|
mllaneza posted:I love these books. There are, however, big huge major content warnings that should get slapped all over it. The whole world is legitimately mentally ill, including the protagonist. People die in horrifying ways and in even more horrifying quantities. Some legitimately wrong sexual things happen. The end of the world and of Homo sapiens as a species is on the horizon and terrifyingly close. Yeah thanks for adding that! The Genocides by Thomas M Disch also needs a big content warning, for I think gross sex stuff, but again it's compelling if you can roll with the depravity of an apocalypse.
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 17:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 22:47 |
|
|
The SF&F Megathread: (She is an adult though)
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 17:38
|
|
|
I've been in a slump when it comes to reading for fun the past few years. In grad school I had so much reading for class that I didn't even try to find a good book to read. I used to pretty much always have a book or two I was working my way through. I'd say my all time favorite fantasy series are the Malazan books. What's something else I can read that has a very believable and lived in setting but also pretty loving weird? Anything that's even remotely a medieval European setting repulses me unless it's approaching the quality of something like Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire. I liked most of R Scott Bakker's stuff but sometimes it's a little too dark and hosed up, and I stopped reading it partway through The Great Ordeal. I'm a few chapters in to The Blade Itself, not really too sure how I'd describe the setting but the stuff with torturer and that army captain haven't really hooked me at all. This Logen Ninefingers fella seems alright, I guess? I've never read anything by Joe Abercrombie, does his First Law series start picking up more?
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 18:59
|
|
|
What part of Malazan do you like best? There's the Black Company if you like the idea of The Bridge burners fighting against the bad guys from Myth: The Fallen Lords.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 19:01
|
|
|
Mostly just how deep the history of the world in Malazan is, how strange it is compared to a lot of other fantasy settings, and having no idea what's actually going on and having to figure it out as you go. His "convergences" were also always extremely satisfying to get to. I've actually read all of the Black Company books about 12 years ago, they then lead me directly into the Malazan series. Very easy to see the influence of The Black Company on Malazan characters in particular.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 19:05
|
|
|
Mustang posted:I've been in a slump when it comes to reading for fun the past few years. In grad school I had so much reading for class that I didn't even try to find a good book to read. I used to pretty much always have a book or two I was working my way through. The Heroes is a really good standalone in that world. First Law is good, wait till you meet wizard guy and see what you think. For people who like grrm, a cavern of black ice by jv Jones is some excellent dark fantasy though fair warning the series isn't finished.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 19:06
|
|
|
Mustang posted:... how strange it is compared to a lot of other fantasy settings, and having no idea what's actually going on and having to figure it out as you go. Any Graydon sock puppets around? Seriously though if this is what you like check out the Commonweal books by Graydon Saunders. 💯
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 19:18
|
|
|
Mustang posted:I've been in a slump when it comes to reading for fun the past few years. In grad school I had so much reading for class that I didn't even try to find a good book to read. I used to pretty much always have a book or two I was working my way through. I feel you on the slump, it took me about 5 years after grad school to recover my reading-for-fun ability. Sometimes you just need a bit of a break, but it can be frustrating when you know there are fun books out there you could be reading! If you want something lived in, weird, and definitely not European, I say check out The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. It might be the best fantasy novel I've read this year (though it is a standalone just in case you were looking for a series).
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 19:25
|
|
|
I've switched 100% to audiobooks, myself, over the years. It feels like all I have time for anymore, and with my eyes going weird in my old age, it suits me. If you find you've lost the spark, give those a try.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 19:35
|
|
|
Mustang posted:Mostly just how deep the history of the world in Malazan is, how strange it is compared to a lot of other fantasy settings, and having no idea what's actually going on and having to figure it out as you go. His "convergences" were also always extremely satisfying to get to. Not fantasy, but if you like the whole needing to figure it out as you go, I enjoyed The Quantum Thief. There's no (or almost no) info dumping in a weird post-humanity solar system where the last thing closest to us as humans lives on Mars in a moving city. There are sequels, but I enjoyed each one less than the previous book.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 19:40
|
|
|
Xenix posted:Not fantasy, but if you like the whole needing to figure it out as you go, I enjoyed The Quantum Thief. There's no (or almost no) info dumping in a weird post-humanity solar system where the last thing closest to us as humans lives on Mars in a moving city. There are sequels, but I enjoyed each one less than the previous book. Been waiting for a nice edition of the trilogy to come out, but it doesn't look like that will happen Good books, lots of fun ideas and smart plot design.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 20:31
|
|
|
NmareBfly posted:Any Graydon sock puppets around? Seconding this in the strongest possible terms. Also for fantasy in weird settings where you’re figuring out the rules - such as they are - as you go: The Night-Bird’s Feather, which has more of the feeling of a good fable, and beautiful prose.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 20:44
|
|
|
Kestral posted:Seconding this in the strongest possible terms.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 20:51
|
|
|
Couldn't find any of those authors at the bookstore, ended up grabbing Gene Wolfe's first half of the Book of the New Sun series though. Something about the cover art really sold it to me, not that the covers ever have that much to do with the quality of a book. But it also sounded interesting from descriptions and reviews I've read of the series.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 21:11
|
|
|
Good luck, Gene Wolfe is impenetrable.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 21:15
|
|
|
zoux posted:Good luck, Gene Wolfe is impenetrable. (it's very good at face value imo but does also reward rereading)
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 21:23
|
|
|
Should have mentioned that the Commonweal books are self published, won't find in bookstores. https://dubiousprospects.blogspot.com/2018/09/where-to-get-my-books.html?m=1 Part of the reason they're a meme around here is that self published is usually a mark of low quality but this one is notably different. And while I'm linking stuff, if you need a companion for book of the new sun, the Ranged Touch people started a podcast on it a bit ago, https://rangedtouch.com/shelved-by-genre/
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 21:36
|
|
|
Depending on how impenetrable it is, I'll probably like it. I don't like books where every little detail of the world is explained to the reader, leaving no mystery at all to the setting.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 21:38
|
|
|
Mustang posted:Depending on how impenetrable it is, I'll probably like it. oh you need to read gene wolfe and the commonweal then. emphatically seconding both those suggestions
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 21:50
|
|
|
Mustang posted:Depending on how impenetrable it is, I'll probably like it. Wolfe is somehow both the antithesis of this and something else entirely. He'll make you think he's explaining one thing while really something else entirely is really going on. I think, at least, I read BotNS last year and was going to start a re-read soon because I think I have a hazy understanding of what was actually happening in those books but would need to tackle them again to be sure.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 21:51
|
|
|
Also Black Company does fit that descriptor too, Cook leaves a lot about the world unexplained or only obliquely hinted at. The first time I read the Black Company books, years and years ago, it I genuinely loved how the Taken were made out to be this big loving deal, and set up to be major terrifying antagonists that would haunt the Company in one way or another, and then there's like three or four that only ever end up being mentioned in passing or seen/heard at a distance. At the time I was young and so used to most fantasy media being a sequence of "defeat the next bad guy" so when a couple of the Taken just kind of die offscreen without ever really appearing in a substantial way, it was genuinely surprising and kind of cool with how it screwed with my expectations of that kind of book.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 21:56
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:Wolfe is somehow both the antithesis of this and something else entirely. He'll make you think he's explaining one thing while really something else entirely is really going on. I think, at least, I read BotNS last year and was going to start a re-read soon because I think I have a hazy understanding of what was actually happening in those books but would need to tackle them again to be sure. God, this why I can't pick Latro in the Mists back up. I think I've read most of it but it might be a fever dream and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference even if I was sure.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 22:24
|
|
|
That's pretty much working as intended, though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 22:30
|
|
|
Mustang posted:I don't like books where every little detail of the world is explained to the reader, leaving no mystery at all to the setting. Try M. John Harrison’s Viriconium books, they’re 100% this. In some ways they’re like the polar opposite of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. Still Dying Earth, still pretty opaque but unlike Wolfe he doesn’t seem to hold to a deeper essential truth ‘further down’. They’re less intricate, more shadowy and murky and haunted, while offering some beautiful writing. The first one, The Pastel City, is a melancholic dying earth story played relatively straight-ish but the second one, A Storm of Wings, is far stranger and it doesn’t let up. Would definitely recommend his other stuff too: The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again was one of the best things I’ve ever read.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 22:41
|
|
|
Speaking of self-published authors, you know what would be really useful if someone could develop it? Some kind of tool that will automatically produce decent-looking typography so that authors can put the title and author's name on top of a piece of cover art without it screaming "SELF-PUBLISHED! SHAME! SHAME" to anybody who looks at it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 22:55
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Speaking of self-published authors, you know what would be really useful if someone could develop it? Some kind of tool that will automatically produce decent-looking typography so that authors can put the title and author's name on top of a piece of cover art without it screaming "SELF-PUBLISHED! SHAME! SHAME" to anybody who looks at it. It's called LaTeX. I think there's even some user friendly online tools now: https://www.overleaf.com/ no experience with that though
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 23:13
|
|
|
genericnick posted:It's called LaTeX. I think there's even some user friendly online tools now: I wasn't aware that LaTex could produce nice-looking covers, but even if that's true, I strongly disbelieve that it's set up to make this easy enough for the average English major to use it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 23:19
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I wasn't aware that LaTex could produce nice-looking covers, but even if that's true, I strongly disbelieve that it's set up to make this easy enough for the average English major to use it. Fair enough.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 23:40
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I wasn't aware that LaTex could produce nice-looking covers, but even if that's true, I strongly disbelieve that it's set up to make this easy enough for the average English major to use it. Use right out of the box with no work? No. Use after a bit of practice and experimentation? Sure, why not? It can be complicated but it's not that complicated.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2023 23:51
|
|
|
Prolonged Panorama posted:It's a slightly shortened/condensed single volume version. The figure he usually gives is 15% shorter compared to the trilogy. Having only read Green Earth it doesn't feel rushed or chopped down. KSR said something about cutting a lot of descriptive text treating the DC area like one of his Mars scapes, as if it were a place no reader could ever see or visit, beyond that I'm not sure what else was dropped. It's still plenty long and fleshed out. Thanks! Yeah, i remember saying someone saying he gets progressively angry in his climate change books. I've read a fair bit of his books, and would like to keep it going. Reading California 1 rihgt now.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 00:03
|
|
|
Khizan posted:Use right out of the box with no work? No. Use after a bit of practice and experimentation? Sure, why not? It can be complicated but it's not that complicated. I mean, regular layout software isn't that complicated to use, either (even I can do it) but it's clearly beyond the ability of the average author self-publishing books. They need something you can just plug in a high-res cover image, a title, and a name, and it automatically adds the words to the image and picks the font and colors on its own and does a little basic graphic design, and hands it back to them.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 00:05
|
|
|
Mustang posted:I've been in a slump when it comes to reading for fun the past few years. In grad school I had so much reading for class that I didn't even try to find a good book to read. I used to pretty much always have a book or two I was working my way through. My brother have you read Jack Vance? The Dying Earth and Lynonese series are as influential as they get on the authors you have mentioned. (Every month or so in this thread, someone comes in and goes wow you said Vance was good but I didn't expect this good) If you want exotica I highly recommended sourcing Hugh Cook's Chronicles of an Age of Darkness from the high seas (they're long neglected and out of print) Here's a couple of big blog posts about Hugh Cook from recent thread fave Adrian Tchaikovsky https://shadowsoftheapt.com/blog/1422 https://shadowsoftheapt.com/blog/1457 fez_machine fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Nov 3, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 00:21
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:The first time I read the Black Company books, years and years ago, it I genuinely loved how the Taken were made out to be this big loving deal, and set up to be major terrifying antagonists that would haunt the Company in one way or another, and then there's like three or four that only ever end up being mentioned in passing or seen/heard at a distance. At the time I was young and so used to most fantasy media being a sequence of "defeat the next bad guy" so when a couple of the Taken just kind of die offscreen without ever really appearing in a substantial way, it was genuinely surprising and kind of cool with how it screwed with my expectations of that kind of book.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 00:42
|
|
|
RDM posted:Gonna guess you (correctly) stopped at the end of the first trilogy I didn't but I'd be lying if I said I remembered much past book 4 or 5. I do remember enjoying the second trilogy actually, then I sort of bumbled my way through the rest of the books over too long a stretch of time to have really followed them very well though
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 00:57
|
|
|
Never read Book of the New Sun, but I did read Book of the Long Sun and really enjoyed it at the time. I do wonder if it would hold up if I went back to it now. I remember my girlfriend at the time getting really into my attempts to explain the plot. I do think it has a cool setting, though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 02:24
|
|
|
Mustang posted:I've been in a slump when it comes to reading for fun the past few years. In grad school I had so much reading for class that I didn't even try to find a good book to read. I used to pretty much always have a book or two I was working my way through. It's steampunk, only the "steam" is actually "negotiating with djinn". Lots of fun to read, lots of crunchy detail. Also lots of descriptions of food, always a plus in my book.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 03:28
|
|
|
I once checked out an author’s freely available short stories online, and read a particularly good one featuring a transhumanist future where animals as we know them no longer exist, and the characters take it for granted that uplifting beasts to be capable of introspection and self-awareness is the only moral option. They’re horrified to learn that their host’s dogs have pre-uplift-level intelligence. I don’t know if I’ll ever stumble onto that again when I’ve forgotten the author’s name.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 03:28
|
|
|
GhastlyBizness posted:Try M. John Harrison’s Viriconium books, they’re 100% this. This sounds just like what I'm looking for! Definitely adding it to the list. fez_machine posted:My brother have you read Jack Vance? The Dying Earth and Lynonese series are as influential as they get on the authors you have mentioned. (Every month or so in this thread, someone comes in and goes wow you said Vance was good but I didn't expect this good) Another one I'm definitely going to read through. Can't believe I've never heard of "dying earth" as a subgenre. I was thinking about interesting concepts/settings I'd like to see in a book and turns out these two dudes have written whole series about most of them!
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 04:55
|
|
|
Mustang posted:Can't believe I've never heard of "dying earth" as a subgenre. That’s nothing, I had a class in Science Fiction where I learned that the professor had never heard the term “space opera” before. It was a good class despite that, somehow.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 05:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 22:47 |
|
|
Mustang posted:This sounds just like what I'm looking for! Definitely adding it to the list. I don't think you'll go wrong with BotLS. But also Nthing the Commonweal suggestion. It draws heavily on Black Company, but goes into insanely more detail about the economics and logistics of the world. And the setting is 100% dying earth. The world has experienced 100,000 years of magic, and 99% of magicians throughout history have used their magic to become terrible dark overlords who go to war with the other terrible dark overlords, mass-sacrificing their peasant slaves in the process (often literally). "Weeds" (read: engineered magical bioweapons) are everywhere and need to be removed with fire just to get basic agriculture to work. Etc etc. The first book is also straight-up fantasy milfic. It's popular enough with goons that there's a whole thread dedicated to it: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4006013
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2023 06:12
|
|
