Which book are you reading now? Volume XIV

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All done! An excellent end too.
 
As a late Christmas gift, I got Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise by Robin Fleming. It looks interesting, as in the intro she talks about archaeology, but I was a little surprised to see Guy Halsall only cited once given the amount of work he has done on Dark Age Britain and his focus on archaeology and furnished inhumations. The author says she wanted to do a book more focused on social organization and life which will be nice, as the other general history book I have on Anglo-Saxon England is basically a list of kings for a few centuries, then Alfred, Athelraed, and Hastings.
 
I picked up D.M. Giangreco's "Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan 1945-1947."

So far it is a good read. I haven't spent enough time learning about the Pacific, and it is interesting to see what each side thought the invasion might look like.

I bought it in the hope of using it as a reference for a Civ2 lua scenario I'd like to build. We will see :)
 
I believe Bernard Kast of Military History Visualized cited him, perhaps even that book specifically.

Anyway, finished Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre, an edition which includes A Commentary on The Stranger (also talks about The Myth of Sisyphus; mostly praise, but criticizes Albert Camus for not truly understanding philosopher he cites like Kierkegaard and Heidegger). The introduction gives the author's life and interaction with Camus. as a background. Based on a lecture Sartre gave to defend his brand of atheistic existentialism from criticism by France's Communist (too solipsistic) and Catholic (too negative) circles, it also serves as a succinct introduction. Important concepts of his philosophy such as "existence precedes essence" (a person derives their own meaning) and the primacy of subjectivity are laid out. Individuals must choose not only for themselves but also for all humanity ("what if everyone did what I chose to do?", recalling Kant's categorical imperative), but this choice is made alone leading to anguish. The existence of a universal human condition (not nature) links Sartre's existentialism to the notion of humanism as transcendence. While I agree with the philosophy, I feel that the justifications weren't sufficient. Perhaps a longer work would be more satisfying.
 
At roughly the half-point, but it is getting difficult to keep reading 1001 nights. The format is very forced - essentially all of the stories are alluding, supposedly covertly, to the king's decision to kill his wife and her lover and then marry each day and kill his new bride by night - and various other elements are repetitive, such as evil spirits and transformation of humans to animals.
The tale of the evil ziin is nice, but I already knew that since elementary school*. Most of the other tales are not very interesting.

*In fact reading the whole book took away my original impression of the stand-alone nature of the evil ziin story, cause later on the ziin is freed again and is reconciled with the fisherman - which makes it more of a melodrama instead of a tragedy.
 
Hanne Orstavik - Love. This book got Pulicer or similar prize for translation into English.
 
At roughly the half-point, but it is getting difficult to keep reading 1001 nights. The format is very forced - essentially all of the stories are alluding, supposedly covertly, to the king's decision to kill his wife and her lover and then marry each day and kill his new bride by night - and various other elements are repetitive, such as evil spirits and transformation of humans to animals.
The tale of the evil ziin is nice, but I already knew that since elementary school*. Most of the other tales are not very interesting.

*In fact reading the whole book took away my original impression of the stand-alone nature of the evil ziin story, cause later on the ziin is freed again and is reconciled with the fisherman - which makes it more of a melodrama instead of a tragedy.
Maybe the book is supposed to be read over 1000 nights and not in a few sittings.
 
I'm currently reading What Would Boudicca Do?, which is a bunch of pretty short chapters about women in history and challenges they faced and how those lessons can be applied to now. For example, there's a chapter on Mae West and it's about loving your body for what it is and not being ashamed of it. The Rosa Parks chapter is about standing up (or in her case, sitting down) for what you believe in and what you believe is right. I'm really enjoying it - it's a quick, breezy read and it's quite funny too.
 

I just wrapped up the series by finishing Death's End and it was superb. I can't say enough nice things about the series; it was truly a mind-expanding work of fiction and one of the most compelling stories I've ever read. This is a story about deep time and the fate of the universe, wrapped up in the tale of how two civilizations first met and interacted with each other. The universe is a dark, mostly-empty forest with a scattering of civilizations wandering through it, randomly stabbing at each other in the darkness. The book closes with a scene that reflects on the nature of Liu's cosmos - a small glass sphere filled with water, plants and tiny fish is left floating in a dark room in zero g. A fish flits between globules of water as a dew drop catches the sun and glints a flash of light into the dark room.

I think I would rank Death's End as the best of the series, followed by the first book. Dark Forest was awesome but it was the gloomiest of the books and thus not my favorite.

This book's protagonist is Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from our current time who moves through the timeline like a fish through a stream. I know Mr. Cixin is not the first to play with the concept of moving through time via hibernation but he manages to capture the societal ramifications of that ability like no other. I do not know if the changes brought on by hibernation will really come to pass but I at least believe that they could. Mr. Cixin paints a believable world for us even as he leaps through time and space and into the realm of the fantastic.

If I have one complaint, it is the ending felt like a bit of a cop-out. A cop-out in the sense that up until that point, every major mystery is explained in a satisfactory way. The truths revealed do not come with a saccharine sweet aftertaste either, I never was left feeling that the plot was contrived even though an objective reading says it absolutely is contrived. But in any case, the ending is sort of left open for the reader in a way that leaves me wanting for more. I guess that's ultimately a good thing, but part of what I Ioved about this series was how Mr. Cixin adeptly and concretely concluded major plot lines. I wanted that same satisfaction for the ultimate ending but the book isn't worse for it, it's only a personal preference.

One overarching theme that threads through all three books is the collectivism vs individualistic nature of societies. At every major juncture in Earth's history, there is ultimately a crisis sparked between competing ideas - some sort of escape for a few or safety [or doom] for the whole. Cixin's solar society always chooses safety and yet history only moves forward when individuals make choices for their own reasons - even when they are selfish reasons. It is I think an astute observation of how real history tends to unfold. However -
Spoiler :
I think it is silly the way that society absolutely forbids anyone from leaving the solar system. In fact, a false attack alarm causes many secret interstellar spacecraft to reveal themselves as they attempt a solar system escape. The government enacts reprisals against these would-be refugees and bans all interstellar flight and technology. The notion that if some of us die, everyone has to die just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Though ultimately is sort of an argument against capitalism, because it is depicted primarily as the rich and corporations who have the resources to construct such ships.

But at the end of the day solar society could have put interstellar drives on their deep space habitats and yet chose not to. Thus, no one has to die and they are instead choosing to stay with solar system. At that point it is immoral to trap everyone and therefor those who wish to leave should be allowed to.

In the end, the spacecraft Gravity and Blue Space end up escaping and founding a galactic human civilization. I thought they had returned to the Solar System and I did not know that they fled entirely until near the end of the book. That misunderstanding was probably intentional on Mr. Cixin's part.


Mr. Cixin uses a non-conventional technique of making his characters communicate almost through telepathy. They look into each other's eyes and somehow speak to each other. I wonder if that is a Chinese literary convention?
Spoiler :
This happens to great effect when Yan Tianming secretly communicates strategic intelligence about the Trisolarans to Cheng Xin using some children's stories as his cover.


I kind of was happy about what happened to the Trisolarans-
Spoiler :
They paid dearly for their attempts to subjugate the Earth. They were given multiple opportunities to share the Solar System peacefully with humanity and yet at every turn they chose war when they thought they could get away with it. Ultimately, their home system was destroyed by a Dark Forest strike summoned by the Earth via Gravity. One of the Trisolaran's two fleets (one which had lightspeed ships - which were developed after Trisolaris was inspired by the Earth's sophisticated society and reached a technological singularity) was annihilated in deep space. The other fleet, with only a tiny fraction of their population, escaped. The Solar System was eventually destroyed, but the humans who were killed ultimately made a choice to stay and die; the Trisolarans had no such choice.

The galactic humans, descended from just the two ships Gravity and Blue Space, ended up being one of the major civilizations of the galaxy. The Trisolarans did as well, but I like to think they paid for their arrogance.


Mr. Cixin has a habit of portraying American characters as bombastic and hyper-aggressive people. Yet, at several key junctures in these books, it is ruthless Americans that end up 'doing what needs to be done'. It's kind of a funny trope and it is mirrored in the decisions that the broader society makes as well.

He also has a weird fixation with men becoming feminized over time, and then going back to 'proper men' even further in time. He doesn't really portray the femininity as a bad thing, more that it is just an inevitable product of the times that people live in. In times of comfort, men get soft, basically. He presents that idea in this book a few times and it is my least favorite of his social observations/critiques.

One prediction of these books is that eventually, conducting basic research will become a profitable enterprise in and of itself. I hope to see that happen some day!

He also got me wondering if the dark matter that our physicists are searching for are actually:
Spoiler :
The result of space civilizations annihilating each other or cutting themselves off from the universe and we just can't interpret the signs of that.
 
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@hobbsyoyo Nice recap of these excellent books. I liked the ending. It certainly left the door open for more books, but even without those, I felt he brought nice closure to all of the many threads. His use of multi dimensions and Flatland concepts was really nice. He does seem to be a fan of String theory, which I am not, but whatever. The whole China centric look was very refreshing and added a lot to the story.
 
He also has a weird fixation with men becoming feminized over time, and then going back to 'proper men' even further in time. He doesn't really portray the femininity as a bad thing, more that it is just an inevitable product of the times that people live in. In times of comfort, men get soft, basically. He presents that idea in this book a few times and it is my least favorite of his social observations/critiques.

sadly the "hard times make strong men" trope is still strongly ingrained in many peoples heads. truth is, hard times create anger, frustration, and sick people. war and famine don't nurture, neither does oppression . I have the 2nd of these books lying around at home, might pick it up soon.
 
I'm not sure how well the middle book works as a stand-alone title by itself. I think it would probably be OK but I think you'll get the most out of reading them in order.

That reminds me of one critique of Death's End - the character list in the front of this specific book is useless. It omits most of the current crop of characters while still mentioning some inconsequential ones from earlier works that are not relevant. The first book had a character list that was awesome.
 
I have the 2nd of these books lying around at home, might pick it up soon.
Reading just the second book would really miss the whole story. As Hobbs said, you need to read them all in order.
 
it's difficult to start reading a series of fat sci fi novels when I'm expected to read hundreds of pages weekly for uni, and quite a lot for personal growth/interest. I have some great nonfiction, mostly about the chemistry involved in cooking and fermenting, that i'm reading right now. novels used to be most of what I read, now they're probably 1/3rd at best. difficult to justify 2000 pages of sci fi compared to reading like 10 different books from my backlog. currently I have DFW's "westwards the course of empire..." which is cool but incredibly sluggish, I might abandon it. I'm also getting started on some Baudelaire and Conrad. There's enough stuff to read for three lifetimes just in my head :D
 
it's difficult to start reading a series of fat sci fi novels when I'm expected to read hundreds of pages weekly for uni, and quite a lot for personal growth/interest. I
I feel this 100%. For a while I was hesitant to even use my library because I felt like I wouldn't finish books before they were due back. I got the book solely on @Birdjaguar's recommendation and wasn't super sure about it. Then I lucked out and had a 7 hour train ride and once I started it, I couldn't put it down. I nearly finished the first book in a single sitting. I ran through the entire series like that but I was busy with life and it's taken about a month.

The book is heavy on mystery so if you read it out of order, you will spoil a ton of the tension and suspense in the earlier books.

Probably the highest compliment I can give these books is that they were so enthralling that I began to re-arrange my daily schedule to carve out time to read and now that they're over, I don't know what to do with my free time!
 
You convinced me to not read the second one until I can get a hold of the first! :)
 
Ended second volume of The Wheel of Time.
I am going to make a break of reading the series and started with Sidi, an historical novel about Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid
 
Work tends to kill reading. My reading has been sporadic at best, these last years.
Also, there is next to no joy in reading stuff for work.

Now I will have to prepare a new online seminar, this time on fantasy literature (horror, urban fantasy, magical realism, scifi, even the dreaded high fantasy where I will have to bail out by mostly mentioning serious writers like Dunsany, Goethe and Heine :) )
On scifi I am not yet sure who I will be focusing on. Likely H.G.Wells and P.K. Dick.
Magical realism will be easier.
 
Just started Cibola Burn.
 
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