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 Hello BYOB! For years I have wanted to do a read-along thread with y'all but it just never seemed to happen. Now though, with stores and libraries closed and hard times all around, a friendly book club might just help us all get through it together! In that spirit, I and fellow bookworm buddy Heather Papps have put together a little project we think you'll enjoy: a public domain SciFi novel reading list everybody can access thanks to our friends at the indispensable Archive.org and Gutenberg.org. Using our incredible skills of goofing around and reading Wikipedia we have picked the following titles to read, and will provide links to free online versions of all of them. We are going to read them in chronological order, to better understand how the modern science fiction novel evolved! Neat! Watch this space to see where we're at and where you can read along. -BYOBookclub 2020 Reading List- (We are currently reading the title in bold!) #1- Utopia by Thomas More (1516). Read in browser or download at the Internet Archive, or Project Gutenberg, or buy a thrift edition paperback from Dover. #2- The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish (1666). Read in browser or download at the Internet Archive [b]Discussion of The Blazing World has begun and will continue until Monday, June 15![b] #3- Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726). Source TBD. #4- Memoirs of the Twentieth Century by Samuel Madden (1733). Source TBD. #5- Micromegas by Voltaire (1752). Source TBD. #6- Journeys of Lord Seton in Seven Planets by Marie-Anne de Roumier-Robert (1765). Source TBD. #7- The Year 2440 by Louis-Sébastien Mercier (1771). Source TBD. #8- The Last Man by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville (1805). Source TBD #9- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818). Source TBD. #10- Rapaccini's Daughter and The Artist of the Beautiful by Nathanial Hawthorne (1844). Source TBD Thanks Barking Gecko, et al for additional links! --- It's a pretty solid list, although we are definitely open to suggestions. Just keep in mind, HP and I set up this first batch to all be from before 1850. If we do a part II it will almost certainly start with Monsieur Jules Verne, who (along with the lead-up to the American Civil War) changes things a lot from 1850 on. We are, right now, only providing links to English translations, even though many of these books were originally published in German, French or even Latin (in Utopia's case). If you want to read along in the original languages please do, your insights will be very welcome! Please join us, have some fun, read some all-time great books and maybe help raise spirits a little! We can't wait to talk SciFi classics with you! BoldFrankensteinMir fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jun 8, 2020 |
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Apr 7, 2020 23:38
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This space reserved for notes, guides, reviews and other ancillary materials to help people understand these old books better. Since these are all public domain works that have been around a long time, there's lots of resources available! Resources for Utopia: What's with all the F's where there should be S's? (Thanks biosterous!) (Some OCR may accidentally parse the "Long S" as f, adding to the confusion!!!) The Open Utopia project also has lots of information to help readability and explain the text! (Thanks Manifisto!) 
BoldFrankensteinMir fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Apr 8, 2020
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Apr 7, 2020 23:39
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 not saving this post unless i really need it but i don't think i will!
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Apr 7, 2020 23:52
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Me too! I can't remember the last time I read a book by a bona fide saint.
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Apr 7, 2020 23:57
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i am very excited for the blazing world. it's about weed, right?
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Apr 7, 2020 23:58
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Heather Papps posted:i am very excited for the blazing world. I think so? And it's by a real Duchess! Whatever these books are about, we will all feel very fancy for having read them.
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Apr 8, 2020 00:01
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this is a pretty chill idea, thanks OP and HP!
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Apr 8, 2020 00:17
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Pretty great list. For part II (post-1850) I'd like to suggest David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus. It's a trip. Here's the Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1329/1329-h/1329-h.htm Will be reading along with this thread for sure, a great idea!
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Apr 8, 2020 00:57
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:#1- Utopia by Thomas More (1516). Read along here at the Internet Archive! whatever OCR they used on this, it turned all the fancy tall S's into f's! haha oh no! for the epub version, at least
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Apr 8, 2020 02:14
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I grabbed the kindle and epub versions. Kindle seems a bit more readable? If I'm too stoned to parse such romantic language, do I report in here or the too high to post thread? That said, this should be fun and I've been wanting new stuff to read. |
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Apr 8, 2020 02:20
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magic cactus posted:Pretty great list. For part II (post-1850) I'd like to suggest David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus. It's a trip. Heck yeah! Thank you! Right now phase II is a long way off, but there are some ideas... vvv Spoilers for not distracting from page 1's master list! vvv Phase II Reading List (W.I.P.) From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne (1865) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (1889) The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (1897) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1900) A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1917) A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (1920) R.U.R. by Karel Čapek (1920) Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon (1930) Though honestly by that point I think BYOB could lose itself in the collected works of Verne or Wells, or in the entire series of either Oz or Barsoom, so who knows? biosterous posted:whatever OCR they used on this, it turned all the fancy tall S's into f's! haha oh no! for the epub version, at least Haha, whoops! If there's a better link please let me know, I'll put it in the list. And thanks for the info on tall S, I'll add it to the notes! BoldFrankensteinMir fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Apr 8, 2020
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Apr 8, 2020 02:21
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| I don't have the time to read all these, sadly, but I did read The Blazing World last year so I will be happy to talk about it with y'all when you get there. And I've read Frankenstein a whole bunch of times. I assume you're gonna read the 1818 version and not the 1831? I personally think the 1831 version is better but they're both good. Oh and I've read Gulliver's Travels. So I will just participate in those. | |
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Apr 8, 2020 04:24
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I think it would be cool if we get some of the authors accounts and they can tell us what they think of their book, I bet they think it's pretty nifty. |
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Apr 8, 2020 06:58
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okay, trying to read the internet archives' version of utopia gave me a headache. reading wikipedia's summary of the thing provided a lot of perspective and I recommend that, or a similar introduction, for anyone who would like a bit of context before diving into the work. textwise, I think you're going to have a much cleaner reading experience using the translation from openUtopia: http://theopenutopia.org/full-text/introduction-open-utopia/ the translation is in a contemporary vernacular and there are helpful footnotes. I can't say much about the quality of the translation but it's a heck of a lot more readable.
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Apr 8, 2020 14:27
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Project Gutenberg also has Utopia. Their version is from a 1901 edition. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2130 |
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Apr 8, 2020 14:41
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Barking Gecko posted:Project Gutenberg also has Utopia. Their version is from a 1901 edition. based on a spot check, I think the openUtopia translation uses that as one of its sources. the openUtopia version does have added footnotes, and it includes stuff outside the main text (things like maps, poetry, an alphabet) so it's worth checking out.
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Apr 8, 2020 14:53
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if there are any very funny passages i may try reading them aloud and posting the recordings
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Apr 8, 2020 15:37
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Manifisto posted:based on a spot check, I think the openUtopia translation uses that as one of its sources. the openUtopia version does have added footnotes, and it includes stuff outside the main text (things like maps, poetry, an alphabet) so it's worth checking out. Thank you so much, added to the OP! My first thought on OpenUtopia was "do I need the assets from a retail copy to run it, like OpenMW?". Duhhhhhhh I'm smart. I'm gonna mod my copy of Utopia to have bikinis and Urukhai and I can run my own pawn shop! Edit- Also, so everyone is aware, Archive.org also has plain text transcription, ePub, Kindle, and PDF versions available too. Here's every file format they've got on the same text. Read whichever version you like but I'm going to default to archive.org, just to try and keep everybody on the same page. Literally! Like literature literally, the most literal you can be! BoldFrankensteinMir fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Apr 8, 2020
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Apr 8, 2020 16:31
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The plain text version has even worse OCR somehow  although i'm a fan of "Gontroverfy"
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Apr 8, 2020 18:31
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This will get easier as we move forward in time, guaranteed. Thanks everybody for tolerating a little messiness to start.
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Apr 8, 2020 18:38
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It has been one week, one week remaining. I am a little less than halfway done with Utopia myself but I set some time aside this week to finish it; how is everybody else faring? Do we need more time or is the 21st still feasible for everybody?
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Apr 14, 2020 19:59
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:It has been one week, one week remaining. I am a little less than halfway done with Utopia myself but I set some time aside this week to finish it; how is everybody else faring? Do we need more time or is the 21st still feasible for everybody? i am about one third? but i've read it before. e: there is enough time, i have been goin' slow given the deadline. was planning on finishing by that time, but also, i am easy unto sunday morning
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Apr 14, 2020 20:15
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i forgot to start until a few days ago! so i'm not very far yet. i'll probably finish in time though
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Apr 14, 2020 21:13
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okay so uh say it out loud "beautopia" you know what this maybe works in text also. i told my dad the german kinder joke on the phone and had a minor panic when i realized it is a purely text based joke and any way i chose to pronounce it would blow the punch line.
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Apr 14, 2020 21:40
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I kinda hope somebody accidentally watches Zootopia for this, it'll make the conversation fun.
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Apr 14, 2020 21:53
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Attention readers! Due to high 'yob project traffic our discussion date has been moved back, we will now open Utopia for conversation on Saturday April 25th. Happy reading!
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Apr 20, 2020 17:11
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who could have imagined widespread social isolation would lead to increased yobbin?
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Apr 20, 2020 17:20
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oh good, i fell way behind but now i should be able to finish in time!
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Apr 20, 2020 18:03
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I hope y'all don't mind but I added a link in the OP to the Dover store, for a print edition of Utopia that I like (it's the one I ended up finding easiest to read though I'm peeking at the other posted e-books and other editions too). $$$$$Links$$$$$ I know but it's just three bucks and I like Dover, and we have two other free options already. Just wanted to face up to my voracious capitalism, forgive me St. Sir Thomas More, esq.
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Apr 20, 2020 18:46
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Attention readers! Due to high 'yob project traffic our discussion date has been moved back, we will now open Utopia for conversation on Saturday April 25th. Happy reading! oh great, been a bit slow for reasons so this is awesome news! thankjs friend!
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Apr 20, 2020 23:25
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:I hope y'all don't mind but I added a link in the OP to the Dover store, for a print edition of Utopia that I like (it's the one I ended up finding easiest to read though I'm peeking at the other posted e-books and other editions too). guillotine
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Apr 20, 2020 23:41
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It's Saturday my orbs! We will now discuss our first book, Utopia by Sir Thomas More, for 1 week (so if you're not quite done yet you can still squeak in here if you want!) This is now a Utopia Spoilers Zone! If you don't want the 500 year old book's twists and turns ruined for you stop reading this now (and finish the dang book!)What did everybody think of Utopia? I'll admit it was a harder read than I expected mostly because of that first book, which falls very much into the "I'm gonna make the intro the hardest part" trend classic lit seems to like. But at the same time the first book is what makes it a proper frame narrative, which is I think what really sells this book as the first true "science fiction" novel. There are lots of stories that predate this one about fantastical islands far away somewhere, think Pliny the Elder or Homer, but the difference is those guys all either purported to be entirely true or entirely false in their accounts. What Sir Thomas has done here is set up this idea that it doesn't matter if it didn't really happen, it's still a valuable experiment which is super important to modern scifi. I feel like the whole first book of Utopia is spent setting up this idea that a fanciful story can also be legitimate politics, and that's how he forges this middleground where scifi lives, with passages like these: Thomas More posted:"But such discourses as mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warnings of what may follow, have nothing in them that is so absurd that they may not be used at any time, for they can only be unpleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the contrary way..." But I'll get more into that as we go on, what are other peoples' initial reactions? BoldFrankensteinMir fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Apr 25, 2020
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Apr 25, 2020 15:23
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one of the first things i learned is that i have trouble reading a fiction that's mostly world building and very little action! i guess i need more of a narrative to latch onto. also since i kept trying to read this right before bed my memories of the first book are pretty spotty, oops! i do remember there was a thing about the tragedy of the commons i think? too much sheep because sheep are money, and then everyone else is screwed because all the land is used for sheep. those darn sheep. it's interesting to see More writing about a bunch of proto-socialist ideas here, a few centuries before the movement really got its feet under it. a whole lot of reliance on slavery though  (i was mostly done but had to finish it today!)
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Apr 25, 2020 20:22
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Yeah all of book 1 is set-up. We meet Raphael Htholday (Greek for "Knowing in Trifles"! It's like the 1500's equivalent of Guidy McLeaderson) and boy oh boy does he know better than you how to run a country. He even said so to a cardinal once, just to get his dig in. And in the process of explaining why he knows better than anybody else he rambles further and further away from Europe, by metrics of things like who knows how to tie knots and who remember contact with Ancient Rome, until by the end the other characters are literally begging him to just spill everything he knows about this Utopia country he keeps obliquely mentioning. (More Greek fun, Utopia literally means "no place"). An entire 20-something pages of intro just to establish yes, Raphael is worth listening to, but that's the style of the times. The bit about the cardinal and the sheep almost feels like an aside, but it really fits when you realize Thomas eventually gets beheaded for his views on the church, so of course he's gonna cast shade on it here. There were parts that even sounded like forums arguments, like when Thomas More's self-insert character says: Thomas More posted:You are not obliged to assault people with discourses that are out of their road, when you see that their received notions must prevent your making an impression on them.  I do concur that a narrative (more than "I met this cool guy once") would have been nice. You can see why the genre eventually gravitates towards that, and ideas like Jurassic Park weren't just half "I met this old man once who had a dinosaur island" and then half maps of said dinosaur island. BoldFrankensteinMir fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Apr 25, 2020
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Apr 25, 2020 20:30
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even if it had been more like william morris' "news from nowhere" it would've been a lot easier for me to follow - that one is also a whole lot of "here is how this society works", but at least you're following the guy around and he meets and talks to people and that laugh at his quaint non-utopian ideas. i was definitely amused at the section on warfare. they don't go to war, except they do, but they don't use their own soldiers, but when they do they're the best, and they don't care about the gold but make sure to get all the gold so they can bribe other nations. i did like how they basically put up "wanted: your goverment officials, dead or alive" posters in any country they're going to war with, that's funny.
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Apr 25, 2020 23:53
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FYI We're probably gonna extend the discussion deadline on this one because Heather Papps is under the weather. Edit- yup, we're gonna push the next book back another week to hopefully let HP feel better. BoldFrankensteinMir fucked around with this message at 14:31 on May 2, 2020
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Apr 30, 2020 15:34
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Pardon the doublepost but we have delayed another week so as to accommodate laid-up BYOB friend and my usual partner-in-crime Heather Papps. There's no accounting for accidents, amigos! Thank you for your patience, once HP is back we'll talk more Utopia and then get on with the next book on the 16th!
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May 8, 2020 16:30
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the irony of me misunderstanding some correspondence with BFM because i DID NOT READ THE POSTS HE MADE in this thread about book club is not lost on me. anyways i'm not clever but here we are. one of the things i love very much about expansive worldbuilding fiction is maps. i spent a large amount of childhood hours pouring over the maps in my dads copies of lotr or the chronicles of narnia. maps rule, but i never really considered where they came from as a device. i wouldn't be suprised if  was one of the earliest examples in print media of a map of an explicitly fictional place? there may be maps of atlantis that predate this but i don't think those people realized it was an allegory?
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May 12, 2020 22:52
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Heather Papps posted:there may be maps of atlantis that predate this but i don't think those people realized it was an allegory? I think that's a big part of what makes Utopia a new thing, is that it rides that line. I got into it a little earlier but I've thought more about it. The Odyssey, for example, is purportedly about real places even though they're ridiculous, but they're tied in to religious mythology so there's this idea that everything Odysseus and his boys goes to see is real, just very far away. It even plays out of the Iliad, which is (supposedly) a realistic chronicle of a war that did happen. It is how we found the real-life ruins of Troy after all. Same thing with like Pliny's island of guys with no heads and faces on their torsos- he puts that info right between real data in his Encycloepaoediae or whatever- or "there be monsters here" parts of sea-maps. People actually believed in them! Although certainly some also did not, but I think it's about intent. Likewise there might have been some people who thought Thomas More was telling the truth about this place but that's clearly not his intent, he wants you the reader to step into this winky hinter-zone where you still know Utopia is literally Nowhere, but you also understand that it's a useful allegory and he's really talking about England and Europe. That's what I think More deserves credit for here most, is setting up this idea of it not mattering if his allegorical place isn't actually real, it's the message that matters. That's not only a core scifi idea, it's also very early Enlightenment stuff, the philosophy that's going to, in about a hundred years from More, start allowing regular people to use their imaginations for something other than religious terror.
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May 15, 2020 16:26
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a book report, in 3 parts. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx-p8JS5x_wUaOC4pm9u1_5GD_9Jdx-Wo
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May 17, 2020 18:20
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