![[personal profile]](/makepkg/implementing-https-www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm in the middle of three books, one of which I will be in the middle of for ages as it's a ridiculously long web novel which the author is also in the middle of, unless he finished it recently and I missed it. That's Ward by Wildbow, the sequel to Worm, his engrossing million-word epic about a girl who can control bugs. If the format makes your eyes bleed, some judicious googling will turn up downloadable versions. Please do contribute to the author's Patreon or PayPal him some cash if you read.
The other books I'm in the middle of are a pair of re-reads, Fitzempress' Law by Diana Norman and Doomsday Book
by Connie Willis.
Please don't comment to inform me that my links are problematic. I'm aware. My recent attempts to create less problematic book links only resulted in a cascade of milkshake ducks.
Also, please don't comment to say that you would never read what I'm reading. I get a lot of comments like that. I understand that you don't mean it in a judgy way, but it sounds judgy. I am well aware that the majority of my readers prefer to read escapist fluffy stuff when their lives are depressing.
I too sometimes have that impulse. But I just as often have the impulse to read books for a different sort of comfort: the comfort of hearing, "I've been there too. I understand. And after all that, books will still be written; the one you're reading now is proof."
The other books I'm in the middle of are a pair of re-reads, Fitzempress' Law by Diana Norman and Doomsday Book
by Connie Willis. Please don't comment to inform me that my links are problematic. I'm aware. My recent attempts to create less problematic book links only resulted in a cascade of milkshake ducks.
Also, please don't comment to say that you would never read what I'm reading. I get a lot of comments like that. I understand that you don't mean it in a judgy way, but it sounds judgy. I am well aware that the majority of my readers prefer to read escapist fluffy stuff when their lives are depressing.
I too sometimes have that impulse. But I just as often have the impulse to read books for a different sort of comfort: the comfort of hearing, "I've been there too. I understand. And after all that, books will still be written; the one you're reading now is proof."
From:
no subject
IIRC, the big thing that bothered me in Station Eleven was that artists were still around but no one was making any new art. People will always try to keep the stories they love alive, but they'll also always keep telling new stories, and I find that comforting too.
From:
no subject
I'm wondering what sort of art we'll get out of this pandemic.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
How is that holding up for you? I remember liking it so much I never went on to To Say Nothing of the Dog, because people said it was so different.
"God didn't know where His Son was, Dunworthy thought. He had sent His only begotten Son into the world, and something had gone wrong with the fix, someone had turned off the net, so that He couldn't get to him, and they had arrested him and put a crown of thorns on his head and nailed him to a cross."
From:
no subject
I've never loved any of her novels as much as this; her comedy mostly doesn't do it for me at book length.
From:
no subject
Oh, good. (My copy is in storage or I probably would be re-reading it. Last night I rewatched The Seventh Seal.)
From:
no subject
They didn't have enough warning to hoard any.From:
no subject
And people say that SF doesn't predict the future!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
The whole future plotline is a lot more interesting to me now than it's ever been before.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Wow!
Not even six degrees of separation when it's the internet.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I ploughed through "Worm" but lost momentum about 300K words into "Ward". Must pick it up and see if I can get any further this time.
From:
no subject
I have no idea how much of Ward I've read, but I thought it picked up a lot after a very shaky start - the prologue in particular is nearly unreadable. It's not as strong as Worm but I'm enjoying it.
From:
no subject
It might work as ebooks, I guess? But on paper it's gonna run into the problem of high-end bookbinding costs/high cost of goods per book block that had David Hartwell merrily chopping long novels into short installments back in the last decade. (I could tell tales and name names ...!)
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Problem would lie in restructuring them as standalone-readable books: they'd need front matter or at least some sort of connective tissue to link them to previous, and I'm not convinced the arcs work as standalone. Hmm.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Reference points: "War and Peace" is about 400,000 words. "Lord of the Rings" is about 350,000 words. A typical Pete Hamilton doorstep -- or Neal Stephenson tome -- is about 300-400,000 words.
Worm is 1.7 million words. It's one and a half times as long as a Peter Hamilton or Neal Stephenson trilogy.
I think that's pretty much unprecedented. So it'd cause huuuuge problems estimating print runs for a paper edition, and is there any point in doing an electronic version?
From:
no subject
Regarding ebooks, the point would be that a lot of readers who previously never heard of it, and a smaller subset who took a look at the web version and noped out because their eyes bled, would buy the books and the publisher would profit.
It may not be Worm, but at some point very lengthy single stories broken into installments will make their way to traditional publishing. With ebooks making the physical size of books and print run estimates no longer a problem, the big roadblock seems to be that no one wants to be the first. But serialized storytelling eventually came to non-soap TV, and I think it'll come to fiction as well.
From:
no subject
Personally I find murder mysteries very comforting and the next book I read will probably be a Stephen King one.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
What about you, are you going to revisit one you know or try a new one?
From:
no subject
I enjoyed Cycle of the Werewolf and wrote a fic for it!
From:
no subject
I'm halfway through "Cycle of the Werewolf" and liking it a lot. I'm impressed with how well it flows since present tense is tricky. Will check out your fic once I'm done.
From:
no subject
I also love things that do not make me confront the present reality, whatever it may be, head on. But there's a divide among people overall, I think between preferring solidarity and preferring escape. That said, anybody may need to cross the line to the other side under particular circumstances.
P.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I get that impulse, though somehow I can't stand such things in fictional form - only in memoirs/diaries/histories (coronavirus made me read Samuel Pepys's diary, and now I'm regretting I only have a small book of excerpts from him). Maybe something inside me doesn't trust fiction for "I've been there" feeling.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Warnings for pretty much everything - I can give details if you're curious. Very little rape, but there's some that happens off-page.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject