What did you just read?

Dynalisia said:

Guys, I need your help.

Recently I read The Phoenix Project because I'm stepping into a more management role in IT and I was blown away with how well practical technical teachings packaged into the shape of a novel worked for me. Looking back, this seems completely obvious, but never mind that.

Right now I'm looking for any books/series/genres that are similar to this setup. I realize that a lot of great literature is thought provoking and teaches about all kinds of topics on a more subtle level, but I'm really looking for something that has its lessons a bit more on the foreground. So the fiction itself doesn't have to be mindblowing, as long as the teachings it supports are solid.

The reason I'm asking you is that I've been looking around quite a bit and there is just so much out there that seems like it could be something, but I'm not sure. Because my time is really limited right now, I'm hesitant to just start buying books and experiment. As such, I'm looking for books of this type you would consider your absolute favorites. I'm interesting in pretty much any topics, but have a preference for academics and within that for philosophy, science and technology.

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I guess like Zero to One, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, The Drunkard's Walk and Talent is Overrated maybe?

Just finished The Falcon of Sparta. It's a Conn Iggulden historical novel about Cyrus and Xenophon. To be honest, Iggulden's Genghis and Caesar series are all-around better reads, but Falcon is still a great introduction to the history and the author is a decent-enough writer. Xenophon is a pretty cool historical figure.

Aiming to read the Neopolitan Novels next. Chick books perhaps, but first two seasons of the show are so good, I have to try them.

Just finished The Girl and the Stars by Mark Lawrence. I enjoyed it, but I like all his books. Much like the Prince of Fools trilliogy expanded on world from the Thorns books and filled in allot of info about the setting, this looks like it will expand alot on the world he set up in the ancestor trilliogy. This really hits the spot for me since in most books I almost enjoy the world's and setting more than the characters so books that fill in setting questions are my favorite.

Arbitrary said:

I guess like Zero to One, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, The Drunkard's Walk and Talent is Overrated maybe?

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These are great suggestions, but are (as far as I can see) books that are directly focused on explaining their topic. What I'm looking for are novels in which the character(s) experience(s) things that leads them to learn about a particular topic, and where the topic is a practical/technical/academic one (so not love, the meaning of life, personal development, etc.).

Has anyone read Ford's stuff?

Ukerric said:

For a fraction of a second, I thought I had, but it turns out that I was mixing with M. John Harrison.

(which I do not recommend. Read the first book of the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, and it was enough for me)

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Viriconium by M. John Harrison got a second life through Neil Gaiman's recent campaign to reprint the stories he loved as a child. I first listened to it as an audio book, and then bought it on Amazon so I could own a copy.

It's a collection of short stories all set in Viriconium, a city that seems to exist outside of time and space. The whole thing is super meta. Harrison hated the idea of world building, and so he described the city differently in every story.

It doesn't really work, in my opinion. A big part of fantasy is escapism into another world. We want to investigate and discover things.

The book is worth reading because it is beautiful English. Harrison left fantasy in order to write poetry, and I can see why. It's like someone took all the composition of a masterpiece painting and translated it into text.

The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. I had wanted to read something by him for a while after seeing his quote



I liked the book a lot. It's a series of letters written by a senior devil to his nephew Wormwood who is a Tempter working to damn a soul.

Picked up another Murakami book. I love this guy, he's such a beautiful writer.

The first Dostoyevsky book I've read. I figured it would be boring. It wasn't. I assumed it would take a hundred pages or more to become interesting. I was hooked by the end of the first chapter. I believed the most interesting parts of the book were the oft quoted arguments for Atheism. They weren't.

I think this is a book anyone could enjoy reading.

The story momentum dies around the 75% mark. I had to slog through another 10% before it got good again. This is something others have noted as well. Worth the effort.

Do you know, I liked it.

Just starting this. Dad gave it to me as a gift, the book not kindle. Will take me a while to make it as slow as I read now.

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Books :

Ascend Online [1-2] - Luke Chmilenko
Litrpg - not to be confused with 'Awaken Online'. This is very much in the literal part, in that the characters in the book are literally playing a game - it's not secretly a real world or the object of godlike or alien machinations. They aren't trapped there, there's no real world implications to their actions other than the chance at making some money from streaming.

This is also probably the most gamelike of these that I have read - for most of them not a lot of them are particularly believable as an actual game that people would play willingly, where it's pretty obvious they'd immediately descend into Lord of Flies style griefing. I will note that, while 100% plausible, the game mechanics here suffer from an awful lot of super convenient critical hits to make combat more interesting. ( Fights between characters that have 600 hp and weapons that do 5-10 damage not being particularly enthralling ;p )

Griefers are actually a fairly large part of the plot in this one, despite having some actual thought out mechanisms to prevent it.

Anyways, it's a bunch of friends playing an MMO, levelling up, and trying to build up a small village to be their home territory. I liked it a lot and will read sequels when they show up.


Dungeon Lord [1-3] - Hugo Huesca
This is 100% Dungeon Keeper the Story, with a disaffected computer store employee being offered a 'great' opportunity as a 'dungeon lord' in an alternate reality after he blows his life up. He somewhat optimistically decides that he can be both a dungeon lord and a good guy, which is kind of like joining ISIS with the intention of being a humanitarian.

I disliked the whole idea of the Objectivity, it's kind of like playing d&d with an asshole GM. The story was fun though, with him building out his dungeon and stocking it with an unlikely variety of crappy minions.

This one was not amazing, but this was entertaining enough to read the first three. I will probably read more.


Web Serials :

Katalepsis - Hungry - ongoing
This was a change of pace - it's a dark urban fantasy/horror where magic is mostly of the deeply unpleasant type. A bit like Pact or the Laundry Files in regard to setting. Follows a young woman who, after an accidental childhood interdimensional trip, is being taught magic in her dreams by a wise old mentor.

This is less fun than it sounds, as the magic is largely incompatible with human physiology or sanity and the mentor is a lovecraftian outer plane horror that gives precisely zero fucks about human frailty or side effects.

Her life changes, mostly for the better, when she runs across some of the more traditional magic users - read ritual sacrifice, demon summoning, zombie raising and the like.

I quite liked this one, although it's probably not for everyone. The setting is pretty dark, and there's an implausible concentration of lesbians. ( As a side note to anyone trying it out,
the main character is a horrible wet blanket at the start, but does not remain that way over the course of the story ). Updates once a week.

He Who Fights With Monsters - Shirtaloon - ongoing
Litrpg/Isekai - this was the winner of a 1 chapter read off between this, Delve and Defiance of the Fall for which web serial I'd start next. I haven't regretted that decision at all, as I found it an excellent read, and very engaging.

There's not a lot of original setting here, man pulled into gamelike fantasy realm, what makes it stand out for me is the well realized and charismatic characters, as well as the sense of humor. The author also has a deft hand at balancing the game mechanic type stuff with actual plot and character development. The author's writing output is pretty staggering, with 5 updates a week.

Overall I thought it was excellent and strongly recommend to any fans of the genre.

Pale - Wildbow - ongoing
Wildbow's new story now that Ward is finished. It's set in the same universe as Pact, and is, so far anyway, about a trio of teenage girls that get talked into becoming practitioners ( magic users in general - in their case witches ) by the local Others.

This is so that when some real mages show up the Others can say, without lying, that a recent momentous murder is 'handled' and is being investigated by human practitioners.

As a concept, it's hilarious to anyone who has read Pact, this is kind of like a Bambi vs Godzilla deathmatch in a nuclear wasteland.

Story is interesting without being great so far, but it's early days yet.