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A little while ago, I broke a two-year MA-in-English-caused fantasy hiatus by jumping headfirst into Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I loved it, and also just barely missed the Book Barn thread on it, which, I mean, drat. What really captured my imagination, aside from the whole social comedy angle, was the way magic was portrayed as something far away, unknowable, creepy, and more than a little bit wrong, but still alluring and seductive. I geek out over portrayals of magic in fiction, so Strange and Norrell was pretty much perfect for me. I come asking for suggestions on what to read next. I haven't had enough magic quite yet. Who are some other writers/what are some other books that portray magic in... well, not necessarily a similar way, but a similarly enthralling way?
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Sep 13, 2013 04:54
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Harrow posted:A little while ago, I broke a two-year MA-in-English-caused fantasy hiatus by jumping headfirst into Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I loved it, and also just barely missed the Book Barn thread on it, which, I mean, drat. What really captured my imagination, aside from the whole social comedy angle, was the way magic was portrayed as something far away, unknowable, creepy, and more than a little bit wrong, but still alluring and seductive. I geek out over portrayals of magic in fiction, so Strange and Norrell was pretty much perfect for me. Somewhat different milieu but early Robin Hobb books may be up your alley.
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Sep 13, 2013 06:41
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Harrow posted:I come asking for suggestions on what to read next. I haven't had enough magic quite yet. Who are some other writers/what are some other books that portray magic in... well, not necessarily a similar way, but a similarly enthralling way? Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees, which is about a small country just on the border of fairyland, which occasionally intrudes, and is the book you want. There's also The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany which is quite similar. For something more modern, John Crowley's Little, Big or Aegypt sequence, both of which are very long and have little magic (Little, Big has more), or Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones, a rewriting of Tam Lin and Tom the Rhymer, or Howl's Moving Castle. They're all quite closely tied to traditional beliefs about fairies, magic, astrology, and mythology, especially the Crowley books, and I also think they're great as literature. Crowley's one of those writers where you can read any page of any of his books and find somethng wonderful. Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 10:32
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Harrow posted:A little while ago, I broke a two-year MA-in-English-caused fantasy hiatus by jumping headfirst into Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I loved it, and also just barely missed the Book Barn thread on it, which, I mean, drat. What really captured my imagination, aside from the whole social comedy angle, was the way magic was portrayed as something far away, unknowable, creepy, and more than a little bit wrong, but still alluring and seductive. I geek out over portrayals of magic in fiction, so Strange and Norrell was pretty much perfect for me. I just recommended it on the last page, but Little, big by John Crowley.
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Sep 13, 2013 13:25
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Ahhh. Feels good to have a reading list. Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. Somehow I managed to forget that Howl's Moving Castle was an option. I've seen the Miyazaki film, which I really enjoyed, so I'm sure I'll love the book. I'll probably start with either that or Little, Big.
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Sep 13, 2013 14:10
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Harrow posted:A little while ago, I broke a two-year MA-in-English-caused fantasy hiatus by jumping headfirst into Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I loved it, and also just barely missed the Book Barn thread on it, which, I mean, drat. What really captured my imagination, aside from the whole social comedy angle, was the way magic was portrayed as something far away, unknowable, creepy, and more than a little bit wrong, but still alluring and seductive. I geek out over portrayals of magic in fiction, so Strange and Norrell was pretty much perfect for me. In addition to the above, Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood and Neil Gaiman's [i]Stardust[i]. The first has truly frightening magic and the second is a more modern take on Dunsany style Faerie.
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Sep 13, 2013 14:15
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Does anyone know why Greg Egan doesn't allow photos of himself to appear anywhere online? My guess is he's monstrously fat.
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Sep 14, 2013 02:48
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I really like parts of the Laundry Files series. Like any given Laundry novel or short story it's a coinflip whether or not I think it's *amazing* or "ehhhhh". This. Some passages of his can really strike me as beautiful and terrifying, especially when he's talking about hideous shrieking demons eating people's souls and apocalyptic pyramids surrounded by dead alien skies and poo poo.. And then he he throws out a chapter of straight out nerd babble. urk.
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Sep 14, 2013 04:07
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Hedrigall posted:Does anyone know why Greg Egan doesn't allow photos of himself to appear anywhere online? My guess is he's monstrously fat. He's the Thomas Pynchon of painfully characterless science fiction.
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Sep 14, 2013 04:42
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Harrow posted:Who are some other writers/what are some other books that portray magic in... well, not necessarily a similar way, but a similarly enthralling way? First one that sprang to mind was The Magicians, by Lev Grossman.
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Sep 14, 2013 05:02
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Has anyone read anything by Harry Turtledove? Skimming through his Wikipedia page, I see that he's written a lot of cool-sounding alternate history. Some of his books have magic in them so I guess he counts in this thread?
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Sep 14, 2013 15:25
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Schneider Heim posted:Has anyone read anything by Harry Turtledove? Skimming through his Wikipedia page, I see that he's written a lot of cool-sounding alternate history. Some of his books have magic in them so I guess he counts in this thread? I read the first part of The Legend of Krispos or something similar by him. I gather that, as a straight-up fantasy (as opposed to alternate history), it's not his best work, but I found it pretty abhorrent. It was your standard Chosen One "He's Just Better" narrative that also had a large amount of time spent by the characters who are not the Chosen One discussing just How Much Better he is than everyone else. Lots of girls throwing themselves at him, lots of powerful men admiring him and of course, all his enemies are shallow, stupid and ugly who hate him because He's Just Better. I'd not recommend it. But his alternate history stuff sounds like it's more his forte.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:01
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Schneider Heim posted:Has anyone read anything by Harry Turtledove? Skimming through his Wikipedia page, I see that he's written a lot of cool-sounding alternate history. Some of his books have magic in them so I guess he counts in this thread? It's basically schlock, and not even very good schlock.
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Sep 14, 2013 22:06
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fritz posted:It's basically schlock, and not even very good schlock. Better than SM Stirling's schlock?
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Sep 14, 2013 22:38
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The problem I have with Turtledove is that his alternate history is very deterministic, in the sense that even with a point of divergence that should cause a radically different outcome, there's some kind of regression to the mean except with some of the people and nations changed around. For example, he has one series where the South win independence in the American Civil War. This inevitably leads to a WW1 where the USA and the CSA are France and Germany respectively, and then a WW2 where the CSA is Literally Nazi Germany and the CSA leader is Literally Hitler, with African Americans being the victims of the Holocaust. It's lazy and he does it a lot. Disclaimer: I have not actually read much of Turtledove. This is based on bitching by friends. Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Sep 15, 2013 |
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Sep 14, 2013 23:01
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One of the first (I think possibly the first) alternate history book that Turtledove wrote was The Guns of the South. Despite the incredibly hokey plot (time-travelling white supremacist South Africans ship AK-47s to the Confederates - I told you it was hokey) , it's actually a pretty good alternate US civil war tale. Unfortunately soon after that he started writing interminable AH series full of ginger-snorting aliens attacking earth during WW2, and they're all pretty much trash. I did like his short story "Shtetl Days" though.
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Sep 15, 2013 01:21
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savinhill posted:Better than SM Stirling's schlock? Jesus, that's a low bar, but at least Turtledove doesn't show up to comment pages and make an rear end out of himself.
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Sep 15, 2013 01:29
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Thanks, guys. I asked because one of Turtledove's books, Agent of Byzantium caught my eye. Too bad it's not available in my region.
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Sep 15, 2013 03:52
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Turtledove is... capable of writing pretty good stuff, but apparently has figured out that schlock sells and he can turn that out at a much higher rate.
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Sep 15, 2013 06:25
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Neurosis posted:Light is really good. Very dark, there is rarely any unmitigated good. Two of the characters are brokenly dysfunctional and almost completely deplorable. But the setting and writing is so cool it remains awesome. I had trouble getting through Nova Swing. Just didn't feel the same. Felt downright facetious at times. Taking a breather before book 3. I'd personally rate Empty Space as the best of the trilogy. It uses the same split settings narrative device as Light does, if the lack of that bothered you in Nova Swing you might prefer this novel to it. More generally, I'd recommend Harrison's Kefahuchi Tract stuff as a vastly superior alternative to anything Richard K. Morgan has written for anybody looking for 'future noir' type stuff.
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Sep 15, 2013 09:49
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Yeah, Guns of the South is amazing, but a lot of what he writes is pretty run of the mill. I like his Videssos and the WorldWar books but I don't think they are really "good" - just fun reads.
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Sep 16, 2013 20:03
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The first five Discworld books are $1.99 each on the Kindle daily deal for today 
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Sep 17, 2013 08:34
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I just finished one hell of an audiobook (Les Miserables. It was over 60 hours long  ) and I'm understandably looking to take a break from listening to books. Can anyone recommend a couple good scifi/fantasy podcasts? Or anything that is a generally awesome podcast, really. Preferably not a book club.
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Sep 17, 2013 08:51
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AreYouStillThere posted:I just finished one hell of an audiobook (Les Miserables. It was over 60 hours long It's nonfiction but The History of Rome is pretty much the best podcast I've ever listened to. The host weaves a bunch of different sources into a really enjoyable narrative, and episodes generally run about 15-25 minutes so they're pretty easy to fit in throughout the day.
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Sep 17, 2013 08:56
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AreYouStillThere posted:I just finished one hell of an audiobook (Les Miserables. It was over 60 hours long Escapepod and podcastle are both pretty good. They get a wide range of stories that have mostly been professionally published before in magazines like Asimov's or SF&F. Two minor complaints: the quality of the readers fluctuates wildly. Sometimes they have authors read, which is cool, but sometimes they have wannabe's who ruin good stories. The other complaint I have is that the majority of the stories chosen push an agenda. Seriously, not every story has to be super pro feminism, or LGBT, or about minorities. It's fine when the stories are good, but not when the stories just obviously got a pass because of the editor's political leanings. But this is a problem that is endemic in the short fiction industry, not just escapepod and podcastle.
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Sep 17, 2013 09:14
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fookolt posted:The first five Discworld books are $1.99 each on the Kindle daily deal for today I was so loving excited about this because I'm amassing all the Discworld books on my Kindle and I don't have any pre-Guards! Guards! books yet. But the deal isn't available for Australian kindle owners 
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Sep 17, 2013 09:17
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ZerodotJander posted:Yeah, Guns of the South is amazing, but a lot of what he writes is pretty run of the mill. I like his Videssos and the WorldWar books but I don't think they are really "good" - just fun reads. His Lost legion series is pretty decent: a Roman legion departs our world for one in which something like Byzantium reigns and magic is real. If you don't mind the LBGT issues too much it's a solid four book series.
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Sep 17, 2013 09:26
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Hedrigall posted:But the deal isn't available for Australian kindle owners On occasion, I have travelled to the US. When I do, I change my location under Manage Your Kindle -> Country Settings. The address I use is for the freight forwarding service shipito This gives me full access to the US store, with my Australian credit card, and doesn't ask for any kind of proof that I am in the US. Even if I inadvertently do it while still in Australia...
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Sep 17, 2013 09:48
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BrosephofArimathea posted:On occasion, I have travelled to the US. I've heard of books being deleted from people's accounts, or accounts being deactivated, for this.
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Sep 17, 2013 10:25
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AreYouStillThere posted:I just finished one hell of an audiobook (Les Miserables. It was over 60 hours long Do you mean podcasts about scifi/fantasy, or that are scifi/fantasy? If the latter, pick up Welcome to Night Vale (fantasy horror radio) and never look back.
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Sep 17, 2013 13:10
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mllaneza posted:His Lost legion series is pretty decent: a Roman legion departs our world for one in which something like Byzantium reigns and magic is real. If you don't mind the LBGT issues too much it's a solid four book series. Yeah, that's the first set of Videssos books.
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Sep 17, 2013 14:46
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mllaneza posted:His Lost legion series is pretty decent: a Roman legion departs our world for one in which something like Byzantium reigns and magic is real. If you don't mind the LBGT issues too much it's a solid four book series. What LGBT issues? The two main characters who are gay are portrayed no differently from their counterparts, and although they keep it quiet because the Roman legions weren't exactly pro-gay literally nobody who knows about them treats them negatively because of it.
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Sep 17, 2013 15:12
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It seems like The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is on sale for $0.99 at all ebook retailers according to Random House (select eBook format for links to Amazon, iBooks, Google Play etc.)
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Sep 17, 2013 18:54
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Fart of Presto posted:It seems like The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is on sale for $0.99 at all ebook retailers according to Random House (select eBook format for links to Amazon, iBooks, Google Play etc.) Amazon isn't reflecting the sale yet... Perhaps it'll be up later? I hope so, I really want to read that book and 0.99 is impossible to beat. Snuffman fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Sep 18, 2013 |
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Sep 18, 2013 00:45
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Snuffman posted:
http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Locke-Lamora-ebook/dp/B000JMKNJ2/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1379462371&sr=8-1&keywords=lies+of+locke+lamora
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Sep 18, 2013 01:00
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coyo7e posted:Funny, it worked for me earlier today. Are you looking at the right tab? Yeah, I also bought it for $0.99 at Amazon when I posted it, and it's still that price. Perhaps it's a US only thing?
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Sep 18, 2013 01:02
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Walh Hara posted:Oh, I actually read Lions of Al-Rassan already. Very well written and I liked the setting, but I didn't find the story that compelling. However, I admit part of the problem might have been that I knew the story of EL Cid and as such found the story too predictable, so I'll certainly check out his other books anyway. Pretty sure Fionavar is on my list of "books I started but never finished"
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Sep 18, 2013 01:06
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I recently finished N.K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon. It was the first thing of her's I've ever read and I thought it was a fantastic book, one of the best fantasy books I've read in a long while. The setting was so different, and I thought really interesting. Has anyone else read her stuff? I'm reading the sequel to The Killing Moon right now as well, but it's slower going for me, I was able to get through any slow parts of The Killing Moon by the setting being so new, fresh, and interesting.
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Sep 18, 2013 01:40
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fermun posted:I recently finished N.K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon. It was the first thing of her's I've ever read and I thought it was a fantastic book, one of the best fantasy books I've read in a long while. The setting was so different, and I thought really interesting. Has anyone else read her stuff? I'm reading the sequel to The Killing Moon right now as well, but it's slower going for me, I was able to get through any slow parts of The Killing Moon by the setting being so new, fresh, and interesting. I've read two books from her The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Broken Kingdoms. They're part of a trilogy. I haven't read the third book because I'm lazy, but her women protagonists are well-written and interesting.
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Sep 18, 2013 02:57
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That's it, I can't take Daniel Abraham anymore. I'm just finishing off Abbadon's Gate and it is really nothing special. That they extended this series to 6 books is just mindblowing, especially since the 2 best characters sofar are either dead or not in the last book (dirty grandma). I also recently read the first 3 books in The Dagger and the Coin, and they are boring in the same way as The Expanse series. The main problem is that so few of the protagonists are particularly memorable (Miller, Grandam and Geder) and everything else feels very bland and mediocre.
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Sep 18, 2013 11:57
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