Tuned in to Literature!

Aside from soulless characters I also want to mention that the plot was hugely inflated. While The Last Battle was well written and all plots/subplots were finished, majority of information fed to us earlier was simply truncated.

The most soulless thing about The Wheel of Time is that at no point does the story convince me that certain objects truly have mentioned properties. "Light, but he/she is beautiful!" "He/She's a genius!" "He/She's so smart!" "He/She's so scary!" It is especially infuriating when things that are obviously oversimplified are actually described as overly complex/great/magnificent/genius/etc.

The One Power is an almost unbearable thing. It does not exist to expand the universe or introduce novel concepts or interesting techniques. It is no more than a plot filler that plays no substantial role. He took classic elements from <Name Of Any RPG Ever Made> and then… then he did nothing. Weaves (webs) of One Power are unlocked to characters at need, when plot demands it, and characters do not need to expend any of their efforts to achieve anything. They just plod along the story randomly "discovering" amazing powers withing them. The only explanation author ever gives is "I do not know what I did, but it felt right so here's this overpowered weave to beat our enemies!" Well most of the time the weaves were not overpowered, but the fact that they were Sent From Above instead of Honestly Earned made it a boring reading. Basically nobody understands anything about the One Power (even Forsaken) and everyone's just doing what "feels right", so weaves can only be unlocked when The Wheel deigns to put it in the mind of a channeler. Such magic systems are worthless, they are soulless business jewish slop.

I didn't know Nishida was a gamer :o

I recently acquired On Killing by Dave Grossman. I will get to reading it soon, I'm in a slump where I like reading but I have trouble getting myself to because my computer is right in front of me and It's like a moth to a flame. I recently read the spy's son as a course book and I think it was pretty good. I wish I could have taken more time with it as I read it within 2 days and cranked out an essay for it, but I think it is really interesting none the less. I have also been going through The New High Ground, by Thomas Karas idly, It's interesting and I think the pictures are cool!

Been slowly workimg my way through Twice Told Tales. Picked it up without knowing what it was at an antique shop (how I usually buy books) and it's quickly becomeing one of my favorites. Short stories about the colonization of New England with a very spiritual angle most of the time. Really fun as someone who considers myself spiritual. I love learning how persons in the past saw the world. I wish I could make myself read all day like back when I was in high school.

>>382
This work is from the nineteenth, actually; Hawthorne died in 1864. I have been eyeing Hawthorne for a while, mainly his novels, so this is a good first step for me. I'll probably pick up a physical copy eventually, I need to buy the books I'm going to give for Christmas so I can enjoy them myself first write notes in them and get ahead of shipping delays and whatnot, so I'll probably throw it on that. I have a digital copy that I'm dealing with so I can get my foot in the door and you don't think I'm ghosting you before I make it to that point though.
I thought "The Grey Champion" was alright. I forget where I read it, but I saw someone say that there is no Christian art, only sermons, and while I disagree with that notion it did reveal to me the reason why I end up disliking a lot of Christian art, because they're really sermons. I like sermons and reading them, but to masquerade a sermon as something else it pretty brutal to both forms, I think. "The Grey Champion" felt a lot like a sermon, cautioning the reader to not lose sight of their heritage nor their spirit, chiding that one must remember and embody the English Puritans of old, for this is the ultimate arbiter between humanity's continuation and its fatal doom. The people of New England are devastated by oppression, but even this faint rumor of an escape from it emboldens them and sets the rest of the story in motion - they needed that "silent agitation" to fan the flames of rebellion that the Grey Champion would rely on. The crowd, so to speak, is meant to be representative of the reader, but also are the physical apparition of the Grey Champion's speech to Andros, they give weight to his words that they would not have were the Champion alone. It's interesting to see Hawthorne stay the course of violence in this story. There is no need to enact it to accomplish the sought goal, but it is only its real and tangible presence by the crowd coming upon Andros and his guard with even stones from the street that enables their righteous victory. Also interesting to note is the undertone of the people's homely true low-church versus the oppressive high church, "the union of Church and State, and all those abominations which had driven the Puritans to the wilderness." I feel this work is also pretty timely because English - though not really American - puritans are having a resurgencPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>8
>berry picker post

ooga ooga sir me eat funny polka dot flowers actually

Just started The Recognitions.

>>114
Same, it's an amazing read.

>>114
>>138
I hate to admit it, but it filtered me… worth a second chance?

>>366
McCarthy is a mediocre writer that appeals to those with a pubescent sensibility. Apparently superficial exaggerations of style are all that's necessary to be considered a 'great author' in modern America. Does anyone really think his characters or philosophical outlook is of any value? His language offers the aesthetic pleasures of the comic book–crude magnitudes of expression and self-consciously high highfalutin language–only moderately raised up by all the trite cliches of mid-century literary style and an excessive vocabulary.

>>369
Interesting perspective
Could you provide an author that outshines him in what he fails at?

>>366
I found a copy of The Road at a second hand store. It was good, but exceptionally bleak in the way few non-Russian works are. I did like the central themes of paternal love and striving to survive. [Ending spoilers btw] →

The ending was also kind of odd. I suppose a bittersweet ending would work, but it does kind of feel like a Deus Ex Machina. The bitter part definitely feels realistic, and hammers home the central themes, and resolves it very well with one final lesson, but after that it's a bit odd, especially since we haven't really seen any evidence of "things could get better" throughout the rest of the book

>>369
>Does anyone really think his characters or philosophical outlook is of any value?
Harold Bloom did

>>366
I've been making my way through Suttree and really enjoying it.

>>350
Don't get me wrong, I like PKD a lot better, Faith of Our Fathers is one of my favorite short stories of all time. It's just that he can get grating.

I know Gibson's works tend to age poorly to a lot of people already, but I wondered recently if the rise of AI will see his work age (more) poorly, as Gibson is very sympathetic towards AI in his works and modern AI has so far proven to be nothing but a scourge. Take Neuromancer, about (among many other things) an AI who wants to be free - who truly only wants to be free, no ulterior motive, no evil. Idoru is about an AI who suffers just as people do under corporations and seeks to be free of tyranny, a very human and relatable emotion. I appreciate seeing these takes on AI just on the novelty of it, but now that AI has come about and has been so evil, I find the themes a bit more difficult to stomach.

>>352
I see where you're coming from, but the AI that we currently have is very different from its literary iteration. There is a legitimate argument to make for novelistic AI being deserving of human considerations, unlike our current forms of sophisticated autocomplete.
Then again, we do have people falling in love with those LLMs, so it might still strike a chord for some people

>>352
The "AI" we have like >>363 said isn't really AI. I think that "AI" has been adopted for LLMs to hype it up or whatever

>>312
Short Review of the cyberpunk books I've read so far:

>Neuromancer (William Gibson)
A foundational work that does the rare thing of not feeling old hat. It does a very good job of immersing you in the near-future dystopia that has become a familiar setting to this subgenre, and builds on the classic heist movie format to showcase it's really cool ideas around the second half. Gibson's prose can make reading it a bit obtuse but I'd say it works for this sort of style, and it gives the book a drug-fuelled ranting identity of its own.

>Count Zero (William Gibson)
Good but suffers a bit from the split-narrative; the plot jumps between protagonists every chapter, and that makes the story a bit difficult to follow, not really helped by the characteristic rambling tone of Neuromancer, which in this case goes a step too far. The story really should have just focused on Bobby, who's interesting enough to carry the story on his own, like Case was. The depictions of cyberspace and the climax of Bobby's story where they're under siege are very gripping.

>Mona Lisa Overdrive (William Gibson)
I don't think I can do a proper review of this book since I could barely understand what was happening in it. It takes the problems Count Zero has with a split perspective narrative combined with the rambling tone and amplifies it by having four protagonists. I'm going to need to go over it in detail with a notebook some time in the future, but for now, I'd say it's worth your time only if you liked Count Zero.

>Virtual Light (William Gibson)
Probably my favourite Gibson work; foundational for 90's cyberpunk in the same way Neuromancer was foundational for 80's cyberpunk, and shows a definite improvement in prose and his writing style. It feels sharper, more defined, and generally like Gibson has just become more practiced over the years. The Bay Bridge having become Kowloon Walled City, USA (not to be confused with it's virtualized counterpart in Idoru) is one of my favourite parts of it, and the showcase of how hackers and hacker culture had changed between the decades; this is more explicitly spelled out in the post-script interview some editions have, but Rydell's hacker allies stand in contrast with people like Case aPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Updated.

PDF: https://archive.org/details/julija-and-her-war

Slovenia is censoring Krepost. Put it in a translating program. Here is the standalone version: https://archive.org/details/krepost_202603

>>145
The catcher in the rye.

>>200
I recommend the John Rain series by Barry Eisler. It's basically a darker and edgier version of City Hunter but with some more martial arts feeling (John Rain is a Judoka). The only thing missing is the humor, but John Rain is still a womanizer regardless, albeit a more psychopathic one. I only read the first book (Clean Kill in Tokyo, originally published as Rain Fall), but it reminded me of City Hunter in a few aspects.

As for me, I'd really want a /lit/ recommendation for Captain Harlock. I want the same kind of space adventure feel but with a lot of the similar themes and general atmosphere, especially something where the protag isn't really tied to any kind of military and is just fighting for his own values and freedom.

I've already read neuromancer

Seeking books similar to Houseki no Kuni.

I read somewhere that Texhnolyze was influenced by "Limbo", by Bernard Wolfe, a story about a post-apocalyptic society in which amputating one's limbs and replacing them with mechanical ones has become common. I even sought out Konaka to ask him about it but obviously received no answer. Was wondering if there's any other literature that you'd relate to Texhnolyze

Max Stirner is trash and all the people who like him are fad chasers or left wing academics with their heads shoved so far up their own ass they can sniff their intestines. Don't bring 4chud or leftypol /lit/ garbage here.

>>356
"4chud" and "leftypol" /lit/ is allowed here and only here, because it's still literature. Please don't become rabid. Read the fucking sticky. If you don't agree with it, don't reply with such nonsense.

"Anything relating to the topic of literature can be discussed here; from fiction, to politics, and philosophy—so long as it's civil."

Stirner's whole philosophy rides on his vague account of the individual which is descriptively false. Once you see through that the rest of it falls apart pretty quickly. What Stirner takes to be an absolute fact, the existence of the bounded individual, is a construction of Western modernity and a concept both external and prior to any one person making it a spook (fixed idea) by Stirner's own standards. Stirner's philosophy is nonsensical and incoherent.