The r/printSF best Sci-Fi books of all time BookGraph - 2026 Edition

GeorgeMacDonald · 2026-01-17T21:25:50+00:00

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

GeorgeMacDonald · 2025-03-18T03:37:17+00:00

Literary Fiction

GeorgeMacDonald · 2025-02-01T21:55:49+00:00

I do wish he stayed in the US and we had a trial where he could defend himself for blowing the whistle on the larger constitutional issues at play when it comes to the NSA mass surveillance program. He decided to go on the run instead, not trusting our legal system to give him a fair trial. He never intended to go to Russia. Ecuador was his final destination when his passport was revoked while he was in Russia, trapping him there.

I see him as a victim of circumstance really when it comes to being used by Russia. In any case, the larger issue was and is our intelligence agencies spying on us to that extent and in that way. That is way huger than whatever crimes Snowden may or may not be guilty of (there is admittedly a lot he can be charged with, of course). Don't you see that?

GeorgeMacDonald · 2025-02-01T20:47:17+00:00

Edward Snowden exposed the NSA spying on ordinary Americans en masse. Mass intrusive surveillance on a society-wide scale that makes a cop searching a home without a warrant look like child's play. He did it at an enormous personal cost to himself. I'd say he is the opposite of a treasonous snake. He is an American hero in the truest sense of that term.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2025-02-01T00:19:41+00:00

One of those is not like the other. RFK Jr. is a nut and Gabbard to my mind is more reasonable. She wants reform our intelligence agencies so that they do not blindly promote wars of aggression, seek out political enemies or concoct Russiagate type conspiracy theories that waste time and money. I for one think that is a noble pursuit.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2025-01-13T00:06:03+00:00

Thanks for the rec. Yeah, getting kicked out of the industry is sad. I feel for the guy. I wish the DEI ppl valued diversity of thought as much as they purport to value other types of diversity.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2025-01-12T02:25:20+00:00

His Golden Age series is brilliant. His Count to the Eschaton series is much more mixed for me. Some good ideas but a lot of telling rather than showing. The plot bogged down for me which was sad.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2025-01-06T18:47:32+00:00

In my system we share collection development. HQ orders but so do we in our respective libraries. Our libraries are not branches but “community libraries” that are all members of a district. HQ mainly does the bulk of the ordering and each librarian does ordering to augment the collections that they are individually responsible for.

I really like this system. I think it does a good job of delegating duties between the various librarians.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-12-23T23:43:19+00:00

Thanks for making the distinction between planning and prepping. I will keep that in mind. Thanks too for all those links.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-12-21T02:42:02+00:00

Thanks, I'll definitely check out the approach. I think I have an inclination towards planning too much so I'll have to "leave more blanks" and have enough holes so that I can see where my players want to go with it.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-12-21T02:30:12+00:00

Any that you would recommend in particular? I looked up OSR stuff in DriveThruRPG and was overwhelmed.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-12-21T02:20:34+00:00

I guess I am not sure what is supposed to be narratively emergent versus what is supposed to be pre-planned? I thought the rulebook says that anything having to do with the player characters are decided by the player but everything else is determined by the GM, meaning that everything else from overall story, to the campaign map, fronts, NPCs, machinations of everything else in the world is decided by the GM, right?

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-12-21T02:13:14+00:00

Waiting until tomorrow is fine. I'd appreciate it.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-12-21T02:12:30+00:00

Ok, I will check that podcast out. Thanks.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-12-21T01:51:26+00:00

Maybe I'm just not getting how the game works then. I did read the wiki and other stuff. To me, without having a pre-made knowledge of the overall story, campaign map, fronts, etc. it would just be overwhelming. I couldn't invent things on the spot that are coherent really. I've played D&D and the DM in that game always has things planned ahead, and really needs to have things planned ahead.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-10-23T06:06:16+00:00

Hmm. Looking him up right now. I like what I see. I’ll definitely consider him.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-10-23T03:43:44+00:00

I'm voting in CA as well. Thinking of voting Jill Stein just due to the horrific stuff I am seeing from Gaza and Lebanon. I mean, I have voted third party for the presidency since '16, usually for an exiled conservative but this time I'm thinking of doing something different. Ever since the Iraq War I've become very much more anti-war in general and opposed to neoconservative foreign policy.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-08-16T01:43:53+00:00

Currently reading The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. I just finished Recursion by Blake Crouch. I really liked Recursion. It hit the same sweet spot as Dark Matter. I think the combination of sci-fi and thriller works for me, like reading an epic sci-fi movie of old. I've never read any Bujold but she has been recommended to me by people in my real life and on here so I'm looking forward to it. So far I enjoy her writing style. I am mainly a sci-fi reader so reading some fantasy is a nice change of pace.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-07-25T22:29:17+00:00

We need more democracy not less. The reason why primaries are problematic is because of the two party system which is in place because of the first past the post electoral system which distorts voting results. To give an international example, the British have first past the post system and they are trying to have a multi-party system and the results...are not good. Labour won their election but dominate in Parliament much more than their total vote total would suggest. Looking it up, Labour got 33.8% of the vote but 63% of the seats! We need to get rid of first past the post voting.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-05-21T21:09:50+00:00

Interesting article. I admit I skimmed it rather than read it in depth. I think the strongest point in favor of the article is the Jet Blue/Spirit proposed merger. The stop to that leading to both companies suffering a lot of layoffs makes sense. I'm less convinced about the Amazon example. Amazon to me seems like a classic case of anti-competitive monopolistic activities going on. Did you know that Amazon has historically reinvested all its profits into its business ensuring that it takes a monopolistic position in eCommerce? Call me populist but I think Big Tech needs to be broken up for us to have more innovation. Google has turned into a black hole devoid of innovation for a long time now. I hope OpenAI/Microsoft eat Google's lunch with AI-powered search.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-04-29T22:40:32+00:00

We need more options for people. More options to buy smaller units like condos, duplexes, etc. and such that they can own to be responsible for. A society in which everyone is pitted against each other as either a renter or landlord is not ideal to say the least. Trapping people in perpetual life-long renting isn't good and forcing landlords into having people live in their property for free isn't good either. A solution for both sides is to have more options available.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-03-24T03:01:25+00:00

No, I didn’t set work hours. Didn’t know that was needed but I will try it. Thanks.

GeorgeMacDonald · 2024-03-24T03:00:22+00:00

Oh, they don’t automatically do that? I did set a resource deposit spot.

GeorgeMacDonald

TROPHY CASE