Writing about Writing Part 4

Oh, no… here we are again! This can't be real!

The last time I went on a rant about this, I settled on Obsidian as my ultimate note-taking and writing application. It sounded pretty final… I mean, the last chapter detailing why was called Endgame. Can't be more final than that—unless you work at Marvel!

So, yeah. Here I am again, ready to switch to yet another note-taking and/or writing application.

Welcome back!

This time, we are starting from Obsidian.

Chindi

Chindi is the strongest installment of the Academy series to date. McDevitt continues to build an incredible hard SF world full of mystery. Things unfold with with so many questions atop questions… You can't stop turning pages. While the previous one, Deepsix, had a much smaller scope, this one goes huge. A very well-crafted story.

The mystery of the Chindi itself — the artifact our heroes are concerned with, its origins, its nature — is at the heart of the story. McDevitt handles it so well. Rather than dumping exposition, he lets our heroes circle around it, finding new angles, new contradictions. Each discovery feels earned. The mythology he constructs around this thing is unsettling, and the implications only go deeper as we progress. It's the kind of SF mystery that makes you want to immediately reread it to catch what you missed.

My one tiny gripe is that we have yet another last-second rescue under catastrophic circumstances. Our heroes pull off the impossible for the 3rd time in a row. It's a minor flaw in an otherwise excellent series, but the pattern is there. Is it a big deal? No. Is the book any less good because of it? No.

Great read!

 

Brave New World

 

The conditioning angle of Brave New World is genuinely unsettling, and cranking the Ford mythology into a full-blown religion is a bold move that pays off. Great dystopian setup. Strong foundation.

I read the abridged version in high school, so my memory of the book was pretty vague. Still, having loved it, I came in with high expectations.

Turns out memory and reality don't always match.

First surprise: they get to the Savage Reserve fast. In my head, that was a second-half reveal. Nope. It threw me off the pacing early on, and I spent a good chunk of the book waiting for a gear shift that never quite came. 

I also remembered Lenina as almost a co-lead, her story arc feeling as central as Bernard Marx's. Reading it now, that's not really the case. Maybe the abridged version gave her more space. Maybe I just projected. Either way, it felt odd.

And the world itself, man, I wanted more of it. Compared to 1984, which practically drowns you in its nightmare, Huxley's society feels a little underexposed. You get the ideas, but not always the weight of them.

Here's the thing though: Brave New World is an excellent book. I'm just pretty sure I read it at the wrong time… right after finishing 1984. That's not a fair fight for anyone…

Does the sequencing of what you read affect how you land on a book? Curious if anyone else has read these two back to back.

Paranormalis: Series 1 - Blocky Worlds

Dropped this new series of t-shirts the other day for Paranormalis. Check it out! 

Paranormalis Store: Series 1 - Blocky Worlds

Have a good day!

1984

When you're about to read 1984, you already think you know what it's about. I did too: totalitarianism, surveillance, Big Brother watching you brush your teeth.

The world Orwell builds feels almost absurd in its oppression. But it works.

Telescreens. Thought Police. Informants everywhere. Sure. But then Orwell goes deeper.

This isn’t just a system that controls what you do, or even what you believe. It controls what you think — and turns your own mind into a prison.

That’s where doublethink comes in.

It’s the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs at once—and accept both as true.

The Party says it plainly: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

It’s nonsense. But that’s not the point. The point is submission. If you can accept contradiction as truth, you’ve already lost control of your own mind.

And you don’t need to live in a totalitarian regime to see it.

• Politicians cut programs and call it reform
• A company gets caught — and responds by saying how much it cares
• Your boss lays off half the staff and tells the rest they’re the company’s most valuable assets

The contradiction is right there, in plain sight. The only question is: do you notice it?

Once you understand doublethink, you start seeing it everywhere.

And that’s Orwell’s real genius.