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we've got threads on big postmodern tomes like Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow and all that, and that's great. books that strain your brain are good imo, as are non-fiction books or harrowing powerful books or just generally books that you need to focus on. but sometimes you just want something light and engaging that you can plow through, like kicking through leaves rather than performing an archaeological dig. stuff that's got just enough of a twist to make you go "ahah!" but not enough plot jumps that getting distracted by something irl particularly matters. books you can browse while watching TV, basically. something that does not expect a lot of you. to emphasise, i'm not talking about bad books. just stuff you can read easily and that doesn't exactly blow your mind with revelations on the human condition. i tend to alternate light reading with heavy, and here's some light stuff i've enjoyed recently: shadows of the apt by adrian tchaikovsky  the world has everyone part of a grouping called "kindens". these kindens are broadly a race of humans that correspond to a particular bug, e.g. Beetles, Dragonflies. lots of them can fly and they all have different Things they can do, e.g. dragonflies are extremely good fliers, and wasps can fire a bolt of electricity known as their sting. seperately, the kindens are also seperated into Apt (can use technology) and Inapt (cannot use technology - as in, literally cannot conceptualise how a door latch would work). as the series starts, the Wasps have unified their homeland and have started empirebuilding. this isn't really a spoiler, it's the prologue. and also the title of the first book. what makes this series fun is the fact that it's just this incredible arms race, as the Apt keep discovering and implementing more and more technological marvels in response to the events of the novels, the Inapt keep escalating on their side, and the author keeps casting around desperately for new insects that haven't been used yet. basically it's a homebrew d&d setting stretched out into like ten novels, but despite how that sounds it's pretty interesting. if you like books that have like a rules-based magic system behind them, it's a very similar concept. it's real easy to grasp because everyone knows what bugs are, and Tchaikovsky has a knack for churning out reams and reams of servicable and readable prose, which is not faint praise. it's not exactly gene wolfe, but there are some fun callbacks. overall: four ants out of five, very light fun  gentlemen of the road by michael chabon  historical fiction where two jewish bandits ply the silk road, and have adventures before getting wrapped up in internal business in the kingdom of the khazars. it's cool to see stuff set in an area and timeperiod that i don't know much about. this book's pretty short, pretty snappy, and although a lot of people in reviews have bitched about the prose being baroque and overwrought, i actually thought it was alright. it's got a kind of detachment that makes it clear someone is relaying a story to you rather than something that sweeps you along as if you're really there. it is also chapter based so nice and easy to pick up and put down. there's plague and raiding and refugees in this so it's not light reading in the sense of "bedtime story for your toddler" but it's one you might polish off on a lazy weekend day. overall: four ankuses out of five, quick and self-contained  frontlines series by marko kloos  it's the future, and the future loving sucks!!! joining the army is a great way out of it sucking, though, and that's what the protagonist of the frontlines series does. shame he did that immediately prior to first contact, though. engagingly written milscifi, but at the same time very very formulaic. this isn't graydon saunders' Commonweal-style playback where it's so laconic you really have to work at figuring out what's going on. this is a very "i have the reports in front of me so i will explain what happened conversationally" style. the books usually settle into a "wandering around in peace time with a promo mission" first half, "prepping for big mission" at the start of the second half, and then "the big mission and debrief" for the rest. you know what you're going to get. also there's no lovingly detailed chunks of text about people or people-analogues dying, which is nice. you can just settle back and enjoy the aliens getting shot. overall: four pulse rifles out of five, nice and repetitive  but yeah what easy books have you read lately. tell me.
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Apr 25, 2023 10:38
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All of c j cherry's books are quite fun and in this vein I think. Also Becky Chambers. Both worth trying out!
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Apr 25, 2023 11:17
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Adventures of Huck Finn, Left Hand of Darkness, A whole lot of Vonnegut but I'll say Cat's Cradle. There are also many colorful works based on the television adventures of "Scooby-Doo," which I find particularly thrilling.
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Apr 25, 2023 17:54
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Stark by Ben Elton A light 80s satire about Earth dying by one of the luvvies that wrote Blackadder where the 'protagonist' is an obvious self-insert. Hey wait where are you going- This probably isn't his most polished novel but it's his first one so he hasn't started repeating himself and strip mining his stand-up routines for gags. Stark is like the Epstein thread wrote a show about climate change to air at 9pm on BBC2. It's sharp and pretty funny and has a clever ending that's probably even more bitter if you were to read it in 2023. The Warlord Chronicles (a trilogy - The Winter King, Enemy of God and Excalibur) by Bernard Cornwell  Now these are the writer's best novels, by a loving mile. Cornwell is freed from the prison of the known because he's writing a semi-realistic interpretation of King Arthur in the only real Dark Age, that weird bit after the Romans hosed off from Britain and before anyone worked out how to do plumbing again. A dark, looming air of magic hangs over all of this. It's fantastic e: adopted thread house-style with jpgs Shogi fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Apr 25, 2023 |
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Apr 25, 2023 21:19
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FunkyAl posted:Adventures of Huck Finn, Left Hand of Darkness, A whole lot of Vonnegut but I'll say Cat's Cradle. There are also many colorful works based on the television adventures of "Scooby-Doo," which I find particularly thrilling. seconding really anything by vonnegut. novels, short stories, essays--breezy stuff, and by design given kurt jr did not want readers excluded due to vocab limitations. wish i could track down the exact quote he said on this...
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Apr 26, 2023 01:06
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