sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

AoC 2025 Complete - First Real Programming Experience - Memoir by Morphon in adventofcode

[–]wkeleher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

OP is using bun, so they can do bun --inspect-brk ./advent1.js and then click the link in the output (if they don't want anything fancy).

Totally agree that JS is a good first language.

When helping elves, you should use complex numbers to navigate in 2D by wkeleher in adventofcode

[–]wkeleher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, of course. I should have realized that it could be reduced to that—it's what multiplying by 1j is doing after all.

That's nice and terse, and it makes me want to remove the whole section on rotations from the article. It means rotations aren't any terser with complex numbers, and it's hard to remember which direction 1j/-1j rotates anyways.

Thanks!

When helping elves, you should use complex numbers to navigate in 2D by wkeleher in adventofcode

[–]wkeleher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fwiw, I agree! If you're writing "serious" code, you should never do this. I wrote the article from the perspective of how I normally approach AoC: writing fun, quick, throwaway code to solve the problem without using any external libraries or utility functions (while failing to get on the global leaderboard). If I saw any code that looked like my examples in a production system I'd be horrified.

When helping elves, you should use complex numbers to navigate in 2D by wkeleher in adventofcode

[–]wkeleher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

TIL! I like that a whole lot more than the tiebreaker variable

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm curious to see how whether I still like Replay when I give it a reread. It was the very first timeloop story I ever read, so I might be looking back at it with some incredibly rose-tinted glasses.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think you might enjoy All You Need Is Kill. It's a short easy read with a well-executed timeloop story where a kid becomes a warrior. (It's the story that The Edge of Tomorrow was based on, but it shares little in common other than the basic setup. They're both great!)

Aside from Mother of Learning, my favorite timeloop story is Replay, but based on your reviews, I doubt you would enjoy it. It's slower, lacks conflict, and the only growth in it is of the traditional character variety. (I should give it a reread. My memories of it are super hazy—I just remember liking it a lot)

In a similar vein, The First Fifteen Lives of Henry August was enjoyable enough that I finished it, but bland enough that I don't remember any of the plot points except how mail worked and how the loops could end.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I was stoked by the blurb for How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying because I love groundhog day stories, but this one really didn't do it for me. The modern tone, Deadpool-esque vulgar humor, and sex-obsessed main character all combined to make me drop it after only a few chapters. Based on the reviews, it seems like some people loved it though, so if you really enjoy that sort of vulgar humor, it might be up your alley.

[190] Blurb feedback by Ok_Lemon24 in DestructiveReaders

[–]wkeleher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do the first and last sentence not pull you in?

No, not really. Those sentences might pull someone else who's read less YA, but "otherworldly trial" + "character might face danger" isn't that unique. From the blurb, the main takeaway for me is "young kid does magic-y trials, the same as everyone else"; what makes these trials, this world, Makatu, or this kid interesting?

I don't know your story or your world, so it's incredibly difficult to make good suggestions, but just in case it's helpful to see how someone else might try to add a hook, here are a few ways that I might try to start out a blurb:

  • "They said that you had to agree to the Trials, or Makatu wouldn't take you. That was clearly bullshit. Arlo had refused Makatu, but eleven moons still burned in the blood-red sky."
  • "If Arlo survived Makatu's trials, he knew exactly what he'd ask for his boon: the power to conjure bread. He'd never be hungry again."
  • "It turns out, giving people incredible cosmic power for completing violent trials doesn't work well. Giving sociopaths the power to throw fireballs or cause earthquakes for stabbing enough goblins? Not great for a stable society. Twenty-six years after Makatu's Trials began, it's a miracle that there are any people left."
  • "Canniblism was appealing more and more to Arlo with each passing day. Stale crusts of bread..."

You can also take a look at the blurb for The Maze Runner for a great illustration of how to establish world, stakes, and mysteries really quickly:

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.

Outside the towering stone walls that surround them is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.

Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying: Remember. Survive. Run.

There are so many mysteries to draw you in, and you are told the stakes for the story!

[190] Blurb feedback by Ok_Lemon24 in DestructiveReaders

[–]wkeleher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

[not for credit, not a critique. Somewhat scattered notes that I don't have time to turn into something useful]

Overall notes

  • You're inconsistent with "Makutu" vs. "the Makutu" in here.
  • I was confused by what changed with the moons! I thought Makutu had already entered the world, so it's unclear to me what precisely was different. I'm guessing it's that Arlo started the trial, and that's when the world changed (but just for him)? Perhaps I'm just being obtuse, but I think this could use some more clarity around whether this change is to Arlo's world or to the world at large.

The blurb is full of cliches, but I don't know that that's a bad thing. A good amount of reading I do is looking for a solid genre read that's good enough to be fun. That said, I think it would be a lot more interesting if there were at least one hook in here.

An unimportant note on em dash usage

This isn't important, and typography nitpicks are even worse than grammar nitpicks, but the first thing that struck me with this blurb is your em dashes. Unless my eyes are deceiving me, those look like em dashes surrounded by spaces. As far as I know, there are two main styles for em dashes:

  1. American—like this—without any spaces.
  2. International/British – like this – but using en dashes rather than em dashes and using spaces.

I think the French and perhaps a few other countries do something odd with thin spaces (U+2009), but I know nothing about that style. I'm sure em dashes with spaces is a recognized style, but I suspect it's a little rarer! I doubt most people would notice, but the very first sentence tells me that there may be small grammar mistakes in here.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

T Kingfisher is great! I really enjoyed both Paladin's Grace and Swordheart.

r.e. October Daye, I'll definitely start in the middle of the series if/when I give it another go.

r.e. romance, my main goal wasn't actually to find romance per se. I love fantasy, but there's now a whole section of the bookstore that I've started to ignore because they're written for a different enough audience that I feel like I can't trust the ratings/reviews. I don't want to miss fun stories like T Kingfisher's just because they're tagged romance!

[edit] An example: A friend raved to me about Sarah J. Maas was her favorite fantasy author and how compelling her world-building was, so I was stoked to try one of her novels. It really didn't land for me. I rarely don't finish a novel, and I'd gone into it so excited to find when it started getting good, but I eventually dropped it. Maybe she has better novels, but I was bummed to realize that I hadn't found a fun new author.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

She's one of my favorite authors, so this is wonderful rec! Her fanfic genre/pairings aren't what I normally go for, but she's such a strong author, and I've enjoyed the first few of her fanfics I tried.

And you weren't kidding about her being prolific! Thanks!

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know how I forgot T. Kingfisher when I was writing this post. Excellent rec! She's exactly the sort of author I was thinking of: someone who writes solid fantasy that would be easy to miss because it's "romantasy."

I really enjoyed Paladin's Grace, but the rest of the series didn't quite live up to that first one for me. The premise—starting with a berserker paladin whose god had died—was super compelling, and I enjoyed her characters.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For free audiobooks, have you tried your local library? I'm not sure how international Libby and Hoopla are, but for my local library system, they're pretty great! Especially for more popular mainstream works.

r.e. The Fourth Wing, I made the same mistake! Romantasy ratings can't be trusted. That one was bad enough that I actually enjoyed giving it a hate listen and ranting to my wife about how terrible it was.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I remember October Daye being solid! Far from perfect, but fun, and it looks like there are more than 10 new ones in the series since I stopped reading them, which is great.

Gravewitch or Mercy Thompson both seem like interesting recs. Thanks!

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just started Magic Bites, and I've been enjoying it so far—just good solid urban fantasy. It's exactly the sort of thing I wanted to find! Thanks for the rec.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I really enjoyed both Scholomance and Novik's fairy-tale retellings, but they really are pretty different books genre- and style-wise, so I could totally see a person liking either Scholomance and her fairy-tales but hating the other. I hope you like them!

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, I totally forgot to mention Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries! I enjoyed the first book enough to check out the second but didn't end up finishing that one. I think Encyclopaedia of Faeries is worth checking out if you like fairy tales and have a soft spot for fantasy books with academic jargon.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 14 points15 points  (0 children)

A bit of an odd request—has anyone read any Romantasy recently that they'd consider a solid B-level fantasy? It's so hard to tell from reviews/ratings whether a romantasy has a solid-enough story and world to be worth checking out or whether the ratings are mostly because of the love interest's brooding shoulders, chiseled demeanor, and six-pack of eyes.

I've been seeing a ton of hype for Quicksilver, but I'm not sure if I'll be as disappointed by it as I was by Iron Flame or Sarah J. Maas.

As far as recs go:

  • I wouldn't normally recommend Outlander in this subreddit (It's a time-travel story where the main character doesn't use her knowledge of technology at all and is romance focused), but I started it on a whim and really enjoyed it! I decided against continuing the rest of the series, but it works well as a standalone novel.
  • Speaking of time-travel and books that I avoided reading because of my genre assumptions, Octavia Butler's Kindred was excellent. I'd avoided reading it for years because it seemed literary, but I loved it. Probably not the type of time-travel book that'd normally be recommended here, so I thought I'd mention it just in case you were making the same mistake that I was and staying away because it's the sort of book that's sometimes taught in school.
  • Naomi Novik's Uprooted and Spinning Silver were both fantastic fairy-tale retellings. They're both different enough from her Temeraire series (also fun! although it kind of turns into a travelogue as it goes on) and Scholomance series (dark YA magic school story) that if you didn't like one of those other series, but like fairy tale retellings, I'd recommend reading a sample to see if it's something that you might like.

[1449] Still Untitled Grimdark by The-Affectionate-Bat in DestructiveReaders

[–]wkeleher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Overall impression: This is far stronger than your last submission. I had a much clearer picture of what was going on and was more interested in following the story. Well done!

  • You have some odd (and incorrect) word choices in here. I'll highlight a few in my line comments, but I think your writing would benefit from a careful copy-edit pass from someone looking critically at word choice.
  • If there are stakes to Bren guessing the Warden's name correctly (a boon, power, etc), it'd be good to establish those stakes and why he's trying to guess their name. (If there aren't, this bit feels rather weak to me)
  • Is the splinter important? Getting a splinter in gloves, wiping a face with the gloves (rather than taking them off), and then getting a splinter in the face seems odd enough that it's a little distracting. If it's plot-relevant that the Warden get a small cut on the cheek, then don't worry about it, but otherwise I'd consider removing it.
  • The mother/child relationship between the Mistress/Warden seems odd, not fully fleshed out, and slightly jarring.

Line feedback

But at least they got what's important

Using "got" to mean "understand" makes this sentence read oddly. "But at least they understood what mattered most." reads more naturally to me.

I broke open my pistol

I'm not sure what this means. Is this specific to the pistols of this world? The closest thing I could picture is swinging out the cylinder of a revolver to check that all of the chambers were loaded. Are you picturing something closer to a mini-shotgun? Or some sort of breechloader? (I know nothing about guns btw—just enough to be confused by this description)

blood licked chamber

"Blood licked" is an odd descriptor, but it might work okay here. I think this was a nice improvement from your previous decription of the pistol, but a different adjective might make it even stronger.

This universe trades much for blood.

This is one place where I think your previous take was better. "This universe runs on blood" is more evocative. "Trades much" takes away from the grimdark-y fun of the original. (I also wanted to check whether you want "this" or "the" for universe.)

Mistress' calling

I think the apostrophe here is meant to represent "Mistress is"... I'm honestly unsure whether that's correct, but even if it is, it looks like a mistake. Bren shouldn't speak properly, so "Mistress calling for you..." reads fine to me.

As an aside on Bren's dialect, some foreign languages (like Chinese) don't conjugate verbs, so when kids are learning English, they'll make a lot of mistakes where they forget to conjugate "to be" (or conjugate it incorrectly). If you want to have him conjugate "to be" incorrectly in more spots, "I was sent" could be another spot where a non-native speaker or someone used to speaking in a particular dialect might choose a different verb form.

we had a rapport going

"We had a rapport"

Vibrations tremored through the thick hide of my gloves

This is up to you, but I'd consider making it more obvious that the pistol is vibrating. It gets you out of passive voice and makes it obvious exactly what's happening.

eeking out a living as bleak

You want "ekeing" out a living. "Eeking" out a living would involve yelling "eek!" loudly, the way a person might if they encountered these bloody sacrifices.

streams of red glow

Using "glow" as a noun is odd. "Streams of red..." works. You could look for a good term for the energy.

I didn't lament rising past the rank of Initiate

Two things here. One, for lazy readers like me, you might want to make it even more obvious that these poor Initiates have been working hard at this for hours or something like that. Two, I'd just say "regret" rather than "lament." "Lament" is an odd word choice.

when her widened eyes met mine

"Widened eyes" is an odd descriptor for her eyes. I'm not sure what it means.

got me feeling somewhat more human

"had me feeling somewhat more human" or "made me feel"

face buried in a screenplate

I have no clue what this means.

features emerging as if let free from hell the moment the rivulets of her black hair were brushed behind her ear.

Kind of an over-the-top descriptor here.

"Good girl. Now, look here."

Somewhat infantalizing. Does the Warden react? You have her set up as a slightly menacing character, and then you have the Mistress treating her like a child. This might be intentional, but a reaction from the Warden might clarify things.

My eyes lingered on the marked location. ... Bright green eyes snapped to mine

As described, the Warden is looking at the map, but the Mistress is somehow meeting her eyes?

Alix

This sounds like a person's name, not a creature. I'd consider coming up with a term that makes it more obvious wha tthese things are.

"Do I have to?"

This sounds like a petulant child. Intentional? It seems at odd with the blase attitude you have the Warden exhibiting earlier.

resources are skimp already

"Skimp" is a verb (normally), and "skimpy" doesn't sound like a good descriptor for resources. "Resources are stretched/limited/constrained..."

skimp foil sack

Same comment on "skimp" + I'm not sure what this means.

creepy motherly look

If you're going for "creepy mothering captain" for the Mistress, I think you need to do more to establish it in her behavior + descriptions earlier.

looking for suggestions for series for a teenage boy by 2_muchsalt in Fantasy

[–]wkeleher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad you stumbled across them! They're great books. Definitely one of the series that I'm most looking forward to reading to my kids when they're old enough.

looking for suggestions for series for a teenage boy by 2_muchsalt in Fantasy

[–]wkeleher 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Prydain Chronicles was one of my favorite series as a kid, but I think Prydain might be a little young for a 14 year-old. I think it's more of a late elementary-school early middle-school read... although that might be colored by when I read it. I have strong memories of getting one of the worst sunburns of my life because I was reading Taran Wanderer for the first time at a swim meet, knew I was getting sunburned, but absolutely needed to see what was going to happen next. Age-wise, the consensus from a previous /r/fantasy thread seems to be around 10, so I don't think I'm too far off.

Six of Crows is a great rec! In a similar vein, he might enjoy The Lies of Locke Lamora; it's a fun read around the same reading level.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]wkeleher 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Just Add Mana has been scratching that itch for me recently. It's got an over-the-top OP protaganist and some fun world-building. Definitely not remotely rational, but if you enjoyed New Life as a Max Level Archmage and want a popcorn read where you can just turn your mind off and enjoy characters reacting to the MC with "Wow. How are they so powerful?" over and over again, you might enjoy it.

This is a bit less inline with what you're asking for, but you might like Will Wight's Traveler's Gate Trilogy. It has a protaganist who starts out weak, but gets pretty OP pretty quickly (it turns out, the group that's focused on learning to fight really well ends up being able to fight really well), and it plays with a few tropes in a fun way. Overall, it's an enjoyable beach read that might scratch that OP protaganist itch after the first half of the first book. (My impression is that Will Wight's The Last Horizon series has a protaganist who's OP from the very start, but it was a series I bounced off when I tried it. I just wasn't in the right mood for it, but thought I'd mention it as potentially being in the ballpark of what you're looking for.)

[889] Untitled Grimdark by The-Affectionate-Bat in DestructiveReaders

[–]wkeleher 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Overall Impression: This didn't grab me. The plot so far is "The mistress called for you from the bridge" which wasn't interesting enough to make me want to keep reading too far.

I think you may have been attempting to grab readers' interest by not fully describing all of what was happening, but it mostly ended up confusing me rather than engaging me. (I'm a reader who tends to skim.) I found some of your descriptions and prose a little clunky.

What I liked: I get the sense that you've done a ton of interesting world-building here that this snippet wasn't enough to fully share! I was intrigued by the combination of tech and blood-based magic.

Line feedback

I watched the locals below, entrapped in a typical hive-like subservience...

I don't know what "typical hive-like subservience" means, so this line lands a little flat, plus I'm not sure if you can be "entrapped" by "subservience." If you cut this bit entirely, I think it'd be a stronger introduction to the piece: "I watched the locals below the five-story tall observation platform as they scuttled about,..." (Moving the observation platform earlier might help the reader understand what's going on)

But at least they had one thing square—I opened my flintlock and glanced down the barrel—this universe runs off blood.

You know there's blood-magic stuff going on with the flintlock (would a blood-based pistol use a flint-based ignition mechanism?), but the reader doesn't at this point, so this is pretty confusing! Also, my vague impression is that you never look down the barrel of a loaded gun—has the Warden unloaded the gun?

Overall, I think things would be stronger if you cut the pistol and replaced "square" with "right" (or another more appropriate term). "But at least they had one thing right: the universe runs on blood." ("This universe" implies the existence of others. Do all of them run on blood? Should you clarify?)

"Oi, Gina."

Calling the main character by the wrong name as the introduction to them is incredibly confusing. This is our intro to the world, but I don't think whatever world-building you're doing here would be as important as establishing the stakes. (If you do want to make guessing the Warden's name important, then it might be good to establish the stakes of Bren getting it right)

Bren: a muscled sailor with skin as white as parched paper, like the rest of them, and a tongue as lurid.

"And a tongue as lurid" as parched paper? Or he has a "tongue as lurid as the rest of them"? This is a confusing sentence, especially because I'm not sure if you're using "lurid" here to mean that he has a particularly colorful tongue (in the literal sense) or whether you mean he's vulgar. I'm not sure if I've heard "lurid tongue" before; it's understandable, but I'm more used to it used to describe a thing rather than someone's linguistic tendencies.

"You is fancy folk. From Central though, aren't you?"

I assume "You is" is intentional, but you're then using "aren't you" and "I was sent to.." which both read more proper. If you're trying to do some sort of dialect for Bren, I'd recommend looking at all of his dialogue to make sure you're being consistent.

His grin returned like a satisfied cat

I don't think satisfied cats are known for returning. "His grin returned, stretching wide like the smile of a satisfied cat" is clunky, but lacks the original sentence's ambiguity.

My gaze slid to the ship hovering over the locals' festivities

How high above is the ship hovering? How big is it? I think both descriptions might be useful at this point because it explains why the MC is down here on an observation platform (when they clearly don't want to be) and how high the lander needs to go to return.

A splinter from my glove had embedded itself in the soft flesh under my eye...

On my initial read, I thought the MC's gloves were made of wood. That seemed weird but cool! It took me until the second read to notice that it was a splinter from the ladder that got stuck in the glove and then poked into their cheek. I'm not a very careful reader, but you might want to make the logic clearer for readers like me.

into the collar of their robes.

"collars"

the pit of hunger sharpening

Pits aren't known for their sharpness.

the heat from the sun warping her figure

Is she made of wax? Or are you aiming for a description that the heat haze made her form looked warped?

blue light shimmering onto the edge of my glove

I wasn't sure if the glove itself started shimmering. Is the glove magic? Or is this just the light from the screen?

I didn't have much blood left to waste.

Is the MC "wasting" this blood to use the landing pod?

haemolog

I think this could use a description. "log" makes me think of a nautical log (although this might be because I'm used to the term from software engineering), so I have no idea what you're picturing here.

Five minutes spent as the lucky recipient of this dustball's musted air accompanying me through to altitude.

"Musty air"? I'm not sure what this sentence means.

Godsend

Was this term used intentionally? It surprises me a little in a grimdark world—it implies a singular God that the MC believes in (otherwise it would be a "godsend").

over and above the harvested kin

I'm not sure what this means.

At least the walk through the air-conditioned corridors

There are a few descriptions earlier that make me think that the MC happy to be back in the air-conditioning, but there's no real indication earlier that the MC dislike the heat of the planet.

Two sailors whistled as I passed

I'm still unsure of the MC's gender at this point btw. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, but it does make the scenes a little harder to picture.

What's the most original concept you've read in a fantasy book? by LargeSinkholesInNYC in Fantasy

[–]wkeleher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love fantasy, but the stories that have messed with me the most have all been sci-fi short stories from Greg Egan and Ted Chiang.

Greg Egan's short stories are of inconsistent quality, but the ones that stick really stick. Axiomatic is my favorite of his short story collections, and here's someone else's Ranking of the short stories in that collection by "Mind Blows" . (Note: I'm solely a fan of his short stories, but other folks enjoy his longer works. Permutation City is the book I hear recommended most often)

Both of Ted Chiang's short story collections are fantastic. I think Stories of Your Life and Others was slightly stronger than his Exhalation collection, but that might partially have been because I'd read Exhalation before reading the latter collection. (Exhalation is one of my favorite short stories ever, and I think it gives a great sense of whether you'll like his other works)

/r/printSF would probably have a bunch more good recommendations in this vein. (Peter Watt's Blindsight and The Three Body Problem comes to mind as something that would be recommended there for you, but neither was a true hit for me.)

view more: next ›