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What are you Reading Now?

Mythopoet

Auror
I'm kinda floundering around right now. Just finished reading a trilogy of books I really like for the 3rd time. L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero's Children books.

I'm slowing accumulating the manga volumes of From Far Away and rereading them. Absolutely one of my favorite fantasy adventure + romance series. But manga volumes go by so quickly.

My budget is very tight and I can't go to the library because I owe them a ton of money. :eek:

So I'm trying to force myself to read more of the books I already have on my "totally going to read this someday" pile (if you can call ebooks a pile). The Sundering Flood by William Morris, which is a bit of a chore. (I refuse to believe anyone even in Morris' day knew what the word "kenspeckle" means. Thank God I'm reading this on a kindle with a built in dictionary.) And there's also a bunch of books I got for research that I really need to buckle down and finish, but that's not good reading when you're trying to fall asleep at night.
 

Russ

Istar
Just finished reading a great book called "Meditations on Violence" about the psychology and reality of close in violence as compared to the approach of many martial arts schools today. If you are interested in understanding a lot more about the reality of violence and war I think this teamed with Keegan's "Face of Battle" and "On Killing" would be a very good grounding.
 
Just finished reading a great book called "Meditations on Violence" about the psychology and reality of close in violence as compared to the approach of many martial arts schools today. If you are interested in understanding a lot more about the reality of violence and war I think this teamed with Keegan's "Face of Battle" and "On Killing" would be a very good grounding.

Hmm. Sounds interesting
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I picked up The Handmaid's Tale. I don't usually like to read dystopian stories and true to form I find this one very depressing. But I can't deny the power of the narrative. Despite myself, I'm hooked.
 
False Gods: A Warhammer 30K book about the Horus Heresy.
Gears of Faith: One of the Pathfinder tales from the Pathfinder games.
Finished the my Rat Queen's three graphic novels compilations.
 

Geo

Troubadour
I picked up The Handmaid's Tale. I don't usually like to read dystopian stories and true to form I find this one very depressing. But I can't deny the power of the narrative. Despite myself, I'm hooked.

I read it recently and found it fascinating. I think Margaret Atwood mastering of psychic distance is obvious in this book, and I love the claustrophobic sense it imparts to the story.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Probably the only Atwood work I didn't like. The implausibility of the setup started me off on the wrong foot. Maybe I'll take another look at it some time. I do like her other works.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Probably the only Atwood work I didn't like. The implausibility of the setup started me off on the wrong foot. Maybe I'll take another look at it some time. I do like her other works.

Well, personally, looking at the world around me today, it doesn't seem all that implausible. ;)

Anyway, finished it the other day. The ending was a bit unsatisfying. It seemed more like she didn't really know how to end the handmaid's story so she just pulled out (haha, pun intended) and tacked on that epilogue as if to say "so, was it good for you?" The epilogue just was so different from the tone of the tale that it was jarring and as it didn't actually give any real insight or answers to the story I don't see the point of it except making an END. But I thought there was a lot of thought provoking material in the story.

I tried to talk to my husband about it and even though he had never read it he know about it and had a very condescending attitude toward it based on what he perceived as its radical improbability as well. It seems to be the idea that people simply wouldn't do these things, or set up this type of society. And yet, in the past year I've had to come to terms with many of my close family members embracing ideas and movements and actions that I consider unconscionable. I never would have considered it possible of these people before. So I don't think it's impossible for such a thing to happen. In fact, I find it very relevant these days. Which is probably why it got a new miniseries.

This is the first book I've ever read by Atwood. Any suggestions for others?
 

Russ

Istar
I liked a Handmaid's Tale, until Ms. Atwood tried to convince people it was not science fiction for reasons that struck me as quite petty.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I liked a Handmaid's Tale, until Ms. Atwood tried to convince people it was not science fiction for reasons that struck me as quite petty.

I think she's quite right. There's nothing "science" about it. The only possible reason one could want to categorize it as SF is because it was set in a near future. But I think the idea that anything set in the future must be SF is ridiculous. Speculative fiction is a much better label for the book.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Well, personally, looking at the world around me today, it doesn't seem all that implausible. ;)

Check out Oryx and Crake, or her short story compilations, like Stone Mattresses.

I do think they're all science fiction, given that they're speculations about future or alternate societies. But it doesn't matter much to me whether they're called that or not. The problem with Atwood, is she made very reductive, insulting, and snobbish comments about SF to support her idea of that of course she never wrote any such thing.

At least, one interpretation is snobbery. Ursula K. LeGuin, who criticized Atwood over this, said is was more a kind of literary self-preservation. “She doesn’t want the literary bigots to shove her into the literary ghetto.”

I still like Atwood's writing generally, however.
 
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Russ

Istar
I think she's quite right. There's nothing "science" about it. The only possible reason one could want to categorize it as SF is because it was set in a near future. But I think the idea that anything set in the future must be SF is ridiculous. Speculative fiction is a much better label for the book.

Almost every academic who studies the field disagrees with you, and her attempts to define science fiction to get herself out of the problem were downright laughable.

While she has tried to intellectualize her massive error, it really did arise out of her arrogance and clear disdain for mere genre fiction and science fiction in particular. She started this whole problem with well reported definition of science fiction as:

Atwood’s appalling claim on BBC Breakfast that science fiction is no more than “talking squids in outer space,”

She had also referred in science fiction in those days as "mundane" and as a pulp literature.

But she has at least had the good grace to try and apologize and worm her way out of it for years.

LeGuin nailed the issue on the nose, and in fact is a friend of Atwood, who is not afraid of the genre ghetto.

PS- her attempts to similarly prevent people from calling O&C science fiction are even more ridiculous.
 
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Geo

Troubadour
Anyway, finished it the other day. The ending was a bit unsatisfying. It seemed more like she didn't really know how to end the handmaid's story so she just pulled out (haha, pun intended) and tacked on that epilogue as if to say "so, was it good for you?" The epilogue just was so different from the tone of the tale that it was jarring and as it didn't actually give any real insight or answers to the story I don't see the point of it except making an END. But I thought there was a lot of thought provoking material in the story.

Curiously, the ending, that epilogue you mentioned, is one of my favorite parts of this book. It works quite well by recreating the anonymity that most often enshrouds victims of totalitarian regimes, hence letting us to think in the thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of stories represented by this single one. Also, I find a stroke of genius that we don't even get to know what her name is or how her story ends, that even the "bad guys" are left undefined... and because she the explains the changes in the world from a few hundred years in the future respect to the story Atwood also manages to show us how, ultimately, history is nothing but the interpretation and reinterpretation of what really has happened based on individual experiences and a few documents.

I think that her ending may be one of the reasons why so many critics have classified The Handmaid's Tale as literary fiction instead of simply as speculative fiction. Ah and I agree with you (and with Atwood), putting this book in the Science Fiction genre feels a bit wrong. i.e., the portrayed society is not, in any way, significantly more technologically advance that present societies, nor is the story set so far away in the future that we can't recognize the world of today (beyond Gillian, she even uses the name of actual countries). However, books and the genre they belong, is and will continue to be I'm sure, a matter of discussion.
 

Geo

Troubadour
The problem with Atwood, is she made very reductive, insulting, and snobbish comments about SF to support her idea of that of course she never wrote any such thing.

At least, one interpretation is snobbery. Ursula K. LeGuin, who criticized Atwood over this, said is was more a kind of literary self-preservation. “She doesn’t want the literary bigots to shove her into the literary ghetto.”

I still like Atwood's writing generally, however.

I do think Atwood is at times snobbish, even more noticeably in recent interviews, those related with the serialization of her book, and even so, I have to agree with her in that is hard to find reasons to call The Handmaid's Tale science fiction. And yes, Atwood is now fighting to get out of the literary fiction category (I love LeGuins' literary ghetto reference, by the way), but in the 80s she was quite please when the critics put her there, and edgy choreographers and musicians were putting together operas based on the story... but I suppose that if your book is still relevant after 30 years of publication, you kind of have won the right to rethink what genre or classification suits it better.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I do think Atwood is at times snobbish, even more noticeably in recent interviews, those related with the serialization of her book, and even so, I have to agree with her in that is hard to find reasons to call The Handmaid's Tale science fiction. And yes, Atwood is now fighting to get out of the literary fiction category (I love LeGuins' literary ghetto reference, by the way), but in the 80s she was quite please when the critics put her there, and edgy choreographers and musicians were putting together operas based on the story... but I suppose that if your book is still relevant after 30 years of publication, you kind of have won the right to rethink what genre or classification suits it better.

I think it is quite clearly science fiction and you have to go through some contortions to come up with reasons that it isn't. To take portions of what authors and editors have said:

Philip K. Dick: "I will define science fiction, first, by saying what science fiction is not. It cannot be defined as 'a story set in the future,' [nor does it require] untra-advanced technology. It must have a fictitious world, a society that does not in fact exist, but is predicated on our known society... that comes out of our world, the one we know"

Barry Malzberg: "Science fiction is "that branch of fiction that deals with the possible effects of an altered technology or social system on mankind in an imagined future, an altered present, or an alternative past."

Nancy Kress: "I would define “science fiction” as fiction that replaces one or more facts about our current world with speculative element(s) that are presented in a way that does not seem magical. That element might be scientific or technological change, or sociological change, or just a time change — a future reality instead of today’s."

There are tons of definition, many narrower that I think belong more to hard SF. A definition that excludes something like Handmaid's Tale basically excludes social science from the definition of SF, which I think is a mistake.

(I think I fixed the formatting problem)
 
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