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pradmer
Mar 31, 2009

Follow me for more books on special!
City of Stairs (Divine Cities #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett - $1.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J1ISJFA/

A Game of Thrones (Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George RR Martin - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QCS8TW/

Interview with the Vampire (Vampire Chronicles #1) by Anne Rice - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004AM5R20/

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - $3.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBJCJE/

Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam #1) by Margaret Atwood - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1BNI/

Golden Compass (His Dark Materials #1) by Philip Pullman - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1ICM/

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buffalo all day
Mar 13, 2019

pradmer posted:


A Game of Thrones (Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George RR Martin - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QCS8TW/


trolling this thread is a bannable offense

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

pradmer posted:

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - $3.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBJCJE/

I made a post about Snow Crash in this thread a while back, but it sparked a terrible derail. Might as well quote it now, since the derailer was banned.

Silver2195 posted:

I just read Snow Crash. It was OK, I guess. Like The Diamond Age, it had a lot of interesting ideas and enjoyable scenes, but I don't think they really cohered together very well. It's all over the place tonally; sometimes it seems to be a parody of cyberpunk (especially near the beginning), sometimes it's trying to have serious Big Sci-Fi Ideas, and sometimes it's just a thriller.

Maybe the oddest thing about the book is how implausibly early it's set. It was published in 1992, but it's set in the 00s (the main character is in his late twenties and was born in the 70s). Somehow in a bit over a decade, not only has the US government mostly collapsed, but people seem to have made a nearly complete mental adjustment to the resulting ancap dystopia. To be fair, 1992 was only a year after the USSR collapsed; maybe the idea that the US and other countries would soon follow seemed plausible then. Plus the ancap dystopia feels more satirical in the early chapters, and only starts being presented as serious worldbuilding later on. It's still strange, though, because we retrospectively tend to accuse Americans in the 90s of being overly optimistic about the future; after all, The End of History and the Last Man was also published in 1992. So maybe it's really just leftover 80s pessimism copied from other cyberpunk.

Another setting element that's interesting to compare to what actually happened is the Metaverse. What's fascinating about it is how many people who had read a lot of cyberpunk apparently tried very hard to make it a thing in real life (remember Second Life?), but they could never really make it a thing. Though by the time of The Diamond Age, the Metaverse doesn't really seem to be a thing in Stephenson's world either; apparently people lost interest in it, just as even journalists eventually lost interest in Second Life. (Though a quick Google search assures me that Second Life is somehow technically still active! Huh.)

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Orc Priest posted:

Man, the prince of nothing series loving sucks. kind of felt like I got tricked into reading that.

I read the first one and enjoyed it, started the second one, and realized that I just...couldn't care anymore. There was nothing but misery ahead for me. Glad I got out when I did, as I read the thread about the series here in the Book Barn and the spoilers are.... hoo boy.

HopperUK
Apr 29, 2007

Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

Just went to wikipedia to see and this sentence:

'The plot, characters, setting, and metaphysics of the Prince of Nothing are intertwined with philosophical positions unique to the series.'

Seems kind of unlikely.

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.
Imagine a guy telling you that the human brain cannot fully comprehend the reasons for its own behavior and that much of our 'free will' is determined by our culture and environment, but every fifth word out of his mouth is him screaming RAPE. This goes on for like half a million words.

There's some very cool stuff in those books but even as a teenager I could tell they weren't gonna deliver. And they didn't!

wizzardstaff
Apr 6, 2018

Zorch! Splat! Pow!

HopperUK posted:

Just went to wikipedia to see and this sentence:

'The plot, characters, setting, and metaphysics of the Prince of Nothing are intertwined with philosophical positions unique to the series.'

Seems kind of unlikely.

I've had enough Sword of Truth, thanks.

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

General Battuta posted:

Imagine a guy telling you that the human brain cannot fully comprehend the reasons for its own behavior and that much of our 'free will' is determined by our culture and environment, but every fifth word out of his mouth is him screaming RAPE. This goes on for like half a million words.

There's some very cool stuff in those books but even as a teenager I could tell they weren't gonna deliver. And they didn't!

I really enjoyed a lot of the bits of said cool stuff, but this is accurate.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

The single coolest thing that came out of Bakker's stuff is the concept that - it's been years since I read this theory, pardon errors - is that the elder god or "outside force" that destroyed an army was like, helicopters with missiles. Of course, that's not what Bakker ultimately did with that because he's a hack, but I ADORE the idea of a low-tech setting going "wow this must be strange magic" and no it's just modern military tech.

I am that sucker who wants to see dragons vs F-14s. I am that sucker who was devastated the Final Countdown film wimped out of its own concept halfway through.

SimonChris
Apr 24, 2008

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.
Grimey Drawer
I read the first Prince of Nothing book, and there was indeed some cool stuff in there, but holy poo poo what a bunch of irredeemable assholes that I absolutely did not want to hang out with for any more books. When the insane rapist barbarian is the most sympathetic person in your book, something has clearly gone wrong.

Also, the idea that being raised by a bunch of New Atheist hyper-rationalists makes you a master of manipulation is just too stupid for me. I have no problem with wizards, aliens, and alien wizards, but everyone falling for Kelhus' blatantly obvious PUA-level manipulation techniques just broke my suspension of disbelief, sorry.

HopperUK
Apr 29, 2007

Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

StrixNebulosa posted:

The single coolest thing that came out of Bakker's stuff is the concept that - it's been years since I read this theory, pardon errors - is that the elder god or "outside force" that destroyed an army was like, helicopters with missiles. Of course, that's not what Bakker ultimately did with that because he's a hack, but I ADORE the idea of a low-tech setting going "wow this must be strange magic" and no it's just modern military tech.

I am that sucker who wants to see dragons vs F-14s. I am that sucker who was devastated the Final Countdown film wimped out of its own concept halfway through.

When I was a kid we had these graded series of reading books, and I remember a short story in one of them intended for 11-year-olds that I read a couple of years earlier. These two knights are sitting by a fire, waiting for a terrible dragon to arrive, when they plan to try killing it. They discuss stories of those who've died trying to defeat it before, and talk about its impenetrable skin and the terrifying roar of its voice. At the climax of the story it arrives and a full-page illustration makes it clear that the beast is a steam locomotive, one of those huge freight-train types that just doesn't even notice them trying to stab it as it roars past at speeds they can hardly even comprehend. Made a huge impression on Tiny Me.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

HopperUK posted:

When I was a kid we had these graded series of reading books, and I remember a short story in one of them intended for 11-year-olds that I read a couple of years earlier. These two knights are sitting by a fire, waiting for a terrible dragon to arrive, when they plan to try killing it. They discuss stories of those who've died trying to defeat it before, and talk about its impenetrable skin and the terrifying roar of its voice. At the climax of the story it arrives and a full-page illustration makes it clear that the beast is a steam locomotive, one of those huge freight-train types that just doesn't even notice them trying to stab it as it roars past at speeds they can hardly even comprehend. Made a huge impression on Tiny Me.

:allears:

That owns, I would love to read that.

HopperUK
Apr 29, 2007

Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

StrixNebulosa posted:

:allears:

That owns, I would love to read that.

I'll try to remember to look for it! I got hold of a copy of the book a year or two ago and had to put it aside because it really stank of cigarette smoke. Been long enough that might have eased off.

e: I found the cover!

Stuporstar
May 5, 2008

Where do fists come from?

BurningBeard posted:

Finally wrapped The Golem And The Jinni last week.

What an incredible book! There’s a little bit of sequel fodder at the end, but there’s a sequel. If I’d read this when it first came out though, I’d have been satisfied.

One thing I had a small issue with was the overarching plot. The reveal that the evil rabbi was the reincarnation of the wizard that imprisoned the jinni in the flask came real quick, and from then on there was some weird pacing. The book sort of climaxed, stopped, and climaxed again which felt odd. Also, Michael didn’t have much of an arc and died unceremoniously. He felt like a speedbump for the golem’s development, honestly.

Minor quibbles for a book that I really quite enjoyed. I hope the sequel is focused more on the development of these characters, as opposed to Earthshaking plot revelations, since I think that’s what she does better as an author. I only pick on this stuff because the book was so excellent.

I’m happy to tell you the sequel does exactly what you want. I just finished it last week and liked it better than the first for this exact reason.

Nomnom Cookie
Aug 30, 2009



pradmer posted:

Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam #1) by Margaret Atwood - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1BNI/

this is an incredible book and the only bad thing about it is that it wasn't supposed to be a history of the future, but we're making it happen anyway

90s Cringe Rock
Nov 29, 2006
:gay:

StrixNebulosa posted:

The single coolest thing that came out of Bakker's stuff is the concept that - it's been years since I read this theory, pardon errors - is that the elder god or "outside force" that destroyed an army was like, helicopters with missiles. Of course, that's not what Bakker ultimately did with that because he's a hack, but I ADORE the idea of a low-tech setting going "wow this must be strange magic" and no it's just modern military tech.

I am that sucker who wants to see dragons vs F-14s. I am that sucker who was devastated the Final Countdown film wimped out of its own concept halfway through.
You should absolutely not play Drakengard, but if it was playable then I'd recommend it here.

That's technically spoilers for the final ending but lol I don't think anyone will experience that twist for themselves.

pseudorandom name
May 6, 2007

SimonChris posted:

I read the first Prince of Nothing book, and there was indeed some cool stuff in there, but holy poo poo what a bunch of irredeemable assholes that I absolutely did not want to hang out with for any more books. When the insane rapist barbarian is the most sympathetic person in your book, something has clearly gone wrong.

Also, the idea that being raised by a bunch of New Atheist hyper-rationalists makes you a master of manipulation is just too stupid for me. I have no problem with wizards, aliens, and alien wizards, but everyone falling for Kelhus' blatantly obvious PUA-level manipulation techniques just broke my suspension of disbelief, sorry.

The New Atheist hyper-rationalists had also eugenicized themselves into being smarter than the average bear. In particular, they were capable of fully modeling the behavior of lesser humans in their own minds and could read micro-expressions to precisely identify the internal mental states of their victims.

And if you hate the absolute misanthropy of the Prince of Nothing series, do not read Neuropath.

Bakker is basically "what if Peter Watts but more nihilistic?"

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

90s Cringe Rock posted:

You should absolutely not play Drakengard, but if it was playable then I'd recommend it here.

That's technically spoilers for the final ending but lol I don't think anyone will experience that twist for themselves.

Just read the Dark Id’s LP of it, all the flavor and none of the Drakengard-ness.

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

pseudorandom name posted:

The New Atheist hyper-rationalists had also eugenicized themselves into being smarter than the average bear. In particular, they were capable of fully modeling the behavior of lesser humans in their own minds and could read micro-expressions to precisely identify the internal mental states of their victims.

And if you hate the absolute misanthropy of the Prince of Nothing series, do not read Neuropath.

Bakker is basically "what if Peter Watts but more nihilistic?"

One of my favorite continuity fuckups in that series is when, in book 1, our hyper-rationalist uberman protagonist thinks of a mountain as resembling 'the hip of a beautiful woman.' It later turns out the New Atheist hyperrationalist people had somehow converted all their women into giant axolotl tanks so he's literally never seen a beautiful woman before! Except maybe in pictures, I guess? Maybe the mountain looks like a sexy woodcut.

He's also (of course) a sex god, which is peculiar given his upbringing; he was either trained in the gay ways or he was literally a virgin until he left the Big Smart Man Convent.

90s Cringe Rock
Nov 29, 2006
:gay:

General Battuta posted:

One of my favorite continuity fuckups in that series is when, in book 1, our hyper-rationalist uberman protagonist thinks of a mountain as resembling 'the hip of a beautiful woman.' It later turns out the New Atheist hyperrationalist people had somehow converted all their women into giant axolotl tanks so he's literally never seen a beautiful woman before! Except maybe in pictures, I guess? Maybe the mountain looks like a sexy woodcut.

He's also (of course) a sex god, which is peculiar given his upbringing; he was either trained in the gay ways or he was literally a virgin until he left the Big Smart Man Convent.
I'm just quoting this post to marvel at it.

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.
I was pacing the halls of Atyersus contemplating the knowledge of pure meaning when my senses were assaulted by a hideous Mark. Whirling I saw a velour-robed Schoolman. Impossible! As I summoned my wards the man said, "Yo momma made a pit of her womb so deep they call her Mom-Uirokas." Desperately I focused on the simple truth of the geometric point. But the sorcerer's chapped lips chuckled "Yo momma so stupid she thinks skin-spy can cover up her herpes" and I was confronted with the knowledge that my disgrace was anticipated in ancient counsels where men's honor was bound to the grace of their mothers. My world pitched as the nimil-chained wizard cried "Aurang left yo momma's house so ashamed and hosed up he ran up to me saying, 'who am I? what do you see??'" And I wept as I accepted the busting of my soul.

90s Cringe Rock
Nov 29, 2006
:gay:
drat.

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.
Deep within the halls of Ishual I oversaw the birth of the latest Candidate. From the scents and issues of the pregnancy I had determined the sex of the boy. But when the child slid from the whale-mother it was at a time unanticipated by the evidence, and beneath the natal filth he wore a robe of thick cloth. Improbably, the child spoke. "Look here," he burbled, "buncha nerds so cloistered they think a clitoris is a property of the soul's will to become self-moving. Hey! You! You spend twenty years studying how passions move peeled-up faces?" And I saw in his bloodied face the words 'and yo cock so little they call you the Death of Girth.' I fell into the Probability Trance to explore the causal origins of this event, but everywhere I turned I saw a man with nimil-jeweled teeth hooting "They say an Anasurimbor will come at the end of the world, so I guess the Second Apocalypse goes down after three pumps". And I felt the Absolute escape me forever.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


Fantasy do be like that sometimes.

Lunsku
May 21, 2006

Not many BravestOfTheLamps posts I think back with chuckle, but the Bakker putdown would be one.

SimonChris
Apr 24, 2008

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.
Grimey Drawer

Lunsku posted:

Not many BravestOfTheLamps posts I think back with chuckle, but the Bakker putdown would be one.

Anälsybarite Killhöuse was a nice one.

Crashbee
May 15, 2007

Stupid people are great at winning arguments, because they're too stupid to realize they've lost.

HopperUK posted:

When I was a kid we had these graded series of reading books, and I remember a short story in one of them intended for 11-year-olds that I read a couple of years earlier. These two knights are sitting by a fire, waiting for a terrible dragon to arrive, when they plan to try killing it. They discuss stories of those who've died trying to defeat it before, and talk about its impenetrable skin and the terrifying roar of its voice. At the climax of the story it arrives and a full-page illustration makes it clear that the beast is a steam locomotive, one of those huge freight-train types that just doesn't even notice them trying to stab it as it roars past at speeds they can hardly even comprehend. Made a huge impression on Tiny Me.

This is 'The Dragon' by Ray Bradbury, published in 1955.

HopperUK
Apr 29, 2007

Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

Crashbee posted:

This is 'The Dragon' by Ray Bradbury, published in 1955.

Thank you! Awesome. Good to know I had taste even then.

(lol I didn't and still don't)

genericnick
Dec 26, 2012

pseudorandom name posted:

The New Atheist hyper-rationalists had also eugenicized themselves into being smarter than the average bear. In particular, they were capable of fully modeling the behavior of lesser humans in their own minds and could read micro-expressions to precisely identify the internal mental states of their victims.

And if you hate the absolute misanthropy of the Prince of Nothing series, do not read Neuropath.

Bakker is basically "what if Peter Watts but more nihilistic?"

Also vastly more in need of an editor. Though, as it turns out the hyper-rationalists were also full of poo poo in text. I guess I can spoiler that Kelllus was hosed over by his kid, because he couldn't imagine that there were things he can't see, the other Dunyani took over the Ark, were actually just being used as hardware, and the one survivor they meet on their way bugs out and jumps from a clip. I thought it was actually quite clever, though of course it follows one and a half novels of tedious cannibalism.
And no one should read Neuropath.

General Battuta posted:

One of my favorite continuity fuckups in that series is when, in book 1, our hyper-rationalist uberman protagonist thinks of a mountain as resembling 'the hip of a beautiful woman.' It later turns out the New Atheist hyperrationalist people had somehow converted all their women into giant axolotl tanks so he's literally never seen a beautiful woman before! Except maybe in pictures, I guess? Maybe the mountain looks like a sexy woodcut.


I mean, would you say a mountain has classical model proportions or looks more like the tanks?

General Battuta posted:

Deep within the halls of Ishual I oversaw the birth of the latest Candidate. From the scents and issues of the pregnancy I had determined the sex of the boy. But when the child slid from the whale-mother it was at a time unanticipated by the evidence, and beneath the natal filth he wore a robe of thick cloth. Improbably, the child spoke. "Look here," he burbled, "buncha nerds so cloistered they think a clitoris is a property of the soul's will to become self-moving. Hey! You! You spend twenty years studying how passions move peeled-up faces?" And I saw in his bloodied face the words 'and yo cock so little they call you the Death of Girth.' I fell into the Probability Trance to explore the causal origins of this event, but everywhere I turned I saw a man with nimil-jeweled teeth hooting "They say an Anasurimbor will come at the end of the world, so I guess the Second Apocalypse goes down after three pumps". And I felt the Absolute escape me forever.

packetmantis
Feb 26, 2013

Nomnom Cookie posted:

this is an incredible book and the only bad thing about it is that it wasn't supposed to be a history of the future, but we're making it happen anyway

Yeah. :negative: I love it though.

DACK FAYDEN
Feb 25, 2013

Bear Witness

StrixNebulosa posted:

I am that sucker who wants to see dragons vs F-14s. I am that sucker who was devastated the Final Countdown film wimped out of its own concept halfway through.
My condolences about... what was it called, Reign of Fire? I literally just read some goons complaining about that movie not committing to the "dragons fighting armies" concept in another thread like last week.

pseudorandom name
May 6, 2007

But what if the dragons were F-14s?

jng2058
Jul 17, 2010

We have the tools, we have the talent!





pseudorandom name posted:

But what if the dragons were F-14s?

Honestly, I'd compare a dragon more to an A-10. Big and lumbering in the air, but devastating to targets on the ground.

And if y'all want tech vs fantasy magic, Gate is right there, assuming you can get past the anime-ness of it.

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

Nomnom Cookie posted:

this is an incredible book and the only bad thing about it is that it wasn't supposed to be a history of the future, but we're making it happen anyway

Agreed. Easily her most underrated novel, and much better and more believable than The Handmaid's Tale.

(The sequels suck though and have the most egregious example of retconning I've ever seen.)

HopperUK
Apr 29, 2007

Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

freebooter posted:

Agreed. Easily her most underrated novel, and much better and more believable than The Handmaid's Tale.

(The sequels suck though and have the most egregious example of retconning I've ever seen.)

I'm still mad that Ian Malcolm dies in the Jurassic Park book and then Michael Crichton just ignored that when he wrote the sequel. I think the movie had come out and Malcolm's popularity made him change his mind. What a hack.

Hobnob
Feb 23, 2006

Ursa Adorandum

StrixNebulosa posted:

I am that sucker who wants to see dragons vs F-14s. I am that sucker who was devastated the Final Countdown film wimped out of its own concept halfway through.

There was a bit in one of Stross's later Laundry novels about dragons vs SAM fire that was quite fun. As I recall, elven glamour magic was effective against modern sensor seekers but less so against old-fashioned Rapier optical guidance syetems.

pseudorandom name
May 6, 2007

I think the dragons just didn't match any profile the missile guidance software recognized and they were forced to manually aim the missiles, which is problematic when the enemy has mind-destroying stealth glamours.

Horizon Burning
Oct 23, 2019
:discourse:

General Battuta posted:

I was pacing the halls of Atyersus contemplating the knowledge of pure meaning when my senses were assaulted by a hideous Mark. Whirling I saw a velour-robed Schoolman. Impossible! As I summoned my wards the man said, "Yo momma made a pit of her womb so deep they call her Mom-Uirokas." Desperately I focused on the simple truth of the geometric point. But the sorcerer's chapped lips chuckled "Yo momma so stupid she thinks skin-spy can cover up her herpes" and I was confronted with the knowledge that my disgrace was anticipated in ancient counsels where men's honor was bound to the grace of their mothers. My world pitched as the nimil-chained wizard cried "Aurang left yo momma's house so ashamed and hosed up he ran up to me saying, 'who am I? what do you see??'" And I wept as I accepted the busting of my soul.

buying a copy of traitor to give away because of this ultimate hustler ref

TOOT BOOT
May 25, 2010

Sanderson retconned the ending of one of his books in subsequent printings, that's pretty egregious.

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jng2058
Jul 17, 2010

We have the tools, we have the talent!





TOOT BOOT posted:

Sanderson retconned the ending of one of his books in subsequent printings, that's pretty egregious.

Really? Which one? And how?

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