kfwyre's recent activity
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Comment on What movies become better by having a bus suddenly come out of no where and hit someone? in ~movies
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Comment on The 100 best novels of all time published in English in ~books
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentThank you for doing this! I find the full list so much more interesting than only the top 100 which, of course, has plenty of familiar names due to the inevitable overlap with all the other "best...Thank you for doing this! I find the full list so much more interesting than only the top 100 which, of course, has plenty of familiar names due to the inevitable overlap with all the other "best novels" lists out there.
I find a book that's someone's favorite a more compelling prospect than the ones that are consensus favorites.
I took your lists, sorted them by author, and then threw them into tables for readability for anyone interested.
659 Top 10 Novels
Author Title Count A. S. Byatt Possession 2 A. S. Byatt Still Life 1 Abdulrazak Gurnah Afterlives 2 Abdulrazak Gurnah By the Sea 1 Abdulrazak Gurnah Paradise 2 Adania Shibli Minor Detail 1 Agatha Christie And Then There Were None 1 Agatha Christie Sleeping Murder 1 Agatha Christie The Murder of Roger Ackroyd 1 Ágota Kristóf The Third Lie 1 Ahmadou Kourouma Allah Is Not Obliged 1 Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar A Mind at Peace 1 Akhil Sharma Family Life 1 Akwaeke Emezi Freshwater 1 Alan Burns Europe After the Rain 1 Alan Hollinghurst The Line of Beauty 4 Alan Hollinghurst The Swimming-Pool Library 1 Alan Moore Watchmen 1 Alan Warner Morvern Callar 1 Alasdair Gray Lanark 2 Albert Camus The Outsider 2 Albert Camus The Plague 2 Albert Camus The Stranger 2 Alberto Moravia Boredom 1 Aldous Huxley Point Counter Point 1 Alessandro Manzoni The Betrothed 1 Alexander Pushkin Eugene Onegin 2 Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo 2 Alexis Wright Praiseworthy 2 Alfred Döblin Berlin Alexanderplatz 2 Ali Smith How to Be Both 3 Alice Munro Lives of Girls and Women 2 Alice Walker Possessing the Secret of Joy 1 Alice Walker The Color Purple 4 Alison Bechdel Fun Home 2 Álvaro Enrigue Sudden Death 1 Amos Tutuola Palm-Wine Drinkard 2 Anders Nilsen Tongues I 1 Andrea Levy Small Island 2 Angela Carter Nights at the Circus 2 Angela Carter The Magic Toyshop 1 Angela Carter Wise Children 2 Anita Brookner Family and Friends 1 Anita Brookner Hotel Du Lac 1 Anita Brookner Latecomers 1 Anita Brookner Strangers 1 Ann Patchett Commonwealth 2 Ann Patchett Tom Lake 1 Ann Petry The Street 1 Anna Burns Milkman 1 Anna Kavan Ice 1 Anne Brontë The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 1 Anne Enright The Gathering 1 Anne Enright The Green Road 1 Annie Ernaux The Years 3 Annie Proulx The Shipping News 1 Anonymous One Thousand and One Nights 2 Anonymous Rig Veda 1 Antal Szerb Journey by Moonlight 1 Anthony Powell A Dance to the Music of Time 3 Anthony Trollope Barchester Towers 3 Anthony Trollope The Palliser Novels 1 Anthony Trollope The Way We Live Now 1 Antonia Barber The Amazing Mr Blunden 1 Armistead Maupin Tales of the City 1 Art Spiegelman Maus 1 Arthur Conan Doyle The Valley of Fear 1 Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things 10 Audre Lorde Sister Outsider 1 Barbara Comyns Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead 1 Barbara Kingsolver Demon Copperhead 2 Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible 1 Barbara Pym Quartet in Autumn 1 Barry Hines A Kestrel for a Knave 1 Ben Okri The Famished Road 1 Benedict Kiely Proxopera 1 Benjamín Labatut The Maniac 1 Bernard Malamud A New Life 1 Bernardine Evaristo The Emperor's Babe 1 Beryl Bainbridge The Birthday Boys 1 Bessie Head A Question of Power 1 Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay Pather Panchali 2 Birgit Vanderbeke Mussel Feast 1 Bohumil Hrabal I Served the King of England 1 Bohumil Hrabal Too Loud a Solitude 2 Bram Stoker Dracula 4 Breandán Ó hEithir Lead Us Into Temptation 1 Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho 1 Brit Bennett The Vanishing Half 1 Buchi Emecheta The Joys of Motherhood 1 Caleb Femi Poor 1 Carson McCullers The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter 2 Catherine Newman We All Want Impossible Things 1 Charles Dickens Bleak House 19 Charles Dickens David Copperfield 10 Charles Dickens Great Expectations 9 Charles Dickens Our Mutual Friend 4 Charles Dickens Pickwick Papers 1 Charles Dickens The Adventures of Oliver Twist 1 Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre 21 Charlotte Brontë Villette 3 Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper 1 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Americanah 2 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Half of a Yellow Sun 5 China Miéville The City & the City 1 Chinua Achebe Arrow of God 1 Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart 14 Christa Wolf A Model Childhood 1 Christine Brooke-Rose Textermination 1 Christopher Priest The Affirmation 1 Christopher Priest The Inverted World 1 Christos Tsiolkas The Slap 1 Claire Keegan Foster 1 Claire Keegan Small Things Like These 2 Clarice Lispector The Passion According to G.h. 1 Claude McKay Home to Harlem 1 Claudia Rankine Citizen 1 Colette Chéri 1 Colette The Vagabond 1 Colm Tóibín Nora Webster 2 Colson Whitehead Sag Harbor 1 Constance Debré Love Me Tender 1 Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian 4 Cormac McCarthy Suttree 1 Cormac McCarthy The Road 3 D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers 2 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love 1 Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe 3 Daniel Defoe Roxana 1 Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon 1 Daniel Mason North Woods 1 Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy 1 Daphne du Maurier Rebecca 4 Dashiell Hammett The Maltese Falcon 1 David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest 3 David Markson Wittgenstein's Mistress 1 David Mitchell Cloud Atlas 2 Denis Johnson Tree of Smoke 1 Derek Walcott Omeros 1 DH Lawrence The Rainbow 4 Diana Evans Ordinary People 1 Diana Wynne Jones Fire and Hemlock 1 Dino Buzzati The Tartar Steppe 2 Djuna Barnes Nightwood 2 Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle 1 Don DeLillo Falling Man 1 Don DeLillo Libra 1 Don DeLillo The Names 1 Don DeLillo Underworld 3 Don DeLillo White Noise 1 Donal Ryan The Thing About December 1 Donna Tartt The Goldfinch 1 Donna Tartt The Secret History 2 Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook 7 Doris Lessing The Grass Is Singing 1 Douglas Adams The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy 2 Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood 1 E. B. White Charlotte's Web 1 E. L. Doctorow The Book of Daniel 2 E. M. Forster A Passage to India 2 E. M. Forster Maurice 2 Edgar Allan Poe The Fall of the House of Usher 1 Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence 9 Edith Wharton The Custom of the Country 1 Edith Wharton The House of Mirth 3 Edmund White A Boy's Own Story 1 Edna O'Brien The Country Girls 1 Eduardo Galeano Memory of Fire 1 Edward P Jones The Known World 3 Edward St Aubyn The Patrick Melrose Novels 1 Edward Upward The Spiral Ascent 1 Edwidge Danticat The Dew Breaker 1 Eimear McBride A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing 1 EL Doctorow Ragtime 4 Eleanor Catton The Luminaries 1 Elena Ferrante My Brilliant Friend 6 Elena Ferrante Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay 1 Elfriede Jelinek The Piano Teacher 2 Elizabeth Bowen Heat of the Day 1 Elizabeth Bowen The Death of the Heart 3 Elizabeth Gaskell Cranford 2 Elizabeth Gaskell North and South 1 Elizabeth Jane Howard The Light Years 1 Elizabeth Jane Howard The Long View 1 Elizabeth Jenkins Dr Gully 1 Elizabeth Smart By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept 1 Elizabeth Taylor Angel 1 Elizabeth Taylor Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont 1 Elsa Morante Arturo's Island 1 EM Forster Howards End 5 Émile Zola Germinal 2 Émile Zola Nana 1 Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights 15 Emily St. John Mandel Station Eleven 2 Erich Maria Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front 2 Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms 4 Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises 2 Eva Baltasar Mammoth 1 Evelyn Waugh A Handful of Dust 2 Evelyn Waugh Brideshead Revisited 1 Evelyn Waugh Scoop 1 Evelyn Waugh Vile Bodies 1 F Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 20 F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender Is the Night 1 Fernanda Melchor Hurricane Season 1 Flann O'Brien At Swim-Two-Birds 1 Flann O'Brien The Third Policeman 2 Flannery O'Connor Wise Blood 1 Ford Madox Ford Parade's End 2 Ford Madox Ford The Good Soldier 5 Frances Hardinge The Lie Tree 1 Francis Spufford Golden Hill 1 Frank Norris McTeague 1 Franz Kafka The Castle 1 Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis 6 Franz Kafka The Trial 11 Fumiko Enchi The Waiting Years 1 Fyodor Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment 4 Fyodor Dostoevsky Demons 1 Fyodor Dostoevsky Notes From the Underground 1 Fyodor Dostoevsky The Idiot 1 Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Brothers Karamazov 10 G. V. Desani All About H. Hatterr 1 Gabriel García Márquez Chronicle of a Death Foretold 1 Gabriel García Márquez Love in the Time of Cholera 3 Gabriel García Márquez Of Love and Other Demons 1 Gabriel García Márquez One Hundred Years of Solitude 18 George du Maurier Trilby 1 George Eliot Daniel Deronda 2 George Eliot Middlemarch 56 George Eliot Mill on the Floss 1 George Eliot Silas Marner 1 George Orwell Animal Farm 1 George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four 19 George Saunders Lincoln in the Bardo 1 Georges Perec A Void 1 Gerald Murnane Tamarisk Row 2 Gerald Murnane The Plains 1 Gertrude Stein The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas 1 Ghassan Kanafani Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories 1 Gillian Flynn Gone Girl 1 Giorgio Bassani The Garden of the Finzi-Continis 1 Giovanni Boccaccio The Decameron of Boccaccio 1 Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa The Leopard 6 Graham Greene Stamboul Train 1 Graham Greene The End of the Affair 4 Graham Greene The Power and the Glory 2 Graham Swift Waterland 1 Günter Grass The Tin Drum 2 Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary 19 Gustave Flaubert Sentimental Education 3 H. G. Wells The War of the Worlds 1 Halldór Laxness Independant People 1 Halldór Laxness The Fish Can Sing 1 Han Kang Human Acts 2 Han Kang The Vegetarian 4 Hanif Kureishi The Buddha of Suburbia 2 Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen Simplicissimus 1 Hanya Yanagihara A Little Life 2 Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird 3 Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore 2 Heather Fawcett Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries 1 Heinrich von Kleist Michael Kohlhaas 1 Helen Dewitt The Last Samurai 1 Helen Fielding Bridget Jones's Diary 1 Henry Green Caught 1 Henry James The Ambassadors 2 Henry James The Golden Bowl 5 Henry James The Portrait of a Lady 16 Henry James The Turn of the Screw 4 Henry James The Wings of a Dove 1 Henry James Washington Square 1 Henry Williamson Tarka the Otter 1 Herman Melville Moby-Dick 18 Hermann Hesse Siddhartha 2 Hernán Díaz In the Distance 1 Hilary Mantel A Place of Greater Safety 2 Hilary Mantel Bring up the Bodies 2 Hilary Mantel The Mirror and the Light 3 Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall 10 Honoré de Balzac Cousin Bette 1 Ian McEwan Atonement 1 Ian McEwan The Child in Time 1 Ibn Tufayl The Improvement of Human Reason 1 Irène Némirovsky Suite Française 2 Iris Murdoch A Severed Head 1 Iris Murdoch The Bell 1 Iris Murdoch The Black Prince 1 Iris Murdoch The Unicorn 1 Irmgard Keun After Midnight 1 Irvine Welsh Marabou Stork Nightmares 1 Irvine Welsh Trainspotting 1 Isabel Allende The House of the Spirits 1 Italo Calvino If on a Winter's Night a Traveller 2 Italo Calvino Invisible Cities 3 Italo Calvino The Baron in the Trees 1 Italo Svevo Confessions of Zeno 1 Itamar Vieira Junior Crooked Plow 1 Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov Oblomov 1 Ivo Andrić The Bridge on the Drina 1 Ivy Compton-Burnett Elders and Betters 1 J. D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye 3 J. G. Farrell The Siege of Krishnapur 1 J. M. Coetzee Summertime 1 J. M. Coetzee Waiting for the Barbarians 2 J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit 1 J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings 3 Jabbour Douaihy June Rain 1 Jack Kerouac On the Road 2 Jade Sharma Problems 1 James Baldwin Another Country 2 James Baldwin Giovanni's Room 7 James Baldwin Go Tell It on the Mountain 4 James Baldwin If Beale Street Could Talk 1 James Ellroy American Tabloid 1 James Hogg The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner 1 James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 3 James Joyce Ulysses 36 James Kelman The Busconductor Hines 1 James Lloyd Carr A Month in the Country 3 James Salter All That Is 1 James Salter Light Years 2 James Salter Sport and a Pastime 1 Jane Austen Emma 18 Jane Austen Mansfield Park 5 Jane Austen Persuasion 17 Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice 20 Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility 3 Jane Bowles Two Serious Ladies 1 Jane Gardam Old Filth Trilogy 1 Janice Galloway The Trick Is to Keep Breathing 1 Javier Cercas Soldiers of Salamis 1 Javier Marías Heart so White 1 Jean Giono The Man Who Planted Trees 1 Jean Rhys Voyage in the Dark 1 Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea 6 Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex 1 Jen Beagin Big Swiss 1 Jennifer Egan A Visit From the Goon Squad 2 Jenny Erpenbeck Visitation 1 Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat 1 JM Coetzee Disgrace 5 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Elective Affinities 1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Sorrows of Young Werther 1 John Berger Pig Earth 1 John Buchan The 39 Steps 1 John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress 2 John Dos Passos U.s.a. 1 John Fowles The Collector 1 John Irving A Prayer for Owen Meany 1 John Irving The Cider House Rules 1 John le Carré Smiley's People 1 John le Carré The Spy Who Came in From the Cold 1 John McGahern Amongst Women 1 John Steinbeck Cannery Row 2 John Steinbeck East of Eden 2 John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath 3 John Updike A Rabbit Omnibus 1 John Updike Couples 1 John Updike Rabbit at Rest 1 John Updike Rabbit Is Rich 1 Jon Fosse Septology 3 Jonathan Franzen The Corrections 2 Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels 2 José Saramago All the Names 1 José Saramago Blindness 1 Josefina Vicens The Empty Book 1 Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness 7 Joseph Conrad Nostromo 1 Joseph Conrad The Secret Agent 1 Joseph Heller Catch-22 3 Joseph Heller Something Happened 1 Joseph Roth The Radetzky March 2 Joseph Roth The Tale of the 1002nd Night 1 Juan Rulfo Pedro Páramo 3 Julia Alvarez In the Time of the Butterflies 1 Julian Barnes Flaubert's Parrot 1 Julian Barnes The Noise of Time 1 Julio Cortázar Hopscotch 1 Jun'ichirō Tanizaki The Makioka Sisters 2 Kate Atkinson Life After Life 2 Kaveh Akbar Martyr! 1 Kawakami Hiromi Record of a Night Too Brief 1 Kazuo Ishiguro Klara and the Sun 1 Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go 5 Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day 13 Kenneth Patchen The Journal of Albion Moonlight 1 Keri Hulme The Bone People 2 Khaled Hosseini A Thousand Splendid Suns 1 Kingsley Amis Lucky Jim 1 Kiran Desai The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny 1 Knut Hamsun Hunger 2 Kurt Vonnegut Cat's Cradle 1 Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five 2 Laila Lalami The Moor's Account 1 Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove 2 Lauren Groff Matrix 2 Laurence Sterne A Sentimental Journey 1 Laurence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy 5 Lawrence Durrell The Alexandria Quartet 1 Leila Aboulela The Translator 1 Leila Mottley Nightcrawling 1 Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina 26 Leo Tolstoy Ivan Ilyitch 1 Leo Tolstoy War and Peace 20 Leslie Silko Ceremony 1 Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 3 Lorrie Moore Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? 2 Louise Erdrich Love Medicine 1 LP Hartley The Go-Between 3 Lucas Rijneveld The Discomfort of Evening 1 Lucy Maud Montgomery Anne of Green Gables 2 Madame de La Fayette La Princesse De Cleves 2 Madeline Miller The Song of Achilles 1 Maggie O'Farrell Hamnet 1 Máirtín Ó Cadhain The Dirty Dust 2 Malcolm Lowry Under the Volcano 1 Malorie Blackman Noughts & Crosses 1 Marcel Proust In Search of Lost Time 27 Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale 9 Margaret Drabble The Millstone 2 Margaret Oliphant Miss Marjoribanks 1 Marghanita Laski Little Boy Lost 1 Marguerite Duras Moderato Cantabile 1 Marguerite Duras The Lover 1 Marguerite Yourcenar Memoirs of Hadrian 1 Marian Engel Bear 1 Mariana Enriquez Things We Lost in the Fire 1 Marilynne Robinson Gilead 2 Marilynne Robinson Home 1 Marilynne Robinson Housekeeping 7 Mario Vargas Llosa Aunt Julia and the Script-Writer 1 Mario Vargas Llosa Conversation in the Cathedral 1 Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn 3 Mark Z. Danielewski House of Leaves 1 Marlon James The Book of Night Women 1 Martin Amis Money 3 Martin Amis The Information 1 Mary Shelley Frankenstein 10 Mathias Enard Zone 1 Matthew Gregory Lewis The Monk 1 Max Porter Grief Is the Thing With Feathers 1 Mercè Rodoreda In Diamond Square 1 Mercè Rodoreda The Time of the Doves 1 Mervyn Peake Gormenghast 2 Mervyn Peake Titus Groan 1 Mia Couto A River Called Time 1 Michael Chabon The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay 1 Michael Frayn Towards the End of the Morning 1 Michael Ondaatje Coming Through Slaughter 1 Michael Ondaatje In the Skin of a Lion 1 Michael Ondaatje The English Patient 2 Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote 11 Mikhail Bulgakov The Master and Margarita 5 Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being 1 Min Jin Lee Pachinko 1 Miriam Toews Women Talking 1 Miroslav Krleža On the Edge of Reason 1 Mohsin Hamid Exit West 1 Murasaki Shikibu The Tale of Genji 3 Muriel Spark A Far Cry From Kensington 1 Muriel Spark Loitering With Intent 2 Muriel Spark Memento Mori 1 Muriel Spark The Girls of Slender Means 2 Muriel Spark The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 10 Nadine Gordimer A Guest of Honour 1 Nancy Mitford The Pursuit of Love 1 Natalia Ginzburg All Our Yesterdays 2 Natalia Ginzburg The Road to the City 1 Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter 2 Nella Larsen Passing 1 Nella Larsen Quicksand 1 Nellie Campobello Cartucho 1 Nick Hornby A Long Way Down 1 Nicola Barker Darkmans 1 Nino Haratischvili Eighth Life 1 Norton Juster The Phantom Tollbooth 1 Nuruddin Farah Maps 1 Ocean Vuong On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous 1 Octavia E Butler Kindred 4 Octavia E. Butler Parable of the Sower 1 Olga Ravn The Employees 1 Olga Tokarczuk Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead 3 Oliver Goldsmith The Vicar of Wakefield 1 Osamu Dazai No Longer Human 1 Oscar Casares Where We Come From 1 Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray 2 P. G. Wodehouse The Code of the Woosters 1 Pat Barker Union Street 1 Pat O'Shea The Hounds of the Morrigan 1 Patricia Highsmith The Talented Mr Ripley 4 Patrick Chamoiseau Slave Old Man 1 Patrick Hamilton The Slaves of Solitude 1 Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin Series 1 Paul Auster Leviathan 1 Paul Beatty The Sellout 2 Paul Bowles The Spider's House 1 Paul Golding Senseless 1 Paul Murray Bee Sting 1 Paulo Coelho The Alchemist 1 Penelope Fitzgerald The Beginning of Spring 2 Penelope Fitzgerald The Blue Flower 3 Percival L. Everett James 1 Percival L. Everett Telephone 1 Percival L. Everett The Trees 1 Peter Carey Oscar & Lucinda 1 Peter Carey True History of the Kelly Gang 1 Peter Høeg Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow 1 Philip Pullman Northern Lights 2 Philip Roth American Pastoral 3 Philip Roth Operation Shylock 1 Philip Roth Portnoy's Complaint 1 Primo Levi If This Is a Man / the Truce 1 Pu Songling Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio 1 R. J. Palacio Wonder 1 R. K. Narayan Swami and Friends 2 Rachel Carson Silent Spring 1 Rachel Cusk Outline 2 Rachel Cusk Transit 1 Ralph Ellison Invisible Man 9 Ray Bradbury Farenheit 451 1 Raymond Chandler The Big Sleep 2 Richard Adams Watership Down 1 Richard Brautigan Trout Fishing in America 1 Richard Ford The Sportswriter 1 Richard Hughes A High Wind in Jamaica 1 Richard McGuire Here 1 Richard Powers Overstory 1 Richard Wright Black Boy 1 Richard Yates Revolutionary Road 1 Richard Yates The Easter Parade 1 Roald Dahl Danny the Champion of the World 1 Robert Louis Stevenson The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 2 Robert Musil The Man Without Qualities 4 Robert Stone A Flag for Sunrise 1 Roberto Bolaño 2666 2 Roberto Bolaño By Night in Chile 1 Robertson Davies The Deptford Trilogy 1 Rohinton Mistry A Fine Balance 6 Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain Sultana's Dream 1 Romain Gary Promise at Dawn 1 Rose Tremain Restoration 2 Rosemary Tonks The Bloater 1 Rudyard Kipling Kim 1 Russell Hoban Riddley Walker 2 Ruth Ozeki Tale for the Time Being 1 S. E. Hinton The Outsiders 1 Sadegh Hedayat The Blind Owl 1 Sally Rooney Intermezzo 1 Sally Rooney Normal People 1 Salman Rushdie Haroun and the Sea of Stories 1 Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children 13 Salman Rushdie The Satanic Verses 1 Samuel Beckett Molloy 1 Samuel Beckett Murphy 1 Samuel Beckett Samuel Beckett Trilogy Molloy; Malone Dies; the Unnamable 1 Samuel Richardson Clarissa Harlowe 1 Samuel Selvon The Lonely Londoners 1 Sarah Bernstein The Coming Bad Days 1 Sarah Moss Ghost Wall 1 Sarah Orne Jewett The Country of the Pointed Firs 1 Sarah Waters Fingersmith 1 Saul Bellow Herzog 3 Saul Bellow Humboldt's Gift 1 Saul Bellow Seize the Day 1 Saul Bellow The Adventures of Augie March 2 Selby Wynn Schwartz After Sappho 1 Shirley Hazzard The Transit of Venus 6 Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House 1 Shirley Jackson We Have Always Lived in the Castle 2 Simin Daneshvar Savushun 1 Stendhal The Red and the Black 1 Stephen Crane Red Badge of Courage 1 Stephen King The Stand 1 Susan Cooper Grey King 1 Susan Cooper The Dark Is Rising 2 Susanna Clarke Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell 1 Susanna Clarke Piranesi 2 Sybille Bedford A Compass Error 1 Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar 2 Tarjei Vesaas The Ice Palace 1 Tayeb Salih Season of Migration to the North 1 Thomas Bernhard The Loser 1 Thomas Bernhard Woodcutters 1 Thomas Hardy Jude the Obscure 4 Thomas Hardy Tess of the D'urbervilles 2 Thomas Hardy The Return of the Native 3 Thomas Mann Buddenbrooks 4 Thomas Mann Death in Venice 2 Thomas Mann Joseph and His Brothers 1 Thomas Mann The Magic Mountain 7 Thomas Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow 2 Tim Winton Breath 1 Tim Winton Cloudstreet 1 Tom Wolfe The Bonfire of the Vanities 1 Toni Morrison Beloved 43 Toni Morrison Song of Solomon 7 Toni Morrison Sula 2 Toni Morrison Tar Baby 1 Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye 4 Torrey Peters Stag Dance 1 Tove Jansson Moominland Midwinter 1 Tove Jansson The Summer Book 3 Truman Capote In Cold Blood 1 Tsitsi Dangarembga Nervous Conditions 4 U. R. Anantha Murthy Samskara 1 Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose 3 Ursula K Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness 4 Ursula K. Le Guin A Wizard of Earthsea 2 Ursula K. Le Guin Earthsea 1 Ursula K. Le Guin The Dispossessed 1 V. S. Naipaul A Bend in the River 2 V. S. Naipaul The Enigma of Arrival 2 Vasily Grossman Life and Fate 3 Victor Hugo Les Misérables 2 Victor Hugo The Hunchback of Notre-Dame 2 Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy 1 Vikram Seth The Golden Gate 1 Virginia Woolf A Room of One's Own 2 Virginia Woolf Jacob's Room 3 Virginia Woolf Mrs Dalloway 18 Virginia Woolf Orlando 5 Virginia Woolf The Waves 5 Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse 31 Virginie Despentes Vernon Subutex 1 1 Vladimir Nabokov Invitation to a Beheading 1 Vladimir Nabokov Lolita 13 Vladimir Nabokov Pale Fire 10 Vladimir Nabokov Pnin 2 Vladimir Nabokov The Real Life of Sebastian Knight 1 VS Naipaul A House for Mr Biswas 4 Walker Percy The Moviegoer 1 Walter Scott The Heart of Midlothian 1 Wang Xiaobo Golden Age 1 WG Sebald Austerlitz 4 WG Sebald The Rings of Saturn 5 Willa Cather My Ántonia 4 Willa Cather Shadows on the Rock 1 William Faulkner As I Lay Dying 2 William Faulkner Light in August 3 William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury 5 William Gaddis The Recognitions 1 William H. Gass The Tunnel 1 William Hope Hodgson House on the Borderland 1 William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair 6 William Somerset Maugham The Razor's Edge 1 William Trevor Felicia's Journey 1 William Trevor Reading Turgenev 1 William Trevor The Story of Lucy Gault 1 Wole Soyinka Seasons of Anomy 1 Yael van der Wouden The Safekeep 2 Yoko Ogawa The Memory Police 2 Yoko Tawada Scattered All Over the Earth 1 Yukio Mishima Confessions of a Mask 1 Yukio Mishima Thirst for Love 1 Yuko Tsushima Territory of Light 1 Zadie Smith Nw 2 Zadie Smith White Teeth 5 Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God 8 92 #1 Novels
Author Title Count Ágota Kristóf The Third Lie 1 Albert Camus The Stranger 1 Alexis Wright Praiseworthy 1 Ali Smith How to Be Both 1 Alice Walker The Color Purple 1 Anita Brookner Latecomers 1 Annie Ernaux The Years 1 Anonymous Rig Veda 1 Anthony Trollope The Palliser Novels 1 Charles Dickens Bleak House 2 Charles Dickens The Adventures of Oliver Twist 1 Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart 1 Christa Wolf A Model Childhood 1 Claire Keegan Small Things Like These 1 Claudia Rankine Citizen 1 Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian 1 Cormac McCarthy The Road 1 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love 1 Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe 1 Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence 1 Eduardo Galeano Memory of Fire 1 EM Forster Howards End 1 Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights 6 F Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 1 Franz Kafka The Trial 1 Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Brothers Karamazov 1 Gabriel García Márquez One Hundred Years of Solitude 2 George Eliot Middlemarch 19 Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa The Leopard 1 Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary 3 Hanif Kureishi The Buddha of Suburbia 1 Herman Melville Moby-Dick 4 Italo Calvino Invisible Cities 1 J. L. Carr A Month in the Country 1 J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings 1 James Baldwin Giovanni's Room 1 James Joyce Ulysses 13 James Salter Light Years 1 Jane Austen Emma 3 Jane Austen Mansfield Park 1 Jane Austen Persuasion 1 Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice 2 Jane Gardam Old Filth Trilogy 1 Javier Cercas Soldiers of Salamis 1 Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat 1 JM Coetzee Disgrace 1 John Dos Passos U.s.a. 1 John Steinbeck Cannery Row 1 Joseph Heller Catch-22 1 Joseph Heller Something Happened 1 Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day 1 Laurence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman 1 Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina 7 Leo Tolstoy War and Peace 7 Lorrie Moore Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? 1 Lucy Ellmann Ducks, Newburyport 1 Madeline Miller The Song of Achilles 1 Máirtín Ó Cadhain The Dirty Dust 1 Marcel Proust In Search of Lost Time 6 Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale 1 Mary Shelley Frankenstein 1 Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote 5 Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter 1 Peter Høeg Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow 1 Ralph Ellison Invisible Man 1 Ray Bradbury Farenheit 451 1 Richard Wright Black Boy 1 Robert Musil The Man Without Qualities 1 Robert Stone A Flag for Sunrise 1 Robertson Davies The Deptford Trilogy 1 Rohinton Mistry A Fine Balance 1 Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children 2 Samuel Richardson Clarissa Harlowe 1 Sarah Orne Jewett The Country of the Pointed Firs 1 Simin Daneshvar Savushun 1 Thomas Mann The Magic Mountain 1 Toni Morrison Beloved 7 Toni Morrison Song of Solomon 1 Toni Morrison Sula 1 Ursula K. Le Guin A Wizard of Earthsea 1 V. S. Naipaul The Enigma of Arrival 1 Vasily Grossman Life and Fate 1 Vikram Seth The Golden Gate 1 Virginia Woolf Jacob's Room 1 Virginia Woolf Mrs Dalloway 4 Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse 5 Vladimir Nabokov Pale Fire 1 WG Sebald Austerlitz 1 WG Sebald The Rings of Saturn 1 William Hope Hodgson House on the Borderland 1 Yoko Ogawa The Memory Police 1 Zadie Smith Nw 1 -
Comment on May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentShill? I would never! I wouldn't shill for Save Point, the internet's chillest game deal highlights where you can find good games for cheap without getting barraged by ads. I wouldn't do it for...Shill? I would never!
I wouldn't shill for Save Point, the internet's chillest game deal highlights where you can find good games for cheap without getting barraged by ads.
I wouldn't do it for CGA, our monthly retro gaming club where we thoughtfully play titles from yesteryear and examine them with fresh eyes.
I certainly wouldn't do it for Timasomo, the long-running yearly maker event where people set and achieve their own creative goals and share their projects with the community.
I pride myself on my integrity and would never sell out.
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Comment on May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentHe even did a run himself: Yoshi's Story back at SGDQ 2024. Dude seems like a great guy (earworms notwithstanding).He even did a run himself: Yoshi's Story back at SGDQ 2024.
Dude seems like a great guy (earworms notwithstanding).
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Comment on May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentWhere on earth did you find that documentary footage of my playthrough? I guess I didn't realize I was streaming it... I've definitely got some thoughts on Indie Pass. I still have a few games...Where on earth did you find that documentary footage of my playthrough? I guess I didn't realize I was streaming it...
I've definitely got some thoughts on Indie Pass. I still have a few games from it earmarked to play, though I don't think all of them are going to make it into the Backlog Burner, so I'm holding off on finalizing any opinions yet, but I'll say that, at this point my opinions are pretty well developed. Some good stuff, some bad.
I'm debating whether to post it as part of my Backlog Burner wrapup, or if I should make it its own separate topic on it. I could see people who aren't involved with the BB still wanting to hear about it, so I'm leaning more towards the latter.
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Comment on May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentI just realized I never responded to this absolutely majestic line. Even though we are on opposite teams, I will never not respect the craftsmanship behind quality wordplay.it's motivated reasoning. I'm sorry to use such harsh language, and I'm not trying to be mellow-dramatic here, but it's the simple gosh darn truth.
I just realized I never responded to this absolutely majestic line.
Even though we are
mortal enemieson opposite teams, I will never not respect the craftsmanship behind quality wordplay. -
Comment on May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentI played Oxenfree for the May 2024 Backlog Burner and liked it. It's got immaculate vibes. I'd link what I wrote but don't want to spoil anything for you. I will say it's definitely more of a...I played Oxenfree for the May 2024 Backlog Burner and liked it. It's got immaculate vibes.
I'd link what I wrote but don't want to spoil anything for you. I will say it's definitely more of a conversational adventure game than it is a puzzle game though.
Also, in a later part of the game, you get an optional opportunity to go get collectibles scattered across the island. I ended up doing it and regretting it. It broke the pacing of the game, killed the tension, and the narrative payoff for getting everything wasn't worth it. So, if you find yourself feeling obligated to go get all of those things, know that you don't have to and can just continue with the story if you so choose.
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Comment on May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link Parentco-open (played via Humble App) This one isn’t endangered, as you can buy it on itch.io and you very well might already have it if you’ve been buying those megabundles they have every so often....co-open (played via Humble App)
This one isn’t endangered, as you can buy it on itch.io and you very well might already have it if you’ve been buying those megabundles they have every so often.
It’s a cozy first-person exploration game where you play as a kid going to the local grocery co-op by yourself for the first time. You can go in, talk to the customers, select merchandise, wander around, notice that the door to the employee section is open…
The less I say about what you can find in the game, the better, because the game does a fantastic job of capturing that kid-like sense of adventure you get from going to new places or imagining what’s behind certain doors. It’s the game-equivalent of climbing in the middle of one of those circular clothes racks at a department store and delighting in the idea that it feels like a whole new world. It ignited the same sense of curiosity that you had when you occasionally caught a peek of the teacher’s lounge from the outside. You could never go in yourself because you were just a kid, so the room gained mythic proportions and significance that far exceed what’s it’s like to adults (merely a place where they keep their lunches in the fridge and get coffee).
The game is flush with bright colors and interesting characters. There’s an entire set of phone numbers you can find around the game world, and calling each one gives you something different. It’s got that specific style of cozy-indie-game-dialogue that you will either find endearing or grating depending on your tastes.
The game’s also deliberate enough about being inclusive that it feels thoroughly queer without necessarily being specifically queer. Every character you meet has their pronouns next to their name in dialogue. The characters themselves are a varied cast of different ages, personality types, species, etc. Pride is embedded into the game itself.
Initially, I went in with my usual game-mode mindset of “finish the things, check the boxes, complete the quests, etc.” I’m glad to say that got thoroughly derailed.
For one quest, someone wanted help finding a green apple. Well, thankfully, in my explorations, I had uncovered a whole orchard of apples! I eagerly went back there to get them one, only to find out that they were all red.
After searching around some more, I found, in amongst a whole pile of red apples, a single green one. The quest item! Great. Time to grab it and return it and check that one off the list.
Only, after grabbing it, I hit the wrong button, and I ate the apple instead.
Reflexively, I was mad. Ugh, I just ruined the quest line. Now I have to see if there’s another one anywhere.
But then I realized, I’m a kid. A kid who might, say, impulsively eat the apple they were supposed to give to someone else. This let me reframe that action from my game mind that was angry at my suboptimal performance to a more role-playing mind of that’s what a kid would do.
From there, I played the game much more loosely. A kid wouldn’t try to identify every quest and solve each one. If one seemed boring, they’d ignore it. If a random adult asked them for something and they didn’t feel like doing it, they wouldn’t. They’d also delight in different things than I would as an adult. They’d have fun with discovery, mischief, making friends, etc.
This actually helped sell me on the dialogue I mentioned earlier, because the dialogue is highly vibes-based, which is annoying if you’re playing the game for the purposes of completion, but great if you’re playing it for the atmosphere. This game is all about the atmosphere, and it does a great job.
I’d call this a solid hidden gem, and it’s probably my favorite of the games I’ve played so far for this Backlog Burner.
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Comment on May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentForgotten 23 (played via Indie Pass) With Steam finally adding new tags, I'm hoping they'll eventually acknowledge one of my favorite subgenres of games: so you want to explore a derelict...Forgotten 23 (played via Indie Pass)
With Steam finally adding new tags, I'm hoping they'll eventually acknowledge one of my favorite subgenres of games:
so you want to explore a derelict spaceshipYou know: System Shock 1/2, Dead Space, The Station, Prey, etc.
Forgotten 23 is another entry into that space, being made entirely by a solo dev.
The game is based around a time loop. The orbit for the abandoned space station you wake up on is decaying, and after 23 minutes, it crashes into the planet below. Strangely, however, you wake up again in the same spot, in the same way, with another 23 minutes to go. As you can expect, the game is going to play around with causality as your player knowledge from previous loops can affect current ones.
Because it's a solo dev project, the time-loop structure is a really clever way of having a small, contained environment and scope. The dev did a good job with the vibes and overall focus of the game.
Unfortunately, the game isn't actually a pure time-loop game. It is structured as such, and you will go through many different loops to complete a playthrough, but the loops are essentially individual chapters. There will be items on later loops that weren't there on earlier ones; areas that you can reach in later ones that you were locked out of on previous ones.
In theory, once you know what you're doing in a time loop game, you can skip a lot of the intermediary stuff because player knowledge lets you access and advance things you didn't necessarily know about at the beginning. There is a touch of that in this game, however, you mostly have to go lockstep with the specific objectives that the game wants you to do in each loop.
Additionally, every time you complete the objectives, the game abruptly ends the countdown no matter how much time you have left and gives you a T-0 message regarding the impact of the space station. I learned over time that this is how the game signals that you've "finished" a loop, but early on I legitimately thought I was hitting failstates instead of successful completions.
On top of that minor design concern, the game itself is quite buggy. I ran into lots of issues with it, including having to play it on mouse and keyboard because controller support existed but was so glitchy as to be effectively unusuable. I had to restart certain loops because stuff disappeared out of my inventory, or certain flags in the game didn't get set as they were supposed to. It got to a point late in the game where I couldn't tell if I was doing something wrong or if the game just wasn't behaving as intended.
I ended up sticking with it through to the end because, well, I think the dev has a solid seed of a game here. It's got some neat ideas, and it's clear a lot of time and care has gone into it (it even has full voice acting!). Unfortunately, I ended up playing it almost in spite of itself because it's very rough around the edges. For example: all the doors in the game open automatically when you're in proximity, but when your character is running they don't open fast enough and you get caught on them. This happens all the time because you have to run around the ship all the time to complete the various tasks you need to do.
With some bugfixing and polishing up, I think this could be a neat little hidden gem, but at present I can't really recommend it.
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Comment on What has changed as you've gotten older? in ~talk
kfwyre Link ParentThis is acutely relevant to me right now. My dog snuggled up to me in my sleep on Saturday night, and I instinctively adjusted to accommodate him, putting me into a slightly weird position for the...This is acutely relevant to me right now.
My dog snuggled up to me in my sleep on Saturday night, and I instinctively adjusted to accommodate him, putting me into a slightly weird position for the rest of the night.
The next morning, Sunday, I woke up with a crick in my neck and could barely turn my head.
It's now Tuesday, and my neck is only like, 80% recovered. It's still a touch stiff, and I don't have full range of motion back yet.
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Comment on Updates to store tags: additions, removals, and edits in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentI was about to post the same thing! Two more games that I can think of that also include real-world info and experiences: 1979 Revolution: Black Friday Attentat 1942I was about to post the same thing!
Two more games that I can think of that also include real-world info and experiences:
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Comment on Updates to store tags: additions, removals, and edits in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentWe’re (thankfully) (mostly) out of the listicle age of the internet, but back then I had a running theory that whenever publishing any sort of list, the “best” thing you could do was to include...We’re (thankfully) (mostly) out of the listicle age of the internet, but back then I had a running theory that whenever publishing any sort of list, the “best” thing you could do was to include some engagement bait. Leave off a super obvious item; add in a controversial one; etc. Do something that gets people stirred up and talking.
The cynical part of me thinks that the inclusion of
Capybarasis just this sort of phenomenon — an attempt at making this far more buzzy than it would be on its own. If it was, it’s certainly working!The less cynical part of me thinks it’s just fun. I admittedly played and enjoyed Hidden Capybaras with Orange, and part of what made it nice is that the capybaras themselves are, in fact, very cute (especially when they have fruit sitting on their heads). I could see people wanting a way to find more of that specific type of cuteness.
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Comment on The 100 best novels of all time published in English in ~books
kfwyre Link ParentYou’re right about the “published in English” aspect, as “English-language” was something I added to their original title (which was just “The 100 best novels of all time”). I edited the title...You’re right about the “published in English” aspect, as “English-language” was something I added to their original title (which was just “The 100 best novels of all time”).
I edited the title here to fit better with the list’s contents.
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Comment on The 100 best novels of all time published in English in ~books
kfwyre LinkFrom their how we made it + have your say page:From their how we made it + have your say page:
This week, we reveal our list of the 100 greatest novels published in English, as voted for by authors and critics around the world. We polled 172 authors, critics and academics for their top 10 novels of all time, published in English, and asked them to rank their choices in order of preference. We scored the titles according to how often they were voted for, and then added a weighting based on individual rankings to produce the overall list of 100 greatest books.
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The 100 best novels of all time published in English
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Comment on Updates to store tags: additions, removals, and edits in ~games
kfwyre LinkBullet Heaven is FINALLY official you guys, gals, and non-binary pals! Up until now we've had to make do with the intersection of Action Roguelike and Bullet Hell which was a rather clumsy way of...Today we've made some changes to the set of official store tags available on Steam, adding 17 new tags, removing 28, and merging/updating a handful of others. These changes are made with the goal of helping players identify the games that best fit their interests, and helping Steam generate appropriate recommendations.
Each year, we typically add a few new tags based on community feedback, but it has been a while since we last did so (Most recently in 2024 when we added Dice, Dwarf, Boomer Shooter, and Elf tags). In the time since, we've built up a list of tags to add, remove, and update.
Bullet Heavenis FINALLY official you guys, gals, and non-binary pals!Up until now we've had to make do with the intersection of
Action RoguelikeandBullet Hellwhich was a rather clumsy way of highlighting the genre. They've had multiple "Bullet Heaven" sales events, but no official tag, to the point that the Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor devs tried to get a social campaign going to push Steam to adopt the tag.Maybe this means it worked?
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Updates to store tags: additions, removals, and edits
23 votes -
What has changed as you've gotten older?
Could be something about you, your thoughts, priorities, health, etc. Could be something about the world, the way things work, etc. Could be anything really. What has changed, and how do you feel...
Could be something about you, your thoughts, priorities, health, etc.
Could be something about the world, the way things work, etc.
Could be anything really.
What has changed, and how do you feel about it?
40 votes -
Comment on May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link Parentu/cheep_cheep ✨⭐️ Distinguished 🧐 Honoree 🏆 of the Ⓜ️🅰️✌️2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣6️⃣ Backlog 📋 Burner ❤️🔥⭐️✨ (I'm so glad we get to use it again!)u/cheep_cheep
✨⭐️ Distinguished 🧐 Honoree 🏆 of the Ⓜ️🅰️✌️2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣6️⃣ Backlog 📋 Burner ❤️🔥⭐️✨
(I'm so glad we get to use it again!)
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Comment on May 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentI played and loved that game way back in the day. Your spoilered insights (specifically the second level block) do a great job of capturing the rich complexity of the game’s narrative, which is...I played and loved that game way back in the day. Your spoilered insights (specifically the second level block) do a great job of capturing the rich complexity of the game’s narrative, which is especially noteworthy given that it’s quite short (especially by VN standards).
My husband didn’t play it himself, but he was around while I did, and to this day he still affectionately calls the game
Spoiler
“Korean Space Lesbians”
Trope Codifier:
Spoilers
Mean Girls