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voiceless anal fricative posted:On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, has anyone finished the Cradle series by Will Wight? My interest (and the quality) has cratered after the big tournament in book 8 so I don't think I can be bothered finishing the series unless it picks up again. I finished and enjoyed it, and while I felt like the quality was pretty consistent throughout the tournament arc was my least favourite, so if you enjoyed it apart from that it's probably worth continuing; book 9 finally brings things back around to Sacred Valley and the whole reason Lindon got into this mess in the first place, and then books 10-12 are about all the problems that have been set in motion throughout the preceding nine books slamming into each other and exploding.
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Mar 31, 2024 14:19
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Heavy Metal posted:Those first four or whatever Magic Kingdom For Sale books were big favs of mine when I was a kid, I gotta give that to Terry Brooks. It felt a little bit modern and different than Tolkien, I gather Shannara is like you're saying though. My parents happened to be fans of all that stuff as well as Tolkein. I'm a bit less of a fan of the sequels and I never read the last two in the series, but Magic Kingdom
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Mar 31, 2024 14:21
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Jedit posted:I'm a bit less of a fan of the sequels and I never read the last two in the series, but Magic Kingdom Nice! Plus, it's got a cool dog guy.
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Mar 31, 2024 14:38
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Thanks for all the recommendations yesterday. I haven't read most of that, so I've got plenty to keep me occupied. With such a large genre it's hard to know what I'm buying without getting some ideas first.
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Mar 31, 2024 14:49
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Heavy Metal posted:Those first four or whatever Magic Kingdom For Sale books were big favs of mine when I was a kid, I gotta give that to Terry Brooks. It felt a little bit modern and different than Tolkien, I gather Shannara is like you're saying though. My parents happened to be fans of all that stuff as well as Tolkein. Sword of Shanarra was 100% extruded tolkien ripoff, but from there, as it moved back towards post-post-apocalyptic fantasy, it was substantially better than Sword, and then wrapped around to bad again.
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Mar 31, 2024 16:01
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Also, I’m curious. Has anyone here read the Silo series? Was reading through it a little bit at B&N and I’m undecided if I wanna buy the full book or not.
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Mar 31, 2024 17:13
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A Sneaker Broker posted:Also, I’m curious. Has anyone here read the Silo series? Was reading through it a little bit at B&N and I’m undecided if I wanna buy the full book or not. I've read them, and considered them worthwhile in a fallout fanfic way: good world building, simple but heartfelt?
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Mar 31, 2024 17:35
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A Sneaker Broker posted:Also, I’m curious. Has anyone here read the Silo series? Was reading through it a little bit at B&N and I’m undecided if I wanna buy the full book or not. I read the first one and remember being unimpressed.
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Mar 31, 2024 18:09
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If you mean Wool, Shift, and Dust by Howley, they're... fine. I got the whole series for either free or a dollar way back when, and didn't feel ripped off. But the ending where he actually had to start explaining things... You could say that it was written serially, and some events did not necessarily have a plan attached when they were first added to the story, or you could call it a series of increasingly dubious rear end-pulls.
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Mar 31, 2024 19:21
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084357H23/ Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XD75HGV/
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Mar 31, 2024 19:52
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I bailed on the Silo TV series and tried to read the books instead. Made it to the end of the first book and decided not to continue, since the big reveal at the end was setting up something that the writing wasn’t going to be able to pay off: big  energy.
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Mar 31, 2024 20:35
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I'd compare the first book more to a quick ghost story than sci fi. It has a spooky Lovecraftian "look at this weird town and their unexplained traditions" vibe. If you go in expecting something light and atmospheric, you'll enjoy. If you want a metaphor for humanity or hard sci-fi, no.
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Mar 31, 2024 21:25
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Picked up Accelerando after the thread discussion a couple of days ago, was surprised to see I owned it and gave up after five pages. I see why I did, if it wasn’t recommended I would have seen it as a credulous early 2000s Stephenson wanna-be, but drat, it goes places, and I’m glad I read it.
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Mar 31, 2024 22:26
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Remulak posted:Picked up Accelerando after the thread discussion a couple of days ago, was surprised to see I owned it and gave up after five pages. I see why I did, if it wasn’t recommended I would have seen it as a credulous early 2000s Stephenson wanna-be, but drat, it goes places, and I’m glad I read it. I really enjoyed it. I think it’s head and shoulders above the Laundry Files.
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Mar 31, 2024 22:58
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haven't read Accelerando in over a decade; might be time to do that now
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Mar 31, 2024 23:14
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I need some recommendations for cyberpunk noir. The kind where some kinda cyberspace figures into it. I can only remember reading Neuromancer, Snow Crash and maybe a few short stories in anthologies. Specifically, I want something not so much action packed, but something slower that kinda waxes philosophical, like scifi Raymond Chandler. Even better if a kidnapping plot is involved and/or something to do with dark money or mad science of some kind Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 23:55
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Have you read Trouble And Her Friends by Melissa Scott?
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Apr 1, 2024 00:09
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Stuporstar posted:I need some recommendations for cyberpunk noir. The kind where some kinda cyberspace figures into it. I can only remember reading Neuromancer, Snow Crash and maybe a few short stories in anthologies. read the rest of william gibson.
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Apr 1, 2024 00:21
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^^ToxicFrog posted:Have you read Trouble And Her Friends by Melissa Scott? I haven’t. It looks out of print and not easy to get in Canada. Maybe my friend with the used bookstore can help me track a copy down
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Apr 1, 2024 00:22
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:read the rest of william gibson. Particularly Spook Country, given the elements listed.
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Apr 1, 2024 00:35
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Stuporstar posted:I need some recommendations for cyberpunk noir. The kind where some kinda cyberspace figures into it. I can only remember reading Neuromancer, Snow Crash and maybe a few short stories in anthologies. George Alec Effinger is the guy you want Specifically the series that starts with When Gravity Fails
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Apr 1, 2024 01:00
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I think Nick Harkaway’s Titanium Noir was written to that exact brief, sans cyberspace. I’m not sure I would recommend it exactly, but it hit the spot.
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Apr 1, 2024 02:11
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fez_machine posted:George Alec Effinger Anode posted:I think Nick Harkaway’s Titanium Noir some goon posted:Night City by Caitlin Clark https://www.amazon.com/Night-City-Nocturnum-Files-ebook/dp/B09KP5NVZ1?ref_=ast_author_mpb So much of what makes me love genre writing is putting me in a weird unfamiliar place, and understanding people that live there, and their motivations. Mike Hammer’s world is more alien than Becky Chambers’.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:11
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Remulak posted:Above all great, but why not read non-sci-fi noir? Red Harvest is a basis for so much but just great on its own, and and while sci-fi had tons of great alcoholic speedfreak writers struggling to make a living by the page in the pulp era Jim Thompson outwrote 90% of them. I do specifically want to cram cyberpunk hacker stuff in my brain before I start my next novel. But I’m definitely also gonna read some straight noir to absorb the vibe. Especially anything with a non-Western European setting. Spy novels might also fit the bill, if they’re more procedural/psychological like The City & the City (forgot to mention) rather than a thriller. fez_machine posted:George Alec Effinger is the guy you want This is one I can get at the library. Thanks!
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Apr 1, 2024 05:23
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fermun posted:I absolutely love my Kobo, 99% of Pradmer's sales posts are on Kobo as well as Amazon, it has direct library integration without having to use a computer as an intermediary to load your library ebook rentals, and I've had mine for 7 years and it still has great battery life. One big downside is that it's hard to get any books that are published on Amazon Unlimited, which I sometimes run into from recommendations in this thread, Fred the Zombie Accountant or whatever it was called was my most recent run-in with that. You *can* also buy on Amazon, remove the DRM, and load it on your Kobo via Calibre. But that's always fiddly and annoying to get set up in the first place, and I'm increasingly just not bothering with stuff that's only available on Amazon. (Like that antimemetics one - I'll probably just read that on the SCP wiki eventually.) But yeah Kobo is great for all of the above reasons.
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Apr 1, 2024 06:04
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I also wanted to say that my last three years of sci-fi and fantasy reading has been about 95% based on recommendations from this thread, and so far the hit rate has been very high.
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Apr 1, 2024 06:05
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Effinger is amazing. For more recent stuff, Void Star by Zachary Mason is very cyberpunk, very noir, and very good. Fake edit: and with Gibson, get the Burning Chrome short story collection. Gibson has written some great books, and his short stories are even better.
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Apr 1, 2024 06:58
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Stuporstar posted:I need some recommendations for cyberpunk noir. The kind where some kinda cyberspace figures into it. I can only remember reading Neuromancer, Snow Crash and maybe a few short stories in anthologies. altered carbon? it's very noir, but also v action and not any cyberspace to speak of though
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Apr 1, 2024 07:33
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Biffmotron posted:Effinger is amazing. Effinger is the good poo poo. Never mind genres, just read Effinger.
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Apr 1, 2024 07:41
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NinjaDebugger posted:Sword of Shanarra was 100% extruded tolkien ripoff, but from there, as it moved back towards post-post-apocalyptic fantasy, it was substantially better than Sword, and then wrapped around to bad again. Yeah, Elfstones and Wishsong are pretty decent.
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Apr 1, 2024 09:02
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Lead out in cuffs posted:You *can* also buy on Amazon, remove the DRM, and load it on your Kobo via Calibre. But that's always fiddly and annoying to get set up in the first place, and I'm increasingly just not bothering with stuff that's only available on Amazon. If anyone's curious, an amateur filmmaker has just started a dramatisation of There Is No Antimemetics Division on YouTube. Episode 1 (of 4) went up a few days ago.
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Apr 1, 2024 09:29
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I wish I could recommend that dramatization, but... Yeah, it felt like it had its tongue planted firmly in its cheek the way a lot of SCP-related content does, whereas the novel was just pure loving dread and one of the best things I read in a year of good books.
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Apr 1, 2024 10:31
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Biffmotron posted:Effinger is amazing. For more recent stuff, Void Star by Zachary Mason is very cyberpunk, very noir, and very good. I actually have Burning Chrome in my kindle library, and it’s been bumped up to the top of my tbr pile. sebmojo posted:altered carbon? it's very noir, but also v action and not any cyberspace to speak of though Yeah, having watched the series I already know it’s not the vibe I’m looking for
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Apr 1, 2024 14:48
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Harkaway's Gnomon is sort of? and also very good. Made that list with GB
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Apr 1, 2024 14:57
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Anode posted:I think Nick Harkaway’s Titanium Noir was written to that exact brief, sans cyberspace. I’m not sure I would recommend it exactly, but it hit the spot. Have you read The Gone-Away World? If so, what’d you think? I ask because it’s the only Harkaway I’ve read, and I absolutely loved it, so I’m trying to gauge if I should check out Titanium Noir
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Apr 1, 2024 15:10
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eighty-four merc posted:Have you read The Gone-Away World? If so, what’d you think? I'd put The Gone-Away World and Gnomon as his best, though.
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Apr 1, 2024 15:11
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Going to admit that The Gone-Away World ended up on my DNF pile, I think I've tried to get through that book like three times now. I think someone ITT described it very accurately when they said that the prose was like "Vonnegut but with more lol random".
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Apr 1, 2024 15:42
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Lead out in cuffs posted:You *can* also buy on Amazon, remove the DRM, and load it on your Kobo via Calibre. But that's always fiddly and annoying to get set up in the first place, and I'm increasingly just not bothering with stuff that's only available on Amazon. Antimemetics is on Gumroad, DRM-free, for $5. But yeah, I've also pretty much stopped bothering with Amazon exclusives. IIRC their most recent DRM iteration hasn't been solved yet so it's hit and miss whether you can peel any given book you buy anyways, depending on when it was published and how much of a dickhead the publisher was feeling that day, and I've already got more books than I have time to read via kobo/google play/gumroad/smashwords/storybundle/etc.
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Apr 1, 2024 16:00
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Just re-read Lev Grossman’s The Magicians cause I forgot I read it before I started it again, and am I totally off-base in feeling like Quentin is a full-blown Holden Caufield baby bitch rear end in a top hat protagonist? I remember not liking him much the first time I read it, too, and this time around it turned into a hate-read like halfway through. It really did feel like “what if The Catcher in the Rye was a magic school fantasy but with an even more unbearable character” Kinda disappointing follow-up to my previous read Legends & Lattes, which admittedly is a totally different book but was also way more enjoyable to read. edit: also speaking of L&L, anything recs for a similar (but not derivative) vibe? I’d say Ursula Vernon’s “T. Kingfisher” Paladin books but I’ve read all of those, and I tried Lawrence Watt-Evans but iirc the books started feeling pretty rote (vague recollections of his main char just dumb luck Mary Suing into babes again and again?). Which is funny cause you could definitely argue that the Paladin books are all just (mostly) lady main chars dumb luck Mary Suing into paladin babes, but UVs characters all feel way more grounded and real I guess idk. idiotsavant fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 17:34
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No he just sucks.
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