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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2947 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 20, 2023

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I read for the first time in 2022 the Three Body problem trilogy as well as the fanfiction Redemption of Time, the Inhibitors trilogy, the Hyperion Cantos, and the first two Ian Banks' Culture novels. I've also been very slowly working through my omnibus of the Princes of Amber series (serial?), which is enjoyable but a bit too pulpy for my taste.

Me and my close circle of friends also started a book club to help motivate us to cover works of literature and quality fiction that our schooling or upbringing had never shown us, so we read King Lear, and Child of God by the inimitable Cormac McCarthy amongst others. I was the one to tap out ultimately however, Frankenstein broke me. I cannot possibly envision a realistic future where I can power past the first 50 pages or so, it's some of the most eye-strainingly tedious writing I've ever slogged through, and I read most of Galt's screed in Atlas Shrugged. Maybe I just got filtered.

ETA: I also did a substantial bit of rereading but that was mostly retreading things I've read many times before, primarily Blindsight twice last year, once in January and again in September. I also read Worm for the 10th time.

Fuck, I loved blindsight so much. What did you think of Three Body Problem?

I also read Three Body for the first time recently. I would say that overall the series is good, but there's a distinct downward trend in quality over the three books. The first book is top tier stuff that could stand alongside any of the classics, the second book is quite good though not as good, and the third book is decent but not particularly great. And, amusingly enough, the third book itself starts out stronger and gets weaker (the ending is really bad imo).

Worth reading if you haven't read them, but I doubt I'll be going back and rereading the trilogy any time soon if ever.

Easily some of the best scifi I've ever read, and if you're referring to the trilogy as a whole then the third books journey through the fourth dimension was some of the most surreal, in a good way, writing I have ever read. I agree wrt to Blindsight, after reading it the first time I felt the same way I felt after reading (the og) meditations on moloch, like a paradigm shift.

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