Ask Nathan Anything

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Tolkien or Lewis?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What do you think of this song?

I'm surprised to be saying this, but I actually really like it. It would be better if the lyrics weren't screamed and it'll never cease to be a source of amazement for me that you feel so strongly otherwise, but the instrumentals are good and it's got a great message.

Tolkien or Lewis?

Tolkien. In addition to Tolkien simply having been more personally important to me for longer, Lewis was a great interpreter and communicator of preexisting ideas but when it came to advancing ideas of his own he fell prey to unsupported speculation and excessive abstraction and categorization. This is a pervasive enough problem in his nonfiction that it's started to affect my perception of his fictional settings, with their "magpie" aesthetics (as opposed to Tolkien's self-consistent and at times self-conscious world), as well. Even so, I still like the magpie aesthetic, and I still think the Narnia novels and the Space Trilogy are excellent books, as are several of his nonfictional books.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Magpie aesthetic?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Magpie aesthetic?

Borrowing, patching together, "remixing". Lewis throws whatever interests him into his fiction and isn't as interested as Tolkien in thematic unity or rigidly consistent plotlines. I don't dislike this about Lewis, not by a long shot, but it's an immediately recognizable difference.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Magpie aesthetic?

Borrowing, patching together, "remixing". Lewis throws whatever interests him into his fiction and isn't as interested as Tolkien in thematic unity or rigidly consistent plotlines. I don't dislike this about Lewis, not by a long shot, but it's an immediately recognizable difference.

Ah.

I’d asked the original Q because, while I just started the ASOIAF book series a few weeks ago, I’m definitely thinking of (re)reading the two (Christian) greats in the genre after I finish.

Do you know of any other notable authors in fantasy?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What do you think of this song?

I'm surprised to be saying this, but I actually really like it. It would be better if the lyrics weren't screamed and it'll never cease to be a source of amazement for me that you feel so strongly otherwise, but the instrumentals are good and it's got a great message.

You kind of are missing the point if you think the screaming should be removed (it's a contrast to the clean vocals, exactly the way the breakdowns contrast the melodic parts, that's the whole point of this style of music), but good to hear it! I thought that song actually described Trump very well.

Hope you agree this is the best meme ever:

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Magpie aesthetic?

Borrowing, patching together, "remixing". Lewis throws whatever interests him into his fiction and isn't as interested as Tolkien in thematic unity or rigidly consistent plotlines. I don't dislike this about Lewis, not by a long shot, but it's an immediately recognizable difference.

Ah.

I’d asked the original Q because, while I just started the ASOIAF book series a few weeks ago, I’m definitely thinking of (re)reading the two (Christian) greats in the genre after I finish.

Do you know of any other notable authors in fantasy?

George MacDonald is a must if you're interested in tracing back Tolkien and Lewis's own influences; he's also a fantastic writer on his own merits. I've heard good things about William Morris and Hope Mirrlees but haven't read their work yet. Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books are worth a try, although they can be difficult to get through because of the incredibly dense writing style. The Oz books are better than one might think (I have a friend who insists that Baum is thematically much closer to being an "American Tolkien" than GRRM is despite Oz predating LotR by half a century), and more recently among American writers Ursula K. Le Guin wrote some pretty great work. There are also Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman books that are well worth reading, although I haven't read enough of either's body of work to be able to say if they're of consistent quality. Oh, and P.L. Travers's original Mary Poppins books are a lot of fun too.

A lot of people like Michael Moorcock but I think he's a tiresome edgelord, although some of that can be argued to have been (at first) a necessary corrective to the "safety" of the midcentury SFF scene.

Hope you agree this is the best meme ever:

It's pretty great, but I'm just the right age to still insist that the best meme ever is Shoop Da Whoop.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I started reading Morris' The Well at the World's End a couple years ago.  I found it very intriguing even though I didn't get very far with it at the time, so I'll have to go back to it. 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Magpie aesthetic?

Borrowing, patching together, "remixing". Lewis throws whatever interests him into his fiction and isn't as interested as Tolkien in thematic unity or rigidly consistent plotlines. I don't dislike this about Lewis, not by a long shot, but it's an immediately recognizable difference.

Ah.

I’d asked the original Q because, while I just started the ASOIAF book series a few weeks ago, I’m definitely thinking of (re)reading the two (Christian) greats in the genre after I finish.

Do you know of any other notable authors in fantasy?

George MacDonald is a must if you're interested in tracing back Tolkien and Lewis's own influences; he's also a fantastic writer on his own merits. I've heard good things about William Morris and Hope Mirrlees but haven't read their work yet. Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books are worth a try, although they can be difficult to get through because of the incredibly dense writing style. The Oz books are better than one might think (I have a friend who insists that Baum is thematically much closer to being an "American Tolkien" than GRRM is despite Oz predating LotR by half a century), and more recently among American writers Ursula K. Le Guin wrote some pretty great work. There are also Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman books that are well worth reading, although I haven't read enough of either's body of work to be able to say if they're of consistent quality. Oh, and P.L. Travers's original Mary Poppins books are a lot of fun too.

A lot of people like Michael Moorcock but I think he's a tiresome edgelord, although some of that can be argued to have been (at first) a necessary corrective to the "safety" of the midcentury SFF scene.

Also, I'm currently reading Briar Rose by Western Mass institution Jane Yolen, which is a modern reworking of Sleeping Beauty that was written with the expectation that mostly teenagers would read it but that I'm enjoying anyway. I don't know that I'd recommend it to Cath (or most forumites, for that matter), but Yolen's so prolific (almost 400 books and still alive and well) that I think she deserves a mention.

[SingingAnalyst]

Favorite forgotten or "lost" hit song (US or UK) from 1979-1999?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Favorite forgotten or "lost" hit song (US or UK) from 1979-1999?

Do people outside my immediate circle remember Natalie Merchant? If not, "Carnival". If so, probably "Can't Get Enough (of Your Love)"--the Kim Wilde one since there are other songs with similar titles.

[All Along The Watchtower]

opinion of UMass Amherst

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

opinion of UMass Amherst

Massive Freedom University. Even more so before its administration was trying to make it "elite".

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What do you think of Pete Buttigieg saying his favorite book is Ulysses? That amazed me due to how unreadable that book is.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What do you think of Pete Buttigieg saying his favorite book is Ulysses? That amazed me due to how unreadable that book is.

I've never been able to get through Ulysses in one go myself despite having responded generally well to the bits and pieces that I've read each time I've delved into it, but I know people who have. It surprises me a little that it would be someone's absolute favorite, but I don't think Buttigieg is lying about it or anything.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Would’ve been more amusing if Pete said his favorite book was “Infinite Jest”. Speaking of, ever read it?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Would’ve been more amusing if Pete said his favorite book was “Infinite Jest”. Speaking of, ever read it?

Not yet, and probably not any time soon. I've read other DFW stuff and liked it but I don't think I want to spend over a thousand pages inside his head in one go.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If you had one week to spend in Japan, 5 days to spend in South Korea, 2 days to spend in Hong Kong, and 2 weeks to spend in Mainland China, how would you spend that time? What sights would you see? Everything would be paid for, so money would be no object.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If you had one week to spend in Japan, 5 days to spend in South Korea, 2 days to spend in Hong Kong, and 2 weeks to spend in Mainland China, how would you spend that time? What sights would you see? Everything would be paid for, so money would be no object.

Week in Japan: 2 days in Hakodate or Aomori (where I've had great experiences in the past even though they're not big destinations for the most part), 2 days in Kyoto and one in Nara (both of which I've also been to before and enjoyed), 2 doing a blitz of the Inland Sea/Shikoku/Hiroshima orbit, where I haven't been before and would like to--Itsukushima, the 88 Temples, Konpira, etc. (Religious sites were a big thing for me the last time I was in Japan.)

5 days in South Korea: 2 or 3 days visiting a friend of mine who lives somewhere in Gyeongsang, 2 or 3 days in Pyeongchang because the Olympics there last year made it seem like an intriguing place. Seoul doesn't really seem like my kind of scene.

2 days in Hong Kong: If I only have a couple of days somewhere, I prefer to spend it just soaking up as much of the atmosphere as possible. I doubt I'd have any particular sightseeing itinerary, so I'd just walk around and soak up life there, maybe go to some restaurants.

2 weeks in mainland China: Spend the first day or so hauling ass to some relatively-less-polluted area away from the Pearl River Delta (assuming I'm entering from Hong Kong via Shenzhen or somewhere close by), spend a few days sightseeing along the Yangtze in the less-urbanized parts of the Sichuan Basin, then make my way through the hilly areas along the western fringes of China Proper to see Xi'an and the Great Wall. In the second week I'd go to the Mogao Caves (visionary environments are really interesting to me) and see if I could make it up into Tibet before going home. Xinjiang is interesting to me but wouldn't be a top priority, especially with the lead-up to genocide going on there right now.

[HillGoose]

would u rather be a rich ass mfer in Johannesburg or Sao Paulo?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

would u rather be a rich ass mfer in Johannesburg or Sao Paulo?

I'd prefer somewhere like Durban to either, and I'd prefer being comfortably middle-class to being loaded no matter where I lived, but of the two I'd prefer Johannesburg because it has a less humid climate and it seems easier to navigate as an Anglophone.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

would u rather be a rich ass mfer in Johannesburg or Sao Paulo?

I'd prefer being comfortably middle-class to being loaded no matter where I lived

I'm so glad I'm not alone in this.

[HillGoose]

would u rather be a rich ass mfer in Johannesburg or Sao Paulo?

I'd prefer being comfortably middle-class to being loaded no matter where I lived

I'm so glad I'm not alone in this.

Ya brah if u r rich the government tries to take even more of your money I think. That's bogus tho.

[James Monroe]

In your inner circle how much support are the running Democratic candidate getting from the locals? The town you reside seem to fit the profile of Bernie's constituency in Vermont, rural, very white, extremely liberal, middle to lower class, which makes me believe he would win your county in the primary. Would love to know if Joe Biden is having the monstrous appeal to people in your county, as the frontrunner as we type.

[RFayette]

A few rapid-fire ones:
-Favorite fast food chain?
-Favorite ice cream flavor?  
-Favorite kind of pizza?
-Favorite soda?  
Assuming you like these things, of course.

Also a random one:  have you ever seen the show The Good Place, and if so, what did you think of it?  I think you'd like it.