YABookgate

[Briananderson1138]

I saw this "Book Tok" trash, too much (read any) Octavia Butler, Howard Zinn, and a prominently displayed copy of the book form of that "1619 Project" excrement when last I visited Barnes & Noble. Sadly not a surprise when you learn that they're based out of New York City.

 

[Welf Welf]

The 1619 Project makes me irrationally (or rationally?) angry. I'm not surprised it's lumped in with booktok garbage, that's exactly where it belongs.

 

[JJLiautaud]

A Memory Called Empire and the Echoes of Cultural Imperialism

Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire is one of those novels that made me really, truly think about culture and empire—and cultural imperialism. The story centers on political intrigue in t…

www.tor.com

A Pajeeta Slavic writes a book review without actually reviewing the book

 

[Windows 10 Upgrade]

ITS HAPPENING - someone puts an SFWA thread on the prospering grounds

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/science-fiction-and-fantasy-writers-association-sfwa.149452/

 

[Windows 10 Upgrade]

A Memory Called Empire and the Echoes of Cultural Imperialism

Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire is one of those novels that made me really, truly think about culture and empire—and cultural imperialism. The story centers on political intrigue in t…

www.tor.com

A Pajeeta writes a book review without actually reviewing the book

Ugh, I hate the concept of the "faux review" which ends up being a segue into someone's shitty research paper they couldn't sell to any respected academic journal.

To make it even worse "Anastasia Klimchynskaya" is a basic white academic piggybacking off anti-colonialism in order to get an article in Tor.com,

Judging from their Twitter and their ONE basic-ass colonialism 101 citation that they yanked from Electric Literature - that most basic of literary fiction shill and vanity websites - they only discovered anti-colonialism a few days ago.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Ugh, I hate the concept of the "faux review" which ends up being a segue into someone's shitty research paper they couldn't sell to any respected academic journal.

To make it even worse "Anastasia Klimchynskaya" is a basic white academic piggybacking off anti-colonialism in order to get an article in Tor.com,

Judging from their Twitter and their ONE basic-ass colonialism 101 citation that they yanked from Electric Literature - that most basic of literary fiction shill and vanity websites - they only discovered anti-colonialism a few days ago.

This colonialism kick of academia is the dumbest fucking thing on the planet I hate it so god damn much people have been oppressing other people for resources since the beginning of the Homo genus and our descendents will do so probably till the stars grow cold, "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must."

 

[Elim Garak]

A Memory Called Empire and the Echoes of Cultural Imperialism

Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire is one of those novels that made me really, truly think about culture and empire—and cultural imperialism. The story centers on political intrigue in t…

www.tor.com

A Pajeeta Slavic writes a book review without actually reviewing the book

It’s a pity really, the book she didn’t review is pretty good. It has two parallel narratives that meet at the end. One is about this linguist who is from an outlying colony and goes to the central city on earth as an ambassador for her colony. She also has to solve her predecessor’s murder. The other narrative is about the empire discovering aliens, and they have to determine whether they are sentient or not, and they’re motivation for coming into the empire’s territory. The two narratives converge at the end. I may be confusing the two books in the series, so take this review with a grain of salt.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

It’s a pity really, the book she didn’t review is pretty good. It has two parallel narratives that meet at the end. One is about this linguist who is from an outlying colony and goes to the central city on earth as an ambassador for her colony. She also has to solve her predecessor’s murder. The other narrative is about the empire discovering aliens, and they have to determine whether they are sentient or not, and they’re motivation for coming into the empire’s territory. The two narratives converge at the end. I may be confusing the two books in the series, so take this review with a grain of salt.

You've actually combined the two books in your head and reversed the plot of the second one, where it is the invading aliens who are not aware that humans are sapient. #2 is a very generic story, I predicted the aliens' twist on the first page, but the subplot where Mahit has to deal with the fact that her girlfriend has a fetish for foreign people, and that Three Seagrass loves her, at least in part, because she wants an exotic waifu, was pretty interesting.

 

[Elim Garak]

You've actually combined the two books in your head and reversed the plot of the second one, where it is the invading aliens who are not aware that humans are sapient. #2 is a very generic story, I predicted the aliens' twist on the first page, but the subplot where Mahit has to deal with the fact that her girlfriend has a fetish for foreign people, and that Three Seagrass loves her, at least in part, because she wants an exotic waifu, was pretty interesting.

Yeah, the first book was definitely better than the second one.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

Yeah, the first book was definitely better than the second one.

My gut feeling is that Arkady Martine was pressured into producing a sequel prematurely. There's a real schizo quality to the book where some parts are very well-developed and others are like rough draft ideas that had to be left in because there wasn't enough time to come up with something better.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Tor publishes an actual review this time on Babel: Review
The woman claims that The Paragraph is this orientalist colonialist thing that needs to be called out, also fails etymology, and gets called out in the comments.
If you want a balanced view of The Paragraph read here.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

Lovell's discovery of the common origin of so many languages was a revelation that pushed human history back by thousands of years and invented a new science at the same time. It was also essentially a secular declaration of brotherhood between a vast swath of races at a time when supporters of abolitionism and antiracism were still totally religious and often supported the idea that different races were essentially different species with nothing in common. This writer is so brainwashed, though, that nothing other than perhaps a suicide note from him apologizing for the existence of the white race would constitute opposition to bad -isms in her eyes.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Lovell's discovery of the common origin of so many languages was a revelation that pushed human history back by thousands of years and invented a new science at the same time. It was also essentially a secular declaration of brotherhood between a vast swath of races at a time when supporters of abolitionism and antiracism were still totally religious and often supported the idea that different races were essentially different species with nothing in common. This writer is so brainwashed, though, that nothing other than perhaps a suicide note from him apologizing for the existence of the white race would constitute opposition to bad -isms in her eyes.

I really wouldn't call it a discovery more an unusually prescient hypothesis, but still a way of looking at The Paragraph I've never really thought of before.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

Tor publishes an actual review this time on Babel: Review
The woman claims that The Paragraph is this orientalist colonialist thing that needs to be called out, also fails etymology, and gets called out in the comments.
If you want a balanced view of The Paragraph read here.

Looks like a TIM to me. God, gender non conformity is one hell of a drug.


Seems colonialism is whatever a detractor, like CD here, wants it to be. I'd hardly call the belief on the part of an individual that thing X is perfect to be colonialist just because he or she is not part of the culture that created thing X. Of course we see the caliber of idiot this woman is after calling philology "problematic" and than trying to back peddle on the matter. Is or is it not "problematic" dear? Perhaps you should have said "some aspects of philology are problematic" instead of what you wrote.



Some interesting history on the matter of silver and trade with China. I don't think China had the largest colonial empire. In terms of land or people, I could be wrong on that.



I hope what this person meant was "africans and indigenous peoples" and not "africans, an indigenous peoples"

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

I really wouldn't call it a discovery more an unusually prescient hypothesis, but still a way of looking at The Paragraph I've never really thought of before.

I hope that's a good thing!

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Some interesting history on the matter of silver and trade with China. I don't think China had the largest colonial empire. In terms of land or people, I could be wrong on that.

Depends on your definition of "colonial." Qing China was ruled by a Manchu elite and discriminated against Han Chinese, but since the earliest days they relied on Han Chinese in the government. If you count them as Han Chinese, then they certainly colonized a fuckton of places. Most notorious is Xinjiang where they did the Dzungar genocide and killed like 3/4 of all Dzunghars (a Mongol offshoot tribe) and most of the rest fled to Russia, but they were also pretty shit to the Uyghurs (Dungan revolts) and to a degree ethnic Mongols (literally colonized them and didn't care that Han Chinese merchants controlled their entire economy and were like 10-20% of the population). And of course they colonized a bunch of hill tribes in the south in Yunnan and Taiwan and Tibet settled ethnic Han (and sometimes other groups) there.

This individual is also making a strawman argument about Western perceptions of China. Literally nobody in the West thought China was weak until the First Opium War, and even after that, China was still considered a powerful nation that "any day" would stop being weak until Japan kicked their ass at the end of the 19th century.

 

[JJLiautaud]

How Jerry Pournelle Got Kicked Off the ARPANET

Back in the old days, computer scientists funded by the Defense Advanced Projects Research Administration (DARPA) worried greatly about how their proto-internet, the Advanced Research Projects Administration Network (ARPANET) might appear as a frivolous gossip-fest to accountants, inspector...

www.bradford-delong.com

Super old internet drama from the first phase of The Internet (ARPANET) is Serious Business

 

[JJLiautaud]

A Kind of Humor

Today it’s accepted that fiction (broadly defined; I’m including film and TV) can describe war in a realistic fashion. Stories aren’t required to be realistic, but they’re p…

www.tor.com

Just wanted to share how good David Drake's essays are compared to the dreck I've been sharing, shame he no longer writes.



Also read Northworld it's amazing and available for free from any of his baen cds so there's really no excuse.

Here's the link: http://baencd.freedoors.org/Books/Northworld/index.htm

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

A Kind of Humor

Today it’s accepted that fiction (broadly defined; I’m including film and TV) can describe war in a realistic fashion. Stories aren’t required to be realistic, but they’re p…

www.tor.com

Just wanted to share how good David Drake's essays are compared to the dreck I've been sharing, shame he no longer writes.

View attachment 4708957

Also read Northworld it's amazing and available for free from any of his baen cds so there's really no excuse.

Here's the link: http://baencd.freedoors.org/Books/Northworld/index.htm

I started to read Northworld and never got around to finishing it, though I really should. The scene where North watches the "AI"-controlled power armor army practicing on the battlefield before shutting down en masse for the night always stuck with me.

 

[JJLiautaud]

I started to read Northworld and never got around to finishing it, though I really should. The scene where North watches the "AI"-controlled power armor army practicing on the battlefield before shutting down en masse for the night always stuck with me.

Yeah when Hansen met with Malcolm the second time is one of the greatest encapsulation of that Norse spirit ever put to print:

Spoiler: Spoiler for the first book.

"And you think he doesn't know it, laddie?" he asked.
Hansen said nothing.
"Go on," the cracked voice demanded. "You know the answer. I've told you the answer."
"I lead them to die, Malcolm!" Hansen cried bitterly.
"No friend," Malcolm said. "You lead the lucky ones to die."
The basket creaked again. The old man was working a hand out of his fur wrappings with the stolid determination of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.
"Some of us grow old and useless," Malcolm continued in the whisper that was all the voice which age had left him. "But none of us get so old that we forget we were led by Lord Hansen—back when we were men."

Shame he never adapted Ragnarok, Redliners while extremely good really softened his writing, his books aren't nearly so bleak and miserable.