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Gravy Jones posted:Is posting that I just opened Imgur and the "most viral" image was a screenshot of a General Battuta tweet off topic? edit it was this one https://twitter.com/sethjdickinson/status/1056962011010121733
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Oct 30, 2019 13:01
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My worst and most inane tweet ever goes viral 
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Oct 30, 2019 14:49
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You monster.
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Oct 30, 2019 14:59
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i'm going to have to retweet it now since i have no actual free will
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Oct 30, 2019 15:08
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Obviously you write something cool to balance it out. And then suffer under the mental yoke that no matter how cool what you write is, that tweet is your overarching contribution to civilization. Orv fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Oct 30, 2019 |
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Oct 30, 2019 15:17
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What an awful tweet.
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Oct 30, 2019 15:22
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General Battuta posted:My worst and most inane tweet ever goes viral Don't feel bad! People are more inclined to retweet things they feel a relationship to, so it shouldn't be surprising that what gets the most attention is something banal rather than something profound.
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Oct 30, 2019 15:29
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The_White_Crane posted:Don't feel bad! 
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Oct 30, 2019 15:46
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I know they're delicious and that's all I need.
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Oct 30, 2019 15:49
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Shrimp are an excellent source of carbohydrates as long as you aren't gluten intolerant. 
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Oct 30, 2019 16:24
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Finished Mack Reynolds Of Godlike Power after taking a break to read Sam Kean's The Bastard Brigade (non-fiction). As I described it in the mil-scif thread, The Bastard Brigade can be seen as a companion piece to the Monument Men book/movie, and is worth checking out if you're interesting in World War 2 history. Of Godlike Power improved massively after the rear end in a top hat main character and his girlfriend suffered immediate consequences for their actions. After that happened, Of Godlike Power became low-key hilarious from all the plot twist reveals, and strawman argument slams against hyper-consumerism, religion, John Birch society, jukeboxes, womens fashion, and the fiction genres. Next up on my reading pile is a biography about James Wilkinson, American War of Independence General/US Army Commander in Chief/secret spy for Spain, and Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the ninth.
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Oct 30, 2019 16:29
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Is it just me, or does it seem like all the really interesting new books are being written in SF, not fantasy? The last new-release (non-urban) fantasy novel I can remember being genuinely excited by was either Lies of Locke Lamora or Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and both of those are like fifteen years old now. It feels like since Gaiman went commercial and Pratchett got formulaic there's just not much new happening in the genre. In contrast with SF every few years something I hadn't expected seems to take me by surprise, like Murderbot.
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Oct 31, 2019 00:14
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Is it just me, or does it seem like all the really interesting new books are being written in SF, not fantasy? Fantasy as a genre gets a bit much of a muchness. What kind of elves are there left to create?
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Oct 31, 2019 00:17
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The last new-release (non-urban) fantasy novel I can remember being genuinely excited by was either Lies of Locke Lamora or Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and both of those are like fifteen years old now. It feels like since Gaiman went commercial and Pratchett got formulaic there's just not much new happening in the genre. For me it was probably Baru Cormorant.
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Oct 31, 2019 00:19
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Khizan posted:For me it was probably Baru Cormorant. For some reason that's in my head as SF. I can't put any particular finger on why.
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Oct 31, 2019 00:26
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Baru's world is one of modern rationalism, possibly gone wildly astray, but still, more like a Mievillian new weird than the traditional fantasy mindsets. Honestly, the only thing all that close to the kind of pure Fantasy being regularly published right now are Bujold's Penric and Desdemona novellas. And even they have a magic system informed by a modern understanding of thermodynamics.
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Oct 31, 2019 00:34
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Is it just me, or does it seem like all the really interesting new books are being written in SF, not fantasy? Bone Ships, Bone Ships, Bone Ships ahem Bone Ships by RJ Barker dropped this month and is awesome naval fantasy The Seer by Sonia Orin Lyris was recent and I thought it a novel take on high fantasy And finally Michelle West/Sagara finished her House War saga this year, with plans for a finale to the entire universe in the works. Plus Wurts finishing her super-long saga in the next few years. You should read more modern fantasy! e: Son of the Morning, 2014 Jen Williams' Winnowing Flame trilogy finished this year. I can probably find more if I go looking! StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 00:39
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It's a little unfair that space wizards count exclusively as SF, even if sometimes they're also race car drivers.
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Oct 31, 2019 00:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Is it just me, or does it seem like all the really interesting new books are being written in SF, not fantasy? Just in the last like two years I've read and really enjoyed Traitor Baru, Priory of the Orange Tree, Spiderlight, Swordheart, The Red Threads of Fortune/Black Tides of Heaven, Descendant of the Crane, and The Raven Tower, and that's just what comes immediately to mind. I'm pretty sure all of those have come out in the past five years and a few of them came out this year. There's a lot new happening in fantasy, if you go looking for it. ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 01:39
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I tend to think of The Sudden Appearance of Hope as fantasy; I'm not sure why. I can't really make an argument for that. And yeah, Baru. Thanks for the list, ToxicFrog. Some of those are on my to-read pile already but the others look interesting too.
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Oct 31, 2019 01:41
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1/3 of the way through Steel Frame by Andrew Skinner. It's milSF with no obvious racism and no detectable male gaze thus far, which must make it some kind of unicorn. The technothriller-level of obsessive attention to operational detail for Gundams is neat as heck and makes me feel like the author reads the AIRPOWER/Cold War thread here or something.
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Oct 31, 2019 02:22
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Is it just me, or does it seem like all the really interesting new books are being written in SF, not fantasy? Someone on Twitter the other day was spitballing the most influential fantasy novel of the last 20 years. My kneerjerk response was J Strange & Norrell, but that's "best" rather than "influential," because it's really just an Austenian fairytale. The fantasy novel which did something new and seminal, most people seemed to agree on, was Perdido Street Station. And that really is right at the limit of 20 years ago.
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Oct 31, 2019 02:37
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freebooter posted:Someone on Twitter the other day was spitballing the most influential fantasy novel of the last 20 years. My kneerjerk response was J Strange & Norrell, but that's "best" rather than "influential," because it's really just an Austenian fairytale. The fantasy novel which did something new and seminal, most people seemed to agree on, was Perdido Street Station. And that really is right at the limit of 20 years ago. Probably Storm Front honestly. Maybe whatever the first big paranormal romance novel was.
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Oct 31, 2019 02:56
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I finished chewing through another fantasy book from the library, Indigo Springs by A. M. Dellamonica. Turns out a book can have an interesting system of magic and a bevy of LGBT characters, both things I struggle to find in the fantasy genre, and still be boring as poo poo. The key, it seems, is to make every character a one-dimensional stereotype and it's hard to imagine the plot ever happening because it relies on people somehow putting up with a raging rear end in a top hat even before she turns into a genocidal lunatic who proclaims herself a goddess. Also turns out that a queer author can write offensive stereotypes of LGBT characters. Sure, there are multiple queer characters. But all of the women the lady protagonist has been romantically involved with are psychotic and the one man in her life is a standard-issue courageous, noble dude who can do no wrong, fresh from the factory. And the transgender character is explicitly framed as insane and his use of magic to make himself look like a man is treated the same way the villain causing earthquakes to kill people is treated. The idea of magic as a physical substance is neat, as is the idea that it used to be dispersed but as magic was driven out of the world it became more and more concentrated until it physically congealed, but everyone in this book was so unlikeable that I'm going to give the sequel a pass. freebooter posted:Someone on Twitter the other day was spitballing the most influential fantasy novel of the last 20 years. My kneerjerk response was J Strange & Norrell, but that's "best" rather than "influential," because it's really just an Austenian fairytale. The fantasy novel which did something new and seminal, most people seemed to agree on, was Perdido Street Station. And that really is right at the limit of 20 years ago. Harry Potter would be my pick. I think that was within twenty years.
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Oct 31, 2019 03:10
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dreamless posted:It's a little unfair that space wizards count exclusively as SF, even if sometimes they're also race car drivers. I still can't decide if I care enough to read the rest of that series or not. Probably not. It wasn't bad, I just felt like the explicitly stated magic angle felt jarring, even though I was expecting it.
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Oct 31, 2019 04:17
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Fantasy-wise I have two recommendations; one that starts off great and one that is good throughout. The first is Blood Song by Anthony Ryan, and was an amazing, fun book to read. Unfortunately, the sequel Tower Lord fell apart as the author tried to introduce multiple points of view and a meandering background. Then, unfortunately, he released Queen of Fire, which is the only book I've requested a refund from Amazon. Blood Song was originally self-published by Ryan and was enough of a hit that a publisher signed him up for the sequels and I think they gave him an unreasonable time schedule to write them and it shows. Prior to Blood Song he had mostly written self-published short stories and a couple novellas so it was his first full length novel. He recently completed his Draconis Memoria trilogy which were a nice mishmash of Victorian England, but Dragons, and instead of steam power they used dragon's blood to power everything. It's worth checking out the first chapter on Amazon because it does a really good job of pulling you into the setting. I would also recommend Bryan Ruckley's The Godless World trilogy which is about not-Vikings and covers a small part of their world and is a nice, quick read. The trilogy is self-contained and has a definite ending which is a nice change for a Fantasy series.
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Oct 31, 2019 05:34
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Science fiction and fantasy are the same thing, except they swap out wizards for scientists. There's a reason "speculative fiction" was created to encompass them both. Also The Traitor Baru Cormorant is alt-history historical fiction and the sequel strays into science fiction.
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Oct 31, 2019 05:34
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Is it just me, or does it seem like all the really interesting new books are being written in SF, not fantasy? You are clearly not reading Michelle West. You should rectify that! Other recent-ish stuff The Night Circus (2015) Every Heart A Doorway (2016) Anias fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 05:59
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Cythereal posted:Harry Potter would be my pick. I think that was within twenty years. The first three aren't 
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Oct 31, 2019 07:49
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Last 20 years? Definitely Storm Front. The Dresden books are basically the model for the modern urban fantasy. If you go back 25 years, though, it's Game of Thrones.
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Oct 31, 2019 10:41
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What about the Southern Vampire Mysteries? The first came out in 2001, are they the ones that started the urban fantasy romance where all the Hollywood horror monsters come to life starting with vampires? I guess the Anne Rice books predate it, but those aren't really written as romance novels.
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Oct 31, 2019 14:11
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World War Z probably deserves a “most influential” discussion, and it feels SF (and definitely not science fiction) more than horror adjacent.
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Oct 31, 2019 14:13
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ToxicFrog posted:Just in the last like two years I've read and really enjoyed Traitor Baru, Priory of the Orange Tree, Spiderlight, Swordheart, The Red Threads of Fortune/Black Tides of Heaven, Descendant of the Crane, and The Raven Tower, and that's just what comes immediately to mind. I'm pretty sure all of those have come out in the past five years and a few of them came out this year. Swordheart in particular I found genuinely laugh-out-loud funny in places. I don't know that I'd say it does anything terribly interesting, but it's a fantastic read.
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Oct 31, 2019 14:23
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:World War Z probably deserves a “most influential” discussion, and it feels SF (and definitely not science fiction) more than horror adjacent. How so? I mean, I liked the Ken Burns "oral history of the zombie war" vibe it had. But other than that, it was a fairly mediocre zombie story. What about it has influenced subsequent works?
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Oct 31, 2019 14:27
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dreamless posted:It's a little unfair that space wizards count exclusively as SF, even if sometimes they're also race car drivers.
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Oct 31, 2019 14:30
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Proteus Jones posted:How so? I mean, I liked the Ken Burns "oral history of the zombie war" vibe it had. But other than that, it was a fairly mediocre zombie story. What about it has influenced subsequent works? Where did it fall in the larger cultural moment of zombies? I agree there's probably not some larger fantasy movement inspired by it, but I had this sense it was toward the front rather than the middle of the zombies everywhere cultural phase. On the zombie fantasy books front there's Mira Grant stuff, which I haven't read but seems to have sold a lot, and Peter Clines' Ex- stuff, which I have read but wouldn't call great or guess was hugely successful commercially. It's hard to even say what's influential in fantasy books because there's so much being published and so little of it read in this thread. It feels like fewer and fewer books break through with reasonable readership, and on my rare visits to a physical bookstore I see that 90% of the books on the SF shelves are those I've never heard of and never will again. Apparatchik Magnet fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 14:49
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Last 20 years gave us Erikson, Abercrombie and Bakker from the top of my head. I kinda like the later trend of 19th century mixes with magic that Abercrombie, McClellan and Bennett have been writing lately. The Chartrand series was pretty good.
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Oct 31, 2019 15:53
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The next book I've started from my trip down the sci-fi/fantasy shelves at my library is interesting so far: Sea of Rust. It's a post-apocalyptic story with the twist that it's told from the perspective of the victorious robots. The AIs won the apocalyptic war with humanity. Humans are extinct. So... what happens now?
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Oct 31, 2019 17:16
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Cythereal posted:The next book I've started from my trip down the sci-fi/fantasy shelves at my library is interesting so far: Sea of Rust. It's a post-apocalyptic story with the twist that it's told from the perspective of the victorious robots. The AIs won the apocalyptic war with humanity. Humans are extinct. So... what happens now? I'm curious about this book because I know the author, but to my shame I've never gotten around to reading it. I'd be curious to hear what you think of it.
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Oct 31, 2019 17:28
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Sea of Rust was pretty good. Not gonna go down as one of my favourites, but it's a nice pulpy adventure story and the setting is cool.
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Oct 31, 2019 17:29
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