![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bWhat I've Finished Reading
I was surprised by how much I liked When Worlds Collide by the end. I don't like elite secret cabals with secret mineshaft plans and mandatory breeding programs, and I didn't like that the only named female character (who is inordinately excited about the mandatory breeding program) was called Eve, because really? But I loved the scenes of global destruction, and I loved the too-brief glimpses of humanity's new home - with its green sky and ancient roads. On the last night in New York before the evacuation to the interior, the scientists of the cabal watch from the rooftop of their skyscraper as the tide rises through the streets of Manhattan in "the baleful moonlight of the Bronson Bodies," the twin planets that are about to rip Earth apart and knock it out of orbit.
The first pass of the Bronson Bodies is catastrophic; the next will destroy the Earth completely. Can our secret cabal invent rocketry and build a spaceship in time to emigrate to its new home? They can! but not before a bunch of non-cabal randos try to tear down their facility, kill a bunch of scientist, and are gunned down in their turn. This is just one of the reasons why you shouldn't have secret survival cabals! Then a couple of kids wander in at the last minute and the cabal survivors say, "What the hell, we'll take these kids." Then a French physicist bangs on the door of the ship and they say, "What the hell," again. There are wonderful descriptions of acceleration pressure and weightlessness, and when the ship lands everyone tumbles out to look at the green sky. "There would be no more human beings who wrote poetry about a blue sky." And there we leave them, with their dazed cows and their hopes, in the ruins of a civilization conveniently eradicated by the vacuum of space.
What I'm Reading Now
How To Write With the Skill of a Master and the Genius of a Child by Marshall J. Cook. One of the last of the many, many "how to write" books donated to the used bookstore, back when there was a local used bookstore - part of a massive single-donor dump that was half books on libertarianism, half writing books. I kept this one because of the confident title, and I like the underlying gimmick (defamiliarization + careful editing = something interesting, probably) but I may be too much of a snob to benefit from it. What happened was that early in Chapter 2, Cook cited Shakespeare as an innovative writer who has stolen all the good stuff, then gave a couple of pearls from Polonius' cliche necklace as examples of "the good stuff." Nearly all the other examples in the book are from movies and TV. Is this a test? Clearly, I have to rise above this obvious snob bait in order to prove myself worthy of instruction.
What I Might Read Next
I'm not sure! Maybe Less than Angels by Barbara Pym?
I was surprised by how much I liked When Worlds Collide by the end. I don't like elite secret cabals with secret mineshaft plans and mandatory breeding programs, and I didn't like that the only named female character (who is inordinately excited about the mandatory breeding program) was called Eve, because really? But I loved the scenes of global destruction, and I loved the too-brief glimpses of humanity's new home - with its green sky and ancient roads. On the last night in New York before the evacuation to the interior, the scientists of the cabal watch from the rooftop of their skyscraper as the tide rises through the streets of Manhattan in "the baleful moonlight of the Bronson Bodies," the twin planets that are about to rip Earth apart and knock it out of orbit.
"There are people down there, wading in the street!. . . Why did they stay? They've been warned enough."
"Why did we stay? We gave the warning."
"We've business here."
"So had they - they supposed, and as important to them as we imagined ours to be to us."
The first pass of the Bronson Bodies is catastrophic; the next will destroy the Earth completely. Can our secret cabal invent rocketry and build a spaceship in time to emigrate to its new home? They can! but not before a bunch of non-cabal randos try to tear down their facility, kill a bunch of scientist, and are gunned down in their turn. This is just one of the reasons why you shouldn't have secret survival cabals! Then a couple of kids wander in at the last minute and the cabal survivors say, "What the hell, we'll take these kids." Then a French physicist bangs on the door of the ship and they say, "What the hell," again. There are wonderful descriptions of acceleration pressure and weightlessness, and when the ship lands everyone tumbles out to look at the green sky. "There would be no more human beings who wrote poetry about a blue sky." And there we leave them, with their dazed cows and their hopes, in the ruins of a civilization conveniently eradicated by the vacuum of space.
What I'm Reading Now
How To Write With the Skill of a Master and the Genius of a Child by Marshall J. Cook. One of the last of the many, many "how to write" books donated to the used bookstore, back when there was a local used bookstore - part of a massive single-donor dump that was half books on libertarianism, half writing books. I kept this one because of the confident title, and I like the underlying gimmick (defamiliarization + careful editing = something interesting, probably) but I may be too much of a snob to benefit from it. What happened was that early in Chapter 2, Cook cited Shakespeare as an innovative writer who has stolen all the good stuff, then gave a couple of pearls from Polonius' cliche necklace as examples of "the good stuff." Nearly all the other examples in the book are from movies and TV. Is this a test? Clearly, I have to rise above this obvious snob bait in order to prove myself worthy of instruction.
What I Might Read Next
I'm not sure! Maybe Less than Angels by Barbara Pym?
no subject
Date: 2017-08-16 03:36 pm (UTC)I'm glad you had fun with the secret breeding program;p
no subject
Date: 2017-08-16 09:34 pm (UTC)The issue for me is that if you're writing a book about how to write fiction and poetry, most of the examples you use should be from fiction and poetry, rather than from movies which have different conventions (even in 1992). But I suspect that Marshall J. Cook thinks movies are more "accessible" to his audience. He also tends to assume you've seen the same movies etc. he has, and will get the picture from his vague description. If he used book examples, he could just quote them and save himself the trouble.
We never make it to the actual breeding program! The book ends just a few hours after they land on their new planet. It's probably just as well.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-17 02:09 pm (UTC)It is, it would be cruel to let the cows see such things;p
no subject
Date: 2017-08-16 07:45 pm (UTC)Shakespeare definitely stole stuff from everywhere, he's right about that... ;-p
no subject
Date: 2017-08-16 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-17 08:44 am (UTC)Besides, unless they're famous, you have to ask: if they're so great at knowing how to write, why aren't they in the bestseller lists, eh? Could there be a reason?