So. Much. Jargon. So much subject matter beyond my capacity to understand. So much existential dread.
I’m now reading a book that’s easier on my brain, but oh my God. It was *good*. It was very, very good. But it was exhausting. I’m still reeling from it.
What’s a book that left you utterly drained–because it was “smarter” than you, or because of the heavy subject matter, or for some reason that you couldn’t say?
How did you treat yourself post-brain beatdown?
I by no means intend to insult Kim Stanley Robinson when I say this, but I’m reading “Red Mars” and it’s much easier on my brain.
by rachaelonreddit
27 Comments
Having finished the second book, the >!sophon block!< is one of the coolest plot devices I’ve read in a sci-fi story. I can imagine how much the author wanted to gush over his ideas of how humanity would advance their technology given certain restraints. My favorite quote from the second book is when >!a certain character says that he can still teach university-level physics even after spending 200 years in hibernation — and that is an absolute sign that humanity is utterly doomed against the fight against the Trisolarans.!<
I love all that technical jargon, its yummy lol I like to pause my reading and envision whats been written. It was TOUGH with that series, no doubt, but I found it easier than Neil Gaiman’s fantastical creatures, although I love his work as well. His fantasy creations really tripped me up. I find hard science to be easier for me to digest. All that being said I also enjoy some light hearted John Scalzi as a pallet cleanser.
The Name of the Rose. I started it, thinking I would learn more about the heresies in the medieval church. But there were so many. The differences were often subtle, sometimes hinging on a single word or sentence that believers were willing to kill or die for. I have to admit that the image of the church I came away with was that of a cloud of beliefs, where the triumph of any individual belief was a product of power and chance. Decades after reading the book, I still take any theological “truth” with more than a grain of salt.
A great example of this is the doctrine of the “Filioque.” Believers where willing to literally split the church over whether this phrase, meaning “and of the son,” was included in the official creed of the church. Yet, modern believers have trouble understanding why those words were even considered important.
So, is Remembrance an omnibus? I loved the ideas in the trilogy (if we’re talking about the 3 body books) but found the writing (or the translation) hard to enjoy.
As a lapsed earth scientist and KSR fan, I have often wondered if KSR is impenetrable with nomenclature and jargon to non-geos, good to know he isn’t.
Mantel’s novels have always left me totally exhausted and thrilled when I finish them. Nothing else gives me the same sense of disorientation, the only way I can describe is like driving through a very long tunnel and suddenly emerging into broad daylight.
She really overloads you with so much detail and writes her novels in a way that force you to keep up, so many names, titles and sometimes confusing use of pronouns.
I need a long break after each one. Usually reach for an Elmore Leonard novel as a reset whenever my brain is busted.
All my coursework readings.. are beyond me and go above my head🙂
Also just finished it, and while at a high level I think they made it fairly understandable what was going on, my god some of that stuff at the end there could have been cut. Like 2/3 of the way through death’s end it turns into a total slog, which is a shame because that book has some of the craziest concepts I’ve ever heard of. Dark forest was the best for sure though
If you’re looking to go into a similarly demanding book series for fantasy, I would highly suggest “The Dandelion Dynasty” by Ken Liu (no connection, although Ken Liu was the translator for Cixin Liu’s books into english).
Liu is a lot more humane and psychologically subtle than Liu, but I found the transition between both surprisingly seamless. If you want to get a glimpse, you can start with Ken Liu’s shot stories like “The Paper Menagerie”.
Malazan: Book of the Fallen. My mistake for reading 8 books (I read the first 2 a year ago) back to back to back. It was awesome and there were some things that were a blur to me but it really did shave off half of my lifespan just going through those chunky ~900 page books back to back to back and that final 2 books.
Godel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. I think I understood a lot of it, but there’s a lot more there, and I hardly know how I’d describe it to someone. It’s about… a lot of things.
Ehh, I’d say red mars is a much more complex and interesting story.
I started on Blindsight by Peter Watts last week, and I was suddenly dropped into this hard sci-fi books that really tested my reading comprehension. Then, about 50 pages in, this dissolves into the background and I’m having such a blast with it!
Almost done with book 2. Unpopular opinion here, but I’m not enjoying it. Too much physics, the dream girl, so many characters that are hard to differentiate. I’m not going to read book 3.
Foucault’s Pendulum. Umberto Eco is not easy to read but great ideas and history of secret societies (well before Dan Brown).
Moby Dick required quite a lot of careful reading
*Moby Dick* by Herman Melville. It kept making me stop to appreciate and digest either the use of language (lovely and expertly done) or minute descriptions of whaling/seafaring/life in that era. It sounds paradoxical, but he’s such a great writer I would have to stop reading and ponder what he wrote before progressing.
i have only read the 3-body-problem series and it…. was a tedious read. i know books that take you with them from the start, with good writing and a good story and characters. 3-body was not one of them though it has some very interessting and good ideas. maybe you have to read them in the chinese original if its a translation problem?
Thats the actual name of the trilogy? I always refered to it as the three body trilogy
Some of Tom Glancy’s books are like that. Like you could drive a nuclear submarine around with just Hunt for Red October as a handbook.
But from Non-Fiction it’s definitely Richard Rhodes’ Making of the Atomic Bomb. You kind of keep up with the physics parts and then it just pushes you off a cliff.
Foucaults Pendulum, a great mindfuck thriller interspersed with hundreds of pages of extremely detailed musings on European history.
I’ve only read Three Body Problem, but from what I hear, the 2nd and 3rd books lean heavier into the sci-fi elements. I honestly liked the parts of the book that were more grounded like >!Ye Wenjie’s struggle with her nihilism after the cultural revolution!<.
Speaking of “technical jargon”, especially when it tries (and succeeds) at trying to remain within the accepted standards of current science…
**Greg Egan**, specifically _Diaspora_. There is a LOT going on in that book. Most of it is simply beautiful, but there are sections which will test your limits with very hard science.
Honorable mention to **James Hogan**, who also fills scientific gaps with hard facts and accurate enough science based on then-current hypotheses (which still hold up to this day).
The hardest read I’ve ever done was “Foucault’s Pendulum” by Umberto Eco. I would have to read and reread paragraphs several times to fully comprehend them. It was exhausting. But, it was also one of the most rewarding reads. An absolutely brilliant work by a true master of prose.
The author who consistently proves themselves smarter than me is Stanislaw Lem. If you liked The Three Body Problem, read Lem too. I finished Fiasco last year and had to re-read multiple portions over again to make sure I understood them.
Blindsight and Echopraxia. I keep thinking about the vampires at random ever since reading the books, and keep having issues trying to figure out how they “work”.
I started the 3 body problem because I’d heard it was hard scifi, but it felt like basically the exact opposite. Got about a third of the way through and gave up
God, those books were so good, especially the first. What happens to society when it is scientifically proven that Earth will be invaded by aliens in 400 years?
Also at the very end of book three, when >!all the planets in the solar system are compressed into 2D one by one !<was still bone-chilling despite being completely ridiculous in concept.