#the past is red

[99percentprocrastination]

#all my homies love tor dot com novellas #tordotcom #a psalm for the wild built #a spindle splintered #the haunting of tram car 015 #silver in the wood #untethered sky #binti #fireheart tiger #the past is red #upright women wanted #the ballad of black tom #spear #the empress of salt and fortune #all of these books I've read and recommend btw... though I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting #mp

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

#novella #novellas #the past is red #catherynne m valente #catherynne m. valente #21st century literature #english language literature #american literature #have you read this short fiction? #book polls #completed polls

[rozecrest]

‪(sick to my stomach) i have seen the stars and they will not save us moment‬

#the past is red #is an EXTREMELYYYYYY good book tetley. TETLEY. #chats

[breathetoseethetruth]

I can't even begin to describe just how much Catherynne M. Valente's works make my heart and soul bloom.

#catherynne m. valente #catherynne valente #deathless #space opera #the past is red #radiance #speak easy #comfort me with apples #myths of origin #the refrigerator monologues #silently and very fast

[theinstagrahame]

It's been a minute since I talked about a game, so I wanted to talk Trash... Land.

Trashland. It's a game I made.

Trashland is a hack of Down We Go, from Plus One EXP and Markus Linderum. It's set on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch after a climate event melts the polar ice caps most of humanity lives on boats or garbage piles, scrounging off of fish they can catch and anything they can find in the piles of garbage.

Admittedly, because I haven't played a ton of DWG, Trashland is mostly a reskin of that game's moves with my custom setting elements and a mechanic for finding random garbage. It's also the first time I set out to make a two-page RPG and actually succeeded!

I did create a small dungeon to go with it, based around the USS Constitution floating past, and dealing with a faction split among its crew. I had some plans to make a mall in a blimp, and create a dungeon based on SkyMall, but haven't had the time to go back.

But really, I kinda want to talk about the Hugo-nominated novella The Past is Red, by Catherynne Valenti which the game is based on.

The Past is Red is a fantastic piece of fiction that follows The Luckist Person in the World, Tetley Abednego, as she grows up on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's bittersweet, as she finds love, learns of loss, and uncovers a greater truth about the human race.

I think about it a lot, because *gestures broadly at the world*. I definitely don't want to live on the Garbage Patch, but Tetley is content there. In part because she doesn't know any better, but in part because she's a fighter.

It contains that bittersweet hopepunk aspect that I like in my Post-Apocalyptic fiction. I appreciate that people are resilient, but also always feel strongly for what our generation (in the context of those stories) robbed them of.

If you liked the book, I hope you'd also like the game. But if you have to pick one, I think Valenti's book does more than I could do in 4 pages (plus a supplemental dungeon!)

#catherynne m. valente #the past is red #indie ttrpg #ttrpg dev #scifi rpg #post apocalypse #great pacific garbage patch #down we go #plus one exp #understory games

[st-just]

Being alive is like being a very bad time traveler. One second per second, and yet somehow you still get where you're going too late, or too early, and the planet isn't where it should be because you forgot to calculate for that even though it was extremely important and you left notes by the door to remind yourself, and the butterfly you stepped on when you were eight became a hurricane of everything you ever lost in your forties, and whatever wisdom you tried to pack with you has always gotten lost in transit, arriving, covered in festive stickers, one hundred years after you've died.

The Past Is Red, by Catherynne M. Valente

#quote #lyrical nhilism #cynicism #the past is red #catherynne valente

[nat-reviews-books]

The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

After the world floods and humans are left to find refuge, a large group of people live on Garbagetown, an island of floating garbage, where Tetley Abednego is the most beloved person, they just don't know it.

This was a trip. I enjoyed this a lot, but even though it's a very short book, it is dense and packs a lot into its pages. Tetley is ridiculously optimistic and I love her for that. This book is weird and fun and sad all at the same time. It will definitely get you thinking.

Recommended for: fans of post-apocolyptic books, sci-fi fans, and people curious on takes about how the world as we know it could end

Content Warnings: abuse, apocalypse

#books #reviews #book review #the past is red #catherynne m. valente

[literary-illuminati]

Books I Read In June

24. The Chosen and the Beautiful, by Nghi Vo

Really, I should have read this one last year when it was getting all the buzz – it actually really mostly lived up to it!

But then, I’m the weirdo who actually enjoyed The Great Gatsby in the first place. If you didn’t at least kind of enjoy all the references and narrative fuckery with the source text. It’s, well, it’s not quite fanfic imo (at least, no more than Ten Things I Hate About You is. Which I mean if you want to argue the point you’d probably win, but), and if you come into it blind you’re going to miss like a third of what’s going on.

The whole urban fantasy aesthetic doesn’t really add much beyond, like, aesthetics and vibes and making the incredibly obvious metaphor wholly and completely literal re: Gatsby’s selling his soul. But, like, the book has so much fun with all the magical ‘20s decadence and literally occulted speakeasies and gay bars and similar.

25. Capital Without Borders, by Brooke Harrington

On a fundamental level the basic conceit of ‘anthropologist spends years learning the customs and folkways of a privacy obsessed community who feel reviled by the wider world – the private wealth managers of the ultrawealthy’ is just, like, incredibly funny to me.

But despite being incredibly dry and very, like, academic, this was actually shockingly readable. Actually pretty interesting, too.

I mean, in a ‘filled with despair and loathing’ sort of way, but still. Interesting sort of dialectic where the officials who actually serve the various world powers’ state apparatuses absolutely loathe the whole deal with tax havens and matryoshka dolls of trusts and charitable foundations and everything else, but despite ostensibly having basically unlimited coercive force at their fingertips they’re more or less helpless to do anything about it. Always fascinating to get a look at the people who the world works on behalf of.

And I admit I sort of have an aesthetic fascination with the sort of elite professional who ends up being a de facto social worker and relationship councilor for the much MORE elite family they work for.

26. Plague Birds, by Jason Sanford

I…thought this was a Hugo nominee? But apparently not? So, okay, zero idea how I ended up reading it.

Possibly my new top contender for ‘non-visual media which are still, spiritually, anime”. You know, post-post-apocalyptic setting of scattered villages watched over by benign village Ais and clans of dangerous hunters in the wilderness and wandering superpowered paladins who wear red leather and have bright red hair who are bonded to a super-powerful AI in their blood, and also the only character who isn’t at least kind of a furry is the apparently 16-year-old girl whose actually a myriad old alien spy.

Anyway! Decent romp, but honestly kind of fell apart in the third act, imo. Spent too long luxuriating in the (honestly very fun) worldbuilding, so all the actual plot and revelations had to be crammed together without having nay space to breath or feel natural.

Also the protagonist turns out to be, like, the most special child to ever exist Chosen-One-but-sci-fi, which I just generally despise.

Kinda a bit less than the sum of its parts, imo.

27. Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan Mcguire

Hugo novella nominee number 3!

This was fun! Not really much more than fun, but still – pleasantly tropey read, in a self-consciously fairytale-like sort of way.

I’m informed that it’s part of some wider setting/universe, but honestly you really couldn’t tell reading it.

Kind of amused at the apparent coincidence that this came out at (IIRC) basically the same time as a children’s tv show called Centaurworld, which I know absolutely nothing about except a friend stole the surprisingly terrifying villain to use in D&D.

Anyway, like, 3/5? The last thing I read by the author was Middlegame, and this is just honestly a pretty big let down by comparison. Doesn’t help that the general vibe kept me mentally comparing it with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making, either (not a flattering comparison for it).

28. A Master of Djinn, by P. Djèlí Clark

Hugo novel nominee number 4!

As a fan of pulpy weird alternate 20th centuries, this really was catnip to me. Buddy cop antics in a Djinn-haunted steampunk Cairo at the turn of the 20th century! A heroine who insists on wearing perfectly tailored English suits at all times despite living in early 20th century Cairo! A climax involving a giant robot and an evil wizard trying to restore the British Empire!

The vibes were sublime.

Beyond the amazing aesthetics there isn’t much to write home about, honestly – the setting is largely set dressing over a fairly conventional plot. Fun set dressing! The bit where the Brits and Americans are basically losing at imperialism because they went hard on the whole witch hunting things while everyone else went digging for local spirits to try allying with doesn’t necessarily make much sense, but is very funny to me.

29. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

And Hugo Novel Nominee Number 5!

So I think I mentioned but – I did not know this was by the The Martian guy until I started reading it, but oh my fuck can you tell.

The tone is very..specific. I found it pretty grating, honestly, but not nearly enough to outweigh all the things the book has going for it.

So, it’s hard sci fi. Like, ‘extended asides to explain the scientific processes and technological breakthroughs as they happen for the education of the reader, most of the acknowledgements section is thanking different scientists for their help making it accurate’ hard sci fi. Honestly it’s to the books credit that the writing is just kind of twee and self satisfied, and not soul-witheringly dry.

The decision to have the protagonist wake up with amnesia and then slowly fill out the backstory as he makes do on the spaceship orbiting Tau Ceti he woke up from a medically induced coma in next to two dead crew mates was frankly an incredibly good decision, because the earth chapters are a) clearly just an excuse/justification to get him to Tau Ceti and b) just incredibly boring.

But, like, I really cannot overemphasize how much I just adore first contact scenarios where both parties are awkwardly trying to understand each other and work out some sort of mutually intelligible way to get information across and solve some desperate problem together. The aliens were so lovingly amazingly weird, too – both the astrophage and whatever Rocky’s species are called.

I literally read it travelling halfway across the continent, so can confirm that it’s a great airport read.

If Hollywood isn’t a bunch of cowards they’ll spend $100 million to make this one a movie too.

30. The Past Is Red, by Catherynne Valente

Hugo novella nominee number 4! Getting close!

Valente’s pretty easily one of my favorite writers currently working, and this did absolutely nothing to change my mind about that. I mean, a bit heavy handed – the setting is quite literally the city-sized island of trash floating above the waves after the seas have risen and drowned the entire world – but still, it’s the sort of ever so slightly surreal magical realism I’m really very fond of.

The prose was just relentlessly sharp and occasionally mean spirited and really consistently great, imo. For whatever reason ‘hope that’s just greed, going by it’s maiden name’ has gotten thoroughly stuck in my head.

Tetley as a protagonist is just generally amazing and wonderfully tragic and interestingly broken, really.

Anyway, haven’t read Elder Race of A Spindle Splintered yet but really solidly my favorite of the hugo novellas I’ve read so far.  

#book review #monthly tally #The Past is Red #catherynne m. valente #project hail mary #andy weir #a master of djinn #p. djèlí clark #across the green grass fields #seanan mcguire #Plague Birds #Jason Sanford #Capital Without Borders #Brooke Harrington #the chosen and the beautiful #nghi vo #analysis/review

[wondereads]

Weekly Reading Update (01/29/24)

Reviews and thoughts under the cut

The Realms of the Gods by Tamora Pierce (9/10)

This concludes my reread of the Immortals Quartet! I'd probably place this series as my second favorite of the Tortall books; I feel like it gets overlooked, which is quite unfair because Daine's magic is just so interesting. This particular book completes the story very well, and it also involves the main romantic pairing getting together, which I enjoyed far more than I thought. Things fell into place a little too easily for my tastes, but it's overall a very good conclusion.

Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier (8/10)

This book started off very slow, so I wasn’t sure if I would like it. However, once we got into the meat of the story, I enjoyed it! I think there’s a particularly good plot twist in this one, and I actually really liked the main character. He feels like if the typical, tortured YA love interest were the protagonist instead, and seeing him be a little foolish or impulsive was refreshing. Like I said, it takes a while to get into it, I wasn’t even sure what the main plot was going to be for a while, but it’s pretty well-paced after that.

The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente (9/10)

This was an incredibly intriguing novella about waste and global warming. It's a bit shocking and unique with the plethora of cursing and a very unreliable narrator. After I finished this book I felt hollow inside, and it makes you think about the issues of pollution and what it could mean for the future, especially the people who will live then and don't deserve that kind of world. The main character and narrator, Tetley, has a very distinctive voice, and she will often admit to lying to the reader about various things. The only thing I disliked was that at some points it felt like Tetley was going through terrible things just to make her go through terrible things.

Crystal Dark by Julie E. Kramer (2/10)

This is the lowest I have ever rated a book I finished. This is a YA fantasy romance novella, and it is self-published. It shows. I truly believe absolutely no editing went into this book. Most of the writing is either overly simplistic or worded in the most convoluted, backwards way that I simply could not tell what the author meant. There are basic grammar mistakes, typos, and a major side character's name is misspelled at one point. The plot is rushed to the extreme and makes absolutely no sense; why Ceia wouldn't use her magic to flee from an incredibly dangerous situation is never explained. The romance, if you could call it that, is forced and has no build-up, and the "villain" is so cartoonishly evil and defeated with a flick of the main character's hand. There is no explanation for the worldbuilding, and things are just spontaneously introduced to make sure the protagonists always have what they need. It is lazy, poorly constructed, and I can't believe someone put this into the world in this state.

The Absinthe Underground by Jamie Paction (6/10)

Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed by this book. It has a great premise, the aesthetics really come through, and it's got a cute sapphic romance. The execution falls short with just the lack of space for the story. Things happen far too quickly when there are many scenes that really need space to breathe. It affects the tension and doesn't give much room for the side characters to show their personalities. The writing tends to tell instead of show, which may contribute to the rushed nature of this book. This book could have been quite good, but it ends up being somewhat mediocre.

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor (36%)

The last Nnedi Okorafor book I read was Binti, which I wasn't a huge fan of, but I'm liking this one a lot more. Sankofa is a very intriguing protagonist, and I'm very interested to see where the story is going. It seems to skirt the line between fantasy and sci-fi, especially when it comes to Sankofa's backstory. This book is a whole 100 pages longer than Binti, and I think it's much better for it.

Illuminae by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman (30%)

I'm really enjoying this so far. The way of storytelling, told through mission reports, chat records, and not-Wikipedia pages is very interesting and utilizes all kinds of unconventional, visual methods. There's some great humor in it too; the characters definitely feel like teenagers.

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas (19%)

I've been pretty lukewarm on Throne of Glass for the most part. I hear this book is where most people really start to like the series, so I hope it's the same for me. I will say it's moving at a good pace so far, and I really like where the plot is going. The rescue mission angle brings a lot of suspense, especially since it's a character I actually care about. On the other side, Chaol is being so annoying and it makes his perspective drag for me.

#books #reading update #the realms of the gods #immortals quartet #tamora pierce #year of the reaper #makiia lucier #the past is red #catherynne m. valente #crystal dark #julie e kramer #the absinthe underground #jamie pacton #remote control #nnedi okorafor #the illuminae files #amie kaufman #jay kristoff #queen of shadows #sjm #tog

[rhetoricandlogic]

Finding Hope in Garbagetown: The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

Martin Cahill Thu Jul 22, 2021 2:30pm Ah, the Fuckwit world! So modern, so dead. Gone too soon, and all that’s left is blue. Which is just fine by Tetley Abednego, thank you very much. See, the world she lives in, the one left behind after the Fuckwits fucked off and died, it’s absolutely beautiful. Garbage as far as the eye can see and all of it wonderful. Garbagetown is a massive patch of floating garbage in the sea, going from place to place, while beneath it the old world sleeps, lost in rising waters and a whole lot of complaining. The people in Garbagetown complain too, but Tetley doesn’t know why. Everything is perfect, even when it isn’t.

In Catherynne M. Valente’s The Past Is Red, Tetley is our bubbly guide to the world left over from the apocalypse, our cheery, goodhearted narrator who can only see the silver linings of the grey skies of Garbagetown and never met a lily she couldn’t gild. In her unique, engaging voice, Valente brings us into a future that is blue, describes the red world that came before it, and ultimately, tries to give us a little bittersweet satisfaction, since hope might be a little scarce.

Valente’s earlier novelette “The Future Is Blue” (originally published in Jonathan Strahan’s Drowned Worlds anthology) introduced us to Tetley and her story of Garbagetown, its grace and its beauty, so enamored by the shine of her future even as everyone who lives in Garbagetown is incredibly mad at her. She is beaten, she is scorned, she is everything-short-of-murdered, but still, the smile doesn’t leave her face, not as long as she has Garbagetown. Valente takes us through her bildungsroman in miniature, the trials and travails of Garbagetown, the love for her brother Maruchan, how they got their names, her first love, and the gleaming Electric City, the only place in Garbagetown with power. More importantly, she tells us what she did to make the whole world angry with her. It has a lot to do with hope and a lot to do with fear, and a little to do with sorrow, as many mourn the world that was, the world of the Fuckwits, and anyway, Tetley was only trying to help.

The novelette ended there, and the bittersweet ending burned like a sun. As Valente acknowledges in the Afterword, there was still more of Tetley’s story to tell—a seed planted to emerge later, green, tender, and just as full of fragile hope that it could flourish between the pill bottles and discarded plastic and warped tin of Garbagetown—and that’s exactly the magic she pulls off in The Past Is Red. We meet Tetley again, a little older, a little more weathered by the world, but her love for Garbagetown has never been stronger. Buy it Now

The Past Is Red is a different beast than “The Future Is Blue,” and Valente embraces that in her kaleidoscopic, lush, and generous writing. This Tetley feels older; she knows more of the world and the people that live in it, and she isn’t so hungry for adventure or whimsy. Rather, her hunger is something a bit more universal: companionship, care, tenderness, and even just a little understanding. Her time in exile hasn’t been kind to her and anyone else would be bitter, cruel, or plain mean. But Tetley is still just as bright, just as loving of Garbagetown and the treasures she finds within its depths, just as caring of the things that need a little care. If she’s a little bruised, a little hesitant to trust, a little less carefree and a bit steelier, we can only chalk this up to being older and learning fast.

But even if some of Tetley’s innocence is gone, her wonder hasn’t left her, and Valente truly cuts loose when faced with the expanse of Tetley’s world. With a longer page count than “The Future Is Blue,” Valente brings us vivid descriptions of Garbagetown’s other districts, sprawling with the abandoned, the lost, the trash and the treasure fused into one gorgeous world that we can’t help but love through Tetley’s eyes. Valente takes her time, giving us a more grounded picture of what exactly will be left when the world is gone, and you’ll grin or sob, recognizing this and that, seeing the truth behind someone’s vaunted saint, or what the symbol on a bottle means, or used to mean, when it was our world, the Fuckwit’s world. And I don’t want to say too much, but several key discoveries along Tetley’s journey reveals some rather interesting answers to the lingering questions of “The Future Is Blue,” and the emotional gut-punch of this entire book is found in the last few pages, as Tetley comes to terms with the world, and how she’ll spend her tomorrows, after she learns the real truth of the Fuckwits and how they left.

The Past Is Red was a joy to read, and that’s not often a description given to something seemingly dystopic. But that’s just how it looks from the outside. With Tetley as our guide, readers won’t be able to help but to see the beauty in crumpled, faded CVS receipts, the glint of amber light through a broken beer bottle in the afternoon sun, the intrinsic wonder of tarnished pennies. Valente infuses Tetley’s voice with so much warmth and hope, so much joy as she lives in a world that she knows is beautiful, that you will know it’s beautiful, too. A staggering commentary on climate change, the social order, the cycle of stories that are recycled as much as Garbagetown itself, and a voice that is singular, unique, and loving, The Past Is Red is a gift for readers of science fiction, so go ahead and treat yourself. And if one day you throw it away, Tetley will smile, knowing it will end up exactly where it needs to be.

#Catherynne M. Valente #The Past is Red #mahreviews #long post

[pargery]

"Anarchy can be so cozy, if you bring enough pillows."

-- _The Past is Red_ by Catherynne M Valente

#catherynne m. valente #anarchy #pillows #The Past is Red

[backlogbooks]

the past is red and a psalm for the wild built are two sides of the same coin (you can’t) change my mind

#the past is red #catherynne m. valente #a psalm for the wild built #becky chambers #currently reading #a prayer for the crown shy #which is why i’m having this thought #mary emma talks

[aroaessidhe]

2022 reads // twitter thread  

The Past is Red

novella about a girl who lives on the great garbage patch in a flooded post climate apocalypse world

first part when she was 10, then when she's 29 recounting her life since then

stream of consciousness, nonlinear

an AI that made me cry

this is weird but i enjoyed it

#The Past is Red #aroaessidhe 2022 reads #also yes i am behind on these again..writing my silly little bullet points is hard ok #i could have done without the romantic subplot thing. like there's no development we barely know anything about him #i know that's because it started as a short story #i definitely loved just like....the worldbuilding and stuff. mmm tasty spec-fic post-apoc civilisation worldbuilding #the way that. the pre-apoc people (us) are called Fuckwits sjfjsdg #oscar (seasame street) is a god. #oh i just realised mars on the cover.... oh.

[rhosynviteri]

I didn't expect to find a new fave so late in 2022, but Catherynne M. Valente really pulled through.

#books #the past is red #catherynne m. valente

[readatrix]

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” ― Jorge Luis Borges

#LFL #little free library #tyler johnson was here #a study in scarlet women #copper son #the past is red #jay coles #sherry thomas #Again But Better #march #john lewis #chistine riccio #incense and sensibility #sonali dev #sharon m draper #literary quotes #jorge luis borges #suzanne park #so we meet again

[teratomat]

I ended up naming the hibiscus Dorchester. It’s my own little joke, even though the punchline is sadness. I think a joke like that is a present you make to yourself, so every time you say it, even if it hurts, you get a very cohesive feeling out of it, because the past you and the present you are talking to each other, and it’s nice to have friends.

Catherynne M. Valente, The Past Is Red

#catherynne m. valente #catherynne m valente #the past is red