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In case anyone is wondering what's with the three dots in a triangle in the first note: it's the logical symbol for "therefore".
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Mar 21, 2022 13:04
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Finished book 1 of Species Imperative by Julie E. Czerneda really liked it, love books that spend a lot of time on alien races w/ weird beliefs and weirder biology. Started book 2, curious where it's going to go next.
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Mar 21, 2022 17:33
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Small Gods (Discworld #13) by Terry Pratchett - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QTEA3I/ Theft of Swords (Riyria Revelations #1) by Michael J Sullivan - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XWBUKK/ Zodiac by Neal Stephenson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008UX8SNU/ The Fifth Science by Exurb1a - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GTMYVZF/ Said to be a mix of great and really bad short stories.
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Mar 21, 2022 19:25
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Zodiac is dope - or at least that's my memory from reading it in like 2003. Small Gods is one of the very best Discworld novels, and IIRC is a stand alone novel where you won't be missing context by not having read other Discworld books.
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Mar 21, 2022 21:16
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Zodiac is fun.
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Mar 21, 2022 21:39
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Zodiac is Stephenson’s best book. I will not be taking any questions.
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Mar 21, 2022 21:49
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habeasdorkus posted:Zodiac is dope - or at least that's my memory from reading it in like 2003. Small Gods is one of the very best Discworld novels, and IIRC is a stand alone novel where you won't be missing context by not having read other Discworld books. *Granny Weatherwax talks about people who have witnessed the events of SG as though they happened some decades back in Carpe Jugulum, off the top of my head
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Mar 21, 2022 22:36
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Kalman posted:Zodiac is Stephenson’s best book. I will not be taking any questions. I haven't read all of Stephenson's books, but I did enjoy Zodiac the most of the ones I did read - which included Snow Crash and The Diamond Age.
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Mar 22, 2022 01:45
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Anathem must be close second...
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Mar 22, 2022 02:43
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Just finished “el lugar” by Mario levrero, an Uruguayan “sci-fi” book from the 80’s that hasn’t been translated into English This dude wakes up in an empty room with his last memory being of crossing the street. He is in a line of interconnected empty, cold rooms that allow no backtracking, eventually the rooms get populated with people that speak a weird language and physically look slightly off. Each family lives in their "room" and never leave, their food gets magically replenished every "night", when the lights get turned off. After a while he meets up with other "real humans", who all have equally bizarre stories about how they reached "el lugar"; "The place". One woke up in an abandoned temple in an abandoned city, another got lost in the woods, etc. I say "sci-fi" because at points it gets surreal, and the how and why the situation happened aren't the point. It's more about what do we really know about how we live everyday? Why do we push forwards every day? Our neighbours speak our same language and we never talk to them, why should it matter if we couldn't unjderstand them? It reminded me of Cube, Lost, and any other media where they go "answers? We don't have those, but have a bigger mystery". It's short and good. It does get a bit uncomfortable, the main character is an rear end in a top hat.
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Mar 22, 2022 03:19
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Started Winter’s Orbit on a goon rec from up thread and I love it so far. Just two idiot hot messes plunging head first into a galactic crisis.
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Mar 22, 2022 03:43
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Kalman posted:Zodiac is Stephenson’s best book. I will not be taking any questions. So true, it's the only book of his I kept the last time I cleaned out my bookshelves.
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Mar 22, 2022 07:55
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pradmer posted:Life After Life (Todd Family #1) by Kate Atkinson - $2.99 A little late on this one, but for those of you who loved Harry August, pick this one up. It's another serial lives story, but I think much more beautiful and thoughtful than Harry August.
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Mar 22, 2022 14:23
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PeterWeller posted:A little late on this one, but for those of you who loved Harry August, pick this one up. It's another serial lives story, but I think much more beautiful and thoughtful than Harry August. The sequel made me cry
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Mar 22, 2022 15:17
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Has anyone read Jennifer Government by Max Barry? It was constantly being advertised on NationStates.
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Mar 23, 2022 02:28
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 it's fine enough, kind of YA?
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Mar 23, 2022 03:26
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nationstates was marketing for jennifer government that got out of hand iirc
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Mar 23, 2022 03:31
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I read it at the age of like ~14 because of NationStates and even at the time I thought it was... unremarkable? Looking back on it, from memory: perfectly mediocre plot and characters; extremely tepid political commentary. Not much substance to it generally.
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Mar 23, 2022 12:22
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a computing pun posted:I read it at the age of like ~14 because of NationStates and even at the time I thought it was... unremarkable? Looking back on it, from memory: perfectly mediocre plot and characters; extremely tepid political commentary. Not much substance to it generally. It's pure distilled liberalism. Which is to say: the most lukewarm of takes on any given subject; a belief that no problem can be genuinely solved as that would require action; and an underlying smug sense of superiority that the author is the sensible adult in the room.
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Mar 23, 2022 12:38
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Jedit posted:It's pure distilled liberalism. Which is to say: the most lukewarm of takes on any given subject; a belief that no problem can be genuinely solved as that would require action; and an underlying smug sense of superiority that the author is the sensible adult in the room. Would it be uncharitable to say that, while I deeply love him and consider him formative to my understanding of the world, I've been re-reading a lot of Pratchett lately and this description sounds uncomfortably familiar
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Mar 23, 2022 12:56
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Pratchett was a bit beyond that, I think.
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Mar 23, 2022 13:07
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freebooter posted:Would it be uncharitable to say that, while I deeply love him and consider him formative to my understanding of the world, I've been re-reading a lot of Pratchett lately and this description sounds uncomfortably familiar Yes, it would, and it would also indicate a deep and profound failure on your part to understand Pratchett's work.
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Mar 23, 2022 13:19
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freebooter posted:Would it be uncharitable to say that, while I deeply love him and consider him formative to my understanding of the world, I've been re-reading a lot of Pratchett lately and this description sounds uncomfortably familiar I’m impressed you’re willing to say this in a room full of Pratchett fans. It’s like asking for a fight.
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Mar 23, 2022 13:35
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FPyat posted:Has anyone read Jennifer Government by Max Barry? It was constantly being advertised on NationStates. It's okay. If you want to read a novel about corporate libertarian dystopia, a better choice is Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net.
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Mar 23, 2022 14:14
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Finished The Monster Baru Cormorant last night and was very happy I didn't have to wait to start in on Tyrant because wow that's a lot of cliffhangers left hanging. I just reached the part where Barhu is recognized for the first time by Baru and Yawa. gently caress and yes. Also, I completely get how this series has a lot of fan-art out there. I cracked up at this one (spoilers for The Traitor Baru Cormorant): https://twitter.com/marschildwells/status/1181769723794612224
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Mar 23, 2022 18:42
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Thanks for the reminder, finally going to read tyrant (after rereading traitor and monster) 
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Mar 23, 2022 18:53
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tokenbrownguy posted:Started Winter’s Orbit on a goon rec from up thread and I love it so far. Just two idiot hot messes plunging head first into a galactic crisis. This is a great read, I read the original on AO3 and it was interesting to see all the plot added and angst removed for the published version.
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Mar 23, 2022 18:57
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Went from "Spellmonger" to "Kalpa Imperial" and experienced a writing quality shock so severe that I was euphoric for like 5 hours. (Don't get me wrong I enjoyed Spellmonger just fine for what it is.)
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Mar 23, 2022 21:22
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Sax Solo posted:Went from "Spellmonger" to "Kalpa Imperial" and experienced a writing quality shock so severe that I was euphoric for like 5 hours. Whoa, Kalpa Imperial looks rad.
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Mar 23, 2022 21:30
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silvergoose posted:Whoa, Kalpa Imperial looks rad. I finished it a few days ago after seeing someone else talk about it in TBB. It was fantastic: excellent prose, cool stories, interesting world. I need to find out if any of the author's other books have been translated to English.
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Mar 23, 2022 21:47
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silvergoose posted:Whoa, Kalpa Imperial looks rad. Oh poo poo that sounds amazing! and a LeGuin translation! Is it like Always Coming Home? That's my favourite book maybe.
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Mar 23, 2022 21:49
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Every time I see someone talk about Kalpa Imperial I go to try and get an ebook copy of it, and every time I spend half an hour looking and get stumped at every turn by international digital rights and sketchy looking ebook websites. I wish my local library had it available. Maybe I'll just suck it up and order a physical copy from Amazon, they at least seem to offer that much.
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Mar 23, 2022 22:24
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The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NRQRWAA/ Transition by Iain M Banks - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002O0Q6YS/ The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Volume Two: Swords Against Wizardry, The Swords of Lankhmar, and Swords and Ice Magic by Fritz Leiber - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L8WP9LR/
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Mar 23, 2022 22:46
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Jedit posted:It's pure distilled liberalism. Which is to say: the most lukewarm of takes on any given subject; a belief that no problem can be genuinely solved as that would require action; and an underlying smug sense of superiority that the author is the sensible adult in the room. 
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Mar 23, 2022 22:55
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HopperUK posted:Oh poo poo that sounds amazing! and a LeGuin translation! Is it like Always Coming Home? That's my favourite book maybe. Could not be any more unlike Always Coming Home, but it's still very good!
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Mar 23, 2022 23:49
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cptn_dr posted:Every time I see someone talk about Kalpa Imperial I go to try and get an ebook copy of it, and every time I spend half an hour looking and get stumped at every turn by international digital rights and sketchy looking ebook websites. I wish my local library had it available. Maybe I'll just suck it up and order a physical copy from Amazon, they at least seem to offer that much. You should be able to buy the ebook direct from the publisher (who's back catalogue you should also check out, Small Beer are consistently good at picking out great works) https://smallbeerpress.com/books/2003/08/15/kalpa-imperial/
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Mar 23, 2022 23:51
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StrixNebulosa posted:I’m impressed you’re willing to say this in a room full of Pratchett fans. It’s like asking for a fight. I am also, still, a Pratchett fan! I just don't find his novels quite as profound as I did as a teenager. I am thinking specifically of Interesting Times which has some very unfortunate attitudes towards both a) Oriental cultures, and b) the notion of overthrowing a tyrannical government. It'll be interesting to reach Night Watch again where he re-examines that issue on home turf. Pratchett in some ways is similar to JK, I think - both working/middle class baby boomer Brits who believed that if change is necessary it has to be incremental and, as somebody said a few pages back, that a lot of what's wrong in the world can be laid at the feet of bad actors rather than bad systems. (Though Pratchett is way less rigid on this than Rowling, I think.) edit - I'll also add that I don't think an author has to be in lockstep with my own views to be "good" or even to make valid political points of their own, that would of course be childish. It's just something I notice more as an adult in his writing than I did as a teenager. freebooter fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Mar 24, 2022 |
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Mar 24, 2022 00:19
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pradmer posted:The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins - $1.99 This is cool, and its too bad the author never wrote anything else.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:21
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Three of Angelica Gorodischer's books are in english, all by the same company. https://es.ar1lib.org/s/angelica%20gorodischer/?languages%5B0%5D=english Kalpa Imperial was fun, the one with the actors was weird. I don't remember many details though. Edit: i was going to say that if you want weird "rioplatense" sci-fi you should read the last book i mentioned, until i remembered it wasn't translated. INstead I will recommend Little eyes, by Samanta Schweblin https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48635845-little-eyes Mr. Nemo fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Mar 24, 2022 |
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Mar 24, 2022 00:31
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Ccs posted:This is cool, and its too bad the author never wrote anything else.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:40
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