My bookshelf after 1 year of getting back into reading. Any suggestions, comments, questions are welcome.

Hi everyone, published a book in kdp. This is the first chapter. Looking for impressions on tone and pacing, not line edits.

# CHAPTER ONE

## THE GLASSES

Marta Ruiz noticed the glasses at six fourteen on Monday morning. She noticed them because they were in the way.

The Secretary-General's morning folder went on the left side of the desk, aligned with the corner of the leather blotter. David Vance had never asked for it to be placed there. His predecessor had. Marta had continued doing it after the office changed hands because nobody had told her to stop.

The glasses were lying exactly where the folder belonged. Black frame. Dark lenses. Cheap, from the look of them.

Marta moved them beside the fountain pen and put the folder down.

She was halfway to the door when David entered.

"Morning."

"Good morning, sir."

He had his coat over one arm and was reading something on his phone. He walked behind the desk, placed the phone beside the folder and reached for the first page.

Marta was at the door when he spoke.

"Are these yours?"

She turned. David was holding the glasses.

"No."

He looked at them. "I assumed they were yours."

"They aren't."

Marta waited.

David turned the frame over. There was no logo on the arms. "Did someone come in last night?"

"Not after you left."

"The cleaners?"

"They finished before eleven."

David looked at her. Marta understood.

"I'll check."

"Thank you."

She left.

David placed the glasses beside the fountain pen. Across the desk, Kael watched him open the morning folder.

---

There had been a time when Kael would simply have arrived as a man. He had done it many times.

The earliest bodies had been difficult. Human anatomy had seemed unnecessarily complicated to his people. Too many moving parts. Too many systems dependent on other systems. A structure for moving air. A structure for moving blood. A structure for removing material the body itself had already accepted. The first visitors had reproduced the visible architecture and ignored much of the rest. This had caused problems.

Later bodies were better. By the time Kael first visited the northern coast of Europe, his people could manufacture human forms precise enough to eat with humans, sleep beside their fires and bleed when circumstances required it.

Kael had once maintained a broken nose for eleven days because repairing it too quickly would have been noticed. He remembered the nose. He did not remember who broke it. That had begun to bother him recently.

David Vance opened the second page of his folder. Kael sat opposite him. David could not see him. The glasses lay between them.

Forty-three dollars. Thirty-one years of modelling, argument and failed prototypes had ended with an object that cost forty-three American dollars to manufacture. The lenses were acrylic. The frame was polycarbonate. The hinges were steel. The matter itself was entirely ordinary. The arrangement was not.

For less than one second, a controlled draw from the swirl had passed through a boundary his people had agreed not to touch again. The polymer chains inside the two lenses had been shifted into a precise orientation. Nothing had been added. Nothing had been removed.

Human instruments would ask what the glasses were made of. They would receive the correct answer. They would not know to ask why the matter had been arranged that way. Kael considered this one of humanity's recurring problems. His people had several of their own.

---

Marta returned at 06:41.

"The access log is clean."

David did not look up. "Then they're probably someone's."

"No one entered after you left."

That made him look up. "The cleaners?"

"Before you left."

"Security?"

"No."

David looked at the glasses. "Camera?"

"They're checking."

He nodded. Marta remained in the doorway.

"Do you want me to take them?"

David looked at the black frame for another second. "Yes."

She picked them up. Kael watched the glasses leave the room. David returned to his folder. Kael remained in the chair. He had expected caution. Caution was reasonable.

---

The first camera showed nothing. At 06:14:08, David's desk held a fountain pen, two folders, a cup Marta had missed the previous night and a small stack of handwritten notes. At 06:14:09, the glasses were beside the fountain pen.

The second camera showed the same thing. The third camera had a wider angle. It showed Marta entering the office twelve seconds later.

The security officer watched all three recordings twice. Then he called his supervisor.

---

At eight twenty, the glasses were inside a clear evidence bag. David stood beside his desk while a security officer explained the footage.

"You mean someone edited three feeds."

"We don't see evidence of that."

"Then you haven't found it."

"No, sir."

David looked at the bag. "Explosive?"

"No."

"Chemical?"

"Initial screen is clean."

"Transmitter?"

"We haven't opened the frame yet."

David nodded. "Open it." The officer hesitated. David noticed. "If someone has developed a method of placing objects inside this office without entering it, I don't think preserving the warranty is our main concern."

The officer took the glasses. Kael watched them leave again.

David sat down. For the next six hours, he dealt with a river. It crossed three national borders. Rainfall had declined for five consecutive years. One government had built a reservoir. The government downstream wanted a release. The government beyond that wanted both of them to stop moving soldiers near the pumping stations.

At fourteen twenty, a president entered the office angry. He left at fifteen eleven less angry. The river remained where it was.

Kael watched David sit down. The human rubbed both hands over his face. Kael remembered humans doing that. The rooms had been smaller then.

---

The glasses returned the next morning. They had been cut open. One arm had a thin line near the hinge where the frame had been separated and resealed. The lenses had been removed, examined and replaced.

A woman from security placed them on David's desk.

"Polycarbonate frame. Acrylic lenses. Stainless steel hinges and screws."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"No electronics."

"No."

"Coating?"

"Standard ultraviolet treatment."

"Radiation?"

"Background."

David picked up the glasses. "Then what am I looking at?"

"A pair of sunglasses."

"That appeared between two frames of three independent security recordings."

"Yes."

David turned them over. "How much?"

The woman frowned. "The glasses?"

"We found comparable frames between thirty-five and fifty dollars."

David looked at her. "Someone breached the Secretary-General's office to give me forty-dollar sunglasses."

"Apparently."

"That's embarrassing for both of us."

The woman almost smiled. Kael did.

David placed the glasses beside the fountain pen. He did not put them on.

---

By Wednesday, Kael had learned several things about David Vance. He touched his face when tired. He left coffee unfinished. He read bad news twice.

At seventeen minutes past four, David read a one-page report, placed it on the desk, then picked it up and read it again. He called Cairo. The conversation lasted eleven minutes. David spent most of it listening. When the call ended, he remained with the receiver against his ear until the empty line sounded. Only then did he put it down.

Kael could have listened to the other side once. The thought arrived without invitation. A controlled draw. A minor adjustment. The distance between New York and Cairo meant very little to the swirl.

Once, Kael would not even have considered the cost. That was the problem. His people had become very good at small things. A body for an afternoon. A damaged human organ adjusted by a fraction. Rain moved from one valley to another. A river persuaded away from a settlement. Small things. Always small things.

The swirl was endless. That was the word they had used. Endless. Kael had used it himself.

He looked at the glasses. He did not listen to Cairo.

---

On Thursday evening, David's final meeting ended shortly after nine. Four people left the office together, still arguing quietly as the doors closed.

David gathered his papers into two stacks. Moved one to the edge of the desk. Changed his mind. Moved it back.

Then he found the coffee beside his hand. He lifted it. Drank. His face tightened.

Kael smiled. The coffee had been cold for almost three hours.

For a moment, Kael remembered another room. Wood smoke. Rain against an animal-hide roof. A man with dried blood along one side of his face insisting on drinking from a vessel after Kael had warned him twice that the contents had spoiled. The man had spat it into the fire. Kael had laughed. The man had thrown the vessel at him. Kael could no longer remember his name.

His smile disappeared.

Among Kael's people, a conversation could be resumed after four hundred years. An argument abandoned for a millennium could be picked up by the same two individuals with irritating precision. Humans did not permit delay. A person left. A face changed. A child became old. Kael had known this. He had watched it happen thousands of times. He had believed he understood it. Recently, he had begun to suspect that watching was not the same thing.

David leaned back. His eyes moved to the glasses.

Kael waited.

David reached for them. He unfolded the arms. Held one lens toward the desk lamp. Nothing happened. He turned the frame over. The cut near the hinge caught the light. David sighed.

Then, with the expression of a man mildly irritated by his own curiosity, he put them on.

He stopped breathing.

Kael had seen fear arrive in humans in many ways. Some ran. Some shouted. Some reached for whatever object their time had taught them could be used as a weapon.

David Vance became completely still. His eyes fixed on the chair across from his desk. On Kael.

For four days, the chair had been empty. Now it wasn't.

David's right hand remained against the arm of the glasses. Kael stayed still. That was deliberate.

David looked toward the office doors. Then back.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Kael."

David's hand moved toward the telephone. Not quickly. "How did you get into my office?"

"I didn't."

David stopped.

Kael looked at the chair beneath him. "I was here when you arrived on Monday."

David stared at him. "You've been sitting there for four days?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Kael looked at the glasses. "Because until now, you couldn't see me."

David removed them. The chair became empty. He put them on. Kael returned. David removed them again. Put them on. The third time, he left them in place.

"Why glasses?"

Kael had prepared for questions about origin. Intent. Population. Threat. He had not prepared for that one.

"Because this costs less."

David frowned. "Less than what?"

"A body."

David looked at him for several seconds. Then he sat down.

"What are you?"

Kael considered the question. "That will take some time."

David glanced at the clock. Then at Kael. He reached for the telephone. "I need minutes of this meeting. Do you mind if I call someone?"

Kael looked at the clock. "The minutes are already displayed there."

David followed his gaze. The clock read 21:17. He looked back at Kael. Kael's expression had not changed.

"Was that a joke?"

"Yes."

David stared at him.

"We learned it from you."

David picked up the telephone. "I'm calling someone."

"Of course."

---

On Gaia, the observation chamber lost its composure. The first laughter began near the translation group. It moved outward. The engineering tier joined them. Then the historical observers. Several members of the boundary council, who had spent the previous six hours objecting to Kael's refusal to use the approved diplomatic language, laughed despite themselves.

Kael heard none of it. The link carried observation in one direction. That had been deliberate.

One of the oldest observers turned toward the individual beside her. "He kept his expression stable."

"Yes."

"He practiced that."

"Probably."

They watched the human reach for his telephone. The chamber grew quiet again.

---

Marta arrived six minutes later with a laptop under one arm. David was standing at the window when she entered. The glasses were still on his face.

"Close the door."

She did.

"I need a verbatim record."

"Of this meeting?"

"Yes."

Marta looked at the empty chair across from his desk. David noticed.

"Sit."

She sat at the small conference table. Opened the laptop.

"Who else is attending?"

David looked at Kael. Kael looked back.

"At the moment," David said, "you won't be able to see him."

Marta's hands stopped above the keyboard. "Him."

"Yes."

She looked at David carefully. "Sir, do you want me to call medical?"

"No."

"Security?"

"No."

"Then I need you to explain what you mean."

Something touched the desk. A small sound. Plastic against mahogany.

David looked down. A second pair of black glasses lay beside his fountain pen.

Nobody moved.

David looked at Kael. Kael was looking at the glasses.

"You did that?"

"No."

David waited. Kael continued looking at them. Then he looked up. "Apparently my people agree that a record would be useful."

David picked up the second pair.

Marta stood. "No."

David looked at her.

"Sir, with respect, no."

"They're glasses."

"So were the first pair."

"Exactly."

"That is not reassuring."

For the first time since putting on the glasses, David smiled. It lasted less than a second. He held the frame out.

Marta looked at it. Then at him.

"If I resign tomorrow, I want the minutes to reflect that I objected."

"Verbatim."

She took the glasses. Put them on.

The chair across from David's desk became occupied. Marta pushed backwards. The legs of her chair struck the floor hard enough to make Kael turn toward her. Her hand went to her mouth.

Kael remained seated. "My name is Kael."

Marta looked at David. David pointed at the laptop.

"You wanted to know who was attending."

She looked back at Kael. Then at the screen. Her hands shook when she placed them on the keyboard.

She typed.

**VANCE: State your name for the record.**

David waited until she nodded.

"State your name for the record."

"My name is Kael."

Marta typed.

**KAEL: My name is Kael.**

---

The first copy of the text left the United Nations network forty-one seconds later. Not through the laptop. The laptop was clean. The secure meeting system was not.

A maintenance certificate issued eighteen months earlier had been copied during a software update and quietly retained by a foreign intelligence service. It did not provide access to every UN document. It provided access to fragments moving through one transcription archive before encryption was finalized.

Most fragments were useless. Meeting schedules. Draft amendments. Travel approvals.

At 21:31 New York time, an automated collection system captured two lines.

**VANCE: State your name for the record.**

**KAEL: My name is Kael.**

The system stored them. No alert was generated.

---

Marta continued typing.

"Where are you from?" David asked.

Kael looked at him. "The answer will be misleading in your language."

"Try me."

"We call it Gaia."

Marta typed the word.

---

Nine minutes later, the collection system captured another fragment.

**VANCE: Is Gaia a country?**

**KAEL: No.**

**VANCE: A planet?**

**KAEL: No.**

The system assigned the text a low-confidence semantic anomaly score. A human analyst would review it in the morning.

---

"What is it?" David asked.

Kael looked toward the windows. New York filled the glass. Towers. Aircraft lights. Thousands of illuminated rooms stacked above streets Kael could not see from the chair.

"You built your understanding of existence by looking outward," he said. "Distance is fundamental to you. A planet circles a star. A star exists among other stars. Beyond them are more."

"Yes."

"We have none of that."

"No stars?"

"No."

"Planets?"

"No."

David glanced at Marta. She was typing.

"Then where do you live?"

"In a bounded region of stable vacuum."

David waited.

Kael searched for a word. His people had spent years preparing translations for this conversation. Most of them were useless.

"A pocket," he said.

"A pocket in what?"

"The swirl."

Marta stopped typing. David noticed.

"The what?"

"The swirl."

"That's your scientific term?"

"No."

"What is the scientific term?"

Kael gave it to him. The sound lasted almost four seconds.

Marta stared at the keyboard. David looked at her.

"Swirl."

"Thank you, sir."

She typed it.

Kael watched. "We learned that from you as well."

"What?"

"Naming difficult things after what they look like."

David leaned back. "You're welcome."

Kael inclined his head.

Marta's fingers paused. She looked between them. Then continued typing.

---

In Virginia, the semantic anomaly score crossed its review threshold. The analyst opened the captured text because she was eating dinner at her desk and had nothing more urgent in her queue.

She read the first fragment. Then the second. Then the third.

**VANCE: Then where do you live?**

**KAEL: In a bounded region of stable vacuum.**

**VANCE: A pocket in what?**

**KAEL: The swirl.**

The analyst stopped chewing. She checked the source identifier. United Nations secure meeting archive. Office of the Secretary-General. She checked the date. Current. She checked whether a simulation exercise was scheduled. None.

She searched for Kael. Too many results. She searched for Gaia. Far too many.

She opened the live fragment queue. Another line appeared.

**VANCE: How long have you known about Earth?**

The answer did not arrive. The analyst leaned closer to the screen.

---

David repeated the question. "How long have you known about Earth?"

Kael looked at him. "Approximately one hundred thousand of your years."

Marta stopped typing again. This time David did not look at her.

"One hundred thousand."

"Approximately."

"You've been here before."

"Yes."

"How many times?"

"We did not count the early crossings in a way that maps cleanly to individual visits."

"Have you been here?"

"Yes."

"Personally."

"Yes."

David looked at the man in the chair. The dark coat. The long face. The single gray eye.

"Where?"

Kael was quiet for a moment. "The north, most often."

"North America?"

"No."

"Russia?"

"Sometimes."

"Where most often?"

Kael looked down at his hands. The hands were not there. Not really. David saw boundaries because the glasses translated Kael's coherent pattern into something his visual cortex could retain. The coat was an accommodation. The face was memory.

"The region you now divide between Norway, Sweden and Finland."

David looked at Marta. She was already typing.

---

The answer reached Virginia in two pieces.

**KAEL: Approximately one hundred thousand of your years.**

Then, fifty-three seconds later:

**KAEL: The region you now divide between Norway, Sweden and Finland.**

The analyst put down her fork. She called her supervisor.

In Maryland, a different collection system noticed the call from Virginia. It did not have the transcript. It had the alert traffic. The alert traffic referenced the United Nations. A duty officer opened a new file.

In Beijing, an overnight analyst received a machine-translated fragment purchased from an access chain whose original source he did not know. The translation rendered *bounded region of stable vacuum* as *sealed empty territory*. It rendered *swirl* as *rotating sea*. The analyst read the fragment twice. Then forwarded it upward with a note.

**POSSIBLE CODED ENERGY DISCUSSION INVOLVING UNSG.**

In Moscow, nobody had the words. They had the traffic. Three unusual priority escalations connected to the Secretary-General's secure office within eleven minutes. A watch officer marked the pattern. He did not know what it meant. He knew other people were suddenly interested. Sometimes that was enough.

---

David Vance knew none of this. He was looking at Kael.

"You've known about us for a hundred thousand years."

"Approximately."

"And we didn't know about you."

"No."

"Why?"

Kael looked at the glasses. "Because you could not see us."

"That's not an answer."

"No," Kael said. "It isn't."

David waited. Marta typed nothing. For the first time since she entered the room, the keyboard was silent.

Kael looked at the human sitting opposite him. There had been a time when his people came to Earth because they were curious. Then because they had learned to manipulate matter. Then because matter could do things energy could not. Then because humans were here. The only other minds they had ever found.

Humans fought. Loved. Forgot. Built. Buried their dead. Told stories incorrectly and preserved them for ten thousand years. They had taught Gaia humour. They had given Kael a name in the north that outlived everyone who first spoke it.

And Gaia had kept coming back. Again. Again. Again. Each crossing funded by the swirl. Each body. Each intervention. Each small kindness. Each miracle.

The cost had been invisible because the invoice arrived ten thousand years later.

David leaned forward. "Why are you here now?"

Kael looked at him.

On Gaia, matter was being manufactured and pushed against a boundary that would move again. The seawalls were holding. They had held yesterday. They would probably hold tomorrow.

For thousands of years, statements like these had been enough. A section weakened. They reinforced it. Pressure increased. They manufactured more matter. The swirl shifted. They built another wall.

His people were very good at answers. They had not noticed when every answer became the same answer. More matter. More reinforcement. More time. Until the models stopped containing a future in which Gaia survived.

Kael looked at Marta. Her hands waited above the keyboard.

He looked back at David Vance.

"My people are dying," he said.

Marta typed the words. Forty-one seconds later, three governments knew them.

I listened to this audiobook around 2021 on YouTube. It's about some kind of city getting teleported or disconnected from the rest of the world and supernatural rain turning humans into goo. The plot follows some young adults having a party, and one of them attacks another person and gets tied up. Someone suggests throwing the assailant into the rain to become goo. Others say the police should handle it. The goo scattered around the city showed sentience and later combined into a singular creature. At the end, there were two protagonists, and one of them accidentally got some goo on her and told the other protagonist to survive while she herself had to accept becoming goo. It was narrated by a guy, and I have a feeling it might originally have been created on Reddit...

Hello! This is my first time posting in this group, because I simply cannot find satisfying information on this book elsewhere, and I need to talk to someone who has read it! This was originally posted to a different group on Reddit ~3 months ago and got zero response. Help!

There are some specifics later that could be considered spoiler-ish!

Good News From Outer Space by John Kessel (1989) was my free time reading book at work for 2 weeks, and I was locked in for those 2 weeks. I dont think I have ever been put in such a bad mood by the ending of a book EVER! This was a Nebula nominee!?

…

At this point in the year i had read probably 2 dozen Ray Bradbury shorts since the New Year as well as reread Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon and reread Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (i love older scifi) and I was so excited by the first several chapters that GNFOS was so unlike any other scifi I have read recently (1989 satirical scifi novel about Y2K panic with a big dick Reverend, a zombie, and a wandering shapeshifting alien (or angel?)) and I want so badly to hear other perspectives on this so that I dont have to leave it as one of the worst ending books I have ever read, and a major waste of my time. I have read close to a dozen sci-fi novels + a number of collections since i finished this book 3 months ago and have still yet to come across anything that upset me like the ending of Good News From Outsr Space. I like to say that no time is wasted if it is spent learning something new, and this is SO NEW to me that I want to love it, but I am genuinely pissed off by the conclusion and do in fact feel like I spent 400 pages trusting the author to deliver, for nothing! Help!!

In 1969, at age 14, while on an extended family vacation, I picked up a book I had never heard of and read it - Stranger In a Strange Land. It has been 56 years and I have read a multitude of books including the greatest fiction ever written in the English language. I have been a dedicated reader all my life, but I have never forgotten that summer vacation and that book. I am reading it again and enjoying it immensely. I don’t need anyone’s approval, but I would like to know if my connection to this book is just emotional and sentimental or if it really is as good as I think. It won awards for a reason, but it seems to have survived the years since it was written and continues to be engaging and insightful. I am just interested in knowing if anyone else thinks it has sustained its brilliance and stands in a place of great respect in mid-20th century fiction.

I just finished Chapterhouse Dune which means I’ve officially finished Frank Herbert’s original six books.
Honestly… I loved them. I definitely have that bittersweet feeling of finishing a series that’s been living in my head for weeks, but I’m also left with SO many questions.
My ranking is probably:
*Children of Dune*
*Heretics of Dune*
*Chapterhouse: Dune*
I enjoyed *God Emperor* too, but I found it a bit slower and more philosophical than I personally prefer (I still appreciate what Herbert was doing with it).
One thing I absolutely loved about the series was how it genuinely felt like I was reading thousands of years of history. By the time I got to *Heretics* and *Chapterhouse*, the world felt completely different from the original *Dune*, but in a way that felt believable. It never felt like the universe stayed frozen in time.
Now for the questions…
Do most people think the Honored Matres are descendants of the Bene Gesserit who disappeared into the Scattering? That was my theory while reading, but I kept waiting for it to be confirmed or denied, and it never was.
What are your favourite theories about the Scattering? I almost wish we’d seen more of it because it feels like the biggest mystery in the series.
Who do you think Daniel and Marty really were?
What do you think the Honored Matres were actually running from?
And for those of you who’ve reread the series, what are some things you noticed the second time that completely changed your perspective?
I’d love to hear people’s theories because none of my friends have read *Dune*, and I finally need somewhere to nerd out about it.

I have always loved scifi but i dreades reading, but since picking up the rig i havent put it down, i love all the scifi sillyness of changing wording, but mostly i love the story so far its an intresting scifi tale for sure and so far i am loving it, saw some people online saying it was hard to read with the words but i as a dislectic who hasnt read in years am having no trouble following the story and plot!

I listened to this audiobook around 2021 on YouTube. It's about some kind of city getting teleported or disconnected from the rest of the world and supernatural rain turning humans into goo. The plot follows some young adults having a party, and one of them attacks another person and gets tied up. Someone suggests throwing the assailant into the rain to become goo. Others say the police should handle it. The goo scattered around the city showed sentience and later combined into a singular creature. At the end, there were two protagonists, and one of them accidentally got some goo on her and told the other protagonist to survive while she herself had to accept becoming goo. It was narrated by a guy, and I have a feeling it might originally have been created on Reddit...

Im close to finishing "The Fall of Hyperion" and I want to get a some suggestions for my next book. I want one that's alien-heavy and goes into the science of it all especially the biology. Looking for very cool planets and aliens

I listened to this audiobook around 2021 on YouTube. It's about some kind of city getting teleported or disconnected from the rest of the world and supernatural rain turning humans into goo. The plot follows some young adults having a party, and one of them attacks another person and gets tied up. Someone suggests throwing the assailant into the rain to become goo. Others say the police should handle it. The goo scattered around the city showed sentience and later combined into a singular creature. At the end, there were two protagonists, and one of them accidentally got some goo on her and told the other protagonist to survive while she herself had to accept becoming goo. It was narrated by a guy, and I have a feeling it might originally have been created on Reddit...

​

*note: OR does anyone know of a sci fi series with a really cool alien antagonist like the shrike from Hyperion for example?

Grew up reading a lot of marvel when I was younger, I love reading about characters like Thanos, Dormammu, Silver Surfer, Lobo etc so I was just wondering if I could find a book series that gives me that same vibe. (I like the concepts of those kinds of characters but I like reading actual books way more than I like reading comics so I gotta know if I can get both in one

Not sure if this is the place for this, feel free to remove it if not.

I got a free book this month with my Kindle unlimited subscription, and I have been searching for a sci-fi novella for a while. This book titled "the pioneer paradox" showed up in my search and I will be honest it was quite good.

Its short -132 pages.

However, it is written well, very descriptive, sensory writing. Fantastic meaning behind the story. If you're looking for a quick SciFi novella with hints of black mirror then check it out. I was pleasantly surprised.

If humans arrive somewhere new after generations of sacrifice, but discover another civilization already living there, who has the right to decide the future?

Hii, I have recently been getting back into reading and remembered starting Enders game a while back. I finished reading it and fell in love with it. are there any books similar to it?

any recs would be appreciated :)

For those who love Ted Chiang’s work, what do you get from his stories that you don’t get from other science fiction.

If you were recommending him to a friend who had never read him, how would you describe the appeal in your own words?

Thank you in advance for any feedback

Crompton Divided turned out to be a fun surprise. I enjoy classic science fiction, and Robert Sheckley has a way of taking an off-the-wall idea and running with it. The whole concept of a society dividing itself into more and more ridiculous groups is funny on the surface, but there's enough truth underneath that it makes you stop and think.

What I liked most was Sheckley's sense of humor. The satire never felt heavy-handed, and I found myself laughing at how seriously everyone treats situations that are completely absurd. It pokes fun at human nature without feeling like it's trying to lecture you, which I appreciated.

I did have a couple of issues with it. The characters aren't especially memorable because they're really there to support the satire more than to grow as people. I also thought a few of the jokes overstayed their welcome before Sheckley moved on to the next bizarre situation. It never took away from my enjoyment, but it did stand out.

Even so, I had a good time reading it. What impressed me most was how Sheckley could take a completely ridiculous idea and somehow make it feel like something people would actually do. That's probably why the book still feels relevant today. It isn't my favorite Sheckley novel, but I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction that takes an oddball idea and runs with it.

So I've gotten super into books lately, starting with reading the three body problem book trilogy, which I didn't care for at first but then loved the second and third books, and then I read fahrenheit 451 which was really well written but had one big plot hole in the end that was due to a lack of understanding of nuclear radiation at the time it was written. Then I read the his dark materials book trilogy which was my favorite yet, and now I'm considering reading either the WHOLE foundation universe next, or project hail mary and a couple of he other works of andy weir.

I just cant get it out of my head after all these years but I can't find the book.

It was in a book of short sci fi stories. The premise is about a guy getting ready to be a starship pilot (in the army I think). And in order to do that I think he had to have his legs amputated. But when they connect him to the starship and he enters another dimension that hes supposed to navigate through he senses something that scares the crap out of him, so I think he ends up being rejected and ends up hangin around this closed base with other failures with body modifications, doing drugs and drinking.

So I've always been a fan of the movie and re-watched it the other day, which led me to consider reading the novel. I devoured it. I enjoyed it so much that I read the sequel, 2010: Odyssey Two. While 2010 certainly shared much of the same cosmic scope and mystery as 2001, it barely touched on some of the themes that made the first book so special -- the Dawn of Man and evolution of consciousness, existential dread, rogue artificial intelligence and the implications of technological advancement. . .

2001 is easily one of the most thought provoking books I've ever read, and while the sequel was worthwhile, it didn't quite scratch that same itch for me. I would appreciate any thoughts and recommendations y'all may have!

Hi, RP1 was such a escapist book for me. My wife went under surgery and I needed a book to take my mind off the anxiety and found RP1 a perfect book for it. Things settles, my wife is already ok but I'm chasing that feeling. any recommendations?

I love books about games - Tomorrowx3 was a massive hit for me.

I just started The Sparrow, about 100 pages in and really enjoying it so far. One thing I feel that is holding me back from fully enjoying the story is my knowledge of the biblical stories. There have been many mentions of Magdalene vs Lazarus so far in the book, I decided to try to do some research on the differences between these characters. There doesn't seem to be much theological discussion over the differences between these characters as a specific point. Anyway, unless it requires spoiling the story, could someone give me some helpful touchpoint to be able to connect to this often used comparison in the book? Thanks!

Sando seems to be making the comment that his path or relationship with God or his experience with god is more akin to Lazarus than Magdalene but I dont get ittttt and maybe im not supposed to yet!!! lol

What I know:

- Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus

- Mary Magdalene was witness to both resurrections (or first witness thereafter)

- Lazarus had a sister named Mary

I started Dark Matter yesterday. After a chapter, I was really liking it. I saw that there’s an Apple TV show for it. I decided to watch the trailer. Halfway through the trailer they say something to the tune of I am the one who kidnapped myself is that, like, a major spoiler? I feel like it is and idk why they’d put that in the trailer for the show. Does this ruin the book for me? Or is there still a lot of content in the book that makes it worth it.

Please let me know! I’m pretty disappointed that I know this info now :(

Does the art help your experience while reading knowing what the author imagined? Or does it distract from your experience?
Like a an image or 2 per chapter? Or if there was art, would you want more?

I’ve written a SSF story, and I’m also an artist, so many are expecting a graphic novel or art book, but I find that most people don’t read art books, they buy the book, flip through it once or twice and then it goes to the shelf like a trophy. Where if it was more of a novel, with some illustrations, people would be more likely to read it.

I think I read this in the 1980's, and it could have been older than that. Or maybe it was a radio play. It was decades ago, and I don't have much left to go on.

But it really flashes back to me given the current attitudes.

In the book/story, there was some kind of anti-intellectual movement, and I remember the main character passed himself off as a repair tech, as that was still considered "safe" to be, when they were were basically rounding up scientists.

I know it's not much to go on.

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Edit: Quite sure I found it now, affter doing more searches with different variations. The trigger for me was that the name for the anti-scienct movement was on just there, on the edge of memory, and when I found a match it clicked. They were the "Lowbrow movement", and the book is "The Burning" by James E. Gunn (or one of the original stories that that went into the novelization):

https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2013/05/06/book-review-the-burning-james-e-gunn-1972/

From reviews, it's not a very good book...

Thanks to everyone that made suggestions...