this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
146 points (99.3% liked)
Slop.
685 readers
312 users here now
For posting all the anonymous reactionary bullshit that you can't post anywhere else.
Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.
Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.
Rule 3: No sectarianism.
Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome
Rule 5: No bigotry of any kind, including ironic bigotry.
Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.
Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.
Rule 8: Do not post public figures, these should be posted to c/El Chisme
founded 11 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Do people even read books anymore? half of these can't be classified anti-fascist
I am desperately clawing back the voracious reading I had as a kiddo
You and me both
That makes three
Hexbear book club when?
We have one, people just ignore it I think
Yay. I used to read a fuckton of books as a teenager. Then like basically nothing in my twenties. These days I started to get back into reading crappy (but fun) fiction books.
Nice! Same here, haha. Easy stuff is fun! Though some fiction I've read has been really good, like Piranesi!
Yeah I wanna read more demanding works down the line but atm Im just reading basic stuff like Brandon Sanderson books.
I wont touch the Horus Heresy. (anytime at least) I just read chaos and xeno novels at the moment
Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts is a good series too, as is both Eisenhorn and Ravenor (I never read the third part because it came out after I'd stopped keeping up with 40K, but I assume it's just as good).
Oh yeah I wanna get to some of these classics later on. I just started reading stuff that I was really into like the Ork books from Mike Brooks. Im currently reading the Nightlord Omnibus since that had a lot of positive buzz and Chaos is like my 2nd fave thing after Orks.
I do like the Imperial side of things especially Mechanicus and Sisters but I basically just got back into reading last year and I have been busy with other books as well.
On a different note I did enjoy Bloodlines quite a bit its basically a 40k book on a hiveworld that follows a detective working a missing person case (JUST IN 40k) gives a ton of insight in the daily lives of hive worlders which is nice. Bloodlines takes a much closer look at the civilian life in 40k . Feels also super noir, was fun to listen to jazz while reading it. Theres a bunch of newer 40k books that follow a similar footpath. Its basically detective stories in the 40k universe.
I've only heard good things about those!
I really loved Piranesi. I didn't really care about the actual plot, but I liked the protagonist trying to interpret his environment.
Yep! It was super charming in that way, with the protagonist always being innocent and cheerful in dark and scary circumstances.
Ive been getting into anthologies of "weird fiction"/cosmic horror/Lovecraftian stuff the past few years.
A local author brought us a copy of one of his anthology books for us on tour, and it wasn't the best but it was nice to be reading in the car like i did as a kid!
Oh yeah I do wanna get into stuff like cosmic horror/ weird fiction and pulp stuff down the line as well.
Happy to chat about it if you ever want some recommendations!
If you like weird fiction China Miéville is a great author, especially since he's a commie there's a lot of good politics in his books.
have you read Clark Ashton Smith
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/210/the-testament-of-athammaus
Not all his works, but ill book Mark this for the week! Got another long drive or two coming up after tomorrow
I am desperately [cultivating] the voracious reading [habit] I [never] had as a kiddo.
Hell yea lmao
Lot of people listen to audio books
Not sure V for Vendetta translates so well to audio though
I haven't read all of these, but of them I think only Handmaid's Tale, The Wave (blegh), It Can't Happen Here, and "Anything by Hannah Arendt" (blegh) can be called "antifascist," and I guess V with caveats.
I always got the vibe that V was basically Nietzschean while masquerading as anarchist, and being Nietzschean is really not a good tool for opposing fascism or really for facilitating anything except overtly irrational self-destruction. Nietzsche's philosophy was certainly warped by the proto-Nazis and Nazis, but there's a reason it was his philosophy that became so much of their face and not that of Hegel or even Schopenhauer, because it's the western philosophical school for the "cult of the hero" and "heroic" society generally.
But I've arrived at basically 4.5/12. I don't really see how Long Walk by Stephen King maps on to this unless it's extremely loosely anticapitalist like most death game stories are, but the title isn't "The Long Walk Home," that's a different book by a different author and a romance novel at that. I think Brave New World is more anticapitalist than anything, with the remaining titles being anticommunist and/or antidemocratic more than antifascist (if they are antifascist at all). 451 is elitist and antidemocratic, people just gloss over that part, because the book ban was a popular decision and not one made by the government.
There are plenty of actually antifascist books out there, though it's not as widely-taught as anticommunist books in America. Even limiting ourselves to YA type books, there's still titles like Book Thief. It sure makes you wonder why they would purport to teach antifascism and then mostly just give you anticommunism instead, and I don't think the answer is simple illiteracy.
Many people read a great many things and learn precisely nothing from them