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My issue with 'hopepunk' is that because I often read the forums with my eyes basically unfocused (because they suck and don't work well), I keep thinking I see my username. e: Oh also I got a copy of the Lady Gregory book of Irish myths and thanks for the recommendation, thread, it's really fuckin good.
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May 27, 2023 03:42
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David Brins site has a bunch of counters at the bottom, they just made me laugh, such a 1990s design quirk. They don't actually count anything just reset on every page load.
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May 27, 2023 07:05
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Wow, 1578 quora followers! That must be the entire active userbase!
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May 27, 2023 07:36
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WarpDogs posted:Here's an excerpt, which I think captures what the rest of the book is like: This works pretty well for me, thanks!
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May 27, 2023 08:05
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American Gods (#1) by Neil Gaiman - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YW4L5K/ Revenger (#1) by Alistair Reynolds - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXW2IUQ/
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May 27, 2023 17:44
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His Divine Shadow posted:David Brins site has a bunch of counters at the bottom, they just made me laugh, such a 1990s design quirk. They don't actually count anything just reset on every page load. he should have a counter for how many (much? I guess it depends on the units) sodas have been poured on him
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May 27, 2023 21:26
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Humble bundle has an audiobook sale going on. Thought you guys might wanna know.
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May 27, 2023 21:49
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Just finished an odd but worthwhile Toronto-based noir with fantasy elements that’s on KU, Port Lands: A Novel by Tod Molloy. Very interesting style, almost hallucinatory. Biggest issue is that there was a real ending he subverted to get a series out of it. I get it, a man’s gotta eat and series pay better overall, or at least I’ve been told. Fun utter contemptuous treatment of a Jordon Peterson analogue that works exactly right in context. Really liked this almost-noir-parody exchange with a dame: “Read a lot of that stuff?” “What stuff?” “Dystopian fiction.” “Guess so. Seems like the only option lately. How bout you?” “Used to.” “How come you stopped?” “It all came true.” Probably amused me more because right before this I read a pretty good post apocalyptic number, Chasing the Dream by N W Barcus. Remulak fucked around with this message at 03:57 on May 28, 2023 |
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May 28, 2023 03:51
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Marshal Radisic posted:Baxter had two decent outings; first Anti-Ice in 1993, then his full Wellsian pastische The Time Ships in 1995. The Time Ships isn't just a pastiche. It's a fully authorised by the estate sequel. Also it's pretty good, as is his also authorised War of the Worlds sequel, The Massacre of Mankind.
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May 28, 2023 16:15
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A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2) by Arkady Martine - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QPJHNSM/ Jade City (Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XRCBRX8/ A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot #1) by Becky Chambers - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08H831J18/ Parable of the Talents (Parable #2) by Octavia E Butler - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZHR92F7/
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May 28, 2023 16:37
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My understanding is that steampunk isn't so much a genre as an aesthetic - lots of brass and exposed gears and goggles and ladies with their corsets on the outside. The actual content of the stories seems to be secondary.
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May 28, 2023 16:41
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pradmer posted:A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2) by Arkady Martine - $2.99 thanks!
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May 28, 2023 17:28
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I love Becky Chambers' books, though the term I always use for her particular sub-genre is "Hippies in Space" rather than "hopepunk."
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May 28, 2023 23:53
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Today's UK Kindle deal is a whole bunch of Raymond E. Feist books. Any recommendations here? Never read anything by him. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/browse.html/ref=pe_151291_77773501_pe_button/?node=5400977031
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May 29, 2023 00:06
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The original Riftwar saga is probably worth reading, although much like the Belgariad if released in 2023 it'd probably be considered YA. Oh and it's clearly the authors D&D game, although I believe he had his own homebrew. However it's a fun ripping yarn. After that, it's classic "Read it until you stop enjoying it", YMMV.
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May 29, 2023 00:45
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pradmer posted:Jade City (Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee - $2.99 Fighting Trousers posted:My understanding is that steampunk isn't so much a genre as an aesthetic - lots of brass and exposed gears and goggles and ladies with their corsets on the outside. The actual content of the stories seems to be secondary. So, it essentially ends up being a great genre for folks who are impressed with their own cleverness and rigid status hierarchies.
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May 29, 2023 04:11
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The best steampunk I've read has been explicitly Marxist, using the settings to focus on victorianesque class divisions in fantasy settings. Mieville or Swanwyck.
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May 29, 2023 04:32
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The best steampunk I've read has been explicitly Marxist, using the settings to focus on victorianesque class divisions in fantasy settings. Mieville or Swanwyck. Also moorcocks warlord of the air, which is only marginally steam punk but is absolutely a ripping Marxist yarn
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May 29, 2023 05:11
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Crashbee posted:Today's UK Kindle deal is a whole bunch of Raymond E. Feist books. Any recommendations here? Never read anything by him. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/browse.html/ref=pe_151291_77773501_pe_button/?node=5400977031 Deptfordx posted:The original Riftwar saga is probably worth reading, although much like the Belgariad if released in 2023 it'd probably be considered YA. Oh and it's clearly the authors D&D game, although I believe he had his own homebrew. However it's a fun ripping yarn. The trilogy that starts with Talon of the Silver Hawk is him starting a new D&D game in the same world and is an improvement of quality over some earlier books, but is again, very YA
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May 29, 2023 06:13
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StumblyWumbly posted:This is a great book, great series, highly recommended It's a comic, but I like the Foglios' take on this in Girl Genius. The "smart people" are literally magical, they're all mad, and 95% of them are also psychopaths. My favourite bit of steampunk is that Ada Lovelace was basically unknown as a personage until Sterling and Gibson turned her into a major character in their novel. Bruce Sterling was ruminating on Twitter about how there were much more worthy Victorian women scientists, but it's kinda all his fault. Like, my two-year-old knows the name of the cat Ada Lovelace played with as a kid.
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May 29, 2023 07:01
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Blastedhellscape posted:I love Becky Chambers' books, though the term I always use for her particular sub-genre is "Hippies in Space" rather than "hopepunk." I recently listened to audiobooks for all of the Wayfarers series and I wouldn't call it (tar it rather) hopepunk or anything like that at all. The main character in the first book's father got arrested for helping arm a genocide, a supporting character is from a race that succeeded in it's self-annihilation, the rear end in a top hat character gets a grip after finding out he's got a terrible secret, the crew almost gets murdered by pirates, the second book is about how artificial life is considered subhuman by general society and there are planets that have fully adopted Musk-Pinker eugenics and slavery, the third is about how a large portion of humanity is still scraping by on semi-derelict generation ships that were rescued by a chance encounter with aliens and are still having major social problems transitioning away from a barter economy, and these are better conditions than on some planets, the fourth had extensive discussion of alien racism/backwards cultural mores and expanded on one character's background as a contractor in a ongoing war. The series is optimistic, "this is how normal people live in a universe somewhere behind TNG", but it's not a utopia and it's basically stated outright that if you go off into the backwaters you could easily find someone selling grey goo or amputation guns from Ninefox Gambit.
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May 29, 2023 08:33
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That's what hopepunk is nominally supposed to be. It's a problem of messaging.
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May 29, 2023 08:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The best steampunk I've read has been explicitly Marxist, using the settings to focus on victorianesque class divisions in fantasy settings. Mieville or Swanwyck. Philip Reeve's Larklight trilogy is nominally for kids but immense fun for adults, and includes delightful easter eggs for old gits like me such as Sir Richard Burton, Warlord of Mars. (Reeve's very obviously aware of the Issues with Victorian-style society (viz Jack Havock and his scurvy crew) but sidesteps them by having the POV being a Fine Young British Boy and his prim sister who are very obviously not noticing a lot.)
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May 29, 2023 11:22
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https://twitter.com/scumbelievable/status/1663017324746604545 Did everyone else already know this?
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May 29, 2023 11:49
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SimonChris posted:https://twitter.com/scumbelievable/status/1663017324746604545 Yes, we all knew: we have been trying to hide it from you, but it appears our efforts were for naught.
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May 29, 2023 11:57
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The widely quoted paragraph where Severian declares that "All the world was a relic" is so affecting that it worries me that the whole thing with the beach may have been one big joke at Severian's expense.
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May 29, 2023 12:45
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SimonChris posted:https://twitter.com/scumbelievable/status/1663017324746604545 How could you not know it? LOOK 
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May 29, 2023 13:01
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Marshal Radisic posted:The thing about the label "steampunk" was that it was a joke name that got out of hand. Around the end of the 1980s K.W. Jeter wrote in to Locus magazine about how he, James Blaylock, and Tim Powers were all writing these stories set in fantastic versions of Victorian England filled with Vernian and Wellsian tropes, and if cyberpunk was still the big hot thing, then what he and his friends were doing was "steampunk". The names "gaslamp fantasy" or "gaslamp romance" were posited as alternatives, but "steampunk" was the label that won out, and in doing so it set the expectation that this subgenre would be as politically engaged and as challenging as cyberpunk was, which was never the point of these books to begin with. I really liked The Difference Engine and I thought it was representative of steampunk - just basically cyberpunk with the earliest computers. However, Fighting Trousers posted:My understanding is that steampunk isn't so much a genre as an aesthetic - lots of brass and exposed gears and goggles and ladies with their corsets on the outside. The actual content of the stories seems to be secondary. I also hate steampunk
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May 29, 2023 15:34
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So you like Steampunk, you just hate Steampunk cosplay.
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May 29, 2023 15:43
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I am reminded of this classic video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA
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May 29, 2023 15:46
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The best steampunk I've read has been explicitly Marxist, using the settings to focus on victorianesque class divisions in fantasy settings. Mieville or Swanwyck. Yeah, actually punk steampunk like that is the only kind I find tolerable. There’s also potential for anti-colonial steampunk. I know there’s a few novels out there, but I’ve only read some short stories in various afro-futurism collections
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May 29, 2023 15:52
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The best steampunk is definitely about folks dealing with how lovely a steampunk world would be. In other news, I'm half way through Philip K Dick's The Simulacra (thanks for the on sale notifications, pradmer!) right now and man is it a trip. It takes place around the year 2040, where the US has expanded to include West Germany, we have time travel, personal rockets to Mars, and everyone is constantly smoking. So, not a lot of great foresight there, but the real fun stuff is the PKD-ness of it. PKD has this idea that our reality is contained within a spiritual thing he calls the black iron prison that we should all work to ascend out of in some way. This is discussed in a dissertation here (first sentence: "In February and March of 1974, Philip K. Dick communicated directly with God."), and questions about "what even is reality?" go through almost all of his work. It's fun stuff.
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May 29, 2023 16:29
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So thanks to this thread I started reading the Mabinogion tetralogy by Evangeline Walton and so far I am so, so interested by the cultural context in which it was written. I'm barely into the second book of the first Branch and so far the utterly non-subtle screaming theme is "maybe start respecting your women again you weirdos" and that is just fascinating to me. Already the protagonist literally named Wisdom has done some traditional "this is what being a good man does" stuff and then has fought a duel against a demonic figure representing the explicit "Man-gods of the East". Now he has just won his mystical Goddess (?) bride by doing what no man of the New People would stoop to doing: asked her to stop riding away. She then scolds him for not asking earlier. Also there is a clear religious conflict ongoing between the New People (seemingly from Ireland) and their Druids who hold a Father-figure as the pantheon head and the Old People who revere a Mother. So far, the Druids have largely been shown to be utter fucks who are wrong about most mystical things, lie regularly, and try to kill the guy again literally named Wisdom. Is that all in the original? Because frankly I don't see how that survives the Christianization of the written text a la Beowulf.
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May 29, 2023 17:16
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Ravenfood posted:So thanks to this thread I started reading the Mabinogion tetralogy by Evangeline Walton and so far I am so, so interested by the cultural context in which it was written. I'm barely into the second book of the first Branch and so far the utterly non-subtle screaming theme is "maybe start respecting your women again you weirdos" and that is just fascinating to me. Already the protagonist literally named Wisdom has done some traditional "this is what being a good man does" stuff and then has fought a duel against a demonic figure representing the explicit "Man-gods of the East". Now he has just won his mystical Goddess (?) bride by doing what no man of the New People would stoop to doing: asked her to stop riding away. She then scolds him for not asking earlier. Also there is a clear religious conflict ongoing between the New People (seemingly from Ireland) and their Druids who hold a Father-figure as the pantheon head and the Old People who revere a Mother. So far, the Druids have largely been shown to be utter fucks who are wrong about most mystical things, lie regularly, and try to kill the guy again literally named Wisdom. The part where Pwyll chases Rhiannon unsuccessfully and then finally thinks to just ask her to stop is indeed in the original. It's been a long time since I read Walton so I don't recall how she handles Havgan and Arawn, but in the original they're from Annwvyn, the fey otherworld, so they're not meant to be read as human. Selachian fucked around with this message at 17:35 on May 29, 2023 |
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May 29, 2023 17:32
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Oh, they are very much not supposed to be human. Havgan is portrayed as another Death, a Death without rebirth (through women) and Arawn's...gentleness, for want of a better word.
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May 29, 2023 17:52
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Age of Myth (Legends of the First Empire #1) by Michael J Sullivan - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015BCX0S0/ Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0036S4BE4/ The Jasmine Throne (Burning Kingdoms #1) by Tasha Suri - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08F4YZZ84/
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May 29, 2023 17:55
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pradmer posted:Age of Myth (Legends of the First Empire #1) by Michael J Sullivan - $2.99 I've read a bunch of this guy's stuff now and it's decent. This is a 6 book series that has some weak spots but is overall fairly satisfying. It's supposed to be a prequel to his prior novels (which I never read) so the early story is really invested in showing it is pre-history and here are the first elves, and the first humans, and the first dwarves, and here is a character literally inventing the wheel. I guess the premise is hacky but the characters are written well. I've been more frustrated with his recent stuff, kicking in $10 on kickstarter for an ebook then having the resulting book be not great.
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May 29, 2023 18:13
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StumblyWumbly posted:The best steampunk is definitely about folks dealing with how lovely a steampunk world would be. Just realized the book I finished the other day To Shape a Dragon’s Breath https://www.amazon.com/Shape-Dragons-Breath-First-Nampeshiweisit-ebook/dp/B0B95T4GW3 is kinda anti-colonial steampunk. I didn’t really notice cause the steampunk aesthetic was far less in the forefront, but it’s got steampower and clockwork an takes place in alt-Earth mid-1800s. The colonial power is an extremely Norse Angland, implying that the Romans were far less an influence on the world, and all the scientific terms including the known elements are replace by Germanic ones. This book is decidedly YA, but it may be the best YA I’ve ever read. The world is so well thought out and detailed and the characters all have character and depth rather than being a bunch of YA tropes
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May 29, 2023 18:30
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Ravenfood posted:
You can find the original here: https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/index.htm Doing a compare and contrast with Walton's version is pretty rewarding.
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May 29, 2023 18:36
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Germanic science terms? Like Uncleftish Beholding?
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May 29, 2023 18:36
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