[HN Gopher] A Guide for Prospective Tea Monks
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A Guide for Prospective Tea Monks
Author : edward
Score : 115 points
Date : 2024-01-08 12:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (peacefulrevolutionary.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (peacefulrevolutionary.substack.com)
| selykg wrote:
| This book is one of my favorites ever. Both it and the sequel are
| amazing. My understanding is that Becky Chambers does not have
| any more books planned but hasn't ruled out writing more. But I
| really really hope we see more books. This world just calms me,
| the characters are wonderful and reading these books is almost
| like meditation for me.
|
| It's really interesting how these books have captured my
| attention.
|
| If any of you out there have similar books you'd recommend I'd
| love to hear about them.
| schneems wrote:
| I assume you've read wayfarers. There is more drama in that
| series but it's still quite good.
|
| I'm in other recommendations as well. Robot and monk is a quick
| and easy read. I've already read it twice.
| SamWhited wrote:
| > My understanding is that Becky Chambers does not have any
| more books planned but hasn't ruled out writing more.
|
| Ooh, that's really sad to hear; I had assumed it would be a
| trilogy with the city being the last one!
|
| If the first book typifies the climbing-the-mountain archetype
| (quite literally in the books case!) and the meaning crisis,
| the second is a great exploration of neo-luddism and being
| critical of new technologies effects on people (even if the
| technology by itself isn't bad), and I was really looking
| forward to her view of anti-car, utopian urbanism with a third
| one.
| SamWhited wrote:
| > If any of you out there have similar books you'd recommend
| I'd love to hear about them.
|
| I don't know how similar they are, but someone recommended
| "Noor" by Nnedi Okorafor recently when I asked this same
| question and I really enjoyed it. It's less hopeful of a world,
| and less calming, but also has a lot of similarities in terms
| of being accepting of technology and how it can improve our
| lives while also being critical of its impacts on people and
| not just blindly using/creating it for the sake of "progress".
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| The Nine Worlds series by Victoria Goddard is pretty
| different, but similar in prose styling (at least to my
| untutored ear).
|
| Start here I suppose:
| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43525897
| astrospective wrote:
| I adore these, I'd agree there's something of a similar
| vibe going on between them. Lots of optimism, but not in a
| saccharine way.
| aaomidi wrote:
| This book is seriously my #1.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| I read both of them recently and agree with all of that. They
| drew me in instantly. Something about how peaceful the world in
| those books is, I think.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Have you considered Nghi Vo's singing hills cycle novella
| series? Produced pretty consistently, about a monk who travels
| and collects stories with their photographic memory bird. I
| always found this fantasy series comfy and lush. I also
| recommend the Birdverse series by R. b. Lemberg (The Four
| Profound Weaves novella and The Unbalancing Novel), which is
| all about themes of emotional connection and community.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| There's also a good interview with Becky Chambers from the long
| now foundation: https://longnow.org/ideas/resisting-dystopia/
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| So glad this was posted. I have never heard of this author, and
| literally just now at this moment I was looking for something
| like this. Some real life serendipity . Then went down the rabbit
| hole of checking out the author and her other books. This seems
| so under the radar.
|
| Could use some hopepunk
|
| From Wired article:
|
| "" Chambers' name has come to be associated with a specific type
| of science fiction. It's known, cutesily and somewhat
| oxymoronically, as hopepunk. ""
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/is-becky-chambers-ultimate-hope-...
| mtremsal wrote:
| It sounds similar in tone to solarpunk novellas. Great to have
| one more keyword to search.
| patja wrote:
| To each their own, but I could not finish that book. Too much
| plodding coziness. It felt like reading something written by Cory
| Doctorow -- a lecture wrapped in a novel. But without any of the
| compelling momentum Doctorow employs to carry the allegory. Maybe
| it would have picked up a bit if I stuck with it, but I quickly
| tire of being hit on the head over and over with an author's
| novel-length not-so-thinly-veiled self-help message that perhaps
| should have been an opinion piece or short article.
| csours wrote:
| > I quickly tire of being hit on the head over and over with an
| author's novel-length not-so-thinly-veiled self-help message
| that perhaps should have been an opinion piece or short
| article.
|
| Would you like a cup of tea and a chat?
| stevenAthompson wrote:
| I liked the vibe, but I felt like it was either poorly
| written or my reading skills need help.
|
| The pronouns were very confusing. The author used "they" to
| replace he/she, and I often couldn't tell if a sentence
| referred to the main character or a group.
|
| I became frustrated and put the book down.
| csours wrote:
| I had a similar experience when writers started using 'she'
| as a default pronoun. It would catch in my brain and I'd
| have to think about it, because it was different. I think
| it's fine to feel that way.
|
| I feel like it's very easy on the internet to misunderstand
| discomfort and misattribute feelings.
| zellyn wrote:
| Same here. As someone who went through every available
| golden-age SciFi book in any library near me as a kid, I
| think the modern crop of diversity in Science Fiction is
| a welcome relief. It's not all good, naturally, and it's
| hard to compete with that early profusion of new ideas,
| but it sure feels less barren.
| margalabargala wrote:
| The very real ambiguity of using singular-vs-plural
| "they" is something that can be commented on and
| discussed, and is a linguistic weakness of that pronoun's
| increasing popularity. The english language already has
| that ambiguity surrounding "you", but since the
| reader/listener is included in a plural "you" it's easier
| for them to discern singular/plural.
|
| It's not quite the same as the catch in one's brain of
| encountering something that is unusual but information-
| complete; there can be truly ambiguous situations where
| the meaning of a sentence is fully changed depending on
| whether the author intends a singular or plural "they".
| Thus its use is a valid criticism one can have of a book,
| where understanding the author's meaning is kind of the
| point.
|
| Of course, introducing that ambiguity intentionally, or
| getting people used to the use of singular-they and
| getting better at distinguishing singular-vs-plural
| through practice and context can itself be part of the
| author's point :)
|
| It's still probably the best non-gendered singular
| pronoun we have in english.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| The reason you were confused is that pronouns, _correctly
| used_ , can somewhat help de-obfuscate which person is the
| subject, which is the object, and so on.
|
| Imagine you have a man, another man, and a woman.
|
| "He hit her" tells you the subject and helps narrow down
| who was doing the hitting, and that there was one witness.
| "She hit him" tells you who did the hitting and narrows
| down who was hit, and that there was one witness.
|
| "It hit it" (using "it" as a pronoun, _Blindsight_ -style,
| as well as others) only lets you know that hitting has
| happened and that one person was a witness.
|
| "They hit them" tells you that hitting has occurred. No
| indication if it was a group thing or not, if there was an
| uninvolved witness.
| zellyn wrote:
| "Too much plodding coziness" -- I mean, you're not wrong! The
| coziness (and the literal plodding) are kinda the point.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| On the other hand, it's /very/ short. Wasn't totally my cup of
| tea (picked it up because I LOVED her "Wayfarers" books -- /The
| Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet/ and the two sequels) but I
| finished it in just one cup of tea.
| lmm wrote:
| It's pleasant and cosy, sure. I didn't feel it had or needed a
| "message"; it felt more like an "Iyashikei" (or "Cute Girls
| Doing Cute Things") story. (Interesting how those have come to
| be perceived as somewhat alt-right aligned, whereas Chambers is
| coming from the other side politically).
| csours wrote:
| I enjoy exploring different perspectives - something Sci Fi often
| does for me.
|
| I especially enjoy when I find a book that enables a new
| experience. Becky Chambers has done this for me.
|
| You can read Philip K Dick's Ubik for a real head trip, and then
| come back to Psalm to mellow out.
| azeirah wrote:
| This has a lot of overlap with the volunteer work I do. It's a
| charity for people with autism
|
| Once or twice a month me and a colleague gather and a couple of
| people are invited to talk about themselves, their lives and
| usually their problems. We have no professional experience, the
| only requirement is that you're "familiar" in some sense with the
| problems and/or life of people with autism.
|
| Practically all we do is listen, and guide the conversation when
| it doesn't flow naturally. We're not bound by any therapeutical
| distance guidelines, we're allowed to become friends with
| visitors if it makes sense or if we wish to do so.
|
| It is in a group setting, so it's not one-on-one like the tea
| monk. We do serve (very basic!) tea and coffee though.
|
| Most of the time, visitors leave feeling better :)
| caseyf wrote:
| this is a short story (the audio version is 4 hours long) and i'd
| recommend it to anyone who is feeling lost, rudderless, burned
| out...
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