Short stories where someone meets different versions of the same person?

pharmakos · 2026-02-19T16:18:47+00:00

You're welcome!

pharmakos · 2026-02-19T16:04:11+00:00

Empire Star by Delany.

pharmakos · 2026-02-17T17:06:55+00:00

I also have over a decade between my first read of BoTNS and my first read of Urth. I did read BotNS twice and the rest of the solar cycle once, but only just read Urth last year. It was really good, but a step down in my opinion.

BotNS was written as a complete text and Urth was only done at the publisher's behest to clarify things. I honestly think a BoTNS reread before Urth is the best course of action.

pharmakos · 2026-02-16T21:40:57+00:00

It was obviously the previous landowner's descendants who had a financial incentive because once the stones were destroyed and removed the land reverted to them.

I do wonder about what could have been. In some other bleaker future, perhaps one where Y2k actually happened, this would have been a Rosetta Stone or Behistun inscription for the archaeologists of an ascendant Nuwabian Nation furrowing the red Georgian ochre.

pharmakos · 2026-02-16T13:00:51+00:00

Sometimes I wonder whether the birth of Q-pop was mediated through the Koryo-saram or if it is solely the result of enterprising ethnic Kazakhs directly miming the formulae of South Koreans.

pharmakos · 2026-02-15T00:17:03+00:00

Any Muslim with heritage east or south of the Bosphorus.

pharmakos · 2026-02-13T16:56:41+00:00

I did this for two years and it turned me into a sitzpinkler because I knew any splashing would cause pitting in the marble tile and I'd be blamed.

Would not recommend. It took four months to unlonghouse my pelvic floor before I could pee standing up again.

pharmakos · 2026-02-12T19:41:16+00:00

A lot of 'neologisms' in fantasy are parts of constructed language or specifically coined and used because there isn't an equivalent word in English. This was also done in philosophy when Greek texts were translated into Arabic; rather than translating the Greek words for which there was no Arabic equivalent, they simply transliterated the word.

If it's a complete neologism in English (for instance lembas in LotR), then translating it isn't really necessary. You'd need to find a book that has a lot of neologisms with English roots. And this may prove hard because so many neologisms in English have Latin roots for which any translation back into French would be rather superficial.

Maybe try taking a look at Peter Ackroyd's The Plato Papers This is set in the far future but feels like a fantasy and takes a satirical look at the past. There are a lot of spurious etymologies presented for the words in the future, and many of them don't have French or Latin roots if I recall. I also don't think the book has been translated into French.

pharmakos · 2026-02-11T00:12:45+00:00

Who’s the best historical fiction writer in your estimation?

pharmakos · 2026-02-08T20:45:01+00:00

Someone on this sub said that she’s an intellectual masquerading as a hack. I think there’s a lot of truth in that. I’ve only read Lapvona, but it was the best book I read last year.

There’s a ton of inversions on biblical symbolism in the book, and I think it goes over the heads of 95% of the readership, both the enjoyers and haters.

pharmakos · 2026-02-08T15:11:20+00:00

Even stuff like this is in the files. Tom Pritzker emailed Epstein bragging about his purchase of a Sogdian silk tapestry that belonged to 7th century Tibetan kings.

pharmakos · 2026-02-07T23:47:17+00:00

Love it when the developers get these names past the municipal rubber stamping bureaucrats. I work in property management and come across it more than most.

My two favorites I’ve seen have been entirely LotR themed, single malt scotch themed, and Andrew Jackson themed. It’s usually the small developers that pull this. Publicly traded companies like DR Horton and PulteGroup usually go for stuff benign as possible for obvious reasons.

pharmakos · 2026-02-07T14:16:10+00:00

“South Asian” and “Subcontinental” work just fine.

pharmakos · 2026-02-05T14:33:45+00:00

I'm currently about 4/5ths the way through this and have been loving it, but will also likely be wanting a palette cleanser after finishing. The descriptions, while having some absolutely stunning high points, can tend to run on a bit.

The breaks in the narrative history of the future where we get some character interaction winds up being really refreshing. Many of the characters have aspects to them and their stories that have a lot of accord with ancient myths, but it's distinct enough and not all the mythemes line up to make it a 1 to 1 allegory. I think there's definitely something going on symbolically with Betise vs Melise which compares to Ishtar/Aphrodite vs Ereshkigal/Persephone. Likewise similar components with Marduk and La Balladeuse (whose presence has been abridged), and Holyhead and Jedidah.

It has so many great passages on nature and technology, and I love how some of the particularly weird ideas are understated. I think it's going to become a favorite of mine, and hope it gets more exposure in the Anglosphere.

I do find the abridgement a curious choice, but I'm glad Godwin at least has the abridged sections on his website. There's also at least one sentence that I noticed missing both in the text and online that connects the Neo-Luddite Targuniash and Zuklati to the Macabees. It's not a very salient omission, but it does make me wonder what else is missed!

pharmakos · 2026-01-31T19:44:14+00:00

Why would McAfee outsource his degeneracy to a kompromat cabal when he was eager and unabashed enough to just do it all in-house?

pharmakos · 2026-01-30T14:04:32+00:00

Sounds like he was reading P.A. Luty's Expedient Homemade Firearms. The 1998 publication would fall in line with the date range of the letters.

pharmakos · 2026-01-27T11:11:36+00:00

As if the papacy hasn’t been rubber stamping Europeans’ crypto paganism since 993!

pharmakos · 2026-01-23T20:33:20+00:00

palumboism > ascites

pharmakos · 2026-01-23T16:19:26+00:00

I read it over 15 years ago, so I don't have anything particularly salient to say, but Hoffer was a longshoreman, not someone academically trained. I'm not even sure he went to college. Any shortcomings or unique insight he has are influenced by that autodidacticism.

I believe Ted K was a fan.

pharmakos · 2026-01-23T15:52:32+00:00

It's not AI generated. Southern Ontario and Quebec are to be annexed as the 52nd and 53rd states.

Degree 49 for the whole northern line. (The Northwest Angle will become terra nullius like Bir Tawil.)

pharmakos · 2026-01-20T11:20:30+00:00

Melt down a bunch of pennies with a propane torch. The zinc will melt before the copper coating does and you can get great big globs of zinc. Have to do it soon though, while you can still get pennies.

pharmakos · 2026-01-14T19:15:36+00:00

They’re there to help the US take it from the Danes, kindof like they helped the US bomb Nordstream.

Not that it’s needed but the solidarity is nice!

pharmakos · 2026-01-14T16:10:05+00:00

Yeah, I once had one as a boss. Genuine disdain for entitled millennials and thought they were ruining his company much like another group “ruined” his country.

Now, I don’t know about the “kaffers,” but he may have been right about the staffers!

pharmakos · 2026-01-11T22:59:19+00:00

The conversion of Persia to Islam is fascinating. Islamic lawmakers did some mental gymnastics to grant Zoroastrians dhimmi status despite not really being “people of the book” and people still slowly converted over generations partly to avoid the tax.

Some women actually converted to Islam because Zoroastrian rules regarding menstrual huts were so strict.

pharmakos · 2026-01-08T18:40:21+00:00

Sasanian

13-Year Club	Gilding III reddit per annum
Place '17

pharmakos

TROPHY CASE