Gaston de Foix

Thanks, man!. I just finished this series. Or is it finished, does anyone know? Some spoilerific thoughts below:

Can two things be true at the same time: setting yourself on fire is the act of an unbalanced mind and paying attention to/fixating on real trauma and horror will in fact unbalance you? Anyway, in other (sad) news, today is gonna be a blockbuster day in the slow-unwinding of Fulton County's prosecution of Donald Trump and his Bros.

This. Out of curiosity did you read the Children of Time series? It provided a different perspective on Octopus consciousness.

I have enjoyed Space-Operaish sci-fi the most in the past, yes. The Foundation Series was also a formative influence as was I, Robot (books, I hasten to add). Yes, I have never read Arthur C Clarke so will try Rendezvouz with Rama or 2001. If I had to pick, which one of those two?

Read it at 14 (following the Covenant series). I was a bit traumatized by the thing that happened early there, so maybe didn't get the full flavor of the series. Donaldson has this bleakness, no? Of the authors I've read, on the Depress-o-meter: Robin Hobbs < Donaldson < Tchaikovksy of Shadows of Apt. Thanks. Will try it. Read A Memory Called Empire and loved it Read the Children of Time and admired it (but was a bit bloated). Will try Ancillary Justice - thank you.

I finished The Mountain in the Sea based on recommendations on this thread. I understand why others raced through it, and I did too, but I felt the ending was a bit abrupt and weak. Currently stuck on what to read and open to trying something new/classic in sci-fi as I'm much less well read there. Basically looking for something that holds up to the Expanse. I've read the Salvation Trilogy and enjoyed it (but had to skim read large parts tbh). I downloaded some samples of genre classics (Consider Phlebas, Revelation Space, Exordia) but nothing seemed to click. I've looked at the recommendations threads too. Suggestions please?

If you like Byatt, I commend this lecture by Kenji Yoshino: https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/17626/Commencement_2005_Yoshino.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Is it a return to form for Martha Wells? I devoured the Murderbot Diaries in April 2022 on vacation, but couldn't bring myself to read Witch King after the bad reviews.

My predictions above, FWIW.

Maybe. That would be good. But I don't get the sense that Sanderson got told it was temporary. There was some discussion of whether it is "the" Ashandarei and the implication was that to the best of Sanderson's knowledge it was. I have to think that if he pushed back on it (as he said he did) then the showrunners would have reassured him of an upcoming replacement. But the silence there is telling. It wouldn't surprise me at all that they haven't figured it out for the future. Occam's razor it's just lazy storytelling. There is another side to this of course. There's no guarantee WOT will go 8 seasons, and moving places in piece for abbreviated story-telling in 4 or 5 seasons is sensible.

Yeah, but this raises the broader question of Mat's arc. If he has the memories of all his past lives (speaking old tongue for example), and his ashandarei then all he needs is the foxhead medallion (and marriage to Tuon) and he'll be ready for the Last Battle. I haven't seen the rest of Sanderson video (upto like 28 min I think) but I imagine he makes a similar point based on his earlier comment about arcs and themes.

So I've watched some but not all of the Sanderson view of the last episode, but it seems like he gives away a pretty significant spoiler. It seems like the spear with the dagger is actually Mat's Ashandarei. Sanderson qualifies it by saying as far as he knows, but since he has seen the script, it is almost certainly described that way in the script. Disappointing news if true. The logical implication is the Tower of Ghenjei and the Eelfin/Aelfin have been cut.

What Karaddin said. The true nature of the DO and what he wants to do to the world is very much a major plot-point in the books, and the distinction between an immoral world, an amoral world, or ending the world is a subject of considerable and deliberate ambiguity. Ishy is not written to be evil so much as a nihilist. He sees no solution to the problem of evil apart from the triumph of evil and therefore wants to facilitate that triumph which he believes will be universe-ending. Lanfear's motives are mysterious and maybe not understandable even to herself but I comprehend her character her to be jointly obsessed with Lews Therin and power (with power predominating). Frankly, I think there are too many forsaken who joined the DO simply because "Lews Therin was better". One character like Demandred would have been cool.

In theory the terms of the deal would not be substance (where no single bloc exists to justify movement on anything because it's all a zero-sum game)* but process where the House could change its rules to diminish the power of the speaker in favor of the House as a whole. The elevation of a neutral or well-regarded Republican moderate as speaker would likely have to be part of the deal. That's what, theoretically, the Freedom Caucus and commentators like Justin Amash are most concerned with. The thing is the way the House has been run as a dictatorship from the Speaker chair is a stable equilibrium. I'm not sure an alternative will be stable over time, just like the attempts to resurrect the Roman Republic keep collapsing back into Caesarism. I'm not going to say it's gonna happen, but I see that as a potential deal-space for now. A strong majority of either party would probably change the rules back. *On substance, there's just no window for a deal on substance for anything like permitting reform (bipartisan majorities of each house would support it) because it would give Biden a win. Trump would come out against it. There's not space for a straight up deal like Israel aid for Ukraine aid (bipartisan majorities still support both as well) because that's also a "Dem win". Even a serious attempt at deficit reduction which is frankly an overdue necessity probably won't pass.

I think it's not so much that his ranking has improved as that the US has painfully discovered in the last two decades there are presidents whose activities are objectively worse than a profound philosophical commitment to inactivity. But, yeah, OK, true. There have always been silent Cal fanboys and fangirls.

Coolidge and Hoover are uncontroversially two of the worst US presidents ever, so yes?

How fascinating. According to Wikipedia, Ronna's interest in public service was inspired by her mother and grandmother. Trump literally made her change her name to drop the Romney so her public profession of devotion to him would be total. He really is Voldemort isn't he?

Jordan is apparently meeting him and may throw him his vote/supporters for a promotion to Majority Leader. LOL.

Same. I read a lot, and fast, so clunky writing doesn't usually bother me. I've read most of Sanderson's published works. This particular sentence struck me as worthy of the Bulwer-Lytton contest because, well, let's just look at it again: "He had hated to leave Mat with Mashadar, but was confident—from a look Mat had given him after falling—that his friend could survive the mist, and knew what he was doing." (i) Chapter 46 ended on a cliff-hanger with Mat having been speared by Mashadar. We have been conditioned to expect such an event to spell Mat's demise (see Sammael; and also Egwene's death); (ii) Perrin immediately leaves Mat for the Wolf Dream for...reasons apparently set out in that sentence and goes to do something else; (ii) Perrin's emotional state goes from "hate" to "confidence" in 9 words. Actually, let's be charitable, ignore the actual words used and say that his emotional state goes from "strong guilt" to "assured purpose". Why? (iii) Because he simultaneously concludes that Mat is going to "survive" and "knew what he was doing" all from a look delivered from dozens of feet away while falling from your horse in surprise from an unexpected attack; that's quite some telepathy/body language going on. Kudos to Mat from taking the time out from being speared (apparently to death) to reassure Perrin; (iv) You know what, let's accept that Perrin can infer all of that from a look that Mat gives him with a ridiculously high degree of confidence. The cherry on the cake is the weird redundancy of the sentence stating that Mat was telegraphing both his future physical state ("survival") and his capability to handle the situation. Why not simply say "had a trick up his sleeve"? It might even have been better to just leave the plot-hole of Perrin abandoning Mat in silence. The fix is just so...bad. [End/Rant].

So...I've been reading "AMOL" again and the writing leaves much to be desired. This is an actual sentence in the book: "He had hated to leave Mat with Mashadar, but was confident—from a look Mat had given him after falling—that his friend could survive the mist, and knew what he was doing." What did book readers think when the book came out? Was it satisfying? Is the show going to be able to do it justice? I'm struggling to see how the Rand/DO confrontation scenes can be done without extensive (and expensive) CGI.

I would also add that for the WOT virgin there is a complex learning curve and they are the primary audience not WOT-obsessed nerds. The little easter eggs are for the nerds. As the wheel turns, the complexity of story-telling can grow.

Should I read the The Honeymooners (book) if I never watched the Honeymooners (movie), Wonder Boys (movie) or Wonder Boys (book)? Like where does one start?

Rings of Power was an abomination. WOT season 1 was frequently mediocre. Big difference IMHO.

Are you assuming they are already out there or that, like Taim, they will come onto the scene near the end? As an aside, I think it would be a shame not to have Demandred reprise his AMOL role. I thought him falling to Lan was very well done.

How do we know that "the boys" are only two in number? Based on counting the broken cuendillar?