trends, friends and my own ends
old sci-fi is my ends, there’s always more than I can ever hope to absorb
@Shkshkshk I used to use reddit, ive seen answers to one of my reddit posts like the same exact list made from the comments from chatgpt when asking for suggestions based off books i like so it might actually be helpful or it mightve pulled directly from my post where I stated my preferences and asked for suggestions. It was weirdly close to the old post.
When I’m running out of books I start asking anyone interesting that I’m talking to what they are reading. If they are into that book I buy it on the spot, while we’re still talking. Occasionally they are reading something completely shit, but I’ve hit some gems. Then you have something in common with that person which is a bonus.
Water stones website, zlib, searching the name of the anime I’m watching
I’m a big science fiction reader. Mostly I:
- Look up lists of winners and nominees for the big awards (Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C Clarke)
- Read reviews for successive books in a series when I liked the earlier ones
- Find articles on the top SF books of all time or by year, written by respectable sources
- Get recommendations from friends who also read SF
- Occasionally post threads in the SF community here on things I’ve read and see what comes up in the comments
I recommend a fantastic niche subreddit r/printSF to you as well. I’ve found many great books there and enjoy the discussion too. Sorry for reddit but that community isn’t nearly as active here, although it definitely has the potential to be since I always see enthusiastic discussion about SF books from Lemmyngs whenever they’re brought up.
Thanks, though I’m just not going to give Reddit any more of my clicks. I left there at the first big exiguous and I’m not going back.
There aren’t a lot of posts on the SF community here, but when I’ve posted something interesting it’s gotten a lot of activity, so I know there are people reading it. Here’s one from the end of the year.
Ask an LLM for recommendations based on what I liked to read.
This for me as well. It’s why I’m now on book 7 ofthe Terms of Enlistment series by Marko Kloos
I’ll ddg a topic or genre I’m interested in, “top space alien novels” or “top novels in x universe”. Or I get recommendations from the podcasts I listen to, or the shows I watch.
Generally, I consume all the material on whatever new topic or genre that is interested me at the time, and then move onto the next.
It never really crossed my mind there’s even a possibility to not having something to read. Thinking about it a bit more, I see few reasons for my immediate thought.
First I’m quite slow reader myself. I read rougly 10 books a year so I don’t burn through as many books as some other more avid readers.
Second I read mostly SF/F and there’s just so many good books and series for people interested in this genre. And while not everything is perfect, I’m probably much more tolerant to some imperfections as a genre fan.
Third, I read in my (non english) native tongue and while we’re definitely limited in quantity, it’s usually a bit of a filter so most of bad and trash books are excluded. Who would pay to translate and print shitty book anyway?
We have two good local sites that helps. One is basically like “local goodreads”, the other is strictly SF/F fansite. Both have user ratings and reviews which help a lot. Also my best friend has similar taste in books, so we often recommend our findings to each other.
Looking through hugo/nebula nominations.
friends
i used to use goodreads but since it’s owned by Amazon, i don’t trust it an switched to thestorygraph.com which has really nice recommendations. of course it recommends based on my usual tastes but often also has some books i would never have checked otherwise, which i quite appreciate.
Reference sections and other suggested readings from the back of books I enjoyed. This is mostly for more non-fiction books but its helpful to see what the author recommends. I have often found books I love from his method and the really good ones get recommended from multiple related books. Especially if its for some interested that is new to you.
Mostly just lurking goodreads, subreddits, forums, but also signing up to some newsletters.
This is what I do too except mine is StoryGraph. I sometimes look at what other users in community are reading, look those books up and try.
Libby too has recommendations from my local libraries. I check those out.
Podcast interviews with authors. Sometimes citations in YouTube explainers or public debates.
And how doest thou find these podcasts
Most have been through podcasters mentioning a show they like and talking about it or having guests on from other shows. It took a pretty good amount of time to find a good collection of shows that I genuinely look forward to hearing and weed out the meh content. Here’s a list I wrote when someone had a thread asking for recommendations.
- Better Offline: Ed Zitron tearing apart how shitty the tech industry has become
- QAA Podcast: studies conspiratorial thinking (originally devoted to watching Qanon lunatics), typically hilarious
- Accidental Tech Podcast: three third-party Apple developers talking about tech, primarily in the Apple ecosystem
- Chapo Traphouse: Leftist politics, typically pretty funny
- Noble Blood: history podcast retelling stories about members of nobility in short form
- Fall of Civilizations Podcast: history podcast that dives deep into civs like Carthage and the Assyrians, etc
- TrueAnon: Leftist politics, deep dives on topics
- Last Podcast on the Left (name is a horror film reference): true crime with anecdotes, lots of diversions that might not be for everyone
- Alphabet Boys: each season deep dives a taboo action by gov agencies (FBI, ATF, etc)
- Song Exploder: deep dives on the writing and recording of songs with the musicians behind them
- What Went Wrong: deep dives on movie productions
- Behind the Bastards: deep dives on terrible people throughout history, lots of diversions that might not be for everyone
- Grumpy Old Geeks: tech and nerd news (including sci-fi media) from two cynical guys who have been in the biz for years, typically funny
I remember song exploder! I listened to it a lot when I was a kid. I’d love to listen to a podcast like that, but with authors talking about their books and explaining why they made the decisions they made
Damn, has that show been around that long? How long ago were you a kid?
This was about 12 years ago, i think. By “kid” I mean teenager.
I’m just not used to podcasts sticking around for more than four years.
The library. You can also pay them to buy books for you, which stay in their system.
- talking with people at some organised book events (Meetups/silent book club)
- talking with friends
- sometimes browsing Bookwyrm (fediverse Goodreads)
- scrolling through Libby
The New Yorker books podcast and the NY Times books podcast, questionable publications for sure but their arts sections still remain very good, and the Guardian books section. Also the musician and writer John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats always has amazing and unusual recommendations on Gus Bluesky account.
You should read Neko Case’s memoir if you want my two cents. It’s amazing.
