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The last book in that series is The Evolutionary Void.
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Mar 15, 2023 22:05
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No it isn't. It's Judas Unchained but if we were to go by your definition, the last book is The Night Without Stars.
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Mar 15, 2023 22:15
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There are good parts to Hamilton's books. But then there's all the sex stuff in it and all of that is terrible. But Paula Myo was my teenage crush so who can really say how good they are.
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Mar 15, 2023 22:21
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Empire of Sand (Books of Ambha #1) by Tasha Suri - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B8J34CC/
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Mar 15, 2023 22:45
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Also since it was mentioned in this thread fairly recently, The 13&1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear is on sale on Kindle for $2.99 today https://www.amazon.com/13-Lives-Captain-Blue-Bear-ebook/dp/B07MWB1RZP/
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Mar 15, 2023 22:59
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MockingQuantum posted:Also since it was mentioned in this thread fairly recently, The 13&1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear is on sale on Kindle for $2.99 today Do yourself a favour and read a modern fantasy classic on the cheap
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Mar 15, 2023 23:30
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I've been reading the original Dragonlance novels (well, just the first one because I'm mega slow nowadays) and it keeps addressing how Raistlin's physically hosed up because of a previous adventure. I've seen the series where this is expounded on (War of the Twins), is that one worth reading as well?
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Mar 16, 2023 07:50
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Lily Catts posted:I've been reading the original Dragonlance novels (well, just the first one because I'm mega slow nowadays) and it keeps addressing how Raistlin's physically hosed up because of a previous adventure. I've seen the series where this is expounded on (War of the Twins), is that one worth reading as well? It's fine. If you like what you're reading, it's more of the same, weird Mormon logic and all. I could swear I've read Soulforge but I can not remember a drat thing about it, so buyer beware.
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Mar 16, 2023 07:57
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Siivola posted:First, War of the Twins is the second novel in the Legends trilogy, and second, that trilogy is a sequel to the Chronicles trilogy you're reading right now. There's flashbacks and explanations of why Raistlin is how he is, but the full story is told in the spinoff novel Soulforge. I never read the novel Soulforge, but I did play the game book which came first.
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Mar 16, 2023 11:22
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Finished a re-read of Pushing Ice yesterday, immediately started a re-read of House of Suns because nobody does deep time like Alastair Reynolds.
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Mar 16, 2023 17:38
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Zoracle Zed posted:is this thread caught in a time loop A white hole?
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Mar 16, 2023 19:06
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Just finished Foe by Iain Reid. Basic plot is a guy and his wife are living in a rural farmhouse, corporate man shows up and says the guy is getting drafted to go live in space, then comes back to interview the guy to help prepare a perfect AI replica of the guy to live at the house while he’s gone. It gets weird from there. It’s…really loving good. He also wrote We Spread, which is, kind of body horror SF, but maybe not? its pretty unclear how much of the horror is just because the main character is suffering from dementia
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Mar 16, 2023 21:27
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I'm reading The Adventures Of Amina al-Sirafi
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Mar 17, 2023 06:30
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I just finished up Mickey7, without realizing the thread was on this derail for souls and teleporting and cloning. The book handles it in a nice way. I think we are the same after we wake up from sedation cause I saw the original documentary Flatliners and if it was a different person/soul in the body after the near death experience they wouldn't be haunted by the old soul's personal bullshit. Also, for as much as I thought Mickey7 was going to be some weird Moon ripoff, it's actually fairly unique and horrifying at times. I discovered a site today the let's you send a DNA sample into space to float through the galaxy, and I thought it'd be cool until I saw the price tag and then realized some alien race might just clone a shitton of me and raise me as cattle for their version of McDonald's and now I just wanna be cremated and left alone on earth. Also they had the option for the moon but nah. I don't wanna take the chance in existing again. This go around has been a shitshow.
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Mar 17, 2023 07:28
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That first Commonweal book was pretty interesting, but the way its written could've been done a little better. I get that the author wants us to piece it together ourselves instead of having exposition dumped onto the reader, but there are scenes that seem like they definitely weren't meant to be confusing and, due to the terseness of the main character, accidentally trick you into thinking there's something there you just don't get. For instance, there's a bit near the big fight midway through where the captain does something to a big metal tube or something made of anti-magic materials and it was such a headscratcher to try and even begin to work out what was even being described. Still, I enjoyed that, unlike a lot of fantasy, it fully considers how society would be utterly changed by readily available magic and portrays leftist political goals with optimism even in the face of overwhelmingly bad odds. Thanks to those who recommended it a few pages back. On the topic of sci-fi, what are some good books regarding first contact and studying alien life? I liked Speaker for the Dead when I was a teen (dunno if I'd like it as much after what I've learned of Card and a few decades of reading better written stuff than the Ender series), so I'd like something that captures that same general vibe without Card's bullshit.
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Mar 17, 2023 07:42
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I finished up The Colour of Magic yesterday. The library gives 48 hour notice for expiring books and I like it when I can complete a book start to finish in that window anyway, it was good! I actually enjoyed it more than Sourcery. A series of loosely connected adventures seemed to lend itself well to its specific style of humor, very Hitchhiker's Guide-y. You tell a joke, satirize something very specific, then onto the next thing with a new location and a new cast of supporting characters the exact moment you run out of material
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Mar 17, 2023 08:18
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The very excellent The Library at Mount Char is on sale at Amazon today for $1.99 which is an absolute steal: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NRQRWAA/ I recently finished The Five Daughters of the Moon which is like...a vaguely historical fiction fantasy about the Romanov daughters (the son Alexei got genderswapped into a daughter) with soul magic. Nicholas II doesn't exist. There's an Empress who is married to the Moon (a male god) who is the religious/spiritual father of her daughters who are biologically fathered by whatever convenient general/courtier is politically convenient. The Rasputin analog is of course evil and can mind control people to creepy/horrific effect. The book is novella length and the first half of a duology of novellas and I'm so confused why they didn't just publish the two novellas as a single novel. You get 5 POVs with 2 chapters each in this novella and half the page count is "we're on a train fleeing the capital" and "Celestia has a plan" which is foiled and then the first book just...ends with them arriving at a house somewhere super remote. I don't think it grabbed me enough for me to go on and read the second one but the prose was okay and the soul magic was kind of interesting so if you're into historical fiction this might be your thing?
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Mar 17, 2023 10:49
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Whirling posted:For instance, there's a bit near the big fight midway through where the captain does something to a big metal tube or something made of anti-magic materials and it was such a headscratcher to try and even begin to work out what was even being described. I don't think anyone other than the author really understands what precisely happened there. And yeah, as one Lets Read put it, the series makes "a heroic, but ultimately unsuccessful attempt at pretending to be written in English." One thing I will say for the series is that the way in which the prose is obtuse varies depending on the pov character!
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Mar 17, 2023 14:55
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habeasdorkus posted:I don't think anyone other than the author really understands what precisely happened there. And yeah, as one Lets Read put it, the series makes "a heroic, but ultimately unsuccessful attempt at pretending to be written in English." One thing I will say for the series is that the way in which the prose is obtuse varies depending on the pov character! Yeah its a series I really want to like because of the subject matter and political philosophy, but its too difficult to read.
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Mar 17, 2023 20:12
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Ccs posted:Yeah its a series I really want to like because of the subject matter and political philosophy, but its too difficult to read. I think you could skip the first book and do 2-3,4 and it would be fine. I only say because I found 2 easier to follow than 1, 5 kind of lost me again. Edit, forgot the number of books. Thought there were 6. Sibling of TB fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Mar 17, 2023 |
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Mar 17, 2023 20:33
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edit: Commonweal not Commonwealth
Habibi fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Mar 17, 2023 |
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Mar 17, 2023 20:39
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MockingQuantum posted:Also since it was mentioned in this thread fairly recently, The 13&1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear is on sale on Kindle for $2.99 today I got this from the library last week because of this thread, it's a lot of fun!
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Mar 17, 2023 20:51
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Habibi posted:This is interesting to me, because Hamilton is an author I typically recommend to people as accessible and an easy read. it's graydon saunders, not hamilton
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Mar 17, 2023 21:11
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Habibi posted:This is interesting to me, because Hamilton is an author I typically recommend to people as accessible and an easy read. Commonweal, not Commonwealth.
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Mar 17, 2023 21:13
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Hahaha sorry, everybody. I legit thought Commonweal was a typo.
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Mar 17, 2023 21:14
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Habibi posted:Hahaha sorry, everybody. I legit thought Commonweal was a typo. It's clearly supposed to be commonveal! (Surprisingly though, commonweal at least used to be a word, even if it's arguable if it still is).
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Mar 17, 2023 21:32
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OddObserver posted:It's clearly supposed to be commonveal! (Surprisingly though, commonweal at least used to be a word, even if it's arguable if it still is). It still is. There's a Scottish pro-independence think tank named Common Weal.
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Mar 17, 2023 21:35
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Leng posted:The very excellent The Library at Mount Char is on sale at Amazon today for $1.99 which is an absolute steal: I recommend picking up this book. Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer #1) by Robin Hobb - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBFMG6/ Nightwings by Robert Silverberg - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CHW661Q/
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Mar 17, 2023 22:35
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Jedit posted:It still is. There's a Scottish pro-independence think tank named Common Weal. It's high gygaxian
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Mar 17, 2023 23:40
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Doktor Avalanche posted:it's graydon saunders, not hamilton
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Mar 18, 2023 00:18
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Jedit posted:It still is. There's a Scottish pro-independence think tank named Common Weal. Commonweal is also the name of a magazine for liberal Catholics (the few that are left, anyway).
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Mar 18, 2023 01:47
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So I'm reading Kushiel's Dart. Back when I was a teenager, I read half of it. Then, on page 347 (out of 901), a HUGE status quo shift hits. Multiple major characters die. Our heroine goes from understanding who she is and where she belongs to being kidnapped and sold into slavery. It's betrayal on the highest order. As a teenager I read into this, was badly hurt as I was really liking the characters and was shocked by everything, and dropped the book out of distress. Now, a decade+ later, I'm back to find out what the hell happens. Maybe finish out the trilogy, who knows. As I read back through these huge events... I have to wonder. I can't think of many other books where the status quo is utterly changed like this. Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge comes to mind - you get a hundred pages into that one, think you're ready for sci-fi mega-corp politicking with your college-age heroine - and BAM everything changes. But most books tend to stick the big change at the front - Wheel of Time, our hero leaves pretty quickly. Lord of the Rings creeps up on it, and it is sudden for the pace of the book, but none of them hit with the impact Kushiel's Dart had on me.
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Mar 19, 2023 13:57
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There is, of course, A Game of Thrones. Although that puts the big surprises at the end of book 1. I read that loving thing when it was new and before it had much word-of-mouth. Looked like just another big old fantasy epic with all of the expected plot elements, everything getting set up nicely to follow certain patterns we had come to expect, and then the rug gets yanked out from underneath in the last chapters, at least twice.
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Mar 19, 2023 14:45
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Groke posted:There is, of course, A Game of Thrones. Although that puts the big surprises at the end of book 1. Yeah same. I read it just before Storm of Swords came out and it had no real cultural awareness yet. It's just so clear that Ned is going to the Wall and will have a reconciliation with Jon there and together they will save the world and also somehow be vindicated in the south too. Oops.
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Mar 19, 2023 15:00
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StrixNebulosa posted:As I read back through these huge events... I have to wonder. I can't think of many other books where the status quo is utterly changed like this. Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge comes to mind - you get a hundred pages into that one, think you're ready for sci-fi mega-corp politicking with your college-age heroine - and BAM everything changes. Matt Ruff's Set This House in Order is the first thing that comes to mind.
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Mar 19, 2023 15:35
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Groke posted:There is, of course, A Game of Thrones. Although that puts the big surprises at the end of book 1. I think - and forgive me, it's been a decade+ since I read Game of Thrones, I read the first one around the same time I read Kushiel's Dart - and I don't think the big surprises actually got me in the same way they got others, because very VERY early on in the book it takes a child and throws them off a roof and that was the big "what" moment for me. Nothing else came close to that shock after that, though the brutal murder of Daenary's husband got me in the gut. I'm still in awe at how fast teenage me got through books, because I went on to read the next two before getting tired of it all.
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Mar 19, 2023 15:49
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CIRCE by Madeline Miller - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074M5TLLJ/
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Mar 19, 2023 15:53
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Michael Marshall Smith's Only Forward does a huge twist about 2/3rds through, and as it does mentions a specific date (as in day/month/year) that I happened to be reading it on. It was a bewildering enough coincidence that I sat there with my mouth flapping for a few minutes. Darwin's Radio (Greg Bear) does a big twist that unfortunately derails things enough that the story really seems to have no point. In fact I think I gave up reading it after the reveal.
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Mar 19, 2023 16:06
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Ravenfood posted:Yeah same. I read it just before Storm of Swords came out and it had no real cultural awareness yet. It's just so clear that Ned is going to the Wall and will have a reconciliation with Jon there and together they will save the world and also somehow be vindicated in the south too. Yeah, there is that and then there is the Dothraki situation. Great, this conqueror with his not-Mongol horde is coming to kick some... no, he's dead from some stupid bullshit wound, but okay the author is going for a long game, his son will... no, the baby was stillborn, gently caress. But hey, dragons. I was on Usenet in those days and this book (and the sequels) did in fact attract rather a lot of attention. (Fan theories like R+L=J came about pretty early. Never mind the greater merman conspiracy theory and so on.)
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Mar 19, 2023 17:15
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Yeah, the books were a pretty big hit in the fantasy genre at the time of their release.
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Mar 19, 2023 17:22
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