|
Ambrose Bierce's The Damned Thing
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2018 15:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 05:33 |
|
|
I actually really like the rural horror stuff too, and recommend that one Stephen King short story called "the man in the black suit" or something similar. I read The Terror and it was the perfect intersection of my hate for cold and general unease about isolated natural places and I'd love to find something similar.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2018 15:34
|
|
|
Pharmaskittle posted:I actually really like the rural horror stuff too, and recommend that one Stephen King short story called "the man in the black suit" or something similar. I read The Terror and it was the perfect intersection of my hate for cold and general unease about isolated natural places and I'd love to find something similar. Ever read Jack London’s short stories? The collection titled Lost Faces would probably be something for you.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2018 17:45
|
|
|
Pharmaskittle posted:I actually really like the rural horror stuff too, and recommend that one Stephen King short story called "the man in the black suit" or something similar. I read The Terror and it was the perfect intersection of my hate for cold and general unease about isolated natural places and I'd love to find something similar. Ooh The Croning was great for this.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2018 22:46
|
|
|
Lookin for a sci-fi/supernatural book, preferably long and lasts me a long time. Also I've read like two fiction books willingly in my entire life, so lord knows the attention span might not be there. No fantasy and knights and dragons and wizards please!
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 02:21
|
|
|
buglord posted:Lookin for a sci-fi/supernatural book, preferably long and lasts me a long time. Also I've read like two fiction books willingly in my entire life, so lord knows the attention span might not be there. No fantasy and knights and dragons and wizards please! Werewolves of London by Brian Stableford Abolition of Species by Dietmar Dath Cyteen by CJ Cherryh Werewolves is about supernatural horror in the 1800s as some very alien creatures become interested in understanding humanity. It's the first of a trilogy but works as a standalone. Abolition is a german-written work about a future where people have become animals and formed a super-culture through their scent-internet and messing with genes. It's very weird and interesting. Cyteen is my favorite, and about a far away human colony on the planet Cyteen. There a genius politician/scientist is murdered, and her followers decide to clone her and raise the clone so it'll be as close to the original as possible. Messed up stuff happens along the way, and it's one hell of a novel. If the slow start puts you off, skip ahead to the clone being born. e: If none of these work for you, please please keep looking for cool books. The genre is huge and there will be something in it you love. StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Sep 18, 2018 |
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 03:14
|
|
|
Human Tornada posted:Anybody got a spooky story (witch, vampire, or other) with a pre-industrial, rural type setting? Sorry, should have said I was looking for something novel length.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 03:42
|
|
|
Does Leviathan Rising count as supernatural sci-fi
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 04:34
|
|
|
buglord posted:Lookin for a sci-fi/supernatural book, preferably long and lasts me a long time. Also I've read like two fiction books willingly in my entire life, so lord knows the attention span might not be there. No fantasy and knights and dragons and wizards please! Charles Stross's Laundry Files series might work
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 11:30
|
|
|
buglord posted:Lookin for a sci-fi/supernatural book, preferably long and lasts me a long time. Also I've read like two fiction books willingly in my entire life, so lord knows the attention span might not be there. No fantasy and knights and dragons and wizards please! I cant help but ask if you have a short attention span and arent an avid reader, why are you lookimg for a long novel?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 14:36
|
|
|
The City & The City by China Miéville.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 17:00
|
|
|
TommyGun85 posted:I cant help but ask if you have a short attention span and arent an avid reader, why are you lookimg for a long novel? That's kinda my question too -- what were the two books you read before that you liked?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 17:02
|
|
|
tuyop posted:If you haven’t read Children of Time yet, you should. I just finished this and it was amazing. Audiobook version, had great narration. I also recently read (listened) do the first three "Culture" Iain M. Banks books and honestly I just don't like the series. I mean, it has some interesting ideas but the stories / plots / character development (especially the lack of this...) along with the weird timeline of the 3rd book just killed it for me. So, recommend me a good sci-fi on Audible. Is Hyperion any good? Children of Time was awesome. FWIW I have read most the Sci-fi classics, Dune(s) Foundation, etc..
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 18:08
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:That's kinda my question too -- what were the two books you read before that you liked? Chronicles. I feel like I've become partially illiterate to fiction, because i've read so much nonfiction so I speedread and zip across sentences as if im reading something familiar in a history book or trying to find relevant things in a sea of fluff in an academic journal. I'm having to teach myself to read individual sentences slowly again.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 18:34
|
|
|
Ok, if you liked Hitchhikers' Guide the next general suggestion is Terry Pratchett - he basically does for fantasy what Adams did for sci-fi. It's parody so the wizards and dragons etc are a bit easier to deal with, each book is medium length to short, the prose is well crafted and funny, and there are roughly forty books in the setting so you can keep going as long as you want. Start with Guards, Guards! If you really want to avoid all fantasy, I'd say start with _Hound of the Baskervilles_ and move on to reading other Sherlock Holmes after that. Supernatural elements, short format, will hold attention, lots of stories in the oevure if you want to dig.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 18:52
|
|
|
buglord posted:When I actually like something I don't want it to be over too soon. It's a childish thing that goes across different mediums for me. These were two books I read in high-school for extra credit: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Martian They're rarely very long books, but Ray Bradbury wrote a lot, so you should check out more of his stuff.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 18:54
|
|
|
buglord posted:I'm having to teach myself to read individual sentences slowly again. The Old Man and the Sea
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2018 19:45
|
|
|
Nikita Khrushchev posted:I can't recommend Bad Blood, the new book about Theranos, enough. Really interested in this as a someone who is doing lots of investing. Thanks will check it out. I had heard of it but forgot about it until the recent possible(?) convictions.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2018 00:02
|
|
|
I briefly glanced at A/T before deciding to come here first to ask: does anyone have a good recommendation for a read on labor economics suitable for a recent graduate? I'm looking for something light on math to get familiar with terms and concepts before digging into graduate level theory and all of the modeling presented there. I didn't get the chance to take any courses on it in undergrad, so I figured that while I'm searching for a job and eyeballing graduate schools, the least I can do is get familiar with the subject.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2018 07:23
|
|
|
Cyteen's start is...something alright. It's really confusing. I'm going to push through this for a bit because my self confidence is on the line here.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2018 18:28
|
|
|
buglord posted:Cyteen's start is...something alright. It's really confusing. I'm going to push through this for a bit because my self confidence is on the line here. Yeah, the opening is one of those that benefits from a reread when you know who everyone is and what they become. As-is it's a crash-course in Cyteen's politics and what kind of stew Ari Emory is about to leave behind when she gets murdered. Oh, and Justin Warrick's messed up life. If you don't grok it, skip ahead to when the clone is born - about a hundred or so pages in on the big paperback edition - and if that fails, don't worry about it and find another book. There's too many cool books in the world to get stuck on one.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2018 18:38
|
|
|
buglord posted:Cyteen's start is...something alright. It's really confusing. I'm going to push through this for a bit because my self confidence is on the line here. Got further than me
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2018 19:05
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:The City & The City by China Miéville. Seconding this, but I would recommend not even reading the publisher's description and going in completely blind.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 02:58
|
|
|
Feel bad dumping cyteen, but the scene where Ari does really hosed up rape poo poo to Justin just made hard pass the whole thing. Yeah it was hinted plenty of times prior, but goddamn. I think this is the first time any sort of media was too graphic for me. So uh, unironically asking if battlefield earth is good 
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:02
|
|
|
buglord posted:So uh, unironically asking if battlefield earth is good it is not ironically the rape scene was the only part of Cyteen I thought was good
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:08
|
|
|
buglord posted:Feel bad dumping cyteen, but the scene where Ari does really hosed up rape poo poo to Justin just made hard pass the whole thing. Yeah it was hinted plenty of times prior, but goddamn. I think this is the first time any sort of media was too graphic for me. Ah, sorry. It's the only scene like that in the whole book, if that helps. Also please do not, do NOT read Battlefield Earth. If you want milsci-fi, we have better recs.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:14
|
|
|
Throw em here then! Also how in the world do you guys find books worth reading in person? Do you just go into Barnes and Noble or something and read a few chapters before deciding? Seems tough to tell if a book is a good personal fit if it's slow to start.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:22
|
|
|
Goodreads, recommendations here and elsewhere, and yeah sometimes you just take a chance
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:25
|
|
|
buglord posted:Throw em here then! - Library! You can inter-library loan almost anything that's not in the one library near you. - Amazon often has previews of a book, you can click on it and then read the first few pages. - You can indeed go to a bookstore and take a book and read it without buying it. Same with used bookstores. After that you have to get the whole book, which is either an ebook or a physical book, and that's up to you how you want your books. As for finding a book to read in general, and telling if I want to stick with it - that'll vary a lot by person. In my case, I go off of several factors: was it recced? How're the reviews on goodreads/amazon? Does the summary appeal to me? Do I know and like the author's other works? A guaranteed way to make me read a book is to have it be by an author I love, with a summary that sounds interesting. The real acid test though, is the book itself. I'll read the first few pages, and if it's good, it'll keep me. If not, I'll chew through another 20~ pages before I either back out or decide to keep going. Some books, like Joan Cox's Starweb, grab me in the first page. (I picked up Starweb in a used bookstore, though the coverart looked neat but the summary was meh, and I read the first page and knew I liked the writing style enough to bring it home and actually read it.) Other books, like Dune, were famous, recced by people I know, and I read the first page and went "ehhhh" and it took reading onwards to get into it. And then there are other books where I gave them a hundred pages (Player of Games by Iain M Banks) and ultimately put back down, because no thank you. Do what feels right for you, ultimately.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:31
|
|
|
buglord posted:Throw em here then! NYT Publishersweekly Also I go to BN and look for books with cool covers that have pull quotes from writers I like
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:37
|
|
|
also buglord have you considered that if you have barely ever read any books that maybe you don't even like scifi and maybe something else might be better?
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:38
|
|
|
As for milscifi, uh... using this list to remember what counts and what doesn't. Bujold's Shards of Honor is a really good novel that starts off cliche but ramps up: it's about a lady who gets stranded on a wild planet and winds up hiking through the wilderness with a military officer who's technically an enemy to her home planet. They fall in love, yadda yadda, but it's actually real good because it's more about her examining her culture and his culture, and it culminates in some neat setpiece battles. More of a focus on culture and politics, though - but hey, if you like it, there's a thousand books in the series, and the one I'm reading at the mo, Warrior's Apprentice, is about the lady's son and how he forms a mercenary fleet. Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series is pure military sci-fi, and great popcorn reading. It's not great, but it really scratches that itch if you want to read cool starship fleet battles. A dude gets into an escape pod, is frozen, and gets picked up centuries later to find that his home is embroiled in an ongoing war with another faction. Plot happens, he winds up as the leader of a fleet stranded deep in enemy space, and spends about seven books fighting his way home. It's just solid reading. Armor by John Steakley is rough, but solid reading. It's about a man and his suit of powered armor and the bugs that want to kill him. Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series is fun - it's Warhammer 40k fiction, but you can read it without knowing much - the Imperium are the humans and the 'good guys', everyone else are the bad guys, in these books you follow one company of soldiers as they're thrown into battle after battle. The third book in the series, where they have to defend a giant city from a siege, is really, really good. Tanya Huff's Valor's Choice is a fun space opera-esque novel where a bunch of space marines escort diplomats onto a lizardman planet and try to forge a diplomatic agreement..and yeah, things go wrong. Then they bring out the laser rifles and it's a fun romp. etc etc etc
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:41
|
|
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:also buglord have you considered that if you have barely ever read any books that maybe you don't even like scifi and maybe something else might be better? I'm literally just basing what genres I like in videogames and throwing them out here. Thanks for the information so far, everyone. I'm reading all the replies and have been looking at the books which have been mentioned. Yeah I probably do need a library card.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:44
|
|
|
buglord posted:Throw em here then! Amazon reviews, Goodreads, etc. Mostly I keep an eye on the threads in this forum and check out books people talk about that sound interesting. The Book of the Month threads are a good place to start if you're looking for general recommendations! Seriously, the whole point of the Books of the Month is for folks like you who want to read but don't know what to read. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Sep 20, 2018 |
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:47
|
|
|
buglord posted:I'm literally just basing what genres I like in videogames and throwing them out here. I highly recommend going to your local library and just browsing. Set aside an hour, find the fiction section (and/or the sci-fi/fantasy section, and/or the mystery section) and pulling out books with cool titles and seeing if they're interesting or not. You'll get a broad look at a lot of books, and if anything grabs you, you can take it home. It also might be worthwhile to look into YA fiction as well - they're aimed at teenagers, yeah, but there's no shame in reading something short and simple and fun. (And some of them are genre standouts, like the Golden Compass.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:49
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:The Book of the Month threads are a good place to start if you're looking for general recommendations! of what to avoid!!!* *doesn't include books I picked
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 22:50
|
|
|
buglord posted:So uh, unironically asking if battlefield earth is good It’s pulp trash but I loved it when I was 13. Would definitely not recommend it to anyone who doesn’t already know they like pulp sci-fi.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2018 23:17
|
|
|
do not read battlefield earth
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2018 00:07
|
|
|
if you wanted pulp trash why wouldn't you go with a vaguely good pulp sci fi writer
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2018 00:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 05:33 |
|
|
I have a genre that I like and then basically read everything in that genre. I like to read dystopian series. So I google "dystopian book series" and read everything on lists like this: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/05/the-30-best-dystopian-books-of-all-time.html Or, I find an author I like and read all their books. I've done this for Sophie Kinsella (only her standalone novels) and a lot of Stephen King (guilty pleasure). Now I'm into light hearted fantasy along the lines of Discworld and Chrestomanci so I'm reading everything by Diana Wynne Jones
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2018 04:18
|
|
