#robert godwin

[artemismatchalatte]

My 2023 TBR (4/12) 

These are my unread books concerning Mary Shelley, written works by her parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and books about Lord Byron. 

[werewolfetone]

All of the stories about William Godwin & Samuel Taylor Coleridge interacting with each others' families are so wild. Godwin's kids were quiet when Coleridge first met them cos their mother had just died so Coleridge wrote to Southey telling him that Godwin was a TERRIBLE parent without Wollstonecraft & therefore needed to remarry immediately. meanwhile when Godwin met Coleridge's eldest son Hartley Coleridge Hartley kicked him so hard in the shins that Godwin yelled at Coleridge AND his wife about it. utter chaos

[badwolfrt]

Okay, maybe a slightly controversial take, but I think Marion should have been the next "Hooded Man" after Robin of Loxley's death actually. Hear me out!

She is often the one Robin goes to to voice his doubts and worries the way one would with a second in command; when he doubts the villagers abillity to fight in Swords of Wayland; the trouble with Will/the villagers in Children of Israel when Robin tries to straight up quit and Marion challenges him to get back on track; in The Witch of Elsdon when he confesses that he bargained with the Sheriff's life and now the Sheriff won't stop hunting him "Till one of us is dead". I know some of that is probably because she's his wife, but some of those conversations (Will troubles, villagers fighting abilities) seem like things you'd discuss with a second in command to me.

The few times Robin is out of commission, she generally takes the lead. When Robin's imprisoned in The Swords of Wayland, she's the one who leads them to the Earl of Godwin, she's the one who instructs the Merries to get the sword, she's the one who breaks Robin out of prison. And when Robin's enchanted, she's the one who comes up with the idea to go to Herne and she's the one who ends up going to Herne alone. Even in season 3, when Robert leaves with Isadora in The Inheritance, the rest of the Merries kind of default to Marion as the leader and the one to spur them into action.

Speaking of Herne, out of all the merries, other than Robin himself, Marion is the one who has the most direct contact with him. In The Witch of Elsdon, Herne appears to Marion in the lake, shows her a vision (the only other person who gets his visions is Robin) and instructs her on how to save the Merries. And as mentioned above, in The Enchantment, Marion is the one to speak to him directly. Also, in Lord of the Trees, she (from Herne's perspective), sits at Robin's right, directly next to him, while the rest of the Merries are further back.

Also, what is maybe the most defining trait of Robin Hood? His archery skills. Who's the second best archer? Marion! (A case could be made for Nasir, but by the time The Greatest Enemy comes around I think Marion and Robin are pretty equal in skill, so she certainly would equal Nasir, if not surpass him.)

Robin gives her his sword in The Greatest Enemy and instructs her to carry on with his mission. I know that in canon, after Robin's death the group falls apart, but personally I kinda hate this choice. I don't think Marion would've let that happen, especially not after Robin's last wish for her. She had the strength and smarts to lead the outlaws and I think Robin knew that too.

Anybody agree with me? Disagree? I'd love to discuss!

[wonder-worker]

[Emma of Normandy] was one of the [many] known children of Richard I of Normandy; almost certainly his daughter by his Danish-descended wife Gunnor and thus the sister of Richard II, who became duke of Normandy after his father in 996, and of Robert Archbishop of Rouen. She was the aunt of dukes Richard III and Robert and great-aunt of Duke William, better known in England as the Conqueror.

In 1002 she came to England to marry King Athelred II, the Unready. Emma was not the English king’s first wife. He had been married before, once if not twice, and already had a large family of six sons and at least four daughters. At the time of the marriage Emma’s French/Norman name was changed for an English one, Aelfgifu. She bore Athelred three children: two sons and a daughter, Edward, the future Confessor, Alfred and Godgifu.

Emma’s marriage took place against the background of the Scandinavian attacks which plagued Athelred’s England. These culminated in Swein of Denmark’s conquest of England in 1013. Emma, her sons and later her husband then took refuge at the Norman court with her brother Richard II. After Swein’s death early in 1014, Athelred returned to rule briefly until his own death in 1016. An armed struggle for the throne ensued between Athelred’s eldest surviving son, Emma’s stepson, Edmund Ironside, and Swein’s son, Cnut. Fierce fighting, the division of the kingdom, then Edmund’s death made Cnut king of all England by the end of 1016.

In 1017 Cnut, the Danish conqueror, married Emma, Athelred’s widow. By this second husband she had two more children, a son Harthacnut and a daughter, Gunnhild, who in 1036 married Henry III, then king of the Romans, future emperor. Again Emma was not a first wife. Cnut already had a union with an English noble woman, Aelfgifu, daughter of a former ealdorman of York, a union which his marriage to Emma [may or may not] have terminated. Before or after 1016 Aelfgifu bore him two sons, Swein and Harold Harefoot. Cnut’s reign is the second stage of Emma’s career in England, and is marked by most references to her in charters and similar documents.

The death of Cnut late in 1035 put an end to this phase and inaugurated a third, dominated by questions concerning the succession to his several kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and England, particularly concerning that to the English throne. During his lifetime Cnut had sent his son Swein and Swein’s mother Aelfgifu to act as regents in Norway, and dispatched Harthacnut to be regent in Denmark. At the time of his father’s death, Harold Harefoot was the only son in England. From late 1035 until 1037 the English throne was once again at issue. Harthacnut remained in Denmark, whilst Harold collected support in England. At first Emma remained at Winchester, with Cnut’s military household and in possession of the royal treasure; Godwine earl of Wessex was close to her. In 1036 her sons by Athelred, Edward and Alfred, returned to England from their refuge in Normandy. Alfred was captured, blinded and died in circumstances which left suspicion attached to both Godwine and Harold. Edward, who had gone to his mother at Winchester, now returned quickly to Normandy. In 1037 Emma’s stepson Harold became king of the English and she was exiled to Flanders; there she lived, enjoying the hospitality of Count Baldwin, until 1039.

In that year her son Harthacnut joined her, and in 1040, on the death of Harold Harefoot, mother and son, accompanied by a fleet, returned to England where Harthacnut was accepted as king. Emma now entered the final stage of her life, as queen-mother. In 1041 Edward was recalled from Normandy, and associated in some way in rule; after Harthacnut’s premature death in 1042, he became king in turn. A year later, in 1043, Edward deprived his mother of much treasure and land. Although Emma was restored to court by 1044, little or no evidence has survived of her activity after this and she disappears from view after 1045. Emma probably lived the rest of her life at Winchester, where she died on 6 March 1052. She was buried there in the Old Minster alongside her second husband, Cnut."

-Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women's Power in Eleventh-Century England

[stillnaomi]

Some views on the state:

According to the Christian tradition, the state was evil but necessary because man's nature was evil; according to the rational faith in nature preached by the Enlightenment, the state was unnatural and therefore evil. Marked traces of this view are found, among others, in Morelly and Rousseau; but it was William Godwin who, in his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, produced what rightly ranks as the bible of anarchism. According to Godwin property, marriage and the state are all offences against nature and reason:

"Above all [he writes], we should not forget that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind; and that, however we may be obliged to admit it as a necessary evil for the present, it behoves us, as the friends of reason and the human species, to admit as little of it as possible, and carefully to observe whether, in consequence of the gradual illumination of the human mind, that little may not hereafter be diminished."

And later in the same work he becomes bolder and roundly proposes "to annihilate the quackery of government". From this time forward the leading radical and socialist writers - Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, Fourier, Leroux, Proudhon - are all preoccupied with the supersession of the state and its transformation into a society of producers and consumers. It was left to Moses Hess, an early radical associate of Marx, to translate these ideas into the Hegelian terminology which was common form among young German intellectuals of the 1840s. He believed that, so long as the state existed, whatever the form of government, there would always be rulers and serfs, and that this opposition would continue "until the state, which is the condition of polarity, abolishes itself dialectically and gives place to unified social life, which is the condition of community".

Marx quickly reached the conception of the state as the instrument through which the ruling class pursued and protected its interests. In one of his earliest writings against the estate owners of the Rhineland he described "the organs of the State", in the hyperbolic style of his juvenile period, as "the ears, eyes, hands and legs by which the interest of the forest owner listens, watches, judges, defends, seizes, runs". The modern state "exists only for the sake of private property"; it is "nothing more than the form of organization which the bourgeois necessarily adopt both for internal and external purposes for the mutual guarantee of their property and interests". But private property in its capitalist phase produces its own antithesis, the propertyless proletariat which is destined to destroy it. As Hess had said, the state is the expression of this contradiction, of this conflict between classes. When this contradiction is resolved by the overthrow of private property and the victory of the proletariat (which wiII, through the consummation of its own victory, cease to be a proletariat), society will no longer be divided into classes, and the state wiII have no further raison d'etre. The state is thus a "substitute" for collectivism.

The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923, Volume 1, by E H Carr, pg 233-234

[mariacallous]

The first frame of The Sympathizer reminds us that what is known in the United States as the “Vietnam War,” the Vietnamese refer to as the “American War.” When something as basic as what to call the catastrophe that killed and uprooted millions of people is in such fundamental dispute, it’s clear that nothing about this is simple.

Dichotomies and seeing things from both sides are at the heart of this series, an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2015 novel. Our hero, the child of a French father and Vietnamese mother, known only as the Captain (Hoa Xuande), spins this yarn as a confession in a North Vietnamese reeducation camp shortly after the end of the war. He was working, he claims, as a deep-cover mole for the Communists with the secret police in Saigon, where he was assigned to a somewhat buffoonish General (Toan Le). Though eager to celebrate the liberation of the south, the Captain’s handler orders him to join the General and his coterie when they flee to America. He was educated in the United States, understands (maybe loves?) the culture, and has an established rapport with the General’s CIA connection. His job is to monitor the situation there and report back.

So how does he end up captured by the North Vietnamese? Well, this is complicated, and the route to get there wickedly lampoons the military, academia, Hollywood, and, perhaps a bit more painfully, the mindset of war refugees incapable of adjusting to new surroundings. The Sympathizer is about tragedy, but, like Catch-22 or MASH, can also be called a comedy. I guess it’s all where your sympathies lie.

One of the bigger gags is the casting, with Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr. hamming it up in several makeup-heavy roles. (This is not an explicit nod to the Vietnam War film spoof Tropic Thunder, but that history adds some extra spice to the stew.) We first meet him as Claude, the gruff CIA man who helped groom the Captain when he was educated in America. (When, specifically, he decided to align with the Communists is unclear, though the real-life spy that The Sympathizer is very loosely based on already considered himself a mole at that young age.) Claude later assumes false identities, just because there’s nothing this story loves more than complications.

Some of Downey’s other roles include a condescending professor of Oriental studies (swishing around in a kimono and demanding his Japanese-American assistant take more pride in her culture); a right-wing congressman (“Napalm” Ned Godwin) who grunts like Clint Eastwood and whose maniacal hatred of Communists helps him overcome his racism, thus aligning him with the General and having an anti-Castro Cuban wife; and an egocentric film director working on an Apocalypse Now-like Vietnam picture, the portrayal of which is a little unfair to Francis Ford Coppola. (Sure, he was and is dedicated to his vision as an artist, but in a mostly benevolent way, not like the snot portrayed in The Sympathizer.)

Mirroring the Captain is left-wing journalist Sonny (Alan Trong), who stayed in America after college. The Captain secretly envies his ability to be open with his Viet Cong sympathies but scorns him for not “earning it” in the homeland during the war. Naturally, they are both sleeping with the same woman (Sandra Oh).

The other key characters who double as big honkin’ metaphors are Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan), which, yes, is French for “good,” and Man (Duy Nguyen), which is English for, uh, “man.” At age 14, they formed a three-way blood bond, but the big secret is that the Captain and Man are loyal to the Communists—indeed, Man is his handler, with whom he corresponds using invisible ink and complex codes. Bon, however, is a defiant South Vietnamese who escapes to America with the Captain and the General, but whose wife and child are killed as they race to make the last flight out. This tense sequence almost one-ups the real-life chaos of the fall of Saigon.

There’s more to the tableaux of characters, especially in the Los Angeles refugee community, and while the series keeps the story moving, a great deal of the clever writing that made the book such a success translates over nicely. There are examples at every turn: The professor teaches Oriental studies at a thinly veiled Occidental College (zing!), and his book of highly influential political theory is attributed to one Richard Hedd. (I’ll let you work that one out on your own.)

That book, Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction, is used by the Captain and Man as the foundation of their cipher, but it also contains the line eerily similar to a notorious statement by Gen. William Westmoreland: “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as that of the Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient, and as the philosophy of the Orient expresses it, life is not important.”

That preposterous sentiment is rebuked by the psychologically convalescing refugees—some of whom have turned to alcoholism, defacing property with images of the “Saigon execution” photo, or, as mentioned in one dark moment, “beating their wives just to feel like men.” As the series heads into its final third, the General (backed by the CIA) crews up for a quixotic attempt at a Bay of Pigs-like invasion via Thailand, which, of course, quickly falls apart.

The Captain isn’t just a witness to the scheme; he’s an active participant in two cold-blooded murders. (He’s still a likable guy; Hoa Xuande gives an incredible performance.) The moments of violence, however, are shot through a bleakly funny lens, in the style of the Coen Brothers. One includes a doddering half-deaf granny in the same frame as a life-or-death struggle.

The first three episodes are directed by the series’ co-creator, Park Chan-wook, the South Korean auteur of Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and the recent John le Carré adaptation The Little Drummer Girl. His episodes all contain a noticeable cinematic sparkle, making clever use of match cuts that weave the complex narrative in simplifying ways. The remainder of the series is directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, The Two Popes) and British director Marc Munden (The Secret Garden).

All seven episodes look terrific, from the period automobiles and Budweiser cans to the Vietnamese “hamlet” in both the Captain’s memory and the Hollywood film production where the Captain is acting as an authenticity consultant, blending art and life with helicopter blades. There’s also a keen deployment of fresh music from the era—not a hint of Creedence Clearwater Revival!—but instead tunes like “Dynomite!” by Bazuka (a funky number with a mention of armaments) and fiery free jazz by Ornette Coleman. It all builds to our hero’s tortuous showdown with his homeland, his identity, and himself. Unless you’ve read the book, there’s really no way to predict the ending, and yet once you see it you realize that it’s perfect.

America’s counterculture, instigated significantly by the Vietnam War (but also civil rights and the pill), is just about the most heavily covered topic in movies and television, but there are so few projects from the Vietnamese perspective. Of course, as with any group, there isn’t just one Vietnamese point of view. The Sympathizer, almost magically, is able to fit many in, even if it almost destroys everyone in its path. There hasn’t been a series this complex—and also so funny—in a very long time.

[bracketsoffear]

Vast Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Vast Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Abedi, Isabel: Forbidden World Adams, Douglas: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Asimov, Isaac: Nightfall

Borges, Jorge Luis: El Aleph Bradbury, Ray: Kaleidoscope Bradbury, Ray: No Particular Night or Morning

Caine, Rachel: Weather Wardens Clarke, Arthur C.: Maelstrom II Clarke, Susanna: Piranesi Coates, Darcy: From Below Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Curtis, Wardon Allan: The Monster of Lake LaMetrie

Foster, Alan Dean: He

Gardner, Martin: Thang Godwin, Tom: The Nothing Equation Gonzalez, J.F.: Clickers Gorky, Maxim: The Song of the Stormy Petrel Grant, Mira: Into the Drowning Deep

Hawking, Lucy and Stephen: George's Secret Key to the Universe Hardinge, Frances: Deeplight

Inglis, James: Night Watch

King, Stephen: The Jaunt

Lewis, C.S.: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Liu, Cixin: The Dark Forest (Three Body Problem Book 2) Lovecraft, H.P.: Dagon

Macfarlane, Robert: Underland Marquitz, Tim and Nickolas Sharps, ed.: Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters Melville, Herman: Moby Dick Mortimore, Jim: Beltempest

North, Claire: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Oesterheld, Héctor Germán: El Eternauta

Poe, Edgar Allen: A Descent into the Maelström Pratchett, Terry and Steven Baxter: The Long Earth series Purser-Hallard, Philip: Of the City of the Saved...

Reed, Robert: An Exaltation of Larks Reisman, Michael: Simon Bloom: The Gravity Keeper

Sanderson, Brandon: Firefight Seuss, Dr.: Horton Hears a Who! Simmons, Dan: The Terror Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver's Travels

Tennyson, Alfred: The Kraken Tolstoy, Leo: War & Peace

Verne, Jules: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Abedi, Isabel: Forbidden World

"Reginald has gained a dangerous power. He can shrink anything he likes. And he wants nothing less than the world's most famous buildings. The originals in miniaturized form, of course. Gradually he builds up a huge landscape in his cellar. But Reginald has overlooked something, or more precisely someone. Otis was locked in the Statue of Liberty and Olivia had fled from the police into the famous Berlin department store KaDeWe, when suddenly at night the buildings shrank. Now the children are the size of a fingernail... While they fight for their lives, chaos breaks out in the world outside: where have the monuments gone? And who has stolen them?" Vast stuff: Otis' fear of heights is a huge plot point and he was born on a plane. While Olivia wants to become a pilot. Many scenes of being in high places and terrified, and focus on being very small in a big world.

Spoilers: This book contains two Djinns one that can change the sizes of things one that can make them small and one that can make them big. But they are running out of magic fuel so staying small is the big fear of the characters.

Adams, Douglas: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The series swings wildly between cosmic dread and comedy, from the insignificance of the Earth's destruction to the chaotic results of the Infinite Improbability Drive to the very notion of the Total Perspective Vortex, the story hammers home again and again the infinitesimal nature of our existence in the vastness of the universe.

***

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.

"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe": Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.

"Life, the Universe and Everything": The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky- so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.

"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish": Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak.

"Mostly Harmless": Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?

The incomprehensible vastness of the universe is a theme repeated throughout the 'Trilogy". Notable examples include the guide initially describes Earth as 'harmless", after being stranded there for several years, Ford revises this to "mostly harmless". The Total Perspective Vortex, a machine that extrapolates a model of the entire universe, along with a microscopic dot labeled "you are here" this sense of perspective destroys the victim’s mind.

Asimov, Isaac: Nightfall

Lagash's six suns means an Endless Daytime, except for once every 2,049 years, when five suns set and the only sun left in the hemisphere is eclipsed by the moon. The scientists are trying to prepare civilization and themselves for the upcoming nightfall, but when it does occur, no-one is prepared for the thirty thousand stars that suddenly appear in the night sky. This leads to the far more devastating revelation how tiny and insignificant they are by comparison.

"Aton, somewhere, was crying, whimpering horribly like a terribly frightened child. 'Stars — all the Stars — we didn't know at all. We didn't know anything. We thought six stars in a universe is something the Stars didn't notice is Darkness forever and ever and ever and the walls are breaking in and we didn't know we couldn't know and anything —'"

Borges, Jorge Luis: El Aleph

In Borges' story, the Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping, or confusion.

Bradbury, Ray: Kaleidoscope

First published in the October 1949 edition of Thrilling Wonder Stories this describes a scene where a spaceship is hit by a meteor and torn apart – ejecting the crew into space. Each astronaut flies off on his own trajectory, hurtling to his doom. For a time they can all communicate through their helmet comms, but slowly, as the separation becomes millions of miles apart, they wind up as solitary figures, alone with his thoughts.

Bradbury, Ray: No Particular Night or Morning

This story takes place during a long interstellar journey. The destination and purpose of the journey are unclear. There are many men (it seems only men) on a large ship. Among them are friends Hitchcock and Clemens. Hitchcock begins to struggle with the idea that there is anything that exists outside of him, that none of it can be proven to exist. Clemens tries to argue with him until Hitchcock is finally treated by the ship’s psychiatrist with the captain’s knowledge, but to no avail. He finally dons a space-suit and leaves the ship. Over the radio he can be heard muttering about how even his own body does not exist.

At one point, Hitchcock is asked why he wanted to go on this journey in the first place. Was he interested in the stars? In seeing other places? In travel? He responds that “It wasn’t going places. It was being between”

Caine, Rachel: Weather Wardens

A speculative fiction series about the secretive bureaucracy that controls the weather. Consequences of this include severely pissing off Mother Earth, sentient storm fronts, and falling from great heights. Often.

Clarke, Arthur C.: Maelstrom II

This short story revolves around an astronaut named Cliff Leyland drifting in a low orbit around the moon after an accident with his capsule's launch. Much of his time is spent waiting to see if he can be rescued and reunited with his family, or is doomed to crash and die.

Clarke, Susanna: Piranesi

Piranesi lives in a place called the House, a world composed of infinite halls and vestibules lined with statues, no two of which are alike. The upper level of the House is filled with clouds, and the lower level with an ocean, which occasionally surges into the middle level following tidal patterns that Piranesi meticulously tracks. He believes he has always lived in the House, and that there are only fifteen people in the world, all but two of whom are long-dead skeletons. The status that decorate the halls and walls of the House are all gigantic and the halls themself are immense and bigger than what any human would be able to build on their own.

Coates, Darcy: From Below

"No light. No air. No escape. Hundreds of feet beneath the ocean's surface, a graveyard waits... Years ago, the SS Arcadia vanished without a trace during a routine voyage. Though a strange, garbled emergency message was broadcast, neither the ship nor any of its crew could be found. Sixty years later, its wreck has finally been discovered more than three hundred miles from its intended course...a silent graveyard deep beneath the ocean's surface, eagerly waiting for the first sign of life. Cove and her dive team have been granted permission to explore the Arcadia's rusting hull. Their purpose is straightforward: examine the wreck, film everything, and, if possible, uncover how and why the supposedly unsinkable ship vanished. But the Arcadia has not yet had its fill of death, and something dark and hungry watches from below. With limited oxygen and the ship slowly closing in around them, Cove and her team will have to fight their way free of the unspeakable horror now desperate to claim them. Because once they're trapped beneath the ocean's waves, there's no going back."

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

This epic poem of a sea voyage beautifully encapsulates the horrors of the ocean, from the terrific force of horrific storms and whirlpools to the unsettling infinity of life, both beautiful and strange, that inhabits the depths below. Most of all, however, it shows the horror of being stranded at sea as the ship is becalmed in the doldrums.

"Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: Oh Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea."

The crew perish one by one, apart from the narrator. He, by killing the albatross, invoked the wrath of the sea. He alone must live on while the others are permitted to escape in death.

Curtis, Wardon Allan: The Monster of Lake LaMetrie

The story of Dr. James McLennegan and his sickly companion Edward Framingham who travel to a lake high up in the Wyoming mountains. When they reach the lake, McLennegan discovers it is home to an Elasmosaurus which attacks him, but he manages to kill it and removes the brain. Shortly afterwards Framingham seemingly commits suicide and McLennegan decides to place Framingham’s brain into the body of the Elasmosaur, as one does. While this works for a bit, the remainder of the story explores the horror of scale as Framingham's inability to adjust to his new size results in him snapping and devouring his now-insignificant former friend.

Foster, Alan Dean: He

A short story detailing an oceanographer's encounter with the last megalodon, a colossal shark that has lived for millions of years. He is feared by all other creatures and the sight of him installs a primal terror in humans.

Gardner, Martin: Thang

https://vintage.failed-dam.org/thang.htm The titular creature is large enough to grasp Earth between two fingers. It clears off all water and ice before chewing the planet, core and all, before it, in turn, is also eaten by a planet-eater eater.

Godwin, Tom: The Nothing Equation

A short story about how being stationed alone in an empty section of space drives a man mad. Like stories about lighthouses, but bigger. Short enough to link a complete ebook.

Gonzalez, J.F.: Clickers

"Phillipsport, Maine is a quaint and peaceful seaside village. But when hundreds of creatures pour out of the ocean and attack, its residents must take up arms to drive the beasts back. They are the Clickers, giant venomous blood-thirsty crabs from the depths of the sea. The only warning to their rampage of dismemberment and death is the terrible clicking of their claws. But these monsters aren't merely here to ravage and pillage. They are being driven onto land by fear. Something is hunting the Clickers. Something ancient and without mercy."

Basically, kaiju crabs invade the land -- because they're fleeing from something even bigger.

Gorky, Maxim: The Song of the Stormy Petrel

"A short poem, text can be found here. It describes the storm, vast and careless masses of water, roaring and ruthless skies, and a mighty storm petrel fearlessly taking on both elements. it even dares the tempest to get more intense, as all other oceanic forms of life (seagulls, grebes, a penguin) hide in horror before the face of the storm. stormy petrel in russian (буревестник), if translated literally, means 'the announcer of the storm'. there is a short old cartoon which depicts how this poem would function as a leitner, although the cartoon is very comedic and lighthearted. unfortunately, i wasn't able to find a version with english subtitles, but i think it would be clear just from the visuals"

Grant, Mira: Into the Drowning Deep

Seven years ago, the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a “mockumentary” bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy. Now, a new crew has been assembled. But this time they’re not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life’s work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves. But the secrets of the deep come with a price.

Hawking, Lucy and Stephen: George's Secret Key to the Universe

The space aspects of it, as well as the fact that a character gets trapped in a black hole at one point, gives off Vast vibes to me. Synopsis for more info: The main characters in the book are George Greenby, Susan Bellis, Eric Bellis, Annie Bellis, Dr. Reeper, and Cosmos, the world's most powerful computer. Cosmos can draw windows allowing people to look into outer space, as well as doors that act as portals allowing travel into outer space. It starts by describing atoms, stars, planets, and their moons. It then goes on to describe black holes, which remains the topic of focus in the last part of the book. At frequent intervals throughout the book, there are pictures and "fact files" of the different references to universal objects, including a picture of Mars with its moons.

Hardinge, Frances: Deeplight

"In the old days, the islands of the Myriad lived in fear of the gods, great sea monsters that rose up from the Undersea to devour ships and depopulate entire islands. Now, the gods are no more. They tore each other apart in an event known as the Cataclysm. Fragments of their bodies (known as godware) are dredged up and sold. Hark and his best friend Jelt are petty criminals. When they embark on a dangerous scavenging expedition, they stumble across a strange, pulsing piece of godware and things begin to go very, very wrong."

Gods, the ocean depths, and poverty all play into the themes of insignificance in this novel.

Inglis, James: Night Watch

Concerns an interstellar probe which is still functional when our Galaxy is dying. The story ends with the community of probes launched by various races and drawn together by the fact that very few stars are still shining, setting out on the long voyage to a distant and still-young galaxy as the last star of our galaxy burns out behind them.

King, Stephen: The Jaunt

“As a family prepares to be "Jaunted" to Mars in the 24th century, the father entertains his two children by recounting the curious tale of the discovery and history of this crude form of teleportation. He explains how the scientist who serendipitously discovered it quickly learned that it had a disturbing, inexplicable effect on the mice he "sent through"—eventually concluding that they could only survive the "Jaunt effect" while unconscious. That, the father explains, is why all people must undergo general anaesthesia before using the Jaunt.

The father spares his children the gruesome semi-apocryphal account of the first human to be Jaunted awake, a condemned murderer offered a full pardon for agreeing to the experiment. The man "came through" and immediately suffered a massive heart attack, living just long enough to utter a single cryptic phrase: It's eternity in there...

The father also doesn't mention that since that time, roughly thirty people have, voluntarily or otherwise, jaunted while conscious; they either died instantly or emerged insane. One woman was even shoved alive into eternal limbo by her murderous husband, stuck between two jaunt portals. The man was convicted of murder; though his attorneys attempted to argue that he was not guilty on the grounds that his wife was not technically dead, the implications of the same argument served to secure and hasten his execution.

After the father finishes his story, the family is subjected to the sleeping gas and Jaunted to Mars. When the father wakes, he finds that his inquisitive son held his breath in order to experience the Jaunt while conscious…Hair white with shock, corneas yellowed with age, clawing out his own eyes, the boy reveals the terrible nature of the Jaunt: "Longer than you think, Dad! It's longer than you think!"”

Lewis, C.S.: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

"The Dawn Treader is the first ship Narnia has seen in centuries. King Caspian has built it for his voyage to find the seven lords, good men whom his evil uncle Miraz banished when he usurped the throne. The journey takes Edmund, Lucy, and their cousin Eustace to the Eastern Islands, beyond the Silver Sea, toward Aslan's country at the End of the World."

I mean it's a story about trying to get to the end of the world. What's more Vast than that?

Liu, Cixin: The Dark Forest (Three Body Problem Book 2)

I considered other books in the series but this book more than the others deals with the impact of discovering there is other life out in the universe and the distance between worlds as humanity learns an alien fleet is approaching earth at near-light speed. This book is both vast in the scale of the universe but also on a time scale as it covers the 400 years between the fleet’s departure and arrival at earth.

Lovecraft, H.P.: Dagon

Link

The narrator tells of being on a cargo ship that was captured by a German sea-raider in the Pacific. He would eventually escape and drift until he found himself a “black mire”, which was full of rotting fish and more foul stenches. The things that he witnesses in the vast expanse drive him to madness, and eventually he kills himself rather than face the creatures he witnessed there.

Macfarlane, Robert: Underland

A series of essays on "deep time" - that is, viewing the world over timeframes of billions of years, rather than the shorter timeframes we live within & understand. It is essentially the vastness of time. This concept stretches eons into the past and future and is very daunting to read about. The essays all revolve around things underground and often focus on how they're so much larger than us, existing far before us and stretching far beyond.

Also there's a chapter where the author talks about a calving glacier he saw surge upwards hundreds of feet from the sea, unbelievably huge. He recounts how the ice at its base hadn't seen sunlight in eons, and had never even been seen by human eyes, it was so ancient - it then sank underwater again, to once more be hidden. And if that doesn't sound like the origin of a vast avatar idk what does

Marquitz, Tim and Nickolas Sharps, ed.: Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters

From the forward: "Enter Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters. This collection of Kaiju shorts continues the traditions begun by Kaiju pioneers, bringing tales of destruction, hope and morality in the form of giant, city destroying monsters. Even better, the project was funded by Kickstarter, which means you, Dear Reader, made this book possible. And that is a beautiful thing. It means Kaiju, in pop-fiction, are not only alive and well, they’re stomping their way back into the spotlight, where they belong. Featuring amazing artwork, stories from some of the best monster writers around and a publishing team that has impressed me from the beginning, Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters is a welcome addition to the Kaiju genre and an anthology of epic proportions. My inner nine-year-old is shouting at me to shut-up and let you get to the Kaiju. So, without further delay, let’s all enjoy us some Kaiju Rising."

Notable for the fact the majority of the stories within are downer-ending horror short-stories versus more upbeat monster-fighting ones. Several also tackle concepts of an unstoppable, implacable force, themes of religious horror, and other Vast-aligned concepts.

Melville, Herman: Moby Dick

Okay so Ahab is Hunt, but the thing he's hunting is 1000% Vast. The book is very detailed in its descriptions of the enormity of whales and of the sea. Also, Moby Dick is basically outright stated as being God.

***

We all know what The Whale is about. Ahab has beef with Moby Dick, so he vows to hunt it. This is a particularly intelligent, huge whale that everyone advises to steer clear of, and possibly an allegory of God. The book itself is large, it's 135 chapters and a lot of pages and for some reason mandatory reading in some schools. It's a classic and rightfully so. Trying to read it in one sitting is like trying to hunt the proverbial whale, a foolish endeavor no mortal man should attempt. Infinity is best consumed one day at a time, and so is the book. Otherwise you'll drown in (mostly descriptions of) whales.

***

Man attempts to fight a giant whale that apparently is representative of the unfathomably great and terrible power of nature/fate/God, and thus almost everyone on his crew ends up drowning.

Mortimore, Jim: Beltempest

Synopsis: "The people of Bellania II see their sun, Bel, shrouded in night for a month following an impossible triple eclipse. When Bel is returned to them a younger, brighter, hotter star, it is the beginning of the end for the entire solar system...

100,000 years later, the Doctor and Sam arrive on Bellania IV, where the population is under threat as disaster looms — immense gravitational and dimensional disturbances are surging through this area of space.

While the time travellers attempt to help the survivors and ease the devastation, a religious suicide-cult leader is determined to spread a new religion through Bel's system — and his word may prove even more dangerous than the terrible forces brought into being by the catastrophic changes in the sun... "

Why it's Vast: The main conflict revolves around the massive natural disasters caused by changes to the Bel System's sun. Moons are ripped from their orbits, gravity waves create planetary earthquakes, and the void of space is rocked by solar flares. In response to these unstoppable disasters, a religion springs up in worship of the star -- as Simon Fairchild noted, religion was once a strong vector for the Vast, though it wasn't explored in much depth within the podcast.

North, Claire: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

"The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August" is about the titular protagonist Harry August. He is born, he lives, he dies... Except he does this a lot more than most regular people. Harry is a kalachakra (or ouroborus, the names are used interchangeably), a member of a select few people who, upon dying, simply return to when they were born with all the memories and knowledge of their past lives. This is all well and good until, while on the deathbed of his eleventh life, Harry is warned by a little Kalachakra girl that the world is ending, and he must stop it from doing so."

Vast realised in endless lives of the characters stretching before them till infinity. Vast realised in the perfect endless memory of the main character and some others. Vast realised in eternity.

Oesterheld, Héctor Germán: El Eternauta

Juan Salvo, the inimitable protagonist, along with his friend Professor Favalli and the tenacious metal-worker Franco, face what appears to be a nuclear accident, but quickly turns out to be something much bigger than they had imagined. Cold War tensions, aliens of all sizes, space―and time travel―this one has it all.

Poe, Edgar Allen: A Descent into the Maelström

Inspired by the Moskstraumen, it is couched as a story within a story, a tale told at the summit of a mountain climb in Lofoten, Norway. The story is told by an old man who reveals that he only appears old—"You suppose me a very old man," he says, "but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves." The narrator, convinced by the power of the whirlpools he sees in the ocean beyond, is then told of the "old" man's fishing trip with his two brothers a few years ago.

Driven by "the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens", their ship was caught in the vortex. One brother was pulled into the waves; the other was driven mad by the horror of the spectacle, and drowned as the ship was pulled under. At first the narrator only saw hideous terror in the spectacle. In a moment of revelation, he saw that the Maelström is a beautiful and awesome creation. Observing how objects around him were attracted and pulled into it, he deduced that "the larger the bodies, the more rapid their descent" and that spherical-shaped objects were pulled in the fastest. Unlike his brother, he abandoned ship and held on to a cylindrical barrel until he was saved several hours later when the whirlpool temporarily subsided, and he was rescued by some fishermen. The "old" man tells the story to the narrator without any hope that the narrator will believe it.

Pratchett, Terry and Steven Baxter: The Long Earth series

Blueprints for an easily to build device that allows people to "step" into a nigh infinite series of alternate earths get published online. The series deals with the exploration of these alternate earths, and the way their existence and accessibility changes human society over the next 50 or so years. The earths next to our own are similar to ours except that there are no humans, but further earths diverged from our own earlier in geological history; millions of earths away are worlds where the KT extinctions never happens, billions of earths away there are worlds where jellyfish live in the sky. It's emphasized throughout the books that all of these earth's are entire planets with billions of years of history that no one will ever fully understand because there's just too much space.

Purser-Hallard, Philip: Of the City of the Saved...

It's set in a city where every human or descendant of humanity who has ever lived has been reborn all at once, and the book makes sure you understand the scope of that. To pull out a few statistics, the city is the size of a spiral galaxy and has a population of a hundred undecillion - or 1 followed by 38 zeros. There's a watchtower at the city's centre which is the width of a continent and the height of one astronomical unit (the distance of Earth to the sun), and a city council ampithetre the size of a gas giant. When I think of a book emphasising physical vastness, I think Of the City of the Saved, because it doesn't just gloss over the size and call it incomprehensible, it makes sure you begin to grasp the scale of things. And that every character in the book is just one person on that scale.

Reed, Robert: An Exaltation of Larks

The book shows the heat death of the universe, where the stars have long since burned out, and stellar formation ceased, leaving behind a dark, cold, and empty universe. Time travelers from the end of time have steadily been working their way back to the Big Bang to prevent this gradual death from happening by turning the universe into an effectively Perpetual Motion Machine that expands, contracts, and expands again.

Reisman, Michael: Simon Bloom: The Gravity Keeper

A boy inadvertently discovers the book that controls the laws of physics and learns to play with gravity and velocity, which on multiple occasions results in him taking an uncontrolled fall into the sky.

Sanderson, Brandon: Firefight

This is the second book in The Reckoners Trilogy, which is about the eponymous group hunting Epics--people who were granted superpowers by the mysterious red star Calamity, but also turned evil and destroyed society as we know it.

In this one, the Reckoners go to Babylon Restored, a.k.a NYC. The city was flooded by the hydrokinetic Regalia, killing thousands and leaving the survivors to inhabit the rooftops of the sunken buildings. Regalia has immense control over water, able to manipulate it on both a mass scale and in a more precise way to attack with tentacles and create clones of herself. Most terrifyingly, she can see out of the surface of any exposed water--which means almost nowhere in Babilar is safe from her eyes.

The fact that the city is flooded is especially problematic for protagonist David, who can't swim and discovers he has a fear of drowning--especially after he is nearly executed in this way. To make matters worse, the Reckoners' base of operations is an underwater bunker with a window open to the water. This culminates in him facing his fear in attempt to save his love interest by shooting at the window to get out of the bunker. While Regalia saves him for her own ends, she also reveals something even more grand and incomprehensibly terrifying--Calamity itself is sapient and apparently malicious.

Seuss, Dr.: Horton Hears a Who!

Hey kids! Take a minute to think about what would happen if the whole planet existed on a single speck of dust, and how easily everything you know could be eradicated by complete cosmic accident!

Simmons, Dan: The Terror

Being trapped in the Arctic? Not just in the Arctic but in the middle of an ice sheet on the ocean? With the only land being a 3 day trek away? So all you can see before you is open plains of snow and ice and knowing underneath you is also the cold, uncaring, freezing ocean? That's not even taking into account the monster hunting you and your men is easily the size of 3-4 polar bears

Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver's Travels

Plays a lot with perspective -- Gulliver is a giant on one island, and an ant on another. There's also an island that flies and blots out the sun to conquer the lands below it.

Tennyson, Alfred: The Kraken

Link to the poem

Vivid imagery of deep-sea colossi and the enormous weight of the ocean and eternity.

Tolstoy, Leo: War & Peace

real world leitner - inspires dread and fear in the hearts of millions of russian high schoolers with its enormous page count, oppressively large cast of characters and incomprehensible fragments of french inserted directly into the narrative

Verne, Jules: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Themes of insignificance and descriptions of colossal terrors abound.

[wrestlingfaves]

Royal Rumble Marathon: 1996

We’re rumbling into 1996.

Spoilers for past Rumbles.

Sunny, from her bathtub, warns us viewer indiscretion is advised. The Attitude Era doesn’t officially begin until 1997 but hints of it began way back in 1995 with the Pamela Anderson skit and continues with Sunny’s vignettes.

The undercard:

Jeff Jarrett vs Ahmed Johnson. Meh.

The Bodydonnas (Chris Candido/Tom Prichard, accompanied by Sunny) vs the Smoking Guns (Billy & Bart) for the WWF Tag Team titles. More meh.

Billionaire Ted skit with a fake Hogan, Savage, and Mean Gene. We’re wasting pay per view time on this?

Recap of the Razor Ramon – Goldust feud. Mr Machismo doesn’t appreciate Golddust’s flirtations.

Golddust (accompanied by Marlena) vs Razor Ramon for the Intercontinental title. Was this Terri Runnel’s debut for the WWF? The commentators refer to Marlena as an “unknown woman”. Golddust and Marlena’s gimmicks are forerunners to the Attitude Era. Marlena causes a distraction as the 1-2-3 Kid attacks Razor, allowing Dustin to pin Ramon and become the new Intercontinental champion.

Hype vignettes for Royal Rumble participants: Owen, Jake Roberts, Jerry Lawler, Vader, Shawn,

For the first time the Rumble does not end the pay per view – we still have a Bret/Taker match for the World championship. I never like when the Rumble itself doesn’t end the pay per view.

The entrants, in order of appearance:

Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Henry Godwin

Bob Backlund

Jerry Lawler

Bob “Spark Plug” Holly

Mabel (accompanied by Mo) Mo remains at ringside – there doesn’t seem to be year to year consistency on whether seconds are allowed to remain at ringside.

Jake “the Snake” Roberts

Dory Funk Jr (Vince notes Terry was also invited but is watching the ppv from Germany)

Yokozuna

1-2-3 Kid (spends his first few minutes in the Rumble attempting to avoid an angry Razor)

Takao Omori (Vince actually mentions All-Japan by name!)

Savio Vega (formerly known as Kwang)

Vader (accompanied by Jim Cornette)

Doug Gilbert (Henning & Vince mention both USWA and Eddie Gilbert, Doug won a tournament in Memphis to qualify for the tournament)

Squat Team Member #1 (1/2 of the Headshrinkers)

Squat Team Member #2 (1/2 of the Headshrinkers)

Owen Hart

Shawn Michaels

Hakushi

Tatanka

Aldo Montoya

Diesel

Kama

“The Ringmaster” Steve Austin

Barry Horowitz

Fatu

Isaac Yankem, DDS

Marty Janetty

Davey Boy Smith

Duke Droese

 Winner: Shawn Michaels

Longest performance: Hunter Hearst Helmsley

First-time Rumblers: Hunter, Dory Funk Jr, 1-2-3 Kid, Omori, Vader, Doug Gilbert, the Headshrinkers, Hakushi, Aldo Montoya, Steve Austin, Barry Horowitz, Isaac Yankem

Surprise Entrants: Dory Funk, Omori, Doug Gilbert, the Headshrinkers

We have two “clear the ring without eliminating everyone” spots: Henry Godwin with his slop bucket (Backlund and Lawler are the recipients) and Jake Roberts using Damian (his snake) – Lawler gets covered with Damian. Was Lawler on someone’s shit list?

Vader does the “eliminate everyone” spot but as he was previously eliminated none of his eliminations count.

Lawler is the first participant in a Rumble to hide under the ring.

1996 is the first year all participants receive entrance music. Finally! A small thing but it adds to the presentation.

The pay-per-view ends with Bret Hart vs the Undertaker (accompanied by Paul Bearer).   Diesel causes a disqualification, costing Taker the match. The match was fine but I’m not a fan of Taker.

Interviews with Gorilla Monsoon, Shawn, Diesel, Vader, and Jim Cornette.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Wrestlers and others who have passed on: Howard Finkel, Curt Hennig, Chris Candido, Razor Ramon, Mable (Visera), Yokozuna, Vader, Owen, Paul Bearer, Gorilla Monsoon

Total number of deceased individuals: 10 (down 5 from the previous Rumble).

[burr-did-nothing-wrong]

People Burr has fucked:

Joseph Bellamy

78.39108 percent of Princeton's student body

Richard Montgomery

General Putnam

Theodosia Prevost

Alexander Hamilton

Thomas Jefferson

James Monroe (Jefferson made him)

Washington Irving

John Vanderlyn

James Wilkinson

Luther Martin

Blenner...hasset?

Both of the Swarthouts

Nicholas Bigbee Perkins

John Marshall (actually Burr tried but Marshall slammed the door in his face)

Jeremy Bentham

William Godwin

This list is developing don't be afraid to add to it:

Bobby Troup

Robert Livingston

Half the prostitutes in Europe

Himself

[oceanflowerbird]

Hi, I hope you're enjoying your little vacation :) you always seem to give great book recommendations and I was wondering if you know of any good 'romantic' type novels?

Thanks, I definitely am! These are some of the best romances I’ve read this year (including historical and fantasy). Bit of a trigger warning for lots of spice and kink and controversy: Overall spice:

Credence - Penelope Douglas (already read her new book too and I was not impressed)

The Wild One - Daisy Jane 

All My Love - Daisy Jane 

Give Me More - Sara Cate

Overall plot:

Out on a Limb - Hannah Bonam-Young 

The Seven Year Slip - Ashley Poston

When A Scot Ties The Knot - Tessa Dare

Worthy mentions:

His Darkest Desire - Tiffany Roberts 

Tied - Carian Cole

Black Wings and Stolen Things - Kayleigh King

Lights Out - Navessa Allen

Sustained - Emma Chase

In A Jam - Kate Canterbary

Ignite - Melanie Harlow

Bride - Ali Hazelwood

Series I read and LOVED:

The Ravenels - Lisa Kleypas

The Hathaways - Lisa Kleypas

Mackenzies & McBrides - Jennifer Ashley

Deep Waters - Emma Hamm 

Fire & Desire - Chloe Chastaine

Castles Ever After - Tessa Dare

Second Sons - Emily Rath

Frozen Fate - Pam Godwin (the last book came out this past Monday!) 

Of Flesh & Bone - Harper L. Woods

The Alliance - S.J. Tilly

Authors I read multiple books of:

Daisy Jane

S.J. Tilly

Emma Hamm

Kate Canterbary

Tiffany Roberts

Sara Cate

Laurelin Paige

Elsie Silver

Melanie Harlow

C.M. Nascosta

Ashley Poston

Kathryn Moon

Lisa Kleypas

Lillian Lark

Lilith Vincent 

Katee Robert

Emily Rath

Kate Stewart

Sorcha Black

Tessa Dare

Jennifer Ashley

Kerrigan Byrne

[cristalconnors]

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Shortlisted: Paul Mescal, All of Us Strangers / Milo Machado Graner, Anatomy of a Fall / Jason Schwartzman, Asteroid City / William Belleau, Killers of the Flower Moon / Rafael Spragelbrud, Trenque Lauquen / Jamie Bell, All of Us Strangers / Ryan Gosling, Barbie

THE NOMINEES ARE:

WILLEM DAFOE, POOR THINGS

as "Dr. Godwin Baxter"

ROBERT DENIRO, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

as "William King Hale"

MATEO GARCÍA ELIZONDO, TÓTEM

as "Tonatiuh"

CHARLES MELTON, MAY DECEMBER

as "Joe Yoo"

AND THE CRISTAL GOES TO...

BEN WHISHAW, PASSAGES

as "Martin"

[burningvelvet]

Lord Byron defending himself and Percy and Mary Shelley from rumours spread by his literary enemy Robert Southey, 1818:

Lord Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, from Venice, 11 November 1818:

“[..] the first Canto of Don Juan [contains] a dedication in verse of a dozen to Bob Southey - bitter as necessary - I mean the dedication, I will tell you why. - The Son of a Bitch on his return from Switzerland two years ago - said that Shelley and I ‘had formed a League of Incest and practiced our precepts with &c.’ - he lied like a rascal - for they were not Sisters - one being Godwin's daughter by Mary Wollstanecraft - and the other the daughter of the present Mrs. G by a former husband. - The Attack contains no allusion to the cause - but - some good verses - and all political & poetical. - He lied in another sense - for there was no promiscuous intercourse - my commerce being limited to the carnal knowledge of the Miss C. - I had nothing to do with the offspring of Mary Wollstonecraft - which Mary was a former Love of Southey's - which might have taught him to respect the fame of her daughter.”

Lord Byron to John Murray, from Venice, 24 November 1818:

“Lord Lauderdale set off from hence twelve days ago, accompanied by a cargo of poesy directed to Mr. Hobhouse - all spick and span, and in MS. You will see what it is like. I have given it to Master Southey, and he shall have more before I have done with him. I understand the scoundrel said, on his return from Switzerland two years ago, that ‘Shelley and I were in a league of Incest, etc., etc.’ He is a burning liar! for the women to whom he alludes are not sisters - one being Godwin's daughter, by Mary Wollstonecraft, and the other daughter of the present (second) Mrs. G, by a former husband; and in the next place, if they had even been so, there was no promiscuous intercourse whatever.

You may make what I say here as public as you please - more particularly to Southey, whom I look upon, and will say as publicly, to be a dirty, lying rascal; and will prove it in ink - or in his blood, if I did not believe him to be too much of a poet to risk it. If he had forty reviews at his back - as he has the Quarterly - I would have at him in his scribbling capacity, now that he has begun with me; but I will do nothing underhand. Tell him what I say from me, and everyone else you please.

You will see what I have said if the parcel arrives safe. I understand Coleridge went about repeating Southey's lie with pleasure. I can believe it, for I had done him what is called a favour. I can understand Coleridge's abusing me, but how or why Southey - whom I had never obliged in any sort of way, or done him the remotest service - should go about fibbing and calumniating is more than I readily comprehend

Does he think to put me down with his canting - not being able to do so with his poetry? We will try the question. I have read his review of Hunt, where he attacked Shelley in an oblique and shabby manner. Does he know what that review has done? I will tell you. It has sold an edition of the Revolt of Islam, which, otherwise, nobody would have thought of reading, and few who read can understand - I for one.

Southey would have attacked me, too, there, if he durst, further than by hints about Hunt's friends in general; and some outcry about an ‘Epicurean system,’ carried on by men of the most opposite habits. tastes, and and opinions in life and poetry (I believe), that ever had their names in the same volume - Moore, Byron, Shelley, Hazlitt, Haydon, Leigh Hunt, Lamb - what resemblances do ye find among all or any of these men? and how could any sort of system or plan be carried on, or attempted amongst them? However, let Mr. Southey look to himself - since the wine is tapped, let him drink it.”

Byron and Southey’s rivalry was infamous. Two books have been written about it. Byron frequently parodied or ridiculed people in his poems and Southey was his top target, mainly because he was an easy target. He was the Poet Laureate, disliked Byron, became something of a moralist and royalist as he got older, and due to popularity he generally sided with the status quo Byron despised. From Wikipedia:

[fated-mates]

Need something to read? Here are 10 titles we've talked about on the show that are currently priced at $1 or less. (Two of these incur the additional psychological cost of reading about Christmas in April.)

Pam Godwin's DELIVER Bella Andre's THE LOOK OF LOVE Farrah Rochon's DELIVER ME Katee Robert's THEIRS FOR THE NIGHT Parker Hayes's APT 3SOME: 1 Nicola Davidson's THE DEVIL'S SUBMISSION Farrah Rochon's HUDDLE WITH ME TONIGHT Cynthia Sax's THE GOOD ASSISTANT Cora Seton's THE NAVY SEAL'S CHRISTMAS BRIDE Celia Grant's A CHRISTMAS GONE PERFECTLY WRONG

We talked DELIVER in Antiheroines, THEIRS FOR THE NIGHT and APT 3SOME in Menage, THE LOOK OF LOVE, DELIVER ME and A CHRISTMAS GONE PERFECTLY WRONG in Families, THE DEVIL'S SUBMISSION in These Books Bang, THE GOOD ASSISTANT in Boss/Assistant, HUDDLE WITH ME TONIGHT in Sports, and THE NAVY SEAL's CHRISTMAS BRIDE in Friends to Lovers.

[incorrectlco]

My brain keeps spitting out AUs

L&Co as pirates.

Lucy was on a merchant ship and was the sole survivor of a kraken attack

She gets picked up by the strangest crew she’s ever seen

Lockwood, captain of his fathers ship trying to live up to the family name

His best friend George, treasure hunter, ships cook

Quill Kipps, swordsman, 2nd in command kinda

Kat godwin, Bobby Vernon, Ned Shaw are the raiding party

They have a talking parrot named skull that only talks to Lucy once she wakes up on their ship, the Cecilia

They’re going after the Annabel, ghost ship

Flo Bones is a treasure hunter, specializing in specific, rare artifacts

Barnes is a British soldier

Golden Blade is a fearsome pirate (dread pirate roberts)

Fittes and Rotwell are merchant companies (east India trading company)

Plot is vague in my head, but maybe Lucy is getting blamed for her ships demise (woman on the sea and everything) so decided fuck it, I’m a pirate now, and joins Lockwood and co on the Cecilia. She has a way with the wind and tides, she always knows which way to go just by listening to the sails and the water lapping on the hull.

I feel like Lockwood would be a kind of gentleman pirate. But don’t cross him he will kill you.

Kipps was a soldier who was arrested for killing his superior officer, which he didn’t, and he’s on the run because he knows he isn’t going to get a fair trial.

Kat was dressing as a boy to be able to work on a ship, but it got harder as she got older.

Bobby and Ned are practically brothers, street kids, who bounced from ship to ship before meeting Lockwood.

George likes history, wants to be a part of it, likes the romance of piracy, but is getting a shock at what it’s really like.

They find the ghost ship Annabel, cementing their legacy, but it’s not enough for Lockwood, so they set sail for the Florida coast, where Captain Edmund Bickerstaff, pirate and occultist was rumored to have hidden his treasure, among it a bone glass, that offers anyone who looks into it whatever they desire.

This is surprisingly fleshed out for a brainstorm I might actually write this some day.

[lands-of-fantasy]

Emma

Classic and loose adaptions from 1972, 1995, 1996 (x2), 2009, 2013, 2020

The fourth of Jane Austen’s novels, first published in 1815, has had many adaptions over the years. The ones pictured above are detailed below:

Emma (1972 Miniseries)

6 episodes x 45min Written by Denis Constanduros, directed by John Glenister

Starring Doran Godwin as Emma Woodhouse, John Carson as Mr. George Knightley, Debbie Bowen as Harriet Smith, Timothy Peters as Mr. Philip Elton, Robert East as Frank Churchill,  Ania Marson as Jane Fairfax, among others

Clueless (1995 Film)

Loose adaption set in modern Beverly Hills, USA Written and directed by Amy Heckerling

Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz (Emma), Paul Rudd as Josh Lucas (Knightley), Stacey Dash as Dionne Davenport, Brittany Murphy as Tai Frasier (Harriet), Jeremy Sisto as Elton Tiscia, Justin Walker as Christian Stovitz (Frank), among others

Emma (1996 Film)

Written and directed by Douglas McGrath

Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma Woodhouse, Jeremy Northam as Mr. George Knightley, Toni Collette as Harriet Smith, Alan Cumming as Philip Elton, Ewan McGregor as Frank Churchill, Polly Walker as Jane Fairfax, among others

Emma (1996 TV Film)

Written by Andrew Davies, directed by Diarmuid Lawrence

Kate Beckinsale as Emma Woodhouse, Mark Strong as Mr. George Knightley, Samantha Morton as Harriet Smith, Dominic Rowan as Mr. Philip Elton, Raymond Coulthard as Frank Churchill, Olivia Williams as Jane Fairfax, among others

Emma (2009 Miniseries)

4 episodes x 58min Written by Sandy Welch, directed by Jim O'Hanlon

Starring Romola Garai as Emma Woodhouse, Jonny Lee Miller as Mr. George Knightley, Louise Dylan as Harriet Smith, Michael Gambon as Mr. Henry Woodhouse, Blake Ritson as Mr. Philip Elton, Rupert Evans as Frank Churchill, Laura Pyper as Jane Fairfax, Jefferson Hall as Robert Martin, among others

Emma Approved (2013-14 Webseries)

95 episodes x 4-8min, available on Youtube Loose adaption set in modern US, told in a vlog format

Created by Bernie Su, from Pemberley Digital

Starring Joanna Sotomura as Emma Woodhouse, Brent Bailey as Alex Knightley, Dayeanne Hutton as Harriet Smith, James Brent Isaacs as Bobby Martin, Paul Stuart as James Elton, Stephen A. Chang as Frank Churchill, Tyra Colar as Jane Fairfax, among others

While the series is a follow-up to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, it stands on its own.

Emma (2020 Film)

Written by Eleanor Catton, directed by Autumn de Wilde

Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma Woodhouse, Johnny Flynn as Mr. George Knightley, Mia Goth as Harriet Smith, Bill Nighy as Mr, Woodhouse, Josh O'Connor as Mr. Philip Elton, Callum Turner as Frank Churchill, Amber Anderson as Jane Fairfax, among others

*****

Personal favorite: 2009 But also: 1996 (Theatrical Film), Emma Approved

P.S.: 2020′s pretty popular, from what I’ve seen. I’ve enjoyed it myself, but it’s not among my favorite.