I love Charco Press and really liked this novel, so I wrote a review for it.

Fathers and Sons by Turgenev (Richard Freeborn translation) is an interesting character study of Bazarov, a self-proclaimed nihilist in the backdrop of the ideological differences between the “fathers” and “sons”. The “fathers” and “sons” in the title refer to the two different generations of the liberals and the nihilists, respectively. The ideological differences between the two generations, as depicted through the clash between Bazarov and Pavel, constitutes one of the major themes of the novel. It also looks at the inevitability of the generational gap between the sons (Bazarov and Arkady) and their respective fathers, and the futility of trying to reject emotions.

The book is short and has a very simple plot. It opens with Nikolai Petrovich awaiting his son Arkady's return from university, whom he receives accompanied by his friend, Bazarov who aspires to be a country doctor. It soon becomes clear that both youngsters subscribe to the philosophy of nihilism, in which Arkady considers himself to be Bazarov’s “pupil”. According to them “nihilist” is: “‘He is a nihilist,’ repeated Arkady. ‘A nihilist,’ said Nikolai Petrovich. ‘That’s from the Latin nihil, nothing, so far as I can judge. Therefore, the word denotes a man who … who doesn’t recognize anything?’ ‘Say, rather, who doesn’t respect anything,’ added Pavel Petrovich and once more busied himself with the butter. ‘Who approaches everything from a critical point of view,’ remarked Arkady.....nihilist is a man who doesn’t acknowledge any authorities, who doesn’t accept a single principle on faith, no matter how much that principle may be surrounded by respect.’" Frequent clashes ensue, especially between Bazarov and Arkady’s uncle, Pavel Petrovich, who finds Bazarov’s rejection of principles absolutely loathsome. Their exchanges regarding their philosophical differences were quite interesting to read. I especially found one of their exchanges, in which Bazarov was forced into a corner, quite thought-provoking:

""I see,’ interrupted Pavel Petrovich, ‘I see. Meaning you’re convinced of all this and have decided for yourselves not to do anything serious about anything.’ ‘And we’ve decided not to do anything about anything,’ Bazarov repeated sombrely. He had suddenly grown annoyed with himself for having talked so much in front of this lordly gentleman. ‘And just swear at everything?’ ‘And swear at everything.’ ‘And that’s called nihilism?’ ‘And that’s called nihilism,’ "

Bazarov rejects any form of emotions, art and philosophy as “romanticism” and hence just nonsense. Strangely, someone supposedly accepting only cold hard facts had this to say about science: "I’ve already told you that I don’t believe in anything. And what’s this thing called science, science in general? There are sciences as there are trades and vocations. But science in general doesn’t exist at all.’" About love and romance: “.... And what’s all this about the mysterious relationships between a man and a woman? We physiologists know all about these relationships. Just you study the anatomy of the eye—where’s all this enigmatic look, as you call it, come from? It’s all romanticism, nonsense, rubbish, artiness…” In this quarter, he is brought to his knees by Anna Sargeevna Odintsova, whom they first meet at a ball. Odintsova is a beautiful, self-possessed, intelligent woman, previously acquainted with Arkady’s parents, that Bazarov ends up falling in love with. According to Bazarov, "If you like a woman’, he was fond of saying, ‘then try and get what you can. If you can’t, well, no matter, give her up—there are plenty of fish in the sea.’ but then, “....he found he hadn’t the strength to ‘give her up’. His blood was set on fire as soon as he thought about her." He felt disgusted to recognise such romantic feelings in himself. In my opinion, Bazarov is just a very young man gifted with intelligence but afflicted with extreme intellectual arrogance. The characters of both Bazarov and Odintsova are quite well-drawn. Arkady initially comes across as Bazarov’s sidekick, looking up to and almost blindly following his teacher's philosophy. However, as the story progresses, he starts to think for himself. He also starts to see Bazarov’s self-conceit more clearly and moreover why he likes to keep Arkady around: "‘Look, mate, I see you’re still bloody silly. We need Sitnikovs. I—know what I mean?—I need such cretins. It’s not for the Gods, in fact, to bake the pots!’ Aha! thought Arkady—and it was only at this moment that the entire limitless depth of Bazarov’s conceit was revealed to him—So you and I are the Gods, are we? That’s to say, you’re the God and maybe I’m the cretin?"

One of the things I really liked about this book was how beautifully the father-son relationship from the father’s POV was depicted, in the case of Nikolai Petrovich and Arkady. This was Nikolai contemplating the generational gap he was observing between him and his son: "For the first time he was clearly aware of the rift between him and his son. He had a foreboding that with each passing day it would become greater and greater. It turned out that he’d spent days on end one winter in St Petersburg reading away at the latest works of fiction all for nothing; all for nothing had he listened to the conversations of the young men; all for nothing had he been overjoyed when he’d succeeded in inserting his own word into their bubbling talk…..He walked to and fro a great deal, almost to the point of exhaustion, but the sense of peril within him, a kind of searching, indefinite, melancholy disquiet, would not lessen. Oh, how Bazarov would have laughed at him if he’d known what was going on inside him at that moment! Arkady himself would have condemned him. Tears, pointless tears were forming in his eyes, in the eyes of a man of forty-four, an agronomist and landowner—and that was a hundred times worse than playing the cello!"

On the whole, this was a quick and pleasant read featuring interesting characters. My only gripe was not getting to read the internal monologues of characters in typical POV style because of which they felt more distant.

I hope this is allowed here, if not, feel free to remove my post, mods

My name is Richard Silva, I'm a young Brazilian writer(17) who just published their first book. Since I was a kid I wrote things, but for the first time, I made something I am going to share with the world. Currently, I'm finishing Brazilian integral high school, which in other words, wastes 9 hours of my day with mostly nothing. It's very stressful, and leaves me with not much appropriate time for actually writing quality content, so you might imagine how many reviews this book had to get before I felt like I was satisfied.

I would like to encourage you to read my book, and share your thoughts on it, of course, it's me first one, so constructive criticism is very welcomed. My desire is to be able to make a living out of my art, and when reading this book, you are helping me make this dream possible :)

And please, if you did enjoy it(even if it's a little bit), leave me a review on google play saying how much you like it, and why you like it. As for you, fellow Brazilians, a version in Portuguese is coming soon!

Overview: 3.5/5 stars

This book talks about difficult themes in the history of Africa and then US, centered around discrimination and exploitation. The book follows a variety if people along the last three centuries that dealt with various elements of discrimination, with slavery being a central theme.

While the topic in interesting, the writing style felt mostly flat to me. The characters were human, but it felt most of them were objects of their own lives instead of subjects. It seems they suffered not only from the outside world but also a lack of inner development. That was true not only of the characters that had limited to no agency, but also of the ones that had freedom and took revolutionary actions: they all felt limited and fairly unengaging.

From the more academic perspective, it gives glimpses of philosophical debates in the history of African Americans. This was the but I personally enjoyed the most.

All in all, an okay book about an interesting and well-researched topic.

The Hugo-winning author duo—Corey is the pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck—will kick off the series with The Mercy of Gods next summer.

Just a rant, I guess, full of spoilers:

Small Gods: A masterful comic satire on Religious Institutions and Fundamentalism Small Gods is a fantasy comic satire on religious institutions, religious fundamentalism, philosophy, and the weaponisation of religious fanaticism for political power set in the Discworld. It explores how religious beliefs and faith shift and change over time, from being centred on the deity to being centred on the religious institution itself. Rereading this was an absolute joy!

This is the story of how Brutha becomes the eighth prophet of the god Om. Omnia is a monotheistic theocracy based on the Seven Books of the Prophets of Om, or the Septateuch. Omnia was a place where: "No matter what your skills, there was a place for you in the Citadel. And if your skill lay in asking the wrong kinds of questions or losing the righteous kind of wars, the place might just be the furnaces of purity, or the Quisition’s pits of justice. A place for everyone. And everyone in their place." Vorbis, the exquisitor in charge of the Quisition, enjoyed near complete authority and power over everyone out of fear of the Quisition’s pits. As the story opens, we have Brutha, a novice at the Citadel, working in the gardens when he comes across a tortoise who speaks to him. The tortoise in question is actually the god Om, who inexplicably finds himself in the form of a tortoise and unable to do much more than speak to Brutha in his mind. On Discworld, a particular god’s powers depend on the number of believers the god possesses. As the story progresses, we understand why even though the great god Om was held supreme in Omnia, the actual god Om was at present virtually powerless having Brutha as his only believer. Om starts to understand the reason when he ruminates: "… it can’t be just him who believes in me. Really in me. Not in a pair of golden horns. Not in a great big building. Not in the dread of hot iron and knives. Not in paying your temple dues because everyone else does. Just in the fact that the Great God Om really exists." After all, "Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure….. “Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.”’" Religion starts out centred on the god and then ends up centred on the Institution with people going through the motions because it’s what everyone does, or out of fear of the Institution. This had the unfortunate effect of turning the great god Om into a "small god". Similar to the other gods on Discworld, Om doesn't really care or think much of humans beyond realising the need to have believers. As the story progresses, due to his association with Brutha, Om starts to get a better understanding of humankind and also to care for them. Brutha starts out as a novice who simply took everything taught by the religious institution on faith to someone who realises what's wrong with the system and tries to change it.

Similar to a lot of other Discworld books, an underlying sense of anger and frustration permeates this book, with this book probably being Pratchett’s angriest. This is particularly evident when he speaks of the actions of the Quisition, generally involving torture and murder on a regular basis: "And it all meant this: that there are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do. Vorbis loved knowing that. A man who knew that, knew everything he needed to know about people." (A very astute judge of humankind, I must say). And, in relation to the the actual Quisitors: "But there were things to suggest to a thinking man that the Creator of mankind had a very oblique sense of fun indeed, and to breed in his heart a rage to storm the gates of heaven. The mugs, for example. They had legends on them like A Present From the Holy Grotto of Ossory, or To The World’s Greatest Daddy".

Even though the subject matter is serious, there are numerous hilarious jokes, puns and comic twists strewn throughout the book to make a reader laugh out loud. Some of my favourite jokes were: "Nhumrod looked around the garden. It seemed to be full of melons and pumpkins and cucumbers. He shuddered. ‘Lots of cold water, that’s the thing,’ he said. ‘Lots and lots.’" Another one which speaks of the somewhat random rules of religions: "‘I nearly committed a terrible sin,’ said Brutha. ‘I nearly ate fruit on a fruitless day.’ ‘That’s a terrible thing, a terrible thing,’ said Om. ‘Now cut the melon.’ ‘But it is forbidden!’ said Brutha. ‘No it’s not,’ said Om. ‘Cut the melon.’ ‘But it was the eating of fruit that caused passion to invade the world,’ said Brutha. ‘All it caused was flatulence,’ said Om. ‘Cut the melon!’"

I don’t consider this book to be either against religion nor particularly for religion. The case of faith vs doubt is not a theme in this book and is not much of a thing on Discworld considering that the Gods on Discworld are very “present”. Even then, atheists like Simony do exist. In fact a running joke in the book is that people try to put some distance between themselves and atheists because atheists tend to be struck down by lightning (by Io the god of thunder). However, this book definitely speaks out against the use of unspeakable violence and subjugation in the name of god by people like Vorbis, without being in the least bit heavy handed about it. Now there is another thing about this book and Discworld books in general that I have loved, besides the social/religious commentary and humour, is that these books make me feel a little hopeful for humanity in general. In the midst of terrible events we have instances of people sometimes putting aside differences to do the right thing: "He looked around in time to see a wave lift a ship out of the water and smash it against the dunes. A distant scream coloured the wind. The soldiers stared. ‘There were people under there,’ said Argavisti. Simony dropped the flask. ‘Come on,’ he said. And no one, as they hauled on timbers in the teeth of the gale, as Urn applied everything he knew about levers, as they used their helmets as shovels to dig under the wreckage, asked who it was they were digging for, or what kind of uniform they’d been wearing." And, "The black-on-black eyes stared imploringly at Brutha, who reached out automatically, without thinking … and then hesitated. HE WAS A MURDERER, said Death. AND A CREATOR OF MURDERERS. A TORTURER. WITHOUT PASSION. CRUEL. CALLOUS. COMPASSIONLESS. ‘Yes. I know. He’s Vorbis,’ said Brutha. Vorbis changed people. Sometimes he changed them into dead people. But he always changed them. That was his triumph. He sighed. ‘But I’m me,’ he said. Vorbis stood up, uncertainly, and followed Brutha across the desert. Death watched them walk away." This is another reason I have loved this book. I will end this with a couple of thought provoking metaphors I loved from the book:

"‘About life being like a sparrow flying through a room? Nothing but darkness outside? And it flies through the room and there’s just a moment of warmth and light?’ ‘There are windows open?’ said Brutha. ‘Can’t you imagine what it’s like to be that sparrow, and know about the darkness? To know that afterwards there’ll be nothing to remember, ever, except that one moment of the light?’" And another one which speaks of the wonders of the world:

‘Life in this world,’ he said, ‘is, as it were, a sojourn in a cave. What can we know of reality? For all we see of the true nature of existence is, shall we say, no more than bewildering and amusing shadows cast upon the inner wall of the cave by the unseen blinding light of absolute truth, from which we may or may not deduce some glimmer of veracity, and we as troglodyte seekers of wisdom can only lift our voices to the unseen and say, humbly, “Go on, do Deformed Rabbit … it’s my favourite.”’ (This one is also a little funny!)

A question of Morality: A reflection on The Brothers Karamazov

I found that this book is philosophically dense, emotionally evocative and thought provoking. And it is a page turner in addition to being a whodunnit!. Now one of the things I love about this book and of other Dostoevsky books that I have read, is the brilliant characterisation. The brothers in the title refer to Dmitri Fyodorovich (Mitya, Mitka, Mitenka, Mitri Fyodorovich) the eldest, Ivan Fyodorovich (Vanya, Vanka, Vanechka), and Alexie Fyodorovich (Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshechka, Alexeichik, Lyosha, Lyoshenka), the youngest. Alexie is frequently referred to as Alyosha and Alyoshka throughout the book. The major conflict in the book is the tension existing between Dmitri Fyodorovich and his father Fyodor Pavlovich as a result of a love triangle between them and Grushenka; and also due to money matters. There is also something of a love triangle involving Dmitri, Ivan and Dmitri’s fiance Katerina. Now Fyodor is somewhat of a colourful character, to say the least. He is a landowner with a particular reputation of being a “muddleheaded madcap” (but not stupid) and a sensualist. He was quite notorious as a husband and a father. His first wife got fed up and ran away with someone else, abandoning the three-year-old Mitya, while his second wife died soon after giving birth to Ivan and Alyosha. He was known to openly engage in orgies with other women in his home even when his wife was present. As a father, Fyodor promptly forgot about the existence of his sons, both after his first wife left him and when his second wife died. In fact, it was because of a faithful servant Grigory taking care of Mitya, that he didn't starve and had clothes on his body.. Ivan and Alyosha were also taken care of by Grigory, but they were later taken in by distant relatives of their mother’s benefactress. A few lines about the benefactress’ actions after their mom died: "They say that the moment she saw him, without any explanations, she at once delivered him two good, resounding slaps and jerked him three times by his forelock; then, without adding a word, she made straight for the cottage and the two boys. Seeing at a glance that they were unwashed and in dirty shirts, she gave one more slap to Grigory himself and announced to him that she was taking both children home with her, then carried them outside just as they were, wrapped them in a plaid, put them in the carriage, and took them to her own town." (just included these lines because I think it is hilarious). As a result, both Ivan and Alyosha received some amount of care and education, unlike Mitya who was transferred from one place to another with his education remaining incomplete. When the action starts, we come to know that Mitya is back in the village, demanding his father should give him his money left by his mother. Here it is to be noted that his first wife had money, while his second did not. Therefore, Mitya has grown up with expectations of getting his mother’s money. Now Ivan is also in town, visiting Fyodor, while Alyosha is a novice in the village monastery. There he has grown closer to the elder Zosima, who is his greatest friend and guide at this point. Zosima’s health is declining, and he may die soon. Now, Mitya has another complication in his life. He has fallen in love with a woman called Grushenka, who is known to be the merchant Samsonov’s kept woman while being engaged to another woman called Katerina. Mitya’s father Fyodor is also in love with Grushenka and is actively pursuing her for her hand in marriage. And Ivan is in love with Katerina. When Mitya is first introduced, he seems to be an irresponsible, passionate wastrel lacking impulse control. However, as I got to know him better, he came across as someone who is self aware enough to know his own faults and issues and wants to do better. Initially, he doesn't come across as someone I would be able to respect much, but he turns out to be a complex human being with his heart in the right place. In the first scene where Grushenka is introduced, she comes across as this typical “vampish” other woman who we later get to know as this wonderfully complex woman who has her own thoughts and agency. This is one of the things I love about this book: the characters feel like real living, breathing people I care about. Another character worth mentioning is the lackey Smerdyakov, who is rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor and lives as the cook in the house. He is sly, manipulative and always tries to make people believe he is a fool while trying to outsmart them in the meanwhile. As the action progresses, simmering tensions start to build up and slowly lead to a boiling point, culminating in a gruesome murder.

Some of the themes explored in the book are the conflict of faith (or a lack thereof) and the question of morality and free will. This is portrayed by the contrasting aspects of faith and unbelief in the persons of Alyosha and Ivan, Zosima and the Inquisitor. In the tavern conversation in the first half of the book, Ivan opens up to Alyosha and tries to explain to his “little brother” his beliefs. Very endearingly he tells him that "I want to get close to you, Alyosha, because I have no friends. I want to try." He explains that it’s impossible for him to believe a merciful, benevolent God can create this world with all its sufferings. Ivan refuses to accept that all sinners with their "villainy" and "animal cruelty" are ever redeemable. He says: "Tell me straight out, I call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears—would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth.” He posits that the established religious order is corrupt and no longer serves God, but the devil, through the allegory of the Inquisitor (it is a long story that I am not repeating here). He further goes on to say that mankind in general cannot deal with free will and free conscience; they need someone to tell them what is right and what needs to be done, which is what established religions provide them with. So, as there is no God and no life after death, he says that, ‘If there is no immortality of the soul, then there is no virtue, and therefore everything is permitted.’ Now this tavern conversation has left quite an impression on me since I, too, do not believe in the existence of any God, singular or plural and a lot of what Ivan says also resonates with me. However, I have never thought that there is any connection between the existence of God, virtue and morality. I do understand Ivan’s point even though I do not agree with it. I wonder what do people who believe in God think of morality? Is morality contingent on the need for being virtuous? I believe morality should be unconditional and not dependent on the necessity of being virtuous. Anyways I loved that this book made me think so much.

The ending of the book is bittersweet to say the least. The book is well-paced right till the end. However, there are parts (just a few) of the book where it feels as if it's slightly going on a side track. To reiterate, I loved this book and it is now one of my favourites. I will definitely reread it in the future.

https://archive.ph/ZHhEA

Louise Gluck, a renowned poet who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2020, has died at age 80, according to media reports in the United States on Friday that cited her editor.

Her poetry was known for its candor in exploring family and childhood with "an unmistakable voice" and "austere beauty," the Swedish Academy, which is responsible for selecting the winner of the literature prize, said when awarding her the Nobel.

Her poems were often brief, less than a page.

Drawing comparisons with other authors, the Academy said Gluck resembled 19th-century U.S. poet Emily Dickinson in her "severity and unwillingness to accept simple tenets of faith."

The cause of her death was not disclosed by Jonathan Galassi, Gluck's editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, who confirmed her death for media outlets. Galassi could not be reached immediately by Reuters.

A professor of English at Yale University, Gluck first rose to critical acclaim with her 1968 collection of poems entitled "Firstborn", and went on to become one of the most celebrated poets and essayists in contemporary America.

Gluck won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her poetry collection "The Wild Iris," with the title poem touching on suffering and redolent with imagery of the natural world.

While she drew on her own experiences in her poetry, Gluck, who was twice divorced and suffered from anorexia in younger years, explored universal themes that resonated with readers in the United States and abroad.

She served as Poet Laureate of the United States in 2003-04 and was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barrack Obama in 2016.

In her lifetime, she published 12 collections of poetry and several volumes of essays.

Born in New York, Gluck became the 16th woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, the literary world's most prestigious award.

Chapter 6 is available now on @medium

You can catch-up with the entire series on this list“ElderTree: Chronicles of Fire & Fate“ on Medium: https://medium.com/@damienlawless/list/396935107db5

#fantasy #fiction @fiction @everydayfiction

Looking for book recommendations.

Something exciting and lighthearted, set in the Middle Ages or Renaissance, in the vein of The Princess Bride, Robin Hood, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,, or the movie A Knight's Tale.

What are your favorites? Thanks!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/5983777

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate stone

On the forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;

Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;

Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;

Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;

Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;

Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cursies straight;

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;

O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.

Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail

Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice.

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night

And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish, hairs,

Which once untangled much misfortune bodes

This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage.

This is she...

16k page .PDF, so it may take a bit to load through the web interface. Here's some alternative file formats from Anna's.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6237195

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6237131

Fedipunk means a story in a universe, in which the era of dezentralized social networks is already there, with all its potential consequences - or we see the transition to it.

From what I read in earlier posts and my own thinking I propose the following ones (new suggestions are of course welcome):

• Planet Magnon by Leif Randt (socialism, distributed social network, decentral communities)
• Mars Trilogy Book 2 by Kim Stanley Robinson (collaborative government strategies)
• Half-Built Garden by (socialism, distributed social network, decentral communities)
• His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (decentral factions, openings between different parallel universes which begin to merge, remote communication over magic substance)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/2911743

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin currently has the rating of 4.44 on Goodreads. The following books are standalones or first books in a series, as it would be unfair to compare it to the last book in a series, for example the fantastic ending to The Faithful and the Fallen series, Wrath, by John Gwynne, which has a Goodreads rating of 4.51.

Unsurprisingly, Brandon Sanderson features three times on this list! I can’t say I agree with any of these titles being “better”, but the all-knowing Goodreads reviewers might just have some interesting recommendations for A Song of Ice and Fire fans.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6112950

What do you think of this? Do you think it is a good idea and could take off?

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/scifi/t/506685

From an authorised sequel to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to a collection of newly discovered short stories from the late Terry Pratchett, there is a mountain of brilliant science fiction to get through this month

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/742407

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/742102

What are you anticipating?

A year ago, I read the Masters of Rome historical fiction series, written by Colleen McCullough. Before reading this series I only vaguely knew about Julius Caesar (thanks to Shakespeare) and had no idea about Roman history. These books introduced me to characters that felt like real flesh and blood people I know so well, involved in delightfully intricate political manoeuvres. There are also described several military campaigns; some books being heavy on politics and some on military campaigns. Rome, as described in these books, feels like a real place that I wish I could visit, especially the Forum Romanum, the senate house, or the Subura (where Caesar grew up). (I know I can't do this since unfortunately I don't own a time machine!). This book series has made me fall in love with history, especially ancient history. I even went on to read a series set in ancient Greece after this, and enjoyed it.

The first two books, The First Man in Rome and The Grass Crown introduce us to two important characters : Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. These books talk about their rise to prominence and their interesting relationship with each other. The third book, Fortune's Favorites, tells the story of the early careers of Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (or Pompey) and Marcus Licinius Crassus who later go on to form the First Triumvirate. In these books I found the descriptions of military campaigns to be a little boring and preferred it when the action shifted to Rome, and its politics.

It was when I started the next book, "Caesar's Women'', that I really fell in love with the series. Uptil now, the books were interesting, but this book and the next two, during the course of which Caesar's story is told, are especially engaging. The plot of this book is more streamlined and well paced, the focus being more on political intrigue. Caesar comes across as ferociously intelligent, highly capable, self - centred, manipulative, unscrupulous, ruthless, but makes for interesting reading, nevertheless. In the first half Cicero's busy trying to root out the Catilina conspiracy. The eccentric, relentless Cato, totally immune to corruption, coercion or intimidation was entertaining to read about. The constant boni (i.e., the conservative faction) assault over the course of the book, also changes Caesar, making him less easygoing, intolerant and more autocratic.

The next book in the series, "Caesar", covers events leading to and after Caesar's historic and momentous crossing of the Rubicon. Throughout the book, the narrative switches between events back in Rome and Caesar on campaign. The accounts of Caesar's campaigns are brilliantly written and even more riveting than the usual fun Roman politicking. Besides Cato (the leader of the boni), Bibulus, Ahenobarbus, Pompey and Brutus from the boni camp, Labienus and Mark Antony play secondary roles. We are also introduced to Cleopatra. The pacing never flags even for a bit and this book is my favourite in the series.

Narratively, the next book, "The October Horse" is a continuation of "Caesar". It marks an end of the Roman Republican era, the Republic entering its death throes as Caesar lay in the Curia of Pompey, stabbed twenty three times. Several other personages, including Cicero, Cato, Brutus, also meet their ends in this book. Just as this book signals the end of the Republic, it also heralds the beginning of the Empire, in the person of Caesar's heir: Octavian. Enter Octavian, master manipulator extraordinaire, onto the stage of Roman politics. His rise from a mere teenager to a member of the second Triumvirate is very engagingly depicted. The next and final instalment in the series is "Antony and Cleopatra". It covers events from the Battle of Philippi to the downfall of the Second Triumvirate and the renaming of Octavian to Augustus; the first Roman Emperor, in everything but name. It focuses on the love story of Antonius (Antony) and Cleopatra, right up to its tragic end.

Even though I have loved and enjoyed this series, I would like to make note of one con: at various points of the books, the author goes into a lot of historical detail making me feel that I was reading a history textbook. The books are factually dense and feature a huge cast of characters with a very confusing naming system. I used to think that it's just Russian characters in the books I read that have confusing names. Turns out, ancient Romans also had quite a confusing naming system. Nevertheless, I really liked this book series.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/2520063

This got me wondering - do you pair up books like this?

Woah what! Reminder that there are other communities on this instance that you can find via !411@literature.cafe as well as some writing communities!

I am forever bitter about Eragon..