Quick idea FMAG & Leibniz

In reading some old notes on Leibniz I think that I would like to make the alien that picks up the protagonist in the story a Leibniz-like figure. Or at least use some of Leibniz's metaphysical principles to power his space ship.

Señor Vivo and The Coca Lord

From my Goodreads review.

This book was just a smidge less enjoyable as the first book in the Latin American Trilogy by de Berniéres. It had all of the same pizazz and dark irony, all the same inventive creativity and the same pulling many disparate parts together into one culmination. I wrote elsewhere that if I wrote a book I'd like to emulate some parts of the style of The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts. I don't think I could emulate this one. It was a bit too sad. You could see the sadness coming; yet, it was still too shocking not to tear some of my heart up.

The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts

(Originally written March 28, 2018)

My Goodreads review of The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Berniéres

I found this book to be a very good read; but, somewhat difficult to classify in my rather haphazard and arbitrary bookshelf labels. I put it on the English-Lit shelf because de Berniéres is English. I also placed it on my Latin-American bookshelf because it reads a lot like other Latin American stories and is set in a fictitious Latin American country. It's a funny book that is definitely a bastard son of Candide, treating nothing as sacred in the wake of its dark humor. It doesn't have quite the pace of Voltaire (what does?); but, other than maybe trying to use obtuse words, the seeming rabbit holes that de Berniéres leads us down tie together nicely in the end. I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to diving into number two of his Latin American trilogy.

If I ever write a book, this magical realism is a style I'd like to emulate.