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freebooter posted: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. I definitely think bits of Discworld are a liberal fantasy, but like The Culture it knows its a fantasy. Pterry might have been inclined to blame bad actors rather than systems, but the good actors he presents are deliberately unrealistic: Vimes, the unbendable copper; Vetinari, the enlightened despot etc etc. I haven't read it since it came out, but I think a lot about the ending of Snuff. Goblins get rights, but the villains get away with their slavery and murder, and Vetinari gives a big speech about how we must accept gradual change, and legal actions the bad guys would be problematic, and it's all very bland and centrist. Then as soon as Vimes leaves the room, Vetinari has the bad guys assassinated.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:47
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freebooter posted: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. I think maybe he got more radical as time went on. A lot of the later stuff seems more interested in systems and institutions
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Mar 24, 2022 02:28
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fez_machine posted: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) Ahh, brilliant! Looks like that's what I'm reading next.
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Mar 24, 2022 02:30
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I'm almost finished KJ Parker's 'A Practical Guide to Conquering the World'. Did anyone else read it? I find the smarmy tone gets less and less appealing in each book. Maybe I am too much of a mil-hist nerd, but I'm a bit tired of the trope of the dilettante just constantly clowning on these professional veteran armies because he figured out somehow that spears are good vs horses or he read a book once and no one else ever read that contains the secret to military victory against world spanning empires. Everyone else is just a moron that falls into every trap of the narrator. I'm sure he'll get some sort of comeuppance at the end but more in a 'Whelp, them's the breaks' kind of way. It pretty much beggars belief that we can have battles where we wipe out twelve thousand enemies but only lose a dozen of our own because we're SO SMART and we figured out the ONE TRICK that wins entire wars that no one else thought of, like "use terrain" or "create vast effective weapons industry from scratch in 1 week". The modern language is annoying, especially in a book that is supposedly being written by a polyglot translator. It is amazing that everyone has the same boomer expressions. Drink every time you hear a barbarian warchief exclaim 'For crying out loud!'. The 'drain the swamp' Trump stuff made me roll my eyes hard. Did anyone read that and think "HMM SO CLEVER!!!!"? I don't want to imagine the sort of reader who would. I bounced off the Fencer Trilogy in Book 2 for pretty much the same reasons - I was tired of the smarmy protagonist always being the smartest guy in the room who could figure out basic and extremely obvious poo poo that should be evident to anyone. Should I just give up on Parker? Or is there some book/series wherein the protagonist doesn't feel like some Well Askhually Nerd? Mr. Grapes! fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Mar 24, 2022 |
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Mar 24, 2022 03:18
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Ccs posted:This is cool, and its too bad the author never wrote anything else. He’s been trying  I should email him again, it’s been a few years. I’m glad his first book did well but I worry he’s trapped in second book hell.
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Mar 24, 2022 03:22
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General Battuta posted:He’s been trying As of his website’s August 2019 update, he was just about done with a rewrite of an unrelated book; hope it’s just been quiet and that it’s coming soon.
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Mar 24, 2022 03:34
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Mr. Grapes! posted:I'm almost finished KJ Parker's 'A Practical Guide to Conquering the World'. There are books like The Folding Knife where the main character seems like a prodigy until he's completely undone. Personally I think Savages might be Parker's best work, in that it splits the difference between a lot of his interests while keeping the language contained (nowhere near as many long winded technical explanations as Fencer) and his people feel more like real people. There are still some prodigy character and characters that discover hidden talents, but as a whole it doesn't go so great for them, but it also doesn't have the dire downer endings of some of his other work.
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Mar 24, 2022 03:54
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Sarern posted: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. Kalpa Imperial is great and Trafalgar might be even better. Just this middle aged Argentinian raconteur who may or may not have a spaceship telling stories about being a travelling salesman over coffee. Really charming stuff.
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Mar 24, 2022 08:38
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General Battuta posted:He’s been trying If you're so inclined, please do! And if you like, tell him a person on the internet started rereading The Library at Mount Char again tonight, and still finds it beautiful and striking and unlike anything else out there in the best way. Mount Char is absolutely stellar work and I will read anything Scott Hawkins cares to write. I would dearly love to get Hawkins and Jenna K. Moran in the same room, preferably so they can write a book or a roleplaying game together. Mount Char is the closest published thing to Moran's work in Nobilis and Glitch, and I just want to sit quietly in a corner and absorb their incredible brainwave radiation. I wonder if they're familiar with one another's work - paging Rand Brittain for that one?
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Mar 24, 2022 09:44
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Kestral posted:I would dearly love to get Hawkins and Jenna K. Moran in the same room, preferably so they can write a book or a roleplaying game together. Mount Char is the closest published thing to Moran's work in Nobilis and Glitch, and I just want to sit quietly in a corner and absorb their incredible brainwave radiation. I wonder if they're familiar with one another's work - paging Rand Brittain for that one? Oh man, that thought had never occurred to me but drat that's super on point.
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Mar 24, 2022 10:11
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freebooter posted: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. You should re-read Interesting Times as well, because you appear to have forgotten quite a lot about it. The Agatean Empire is a total autocracy where you can be killed for the slightest criticism of the leadership, perceived or genuine. Saveloy takes the Silver Horde there because he thinks that incremental peaceful change is possible, but he's wrong because the death of the Emperor leads only to the rise of Lord Hong. The whole theme of the book is that violent revolution and drastic change is sometimes necessary. Then, there's Night Watch. Ankh-Morpork under Lord Winder isn't a nice place, but it's the leadership that is corrupt, not the system itself. The Republic of Treacle Mine Road is a true revolutionary movement, but is also an inherently peaceful one (in part because because having lived through it before, Vimes knows that the situation will blow over). However, Vimes's pursuit of Carcer is as far from peaceful as you can get; he's out to kill him, and the only reason he doesn't is his inner Watchman telling him that there must be a trial. I would not describe either book as being particularly liberal. But if I were to criticise one of them for being so, it would not be Interesting Times. Night Watch has much more decorum.
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Mar 24, 2022 11:38
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Trying to get back into reading lately and I'm off to a rocky start with these, here's some mini-reviews! Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Pretty good! Loved The Martian, but this is essentially The Martian again. Quirky affable Science Guy does understandable but clever Science Stuff in space, but with an Alien this time. Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu - I won't rehash this as you've probably read everything anyone has said about it. Interesting premise, paper-flat characters. You can definitely feel the cultural differences. Feels railroaded. Dead Silence by SA Barnes - Picked up on a whim cause it was new at my local library, had some accolades on Amazon reviews. Did not like it. This has the same sort of feel as the Becky Chalmers books - small crew on a ship doing a mission - but lacks her mastery of that sort of story. Forget Chekov's Gun cause this is Chekov's Gun Cabinet and everything that could be cool about this story was telegraphed so early on I felt like I had already read it. The main story revolves around a character with severe PTSD that causes hallucinations, but hallucinations are also one of the main scary elements of the book, so it's double hallucinations and I swear to god 30-40% of every word in this book is describing and re-describing hallucinations and it got loving old fast.
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Mar 24, 2022 12:12
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Mr. Grapes! posted:I'm almost finished KJ Parker's 'A Practical Guide to Conquering the World'. This is honestly why I had a lot of trouble with these books. It just read like a bad adaptation of an anime I actually liked.
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Mar 24, 2022 13:33
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Kestral posted:If you're so inclined, please do! And if you like, tell him a person on the internet started rereading The Library at Mount Char again tonight, and still finds it beautiful and striking and unlike anything else out there in the best way. Mount Char is absolutely stellar work and I will read anything Scott Hawkins cares to write. I suppose I could ask! From what I've heard, The Library at Mount Char does kind of ping exactly to how Nobilis works.
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Mar 24, 2022 16:34
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Rand Brittain posted:I suppose I could ask! I'd certainly be curious! Also quite looking forward to the book she announced today, The Night-Bird's Feather.
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Mar 24, 2022 18:26
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Mr. Grapes! posted:is there some book/series wherein the protagonist doesn't feel like some Well Askhually Nerd? no that's just kj parker annoyingly
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Mar 24, 2022 21:23
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Captain Monkey posted:no that's just kj parker annoyingly Though from the books I've read, there's a varying scale of how competent the Well Actually guy is (or isn't), and how much comeuppance they face for being a tool, at least. I loved 16 Ways but my enjoyment of the trilogy went down with each of the next two books.
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Mar 24, 2022 21:31
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I'm about to finish Iain M. Banks' Culture series and I'd like to explore some similar series', if there are any. I like that The Culture is the main character, rather than any person. I like the technology, and especially like the books that focus on the minds/ships/drones. I like that it doesn't take itself too seriously. I like that characters are generally competent. I don't like that the stories can be a little slow sometimes, or the rare "interesting" writing approaches (e.g. alternating chapters that go in opposite chronological direction).
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Mar 24, 2022 23:47
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MockingQuantum posted:Though from the books I've read, there's a varying scale of how competent the Well Actually guy is (or isn't), and how much comeuppance they face for being a tool, at least. A ways upthread I was pushing the Coramonde series. One of the characters in that series is Gil MacDonald, a young former sergeant in the Vietnam War who ends up in the land of a magic and medieval warfare. An enemy sorcerer has access to a magical airship. MacDonald gets his allies to build false campfires mixed with illusory troops. The key here is that MacDonald is from the 1970s and understands aerial reconnaissance - including the limits of it. The trick works, but it's treated as a one-time thing because the sorcerer with the airship is also smart and competent. It seems like this Parker person failed to understand that other people will also be smart and they'll figure out Well, Actually guy pretty quickly.
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Mar 25, 2022 00:18
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I tried getting through the Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin. I'd read the first book some years ago, before the other two had even come out. As I remembered, the first book was quite good, ambitious and entertaining. It was very Stephen King (right down to the creation of a woowoo old black lady complete with dialect  ) but not in a bad way. The second book was less so, and in being less entertained I started to find his prose grating - overly flowery and indulgent, bordering on pretention. In the middle of the last book, when I got to the chapter that is a 100 page digression on the freshman year of college of the very first guy who got turned into a vampire, I started to realize that my time was getting wasted. I ended up putting the book down and reading a summary to find out about how the plot ended, something I almost never do. Very disappointing.Now I'm reading the Rifters trilogy after seeing someone call it "Watts at his most nihilistic" and woo boy, you ain't kidding. Also I think I have a soft spot for deep ocean thrillers, I also remember really liking Sphere as a teenager, which almost no one else did. zoux fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 16:38
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MockingQuantum posted:Though from the books I've read, there's a varying scale of how competent the Well Actually guy is (or isn't), and how much comeuppance they face for being a tool, at least. Yah, his protags aren't always quite as smart as they think they are and they don't always get results that would make them happy. (And sometimes when they do, they are still complete loving monsters anyway.)
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Mar 25, 2022 16:47
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Finished The Tyrant Baru Cormorant last night. Very happy with how it ended, but man there's still a long way to go and I'm not sure how everything works out. Going to try The Black Company again. It's a book that by all rights I should love, but I've bounced off a couple times.
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Mar 25, 2022 17:05
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ahobday posted:I'm about to finish Iain M. Banks' Culture series and I'd like to explore some similar series', if there are any. I'm not sure there's anything quite like the Culture out there, but if you want to try something that gave me a similar feeling you could do worse than the Spin trilogy by Andrew Bannister. The first one is Creation Machine, but all the books are self contained so in theory it doesn't matter which you grab. In my opinion his writing improves through the three books, though, so I'd recommend publication order.
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Mar 25, 2022 17:10
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zoux posted:Now I'm reading the Rifters trilogy after seeing someone call it "Watts at his most nihilistic" and woo boy, you ain't kidding. Also I think I have a soft spot for deep ocean thrillers, I also remember really liking Sphere as a teenager, which almost no one else did. Stop before Behemoth, please It's such an unnecessarily mean spirited book. It crosses from philosophical pessimism into something I found genuinely spiteful and ugly. And I like Watts, I loved Starfish.If you want specifics a character is put through a lengthy and graphic ordeal in captivity, the rest of the cast comes within a few minutes of rescuing her, but they just forget about her and abandon her to die alone. It really bummed me out.
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Mar 25, 2022 18:04
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ahobday posted:I'm about to finish Iain M. Banks' Culture series and I'd like to explore some similar series', if there are any. I haven't read any Culture books yet so you can feel free to throw the rest of this recommendation out with the trash. But based on your other paragraphs you might like Succession (The Risen Empire/Killing of Worlds) by Scott Westerfeld. Includes several points of view from generally competent characters including a transhumanist commando and a planet-sized AI, frequent focus on advanced tech and gadgets, no wacky storytelling techniques or slow chapters.
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Mar 25, 2022 18:36
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I hope this isn't one of those questions that starts a giant fight, but what's a good order for Discworld stuff? I read the first two or three ages ago and I'd like to read more, but the amount is a bit daunting and I know they're not all strictly sequential. Should I just start at the beginning and go in order or is there a preferred method?
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Mar 25, 2022 18:38
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There's a really big chart someone made kind of listing out what the various stories are I'll dig it up and post it here. https://images.app.goo.gl/WWc38igdxjfrmCKS9
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Mar 25, 2022 18:41
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I think the general consensus is that there are many equally-good ways to do it. You could read them in publication order. You could focus on the subplots you care about (guards, witches etc.) and read those in roughly sequential order. You could pick out the ones that seem most interesting and read them. There are definitely minor spoilers in later books for earlier books, but it's unlikely to ruin an earlier book if you decide to pick it up later. There are even some complicated flowcharts floating around for suggested reading orders, if that's your kind of deal.
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Mar 25, 2022 18:43
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Opopanax posted:I hope this isn't one of those questions that starts a giant fight, but what's a good order for Discworld stuff? I read the first two or three ages ago and I'd like to read more, but the amount is a bit daunting and I know they're not all strictly sequential. This is the reading order list I used (in part, to read some discworld books -- mainly Rincewind novels), and which my kids used in full to read all of them:  I can only personally vouch for it a little, but they seemed pleased with the results in following this order. EDIT: Reminds me I need to get back to this and catch up to them in terms of reading the rest of the books.
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Mar 25, 2022 18:44
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wizzardstaff posted:I haven't read any Culture books yet so you can feel free to throw the rest of this recommendation out with the trash. I liked those two books a lot when I read them during my own post-Culture desperate search for similar stuff. But honestly I don't think there's anything that truly compares to the Culture books. I read a lot of space opera over the intervening years looking for more and have never been satisfied.
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Mar 25, 2022 18:50
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AARD VARKMAN posted:But honestly I don't think there's anything that truly compares to the Culture books. I read a lot of space opera over the intervening years looking for more and have never been satisfied. GCU Nothing Truly Compares (d)ROU Never Been Satisfied agreed, unfortunately
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Mar 25, 2022 19:11
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General Battuta posted:Stop before Behemoth, please Already purchased I'm afraid
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Mar 25, 2022 19:18
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The question of ”where to start with Discworld?” definitely has been in my mind the past few years. Somehow I managed to touch not a single translation back in my school days, and haven’t picked any of them up the past twenty years either. I don’t know why, maybe I felt the cover art off-putting? Not serious enough for serious young genre fiction reading dude? 
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Mar 25, 2022 19:21
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Opopanax posted:I hope this isn't one of those questions that starts a giant fight, but what's a good order for Discworld stuff? I read the first two or three ages ago and I'd like to read more, but the amount is a bit daunting and I know they're not all strictly sequential. I'd say just read them in publication order. If you find the early ones too rough around the edges, skip ahead to somewhere in the Mort to Guards! Guards! range¹ and then read in publication order from there, and maybe go back and read the earlier ones later. If you find yourself way more interested in one of the plotlines (Rincewind, Guards, Witches, Death, etc), read those in publication order based on the chart Pauley posted. It's not quite right to say that they "aren't strictly sequential"; publication order corresponds to in-universe chronological order (unlike something like Vlad Taltos), it's just that within Discworld there's have a dozen mostly-independent storylines + a bunch of one-off books, and publication order bounces around between them rather than finishing one, then winding back to start another from the beginning. Growing up we had most of them from The Colour of Magic up through Maskerade or so, and I read them all multiple times, but completely out of order; I'm pretty sure I read Interesting Times before any of the other Rincewind books (it may have been my first Discworld book, in fact) and I definitely read Men at Arms before Guards! Guards!. This resulted in a bit of confusion, but was still fun. My wife is currently reading them in strict publication order starting with TCoM and enjoying them a great deal. ¹ There is some debate here; I think anywhere between Mort and GG would be fine, but GG seems to be the more common rec, and according to the chart Pratchett favoured Sourcery? ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 19:38
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Read a couple of the middle ones and then whatever. Don't skip the YA stuff, it owns.
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Mar 25, 2022 21:25
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I feel strongly that the best starting place for Discworld is Guards, Guards!
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Mar 25, 2022 21:36
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Thanks all, figured there would be some solid guides. I read at least the first two, possibly three years and years ago and don’t remember much, but I do remember liking them so I may just restart and do it in order.
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Mar 25, 2022 21:47
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ToxicFrog posted:It's not quite right to say that they "aren't strictly sequential"; publication order corresponds to in-universe chronological order (unlike something like Vlad Taltos), it's just that within Discworld there's have a dozen mostly-independent storylines + a bunch of one-off books, and publication order bounces around between them rather than finishing one, then winding back to start another from the beginning. Eh, there's more than a little bit of timeline fuckery. It definitely becomes in-universe chronological after a certain point but Pyramids and Small Gods both take place decades (or centuries? its been a while) before the other books and Mort is definitely out of synch though once Susan becomes the protagonist the other Death books aren't. Post-Guards! Guards! it really ramps down though.
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Mar 25, 2022 21:48
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https://smile.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B000ARC6KA Most of the major Tolkien books are on sale on Kindle today
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Mar 25, 2022 22:05
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^^ The Futurological Congress (From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy #3) by Stanislaw Lem - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008IGK68O/
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