#unsong

[dude1818]

Unsong

I read Unsong this week and it was incredible. The writing and humor has a strong Terry Pratchett feel, and actually the story itself is adjacent to a sci-fi Good Omens. Almost every chapter had a scene that was uproariously hilarious, and really, the whole book was mainly a vector for delivering an endless stream of incredible puns

The basic premise is that the world started to end in the 60s, when the Apollo program crashed into Heaven and cracked the firmament, allowing the divine light to get back into the world. This caused physics to start to break down and reintroduced angels and demons and magic. Jump forward to 2017, and there's a booming "applied Kabbalah" industry around computationally deriving the Hidden Names of God in lieu of other technological advancement. The A plot follows Aaron, a down-on-his-luck kabbalist who works in one of these Names factories and discovers a Name that would revolutionize discovering more Names. This kicks off a chase to gain control of it across what's left of the US

The B plot bounces around, but centers on the was between good and evil. Angels returning to the world also means the resumption of the war against the fallen angels, and also Hell is real again. The messiah was born in the 70s and led the war against the devil, but most of this half of the story is actually about his daughter training under the archangel Uriel in the 90s to keep the world running. Of course Aaron's discovering of a powerful new Name eventually grabs the attention of these powerful forces

Of course the actual minute-to-minute of the book is totally absurd. The first antagonist is the titular UNSONG, the United Nations patent office for Names of God. At one point they attract the Drug Lord and we learn about the War on Drugs: a sentient peyote cactus man took over Mexico with a drug-induced hivemind and tried to invade the US. Neil Armstrong ascended bodily to heaven, and then returned to "grant salvation to" (take over) LA. The higher level angel fights do word association with the concepts describing reality. It's all bonkers, and it all works so well

I'm leaving out so much, but I can't recommend this enough. And the overall question that keeps coming up throughout the book is the age-old question "why does God allow evil to exist anyway," and this is the first time I've seen an answer that actually makes sense. I don't think you could have gotten there from any other angle

[liltalle]

Wait, Tress' given name is Glorf? Glorf as in Glorfindel which means "golden-hair", when her hair was just described as "wheat", "caramel", or "honey", and her nickname is also about her hair?

This is not a coincidence because nothing is ever a coincidence.

(I've yet to get past page 2 lol)

[kvothbloodless]

A incredibly weird problem I see in a good portion of fantasy stories these days is something Ive been calling "Inferna delenda est", and which my less pretentious friends (all of them) call "the hell problem". Its sort of something that, because its a genre convention, is almost always ignored, but once you see it, it cant be unseen.

I admittedly only started seeing this after reading UNSONG, which is literally About this problem. But now that its been pointed out, I cant unsee it elsewhere, and any media which runs into it but doesnt address it becomes almost entirely ruined for me.

The issue of Inferna delenda est is present in any setting which 1. Has real, proven afterlifes where most people literally go when they die and 2. Has one of those afterlifes be at all comparable to Hell, i.e. any place where a significant number of sapient creatures are tortured for all eternity.

If those two criteria are met, almost any plot becomes pointless and trivial. What does it matter that a hero saves a city from destruction when beneath their feet millions of people are burning, and many of those saved will join them? Who cares whether the ruler of a country is corrupt or not? The evil that would be stopped by replacing them with even a perfectly competent and benevolent ruler is staggeringly inconsequential compared to that of an eternity of torment.

Like, im not being vague or making an analogy here. Im just saying that its incredibly difficult to care about a plot to stop a war or kill an evil wizard when the story offhandedly mentions the fact that millions of people are 100% being tortured for eternity in a real place and no one is doing anything about it.

And even further, it makes it Really hard to view the heroes as...actual heroes. The degree of callousness required to keep the existance of hell in the background (from an in-universe perspective) is just ridiculous. Like, if youve got your high fantasy hero saving an entire continent from an evil demigod or whatever, the fact that theyre Not constantly thinking about hell is just... if you have that kinda power, and you literally know for a fact that Hell is a place, then you should be fucked up about it!

Like I can understand that growing up in that setting youd be resigned to it, not much a random soldier or whatever can do about it. But once they become super powerful? And they never even Mention Hell? That much callousness automatically moves you down a few notches from hero.

Obviously in a lot of settings hell just sorta Exists, and soul sorting is vague, but even then like. Break into Hell! Rescue people or at least relieve their pain! Its just so insane that the worst thing literally imaginable as a physical place (maximum pain that lasts literally forever with no hope of relief) is a staple of lots of fantasy settings and so many authors just do not in any way address that.

And like I said, its not that theyre writing Poorly because of this. Its a genre staple, and if you dont give it too much thought it doesnt seem to be an issue, especially given [gestures vaguely in the direction of christianity and its popularization of the concept of hell]. But god now that its been pointed out it drives me Nuts.

Anyways idk where i was going with this. Read unsong, i guess?

[theunlitpath]

Too Like The Lightning by Ada Pamer and Unsong by Scott Alexander have the same color scheme.

[unsongquotes]

It was then, at 7:38 PM, that the red phone started ringing. He considered not picking it up, but at least it would be differently confusing.

To his surprise, the voice on the other end now spoke perfect English.

“HELLO PRESIDENT NIXON. THIS IS THE ARCHANGEL URIEL. I APOLOGIZE FOR RECENT DISRUPTIONS. THE MACHINERY OF THE UNIVERSE HAS BEEN SEVERELY DAMAGED. I AM WORKING TO CONTAIN THE EFFECTS, BUT AT THIS POINT MY POWER IS LIMITED BECAUSE I AM STILL MOSTLY METAPHORICAL. PLEASE INFORM EVERYONE THAT I REGRET THE INCONVENIENCE. AS COMPENSATION FOR YOUR TROUBLE, I HAVE GIVEN EVERY HUMAN THE ABILITY TO PLAY THE PIANO.”

“Wait just a moment here,” said Nixon. “Wait just an [expletive deleted] moment!”

[tetraspace-west]

nooo one of my favourite parts of unsong was edited out 😭

Namely, the placebomantic duel between Malia / Asher and Dylan. In the original, Dylan talks about his survivor's guilt from how he doesn't have a traumatic backstory despite his previous claims, which I found super relatable as someone who nothing bad has ever happened to in their entire life and is continually surrounded by people being chewed up and destroyed, and Malia wins by subverting the premise of the duel, by saying that despite her backstory, she'd done more good, shifting the battleground from narrative to actual reality.

In the edit, Dylan starts talking about his actual traumatic backstory, and is cut off by Asher, who says that he's been through worse, and therefore he wins. This is a little bit funny metafictionally and narratively - it's just after the actual and new very brutal Asher backstory chapter, which neither Asher nor Dylan know about but you the reader do - but removes what I found so beautiful about it.

The message, for me, changes from "Tetra, you see injustice in the world around you, and you shouldn't just be upset at that injustice, you should actually fix it: become an EA" to what would be if you translate it directly "Tetra, you suck for not having suffered enough", though really it just stops meaning anything to me.

[recordcrash]

Long ago, I started maintaining a fiction recommendation list at the Homestuck Discord, after the original comic ended in 2016. We were all desperately looking for more stories like it, because with that awful ending, it hardly felt like we had finished anything. [...]

There’s an interesting disconnect between it and this blog. I’ve reviewed some of its featured works upon reread, but the vast majority remains untouched, to the point I highly doubt many of you know it exists. This post will bridge that gap: I’m going to write at least one short review per work in every category of the list.

Read the full post here.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Let's sink into the void together

I can't take this anymore

This is so fucking lame and childish, just say "I love you!" or something instead

[krispy-k-bacon]

Aaron Smith-Teller unsong wrt unshaven pussy

based off this interaction

[asentientswarmofbees]

I'm obsessed with fiction that requires you to have a second tab open to look up all the computer science concepts and Jewish mysticism principles and 18th century authors it keeps referencing

Reading Unsong just makes you feel like you're literally getting smarter in real time

[dasfraktal]

To be the severe and steady storm

That moves in seeming struggle

The steadfast sturdy stone

To snap away with teeth of rain

With jaws of time all rubble

That is weak, wicked or wrong

To leave nothing left to level

But make you into Mount Majestic

Which stands

So True, so Good, so Strong

<========================>

To be the robust and regal rock

That stands in rolling riptides

Of righteous raging roar

To resist again in throws of pain

With tears of stone the chipping

That is unjust, unkind, unsong

To break all that's wrong to rattle

And will you into Winds of Wonder

Which move

As Hymns, as Breeze, as One

[wellmetmat]

Guess who has time off work and a physical copy of the new edition of Unsong?

[drethelin]

Tempted to commission fanart of URIEL from Unsong as le sad demiurge

[trivalentlinks]

so i've seen multiple people discussing (or asking neil gaiman) about a jewish reading/retelling of good omens etc, and i saw neil answer that it would be really difficult and you'd have to change the story pretty much completely

and i just want to say: please, please check out the (complete, free) web novel Unsong, by Scott Alexander (slatestarcodex / astralcodexten / @slatestarscratchpad and @aaronsmithtumbler on tumblr (the latter is an RP blog for an Unsong character))

(There is a (complete, free) audiobook version here.)

it's a jewish-punk story that is, well, not like good omens (because nothing is really like good omens, and nothing is really like unsong), but it's a jewish-punk apocalypse story in the same way good omens is a christian-punk apocalypse story

(i've heard it more specifically called 'kabbalah-punk'; it's set in a universe where the torah and the talmud and the spirit of the kabbalah are all literally true)

but also it's so good. it's written by a jewish psychiatrist and therapist with an amazing way with words; he's an atheist jew (i think?) but the book is full of a lot of love for jewish culture

Some features:

-- a lot of neurodiversity, very kindly written (the author is a psychiatrist whom i initially followed largely because of how empathetic his writing is; this is definitely a doctor who listens to his patients)

-- i am neurotypical and not jewish, but most followers of the slatestarcodex blog (and many of my irl friends) were neurodivergent and jewish, and everyone loved this book (also, i have always low-key wished i were jewish, and this book certainly contributed to that)

-- some damn good humour. the jokes range from silly puns that make you groan but eventually admire the sheer sincerity of it, to fish-out-of-water antics (lots of fish out-of-water during the apocalypse) that are laugh-out-loud funny, to some incredibly clever and insightful moments; it's delightful

-- there's a huge cast with many, many different viewpoints on everything, whose stories are brilliantly, intricately interwoven

-- beautiful philosophy about stories, the purpose of stories, who tells them, etc

minor spoilers below cut (don't read beyond here if i've already convinced you to read the book, possibly read this if you're on the fence):

-- at a pivotal moment, the world is saved by a very autistic angel, in a way that was related to his autism (but NOT in the savant syndrome sense). it is incredibly badass

-- has the most satisfying answer to the theodicy question (why is there so much suffering if G-d is omnipotent and good) that i've ever seen

-- some of the characters have views that seem abhorrent. one of them is clearly a peter thiel stand-in who's trying to invent a way for the ultra-wealthy to buy their way into heaven during the apocalypse (in the same way real-life peter thiel is trying to invent ways for the ultra-wealthy to live forever) and yet, and yet, by the end of it, i was empathizing with every single one of their viewpoints, even fictionalized peter thiel

(and not because of some tragic backstory/events! this is a story that has you empathizing with villains, not by tugging at the heartstrings with overwrought angst, but by letting you actually understand them)

(also if the characters feel a little hard-to-like at first, please stick it out for a few chapters, i promise they get more loveable; for me this is part of the appeal--initially being like 'wow, i hate this character' and then eventually liking them, not because they've changed, but because you've gotten to know them)

-- also, for those who are into polyamory: basically all the main characters end up in a polycule and literally save the world with the power of polyamory, so there is that

[unsongquotes]

Somehow, after thousands of years, the seventy-two nations came together again. Like streams joining into a mighty river, they all flowed together into the same spot. “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven.” And when the LORD came to confound their speech a second time, He found that it was already confounded, English-speakers and Yiddish-speakers and Spanish-speakers and Mohawk-speakers, and people who were bilingual in English and Gaelic, and people who only knew Haitian Creole, and people who spoke weird degenerate versions of Portuguese intermixed with extinct aboriginal tongues, and God-only-knows-what else, and all of them were working to build the towers together, communicating through a combination of yelling and frantic hand-gestures. And the LORD said “Whatever,” and He let it pass. Thus rose New York.

[tvbu9]

between UNSONG and Gospels of the Flood, i think i’m sensing a pattern it the things i get obsessed with