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There's a population of Norwegian-heritage people in MN's Iron Range who harbor a very earnest-seeming and deeply seated loathing of the Finnish which I always find pretty funny because it is exclusively limited to vehement poo poo-talking and they spent a decade choking on their spite-bile as a Finn captained their state's hockey team, to which they are bound by oath eternal to support. edit: max hype snipe
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Jan 19, 2023 12:40
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Sinatrapod posted:There's a population of Norwegian-heritage people in MN's Iron Range who harbor a very earnest-seeming and deeply seated loathing of the Finnish which I always find pretty funny because it is exclusively limited to vehement poo poo-talking and they spent a decade choking on their spite-bile as a Finn captained their state's hockey team, to which they are bound by oath eternal to support. Hah. Populations of migrant-descended groups like that, when they retain a special cultural identity at all, are frequently kind of hilarious when seen from the old country. Because the cultural elements they may have preserved probably have very little overlap with whatever has become of the old-country culture. (Hell, I have an elderly aunt who has lived most of her life abroad. Even though she and her family have visited frequently (and one of her sons has moved his family to Norway) and very much kept in touch, and even though they have by no means lived in some kind of isolationist compound or anything like that, her internalized Norwegian-ness is still somehow frozen in the 1960s, in a way that you don't see with people of the same age who have stayed here. This country is actually quite different from how it was back then.)
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Jan 19, 2023 14:09
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Just finished Upgrade by Blake Crouch. I feel like I liked his other books but don’t see why we needed another take on Limitless / Lucy / etc. Last third was a real slog and I hated the epilogue.
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Jan 19, 2023 16:58
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Larry Parrish posted:racism is pretty much awful in text form most of the time because either the author feels the need to explain to me what a racist comment is and to make sure I know it's bad or it's, like, someones internal monologue where they just say the n word 40 times or whatever. Ah, Stephen King writing in dialect
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Jan 19, 2023 20:02
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Kestral posted:Do folks here have thoughts on the Elric series in publication order vs chronological order? I get the impression the author preferred chronological and that's what the new omnibus editions present the material in, but that's not necessarily the Actually Good order for a new reader. Chronologically but skip anything written past the 70's.
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Jan 19, 2023 21:41
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zoux posted:e: also if you haven't read The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi, you should because it's coming true right now You don't get to have insane genetic engineering or loving arcologies but all the other technology is from 2008 it's goddamn ridiculous. I don't know how these got moved into the serious pile instead of the supermarket checkout technothriller pile. It felt like reading the novelization of Johnny Mnemonic.
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Jan 19, 2023 21:48
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The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) by Mark Lawrence - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VJBBFN6/
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Jan 20, 2023 00:23
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RDM posted:I read the windup girl and I thought it sucked and then I read the water knife and I thought it sucked. Didn’t it have like, elephants winding ceiling fans or something? It’s been forever since I read it. Dumbass Flintstones-rear end book
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Jan 20, 2023 00:30
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At least clockwork-powered elephant fans are outlandish enough that maybe you aren't supposed to read it straight-faced. Tech like the nanobots in Crichton's Prey or the nanobots in The Dervish House are just painfully dumb. I liked the nanobots in the Diamond Age, though.
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Jan 20, 2023 03:06
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Gareth Hanrahan has a new series! Looks like you can get an ARC if you know how, I love his rpg work and the gutter prayer books are good if a little grim
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Jan 20, 2023 03:20
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Hopefully he's abandoned the present tense
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Jan 20, 2023 05:18
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Oh, that's another thing about one of the newer Elric novellas? Novels? The Revenge of the Rose. Anyway, some sections there just switch between past and present tense, I could find neither rhyme nor reason for why. Very distracting.
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Jan 20, 2023 05:21
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Tiny Timbs posted:Didn’t it have like, elephants winding ceiling fans or something? It’s been forever since I read it. While I only have a middling opinion on the book, they were using elephants as living generators, using their physical power to wind super-strong springs which could be used for all sorts of things, including fans. I don't think the book was particularly good but I think they put enough work into their Calories as Power Source conceit to find it pretty cool. I especially liked the flywheel guns that could be plenty lethal but you had to deal with the possibility of it misfiring and blenderizing yourself.
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Jan 20, 2023 07:35
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I finished Terminal World yesterday, I'm pretty sure I didn't like it. I was going to say it was OK, but thinking about it more, there's a lot I don't like about it. It's weird that the author said there's no plans for a sequel, it feels like it really wants one to fill out some more of the world.
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Jan 20, 2023 16:38
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fez_machine posted:Hopefully he's abandoned the present tense
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Jan 20, 2023 22:37
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Red Mars (Mars #1) by Kim Stanley Robinson - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QCS914/
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Jan 20, 2023 23:12
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Sinatrapod posted:While I only have a middling opinion on the book, they were using elephants as living generators, using their physical power to wind super-strong springs which could be used for all sorts of things, including fans. I don't think the book was particularly good but I think they put enough work into their Calories as Power Source conceit to find it pretty cool. I especially liked the flywheel guns that could be plenty lethal but you had to deal with the possibility of it misfiring and blenderizing yourself. I don't remember the flywheel guns at all. I just remember the Windup girl burning inside, almost always like a furnace but occasionally like an inferno, every dozen pages or so as she kept doing whatever anyway.
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Jan 21, 2023 07:28
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Like a lot of sci-fi authors, Bacigalupi's short stories are much better than his novels. I thought Windup Girl was pretty mediocre, but most of the stories in Pump Six are pretty good (there are still some meh ones)
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Jan 21, 2023 09:49
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I thought the Windup Girl was pretty good if you ignore literally every part of the book that features or involves the titular windup girl, whose entire storyline is literally just cyberpunk Miss Saigon, with all the implicit sexism, orientalism, white-saviour-ism and generally contemptful treatment of its female lead that this implies. That sounds like a very backhanded compliment ("the book's great if you ignore everything the book is about!") but for a character whose name is in the title of the book, she's only in like... maybe 20% of it. And there's not really even any reason for her to be in that much. She doesn't do anything that matters to any other character at any point except for maybe one single instance where she kills a guy, which doesn't even loving matter because the outcome of him getting killed would have happened either way! Unfortunately this is still a big enough flaw that the book sucks, it's just particularly frustrating because she could have been cut so easily and we'd be left with a perfectly serviceable... environmental cyberpunk thriller set a weird vivid future Thailand? but nope, apparently you just can't write cyberpunk without a submissive and abused sexbot-waifu. must be something in the bylaws, i guess...
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Jan 21, 2023 11:07
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Yeah I found the portrayal and apparent position in the story of the titular windup girl off-putting enough that it's one of the half-finished books in my shelf, and haven't really been too enthusiastic on picking up on other Bacigalupi after. Otherwise I found the setting pretty interesting I think.
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Jan 21, 2023 11:54
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Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008R2J70M/
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Jan 21, 2023 17:46
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pradmer posted:Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem - $2.99 V.good book.
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Jan 21, 2023 20:28
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Is Shards of Earth anything like Star Control 2? I still haven't found a book to match the spirit of that game.
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Jan 21, 2023 20:33
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I thought it was really funny in the Water Knife how essential twitter still was in this dystopic future
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Jan 21, 2023 23:07
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FPyat posted:Is Shards of Earth anything like Star Control 2? I still haven't found a book to match the spirit of that game. Now that you mention it, it kinda is. drat, I loved SC2, I haven’t thought of it in years. And Shards of Earth has just the right mix of cosmic horror + humor + gently caress yeah aliens, I totally loved it
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Jan 21, 2023 23:07
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Jade City (Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XRCBRX8/ I Am Legend by Richard Matheson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XB49BG4/ The Testaments (Handmaid's Tale #2) by Margaret Atwood - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KVLPYDQ/ Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FCK2TW/ The Blade Itself (First Law #1) by Joe Abercrombie - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TOT9LDK/ The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Discworld #28) by Terry Pratchett - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000YGIIPO/ Moon Witch, Spider King (Dark Star #2) by Marlon James - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097XVHTT8/ Eon by Greg Bear - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J3EU5RC/ Bloodchild: And Other Stories by Octavia E Butler - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008HALO0U/
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Jan 22, 2023 16:57
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Ravenfood posted:without question, the shining star of literary prowess, the Name of the Wind I'll give it another shot, and to be honest I gave up on it because of one tiny thing, which was something like quote:"Yeah right," he said sarcastically. If there's anything I can't stand, it's adverbs. But worse than that, adverbs in your dialogue tags. But admittedly this is very shallow of me. I have way too many compositional qualms that I don't even enjoy reading anymore lmao
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Jan 23, 2023 15:54
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Or, and hear me out here, it could be because NotW is poo poo.
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Jan 23, 2023 17:03
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caspergers posted:I'll give it another shot, and to be honest I gave up on it because of one tiny thing, which was something like ravenfood is lying, its bad, it's just got the sort of purple prose that a specific type of nerd enjoys.
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Jan 23, 2023 18:30
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Imagine if Ursula K. Leguin was an incel who wrote Eragon at 35 minus the talent with prose, obviously, just imitating his betters
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Jan 23, 2023 19:08
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I think I got to the part where he was well, actuallying his magic teacher as a freshman at Magic U while all the comely wench co-eds swooned - this is after owning some magic jock with banter - and then I was like, ok what does this author look like, does he look like I bet, and he did.
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Jan 23, 2023 19:45
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zoux posted:I think I got to the part where he was well, actuallying his magic teacher as a freshman at Magic U while all the comely wench co-eds swooned - this is after owning some magic jock with banter - and then I was like, ok what does this author look like, does he look like I bet, and he did. If he ever publishes the last book, I'll read it, but I won't be happy about it.
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Jan 23, 2023 20:00
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zoux posted:I think I got to the part where he was well, actuallying his magic teacher as a freshman at Magic U while all the comely wench co-eds swooned - this is after owning some magic jock with banter - and then I was like, ok what does this author look like, does he look like I bet, and he did. Was that before or after he was a world class acrobat prodigy at age 7, who immediately accidentally mastered magic after one conversation with a wandering wizard, but was TOO GOOD at magic and almost hurt himself, but totally didn't actually suffer any negative effects from how he was too awesome at magic?
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Jan 23, 2023 20:04
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Captain Monkey posted:Was that before or after he was a world class acrobat prodigy at age 7, who immediately accidentally mastered magic after one conversation with a wandering wizard, but was TOO GOOD at magic and almost hurt himself, but totally didn't actually suffer any negative effects from how he was too awesome at magic? After that, but before he out-fucks the sex fairy
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Jan 23, 2023 20:08
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Captain Monkey posted:Was that before or after he was a world class acrobat prodigy at age 7, who immediately accidentally mastered magic after one conversation with a wandering wizard, but was TOO GOOD at magic and almost hurt himself, but totally didn't actually suffer any negative effects from how he was too awesome at magic? Are you talking about the chronic liar and over-exaggerator who is depicted as exactly that? To get away from the tiresome hate fest, has anyone read Stephen King’s Fairy Tale yet? I got it for Christmas and it’s been sitting on my PC for a couple of months now. Is it worth making an effort?
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Jan 23, 2023 20:08
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DreamingofRoses posted:Are you talking about the chronic liar and over-exaggerator who is depicted as exactly that? I'm talking about the guy who, in the first chapter before its his chronic liar over-exaggeration story, is just SO COOL and SO SCARY that he totally intimidates a SuperDemon with a single look by gripping the bar so hard he leaves imprints in the wood from his super fingers. I'm reading Fairy Tale right now, and I don't really like the narrator, he's a little too dumb and its very folksy. I'm hoping once the Weird poo poo starts it'll get better.
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Jan 23, 2023 20:14
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caspergers posted:I'll give it another shot, and to be honest I gave up on it because of one tiny thing, which was something like Do not give it another shot, it is very bad. I was being facetious.
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Jan 23, 2023 22:00
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The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ECE9OD4/ The Lord of the Rings: One Volume by JRR Tolkien - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007978OY6/ Dead Astronauts (Borne #2) by Jeff VanderMeer - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q6TNWYC/ Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) by Terry Pratchett - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000TU16OU/ The World Jones Made by Philip K Dick - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LVR01A/
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Jan 23, 2023 23:31
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pradmer posted:The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North - $2.99 My usual big recommend on this book. It became a surprise favorite of mine when it came up on sale a few times ago.
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Jan 24, 2023 02:57
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Captain Monkey posted:My usual big recommend on this book. It became a surprise favorite of mine when it came up on sale a few times ago. Yeah same. It's also a good recommendation for the person looking for "literary" fantasy/sci fi.
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Jan 24, 2023 03:19
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