/lit/ - Literature

>>11721280
The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Complex but not too difficult to read post-colonial science-fiction. Stories within stories and identity confusion out the ass.

The Last Unicorn - Appropriate for children, easy to read, simple feels about dealing with mortality.

The Stars My Destination - Very easy reading, fast-paced, satisfying story about moving from nothing to self-mastery.

Tales of the Dying Earth - A kind of awkward to read collection of top-tier short-stories. Super-weird fantasy/science-fiction world which went on to influence a lot of big stuff.

The Foundation Trilogy - Very easy and fast reading. Top sci-fi premise that covers a lot without ever getting bogged down.

Also this might sound like a giant meme but the bible is always worth reading. At least a book or two every now and then. It's the foundation for the past 2000 years of our literary history more or less, not to mention it's necessary to save your soul.

/lit/ belongs to the Wolfemen

>>9937248
How can other science-fiction writers compete?

first for the eternal GOAT, /sffg/ is a Wolfeman thread now and forever

Let's try and get this thread back onto Wolfe. The Fifth Head of Cerberus is my favourite out of all of his work. Here's a question I posed to Marc Aramini which he might answer if he logs back into Goodreads sometime this year. Maybe one of you subhumans can answer it first.

>Ingenuity on Sainte Croix

What has me wondering is Dr Marsch's communication with his fellow prisoners following his arrest on Sainte Croix. I know that he only successfully communicates with the one prisoner but his neighbor in the next cell attempts to communicate with him via a different method to Prisoner 47's coded tapping The first time I read the story I didn't think much of Marsch's neighbor's intelligible banging, but on my second reading I realized that the description is a clear echo of something stated in one of Marsch's investigation notes.

-some of the earliest explorers farther south are supposed to have reported signal drumming
on the standing trunks of hollow trees by the Annese; they are said to have used no drum-sticks,
striking the trunk with the open hand as if it were a tom-tom, and like all primitives they would presumably
have been communicating by imitating, with the sound of their blows, their own speech—“talking drums.”)-

This excerpt of Marsch's notes is immediately followed by Marsch proudly explaining how he was able to work out the code used by his fellow prisoners to communicate between cells. Then later on before he gives the details of his arrest he notes down something about his neighbor.

-If I had a stone I could rap on the walls of my cell loudly enough for those on either side to hear.
As it is, the prisoner to my left raps to me—I do not know with what, but it makes every sort of
strange noise, not just a rapping or ticking—but does not know the code. The wall on my right
is silent; possibly there is no one there, or, like me, he may have nothing with which to speak.-

And later

-The prisoner next to me knew I was back, too, and began tapping and scraping the wall between us
in the old way, but still has not learned the code or is using a different one I cannot decipher.
The sounds are so various I think sometimes he must be trying to talk with his noises.-

You can probably see what I'm getting at now. The prisoner in the cell next to Marsch's is trying to communicate like a primitive abo could be expected to. If everyone on Sainte Croix is an abo incapable of dexterity or ingenuity due to not being compatible with human living then the prisoner's behavior is explained. As an abo they are incapable of mastering the tap-code like Marsch was. However this explanation doesn't work, because from Marsch's description of prison life it seems as though his neighbor's behavior is the exception rather than the rule, and that everyone else understands the code. I can't see how this is possible.

>>9372753
'The Fifth Head of Cerberus' is one of the greatest novels on colonialism ever written. If you enjoy Mass Effect its complexity will probably fry your brain though.

>>9322719
There's only one living patrician science-fiction author and you know it.