What are you currently reading?

Harry Klippton said:
Got any recommendation for an entry level book?
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Yeah, the book I'm reading (A Psalm for the Wild-Built) is the one I would recommend, it's a novella so it's a quick read in a two-part series.

Unironically I think the best visual reference for solarpunk is an animation from a yogurt commercial that people removed the commercial references from...

Maybe I need to make a solarpunk-themed pedal... 🤔
 
rwl said:
Solarpunk is a genre of science fiction centered on technological/ecological solutions. It tends to be hopeful rather than pessimistic (so it's sorta the opposite of cyberpunk). The aesthetics can be interesting although it can veer a bit into the hippie sphere.
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Like Silent Running?
 
I’m almost done reading AI snake oil, which is very interesting if you’re curious about how hyped AI actually is and what its limitations actually are. It’s pretty good and well researched.

I also started reading the whole brain child to learn a bit more about kids’ brain development and how to help them learn to manage their own emotions. My kids have a LOT of BIG emotions…

Before these, I read the Broken Earth trilogy, which I really liked. It’s a sci-fi / fantasy series. I won’t tell you any more to avoid spoilers. I recommend it.
 
rwl said:
Yeah, the book I'm reading (A Psalm for the Wild-Built) is the one I would recommend, it's a novella so it's a quick read in a two-part series.

Unironically I think the best visual reference for solarpunk is an animation from a yogurt commercial that people removed the commercial references from...

Maybe I need to make a solarpunk-themed pedal... 🤔
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Thanks I added it to my reading list.

I've been reading guerilla home recording. When I finish that up, I'll check out a psalm for the wild built
 
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While I'm waiting for my ILL of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, (thanks @rwl) I'm reading the Nature of Oaks, The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees by Douglas W. Tallamy. It's like every sentence is a mind blowing fact about oaks and the myriad species they support. I always want someone to follow me around and whisper Wikipedia pages in my ear to make life less miserable, and this book is having that effect. The author is an entomologist so the content sort of leans in favor of bug content.
I propagate and plant hundreds of oak trees every year from seed, and dozens of other trees too but mostly oaks. Oaks are my favorite tree by far so it's fun to support my confirmation bias with this book
 
rwl said:
Any good resources on growing oaks? I've had bad luck with them compared to other plants.
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Where are you located? I can't point you to specific resources but I can tell you what I do. In the fall, I collect as many acorns as I can from as many different trees/sites/areas as I can. I look mostly for white oaks, since their acorns are lower in tannins than red oaks etc. I collect acorns with no holes and no caps attached. Even with no holes, the acorns still likely have acorn weevils inside but I don't worry too much about that. I'm going for quantity and diversity.

Then I make a box using wood from shipping pallets (cuz free and it's gonna decompose anyway. Look for HT- heat treated rather than the chemical treated stuff) that is roughly a cube. I staple hardware cloth for the bottom and fill it full of a mix of soil, acorns, compost, and some leaves. Then I staple hardware cloth on the top and partially bury it in compost, soil, leaves, or wood chips to overwinter. Once things start to thaw in the spring, I uncover the box and set it on top of cinder blocks. The hardware cloth on the bottom allows drainage but also "air prunes" the root system for transplanting. In the fall, I transplant the seedlings out into the ground.

Often chipmunks root around in the box during the summer and kill some of the seedlings. Next time I make a new box, I'm going to make it with a hardware cloth lid so the sprouts can grow inside and stay sealed up for the growing season but I keep forgetting to do that
 
Got more sci-fi itchies.

Started going through the Rememberance of Earths Past" trilogy.

Obviously...I watched the three body problem. I had issues with it. Theres potential in there, but I wanted to see if Netflix had fucked it all up.

The result? Nah. Cixin Liu writes about how I imagine Kilgore Trout would. Great, big, fascinating ideas...infuriating characters and plot. And *gawd* the politics in this thing are a mess.

Of particular note is the cop from the first book. Holy shit, man. "I MAY NOT PLAY BY THE RULES BUT I GET RESULTS!!!" might as well be every line of dialogue from this guy. Fuck me.

I'm about at the point where the interstellar sociologist guy from the second book is getting done with his date with the equally crafted-from cardboard lady, where she tries to smack him in the face with a Louis Vuitton bag and is immediately punished for it with being struck and killed by a random car.

It's just...come on. I'm about to throw the book across the room here. Really? That's the thing you choose to cap that scene off with? Ugh.

Might need some different sci-fi pretty soon here. I really did enjoy elements of the first book, even if the scene with the ship was...ah...kind of *really* unnecessary. Great set piece for TV. Seeing a bunch of characters really reach for the most horrific and mass-death-causing lever they had available to them when faced with a problem that...given their resources...could have basically been solved *any* other way...eh. Its all a bit ham-fisted.

Eh.
 
cdwillis said:
I've been playing Stalker 2 on xbox and decided to pick up the book it was inspired by, Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. I'm going to start it tonight. Hopefully it's not as depressing as the last post apocalyptic book I read (The Road by Cormac McCarthy).
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Lol. Yeah. Good ol Cormac McCarthy. Goddamn that dude can write a dirge.
 
I'm gonna say it:

The dark forest is getting a big ol thumbs down from me. I fucking hate Luo Ji. Fucking incel ass piece of shit fucking asshole. GOD he pisses me off.
 
Stickman393 said:
I'm gonna say it:

The dark forest is getting a big ol thumbs down from me. I fucking hate Luo Ji. Fucking incel ass piece of shit fucking asshole. GOD he pisses me off.
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I liked The Dark Forest. I also don't disagree with this assessment. I want to give Cixin Liu the benefit of the doubt and assume the hardboiled, tough cop dialogue (and other 90s b-movie type lines) is an awkward translation choice. But some of this is probably dogshit in Chinese too.

I reread the three body problem a few months ago. I'm kind of dreading the dark forest reread.

I was on a kick reading classic science fiction. The Stars My Destination, The Man in the High Castle, Book of the New Sun. It really didn't age well.
 
joeyd said:
I liked The Dark Forest. I also don't disagree with this assessment. I want to give Cixin Liu the benefit of the doubt and assume the hardboiled, tough cop dialogue (and other 90s b-movie type lines) is an awkward translation choice. But some of this is probably dogshit in Chinese too.

I reread the three body problem a few months ago. I'm kind of dreading the dark forest reread.

I was on a kick reading classic science fiction. The Stars My Destination, The Man in the High Castle, Book of the New Sun. It really didn't age well.
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I got big issues with Luo Ji. Fucking ass oh I fuck around with girls but I don't care about them at all cause they're like not this perfect girl that I LITTERALLY made up IN MY MIND that isn't really a person but is more a plot devide. An amagamation of all the most toxic and infantalizing and unrealistic expectations of a perfect, unstained, innocent and pure flower of a woman who has a absolutely no agency in life except to be your perfect little trad wife and polish your balls. Oh, she's gotta wear white with everything. And be from a relatively wealthy but not too wealthy family. And not have any interaction with the lower classes of society. And *heavily implied* HAS NEVER SEEN A DICK BEFORE. NEVER. PURE AS THE DRIVEN UN-FUCKED SNOW GOD DAMMIT!!!!

Oh, AND THEN HE MEETS HER FOR REAL. AND HE DOESNT HAVE TO FACE THE FACT THAT SHES A PERSON WITH WANTS, DESIRES, AND NEEDS because for the purposes of the story she isn't. She's just the faultless person he imagined because that's what the goddamned SAVIOR OF HUMANITY *deserves*.

Oh fuck me this character pisses me off. It's not a romance. It's a power fantasy. Seriously: I've known guys that think like this, and they're infuriating. They were all upper middle class engineers who got everything handed to them, decided to have an "open relationship" with their girlfriends once we graduated high school, and then got *really* mad at them when they werent the first to get it in.


Gahhhh this character PISSES ME OFF.
 
cdwillis said:
I've been playing Stalker 2 on xbox and decided to pick up the book it was inspired by, Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. I'm going to start it tonight. Hopefully it's not as depressing as the last post apocalyptic book I read (The Road by Cormac McCarthy).
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Strugatskys are GOATed. Read Hard to Be a God next!
 
joeyd said:
was on a kick reading classic science fiction. The Stars My Destination, The Man in the High Castle, Book of the New Sun. It really didn't age well.
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It's funny, earlier in the summer I got the first two volumes of Book of the New Sun and I could just not stick with it. I know Severian is purposefully written as an arrogant, unreliable narrator, but yeah.

I did just finish Don't Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen and it was a great time. Big recc. I should definitely get around to Sim Kern's Genocide Bad since I've had it since the week it came out.
 
EisengesisFX said:
It's funny, earlier in the summer I got the first two volumes of Book of the New Sun and I could just not stick with it. I know Severian is purposefully written as an arrogant, unreliable narrator, but yeah.
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I remembered liking it but I'm not sure how much of it I was actually paying attention to. I have a paper copy and the text runs unusually close to the edges of the pages. Really hard to read. I managed to get a janky audiobook copy recorded in the mid 80s. The sound quality is lacking but it was still easier than the print. Every scene takes a goddamned lifetime to develop. The pacing is glacial. I get that he's trying to worldbuild but it's so tedious. I only finished 2/4 of the books.

Currently reading a history of Jerusalem. The author is intentionally retelling the most fun but historically dubious stories about people who were important to Jerusalem's history. More people than I expected (pre-gunpowder/explosives) were said to have died from exploding.
 
Stickman393 said:
the three body problem
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I got 5 minutes in and saw through all the hype. That was maybe the fastest I ever ejected from a series that people have been hyping.
cdwillis said:
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
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Just added this to my eventual reads today. Good shout.
EisengesisFX said:
Book of the New Sun
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I'm finishing Claw of the Conciliator right now. I think Wolfe went a bit hard with the 'don't give them anything' storytelling in these books but I do like it overall. It's overhyped but I can see why it has a following.
 
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