u/cyber_ang666l

do you have a good sci-fi series rec for me? i feel like i've watched all the good ones 😭 which is so sad because i just want to get lost in a good, long sci-fi series and have a couple of seasons to really immerse myself in.

i'd prefer no copaganda, and i'm happy if there is any queerness in there, it can be a minor role, a queer character, someone in the writers' room, etc. :)

here are the series i've watched (or am currently watching) and liked, so you get an idea of my taste:

• the peripheral
• mr. robot
• devs
• westworld
• the power
• black mirror
• the oa
• paper girls
• raised by wolves
• orphan black
• fallout
• snowpiercer
• foundation
• silo
• invasion / infiltartion
• three-body problem
• star trek: discovery
• ahsoka
• dune: prophecy
• lanterns
• severance
• pluribus
• sense8

• ⁠murder bot

i'm especially looking for something with good worldbuilding / an interesting concept that i can really disappear into for a while.

what am i missing? 👀

i'm especially looking for epic fantasy series with more than three books that aren't written by white authors.

my faves so far are:

• the burning kingdoms by tasha suri
• the ending fire trilogy by saara el-arifi
• the magic of the lost by c. l. clark
• the legendborn cycle by tracy deonn

are there any longer series i'm missing? i know there are lots of amazing trilogies, but i'm really craving one of those massive series you can disappear into for weeks or months.

the reason i'm asking for non-white authors is that epic fantasy/sci-fi has historically been dominated by white authors (especially white cishet men), and i'd like to intentionally support other authors while also discovering different perspectives, settings, and storytelling traditions :)

edit: thank you all so much for the amazing recs!! for now, i decided to order gideon the ninth, the fifth season, stars of chaos: sha po lang, and a song of legends lost because they resonated with me the most. i'll definitely come back to this post in a while though and probably check out the other recs too!! yayyy i'm so happy, my reading for the next few months is saved :D

So... I'm one of those people who watched the TV series before reading the books 😅

I absolutely loved the show and I'm still heartbroken that it got cancelled. Season 3 completely pulled me in, and now I really want to find out how the story continues.

The thing is, I don't really want to start from Book 1. I know the books and show differ, but I'd rather pick up from roughly where Season 3 ends and continue from there.

I've seen some people suggest starting with Book 5 (The Fires of Heaven), but I've also seen others say that's a bad idea because the adaptation rearranged and changed things.

For someone who's mainly looking to continue the story from the end of Season 3, where would you recommend starting? Is Book 5 the best jumping-in point, or would you go with a different book?

The main reason I'm hesitant isn't just impatience (although that's definitely part of it). I'm queer, and one of the things I loved most about the show is its queer representation and deep meaningful connections. From what I've heard, those aspects are much smaller or handled quite differently in the early books.

I'm worried that if I start with book one, I'll spend the whole time comparing it to the show and thinking, "Aw, I wish they'd developed this relationship the way the series did," instead of just enjoying the books for what they are.

I'd rather jump in closer to where the show left off, enjoy finding out what happens next, and then maybe come back to the earlier books later with different expectations.

And if I do jump in somewhere around there, what are the biggest changes between the show and the books that I should know beforehand?

Self-proclaimed empaths who constantly project onto others make me so angryyyy ahhh 😭

Like, how do you deal with someone who genuinely believes they are deeply empathetic and highly sensitive to other people’s emotions, but in reality seems really bad at distinguishing between their own emotions/projections and other people’s actual feelings?

They pick up a “vibe” from someone, feel a strong reaction in their body, and instantly assume they know exactly what the other person is truly feeling — often even better than the person themselves. But most of the time they’re just… wrong. And when the other person tries to explain their actual feelings or perspective, the “empath” kind of steamrolls over it because they’re so convinced in their own intuition.

It feels horrible to be on the receiving end of this because you end up feeling judged, misunderstood, and not really listened to. And the weirdest part is that these people often seem completely incapable of considering that they might be projecting or misunderstanding someone. They seem very emotionally reactive, but not actually very good at perspective-taking or understanding others outside of themselves.

At this point I honestly have a difficult relationship with the term “empath” in general because so many self-proclaimed empaths I’ve met were actually not very good listeners at all. Genuinely empathetic people usually don’t constantly need to tell everyone how empathetic they are.

And no, I don’t think this person is narcissistic or malicious. But I genuinely don’t know how to deal with someone like this without constantly feeling emotionally overwritten or misread.

Has anyone else experienced this dynamic?