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Droppie [infosec] 🐨:archlinux: :kde: :firefox_nightly: :thunderbird: :vegan:I'm about to begin chapter 9 of Mary Shelley's The Last Man. As usual with numerous of the dozens or more likely couple of hundred eBooks i downloaded many years ago from the fab Gutenberg Project site [& have been working my way thru, ever since], i knew nothing of the novel's theme, but merely was attracted by the author's name. Events begin in the year 2073, which shocked me when i came to that detail early in the story, considering she wrote it in the early 19th century, & it was first published in 1826. Wikipedia tells me that<blockquote>The Last Man is an apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, first published in 1826. The narrative concerns Europe in the late 21st century, ravaged by the rise of a bubonic plague pandemic that rapidly sweeps across the entire globe, ultimately resulting in the near-extinction of humanity.</blockquote>That [above] detail also shocked me, because eight chapters in there's absolutely no hint so far that such a futuristic concept lies in wait for me. The very distinctive sense i have as i turn the e-pages is a narrative very much of its time in the early 1800s, such is its language, vocabulary, & [so far, anyway] thematic concepts & execution. Had i not dared read that first Wiki para [& only that; i don't want any more spoilers] then i'd have had no clue whatsoever of such a dramatic development impending, which now knowing of it, but yet to encounter it, atm seems utterly out of context & character for these first chapters.Even before i reach the dystopia, another overarching realisation has already leaped off the pages at me. She set it in the late 21st century, but though she wrote it afaict more or less contemporaneously with the Industrial Revolution, her conception of this possible future is singularly devoid of all sense of "sci-fi" & technology. There's no flying cars, hell, no cars, all transport remains horse-drawn. Peak personal weaponry remains the sword. Society is barely more than feudal & agrarian. The more chapters i advance into her work, so far anyway, the harder it is to keep rationalising its supposed period in human [future] history. This is not a criticism, merely a curio. <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/literature" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#literature</a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/MaryShelley" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MaryShelley</a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/TheLastMan" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#TheLastMan</a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/eBook" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#eBook</a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/ePub" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ePub</a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/GutenbergProject" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#GutenbergProject</a>

Jocelyn<a href="https://mastodon.social/@gutenberg_org" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@gutenberg_org</a> Very good BBC article.Funny that <a href="https://mastodon.gougere.fr/tags/Proust" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Proust</a>, who was also fascinated by how modern technique changed his perception of the world, was a great admirer of what he knew of Turner ...which probably didn't include The Fighting Temeraire or any of the works showing steam-engines : I read he only knew of those engravings after Turner contained in Ruskin's Harbours of England (available on <a href="https://mastodon.gougere.fr/tags/GutenbergProject" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#GutenbergProject</a>, with engravings!)<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21591" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21591</a>

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