Which book will I like best?
29
371
resolved Oct 6
21%
Logicomix
21%
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
17%
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
16%
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
8%
Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (book 2 of the Culture series)
4%
Luminous (collection of short stories by Greg Egan)
3%
Ancillary Justice
3%
Law's Order by David Friedman
2.0%
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (book 1 of the Culture series)
1.7%
The Precipice, by Toby Ord
1.6%
The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann
1.1%
There Is No Antimemetics Division (by qntm)

I hereby commit to reading the top 2 books suggested by this market. I will resolve this market to whichever of those two I like best. If you suggest something I've already read or that I want to veto for whatever reason, I'll add a comment to say so before you put real mana on it. Things related to Beeminder somehow could be good candidates. I'm currently reading _The Elephant in the Brain_ and enjoying it. I'd call that vaguely Beeminder-relevant in that it involves what you actually do vs what you endorse doing. I'm also a fan of ridiculously erudite but gripping sci-fi.

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Logicomix
justifieduseofFallibilism avatar
Timothy Curriebought Ṁ25

@JustifieduseofFallibilism Absolutely excellent comic about Bertrand Russel and Mathematics read here: profesorvargasguillen.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/logicomix.pdf

dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves

@JustifieduseofFallibilism Ah! I didn't notice this late entry. But of course I've already read this (twice!). It's amazing.

justifieduseofFallibilism avatar
Timothy Currie

@dreev I guess that means it was worth a shot.

dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves

Update: I'm on page 73 of Too Like The Lightning and it's great so far!

Bart answered
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@Bart Yeah, it's insanely good. One of a tiny number of books I've liked enough to reread. And as I mentioned elsewhere, we even read the entire thing out loud to our kids.
Bart answered
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@Bart Ooh, definitely a candidate!
Bart answered
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Bart avatar
Bart
Saw too late that you've already read it!
Adrian answered
Ancillary Justice
GriffinWolf avatar
Griffin Wolfbought Ṁ1
@Adrian, I don't think you can assume anything like that about Ann Leckie's inspirations with that kind of confidence, although I've not read the culture series. I'd add that one of the things I remember thinking is that Leckie writes aliens that are properly alien well, and human cultures that are alien to my experience very well, and that the main characters and their interactions are compelling as well as the setting and premise
Adrian answered
Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (book 2 of the Culture series)
horse avatar
horse
@dreev I haven't read it, so no strong rebuttal. I had heard that Player of Games is more Culture-y after I started reading Consider Phlebas, but I was enjoying Consider Phlebas just fine.
Adrian answered
Ancillary Justice
ahalekelly avatar
Adrian
It's been a long time since I read it, but my recollection is that it was incredibly well written and engaging and above average on philosophically interesting themes. Definitely Culture inspired in that they both examine the social implications of superintelligent AI ships and a post-scarcity economy, though Ancillary Justice focuses on the former and The Culture on the latter.
Daniel Reeves answered
There Is No Antimemetics Division (by qntm)
JiSK avatar
JiSK
Antimemetics does a really good existential horror, which is hard to get anywhere else
Clive Freeman answered
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@CliveFreeman Ok, I'm sold. And yes, read _The Martian_ and loved it. (The movie is good too!) (Also TIL "sarky" which initially I thought was a typo for "snarky". I'm tipping extra for that.)
Clive Freeman answered
The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@CliveFreeman Oh ho, you have my number. Back as an undergrad I read _The Prisoner's Dilemma_ by William Poundstone which is largely a biography of von Neumann and loved it and have been endlessly fascinated by von Neumann ever since. So this sounds like a great candidate, although possibly repetitive if I already know all the classic von Neumann anecdotes?
Gabrielle answered
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
StephenMalina avatar
Stephen Malina
Rereading your description, I'd say that this is by far the most "ridiculously erudite" sci-fi book I've ever read in terms of the knowledge Palmer brings to bear from being a historian. While maybe some of Greg Egan's books can compare in terms of physics erudition, Palmer is unmatched in terms of her knowledge and creativity on history and structuring a society. I think this review (https://www.gleech.org/palmer) does a good job of describing the book but it's really spoiler-filled so I've copied the first two, non spoiler-y, paragraphs here: > The series is a lot of things. It is the most sustained fictional portrait of Archipelago and polystates, one of the few utopias I would maybe like to live in. Palmer starts in an Enlightenment utopia (post-war, post-nationalism, post-scarcity, post-gender, post-theocracy, post-fideism, post-meat, post-capital-punishment, post-nuclear-family, general justice via universal voluntary surveillance) and then shows what the tensions will do to any system that has to handle humans as we are. > > The worldview diversity is probably the greatest thing about it. I’ve read twenty-author anthologies with less variance in values than this. Speaker’s Corner and SSC comments have nothing on Palmer.
Gabrielle answered
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
StephenMalina avatar
Stephen Malina
@dreev (not Gabrielle) but if you've ever wished you could read a book about a utopia that actually makes sense but is actually weird and a bit transgressive relative to our norms, you'll like this. You've probably never thought this second part, but it's the only sci-fi book I've ever read that (successfully, IMO) has a narrator who (internally) dialogues with Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire.
Adrian answered
Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (book 2 of the Culture series)
StephenMalina avatar
Stephen Malinabought Ṁ30
I agree with the comments here re: Player of Games vs. Consider Phlebas. The latter was my first Culture novel and it actually turned me off from the Culture series a bit. Then I read Player of Games and proceeded to read most of the others in quick succession.
Clive Freeman answered
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
CliveFreeman avatar
Clive Freemanbought Ṁ10
I'm presuming you've already read "The Martian", or I'd recommend that! But this is very much in the same vein - smart, sarky person, solving nearly-impossible problems with science to stay alive (and save the Earth!)
Sinclair avatar
Sinclair Chen

@CliveFreeman glad this one won. also one of my faves

horse answered
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (book 1 of the Culture series)
CliveFreeman avatar
Clive Freemanbought Ṁ25
Great choice, and I can't believe @dreev hasn't read the Culture series! The Player of Games is much more Beeminder-y, but this is great too.
Adrian answered
Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (book 2 of the Culture series)
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@JiSK @Adrian This sounds persuasive. Any rebuttal, @horse?
horse answered
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@horse Great suggestion! I'd already heard good things about it. I may bid this one up myself, though there's already extremely tough competition here!
S G answered
A Canticle for Leibowitz
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@SG Sounds like a classic I should absolutely read. If you give a mini pitch, I will mash the tip button!
Adrian answered
The Three-Body Problem
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@ahalekelly Ooh, a friend loaned me a hardcopy of this book and I intend to read it anyway. So if this market also makes me read it, all the better.
Adrian answered
Leviathan Wakes (Book 1 of The Expanse)
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@ahalekelly I watched the first several episodes of the TV show based on this (without even knowing it was based on a book) and I didn't get excited enough about it to keep going. So I'm less excited about this candidate but it's a candidate and if the market tells me to, I'll read it!
Adrian answered
Unsong
dreev avatar
Daniel Reeves
@ahalekelly Already read this! It's amazing. I basically hang on every word Scott Alexander writes about anything. (But since I've already read it, this one can't win. Though if Scott publishes an edited version of it, as he at least vaguely intends to, I'll probably read it again.)