Rich and Strange Aeons

Speaking of old appliances: while my gas stove has sensible electric ignition, the gas oven apparently has to be lit with a lighter. Not even conveniently, you have to lift a metal bottom to get at the gas. Unclear if the ignition broke beyond repair or if this is by design. I am way less enthused about trying to use it now. (No baked potatoes?) Also, the dial for the oven gas was broken, though will be replaced... I'm just glad it got stripped in a gas-off position.

In addition to the Odyssey, I finished reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It's still fun, apart from the Christ Sledgehammer at the end. I noticed that Lewis gives Eustace something he's good at, botany -- though I don't think that ever contributed to the plot or solving a problem.

I remember as a kid reading about prisoners being fed bread and water, the ultimate in minimalist diet. Bread for food, water for drink, eh? It occurs to me that there's a good chance they also needed the water to make the bread edible: traditional bread goes stale quickly and I doubt prisoners were getting the fresh stuff... hell, you'd be happy if it were just stale and not moldy or wormy. This thought brought to you by my soaking a solid baguette to make it edible again.

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I also finally finished reading Unearthly Powers, by Alan Strathern, a book my friend Amy had turned me onto. I was really slow, she not only finished before me but could have finished re-reading it before I did. To be short, it's about the differences between transcendent (otherworldly) and immanent (this-worldly) religions, and how a given faith may shift between those over time.

Immanentism – a form of religiosity oriented towards the presence of
supernatural forces and agents in the world around us, which are
attributed with the power to help or thwart human aspirations.

Transcendentalism
– a form of religiosity oriented towards the transcendence of mundane
existence and the imperative of salvation or liberation from the human
condition.

All religions have immanentism; some newer ones have transcendentalism as well.

As Amy put it, the book is also trying to explain why "world religions" went through "folk religions" like a hot knife through butter. I don't feel like trying to give a fair summary, but in addition to my old idea that just being a missionary religion gives you an advantage -- you keep trying, they don't, eventually you succeed -- Strathern talks about other differences: immanentist religions tend to be open and empirical in a sense, they're not trying to resist missionary activity, in fact priests and sacred kings may adopt or co-opt the new religion for various religions; OTOH once emplaced, transcendentalist philosophy tends to close the door behind it -- now drought or famine or failure in war aren't a sign of weak gods but a punishment or a test or a reminder to focus on salvation.

I re-read Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile recently. Still good. Still geologist porn.

Partway through Book 1 I wondered about sending robust materials back through the time gate, like engraved stone or fired clay. Then we meet someone who'd tried to arrange for such communication, albeit with different materials. Happy that the author addressed that.

I wondered that exiles didn't get more warning or worry more about the Metapsychic Rebels having forced their way through, with contraband equipment no less. If you're going back to hopes of a primitive society and freedom, shouldn't you worry about being Marc Remillard's mindthrall in an orderly society instead? Friend S said that was too small potatoes to fit his profile, which I guess turned out to be true. Plus people thought he was dead. OTOH that makes it worse: the Intervention books showed us how just one maybe adept coercer-reactor can take over a society; the rebels had like 100 masterclass minds.

OTOH brutal despotism was a likely outcome for Exile society anyway, so I guess adding illegal operants and weapons to the mix doesn't change much. And you don't go on a one-way trip to the Pliocene with prudence being a major concern.

I kind of like how fucked up most of the Exiles are. Something like half of Group Green is arguably sociopathic. The rest are not quite suicidal.

I was surprised at how much of a total asshole Marc is at first; I had better memories of him. I guess he earns those in the last book. Still kind of assholish there, for that matter. But early on? Authoritarian cult of personality all the way.

I remember being disappointed in the Milieu trilogy. I don't remember it well, but the Rebellion seeming more pathetic than steeped in grandeur, perhaps. That actually fits better now, I got more a sense of Marc being fucked up even while ambitious.

I'd remembered Felice almost d-jumping through raw power and instinct, and Marc figuring it out with mechanical enhancement. I really didn't remember that *Brede* could d-jump, "as a legacy from my Spouse." That seems pretty wacky, a non-masterclass artificial operant being able to casually teleport across the galaxy (if she had anywhere to go) while a Grand Master psychokinet and Paramount Grand Master creator needs elaborate enhancement rig to learn it at all. And Brede seemed to think she could have taught Elizabeth, if Lizzie had more PK.

Also odd, the word 'teleport' gets used with Pliocene society, but in one context it's clearly applied to a clumsy levitation. People do sometimes "appear out of nowhere" but that could be dropping invisibility instead of whisking oneself into place, and no one teleports for travel purposes.

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Re-read some Narnia books too. Dawn Treader, Horse, Magician. First two more fun than the third. First has a neat fantasy journey, also various morals for children. I liked the fake Arabic storytelling in Horse, and perceived less moralizing, though man, Aslan's really keeping a close paw on things. Made me wonder if Aslan's always intervening in Narnian lives... per the explicit Jesus analogy, maybe he should be! I also wondered if the Pevensies ever had sex as grown-up kings and queens. Probably they shouldn't have, as good chivalrous Christians who never got married. But Susan was considering marriage! That would have been weird.

Archenland is like Narnia's younger brother, with fewer Talking Animals. The cabbie-king's second son becomes first king there, and I wondered if at the time of High King Peter, Archenland still continued the original royal line. Which then makes me think after the Pevensies disappeared that one of the princes should have taken over Narnia, rather than things falling apart again until the Telmarines came.

What I really want to re-read is the Silver Chair; I remember that as having pretty trippy fantasy without much moralizing. I expect I'm wrong on the second count.

As a kid I'd somehow thought of the Dawn Treader as sailing west, and thought this until I saw a fan map of Narnia. Pretty stupid of me, given the details in the book, or the name of the ship itself.