Lol! My mum still asks both me and my husband (“techy” jobs according to her) to solve all her problems with computers/printers/ the internet at large/ any app that doesn’t work… the list is endless. I take it as a statement of how proud she is of me that she would still ask us first, even if we haven’t succeeded in fixing a single issue since the time the problem was an old cartridge in the printer some 5-6 years ago.

Wow, that’s great news! Thanks for sharing! I read my father’s version, so definitely older than 1991.

I just started reading The Moon is a harsh Mistress, I’m hope it keeps up with the hype.

I personally feel represented in at least three categories, so I’d say it does!

It’s already a day later! You got this, the hardest part is flowing by. How are you doing?

My little piece of advice: you don’t have to think about the future, tomorrow, next week, they are all far off. Think about now, this hour, the next 5 minutes, or whatever stretch of time seems manageable. What do you do now? Cook dinner? Watch a show? Cry in the shower? The future might be scary and too much to manage now. You’ll handle it when you get to it. Now, you only have to think about right now.

Verbena tea is calming and soothing. Lavender is relaxing. Green tea for me is a calming ritual.

You got this. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it, but you only need to do one step, and you got that one step.

For hard sci-fi I agree, but for soft one the difference becomes more and more tenuous.

As far as “best” go, I’m non plussed. Some of these I really liked, some… not so much.

Personal positive votes:

Perdido Street Station - absolutely loved it, great social commentary undertones while the story goes its own way in an incredibly vivid world

Fifth Season - great first book of a good series, good writing and good tension points

Saga - great art to match a great retelling of Romeo and Juliet in space, where all tropes are out the window

Personal “good but not great”: All Systems Red - fun light read, nothing more

Personal negative votes:

The Name of the Wind - it’s the archetypal fantasy story, with a lot of world building and little else, a Marie Sue as a main character and a love story with many many problems. I guess it’s there because it’s famous thus essential?

The Three Boby Problem - the writing is dry, the math is wrong, I can’t stand this book

American Goods - talking about dry writing style. And keeping the reader in the dark about completely arbitrary world rules. I did not enjoy it, often it feels Neil Gaiman writes to show you how much smarter he is than you. I will admit that Gaiman has been extremely influential, so I support it being on the list

Mistborn - page turner with little else to its name. The characters drop their life long ideals so easily to facilitate the plot, they are hardly believable

The other books in the list I haven’t read nor were on my reading list, most I hadn’t heard about before.

I loved its depiction of a complete world, where elements are introduced only for the flavor. It made it feel so lively, while destructuring the usual “Chekov’s gun” expectation. Most of the side stories also tie back into the immigration/discrimination theme that runs through the book.

I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

I never noticed that I also thought of “her”. I read the book a while ago, so I don’t remember your reference, but I remember finding it refreshing to find a robot that was “obviously female” instead of undefined therefore male.

You can’t skim an audio file, you have to listen from the beginning to the end. Audio makes symbols that are often used in programming difficult to parse or confusing. I… really dislike this

Ideally, yes. Practically, nature needs a lot of space to be able to act freely. Protecting only asking a River might not give nature enough margin of maneuver, so we might need to still take some actions.

A lot depends on your mindset. In particular nowadays, we are constantly focused on the future. Everything is seen as a stepping stone towards something else. So naturally, happiness becomes a faraway goal: “I’ll be happy when that happens”, but as son as that is reached, a new goal appears. To be happy, you need to live in the present. Accept the limitations of it, and thrive on the rest. Not every situation allows for happiness, but most allow for at least some happiness.

I also think that humans are social animals, so happiness should be found in the connections we have with others, friends, blood family and chosen family.

Heinlein. He far from unknown, but he should get even more recognition. Stranger in a strange Land is a deeply philosophical book wrapped in a scifi page turner.

Philip K. Dick is also not as famous as he should be. In particular with The Man in the high Castle, pure poetry!

Saga is great! I like the story, but the drawings really bring it home for me.

My method is very similar! I don’t read a lot of sci-fi anymore, but I pretty much ran out of classics to read in my teens. Now it’s either recommendations from irl friends (they know what I like and it’s always a hit) or award winners. Sometimes, some recommendations from there internet hit home with a good elevator pitch, but doesn’t happen often.

I don’t feel like it’s worth getting into, the writing is just too poor… but that’s my opinion. I finished it, just because it was so Ashley I was hoping it would get better. I did not try out the second one.

For me, Stephenson is a hit or miss. I hated Snow Crash, I disliked the Cryptonomicon, but I absolutely loved Anathem. I can’t tell you why, just that that’s how it is.

Glad the coin flipped head, I’ll be joining for the read!

I felt the sequel was good but not on par with the first one. A Memory Called Empire just weaves the story using so many colors!