Lmst

Jeff Jarvis, Clay Shirkey, and Clayton Christensen (to name just three) are ultimately nihilists: They gushingly compare the internet to the printing press only because they see the creation of each as a “disruptive” event—they couldn’t care less about human flourishing, let alone about what made print so special (and the allure endures enough that they have the nerve to write books talking about how books and book culture suck). #book #books #booksToRead #BookQuoteWednesday #bookstodon

now in cities, trades, econom
This is wildly different from the way scholars of print culture, including Eisenstein, frame the benefits of the printing revolution. In fact it is hardly praises the printing revolution at all, but rather deflects the advent of print into the kind of "creative destruction" described by Joseph Schumpeter and the "disruptive innovation" championed by Clayton Christensen. What is actually being lauded is not anything about human life benehting from technological change, but more the ability of waves of technological changes to generate profits for their inventors. Typically, this is done by purting other companies our of business. In Christensens most classic cases, the disruptor can undercut the prices of existing businesses without necessarily providing equal, let alone better, products and services. Print is not celebrated for "smashing apart" what preceded it; the digital revolution now functions not as an intensified version of the book, but instead as an arom smasher, tearing apart the social order just because it can.

"He sits crouched in the chair with his head down on the desk, and his eyes closed, in a state of misery and peace." - Oryx And Crake by Margaret Atwood

#Books #Bookstodon #BookQuote #BookQuoteWednesday @bookstodon

"He had seen the things he had spent his life defending brought to ruin... and this ruin had been accomplished with shocking ease, and in a shockingly brief period of time. Oh, I suppose all men of intelligence know how fragile such things as Law and Justice and Civilization really are, but it's not a thing they think of willingly, because it disturbs one's rest and plays hob with one's appetite." - The Eyes of the Dragon by #StephenKing

#Bookstodon #BookQuoteWednesday #Books @bookstodon

"Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. and Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called upon, I nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was another name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil’s humour, that was in them both." - From David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

#BookQuote #BookQuoteWednesday #Books #Bookstodon #CharlesDickens @bookstodon

"... Stories are like gods, they care little for the human beings in their care."

- Guinevere, The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

#Books #Quote #BookQuoteWednesday #Bookstodon

Today's #BookQuoteWednesday word is "night".
Night comes after day. And the android Livesay has simpler sleeping arrangements than her fellow crew.
#BookQW #scifi

“You sure you’re all right leaning against the wall tonight?”
“I don’t need a bed. Besides, I’m heavy. If I did lie on most beds, I’d probably break something. Or strain it beyond use. I just need to shut off for a set period of time, and make sure I’m not standing on an unsound floor.”
“Oh, right. I said I’d check your alarm system. You were having trouble
waking up a few days ago.”
“If you must.”
Why shouldn’t she protest at that? Any android hates the idea of someone poking round in certain parts, and the alarm system was one of them. It connected straight to her neutral network. Closing the chest panel, Sudu waited as Livesey turned round, exposing the small panel over what would have been her lower spine. The panel slid back and Sudu’s questing fingers fiddled with the wiring. Suddenly there was a sharp change in frequency, and her voice took on the metallic note of an overstretched autotune.
“Watch what you’re pulling down there!”
Sudu’s laugh couldn’t be controlled, she knew that. Her voice sounded
ridiculous, transformed from its usual level tone into a singsong top C. His giggles subsided, Sudu quickly readjusted, and her voice returned to normal.
“Sorry.” He was still stifling sniggers. “Got some wires crossed.”
“Kindly remember to hot-cross-bun…. Oh, Fluckh—”
“Hold on! Wait, got it!”
“Thank you.”
“I think I must’ve been sending junk data to your vocal centers.”

"But allow me to inform you of what any good friend would point out: most people find your very presence pretty unpleasant; your encounters leave a mental aftertaste much like an unpleasant aroma."

- Assholes: A Theory, by Aaron James

#BookQuote #BookQuoteWednesday #Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon

"The true vampires... are difficult to kill. But these plague creatures were pale imitations, the foot soldiers of the Red King, and all that was required to stop them was a stalwart disposition and an utter ruthlessness. They had to be rendered down to parts—utterly destroyed—and later burned, to prevent their repair.

I was more than willing. On they came."

-- Baltimore, Or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and The Vampire
#Books #Bookstodon #BookQuoteWednesday @bookstodon

"Christmas doesn't like me. It's a conspiracy. Christmas is a conspiracy to make single people feel lonely." - Michael, Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

Make your own story today. If you're flying solo, don't be afraid to start a story with someone new.

There are already enough conspiracy theories out there. #JoinIn

#Bookstodon #BookQuote #BookQuoteWednesday #MerryChristmas #Christmas2024 @bookstodon

#BookQuoteWednesday

#BQW
word: FAST.

Apprentice fairy-smith John is trying to get through a woods where a fey spirit was once trapped in a tree - and then exploded out of it. When a fey thing breaks out, there are after-shocks.

The Gyrford series: tinyurl.com/nvvetupj

It had been a slow place once, with a deep drag to it. That would have been Ab's tree: a spirit so powerful pent up so small must have stepped in and out of time, and time softened around the tree to cushion it.
But Ab was out of the tree now, and the softened pace of the world hadn't been enough to absorb the shock. The wood felt crumpled, like a dropped rag. In places it pleated up, so that when he moved his hand through the air he felt a luxurious ease, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't make his muscles push fast. In others, life was frantic: he climbed over one log where the toadstools pulsed on the bark like frog-throats, and while John tried to climb carefully, he was over the other side and staggering for balance before he'd even had a moment to notice he was doing it...
He walked, skewing, staggering, for time wouldn't keep pace with him. In some places the trees were growing, their trunks fattening like risen dough; in others he could hardly move or think. And the further he walked, the worse a problem the frozen spots became, because his mind slowed in them too; thought happened, but slow as stone, and in the time it took it get through them it was like trying to remember the same idea for days at a stretch.
By the time he made it through those moments, he found that he'd forgotten where he was.

Today's #BookQuoteWednesday #BQW word: eye.

The fairy-smiths of Gyrford have a tense relationship with rich and nasty landlord Ephraim Brady. Today he wants an iron bell for his tenants' talking cat, and the Smiths aren't eager to oblige.

Jedediah jerked his head at Matthew, who straightened up, more in obedience to his father’s wishes than from any desire to enter the conversation. Matthew hated to hurt an animal, and since he hated to argue with folks as well he was feeling almost mute with distress, but the size of him towering over Ephraim was an advantage Jedediah felt comfortable employing. ‘I – I think,’ Matthew managed, ‘it would be best not to be too hasty.’
‘Or too cruel,’ John supplied, feeling no such hesitation at telling anybody what was what. ‘If the cat’s just talking and isn’t doing you any harm, it would be most unkind to hurt it.’
Ephraim’s eyelids gave a brief twitch which, in a man of more lavish movement, might have been a gesture of rolled eyes, but John persisted, ‘And it’s unlucky too. Especially if the cat has friends, you know, among its court or among the People, which it probably does if it’s talking. You must have heard of folks that hurt animals the People loved, and the People take offence at it. You remember Mister Dalby, who shot one of Pretty Nan’s coach-hares by mistake, and he had to leave the county before she did something even worse to his other leg. And he didn’t even do it on purpose.’

"And she is tired. Unspeakably tired.
But there is no question she has lived."

- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

#Bookstodon #BookQuoteWednesday #Books #Fiction @bookstodon

Today's
#BookQuoteWednesday
word: gaze.

Fairy-smith Jedediah realised his father was crossing the line from 'abuse' to 'murder' and decided he must end the man to protect those he loved.

He did not expect to find his old auntie was way ahead of him, and a much better assassin.

#BookQW

‘You might have asked me,’ Jedediah said, his voice sounding more timeworn than his aunt’s, ‘if you meant to put him out of the world. I might have had views, you know.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I might have helped.’
‘Tsh,’ said Pell. ‘You’re a fairy-smith, my man. It wasn’t your trade. Look at you today: you made up your mind to rid yourself of Corbie, and with every secret spot in the county in your memory and a forge full of hammers to choose from, you went traipsing after cuckoo eggs when you might have taken him somewhere quiet and cracked his skull like a sensible man. Half-hearted plan if ever I heard one. Nay, you don’t think like a murderer, and you shouldn’t try. Don’t suit you.
‘Now me, I’ve bloodied my hands many a time. Ask your Janet if she’s never had to choose whether it’s the mother or the baby outlives the birth. Life’s a killing business, my lamb.’ Her gaze on him was unapologetic, and while her face was lined, her eyes were clear as a hare’s. ‘Sometimes one of two can live, but not both.
‘Some folks end up bloodsmiths.’ She grinned, mirthless and fierce. ‘But not you, my lad. You were always a good man. A fighter, you were, but not a killer. And that’ – she waved a small, age-worn hand, to indicate the removal from the world of a man whose life didn’t meet her approval – ‘well, Jedediah Smith, that was women’s work.’

#BookQuoteWednesday #BQW prompt: LIGHT.

The very beginning of the Gyrford series! Available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Contemporary-Horror-Gyrford-series/s?rh=n%3A518184%2Cp_lbr_books_series_browse-bin%3AThe+Gyrford+series

At the centre of any village stands the smithy, where you can expect deals to be shaken on and conflicts to be shaken out, but if you need fairy-smithing, you must travel the miles to Gyrford. At the time Jedediah Smith held the forge, he and his kin had been master craftsmen in that trade, father to son, for longer than anyone could recall – and it just had to be hoped that each new son would have a head on his shoulders, for if you need fairy-smithing, you need it badly. When you’re trying to till the earth and the stones sit up and argue with you, or you enter your dairy to find something untenable stirring the curds with long green fingers, it’s a time for iron: the People abhor it, and a skilled farrier might be the only thing between you and disaster. We build our houses with sense and geometry and plough our fields with sweat and patience, and all the while, a blink away are the People, dancing and tearing, gifting and stealing, snatching up fury and scattering light, feeding on air.
You do not war with the People unless they war on you, but if matters edge towards a precipice, the fairy-smith will be the one to fight for you. That is, if a fight cannot be avoided, and certainly they preferred other means: Jedediah on the grounds that only a fool borrows trouble, Matthew on the grounds that fighting is a sad business, and John – well, they were worried about Johnny. And even John wasn’t to blame for the deaths that autumn, not really...

"Rich people... generally become most enraged when they sense they're about to be held accountable for their wrongs."

- from The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

#Bookstodon #BookQuoteWednesday #Books #BookQuote @bookstodon

Today's
#BookQuoteWednesday

#BQW
word: HOLE.

Fairy-smith Matthew is trying to explain a family curse to his son. The fey Ab intended it for a cradle blessing, but was careless about side-effects.

Ab appeared and clapped its claws, and cried out, ‘She is a mighty one and shall have the strength of a hundred men!’

Well, the midwife was afeared indeed, for already Agnes was squirming in her arms and wanting to go back to her Mama, and so hard did she push that the midwife dropped her right then and there, and she had bruises on her chest that lasted a fortnight after. She tried to pick her up again, but Agnes was weeping from the fall and knocked her away, and she fell, and in the end there was nothing to do but beg Clem to have a word with Ab, who was a-float over the baby and chuckling with delight at how well it had wrought what it meant for a blessing.

Clem rushed in and saw Agnes, who had not yet found out how to walk and wished very much to get back to her Mama, and was knocking holes in the floorboards trying to make some headway there. He fell to his knees and pleaded with Ab, ‘You see what has become of my floor! I beg you, protect us and her from this harm!’

Ab was not one of those who understood that folks don’t like to have their things broke, for it was an outdoor spirit by nature and did not see that snapping one twig mattered more than another, but it was pleased by its generosity and said to Clem, ‘Harm she shall not nor cannot do!’ Then it scuttled out the window and ran up the wall to the roof...

#Bookstodon We hear it’s #bookquoteWednesday so we’re here with a quote from WIRELESS (Captain Ramos #2) by Alex Acks. Lots of #heat of the fast-paced adventure variety! https://books2read.com/b/mdWDPw

"Well fought, sir, " Collum said. "Do you yield to me now?"
"Fuck your mother."
The man's voice was hoarse and weary. Somewhere a woodlark sang.
"Beg pardon?"
"Your mother." His Latin was surprisingly refined. A lot better than Collum's. "Fuck. Her."
Maybe they weren't going to be having that chat after all.

- From The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

#Books #Quote #BookQuoteWednesday #Bookstodon

#BookQuoteWednesday - the word is 'leap'. The Green Man's Quarry is a UK Kindle ebook special offer this month, so you might like to spring for that.

Right now, Dan Mackmain's in serious trouble and he doesn't know which way to jump... #BookQW
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Mans-Quarry-Juliet-McKenna-ebook/dp/B0CJ5YJWPS/

#writing #books #Fantasy #SFF #UrbanFantasy #Bookstodon

Cover art shows a black panther in woodland at night. He's looking straight at you with golden eyes. His mouth is half open, showing lethally sharp white fangs.

Book extract reads: I tensed, ready to throw myself off the road, one way or the other, as soon as he committed to his leap. I hoped I’d be fast enough. I hoped I’d go the right way to escape those claws. I couldn’t fight back with only one useful hand.
He didn’t get a chance to jump me. The road was completely empty, but he managed to trip over something. The cat stumbled and his front paw buckled. His shoulder hit the deck, but his back legs didn’t get the memo in time to stop. He flipped over onto his back in a clumsy somersault.
The three cats chasing him leaped. They landed on him, snarling and wrestling. I saw claws flashing and long tails lashing...

Today's #BookQuoteWednesday #BQW word is 'part'.

Young fairy-smith Jedediah has several problems. The girl he's smitten with revealed a giant fey spider called No One. His protege Franklin went to play with it - but No One's idea of play was to rearrange Franklin's limbs to make them more spiderlike. And Jedediah is terrified of spiders...

#BookQuoteWednesday

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