What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

As a kid, I watched a fair number of kung fu movies on tv. When I was older, I watched tons more. I went to at least one kung fu movie festival in NYC (with Joel?). And, of course, I've taken a lot of martial arts classes. So, it isn't probably that much of a surprise that I've been interested in wuxia, which is Chinese martial arts literature set in ancient China, in which heroes right wrongs and battle with kung fu. First, I tried to read Romance of the Three Kingdoms (published in the 1500s), I think, but it was just so damn long (well over 1000 pages) that I didn't manage to read all of it. (I think Joel did, though. Or maybe he read Water Margin, which is similar.) I decided to try again with a book from the 1950s (I have no idea when I decided this, but the book was in my to-read list). It is a bit more easy to follow and, instead of being published in one giant book, has been broken up into four parts (each like 400-600 pages). Also, I can get it in audiobook form, which makes it a lot better for me. I'm about halfway through the first book (A Hero Born by Jin Yong), and I love it so much. (There is so much squealing in glee when I hear lines like "Her nine yin skeleton claw kung fu is so strong.") It has been interesting, as I can see that it has a lot of the elements of other books that I really like. Murderbot is all about friendship, but also combat; wandering around on a mission to help a friend, while also righting wrongs and meeting new companions. Fred, The Vampire accountant is kind of the same. So is Dungeon Crawler Carl. Murderbot is the most philosophical of the bunch, to be sure, and that's another thing I really enjoy. Back before Star Trek and Star Wars were remade, they used to have a lot of philosophy in them. That is important to me in my media, and it is part of wuxia. So, anyway, I'm trying to use this observation to convince the AIs to give me better book recommendations. I tried giving ChatGPT all my files related to what books I like, and it gave me some good suggestions (which were different from Claude's, probably because ChatGPT is less concerned about copyright, so it probably has a wider knowledge of books it has illegally scraped). Next time, I'll try using the "reason" option to see if it comes up with other. It is really satisfying to learn about these things that make me so happy. :)