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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3549 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 16, 2022

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I tried to read A Fire Upon The Deep when I was a teenager and couldn't get into it. From memory the writing quality veered from fantastic to awful and back again and the plot didn't hook me, so I moved on. But I had different sensibilities back then, so I'll give it another go.

Blindsight I haven't read because when it came out all I heard about it was "space vampires!" and so I put it in the category of Brian Lumley style shlock (which I love sometimes, but it isn't what I'm looking for right now) and forgot about it. But you have sold me on it too, if you think it meets that challenge!

Watts' slideshow on vampire biology is what sold me that it wasn't schlock... but hunting that link down now I can only find the original Flash format. He has an appendix with some material in the same vein but that's loaded with spoilers.

AFotD has a sequel with problems (not nearly as interesting) and a prequel with very different problems (the horror bits are horrifying but very personal and not at all cosmic) but I had zero complaints about the first book... which you should probably take as a warning sign; your tastes and mine may just differ too much for my recommendations to be useful for you.

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