I started the writing in English primarily, translating to Portuguese during edit phase, aiming to keep the reading flow around the same level. However, the best experience will be reading it in English, in my opinion, as it has a better vocabulary for this genre.
Would like to try as well! Love the cyberpunk kind of universe (we also have the game with the same name). I only have the reader from the ipad, so anything compatible with it. If not, paperback it is.
Also I speak portuguese, so if you wrote it originally in portuguese I don’t mind have the original version (if I m one of the lucky ones).
I started the writing in English primarily, translating to Portuguese during edit phase, aiming to keep the reading flow around the same level. However, the best experience will be reading it in English, in my opinion, as it has a better vocabulary for this genre.
Mas se preferir ler em português, ficaria muito feliz em saber sua opinião sobre a versão!
Do you count audiobooks? I've been falling asleep to audiobooks for 15+ years. I'll also read print books while preparing for sleep, but not with the absolute consistency of audiobooks. Throughout the day, I'll read whenever I feel like it. If things are slow at work (from home) or I have meetings too close together to do something else in between, reading is a great pastime.
The Fifth Season, it’s an epic fantasy novel by N.K. Jemisin. I originally started it about a month ago but I’ve just been reading it in fits and starts, though it’s not particularly long. The story takes place in a world which gets wiped by a global catastrophe every couple of centuries. Certain people called orogenes have the ability to manipulate the earth in order to bring about or quell earthquakes. They’ve also got some other interesting abilities. Naturally, the regular people, who are the majority called Stills, are fearful of orogenes and they’ve formed society such that they can harness but most importantly control orogenes. Bit of a slow start, but since I’ve made it halfway through, it’s been very engaging.
I was most surprised by how I became emotionally hooked by this novel rather than intellectually (if that makes sense) - I wasn’t as into the world but more the people, which is rare for me in a sci fi/fantasy novel. What a heartbreaker.
If anything it’s the reverse I’d think. Just look at books without a Happily Ever After and how that’s looked down on, and why its a requirement for Romance publishers.
Romance isn’t exactly a respected genre. Misogyny has a lot to do with that but the genre’s tendency towards formulaic tropes doesn’t help.
And before you get to the Happily Ever After? It has to be a rocky road, with a break-up. It’s almost like the HEA has to be earned through pain.
I re-read books frequently. But then, I am a fast and voracious reader. I’ve recently been trimming down my library from around 7000 books due to an upcoming move, and there’s a hardcore of about 2000 I’m unwilling to get rid of because they’re either reference materials or old friends I expect to re-read before I die. There are some things (LOTR, much Heinlein, Oz books, Alice in Wonderland…) that I’ve read a dozen times or more.
I do re-read some non-fiction, mainly history. But most of my well-worn books are fiction.
I definitely agree. Back in school I learned that a Newbury medal in a book meant that a dog and/or parental figure will die. I feel like it's easier to make people feel something when the feeling is bad. Also joyful things are sometimes thought to be lesser or simple.
If anyone is a fan of scifi I recommend checking out Becky Chambers. A Psalm for the Wild Built is an optimistic solar punk book that will warm your heart.
I got myself onto the city library system’s e-book app specifically to read Becky Chambers (city closed our local branch so getting and returning physical books is difficult for me). There is no Becky Chambers on that app, nor anything else I searched for. Which is how I ended up with the one I found such a depressing slog.
Not sure it really is easier to make people feel something good. Live music can really do that. Comedic opera thrives on it. Chinese and Korean dramas can dive deep into grief but also soar with joy.
Perhaps it’s more that when we’ve put unnecessarily put ourselves through something difficult, we’re inclined to justify it by according it more significance? Not sure, thinking out loud here.
I’ve really enjoyed ‘Into Thin Air’ by Jon Krakauer. It’s about an Everest expedition that ended in disaster - it’s really well written and compelling!
Queer and trans lives do not always follow the same timelines that cis and straight lives follow. We do not always hit the same milestones at the same times. Our lives are not always legible to those on the outside. This is one of the most beautiful things about queerness — the way it invites us to shed ways of moving through time that do not serve us.
I feel like this is trying too hard to claim for queer folks what is intrinsically, universally human. Is anyone’s life always legible to those on the outside? And come on, non-linear narratives are hardly new or unique to queer authors, lol. Plenty of folks have been bothered by that kind of narrative, it certainly doesn’t mean there’s anything special about that.
Of course I remain open to being corrected. It could well be that I’m just ignorant on the history and function of non-linear narratives. But this reads like the author is trying way too hard to lay claim to things that pretty much everyone experiences to varying degrees at one point or another.
I agree with you that straight people and cis people can also have confusing timelines in terms of experiences and growth and you of course don’t know what any person you meet has gone, or is going, through. Regardless of sexuality and gender.
I think the point made, the way I read it, is that because the general public still does not quite grasp the gender debate fully, there’s a tendency to think of transgender people in a very stringent way (to be transgender you must fit x, y, z standard). How can you be transgender if you didn’t know from being born? Why are you only coming out now? You’re not really transgender, etc. To be honest, similar to how gay people have been, and are being, treated too: Okay, we will “accept” you, but only if you fit a narrow definition that makes us the most comfortable (in this case a more chronological timeline to express yourself in).
I’m a genderqueer bisexual myself, just as an fyi.
Edit: I will say, however, of course you’re allowed not to like a certain writing style. Maybe this book just wasn’t for the people complaining about the lack of a chronological timeline and that’s also fine.
There’s very much a whole theory/literature around queer time (see the reference to Muñoz in the article) – being queer frees you from this sort of linear heteronormative progression through stages of life. This JSTOR blog post might be of interest. The argument isn’t that this sort of non-linearity is specific to queer people (see the bit in the JSTOR post tying the economic precarity of millenials to the notion of “adulting”), but rather that it is an extremely common queer experience precisely because the markers of “progression” through life are heavily rooted in hetero- and cisnormativity.
Do you think it is worth starting the series for someone who did not really enjoy the Games due to the writing and thought the first season of the show was a mess?
I love the show and Witcher 3, but absolutely cannot stand the books, so perhaps yes? Maybe it’ll be the other way around for you, if it can be this way 'round for me.
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