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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2779 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 28, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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For nerdy fics, Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a delightful story in itself, reminiscent of Ender’s Game, and also a metaphor|| for ||AI takeoff by unaligned and/or aligned minds. You can buy books of it, and there’s a Kindle free edition. It spawned both /r/HPMOR and the /r/rational subreddit for tons of other rationalist fiction. It has an audiobook as a podcast, which has since also done a few other fics. It even has a 93-chapter (so far) crossover with My Little Pony which diverges from the original at a point which to even describe would be a spoiler for HPMOR.

I also highly recommend the Wiz series by Rick Cook about a sysadmin sucked into a magic realm who builds a LISP from micro-spells. Classic sci-fantasy, more Heinlein than Pratchett. Hilarity and power creep ensue. Available as free audiobooks on Overdrive’s Libby. A LitRPG with a similar premise is up to chapter 18 on Royal Road, Magic Is Programming.

There are a lot of SF gems at the /r/HFY subreddit.

I personally recommend everything written by Phil Geusz. It is classic SF or fantasy, and has genuine drama, not cheap drama. If you’re not a fan of anthro animals, the David Birkenhead series and the No Oath Sworn series are right up your alley. The rest were written for a Furry Fan audience, but still the best of that genre, exploring what it means, experientially and morally, to be transformed to a different mode of existence: cyborg, brain extraction, anthro rabbit, werewolf, etc.

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