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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   651 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 6, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I just finished my 102nd book in Spanish yesterday! I've been learning spanish for about 5 years now, and reading has been a great way to improve in the language (the other things I do these days are watch Netflix/YouTube and take lessons once a week with a tutor on iTalki). Full list of books here, but some favorites below:

Olvidado Rey Gudú by Ana Maria Matute. Mix of Game of Thrones and a fairytale, nothing like it in English. The central premise is that the main character has been cursed (or blessed) with being unable to love. There also is no English translation, so you have to be able to read Spanish/Italian/German to be able to enjoy it. Longer review here

Crónica de una muerte anunciada by GGM. This is a who-dunnit but rather than a search for the murderer it's a search for the reason that the whole town allowed the murder to happen. This one has a pretty unreliable narrator, and has been increasingly fun on re-reads as I try and piece together the real motivations of the various characters.

Los cuerpos del Verano by Martin Felipe Castagnet. This is a short science fiction novella about a world without death where bodies are recycled. Probably one of the more depressing (but realistic) takes on trans-humanism I've seen in science fiction. My longer review here.

Castilla en llamas by Calvo Rúa Alberto. Non-fiction about the rise of the house of Trastamara (whose most famous monarchs are Isabella and Ferdinand). Probably one of the best arguments against monarchy ever: every time the King of Castille dies there's a civil war for succession in this period. The book did a good job of storytelling rather than just name dropping facts and people.

Translations of Joe Abercrombie: I love the first law trilogy, and these are some of the best fantasy translations I've come across.

every time the King of Castille dies there's a civil war for succession in this period.

It's kind of crazy how unstable the house of Trastamara was compared to the Jimenez and Ivrea dynasties. The previous dynasties had plenty of minor succession struggles and an unfortunate tendency to keep breaking apart and reuniting the kingdoms, but rarely anything that broke down the kingdom's ability to resist external threats. My theory is that Reconquista/Crusader kingdoms generally had far more flexible customs of succession (note how much more often you had queens ruling in Iberia/Jerusalem than in the older Western kingdoms) - a necessary adaptation to frontier rule, where you needed a monarch to fight off Muslim threats, but one that became very troublesome once you either ~finished the Reconquista and no longer had that threat compelling unity, or when things started to go badly in the frontier struggle as they did for Jerusalem.

I think it's because Henry II (the first Trastamara) was technically a bastard. Makes it pretty hard to uphold the divine right of kings when you usurped the throne from your half-brother.

From my limited reading on the Wars of the Roses, this was also a factor there - Henry IV's usurpation of the throne meant that all the various cadet branches of the Plantagenets felt they had some kind of a claim.

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