Just finished them instead of reading them right now, but “The Left Hand of Darkness” and “The Dispossessed” by Ursula K. Le Guin. I liked the world building of the first far better, but it didn’t hit at the politics I wanted to read about as much as I wanted, the second being the opposite.
I don’t know why, but I just need content wrapped in sci-fi for me to find it enjoyable, and “The Dispossessed” in particular was what I was looking for, an exploration of anarchism grounded in examples and thought experiment.
Both of them are fantastic books, and definitely worth a read for anybody interested in science fiction, sexuality & gender, and anarchism.
Those are two of the best books I read last year.
I started the Left Hand of Darkness just a few days ago. It’s been interesting so far
Not reading it right now, but I’ll take this opportunity to recommend people read Project Hail Mary before watching the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation which spoils major plot twists.
Having read it multiple times, the trailer pissed me off because of the spoiler. I’d honestly say for anyone, whether you’ve read it or not, don’t watch the trailer.
My partner hasn’t read it, and I said they shouldn’t watch the trailer. We’re gonna see the movie and I don’t want them to get spoiled
Yeah I’m glad I read it before watching the trailer. It’s a great sci-fi book!
Finishing the Imperial Radch sci-fi trilogy (Ancillary Justice/Sword/Mercy) by Ann Leckie. Despite the agender language feature (everyone is addressed as she) the books deal more with colonialism, imperialism, and personal identity, rather than gender. Writing style is very information-dense, lots of thoughts and actions happening simultaneously. Compared to other science fiction that I read, it gets much more into the cultural and interpersonal situations, especially the second book.
For the past, idk, one or two decades I have only read books very sparingly and if I did, it was fantasy. Right now I am devouring The Expanse books and having a great time. I watched the tv series first (awesome) but was somewhat bummed by the ending.
Love those books. Extremely easy to read and reread and set the standard for modern hard sci fi.
Yes! Got any recommendations for when I am finished with them?
I quite enjoyed Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series, which is also (relatively) hard-ish sci-fi and has a creative and interesting exploration of non-human intelligences. I enjoyed the first two books but was meh on the third. Certainly would still recommend them but they don’t scratch quite the same itch the Expanse does.
Another series I devoured and then re-read a year later was the Murderbot Diaries. It’s dystopian but also kind of hopeful, it’s a story about realizing one’s personhood and self determination and making a life for yourself, with a very dry sense of humor. It’s a great audio book read, (the Kevin Free version) and was recently turned into a series on Apple TV.
Thats the second time I have heard about Murderbot, so that is going on the list haha Thank you!
Blindsight by Peter Watts is also on that list. Don’t know anything about it, other than it being hard sci-fi tho.
Iain M Banks’ Culture novels. Eon by Greg Bear.
A few scifi books i enjoyed: Quantum magician series Pushing ice Project hail Mary Revelation space series
Murderbot is great, I’ll second that rec. I also really enjoyed the Revelation Space series.
Revelation Space series (specifically the “future” part: Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap) might not have the best writing, but the wild (and sometimes insane) ideas and scale of everything is great.
In retrospect would you say read the books first or no?
For me it works really well. My AuDHD brain is very happy to put established voices and faces to some of the characters. I also really liked the visuals and general feeling of the show.
IMO the show did not do a good job introducing characters and settings, and failed to do a lot of “screen writing 101” stuff like establishing who the characters are and their relationships to each other in the first few episodes. It also failed at using visual language or motifs to define the different settings and distinguish them which was frustrating and confusing. I started the show first and was intrigued enough to pick up the books, but absolutely reading the books gives you a shortcut past all of the “who’s that guy?” and “wait, I thought those people were in the same place” type moments of confusion. I still really enjoyed the show and I figured everything out eventually, but yes it benefits from a read-through.
I read primary scientific literature for work. If I am reading for leisure, fantasy is the absolute best. I can’t waste my time reading nonfiction.
The Stand by Stephen King.
It’s over 1200 pages long and I have always been scared of anything above six hundred pages.
It’s so good. It’s taking me a long time, but it’s worth it. As always, Stephen King never let’s you down. I just love his writing.
It’s so epic though. Such a great book.
1Q84. Magical realism. Bizarre, but can’t stop reading. I need to know mooore.
The Devils by Joe Abercrombie. It’s set in a fantasy medieval Europe. Unfortunately, its not long out and is the first of a series, so I’ll have to wait for the rest.
I read the First Law series. And after that devastating ending, I can never go back to reading his books. Do all of his books end like that?
I haven’t finished this one yet, do we’ll see.
I’m guessing you mean the first trilogy (apologies if I’m mistaken), as the First Law universe continues for 6 more books after that (plus a collection of short stories). After the Last Argument of Kings, there are 3 “stand alone” novels, which are the strongest, in my opinion, and then a second trilogy, which is excellent.
I believe there are more books planned for that universe, but The Devils is separate. The others I haven’t read as they’re Young Adult, so they probably have cheerier endings.
Were you to read on, you’d probably find some joy for characters you like, but I think unhappy endings outweigh the happy ones. Of course, I could be mistaken and you’ve read all 9, because the ending of the last can definitely be described as devastating too!
Nope, I didn’t know there were more books in the first law universe. I only read the first trilogy.
I reread 1984, Animal Farm and Farenheight 451 recently, for no particular reason, but they are more accurate and depressing than ever about current events.
Highly recommended. But be prepared to be angry or depressed.
Driving directions to your mom’s house. 🥁
I’m on book 3 of the Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson. It’s fantasy, it’s weird in a lot of ways, but it’s well written for the most part and enjoyable to read. It feels like reading an unfolding story of people in a parallel universe where things are half the same and half completely alien and different, but to them, it’s commonplace, and I like that.
The expanse
Such a great series. During covid lockdown for six weeks I was watching the TV series in the day and reading the novels in bed at night. I’ve never experienced media in quite the same way. They were both amazing. Amos is one of my all-time favourite characters in fiction.
I’m on book 7 and I kinda wanna finish the book series before I start the show. But yeah I agree it’s been awesome so far.
I was worried that the show could be bad I had read silo before this and when I checked out the show I didn’t like it nearly as much as the book.
The Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman. Great story, easy reading, relatable characters, and soon to be made into a series. There are 7 books so far, but rumors say there might be up to 10 eventually.
Second this. The audio book is the way to go on this one.
Bouncing between Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions and The Screaming Staircase.
Algorithms is interesting but the actual algorithms aren’t terribly useful so far.
The Screaming Staircase has a very neat world but not very interesting characters. I’m hoping it improves.
I just finished Abundance by Ezra Kline and Derek Thompson. A really interesting read regarding the housing crisis and the policies that have halted develpoment in major cities in America. I highly recommend reading this one. I took notes along the way and basically did a book report.
I’m now reading Casino: The Rise and Fall of the Mob in Las Vegas. A fascinating book that inspired the Scorsese film by the same title. Recommended for anyone with interest in Vegas or the mob. It’s written kinda like a series of interviews from the perspectives of the different people involved. The (alleged) mob guys and the FBI agents who were investigating them.
Next up, I’m likely gonna read Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco. I don’t have too much insight on this one yet but I’ve heard it’s pretty great
Most of what I’ve read about Abundance is a general distrust for their arguments.
Alex Bronzini-Vender says abundance didn't work in practice in Colorado.
The abundance agenda’s fundamental sleight of hand is that, by unleashing the private sector from burdensome consumer protection, labor standards, and zoning regulations, American consumers might recover their lost purchasing power and living standards without the state directly tampering with workplace standards or wage levels. The private sector would supply more goods at lower costs—if only it could. That hasn’t panned out in Colorado, and it’s unlikely to elsewhere. (thebaffler.com)
David Sirota says the project is a scam because all it does is deregulate corporations without addressing medical care or the social safety net.
David Sirota, the founder of Lever News and a former Bernie Sanders speechwriter, summed up one stinging progressive critique of the whole project: “Abundance™ being defined as ‘kill zoning laws and corporate regulation’ but not ‘give everyone decent medical care’ — that’s the tell, and you’re the mark.” It’s true that this is not a focus among the advocates of abundance. Relaxing zoning laws won’t do anything to bring us universal health care or bolster the social safety net. It may not even, in the short term, do enough to create affordable housing. (nymag.com
He also argues that they ignore the real obstacles to efficiency and abundance: corporate corruption driving artificial scarcity.
[T]he takeaway from the broadband tale is that the biggest obstacles to efficiency and abundance are often corporate power and its corrupting influence on our politics — factors typically downplayed or unmentioned in the Abundance Discourse. … We could pass all the federal permitting reforms Klein and Thompson could dream of, but if powerful fossil-fuel interests continue to call the political shots, we’ll never achieve the clean energy build-out we desperately need. … In many of those areas, there’s no actual scarcity of structures that could be living space. It’s just that corporations and oligarchs hoarding wealth and land aren’t being compelled by zoning and tax laws to open up the space for housing.
As someone who’s actually read the book, have these criticisms been handled and no one noticed, or would they need to publish a revised edition?
Ok, so I have no shortages of critiscism when it comes to the book. I do agree that they seem to have a foolishly optimistic assumption that the only (or I guess just the principal) hurdle in the way of housing development is regulation. I’m certain corporate greed does play a MAJOR role in this. However, going over what you’ve linked here, I have a couple issues. Most notably, the second point there. It really seems odd to essentially say that we shouldn’t be considering housing reform because we need healthcare reform. Two issues can and do exist, and both issues need to be addressed. The authors focus on one of them. That doesn’t mean they don’t care about the other. As for Kline and Thompson’s call for deregulation, it’s something that rubs me the wrong way initially, but they do a pretty good job demonstrating the way that regulation can be used to slow and even fully prevent development, and how it leads to developers only building luxury housing because the costs to develop are too high. And while this make me think somethng like, “boohoo the rich guy will need to wait a little longer to get a return” we can’t ignore that under our current system, profits are the prime motivator. I’m on my phone right now, so I feel I can’t really dive too deep into your question, but my main point would be that I do agree with some of the critisicm and I don’t think they fully address some pretty big concerns the reader may have with what they’re saying.
I did keep notes on quotes that I felt were important in the book, and then went through and wrote out why I felt they were. A lot of them touch on these topics. If you’re interested, I can share it. Though please keep in mind, I haven’t refined my notes as I wasn’t really expecting to share them.
If you’re down, absolutely.
What I’m getting so far (from the reviews and your comment) is that deregulation could incentivize more housing construction, but there’s a massive asterisk that Klein and Thompson are avoiding.
My opinion so far is they either earnestly believe in the neoliberal promise that “if you just get out of the way, the free market can solve anything” or (more cynically) they’re seeding the terrain edify buzzwords for a Democratic comeback campaign.
Either way, you’ve convinced me to put it on my to-read list.
Yeah, I’ll send you a google docs link. I mean, they provide a lot of great examples about how regulation is halting progress on projects that pretty much everyone, regardless of political ideology, can agree are good. So, they have a point. But I feel like their conclusion is somewhat lacking in substance. This is not to say it’s not a great read. It’s just something that would benefit further analysis. Definitely let me know when you’ve finished reading it, if you wanna discuss it more. I don’t really know anyone who’s interested in this topic, so it’s nice to get a chance to discuss it.
Barbarians at the Gate is a good book and the movie is also worth a watch.
When the two executives are talking and then each gets on their private plane, then continue the talk via phone in air, and then land at the same location it sets up the situation so well.
Oh wow, that sounds hilarious and really depressing lol. I’m definitely gonna check out the movie when I’m done reading it!
I’ve already finished it, but House of Leaves is amazing
Finally got around to the Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan and it’s more relevant than ever. It absolutely predicted the world we’re in politically now and has some insight and analysis as to how and why and what to do to help. Definitely worth a read or reread if you haven’t read it or it’s been a while.
I have this on audiobook and it’s brilliant.
I own this book. I’ve read it three times now. I think I will read it a fourth.
