Just finished Zhuangzi.
What else should I read?
I just finished Expanse since the last book was just printed in Poland. Not bad series, though socialist perspective gives it very different meaning. It is a reality desperately needing socialism, and it’s like all notions of socialism was removed from human history and memory and blocked for the future. So everything people can think of is various degrees of fascism. Even Belters, people who by all means should be socialist by the very nature of their conditions, constantly speak about co-dependency and instead we mostly see social darwinism and at best extreme tribalism.
it’s like all notions of socialism was removed from human history and memory and blocked for the future
That seems to be often the case with western sci-fi. Ivan Efremov, famous Soviet paleontologist and writers, actually said this tendency of western writers to just blatantly extrapolate capitalism to other planets was one of the main inspirations for his Great Circle cycle of books. There he envisioned a socialist space future, with many different species united. IIRC he straight up postulates in one of the books that socialism is one of the requirements for a species to advance into interstellar era of their existence.
Yeah. Western sci-fi always defaults to social darwinism and it’s not accidental, sci fi writers do think about future development but they can’t even imagine anything better than capitalism* so overwhelming most of their future visions are just socialdarwinist dystopias because that is what capitalism defaults to. Even some of them noticed like Cole and Bunch wrote in the afterword to the “Sten” cycle**, that sci-fi writers are incredibly fond of fascism. Finally, that is influence of a system. Like polish and soviet sci fi writers still did it fairly often, but immediately started to produce solely disturbing dystopian dark books after socialism was destroyed. Though probably not only because chinese writers do it too, their fantasy novels are pure socialdarwinist (though the setting have legit reason for it) and the famous in the west Liu Cixin series went from ingenius first book through decent second to third being absolutely fucking shitscape catalog of apocalypse.
*There are also previous systems represented, but since feudalism make it hard to develop space tech those are usually marginal or neobarbaric (like Warhammer 40000) or visited by “enlightened” capitalist
conquistadorswell meaning visitors. There is also absolutely astounding amount of monarchism, looking mostly at D. Weber, but he’s far from the only one, just main culprit.**That series was actually good. It also completely negates socialism, but shits on typical lib monarchist sentiment HARD. The Eternal Emperor from that series is actually the ideal monarch as described by western monarchists, made real by advanced technology, but everything still goes to hell.
It is interesting how modern fiction usually defaults to dystopian imperialism, you could argue that a shitty situation is more interesting to read about, Mortal Engine books are a good read about social Darwinism (literally mentioned within) and how the moving cities require constant slaves and resources to survive on a barren Earth.
I mean this is first rule of drama. There is no drama without the conflict, and drama is the point of fiction books - not even children books are usually devoid of it. They go way too far though, since 90’s there is alsmot impossible to find any futurist piece that would not be dystopian to large degree. Fantasy hav similar problem, and i’m not even speaking about epicly cynical dark fantasy like Glen Cook, but about the shit, dirt and evil settings.
OOf
I’m re-reading through all of the Cosmere novels by Brandon Sanderson in order to refresh my memories of them for the release of Mistborn 7 later this year, currently in the middle of Oathbringer. I discovered these books as a teenager many years ago and as I grow old and my understandment of the world also grows I find myself coming back to these books and enjoying them for different reasons lmao
I stopped after the third one.
Weak. I stopped after the 5th.
oof
THEY’RE SO LONG
The Queen’s Gambit. Content warning for child sexual abuse on the first chapter. Not sure what I think of this book.
ugh
The show was good.l enough. I don’t feel like I would have missed out much if I hadn’t started the book. I’m halfway through, maybe I’ll feel different when I finished. Who knows?
ig
I just finished leave the world behind. It was alright, moving onto some romance fiction next.
Noice. Never read romance before.
Handmaid’s Tale
Oh nice
Worth reading or no?
Lol just came back here; not as enlightening as theory but I try to keep 1 fiction book in the rotation and it was great for that.
Stephen King’s The Stand. First half of the novel kinda dragging for me starting to getting good at the 500 page mark lol.
Ah, it’s one of those stories, huh…
Yep if you have the patience it’s worth it if your getting into Dark Tower I think. Its sooo long that i got the Spanish version of the novel(apocalipsis) to help me with learning. Knocking two birds with one stone. Lol
Nice!
Also reading UZUMAKI(junji Ito)
I was watching Inside job some days ago, and now im trying to finally give Rick and Morty an try, but in a matter of books and games, i have not seem a lot recently.
oof
Rereading Jojo’s bizarre adventure, but going by parts I wanna reread first. Currently on p7 after rereading p4 and p5.
Frankly, I may read Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure next.
First two parts (out of 8, and the first two are the shortest) are meh, but the rest are amazing.
Yeah, I watched the show… I’m up to Part 4.
Diamond is Unbreakable is my favorite!
It’s one of my favorite parts too! I hope Makan likes the ending arc, it’s so cool. Might rewatch it again for the fuck of it
I gotta say: the “chef episode” (episode 10) freaked me out a bit.
Hahahaha!
Just recently finished Neuromancer.
Really enjoyed it, especially the prose even though its dense with jargon. Felt it helped immerse me in the world, and I just let the writing take me for a ride. Plus, I just really enjoyed Gibson’s writing style. That opening sentence is considered one of the best ever for a reason.
Might not be for those who like stories that are more character focused though.
I honest-to-god love prose.
I’ve been wanting to pick up “Laurus” again. It’s a Russian book translated and from what I understand the translator put in almost as much work as the original author; it certainly reads like they did, that is to say amazingly. It’s probably my all time favorite book.
In short: medieval Russian peasant/medicine apprentice finds God and goes on a pilgrimage.
Being spiritual definitely helped me enjoy the book but you don’t need to be Christian or anything similar, it’s not delivering a religious message.
Very profound, excellent writing and imagery, really emotional in an ambient way moreso than a plot way. Also interesting look into medieval niches you wouldn’t hear about normally–I’ve been calling myself a “holy fool” ever since.
Is it a book from the Soviet era or after the beginning of the Russian Federation?
I just finished Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie) and was really surprised how much I liked it. Now I am reading Fifth Season (NK Jemisin) and its pretty good so far. I want to finish reading Herbert’s Pandora Sequence, but it’s really weird stuff.
Ugh, I hated NK Jemisin’s Fifth Season, at least the first book.
