“…when he returns to what was once the USSR but is now Ukraine to do a dissertation on Russian Mythology and Tales and whether they conform to Propp’s Functions of Folktales…” https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Enchantment…
The arc of history bends toward the Book of Mormon. Ima try this, see what happens. Ender’s Game, speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Seventh Son and Red Prophet are solid but others like Prentice Melvin are a little “I’m not a racist but…”
No biggie but It’s been interesting to see Dan Simmons and Orson Scott Card losing their marbles during the Obama years one way or another. I suspect dealing with Hollywood made them mad
I haven’t read Simmons’s Flashback but I finished The Fifth Heart about Sherlock Holmes and Henry Adam’s solving a murder and uncovering a conspiracy of left wing agitants full of “resentment” for their betters.
I think Guillermo Del Toro is still developing Drood which already had an Egyptian from central casting. At the time I thought it a more a product of Wilkie Collin’s use of laudanum and unreliable narrator
Somehow woke space opera, solarpunk and cli-fi are not yet there, for me. Derivative but woke is an anchor around the neck or a pair of cement shoes https://thebigsmoke.com.au/2020/05/20/woke-space-opera-solarpunk-and-cli-fi-the-new-subsets-of-sci-fi-taking-off/…
I mean Ancillary Justice was fine, not great but the sequels are meh (still read them) and have Butler books on hold, see if they’re for me or not
Nevermind Campbell, the worst thing is not knowing you are prisoner of tropes that have been done better by people with greater command of language Ignore this at your own peril
I mean, you’re supposed to know but not care
Be a walking tropecyclopaedia but write Rick and Morty jokes
This is sophisticated and by Card standards, funny
Card is proceeding from a great deal of worldly knowledge of folktale, narrative and culture. Wondering how much of this was designed as a bingo exercise of Propp narratemes, Ukrainian and Russian fables and the Jewish diaspora from the USSR