The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
All of Discworld.
All of Discworld.
That’d be a pretty big book…
I was trying to narrow it down to 1 discworld book. Ive got it down to Small Gods, Jingo or Thud!.
I also got confused whether a full stop goes after the ! Or not.
Small gods is for sure one of my favorites!
If there’s an exclamation mark (!) there’s generally no period (.).
Even in this case, where the ! is part of the title?
It was 50/50 and looks like i picked unwisely
You can think of an exclamation mark like a period that’s had a line drawn above it; it takes the place of a period, rather than having both side by side.
Any one of them.
Please.
1984
Was going to say this, many people cite it but never read. It is readable well, do it.
Also, I think Fahrenheit 451 translates far better to our situation, as I see media and social media in there long before it was even thinkable.
The Count of Monte Christo, Fahrenheit 451, Neuromancer.
1984, so that people mentioning it online will stop sounding like complete fucking idiots.
Or perhaps The Jungle; it sparked public outcry and major overhauls the last time it became popular, maybe it can work its magic again.
A pixie book or equivalent. Pixie books are short children’s books (maybe 12 DinA6 pages with very little text and lots of pictures). They are dirt cheap and there is a big bowl full of them in many books stores in Germany. They are meant to get kids into reading and that’s why I ‘nominated’ them here xD
Yu Hua - Brothers
Hah. I’d be happy to hear that everyone read at least one book in their lifetime.
A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn.
There is so, so much that Americans don’t know that they don’t know.
For Americans I think “slavery by another name” and “bury my heart at wounded knee” should be required reading.
Don’t really know one book that everyone should read, maybe everyone should read more than one book
The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin.
Few other sci-fi books do as good a job of depicting how a gift/library economy could work like in practice. It’s quite a hopeful vision of where we can collectively go in the future.
It also shows a realistic version of utopian hope. An eternal struggle for better
That reminds me that I really need to put more le guin into my book pile
World-2023 ESN Publications and London Organisation of Skills Development Ltd
About 100000 pages. If you read a page per minute, continuously without breaks you’ll lose over 60 days of economic activity to this. This would massively disrupt the world if everyone had to read it.
Surface Detail by Iain M Banks
Part of The Culture series but can be read standalone, potential for being one of the best hard scifi books out there
I love this book and all his stuff, but this is not hard sci-fi at all.
Just so if anyone takes the recommendation they know what they are getting into :)
How is it not hard scifi? Genuinely curious given the whole hyper advanced civilisation, interdimensional space travel, transhumanism as a part of daily life,
spoiler
entire chapters that introduce characters and settings that are wiped out of existence in a single sentence along with the underpinning story showing the contrasts between interstellar warfare and microscopic warfare over the artificially created representation of capital H Hell being used as a prison for political dissidents. ::: (minor ish spoiler)
Or is my understanding of hard scifi wrong?
Yeah, I’m afraid your understanding of what the “hard” part of hard SciFi is not correct.
Most people who use the term refer to SciFi that does not exceed the bounds of what we know to be physically possible, e.g., no FTL, not sapient AIs, etc.
Although I can see how you might misinterpret it to indicate anything that might be possible.
Ohhh so Hard scifi as a term means hard limited to the scientific knowledge of the time. I was thinking it was more like a mature category where it’s less fantasy more “The fantasy part of this story is the exotic metals and technology beyond the knowledge of a sub type 1 civilisation (hey that’s us!)”
Cheers for the knowledge
By your initial definition, the Culture series would certainly qualify!
Stranger in a Strange Land
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Same message, two vastly different methods of communicating it
I’m not sure hhgttg recommends incest with large breasted red heads as much as stranger in a strange land.
I guess I’ll bite, what’s the message?
recommends incest with large breasted red heads as much as stranger in a strange land.
Whut?
I guess I’ll bite, what’s the message?
That life is inexplicable and overly complicated because people are hung up on others perceptions instead of what makes them happy. And if everyone just chilled out and tried to make shit a lot better, we’d all be better off
This is my mistake,.I went through a Heinlein phase and this one was the last straw for me.I may have had some bleedover from his other books, where I recall his treatment of women sucked ass, was pretty incestuous, and always features promiscuous red heads. I did really like “the moon is a harsh mistress” even if I think libitarism is purile.
I still think stranger is just a Jesus story (it’s been ages), where hhgtg didn’t have a point except maybe you are at the mercy of the universe, and God is sorry for the inconvenience.
I’m not sure how you got that message, Arthur specifically isn’t even aware of his friend being an alien when his house is demolished. He kind of just faces what’s next in terror, at least until the fenchurch bits. Even when he’s stuck on earth I wouldn’t say he’s having a good time.
