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a friendly penguin posted:Cherie Dimaline is very good. Just finished Venco and it was quite the grand adventure. Empire of Wild is also good, but in a more contained stakes sort of way. Louise Erdrich is usually the first indigenous author recommended and I've only read Future Home of the Living God which has Handmaid's Tale vibes if reproductive dystopia is interesting to you. Oh yeah Kimmerer is great, I loved Gathering Moss and Braiding Sweetgrass -- she reads the audiobooks herself too, and she's a delight to listen to. (And thank you all for the recs and resources, I have a lot more to check out now!)
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Nov 10, 2023 16:34
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FPyat posted:New James S.A. Corey title announced, The Mercy of Gods. Ah, I see after playing Zone Of The Enders for the Expanse, he's now watching Bokurano for his newest book. EDIT: For context, Bokurano is about a bunch of kids that are recruited by a dying man to pilot a giant robot to participate in what they later discover is a Hunger Games/Battle Royale-esque competition against other dimensions and whoever loses has their version of the universe wiped out. The reason for the need of a group of kids is that anyone who pilots the mecha dies after the battle's conclusion much like the man they met at the start did. Predated Hunger Games by like 6 years. Kchama fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Nov 10, 2023 |
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Nov 10, 2023 16:53
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Never finished Bokurano but the theme song is really nice. Hey while mentioning animated shows, Scavengers Reign is some amazing tv I think anyone who enjoyed the Southern Reach trilogy will vibe with. And there even a scene near the end where I thought "oh man, this team needs to do a Locked Tomb series."
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Nov 10, 2023 17:23
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ulmont posted:Please don’t misparaphrase me. I used that dream to note that it isn’t that surprising that characters in the series are later shown to have sexual attraction to Darling. Wasn't talking about you. It was a few posts before you pulled the correct quote and gave it context.
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Nov 10, 2023 18:37
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Or the ending of Memnoch the Devil Let me just say, reading this at the age of 10 certainly did a number on my psyche 
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Nov 10, 2023 18:37
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Yeah I couldn't hang with it. Now I'm reading a KU series about a knight who gets turned into a vampire and embarks on a thousand year quest for revenge! That's literature baby!
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Nov 10, 2023 18:52
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Safety Biscuits posted:Not like that. I just meant that the books vary a lot in quality, and also the overall shape of the series is basically incoherent; there's a couple of major plot points bouncing around books 1-5, and Guest Gulkan brings it all together at just about the last moment, but that's all. Cook said that this was because the series was difficult to control. On the other hand, it's why we have a load of picaresques and oddball books in places never mentioned again, and why the books seem so alive, noisy, and messy... and the sense of political anarchy you're talking about here is also a big draw for me. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, he's definitely winging it a lot of the time. Which is another thing I really like; this is a writer who can think "drat, I'm sick of wrangling my characters across this map to get them to the right place at the right time; I'm going to set the next 2 books on one island" and do it and still have them fit. It's great.
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Nov 10, 2023 20:32
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zoux posted:Yeah I couldn't hang with it. Now I'm reading a KU series about a knight who gets turned into a vampire and embarks on a thousand year quest for revenge! That's literature baby! title/author?
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Nov 10, 2023 21:25
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DurianGray posted:Does anyone have recommendations for books by Native American/First Nations authors? It's Native American Heritage month in the US and I wanted to make that a focus in my reading, but realized I've already read all the ones I had on hand. The Marrow Thieves series (currently just two books) by Cherie Dimaline is also good. It's YA, but I enjoyed it. It's increasingly self-conscious about being based on boarding/reservation schools. That really picks up in the second book but sometimes it's pretty chillingly close to the real story. For example, the premise of the series is that people have lost the ability to dream and that only native people retain this ability. They are hunted down as a result. I remember reading elsewhere from boarding school survivors that the only way they were able to keep their language alive was by dreaming in it.
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Nov 11, 2023 00:54
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To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose is another good YA book. It's a fantasy with unique Anglish worldbuilding, dragons, and chemistry magic, what's not to like?
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Nov 11, 2023 01:13
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Doktor Avalanche posted:title/author? It's the Immortal Knight series by Dan Davis. Turns out he's a history youtuber, and the premise of a vampire knight is just his gimmick to enable him write Cornwellian historical fiction. The vampire stuff has been very background so far, and the main character is traveling with Richard I on the first crusade and participates in major battles from history. It's actually not too bad, I was expecting some pulpy crap I'd wince my way through and instead it's competent military historical fiction. His prose is pretty threadbare but it moves like a rocket and he's good at staging and describing action and battles. A history youtuber writing a book that takes place in the crusades is a huge red flag, but I watched a couple of his videos and checked his twitter feed and he doesn't appear to be a crypto fascist. I don't know how vampirey it gets later on so if you're expecting the Vampire Council Decides The Immortal Knight Must Die!, well it ain't in the first half of the first book at least. zoux fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Nov 11, 2023 |
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Nov 11, 2023 03:43
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sebmojo posted:Oh yeah both the follow ups are really good still not finished though, fair warning. He has a second series he's started which sounds like 'what happens after the end of the epic fantasy series?' but I haven't read that. Inspired by this post I decided to finally read The Sword Defiant after bouncing off the Gutter Prayer books (mostly just because I don't like first person present tense). It's good! Hanrahan doing High Fantasy with his usual weirdness/big ideas at the edges rather than front and centre. Just well written competent High Fantasy storytelling. Everything's largely familiar, instead of candle people there's Elves, Dwarves and Knights and they're largely as you'd expect them to be. Plenty of crowd pleasing moments. A little twisty no major surprises. Everyone has comprehensible motivations, even the big extinction level reshape the world bads, which is nice (especially working through the Malazan series). This isn't Game of Thrones (or even Malazan) level fantasy realism but it does gesture more to a reality of things than many other books of it's type. Refreshingly the entire novel and world building revolve around themes of ageing and mortality, it's rare to see such deliberate and successful entwining.
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Nov 11, 2023 10:55
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Sailor Viy posted:Never been interested in Corey before but this premise sounds great. "What if Hunger Games but with entire species" it gave me completely the opposite feeling. "oh, the expanse guys are going to try and do hunger games, eeehhh" carryx and dafyd alkhor aren't exactly thrilling names either
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Nov 11, 2023 16:45
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Yeah, where the hell are the apostrophes?
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Nov 11, 2023 19:06
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DACK FAYDEN posted:also, isn't the second book Cugel? a book about, and starring, an rear end in a top hat? definitely going to be the worst for characterization (so uh, yeah, the misogyny is kind of rough. still really good reads when you either slog through or get past those parts though)
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Nov 11, 2023 23:31
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DACK FAYDEN posted:wanna return to this, fourth book of the four starts off with an antagonist witch that, shock! horror! turns men into women! and one of the first symptoms is that they start to care about their house's cleanliness! That sucks, although as someone who has read Chalker it feels kind of quaint.
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Nov 11, 2023 23:43
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CaptainRat posted:That sucks, although as someone who has read Chalker it feels kind of quaint. 
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Nov 11, 2023 23:52
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Just finished reading The Dawnhounds last night. Really enjoyed it even though I was SO confused most of the time. Have a question about Kiada - as far as I understood, Yat saw her as a blank sometime during her time as a cop. However, Kiada somehow?? later became a pirate on Sibbi's ship? Is it explained how that happened?
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Nov 12, 2023 12:07
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Welp, Bookshelves and Bonedust was pretty good. I was wondering WTF was going on and realized I was only about 40% through the book. Thought it'd be shorter for some reason. Still, if you dug Legends and Lattes, you'll dig the sequel.
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Nov 12, 2023 14:13
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Three Parts Dead (Craft Sequence #1) by Max Gladstone - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085UEQDO/ The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X16XL11/ The Captain (Last Horizon #1) by Will Wight - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXPYQD4D/
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Nov 12, 2023 17:25
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Just as a caution if anyone is considering getting Angel of Crows because they liked The Goblin Emperor it's just Addison's Sherlock (the show, not the books) wing-fic (the characters have wings - apologies if everyone knows that) fanfic packaged up for sale. It was bad enough that it led me to actually look up wtf had happened after I gave up on finishing it. ETA thanks to pradmer for posting sale books, almost every sci-fi/fantasy purchase I've made in the last year is because of those lists. Rain Brain fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Nov 13, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 05:49
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Cosigned. Thank you, pradmer.
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Nov 13, 2023 06:13
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If somehow anyone in this thread has still slept on Three Parts Dead, now's your chance. Max Gladstone writes good stuff.
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Nov 13, 2023 06:30
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Welp, Bookshelves and Bonedust was pretty good. I was wondering WTF was going on and realized I was only about 40% through the book. Thought it'd be shorter for some reason. Wait, I thought it was a prequel
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Nov 13, 2023 06:50
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Rain Brain posted:(the characters have wings - apologies if everyone knows that) I mean, you should apologize for the fact that I NOW know that I already knew that but the point still stands
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Nov 13, 2023 07:29
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Rain Brain posted:Just as a caution if anyone is considering getting Angel of Crows because they liked The Goblin Emperor it's just Addison's Sherlock (the show, not the books) wing-fic (the characters have wings - apologies if everyone knows that) fanfic packaged up for sale. It was bad enough that it led me to actually look up wtf had happened after I gave up on finishing it. Counter point: I thought it was fun and I enjoyed it, and think you should read it. I don’t understand the sniffy “it’s just Sherlock fanfic”. So? Lots and lots of stuff is based on, or influenced by, or another version of something that already exists. Its not just a Sherlock rewrite, it’s been moved into a significantly different world. Sometimes the “fanfic” label feels like a way to try to delegitimize a book. The prose isn’t bad, it’s set in a weird fantasy London, and if you’re into that you should read it. Awkward Davies fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Nov 13, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 07:39
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Does Bird Person operate from a mind palace in this totally new and different setting?
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Nov 13, 2023 08:03
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Ravus Ursus posted:Wait, I thought it was a prequel Yes. It's got pre and post scenes. That's about the most non spoilery way I can phrase it.
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Nov 13, 2023 08:16
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Rain Brain posted:Just as a caution if anyone is considering getting Angel of Crows because they liked The Goblin Emperor it's just Addison's Sherlock (the show, not the books) wing-fic (the characters have wings - apologies if everyone knows that) fanfic packaged up for sale. It was bad enough that it led me to actually look up wtf had happened after I gave up on finishing it. Thanks also to pradmer for collecting these sales.
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Nov 13, 2023 08:38
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I'm debating whether or not to read Thunder and Gears of the City by Felix Gilman. I liked The Half-Made World, and these two books sound like they're inhabiting a space similar to China Mieville's work but preferring to focus the weirdness in a somewhat more literary direction. Anyone read them?
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Nov 13, 2023 10:23
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darthbob88 posted:What leads you to the underlined conclusion? I recognized a couple of the cases in the book as clear references to the Adventures of the Speckled Band and the Copper Beeches, which weren't adapted for Sherlock on TV. The book starts with a quote from the TV show and ends with an author’s note stating: “FOR THOSE OF you who do not know, there is a thing called fanfiction, wherein fans of a particular book or TV show or movie write stories about the characters. Fanfiction, as an umbrella term, covers a vast variety of genres and subgenres. One of those subgenres is something called wingfic, wherein a character or characters have wings. The Angel of the Crows began as a Sherlock wingfic.“ As well as being Holmes’ first name, Sherlock is also the name of the popular BBC show and when people refer to Sherlock fanfic they invariably mean the latter rather than just general Sherlock Holmes fanfic.
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Nov 13, 2023 10:49
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I would be down for reading Sherlock Holmes fanfic, but would pass on Sherlock fanfic.
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Nov 13, 2023 11:29
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thotsky posted:I would be down for reading Sherlock Holmes fanfic, but would pass on Sherlock fanfic. Sherlock is Sherlock Holmes fanfic.
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Nov 13, 2023 11:43
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thotsky posted:I would be down for reading Sherlock Holmes fanfic, but would pass on Sherlock fanfic. Jedit posted:Sherlock is Sherlock Holmes fanfic.
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Nov 13, 2023 13:29
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thotsky posted:I would be down for reading Sherlock Holmes fanfic, but would pass on Sherlock fanfic. I'll never pass up an opportunity to recommend August Derleth's Solar Pons books, which are the most pure Holmes pastiche I've seen.
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Nov 13, 2023 13:45
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Yeah, there has been Sherlock Holmes fanfics for decades. Nicholas Meyers’ from the seventies are classics! I know he wrote some more recent ones, but those don’t seem to have been as well received.
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Nov 13, 2023 16:10
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FPyat posted:I'm debating whether or not to read Thunder and Gears of the City by Felix Gilman. I liked The Half-Made World, and these two books sound like they're inhabiting a space similar to China Mieville's work but preferring to focus the weirdness in a somewhat more literary direction. Anyone read them?
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Nov 13, 2023 16:19
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thotsky posted:I would be down for reading Sherlock Holmes fanfic, but would pass on Sherlock fanfic. Start with the Solar Pons books by August Derleth. They aren't bad! Or at least that's what I thought at age 12. I should go back and reread them now to see if they hold up. Edit: gently caress, beaten on the Solar Ponsposting, was not expecting that
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Nov 13, 2023 17:34
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Chairman Capone posted:Yeah, there has been Sherlock Holmes fanfics for decades. Centuries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars%E8ne_Lupin_versus_Herlock_Sholmes
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Nov 13, 2023 17:52
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if someone is consciously writing fanfic in some subgenre called “wing fic”, it’s probably because they, and their audience, are extremely interested in descriptions of characters with wings. What are the wings doing, what do they look like, how do they feel. Oh, nice wings. What color are they. Are they like raven wings. You look like a beautiful Angel. Do you like to fly with your wings? If you, like me, do not care about this, it’s probably good to know that the story you’re considering reading was written for people with this extremely narrow interest. Or else you, like me, will be extremely puzzled as to why Watson keeps talking about feathers.
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Nov 13, 2023 18:00
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