All of these books come with elements of uncertainty and risk – it takes heroism (or stupidity) to tackle them head-on. Fantasy and Science Fiction are nice settings for it – authors can and have conjured up situations that we possibly couldn’t tackle in the real world – but their solutions are often very much what we would go with in the real world. Besides, anxiety creates problems. The more we have anxious, unprepared people – the more problems we get – which is why it should be important to learn everything one can about uncertainty, heroics (and not the pathological kind), and risk.
How to survive as a stray on a fractured Earth, 300 years in the future? In a world with giant underearth worms building Temples for humans, and automated quarantine – and anti-flight swarms of Eesian drones limiting when and how humans move. Crisis brought back raiders and pirates to the seas and the roads. Warlords are having a blast hunting the worms, raiding the temples for their powerful technology, and threatening to spread through the busiest trade routes like a plague.
Eysin, a stray from Reval gets involved with a local security guild studying Eesian tech. The guild is promising to be powerful enough to help the region stand against any raiders, pirates, and warlords – yet, problems with the closest people steal all their attention.
My mother was a huge fan of the book – so, I had access to that universe very early on throughthe book, movies, game. It was my first exposure to science fiction, and much of it stuck. I found especially handy how simple the structuring of the story was, how the author lays out dialogue vs. description. The universe seems complex, yet it is made simply so by not adding too much hard science-fiction style nerd-stuff (or none at all, to my mind 2the lore" is very tastefully done) – yet, there is not enough romance to my taste, and belonging to a great royal lineage and being schooled by high-class sorcerers isn't exactly relatable – but the story is an epic, and it is not supposed to.
Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.
Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's lifespan to making interstellar travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world of Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
Since I have been thinking in the direction of creating an RPG/Action/Adventure game out of the universe that I'm baking, I picked up something that has already achieved that (note: that's before the fancy TV series came out). Witcher is a messy book, and I'm not exactly in love with the characters (except for the vampire), yet, it is hard to put down. The events unfolding with and around the characters are... well, eventful, and the questions the author manages to bring up in my head need answers. The complex universe is complexly done—the lore is rich with earthen mysteries—suppose, Polish folkloreand such attempts of folklore honoring or revival, to my mind, seem like an interesting thing to do – it is the untapped power of exoticism. I mean, aren't we all worn out by the most common, comic-book revived characters from the Greek Pantheon, Viking Mythology, or most used tropes and archetypes of Christianity? I mean, they are great, but they stopped feeling "fresh" a long while ago... In local folklore, there is a lot of "old" that can be used to bring up something "Fresh" without having to really invent anything sketchy.
Geralt’s encounter with a beast reveals the truth behind fairy tales in this graphic novel adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's original short story.
Geralt takes a short cut down a beaten path, where he makes a grim discovery of two corpses. Backtracking their trail, he’s led to a derelict mansion secured with elevated walls and a gate—mysterious and ramshackle, yet adorned with a rare elegance Geralt could not ignore. He is met with the mansion’s owner—not quite human, but a beast with the faculties of a man. With Geralt unfazed by his monstrous appearance and displays of aggression, the beast invites…
King is a true master when it comes to simplicity and clarity. He writes as much as if he gets paid by page, and sometimes I would wonder, couldn't this have been presented with fewer words? Yet, for most of the time when I read, there were no words – the picture was just running! Loved the mixed-up themes in the world – a cowboy knight, barren landscapes, a mystery man in black, and vivid companions for the adventure.
The Dark Tower is now a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba.
'The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.' The iconic opening line of Stephen King's groundbreaking series, The Dark Tower, introduces one of his most enigmatic and powerful heroes: Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger.
Roland is a haunting figure, a loner, on a spellbinding journey toward the mysterious Dark Tower, in a desolate world which frighteningly echoes our own.
On his quest, Roland begins a friendship with a kid from New York named Jake, encounters an alluring woman and faces…
What an incredible character she is – read as an adult, she's inhuman, really – like a sort of a jester, or a demon with a flaming head. It's a children's book and reading it didn't require straining the brain at all but there were the occasional emotional moments (really grim ones at that), which made me put down the book and meditate on "what the fuck just happened?" Pippi is a treasure – I find her way more interesting as a character than say, Alice (of the Wonderland) – yet only the latter gets movies and games made out of her and the wonderland universe (and even so, they still leave out the good funky parts 😋).
This flagship gift edition illustrated by Lauren Child is a glorious celebratory tribute to the strongest girl in the world.
Pippi Longstocking is nine years old. She has just moved into Villa Villekulla where she lives all by herself with a horse, a monkey, and a big suitcase full of gold coins. The grown-ups in the village try to make Pippi behave in ways that they think a little girl should, but Pippi has other ideas. She would much rather spend her days arranging wild, exciting adventures to enjoy with her neighbours, Tommy and Annika, or entertaining everyone she meets…
Incerto, that is Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Antifragile and Skin in the Game (+ Bed of Procrustes, which is a collection of very smart aphorisms) are not exactly fiction, but maestro added fiction into it anyway. Nero, Fat Tony, Jevgenia demonstrate on unrelated occasions how the ideas and properties (found in the "real world" discussed in the book would unfold. The overall theme of the book, however, discusses risk - risk-taking. And believe it or not, risk exists in all domains of life, hence, using this book to meditate on it deeply made me appreciate... It made me appreciate life, and all things in life – more than I used to. It might sound like a lot, and it is... If there is just one non-fiction book you will read, make it Taleb's Incerto.
The landmark five-book series—all together in one ebook bundle
The Incerto is an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision making when we don’t understand the world, expressed in the form of a personal essay with autobiographical sections, stories, parables, and philosophical, historical, and scientific discussions, in non-overlapping volumes that can be accessed in any order. The main thread is that while there is inordinate uncertainty about what is going on, there is great certainty as to what one should do about it.
This ebook bundle includes: FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS THE BLACK SWAN THE BED OF…
I am a freelance writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, specializing in media history and speculative fiction. I have been enchanted by animation since childhood and followed many series avidly through adulthood. My viewing inspired my MA thesis on the history of animation, out of which grew two books on the history and theory of animation on television, America 'Toons In: A History of Television Animation (available from McFarland and Co.) and The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows (available from Rowman and Littlefield). Hopefully, others will follow.
Jefferson Ball, the mightiest female dog in a universe of the same, is, despite her anti-heroic behavior, intent on keeping her legacy as an athlete and adventurer intact. So, when female teenage robot Jody Ryder inadvertently angers her by smashing her high school records, Jefferson is intent on proving her superiority by outmuscling the robot in a not-so-fair fight. Not wanting to seem like a coward, and eager to end her enemy's trash talking, Jody agrees.
However, they have been lured to fight each other by circumstances beyond their control. Which are intent on destroying them if they don't destroy each other in combat first...
