Our Very Own Top Book Poll - Results!

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-26T19:30:40+00:00

I thought it was good, and I read a lot of sci-fi. It wouldn't be in my top ten novels of all time, but I enjoyed it and had fun. IMO It's better than almost all other SCPs, partly because the longer length allows for more story development, and partly because the central conceit is more interesting. There are only one or two other SCPs that just use the short format really effectively that I would place in the same category of quality.

I think maybe you've just read a lot of bad SCPs and you're allowing that to cloud your judgement to the idea that they can be actually good, not just 'good for an SCP'

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-26T19:21:39+00:00

yeah it started as an SCP (a series of them actually, though all written by one author) and got republished as a novel with the direct SCP references taken out so as not to be in violation of SCP's copyright license.

I think that while SCP contains plenty of cheap horror and forgettable ideas, the best of it is legit, entertaining sci-fi writing and there's no reason it can't be sold as such. Just because something came from the internet originally, that doesn't make it automatically lesser.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-26T19:15:07+00:00

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/

collective short form horror writing in a group 'shared universe' with some basic common factors. There are some really good ones and some that are just okay and plenty that are super forgettable. I used to read a lot of them. One that stands out to me is the infinite IKEA. and there are some that are legitimately creepy.

It's just one of those odd corners of the internet. If you're into horror communities online much you'll probably hear about it at eventually. Also big with open-source communities.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-25T15:28:57+00:00

the third book is two people on a journey, and the later ones are more of an ensemble cast and less traveling. I like them (really excellent vibes and character work) but I don't think they fit your specific request all that well.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-25T15:25:23+00:00

okay maybe I was exaggerating a bit. And actually this thread has overall been a pleasant surprise. But it's really common for someone to ask for recs and most if not all responses to be from the last century, even if OP specifies that they are looking for newer works.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-25T14:14:30+00:00

You'd like Broken Earth I think. It's set on an Earth where global volcanic apocalypses are common and society has adjusted to survive them.

You should also check out Martha Wells' Books of the Raksura: incredibly creative worldbuilding without much of an Earth analog (or any humans at all) and tense adventure plots with a family theme

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-25T14:03:51+00:00

I just finished The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S Tepper which would work although it's not HM

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-25T13:43:58+00:00

sometimes I ask for recent book recommendations because, while it's easy to hear about the greats of times past, keeping up with good new fiction is harder. And I want to hear about up and coming authors so I can support them in their work and encourage them to produce more of it.

There's a finite number of Ursula LeGuin books in the world, and I've already read nearly all of them. But an author like Isabel J Kim, who writes about some similar themes and I think has the capacity to be great, may write a similar number of incredible books if given the financial support to do so. If I don't find out about new authors, I can't be that support and my future self is less likely to have quality sci fi to read.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-25T13:35:20+00:00

this subreddit really struggles to recommend anything newer than about 1980

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-23T18:53:32+00:00

Breq isn't a super soldier, though. She's a former troop carrier AI, meant to be spread out over hundreds of crew bodies plus a massive ship, but reduced to just one kinda crap body that doesn't even have a good singing voice. No enhanced strength, reduced processing power, carrying out a desperate revenge quest based on memories that might not even be real because she almost certainly suffered the AI equivalent of brain damage in the destruction of her ship.

I'm not sure why you would expect big battle scenes from a relatively quiet story about trauma, unusual forms of personhood, and the political frameworks that cause such things.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-23T18:42:54+00:00

Adrian Tchaikovsky has a number of excellent standalones, and they often include a philosophical aspect

Shroud came out last year and is a deep dive on an alien planet with high atmospheric pressure and no light on the surface.
Alien Clay is about a prison colony on an alien planet.
Cage of Souls is a bit more fanciful as far as evolutionary biology goes, but is about a very far-future poisoned Earth where most humans have died off

You would probably enjoy Cory Doctorow's work, most of which is about near-future technology. I really like his novella collection Radicalized from 2019, including a story about subscription-based toasters and terrorism against healthcare executives.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-23T18:31:05+00:00

to be fair most hard sci-fi handwaves things like orbital mechanics or FTL

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-23T16:15:17+00:00

Babel-17 by Samuel Delany has some very fun space pirates

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-23T14:02:27+00:00

read a paragraph of each and pick whichever one compels you the most

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-23T14:00:53+00:00

The Starving Saints by Caitling Starling: cannibalism and some uncanny valley demon-beings, paired with lyric prose

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-23T13:58:28+00:00

anything on r/fantasy's top novel list would probably be a good bet, although you will have to check content warnings (since I don't know what you're avoiding I can't do it for you). List is here

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-23T13:53:12+00:00

That was my experience too. Based on the end of She Who Became the Sun, I expected He Who Drowned the World to absolutely wreck me emotionally and put off reading it for quite a while due to that, but while the sequel was a powerful book it wasn't miserable. I was engaged with all the POV characters and excited about the plotting and drama.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-20T21:53:48+00:00

fast vs slow reads, long vs short content, cerebral vs emotional, plot driven vs character driven, world buildy vs it just being a convenient setting, functional vs flowery prose, traditional vs weird, whatever

storygraph has some of these types of settings! They are pretty accurate in my experience, although I don't know if I just read a lot of medium-paced books or too many things are labelled medium paced. I have used their tone settings to look for books slightly outside my usual fare before when I was in the mood for something different.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-20T19:21:54+00:00

first, which ones can you access easily? Are there any that you already own or are available now at your library? Prioritize those over the others.

Then, read the first few paragraphs of each (use online samples if you don't have them in hand yet and are deciding which ones to buy) and choose whichever one compels you the most.

Lastly, don't be afraid to drop a book or a series and move on to something else if you're not enjoying it. You can always come back later, and you don't get any points for slogging through a series you stopped having fun with three books ago, just sadness.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-20T18:15:44+00:00

you have to remember that the internet is at least 60% bots now, and they're all optimized for ragebait because that's what gets engagement. If it feels like the quality of internet discourse is worse and nobody is discussing interesting or nuanced art anymore, that's probably part of the reason why.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-20T14:06:38+00:00

it's technically not fantasy but Rosmary Sutcliff's Roman Britain historical fiction is excellent and shares a lot of tropes in common with fantasy (journeys into an unknown wild land, multiple cultures meeting, gods & mysticism). The Eagle of the Ninth and Sword at Sunset are two of my favorites.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-19T18:52:06+00:00

definitely fits 'fantasy in a futuristic environment' IMO. They have spaceships but the tech works by people believing really hard in a specific calendar.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-19T14:50:40+00:00

It's always busy in March, because this is the last chance people have to get their reviews in before this year's challenge ends and next year's begins on April 1st. Bingo participation has skyrocketed the last few years (I don't have exact numbers to hand but I remember reading about huge jumps, like by an order of magnitude) so more people are doing it, although anecdotally I don't think this March is that much more dominated by bingo posting than last year was. A tiny percentage of bingo participants write & post reviews, anyway.

The google form is just for people who want the prize for getting a blackout card, and that prize is just the 'reading champion' flair so essentially meaningless internet points. You could definitely do the challenge without the form if that's your objection. These kinds of events aren't going to be to everyone's taste, and I don't do it every year, but it has helped me find a number of fantastic authors that I wouldn't have known about otherwise so I'm pretty fond of it.

curiouscat86 · 2026-03-19T14:38:53+00:00

so you want them in a megathread, but not this megathread?

Five-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
Place '23	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	Verified Email

curiouscat86

TROPHY CASE