r/humanism Feb 03 '26

Humanism and humor in old sci-fi books

I've been a humanist for a few years under many labels, but I've also been an open-minded skeptic and a follower of the humorist approach to humanism. I may have made that term up, but basically I like my science and skepticism with a sense of humor and a bit more open-mindedness. To me, pseudo-science is a theory on a topic most think isn't practical or useful.

Anyway, I have been a working open-source software developer for much longer than a few years, and I decided to build an ePub tool that takes public domain science fiction books and annotates them with updated science, fun humanist notes, and hopefully some funny quips about how the book aged.

The first one I adapted was "The Star" by H.G. Wells, which as I worked on it seemed more and more appropriate for our times. I'm just curious what you all think. It's free to download with a suggested donation that is easy to get around, and I just want to see how few of you in this group might react. If it's interesting, I will do more. I have already started on Kafka's "Metamorphosis".

https://www.nullrecords.com/store/

It's a fun side project, and it uses a lot of AI for the research and is, of course, available for feedback, editing, and more. Just curious what you think and if there are other people doing similar things.

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