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A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe is a good one for that. It's about crew of scavengers looking for, uh, a big ship at the edge of the universe! It has sequels but I haven't read them, not because I didn't like the first book, I just never got around to it.
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Oct 14, 2021 07:29
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ulmont posted:Second definitely has a different vibe. I enjoyed it but it is different; there will be Serious Magic done in the back half though so I recommend hanging on. The third is similar to the second but after that things are closer to the first (the most recent book is very stylistically similar to the first). It took me a long time to grok the second one. He has a problem (habit?) of leaving the exposition to the end, so everything makes sense only in hindsight. It’s not really lovely wizard school IMO, it’s not Harry Potter stuff. It’s more like book 1 was wizards on the front lines, book 2 was wizards on the home front. He uses a LOT of what I think are old-English expressions for things which is the source of a lot of confusion. Some spoilers / translations below for what I am tentatively sure about, plus what I think happened in book 2. Words: Gesith- committee, ministry or company. Possibly can be a person in one of those groups or the group itself. Maybe a cognate for “kith” Gean- I’m pretty sure this is “kin”, like a family or clan Social - seems to use interchangeably with “sexual” Weeds - not weeds. Anything out of place or changed by wizards or cosmic horrors from an alien plane / dimension. Demons - something different from weeds. Seem to be like basic demons from other fantasy milieu. Not sure what criteria are to be a demon and not something else. The various gesith: Galdor-gesith I *think* is a council of elders (Galdor -> Ealdor-> Elder), non-hierarchical executive body maybe Lug gesith is for people who lug things around, so infrastructure, construction and so on Hale gesith is ‘elf and safety Food gesith is pretty self explanatory Line gesith is ministry of war Peace gesith I’m confused about, I’d normally guess it’s the ministry of war but here it seems to be more like interior ministry or civil service? They seem to propose the wording of laws too, like parliamentary draftsmen Book gesith is education I think What happened in book 2: Our protagonist is Edgar. Edgar is a 14-yo refugee from the First Commonweal who is teamed up with a group of 20something Creek from the Second Commonweal, including Dove from book 1, to try an experiment of Halt’s: can you train wizards to pool their power in a group outside of the Line or working focuses, which are apparently the normal ways of group wizarding. They spend a lot of the novel working under Blossom’s tutelage (occasionally Halt’s) doing basic stuff: using power, building a home, making illusions. Weeding, too, which doesn’t mean removing invasive plant growth but annihilating any magical or inter dimensional creature in a set zone. Also some civil engineering. It turns out that by working as a kind of hive mind they are REALLY good at this. At some point in their development, wizards develop a “metaphysical brain” - a sense of self that is sort of their true identity and distinct from whatever they started out as. Often they then shapechange into this. Grue and Blossom do this a lot. It’s probably why Halt was a spider, although Halt is not just a spider. This process is called “hatching”. The group and their metaphysical identities: - Dove is a war wizard and the strongest in the group; - Chloris is a necromancer, with a very expansive view of what can be killed (example; the space between atoms); - Zora is a life mage(?); - Edgar discovers during hatching that he is actually like Halt, a multi-dimensional horror that just presents as a 14yo boy. I can’t work out if there’s a real Edgar there that coexists with the horror, or if he was basically eaten before the story began and has always been an horrific monster that just thinks it’s Edgar because it chowed down on his memories. When loving around with shapechanging, Edgar (or parasite Edgar) sublimated his innate desire to eat people into a fairly normal human desire for physical contact - from context it’s just touch/hugging and not specifically sex - and fixated on Dove, who is the only one capable of consenting to this because she’s stronger than he is. So the law doesn’t require him to be put to death for mind control. Which would also have resulted in the death of the rest of the group. End of the story they’re allowed to keep on existing because they’re useful. Book 1 was fun Black Companyish stuff; Book 2 was a trip.
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Oct 14, 2021 08:01
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It's a little more complex than that. Click if you want to know, I guess, I read all 5. Geans are an organized community that holds land-lease, because all land is held in common in the Commonweal. Thropes are farm-holds, and the Creeks tend to run them with one or two family units together. Thorpes are rented, from geans, but the Food-gesith runs a handful as experimental agriculture space. Collectives are basically a syndicalist work structure. It's a group of people working together, generally renting land or buildings from a gean but sometimes being roving workers. Gean membership is sort of roughly equivalent to living somewhere, but it's expected that you contribute to the upkeep and rent and common labor. Gesiths are the equivalent of ministries, run by accredited Clerks and given directives by Parliament. Most of them don't come up much but there's one that owns all the infrastructure. Fylstans are something like a head clerk. The Commonweal, technically speaking, isn't a nation state. Parliament issues directives and laws, and the Clerks make it work. Judges arbitrate law and contracts, but more importantly help figure out how Clerks should implement stuff based on precedence. Independents are called that because sorcerers inherently exist outside of this collective structure- they're independent. So how stuff gets done is largely by ad-hoc committees of at least one of all these people getting together and discussing it with the people affected by the decision. Books 3 and 4 and to a degree 5 have a lot to do with how the Commonweal changes from massively expanded use of magic in society. The Peace and the Ur-Law (no slaves, no personal power) are pretty strange. The Shape of the Peace is a kind of semi-sentient force that helps hide the Commonweal and it's citizens from magic, on top of judging whether sorcerers are power-hungry or not. The Line isn't, technically, a part of the Commonweal, although they're supported by it. They're outside the Peace, and are under their own law and own command. The standard-captains do everything by consensus, and by tradition. Its not brought up much in book 1, but book 1 is first and foremost about the Line changing. Overall, it's a loving strange setting. I love it. I think most of the fun was in learning all this first hand but whatever. Larry Parrish fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Oct 14, 2021 |
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Oct 14, 2021 09:08
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chainchompz posted:Recently I took a few months and I finished the Diving Universe books by Kristen Kathryn Rusch and am now looking for other stuff with that general vibe- space ships, astroarchaeology, shipwrecks, etc. I just looked these up and they sound intriguing. The first book in the series seems to exist as both a novella and a novel, should I try the novel version? For some reason on UK Kindle store the first novel is the same price as the pack containing the first three novels so I'll probably pick up the latter, given you clearly liked them enough to read the whole lot.
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Oct 14, 2021 11:44
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Aardvark! posted:Wheel of Time book 2 done. I was strongly considering switching off the series but the ending finally got interesting again so I am cautiously wading in to book 3. Odds I am going to even get close to finishing this series are dropping rapidly I just finished the lot (of wot) after about an intense 3 &1/2 weeks. It dragged in places but I gave up about book 11 or 12 back in the day and I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed most of it I've never read a Sanderson book before but I appreciated how much he dropped the BDSM elements and just got on with finishing the drat story.
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Oct 14, 2021 11:45
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Khizan posted:Books 7-10 catch a lot of hell from readers, but I think a lot of that is from people who were waiting on the books as they were being written. I don't think that's unfair, apart from a few bits that dragged on waaaay too long (the kidnapping/gaishan bit & some of the hunting the black Ajah bits) I was pleasantly surprised at how much I wanted to keep going, something I don't remember when I was buying the big trade paperback editions on release.
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Oct 14, 2021 11:53
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Another Dirty Dish posted:I think I stuck it out to WoT book 12, but if I wasn’t reading to kill time while working at a call centre I probably would have given up sooner. The first three had some great scenes though loving hell, man, what kind of call centre did you work in?
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Oct 14, 2021 12:56
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cptn_dr posted:Out of interest, are you reading the New Zealand version or the international version? Apparently they trimmed a bit of it when it got republished. Pretty sure I'm reading the international version. It still feels very long and somewhat aimless, and not in that "I have everything under control 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell'" way. But there are elements of it I like enough that I'll probably finish it.
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Oct 14, 2021 15:22
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Beefeater1980 posted:Some spoilers / translations below for what I am tentatively sure about, plus what I think happened in book 2. I don't think this is a spoiler for anything past book two but I read it as: a third option, Edgar's always been the horror but the parasite kept them dumb and stunted, and they grew up thinking they were just a particularly dumb human.
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Oct 14, 2021 16:58
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chainchompz posted:Recently I took a few months and I finished the Diving Universe books by Kristen Kathryn Rusch and am now looking for other stuff with that general vibe- space ships, astroarchaeology, shipwrecks, etc. Blindsight!
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Oct 14, 2021 17:18
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fritz posted:I don't think this is a spoiler for anything past book two but I read it as: It’s this, more or less. Theres some text in 2/3 that discusses this - normally entelechs don’t have the same level of sorcery when they emerge into the world as Edgar did, it was the parasite’s suppression that let him grow to the point where he doesn’t have to do everything via entelechy but is also sorcerous, and suppressing his exercise of his powers until he had more fundamentally adult desires as opposed to the basic sociopathy of a small child. Also a bit about how he was infected by an extra dimensional entity which took him over at some point (“a mirror which responds by changing” or something like that); he was born human but hasn’t been one for some time before book 2 begins. Also many unfamiliar words in the series are derived from Old English - gesith is the OE word for the king’s noble companions/attendants, which becomes something like a ministry or bureau; galdor is spells/magic and the Galdor-gesith is the bureau charged with dealing with the Power; heahlareow is OE for head teacher and is roughly equivalent to the master in a master/apprentice relationship, leornere being a student or disciple and is the apprentice; fylstan is ~OE for assist, and refers to a clerk with some authority to interpret policy, larhaus is roughly derived from “house of learning” and refers to a specific form of organization that involves productive output but also devising new methods of utilizing sorcery, etc. Not all, though - eg Pelorios, from Ancient Greek, for gigantic (with a secondary connotation of supernatural monster.) With apologies for so many spoilers: for no particular reason I just really like the books/world. Kalman fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Oct 14, 2021 |
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Oct 14, 2021 21:39
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Larry Parrish posted:It's a little more complex than that. Click if you want to know, I guess, I read all 5. Geans are an organized community that holds land-lease, because all land is held in common in the Commonweal. Thropes are farm-holds, and the Creeks tend to run them with one or two family units together. Thorpes are rented, from geans, but the Food-gesith runs a handful as experimental agriculture space. Collectives are basically a syndicalist work structure. It's a group of people working together, generally renting land or buildings from a gean but sometimes being roving workers. Gean membership is sort of roughly equivalent to living somewhere, but it's expected that you contribute to the upkeep and rent and common labor. Gesiths are the equivalent of ministries, run by accredited Clerks and given directives by Parliament. Most of them don't come up much but there's one that owns all the infrastructure. Fylstans are something like a head clerk. The Commonweal, technically speaking, isn't a nation state. Parliament issues directives and laws, and the Clerks make it work. Judges arbitrate law and contracts, but more importantly help figure out how Clerks should implement stuff based on precedence. Independents are called that because sorcerers inherently exist outside of this collective structure- they're independent. So how stuff gets done is largely by ad-hoc committees of at least one of all these people getting together and discussing it with the people affected by the decision. Books 3 and 4 and to a degree 5 have a lot to do with how the Commonweal changes from massively expanded use of magic in society. Re: some of what's under here. Independents are called independent because they aren't part of the larger social structure (I don't think this is a spoiler, it's implied from nearly the beginning but nobody comes right out and says it). More than that, the name Independent is not a compliment, it's an almost rude and exclusionary statement, indepedents are dangerous and outside the normal context and kind of only tolerated under the Commonweal because they necessary, at least at first, under the first commonweal. Part of Wake and Halt's project is to find a way to give Independents a social context within the Commonweal with regular folk, as well as find a way for Independents not to be so isolated and usually insane when they're young.
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Oct 14, 2021 22:41
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Finally got my hands on Hummingbird Salamander (I think I put it on hold at the library back in June?) and I’m not sure if I like it yet. So far it reads like the paranoid tales of a bored, depressed cyber security manager, going out of her way to mess up her life. edit: 
Another Dirty Dish fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Oct 15, 2021 |
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Oct 14, 2021 23:55
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Danhenge posted:Re: some of what's under here. Independents are called independent because they aren't part of the larger social structure (I don't think this is a spoiler, it's implied from nearly the beginning but nobody comes right out and says it). More than that, the name Independent is not a compliment, it's an almost rude and exclusionary statement, indepedents are dangerous and outside the normal context and kind of only tolerated under the Commonweal because they necessary, at least at first, under the first commonweal. Part of Wake and Halt's project is to find a way to give Independents a social context within the Commonweal with regular folk, as well as find a way for Independents not to be so isolated and usually insane when they're young. yeah a recurring theme is how all the earliest wizards were basically forced by Laurel to submit and, to a greater and lesser degree (e.g.: mulch), can't truly comprehend what it's like to grow up in a mutualistic society where an evil lich isn't trying to kill you and steal your power and you have to kill him first. they were outside the social order, bound by force, and it seems like their "Independent" traditions couldn't help but reproduce that relationship in their students Halt and Wake are at least capable of realizing the problem and moving toward something new, with wizards more integrated into society. But said project also has had the side benefit of creating an basically unstoppable team that could destroy the current government and conquer it in a heartbeat, should they decide they want to, which doesn't mesh well with the "no rule by sorcerers" idea
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Oct 15, 2021 00:12
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Kalman posted:Not all, though - eg Pelorios, from Ancient Greek, for gigantic (with a secondary connotation of supernatural monster.) Creek names are always (ancient/classical/etc) Greek
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Oct 15, 2021 00:34
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a fun detail is the Commonweal doesn't want rule by anyone, not just sorcerers. sorcerers are the only ones with it magically ensured by the Shape of the Peace, but the Commonweal is also designed to crush personal power in general. You're allowed to be persuasive, you're allowed to be popular, you just can't be in charge of anything but your narrow set of responsibilities you were elected or appointed by Parliament for.
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Oct 15, 2021 01:39
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eke out posted:yeah a recurring theme is how all the earliest wizards were basically forced by Laurel to submit and, to a greater and lesser degree (e.g.: mulch), can't truly comprehend what it's like to grow up in a mutualistic society where an evil lich isn't trying to kill you and steal your power and you have to kill him first. they were outside the social order, bound by force, and it seems like their "Independent" traditions couldn't help but reproduce that relationship in their students I think by implication, though the Peace believed to the best of its ability to judge that they were unlikely to become the kind of people who wanted to do that. By the end of book 3, they had intentionally forged themselves into the kinds of people who could live within the Peace, even with their power to break it. In any case, the problem was already there anyway because by all accounts a fully-grown Blossom had the kind of power necessary to break the Peace.
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Oct 15, 2021 01:42
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Danhenge posted:I think by implication, though the Peace believed to the best of its ability to judge that they were unlikely to become the kind of people who wanted to do that. By the end of book 3, they had intentionally forged themselves into the kinds of people who could live within the Peace, even with their power to break it. In any case, the problem was already there anyway because by all accounts a fully-grown Blossom had the kind of power necessary to break the Peace. yeah Halt's plans started at least a generation before this crew with blossom and her gf all the discussion of how their laws have needed to change to allow the ongoing existence do make me wonder what's going to happen when they reencounter the original commonweal, whether those folks are still around and going to see the horrifying hivemind featuring an entelech and a couple nascent gods and react poorly
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Oct 15, 2021 03:05
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eke out posted:yeah Halt's plans started at least a generation before this crew with blossom and her gf Too bad all that fluff is in a book which is utterly boring. It is like the author thought that a storyline is not needed compared to world building, making Sanderson appear as Dostoyevsky in comparison. I have read RPG manuals with better stories. Oh, and the amount of effort put into promoting a self published author here is fascinating. Cardiac fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Oct 15, 2021 |
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Oct 15, 2021 05:11
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What are you trying to imply lol. Sorry I brought it up, I guess. I'd be lying if I thought the Commonweal books were gonna have mass appeal, but they're definetly weird, and if you like them you ain't gonna get that anywhere else.
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Oct 15, 2021 05:58
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Cardiac posted:Oh, and the amount of effort put into promoting a self published author here is fascinating. sounds like they like this set of fantasy novels and are discussing them in the sf and fantasy thread my dude, what are you suggesting
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Oct 15, 2021 06:44
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New Super Metis posted:A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe is a good one for that. It's about crew of scavengers looking for, uh, a big ship at the edge of the universe! It has sequels but I haven't read them, not because I didn't like the first book, I just never got around to it. Thanks for the reco! This looks like it might scratch that itch. The Sweet Hereafter posted:I just looked these up and they sound intriguing. The first book in the series seems to exist as both a novella and a novel, should I try the novel version? For some reason on UK Kindle store the first novel is the same price as the pack containing the first three novels so I'll probably pick up the latter, given you clearly liked them enough to read the whole lot. I read the novel version on an ebook reader. Without giving too much away, the series starts off with the main character wanting to explore derelict vessels and it kind of snowballs from there and changes scope a few times. IMO some of the novels/novellas were great and a few needed more time in the oven. Again, without giving anything away there's enough loose ends remaining at the end of all 16 novels/novellas that I hope there's more coming but if not the books were fun while they lasted. Also take anything I've said with a grain of salt- I seem to be a compulsive reader of every book of each series I start. A Proper Uppercut posted:Blindsight! Also thanks for the reco! This looks like a good one off. chainchompz fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Oct 15, 2021 |
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Oct 15, 2021 07:37
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neongrey posted:sounds like they like this set of fantasy novels and are discussing them in the sf and fantasy thread my dude, what are you suggesting Also some of us might remember the author as a regular on rec.arts.sf.written back when. His writing style is recognizeable.
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Oct 15, 2021 07:40
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Has anyone mentioned creek dicks yet.
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Oct 15, 2021 07:40
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Groke posted:Also some of us might remember the author as a regular on rec.arts.sf.written back when. His writing style is recognizeable. if anyone really is holding a grudge from 30 years ago when Usenet was a thing I suggest they go outside
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Oct 15, 2021 07:59
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Larry Parrish posted:if anyone really is holding a grudge from 30 years ago when Usenet was a thing I suggest they go outside More like 20, and more like the opposite of a grudge, really. Edit: To elaborate a bit, Saunders always seemed like a friendly dude and he often had interesting poo poo to say. What he did have a tendency to do, was to pack quite a bit of meaning into his language, and he often skipped a few intermediate steps which he might then be asked to unpack and explain. Groke fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Oct 15, 2021 |
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Oct 15, 2021 08:21
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Okay, okay... what was the first Commonweal book again ?
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Oct 15, 2021 08:37
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mllaneza posted:Okay, okay... what was the first Commonweal book again ? The March North by Graydon Saunders.
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Oct 15, 2021 09:03
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I just finished the first one and liked it fairly well. It does very much have the feeling of the black company, but I'm not sure I like the writing a ton. Regardless it's interesting enough for me to pick up the second one Edit:it's funny that people keep sniping that it's Graydon and his fifteen alts promoting his books. If Larry is a Graydon alt then I guess I'm a fan
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Oct 15, 2021 11:35
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Another Dirty Dish posted:All call centres are a special kind of purgatory. This was the best of the three I’ve worked at (not that that’s a high bar to clear - the others were credit card sales and American election surveys). Basically I routed stock and placed purchase orders for a big IT equipment company. It was email and chat based, so I rarely had to talk to anybody over the phone. I suspect I may have whooshed you here. Read the spoiler again.
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Oct 15, 2021 12:07
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Dune update he surprised me with a copy  So I guess I’ll be back here in a month to yell about it
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Oct 15, 2021 12:33
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:
lol this is cardiac's master theory that they previously brought up last time someone talked about this, that there is a viral marketing campaign going on in the sf&f thread on this dead forum because like ten people have discussed this obscure series
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Oct 15, 2021 12:41
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Just went to get it after the recommendation and it looks like A Big Ship At The Edge of the Universe is on sale for 2.99 right now (US Amazon at least). e: Oh drat, I just realized it's by the same author as Alien: Into Charybdis. I really enjoyed that, so this is moving even higher in my to-read pile. DurianGray fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Oct 15, 2021 |
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Oct 15, 2021 12:42
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:I just finished the first one and liked it fairly well. It does very much have the feeling of the black company, but I'm not sure I like the writing a ton. Regardless it's interesting enough for me to pick up the second one it's true. I, graydon saunders, have decided to spend the last ten years pretending to be a brain damaged zoomer troll, so that nobody would expect me to start promoting my book that started getting written literally before I was born
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Oct 15, 2021 13:33
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Well it might have generated as many as ten sales!
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Oct 15, 2021 13:52
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HopperUK posted:Well it might have generated as many as ten sales! There are dozens of us on this subforum. Dozens!
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Oct 15, 2021 14:04
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I liked the early part of The March North but now battles are starting and I can't tell whats really happening or where its happening. In his later books, KJ Parker started paring down detail to the minimum, but his battles were still easy to follow. The March North feels like its that but taken to an even greater extreme.
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Oct 15, 2021 15:46
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Ceebees posted:Hey cool i'm just going to get my popcorn and wait for that one guy to show up and get mad again. Cardiac posted:being mad Larry Parrish posted:What are you trying to imply lol. Sorry I brought it up, I guess. I'd be lying if I thought the Commonweal books were gonna have mass appeal, but they're definetly weird, and if you like them you ain't gonna get that anywhere else. neongrey posted:sounds like they like this set of fantasy novels and are discussing them in the sf and fantasy thread my dude, what are you suggesting  (We've had this argument with Cardiac like 4 times in this thread, there's no point to having it again)
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Oct 15, 2021 16:19
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Ceebees posted:
Maybe Cardiac is actually the Saunders alt and Kramering into the thread to be mad as actual a reverse-psychology op. loving brilliant. Diabolical, but brilliant. Edit: Actual content: I think the series crawls up its own rear end a bit, but the sheer weirdness of the world-building really cuts a lot of slack. It really does remind me a lot of The Culture books which is why I don’t mind the sprawl and excess. navyjack fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Oct 15, 2021 |
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Oct 15, 2021 19:28
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Ccs posted:I liked the early part of The March North but now battles are starting and I can't tell whats really happening or where its happening. In his later books, KJ Parker started paring down detail to the minimum, but his battles were still easy to follow. The March North feels like its that but taken to an even greater extreme. Yeah, I'm not that far in, but I'd say the dialogue reads pretty much also like that. As if I'd be able to pick out the talking character by voice alone, but it's their first dialogue. Other than that I'm certainly intrigued. Let's see where this goes. Logging into my other alts now, busy day
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Oct 15, 2021 19:53
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