Old World Book Club 1st Post !
One experience I think we all have in common is to have felt curious about the old world at least once in our lives.
Maybe when visiting a museum or on a school trip to the A.R.C. Headquarters or because you follow the right person on iM cough @conneRConneR cough. There is a certain charm about the bits and pieces of ancient history and culture we managed to piece together that is hard to describe.
I myself, have fallen in love with the study of the Old World on my first school visit to the A.R.C. All the wondrous and sometimes incomprehensible artifacts just waiting to be deciphered by the most curious and intelligent among us.
But an aspect of the old world that I think is not known widely enough, is it's literature.
An immeasurable amount of it has been lost forever, but still, every day works are recovered by explorers and uploaded to the A.R.C.'s public database.
I have been reading books from that database for a very long time now, and the look into ancient humans lifestyles, their society, their hope for the future and their fiction is fascinating!
So to spread awareness of these amazing pieces of our collective history, I'm starting the Old World Book Club !
Every two weeks (or 1 month if more interval is needed), I will recommend a few of my best book finds in the A.R.C. database and I encourage you to read them.
We can then talk about them in the next post and I would be delighted if you would also share your best finds !
I will recommend books of different genres each time but I will limit myself to works from the 19th to the 21st century.
For our 1st Post, the topic will be "Sci-fi" !
I have 4 recommendations today.
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The first is the "Culture Series". According to an informational section in the books, they were written by a man called Iain Banks, originating from "Scotland" (very likely an old world country, somewhat similar to a node), towards the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century.
The books center around the "Culture", a spacefaring civilisation, technologically far beyond even the most incomprehensible old world artifacts we've discovered.
The academic consensus is that these books are most likely fiction, since no evidence has been found of the "Culture" having existed.
This fictional civilization consists of humanoid species (that don't seem to necessarily be humans as we understand them) and sentient artificial intelligences, "Drones" and "Minds", living in harmony in a near utopian society. The conflicts in the story mainly concern how the Culture interacts with other civilisations. The moral dilemmas of if and how they should interfere with less advanced societies without robbing them of their self-determination or destroying their culture by accident through to much interference.
In a bit of an opposition to other Old World works of sci-fi, the Culture mostly decides that interfering is the best option available to better the most sentient lives possible and make the universe a less cruel place. That does not mean that they are not extremely careful while doing so.
The Culture also has a very interesting representation of artificial intelligence, that could have been an influence in the creation of the mysterious Architects.
The most prominent A.I.s in the story are the "Minds". They are unimaginably powerful and intelligent, operating and living at speeds far higher than the speed of light (the current scientific consensus is that such a feat is likely impossible but maybe the old world knew things we don't). They take care of operating most spaceships and orbitals (artificial living platforms in space) and producing what their society requires.
The most interesting part of these books for me, is that they seem to attempt to show us what a society that does not operate under capitalism could look like.
And that is still very relevant today, especially in node 8.
One last important addition is its interpretation of transhumanism and posthumanism, which is especially relevant today with the rise of prosthetic limbs and body modification.
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The next book series I would recommend is the "Imperial Radch space opera trilogy" written by Ann Leckie in the beginning of the 21st century.
Like the last books, it is very likely a fictional story.
It also has a very heavy emphasis on artificial intelligences, as it's protagonist is the last remnant of a far larger A.I., stuck in a human body, that was destroyed/killed after being betrayed. The protagonists main objective is to avenge the parts of itself that were destroyed.
The books main point of interest is it's representation of the Radch Empire, an imperialist and expansionist society where gender has no meaning. This is represented in the text by never giving any indication about what a characters gender could be and by referring to everyone with neutral pronouns. The main character was the A.I. of a Radch warship and they are sometimes confronted with gendered societies and it is shown very well how confusing and strange it appeares for them.
It was a bit confusing to read at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly.
This book series represents another fascinating interpretation of A.I. that can still inform and inspire us today. I think it is especially relevent today with the commercialisation of emotional A.I. bots by the A.R.C.
The unusual representation of gender in the story is also sure to ruffle some feathers but I believe it can be very stimulating to engage with something we are not used to or can make us a bit uncomfortable.
The third recommendation is the "Frontlines Series" writte by Marko Kloos the beginning of the 21st century.
From biographical information in the books, it is believed Marko Kloos originated from a country called Germany where he enlisted in the countries armed forces (also called military) but later emigrated to the United States of America. Some of you might remember its acronym "U.S.A." from Old World classes. It is believed the "U.S.A." were the main military world power from the end of the 20th century to the middle of the 21st century.
From Marko Kloos' experience in the armed forces of his country of birth, it is believed his works can, with some precaution, be used to get an idea of how armed forces in the Old world operated and what their culture was like. Of course, this has to be done with caution since his books are still works of fiction.
In opposition to the previous works, the "Frontlines Series" is set in a relatively close future to the time of it's publication.
Many of it's political blocks have similar counterparts in our records of the time period. For example the "N.A.C."(North American Commonwealth) seems to be a fictional successor to the U.S.A. and the "Sino-Russian Alliance" is a fictional political block/alliance of countries in the old Eurasian continent.
The stories main appeals are it's entertaining and competent characters and the view it gives us into an exagerated version of the state of the old world in the 21st century as it faces an alien invasion of their extrasolar colonies.
The aliens shown in the story are so otherworldly and seem to have a way of thinking so different to ours that it is not possible to communicate with them and they show no interest in even trying.
The society shown is also on the brink of societal collapse because of extremely difficult living conditions and extremely high unemployment because of the automation of many industries.
I believe this should hit uncomfortably close to home for many of us, especially for people living in Node 13, and even some places in Node 8.
Now, the last recommendation I have for you, is called "Blame!", written and drawn by Tsutomu Nihei between the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. It is not a classical book, but a sort of graphic novel, I belive it was called "manga" in the old world.
It is a strange story to read, with very little dialogue and the environment, nearly a character of it's own, participating heavily in the storytelling.
The story is about a man called Killy walking through an endless and nonsensical City in search of something called the "Net Terminal Gene" This quest seems to have been going on for thousands of years already, with no end in sight. One of the strongest aspects of this story are the absolutly stunning environment and fight scene drawings.
Long periods of Blame! only consist of characters walking through gigantic environment with little dialogue until suddenly, extreme voilence errupts when the characters are attacked.
The story also explores very metaphysical topics, like how human conciousness can survive in a digital medium, at what point humans cease to be human, etc...
If you decide to read this "manga" I highly recommend you print yourself a large copy on paper, from my experience it is one of the best ways to experience this story.
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There you have it, my recommendation of 4 old world sci-fi books, I hope you enjoy them and feel free to come back here and talk about them ! If you also have some recommendations, I would be delighted if you share them ^^
Goodbye and I hope to see you next time in the Old World Book Club !!
这听起来很有趣，我将在暑假阅读它们！(*￣︶￣)
@15778100701li I'm really happy you found this interesting !
Very cool!^^^ The Imperial Radch Space Opera trilogy and the Front line series sound very interesting! I'll definitely look into it if I can even find it... /ᐠ ˵> ˕ <'˵マ I also have a reccomendation from the 21st century, I found the Chaos Walking trilogy very interesting. It consists of The knife of never letting go, The ask and the answer, and Monsters of men. The setting is about humankind colonising and settling on an alien planet with many different challenges, such as an already native alien species, a "sickness" that ails almost all inhabitants of the planet, and conflict amongst one another too. I think the character development in it is amongst one of my favourites in all I've read, so I would recommend giving it a shot!
@apkherePilK_ I hope you'll like them ! The "Chaos Walking trilogy" sounds super interesting, I'll be sure to check it out. Thank you very much for your recommendation and for participating in this little book club ^^ If you end up reading them I would be delighted talk about them with you
@elethiomelElethiomel Thank you for your recommendations too, I might have to look into places to read them a bit more because it was difficult to find anything more than a couple of snippets on anything other than the "manga". /ᐠ｡‸｡ᐟ\ I actually did end up reading "Blame!" up to chapter 10! The lack of context given is a little bit confusing in the story, but filling in some blanks by yourself makes for a more enjoyable read^^ It would be nice to have some method of censoring to not spoil any other avid readers in this book club, but the visuals have been very enjoyable so far too and it feels like a lot of love was poured in from the author while drawing it.