Think about a mighty oak tree with its spreading branches. Each of those branches may weight hundreds of pounds, yet they're suspended above the earth by cellular "glue" and we walk underneath them without even paying attention to the fact that when gravity wins out, those branches can kill us. Right now, trillions of cells in your body are all merrily whirling along, conducting their business according to some mysterious plan that we barely comprehend.

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)

WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:

• The Fortress of the Pearl by Michael Moorcock -- Another Elric adventure...
• Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg -- Book 2 of the Majipoor Chronicles (I already own Book 2 from a previous library book sale).
• Valentine Pontifex by Robert Silverberg -- Book 3 of the Majipoor Chronicles
• The Sunset Warrior by Eric Van Lustbader -- Looks like pulpy adventure...
• Touched by the Gods by Lawrence Watt-Evans
• Classic Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman -- The 40th anniversary omnibus edition.

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Dark Journey by Elaine Cunningham

Anakin Solo is dead. Jacen Solo is missing, presumed captured by the Yuuzhan Vong. Coruscant, jewel of the New Republic, seat of galactic governance, has fallen to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Now, the survivors of the Battle of Coruscant are scattered and demoralized from their crushing defeat. Han and Leia Solo and their daughter Jaina retreat to the Hapes Cluster in hopes of finding respite among a nominally allied galactic power. They soon become enmeshed in an internal power struggle as the Queen Mother of the Hapes Cluster seeks to find a suitable heir to her throne. Both Leia and Jaina might fit the bill...

If The New Jedi Order was a four-season television show, this would be the "breather episode" after the second-season finale. In fact, it's easy to imagine this series as a four-season television story arc. The novels came out over the span of four years and the story takes place over about four years in-universe. Now we take a step back from the main action of the story to focus on how the events of the previous book affected a few of the main characters. Han and Leia lost their youngest son and Jaina lost her youngest brother. Their grief is profound at the loss, especially after losing Chewbacca at the beginning of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. This is a reminder of what stakes are involved in warfare. People die.

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Enemy Lines I - Rebel Dream by Aaron Allston

Many of the survivors of the Battle of Coruscant flee to the nearby world of Borleias, which they must first reclaim from the Yuuzhan Vong. They successfully reconquer the world, but they know their victory is temporary as the Yuuzhan Vong will soon be along in force again. In the meantime, the remnants of the New Republic government attempt to assert their authority over the military only to be told in no uncertain terms to STFU and STFD by General Wedge Antilles. He and his allies realize they cannot win the war through military force alone, so they fall back on the same strategies that toppled the Empire--a new Rebellion, set up across the galaxy to harass and undermine the Yuuzhan Vong wherever and whenever they can, gathering intelligence that may lead to their ultimate downfall.

In this story, the author leans heavily on the tropes that are characteristic of many Star Wars stories and then subverts them. For instance, the Star Wars galaxy is known for its ludicrous use of superweapons (e.g., the Death Star, the Sun Crusher, Centerpoint Station, etc.). The heroes know this and thus create the illusion of building a new superweapon to lure the Yuuzhan Vong into a trap. Another example is the idea of "Mary Sue" characters, in which a young woman is vastly overpowered. Again, the heroes lean into this trope by deliberately setting up Jaina Solo as a "Mary Sue" to fool the Yuuzhan Vong into believing she's the avatar of their Trickster goddess, Yun-Harla. That's right--the New Republic weaponizes the Mary Sue trope on purpose!

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Enemy Lines II - Rebel Stand by Aaron Allston

Luke and Mara Skywalker return to Coruscant after Luke has a vision of great evil buried under the rubble of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. A powerful entity bristling with Dark Side Force energy has been unleashed and threatens to overwhelm the galaxy if it's not stopped, despite the Yuuzhan Vong. General Antilles continues with his devious schemes to lure the Yuuzhan Vong into a deadly trap at Borleias. Although they lose the planet, they do succeed in crippling the Yuuzhan Vong's leadership by taking out one of their best strategists. It's a galactic game of dejarik (holochess) with the fate of numerous worlds at stake.

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Traitor by Matthew Stover

We haven't seen anything from Jacen Solo over the past three novels, but now we get to see what happened to him after he was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong. As usual with Yuuzhan Vong prisoners, he was tortured in the "Embrace of Pain." A mysterious, birdlike alien strong in the Force preys upon Jacen, psychologically torturing him in addition to his physical torture. By the end, it's very unclear where Vergere's loyalties lie, as we are left uncertain about whether or not Jacen has truly turned to the Yuuzhan Vong or if he has held true to the Jedi ideals. Even Jacen admits he's not the best Jedi ever, as his brother Anakin and Master Luke both seemed to exemplify what it means to be a Jedi.

This is a good example of an unreliable narrator. Throughout the story, Vergere will say that she only tells lies or that she only tells truths, depending on her audience. To Jacen, she says she only tells lies. To Executor Nom Anor of the Yuuzhan Vong she claims to only speak truth. Both Jacen and Nom Anor know she's deceptive and manipulative, but are unable to pierce through her shell to find the truth of the matter. All we can know for sure is that Jacen is suffering from PTSD from his ordeal, and his grasp of reality is tenuous at best.

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams

Jacen Solo has returned to the New Republic, bringing along the enigmatic Vergere, who claims to be a Jedi from the Old Republic. Han and Leia seek allies among the Imperial Remnant. And for once the New Republic scores a decisive victory against the invading Yuuzhan Vong. Has the tide turned at last?

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 2-9-2025 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Tips, suggestions, recommendations, etc., can all be directed to perfessor -dot- squirrel -at- gmail -dot- com.

(Can Huggy Squirrel travel around the world in 80 weeks?)

Disclaimer: No Morons were physically harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Professor Tolkien was unavailable for comment.

posted by Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

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