when I say 1984 it is going to be very cleche but hear me out
so I grow up in China and only moves out around 12 when I was 10 they suddenly banned a book that the name is just a year I get super confused and pleed the local Liberian to read it before they destory it. holy shit that is some messed up shit for my age at the time, but it made be see the environment around me a lot more clearly
There's plenty I could list, but when it comes to seeing the world through a new lens it's all about Discworld. Just keep reading and it'll change you. Sir Pratchett's understanding of people, society, and philosophy is phenomenal.
I've wanted to read the series for a while, but getting into it seems so intimidating because of just how much Sir Terry wrote. Do you have a good starting recommendation?
While there are recurring characters, locations, themes and ideas, each book is an independent, self contained story. As the other commenter mentioned, it doesn't really matter where you start.
Also, there may be a large number of books, but they are all really short and easy/quick to read. I went from being intimidated by the number of books in the series when I picked up The Colour of Magic to crying during the epilogue in The Sheppard's Crown in an eye blink.
Wyrd sisters...was not expecting the quiz to so heavily focus me on witches...not sure if thats a feature or a bug of my interpreting, idk much about discworld but maybe there's only like 5 starter books and that's why it focused me on witches so much.
It's doesn't really matter where you start but realize that it's a bunch of stories that are told of the same place. So there's stories about set characters and some of just one story of the characters. The wizards are something that runs through all the stories so it really does make sense to start with The Color of Magic. It will introduce you to the style of story that will fill out the whole thing.
There's the witches, the wizards, Death, the watch, and books about the other guild's. The witches are a lot of fun. If you don't really care for the specific group, you you can jump around in order. Mostly once you understand the groups, you can read anything in whatever order
Discworld as a collection is intimidating. The real secret is that it's not a series, but a kind of pile. You can really start almost anywhere and read whatever.
That said, there's kind of short sets with the same characters in groups throughout the books. I'd point people to these ones as reasonable starting points:
Equal Rites
Guards! Guards!
Mort
I'm sure other people will have various other suggestions or opinions and we're all likely correct for our own reasons. There's very little in Discord that isn't top tier writing.
Those are the first 3 I read (first was GG, second Mort, third ER) because they all seemed recommended starting places. They are all origins of different sets of characters, so there isn't much back lore for any of those 3, so it gives you a very broad look at life on the Disc.
After finishing those, I knew I'd want to read them all, so then I went and started from the beginning and the rest of the books made much more sense than I think they would skipping about and you'd get light spoilers, seeing maybe some characters being good guys when they weren't in earlier stories or different groups gaining acceptance due to conflicts being resolved (or not).
Not that I'm an expert, but I did create /r/Discworld, so I got to see a lot of opinions.
There's a couple of main philosophies. The one I agree with less is reading "subseries". First of all, many books really imho cross thos lines anyway, so you're going to miss stuff...... but........ that's one option.
The thing is, Sir Pratchett himself wasn't so happy with his first coupld of books. The Colour of Magic is a bit different - he was writing as a parody of fantasy. But as he went along, things kinda took off and it became a thing.
Frankly, my advice: Just suck it up. Colour of Magic isn't bad. Commit to at least reading through Mort, which is IIRC the 4th novel.
If that makes you nervous, then choose one or more of the traditional starting ones: Mort, Small Gods, Guards! Guards!. If you read all three of those and like it, just go back to Colour of Magic and read in publication order. The world evolves as he writes and it's a better experience.
But if you get enthralled with the night watch over the witches or whatever, the google "Discworld reading guide" and you'll find it and can see the "subseries" and do as you please.
If you're anything like me, though, starting at around Mort and from then on....... I always read a novel when it came out and it was pretty good, but when I re-read it almost immediately, I noticed so many more things. That's how I fell in love with the books. They are not one-time reads.
I'm on around my eighth or so full readthrough of the entire series - on Making Money right now. I don't think everyone will do that many, but for me, almost all the books are old friends, and I still notice new little details.
His writing is so........ compact. So many scenes with more than one subtext going on. He often writes scenes with dialogue happening that's critical to the story, but something in the background that just adds to the world might be happening at the same time.
I think specifically where a couple of bumbling night watch are talking about something, but as they're sitting there, they're watching a man slowly paint the name of his boat on his boat, but instead of painting "PRIDE OF ANKH-MORPORK" he's painted "PRID", so they're talking back and forth, anticipating the painter noticing..... and at the end of the scene, he does. And it's just so.......... so human, so delightful. The novels truly taught me the beauty of humanity.
There is, however, probably no real wrong way to read them. Someone on r/discworld claimed to be reading them in literally reverse publication order and enjoying them. So that's probably valid. But I would say: publication order hands down. Or whatever way you'll actually go out and get started. :)
choose one or more of the traditional starting ones: Mort, Small Gods, Guards! Guards!. If you read all three of those and like it, just go back to Colour of Magic and read in publication order. The world evolves as he writes and it’s a better experience.
This here. This is what I recommend to everyone I introduce to Discworld.
I haven't kept count of how many readthroughs I've done, but every few years I do one too. I had my copy of Guards Guards rebound recently because it was literally falling to pieces.
We lost all our books to Hurricane Michael, but for me, this is not so much a problem as I struggle with books these days, but my phone works fine as a reader, so I have them all electronically. :)
There's no bad onramp to that world. Very few of the books require you to have read the others, and there isn't much of a strict chronology. Apparently Pratchett recommended that people start with Sourcery, but that's not set in stone.
On r/discworld, Mort, Guards! Guards!, and Small Gods were the three most recommended ones to start, besides those like me who argue for publication order (with the disclaimer about the first 2-3 or so)
Near the end of my first read through, and it's been hard for me to believe one guy wrote so many different points of view so well. I've been given both a lot of new perspectives to consider, and I've gotten good reminders of things that I already believed, but had gotten a little bit forgotten as things happen and I've become a little jaded toward some things.
Lately, having just finished Making Money, I've been thinking again about what type of ruler Lord Vetinari is. He's got a lot of aspects that I feel I wouldn't like to him and his leadership style, but I also feel no one comes close to being a better choice for Ankh-Morepork. Plot armor certainly helps, but whenever he puts plots in motion, it's hard to argue with results,
I also like how the Nights Watch doesn't get rid of its derelicts, it finds ways for them to be successful. I have been around some very difficult people, but very few that are totally useless, and once you can narrow down what their strengths are, you can find a lot of value and often a decent person in most everyone.
Also a big fan of Death! Some of the best moments of justice and sweetest of rewards have come from him.
I've been thinking again about what type of ruler Lord Vetinari is.
He's basically a benevolent dictator. He adopts the role of a tyrant for pragmatic reasons, but he seems to sincerely care about the well-being of Ankh-Morporkians.
It makes me wonder if that's ever truly possible. And I'm not as sure it's the citizens he protects so much as the city itself. He's either at least been partially responsible for some killings and will let people die when it benefits not so much himself, but the proper functioning of the city.
Someone like him seems crucial to ensuring a great society, but how do you find someone like that, what would keep them from crossing the line into a less altruistic authority, and what does that society do when that person is inevitably gone?
Him and House from Fallout have been two people I've spent a lot of time thinking about. Both are capable of bringing order out of chaos, but it's a very fine line they seem to walk.
I like Vetinari in fiction, but I'm unsure how I'd feel in real life. To most people he is still scary and seemingly a threat. Only a select few know most of it is just reputation and show.
I'd say benevolent dictators are absolutely possible, but they are impossible to plan for. If there is room for any dictator, there is no good way to filter that to only benevolent ones. I think the best practical political systems tend to assume people will not be benevolent, so try and set things up so that people are incentivized to act benevolently as much as possible.
And I'm not as sure it's the citizens he protects so much as the city itself
I think he'd consider that a distinction without difference. The city is the citizens.
He's either at least been partially responsible for some killings and will let people die when it benefits not so much himself, but the proper functioning of the city.
The "proper functioning of the city" is a state of relative harmony and peace between the citizens. Most of those that found their end at his direction were rather opposed to the "proper functioning of the city".
what does that society do when that person is inevitably gone?
I surmise that much of his efforts in building the integrity of the city, and its institutions, might be said to constitute an inoculation of sorts against any
"greedy and clumsy" successors.
I do like book Vetinari, purely because we do have those insights to his thought process and that as he's a fictional character, his methods will work as intended.
As I've watched the representative democracy in the US make its faults very obvious, it's got me questioning other types of leadership. Distributed power like communism or anarchism have some appealing features, but radically changing any government seems to require some form of authoritarianism to see the change through and to maintain it. That seems a lot like what Vetinari did to stabilize the city. He's great as a fictional leader, and I think his grey areas highlight some important differences between him, and let's say, Carrot.
Thinking we could find a real life Vetinari is what still concerns me about a political revolution, as so many real people will promise what he brought to a place like Ankh, but then instead prioritize themselves. He makes me both believe a little more that we could have a successful change in governance, but then everything in the real world reminds me it is fiction. Not impossible, but not likely as real humans are so fallible.
Discworld books feel the opposite of real life in that way. In the books, we know more of Vetinari than we do of the life of most peasants, and what we do know of those peasants, we know they fear Vetinari and think he's kinda evil, while we the readers know he's not. In real life, we see leaders try and present the good side, usually to con us, and be evil behind the scenes. If we saw someone acting like Vetinari, most of us would probably not support him, although Trumpism shows that to maybe not be so reliable, but I'm not sold on him really being altruistic behind the scenes for many, many reasons.
So while I support Vetinari in the books, it just feel paradoxical how we could ever get such a leader for real.
Yes the benevolent dictator archetype only really works in fiction. Philosopher kings have been suggested as the most efficient form of government for thousands of years, but the difficulty is in finding them in the real world. We could never fully trust any would-be tyrant.
In his Discworld novels, Sir Terry Pratchett gave me a love for humanity. He's so good at writing, but especially at characterization. The people he writes are just so human, and for me, it increased my empathy for people overall.
Also, even though I'm an atheist, after having grown up fundie Southern Baptist, I'd like to think that if the spiritual and supernatural exist, that it works somewhat along Discworldian lines. Certainly there are two Deaths that I wouldn't mind meeting: The Discworld Death, and the Sandman Death (Neil Gaiman).
But it was with Pratchett's help that I've come to believe that there are no good people and no bad people. Just people, and all the choices they make. Which in some ways makes "evil people" more terrifying, because I believe they make those choices. But it's also heartening: People can choose to be better.
The principles expressed in the novels helped me change my views on what's important: I think the most important thing you can do is to make others' lives a little better, if you can. Huge projects like social safety nets, but even making a stranger laugh for a moment and brightening their day.
This life is all we get, and anything that makes it better is the main thing that's worth anything at all.
The Left Hand of Darkness and other Le Guin stories. Good timing on when I started expending my scifi reading in her direction; I was in high school, meeting more people outside my little conservative family and church bubble, trying to form new conceptual models for the much bigger world that I was previously insulated from.
Le Guin is phenomenal. Her acceptance speech at the 65th National Book Awards makes me tear up to this day.
"Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality."
Edit: Here's the full speech if anyone is interested in listening to it. It's only six minutes and well-worth it.
The Left Hand of the Darkness was one of the few times I saw my partner cry for a book.
I recently read The Word for World is Forest, and while a smaller story it’s still really good. While The Ones that walk away from Omelas is extremely impactful.
Of her I often say: even her shits were pure gold.
Stranger in A Strange Land was called "the hippy bible" for a reason...
It was written in the 1960s tho, so even the "woke" parts can be pretty problematic. That just means society progresses tho. If 60 year old media doesn't have anything problematic in it, it means society has stalled instead of peogressed
The problems with this book are not just "a product of it's time". There were authors at the time who could write women characters, Heinlen just wasn't one of them.
This was my favorite book when I was in my mid 20s. I tried to read it a couple of years ago and just couldn't.
I've always had problems with Heinlein. Early on, my problems were more that his dialogue just seemed.... too pat. He couldn't separate his characters in his mind, so they always had the perfect comebacks to what each other were saying.
And as I got older, I have more and more problem with his women. But then again, I adore Isaac Asimov, and he can't write women well, either. But better than Heinlein.
Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy instilled in me a deep faith in science above all else. And a lot of hope that, even if times can suck, overall we have been developing and live has been getting better and better. I am way more cynical now, but I still hold on the hope that eventually everything will be fine.
There's definitely a lot in Foundation to aspire to. And Asimov's writing in general - the zeroth law, for example. It'd be nice to have his robots with the three (yea four) laws, for sure.
Redwall - I didn't realize when I was reading the series but looking back now they absolutely instilled in me the knowledge that I could stand up to those in power despite being weaker or smaller. Those books lead to me rebelling against my abusive parents and striking out on my own. I shed their conservative views and hatred. All because a mouse and his friends stood up to a rat.
I've got more but this one probably had the largest impact on how I think overall in the long term.
My older brother left home for college and I was legitimately so depressed I got left behind. I remember looking out of the living room window seeing him drive off in my parent’s car. Gurren Lagann was one of the first things I watched after that. And I’m sure you can tell what my reaction was when a certain event happens a quarter into the show. But what really saved me was everything that came after that. I’m almost doubled the age I was when I first saw it and nothing has ever come close to affecting me that way. I will personally forever put it in the magnum opus of human creativity and art.
Dogma helped me see how absurd religion, specifically Catholicism, was and helped be begin to untangle what it all meant for me, a hyper-religious teenager at the time.
Not OP but yes an actual scientist would like it. It's more about the ways in which cultures over time turn to the supernatural to explain something that has a scientific explanation.
It like a lot of Big Science books (Guns, Germs, and Steel, Sapiens), has more than a few "just so" stories, but i you look past that, it's a very valuable book teaching you to look at things you don't understand critically and why we as a society, often fail at this.
Ghost in the Shell. It really changed how I seen my body, not as something that I am, but as something I control. Now I can start and stop peeing whenever I want.
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. Made me realize how dogmatic religion is, also its a really fun and accessible book to read, teenage coming of age story, with a sprinkle of religious criticism.
Mornings in Jenin. Growing up as a child of refugees, it was difficult to fully grasp the horrors of Israeli violence against Palestinians, my parents shielded us from the worst they witnessed, only telling us of the good memories before they were forced to leave. This book helped shape who I am today, motivated me to learn the truth, and exposed me to a whole world of non colonial literature, both fiction and non. And while it is a story of fiction, it is based on the reality of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, ongoing for 78 years now.
The original movie maybe, but the most recent netflix one felt like it cut out every scene from the book that made you actually feel for the main character. By the end of the book you understand on an empathetic level that Paul's choice in the last scene of the book is a mercy to himself. The author deeply explores so much more then the horrors of war itself, brothership, the rich/powerful treating humans like game pieces, the effects of propaganda on those who are living the opposite reality, how the ones away from the front turn their backs on helping the troops despite being the loudest voice for pushing the war further. There is so much more to the book and its sad that such an viciously real story is dumbed down to "war bad and scary"
I didn't know about any remakes, the original movie is what I was referring to. I have never read the book but I did study the film and it is a special thing. Especially in regards to humanizing the enemy and realizations about propaganda and the pain of understanding
Ah I fully take back my comment then.
Ironically ive read the book but haven't gotten around to watching the first movie
When people talk about the All Quiet on the Western Front movie their usually referring to the 2022 Netflix adaptation since the last adaptation was in 1979, and before that 1930. I've heard great things about the 1930 adaptation but have no clue which your talking about :0
The most important words a man can say are, "I will do better." These are not the most important words any man can say. I am a man, and they are what I needed to say.
The ancient code of the Knights Radiant says "journey before destination." Some may call it a simple platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. the trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we hurt those around us.
But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends.
That failure becomes our destination.
To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.
:::
I've had more than too many life threatening events. Along with family, therapy, proactive steps to improve my life, I took to heart "life before death". When I would be in a bad mental/emotional place, that was a strong mantra to help me get back on track. Thank you, Brandon Sanderson.
Snow Crash is a Sci-Fi book from the early 90s. It coined the term metaverse. It takes place in a post American collapse setting, where corporations have taken over. There's a lot of interesting points in the book, probably as interesting today as the day it was wrote.
But what stuck with me, and helped form my understanding of society and helped me build my career in tech was his observations on franchises. He posits that franchise are basically a living organism, who's DNA is written in binders. These binders cover every eventuality. They explain process, procedure, and expected results so that the humans in each franchise can keep the organism alive.
It was kinda a throw away set dressing just setting up the world at the beginning of the book, but it is the part that had real meaning to me.
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler
How much of our lives now through capitalism are passively “bad actions”, how people can always change and grow still even if it should be the “end” of their journey, how shitty the idea of living forever somewhere in the afterlife actually would be, and becoming comfortable with the idea of death and the whole unknowing nature of it.
:::
Really a wild piece of work from the same man who made The Office, Parks and Rec, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
People have already mentioned Foundation, Stranger in a Strange Land, Discworld, Gurren Lagann, and Hitchhiker's Guide, so I'll add The Illuminatus Trilogy. It taught me a lot about how organizations tend to shake out, among other things.
Robert Anton Wilson had a certain genius for distilling so many slivers of truth embedded in conspiracy, paradigms, altered states of consciousness, personal and group psychology, systems, etc. After theTrilogy I readPrometheus Rising and that book blew my young little mind.
The Dispossessed. No question. No other work of fiction has made me question more about my beliefs and worldview than that book. It makes you question everything you believe about society and your role in it. It's both an engaging science fiction work and an incredible work of philosophy. The author's worldview very clearly bleeds through into every page, and she does an excellent job of creating characters that actually feel like real people. The heroes are deeply flawed yet morally engaging, the villains are sophisticated and well-spoken.
The Dispossessed made me rethink how I see my purpose in my life, my relations to the society around me, the ways we perform gender, and whether or not it's actually possible for equality to exist. Whether or not you agree with Le Guin's politics, she is easily one of the best authors of the 20th century.
Imo, you can just jump straight into this one. She wrote it several novels into the Hainish Cycle, but it is first chronologically within the story timeline.
Really, there's not too much crossover between books. I haven't read all of them, just picked them up as they sound interesting in no particular order and it's been fine.
It's not so much the critique of anthropocentrism or infinite growth that changed my thinking; I was already on board with those. It was the idea that we behave like this because of the myth, the story we believe about ourselves, rather than some inherent quality.
Still not sure if I believe it fully, but it's a thinker.
Imajica by Clive Barker flipped a switch in my (then) teenage brain making me understand that "fantasy" books don't need to have swords, wizards, and all the other tropes. That the idea of "fantasy" as a genre is far far richer than I imagined.
Probably a bit stereotypical, but in my teens I read Brave new World (Aldous Huxley), followed shortly by Brave new World Revisited. Really showed that even back when it was written, society is slowly getting worse. Sort of made it very easy to see how it continued (and still is) to the present day.
Everhood for me. It's divisive, if you manage to connect with the game and don't bounce off it, I think it's one of the most emotionally powerful experiences I've gone through at least. The themes just happen to be intensely involved with most of my longest standing philosophical and existential struggles and the game was cathartic in dealing with them. Plus it's psychedelic, eastern/buddhist inspired, and is fully capable of rendering you emotionally raw.
That the asynchronous musical real time combat works so well for me just sends it even harder. The OST is nearly 3 hours long and nearly every song is a banger. Quite intimate at times, as the game I think deliberately ties the song to the character's very "soul" as you're struggling to kill them.
The basic premise is this: You may know, if you're in the right type of debate or philosophy communities, how often the topic of dealing with death comes up. Atheists I often find saying living forever would be absurd mental torture and maddening. Even though I agree I'd still choose to be ageless all the same as I'd rather that than not existing. Unpopular opinion. I don't expect anyone to agree with me and that's fine, I'm weird. Well, this game explores that scenario and certainly doesn't agree with me either.
You're orbiting the very last star in the entire universe, experiencing a later stage of Universal Heat Death before the last thing happening is evaporating black holes exploding in gamma ray bursts. With people who countless eons ago figured out how to become ageless. They've lived for so long they're physically twisted, messing with their forms out of sheer boredom and they're various flavours of insane.
Your character is pressured into finally ending the lives of the remaining survivors and then destroying the last star and reality itself. Truly ending it all. It's muddy and the game isn't going to let you go about that without feeling conflicted. The main character has tried before, failed, and lost their memory out of grief, laying dormant in the forest for who knows how long before this amnesiac second attempt begins with the encouragement of a frog man who very much wants to end reality itself. You can refuse btw, and get an extremely difficult fight out of it.
This is all played out with Undertale styled humor and characters. It's certainly under the Earthbound branch alongside LISA but much less crass.
At the end, I walked away being far less afraid of death and that's a big deal for me as an atheist who before this found zero comfort in the responses people gave online when it came to dealing wirh death when you're unwilling to believe in comforting lies like religion. I'd still choose to be ageless if I could :p but at least I'm at peace with reality for now.
If I caught anyone's interest I think it's best played on Expert so the fights really feel like the narrative wants them to feel: tooth and nail struggles. If you end up enjoying it, the sequel is an utter travesty and the biggest disappointment in a form of media I've ever experienced.
Going to go with a video game: Outer Wilds. The game is very story and mystery oriented, so I don't want to spoil it, as that can ruin the experience. In short though, it's an exploration game where you get to do your first flight around a miniature solar system - exploring it freely without a linear sequence or quest markers.
The story is told in a nonlinear way, depending on how you explore it, and the way it comes together and the conclusion it reaches were amazing to discover.
1984 and it's spiritual prequel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas .
These books opened up my teen mind to the fact that we are always, individually and as a society, creating, editing, and manipulating consensual reality.
Unfortunately the bad guys are way ahead of us on the manipulation bit, and with LLMs/Gen-AI I fear a total collapse of consensual reality. But if we have enough Hunter S's in the world, we may still be in the fight.
The two fictional courtroom dramas that changed the course of my life (eventually persuading me I wanted to become a lawyer and make sure the system works towards justice) were A Few Good Men and To Kill a Mockingbird.
And even though recently things have seemed kinda bleak on the justice front in the big seats of power in the US (in the three branches of government), there's still a million tiny ways to improve things locally, including in day to day interactions with others. So I still draw some inspiration from those ideals.
It didn't change my thoughts on the whole world, but the way demons are depicted in the anime Frieren changed the way I think about entities that use language for manipulation rather than communication: Their words are weapons. And assuming sincereness in any of them is dangerous. Immediate blocking is more appropriate than wasting time with them.
Doesn't quite fit your specification, but George Carlin's Class Clown (via Piped) album opened up my mind to the idea that it was okay to question religious teachings.
Monogatari series novels and perhaps the anime as well. It really drove home the point that: You (I) am also human so what i observe, excuse, despise in others I will necessarily also contain. And i can chose to seek help, ask for forgiveness, deal with it, heal, forgive and so on not just for other people but importantly also for myself.
Not that I really gained much competence in this matter from this but the thought continues to stick, and it's demonstrably a good thought.
Sounds weird, but Ascendance of a bookworm and time. Use to work agile and doing things quick, then I read bookworm and the tiny gremlin who wanted to do things quick and now, and the consequences for doing so.
Now I give as much time as I can/need for anything and everything. And I now start getting annoyed when family says they’re dropping in. Like dude, give me time to prepare, like 2-4 days heads up so I can clean, get more food and properly welcome you.
ITT: the lightest possible pop culture shlock available.
Why am I not shocked.
"STAR WARS REVENGE OF THE SITH CHANGED MY LIFE. And Enid Blyton- how did that woman never win a Nobel prize? Because she's a woman, what else?! The staggering philosophical depth is something only true intellectuals can understand."
115 Comments
Ascend910@lemmy.ml · 36 pts · 1d
when I say 1984 it is going to be very cleche but hear me out
so I grow up in China and only moves out around 12 when I was 10 they suddenly banned a book that the name is just a year I get super confused and pleed the local Liberian to read it before they destory it. holy shit that is some messed up shit for my age at the time, but it made be see the environment around me a lot more clearly
snoons@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 1d
How ironic to ban 1984 lol
Awooooooga@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
I hated reading 1984 because I knew it was saying a very true, gross thing about humanity.
Same with Dune but I mostly had fun reading that one lol.
azimir@lemmy.ml · 31 pts · 1d
There's plenty I could list, but when it comes to seeing the world through a new lens it's all about Discworld. Just keep reading and it'll change you. Sir Pratchett's understanding of people, society, and philosophy is phenomenal.
speedythefirst@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 1d
I've wanted to read the series for a while, but getting into it seems so intimidating because of just how much Sir Terry wrote. Do you have a good starting recommendation?
rImITywR@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1d
Which book to read quiz.
While there are recurring characters, locations, themes and ideas, each book is an independent, self contained story. As the other commenter mentioned, it doesn't really matter where you start.
Also, there may be a large number of books, but they are all really short and easy/quick to read. I went from being intimidated by the number of books in the series when I picked up The Colour of Magic to crying during the epilogue in The Sheppard's Crown in an eye blink.
confuser@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1d
Obligatory, here's what I got post lol
Wyrd sisters...was not expecting the quiz to so heavily focus me on witches...not sure if thats a feature or a bug of my interpreting, idk much about discworld but maybe there's only like 5 starter books and that's why it focused me on witches so much.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 1d
It's doesn't really matter where you start but realize that it's a bunch of stories that are told of the same place. So there's stories about set characters and some of just one story of the characters. The wizards are something that runs through all the stories so it really does make sense to start with The Color of Magic. It will introduce you to the style of story that will fill out the whole thing.
There's the witches, the wizards, Death, the watch, and books about the other guild's. The witches are a lot of fun. If you don't really care for the specific group, you you can jump around in order. Mostly once you understand the groups, you can read anything in whatever order
azimir@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 1d
Discworld as a collection is intimidating. The real secret is that it's not a series, but a kind of pile. You can really start almost anywhere and read whatever.
That said, there's kind of short sets with the same characters in groups throughout the books. I'd point people to these ones as reasonable starting points:
I'm sure other people will have various other suggestions or opinions and we're all likely correct for our own reasons. There's very little in Discord that isn't top tier writing.
anon6789@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
Those are the first 3 I read (first was GG, second Mort, third ER) because they all seemed recommended starting places. They are all origins of different sets of characters, so there isn't much back lore for any of those 3, so it gives you a very broad look at life on the Disc.
After finishing those, I knew I'd want to read them all, so then I went and started from the beginning and the rest of the books made much more sense than I think they would skipping about and you'd get light spoilers, seeing maybe some characters being good guys when they weren't in earlier stories or different groups gaining acceptance due to conflicts being resolved (or not).
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 1d
When in doubt, start with the Watch: Guards! Guards!. Can't go wrong.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Not that I'm an expert, but I did create /r/Discworld, so I got to see a lot of opinions.
There's a couple of main philosophies. The one I agree with less is reading "subseries". First of all, many books really imho cross thos lines anyway, so you're going to miss stuff...... but........ that's one option.
The thing is, Sir Pratchett himself wasn't so happy with his first coupld of books. The Colour of Magic is a bit different - he was writing as a parody of fantasy. But as he went along, things kinda took off and it became a thing.
Frankly, my advice: Just suck it up. Colour of Magic isn't bad. Commit to at least reading through Mort, which is IIRC the 4th novel.
If that makes you nervous, then choose one or more of the traditional starting ones: Mort, Small Gods, Guards! Guards!. If you read all three of those and like it, just go back to Colour of Magic and read in publication order. The world evolves as he writes and it's a better experience.
But if you get enthralled with the night watch over the witches or whatever, the google "Discworld reading guide" and you'll find it and can see the "subseries" and do as you please.
If you're anything like me, though, starting at around Mort and from then on....... I always read a novel when it came out and it was pretty good, but when I re-read it almost immediately, I noticed so many more things. That's how I fell in love with the books. They are not one-time reads.
I'm on around my eighth or so full readthrough of the entire series - on Making Money right now. I don't think everyone will do that many, but for me, almost all the books are old friends, and I still notice new little details.
His writing is so........ compact. So many scenes with more than one subtext going on. He often writes scenes with dialogue happening that's critical to the story, but something in the background that just adds to the world might be happening at the same time.
I think specifically where a couple of bumbling night watch are talking about something, but as they're sitting there, they're watching a man slowly paint the name of his boat on his boat, but instead of painting "PRIDE OF ANKH-MORPORK" he's painted "PRID", so they're talking back and forth, anticipating the painter noticing..... and at the end of the scene, he does. And it's just so.......... so human, so delightful. The novels truly taught me the beauty of humanity.
There is, however, probably no real wrong way to read them. Someone on r/discworld claimed to be reading them in literally reverse publication order and enjoying them. So that's probably valid. But I would say: publication order hands down. Or whatever way you'll actually go out and get started. :)
SorryImLate@piefed.social · 4 pts · 1d
This here. This is what I recommend to everyone I introduce to Discworld.
I haven't kept count of how many readthroughs I've done, but every few years I do one too. I had my copy of Guards Guards rebound recently because it was literally falling to pieces.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 21h
We lost all our books to Hurricane Michael, but for me, this is not so much a problem as I struggle with books these days, but my phone works fine as a reader, so I have them all electronically. :)
Tujio@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
There's no bad onramp to that world. Very few of the books require you to have read the others, and there isn't much of a strict chronology. Apparently Pratchett recommended that people start with Sourcery, but that's not set in stone.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
On r/discworld, Mort, Guards! Guards!, and Small Gods were the three most recommended ones to start, besides those like me who argue for publication order (with the disclaimer about the first 2-3 or so)
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 12 pts · 1d
Small Gods is probably one of the greatest books I've ever read. I fucking love it so much.
anon6789@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
Near the end of my first read through, and it's been hard for me to believe one guy wrote so many different points of view so well. I've been given both a lot of new perspectives to consider, and I've gotten good reminders of things that I already believed, but had gotten a little bit forgotten as things happen and I've become a little jaded toward some things.
Lately, having just finished Making Money, I've been thinking again about what type of ruler Lord Vetinari is. He's got a lot of aspects that I feel I wouldn't like to him and his leadership style, but I also feel no one comes close to being a better choice for Ankh-Morepork. Plot armor certainly helps, but whenever he puts plots in motion, it's hard to argue with results,
I also like how the Nights Watch doesn't get rid of its derelicts, it finds ways for them to be successful. I have been around some very difficult people, but very few that are totally useless, and once you can narrow down what their strengths are, you can find a lot of value and often a decent person in most everyone.
Also a big fan of Death! Some of the best moments of justice and sweetest of rewards have come from him.
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 1d
He's basically a benevolent dictator. He adopts the role of a tyrant for pragmatic reasons, but he seems to sincerely care about the well-being of Ankh-Morporkians.
anon6789@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
It makes me wonder if that's ever truly possible. And I'm not as sure it's the citizens he protects so much as the city itself. He's either at least been partially responsible for some killings and will let people die when it benefits not so much himself, but the proper functioning of the city.
Someone like him seems crucial to ensuring a great society, but how do you find someone like that, what would keep them from crossing the line into a less altruistic authority, and what does that society do when that person is inevitably gone?
Him and House from Fallout have been two people I've spent a lot of time thinking about. Both are capable of bringing order out of chaos, but it's a very fine line they seem to walk.
I like Vetinari in fiction, but I'm unsure how I'd feel in real life. To most people he is still scary and seemingly a threat. Only a select few know most of it is just reputation and show.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
I'd say benevolent dictators are absolutely possible, but they are impossible to plan for. If there is room for any dictator, there is no good way to filter that to only benevolent ones. I think the best practical political systems tend to assume people will not be benevolent, so try and set things up so that people are incentivized to act benevolently as much as possible.
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 1d
I think he'd consider that a distinction without difference. The city is the citizens.
The "proper functioning of the city" is a state of relative harmony and peace between the citizens. Most of those that found their end at his direction were rather opposed to the "proper functioning of the city".
I surmise that much of his efforts in building the integrity of the city, and its institutions, might be said to constitute an inoculation of sorts against any "greedy and clumsy" successors.
anon6789@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 23h
I do like book Vetinari, purely because we do have those insights to his thought process and that as he's a fictional character, his methods will work as intended.
As I've watched the representative democracy in the US make its faults very obvious, it's got me questioning other types of leadership. Distributed power like communism or anarchism have some appealing features, but radically changing any government seems to require some form of authoritarianism to see the change through and to maintain it. That seems a lot like what Vetinari did to stabilize the city. He's great as a fictional leader, and I think his grey areas highlight some important differences between him, and let's say, Carrot.
Thinking we could find a real life Vetinari is what still concerns me about a political revolution, as so many real people will promise what he brought to a place like Ankh, but then instead prioritize themselves. He makes me both believe a little more that we could have a successful change in governance, but then everything in the real world reminds me it is fiction. Not impossible, but not likely as real humans are so fallible.
Discworld books feel the opposite of real life in that way. In the books, we know more of Vetinari than we do of the life of most peasants, and what we do know of those peasants, we know they fear Vetinari and think he's kinda evil, while we the readers know he's not. In real life, we see leaders try and present the good side, usually to con us, and be evil behind the scenes. If we saw someone acting like Vetinari, most of us would probably not support him, although Trumpism shows that to maybe not be so reliable, but I'm not sold on him really being altruistic behind the scenes for many, many reasons.
So while I support Vetinari in the books, it just feel paradoxical how we could ever get such a leader for real.
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 22h
Yes the benevolent dictator archetype only really works in fiction. Philosopher kings have been suggested as the most efficient form of government for thousands of years, but the difficulty is in finding them in the real world. We could never fully trust any would-be tyrant.
Reygle@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 1d
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
What did I take from it? I personally took the point to be "world's fucked, people are fucked, but who cares? Goof off more!"
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
Whatever the biggest take away is, depends on context...
The second biggest take away tho, is always: Don't Panic
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 7 pts · 1d
And don't forget your towel!
Tujio@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
The lock screen on my phone says in big friendly letters "Don't Panic"
cuboc@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Same. If I am ever going to get a tattoo, it will day "Don't panic" in big friendly letters as well. It's.. fitting nowadays.
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 13h
daychilde@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 1d
In his Discworld novels, Sir Terry Pratchett gave me a love for humanity. He's so good at writing, but especially at characterization. The people he writes are just so human, and for me, it increased my empathy for people overall.
Also, even though I'm an atheist, after having grown up fundie Southern Baptist, I'd like to think that if the spiritual and supernatural exist, that it works somewhat along Discworldian lines. Certainly there are two Deaths that I wouldn't mind meeting: The Discworld Death, and the Sandman Death (Neil Gaiman).
But it was with Pratchett's help that I've come to believe that there are no good people and no bad people. Just people, and all the choices they make. Which in some ways makes "evil people" more terrifying, because I believe they make those choices. But it's also heartening: People can choose to be better.
The principles expressed in the novels helped me change my views on what's important: I think the most important thing you can do is to make others' lives a little better, if you can. Huge projects like social safety nets, but even making a stranger laugh for a moment and brightening their day.
This life is all we get, and anything that makes it better is the main thing that's worth anything at all.
Vanth@reddthat.com · 19 pts · 1d
The Left Hand of Darkness and other Le Guin stories. Good timing on when I started expending my scifi reading in her direction; I was in high school, meeting more people outside my little conservative family and church bubble, trying to form new conceptual models for the much bigger world that I was previously insulated from.
speedythefirst@lemmy.zip · 18 pts · 1d
Le Guin is phenomenal. Her acceptance speech at the 65th National Book Awards makes me tear up to this day.
"Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality."
Edit: Here's the full speech if anyone is interested in listening to it. It's only six minutes and well-worth it.
snoons@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 15h
Like Becky Chambers.
Eq0@literature.cafe · 8 pts · 1d
The Left Hand of the Darkness was one of the few times I saw my partner cry for a book.
I recently read The Word for World is Forest, and while a smaller story it’s still really good. While The Ones that walk away from Omelas is extremely impactful.
Of her I often say: even her shits were pure gold.
Xaphanos@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
I have to drop "The Dispossessed" here.
thethrilloftime69@feddit.online · 2 pts · 18h
Anything by Le Guin. She's a revolutionary and visionary. Imo greatest sci-fi author ever.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 1d
Stranger in A Strange Land was called "the hippy bible" for a reason...
It was written in the 1960s tho, so even the "woke" parts can be pretty problematic. That just means society progresses tho. If 60 year old media doesn't have anything problematic in it, it means society has stalled instead of peogressed
showmeyourkizinti@startrek.website · 8 pts · 1d
Thou are God.
yesman@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
The problems with this book are not just "a product of it's time". There were authors at the time who could write women characters, Heinlen just wasn't one of them.
This was my favorite book when I was in my mid 20s. I tried to read it a couple of years ago and just couldn't.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
I've always had problems with Heinlein. Early on, my problems were more that his dialogue just seemed.... too pat. He couldn't separate his characters in his mind, so they always had the perfect comebacks to what each other were saying.
And as I got older, I have more and more problem with his women. But then again, I adore Isaac Asimov, and he can't write women well, either. But better than Heinlein.
Eq0@literature.cafe · 2 pts · 1d
I loved it! And Starship Troopers, just yo stay in topic and time, while changing everything else.
rottenmummy@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
Regressed even if I might say
Eq0@literature.cafe · 16 pts · 1d
Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy instilled in me a deep faith in science above all else. And a lot of hope that, even if times can suck, overall we have been developing and live has been getting better and better. I am way more cynical now, but I still hold on the hope that eventually everything will be fine.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
There's definitely a lot in Foundation to aspire to. And Asimov's writing in general - the zeroth law, for example. It'd be nice to have his robots with the three (yea four) laws, for sure.
fiendishplan@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 1d
Cloud Atlas (I feel like every book post I make is about Cloud Atlas) It taught me two important lessons.
LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 1d
Fahrenheit 451. I started noticing increasing censorship and the growing intentional denial of knowledge and learning more and more. It's terrifying.
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 13h
Just ask Clarisse McClellan
mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 1d
Redwall - I didn't realize when I was reading the series but looking back now they absolutely instilled in me the knowledge that I could stand up to those in power despite being weaker or smaller. Those books lead to me rebelling against my abusive parents and striking out on my own. I shed their conservative views and hatred. All because a mouse and his friends stood up to a rat.
I've got more but this one probably had the largest impact on how I think overall in the long term.
TheMinions@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 1d
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Neon Genesis Evangelion also (positively) changed my view on life and what makes it worth living.
Gurren Lagann is much more overt with the positive messaging.
seffen@literature.cafe · 4 pts · 1d
My older brother left home for college and I was legitimately so depressed I got left behind. I remember looking out of the living room window seeing him drive off in my parent’s car. Gurren Lagann was one of the first things I watched after that. And I’m sure you can tell what my reaction was when a certain event happens a quarter into the show. But what really saved me was everything that came after that. I’m almost doubled the age I was when I first saw it and nothing has ever come close to affecting me that way. I will personally forever put it in the magnum opus of human creativity and art.
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 13h
Get in the goddamn robot!
SelfHigh5@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
Dogma helped me see how absurd religion, specifically Catholicism, was and helped be begin to untangle what it all meant for me, a hyper-religious teenager at the time.
yesman@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
A Demon Haunted World by Sagan should be taught in school.
Go Tell it On the Mountain by Baldwin is such a beautiful work of fiction that you could totally miss the profundity of it's themes.
BreadOven@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7h
Hmmm didn't know about the Sagan one. Do you think an actual scientist would get something out of it?
RecursiveParadox@piefed.social · 1 pts · 6h
Not OP but yes an actual scientist would like it. It's more about the ways in which cultures over time turn to the supernatural to explain something that has a scientific explanation.
It like a lot of Big Science books (Guns, Germs, and Steel, Sapiens), has more than a few "just so" stories, but i you look past that, it's a very valuable book teaching you to look at things you don't understand critically and why we as a society, often fail at this.
snoons@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 1d
Ghost in the Shell. It really changed how I seen my body, not as something that I am, but as something I control. Now I can start and stop peeing whenever I want.
belsedar@slrpnk.net · 9 pts · 16h
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. Made me realize how dogmatic religion is, also its a really fun and accessible book to read, teenage coming of age story, with a sprinkle of religious criticism.
amelia@feddit.org · 1 pts · 6h
I'm pretty sure it made me the scientist I am today.
3abas@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 20h
Mornings in Jenin. Growing up as a child of refugees, it was difficult to fully grasp the horrors of Israeli violence against Palestinians, my parents shielded us from the worst they witnessed, only telling us of the good memories before they were forced to leave. This book helped shape who I am today, motivated me to learn the truth, and exposed me to a whole world of non colonial literature, both fiction and non. And while it is a story of fiction, it is based on the reality of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, ongoing for 78 years now.
5ibelius9insterberg@feddit.org · 9 pts · 1d
All quiet on the western front. It’s short. It’s good. The OG Nazis hated it. Read it.
(The title alone is „Baby-shoes-never-worn“ level of sad)
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 1d
The movie is a masterpiece
lilith267@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 1d
The original movie maybe, but the most recent netflix one felt like it cut out every scene from the book that made you actually feel for the main character. By the end of the book you understand on an empathetic level that Paul's choice in the last scene of the book is a mercy to himself. The author deeply explores so much more then the horrors of war itself, brothership, the rich/powerful treating humans like game pieces, the effects of propaganda on those who are living the opposite reality, how the ones away from the front turn their backs on helping the troops despite being the loudest voice for pushing the war further. There is so much more to the book and its sad that such an viciously real story is dumbed down to "war bad and scary"
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 1d
I didn't know about any remakes, the original movie is what I was referring to. I have never read the book but I did study the film and it is a special thing. Especially in regards to humanizing the enemy and realizations about propaganda and the pain of understanding
lilith267@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 1d
Ah I fully take back my comment then. Ironically ive read the book but haven't gotten around to watching the first movie
When people talk about the All Quiet on the Western Front movie their usually referring to the 2022 Netflix adaptation since the last adaptation was in 1979, and before that 1930. I've heard great things about the 1930 adaptation but have no clue which your talking about :0
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 22h
I didn't even know that there was a 1979 version lol
The only way to watch it is the 1930s version. It's very iconic and the cinematography is a masterpiece
TheMinions@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 1d
Stormlight Archive/Oathbringer.
Journey Before Destination.
::: spoiler Huge Spoiler for Book 3
The most important words a man can say are, "I will do better." These are not the most important words any man can say. I am a man, and they are what I needed to say.
The ancient code of the Knights Radiant says "journey before destination." Some may call it a simple platitude, but it is far more. A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. the trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we hurt those around us.
But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends.
That failure becomes our destination.
To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one. :::
azimir@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1d
I've had more than too many life threatening events. Along with family, therapy, proactive steps to improve my life, I took to heart "life before death". When I would be in a bad mental/emotional place, that was a strong mantra to help me get back on track. Thank you, Brandon Sanderson.
TheMinions@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
The entire Knight’s Radiant First Ideal is great. This book and aspect in particular really spoke to me :)
greybeard@feddit.online · 7 pts · 1d
Snow Crash is a Sci-Fi book from the early 90s. It coined the term metaverse. It takes place in a post American collapse setting, where corporations have taken over. There's a lot of interesting points in the book, probably as interesting today as the day it was wrote.
But what stuck with me, and helped form my understanding of society and helped me build my career in tech was his observations on franchises. He posits that franchise are basically a living organism, who's DNA is written in binders. These binders cover every eventuality. They explain process, procedure, and expected results so that the humans in each franchise can keep the organism alive.
It was kinda a throw away set dressing just setting up the world at the beginning of the book, but it is the part that had real meaning to me.
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 13h
Was that the protagonist who said that?
greybeard@feddit.online · 1 pts · 1h
Nope, the narrator, which I don't remember well, might have been the inner monologue of the hero protagonist.
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 57m
The main character in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash is named Hiro Protagonist.
ThatsTheJoke.gif
greybeard@feddit.online · 1 pts · 54m
Yes, that's why I expanded on what you said and spelled out hero protagonist.
ericdavidmorris@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 13h
The Good Place, especially the ending of it.
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler How much of our lives now through capitalism are passively “bad actions”, how people can always change and grow still even if it should be the “end” of their journey, how shitty the idea of living forever somewhere in the afterlife actually would be, and becoming comfortable with the idea of death and the whole unknowing nature of it. :::
Really a wild piece of work from the same man who made The Office, Parks and Rec, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 13h
NINE NINE!!
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 1d
People have already mentioned Foundation, Stranger in a Strange Land, Discworld, Gurren Lagann, and Hitchhiker's Guide, so I'll add The Illuminatus Trilogy. It taught me a lot about how organizations tend to shake out, among other things.
MrOtingocni@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 17h
Robert Anton Wilson had a certain genius for distilling so many slivers of truth embedded in conspiracy, paradigms, altered states of consciousness, personal and group psychology, systems, etc. After theTrilogy I readPrometheus Rising and that book blew my young little mind.
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 15h
I make a habit of buying and gifting Illuminatus and Prometheus Rising whenever I find them for cheap
Sam_the_vallerina@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 1d
The Dispossessed. No question. No other work of fiction has made me question more about my beliefs and worldview than that book. It makes you question everything you believe about society and your role in it. It's both an engaging science fiction work and an incredible work of philosophy. The author's worldview very clearly bleeds through into every page, and she does an excellent job of creating characters that actually feel like real people. The heroes are deeply flawed yet morally engaging, the villains are sophisticated and well-spoken. The Dispossessed made me rethink how I see my purpose in my life, my relations to the society around me, the ways we perform gender, and whether or not it's actually possible for equality to exist. Whether or not you agree with Le Guin's politics, she is easily one of the best authors of the 20th century.
blueduck@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1d
Do I need to read the whole series or can I just jump to that book?
Vanth@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 11h
Imo, you can just jump straight into this one. She wrote it several novels into the Hainish Cycle, but it is first chronologically within the story timeline.
Really, there's not too much crossover between books. I haven't read all of them, just picked them up as they sound interesting in no particular order and it's been fine.
chunes@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
It's not so much the critique of anthropocentrism or infinite growth that changed my thinking; I was already on board with those. It was the idea that we behave like this because of the myth, the story we believe about ourselves, rather than some inherent quality.
Still not sure if I believe it fully, but it's a thinker.
timeghost@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
Idiocracy shattered my delusional optimism for the future.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 1d
Autopilot, for reasons that are spoilers
TownhouseGloryHole@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 19h
Might want to spoiler that second part, kinda gives away the ending.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 18h
Oh shit I wasn't even thinking
fubarx@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Anything Monty Python. Also, Gravity's Rainbow.
Adderbox76@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 23h
Imajica by Clive Barker flipped a switch in my (then) teenage brain making me understand that "fantasy" books don't need to have swords, wizards, and all the other tropes. That the idea of "fantasy" as a genre is far far richer than I imagined.
MrOtingocni@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 17h
Same! It turned me on to the whole modern, urban, fantasy genre which is often more compelling due to being able to relate to the settings.
BreadOven@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 21h
Probably a bit stereotypical, but in my teens I read Brave new World (Aldous Huxley), followed shortly by Brave new World Revisited. Really showed that even back when it was written, society is slowly getting worse. Sort of made it very easy to see how it continued (and still is) to the present day.
finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
Masters of the Universe.
Fisto really gave me a lot to think about when it comes to cultivating useful skills.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 22h
Children of Men. Lack of human sustainability is depressing.
BurgerBaron@quokk.au · 5 pts · 20h
!!! WARNING. SPOILERS. !!!
Everhood for me. It's divisive, if you manage to connect with the game and don't bounce off it, I think it's one of the most emotionally powerful experiences I've gone through at least. The themes just happen to be intensely involved with most of my longest standing philosophical and existential struggles and the game was cathartic in dealing with them. Plus it's psychedelic, eastern/buddhist inspired, and is fully capable of rendering you emotionally raw.
That the asynchronous musical real time combat works so well for me just sends it even harder. The OST is nearly 3 hours long and nearly every song is a banger. Quite intimate at times, as the game I think deliberately ties the song to the character's very "soul" as you're struggling to kill them.
https://youtu.be/IbHZngyTDZ0
The basic premise is this: You may know, if you're in the right type of debate or philosophy communities, how often the topic of dealing with death comes up. Atheists I often find saying living forever would be absurd mental torture and maddening. Even though I agree I'd still choose to be ageless all the same as I'd rather that than not existing. Unpopular opinion. I don't expect anyone to agree with me and that's fine, I'm weird. Well, this game explores that scenario and certainly doesn't agree with me either.
You're orbiting the very last star in the entire universe, experiencing a later stage of Universal Heat Death before the last thing happening is evaporating black holes exploding in gamma ray bursts. With people who countless eons ago figured out how to become ageless. They've lived for so long they're physically twisted, messing with their forms out of sheer boredom and they're various flavours of insane.
Your character is pressured into finally ending the lives of the remaining survivors and then destroying the last star and reality itself. Truly ending it all. It's muddy and the game isn't going to let you go about that without feeling conflicted. The main character has tried before, failed, and lost their memory out of grief, laying dormant in the forest for who knows how long before this amnesiac second attempt begins with the encouragement of a frog man who very much wants to end reality itself. You can refuse btw, and get an extremely difficult fight out of it.
This is all played out with Undertale styled humor and characters. It's certainly under the Earthbound branch alongside LISA but much less crass.
At the end, I walked away being far less afraid of death and that's a big deal for me as an atheist who before this found zero comfort in the responses people gave online when it came to dealing wirh death when you're unwilling to believe in comforting lies like religion. I'd still choose to be ageless if I could :p but at least I'm at peace with reality for now.
If I caught anyone's interest I think it's best played on Expert so the fights really feel like the narrative wants them to feel: tooth and nail struggles. If you end up enjoying it, the sequel is an utter travesty and the biggest disappointment in a form of media I've ever experienced.
kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de · 5 pts · 1d
Going to go with a video game: Outer Wilds. The game is very story and mystery oriented, so I don't want to spoil it, as that can ruin the experience. In short though, it's an exploration game where you get to do your first flight around a miniature solar system - exploring it freely without a linear sequence or quest markers.
The story is told in a nonlinear way, depending on how you explore it, and the way it comes together and the conclusion it reaches were amazing to discover.
dregan@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Such a fantastic game.
KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de · 5 pts · 1d
D-D-D-Dark Souls 3. A great resource for the depressed.
You wanna know more? Go play the game. It's very good. :3
FishFace@piefed.social · 2 pts · 1d
Pff. You can't just imply that anyone will understand a story by playing a fromsoft game.
KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 1d
Oh no! I did not mean to imply that. Let me try again:
"Dark Souls 3 is a great resource for people with depressio due to it's core game play loop. Wanna find out why exactly? Go and play it >:)"
Phew. That could have been catastrophic. Thanks for pointing that out.
FishFace@piefed.social · 2 pts · 1d
Whew!
BreadOven@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7h
Start with 1. Better experience imo. As for 2....take it or leave it (I like it) not everyone's favorite. Ds3 is a nice end to it all.
RecursiveParadox@piefed.social · 5 pts · 6h
1984 and it's spiritual prequel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas .
These books opened up my teen mind to the fact that we are always, individually and as a society, creating, editing, and manipulating consensual reality.
Unfortunately the bad guys are way ahead of us on the manipulation bit, and with LLMs/Gen-AI I fear a total collapse of consensual reality. But if we have enough Hunter S's in the world, we may still be in the fight.
ramsgrl909@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. The ending is just chefs kiss and made me think about my Dark Tower
dualcoreduron@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
The Watchmen
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 1d
Presumably Alan Moore's 'Watchmen' (no The), solid work, but not world changing IMO. 'V for Vendetta' is probably more what we need right now.
To be explicit, not invalidating your opinion, just stating my own.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 1d
The Count of Monte Cristo
It's fucking long but damn is it a great story about morals and life and what is meaningful especially when you can't have your cake and eat it too
Revenge is a bitter sweet thing and always comes with a price and collateral damage
story@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 1d
the truth machine made me realize that i never have to lie again
tales of symphonia taught me that trusting everyone you meet is not as stupid a decision as it looks
and simulacra and simulation taught me that no one needs to lie in order to fool you
lots of learning about what it means to tell the truth
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 20h
The two fictional courtroom dramas that changed the course of my life (eventually persuading me I wanted to become a lawyer and make sure the system works towards justice) were A Few Good Men and To Kill a Mockingbird.
And even though recently things have seemed kinda bleak on the justice front in the big seats of power in the US (in the three branches of government), there's still a million tiny ways to improve things locally, including in day to day interactions with others. So I still draw some inspiration from those ideals.
Speiser0@feddit.org · 4 pts · 1d
It didn't change my thoughts on the whole world, but the way demons are depicted in the anime Frieren changed the way I think about entities that use language for manipulation rather than communication: Their words are weapons. And assuming sincereness in any of them is dangerous. Immediate blocking is more appropriate than wasting time with them.
luthis@lemmy.nz · 2 pts · 6h
The matrix for obvious reasons.
American beauty. Gummo.
There's a great book called the road less travelled, that had a big impact too. Northern lights series.
But I can't remember specifics on what changed, just that they had a big impact on me.
I think it comes down to being able to appreciate the world in new ways.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 16h
Doesn't quite fit your specification, but George Carlin's Class Clown (via Piped) album opened up my mind to the idea that it was okay to question religious teachings.
kugel7c@feddit.org · 1 pts · 4h
Monogatari series novels and perhaps the anime as well. It really drove home the point that: You (I) am also human so what i observe, excuse, despise in others I will necessarily also contain. And i can chose to seek help, ask for forgiveness, deal with it, heal, forgive and so on not just for other people but importantly also for myself.
Not that I really gained much competence in this matter from this but the thought continues to stick, and it's demonstrably a good thought.
the16bitgamer@programming.dev · 1 pts · 4h
Sounds weird, but Ascendance of a bookworm and time. Use to work agile and doing things quick, then I read bookworm and the tiny gremlin who wanted to do things quick and now, and the consequences for doing so.
Now I give as much time as I can/need for anything and everything. And I now start getting annoyed when family says they’re dropping in. Like dude, give me time to prepare, like 2-4 days heads up so I can clean, get more food and properly welcome you.
anarchy79@lemmy.world · -14 pts · 22h
ITT: the lightest possible pop culture shlock available.
Why am I not shocked.
"STAR WARS REVENGE OF THE SITH CHANGED MY LIFE. And Enid Blyton- how did that woman never win a Nobel prize? Because she's a woman, what else?! The staggering philosophical depth is something only true intellectuals can understand."
like...
3abas@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 20h
Please oh literate one, won't you share the works of fiction that changed YOUR immeasurably deep life?