by Matt Ridley
this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
29 points (100.0% liked)
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The Fifth Season. I'm currently on the second book The Obelisk Gate so can't attest for the quality of the whole thing but it's geological fantasy and I find it quite fascinating. The scale of the world and conflict keeps getting bigger and bigger. It's very dark but also really draws you in as things ramp up. Themes of the paradox of tolerance, and the challenge of preparing for future crises. The magic system she came up with also feels very fresh to me
The Rich Man's House by Andrews McGahan
Non-fiction:
- The Demon-Haunted World
- The Fourth Turning is Here
Fiction:
- There is No Antimemetics Division
Demon Haunted World is very timely
I mean I’m a communist so YMMV, but I’m re-reading the Vietnamese textbook on Dialectical Materialism that Luna Oi translated. I’m re-reading it because I also have the second textbook she translated (on Historical Materialism) and I wanted to brush up before diving in to that one.
Noice. I hope to get this sometime.
Luna Oi is a great comrade! She is doing so much for the cause!
Dungeon Crawler Carl. The premise is that aliens take over the world and immediately kill 99% of the population. The remaining 1% are forced to compete on an intergalactic reality TV show called Dungeon Crawler World.
The series is a scathing critique of modern capitalism, dressed up like a fart joke. If you liked The Good Place, you’ll likely enjoy DCC.
He Who Fights With Monsters is a fun fantasy isekai series. The world-building in this one is absolutely top notch, to the point that I have considered ripping entire cities out of it for my tabletop games. The main character is pretty divisive, and enjoying the series is dependent on liking him. So the people who enjoy the series really enjoy it, and the ones who dislike Jason simply can’t like it.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) was a nice sci-fi series. It’s still ongoing, but book 6’s release date is TBA. Nerdy computer programmer gets Futurama’d and frozen. But instead of waking up in a distant future like he expected, he wakes up as an AI in charge of a self-replicating space probe.
I'm on book three of the Bobiverse. I'm enjoying it. The nice thing is that they're not super dense.
Pick any of the Asimov's books if you're into science fiction.
I recently read (listened to the audiobook actually) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
It's about the life of Thomas Cromwell. The narration style is not for everyone, but it's the best historical fiction story I've read.
The show is also excellent
Not exactly a new book, but All Quiet on the Western Front was a fantastic read. It's a grotesquely frank depiction of the unfortunate "Have Not"s fighting a meaningless war for the "Have"s in society, set in the german trenches of WW1.
From the same author, Erich Maria Remarque, "A night in Lisbon" is also very good.
I've read this one as well. It's not bad, but the three comrades, along with all quiet, are both masterpieces.
We are legion we are Bob
Currently reading Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple. Just finished Great Sky River by Gregory Benford
I'm reading a famous superhero web novel called "Worm" part of the Parahumans universe.
It's pretty good. I heard it's got 30 or so arcs with 1.4 million total words.
I am at arc 10 currently, and I got here super fast because the story is pretty good.
Such a fun series. The fights especially are so captivating.
Yes! I can't believe this series was written before the MCU and DC movies made the superheroes genre world famous and milked it until everyone got superhero fatigue.
And the story and characters are super good too!
I love how the powers aren't limited to generic ones like super strength, speed, etc. There's always a cape that can effectively take down another cape.
And it's more mature than the PG-13 or younger audience targeted superhero slops.
(I heard it gets much darker as the story goes on, I'm only at arc 11 currently, but dang this is amazing)
For non fiction I'm reading The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle, and can highly recommend. Short, thought provocative, and engaging. For fiction, Children of Strife is great, latest instalment in Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series which I really enjoyed overall.
Children of Time is great. I also thought Alien Clay by Tchaikovsky was interesting. Although I'm a little skeptical about how aliens work in that one.
I was gonna say, it was a neat concept, but he didn't really spend the time to make it convincing or explain the mechanism for how life would evolve to be like that. It's like he just had this idea that life could be more modular, but didn't bother fleshing it out past that. I actually enjoyed Shroud a lot more, I feel like he put more work into making it plausible. Can recommend if you missed it.
I haven't read Shroud. I will put it on the list, thanks.
Will definitely check those out
Non fiction I'd recommend atomic habits (self help), nuclear war: a scenario (existential horror),~~ and Outliers (thought provoking)~~. Yes Man (interesting)
Fiction I'd recommend There is no Antimemetics division (regular horror), Exhalation (thought provoking short stories), and A Memory Called Empire (very good commentary on cultural assimilation).
Depending on what you're looking to get from reading i have other recs
Take anything written by Gladwell with a large helping of salt.
Malcolm "who is this Epstein guy and how did I get on his plane? 🤪" Gladwell (not paraphrasing)
Oh YIKES I did not know that
New Scientist magazine, the paper version so that I can put it down, think about it, and come back a week later. I’m not a scientist, and not highly educated, but I’m curious about the world, and many of their articles are easy to read at my level.
Recently my favourite genre have been "2019 lesbian sci-fi debut novels about an empire, starting a series".
A Memory Called Empire is absolutely amazing. A very close second is Gideon the Ninth and its sequels.
thats such a specific genre haha. Have read the Traitor Baru Cormorant? Very slightly outside of your criteria but I'd recommend it
It isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
I'll throw your suggestion on The Pile. Looks promising.
There's also Ancillary Justice which just barely misses the exact genre. Unfortunately I didn't really enjoy the way it is written, though the story and universe is super interesting.
Yeah that makes sense, the writing style of Ancillary Justice is really unique.
have you ever read This is how you lose the time war? I'm considering reading that one next
Lesbian sci-fi is on my radar ... the best by far that I've read so far has been The Chronicles of Alsea series.
It's just fantastic sci-fi, the lesbians are merely a bonus :-)
Currently reading about all the horrors of the CIA - finished The Jakarta Method and Washington Bullets, currently reading through Killing Hope, and next on my list is Operation Gladio.
I'm currently reading The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs by Marc David Baer. It traces the history of Ottoman Türkiye through the sultans, with a particular focus on the European character of pre-WWI Türkiye and how much European history and culture was shaped and influenced by the Turkish. Indeed, Baer states in the introduction that he wrote the book to push back on the idea that Türkiye isn't "Western" and that their history was peripheral to overall European history.
In particular, the centralisation of power in kings which is emblematic of Early Modern European history was driven to a large extent by non-Turkish kingdoms copying what was clearly working for Türkiye. Türkiye did take part in the Age of Discovery, establishing trading ports and colonies all along southwest Asia and as far as India, long before Portugal got there. Turkish nobles and artists were as much a part of the 15th-century Renaissance as those of France and England. And a big part of why Protestantism was able to establish itself in Germany was that the Holy Roman Emperor had to grant heretics considerable concessions in exchange for them joining the war against the Sultan.
Baer doesn't say Suleiman the Magnificent was bisexual, but he also very specifically doesn't nor say it.
I'm currently on book 5 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, I started book one In January.
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The only thing I am reading rn is Capital but I don't think you came here for political theory so I will recommend The Hot Zone. It's the last book I read and it's about the discovery of Ebola, its investigations, and how it got to the US.
I actually never read Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe even though it gets recommended so much. It's great. Halfway through
Recently read Piranesi. Wonderful book in a unique setting. A page turner which can be finished in a day.
The blade itself is what I’m current reading (when not frantically trying to catchup on one piece)
Thinking fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman
Liberalism: A Counter History, by Domenico Losurdo. Mostly so far looking at how all the liberal revolutions and theorists ended up being at least lukewarm to slavery.
Kaiju battlefield surgeon
I like Dungeon Crawler Carl but Kaiju felt like torture porn to me. I did not enjoy it.
Yeah I'm almost done with Dungeon Crawler, I thought I would check out other things by that author, and yeah it very much is torture porn. But it's also pretty damn good. It's a struggle to get through some of the gore though
If you are into fantasy, then I need to recommend you the books of Brandon Sanderson, especially the Stormlight Archive series. It's so epic, nothing else comes close
"Venomous Lumpsucker" by Ned Beauman was good. The writing style reminded me of Weir a bit.
"The Reformatory" by Tananarive Due was also pretty good.
Very different books from each other. Neither are completely without flaw, but both books were a solid B+.
Ive never read a bad Agatha Christie book.
My favorite book is "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, and his novella "Neon Bible" was also very good.
"The Dog Stars" by Peter Heller was good.
"Godshot" by Chelsea Bieker was very good.
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