Dated Jul 25, 2021;
last modified on Tue, 30 Nov 2021
Especially interested in fiction that addresses grand themes, e.g. humanity’s
place in the universe, justice, etc. Although fiction writers don’t aim to be as
thorough as academics, they still pose stimulating hypotheses.
Also interested in taking snapshots of noteworthy moments. Tired of mumbling my
way through questions like, “What did you like about The Sandman?”
Stories of Your Life and Others. Ted Chiang. 2010. ISBN: 9781931520898. Tower of Babylon Story focused on Hillalum, who lived during the construction of the Tower of Babel .
notes that the Hebrew school version was more elaborate than the Old Testament account, e.g. the tower is so tall that it takes a year to climb, and when a man falls to his death, no one mourns, but when a brick is dropped, the brick-layers weep because it will take a year to replace....
Saga. Brian Vaughan; Fiona Staples. imagecomics.com . www.hoopladigital.com . en.wikipedia.org . Saga (2012 - present) by Brian Vaughan. Image from imagecomics.com
Volumes 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 9 have been nominated for the the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. A 6/9 nomination rate implies that the comic is pretty good!
Themes (Mostly War) Planet Landfall (Alana’s) and Wreath (its moon, Marko’s) have been in conflict as long as anyone can remember....
As the Last I May Know. Shi Lian Huang. www.tor.com . Accessed Dec 4, 2021. won the “Best Short Story” Hugo Award in 2020.
Memorable Points Background: Sere missiles can wipe out a city completely. Nyma’s nation has been the only recipient of a seres strike. They’ve since acquired their own seres stockpile. They’re engaged in war with an state that lacks seres weapons....
Volume 9 was nominated for the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic. However, not very stoked after Book One (Vol 1 and 2). Maybe it gets better? Only Volume 9 has been nominated for a Hugo Award, so maybe check that next time before committing?
The Wicked + The Divine. Image credits: wicdiv.com
The Recurrence. Every 90 years, 12 gods reincarnate on earth for 2 years....
Blood Is Another Word for Hunger. Rivers Solomon. seattle.bibliocommons.com . 2019. Plot Points Sully slays slavers' family after their patriarch dies in battle. She did not feel any remorse nor relief.
The etherworld thrived on the impermissible. A young and tender girl murdering a family, and maintaining her rage after the fact, was so impermissible that it cut a path between dominions.
The etherworld births a teenage Ziza (died 200 years prior) through Sully, and then later births four more revenants, for the five kills that she’d committed....
LaGuardia. Nnedi Okorafor; Tana Ford; James Devlin. 2019. LaGuardia (2019) by Nnedi Okorafor. Image from nnedi.com
Winner of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Novel, and the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album - Reprint.
Aliens exist (first landed in Nigeria); human-alien in the world. Main character: Future, a Nigerian-American doctor. Future sneaks in LetMeLive, an alien, into America to escape a genocide (largely imperceptible to humans) on LetMeLive’s kind....
The Sandman (1989 - 1996) by Neil Gaiman. Image from dccomics.com
Path to comic: Lucifer (Netflix) -> Lucifer (Comic) -> The Sandman (Comic)
Netflix is also adapting the comic, so interested in how it deviates from the source. Ser Brienne of Tarth will be Lucifer. Hype!
Love Dream: Sister – you know how I felt for Nada one. What I feel for her still....
Premise: Orr can have “effective” dreams that retroactively change reality for everyone else, except those who are aware of him dreaming. See for a refresher on the plot.
Notable Plot Points Prodded by Haber to dream of the end of overpopulation, Orr dreamt of a plague that killed 6B people. But Orr tries to convince himself that the world that was was fiction in his head, so he didn’t really kill anyone....
Eternals (2006) by Neil Gaiman. Image from marvel.com
Mark Evanier: Can you prove that ancient civilizations weren’t visited by space travellers and heralded as gods? Did those aliens alight on this planet eons ago and plant the seeds of our civilization?
The lack of concrete answers for these questions makes Eternals a worthwhile hypothetical. Prometheus addresses a similar question with the concept of Engineers.
Jack Kirby, 1976: I feel that playing around with this sort of conjecture is highly entertaining, and that we should aim our gunsights at this giant puzzle we’ve inherited more often....