April 2014 Media Thread

ArisKatsaris

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please use the comment trees for genres. There is a meta thread for comments about future threads.
If you think there should be a thread for a particular genre of media, please post it to the Other Media thread for now, and add a poll to the Meta thread asking if it should be a thread every month.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please use the comment trees for genres. There is a meta thread for comments about future threads.
If you think there should be a thread for a particular genre of media, please post it to the Other Media thread for now, and add a poll to the Meta thread asking if it should be a thread every month.

Fiction Books Thread

I've been on a bit of an alternate history kick recently. I can recommend both Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan-Behemoth-Goliath young adult steampunk v. biotech alternate World War One trilogy, and Ian Tregillis' Bitter Seeds-The Coldest War-Necessary Evil demonologists v. bioengineered ubermenchen series. (Neither is rationalist fiction in the sense of having super rational characters, but it is realist fiction in the sense of character's making mistakes for bias-related reasons.)

Also, I seem to recall seeing Yvain say something on his blog recently about ... (read more)

8gwern12y

Fiction: * reread R.A. Lafferty's Fourth Mansions * Harrison's Light (review) Also, may I take a moment to strongly recommend Ted Chiang's short stories? * "Understand" * "72 Letters" * "Hell is the Absence of God" * "Story of Your Life" (see also Lagrangians, Principle of Least Action, Greg Egan's "The Infinite Assassin", and Qualia the Purple) * "Liking What You See: A Documentary" * "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling"