#1 Briardark, The Kaiju Preservation Society and book recommendations from ChatGPT

Books about what lurks in the woods.

We are in a little cabin in the woods, just like the characters in both of our book recommendations this month. Isn't that strange? We probably should remain indoors, and if we have to go out to get firewood, we shouldn't stray from the path.

Briardark

By Sanna

I wrote the following to S.A. Harian, author of Briardark: “this book has so much that I love - vast wilderness, a lonely cabin, hiking, a research team, mysterious files, computer games, disappearances, maps, and an eerie cosmic feel. I look forward to the next installment in the series.”

I plowed through the audiobook in a few days. It is a real page-turner. Read it now. Just do it.

Are you curious about S.A. Harian? Check out her YouTube channel, where she plays horror games. She also talks about the book in one of her videos.

The Kaiju Preservation Society

By Sven

I had just finished a rather heavy book (The Three Body Problem) and needed something completely different. Something more easy-going. I probably thought that The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi would be both easy-going, fast-paced and a little funny, and oh, how right I was for once.

Jamie takes a job as a grunt with an "animal rights organization", but it soon turns out that the animals in question are as big as a house, radioactive, and live in a parallel universe. 😱

Ask ChatGPT for book recommendations

By Sven

You may be bored reading about big language models, machine learning, and AI. But did you know that chatbots can actually recommend books?

Name a book you like (or author or movie for that matter) and ChatGPT will recommend similar books. Here’s what I got:

Sven: I just finished reading The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi and want more in the same vein. What do you recommend?

ChatGPT: If you enjoyed "The Kaiju Preservation Society" by John Scalzi and want more in the same vein, I recommend the following books:

1. "Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton - An exciting novel about an amusement park filled with living dinosaurs, created through genetic engineering.

2. "The Fold" by Peter Clines - A sci-fi thriller involving parallel universes, mysteries, and high-tech experiments.

3. "The Long Earth" by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - A series that explores a chain of parallel Earths and the adventures of the people who discover and explore them.

These books offer a mix of science fiction, adventure, and mystery, similar to the atmosphere in "The Kaiju Preservation Society."

Not to bad! And I've actually never read Jurassic Park...