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I enjoy Koontz' really sleazy 70s SF stories, from before he got born again (my assumption based on his change of writing) and started writing the magic dog evil demons culture war stuff in the 80s. I remember a good one about a post-nuke earth where the protagonist is on a quest with an intelligent polar bear to find a crashed UFO, and the antagonists are a Zardoz style society of lotus eaters.
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Nov 2, 2022 04:24
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Might be obvious but have you read VanderMeer and Mieville? Both huge influences, I was basically writing an Ankh-Morpork Watch Novel set in New Crobuzon/Ambergris I’ve read Pratchett/Mieville, but not VanderMeer! I’ll check him out, thank you!
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Nov 2, 2022 04:31
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Leng posted:I desperately need a change of pace but I'm still 2/10 in the reserve line for The Golden Enclaves Some book fairy must have been listening because The Golden Enclaves came in at my library today and I have devoured the whole thing in one sitting. Scholomance is officially my favorite thing Naomi Novik has written. By the third book in, quite a lot of El's explanations do feel repetitive but they're quick enough to skim over and it is an extremely satisfying ending. I will never not love an author always swerving and giving me the thing I least expect. EDIT: This is high praise...thank you! tildes posted:
All three books of General Battuta's Baru (The Masquerade) if you haven't already read it. And the Feist/Wurts Empire Trilogy or Trudi Canavan's Age of the Five or Black Magician Trilogy, though Mara, Auraya and Sonea don't ever come anywhere near Rahelu on the anger scale. One REALLY underappreciated series that I don't hear mentioned often is Helen Lowe's The Wall of Night. She's a Kiwi author and it's a 4 book series, 3 books out and the last is being written. Book 1 was her first adult novel and it has one instance of exposition wearing "tell me a story" trappings that made me cringe hard, and at first the world building seems fairly generic, but it was just the one scene and she gets better with every book. The third book, Daughter of Blood, is superbly written and there are so many compelling female characters in that series and they are all distinct. Also Lowe does Tuckerizations in her books. There's one notable character that I straight up DID NOT NOTICE was a Tuckerization until I read about it in her blog after and then I could not unsee it, the way you can't unsee the arrow between the "E" and the "x" in the FedEx logo once you know it's there, so now every time I reread the books I read the Tuckerization as the real name. Leng fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Nov 2, 2022 |
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Nov 2, 2022 06:12
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https://qntm.org/vhitaos Cool author qntm has a short story collection out with some new material. Hard copies on the way, so I'll probably wait. You may know him from Ra, or have forgotten him from There Is No Antimemetics Division.
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Nov 2, 2022 06:22
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fez_machine posted:George R. R. Martin's early work but especially Fevre Dream I don't know how true it is, but I read that Miyazaki (FromSoftware, not Ghibli, obviously) makes every new employee read Fevre Dream when they join the company. So I'm reading it now based on that alone, and I have to say... eh. I sort of get the vibe, I can believe Miyazaki would be a fan, but I'm halfway through and it's really slow and repetitive and dull. (And I thought the first GOT book, at least, was an example of excellent pacing in an otherwise waffling genre.) 90s Cringe Rock posted:https://qntm.org/vhitaos He also wrote the excellent flash fiction Lena, in the style of a Wikipedia article about the first person to upload their consciousness into a computer
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Nov 2, 2022 08:40
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freebooter posted:I don't know how true it is, but I read that Miyazaki (FromSoftware, not Ghibli, obviously) makes every new employee read Fevre Dream when they join the company. So I'm reading it now based on that alone, and I have to say... eh. I sort of get the vibe, I can believe Miyazaki would be a fan, but I'm halfway through and it's really slow and repetitive and dull. (And I thought the first GOT book, at least, was an example of excellent pacing in an otherwise waffling genre.) There’s almost fifteen years between first Game of Thrones book and Fevre Dream, with also work on TV writing there in-between those. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of that (plus general development as a writer and editor) rubbed on to GoT, where I do agree the pacing of the first two books at least was very sharp.
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Nov 2, 2022 10:25
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A Proper Uppercut posted:So apparently Stephen King wrote a fantasy novel called Fairy Tale that came out last month. Anyone checked it out? It’s a very Stephen King novel. If you haven’t read much of him I’d say that means that it’s easy to read and atmospheric with a charming almost folksiness, but with an inability for a 70 year old to write a teenager realistically and no hope of an exciting ending that puts the protagonist against the source of the evil he’s been fighting. As King novels go it’s fine and I enjoyed it and at least there was no weird sex stuff or cringeworthy depictions of black people. Wouldn’t read it again or put it on any top lists.
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Nov 2, 2022 10:51
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team overhead smash posted:It’s a very Stephen King novel. If you haven’t read much of him I’d say that means that it’s easy to read and atmospheric with a charming almost folksiness, but with an inability for a 70 year old to write a teenager realistically and no hope of an exciting ending that puts the protagonist against the source of the evil he’s been fighting. Honestly, if you want to read a book with that general title, I'd recommend the Raymond Feist Faerie Tale. There is some sex stuff IIRC, but it's in service to a neat horror story that doesn't use the usual vampire/zombie/demon/etc.
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Nov 2, 2022 11:09
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Lunsku posted:There’s almost fifteen years between first Game of Thrones book and Fevre Dream, with also work on TV writing there in-between those. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of that (plus general development as a writer and editor) rubbed on to GoT, where I do agree the pacing of the first two books at least was very sharp. It's kind of funny that the man's main claim to fame before GoT was some really loving sharp and to-the-point short stories. Sandkings for example.
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Nov 2, 2022 11:13
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Tuf Voyaging, too
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Nov 2, 2022 11:51
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Groke posted:It's kind of funny that the man's main claim to fame before GoT was some really loving sharp and to-the-point short stories. Sandkings for example. Martin's main claim to fame before ASOIAF was the Wild Cards series, which he has organised since the late 80s and occasionally written for.
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Nov 2, 2022 12:39
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Leng posted:Some book fairy must have been listening because The Golden Enclaves came in at my library today and I have devoured the whole thing in one sitting. It's absolutely deserved. And I'll have to check out that Scholomance thing at some point. Leng posted:All three books of General Battuta's Baru (The Masquerade) if you haven't already read it. Agreed on that and I'm looking forward to the eventual fourth in the series. He's another one I have to restrain myself from directly pestering. Leng posted:And the Feist/Wurts Empire Trilogy or Trudi Canavan's Age of the Five or Black Magician Trilogy, though Mara, Auraya and Sonea don't ever come anywhere near Rahelu on the anger scale. I can't speak to the others, but for Mara, I'd qualify that with "visible anger." Mara doesn't shoot off insults or punch people. She just channels her anger to plotting the annihilation of her enemies, IIRC. BTW, this is probably my dumb American white-boy culture showing, but I kind of hated Rahelu's parents a little bit, especially her mom. I mean, putting the responsibility of the whole family's success on a teenage girl (starting at age 12) just seems evil. I try to get it. Poverty is awful and you'd want to do anything to escape it, but it feels a little bit like Rahelu's folks and especially her mother are kind of selling their kid into slavery like the one guy did to open not-China's first "Captain D's." That's just my "gut-take" and I could easily but full of poo poo on this. Leng posted:One REALLY underappreciated series that I don't hear mentioned often is Helen Lowe's The Wall of Night. She's a Kiwi author and it's a 4 book series, 3 books out and the last is being written. Book 1 was her first adult novel and it has one instance of exposition wearing "tell me a story" trappings that made me cringe hard, and at first the world building seems fairly generic, but it was just the one scene and she gets better with every book. The third book, Daughter of Blood, is superbly written and there are so many compelling female characters in that series and they are all distinct. This I'm a little less sold on. Tuckerizations just aren't my bag. I remember that I was reading Stephen King's Under the Dome and him doing a reference to Lee Child's Jack Reacher character as a real person in his own novel's world just took me out of Under the Dome so hard that I never went back it. This in spite of the fact that I was sort of "Tuckerized" on a episode of The A-Team. The scene in question has the team just having beat a couple of thugs unconscious and they're searching said thugs. George Peppard's Hannibal is looking through their IDs while chomping his big-ol' phallic symbol cigar: Hannibal: John Jones? What kinda name is John Jones? Obviously an alias! My 14-15 year old rear end watching TV: Dude, I'm right here! Also, Hannibal's name in the series is John "Hannibal" Smith. So, y'know, he's one to talk.
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Nov 2, 2022 13:03
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Sailor Viy posted:Any good books with a Dark Souls/Elden Ring vibe? By which I don't necessarily mean medieval guys in plate mail, but more the moody atmosphere, themes of loneliness or decay, and oblique storytelling. Also, anything with elaborate monster designs (which I guess is much harder to pull off in fiction than in visual mediums). Sounds like Karl Edward Wagner's Kane books to me. Maybe the Black Company too? edit: Didn't read far enough to see they've already been recommended. Oh well. Selachian fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Nov 2, 2022 |
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Nov 2, 2022 14:37
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As always if there is interest in grotesquery I will recommend Kameron Hurley and Jesse Bullington.
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Nov 2, 2022 14:43
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Gaius Marius posted:Huh, the only person I've ever heard talk about it described it as secretly one of the best SciFi series, guess I'll have to find out Yeah, it's not much like anything else and very unlike anything else of his you :cough: might have read. Personally I dearly love Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra has an absolutely gorgeous setting but gets kind of um after :coughcough: shows up, and That Hideous Strength has some hilarious Evil College Politics and Evil Corporation of Evil bits but dear god you will spend every instant Ransom is on-page wanting to kick him in his oh-so-symbolic wounded ankle. Oh, and The Dark Tower is well worth a read too - it has some excellent understated horror bits in. Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Nov 2, 2022 |
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Nov 2, 2022 15:25
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Sailor Viy posted:Any good books with a Dark Souls/Elden Ring vibe? By which I don't necessarily mean medieval guys in plate mail, but more the moody atmosphere, themes of loneliness or decay, and oblique storytelling. Also, anything with elaborate monster designs (which I guess is much harder to pull off in fiction than in visual mediums). I've just read Titus Groan and I was getting massive Dark Souls vibes from the descriptions of Gormenghast. In fact having read it, I'm convinced the crumbling castle, decay, general sense of despair and pointlessness must have been an inspiration for that game series. Also a good book, although I've not got to the sequels yet.
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Nov 2, 2022 16:59
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Leng posted:One REALLY underappreciated series that I don't hear mentioned often is Helen Lowe's The Wall of Night. She's a Kiwi author and it's a 4 book series, 3 books out and the last is being written. Book 1 was her first adult novel and it has one instance of exposition wearing "tell me a story" trappings that made me cringe hard, and at first the world building seems fairly generic, but it was just the one scene and she gets better with every book. The third book, Daughter of Blood, is superbly written and there are so many compelling female characters in that series and they are all distinct. I liked these a lot, but book 3 came out in 2016 and I've forgotten an awful lot about the series. I got a lot of 'Godstalk' vibes from the setting, maybe there's something about that which curses readers with long waits.
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Nov 2, 2022 18:24
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Leng posted:Some book fairy must have been listening because The Golden Enclaves came in at my library today and I have devoured the whole thing in one sitting. I’ve read zero of these apart from the Baru books, so will definitely check these out, ty! Rebuilding a backlog. (Also agree, I was a fan of Novik more or less but Schoolomance is my fave by far. I do wish Golden Enclaves was just slightly longer but mostly because it’s so good)
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Nov 2, 2022 19:02
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GRRM worked in tv-land so deeply to be offended enough when Sliders the tv show got picked up over his version of "portal driven interdimensional travel tv pilot" to mention upcoming lawsuits (ala Harlan Ellison) to see the paperwork behind the decisions of greenlighting Sliders vs his tv series pilot. I have deep sympathy for Dean Koontz. The hardest he tries, Stephen King manages to shits out two least effort possible stories in the same writing time that outsell Koontz. I prefer Koontz's occasional trips into going weird versus Stephen Kings default "..and then DARKNESS CAME.." That writing guide that Koontz wrote was a real example of trying to match up to Stephen King's output and Stephen King's "gently caress the reader, I decide what's interesting" ethos. Started getting back into reading LeGuin's work, but I am definitely avoiding her literary critiques. Dreading a repeat of the Poughkeepsie-Elfland Mythopoeic incident will crop up again given any outside research since I prefer reading authors by earliest->latest chronological publishing dates.
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Nov 2, 2022 19:17
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I liked Sliders as a kid...... Edit: For Sci-fi literature related content, reading Matter and just got to the part where one of our plucky Minds has disguised themselves as a dildo in the main character's luggage? I love Banks. BadOptics fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Nov 2, 2022 |
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Nov 2, 2022 19:21
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quantumfoam posted:Poughkeepsie-Elfland Mythopoeic incident The what
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Nov 2, 2022 20:06
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zoux posted:The what Yeah. I am intrigued by this, even if it didn't involve Le Guin. And speaking of reading Le Guin in order, I got the Library of America boxed set of her Hainish cycle few years back, it was wonderful through-and-through, and I cannot recommend it enough to any fan of her work or just anyone in general.
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Nov 2, 2022 20:36
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I believe quantumfoam's interpretation is that the "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" essay by LeGuin was a stab at other fantasy writers.
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Nov 2, 2022 20:46
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Seems like there's a bunch of Alastair Reynolds books on sale, that are not part of the Daily or Monthly deals, so no idea how long these offers last. Century Rain - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0819VCQKH Aurora Rising (The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies Book 1) - $1.99 (Previously released as The Prefect) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081YZY8YR Elysium Fire (The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies Book 2) - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073P43TMS Chasm City (The Inhibitor Series (2)) - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0819TXR83 Galactic North - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0819VGW5P
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Nov 2, 2022 20:51
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General Battuta posted:I believe quantumfoam's interpretation is that the "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" essay by LeGuin was a stab at other fantasy writers. I mean poor Katherine Kurtz Her books were fine! She's a nice lady who did too much SCA! She didn't deserve to have leguin draw a mark of shame on her forehead forever Might as well have Shakespeare rise from his grave, walk into the local high school production of Midsummer Night's Dream, and start declaiming what utter poo poo the high schoolers are in extemporaneous pentameter
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Nov 2, 2022 21:33
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I just ripped through Petition by Delilah Waan, whom I think is a goon. I'm pretty sure that I found the book through this thread, and I just wanted to say it's one of the best things I've read recently and I'm excited for book 2.
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Nov 2, 2022 21:36
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Everyone should read Joanna Russ's criticism which got a lot of people big mad back in the day
fez_machine fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Nov 2, 2022 |
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Nov 2, 2022 21:57
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Against a Dark Background by Iain M Banks - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002CT0TXK/ The Powder Mage Trilogy: Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, The Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan - $6.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NZNTK6V/
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Nov 2, 2022 23:16
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I mean poor Katherine Kurtz I'm missing all of the context here, somebody explain this juicy sci-fi gossip
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Nov 3, 2022 00:01
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zoux posted:The what PeterWeller posted:Yeah. I am intrigued by this, even if it didn't involve Le Guin. General Battuta posted:I believe quantumfoam's interpretation is that the "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" essay by LeGuin was a stab at other fantasy writers. Hieronymous Alloy posted:I mean poor Katherine Kurtz Mythopoeic thing: Both Ursula LeGuin & Katherine Kurtz were finalist nominees for the 1973 Mythopoeic Award when that essay came out. SF-LOVERS people who lived through that era believed that Katherine Kurtz was the direct target of that essay. Neither LeGuin or Kurtz ended up winning the 1973 Mythopoeic Award (Evangeline Walton did), so any drama about it got memory-zoned fast and hard, like how Asimov and Pournelle and Ellison kept getting hall-passes to assault and harass people at conventions without consequences for decades and decades. If anyone is curious, drama over the Hugo Award managing committee outright tampering with vote-counts was a perennial topic in the SF-LOVERS for the 1980's and early 1990's.
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Nov 3, 2022 00:03
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Dilber posted:I just ripped through Petition by Delilah Waan, whom I think is a goon. I'm pretty sure that I found the book through this thread, and I just wanted to say it's one of the best things I've read recently and I'm excited for book 2. Yeah it's Leng. I shall pick it up, I think! Someone was asking for kiwi sf, She's a Killer by Kirsten McDougal is great, at the the lit end but very funny in the Fleabag sort of vein
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Nov 3, 2022 00:23
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New Twenty Palaces book out by Harry Connelly. Only one more left in the series 
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Nov 3, 2022 00:26
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:New Twenty Palaces book out by Harry Connelly. Only one more left in the series Whoa, thanks for this. I actually had no idea that any new Twenty Palaces stuff was coming out, and missed the last one too... I'm surprised I hadn't heard he came back to the series till now. Hopefully he's able to stick the landing with the ending of Twenty Palaces better than the Way, that series started solid but completely fell apart by the end. Blankspace fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Nov 3, 2022 |
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Nov 3, 2022 01:15
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Honestly when it comes to New Zealand sff authors, the top of my list is and always will be Hugh Cook.
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Nov 3, 2022 01:23
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VostokProgram posted:I'm missing all of the context here, somebody explain this juicy sci-fi gossip Effectively Ursula K Leguin wrote an essay - something about Fairyland IIRC that just ripped on other fantasy novels, using other authors as examples, and it was brutal. googling around - quote:A brilliant discussion of the craft of fantasy-writing by one of the greatest living American fantasy writers, noted for its devastating discussion of the stylistic sins of Katherine Kurtz. Originally this was a lecture she gave at Science FIction Writers Workshop. - https://www.librarything.com/work/2266195 and bluntly, as someone who has read at least one Deryni novel by Kurtz... she didn't deserve to be put on blast like that.
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Nov 3, 2022 01:28
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StrixNebulosa posted:Effectively Ursula K Leguin wrote an essay - something about Fairyland IIRC that just ripped on other fantasy novels, using other authors as examples, and it was brutal. Yep. Tbh that essay makes me think less of Le Guin.
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Nov 3, 2022 02:08
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The thing is, leguin is making a valid point. Other writers are not on her level. But writing a "get on my level, bitches" essay about it is . . .declasse.
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Nov 3, 2022 02:15
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No, more writers should be willing to tell their peers to step up or shut up. Genre fiction has a problem with how god awful most of the stories writings are, even if they have a core of interesting ideas, that they quickly become an absolute chore to read. And the fan's tendency to except the genre from the same criticism that "real" novels face only succeeds in rewarding mediocrity and creating a punchline out of the genre.
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Nov 3, 2022 02:34
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Gaius Marius posted:No, more writers should be willing to tell their peers to step up or shut up. Genre fiction has a problem with how god awful most of the stories writings are, even if they have a core of interesting ideas, that they quickly become an absolute chore to read. And the fan's tendency to except the genre from the same criticism that "real" novels face only succeeds in rewarding mediocrity and creating a punchline out of the genre. I'm fine with holding authors to a standard of excellence or at least competence. My objection is that there shouldn't be a right or wrong way to write anything, fantasy or not. There should just be the quality of the writing, in terms of the ideas within and how well those ideas were expressed.
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Nov 3, 2022 03:04
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The thing is, leguin is making a valid point. Other writers are not on her level. But writing a "get on my level, bitches" essay about it is . . .declasse. Some of it is valid; her criticism of Kurtz (which essentially amounts to "her characters, in talking politics, use similar terms to politicians") is not. For that matter, she doesn't always fare all that well herself taking that critical approach. Here's a random passage from an Earthsea short story: quote:Hound told his master that they had the hexer in a safe place, and Losen said, “Who was he working for?” Of course, it could just as easily read: quote:Perry told the Senator that they had the saboteur in a safe place, and Losen said, “Who was he working for?” That could have shown up in any number of political thrillers without attracting a whiff of attention. LeGuin clearly was arguing for fantasy as a form of epic poem, and her commentary on working in that style is on point; that doesn't mean that she's right that anything else—the Poughkeepsie style—isn't fantasy, or is inferior. Kalman fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Nov 3, 2022 |
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Nov 3, 2022 03:15
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