I'm trying to read This Is How You Lose The Time War, but I'm struggling to understand what is going on, and I'm not sure if it gets better. It feels like a dense read. I heard so much about it, but perhaps I'm too impatient?
@strathearnrose@dilmandila@bookstodon I was underwhelmed and didn't finish it. I wasn't really in the mood for it and other library patrons were waiting for it. Might try it again someday, but I like my fiction a lot weirder, mostly.
@KateOfMind@strathearnrose@bookstodon Just read how it got attention and it seems to be from a single influencer.... But well, I hear they are developing a TV series out of it. That might actually work better since with TV they have to emphasize the visual elements and this might help with getting into the story. I failed to get a sense of place which is one reason I couldn't get into the story.
@maxmm77@dbsalk@bookstodon NOT AT ALL. Short of reading Ayn Rand as a paean to communism I doubt it's possible to "read something wrong" - reading is subjective and personal and one's own opinions and reactions are ALWAYS right, for each of us. Vive la différence, chacun à son goût etc. 😀
I've #finishedReading a few of these #GardnerDozois best-of anthologies, and they've all been ridiculously good value. This one collects #SciFi short stories from 2001, with my favourites being 'On K2 with Kanakaredes' by #DanSimmons , 'The Chief Designer' by #AndyDuncan and, best of all, 'May Be Some Time' by #BrendaWClough , a time travel story that tells which 'some time' Captain Oates headed into the Antarctic blizzard for. #Bookstodon@bookstodon
@bookstodon also, while #SciFi stories aren't really 'for' predicting the future, 'The Real Thing' by #CarolynIvesGilman is a bang up to date, only slightly exaggerated, satire of the current state of the internet, written in 2001! Cesspits of conspiracies, amoral tech bros, AI-sweetened images, actual information as an expensive niche product, it's all there...
2024 marks the 45th anniversary of sci-fi horror masterpiece Alien, which was released May 25, 1979.
The first time I saw it I was pretty young, it was on TV and censored. We actually had it recorded on a VHS from TV, which is something my family did a lot. I only saw the full uncensored version years later! 😂
Each of Emma Newman's Planetfall quartet explores a different aspect of the same overarching story of religious driven intergalactic migration. In Atlas Alone (2019), the fourth story centres on an elite gamer & their attempt to uncover & then take revenge for a crime against humanity. To say much more would ruin the plot for you, but as with the others, this is great, fascinating sci-fi, which has a great payoff at the end.
@firefly@NeadReport@fskornia@TimWardCam@ChrisMayLA6@bookstodon I mean, technically I think you mean the Torah, a book which has remained copied word for word for thousands of years without changes. The Bible is a distinct and different thing.
The point of the faith that arose from the Essene prophet Jesus, was an intentional break with covenant of the Torah, while maintaining the history of it. As in, this is from whence we came, but we bring a new message from God.
Now, I could go into the splinters therein, and the vast difference between original Gnosticism, the various enclaves, and then the absorption and mistranslated messages promulgated by organized branches of the faith, but to conflate Bible as a term to mean the Torah, but none of the Jesus stuff, is simply not true.
The Aramaic, first version of the New Testament, written in Byblos Lebanon is the origin of the term Bible.
Nonsense. The first five books of Moses are called Torah. Then there is Neviim and Ketuvim. All of them together are called in Hebrew, "Tanakh" or "Miqra". In ancient Greek they were called, 'ta biblia' or The Bible centuries before Christ and the Apostles or any of the New Testament works.
> "a book which has remained copied word for word for thousands of years without changes."
This is not even remotely close to historical and recorded fact. Who taught you this nonsense?
> "The Bible is a distinct and different thing."
Nonsense, as proved above. Greek-speaking Hebrews in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. called the writings of the Prophets, 'ta biblia' (The Bible) The LXX (Septuagint) refers to the writings of the prophets as, 'ta biblia'. See Daniel Chapter 9 in the LXX.
> "The point of the faith that arose from the Essene prophet Jesus ..."
Jesus is no Essene. Your claim is New-Age and Hebrew roots nonsense. It's just made-up wooey hooey.
> "As in, this is from whence we came, but we bring a new message from God."
Jesus preached the faith of Abraham, which is not a new message at all, but God's original message recorded in the Hebrew Bible. You are inventing history like the cults and heretics often do. The gospel preached by Jesus is the same gospel preached to and by Abraham well before Moses.
> "and the vast difference between original Gnosticism"
Gnosticism is satanism. End of discussion. Jesus was not a gnostic. The Pharisees and Greco-Roman nobility were gnostics of the school of the Hellenes.
> "but to conflate Bible as a term to mean the Torah, but none of the Jesus stuff, is simply not true."
I have conflated nothing. You're the one conflating things wrongly. You misuse the word, "Torah", which applies only to the Pentateuch of Moses, when you should be using the Hebrew word, Tanakh. But the problem with your false theory is that millions of Hebrews in ancient times didn't speak or read Hebrew. Rather they spoke and wrote Greek, the language of the Septuagint, which is how they started calling the Tanakh "The Bible" instead.
> "The Aramaic, first version of the New Testament, written in Byblos Lebanon is the origin of the term Bible."
This is based on the spurious "Aramaic Original New Testament" theory, and it has exactly zero historical or archaelogical support. And this theory is 400 years too late, since Greek-speaking Israelites had already been calling the Tanakh, 'ta biblia' for 300-400 years before any Aramaic New Testament manuscripts appeared.
Some people hate the gospel of grace so much they will go through years and ages of mental gymnastics to re-write history in support of a works-based gospel that glorifies their, 'superior knowledge'. Thereby the Judaizing or gnostic "believer" can take center stage in the salvation story with his self-aggrandizing superior rationale. Salvation is by simple faith in the Messiah as our sacrifice for all sin, not by some superior hidden knowledge. Paul the Apostle made a fine point of this truth.
In sum: Ancient Jews did call the Tanakh, 'ta biblia' or "The Bible." In fact, many bible scholars insist on calling it specifically, "The Hebrew Bible" to be accurate and consistent. Judging by your claims, you don't know what you are talking about. Take a step back and think things through before you accept such sectarian and gnostic theories as fact. I recommend you read the entire Bible two or three times through, then read several tomes on textual criticism and philology before you read another single line of theological or historical claims.
I’m watching #3bodyproblem and reading EE Doc Smith’s Skylark at the same time. And the similarities are striking, even if the timescales are a less realistic in the century old books. #scifi#bookstodon@bookstodon
#JustFinished Where Peace Is Lost by Valerie Valdes.
Very different from her series starting with Chilling Effect, Where Peace Is Lost is much more serious. It reads as a quest to save a world, a journey or personal forgiveness, romance, and anti-capitalist philosophy. That's a lot to cram into 12 hours. It's all well done though, not seeming patchwork at all. Thus I zoomed through the story in two days.
Valdes delivers a solid book, perhaps leading us to "the further adventure of..."
Rebeccsa Mozo, the narrator, had a handful of mispronouciations that should have been caught by someone. Not enough to be ruinous, but distracting nonetheless. ☹️ Pronouncing buffet as the noun form, for instance, when it was used as the verb form.
@DejahEntendu@bookstodon I loved Where Peace Is Lost by Valerie Valdes. I've read her previous #books and they're enjoyable but for me not as gripping as Peace Lost. I very much hope for sequels!
@cpkimber
Thanks - in truth, I had no idea about Jameson.
Robinson may himself be no engineer, but he definitely seems to have done some thorough research and curating (or so I think, being a layperson in this discipline myself). @boeken@bookstodon
@fifischwarz@cpkimber@boeken@bookstodon Absolutely. His Mars trilogy may not be as popular as the Martian, but I don’t think that’s because it is less “hard” as a sci fi novel.
#JustFinished Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice.
Rice weaves a gorgeous follow-up to Moon of the Crusted Snow. About 12 years have passed since the power went out, and the Anishinaabe in what was the northern Ontario province are in need of a new home as local resources are dwindling. Moon of the Turning Leaves follows a group south and east as they search for a better place, preferably in their ancestral lands.
Along the way, they learn more of their world, both past and present. I felt that the characters learning they were big fish in a little pond was a nice touch, as many times lead characters are practically infallible.
Rice's prose is lyric, and his characters are rounded out. As soon as I saw he'd written another book in this world, I knew I had to read it. Billy Merasty, the narrator, adds to the immersion of the story.