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it's always neat when someone writes a medieval setting and does it right. that's why i love Spellmonger so much. it mirrors some parts of Europe close enough to feel grounded while retaining enough differences and fantasy elements to feel like an alien culture.
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Mar 11, 2022 04:26
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I know an author is writing medieval Europe right when I get a burning urge to go play Crusader Kings. Cherryh's Fortress in the Eye of Time hits this as well, as it's good at showing the King desperately balancing a powerful Church with his many lords and his own personal desires. Too many generic fantasy novels like to pretend kings are dictators with absolute power when they're really not.
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Mar 11, 2022 04:37
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Oh hey, I just finished the first Crown of Stars a few days ago. I agree with everything everyone has said. I can't read series all in one go, I always alternate with some other book so I started Ash: A Secret History. The framing device is hilarious between chapters a researcher is exchanging emails with his supervisor as the historical document he is translating differs more and more from established history but holy moly CW: graphic sexual violence.
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Mar 11, 2022 07:49
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3/4 of the way through Alastair Reynolds' Blue Remembered Earth and it's really not holding my attention. It feels like it lacks tension because there's no obvious major threat, which all the rest of his books have, and that sucks a lot of the urgency out of it. I get that this is kind of the point, that he's trying to paint a more optimistic utopian future than his other books and so we're following a little mystery in which (probably) nothing truly bad can happen to the main characters, and I admire him for breaking out of his own typecasting but it sort of feels like he's just inadvertently exposed his own weaknesses as a storyteller.
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Mar 11, 2022 10:11
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Srandon Banderson
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Mar 11, 2022 11:27
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Braydon Saunderson
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Mar 11, 2022 11:31
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Everyone posted:Jesus-gently caress I remember those. I remember reading those books in high school (and am 53 years old). They kind of rocked, truth be told. Barbara Hambly is indeed pretty good.
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Mar 11, 2022 12:55
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Poldarn posted:I can't read series all in one go, I always alternate with some other book so I started Ash: A Secret History. The framing device is hilarious between chapters a researcher is exchanging emails with his supervisor as the historical document he is translating differs more and more from established history but holy moly CW: graphic sexual violence.
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Mar 11, 2022 12:57
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2 chapters into Project Hail Mary and it’s rough. The main character is already insufferable. No one with amnesia acts or thinks like this. Might have to shelf this.
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Mar 11, 2022 15:26
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Megasabin posted:2 chapters into Project Hail Mary and it’s rough. The main character is already insufferable. No one with amnesia acts or thinks like this. Might have to shelf this. I got about 20% into it and man it did not get any better. Which is a shame because I liked the Martian.
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Mar 11, 2022 16:47
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Here's a spoiler for a major twist that might put the early stuff in perspective: The main character is actually kind of a coward who was tricked into going on the mission. He has amnesia as a consequence of a drug he was given, so he won't know he was basically kidnapped into the enterprise and to encourage him to engage with the mission (at least initially) as opposed to falling into despair. I enjoyed it, but it was definitely pure popcorn.
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Mar 11, 2022 17:58
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I hate to admit it, but I gave up on Blacktongue Thief. I adored Two Fires but I've been reading a lot of world building heavy fantasy and I just dread running into more paragraphs of fake history and magic rules. I'm going through Leviathan Wakes and it's been a breath of fresh air to get away from family trees and descriptions of special, irregular food.
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Mar 11, 2022 18:03
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Even after the kickstarter cut and possible religious tithing, that is a crazy amount of money going Sanderson's way. I hope Sanderson does a gently caress-you project, like self-funding drought resistant forestry projects in his state or starts issuing his own version of Bowie Bonds creatively called, uh, Sanderson Bonds or starts up a 1-800 phone number (ala Piers *pedobait* Anthony in the 1990's) to handle all the "please call me back. I have a no miss opportunity for you" and death threat messages now going his way.
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Mar 11, 2022 19:52
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HopperUK posted:I liked Curse of Chalion when I read it earlier in the year. A deeply traumatized veteran finds his way back to the royal court where he grew up and becomes a tutor to the teenage princess. There is Something Afoot, foul magic and dark politics. The story itself isn't all grimdark, though a lot of rather dark things happen. The gods appear to be inconveniently real and they're cross about something. The following two books are good too. The third one is very disconnected.
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Mar 11, 2022 19:53
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The Penric & Desdemona novellas are also good.
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Mar 11, 2022 20:04
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The latest bundle from StoryBundle is The Best of Rudy Rucker $5 gives you
$20 also gives you
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Mar 11, 2022 20:51
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StrixNebulosa posted:I've read book 1 and half of book 2 in Crown of Stars and it's very well-written. Lots of good, interesting details and it's a fascinating version of fantasy Europe. Kate Elliott wrote about how many letters she got from readers on this. Basically readers were shocked that instead of writing an abuser into a Heathcliff/Twilight/50 Shades brooding romantic reclamation project he's just an unadorned piece of poo poo, full stop. And the solution is to get the gently caress out not try and Change Him. They just hadn't seen that in fiction before. I'd drink a belt or two after a few of those letters.
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Mar 11, 2022 23:13
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Copernic posted:Kate Elliott wrote about how many letters she got from readers on this. Basically readers were shocked that instead of writing an abuser into a Heathcliff/Twilight/50 Shades brooding romantic reclamation project he's just an unadorned piece of poo poo, full stop. And the solution is to get the gently caress out not try and Change Him. They just hadn't seen that in fiction before. I'd drink a belt or two after a few of those letters. This makes me want to pick up Crown of Stars. I am so loving sick of "The guy that does lovely things to you? You need to be worthy of him and heal him because the lovely things he does to you are basically your fault for having a vagina." I want books where the solution is the real-life solution of get away from him/put him in prison or just kill his rear end. You don't "heal" an abusive piece of poo poo. You flush him down the loving toilet.
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Mar 11, 2022 23:47
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Copernic posted:Kate Elliott wrote about how many letters she got from readers on this. Basically readers were shocked that instead of writing an abuser into a Heathcliff/Twilight/50 Shades brooding romantic reclamation project he's just an unadorned piece of poo poo, full stop. And the solution is to get the gently caress out not try and Change Him. They just hadn't seen that in fiction before. I'd drink a belt or two after a few of those letters. There is an awful trend (that’s been around for decades) in romance fiction with alpha males and this poo poo and it leaks into genre fiction in a bad way, so it’s amazing to see an author take a stand. She explores similar themes in her other works too… I should read more of her, I was enjoying Cold Magic before adhd hit.
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Mar 12, 2022 00:09
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quantumfoam posted:Even after the kickstarter cut and possible religious tithing, that is a crazy amount of money going Sanderson's way.
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Mar 12, 2022 02:41
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Does he still donate to anti-gay political measures? I know back in the day he donated to that one Prop 8 thing, whatever it was called.
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Mar 12, 2022 02:48
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Seemingly every Mormon in the country did.
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Mar 12, 2022 04:09
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Sanderson seems very averse to addressing controversial topics in any substantial way.
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Mar 12, 2022 04:31
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because he knows that if he offers his lovely mormon opinions he will suddenly no longer be a best-selling author
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Mar 12, 2022 04:41
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I have a confession to make: I used to, as a teenager, like Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth books.
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Mar 12, 2022 05:30
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ubiquitous teleporters are cool imo
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Mar 12, 2022 05:34
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Fivemarks posted:I have a confession to make: I used to, as a teenager, like Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth books. he's weird and creepy but he has good ideas. i read some of his short story compilations and I liked them.
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Mar 12, 2022 05:41
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Cicero posted:Yeah though at this point Sanderson is basically a whole company. His wife does a lot of work for the business end IIRC, they got a guy handling the kickstarter, probably some more employees too. Specifically, Sanderson refers to Dragonsteel Books as a mid sized press. They have 30 employees and have been around since 2007. Here's a fun little look inside Team Silverlight (the fulfillment department) they posted for the Way of Kings Kickstarter a few years back: https://youtu.be/aBTfWrCvim0 Edit: moonmazed posted:because he knows that if he offers his lovely mormon opinions he will suddenly no longer be a best-selling author That's a little unfair. He goes out of his way more than any other Mormon author to represent characters who have beliefs that differ to his in an authentic way in his books. And not just in a token manner either. Leng fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Mar 12, 2022 |
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Mar 12, 2022 06:15
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Leng posted:Edit: In all my years of either reading him or hearing about his works, I've never seen him attacked for "forced diversity" or whatnot. Syl has a whole thing about how there are more than two genders and it's a human construct - that's just begging for these losers to take to YouTube or Twitter but I've seen nothing. The opinions in the novels of his I've read are pretty affirming and heartening, not just to LGBTQ, but to folks with mental illness. I think this is one reason Kaladin is so beloved.
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Mar 12, 2022 06:48
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I have a bunch of choices of audiobooks to listen to but I want a bit of direction 1. I want a scifi novel. 2. it can't be military hoo-rah scifi 3. it should be kind of weird or maybe not super typical, like, noir but scifi? 4. maybe written by someone who isn't male Perhaps something that is campy, and firefly esque, with future tech that does cool thing but they're still struggling with something, whether that's Big Bad Ancient Thing or Big Bad Corporate Guy or whatever doesn't matter too much
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Mar 12, 2022 06:58
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i once again bring your attention to earthcent by e.m. foner, starting with date night on union station. although as I write this I realize I have no idea if it has an audiobook or how good it is
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Mar 12, 2022 07:05
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I have a bunch of choices of audiobooks to listen to but I want a bit of direction Can I interest you in Julie Czernada’s Species Imperative?
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Mar 12, 2022 07:26
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Larry Parrish posted:i once again bring your attention to earthcent by e.m. foner, starting with date night on union station. although as I write this I realize I have no idea if it has an audiobook or how good it is https://www.audible.com/pd/Review-Night-on-Union-Station-Audiobook/1977388205 ?? book 11 though Kalman posted:Can I interest you in Julie Czernada’s Species Imperative? Looks like it's just a book, which is fine, but I've been pouring into audiobooks recently because it's way easier to digest when I'm doing other tasks.
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Mar 12, 2022 07:29
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Fart of Presto posted:The latest bundle from StoryBundle is The Best of Rudy Rucker Responding to the rebolded bit: The Ware tetralogy aged extremely badly across all levels, it's crystallized baby boomer drug enthusiast libertarianism cut with 180 proof robot sexploitation. Not sure about the contents of Rucker's other work, because the skeeviness and hateful characters of the Ware tetralogy makes me forever not want to check out Rudy Rucker's other work at all. Don't spend your money in the Storybundle offer just to buy that Ware series, it's been available for free under a Creative Commons license for over a decade now. The Creative Commons version of the Ware tetralogy series can be found with mild googling (or just by checking the External Links section of the Ware tetralogies wikipedia page). Cicero posted:Yeah though at this point Sanderson is basically a whole company. His wife does a lot of work for the business end IIRC, they got a guy handling the kickstarter, probably some more employees too. Cool. I wish Sanderson and company the best. Fivemarks posted:I always wanted to write sci-fi, but I got convinced by mutual acquaintances of GB and I that I'm too black, not smart enough, and not 'good' enough to ever be a real writer, especially in Sci-fi. I guess seeing the recent change in things on the sci-fi front has made me feel better about that. After all, if Sanderson can just right four books offhandedly, I can at least write a short story. Add me to the stack of people wanting to see your work. Ignore those assholes, write and submit what you want, and be assured that any success you have will eat them up inside. Assholes like that always exist. Either they are afraid of competition and instinctively punch down, or they get off on the bullying and deliberately choose to troll and punch down. GreenBuckanneer posted:I have a bunch of choices of audiobooks to listen to but I want a bit of direction The audiobook version of The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by the Strugatsky brothers might be worth your time.
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Mar 12, 2022 07:59
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quantumfoam posted:The audiobook version of The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by the Strugatsky brothers might be worth your time. I've been listening to the audiobook on Chime of the Necronomicon, so I'm immediately keen on this sample audio because of that similar narrator.
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Mar 12, 2022 08:09
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In this miserable, weird time we live in, Swordheart was exactly what I needed. Pratchett by way of Cold Comfort Farm. I’m very fond of books in which sensible people deploy stolid common sense against the fantastical, frightening or uncanny and this hit the spot perfectly.
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Mar 12, 2022 10:17
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I have a bunch of choices of audiobooks to listen to but I want a bit of direction Ninefox Gambit?
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Mar 12, 2022 12:07
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Fivemarks posted:I have a confession to make: I used to, as a teenager, like Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth books. I remember buying reality disfunction, getting into a big dumb space opera and loving it - do i have to spoil something from 1996? - then the ghost of Al Capone IN SPACE came in and it left me utterly confused. I've not read anything by him again.
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Mar 12, 2022 12:12
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Kalman posted:Can I interest you in Julie Czernada’s Species Imperative? Seconded.
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Mar 12, 2022 12:21
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I have a bunch of choices of audiobooks to listen to but I want a bit of direction Annalee Newitz?
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