What non-Go book are you reading right now?

Conrad_Melville · May 31, 2025, 7:27pm

I doubt there is any single book we could suggest that would “sell the genre” to someone except by pure luck, just as there is no single book that would be certain to sell fine literature to someone. Fine literature and SF are both too vast in scope to be encapsulated in a single book. We don’t know what your story interests are (adventure, social drama, personal drama, comedy, etc.) nor what your narrative preferences are (encompassing plot, style, characterization, atmosphere, etc.).

If you want a near-future, hard science, survival story, you can’t do better than The Martian by Andy Weir (made into an excellent movie in 2015).

Next, I will mention my five favorite SF novels in no particular order after the first one. Earth Abides by George R. Stewart is the finest post-apocalypse story ever. But it is 317 pages, not short by my reckoning. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., also a post-apocalypse story highly regarded by fans and academics alike, is considered the best SF novel dealing with religion (316 pp.). Much shorter are the next three.

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (219 pp, ) is a catastrophe story with great characterization (forget the idiotic 1963 movie; but the excellent 1981 BBC adaptation follows the book closely). Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore (211 pp.) is a time travel story widely regarded as a classic. Its use of two levels of plot to illustrate the theme (that one can’t be merely an observer of life) is without peer. Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (193 pp.), an awesome book in every way, is the oddest alien “invasion” story ever. Some unseen aliens briefly stopped on Earth and left behind a bunch of trash, which has hugely disrupted civilization. The only trouble with recommending RP is that the ending is extremely enigmatic; nevertheless, everyone in our book group (12-14 people) liked it.

I very much liked the Akutagawa Ryunosuke stories I’ve read, collected in Tales Grotesque and Curious (The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1938) and Rashomon and Other Stories (Charles E. Tuttle Co., Tokyo, 1952/1983). I picked up those books because of my love of the Kurosawa film Rashomon. I’m also a fan of Hesse and found Demian to be a very interesting character study.

Samraku · May 31, 2025, 8:11pm

If you lean libertarian, Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is very fun: Luna is a penal colony and starts a war for independence from Earth. Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Children of Time” is a very enjoyable treatment of its high concept: a bioengineered nanovirus designed to accelerate Evolution to the point where monkeys seeded with it can meet their human creators on equal terms inside a millennium. Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination” takes inspiration from Le Comte d’ Monte Cristo, but sets it in a burgeoning scifi-cyberpunk world socially and economically upturned from the discovery of human teleportation

Conrad_Melville · June 8, 2025, 7:38pm

I’m finally reading another Octavia E. Butler novel, Clay’s Ark (1984). It’s hard to find her books in used-book stores, perhaps because she is so popular. This is the fifth and last of her Patternist series, which were her early novels, but it is actually a prequel to the others, so I guess it’s good that I’m reading this first.

Set in a dystopian future that seems somewhat dated, it tells of an alien virus that changes people into a more animalistic species (when it doesn’t outright kill them), absolutely compelled to reproduce and survive (goodbye morals). A small enclave of the infected isolate themselves in the desert, not wanting to infect the human race, but also not wanting to die.

Because of Butler’s excellent writing and characterization, this rises above sensationalism, but the narrow scope makes it seem very much like a dress rehearsal for Butler’s masterpiece, Dawn, which I read and discussed almost two years ago (What non-Go book are you reading right now? - #528 by Conrad_Melville).

Both novels involve “body horror,” stories featuring the alteration or transformation of the human body, Most BH stories—about vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example—present a fait accompli that evokes little if any visceral revulsion concerning the transformation, as distinct from the danger to others. There are exceptions. Guy Endore’s excellent The Werewolf of Paris (1933) depicts the moral and physical revulsion of the protagonist. The original Outer Limits TV series had two 1963 episodes of effective BH: “The Architects of Fear,” in which a volunteer is gradually transformed into a pseudo alien in an attempt to perpetrate a false-flag operation to unite the world; and “A Feasibility Study,” about aliens who kidnap humans for a medical experiment, a story so grotesquely weird that the TV censors blocked its broadcast for 9 months, despite an ending that is one of the most beautiful and inspirational in SF film history.

In the horror field, Edward Lucas White’s “Lukundoo” (1907) really evokes BH cringe in ways exceeding Poe, I think. Lovecraft touched on BH in the Cthulhu mythos and in “Cool Air,” but lacked the writing ability to put it across as well as modern writers.

Historically, science fiction rarely dealt with real BH. Campbell’s Who Goes There? (1938), the basis for John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), focused on the paranoid suspense and the problem-solving of the blood test to determine who was human, rather than on the BH emphasized in the film. George Langelaan’s 1957 story, “The Fly,” the basis for the film versions, may be the first real BH story in SF although some people may regard it as too over-the top. I’ve generally thought of Greg Bear’s novella, “Blood Music” (1983, expanded into a novel in 1984), as the beginning of SF body horror (even scarier today than when it was written).

Today, BH is everywhere. Most notably in the film 28 Days Later (2002), in M. C. Carey’s The Girl with all the Gifts (2014, made into a movie in 2016, and spun off into a TV series, The Last of Us), and in Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (2014, made into a movie in 2018).

My personal pick for the most effective BH film is District 9 (2010). where the gradual transformation into an alien never fails to viscerally horrify film reactors (people who record their first viewing of a film for their YouTube channel).

Atorrante · June 8, 2025, 8:05pm

Reading Robert van Gulik’s Necklace and kalabash.

About the plot (taken from wiki): Judge Dee is a magistrate in the fictional Poo-yang district, a wealthy area through which the Grand Canal of China runs (part of modern-day Jiangsu province). The Emperor’s daughter lives in the district at the Water Palace, which falls under a special administration run by the military commander. Judge Dee goes to the area for a few days of relaxing fishing but soon meets with a strange Taoist hermit; next a body is found in the river. Then the Emperor’s daughter appeals to Judge Dee for aid. The mysteries keep building up, and Judge Dee has to tread very carefully to avoid serious political fallout from his investigations.

In another post/thread I already mentioned Robert van Gulik.

Van Gulik claims that the Chinese detective stories predated the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle by more than a handful centuries.

Recently I wrote a little article about this for the Dutch Go Bulletins and there is so much more to tell about this. Maybe some other time.

Reading the Dutch translation.

Conrad_Melville · June 8, 2025, 9:37pm

Maybe. That would depend on how one defines “detective.” Usually, the actual critical claim is that Poe invented the modern detective story, whatever that means.

However that may be, the Bible features the first “Locked Room” mystery, but doesn’t say whether it was solved at the time. Even today, commentaries rarely take up the question, perhaps out of delicacy.

In Judges 3:12-30 (written c. 1050-1000 B.C.), we read of the assassination of King Eglon by Ehud, in the king’s private audience room (the “roof chamber”). Ehud’s short sword penetrates the king’s sphincter, “letting out the dirt” (line 22). Ehud locks the doors to the chamber and then escapes. The guards delay entering apparently because of the smell, thinking the king is “relieving himself” in the “cool chamber” (the toilet; line 24).

Ehud presumably escaped through the toilet, by descending into the room below, where, based generally on palace archeology, a large chamber pot was positioned and would be periodically emptied by servants. Whether Ehud got his feet dirty, or swung out to avoid the pot, we don’t know. I suspect the latter, otherwise he would have been too easy to track.

Conrad_Melville · June 9, 2025, 4:28am

I must correct an embarrassing omission. When I was thinking about body-horror stories for my earlier post (What non-Go book are you reading right now? - #727 by Conrad_Melville), I did remember Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novelette, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (J&H). However, in the course of writing my post, I forgot to include it, perhaps because I couldn’t decide whether it should be with the horror stories or the SF stories. J&H was a tremendously influential story in both fields, leaving behind the supernatural tropes of older horror fiction and exploiting then-new ideas about the psyche. It is certainly body horror of a kind, especially in the great 1932 film with Fredric March, who won the only best actor Oscar ever given for a horror role (IIRC).

Feijoa · June 15, 2025, 7:41pm

Rescued this from the library book sale last week and finished it just now. I don’t think the author is necessarily trying to make this point, but I find it very convincing that these are skills that could benefit anyone.

It’s not a self-help book, and i knew most of the described techniques already but am newly encouraged to work on them now. So I’ve finally committed the major system to permanent memory (thanks to some denim relish goof-ups at the cafe), memorized my family’s social security numbers (which evidently involve a lot of smoking and food in the lobby of our local bank), and revived my quest to file away all Chinese characters in various places around my hometown.

I wonder if anyone has had notable success using these techniques for Go.

Atorrante · June 15, 2025, 8:55pm

Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Dee Goong An) An Authentic Eighteenth-Century Chinese Detective Novel

In 1949 Robert van Gulik translated an eighteenth century Chines detective novel by an anonymus writer. Apparently he was intrigued by it, because a few years later he started writing his famous Judge Dee series.

The intro, the outro

With an extensive introduction (Translator’s Preface) and a Translator’s Postscript as the outro, which both are full of interesting information.

The intro, the outro?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcrUuCDFLOQ

PRHG · June 16, 2025, 12:27am

The Veiled Sceptre by Anne Twomey

It’s all about the reserve powers of heads of state, and their vice regal representatives, in Westminster systems of government.

I felt like I didn’t know much about my own country’s system of government so I decided to read the Australian constitution. I was surprised at the powers exercisable by the governor general, who I always viewed as a kind of figurehead, so I sought out a book that discussed the powers in greater detail, which led me here.

It’s interesting to learn about the extent of the reserve powers. I was also surprised that the threat of use of the reserve powers, whether explicit or implicit, has influenced government decisions and sometimes even made the government of the day reverse course. I think a lot of people in Australia are under the assumption that outside of a constitutional crisis, like in 1975, the reserve powers don’t have any impact on government.

Edit: The author has a great youtube channel. It’s mostly about the constitution, and is intended for a general audience: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3EJDfpqrtS0cX-uptWe8dg

JethOrensin · June 27, 2025, 5:29pm

@Conrad_Melville In regards to something you mentioned in another topic, I’ll mention it here which is the appropriate place, there is also a more recent book called “The Swarm” by Frank Schätzing.

(I had to use the wikipedia link, because the others were surprisingly full of spoilers from the first paragraph. odd)

Interestingly I came across it totally by accident. I was at an airport and I had to wait 16 hours for my flight, through the night, so I wanted a book-alarm-clock (when you read it while sitting and you nod off, the book falls down and since it is too heavy, you’ll wake up from the noise) and this seemed appropriately brick sized and good to read. I had never heard of the author before, but I have to say that it was very book SF, with some very plausible science in the book in general and some good explanations to back up the whole “nature strikes back” concept.

If anyone is into that kind of SF, I’d highly recommend it. I didn’t really fall asleep out of boredom while reading it through that whole night, though I did drop the book twice and woke up. (so, it was a success in that regard too )

Conrad_Melville · July 13, 2025, 7:40pm

I’ve started rereading Daniel F. Galouye’s Simulacron 3 for my book group. I recommended this book to the group some 14 years ago, but it was out of print at the time. Now it has been reprinted. This book was the basis for the excellent SF movie The Thirteenth Floor (1999). That movie was criticized as being an imitation of The Matrix, released a few months earlier, which is silly because it was already in production for some time. Moreover, Galouye’s book was published in 1964! The idea of the world as simulacrum goes back at least to 1934, to a novelette in Laurence Manning’s fix-up novel, The Man Who Awoke. Some other stories that used the idea, in various forms are these:

Spoilers

Theodore Sturgeon’s novella, “Microcosmic God” (1941), about a constructed microbiological world, and Frederik Pohl’s novelette, “The Tunnel Under the World” (1954), about conscious human-robots in an advertising experiment, have both been hugely influential in the realm of constructed realities. Time Out of Joint (1959) by Philip K. Dick brought an even greater realism to the idea with a sham world populated by real people (the ultimate conspiracy theory), and I strongly believe it was the major influence on the movie The Truman Show (1998). Dark City (1998) is a great film involving kidnapped humans brainwashed and used in an elaborate experiment in a simulacrum (1998); director Alex Proyas (as well as I) think this was ripped off to some degree by The Matrix. Finally, I too wrote a computer-generated simulacrum story when I was 16 (1970), probably influenced by Pohl’s story, the only one I knew at the time. It attracted the attention of a famous editor, who then mentored me for several years with encouragement and criticism of various stories I submitted—one of the best experiences of my life. Consequently, this whole subject is especially dear to me.

By the way, I consider Galouye the most underrated SF writer ever. He wrote three tremendous novels—Dark Universe (nominated for a Hugo), Lords of the Psychon, and Simulacron 3—as well as two others that were good, in addition to several fine short stories.

trohde · July 13, 2025, 11:09pm

LOL

The Wikipedia page says it is a remake of the German TV series “Welt am Draht”, which was also based on Galouye’s book.

I remember how fascinated I was when I watched that TV series back then, and the confusion about what exactly is the simulation now and what is credible as “reality” … how many layers of simulation exist?

Am I a butterfly dreaming s/he is Zhuangzi?
Or am I Zhuangzi dreaming he is a butterfly?
… or is it even stacked higher, like, am I Zhuangzi dreaming he is a butterfly who dreams s/he is Zhuangzi … how many layers of reality — or was it simulation/imagination? — exist?

As soon as I begin thinking about such things I get confused again

And now I finished reading James S.A. Corey’s “The Mercy of Gods”, first in the series “The Captive’s War”.
Without wanting to give a deeper review (I’m not good at those) I think I’ll give it 4 stars, can’t really say why not 5. Nice world-building, and the characters are also developing well, maybe I am simply spoiled by reading Doris Lessing, Vernor Vinge, Sue Burke, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and so many other really great SF writers … Sturgeon comes to mind also (of course!).

But anyway, I nevertheless hope I live long enough to read the second book in this series, expected for 2026, the aliens were interesting enough for me to see more of this.

Before that I had finished Tchaikovsky’s “Cage of Souls” (scroll up for that), which I enjoyed, albeit with some horrors, and I’d give it 4.5 stars.

Tchaikovsky’s book “Shroud”, OTOH, that I had read before this, was fantastic, 5 stars.

And now I’m finally beginning his “Dogs of War”. Curious how this one will be.

Conrad_Melville · July 14, 2025, 4:08am

I forgot about Fassbinder’s miniseries, something I’ve long wanted to see. I should take this opportunity to mention another, somewhat allied title, Fritz Leiber’s great novella, “You’re All Alone.” This features two layers of reality not fully explained, but with the same atmosphere as the simulacrum stories. Or is it a solipsist’s nightmare? The 1950 magazine publication was an abridgement of a “blue” novel, which either got poor distribution or never sold at all (I don’t remember). Finally, in 1980, the original novel (slightly revised) was published as The Sinful Ones. I think it is inferior to the abridgement—maybe the only time in history that has happened.

Atorrante · July 23, 2025, 9:13am

To be honest, I have to get this off my chest, I don’t finish all the books that I start reading. And this also happened to me in books that I posted here.

At first a book can be fascinating, but this usually doesn’t last. But if they drop below a certain level, it becomes a struggle to finish it. Sometimes I lay it aside and continue after days, weeks or months.

More often than this I never open it again. And then this vague sense of guilt creeps in. It feels like a failure.

Another thing sometimes I buy a book with the intent of reading it someday, but the moment never comes. Years later I wonder why I bought that book.

Do you recognise this? Or is it just me?

JethOrensin · July 23, 2025, 11:59am

I do not feel guilt about not finishing a book (heck, the author should feel guilty, I didn’t write that non-sense!), but I do feel a sense of “and now what do I do with this?”.

You can’t throw it in the trash - it is a book.
You cannot recycle it here - there is no recycling in a 200km radius.
You cannot give it away - it is a bad book, you want people to enjoy your gift and enjoy reading, not hate their time and the whole genre.

It is a very practical problem, as far as I am concerned…

Conrad_Melville · July 23, 2025, 5:05pm

@Atorrante: I applaud people who are willing to give up on a book. The desire to finish even a mediocre book is a youthful compulsion. As we grow older, the shortness of time and its value become more evident. The first book we quit is the hardest; it gets easier after that. I was out of college when I first quit a book: Keith Roberts’s Pavane. I reached the halfway point, and nothing had happened. That’s bad storytelling, so I quit.

Almost all the books I give up on today are those being read by my SF book group. In some cases, I don’t begin a group book because it is clear to me that it is a schlocky, fantasy pot-boiler. In other cases, I will quit a book after 50 pages (several others in our group do this). Sometimes I do finish a mediocre book because I desire to discuss it knowledgably in the group. And in a few instances, I have finished a really bad, but famous, book because I wanted to be able to critique it honestly (e.g, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, an atrocious SF novel).

These days, I almost never give up on non-group books—I can’t even remember when that last happened. The reason is that I screen what I read very closely, probably a function of age and experience.

I have had a few experiences with setting a book aside and coming back much later. When I was about 20, I started Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes (part of my project to read all his books), but somehow got distracted. Some time later, I came back and started over, again and again. Finally, on my fifth try, I finished the book. I think it is actually a good book, and can’t really explain why I had that trouble. Similarly, I got interrupted in my reading of Jane Austen’s Persuasion and didn’t get back to it until about 20 years later. This may have been for the good, because its story of middle-age yearning is best appreciated by someone in their 30s who is willing to accept a darker novel without Austen’s classic comedy. There is “a season,” even in reading.

I urge you not to lament the books bought but not yet read. Many books I read are things I acquired more than 10 years ago. In the case of the great McTeague by Frank Norris, it took more than 40 years, as noted in an earlier post here. My philosophy is this: we acquire books to have them on hand when we want to read them. (Before the internet, we also had the real motivation that we might never find another copy of the book.) There is a season, times and interests change, so perhaps you will get to those books one day.

I do think many books today are too long, especially biographies and specific histories. Due to commercial reasons and the desire to stand out as the “definitive” account of a person or an obscure event, authors are now commonly turning out tomes of 500 pages and up. Eric Hoffer, speaking about nonfiction, once said that an author’s first book was usually his shortest and best, because authors often spend the rest of their lives elaborating at length the ideas in their first book. This was deliberately exaggerated, but it also contains a lot of truth, I think.

But there is great beauty, efficiency, and skill in writing just enough to cover a subject well. My father and I had a touchstone for this idea: The Mexican War by Otis A. Singletary (University of Chicago, 1960), an awesome history of just 162 pages of main text. Over the years, something would come up, and one of us would say “Singletary,” and the other would nod knowingly.

Yes, you can. Don’t turn it into a religious icon. There are a number of books that have virtually no value, typically outdated reference books, mass-market cookbooks, and crackpot books, among others. They cannot be traded or sold to used book stores because there is no market for them. They can’t even be given away because no one wants them.

When a used bookstore (BJ’s Books) in Warrenton, Virginia, one that I traded with, went out of business about 10 years ago, the owner had a great sale. Sadly, I missed it, because I went down there only once every 3 or 4 months. Later I learned from a friend in the business that about 40,000 leftover books were hauled to the city dump.

JethOrensin · July 23, 2025, 6:03pm

Not if I have bought it. It is not about it being “sacred” as a book, but it is about being responsible for your choice. It is not the book itself that I cannot throw away, but the problem that the book poses.

It is like people that buy a small pet, but when the pet grows up they realise that they do not like it anymore or the novelty wore off and now they do not want it, so they turn it loose on nature (for it to probably die somewhere “far away” where they cannot see the poor thing wither away) to absolve themselves of their bad choice. They could try finding a new owner or a shelter or selling it, but a lot of people choose the fast and easy way. The way where they do not have to admit to anyone that they were wrong or that they chose poorly or that they even changed their minds (which is perfectly fine, yet people seem to be very afraid to do or admit doing). Yes, I know that a book is not alive, but that’s a bad attitude to have in life.

If you get a bad mentality in how to deal with the small problems in life, you might end up being tempted to use the same attitude in the bigger problems.
I’ve even eaten food that I do not like on the occassions that I tried some novelty cousine and realised that the food was not to my taste. I ordered/chose it, therefore I am oblidged to deal with it. It is food, edible for someone else, so it cannot be thrown away, but you cannot find that “someone else” that could eat it at the time, so the only way to take responsibility is to sit there and “enjoy” the consequenses of your choice and learn from it. I believe that a lot of things in the world would have been much better if people could follow that simple idea of at least trying to see your choices to the end or a conclusion.

I have thrown away books like the ones you mention (usually things that came for free with magazines or “Sunday newspapers” that noone really wanted, but came along with the product you bought) and I’ve even used some for fire-starters in my wood stove (specifically old massive collections of photocopied notes and books that noone will ever read - actual book paper tends to have an odd smell when it burns, unless it is a very cheap book), so I do not think that books are holy or something.

On the other hand I have kept some otherwise worthless books for sentimental reasons. My school manuals and notes and stuff like that. It is not like I am carrying them around on my back, there is a place for them in the attic and I like to tidy up the place every few years, find them again, smile while perusing them and putting them back. I like to think that whoever inherits my house when I die might find even a brief moment of joy in them or, at the very least, a few hours of exasperation when hauling them out to the trash. Either way, I’ll be very content with either result.

trohde · July 23, 2025, 7:30pm

Hahaha, cHeAt0r <just kidding>

Yeah, I know this guilt, used to feel the same – until I realized that it’s MY life’s time, and that I am responsible for how I want to … how I intend to spend it (how I actually spend it is not all under my control, ofc).
Sometimes that guilt still stings me a little though but then I remind myself of how short my life’s precious remaining time is

Haha, yes.

NOT actually my house

but I do have 400+ boxes of books up in the attic, however perhaps half of them are books I inherited from my father.

But … yes. You know the Japanese term “tsundoku”, right?

Sometimes people have said to me, “Oh, I see you’re a book collector”, which can really drive me up the wall, I usually reply: “No, I am a book reader!”

And as such, I also need a stash of unread books in the house. It’s rare that I immediately read a newly purchased (but usually from some used books store on the ’net), instead I usually take one from one of my “to read” stacks.

So, my answers to your questions:

YESSIR, I do recognise that

NO, it ain’t only you. Although I have rid myself of the bad conscience when not finishing a book. Life’s too short for hurting oneself that way, besides there are enough things already that I seriously, and more deservedly, have a bad conscience for

Sadaharu · July 24, 2025, 2:28am

Glad to see that these two books are now available in English.
I read the original Japanese versions and they were great!
Recommended for those who like a good mystery.

Sadaharu · July 24, 2025, 4:06pm

“The place where only those who read can reach” (Japanese)

A good place for me to restart after having tsundoku for so long.