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Comment by jseliger | Hacker News Reader

The Magicians is a lovely book; I actually interviewed Grossman when the first one came out, in 2010: https://jakeseliger.com/2010/10/14/an-interview-with-lev-gro.... If you like it, try Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy too.

Leviathan Wakes disappoints: its plot and political economy are interesting but on a sentence-by-sentence level one wishes for more. If you haven't read it yet try Peter Watts, Blindsight.

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I've gotta throw in a counterpoint about Leviathan Wakes. The Expanse is my favorite new space opera series; it's pure entertainment that makes for great summer poolside reading. If they publish 100 of them, I will read them.

That said, Leviathan Wakes is perhaps the weakest in the series. The noir/detective plot feels like a crutch. The authors borrowed some tropes before they found their voice. If you need literary prose - or prefer your sci-fi philosophical - then these maybe aren't for you.

But if you like damn good fun, and like plot-driven novels that hinge on the stubbornness of physics and economics, give The Expanse a chance.

Link to Blindsight: http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

I enjoyed The Magicians, but I found the two follow-ups lacking, when I expected them to keep up with the original.

Pullman is another one for the Christians, I suppose. If you are not religious, it seems unlikely to me that you would enjoy it (I didn't).

Pullman wrote His Dark Materials as the atheist counter to C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia IIRC.

You might want to reread them if you came away thinking they were pro-Christian.

It's been a long time since I read it, but wasn't it all kind of about souls and soul mates and stuff like that?

Yeah, and an important plotpoint is that a church is trying to get rid of the soulmates because they are part of the original sin. So you should prob turn you view around 180 degrees.

Then probably I didn't get that far while reading, sorry about that.

Still not sure how it can be atheist if it is all about souls, though.

It was profoundly humanist scifi/fantasy.

I'm an atheist and a big fan of both His Dark Materials and Narnia. Why wouldn't an atheist enjoy religious art? That's millennia of human creativity you're throwing on the fire.

I enjoyed Narnia, but found His Dark Materials unbearable. It's been a while since I read it, though, don't remember the specifics. The soul mate with animal spirit thing just seemed Christian to me - stunned that it is supposed to be an atheist book, as another comment mentioned.

So I am not opposed to religious art. A bit tired of the "chosen one" theme in fantasy, but other than that, I tend to just view it as an expression of human yearning.

One thing is what the author puts into things, another thing is what the reader gets out of it. Animism and spirits is hardly limited to Christian mythology. I personally thought it was kind of clever and vivid imagery, especially with the mad scientists fuelling their doomsday device by ripping children apart from their souls, much like splitting the atom lead to horrific suffering when used as an engine of war - or much as certain dogma in education seems engineered to squash the imagination of children.

At any rate, I can absolutely accept that the work didn't appeal to some as much as it did me - but I just thought it strange that the reason should be that it was somehow particularly "Christian". Strikes me a bit like ignoring the parallels with the story of Christ and eg. that of Horus/Osiris. I'm not convinced people didn't come up with the stories about virgin birth, magical manipulation of water and so forth without having to hear another version first: the point is more that if you have a character that's born from a virgin, that doesn't have to mean you're trying to invoke an image of Jesus Christ. Although, often, it does mean just that.

Then there's the issue of universality of myth (sacrifice, kindness etc) - and from a certain set of religious views one could probably argue that any "atheist" myth is simply anther way for a deity/deities to make his/her/their will known...

It's pretty clearly atheist, and has been criticised by religious groups for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Pullman#Perspective_on_...

Maybe I didn't read far enough, didn't think a book about souls could be atheist.

The book includes religion. That's what world building is. That doesn't mean it's pro religion, anymore than it's pro armour-clad polar bears.

In the books the church is pretty oppressive.

But it's different things to include religion, which is just stuff people believe, and actual souls. Religion is just a belief. Churches are just companies.

But I admit, in that sense any fantasy novel containing magic might be "religious" in some sense. The soul thing just seemed rather Christian to me.

I am an atheist and not that well versed in Christianity, though.

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