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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:It's all public basically, if there's a Patreon. I never understood the whole "keep your salary secret!" aspect of doing stuff for a living. It stems from employers trying to crack down on it because the less people talk about how much they make, the easier it is to underpay them.
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Aug 31, 2022 20:23
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Rand Brittain posted:Jenna Moran's new novel The Night-Bird's Feather is out September 22, and she says that if pre-orders and first-week sales are good enough to lift her out of her usual circle of readers, she's going to make the playtest draft of the fourth edition of Nobilis available to the public. If you're interested in either of those things, or if "Vita Nostra meets Studio Ghibli" sounds like it would appeal to you, consider pre-ordering maybe? And then Amazon offered me £7 off a £20 order if I used one of their pick-up locations, so I got Chuck Tingle's Straight in print, and some other bits and bobs. Thanks, Jenna!
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Aug 31, 2022 20:37
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Evil Fluffy posted:It stems from employers trying to crack down on it because the less people talk about how much they make, the easier it is to underpay them. lol ran in to this exact situation a few years ago IRL, one team at work had been brought in from another company and their boomer millionaire boss went ballistic when one of us finally realized they were being paid less than half of the rest of us, and actually told them. 
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Aug 31, 2022 20:44
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:It's all public basically, if there's a Patreon. I never understood the whole "keep your salary secret!" aspect of doing stuff for a living. poo poo, if I made 13k a month I'd be more than happy to do a breakdown of expenses/salary/takehome as soon as someone asked. Gotta know what the market pays before you can make a decision on if you want to bother with it. Patreon does offer the ability to hide your income (but not your number of patrons) and I think it's because some people get really weird when creatives they don't like are making bank.
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Aug 31, 2022 21:12
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Rand Brittain posted:Jenna Moran's new novel The Night-Bird's Feather is out September 22, and she says that if pre-orders and first-week sales are good enough to lift her out of her usual circle of readers, she's going to make the playtest draft of the fourth edition of Nobilis available to the public. If you're interested in either of those things, or if "Vita Nostra meets Studio Ghibli" sounds like it would appeal to you, consider pre-ordering maybe? It's also available on Smashwords for people who aren't locked into the Amazon ecosystem, but it looks like they don't support preorders.
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Aug 31, 2022 21:20
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I don't wanna get too kissassy here but a recentish thing that to me was genuinely dark and shocking and good in SF/F was the end of Baru 1, and I think it's because that darkness is interpersonal, they could be in our world and a similar story could play out and the word victory would still taste like grave dirt. Obviously there aren't 100% direct real world analogues to every single secondary world element but being asked to sacrifice everything for power is an experience that people in this world can understand even if they've never done the same, it's a people thing, people remain people wherever you put them. I think one of the big things that sets the Awful Event in Baru 1 apart from other works is the slow, perfect, buildup of anxiety and dread. Like I think the author (intentionally) telegraphs exactly what’s coming so that reading it feels a lot like watching a really good horror movie; your lizard brain is screaming at you but the tension is ratcheted up so well that the event, when it finally occurs, loses none of its impact. I think I spent the last half of the book with an internal monologue with constantly increasing intensity going “oh please oh no oh please oh no” By contrast the Thomas Covenant stuff is just an endless series of terrible things committed by an unrelatable and unlikeable person (but I had never read anything like it when I was a teenager so I eventually finished it). Gato The Elder fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Aug 31, 2022 |
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Aug 31, 2022 21:31
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That's a really good point, and I should reread the dang thing (baru) because honestly I had trouble enjoying the latter half because it was so fuckin stressful!
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Aug 31, 2022 21:37
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Also I too recently finished Darkwar!! I love stories where you know things can really only end badly, but the details of the journey keep you glued (so, tragedy? I think I just like tragedy) A+. Lots of fun. Solid portrayal of a hosed up nonhuman society where the details of being hosed up feel well related to their non-human-ness Gato The Elder fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Aug 31, 2022 |
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Aug 31, 2022 21:40
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Talking about Baru makes me want to read more Anxiety Fantasy
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Aug 31, 2022 21:41
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Gato The Elder posted:Talking about Baru makes me want to read more Anxiety Fantasy Cj cherryh, morgaine trilogy. She does anxiety so so well, plus it's just the best impossibly slow love story.
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Aug 31, 2022 21:45
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Necroscope book 3 increases the racism and adds race science. God drat the British suck lol
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Aug 31, 2022 21:47
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sebmojo posted:Cj cherryh, morgaine trilogy. She does anxiety so so well, plus it's just the best impossibly slow love story. Oh, thanks for the recommendation! I love the Faded Sun trilogy so much, and the only other things I’ve read from her are the first two books of the Fortress series (which I liked but stopped reading and I don’t remember why). I’ll read that right after I finish Zelazny’s Eye of Cat!!
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Aug 31, 2022 21:55
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sebmojo posted:Cj cherryh, morgaine trilogy. She does anxiety so so well, plus it's just the best impossibly slow love story. Oh poo poo the cover art has Brom vibes! Did CJ Cherryh write a pulp adventure series?????
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Aug 31, 2022 21:58
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i can't read the baru sequels because the first one wrecked me
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Aug 31, 2022 22:14
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It's more gritty fantasy with a dash of sci Fi. Lots of extremely precise descriptions of horse care and tense meetings that turn violent
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Aug 31, 2022 22:15
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Baru takes a swimming holiday with ulterior political motive
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Aug 31, 2022 22:56
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I was at the library to pick up hold books for my kid and they had traitor so I guess I'm doing this reread thing.
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Aug 31, 2022 23:06
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Strategic Tea posted:Baru takes a swimming holiday with ulterior political motive The mysterious disappearance of Prime Minister Tain Holt
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Aug 31, 2022 23:48
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Mr Hootington posted:Necroscope book 3 increases the racism and adds race science. God drat the British suck lol Ah yes, thank goodness there's no racism in any other literature
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Aug 31, 2022 23:59
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Mr Hootington posted:Necroscope book 3 increases the racism and adds race "science." God drat the British suck lol Tried to fix that for you. Race scientists are "scientists" in almost exactly the same way that Ancient Astronaut Theorists are "scientists." HopperUK posted:Ah yes, thank goodness there's no racism in any other literature WTF is that supposed to mean?
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Sep 1, 2022 00:50
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It means he is offended that British people were specifically called out as racist in Mr Hootington's post.
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Sep 1, 2022 00:51
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VostokProgram posted:It means he is offended that British people same
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Sep 1, 2022 00:56
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VostokProgram posted:It means he is offended that British people were specifically called out as racist in Mr Hootington's post. she Not really offended. British people are racist, I oughta know, I live here. But it seems to me that blaming Necroscope's racism on the nationality of the author is a bit hosed up
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Sep 1, 2022 00:59
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There is a native race to the Vampire home planet that is called the Trogs which is short for troglodyte. They are described as subhuman cave dwellers who are short and look similar to Earth native Aboriginals. Near the end of the book the author's main character Harry has come around to liking the hard working Torgs because unlike the native Aboriginals of Western Austrialia the Trogs are willing to learn. It is a very British form of racism in these books. The author also has ideas about the Romani people, Mongolians, Russians, and Eastern Europeans.
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Sep 1, 2022 01:03
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Mr Hootington posted:There is a native race to the Vampire home planet that is called the Trogs which is short for troglodyte. They are described as subhuman cave dwellers who are short and look similar to Earth native Aboriginals. Near the end of the book the author's main character Harry has come around to liking the hard working Torgs because unlike the native Aboriginals of Western Austrialia the Trogs are willing to learn. that does sound super racist. like wow. do you stand by your earlier statement "god drat the british suck" or has the  sunk in yet
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Sep 1, 2022 01:04
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Nomnom Cookie posted:that does sound super racist. like wow. do you stand by your earlier statement "god drat the british suck" or has the The British are not a race. They are a nationality.
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Sep 1, 2022 01:05
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Tain posted:https://youtu.be/maAFcEU6atk
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Sep 1, 2022 01:07
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BC: Now Tain I can get into /is immediately dragged to the Cold Cellar Edit: I am currently 25% into my first read of Traitor after having it on my Kindle for ages, and I'm liking it a lot - I'm probably a little extra enamoured by the book in the beginning doing just enough showing, enough telling and enough stuff for you to infer yourself, because: I started this after DNFing (hell DNSing barely) Too Like The Lightning, and the pileup of the archaic writing style and the 'here's a bunch of unexplained poo poo' rubbed me entirely the wrong way in less than a chapter - I mean I've read 'hard' books, I enjoyed the first three Graydon books recently (obviously as I wrote them) but something about TLTL was diesel in my gas tank. Maybe I'll go back to it in the future.. NoneMoreNegative fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Sep 1, 2022 |
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Sep 1, 2022 01:10
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TLTL is a better book about dizzying intrigue among a cast of colorful characters with hidden agendas than Baru is. It's worth sticking out. The protagonist is also an even worse person than Baru! The later books in Terra Ignota kind of vanish up their own rear end, but in a quite unique and wild way, with literal Achilles from the literal Iliad running around, and divine intervention becoming semi-routine, and a Gundam is here now too???????, all of which sounds very 'lol so random' but is in fact part of a very serious interrogation of the nature of God and also possibly God's neighbors from other universes. It's a lot. But it was just all so ambitious and written under such difficult circumstances that I have a hard time saying "you should stop after book two".
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Sep 1, 2022 01:49
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Can I get some opinions on Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett?
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Sep 1, 2022 02:41
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Mr Hootington posted:The British are not a race. They are a nationality. the British are not people
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Sep 1, 2022 02:45
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Mr Hootington posted:The British are not a race. They are a nationality. Now. For a good 800+ years weren't they basically a colonialist cancer driven to consume and devour across the world?
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Sep 1, 2022 02:51
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General Battuta posted:TLTL is a better book about dizzying intrigue among a cast of colorful characters with hidden agendas than Baru is. It's worth sticking out. The protagonist is also an even worse person than Baru! The third book was a little slow but as weird as book four is, I think it's really worth sticking out.
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Sep 1, 2022 03:18
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I finished TLTL literally yesterday. I thought the setting was neat, but did not understand why I should at all care about anyone or anything going on except the kid that makes toys come to life, what's his deal?. I'll power through the rest of the rest of the series though, cause some of my friends really like it.
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Sep 1, 2022 03:31
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FPyat posted:Can I get some opinions on Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett? liked city of stairs and it's sequels, didn't like foundryside much, too much of a YA book for me. The idea was ok with a technology based magic system and the protagonist being an accidental hacker, I'm also enjoy fantasy heist books but i think the plot and the characterisation were a little lacking in depth, i read it when it was released so it's been awhile.
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Sep 1, 2022 03:34
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I don't think insulting all British people is racist, really. But it is a bit lovely to read in a thread that's usually quite kind.
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Sep 1, 2022 03:44
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I'm a third through Snow Crash and honestly having a blast. I was a little hesitant with the premise but everything has come together well and I'm rolling with the tongue-in-cheek narrative. My question is: I get the sense from comments on the web that Neal Stephenson's other stuff is not as good, and I'm a little put off but 1,000+page tomes. Is this a diamond in a rough or is it worth checking out his other stuff?
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Sep 1, 2022 04:06
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Whale Vomit posted:I'm a third through Snow Crash and honestly having a blast. I was a little hesitant with the premise but everything has come together well and I'm rolling with the tongue-in-cheek narrative. by the time you finish it you'll understand why many people do not like Stephenson lol
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Sep 1, 2022 04:20
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He has some other good books, but they're all long as hell. Anathem is a great spec-fic about the like essence of science and knowledge, as well as a first-contact story. I remember liking Cryptonomicon, but it's been like 15 years at this point so who knows. The Baroque cycle is good as hell, this giant romp across the Early Modern world, and the birth of modern science, economics, and colonialism, but they're also collectively about 2500 pages.
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Sep 1, 2022 04:20
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The modern-day parts of Cryptonomicon really do not hold up.
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