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TOOT BOOT posted:I wish there were more fantasy books that used Christianity as the mythology. I don't even care if they mix it up somewhat, just give me angels vs demons and saints and all that. Read Berserk
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Jul 27, 2021 23:39
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Cardiac posted:The Polity series would be the next step, but skip gridlinked and go straight to the second book. The Transformation trilogy is probably my favorite, doing a re-read currently. Rise of the Jain trilogy is also very entertaining.
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Jul 27, 2021 23:45
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TOOT BOOT posted:I wish there were more fantasy books that used Christianity as the mythology. I don't even care if they mix it up somewhat, just give me angels vs demons and saints and all that. There’s thread favorite Between Two Fires for that.
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Jul 27, 2021 23:46
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Drakyn posted:Apologies for the minimal commentary; I asked an open-ended question and got a very comprehensive and personal answer, so all I can say is: thank you very, very much for this. No prob, I get it. I extremely recently (as in, last week) came to a place in my life where I am able to really fully understand some of these things I've been groping towards, and more importantly I'm finally able to articulate them and share them with others. So I'm happy to do so, because it's an extreme novel feeling to me, lol.
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Jul 27, 2021 23:49
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StrixNebulosa posted:. It's not quite "dragons vs F-14s" but I think you might enjoy Sean Grigsby's Smoke Eaters books, which are basically "firefighters vs dragons".
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Jul 28, 2021 00:21
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a foolish pianist posted:There’s thread favorite Between Two Fires for that. Between Two Fires is the Darklands novelisation that we didn’t deserve. Still wish that somebody would do a remake of Darklands. Ex-monks banishing demons through scripture debates and villages with strange rituals (it’s devil worship, if their mass is heterodox it’s always devil worship) made for a really memorable setting.
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Jul 28, 2021 00:35
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TOOT BOOT posted:I wish there were more fantasy books that used Christianity as the mythology. I don't even care if they mix it up somewhat, just give me angels vs demons and saints and all that. Thread favourite Between the two Fires is that. Edit: Beaten several times over.
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Jul 28, 2021 00:35
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I've been sick recently so have been comfort re-reading nostalgic favourites, and I also re-read Philip Reeve's Railhead trilogy - Railhead, Black Light Express and Station Zero - for the first time since it came out a few years ago. It's a really fun planet-hopping YA sci-fi trilogy about a thief who gets embroiled in a major heist in a galaxy where interstellar travel is done on sentient trains that go through teleportation gates. Highly recommended.
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Jul 28, 2021 00:41
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neongrey posted:sorry about leaving you hanging for so very very long because it took a while for me to figure out how to articulate this in my head. Thank you for posting this! I definitely read this series as a younger (abled, cis) man and liked it while also seeing it as I think those good read posters did, and it’s really interesting to see a different positive perspective like this.
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Jul 28, 2021 01:09
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neongrey posted:sorry about leaving you hanging for so very very long because it took a while for me to figure out how to articulate this in my head. This is a good post.
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Jul 28, 2021 01:33
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freebooter posted:I've been sick recently so have been comfort re-reading nostalgic favourites, and I also re-read Philip Reeve's Railhead trilogy - Railhead, Black Light Express and Station Zero - for the first time since it came out a few years ago. It's a really fun planet-hopping YA sci-fi trilogy about a thief who gets embroiled in a major heist in a galaxy where interstellar travel is done on sentient trains that go through teleportation gates. Highly recommended. Have you read the Mortal Engines books?
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Jul 28, 2021 01:55
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Not a huge fan of The Two of Swords by KJ Parker. I already read 16 Ways… and the sequel. Did I choose the wrong second series, or is this maybe an indication his stuff is just not for me? It’s just feeling a bit artificial/predictable with how grindingly grim it is.
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Jul 28, 2021 02:38
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FPyat posted:Have you read the Mortal Engines books? Yup, they are my stalwart favourites from high school. I feel like the Railhead trilogy really flew under the radar though. Something I really like about Reeve's writing, in both ME and Railhead, is that even his secondary characters can be quite complicated. People who initially seem to be villains can turn out to be semi-decent people and vice versa, and often both at once. Hester in ME is a good example - ugly both inside and out, but only because of things that were done to her by other people, so she remains sympathetic even while she does awful things. The main character in Railhead is at least partially responsible for an act of mass murder in the first book, and Reeve never really shies away from that.
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Jul 28, 2021 03:24
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TOOT BOOT posted:I wish there were more fantasy books that used Christianity as the mythology. I don't even care if they mix it up somewhat, just give me angels vs demons and saints and all that. Walter Wangerin's The Book of the Dun Cow is the best Christianity-based story with talking animal protagonists ever.
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Jul 28, 2021 03:29
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Philip Reeve has a new book coming out soon, Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep, which I'm quite looking forward to. I assume it'll still be very much for kids but, like all his books, will still be worth reading as an adult. Philip Reeve posted:Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep takes place in the early 1800s on the remote island of Wildsea. For centuries, the Dark family have acted as Watchers, keeping a look-out for mysterious islands which are believed to appear from time to time on the western sea, and guarding Wildsea against a terrible monster which is said to live on them. When the current Watcher mysteriously drowns, his young ward Utterly takes over his duties. Gradually, she starts to discover her strange connection with the forces which dwell in the deep ocean.
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Jul 28, 2021 03:30
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 Thanks everyone. I know I was telling on myself a lot there with that explanation, but as you can tell from reading it, there's no untangling the personal from that. They're great books, but they're hard for me to recommend to others. However, as other people have said you can read the text on a more superficial level and have a lot of fun with them (before the series goes wholly off the rails, ymmv). They're super important to me. neongrey fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Jul 28, 2021 |
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Jul 28, 2021 03:48
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tildes posted:Not a huge fan of The Two of Swords by KJ Parker. I already read 16 Ways… and the sequel. Did I choose the wrong second series, or is this maybe an indication his stuff is just not for me? It’s just feeling a bit artificial/predictable with how grindingly grim it is. Two of Swords was originally published in 19 parts as a kindle serial experiment and it didn't quite work. While I love all KJ Parker works, I'd suggest skipping the trilogies and looking into the other standalones. In particular, you might enjoy the short story / novella collections more at this point. Let me suggest "The Last Witness" and "The Devil You Know."
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Jul 28, 2021 04:55
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I’m back on the Parker train with Devices and Desires after reading another book (There Is No Antimemetics Division) between Parker books. This one is a lot different to Savages, his 2015 book I recently finished, because it’s early, long winded Parker and part of a trilogy. He writes a very good opening, with three chapters that establish the principle characters very well, but each is just a bit too long, a bit too heavy on technical details, a bit too indulgent with describing the world. In Savages he pared back his prose in a way that gets across the story with economy. But it’s also nice to start a book I know will take me a bit of time to get through so I won’t have to start searching further afield for reading material when what I need right now is the somewhat familiar.
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Jul 28, 2021 18:48
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TOOT BOOT posted:I wish there were more fantasy books that used Christianity as the mythology. I don't even care if they mix it up somewhat, just give me angels vs demons and saints and all that. Let me tell you about this cool series about a land called Narnia...
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Jul 28, 2021 21:42
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feedmegin posted:Let me tell you about this cool series about a land called Narnia... In a way that’s the inverse—using non-Christian mythology to tell a Christian allegory. What I wanna see is more fantasy using Zoroastrian mythology (and earlier) because not only did it have the original concept of demons and angels and a heavy influence on Second-Temple Judaism (demons were barely a thing in the Tanakh), and Christianity, and Islam (and infect them all with heretical mysticism (Gnostics, Sufis), and also have a tenuous connection to Vedic lore… but daaaamn would it be cool Throw in the Phonecian/Babylonian gods as demonic forces, with some ancient Egyptian gods on the side… I want this now Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jul 28, 2021 |
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Jul 28, 2021 22:32
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freebooter posted:Yup, they are my stalwart favourites from high school. I feel like the Railhead trilogy really flew under the radar though. I read the Mortal Engines books back when I was the target age and I remember being endlessly frustrated by Hester at the time. Why does she keep making these bad decisions and hurting the people who care for her? Why doesn't she get better, after everything Tom tries to do for her? It's only now that I'm older I can appreciate how remarkable it is to have a character like that in a series aimed at 12-year-olds. I particularly appreciate that (spoilers for an old YA series I guess?) Hester and Tom's marriage remains broken all the way to the end, and there's no suggestion that it could have been fixed, because sometimes love isn't enough. My younger self hated it - because that's not how these things are meant to go! - but it's a pretty important and nuanced thing to try and teach kids.
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Jul 28, 2021 22:48
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The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5X5LVQ/
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Jul 28, 2021 22:56
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Guys. I just finished Piranesi. I don’t have any words. I usually do. What an amazing, enchanting, wonderful, bittersweet book.
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Jul 28, 2021 23:15
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quantumfoam posted:e: Oh yeah, Expendable by James Alan Gardner seems to be what John Scalzi's inspiration and goal was when he wrote Red Shirts. Sadly least effort expended John Scalzi happened around that time, and least effort expended John Scalzi is never ever leaving. thank you for mentioning JAG, I'm reading the League of Peoples series and it's quite enjoyable
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Jul 29, 2021 00:52
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I like the bit in The Wind in the Willows where Rat and Mole meet the god Pan and are overcome by the majesty of the deity. That blew my mind as a tiny child.
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Jul 29, 2021 01:05
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HopperUK posted:I like the bit in The Wind in the Willows where Rat and Mole meet the god Pan and are overcome by the majesty of the deity. That blew my mind as a tiny child. I just read this book all the way through for the first time. It really is great.
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Jul 29, 2021 03:54
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I found the Titan trilogy in a used book store last week and started re-reading today. Forty pages in, four female characters have been introduced and zero have chested boobily after ample opportunity to do so, so I'm gonna rate the "John Varley is a sex pervert" that was posted a while back as MYTH BUSTED.
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Jul 29, 2021 04:35
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Nomnom Cookie posted:I found the Titan trilogy in a used book store last week and started re-reading today. Forty pages in, four female characters have been introduced and zero have chested boobily after ample opportunity to do so, so I'm gonna rate the "John Varley is a sex pervert" that was posted a while back as MYTH BUSTED. I eagerly await your comments after finishing the trilogy
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Jul 29, 2021 05:01
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Nomnom Cookie posted:I found the Titan trilogy in a used book store last week and started re-reading today. Forty pages in, four female characters have been introduced and zero have chested boobily after ample opportunity to do so, so I'm gonna rate the "John Varley is a sex pervert" that was posted a while back as MYTH BUSTED. I reread Ophiuchi Hotline, Steel Beach, and finally read the Golden Globe after that convo, and all his female characters are just written like people, which probably comes from the fact he believes gender to be 100% a social construct, so why wouldn’t he write female characters like he writes male characters. I forgot how well he handled the protagonist going M to F in the middle of Steel Beach. It was probably the most deeply he ever treated the subject with a character Doctor Jeep posted:I eagerly await your comments after finishing the trilogy E. I’m totally gonna give Titan another chance next lol
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Jul 29, 2021 05:03
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Doctor Jeep posted:I eagerly await your comments after finishing the trilogy Ok I will say those 40 pages definitely had some perverted sex stuff in them, but i never got the sense that varley was writing one handed, unlike some of his contemporaries (Niven). The books? Definitely perverted. That's pretty clear by the time you get to the clone-twincest. The author? I would say not. And I was very precise in my wording earlier.
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Jul 29, 2021 05:07
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HopperUK posted:I like the bit in The Wind in the Willows where Rat and Mole meet the god Pan and are overcome by the majesty of the deity. That blew my mind as a tiny child. My wife and I fall asleep to this audiobook sometimes so I’ve only ever heard the first forty minutes or so. So if this is real, that’s a hell of a change from mole scrounging around for onion sauce or whatever part puts me right to sleep.
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Jul 29, 2021 05:21
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I would trade the whole entire culture series for (1) one more Hainish cycle. Not even a full novel. Those were willing to explore, the culture... too fond of shock value and oddly blinkered in a lot of ways. Same for butler. StratGoatCom fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Jul 29, 2021 |
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Jul 29, 2021 05:24
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Nomnom Cookie posted:Ok I will say those 40 pages definitely had some perverted sex stuff in them, but i never got the sense that varley was writing one handed, unlike some of his contemporaries (Niven). The books? Definitely perverted. That's pretty clear by the time you get to the clone-twincest. The author? I would say not. And I was very precise in my wording earlier. alright then, fair enough
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Jul 29, 2021 05:32
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Hello again, thread! Can I ask for some fantasy recommendations that's centered on an adventuring party (think D&D), but with a personal, micro focus on themselves as opposed to saving the kingdom/world? Something about not heroes but people just trying to survive (and some just fail). I've read several Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books already, but they're more epic for my tastes. Dark is fine, though not too much, I guess (Howard and Moorcock are out). Japanese light novels are fine too, but it's rather hard nowadays to find fantasy series that aren't isekai. At the moment of typing I realized that Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash really fits what I'm looking for (even if it's technically isekai), but I'd like more if possible.
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Jul 29, 2021 05:33
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NPCs by Drew Hayes is basically that. The main characters are literally NPCs who end up becoming adventurers. 4? books in the series, I think. It's litrpg, dunno if that helps or hinders you though.
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Jul 29, 2021 05:38
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Lily Catts posted:Japanese light novels are fine too, but it's rather hard nowadays to find fantasy series that aren't isekai. Only suggesting this because you said light novels are all right, and I recognize you didn't ask for mange, but... have you read Delicious in Dungeon? It's by turns fun and sweet and horrifying. Essentially, a group of failkid adventurers try to regain access to a deep dungeon where the protagonist's sister sacrificed herself to save them once already, and all the weird situations they get themselves into along the way.
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Jul 29, 2021 05:38
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tiniestacorn posted:Only suggesting this because you said light novels are all right, and I recognize you didn't ask for mange, but... have you read Delicious in Dungeon? It's by turns fun and sweet and horrifying. Essentially, a group of failkid adventurers try to regain access to a deep dungeon where the protagonist's sister sacrificed herself to save them once already, and all the weird situations they get themselves into along the way. ah that just bumped it up my to-read list. Thanks!
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Jul 29, 2021 05:44
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Lily Catts posted:Hello again, thread! Can I ask for some fantasy recommendations that's centered on an adventuring party (think D&D), but with a personal, micro focus on themselves as opposed to saving the kingdom/world? Something about not heroes but people just trying to survive (and some just fail). I've read several Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books already, but they're more epic for my tastes. Dark is fine, though not too much, I guess (Howard and Moorcock are out). Japanese light novels are fine too, but it's rather hard nowadays to find fantasy series that aren't isekai. The Black Company e: i should use more than three words. The Black Company novels are very "ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events", for the most part. Nomnom Cookie fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jul 29, 2021 |
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Jul 29, 2021 05:49
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TOOT BOOT posted:I wish there were more fantasy books that used Christianity as the mythology. I don't even care if they mix it up somewhat, just give me angels vs demons and saints and all that.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/513059.Ferren_and_the_Angel Ferren and the Angel of the Heaven and Earth Trilogy. I remember it blowing my mind as a young teen. From memory, you had a late earth/post apocalypse mad max landscape. But with either aliens or demons terrorising the world and only a few human 'tribes' left. But there were also angels at war with the demons and the humans would just huddle under blankets in holes kind of forgotten about by both sides. Ooh, and then there was this incredibly colourful battle where the forces of evil were invading the lower stages of heaven, and the angels had weapons like the Catherine wheel which was a bunch of attacking guns on a wheel that would roll around or something. And book #2 was just a 'unite the remaining human tribes' trope storyline. I think I really loved this sci fi/fantasy book as a kid because a) the world building was real barren. Like, you weren't dealing with countless mythologies and civilizations and characters - there were very, very few sentient beings left. And most of those were just amphorous blobs of evil/good factions. It really helped sell that we were at the end of things and most of the powerful forces had eliminated each other. and b) it was before goodreads so i didn't know it was probably generic fantasy angel ya. God I loved this trilogy. Although on reflection maybe I just loved the protagonist's name Ferren. e: goddamn it i remember now - the baddies were corrupted humans who had merged themselves with machinese (so unholy). and there was heaps of fun body horror with these evil machine/human things that were ghastly and real black mirrory. Lampsacus fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jul 29, 2021 |
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Jul 29, 2021 06:06
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Lily Catts posted:Hello again, thread! Can I ask for some fantasy recommendations that's centered on an adventuring party (think D&D), but with a personal, micro focus on themselves as opposed to saving the kingdom/world? Something about not heroes but people just trying to survive (and some just fail). I've read several Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books already, but they're more epic for my tastes. Dark is fine, though not too much, I guess (Howard and Moorcock are out). Japanese light novels are fine too, but it's rather hard nowadays to find fantasy series that aren't isekai. I started reading the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber. It's just two dudes trying to survive and sometimes steal jewels from temples. The guy wrote them from the 30's to the 70's so it's a little dated but I still dig them.
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Jul 29, 2021 06:59
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