Well I'm craving something in this genre but I'm a bit overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time. So many titles and yet I'm not sure what to read. Maybe you can help?

I'm looking for something in a high fantasy setting. I'm not too keen on heavy politics and war driven plots (though, I can read that ). What really gets me is interesting characters, good action and magical creatures.

I've loved anything Discworld and I've also enjoyed the First Law books by Abercrombie.

I'm finding that Tolkien, Sanderson and George RR Martin appear on every fantasy list I come across, so if you do recommend something I'd appreciate it be something other than that.

i need because Mcgraw system for reading the book sucks cheeks.

Small Gods: A masterful comic satire on Religious Institutions and Fundamentalism Small Gods is a fantasy comic satire on religious institutions, religious fundamentalism, philosophy, and the weaponisation of religious fanaticism for political power set in the Discworld. It explores how religious beliefs and faith shift and change over time, from being centred on the deity to being centred on the religious institution itself. Rereading this was an absolute joy!

This is the story of how Brutha becomes the eighth prophet of the god Om. Omnia is a monotheistic theocracy based on the Seven Books of the Prophets of Om, or the Septateuch. Omnia was a place where: "No matter what your skills, there was a place for you in the Citadel. And if your skill lay in asking the wrong kinds of questions or losing the righteous kind of wars, the place might just be the furnaces of purity, or the Quisition’s pits of justice. A place for everyone. And everyone in their place." Vorbis, the exquisitor in charge of the Quisition, enjoyed near complete authority and power over everyone out of fear of the Quisition’s pits. As the story opens, we have Brutha, a novice at the Citadel, working in the gardens when he comes across a tortoise who speaks to him. The tortoise in question is actually the god Om, who inexplicably finds himself in the form of a tortoise and unable to do much more than speak to Brutha in his mind. On Discworld, a particular god’s powers depend on the number of believers the god possesses. As the story progresses, we understand why even though the great god Om was held supreme in Omnia, the actual god Om was at present virtually powerless having Brutha as his only believer. Om starts to understand the reason when he ruminates: "… it can’t be just him who believes in me. Really in me. Not in a pair of golden horns. Not in a great big building. Not in the dread of hot iron and knives. Not in paying your temple dues because everyone else does. Just in the fact that the Great God Om really exists." After all, "Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure….. “Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.”’" Religion starts out centred on the god and then ends up centred on the Institution with people going through the motions because it’s what everyone does, or out of fear of the Institution. This had the unfortunate effect of turning the great god Om into a "small god". Similar to the other gods on Discworld, Om doesn't really care or think much of humans beyond realising the need to have believers. As the story progresses, due to his association with Brutha, Om starts to get a better understanding of humankind and also to care for them. Brutha starts out as a novice who simply took everything taught by the religious institution on faith to someone who realises what's wrong with the system and tries to change it.

Similar to a lot of other Discworld books, an underlying sense of anger and frustration permeates this book, with this book probably being Pratchett’s angriest. This is particularly evident when he speaks of the actions of the Quisition, generally involving torture and murder on a regular basis: "And it all meant this: that there are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do. Vorbis loved knowing that. A man who knew that, knew everything he needed to know about people." (A very astute judge of humankind, I must say). And, in relation to the the actual Quisitors: "But there were things to suggest to a thinking man that the Creator of mankind had a very oblique sense of fun indeed, and to breed in his heart a rage to storm the gates of heaven. The mugs, for example. They had legends on them like A Present From the Holy Grotto of Ossory, or To The World’s Greatest Daddy".

Even though the subject matter is serious, there are numerous hilarious jokes, puns and comic twists strewn throughout the book to make a reader laugh out loud. Some of my favourite jokes were: "Nhumrod looked around the garden. It seemed to be full of melons and pumpkins and cucumbers. He shuddered. ‘Lots of cold water, that’s the thing,’ he said. ‘Lots and lots.’" Another one which speaks of the somewhat random rules of religions: "‘I nearly committed a terrible sin,’ said Brutha. ‘I nearly ate fruit on a fruitless day.’ ‘That’s a terrible thing, a terrible thing,’ said Om. ‘Now cut the melon.’ ‘But it is forbidden!’ said Brutha. ‘No it’s not,’ said Om. ‘Cut the melon.’ ‘But it was the eating of fruit that caused passion to invade the world,’ said Brutha. ‘All it caused was flatulence,’ said Om. ‘Cut the melon!’"

I don’t consider this book to be either against religion nor particularly for religion. The case of faith vs doubt is not a theme in this book and is not much of a thing on Discworld considering that the Gods on Discworld are very “present”. Even then, atheists like Simony do exist. In fact a running joke in the book is that people try to put some distance between themselves and atheists because atheists tend to be struck down by lightning (by Io the god of thunder). However, this book definitely speaks out against the use of unspeakable violence and subjugation in the name of god by people like Vorbis, without being in the least bit heavy handed about it. Now there is another thing about this book and Discworld books in general that I have loved, besides the social/religious commentary and humour, is that these books make me feel a little hopeful for humanity in general. In the midst of terrible events we have instances of people sometimes putting aside differences to do the right thing: "He looked around in time to see a wave lift a ship out of the water and smash it against the dunes. A distant scream coloured the wind. The soldiers stared. ‘There were people under there,’ said Argavisti. Simony dropped the flask. ‘Come on,’ he said. And no one, as they hauled on timbers in the teeth of the gale, as Urn applied everything he knew about levers, as they used their helmets as shovels to dig under the wreckage, asked who it was they were digging for, or what kind of uniform they’d been wearing." And, "The black-on-black eyes stared imploringly at Brutha, who reached out automatically, without thinking … and then hesitated. HE WAS A MURDERER, said Death. AND A CREATOR OF MURDERERS. A TORTURER. WITHOUT PASSION. CRUEL. CALLOUS. COMPASSIONLESS. ‘Yes. I know. He’s Vorbis,’ said Brutha. Vorbis changed people. Sometimes he changed them into dead people. But he always changed them. That was his triumph. He sighed. ‘But I’m me,’ he said. Vorbis stood up, uncertainly, and followed Brutha across the desert. Death watched them walk away." This is another reason I have loved this book. I will end this with a couple of thought provoking metaphors I loved from the book:

"‘About life being like a sparrow flying through a room? Nothing but darkness outside? And it flies through the room and there’s just a moment of warmth and light?’ ‘There are windows open?’ said Brutha. ‘Can’t you imagine what it’s like to be that sparrow, and know about the darkness? To know that afterwards there’ll be nothing to remember, ever, except that one moment of the light?’" And another one which speaks of the wonders of the world:

‘Life in this world,’ he said, ‘is, as it were, a sojourn in a cave. What can we know of reality? For all we see of the true nature of existence is, shall we say, no more than bewildering and amusing shadows cast upon the inner wall of the cave by the unseen blinding light of absolute truth, from which we may or may not deduce some glimmer of veracity, and we as troglodyte seekers of wisdom can only lift our voices to the unseen and say, humbly, “Go on, do Deformed Rabbit … it’s my favourite.”’ (This one is also a little funny!)

Title: The Monster that Haunted the Sewers.

Inspector Lestrade (joyfully sarcastic): "Is that your gigantic monster, Holmes? It's just a big rat!"

Watson: (hears something a trifle alarming just behind)

(visual: a giant spider is seen emerging)

Pardon if this doesn't quite belong here. I searched Lemmy explorer for a Holmes community, but saw none. It doesn't quite fit my own community, either (Euro Graphic Novels), so I figured maybe here?

In any case, this little cartoon is by Nicolas Barral, and is part of a bande dessinees series called Ex-Libris, published by Fantasmagories.

Note: if someone wanted to start up a Holmes community on Lemmy, please tag me so I can subscribe, thanks!

In 2023, several largest online libraries have simultaneously started to introduce search through the entire text of all books in their collections, going beyond just titles, descriptions, and book metadata.

Here are some notable developments in this area:

1. Z-library now offers a full-text search across its vast collection of books (over 14 million books and 84 million articles).

2. Nexus/STC software company provides a full-text search over its current selection of 250,000 books and approximately 2 million papers. It continues to add around 10,000 new items daily and aims to index all the books from the largest online libraries within the next year(Anna's Archive, the largest repository, hosts 21 million books and 97 million papers). Additionally, Nexus/STC was the first to develop an AI technology that operates all the data from such amount of books (the mentioned 250,000 selected items).

3. Anna's Archive, which aggregates all items provided by Z-library, Library Genesis, Sci-Hub, and other resources, has long been developing full-text search functionality. While the release date remains unknown, it is anticipated in the near future.

4. In August 2023, Google Books introduced a limited full-text search feature that allows users to search within the abstracts of its indexed books. Due to copyright constraints, the project's development is restricted, offering only a glimpse of its potential without comprehensive research capabilities.

5. OpenLibrary features a "Search Inside" tool on its platform, yet its book collection is dozens of times smaller than Z-library's and lacks additional parameters for refining the searches.

Shadow libraries currently house the largest online collections of digitized and born-digital books globally. Their extensive offerings surpass those of any other platform, making comprehensive search results difficult to achieve even with full-text search functionality. Full-text search in them is a powerful research tool, that allows to get search results not available to Google or any other search engine. To keep up with the search and AI technologies, American and European companies must urgently advocate for radical changes in copyright laws.

A significant growth is anticipated in the following areas:

• Instant access to complete collections of the world's largest libraries for individuals worldwide, facilitated by extensive digitization efforts focusing initially on non-fiction. Most important, the most known and used books have been already digitized.
• Full-text search across all indexed books simultaneously.
• AI systems fed with all the data from online libraries, making it operate a crucial part of knowledge available to humankind. The competencies of these new AI models will far surpass the current ones.

The number of ebooks available for free access is increasing every year. It seems impossible to combat this phenomenon as the storage space for books is negligible, leading to the creation of numerous copies and backups. It is likely that subscription-based models will emerge as a way to sustain the mentioned online services based on usage levels and that the books industry will have to accept it and adapt.

P.S. Please note that approximately 98% of links to Z-library are scams, potentially run by government entities to create confusion among users. All shadow libraries have to withstand severe pressure from the FBI and other government agencies.

Tags: ai-industry-development, all-books-access, all-books-digitization, ai-books-feedingi, libraries-full-text-search, indexing-all-books, online-libraries, open-access, search-technologies-development, shadow-libraries, the-largest-libraries

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/37607982.Artem_Orel/blog

Scrolls count as books, right?

They've managed to find actual words in a two-thousand year-old, burned scrolls from Herculaneum.

The exciting bit? The words they've read so far appear to be from a previously unknown ancient text. And there are over six hundred other scrolls. If we can read more of them, we'll find lost texts. Maybe some we've heard of, maybe some we haven't. Either would be amazing!

From the article:

The Herculaneum papyri, ancient scrolls housed in the library of a private villa near Pompeii, were buried and carbonized by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. For almost 2,000 years, this lone surviving library from antiquity was buried underground under 20 meters of volcanic mud. In the 1700s, they were excavated, and while they were in some ways preserved by the eruption, they were so fragile that they would turn to dust if mishandled. How do you read a scroll you can’t open? For hundreds of years, this question went unanswered.

I've been reading something spooky/creepy/horrific around this time for a few years now. Does anyone else do this? Any recommendations?

My reads:

• 2023: Perfectly Preventable Deaths by Deirdre Sullivan
• 2022: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• 2021: Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
• 2020: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• 2019: Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
• 2018: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders & Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
• 2017: Carrie by Stephen King
• 2016: Jekyll and Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
• 2015: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
• 2014: The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft
• 2012: The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
• 2009: Dracula by Bram Stoker
• 2008: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

A question of Morality: A reflection on The Brothers Karamazov

I found that this book is philosophically dense, emotionally evocative and thought provoking. And it is a page turner in addition to being a whodunnit!. Now one of the things I love about this book and of other Dostoevsky books that I have read, is the brilliant characterisation. The brothers in the title refer to Dmitri Fyodorovich (Mitya, Mitka, Mitenka, Mitri Fyodorovich) the eldest, Ivan Fyodorovich (Vanya, Vanka, Vanechka), and Alexie Fyodorovich (Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshechka, Alexeichik, Lyosha, Lyoshenka), the youngest. Alexie is frequently referred to as Alyosha and Alyoshka throughout the book. The major conflict in the book is the tension existing between Dmitri Fyodorovich and his father Fyodor Pavlovich as a result of a love triangle between them and Grushenka; and also due to money matters. There is also something of a love triangle involving Dmitri, Ivan and Dmitri’s fiance Katerina. Now Fyodor is somewhat of a colourful character, to say the least. He is a landowner with a particular reputation of being a “muddleheaded madcap” (but not stupid) and a sensualist. He was quite notorious as a husband and a father. His first wife got fed up and ran away with someone else, abandoning the three-year-old Mitya, while his second wife died soon after giving birth to Ivan and Alyosha. He was known to openly engage in orgies with other women in his home even when his wife was present. As a father, Fyodor promptly forgot about the existence of his sons, both after his first wife left him and when his second wife died. In fact, it was because of a faithful servant Grigory taking care of Mitya, that he didn't starve and had clothes on his body.. Ivan and Alyosha were also taken care of by Grigory, but they were later taken in by distant relatives of their mother’s benefactress. A few lines about the benefactress’ actions after their mom died: "They say that the moment she saw him, without any explanations, she at once delivered him two good, resounding slaps and jerked him three times by his forelock; then, without adding a word, she made straight for the cottage and the two boys. Seeing at a glance that they were unwashed and in dirty shirts, she gave one more slap to Grigory himself and announced to him that she was taking both children home with her, then carried them outside just as they were, wrapped them in a plaid, put them in the carriage, and took them to her own town." (just included these lines because I think it is hilarious). As a result, both Ivan and Alyosha received some amount of care and education, unlike Mitya who was transferred from one place to another with his education remaining incomplete. When the action starts, we come to know that Mitya is back in the village, demanding his father should give him his money left by his mother. Here it is to be noted that his first wife had money, while his second did not. Therefore, Mitya has grown up with expectations of getting his mother’s money. Now Ivan is also in town, visiting Fyodor, while Alyosha is a novice in the village monastery. There he has grown closer to the elder Zosima, who is his greatest friend and guide at this point. Zosima’s health is declining, and he may die soon. Now, Mitya has another complication in his life. He has fallen in love with a woman called Grushenka, who is known to be the merchant Samsonov’s kept woman while being engaged to another woman called Katerina. Mitya’s father Fyodor is also in love with Grushenka and is actively pursuing her for her hand in marriage. And Ivan is in love with Katerina. When Mitya is first introduced, he seems to be an irresponsible, passionate wastrel lacking impulse control. However, as I got to know him better, he came across as someone who is self aware enough to know his own faults and issues and wants to do better. Initially, he doesn't come across as someone I would be able to respect much, but he turns out to be a complex human being with his heart in the right place. In the first scene where Grushenka is introduced, she comes across as this typical “vampish” other woman who we later get to know as this wonderfully complex woman who has her own thoughts and agency. This is one of the things I love about this book: the characters feel like real living, breathing people I care about. Another character worth mentioning is the lackey Smerdyakov, who is rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor and lives as the cook in the house. He is sly, manipulative and always tries to make people believe he is a fool while trying to outsmart them in the meanwhile. As the action progresses, simmering tensions start to build up and slowly lead to a boiling point, culminating in a gruesome murder.

Some of the themes explored in the book are the conflict of faith (or a lack thereof) and the question of morality and free will. This is portrayed by the contrasting aspects of faith and unbelief in the persons of Alyosha and Ivan, Zosima and the Inquisitor. In the tavern conversation in the first half of the book, Ivan opens up to Alyosha and tries to explain to his “little brother” his beliefs. Very endearingly he tells him that "I want to get close to you, Alyosha, because I have no friends. I want to try." He explains that it’s impossible for him to believe a merciful, benevolent God can create this world with all its sufferings. Ivan refuses to accept that all sinners with their "villainy" and "animal cruelty" are ever redeemable. He says: "Tell me straight out, I call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears—would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth.” He posits that the established religious order is corrupt and no longer serves God, but the devil, through the allegory of the Inquisitor (it is a long story that I am not repeating here). He further goes on to say that mankind in general cannot deal with free will and free conscience; they need someone to tell them what is right and what needs to be done, which is what established religions provide them with. So, as there is no God and no life after death, he says that, ‘If there is no immortality of the soul, then there is no virtue, and therefore everything is permitted.’ Now this tavern conversation has left quite an impression on me since I, too, do not believe in the existence of any God, singular or plural and a lot of what Ivan says also resonates with me. However, I have never thought that there is any connection between the existence of God, virtue and morality. I do understand Ivan’s point even though I do not agree with it. I wonder what do people who believe in God think of morality? Is morality contingent on the need for being virtuous? I believe morality should be unconditional and not dependent on the necessity of being virtuous. Anyways I loved that this book made me think so much.

The ending of the book is bittersweet to say the least. The book is well-paced right till the end. However, there are parts (just a few) of the book where it feels as if it's slightly going on a side track. To reiterate, I loved this book and it is now one of my favourites. I will definitely reread it in the future.

Recently, I came to a sad conclusion. I no longer feel interested in fantasy.

I was an avid reader of the genre, started my reading days with it, actually.

My favorites stories, in the beginning, were "realistic" stories. I dove into magic ridden worlds, but that didn't have such a "naive" feeling into it.

That's what 15-year-old me liked. It was a classic good versus evil, but with little seasoning. Books like Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time and Harry Potter never appealed to me.

Then time passed, and even those worlds lost it wonder to me. I cherished more a book with a good "lore" than a whole new world, one of the reasons IT by Stephen King hit me so hard when I first read it.

But my world changed with two stories. I like to say they made me fall out of love of fantasy, but not in a bad way, but they got so deep into things I didn't even know I liked - no, loved! - yet that everything else paled in comparison. Those stories were A Song of Ice and Fire and, the one that got me the most and changed everything I thought I knew about my love for fantasy, Berserk.

I ate those stories up! Couldn't stop reading it, searching about it, thinking over it. When I was done with it all, I started to look for similar stories. Tried Malazan Book of The Fallen, Prince of Nothing (this one is almost there, though) and even some Brandon Sanderson books I hadn't read yet.

Every time I see some magic being used - and I say magic as in classic magic, such as making fire out of nothing, lighting coming from nowhere, LOTR type of magic - or some non-human race come up I lose interest completely. Tried The Bound and The Broken series but couldn't even finish chapter 1, the second an elf appeared all other sentences felt heavy and I dropped out.

My solution, for now, has been to read historical fiction. I really like the medieval setting, so decided to read about our own. I'm diving into War of the Roses by Conn Iggulden, The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell, and I am waiting for The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet to arrive. And I am also rereading Berserk.

Have any of you had this to happen? Things that used to be held so dear becoming sour and all that love getting thinner and thinner over time.

Currowan: a Story of Fire and a Community During Australia's Worst Summer

A moving insider’s account of surviving one of Australia’s worst bushfires – and how we live with fire in a climate-changed world

The gripping, deeply moving account of a terrifying fire – among the most ferocious Australia has ever seen

The Currowan fire – ignited by a lightning strike in a remote forest and growing to engulf the New South Wales South Coast – was one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia’s Black Summer. It burnt for seventy-four days, consuming nearly 5000 square kilometres of land, destroying well over 500 homes and leaving many people shattered.

Bronwyn Adcock fled the inferno with her children. Her husband, fighting at the front, rang with a plea for help before his phone went dead, leaving her to fear: will he make it out alive?

In Currowan, Bronwyn tells her story and those of many others – what they saw, thought and felt as they battled a blaze of never-before-seen intensity. In the aftermath, there were questions: why were resources so few that many faced the flames alone? Why was there back-burning on a day of extreme fire danger? Why weren’t we better prepared?

Currowan is a portrait of tragedy, survival and the power of community. Set against the backdrop of a nation in the grip of an intensifying crisis, this immersive account of a region facing disaster is a powerful glimpse into a new, more dangerous world – and how we build resilience.

Curious to see what the Lemmings are reading this year.

I'll say my favorite this year was "The People of the Deer" by Farley Mowat, a novelization of the authors time spent in the Canadian North.

An incredible read with some wonderful prose.

I've just finished Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam and was incredibly impressed. I haven't read anything in a while that captures what it might actually be like faced with the collapse of society.

The book looks very different from the upcoming film but with Sam Esmail directing and an amazing cast, I can't wait for it.

I loved the book, it was a very fun fever dream. Do the sequels have that same sort of frenetic energy?

Also, I'm not sure if I ever actually saw the movie or just saw clips of the movie in parodies and what not, does the movie at all follow the insane beats of the book?

All I recall is the futuristic plastic world, none of the crazy stuff in the book, which is leading me to think that maybe I haven't actually seen the movie.

My go-to writer in bad times and good times and all the times in between. If you love witty humour, try it. Or start with the TV show with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie (although there are so many funny things in those stories that can't be done on screen)

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate stone

On the forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;

Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;

Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;

Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;

Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;

Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cursies straight;

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;

O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.

Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail

Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice.

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night

And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish, hairs,

Which once untangled much misfortune bodes

This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage.

This is she...

16k page .PDF, so it may take a bit to load through the web interface. Here's some alternative file formats from Anna's.

This got me wondering - do you pair up books like this?

If this is meant to be elsewhere, please let me know. I once read a story about a soldier who was in a horrific assault, who was then grafted into a large battle mech. As the story goes on, more flesh is taken until eventually only a spinal column and brain are left inside a gel-sack, and the machine has been upgraded to the point that it now has a super-punch that is powered by artillery shells in the shoulder. Some search engines showed alot of similar stories, but I can't find the right one. Anyone know this tale by title?

The name speaks for itself. Definitely worth to read, interesting coverage of neoliberalism.