Three Worlds Collide
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Available free online: https://robinhanson.typepad.com/fi…/three-worlds-collide.pdf
This short story is incredible.
Continue reading “Review: Three Worlds Collide”Month: July 2020
Am I the Asshole?
If you aren’t familiar with “Am I the Asshole?” you should check it out. It’s a subreddit where people go to, well, find out if they’re assholes or not. They post a description of their situation, and the rest of Reddit judges them. The posters can be anywhere from outrageous villains (“Am I the asshole for telling my adopted brother that he’s not entitled to my time because he’s not my real brother?”) to clear victims (“Am I the asshole for taking back the beer I bought for a party from which I was uninvited?”), and it’s up the readers to decide which is which. The most common judgements are YTA (“You’re the Asshole”) and NTA (“Not the Asshole”), with ESH (“Everyone Sucks Here”) and NAH (“No Assholes Here”) making rare appearances. Once judged, people will do anything from listening and trying to make amends to yelling at the people who called them assholes.
Continue reading “Am I the Asshole?”Review: Online Works
Friendship is Optimal (Short)
Author: iceman
https://www.fimfiction.net/…/frie…/prologue-equestria-online
Friendship is Optimal is an interesting little short story you can find online about the potential complications one can have with a misaligned AI. If you’re not used to thinking about “what might happen if an artificial intelligence wasn’t _exactly_ aligned with our goals,” you might find it interesting. If you are familiar with the concept, you might laugh at My Little Pony take on it.
Continue reading “Review: Online Works”Review: The Freeze-Frame Revolution
Author: Peter Watts
This novella introduced me to a brand new form of existential dread.
It’s set in the far future, where a crew of humans is woken up from cryogenic sleep once every hundred thousand years to build a wormhole. They’ve had no contact with humanity for a couple of million years.
Continue reading “Review: The Freeze-Frame Revolution”Review: The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)
Author: Lynch, Scott
I have Opinions about this book. To start with, Lies of Locke Lamora is very popular; if you look at a list of “best fantasy novels of the last few decades,” it will usually be in the top fifty or so.
Continue reading “Review: The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)”Review: Books to Avoid
Some things that I read that I don’t like.
Continue reading “Review: Books to Avoid”Review: The Aeronaut’s Windlass
Author: Jim Butcher
This book is fun. It’s pure Jim Butcher goodness. Things blow up, there’s cool magic, the good guys are all stand up people, the bad guys are hateable. If reading N. K. Jemisin is like eating lemon roasted salmon on a bed of quinoa and then sitting and meditating for an hour, this is like eating an entire chocolate cake and then jumping in a bouncy castle. There’s a wizard who can’t handle doorknobs. There is steampunk sky ship naval combat. There are sentient cats who are at no point explained but are somehow plot critical. It is wonderful chaos.
Continue reading “Review: The Aeronaut’s Windlass”Review: The Goblin Emperor
Author: Katherine Addison
Did you know there is a genre called “Fantasy of manners”? I sure did not before reading this book. And you know what? I’m okay with it. The genre uses a typical fantasy setting, but is centered around high society and social conflict. And that sure describes the Goblin Emperor to a t. There were maybe two action scenes in this entire book, and I think the narrator fainted during one of them. I’m not even clear if there was any in the world. One of the main conflicts in the book is getting a legal body to vote on building a bridge. Not passing the vote mind you, just getting them to vote on it at all.
Continue reading “Review: The Goblin Emperor”Review: A Little Hatred
Author: Joe Abercrombie
Genre: Fantasy
This was a weird book. It’s high fantasy low magic, and is set in a pre-established universe. The previous books in this world, The First Law Trilogy, are pretty highly spoken of on r/fantasy. But people on r/fantasy also speak highly of Branden Sanderson so I probably shouldn’t be trusting their recommendations (fight me).
Continue reading “Review: A Little Hatred”Review: The City We Became
Author: N. K. Jemisin
Genre: Urban fantasy
If you took Neil Gaiman, distilled him into a liquid, boiled that liquid down until it was pure refined Gaiminum, and then turned that into a book that is well written yet somehow still stumblingly awkward on occasion, you’d have The City We Became.
Continue reading “Review: The City We Became”Review: Spinning Silver
Author: Naomi Novik
Genre: Fantasy
It’s hard to describe the thing I liked most about Spinning Silver. The best I can do is say that Naomi Novik set out to make a brand new, novel length fairytale (think old-school, not Disney) and she absolutely nailed it. It’s the kind of story I could imagine an old woman telling her village over the course of a winter’s night. Nothing about it is derivative though; it’s brand new and familiar at the same time.
Continue reading “Review: Spinning Silver”Review: The Raven Tower
Author: Ann Leckie
Genre: Fantasy
The Raven’s Tower is a very strange novel.
Continue reading “Review: The Raven Tower”Review: The Dresden Files
Series by Jim Butcher
Genre: Modern fantasy
Alright, today’s review is for a series that I’ve been rereading, but if you haven’t read it, you’re missing out.
Continue reading “Review: The Dresden Files”Review: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Author: Hank Green
Genre: Science Fiction?
“An Absolutely Remarkable Thing,” follows April May, a walking collection of the worst millennial stereotypes, and her life after getting famous via a viral video. At some point there are also aliens, but that’s almost background to the actual story. In fact, for me the science fiction elements were the weakest part of the story. I was there to watch April May self destruct under the sauron-eque gaze of the public eye, and I was not disappointed.
Continue reading “Review: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing”Review: Circe
Author: Madeline Miller
Genre: Fantasy / Mythology
It is a well documented fact that Greek gods are assholes; That idea has been thoroughly explored in modern fiction. But one thing I’ve always felt was missing was a perspective for one of the many powerless women who were run roughshod over in those myths. And Circe provides that perspective.
Continue reading “Review: Circe”
Deus ad Machina 