Hello, and welcome to Unsong by Scott Alexander, version 1, edition 1 (date: [not finished]), a product of https://github.com/wyattscarpenter/unsong-book-fetcher/ by Stuart Langridge and Wyatt S Carpenter. That's right, we liked the story so much that we made a software project to turn it into a book! (There are several such software projects, as I shall detail later below.)
This is the foreword to the book, which is written by Wyatt S Carpenter. This foreword is skippable (except for this "useful advice" section, which you should read), and you will not lose anything by not reading it. It merely exists to document some facts about the production of this book that you may find interesting or useful.
There are two important pieces of advice this foreword can offer you:
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After finishing the Epilogue, you have finished Unsong. I recommend you do not read the Tosefta immediately. The Tosefta is a sort of director's commentary on the novel, and so is best enjoyed (in my opinion) after you have mulled over the novel for a while by yourself. Wait possibly a week? Whenever you feel like it's time to crack into it is probably a fine time to return and read the Tosefta.
- (There are slight spoilers in this bullet point.) The Tosefta was written as a reward for the community figuring out the explicit name of God, so you might wish to try figuring that out first, as a fun challenge.
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Don't read "Interlude י: The Broadcast"§II. Skip directly to §III.
- Don't worry too much about remembering this, as you will be reminded; the chapter in question has a "Content warning: Part II of this chapter contains..." note at the beginning; it is the first "Content warning" note in the book, and is also several sentences long (by the way: I personally recommend not reading those sentences, either; I would say stop reading the content warning after that bit I just quoted).
- If you are willing to follow this advice unquestioningly, you may now stop reading this series of bullet points; in the rest I simply justify this guidence, without spoilers, for those who require such an explanation.
- §II is vivid, disturbing, and very unsettling. If you like that stuff, go ahead and read it. If you are the other 95% of humanity, do not read it. There is nothing special about it otherwise, and no reason to read it unless you are a fan of the most gruesome and upsetting types of horror (which some people are, of course; but most aren't). I wouldn't even have included it in this compilation of this book, except for completion's sake. (Interestingly, Matt Arnold's audiobook also states, of the corresponding audio, "I recommend you do not listen to it, but am recording it for completeness." — and has additional softening alterations as well.)
- This is the first "Content warning" warning of the book, and later parts of the book also have "Content warning"s, but unfortunately those undercut the impact of the first "Content warning", as the later chapters with such warnings are positively benign by comparision. I recommend reading those later chapters, unless you are very easily disturbed (& if you are that easily disturbed, this may not be an appropriate book for you? There are less stressful books you could read...), but do not update your estimation of how much to avoid §II based on that.
- Oddly, Unsong version 2 still has an "Interlude כ: The Broadcast"§II. My advice ("don't read") still goes for that, and also for every version and rendition of The Broadcast§II thusfar known to me. (Amusing(?) example: the creator of an Unsong painting cut out the portion about Hell, for various reasons including this.) I honestly think it's strange that the revised version didn't take §II out. It also doesn't have a content warning (understandably, since this sort of internet-style peritext was excised from Version 2 entirely). Maybe he thinks we're sissies. The kabbalistic implications of the fact that "כ:" makes a frowny face are immense. "י:" isn't nearly strong enough.
- (There are slight spoilers in this bullet point.) There are no important plot points contained in §II. In fact, there are no plot points in it that relate to the larger story & no useful information in it that can't be inferred from descriptions in the rest of the text. In the interest of honesty I feel the need to tell you that there is an incident in §II that I suspect was supposed to connect to the larger story, but said connections were eventually scrapped by the author as he couldn't get the fictive timeline to work out. (This is my personal theory, and once I read Version 2 I guess I'll have more evidence for or against that theory.) If you must read this incident, simply skim through to the paragraph kind of near the end that begins with "As he spoke, my eyes were caught by a different part of the scene: a young woman sitting in a rusted iron chair" and read that paragraph. You may then stop reading §II entirely. (Although, also, the stuff after that paragraph is only moderately horrifying to read in a story, so I suppose you could also just read on from that point if you really want to.)
- By the way, §II is not a poorly-written section of the book or anything. If anything, the way it keeps up the humor and quality of writing throughout will lull you into a false sense of security about reading the section — but it will be a false sense.
- If you have read this series of bullet points this far and are uncertain whether or not to read §II, I advise against reading The Broadcast§II in the strongest possible terms available under my limited authority as compiler of the book ("some guy"). Again, the exception for people who like gruesome horror applies; you know who you are. I advise against reading it for the same reason I advise against doing a Google Image Search for "mulitated corpses" or something (I've never done this search, by the way). But with even greater a magnitude of warning-against. I've included this section in the compilation, and I want to make sure you don't accidentally read that section, just because it's there. You shouldn't.
With that said, I hope you enjoy the book! It is a very good book.
And now, on with the rest of the forward...
Let us skip by the creation of the universe, the entirety of evolutionary & human life, and the birth and goings-on of its author. Unsong was announced on December 30, 2015 by Scott Alexander on his blog, Slate Star Codex, with this post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/30/introducing-unsong/ .
That post was the prologue, as a teaser, and included a link to http://www.unsongbook.com/ , the web home of Unsong. (https://unsongbook.com is a better link to the same place.)
Not to be confused with editions, printings, or volumes, the story Unsong also comes in two versions: 1 and 2. Scientists have speculated for years that there may be other possible version identifiers past 1 and 2, but since those are the only versions so far, the world may never know.
(This is like Vatican 2, because this is not a coincedence because nothing is a coincedence.)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/unsong-available-in-paperback
This question doesn't make a lot of sense. I guess you "should" read version 2. That's the point of him having made it. But you already have version 1 in your hot little (possibly figurative) hands.
There is also an audiobook version of Unsong (Version 1) available at https://unsong.libsyn.com/ or conveniently compiled into one file at https://www.reddit.com/r/unsong/comments/1b0yt32/full_audiobook_m4b_download_link/