We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
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11 Responses
Wandering Stars. It's got some classic stories in it, and many of them are very funny. Top-notch authors.
My vote: The Dark is Rising.
I suggest you don't read the Donaldsons unless you want something to hate.
I know that appealing to your corrupt side works, but I'll try the honest path this time :-).
NOVA. You are a philistine if you have not read it. I call you out as a lover of the literature for not having read it. You must read it. It is essential and fantastic. Well, DHALGREN is too, but I love NOVA more.
Oh, left off the "why". The Dark is Rising does some interesting and different things with myth, fairy tale and YA/MG (though I don't think either of those categories existed when it was written, it was just "children's literature"). It has a bit of poetry to it, as well.
Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" has been on my bookshelf for a very long time. Technically "Over Sea, Under Stone" is the first book in the series, but I prefer to consider it a prequel which should be read after "The Dark is Rising". If the series is new to you, I'd love to see your review of "The Dark is Rising".
Pat Cadigan's "Fools" and Sylvia Engdahl's "The Far Side of Evil" have been on my list of books to acquire and read for a while, so I would appreciate reviews of those, to tell me how hard I should be looking for them.
I second the recommendation for The Dark Is Rising. Don't bother reading the two Eddings books. They won't make any sense if you haven't read their previous series, the Belgariad and the Malloreon, and those aren't worth reading if you're older than 13.
Dhalgren. Because Delany
Nova. Because I don't see many bloggers (including myself) reading or discussing Delany.
The winner has been chosen. Three people mentioned a Delany title, so I went with Nova on the basis of it receiving two recommendations and being considerably shorter than Dhalgren 😛
I'm going to suggest "The Mysterious Planet" by Lester Del Ray.
The reason? He was important in getting me to read science fiction when I was about 12 and it's a shame to see how much of his fiction has been forgotten.
The bribe? I'm sending you a link to one of the songs my band has on YouTube. Who knows? You might like it. It's a live performance.
Alf
I'm going to suggest "The Mysterious Planet" by Lester Del Ray.
The reason? He was important in getting me to read science fiction when I was about 12 and it's a shame to see how much of his fiction has been forgotten.
The bribe? I'm sending you a link to one of the songs my band has on YouTube. Who knows? You might like it. It's a live performance.
Alf