## [D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread * Author: u/AutoModerator * * URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/1ge2r11/d_monday_request_and_recommendation_thread/ * Score: 24 * Created: 2024-10-28T14:00:10 ### Post: Welcome to the Monday request and recommendation thread. Are you looking something to scratch an itch? Post a comment stating your request! Did you just read something that really hit the spot, "rational" or otherwise? Post a comment recommending it! Note that you are welcome (and encouraged) to post recommendations directly to the subreddit, so long as you think they more or less fit the criteria on the sidebar or your understanding of this community, but this thread is much more loose about whether or not things "belong". Still, if you're looking for beginner recommendations, perhaps [take a look at the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/wiki)? If you see someone making a top level post asking for recommendation, kindly direct them to the existence of these threads. [Previous automated recommendation threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/search?q=%22Monday+Request+and+Recommendation+Thread%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) [Other recommendation threads](http://pastebin.com/SbME9sXy) ### Comments: > **u/gfe98** [+12] (4 hours later) > > Recommend me some stories that do genre switching well. > > An example: [My House of Horrors](https://www.novelupdates.com/series/my-house-of-horrors/) switches back and forth between Horror segments where the MC faces the monsters infesting his city, and Comedy segments where visitors to his haunted house are chased by actual ghosts that they believe to be actors or holograms. > > I think if the story were only one or the other, it would start to get stale. >> **u/Bowbreaker** [+14] *Solitary Locust* (17 hours later) >> >> This Used To Be About Dungeons is long tracts of slice of life interspersed by tense dungeoneering adventures and occasional mysteries. >> **u/Amonwilde** [+7] (11 hours later) >> >> I like My House of Horrors. It's so freaking out there and covers so much ground. "Let's hit ghosts with a somewhat magic hammer." "Let's drive a bus to hell." "Let's use this haunted phone to gaslight a streamer." "Let's level up the haunted house and do it all again." >>> **u/megazver** [+3] (a day later) >>> >>> Its one weakness was that it was pretty hard to follow one chapter at a time, it's why I dropped it back when it was still being published. I should probably go back and read it again. >> **u/Turniper** [+11] (8 hours later) >> >> The Wandering Inn is probably the king of this. Slice of life interspersed with bits of tragedy, horror, comedy, police procedural, what have you. >> **u/ricree** [+6] (4 days later) >> >> Tower of Somnus alternates between mostly chill dungeon delving and dystopian cyberpunk. >> >> The premise is that a near future dystopian Earth was discovered by aliens. They aren't impressed with the state of humanity and decline to invite them into the broader civilization, but do keep limited contact and provide sees copies of the strange MMO that forms the litrpg portion of the story. >> >> The game serves as a persistent MMO that is played while you sleep. It is self perpetuating and was created by a long lost alien species for reasons unknown. Somehow, it is able to grant lesser versions of the character skills to people in real life (none of the known aliens know how or why). >> >> Dying in the game means losing your character and all the skills you've gained, so a lot of people just get easy levels and then sit in safe areas to avoid losing the out of game skills. >> >> Mostly, though, these sections feed into the main cyberpunk story, serving both as palate cleansing sections and ways to empower the main character for future real world adventures. It also serves as a way to interact with the aliens, since Earth is otherwise under embargo. > **u/BavarianBarbarian_** [+21] (5 hours later) > > For those who haven't seen it yet, Wildbow's latest story has begun. [**Seek**](https://seekwebserial.wordpress.com/2024/10/18/0-1-0-hack/) is a sci-fi story that takes place in three different eras, of which we've seen two so far. I'm confident the setting will be of interest to the people of this subreddit: >!One of the main threats in the era of the first chapter are robots whose faces are replaced with glyphs that "hack" into your brain if you look at them!<. The second chapter made me even more confident about recommending the story here; its POV character is >!an onboard AI that is inserted into a child at their birth and grows up alongside the kid!<. > > The setting of the first chapter was previously touched upon by Wildbow in his short story [Sign](https://old.reddit.com/r/DoTheWriteThing/comments/hcvznl/episode_64_suppress_bad_east_goalkeeper/fw1ftsq/), so if you want to get a short taste of it that's what you could read. >> **u/Nickless314** [+4] (3 days later) >> >> The second chapter is fun! >> >> (And that’s what I felt was missing from any of his works I tried, except Worm, but including Ward. Fun.) >> **u/Bowbreaker** [+6] *Solitary Locust* (17 hours later) >> >> Is there any place where Wildbow's short stories are collected? I know he wrote some for that Reddit competition, he wrote some before Pact as teasers and there's a few more scattered around. I'd love to just know where they are. Or better yet, be able to read them all in one place. >>> **u/grekhaus** [+7] (a day later) >>> >>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/12rP_kAomQckFbcZcngBnuEY6IspR3aJXtsgIOA7ysW4/edit?tab=t.0 >>>> **u/Bowbreaker** [+3] *Solitary Locust* (a day later) >>>> >>>> Oh thank you. I didn't even know that Poke had a part 4. >>>> >>>> Is this compiled by yourself? There's actually one more Wildbow story I know of, though abandoned before it got much of anywhere interesting. He had a Quest where the players controlled a lesser deity. Very intriguing world-building, from the little we got to see. >>>> >>>> https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/theific-fantasy-oc-quest.276045/ >>>>> **u/grekhaus** [+3] (a day later) >>>>> >>>>> No, someone else did it. I just have it saved. >> **u/Amonwilde** [+7] (11 hours later) >> >> Thanks for this. I, personally, am kind of done with Wildbow. He (they?) seems to have gotten more self-indulgent as time goes on. I found both Warn and Pale to be kind of aggressively repititve, boring, and opaque. I find this disappointing since there's strokes of genious everywhere, they're just obscured or buried or whatever. >> >> I feel like Wildbow can't get out of Wildbow's way. >>> **u/Revlar** [+6] (2 days later) >>> >>> I don't disagree, and Ward burned me to the point I still haven't read anything newer by him, but I consider Twig to be his best work despite the abortive rushed ending leading into Ward. I recommend giving it another shot. Its strongest arcs hit harder than Worm's early best, and it only falls short of Speck by dying on the vine to let Ward start >>> **u/Tenoke** [+15] *Even the fuckin' trees walked in those movies* (a day later) >>> >>> After what he did to Worm with Ward it's hard to be excited about his new works. >>>> **u/xjustwaitx** [+2] (3 days later) >>>> >>>> Out of curiosity, what was so bad about Ward? (I personally felt the story was complete with Worm so decided not to continue, so have not read it) >>>>> **u/Tenoke** [+15] *Even the fuckin' trees walked in those movies* (3 days later) >>>>> >>>>> It really undermines Worm and a lot of it reads as him trying to do the opposite work in some ways and reject a lot of Worm's writting to prove something. The choice of protagonist is also kind of awful, and a lot of Worm's original cast is done dirty. It's also just not as good or exciting. >>>>> **u/ReproachfulWombat** [+5] (5 days later) >>>>> >>>>> I can't speak for everyone, but my specific problem was that the author was annoyed at a lot of Worm fanon that had built up over the years and so spent much of Ward trying to 'fix' the audience perception of certain characters and events to be more in line with his own interpretation. >>>>> >>>>> As someone who followed a lot of his posts and read his complaints on various fanfiction headcanon, these moments stood out to me and made it hard to read. >>>>> >>>>> Eventually the negative feedback (for that and other things) got too much and he killed the story early with an unsatisfying conclusion that was literally >!'And actually the unstoppable antagonist gets stopped instantly by an off-screen deus-ex machina. The end.'!< >>>>> >>>>> It felt spiteful towards his audience from start to finish. >>>>> >>>>> Edit: A more minor complaint was that most of the big arc villains were primarily mind-controllers. >!Goddess, the Simurgh, The Fallen, Teacher etc!<, and I got bored of the dynamic pretty quickly. >>>>> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+2] *Mouse Army* (5 days later) >>>>> >>>>> I felt like the escalations that were there didn't come out of the blue like in worm, but my memory of it is apparently pretty sketchy. ~~doesn't hit the escalation spiral nearly as hard~~, meaning less action and its way more psychological literature than even worm was. Some people don't like that, theres a whole arc about going into mindspace and stuff. >>>>> >>>>> Pros include, fewer plot armour is necessary, and the overall writing is much better, seeing as he wrote a couple million words between worm/ward. >>>>> >>>>> You get 80-90% of explanation for "Ward sucks!" with haters gonna hate, it seems to me. >>>>> >>>>> edit: remembered falsely. >>>>>> **u/gfe98** [+11] (5 days later) >>>>>> >>>>>> > It doesn't hit the escalation spiral nearly as hard >>>>>> >>>>>> Are you joking? Ward jumped into global or apocalyptic stakes ludicrously fast. One of the more common criticisms of the story is that the main cast somehow ended up responsible for big picture stuff constantly and the Wardens were a joke. >>>>>>> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+2] *Mouse Army* (5 days later) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Fair, but they are still on par with Worm, no? And feel way more organic and resulting from worldbuilding instead of "hey, Brockton Bay is the navel of the world". >>>>>>>> **u/gfe98** [+6] (5 days later) >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Ward basically doesn't even have worldbuilding at all. A nebulous city that popped out of thin air. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Worm had much more gradual escalation, and spent much longer with street level and local stakes. Ward was already at the big picture level by the time the Fallen came into focus. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Worm's worldbuilding did break down in places, especially regarding making the offscreen world feel alive. However, Ward was drastically worse in this regard since Wildbow didn't have the real world to use as a baseline. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Where Worm diverged into more original worldbuilding it indeed had nonsense like the CUI in China. But *all* of Ward was like that. >>>>>>>>> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+1] *Mouse Army* (5 days later) >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I'm not convinced, as it doesn't match my memory of how it felt from years back, but I don't remember well enough to argue. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Leviathan was apparently arc 8 of Worm. In Ward there'd been no 300k people city at stakes by arc 7, and wiki's missing a summary of arc 8. >>>>>>>>>> **u/gfe98** [+8] (5 days later) >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Ward literally has a global disaster plot in Arc 7 with the Fallen expanding portals across the megacity. This can even be considered apocalyptic stakes with the relationship between the portals and the later Titan apocalypse. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Then Goddess attempts to become a world ruling empress again right after that. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Leviathan is also an interruption where the big picture situation impacts Brockton Bay. The plot remains centered on Brockton Bay's local parahuman scene for a long time after the endbringer attack. >>>>>>>>>>> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+2] *Mouse Army* (5 days later) >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Alright, turns out wiki summaries are misleading if too short. I concede the point. >>>>>>>>>>>> **u/gfe98** [+3] (5 days later) >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Yeah I was looking at the wiki myself and the whole Blue Empress Arc was summarized as just "Goddess throws a hissy fit." >>>>>>>>>>>>> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+2] *Mouse Army* (5 days later) >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> :-D >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I remembered the Fallen arc as mostly a fight around the village, and against Mathers, not about the world ending portals. >>> **u/sohois** [+7] (a day later) >>> >>> I had already given up by Twig. Didn't feel any of his subsequent works came close to Work and getting through Twig was such a massive slog I cant bring myself to try anything else >>>> **u/gfe98** [+13] (a day later) >>>> >>>> I also felt that Twig might as well have been Lorem Ipsum, with how much of a slog it was to try to read. I still came back for Ward because it was a sequel to Worm, and I regretted it. >>>> >>>> I felt like I was going insane seeing people say that not only were the recent novels good, but that they were each better than the last. >>>>> **u/suddenly_lurkers** [+12] (a day later) >>>>> >>>>> There is definitely some selection bias going on. I enjoyed Worm, thought Pact was flawed but still interesting, bounced off Twig pretty quickly, and then gave Ward a decent shot but found it a miserable slog and dropped it. Wildbow seems to have cultivated a fairly small but enthusiastic fanbase that enjoys his more recent works, while people who don't enjoy them just stop engaging with the community. >>>> **u/Amonwilde** [+5] (a day later) >>>> >>>> If you cut out 95% of Pale it would probably be pretty good. I feel like he also skips some explanations or descriptions of things that seem obvious so sometimes you're scratching your head. Also all characters are like 12 which gets old. And major, major packing issues. But there's something there, which is the frustrating part, otherwise I'd just say he's a bad writer. > **u/Meme_Seeker1q** [+9] (2 days later) > > Anyone know of any medieval style stories with good bushcraft and combat magic? >> **u/Amonwilde** [+5] (6 days later) >> >> https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/4293/the-iron-teeth-a-goblins-tale > **u/RedesignGoAway** [+7] (a day later) > > Bit of a very niche request, I just finished Frostpunk 2 and while I didn't think the game as was good as the original it's got me itching for stories about arctic/weather survival. > > Does anyone have anything in that genre that they enjoyed? >> **u/Dragongeek** [+11] *Path to Victory* (a day later) >> >> I mean, it's not really a "survival"-genre story, but the *Twelve Miles Below* series is fun and heavily features an *extremely* cold surface, to the point where breathing in the cold air or having the suit's heater fail is lethal within seconds. >> **u/Amonwilde** [+11] (a day later) >> >> - [Into Thin Air](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Thin_Air) is a pretty wild and harrowing account of a messed-up Everst climb, worth reading. >> - [Hatchet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatchet_(novel) is an enjoyable, but short, novel about a young man who has to survive in the wilderness with only a hatchet after a plane crash. >> **u/GlueBoy** [+9] *anti-skub* (a day later) >> >> [The Long Dark](https://store.steampowered.com/app/305620/The_Long_Dark/) is an arctic survival game. It's very atmospheric and immersive. >>> **u/RedesignGoAway** [+2] (a day later) >>> >>> The Long Dark is great! I last played it before they added the story elements but it was a really great survival sandbox. >> **u/ahasuerus_isfdb** [+4] (a day later) >> >> Would it be safe to assume that you are familiar with the 2011 novel [The Martian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel\)) and/or the 2015 film that was based on it? >>> **u/RedesignGoAway** [+1] (a day later) >>> >>> Of course, actually you might like Stationeers if that's your kind of thing. Very nice space oriented survival game. >> **u/Dufaer** [+4] (a day later) >> >> I really liked [Touching the Void](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touching_the_Void_%28film%29). It's a documentary film about an ascent of the Siula Grande mountain (in Peru) adapting [the book of the same name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touching_the_Void_%28book%29). >>> **u/chiruochiba** [+2] (a day later) >>> >>> On the topic of mountain ascent documentaries, Netflix has an excellent docuseries called [Aftershock](https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/netflix-documentary-aftershock-everest-and-the-nepal-earthquake-review/) which uses real recorded footage from climbers and locals trapped in the frigid mountains by the avalanches caused by the [Nepal earthquake in 2015](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2015_Nepal_earthquake). The series shows the avalanche that decimated the Everest base camp and the struggles to survive in the aftermath. >> **u/PHalfpipe** [+3] (3 days later) >> >> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Terror\_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_(novel)) >> >> "*In 1845, two Royal Navy ships left England in an attempt to finally discover a navigable passage through the Arctic. They were the most technologically advanced ships of their day.* >> >> *They were last seen by European whalers in Baffin Bay awaiting good conditions to enter the Arctic labyrinth.* >> >> *Both ships then vanished."* >> >> A historical fiction , with fantasy elements, about a lost polar expedition. It was also made it into a TV miniseries and is a very appropriate watch for Halloween. Alongside the slow building terror you also get a fascinating deep dive into how the British explorers and the Inuit adapted to life in the arctic. >> >> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URBqj0JJSHo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URBqj0JJSHo) >> >> The Dollop, 108 - Douglas Mawson. This one covers an antarctic expedition that failed slightly more successfully. It's little more light hearted, in that it's a comedy podcast with jokes , but the story is still a slow building avalanche of desperation, and the absolute limits of human endurance. >> **u/OGSyedIsEverywhere** [+2] (a day later) >> >> *To Build a Fire* (1908) >>> **u/Amonwilde** [+2] (6 days later) >>> >>> Classic story but probably not a great fit. >> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+1] *Mouse Army* (a day later) >> >> Fritz Leiber, Pail of Air, 1951. >> >> I read it 20 years ago and it left an impression. >> >> https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51461/pg51461-images.html >> **u/TREB0R** [+1] (2 days later) >> >> Alone, the competition survival show in the later seasons in cold areas is very good. Basically the season starts in the fall and if they last long enough they get into winter where they have to survive as long as they can using the food stores they built up and shelter they made when it was warmer. >> **u/k5josh** [+1] (3 days later) >> >> _The Worst Journey in the World_ isn't fictional, but it's an account of the _Terra Nova_ expedition to reach the South Pole. > **u/Tenoke** [+5] *Even the fuckin' trees walked in those movies* (a day later) > > Any good webtoons that read well on a phone? Trying the Practical guide to evil one was great, and it was one of the rare times where it seemed really optimized for a phone (as opposed to some pages being too big/wrong format/text a bad size for it), so I'd like to try more. >> **u/chiruochiba** [+8] (2 days later) >> >> Have you read *Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint*? It's a riff on the system apocalypse and isekai genres which surprises by keeping the characters believably intelligent and co-opting/making fun of tropes. >> >> It's free on [Webtoons](https://www.webtoons.com/en/action/omniscient-reader/list?title_no=2154), but to be honest [Flamescans](https://flamecomics.xyz/series/omniscient-readers-viewpoint/) has much better translations for most of the series. If you enjoy it, I recommend reading on Flamescans but supporting on Webtoons. >>> **u/Tenoke** [+1] *Even the fuckin' trees walked in those movies* (2 days later) >>> >>> I hadn't, but I just started it because of your comment and at least initially it seems promising! >> **u/DomesticatedDungeon** [+5] (2 days later) >> >> `•` [*Seed*;](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/Seed) >> >> `~` [*Transdimensional Brain Chip*;](https://brainchip.thecomicseries.com) >> >> `◦~`[*Accidental Space Spy, The*.](https://spacespy.thecomicseries.com) >> >> --- >> >> `•` [*Gamer, The;*](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/TheGamer) >> >> `•` [*Skeleton Soldier Couldn't Protec!*](https://mangafire.to/read/the-skeleton-soldier-failed-to-defend-the-dungeonn.02nrk/en/chapter-1) >> >> - >> >> [*\(annot.\)*](https://old.reddit.com/user/DomesticatedDungeon/comments/1g67akb/annotation_for_recommendations/) >>> **u/Tenoke** [+2] *Even the fuckin' trees walked in those movies* (2 days later) >>> >>> Transdimensional Brain Chip is great yeah, and The Gamer of course (though at this point I must've read a lot more gamer fanfics than the original). Seed I actually tried right after I wrote the comment but it was just so funny how even though it's from 3 years ago it's focused on AI desgins that are already barely used and surpassed - GANs. It already felt old. >>> >>> The skeleton one I haven't heard of and I'll try it after Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, thanks. >> **u/SvalbardCaretaker** [+4] *Mouse Army* (5 days later) >> >> Have you tried manga on Mangadex? The mangadex reader is really good. Perhaps Planetes if you like slice of live scifi. Lots of official readers are also optimized for phone reading these days (and consequently suck at my laptop). >> >> edit: added a sentence at the end. ---