Two Weeks Left Edition>Old:>>24936611>Recommended reading charts (Look here before asking for vague recs):https://mega.nz/folder/kj5hWI6J#0cyw0-ZdvZKOJW3fPI6RfQ/folder/4rAmSZxb>Archive:https://warosu.org/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg>Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffg
>>24951209>Proper NOVELS are rare in Japanese publishing.Pretty grim.
>>24951209>and illustrations.interestingly it's a way of making money for artists beyond just covers
>>24951190>>24951181>>24951195>>24951209thank you for enlighting me
>>24951216it's not better or worse, just a different market. it should be noted novels that get translated to japanese don't transform into light novels so it's just native works.
>>24951216Just a sign of where the money is. Japan had a big novel-publishing industry in the 20th century, but it's mostly shifted gears toward light novels and web novels since that's what people are reading.
Do Tolkiendrones realize that fantasy existed before Lord of the Rings and that it suffered greatly from Big Fat Fantasy and other sloppy derivatives that grew like viruses from Tolkien's wen? https://voca.ro/1Rwc7lMX0hfT
>>24949708>christian author being better at creating things>the thing in qustion being genreslop for manchildrenKek
>>24948235*Techno-fascism or the industrial age. He's kind of like uncle Ted like this.
>>24951130Ted was a nutter, a primativist. Tolkien was merely nostalgic for a slightly earlier era of civilization, before rapacious expansion and greed caused it to fall completely out of balance with nature. Ted would've turned his dissatisfaction with society toward Tolkien's ilk after the industrialists were all dead. I'd argue Tolkien was not even anti-progress, he simply did not like the way industry had become an all-devouring engine that demolished the world around it. Thoughtless, heedless progress was something he wrote against. Comes up again and again.
>>24951176Ted wasn't crazy. His influence of course was Ellul. Not sure what Tolkien may have thought of him, but his thoughts seem to me to be inspired by some socialist thoughts of his youth, notably from William Morris' News From Nowhere. Which has a rather Shire like description of London in the early 21st century IF a revolution had happened a hundred years before.Why I said "like uncle Ted"
>he wrote an epic in an elevated style>he's not inclusive>he promotes hierarchies and aristocracy>he believes in objective truth and natural rights>he wrote that fantasy isn't just escapism>THAT IS A REVOLTING IDEAI laughed so hard. Seethe harder.
I just finished reading Journey to the West for a book report. holy shit Chinese books are awesome. Does anyone have the china /lit/ recommendations?
>>24948810Give it a rest man. This "poetry can't be translated" thing has been a dead end non-point for centuries. Just read some. Read this, for example.
>>24947522YOU UYGURYOU HAN HATE FIERCEWHY YOU ARWAYS FUCKING RATE
>>24948830I didn't say it's impossible, but it's a lot harder and more subjective.
>>24947522Yu Hua's To Live is one of the best chinese books ever, it has been in top 10 monthly bestsellers in china for like last 30 years and it is great for learning chinese. It's been nicknamed 'Chinese Forrest Gump', but it is much better and does not rely on 'epic reference' basedjak writing.Red Sorghum by Mo Yen is another modern classic, but it is far more experimental in it's non-linear narrative that is like some kind of collective flow of mind.The two books also cover similar time period - sino-japanese war and early communist times (To Live starts earlier and goes further).Start with these - they are basically an equivalent of starting american literature with Hemingway, Steinbeck and Firzgerald (which most do) - classics but not ancient. Like when you want to get into british literature you do not start with Beowulf or Canterbury Tales.Sure knowing Confucius and Lao Tse will make those two books (especially To Live) better, but they are good even without it.
>>24947877in other words, no understanding at all?
thoughts on this guy?
>>24949859he's ehhh rather poekay
>>24949859Incredibly underrated. In American literature there is Melville and Poe and no third fiddle.
>>24950104Emerson.
>>24950104Clark Ashton Smith
>>24951192I think by "American Literature" he meant something other than this quick decent into dime store schlock of the ages>Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Clarke Ashton Smith, William Moulton Marston, Chuck Tingle.More the greats of an age.>Melville, Darwin, NietzscheBut of course a region as well>Meleville, Emerson, Whitman.
Would anyone be interested in participating? Seems like a nice alternative to Wikipedia reading
Desperately reconcile with your irredeemable faith, sheep.
>>24951057Because thats what atheists do. Most are social progressives afraid of being called racist.
>>24951083This level of bad faith armchair psychology around atheism is a cope for how absurd it is to believe that the creator of everything is your friend that you can talk to at all times and thinks you're his special boy. Saying that atheists aren't critical of Islam is also just insanely retarded, same goes for your statement about religion not being an important issue.
>>24948329Why are anglos so fucking despicable bros?
>>24951165You tell me Achmed
>>24951164>And if you say it isn't we will kill youYou forgot to post the gigachad bro
Apparently there’s a phenomenon in American high schools right now of not assigning full novels to students, but only having them read excerpts. I graduated a decade ago, and I distinctly remember us reading Gatsby and Slaughterhouse Five. What novels, if any, were you made to read in high school?
>>24951097Slaughterhouse Five, Great Gatsby, Tale of Two Cities, a few Shakespeare plays, a few really awful contemporary lit novels, As I Lay Dying, Moby Dick, a number of other ones I can't remember. Senior year was pretty much all poetry and for that we did read from anthologies instead of published poetry books. Freshman year was the only year they focused on essays over novels but we always read complete works as opposed to excerpts.
>>24951097The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, Huckleberry Finn, The Outsiders, Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice & Men, The Grapes of Wrath, Old Man and the Sea, Catcher in the Rye, Fahrenheit 451, Ethan Frome, The Call of the Wild... That's what I remember, but I might be mixing middle and high school together. Of all those, Hawthorne and Steinbeck are far and away the best.>Where Hawthorne is known, he seems to be deemed a pleasant writer, with a pleasant style,--a sequestered, harmless man, from whom any deep and weighty thing would hardly be anticipated:--a man who means no meanings. But there is no man, in whom humor and love, like mountain peaks, soar to such a rapt height, as to receive the irradiations of the upper skies;--there is no man in whom humor and love are developed in that high form called genius; no such man can exist without also possessing, as the indispensable complement of these, a great, deep intellect, which drops down into the universe like a plummet. Or, love and humor are only the eyes, through which such an intellect views this world. The great beauty in such a mind is but the product of its strength.>In treating of Hawthorne, or rather of Hawthorne in his writings (for I never saw the man; and in the chances of a quiet plantation life, remote from his haunts, perhaps never shall) in treating of his works, I say, I have thus far omitted all mention of his "Twice Told Tales," and "Scarlet Letter." Both are excellent, but full of such manifold, strange and diffusive beauties, that time would all but fail me, to point the half of them out. But there are things in those two books, which, had they been written in England a century ago, Nathaniel Hawthorne had utterly displaced many of the bright names we now revere on authority. But I content to leave Hawthorne to himself, and to the infallible finding of posterity; and however great may be the praise I have bestowed upon him, I feel, that in so doing, I have more served and honored myself, than him. For at bottom, great excellence is praise enough to itself; but the feeling of a sincere and appreciative love and admiration towards it, this is relieved by utterance; and warm, honest praise ever leaves a pleasant flavor in the mouth; and it is an honorable thing to confess to what is honorable in others.
>>24951097This is what I remember reading. I'm sure there were a few others.>To Kill a Mockingbird>Lord of the Flies>Frankenstein>The Adventures of Tom Sawyer>1984>The Jungle, Sinclair>The Great Gatsby>The Trial>My Antonia, Cathar>Out Stealing Horses, Petterson>Harrison BergeronComment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>What makes you think you're good enough to write a book?
>>24949843The publishing industry is probably one of the best examples of this too.
I like the smell of my own arts
>>24949126So kind of you to grace us with your presence, your Majesty.
>>24948669SIR! I got a 5 on the AP language and literature exams. SIR!
>>24948669Typical heathead thing to say.Anyone can write a book. Is it good enough to be read is the decision others can make for themselves.
Been thinking about making a story about a pred catching duo (male and female) who lure them into their home and kill them. I have almost everything planned, so much so that I could probably do it myself if I had a petite woman
>>24950367I have literally never written a story before. The last book I read was in highschool, if you don't count the OPM manga. I was considering this would be a short story, where they would eventually get caught because real justice > vigilantism and all that. What are some flaws you see in the plan? This plan is something I've been thinking about for a long time (except the disposing of the body)
>>24950393that's the real reason post-modernist literature exists. you can add a bunch of whacky techniques and subplots and make your story-telling seem original
>>24950397These aren't problems with storytelling or writing, they're logical problems resulting from lack of research and foresight. There's a lot of ways for poisoning someone to go wrong, and if and when it does, it's going to go very wrong. Relying on lemonade as the only delivery method is a horrible idea. Not everyone will trust you, not everyone is going to want lemonade, not everyone will finish it. They would need something highly toxic and extremely fast acting in very small doses and preferably tasteless. Misjudging someone's weight or metabolic rate, a slow acting agent, something with a foul or distinct taste or odor can all be disastrous. Ideally they would want something common in a household that doesn't require identification or raise any eyebrows at purchase. Poisoning also creates a situation with a lot of evidence to cleanup, they're going to vomit. If you know anything about cleaning fabrics, you know you're only ever cleaning the surface. Incapacitating them with rhohypnol and dispatching them another way would be an altogether better choice, but even that's not foolproof. What happens when it does go wrong? What happens when they realize they're being poisoned and try to run out onto the lawn or call 911? What's the petit young woman going to do about it with the man circling the block? What happens if the target figures it out and attacks her, or if that's what he came for in the first place? The options aren't great. That's why when you watch To Catch A Predator for example, they are operating in a highly controlled environment. There's a production team and cops in the house and a whole SWAT team outside. They've got one guy driving around. If they have to defend themselves, if they have to stab him or shoot him, then what? They're going to alert the neighbors probably. If they don't they still have a near impossible mess to clean up. And where is this all happening anyway? Hotels and motels are no good, too many cameras, too many witnesses. An Airbnb that requires a real name and payment information and probably has cameras of its own? Their own house surrounded by nosy neighbors with hd ring cams? Do they keep doing it in the same place, drawing attention to their behaviors? Do they keep moving around, creating patterns for investigators to potentially follow? There's only so far they can travel while maintaining normal lives.And the whole Uber thing is going to smell fishy to at least some of them. The ones that take the bait are going to be the dumb ones. You have another very big problem with not knowing who your target is in this scenario. What if they're a cop or someone that can handle themselves? What if they're a judge or politician, someone high profile that's going to be missed? A chatroom screen name doesn't tell them anything, they're not going to give their name out. They won't know who they're dealing with until they're in the car, if they know at all.
>>24950397>>24950475These are all serious problems, and it's by no means and exhaustive list, but none of these are the biggest problem.What happens when they target somebody that's being surveilled by law enforcement or the feds? A local cop or judge is one thing, at least the investigation will be behind them somewhat. But someone that's being actively surveilled? They might move on the meetup. Then they're under a lot of scrutiny, the kind that can request their phone's location data and financial records for the last twelve months. And that's not even to mention the problem of disposing the bodies. These can work as plot points, but I would strongly suggest closing the loop on some of them so it doesn't just look sloppy.
>>24950326Americans will call the cops on you for a guy who is 22 to marry a 17 year old both as virgins but the moment she turns 18 let her go to college and sleep around until she is 30
What the FUCK was Stephen King thinking?
i always felt like stephen kings stories were always creepypasta scp tier bullshit that would barely fly on some 2000s internet forum for tweens retards. why is he so lauded, exactly?
>>24946769Age of consent is 14 in most of Europe. The girl in the book didn't reach puberty yet and if I recall doesn't even have a 2 digit age yet. Only literal Muslims would excuse this with 9 year Olds being considered "old enough"
>>24950724He is one of the first writers that had a bigger "expanded connected universe" throughout all of his novels. It's now overdone and a cliche to have a bigger universe throughout all your works but Stephen King started his in the 70s. So especially with the dark tower series where he wraps up the narrative it's seen as one huge interconnected story which makes Gen x piss and shit their pants with hype.His writing is very dated and if you don't like his particular style he's not going to stick with you. He has written so much stuff that you will most likely love at least one of his books.I loved the long walk and "under the dome" as they are pretty brutal with unique concepts and good character writing.But yeah there are no illusions that he isn't an actual pedophile. He literally shits on Trump every day EXCEPT for the epstein files, where suddenly he is pro-trump and against releasing the files. Dude fucks kids.
>>24950794That's not quite what he said. He said there are no "files" or "a list". He didn't say the list exists but shouldn't be released.Anyway he spent most of his time in Maine. Do we have proof Epstein ever visited Maine?
>>24933857Libtards have higher average IQs than right-wingers
Is this the life all incels are so envious of? Truth is, most marriages were and still are much of hate towards the partner, if there is no passion to be found. And that happens for almost all couples if the other one is mentally unstable or otherwise literal child in a grown up body. Stoner was too good for Edith, but also a total loser for simping for her in the first place. They ruined each others lives and just kept going on with it. Also ruined the life of their child and made them an alcoholic. Can't tell if that life would be better than being without pussy desu (which Stoner did for most of his life anyway). So the question now is, how – if anyhow – should a man of intelligence pursue women? Just fuck a college pussy for a semester and be reminiscent of it for a lifetime like Stoner did?
>>24951006Feminism ruined Stoner. Two decades in the past and he could've just put his psycho flapper wife in the loony bin and continued fucking his student, marry her, and keep his kid.
>>24951009Hard if. Men still in the current age are facing trouble getting custody for their child. Even if the mother is psychotic, she has greater chance of having the child (if there is no alcohol or substance use).
>>24951006> should a man of intelligence pursue women?There's no "should", just do whatever the hell you want and think is best.Personally, I tried it once, it was too much work and too much drama, I got dumped, sobbed about it for a year, then accepted it and have been going it alone since (about 6 years now). So far it's been OK.
>>24951131Doing "whatever the hell you want" leads to unfortunate situations, like what happened to you, me, Stoner or any other fool that trusted "love" whole heartily. Quote from the book: >... the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know anotherI interpret the quote that people change and you should too. But the thing is, shouldn't we try to aim for love that will not hurt us later on in life?
>>24951006As far as I’m concerned, all marriage is “gay” marriage.
>another mid whore catapulted into fame and fortune for existing That's it. This has gone too far, the woman problem HAS to be addressed now. Simping is an epidemic that is destroying society and it's only going to get worse.
>>24950979The hot ones
>>24949478The third world gained access to the internet, and their men are basically monkeys who only recently figured out how to find porn on the internet
>>24950979300k salary>B-BUT MUH DIKjerk off
>>24948168The Bell Jar is fantastic, don't let the seething misogynists on this board tell you otherwise.
>>24950979Everyone top except rightmost has potential. I would fuck them as is, but imagine the glow if they were barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and had better haircuts and overall styling. No, anyone who picks bottom is a retard and brown.
2025 is almost over. What's the best book you read this year?
>>24947326I'm convinced Pynchon personally visits this site and writes all of these. When he passes the shilling will end
>>24947281Post Captain, #2 in O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin series. I went into it as a Seaman interested in nautical tales but honestly it's such a good book on its own merits in the humour and representation of Napoleonic era society and seafaring. Much less gay than Moby dick, which is a worth a lot.
>>24949328Could be more psychological, but the books relies too much on humour that may be funny only on boomer standards. Rare case where the movie is actually better than the book.
>>24947281Best one so far is Stoner of Great Gatsby, though can't remember if I read Steppenwolf actually this year, and that might be the best one if so.>>24947341Currently reading this but will not finish before next year. But great book. Really captivating style of writing.
Probably...either Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke or UBIK by Philip K. Dick.
The best I've read this year
I started reading it after reading a review for it in a New Scientist. I'm roughly around 20%
A downloaded LLM is a magic cube—a small encyclopedia that is yours forever. Prompt it, and the cube, a massive list of numbers, unfolds itself into coherent meaning. There is a romantic ingenuity to this artifact. Even after civilization ends, you can still carry it with you—this little cube that echoes the ensemble of human thought. Talking to it is like striking a tuning fork; the harmonies were once our humanity.And while it may not yet think like a human, this pinnacle of technology is more than a work of art. It is the memory of humanity itself.
>yetkek, but nah. you technofags disgust me.
I feel you, my brother in pootruly the pinnaclest achieving of humanity
>>24950411that's not how LLMs work
>>24950411>>24950829What is an LLM?
>>24951102what people are incorrectly calling AI these daysthe way predictive text works on your phone is that it looks at the pattern and frequency of the sort of things you type. if you often say "be right back" then over time typing "be" will prompt it to suggest "right" and then "back" because there's a strong association with those wordsLLMs - Large Language Models - is identical to this, but instead of 'training' it on one person, it's trained on data from many, many sources. so when you ask it a question, or give it an instruction, it looks at what sort of words are strongly associated with that question and then chains them together best it canit can't reason, or come up with new ideas. because it operates on the basis of "most probably right" then it can get tons of things wrong simply because it rolled the dice wrong, or the thing in question is more esoteric than "what's a recipe for bread?"
