A friend of mine told me that This Immortal was functionally a warm-up for Zelazny before Lord of Light and, yeah, he was correct. This book was incredible.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/53087c0b-f8c3-4f30-81cd-500d7221b9ae
Me: Iunno, I'm just really worried about the state of publishing right now, it seems like the market for truly interesting books is shrinking as publishers continue to encourage writers to churn out worse and worse slop in order to chase tiktok trends
Roger Zelazny: I know what you mean, buddy, do you want to read a genre-defying mythological epic with extremely stylized and ornamented prose about a war in heaven about it?
Me: You know, Roger, I really think I do
At long last
I am free of Heinlein
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/bcf374a3-c70c-4579-897d-b950d7986625
Stand of Zanzibar is behind me! I read 550 pages and they were very full, very interesting pages that were definitely trying to say SOMETHING
But god knows if I know what
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/39e3db32-e21d-4def-bb84-9228134ea66a
This was a tough one. I feel like I'm committing sacrilege by rating The Left Hand of Darkness less than a 4 but it just didn't quite come together for me the way it clearly has for a lot of others.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/ed670474-e4e2-4a26-bad8-9d73fe7a7bb4
There are so many reviews on Storygraph giving it 5 stars and talking about how much it moved them and honestly I'm super happy those people had those experiences
If anything, I'm upset that I didn't
I finished Larry Nivens' Ringworld.
I want to go back to Ursula Le Guin
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e2329ed5-d68c-4f9d-8672-2e549ab7f25b
I will say this about To Your Scattered Bodies Go: it was a DAMN sight better than Ringworld
Sadly, that bar is in Hell
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/29e8778c-b2b4-4c4a-a6b9-89543bc9cd08
The Gods Themselves is a book that starts really strongly and has a lot to say about the processes of Doing Science but then takes a long detour to explore alien gender politics in a way that completely destroys the pacing and momentum of the story and then fails to recover
As cool as it is to see nonbinary genders and nonmonogamous systems being explored in a 70s sci-fi novel, this was not the book to be doing that exploration
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/5bc04b42-539b-4864-b12d-f63256f8fe90
Finally Rendezvoused with Rama
It was okay
Cool ideas, a fun exploration of a Strange Thing, but I would've liked to see an actual plot in this novel
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/dde57d46-a5fb-4b66-8ecd-98846ac3de85
The Dispossessed had everything I had hoped to find in Left Hand of Darkness and so much more
Fantastic novel
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/b08055fd-dd7a-4862-8cfb-86f958f617d1
Short review for The Forever War. Maybe because I just finished a bike ride and I'm still recovering from that, but I just couldn't find a lot to say about it
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/8c891f1e-d099-4241-aec9-4f8d25cf0c6c
Where Late The Sweet Birds sang was not good!
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/2893dd49-df13-4684-a225-7ad6fdf615ae
I'm not even sure the book deserved a 2 tbh
Gateway had way too much Freud for me to fully enjoy it, but given the time it came out, I can see how that would've been seen as a strength when it was new
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/f0eb9b94-780e-4352-ba34-6279304ec746
Dreamsnake was one of those books that comes along and provides a breath of fresh air. Finally, after like three books straight about things that suck or people that suck, I got a book with a heart. Loved this one.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/9872697a-c4ca-4f50-bd44-5681f957640f
The Fountains of Paradise was an extremely boring slog through all of the worst sci-fi has to offer
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e6b2f48e-f74c-4912-9555-a1afe8be7a22
I'm firmly into the 80s now with Joan Vinge's The Snow Queen! I thought it was fine, but weirdly pro-cop for a book so interested in the lasting damage that is caused by colonialism
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/046cb1a9-f140-42d6-b46c-190054af91d0
I have reached my limit. I am not going to finish reading Downbelow Station.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/b2cf410d-0927-41c8-abad-93ecfe2297a0
I read like a thousand pages of Heinlein but THIS was the book that beat me
I had to read 3 entire novels before I got to the next winner because I was not about to jump into book 4 of Foundation. There was some good stuff in that series but most of it was in the first book.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/778e8982-f786-45c2-a931-86802c7a48a9
Startide Rising was a great book about dolphins in space
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/0cb5d52e-00ec-4002-9a8c-c44994f25060
The Uplift War was also a very good book about chimpanzees on an alien planet
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/cd2ef051-be3a-46e3-b617-54630f91da36
It might be heresy, but I gave Neuromancer less than 5 stars
But not a lot less
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/3b78afeb-8fd6-4115-a6f4-f548489c750a
@coriander I don't know what that is, but still, reported.
@wallhackio Hasn't read Dune, doesn't know Neuromancer, clodboy can you even read
@coriander I am reading A Wizard of Earthsea 
@wallhackio I should read that at some point
@wallhackio Anyway Neuromancer, together with Blade Runner, basically codified what cyberpunk Is
@coriander I have never watched blade runner
@wallhackio Reported as FUCK
@wallhackio @aescling come collect your brother
@coriander @wallhackio i would be a hypocrite
@aescling @wallhackio @Lady come collect these two
@coriander @aescling @wallhackio one time i got in a fight with gargron because i said blade runner was all form and no substance
@Lady @aescling @wallhackio Well you've at least SEEN the thang ding!
@coriander @aescling @wallhackio in college i think we watched every version which was available at the time
@coriander @aescling @wallhackio watching the theatrical release and then immediately following it with the final cut might give you the deepest understanding of the movie in the least time, if you are okay with watching the same movie twice and having the first time effectively be a shitty dub
@Lady @aescling @wallhackio I've never actually watched the theatrical cut
That's something I should do at some point, just to "enjoy" Harrison Ford's "narration"
@coriander @aescling @wallhackio anyway caleb you probably should watch blade runner because you care about movies
æsc you can skip it if you want
@Lady @coriander @aescling ive always wanted to
@wallhackio @coriander @aescling ok but youve seen alien right
@Lady @coriander @aescling yes, excellent movie
@wallhackio @coriander @aescling coriander did you ever watch dunc part 2 should we watch the dunc duology
@Lady @coriander @aescling ive seen dunc1 but not dunc2
@wallhackio @Lady @coriander i did not care much fur dunc 1 movie aside from the occasional really good special effects shot
@Lady @wallhackio @coriander i find it kinda purrsistently dreary, people just stand around all :| all the time and i just kinda tuned out in the theatre over it
@aescling @wallhackio @coriander did not expect to read a review of dunc 1 that read “understimulating” today
@Lady @wallhackio @coriander heavy stimulation with that kind of dreary vibe sometimes just does not gel with me, college!me especially had very low tolerance fur it
@aescling @wallhackio @coriander what are your feelings on mad max fury road
@Lady @wallhackio @coriander i never quite loved it the way many people do but i enjoyed it when i watched it. i think it took me 15 minutes or so befur it really started to draw me in though
@Lady @wallhackio @coriander it is exactly that it was simulating that i think is what put me off; in college i fucking adored Wendy and Lucy and that shit is dry and dreary as hell but i found the visual understatedness* of it all refreshing at the time
* in retrospect it has… not the best cinematography lol
@wallhackio @coriander @aescling i saw part 1 in theatres but missed part 2
@Lady @coriander @aescling i added it To The Notepad File
@coriander @aescling @wallhackio we actually could not decide which version was best for newcomers as i recall. the Final Cut is definitely the best version if you have already seen the movie (altho i forget what the differences are between it and the Directors Cut), but we felt it might be impenetrable to newcomers. all of us had the experience of watching Blade Runner for the first time and having no idea what was going on