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(Quote) Good question. We only see children from afar as one of Gurgeh’s friends changes sex in order to give birth to a child. Is that right? It’s been awhile since I read this. I loved this book. I loved the philosophy it allowed me to think abo…
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I was wrong about the connection to Toni Morrison. I Googled it, and Jemisin says she had not read Beloved, but that Corundum’s death was patterned after a real person, Margaret Garner, who killed her daughter rather than let her be taken back into …
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(Quote) Thanks for the link and for the warning. I think I’ll wait until I’ve read the whole trilogy. I felt hampered by the spoiler I inadvertently read about a quarter of the way into the book. It was about stuff we had been speculating about, and…
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I’m mulling things over a bit, thinking about Jemisin’s relationship to the African-American literary tradition. W. E. B. Du Bois, in The Souls of Black Folks wrote about a “double consciousness” experienced by oppressed peoples who have to live in …
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I’m really sorry about flaking out the last few weeks of The Fifth Season. Quite frankly, I’ve been a bit depressed at the social distancing and haven’t been reading much. I’ve tried to turn that around this week. I just finished the novel tonight,…
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I don’t take this as the author deceiving the reader to protect the big reveal but as the unreliable narrator. Syen killing Corundum is a nod to Toni Morrison’s Beloved, in which the protagonist kills her child rather than let her be taken into sla…
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(Quote) Yes, this is similar to my critique of the Culture, and I didn’t think I was making a libertarian argument, either. People aren’t involved in their own governance in the Culture. If people were actually involved in the communal activity you’…
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I played an Atomic Robo game via play-by-post a few years ago where I played someone with glandular enhancements to give the PC different boosts. It wasn’t in a setting like that of the Culture, though.
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(Quote) Yes, I think it’s a good sign of a good book in general, not just in science fiction) if discussion turns to the book’s underlying philosophy (and also the Culture’s hidden, underlying philosophy) as much as to the explicit content of the bo…
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Regarding whether the Culture is for the happiness and fulfillment of people, I agree perhaps with one of these but not the other. The happiness of individual humans (I’ll call them “humans”) seems to be a high value, but humanity’s fulfillment does…
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I’m so far behind in comments here that it’s embarrassing. I loved this book. I also noticed the use of language to shape and control Gurgeh. I loved the philosophical aspects of the book. I haven’t yet looked at the rest of the questions, so maybe…
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There were only a few things that caught my attention in these chapters. The title of Chapter 18 begs me to keep looking for meaning below the surface. The hexagonal shaft under Allia goes all the way down to the core. That’s a deep shaft! Powerf…
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It depends on what level of need you focus on in determining whether this is a utopia. At the basic levels of existence, all physical needs are met. If that’s all that matters in life, this is a utopia. But the higher levels of the hierarchy of need…
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I’m over a week behind in commenting. I haven’t read read Chapters 18 and 19 yet, so my comments here come with no foreknowledge. 1) Part of the spoiler in that list I mentioned a few weeks ago is contained in these chapters. The link between Damay…
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I like a variety of styles. I liked Sarah Canary, which someone in our conversations called literary. Although I didn’t participate in the discussion here because I hadn’t yet figured out the notifications, I read it only because it was a selection …
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(Quote) I will definitely want to read that when we are finished.
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Scouring the world for the perfect book. :)
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A couple of weeks ago I read a list of best books of [insert appropriate period of time]. In three or four sentences about this book, it revealed a spoiler that has kept me from continuing our conversation. I keep thinking, “How can I interact knowi…
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Yes, I will pick a book for April and lead the discussion. When does the selection need to be made?
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Can’t wait.
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The very word “control” is used so many times in Chapter 8 that I began thinking it was overkill. We had already seen it earlier. With that exception, this chapter was my favorite so far. It was important to show us the node station and the plight o…
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(Quote) When I said I like the profession of love and the theme of control, I meant I like the profession of love as a portrayal of control, not that I like or approve of the act within the fiction. I’m withholding judgment as to whether there’s an…
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I confess that during this slow read, since it’s been a week or so since I last read from this book, it takes me a few pages to remember what’s going on. I did like both the profession of love, which I didn’t take to be romantic, either, and the th…
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FYI: The U.S. edition appears to be entitled Midnight Riot.
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I’ve started reading our February book and ran across this in the first chapter; “He sketched out a glacier game, based on what sort of minerals could be gouged from rocks, what mountains destroyed, rivers dammed, landscapes created and bays blocke…
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My mineral name is calcite, the main mineral in limestone, which is common where I live in Kentucky, and which, over the eons, dissolves into wonderful caves, which I sometimes explore.
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Count me in. I haven’t read any of The Culture books. Even though they’re standalone, I think I’ll read Consider Phlebas first. I’ve just now downloaded it, and I have the day off tomorrow.
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I actually got the notification. Yay! But was working all weekend, morning, noon, and night, and didn’t have time to respond until now. Boo!
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I’m not minding the expressionistic aspects of the narration. I think identifying it this way is quite insightful, @Michael_S_Miller . I am not enjoying the second-person aspects, though. If it turns out that someone is telling the story to Essun f…
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The Prologue seemed like the first “moves” in Microscope. Just enough development to jump in and run a larger scene (Chapter 1). I don’t at all mind this mosaic style of revealing the world, if it eventually reveals to us a coherent world. I enjoy …