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my bony fealty posted:the dumbest thing is people who actually research sex will tell you that it's very much not a clear cut binary. all these fuckers hiding behind science when the actual science says the opposite of what they use to justify their bigotry Idiots willfully misunderstand science and scientific evidence to back up their idiot opinions all the time. This has been a thing since forever. Ask Galileo or Darwin. Or just read the idiot quoted below. Apparatchik Magnet posted:Let me blow your mind: it's true to say that "human beings have five fingers per hand" not withstanding some fringe cases of six fingered people. We don't need to take the six-fingered lobby seriously and waste time changing social definitions to make them happy, even if we shouldn't be rude to them about their unusual condition.
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Dec 20, 2019 18:54
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fez_machine posted:Kirstein is good but she lost me in the first book when she was like torture is good and super effective actually. That's a real knock on a supposedly humanist series. I just read the first book today after the recommendation and that is not at all what I got from that scene. Having it work but be horrific is, while inaccurate, a far cry from ‘good’.
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Dec 26, 2019 23:34
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fez_machine posted:Nah, it's presented as a dirty business that sometimes you just have to do, and if a badass does it instead of you, you're not responsible. I still didn't get that message at all. It was a decision that was made, but certainly wasn't meditated on as a necessary evil. It's ok if it turned you off of the book, I just didn't interpret the scene the same way as you.
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Dec 27, 2019 03:26
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Jedit posted:Turtledove wrote a seven book series that was basically "what if both World Wars, but we're the Nazis and we're exterminating blacks?" He doesn't do nuance. Check his pinned tweet. https://twitter.com/hnturtledove/status/993990434006286336?s=21
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Jan 22, 2020 16:30
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I actually enjoyed Sphere a lot. Not a traditional choice but I enjoyed the atmosphere of it.
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Feb 3, 2020 18:41
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It also would’ve doomed the cheela who left the surface to go heal the scientist lady .
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Feb 10, 2020 22:10
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Someone recommended Feed and I want to say that this book is terrible like, legitimately one of the worst books I’ve ever read. The main character is basically just a walking 90’s matrix kid trope down to having a diseases that means she HAS to always wear sunglasses 100% of the time. And despite this disease being common and well known, she has to constantly tell government security offices about how special and cool she is when they try to talk down at her, delivering not all that clever bon mots and cheesy arrogant backtalk every time she interacts with people whose literal job it is to know and understand the various levels and security risks of the virus. And that’s just one dumbshit thing the author put in. I forgave the constant 90’s pop culture references (despite it being set like 40 years in the future) because whatever gently caress coming up with new stuff, but every character was an over the top caricature. It was fanfic level writing at best, and I hated every minute of the book. Do not waste your time with Feed.
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Feb 12, 2020 17:48
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Cardiac posted:I didn’t know that vampires counted as hard sci-fi? Hard sci-fi is a broad term that mostly means heavy on technical details. Most ‘hard’ sci-fi contains some fantastical elements.
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Feb 28, 2020 19:21
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American Elsewhere is... fine. You figure out the twist like 30% of the way through the book at the latest point but it’s still a decent read as you watch the main character fail to make obvious connections for the rest of it.
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Mar 23, 2020 05:50
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Ccs posted:Are there any fantasy books that are also spy novels? Like wizards having to infiltrate a rival kingdom or something? You might enjoy The Steerswoman series. It's not exactly what you're looking for, but it's got some elements of that and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now she just needs to finish the series! 
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Apr 2, 2020 02:03
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She’s a mid-life convert to Islam but born to white Catholic parents in New Jersey. Great books though!
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Apr 3, 2020 20:26
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StrixNebulosa posted:Movies take too long to watch and I'm not enthused by the summary so I'm going to pass on Blazing Saddles. Sorry. Try reccing me a book instead? https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=40429784
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Apr 8, 2020 20:16
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Just a warning to anyone looking at cheap books - Seveneves is loving terrible. Legitimately poorly written and lazily thought out.
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Apr 15, 2020 16:35
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Free Tor ebook is ‘all 4 Murderbots’ to celebrate 5 coming out.
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Apr 20, 2020 14:06
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StrixNebulosa posted:Thread, help me! I'm in the mood for relatively light reading, and I want it to be sci-fi. Ideally a 4+ book series with shortish novels (long will do in a pinch) that's fun pulpy star trek-esque adventures. The caveat being that I don't want to deal with any sexism/racism, I'd prefer a protagonist who isn't a dude, and the writing needs to be at least decent. If you haven’t read it yet, Murderbot is genderless.
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Apr 25, 2020 19:21
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Thread favorite and all around great book The Traitor Baru Cormorant is the Tor free book of the month.
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Apr 28, 2020 14:03
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Ccs posted:It seemed like very light imperialism to me. Like, the way Falcrest takes over Baru's homeland seems so much more modern-day technocratic and less bloody than historical imperialism. Did you miss the thousands dead from disease or directly slaughtered while Baru was in school?
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May 15, 2020 20:39
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Or the fact that Baru herself basically was in a Rez School where girls were raped into being straight?
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May 15, 2020 20:50
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Not to nitpick, but the nobility is regularly slaughtered in Matin’s books and has been for centuries.
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Jun 17, 2020 07:47
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mllaneza posted:Darkwar is good, more people should read it. 
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Jul 1, 2020 22:17
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ulmont posted:Fine, fine, if you insist...*checks notes*  same
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Aug 5, 2020 20:10
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MockingQuantum posted:The idea of pound coins or similar is apparently so repellent to Americans that we refuse to acknowledge our own dollar coin ever existed. I forget that other countries realized long ago that small-denomination paper money is kind of stupid. Back when I was in my awkward early teens, I visited England (I’m from Texas) and I went to buy something at some tourist trap location but I was a little short. So, noticing a small plastic container with coins (to my mind it was a take a penny leave a penny), I confidently grabbed a couple and handed them over. The way the cashier looked as she declared to the person next to her ‘why’s he’s taking my tips!?!’ Is a shame that haunts me to this day.
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Aug 12, 2020 16:25
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I enjoyed Daevabad pretty well. Binti was good but firmly YA.
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Aug 16, 2020 23:39
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I really enjoyed the Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell miniseries. Is the book as good/better?
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Aug 21, 2020 04:40
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TheAardvark posted:Would also recommend The Goblin Emperor after that. I happened to read it around the same time and it scratched a similar itch for that kind of lower-stakes fantasy that takes the time to enjoy its surroundings. More recently I read the Bartimaeus books, which are close to that category. I loved The Goblin Emperor, I recommend it when I do Readers’ Advisories at my library all the time.
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Aug 21, 2020 06:43
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tildes posted:Ok I was extremely skeptical about The Steerswoman based on its very amateur looking cover art, but bought it anyway based on the continuous recommendations ITT. And it’s great so far! Vague rumor is she might write another. But I wouldn't hold my breath or anything. Great books though.
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Aug 24, 2020 07:23
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Yeah Stranger in a Strangeland sucks out loud.
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Aug 31, 2020 16:43
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The 00’s directly led to the past 4-5 years.
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Sep 4, 2020 07:43
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StrixNebulosa posted:I'm hoping that I can use this kindle to prevent me from buying more physical books and that way I can read through my hoard while also getting access to new stuff. ... And books I couldn't get because of prices / weren't available in physical form. Your nearest medium to large library likely offers online only library cards and access to Overdrive or a similar app that you can check books out with for free too. Without leaving your backyard.
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Sep 5, 2020 03:20
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buffalo all day posted:https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3365216&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=122#post458895404 The one time BotL was really fun to read. I loved the angry nerds mad that he didn’t like their Gary Stu protagonist. God what a shitheap of a novel NotW was.
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Sep 9, 2020 19:03
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a foolish pianist posted:I read the first Malazan book and enjoyed it, and I was weighing my options with respect to continuing the series. I decided on the in-for-a-penny-etc option and spent the 70 bucks on the complete kindle series. The second book just isn’t grabbing me like the first one did, though - it seems a lot less focused somehow. Is this a Robert Jordan situation where the books vary wildly in speed and quality? Did I just make a huge purchasing error? No, the second one is a somewhat abrupt shift from the first, but the books continue to get better and better as you go along. And, if you're anything like me, characters you hated reading about (Karsa Orlong is my example) later become favorites. Characters shift, change, and grow in all sorts of ridiculous ways, and the characters you were reading about in the first book eventually wind back around to being Very Important. Stick with it. It's worth reading and it's like eight hundred billion words, which is nice for voracious nerdy readers.
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Sep 10, 2020 05:31
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https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/30903/dune-by-frank-herbert-read-by-scott-brick-orlagh-cassidy/ Some audiobooks do full cast readings.
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Oct 3, 2020 21:22
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Cicero posted:There's a non-zero amount of romance but it's a very small part of the story, at least so far. I think even this much is overselling it. The main character and another semi-main character become close. There's some slight awkwardness about it, and I think at most one other character gets jealous of his sister spending time with the main character. And that's about it, across 7 entire books.
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Oct 6, 2020 01:29
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Cicero posted:They haven't done anything yet, but it's obvious where it's heading Yeah agreed, sorry, I wasn’t trying to minimize what you said just reinforce it. The romance isn’t anywhere near creepy kindle unlimited harem fare.
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Oct 6, 2020 04:39
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General Battuta posted:Gods of Blood and Powder? Man there's a lot of Thing of Y and Z. The Tyrant of Baru and Cormorant
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Oct 8, 2020 01:00
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You've read Heinlein, right? Both those books are just "what if Heinlein, but slightly left wing?" Why do people suggest Heinlein in 2020? Ah yes read this book about a perfect, rich, hyperintelligent, boy with superpowers bc he lived on mars and a harem-and-threesomes psychologist who is always right and definitely not an author insert. This is what the people want. Also there’s a Muslim guy named Dr. Stinky Mahmoud!
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Oct 8, 2020 15:17
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No you misunderstand. Heinlein is a worse writer than Wight in every way, and I don’t understand how people suggest him because of that. Politics aside, he’s just not any good. And that’s even when comparing him to a guy like Will Wight who’s writing picture-less manga.
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Oct 8, 2020 20:00
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Patrick Spens posted:Lots of very good books were written by shitheads, so enjoying them seems perfectly reasonable. If you've got a personal policy not to read anything by a bad person that's fine, but getting performatively offended that someone could recommend Heinlein is extremely tedious. You didn’t read a single word I wrote and it shows. It’s ok to like Heinlein, I just think there are way better authors out there, and I never got why he became famous. The only even tolerable book, to me, was Starship Troopers. And even that was just ok. Hieronymous Alloy posted:That said Heinlein is pretty cringey so it's a valid point to bring that up, sure. Yeah it’s just cringey writing. It’s fine to like but ‘like Heinlein without the bad parts’ is a very different thing than Heinlein’s harem manga writing style. I honestly don’t super know his politics which makes the ‘omg u jus dont like conservatives (or whatever)’ really silly. Dude just was not a great writer imo.
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Oct 8, 2020 23:35
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Patrick Spens posted:I was replying to Cicero, not you. Cicero wasn’t—- never mind. I don’t think you’re posting in good faith after realizing you pulled a ‘Liberal Virtue Signaling!!’ Post as your first entry into the conversation.
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Oct 9, 2020 01:24
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It was written by the Eragon kid, so that makes a lot of sense.
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Oct 9, 2020 12:48
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