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Bullet Proof posted:With 30 days still to go Sanderson already has to sign 12,000 books (24,000 if he signs both leather bound copies). It'd be easier to hire a team of people to learn his signature at this point With $3.8 million, he can probably afford a few thousand bucks for an autopen machine.
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Jul 7, 2020 23:27
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The Book of Koli (The Rampart #1) by MR Carey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W54MPDZ/ Anyone have a recommendation on this? I loved The Girl with All the Gifts.
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Jul 8, 2020 00:26
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SFL Vol 04 update 2 -1981 was a murders row of now-iconic movies. In addition to the movies already mentioned in SFL Vol 03 posts, Conan the Barbarian was initially slated for a December 1981 release date. -the pre-release press announcement of Bladerunner came out, and Bladerunner chat has already started breaking SFL poster's brains. -additional RotLA chat focused on how long the Nazi submarine trip took to the sub-base island and how Indy stayed in place outside the sub and WHY did the sub go into dive mode before the movie switched into map view. (my take: Because the Nazi's just raided a ship and wanted/needed to run the gently caress away undetected before any Sea-cops arrived, ) -heated chemistry nerd debates about non-digestable reversed pair chemical compounds entering FDA testing that I am guessing will officially be known to history as "Nutrasweet" -release of proposed HDTV specifications causes similar heated debate among the SFL hardware enthusiasts. In Yoda speak, "Begun the graphics wars have". e: -forgot the "maybe the ark of the covenant built up a massive static electric charge sitting in place" when biblical person <Uzzah> touched it hypothesis from one SFL Atheist squad poster. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Jul 8, 2020 |
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Jul 8, 2020 00:29
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Bullet Proof posted:With 30 days still to go Sanderson already has to sign 12,000 books (24,000 if he signs both leather bound copies). It'd be easier to hire a team of people to learn his signature at this point Only the first book of each set will be signed. And it's very likely he's been signing title pages for months now; that's one reason there were limited amounts of books available to ship this year.
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Jul 8, 2020 00:31
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Velius posted:I hated Absolution Gap. I’d strongly recommend ending with Redemption Ark and reading Chasm City. glad I wasn't alone in bouncing off of it. if you like reynolds style, I loved Blue Remembered Earth for a slightly more grounded story. felt the most human of all his works, which was a nice shift.
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Jul 8, 2020 04:37
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Bullet Proof posted:With 30 days still to go Sanderson already has to sign 12,000 books (24,000 if he signs both leather bound copies). It'd be easier to hire a team of people to learn his signature at this point Reminds me of the Order of the Stick kickstarter from 2012 where the author got in way over his head and is still producing custom art to meet the stretch goals.
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Jul 8, 2020 04:55
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a foolish pianist posted:Was the second any good? The premise of the first was fun, but it spent 80% of its time in boot camp, ignoring the interesting stuff in the world. Sort of? It doubled down on both the squad level interaction but had a lot more action and story building. All characters still had exactly one discerning feature, like a boy band (smart, sexy, dumb , hacker etc). The third is all the sassy kids hanging out and not really for me so far (25%), I'll finish it because why not but I'm not really into teenage soldier group sex and snappy punnish answers.
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Jul 8, 2020 11:24
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Mikojan posted:I've started reading the revelation space series. I read Revelation Space and thought it had some interesting ideas but was mostly a mess, and didn't read the rest of the series. I subsequently read a bunch of Reynolds' other great books (House of Suns, Pushing Ice, Terminal World, Revenger, his short story collections) and he's become one of my favourite sci-fi authors for a really good, reliable, 4/5 stars potboiler of a great story... but I've still never felt any urge to revisit the Revelation Space series.
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Jul 8, 2020 11:52
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Loved the Darkwar trilogy, it’s pretty loving good xenofiction. Never thought I’d be reading a book about psychic weasel alien Jedi and I’d enjoy it. Big Ups to whoever recommended it. Any other books from a nonhuman point of view? (Aliens interacting with humans)
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Jul 8, 2020 12:38
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PawParole posted:
Mother of Demons by Eric Flint. a Human colony ship crash lands on a bronze age alien land crab planet. its Eric Flints first novel, and a is a bit rough, but it has some good alien pov parts. I read it a while ago, and there are human pov parts, but I think it was more than 50 percent alien.
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Jul 8, 2020 18:22
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PawParole posted:Loved the Darkwar trilogy, it’s pretty loving good xenofiction. Never thought I’d be reading a book about psychic weasel alien Jedi and I’d enjoy it. Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward is about intelligent microscopic life in a high-gravity environment who have a very accelerated perception of time. When humans scan their territory with a pulsing laser, it takes "days" between pulses. Learning to communicate presents them with challenges. May or may not be what you're looking for because although they are physiologically very different, the aliens sure think and act a lot like humans.
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Jul 8, 2020 21:55
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The Book of Jhereg (Jhereg, Yendi, Teckla) by Steven Brust - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018WXBHRG/ Chronicles of the Black Company (Black Company, Shadows Linger, White Rose) by Glen Cook - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009WUG56M/
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Jul 8, 2020 22:34
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Finished Pushing Ice yesterday. Honestly, one of the first times I've come away from a scifi book with great ideas thinking that they didn't make up for the bad characterization, and I'm usually extremely lenient with that. Svetlana and Bella's dynamic must be one of the most infuriatingly stupid thing I've ever read. Frankly I'm really disappointed because I've really enjoyed most of the other Reynolds stuff I've read (House of Suns ranks among my favourite in the genre) but as interesting as the concepts were, I just don't think I could recommend it to anyone.
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Jul 8, 2020 23:39
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wizzardstaff posted:Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward is about intelligent microscopic life in a high-gravity environment who have a very accelerated perception of time. When humans scan their territory with a pulsing laser, it takes "days" between pulses. Learning to communicate presents them with challenges. There's an extended sequence where the alien (called "cheela") follow the beam of the scanning laser in a religious quest, because it moves slowly enough to follow.
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Jul 9, 2020 00:06
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I picked up Gideon the Ninth assuming it was going to be an edgy necromatic high-drama, with lots of subterfuge and intrigue. Turns out its... actually a necromatic queer shonen murder mystery? I'm only about half way through and the main character sucks. But everything else kinda rules?
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Jul 9, 2020 00:41
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"Necromatic queer shonen murder mystery" is hands-down the best description of Gideon the Ninth I've heard.
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Jul 9, 2020 00:53
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It’s enjoyed it though I expected a bit more exploration. There’s a lot of wandering to one place and wandering back to the main area, it feels very much like a video game with common areas and daily missions while tension slowly grows.
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Jul 9, 2020 01:24
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Carrier posted:Finished Pushing Ice yesterday. Honestly, one of the first times I've come away from a scifi book with great ideas thinking that they didn't make up for the bad characterization, and I'm usually extremely lenient with that. Svetlana and Bella's dynamic must be one of the most infuriatingly stupid thing I've ever read. Frankly I'm really disappointed because I've really enjoyed most of the other Reynolds stuff I've read (House of Suns ranks among my favourite in the genre) but as interesting as the concepts were, I just don't think I could recommend it to anyone. I'm way more lenient about that stuff and think it's a great book, but yeah, you're not wrong.
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Jul 9, 2020 03:34
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PawParole posted:Loved the Darkwar trilogy, it’s pretty loving good xenofiction. Never thought I’d be reading a book about psychic weasel alien Jedi and I’d enjoy it. I had a TV show occur to me: Third Rock From The Sun. It's a little old now, but has a fantastic cast so hopefully it's held up. pradmer posted:The Book of Jhereg (Jhereg, Yendi, Teckla) by Steven Brust - $3.99 I'm a hopeless fanboy for both of these series. Black Company would be a good followup to Darkwar.
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Jul 9, 2020 04:51
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Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EYTK2C/ King of Thorns (Broken Empire #2) by Mark Lawrence - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0072NWJ3Y/ The Bone Ships (Tide Child #1) by RJ Barker - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MPW3GMX/
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Jul 9, 2020 23:56
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SFL Vol 04 update -in August 1981 someone worries about/predicts whatever the gently caress the Sad Puppies attempt a few decades later -the trickle of barely disguised ad product-reviews in SFL archives kicked off by the sneery toned MENSA ad has turned into a stream -the first occurrence of Flame On/Flame OFF in SFL archives -DolphinFucker discusses immortality and the various goals they have left to accomplish before dying....interspecies sex with aquatic mammals is oddly (or not so oddly) left off their life-goal list -(august 1981) 3 spaceprobes are currently in the works for the upcoming close swing-by of Halley's Comet
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Jul 10, 2020 00:26
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SFL Vol 04 update 4 -The runaway growth of Star Wars fandom continues to mark it's mark in the SFL archives. Despite a murderer's row of fantasy and scifi movies being released in 1981, discussion about Star Wars lore/character lineage/bounty hounters/spoilers/naming conventions and Star Wars trivia grow and grow in the SFL archives, often requiring special SFL Digest SPOILER tags. -Graphics fans will be interested to know that "aliasing" and "anti-aliasing" get mentioned for the 1st time in the SFL archives (that I can recall) when SFL users post their SIGGRAPH 1981 attendance reviews. -Spoilers about the upcoming Star Trek 2 movie where Spock dies/not dies, and the SFL talk that ensues. Roddenberry the Bitter continues a decades long "notMad" pout. -A few self proclaimed Cinematographic Historians start offering trivia challenges to see what earlier movies Lucas/Spielberg/others ripped off in certain visually stunning scenes Lucas/Spielberg/etc shot. No one cares, almost no one responds; especially after the 1st round of trivia question answers prove to be really stupid, even for 1981. -Special effects people who worked on Star Wars 1977 + maybe also Star Wars 1980 notice that Star Wars fandom isn't subsiding and start pimping themselves/scamming SW fans at SIGGRAPH 1981 with faked Return of the Jedi "test" footage. -In the year 1981 SFL chat has been bringing up a long long dead fantasy author. This decades dead author was supposedly more than a slight influence on JRR Tolkien. Besides that. the only reason why I mention this is because the same phrases and wordings people use to describe Gene Wolfe's writing style and stories are getting mentioned in similar ways for this long long dead fantasy genre author. For people interested, the long dead fantasty genre authors name is E.R. Eddison. e: And finally, the SFL archives message that inspired me to re-read the SF-LOVERS Digest from the beginning, this time taking notes quote:Date: September-ish 1981 quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 22:06
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PawParole posted:Big Ups to whoever recommended it. Any other books from a nonhuman point of view? (Aliens interacting with humans) Nor Crystal Tears by Alan Dean Foster is about first contact between Human and Thranx from the PoV of a Thranx.
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Jul 11, 2020 12:41
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wizzardstaff posted:Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward is about intelligent microscopic life in a high-gravity environment who have a very accelerated perception of time. When humans scan their territory with a pulsing laser, it takes "days" between pulses. Learning to communicate presents them with challenges. Drakhoran posted:Nor Crystal Tears by Alan Dean Foster is about first contact between Human and Thranx from the PoV of a Thranx. already read both of these books, sadly (sometimes I wish I could mindwipe myself so I could read them again!)
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Jul 11, 2020 17:17
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So I'm re-reading The Monster Baru Cormorant. While when I read it the first time I was kind of intrigued and confused by the shift toward the cancer cult being the main driver of the plot on a re-read it does make thematic sense considering what a big role flesh plays in the minds of the Falcresti. It makes literal that obsession and also connects with the idea of endless expansion and imperialism. It's just such a gross idea though that it feels like something that should exist in weird fiction. I think the book confuses people because its combining so many influences. Farrier is so charming. He's like a more complex Bayaz from Abercrombie's work.
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Jul 12, 2020 04:18
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Leviathan Wakes (Expanse #1) by James SA Corey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0047Y171G/ Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs #1) by Richard K Morgan - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBFMZ2/ The Girl with All the Gifts by MR Carey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO7FLFG/ The Last Wish (Witcher) by Andrzej Sapkowski - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0010SIPT4/ The Return of the King (Lord of the Rings #3) by JRR Tolkien - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007978P18/ I Am Legend by Richard Matheson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XB49BG4/
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Jul 12, 2020 18:11
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pradmer posted:Leviathan Wakes (Expanse #1) by James SA Corey - $2.99 drat. That’s a haul of good poo poo.
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Jul 12, 2020 18:33
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SFL Vol 04 update final. Nothing major happened in Vol 04 since my last update about it, no further Dr. Forward author contract reveals, or weird meltdowns about unicorn-goat fakery. -The mailing list maintainers fessed up to lots of behind-the-scenes admin stuff about failing hardware, mis-configured scripts resulting in delayed/missing/duplicate/erroneous SFL Digests being published. Since bandwidth/computing power back in 1981 was a rounding error of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the bandwidth/computer power the year 2020 have, these were serious issues. -Using RotLA examples, Film insurance/film insurance payouts got explained. -Hardware failure explained why '50s/'60s/'70s juvenile entertainment chat got cut off so abruptly in the SFL Vol 03 archive. 2 special makeup issues of the SFL Digest were sent out, composed entirely of March 1981-June 1981 'juvenile entertainment' SFL submissions --a small digression into sharing and listing out the various known Pseudonyms genre authors had used up. Much of this info will be found at https://www.isfdb.org -an upsurge in discussions of Marion Zimmer Bradley published work, and MZB in general, which I power-skimmed over heavily. -every San Francisco resident/former resident chimed in when someone asked the SFL Digest if Emperor Norton was made up Started reading SFL Vol 05 and right now everyone has opinions on the Dean Machine Drive/Analog magazine fiasco, which I am currently 3% clued in about (and climbing) just from reading the ongoing not-Mad posts from BigName people on the subject. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jul 13, 2020 |
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Jul 12, 2020 23:53
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quantumfoam posted:Started reading SFL Vol 05 and right now everyone has opinions on the Dean Machine Drive/Analog magazine fiasco, which I am currently 3% clued in about (and climbing) just from reading the ongoing not-Mad posts from BigName people on the subject. The who the what now? What was that all about?
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Jul 13, 2020 00:29
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jng2058 posted:The who the what now? What was that all about? Back in the 19th century, someone claimed to have detected people living on the moon, attributing the discovery of Moon lifeforms to world famous astronomer John Herschel. The Dean Machine Drive is a similar thing, a fake news event to drive up sales when readers want to know more/debunk the published story. (an Analog Magazine article about a weight reducing prototype spacedrive). Only it was the godfather of pulp scifi, John W Campbell, in full "I WANT TO BELIEVE" mode backing up the bullshit claim 19th century hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jul 13, 2020 |
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Jul 13, 2020 00:45
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Kings of the Wyld (The Band #1) by Nicholas Eames - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KT7YTXW/ Seven Blades in Black (Grave of Empires #1) by Sam Sykes - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079RCCRM6/ The Dragon's Path (Dagger and Coin #1) by Daniel Abraham - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0047Y16LC/
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Jul 13, 2020 23:31
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Kings is a pretty good book. The sequel is pretty good as well. Well worth the 2.99 price. Seven Blades is pretty good as well, but apparently ol' Sam has a history of being a gently caresshead[mod edit] with the ladies at cons, so if you are avoiding authors for acting like idiots, just be aware. Somebody fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jul 14, 2020 |
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Jul 14, 2020 01:21
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I've read the Dragon's Path and I can't remember a single thing about it. Apparently afterwards I gave it 2 stars on Goodreads, fwiw. I think it's pretty generic. Seconding the above as well, on both counts.
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Jul 14, 2020 01:44
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RIP ZEEZ
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foutre posted:I've read the Dragon's Path and I can't remember a single thing about it. Apparently afterwards I gave it 2 stars on Goodreads, fwiw. I think it's pretty generic. Dragon's Path didn't blow me away when I read it, but the series gets pretty interesting as it goes on, particularly when it starts to become in large part about founding banks and monetary policy, and the good guys fighting the bad guys in ways very unlike the typical fantasy series it seemed to start out as. That might not make it sound like an awesome fantasy series, but after I finished the whole thing I realized that a fantasy series about monetary policy had been just what I was looking for.
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Jul 14, 2020 02:05
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I dunno why, but mundane poo poo in a fantasy world is like my literary crack. Gimme police in a city with orcs and elves and dwarves, cops in a city with super heroes, a shipping company that delivers magic poo poo, hell I just finished reading a book about an insurance investigator that works with demons and werewolves and vampires. I guess it's the "normal, but about 20 degrees off bubble" ideas, but that poo poo is extremely my jam.
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Jul 14, 2020 02:14
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I dunno why, but mundane poo poo in a fantasy world is like my literary crack. Garrett PI by Glen Cook, Chronicles of Elantra by Michelle Sagara, and I haven't read it yet but I think Dragons of the Cuyahoga by S Andrew Swann fit the bill. e: You've read Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett yeah?
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Jul 14, 2020 02:25
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I dunno why, but mundane poo poo in a fantasy world is like my literary crack. you've read Ithanalin's Restoration by Lawrence Watt-Evans, right?
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Jul 14, 2020 02:32
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Gimme police in a city with orcs and elves and dwarves, cops in a city with super heroes, a shipping company that delivers magic poo poo, hell I just finished reading a book about an insurance investigator that works with demons and werewolves and vampires. The Valkyrie Collections books?
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Jul 14, 2020 03:30
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Seven Blades is pretty good as well, but apparently ol' Sam has a history of being a fucktard with the ladies at cons, so if you are avoiding authors for acting like idiots, just be aware. Oh come ON. loving hell every author I enjoy is a poo poo bird. Just going to stop buying anything at this point. FFS I have to retract some fan art too. Thanks for the heads up.
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Jul 14, 2020 04:12
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Upon checking my list, I have read all of em  , even down to Super City series by Keith R. A. Decandido.The Supernatural insurance agency thing was Demonic Indemnity by Craig McLay CC - I dunno if it helps or hinders, but he did apologize for whatever he did to hurt/annoy/harass people. He seemed genuine about it. I know that's a big thing for people though, so I'm not making judgements on if he needs to be forgiven or not, cause it didn't happen to me. I'm just personally not comfortable with having anything to do with him at the moment. Maybe after some time and some proof he's actually changed, I'll change my mind. Dunno about Myke Cole though. Seemed like a cool guy but after a peek behind the scenes, and his actions after his previous apology, I think I'm done with him totally. Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Jul 14, 2020 |
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Jul 14, 2020 04:29
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