{"id":5125,"date":"2020-02-19T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5125"},"modified":"2020-02-16T13:45:06","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T21:45:06","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iv-chapter-22-part-ii-chapter-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/02\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iv-chapter-22-part-ii-chapter-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Science of Discworld IV&#8217;: Chapter 22, Part II \/ Chapter 23"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters of <i>Judgment Day<\/i>, I learn that the universe isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as improbable as I thought, and Marjorie is saved. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>The Science of Discworld IV<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Okay, the second half of chapter twenty-two was a BLAST to read. I love when Jack and Ian get fired up, and you can tell that they wrote this whole section with a lot of passion. And why shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they? They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re dealing with poor logic being put forth as credible science when it comes to the conditions needed for life to exist elsewhere in the universe.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>One of the strangest things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to deal with is that I was raised in an extremely conservative home, one where my entire life was ordered and organized around some specific (and horrific) religious beliefs, and yet, we watched <i>The Twilight Zone<\/i> and <i>The X-Files<\/i> regularly. I was one of those kids who had to watch as my mom destroyed a bunch of my thrash and hardcore CDs because they were ungodly, blasphemous, and spit in the face of the Lord. And yet, watching a show with LITERAL demons on it? Totally fine. But I bring this up because even at a young age, I was into the idea that we humans did not understand our world or our universe, that there was more in it than we could possibly expect. Granted, the realms of science fiction and speculative fiction have lots in them that just aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t real, but these genres also helped me at a young age accept that I shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t view myself, as a human, as the center of the universe. It was likely that there were other life forms out there, that there were parts of our universe I would never see or comprehend, and that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make my life meaningless or useless. Because it is true that there are faiths out there that derive some of their meaning from the notion that humans <i>are<\/i>the center of this all. Which just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make sense to me! In a universe so vast and large and seemingly endless, we were put here so that 99.99999999999999999% of said universe could remain unsee and unexplored? Why waste all of that space?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Chapter twenty-two argues (quite convincingly, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say) that some scientists are limiting their view of possibility with astrobiology, when they should be approaching this question with xenoscience, accepting that life could adapt to conditions <i>very<\/i> different than life on Earth has evolved. The realm of science fiction has long considered this notion, hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? How many great SF works have imagined what beings would look like under different conditions? (Honestly, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of my favorite parts of science fiction not-on-Earth. GIVE ME MORE OF IT.) So why should science restrain themselves? As the authors put it:<\/p>\n<p>Astrobiology is human-centered, because it starts from us and narrows the universe down until it fits. Xenoscience is universe-centered: it keeps possibilities as broad as possible and sees where they lead. We are beautifully adapted for our environment because we evolved to be like that. This observation is much more reasonable than claiming that we humans are so special that the solar system, the galaxy, even the entire universe, was constructed in order to accommodate <i>us<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Amen to that.<\/p>\n<p>So! Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s get to the conclusion of Marjorie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story. (I think? I suppose it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still possible that she could show up in the Epilogue.) I love that I have a better sense of how big the Roundworld globe is after all these books, given that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153against all reason slotted into her palm with a decisive but moderate stinging sensation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Oh, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>that<\/i> big. Perfectly accidental in size! But the chapter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s big surprise was the appearance of both Captain Sally and Captain Angua, in their respective vampire and wolf forms!!! Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, that scene made me IMMEDIATELY want an entire novel where Marjorie, Sally, and Angua pair up to solve crimes in Ankh-Morpork. OR MAYBE THE DISC CHARACTERS HAVE TO GO TO EARTH TO SOLVE A CASE. Oh, so that definitely means that this would be a multi-part book series, right? Because the dynamic of these three alone in just a few pages was INCREDIBLE. I loved that Marjorie is probably the only human who could stand listening to Angua\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s transformation back to human. And hell, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably seen enough weird shit as a librarian that the whole experience barely caused her to bat an eye. Strange stuff happens in libraries, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all!<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Also: refenestration. UGH, IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SUCH A GOOD JOKE.<\/p>\n<p>So, Marjorie gets to attend one last feast at Unseen University, which always sounds like the best collection of food and unplanned entertainment possible. Pratchett takes a moment to completely slam on the reading habits of politicians and the way they often show support of libraries. Which reminded me of that Twitter post some awful US pundit made which said that too much taxpayer money went into paying for libraries, and he supported a solution where people could pay a monthly fee and check out books at their leisure\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 which is basically\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 libraries. You just invented libraries, asshole. Anyway, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M HERE FOR INSULTING THESE PEOPLE. REPEATEDLY. THEY DESERVE IT. But my favorite part of her send-off? The Librarian blowing her a kiss and giving her a banana!!! IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO SWEET AND TENDER!!! But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a sign of how appreciative the Librarian is of her. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not often he gets to meet people from L-space who work in libraries, and the two of them just <i>got<\/i> one another.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Now that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home, though, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what the epilogue is going to be about. Maybe Stackpole? The Latter-Day Omnians? Perhaps they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll put the Roundworld somewhere easier to find but not so easy to lose. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see!<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/O_VIC7u3nK0<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2019\/5\/7\/the-anger-is-a-gift-trade-paperback-is-out-today\">The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters of Judgment Day, I learn that the universe isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as improbable as I thought, and Marjorie is saved. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Science of Discworld IV.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,564],"class_list":["post-5125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-science-of-discworld-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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