(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best computers & internet humor books

I sure can! It is a little over 112,000 words in its current form, which is the fourth draft. It has been read by five people, all of whom gave me valuable notes. It's currently with my wonderful editor at HarperCollins, who will undoubtedly give me more valuable notes. We expect it to be published for the holidays 2019, which is a cool vote of confidence.

It is about the invention of a new technology that utterly changes the world. It has that in common with The Oracle Year - I like the idea of writing "one small thing changes the entire world" stories, and intend to keep doing that.

By the way, The Oracle Year available here in many formats is in the finals for the Goodreads Choice Awards as one of the best scifi books of 2018. If you liked it, or like my stuff, consider giving it a vote! I SURE WOULD APPRECIATE IT.

So hopefully you read the Night Watch / Day Watch / Twilight Watch books? There's supposedly two more books out there in the series now, Last Watch and New Watch, which I haven't read.

The Markhat series by Frank Tuttle is brilliant fun.

9 Goblins is short but totally worth it. by T. A. Kingfisher

The Night Circus is a whimsical book full of beautiful things, tends to be a bit melancholy.

Most things by Elizabeth Bear are worth reading, as are most things by Connie Willis.

Charlie Stross' Laundry Files are excellent fun with the single, sole, sad exception of the second book which I hated but which other people loved.

The Enterprise of Death is - well. Um, let's just say the woodcut engraving on the cover? Not a metaphor in this book. Does not pull punches.I found it more horrific than a dozen other books labeled specifically as horror, but also more brilliant and more beautiful.

If you haven't got around to reading Ben Aaronovitch's stuff you're in for some good London fun. He's an excellent writer.

The Felix Castor series by Mike Carey is brilliant too.

This is a good start

and so is this!

This is, possibly surprisingly, good too.

If you're looking to jump right into a text and think you have a grip on the language, try Foucault's Madness and Civilization It's great and pretty easy to read.

Another good introduction (or at least, MY introduction to philosophy is Slavoj Zizek. He's pretty easy to read and understand, but makes ties to Lacan, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc in a cohesive manner that makes you want to learn more. Of his work, I'd check out The Sublime Object of Ideology, The Parallax View or watch his movie! (Which is extraordinarily entertaining for how dense it is. He's also kind of amazing in a philosophical rock star kind of way.)

Hope that gets you started!

1. "Emails from an Asshole"
   
2. I'll Go Home Then, It's Warm and Has Chairs. The Unpublished Emails (The reviews claim that the emails were published.. but its still amusing anyways)
   
3. [The Warlizard Chronicles: Adventures with Vodka, Women, & War] (http://www.amazon.com/Warlizard-Chronicles-Adventures-Vodka-Women/dp/0615461875) By one of our very own reddit users /u/warlizard
   
   
   Granted these are humor books so its going to be more entertaining than helpful.

My daughter would love any of these. She likes books by YouTube stars she watches. She's 15. Loves makeup and is a vegetarian. She reads really well always has. I listed ones i know she wants but feel free to be a matchmaker.
It Gets Worse: A Collection of Essays https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501132849/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_qma.BbBPWAJZP
In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476794308/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_7pa.BbMCP4P0V
James Charles: Born to Break Boundaries https://www.amazon.com/dp/1978483856/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_vFa.BbQK0GS5F
This Book Loves You https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101999047/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_WGa.Bb03G6CBT
Thanks for the cool contest.

In a word, intense.

Imagine an incredibly inhospitable landscape filled with a wide assortment of people and art and constantly being barraged by music and fire.

A book that really inspired me to finally go and can really I think capture much more eloquently than me what burning man is like would be http://www.amazon.com/Inspired-Madness-Gifts-Burning-Man/dp/158394172X/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299453050&sr=1-7

When I went I got to hang out with lots of my good friends, meet lots of people I admired and respected in the object manipulation community, got to see some really fantastic art - visual, kinetic, experiental in a really crazy landscape. It was fantastic.

I'm not really sure why the OP or I were downvoted for these posts.

Hello, Cracked writer here.

I understand some of the frustration you feel, but I don't fully agree with your conclusions. I have done the Cracked list and it is a great launching off point for writing.

The format may be similar, but because it is popular and smarter than Buzzfeed or the many Buzzfeed knock-offs, it opens a lot of doors. I used my Cracked resume to get into contact with Fox Studios, and as a result I have had two seasons of a college sports web series called Suit Up, the second season now airing on DirecTV's Audience Channel.

There are several writers for the site who have gone on to be published. Among them

• David Wong - John Dies at the End; This Book is Full of Spiders
  
  
• Daniel O'Brien - How to Fight Presidents
  
  
• Kathy Benjamin - Funerals to Die For
  
  
• Gladstone Notes from the Internet Apocalypse
  
  
• Jacopo della Quercia The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy
  
  
• Robert Brockway Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead
  
  
• Asher Cantrell - The Book of Word Records
  
  
• Shelby Fero - Writer for @midnight
  
  In addition, if you go into the Lounge section of the forum you will find threads about other sites that pay and offer other types of writing. I wrote for Playboy's The Smoking Jacket for a while.
  
  Overall Cracked has made me a much better writer and prepared me for receiving feedback, collaborating with other authors and building credentials. It's not the end all, be all of crafting great writers, but it is a rare gem that it is a site that allows anyone to sign up, contribute whatever weird or obscure knowledge and get an article before hundreds of thousands to millions of readers, all while giving far more attention to developing writing far more than other sites.

Mick Farren - The DNA Cowboys

Its got is all, fellowship, drugs, adventure, sex and buckets of general weirdness. Kind of DarkTowerish.


Allan Weisbecker - Cosmic Banditos

I had lots of awkward moments in public, trying (and failing) to stifle laughs. Great stuff. Worth it for the intro alone.


M. John Harrison - Light

This novel is unlike anything else I have read. That Harrison squeezes three stories in to this slim volume is a work of wonder.


John C. Wright - The Golden Age

If you like the Culture Novels, you will probably really like this.


Jeff VanderMeer - Veniss Underground

Disturbing and dark. Still haunts me.

This level of mathematics and physics right at my limits, so I really can't take it much further. I will say a lot of it has to do with trying to find the meaning behind the Standard Model, so that would be a good place to improve your understanding.

I would try to avoid reading in profound and mystical meaning into this, there are already enough Deepak Chopra types who are ready to jump on any quantum vibration double speak to try to peddle their new age quackery. Making philosophical speculations about abstract mathematics will not endear you to physicists.

But it can still make for some fascinating fiction. If you want to this wort of thing done well, I would recommend Charles Stoss's Laundry Files series.

The autobiography of James T. Kirk
I haven't read it but a friend of mine said it's pretty good there's also one for Picard.
https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-James-T-Kirk/dp/1783297484

[Egghead by Bo Burnham] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1455519138/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1KJIUWLE5RLM0&coliid=ICZYGDNP6SC0F) is a book I've been wanting for a loong time!! I cant find it anywhere in stores. Bo Burnham is one of my favorite comedians so having his book would be awesome!

Reading Rainbow :D thanks for the contest!

How about The Road to Mars by Eric Idle? That's Eric Idle of Monty Python fame.

Also, it's not very British, but John Scalzi's Agent To the Stars is a pretty fun SF read.

> “This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”

― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

A good read I'd recommend, The Circle by Dave Eggers.

The audiobook version (narrated by Dion Graham) is actually pretty good.

There are so many fantastic books about the lifestyle. These are a few that are fashion/dress oriented:

Ivy Style

True Prep (update version of preppy handbook)

The Official Filthy Rich Handbook

Official Sloane Ranger Handbook

The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home

Theory of The Leisure Class

Brooks Brothers. Generations of Style. It's All About the Clothing

A Privileged Life: Celebrating Wasp Style

Lacoste: The Element of Style

How To Be A Gentleman series

> Any big comicbook authors that have also written prose books?

Warren Ellis has a couple. His first is Crooked Little Vein, which reads just like Warren Ellis. Dead Pig Collector is also an excellent short. I haven't cracked into Gun Machine, but it's in my readlist.

For a book that reads like a comic, Steve Aylett is a wild and frenetic writer that reads like an action comic. Slaughtermatic is my go to example.

Also by Stross Jennifer Morgue and the Atrocity Archives. Cthulu + James Bond + Computers = Awesome.

Also John Scalzi's Old Man's War Trilogy is awesome.

Ryan North is a bona fide amazing dude. He's also made:

• That Time traveler poster that once was reposted everywhere, and the same in book form
  
• A chooseable-path version of Hamlet
  
• A chooseable-path version of Romeo and Juliet
  
• Co-edited two books about a machine that tells you how you will die. You can download the first one for free.

Just remembered another set of books that I very rarely see mentioned. Author is Allan C. Weisbecker and he's only written 3 books, but his first 2 in particular are really great. They are written in a 'memoir' style and are mainly accounts of personal experiences, with some fictionalized/hallucinated tidbits interspersed. But there are tons of ideas presented regarding quantum physics, time and a whole range of 'meta' concepts from a psychedelic perspective. Besides all of that they are both extremely 'fun' & quick reads.

'In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfers Trip Beyond The End of The Road'

'Cosmic Banditos'

Goodnight Brew - just came out, perfect timing for my wife's birthday

Goodnight Goon

Goodnight iPad

And my personal favorite, Fuck You Sun.

Been loving the responses so far! My own preferences have been changing, and I've been reading a lot more non-fiction than I used to. It has really opened the doors to a lot of books I would not have considered reading before!

On my reading list:

The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley - this is what I'm almost finished with now. It has been a really insightful read on how little prepared society is for disasters, and the steps we should take to help fix that.

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker - I've seen this mentioned on reddit a few times and it's in the same vein as the book I'm currently reading.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - I'm currently working in the startup industry, and have read similar books to this.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - same as the book above. This is currently going around my office right now so I should be reading it soon!

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. - this was recommended to me by a friend when he learned I was reading The Unthinkable and The Gift of Fear. Honestly really looking forward to reading this one!

On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society


Books I'd recommend:

Blink by Malcom Gladwell - all about the subconscious mind and the clues we pick up without realizing it. Pretty sure reading this book has helped me out in weird situations.

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance - amazing read about how Elon Musk works and the person he is.

The Circle by Dave Eggers - just don't watch the movie :)

Good advice, will TIL. Sidebar: Are you Robert Hamburger? If so, can you please just take all my money?

The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross. The whole Laundry series is just fantastic -- British spy thrillers blended with Lovecraftian Horror with comedy sprinkles on top. The main character is a computational demonologist working for a secret British security agency called the Laundry, and there are four books so far with the fifth coming in a couple of months (alongside a bunch of short stories). Start with the first book, The Atrocity Archives.

The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross is a pretty neat crossover between IT and Lovecraftian horror, if you're into that sort of thing. It's more focused on the Lovecraftian part.

I don't look actively for rationalist themes in books, so take this as 'books that someone who likes hpmor also likes', and don't spend too much blindly. I do like characters that are at least not obviously stupid, and if the idiot ball is too blatant I will notice, so perhaps at least some level of interest is warranted.

It's all fairly mainstream and recent SF/F.

• The Laundry series by Charlie Stross
  
• Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
  
• The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois M. Bujold
  
• Dreamblood series by N. K. Jemisin
  
• Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
  

https://www.amazon.com/REAL-Ultimate-Power-Official-Ninja/dp/080652569X

I used to love this book.

Considering the clarifications made already, there has been something similar made already

https://www.wired.com/2009/04/ff-guidestones/

Though I imagine that would be incomplete.

Depending on the type of collapse, we could and would lose a lot of information, all cutting edge research (since that's mostly preserved digitally), though that would be less important, since we'd have to rebuild the machinery in order to use it.

As someone else mentioned, seed banks are a good start as well. As far as knowledge itself goes, there are two books I'd recommend, The Knowledge: How to rebuild civilization (linkhttps://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Rebuild-Civilization-Aftermath-Cataclysm/dp/0143127047) which I have read and is interesting in an entertaining way, and even somewhat useful; and How to Invent Everything (link https://www.amazon.com/How-Invent-Everything-Survival-Stranded-ebook/dp/B07B2LNVBY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1543607051&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+invent+everything) which I haven't read yet, but is a similar idea. This one I have read, and it's kinda cool.

To get an idea for how difficult it will be to restart manufacturing at our current level, you may want to also check out The Toaster Project (link https://www.amazon.com/Toaster-Project-Attempt-Electric-Appliance-ebook/dp/B007N209P4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1543607108&sr=1-1&keywords=toaster+project) where someone tries to build a cheap toaster from scratch, and how impossible it is.

At risk of self-advertising: the first book in the series, "The Atrocity Archives", is currently on special offer in the USA and Canada for $1.99 as an ebook — Amazon Kindle link here, but it's also cheap on iBooks and Nook right now. (Price will go back up to $7.99 at the end of next week.)

This is to promote the cheapification(?) of book seven, "The Nightmare Stacks" (ebook price just dropped from $13.99 to $7.99 at the beginning of the month) and the oncoming publication of book eight, "The Delirium Brief" (due out in July, will cost $13.99 for the first 9-12 months — if that's too much for you, the price will come down if you wait long enough).

Charles Stross' The Laundry Files should scratch this itch. It starts with The Atrocity Archives and is currently up to 9 books. A great kind of Cthulu tale that focuses more on the idea that the universe works in a way you don't want to know about, rather than just "weirdness and crazy people" that too many Lovecraft imitators focus on.

Sadly the second book is the worst in the entire series, but if you want to skip over that one, the entire rest is some brilliant work.

Good news, there’s a book that addresses this exact problem: How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler.

This for you :)

[This for me please :)] (http://www.amazon.com/niceEshop-Fashion-Twilight-Cosmetic-Pouch-Dark/dp/B00DOPP774/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=ZD572ET87LDD&coliid=I33Z3V34LIHUBM)

timetot

it looks like this

I recommend The Circle - Dave Eggers

(Not as a couterpoint, more tangential)

[](/b36 "I'm glad I got into the show. Can't wait for the next episode.")
That's strangely relevant to The Ultimate Power. The first 5 pages are about how his mother chased him around the back yard with a broom because he would get boners thinking about Ninjas and she would stomp on his ass to make them go away. If you thought that was funny I suggest you read it. He also has a full blown conversation with his dog in the annotations. It's a guilty pleasure book.

REAL Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book it's a masterpiece of shitty books.

Cosmic Banditos

I picked it up in a used book store several years ago. It's a hilarious and bizarre story of a drug smuggler who becomes fascinated with quantum physics.

Reading this book is my favorite way of chasing off melancholy. Plus you get to learn about ninjas.

You can look at a few pages here

Check this out. And this, the second one is not Adams, but I hear he writes in the same style.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/080652569X?pc_redir=1396777763&robot_redir=1

Or this one perhaps?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080652569X?ie=UTF8&tag=theofficialni-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=080652569X

Reminds me of this

As listed by Žižek in the film Žižek!:

• The Sublime Object of Ideology
  
• Tarrying with the Negative
  
• The Ticklish Subject
  
• The Parallax View
  
  Source

His son is also an author: http://www.amazon.com/REAL-Ultimate-Power-Official-Ninja/dp/080652569X

Have you read this book? because you should...

Have you read this book? because you should...

A time traveler already stole your idea: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B2LNVBY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

​

Read The Salmon of Doubt

He has a book of the emails he never published


https://www.amazon.com/Home-Then-Chairs-Unpublished-Emails/dp/0615615953

How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross, beginning with The Atrocity Archives.

Nexus by Ramez Naam.

Lexicon by Max Berry.

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley.

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway.

I know it isn't canon, but check out James Kirk's autobiography that came out a couple years ago:

https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-James-T-Kirk/dp/1783297484/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467859957&sr=8-1&keywords=autobiography+of+james+t+kirk

Both of you should read The Circle. The entirety of your conversation about the Facebook building reminded me much of it.

Cosmic Banditos - A. C. Weisbecker

This 'un:

https://www.amazon.com/Atrocity-Archives-Laundry-Files/dp/0441013651/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

http://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Little-Vein-Warren-Ellis-ebook/dp/B000U913LQ/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412734372&sr=1-5&keywords=warren+ellis

http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Machine-Warren-Ellis-ebook/dp/B007ZFIMC6/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412734372&sr=1-4&keywords=warren+ellis

I was just thinking that!
http://www.amazon.com/REAL-Ultimate-Power-Official-Ninja/dp/080652569X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418153292&sr=8-1&keywords=the+real+ultimate+power

Is this the book? If it is, I'm buying it right now.

https://www.amazon.ca/Goodnight-iPad-Parody-next-generation/dp/0399158561/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520876511&sr=8-1&keywords=Goodnight+ipad

reminds me of the book The Circle https://www.amazon.com/Circle-Dave-Eggers/dp/0345807294/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481582624&sr=1-1&keywords=the+circle

I came here to say the same thing. Start with The Atrocity Archives and then The Jennifer Morgue. Also, the Dresden Files have always felt X-Files-ish to me. Start with Storm Front.

The Laundry Files series

Modern day Lovecraftian horrors, secret agents, government agencies, science, occult, etc. Written by one of my favorite sci-fi authors, Charles Stross.

The Laundry(UK) and The Black Chamber(USA) are two government agencies tasked with covering up, containing, or eliminating Lovecraftian horrors. I'm just finishing the first book, and I love it.

Oh fuck, I knew there was something else I had to do today.

Edit: You might want to check out Real Ultimate Power for information on how to commit seppuku with a Frisbee.

Very similar story in Cosmic Banditos. An on the lam drug runner robs a physics professor and takes up the cause of applying quantum physics to his drug running world.

The link is to buy it at Amazon to keep this thing topical.

Cosmic Banditos by A.C. Weisbecker

It's the story of a hilarious, drug-fueled path of insanity and violence burned through South America that makes Hunter S. Thompson look like Jane Austen. Also, it will teach you a surprising amount of quantum physics.

check out "The Circle" by Dave Eggers

Basically goes into the whole future of social media and privacy, specifically the mantra "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" and how incredibly wrong that notion is in reality.

I dunno, but maybe try Release That Witch. (The translation is not good at all, but it's readable, give it like twenty chapters, y'know?) You could also try The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm, The Disaster Diaries: One Man's Quest to Learn Everything Necessary to Survive the Apocalypse and How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler.

Someone wrote a long story on 4chan called "Stranded in Fantasy". A group of people from our world get pulled into a D&D-style fantasy world and try to survive.

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Stranded_in_fantasy

And this may not be exactly what you're looking for, but check out "The Atrocity Archives". It's a combination of Lovecraft-style horror and Dilbert-style bureaucracy.

The Lord Darcy series was started in the '60s so you're looking for dead tree editions.

Start your search here (googl link because reddit hates parentheses).

The Atrocity Archives is Charlie Stross's Laundry series.

For all your computational necromancy needs.