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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2814 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 3, 2023

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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So, what are you reading?

I'm picking up the I-Ching, or the Book of Changes, Wilhelm-Baynes translation. I recently learned that it had a lot of philosophizing in it- not just the divination system.

Paper I'm reading: Simon's The Science of Design: Creating the Artificial.

Mother of Learning by Domagoj Kurmaic. Very good overall. This is the first time I get the appeal of rational fiction. The premise is recognizably Harry Potter, but with infinitely better worldbuilding, and Harry Potter is a useless jock so Hermione uses her looper watch to counter Voldermort instead.

Pro: The protagonist unravels a single fantasy mystery puzzle over thousands of pages, with each step being purely logical. Minimal asspulls. Despite the web novel origins, the author seems to have planned clockwork details from the start. Side characters are funny and have surprisingly heartwarming backstories.

Con: In the early chapters, the protagonist acts like a teenager. A real one. He's not as bad as the fandom warned, but you'll have to overcome a cringe curve here.

Neutral: There's an almost total lack of descriptive language. If a character pulls into a impressive train station, the author just says the character is impressed; he doesn't describe how the benches have Baroque Rococo gold-trimmed marble or whatever. To my surprise, the straightforward delivery doesn't bother me, and more paragraphs of scene-building would just distract. If you like buttery delicious prose, you won't find it here.

Super Supportive on royal road. It may be the best I’ve read on the site.

The story blurb, while accurate, doesn’t do it justice. The author excels at fleshing out characters, and making you really care for them. Just finished a major arc a couple weeks ago, so it is a great time to jump in.

The latest book in Charles Stross's Laundry Files universe, Season of Skulls.

For the uninitiated, in this setting, when mathematicians develop headaches from thinking about extremely tough theoretical maths, it's because their neural circuitry is inadvertently emulating a summoning circle and drawing flocks of microdemons that eat your brains and give you dementia.

Cocks gun Turing Machine's haunted.

In the initial novels, we have a every man computer programmer protagonist who is shanghaid into a reclusive and underfunded British department that handles the occult, the eponymous Laundry, based beneath an actual laundry in Soho. Then he gets thrown into the deep end, cults take over the United States, and everyone is fighting for their lives against a Techno-Lovecraftian Singularity.

It's really really good, and I diligently await every new release.

Wow, according to Wiki I'm way behind. There are thirteen novels now? I read the first four, (maybe the first three? I'm honestly not sure and that's heavily foreshadowing my next phrase...) and they seemed a little less interesting with each new entry, so I stopped paying attention. But I loved the first book. Does the series ever get that good again?

I personally think the series was at its best wit the initial protagonist, and got noticeably worse when the vampires showed up. Still worth reading IMO, but your mileage might vary

I grabbed the first couple from a used bookstore last month. Pretty excited to try them out.

I found the series less pleasant as it went on; the past few books left me cold.

I got to about the middle (about when the vampires show up) and there are certainly some signs of fatigue showing. I decided to take a break from it, and try to come back in a month or two and see if it goes better. I do like the worldbuilding aspects, though some jokes become a bit too forced, I mean I probably heard all the jokes about programmers and geeks that are possible already, I want something new already.

But the first Laundry ones I'd definitely recommend to somebody like me. Also, it's nice to have some British point of view on the world, having been reading so many American ones lately.

I agree the books before they switched POV characters were better, but the worldbuilding still keeps me coming back for more.

That sounds fantastic, will check it out.

Just started on Guy de Maupassant's Bel Ami. It's a surprisingly easy read and fun to get through as well.

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