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I’m pretty sure Dickens wrote semi-realistic fiction, not fantasy.
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Aug 18, 2019 05:14
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Bilirubin posted:This just introduced me to the idea of the Kindle Unlimited account. I am torn. Would that I read faster and didn't already have a giant pile of hardcopies stacked next to me It’s mostly terrible trash.
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Aug 30, 2019 05:08
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Just so everyone knows, Chernobyl kinsman does this whole ‘big claim based on a half assed understanding of a real problem’ in d&d threads too. His name is synonymous with ‘a really stupid point’ in the Space thread. So don’t get too worked up trying to explain things.
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Nov 3, 2019 22:10
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My bad, it was kerning chameleon. Still, you've got an incredibly stupid take here.
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Nov 3, 2019 22:17
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chernobyl kinsman posted:"given that between half of and 2/3rds of all studies fail to replicate, the fields based in large degree on those studies are borderline useless and their consenses should be treated with extreme skepticism" is pretty commonsensical i think If that had been all you'd said, you'd be correct - the field of Psychology has a lot of issues in the way its experiments are done. Instead, you went on to them claim that 'all of social science is crap and shouldn't be used' also you brought it up, randomly, because of a request for a book on human sexuality in a sociological context. Reading the common prevailing research is still useful, even if there are some questions about the validity and reproducibility of said research.
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Nov 3, 2019 22:25
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Eh, I just don’t feel you can make the claim that the specific book suggested is only 1/3 valid because psychology, as a whole, has a problem with reproducibility. And it feels a bit of an ‘I am very smart’ reply to someone’s request for a book to read. Plus you said ‘social sciences as a whole’ before backpedaling after being called out.
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Nov 3, 2019 22:48
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This is just gonna be a weird slap fight, so sure man, ok.
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Nov 3, 2019 22:55
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Is there anything similar to American Elsewhere, but maybe with a little more mystery? I liked the book, but I felt the author spent a long, long time setting up some pretty obvious payoffs and then having extended ‘No, that’s not possible!’ conversations. This is not me bragging about getting the twists early, or complaining about the book. As I said, I enjoyed it, I’m just looking for authors who are maybe a little more subtle in their twists. I realize this may be a weird request.
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Jan 11, 2020 16:19
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Not necessarily Lovecraftian, though I do enjoy the genre. It was just a book I recently finished, and it spawned my desire.
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Jan 11, 2020 16:57
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No. 1 Lady’s Detective Agency.
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Apr 23, 2020 06:43
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Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings is the free Tor book of the month.
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May 4, 2020 14:10
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tuyop posted:You couldn’t pay me to read that. Thanks for letting us know.
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May 4, 2020 15:57
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regulargonzalez posted:loving westerners, always writing from a western perspective. And don't get me started on Ahmad ibn Fadlan, writing about other cultures from his Arabic perspective. What a bum. This is a hell of a take with that redtext. The person is specifically asking for books that aren't about Europe, noting the western perspective seems reasonable.
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Jul 6, 2020 20:32
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Farten Barfen posted:I just finished All The Birds In The Sky and I really liked the kinda goofy sci-fi/fantasy mashup. I haven't really read much fantasy since I was a kid, but I got a kindle for my birthday and now I'm pretty much reading nonstop. I also really enjoyed this book.
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Aug 21, 2020 04:38
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Just finished the Interdependency trilogy by Scalzi. Pretty dece space opera.
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Aug 26, 2020 22:08
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Drone Jett posted:Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham and its sequels. Seconded. Some of the downtimers are kinda skeevy, especially at first, but its called out and commented on rather than being all 'WHEN MEN WERE MEN'.
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Dec 4, 2020 17:32
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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:Someone recommend me a decent spy novel that came out in the last 2 years, please. Agent Running in the Field https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NCNRGHT/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
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Dec 21, 2020 19:44
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Seveneves is the only bad book in group. But it’s truly deeply awful.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:43
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tuyop posted:Yeah Neal Stephenson often has trouble with his third acts. But I really loved the first two in that one, I thought he nailed the sense of impending doom really well. I won’t continue the derail, but the book just didn’t really connect with me for some reason and I have a few friends who felt the same way.
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Jan 19, 2021 06:16
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I assume you’ve read the similar-ish The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy?
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Feb 28, 2021 07:55
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Mr. Nemo posted:Don't hate me, but I'm a sci-fi/fantasy reader on SA, so I'm forced to recommend our own General Batuta's The traitor Baru Cormorant. A victim of colonization enters the public service of the empire, to try and destroy it with the power of accounting. Just to be clear, this isn't a self published book or anything like that. Seconding this rec. It's good, though it is definitely a (non-magical/fantastical) fantasy world.
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Apr 14, 2021 17:28
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StrixNebulosa posted:I poked my head in here to ask for a super-indulgent rec: I want to read about hyper-competent characters being competent and possibly being lauded for it. I don't care what the genre is, fiction or non-fiction, I want to see someone being REALLY GOOD at something and showing off. Winning at competitive knitting, disarming bombs, any subject, I just want to read about it. Martha Wells' Murderbot is competence porn of the highest order. Andy Weir's The Martian. K.J. Parker's 16 Ways to Defend a Walled City. Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora.
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Jul 3, 2021 02:10
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space kobold posted:I'd love a "lets bootstrap society with engineering and technical know-how" style book. Can be time displaced, marooned, rebuilding after disaster / apocalypse, just needs to have some interesting problem solving. The 1632 series?
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Jul 13, 2021 23:31
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Guy A. Person posted:The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck My wife and I read this together a couple years ago and it's a good relaxing read.
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Jul 23, 2021 23:55
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Yeah, most major city/county libraries have a requirement of 'state residency'for a card. Those cards give you access to digital checkouts.
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Jan 6, 2022 16:06
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Junkie Disease posted:Yeah I'm using Hoopla, and holy poo poo, well then gently caress this right wing library branch with "popular poo poo" like "the REAL Dr. Fauchi" https://www.ocls.info/using-library/get-or-replace-your-card Looks like its $125 if you don't live in Orange County, which is disappointing. If you're in Winter Park or Maitland you can get a free one though. Also, looks like the Sanibel library - https://sanlib.org/library-card/ - has a $10 fee for a yearly card if you don't live in Lee county, I don't know how far that is but Florida has lovely libraries it looks like which sucks.
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Jan 6, 2022 20:29
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Tulip posted:For Western culture, I'd probably point to...Achilles? Is Achilles older than Hercules? Bc uh...
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Mar 28, 2022 03:46
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Tulip posted:I'm trying to remember what I was reading around age 8. At some point I transitioned from stuff like Sideways Stories from Wayside School to Animorphs and in retrospect that feels like a big gap in terms of type of book but I can't recall what I read between. I'll happily defend both of those sets of books though. Personally I had about a year of the abridged children's version of classics (I forget what they're called) and weird stuff like Tom swift and hardy boys between those.
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Jun 13, 2022 16:07
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Good-Natured Filth posted:Great Illustrated Classics probably. I started reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with my 6yo daughter because I also had a bunch of those books at my parents' house still that I finally took home. I got to the chapter where Injun Joe kills Doc Robinson and then frames Muff Potter. I realized that maybe she's a little too young for that one yet, so we stopped. There are some adult themes in there - not to mention that it's very "of its time" with its racial stereotypes and corporal punishment of children. Yeah!
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Jun 14, 2022 17:15
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Tea Bone posted:I'm loooking to re-live my first time reading through A Song of Ice and Fire (particularly the first three books), something to really sink my teeth into. I read a comparisson of ASOIAF and Tolkein saying Tolkein's world has depth (as in a lot of intricate history and languages etc) where as ASOIF has bredth (lots of moving parts and things happening at the same time, but not historically rich), so with that I'm looking for something with more bredth if that makes sense? Something with a lot of intrigue, strategic politics, backstabbing etc. Doesn't necissarily have to be fantasy, but preferably low magic if it is. regulargonzalez posted:Malazan is an obvious choice. Note that they start off a little rough as Erikson develops his writing skill, and while there is the breadth you're looking for, it's a very different kind of world then asoiaf. They're both "dark and gritty" but Malazan is much more mythic -- characters becoming demi-gods, gods playing an active role in the world, etc. Definitely not low magic, although the magic is usually dark and consequential. And Erikson uses a specific type of character a bit much (ultimate badass who is hard as steel and tough as nails, but deep down he's a softy). Second recc for Malazan - though there's a very brutal misogynistic bit in one of the later books (I want to say somewhere in 7, 8, or 9 out of 10) that is written entirely as horrific and awful, but may be triggering. It also lasts a while - don't let that stop you from reading the first few though if that is a trigger, they're good and interesting and the world is weird as gently caress.
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Sep 21, 2022 16:21
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Haystack posted:I recommend The Goblin Emperor and it's sequels. this book is literally all elves
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Dec 9, 2022 16:37
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Cicadalek posted:I've found an enjoyable genre niche in reading about large corporations collapsing, the more hubris the better. I've read Bad Blood, The Smartest Guys In The Room and Billion Dollar Loser (Theranos, Enron and WeWork respectively). Does anyone have any reccomendations along those lines? The news?  But no I'm also into this and would love reccs.
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Jun 17, 2023 13:13
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Skippy McPants posted:Howdy. I'd like to try some religious texts as a new reading project. I wasn't raised in a faith, so my knowledge is built entirely from cultural osmosis, and I'd like to change that. Specifically, I want to find the best(?) versions of the big three Abrahamic texts: Torah, Bible, and Koran. What's the purpose behind your reading? This isn't intended to be as combative a question as that looks upon rereading, but like - are you just wanting to learn about the various mythologies? Are you looking to convert? Are you curious about their place and context in history? Are you just wanting to actually read the texts as they are? Those questions can sway what sort of book you end up with. There have been some good suggestions in the thread, I'm just honestly also curious about the drive you feel to read them, and that might help focus what you end up reading.
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Jun 29, 2023 15:55
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Badger of Basra posted:Are there any good alt history books based around “what is Napoleon won”? I feel like 99% of them are “what if the nazis won” or “what if the confederates won” If: or, History Rewritten - a 1931 collection of short stories has one story that deals with his victory at Waterloo and the political fallout thereof. The Napoleon Options: Alternate Decisions of the Napoleonic Wars - was published in 2017 apparently, and is again short stories/essays about different decisions that could have been made and some of their fallout. There are probably others, but I read the first a while back, and a friend was talking about the second earlier this year. I cannot speak to the quality of either.
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Jul 13, 2023 03:00
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Tom Tucker posted:Three Body Problem was pretty good but not earth-shattering like reviews made me think. Is the rest of the series worth digging into? I was pretty mid on the first one too, and honestly they all hit the same to me. Some neat ideas, but not as groundbreaking as reviews said. The person above who said the different translator made it feel off is right too. If you have something better to read I'd say read that, but if you don't you won't really regret it. It just won't wow you.
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Jul 13, 2023 07:50
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I'm enjoying Artifact Space right now, it's sort of a competence porn novel about an underdog Orphan turned spy hunter.
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Oct 9, 2023 15:37
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Ur-fart
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Oct 25, 2023 19:03
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FPyat posted:Any novels or short stories that express the power and joy of music? Light from Uncommon Stars has that as a big theme. It's definitely a very scifi/magical realism book, so I really enjoyed it, but it's not a grounded and realistic thing if that's what you're after.
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Oct 27, 2023 17:14
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Read Joyce, it’s no contest 
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Nov 27, 2023 16:30
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I've definitely had some harrowing land adventures with Captain Morgan.
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Dec 4, 2023 16:14
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