Reading Fiction is a course in empathy. A long, ever improving and wonderful course.
Joe Abercrombie wrote a character in his First Law Trilogy. A crippled war veteran who despises his life. He became a cripple after being tortured by the other side in war. And eventually, he himself became a torturer for his country. He wants to kill himself every day but somehow gets his miserable ass out of bed every morning, and goes on torturing more and more people.
In the face of it, he looks pathetic, miserable, and a terrible human being. …
That one book to read if you have two hours before the end of the world
Science Fiction can be a tough sell. Frank Herbert’s dark world of Dune, Neal Stephenson’s dystopian cyberpunk novels, or even popular shows like Star Trek. They go deep into morality, politics, and metaphorize modern issues in their rich vibrant, but unknown worlds. But then once in a while, you get a Douglas Adams with his The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or Andy Weir with his The Martian to bring a breath of fresh witty air to the genre. All Systems Red, the first of The Muderbot Diaries, is a breath of fresh air indeed. …
How to make reading books more productive, efficient and enjoyable.
It is pretty easy at this point to give two excuses for people who don’t have time to read. Oh, I have too much work, dude! I am just drained. Second. Oh, I just don’t have to stamina to concentrate for such a long time.
Now, obviously, there are some real problems with our lifestyle. Human bodies are not made for sitting on a chair for 8 hours a day and stare at 3 different sources of light. Your laptop, your phone, your TV. (and your smartwatch? Too many screens! Aahhhh!) Now, being a human myself, I have had the…
The overwhelming feeling while starting a new Scifi or Fantasy series after finishing an old one, and how to get over it
After finishing a book or a series, I face a lot of inertia while picking up a new book. I am constantly dreaming about the old world, talking about it with my friends, and feel comfortable with the characters. I am excited to pick up the new book, I want to fall in love with new characters, I want to immerse myself into the new world. But I am nervous with doubt and fear of not loving the new world.
Sometimes, authors can make this experience the most pleasurable. They would slowly slide you deeper into the world until you…
Comparing old and new fantasy writing styles
I finally read Christopher Paolini’s Eragon after a long time. It was in my TBR for an eternity and I finally made the first leap into reading the first book of The Inheritance Cycle. Conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed it no doubt. But I read this book after reading Brandon Sanderson’s Words of Radiance, a 1300 page mammoth, the second in the Stormlight Archive.
Before I get into the comparison, let me elaborate on what to expect from these books and the series as a whole.
Eragon is a classic fantasy tale with an evil king, a prophesized hero, dragons, elves…
Millions saw the enormous spaceships emerge from the depths of the ocean and leave planet Earth. So did you. You go with every kind of scientist available in submarines to discover the unknown oceanic civilization. Your linguistic expertise is what they needed in case they find unknown texts. And you did find a message.
“You have 20 years left. They are coming.”
You arrive out of one of the submarines, confused and annoyed by the message. …
On the last day, my stride became smaller with every step. With my heart pounding in my head, and legs paining with the added baggage of a thing called gravity and a lack of a thing called oxygen made me wonder why do we climb. What so special and therapeutic about the five-minute glance at ice and rock which once formed the bottom of an ancient ocean.
The earth when scaled down to the size of a cue ball in the pool actually is smoother than the cue ball. That is, the tallest mountain and the deepest oceanic trench have…
All of us who have built a web app from scratch or planning to build a web app from scratch have faced the overwhelming feeling of where to start and how to go about.
But we also know that it is important to show something really tangible to test out your idea. Simply asking people whether they will buy something like this is clearly not enough. And anyway, Stephen King says ideas are the cheapest resource in the world. Having something “real” would help you understand the business better.
Table of Contents
- Before Development
- Scaling it down
- Design Hunting
- Libraries Galore
- Summary
I…
I was… or am eighty years old. I was not supposed to survive. The doctors gave me no chance. And why would they? They had younger, healthier people waiting for their care. I starkly remember my last breath like it was yesterday. But it happened a few seconds ago, according to the clock. It definitely felt longer. I didn’t know where I was. Or when I was. Maybe I was sleeping. Sleeping on the way to this… parallel world. A world that turned me upside down.
My room felt strange. It was bigger, darker but everything else remained the same…
Short Story.
“We’ve found a disturbance about 139 light-years away”, said Dr. Martin just as Yana entered the Lab, “near the star Achernar.”
“Disturbance?” asked a bewildered Yana.
“That’s why you’re here. We’re not sure yet. Seems like a space-time distortion. We can measure the emission of cosmic radiation but can’t see the source.”
Yana felt a current run down her spine. She knows why she’s here. She had been preparing for this day for a long time. A drop of sweat started avalanching down her forehead anticipating the inevitable.
“It could just be a wormhole. But the readings are…
