20220202 - Review: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Hymned psalms by moonlight,\ and the galloping of hooves.\ Heedless desire.

#HAIKUPRAJNA - Review: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving, is the story of Ichabod Crane, heedless schoolmaster of New York state's secluded and tranquil Sleepy Hollow. This is a cautionary tale about how the Headless Horseman ran Ichabod out of town, in a metaphor for his heedless desires of food, a woman and her family's land. 

My main critique about the work is that it is a tad lofty (is that the word I'm looking for?), or kind of boring, with drawn out unnecessary parts that mess with pacing; however, I think this critique is due in part to reader expectations as, despite this being a gothic story like Frankenstein or Jekyll, and despite the many ways this story has been adapted, readers may forget this is a children's story rather than a horror sci-fi where Sleepy Hollow's whimsical and humourous nature sets it apart from its contemporaries.

"for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves."

Ichabod was a schoolmaster who lived with the families of the children he taught, as per local custom; he believed in witchcraft and had an "extraordinary" "appetite for the marvelous" with similar "powers of digesting it", soaking stories up like a sponge, tricking himself into believing monsters were behind every shrub, where he had to sing psalms to himself to quiet his anxiety; through all this he seems like a nice guy, though it is typical that he fawns over his love interest for the land and food he would gain by joining her family, but he is described like the Headless Horseman in imagery, and is confronted by the very spectre in the climax. A fine story about the dangers of heedless desire.

On another note, I wanted to note that the counter went past 10k views last week! Thank you all for reading! Let's keep things rolling and steady!

These Goodreads poems will be collected in a future edition of the HaikuPrajna Collection. More can be found on my Book Reviews page: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/goodreads-book-reviews.html

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Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

20220118 - Review: Foundation

 

On a direct course,\ express hope to the future.\ Doubting one's failures.

#HAIKUPRAJNA - Review: Foundation by Isaac Asimov

"If the darkened ones refuse enlightenment, is it not the greater sign of their need for it?”

Hate to say it, but the first book in the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov had failed to impress me as much as I was hoping it would.

The book is a collection of short stories that Asimov submitted to magazines, and most are dialogues about interstellar politics and economical warfare, which is spiced with admittedly compelling narrative climaxes and religious and science fiction imagery. The plot is centred on its world building involving the Galactic Empire and a Foundation that was established to survive the Empire's collapse through a series of crises to ensure the establishment of a Second Empire. 

“Why, they don’t even understand their own colossi any longer. The machines work from generation to generation automatically, and the caretakers are a hereditary caste who would be helpless if a single D-tube in all that vast structure burnt out. The whole war is a battle between those two systems; between the Empire and the Foundation; between the big and the little."

Characters are introduced to become legendary figures of the distant past in the next string of chapters; readers are often told how characters react because they are largely flat mouth-pieces for the plot of the short stories which serves as to drive the book's larger narrative forward; this said, some traits are prevalent, and some people are followed for large spans of time while meeting aged characters or projections of the long-dead. 

“Exactly. None of us are. But I did receive some elementary training in my youth—enough to know what psychology is capable of, even if I can’t exploit its capabilities myself.

I felt Foundation covered too long of a time span, but the nature of the composition explains this while the story is there and has its moments, highlights including the hard-science-disguised-as-magic cursing of a starship and planetary ecumenopolis cities; just brimming with staple sci-fi ideas that writers, including Asimov himself, have been inspired by and have been extrapolating on for decades.

“What business of mine is the future? No doubt Seldon has foreseen it and prepared against it. There will be other crises in the time to come when money power has become as dead a force as religion is now. Let my successors solve those new problems, as I have solved the one of today.”

These Goodreads poems will be collected in a future edition of the HaikuPrajna Collection. More can be found on my Book Reviews page: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/goodreads-book-reviews.html

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Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

20211229 - Review: Howl's Moving Castle

Her words bring to life\ the ability to change,\ the magick of speech.

#HAIKUPRAJNA - Review: Howl's Moving Castle

Hello readers, this review is also available to read on;

https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2021/12/20211229-review-howls-moving-castle.html 

https://medium.com/haikuprajna/haikuprajna-review-howls-moving-castle-13d0cfa9921e 

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4294872408

...

    "It was, she thought dizzily, as if the man sitting there and the huge, important thing which was kingship were two separate things that just happened to occupy the same chair."

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is a novel about Sophie Hatter, the eldest daughter of three at eighteen years old, who is transformed into an older lady by the evil Witch of the Waste. The subsequent adventures led her to forming a contract with the fire demon Calcifer, who controls the eponymous castle, which pushes her into the life of Wizard Howl, all the while showing the power of thought and speech through the deceiving appearances of magic.

    " “What does Howl do to these poor females? I was told he ate their hearts and took their souls away.” Michael laughed uncomfortably. “Then you must come from Market Chipping. Howl sent me down there to blacken his name when we first set up the castle. I—er—I said that sort of thing. It’s what aunts usually say. It’s only true in a manner of speaking.” "

The world which Ingary inhabits is rooted in fantasy, but it incorporates elements of magical realism with roots in metaphysics, logic and morality, using real-world locations and occult concepts such as demonology, chaos, alchemy and ceremonial magick; in effect, the cast's need to keep track of multiple settings in the wizard's castle, their climatic battles and circular studying of spell castings to root out traps are well grounded in relatability. 

    " “Not the servitor,” said Mrs. Pentstemmon. “I do not think he is clever enough to cause me concern. I am talking about Howell, Mrs. Pendragon.” " 

While Howl casts spells and makes demands, Sophie realizes that what she says has the power to create change through charming hats for their owners and bringing objects to life by talking to them. The loveable cast of characters were made to be animated in film, as all of the charm was preserved in its Studio Ghibli adaptation, and watching was just as good of an experience as reading. (Shoutout to April @electricarmchair who loves the Ghibli films)

These Goodreads poems will be collected in a future edition of the HaikuPrajna Collection. More can be found on my Book Reviews page: [UPDATED LINK: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/book-review-sumarries.html] https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/goodreads-book-reviews.html

Check out #MyYearInBooks @goodreads to discover the books I read in 2021! Add me as a friend! https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2021/83965332 

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Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

...Updated 221002...

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Have been looking for other free kindle books to read, ones that are only free for a day or so, so if you have an ebook on Kindle feel free to share them and I'll download!

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These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.

20211201 - Review: Coraline

Long for connection,\ a world older than they know.\ Weaving possessions.

#HAIKUPRAJNA - Review: Coraline

Coraline by Neil Gaiman is a modern fairy tale that has woven invaluable lessons on topics like being, love, anxiety, fear and doubt for both children and adults in a simple to understand way.

"It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold. In the other mother’s button eyes, Coraline knew that she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behavior was no longer amusing"

The dryness of a child's perspective is always refreshing to read, and was far more enjoyable as a book, being a more compelling tale than the movie. What I enjoyed the most was the world building and symbolism shown through the Other Mother's creation of the world and her interactions with its inhabitants, such as the other children before Coraline, displaying a desire to form a loving connection between parent and child.

"Whatever that corridor was was older by far than the other mother. It was deep, and slow, and it knew that she was there… ."

Coraline's displays of courage, empathy and resourcefulness are as real and scary as they are exciting to imagine, creating an excellent model for the young at heart. Neil Gaiman tackles philosophical ideas such as name and form to offer an unsettling happily-ever-after story that anyone will find meaning in.

These Goodreads poems will be collected in a future edition of the HaikuPrajna Collection. More can be found on my Book Reviews page: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/goodreads-book-reviews.html

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Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

20211111 - Review: Brave New World

Feelies and good times,\ perfect order from chaos.\ Absorbed in the All.

#HAIKUPRAJNA - Review: Brave New World

"What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder." 

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is another ebook where about half of the script has been highlighted. 

During this reread, I again was absorbed in how the author conveyed their philosophy of the metaphysical idea; Huxley's dystopian society had transformed information into something no better than a pharmaceutical drug made in a lab, or a systemized object that affects the systems it is within; both being forms that were created, known and alterable. Examples of this include the injecting of reflexes such as being terrified while interacting with books and flowers, the tendency to judge monogamy negatively, along with Bernard's intoxication and withdrawal from fame where John being part of his system has effects described in the same manner as soma, the ultimate goal of which was to disrupt the "narrowing" of "impulse and energy" to spread that energy out over "every one else".

They not only had systemized ideas or energy, they had turned the idea into a living form through their ritualistic practices, which they refused to even call science, that would almost border on fantasy if it were not for it describing the metaphysical method of forming real-life ideas like corporations, books, characters, art and technology. A less abstract comparison can be made between the hypnopaedic suggestions and the Savage's mythical legends, where Bernard's habitual reciting was the same as John's ability to quote Shakespeare.

To Huxley, dystopian civilization meant a pneumatic system, as in airy or allowing air to pass through, as opposed to hermetic, or self-contained and independent from the outside. In such a system, one still needed naturally living humans and beings contained and segregated from the rest of the system so that society at large could just ignore the parts it failed to absorb, shipping them away, and continue on unhindered. But, is it for the comparison, the need to have an opposite to be defined by? Do the myths either created need someone to consume them?

Perhaps the only criticism to pass would be on a number of exposition dumps through dialogue and narration, but I thought they added to the unnerving factor of this ordered society due to their philosophical nature that, of course, could serve as a description for any reader's perception of modern life.

These Goodreads poems will be collected in a future edition of the HaikuPrajna Collection. More can be found on my Book Reviews page: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/goodreads-book-reviews.html

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Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

20211029 - Review: Pride and Prejudice

Dwell on each other.\ Obtaining ideal objects. \Battling ideas.

#HAIKUPRAJNA - Review: Pride and Prejudice

"You shall have it in a few words."

Pride and Prejudice is the first Jane Austen book review on HaikuPrajna. The story is an exercise of philosophy and involves battles of logic in both casual family settings and high-tension moments in political-style debates and conversations, where characters capture pieces of information on each other through hearsay, letters and relayed speeches; extreme examples where an unfavorable marriage is like a fatal blow to their mother, or despicable family connections preventing lovers from wedding, with a twist of love overcoming obstacles, where the logistics needed to move on are produced instead of a Romeo and Juliet styled tragedy.

The plot follows predictable romances and relationships, but because its prose matches the style, manners and fashion, it sold me on the genre. The book is very well written thanks to a keep-it-simple philosophy where, even in complex Victorian era relationships, characters reflected the titular themes in every altercation and conversation, in every inner monologue. The families in this world plot stories for their children and are eager to capture both information and relationships of value in order to upkeep and obtain prideful objects; beyond the matrimony and drama lies great wit and depth of mind.

These Goodreads poems will be collected in a future edition of the HaikuPrajna Collection. More can be found on my Book Reviews page: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/goodreads-book-reviews.html

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More bite-sized insights into this metaphysical superhero novel can be found in the link at the top of the page, including excerpts straight from the book: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/escape-perennial-city.html

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

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20210831 - Review: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

Hitch a ride through space,/ defy causality's odds./ Attract together.

#HAIKUPRAJNA - Review: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a very unevenly edited book and contains many passages that simply seemed to its editors like a good idea at the time. One of these (the one Arthur now came across)...

Finally got around to reading (the first book of) "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". I had fun with Douglas Adams's enjoyment of his own literary elements, such as the obvious magic in having a "book in a book". Hitchhiker's is well known through its adaptations in film, radio and stage performances, but they fail to do the book justice in its whole because this story is about that literary magic, an alchemical process of which those adaptations are merely by-products of. 

“Hey,” he cooed to himself, “you’re a real cool boy you.” But his nerves sang a song shriller than a dog whistle.

The real heart of Hitchhiker's lies in the writer's intimate knowledge of their craft, of words and of wisdom. As cliche as it may sound, Douglas Adams is a real lover of the basic humanity and the ideas innate in everything and everyone (or, is a true Brit, according to April).

Zaphod loved effect: it was what he was best at.

These Goodreads poems will be collected in a future edition of the HaikuPrajna Collection. More can be found on my Book Reviews page: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/goodreads-book-reviews.html

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More bite-sized insights into this metaphysical superhero novel can be found in the link at the top of the page, including excerpts straight from the book: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/escape-perennial-city.html

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

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20210806 - Review: Dune

Master of the spice\ power over destruction\ ancestral spirit

#HAIKUPRAJNA - Review: Dune

Frank Herbert's "Dune" is a great example of what science-fantasy fiction can achieve as literature. "Dune" explores the metaphysics of mind through characters like the human-computer mentats and Bene Gesserit witches. With the plot device of time-become-space, every being is represented as an idea of their totality, which the various factions manipulate through cultural eugenics in order to influence (or produce mortal incarnations of) their ancestral spirits. These ideas are the best part of the book; the story and narrative are fine, too, where politics and religion are central. This science-fantasy's lack of focus on technology allows Dune's grounded philosophy to withstand the test of time. 

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2489740162

These Goodreads poems will be collected in a future edition of the HaikuPrajna Collection. More can be found on my Book Reviews page: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/goodreads-book-reviews.html

Edit 20240425:

This poem is part of the HaikuPrajna Challenge; submit and learn more at https://aprilandallen.square.site/roadmaps

"Escape Perennial City" eBook, paperback and hardcover are now available through Amazon and on Kindle apps and devices, read with Kindle Unlimited: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B099C5LJ6W

More bite-sized insights into this metaphysical superhero novel can be found in the link at the top of the page, including excerpts straight from the book: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/escape-perennial-city.html

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

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20210804 - Doublethink (Review: 1984 Annual)

Control of the past/ memory-only-ideas/ the means-and-the-ends 

#HAIKUPRAJNA - Doublethink (Review: 1984 Annual)

Last year's HaikuPrajna review for George Orwell's "1984" focused on the interchangeability of the Party and the Brotherhood,  while this time I wanted to write about how the police states, dystopian politics, totalitarianism and secret revolutions are all means to an end, which is power through the weaponization of love.

What I think Orwell means by love is the memories one holds of an idea, form or object that they cherish where one's memories are located in the past. Big Brother has convinced the population that the party controls the past with how they make any such form accessible only through memory by literal ritual sacrifice such as via the memory-holes. The party rightly acknowledges how a shared belief in the same memories creates the construct of what is believed to be “the past”, and how this “transcendence” of forms into memory-only-ideas is achieved through things like love, books and malleable logic, which is why the party changes people’s memories and any information being destroyed--so that only their idea is being turned into memories. 

When one loves something, love can be both cause and effect for anything, and, according to O’Brien, the party's means and ends is power, which they gain through shutting off others’ options of coping, thus restricting their freedom and making unorthodoxy apparent through uncontrollable habits; the cause and the effect, by being Big Brother, makes the thought-police an inevitability. 

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2449830201

These Goodreads poems will be collected in a future edition of the HaikuPrajna Collection.

"Escape Perennial City" eBook, paperback and hardcover are now available through Amazon and on Kindle apps and devices, read with Kindle Unlimited: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B099C5LJ6W

More bite-sized insights into this metaphysical superhero novel can be found in the link at the top of the page, including excerpts straight from the book!

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

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20210421 - Review "The World Jones Made"

Too large to perceive,\ subjective experience,\ freedom to believe.

#HAIKUPRAJNA - ("The World Jones Made")

"The World Jones Made" is a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick about ethics in a dystopia that is governed by philosophical relativism. Illicit activities are performed by the cast, as political policy says right and wrong are relative to one's subjective experience, which allows anyone to believe what they want to believe so long as others are free from being forced into believing as well (where detractors are prisoned to labor-camps). 

A "fedgov" family faces the challenges of opposing moral doctrines; a precognitive works with a loophole in governmental policy where others freely choose to believe everything he believes will happen within the next year; massive spore-like aliens quarantine humanity to a star cluster just as Earth begins to colonize Venus. When considering PKD's body of stories, the date that he wrote a story is important to note because of his earlier work's influence on his later, heavier, theosophical and metaphysical tales; this is an earlier work that deals with familiar PKD themes, including larger-than-perceivable beings and constructs that question the foundations of our realities. "Jones" is a tight story that follows a number of characters' plotlines while exploring determinism, fatalism and humanity's metaphysical free-will as restricted by causality and predetermined actions beyond one's control.

The poems that are based on my Goodreads reviews will be featured in a future edition of The HaikuPrajna Collection. More poems and reviews about what I'm reading can be found through the link in the sidebar, and on my Goodreads profile (add me as a friend!): https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

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Information can be found in the link at the top of the page, along with more poetry and stories to read like "Hector Blake"!

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

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20210401 - Review "The Invention of Morel"

The reconstruction;\ a synthesis of dead sound.\ The eternal form.

HAIKUPRAJNA - ("The Invention of Morel")

Adolfo Bioy Casares's "The Invention of Morel" is regarded by many to be a perfect novel. The story follows a fugitive who falls in love while hiding on a deserted island plagued by a fatal disease. To the narrator's horror, tourists arrive and disappear, leading the fugitive to believe that he is suffering from the island's illness, that his unrequited love is working with the authorities, or that he is already dead. The narrator overhears Morel explaining his invention to the other tourists, how his photographic recording machine will repeat their past week for them for all eternity, which helps the narrator understand the causes of the apparent disease and mysteries of the island. "The Invention of Morel" tackles the philosophical problem of consciousness, and presumes one's soul to be a result of one's senses working in harmony; Casares takes this method and has his fugitive narrator experience the death of their body in the hope that his soul will live on as re-pieced fragments beside another reconstruction that he had fallen in love with. In other words, Casares indeed managed a perfect novel which encapsulates the fibres of its own being.

The poems that are based on my Goodreads reviews will be featured in a future edition of The HaikuPrajna Collection. More poems and reviews about what I'm reading can be found through the link in the sidebar, and on my Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

The "SM-SARA, Poems and Other Stories" HaikuPrajna Collection is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited:  https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08XYK5DCD

Information can be found in the link at the top of the page, along with more poetry and stories to read like "Hector Blake"!

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

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20210319 Review - "The Wendigo"

Personified wild,/ reversion by destruction./ The inner darkness.

HAIKUPRAJNA - (“The Wendigo”)

Algernon Blackwood’s “The Wendigo” is a fantastic example of classic literary horror, in that there is little to none in terms of ‘terrifying’ content beyond the inner darknesses within any bodily being. The plot follows a moose-hunting party, composed of a hunting guide, a shared-hallucinogenics author, his divinity-studying nephew, the party’s cook, and the nephew’s guide to the backwoods, who collectively encounter the Wendigo and suffer from their experience in the Canadian forest. The Wendigo is the personification of ‘the wild’, which is described as the hindrances toward human progress, and as a being that possesses others. The characters exhibit the restlessness that prevents the sustained focus required to create anything meaningful, along with a destructive ill-will toward humanity and our monuments.

“The Wendigo” makes a point, that this inner horror, this force-of-nature which we have evolved out of, is more akin to a reversion to the wild than a literal destruction; the true terror of their experience, rather than being a mythological embodiment of the wild, is the possibility of their experience being a case of mass hysteria which laid dormant within each of them.

The poems that are based on my Goodreads reviews will be featured in a future edition of The HaikuPrajna Collection. More poems and reviews about what I'm reading can be found through the link in the sidebar, and on my Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

The "SM-SARA, Poems and Other Stories" HaikuPrajna Collection is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited:  https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08XYK5DCD

Information can be found in the link at the top of the page, along with more poetry and stories to read like "Hector Blake"!

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

For more bite-sized insights from HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair, please subscribe by email or follow on social media!

20210304 - Review: "The Alchemist" + SM-SARA Update

Source of the good word.\ Written simply on a gem.\ Personal cleansing.

HAIKUPRAJNA - ("The Alchemist")

I am scaling the HaikuPrajna Collection back to KDP in order to hasten paperbacks and to give access to Kindle Unlimited members, so I am making updates to reflect these changes on book pages and on sites such as Goodreads.

This week, I read “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, a story about a boy who travels to the Egyptian Pyramids in pursuit of a treasure he had dreamed of. I enjoyed this as a modern parable that preaches the good word of a divine Source who transcends religion and science through personal experience; “The Alchemist” follows its themes well, and tries to impart wisdom through fiction.

I have a hard time believing (as some reviewers have claimed to have heard) that the book was meant as self-help for its readers, or to even convince anyone of Alchemical theology, and this has to be the only book I've read with negative reviews that say, “this book is on believing in oneself and refraining from doubting" as a reason to dislike the book, though I do understand the counter-cultural sentiment of pursuing a personal dream above all else. “The Alchemist” is a fictional spiritual-adventure meant to illustrate some of the foundational basics behind theologies and philosophies; the titular character states that people had grown to reject the simple things, such as the Master Work itself, which could be written simply on an emerald.

The poems that are based on my Goodreads reviews will be featured in a future edition of The HaikuPrajna Collection. More poems and reviews about what I'm reading can be found through the link in the sidebar, and on my Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

The "SM-SARA, Poems and Other Stories" HaikuPrajna Collection is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited:  https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08XYK5DCD

Information can be found in the link at the top of the page, along with more poetry and stories to read like "Hector Blake"!

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

For more bite-sized insights from HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair, please subscribe by email or follow on social media!

20210224 Review - "Gulliver's Travels"

Unreliable.\ Narrator of the world,\ an honest satire.

HAIKUPRAJNA - ("Gulliver's Travels")

"Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift is a satirical novel published in 1726 about the titular narrator's voyages around the globe, to and from his home in England. Swift satirizes topics like travel literature, human morality and politics through Gulliver's narration, where the satire arises from the ambiguous effects on his mental health, which other characters (and some readers) presume to have been caused by the accidents he suffered during his travels; despite being an unreliable narrator, Gulliver nonetheless is an honest one. I admit, I did get a bit lost in some of his descriptions, not out of a lack of clarity but maybe because of too much clarity on topics and descriptions of people or locations (I was fine with the scenes of bodily necessity, however some may be perturbed). I enjoyed his takes on politics, morality and philosophy. There is a good reason "Gulliver's Travels" is considered a classic. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7733.Gulliver_s_Travels

The poems that are based on my Goodreads reviews will be featured in a future edition of The HaikuPrajna Collection. More poems and reviews about what I'm reading can be found through the link in the sidebar, and on my Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

The "SM-SARA, Poems and Other Stories" HaikuPrajna Collection is available on Amazon, Apple Books, B&N Nook, Kobo and more:  https://books2read.com/u/4XLkgL

Information can be found in the link at the top of the page, along with more poetry and stories to read like "Hector Blake"!

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

For more bite-sized insights from HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair, please subscribe by email or follow on social media!

20210223 Review: "Foraging the Rocky Mountains"

  

The mountain's bounty.\ Prepare the edible earth,\ toxic provisions.

HAIKUPRAJNA - ("Foraging the Rocky Mountains")

This week I read "Foraging the Rocky Mountains" by Lizbeth Morgan. A scene in "Spearthrower" takes place in the Rockies, and I needed some context for accuracy's sake. This book serves as an identification guide for edible herbs, roots and bush fruit that grows on the mountain and comes with a number of recipes for what you have identified. In addition to listing dangerous plants, the book notes dangerous look-alikes for other safe foods. A useful and reliable resource.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16056177-foraging-the-rocky-mountains

The poems based on my Goodreads reviews will be featured as a future edition of The HaikuPrajna Collection. More poems and reviews can be found through the link in the sidebar, and on my Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

The "SM-SARA, Poems and Other Stories" HaikuPrajna Collection is available on Amazon, Apple Books, B&N Nook, Kobo and more:  https://books2read.com/u/4XLkgL

Information can be found in the link at the top of the page, along with more poetry and stories to read like "Hector Blake"!

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

For more bite-sized insights from HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair, please subscribe by email or follow on social media!

20210207 - Review: "Corpus Hermetica"

  

HaikuPrajna

Philosophical/ visualizations, one/ duality forms. 

("Corpus Hermetica")

The texts that have been sourced to Hermes Trismegistus in "The Corpus Hermetica" (translation by Brian P. Copenhaver) act as the foundation of a dualistic philosophical imagination/fiction. 

The book's introduction is an odyssey by itself with its detailing of how the texts have passed through Eurasia, which traces back through pre-Christ prophets, Queens and Emperors. The main section is composed of over a dozen discourses on the topics of cosmology and visualization that is spoken between a number of beings, from the cosmic Mind to Hermes, and Hermes to his sons, pupils and Pharaohs. The purpose appears to be the same among them all, for the enlightened speaker to raise their listeners into the described divinity with them.

This book focuses on the working philosophies of holy prophets and beings, but discludes much of what is considered "Hermetic" due to their fragmented and untranslated natures, and to their focus on more esoteric methods and rituals of which the better known parts of the Corpus was derived from.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/681667.Hermetica

The poems for my Goodreads reviews will be part of the next HaikuPrajna Collection. "Spear-thrower" is the story I wrote for "NaNoWriMo" which I had based on the "Inktober" prompts from 2020; the story and poems will be featured as a future edition of The HaikuPrajna Collection.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

More poetry on, and the first draft of "Spear-thrower" can be read on Medium and Wattpad here: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/spear-thrower.html

 

The "SM-SARA, Poems and Other Stories" HaikuPrajna Collection is now available on Amazon, Apple Books, B&N Nook, Kobo and more:  https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/sm-sara.html

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

To see more of these bite-sized insights, please click Subscribe at the top of the page and enter your email to receive new poetry by email, or follow on social media through the sidebar!

Linktr.ee/ElectricArmchair

Books, art, music, poetry, prompts and a whole lot more from me and April (@electricarmchair)! 

20210116 - "Solar Lottery"

HaikuPrajna
Dissatisfied, not/ from brute senselessness; restless /to grow and advance.
( “Solar Lottery” )

Pre-orders for the next book in the HaikuPrajna Collection are rolling out to bookstores, as of the time of writing “SM-SARA, Poems and Other Stories” is available for digital pre-orders on Apple Books; while we wait, today we have a Goodreads review for the first book I have finished reading this year.  

Philip K. Dick’s first published novel is titled “Solar Lottery”, which takes place in a Sol system that revolves around a Hunger Games-like deathmatch between an interplanetary “Quizmaster” political leader and a lone assassin, who becomes Quizmaster should they succeed. Both individuals are seemingly chosen at random, where randomness is the guiding principle for the chaotic universe according to these characters, but their actions (and the book’s action-sequences) are defined by drawn-out descriptions of logical causality that culminates in a courtroom battle on the just and legal murdering of an individual who is alive and taking part in the dispute’s proceedings.

“Solar Lottery” would not be a Philip K. Dick book without a touch of his theosophy; through a subplot involving human-simulacrum and an undiscovered tenth planet, we bear witness to a budding author passing on his hope-tinged message: 

“It isn’t senseless drive . . . It isn't a brute instinct that keeps us restless and dissatisfied. I'll tell you what it is: it's the highest goal of man - the need to grow and advance . . . to find new things . . . to expand. To spread out, reach areas, experiences, comprehend and live in an evolving fashion. To push aside routine and repetition, to break out of mindless monotony and thrust forward. To keep moving on . . .”

The "SM-SARA" HaikuPrajna Collection can be found here:  https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/sm-sara.html

Poetry on, and the first draft of "Spear-thrower" can be read here: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/spear-thrower.html

While I pitch my first novel, "Perennial City", the full first chapter along with rough-chapter previews can be found here: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/perennial-city.html

Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Allen W. McLean

Please subscribe to this blog (or like us on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram) to see more of these bite-sized insights, so that you can read these projects as they are being produced!

Linktr.ee/HaikuPrajna

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Books, art, music, poetry, prompts and a whole lot more from me and April (@electricarmchair)!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92504.Solar_Lottery