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Just went on a bing of the xeelee sequence novels and holy poo poo the books get wild towards the end ( I read it backwards lol) Flinging black holes at each other and inter-galactic wars where they time travel to cancel out each other’s tactics isn’t even spoiling the story at all, that’s in the blurb. It gets way tcrazier from there.
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Nov 30, 2020 18:25
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BananaNutkins posted: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. Aliens aside, I liked Downbelow Station a lot.
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Nov 30, 2020 20:46
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PawParole posted:Just went on a bing of the xeelee sequence novels and holy poo poo the books get wild towards the end ( I read it backwards lol) I bounced off vacuum diagrams. Felt too much like a contrived framing device to connect what felt like an otherwise unrelated collection of short stories. Do the novels hold together better?
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Nov 30, 2020 21:02
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Ben Bova has died of COVID-related complications.
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Nov 30, 2020 22:18
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Truly one elder statesman. He was active in writing to this year, at 88.
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Nov 30, 2020 22:23
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Holy poo poo, thanks for that, I didn't think it'd go on deep sale this soon after coming out. Can I just say, as someone who read this at release, Harrow is an absolute trip. And if you are interested someone started a Locked Tomb thread a few weeks back https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3937069
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Nov 30, 2020 23:29
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The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087X6Z1GS/ The Hammer by KJ Parker - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0047Y0FDM/ The Company by KJ Parker - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002B9MHQ8/ Some other KJ Parker books I posted previously are still on sale as well. Mr Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ZDK0NC/ Same for RJB. Fellside by MR Carey - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013HA6WAG/ As mentioned by TOOT BOOT already... Harrow the Ninth (Locked Tomb #2) by Tamsyn Muir - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WYSGHC7/
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Nov 30, 2020 23:44
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Ornamented Death posted:Ben Bova has died of COVID-related complications. Well gently caress. Sure he was old, but still, gently caress.
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Nov 30, 2020 23:45
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Ornamented Death posted:Ben Bova has died of COVID-related complications. That sucks. I admit I haven't read a lot of his work, but I enjoyed Orion and The Starcrossed.
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Dec 1, 2020 01:41
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In further proof that the enemy of your enemy isn't your friend, Ready Player Two got review-bombed because it mentioned a transperson at some point.
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Dec 1, 2020 02:11
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I wasn't aware that Bova was still alive, but it sucks he died from a plague that's been incredibly mishandled. Dude was a legend.
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Dec 1, 2020 03:39
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Oh poo poo that sucks. I liked Bova's "Grand Tour" stuff, even if it was hardly high art (and the older stories are dated) it got me thinking about actual ecological implications and climate change and stuff as a teenager.
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Dec 1, 2020 04:26
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pradmer posted:The Hammer by KJ Parker - $1.99 Every time you list KJ Parker I check, and every time I'm sad that I've already bought the books in question.
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Dec 1, 2020 06:18
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Just got to the part of Baru 3 where (mid book spoilers, page 350ish) tau says "okay everyone I'm high and not depressed anymore, and no I won't be apologizing at all for the last few days. anyway, baru's a piece of poo poo who also rules, and her name's on the cover of the book so we're all gonna help her. ps do mushrooms". This is an amazing book and every page has a new turn of phrase or trick of prose which sends me spinning in my chair
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Dec 1, 2020 09:30
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Ornamented Death posted:Ben Bova has died of COVID-related complications. Selachian posted:That sucks. I admit I haven't read a lot of his work, but I enjoyed Orion and The Starcrossed. That is sad news. RIP Ben Bova. The SFL Archives has discussed Starcrossed many times. For those who never read it, The Starcrossed was Ben Bova thinly fictionalizing how Canadian tv-producer interference doomed a scifi tv-series both Harlan Ellison & Ben Bova worked on. By itself, The Starlost sounded like an intriguing concept if put in the right hands, and with the Expanse tv-series getting canceled, would not be shocked if the rights for Starlost got optioned/rebooted ala Battlestar Galactica 2004.
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Dec 1, 2020 09:32
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https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1333736344733032450?s=20
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Dec 1, 2020 12:41
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Is there some reason why you post in the SA forum Book Barn about the SA forum Book Barn secret santa using a public twitter link as opposed to just...a normal post?
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Dec 1, 2020 15:43
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Before I post this review: I'm glad I wrote this review because it helped me come to terms with how the author wrote this book, and while it's still flawed, I view it in a much better light. Writing reviews is a great way to organize your thoughts and heighten your understanding of a book. Anyways, yes! I finished off the first Valdemar trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and it was great! Here's my review. A flawed, problematic finale to a great trilogy. Obviously, don't start here as you'll miss plot spoilers and the far superior books 1 and 2. The plot opens with Talia and Kris returning to the Capital and taking up their old duties - and the first mess in the book opens up. Kris doesn't believe that Talia is right when she suspects his uncle of being a villain, which drives an angry wedge between them. Dirk thinks Talia and Kris are in a relationship, so he desperately tries not to interfere while the nascent lifebond rips his sanity apart. And Talia can't trust Kris, and Dirk's avoiding her, so she focuses on work while the villains work to make things even worse. It all comes to a head and resolution fairly early on - at least, Talia and Kris become friends again - but Dirk's a mess, and Elspeth's gotten herself into trouble. But we have to leave all of that aside, as while it's alright if occasionally infuriating personal drama, the stakes are about to shoot up. Talia and Kris are sent to a neighboring country to find out if it's safe for the Queen to follow for a diplomatic incident...and everything goes to hell. I'll avoid details, except for two: Talia is captured, and in the ensuing torture, she's raped. Yeah. It's not graphic at all, barely a line or two, but it's hosed up to include in a novel that's otherwise been relatively circumspect when it comes to evil on this scale. The villains now aren't just evil - they're monstrous, hideously evil, and, to be frank, I think the author could have conveyed this without including the rape. Especially because, weirdly, it's given little to no attention in Talia's recovery. Or, let me put it another way: the author didn't write Talia's recovery. Effectively Talia's POV ends when she gives up in imprisonment, and it switches to Dirk's for the rest of the novel. We don't get to see any of Talia's recovery from the inside - which is a fascinating choice. Instead we see the outside of it, and there aren't mentions of what she must have gone through mentally. We see Talia as she presents herself - not as she is. Huh. I hadn't realized that until I wrote this. It...actually makes a lot more sense, and I'm beginning to forgive the author more for this. Dirk's POV is completely unequipped to cope with Talia's trauma, she doesn't share it - see the last two books - and so it makes sense that it's not brought up much at all. This also helps the author neatly side-step taking this book into a darker and heavier place than it might be ready for. Or, perhaps, than what the author was ready to write. I don't know. But, back to the review: the core of the book is the emotional tangle of Talia, Kris and Dirk and how it resolves itself, with attendant plot - and Talia's capture aside, the plottier elements are carried out deftly, with fantastic worldbuilding and details. Seeing Valdemar put under strain makes the strength and beauty of its systems all the more apparent. One more note: I've seen commenters on this novel remark on how tasteless Talia's remark to Dirk was that his first ex's abuse of him was a kind of "emotional rape" and honestly? I disagree. It's not a tasteless description at all of what she put him through - lying about love, lying about trust - that's violation. That is rape, and I'm glad they could honestly acknowledge that pain - and then try to move past it into a better life. Because that's what this book is about : putting strain on the characters, breaking them, and then bringing them back. The ending of the book is as joyous as it can be within the constraints of the plot, and I'm glad for it, because Talia deserves as much good as she can get. She's worked so hard and grown so much from the thirteen year old we met, and I'm proud of her. Overall I loved this trilogy, and it's not perfect, but it mixes fantasy and kindness with stark abuse and trauma and mental issues in a way I didn't expect. Absolutely worth the read. Just read carefully when you come to this book.
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Dec 1, 2020 20:28
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whoof that awkward feeling of popping open the first Vows and Honor short story and it's about Mercedes Lackey excitedly showing off her short stories to Marion Zimmer Bradley....god, gently caress you MZB, gently caress you so hard.
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Dec 1, 2020 21:10
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StrixNebulosa posted:Before I post this review: I'm glad I wrote this review because it helped me come to terms with how the author wrote this book, and while it's still flawed, I view it in a much better light. Writing reviews is a great way to organize your thoughts and heighten your understanding of a book. can you provide some idea of what her prose style is like? because the cover is, uh... 
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Dec 1, 2020 21:15
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buffalo all day posted:can you provide some idea of what her prose style is like? because the cover is, uh...   e: I'm not going to claim that it's great prose but it's fun to read. I'd compare her kind of to Sanderson in that she writes well but you're reading for the characters and plots, not the prose.
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Dec 1, 2020 21:31
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Interesting. Was this randomly chosen or did you find it representative of the general style? It's certainly melodramatic - which makes sense given the rest of your description.
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Dec 1, 2020 21:47
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buffalo all day posted:Interesting. Was this randomly chosen or did you find it representative of the general style? It's certainly melodramatic - which makes sense given the rest of your description. I chose it after skipping around in Arrow's Fall, here's another one from Arrows of the Queen (the first one) that's perhaps a better representative of her regular conversational style. The context is that Talia's been rescued from being thrown into a freezing river and is recovering. 
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Dec 1, 2020 21:55
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StrixNebulosa posted:e: I'm not going to claim that it's great prose but it's fun to read. I'd compare her kind of to Sanderson in that she writes well but you're reading for the characters and plots, not the prose. I don't ever recall Lackey's prose making me mad, which I definitely can't say about Sanderson. Also her books are much shorter, which helps a lot.
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Dec 1, 2020 22:09
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buffalo all day posted:Is there some reason why you post in the SA forum Book Barn about the SA forum Book Barn secret santa using a public twitter link as opposed to just...a normal post? Its easier to spam the same link across various threads and discords this way, and it stands out a little more, and ideally helps build a regular Book Barn Book of the Month following. That's the theory anyway.
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Dec 1, 2020 22:25
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ulmont posted:Every time you list KJ Parker I check, and every time I'm sad that I've already bought the books in question. How about this? Devices and Desires (Engineer #1) by KJ Parker - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002B9MHPY/ The Devil You Know (Felix Castor #1) by Mike Carey (also MR Carey) - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QRIGVM/ The Last Policeman series by Ben H Winters - $1.99 each The Last Policeman - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0076Q1GW2/ Countdown City - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B6OV90E/ World of Trouble - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HXYHVNU/ Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestors #2) by Mark Lawrence - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073YTRHSN/ The Medusa Chronicles by Stephen Baxter and Alistair Reynolds - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019DKO3Z0/ An Affinity for Steel: Aeon's Gate Omnibus by Sam Sykes - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018GWS4VU/
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Dec 1, 2020 23:27
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ulmont posted:Every time you list KJ Parker I check, and every time I'm sad that I've already bought the books in question. it's been pretty good for me since I've now read 6 KJ Parker books in a row...
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Dec 2, 2020 00:48
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pradmer posted:How about this? "You purchased this item on February 22, 2015." ...still, someday maybe Parker will write more.* *jk, I'll preorder those.
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Dec 2, 2020 01:41
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StrixNebulosa posted:Especially because, weirdly, it's given little to no attention in Talia's recovery. Or, let me put it another way: the author didn't write Talia's recovery. Effectively Talia's POV ends when she gives up in imprisonment, and it switches to Dirk's for the rest of the novel. We don't get to see any of Talia's recovery from the inside - which is a fascinating choice. Instead we see the outside of it, and there aren't mentions of what she must have gone through mentally. We see Talia as she presents herself - not as she is. I believe Talia gives a little more detail about her recovery in one of the later books and makes it clear that it was not quick or easy. ...the topic will also show up again in the Vows of Honor books, the Last Herald Mage Books, the Winds of Change series...and I guess at least obliquely in every series from here on out, with the Last Herald Mage version probably being presented in the book in the most ugly fashion.
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Dec 2, 2020 01:45
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Has anyone else read "The Shadow of What Was Lost" by James Islington? I read it a while back and I'm trying to decide if I want to read the sequels (which, regrettably, I bought all of before reading the first book). I honestly found the story trite, the magic system lame, and the plot annoyingly predictable, though others have said that they really enjoyed the magic and that the time travel plot blew their minds and really paid off in the end. So if it does, I'd be interested to know otherwise I'll probably drop the series.
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Dec 2, 2020 03:53
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tin can made man posted:Just got to the part of Baru 3 where (mid book spoilers, page 350ish) tau says "okay everyone I'm high and not depressed anymore, and no I won't be apologizing at all for the last few days. anyway, baru's a piece of poo poo who also rules, and her name's on the cover of the book so we're all gonna help her. ps do mushrooms". This is an amazing book and every page has a new turn of phrase or trick of prose which sends me spinning in my chair Tau-indi rules. Every time they're on page I'm like HELL YEAH TAU-INDI'S HERE and every time they're gone I'm like HEY WHERE'S TAU-INDI. They are my favorite character. 
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Dec 2, 2020 05:07
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pradmer posted:
These are good but definitely kind of a downer. The setting is a world where it has been discovered that an asteroid is going to hit Earth with the first book taking place sometime after the discovery but still a ways off from the asteroid hitting. So society is still somewhat functioning but things are starting to fall apart. With subsequent books moving closer and closer to the impact date.
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Dec 2, 2020 15:24
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The real downer is that they're just a metaphor for "why should we do anything when we're all going to die in the end." Or maybe that's uplifting, because it lets us focus on the meaning in our own lives and living in the present 
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Dec 2, 2020 15:29
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Those who, like me, are always jonesing for more K.J. Parker, may be pleased to note a sequel to Prosper's Demon scheduled to come out in June 2021. It is projected to be a 128-page novella, which leaves it a good 272 pages short of the ideal, but we can't have everything we want.
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Dec 2, 2020 20:10
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Matter (Culture #7) by Iain M Banks - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000VMHI98/ The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance #1) by NK Jemisin - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ZDJZO2/ The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Volume 1 (first 3 books) by Fritz Leiber - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0741VJC4D/
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Dec 2, 2020 23:26
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In the interest of honesty about books: I read Ready Player One and enjoyed it. Thought it was real fun. Didn't think it was God's gift to literature, but it was sufficiently enjoyable sci-fi trash aimed at like tweens/teens who like lovely movies and video games that I have never regretted reading it (Heinlein Juniors are better, of course, but there's only so many of those). Armada was fine. Definitely worse than Ready Player One, but not so much so that I'd leave a horse head in your bed for reading it or something. It's mildly modified The Last Starfighter fanfiction with a much less interesting love interest than the movie that inspired it had and a generally less tight plot, but it's an okay read. You might or might not like it even if you liked Ready Player One, but I enjoyed it. Ready Player Two: a garbage fire. A steaming turd. Avoid avoid avoid! For everybody whose main complaint is that Cline hasn't become a gender studies professor at Berkeley in the intervening 9 years between publishing the first and second books in the series, or even just that he's a creepy DMCA-happy rear end in a top hat, you have Missed. The. Point. Even if you don't give a poo poo about politics, and even if you believe in the theory of death of the author and all that, this is still a horrifically badly written book that just isn't all that fun. It's an adventure story without even a semblance of the challenge of an adventure that's badly rushed and unsatisfying. It's a love story where the falling in love happens off stage. It's the start of a rumination on the dangers of brain-computer interfaces and escapism to the human population that just quits midway through and assumes that everything will be fine. It's a screed on social media that really just means 'I, Ernest Cline, quit twitter because people told me my books sucked but now I spend all my time on Insta and have completely stopped listening to criticism of my work. That counts, right?' With the exception of a failed attempt to be trans-/gay-/nonbinary-friendly (it's not nearly as hostile as some people make it out to be, but it's certainly not up to date and definitely still problematic), pretty much every overblown general criticism leveled at Ready Player One (whether you agreed with them or not about that book) is a thousand times more accurate when leveled at Ready Player Two. Do not buy Ready Player Two. Do not read Ready Player Two. Just pretend that Cline went into a coma and this was published by the reincarnation of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda (who set his sights way lower this time). teamcharlie fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Dec 3, 2020 |
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Dec 2, 2020 23:54
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teamcharlie posted:With the exception of a failed attempt to be trans-/gay-/nonbinary-friendly (it's not nearly as hostile as some people make it out to be, but it's certainly not up to date and definitely still problematic), pretty much every overblown general criticism leveled at Ready Player One (whether you agreed with them or not about that book) is a thousand times more accurate when leveled at Ready Player Two. Excuse me? Pretend I posted the scene where the protagonist of RPO pats himself on the back repeatedly for 'not caring about the package' of the female lead, right in the middle of the scene where he has a meltdown at her, demanding that she tell him whether or not she is 'biologically female' and super specifically female 'from birth' and absolutely not someone who changed her gender, or 'Hairy-Knuckled Chuck', to use another Clinean phrase. He claims he'd be fine with her if she was Hairy-Knuckled Chuck, but still must absolutely know if she is a 'real woman' or not. That's pretty drat hostile.
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Dec 3, 2020 02:17
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Kchama posted:Excuse me? Pretend I posted the scene where the protagonist of RPO pats himself on the back repeatedly for 'not caring about the package' of the female lead, right in the middle of the scene where he has a meltdown at her, demanding that she tell him whether or not she is 'biologically female' and super specifically female 'from birth' and absolutely not someone who changed her gender, or 'Hairy-Knuckled Chuck', to use another Clinean phrase. He claims he'd be fine with her if she was Hairy-Knuckled Chuck, but still must absolutely know if she is a 'real woman' or not. That's pretty drat hostile. I was referring to the failed attempt to be trans-/gay-/nonbinary-friendly in RP2, not in RPO. There's a different scene in RP2 where apparently he's watched a lot of gay porn and is now kinda into it if the person he thinks is sexy is packing, but not enough for that to go anywhere.
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Dec 3, 2020 04:04
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Catching up on this thread (again) after reading another 500k+ words in SFL Archives 1989. Liking all these review posts of older F&SF stuff, but please be cool and share/repost those reviews to other threads in the book barn; like the What Did You Just Finish thread....not everyone reads this thread after all. SFL Archives 1989: Besides the earlier mentioned things, BATMAN 1989 & James Cameron THE ABYSS came out, and are severely breaking peoples minds. Worldcon 1989 happened, 1989 Hugo vote fuckery got shaded over (claims of block voting fraud, 2 F&SF authors being heavily pressured to remove their works from 1989 Hugo nomination, Michael Stackpole randomly getting sucked into the drama, etc). A few new SFL personalities have appeared, and a few SFL personalities have evolved.
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Dec 3, 2020 04:36
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ulmont posted:I believe Talia gives a little more detail about her recovery in one of the later books and makes it clear that it was not quick or easy. Yeah uh, as I've started the Oathbreaker/blood/honor/etc series there's rape in both backstories of the main women, and  Seriously, what is it with older sci-fi/fantasy women authors and including rape? Jo Clayton, CJ Cherryh, Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, Jane Gaskell.... there are surely more, but it feels weirdly more prevalent in the women-written sci-fi. The men are sexist (lookin' at YOU, Asimov!) but I don't recall as much sexual violence in their books.
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Dec 3, 2020 04:55
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