A Gray
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Beowulf
I remember it being a slog to read. Not enjoyable, and only somewhat interesting.
I believe I read a version that was translated into modern-ish English, like this one, because at the time I was interested in 'Anglish', a version of English where non-Germanic words are replaced by Germanic-origin English equivalents.
It's not even set in England! It's set in Denmark or Sweden. I think that was a disappointment to me - at the time I was very confused and couldn't quite understand if this was actually Beowulf, because it didn't match my expectations at all.
Both of these are merged in my mind. They were both Napoleonic-era naval series, about a man's naval career and the adventures along the way. One of these protagonists was embarrassingly 'goodie-two-shoes' - stoic, one-dimensional.
I read either Hornblower or Bolitho books when I was very young - maybe 9 years old. When I had my first crush on a girl, I didn't realise she was Asian - school only taught us about White, Brown and Black people - and because these books described the lifelong effects of 'Yellow Fever' (reoccurance of yellow skin), I just assumed that she had inherited it from her parents, because they all had quite yellow skin. But I was socially-aware enough not to ever ask her about it.
I was also young when I read these books, maybe age 10 or 11. I remember being annoyed that Sharpe (was he a Lieutenant or Captain at the time?) was 'weakened' when he fell in love with a woman.
I can't remember if this book was a stand-alone or was part of the Sharpe books. It was set in the Spanish theatre of the Napoleonic Wars, and the title comes from Spanish anger at the French strategy of 'burned ground' (retreating and burning everything to stop the enemy taking supplies). In reality, the British started this tactic, and probably engaged in it more than the French, including in their ally Portugal's lands, leading to Portuguese anger at Britain (none of which is covered in this book, nor should you expect from this style of book).
This book was about a team of astronauts landing on and investigating a mysterious object in space. It sent them back into Genghis Khan's era. I don't remember much about it, but the woman became a concubine of Khan (ew).
Remember that interstellar object that passed near the sun in 2017? 'Oumuamua (what an annoying name - yes it even includes an apostrophe) travelled far faster than expected for an interstellar object, and was said to be weirdly shaped (cylindrical?). Personally, I believe we should have nuked it, just in case it was an alien probe. Anyway, these Rama books are about an alien probe nicknamed Rama that enters the solar system, like 'Oumuamua, and the adventure of human astronauts who enter it. The probe 'reawakens' as it passes close to the sun. The first book ends on an ominous note, I think, about what would happen in centuries or millennia, when the probe's message is received by the alien civilisation - does the civilisation still exist, and is this probe here to target us for destruction or for communication?
Good as books, but the movie was quite bad.
Quite good.
All of his books are great - even the climate-change-denial one. My favourite was the one where they were shrunk down to the size of ants and had to survive. I don't think the women are written very well; the last book I read of his, 'Sphere', is great but the woman was just quite shallow and one-dimensional.
Great books, except for the female characters, who are clumsily-written and clumsily-described. He didn't invent the 'dark forest' theory of galactic geopolitics, but he did market it better than whatever the previous term was.
I've tried a couple of his books and I really don't like his style. His books are like a 14-year-old edgy techbro's writing, combined with the stubborn unsubtle idealism of a millennial cannabis-addicted hippie. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a terribly-written book about a revolution on the moon, but he did clearly put some thought into how a successful revolution should be led. It has stupid grandiose ideas, and the whole book revolving around unjustified ideals without any exploration of why those ideals would ever be opposed. Of course, the book is written from the perspective of a stubborn Moon-dweller - but that's a cheap get-out of having to write the other side's perspective.
Inspired me to study maths instead of theoretical physics. I guess I would have been 15 when I started reading these books.
Obviously the idea of psychohistory is bullshit for many reasons - e.g. Sheldon couldn't have predicted the future because 1) he didn't have access to all data in the universe, 2) no entity within the universe is capable of accurately simulating (i.e. predicting) the future - but it's still a fun thought experiment.
The last book or two get a bit stupid. They pick up a kid who is super proud of his goddamn moustache, and Asimov's obsession with fucking androids is also easy to see. But worth reading the whole series regardless.
Pebble in the Sky, The Stars Like Dust, The Currents of Space.
Apparently these were written in 1950-1952! They were still great when I read them in the late 2010s.
I particularly liked the short stories in this timeline - the one where the Earth is radioactive, and another where a young man is put in a seemingly-cruel training to become a mathematician (overseen by a psychologist).
Asimov wants to fuck an android girlfriend. That comes across very strongly in some of these books, and it's a bit weird. But overall, still good reads.
I think the '3 laws of robotics' are dumb, and I was happy when he eventually agreed with me by introducing the 4th (or 0th) law, the most important of them all, which IIRC was introduced by a lone android who lived on the Moon and oversaw the radioactive dying Earth. But I might be thinking of a Galactic Empire book or short story that included this android - Asimov's series sometimes overlap.
Usually great. Each one usually explores just one topic or idea in a very abstract way - for example, a future where the air is privatised, and the law is enforced by robots, so in effect robots execute poor people who can't afford to pay billionaires for the air they breathe.
See movie.
One of the best books I've ever read!!! Undercover police officers spying on each other, in a world of drug addicts.
I love it. It's based on the insanity of the Cold War hysteria - set in the aftermath of an American civil war between student radicals and the authorities, which the students of course lost. The students are fugitives in hiding, slowly being discovered by undercover police and sent to prison camps.
The main character is not a radical but is forced into their lifestyle due to how inflexible the system is - he slips through the cracks and has no ID card - so he is thrust into the world of paranoia and political radicalism.
Harry Potter - it's interesting to see a teen boy written by a woman. I don't really care about the plot holes (why not use bullets?) or cliches (love is the most powerful magic) they were still enjoyable books. I get mixed up between the books and movies - I think my favourite book was #6 and my favourite movie was #5, but might be vice versa.
Lord of the Rings + Hobbit + Silmarillion - I'm shocked that I spelled 'Silmarillion' correctly even 6 years after reading it. Tolkien was a big language nerd, and maybe he'd have something to say about how English (unlike Chinese) can usually, but not always, be spelled correctly by a native speaker even if they've never seen the word written down before. The Silmarillion was honestly not worth reading by itself, but only for explaining the apparent 'plot holes' that you'd think Lord of the Rings has, most of which are solved if you know more of the backstory (or was Silmarillion written to fill these plot holes after they were pointed out to Tolkien?).
I watch movies either socially or just to get ideas for what to dream about - so I don't really care about the plot, some of my taste is trashy/comfort/slop or whatever you want to call it.
For example, I've never got into Breaking Bad, because it's too serious and involved. I'd enjoy that level of mundane detail in a fantasy/scifi setting, not some suburban middle-aged life.
A movie about lucid dreaming!
Movie about two rival magicians. Very good plot. I can tell it's one of the best 'cinema' movies in terms of its plot, but because I'm more of a book-lover I don't appreciate it as much as a movie-lover would - basically I mean it's a perfect fit for its medium (film) but I'm just biased against this kind of movie because I prefer movies that are adaptions of books.
Loved it. Stupid cliche 'time paradox' is at the heart of the plot, but if you ignore it then it's a nice pop-sci flick.
He might be a Scientologist but his movies are great.
Or 'Live Die Repeat'. Very good, but I think the ending was weak - it should have been arranged for her to kill the time-monster (I forgot what it's called), not him, so that she would remember what had happened but he wouldn't. That would have led to a more romantic ending, with her getting to know him, but instead with this current ending it makes the whole movie become just a memory in his head - he remembers every detail about her, but he remains a stranger to her.
Very good
This guy loves MIC.
Hunt for the Zodiac killer. Good old-style movie.
Very good. Cocky police duo come across hardened drug cartel.
I can't remember if I liked the ending, but I enjoyed the movie.
I think it's about two fathers whose daughters are kidnapped, and their struggle to get the police to investigate (maybe the police suspect them of involvement) and one father decides to do his own investigation, which involves torturing someone who he believes knows where his daughter is.
It's about the CIA torturing an innocent man. I think I watched a few minutes of this, but gave up because it's a boring “we're the good guys but we make mistakes” story.
Good old-style movie.
It got loads of awards when it came out, but I don't know why. It's cinematic, not amazing, not something I'd watch with friends.
Excluding Edge of Tomorrow
It's okay. Grimey crime thriller or something. I liked it after watching 'End of Watch', and because I was reading about South American drug cartels at the time I was watching it. But it might feel empty without this context or prior interest.
It's alright. About time-travelling contract killers.
It's great except for some things, and except for the terrible ending. It is worth watching everything up until the final couple of episodes.
The sequel, Caprica, was also good - but more of a teen version of it. It begins with the growing threat of Monotheist terrorism. It follows three teen girls, one of whom is a genius terrorist or something IIRC, or maybe she was accidentally a terrorist - I can't remember. But they are groomed by their teacher, who is a Monotheist.
First movie was good. But in future movies she goes ahead and leads a rebellion, and to counter her popularity they keep on putting her in more Hunger Games, which is lame.
I liked this movie. It's depressing in a good way.
I read the source book - 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' - after watching this, and it's crazy how different it is. The book is great in its own way, but the movie cuts out the most annoying part of the book - the idea that these all humans have morality and all androids don't, so a simple psychological quiz can determine if someone is an android or not. I think the book could easily have mentioned the existence of psychopaths, and it could have done without Mercer (the messiah figure that humans apparently worship through a telepathic VR technology).
The first movie was good. I think I've seen some other movies and they were mediocre.
I liked the first 6 movies, including the controversial prequels. The prequels dealt more with politics, which I liked. Personally I'd have liked Jar Jar to be revealed as a Sith Lord instead of an annoying side character, but George Lucas probably chickened out of that decision. Not a fan of the 'good vs bad' portrayal of the Force and Empire/Rebellion, but apparently in the books Count Dooku made a more compelling case against the Galactic Republic - but the film gave us almost no time to understand the new 'evil' characters it introduces us to (Dooku and Grievous), instead Episode 2 and 3 are like two episodes of 'bad-guy-of-the-week' TV storytelling.
I would have liked it if the humans had won, and if it had sided with humans instead of those blue alien freaks!
Trash, but sometimes we like eating trash, don't we? The 'weeping angels' are the best. Anything to do with 'U.N.I.T.' is cringe and stupid, although when I was a kid I liked it because guns=cool.
My parents put it on all the time. It gave me nightmares, but I was too embarrassed to admit it to them, so they kept putting it on and I kept staying awake for hours in my bed staring at alien-ish shadows because I was scared they would move.
Great up to Season 5, when it just started to be dick jokes and cliches and everyone started teleporting around the world instead of taking their time and having long journeys.
The moralising - especially from Picard in TNG - is annoying. Why are they so obsessed with technicalities and legalisms?
Star Trek fans are adorable but it's unsettling how much they praise the show, and in particular how much weight they put in Star Trek's philosophical side. For example, there's a woman Youtuber who says Star Trek is a good look at how it is to be autistic - noting how people have to explain basics of human socialisation to aliens and androids - but I think that's a harmful view, because it pretends there is one correct way of 'being human' and that autists are 'doing it wrong' (instead of, in my opinion, that autists have a fundamentally different way of thinking that does not preclude an equally-justifiable philosophy of morality).
The TV series with that Danish actor were great. I didn't expect to love this show, but it was amazing.
I enjoyed it. It's a teen scifi classic. People say it's kind of bad or something, but I actually can't really fault it - the characters are sometimes annoying but that's just because they're teenagers.
Stars Justin Timberlake (I misremembered this as Eminem). It re-imagines the economy with time as currency, instead of money.
I liked it, comfy movie.
A movie about a child wunderkind being trained as a strategist to lead the human military in a future battle against a dangerous alien civilisation.
I liked it, but I like any movie about killing aliens, so I can't really judge objectively.
Season 1 started off good, but became terrible in the last couple of episodes. It's like they increasingly diverged from the book and reached a point where they had to write completely new material themselves, which was terrible. The crazy sister and the poor family at the end were the worst elements by far. It's worth watching it and just ending it before these last episodes.
Season 1 started off good, but became terrible in the last couple of episodes. I've heard that the later seasons are increasingly bad, so I haven't watched them.
The Belters' accents are annoying, but they make sense - it's actually a true-to-book and believable bit of worldbuilding, but I just find the accents annoying.
Stars Adam Driver (Star Wars actor). It's about the official investigation into the CIA's kidnap-and-torture regime (called 'extraordinary rendition').
I didn't find it scary
Stars the Hunger Games actress and Chris Pratt. I liked it, it's a cute movie. They could have made a 'clever' ending by making the same thing happen to her, but they went for the romantic ending instead, which I appreciated.
I think I liked it. It stars Anakin Skywalker as a teleporting bank thief. But the plot is a bit stupid with an agency hunting teleporters like himself, and his mother being one of the hunters.
Alien was a good movie. The other Alien movies were good horror movies with some plot. Prometheus could have been a great movie but it's like they were given good ideas by a smart guy but had some idiots try to mesh those ideas together into a coherent story. So many plot holes that could have been easily avoided!
End of the World was weak, but the others were good comedies.
Okay.
Its steampunk, I love it.
Group of 4 stage magicians commit crimes for good cause. It's okay, not great.
Movie about democratic practices at Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Russian coma film. Very good. Honestly I couldn't even tell it was dubbed at first, because I'm an idiot and I thought they were just bad actors. But actually the dubbing is quite good and just slightly 'off' emotionally.
Guy who can see 2min into his future
Steampunk, witches, dust, etc. Everyone says its dumb but I liked it.
Christian apocalypse film
It's okay. Most normal men I've talked with about movies seem to think it's amazing. But maybe my memory is tainted because my girlfriend broke up with me before we even finished watching it! Anyway, the whole thing about it is that the protagonist is an amazing driver, and everything is synced with the music. Maybe I just care about music less than normal, but it didn't do anything for me.
TV series about King Arthur and Merlin. Available on BBC iPlayer.
Watched with a friend. It's a nice relaxing watch. But I have strong opinions on how they fucked over my girl Morgana! Morgana did nothing wrong - Merlin and his old teacher decided to gaslight her about her magic powers, and her fear of being the lone magic-user in the castle led logically to her actions.
Psychotic BPD wife. I thought he over-reacted - she forgave him and saved his life. I mean yeah, sure, she was totally psychotic in framing him for murder, but he did kind of deserve it. I can fix her.
I think it was a good movie, I haven't watched it fully though. Narnia
Tolkien wrote these after fighting in the trenches in World War One for years, so it's natural that the focus is on male camaraderie.
The Hobbit movies were a fun childrens' version of it. Every 'true fan' says they hate The Hobbit movies, but the Hobbit books already break with Tolkien's LotR lore anyway so there's no real harm done.
The first movie was good.
Bittersweet movie.
Comfort movie
I didn't enjoy the older movies when my dad tried to make me watch them, although they were more accurate to the books.
The newest movies are great to look at, but I don't think they'll age well, because all new movies are going to look this good. The actual plot is only good if you've already read the books, because if you haven't read the books it'll seem like there's lots of plot holes (like: “Why did the Guild not call Paul's bluff?”, which is only answered by the fact that Guild navigators can see into the future - as how they navigate with the Spice - and they couldn't see the future beyond Paul's decision).
You may have noticed that I like the 'realism' style of art.
Basically the only good things about AI art are:
Because AI art is so quick to produce, it is easy for non-art people to directly iterate over designs until they hit one that they like. Thus executives and marketing people are less likely to stick to the 'safe' style of art (copying the big tech companies) and more likely to be willing to try different styles, resulting in less Corporate Memphis.
Companies won't turn to the 'realism' art style, because - being a close representation of real life - it isn't abstract enough to have a 'brand' feel to it. I think companies they will stick to cartoons, but simply a wider variety of cartoon styles.
I like listening to songs in languages that I only somewhat understand. This allows me to fill in the gaps optimistically, instead of being annoyed at the lyrics being dumb or non-optimal.
Some of my favourite German pop songs were ruined when I actually bothered to read the lyrics and discovered how dumb they were - for example, Adel Tawil's 'Und ich singe diese Lieder...' which is a recap of recent world events rather than anything as grand as it originally sounded to me.
There's a woman singer - Alexa Feser or something - who wears a spacesuit in her music videos, and sometimes sings about space. Which I obviously like. But only some of her songs are about space - maybe the other songs are somewhat allegorical, and I haven't examined the lyrics carefully enough to see the links.
When I was a kid, my sister and I played these games a lot. We'd breed the best cats and dogs. I think there was also a way to trade them with each other, I can't remember.
When I was 9 years old, I created a really stupid addon for Oolite - a highly-advanced 'Cat-Alliance', featuring stupid 3d ships I designed in Blender, and a quest line that used Lua and XML copied-and-adapted from other peoples' addons - about the Empire's major war with some dog empire or something.
I went into the Oolite Wiki and put my Cat-Alliance front and centre. Here is the Wiki entry:
The Cat-Alliance
Added by The Cat-Alliance OXP
The Cat-Alliance is a freedom fighter organisation, said to be based on the moon of Diso in Galaxy 7.
It is rumoured however, that the Alliance has members from many professions in its ranks. Many are Lone Wolf Commanders, who trade or engage in piracy most of their working lives, only taking Assassination Contracts from time to time.
The exact procedures by which the Cat-Alliance recruits new members are unknown. It is thought that the Alliance has operatives within the Elite Federation of Pilots, who pass on the details of likely candidates to the “Council of Supreme Commanders”. It is known that membership is not easily obtained. The candidate is required to prove his talent, and loyalty.
The Alliance polices its own members. Commanders of the Alliance are contacted from time to time and offered assignments. Fees paid for these Assassinations are high, although members must pay a percentage of their earnings to the Cat-Alliance massive navy...
This oxp does not work, but it is for you to modify, and please contact me via my website 'add comments' if you make it work. contact me
I only cared about the story. It's a great story, great setting, great characters. Everyone says it has annoying combat, but that didn't bother me because I played it on easy mode (I only care about the story).
The way you are expected to play it is to do side-quests (for money or equipment) while slowly doing the main story. But the main story is about our adopted daughter being in danger!!! I can't do side-quests when I need to save my daughter!!! Doesn't make sense!!!
I played this game before I read the books, so I had no idea who the best love interest was. At first I chose Triss, because I thought Yennefer was too standoffish - but at some point I realised Yennefer was the best, so I had to start again from an earlier save in order to romance her instead of Triss.
Its a very European setting - European folklore with all its creepy monsters and gore.
You play as a noble girl whose parents were murdered by The Inquisition and who has to protect her younger brother - from rats and The Inquisition - as they try to investigate his connection to the plague that is spreading across the land.
It's set in medieval France, and it is great. The first game (Innocence) has much better voice acting than the second game (Requiem) - Innocence is voiced by French people, but Requiem has native English speakers.
Both are good (Innocence and Requiem), but Requiem's ending made me very sad.
I got into this after playing Half-Life: Alyx (the VR game). Alyx was by far the best VR game in existence up to that point, and it was an incredibly immersive horror game.
It's essentially about Earth becoming overrun by aliens and under alien occupation, who rule through an oppressive puppet government - constant raids, population transfers, rationing, and other aspects of life that are clearly designed to break a population's will to organise and resist (and which have parallels in the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank, and presumably of people under foreign occupation in general).
I like the setting and the lore. It's a well-thought-out universe, to the point where I even started a habit of listening to some Youtuber talking about the lore while going to sleep (which resulted in me having intense dreams about Half-Life).
My sister was big into horses, so we did horseriding (up until she fell off a horse, I think... I learned up to cantering and jumping).
We played a French multiplayer horse video game. It was a bit like the Heartland books - or whatever those horse books were called (I didn't really read much, I was just curious). Basically, you buy and maintain horses. To earn money, you do quests (such as delivery or tricks), or explore the map to find equipment and food.
I focused mostly on exploring the map and getting the best equipment, but my sister actually socialised with some of the other players and got one to pay subscription for her.
I played this when I was maybe 10 years old. It taught me to get up early, so I could get on the computer before my parents woke up, to queue my empire's buildings and fleet movements.