Bob Smith

My most significant run-in with a genie was in Mario Land 3. After what I did to him, I’d hate clouds too.

Steven Erikson makes a lot of bold choices throughout the series that go beyond plot structure and character deaths. If you don’t like something about any particular book, it will probably be absent in the next book.

There are several times where (after 1000+ pages of build-up) he shifts to an entirely different set of characters on a different continent. You get thrown into the deep end and have to start over with no immediate clues about where you are, when you are, who the people are, and what it has to do with what you read before. A book or two later threads start to intersect.

A later book has Kruppe as the narrator, which is fantastic if you love Kruppe as much as Kruppe loves Kruppe.

Malazan Book of the Fallen was like this for me. Great worldbuilding. Big ideas and loads of characters. Lots of obscure detail, all the way down to potsherds and verdigris.

When I finished, I had a powerful impulse to reread the series immediately after finishing it.

I met up with a group of friends prior to a concert. She was somebody that I didn’t know yet. That changed!

Realistically? For mainstream search? In anything like the top-level results that most people bother to read?

Nowadays, you need to pay Google more than the SEO companies do. Either that, or hope that people specifically search for lemmy posts as part of their search request.

Michael Moorcock’s Elric books tick all of the boxes in your list. So do his Corum and Hawkmoon books.

Adding on to this: people overestimate their own expertise.

At home I take notes on the computer. Timestamps, instant sync across devices, whatever editor I like to use, et cetera. If I get a random call and someone starts talking at me, I’ll settle for scribbling on a fast food receipt if it is close to hand. I use my phone sometimes, but I generally take notes when I’m on a phone call.

When I’m at an in-person meeting with a client, pen and paper is the best option because it conveys some degree of respect. People still seem to be put off by people pulling out a laptop and typing during an emotionally charged meeting. If I pull out my cellphone and start poking at it in a professional setting, people don’t think that I’m listening or taking notes. They think that I’m bored.

Imperial Radch comes to mind. Really, a lot of military-focused genre fiction has shades of this. Black Company, Malazan Book of the Fallen, Old Man’s War, and similar tend to have main characters that aren’t exactly loved outside of their in-universe group. Someone else mentioned Consider Phlebas from the Culture series, but Use of Weapons is another stand-alone from that series that might be worth reading if you’re looking for a main character who is hated for a reason.

In my household it differs from person to person. My preference is Trebuchet white-on-black. I don’t know why, but the words just melt into my brain.

A few enemy tears are just fine in a gin martini, either directly or as an olive brine additive.