Cities Without People on HackerTube: recommended by 2 Hacker News commenters across 2 separate months, 2021–2025.
commentary · evergreen
Jacob Geller's video essay on empty cities and what they say about our relationship to places, using games, literature and aerial imagery. It touches on works such as Invisible Cities.
HN points to Geller's essays as accessible companions to literary works and as a good summary of a story.
“Jacob Geller provides a fun and effective summary within this video at 9 minutes in”
3 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
For those who don't have time to... "read"... this great story, Jacob Geller provides a fun and effective summary within this video at 9 minutes in ▶ this video In his words: "It is in my opinion one of the best sci-fi stories ever written."
in “A Mysterious Website I Stumbled Upon” · View on HN
Video (game) essayist Jacob Geller did a few videos which mentioned this work. [link] [link] They're quite interesting, I think. The abyss really gets him going. And a few more I really like: [link] [link] ▶ this video [link]
in “Borges: The Library of Babel [pdf]” · View on HN
"Southern Reach Trilogy" by Jeff VanderMeer [0]. I absolutely loved every book. "Annihilation" is probably my favorite. What hooked me about the series were two things: 1) It was very, /very/ weird and 2) it often times felt like the characters had no power. "Bliss Montage" by Ling Ma [1]. The short stories felt dreamy - drifting in perspectives, places, and times. Many of the stories had a supernatural aspect to them. "Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino [2]. This book is a puzzle. You could read it front to back, or you could read it in the various different orders. There is no intended order. Again, very dreamy and weird. This book is a conversation, where Marco Polo is telling Genghis Khan of the cities within his kingdom. I was introduced to this book by Jacob Geller's video essay "Cities without people" [3]. "Ring" by Koji Suzuki [4]. One of my first horror book reads, and also the first in the Ring series. The "Ring" movies are based off of this book. I also read the 2nd one, which provides a very different view on the series and gives the horrors in the book a scientific backing. This year for me has been the year of strange novels. [0]: [link] [1]: [link] [2]: [link] [3]: ▶ this video [4]: [link]
in “Ask HN: Books you read in 2023 and recommend for 2024” · View on HN