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I looked up those books but they’re so old there isn’t even a summary on goodreads  Edit: type is coming out really small on this post, let’s see if editing fixes it Ccs fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Mar 22, 2021 |
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Mar 22, 2021 01:49
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StrixNebulosa posted:Have you read this Nightrider? That book was jawdroppingly good and portrayed spaceflight in a way I don't think I've seen...ever. Yes, I loved Nightrider! His books are like the literalized version of that archetypical 80s "synthetic point of view gliding over a wireframe landscape" idea of war. I think there's literally a scene of that in Nightrider when they're mapping the planet looking for the bad guy base. Like Fire Lance it's pretty much totally nihilistic but at least in Nightrider they get laid.
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Mar 22, 2021 04:48
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Mister Kingdom posted:I'm reading the latest Bobiverse novel. Anyone else? I love the Bobiverse books. Like I know they are crap, but at the same time I enjoy them immensely. It's like reading a well written narrative of my scifi daydreams.
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Mar 22, 2021 04:54
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I finished A Desolation Called Peace in a two sittings and now I'm bereft. The Masquerade/Teixcalaan/Locked Tombs books are my only appointment reads right now, and Alecto and Baru 4 are still so far away. ;-;
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Mar 22, 2021 05:55
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Mister Kingdom posted:I'm reading the latest Bobiverse novel. Anyone else? I really enjoyed the first one, but the latter two don't quite live up to the conceit. Still fun, even if I cared less for the later characters. D-Pad posted:I love the Bobiverse books. Like I know they are crap, but at the same time I enjoy them immensely. It's like reading a well written narrative of my scifi daydreams. I recently discovered that there's a 4th book now. How does it compare to the original trilogy? About the same to book 2 or 3, or does it dip upwards/downwards?
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Mar 22, 2021 05:58
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D-Pad posted:I love the Bobiverse books. Like I know they are crap, but at the same time I enjoy them immensely. It's like reading a well written narrative of my scifi daydreams. Bobiverse has just enough hard science to be credible and the main character is a better than average engineer who is used to isolation. So it's not impossible to imagine that the target audience could be a keppler probe too and explore the universe and save humanity with advanced tech and a robot brain. Some spoilers ahead for thoughts on the series. What I enjoy more than the science are the aliens which are varying degrees of fleshed out. I loved the stone age bat people that original Bob just chilled out with as he vacillated between saving the sentient spices from extermination, felt weird about playing god sometimes, the tribe exiled Bob, who was essentially a kind of defacto sky deity after he hosed up a few times (lol), then he slipped into a new bat body so he could continue being around them without the baggage of being said sky deity and generally wanted to chill out and have a life with his best friend who just so happened to be a sentient stone age bat person. It's weird but it works for me. The latest book had a lot of unresolved plot points with groups of neutral and antagonistic Bobs. I was waiting for them to go somewhere and they sort of did, but it was never explained why the antagonistic Bobs were antagonistic other than a stated difference of opinion which didn't really satisfy me because the author stated that it wasn't real. That was disappointing. They did have a neat society of platypus people who didn't realize they were living on a planet sized megastructure and there was this problem that without any evolutionary pressure, intelligence was no longer being selected for due to no natural predators and easy living off the land that they were slowly going feral. Not an evil or nasty feral, but they were slowly becoming dumber. They were looking at a weird kind of doom where in a dozen or so generations they may revert to animals. I think the author could do to learn about speciation where some of the people become dumber and some would stay smart and you'd slowly end up with two or more distinct species over time. He really needed to speak to a biologist about some of his work. However, the premise of a system that provided basically everything you needed to the point that society was no longer necessary and how society and the people who make it up would devolve over time was an interesting one. In the text is a kind of cautionary tale in what a post-scarcity society might do to people if they no longer have to rely on one another. The series scratches a weird itch for me and I enjoy it, but his latest book really needed some more work. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Mar 22, 2021 |
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Mar 22, 2021 06:32
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Bear Head by Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of today's UK Kindle deals https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08DJBQ...rd_i=5400977031
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Mar 22, 2021 08:19
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General Battuta posted:My comfort read Fire Lance I still have this on my Goodreads TBR list from when you last recommended it and intend to buy it next time I buy myself a whole bunch of second-hand Abebooks books to slowly arrive in the mail as forgotten gifts to myself 8-12 weeks later
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Mar 22, 2021 09:12
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StrixNebulosa posted:So what are you reading? After all the culture talk last few weeks I started reading them again, it's been years... Just finished state of the art and on to excession
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Mar 22, 2021 09:43
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I'm reading the second Salvation novel by Peter F. Hamilton. The first one was decent, so we'll see how this goes. The setup of the first one was 3 points in time, "now", "back then" and "far future" and I did not care for the far future stuff as much. But I can't resist a scifi world with portal technology.
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Mar 22, 2021 15:54
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StrixNebulosa posted:So what are you reading? Book of Malachi. A guy who had a tongue cut out when he was a teen winds up working in an offshore rig illegally growing black market organs in prisoners. Does he tough it out for 6 months and get a tongue? Does he try and free people and possibly get them all killed? And cost his coworkers the organs they were promised? It's interesting. I'm about 50 pages from the end and normally by now I'd have a good sense of how I'll rate it, but I'm not sure here. We'll see I guess.
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Mar 22, 2021 15:56
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About halfway through KJ Parker's Father of Lies Only recently discovered Parker after reading 16 Ways to Defend a Walled City, but I really like his style and these more fantastical short stories are great.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:02
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Definitely check out Academic Exercises, his first short story collection. I enjoyed that one more than Father of Lies. Also I think Father of Lies includes a story which is a continuation of one in Academic Exercises. I'd love a full book about the agents of the Studium and how magic works in that world. I wrote a very similar book, but Parker would do it better.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:15
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Ccs posted:Definitely check out Academic Exercises, his first short story collection. I enjoyed that one more than Father of Lies. Also I think Father of Lies includes a story which is a continuation of one in Academic Exercises. Read that one already, really enjoyed it too.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:21
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Currently reading that scp novel linked a few pages back. It's surprisingly pretty good. Lil weird, but it's scp so that's kind of a given.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:32
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I'm an infrequent audiobook listener, but on a whim (and some free Audible credits) I started listening to the audiobook version of the Player of Games and the reader (Peter Kenny) is doing a fantastic job about 40 minutes in. He does these very detailed, engaging accents for each character's dialog, it's great. I'm excited to listen to more on my rainy dog walk this morning. Kind of made me realize that when I read a book, I tend to not have such defined voices in my mind as I read dialog. Now I'm thinking that maybe I should try.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:33
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Currently reading that scp novel linked a few pages back. It's surprisingly pretty good. Lil weird, but it's scp so that's kind of a given.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:40
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Hubbardologist posted:I'm an infrequent audiobook listener, but on a whim (and some free Audible credits) I started listening to the audiobook version of the Player of Games and the reader (Peter Kenny) is doing a fantastic job about 40 minutes in. He does these very detailed, engaging accents for each character's dialog, it's great. I'm excited to listen to more on my rainy dog walk this morning. If you enjoy this, there are some excellent multi-narrator audiobooks that really bring their source material to life. Audible's production of Dracula is incredible, and I have a great fondness for the multiple narrator version of Ender's Game, too. The full-cast production of American Gods is also a fan favorite, though I'm a sucker for the reading by George Guidall.
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Mar 22, 2021 18:33
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StrixNebulosa posted:So what are you reading? I just finished up Unnatural Magic and The Midnight Bargain. Accidentally read them in reverse order. They're a very enjoyable read, although not too surprising plot-wise. Some good trans/nonbinary and queer characters involved that feel like they arises quite naturally out the fantasy world.
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Mar 22, 2021 20:15
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Kestral posted:If you enjoy this, there are some excellent multi-narrator audiobooks that really bring their source material to life. Audible's production of Dracula is incredible, and I have a great fondness for the multiple narrator version of Ender's Game, too. The full-cast production of American Gods is also a fan favorite, though I'm a sucker for the reading by George Guidall. Oh nice. I'm just about due for an American Gods re-read (it was a comfort book for a long time), maybe the next time 'round I'll do the audio version. The TV adaptation didn't do it for me. Speaking of multi-narrator productions, I also snagged the Sandman adaptation, which covers the first 3 volumes of the graphic novel -- starring James McAvoy as Dream, Riz Ahmed as the Corinthian, Kat Dennings, Andy Serkis and a whole bunch of others. Very much looking forward to that. (Tenuously thread-related, apologies)
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Mar 22, 2021 22:08
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Big random sale today. The Dreamblood Duology by NK Jemisin - $6.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DSTTQAO/ Emergency Skin by NK Jemisin - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VFMFPP4/ The Rook (Rook Files #1) by Daniel O'Malley - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004QX07EG/ The Folding Knife by KJ Parker - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0035IICZO/ Pattern (Scavenger #2) by KJ Parker - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B3VX3Y0/ Memory (Scavenger #3) by KJ Parker - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B3VX3T0/ The Kingdom of Copper (Daevabad #2) by SA Chakraborty - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076P8TD5Y/ The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC11GA/ The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K Le Guin - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MG75652/ Elysium Fire (Prefect Dreyfus #2) by Alistair Reynolds - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073P43TMS/ Ubik by Philip K Dick - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LVR6ZA/ The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006UMI0OK/ The Baron of Magister Valley (Viscount of Adrilankha #4) by Steven Brust - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LF623JS/ The Dreaming Tree by CJ Cherryh - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4DE4V5/ The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Volume Two: Swords Against Wizardry, The Swords of Lankhmar, and Swords and Ice Magic by Fritz Leiber - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L8WP9LR/
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Mar 22, 2021 23:01
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pradmer posted:Big random sale today. I can speak personally to the goodness and worthwhileness of these two, at the very minimum. Both were fun as heck.
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Mar 22, 2021 23:14
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I personally found The Rook to be longer than it needed to be, and thought the humor started out good but wore pretty thin by the end. I also felt like there were a couple of moments that were on the verge of "men writing women" cringe. Based on past discussions of it on the forums, though, I get the sense I may be in the minority on both those points.
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Mar 22, 2021 23:55
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Thanks to everyone who talked up The Curse of Chalion, it is extremely good. My first Bujold book; I was waiting for her stuff to go on sale. I should not have slept on these.
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Mar 22, 2021 23:58
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BlackHattingMachine posted:Thanks to everyone who talked up The Curse of Chalion, it is extremely good. My first Bujold book; I was waiting for her stuff to go on sale. I should not have slept on these.
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Mar 23, 2021 00:15
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I’ve had Paladin of Souls on my kindle for months, I need to get around to it. Of that sale I’ve only read The Folding Knife but it was great.
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Mar 23, 2021 01:15
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MockingQuantum posted:I personally found The Rook to be longer than it needed to be, and thought the humor started out good but wore pretty thin by the end. I also felt like there were a couple of moments that were on the verge of "men writing women" cringe. Based on past discussions of it on the forums, though, I get the sense I may be in the minority on both those points. The Rook is agonizing in a men-writing-women way. The first thing the main character does when waking up without her memory is evaluate how hot she looks and check out her bikini wax. It’s godawful.
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Mar 23, 2021 01:59
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a foolish pianist posted:The Rook is agonizing in a men-writing-women way. The first thing the main character does when waking up without her memory is evaluate how hot she looks and check out her bikini wax. loving  
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Mar 23, 2021 02:03
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HopperUK posted:loving I mean, like... yeah. That's not great.
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Mar 23, 2021 02:05
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StrixNebulosa posted:So what are you reading? Currently working my way through the Nebula novellas shortlist, just finished FINNA by Nino Cipri. Brisk, fun read about a couple of minimum wage workers forced to go through a wormhole that opened up in Not-IKEA to try and rescue a lost elderly customer. Nice balance of humour, swashbuckling, and saying "gently caress you, capitalism". Edit: For something that felt similar to the Rook but with less Dude-writing-women, I recommend Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots. It's about a temp who does data entry for supervillains, the human costs of superheroes & late capitalism, and the power of spreadsheets. cptn_dr fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Mar 23, 2021 02:13
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I'm reading through a large set of Apocalypse fiction edited by John Joseph Adams. I love a short story as it lets me impose some kind of structure before bed. Checks watch. Eugh, 1.48am... Novel wise, I just re-read Tigerman by Nick Harkaway and about to move onto The Gone Away World (2008) Snippet from a review by The Guardian "....any author who has come up with the beautifully silly plan of melding a kung-fu epic with an Iraq-war satire and a Mad Max adventure has to be worth keeping an eye on."
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Mar 23, 2021 02:59
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Has anyone read The Rig by Roger Levy? I was entranced by the cover in the shop but didn't buy it.
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Mar 23, 2021 03:02
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a foolish pianist posted:The Rook is agonizing in a men-writing-women way. The first thing the main character does when waking up without her memory is evaluate how hot she looks and check out her bikini wax. The book overall is good I think and I’d definitely recommend it. But yeaaaaaahhhhhhh there are occasional bits which are sort of insufferable. E: fwiw that quoted passage I remember as the nadir of the man writes woman bits but I also could be forgetting more? tildes fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Mar 23, 2021 04:10
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HopperUK posted:loving Shoulda stopped after the first paragraph. Yikes
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Mar 23, 2021 04:37
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Thanks for pointing that out, honestly. The first time I read The Rook I was just pleasantly surprised it passed the Bechdel test.
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Mar 23, 2021 04:40
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HopperUK posted:loving Oh it is much worse than I remember it being. I guess it didn't stick in my memory very well, which is probably for the best.
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Mar 23, 2021 04:48
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I read an ebook called The Fifth Science by some youtuber named "Exurb1a". It's a collection of short stories set across 100k years of future human history. Some of them were really great, some of them were really bad. If the guy had a great editor it would have been a truly excellent book, but for what it was it was worth the $3 or whatever I spent on it. Some neat ideas. Basically how I felt about Bobiverse.
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Mar 23, 2021 06:43
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Wow I really fell down the SCP wiki rabbit hole. Nervously worries about what I might have forgotten
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Mar 23, 2021 11:31
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pradmer posted:Big random sale today.
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Mar 23, 2021 11:48
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HopperUK posted:loving  Trigger warning next time please, I couldn't scroll away fast enough. EDIT: to contribute, my reserves finally came in at the library, so I've picked up Parker's Sixteen ways to defend a walled city, City of Stairs, The Unspoken Name and Jade War. And I just pre-ordered the latest Cradle (#9, Bloodline) on Amazon. Leng fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Mar 23, 2021 12:55
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