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Am in the middle of the first Earthsea book; 100% credit goes to the norns script! :rofl:

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I really enjoyed Ocean of Sound how does this one compare?

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Archie vs Predator I was pretty damn awesome. Other than the absurd mash-up (which is something Archie franchise is all about lately) the writer, Alex de Campi, takes “Archie-ness” a step beyond. It’s weird…and super bloody.

51ttjJhJqTL

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For those into Wolfe, I’ve really been enjoying this podcast:

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Started reading Trainspotting after finally giving in and watching the film’s sequel. The experience definitely reminds me of reading A Clockwork Orange though actually far more difficult. I’m finding that neologisms and slang are far easier grasp than dialects, at least in terms of the written word. It’s quite an exercise, though, tuning one’s inner voice to a Scots dialect; and, to my surprise, the movie adaptation is hardly any help in this regard–unlike with A Clockwork Orange–as all the characters in the book seem to speak like Spud does in the film.

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try Riddley Walker next if you want a good challenge on that front. plus its a great book.

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love both of these series!

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Can’t recommend Riddley Walker enough. Life after nuclear war may be tough to imagine, but Russell Hoban does it.

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[if i may jump in] They’re such different things; Flutter Echo, a memoir, is intensely personal. It’s recognisbly by the author of OoS but it’s a * totally * divergent, though, ahem, resonant text. I rather liked this reviewer’s description:

Flutter Echo functions as a revealing DVD-style director’s commentary on Toop’s other writings.

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It haunted me for days.

“Don’t read that,” my spouse said. “It’ll only make you angry.”

Well, yeah, it does that. It also offers some insight and perspective.

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I’m currently reading Don Quixote myself. I’ve only been reading a little bit at a time lately and it’s taken me over a year so far, haha. It’s great though. The second part is even funnier than the first. I want to see Terry Gilliam’s movie of it after I’ve finished reading.

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I loved the Edith Grossman translation. I just finished the false Quixote recently which was interesting… but by the end I was dragging my feet just to finish. There’s no comparison to the Cervantes, but I’m looking forward to coming back to a second read of the real thing and having a bit more context for all the ragging on it in the real second book. “Avellaneda” whoever he was really was in love with authority and wasn’t such a great writer – the characters are really repetitive and shallow, basically straw men to point and laugh at from a perspective of wealth and privilege. Looking forward to returning to the real thing which I remember being subversive and sympathetic – not to mention actually funny. Avellaneda’s idea of funny is basically to be mean and judgemental.

Very interesting how similar the structure of the two second parts are though. I wonder if Cervantes adapted his to parody the Avellaneda, or the false book just ripped off Cervantes. (Apparantly Avellaneda saw an early manuscript?)

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A Fire Upon the Deep Is an absolute stand out. I had no idea what to expect. I’d never heard of Vernor Vinge so it’s one of those books that when I’d see it on a list, it just never stuck out for me. Basically, it blew my mind. It’s rare to come across the perfect triple threat of world-building, plot, and characters but I don’t think I’d be over-stating it if I said this one got high marks on all three. It is now one of my favorite books.

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Just started Wendell Berry’s “What Are People For.” A few stanzas:

"Good work finds the way between pride and despair.

It graces with health. It heals with grace.

It preserves the given so that it remains a gift.

By it, we lose loneliness:

we clasp the hands of those who go before us, and the hands of those who come after us;

we enter the little circle of each other’s arms,

and the larger circle of lovers whose hands are joined in a dance,

and the larger circle of al creatures, passing in and out of life, who move also in a dance, to a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it except in fragments."

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Check out Children of Time if you haven’t already - another SF book which has all three points and is very similarly structured.

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Now, this:

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Perfect timing, @Loitering. I was just about to post in this book-minded thread that the week’s Disquiet Junto project is inspired by a tweet this past week by Robert Macfarlane:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0408-fritiniency-tronics/

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