Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

4.5 Really really good for being a fanfic. Don't go into this expecting Harry Potter characters, this is a different story.

This is my second foray into “published” fan fiction and I feel short-changed. The description seemed right up my alley but I am realizing that the sort of people who write fan fiction really love getting lost in the weeds. I read the omnibus 2200 page epub not realizing that this series was broken up into smaller more digestible releases, so this is a review of the series as a whole. It hardly matters since this is basically all one story. The arcs aren't really distinct from each other, and this whole story takes place in the same timeframe as The Sorcerer's Stone.

This is a Rationalist take on Harry Potter. What that means in practice is that Harry in this series is a child prodigy raised by a muggle professor, and as such is highly educated and possesses an adult understanding of the world around him. His behavior, personality, and thought process are significantly divergent from the original work. We largely follow the plot and setup of The Sorcerer's Stone but there are minor differences in the setup alongside the largescale changes to characters.

There is a lot of the scientific method, a lot of decision theory, and a lot of ethical debate and philosophy in this book. This story is written by a self-taught but by all accounts legitimate scientist/researcher who is using Harry Potter as a medium to talk about his area of expertise. This author is not a novelist and you can tell. This book is really leaning hard on the structure and story beats of the original while at the same time actively dismantling that structure. The parts where he is making up a “brand new story” are well crafted but are lacking when it comes to prose and polish. His story beats are logical and easy to follow but lack any of the punch and drama that come with OG HP.

The draw here is seeing how a “smart” Harry would have dealt with the challenges he faced at age 11. He makes different choices with his friends, he reads into the power structure of the wizarding world early on, and he is constantly trying to introduce science and the scientific method into the magic system. Watching Harry pick apart problems and plots in two or three chapters that were sustained throughout the entire original series is pretty satisfying in its own way. There's also a Sagan-esque quality to this whole thing; Harry introduces and applies various models of logical and rationalist thought/problem-solving. Through hypotheticals and examples, there's a real effort made to explain the rationalist worldview and philosophy. What is best about this book is the logical reordering of events. Despite how bogged down this fic is, it does stick to its own rules and maintains consistency as events play out - though it does cheat a little with small details and tweaks to the setup (For example: Draco's mom is presumed dead for much of this story and it does factor into his motivations and decision making)

There are hiccups. Science and reason don't map onto the Harry Potter universe very well, a lot of Rowling's world is just silly nonsense at its core. Taking the rationalist approach means that everything needs to be logically consistent and explained, but the world of Harry Potter is intrinsically irrational. Thanks to that incongruity there is way more hypothesis and speculation in this book than there needs to be. Maybe some readers liked the conjecture and structure that was added to the magic system here (because I will admit the lack of structure did bother me in the original) but I did not and it choked the pacing something fierce.

I finished this work only to see the complete version of events. All things told I didn't like this series, and a lot of it has to do with this version of Harry (honestly I didn't like any of the altered cast, but it all flows from this Harry). He seriously lacks the charm of the original; this oddly aged-up Harry man/child thing that is the main character really put me off. He got on my nerves from the outset; the way this Harry speaks to people early on is so unnatural and condescending. What really got my goat was his multi-person inner dialogue and his “mysterious dark side” alter-personality, the whole thing reads like bad manga to me. The further the story goes the more “Eighth Grader Syndrome” gets injected into his personality and I think by the halfway point I'd totally written him off and considered dropping the novel. There is an explanation provided by the story, Harry's scar horcrux imprints a part of Voldemort's personality rather than merely establishing a psychic link like in the original. It's a plausible explanation for this whole telling of events but man is it lame. I'm not trying to be a weeb by calling this out either, there is a distinct and unwelcome anime/anime-trope slant to this whole thing and it spoiled any sort of atmosphere or tonal consistency for me.

This is HP nerdcore and if you aren't a serious head then I recommend skipping this one. If you want to know what happens do yourself a favor and read the Wikipedia summary instead.

TL;DR: “smart” Harry Potter, an 11-year-old boy genius uses the powers of science and rational thinking to speed run the plot of the original series. This is a quality rewrite but it is also nerdy, dense, and stilted.

This did a great job of stirring up my nostalgia for the source books while adding many entertaining and interesting ideas. Some parts were better than others but I'm pretty sure the end of this book was better than the original, I was glued to it for the last hour or two.

Decent, and even good, but doesn't live up to the hype. Harry is smart but arrogant and unwise, and has no real character growth arc. He never faces consequences for his foolishness, or use of his “dark-side”. Several interesting threads (like Harry seeking to understand how magic actually works with Hermione) are dropped without resolution. Dumbledore and Voldy's plotting is mostly done off-screen, which is unsatisfying.
The story is overlong for its plot content.

All that being said, there are some genuinely clever or funny moments in this, and the final battle has a great deal of tension.

Will review, but very very good

Yudkowsky has written one of the best possible fan fics. In fact, his handling of Harry Potter is so good that his book has actually replaced the real thing in my head as my idea of who Potter and all the other characters are. What started out as a devise for conveying instruction on the methods of rationality rather quickly turned into a ripping good story that hung together in a most satisfying way.

I took four years to read it, which I do not recommend. Get to the ending with the middle of the book still fresh in mind – that will serve the reader much better.

This is a study on how cognitive biases effect everything we do. People like to say that Harry in this book is intelligent and rational but the whole point of the book is that he is an idiot who doesn't think through the consequences of his actions even though he may be extremely “intelligent”

Eliezer Yudkowsky is an AI researcher and it shows. Harry is closer to being an AI than a typical 11 year old. He is an insufferable dickhead with no conception towards other peoples feelings. He focuses on the problem at hand and will throw any solution that works at it no matter the consequences. If you were never a self aggrandizing kid who thought they knew everything then you probably will not like this book. I am, I was, I loved it. Like most self published web novels it needs serious editing.

One thing I loved about this was that any mystery in the book is fully solvable before the reveal. If you keep your eyes open and look for clues and piece them together you can fully put together the ending before it happens.

Highly recommend to anyone who, like me, keeps on thinking or saying “that doesn't make sense” and keep finding loopholes while reading or watching fiction.

The book is massive, but I really enjoyed reading it.

In short - it's Harry Potter for geeks.
Useful to be well-acquainted with the original series.

This is both an excellent piece of fan-fiction as well as a wonderful treatise on The Methods Of Rationality. Eliezer Yudkowsky is simply brilliant, funny and eloquent.

Calling this a fanfic doesn't really do it justice. This novel is huge. I'll admit, I started this book not knowing how EY would blend the world of magic and the scientific method and rationality, seeing as how magic is the epitome of the non-scientific (for lack of better wording). But, he does it, and does it well.

Harry Potter, rather than being raised by an abusive family, is instead raised by his aunt Petunia and an Oxford professor. They teach him about science and rational thinking. The story begins with a letter to attend Hogwarts, and unwinds from there.

There were times when this story made me laugh, cry, and smile, and a story that can invoke such intense emotion is, by my books, a really good one. I found it hard to put this down (even though I read a good chunk of it on an overnight flight), and am glad I read it.

Nothing I can write here would do this novel justice. Go read it yourself; it'll be worth it. I promise.

Fucker snags us on his fish hook, drags us through, I kid you not, NINETY SEVEN of the most heavenly chapters known to man, and then just leaves us to DANGLE IN AGONY.
How much more suspense are we capable of bearing?
Aug 27 is too far away, you sadistic douchebag. What, you can violate the law of Conservation of Energy, but you can't give a girl some peace of mind and just write sooner?