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HenryJLittlefinger posted:Can I please get some book recommendations? Don’t know if this will fit what you’re after because it is rather long and convoluted, and not really mindless. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis was a delightful, fun read. And very sci-fi adjacent, rather than strictly sci-fi.
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May 11, 2022 22:30
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newts posted:Don’t know if this will fit what you’re after because it is rather long and convoluted, and not really mindless. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis was a delightful, fun read. And very sci-fi adjacent, rather than strictly sci-fi. External Organs posted:Brandon Sanderson's Skyward series is YA science fiction that super meets the "Amusing, quirky, clever, and somewhat mindless" requirement. The last book comes out either this fall or the next, I can't remember. They are fun romps imo. Kvlt! posted:Interstellar Gunrunner series (disclaimer: I might be biased because the author is an old friend) is excellent and exactly up your alley. It's a space opera trilogy with some cool weird concepts and a lot of humor. Hieronymous Alloy posted:There's more comic fantasy than comic sf. Gripweed posted:The Ciaphas Cain series. Don't let the fact that it's Warhammer put you off, it's a fun adventure series with a likable rogue lead, not grimdark at all. Franchescanado posted:Funny, quirky, clever, books: Thanks yall. I'll look into these and see what's available as ebooks from my library. I read To Say Nothing of the Dog a few years back and enjoyed that. Connie Willis can go either way for me, I like most of her shorter fiction, Belwether was just kind of eh, but I found Passage kind of difficult to get through. Very engaging but the very slow first person account of the protagonist's death was tough. The last scene was a tearjerker. No opposition to fantasy either, although the only kind of fantasy I can ever summon interest in is the funny stuff like Pratchett, Holt, Moore. I'll try anything though. Maybe this is the summer to rediscover Vonnegut. I'm a big fan and read all of them in college. My wife and I have a full collection of all of his stuff, even had some readings at our wedding by the minister (his idea!).
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May 11, 2022 22:48
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:Can I please get some book recommendations? Stanislaw Lem. Check out Memoirs of a Space Traveller.
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May 12, 2022 06:18
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:Can I please get some book recommendations? Dungeon Crawler Carl might be perfect if you can look past the trashy genre and fantasy trappings. Combine Running Man with Evil Dead and a lovely MMO and you've got close to an idea of what Dungeon Crawler Carl is about.
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May 12, 2022 10:27
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So like Another day, another dungeon?
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May 12, 2022 10:51
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:Can I please get some book recommendations? Robert Rankin? He's not my favorite, but he's another Brit working in the same vein as Adams, Holt, and Pratchett, so you may enjoy him.
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May 12, 2022 11:59
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Azhais posted:So like Another day, another dungeon? I cant believe someone else read this. I picked it up as a kid back in like 1991. It isn't a great book or anything, but it is a great send-up of the party-based dungeon crawl (and what happens after) with some ljteral laugh-out-loud moments. Never read the sequels so I can't say if they're any good, though.
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May 12, 2022 13:11
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Is there a book parallel to Lendon's Soldiers and Ghosts but for China? If you know China well but not that book: it's a social history masquerading as a military history, trying to get at the question of "what was the self-perception and social norms of being a warrior/soldier in Ancient Greece & Classical Rome?" The reason I'm asking about China specifically is that I have some understanding of premodern Chinese representations of soldiers by scholar-elites, who generally looked down on the military pretty hard, but obviously your stereotypical premodern Chinese soldier (Guan Yu, Yue Fei, Zhu Yuanzhang) are seemingly not-even-dismissive of this, seemingly from a completely different culture. I wanna know what that culture was like. Tl;dr - is there a good book about how Chinese soldiers viewed themselves pre-1900?
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May 12, 2022 13:35
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Are there any good novels about or set during the Bubonic Plague / Black Death? I've got Between Two Fires, and The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson seems like an alt. history take on it?
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May 16, 2022 15:47
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Franchescanado posted:Are there any good novels about or set during the Bubonic Plague / Black Death? Kind of. The Years of Rice and Salt is set in an alt history where the Black Death was much more severe and virtually depopulated Europe, so when the Mongols show up they can just stroll in and take over. The rest of the book is examining how history developed from there. As for other Black Death books, I liked Connie Willis's Doomsday Book, although reaction seems to have been more mixed around here.
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May 16, 2022 16:03
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Selachian posted:Kind of. The Years of Rice and Salt is set in an alt history where the Black Death was much more severe and virtually depopulated Europe, so when the Mongols show up they can just stroll in and take over. The rest of the book is examining how history developed from there. I liked Doomsday Book too, for what it's worth. I thought it gave a nice grim depiction of how the plague might have affected a small town, and I liked the counterpoint of the modern epidemic. Though I completely misunderstood the sections about bell-ringers and thought they were ringing handbells. So the rehearsals where everyone was dipping at the knees and swaying their whole bodies seemed unnecessarily dramatic.
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May 17, 2022 00:34
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Franchescanado posted:Are there any good novels about or set during the Bubonic Plague / Black Death? The Plague by Albert Camus, if you wanna have a good think about how absurd this all is, horrifically.
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May 17, 2022 00:38
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I'm interested in reading nonfiction that paints a vivid picture of everyday life in the global south. It's not a dealbreaker if it's by a white guy who's relaying the experiences of people he talks to while abroad. It can involve war and atrocity and governmental repression, but the focus has to be on how it affected normal people.
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May 17, 2022 00:38
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That's half the world. Are you looking for books about specific places or one book covering the entire global south? also are you looking for a specific time period or just modern times?
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May 17, 2022 00:53
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Franchescanado posted:Are there any good novels about or set during the Bubonic Plague / Black Death? Neal Stephenson's "The Baroque Cycle" takes place during the plague, but there's a lot of it and a lot of that isn't plague-centric.
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May 17, 2022 01:22
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FPyat posted:I'm interested in reading nonfiction that paints a vivid picture of everyday life in the global south. It's not a dealbreaker if it's by a white guy who's relaying the experiences of people he talks to while abroad. It can involve war and atrocity and governmental repression, but the focus has to be on how it affected normal people. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters is about the Congo War and consists primarily of interviewing people affected by the war. The first one is a Rwandan general but that's one of the least "normal" people in it, the vast majority are farmers and casual soldiers and minor village notables like priests. e: Gotta be clear that it is a rough time, emotionally
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May 17, 2022 02:06
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Kvlt! posted:That's half the world. Are you looking for books about specific places or one book covering the entire global south? Any single country or region, 1800 or after.
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May 17, 2022 12:45
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Franchescanado posted:Are there any good novels about or set during the Bubonic Plague / Black Death? Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell is interesting - it felt like a pretty realistic portrayal of the times. It's a biography of Shakespeare's son, and of Shakespeare, and parts of it are excellent. The ending, in particular, is very good.
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May 17, 2022 21:38
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FPyat posted:I'm interested in reading nonfiction that paints a vivid picture of everyday life in the global south. It's not a dealbreaker if it's by a white guy who's relaying the experiences of people he talks to while abroad. It can involve war and atrocity and governmental repression, but the focus has to be on how it affected normal people. It may be too sweeping but The Open Veins of Latin America is quite beautiful. There was one centred around Cuban propaganda artists in the 60s and 70s but I can’t recall the name now. Google fails me. Nothing to Envy sounds like exactly what you’re looking for. That’s kind of Barbara Demick’s genre so take a look at her other stuff as well. Blood River by Tim Butcher ends problematically but otherwise includes a lot of slice of life in DRC in the late 2000s in the gap between the end of the Second Congo War and the current sporadic conflicts.
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May 18, 2022 01:27
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Senjuro posted:Out of that list I only read Spin, it wasn't what I was looking for though. It was a character focused drama with some sci-fi in the background. I want just pure science and engineering porn like The Martian and Project Hail Mary. Yes, those have some additional elements to them but they're secondary and that's fine.
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May 18, 2022 06:48
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I've never read Wittgenstein and think it's about time. Where should I start?
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May 23, 2022 04:47
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:I've never read Wittgenstein and think it's about time. Where should I start? Philosophical Investigations Really there's only two books, that and the Tractatus. In theory Wittgenstein wants you to read the Tractatus then PI but like...Tractatus is pretty hard and he got mad at people for not understanding it at all so IDK.
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May 23, 2022 06:30
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Five Books did an interview with Peter Hacker, who has written a bunch of books on Wittgenstein. His recommendations are not to dive right in to the primary books, but to situate yourself with some introductory material and biographical details first. quote:It’s impossible to understand without deep knowledge of his great predecessors, Frege and Russell. It is too difficult to recommend to anyone who is not familiar with their work. I have chosen memoirs and intellectual biographies that describe his life and work. He had an intensity about him that was apparently quite awesome and fairly frightening. Wittgenstein had a passion for the subject that was extraordinary. It’s difficult to separate out his life from his work, which is true of all great geniuses. Anyway this is his list: Ludwig Wittgenstein by Edward Kanterian Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius by Ray Monk Recollections of Wittgenstein by (ed.) Rush Rhees Wittgenstein by Severin Schroeder The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy by Friedrich Waismann This part made me laugh: quote:Are there particular anecdotes that come to mind?
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May 23, 2022 13:47
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Lol drat, I gotta read five books first huh. Alright, let's do this (thanks for the recommendations!)
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May 23, 2022 15:55
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:Lol drat, I gotta read five books first huh. Alright, let's do this I think this is the first time I've seen https://fivebooks.com/ mentioned in the thread, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Their Twitter feed is an excellent follow, and they have a list of expert recommendations on a lot of topics.
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May 23, 2022 19:22
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Looking for something not too dry on the history and evolution of languages, specifically their similarities. Maybe like a history of cognates or something like that. Any language is fine, but also any good books about Latin and its derivatives would be cool, too.
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May 25, 2022 05:09
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rollick posted:This part made me laugh: Re: anecdotes, there's a whole book written about the time he threatened a guy with a poker. Too bad it's written by horrible BBC guys (their fascism only shines through in like one or two passages).  e: (It's not really just about the incident, it gives a lot of background on Wittgenstein and his work.)
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May 25, 2022 12:23
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:Can I please get some book recommendations? I'm late on this, but not yet 8 weeks late  Interstellar Patrol 1 & 2 by Christopher Anvil are fun sci-fi adventure anthologies. The Trouble with Humans is also good. https://www.amazon.com/Christopher-Anvil/e/B001H6KKBU/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1
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May 28, 2022 18:29
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Looking for non-traditional post apocalyptic fiction, stuff like post apocalypse but in an alien or fantasy setting. Anything like that out there?
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May 29, 2022 03:40
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Opopanax posted:Looking for non-traditional post apocalyptic fiction, stuff like post apocalypse but in an alien or fantasy setting. Anything like that out there? You read Oryx and Crake yet?
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May 29, 2022 05:51
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Yep! Good suggestion though
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May 29, 2022 06:41
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Opopanax posted:Looking for non-traditional post apocalyptic fiction, stuff like post apocalypse but in an alien or fantasy setting. Anything like that out there? James Blish's Black Easter / The Day After Judgement?
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May 29, 2022 14:45
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Opopanax posted:Looking for non-traditional post apocalyptic fiction, stuff like post apocalypse but in an alien or fantasy setting. Anything like that out there? If you've already read that, maybe The Night Land?
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May 29, 2022 19:44
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Those both sound good but not sure they're quite what I'm looking for. I'm thinking like post apocalypse stuff, Mad Max/Walking Dead etc, but on a world with wizards or something. I'm reading Last Exit right now and that's probably what put it in my head, stuff like that
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May 29, 2022 21:16
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I guess if you're desperate, most of the last book of the Dragonlance: Legends trilogy is kind of like that. And I haven't kept up with Dragonlance since the early 90s but there's a lot of talk in the earlier books about an event called the Cataclysm which is basically the gods destroying the world, I'm certain some later books must be set in that time period. E: there are 200 loving Dragonlance books 🤯
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May 29, 2022 21:24
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Then move seamlessly into however many Shannara books there are!
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May 29, 2022 22:36
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Opopanax posted:Looking for non-traditional post apocalyptic fiction, stuff like post apocalypse but in an alien or fantasy setting. Anything like that out there? Rebecca Roanhorse has a series that's Native American mythology inspired post apocalypse. It's our world but after the apocalypse, magic and gods are back. The first book is Trail of Lightning, I don't think the series is done yet if it matters to you. It's also YA and I personally wasn't wowed with it but maybe you'll like it more.
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May 29, 2022 22:48
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Opopanax posted:Those both sound good but not sure they're quite what I'm looking for. I'm thinking like post apocalypse stuff, Mad Max/Walking Dead etc, but on a world with wizards or something. I'm reading Last Exit right now and that's probably what put it in my head, stuff like that Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, sort of, but it predates mad max. Any "dark sun" d&d licensed fiction is quite literally mad max but with wizards. Look up the art. https://i.imgur.com/w1Bn5K0_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium
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May 29, 2022 23:16
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The Pelbar Cycle by Paul O. Williams doesn't have magic, but does take place in a post apocalypse America, though way after any knowledge of America or even the ancient apocalypse was lost. It's basically pre-colony America, with lots of hostile tribes and some mutants and wastelands stuff.
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May 30, 2022 01:52
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The video game Splatoon
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