Man, Myth and Magic
johncoulthart.com
johncoulthart.com
Unfortunately I don't have space for them, so her copies either got sold or trashed when she recently died of a very treatable illness that she elected to not treat or mention to anyone for several years.
I did keep her Clan of the Cave Bear books (Children of the Earth?) because the cover art always enchanted me, and I judge books by their covers.
I also kept a few of her romance novels. She never talked to me about sex beyond "wear a condom" type advice, and her and my dad completely hated each other for as long as I could remember. So it's funny to imagine her having a sex drive. She was pretty old when she had me, I guess usually you have to have some sex drive to get pregnant, and then it just faded after I came along.
I like to think that people will read meaning into my bookshelf when I die, but seeing it from the other side - No. The math books will get chucked. Maybe someone will keep a couple volumes of manga as a novelty. The book with a secret compartment will be worth a couple bucks. The books are worth more to me as decorations than to anyone else as anything. It's all right, I guess.
I don't know what to think. Mom's good parts deserved better than her bad parts. I guess there isn't much meaning to it all in the end. She died doing what she loved, playing with crystals and avoiding doctors.
Just like with video game skyboxes, it's more fun sometimes to look at the cover and imagine that the book is profound and would deeply resonate with one's soul. In Skyrim you can actually visit the mountains on the horizon, and they're just boring mountains. What a letdown!
It took me very little detective work to determine that you ...(drum roll) are me.
No wonder I almost posted the above.
> I judge books by their covers.
On second thought, although I like great covers, you're not me. Carry on; you do you.
(Yes, I know - the phrase means "Look past surface details and see inner beauty" and so on. It's just that for books the heuristic works pretty well).
The way a book is advertised absolutely tells you about the book, in most cases. There is a series of thought and decisions which go into making a cover, including finding a compatible artist and giving them a solid brief.
As with fast food, there are exceptions... But they are exceptions. It may be more of an heuristic than a rule, but it's undoubtedly often useful. The cover is part of the book, and an important part; both up to and beyond the advertisement.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=the+expanse+book+covers&atb...
You see they're in space, you get the impression that there's ships, that it's gritty, that it's sci fi, etc.
None of those images look a million miles from the tone of the series, much less outright misleading.
If there are exceptions to that, then they're exceptions to a clear general rule; much like with fast food menu pics.
And while it's true this can neither vouch for nor indict the writing itself, the rest of us are allowed to enjoy the art just the same.
Besides, the new digital era debunks your claim... cover images are still included in epubs even if those do not sit on the wire rack next to the cashier at the store.
And there is taste to consider too. Good books get good cover art.
Or do they?
Marketing material is often the best reference you have to discover what something is about. Also, the pictures of food on a menu usually inform you better what you'll get than a realistic picture.
Marketing has many functions, a large share of them are hindered by misleading you. A few are not. The result is usually very transparent (but effective).
"Thoughts about a thing" is a kind of cover too. Portable, personalized, communicable. Wildly popular.
Does it get at the inner reality? Maybe, maybe not. Is it useful? Yes.
Science could be called a cover optimizer.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
OMG, they had this book in our high school library and for some unknown reason I checked out and read it, interesting experience for a 15 year old! It was comprehensive and had excerpts from grimoires from Middle Ages on how to summon sprits. It had a strange green-black cover (https://www.chegg.com/textbooks/the-black-arts-40th-edition-...).
Haven’t thought about it in nearly 40 years and I see it on HN! Chance? I think not.
Despite what the literal translation might make you think, the German term does not refer to the occult. It relates to the art and craft of printing.
'Weiße Kunst', the white arts, apparently refers to paper making.
which spiraled into "black(smiths) go away" lol
the submitter writes https://resobscura.substack.com/ which is also occasionally featured on hn and is generally well received.
Hail Eris!
For some reason HN has been into the occult lately. Which is great for me, because I’m writing some fanfic for A Certain Scientific Railgun. I’ve been a bit unsatisfied with Crowley’s characterization therein and been and it’s useful to read other sources.
It is apparently possible to put a space elevator in Tokyo — as long as the center of mass is over the equator.
I love all of this occult stuff but have never really dived in too much to the topic. Magic systems in general fascinate me, and after going through pretty much all major fantasy series I've started getting interested in "real world" magic systems. There's so much fascinating deep lore that rarely gets explored. Most recently I learned about these angels called Uthra [0].
Another one that interests me is the movement with magic rocks. There's tons of websites that talk about how certain rocks have these magical powers, but I wonder where it all originated from. Maybe the information evolved over time and was spread through word of mouth.
I think it's weird that some people seem so ready to completely dismiss any interest in these magic systems while also being huge fans of stuff like Harry Potter and other fantasy series.
From the Stone Age, of course! Pun intended, but seriously, these beliefs about magical powers of stones, plants, stars, angels - their roots go deep and far back into the history of humanity, perhaps to the very beginning.
[0]https://www.youtube.com/@TheEsotericaChannel
[1]https://www.youtube.com/@TheModernHermeticist/videos
>I think it's weird that some people seem so ready to completely dismiss any interest in these magic systems while also being huge fans of stuff like Harry Potter and other fantasy series.
People dismiss interest in them as realistic and plausible models that actually work in real life (or they're an Abrahamist who believes any representation of the occult, even fictional, invites satanic influence.) People die because they would rather trust alchemy and crystal woo-woo nonsense to cure their cancer more so than chemotherapy. Folklore and fantasy is a different thing, though.
Some reading in this area I've enjoyed:
- Magic, Science & Religion - Malinowski
- Technic and Magic - Campagna
- Stolen Lightning - O'Keefe
- Ramon Lull (no specific recommendation)
If anyone wants to see a good film adaptation of some of this stuff watch A Dark Song (2016).
And to a lesser extent You Are Not My Mother (2021) - this one is more folklore based.
Can see a lot of the counterculture mentality that drove early Silicon Valley and still sort of bubbles underneath in the writing from that time - eg. Talking to some younger devs about where the name “Slack” comes from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man,_Myth_%26_Magic_(role-play...
I kinda wanna pick these up to pair with the set.