So, the final book of Brandon Sanderson’s “Stormlight Archive” has been out for a few months and I got it fairly fast, however, you cannot read an ongoing series like that without re-reading all the previous books once the new one come out. Which is what I have been doing since the beginning of 2025 and I keep finding things and connections that I had previously missed.
So, now I’ve read:
“Way of Kings” (1001 pages) five times.
“Words of Radiance” (1080 pages) four times.
“Oathbringer” (1233 pages) three times.
and I am on my way through the second re-read of the “Rhythm of War” (1232 pages - one less from the previous one? Boooo! ) in order to finally get to the end of the series and “Wind of Truth” (1344 pages).
Time well spent.
9.5 out of 10, would do it again. Highly recommended books.
I read The Wizard of Earthsea as a teen and felt more or less indifferent to it. Reread it in our book group last year, and didn’t care for it. The story seemed contrived, and I have already largely forgotten it again.
I had a mild liking for Le Guin when I was young. I admired the innovative quality of Left Hand of Darkness at the time, but thought it was boring. Subsequently, I have met many people, especially young people in recent years, who also think it is boring. I very much liked The Lathe of Heaven, but thought its ending was weak. I mostly liked “The Word for World Is Forest” in its novella version, which I thought was the best story in Again, Dangerous Visions. I’ve long felt that she was better at short lengths, as a result of reading her collection, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters.
It sounds like your friend is in a writing workshop. Almost inevitably, such groups will exert a proselytizing effect for whatever is the prevailing zeitgeist. I was clued into this at an early age, in the mid-1970s, when I met the SF writer Perry A. Chapdelaine. We had many interesting conversations during his sporadic attendance at a local SF club. He was briefly famous at the time because of his exposé about the “Milford Mafia,” as he called it. This was a workshop for published authors, conducted by Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm in Milford, Pennsylvania. It was a spearhead of the American New Wave movement, and so it focused on promoting New Wave stories.
Ironically, I have passed through, and spent the night in Milford on many occasions, because it is on the most scenic route when I drive to New England. A resident, Mrs. Wells, had a world-class collection of rose quartz and copper specimens. She was also an expert on mineral fakes, and I learned a great deal from her. She died many years ago, and a new town library now stands where her house used to be. The country museum (in a mansion called “The Columns”), northeast of town, is well worth visiting; it has the bloodied flag they used to carry President Lincoln from Ford’s theater to the house across the street. It also has a wonderful collection of unidentified antiques.
All true, but partly explained by the old saw, “nothing succeeds like success,” and partly by her politically correct content.
“Presided over” is such a pretentious term it is almost comical. However, if we must use it, I would say that Harlan Ellison has much more claim to the encomium by virtue of his dominating presence as story writer, screenwriter, workshop teacher, convention speaker, and anthologist. We might also say that certain editors of the period more literally presided over the field: especially Donald A. Wollheim, who founded DAW Books; and Terry Carr, editor of the influential Ace Specials (including Left Hand…) and Universe anthologies.
As for Chabon’s characterization, one rarely sees such an audacious claim. Many people would dispute it even within SF/fantasy. I’ve said before that I think Jack Vance is the finest storyteller in the field, and he had an immense fan following even though he was reclusive and never promoted himself. Outside of SF/fantasy, Le Guin is completely overshadowed by John D. MacDonald, an awesomely skillful writer, admired by virtually everyone in the field, whose Travis McGee series had 32 million sales. I don’t generally read modern mainstream literature, but two such books I have read recently are superior to anything by Le Guin I have read: Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone, and Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men.
For another dissenting view of Le Guin, I highly recommend Thomas Disch’s The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of, an outstanding discussion of the broad cultural effect of science fiction.
Varley was the hottest young writer of the mid-1970s. A meteor, like the young Heinlein, and his first collection, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, was tremendous. Then he started writing fashionable didactic stories. I gave up on Titan and never looked back. Varley lost much of his following after that book.
Congratulations! The sooner people learn to give up on books, the more time they have for better books. The first book of any kind that I gave up on was Keith Roberts’s Pavane. I had gotten exactly halfway into it, and nothing had happened.
I’m not fond of long books in general (and I prefer short stories), even though several of my favorite books are very long (The Count of Monte Cristo, Moby Dick, and Les Miserables). Similarly, I am not usually a fan of series stories, but E. C. Tubb’s Dumarest series and John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series are exceptions.
I mostly liked Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! but I thought the ending was disappointing. I’ll be interested to hear what you think.
That might very well be the case. The rest of the Earthsea books always gave me the impression that she was more-or-less urged to write it due to the publishers and the audience wanting sequels and not because she had a sequel in her creative plans.
Yeah, I always found the whole idea very funny.
Here they are, a group of people that are either trying to learn how to be creative themselves or, at least, are there to enjoy/appreciate the creations of others and what do they end up doing? Peer pressuring each other into following trends. Very odd.
I think I might join such a group one day, just to argue with such narrow minded people. I do not currently have the free time for it, unfortunately, but I’ve done similar things before and I find them grand fun. The seer incredulity in their faces when someone dares to apply critical thinking on their “holy totems” (be it authors, or religion or politics or whatever else that particular group “worships”) is priceless.
My favorite moment was when I was “invited” to attend a three hour lecture in a post-graduate degree called “Women and Gender: Anthropological and historical approaches”, back in 2007, in Lesvos (of all places. We like to keep things thematic, in Greece ). I think that the only reason that I managed to get out in one piece is that I had witnesses that saw me go in that classroom.
I do not know any of these people, but I am keeping notes
Thank you for mentioning them.
I am very glad to hear that the audience didn’t stand for that kind of junk.
This is true, but if I end up giving up on a book it means that I failed to “vet” it properly in my buying process. I have always been very tight with my money (since I didn’t have much to spare), so purchases like Titan were very rare for me, and for it to fail so spectacularly had repercussions to my book buying/choosing process.
I usually do not go for those either, especially if the author is old and the series is dragging on (Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” is the prime example in that) however there are some exceptions worth noting:
a) The aforementioned “Stormlight Archive”, is part of maybe the most ambitious writing project I am aware of, since Sanderson has created the Cosmere, which is his own alternate universe, where each planet is a totally different place, yet somehow interconnected with the others. Now that the final fifth book has landed, it is worth for a new reader to get into, however, if you would like a short story that perfectly introduces what Sanderson is, as an author, then I’d suggest the standalone small novel “The Emperor’s soul” (barely 180+ pages depending on the printing). I have read books with a thousands of pages, but I have never seen a book with so few pages make me care so deeply, not only for one, but two characters. I think that is a good - and cheap in terms or time and money - way to decide if that author is to your liking or not, before investing in any of the bigger series.
b) Joe Ambercrombie’s three trilogies set in a nameless world. The “First Law trilogy” is very good, but nothing special in terms of scenario. What the books excel at is the characters. They are just so alive. It is very rare that you encounter so many characters in a series that feel as alive and realistic than Logen Ninefingers, Sand Dan Glokta or the Dogman (him, especially in later books). Then things really take off with the rest of the books that belong to that world. Some of them are stand-alone, the last trilogy introduced new characters as the author makes the bold choice to let the years pass and make the land and the characters grow and evolve.
And then, as if by some amazing talent for behavioral realism, Ambercrombie introduces more and more people, all of them so alive. Making choices that make so much sense even though those choices can be so distasteful or cruel, which is rare for modern fantasy books, which usually try to sugar coat things or introduce “plot-armor” solutions when they have bungled the scenario. As Logen Ninefingers usually says after things predictably don’t go as planned, “you have to be realistic” and that seems to be the credo of all these books.
“The Little Schemer” is about recursion. It has a really nice question-answer pattern, where it starts from basic building blocks (such as incrementing a number by 1) and builds up. It uses this programming language called “Scheme” to do all the exercises.
“Book of Proof” is about mathematical proofs. I am trying to learn basic things in maths and etc.
“Data Structures …” by Jay Wengrow, this is very friendly introductions to data structures and algorithms. I’d highly recommend this to someone who is new to the subject. Book is not academic-ish at all. Love it.
Earlier this year I read a fiction book called “Life of a Stupid Man” by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Next fiction I think that I’ll read is “Demian” by Herman Hesse.
I am also new to Go, so I am reading some books about it. But I think I can’t discuss that in this thread.
Just got done reading the second “Dogs of War” book by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I’m excited for the third one to release
Major Spoilers for books 1 and 2
In book 2, when Bees tells Honey “Goodbye, Honey. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.”, that hit so hard as the echo of what she had told Rex’s squad in book 1 when she was dying: “Integrity approaching 25% Priorities locked in Lower cognition threshold imminent so saying goodbye now Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye…”
Bee Speaker — this third book is out and ARRIVED AT MY PLACE TODAY
Haven’t read any of these yet as I’m still bus reading Tchaikovsky’s Cage of Souls. It is HORRIBLE, and I cannot put it down
It is set in a very far future of the earth, and while it is totally different from Brian Aldiss’ The Long Afternoon of Earth (one of my early SF books that I read when I was 11 or so, and several times after that (now I’m 67)), I am often reminded of that other book just for this distant future where the sun is dying — but life on the planet is still buzzing, and often horrifying.
To empty my neurodiverse mind in a healthy way, and to prevent my obsession with WeiQi, I just finished reading “9-Year Vision Map: 2020-2029 (Opening the 9 Time Dimensions, Activating The Noosphere).”
It was fascinating to learn about the Mayan 13:20 time management system, which emphasizes the natural rhythm of time and sets the New Year on July 26.
A new 28-day moon period began on May 30 with a profound question about service.
I see that there are a lot of sci-fi fans in the thread. Suggest me a short sci-fi novel. Keep in mind that I am not a regular reader and you’re trying to sell the genre to me.
I checked out the link for one that looked interesting, and the first paragraph of the article’s summary had been just copy pasted from Wikipedia. Have you read these books to personally vouch for them, or have some other reason to trust this writer?
I have not read these books. Definitely not my type of sf book for sure.
Since noob seems to be interested in exact sciences and mathematic, I figured he might find something interesting here. It may function as a starting point for his journey into sf…
If you’re interested in harder scifi, The Pentagon War is one I quite enjoy for the realistic space combat. It’s technically unfinished, but the chapters continue as drafts until the end, so while the writing quality takes a hit and the pacing ends up clipped, you won’t be left hanging for how it ends. It also gets a little more on the soft scifi end with a “one big lie” near the end, maybe that would have been sharpened up some in a final draft, idk. I still really enjoy its space combat, though
oh almost forgot, there is a one big lie from the beginning
I think that the best way to introduce yourself in a genre is to read something that is neither too large, nor too small. Neither too “heavy”, but neither too fluffy.
In that regard I looked through my list and I have three suggestions:
a) Buying in a book of collected SF stories (I would suggest “Isaak Asimov’s Science Fiction Treasury”), thus way you will be introduced to a wide array of various styles, themes and authors.
From a comment on the link, this version contains the following stories:
"…this omnibus volume reprints two thematic, Asimov-edited anthologies in their entirety: THE FUTURE IN QUESTION, and SPACE MAIL, both published in 1980.
THE FUTURE IN QUESTION
“What’s it Like Out There?” by Edmond Hamilton
“Who Can Replace a Man?” by Brian W. Aldiss
“What Have I Done?” by Mark Clifton
“Who’s There?” by Arthur C. Clarke
“Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?” by Robert Sheckley
“Why?” by Robert Silverberg
“What’s Become of Screwloose?” by Ron Goulart
“Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” by James Tiptree Jr.
“Where Have You Been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?” by Kate Wilhelm
“If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?” by Theodore Sturgeon
“Will You Wait?” by Alfred Bester
“Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell
“An Eye for a What?” by Damon Knight
“I Pinglot, Who You?” by Fredrik Pohl
“Will You Walk a Little Faster?” by William Tenn
“Who’s in Charge Here?” by James Blish
“The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov
SPACE MAIL
“I Never Ast No Favors” by C.M. Kornbluth
“Letter to Ellen” by Chan Davis
“Space Opera” by Ray Russell
“The Invasion of the Terrible Titans” by William Sambrot
“That Only a Mother” by Judith Merril
“Itch on the Bull Run” by Sharon Webb
“Letter to a Phoenix” by Fredric Brown
“Computers Don’t Argue” by Gordon R. Dickson
“Letters from Laura” by Mildred Clingerman
“Damn Shame” by Dean R. Lambe
“The Trap” by Howard Fast
“Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes
“The Second Kind of Loneliness” by George R.R. Martin
“The Lonely” by Judith Merril
“Secret Unattainable” by A.E. van Vogt
“After the Great Space War” by Barry N. Malzberg
“The Prisoner” by Christopher Anvil
“Request for Proposal” by Anthony R. Lewis
“He Walked Around the Horses” by H. Beam Piper
“The Power” by Murray Leinster"
b) Hogan’s “Inherit the Stars”, which is very well written and a quintessential example of solid SF that makes sense.
c) Or “To say nothing of the Dog” by Connie Willis, if you want a rare example of “time traveling book done right”.
) in order to finally get to the end of the series and “Wind of Truth” (1344 pages).
). I think that the only reason that I managed to get out in one piece is that I had witnesses that saw me go in that classroom. 
