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Bakker XLIV: The Goddess of Negative Theology


lokisnow

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3 hours ago, Triskan said:

I'll just say that this split doesn't bother me too much assuming we really get TUC quickly.  But I'm sort of traumatized for understandable reasons and not really expecting to get it quickly.  Something will go wrong, I fear. 

At least I trust RSB that he's actually completed the book unlike Rothfuss.

It sucks when authors finish their books and the delay is down to what appears to be maddening publishing issues. I hope folk don't clump him in with the notoriously slow authors. Although he probably wouldn't mind if it translated into similar sales.

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3 hours ago, Triskan said:

But I'm sort of traumatized for understandable reasons and not really expecting to get it quickly.  Something will go wrong, I fear. 

Yeah, I wouldn’t be too surprised if TUC is released around five years after TGO’s release.

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3 hours ago, Hello World said:

Yeah, I wouldn’t be too surprised if TUC is released around five years after TGO’s release.

I agree. There shouldn't be any reason for it not to (besides atrocious sales of TGO) but this series feels fated to hit unexpected problems since the release of WLW.

Like I said , I'll buy TGO because I don't want to be part of a self-fulfilling prophecy but I'm not reading it until there's a solid release date of TUC. Or I discover there'll never be a part 2 coming out and then I guess I'll read whatever's left.

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4 hours ago, Hello World said:

Yeah, I wouldn’t be too surprised if TUC is released around five years after TGO’s release.

oh, it's not like there's been five-year gaps with books nevertheless one year away in the past, certainly!  

even were volume VI/ii to follow immediately upon VI/i, it will as yet still defer key resolutions to VII.  and so then we will be freaking right the fuck out about the wait for VII.  and when we get VII, it will defer once again to VIII.  and so on.  there is accordingly no end to our trauma.  we must excogitate upon this, for, as the the cumulated durance stretches out indefinitely, i begin to forget the content of the narrative and recall only the suffering of the delay between serial installments.  is the cunuroization of the reader a maliciously intentional act by the author, or merely the byproduct of a casual cruelty?  which, indeed, is more culpable? and what retribution shall have been taken?

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1 hour ago, sologdin said:

we must excogitate upon this, for, as the the cumulated durance stretches out indefinitely, i begin to forget the content of the narrative and recall only the suffering of the delay between serial installments.

This. I used to think there were Bakker fans out there...

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we must excogitate upon this, for, as the the cumulated durance stretches out indefinitely, i begin to forget the content of the narrative and recall only the suffering of the delay between serial installments.

This is why Bakkake is necessary.

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On 4/20/2016 at 0:12 PM, lokisnow said:

Regarding the thread title, a few weeks ago I got sucked down a wikipedia click hole trying to comprehend WTF sologdin, HE and Sci2 were talking about in regards to Chorae, topos, Derrida, & Plato, (see: Plato's Timaeus and Derrida's Sauf le nom) and I came across the rather compelling and fascinating phrase/concept completely new to me: 

The God of Negative Theology

The No God?

The similarity between these two terms immediately made me think this sort of repurposing was exactly the sort of thing Bakker is thinking of when he says he believes he's left massive red flags throughout the text that seem incredibly obvious to him.

I am not sure whether or not the two map on to each other or not. Frankly I am struggling to understand WTF the God of Negative Theology is. Frankly, I am struggling to understand WTF the No God is.

(apropos of nothing, this has led me to believe that the third sub-series will be titled: The No-Goddess)

In any event, it suddenly struck me out of the blue while driving to work today listening to a podcast about 1950s japanese films that The No God might be the negation of god, but this "Absence" is personified, drawn into the world and given form by the carapace.

And that the entire point of giving form to the negation/absence of god was to force a collision between it and God.

like matter colliding with anti matter

In other words the entire point of summoning the No-God was to destroy the No God at the right moment, when it would maximally encounter God and either:

  1. Annihilate God
  2. Annihilate part of God or weaken God and set the stage for a second such confrontation millenia down the road, at which point they can successfully conclude what they began in the first apocalypse.

How do you kill God? hmm? well, probably the same concept as the way one destroys matter.

Lockesnow I'd actually reverse the God and No-God in light of Negative Theology....at least if by negative theology you mean the idea that we can only say what God is *not* rather than what God is.

I think the immensity and ineffable qualities of God are shorn to create the No-God. The horror of the No-God is how it can be described and thus circumscribed. 

Think God dragged into an Uroborian Circle...

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1 hour ago, Hello World said:

Did those ASOIAF books that are split into two volumes come out at the same time? Like ADwD vol. 1 and 2? Because if the problem with TUC is length, couldn’t they have done something similar to that?

They did come out at the same time. They were also the translated versions of the English book that came out in one volume previously  (at least in some cases) so it wasn't really comparable. 

 

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6 hours ago, sologdin said:

oh, it's not like there's been five-year gaps with books nevertheless one year away in the past, certainly!  

even were volume VI/ii to follow immediately upon VI/i, it will as yet still defer key resolutions to VII.  and so then we will be freaking right the fuck out about the wait for VII.  and when we get VII, it will defer once again to VIII.  and so on.  there is accordingly no end to our trauma.  we must excogitate upon this, for, as the the cumulated durance stretches out indefinitely, i begin to forget the content of the narrative and recall only the suffering of the delay between serial installments.  is the cunuroization of the reader a maliciously intentional act by the author, or merely the byproduct of a casual cruelty?  which, indeed, is more culpable? and what retribution shall have been taken?

Perhaps as cunoroized readers we must commit our own atrocity tales to remember our past.

Second info request on Inverse Fire.

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Obviously I would like it if the publisher released both at the same time - I'd go ahead and plunk down $40 for both, especially as I'm going to be doing so anyway - but it would look pretty bad for the casual reader to see that two mid-size books were being published at double the price as opposed to one large book. The situation with Tad Williams and GRRM is that it is common to split large books into two when the paperback comes, at least in parts of Europe. 400k words is not impossible for paperback, nor is 500-600k (look at all the dogeared paperback copies of atlas shrugged you can find in bus stations and used bookstore shelves). 

The new cover is.... OK. Better than the first or second, I guess. 

Was there a question for RSB about the Atrocity Tales? I'm curious as to how many he has under the belt, now. 

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9 minutes ago, kuenjato said:

The situation with Tad Williams and GRRM is that it is common to split large books into two when the paperback comes, at least in parts of Europe. 400k words is not impossible for paperback, nor is 500-600k

This one is supposed to be 300k. In fact, split, it should be the shortest in the whole series.

But there's still the issue of the publisher, so one thing is to publish one big book by Martin, and another is a big book by a less popular writer.

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3 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

Lockesnow I'd actually reverse the God and No-God in light of Negative Theology....at least if by negative theology you mean the idea that we can only say what God is *not* rather than what God is.

I think the immensity and ineffable qualities of God are shorn to create the No-God. The horror of the No-God is how it can be described and thus circumscribed. 

Think God dragged into an Uroborian Circle...

Insert bow down smiley here. I very much like this extrapolation/explanation.

a comprehensible God is a horror hmm? Delicious.

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1 hour ago, Gormenghast said:

This one is supposed to be 300k. In fact, split, it should be the shortest in the whole series.

But there's still the issue of the publisher, so one thing is to publish one big book by Martin, and another is a big book by a less popular writer.

Well, split, Great Ordeal still comes in at 500 pages, we have this confirmed. That makes it shorter than White Luck Warrior, but still a fair bit longer than The Judging Eye ( 420 pages).

The Unholy Consult would have added about 400 more pages according to Scott, plus a very large encyclopedig glossary. Combined in one book, this would have been a 1000 pages at least. This much we know from comments from Scott's blog.

So a split is reasonable, however obviously the way to ameliorate any issues for fans is to release the two finished books shortly together. 

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7 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

The Unholy Consult would have added about 400 more pages according to Scott, plus a very large encyclopedig glossary.

He said TUC adds 400 pages on top of TGO without the glossary? The entire book pre-split without glossary is supposed to be around 300k words.

Also, I do recall that he said something about the book being split because he couldn’t fit the glossary. I could be wrong though.

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I guess in the examples I know of there being a split (GRRM is the only one that comes to mind) it was never split in hardback only in paperback which people had to wait for anyhow.

I guess they aren't doing big old hardbacks for this series (I've yet to encounter one in the UK) so it could well be a physical restrainment. I still can't think of any good reason not to have both out at the same time other than to increase sales. But there's maybe good marketing reasons to show that releasing two books at the same time results in worse sales than having a delayed release? Off the top of my head I can imagine the worry is that book 2 is underordered (bookseller wants to see how part 1 sells knowing it's rare they sell at parity) and/or book 2 sits on the shelf unsold until certain individuals have read book 1.

If the publisher wants to make more money by splitting the book it's just something we need to accept - along with the frustration of a delay.

Does anyone know if they are re-releasing new prints of earlier in the series to go along with this release? Seems like a good time to potential get new readers.

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