Reality was anchored due north, and slowly circled into fantasy. As you traced the stacks clockwise, history shifted into legend, legend became myth, and myth transitioned to outright fiction.
This was ridiculously enjoyable and it's absurd how little attention it got. You're like the modern day Borges! I'm super looking forwards to further installments in this universe!
A pretty late comment, but I liked this a lot, and am excited it's being serialized. Libraries as settings for fantasy fiction are always inherently interesting - whether that's in Doctor Who, Final Fantasy V, or Alexander Wales' Infinite Library from Worth the Candle. (Which this reminded me of. I wish he'd explored that setting more.) It's nice to see you've got other fiction besides that one about Detective Manse, which was also very excellent, and also recommended through FdB's monthly Subscriber Writing links.
The "ratfic" genre isn't as large as I'd like, and having two of the serials I was reading recently conclude was kind of a downer...there are others, but they either update slowly or I've caught up to them (Project Lawful, for example). Yeah, there are still some All-Time Greats I haven't cracked yet...but I think after one's become acclimated to the narrative conventions, the initial hype fades somewhat? And now the bar for "I'll spend hours/days/weeks reading this" is much higher. Not everything can be, like, HPMOR. You make the cut though, and I'll definitely be looking forward to future works.
(Related side note: Eristat sounds too similar to Erised in my mind. I'm glad it's a higher-quality pun though - a library catalogue organized by erisology status.)
Jan 14, 2023·edited Jan 14, 2023Liked by Mark Newheiser
Would that manner of encoding the codex be related to or have been inspired by Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" by any chance?
This was ridiculously enjoyable and it's absurd how little attention it got. You're like the modern day Borges! I'm super looking forwards to further installments in this universe!
A pretty late comment, but I liked this a lot, and am excited it's being serialized. Libraries as settings for fantasy fiction are always inherently interesting - whether that's in Doctor Who, Final Fantasy V, or Alexander Wales' Infinite Library from Worth the Candle. (Which this reminded me of. I wish he'd explored that setting more.) It's nice to see you've got other fiction besides that one about Detective Manse, which was also very excellent, and also recommended through FdB's monthly Subscriber Writing links.
The "ratfic" genre isn't as large as I'd like, and having two of the serials I was reading recently conclude was kind of a downer...there are others, but they either update slowly or I've caught up to them (Project Lawful, for example). Yeah, there are still some All-Time Greats I haven't cracked yet...but I think after one's become acclimated to the narrative conventions, the initial hype fades somewhat? And now the bar for "I'll spend hours/days/weeks reading this" is much higher. Not everything can be, like, HPMOR. You make the cut though, and I'll definitely be looking forward to future works.
(Related side note: Eristat sounds too similar to Erised in my mind. I'm glad it's a higher-quality pun though - a library catalogue organized by erisology status.)
Would that manner of encoding the codex be related to or have been inspired by Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" by any chance?