To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.

Even though I bought the 1859 edition of On the Origin of the Species, I started reading “Entangled Life” instead, thanks to a dramacel recommendation, @rDramaHistorian I'm on chapter 3 and the book is great.

!bookworms

out of the 54 physical books I own, I have 2 books written by a woman

i'm not counting kindle because that's cringe. do better.

!bookworms discuss

It seems interesting and I hear it's good modern hard sci-fi. What's your opnion, worth the read?

hmm. what do you think happens to the widows of billionaires & millionaires in the US? the poorhouse?
& when is an "orphan" no longer a ward of the state?
there is even a considerable difference between prisoners in medium & maximum facilities.
in short, stereotypical thinking. https://t.co/B3nM7Mmoje

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) January 11, 2024

@Android_18 standing up to fat cat black widows faking their plight for sympathy

Do you like reading? Have you not yet found a way to feel bad about reading, especially reading lots? Don't worry, the CBC has you covered!

As another new year begins, the options for joining challenges that promote reading seem endless, and they have become a popular way to encourage people to consume more books. Nearly eight million people around the world participated in the 2023 Goodreads challenge, for instance, and they had an average pledge of 43 books per person.

[...]

But as many readers flock to these challenges, sharing their stats on social media, others find them off-putting and anxiety-inducing.

"I love to read, but multiple disabilities make reading challenges pretty inaccessible due to the expectation of reading a plethora of books in a set amount of time," said Caley Krantz.

Krantz, 38, who lives in Vernon, B.C., struggles with skipping over words and processing text and audio.

"It's frustrating watching everyone posting and engaging in these challenges when it's not an option to participate," they told CBC News.

Now whenever you read you can let the feelings of white guilt wash over you, knowing that someone, somewhere can't read and feels bad about it.

It's cold outside,

and now I regret,

Not having enough long pants,

To keep warm and in good health.

I am the summer cricket,

Who saw the ants work,

Slept through it all,

And is now freezing up without the sun.

It's cold outside,

I wake early in the morning,

Then spend another hour,

In bed, hiding.

Hiding from the cold,

That leaves my feet dead,

and my hands cold enough,

That I can't even touch myself.

It's cold outside,

I get started with the day,

Within half an hour,

I am within the sheets again.

Trying to talk my blood,

Into flowing to the edges of my flesh,

To bring back the summer fire,

To protect me from this cold spell.

It's cold outside,

I am hiding in my bed,

Lying there,

waiting for courage to come and lead me hence.

My mind wanders through thoughts,

daydreams flickering in and out,

I could use some eggs right now,

I think to myself.

It's cold outside,

but the thought of food,

reminds me of my emptying pockets,

and that good things cost money.

I jump out of bed without further ado,

And I get back to my tasks for the day,

It doesn't feel that cold anymore,

The body knows, we need that loot.

So a week or so ago I asked for book recommendations and I got as far through them as reading half of Stranger in a Strange Land and threw out all the recommendations and started reading Lin Carter's Under the Green Star

Which is the story of a guy with cerebral palsy or polio or one of those diseases sending his consciousness millions of light years away to the world under the Green Star where he finds forests of trees that go miles high with cities built in the branches. By a series of events he comes to take over the formerly entombed body of a city's greatest hero, whereupon he falls hopelessly in love with the city's princess and gets thrown into a series of thrilling and deadly adventures wherein he has to defend the princess's life and honor.

This was a great book, this is everything books should be, a thrilling tale full of action and suspense and mighty deeds and manly valor. There's weird scenery and bizarre monsters and excitement and danger and beauty and wonder. The characters are vividly imagined, the action is clear and intense, and the storytelling never loses the excitement.

The book ends on a cliffhanger but there's three more books so I guess next I'm reading book two. Sorry to everyone whose suggestions I said I'd read but you should have suggested better books (IE a book like this).

!bookworms

Never fit in,

Never understood,

What was going on,

Under the hood.

Maybe I did see it,

Maybe I did comprehend,

But what I gave out,

Wasn't the right answer.

Did I see too deeply,

And react to what was instead of what they desired I see,

Or am I just another foolish wise-head,

Filled with false histories?

I have been in rooms both full and empty,

yet every single time,

Always left them,

Feeling by myself

Or is that too a dream,

I do feel a hint of fond memories,

I think, it's difficult to tell now,

It's been a while since I have tried to remember.

They tried to fix me,

My anxious fearful self,

They tried to fix me,

With shame and guilt.

That's what still stings,

The cure was the poison,

Given out of love and care,

How do you expect me to trust another after that?

All the times I fell in love,

I said the wrong things,

Did the wrong things,

Was the wrong things.

I took too long,

Becoming more,

They had to leave,

because they still had lives that were going on.

I don't blame them for leaving,

Everybody has a life to live,

But I do love myself enough,

To admit that some of them were certainly buttholes.

For the longest time,

I thought I didn't belong,

Everywhere I went,

I attracted those who wanted to feel strong.

Strong by pushing another,

Someone who would submit,

and I was more than willing,

For the sake of acceptance.

There were others too,

Those who cared,

More than people tend to,

That's what I got,

Caretakers and bullies.

For the longest time,

I thought my soul was wrong,

Then as bad days became bad years,

I thought there was no soul at all.

I tried to piece myself together,

Kept myself separate,

This time not to hide within myself,

But to have time enough to repair.

They shouted for me to return,

Told me I was burdening them,

But I did not let up,

Because I knew in their loving hands,

I would never grow.

For how can you grow in hands,

That are forever righteous,

And everything that will ever go wrong,

Will have somebody to blame,

except themselves.

The love was real,

But so was the hurt.

To me the hurt was real,

and they will never see it.

Because even to show them,

Only means a vehement denial,

Only means I will hurt them more,

Without understanding.

I gave it all up,

In the hope of having something I could control,

Piece by piece, month by month,

Week by week,

day by day,

hour by hour,

Finally I put my mind back together.

Nobody will ever know my pain,

Because through it all I have been an expense,

I can't even blame them,

Because rationally I was dead weight, in their shoes I would have abandoned myself.

They were desperate,

To save me from myself,

So desperate to fix what was broken,

They broke it further.

First I lashed out,

Then I left,

Then I lashed out again,

Until that fire too was dead.

I picked up the pieces,

As best as I could,

Until bit by bit I learned to know myself,

Without another voice guiding or commanding me,

I realized, my soul was there.

I had been looking in all the wrong places,

In others and their bonds,

And now I wish I had found out before,

That the reason I couldn't find another soul like my own,

Was because my soul was in the shape of me and me alone.

I found the desire to be good,

Even in the absence of a guiding voice,

I found the desire to be more,

Even without anyone's command.

I found faith in my fellow man,

Because that's what I wanted to believe in.

I found a thousand little things.

All bits of me that remained when nobody else was there.

Both good and bad, but more good than I thought there would be.

So I tore my mind back from the edge,

From the fragments lost across time and space,

I found a lost half a mind,

And rebuilt it again.

Upgrades, That's what I thought,

that's what I chased,

and it delivered,

and I am a bit more everyday.

All the mistakes however,

Still at moments weigh on me,

For I know better,

We are all the terrible things we do,

and all the good too.

One does not cancel out the other,

But both live on,

Separate from each other,

All our deeds matter.

I have though sworn,

That I shall no matter what,

ever fall so low,

As to hate myself.

It is for the world to despise me if it doesn't approve,

It is for the world to love me if it does,

But no man with any sense ever ought to fall so low,

As to go about hating himself.

Even the regrets are forgotten,

Not out of malice, or lack of care,

but because the only way to move forward,

Is to outgrow old pain.

Does that make me a good man?

Do I deserve forgiveness or disdain?

I know not.

All I know is this.

I have a soul. I am a man, and as long as I live, every moment, I must move onward.

The articles in question

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/was-lewis-carroll-a-libertarian-his-photographs-suggest-so-237222/amp-page

It is an image of a pubescent girl called Lorina Liddell in the nude in a full-frontal pose, described in the documentary as an image that “no parent would ever have consented to,” the Telegraph reports. The controversial photograph was found in a French museum, with a note on the frame attributing it Carroll

She adds that the explicit photograph may explain the rift that made Carroll break contact with the Liddell girls in 1863, when Alice was 11 years old. Crucially, Carroll's diaries from April 1858 to May 1862, a period which coincides with his friendship with the Liddell girls, are missing

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/11368772/BBC-investigates-whether-Lewis-Carroll-was-repressed-paedophile-after-nude-photo-discovery.html

Reddit threads

https://old.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/13lw2z3/lewis_carroll_the_struggle_of_the_libertarian

https://old.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/xpyhpe/no_one_talks_about_how_creepy_lewis_caroll_was

And a defensive Medium article

https://medium.com/history-mystery-more/sorry-lewis-carroll-was-no-libertarian-95863f4c3f8

Fun fact, Vladimir Nabokov said he based Lolita's main character Humbert Humbert on Lewis Carroll.

I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll, because he was the first Humbert Humbert.

!bookworms !historychads

!bookworms !historychads

Ubik by Philip K Peepee feels like one of Philip K Peepees more mediocre works.

There are lots of things brought up that all feel like they could have some real potential but all of them end up going out with a far weaker bang than what one would have hoped for.

Reading Ubik makes you feel like maybe it's true, maybe everybody did get smarter over 2-3 generations since that book was released, and that is why nothing in it feels impressive anymore.

The book starts off pretty solid, but the longer it goes on for the weaker it gets.

It doesn't have enough action, nor enough mystery, nor enjoyable characters.

They introduce more than 10 different characters of which maybe 3 were worth paying attention to.

The whole story can be described as," Whoa check out this really cool plothook that can shake the foundations of how this story plays out. Whoa would you look at that our protagonist doesn't know whats going on for the entirety of the book and its not because he is some genius detective on the case, and whoa would you look at that the crazy plothook is thrown away for a far weaker twist, but hold on, there is another twist referencing a Chekovs gun mentioned for one paragraph at the beginning of the story, and would you look at that, now there is a final twist that added nothing to the story and possibly took away from it altogether."

I would give the book a 7.5 out of 10 beginning.

A 5 for plot.

And a 4 for ending paras.

All together I would score the novel a 6 out of 10.

Which is one of the worst scores I have ever given to a book.

Don't waste your time reading the book. The same author has better books that are far more worth reading.

You might read this book if you want to know what B grade could have been A if it was written better and by somebody else writing feels like.

Biggest annoyance - The mentions of Ubik at the beginning of each chapter turn out to be kinda pointless and feel nonsensical even after understanding what the story is all about.

Mr. Peepee made the mistake of making both his characters and his plot devices paper thin, where there is little sense of depth to either. Where we are being told everything and shown little of meaning.

It feels like an entire novel about somebody meandering about and getting their butt saved by somebody else.

Maybe the concepts in this novel are original, but they are not used in any worthwhile way.

If you want to enjoy this book don't read beyond the first third. I think you can stop reading by the time the guy dies in the bathroom after which whatever your imagination fills the rest of the story up with would be more exciting that how the story actually turned out.

What a waste of time. I don't regret it, but I don't feel grateful for it either.

6/10.

I have heard stories,

Of those that go insane,

They speak of this void,

A bottomless place.

They speak of the dark,

That stares back,

Sends chills down the spine,

and follows you home.

It stays with you,

A memory that is a scar,

No one else can see it,

except feeling something is wrong.

You see these people,

and you steer clear,

There is something in their eyes,

that shouldn't be.

I hadn't met any of their kind,

I used to think it was just a children's tale,

but I am not so sure,

when I remember Ole Nickel Dave.

Never hated him,

He was a good man,

His heart was in the right place,

and he always helped the camp.

If you met him,

You would either forget,

Or remember him,

As a pleasant, funny memory.

I knew him a while longer than that,

I knew him well enough,

that even though I knew nothing about him,

I could sit and drink with a pal.

Good old Nickel Dave,

Staring off into the woods,

A glass of juice in hand,

With a content look.

Sometimes though,

There was something else in there,

Just a glimpse,

But enough to scare.

I never asked him about it,

Until near the end,

When the winters were getting colder,

and so were his old weary bones.

"What's that."

"What's what."

"That look in your eyes.-

-It doesn't belong to any man I've ever seen."

The way he faced me that day,

Is still something I like not to think about,

But as I said, he was a good man at heart,

and feeling my fear, his warmth returned to placate it.

First he didn't answer.

I didn't push.

But the sky grew darker,

and finally he spoke.

"It's a place in me.

Where I have felt and seen things,

where for all others the world gives something new,

From me it has taken away.

Places where I know there were supposed to be parts of me,

Pieces that I can only recognize by their absence and half forgotten memories,

I try not to think about it,

It's not who I am,

Nor who I will ever be,

And I am just glad,

I managed to outlive it's call."

"You are depressed?" I asked.

He laughed. A real hearty laugh.

"No. it's worse. I am me,

and there are places where there is nothing for others to grab onto in that."

The unknown scares us,

even in our fellow man."

I want to say I thought about his words,

but the truth is, I was too young to understand them,

Maybe I still am.

"You don't seem mad to me Dave.

You feel like just another regular man.

You live like just another regular man.

What's bothering you friend."

"Nothing is.

Think of it like a cough.

It comes and goes.

A passing fancy."

"But the way you look,

It's unnatural,

like a monster

Pretending to be a man."

Another laugh. Less heartier.

"I ain't no monster.

I will just say this.

Some people fall over the edge,

I live safely away,

But can still see it in the distance."

And with that and a harrumph,

He got up to put out the fire.

We never spoke of it again.

I couldn't think of a reason to ask,

and he didn't bother to have a reason to tell.

I moved two winters later,

But I heard he lived many winters more,

I heard he died with a smile on his face,

Cozy and warm in his bed,

Still a good man as per the neighbors word.

I liked the man,

Another old friend from the distant past,

Yet I cannot help but think about him more often,

As I grow older.

For when I look at the young ones,

The new generation,

Walking down the streets,

More and more often now,

I see that terrible visage.

That flitting look of that dark place,

That only they know about.

I fear for them,

And I fear them,

And I silently give out a prayer,

that the hole by the edge,

Has more souls like Dave's living by it,

Than what my gut says actually lives there,

and comes back wearing their skins.

Their eyes no longer quite as human,

As one ought to be,

In decent society.

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers. !bookworms

I'm finnishing Never Let Me Go, I haven't read any thing for a couple of weeks even though the book club ended.

I also bought 2 editions of Charles Darwin's On The Origin of the Species

First I ordered the 6th edition and then the first edition which arrived today and is shown in the pic above. Yes I'm aware Darwin's book is outdated as he had no knowledge of genetics but I bought them as they're still interesting as history of science and to see how much of the original theory still stands, also the cover and illustrations are so pretty.

These pics are from the 6th edition I got, very collectible editions even if they're translations. !historychads

The Foundation thread earlier reminded me that Asimov had regular newspapers existing thousands of years in the future in a galactic empire. When I saw that, I felt like a foid getting hit with the green bubble.

But is this actually ridiculous? It doesn't feel dated to me that there's no internet. I don't think a civilian internet is an inevitable (or necessarily desirable) aspect of a technologically advanced society, and if I wrote an advanced civilization I might not include it at all. So what then? Maybe newspapers will exist in the future because people will want to have them. I don't fricking know. I'm fine with, say, humanoid ayylmaos, but if you described them, say, eating with forks, that would feel too "normal" to me.

Instead of trying to neurodivergentally reverse engineer a bunch of rules, let's just talk about our feefees. "The ick" is something small, subtle, and subjective. So I'm not talking about obvious gaffes, plot holes, or general laziness. Rather, what are seemingly insignificant little details that take you out of a setting? What do you think causes this to hit sometimes but not others?

!bookworms !writecel

The correct order is:

Foundation

Foundation and Empire

Second Foundation

Foundation's Edge

Foundation and Earth

Prelude to Foundation

Forward the Foundation

You can find them all online for free via internet archive.

It felt like it was going to break into pieces any second.

Mike could feel his ears close from the pressure, his face scrunch up inside his helmet, and the bodies crash into one another in the tumultuous Earthquake in their little compartment.

Of the six people inside, not one spoke. Their thoughts even in what might be their last moments a secret to be taken to the grave.

He couldn't help but admire their stoic nature. The best of the best. Unblinking even in the face of death. It was true what they said," The 13th never noticed deaths approach, always prepared. For every other man there might be a moment of realization, but only death knew when it had taken one of the 13th. For so focused were they on completing the mission."

A final crash lurched everybody's bodies up, with only the straps keeping them in place. The fast acting semi-liquid foam padding out the kinetic energy across their body, protecting them from blunt trauma.

The landing lasted for 2 seconds. The doors of the drop pod blasting outwards as soon as it stopped. Mike jumped out, firing at the dog like thing in front of it, which didn't even have the time to fully comprehend what had happened. A giant hole where its face was supposed to be a moment ago, more holes where the rest of its green skinned body was supposed to be the next.

Mike has blown his way through 6 targets as per his internal counter before the animals started screaming. All around him gunshots sounded as the circle of death spread outwards, bringing forth explosions, flames, and lasers.

It was going to be a good few weeks and an even better payday.

Tlk'vach looked down from his perch on the tree. His tail hidden between his legs, his ears drooped down towards his head, his eyes wide. He could feel the tears forming in his eyes but he was too scared to even make the noise needed to sob.

Down below a giant of metal with a meaty skies people inside walked forth. With a weapon as large as Tlk'vach himself. Around the giant of metal another 6 of the little brown things walked with the smaller weapon in their hands.

His bow and arrow that had given him strength throughout his youth now felt cold and weak in his hands.

The duty of warning the tribe was his, but he couldn't move. In the past three days he had seen so much death that could only be matched by the most violent of their people's stories.

Demons had come to their land. Their Gods had judged them unworthy.

As Tlk'vach was lost in hopelessness flames erupted beneath him. The tree was blowing into splinters and the-

1086. The kill counter on Vlads helmet went up. Another one of those green skinned bastards fell down onto the ground, most of its body turned to little bits and pieces.

"Basketball players are present in this area. Over."

"Roger. Burn down the forest? Over."

"No. Rats are harder to kill when you give them time to hide. Over."

A burst of laughter sounded across the radio channel from multiple voices and died down as fast as it had come. The group marched on towards the giant tree in the distance.

The tree didn't crash.

That was Sanat's favorite part.

It was like watching man completely overpower nature's laws to the point that it felt like man was making his own rules about how things happened.

The tree tilted to the side, and it fell towards the ground, but by the time it would have crashed into the ground only ashes landed. The screams dying out half spoken. With only silence left behind.

He loved working with Neitzer-Palmer explosives.

Yet, this time he didn't feel the joy he wanted to feel. He could feel an idea in his gut, that when the tree fell, this world was screaming, and that it was not good for him.

He tried to shake it off. Wondering if his nerves were finally beginning to act up after all these years, and perhaps it was not time to quit. Looking at the missiles fall from the sky towards where the tree was to dig a crater, Sanat felt a heaviness in his heard digging deeper and deeper as the crater grew, the screams of the darned growing louder in his mind.

"They have some psionic connection to the world."

" Psionics. Like moving things with their minds and all the other magicians tricks?"

"No sir. Like digging into the minds of our troops until they turn into goop."

"Horseshit."

"We have the reports sir. Over the course of the second week more and more troops on the ground are reporting a sense of foreboding. Followed by immense paranoia, slowing of cognitive function, and then shutdown. Autopsies show what the medical personnel can only describe as a goopy sludge in their skulls. All over the course of 26 hours."

"Well that don't mean magic is real. There is only one who can do such miracles and that's God, and he's on our side."

"Yes sir. However, yesterday we were able to finish mapping out the root network on this planet, its far larger than we initially thought, and appears to have the capacity for higher level awareness, at least in theory. We have eradicated 20% of the megastructure, and the more of it is damaged, the worse the psychological effects on the troops appear to get."

"Still sounds like bullshit that requires additional funding from the budget."

"No sir. That won't be a problem. Now that we have a source of high risk on this planet. We only ask that we be allowed to pull in our troops back early, without the contractual obligations of doing so kicking in. In exchange we agree to pay our own insurance and bomb the site from orbit to get rid of the parasitic organism on this planet."

"It's always about the money with you lot. Never fought for anything you believe in have ya."

"..."

"Alright then. I free you of your initial obligations as per the contract and the powers vested in me. In exchange you are responsible for the damages suffered by your own troops while carrying out our operations. Now tell me where to sign and be quick about it. I have my nieces birthday party to attend to."

"Right here sir."

"Alright then. One last thing."

"..."

"No more horseshit about magic powers and shit like that. Whatever is down there is a sin against God. Make your money all you want but I want every living thing larger than a mouse eradicated. You got that?"

"Yes sir."

To be continued ( lies I got tired, all the Ma'vi green tall aliens died. The Earth military forces took over all the inobtanium resources on the planet after killing everything on it within 2 weeks and 4 days )

This pop psychology books premise is thus:

"Imagine that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. One day long ago the Martians, looking through their telescopes, discovered the Venusians. Just glimpsing the Venusians awakened feelings they had never known. They fell in love and quickly invented space travel and flew to Venus."

In the course of our joint study, Mark and I learned that while “Martians tend to pull away and silently think about what's bothering them, Venusians feel an instinctive need to talk about what's bothering them.” As if the book's central planetary metaphor weren't enough, Gray invokes, among others, a dragon, a cave, a wave, and a rubber band to describe how people tend to operate in heterosexual relationships. Women get advice on how to tell a story so it won't irritate her man. (Tell him the ending first.)

Gray assures us that neither is superior. The entire premise is easier to absorb if you're a reader who puts stock in the phrase “the opposite s*x,” which we encountered so many times in the text that I started to wonder if Gray had popularized the phrase. Many shared eye rolls aside, Mark reported pleasant feelings of recognition.

After all, in spite of well-meaning feminist parents, he'd been raised to act exactly as Gray anticipated, and so had I. Mark mostly agreed with Gray's assertion that a “man's deepest fear is that he is not good enough or that he is incompetent.” In the margin next to that same sentence in my copy, I'd written “lol.”

What a bword lmao

Things got worse. Mark surprised himself by appreciating Gray's openness about men's sensitivities and recognized the cultural messages that teach men to avoid sharing what's inside. At times, Gray verged on the profound. (“Not to be needed is a slow death for a man.”) Mark admitted that he agreed with Gray about men's outsize need to be trusted. He chafed when I asked if he'd washed his hands after coming back from the store. “Can't you trust me with basic hygiene?” he reasonably wanted to know. (I could not. It's a pandemic!)

“Not all messages have to speak to all people at all times.” I, on the other hand, found myself feeling afflicted every time I encountered any good advice (when someone says they're “fine,” believe them until they say otherwise? impossible), and it wasn't just because I felt caricatured. (I do not, in fact, enjoy shopping!) It was also that the snob in me didn't want these dicta to apply to my life. I'm not a simple creature. I am a skeptic. I subscribe to The New York Review of Books, for God's sake!

If I were to seek advice on my marriage at all, it would be from someone with better taste in fonts.

And MANY MORE BAD TAKES lol

!chuds !nonchuds

!bookworms !writecel

Previous thread here:

https://rdrama.net/h/lit/post/228695/marseylongpost-rwriting-how-do-you-trigger

I love you guys,

gays, straights, and strags of all stripes.

When I see you all,

I turn tail and walk,

But when I type with you,

I don't need to pretend,

It's safe here,

We are losers standing tall.

The fatsos pretending to be thin,

The whoors pretending to be free of sin,

The cucks capslock screaming like a tiger,

The Ni- pretending to own the civilizational fire.

Liars and thieves of all kind and stripes,

Come to rdrama to pretend to have might,

Worry not, I won't judge,

I believe in you.

I believe that a jewish chad can be normied.

I believe that a whore can love.

I believe my black brothers and sisters,

Can actually rise above.

But it is not here where this will happen,

It is not the keyboard warrior that will save the day,

You must move ahead, open those curtains, and dare to walk outside,

For nobody else can live your life for you.

A life. A life.

A thing that lasts scant a century.

An infinity of darkness before,

And an infinity of darkness after.

That's what makes it so precious.

So walk and crawl my friend,

Your life doesn't exist on a screen,

It exists beyond your front door,

Out there.

Face their judgement,

Face their ridicule,

Not because you deserve nothing better than to be looked down upon,

But because you deserve to find out what can be improved.

I don't want you to be a prisoner,

Of your own mind and delusions,

Where you are a confident honorable fella,

A figment that breaks apart at the first touch against the world.

You are more of this world than you know,

So embrace it,

The flowers as well as the shit,

The flowers to love yourself,

The shit to honestly know exactly how deep it is.

For how can a cloth be rightly cut without measuring it?

I believe in you,

You losers all,

and the few paypigs that watch ( send me dc ).

I believe.

I believe, for it is belief that has carried me to better waters. It is belief that has a noticeable positive impact on neurobiological processes. It is belief where a man starts.

I believe in you. Believe in yourself. Accept the shit you are in, and make it better, day by day, piece by piece, moment by moment.

I believe in you dramanaut.

So as some of you may remember I decided to start reading books again and I asked you guys for recommendations and the first recommendation I got was Stranger in a Strange Land so I started reading that.

And well I forgot how fricking long it takes to read books, I've been reading this thing off and on for two whole days and I'm only halfway through it, so I thought I'd take a break to review the book so far.

So the premise is that mankind in the future as envisioned by 1950 sends an expedition to Mars that (as far as they know) dies. Later they send another expedition that finds out that Mars is inhabited and the first expedition left one baby, which the Martians raised. The orphan comes back to Earth, now apparently (by Earth legal doctrine) the owner of Mars (and several valuable Earth patents and companies through his parents).

I thought the book was interesting when the orphan, named Valentine Michael Smith or just the Man from Mars, just arrived and was struggling to adapt. I find the book is the most interesting when it's focusing on the Man from Mars and how different he is from humans just having been raised by the Martians. He has all sorts of strange abilities that are justified by his Martian upbringing plus the way he thinks is uniquely alien in an interesting way.

I'm less thrilled with all the political wrangling of the characters around Mike, that stuff is OKAY but not really great if I'm totally honest and can get to be a chore to read. A lot of the characters in this book aren't very deep or vividly realized so it's kind of a drag to spend time with them, like the doctor/lawyer/rich guy who becomes Mike's guardian, he's kind of a generic character where the best thing you can say about him is he keeps the plot moving.

Occasionally the book relates what's going on in Martian civilization and casually relates that there used to be a civilization on Jupiter until the Martians killed them all. I wish the book would get around to doing something with that lingering threat of something similar happening to humanity. They've had Mike show he's a really dangerous threat under the right circumstances, he can basically wish anything that's a threat to him or his friends out of existence. So far they aren't doing much with that though, I wish they'd do more.

Anyway so far I'd say I'm enjoying the book, at least enough to keep reading and find out what happens. We'll see what I say when I get to the end.