Books 106-108
Nov. 28th, 2009 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
subplotkudzu106) Jack Of Fables volumes 1-5 (reread) Since i just reread Fables I figured I'd give this a shot again. It works much better when you read them in order all at one go.
107) The World Without Us: got this out of the library on audiobook as prep work for the possible Gamma World game. Some parts - the discussion of what happens to cities if no one is there to tend them, the cave complexes at Cappadocia, the theoretical end of Mayan civilization, the idea of the of the Serengetti acting as a starting point for new large mammal dissemination across the globe in our absence - were fascinating. Pity that it was buried amongst levels of "I'm more eco-conscious than you and every technological development since agriculture has been a huge mistake that will doom us all" that at multiple points nearly made me stop listening.
108) A Blazing World - the unofficial companion to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume II: This was fascinating. Not just because of all the work tracking the fictional antecedents of the Almanac, but also for the interview with Alan Moore where he reveals that he never does second drafts. Everything is done in the first draft and many of the clever bits that really look like he'd been advance plotting instead emerge organically from the development of the story. Makes his writing style feel very much like Game Mastering, because once it's out there he can't change it, but can always work from it.
107) The World Without Us: got this out of the library on audiobook as prep work for the possible Gamma World game. Some parts - the discussion of what happens to cities if no one is there to tend them, the cave complexes at Cappadocia, the theoretical end of Mayan civilization, the idea of the of the Serengetti acting as a starting point for new large mammal dissemination across the globe in our absence - were fascinating. Pity that it was buried amongst levels of "I'm more eco-conscious than you and every technological development since agriculture has been a huge mistake that will doom us all" that at multiple points nearly made me stop listening.
108) A Blazing World - the unofficial companion to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume II: This was fascinating. Not just because of all the work tracking the fictional antecedents of the Almanac, but also for the interview with Alan Moore where he reveals that he never does second drafts. Everything is done in the first draft and many of the clever bits that really look like he'd been advance plotting instead emerge organically from the development of the story. Makes his writing style feel very much like Game Mastering, because once it's out there he can't change it, but can always work from it.
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Date: 2009-11-29 02:07 am (UTC)Farming arguably lowered the average quality of human life; it enabled the rise of repressive governments, since a farmer can't pick up and leave when he's mistreated (either he's waiting for the harvest, or he's living off the stored harvest), it required a brutal level of toil, and it encouraged repressive treatment of women. It was the basis for rapid population growth, with the doubling time dropping to a millennium. And it had destructive consequences of land clearing that are easy to spot in the archaeological record. A serious deep ecologist ought to be dead set against farming, too.
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Date: 2009-11-29 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-02 12:07 am (UTC)--From my happy laptop on the happy internet in my happily heated apartment, wearing happy classes, and happy that I have a happy microwave and a happy fridge, thank you very much!