Stats for nerds
22recommend
49mentions
37people
2010–2026years
51% recommend47% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- In no particular order:
Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe. (Highly recommended)
A Fire Upon the Deep (Either you like the Tines or the Skroderiders)
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Borges (Is reality imbued with our ideas?)
Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard (Not unlike "the Greeks" of modern fic)
John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (perhaps the first true modern fic)
Understand by Ted Chiang (Most of his short stories are good, or provoking)
Xeethra and the Zothique Cycle by Clark Ashton Smith
The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
- > You ever read a work of literature with such flowery language that right after you've read a paragraph, you pause and realize you have no clue what you actually read, only to read the paragraph maybe a second or third time and have your mind space out again and again on each successive attempt?
I've probably read Jack Vance's Dying Earth Series 3 times; Even though I've only sat and read it once in reality. This also points out the problem of important details along side the fluff.
If only I enjoyed LLMs prose as much as I do Vance's.
- A few collections i've been reading are the sci-fi and fantasy masterwork ones by gollancz. A few standouts have been the dying earth by jack vance and A Voyage to Arcturus. There are some amazing works in here which i would never have found without the curation that shows the history and evolution the genres. https://www.worldswithoutend.com/lists_fantasy_masterworks.a...
- "I’m a huge fan of the author Jack Vance;"
I've enjoyed his work too. Particularly the "Dying Earth" stories. I also read "Planet of Adventure".
My goodness did that man have an enormous vocab. I needed a dictionary with me to read his work. Great stories though.
- +1 The Dying Earth
Pretty much anything by Jack Vance is a win.
- "The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life."
Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace.
If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect, but I don't want to be friends. If they're way too supportive - the same rule applies.
If they're critical in a way I can appreciate, then I know they can either tolerate ideas they hate or have the social accumen to not go too hard in the paint early on in a relationahip. Really, I'm just looking for people who won't jump down my throat on a faux pas.
Later on in the relationship I'll tell them my actual favorite book, "A Canticle for Leibowitz", or "Neuromancer", or "The Dying Earth" (my opinion changes based on my mood).
