What are you reading right now?

[AnOminous]

It has an interesting villain who explains his motivations well.

O'Brien is probably the most interesting character. The protagonist is kind of a cipher.

 

[Vygode]

Metaphysics of War by Julius Evola, mostly out of curiosity

 

[Jhonson the Two]

22 chapters left on Moby Dick.

In the last chapter I read,

Spoiler: Spoilers

Ahab has the ship blacksmith construct him a new harpoon, and it's the most dramatic shit, like watching some mystical weapon be forged.

I liked Moby Dick on how over the top it is. Reading it felt like the book was the whale itself if it make sense.

 

[Rustle]

Finished a Confederacy of dunces on my night shift and fuck it's the funniest book I've ever read. The ending came together so perfectly. I wish he had written more. Gonna be reading Jurassic park next

One of my favorite books, so funny.

 

[Rustle]

Someone pls convince me to read 1984. I still haven't finished my current book, Flowers for Algernon, but I've been thinking about reading 1984 for a long time. But I'm worried it'll be super boring and dated. Any opinions? Is it worth reading?

I don't like Orwell's prose that much, but I do think it's a pretty compelling book.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

Someone pls convince me to read 1984. I still haven't finished my current book, Flowers for Algernon, but I've been thinking about reading 1984 for a long time. But I'm worried it'll be super boring and dated. Any opinions? Is it worth reading?

It's one of those "must-read" classics and it's very relevant to how global society is leaning nowadays, but as others have said there is a big chunk in the middle-ish that is an absolute slog (I ended up skipping through it). I also didn't like the main character much after we see him

Spoiler: very minor spoilers

fantasize about violently raping a woman who's a loyal party member.

I've heard several justifications on why this makes sense in the moment or is a symptom of government oppression or whatever and none of it makes sense to me. The ending is fantastic, imo.

 

[Rustle]

I've heard several justifications on why this makes sense in the moment or is a symptom of government oppression or whatever and none of it makes sense to me. The ending is fantastic, imo.

I think the party controls everything about every aspect of their lives even sex as is shown in the novel when he talks about marriage. I think maybe it's to show how the protagonists conception of love changes from something very hateful (a hate which is directed towards the party) to something more beautiful as his relationship with Julia progresses.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

I think the party controls everything about every aspect of their lives even sex as is shown in the novel when he talks about marriage. I think maybe it's to show how the protagonists conception of love changes from something very hateful (a hate which is directed towards the party) to something more beautiful as his relationship with Julia progresses.

Spoiler

I've heard this explanation before. It doesn't hold water for me. The way the scene plays out, it is not that he doesn't know how to process love or desire due to political brainwashing (because this would imply that violent rape is the norm for loyal party members, which makes up 99% of the population). Rather, it is written in such a way that he lusts for her and also hates her for her loyalty to the party. He has a fantasy where he can satisfy his baser lust and also punish her for her devotion to the party. He recognizes that this is a "bad" thought that would get him incarcerated by the party. So not only is this sort of thinking NOT normal for a well-oiled party android, but it is in fact rebellious. His first rebellious act is fantasizing violent rape. Awesome.

 

[Susanna]

because this would imply that violent rape is the norm for loyal party members, which makes up 99% of the population

Nah. About 85% of the population are proles. They're explicitly not political at all, they just live normal lives. There are a few scenes where Winston interacts with them. Only 15% of the population are party members, and only 2% of those are Inner Party. Winston and Julia are Outer Party, which is the most strictly controlled group of people. "Recreational sex" is technically banned, but it's only enforced for the Outer Party (Inner Party are privileged and rules don't apply to them, proles are considered below notice and the Party even provides them with "bread and circuses" in the form of condoms and pornography). Winston being a twisted human being is meant to be understood as due in large part to his being Outer Party.

 

[Ratboy Genius]

Let's just say there's a reason why this book gets referenced so much. It's a bleak story about subversion and subjugation. You can find less extreme examples of things that happen in it in real life. It has an interesting villain who explains his motivations well.

Is there any semblance of a happy ending?
Thanks for the input everyone <3

 

[Hentai-Semitism]

I finished Transmaniacon by John Shirley. It's a sci-fi story about a guy who's an expert provocateur and burglar for hire. Thanks to an advanced implant he steals in the first chapter, he can turn his talent up to 11 and easily incite big groups of people to fight each other to the death. He spends most of the book running from his employer's henchmen and trying to realize his dream of sailing the ocean. The problem is that there's a huge force field around the US and nobody can leave the continent without turning it off somehow.

I picked this up because Shirley's "Freezone" was my favorite story out of all in Mirrorshades, a popular anthology. I think I would recommend this one with the caveat that it very much seems like something he was making up as he went along. For instance, there's a short chapter about a detour the protagonist takes by complete accident. He's told to get onboard a ship and all he knows is its color and approximate location. When he gets there, it turns out there's TWO ships that match the description. He gets inside the wrong one and winds up far from his desired destination.

7/10

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

reading Foundation and Empire, this is fun.

I'm a tad spoiled due to the Whelan cover, but I wanna see how it unfolds. Asimov's not the best character writer, but everything else is a fun puzzle.

• Witches of Karres is probably my next SF novel.
• I, The Jury is definitely the next noir novel
• He Rules Who Can is the next pulp book
• Haven't decided on my next short fiction collection. I'm working through Retief! so I figure I may as well balance that out with something horror based like Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

Nah. About 85% of the population are proles. They're explicitly not political at all, they just live normal lives. There are a few scenes where Winston interacts with them. Only 15% of the population are party members, and only 2% of those are Inner Party. Winston and Julia are Outer Party, which is the most strictly controlled group of people. "Recreational sex" is technically banned, but it's only enforced for the Outer Party (Inner Party are privileged and rules don't apply to them, proles are considered below notice and the Party even provides them with "bread and circuses" in the form of condoms and pornography). Winston being a twisted human being is meant to be understood as due in large part to his being Outer Party.

Spoiler

Thanks for jogging my memory on some details there, as it has been about two years, but I still think seeing our protagonist fantasize rape is jarring as fuck and the idea that he's harboring desires to sexually assault someone he doesn't like because he's Outer Party, even though his heart has never been in it, doesn't jive with me.

 

[Hentai-Semitism]

All right, I'm giving up on Dhalgren. I caved in and read the synopsis on Wikipedia. It looks like I'm not going to miss much. It's more degeneracy (bisexual triangle involving two adults and a 15-year old boy), amnesia, writing poems that we never get to read and no action to speak of.

Next in my big backlog is The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West. Another well known book, but I'm sort of going in blind because I downloaded a lot of EPUBs from Z-Library a few years ago and I barely remember the reason for each one.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

All right, I'm giving up on Dhalgren. I caved in and read the synopsis on Wikipedia. It looks like I'm not going to miss much. It's more degeneracy (bisexual triangle involving two adults and a 15-year old boy), amnesia, writing poems that we never get to read and no action to speak of.

Next in my big backlog is The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West. Another well known book, but I'm sort of going in blind because I downloaded a lot of EPUBs from Z-Library a few years ago and I barely remember the reason for each one.

not surprised, I've heard everything past "Nova" really just gets too overtly sexual in the weird degenerate way.

 

[Hentai-Semitism]

Damn, those e-books from Z-Library are so inconsistent in quality. I just started The Day Of The Locust and there's two OCR errors in the first paragraph (for instance, "fiat leather caps" instead of "flat leather caps"). I had to download three more versions with varying sizes to find what looks like an official release.

Anyway, it just dawned on me that I saw the movie adaptation with Donald Sutherland and Karen Black a few years ago.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

Finished Dust. 3x550 pages about living underground; misery, death and uncertainty, to then take absolute refuge in what we have access to every day: Sun, wind, grass, dirt, peace, possibilities. It made me happy and positive for a few minutes but I fear I'm too jaded to truly take in the message.

Didn't we have a book recommendation thread on here once? I'm looking for a new book but I'm not big on fantasy or too non-fiction. I like headspace stories like The Tartar Steppes but also a story with actual beats and progression. I've been wanting to read something survival-esque or nature/animal adjacent. Ironically Jurassic Park speaks to me but I don't want something as mainstream as that..

Don't do this. You won't remember anything. Your brain will get used to this multi-tasking and it will get even harder for you to read a book. Force yourself to read text for extended periods of time without interruptions. If you're going to listen to music, make it ambient.

I watched a documentary which randomly interviewed a EU parliament person on the concept of books. They said it was tool-assisted meditating. It literally forces you to breathe slowly and focus intensely on.. "nothing" depending on how you read. At my apex efficiency I manifest the thing I read in my head and it helps a lot. Audio books are like taking everything you're meant to feel and do about reading and removing it. Like how having a stream open on your monitor next to a good RPG is ruining your actual enjoyment of the game. I had one monitor for a while and it honestly made me focus on things so much more, especially games.

it's kind of just a lore-dump, explaining 'how we got here'.

This shit takes me out of a book so fast. One of the Silo books had a brief dump on "THE WAR IN IRAQ THAT LED TO THIS", while not specifically hugely important, it just took me out of it. Same with Dune and the whole ancient egypt shit.

 

[Hentai-Semitism]

I watched a documentary which randomly interviewed a EU parliament person on the concept of books. They said it was tool-assisted meditating. It literally forces you to breathe slowly and focus intensely on.. "nothing" depending on how you read. At my apex efficiency I manifest the thing I read in my head and it helps a lot. Audio books are like taking everything you're meant to feel and do about reading and removing it. Like how having a stream open on your monitor next to a good RPG is ruining your actual enjoyment of the game. I had one monitor for a while and it honestly made me focus on things so much more, especially games.

I should stop using Youtube as background noise. I keep playing the same couple of channels on repeat. I think I got used to listening to human speech without comprehending it. This is yet another bad 21st century habit.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

I should stop using Youtube as background noise. I keep playing the same couple of channels on repeat. I think I got used to listening to human speech without comprehending it. This is yet another bad 21st century habit.

Classical music or soft jazz or soft funk IMO. Even Swing music. Don't do anything with tons of percussion.

 

[Fig Kommandant]

Classical music or soft jazz or soft funk IMO. Even Swing music. Don't do anything with tons of percussion.

Nature sounds are also neat.