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esmenet
So I finally finished Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad!
It was amazing, and you should read it.*
Spoilery thoughts:
It's really interesting how the whole plot is sort of split into white/Nordic myth and black/Egyptian myth sides, and the white/Nordic side is SUPER GROSS (accurate to real life) and pretty much based on stomping on everybody except themselves, while justifying themselves with philosophical rationalizing. (Cannibalism is super interesting in theory! In practice, you should probably not kill people and eat their brains to give yourself superpowers, because that is a dick move.)
I do not have enough brain or knowledge right now to go over Heinz Meaney and his academic theorizing --> justification of the weird-ass ubermensch stuff he's going for, but suffice to say it is super interesting and also makes me go 'really? really? really? Especially in the appendix, where he goes on about Auschwitz researchers and Unit 731 and their great gains for human knowledge.
And then compare that to Sherem's Sudanese mystic Lord Usir, who remembered what the universe itself knew. Presumably without eating a whole bunch of people.
—SHEREMNEFER. I remember when I announced I was going to start this book, one of y'all said they had some caveats/reservations regarding her, which I didn't ask for bc I wanted to try reading something (for once) without spoilers. I'm curious now, though, because although as a white lady I may be missing something, she and her character arc (and her narrative voice!) were far and away my favorite things about this book.
Sherem, who lies and lies and lies, who is everything Yehat suspects of her and more, who was first forced to and then willingly gave up the life she wanted and deserved for a slim chance of bringing the world eternal joy. I love her. (and I 100% believe she is not dead and instead is busy ascending into godhood or whatever you do when you stick your hand in a magic Jar.)
Mmmm. Now that's writing you can sink into for days.
Especial thanks tokaigou, without whom I would probably never have heard of this book, and who particularly recommended it as the antidote to Lev Grossman's The Magicians, a book I am still angry at today.
*unless you're not good with violence/body horror. then probably not.
It was amazing, and you should read it.*
Spoilery thoughts:
It's really interesting how the whole plot is sort of split into white/Nordic myth and black/Egyptian myth sides, and the white/Nordic side is SUPER GROSS (accurate to real life) and pretty much based on stomping on everybody except themselves, while justifying themselves with philosophical rationalizing. (Cannibalism is super interesting in theory! In practice, you should probably not kill people and eat their brains to give yourself superpowers, because that is a dick move.)
I do not have enough brain or knowledge right now to go over Heinz Meaney and his academic theorizing --> justification of the weird-ass ubermensch stuff he's going for, but suffice to say it is super interesting and also makes me go 'really? really? really? Especially in the appendix, where he goes on about Auschwitz researchers and Unit 731 and their great gains for human knowledge.
And then compare that to Sherem's Sudanese mystic Lord Usir, who remembered what the universe itself knew. Presumably without eating a whole bunch of people.
—SHEREMNEFER. I remember when I announced I was going to start this book, one of y'all said they had some caveats/reservations regarding her, which I didn't ask for bc I wanted to try reading something (for once) without spoilers. I'm curious now, though, because although as a white lady I may be missing something, she and her character arc (and her narrative voice!) were far and away my favorite things about this book.
Sherem, who lies and lies and lies, who is everything Yehat suspects of her and more, who was first forced to and then willingly gave up the life she wanted and deserved for a slim chance of bringing the world eternal joy. I love her. (and I 100% believe she is not dead and instead is busy ascending into godhood or whatever you do when you stick your hand in a magic Jar.)
I walk upon this sundered earth in darkness, beneath the dome of distant stars perhaps long dead, beneath the neon glare of artificial spirits pulsing with electron blood. I walk in darkness upon this sundered earth, its schism into soilworld and asphaltworld, my roots in one, my leaves in the other.
I am home, in a home no longer home.
There are fourteen men and seven women upon the street of the four blocks visible to me. Among them, thieves, hustlers, whores, homeless, hopeless.
Mmmm. Now that's writing you can sink into for days.
Especial thanks to
kaigou, without whom I would probably never have heard of this book, and who particularly recommended it as the antidote to Lev Grossman's The Magicians, a book I am still angry at today.*unless you're not good with violence/body horror. then probably not.
