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tuyop posted:Also, are there any normal looking fantasy authors? haha. no
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Mar 26, 2018 03:42
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tuyop posted:I was recommended that series by a colleague and I thought it was just full of clumsy prose and Mary Sue-isms. I was embarrassed to be reading it. All the Birds in the Sky was a weird book. I really liked the relationship between the two main characters, but everything else around that was subpar.
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Mar 26, 2018 09:09
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tuyop posted:Oh yeah I love Ursula K. LeGuin, I just thought that was Sci Fi rather than fantasy. Gene Wolfe does sound more up my alley, I’ll add him to the queue. sure 
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Mar 26, 2018 11:38
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at the whole persona.
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Burning Rain posted:sure big dude, huh?
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Mar 26, 2018 12:35
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tuyop posted:Also, are there any normal looking fantasy authors? Between Gene Wolfe and Patrick Rothfuss I’m just There are some decent-looking ones, I guess:    
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Mar 26, 2018 13:32
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I also think Lex Luthor, the captain from TinTin but he kind of looks like a nazi, Lex luthor again but this time he's a street magician and a guy who's aesthetic is "evil maths teacher" are good looking
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Mar 26, 2018 13:42
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Hang on is that third guy Davis Aurini
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Mar 26, 2018 13:44
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Also, of course, fantasy genre's handsomest boy, our very own General Battuta:
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Mar 26, 2018 13:50
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Megazver posted:There are some decent-looking ones, I guess: wants to talk to me about chaos magick and anarchism, made me a $14 gin fizz the other night, has strong opinions about the biological differences between men and women, and man that's an ugly suit
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Mar 26, 2018 15:20
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the last guy has a neckbeard
chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Mar 26, 2018 |
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Mar 26, 2018 15:21
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tuyop posted:I was recommended that series by a colleague and I thought it was just full of clumsy prose and Mary Sue-isms. I was embarrassed to be reading it. funkybottoms posted:I enjoyed the concept/world enough to get through the first book, but hated the second and stopped halfway through. My lady finished it and confirmed that I both called the ending and was right to not bother with it. She did not read the third. It felt like a really strong adventure novel, and I enjoy that stuff more than other fantasy books these days, where all the fun has been sucked out of them. I was glad it wasn't never-ending-grim-dark and historically-based-political-machinations-in-a-fantasy-world. I like Game of Thrones etc., but it's bred a self-seriousness where the goal is to Make An 8-Book Big Boy Series So There's a Netflix Show With Tits and We'll All Get That Sweet Funko Pop Merch Money and Have Think Pieces About Violence and Sex Every Week. I had fun reading A Darker Shade of Magic (and it's mostly a self-contained story!). That being said, my to-read list is too long to deal with the sequels right now, and I might steer clear if they're as meh as you say. Look at those 4 Tuff Boyz.
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Mar 26, 2018 21:33
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chernobyl kinsman posted:wants to talk to me about chaos magick and Marxism
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Mar 26, 2018 21:51
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Also forgot this bad boy: chernobyl kinsman posted:the last guy has a neckbeard Sometimes a beard is just a beard.
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Mar 26, 2018 22:16
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Megazver posted:Sometimes a beard is just a beard. not when it's worn by a fantasy author
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Mar 26, 2018 23:54
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chernobyl kinsman posted:wants to talk to me about chaos magick and anarchism, made me a $14 gin fizz the other night, has strong opinions about the biological differences between men and women, and man that's an ugly suit I thought the first one was China Mieville, not Grant Morrison.
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Mar 27, 2018 12:17
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Jedit posted:I thought the first one was China Mieville, not Grant Morrison. who gives a drat poo poo, they're all a bunch of dumbasses whom should be thrown into spiked pits
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Mar 27, 2018 12:50
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Captain Hotbutt posted:It felt like a really strong adventure novel, and I enjoy that stuff more than other fantasy books these days, where all the fun has been sucked out of them. I was glad it wasn't never-ending-grim-dark and historically-based-political-machinations-in-a-fantasy-world. No, that's fair- it takes a lot to hold my interest when it comes to fantasy, so it doesn't take a lot to put me off, and I felt like the characters kept making unrealistically dumb decisions simply to advance the plot. Also, I really didn't like the female lead and she took up an increasingly large percentage of the book, so...
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Mar 27, 2018 14:04
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"Paradise Lost" as part of the preparation for reading the original Frankenstein. Reading Paradise Lost is like those computer screens in the Matrix. I see text but I have no idea what's going on. I had to google so many words and I had to go back and reread it several times before I really properly devoured the whole thing. It was rough but I loved it.
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Mar 27, 2018 16:56
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Katt posted:Reading Paradise Lost is like those computer screens in the Matrix. I see text but I have no idea what's going on. I had to google so many words and I had to go back and reread it several times before I really properly devoured the whole thing. That's a bizarre thing to say.
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Mar 27, 2018 23:09
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Katt posted:Reading Paradise Lost is like those computer screens in the Matrix. I see text but I have no idea what's going on. I had to google so many words and I had to go back and reread it several times before I really properly devoured the whole thing. That's a pretty cool thing to say.
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Mar 28, 2018 04:40
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I just finished The Census Taker by China Meiville and Elmet by Fiona Mozley and they were both excellent! Sharing the commonality of being about children growing up in remote cabins with their strange parents.
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Mar 29, 2018 00:38
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Finished Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver. With every new Bond being an alternate universe/reboot of the character, Deaver's version is in his 30s and served in Afghanistan and has a distinctive facial scar, which just adds to his coolness. Deaver puts his Bond through his paces, with enjoyable twists and one of the creepier Bond villains I've ever encountered. Deaver also continued the Fleming tradition of eye rolling names for female characters: Felicity Willing. An enjoyable Bond novel. I wish Deaver had written more of them.
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Mar 31, 2018 00:22
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Emperors of the Twilight by S Andrew Swann. The second book in his Moreau series. It was 85% action thriller, 10% commentary on race war, foreign meddling, and the hopelessness of working for government agencies, and 5% lesbian romance. It was actually pretty good! I wish the ending had slowed down a little bit after the break-neck pace of the chase and action sequences, but heck. I enjoyed rereading it for the first time in years, and I'm ready to tackle the sequel for the first time. I've been wondering about where and how this universe goes for years, and now I can finally find out.
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Apr 1, 2018 20:08
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computer angel posted:I just finished The Census Taker by China Meiville and Elmet by Fiona Mozley and they were both excellent! Sharing the commonality of being about children growing up in remote cabins with their strange parents. I really wanted to like This Census Taker and it disapointed me. I read it three times and it was still too vague for me to tell what happened in it.
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Apr 1, 2018 21:16
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Solitair posted:I really wanted to like This Census Taker and it disapointed me. I read it three times and it was still too vague for me to tell what happened in it. I enjoyed letting my imagination fill in the blanks. I was probably primed for it by reading his Three Moments of an Explosion series of short stories which I guess were equally weird and vague. I'm by all accounts a philistine so I don't really have any great insight, I just thought it was a pleasant reading experience. I also somewhat recently finished John Dolan's take on The Iliad which reads like a campfire take on the classic, emphasising the humour in the brutality. Very charming. computer angel fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 2, 2018 17:40
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I finished The Count of Monte Cristo and it was probably a big waste of time
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Apr 2, 2018 18:27
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*looks at the cover of a universally renowned classic* hmm, this is mostly garbage, poo poo, and extremely not worth it. who is this alexandre dumbass anyway
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Apr 2, 2018 19:30
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fridge corn posted:I finished The Count of Monte Cristo and it was probably a big waste of time did you think there was like a surprise at the end or what
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Apr 2, 2018 20:00
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chernobyl kinsman posted:did you think there was like a surprise at the end or what like I think i knew there was no way it was gonna happen but I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more if everything went horribly wrong instead
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Apr 2, 2018 23:26
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I read Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward because a coworker offered to loan it to me and I couldn't think of a good reason to decline it. Easy to read and compelling work of fiction about a black family in rural Mississippi just as Katrina hits. It won some awards, which I think are readily earned. It's beautifully written and goes by quickly, so I would recommend it for anyone who likes contemporary work. I also recently read The Left Hand of Darkness, my first Ursula Le Guin novel. Cool to read a book about a tragic cross-country skiing trip on the advent of the Winter Olympics. Will I ever stop crying like a bitch over queer icon Estraven? Survey says hell no
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Apr 3, 2018 03:35
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I finished Canticle for Leibowitz and thought it was boring. I have to say the actual writing was pretty solid in terms of the vocabulary and sentence structure. But the plot itself just did not grab me, and the second of the three acts almost put me to sleep. The story could have been more interesting and turns out it just wasn't for me.
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Apr 4, 2018 12:15
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I just finished The Century Trilogy by Ken Follett (Fall of Giants, Winter of the World and Edge of Eternity). The series is written from the POV of members of five families (American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh) across WW1, WW2 and the Cold War, and deals with issues such as worker's rights, socialism, women's rights, totalitarianism, communism and civil rights. I loved the first two book, but I have to admit that the last one felt like it jumped around too much. Also, I'm not sure why the author chose this, but in the last book there was way too much infidelity. It was strange because it was dealt with in such a ways as if to excuse it because "love conquers all" and the characters weren't really in love so this just meant they could go after the one they really wanted. Still, it was a very satisfying trilogy, and watching the story progress as characters grew into adulthood and pass the torch to their children really pulled me in and made me feel connected to them. If you enjoy historical fiction, I would highly recommend this series. Narmi fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 15:52
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Endgame by Kristine Smith, the fifth and last book in the Jani Killian series. This book redeemed the choices I didn't agree with in the last book, reignited the love of this series that drove me to read the first three books as quickly as I could, and ended perfectly. Surface-wise, it was about a funeral and the hunt for an assassin and who sent them - but it resolved the various character arcs, resolved the romantic entanglement Jani got into, resolved the political powderkeg in an appropriate manner, and just... Gosh. I was so afraid - after the last book - that I'd read this book thinking it was good but that I should've stopped after book three, where the series was at its highest point. Instead, no. This was everything I wanted and more. I almost wish the author had written a thousand more books in this universe, but nah - this is a closed story and I love it and I love that I don't have to regret any part of it.
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Apr 5, 2018 01:32
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Von Neumann's War by John Ringo and Travis Taylor It's an alien invasion book, where the aliens are these self-replicating robots. Although "robot" may be too generous of a term. They are more like drones with an A.I. built in, and the A.I.'s have no personality. I like invasion stories and was hoping for a pulp story in the genre. Instead they went over board into hardcore military and hardcore science. The story takes a back seat to page after page describing the detailed intricacies of rocket science, lasers, radio communication, weapons, and military bureaucracy. It's not described in a particularly relatable way either. I found myself skipping over big chunks of text that I either couldn't comprehend or didn't care to spend the time to comprehend. There are a lot of characters and at the end I still couldn't tell most of the apart. There is nothing remarkable about them individually and they mainly exist to talk to each about the science. After all the focus on science, the aliens are defeated in the end by having a computer virus uploaded to them, just like the weak plot point in Independence Day. My favorite part of the book is the author description of Travis Taylor on the back flap: quote:Travis Shane Taylor is a born and bred southerner and resides just outside Huntsville, Alabama. He has a Doctorate in Optical Science and Engineering, a Master’s degree in Physics, a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, all from the University of Alabama in Huntsville; a Master’s degree in Astronomy from the Univ. of Western Sydney, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the state of Alabama.
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Apr 5, 2018 03:13
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Specters of the Dawn by S Andrew Swann, book 3 in his moreau series, and for the time being my finale for the series. It ended on a fantastic note for the series and the world, the characters I care about are all okay and well-off, and I really, really enjoyed all of it. This is also significant to me because I first bought this omnibus back on Amazon in 2010 and it was the first thing I ever bought online with my own account. A shame it's taken me so long to read the final book in the omnibus, but - hell. I finished it, I loved it, I'm ready to read more in the universe later. (*There is a fourth and final book in the moreau series, featuring Nohar's return to being a pov character, but frankly I prefer this stopping point. I'll instead read the next books in the overall series, as they take the timeline ahead several hundred years.)
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Apr 6, 2018 15:12
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Tailored Sauce posted:I finished Canticle for Leibowitz and thought it was boring. I have to say the actual writing was pretty solid in terms of the vocabulary and sentence structure. But the plot itself just did not grab me, and the second of the three acts almost put me to sleep. The story could have been more interesting and turns out it just wasn't for me. I agree with you on this one. The whole thing was not interesting at all.
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Apr 7, 2018 20:33
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because it's a book about catholicism written by a devout catholic more than it is a piece of genre escapism
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Apr 7, 2018 21:23
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so are you saying that books chernobyl kinsman posted:about catholicism written by a devout catholic are always boring? I don't think that's true.
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Apr 7, 2018 22:20
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it's only boring if you find his long examinations of catholicism itself, the role of religion in society and in learning, and so on boring if you read it expecting mad max motorcycle gangs yeah its gonna be boring
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Apr 7, 2018 22:29
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computer angel posted:I enjoyed letting my imagination fill in the blanks. I was probably primed for it by reading his Three Moments of an Explosion series of short stories which I guess were equally weird and vague. I'm by all accounts a philistine so I don't really have any great insight, I just thought it was a pleasant reading experience. The only other Mieville book I've read is Perdido Street Station. I might change my mind about This Census Taker after I read some of his other books.
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Apr 7, 2018 22:39
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