10 KiB
[RT][C] The Library Unpublished - Final Chapter and Discussion Thread
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6z7uhh/rtc_the_library_unpublished_final_chapter_and/
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Score: 23
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Created: 2017-09-10T11:54:20
Post:
This is the final discussion thread for this story. Please share your thoughts below, both regarding the ending and the entire work. If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them. And if you haven't left Kudos on ao3 yet, please consider doing so! It's free and doesn't require an account.
Thank you for reading.
Comments:
u/scruiser [+4] CYOA (10 hours later)
A fitting ending. It wraps the text in a layer of ambiguity and uncertainty, both tying off the questions of how it was written and leaving it open.
u/None [+3] (19 hours later)
I was interested in your opinion on the ending in particular. Thanks for letting me know you liked it :)
u/MultipartiteMind [+3] (a day later)
(After following all paths, happy that I did the final pass-through for 54! In the path where a certain person did leave (57), curious about the effects on reality (compared with other paths) and Cio hypothetically eventually getting in touch through the computer's contact information. Say, first with a fictional book of all the passwords of all the people listed as 'missing'...)
u/None [+3] (a day later)
(57), curious about the effects on reality
That thought raises an interesting point. If the CYOA-weirdness is spatially constrained to the Library, what happens to _sein_? The important thing is that even after m1k rescues _sein_, we don't know whether _sein_ actually escapes (they could still be a cultist in disguise or have other motivations for staying in the Library).
And I don't actually think we have any ending where we can be sure that _sein_ never exited the Library! The cultists could have lied when they claimed _sein_ was dead; even when we know they and m1k had gotten captured, they might have escaped after.
So basically, the presence of _sein_ outside the Library doesn't prove which timeline had happened and I think that means 57) doesn't have any special effects on reality at all.
Regarding your other question: Cio already knows how to summon fictional books; she created The Library Unpublished this way, after all, which means _sein_'s presence is irrelevant to that approach of getting the passwords. I'd assume that she tried and didn't succeed.
u/MultipartiteMind [+2] (2 days later)
(There's also the audio clip from where sein only found a small space and left shortly after entering, if it could be trusted. If both leaving and rescued, multiple _sein_s? Alternatively, perhaps the Library is such that leaving (having entered) is absolutely impossible, with any delusions to the contrary only tricks or wishful thinking. (71) comes to mind, as the path where m1k seems to have the best shot at actually leaving (and the ultimate result).)
The passwords thought was in terms of how to get sein's contact details (from the computer/hard drive?), in order to talk with a hopefully-escaped sein and find out more about m1k that wasn't in the book. I wonder why it didn't succeed... I'm reminded of the doubtful claim of making a curve that the author(?) can't distinguish as distinct from the work described, and the matter of information that the reader doesn't have at time of writing, such as all the encyclopaedia entries in the encyclopaedia with an extra entry (maybe a bad example, since easy to supplement externally).
u/None [+2] (3 days later)
There's also the audio clip
Indeed. That's an interesting piece of evidence, because it rules out the possibility that no _sein_ ever leaves. Several possible answers: 1. _sein_ always gets out; 2. it is possible to distinguish between Library-timelines because _sein_ sometimes leaves, sometimes not; 3. the audio clip cannot be trusted (perhaps _sein_ was forced to lie while recording that part, because the librarians had already captured them).
I wonder why it didn't succeed
Basically, Cio wrote "The Book of Answers" as a last resort. The fact that the titular book came to exist in the Library was to be expected; that it turned up at her doorstep was not. There must have been someone in the Library willing to smuggle it out. I'd say that it's not too strange that attempts to hack passwords that way didn't work, even if creating a book full of passwords did work, something which, as you say, is already doubtful enough.
An unrelated question which has been bugging me. Why do you put entire paragraphs into parentheses? You don't always do it, but sometimes you wrap entire posts in such a way. Generally, people use parentheses for digressions, but that's clearly not what you're doing. I'm just curious; if you don't want to answer, you don't have to.
u/MultipartiteMind [+1] (12 days later)
A thought occurred to me: it would be rather fun if, rather than 'never leaves' or 'always leaves' (which could still give information about the source timeline), the apparent 'never leaves' rule in several timelines were in fact 'always leaves (up to) ONCE'--the Library only ever lets one iteration out, presumably by default the one who tries to get out the soonest. (Once /any/ entered person has exited, all other iterations are prevented by some rule of (local?) reality itself.) Granted, that wouldn't explain why not even one version of m1k got out and reconnected with Cio.
Hmm, then the question of whether the book would have even existed, or been delivered, had she specified that it contained only m1k's password/s too... or maybe "...and contains m1k's passwords if and only if such is posible for the Library'...
I tend to use parentheses to make sections into 'asides'; for instance, I might have a main point, but also a side train of thought. For an entire post, it might be 'commenting from the sidelines' in one form or another, such as cheering on an author without necessarily trying to stand forth and press for a response, or lobbing in a few thoughts from the side into a conversation between multiple people without necessarily trying to interrupt the conversation, intrude into the conversation, or otherwise raise my participation status to their same level in that conversation. Contemplating, my use may be describable as being primarily to indicate deference (of one form or another), rather than any display of unwillingness to participate, as I believe I'm fully willing/glad to respond to thoughts on what I've said regardless of whether parenthesised or not.
u/mojojo46 [+3] (2 days later)
How was this? Is it worth reading?
u/None [+4] (2 days later)
(Disclaimer: I'm the author, and I'm answering this mostly because there aren't any other answers yet. Other opinions are still welcome.)
Whether you'd like the plot kind of depends on your personal taste. I think a pretty good Litmus test is whether you liked The Northern Caves, a work which is referenced here. It's not necessary to have read The Northern Caves, but you do risk getting spoilered for that work.
As far as some kind of objective "quality of writing" goes, I'm not the person to answer that. Just try reading the first few chapters to see whether you like the style :)
u/scruiser [+3] CYOA (3 days later)
Do you like reading SCP logs? Or other forms of magical realism creepypasta? If so, you will enjoy this story.
u/Igigigif [+3] IT Foxgirl (5 days later)
Just finished bingeing the whole thing, and I've got to say, it's a great read.
I'm still trying to figure out if cio is just a reference, her cannon (KSBD) self, or some bizarre hybrid of the two. The library seems to lean towards the more fantastic side of things, given more trope driven segments of 9, but the lack of marble anywhere in the library points to more mundane super-intelligences.
M1k's recruitment is likewise suspicious, seeing as, taking the computer at face value, after summarizing a few books, you could just generate how to create an idealized summarization program. This either casts doubt on the whole speech, which contradicts conservation of detail, which seems to be in full effect in the library, or means we're missing a major aspect of the book generation power.
(Also, disappointed that there weren't any references to the reader of invisible writings)
u/None [+2] (5 days later)
Thanks for reading!
Regarding cio, she's just a reference, but an in-universe one. "cio_cielle" (which isn't even the same name as K6BD's Ciocie Cioelle) is her screenname in just about any online community, not her real name. When, for example, the bookseller refers to her under that name, this is something she edited to protect her identity (which is what the Editor's Note in Chapter 1 is talking about). If I had actually borrowed the character of Ciocie Cioelle, I would have had to flag The Library Unpublished as K6BD fanfic :) (also, I would have had to imitate Ciocie's way of speaking, and I'm not sure I would have done a good job of that)
how to create an idealized summarization program
Ah, there are a few things in effect here. First off, depending on the route M1k takes to reach the computer (91->22...), the Library isn't magical, but mundane, and not actually capable of generating books. And if we do stay in the realm of the mundane, taking the computer at face value, it's actually not possible to generate non-fiction books filled with useful information. Cultural Topology describes only stories, which means the computer can only generate books of fiction.
This means that in the realities in which we take the computer at face value, quite a number of books m1k actually sees have to have been created by hand (such as the textbooks from the Harry Potter universe, or the Anglo-American Cyclopedia).
no references to the reader of invisible writings
Do you mean the "reader in invisible writings"? It's the only thing that gives me fitting google results. In that case, I guess I just haven't read enough Prattchet; it would have been a good reference :)