Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division • Hacker News Board

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#211

Post by sph » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 12:36 PM UTC

ljm wrote: post #196

mjg2 wrote: post #87

I just finished this book and complained about it the whole time. The prose is amateur and peppered with cliches (e.g. you should be fined for publishing the phrase "their suit was so sharp it could cut"). His attempt to write about the inner thoughts of the characters was pretty simple. The descriptions of violence and horror also felt child-like, especially the dialogue during those moments (e.g. Redd's introductio…

I'm a huge fan of SCP, or at least early day SCP. The problem I've found with a number of the longer form sagas is that they tend to rely on world-ending apocalyptic events (which really does get boring, it's not high stakes any more) and are heavily anime-coded. The authors do put in a great deal of effort, which is laudable, but it does make me wonder if the writing style and story telling is a deliberate choice, o…

Tangential but that is exactly my problem with Warhammer 40K. I want to get into its lore so bad, but I feel every event is a catastrophe of galactic proportions that somehow is even worse than the previous one that I just am unable to suspend my disbelief. Yeah it’s meant to be over the top, but you can’t start a story at 11 and make people care when you turn it up to 12 and then 13.

The amateur fantasy writers that write this stuff have no concept of contrast and dynamics.

(I have enjoyed qntm’s book, but it lost me towards the end. The concept of antimemetics is one of the most fascinating in science fiction that is still worth exploring)

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#212

Post by pitched » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 12:37 PM UTC

woolion wrote: post #191

I have been thinking a lot about a notion of self-paradoxical knowledge, meaning knowledge that actively makes your reasoning worse. For example, knowledge of extremely rare diseases causes the mind to over-evaluate their importance by many orders of magnitude (there are many variants of this effect). Or trying to explain some concepts of the object/subject construction tend to use a language that is grounded on the…

The opposite of this is also fascinating to me too. There are false beliefs that make people who hold them better in some metrics. Like, the idea that hard work leads to success. We all know there is some element of luck, but even so, people who discount luck and only believe in hard work tend to do better.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#213

Post by weberer » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:04 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #76

doug_durham wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the book and at no time did I think "Christianity". It seems like motivated reasoning on your part. At no time did the book ever preach, or was even moralistic.

I'm referring to the ending of the published version, which is quite different than v1, which ends abburptly, in particular the sections before and after: > “She steps back from him. She flexes what could be wings.” > “In ideatic space everything is possible and everything is real and every metaphor is apt. She sees a galaxy of shining points: people, all the people who have ever existed, packed almost densely enough…

It sounds more like it was inspired by Chris-chan's Dimensional Merge than anything from the bible.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#214

Post by specproc » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:31 PM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #129

mjg2 wrote: post #87

I just finished this book and complained about it the whole time. The prose is amateur and peppered with cliches (e.g. you should be fined for publishing the phrase "their suit was so sharp it could cut"). His attempt to write about the inner thoughts of the characters was pretty simple. The descriptions of violence and horror also felt child-like, especially the dialogue during those moments (e.g. Redd's introductio…

Do you have any recommendations for science fiction books that explore interesting ideas? There is no Antimemetics Division was really interesting in how some of the scenarios play out. I don't read much but I've been trying to do that more. I really liked the book. Things like the memory consuming entity, async research, etc I enjoyed.

Exploring "interesting ideas" is kinda broad, but I find Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, and Iain [M.] Banks all packed full of stuff that gets the noodle baking.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#215

Post by lxgr » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

mjg2 wrote: post #87

I just finished this book and complained about it the whole time. The prose is amateur and peppered with cliches (e.g. you should be fined for publishing the phrase "their suit was so sharp it could cut"). His attempt to write about the inner thoughts of the characters was pretty simple. The descriptions of violence and horror also felt child-like, especially the dialogue during those moments (e.g. Redd's introductio…

> Overall, I think the author relies too much on a vocal fandom around the SCP Foundation to glorify the book.

The author has self-published several other short stories and novels completely unrelated to the SCP wiki long before this was released (either in SCP or this book form).

> The prose is amateur and peppered with cliches

From a literary point of view, maybe so (and probably even more so for his older works), but I guess I'm just that bothered by things like that, and/or the ideas presented more than make up for it for me.

"Ra" is one of my all-time favorite books.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#216

Post by lxgr » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:38 PM UTC

endymion-light wrote: post #198

mindcrime wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glasshouse[1] by Charles Stross Permutation City[2] by Greg Egan We Are Legion (We Are Bob)[3] by Dennis E. Taylor Halting State[4] by Charles Stross Singularity Sky[5] by Charles Stross Dungeon Crawler Carl[6] by Matt Dinniman Zero World[7] by Jason M. Hough The Shockwave Rider[8] by John Brunner [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_(novel) [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City [3]: https://ww…

Disagree for dungeon crawler carl & any of the Bobiverse - while they're fine books, wouldn't class it in the category of interesting ideas, it's just pop fiction. I'd look at the following: Hyperion Book One (For the book style + ideas throughout the short stories - you only need to read book one) Solaris, Lem (What would an alien intelligence truly look like, especially in planet size scales, really interesting the…

My hard disagree on the Bobiverse as well. Feels like the typical book I ought to like based on my interests and the other things I like, but the ideas somehow fall way, way short of qntm's writing.

And +1 on "Annihilation" – I started reading that to another recommendation for "books similar to TINAD" here and basically couldn't put it down. The similarity is purely based on mood, though – don't expect an actually similar novel in terms of ideas and presentation.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#217

Post by lxgr » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:41 PM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #193

gravypod wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any recommendations for science fiction books that explore interesting ideas? There is no Antimemetics Division was really interesting in how some of the scenarios play out. I don't read much but I've been trying to do that more. I really liked the book. Things like the memory consuming entity, async research, etc I enjoyed.

I'd try Ted Chiang's anthology of short stories: Stories of Your Life and Others.

Also his second anthology!

In terms of ideas, Chiang and qntm are a tie for absolute favorite for me. I've probably thought about each individual short story more than about some entire series or multi-season TV shows in combination.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#218

Post by lxgr » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #11

HardwareLust wrote: post #4

Good timing, the Kindle version is $1.99 right now.

Please don't 'buy' digital items from Amazon, because you won't actually own them. Pay extra, support your local bookshop and get a physical copy which you will actually own.

I'd love to support the author more directly and "actually own" the ebook, but I have absolutely no interest in physical/printed books.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#219

Post by lxgr » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

sublinear wrote: post #14

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't 'buy' digital items from Amazon, because you won't actually own them. Pay extra, support your local bookshop and get a physical copy which you will actually own.

Amazon allows EPUB downloads for publishers that have chosen to go DRM-free.

This particular book does not seem to be sold DRM-free.

Re: Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

#220

Post by woolion » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

pitched wrote: post #212

woolion wrote: post #191

I have been thinking a lot about a notion of self-paradoxical knowledge, meaning knowledge that actively makes your reasoning worse. For example, knowledge of extremely rare diseases causes the mind to over-evaluate their importance by many orders of magnitude (there are many variants of this effect). Or trying to explain some concepts of the object/subject construction tend to use a language that is grounded on the…

The opposite of this is also fascinating to me too. There are false beliefs that make people who hold them better in some metrics. Like, the idea that hard work leads to success. We all know there is some element of luck, but even so, people who discount luck and only believe in hard work tend to do better.

That's a good point. I think this one can be easily be resolved on a factual level, since hard work is one of the few variables you can actually control. But it is more interesting from an emotional point of view, since in many cases that would an article of faith with the implicit fear that it might not be true.

There are variations of this, such as composition theory in art getting good results based on completely false assumptions, but these tend to fall under epistemic underdetermination.