this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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Science Fiction

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Lemmy World Rules

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Book recommendations that play with what it means to be a book (lemmynsfw.com)
submitted 10 months ago by Worx@lemmynsfw.com to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world
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I really love sci-fi novels and I read a lot of books. I read 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson a while back and that book is particularly interesting to me. Rather than each chapter advancing the narrative of the story, there were occasional breaks where a chapter would have a list of semi-random words which just gave the vibe of what's happening, or some history of a scene, or a recipe for how to build an asteroid.

There's another book that I have heard of but neglected to write the name down, where the reader of the book is a character within the book, and the narrator speaks directly to you (but not a choose-your-adventure style book).

All of this got me interested in finding other books, preferably sci-fi or maybe fantasy, where the concept of being a book is played with and new ideas are tried. Any recommendations?

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[–] vankappa@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You mean If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino? Still do check it out

[–] yum_burnt_toast@reddthat.com 3 points 10 months ago

yea this definitely fits the description. brief summary: chapters alternate between the first chapters of different novels, and the main character (addressed as "you") trying to track down the different novels whose chapters youve just read which are cut off for various reasons. it is great, relatively short (i think 250-ish pages in my copy), and if you dont mind the wild stylistic jumps between chapters its pretty delightful.

[–] Worx@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What a weird fucking book! It's not the exact one I was looking for (I believe in my novel, one of the characters in the book begged the reader not to finish the book, because then the character would die).

Thanks so much for the recommendation though, it's definitely the sort of weird I was looking for. I found it a bit hard to get through - I think it being a translation made some parts a bit stilted and a bit unrelatable for me - but I still read it over only a couple of days. I felt at chapter 8 where we read a Certain Character's diary that the book was coming together and starting to make sense for me.

[–] vankappa@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

glad you liked it in the end. I still have to read it, never went past the first couple of chapters myself :)