Decrepit be a readin' fool!

Was gonna comment that myself. I doubt anyone reads as much as our very own Decrepit

In my neighborhood we've got at least three book kiosks within walking distance. These are little stands with glass doors, in which locals place books which can be taken. We can also leave books as well. I have no idea if this practice is common outside of Maryland; probably it is.

Anyway, lately I've been reading a book found within one of the kiosks: Carl Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections. I'm not in the habit of reading biographies or autobiographies or anything much which is "serious" and "real", but I've always wanted to learn more about Jung after taking Mister Wizda's psychology class during senior year of high school.

Otherwise, I mostly read more 'modern' literature: Emily St. John Mandel is my current fave for instance. Read all her stuff. Impatient for more from Emily!

Carl Jung's biography is slow-going for me; he gets long-winded, and there are times I skim. But it is fun to read about Jung's day for two reasons: 1). Part I'm at now, it's in the 1890s. Electricity isn't even a thing yet, in his old country village. No cars. Death is always at the doorstep, for stuff which we easily avoid nowadays. I hope he describes what it was like when things start to modernize, and how this possibly influenced his chosen profession somehow (as I assume it did).

2). Others may disagree, but I've always been curious about Jung's greater affiliation with worldly symbolism. He's just broader-minded, in comparison with Freud. Freud's the father of psychoanalysis, but he's always struck me as the more rigid of the two. Anyway, I'm learning about both these fellows, lately. 🥃

The year (2024) half over, and me having been totally remiss in reporting books as I finish them, I present a catchall listing of what I've read to date, including dates and times of completion. Unless specifically stated, all are initial reads:

1. 01/07/2024: 1024 “The Tawny Man Trilogy, book 1: Fool’s Errand� by Robin Hobb
2. 01/14/2024: 1556 “Gettysburg, A Journey in Time� by William A. Frassanito (third read)
3. 01/22/2024: 1838 “The Tawny Man Trilogy, book 2: Golden Fool� by Robin Hobb
4. 01/25/2024: 0418 “Steaming Into, book 3: Steaming into the North West: Tales of the Premier Line, Extended Version of 2017� by Michael Clutterbuck
5. 01/27/2024: 1948 “Steaming Into, book 6: Steaming into the Broad Gauge: Tales of the GWR’s Daring Experiment� by Michael Clutterbuck
6. 01/29/2024: 0717 “Steaming Into, book 7: Steam into Troubles: Tales of Trials and Tribulations of Steam Engine Crews� by Michael Clutterbuck
7. 01/31/2024: 1152 “Steaming Into, book 4: Steaming into the Heyday: Tales of the Great Western Railway at its Zenith� by Michael Clutterbuck
8. 02/02/2024: 2058 “Steaming Into, book 1: Steaming into the Firing Line: Tales of the Footplate in Wartime Britain� by Michael Clutterbuck
9. 02/04/2024: 1829 “Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America’s Bloodiest Day� by William A. Frassanito (second read)
10. 02/05/2024: 1234 “Steaming Into, book 5: Steaming into the Blitz: More Tales of the Footplate in Wartime Britain� by Michael Clutterbuck
11. 02/07/2024: 0437 “Steaming Into, book 2: Steaming into History: Footplate Tales of the Last Days of Western Steam� by Michael Clutterbuck
12. 02/26/2024: 1525 “Grant and Lee: The Virginia Campaigns 1864-1865� by William A. Frassanito (second read)
13. 02/27/2024: 1259 “The Tide Child Trilogy, book 1: The Bone Ships� by R.J. Barker
14. 03/01/2024: 1512 “Osprey, Men-at-Arms series: The Iron Brigade� by John Selby, color plates by Michael Roffe (second+ read)
15. 03/04/2024: 1327 “Osprey, Men-at-Arms series: The Army of Northern Virginia� by Philip N. Katchner, color plates by Michael Yourens (second+ read)
16. 03/05/2024: 1803 “The Tide Child Trilogy, book 2: Call of the Bone Ships� by R.J. Barker
17. 03/09/2024: 1030 “The Tide Child Trilogy, book 3: The Bone Ships Wake� by R.J. Barker
18. 03/13/2024: 0824 “The Broken Earth, book 1: The Fifth Season� by N.K. Jemisin
19. 03/16/2024: 1256 “The Broken Earth, book 2: The Obelisk Gate� by N.K. Jemisin
20. 03/24/2024: 1108 “The Tawny Man Trilogy, book 3: Fool’s Fate� by Robin Hobb
21. 03/31/2024: 1736 “The Rain Wilds Chronicles, book 1: Dragon Keeper� by Robin Hobb
22. 04/03/2024: 1811 “The Rain Wilds Chronicles, book 2: Dragon Haven� by Robin Hobb
23. 04/08/2024: 1315 “The Rain Wilds Chronicles, book 3: City of Dragons� by Robin Hobb
24. 04/11/2024: 1732 “The Rain Wilds Chronicles, book 4: Blood of Dragons� by Robin Hobb
25. 04/19/2024: 0422 “Fitz and the Fool, book 1: Fool’s Assassin� by Robin Hobb
26. 04/19/2024: 0742 “The Velveteen Rabbit� by Margery Williams Bianco
27. 04/29/2024: 1256 “Fitz and the Fool, book 2: Fool’s Quest� by Robin Hobb
28. 05/06/2024: 1425 “The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877 – 1977� by Roland Gelatt (second+ read)
29. 05/22/2024: 2330 “Chalion (World of the Five Gods), book 1: The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
30. 06/06/2024: 2116 “Gilgamesh the King� by Robert Silverberg
31. 06/14/2024: 1439 “Beethoven’s Only Beloved: Josephine!� by John E Klapproth (third read)
32. 06/15/2024: 1812 “Krieg (War)� by Ludwig Renn, translated by Michael Sanders
33. 06/16/2024: 1818 “The Mystery of the Inn by the Shore� (1895) by Florence Warden
34. 06/27/2024: 2058 “Enuma Elish: The Babylonian Creation Epic� (also includes ‘Atrahsis’, the first Great Flood myth) as rendered by Timothy J. Stephany
35. 07/01/2024: 1700 “UNHOLY TRINITY: How Carbs, Sugar & Oils Make US Fat, Sick & Addicted and How to Escape Their Grip� by Daniel Trevor
36. 07/10/2024: 2223 “Fitz and the Fool, book 3: Assassin’s Fate� by Robin Hobb

The year has been a treasure trove of riches, especially fantasy. I can't recall any title being less that fine. The various Robin Hobb Realm of the Elderlings series, began last year and finished yesterday with "Assassin's Fate", top the list. Easily some of the best fantasy I've ever read. As to non-fantasy, the nod goes to the various "Steaming Into . . ." books, a largely fictional depiction of the lives and times of British steam-era railroading, mostly at the driver/fireman level. Right up my alley!

My problem at the moment is figuring out what to read next. "Assassin's Fate" is an extremely hard act to follow.

I solved my problem of finding a book to follow Hobb's "Assassin's Fate" by reading a non-fantasy / non-fiction title, "Unworthy Republic, The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory" by Claudio Saunt. A worthy book on, as the title reads, a shameful subject. It provides much detail on how our nation's original(?) inhabitants were forced from their homes and livelihoods in the slave-owning Southern states and their northern neighbors, from roughly the 1820s through the 1840s. An easy recommendation for anyone interested in this aspect of U.S. history.

If you enjoyed that one, I highly recommend the others, Paladin of Souls, Hallowed Hunt, and the Penric series of novellas all set in the same universe. Outside of Guy Gavriel Kay and Joe Abercrombie, I think they've been my favourite fantasy books of the past 20 years.

Thanks for the recommendation. I like The Curse of Chalion quite a lot and plan to buy the follow-ups at some point. Your endorsement reinforces that conviction. Like you, GGK has been my favorite writer of books published as fantasy for decades. I've not yet sampled Abercrombie.

At 1204, 19 Jul 2024 I completed an initial read of “Gods of the Bible� by Mauro Biglino, a recent Amazon Kindle purchase. For want of a better term, I'll label it Speculative Non-Fiction. Food for thought. I was heavily into this sort of thing during the early to mid-70s, reading lots of von Daniken and others of his ilk, laying the genre aside when it became painfully obvious that new entries were mere rehashes of what had been written before, with nothing new to say.

GotB takes a different approach from those earlier titles. The author, who worked as a translator for the Vatican for ten-some years before being fired for translating religious works too literally, goes back to the oldest known versions/sources of what we know as the "Old Testament" before theologians turned it into what it is today, and gives what he purports is a literal, more correct reading. "God", Angels, and so on are seen in a very different light. What's more, the Old Testament comes across as a more consistently logical narrative, if uncomfortable for those of a certain persuasion. Fascinating stuff. Do I believe it? As a possibility, yes. As a certainty, no.

A follow-up to the list of 2024 reads several threads above, including completion times/dates

37. 07/13/2024: 0610 “Unworthy Republic, The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian
Territory� by Claudio Saunt
38. 07/19/2024: 1204 “Gods of the Bible� by Mauro Biglino
39. 07/28/2024: 2002 “Daughter of the Empire� by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts
40. 08/06/2024: 1951 “The Negro Workers: Address delivered Tuesday, October 30, 1923, at Commonwealth Casino, 135thy Street and Madison Avenue, N.Y.C.� by Eugene V. Debs
41. 08/15/2024: 1052 “Declaration and Confession of Robert Watt�, written, subscribed and delivered by himself, the evening before his execution for High Treason at Edinburgh, Oct 17 1794, published 1794
42. 08/19/2024: 1731 “Memoirs of A Revolutionist� by P. Kropotkin (1906)
43. 09/05/2024: 1624 “The Winnowing Flame Trilogy, book 1: The Ninth Rain� by Jen Williams
44. 09/13/2024: 2132 “Immortal� by Jessica Duchen (second read)
45. 09/21/2024: 1929 “The Soldier Son Trilogy, book 1: Shaman’s Crossing� by Robin Hobb
46. 09/28/2024: 0808 “The Soldier Son Trilogy, book 2: Forest Mage� by Robin Hobb
47. 10/03/2024: 1954 “The Soldier Son Trilogy, book 3: Renegade’s Magic� by Robin Hobb
48. 10/05/2024: 0817 “The Expert System’s Brother, book 1� by Adrian Tchaikovsky
49. 10/06/2024: 0152 “The Expert System’s Brother, book 2: The Expert System’s Champion� by Adrian Tchaikovsky
50. 10/06/2024: 1430 “Way of the Blade, 100 of the Greatest Bloody Matches in Wrestling History� by Phil Schneider, art by Chris Bryan

No.44 is my first re-read of a Kindle ebook, which was also my very first ebook purchase/read. No.42 is an excellent read downloadable free from Project Gutenberg. Soldier Son Trilogy further cements my conviction that Robin Hobb is one of our top-tier fantasy writers. The two Tchaikovsky books were, as expected, quite enjoyable. Gods of the Bible was an utterly fascinating page-turner. Way of the Blade was a loan from my brother I'd not otherwise have an interest in reading. I'll likey buy the two Daughter of the Empire follow-ups if they go on sale.

Oops . . . lunch time!

Books read during 2024 after my last post:

51. 10/11/2024: 1144 “The Heel of Achilles� by E.M. Delafield, published 1921
52. 10/25/2024: 2029 “Song of the Beast� by Carol Berg
53. 11/09/2024: 1306 “Play of Shadows� by Sebastien de Castell
54. 11/13/2024: 0925 “The Greatcoats Quartet, book 1: Traitor’s Blade� by Sebastien de Castell
55. 11/17/2024: 1702 “The Greatcoats Quartet, book 2: Knight’s Shadow� by Sebastien de Castell
56. 11/20/2024: 1905 “The Greatcoats Quartet, book 3: Saint’s Blood� by Sebastien de Castell
57. 11/23/2024: 1115 “The Greatcoats Quartet, book 4: Tyrant’s Throne� by Sebastien de Castell
58. 11/24/2024: 1046 “When I was a Boy in China� by Yan Phou Lee, published 1887
59. 11/28/2024: 0512 “The Faithful and the Fallen, book 1: Malice� by John Gwynne
60. 12/02/2024: 1708 “The Mark of Zorro� by Johnston McCulley
61. 12/04/2024: 1937 “The Song of Achilles� by Madeline Miller
62. 12/15/2024: 0317 “Lilith’s Brood, book 1: Dawn� by Octavia E. Butler
63. 12/19/2024: 2019 “The Discovery of King Arthur� (original version, published 1985) by Geoffrey Ashe (seventh read)
64. 12/27/2024: 2125 “Oz, book 1: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz� (published 1900) by L. Frank Baum (second read)

I not only again read over fifty books, but soared beyond sixty. This might be a lifetime record. Of this batch, the de Castell books take top honors. The Greatcoats Quartet books had an obvious Three Musketeers vibe, which I was pleased to see de Castell acknowledge in his closing credits. Lots of fun. I like his Play of Shadows even more. It has the same qualities as the Greatcoats books (and is set in the same world) but is, I think, even better written.

As for the year, all fantasy novels were enjoyable, and many top-notch. Pick of the litter goes to the various Robin Hobb books. As for non-fiction, “Gods of the Bible� by Mauro Biglino impressed me most.

Due to the serious illness I was hit with last January 2025, I've failed to report my reads. Here they are:

1. 01/06/2025: 2049 “Service Model� by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2. 01/08/2025: 1559 “All Quiet on the Western Front� by Erich Maria Remargue
3. 01/16/2025: 0419 “A Sorceress Come to Call� by T. Kingfisher
4. 01/30/2025: 1828 “Genesis of Shannara, book 1: Armageddon’s Children� by Terry Brooks
5. 02/02/2025: 0551 “History’s Greatest Lies� by William Weir
6. 02/06/2025: 1312 “Genesis of Shannara, book 2: The Elves of Cintra� by Terry Brooks
7. 02/09/2025: 1243 “Genesis of Shannara, book 3: The Gypsy Morph� by Terry Brooks
8. 02/14/2025: 2028 “The First King of Shannara� by Terry Brooks
9. 02/18/2025: 2025 “The Book of Words, book 1: The Baker’s Boy� by J.V. Jones
10. 02/20/2025: 0649 “Lost to the West, The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization� by Lars Brownworth (fourth read)
11. 02/24/2025: 1929 “The Book of Words, book 2: A Man Betrayed� by J.V. Jones
12. 02/28/2025: 1941 “The Book of Words, book 3: Master and Fool� by J.V. Jones
13. 03/06/2025: 04x6 “Fallen Gods, book 1: Godkiller� by Hannah Kaner (read in hospital)
14. 03/10/2025: xxxx “Fallen Gods, book 2: Sunbringer� by Hannah Kaner (read in hospital)
15. 04/07/2025: 2005 “Shattered Sea, book 1: Half a King� by Joe Abercrombie
16. 04/13/2025: 1921 “The Illustrated Tarzan book 1, picturized from the novel Tarzan of the Apes, 300 pictures� by Edgar Rice Burroughs, published 1929
17. 04/16/2025: 2105 “Waterloo� by Thomas Edward Watson, published 1908
18. 04/22/2025: 1154 “The Twisted Ones� by T. Kingfisher
19. 04/27/2025: 0954 “The White People� by Arthur Machen, written late 1890s
20. 05/05/2025: 1929 “The Bright Sword, a Novel of King Arthur� by Lev Grossman

If forced to pick a favorite read of the year thus far, I'd hesitantly settle on The Book of Words trilogy, though oddly they are the reads I recall the least about. As it stands now, thanks to one nearly month-long reading slump and the slump I'm in now, I am unlikely to read fifty-plus books this year, which is not a bad thing.

Out of all those books I have only ever read "All Quiet on the Western Front" and it was way way back in school so I don't remember anything about it

I've battled a strong reading slump for some time. Book after book after book has been started, but can't long hold my interest. Finally, not long before bedtime day before yesterday, I began a book that looks to be a keeper. It's something of a surprise, my fondness for the "classics" being rather spotty. The title? Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, seen here in a replacement cover I made for my Project Gutenberg download, utilizing an image from within the book. I'm already 20% done, with no hint of a slump kicking in.


My draw to it is the 1930 "early talkie" film adaptation, which I'm a huge fan of. I'm also a fan of "WWI in the trenches" books. All Quiet on the Western Front is not my favorite such book, but it's a darn good one.

Not wanting to hijack this thread, but I felt like suggesting looking into Red Baron, a DOS game which may have been remade and available on GoG for play on modern PC:s. I thought because of your interest in this time period you may find it interesting to look at, read about and possibly fly around in WWI airplanes. It's a very well-made game.

A few more replacement book covers for Project Gutenberg downloads:

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, utilizing the author's image. This is one of my favorites to date.

Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, utilizing an image from within the book.

Charlotte Guest's The Mabinogion, utilizing the author's image.

Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, utilizing either an image from within the book or one found online.

As to what I'm reading now, it's still Jane Eyre.

I played a good bit of Red Baron when it was new and shiny. Good game. I never became good at it.

Today I finished The Three Imposters, by Arthur Machen. It is on Project Gutenberg, so it is free. I have read some of its constituent parts as standalone works, such as the Novel of the Black Seal, and the Novel of the White Powder. But this is my first time reading the entire book from start to finish. All in all I am rather, ambivalent about it.

For starters, it's construction is definitely inspired by Arabian Night. I believe the author even said so directly. It is basically a series of smaller, essentially standalone stories all tied together by a single, overarching narrative. In this case in the narratives of the titular Three Imposters, who are telling the protagonists of the wraparound story - Dyson and Phillipps - their tales.

The source of my ambivalence comes from the fact that Machen tips his hand the very start, and shows us that the Three Imposters are just that, imposters - liars. Because of that they are inherently unreliable narrators. We cannot trust anything they tell us.

On one hand, this provides the ambiguity that a good Weird Tale thrives on, where at the end the reader wonders, what really happened? It goes with the idea that a really good supernatural story should also have a somewhat rational, even if highly improbable, explanation. If the reader chooses to read that into it. In this case, the narrators of the tales are liars, so the supernatural stories they confer might be all b.s.

But I find that in this case at least, it ultimately undercuts the stories. The Novel of the Black Seal in particular is often rightly cited as a major influence in HP Lovecraft's stories The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, among others. You can clearly see the influence of Machen's Faerie Euhemerism in the Black Seal on Lovecraft. But Lovecraft played it straight. In his universe, Cthulhu is real. The Deep Ones are real. The Whately brothers are real. That is the horror.

But also, the wrap-around story does not really offer us up much new. We have these Three Imposters trying to find a mysterious Man with Spectacles, and telling their tales to the protagonists Dyson and Phillipps with the spectacled man placed in them somewhere directly or tangentially. But where at first it seemed like the Imposters were hoping to use Dyson and Phillipps to find him, in the end they do it on their own. Dyson and Phillipps don't really do anything of note in the story, except to act as receptacles for the smaller tales within it. They don't drive events, but are rather just observers.

So ultimately I recommend reading the two best stories within it as standalone tales: Novel of the Black Seal and Novel of the White Powder. Unless you are a completionist, or just have time on your hands.

I've downloaded four Machen titles thus far, but have read none of them. One, The Hill of Dreams, was one of the first books I made a new cover for. But of all my covers, it is the one I like least. I'll likely redo it at some point, as I already have with a few other subpar covers.

I have now read the Three Imposters, Hill of Dreams, and The Great God Pan. TBH, I am kind of ambivalent about him overall. Mainly because the outlook he has in his writing is that Paganism is evil and monstrous, and I am a Pagan. So it is hard not to take that personally. For example Hill of Dreams was a really cool story about a girl getting in touch with nature and her Witchy roots. He treats this as a bad thing, and she meets a horrible end.

He also treats Nature itself (intentionally capitalized) in much the same manner. The Great God Pan is all about how seeing the real hidden face of nature utterly destroys one, and spawns a monstrosity that plagues mankind. There is also a lot of latent misogyny in it. Primarily in that Machen cannot seem to imagine that a woman can be anything other than an object for men to have sex with. His "good" female character is a girl (not a woman) who meekly submits to being experimented upon and is quietly inferred to being serially raped by the man who in essence owns her. The "bad" woman is the result of those experiments, who goes on to somehow sexually destroy men. I can only presume by showing them her bare ankle. *gasp*. This was written in the Victorian Era after all.

Mostly I was interested in Machen because he was a major influence on other, better writers, like Lovecraft. For example, Lovecraft took the idea that there is a hidden face to nature that is drives people crazy to see it, and adapted it to there being hidden forces that are outside of nature (like Cthulhu) and to bear witness to them drives one crazy. That I can get into much easier. As a product of the natural world, I find it hard to believe that the natural world would drive me insane. Kill me through starvation or lightning bolts sure. But not that I could not handle the very nature of Nature itself. Beings from outside reality OTOH, well, that is the essence of Cosmic Horror. One can never grasp what they are, because they are so alien and beyond out abilities to comprehend.

I still suffer from the intense reading block that kicked in near the end of my hospital stay early March. That said, I did manage to finish Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre� last month. I rather enjoyed it. Ms. Brontë was certainly a fine writer! I have to admit that the sometimes lengthy stretches of introspection / inner conflict occasionally overstayed their welcome. Than again, “Jane Eyre� is far from the only book to suffer from this sin, if sin it be. <LINK> Here’s the “cover� I created for my Project Gutenberg download, utilizing a graphic from within the book. <LINK>

Upon finishing the above, I attempted a reread of Terry Brooks’ “The Sword of Shannara�, the first of his seemingly endless string of Shannara-related titles. Going in, I recalled that I considered it mediocre during prior reads. I now consider that assessment overly generous. This, plus my reading block, combined to make this attempt a DNF. (To be fair, I find the second Shannara book, “The Elf Queen
of Shannara�, much better.)

I’ve since moved on and am now about 70% into another, more recent, Brook’s title, “Pre-Shannara: Word and Void, book 1: Running with the Demon�. By the time Brooks got around to this one, he was a far, far better writer. I was hooked from the start, and remained hooked. Were it not for my block, I’d have finished it days ago.

SubRosa having brought up Aurthur Machen, none of whose books I’ve read, I’ll mention having created new “covers� for several Project Gutenberg downloads. First up is “The Great God Pan�, which was hard to find cover-art for, few otherwise usable images I found online being in the Public Domain. <LINK> Here it is. <LINK> Next, "The Hill of Dream". In this case, PG's cover already sported cover-art, but lacked TITLE and AUTHOR’S NAME. <LINK> I remedied that. <LINK>

I have been listening to a lot of audiobooks lately. YouTube has some really good readings of classic short stories and novels. Gates of Imagination, HorrorBabble, Richard Crowest, and Edward E French are good channels for old horror and sci fi stories that are in the public domain, and they have excellent voices.

Thanks to that I have been listening to a lot of them at work whenever I am doing things that are labor intensive but not thought intensive. I have gotten through a lot of short stories, like Guy de Maupassant's the Horla, the White Wolf (or The Wolf, depending), Clemence Houseman's the Were-Wolf was really good. I loved White Fell so much I made her a werewolf character in the Stormcrow Fiction.

I have also done a few longer ones lately. I started with The Island of Dr. Moreau by HG Wells, and just Sunday finished The Time Machine. What really jumped out at me about Dr. Moreau is that while the protagonist reviles the Beast-Men for being savages, it is the so called "civilized" men doing the overwhelming amount of violence and cruelty.

For example, Moreau is a vivesectionist, and his work of uplifting animals to the status of Beat-Men is astoundingly sadistic. I know vivesection was a practice at the time, and I have no doubt Wells deliberately chose this route to call it out as barbaric. However, he also shows Moreau, Montgomery, and eventually the protagonist as all being quick to kill the Beast-Men in order to keep them in line. The only way they can maintain their idea of civilization is through violence and murder. I wonder if that was an intentional critique of Real Life by Wells or not? Or is he limiting that to only authoritarianism? Because Moreau is essentially a cult leader, with the status of a living god, and is an absolute authoritarian. Wells wrote that part really well.

By the end though, its a pretty bleak story, and left me feeling emotionally drained.

The Time Machine was likewise full of social commentary about the Capital and Working classes. That is something that is usually completely stripped out in film versions of the story, which tend to just portray the Eloi and nice, and the Morlocks as nasty monsters. But in the book the Eloi are the remnants of the Upper Class, who literally do nothing but play all day, and have no real intellectual life or drive. While the Morlocks live in darkness and work, they make the clothing the Eloi wear, seemingly prepare the food that they eat, etc... Whatever work needs to be done, they do it. The twist is of course that the Eloi are free-range cattle.

If that was not bleak enough, the novel then has the protagonist going much farther forward into the future, and witness Earth's final days as a barren, nearly lifeless world inhabited by mold and a few Lovecraftian horrors that apparently eat the slime. All that remains of the planet's living legacy.

I think the novel's saving grace is that at the end the time traveler finds some flowers that Weena put in his pocket, and ruminates on how they represent a simple act of human kindness, and perhaps that feeling is the most noble achievement of human kind. Not buildings, because they all fall down. Not knowledge, since books will all turn to dust and ideas themselves be forgotten. It is all ephemeral, so what really matters is how live in the here and now, and how we treat one another.

Anyway, I think next up is going to be Jules Verne and Journey to the Center of the Earth. I also have a copy of Andy Serkis reading the Lord of the Rings, so I might go with that instead. I also have All Quiet on the Western Front ready to go, when I am feeling ready for something really dark.

At 2058 yesterday evening, 4 Jun 2025, I concluded an initial read of Terry Brooks' "Pre-Shannara: Word and Void, book 1, Running with the Demon". I liked it very much. Smaller in locale and timespan than his sprawling early Shannara entries, I find it far better written. It held my interest from start to finish. I'll definitely continue the trilogy.

But first, a possible change of pace. Having created a new cover for Mary Wollstonecraft's (the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley of Frankenstein fame) "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", I decided to give it a try. I'm only partway through the short, meh biographical introduction, so it's too soon to report on the book's worth or lack thereof.