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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Any other recent / new books in this vein that people would suggest? I just read this thinking it was a series but it's not a series yet and now I'm in the mood for more. Sébastien De Castell's stuff (Greatcoats and Spellslinger) has the same sense of whimsy. Greatcoats has some issues but the characters are deeper. R/Fantasy favorite Kings of the Wyld also has the same sense of fun to it as well. I'll keep thinking on it.
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Dec 29, 2021 03:17
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:How does it handle the footnotes BananaNutkins posted:I think they're appended to the end. I can't think of a better way to do it in pure audio. This is how I read my first few Discworld books (read the book and then the footnotes all at once, afterwards) until I figured out that the footnotes in ebooks are direct links to the footnote in question. On one hand, half the footnotes are just a quick punchline, which would be fine to just throw in parentheses in-line with the story; on the other, sometimes you see a three paragraph footnote on dwarven history, and I think it’s ok to move those kind of things to the end. In the general sense, I guess it depends on how the author intended them to be read.
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Dec 29, 2021 05:33
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Been reading Behold! Humanity as a series and it's pretty neat. I enjoy the bright and somewhat upbeat future idea instead of the normal dystopian all is bleak and sad future idea. i read this too lol. i love the kawaii Marines because the hilarious part is while there are people out there using SUDS to roleplay 40k, the various Idiots are latent psychics from the glassing of Terra who have permanent psychotic rage both from mat-trans overuse and being alive and hearing the death scream at the time permanently overwriting their consciousness lol. there was a real Terran imperium and a real digital omnissiah, so these insane old warriors kind of confuse it with 40k lol some of that is from the side stories that aren't published in the main volumes (yet) so I spoilered but it's whatever. anyway, I really love that stupid setting. It has every trope you can think of lovingly crafted into something that doesn't feel like a joke. the universe is a dark forest, but humanity has been glassed and genocided (sometimes by themselves) so many times that they've collectively decided the only solution is to be such a burning bright beacon that nobody like that can hide. I love it lol.
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Dec 29, 2021 05:45
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https://www.amazon.com/Friday-Black-Nana-Kwame-Adjei-Brenyah/dp/1328911241 If we are talking literary science-fiction, I would like to recommend Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut collection, "Friday Black". While not all of it is outright science fiction, most of the stories take place in near-future dystopias (or far-futures ones), and the rest arguably count as slipstream / magical realism. The final story, "Through the flash", is a dark take on Groundhog Day, about a town who has been stuck for thousands of years in a loop of the final day before they get nuked and how people try to find meaning in such an existence. I love time-loop stories, and this is by far one of the best examples of the genre I've read. Highly recommended.
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Dec 29, 2021 10:28
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Another Dirty Dish posted:This is how I read my first few Discworld books (read the book and then the footnotes all at once, afterwards) until I figured out that the footnotes in ebooks are direct links to the footnote in question. On one hand, half the footnotes are just a quick punchline, which would be fine to just throw in parentheses in-line with the story; on the other, sometimes you see a three paragraph footnote on dwarven history, and I think it’s ok to move those kind of things to the end. In the general sense, I guess it depends on how the author intended them to be read. A lot of Pratchett's footnotes, especially in the earlier books, are punchlines that are only really punchlines in the real world, rather than in the Discworld universe. I'd guess that's why those ones were footnotes instead of being in-line with the text.
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Dec 29, 2021 13:33
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Most of Pratchett's footnotes are context sensitive and meant to be read right after the mark. I don't think they're ever not on the same page as the mark in the pocketbooks, for good reason. I would want an audiobook narrator to go "... Footnote! Blablabla" in a slightly different intonation.
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Dec 29, 2021 13:50
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Now I'm wondering how the Thursday Next audiobooks, which I assume exist, handle the use of footnotes as a means of in-universe communication.
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Dec 29, 2021 15:42
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thotsky posted:Most of Pratchett's footnotes are context sensitive and meant to be read right after the mark. I don't think they're ever not on the same page as the mark in the pocketbooks, for good reason. I would want an audiobook narrator to go "... Footnote! Blablabla" in a slightly different intonation. Honestly, pretty much every book I've read that had footnotes gets completely hosed if you move the footnotes to the end of the book, or even the end of the chapter -- they're meant to be read in context, and without that context you either can't make sense of the footnote, or lose important information about the text the footnote is attached to. The only exception is books where the footnotes are used as citations -- those are usually placed at the end of the chapter or the end of the book, but I've read a few nonfiction works where they were at the bottom of the page instead. Pratchett is an easy example because he was one of the few popular contemporary fiction authors to actually use them extensively, but this is also the case with the footnotes in Cuppy, Brust, Fforde, Adams, Vance, and probably lots of others I'm forgetting -- move the footnotes out of their original context and you diminish the original text and render the footnotes largely nonsensical. This is also the case, in my experience, in works in translation where the footnotes are used to provide translator's notes; if it's important enough to the clarity of the text to be worth a footnote, it should be read in parallel with the text it annotates, not hundreds of pages later after you've finished the book. Putting footnotes at the end of the file in ebooks is an awkward concession to the limitations of the format, but any reasonably modern e-reader should be able to display them inline (either properly at the bottom of the page, or as a popup when you tap the footnote marker, depending on both the reader and the file format), which is how they're meant to be read; and with EPUB3 footnote annotations you can even place them adjacent to the main body of the text in the underlying file, which the reader doesn't care about but makes editing them a lot easier. Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Been reading Behold! Humanity as a series and it's pretty neat. I enjoy the bright and somewhat upbeat future idea instead of the normal dystopian all is bleak and sad future idea. This sounds like a fun chill-out read, but has it been published anywhere that isn't Amazon?
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Dec 29, 2021 16:43
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/r/hfy I have no idea what editing has gone into the amazon version.
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Dec 29, 2021 16:47
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SimonChris posted:https://www.amazon.com/Friday-Black-Nana-Kwame-Adjei-Brenyah/dp/1328911241 Seconding this recommendation. The titular dystopic Black Friday story in particular was pretty drat funny. His satire is sharp Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Dec 29, 2021 |
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Dec 29, 2021 16:54
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Stuporstar posted:Seconding this recommendation. The titular dystopic Black Friday story in particular was pretty drat funny. His satire is sharp added to my wishlist, thanks again thread!
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Dec 29, 2021 17:28
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Teddybear posted:Gonna steal this for a similar question — how do Pratchett audiobooks handle footnotes? They're typically narrated immediately after the sentence or paragraph in which the footnote appears. The exact timing seems to vary depending on when it would flow best - which is to say, least intrusively. In practice, it works so well that they're almost invisible in most cases. The one exception I've seen to this was in Blackstone Audio's production of Thief of Time, which had a different narrator doing the footnotes in a way that made it clear that these were wry observations on the story and setting by an outside observer, and that worked surprisingly well.
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Dec 29, 2021 19:49
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If we’re doing humanity power fantasy, Alan Dean Foster’s A Call to Arms series is still a nice light read.
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Dec 29, 2021 22:42
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Welsper posted:If we’re doing humanity power fantasy, Alan Dean Foster’s A Call to Arms series is still a nice light read. I always enjoyed that one. In Star Trek terms humans are basically Klingons.. I think John Ringo did a series later on similar themes but well, no.
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Dec 29, 2021 23:00
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Does anyone have subscriptions to ongoing short story zines like Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Analog etc? Any recommendations as to the most consistent /best? I want to start reading more short stories again. I used to just pick up “best of” collections but it occurred to me something shorter and more frequent/regular would be nice.
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Dec 30, 2021 00:45
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Blamestorm posted:Does anyone have subscriptions to ongoing short story zines like Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Analog etc? Any recommendations as to the most consistent /best? I want to start reading more short stories again. I used to just pick up “best of” collections but it occurred to me something shorter and more frequent/regular would be nice. Most of the good ones are completely free. Clarkesworld for instance, you just go to the website every month.
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Dec 30, 2021 01:00
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My subscriptions have lapsed but you've already named the ones I consider best: Lightspeed and Clarkesworld. When I read those I'm consistently happy with at least 50% of the stories in each issue.
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Dec 30, 2021 01:00
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Mythaxis is free to read online. They bought two of my stories recently ("Plague Rooster" and "The Third Martian Dick Temple") so naturally I think they're the very best semi-pro magazine on the market. https://mythaxis.github.io/issue-25/plague-rooster.html Daily Science Fiction is also free. They also bought the Dick Temple at full price. https://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/other-worlds-sf/sheila-marie-borideux/the-third-martian-dick-temple Flash Fiction Online is a place to read free SWFA paid-rate flash fiction in multiple genres. I have piece with them called "Together We Will Burn Forever". https://www.flashfictiononline.com/article/together-we-will-burn-forever/ Little Blue Marble is a Canadian SF magazine with a climate change theme that is also completely free to read online. They published a story of mine called "Arkushanangarushashutu." https://littlebluemarble.ca/2019/04/05/arkushanangarushashutu/ MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 30, 2021 02:59
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ulmont posted:I always enjoyed that one. In Star Trek terms humans are basically Klingons.. I think John Ringo did a series later on similar themes but well, no. Oh, John Ringo, YES! 
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Dec 30, 2021 03:22
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navyjack posted:Oh, John Ringo, YES! In fairness the Posleen War first few books have much less bullshit than the rest of his oeuvre.
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Dec 30, 2021 03:46
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ulmont posted:In fairness the Posleen War first few books have much less bullshit than the rest of his oeuvre. Wasn't Eric S. Raymond involved in those as well? Probably why.
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Dec 30, 2021 03:51
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Kesper North posted:Wasn't Eric S. Raymond involved in those as well? Probably why. Dunno - not as a credited author certainly - but, uhh, I wouldn’t expect involving ESR to improve most things,
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Dec 30, 2021 04:32
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Holy poo poo I haven’t thought about ESR in forever.
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Dec 30, 2021 04:34
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ulmont posted:Dunno - not as a credited author certainly - but, uhh, I wouldn’t expect involving ESR to improve most things, I don't remember him being much of one for graphic sex scenes, but I found his entirely ouvre so tedious that I barely remember. The only reason I did read it was because of loving free Baen ebooks in the early 2000s.
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Dec 30, 2021 04:45
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Are you sure you're not thinking of someone else? Eric S. Raymond is a wormy little computer guy who hasn't written any science fiction as far as I know, certainly not for Baen.
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Dec 30, 2021 04:54
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Blamestorm posted:Does anyone have subscriptions to ongoing short story zines like Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Analog etc? Any recommendations as to the most consistent /best? I want to start reading more short stories again. I used to just pick up “best of” collections but it occurred to me something shorter and more frequent/regular would be nice. Beneath Ceaseless Skies is good if you like secondary-world fantasy. Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet if you want to read something weird and literary but still within the broad sphere of speculative fiction.
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Dec 30, 2021 04:58
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Maybe OP meant Eric Flint?
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Dec 30, 2021 05:03
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withak posted:Maybe OP meant Eric Flint? Oh yes! That's the guy. My bad.
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Dec 30, 2021 05:17
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Finished the Revelation Space series today with Absolution Gap and was disappointed that it falls back to the 5/10 or charitable 6/10 that Revelation Space was, rather than the middle books Chasm City and Redemption Ark which I really liked. Reynolds has always been in need of a more ruthless editor (who in SFF isn't) but this one reeeeally dragged and easily could have been half the size. As a conclusion to the whole series it was also a bit wtf: Everything builds up to a deus ex machina in which we find out in literally the last 10 pages or so that some other alien race has been watching humans and will help protect them from the Inhibitors. The end. ("In the end, the children were rescued by... oh, let's say... Moe.") If I hadn't already read a bunch of his short stories in the same universe, especially Galactic North which already takes you into the future and shows you the greenfly (and was apparently published before the trilogy), I would have been very confused and very irritated. I still think it's a failing of the books because your big main trilogy should be able to stand on its own. I did kind of like the fact that the second book really builds up the Inhibitor threat and you assume this one will be all apocalyptic confrontation, but of course it's all galactic light-speed travel time so what actually happens is that people in the outlying systems have vaguely heard about something nasty taking out civilisation closer to the core of human space in the last 50-100 years, which will presumably affect them eventually, but hey, that's way off in the future so it's not their problem here and now. Impossible not to read that and think of climate change now. But yeah, overall, that was a weird and disappointing end to an otherwise good trilogy and good fictional universe that I enjoyed the other books/stories in.
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Dec 30, 2021 07:32
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ulmont posted:I always enjoyed that one. In Star Trek terms humans are basically Klingons.. I think John Ringo did a series later on similar themes but well, no. That's basically the premise of Andre Norton's Star Soldiers, though the ending of that gets into some slightly uncomfortable rhetorical spaces.
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Dec 30, 2021 10:07
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Kesper North posted:Oh yes! That's the guy. I don't think Ringo has ever collabed with Flint, except possibly in the most technical possible sense that both have contributed short stories to Honorverse anthologies. Ringo did collab with Weber on the Prince Roger series, which I confess is still an occasional guilty pleasure of mine.
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Dec 30, 2021 10:24
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Anshu posted:I don't think Ringo has ever collabed with Flint, except possibly in the most technical possible sense that both have contributed short stories to Honorverse anthologies. Ringo did collab with Weber on the Prince Roger series, which I confess is still an occasional guilty pleasure of mine. The space prince riding a dinosaur does xenephon is fun. The Ringoesque his mother the queen has been mind hosed and is a sex and political puppet for her evil ex husband and his cronies bit is gross and entirely ruins the fun dumb vibe for me
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Dec 30, 2021 11:07
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Gnoman posted:That's basically the premise of Andre Norton's Star Soldiers, though the ending of that gets into some slightly uncomfortable rhetorical spaces. Star Soldiers looks to be free on US kindle, if anyone else is interested.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:02
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Anshu posted:I don't think Ringo has ever collabed with Flint, except possibly in the most technical possible sense that both have contributed short stories to Honorverse anthologies. Ringo did collab with Weber on the Prince Roger series, which I confess is still an occasional guilty pleasure of mine.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:08
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Sham bam bamina! posted:He also collaborated with Tom Kratman on this loving thing. I was trying to ignore that, thanks.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:13
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I'm reading Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell at the moment and I felt absolutely tricked after the first hundred pages for it being painfully slow and absolutely nothing like Piranesi. I'm about 800 pages in now and firm of the belief that it's excellent for entirely different reasons. And I don't care two hoots for Regency-era gentlemen and haven't read any of the books being lampooned. I can see me recommending it to a lot of people. Also, for being 1,200 pages long, it doesn't feel at all like a drag once everything starts to pick up. Sure, it's taking longer to read than a normal book, but I've read books half the length that have felt much longer (because they're terrible and I hate leaving books unfinished, so - death march).
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Dec 30, 2021 17:28
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I have a real soft spot for 500-1000 page books that are standalones. Like they really did it. Went out and wrote a whole epic without turning it into a trilogy. Ride or die. Off the top of my head this includes: Cyteen (the best) Ash by Mary Gentle Johnathan Strange & Mr Norrell Orange Priory Tree or something, it's that huge dragon book I need to read Basically everything by Guy Gavriel Kay (I should read any of this tbh) e: Peter Hamilton gets a dishonorable mention for writing long books that are incredibly boring to me
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Dec 30, 2021 17:34
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StrixNebulosa posted:e: Peter Hamilton gets a dishonorable mention for writing long books that are incredibly boring to me I was just writing up a post about Pandora’s Star being one of the longest feeling books I’ve ever read, and this is from someone who’s read the Malazan series. I tried Judas Unchained and just couldn’t make it more than 100 pages or so
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Dec 30, 2021 17:37
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StrixNebulosa posted:e: Peter Hamilton gets a dishonorable mention for writing long books that are incredibly boring to me
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Dec 30, 2021 17:47
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Kestral posted:They're typically narrated immediately after the sentence or paragraph in which the footnote appears. The exact timing seems to vary depending on when it would flow best - which is to say, least intrusively. In practice, it works so well that they're almost invisible in most cases. The one exception I've seen to this was in Blackstone Audio's production of Thief of Time, which had a different narrator doing the footnotes in a way that made it clear that these were wry observations on the story and setting by an outside observer, and that worked surprisingly well. All the Discworld novels are about to get new audiobooks with Seriously Pro Narrators to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Carpet People. Hogfather is already out, narrated by Sian Clifford; the Witches novels read by Indira Varma are next up, along with Small Gods read by Andy Serkis. In all cases the footnotes will be read by Bill Nighy and Death will be voiced by Peter Serafinowicz.
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Dec 30, 2021 17:51
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