My best friend in 7th grade had older siblings and they had all read Ender’s Game. He read it and told me I had to read it. Being the impressionable 7th grader (2006-7) that I was I gladly obliged.
I found the book to be deeply fascinating. It opened my eyes to ‘new’ technology like ‘ansible’ (can communicate anywhere in the universe instantaneously) and really opened up my imagination to what I could do with my life.
Growing up in rural South Carolina with dreams of being an explorer or an astronaut seemed kinda far fetched. Most people just wanted you to be a Dr. or Lawyer or get a job at BMW. Ender’s Game showed me that it was ok to be different. It was ok to love to read books and to think that one day I too could have an impact on society.
For what it’s worth: Mark Zuckerberg also had Ender’s Game listed in his books section on FB. But truthfully back in ‘07 I was busy writing poems on MySpace (FB wasn’t rural yet) hoping that I would one day be as influential as the Demosthenes character in Ender’s Game
https://web.archive.org/web/20070206121131/http://www4.ncsu....
tldr; orson scott card is a bigot and ender's game is nazi apologia. if you don't want to read the above it's been written about in numerous places (google "ender's game book fascism").
Not everything Google-able is true.
Many authors are difficult.
Ender's Game is a great story.
The author of the article you posted (who was basing the nazi thing on another author's work) stated this in regards to the "Ender is Hitler" argument, "...Radford’s essay says many things with which I do not agree, and its tone is often intemperate..."
So your bias against Ender's Game is based on a guy who was biased against the very argument that has led to me writing this comment.
Yet I’d recommend those folks who are now adults and cite it as their most influential piece of fiction to go out and read more fiction! :).
Just to be snobby I’ll throw out Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. Beautiful and contemplative.
> ender's game is nazi apologia
in your comment, I was pretty sure that there would be a point in the quoted article where the author went from reasonable background/description, to instantly jumping to a completely nonsensical argument, and I was not disappointed.
> The difference between Peter and Ender is not in what they do, but in what they are
What? That's incredibly dumb.
This like saying a serial killer, and someone who shot a person who shot at them first, are the same thing. You can't just ignore context because it's convenient to your argument. By this reasoning, anyone who's not an avowed pacifist -- who wouldn't even fight back against naked aggression -- is equivalent to the worst murderer.
Maybe Ender went too far, but he did act in self-defense, against other kids who tried to maim or even kill him. Peter killed animals because he wanted to. That is nowhere close to the same thing.
Like, does the author of this piece seriously believe that self defense is never justified or something?
> Ender is “kind” and “good” even when his actions seem to belie that characterization.
Ender is ruthless against those who go out of their way to threaten him, that's true enough, but in the context of the story he has an awful lot of threats to his life for a little kid! Brutally fighting back is completely understandable. What else would you even expect him to do, in that situation?
If you're gonna find fault with the story here, pointing out that the adults are all complicit in letting Ender be abused, sure that's bad and dumb. But given that they're doing that, blaming Ender for desperately fighting back is utter nonsense.
the book is literally about a kid committing genocide and the reasons why he should feel okay about it (ie a pretext). or did you not read it through to the end?
What an author starts spouting completely nonsense arguments, why would I waste my time continuing further?
The author apparently thinks self defense is as bad as killing for the heck of it, if they're that dumb, why would I be interested in their moral judgment for anything else?
Look, it's them that made the argument. I even quoted the relevant parts. They're clearly arguing that Ender is aggressive and bad because he's violent in response to violence against him. Self defense apparently doesn't count.
If they want to make an argument that makes sense instead, they should do that.
> Card thus labors long and hard in Ender’s Game to create a situation where we are not allowed to judge any of his defined-as-good characters’ morality by their actions. The same destructive act that would condemn a bad person, when performed by a good person, does not implicate the actor, and in fact may be read as a sign of that person’s virtue.
"The same destructive act"? Notice again how the author apparently thinks fighting in self defense is the same 'act' as fighting because you want to hurt somebody.
Maybe next up they can argue that target shooting is the same as shooting a person in the face, because either way you're shooting a gun!
> even when his actions seem to belie that characterization.
This isn't just the author asserting how the characters see Ender, it's also clear that the author thinks that "[Ender's] actions belie that characterization". But that's only true if you view fighting back against bullies as not good, if you view self defense as unkind.
Thus, the author's argument is clear: self defense is not acceptable. They won't come out and say it explicitly, because that would make it obvious how dumb the argument is, but that is nevertheless what they're asserting. Instead, they argue it while pretending not to.
Are you sure you're reading the same article? Their argument of "context doesn't matter, only the bare literal act" is quite clear.
It's far from being a book that advocates for or otherwise encourages genocide
He literally spends the rest of his life making up for that mistake as speaker for the dead.
And he never feels okay about it. He reaches a sense of peace with the overwhelming guilt, but only by giving his life entirely to that purpose.
Because Ender did the suicide strike thinking it was simulation, and thus he would be finally released from the program as dangerous.
It's literally an attempt to get released from service on medical discharge. He was only told he was operating real world warships after the fact. Before that scene, he assumed (and while there were possible hints, at that point he is increasingly getting less mentally stable) that it was graduate school equivalent of Battle School - as that's what everyone excluding Bean (and that is AFAIK only in the retconny later novels) was told.
Have you asked why he should feel okay about it?
The parent comment explicitly says context was ignored. He committed genocide/xenocide because he was literally being deceived and then spends the next 2 books regretting and making up for a move he wasn't responsible for.
The literal example here would be playing any video game but instead of it just being a game you were literally killing whatever the game is about.
In that case, wouldn't you feel that you were wrongly deceived? That you're not truly a killer? But in your eyes and the article's... you absolutely are a killer. 100% responsible and the book is wrong for teaching otherwise.
Pretty obtuse to think hold such a belief.
Changed my opinion about the man, but the books he wrote ar e still good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Homosexuality
Further down in this comment chain I posted a link to a literary essay that enders game is about fascism. I got heavy downvotes. I'm sure that by quoting this paragraph from wiki I will get more downvotes. People are in denial about their heroes.
How can members of a police force be unemployed?
> "I'm sure that by quoting this paragraph from wiki I will get more downvotes."
I normally downvote comments that complain about downvotes, but not for quoting well-sourced interesting/concerning background facts about relevant authors.
Below I linked to a published literary essay and I got downvoted.
[0]https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FilibusterFreefa...
i don't know about fantasy but for sci-fi i think it's obvious: it's because a technocracy inevitably becomes a fascist dictatorship. that's why the nazis were heavy on industry and eugenics ("science" is the ultimate moral authority and all that). it's also for example why the mcguffin in Captain America: The Winter Soldier is so plausible (it was hydra whose aim was to use an ai to a-priori adjudicate who was guilty etc).
why writers in particular? not sure. probably having something to do with feeling confident in their ability to create fictional worlds and translating that into some kind of presumption of ability to govern real worlds.
Edit: lol no responses only downvotes. Don't point out flaws in technology ideology or else people will get bad. Lol
It could also be that personality traits that correlate with obsession with science or technology could also correlate with obsession on rigour, rules and control in other aspects of life.
So I think I understand where the connection comes from, and it probably wouldn't be difficult to find examples of individuals in whom there is a connection.
However, I think you're somewhat off about technocracy inevitably leading to fascist dictatorship, and especially regarding your example of the nazis.
Focus on technology and industry fit the nazi agenda well, of course. They needed both as means for their war machine. The emphasis of economical power in general probably wasn't bad for their agenda either, because economical security has a lot of power in the minds of people. (That's true even generally, but especially in Germany at the time; there was huge economical turmoil in Germany prior to the nazi regime, so emphasizing industry and economical stability would have been very useful for getting popular support.)
I think authoritarian governments and leadership like to turn the tools they need to extend and maintain their power into virtues or moral duties. This can be work, industry, or anything that promotes social pressure towards obedience and respect for the ruling authority. The same goes for anything they can use to get what they want, but power and control are a great part of that.
The means may thus be presented as morally desirable ends, along with any personal obsessions of the leadership, of course. The leadership itself may even like to believe in the virtuousness of their means; if, for example, science or parts thereof (e.g. genetics, or at least a selective understanding of it) can be seen as support for something they want either as personal obsessions or as a means for control (e.g. eugenics could be both), you can be pretty sure that support is going to be turned into a part of the ideology even if the true motives come from elsewhere.
So while technocracy might be one very useful tool for an authoritarian dictatorship, there are many other dynamics in play. I'm not really sure fascist dictatorship is an inevitable outcome of a technocratic mindset when that outcome also has so many other necessary constituents (which generally have to do with group dynamics and other social psychological stuff) and actual causes.
Among the technocratic, there are also lots of people who are very individually minded, and certainly not in favour of an authoritarian dictatorship. Whether individualism taken to an extreme is pro-social either is another thing, but I'm not at all surprised if drawing a direct line between technocracy and the nazis yields downvotes at HN.
Card is a believing Latter-Say Saint, and believes that a loving God has declared gay sex is forbidden. Someone who loves you would want good things to happen, ergo there must be a reason.
One can dig into the whys, but if this is really a "mystery," it's solved now.
I've recently been reading the Foundation series, and have found the concept of The Mule character to be incredibly eye opening. I can't say directly it's had a positive impact on my life but it's definitely changing my outlook and I feel its expanded my horizons.
I don't put it on-par with Dune, but there are definitely concepts in the TBP trilogy that are simultaneously difficult and mind-opening. Some of them are quite haunting, actually.
Most of the deeper exploration of these ideas takes place in the third book.
To each his/her/their own.
On the other hand, I finished TBP, but I disliked it enough that I didn't go back to the other two volumes. What makes them better than the first, in your opinion? (purely for my own curiosity re: whether I should go back and read them)
The author described how he approached the series as wanting to write about the “the worst possible universe”.
I did read 5 and got about a third of the way through 6 before stopping and I still don’t know why either book exists. The previous story was over, and the new stuff’s muddled and not compelling.
I really like to travel, really the only material thing I care about is being able to travel. Sometimes reading great literature from other countries gives me the same feeling that the earth is a small place and we are all in this together.
I don't think so, Trisolaris's mass is negligble relative to its suns ; they were only trying to model the motion of the suns.
The most glaring issue I remember was how the countries of Earth were essentially a united front for 450 years. They came up with a single plan - and a very strange one at that - and then carried it out for the next half-millenia with little dissent or deviation. Given the author of the book is Chinese, this struck like a plot element that's ideological in nature - the ruling class can't be seen as bickering or divided.
The only people opposed to this were effectively a death cult dedicated to wiping out humanity in the strange hope that a race of genocidal aliens would somehow be better custodians of our planet. While I imagine that there would be some people who felt this way, it strained belief that the alien sympathisers would be so organised and competant.
I'm usually pretty forgiving of novels with weak characterisation but interesting situations, but I didn't think the Three Body Problem succeeded in this aspect either. Obvious solutions were passed up or not discussed, for example, if there are only a few sophons on Earth and they can't travel faster than the speed of light, why not build many particle accelerators and perform experiments simultaneously? The final twist was also pretty heavily hinted at throughout the novels, so the latter half of the second book was just a case of waiting when it would be revealed. Frankly it could have been carried a lot sooner as well - why wait a century for verification when it costs nothing to call the alien's bluff immediately?
The books felt like the author had an idea that would have worked well for a short story that was expanded to the length of two novels. In a short story a lot of the details could have been glossed over, but when expanded out the author was forced to explain the intermediate steps.
> the countries of Earth were essentially a united front for 450 years.
That's not how it happens at all. (spoilers ahead!) The UN originally comes up with the Wallfacer plan in the first year or so after they learn of the fleet that's coming, in a time of utter despair. This is also a back-up plan, in case the "classical" space war fleet plan doesn't pan out. The first three Wallfacer end up thinking up heinous plans and spending a ton of resources, so the plan is essentially dismantled shortly after Luo Ji sends out his "spell" on that other star. They also mention the "great ravine", a very dark period of history, but we never get that much detail on that part.
Regarding your Sophons hypothesis, at speed of light you can go 7 times around the earth in 1 second; you'd have to be pretty precise with your timing to make your plan work. Moreover, Trisolaris was constantly building new ones, so by the time we'd build enough particle accelerators, there would be even more sophons on Earth.
And as for your last point, I think Luo Ji had only an hypothesis at this point, and wanted to be 100% sure before calling the bluff (and besides, he had time).
I agree with you that the characters don't have much depth, but this is a book you read for the concepts & ideas presented in it, not for the character interaction.
I'm afraid found it to be one of the worst books I've ever read. As I said, I bounced off this one hard.
> Regarding your Sophons hypothesis, at speed of light you can go 7 times around the earth in 1 second; you'd have to be pretty precise with your timing to make your plan work.
A second is a huge amount of time by the standards of modern physics. We wouldn't even need to separate out the colliders by any great distance; even a foot of separation would take a whole nanosecond for a sophon to cover.
Another approach would be to design a collider that could measure many collisions at once. Can the Trisolarans produce a thousand sophons on short notice? What about a million, or a billion? And given the latency the Trisolarans have to work with, they'd have to plan at least four years in advance.
Now maybe the Trisolarans have ways to prevent this, but the idea is never discussed, despite it being an obvious thing to try first.
For that matter, there's very few things that are tried. The idea that all the countries in the world would band together and try only one or two things over the course of 400 years is just bizarre.
> And as for your last point, I think Luo Ji had only an hypothesis at this point, and wanted to be 100% sure before calling the bluff (and besides, he had time).
He had time because he implemented a backup plan after the Trisolarans prevented the Sun from being used as a broadcasting station. But why take the risk? What does he have to lose? Either he's right and the Trisolarans will bargain with him, or he's wrong and nothing will happen. Given that Earth is doomed anyway, there's no reason not to try immediately before the Trisolarans are in a position where they can stop him.
Also it seems bizarre that in 400 years no-one once considered calling for help.
However, the swordholder doesn't need to be certain of the consequences in order for the scheme to work. All that's required is that the Trisolarans are certain of the consequences, and they believe that the swordholder will push the proverbial button.
If Luo Ji said, "Look, I'm like 60% sure that if I broadcast our location we'll all be killed, but I will do it if you continue." What could the Trisolarans do? Call his bluff? Then he'd say, "Okay then. I'm actually more likely to do this while I'm unsure, since there's a 40% chance nothing will happen. My being unsure has only made it more likely I'll press the button. Here we go..."
The Trisolarans would need to respect the threat regardless, which would confirm Luo Ji's theory without the need to wait a century to get results.
The translation doesn't help, but the issues with the books go beyond it. It's obvious that Cixin Liu is not a good writer. The characters in TBP are cardboard cutouts and his pacing and framing of ideas awful. I feel that there is merit in his imagination but it'd be better presented in a different format than science fiction.
To truly see how bad he is as a writer, compare him to the greats:
Stanislaw Lem, Gene Wolfe, Iain Banks (Culture Series), Strugatsky brothers, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Heinlein, J.G. Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, William Gibson ...
Since Dune was mentioned in this thread, I find the first two books to be absolutely in a different league than TBP as they're complex socio-political SciFi masterpieces that have stood the test of time. I've read Dune more than 9-10 times already (as I've read and re-read most of the books by the greats I previously mentioned). Can you imagine doing that with any of the TBP books?
I have read Summa Technologiae and everything is in there. And I mean everything. I have yet to see any new horizons for humanity he hasn't covered back in the sixties.
For me the single most distressing idea is that we might want to limit the speed of research in order to be able to integrate it, because the exponential growth would otherwise beat humanity's ability to adapt, leading to very turbulent situations.
Try to read this as Chinese literature and not apply Western standards. TBP is not about individual people but civilizations. Similarly, if you read Tale of Genji expecting a plot, you will be disappointed. But that doesn't mean it will be forgotten in 10 years.
Interestingly, I see a lot of parallels between Liu and Thomas Hardy. They both wrote sweeping tales that use individuals to represent abstract ideas. So, it's not just an Eastern thing.
Also, If I'm in the mood for hard sci-fi, I'll read Peter Watts who is (again) on a different league. Blindsight and Echopraxia navigate similar (but not only!) themes to TBP in a much more intelligent, thought-provoking and cohesive way.
This is an honest question as someone who is seriously considering reading TBP in near future.
If you're dead-set on reading it, read the first book and if you don't like it cut your losses short right there. I say skip the whole mess and read Watts instead.
Vonnegut impacted me to be a bit more fatalistic (“among the things he could not change were the past, present, and future”) and nihilistic in a positive way. Although not sure this is a positive overall for my personality. More sort of forgiving, e.g. the idea that people’s mistakes are due to their bad chemicals or faulty wiring. Suggest Cats Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5, maybe Galapagos for starters.
Once A Runner, as a runner myself, crystallized for me a philosophy of striving for excellence at something that may not matter to anybody else. And I find it fun.
What I liked about Neal Stephenson’s Anathem was the “this too shall pass” perspective on human societies and civilizations outside the wall of the maths. Whatever the current government or technology levels or wars happen to be, blend together. It reminds me of the feeling you get in Jerusalem of being in a moment of history that is no more important than other times and is of one piece with them, rises and falls included. This probably connects to the nihilism again. Anyway.
I almost exclusively read fiction but I’ll mention Working by Studs Terkel, not fiction but certainly not self help or technical. Just helped me feel connected to parts of society I don’t experience.
This book changed my life. I read this book when I was maybe 17? And read it again last year, a decade and a half later.
The most powerful lesson I learned here is what anthropologists call cultural relativism. This book also taught me that everyone is under the influence of Mother Culture and her stories. I think internalizing this can help a lot with understanding other people, building self awareness, understanding politics in general, and also history in general.
There's a narrative here about ecology and generally making the world a less shitty place which is nice too, but not the primary value-add IMO (although it's unique in proposing cultural transformation as the solution).
Nevada by Imogen Binnie was another. I read it when I was working through questions about my gender. It's dark, funny, beautiful, and brutally candid account of the (a) trans experience.
Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series follows these closely.
Apart from that this appears to be the purpose of history, Sapiens contributed to that for me. However, it is clearly non-fiction.
The sequels are great too!
There is plenty of evidence suggesting we are currently on an unsustainable path with regard to the continuation of our own current lifestyle. I doubt it will lead to the end of life on Earth, and (regarding the book) I'm not quite convinced that a return to hunter gatherer societies is the proper solution.
I never thought the book in any way presented returning to hunter-gatherer societies as a solution.
I saw it as a commentary on slaving to infinite greed and thus prioritizing the wrong things. A commentary on the madness of “normalcy”.
Steinbeck's East of Eden for coming to grips with a fundamental moral struggle of what is good and what is choice.
Anything ever written by Kurt Vonnegut for the proper cynicism needed to live in this world.
Oscar Wilde for that same cynicism minus the science fiction, plus more witty one liners.
Right now I think maybe people will appreciate being in a zone where the normal rules have ceased to apply (Allied occupied Europe in the novel), and where there is a lot of wrangling about who the winners and losers in the new world will be.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2500/2500-h/2500-h.htm
This book resonated at a perfect time for me, opened my eyes to what peace in human mind could be, peace through acceptance, and above all the rejection of strict god-judging religions. This was important because instead of chasing "happiness" I began to work towards "contentness" which has lead to minor emotional improvements in my life.
Though I did enjoy Siddhartha, you touch on a point I agree with: Hesse recycles many of the same themes in all of his works, and Siddhartha just takes those themes a different geographic setting (which was intentional - Hesse's relationship with Germany had deteriorated, and he felt that any book set in Germany would be seen as commentary on the country). It seems that Siddhartha is often read in isolation from his other works and thus seen as primarily a commentary on Buddhism. While Hesse was very familiar with India (his grandfather had been a missionary there, and Hesse had traveled there), and he certainly had an affinity for the Indian spirituality that comes through in the book, the primary themes are very similar to the themes in Narcissus and Goldmund, Demian, Beneath the Wheel, Peter Camenzind, and of course the Glass Bead Game.
I'm a huge fan of Hesse and have read almost all of his works, and I think Siddhartha is quite a good one, but it's not a book about Buddhism; it's a coming of age tale with a protagonist navigating the tension between intellectual learning and experiential learning, and finding happiness from within. Which could describe many of Hesse's works...
A few years later, a friend lent me Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game). I was deeply surprised, because it was so different from his previous works. It's a dystopia, but the focus is elsewhere. The book is much less romantic than usual, more subtle and intriguing. Twenty years later , I remember it fondly, and I can't think of any similar book. If you like Hesse, you really should try his last novel.
* Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller — Perfect for a single man in his 30s. Very solipsistic and hedonistic, which is a great way to explore that decade. Each of the books in the series is a novel length prose poem. Absolutely beautiful
* Journey to the End of The Night by Louis Ferdinand Celine — my favorite book in the world. Very misanthropic, set in WWI. The protagonist finds himself drafted into the war and does his best to survive while the brave people around him die like idiots, it escalates from there. The most beautiful line I've ever read is from a part of the book where the protagonist is hanging out at a brothel: "Toward one of the beautiful girls there I soon developed an uncommon feeling of trust, which in frightened people takes the place of love." there are jaw-droppers like that on every other page
* Crime and Punishment — a cautionary tale about exactly the kind of solipsism and misanthropy that can take us over in our 30s. Fast paced and beautifully written, it reads like a modern crime thriller.
For fun conceptual stuff
* Ficciones by Borges — short stories that will twist your mind up, each are more puzzle than narrative, but tremendously engaging nonetheless. Ted Chiang is the modern writer that I would identify as the most similar in spirit to Borges.
As a note—I'm a speculative fiction author. Most of what I read these days is sff and nerdy lit fic. The value in fiction is the same as the value in philosophy, it exposes you to the inside of peoples' minds in a way that other forms of narrative entertainment do not, and the real good stuff acts as fuel for concept creation.
Always nice to meet another Henry Miller fan! Jealous about that trip to Big Sur, I'll have to make it out there one of these days.
also, "the sun also rises", "the stranger", "death in venice".
It's a common recommendation for exactly that - but I'm amazed by how much it's in the back of my head and gives me support. Especially in the current time.
I can't point to an exact quote.. but I'm listening to all audio books(as background noise) by Douglass Adam's for the last weeks and it just feels like there is a part in the books for almost every weird situation in life....
And it's not like it gives a solution for every weird situation... it's more like it supports to feel however you feel about it...
I had no use for the foray into soft pornography mid-way through, but otherwise it was well worth the read.
His style of storytelling is just great. He leaves so much off the page with his short style that at the end you get that feeling you’ve experienced something profound that can’t quiet be put into words.
In hindsight, it was such an odd realization to me, after being forced to read Slaughterhouse Five (and hated it) in high school, but then independently discovering and loving his other sci-fi/Absurdity heavy novels and how refreshing they were. And I might have missed them completely if I had been too stubborn.
"You are what you pretend to be"
Timequake is also amazing.
"Life is just for farting around and don't let anyone tell you different"
The Litany in its entirety:
> "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
Learning how to manage fear is something I think we can all benefit by.
Now reading Dune, for the first time since high school 20 years ago. There is a solid argument to only read classic scifi until the reviews are so good that you can't ignore it, or if you learn to trust the author.
Dune is an incredibly textured far future. Ecology, waves of anti-technology, post-humanism, politics, and nuanced characters.
My least favorite book of all time has to be The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford.
After reading Dune, what they do mattered much more to me, and it's changed how I appreciate dialog in film. When it's done right, and the actors do things in resonance, it's like you can see right into the soul of a character.
I think this stems from enduring the continued existence of a courtly intelligentsia that sought to philosophically justify feudalism. This while the feudal institution had long collapsed elsewhere laying bare the preposterousness.
Favorite quote from the book —
“Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow.”
Other influential books: 1984, The Fountainhead, and Siddhartha
I think the appendices may have been most important to me, ultimately. Some more than others of course.
Every now and then I return to it and the painfully sixties parts get even more painfully so - I suppose I shouldn’t expect an subtle treatment of women from a couple of guys who were working at Playboy when putting it together, but it’s still grating, and makes it harder and harder to recommend to the next generation.
Also it inoculated me against Ayn Rand with its parody of her extended paeans to the joys of being fucked in every possible way by rich assholes who value money over morals, and after seeing the damage done to society and people by libertarianism, I cannot thank Wilson and Shea enough for that.
Italo Calvino's, "If on a Winter's Night a Traveller".
Melville's "Moby Dick" (I do not think this is a good book but it had a significant impact.)
Cormac McCarthy's, "Blood Meridian".
Together these works revealed a vanity in traditional intellectualism that is propped upon a facade of 19th century values which are easy to idolize. These works also made me keenly aware of the folly of of reactionary anti-intlectualism (which is easy to fall into once the shine has come off the collegiate apple). I know a lot of my contemporary peers did not need this same transition of values but I very much did.
It has become my life's philosophy to revel in the power of intellectual activity to reveal and rejoice in the beauty and complexity of life but to shun any intellectualism that will not connect itself to life in a fundamental way.
To those skeptical that "old books" can have aesthetic relevance even today, I highly recommend reading the first chapter or even the first paragraph:
> Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
But around page 200 the book diverts for hundreds of pages to discuss historical whaling voyages, whaling implements, whale anatomy and whale processing methods. The book ramshackle bounces back into the narrative and kind of takes for granted that you'll still be invested in the characters.
I enjoyed all this content and am not at all opposed to a 19th century diversion or two. But the book just really drops the thread from Ishmael and kind of comes back in hard on Ahab.
Les Miserables has quite the diversions (80 pages or so describing the battle of Waterloo) but it returns consistently to the characters and resumes their previous connections.
I just really felt that I was introduced to a great character driven narrative then the book switched to become a technicalnmanual for several hundred pages and then jumped back in to a wow finish presuming upon the fact that my previous engagement with the characters would automatically resume.
Anyway, sorry to drag a book you clearly really enjoy.
Others would include:
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series - I read this when I was a kid, even got all of the books autographed by the author! It was the first series I read that I remember deeply moving me. The books subvert the traditional "chosen one" protagonist, and even the hero questions this. It's fun reading, he has a huge ego that constantly gets taken down. As a kid reading along wanting him to be this epic hero, almost self inserting myself into the fantasy, I fell in love with all the Greek mythology and characters. It's been a long time since I re read them, but I still think back with nostalgic glasses. It probably won't hold up as well going back, but I think they're timeless enough.
Sherlock Holmes - I've always been a fan of mysteries and well...it's Sherlock Holmes. Between all the copies and collections I own I either have them all or multiple copies of the same stories. I know I definitely have duplicates from different publishers with slight variations. But loved it as a kid and made me interested in science.
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
One Piece, Monster and of course HxH have all impacted me.
For books, most people have already mentioned Dune, HHGTTG and The Culture series, so I'll have to add Flowers for Algernon.
The anime is a bit dated now, but still holds up. Planning to rewatch it soon!
My family has told me stories about people like the main character, running his rackets in Catch 22. It must have been a truly crazy time
It really does capture the absurdity of big organisations brilliantly.
Catch-22 is great though. Dystopic and hilarious at the same time.
The Lord of the Rings is spectacular. The movies were remarkable feats, but they missed the trilogy's heart (and ruined some great characters). It's dense reading, but the prequel The Silmarillion is perhaps the only successful epic mythology written in modern times.
C. S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces" is a remarkable adaptation of the Cupid and Psyche myth, from the perspective of Psyche's sister.
I loved Spider Robinson's Variable Star, based on an unfinished outline by Robert Heinlein.
Surprised I haven't seen it mentioned yet, as it normally is in book threads on HN.
The reason that it had, and still has, such a positive influence on my life is the plethora of literary tools which it possesses. It allows for infinite play and imagination, while still being the apparent product of extreme dedication and earned mastery.
In fact, I prefer Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man as a novel, and I'm sure that the Wake is a perfect encyclopedia of language, cryptography, history, et al. But Ulysses takes it as an (humerous, profound, tricky, psychoanalytic, poetic, radical) example of the process of artistic experiment, the practically infinite range of the possible, and the unforgiving merit of deep study and eclectic knowledge.
I go back every so often to bounce my own ideas and troubling sentences off of it, more often than not just to get a little bit of validation.
Next would be Hesiod - Theogany, a 900 line 'epic' poem from the dawn of written literature. He is considered to be the first economist, though at that point of course it is simply philosophy. It explained for me the concept of emergent consciousness in a very biblical way, and let me realise the notion that religious works are just misunderstood metaphors; products of an imperfect language. It's unsurprising I suppose that something so short, that was written almost 3000 years ago, has such incredible lessons and timeless human value.
- Lord of the Rings: The other bible. Not even the very wise can see all ends; be of good cheer.
- A Wrinkle In Time: 9 year old me, there is such a thing as a tesseract, and there is also Mrs. Beast.
- The Master and Margarita: apocalyptic reading from someone who knew, and a cat who always pays his way.
- the Discworld series: Sir Terry knew our hearts better than most, and sin, young feller, is treatin’ people as things.
- If On A Winter’s Night, A Traveler: a perfect joke that you can tell once, plus a love story.
- Good Omens: Gaiman and Pratchett team up, what’s not to love?
- Moby Dick: And so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.
- Lucky Jim: grad school, a survival guide. Come in on the fa la la las, there’s a good chap.
This doesn’t include poetry, which is also in my head constantly.
It's a good book, but aesthetically it suffers in my mind because it's a rewrite of Pratchett's earlier book Sourcery.
i like the gaiman/pratchett teamup. They balance each other out very nicely.
Still, melville had a lot to say about human nature, abolitionism, philosophy, xenophobia... name a pressing concern of american life in the modern age and you'll find echoes of it here, too.
"For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blankets between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. "
If you’re going to try, I think the visual style that would work the best would be animated. The real world could be done in Heavy Metal style, and the ‘verse done like ReBoot — or maybe akira or something. I’m not at all excited about a live action version.
- Brave New World: Aldous Huxley is a genius and a wordsmith
- Dune: a sci-fi masterpiece, highly recommended to anyone into sci-fi
- Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: not purely fiction but an amazing book I will surely re-read during my lifetime
Perhaps I should read it again to get a deeper appreciation for it
I also found some of the ideas easier to take away and hold onto.
But if you're specifically looking for "books that affect your outlook on life", you might try reading through Peanuts. It's a comic strip, but there's a lot going on in there.
But reading stories is fun, and something I do constantly. Currently I'm re-reading Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive. Every year or two I re-read Dune, Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Amber, and Steven Brust's Taltos series. Always a pleasure.
My recommendations would probably echo those already posted, with the addition of small random stories that I remember fondly because they were just fun, interesting, or surprising (e.g. H. G. Wells: The Door in the Wall, or the original Mary Poppins books recently completed after finishing the Dresden Files for the first time.)
But I'm not entirely sure about his discussion of the word "timshel" in the original Bible. I'm a native Hebrew speaker, and I don't read any "may" into it - it's more of a declaration of the future like "you will rule/control it" rather than "you may rul/control it".
It's different to anything I've ever read, and definitely stays with you.
chapter end-notes that tell you all the soviet jokes you missed.
just in case there are other Romanians around, the best translation I've found is the one by Antoaneta Olteanu (from Corint).
there’s a kindle version too.
Find the time to read Vonnegut.
Part of my enjoyment of Vonnegut comes from his writing style. I just love how he writes, no matter the story.
Otherwise, the Hitchhiker's Guide is always a great read.
Anything by Dostoevsky.
Here's a quote for the OP's original question.
> He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lordship’s wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?’
The story line is enrapturing but ultimately not what the book is about. I'll leave two quotes.
> We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.
> All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma
The author is a "philosopher" who finds the company of Zorba and sees in this simple man the result of the philosophy in everyday living.
Zorba is uneducated and is unable to explain the why in meta physical arguments but to the author he seems to be effortlessly living the truth that the author is an "expert" in but unable to emulate.
It affected me because I identified with being a "seeker" and a "philosopher" and this made me realize that understanding something intellectually is very different than being able to use/live it. That I wasn't somehow "superior" because of the thoughts in my head.
Out of all the reviews, this one exemplifies the power of fiction (and books) the best. Your candid thoughts will stick with me.
I'm sure there's lots more, but that's particularly memorable.
I was breastfeeding my newborn and one breast was hurting like a bitch. A nurse checked me, which involved looking at my breast, announced I didn't have an infection and shrugged and walked off.
I was in my twenties and had a lot of baggage from being molested as a child. I felt humiliated showing her my tits and then got zero help.
But Heinlein had written something about blocked milk ducts and opening them with a needle. The book description sounds pretty dreadful, but that's not what I did. I sterilized a needle and used it to gently brush dead skin from my nipple, clearing away the blockage from the milk duct.
Problem solved. In like five minutes.
My sister also had some breastfeeding challenges. I don't think I was actually helpful in terms of telling her how to fix it, but I told her my story and encouraged her to keep looking for a solution because the medical establishment not knowing fuck all about supporting breastfeeding moms isn't evidence that it can't be solved. She did find solutions and successfully breastfed instead of throwing in the towel and bottle feeding.
The US completely sucks at supporting breastfeeding. It's awful.
Glad you have seen better.
To pick a couple though:
- The Nix (best novel I’ve read in a long time): https://www.npr.org/2016/08/31/490101821/the-nix-is-a-viciou...
- Lake Success
- Permutation City
- Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality (https://www.hpmor.com/)
- True Names
- Any of the stories by Ted Chiang, but specifically “Liking what you See: A documentary” and “The life cycle of software objects”
Not sure you think it's terrible though, I really liked it all the way through.
For people that don't know about it, it started off as a blog post on less wrong so the first chapter or so is a little different in style.
If you want to see if you'd like it I suggest people read Chapter 10 (the sorting hat chapter) and if that appeals to you to go back and start from the beginning.
Also the sandwich is pretty good.
Idk if the original French is much better, though I’ve heard it uses archaic language so if you’re reading for plot it might not be great. That also reminds me of something I think is really neat:
Dumas originally published the book as a series of volumes in a French newspaper over 2 years!
2 years! Can you imagine? I could barely put the book down when I first read it, that much suspense would kill me.. Also interesting how similar that is to the TV dramas of today.
Whatever you do, just don't read a "Public Domain" translation. A lot of Victorian-era translations of 19th Century French literature are... crap.
The selection might seem trite, but I suspect that there wasn't a book with bigger impact on me than Hobbit, for very simple reason. It made me into voracious reader, put me on a path of reading, actually reading. All because my father prodded me to read out loud first few pages so that I could show off how well I read. That was enough to get me hooked and probably nothing compares in impact. Then there was LOTR, later on Silmarillion, and to this day I remember sometimes surprising amounts of trivia from them. A definitive positive impact.
- Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Had an impact mostly unrelated to its sci-fi content but related to more down to earth things mentioned. Whether it was positive impact remains an unanswered question, over 18 years later.
- Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. A book series that, now that I think of it, fed probably disturbing amounts of growth of my personal morals. Unclear on how positive that impact was, but I think it was? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Strangely, the Fighting Fantasy series was also a big influence - a cousin gave me Citadel of Chaos just after it came out and it really pushed my interesting in books and a an only child I tracked down almost every solo roleplaying booking I could find.
I also loved Eric the Viking ( the Terry Jones version ), which I now read to my children and The Odysseus books that Tony Robinson wrote that kicked off an interest in mythology.
I don't remember exact age, but I think I was 6yo, and I think I was already in first year of primary school, very early into it.
The rest is history, Hobbit was a big book and now I devour million-word epics for light weekend reading.
I also encountered the 8bit game, but much, much later, during my first forays into retrocomputing as 12yo :)
You'll finish it in an evening. I didn't get how it impacted me at first, but I knew that I was deeply affected by it.
It was what made me internalise the idea that struggle doesn't necessarily lead to external reward.
And as he got closer to shore, perhaps he realized it didn't matter.
I have found all fiction requires such suspension.
Aragorn? Some of the council maybe. Great Eagle, quite likely not.
They come to save ringbearer once Sauron is overthrown. If they tried to do it when he was bending his whole being on finding the ring and possessing it they would fail and deliver it straight to him.
It's near-future Sci-Fi and since it was written in 2008, it's more or less present now. It dives into a lot of topics that are relevant nowadays
A couple years later I witnessed a lot of similar events to those in the novel, especially the protests and the government's reactions to them
Today, we grapple with the issues of what work is essential and what work is bullshit, what gifts we should give to others in society, whether surveillance is the answer to stopping the infection. Many of the imaginary technology in the book, such as small maker machines, have been shown to be essential to survival. And so many of the cultural components of the walkaway society have come to the forefront of our own thoughts and cultures.
Most importantly, the death rate is high enough, not from war, but from an invisible entity, that the usual hyperbolic discounting of death has disappeared, even if temporarily.
So thank you for writing such a powerful book, the provides answers to many of today's challenges, even if they are dreams of a better tomorrow.
https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/13/21177769/cory-doctorow-att...
There's also a new edition of LB/Homeland coming on July 7 with an introduction by Ed Snowden.
I'm looking forward for the new book and editions, especially the introduction. Since seeing a copy of Homeland on Ed's mattress in the documentary is what got me to read the books!
Best of luck on the recording process and publishing ^^
I would recommend 19the century great novels, that really was a golden age of literature, so many great works came out in the period near the mid of the century.
Also George Eliot, in the current context, would recommend her novel Romola, set in Florence, perhaps the finest treatment of Savanarola in the whole of fiction.
Based on recommendations (I'm a scifi fan) I bought it and read it. It was an OK read, not boring or anything, but also hardly extraordinary. For me easily forgettable. I don't have the feeling I missed some important part since it wasn't really very complex.
So I'm curious why people think it's so good.
This sprinkled with cool ideas like the giant brush fire, the whole empire being based on a game, the ship names. I also like board games which probably doesn't hurt the book.
I like most of the Culture books. My other favorite is Use of Weapons which is very different from Player of Games, much slower.
it perfectly captures the weird information environment surrounding a global crisis
(people communicating via letter, people closer & farther from the crisis having different skews and perspectives and beliefs)
and the house of cards effects around collapsing civilizations
Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea - a gorgeous tale that brings to life the beauty of struggle and suffering.
GATES OF FIRE: AN EPIC NOVEL OF THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE by Steven Pressfield
STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert A. Heinlein
ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card
READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline
GHOST FLEET: A NOVEL OF THE NEXT WORLD WAR by P. W. Singer; August Cole
THE KILLER ANGELS: THE CLASSIC NOVEL OF THE CIVIL WAR by Michael Shaara
The whole 2019 reading list is great stuff, top notch reading for any hacker or c-suite, especially the discussion guides: https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/usmc-reading-list/discussion...
That said, the USMC Research Library [1] places it in, among other categories, "Regression (Civilization)", which may cast a glimmer of light on why it's where it is.
[1] https://usmc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?d...
Thanks for diving a bit deeper into the selection.
To add a bit more context, the USMCRL has this in addition to the categorization:
"2044. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets..."
As the selection is in the 'Primary Level - Enlisted' alongside Ender's Game and Rifleman Dodd, I think it is there to showcase initiative and intelligence for young enlisted marines.
Still, I'll admit, it is a strange choice.
- Dune - Came for the sci-fi, stayed for the politics.
- A Song of Ice and Fire series - You know GoT. The books are better.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera showed me another perspective of love I had never considered. Gave me insight into vulnerability.
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes showed me how by looking through the world via a lens of intellect, you can often miss the point.
The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God by Etgar Keret a collection of some of my favourite short stories. Highly recommend.
Hesse, Steppenwolf — read this at an angst-filled time; the way this book builds and reconciles the conflict between two personalities that goes on within the main dude's head was extremely cathartic to my own life
Adams, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — introduced me to the inherent absurdity present in the modern world, technology, the scale of the universe, the condition of our own existence, etc, and how making light of it helps you grapple with it and live with it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Q...
* _The Chronicles of Prydain_ (https://www.goodreads.com/series/40371-the-chronicles-of-pry...)
* _The Chronicles of Narnia_
* _The Hobbit_
* _John MacNab_ (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161001.John_MacNab / http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300621.txt)
* _The Postman_ (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/889284.The_Postman)
Adult
* _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_ (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20058/20058-h/20058-h.htm) - what is the right size for things in this world? A gentle introduction to the romance of the small and distributism.
* _A Leaf, by Nigel_ (http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Leaf_by_Niggle) - Tolkien's allegory.
* _The Space Trilogy_ by C. S. Lewis - the adult version of _The Chronicles of Narnia_
* _All Hallow's Eve_ (https://openroadmedia.com/ebook/All-Hallows-Eve/978150400668... / http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400061.txt)
* _The Eschaton Sequence_ (https://us.macmillan.com/series/theeschatonsequence/) - if you like Neal Stephenson's imagination of future society, if you are amazed by Iain Banks' scope, if you think that Asimov is brilliant ... you'll want to read this 6-book sequence.
Excellent, recommend by others in this thread already:
* _The Lord of the Rings_
Always happy to see Lloyd Alexander get a mention these days -- somehow it seems in the recent YA explosion he's gotten almost criminally neglected.
I have a fairly predictable "best novels ever written" list which includes _War and Peace_, _Anna Karinina_, _Brothers Karamazov_ and _Dune_ ... but I would also place _SevenEves_ on that list.
I found _Fall Or: Dodge in Hell_ to be terrible, however.
Stephenson is awesome, I love some of his books, but others are for completely lost on me.
Animal Farm - George Orwell The character Boxer made me rethink about authority, change in view for the better.
- The Worlds of Chrestomanci and _everything_ else by Diana Wynne Jones; it was this and 'Chronicles of Narnia' which first introduced me to fantasy as a child. Really great fun, have re-read most of her books over the years. There's something there for everyone.
- Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix; read this in my youth, deals a lot with death, undead things, and magics concerning death. Its not depressing, rather it gave me the feeling of being life re-affirming!
- The Riddle-Master trilogy Patricia McKlippet; refined high fantasy series, lacks the prosaic good v. evil, instead focuses on rationality and chaos.
- The Incal series by Alexandro Jodorowsky; when I first read this, I kept finding all these crazy parallels with other stories (books, film, tv, etc.) and then I realized that this was the source (e.g. The Fifth Element is based on this). An absolutely mouth dropping, eye-popping, mind-bending tale! Great pencil/ink to boot as well.
- The World of Edena by Moebius (because of course!); amazing, along the same vain as 'The Incal', but much 'finer' - less mind-bending, more more contemplative.
- The Dark Knight trilogy by Frank Miller; an epic right up there with Beowulf IMHO.
- Watchmen by Moore and Gibbson; genre setting with an amazing story; and 'Before Watchmen' omnibus adds to it as a modern contrast.
Three books that I haven't seen listed, but were impactful on my life:
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita -- Incredible writing, maybe the best ever. And english was Nabokov's second language. Don't miss this just because of the creepy subject matter or because you saw one of the movies. This is an incredible read and one of the English languages greatest books.
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses -- I initially put off reading this by McCarthy's singular use of punctuation and his long, spare sentences. But I picked up the audiobook from Books on Tape (pre Audible) and fell into it. When read by a talented narrator its like poetry (and I mean that in a good way). When I finished it I immediatly rewound the tapes and listened to it again.
Rudy Rucker, White Light -- I read this 38 years ago and still think of it often. Think Alice in Wonderland written by William Burroughs and Kurt Godel. Giant cockroaches, absolute infinite, the devil harvesting souls, Albert Einstein, the Banach–Tarski paradox: its a wild ride. Hard to find but available on Kindle.
"-- and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. She was only the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet I had rolled myself upon with such cries in the past, an echo on the brink of a russet ravine, with a far wood under a white sky, and brown leaves choking the brook, and one last cricket in the crisp weeds ... but thank God it was not that echo alone that I worshiped (...) I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another's child, but still gray-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still auburn and almond, still Carmencita, still mine;"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague
I read it years ago (in translation). I didn't especially enjoy it. But it made an impression and insofar it's stuck with me, I'd say the impact was positive. Or maybe "profound" is a better way to put it.
The king in the book has the head of a dragon mounted on his wall as a trophy, and one of his sons finds out that he can enter the wall and look out through the eyes into the throne room. I don't want to spoil the main thing that he sees, but before that he watches his father pick his nose and eat it when he thinks he is alone.
It made me realize that adults are people too, and that you shouldn't idolize anyone to the level of imagining them without any negative traits. It's a bit like realizing that even the most beautiful people in your life or in the media have to sit down and poop like everyone else, and that we all have sides that we don't want others to see. It made me feel more equal to everyone else, and made me feel sympathy with every other human.
One particular scene made such a strong impression on me about being calm in difficult situations. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Harry is flinging Dumbledore's precious instruments around, Dumbledore remains monk-like still.
If you like Harry Potter, and you read HN, chances are you'll love HPMOR.
The premise is that Harry Potter was raised by people who cared and taught him the Scientific Method. He then uses that approach to solve and understand things.
I never thought I would like fan fiction until I came across HPMOR being recommended so many times elsewhere.
Also, there’s a cute attempt at a stack overflow crash in the middle :)
https://www.abelard.org/asimov.php
> For most of the first eighteen years of his life, George Platen had headed firmly in one direction, that of Registered Computer Programmer. There were those in his crowd who spoke wisely of Spationautics, Refrigeration Technology, Transportation Control, and even Administration. But George held firm. He argued relative merits as vigorously as any of them, and why not? Education Day loomed ahead of them and was the great fact of their existence.
The star rover by Jack London. It helped me put in perspective some difficult moments and be a little bit more resilient. I also liked how much humanity and dignity the main character has, despite being held in jail in horrible conditions. I can say the same things about Papillon by Henri Charrière.
Neuromancer by William Gibson. Fueled my imagination and even gave me a semi-fantastical narrative to live by.
Ficciones by Borges. Like others said was mind opening.
Poésies by Arthur Rimbaud. A bit to play it off - and get laid - but on a more serious note I liked the rebelliousness and the romantic sense of infinite in his poems. I can still recall some bits of that "infinite".
Besy/Demons, Dostoevsky. I read it after I finished Archipelago Gulag I was 15. It is potent stuff, the most powerful thing I ever read by far. Highly recommended. The more you know and read about Russian revolution and what followed the better.
William Gibson's Neuromancer [2.] was excellent in providing an escape from reality, very engrossing, and fascinatingly prescient of the some societal trends extrapolated into the future.
1. The Magus - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magus_(novel)
2. Neuromancer - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
Wild by Cheryl Strayed - not strictly fiction but it could be read as such. Opened my mind to areas of society I wasn't aware of.
Also The Peripheral, and Gibson’s essay in Wired about undersea cables, and... yeah. Having read Gibson feels like a superpower.
As others have said:
- The Hitch Hiker’s Guide
- Stepehnson’s Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, Seveneves, Anathem (aside: totally surprised how much love there is for Anathem, I remember it not being received very kindly at the time by people around me, though I liked it.)
- The Culture series (special shout out to The Player of Games.)
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness. My favorite Le Guin (the Dispossessed is pretty good too). Shockingly original when it was published in 1969; the portrait of the society and culture on Gethen still feels unique. A slow burn at the beginning, but builds to a dramatic conclusion.
Patrick O'Brian, Aubrey-Maturin series. Probably the best historical fiction ever written. Rich tapestry of life during the Napoleonic Wars. Set in the Royal Navy during the Age of Sail, but that description doesn't do it justice; O'Brian's great inspiration was Jane Austen, and the focus is on characters and people, particularly the brilliantly contrasting personalities of the two main characters.
Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate. Like Tolstoy's War and Peace, but set in Russia during WWII. Explores the dark heart of the 20th century (the Battle of Stalingrad, concentration camps, the gulag) through the eyes of a wide cast of characters from different walks of life. Grossman wrote about Stalingrad from firsthand experience as a war journalist, and is able to uncover moments of hope and human kindness amid horrifying world-historical events.
Books others have already mentioned:
* Tolstoy, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. * Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (interesting how several people mention this one; I used to think it was my own private discovery). * Neal Stephenson, especially Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle
And the obligatory Tolkien and Douglas Adams that I read and re-read as a teenager.
More left field - Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend - consistency is over-rated; any Houllebecq - keep thinking; Quartered safe out here - George McDonald Fraser - generation close to ours, but war-time experience like soldiers for the last 2000 years.
Wonderful, wonderful books. I didn’t even like historical fiction as a concept before these. It takes a while to get over the “culture shock” and learn the vocabulary of seafaring life, but it easily pays off with twenty-and-one-half (!) excellent stories. Someone also made a companion glossary called “A Sea of Words” which is a big help.
Besides the wit and the beautiful language, I’m fascinated by the depiction of societies (and micro-societies, when at sea) where people are the most valuable resource, for brainpower, highly specialized skills and sheer brawn in equal proportions; and the arbitrary nature of command and rank, where the best person for the job may or may not be in charge.
His non-fiction book with interview of victims, witnesses and perpetrators of the Tokyo underground gas attack ("Underground") made a strong impression. Absolutely recommend - it's not fiction, but it does speak to the human condition in an understated and profound way.
I also liked his What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, it's more philosophical and about the progress of art, the nature of creation.
Hemingway's short fiction really kicked off a lot of reading for me. Men Without Women is a nice little collection.
A couple others to go deeper on ... Stephen Kind and Roald Dahl. King has many incredible novelas: The Body (Stand By Me); Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (Shawshank Redemption); Hearts in Atlantis. Likewise, Dahl, known more for his children's books wrote some adult fiction, short stories.
I think it is less about the book and more about when in your life you pick it up.
From there, it's got a variety of stories that interact with a framing story of the people playing a story telling game. I find it a very relaxing book, the stories feel low stakes somehow, and are a mix between familiar chestnuts and others that are very strange for a modern reader.
Not a fiction book as such, but the subject matter border on science fiction.
It did make me think of how to start contributing to humanity in better ways than I was doing. It took some time for me to change my trajectory, but eventually I did.
Through several steps partially parallel to step one in the book I ended up doing what I do today.
In life's name, and for life's sake.
100 Years of Solitude is my favorite modern classic (had to read it twice to get it), and Middlemarch is my favorite classic. I'm happy to recommend reading them. But even these I cannot call life-impacting.
Interestingly the fiction books I'm reading to my first grader may ironically have more punch that anything written for grown-ups. But, they're all lessons grown-ups already generally know.
Edit: oh, and since I don't think anyone else has mentioned them yet ... Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, and Grendel by John Gardner. Their impact on me was less specific so harder to explain, but they're great books that get mentioned on HN now and then. Another one that kind of blew my mind is The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffmann by Angela Carter.
I'd like to add if you like SF and Star Wars, you'll enjoy The Thrawn Trilogy [1]. I read them as kid, somewhere in the 90s. Not sure if they're still relevant.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/series/42348-star-wars-the-thrawn-...
The Diamond Age: Or, A Ladies Young Primer -- A fantastic book about a future where computation and construction of devices is nearly free. It was about 25 years ago but predicted so many things. The story meanders a little but is full of amazing ideas and revolutionary thoughts.
I try to read both these books once a year.
I'm tempted to read it again to see if the impact is the same now that I'm 25 years older.
The Cornerstone and The World is Not Enough, by Zoe Oldenbourg -- an epic duology (?) about the life a Norman knight. I've never read a more vivid (even that's too weak a word) historical novel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%A9_Oldenbourg
The Master of Hestviken by Sigrid Unset -- the most moving account of one man's life struggles I've ever read. Unset was a Nobel prize-winning author of the 30's/40's who has been nearly forgotten. I read this tetrology straight through without stopping (about 18 hours). Couldn't stop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_of_Hestviken
Arcadia, a play by Tom Stoppard, is fantastic. Good for many re-reads (and re-watches).
Ursula Le Guin (maybe The Left Hand of Darkness is my favorite?) might be the best sci-fi/fantasy ever written, as much as I love Lois McMaster Bujold (three worlds to choose from, each offering many more or less independent novels and novellas), who is also great.
A few more:
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey.
My Antonia, Willa Cather.
Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut.
"The Accidental Tourist" by Anne Tyler. (There is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in)
"Dom Casmurro" by Machado de Assis (also his "Epitaph of a Small Winner") (The narrower the life, the more intense the obsessions)
"The Count of Monte Cristo" (get the Robin Buss translation from Penguin) ("Wait and hope")
It gives a glimpse in the mindset of how the Spartans viewed life and how disciplined they were. Its a really inspiring book in the sense that it gives you a view of how they (supposedly) viewed life while knowing they will probably die in battle.
edit: I should note that while the battle of Thermopylae is real the characters and the story is fictional hence this is categorised under historical fiction.
I've read both good and bad things about The War of Art by Pressfield, but I'm at least very curious to some day read it.
The entire series is an amazing meld of epic fantasy and philosophy that delves deep into topics surrounding human nature and human existence. We had a similar discussion on reddit[0] a few months ago and i'll summarize it here. You'll find topics like violence and its relation to power,civilization as violence against nature, phenomenology, existentialism versus essentialism. Arguments for anarcho-primitivism, arguments against anarcho-primitivism. Mutualism versus individualism versus collectivism. Class struggle and class consciousness.
The entire series is a piece of art. It also happens have a myriad of badass characters appearing and disappearing throughout the novels, so there's always something to look forward to in the next book.
[0]https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/d1vfs3/philosophy_...
I would summarize core ideas as "To live is to suffer, but you have to carry on no matter what. This is what everybody does." and "an ode to humanity", but it really is so hard to put the experience into words. You have to feel it yourself.
Link on VNDB: https://vndb.org/v92 There are also various streamers who streamed the whole story on Twitch after its popularity blew up.
As a teenager/young adult (can't remember), the ending left me puzzled until someone older tipped me about what was going on.
2.
edit (this was my first answer before I could remember the title of two other books which aren't as famous but left a mark on me):
Steppenwolf could be a good candidate.
Wind, sand and stars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind,_Sand_and_Stars
There's something in it about going on.
I can't say they had a significantly positive impact on my life though.
I think reflecting back on events, trying to put things and traumas into perspective has had a positive impact.
What I am trying to say without knowing where you are coming from: there's no magic pill and books are not magic pills either.
- A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James
- NW, Zadie Smith
- The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
Multiple narrators, sweeping plot, not always easy to follow, not too postmodern.
An amazing book about choices. And what you can and cannot control in your life. I read it in college and have re-read it over the years.
https://www.amazon.com/Illusions-Adventures-Reluctant-Richar...
It helped me understand that all things must end eventually, and that it is okay. I must admit I was pretty depressed for a few days after finishing it though.
The City and the Stars, also by Clarke.
This one encouraged me to explore as much as possible, and also that people sometimes cognitively isolate themselves, and only come out of this isolation if they personally want to. They cannot be externally motivated, e.g. you cannot convince a truly zealous religious person that their religion is flawed, they need to realise it themselves.
There is also a curious anecdote involving this novel - as Clarke had rewritten the story some years after the inital publishing. The anecdote involves two people discussing the novel without realising that each had read a different version of the story [0].
I realize the question was targeting adult books, but with everyone at home with their families right now I figured I’d throw this out there.
"Monday Begins on Saturday", circa 1965, of the same authors. That is a satiric story full of brilliant humor about programmer (main hero) in Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry. This book is literally the reason why I am a programmer now.
Growing up in rural Texas, I perceived themes related to stoicism, equality, and racism, that, while probably not intended by the author, still made me think about the way I'd seen people treated, and how I wanted to treat people in the future.
In addition, there were a few quotes in some of the chapter titles that stuck with me for whatever reason: "Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life.”
I doubt I would see the same things in those books if I read them now, but perhaps for the right audience at the right time there might be something there.
“The Awakening” has been one of the more empathy expanding things I’ve read. The protagonist’s perspective and plight are resonant today. The tragedy of that story - both in its specific outcome and as generalizable for society at large - affected me a lot and has stayed with me for decades.
Top on my list are William S. Burroughs' last trilogy (especially Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands) and Matthew Stover's Caine series (especially Caine Black Knife and Caine's Law). Burroughs published that trilogy when he was about my age, and there's some amazing stuff about how memory shows up. The Caine series is basically a contemplation of "What if you could undo the worst thing that you've ever done?".
I could go on about many other authors whom I've loved, over the years, but there's other stuff that I gotta do now.
Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon and Who Fears Death are also excellent books.
I also highly recommend Jeff Vandermeer's Sourthern Reach trilogy, of which the first book Annihilation was adapted into a movie.
Shadows of the Empire [0]
When I read it the intriguing parts were that it took place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Also, I still play and love the game on N64 (also on PC and on GOG). I never thought I would read and actually enjoy a Star Wars book. Dash Rendar is eternally burned into my memory and my favorite Star Wars character of all time now. I think I need to read this again after typing this. Even my dad liked it and he is not into Star Wars.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9549.Shadows_of_the_Empi...
They're a little philosophical - the author hated civilization and possibly committed suicide over it. I wouldn't say I agree entirely with it, but there is a point that civilized society is unhappier because people can no longer be beheaded for being rude. It made me question whether order and civilization are great end points and whether we might just be happiest somewhere with a mix of chaos and order, like Thailand.
"Writing with a pretentious, almost adolescent sensibility and a bad case of logorrhea, --- whines unremittingly in a single-pitched, overwrought stream of consciousness that will probably alienate most readers...
...premise is interesting enough, her characters are one-dimensional monomaniacs engaged in a disturbingly simple-minded, voyeuristic search for altered states in bona fide pathology"
Or, as some reviewer on Amazon said, this book sucks because the characters are all losers.
The movie didn't even come close to doing it justice, the book presents so many cool problems and solutions that it just failed to convey. The book is phenomenal for sparking out of the box thinking.
I read both books in my childhood, and they have shaped my view of children. Specifically, I think children are mostly just small humans, who appreciate being treated as such. Please note that I do not recommend the later books in each of the series'.
Aside, it has always surprised me that someone as homophobic as Orson Scott-Card was able to write those two books, that have strong themes of compassion/understanding for those different than you (intentionally vague here to avoid spoilers).
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
What I love about HH's books is that I feel as if I've lived the lives of his characters vicariously, passing through their struggles with them and coming out with hard-won wisdom and character. I feel like a better, wiser person for those books, with the kind of perspective on life that otherwise would have taken me a lifetime to achieve.
Urusawa is quite famous for character development and most of his characters are _good_ - sometimes even the villains. It kinda helped me appreciate human contact more even if it's something completely simple or fleeting. You don't need to be best friends with someone to appreciate them or go on an adventure.
It's basically the opposite of his better-known Brave New World. It offers a fresh take on how a small isolated society can live, largely inspired (as I see it) by indigenous culture.
Dosadi Experiment - Frank Herbert
I moved countries and schools abruptly in '94 and the new place was too different from what I was used to. This really caused a lot of damage. I got a copy of the Verne classic from my school library and read through it. I was already a Sherlock Holmes fan by then but Phogg gave me the idea of imposition of order in my life as a way to create a semblance of control and to manage the chaos. I didn't think of it in those terms then but that's really what happened.
Amazing piece of work, specifically the book he won the nobel prize for literature. Great story of a normal man trying to be good in the face of great temptation.
Interesting biographical note. He wanted to be a serious novelist, and wrote an unreadable Tome I think called Confessions of a crap artist.
Meanwhile, the science fiction novels he dashed off to make a little money were becoming popular. When he was in dire straits financially, he would agree to write another book for a few thousand dollars to make the rent.
He would drink himself into a Fugue State and dash another novel or story off in a couple of weeks. He never took that part of his career very seriously, except maybe towards the end of his life when he integrated more of his novelistic ideas into books such as Valis and the Stigmata book.
He died before his name had anywhere near the status it has today.
The female characters in that series are also fantastic, and there's a lot to learn from them.
One quote that has stayed with me for a long time: "There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet."
I read both of these aloud with my partner over long nights of bringing up our small children and it was the best bonding experience I could hope for. Both are packed full of observations about life and wit and wisdom, both pull for kindness and sincerity, and are unexpectedly funny in many ways.
Made me more aware of how I should act in a relationship.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Rosie-Project-Novel-Graeme-Simsion/dp...
- Kindred by Octavia Butler Such an interesting perspective on the psychology of what it takes to break a human being. In the worst way possible.
- The Humans by Matt Haig Being outside of the human race, the language is so jarring and alien.
- 1984
- Fahrenheit 451
Basic kit to understand the world today.
2666 and The Savage Detectives are must reads.
Oh, and all the Tom Swift Jr series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Homework_Ma...
- Flatland - An old book, but opened up the other dimension idea for me a lot. - The Mote in Gods Eye - The idea that you can't always count on your preconceptions to be true, and some people will always look out for themselves first. - Dune - For all the reasons others have mentioned.
- Asimov's Profession, his best short story IMHO
- Mimsy Were the Borogoves - just reread it, it's as great as it was when I was a teen!
- Flowers to Algernon is sad, but a must
- Everything from Lem's Cyberiad
- Everything from Borjes` Fictions
Leaving aside the fact that right now, a lot of people have a lot more time to read... my answer is: Everyone. Just depends on what your priorities are.
While the internet comes with its problems (toxic communities, digital addiction), I'm reminded of that book and how it can be a wonderful for self education when used properly.
Obviously the Culture is not the total ideal to strive for, but it did give me a vision of where we could go culture-wise (with a lowercase 'c') which was notably brighter than what I had maintained prior.
I'm a sucker for slow burns in cinematography and books, but you can't just have no pace or structure and then say "yeah, these kids have no patience".
My completely uneducated opinion of the glass bead game was that Hesse was describing what could be a very interesting concept in a very poor manner, always high-level, and abstract enough that at times I thought he didn't flesh it out in his mind either and couldn't convey it properly.
These books gave me a very hopeful outlook for humanity's future.
I thought they were quite good at learning to not demonise politics that are not yours.
It's _based_ on a true story (but added to it), but the concepts of living in the moment and philosophy for how to treat loss and our reaction to it has made both the movie and book one of my favorites.
Jonathan Livingston seagull. Same author
It’s one of the few books I can read over and over again without feeling bored.
I’m not sure why I like it. I wish I could give some kind of all-encompassing philosophy about it. I just read it and feel understood.
And that’s more than enough for me.
The Godfather, Mario Puzo (Film good, Novel excellent) Anna Karenin, Leo Tolstoy (Best novelist ever IMO) Rendezvous With Rama Series, Arthur Clarke (Great) Replay, Ken Grimley? (Cool story)
It made a great impression on me as a boy and, later in life, helped choose what kind of people I want to associate with.
If you find yourself HOPELESS (which whole world is experiencing right now), just read this. Because this book is all about HOPE.
Edit: Go for the 'unabridged' version to truly experience this novel.
A collection of short stories united by the fact that characters have epiphanies.
Often my life has changed not gradually but in moments of epiphay and this book made me more aware of such occasions.
(Also recommend Heinlein's short story Ordeal in Space, on the subject of fear/phobia/duty.)
Read a _long_ time ago, but I recall it being a very interesting thought experiment about "nano tech" before nano tech was a thing (?)
The metaphysical aspects were also intriguing.
— Christopher Hitchens
Absalom, Absalom by Faulkner
USA by John Dos Passos
Cache Lake Country by Rowlands
First adult book I read all the way through (I was fascinated! Re-read it recently and enjoyed it.):
The Mysterious Island by Verne
Robert M. Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert M. Pirsig: Lila - An Inquiry Into Morals
Eliezer Yudkowsky: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Taught me to not rely on logic/rationality alone. Sometimes you have to trust in intuition and the unconscious to guide your decisions.
I read it first as a teenager. I would say it helped me learn more about race, empty, systems, terrorism and young love.
Foundation, Asimov
1984, Orwell
Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky
Enders Game, Card
Jurassic Park, Crichton
Still waking up, so not going justify beyond saying these all changed how I see the world in some way at the time I read them.
Read it at a young age, and it has informed my general life philosophy ever since.
Written from a psychologist who survived the concentration camps. A wholly unique perspective on human life.
Accelerando: open source, open ideas, as a way of life
Silmarillion: shout at the gates of hell, if that's what it takes
Albus Dumbledore changed my Outlook on life.
Still my favorite book of all time. I ended up spending a few years doing crypto research after reading it.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22822858-a-little-life)
It is emotionally intense, beautifully written, and is a hypnotic read. Larger than life characters centered around one enigmatic protagonist, Jude. It's about pain, friendship, love, and the brutality of memory and experience.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33600.Shantaram)
An Australian gangster escaping his home country and falling in love with India (Mumbai). Lots of philosophy. A moral tale. Plenty of drama. And a love story with deep, dark characters.
Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2122.The_Fountainhead)
A novel on idealism for the irrational, real world we live in. Centered around an ideal man, Roark, who struggles to survive despite being a brilliant architect; he doesn't give up on his principles and never conforms. Not a typical novel, disliked by many.
Amazon has turned it into a Prime Video Original, which I have yet to watch since Episode 1 didn't strike me as great.
Edit: I think the best sci-fi fiction book I have ever read is Red Rising, it is a newer book.
A collection of short stories united by the fact that characters have epiphanies.
Lilith’s Brood - nothing like it.
- When Nietzsche Wept
- The Schopenhauer Cure
- The Spinoza Problem
Voltaire's Candide
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Karamazovs
Orwell's 1984
Lem's Solaris
In particular, his telling of the story of Lancelot
- Robot and Foundation series - Asimov
- 1984 - George Orwell
Mon. Grass by the wayside. And then. Soseki.
It makes you feel like you have an innate duty to do productive work.
Great leaders should be come with a warning on attach to their heads.
He's an amazing writer. He actually criticized transhumanism before it existed. What good is it to have a 300 year old perfect body when you feel middle-aged and unwanted on the inside, and man secretly being taken care of by the animal-humans that he made is so poignant. His works were startling to me, really not like a lot of science fiction of the time.
I read "His Master's Voice" as a teenager and was deeply touched by it. Every other Lem Book was downhill from then.
Doorways in the Sand
And then it was good for me in my middle age when I realized how flawed other parts of Rand's philosophy are and how much I disagreed with them and why, and got to move past it to even better places. :D
(here are a few in no particular order)
--
Palahniuk, Chuck. Diary (2003).
Horror genre. Artist in a community conspiracy--not the 'social machine' sort of conspiracy, but the more personal and creepier 'family horror'. EWWW.
--
Stephenson, Neal. The Baroque Cycle (2003, 2004).
This is a story of the dawn of science through the network of scientists surrounding the Royal Society of London. I read these non-fiction books around the same time, so the total effect was very moving:
- Berlinski, David. Newton's gift : how Sir Isaac Newton unlocked the system of the world (2000) [its surprising just how many books have the same theme of 'the system of the world']
- Aczel, Amir D. Mystery of the aleph : mathematics, the kabbalah, and the search for infinity (2000) [this largely concerns Georg Cantor]
- Swetz, Frank J. From five fingers to infinity : a journey through the history of mathematics (1994) [This is a collection of short essays, primarily for and by teachers. I don't have formal training (past some college courses) in mathematics, so YMMV].
--
Jong, Erica. Fear of Flying (1973).
From Wikipedia: "Fear of Flying is a 1973 novel by Erica Jong which became famously controversial for its portrayal of female sexuality and figured in the development of second-wave feminism." (thanks to my GF Martina for that recommendation back in the day).
--
The entire works of Willian Shakespeare. When I don't feel like suffering anything too personal or too timely, Bill just connects.
++
PLUS1 Not fiction, but frack it. They're good
- Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential (2000)
- Buford, Bill. Heat. (2006)
++
PLUS2. I read an article (New Yorker? 2005?) by a retired professor who had the habit of writing a brief review/book report after finishing each book (and he would grading it, too!).
I adopted a similar practice, because I wanted to remember my thoughts of each book in more specific terms. And I was practicing my touch-typing skills. I can say after 15 years I have a good collection of grep searchable text files and much better typing skills.
++
Plus3. Astronaut Scott Kelly recommends keeping a journal as a means of wellbeing during this time of self-isolation [1].
I can't think of a better way to start than writing a few sentences about a moving reading experience.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/opinion/scott-kelly-coron...
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The finale in the last book really touched my heart and let me think about love and how much to value the time you have with each other.
--- no spoilers ---
I never thought to find this in a science fiction space opera - I was shocked.
The idea in the book I am talking about is crazy and I cannot fathom how one would feel if something like this really happened. It is wonderful and sad at the same time.
That said and totally apart from it, the whole thing is a masterpiece. You have to read all books of the canon, even if the first book with the unique stories seems strange - I could not put it down though. Apart from that it also has great storytelling, wonderful language, crazy ideas (a house with rooms on different... no spoiler :) and more.
If you haven't I recommend Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. It's a completely different kind of book, but it's a really good horror thriller that shows his range.
Do you know of any epics close to Hyperion? I have been searching for a long time and have not found anything on par with it.
Dune (often named) and The Expanse were not meant for me and have been ruined for me by the movies/TV shows. The old Asimov stories are... old.
I read many larger volumes such as the Commonwealth Saga, Three Body Problem etc. but nothing caught the way Hyperion did for me.
Funnily, from the many books and series I read, the ones I remember most fondly were on the other end of the spectrum of Hyperion: Bobiverse and The Murderbot Diaries - both short, much less beautiful language and more on the funny side but original and thought provoking.
LOTR and Narnia awaken my imagination to something beautiful beyond this world, which set the course of my life. Back of the North Wind's meditation on death somehow put me at ease during a very depressed time of my life, that in the worst of my pits everything will be ok.
Planet Trilogy helped me understand the modern worldview.
Also, Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray is something beyond.