Syl Sabastian

A powerful, emotional read. It's not every day we get to see life from a side we wouldn't ordinarily know. Experiencing the unimaginable is powerful because we tend to not believe what we can't imagine. When we do, and we know what we didn't before, we can't undo such knowing. Awareness is powerful, as is Understanding, both which don't always come easy. This amazing story, well delivered, adds to us human beings, providing a Perspective on the human condition which extends us as people. “The moment we treat others as less than human, that's the moment we become monsters.” A quote which comes to mind for me to represent a deep Understanding from the book. A sharing of intimacy-of-being well worth reading.

Everything one wants from sci-fi! It's exciting, clever, adventurous, has a marvellous concept, well executed. The characters are diverse, intriguing and most interesting. There are surprises and twists and most of all the read is great and excellent fun. Highly Recommended. A book I will predict is destined for great things, it's seldom such works of depth and complexity which are also lots of fun come around.

I was a prolific reader before I came to science fiction. For some reason, sci-fi, then had a poor reputation, being seen as silly, frivolous and even childish. This was during my school years, and reading mostly in isolation, I had no reason to doubt this perspective, but, luckily, a really good friend set me straight, recommending as proof to the contrary, the Foundation series. i reluctantly agreed to give them a go, out of honesty, and am I ever glad I did.

Foundation is perhaps the perfect starter book for immersing in the wonders and glories of science fiction. It's sophisticated, complex, mature, exiting and just about everything one could want from a book. After Foundation, and the rest of the series, my reading switched to predominantly sci-fi/fantasy.

Reading Foundation is a spectacular highlight in my reading “career.” Now, after many decades, I am looking forward to rereading it, the entire series, and the additional books which have been added. A huge want-to-read.

Dune is a powerful work, but I often see emphasis only on the political/intrigue side of things. on the rivalry between the great houses and the game o thrones aspect. But for me, this was a minor part of the book and series' appeal. Dune is a spiritual work to me, the underlying theme, the one that makes it such a powerful work and series, is the evolution of consciousness. It is the ultimate story of self-improvement, and the challenges and problems which can attend “success.”

The focus on ethics, integrity, loyalty, honesty etc, these give the book and series it's depth, but it's done in a non-preachy way. Frank Herbert was deliberate in this aspect of his writing. he talked to his son about it, telling him that the story was important, and any value beyond that had to be added supplementally, not as the focus. And in this he succeeded admirably. There is much wisdom and value in Dune and the series, if we look past the excellent story. A book that adds to us while entertaining. Highly recommended. Few books achieve this lofty ideal.

Don't be put off by the appearance of this series being somewhat similar to Lord of the Rings. Yes, there are certainly similarities, but, consider them genre only. The series is an excellent read, with the trials and tribulations of The Unbeliever taking many surprising twists. Certainly one of the better fantasy series. I enjoyed the idea of the series being an alternate reality extreme variation, only barely recognisable from its origin inspiration.

I wish to touch on another aspect of the books. I read them a long time ago, and can remember little of the details, but what does stay is what impacted me at the time. Besides thoroughly enjoying and reading the entire series in one go, there's a deeper mystique to the stories.

I always felt a decided More to the writing. Like the author had wild personal experiences, too wild for normal telling and was forced to re-format them into this tale and the fantasy format. In particular, the white-gold connection. At the time I was not aware of it's alchemical and scientific significance, but my impression then was decidedly that there's much more going on than the story directly states.

The series has a spiritual quality, adding to the enjoyment. While certainly not overt, it's there nonetheless. A connection to a something, what precisely not easy to say, but there. A bonus which enhances the series tremendously. I felt the same with LotR, but different. With Tolkien, I recognised it at the time as an unspoken connectedness of all things, and of all that's done and said, especially if energy, attention and Intent are involved. With Donaldson however, the spiritual, or perhaps metaphysical aspect, is more complex, and subtle. A fine layered mystery which permeates the story and writing.

What's enjoyable about this? The main characters are constantly negative, moaning, complaining, bickering, spiteful, mean etc. All the time. How this received a Hugo is beyond me. So what if there is some world-building or new races etc, without enjoyable characters and something of value out of it all, what's the point? What did I gain from reading this? Pretty much nothing. Do readers gain value by feeling superior to the absolutely crappy main characters? I suspect so, but not for me thanks. It's not even educational as to that psychology, just crappy.
And, just in the interest of balance. I have read literally thousands of novels, probably 10 times what i can remember to add to Goodreads, and VERY seldom do I read something that is unenjoyable, this is an exception. That it was awarded a Hugo is depressing. The only reason it's not one star is that it is not poorly written edited etc.

There's a reason Steven King recommends never using a word if there is a simpler one that will do. Because, sadly, when authors stretch their readers, and those readers can't quite make the stretching, they end up feeling stupid. Tending to react badly to the experience. Or, overreacting, mostly with negativity. Unreasonably so. This book, from reading through its reviews after I read it, seems to do just that.

It's a good engaging read, well written. A detailed story, connecting to complexity and the non-usual. Definitely not going to be everyone's thing. However, personal like or dislike seems to be much confused with the quality of the work itself. I might not personally enjoy something and still be able to recognise and appreciate it as a work of good quality. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be common among reviewers, who assume if they did not like, then it “must” be bad.

There is much to recommend the work, form its insight into Princeton University life to the illuminations on renaissance intellectual life. Most of all, it provides insight into Immersion and obtuse interest which can consume some. This might seem removed from our ordinary life, but, through the extremes portrayed in the book, we come to understand any mindset or psychology that can become waylaid by immersion. This can happen with ego, ambition, sex, career, status, or any number of “mundane” obsessions.

This book does an excellent job of illustrating those diversive and sometimes destructive distortions of perspective which can result. Not to mention the power of choice, awareness and deliberation. The necessity of character, and how its lack is so consequential. If we look at the book, its story, the characters, from this more abstract perspective the story has much to offer indeed. Well worth the read.

My rating standard is more strict than most, just how I started, and like to keep the consistency. This book would have earned a very high 4 stars from me except the ending I felt was weak relative to the rest of the book. It's as if the last part was written by other authors. Still good, but not as potent as the rest.

My review is based not on the book itself, as it was read it so long ago, I don't remember details, which is somewhat remarkable, as I remember the effect of the book. transformative, profound revelationary, this is the best I can manage. I was transformed into worlds of thought, deep thought, worlds where intent and meaning reigned. The book required a serious commitment from the reader of Attention and willingness-to-truth, a remarkable requirement, adding to the books magic. A classic that lived up to it billing.

I read bunches of Piers decades ago. This is one of his earlier works and one of the best from at least a dozen series of his I read. But it's still the best I've read out of literally thousands of sci-fi books for representing truly alien life forms. Truly excellent. And of course there are love affairs. But, the nice twist is that the human is inside an alien body every time. So it's the psychology which is making love, not the body. And well, there's some freaky sex also, but not lurid or salacious. Well done indeed. (From a comment, I made on a post looking for recommendations of inter-species love affairs.)

I remember details of few of the books I read back then, but I do remember this series, as it stood out. A novel and unique concept, well, back then, well executed, with an excellent play on the discrepancies between various psychologies, with the hero being a somewhat primitive fellow, but, not, as many automatically assume, stupid and unsophisticated. The hero is neither, after his own fashion. I've been fortunate to extensively interact with a real-life version, but that's another story.

This series provides everything good storytelling has to offer, with the bonus of also being excellent sci-fi. The tour of a potential universe with all its diversity is well worth the read alone. One of the all-time top series I've read.

Some days, we're just happy being around the house, in the yard, simply enjoying the beingness of being. the joys of being ourselves, the pleasure of being in our lives. Such was most of the experience of reading Tehanu for me. Simple joys, the delight of existence. yes, there is story, drama and excitement, the usual, but somehow it wasn't overly important. The mere existing within the book was enough. A relaxed casual joy. Soothing in its simplicity. A different enjoyment, one less pressured. perhaps it is me, but I found such simple pleasure sustaining, comforting, and relaxing.

My only complaint is with foolish publishers who insist on not marking the book's place in the overall series. Had I known it was book 4, I might have made the effort to acquire books 1 to 3 in order to read the series in sequence. Now I am unlikely to do that, or read the rest of the series, as I don't care to read what I already know something about, know how it turns out, nor to read incomplete series. Why publishers do this is an amazing mystery.

This stood out for me because of the sophistication of the story and the characters especially. there was a depth to the insights, while seemingly speculative, were in fact based on real possibility, potentiality, and experience. As a grand extrapolation, expertly done, it was outstanding, as well as containing all of the usual excellent elements of entertaining and riveting story-telling. But this book had that elusive More that made it a stand-out for me.

My favourite of Carlos' books. I came to his works at the tail end of a very long and extensive reading campaign, the purpose of which was to attain practical utilisable enhancement of self. I would read with a red pen, underlining what was of value, and could be applied, copying out those underlinings into large notebooks.

When I came to Carlos, my trusty pen worked overtime. Not so much in The Teachings, but went off the charts in A Separate Reality and peaked in Journey to Ixtlan, which to me had the foundational conceptional focus points that form a solid basis for Independence-of-Being.

If the book, indeed all his books, are read from the perspective of evaluating the wisdom value, which is independent of whether the origins are fictional or actual, then much is gained. This book has so tremendous value in that regard. But, it's up to us, the reader, to make it our own, otherwise the value is meaningless. A fabulous book in terms of starting one's journey. Highly recommended.

We read and we read, and then, we encounter, well, A Separate Reality. Much depends on how we read. If we're too immersed in story, we miss the More, if we're to concerned with artificial criteria of evaluation, we miss the Value, if we're too bubbled in our cocoon-of-self we miss the Usefulness. Within the distinct realism of A Separate Reality we find an overwhelm of potency, which, if we're not prepared to actually change our world, will pass us by.

To read this powerful and transformative work we have to DO much. Such as set aside our habits, including the habit of reading. Here we're required to stop, absorb, hear, imbibe, incorporate, assimilate, Apply, integrate, and actually Change. Not only who we are, but our entire conception of ourselves and which world we live in. We have to set aside our continuity, a difficult challenge for many, unhook from our conformity, our cosiness and indulgences. Discarding our habits-of-perception and our assumptions of focus is another. We have to perceive past the obvious and pay close Attention to that which requires no faith or belief, no external agents to implement, and in these pages we can find such power. There's much to gain if we make that effort to determine Value, Usefulness and Applicability for ourselves, with an open being.

Too many get lost in the indulgence of connecting to the drug-story lure, which is immaterial to the magic of this book. Or they unnecessarily sideline themselves by needlessly debating whether Don Juan is real or not. What does it matter where a self-evident Value comes from? If you need someone to be real to determine whether an utterance or communication has Value or validity, well, then you're lost before you begin. Only you have that particular power, since you and you alone, are the Final-Arbiter-of-Truth. When we discern the wisdom and conceptualising genius so abundant in A Separate Reality we encounter a treasure trove of Life-Change.

The inordinate Gift of A Separate reality is exactly that, a separate Reality-of-Being. Such a potential is gifted us in this monumental work if we can see past the tests-of-self which are part of this challenge-of-being. We have to look at the real power, which is the presentation of new conceptions of what it means to BE. Ways-of-Being which are distinct, new, foreign, even alien, yet attainable. Simple but complex, such as relinquishing the seduction of self-importance. We are not merely informed this may be valuable, the usefulness of this life-transformation is amply demonstrated for us by that marvellous example of Impeccability, Don Juan.

I feel many make the mistake of identifying with the fool Carlos, because yes, of course we too are similar nincompoops, but, the real Gift I believe lies in stretching ourselves to identify with the possibility of being as much like Don Juan as we can. Once we grasp this as an actual potential actuality, we begin a Path where his Way-of-Being becomes our model, or standard, our code, our sensibility, and default measure for our Impeccability. If we simply ask ourselves how Don Juan would behave in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in, we have a fantastic self-leverage which is powerful and transformative. If we connect to Don Juan not for his magical powers, but to his essential Character-of-Self, we connect to his ethics, his integrity, his Joy-of-Being and all the other marvellous examples of a self we can move toward being. If we read this book in this way, well, it becomes much more than reading. Such is the nature of this mind-bloom.

But, to connect to this power of the book, we have to read past the story, past the character interactions, and truly listen, truly hear what's conveyed. Our read-perception has to include identifying what we don't want, what's irrelevant and immaterial, and in that simple selectivity, we come to see what's truly of issue and important to our Deep-Self. We are thus required to read and connect to the implications of what's imparted, to look past the tests-of-self such as the rituals and the indulgences of Carlos and look at the Way-of-Living and Deep Sobriety Don Juan Shares so incredibly. Doing so connects us to what he's really offering, which is of course, a Gift of Power.

Of all the thousands of books I've read, which include a substantial selection of classics from around the world, this incredible book stands out, and is a definite must-read and multiple-read. (Along with its extension, A Journey to Ixtlan.) To be sure, one can find all the conceptions and ideas elsewhere, however, not so compacted and cohesive, not presented as an example in practice, and also not in the excellent resonating language of Don Juan. When we read to hear him, feel him, know him, imbibe him, and connect to this paragon of possibility who is Don Juan, especially if we don't over-mythologise him, and read not to remember what he said, but to BE what he Shares, then we shift into our journey toward living in a reality which more and more becomes A Magic Reality of actuality.