|
Is Harry Turtledove any good?
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 00:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:49 |
|
|
3D Megadoodoo posted:Is Harry Turtledove any good? Short answer, no. The writing is abhorrent, just barely competent. It feels like reading Wikipedia articles. If reading about Hitler fighting against aliens is something you would still like to do despite the poor writing, go ahead. There’s a Turtledove let’s read in TBB, check it out for prose samples.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 00:39
|
|
|
Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Short answer, no. The writing is abhorrent, just barely competent. It feels like reading Wikipedia articles. If reading about Hitler fighting against aliens is something you would still like to do despite the poor writing, go ahead. There’s a Turtledove let’s read in TBB, check it out for prose samples. Ah, shame. Maybe that's why the lot was going for so cheap.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 00:43
|
|
|
3D Megadoodoo posted:Is Harry Turtledove any good? He wrote one short story I enjoyed called The Road Not Taken. 100% Hitler-free. It’s about aliens who invade Earth and end up getting more than they bargained for. It was a quick and fun read, and the only thing of his I’ve ever read. Maybe I would have hated the writing more had it been longer, but it wasn’t.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 00:48
|
|
|
If, instead, you really like white south african segregationists time traveling to give AK's to Lee so the south wins, you can read guns of the south! don't, though, it's really bad
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 01:49
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:If, instead, you really like white south african segregationists time traveling to give AK's to Lee so the south wins, you can read guns of the south! Lol did he really write something like that? That like, goes beyond offensive into being funny, and then goes beyond funny into being sad. What a weirdo.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 01:56
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:If, instead, you really like white south african segregationists time traveling to give AK's to Lee so the south wins, you can read guns of the south! I rather enjoyed it. The most interesting parts of the book take place after the South wins the Civil War and the racist fanatics' plans blow up in their faces because they're racist fanatics.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 01:58
|
|
|
AARD VARKMAN posted:Threw in the towel on the RCN series by David Drake. 60% through book 7, just got too bored to continue with the lower stakes. This is my biggest issue with fantasy stuff. I find something that sounds kind of neat and then I notice it's book 1 of 5 or something
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 02:08
|
|
|
A lot of Turtledove's issues is that he doesn't know poo poo about history, thinks he knows history, and also writes as if his massive alterations in history he uses to do his alt-history stories would change literally nothing. Like Spain defeating and conquering England and overthrowing the Royal family and burning Prostestants at the stake by the ENGLISH Inquisition? Clearly, this would have changed very little about William Shakespeare's career. EDIT: I wrote Spain twice. Kchama fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jun 5, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 02:12
|
|
|
jackofarcades posted:Finally got around to Ninefox Gambit and I'm halfway through book 2. Really enjoying that. Same! I read Ninefox Gambit earlier this year and really dug it. I'm also halfway through the second one right now and will probably launch into the third as soon as I finish it (I definitely forgot a few things in the six months or so between Ninefox Gambit and Raven Strategem, so I want to finish it out while it's still fresh). I really love how it strikes that balance of unique, somewhat intricate worldbuilding, without going into excruciating detail about everything.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 02:32
|
|
|
Nigmaetcetera posted:Lol did he really write something like that? That like, goes beyond offensive into being funny, and then goes beyond funny into being sad. What a weirdo. He sure did!
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 02:33
|
|
|
I don't think he's a particularly lovely or weird person.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 03:00
|
|
|
Kchama posted:A lot of Turtledove's issues is that he doesn't know poo poo about history, thinks he knows history, and also writes as if his massive alterations in history he uses to do his alt-history stories would change literally nothing. That's a lot less of a thing in The Guns of the South if only because the time frame only covers maybe a couple-three years. It's a lot more of a problem in the 11 book "Southern Victory" series which kicked off with How Few Remain circa 1881 and covers a second Civil War, an alternate WWI, the roaring 20s and Great Depression and then an alternate WWII with the South run by a not-Hitler.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 03:22
|
|
|
Everyone posted:That's a lot less of a thing in The Guns of the South if only because the time frame only covers maybe a couple-three years. It's a lot more of a problem in the 11 book "Southern Victory" series which kicked off with How Few Remain circa 1881 and covers a second Civil War, an alternate WWI, the roaring 20s and Great Depression and then an alternate WWII with the South run by a not-Hitler. Yeah, but really that series is obviously “WW1 - WW2, except the north is not-France and the south is not-Germany,” and after that everything proceeds the same. …he did that again with a fantasy WW2 series where you could see the cut and paste from France and Germany and Jews to Xxx and Yyy and Zzz (it’s been too long to remember). …however his historical fiction (great not Byzantium under whichever stable groom made it to emperor, also some great Greek trader stories) remains worth a read.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 03:28
|
|
|
ulmont posted:Yeah, but really that series is obviously “WW1 - WW2, except the north is not-France and the south is not-Germany,” and after that everything proceeds the same. Actually the North has an alliance with Germany during WWI and WWII while Britain and France remain allied with the South. And Winston Churchill is still in charge of Great Britain and is apparently okay with remaining an ally of the South despite it being run by not-Hitler. Which... okay, whatever. I will say that I really liked one thing called The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 03:56
|
|
|
The British and French in that series's timeline get Versailled and are pretty fashy. Turtledove is fine, he's a mediocre writer but anyone who gives me communist black guerilla's in the swamps of the south had at least one neat idea.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 04:35
|
|
|
Just finished reading The Priory of the Orange Tree. I found it to be a slow start because of all the exposition. Shannon knows enough to avoid maid and butler dialogue, but not enough to change up how she parcels out the exposition. I lost count of how many times her characters would be in the middle of a scene doing something and there would be a "and then he/she remembered that XYZ was [insert critical bit of exposition]" thing happening. I skimmed some other reviews that complained of twists for the sake of being twists, but I thought they were well foreshadowed. For me, they got to the point of being over-foreshadowed, because certain reveals kept getting hammered repeatedly in recap conversations between different groupings of characters to make sure no one could possibly miss the implications. Shannon must also have been conscious of page count and the fact that this is supposed to be a standalone. I disagree with some of the structural choices that she made, particularly in trying to have 4 balanced POVs throughout the whole book as not all of the storylines needed equal page time. Tané's early arc in Part I bugs me, in particular, because the majority of it doesn't matter and because there's never any doubt that she'll achieve her goals for that part of the storyline. The antagonist for that portion of her arc is a caricature that exists only to give the narrative somebody to hate. Same for her friendship with another character who she meets during the early chapters - there's a line where that character says something to the effect of "well of course, because we're friends" and Tané's surprised by it. Quite frankly I was too, because at no point did we see the development of this friendship happen. There's lots of lamenting the loss of another friend that was supposed to be a huge emotional gut punch that is referenced repeatedly through the book that completely did not land for me, because the only way we know about how important this friendship was via... yep, Tané remembering how they have always been the bestest of friends and that they would do anything for each other. I probably didn't start really getting into the book until the second or third part. By then, the worst of the exposition via remembering stuff was over (mind you, it never stops entirely) and the characters had been given enough time to do stuff and interact. The Ead/Sabran relationship was well done. So was the pregnancy storyline. A few things stretched my willingness to suspend disbelief but never entirely broke it. Like how Roos decided not to attempt to kill Ead. His mad confession afterwards really seemed like Shannon trying to plug a character inconsistency. He justifies it as being something Laya wouldn't want him to do, and while I buy their friendship, I don't buy that it was enough to overcome his personal hatred of Sabran. I wanted a little more nuance in some of the villains, specifically Mita. Shannon had me thinking that there would be nuance, but no, there came the reveal that she was really just a power hungry bad person who killed Ead's mom. The layers of how history became distorted by time into myth and legend was a good puzzle. The ending was...fine. All the plot threads came together, there was a big climatic battle as you would expect, good conquers evil using the magical artifacts they've spent the whole book chasing, etc. I never really felt like the end was in question, never wondered how they would triumph. I really expected more of Kalyba who I feel was built up to be this whole big threat and then ended up being dispatched without that much trouble. So, eh? Overall, a solid read, but didn't live up to how much it was hyped for me.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 06:28
|
|
|
Everyone posted:Winston Churchill is still in charge of Great Britain and is apparently okay with remaining an ally of the South despite it being run by not-Hitler. Which... okay, whatever. Can I take it that you're unaware of Winston Churchill's opinions on race? Churchill would have given zero fucks about the CSA exterminating its blacks. His chief reason for not liking Hitler was because he knew that ultimately Hitler would take Germany into war with Britain.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 08:37
|
|
|
It's a decent book until the last section imo. I think it was a noble experiment that proved that actually, no, you can't write an epic fantasy with world-ending stakes and wrap it up satisfyingly in one book. So many challenges and complications had to be swept out of the way at the end rather than developed satisfyingly as they should. The bit where they go to not-China was particularly bad--it was like the author just wanted to whisk the characters through this region as quick as possible to make the world feel appropriately epic in scope.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 08:53
|
|
|
Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Short answer, no. The writing is abhorrent, just barely competent. It feels like reading Wikipedia articles. If reading about Hitler fighting against aliens is something you would still like to do despite the poor writing, go ahead. There’s a Turtledove let’s read in TBB, check it out for prose samples. I read the Hitler lizard books. Fun enough, but I've never skimmed over so much text in a book I didn't drop.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 09:34
|
|
|
Turtledove can actually write pretty good books; but long ago he figured out that he can also crank out huge amounts of extruded alternate-history hackwork and that stuff sells and pays the bills. So he's spent most of his career doing that.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 09:42
|
|
|
Sailor Viy posted:It's a decent book until the last section imo. I think it was a noble experiment that proved that actually, no, you can't write an epic fantasy with world-ending stakes and wrap it up satisfyingly in one book. So according to Shannon's Tumblr, it's about 260k words long. That's almost 40k longer than Mistborn: The Final Empire (212k words), which even though it's a first in series now, was originally written to be a standalone (with series potential). If Shannon was more experienced, I think she might have been able to pull it off. The structural framework for it is all there, what's lacking is her character work and some really puzzling structural decisions. So many of her scenes, especially in the first 300 pages or so, are really inefficient given how little they advance character. Many of them are just dropped in there to move the plot along and to deliver exposition. If you're going to do epic fantasy in one volume, you've got to really pick and choose when you summarize vs when you dramatize, and the only thing that Shannon skips over is some of the uneventful traveling. Actually, in an alt world, I'd like to read Fonda Lee's version of this. Not only do I think she'd nail the Asian inspired cultures better, but I think Lee probably could pull it off, based on her writing in Jade Legacy (~250k words long, according to a tweet from Lee). I know someone else in the thread felt like it read like a short story collection because it was a series of scenes spread out across 40 years, but imo that was the right decision. You can't be dramatizing every instance when you're trying to tell this kind of story, just the important ones that are turning points for character arcs (not gonna say turning points in the plot, because the characters should drive the plot, another thing that I don't think Shannon did well). Someone on Amazon compared this to Skyrim, complete with shallow NPCs and all. It's a little harsh but probably fair, since there are a stupid number of times in the book where random wyrm attacks happen, whenever tension dips low enough. I feel like if Shannon upped her character work she wouldn't have had to lean on that technique so much, since the conflict between her characters would have driven the plot, and because random wyrm attacks got boring, fast. And now that I think about it, it was also a huge factor in why the big battle was so meh: it just felt like another random wyrm attack, but I guess the heroes were all assembled at the spawn point, and there were lots of wyrms? You know what, the more I think about this book, the more problems I have with it. I still think it's a lot better than a great deal of other stuff out there though. But if it's been at the top of your TBR because of the hype, I'd bump it way down, until you have nothing else compelling to read, probably. Leng fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Jun 5, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 09:56
|
|
|
Nigmaetcetera posted:He wrote one short story I enjoyed called The Road Not Taken. 100% Hitler-free. It’s about aliens who invade Earth and end up getting more than they bargained for. It was a quick and fun read, and the only thing of his I’ve ever read. Maybe I would have hated the writing more had it been longer, but it wasn’t. Yeah that's the only thing he wrote I like lol.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 10:57
|
|
|
I very much agree with that take on Priory. It was incredibly underwhelming for how much positive attention it got on release. The final battle in particular was so boring, and the evil, world-threatening boss dragon whose name I've forgotten had zero presence.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 11:48
|
|
|
Just went to check out that Priory book and at least when I hit 'Look Inside' the prose was decent. I'm a picky pretentious rear end in a top hat when it comes to writing and half the time I'll click on some book people are raving about and it reads like it was written by a talented eight-year-old.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 12:11
|
|
|
HopperUK posted:Just went to check out that Priory book and at least when I hit 'Look Inside' the prose was decent. I'm a picky pretentious rear end in a top hat when it comes to writing and half the time I'll click on some book people are raving about and it reads like it was written by a talented eight-year-old. Same Leng posted:You know what, the more I think about this book, the more problems I have with it. I still think it's a lot better than a great deal of other stuff out there though. But if it's been at the top of your TBR because of the hype, I'd bump it way down, until you have nothing else compelling to read, probably. Thanks for this. I’ve had Priory on my tbr pile for a while now, but it was already pretty low on the list because I wasn’t sure about it
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 15:54
|
|
|
The Traitor Baru Cormorant (Maquerade #1) by Seth Dickinson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V351EOM/ Peace Talks (Dresden Files #16) by Jim Butcher - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082S1N87S/ Recursion by Blake Crouch - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HDSHP7N/ The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers #4) by Becky Chambers - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088RDCLQ4/ pradmer fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Jun 5, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 18:15
|
|
|
the Malazan series is huge, the non-written by Erikson Malazan stories can be safely skipped no matter what anyone says, each main series Malazan book is more bloated and meandering than the previous one, and I hate Tool and his sister only slightly more than I hate Tehol. The real impressive thing about the Malazan setting is that Erikson wrote (and continues to write apparently) everything on a palmtop computer. Gave Martha Well's Fall of Ile-Rien series another read. They really are refreshing and are pretty much the much ealier written fantasy fiction versions of her murderbot stories.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2022 20:15
|
|
|
Re: Turtledove, I do see his work in a lesser light now that I've familiarized myself with better AH, but I can't deny the nostalgia value of him being the person to introduce me to the genre. Has anyone read Recursion by Blake Crouch? I enjoyed Dark Matter reasonably, but all the people saying it was "super mind blowing" lowers my expectations for Recursion a lot.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 05:05
|
|
|
Metis of the Hallways posted:I very much agree with that take on Priory. It was incredibly underwhelming for how much positive attention it got on release. The final battle in particular was so boring, and the evil, world-threatening boss dragon whose name I've forgotten had zero presence. Well I think you did remember correctly because its name is The Nameless One  HopperUK posted:Just went to check out that Priory book and at least when I hit 'Look Inside' the prose was decent. I'm a picky pretentious rear end in a top hat when it comes to writing and half the time I'll click on some book people are raving about and it reads like it was written by a talented eight-year-old. Stuporstar posted:Same Prose gets better (not heaps better, but somewhat better) as you get further in. That, or I got to a point where my eyes were glazing over, because I distinctly remember being a little conscious of the prose (in a slightly awkward way) to begin with, but once things settled down, I didn't notice it much. Then again I also know that when a story hook or character grabs me, I will ignore absolutely terrible prose. Since this book wasn't doing that, I'm pretty sure I was extra picky about the prose at the start. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 09:50
|
|
|
Leng posted:So according to Shannon's Tumblr, it's about 260k words long. That's almost 40k longer than Mistborn: The Final Empire (212k words), which even though it's a first in series now, was originally written to be a standalone (with series potential). Final Empire doesn't really have the same scope as Priory though. IIRC the bad guy is stated to rule over the entire known world, but almost all the action takes place within a single city. Other cities or continents barely get a mention. The background lore is also relatively simple. That narrow focus gives Sanderson lots of space to go deep into the things he cares about, like the magic system and the fight scenes. I would never really say "it can never be done" in fiction, but to do one thing well you always have to make cuts somewhere else.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 09:54
|
|
|
Sailor Viy posted:Final Empire doesn't really have the same scope as Priory though. IIRC the bad guy is stated to rule over the entire known world, but almost all the action takes place within a single city. Other cities or continents barely get a mention. The background lore is also relatively simple. That narrow focus gives Sanderson lots of space to go deep into the things he cares about, like the magic system and the fight scenes. 100% correct re: Mistborn. A better comparable might be The Redemption of Althalus by Eddings and Eddings which is apparently also about 260k. It is very...Eddings and takes extreme shortcuts with the magic system and POVs and characters (but characters weren't exactly an Eddings strong suit either so) but it was done. I read it shortly after Sparhawk, which was a condensed version of the Belgariad/Mallorean and then I read Althalus and that was the last thing I ever read of Eddings because it was the entire Eddings formula shoved into a single volume. The thing is, I think Priory tried to go for scope and initially it feels like the kind of expansive scope you'd expect of epic fantasy but it doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. It relies on the reader to mentally fill out Seiiki with Japan, etc. None of the locations, apart from the Priory itself, are particularly distinctive and well established, not even Ascalon, despite all the page time we get there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 11:30
|
|
|
FPyat posted:Re: Turtledove, I do see his work in a lesser light now that I've familiarized myself with better AH, but I can't deny the nostalgia value of him being the person to introduce me to the genre. I thought Recursion was at least as good as Dark Matter, though I admit it's been a few since I've read it. Still another solid SF Thriller type book from him though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 14:30
|
|
|
Leng posted:Prose gets better (not heaps better, but somewhat better) as you get further in. That, or I got to a point where my eyes were glazing over, because I distinctly remember being a little conscious of the prose (in a slightly awkward way) to begin with, but once things settled down, I didn't notice it much. Oh no, don’t get me wrong. My “same” also referred to the prose in Priory being decent enough. Being picky about that has definitely stopped me reading other books though On a different topic, I’ve been reading The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh, about how literary authors have completely failed to address climate change as a worthy topic, and here is the real reason that dude who got dragged by her girlfriend is reading Kim Stanley Robinson instead of lit fic quote:When the subject of climate change occurs in these publications [literary], it is almost always in relation to nonfiction; novels and short stories are very rarely to be glimpsed within this horizon. Indeed, it could even be said that fiction that deals with climate change is almost by definition not of the kind that is taken seriously by serious literary journals: the mere mention of the subject is often enough to relegate a novel or a short story to the genre of science fiction. It is as though in the literary imagination climate change were somehow akin to extraterrestrials or interplanetary travel. And later in the essay: quote:“Commonplace”? “Moderate”? How did Nature ever come to be associated with words like these? It seems like lit authors have a much easier time imagining plagues, even before covid, than the ocean completely swallowing cities, but I expect that will eventually change.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 15:58
|
|
|
Slowly, SLOWLY unboxing and putting together bookshelves and getting my library together, here's a progress shot: I'm hoping to someday have it all alphabetical by author but also: who knows. Genre might take precedent.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 18:07
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Slowly, SLOWLY unboxing and putting together bookshelves and getting my library together, here's a progress shot: Oh poo poo, Sumption’s history of the Hundred Years’ War! I hope it’s good.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 20:06
|
|
|
Stuporstar posted:
Regency novels are set between 1811 and 1820, Literary novels are set between perhaps 1911 and 2007 at latest. A character in a literary novel cannot do more than speculatively muse about global warming any more than they can use an iPhone. Anything after that is either science fiction (e.g. those works of William Gibson that contained no uninvented technology) or some genre that hasn’t been defined and labeled yet. The near future has been and gone.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 20:08
|
|
|
Speaking of climate fiction, I just read Our Shared Storm by Andrew Dana Hudson, and it was really good. The conceit is the same story told five times, the same set of characters meeting at COP60 in Buenos Aires 2054, but each story is set in a different IPCC climate-modeling scenario, and the dramatic conflict and their perspectives shift. I stayed up way past any sensible bedtime finishing it, which is about the strongest endorsement fiction can get. A lot of climate fiction is resolutely Delugist. Industrial civilization has sinned against Earth, a storm will come which will destroy the last vestiges of a corrupt Earth, and a new beginning will dawn, with a chance at innocence. I'm thinking mostly of Oryx and Crake here, but this pattern shows up a lot (and then there's KSR, who's doing his own thing). The deluge story is tired. It's boring. And it's wrong. Hudson makes a case for the necessity of climate fiction, and delivers a drat good example.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 20:53
|
|
|
Biffmotron posted:Speaking of climate fiction, I just read Our Shared Storm by Andrew Dana Hudson, and it was really good. The conceit is the same story told five times, the same set of characters meeting at COP60 in Buenos Aires 2054, but each story is set in a different IPCC climate-modeling scenario, and the dramatic conflict and their perspectives shift. I stayed up way past any sensible bedtime finishing it, which is about the strongest endorsement fiction can get. Oh definitely, and that book sounds interesting. There are way more humanizing stories yet to be written about climate disasters on a non-world-ending level. Like a whole town being wiped out by a flood or forest fire and how people try to keep getting on when it happens every year (hello, British Columbia). Amitav Ghosh spends a lot of time talking about how hosed Mumbai would be if hit by a major cyclone, and there’s a need for fiction that asks, “But what if that ends up the norm and people keep grinding on?”
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 22:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:49 |
|
|
FPyat posted:Oh poo poo, Sumption’s history of the Hundred Years’ War! I hope it’s good. It’s outstanding and I gotta find the rest of it. But it’s dense.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2022 22:29
|
|