I just had to put down Joe Abercrombie’s “The Devils” because the incessant Whedon / Marvel / whatever you want to call it style dialogue was so irritating. I’m so bored of characters incessantly quipping and arching their eyebrows at each other.

So what, it’s just one book right, start another. The thing is I’ve had to drop multiple new books this year because of this exact problem and it feels like it’s getting worse and impacting my enjoyment of the genre as a whole. It’s the same with modern science fiction.

When I look at a recently published fantasy or science fiction book now i’m automatically scanning it for evidence it has this kind of dialogue and characterisation because I know i’ll end up hating it regardless of how good other aspects like the plot or world building may be. I still fail to screen it out sometimes and It’s making me not want to take chances on new authors.

Should I just give up on reading …

Regarding Censorship

Hello all, I am posting this here as a warning to you regarding the potential of the censorship fiasco that is currently on going with Steam and Itch .io perhaps spreading to include books as well, I have heard that there are already some books that could have been removed from online due to this issue with Payment Processors wanting such materials gone, according to a statement they released regarding just what type of material they are attempting to censor, among them being those that contain things such as non-consensual mutilation and other graphic content l, things which I know to be abundant I’m literature given my own passion for it, hell by their logic even the Bible is at risk of being pulled in the future.

I am not certain if the news of the removal of the books is valid, but if so then I fear it sets the precedent for what can be expected going forward, who knows how long it will be until they are no longer just pulling them from online sources …

I always laughed at comments like “oh Martin will never finish it” because I didnt get it, like, how can a book series be THAT good and amazing. well. I am in the middle of the third book and I understand the frustration now. omfg its so holy fucking great. I watched the tv show, of course. but the books? so much better. I cant stop reading and I am SAD now that it will never be finished. LOL.

edit: yeah cool I forgot the fucking A in the title LMAO

Ever since Brandon Sanderson (whose books I really like) theorized his laws of magic, we often have the impression that every magical system must have an explanation. In the sense that this magic has well-defined limits, a history, a logic, and requires conditions. All of Brandon Sanderson’s novels have this type of magic, the “hard magic system”, but also novels like the Dreamblood duology (which I recently read), The Broken Earth trilogy, Powdermages… And today, many authors use this to create original magic systems. So, it’s great because it keeps fantasy from going around in circles and allows readers to discover new things. But unexplained magic is very good too! People would hate The Lord of the Rings if it came out too because of its magic system, which would be considered too little explained. There are plenty of other books like that: Harry Potter, The Witcher… Let’s take Harry Potter as an example. I find that the mysterious side of …

I picked up a book from my library this past weekend and one of the reasons I grabbed it was because the cover says “Winner of the Hugo Award.” But when (halfway through reading the book) I looked it up, and it has not won or even been nominated for a Hugo Award. Though the Author has won a Hugo Award for a novella or short story that they wrote a few years back.

Is this common? I’ve seen “Hugo Award Winning Author So-and-So” on a cover before, which I think is the intent of this cover, but this seems intentionally disingenuous. (Side note: I’m not angry or anything and I realize this doesn’t really matter; it just seemed weird and I wanted to post about it).

Also, I’m curious how long it’ll take for someone to figure out what book I’m talking about.

I’ve been deep in nonfiction lately…like presidential bios, American history, Cold War stuff. My audiobook rotation has basically been “Lincoln, then Truman, then LBJ, then cry.” I honestly forgot books could be fun.

Enter Mistborn.

I threw it on during work, thinking it’d be a nice break from reading about tariffs and international diplomacy. I was wrong. I got nothing done. I was sitting there pretending to type while my whole body was tensed up like “IS VIN OKAY???”

Sanderson’s world is insane and so colorful compared to what I was reading this last year. Magic that runs on metal? People launching themselves around cities with coins?? I didn’t know I needed “angry magical heist crew vs. immortal god-king” in my life, but apparently I did.

Kelsier is such a chaotic legend. Vin is incredible. I didn’t even realize how dark the world was because I was too busy grinning like a maniac during half the scenes. And the ending??? Don’t even get me started. I had to stand up and …

So I recently read three bestselling and critically well regarded books:

• Babel by R.F. Kuang

• The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

All very different books, but they each left me cold for the same reason. They were very preachy. They had a message to impart, and they pounded on this message with the subtlety of a lump hammer. The characters were cyphers for the message rather than real people.

I actually agreed with messages (sexism is bad, the British Empire was evil, you should be kind to children), but it was still offputting.

Babel came closest to having some nuance, but then the author would pause the story to tell you that this racist person is being racist and that is bad.

Is this a general trend in modern literature, or did I just pick 3 very preachy books in rapid succession?

I just finished To Kill a Mockingbird. Somehow after 72 years on earth I had never read that book. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt such an emotional response to a book. It kind of spoiled my day yesterday after reading about the courtroom trial. Maybe I wouldn’t have had such a reaction a few years ago. A few years ago Obama was elected and I felt like maybe this country was becoming less bigoted. I had hope. Unfortunately Obama’s election caused a huge portion of our country to lose their minds and now we are seeing the ugliest manifestations of racism on the rise. I loved the book. One of the best I’ve ever read and I recommend it to everyone. But it also made me feel sick. Can we humans ever rise above this insanity?

I hope i’m not too late to ride on the hype!!!

This is the first memoir I’ve ever read—mainly because it’s the only celebrity memoir Jack Edwards has rated five stars. When I first came across the book a year or two ago, I remember being shocked and taken aback by the title printed on such a pretty cover. I thought it was too vulgar. “How could anybody say that about their mom? How ungrateful,” I remember thinking. But after stumbling upon it again this July, my perspective completely changed.

I deeply admire Jennette McCurdy’s bravery and unwavering honesty in sharing the painful and often disturbing moments of her childhood—hidden behind all the glamour and fame. How could a mother force her child to starve herself, belittle her desire to be a writer, and shame her so persistently that she developed eating disorders and severe mental health issues? If it were me, I don’t think I could have survived it. I admire Jennette not only for her resilience, but for choosing herself and …

I have to preface that I don’t hate all men. I believe in subjectivity and you are allowed to have a different opinion. Thank you.

When someone recommended me 48 laws of power I realised this: These people think that their autonomy comes from the power they have over other people.

As a person who has read fiction her entire life, empathising with someone is far more rewarding than “dominating them” and making them be a subject to your “greatness”. Seeing the way in which characters interact with the world, their thoughts, their strengths and weaknesses, gives you insight into(maybe?) a very different perspective.

The psychological aspect of people can be read like a tapestry. Different colors, textures, techniques. Once you have touched all of them, seen all of them, it’s easy to say which one is which. And recognise a pattern.

Many things written in the book felt….natural and common sense. It was wrapped in such a male centered way of thinking that i stopped midway. Empathy, more …

Inspired by this and this. I have these images and I will strike out the movies that I have watched. I thought will be fun to have something like this for science fiction books, so I made two based on the list in these books, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1949–1984 by David Pringle and 100 Must-read Science Fiction Novels by Stephen E. Andrews. I hope some people can use it as a guide for a better reading experience. Please tell me if there’s any formatting or spelling mistakes and I will correct it.

Note: Pringle lists the books in publication year order while Andrews in last name alphabetically. I decided to list it like Andrews did for both lists because I feel it gives a better view. Books with 2 authors is listed with the last name of the first author listed. Books from the same author is listed by publication year. Pringle lists some books as a series as whole (e.g. The Book of the New Sun) while Andrews lists one single book (e.g. The …

As promised, I’ve returned with a list that highlights only women writers, recognising the clear need for a different kind of collection, one that isn’t dominated by the familiar male voices we’ve all encountered time and again. This list brings well-deserved attention to the groundbreaking work of women in science fiction.

As it turns out, women have been involved in shaping SF all along. SF was never just about boys and their toys. Instead, the future has always been female as well.

Enjoy!

-—

The list is from two anthologies, ‘The Future is Female’ vol I & vol II, put together by the brilliant LISA YASZEK

I feel like most of the sci-fi media I’ve consumed made in the last decade or two is deeply depressing and/or cynical, or is sci-fi so hard that it loses the sense of wonder.

Imperial Radch is about an imperialist society imploding. Annihilation is, well, Annihilation. The Martian is hopeful enough, but it might as well have been written about our current level of society and technology. A Memory Called Empire is about a collapsing Neo-Byzantine Empire. Murderbot is about an enslaved murderbot.

I miss books like the Culture. I miss the concept of a better society striving to improve itself further still. I miss the sense of wonder and hope a lot of earlier sci-fi had for the future of humanity. I miss utopianism.

Is there anything recent that fills that niche?

Edit: so it’s basically just Becky Chambers is what I’m gathering.

Just got done reading this for the first time. It’s been sat on my book shelf for years gathering dust, but since the likes of Remembrance of Earths Past, Project Hail Mary, For All Mankind and The Expanse recently awoke in me a love for “hard” sci-fi, I finally gave it my full attention, and here I thought I’d share my thoughts.

[Spoilers, obviously]

I think Reynolds’s world-building here is phenomenal. I love the idea of a non-FTL interstellar humanity. It harkens back to the days of early human empire, where culture and society was stretched across months of travel time. Where it could take years to travel from one side of an empire to the other. I find it much more compelling than “oh let’s jump to the nearest star-system, we’ll be there in two days”. I also appreciated the way special relativity was treated. Of course, people living their whole lives close to the speed of light would regard time very differently than those …

A post I made yesterday came into much criticism and confusion which was caused by my decision to not include some crucial information. I felt compelled to redo my list to include some details that was missing. I hope it will clear some confusion towards yesterdays post.

This lists is not perfect, and no list can ever be, but I hope these lists can be a guide to discover new books for people to read. That’s all one can hope for, to find new books to read.

I recently read a thread on Reddit that included a comment or subthread about what Piers Anthony has done that is objectionable, besides his depiction of women, but I don’t recall what the thread was. Concisely, what are his transgressions?

The full body burn is credited to stuntman and actor Tom Steele! I have no idea how nobody died or got hurt doing this scene. It looks far more dangerous and insane than most fire stunts since then. Like they really did just throw buckets of gasoline at a stuntman while he is already engulfed in flames thrashing about the set

For context: I’m 25 years old. SPOILER WARNING

I just watched paddington 2 today and what the fuck did they put in this movie. This is the one of the greatest pieces of cinema I’ve ever laid witness to. Paddington 2 is the only thing I’ve thought about all day and seeing the immense joy it’s brought other people has also brightened my day even more. God I can’t even think about the ending without wanting to kill myself because of how perfect it is. And can we also talk about the perfect bookend of his human mother saving him from the water like aunt Lucy did at the beginning?

Pure cinema, I truly can’t wait to watch this movie with my kids for their first time.