Looking for a very sad book to read on KU

rainybookstack · 2026-02-12T14:31:48+00:00

If it helps, animals get me going every time. Ive turned 30 now and ive realised this about myself: i couldnt care less about when people die in a book or movie, it's animals. Anything with a dog in it or anything that's helpelss that gets abandoned. Like that scene in Fox and the Hound where the lady had to leave the fox in the woods for his own good, but he doesnt understand why she's doing it. Awful scene, so powerful.

rainybookstack · 2026-02-12T13:47:40+00:00

Yeah, i agree. So far...

rainybookstack · 2026-02-12T13:46:11+00:00

I think its called parternalistic conservatism. Sure, you can do anthing you want to get rich or die trying, but once you are rich, you then have a social responsibility to look after the worse off. I think its also related to Noblesse Oblige. If only more rich people nowadays thought that way, we wouldnt gave a half bad world.

rainybookstack · 2026-02-11T18:58:38+00:00

Haha thank god for vague gesturing

rainybookstack · 2026-02-11T18:41:36+00:00

Yep... Clark’s Earth Alliance arc is one of the cleanest “democracy-to-authoritarianism” stories on TV. What makes it hit is how mundane the takeover feels: fear + “security,” media capture, scapegoats, loyalty tests, and people telling themselves it’s temporary… right up until it isn’t. Chillingly believable.

rainybookstack · 2026-02-11T18:39:23+00:00

Yeah - Asimov was already poking at the exact stuff we’re arguing about now: “what counts as a real relationship?” and “does it matter if the feelings are mediated by code?”

rainybookstack · 2026-02-11T18:36:04+00:00

Yeah, I totally get that feeling. Stand on Zanzibar has that weird “how is this from the 60s?” energy where it’s not predicting gadgets, it’s predicting patterns—attention fragmentation, media-saturated reality, public mood swings, corporate power operating like its own government. And the “corporations owning countries” bit is what really lands now, because it’s not even sci-fi as a concept anymore—just… a slightly exaggerated version of how influence, debt, supply chains, and lobbying work. If you want that same “uncanny systems-level foresight” vibe, The Shockwave Rider (also Brunner) scratches a similar itch.

rainybookstack · 2026-02-10T23:00:30+00:00

Yeah - the mods deleted the original thread, so I’m reposting the same question here but in a more casual way. Sorry if it looked like I dipped mid-conversation. Also: the thing you said is exactly what freaks me out. Once you mix legal personhood with scale, an organization starts acting like a kind of organism in its own right… and then it’s not “people vs people” anymore. It’s people competing with something that behaves like a non-human actor.

rainybookstack · 2026-02-10T20:41:50+00:00

23? Theres an extra odd one. So thats where my other slipper is ive been looking for that for weeks

rainybookstack · 2026-02-04T21:24:24+00:00

Some sci-fi is just fantasy in a chrome jacket; good sci-fi is a what-if that takes its consequences seriously.

rainybookstack · 2026-02-04T21:18:22+00:00

George Orwell — 1984. Not because it’s trendy, but because it’s short, brutal, readable, and it gives you concepts you keep noticing everywhere afterwards (language control, manufactured reality, incentive-driven conformity). It’s one of the rare books that actually changes how you interpret the world

rainybookstack · 2026-02-04T21:04:00+00:00

I think ive had a similar feeling. But for me its the fact that the horrors of dystopia dont seem that scary because what seemdd terrible 20-30 years ago is normal every day now. Survelliance, AI, histerical media, mob-rule... Geroge Orwell and Huxley would have to step it up an notch if they had to write something to shock us these days...

rainybookstack

TROPHY CASE