[Tsundoku]

Briar King, on 18 November 2018 - 01:34 AM, said:

... my smoothly shaved buttocks ...

Thanks for that.

I'm halfway through Rejoice and really enjoying it. Rejoicing, you might say.

The conversational style isn't putting me off like the latter Jack Whyte books did, even though both acted to present the writer's opinion.
Maybe that's because Whyte's became circular and interminable but SE's is taut and lean as it's a solo book focus. And the use of thinly-veiled real life characters to represent many different viewpoints makes it easier to take in as well, I guess.
This is where SE's predilection for philosophical musing enhances rather than detracts.

EDIT: hopefully the movie rights will be snapped up by someone good. It would be pretty cheap to make, and since Arrival did pretty well, and other sorts of movies based on conversations in rooms ... fingers crossed.

EDIT2: can a Mod please make a ded-thread here?

https://forum.malaza...-eriksonlundin/

EDIT3: Cool quote that kind of sums up the big question -
“There lies our immediate task. Determining, individually and collectively, what has to be over what we think has to be. We are being invited to seek a new definition of human nature, no more, no less, and surely you can see that this determination now poses the greatest challenge our species has ever faced.”

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 18 November 2018 - 07:56 AM

[Tsundoku]

Finished Rejoice! A Knife to the Heart. A complicated book. I'm going to have to think this one over.

A pity there's no sub-forum for it ...

I enjoyed the first 2/3 more than the end ... but again, I think I'm still going over it in my mind.

At least 8 intelligent ET species out of 10. Maybe more. Dunno.

EDIT: FWIW, IMHO Wert's review is spot-on.

https://forum.malaza...ost__p__1348295

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 20 November 2018 - 10:44 AM

[Abyss]

And lo, there was a request for a ded-thread, and the modgods looked down upon the poor loosely huddled masses, and heard their pleas, and created a ded-thread even tho the lazy fuckers could have done it themselves. And there was much rejoicing.

And then the cranky masses cried out, saying 'puhlease mighty wonderful nice smelling modgods, give unto us a subforum', and the modgods looked down upon the whiners, and heard their pleas, and Abyss was procrastinating real work so he created the subforum. And there was much rejoicing. And sending of whiskey and artisinal gummi bears, gift cards also accepted.

Resume discussion.

[QuickTidal]

I'm almost half way through, and loving it.

Just chiming in to say that there are SO MANY quotable lines in this book. Not just in chapter headers quotes from Samantha, but in the text itself.

The allegories to real life people are thinly disguised enough to be cool, but blatant enough for me to be in on the joke.

Also, Steven's clear dislike of Margaret Atwood's pretension is still so palpable...and makes me smile out loud.

[Tsundoku]

Thanks for that. I meant to ask for a sub-forum the first time but ... eh ... senior moment.

[worry]

QuickTidal, on 20 November 2018 - 07:54 PM, said:

Also, Steven's clear dislike of Margaret Atwood's pretension is still so palpable...and makes me smile out loud.

I'm halfway in too, but I thought of you when I read this part!

[Andorion]

QuickTidal, on 20 November 2018 - 07:54 PM, said:

I'm almost half way through, and loving it.

Just chiming in to say that there are SO MANY quotable lines in this book. Not just in chapter headers quotes from Samantha, but in the text itself.

The allegories to real life people are thinly disguised enough to be cool, but blatant enough for me to be in on the joke.

Also, Steven's clear dislike of Margaret Atwood's pretension is still so palpable...and makes me smile out loud.

Which part is the Atwood reference, QT?

[Tsundoku]

Andorion, on 21 November 2018 - 03:03 AM, said:

QuickTidal, on 20 November 2018 - 07:54 PM, said:

I'm almost half way through, and loving it. Just chiming in to say that there are SO MANY quotable lines in this book. Not just in chapter headers quotes from Samantha, but in the text itself.The allegories to real life people are thinly disguised enough to be cool, but blatant enough for me to be in on the joke.Also, Steven's clear dislike of Margaret Atwood's pretension is still so palpable...and makes me smile out loud.

Which part is the Atwood reference, QT?

Yeah ... I'm not familiar with her (I know she wrote Handmaid's Tale but that's pretty much it), so can you elaborate please?

Briar King, on 21 November 2018 - 03:26 AM, said:

And my buttocks lives on!

It's all the traffic they get.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 21 November 2018 - 09:49 AM

[QuickTidal]

Andorion, on 21 November 2018 - 03:03 AM, said:

QuickTidal, on 20 November 2018 - 07:54 PM, said:

I'm almost half way through, and loving it.

Just chiming in to say that there are SO MANY quotable lines in this book. Not just in chapter headers quotes from Samantha, but in the text itself.

The allegories to real life people are thinly disguised enough to be cool, but blatant enough for me to be in on the joke.

Also, Steven's clear dislike of Margaret Atwood's pretension is still so palpable...and makes me smile out loud.

Which part is the Atwood reference, QT?

The SF author that helps Hamish out by talking with him mentions an SF convention and authors and there is a snark about Atwood there. Probably around 20%into the book.

Tsundoku, Erikson doesn’t appear to like that Atwood pretentiously, though clearly being a writer of SF, talks smack about SFF in general. She claims to write “high literature”, not silly stories about ray guns and made up creatures (paraphrasing).

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 21 November 2018 - 11:17 AM, said:

...

Tsundoku, Erikson doesn't appear to like that Atwood pretentiously, though clearly being a writer of SF, talks smack about SFF in general. She claims to write "high literature", not silly stories about ray guns and made up creatures (paraphrasing).

'claimed'... once it became obvious there was $ in sf/f, she was pretty quick to jump on the bandwagon, even before HANDMAID'S became a thing.
Now she loans her name out to (presumably) ghostwritten sf comics.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 21 November 2018 - 03:02 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 21 November 2018 - 11:17 AM, said:

...

Tsundoku, Erikson doesn't appear to like that Atwood pretentiously, though clearly being a writer of SF, talks smack about SFF in general. She claims to write "high literature", not silly stories about ray guns and made up creatures (paraphrasing).

'claimed'... once it became obvious there was $ in sf/f, she was pretty quick to jump on the bandwagon, even before HANDMAID'S became a thing.
Now she loans her name out to (presumably) ghostwritten sf comics.

Yep. And I could understand as that late game bandwagon jumping would be reason enough to piss Steve and other SFF authors off.

Also, turns out she's a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) in Toronto. She and her husband moved into the Annex decades ago when it was still a smallish borough on the outskirts of Toronto downtown proper, with rows and rows of wartime townhouses (which has since then become the haven for super-rich Torontonian elite)....only to complain now that the city has engulfed the Annex and they are putting up condos near those old houses. You can tell from her tweets in that article she fundamentally misunderstands the growth that happens in any city, and that trying to protect Six trees (yes, six) puts her on the wrong side of that argument. As one of the wealthiest authors in our country, with nothing to tie her to the Annex, she could easily move to a similar house with less development around her...a luxury not afforded a LOT of people and never mind that she owns a multi-million $ estate on Pelee island since 1987 as well (with a 3rd of her time spent there).

[Abyss]

Still, have to give SE props for being willing to take a shot at her. As CanLit goes she's a big deal.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 21 November 2018 - 04:09 PM, said:

Still, have to give SE props for being willing to take a shot at her. As CanLit goes she's a big deal.

100% I do. No one else in CanLit seems willing. She acts like she's THE Canadian author...and everyone else gets her table scraps. I appreciate him taking pot shots at her.

[Andorion]

QuickTidal, on 21 November 2018 - 11:17 AM, said:

Andorion, on 21 November 2018 - 03:03 AM, said:

QuickTidal, on 20 November 2018 - 07:54 PM, said:

I'm almost half way through, and loving it.

Just chiming in to say that there are SO MANY quotable lines in this book. Not just in chapter headers quotes from Samantha, but in the text itself.

The allegories to real life people are thinly disguised enough to be cool, but blatant enough for me to be in on the joke.

Also, Steven's clear dislike of Margaret Atwood's pretension is still so palpable...and makes me smile out loud.

Which part is the Atwood reference, QT?

The SF author that helps Hamish out by talking with him mentions an SF convention and authors and there is a snark about Atwood there. Probably around 20%into the book.

Tsundoku, Erikson doesn't appear to like that Atwood pretentiously, though clearly being a writer of SF, talks smack about SFF in general. She claims to write "high literature", not silly stories about ray guns and made up creatures (paraphrasing).

Missed that. Will have to go back and read it.

[Tsundoku]

OK thanks, are you meaning this bit?

"Ron had known Samantha August for over a decade. They’d met at a convention in Ottawa. Canadian SF writers comprised a small group, all things considered. Some hefty talents in that bunch. Sawyer, Spider Robinson, Watts, Gibson, Samantha August. No point in counting Atwood since she’d refused the membership card and secret handshake. Ronald Carpenter was a relative newcomer—only two novels out so far, with a third one on the way."

and

"Joey had frantically googled the SF writer, only to find the servers had crashed immediately following the revelation of her identity. He vaguely recalled a head-to-head battle royal with Atwood at a convention a few years back (which had later been revealed as staged, some kind of in-joke between the two women, and they’d played it up like pros, exchanging devastating, eviscerating put-downs that had the entire audience of mostly Canadians gasping in shock)."

Doesn't seem too caustic, over all.

[QuickTidal]

Tsundoku, on 22 November 2018 - 08:05 AM, said:

OK thanks, are you meaning this bit?

"Ron had known Samantha August for over a decade. They’d met at a convention in Ottawa. Canadian SF writers comprised a small group, all things considered. Some hefty talents in that bunch. Sawyer, Spider Robinson, Watts, Gibson, Samantha August. No point in counting Atwood since she’d refused the membership card and secret handshake. Ronald Carpenter was a relative newcomer—only two novels out so far, with a third one on the way."

and

"Joey had frantically googled the SF writer, only to find the servers had crashed immediately following the revelation of her identity. He vaguely recalled a head-to-head battle royal with Atwood at a convention a few years back (which had later been revealed as staged, some kind of in-joke between the two women, and they’d played it up like pros, exchanging devastating, eviscerating put-downs that had the entire audience of mostly Canadians gasping in shock)."

Doesn't seem too caustic, over all.

Well, he can't exactly take pot shots at her and have them be too brutal...but still, he mentioned her twice and in both instances it was in a negative view.

[QuickTidal]

This:

"Yet another example of a brilliant Canadian Science Fiction writer virtually no one in this country knows about, outside of the aficionados of the genre. Never reviewed by the Globe, or the National Post. So, who is she, madam Prime Minister? Smart, opinionated, a feminist, a humanist. Frankly, I'm not surprised the ETs selected her."

Is also a mild dig at Atwood to me, since Atwood gets all this praise and global recognition, even before her tv show...while really amazing SFF writers in Canada are hardly recognized...and she did it by trying to distance herself from the very genre she wrote in....only to bandwagon jump once it was cool to do so.

[worry]

Finished! I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Spoilers

Spoiler

Rejoice has an interesting premise that is essentially a thought experiment, a kind of wish that probably a lot of people have had privately in their own heads, and it's a good wish. Yah the book plays out almost entirely in conversations from various representative POVs, but SE is such a good writer that it still very much works like a gripping, often unpredictable novel. The segment on the moon is probably the most boots-on-the-ground part of the story though and it's so good. And even when the book is predictable -- inevitably, since so many of the figures are versions of real people -- it remains honest imo.

There's so many good ideas on display here. Humans barely making the cut, and getting essentially probation with community service, or else. Every single stage of the ET's plan seemed sensible, a real wake-up call. The end of capitalism. The writing is really good, and if you've been reading SE's essays (or you're just familiar with his short-story writing origins) then you can see much of that care and craft on display. The scenes between Sam and the AIs are reaaallly good.

What are its flaws? It's usually not hokey, but in the finale one of the major character's thoughts uses a dance metaphor that ends with like "get out there -- and dance!" and it hit me like that "dance like nobody's watching" quote that sucks to hell and back. Real bummer of a closing sentiment. But I think dancing sucks, so I guess it's a pet peeve more than anything.

The book also maybe, kinda, sorta, has its cake and eats it too when it comes to faith. It uses that word in a whole lot of ways, mostly good, but there's definitely at least one version of it -- from author surrogate and author sympathy characters in particular -- that travels from "there are so many unknowns in the universe" to "there are too many coincidences for life to be an accident" a little too immediately. To be fair, the book generally argues that agnosticism towards the 'unknowable' is more reasonable than militant certainty of either extreme, and is good for curiosity and exploration -- also presumably that 'God' or 'Purpose', if they exist, don't really have to resemble anything we've so far conceived. Fair enough, I guess. Plus it's always fun to tweak the noses of the Sam Harris/Richard Dawkins/Bill Mahers of the world. It just struck me sometimes as arguing that those things more likely than not exist, and it's just that what we limited beings think of as 'supernatural' phenomena may actually be natural because there's so much we don't know in the 'liminal' spaces. Which to me just sounds like wishful thinking. Why complain about wishful thinking in a book so full of it in other ways? Who knows. It just felt a little, for lack of a better word, preachy, which I've never felt from SE before (as distinct from assertive, which I've always appreciated in everything I've read from him, including in the other aspects of this book). Anyway, maybe someone else, a person 'of faith' or even an agnostic who leans towards existence, will read this book and think "Finally!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This post has been edited by worry: 25 November 2018 - 09:55 PM

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 25 November 2018 - 09:33 PM, said:

But I think dancing sucks, so I guess it's a pet peeve more than anything.

Holy shit. I think I found the source of worry's occasional grumpiness black heart!

Dancing, my friend, is a wonderful activity that even when you're bad at it, is fun and good.



-----------------

I also finished the book, and I enjoyed it as well. It's sometimes hard to deal with the fact that it's almost entirely "fireside chats" in a thought experiment, but as worn said, the characters and depth of some of the plot that sells it. Solid outing by SE!

[worry]

Yep. So if ever you all see me behaving in a regrettable manner, reference QT's post above, think "there but for the grace of God go I," and extend to me maximum sympathy.

----A little more on the book: for as exciting as it would be to see any good adaptation of SE's books, for one reason or another this one felt the most -- by far -- like a movie to me. He's mentioned a few times that when he writes, he is almost like a movie camera watching and weaving through the scene, and it definitely felt like that here. The scene-hopping structure of this was a lot like a blockbuster global disaster movie, but it has the brains of Dr. Strangelove rather than Independence Day (minus the barbed-wire satire, since it plays everything pretty much straight, so that comparison might just be a signal of my limited range of references).