So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[Stevil2001]

I remember enjoying the Space Trilogy in high school but finding it deeply weird.

I have read Beowulf in three different translations. Some unknown one in high school, Seamus Haney's in grad school, and Maria Dahvana Headley's a few years ago.

 

[Avro Arrow]

On the other hand, I have hung onto my copy of "The Novel That Will Not Be Named" simply to keep it off the used market (I'd burn it, but book-burning is something I cannot bring myself to do).

I have no idea how much time I have left, but before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I want to finally someday find out what this mystery book you keep teasing is.

If for nothing else, then just to see how anticlimatic it is after all this buildup.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

It's a book that demonstrates that a self-published author can occasionally make it into the bookstores, even with an opus as abominably bad as this one. It demonstrates that even a book that portrays a real-world nation-state as being driven by "for the evulz" malice, whose protagonist starts out as a total cad*, can find an audience. And it's a book that I really want to avoid any possibility of promoting, even just by provoking curiosity about whether it's really as bad as I say it is.

_____
* When the first few chapters of the first draft of my novel got workshopped, many years ago, I'd made too many assumptions about the audience, and ended up with most readers finding my protagonist unsympathetic; this guy, by contrast, seems like he was specifically intended to be as unsympathetic as possible.

 

[Commander Troi]

In the original Old English? Or in a modern translation.

I believe the version we read was in OE on one side and a translation on the other, but I don't really recall. However, OE isn't as hard as people think.

this guy, by contrast, seems like he was specifically intended to be as unsympathetic as possible.

Thomas Covenant?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Not reading any books, except whatever Bible passage my Our Daily Bread devotional prescribes, occasionally other passages. My most recent library borrowing was a wifi hotspot.

I've been browsing this for fun:

And I read this, which I got at a thrift store. Interesting, but it became less enjoyable as a novel near the end when describing her struggles to have laws passed.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I believe the version we read was in OE on one side and a translation on the other, but I don't really recall. However, OE isn't as hard as people think.

I have an audio book of Beowulf in Old English which I found at, of all places, Dollar Tree.

I have read some pre-Chaucer Middle English texts, and when I'd get stuck I found the best thing to do was to read it aloud. Hearing the word, as badly as I was mispronouncing it (thanks, Great Vowel Shift!), made it make sense in ways my eyes did not.

 

[Christopher]

I have read some pre-Chaucer Middle English texts, and when I'd get stuck I found the best thing to do was to read it aloud. Hearing the word, as badly as I was mispronouncing it (thanks, Great Vowel Shift!), made it make sense in ways my eyes did not.

Reminds me of my current journey through Shakespeare. I always wanted to experience every play at least once, and I realized they were better seen in performance than read on the page, so I'm watching the complete BBC Television Shakespeare from the '70s-'80s on Britbox (which has everything but The Two Noble Kinsmen, which is believed to be mostly John Fletcher's play with WS co-writing). The BBC productions are often abridged and have quality issues, but the language is certainly easier to follow when you see actors interpreting the lines. (For instance, using suggestive gestures and tones of voice to convey the meaning of the many archaic sex jokes in the Bard's plays.)

 

[Stevil2001]

I'm a bit skeptical of the claim you can just pick up Old English. Middle English, sure; like Allyn said, especially if you read it aloud you start to get a sense of it, but I don't think there's anything at all intuitive about, say, "Hwilum hie geheton æt hærgtrafum / wigweorþunga, wordum bædon / þæt him gastbona geoce efremede / wið þeodþreaum," to a modern speaker.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Not reading any books, except whatever Bible passage my Our Daily Bread devotional prescribes, occasionally other passages

You really ought to try reading the entire KJV, cover-to-cover, as a Lenten discipline sometime. Running through it at that pace gives you a feel for "the big picture" that you probably can't get any other way.

"Hwilum hie geheton æt hærgtrafum / wigweorþunga, wordum bædon / þæt him gastbona geoce efremede / wið þeodþreaum,"

Of course, it might be a bit easier with modern orthography (after all, most non-Icelandic speakers have no idea how to pronounce an "eth" or a "thorn"), but I think you've made my point. Back in the Spring of 1981, my second-semester English comp professor, who also taught old and middle English, read the class a few lines from Beowulf, in the course of a presentation of how one of his high school term papers eventually evolved into his doctoral dissertation. Just hearing it was intimidating enough.

 

[Kertrats47]

I'm a bit skeptical of the claim you can just pick up Old English. Middle English, sure; like Allyn said, especially if you read it aloud you start to get a sense of it, but I don't think there's anything at all intuitive about, say, "Hwilum hie geheton æt hærgtrafum / wigweorþunga, wordum bædon / þæt him gastbona geoce efremede / wið þeodþreaum," to a modern speaker.

Yeah, I took an Intro to Old English course in university, and it is mind-boggling how different the language is when compared to Modern or even Middle English. It is, in all the ways that matter, an almost completely different language.

 

[Commander Troi]

I'm a bit skeptical of the claim you can just pick up Old English. Middle English, sure; like Allyn said, especially if you read it aloud you start to get a sense of it, but I don't think there's anything at all intuitive about, say, "Hwilum hie geheton æt hærgtrafum / wigweorþunga, wordum bædon / þæt him gastbona geoce efremede / wið þeodþreaum," to a modern speaker.

I'm probably remembering wrong then and read a translation.

 

[Greg Cox]

Picked up THE AVENGER CHRONICLES, based on the 1930s pulp hero, for fifty cents at a barn sale today.

 

[USS Firefly]

I finished Replay by Ken Grimwood. A very good book!

The only unrealistic thing is, when you live those era over and over again, how can you not visit an Elvis Presley concert? And save Elvis from his manager and his "friends"?

 

[Victoria]

Seeking advice:

Having read the posts about Iain M Banks "Culture" novels, I tried "Consider Phlebas" on the grounds that I like to start a series at the beginning and, if it is the "worst" of the Culture novels, the only way is up.

Well, the background was interesting and the writing okay but the story had too much blood and violence for me, much of which seemed to be pointless (Phlebas seemed to be repeatedly waking up lying on something after having been knocked-out...I may be exaggerating here but that's how it felt!). I don't feel that reading the novel was a waste of time: equally it didn't make me feel that I wanted to read any more.

I've had a look at the synopses of the further Culture novels and it's not clear whether the violence and gore is present in the other novels. If it is, I don't want to bother trying any more. If it isn't, I'll try the next one at least.

Can anyone help me on this?

 

[youngtrek]

Monthly reading report. In June, I read (or finished reading) the following:

A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin (2005) (“A Song of Ice and Fire”—a.k.a., “Game of Thrones” series, book four of the five released so far)

Assignment: Eternity by Greg Cox (1998) (Star Trek)

The Collected Jack Kirby Collector Volume 3 (2004) (TwoMorrows Publishing) (Reprints The Jack Kirby Collector magazine #13-15 (December 1996 to April 1997)

Star Trek: Defiant Volume 2: Another Piece of the Action (2024) (Christopher Cantwell, Mike Feehan, Ramon Rosanas, et al.) (Reprints Star Trek: Defiant #8-11 and Annual 2024 (October 2023 to January 2024))

Geiger: Volume One (2021) (Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Brad Anderson, et al.) (Reprints Geiger #1-6 (April 2021 to September 2021))

I also read the following Star Trek short stories from various short story anthologies (these all centered around taking place following the events of the film Star Trek Generations

“One of Forty-seven” by E. Catherine Tobler (TOS/TNG) (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds III (2000))

“Reflections” (TOS/TNG) by Dayton Ward (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (1998))

“Full Circle” (TOS/TNG) by Scott Pearson (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds VII (2004))

“Solemn Duty” (TOS/TNG) by Jim Johnson (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds VII (2004))

“Rocket Man” (TOS/TNG) by Kenneth E. Carper (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 9 (2006))

“The Change of Seasons” (TNG) by Logan Page (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds III (2000))

“Terra Tonight” by Scott Pearson (TOS/TNG) (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 9 (2006))

“Infinite Bureaucracy” by Kim Sheard (DS9) (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds VII (2004))

“Touched” (VOY) (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds II (1999))

“Through the Looking Glass” by Susan Wright (New Frontier) (Star Trek: New Frontier: No Limits (2003)

At the end of June I have read 29 books and I am five books ahead of schedule on my 2024 GoodReads reading challenge of 50 books.

— David Young

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Now halfway through reviewing and marking up the current draft of my novel. I'm going to go back to the beginning, and update a long-neglected timeline spreadsheet. I'd created the timeline spreadsheet back when I started the current draft (following one I'd done for the original draft, but which had been lost years ago in a hard drive crash), but the current timeline only goes through about Chapter 8 (of 43 or 44). Over the weekend, I went through a couple of prequel/parallel short stories, and added relevant events from them to the timeline.

 

[Christopher]

Now halfway through reviewing and marking up the current draft of my novel. I'm going to go back to the beginning, and update a long-neglected timeline spreadsheet. I'd created the timeline spreadsheet back when I started the current draft (following one I'd done for the original draft, but which had been lost years ago in a hard drive crash), but the current timeline only goes through about Chapter 8 (of 43 or 44). Over the weekend, I went through a couple of prequel/parallel short stories, and added relevant events from them to the timeline.

I always do timeline documents for the scenes in my novels, ever since I realized while revising Star Trek: Ex Machina that I'd inadvertently had two days pass in one plotline in between two scenes set merely hours apart in the other plotline. That taught me always to keep track of the story's internal chronology to avoid such mistakes. I don't do spreadsheets, though, just a table in a word-processor document. Though I suppose the difference is a technicality.

In my Arachne novels, I needed the timeline for another reason, since the human characters had their heads shaved when they were captured by aliens at the beginning, so I needed to keep track of time to know how much their hair had grown back at any given point.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

It's a book that demonstrates that a self-published author can occasionally make it into the bookstores, even with an opus as abominably bad as this one. It demonstrates that even a book that portrays a real-world nation-state as being driven by "for the evulz" malice, whose protagonist starts out as a total cad*, can find an audience. And it's a book that I really want to avoid any possibility of promoting, even just by provoking curiosity about whether it's really as bad as I say it is.

Cool. What’s the name of the book, please?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Well, given that over the course of (note that I'm setting this in type as I go along) not quite 400 pages, my protagonist goes from being a not-quite-two-year-old toddler to being a 20-something who just successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, with no gaps of more than a few months, and that I've got several shared-universe short stories, and that real-world events are involved, I've got a lot of chronology to keep track of. And letting the timeline slide has gotten me a few continuity issues.

I will note that my real-time reference has been my collection of Star Trek calendars, going back to the early ones, with the oblique elliptical day-boxes.

Cool. What’s the name of the book, please?

Sorry. There's a reason why I only publicly refer to it as "The Novel That Will Not Be Named." No matter how scathing the review, it's bound to sell a copy to somebody who's morbidly curious to see if it's really that bad. Or to somebody who's actually attracted to a protagonist who starts out as a total cad, or to the idea of a sidekick getting killed off in an utterly nonsensical manner, or to the idea of a real-world nation-state as a simplistic "for-the-evuls" black-hat.

I will note that it has at some point been re-titled. Can we maybe get back to books that aren't egregious wastes of perfectly good paper?

 

[somebuddyX]

"The Embrace of Cold Architects" from the Myriad Universe books.