Preston Jacobs has a new series that he started on YouTube recently. It's all about GRRM'S books set in the 1000 Worlds Universe. Per PJ'S count there are a total of 24 books set in this universe. The series starts with a general overview and he intends to do what would be a "book club" on them releasing a new video approximately every other week. What's really nice about it is that he has provided links in his video description to a text version of each of the stories. There's also links to an audio version of the first two stories in the description of his first book club video. The first story was quite short, only about ten pages, but some are much longer. If you have any interest seems like it would be a good time to read through them, with all the stories available in one place. I'll attach the first two videos which are currently out below.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
So far, the only good thing about strep has been reading these. Got through the Tuff books so far. Just reading for the zen this time.
Great! I'm glad someone is able to take advantage! I've only read the first one so far. Plus I had already read "A Song for Lyanna." I didn't know whether to post the links or not, but I figured PJ had already made them public in his posts. I'm hoping he already addressed any copyright concerns for sharing the files.
ETA: Sorry to hear about the strep. Hope you're feeling better soon!
Last Edit: Nov 18, 2015 5:17:44 GMT by Lady Dyanna
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
LMAO at the conversation with Brandon the Night's King. I'm halfway through the books. Ran out of reading time during Fall break. Martin is definitely distopian, and not in the fun steam punky way either.
LMAO at the conversation with Brandon the Night's King. I'm halfway through the books. Ran out of reading time during Fall break. Martin is definitely distopian, and not in the fun steam punky way either.
That was an amusing bit! I have been able to keep up with where he is with the videos for now, but, I'm having a hard time getting into the stories. Just not sure if its my cup of tea or not. I would say that I don't necessarily consider myself a SF&F fan and most days I'm still surprised that I liked ASOIAF as much as I do. Back in high school I was never able to get into Tolkein, etc. But I do find my tastes changing. The funny thing is, that a lot of the things that I have read do have an element of both to them, so maybe I do like it better than I thought. I think I might just be having a hard time focusing period right now. Will keep pushing through as I can and see how it goes. At least this pushes me to finish it before I watch the video. I'm just hoping that not all the stories are quite so grim. Doesn't give me much hope for any type of happy ending for ASOIAF.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Post by whitewolfstark on Jan 10, 2016 17:04:51 GMT
I just finished reading "In the House of the Worm" and it has an excellent example of how Martin could easily turn the Others into something more than just monsters.
...SPOILERS...
Okay, in "In the House of the Worm" we have a character named Annelyn (male) who, for ease of mind's sake, looks like a Jaime Lannister & Daario Naharis combined together with the personality more along the lines of Jaime in general.
He is a member of a group of people called the "Yaga-la-Hai" who live on a world with a dying sun, in a complex system of burrows carved out of obsidian. Like their system, they live in a dying and decaying culture which spends most of its time partying, dancing, having sex, and philosophizing on things that matter little (like whether the sun is a coal). A sense that their culture used to be great before the decay is heavily implied. For as long as anyone can remember they have fought with the Grouns who live further below. Lately a person by the name of the "Meatbringer" has been the only one to bring back steady supply of killed Grouns for the Yaga-la-Hai to eat, while other Groun hunters go down and never return. But what upsets Annelyn is when the Meatbringer humiliates him in front of the rest of the Yaga-la-Hai but most especially in front of his preferred girl, Carolyn (I think that was her name--she's not as important to the story). This prompts Annelyn to journey down into the groun-infested lower burrows with a few of his friends with the intent of watching the Meatbringer do what he does (so he can learn his secrets) and then kill the Meatbringer.
Things go badly when Annelyn discovers (when one of his friends turns coward and tries to retreat) that what the Meatbringer is doing is playing both the Grouns and the Yaga-la-Hai off of each other by bringing meat to both of them. He kills Annelyn's cowardly friend and then runs into Annelyn and his friends and then reveals that he's not wholly Yaga-la-Hai, but is instead a half-Yaga-la-Hai and half-Groun hybrid--the next kind of evolution a "species III" which allows him to see in the dark just as well as a groun. He bullies the Yaga-la-Hai like he did to Annelyn, and bullies the Grouns by occassionally scaring them with a white worm--and the Meatbringer makes it clear that he considers both the Grouns and the Yaga-la-Hai as inferior beings, far beneath his concern. He also says that he has been sleeping with both the Yaga-la-Hai and Groun women in order to create more of his new kind of species. I feel I should also mention that he also has a Groun's sharp teeth. He murders the rest of Annelyn's friends, and Annelyn just barely makes his escape--but he gets lost in the process.
Annelyn wanders the darkness alone and by himself for an untraceable amount of time until he comes across a Groun which is just as scared of him as he of it--but most especially when Annelyn unknowingly tosses a white worm at it--which sends it fleeing. Annelyn then comes across a host of white worms that have taken over a room with a large Theta (just like the one on his shirt) on the wall. Annelyn knows he can't go back and risk the Groun returning, so the only way to go forward is through the white worms--which once he does they attack him immediately. He makes for one of the few doors left standing and gets through--not without getting injured in the process. In doing so he comes across a hall (again with a Theta) where several Grouns and white worms are on display on either side. And soon Annelyn begins to notice that while the worms are changed from something harmless & natural normal worms into something monstrous--he soon begins to notice that the Grouns used to be more like the Yaga-la-Hai. What we're left to infer is that Project Theta (an important organization in the 1000 Worlds, that's responsible for genetic mutation experiments) basically transformed some humans into Grouns for a purpose of digging in the darker tunnels. What clues Annelyn into their similarity is that on one of the Groun specimens is an old heat-vision helmet, and that particular Groun has human eyes like him. Project Theta is known for transforming humans in these manners, but it should be noted that they're still humans on a biological level--despite the mutations. In any case, Annelyn takes the helmet from the dead and half dissected Groun, and puts it on--suddenly he can see, and he makes his way further through the lower burrows, until he runs into another Groun--this one armed with a knife in one of its six legs. Suddenly getting an idea, Annelyn turns and speaks directly to the Groun, which startles it. After a bit of confusion, the Groun indicates or him to come with it. The Groun takes him to the home of the Groun where he's brought before a bunch of elder Grouns who question him whether he's a II or a III. Recalling what the Meatbringer said about being a III, Annelyn lies and says he's a III, and the Groun ease off and feed and tend to his wounds before showing him on his way out.
Annelyn finds his way back to the Meatbringer's lair, and with the heat-vision helmet, he easily beats the Meatbringer--killing him. He then returns to the Yaga-la-Hai--half-starved, gaunt, and no longer as much as a "pretty boy" as he once was--or for that matter as interested in Carolyn as he once was, but instead dedicated to spreading word about his experience in the tunnels. Which upset the elders of the Yaga-la-Hai, but they figure it's better to let him rave on than to crack down on what they clearly consider to be a mad man.
We get here two forces who are traditionally pitted against one another: the Yaga-la-Hai and the Grouns--with a third mindless race a plague to them both: the white worms--which discover they aren't so different after all, but have simply forgotten that they were once the same and have been killing each other senselessly. There's no grand reunification here, but the seeds for a change in perspective are being sewed by Annelyn--despite the dismissals of his elders. It's actually the middle man between them who is preying on both races for his own benefit that's the actual villain of the story. To some respect the Meatbringer reminds me of a Craster who "gets around" rather than "keeps it in the family" but I think the similarities are easily enough to draw. The similarities between Jaime's ASOS journey and Annelyn's is remarkable now that I think on it, and I actually rather liked some of the images Martin depicted in this story--what with the reflections of people dancing on the Obsidian walls.
Post by whitewolfstark on Jan 10, 2016 19:21:07 GMT
Found this interesting comment on PJ's video, some of which I agree with & came to a similar conclusion on--others, I'm like: WTF?
I'm surprised you didn't bring up the actual flowers more - what they do in the story, how the title of the story works (the story is named after them, after all), and how very GRRM they are in the role they play between the experience of characters and what might usually be thought to be the main-line narrative of a scifi or fantasy story. This is a story about lies. So, in GRRM style, it makes sense for the whole story to be a lie and for something else to be happening other than what we think is happening at first. The name "Bitterblooms" is explained by Morgan to be based on their blooming in bitter cold. This is of course a lie; almost everything Morgan says is a lie, especially her name. Thematically, "bitter blooms" are beautiful notions of hope, glory, love, or transcendence that turn out to be false. The story is about how subjective experience problematizes the downside of such things, because in the mind's eye, truth is not really an achievable thing so much, but pleasure and joy and want definitely are. but past that, what is happening in the story? let's just look at the flowers. The flowers are found tangled around some sort of spaceship or landing craft. They are not normal plants, as Shawn can't pull them out by the stems (important detail). Shawn is then injured very badly on the head by a vampire while in the bed of flowers. Later on, Morgan explains the different kinds of flowers, and when Shawn's hair has gotten long, brings bitterblooms to put in her hair (how did she pick them?). Shawn then leaves and travels all over the world. Years later, to prove her story is true, she takes a bitterbloom from her hair. WHAT?? Why did Shawn still have bitterblooms in her hair years later? If showing the flower proved the story, then that means the flowers can't be common or widespread, which makes it even stranger she still has one in her hair. Then later, when Shawn knows she is going to die, she goes back to the patch of bitterblooms to do it. Here's what I think happened: When the vampire attacks Shawn, Shawn dies. The bitterbloom is part of an alien parasite, either natural or manmade, that came to this planet with the spaceship. It gets into the hole in Shawn's head and uses her as a host, slowly rebuilding her. Morgan's artificially long life, lack of memory and need to keep Shawn in the spaceship for a long time while feeding her human flesh are all because Morgan is already a host for the bitterblooms. This is also why Morgan's hair is long and why she has no problem picking bitterblooms - she grows them from her head. When Shawn's "hair gets long," it means some sort of preparation or root system is complete in her head, and she is ready for the bitterblooms in earnest. A lot of the "making love" is about the biological process and reproduction of the traveling parasite. It's being compared to the nomadic humans who have traveling orgies to expand their gene pool. The net result to anyone who isn't Shawn is she spreads the bitterblooms all over the planet by becoming a world traveling trader. This is why she is still growing them years later and can pluck them from herself at will without really thinking twice about it. This is probably a Very Bad Thing. The "Bitterblooms" are probably called that because they take over entire planets or have some other massive adverse affect. She probably dreamed of Avalon when she died because in GRRM's abandoned novel, there might be a conflict where the plants want to take over Avalon, or already took it over. Or maybe they are linked to some sort of alien or technological presence on Avalon. This is in poetic ambiguity with Shawn's dreams of traveling to other planets and her hope for a heaven of sorts along those lines. she goes back to the blooms to die because her blooms will live on and eventually go to someone else. by spreading a world-ending catastrophe without her knowledge for very human reasons, Shawn is a classic GRRM character, and the way the point of view obscures the reality of the bitterblooms is dead on for him and how he treats truth and lies and story vs expectation.