will have to pass this image on to one of Pleiti's colleagues #TheMimickingofKnownSuccesses
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:anoahmscofdnohcg6xfo3dg3/post/3lvsbrmtjtk2b
#themimickingofknownsuccesses — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #themimickingofknownsuccesses, aggregated by home.social.
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#AmReading #TheImpositionOfUnnecessaryObstacles, the just-released sequel to
@older 's #TheMimickingOfKnownSuccesses. So far the novel has everything I liked on the first book, so of course I have great expectations for the ending! Am loving to see a Spanish word here and there (and even an Arab one) and the richer worldbuilding. -
@older Thanks to coincidences of release dates I read #TheMimickingOfKnownSuccesses and #DeadCountry @maxgladstone in quick succession - then back to #Murderbot @marthawells
I think Murderbot is cosy partly because the protagonist wants cosy (cuddling up with media) as well as the competency-porn.
Other comforts - #RiversOfLondon and the #CemeteriesOfAmalo
I have a weakness for #HappilyEverAfter.
And being able to binge a series. Hint, hint. -
“Ready?”
I squirmed a little. “I’m not sure, Mossa, are we really about to … take this into our own hands, so to speak?”
She looked at me, face impassive, probably trying to understand what I was objecting to. “Whose hands would be better?”
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Other mentions sounded good, and now this review makes the novella sound great. Kindled! Thanks.
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The ending is all about adaptation: of humanity to a new environment with all its beauty and new cultures; of people in a relationship to their quirks and habits; of ecosystems to change - ending with a vision of creating something new instead of meticulously trying to re-create a long-gone past.
Which doesn't mean murder is a means to that end.
It's a lovely short read and a world in which I'd sure like to spend more time.
(4/n, n=4)
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They dream of returning to Earth and recreating its ecosystem from the ground up, studying ancient-to-them texts* to learn about animal and plant life in the university's Classical Department, but also experimenting with genetic material from earth.
Of course, people have different opinions on the timeframe of that return, and even about whether it should be done at all.
*including "Watership Down", apparently!
(3/n)
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Well, nope, because the whole thing also has a brilliant worldbuilding backdrop. It's set in a future where earth has been left because of runaway climate change; human have settled around Jupiter, building rails around the planet and platforms on them, where they live in an artificial atmosphere letting some of Jupiter's weather through. They travel between platforms by railcar, and long-range communication is difficult due to interference.
(2/n)
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So... @older's "The Mimicking of Known Successes".
On one level, a relatively straight-forward detective novella in the Holmes/Watson tradition: a university researcher goes missing (presumably died), another murder happens, and a brilliant investigator and her university researcher ex investigate those and maybe rekindle their relationship.
Straightforward, maybe except for the fact that the people investigating are both women, right?
(1/n)
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Maybe there's something with parallels to the two main characters' relationship going on here? That would be something you'd do in a novel, right? But right now, I'm not in the right state of mind to see it...
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“Perhaps there’s a discipline, or trans-discipline, of flexibility and reactiveness, or a calculation of the principles involved in ecosystem survival rather than the literal mimicking of known successes."
What a lovely vision.
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“This is a man with so much power in the academic world. Why would he need to do something so appallingly underhanded?” Mossa responded simply with a Classical quotation: “‘Why are men?’”
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Jupiter without the Gaseous Bag Life forms communicating by radio feels weird. They just belong there, in my imagination, like the sea-creatures in Europa's ocean.
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I love how the idea of paying for a train ride is just alien to these people!
And I love piecing together an ecosystem in part from what seems to be "Watership Down".
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All that running around delivering messages feels old-timey, but there's a good reason for it: the very bad transmission of radio waves through even the outer layers of Jupiter's atmosphere. You can do telegraph, and you probably could do targeted high-intensity lasers, but that's about it for fast communication. An interesting variant.
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Okay. It will be /so hard/ for me to cope with a character named "Pleiti".
"Pleite" is "broke" in German, and that sounds like the nickname you'd give an eight-grader either having the last name "Pleitgen" or being perpetually broke. Or both.
I can't get past that pimply mental image. Oh boy. Of course, that's not the poor author's fault.
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After trying to decide what to read next, I've settled on @older's "The Mimicking of Known Successes". Detective story set on (or, to say it more precisely, close to) Jupiter, what's not to like about that?
#TheMimickingOfKnownSuccesses #Books2023
(Doesn't this thing have a shorter hashtag?!)