Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
So, what are you reading?
Still on a bunch of stuff. Adding Red Dynamite: Creationism, Culture Wars, and Anticommunism in America, another open access book, to my list.
I finished Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy last week. Good finale, if a bit weaker than the others. The irrationality of Area X is just less compelling than the anti-rationality it displayed in the first and second books. But I suspect that’s inherent to writing a plot where characters are supposed to do anything rather than have it done to them.
I still absolutely recommend trying the first book for anyone into literary sci-fi or the New Weird or surreality.
Now I’m halfway through Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City based on a recommendation from @pbmonster. Five out of five stars so far. It’s such a pure example of what that thread was calling “competency porn,” except it also dodges the excesses which litter the genre. The protagonist is smart and driven and charismatic in a way which makes it clear that he, along with everyone around him, is under tremendous stress. This does wonders for the believability. I’m staying up too late reading it.
It kind of reminds me of a more serious counterpart to the Moist von Lipwig Discworld novel Making Money.
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