Stuff I've Been Reading Lately Nov 2022
Aside from the Twitter madness, you mean? Not that I'm on Twitter; I use a web browser to keep up with certain writers who've turned Twitter into a microblog rather than use other sites. As with their many predecessors, Twitter seems to be following a lifecycle that's endemic to internet forums. Rise, coast, dive. Forums are a community exercise, and when they cycle into the Asshole Dominated period they rarely recover. That said, I'm not sure that I know of any examples of forums, public ones anyway, that broke out of this cycle successfully. Facebook, perhaps, but I think that they may be inan unreplicable position due to age group specifics. Who knows at this point?
Brad Delong's Slouching Toward Utopia was a good read, I learned details and emphasis that I wouldn't have otherwise known. I have quibbles, especially I think that Delong does himself a disservice in how he treats 1970-2010 due (likely) to scholar's propriety. I wonder also if, coincidentally, Delong got to 1970 or so and started second guessing the continued utility of his framing device. Still and all well worth it for a good tour of the economic history most immediately foundational to our current era.
Mati Ocha's Terra Incognita and The Transcendent Green. Apocalypse LitRPG books, I liked Mati's voice, character, pacing, and very specific, localized settings. I also like that the inherent power progression problem is also well contained here.
James Haddock's books, Stonecutter's Shadow, Hand Made Mage, and several others. There's a real variety of settings here, some overlap but really this is a writer who's happy to work in similar/same worlds but not beholden to "series" writing if he doesn't want to be. That said, Cast Down World is explicitly labeled as Book One, and that's a setting that I look forward to returning to.
Dave Turner's How To Be Dead series was good... though now I think about it I might have already said that. If I did, it's still a good series!
As I look through the rest of my as-read calendar I don't see any others sticking out. Eh, the To-Be-Read has a T. Kingfisher book I haven't dug into yet, a Joe Hill book with unbent corners... I think that's about enough for now, I've got some stories calling me. Later.
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Please keep it on the sane side. There are an awful lot of places on the internet for discussions of politics, money, sex, religion, etc. etc. et bloody cetera. In this time and place, let us talk about something else, and politely, please.