19 KiB
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Author: u/None *
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Score: 23
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Created: 2018-01-30T09:32:49
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u/Noumero [+7] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (13 hours later)
In Russian, with no translations that I know of:
Disclaimer: Rationality of the following work varies, but I do think that all of them contain ideas, themes, plots or plot points that people here may enjoy.
Some works of Yuri Nesterenko arguably qualify.
«Отчаяние» (30k). Ontological Mystery: a person with no memory wakes up in an abandoned facility of some kind. Somewhat reminiscent of Cordyceps, in my opinion. Warning: there are some extremely gruesome moments.
«Абсолютное оружие» (30k), about a group of soldiers sent into jungles to save an archaeologist. The latter recently discovered new Mayan ruins...
SCP Objects and Tales.
SCP-1001-RU - «Пустотная сингулярность» (4k). Very interesting concept.
«Неудавшиеся скульпторы» (17k). Collaborative work, essentially an analogue of our Saturday Munchkinry Threads. First person thinks up a human-based SCP: powers, goals, motivations. Second person writes how the Foundation ultimately defeated them (quality varies, obviously).
«На игле прогресса» (1k), about an alternate-universe Foundation that was forced to actively use SCP objects to defeat alien invaders. Eventually developed into a spin-off project, Андивионский Научный Альянс.
Creepypasta.
«Новые тени» (1k), interesting concept based on the idea of "shadow biosphere".
«Вигилия в пустыне зеркал» (9k). The protagonist finds a coded message stapled to a tree, which turns out to be the first step in a long series of riddles prepared by a mysterious girl to whoever stumbles upon them. Slight spoiler
«Божественный эксперимент» (6k) and «Провал божественного эксперимента» (5k). A virtually infinite number of people get teleported to a world consisting of one virtually infinite room; what happens?
(I've posted its premise to a Munchkinry Thread once.)«Окно наружу» (6k). The protagonist discovers that one window in his apartment leads into a different world of some kind^(1), decides to investigate, and does so in a surprisingly rational manner.
Webcomics.
Evil Genius, about a genre-savvy Bond Villain.
^(1. No, it's closer to Silent Hill than to Narnia.)
u/None [+3] (a month later)
Reposted from /u/outofniceusernames
It has been quite a while since I’ve read it, but if I remember correctly Слово о драконе by Павел Шумил (~550k words total) should either be rational or at least not have too many disqualifying bad writing tropes.
The protag of the first set of books is somewhat MarySue-ish.
u/phylogenik [+1] (a day later)
Are there none that are longer?
I've had "The Last Ringbearer" recommended to me a few times, but haven't yet gotten around to reading it. There's an English translation of it, too.
u/Noumero [+1] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (3 days later)
The Last Ringbearer was mentioned in the previous thread, so I omitted it.
Are there none that are longer?
Well, there are, I suppose. Works of established Sci-Fi authors, classics, etc. I was trying to pick relatively obscure ones, because in all probability the ones who could benefit off this list are already familiar with popular authors.
Hmm, looking through lesswrong.ru's thread with recommendations...
«Vita Nostra», see below.
Works of Alexander Lazarevich are mentioned. I recall I read some, but wasn't overly impressed. «Червь-1» features a reasonable-enough portrayal of a conflict with an Unfriendly soft-takeoff AI, but «Червь-2» is quite bad in comparison (not the least because at one point the plot gets derailed by some random monologue about Soviet mentality length of which would put Ayn Rand to shame).
«Ник» by Alexander Yasinksy. u/ShareDVI, I'm seeing you've read it, would you elaborate on the recommendation?
«Остров без сокровищ» by Victor Tochinov, it's apparently a deconstruction of Treasure Island. Something something reverse Princess Bride?
«Не жить» by Yuri Brigadir is said to feature a smart sociopath (he is compared to HPMoR!Tom) as the protagonist. In my opinion, a work with such a premise is quite hard to write without running into darkness-induced audience apathy; seeing as I didn't read it yet, I can't vouch for it. It could be really interesting, though.
«Обет молчания» by Andrey Ilyin, a series of detective novels. Apparently the author takes Wildbow's approach to plotting, i.e. "write the characters into a hopeless situation and then try to figure out how they can escape".
u/None [+2] (3 days later)
"Ник" (Nick) by Andjey Yasinskii. (vague spoilers below)
A series of currently 8 books + 1 spin-off, book 9 is ongoing. The series drops in quality around book 7.
Synopsis: A programmer (from a futuristic Earth) gets transported into a fantasy world. He discovers an inactive friendly AI and they explore the world and it's magic together. But who needs learning the magic if they can research it?
Is it rational? Yes.
Nothing happens solely because 'the plot requires it'. If characters do (or don't do) something, there must be a plausible reason.
There are some plot-driven events, but there is a reason for all characters' actions, even if it's often a bit too emotional for us used to HJPEV.
Any factions are defined and driven into conflict by their beliefs and values, not just by being "good" or "evil".
This is the strongest suit of this series. All characters have well-defined motivation and we get to see them through interlude segments.
The characters solve problems through the intelligent application of their knowledge and resources.
Definitely. Books 1-3 contain abuse of one magic spell into dozens of different forms.
The fictional world has consistent rules, and sticks to them.
The genesis of the world has an explanation. There are several magic systems, each of which is consistent and the interactions between them are fairly well described. However in latter books the author introduces new magic systems which stop making sense.
Is it rationalist? Partially.
Rationalist and scientific methods are used to demystify mysterious phenomena.
Sometimes, yes — magic is demystified alright. Other things — see below.
The story shows rationalist techniques, which can be applied by readers.
Nick often shows how to use TRIZ and Tolleus literally uses half of the patterns from Gang of Four for his spellweaving.
The story is like a puzzle; readers can reach the same solution as the characters by using the information provided earlier in the story.
Unfortunately, half of the time the puzzles are solved as "an AI did it".
Best things other than the ones mentioned above
After Nick, Rick Cook's Wizardry will see like a fantasy for casuals. There are pages of pure spell invention monologue, sometimes in the middle of the battle. If you're into magic systems, this is for you.
It also has the smart characters who are not MC nor share his goals, but are independent agents (Eclectus, Balavatkh, Tolleus), but the conflict against them, if it exists, is usually resolved through talking.
Flaws The biggest problem is escalation. The MC is too powerful — after book 4 he's an archmage, after book 7 he defeats gods, etc. Also he seem to always succeed like a proper Mary Sue. The author thought it'd be a clever solution to create a major failure of his plans and a setback for him to cut his power level, but Nick regains it.
Books 1-4 are good. Books 5-6 + Tolleus are different, a bit slow-paced, but still alright and present a clever edge. From book 7+ the series went downhill really fast, and book 8 is 90% a non-subtle Russian nationalistic propaganda.
Another flaw is that the author holds some beliefs that leaks into the book as an obvious things that exist IRL and don't need any explanation. The existence of auras, unrealistic martial arts "magic", simplification of the AI issues/handwaved control problem, objectification of women to some extent (doesn't pass the Bechdel test) and Slavic chauvinism are some examples.
conclusion: 8/10 with rice
u/callmesalticidae [+1] writes worldbuilding books (3 days later)
Would you mind summarizing the “shadow biosphere” fic? That sounds very interesting but I am a shameful monoglot...
u/Noumero [+2] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (6 days later)
Would you mind summarizing the “shadow biosphere” fic?
Not at all.
The protagonist begins by describing an interesting optical trick: by pointing a flashlight at a concave mirror, aligned so that it reflects the light onto a razor's edge, one could see the most minuscule changes in air refraction.
One day, he was operating an advanced microscope-like device based on the abovementioned trick, and made a mistake when fine-tuning diffuser lens. Instead of microorganisms he planned to observe, he saw a strange complex collection of shadowy threads and knots. He began dutifully committing them to paper; as he did so, they dissipated.
He experimented some more, turning light in the room on and off. Some rules became apparent: the threads appeared after he turned off all light, then dissipated in around three minutes, whenever he observed them or not.
He continued experiments over the course of a year, improving on his equipment and making new discoveries. He noticed some similarities between these shadow-constructs and mycelium, and utterly failed in his attempts to interact with them in any more physical way. He figured out, though, that light closer to the blue side of the spectrum accelerated their dissipation, and found a way to cut them with lasers.
Further experiments confirmed his hypothesis: he was observing some kind of pseudo-non-material life, based not even on "darkness", but on "the concept of a newly-created darkness" — a literal "shadow biosphere".
At that point he cuts to the chase: five years after his first discovery he began observing more complex shadow-organisms, and around two years after that he made contact with sentient shadow-organisms. They were as surprised as he, as they considered "material" world an incoherent collection of electromagnetic radiation. He communicated with them for a year, then they made a deal: they don't attempt to interact with human world, and his findings don't become public until he dies (he made his research in secret, because he was a bit of a glory-seeker).
That's not very important in the light of his last discovery, though. There's a colossal shadow-creature which occupies all of Earth's night. Its nature is even more alien that those of shadow-microorganisms or shadow-sentients, and every instance of new-darkness adds to its mass: every time night sets on any part of Earth, and every time a human turns a night lamp on and off, it becomes ever-larger. He has reasons to believe it was around for billions of years.
He is worried that it is capable of detecting disturbances in natural day-night cycles, namely those caused by artificial lighting. As such, he is deathly afraid of creating new darkness, implicitly in fear of causing an extinction-level event.
Still, he wants to continue his experiments, because humanity, fuck yeah!^(1)
^(1. Translator's note: Paraphrased. The actual line is a phraseme originating from Gorky's play, The Lower Depths, and is most closely translated as "'human' is a term for proud things".)
u/ImTotallySeriousGuys [+3] (2 days later)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3972188-vita-nostra A Russian novel. There is an english translation though its very limited in terms of regions (see this link). I ended up pirating it after searching for and failing to find a legitimate way to buy it. While the story does deal with the supernatural, I've never read a story with a similar premise. I'm just going to point to the name: Metamorphosis.
Ignore the sequels listed on goodreads. The story stands on its own.
If you want an actual review (with a few spoilers) then check out https://inverarity.livejournal.com/209788.html
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
I agree. This is one of the best books I ever read over the emotional impact.
One of the "sequels" (they are not connected anyhow), Brevi Finiteur is a rationalist-themed utopia with Black Mirror vibes
u/None [+3] (9 hours later)
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u/None [+2] (12 hours later)
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u/None [+5] (12 hours later)
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u/Kuiper [+2] (a day later)
HakoMari's first volume (really a short story) is fairly representative of the series as a whole, and is a mostly self-contained story. Surely a short story is not too much for you to decide for yourself?
Short stories usually have a length of around 5,000 words (anything over 7,500 words would typically be considered a novelette), and the Kindle version of HakoMari volume 1 is over ten times that length at over 60,000 words.
Given that the Kindle ebook for volume 1 cost $8, I'm actually somewhat glad to find out that the first volume contains significantly more than a single short story's worth of content, but for most people, 60,000 words is a pretty big time commitment (3.5 to 4 hours for a typical reader).
u/sir_pirriplin [+3] (17 hours later)
I think the works of José Saramago is the sort that this community might enjoy. His novels have crazy premises, but all the characters act in an appropriate way given the crazy premise. That is to say, they act crazy but in a rational way, as a reasonable response to a crazy world.
For example, the premise of the novel As Intermitências da Morte is that one day people just stop dying. The novel is about the crazy yet reasonable reactions of the Church, the funeral and life insurance industries, the Maphia (with ph), the very old and sick, the government and so on.
Another novel is about a mysterious epidemic of transmissible blindness, and another one is about an election where everyone voted blank.
It's the sort of novel that is fun to read because it always makes you think about what you would do in place of the characters.
u/JustForThis167 [+2] (23 hours later)
Id recommend Release that witch (chinese).
Story about an engineering student being sent to another world that resembles Feudal age Europe. An added twist is that Witches are real.
Theres an ongoing translation, however Do not read from Qidian as the quality drops considerably. Link
u/MagicWeasel [+1] Cheela Astronaut (14 hours later)
/u/CouteauBleu , do you have anything in French to recommend?
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (a day later)
Mh, both French and rational? I dunno.
Leaving aside cookie-cutter cop dramas / sunday night movies / high school kid show, most of the French media I know about that isn't translated from American / Japanese stuff is comics (also cartoons, but those were mostly before my time).
There's the classics: Tintin, Lucky Luke, Asterix et Obelix, les Schtroumpfs, Spirou et Fantasio.
The classic-but-slightly-less: XIII, Yoko Tsuno, Valérian, agent spatio-temporel (which was recently adapted into a movie by Luke Besson, and less recently inspired motherfucking Star Wars).
Some of my favorites: Les Nombrils, Lanfeust de Troy (to be pronounced "Lanfeust deux trois") and its sequels.
Some of the stuff on Boulet's blog is pretty rationalist and sometimes gets posted here. If I find the time, I'd like to read his series Donjon Zénith and Raghnarok. I've read some of it and it looks pretty good.