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I have yet to find an actually great dragon companion/rider book and it makes me sad. There are some good ones - Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede comes to mind, and Jane Yolen's Pit Dragons - but there are none that hit that magic balance of super indulgent/cool AND with plotty worldbuilding. Pern comes closest and ehhhhhhhnnnn. Also while I'm in here lemme respond: Rianlee posted:Jennifer Roberson's Cheysuli Chronicles. I vaguely remember there being companion animals. These books have been on my radar forever and I'm probably going to read the first one soon. I would love it if there were more of these types of novels (women-written fantasy with cool animals) without rape but apparently not. Also, since I finally remembered it, anyone read the Gayle Greeno Ghatti's Tale novels? Five books with magic cats!!
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Nov 28, 2020 04:43
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StrixNebulosa posted:Also, since I finally remembered it, anyone read the Gayle Greeno Ghatti's Tale novels? Five books with magic cats!! I read and re-read the first one a ton when I was in middle school. I got around to the others eventually from the library, but since I had picked up the first one from a bookstore I could read it whenever. Another good entry in the sci-fantasy genre since the later books start to dive into the history of the planetary colonists. Even at a young age I remember the most remarkable thing about the books was the representation. I had never read a fantasy book where the main character was a middle-aged woman who had undergone major career/family changes prior to the events of the novel. Fantasy was all about young people discovering themselves and going on quests.
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Nov 28, 2020 04:51
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StrixNebulosa posted:Finished another book and I'm gonna gush, here's my goodreads review: I know this was some pages back but I picked it up and read through it and yes, it is very much a first novel--but I still finished it and enjoyed the romantic bits. The second one is much stronger IMO, showing a lot of improvement and characterization. Anyway if you want light fantasy romance, it is pretty good stuff.
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Nov 28, 2020 05:02
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I picked it up based on that recommendation too but found it really boring  . The main pairing just didn't have enough chemistry for me to get past the infodumping and lack of stakes in the first half of the novel. edit: oh, having a look at the series, they seem to be standalone, so I might try out the second one and see if I like that better. Metis of the Chat Thread fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Nov 28, 2020 |
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Nov 28, 2020 07:19
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I'd recommend doing so, the second is a massive improvement IMO.
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Nov 28, 2020 07:40
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Is there a translated cultivation/xianxia novel which is worth reading? I’m curious wtf is up with this genre.
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Nov 28, 2020 09:13
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tildes posted:Is there a translated cultivation/xianxia novel which is worth reading? I’m curious wtf is up with this genre. While it’s not translated (it’s originally in English), the Cradle series is a pretty good intro-to-Xianxia anime series. And the whole thing is free on kindle unlimited.
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Nov 28, 2020 09:16
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Captain Monkey posted:While it’s not translated (it’s originally in English), the Cradle series is a pretty good intro-to-Xianxia anime series. And the whole thing is free on kindle unlimited. like if you want the legitimate experience of reading through a crappily translated serially-published bloat monster, you could breeze through Cultivation Chat Group which is at least sometimes funny [but also a bit heavy on the gay jokes] and reasonably well translated but don't
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Nov 28, 2020 13:21
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tildes posted:Is there a translated cultivation/xianxia novel which is worth reading? I’m curious wtf is up with this genre. no
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Nov 28, 2020 14:56
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you know how there's a whole LitRPG thing where people have been so brain-poisoned by computer games that they can only understand stories if Number Goes Up? xianxia is very closely related but with significant 'it's from CHINA, DAD, you wouldn't GET it' energy from white nerds
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Nov 28, 2020 15:01
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Uh changing the subject, I read Survival by Julie Czerneda and it's... almost there, to me. This thread talked about it before but it was a while ago, so the back-page summary is: a salmon researcher gets pulled into investigating die-offs on an interplanetary scale by an alien archaeologist whose species doesn't allow learning biology... therefore he recruits her, the scientist, and her best friend. Put like that, and since it's written by a biologist, you expect a really interesting scifi thing where the main character uses her knowledge of biology to figure out what's going on and have an uphill battle to gather enough evidence to convince people, which would be awesome, except instead she gets pulled into an action based conspiracy with both personal and large scale action scenes. It's all done really well, but the version of the book that only exists in my head makes me a lot less interested in the book as it exists, no matter how well it's done. Anybody who's read the sequels - is it more of the same?
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Nov 28, 2020 17:18
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Phobeste posted:Uh changing the subject, I read Survival by Julie Czerneda and it's... almost there, to me. This thread talked about it before but it was a while ago, so the back-page summary is: a salmon researcher gets pulled into investigating die-offs on an interplanetary scale by an alien archaeologist whose species doesn't allow learning biology... therefore he recruits her, the scientist, and her best friend. Put like that, and since it's written by a biologist, you expect a really interesting scifi thing where the main character uses her knowledge of biology to figure out what's going on and have an uphill battle to gather enough evidence to convince people, which would be awesome, except instead she gets pulled into an action based conspiracy with both personal and large scale action scenes. It's all done really well, but the version of the book that only exists in my head makes me a lot less interested in the book as it exists, no matter how well it's done. Yeah. If you don't like the first book it's not going to wow you with the rest of them. I loved it, but it's very Star Trek-esque in a great way.
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Nov 28, 2020 17:52
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StrixNebulosa posted:I have yet to find an actually great dragon companion/rider book and it makes me sad. There are some good ones - Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede comes to mind, and Jane Yolen's Pit Dragons - but there are none that hit that magic balance of super indulgent/cool AND with plotty worldbuilding. Pern comes closest and ehhhhhhhnnnn. Have you read the Rain wild chronicles by Robin Hobb. It is not the classic dragon companion story, but it was a good read. Separate storyline from the Apprentice series but I really liked it. Disclaimer: I will by default like any Robin Hobb book. At this point she is the only surviving author of my formative years in fantasy.
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Nov 28, 2020 18:09
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Cardiac posted:Have you read the Rain wild chronicles by Robin Hobb. It is not the classic dragon companion story, but it was a good read. Separate storyline from the Apprentice series but I really liked it. I haven't read any Robin Hobb yet. The biggest reason I haven't gone for her yet is that I hear her stuff gets sad and it's been a rough year. But I've seen her recced a lot and I'd like to dive in eventually.
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Nov 28, 2020 18:23
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StrixNebulosa posted:Yeah. If you don't like the first book it's not going to wow you with the rest of them. I loved it, but it's very Star Trek-esque in a great way. Yeah what the book is is good but unfortunately I can't get past what I thought it would be. Oh well
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Nov 28, 2020 18:30
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Phobeste posted:Yeah what the book is is good but unfortunately I can't get past what I thought it would be. Oh well (full trilogy spoilers) And I've got to say, (1) it's not actually playing with reader expectations to have the secretive-and-seemingly-evil-aliens* turn out to be super evil after all; and (2) after spending the entire series trying to stop the preemptive genocide of a species possessing a hugely dangerous biological life cycle because goddamnit there has to be a better way!, dealing with said secretive-and-super-evil-aliens by genociding them all because 'eh, they're all assholes and inimical to life or something, problem heroically solved!' came off as decidedly lazy and hosed up. *seriously their scout drones made evil noises and left evil slime trails and they had TENTACLES. All they needed was a hive mind lacking understanding of the concept of individuality and we've got a full bingo edit: and now that I'm looking up stuff online I'm being reminded about things that I disliked at the time but had completely forgotten, like the unending and desperate attempts to give the main character gradeschool-level chemistry with secret agent guy when she seemed to be at 100/10 gals-bein'-pals with her VERY GOOD FRIEND, THAT IS ALL, JUST MY BEST FRIEND from the first page they interacted, even before said best friend got Princess Peach'd by super evil aliens and she vowed to go Marioing for her. Maybe it would've taken more than just added ecological restoration and fewer gunfights/spaceships to make me like this trilogy. Drakyn fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Nov 28, 2020 |
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Nov 28, 2020 18:45
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pradmer posted:A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan #1) by Arkady Martine - $2.99 Thanks for this, I've had my eye on this one for a while and I'm enjoying it so far, reminds me of Goblin Emperor a bit
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Nov 28, 2020 19:51
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Re: Pern, I've only read one of them, Dragondawn, which I think was a later prequel. It's basically the origin story of the setting, with a technical society (a new planetary colony) having to resort to dragons (which are indigenous to the planet) to combat the unexpected menace of the Thread, when other methods fail. The only thing I really remember about the story is that some kind of distress beacon is set off by the colonists that'll summon a rescue ship/mission, but since it's all STL it'll take hundreds of years to get there. It was kind of interesting to have an SF time-bomb ticking behind a fantasy setting, but not sufficiently interesting that I read any more of the series to see if there was ever a pay-off.
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Nov 28, 2020 20:25
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Horizon Burning posted:you know how there's a whole LitRPG thing where people have been so brain-poisoned by computer games that they can only understand stories if Number Goes Up? xianxia is very closely related but with significant 'it's from CHINA, DAD, you wouldn't GET it' energy from white nerds Hm I think maybe I don’t actually know what LitRPG or Xianxia is tbh. My impression is just that there is a Chinese cultural phenomenon where they are really into writing books about people studying the Dao but I think I’m missing some key parts here. (Ok yea some googling suggests i didn’t have a super clear idea of what this was. Ty for all the context)
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Nov 28, 2020 20:58
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Captain Monkey posted:While it’s not translated (it’s originally in English), the Cradle series is a pretty good intro-to-Xianxia anime series. And the whole thing is free on kindle unlimited. Ohhh I actually am familiar with this series. I see what y’all mean about leveling up now, that makes sense.
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Nov 28, 2020 21:04
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StrixNebulosa posted:I haven't read any Robin Hobb yet. The biggest reason I haven't gone for her yet is that I hear her stuff gets sad and it's been a rough year. But I've seen her recced a lot and I'd like to dive in eventually. Well, yeah, that is an accurate description. Hobb doesn’t write the fairy tale endings, although a lot of her protagonists have plot armor. The books are well worth reading and while they might be a struggle at times, they are well worth it. But then again , I have read Hobb the last 25 years or so.
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Nov 28, 2020 21:28
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Cardiac posted:Well, yeah, that is an accurate description. My favorite author, CJ Cherryh, is one I wouldn't be up to reading this year if I didn't already adore her stuff - she writes dark/sad stuff as well, and yeah. So don't take this as a knock against Robin Hobb!
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Nov 28, 2020 21:41
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Hobnob posted:The only thing I really remember about the story is that some kind of distress beacon is set off by the colonists that'll summon a rescue ship/mission, but since it's all STL it'll take hundreds of years to get there. It was kind of interesting to have an SF time-bomb ticking behind a fantasy setting, but not sufficiently interesting that I read any more of the series to see if there was ever a pay-off. Boy, would you have been disappointed if you'd kept reading. The pay-off is a short story, set within living memory of Dragondawn. Spaceship arrives, but it's threadfall season so the Holds are in hunker mode and their scans fail to pick up life. Except for one outpost on the southern continent. It's the daughter of the geneticist, her husband, and their daughters, clinging on in a cave somewhere. They think everyone else is dead, say so, it turns out the husband is running some incest misery bunker where he's loving the daughters (why), and so the ship marks the planet as dead and sails off into the void. The end.
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Nov 28, 2020 23:31
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 I am so glad I stopped reading Pern books after being forced to read Dragonsong in elementary school and bouncing hard off the second one.
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Nov 29, 2020 01:25
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Drakyn posted:There was a very cool novella about sci-fi far-future salmon ecological restoration here I did not know until this moment how much I wanted to read a novel about far-future ecological investigation / restoration. Salmon optional, but not unwelcome.
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Nov 29, 2020 01:27
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DurianGray posted:I also remember one of the Pern books to be the first time that something just viscerally threw me out of a story because of how unexpected/tone-breaking it was to me. I don't remember the exact book but there's a part toward the beginning of it where the characters find a (spoiler I guess?) computer that explains what the Thread is. Nothing in the books I'd read before that made it seem like the setting was anything other than fantasy-medieval-ish, so it came across as very The very fist book’s opening prologue makes clear that despite the general fantasy feel, Pern is extremely a sci-fi series at heart. The spoiler thing they find isn’t too surprising because iirc there are similar things that show up before then as well. I kinda want to finish the pern series but it sounds like a lot of books after the first trilogy is side story and background filler so idk when the main story starts back up. The setting itself is cool but he nature of the dragon nests is extremely hosed.
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Nov 29, 2020 01:41
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Kestral posted:I did not know until this moment how much I wanted to read a novel about far-future ecological investigation / restoration. Salmon optional, but not unwelcome. Playing God by Sarah Zettel. The setup is about a human contracted to do ecological restoration for some aliens, however the plot is mostly about the interplay between intra and inter species politics. Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson. Some humans go back in time to do an ecological survey as preparation for an ecological restoration project. A goon gave me this for secret Santa last year and it was a good fun read.
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Nov 29, 2020 01:45
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StrixNebulosa posted:I have yet to find an actually great dragon companion/rider book and it makes me sad. There are some good ones - Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede comes to mind, and Jane Yolen's Pit Dragons - but there are none that hit that magic balance of super indulgent/cool AND with plotty worldbuilding. Pern comes closest and ehhhhhhhnnnn. Well, does one dragon bonding with one person(sort of?)count? There's The Tale of the Five series by Diane Duane, although the bonding doesn't happen until the second book. In regards to magic cats, there's the Feline Wizards trilogy that she also wrote. Her books in general are very uplifting and positive, although I haven't read her most recent books, so am not sure if it still holds true.
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Nov 29, 2020 02:15
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Rianlee posted:Well, does one dragon bonding with one person(sort of?)count? There's The Tale of the Five series by Diane Duane, although the bonding doesn't happen until the second book. In regards to magic cats, there's the Feline Wizards trilogy that she also wrote. Her books in general are very uplifting and positive, although I haven't read her most recent books, so am not sure if it still holds true. Diane Duane is an incredible writer with one flaw: she will heroically kill off a major side character at the finale of every novel. She even did this in her Star Trek novels! 
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Nov 29, 2020 02:24
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StrixNebulosa posted:Diane Duane is an incredible writer with one flaw: she will heroically kill off a major side character at the finale of every novel. She even did this in her Star Trek novels! Maybe I should re-read The Tales of the Five again, because I definitely don't recall that happening there. In every other series, yeah, pretty much. E. Wait, there was. I guess I was not as attached to the side characters in that series as I was with the Wizards series. Rianlee fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Nov 29, 2020 |
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Nov 29, 2020 02:31
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StrixNebulosa posted:Yeah. If you don't like the first book it's not going to wow you with the rest of them. I loved it, but it's very Star Trek-esque in a great way. I actually think they're all pretty different plot-wise but if you didn't like the writing it won't get better
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Nov 29, 2020 04:53
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I finally looked up how Pern ended - how they defeated Thread and resolved the whole situation and I'm so glad I looked it up instead of reading it, as it's combination creative, epic, and stupid as all hell. I think preteen me would have been dissatisfied, so I'm glad I wasn't able to find the rest of the books back then. It's nice to have some closure, though. Even if it reveals that in a post-defeating Thread world, Pern finds magic dolphins and then everyone is happy with dolphins and dragons forever amen.
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Nov 29, 2020 05:21
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StrixNebulosa posted:My favorite author, CJ Cherryh, is one I wouldn't be up to reading this year if I didn't already adore her stuff - she writes dark/sad stuff as well, and yeah. So don't take this as a knock against Robin Hobb! I have read Downbelow station and have the Chanur series on my to read list. You are not actually selling me on her by this description. Mostly because it is an emotional struggle to read Hobb that I need to push through since I know it is worth it. Speaking of Hobb, the Bone ships series by Barker is very reminiscent of Hobbs writing and worlds. Highly enjoyable for the same reasons.
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Nov 29, 2020 17:46
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StrixNebulosa posted:I finally looked up how Pern ended - how they defeated Thread and resolved the whole situation and I'm so glad I looked it up instead of reading it, as it's combination creative, epic, and stupid as all hell. I think preteen me would have been dissatisfied, so I'm glad I wasn't able to find the rest of the books back then. I remember being pretty happy with it as a kid (and cut up about Robinton's death), but I tried re-reading Weyrs a year or two back and I don't think I made it more than a fifth of the way through.
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Nov 29, 2020 18:36
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Cardiac posted:I have read Downbelow station and have the Chanur series on my to read list. You are not actually selling me on her by this description. Downbelow Station sucks. Chanur series meanwhile is my favorite thing to rec as it's actually one of her lightest series - it has tough moments but it's mostly sci-fi thriller awesome stuff with alien psychologies. No, when I'm talking about Cherryh writing dark/sad stuff I'm thinking of the Faded Sun trilogy or Cyteen. I love that stuff but whooooof. Also I loved the Bone Ships! Can't wait to read the sequel. 
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Nov 29, 2020 18:44
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I finished Arrow's Flight (Valdemar #2) and oh man I love this book: A fascinating exploration of mental health, the ethics of being a magical empath, and a disaster survival novel all in one. What a book! The premise is, Talia finally sets out on her first circuit - she goes on a year long ride with a mentor around the northern territories of Valdemar and stops at every small village and dispenses the Queen's Justice and fends off bandits and other problems. The majority of the book is spent deep in character study, as shortly after the circuit begins, her control over her psychic powers begins to disintegrate, and all of her insecurity, fears, angers and worse come to play. There's also a good look at her mentor, Kris - he's fascinatingly helpful and flawed, as he wants to trust Talia but doesn't, and he's a teacher of Gifts but doesn't know how to help her for a long time. It all comes to a head in the middle of the novel where they barely reach a shelter in time for the worst blizzard in history to hit, and it's just them, their horses and two pack animals and Talia's broken mental state as she hits rock bottom - and slowly finds herself again. It's fantastic, different from the first book and more tightly plotted but just as emotional. More clues as to future problems abound, and characters continue to live their lives and develop, and the central drama of Talia and Kris is just, mwah. I loved this book. It works better than the first one and it's so...so reassuring to read a book that delves into mental illness in a fantasy setting without magically fixing it. Highly recommended, but read the first one first!
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Nov 29, 2020 18:45
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StrixNebulosa posted:I re-read Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen, the first of the Valdemar saga, and here's my revised review: StrixNebulosa posted:I finished Arrow's Flight (Valdemar #2) and oh man I love this book:
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Nov 29, 2020 19:07
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StrixNebulosa posted:Downbelow Station sucks. I HATED Downbelow Station. It takes a cool setting and premise does absolutely nothing with them. The aliens are painful to read-- a blend of cliché native American tropes and Jar Jar Binks.
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Nov 30, 2020 05:04
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Harrow the Ninth is $2.99 on Kindle in the US right now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WYSGHC7/?coliid=I1VLDVPO0OZV0C&colid=30BMWTZBYAZYK&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
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Nov 30, 2020 07:21
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TOOT BOOT posted:Harrow the Ninth is $2.99 on Kindle in the US right now:
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Nov 30, 2020 17:05
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