just finished picrel

[Anonymous No.19146439]

similar recs? your thoughts on it? let's discuss

[Anonymous No.19146446]

>>19146439
Play Fallout and Fallout 2.

[Anonymous No.19146468]

>>19146446
i dont play vidya and honestly most postapoc media sucks ass.

[Anonymous No.19146478]

>>19146468
You might as well play, because pic-related has the literary value of a video game.

[Anonymous No.19146551]

>>19146478
never claimed it's anyhow literary, but it was pretty comfy. above all it wasnt predictable drivel, the bits of humor caught me just right, and there's genuine commentary on rarely spoken-about issues, not one-sided, not really sci-fi.
itt I'm mainly looking for science fiction books that don't readily classify as sci-fi

[Anonymous No.19146597]

>>19146439
I haven't read that book in a long time, but I remember really enjoying it back in the day.

I like the theme about humanity's rise and fall from greatness always fluctuating, and the aesthetic of the Roman Catholic churches and monasteries fit into the theme very well.

The notion of "bookleggers" was also funny/sad/not that far in the future.

>>19146478
Anon doesn't realize how many videogames have greater literary significance than his favorite lit

>>19146551
The Handmaid's Tale has been made pretty cringe by Hulu, but the book is worth reading. It has an interesting post apoc setting and accurately depicts a worst-case scenario that doesn't seem too far out of reach when you consider the political climate of places like Texas. That might be a controversial opinion here bc women bad, but I enjoyed it.

[Anonymous No.19146621]

>>19146551
cozy miller post once again confirms that /lit/ is a catholic board. check out the anubis gates if you haven't already

[Anonymous No.19146634]

For some quality post apocalyptic fiction these are about the only ones I can recommend. Maybe I'll remember some more later.

The Death of Grass
Earth Abides
Alas, Babylon
I Am Legend
The Slynx
Viriconium

[Anonymous No.19146654]

>>19146634
>>19146439
The Slynx is the one most like Canticle.

[Anonymous No.19146774]

>>19146597
>That might be a controversial opinion here bc women bad, but I enjoyed it.
im willing to read stuff that truly counters my worldview, but only if it's not unbearably cringe. how would you rate it from a literary standpoint?
>>19146621
based and saved. comfy time warping reminds me of picrel too
>>19146634
>>19146654
thanks, bros
now i wonder if positively postapoc is an existing genre. an apocalyptic event took place, but from that onwards marched glory, something like that. maybe luddites being happy about the social collapse. need to inquire further.

[Anonymous No.19146795]

>>19146774
>maybe luddites being happy about the social collapse. need to inquire further.
I think you would like Earth Abides. I've been looking for more stuff like it but I haven't had any luck.

[Anonymous No.19146810]

>>19146654
oh hey, I've read that one in russian! havent recognised the translated name. why, it's exceedingly comfy, Tolstaya is one of the few modern authors that truly feels and molds the language as she tells.
i wonder if the translation does it any good. the language and folklore seem all too ruskie-specific

[Anonymous No.19146821]

>>19146439

[Anonymous No.19146829]

>>19146821
anyone else felt their heart tense up and reverbate with an odd joy at the Immaculate Conception? it's one of the luminous things in the book. love how the symbolism is all strange and unlikely.

[Anonymous No.19146830]

>>19146810
Yeah its been a few years but I remember thinking it must have been a nightmare to translate. I wish I knew some Russian so I could compare the texts.

[Anonymous No.19146861]

The most literarily impressive work of science fiction ever written.
It’s not just a great science fiction book, it’s one of the greatest novels of the 20th century

[Anonymous No.19146967]

>>19146597
Not letting people murder unborn human life is not the same thing as subjugating all women as sex slaves

[Anonymous No.19146987]

>>19146478
ebin bait

[Anonymous No.19147122]

>>19146829
>He blinked several times. Pat vanished. The world congealed again and the blackness was gone. Somehow he had discovered what he was afraid of. There was something he had yet to fulfill before that Dark closed over him forever. Dear God, let me live long enough to fulfill it. He was afraid to die before he had accepted as much suffering as that which came to the child who could not comprehend it, the child he had tried to save for further suffering-no, not for it, but in spite of it. He had commanded the mother in the name of Christ. He had not been wrong. But now he was afraid to slide away into that blackness before he had endured as much as God might help him endure.

[Anonymous No.19147169]

Anathem has a lot of similar ideas it is also about a group of monks that are preserving knowledge while the world around them gets destroyed and rebuilt. towards the end of the book it gets pretty stupid but overall it is good.

[Anonymous No.19147300]

Does anyone else just really like "distant future" sci-fi in general? It feels kind of rare, but it's good to see all the examples of it in this thread. So often sci-fi stories seem to be set a few decades in the future, a few centuries at most. I love the idea of sci-fi set thousands or even tens of thousands of years in the future, to the point where it feels like an alien world, except it's OUR world.

I guess I like the "dying Earth" subgenre for that reason, too. Sci-fi set so far in the future that the Earth itself has grown old and begun to decay.

[Anonymous No.19147421]

>>19147169
I liked this a lot even if it slightly overstayed it's welcome.

[Anonymous No.19147545]

>>19146478
seething

[Anonymous No.19147575]

>>19146597
I'm unfortunately unable to see a world where you can't murder children as a dystopia.

[Anonymous No.19147651]

>>19147122
>when you realise the book is unpozzed by main character syndrome and all the comfy funny monks you learned to love will die

[Anonymous No.19147675]

>>19147300
so distant it feels alien yet still recognisably our world would be pretty eerie.
it's just hard to have real distant future setting without either a bulk of boring masturbatory lore or author pulling things out of his ass at random

[Anonymous No.19147979]

>>19146634
vouching for alas, babylon. pretty good

[Anonymous No.19147988]

>>19147300
You mean like the "dying earth" genre? Book of the New Sun, Viriconium, and of course the books by Jack Vance. I'm sure there's other good ones.

[Anonymous No.19148050]

Shalom, my group reading brother.

[Anonymous No.19148305]

>>19148050
If current /lit/ is the only thing you've got going for you I pity you in earnest.

[Anonymous No.19148316]

>>19147988
you should really finish reading the post before you respond

[Anonymous No.19148639]

>>19148316
Nothing you people say is worth paying that much attention to.

[Anonymous No.19148824]

>>19146439
Didn't expect this to turn into a horror novel at the end. Rachel was creepy.

[Anonymous No.19149072]

>>19146829
For me it's all the quiet moments between the monks as they go about their days, along with all the surprisingly subtle biblical references. Though the ending where they look back on the earth and dust their sandals as they leave has got to be my favourite moment in the whole thing. Though I can really pick it up anywhere and read on, every part of the book is great.

[Anonymous No.19149091]

>>19147122
>I feel like saying words I’ve never even heard. Toad’s dung. Hag pus. Gangrene of the soul.
Immortal brain-rot. Do you understand me, Brother? And Christ breathed the same carrion air with us; how meek the Majesty of our Almighty God! What an Infinite Sense of Humor–for Him to become one of us!–King of the Universe, nailed on a cross as a Yiddish Schlemiel by the likes of us. They say Lucifer was cast down for refusing to adore the Incarnate Word; the Foul One must totally lack a sense of humor! God of Jacob, God even of Cain! Why do they do it all again?

[Anonymous No.19149244]

>>19148305
"neo-/lit/" is not a reference to the current iteration of this board.

[Anonymous No.19149260]

>>19146439
lord of the world has a very similar feel to the end of canticle. thought it's not distant future

[Anonymous No.19149355]

>>19149260
heh im reading that right now, I just got to the part in rome and now im definitely starting to get somewhat similar vibes

[Anonymous No.19149670]

>>19148824
Rachel was born without original sin, being a spontaneously generated second head. She's a new Eve, perhaps not doomed to make the samd mistake. Weird but not horror at all.

[Anonymous No.19150028]

>>19146439
I was saddened at the end of the first third. Can you remind me if what was done in the first third helped out the second third or not, or if it was all for naught?

[Anonymous No.19150171]

>>19150028
Half the point was that everything they did, even though it didn't seem like it, had a meaning and purpose. The preservation of stuff like the electrical diagram helped reintroduce technology back to humanity, as demonstrated by their creation of the lightbulb. However, there is a very pertinent point that the misuse of this knowledge can lead to devastating effects like the end of the book, though it can also be taken that such a thing is simply a part of human nature and cannot be easily prevented.

[Anonymous No.19150455]

>>19149670
It's definitely unsettling imagery.

[Anonymous No.19150533]

>>19146551
Try Earth Abides. Comfy and cool.

[Anonymous No.19151028]

>>19149072
>Though the ending where they look back on the earth and dust their sandals as they leave has got to be my favourite moment in the whole thing.
damn, same for me. the grandeur and scope was good, but those subtleties and quiet monastic things were the best.

[Anonymous No.19151128]

>>19149260
>lord of the world
I'm interested. also wanted to read Come rack! Come rope! by the same author. but in this particular book, would you say the view of the world is one-sided?
the annotation again mentions
>and euthanasia is widely available.
as if Christian authors have a special sore about this, among all the ills that ravage dystopian (and regular) world. Canticle managed to honorably defend the abbot's position while showing the crude reality.

[Anonymous No.19151163]

>>19151128
im reading it now and euthanasia isnt really presented as some big debate so far like in that part of canticle, its appearance is just there in the background more or less, in the form of the government automatically euthanizing people at the scenes of accidents and people being euthanized against their will, the point is just to show how dystopian the world is i guess

[Anonymous No.19151188]

>>19151163
now this is interesting. in canticle there was a special emphasis on voluntary euthanasia for people who took a critical dose of radiation, which is perhaps the most justified and clear-cut case for voluntary euthanasia, and the reason i've disagreed hard with abbot's rigid protest.
gonna read it, thanks anon, have you read the Come rope! book as well?

[Anonymous No.19151208]

>>19151188

honestly what i got out of that whole debacle in canticle is just the absolute horror of being in that position and to be making those kinds of choices , i mean the whole idea of being in a nuclear war and masses of people pouring into voluntary death camps is enough to make anyone all fucked up and turned around i imagine

[Anonymous No.19151214]

>>19151208
fair. futurama suicide booths without the comedy (well, just a bit of it). i honestly empathised with the doctor who spoke of pain, because what can you realistically do? it's a doomsday picture, but the alternative would be swarms of people dying in agony molten alive, and you cannot bury extremely radioactive things without special precautions.
the best thing about canticle to me was how accurately it represented the struggle of idealism agaist the direst times.

[Anonymous No.19151231]

>>19146621
>/lit/ is a Catholic board

Although the amount of Gnostic posting, occasional Neetch threads and the fedora-tipping of the neighbourhood tranny would state otherwise, I can very much agree that /lit/ is generally favorable towards Catholicism, whether it be LARP or not.

If anything, I see /lit/ becoming a Catholic board if more and more people start reading Tolkien, Miller or Gene Wolfe.

[Anonymous No.19151508]

>>19151028
Matthew 10:14
>And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.

> The last monk, upon entering, paused in the lock. He stood in the open hatchway and took off his sandals. “Sic transit mundus,”he murmured, looking back at the glow. He slapped the soles of his sandals together, beating the dirt out of them. The glow was engulfing a third of the heavens. He scratched his beard, took one last look at the ocean, then stepped back and closed the hatch

Such a brilliant book.

[Anonymous No.19151525]

>>19151508
thanks for reminding me about that biblical passage. i knew this is symbolic but couldn't recall what exactly it referenced. truly a brilliant scene

[ist No.19151587]

>>19151231
wtfsd

[Anonymous No.19151637]

>>19146439
huh, i started this one last night. im in chapter three, right after the mc discovers the papers in the fallout shelter and goes to father Cherokee about them
it really feels like Fallout, and so far it's interesting. only things that bugs it not knowing how long exactly has it been since the Deluge of Fire

[Anonymous No.19151689]

>>19151637
It was a major inspiration for fallout, and a lot of post apocalyptic stuff in general really. Brotherhood of Steel and the whole monks preserving knowledge thing especially.

[Anonymous No.19151710]

Similar in what respect? There's this short by Lovecraft/Barlow that takes place in a post-apoc Earth.

https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/tas.aspx

[Anonymous No.19151725]

>>19151689
>It was a major inspiration for fallout
makes sense

[Anonymous No.19151855]

>>19146597
>Anon doesn't realize how many videogames have greater literary significance than his favorite lit
No wonder you think this when you're recommending utter shlock like the fucking handmaid's tale.

[Anonymous No.19153206]

bump

[Anonymous No.19153387]

>>19146439
pretty good, pretty heterodox as well iirc. IMO the extreme fetishization of life at all costs in the modern church leads to some poor theology.

[Anonymous No.19153393]

>>19151128
I enjoy it but the book has all the subtlety of a giant club. one of my favorite lines so far, I think it was right at the beginning, describes the view from an office building as a depressing urbanite hellscape, than says something along the lines of "it was a view only a communist could find inspiring"

that got a chuckle out of me, honestly pretty accurate for 1907 though

[Anonymous No.19153398]

>>19146439
>itt I'm mainly looking for science fiction books that don't readily classify as sci-fi
read some Filthy K Dick, the most based reactionary sci fi writer. This is about killing android jews who are trying to take over the world by crypsis.

[Anonymous No.19153418]

>>19153387
thats a good point. especially well-showcased here. i wonder what the author's intention was in that euthanasia subplot? i reckon he's a Christian and agrees with most of the monks' opinions.
are we supposed to feel horrible about the suicide camps? the way he describes it, fully voluntary painless death offered to people who absorbed critical doses, it seems really humane. he didn't describe the effects of radiation in such doses in the book, but we know what it's like.

[Anonymous No.19153425]

>>19153398
i have his Man in high castle in print and A scanner darkly on ebook. which would you read first? not interested in picrel yet, i usually start authors with non meme books

[Anonymous No.19153466]

>>19153425
a scanner darkly is also quite fash

[Anonymous No.19153495]

>>19153425
id say scanner. man in the high castle is honestly a little bit silly

[Anonymous No.19153544]

>>19147169
The first half is really good. The second half is one of the most retarded things I've ever read.

[Anonymous No.19153609]

>>19153495
noted. saved for SILLY mood
>>19153544
elaborate. i dont like the annotation, although the cover art is great

[Anonymous No.19153689]

>>19153609
all of his books are kind of silly. He wrote them on meth and published them whenever he ran out of money, so he just kind of tacks on endings when hes about to get evicted. He also has an unfortunate tedency to forget his own plot points halfway through the story. Still, very good, interesting and funny author.

[Anonymous No.19153735]

>>19153398
>Filthy K Dick
Kek, based name

[Anonymous No.19153797]

>>19153689
this sounds amazing. a writer of the people. thanks anon, secured my next read

[Anonymous No.19154265]

what are your favorite passages from this book? there are so many great ones

[Anonymous No.19154455]

>>19154265
the poet's stuff was all brilliant.
one of my favorite moments has to be the abbot and old ben's conversation after they haven't met for 5 years. one of the most sincere and touching depictions of that kind of friendship, almost teared up

[Anonymous No.19154621]

>>19146439
shit cover

[Anonymous No.19154641]

>>19146597
>that doesn't seem too far out of reach when you consider the political climate of places like Texas
how are you not embarrassed to say something like this? just finished reading Salon for the day?

[Anonymous No.19154869]

>>19154621
yeah, a lot of wacky covers for that book. love mine though, one of the half dozen English bookerinos that i own

[Anonymous No.19155294]

>>19153418
The author was a convert to Catholicism after WWII who committed suicide in his 70s. The book was a kind of working out of his guilt over bombing one of the oldest monasteries in europe, the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino. The place was turned into dust, it's pretty interesting seeing comparison pictures of before and after. As for the Euthenasia thing, his Catholic background obviously means he's opposed to it, but he does it in the book in such a way that his criticism doesn't seem preachy, as so much Catholic moralising often is. You could even say that while he denounces the practice for being immoral, he acknowledges that it is not an absolutely evil thing, at least from other people's point of view. It's a brilliant way to portray the issue.

[Anonymous No.19155310]

>>19146439
Riddley Walker

[Anonymous No.19155342]

>>19154869
Yeah where tf was my promised epic cathedral spaceship

[Anonymous No.19155359]

I read this before I had to put my cat down and the story of buddy in part 3 trying half assed to put his cat down tore me a new asshole reflecting on it. its such a fucking terrible thing to have to do, theres so much regret and wishes that things could have happened differently. I still fucking hate thinking of it. probably one of the worst experiences in my life

[Anonymous No.19155395]

>>19155359
actually a story that made that one hit hard, when me and my stoner teenager friends were tramping about in the woods like 10 years ago, we came across a bird that seemed injured and wasn't going anywhere, and we decided it would be best to kill it to end its suffering, so we tried with a nearby fallen tree but just made things worse, and all of us pussied out and couldn't face it after our failure. that shit still haunts me all these years later

[Anonymous No.19155701]

>>19155294
based high effort post. thanks
>>19155359
i wish i could suggest a way to nurture that feel. some experiences just eviscerate you. very similar botched animal butchering scene in The Troop that made me tear up.

it's hard to kill, and a soft heart is the gravest sin of the executioner. i found it interesting that the abbot was arguing against himself here, describing the crude haphazard mercy killing that people resort to when there's no cleaner way out.
>>19155395
i broke the neck of a pigeon that the cats left to die in agony. not from the first try, i guess. don't brood much over it by now, but in the moment it made me realise how priceless is the skill of killing.

[Anonymous No.19155784]

>>19153418
Forcing people to suffer through the agony is good for humanity in the end. It creates martyrs and shows the horror that people inflict by perpetuating war. Giving away painless euthanasia makes it easier for people to rationalize it away.

[Anonymous No.19155795]

>>19155395
white faggot

[Anonymous No.19156857]

>>19155784
I don't know if it's that, I would imagine it's more about the sanctity of life and not treating it like some disposable object. Though you do offer a compelling perspectiv82hd4e.

[Anonymous No.19156951]

>>19155795
Is this why blacks live in a desert? They just killed all the plants and animals? Race of Cain, land of Nod, all makes sense actually. Wicked people.

[Anonymous No.19157273]

>>19153609
The first half is pretty entertaining with monks, cathedrals, alternate history, and some Plato vs. the Sophists kind of stuff; and then it abruptly changes into warrior monks and a bunch of nerdy teenager monks on a goofy save the world quest. It basically turns into a mediocre YA novel halfway through.

[Anonymous No.19157302]

>>19157273
that's a shame and i usually fear exactly that with long ass books.

[Anonymous No.19157409]

>>19157302
Agreed. If you want to read Stephenson, Cryptonomicon is pretty decent, or better than Anathem at least.

[Anonymous No.19157412]

>>19146478
Based

[Anonymous No.19157415]

>>19154265
"We are the centuries.
We are the chin-choppers and the golly-woppers, and soon
we shall discuss the amputation of your head.
We are your singing garbage men, Sir and Madam, and we
march in cadence behind you, chanting rhymes that some think odd.
Hut two threep foa!
Left!
Left!
He-had-a-good-wife-but-he
Left!
Left!
Left!
Right!
Left!
Wir, as they say in the old country, marschieren weiter wenn dies in Scherben fallt.
We have your eoliths and your mesoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient-impregnated) artifacts.
We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do–
Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris,
telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve and a traveling salesman called Lucifer.
We bury your dead and their reputations.
We bury you. We are the centuries.

Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon's slap, seek manhood, taste a little of godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb:
(Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.)
Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens– and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn't the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH!– an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)
Hear then, the last Canticle of the Brethren of the Order of Leibowitz, as sung by the century that swallowed its name

[Anonymous No.19157564]

>>19157415
>that moment when you realise Miller effortlessly pulled an Eliot
>that moment when you realise the German is from a nazi youth song
I love this book.

[Anonymous No.19157986]

>>19157415
>Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon's slap, seek manhood, taste a little of godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb:
>(Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.)
i wrote that one down in my notebook. loved those stream of consciousness bits.

[Anonymous No.19158841]

>>19156951
blacks live in the city and prey on white faggots like you

[Anonymous No.19160506]

>>19155342
I want that cover. I hate how apart from the first few editions the covers have been universally terrible.

[Anonymous No.19161406]

Just finished this book a few hours ago. One of the more unique books I’ve ever read, combining fiction, sci-fi, and theology is such a beautiful way.

My favorite part has to be the intricate detail on the lives of the monks.

It now has me asking, how important were the monks after the fall of Rome? I think it’s pretty clear the author drew inspiration from “dark age” monks.

[Anonymous No.19161979]

>>19161406
While they may not have been as important as commonly believed, they were still essential to the preservation of a lot of knowledge from the classical era, and some places did do their own innovation as depicted in the book (though nothing is revolutionary as electricity and the lightbulb). A lot of knowledge and fragments did survive outside the monasteries, I think one of the biggest sources entered into Europe after the fall of the Byzantines, but we would have a lot less if the monks had not existed.

[Anonymous No.19161999]

>>19146439
Well there is Saint Leibowitz and The Wild Horse Woman. Doesnt have the magic of Canticle but its still the same world.

[Anonymous No.19162010]

>>19161406
>>19155701
>>19151508
>>19151231
>>19147300
>>19146597
my nose... overwhelmed by the unmistakable odor of reddit spacing

[Anonymous No.19162055]

>>19161979
*as revolutionary as electricity and the lightbulb