91–100 of 110 posts
The latest version of the book distances itself from the source material (a good decision imo): The SCP Foundation. It's an extremely interesting project, with some parallels to FOSS. I wonder if there are other joint literary projects of similar scale.
I jumped into the book after hearing all the buzz as it seemed like the big scifi hit of 2025. Killer premise and for the most part the fast pacing works... for the first third or so. But it you can feel the short story anthology vibe as it goes on and becomes practically a disconnected series of vignettes, and even the central idea itself loses cohesion. The Big Bad Thing has so many manifestations that it feels lik…
"The Big Bad Thing has so many manifestations that it feels like monster of the week rather than a true full book that holds onto a core sharply executed identity." This is one of the structural weaknesses in the entire SCP... motif, for lack of a better word. When a core part of the premise is "you can't understand it, not even in principle, if you think you understand it you're wrong", the premise does some fairly…
>With this sort of story, as a reader you are putting all your chips on the setting. Going in to this sort of work you should expect the conventional measures of a story to at least take a hit, and in many cases a fairly large one. And of course, if that's not what you want, then you're not going to enjoy it and I have no problem with that.
Where I would challenge that as it relates to TINAMD is I am not sure it fully succeeds even against this basic bargain. By contrast I would note Annihilation which is exactly as you describe, light on characters and plot and entirely about setting, and I think it sticks the landing on those terms in ways this book could have. But still, love its premise, love the traction its getting and I think the healthier way to engage with it is to cheer it on for its successes, which are significant.
I jumped into the book after hearing all the buzz as it seemed like the big scifi hit of 2025. Killer premise and for the most part the fast pacing works... for the first third or so. But it you can feel the short story anthology vibe as it goes on and becomes practically a disconnected series of vignettes, and even the central idea itself loses cohesion. The Big Bad Thing has so many manifestations that it feels lik…
My experience of the book was similar: the first third was great. Great idea, brilliantly executed. Definitely worth it for the first third alone. In a way, maybe it going off-piste is coherent with the idea of the first third. I'm sure this was not the author's intent, but fun from an ironic perspective.
It makes me think of the movie Doubt, where I remember being sincerely confused as to the central accusation at the center of the movie (though retrospectively its obvious and I knew it was at least one possibility but I wasn't sure if there was perhaps a different interpretation), and was told that not being sure was the point and by expecting an answer I was missing the point since the whole movie is about "doubt". I felt this explanation was, frankly, just stupid. Just because you're going meta doesn't mean any point coherently registered in the form of meta-analysis is insightful. But anyway, I'm off the rails a bit now going after imaginary adversaries, but agree with everything you've said.
I jumped into the book after hearing all the buzz as it seemed like the big scifi hit of 2025. Killer premise and for the most part the fast pacing works... for the first third or so. But it you can feel the short story anthology vibe as it goes on and becomes practically a disconnected series of vignettes, and even the central idea itself loses cohesion. The Big Bad Thing has so many manifestations that it feels lik…
It definitely needed an editor to help them polish it up. It's funny though, I read it a year or two ago while I was in the middle of I Am A Strange Loop by Hofstadter and I'm positive the author of TiNAD had just read IAASL when they wrote it...People essentially being memes explained through loss of a partner, Prokofiev making a conspicuous appearance, and strange loopiness in general. It was weird, like the author…
And it doesn't diminish how fantastic the rest of the book us up to that point. In the age of almost-AGI and renewed debates on consciousness we need the likes of Hofstadter more than ever.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the story is written in a much better way than this video presents it: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/we-need-to-talk-about-fifty-fiv... I know it's not polite to armchair-critique a thing I could never have created myself, but I don't think this is a particularly good adaptation of this story. One change, I think, completely robs it of some of its impact, and I would have handled something else differently as…
> One change, I think, completely robs it of some of its impact Which one? One thing I didn't like from this adaptation is that the thought-devouring idea doesn't live inside Wheeler's mind, like in the story. They made it into a CGI blob. But I suppose the story is confusing enough, so making it invisible would have been too much.
Gur PTV oybo jnf gur ovttrfg bssraqre, V guvax. Znevba'f crg fubhyq arire unir orra ivfvoyr ba pnzren, vg ybfrf arneyl nyy bs vgf zlfgvdhr, NAQ vg fubhyqa'g or "phgr". Fur unf vg ba n yrnfu, ohg vg'f fgvyy n irel qnatrebhf FPC! Vg fubhyqa'g or ebyyvat nebhaq yvxr n phgr yvggyr OO8 rdhvinyrag.
V guvax gur glcr bs ivrjre jub vf jngpuvat na nqncgngvba bs guvf fgbel jbhyq unir qrnyg jvgu vg svar.
Frpbaqnevyl, V xabj gung Pynl "zvffrq" uvf qbfr, ohg ur jnf fgvyy tncvat ng ure crg yvxr ur'q arire frra na FPC orsber va uvf yvsr, yvxr ur jnf gur arjovr orvat vagebqhprq gb guvatf. Juvpu qbrf znxr fbzr frafr va guvf pbagrkg, ohg ur'f fgvyy njner gung ur'f n irel fravbe bssvpvny ng gur FPC sbhaqngvba. Vg whfg qbrfa'g zngpu uvf punenpgrevmngvba ng nyy.
Guveqyl - naq guvf vf zl zbfg crggl pbzcynvag - vs V jrer gur jevgre/qverpgbe bs guvf, V jbhyqa'g unir unq uvf "nffvfgnag" chg njnl uvf tha orsber fur fgbyr vg. V jbhyq unir phg sebz n fprar bs uvz nvzvat gur tha ng ure, onpx gb gur erfg bs gur fprar sbe n ovg, naq gura onpx gb uvz jvgubhg gur tha. Vg'f zber vzcerffvir gb fgrny n tha bhg bs fbzrbar'f unaqf guna vg vf bhg bs n ubyfgre.
EDIT: saw other comments here mentioning that I am not expected to get this without lots of prior reading.
I jumped into the book after hearing all the buzz as it seemed like the big scifi hit of 2025. Killer premise and for the most part the fast pacing works... for the first third or so. But it you can feel the short story anthology vibe as it goes on and becomes practically a disconnected series of vignettes, and even the central idea itself loses cohesion. The Big Bad Thing has so many manifestations that it feels lik…
My experience with the book became a bit meta. I greatly enjoyed the first half or so of it. Though it did start to feel a little repetitive after a while. But I couldn't get past the first half because all the black line "redactions" started making my Kindle unstable. First time I've seen an ebook's formatting crash the device. Eventually gave up because of the constant slowdowns and crashes. Which in many ways fit…
I jumped into the book after hearing all the buzz as it seemed like the big scifi hit of 2025. Killer premise and for the most part the fast pacing works... for the first third or so. But it you can feel the short story anthology vibe as it goes on and becomes practically a disconnected series of vignettes, and even the central idea itself loses cohesion. The Big Bad Thing has so many manifestations that it feels lik…
I read it based on a reddit search for 'good sci fi books' and that's it. Going in with no hype or expectations and I thought it was great. PS. HNers, any good sci-fi book recommendations?
As for best sci fi books I’ve read in a while: The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch (think sci fi meets True Detective) - some awesome concepts here and really strong pacing. The other one was Version Control by Dexter Palmer which is a bit slower and more subtle sci fi (big concepts presented in a personal drama style of book)