/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

I'm not picky about fiction. I like most things I have read whether YA slop of pseud lit

>>2847303
I love fiction about first contact with aliens. And trashy furry romance (preferably both at once)

>>2871486
Thoughts on Project Hail Mary? If not for the Big Bang Theory Reddit dialogue in the beginning it would be a 10 for me

>>2847303
I like Philip K Dick and Vonnegut a lot. Last books I read were the Three Body Problem trilogy. I thought they were pretty good if maybe the ending was pretty meh and he didn't properly pay off all the stuff he setup. I think it's pretty good as far as hard sci-fi goes. The guy is an engineer so he knows his shit. I'm reading Watership Down right now, the writing style is interesting and I like the characters, but I guess I haven't found it super compelling because I've put it down for a while now.

>>2871486
Did you read the Three Body problem books? I guess you could say some of Vonnegut's books involve first contact but it's not really about humanity's reaction to it(Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse Five)

>>2871487
I haven't read it because I really hated the writing of The Martian, for the reasons you describe.

>>2871489
Yes I have, first one was good but then kind of went off the rails as it went on. I really prefer friendly contact anyway, it felt kind of just like political grandstanding a lot of the time

Philip K Dick is a true schizomaxxer which you have to be to be a true great novelist..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Find_This_World_Bad,_You_Should_See_Some_of_the_Others
>"If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others", also known as the "Metz speech", is a 1977 speech and essay by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. He delivered it as the guest of honor on September 24, 1977, at the Second Metz International Science Fiction Festival in Metz, France. Dick prepared his first version of the speech by May of that year, but was asked to deliver a shorter version due to time constraints. The Metz speech, in its shorter form, was recorded on video and was translated to the French audience by an interpreter. Dick's speech lays out his characteristic, yet arcane thoughts on the philosophy of space and time and the concept of alternate universes within a hypothetical multiverse. The speech also discusses Dick's strange and unusual visions from 1974, his interpretation of Christian gnosticism, and the role of alternate history in his published work.

<Dick proposes that novelists have a lot of ideas to work with, but most of these are meaningless and of no value. And yet, try as they might, over their entire career, a novelist may only come across a few great ideas. Dick argues that the novelist does not find or create these ideas on their own, rather these ideas are like living entities that seek out the novelist to make themselves manifest to the larger world, to history itself. To support this argument, Dick cites the pre-Socratic philosophers, who proposed the cosmos was a thinking entity, as well as theistic ideas found in works related to Indian Vedanta, Spinoza, and Alfred North Whitehead. Dick points to the existence of a hidden, gnostic, God-like figure, citing the Sufi poet Rumi to make his point: "The workman is invisible within the workshop".[17] From this, Dick places these ideas within a continuum of multiple, parallel universes in a lateral axis of time, independent of linear progression, which he admits is absurd and nonsensical, and undermines his own belief in pantheistic monism. More importantly, Dick asks, what kind of changes would people experience if these realities were to be altered? Dick concludes that most people would not notice at all as their memories would adapt to the updated timelines.[17]

<Dick explains his original theory on "orthogonal or right-angle time". He presents ideas related to the philosophy of space and time and briefly proposes the existence of alternate universes as a thought experiment in relation to his own personal experiences and published works. Using the extended metaphor of the chessboard, and informed by ideas belonging to mythology[δ] and gnostic Christian theology, Dick describes how he believes that many worlds branch off due to a kind of chess game being played that alters the timeline of the "matrix world" by what he calls a "Programmer-Reprogrammer", a god-like entity who maintains an advantage playing against a "dark counterplayer", the personification of evil or death. Dick argues, by way of this metaphor, that the Programmer-Reprogrammer, or god, interferes with the timeline by changing the past to create a better future, and that some people (like himself) can perceive the relics and vestiges of the older timeline or alternate branches by various means, such as writing science fiction (which documents what these other worlds are like), feeling déjà vu, and even religious experience.[17]

<Dick explores the idea of alternate history in his own fiction, with works such as The Man in the High Castle, where the Axis powers won World War II instead of the Allies. He also connects this to Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, his novel about a dystopian police state where people slip into more idealized, alternate worlds. Dick then ties this into Christian theology, arguing that it points to alternate realities itself: the faithful might see the alternate reality of the Kingdom of God, while those who don't will remain in their own alternate reality. Dick believes that Christ taught the method for traversing these alternate worlds, but that it had been lost, although it might be regained once again. To support his idea, Dick cites Isaiah 65, which speaks of the New Earth and the redemption of humanity: "For I am fashioning a new heaven and a new earth, and the memory of the former things will not enter the mind nor come up into the heart."[17] Dick speculates that his fictional work forced people to remember the old timelines that a god-like entity had promised to delete with the creation of better timelines. "And perhaps in my novels and stories", Dick concludes, "I have done wrong to urge you to remember."

>>2871491
I only watched the film, I have no interest in reading an Andy Weir novel

I almost never read fiction, but I am currently reading Dune, which is pretty good. As for TV and movies I tend to like historical fiction or sci fi. Star Trek TNG is probably still my favourite show of all time.

>>2871491
>Yes I have, first one was good but then kind of went off the rails as it went on.
I kinda love series like that, that take hard left turns in the middle of them. You're probably the guy I was talking about it with in the other thread about the chuddish elements.
>it felt kind of just like political grandstanding a lot of the time
That's definitely true. I liked how different and autistic his characters were all the philosophizing, but at the same time it kinda makes it feel like all the characters are him too much. Yeah I definitely didn't like the image it presents of the universe and the "dark forest theory" and it just presents this as the one and true reality of the universe, there is not even a single group fighting against it you either hide or kill or both


>I really prefer friendly contact anyway,
You mean like stories where the aliens are friendly? Any recommendations?

>>2871495
Dune is pretty good. I thought the second book was meh and it's like "why the fuck is this so short?" Like the whole book is working up the jihad, then the second book just starts with "after the jihad…." and it's a third the length. Felt so rushed.

I'm not sure if I want to continue the series since the second was meh and I heard that the secret reveal of the whole series is that Judaism is the like one true religion that was never absorbed and bastardized like all the mishmash religions(Zen Sunni, Orange Catholic, whatever) and like Judaism saves the universe or something. PKD is also like this where he just has to include some Jewish shit in every story randomly for no reason. I think the libs from that era were a little mentally fucked by the holocaust industry.

>>2871513
Children and God Emperor are worth it, the Jewish stuff doesn’t come in until the sixth and final book which is kind of a mess and not a proper ending

>>2871513
It was a little too Jewish for reddit even.

I only read yuri manga.

>>2871520
Yaoi is better though

in my mid 20s i got really deep into poetry, its hard because most people dont like or understand poetry and contemporary poetry is 80 percent garbage like rupi kaur

when it comes to genre fiction im into horror, most people are into scifi or fantasy it seems though.

>>2871524
The problem with poetry is you really can’t translate it like with prose, you lose more

>>2871524
poetry is gay

>>2871537
That’s what’s cool and good about it though

>>2871528
I dont like to read poetry from a different language i dont know, people go on and on about french poetry but i feel like you have to know the language to get it.

I mostly read american and british poetry

although i fully respect poets from other languages and learning about the craft of poetry will pick up ideas from things like french decedents and russian symbolists

Murakami.
there's no one that plays with language with as much precision and playfulness as him. He just makes other writers look like such a bore!

>>2847303
The poetry of Bertolt Brecht and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

>>2847303
I think it's hard to do Marxist fiction because fiction lends itself to the model of the protagonist overcoming the individual struggle. It is hard to write a novel where a whole class is the protagonist. Even in attempted dramatizations of real world revolutions, focus is given to the figureheads rather than the workers.

>>2847303
Im actually currently getting into both ligotti and lovecraft at the moment

I like Russian realism (short stories better than doorstoppers). A lot of poetry (anthologies and national authors). I like Pynchon too.

>>2879592
The Crab Cannery

>>2879592
There's a decent amount of very left wing and marxist sci fi authors. Sci-fi in theory also leans extraordinary left.

>>2847303
This year in general I've been reading more genre fiction–Gene Wolfe, Philip K Dick, Susanna Clarke, and some older Arthurian legends stuff. But currently I'm back on my autofiction thing. Started when I feel in love with Tao Lin's novellas but now I'm reading Knausgaard's Min Kamp, starting the second book of that series.

>>2879592
I'm kind of with Nabokov, when he says he abhors the 'novel of ideas' and prefer to read things generally removed from politics… But, I did recently read Ursula K Leguin's The Dispossessed. Overtly political, but still interesting. While it uses this framing of an anarchist community-utopian world contrasted with a capitalist one, it's less interested in the differences of the two, and more interested in how, even in the total absence of coercive power structures, in a society without governments, prisons, or money, there is still something about the human mind that makes us subjugate ourselves. And I did find all that very intriguing.
>>2871492
>If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others
Oh I never realize that came from Dick. The new Mogwai album–or did it come out last year?–had an amazing track titled that.
>>2871513
I think it's more like, Judaism is the one ancient Earth religion that has endured unchanged from that forgotten history.
>>2871528
>>2871541
I think that's fair to say, about translation, though recently I was reading some translations of Paul Valery, and some people have drawn out some absolutely stunning lines of English from the original French, worth something on their own merit. "With infinite waiting, anything may appear."

>>2895834
To be fair it does sound like a perfectly Mogwai track/album name.

>>2871492
This is great. Has anyone read Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said?

>>2871492
yeah yeah we've all see the Time Knife. you just gotta die or take some DMT.

I need to finish Malazan

>>2895834
>I'm kind of with Nabokov, when he says he abhors the 'novel of ideas' and prefer to read things generally removed from politics…
a naive quest. it is impossible to truly write something divorced from politics. you can only sweep politics under the rug, and then everyone who steps on the rug wonders why there's a lump under it shaped like a dead body.
>>2895807
Thanks I'll check it out

i like reading heinlein because he's crazy