That was playing red dead redemption 2 for me
Nah, I have to settle for sex instead. :'(
Dungeon Crawler Carl for all you video game nerds. Listen to the audiobook…
I’m lying. I’ve reread it multiple times and picked up new things each run.
I started reading this series on your recommendation, and fuck you. I usually read to go to sleep, and it’s so entertaining that it’s keeping me awake all night. I’m exhausted. :)
Easily my favorite thing I’ve ever read.
There’s Cradle too, not as “video gamey” but it’s a very easy read, almost feels like a shonen manga/anime.
You can enjoy the rereads while knowing that the first read is a unique experience!
I’m lying. I’ve reread it multiple times and picked up new things each run.
Treating DCC like NetHack, I can dig it.
The problem with DCC is the next book isn’t written yet :(
So you get that prolonged feeling with each new book. Same with he who fights monsters- another decent LitRPG series.
Literally just finished my first re-read last night.
This is how I feel about playing Outer Wilds.
Did you play with a mouse and keyboard? I started it on my PC and it said it needed a controller. So instead I switched to my Steam Deck, but I felt like the small screen wasn’t doing it justice, so I stopped.
Been meaning to pick it back up again.
Coming from someone who primarily games on Mouse/Keyboard, controller just feels better, but Mouse/Keyboard shouldn’t ruin the experience at all.
Honestly you can play it with keyboard and mouse no problem. Don’t let it prevent you from playing!
Controller all the way.
I think it’s mostly the zero-G and ship controls where it matters.
I came to the comments just to say this. I’m glad I’m not the only one
Fffffuuuuuu you both beat me to it. I try to get others to play it so I can live vicariously through their amazement! Bought it on Steam for a gaming buddy and for my brother on Switch.
I need to play this. I get the same feelings with RPGs or really good open world games. Would love to add another to the list
That is outer worlds. Op said outer wilds. You are going to be disappointed (or maybe happy) if you pick up one thinking its the other lol.
Any interesting sci Fi or magic/fantasy books that did this to you? I’m looking for something new!
Robin Hobb’s assassin series
Sanderson’s big fantasy series right now, the stormlight archive. Oh my god, each book is just made to make you get drawn deeper, and deeper until you hit the end. The gap between the first and second book was so freaking long to wait. I think we’re up to book five now, so you don’t have to have that feeling for a while.
Alternatively, if you like blue fantasy (talking animals and wise spirit guides that help sometimes hapless humans), mercedes lackey did great things with her heralds of valdemar series. I’d actually recommend jumping into it at a later point because her writing greatly improved from the first trilogy. You could start with magic’s pawn/promise/price, which has one of the earliest depictions of lgbt protagonists I ever read.
If you like more ‘earthy’ fantasy, the wit’chfire series (actual series name, banned and the banished) by james clemens (who I just found out is a pseudonym for a sci-fi author who didn’t want to be ‘smeared’ as a fantasy author and has some other good books when i googled for the name) is really good. Don’t start his other series, because even though it was fantastic, it’s never going to be finished. I think we’re at like 30 years now and never gotten the third book.
And then there’s the big one, the bold one, the ‘start you off so small and build you into a great, grand sweeping epic’ jim butcher series: the codex alera. The first book was riveting from start to finish. I actually think it was the best one, because the worldbuilding was just so sublime. I loved the characters more and more with each added book, but the magic of the beginning was just amazing.
Oooh, I love talking animal series, a guilty pleasure of mine. I read and loved A Fire Upon the Deep and was devastated to learn the author passed away before finishing the series.
That series is genuinely through provoking sci-fi, though some elements do require a bit of suspension of disbelief. Honestly though, some characters are so interesting, it’s worth a read.
Just a note of caution: the series ends unexpectedly and was never finished, though some points can be inferred at the end.
After reading all ten of Iain Banks’ “Culture” novels, there was definitely a sense of “oh, okay, now what?”.
The Red Rising trilogy left me with this feeling. I loved the terraformation zones descriptions and how the technology is described and implemented.
The story takes lots of twists and turns, kept me glued to the books.
Came here to preach for the red rising. Awesome series. Sanderson’s stormlight archive and mistborn also. And Abercrombie’s first law.
I think I read that there’s a fourth one
In the author’s wikipedia it just shows another series I haven’t read called Iron Gold
N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy (beginning with The Fifth Season).
Also, Brandon Sanderson’s various Cosmere works, especially The Stormlight Archive (beginning with The Way of Kings) and the original Mistborn trilogy (beginning with The Final Empire).
This was the second recommendation for those books! I’ll definitely be looking into them, thanks :)
The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
Nearly all of the culture books! The very first scene of the very first book, Consider Phlebas, just sets the bar so high (and is only one scene). It outdoes entire other works of horror in just half a chapter… and then the actual action starts.
Great book as well. Of all the sci-fi universes, The Culture is the one I want to live in the most.
For me it was His Dark Materials. I read it when I was 14 and it completely changed me. My mind was aware that it was a book, but my soul knew that reality is what you experience and I just experienced a lifetime.
I read it again ten years later and I recognized so much of myself in those books, I was actually surprised by the impact it made on me, even though I already knew back then that I would never be the same.
The wheel of time series is the best out there.
And it just keeps going. There’s so much, and so much of it ties back and stays relevant to the end.
I read a stupid amount of SF and fantasy (up to 60 books so far this year), and I keep notes, so if there’s a particular kind of thing you enjoy I might be able to make a more focused recommendation.
I believe I’ve read everything recommended in reply to you, and most are excellent. Some books I’ve read recently that really pulled me in, and that I didn’t see mentioned elsewhere, are:
- Sleeping Giants, Neuvel
- Ammonite, Griffith
- Spin, Wilson
- The Space Between Worlds, Johnson
- Service Model, Tchaikovsky
- The Tainted Cup, Bennett
Lots of others of I go further back. I hope you find something you love.
Thank you so much, I saved a ton of these in my browser :)
Definitely The Expanse series if you haven’t read it yet. I loved so many of the charcters, a bit sad to not be reading about them anymore.
May I present to you the next series James S. A. Corey are writing? The Captive’s War!
I’ve enjoyed the book and novella published so far, and definitely sated that itch I had after finishing the Expanse. :)
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis is the first book I’ve read since Hitchhiker’s Guide that actually made me laugh out loud repeatedly. It’s about a time-travelling historian who takes a vacation to Victorian England, and nearly ends the universe while trying to return a missing cat. The book’s part of a series, but this is definitely the most fun entry.
I have this a lot, but the most it has happend was about 10 years ago with the webserial worm ( https://parahumans.wordpress.com/ ), I read it so much. I read it before work, I read it during lunch, I read it when I got home, I went to sleep late etc. etc.
When it was done I had forgotten what to do with my time, I wound up re-reading it again but slower at a few chapters a day rather than turning myself into a gremlin for maximal reading efficiency.
If you want a summary, it’s a superhero story, which usually really isn’t for me, but something about the tone of the writing and the way the world worked in this one made it work.
Powers are incredibly varied, but the strongest characters are the ones who know how to use their powers well, the protagonist exemplifies this, where she doesn’t get a cool flashy power but she figures out how to use it so well and adapt to each situation that she becomes terrifying.
I also liked the charactersation of the heroes and the villains, where the heroes are somewhat vain and egotistical which means they do good things when the cameras are rolling rather than being “morally good”. the villains are mostly just people on the edges of society for a mix of reasons which means they do what they want, but I think since then “The Boys” has also done something similar so the effect may be lessened.
Curious if anyone else on Lemmy has wound up reading it.
Same here! I stumbled onto Worm a few years ago and read it way too quickly. I taught myself some (very basic) editing skills, corrected a few typos and paid ~300 bucks to get the whole story printed out on paper so my wife would read it as well.
I would add that despite being a story with superpowers, it is very much a story about people, and not about powers. You progressively discover the rules of a world that make perfect sense in retrospect, the stakes scale up really well and I found the ending to be a culmination unlike anything I have read.
Exactly! find it so hard to describe though, over the course of reading the thing Taylor changes so much, the world changes so much and your understanding of the world gets so much deeper.
This makes it very hard to explain the later acts or why they were good though.
Have you read anything else that hooked you in a similar way?
I don’t think anything hooked me quite like Worm! I completely agree with Taylor evolving a lot throughout the story, and I feel the whole scope of the story gets so much larger, in such a satisfying way.
I read a few arcs of the Worm sequel, Ward, but it didn’t really click for me. From the same author, I found Twig to be really interesting. It takes place in a very different setting and has a darker tone, but I feel some of the narrative techniques are the same as in Worm. For example, the characters know more of the world than the reader does, who gets to discover it piece by piece, and the characters themselves are the important part, not whatever magic or science powers the world. The scale and stakes do not explode like Worms’ do, but the story definitely does not stay stale either.
To me very personally, Ward felt a bit like “more Worm but not quite”. I didn’t really want more Worm. Twig felt like a new, very different story, in a somewhat similar style. It didn’t hook me like Worm did, but it scratched a similar itch of discovering an atypical world, with its rules, characters and unreliable narrators.
Worm was definitely like that for me. I was reading it at work (we monitored stuff and responded if needed, so I had a lot of free time if things weren’t happening), and it really sucked me in. I didn’t get into his later work, maybe because of burnout.
I think the characterizations of the superpowered folks were great, but they did suffer a little bit from flanderization. It’s to be expected when the author is literally handling hundreds of different characters. The plot overall was just so good though. Maybe some individual points weren’t as great, like super spoilers ahead
spoiler
the naked invulnerable chick and how they defeated her, or the existence of the three super enemies (leviathan, tyrant? and whatever the bird/smart thing was), and how once the protagonist figured out her plan for the ultimate win, it happened so quickly.
Psalm for the Wild-built. It was so sweet and gentle.
Saving for later when I forget all about this. Why is there no remindme function on Lemmy?
Also, do you like space operas? Bobiverse series Lost Fleet series Expeditionary Force (ExForce) Series Odyssie One series (Into the Black) Murderbot diaries
You can use this mastodon Remind me bot, works with Lemmy. Or use piefed
Oooh, if you like space operas, you might really like the Hyperion Cantos series.
Thank you, I’ll keep these in mind!
GNU Terry Pratchett
Or as I’ve recently come to calling it, GNU + Terry Pratchett
Giant Nosy Neighbor?
I’ve barely read any books since he died tbh.
https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=tanith+lee
Tanith Lee. British writer of the same time and mindset. The first book listed “Night’s Master” is set in the time when the world was still flat. A mighty demon prince spends the daylight hours in his underworld kingdom, and spends his nights tormenting and/or seducing humans.
You are missing out. There is so much greatness out there
Maybe try some sex instead
Greatest Nut Ultimately?
GNU STP
The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stevenson did that for me. 2700+ pages and it felt like I needed more
Okay, this seems like a book recommendation ;) Stevenson’s books are very different, how would you describe these ones?
Loose prequel to Cryptinomicon based in the Golden Era of Europe. Starts after Cromwell’s death and ends in the 1700s. Spans the globe, piracy, science, alchemy, politics, intrigue, fighting… It’s all there. And done with historical accuracy despite the fictional nature.
You don’t have to read Cryptinomicon first, but I recommend it.
Historical science fiction. Oh, and there’ll be familiar names if you read Cryptonomicon.
I’ve never been as angry as when I got to the end of the first book and found that the bastard had hidden the glossary!
The sheer number of people and events…
I have like 30 books I’ve not thought about since 10 years already, almost completely forgotten and ready to be read again, I should start sometime.
You could be like Holly and have them erased from your memory…
You know what the worst book ever written ever was? “Football, It’s a Funny Old Game” by Kevin Keegan.
Many times but only when the books had relatively decent grammar and spelling.
Yeah, "Never Let me Go, " so many questions it asked me while reading and even a few months later it has me questioning my faith and my humanity
I go read analyses and reviews of it to see what other people think of it. Its sort of like being slowly weened off of the original work, bit it can also let you appreciate it in new ways.
I remember the first time finishing the Lord of the Rings. I was heartbroken knowing I couldn’t read it again for the first time. I still remember-read it a bunch, and still feel saddened by reaching the ending every time.
Often. That why I don’t start a series of books unless there are at least like 4-5 in the series. But even then the series ends sometimes and it feels like you’ve lost a dear friend.
Heck yes. “What happens now!?” Where do the characters go? What happens next in the world the author built for us? Personally there’s even a slight bit of resentment to pick up another book about another character set in the same world, perhaps somewhere else in the timeline, because I got so into the part I’d read and don’t want to have to shift gears and learn about new characters, settings, and personalities.
That’s also why I don’t like to watch a TV show when it first comes out, since it’s so common for them to get canceled partway through a major storyline. Got left hanging a few times and it sucked.
110% agree … It’s so frustrating to get hooked on a show and Netflix/Amazon cancels it because it was only slightly popular and didn’t have Stranger Things kind of numbers.
Case in point, I’m a huge Star Trek fan but I didn’t start Strange New Worlds until now after it had three seasons under its belt.
Dunno about books, but I’ve recently caught up, finally, to the last season of Agents of Shield, the only one left for me to watch, years later after its debut. Truly felt I’d miss the gang.
Agents of Shield did something MCU doesn’t: followed a few main characters, and eventually ended. The MCU just keeps going, adding some characters, removing others. Replace some. Just so much going on in parallel, and never really ending either.
I enjoy the movies, and even other shows, but they just don’t follow characters this closely for long enough for us to care? Idk. Agents of Shield, through its seven seasons, followed a group of people, eventual close pals, and had a proper, graceful ending. Did not hint at more and then vanish
Edit: actually, I read Loveless, by Alice Oseman, and felt similar. I am not a book reader, so I don’t have much experience on this. Once more, following characters closely as they change, evolve, develop. And then it ends. Like, what now? That’s it? Snap, back to reality?
Also, these fictional characters and their close relationships, friendships. Where my group of cool, close pals? I want my gang, too! Why not I. R. have close friend? Where besties?
