site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1395 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 1, 2026

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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I, Robot? It's old-school but there's the satisfying 'oh... that's how the laws of robotics go wrong in this scenario' that he might appreciate, and it's short stories.

Hmm, a tricky one. I would also recommend Asimov.

In addition, the humor is hit or miss by personality and only sort of sci-fi, but each entry in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series is reasonably compact and episodic. Has some amusing themes for an advanced 10-year-old to explore.

For some quick pulp fiction, the Animorphs series is very approachable. Might be too low of a reading level given the description, but in terms of getting volume in, there is a lot of very digestible material there.

Smuggling in my personal taste for naval fiction, David Weber's Honor Harrington series is more or less Horatio Hornblower with a sci-fi mask. A decent chunk to bite off, but not very difficult.

IMHO the HHGttG series is really heavily front-loaded - if you just finish the first book then you've gotten 80% of the value of the series from 20% of the reading.

Edit: I also recall the first book being more age-appropriate than some of the later books, which may be just as important in context here. To be fair, I'm not 100% certain in either judgement about the later books; I've reread the first book within the last few years but probably haven't reread any of the sequels within the last 20 years.

Second - Asimov generally is very friendly to the reader and has a large catalog of short stories, which I think are much less intimidating to an inexperienced reader.

Yeah, precocious 10-year-old is the perfect age to start Asimov.

Agreed, if you stick to the short stories and if you're careful to pick the best short stories (the I, Robot collection is a good place to start). I tried Asimov novels with each of my kids, and somewhere in between 10 and 13 seems to be where the first Foundation novel went from "too dull" to "fascinating" in general.

Foundation is a collection of longer short stories, anyway. Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation are each two novellas republished in a single bound volume.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats