Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

mia

I am about 80% through Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and would love to chat with others who have read it!

You can find the whole text here: http://www.hpmor.com/ (pdf, mobi, epub) and it is wonderful.

Anyone else read it or is reading it at the moment?

Joseph

I will start! 

baruu

I read it when it was first up.  Waiting weeks in between some chapters.  The torture LessWrong put us through during the final sequence was painful.

 Readers had to come up with the solution to get Harry through the worst possible situation.  If they couldn't figure it out, Harry would die and Voldemort takes over the world

I re-read it last year, and it still holds up.  You may want to start another thread marked spoilers if you want to have a conversation about this (I certainly won't talk about anything from the last 20% of the book until you say you've finished) but a few thoughts:

The text adventure sequence may be my favorite thing in writing ever.

I have difficulty reading the Azkaban sequence.  I found it truly harrowing... I don't want to compare it to reading about the conditions in a concentration camp, but it's my only point of reference that comes close.

My only real criticism of the book is that since LessWrong put so much emphasis on characters "not holding the idiot ball" I'm disappointed that Harry didn't figure out what was up with his scar.

Joseph

I'm through chapter 13! Happy to discuss to that point!

HannaC

I am a bit in, and do enjoy the flabbergasting of everyone. However, I get hung up on the fact that the Harry character is simply nothing like 11 year old Harry. He is simply not that precocious, and nowhere near that sharp, no matter how he was brought up.

...but. McGonnegal and Harry. So much fun.

EnterSaint

I read the first... 15%? on Kindle. I was dying laughing, but life got the better of me. I'll start reading again so we can discuss.