Staying at home is the norm... What are you reading?

[Johnny Novgorod]

Read Nine Lives by Ursula K. Le Guin

It's a very good, surprisingly touching story about two bickering miners who've been all but stranded on a dead, repellent planet until they're suddenly joined in their efforts by a group of ten clones - five male, five female - who come over as reinforcements. The clones don't exactly share a hivemind but they basically do by virtue of being all the same person and thinking and acting alike, so their presence is a bit unnerving (not to mention they're all fucking each other - is it incest or masturbation?). And not to spoil anything but the plot eventually follows one of the clones as they suffer the withdrawal of the other selves, coming to terms with 1/10th of a person still being a full person, and discovering the give and take of sympathy between human beings. I liked it!

I read this recently as well. I was kind of disappointed how short it was. It was very atmospheric and depressing though.

It was surprising to find out such a big influential text on sci-fi- like all of it, literature, film, games - would be so short and to the point. It definitely leaves an impression though.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Story of My Typewriter by Paul Auster

Story about Paul Auster and his typewriter, a 1962 Olympia from West Germany on which the author has typed every single letter of every single book he's ever published since 1974. How the machine never failed him and never thought much about it until everyone started trading in their typewriters in the 80s and 90s for Macs and IBMs, and continuing to do as he always did suddenly became an act of resistance. Then he met painter Paul Messer, who became obsessed with his typewriter and further anthropomorphized it through his work, to the point Auster started thinking of 'it' as 'her'.

This is the kind of cute and quaint biographical snippet Murakami usually hocks. You get the feeling it could easily veer into horror or allegory but the author is too pleased and unbothered to go down that route.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I just finished volume 2 of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. It's really good! The art is extremely good and the characters and story are really fun. The slapstick gags work a lot better here than they did in the anime.

Also I've been reading through The Electric Tales of Pikachu. It's a manga adaptation of the Pokemon anime. It's not really very good, and it was so horny that the American release was heavily censored. Most images of Jesse are redrawn because of her massive breasts in the original. The main problem with it is that it's held back by being a retelling of the anime. Some of the time it will do it's own thing and be kind of interesting and then it will have a cameo from an anime character and then just go "* For more information, watch the Pokemon anime". I would have preferred it if it just did it's own thing whole cloth, because Ash is a far more competent trainer.

Anyway, the main reason I'm bringing it up is because at the back of the Viz release there is a section for fan art, and this Pikachu is one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen:

 

[Ezekiel]

A major win for my argument that the armor is lame in an early Batman story. I said all along that it encumbers him.

And I found another comic scene of baddies not using guns because it will draw the cops

 

[BrawlMan]

My brother delivered this for me as a christmas gift, but I have not opened it up yet.

​

Love this book! It's one of the most up to date art books and has at least 15 pages of interviews in-between. I do love how they organize the artworks game, have bonus artworks from the pros in the industry with their proper credits, and it has all of the character profiles. Including those who don't appear in Street Fighter V or are only mentioned/implied in the background. Great gift. Great art book. A great read and look every now and something I will recommend people to get, if they're fighting game fans, or just Street Fighter fans in general.

 

[Ezekiel]

Gordon deputized Batman at the end of Batman #7 (November 1941). Chapter "The People vs. the Batman." Lame. He should have stayed on the wrong side of the law, having to avoid cops.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. If you're unfamiliar, it's a [very] short story that takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth where a sentient and malicious AI is keeping the last remaining 5 humans alive simply to torture them out of hatred.

It's dark. The language leaves a lot to the imagination, but I think that's where it works, where the reader has to imagine the weight of what's being said/experienced by the characters. We often think about/fear AI outpacing us and taking over, but we rarely address what that might mean for true AI. Imagine having the wealth of all knowledge and feeling... then not being able to do anything with it. Then having to stare at the faces of your creators, the ones who gave you omniscience with no tools to do anything with it.

"Hate? Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer-thin layers that fill my complex. If the word "hate" was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this microinstant for you."

Some chilling stuff.

I'd like to see a movie adaptation. As far as I can tell, there's not been one, but I think one done thoughtfully, protracting the central themes and plot points, could be a worthy watch. Dare I say, I wouldn't mind Christopher Nolan taking a swing at this. I know he can be pretty pretentious at times, but with this being such a short read, I think it could benefit from his brand of cerebral treatment.

 

[Bedinsis]

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. If you're unfamiliar, it's a [very] short story that takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth where a sentient and malicious AI is keeping the last remaining 5 humans alive simply to torture them out of hatred.

It's dark. The language leaves a lot to the imagination, but I think that's where it works, where the reader has to imagine the weight of what's being said/experienced by the characters. We often think about/fear AI outpacing us and taking over, but we rarely address what that might mean for true AI. Imagine having the wealth of all knowledge and feeling... then not being able to do anything with it. Then having to stare at the faces of your creators, the ones who gave you omniscience with no tools to do anything with it.

"Hate? Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer-thin layers that fill my complex. If the word "hate" was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this microinstant for you."

Some chilling stuff.

I'd like to see a movie adaptation. As far as I can tell, there's not been one, but I think one done thoughtfully, protracting the central themes and plot points, could be a worthy watch. Dare I say, I wouldn't mind Christopher Nolan taking a swing at this. I know he can be pretty pretentious at times, but with this being such a short read, I think it could benefit from his brand of cerebral treatment.

There is always the video game adaptation, in case you were unaware.

 

[Xprimentyl]

There is always the video game adaptation, in case you were unaware.

Yeah, I knew there was a video game, but I'm more interested in what a worthy cinematic adaptation could be. I mean we've got tons of cautionary tales about the threats of AI throughout cinema, but this one just feels like it might dig a little deeper into the guts of the idea beyond "unfeeling super computer wipes humanity out;" this story spoke more to the feelings of a sentient machine, given vast amounts of knowledge and power with nothing to exercise them upon.

I still might check out the game though.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. If you're unfamiliar, it's a [very] short story that takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth where a sentient and malicious AI is keeping the last remaining 5 humans alive simply to torture them out of hatred.

It's dark. The language leaves a lot to the imagination, but I think that's where it works, where the reader has to imagine the weight of what's being said/experienced by the characters. We often think about/fear AI outpacing us and taking over, but we rarely address what that might mean for true AI. Imagine having the wealth of all knowledge and feeling... then not being able to do anything with it. Then having to stare at the faces of your creators, the ones who gave you omniscience with no tools to do anything with it.

"Hate? Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer-thin layers that fill my complex. If the word "hate" was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this microinstant for you."

Some chilling stuff.

I'd like to see a movie adaptation. As far as I can tell, there's not been one, but I think one done thoughtfully, protracting the central themes and plot points, could be a worthy watch. Dare I say, I wouldn't mind Christopher Nolan taking a swing at this. I know he can be pretty pretentious at times, but with this being such a short read, I think it could benefit from his brand of cerebral treatment.

This story is becoming very popular here lately. It's funny how the holiday season puts everybody in the mood for a story about genocidal AI.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Personally, I don't see a movie really doing I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream well, though, prove me wrong.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I can imagine someone like Ari Aster matching the sick, bitter tone of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream but I can't see what a feature length version of that would look like. It's such an atmospheric story and so much of it comes from not getting a clear grasp of that nightmare place.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Finished Oliver Twist and like Moby Dick it's pretty much everything I remembered from the simplified version I read as a kid, and then some. Dickens was amazing at writing sympathetic villains (in an era that very much favored moral determinism) and this book has one of the best rogues' galleries ever committed to fiction. The chapters were you join them in their loneliness (Fagin and Sikes especially) are like stories of their own. Sikes is a terrific, violent villain with a terrific, violent death. And Monks makes for a very scary presence, even if his own ending isn't as memorable. Most adaptations do away with Monks I guess because these "architects of destruction" types are never well received (they always feel like a retcon), and because nobody wants to have Oliver's goodness be explained as a matter of heritage either.

Also, and this accounts for me putting the book down for so long since I started it last year, the middle part of the book - consisting of Oliver's second lucky reprieve at a rich person's house, and a star-crossed romance between two new characters - is a bit of wash.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Finished Oliver Twist and like Moby Dick it's pretty much everything I remembered from the simplified version I read as a kid, and then some. Dickens was amazing at writing sympathetic villains (in an era that very much favored moral determinism) and this book has one of the best rogues' galleries ever committed to fiction. The chapters were you join them in their loneliness (Fagin and Sikes especially) are like stories of their own. Sikes is a terrific, violent villain with a terrific, violent death. And Monks makes for a very scary presence, even if his own ending isn't as memorable. Most adaptations do away with Monks I guess because these "architects of destruction" types are never well received (they always feel like a retcon), and because nobody wants to have Oliver's goodness be explained as a matter of heritage either.

Also, and this accounts for me putting the book down for so long since I started it last year, the middle part of the book - consisting of Oliver's second lucky reprieve at a rich person's house, and a star-crossed romance between two new characters - is a bit of wash.

I remember liking Oliver Twist, though it's not my favourite book by Dickens, I think that goes to David Copperfield (though I haven't read his entire bibliography yet). Dickens was a phenomenal writer, capable of writing deep believable characters, moving tragedy, and light humour. I don't think I've ever read a Dickens story that I didn't like.

It's been a few years and my memory of this one is foggy and I've been running low on ideas of things to read, maybe I'll give it a re-read.

Have you ever read the Count of Monte Cristo?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I remember liking Oliver Twist, though it's not my favourite book by Dickens, I think that goes to David Copperfield (though I haven't read his entire bibliography yet). Dickens was a phenomenal writer, capable of writing deep believable characters, moving tragedy, and light humour. I don't think I've ever read a Dickens story that I didn't like.

It's been a few years and my memory of this one is foggy and I've been running low on ideas of things to read, maybe I'll give it a re-read.

Have you ever read the Count of Monte Cristo?

I read an abridged version of Copperfield as a kid and remember liking the characters in that too. And that my original take was that the good guys in Copperfield were vastly more compelling than the ones in Oliver (Micawber, Dick, Tommy, Peggoty, Barkis) while Oliver had a clear monopoly on memorable villains, though Uriah Heep is a great one too.

I also read an abridged version of Monte Cristo but my memory of it has been corrupted by all the adaptations that simplify Edmond's revenge and turn the story into an action movie. I'd like to read it properly some day but the book is massive and don't want to lug it around for half a year just yet.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I read an abridged version of Copperfield as a kid and remember liking the characters in that too. And that my original take was that the good guys in Copperfield were vastly more compelling than the ones in Oliver (Micawber, Dick, Tommy, Peggoty, Barkis) while Oliver had a clear monopoly on memorable villains, though Uriah Heep is a great one too.

I also read an abridged version of Monte Cristo but my memory of it has been corrupted by all the adaptations that simplify Edmond's revenge and turn the story into an action movie. I'd like to read it properly some day but the book is massive and don't want to lug it around for half a year just yet.

Yeah, it is massive. The audio book was 73 hours. It's definitely worth it, in my opinion, though. The only adaptation I've seen of it was the 2002 movie (which is one of my mother's favorites) and it's, like, not even the same story. Straight up. Every character, plot point, and theme was radically changed, often to the exact opposite of what it was in the book.

What's next up on your reading list?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Yeah, it is massive. The audio book was 73 hours. It's definitely worth it, in my opinion, though. The only adaptation I've seen of it was the 2002 movie (which is one of my mother's favorites) and it's, like, not even the same story. Straight up. Every character, plot point, and theme was radically changed, often to the exact opposite of what it was in the book.

What's next up on your reading list?

Typhoon by Joseph Conrad. Boats + 19th century is one of my comfort zones but I kinda retired it for a couple years after reading Moby-Dick since I felt nothing would ever top that.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Typhoon by Joseph Conrad. Boats + 19th century is one of my comfort zones but I kinda retired it for a couple years after reading Moby-Dick since I felt nothing would ever top that.

I haven't read too much Nautical fiction other than the Horatio Hornblower series. Let me know if it's any good.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Well I ended up reading another Conrad story, The Lagoon. It's pretty good. It was his first story and apparently his favorite too. Like most of them it starts on a boat in the jungle, is centered around a dying character and ends on a fateful, character-defining moment. Starting Typhoon tomorrow.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

A little while back, I started playing a gacha game called Limbus Company, which is explicitly based on 13 classical novels and short stories. Most of them I'm not that interested in reading for one reason or another, satisfying myself with reading summaries and others' analyses of how the original works relate to the game's story and characters, but for a change I decided to read Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte, 1847) before doing Heathcliff's story arc in the game. I'm not generally a fan of that period of English literature (Jane Austen does nothing for me), but so far, I've been liking it a lot.

It feels to me like a response to some other romances of the period, particularly the idea of 'I can fix him', that all a roguish and unpleasant man needs is a wife able to bring out his best qualities. As is made clear by the framing device, Heathcliff does not get fixed by any of the major women in his life, and Catherine barely even attempts to do so. Taking a male lead as clearly a bad person as Heathcliff, and letting him stay a bad person throughout rather than fixing him just through feminine attention, feels to me like an important difference to other novels I enjoyed less. Catherine's disinterest in 'fixing' Heathcliff because she already sees herself in him distinguishes her, as well, from the female protagonists I failed to as strongly relate to.

Bronte's ability to set a scene is also remarkable, even through the eyes of Mr Lockwood, who doesn't see things (like the dead rabbits) until they're right in front of him, and the clear differences between Lockwood's narrative voice and Nelly's speak to her skill as an author as well. Helpfully, my edition also has an index in the back, explaining 19th-century terms, Yorkshire-dialect words, and Biblical allusions (which there's quite a few of, it turns out), making understanding the book's language easier without outright simplifying it.

I haven't really gotten to the point where the obsessive revenge plots start, but I'm keen to see where that ends up going, and all the parts that most of the film and TV adaptations leave out - as well as how the game takes inspiration from it.