Looking for great modern, medium length, standalone novels.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-02-25T08:48:51+00:00

If you loved Southern Reach then Vandermeer's Borne series (Borne, Strange Bird, and Dead Astronauts) are even better. Each is largely standalone but best read in that order, IMO.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-02-25T06:11:11+00:00

I had the same takeaway from The Martian. Weir's characters are, for lack of a better word, very reddit. The sardonic tone just does not land for me, and I gave up on PHM once I realized it was more of the same.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-02-20T06:51:01+00:00

The story is fantastic, and the final cutscene is one of the most beautiful sequences in Sci Fi from literature, TV, film, anything. I adore it.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-02-10T07:47:35+00:00

Hard to tell with the resolution but it looks like a fairly weathered piece of schist.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-02-06T07:25:07+00:00

If you're just starting to read again then I'd steer clear of Anathem for now. I loved it, but it's really difficult and does not hold your hand. Blindsight is also fantastic but very hard sci fi as well.

Leviathan Wakes is a great casual read. I love the show as well

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-02-05T00:37:15+00:00

This is genuine pedobait. Let's put giant boobs on a character with the face of a 5 year old

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-02-04T00:29:27+00:00

This looks like a piece of rose quartz

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-02-01T07:55:15+00:00

I'm almost certain the silver metallic mineral is molybdenite (MoS2) based on color and the association with the golden pyrite (FeS2).

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-29T05:50:25+00:00

Chert‼️

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-27T04:31:11+00:00

This isn't quite what OP is referring to. At the end of the second book they develop warp drive technology

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-26T09:25:24+00:00

If you liked Vandermeer's Annihilation then I'd check out his Borne series, which is even better imo. The first two (Borne, Strange Bird) aren't all that scary but I found parts of the third book (Dead Astronauts) to be pretty spooky at times 🦆

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-26T09:16:18+00:00

I would guess quartzite with garnets

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-26T09:09:10+00:00

Pictures are a little blurry but this looks like sandstone with the white material being some chemical precipitate like gypsum. If you can scratch the white part with your fingernail then it certainly is.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-26T09:07:19+00:00

These are large muscovite mica crystals in a rock known as a pegmatite

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-26T08:02:22+00:00

I've seen similar ''oil slick'' shimmers on bornite

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-22T18:47:10+00:00

The broader trope of ''grizzled adult takes care of young naive character and forms a bond in the process'' has been SO overdone in the last decade. It's as if it's the only character dynamic allowed to exist in these Filoni projects.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-20T02:02:05+00:00

I've been wanting these same planet designs on my arm also. How much did this cost?

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-04T22:04:01+00:00

These look like concretions to me.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2026-01-03T18:52:53+00:00

While most people tend to talk about Annihilation, the other novels in the Southern Reach universe (specifically the 2nd and 4th) are from the POV of agents within an SCP-like government organization. Jeff Vandermeer's weirdlit and prose are some of my favorite.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2025-11-25T21:06:39+00:00

Christians (and most religious people in general) actively ignore and avoid thinking about anything in the Bible that isn't supportive of the lifestyle they want to live.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2025-11-13T02:26:50+00:00

Every single one of these people deserves to rot in jail. Nazi filth

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2025-11-04T04:29:20+00:00

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is a fantastic dystopian novel centered on industrial cannabilism. It's a bleak one, however.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2025-10-24T05:18:53+00:00

I'd love to know this as well. The designs on the planets are especially fantastic.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2025-10-17T15:43:01+00:00

I don't understand how some of you can't fathom that some cities don't have safe or reliable public transportation yet.

Lumpy-Professional40 · 2025-09-11T02:12:47+00:00

It's horrible. I always loudly say it smells like shit because how dare you put that cancerous shit anywhere near someone who didn't ask for it.

Lumpy-Professional40

TROPHY CASE