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Thank you friend. Please leave an honest Amazon review so it can hit the 50 review mark and become a real book. Possibly this is impossible if you are in AU, I don't know  e: shameful
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Aug 17, 2020 04:05
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pradmer posted:Red Mars (Mars Trilogy #1) by Kim Stanley Robinson - $1.99 Absolute classic of futurism, world building and hard science fiction by probably the most important sci-fi writer of this generation quote:Hyperion by Dan Simmons - $1.99 The gimmick of mimicking the Canterbury Tales seems superfluous besides what is just a genuinely engaging, gripping sci-fi adventure mystery, but whatever floats Simmons' boat, this book and its sequel are both 10/10 excellent and the 3rd and 4th in the series are pretty fun too quote:The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke - $1.99 This is a collection of short stories, but if you enjoyed Strange & Norrell (and I assume everyone here did) you'll enjoy this quote:City of Stairs (Divine Cities #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett - $1.99 I liked this okay and I don't really like fantasy, I reckon regular readers of the genre would enjoy it a lot more than I did
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Aug 17, 2020 04:21
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buffalo all day posted:Foundryside is pretty much the ultimate example of the trend of modern fantasy stripping all the wonder and mystery out of the genre, it’s magic as literal coding (could not be more literal) set in steampunk Venice. The heroine’s super power is basically that she is incredible at debugging. God, I wish there were more Bas-Lag books
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Aug 17, 2020 05:15
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buffalo all day posted:Foundryside is pretty much the ultimate example of the trend of modern fantasy stripping all the wonder and mystery out of the genre, it’s magic as literal coding (could not be more literal) set in steampunk Venice. The heroine’s super power is basically that she is incredible at debugging. That description is kinda bad, since there is plenty of wonder and mystery in foundryside. Someone like Sanderson is far more literal in execution of magic rather than description.
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Aug 17, 2020 05:37
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The Glumslinger posted:Will recommend City of Stairs, it's a very fun book Second ! That's a trilogy that starts good and keeps getting better. I like Red Mars, that's a series about the terraforming of Mars. It has some storytelling conceits that put some people off, like a longevity treatment so characters from the First 100 colonists can stick around for generations, but on the whole the political drama and development of Mars itself as a character makes everything worthwhile. You want the two Gibsons, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, but you need to have read Neuromancer first. And reading Neuromancer should be mandatory for SF fans anyway, there really aren't enough superlatives to describe the impact it had when it was released.
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Aug 17, 2020 05:54
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Is reading Neuromancer really that necessary these days? I read it for the first time last year and the impact on me was rather muted. It was interesting as a time capsule but I’m not sure it holds up.
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Aug 17, 2020 06:29
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Spent the weekend reading Tyrant. What a beautiful, soulful book. I'm still not quite in the end yet; Xate Yawa has only just this moment eaten a tic-tac. "Enjoy the loving dolphins, Ahanna!" made me laugh - as did many other lines. For such a sad book, as others called, it, I find it in many ways hopeful, and a series payoff that sets up a fourth and final act that I expect to be some truly epic stuff. This was breathtaking, and I can't wait for book 4. (Yes, I will post an Amazon review.) Keep writing, General. People need to hear what you're saying.
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Aug 17, 2020 06:58
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Cardiac posted:That description is kinda bad, since there is plenty of wonder and mystery in foundryside. Yeah I liked Foundryside as well. I don’t think that adding rules to magic hurts it necessarily, and there was still a decent amount left unexplained. I do think the sequel makes the mistake of raising the stakes waaay too much, but honestly the first book is good even standalone.
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Aug 17, 2020 07:22
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So I'm a bit late to this party, but re: end of Harrow the person with Camilla is Gideon the First and Wake's actual kid, while Gideon the Ninth was obviously something else. This comes from the very brief side comment made by Gideon the First while fighting Wake-in-Cytherea, just asking "Why did you bring the ba-" and then later him tilting the whole plan because he thought his kid was there. Also in the description at the end the kid's eyes are mentioned as grey. I assume that means Alecto is up to no good in some other way, while Harrow is chilling in the mental drawer she had built herself for Gideon I liked Harrow pretty much all the way through, but I enjoyed the dialogue style a lot and just working through how weird all these people were, and trying to crack the mystery of what were obviously wrong re-tellings of the first story. The story structure as a whole was nicely complex, I felt, and I don't mind books that are often just a lot of people talking. Edited for unrelated topic: I was just sending a non-Amazon .mobi document to my Kindle and received a verification request in email. That's new to me, are Kindle viruses a thing now, that you wouldn't want weird attachments? occamsnailfile fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Aug 17, 2020 |
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Aug 17, 2020 08:37
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Not that I know of. I think it's more of a spam blocking feature. I ended up changing my Kindle email because it was easier than clicking through those goddamn emails after a while.
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Aug 17, 2020 08:55
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Some responses I was getting in the current Book of the Month thread made me realize I should post a link to it here, just for those of you browsing bookmarked. https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1289053712057544707?s=20 Jack B Nimble posted:The more I read this book, the more I realize its a predecessor to the foundational fantasy fiction of my childhood, Tolkien and Jacques, and for that reason has an extremely powerful resonance with me (also the Disney movie which I now want to re-watch). The earlier talk linking both The Hobbit and Redwall to Pyle's Robin Hood make and more sense the further I read; they're fun and wholesome in a way that, for example, Abercrombie isn't. I mean, really, I can say without hyperbole that I'm in love. This is my favorite book, period. And you can download it free. Please come join =)
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Aug 17, 2020 12:30
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Fallom posted:Is reading Neuromancer really that necessary these days? I read it for the first time last year and the impact on me was rather muted. It was interesting as a time capsule but I’m not sure it holds up. Honestly no, unless you are a completionist. Instead read Void Star by Zachary Mason, which is pretty much Neuromancer updated to more realistic "modern-era tech" standards while keeping all the now-standardized William Gibson-isms that people liked in Neuromancer.
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Aug 17, 2020 13:44
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:God, I wish there were more Bas-Lag books  I get that he wanted to spread his wings but god drat, the Scar was so good, so many ideas packed into it. Then again "October" was pretty great too...Cardiac posted:That description is kinda bad, since there is plenty of wonder and mystery in foundryside. 
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Aug 17, 2020 15:17
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I finished Baru 3 the other night and have been chewing it over since. I think above all else, it is a deeply sensitive book. Books like Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series have been lauded for dealing with themes of empire and complicity in it, but I feel like Baru is much more substantive and unflinching. I really felt Baru's longing for Taranoke along with her, and the little hurts that come with losing her home, like not knowing the word for the council of elders in Uronoki. While Baru 2 felt like a blind rush and panicked pinwheeling around the world, Baru 3, despite the similar pace of action, feels like a personal journey above all. Baru's healing is both hard-won and beautifully depicted. I really applaud the General for being able to depict something so awful, so unforgivable---and forgiven. She is able to, if not perfectly forgive herself, come to grips with what she did to Tain Hu and Aurdwynn in the service of taking down Falcrest. And the achievement of that measure of grace feels earned. I'm a big fan of the ending: it feels hopeful and bittersweet. If the next book takes several years, that is perfectly fine. The story has many things left to resolve (the contest with Renascent, the stuff Over There, the fate of Oriati Mbo and the Cancrioth, and resolution for Aminata), but it also feels right at the end of Baru 3. The frank admission in the acknowledgements section about the toll of writing and the uncertainty of conclusions was almost as impressive as the novel itself: it takes a lot of guts to admit that and to be honest about capacity. Thank you for such a wonderful book. I cried multiple times and truly feel like I know some of the characters and their struggles, which is incredible for a book in a world so removed from our own: but that's what really good books do  I will leave a much less spoilers review on Amazon!
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Aug 17, 2020 16:25
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Children of time. Great sci fi that felt like "old" sci fi, which i fully mean as a compliment. Good twists, and seeins the spider civilization advance was lovely. "Old" sci fi means to me that the characters may not be very well developed or that important, but the ideas behind the story are really good. The dark forest. Trilogy to the three body problem. Good sequels, interesting take on how humanity would react to a deadly alien invasion that's (slowly) coming. BUt it felt like it wanted something to be a twist, but it was quite obvious, that was confusing. The main characters is not that interesting, but the cop "side kick" returining from book 1 is funny. Are the sequels worth it? No spoilers about plot please.
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Aug 17, 2020 22:05
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Also, we're still looking for more people for the Gideon the Ninth whodunnit readalong. We'll be moving on to the second segment this Friday. Please join us for necromantic Agatha Christie in space!
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Aug 17, 2020 22:18
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General Battuta posted:Thank you friend. Please leave an honest Amazon review so it can hit the 50 review mark and become a real book. Possibly this is impossible if you are in AU, I don't know Will it let you do that if you bought it somewhere other than Amazon?
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Aug 17, 2020 22:33
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ToxicFrog posted:Will it let you do that if you bought it somewhere other than Amazon? It will, it just won't be listed as being from a "verified purchaser" so it may count less towards their algorithm, unsure of how that works.
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Aug 17, 2020 22:49
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New Adrian Tchaikovsky just dropped. It's book season, I guess!
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Aug 18, 2020 05:08
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I'm a quarter of the way through Baru 2 and have a question: Am I reading it right that the Masquerade have been patriarchal and homophobic for a long time but the eugenic hygiene standards and particularly the extreme measures like forced circumcision are a relatively new thing arising from Hesychast's ideas?
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Aug 18, 2020 06:50
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buffalo all day posted:Foundryside is pretty much the ultimate example of the trend of modern fantasy stripping all the wonder and mystery out of the genre, it’s magic as literal coding (could not be more literal) set in steampunk Venice. The heroine’s super power is basically that she is incredible at debugging. Wow, look at this chump who thinks that rules strip all the wonder out of things. *staring at a waterfall in a moonlit jungle with a loved one by your side* "Pff, don't be an idiot, you know it's just water and gravity, right? The arc of the water and the light reflecting off it are the simple application of physical laws. This loam? I can tell you the elemental composition. That beetle there? An expression of the DNA within it. Oh, don't look so pissy - anger is merely a chemical reaction that. . ."
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Aug 18, 2020 07:25
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John Lee posted:Wow, look at this chump who thinks that rules strip all the wonder out of things. It should be noted that modern biochemistry is basically a black box.
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Aug 18, 2020 07:31
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Baru 3 - "I thought I knew who was under there. Apparently I was mistaken." 
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Aug 18, 2020 07:40
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Cardiac posted:It should be noted that modern biochemistry is basically a black box. I mean, a fair point, but the rules exist, and we're in the process of understanding and exploiting them, so I trust the main thrust of the argument remains clear.
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Aug 18, 2020 07:52
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General Battuta posted:Thank you friend. Please leave an honest Amazon review so it can hit the 50 review mark and become a real book. Possibly this is impossible if you are in AU, I don't know Looks like it let me leave one via the AU store. I hope that gets added to the US total or whatever! Ceebees posted:Baru 3 - That whole scene! Farrier is just a wonderful character.
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Aug 18, 2020 08:40
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snoremac posted:I'm a quarter of the way through Baru 2 and have a question: I think it's more that in Falcrest itself the penalties have been gradually relaxed over time as the people of the Republic have internalized homophobia to the extent that the Masquerade no longer has to worry about unhygienic However in the colonies like Taranoke and Aurdwynn the Masquerade imposes much harsher punishments in an attempt to destroy the native cultures which tolerate homosexuality. I'm pretty sure there are real-world examples of colonial powers enforcing their norms much more strictly in their colonies than in the metropole. Interestingly of the two cryptarchs Farrier seems to be much more personally homophobic than Hesychast even though it's Hesychast who's in charge of maintaining the hygiene standards. I'm not quite sure how that fits in to be honest. Can't wait for Baru 3 to finally come out on the blighted shores of this former colonial hegemon 
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Aug 18, 2020 08:54
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Me, logging into the thread: what's a baru? 5 minutes later: welp I guess I just ordered a copy of all three books. freebooter posted:Absolute classic of futurism, world building and hard science fiction by probably the most important sci-fi writer of this generation I read this over a holiday last year and it has this slow pace that I found really relaxing. One of my favourites! Also another of the "read the first book not rest" club. Also I finished more Black Company goddamn that stuff is a guilty pleasure of mine.The company joining the rebellion should seem cliche and predictable and yet I enjoyed the heck out of it. Also I spoilet myself and found out Raven isn't actually dead because I was sure he wasn't at the end of book 2.
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Aug 18, 2020 09:04
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Gato posted:I think it's more that in Falcrest itself the penalties have been gradually relaxed over time as the people of the Republic have internalized homophobia to the extent that the Masquerade no longer has to worry about unhygienic I'm not sure about any of that. As I see it the Masquerade are well aware that you can't eliminate divergent sexuality so they use it as blackmail instead. Baru would never have become a Cryptarch if she wasn't gay because the Masquerade need that hold on her. They wanted Tain Hu to have as hostage and confirm their hold on Baru - and one day I will want to see a good explanation for why Baru wasn't killed when she defied their expectations.
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Aug 18, 2020 09:49
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Gato posted:I think it's more that in Falcrest itself the penalties have been gradually relaxed over time as the people of the Republic have internalized homophobia to the extent that the Masquerade no longer has to worry about unhygienic I like the tidbit about how the middle class in Falcrest would be furious to learn about atrocities abroad they unknowingly profit from not because of the atrocities but the learning of them. snoremac fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Aug 18, 2020 |
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Aug 18, 2020 10:06
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Jedit posted:I'm not sure about any of that. As I see it the Masquerade are well aware that you can't eliminate divergent sexuality so they use it as blackmail instead. Baru would never have become a Cryptarch if she wasn't gay because the Masquerade need that hold on her. They wanted Tain Hu to have as hostage and confirm their hold on Baru - and one day I will want to see a good explanation for why Baru wasn't killed when she defied their expectations. I agree that the Masquerade has probably realized you can't eliminate homosexuality, but my impression was that their main concern was that it would be inherited by future generations and therefore make society as a whole less hygienic. Since the Masquerade's model of genetics is Lamarckian, they presumably believe that homosexuality won't be inherited as long as you don't act on it. Of course that doesn't stop them using it as useful blackmail material as well. As for why Baru isn't killed for denying them blackmail material I thought it was explicitly that she's under Farrier's protection, because he sees her decision to kill Tain Hu as vindication of his belief that psychological conditioning alone is enough to make someone a model Republican citizen. The other cryptarchs absolutely see Baru as a threat, but it takes them the whole book to work out how to get rid of her without tipping off Farrier.
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Aug 18, 2020 11:29
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Kesper North posted:New Adrian Tchaikovsky just dropped. It's book season, I guess! Wait, what’s it called?
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Aug 18, 2020 11:45
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The Doors of Eden
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Aug 18, 2020 11:56
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Baru III: What has she done now?! was fantastic. A large book but a fast read (at least for me, excited to see what happens next) and a lot of wonderful payoff for the events of the first two books before the curtain closed. I remain excited to read more in this series and very satisfied with the current stopping point. Yay. Left an Amazon Review. Foundryside: It's been a while since I read it but it really failed to grab me the way his Cities books did. I don't remember exactly why. Maybe I should give the second book a look just in case... Looking forward to the speculation in the Gideon Whodunnit Readalong, but having read/listened to GtN probably four times now, I can't really contribute. I feel like the people grouching about Harrow the Ninth just hate fun, but maybe I've become more tolerant of silly things. I loved it. Rereading it was a blast because there really are a ton of hints as to what's going on that I feel like I could have picked up on if I were a slower, more patient and diligent reader. And so much pays off in the end, even Ortus's Poetry...
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Aug 18, 2020 12:12
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Kesper North posted:New Adrian Tchaikovsky just dropped. It's book season, I guess! 2 days until it releases over here in the UK. Any good? If it's Children of Time level of writing I'll happy buy it. If it's more Shadows of the Apt, I will skip it.
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Aug 18, 2020 12:24
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John Lee posted:I mean, a fair point, but the rules exist, and we're in the process of understanding and exploiting them, so I trust the main thrust of the argument remains clear. Well, the current explanations for basically anything detailed in biochemistry cannot be explained in simple layman terms and for the common man might just be seen as magic in terms of understanding. And then I haven't even mentioned quantum mechanics.
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Aug 18, 2020 12:44
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John Lee posted:Wow, look at this chump who thinks that rules strip all the wonder out of things. It's a testament to fantasy writing/fandom that I honestly can't tell whether you're trying to prove me wrong or right...
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Aug 18, 2020 13:53
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If you told me Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time was their first written novel that took 7 years to be published, I'd believe it. Newcomers to Alex Verus series tldr summary: the meme about reaping & sowing ..... time passes ..... ...repeated for every book/every Alex Verus series meta-plot point SFL Archives read-through update: Zero progress Replacement screens for the (broken) kindle device I use to do the SFL archives read-through all have extended shipping times from China(minimum 3-7 weeks), and it looks like it might be cheaper and faster to just get another used older generation kindle device from ebay.
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Aug 18, 2020 15:51
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Finished Tigana last night. God I love GGK books. Up until the last few chapters it was a 10/10 for me but I don't think it quite stuck the landing so overall its probably only a 9/10, but man did I enjoy it. Think of the GGK I've read Lions is still my favourite but this was close!
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Aug 18, 2020 16:17
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Carrier posted:Finished Tigana last night. God I love GGK books. Up until the last few chapters it was a 10/10 for me but I don't think it quite stuck the landing so overall its probably only a 9/10, but man did I enjoy it. Think of the GGK I've read Lions is still my favourite but this was close! I'm a big fan of Kay's not-quite-historical fantasy novels too. I'd be hard-pressed to name a favorite but both those are definitely up there along with Under Heaven. Couldn't really get into the Fionavar books though.
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Aug 18, 2020 18:26
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snoremac posted:I'm a quarter of the way through Baru 2 and have a question: My impression is that the codification of Incrastic hygiene was an intentional state project which drew on existing prejudices/traditions, but made them more intense and stringent. For example, there is a section where one of the characters talks about how forced circumcision is sort of a historical mistake. It just so happened that one king who happened to be gay and was mostly being punished for something else had it done to him, and then it just sort of grew & got more established. So at least for that practice, it sounds like it was sort of a mix of historical accident/cultural evolution which was then enforced by these modern standards/practices. The whole world of Baru is such a well thought out analogue to imperialism in the real world, and touches like the one above definitely contribute to that. Falcrest is not just a faceless evil empire- instead the underlying history/internal logic and motivations which causes a bunch of not-really-evil people to do awful things is so well laid out. It really feels like you’ve come away with a new understanding of imperialism in the real world after reading about it in this fictional one. fritz posted:I liked Kate Elliott's "Unconquerable Sun" an awful lot. Thank you for the rec!
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Aug 18, 2020 22:22
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