City of Stairs is really good. it takes place in a world where the gods were once real, but were killed (by a nation of people oppressed by their worshippers) centuries ago. The world has roughly early-mid 20th century levels of technology. Now, worship of the former deities is strictly outlawed and policed by…

Beat me to it…yes, Demons is the best Dostoevsky. The fete is just an incredible scene. And yes, the thinly veiled stuff about Turgenev is priceless.

My favorite Dostoevsky is Demons (aka The Possessed) and my favorite scene, one of the greatest in literature IMO is the fete. Such a great mix of humor, poignancy, and madness.

Krakauer is amazing, and the subject matter here is particularly compelling on its own. Banner of Heaven really is great stuff.

Yea, the awesome premise, especially w/r/t the time jump, is what sold me on the book in the first place. Knowing the time jump was coming (it was in the promotional materials/reviews/synopsis), I kept just wanting to get to that part, and was not disappointed when I did.

I guess it depends on your perspective but I would not say superdepressing on the scale of climate change scenarios. Bacigalupi basically falls into the "Climate change is going to bring about incredibly painful economic contractions" camp rather than the "climate change is going to straight up end civilization"…

Lots of good new SF/F genre stuff lately:

You could remove any species of megafauna and the ecosystem would not miss a beat. They're at the top of the pyramid. Removing microfauna and important tiny species has a much greater effect because it's like pulling pieces out of the foundation of the pyramid.

I felt the reverse about Seveneves. I mean I enjoyed it as a whole and the last third does not have an impact without the first two-thirds, but the exposition about world after the time jump was more interesting to me than the exposition about orbital dynamics from the first 2/3.

It's solid. Good noir feel set so soon into the future it's barely SF at all. I wouldn't say it's anything revelatory from a storytelling perspective but it's decent if predictable and is typically (for Bacigalupi) plausible/well-thought out from a worldbuilding perspective.

That is not bonkers. When a journalist loses credibility, it does not grow back over time. It's gone.

It's Fries.

Image is by far the best mainstream publisher in comics right now. Yes, there are some of those "derivative TV pitch" titles, but there's also the highest amount of quality and originality.

It was never made clear in the text itself, but I believe Cormac McCarthy indicated somewhere that he wrote it as if it were an asteroid strike.

Yeah, I just posted upthread about this, but I agree. Season 4 if the Office is when the show completely transitioned to a more cartoonish, broad comedy (though those elements were creeping in in S3). Dinner Party is a pretty prime example of that.

Dinner Party is not a good choice. I rage against it.

Or "Complaint Box," "Stocks," or "Chock." So many to choose from.

Wrong-o. First of all, there is no K in Nic Cage. Your argument is invalid. Second, you forgot to put "The Great" honorific in front of his name.

I'm not going to bash Cross, since I also really like him, but Odenkirk was always my favorite of the two. At the time of Mr. Show, Cross's comedy chops were more polished, but there was something about Bob's sheer unhinged commitment (and yelling!) that was more entertaining.

The CBB Holiday episode was hilarious. Just about everyone was on - PFT as Weisman, Laupkus as Ho Ho, and especially Matt Gourley as Ian Fleming, who nearly killed me.