Nah, I have to settle for sex instead. :'(
I’m a Stephen king fan, so by the time I finish one of his books he’s written 3 more
He defended The List recently, so fuck him.
Idk what that is
The Epstein list. He basically said it was fake. He’s always been an asshole as far as I’m concerned, but I’ve usually agreed with his political tweets (or whatever he uses that people post). I have no loyalty to him, and find it strange that he would claim it was made up.
Does it make his books worse?
It makes it suspect that the books may have been written by a pedophile (overlooking things like the orgy in IT). Odd thing to defend the Epstein files if you aren’t one.
I’m not sure I understand how saying something doesn’t exist is defending it?
I don’t know how you believe it doesn’t exist
It makes it suspect that the books may have been written by a pedophile (overlooking things like the orgy in IT).
Tbh IT is a pretty strong argument for that… I have only hazy memories from when I read it as a child (very age-appropriate book lol 👌), but I still remember several scenes of children doing sexual activities. Looking back, I don’t think any of it was needed for the story to work - if not a paedo, King was probably drugged out of his mind when he wrote it.
Stephen King is the opposite of G. R. R. Martin
they should have a child together who writes at the perfect rate
But Stephen King already writes at the perfect rate.
someone should tell him not to write anything on Twitter though
or why is he tweeted what he did regarding the Epstein list
I feel like his completion of the dark tower is on par with grim’s GOT wrap up.
can someone list all the books mentioned / recommended here ? thanks
Many times but only when the books had relatively decent grammar and spelling.
That was playing red dead redemption 2 for me
I remember the first time finishing the Lord of the Rings. I was heartbroken knowing I couldn’t read it again for the first time. I still remember-read it a bunch, and still feel saddened by reaching the ending every time.
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You mean the wandering inn webseries?
Thats called anime
This is how I feel about playing Outer Wilds.
Did you play with a mouse and keyboard? I started it on my PC and it said it needed a controller. So instead I switched to my Steam Deck, but I felt like the small screen wasn’t doing it justice, so I stopped.
Been meaning to pick it back up again.
Coming from someone who primarily games on Mouse/Keyboard, controller just feels better, but Mouse/Keyboard shouldn’t ruin the experience at all.
Controller all the way.
I think it’s mostly the zero-G and ship controls where it matters.
Honestly you can play it with keyboard and mouse no problem. Don’t let it prevent you from playing!
I need to play this. I get the same feelings with RPGs or really good open world games. Would love to add another to the list
That is outer worlds. Op said outer wilds. You are going to be disappointed (or maybe happy) if you pick up one thinking its the other lol.
I came to the comments just to say this. I’m glad I’m not the only one
Fffffuuuuuu you both beat me to it. I try to get others to play it so I can live vicariously through their amazement! Bought it on Steam for a gaming buddy and for my brother on Switch.
I still haven’t recovered from reading The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed
I’m in the middle of the Dispossessed and I love The Left Hand of Darkness. I swear if these books were less sexual I’d want teenagers to have to read them. Left Hand to teach about cultural and gendered biases and the Dispossessed to teach that your ideology won’t create a utopia, but that doesn’t mean it won’t make things better. It’s an absolute shame that LeGuinn kinda requires nerdiness to be introduced to.
City of Illusions still haunts me as well and I keep bringing it up to my wife as we watch Three Body Problem. Its prequels Rocannon’s World and Planet of Exile were good as the sci fi sword and sorcery followed by sci fi pocahontas (problematicness included) that they were. But City was a book about a Taoist against lies and liars and it hit hard for that.
Personally I found Omelas highly overrated though. It’s a visceral depiction of a common thought experiment but a common thought experiment it was
I read those Dispossessed and LHoD in the 80s, and then reread them more recently, and I’m amazed at how well they hold up. So often stories and sensibilities feel dated when you get to many decades from when they were written, but those two books could have been written yesterday. Both masterpieces, for sure. I’m not sure who you feel they’re inappropriate for teenagers though.
I never read City of Illusions - at least I don’t think I have. I’ll add it to my list. What do you think of Three Body Problem? I read the book and didn’t really care for it (I know I’m in the minority there).
City of illusions is to a degree a sequel to Planet of Exile (which is the only book of hers I think doesn’t hold up), which is kinda a sequel to Rocannon’s World so I definitely recommend reading all three.
I’m enjoying three body Problem but not to the degree I’d recommend it to people. Well made and all that, but it has issues that I feel come directly from cultural differences and from the writing.
I’ll put them on the reading list.
Yeah, I wondered if my problems with the 3BP book were culturally-based from the translation, though it was pretty universally lauded as masterful. The motivations and actions of some of the characters just seemed so unlikely to me.
Yeah I also just see a lot of the imperial propaganda that I had to learn to recognize being an American in it, but for China. It’s very, “support for China doing bad things is morally superior to opposition to it”. Like, you have a victim of the cultural revolution and you’re telling me that she’s wholly in the wrong for begging aliens to help saying that we cannot save ourselves.
The show leans away from some of it but the entire story revolves around the full villain status of people with reasonable criticisms and their blind faith that makes them to a certain degree uninteresting.
I just finished the Dispossessed and yeah I think if I read it as a teenager I would’ve had a head start on where I was headed. My hesitation with recommending them for teenagers is not that teenagers shouldn’t read them but that I’m not comfortable being the one to call for books with sexual components to be part of the curriculi for them. Though both, especially had they been available as options for summer reading would have been enlightening.
I do think both feel dated though, but only in the gendered interactions. The terran on Winter having these gender issues makes sense, it’s the point of the story. But on Anarres the Odonians feel gender divisions in a way that feels like if written today would have explanations. Honestly i feel that even 10 years later, but definitely 20 LeGuinn would have written Odonians as seeing gender as trait only affecting that which it must rather than as a source of division, conflict, and frustration. And in that vein in both books the cold war is powerful and omnipresent lingering over every aspects of these books, especially the Vietnam war. In the Dispossessed it has to be, that’s the point, but it is dealt with in a way where you can feel the 1970s in it.
I don’t think these elements take from the stories though, it’s no different from how if you know what to look for you can see that Tolkien didn’t entirely leave WWI or Star Trek TOS is a product of the 60s while TNG is a product of the 80s and 90s (the lipstick choices alone). A work of fiction cannot be truly timeless as a person cannot be truly timeless. But a classic is one that draws you past it’s time and speaks regardless of its time, and eventually you find yourself cherishing your Shakespeare, your Homer, your epic of Gilgamesh all the more for it has grown fine with age. I feel LeGuinn is aging very well indeed.
I think there’s a big difference between overly graphic sexual descriptions and the simple fact of characters having sex. LeGuinn, to me, does the latter, not the former, and I think it’s fine for teenagers to read that. They know people have sex.
I didn’t feel that the characterization of gender roles felt dated because none of these places are earth, they’re alien worlds with their own norms being described. We, the readers of today, are left to think about those norms in comparison to our own, just as readers were at the time the books were written. Sure, there has been some shifting of our society’s norms since then, but I think the points being made still apply.
One of the things I think is most masterful about TLHoD is the initial underlying sexism of Ai, our narrator. He’s just a little dismissive of women and feminine things, and the subtlety of his evolution as he really comes to grips with a race who alternate between male and female is amazingly well done. I think that message is absolutely as relevant today as the day it was written, and can be applied to more than just gender.
Teenagers shouldn’t be reading about sex? Am I reading your intention correctly?
I’m not going to be the one to advocate for teenagers having to read about sex
Well I think it needs done. But like many things…no one asked me so here I am! Have a good day, Comrade.
Bro when I was 16 all I thought about was sex
I have like 30 books I’ve not thought about since 10 years already, almost completely forgotten and ready to be read again, I should start sometime.
The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stevenson did that for me. 2700+ pages and it felt like I needed more
I’ve never been as angry as when I got to the end of the first book and found that the bastard had hidden the glossary!
The sheer number of people and events…
Some people have to wear leather collars or dye their hair or get facial tattoos to proclaim themselves.
I tell people I like a 1,200 page comedy novel about the founding of the english banking system.
Okay, this seems like a book recommendation ;) Stevenson’s books are very different, how would you describe these ones?
Historical science fiction. Oh, and there’ll be familiar names if you read Cryptonomicon.
Loose prequel to Cryptinomicon based in the Golden Era of Europe. Starts after Cromwell’s death and ends in the 1700s. Spans the globe, piracy, science, alchemy, politics, intrigue, fighting… It’s all there. And done with historical accuracy despite the fictional nature.
You don’t have to read Cryptinomicon first, but I recommend it.
GNU Terry Pratchett
Giant Nosy Neighbor?
Or as I’ve recently come to calling it, GNU + Terry Pratchett
I’ve barely read any books since he died tbh.
You are missing out. There is so much greatness out there
Try Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s a wonderful story and has an underlying sense of humor in the way that Pratchett’s books did.
Maybe try some sex instead
https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=tanith+lee
Tanith Lee. British writer of the same time and mindset. The first book listed “Night’s Master” is set in the time when the world was still flat. A mighty demon prince spends the daylight hours in his underworld kingdom, and spends his nights tormenting and/or seducing humans.
GNU STP
Greatest Nut Ultimately?
That’s easy. I never finish the book. Same with great TV shows.
