|
I didn't find El annoying at all. I found her a *teenager* and she probably would annoy me in person, but I felt tender towards her instead. I wanted her to be okay. She's a kid. I dunno, I'm pretty easily annoyed by protagonists and I liked her.
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2024 20:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 04:02 |
|
|
voiceless anal fricative posted:the plot of the whole trilogy is driven just by the very shallow core concept of "what if Hogwarts but real consequences" (which IIRC Novik has openly said is what she set out to write?).
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2024 20:45
|
|
|
HopperUK posted:I felt tender towards her instead. I wanted her to be okay. She's a kid.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2024 20:53
|
|
|
RDM posted:The core concept is "what if Hogwarts but Harry Potter is more powerful than every other wizard on the planet combined and is merely choosing not to easily vaporize Voldemort with a thought out of angst" Not really? Its what if Harry Potter actually tried to tackle the social rot in Wizard society where just being good at killing a guy is kind of worthless and mostly just leads to more politically adept people manipulating you. I really enjoyed the books and thought El was really great. Very fun POV to ride along with overall.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2024 20:54
|
|
|
I thought it was supposed to be “what if Harry Potter but with real human behavior and motivations.”
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2024 20:59
|
|
|
withak posted:I thought it was supposed to be “what if Harry Potter but with real human behavior and motivations.” Kind of. It's a bit about "how does a society get to the point where a school like hogwarts makes sense". Like, they just blithely tell some 11 year olds that walking down a corridor will get them killed and also happily put a giant cerberus thing behind doors the same 11 year olds can open. Also like the entire Triwizard Tournament. Oops, just a dragon. This is fun! (To make it safe we will say that only 17 year olds can enter). So take the lethality that Hogwarts already has, but it's whimsical so it's OK, and make it more the focus and also not whimsical. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Mar 16, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2024 21:25
|
|
|
Ramrod Hotshot posted:In the spirit of this post - are there any sci fi stories where “the far future but no space colonization” is the premise? https://x.com/afrocosmist/status/1768238151665946736?s=46
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 01:05
|
|
|
darthbob88 posted:It's marginal to the point of being the opposite of the brief, but I submit Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series. One of the many factors driving the turmoil of the books is the fact that the Utopian faction are trying to terraform and colonize Mars; right now they're just pouring money down a gravity well, but in a century or two, they're going to own an entire habitable planet, and the rest of Earth is kinda concerned about that fact.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 01:30
|
|
|
I picked up some old paperbacks of Patricia A McKillip’s Riddle Master of Hed trilogy a few weeks back. It’s three short books that basically need to be read together, released in the mid 70s. So far I’ve read books 1 and 2, and both were great. It does the whole chosen one thing but has a different spin on it. The prose is spare but pretty good, way more competent than works that have remained in the public consciousness since then. She also does a great job building this increasingly fantastical world, hinting at things but not getting bogged down in the details. The last year or two I’ve been reading a fair amount of older sff, and this is the top of the pile in terms of things I’ve never seen recommended by anyone. Going to read book 3 shortly, and unless it drops off a cliff this is a strong recommend from me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 01:47
|
|
|
FPyat posted:17776 by Jon Bois has a depressing rant on the senselessness and disappointment of space exploration - it's set in the year it's titled after. I don’t think it’s so much a depressing rant as a necessary precondition to the story he wanted to tell. Either way though, 17776 (and the unfinished to date sequel, 20020) are incredibly worth reading.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 01:52
|
|
|
Jordan7hm posted:The last year or two I’ve been reading a fair amount of older sff, and this is the top of the pile in terms of things I’ve never seen recommended by anyone. Going to read book 3 shortly, and unless it drops off a cliff this is a strong recommend from me. The whole series is very much worth reading; I don't think I've ever read a bad McKillip.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 01:52
|
|
|
Selachian posted:The whole series is very much worth reading; I don't think I've ever read a bad McKillip. I never see her stuff in used bookstores but she’s absolutely on my watchlist now, and I’ll probably end up buying a bunch of her stuff new. It’s really good.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 01:54
|
|
|
McKillip is incredible and I'm kind of saving her remaining books for a read at a leisurely pace just so I don't blow through them.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 02:00
|
|
|
Riddle master is great because it's got both an ostensible love story, and a real one. Plus it does wizards better than anything but Jonathan strange.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 02:54
|
|
|
sebmojo posted:Riddle master is great because it's got both an ostensible love story, and a real one. Plus it does wizards better than anything but Jonathan strange. Ok this is selling me
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 03:01
|
|
|
Riddle-Master is good, but tbh I liked both The Changeling Sea and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld more, especially the former. And those are the only McKillips I've read! I have a whole pile of her stuff on the tbr shelf, including The Bards of Bone Plain and her only sci-fi, Fool's Run.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 03:19
|
|
|
mystes posted:I read the first book of that and I really need to read the rest Terra Incognita is a great series that I read at an odd point in my life, and I don't think I can ever really recommend but I also really want to re-read. It has a lot of ideas that seem dumb, but then a layer comes off and you realize the author also sees these ideas are dumb. You'll probably read the last book but I thought it was a letdown because it went in a direction I did not want it to go. Ramrod Hotshot posted:In the spirit of this post - are there any sci fi stories where “the far future but no space colonization” is the premise? Thematically, I'll recommend Against a Dark Background. It's a space adventure set in a single, non-Earth solar system, but by the end you realize this system has re-invented space travel at least 3 times, they've advanced and fallen back, and are now mining garbage dumps from a thousand years ago, all because they are a solar system way outside the galactic ring. They can't see other stars or go anywhere, so they are just trapped in their own multi-planet world, getting slowly claustrophobic.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 03:36
|
|
|
Jordan7hm posted:I never see her stuff in used bookstores but she’s absolutely on my watchlist now, and I’ll probably end up buying a bunch of her stuff new. It’s really good.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 04:09
|
|
|
StumblyWumbly posted:Terra Incognita is a great series that I read at an odd point in my life, and I don't think I can ever really recommend but I also really want to re-read. It has a lot of ideas that seem dumb, but then a layer comes off and you realize the author also sees these ideas are dumb. It reads like a really good ttrpg campaign, there's even a diegetic way of the party working together
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 04:43
|
|
|
darthbob88 posted:It's marginal to the point of being the opposite of the brief, but I submit Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series. One of the many factors driving the turmoil of the books is the fact that the Utopian faction are trying to terraform and colonize Mars; right now they're just pouring money down a gravity well, but in a century or two, they're going to own an entire habitable planet, and the rest of Earth is kinda concerned about that fact. This far, my favorite series of books. Yes it's weird, in many many excellent ways, but I found it to be a breath of extremely fresh air for sci-fi. This, and The March North (and subsequent books) really captured my attention like nothing else. Recommendations in this vein desired (working in Exordia right now)
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 05:09
|
|
|
I have no idea how someone could recommend "reads like a ttrpg," even a good one, as as a plus point in a book. TTRPGs are 90% bullshit, sometimes droping to about 75% bullshit, and 25% GM despair, and when you get lower than that the GM and/or players are about to get really drunk and kill everything. Or go to the pub. And/or hook up. In one case someone vomitted on the table. Admitedly I did just graduate and the vomitter passed his accountancy exams, and we'd started into the mysterious pink "tropical" tasting booze that had no label and had been sitting in a cupboard for a year. It was definitely alcohol. No detergent maker would make a detergent so sweet. (to be clear I wasn't the vomitter. I was the one who cleaned up after the vomitter, as he was my pal.) "reads like a ttrpg" is setting you up for bullshit and wank. C.f. Malazan and The Expanse.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 05:19
|
|
|
Mrenda posted:I have no idea how someone could recommend "reads like a ttrpg," even a good one, as as a plus point in a book. TTRPGs are 90% bullshit, sometimes droping to about 75% bullshit, and 25% GM despair, and when you get lower than that the GM and/or players are about to get really drunk and kill everything. Or go to the pub. And/or hook up. In one case someone vomitted on the table. Admitedly I did just graduate and the vomitter passed his accountancy exams, and we'd started into the mysterious pink "tropical" tasting booze that had no label and had been sitting in a cupboard for a year. It was definitely alcohol. No detergent maker would make a detergent so sweet. (to be clear I wasn't the vomitter. I was the one who cleaned up after the vomitter, as he was my pal.) Lol I'm sorry you had a bad time playing dnugeons and dragon mrenda
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 05:39
|
|
|
https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announces-the-59th-nebula-awards-finalists/ Nebula finalists are out.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 11:10
|
|
|
Is it normal for authors to decline nominations because they're already doing well? I mean, Martha Wells, still has a book on there so I guess dropping the other ones doesn't impact her as much. Just cool to see that kind of humility from an industry that has people review bombing over authors over perceived competition and... Whatever the gently caress happened with the Hugos.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 13:32
|
|
|
Ravus Ursus posted:Is it normal for authors to decline nominations because they're already doing well? I mean, Martha Wells, still has a book on there so I guess dropping the other ones doesn't impact her as much. I'm having trouble finding evidence of it, but I think Jemisin did for one of the nominations her Broken Earth trilogy got since it had already swept the Best Novel Hugo 3 years in a row? Maybe I'm misremembering though. And Witch King being nominated for best novel kinda surprises me because I personally thought it was an extremely weak offering. To the point that while I enjoyed what I read of Murderbot, Witch King just highlighted several shortcomings that kind of pervade her writing, and in such high detail, that it kind of put me off reading more of her work anytime soon. I know some people really liked WK but wow it was nails on a chalkboard for me from a craft perspective.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 14:07
|
|
|
I recently read Mur Lafferty's Station Eternity and Chaos Terminal. Really enjoyed that this book series is Murder, She Wrote: IN SPACE.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 14:41
|
|
|
StumblyWumbly posted:Thematically, I'll recommend Against a Dark Background. It's a space adventure set in a single, non-Earth solar system, but by the end you realize this system has re-invented space travel at least 3 times, they've advanced and fallen back, and are now mining garbage dumps from a thousand years ago, all because they are a solar system way outside the galactic ring. They can't see other stars or go anywhere, so they are just trapped in their own multi-planet world, getting slowly claustrophobic. The twist made me feel real feelings when it was revealed, which is a sign of good writing, I guess. It also is the opposite of everything else Banks wrote for space settings.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 15:42
|
|
|
DurianGray posted:I'm having trouble finding evidence of it, but I think Jemisin did for one of the nominations her Broken Earth trilogy got since it had already swept the Best Novel Hugo 3 years in a row? Maybe I'm misremembering though. I posted about witch King here when I read it, but I ended up enjoying it not as a big fantasy novel but instead as a slice of life character story, all the events felt like sidebars to the random chatter and stuff. Just framed it well for me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 15:46
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:I posted about witch King here when I read it, but I ended up enjoying it not as a big fantasy novel but instead as a slice of life character story, all the events felt like sidebars to the random chatter and stuff. Yeah, I think I was just especially disappointed because I genuinely wanted to like it (I had even pre-ordered it!). But it didn't work for me as a slice-of-life/character study either, unfortunately. Fwiw, I also finished The Goblin Emperor recently and it did not work for me at all either on any of the levels it was shooting for, but I know a lot of folks here love it, so I think there's just something about the style or approach of those books that doesn't mesh with my brain at all.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 16:03
|
|
|
Interview with the Vampire (#1) by Anne Rice - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004AM5R20/ Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MZV3TMJ/ Infinity Gate (Pandominion #1) by MR Carey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B38STG6T/
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 17:24
|
|
|
Ravus Ursus posted:Is it normal for authors to decline nominations because they're already doing well? I mean, Martha Wells, still has a book on there so I guess dropping the other ones doesn't impact her as much.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 17:35
|
|
|
sebmojo posted:Lol I'm sorry you had a bad time playing dnugeons and dragon mrenda They didn't want to play Traveler because they couldn't make their dreamboat characters during the chargen!!! Generally, though, I've never read a sci-fi or fantasy adapted from a ttrpg that reads well. And I've read stuff from highly acclaimed SFF all the way to stuff people are looking to publish. The focus on making events interesting for a group of PCs doesn't translate well to a properly paced story. The amount of things that needs to happen in a weekly tabletop game, to keep things moving for a group of players, rarely works well in a novel setting. I think you can take a lot from ttrpgs, just not adapting the events. Sourcebooks are great for inspiration, as are some of the worldbuilding decisions, maybe even a few NPC characters, as long as you don't make their story from the game their story in the novel. There was a great book I read decades ago, a general GM advice book about how to create really interesting fantasy worlds. It spoke a lot about how people are generally really limited by ideas of "realism" in our world, when fantasty, etc. allows you to make bold changes "Because that's just how it is!"
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 18:21
|
|
|
sebmojo posted:Lol I'm sorry you had a bad time playing dnugeons and dragon mrenda SF & F Megathread: I'm Sorry You Had a Bad Time Playing Dungeons and Dragons
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 19:01
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:SF & F Megathread: I'm Sorry You Had a Bad Time Playing Dnugeons and Dragon ftfy
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 19:42
|
|
|
Mrenda posted:They didn't want to play Traveler because they couldn't make their dreamboat characters during the chargen!!! I don't actually disagree with that. Against a dark background is a solid book though, the ttrpg thing is just an interesting quirk.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 20:21
|
|
|
Ravus Ursus posted:Is it normal for authors to decline nominations because they're already doing well? I mean, Martha Wells, still has a book on there so I guess dropping the other ones doesn't impact her as much. In addition to the ones already mentioned, Neil Gaiman declined at least one nomination on similar grounds. I think the ones he's accepted more recently are all on projects with other collaborators.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 20:38
|
|
|
In Against a Dark Background I think the classes are: Lawyer, Soldier, Historian, Spy, Heiress. And everyone has combat training and magic that makes them work well together just because. Where ttrpg-ish books fall apart is when they're just about the fighting and the spooky dungeon and showing off how cool the main character is. Those are not problems in this book.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2024 23:09
|
|
|
bessantj posted:Has anyone here read any of the ST:TNG novels? If so are they any good? I read the X-men crossover one, and it was charmingly true to both the TNG crew and their mutant guests. The story was predictable and exactly what you'd expect the X-men and TNG crew to get up to together. Basically, if you want comfort food, it's pretty good comfort food.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2024 04:50
|
|
|
Did they do a bit about Picard and Professor X looking similar or were they cowards?
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2024 06:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 04:02 |
|
|
I just finished reading A Prayer for the Crown-Shy and despite the fact that I recall enjoying the first book in the series this one really didn't do it for me. I just don't think I'm ever going to get that much out of a story that seems like one of it's core tenants is avoiding any form of discomfort, for either the characters or the reader. It feels even more infantile than YA because afaik this was marketed towards adults? Most children's movies have darker themes than anything in here. It probably doesn't help that I read it directly after The Dispossessed which is also about a fictional utopia but it manages to actually explore the concept in a realistic and interesting way. I guess this goes back to the discussion around cozy fantasy vs cozy sci-fi and the way in which those genres tend to engage with the systems of the world.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2024 06:53
|
|
