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Revelation Space (The Inhibitor Trilogy Book 1) by Alastair Reynolds - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0819W19WD Redemption Ark (The Inhibitor Trilogy Book 2) by Alastair Reynolds - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0819V9WPD/ Absolution Gap (The Inhibitor Trilogy Book 3) by Alastair Reynolds - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0819WBT95
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Oct 4, 2021 22:50
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You beat me Fart. Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00338QF1E/ The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RD854O/ The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PI181JI/ Some more by KJ Parker. Others also still on sale. The Belly of the Bow (Fencer #2) - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B3VX3S6/ The Proof House (Fencer #3) - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B3VX3UE/ The Company - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002B9MHQ8/
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Oct 4, 2021 23:09
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Mr. Grapes! posted:- Revelation Space and some other Reynolds. I think generation ships are such an interesting concept but just about every book I read on the topic is garbage except for Chasm City. I think you'd like Ian McDonald - give his Luna trilogy a shot.
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Oct 4, 2021 23:26
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The Broken Sword is awesome and always worth recommending.
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Oct 5, 2021 00:06
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This version has the original text too, thank god.
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Oct 5, 2021 02:45
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Another Dirty Dish posted:
You are really going to want to read the next trilogy in the series, the Ravenor omnibus. It continues with many of the same characters and is then followed by another trilogy with both Ravenor and Eisenhorn opposed to each other. In fact, everybody in this thread should ignore any feelings they have about Warhammer 40k and read Eisenhorn. It's excellent science fiction and does not require knowledge of the broader 40k lore. I've got plenty of friends who don't want anything to do with 40k but have read and greatly enjoyed Eisenhorn and never picked up another 40k book. Dan Abnett is an amazing author that just so happens to write Warhammer (and a lot of comic books!) If you are interested in trying out more Warhammer pop over in the Black Library thread and we can give you recommendations. 80% of the books are crap, but there are 4-5 authors that are legitimately great that put out top tier work and it's a shame they don't really write much non-licensed work.
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Oct 5, 2021 03:19
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I am once again recommending Ian Watson's Space Marine.
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Oct 5, 2021 06:47
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90s Cringe Rock posted:I am once again recommending Ian Watson's Space Marine. I've got the first edition of all Watson's 40k books, including Space Marine. I've been in contact with him and he is going to sign the ones that aren't already signed once corona calms down. Reason you should read Ian Watson's Space Marine: The space marines board a Tyranid Bio-Ship (a living ship miles long that transports the Starship Troopers/hive mind style bugs) by shooting the boarding pod into its rear end in a top hat, and that's not even the craziest thing that happens. Written in the early 90s when 40k was especially crazy.
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Oct 5, 2021 07:02
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They meet a zoat.
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Oct 5, 2021 07:09
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90s Cringe Rock posted:They meet a zoat. I assumed this was a kind of space goat and boy, was I wrong
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Oct 5, 2021 07:40
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D-Pad posted:I've got the first edition of all Watson's 40k books, including Space Marine. I've been in contact with him and he is going to sign the ones that aren't already signed once corona calms down. I thought, that can't possibly be that Ian Watson, could it? But it is. And might I just say that the content you described in no way surprises me because I've read The Fire Worm. (I do like Converts, though.)
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Oct 5, 2021 08:36
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Tor is giving away Gideon the Ninth as part of their free book club thing https://www.tor.com/2021/10/05/download-a-free-ebook-of-gideon-the-ninth-this-bonestober-before-october-8th/
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Oct 5, 2021 14:05
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Found time (and a good chair in my new place) to start reading again and got 4 chapters through A Wizard of Earthsea and drat this book is seriously really good. Just well written and meaningful, can't believe I hadn't read it sooner!
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Oct 5, 2021 14:25
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Ursula K. LeGuin good author, write good words.
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Oct 5, 2021 15:46
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Good at getting them in the right order, too. That's the trick.
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Oct 5, 2021 15:54
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Also, good at using enough of them but not too many.
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Oct 5, 2021 16:02
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bovis posted:Found time (and a good chair in my new place) to start reading again and got 4 chapters through A Wizard of Earthsea and drat this book is seriously really good. Just well written and meaningful, can't believe I hadn't read it sooner! I went straight from the last Earthsea book to reading The Wheel Of Time, first time for either series. Could not ask for further opposites in prose style. I'm halfway through the second book and less has happened than in like 2 chapters of the first Earthsea book. Why tell a story in 10 words when you can tell it in 10000000????????? fake-spoiler: I'm actually still enjoying The Wheel Of Time at this point 
AARD VARKMAN fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 16:09
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Crashbee posted:Tor is giving away Gideon the Ninth as part of their free book club thing https://www.tor.com/2021/10/05/download-a-free-ebook-of-gideon-the-ninth-this-bonestober-before-october-8th/ Thanks, I should really sign a real email address up for Tor instead of a spam address so I stop missing the free book emails, this is the third on in the last six months that has been interesting enough to get
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Oct 5, 2021 17:29
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Some authors grow more wordy as their work develops. It's like once their editor no longer has as much say they cut loose and it all comes vomiting out. Others, like KJ Parker, start with gargantuan and somewhat aimless trilogies, and gradually grow more concise with each project, until you get a book like Savages which is almost a summation of his entire career in half the pages of the first volume of one of his doorstopper trilogies. Still other rare authors like Susanna Clarke seem to be masters of both forms. And then they get cursed with lifelong exhaustion so I can't read their books forever....
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Oct 5, 2021 17:34
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For anyone who likes Malory-based Arthuriana I recommend Idylls of the Queen by Phyllis Ann Karr. Sirs Kay and Mordred are rude to each other while trying to solve the mystery of Who Poisoned The Apples At The Queen's Party, being told Malory-somewhat-reinterpreted-from-a-different-POV stories by various people and brooding a lot about what an rear end in a top hat Lancelot is. Great fun. I read her Frostflower books decades ago and found them very meh, but I'm going to have to have a look through the rest of her backlist after this.
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Oct 5, 2021 18:41
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Larry Parrish posted:it took me so long to read this because the blurb made it sound bad but it's probably one of my favorite books ever lol. I picked this up because of your recommendation (and because it was $2), and have been enjoying it. Thanks!
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Oct 5, 2021 19:17
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MalleusDei posted:I picked this up because of your recommendation (and because it was $2), and have been enjoying it. Thanks! The rest of the trilogy continues to be somehow just as good, despite wildly different casts in the same universe. I was skeptical because why would I read a sequel to a slice of life without the same cast? But trust me on this, if you liked the first one.
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Oct 5, 2021 20:04
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Larry Parrish posted:The rest of the trilogy continues to be somehow just as good, despite wildly different casts in the same universe. I was skeptical because why would I read a sequel to a slice of life without the same cast? But trust me on this, if you liked the first one. I actually didn't read the second one after liking the first one because I saw it followed a side character I didn't care about very much  does it matter if I forgot everything about the first one?
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Oct 5, 2021 20:11
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Ccs posted:Some authors grow more wordy as their work develops. It's like once their editor no longer has as much say they cut loose and it all comes vomiting out. Or, as was the case with Jordan, your editor is your wife.
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Oct 5, 2021 20:13
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Aardvark! posted:I actually didn't read the second one after liking the first one because I saw it followed a side character I didn't care about very much No, they're all written to be pretty standalone. There'll be references to characters and events from the other books, but they feel more like cameos/easter eggs than things you're expected to know about for the sake of the plot. FWIW I also wasn't that interested in that particular character either, but still enjoyed A Closed and Common Orbit. I think Record of a Spaceborn Few is my favorite of the three, I haven't read the fourth one yet though.
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Oct 5, 2021 20:18
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MockingQuantum posted:No, they're all written to be pretty standalone. There'll be references to characters and events from the other books, but they feel more like cameos/easter eggs than things you're expected to know about for the sake of the plot. FWIW I also wasn't that interested in that particular character either, but still enjoyed A Closed and Common Orbit. I think Record of a Spaceborn Few is my favorite of the three, I haven't read the fourth one yet though. I think Record of a Spaceborn Few is still probably the best out of the four. I do think the fourth book is pretty good though, and its one of the few books out there without a human or human-derived POV character. Interestingly the connective tissue for the whole series is Ashby, the captain from the first book. He's the only character that actually appears in all four even if its for just a line or two. Zore fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 20:21
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Larry Parrish posted:it took me so long to read this because the blurb made it sound bad but it's probably one of my favorite books ever lol. It's pretty sweet. Yes, exploration and weirdness and some conflict and even some dangerous stuff, but mostly slice-of-life with people being mostly decent at each other.
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Oct 5, 2021 20:24
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That's good to hear, I got it a while ago and just haven't made it to it yet. Record of a Spaceborn Few is really kind of remarkable for me, it is unabashedly sci-fi but hits some really complex and deep emotional notes that are rare even in the best books out there, IMO. It might just be that it plucked the right strings at the right time for when I was reading it, but I don't have nearly as vivid memories of reading even some of my other favorite books.
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Oct 5, 2021 20:25
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Jedit posted:Or, as was the case with Jordan, your editor is your wife. With Jordan it was more that his wife *stopped* helping. She was more active on the early books and less active on the later ones due to some health issues. She was also the editor on the Black Company series and on Ender's Game, and on Sanderson's Way of Kings.
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Oct 5, 2021 20:45
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Aardvark! posted:I actually didn't read the second one after liking the first one because I saw it followed a side character I didn't care about very much they're all actually standalones, it's not a real series exactly. the second does have a returning character, but anything you need to know about her comes up in the text. you just have some added context from the first book, which isn't at all necessary. MockingQuantum posted:That's good to hear, I got it a while ago and just haven't made it to it yet. yeah Becky Chambers pwns. I didn't like the one about astronauts but Psalm for the Wild Built is similarly amazing, and I highly recommend that as well
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Oct 5, 2021 22:09
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Larry Parrish posted:they're all actually standalones, it's not a real series exactly. the second does have a returning character, but anything you need to know about her comes up in the text. you just have some added context from the first book, which isn't at all necessary. Oh that's good to know, I loved the first three Wayfarers books but was bored as hell by To Be Taught, If Fortunate. I'll give Psalm for the Wild Built a spin then, thanks!
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Oct 5, 2021 22:13
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Jade War (Green Bone Saga #2) by Fonda Lee - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H27TV1G/ Transition by Iain M Banks - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002O0Q6YS/ Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow #3) by Anthony Ryan - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OQS4DJQ/ The Two of Swords: Volume Three by KJ Parker - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y5K2CK2/
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Oct 5, 2021 22:29
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While we're on the subject of sci fi with emotional notes (and Pradmer's helpful Amazon links), Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell is currently 99p on UK Amazon: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Winters-Orbit-Everina-Maxwell-ebook/dp/B08DFRY1LN It's political space opera with gay romance and I really enjoyed it. I'm hoping the author will write more books in this setting. I'm also really bad at reviewing books even when I loved them, so hopefully someone else here has read it and will second me when I say it's well worth 99p and a few hours of your time.
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Oct 5, 2021 23:19
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The Sweet Hereafter posted:While we're on the subject of sci fi with emotional notes (and Pradmer's helpful Amazon links), Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell is currently 99p on UK Amazon: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Winters-Orbit-Everina-Maxwell-ebook/dp/B08DFRY1LN
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Oct 5, 2021 23:30
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Winter's Orbit reminded me of what I imagine fanfic about Ivan Vorpatril getting a boyfriend would be like, but in a good way. A quick and fluffy read, but sometimes that's really what you want.
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Oct 5, 2021 23:36
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The Sweet Hereafter posted:While we're on the subject of sci fi with emotional notes (and Pradmer's helpful Amazon links), Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell is currently 99p on UK Amazon: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Winters-Orbit-Everina-Maxwell-ebook/dp/B08DFRY1LN Cheers, this looks decent and the prose is actually readable, I've grabbed it.
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Oct 5, 2021 23:46
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cptn_dr posted:Winter's Orbit reminded me of what I imagine fanfic about Ivan Vorpatril getting a boyfriend would be like, but in a good way. A quick and fluffy read, but sometimes that's really what you want. I read the canonfic about Ivan Vorpatril getting a girlfriend and I'm gonna hope Winter's Orbit is better.
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Oct 6, 2021 00:06
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Reading Iron Widow. It owns.
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Oct 6, 2021 01:31
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I read a recommendation for the Commonweal series by Graydon Saunders... Somewhere? Maybe in TBB? I don't remember. Anyway I'm ~1.5 books it and it pwns. The first was a really interesting military fantasy book about a battalion of reservists fighting a pitched battle in a very strange setting. It's not quite, like, book of the new sun bizarre, but its close. The writing style is really original too, it's like... Normal novels are all Renaissance Realism, but this one is one of those Chinese watercolor-looking-paintings (I think those are technically colored ink on cardstock, traditionally) where the subject is in extreme detail and it's surroundings are just barely there, like a feeling of something before it fades out completely. I really don't know of anything else I've read that's similar. But I really, really like it. You don't even ever hear the protagonist's name, because who the hell thinks of their own name? Everyone just calls them Captain. The second book so far is a group of five people learning magic in an entirely new way from tradition, and it's so far very emotional but also has almost... Loving descriptions of poo poo like artificial corundum glass magic lights and watching your friend make super detailed titanium furnishings with magic. It's equally awesome, but in a really different way. Maybe I'll change my mind later (there's apparently 5 of these loving things) but so far, I love these. Larry Parrish fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Oct 6, 2021 |
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Oct 6, 2021 04:36
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Hmm that sounds like something I might enjoy coming off a bunch of KJ Parker. I would’ve picked up the first for kindle but it’s not available on Amazon, I’ll try to get it on my phone.
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Oct 6, 2021 04:51
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