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Black Griffon posted:What's my next Sanderson if the first I've read is Elantris? Warbreaker if you want a standalone book, Mistborn if you want a standalone series, Way of Kings if you want to dive into the deep end. (None of them are truly standalone, but this only really becomes apparent in WoK and its sequels.)
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Jan 19, 2020 16:40
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Black Griffon posted:What's my next Sanderson if the first I've read is Elantris? IMO read the emperor's soul (standalone novella) then dive into mistborn
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Jan 19, 2020 17:20
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So Emperor's Soul, Warbreaker and Mistborn in that order then?
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Jan 19, 2020 17:32
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Black Griffon posted:So Emperor's Soul, Warbreaker and Mistborn in that order then? personally i'd just jump straight to mistborn then you can decide if you like that enough to commit to the others, but doing it the other way around won't hurt either.
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Jan 19, 2020 17:38
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pseudanonymous posted:God that review is loving insufferable. Agreed. The number of times I see Saunders pushed here makes me wonder if he is a goon or friend to a goon. Why else would a self-published author get promoted here? Especially since there is a reason for why an author is self-published. This is especially obvious in the March North, which would have benefited from an editor. A comparison can be made with Library of Mount Char, which was published, was very much a first author book and there are no more (non-computer) books published by Scott Hawkins. I would guess this is not from lack of trying, but rather how hard it is to write a second book and get it out.
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Jan 19, 2020 18:13
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coffeetable posted:Graydon Saunders has just released A Mist of Grit and Splinters, book #5 in his Commonweal series. If you're not familiar with it, the first book is The March North, and is best described as granite-hard military fantasy. They're heavy on the worldbuilding, heavy on the logistics, and replete with show-don't-tell. I think the best indicators for liking it would be liking Watts or Rajaniemi, who similarly omit a lot of context and expect the reader to keep up. Black Griffon posted:So Emperor's Soul, Warbreaker and Mistborn in that order then? anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Jan 19, 2020 |
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Jan 19, 2020 18:47
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Cardiac posted:Agreed. I don't do it so much but I used to push Saunders a fair bit, because I loving loved The March North and the sequels were different but pretty drat good. I just got lazy about posting. I don't know Saunders at all.
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Jan 19, 2020 19:18
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The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DDGX4KY/ A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MJ656W9/
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Jan 19, 2020 19:33
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Thread favorite The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling is $1.99 right now. https://www.amazon.com//dp/B07BJZT8GJ
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Jan 19, 2020 21:20
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Cardiac posted:Agreed. He was a regular on rec.arts.sf.written back in the day. So was James Nicoll, for that matter. There are a few other people from there who have since made it as published authors; off the top of my head I can think of Jo Walton and Ryk Spoor (aka Sea Wasp). And of course there were some already-established authors who posted there.
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Jan 20, 2020 08:53
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Groke posted:He was a regular on rec.arts.sf.written back in the day. So was James Nicoll, for that matter. I actually read Ryk E. Spoor's stuff when I was younger. I did a serious double-take the first time I saw Grand Central Arena in a bookstore and recognized his name.
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Jan 20, 2020 13:38
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tiniestacorn posted:Thread favorite The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling is $1.99 right now. Is there a way to keep track of these price drops somewhere? I keep missing them by not reading this thread every day.
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Jan 20, 2020 17:36
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a foolish pianist posted:Is there a way to keep track of these price drops somewhere? I keep missing them by not reading this thread every day. kindofbook.com
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Jan 20, 2020 17:49
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Kchama posted:I actually read Ryk E. Spoor's stuff when I was younger. I did a serious double-take the first time I saw Grand Central Arena in a bookstore and recognized his name. I've read quite a few of his books and generally find them to be good fun. Dude has an infectious enthusiasm about stuff he's interested in, and that's what he likes to write about, so.
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Jan 20, 2020 19:16
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less laughter posted:kindofbook.com I also use camelcamelcamel for stuff on my wishlist.
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Jan 20, 2020 19:34
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a foolish pianist posted:Is there a way to keep track of these price drops somewhere? I keep missing them by not reading this thread every day. I subscribed to https://www.bookbub.com/ but they're obviously kinda hit and miss WRT finding things I'm actually interested in, as opposed to "Here's the latest in the Shovelware Chronicles, free today!"
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Jan 20, 2020 22:13
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Groke posted:I've read quite a few of his books and generally find them to be good fun. Dude has an infectious enthusiasm about stuff he's interested in, and that's what he likes to write about, so. Yeah you can really see it in Grand Central Arena. I honestly should be reading more of his stuff. Even picky me enjoyed GCA.
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Jan 21, 2020 01:30
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I'd like to read a fantasy novel with a wizard protagonist. Flashy magic, hopefully something they had to work for rather than being born with. At least a little smug and self-absorbed, but not a total jerk. I would rather avoid stuff with torture or sexual violence. I've had some fun reading Jim Butcher's fantasy novels, but Dresden gets creepily male-gazey, the Alera series got dull when everything collapsed into endless war with zergling swarms, and I only vaguely remember Cinder Spires. Joseph Brassey did a couple of pretty decent airship and wizard books, and I think their politics were a bit nicer, but I didn't find any of the characters particularly charming/memorable. Miles Vorkosigan was really fun to follow around. Locke Lamora was alright when it wasn't misery tourism. Master Li in Bridge of Birds was absolutely superb. I don't remember if he ever shot fire out of his hands, but I really enjoy it when the point of view character is also having fun. Any recommendations?
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Jan 21, 2020 07:45
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I'm finishing up Joe Abercrombie's A Little Hatred after working my way through The First Law trilogy and his three standalone books. Huuuuuge fan of all six, some of my favourite fantasy I've read in a long, long time. Toward the beginning of A Little Hatred, Gunnar Broad is standing in a line outside a brewery looking for work and has a confrontation with "a big bastard with a star-shaped scar on his cheek and a piece out of his ear", that dude is 100% Logen Ninefingers right? Has Abercrombie said anything about it? Cryptozoology fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jan 21, 2020 |
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Jan 21, 2020 07:47
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Kat Howard's An Unkindness of Magicians might be what you're after. It's not everything I wanted in a wizard book but it was enjoyable enough. Perfectly cromulent wizardry.
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Jan 21, 2020 08:13
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avoraciopoctules posted:I'd like to read a fantasy novel with a wizard protagonist. Flashy magic, hopefully something they had to work for rather than being born with. At least a little smug and self-absorbed, but not a total jerk. I would rather avoid stuff with torture or sexual violence. Master of the Five Magics by Lyndon Hardy. Hits all the points you're looking for, at least on paper. The main character has no inborn powers but is driven by pride, stubbornness, and self-entitlement to learn all the magic arts. Over the course of the novel he logics his way through all five of them and (spoiler alert) becomes a master. There's no gore or rape but there is a low-level background radiation of 80s fantasy misogyny. If you like reading about magic systems then this is the book for you because there are five separate ones which follow entirely different rules. There are two sequels with Six and Seven in the name which follow other characters in the same world. I think they're all right but not as good. They each throw several more magic systems into the mix.
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Jan 21, 2020 08:17
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avoraciopoctules posted:I'd like to read a fantasy novel with a wizard protagonist. Flashy magic, hopefully something they had to work for rather than being born with. At least a little smug and self-absorbed, but not a total jerk. I would rather avoid stuff with torture or sexual violence. I'm going to throw out a weird one, Glen Cook's Darkwar. The protagonist starts as a barbarian out on the outer fringes of society with a natural talent for what passes as magic locally. She survives disasters and gets taken in by an organized group of practitioners. This gives her the opportunity of formal training, but learning some things requires a political struggle to even gain access. It ends up as Marika versus the world, with the whole world as the underdog. It's Glen Cook's deconstruction of the world-wrecking evil wizard. Poor Marika just wants to save the world from ecological catastrophe and learn to fly, she didn't want the body count she tallied up or to re-shape a global civilization. And then it turns into a science fiction story in the third book.
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Jan 21, 2020 09:48
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avoraciopoctules posted:Master Li in Bridge of Birds was absolutely superb. I don't remember if he ever shot fire out of his hands, but I really enjoy it when the point of view character is also having fun. Apart from that and since you mentioned Butcher - how about some urban fantasy? Alex Verus starts as a Dresden derivative but becomes a lot better as the series goes on. Also, Rivers of London seems to fill your criteria pretty well. e2: Max Gladstone's stuff features plenty of wizards and flashy wizardry... For a certain definition of the terms. Start with Three Parts Dead and see if you like lawyer necromancers. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Jan 21, 2020 |
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Jan 21, 2020 11:16
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avoraciopoctules posted:I'd like to read a fantasy novel with a wizard protagonist. Flashy magic, hopefully something they had to work for rather than being born with. At least a little smug and self-absorbed, but not a total jerk. I would rather avoid stuff with torture or sexual violence. Try Mother of Learning. It's one of the more popular web serials out there and the sales pitch is pretty much "Groundhog Day in Hogwarts". (Except it's not fanfiction, just saying it's set in a wizard school.) It's quite good.
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Jan 21, 2020 12:28
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avoraciopoctules posted:I'd like to read a fantasy novel with a wizard protagonist. Flashy magic, hopefully something they had to work for rather than being born with. At least a little smug and self-absorbed, but not a total jerk. I would rather avoid stuff with torture or sexual violence. Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy is a... deconstruction is probably too generous, but they're smart, funny books which constantly get undersold as "Harry Potter for grown-ups." Featuring a flawed protagonist who starts off the series as a mopey teenager resulted in lots of 1-star Goodreads reviews from the kind of people who fill their reviews with gifs, but yeah, he'd definitely fit the bill of self-absorbed without being a total jerk. I really think they're some of the best fantasy of the last ten years or so. Having said that I've just recalled there is a scene of sexual violence in the second book. It's not gratuitous and doesn't get lingered upon, IIRC, but it is pretty brutal in the context of the plot.
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Jan 21, 2020 12:39
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I'd recommend the Montague and Strong series by Orlando Sanchez. Pretty fun, Montague is a born mage but it still takes a lot of practice and he's not the best. Interesting world too. All free on Kindle unlimited. In the later books, Strong learns a bit of magic as well. Stuffy British self important mage, no male gaze stuff I can really remember, and they are fun reads. Plus eventually Peaches shows up to steal the show.
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Jan 21, 2020 13:58
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avoraciopoctules posted:I'd like to read a fantasy novel with a wizard protagonist. Flashy magic, hopefully something they had to work for rather than being born with. At least a little smug and self-absorbed, but not a total jerk. I would rather avoid stuff with torture or sexual violence. Hmmm. The first thing that comes to mind is C.S. Friedman's Magister trilogy. The protagonist is a witch (a spellcaster who draws on her own life-force) and the book opens with her working to learn the secrets of the Magisters (an all-male order of immortal mages who can work magic without shortening their own lives). At the same time, the magisters end up discovering an existential threat to human civilization that they need to deal with. There's some of this in Steven Brust's Khaavren Romances pentalogy, and in The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron, but it's not the main focus in either -- it's something the supporting characters do. Less obvious recommendation: the Wizardry series by Rick Cook, about a programmer who gets sucked into a fantasy world and needs to figure out how to apply his programming skills to develop a new school of magic. I found the first book kind of rough and probably wouldn't have stuck with it if I hadn't already read some of the later ones, but had a blast with books 2-5. They have a lot of programmer humour in them, though, which is my jam but may not be what you're looking for. mllaneza posted:I'm going to throw out a weird one, Glen Cook's Darkwar. Seconding this rec, Darkwar is great. That's honestly probably a better recommendation than anything I came up with above.
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Jan 21, 2020 16:03
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Cryptozoology posted:I'm finishing up Joe Abercrombie's A Little Hatred after working my way through The First Law trilogy and his three standalone books. Huuuuuge fan of all six, some of my favourite fantasy I've read in a long, long time. I thought so as well. Logen's described as having a star shaped scar on his cheek in Red Country from his fight with Fenris in Last Argument and I'm pretty sure other characters notice a notch in his ear in more than once instance. That said, he doesn't really act like Logen and this is like 30 years after Last Argument, so I'd imagine he's he'd be in his mid to late 60s at that point.
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Jan 21, 2020 16:14
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Gotta get to Red Country and A Little Hatred, but part of me wants to just straight up re-read the whole series. Borrowed them from a friend first time I read them (apart from The Heroes), but owning the books is by no means a loss. I think I should go for paperback despite my newfound Kindle addiction though, because the thought of having one out of (eventually) nine books in a different format stresses me out.
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Jan 21, 2020 16:40
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Thank you very much for the wizardbook recommendations, everyone! I've already read and enjoyed Mother of Learning and the Craft Sequence, so I'm gonna check my local library for Darkwar and Rivers of London later today. Someone also recommended Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf earlier, and the blurb sounds charming enough that it's worth gambling a couple bucks on. EDIT: I ought to make a recommendation of my own. Last fantasy novel I really enjoyed was Orconomics (and the sequel), by J. Zachary Pike. Most of the jokes landed pretty well, and I really enjoyed how he also used a bit of comedic timing in the frequent perspective shifts. I wouldn't call the character writing particularly deep, but it wasn't as shallow as I thought at first. The cast is flawed, and some of their problems get into pretty heavy territory (one character has a drug addiction problem that's messing up their life), but I never thought the jokes were punching down. avoraciopoctules fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Jan 21, 2020 |
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Jan 21, 2020 17:09
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I am looking for something like the Black Company but following a crew of pirates. Something where a pirate crew does clever things, sneaks into legitimate crews and takes over from the inside and such. Does anyone have any recommendations for that? Space pirates are good too.
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Jan 21, 2020 17:41
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avoraciopoctules posted:I'd like to read a fantasy novel with a wizard protagonist. Flashy magic, hopefully something they had to work for rather than being born with. At least a little smug and self-absorbed, but not a total jerk. I would rather avoid stuff with torture or sexual violence. You might enjoy Jack Vance's Rhialto the Marvelous, it's a series of 3 stories and not a novel but it's funny as hell and very good wizard reading.
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Jan 21, 2020 17:55
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my bony fealty posted:You might enjoy Jack Vance's Rhialto the Marvelous, it's a series of 3 stories and not a novel but it's funny as hell and very good wizard reading.
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Jan 21, 2020 18:16
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Just, uh, read those ones, not the other Dying Earth ones. They do have plenty of wizards, yes, and are very good, but Mazirian the Magician, the first Dying Earth story, introduces the “Vancian magic” system made famous by D&D and is memorably weird, if also a bit silly in some ways (it’s a classic example of what Vance himself called “gadget stories,” like some of the campier Bond movies where Bond encounters situations where he needs to use each of Q’s gadgets in turn). Though regarding “torture or sexual violence,” the villain is strongly implied to be a sophisticated sexual sadist (though nothing graphic happens on-page).
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Jan 21, 2020 18:34
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Cugel is an rear end in a top hat though, and not a wizard, so Eyes of the Overworld aka Cugel the Clever might not be your speed. I haven't read Cugel's Saga (and don't know if I will) so I can't attest to its wizardlyness.
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Jan 21, 2020 18:44
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Holy moly is the Light Brigade by Hurley good. And by good I mean horrifying and depressing. 
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Jan 21, 2020 18:54
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MockingQuantum posted:Cugel is an rear end in a top hat though, and not a wizard, so Eyes of the Overworld aka Cugel the Clever might not be your speed. I haven't read Cugel's Saga (and don't know if I will) so I can't attest to its wizardlyness. It’s not really about wizards either, except at the end when Cugel confronts Iucounnu again. I was disappointed by the way Iucounnu turned out to be an outright villain, even though in Eyes of the Overworld he came across as less evil than Cugel was.
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Jan 21, 2020 19:27
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Sibling of TB posted:I am looking for something like the Black Company but following a crew of pirates. Something where a pirate crew does clever things, sneaks into legitimate crews and takes over from the inside and such. Does anyone have any recommendations for that? Space pirates are good too. How about 'The Final Folly of Captain Dancy' by thread favorite Lawrence Watt Evans?
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Jan 21, 2020 19:45
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Steel Frame was loving incredible, by the way. Ending felt a little bit rushed, but the whole book was just so intense, dynamic, wild and breathtaking. Punishing in its pace and tempo. Big, big rec for anyone who likes mechs and Titanfall 2. Oh and I never read Black Company, but I remember it being compared to some of the 40k books I've read. How does it hold up these days?
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Jan 21, 2020 19:54
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Black Company's a pretty great trilogy about weird fantasy poker, although later trilogies may be hit-or-miss depending on what you liked about the first one.
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Jan 21, 2020 20:22
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