Books

[VySaika]

Finished "City Stained Red" by Sam Sykes. It is very VERY D&D style fiction, but still really good. A bit hard for me to stay into because the setting is very much a crapsack world and I don't like those tropes that much, but I'm going to finish out the trilogy for the characters and to see just where he's taking this plot.

[Cmdr_King]

bell hooks- feminism is for everyone: passionate politics

This bills itself as a sort of layspeak primer on Feminism, which it is, but only in part.  In the main it's really a half memoir, half autopsy of movement feminism in the 60/70s, the various fault lines that lead to its weakening in the face of conservative resurgence in the 80s, how it's been co-opted by capitalism to work counter to its original revolutionary spirit, and how to rebuild it as a mass movement in the 21st century.

I feel compelled to note that the way she tends to use 'female' and 'male' far more often than 'man' and 'woman' is... uncomfortable.  I did some research and it's not quite as bad as all that, moreso that the question of gender identity was... more or less absurd in the 2nd wave context, and that while the movement at that time was certainly highly trans-hostile hooks and most other 2nd wavers who still operate in academia are largely catching up.

So every so often when doing this sort of "heck, Imma go be a better and more educated person" things, I find myself going... well shit, I've been saying this all along but it's all organized now!
Yeah that's this.  The main thrust is that focusing so specifically on the political and on the acquisition of rights and status opened too many doors for the educated white feminists to throw everyone else under the bus, too easy to twist feminist theory into some parody espousing misandry, and generally too easy to forget foundational principles like communion, liberation, and compassion.  Basically, we've forgotten to listen, forgotten to heal, forgotten to question ourselves on all the ways sexism can be influenced or reinforce other systems like racism and class oppression, all that.
Why yes bell hooks is one of the foremost intersectionalist, why do you ask.

But actually the bit where she lays it out thusly is where I really go "it me"
"Early on the feminist critique of love was not complex enough.  Rather than specifically challenging patriarchal misguided assumptions of love, it just presented love as the problem.  We were to do away with love and put in its place a concern with gaining rights and power.  Then, no one talked about the reality that woman would risk hardening our hearts and end up just as emotionally closed off as the patriarchal men or butch females we were rejecting in the name of feminist rebellion.  And for the most part this is exactly what happened."
Loving ourselves and one another is at the heart of feminism.  That is, a world of equity can only exist when we let compassion and empathy guide us, and let love for others be our guiding principle.  At least, that's how I read a lot of it.  The actual book gets way more practical of course, but it also asserts something I find very valuable: the work starts by fixing your own heart, and those who you can persuade to listen around you.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Oathbringer - Enjoyable! I don't come away from it thinking "wow that was great", it definitely has some clear weaknesses to go with its strengths. But it certainly managed to be entertaining.

The good:
-Dalinar backstory. There's some heartwrenching stuff, which I was to some degree expecting. What I was not expecting was what a monster the Blackthorn was.
-Everyone is broken and kinda crazy. My types of characters for sure. Shallan is the star. The interplay of her personalities and the way she shifts between them is fun to watch. The scenes at the end with Adolin are very touching.
-I dig the fact that we finally get some interplay between the nations of Roshar. I left this book with a far stronger sense of these nations and what they thought about each other. Best book for the setting so far.
-The book has lots of excellent standalone moments, often quite character-driven. Kaladin meeting his family again, Shallan's inflitrations of the Urithuru underworld and of Kholinar castle, Elhokar's death, Jasnah hitting 11/10 on the badass scale, "maybe it's time somebody saved you", "I'm not a prize, you don't decide who gets me", "I don't anyone, I want you".
-I'm increasingly actually kinda happy with the supporting cast. I'm even warming up to most of the Bridge Four members, helps that several (Teft and Moash in particular) get some good character development this time. Except Lopen, he's still a joke character who never makes me laugh.

The less good:
-I really don't dig the crossover Cosmere elements and sadly they're more present in this book than before. Nightblood in general. Oh hey there's this new radiant who has some differences in her powers I wonder how this will fit in with things oh nope guess she's just a cameo from another book. According to the internet, she's Vivenna, who is one of my favourite Sanderson characters. So in theory I'd be in the target audience for this cameo but I still don't give a damn, it feels like weird fanfic stuff.
-I don't think the book sets up some of its plot points that well? Dalinar trapping the Thrill would be cooler if that strange ruby had been properly signalled earlier. Also some of its scenes seem like they weren't editted properly; there are a couple instances where the author seems to forget a character is on-screen (e.g. when Odium appears to Taravangian).
-Odium. Finally gets screentime and he's... a disappointing paint-by-numbers villain. I think he has a lot of potential especially with the reveal that he kinda respresents passion/emotions in general instead of just evil ones, but he himself is just so boring and generic.

Other:
-This book definitely feels more video game/anime-ish than other Sanderson books (and they were already getting there). Amaram might as well be a JRPG boss.

Kneejerk is that Words of Radiance is still the best of the Stormlight books, but this was worth reading certainly.

[Dhyerwolf]

Sara Douglass- The Devil's Diadem. Last book she wrote before she died. This is one a off book, but she probably has my favorite one off book of any fantasy author (Threshold). Douglass was normally a master of the 2nd act, but foils herself in that this book moved through too many parts too quickly for me to even call something the second act. Interesting ideas, but that book is a little to disjointed and random in the end.

Also about 40% of the way through Oathbringer as well, but that still means I have about 700 pages left to go...

[Lady Door]

Red Queen, leading up to its sequel Glass Sword.

Post-apocalyptic teen fantasy with the expected elements of romance, slightly less expected elements of magic + tech. The romance is prevalent but it's not a centerpiece, if that makes sense? The main character - who is female - is presented within the confines of heteronormative female romance, in fact it's a major plot point that she's unceremoniously betrothed to the younger prince who she must Learn To Love. At the same time, though, her life ain't about that. It plays second fiddle (though definitely part of the same concert). Instead we get to focus on intrigue, and a character with relatably real flaws like selfishness and cowardice in the face of awesome power and terrifyingly sadistic machination.

By the end she's developed into having those Main Character Hero moments of selflessness and sacrifice for the greater good, but even still she keeps a practical point of view and isn't willing to throw herself away just for the sake of honor or whatever.

So, yeah, I enjoyed it. I'll drop my caveat that I have really forgiving taste in pop literature so long as it entertains me (see: any review I've ever written, ever) so it might not be your cup of tea if you're looking for more of that idealistic hero stuff.

Just started Glass Sword this morning and I think it's going to pull a Catching Fire on me and go SUPER political + romance, but we shall see.

[superaielman]

About 450 pages in to Book 3 of Stormlight. Jasnah has been obnoxious beyond belief in her few scenes on camera so far; other than that I'm mostly just catching up on the story and trying to remember all the side characters.

[Dhyerwolf]

Finished Oathbringer a few weeks ago. Board ate a longer post so short version
-First third of the book needed at least 100 pages cut. Most writers write full fantasy books not much longer than that and there wasn't a lot of traction. Slow build up is more acceptable if your book isn't 1200 pages
-Jah Keved arc was fantastic. Great new locale, interesting character growth and heaps of tension. This is was an absolute standout for me in terms of arcs in books in general.
-But then comes Shadesmar. Simultaneously mundane and ill-defined. I'm sure that this will be important in the future, but I couldn't care at all. At least the remaining 200 pages at the end was a great improvement over Shadesmar.

Biggest Issues (minus the writer not respecting the reader's time. If you are going to have 1200 pages, it needs to all be on the level of Jah Keved or the last 200 pages at least)
Inconsistency of World Construction: Sanderson's biggest strength as a writer was the construction of some his magic systems. This is something that made Mistborn work so well. Having a character like Azure who is a Radiant, but just has a completely different concept of what it means to be a Radiant in terms of powers just makes it seem like it's being made up on the fly (which I can believe here). Semi related, one feels that by the end of this, literally everyone will be running around with powers and it will get very dull.

General Knowledge of the Characters: There are multiple types of creatures that have been running around since the beginning of time. None of our POV characters have the slight idea of what is really going on, and therefore we also have no idea. Also makes it seem like things are being made up on the fly since it's hard to lay effective groundwork. If the characters are basically discovering some new game altering thing every 100 pages, it makes it super hard to believe they haven't already been massacred by enemies who already knew all these things.

The "Twist": Less a complaint and more a hope that this wasn't really meant to be a twist. "Humans are the real Voidbringers" who was forseeable that when it was revealed, I was surprised it hadn't already been revealed- of course, this is the effect of having read the last book several years ago and for some reason there being no refresher. Cmon Sanderson, if you have a 1200 page book, please consider that I don't perfectly remember the 1000 page book I read like half a decade ago. For something that had 2.5 books of buildup, it was very predictable and I hope that was Sanderson's intention.

Also strongly agree with NEB on the hard no to the Cosmere items. Would have never of guessed that identity.



Also rereading Kate Elliot's Crown of Stars. Up to book 3:
--Best feature: Creation of an alternate psuedo Medieval world that feels like it could be relatively realistic in how society works. The big change is that powers between gender is much more balanced in both secular and religious society. Bloodlines are the foundation of their society, so female heirs are actually preferred (I believe that women are also straight up more powerful in the church due to their concept of God).
--Also good: Good integration of magic and political struggles. Magic is potent but certainly not overpowered; it factors a lot into political struggles without completely overweighing them (which is critical because the book has an interesting core political struggle over two rival Regnants basically fighting over an Alsace-Lorraine equiavalent As you see in eventually, a near literal Alsace-Lorraine equivalent.
--Build up: The first two books especially are great are build up, having 1-3 major great events for each POV each book and otherwise setting the stage for those big moments. Book 3 isn't as great there (but still good), but I think it's because there's so much happening.
--Build up 2: Book 3 starts building up to a major event that takes about 2.5 books, but is completely worth the payoff.
--The concept of the Eika in general: Very unique non-human species that adds a fair amount to books 1 and 2
--One bad thing: Too many battle scenes (with the number of skirmishing groups it makes sense, but the Eika fights in book 3 at least feel superfluous. I tended to skip a number of them at the end).

[Captain K]

Catching up on Brandon Sanderson things I haven't read before.

Elantris: I'd been avoiding this because it was his first novel, so I figured it wasn't up to the quality of his other books. Surprisingly I was wrong, it's quite solid.

Warbreaker: Really enjoyed this.

Arcanum Unbounded: Large variety of quality in this collection. The Emperor's Soul may be the best thing he's ever written, and I also really liked Sixth of the Dusk.

[Dhyerwolf]

Kate Elliot's Crown of Stars- Up to Book 5
Parts of these two books I really like
--Playing with time. We see very little of Liath in book 4 (but everything is memorable), but it makes perfect sense in that she's in a place where time is moving much more slowly. The books deal well with playing out over years naturally without feeling like there are jarring time jumps.
--Excellent build up

Favorite Parts of Book 4:
--Alain and Adica. Poor Alain finally gets to a point where he is happy while everyone around him knows that calamity will be the end result.
--Hanna. Hanna is introduced as a character who you think would just be more a background type, but sizes on opportunity to venture forth in the world while really owning any good and bad that comes from her decisions (and the bad consequences really do feel like they could be foisted on others without being totally incorrect).
--Liath. Her arc was really well done structurally.
--Dealing with the Griffins

Favorite Parts of Book 5:
--The general ending. Crown of Stars has the best build up spanning both 5 books and 3000 years, and it really pays off.
--Macabre, but the humanization of the merman. I don't remember exactly how they came to be, so I'm excited to rediscover that in later books

[superaielman]

Stormlight 3- FUCK OFF FOREVER SHADESMAR AND TAKE THE COSMERE STUFF WITH YOU

[superaielman]

Now that I have that out of my system, I largely echo Elfboy and Dhyer. I was stuck for months in Shadesmar because it was so boring. Blah. This is a good book but I have a lot of beefs with it.


1. Characters, specifically Kaladin and Jasnah. I find Jasnah to be obnoxious in this book; she is high handed and insulting to the point that it damaged the story. She is so unlikeable that I find it hard to believe no one tried to kill her on general principals.  She reminds me a lot of Eleanor Silverburg.

I've stated this before, but I have a serious beef with the core concept of the character. Making an athiest character in a universe where we have concrete proof of the existance of the supernatural/God is stupid. Athiesm in that circumstance is much closer to flat earthism than anything else. We're supposed to take her seriously as a scholar/brilliant mind in light of that? No.
 
Kaladin in book 3 in particular is much more of a force of will than a real character. I can't put it more precisely than that, but he just did not work for me in the book. I really liked him in book 1 and 2.


The books are too long. Split them up. Journey before destination is cool, but the journey shouldn't be in such giant chunks. The books are so unwieldly that it is exceptionally hard to keep track of everything that goes on in them.


There's a lot I like. Shallah is quite good, and Adolin was fantastic as always. The way he reveals to his father that he killed Sadeas is perfect. The ending arc is great, there's a ton of good plot stuff and as always Sanderson is a lot of fun. But man, the flaws annoyed the hell out of me.

[NotMiki]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/gene-wolfe-science-fiction-writer-with-a-literary-touch-dies-at-87/2019/04/28/9bf76226-69c1-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html?utm_term=.4cdada77bdb2

Gene Wolfe died

[superaielman]

Catching up on Brandon Sanderson things I haven't read before.

Elantris: I'd been avoiding this because it was his first novel, so I figured it wasn't up to the quality of his other books. Surprisingly I was wrong, it's quite solid.

Warbreaker: Really enjoyed this.

Arcanum Unbounded: Large variety of quality in this collection. The Emperor's Soul may be the best thing he's ever written, and I also really liked Sixth of the Dusk.

Sanderson, like most authors, is much better in the short story format. Doesn't have time to get bullshit rolling. Book three of stormlight really soured me on BS as an author, which is a shame.

[Dhyerwolf]

Crown of Stars Read- Finished a while ago, but forgot to post. Book 6 is a lot of aftermath from the massive event at the end of book 5. It has my favorite use of the "real world" in fantasy. Each couple of books, the world map slightly zoomed out as characters covered more places. Then finally at the end of book 5, the map flips 90%, changes a few things and suddenly the reader realizes that they had basically been looking at a map of Europe turned sideways the last 3 books (which fits well with my initial reaction that Wendar-Varre had the feeling of Alsaice-Lorraine; the general areas overlap pretty well).

A lot of interesting stuff in the aftermath. Feels like the world was legitimately torn apart. The return of the Ashioi and the little we see of their culture is pretty interesting.

The last two books do a good job at still keeping tension levels high despite the big event having already ended (the Ashioi help a lot there, as does Antonia)

Notable Parts:
--Liat'dano's death.
--The whole resolution, which was always to succsesfully tie up almost all the plot threads in a very satisfying way.
--The "after" portion

Things I wanted more of:
--The mermen! We only got trace amounts. The book did a lot of explanation on how different things came to be, but the Merman never got that
--The Seven Sleepers. I remember this bugging me through the first read as well. This is just a critical thing both themetically and in practice, and there just wasn't enough of an explanation.

Favorite Characters
1. Liath- Biased here- a mathematician torn between reason and emotion is going to resonate. But she had a very clear arc and was well written.
2. Alain- A subtle but intriguing character. He didn't have the very strong overarching arc that Liath did, but it was interesting essentially seeing the construct of a mythic saint.
3. Hanna- Owned a lot of book 4. Unfortunately she does drop off a fair amount after that.
4. Stronghand- Made the Eika really interesting as he was essentially inducing a hybrid race to evolve.

A lot of other good characters (Henry, Rosvita) as well. Sanglant was decent as well, if generally not as interesting as some of the other main characters.

Now, rereading the Magister Trilogy although I doubt my thoughts on that will be particularly fleshed out as it's notably shorter than my last 2 rereads and so a lot less to cover.

[Dhyerwolf]

City of Bones (Martha Wells)- One off book I picked up at a used book store last week. Quite interesting. The world is ripe for exploration (for all that it's a short one-off book, so there isn't a lot of time for that), and what little we saw of it was pretty interesting: Desert pseudo-post apocalyptic with some unique (if not fully explored) social structures. It sets off on a unique path basically right away. I do wish there were some things that were better explored (Warder Insanity for instance. Constans' insanity was not very well fleshed out, especially in regards to how it came about since he alluding to it being a choice that was the best of his options then).

The description on the back of the book doesn't fit very well in some places! There was no cult in the book, just political scheming.

[Dhyerwolf]

Magister Trilogy Reread- Finished! I feel like most of the thoughts I'd post I already posted several years ago, but regardless...super interesting setup, each book has its own unique flavor while being very cohesive and a lot of interesting little twists. I do wish we got a little more background on Lazaroth (the books said you really had to be guided into becoming a magister, so how did Lazaroth become one with another magister knowing that she was female?). It would be fascinating to see more of the world after since Kamala's relevation would really open new interesting plot directions (which I know I definitely said the first time I read it!)

The Stone Sky- NK Jemisin. Finished this a while back, but forgot to post. While I can't say that I remembered everything that had previously happened (had been a few years!), I remembered enough. Ended in a very interesting location with a lot of unique background. Excellent series on the whole, if short (1200 pages total? God, less than Oathbringer all together?!)

[dunie]

Paulo Freire - Pedagogy of the Oppressed

[Dhyerwolf]

Written a while ago when the forum was down
---
Rereading Brent Weeks Lightbringer series in expectation of the final book coming out later this month. In the middle of book 3, but wanted to get my thoughts down on paper.

So, as a primer, the basic magic system is this weird architectural color based magic system. I suspect that it's more developed than it's portrayed in the books, but it's the kind of thing where a Sanderson-esque glossary on it would be useful.  Its specific use as magic as architecture is fairly interesting and leads to some specific concrete uses.

The beginning of book 1 needed a little bit deus ex machina to get the ball rolling (Gavin and Karris showing up in the right place at literally the right second), but once that happens everything flows pretty well.

Unlike with his first series, Brent Weeks is a lot better on gender balance- although still some work to be done. Partially that's just because the Guiles are so overwhelming (both in terms of personality and magic- what's the chance that so many full spectrum magic users would come from the same family?). However, Karris, Teia and the Iron White more than hold their own.

But speaking more the Guiles since they are the center of the story:

Spoilers for any who care. Was shocked to see "Dazen" exit in book 2. Felt like a bit of a red herring to see him go out so early, but it spoke more towards who Gavin was as a person. That being said, in the little we saw of Dazen, he seemed like he likely would have been a horrible person and a nasty Prism.

Kip is an excellent and interesting main character whose flaws and strengths feel fully manifested and realistic (as do his attempts to curb his tongue at least and well as his consistent difficulty with it). Kip and Gavin make an excellent parallel to Dazen and Zymun (Although given that it's one nephew and one uncle paralleling the other side, a bit weird)

Weeks does an excellent noose tightening scenario on Gavin (and arguably Karris as well, although hers is a bit more existential and political). Gavin is basically thrown into the fire right away and never escaped from it. It slowly (and eventually rapidly) takes it's toll, but it's very well done and feels appropriate to his position in the book.

During my initial readthrough Andross drove me crazy, but he's definitely quite the magnificient bastard (but I think knowing some of the plot twists help).

Other Things I Really Like
Tremblefist' scene. Very impactful for a character who was vaguely mentioned before then.
Samila Sayeh is a fantastic brutally driven logical character that I can't wait to see more of, even though she's a side character.
Nine Kings sounds like fun! I mean, clearly couldn't be mapped into a real game, but still.

My favorite part
The Blinding Knife is great. A plot twist that's built up over 2 books that ends up explaining so much about how Prisms work (also, gives some good red herrings with Dazen's prisonbreaks and Bane killing). I love a good well built plot twist and this definitely more than qualifies.

[superaielman]

Red Rising series- Brilliant mix of hard scifi and an extremely screwed up civilization based on the late Roman empire. Pierce Brown is hands down of the best authors I've read.

[Dhyerwolf]

Brent Weeks- The Blood Mirror. Book 4. Finished a while back but didn't get around to posting until now. Funny to see how many of the parallels I described in my earlier post were false parallels of some sort: Kip being Andross' son, not Gavin's and Dazen not having been a polychrome in the first place

Since I'm not sure how intended the parallels were in the first place can't really comment beyond that though.

Book 4 is good. The build-up and resolution of Kip/Tisis is well done (as are the side characters introduced in the Blood Forest Arc). Seeing Andross and Karris work together is certainly interesting. The end to the Paria arc forebodes ill for all involved characters (seems like the two remaining characters in that move are both prime candidates to die in the final book. Kip and Tisis getting on some ground feels like it should spell doom for Teia; its either her or Tisis and Teia will have both a guild of invisible assassins and the newly crowned king Ironfist after her.

Final book was delayed (now coming out in a 1.5 weeks instead of late August as originally intended), so I started the reread that I was most excited to get to:

Melissa McPhail- Cephreal's Hand (Book 1 of a Pattern of Shadow and Light)- Book 2 of this series has my favorite 200 pages of any book ever and the author is super engaged and transparent about progress. She starts with a forewarning that she'll throw you in the deep end and boy does she ever. The first 50-100 pages can be quite confusing as you get POVs that are sometimes hundreds of years old with complicated history (and one POV that is just 20, but it thrown into the roughest storyline introduction I can think of for a main character of a fantasy book), but it does start to get fairly well after a while. Book 1 is a lot of setting up the stage and moving "Players" into position.

The concept of 'balance' used in a book might be a little deus ex-machina, but I seem to remember that it's better explained in a way that gives it more heft (although may not make it quite make sense).

The best use of build-up is the King of Dannym's long running attempt to hold a successful peace treaty, although that's only notable in this book with foreknowledge of what is to come.

Character-wise it can sometimes be a little hard to differentiate between character's personalities (not all of them, just groups of them...sometimes). Serious but able to crack a smile steadfast princes, rascally leches...etc. I'm certainly not mixing up the characters themselves, but there isn't always a great distinction beyond archetype. I would say that this would be one of the shortfalls (I don't remember it dramatically changing in later books, but it's been a while). The other shortfall is that gender balance isn't great (especially for a female author). There are female villains, but none of them really compare to the male villains and the female main character- who is on a relatively even footing with the male main characters in book 1- kind of takes a step back. Even the side characters presented feel uneven. There are basically 5 types of mages; type 1 is almost always female and type 4 is almost always male (although there are several women with the 4th type of magic that become prominent, although I believe the author may contradict herself in a later book on one of them). However, of the other 3 types, two have multiple prominent male characters mentioned, but no female characters (even side characters). This imbalance holds true in ruling leaders and magical beings.

I obviously don't mean to focus on the shortcomings, but this is a build-up book so getting that stuff on paper first.

Of course, book 5 of Brent Weeks is coming out soon, so I'm hesitant to start 2 now knowing that it would get interrupted.

[Niu]

P5 Mementos Missions - Not sure if anyone reads manga here. But this adaptation of P5 is good stuff. It ties different Mementos Missions together into a coherent story, and has more exploration on character's private life. A really nice read on the back side of the story in P5.

[Dhyerwolf]

Melissa McPhail- The Dagger of Adendigaeth (Book 2). Was going to read Brent Weeks first, but smaller bookstores didn't have any copies.

I love the last 200 pages of this book, mainly just due to one fantastic character arc. Kjieran Van Stone is a spy sent to infiltrate the inner circle of a super deadly religious prophet. He's basically doomed from his introduction. He evades one nasty magic trap just to fall into a worse one, is sent to eliminate the King that sent him to spy, is outmaneuvered by people with far more knowledge and resources, but is able to make one brilliant last stand foiling the King's assassination while managing to spit in the eye of everyone who wronged him. Definitely a standout arc.

Other highlight of the book is Pelas-Tanis. Pelas is an interesting character and this relationship is well utilized to explore Pelas' personality, give a fair amount of lore background, drive forward major story points and develop Tanis as well.

In my last post, I noted that it could be hard to differentiate character's personalities, and the first example was between the princes of Dannym. It's evident now that there is a supposed to be a distinction (one is often described as being rash), but the story is so overwhelmingly strong that it may tend to override character traits (it's hard to see a character as rash when that also feels like it's the only path left to him. Everyone- allies included- is effectively trying to kill him, so being a little mouthy or trying to come with a hail mary doesn't feel all that rash in context).

[Lady Door]

Finished the Lightbringer series a week or two ago (time is fluid). It was... weird? Not bad. Not great, either. It was dense and though I read it as an ebook I can imagine the physical copy is pretty large - a lot happened over a lot of pages. I was mostly satisfied with the resolution but I did feel like it made a few too many concessions to epic fantasy cliches.  Stakes were huge and non-existent at the same time and no balance was struck. It felt like a very different book from the previous four, kind of like another author stepped in with some crib notes about characterization and world building while having skimmed the earlier books in the series. (That said, the transition between the previous books was moderately jarring too so this isn't expressly a problem for book 5.)

Overall, eh? I'll appreciate the series for taking on some character types that get ignored -- namely the older ones, the ones who don't have or lose their world dominating powers magical or otherwise, women who exist for more than to serve male plot lines even if they still exist to be sexual objects in one way or another, the value of global interpretations of magic -- and watching the practical applications of magic, but I don't think this will be a series I revisit in the future.

[SnowFire]

A bit belated, but since I know a few DLers saw the AI Dungeon 2 posts (e.g. stuff in this thread: https://twitter.com/JanelleCShane/status/1202968242286784512 ), I should recommend Shane's book "You Look Like A Thing And I Love You" if you want to catch up on the latest in AI.  It's a very funny, readable book that isn't impenetrable that helps separate what deep learning AIs are incredibly good at, and what they aren't.

Easy example:
https://aiweirdness.com/post/175110257767/the-visual-chatbot
http://demo.visualdialog.org/
if you want to try it yourself, noting that the 2019 version is more up-to-date than the one in that post.

Anyway, I partially bring it up because famously, AIs have been thrown at old Atari games and the like and done crazy stuff with mastering them, but also gotten stuck in weird areas (like AIs who get flat walled by stage 2-2 or so of Super Mario Bros., because they get stuck on a ledge and had never ever learned to go backward.).  It can even be tricky to set up a reward system properly in more complicated games than the Atari ones, where you can just say "maximize score."  One of the cool ways to properly carrot & stick the AI through such games: make one AI a predictor whose job is simply to guess what will happen next in-game.  If it has no idea, it guesses wildly and is probably wrong.  The other AI actually controls the character, and it gets rewarded whenever the first AI is wrong.  So...  death is fine!  But boring.  Die enough and the first AI knows that Mario is going to go up then down then the level will restart and it's seen it all.  The second AI is thus encouraged to explore more and more of the game to seek out unknown levels the first AI can't predict.  However!  Take an example of "find your way out of a maze."  The above plan works pretty well to ensure the AI explores the maze properly.  If you stick a TV in your maze however with YouTube cat videos or random static or whatever, and the AI will just stand there entranced by the TV that it can't predict, deciding that this is the best game ever, it never knows what is coming next.

Anyway, if you think that snippet is cool, then go read the book!  eBook edition available on Google Play or the like if you want to read it on a mobile phone, as usual.

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On the note of different kinds of AIs - reading Saturn's Children right now and pondering that the general idea would make for a good RPG space opera.  This was written before Nier: Automata, too, but general conceit is that the humans are all dead so it's just robots having a classic Heinlein-esque planetary intrigue romp.  But in all seriousness, it would make a lot of sense for an RPG too in that you could explain much better why Our Heroes are fearlessly heading into extraordinarily hostile environments, why they might be able to revive, and why there might be hordes of enemies.  Maybe the robots were sent as a first wave to terraform a new solar system and are waiting for the Creators to come, but until then, go build a human-like place but also live in it themselves.

Anyway, the other vaguely relevant thing about the book - a lot of Japanese stuff in particular, although it shows up elsewhere too, involves "magic girlfriends" and the like that are bonded to Our Hero for reasons.  The Western equivalent might be more like magical servants, a la Harry Potter house elves.  Anyway...  the romance on this is always a bit problematic since one side kinda doesn't have a choice.  The Heroine of Saturn's Children is basically a sexbot made to be a "escort" for humans, except the humans are all dead, so she will never find true love (a la XG Ramsus).  But hey, screw that, go make your own fate!  I approve, it's a rare way to make the concept work in interesting ways.

[superaielman]

Three Body Problem- A mix of Chinese cultural history with a dash of extremely hard scifi. Pretty good even if I had to google some of the math concepts involved.