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Here's another vote for Artemis being Andy Weir's worst. It was okay, but I agree with all of the aforementioned problems. Plus some privatized space program BS. Plus the authoritarian strongman (but a woman) with a heart of gold trope. He seems to like those, since he did another one in PHM. He seems to not want to deal with how international cooperation actually works so he just says "and all the countries just picked someone badass and made her the boss and she is good at it."
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Aug 22, 2023 03:27
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Jimbozig posted:Here's another vote for Artemis being Andy Weir's worst. It was okay, but I agree with all of the aforementioned problems. Plus some privatized space program BS. Plus the authoritarian strongman (but a woman) with a heart of gold trope. He seems to like those, since he did another one in PHM. He seems to not want to deal with how international cooperation actually works so he just says "and all the countries just picked someone badass and made her the boss and she is good at it." Re: girlboss trope: I really hope it's not some wierd objectivism thing he's trying to slip in. Because it sure does have great man theory vibes. ToxicFrog posted:Steel Frame was great and I really want to read Origin Complex. Just waiting for it to come out on not-Amazon. I went into this knowing gently caress all but it's pretty good and has mechs. I figured I'd get some gritty Alien aesthetic and maybe some armored core/cyber punk themeing. I'm 70% And trying to figure out when the transhumanism and evangelion are going to fill me withexistential dread.
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Aug 22, 2023 03:42
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:The Belgariad #1 The series does pick up a bit from there and the dialog in later books is often hilarious. I'm not going to ask DDD to revisit it, but I am going to suggest that adult readers interested in the series can probably just start with book 2 and pick up all the background they need from context.
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Aug 22, 2023 04:37
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:Since you brought up First Law and loving it (which I do as well), have you read any KJ Parker? I finished Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City not too long ago and that blew me away, much the same way First Law did. It’s not grimdark the way Abercrombie’s stuff is but it’s a really well written war story and the character telling the story (it’s in 1st person) is exceptionally well written, with a unique voice and wit that oozes off the page. 10/10 for me. Good news! There are two more of those, each just as good.
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Aug 22, 2023 04:58
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Ravus Ursus posted:Re: girlboss trope: I really hope it's not some wierd objectivism thing he's trying to slip in. Because it sure does have great man theory vibes. I don't think he's thought about it that deeply, he just wants to show his characters solving epic science problems and takes the simplest route to make that happen. See also in Project Hail Mary when he glosses over the entire problem of "how to communicate with an alien species" in a couple of chapters so the human and alien can get back to doing science together. (Fwiw I liked PHM, I think it's fun to read an author who knows so clearly what he wants to write about and just makes a beeline toward that.)
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Aug 22, 2023 05:14
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Sailor Viy posted:(Fwiw I liked PHM, I think it's fun to read an author who knows so clearly what he wants to write about and just makes a beeline toward that.) Yeah, for sure. I don't want to be too negative on Artemis. If it had sucked, I wouldn't have read PHM. It was good enough. I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it, but if someone said they were interested in the idea I wouldn't try to warn them away either. Basically, if it sounds good to you, you should read it. If you haven't read Weir's other books, you should read them first.
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Aug 22, 2023 05:37
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pradmer posted:The Broken Crown (Sun Sword #1) by Michelle West - $1.99 I see she's written over 40 books and has a heap of good reviews but I know nothing about Michelle west. Has anyone read this or something else by her and give me something to compare it to?
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Aug 22, 2023 06:09
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:
There a lot of large scales battles and more character stuff but if the first didn't grab you I don't think the others will. There's also a lesbian love subplot, something Django Wexler has in many of his books, despite pretty obviously being a cishet male.
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Aug 22, 2023 06:13
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Zorak of Michigan posted:The series does pick up a bit from there and the dialog in later books is often hilarious. I'm not going to ask DDD to revisit it, but I am going to suggest that adult readers interested in the series can probably just start with book 2 and pick up all the background they need from context. Oddly, that's exactly how I first read the series back in the 1980s and I can attest that it works. The second book opens with a "horse in the woods" scene, which David Gemmell used to say was the perfect place to start a novel as whoever was on the horse could have come from anywhere and be going anywhere.
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Aug 22, 2023 13:22
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For more modern fantasy, try Locke Lamora. The Blacktongue Thief. In the Shadow of Lightning. The Pariah. Magician: Apprentice and the following books are classics of standard fantasy. For war fantasy try The Black Company if you haven't read it yet. Also The Poppy War.
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Aug 22, 2023 13:28
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Black Tongue Thief is very good. I'm weak and started reading Infinity Gate even tho I was advised it is a two-parter so will have to twiddle my thumbs waiting for the second. It's really good. Very captivating idea. I can strongly recommend. Vandana Singh's short stories are impeccable. My favourite so far is about scientists who are using technology to look into the past to watch a famous Indian poet whilst the world collapses around them. These stories are taking familiar sci-fi ideas and then embedding then into different cultures and perspectives to the one I live in. I can also recommend The Capacity to Serve by a goon author. Short stories that let you fill in the world behind are very much my thing. It's fun to intuit from the clues given.
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Aug 22, 2023 13:53
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RDM posted:For war fantasy try The Black Company if you haven't read it yet. Also The Poppy War. IDK, DDD seems to like character driven fantasy and The Poppy War is very much not that. I'd suggest both She Who Became the Sun and The Grace of Kings over The Poppy War, though really I think Green Bone Saga is the best rec for Asian fantasy setting though it's not war fantasy but epic urban fantasy that's really a generational/family saga that basically goes from mostly gang warfare in the streets in book 1 to geopolitical fantasy in books 2 and 3. Also The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Because Baru.
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Aug 22, 2023 14:07
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Spotted Baru chat live on tumblr today, bringing it here because it amuses me
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Aug 22, 2023 14:50
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I aspire to one day write something that gets a reductive poo poo post on Tumblr.
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Aug 22, 2023 14:58
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:I'm back looking for more fantasy suggestions. Hello, I'm Graydon Saunders, and based upon what you've written you've got a decent chance to like my Commonweal series, which begins with The March North. Book 1 is similar to the Black Company books, Books 2 & 3 are not so much, Books 4 & 5 get back to the mil fantasy aspect of the world. SA discussion thread here. RDM posted:For war fantasy try The Black Company if you haven't read it yet. I'd second this. They're very solid military fantasy books. Leng posted:The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Because Baru. I'd also second this, because that series is chockablock with well developed and character driven 18th/19th century alt-world fantasy stories.
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Aug 22, 2023 15:27
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habeasdorkus posted:Hello, I'm Graydon Saunders, and based upon what you've written you've got a decent chance to like my Commonweal series, which begins with The March North. Book 1 is similar to the Black Company books, Books 2 & 3 are not so much, Books 4 & 5 get back to the mil fantasy aspect of the world. SA discussion thread here. Hello, I'm Graydon Saunders, and I'd like to second my earlier recommendation that you check out my Commonweal series.
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Aug 22, 2023 16:23
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Ravus Ursus posted:I aspire to one day write something that gets a reductive poo poo post on Tumblr. I just finished The Adventures of Amina El-Sarafi the other day and holy poo poo what a good and cool book. It was extremely up my alley and exactly what I needed to read when I read it. It's about a middle aged pirate woman who gets pulled away for her daughter for one last job which, as with all last jobs, absolutely fucks up her whole life with batshit everything. Amina's such a good character--hell, her whole crew is, they're all middle aged super competent disasters. I know others have read it here but if you haven't and you even slightly like character-focused fantasy, I promise you it's worth the read. So good. It's one of my favorite books of the year.
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Aug 22, 2023 17:47
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are either of you actually Saunders or is this some joke I don't understand
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Aug 22, 2023 18:23
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VostokProgram posted:are either of you actually Saunders or is this some joke I don't understand We are all Graydon.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:26
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VostokProgram posted:are either of you actually Saunders or is this some joke I don't understand It’s a long-running bit, created after so many goons were posting their enjoyment of the Commonweal series that someone unironically accused them of being sockpupptets.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:31
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VostokProgram posted:are either of you actually Saunders or is this some joke I don't understand someone (i forget who) who didn't like the series insisted that the only way it had any popularity here was because Saunders was posting through a sock here
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Aug 22, 2023 18:33
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I've never sock-puppetted for my work, it stands on its own merits. And the second book is the worst of my series, IMO, and is skippable.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:53
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Remulak posted:I've never sock-puppetted for my work, it stands on its own merits. Man, I haven't even skipped the first book yet.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:59
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Kestral posted:It’s a long-running bit, created after so many goons were posting their enjoyment of the Commonweal series that someone unironically accused them of being sockpupptets. TBF, the Commonweal is a self published series that the author doesn't make especially easy to obtain (it's not on Amazon, for one thing) but inspires intense proselytization on behalf of its fans. I can see how someone might raise an eyebrow about like 4 people posting about how good they were in short succession given their limited reach. Remulak posted:And the second book is the worst of my series, IMO, and is skippable. Strong disagree, but reasonable minds can differ. It is a very different book than the first, and written from a very different POV than the narrator of The March North.
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Aug 22, 2023 19:25
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habeasdorkus posted:TBF, the Commonweal is a self published series that the author doesn't make especially easy to obtain (it's not on Amazon, for one thing) but inspires intense proselytization on behalf of its fans. I recommended Commonweal to a friend and then had to admit I had no idea how anyone could currently buy it. The publisher is listed as "Tallwoods Books" which does not have any website that I can find and only seems to have published Graydon Saunders. You can buy copies from Google Play, Kobo, and Apple Books. No listings on Amazon, famously, but also it cannot be found on the "Amazon Sucks" substitutes like Abe Books and SmashWords. And if WorldCat is correct there is not a single copy in any library. E: After doing some digging it turns out Graydon did post an official 'where to buy my book' listing at https://books2read.com/b/4Xx214 Copernic fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Aug 22, 2023 |
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Aug 22, 2023 20:00
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Copernic posted:I recommended Commonweal to a friend and then had to admit I had no idea how anyone could currently buy it. Abebooks is owned by amazon.
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Aug 22, 2023 20:02
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habeasdorkus posted:Strong disagree, but reasonable minds can differ. It is a very different book than the first, and written from a very different POV than the narrator of The March North. Yeah The March North is more mil-fantasy and A Succession of Bad Days is more wizard academy, except both are set in an insanely detailed, history-nerd look at the dark realities of a high magic world, and with a plucky little social democracy working to make their little corner of the world better. Copernic posted:And if WorldCat is correct there is not a single copy in any library. I don't think it exists in print, and I guess librarians haven't quite gotten into it yet to get digital copies? Re: buying it, you should be able to use Calibre to convert to whatever eReader you have if you don't have a Kobo.
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Aug 22, 2023 20:05
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Copernic posted:
The funny thing is, Graydon clearly does see this forum, because he shut down his own forums based on posts he saw here. And, like, he's clearly got his own set of beliefs. I wish he would post here! But we wouldn't know even if he said so, because of the gag . . .
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Aug 22, 2023 20:26
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Graydon actually posted up near the top of the page.
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Aug 22, 2023 20:27
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Mr. Saunders, I believe you spelled Commonwealth incorrectly.
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Aug 22, 2023 20:46
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I feel like if you want to refuse to sell your self published book on Amazon you at least need to sell drm free files directly or everyone with a kindle is just going to hate you
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Aug 22, 2023 21:10
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I got The March North on Google Play and I cannot for the life of me get it onto my Kindle
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Aug 22, 2023 21:52
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Calibre is the way.
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Aug 22, 2023 21:53
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StrixNebulosa posted:Abebooks is owned by amazon. I was an old Abebooks user, but after Amazon bought it, I figured, oh, no point in going to Abebooks anymore, it's obviously going to be integrated into Amazon's standard used books interface. But recently I discovered that they are still quite separate. Sometimes you find the better deal on Abebooks, sometimes on Amazon. This also ended up with me buying and reading an actual physical book for once, something I don't remember doing for years. It was rather nice, though there was the odd occasion where I missed being able to click the book.
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Aug 22, 2023 22:00
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StrixNebulosa posted:Calibre is the way. Even that didn't work, no matter what plugins I threw at it. I mostly use the "email to kindle" function and it just kept telling me it couldn't add it to my library, I guess maybe it would work better through the other channels Calibre has to get stuff onto kindles, idk.
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Aug 22, 2023 22:05
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MockingQuantum posted:Even that didn't work, no matter what plugins I threw at it. I mostly use the "email to kindle" function and it just kept telling me it couldn't add it to my library, I guess maybe it would work better through the other channels Calibre has to get stuff onto kindles, idk. Make sure you're using the most up to date DRM removal plugin. The one that comes up in google searches is out of date and no longer works for the majority of cases. Make sure it's the fork by noDRM whose latest release is 10.0.3 See if you can OPEN it in calibre. If so, then the DRM is removed and the issue might be with the format. Try to convert it to AZW or MOBI
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Aug 22, 2023 22:35
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WarpDogs posted:Make sure you're using the most up to date DRM removal plugin. The one that comes up in google searches is out of date and no longer works for the majority of cases. Make sure it's the fork by noDRM whose latest release is 10.0.3 Do not convert to AZW or Mobi because they are no longer supported by Amazon and its email to kindle services. Epub won.
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Aug 22, 2023 23:21
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Oh yeah, I gave up on Poppy War and Baru Cormurant both as well. Baru is one of those books I really have a hard time explaining why I wasn't into it. It was just like, "okay, I guess things are happening whatever" It set her up as a genius interesting character but from what I recall, it was just a plain old character who both hosed up a lot and did some things good as well. Nothing particularly gripping in it. I really liked Licanius, and I know that author has a new book, but I try not to read the first book in a series until more are out, so it's on my future list. I did read some of Black Company a long time ago. I want to say I didn't finish it, but not because I didn't like it, so I may have to revisit that if it has decent audiobooks. I'll also check out those other two suggestions. Wars of Light and Shadow is on my list as well, but it doesn't have audiobooks, so it'll just have to be when I have time to do normal reading.
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Aug 22, 2023 23:27
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branedotorg posted:I see she's written over 40 books and has a heap of good reviews but I know nothing about Michelle west. Has anyone read this or something else by her and give me something to compare it to? I haven't read it but here's what other goons have said: "A while back I started listening to The Broken Crown(The Sun Sword) at work. Kind of a tough read, overall I enjoy it and that whole world, but it's hard to follow." "This sucks, Daw (or Penguin) has dropped Michelle West and won't be publishing the rest of her Essalieyan series. She's been my favorite author since I read the Broken Crown years ago, and while the last two House War books were a bit bloated I was looking forward to seeing where she went with the story." Maybe Strix can give you a better account? Don't know if she read this particular series.
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Aug 22, 2023 23:36
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I posted this over in YOSPOS but I really feel 36 Streets deserves more eyes on itNoneMoreNegative posted:Also Cyberpunk Reading, I picked up 36 STREETS by T R Napper on a whim as it was on a Kindle deal NoneMoreNegative posted:Finished this today, an exceptionally entertaining book. It *might* even wiggle into my 'Favourite Cyberpunk' somewhere between Neuromancer and one of the sequels. Looking at the Amazon author page it seems there's a second book in the same universe out in 2024, which I will definitely pick up.
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Aug 22, 2023 23:37
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