looking to expand my horizons. My last 2 books: the power of introverts and the subtle art of not giving a f*ck.
You must log in or register to comment.
The Illiad, unfortunately the translation i got is the worse it could be
I just got into Brandon Sandersons books and they are amazing fantasy books. Mistborn: The Final Empire is the best starting place
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Truly magnificent, just like the movie by Tarkovsky.
In parallel to that I went also down the rabbit hole about what cybernetics was and what happened to it.
I mean I’m a communist so YMMV, but I’m re-reading the Vietnamese textbook on Dialectical Materialism that Luna Oi translated. I’m re-reading it because I also have the second textbook she translated (on Historical Materialism) and I wanted to brush up before diving in to that one.
Luna Oi is a great comrade! She is doing so much for the cause!
Noice. I hope to get this sometime.
I’ve found it to be the most concise and straightforward (and yet thorough) primer on dialectical materialism that I’ve come across so far. In particular I liked how the book split dialectical materialism (the philosophy) from materialist dialectics (the tools of analysis).
I’m reading The Light of all that falls by James Islington (3rd book in The Licanius trilogy)
Licanius was so good, I like Hierarchy but so far it hasn’t captivated me like that first trilogy did
Dungeon Crawler Carl. The premise is that aliens take over the world and immediately kill 99% of the population. The remaining 1% are forced to compete on an intergalactic reality TV show called Dungeon Crawler World. The series is a scathing critique of modern capitalism, dressed up like a fart joke. If you liked The Good Place, you’ll likely enjoy DCC. Book 8 just released earlier this month, with more on the horizon.
He Who Fights With Monsters is a fun fantasy isekai series. The world-building in this one is absolutely top notch, to the point that I have considered ripping entire cities out of it for my tabletop games. The main character is pretty divisive, and enjoying the series is dependent on liking him. So the people who enjoy the series really enjoy it, and the ones who dislike Jason simply can’t like it. It has 12 books currently. It would have been 13 by now, but the author was in a medically induced coma for lots of last year. That kind of put a damper on his writing schedule. But he is back to writing now, so book 13 is set to release soon.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) was a nice sci-fi series. It’s still ongoing, but book 6’s release date is TBA. Nerdy computer programmer gets Futurama’d and frozen. But instead of waking up in a distant future like he expected, he wakes up as an AI in charge of a self-replicating space probe.
I’m on book three of the Bobiverse. I’m enjoying it. The nice thing is that they’re not super dense.
Yup. It does a good job of breaking up the action by having multiple parallel storylines going at the same time. This helps it avoid feeling like “all gas, no brakes” that many fiction authors tend to fall into.
And the “sci” in sci-fi is typically kept fairly light. Lots of authors (looking at you, Crichton) get bogged down in trying to explain all of the minutiae of how their science works. It’s like they’re afraid that if they fail to explain the science, their world-building will all fall apart. But this means they can be a slog to get through, because the author spends entire chapters explaining background features, instead of focusing on the action. The Bobiverse managed to avoid this, and only touches on the science side when it’s relevant.
Glurp glurp!
Poject Hail Mary, The Martian
Both by Andy Weir.Also M.O.N.A. and S.I.N.O.N. by Dan T. Sehlberg
The books by Andy Weir are hard sci-fi books. Very grounded in physical/realistic expectations but with a sprinkle of “the future”.
The books by Dan Sehlberg are IT thriller-like novels.
Basically something like current ‘Neuralink’.
The first books plot is about a scientist developing a brain-computer interface enabling the user to visit cyberspace in a sort of advanced VR like world but full on inside instead of just goggles you put on.
His wife trials it, visits her job sites web page during a cyber attack on the jobs IT-infrastructure, get’s in contact with the malware there and brings the digital virus inside her to the real world.
Now the digital malware/virus has become a biological one. The scientist now wants to find the cure for the illness.New Scientist magazine, the paper version so that I can put it down, think about it, and come back a week later. I’m not a scientist, and not highly educated, but I’m curious about the world, and many of their articles are easy to read at my level.
The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Non-fiction:
- The Demon-Haunted World
- The Fourth Turning is Here
Fiction:
- There is No Antimemetics Division
Demon Haunted World is very timely
Always has been :(
I had put off reading it because I assumed it would be mostly preaching to the choir, but there are some challenging chapters to think about.
Ex. the idea that all the people who believe in aliens, and reject vaccines, and wear tinfoil hats, they’re all doing the first step of science: which is to doubt. The problem is that people are generally untrained on what to do next.
The question is whether this modern era of science is an anomaly, or if there’s something about the scientific method that gives it an advantage. If we fell completely into a dark age, is it inevitable that we find our way back? Or was this time period just a fluke?
It notes that throughout history, the dominant nation has always been the one who wields science most effectively. And the US wouldn’t be the first to fall because it failed to.
I wish Carl were still around. He had a knack for cutting through bullshit we could really use right now
Did you like Antimemetics Division? I saw the Short video with Jasika Nicole (Astrid from Fringe), and it felt like a mix between bad sci fi that took itself too seriously and a dumb joke.
I did like the book, it’s not a 10/10, but it’s fun and I like weird fiction. I think both SCP and the Remedy Connected Universe are delightfully mysterious.
I hadn’t watched that short yet, just did. I see what you mean, but it was relatively true to the first chapter of the book. It’s really hard to do this genre justice in video form I think. Partly due to budget, but partly because what you didn’t like about it is a perfect description of the entire SCP universe: a giant, very serious conspiracy theory that fans swear is completely true and “THEY” don’t want you to know about it…while obviously being a absurd work of fiction. It’s like 80s horror, you have to embrace the campiness to enjoy it.
The notion of an anti-meme is interesting to think about too. Not really in a supernatural sense, but in a sociological/anthropological one. Are there things in this world that people have trouble wrapping their head around, things we can’t seem to pin down and understand and assign an easy-to-proliferate name to, but nonetheless hurt us?
The blade itself is what I’m current reading (when not frantically trying to catchup on one piece)
Joe Abercrombe is great. His books only get better. I haven’t read his YA stuff but I’ve read all his other books and love, love, loved every one of them.
The only thing I am reading rn is Capital but I don’t think you came here for political theory so I will recommend The Hot Zone. It’s the last book I read and it’s about the discovery of Ebola, its investigations, and how it got to the US.
Malazan
I just got a kobo for Christmas so I’ve been catching up on a ton of Stephen King I hadn’t made time for, re-reading some Michael Crichton. Trying out some of Clive Barker’s horror stuff (never read it before).
Just read Back To The Island, a companion/episode guide to Lost. Which has made me want to watch the show again.
The Fifth Season. I’m currently on the second book The Obelisk Gate so can’t attest for the quality of the whole thing but it’s geological fantasy and I find it quite fascinating. The scale of the world and conflict keeps getting bigger and bigger. It’s very dark but also really draws you in as things ramp up. Themes of the paradox of tolerance, and the challenge of preparing for future crises. The magic system she came up with also feels very fresh to me
