The imagined future

"At some point, I suppose we all start imagining the future in terms of the past." - Warren Ellis

Book Series worth reading

I feel like there used to be a lot more books series that I loved, where I would wait for the next book, and basically consider it an auto buy. 

These days the list is a lot shorter, so I did some goodreads research on my last 6 years of reading, and put together some lists.

Series that were great but the next book may never come (Just saying).

• The Kingkiller Chronicle - Rothfuss

Rothfuss will probably never finish this series, but the sheer ambition, lyricism, and (frankly) hubris of this series just makes you sit back and admire it. Every sentence seems crafted, and there is a lot to enjoy in the two main books. (The slow regard of silent things is a short story and a little different in style).

• A Song of Ice and Fire - Martin

I remember first reading A Game of Thrones in the late 90's and being absolutely blindsided by the ending (that went on to shock a bunch of people in the TV show much later). I had read some Grimdark at that point, but this was the best I have ever read, and I have been very impressed by a lot of it, although I think George has got himself a little lost in the plots at this point. The Dunk & Egg short stories are also very good.

• Gentleman Bastard  - Lynch

I have never encountered swearing as inventive, as creative, and as supportive of the story as the foul-mouthed thieves of Lynch's world. The first two books in particular are absolutely amazing, and there are also some nice short stories in this world as well.

Series that were great but have now completed, or the author died, and I still reread.

• Discworld  - Pratchett

The best. There may never be an author that does it as well as peak-Pratchett. Start with Guards! Guards! and read the books that every author looks up to. Sheer genius. 

 

• Culture  - Banks

Banksy got it, he realised that every SF novel has an infinite special effects budget, and he had the imagination to use it. Iain Banks is best known for his Culture novels, and they are a ton of fun. Space ships with insane names, bad attitudes, and a taste for intrigue; they tolerate the human meat sacks, but only to a point. 

• Vorkosigan Saga - Bujold

Lois McMaster Bujold has won 6 Hugos (4 best novels and 2 best series) and there is a reason, she makes bold, astonishing narrative decisions that seem impossible, but somehow seem to work. 

• Hyperion Cantos - Simmons

• Aubrey & Maturin  - O'Brien

Series that are great and I buy the next book when it comes out:

• The Tyrant Philosophers  - Tcahikovsky

• Stormlight / Mistborn - Sanderson

• Jackpot  - Gibson

• Penric and Desdemona  - Bujold

Conservatism

Saw a thought provoking definition of conservatism recently (via Charles Stross' Blog). 

"There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

 

I then discovered that the originator of this quote was often misattributed, which led me to the original quote (from a Frank Wilhoit) in a blog post. The broader comment was very interesting, particularly the implication:

"The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis"..."The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone."

 

So... 

 I then wanted to keep a copy of all of this for reference, so created this article, including the entire text from the blog comment: (I've corrected some minor typos):

There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.

There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.

There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

For millennia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.

As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudo-philosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudo-philosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.

So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whateverthefuckkindofstupidnoise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.

No, it ain’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh. The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:

The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.