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Natural suffering, along with man-made suffering (ex. Negro slavery) disproves the “best of all worlds” theodicy. If life were so great, death would not need be gatekept with fearful emotions; death is presented as a positive, not negative evil. Optimism is cope, an artifact of the will to live. The fine-tuning argument surprisingly proves if the world were any worse, it couldn’t exist. Hence the worst possible

Our lives are defined by striving toward something better, and we are never satisfied. Once we get what we want, it comes not as sustained joy but relief, and then everything we do manage to build up becomes a greater burden until we die and lose everything. We feel loss more deeply than gain, and most happiness is only recognized in the absence of suffering; hence why entertaining stories must have conflict.

Ch. 2 Schopenhauer offers a proto-Darwinian interpretation of the Will to Life, which exists in self-preservation but even more strongly in the urge to have sex and reproduce the next generation. He sees the taboo nature of sexual acts as an expression of cognitive dissonance between Western natalist culture and the underlying recognition that childbirth perpetuates the sufferings of life and death upon a new person.

I'm gonna skip talking about the foreword and Schopenhauer's life timeline to the 1st chapter.
A human life is characterized by continuous suffering interrupted by brief moments of relief, which we call pleasure. Unlike animals, however, men suffer the most because of foresight, fear, and boredom. Life usually sums up to be a disappointment.
The idea of an omniscient benevolent god is manifestly false.

Frankenstein pursues the creature over land and sea, motivated by vengeance. The creature deliberately leaves clues, and Vic follows him to the frozen north where the story begins. The cold is too much for Walton and his crew. The mission is a failure. Frankenstein dies. The creature appears and gives one last soliloquy before disappearing with the intention of killing himself with fire.

Vic mucks about before heading to England with Clerval to create the female. He is betrothed to Elizabeth on his return.
In Scotland, while building the female, he decides the creatures cannot be trusted or predicted, and destroys the female’s frame in front of the creature’s horrified eyes. The creature kills Clerval in retaliation.
When Vic returns, he marries Elizabeth, whom the creature promptly kills.

Vic hikes a mountain, where the creature confronts him. The latter tells his origin story:
He was chased out of town by villagers. He observes a family to learn speech and literacy while gathering firewood for them. When he reveals himself, they attack him. He saves a drowning girl but is shot by her father.
Creature’s suffering is Vic’s fault, and Vic must create a female creature to accompany the creature.

Upon Frankenstein's return to his hometown, he discovers that his little brother William has been murdered by the creature. The servant Justine is framed for the murder, and, Victor being too weak to intervene strongly, she is executed.

R. Walton is on a ship expedition to the North Pole. He finds Dr. Vic Frankenstein stranded on an ice floe and brings him aboard, nursing him to health. Frankenstein tells a tale of why he’s there.
He tells of his childhood, creation of his creature in early adulthood, and return to his hometown afterward.

Circe somehow manages to convince Helios to free her from her exile on Aiaia. Penelope learns witchcraft and becomes the new Witch of Aiaia. Circe goes with Telemachus and Trygon's tail to murder Scylla to death. She collects the transformational flowers and makes a potion to turn herself mortal.
Also, she wants to fuck Telemachus.

Telegonus returns with Telemachus and Penelope. Odysseus seized Telegonus' barb and died by its poison. That's why Athena wanted Telegonus dead. But turns out Odysseus was a bad guy who turned into a PTSD'd, paranoid, and murderous pirate. Now that he's dead, Athena wants Telemachus as champion, but since he refuses, the honor goes to Telegonus instead.

Apparently the rest of the novel is based on apocryphal summaries: Circe has a brat by Odysseus named Telegonus. Athena tries to kill him, but Circe somehow wards her off. When he grows up, she takes the barb of a made-up stingray-god Trygon and sends him off with it as protection to find Odysseus.

Circe returns to Aiaia. Medea visits with Jason under her spell and received help before unceremoniously leaving. Aeetes chases after, and is revealed to be an asshole now.
Visitors from lost ships start visiting. They are all either rapists or people for Circe to rape. Then Odysseus comes, and Circe has a fling with him too before sending him home to Ithaca.
Basically all men are either cruel rapists or flings.

Circe wanders around the island and becomes fwb with Hermes. Then she gets called to Crete to deliver the Minotaur, and has a fling with Daedalus.
In dealing with Pasiphae and Daedalus, she learns what it means to be a god, a mortal, a noble, and a commoner. We also see her powers grow.

The Skeleton Key is another "novella," but closer to novelette. It's about a girl who worships Hermes and, with His help, is turned into a Shade after her kidnapping, torture and sacrifice by Satanists. She spends the rest of the story establishing communications with her family, friends, and law enforcement in order to comfort them and catch the killers. Pretty standard supernatural fiction, not too earthshattering.

Vigil is set in (what was then) the near future, when ghosts suddenly come back to the world en masse and begin to outnumber the living. The events that follow are stated in a matter-of-fact manner, as in a set of journal entries.

I didn't really like it. I thought the consequences wouldn't just be "humans leave for Antarctica/space to escape the dead, Kennedy re-elected president. It was also just kind of soulless.

I have finished studying the All-Purpose System and am working through the French Defense. Oui oui baguette hon hon! Always retreat!

Just past the origin story. Circe has been inspired by Prometheus, explored the world, been "Don't You Want Me Baby"d by Glaucos and monsterfied his lover Scylla in revenge, admitted to that crime, and is about to be exiled. Pretty compelling stuff so far.

Mom's Cooking is a witty and creative supernatural low fantasy which imagines ancestors giving the main character unsolicited assistance from beyond the grave. Frankly, delicious!

The Silent Treatment is the first (short) story in this collection I enjoyed. It's an ultra-low fantasy tale involving ants and motifs of emotional and relationship abuse, self-reliance, nature, and more. Not only does it give the main character flaws, loss, and growth, but it does so in just a few compelling pages.

The Siren Shoals, which is described as a "novella," is probably more accurately called a novelette. It all kinda went by fast. Something about a "bad boy" main character who fucks a hot chick and then blows up some space pirates... Yeah.

The Bone Woman is about some sort of character from Native American tales. I didn't really get it, but it was fine.

Chroncorp was about time travel, but historically inaccurate.