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VagueRant posted:Got a craving for some military historical fiction and was going to look at Sharpe and Aubrey-Maturin. I loved the Master & Commander film but struggle with getting into the books, I think it's the way the characters talk & stuff. One day I'll persevere with it & find a good time. On Sharpe, my dad loving loves those books so there's a big thumbs up from him. Dad also loves Don Quixote, he described it as a bit like Blackadder so if your up for a bit of an epic read theres that. Be warned, its a loving long book.
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Dec 24, 2023 17:15
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Trainee PornStar posted:I loved the Master & Commander film but struggle with getting into the books, I think it's the way the characters talk & stuff. One day I'll persevere with it & find a good time. I liked the one Sharpe's book I read at the same time and am afraid to try them again.
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Dec 24, 2023 19:30
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Dark Matter Lexicon City and City Carrion Comforts Night Circus I'm starting reading again for the first time in a decade. Which do I drive into?
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Dec 24, 2023 19:38
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VagueRant posted:Got a craving for some military historical fiction and was going to look at Sharpe and Aubrey-Maturin. Go old-school with C S Forester's Horatio Hornblower series.
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Dec 24, 2023 22:51
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VagueRant posted:Got a craving for some military historical fiction and was going to look at Sharpe and Aubrey-Maturin.
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Dec 25, 2023 01:41
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I'm looking for recommendations for any entertaining book/series that contains both scifi/technology and magic. Think... Shadowrun? I'm less concerned with whether or not the books are "good" in a literary sense, just if they are entertaining. For example, I think the Dungeon Crawler Carl series is awesome. They're not gonna win a World Fantasy Award or a Hugo, but they're a fun combo of SciFi and fantasy (admittedly much more SciFi overall).
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Dec 27, 2023 20:35
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Annath posted:I'm looking for recommendations for any entertaining book/series that contains both scifi/technology and magic. Think... Shadowrun? Science + magic, entertaining but not necessarily good? My friend, you want the Darksword Trilogy by Weis and Hickman E: note that it's strictly fantasy until the second book, when Earth discovers and invades the fantasy land. Tanks vs dragons and whatnot
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Dec 27, 2023 21:00
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I enjoyed the Starship's Mage series (to a point). All available via Kindle unlimited too
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Dec 27, 2023 21:06
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regulargonzalez posted:Science + magic, entertaining but not necessarily good? My friend, you want the Darksword Trilogy by Weis and Hickman I'll check them out!
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Dec 27, 2023 21:18
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Heck, Dune basically fits.
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Dec 27, 2023 23:50
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regulargonzalez posted:Heck, Dune basically fits. I read Dune years ago and it was fine, but not really my thing. It takes itself too seriously.
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Dec 28, 2023 00:02
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Annath posted:I'm looking for recommendations for any entertaining book/series that contains both scifi/technology and magic. Think... Shadowrun? A bit of a stretch, but Gideon the Ninth & co. are fantastically entertaining magical fantasy books with a smattering of scifi trappings.
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Dec 28, 2023 01:01
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Annath posted:I'm looking for recommendations for any entertaining book/series that contains both scifi/technology and magic. Think... Shadowrun? YOU WANT WARHAMMER 40,000, YOU ARE DESCRIBING WARHAMMER 40,000.
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Dec 28, 2023 05:02
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But then he'd have to read the 40k novels
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Dec 28, 2023 05:10
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Azhais posted:But then he'd have to read the 40k novels Some of them are good! The Infinite and the Divine is a straight up good sci-fi book, not even by 40k standards by normal book standards.
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Dec 28, 2023 05:14
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The Infinite and the Divine, Helsreach, the Twice Dead King duology, The Forges of Mars trilogy, the Fabius Bile Trilogy, the Night Lords trilogy, the Eisenhorn series, the Guant's Ghosts series, the Ciaphas Cain series, there's quality stuff in 40k!
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Dec 28, 2023 05:20
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Gripweed posted:YOU WANT WARHAMMER 40,000, YOU ARE DESCRIBING WARHAMMER 40,000. I really thought we’d see a star war book rec for this one, but I don’t know which are any good because I haven’t read them 
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Dec 28, 2023 23:13
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Annath posted:I'm looking for recommendations for any entertaining book/series that contains both scifi/technology and magic. Think... Shadowrun? Yoon Ha Lee's "Machineries of Empire" trilogy (starting with Ninefox Gambit) is space fantasy where "exotic technologies" (magic) are run by very complicated math enabled by proper cultural observance of a properly-designed calendar. Yes, literally. J.S. Morin's "Black Ocean" stories (starting with Salvage Trouble) are science fantasy where for the most part physics holds sway as we know it, except magic also exists and is the explanation behind FTL and some other super-advanced technologies. Very lightweight, the books are closer to novellas than novels and are meant to feel like reading an episode of a TV series. Robert Jackson Bennett's "Founders Trilogy" (starting with Foundryside) comes at it from the other direction, being a fantasy series with magic that works like technology, systematized to the point that the first book is basically written like a cyberpunk story. It edges back over into more epic fantasy in the subsequent books, but mostly because people are figuring out how to use the magitech in new ways and on grander scales.
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Dec 28, 2023 23:28
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tuyop posted:I really thought we’d see a star war book rec for this one, but I don’t know which are any good because I haven’t read them I actually read a lot of Star Wars novels when I was a kid, and none of them were good. The X-wing series was passable.
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Dec 28, 2023 23:39
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Of all the iffy books recommended here 40k books aren’t that bad. They are just middle of the road fantasy at worst with some gems sprinkled in. I found the short story collections to be pretty decent read. I thought they played a better role at setting the scene that the imperium isn’t winning often. The dark blade series wasn’t awful. I probably won’t pick it up for a while.
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Dec 29, 2023 00:07
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Gripweed posted:I actually read a lot of Star Wars novels when I was a kid, and none of them were good. The X-wing series was passable. The darth bane books had me hooked. Only trilogy out of the ton I read.
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Jan 1, 2024 06:24
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Annath posted:I'm looking for recommendations for any entertaining book/series that contains both scifi/technology and magic. Think... Shadowrun? There is a whole series of loving shed loads of books called Shadowrun, I've not read them so have no Idea as to the quality but they sound to have the same magic+tech thing that the game is based on. https://www.goodreads.com/series/91183-shadowrun-novels
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Jan 1, 2024 17:59
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Recently read The Ruined Map and The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe and The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai. Already got No Longer Human by Dazai lined up. Was looking for suggestions on more Japanese Literature.
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Jan 2, 2024 06:19
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Trainee PornStar posted:There is a whole series of loving shed loads of books called Shadowrun, I've not read them so have no Idea as to the quality but they sound to have the same magic+tech thing that the game is based on. I read the first few of these as a teen and enjoyed them on a recent reread that was only mostly nostalgia related. They're serviceable sci-fi/fantasy books and the setting is cool as hell. Edit: I only read Charrette and can't speak to any others.
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Jan 2, 2024 09:06
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Oh gently caress, Tom Dowd was my college professor for game design
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Jan 2, 2024 14:31
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TwoStepBoog posted:Recently read The Ruined Map and The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe and The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai. If you're looking for classics, I'd suggest looking into Soseki Natsume. I Am A Cat is a good place to start, and you can move outwards from there if you like that one. If you're looking for books by Japanese authors, period, and you like murder mysteries, I would recommend Seishi Yokomizo's books. He was heavily influenced by Western authors like Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, and his first book, The Honjin Murders, is a straight-up locked-room mystery. There are four in translation now and another one coming out soon-ish.
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Jan 3, 2024 23:06
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TwoStepBoog posted:Recently read The Ruined Map and The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe and The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai. Ryu Murakami is great. Piercing and Audition are easy rec's. Yukio Mishima is a thread darling in the Lit thread, and they recommend pretty much everything he wrote, but The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea are favorites. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe is another one. A cool non-fiction book is Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai, which I read in college. Published in 1843 and still a fresh and fun portrait of a Samurai in the Edo period. I haven't read Mieko Kawakami yet, but Breasts and Eggs has been on my list for a while. Last but not least, a fellow goon (I can't remember their name, sorry if you're reading) gifted me Hiromi Kawakami's little novella Parade, which read like a Studio Ghibli movie. Made me look into her novels Strange Weather in Tokyo and People From My Neighborhood.
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Jan 3, 2024 23:35
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Musui's Story owns
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Jan 4, 2024 01:20
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The first war series is a decent read. It’s not great, but definitely better than the last few suggestions I got. Getting a vibe the author didn’t have a great plan for the series but I could be wrong.
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Jan 5, 2024 01:32
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Really appreciate the recs a page or so back. Ended up diving in Dark Matter which reignited my love of reading I seemed to have lost over the course of my 20s. However the brain broken part of me requires I read a non-fiction simultaneously and hopefully this is the right place to ask about non-fiction as I am fighting between the following: Conspiracy Against the Human Race Elephant and the Brain Republic of Lies America Discontent People’s History of the United States A Lot of People Are Saying Culture of Fear Of course anything similar I haven’t listed would be great. Just noticed it is a pretty genre specific except Elephant. BUT if you have anything similar to Elephant of the Brain or The End of Everything (Katie Mack) I’m really digging the positive vibes. Edit/followup: Next fiction I’m thinking in Lexicon. Pulled from this thread. Thoughts on that anyone care to share or other recs off of Dark Matter? I’ve been toying with The City and the City, Carrion Comforts, and mmmaybe Night Circus. Seems a bit too lovey dovey maybe. Basically everything I listed at the top of this page I think lol 96 spacejam fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Jan 5, 2024 |
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Jan 5, 2024 12:21
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96 spacejam posted:Conspiracy Against the Human Race Based on the vibe here I think Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti fits the theme and will make it even harder to decide!
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Jan 5, 2024 12:57
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tuyop posted:Based on the vibe here I think Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti fits the theme and will make it even harder to decide! I was gonna say that Rick Perlstein's quadrilogy about post-war American conservatism; Before the Storm, Nixonland, Invisible Bridge, and Reaganland, would be a very good choice as well. They give you a really rock solid foundation for understanding American politics today.
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Jan 5, 2024 20:52
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Can anyone recommend me anything on the history of the left/right political divide? Thankin ye
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Jan 10, 2024 13:28
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Minotaurus Rex posted:Can anyone recommend me anything on the history of the left/right political divide? Thankin ye I’m going to recommend stuff based on what I think you mean by this. But some more clarity might help. Are you looking for a political science text that outlines the theory of our popularly-taught political spectrum? Because that’s all it really is, a rough model of how a wide range of political movements fall on a set of issues, usually these issues are not explained because they’re constrained by the terms of liberalism. Liberalism in this case does not mean “leftist” but in the liberal intellectual tradition, which is the right-wing political philosophy to come out of the revolutions of the 19th and 18th centuries. The other major branch being socialism. Liberalism is the political philosophy of capitalism. And since capitalism isn’t exactly a political theory, our spectrum doesn’t make any sense when you pick any given policy set, for instance why would right-wing parties like the democrats and republicans in the US give huge cash payouts to the private market, when this is essentially a socialist policy to manage the economy by socializing the risk taken by private business with public resources? If instead you’re asking about why we have a right and a left in our political imaginations, I think the modern (read: since 1920ish) root of our political landscape is arguably anticommunism. I don’t think we need to read much in favour of anticommunism because that’s our cultural background in the west from birth to death, you likely know the arguments off by heart already. A good history of anticommunism is in: Inventing Reality is about media analysis but it contains a remarkable range of historical examples and the contradictions in the propaganda spread about them. Excellently written and succinct. The Jakarta Method is about a pattern of anticommunist tactics, including propaganda and terrorism, that was honed to a sort of doctrine by the West’s intervention in Indonesia in the 1950s and 60s. The Open Veins of Latin America focuses on the phases of capitalism and colonialism as they’ve impacted Latin America. It is a widely regarded masterpiece of international development literature, beautifully written and translated but quite long. Bury the Corpse of Colonialism focuses on the same history but with a feminist perspective. To get at the history, the author studies the Asian Women’s Conference of 1949, but this leads to a sweeping history of international feminism and anti colonialism. The book is a rough read for some because the author is trying to recreate a history based on the artifacts left behind after various anticommunist raids within and without the feminist movements, so she has an interesting style.
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Jan 10, 2024 14:04
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I'm feeling down about the state of the world due to the news and books like those mentioned above (especially the Jakarta Method, jfc). Does anyone have recommendations for books that describe a better path forward or document occasions where the capitalist/colonialist machine has been stymied? I recently read A History of the World in 7 Cheap Things and that was depressing af. I'd recommend it as a snapshot of the development of unsustainable frontier exploitation. The final chapters about some sort of reparation ecology were frustratingly vague on the implementation though.
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Jan 10, 2024 15:47
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Minotaurus Rex posted:Can anyone recommend me anything on the history of the left/right political divide? Thankin ye The Rick Perlstein books in the post directly above yours. They are all about how the post-war consensus in American politics broke down and the modern right formed. They go super in depth but are also very fun and engaging reads. If you want to understand how modern American politics got to the state it’s currently in, you cannot do better than reading those books. Chas McGill posted:I'm feeling down about the state of the world due to the news and books like those mentioned above (especially the Jakarta Method, jfc). Does anyone have recommendations for books that describe a better path forward or document occasions where the capitalist/colonialist machine has been stymied? You should try Kim Stanley Robinson’s stuff. His Science in the Capital trilogy is a kind of fantasy about how the government could confront and work to ameliorate climate change
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Jan 10, 2024 16:24
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I’m in the UK so it’s not really necessarily a US-based history I was imagining.. I was under the impression the left/right concept had its start in the French Revolution so before communism and Marx etc. Wasn’t so much looking for histories of specific American anticommunist activities per se tho I can how they’d be relevant to the subject. Not entirely sure what I’m looking for myself here so can only offer these vague intimations  . Any recommendations appreciated
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Jan 10, 2024 16:55
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Minotaurus Rex posted:I’m in the UK so it’s not really necessarily a US-based history I was imagining.. I was under the impression the left/right concept had its start in the French Revolution so before communism and Marx etc. Wasn’t so much looking for histories of specific American anticommunist activities per se tho I can how they’d be relevant to the subject. Not entirely sure what I’m looking for myself here so can only offer these vague intimations As I understand it, each country's historical internal politics are going to be pretty different based on the various classes and interests in each specific country. It's not really until the 1970/80s and the rise of finance capital that you start to see neoliberalism become a dominant international force, which "standardizes" politics in the western world to a certain degree. And even that's going to be largely based on American influence. I don't think you can actually talk about a "global left" or a "global right" outside of marxism until after the fall of the Soviet Union. Gripweed fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jan 10, 2024 |
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Jan 10, 2024 17:06
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Minotaurus Rex posted:I’m in the UK so it’s not really necessarily a US-based history I was imagining.. I was under the impression the left/right concept had its start in the French Revolution so before communism and Marx etc. Wasn’t so much looking for histories of specific American anticommunist activities per se tho I can how they’d be relevant to the subject. Not entirely sure what I’m looking for myself here so can only offer these vague intimations Starting in the middle: once upon a time there were kings. Kings were men in forts with armed thugs who could do what they want and charged the people in their area for the privilege. Mafia poo poo. Politics were things that happened between kings. E.g. the magna carta is a deal between a bunch of smaller kings called nobles and the king of the whole country. (If you want to know how we got there, David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins wrote On Kings and Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything also goes into it a bit.) Then there were a bunch of revolutions to overthrow monarchies. The American revolution, the French revolution, etc. These were liberal revolutions: they were mainly fought by liberals against monarchists. In the French Revolution, the liberals literally sat on the left and monarchists on the right. So that's the original left/right - liberals vs monarchists. During those revolutions, there was "the political question" and "the social question." (Respectively: Should people have political equality? and Should people have social equality?) In all of the liberal revolutions, there were people advocating for social equality, but they never won. (You can find people advocating for equality for women and gay people in the revolutions of 1848, for example.) The forces in favor of political equality and social inequality always won. The wealthy non-nobles who owned everything were sick of the landed nobility bossing them around, but wanted to still be able to boss everyone else around, and they came out on top. Well, monarchists have been steadily dying off since then and "the west" doesn't have many of them around anymore. So left/right became something different. It had been about the political question, but became about the social question. And then the world started getting a new thing: socialist revolutions. So that was the left/right for a century or more: socialists on the left, liberals on the right (and fascists and monarchists on the "far right" - people still stuck on the political question centuries after it was settled). And I think that's basically still the only coherent version of left/right that makes sense outside of a specific national/local context. The social question has either not been settled, or has been settled with a resounding "no, you will never have equality." There is no other question of that breadth that is being addressed in politics in the world today that could take its place. What people call left/right in a local or national context is not consistent around the world, and the West is basically all just liberals arguing over specific liberal policies. Other parts of the world have socialists or monarchists (or monarchies) in politics still, but where we are, it's just liberals ("There Is No Alternative"). So the people saying you should look at books about communism and anti-communism are correct. And the US had huge worldwide anti-communist programs and activities, so any book about anti-communism is going to have to be about the US in large part.
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Jan 11, 2024 00:42
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Thanks for the effortpost, much obliged. I actually already have the 2nd Graeber book you mentioned so I’ll check it out, cheers!
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Jan 11, 2024 06:54
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