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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   605 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 23, 2025

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So, what are you reading?

I'm still on The Dawn of Everything. Not much progress.

About one-fifth of the way through Cryptonomicon. The setting and tone make me want to re-read Catch-22, which I last read over a decade ago.

Currently reading The Balkan Languages by Victor A. Friedman and Brian D. Joseph, from the Cambridge Language Surveys series.

Went back to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I tried to read it once and got to about the middle and abandoned it because I just couldn't make any sense out of it. On the second attempt, I kind of understand what he's talking about much more - not exactly agreeing or liking everything, but at least I now understand what's going on. Willing to see how far I get this time and if I can get to the end without losing it again.

Also after finishing Asimov's autobiography that I mentioned a while ago, I realized I never got to read the prequels to Foundation series, and read Prelude to Foundation. Which was pretty decent, but a bit underwhelming - maybe a curse of all prequels, since reading the Foundation series (a long, long time ago) was so exciting, and the prequels do what prequels usually do - describe things that happened before the important things happened. Also, the appearance of robots there was kinda meh - yeah, robots, so what, nothing really changed. So I got exactly what I should have expected, which wasn't bad, but also wasn't an absolute must read. I'll probably read Forward the Foundation next sometime soon.

If you still don't get on with Zen you could try Pirsig's Lila.

I'm currently reading the last book in the Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio. The subtextual Catholic apologia is threatening to lose its "sub" status, but it's still quite enjoyable if you're looking for something that straddles the sci-fi fantasy line in the same way as Dune.

Can you summarize the last couple of books? I'm curious what the deal with the "gods" is but didn't enjoy it enough to finish.

The evil gods are Lovecraftian monsters that may or may not be Angels who rebelled against future God.

Future God seems to be some kind of ultimate post-singularity intelligence that is impacting the past in order to guarantee its existence.

Threshold: Unbound Book 5 by Nicoli Gonnella.

Shogun by Clavell. Someone mentioned a new miniseries being created based on it, which I will never see (have never seen the original miniseries, either), but it reminded me of the book's existence. It seemed like every household I visited as a kid had a copy, and it was easy to spot because it was massive.

I'm half done. It's entertaining but far from high literature. The political parts are very well-written and he picked good surnames for the Japanese characters so it's easy to remember them all. No massive battles so far, but the little fights have not been well-written. Definitely his weak point. All the ways the two cultures view each other as horrific barbarians is enjoyable, but the Japanese overall come out looking better (so far).

The anti-Catholic animus is prominent and amusing. It's basically the Predator 2-arm meme between the Japanese and Protestants for hating the Catholics. I've read out-there criticism of the Jews that could be swapped for what everyone in the book thinks of the Jesuits.

I can't imagine it's all that historically accurate (and I don't mean his descriptions of castles or the messenger pigeons, which the wiki entry fixates on), so I mentally think about it as an early-1600s-Englishman traveling to the fantastic land of Nippon, where instead of elves, orcs, or dwarves, there are Nipponese creatures. Someone here mentioned wanting a high fantasy work set in 1600s Europe instead of a fictional medieval Europe where most fantasy tends to take place and I try to view it through that lens.

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