Okay, hi.

I have another lightning talk that is not related to programming at all.

It's about a literary genre that I want to point out to you.

Warning, this lightning talk may contain spoilers for you, a book that has been released 20

years ago.

And I, okay, I like the Harry Potter books but there are also some aspects that I don't

like.

For example this very book has a plot.

There's a villain that sets up a huge contest and primes our hero Harry Potter to win it

just so that this Harry Potter can then touch a portkey which is basically a teleporting

device that brings him where the vill beam встреч the villian wants him.

And wait, what?

He could have, he had the hero's trust.

He could have just gone over there and here have this device and he would have taken it

and, well, 300 pages less plot.

So, stuff like that disturbs me and luckily enough there's the category of

rational fiction that tries to cater to people like me who are disturbed by such

decisions. So goals of rational fictions they might not all achieve all of them

but at least they try for some of them. They try to write intelligent characters.

They try to have motivated characters. Not only are our protagonists motivated

by actual reasons but also the people who oppose them, the antagonists.

There's often some intellectual payoff so the solution isn't oh fist of God

strikes down the opponent but actually a clever solution to an interesting

problem and it's often accomplished by thoughtful world-building. Like if

there's something like I know superpowers like Superman has something

like that then the authors try to actually think about the implications

what that means. What that means for society, for laws, legal system and so on.

There's some example that I currently read or better listen to. It's called

Worm. That's a web serial. It has like the contents of I think six or eight

regular books all in small chunks and the idea is that people have superpowers

like in the DC or Marvel universe but they actually have some limits and so

the people who have them actually need to think about how they can use them

more efficiently. For example if your only superpower is that you can shield

something but you want to go on the offensive what do you do? For example you

could try to make spiked shields or something like that or you can do any

other thing that somehow works for you but you actually have to think about it

and the characters in the story do. There's an audiobook which is an

unofficial fan project but it's actually quite good. This was rational fiction.

There's also rationalist fiction. This is where that's rational fictions but the

characters intentionally try to act rational so they avoid biases and common

traps in thinking and there's also an example of that that I want to plug. It's

called Harry Potter and the methods of rationality. Yes I talked about

Harry Potter before that was no coincidence and in this universe there's

magic and there's Hogwarts and there's Harry and there's Hermione but Harry's

actually intelligent and he also has intelligent opponents. Fair warning Harry

isn't always likable because well sometimes high intelligence also comes

with less developed social skills and Harry exhibits some of that but for some

of us who have observed such character in the wild before it might still be an

interesting read. That was also published as a web serial. It's finished a few

years ago. There's also an audiobook fan project. I've pasted the link. There are more