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DontMockMySmock posted:Has anyone ever read a book based on a video game/movie/etc. that wasn't awful? I sure haven't, especially not novelizations. This isn't really what you meant, but I've been reading this off and on for a while now. You can grab it in a convenient digital format here. Not really a book based on a video game, but a compilation of all the books within a video game. It's a mixture of both fiction and non-fiction within the Elder Scrolls Universe (all fiction from our point of view) and a lot of it is quite excellent.
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Feb 5, 2014 04:54
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EDIT: probably should have read all the way before responding, people already mentioned it,. Well here it is for a new pageDontMockMySmock posted:Has anyone ever read a book based on a video game/movie/etc. that wasn't awful? I sure haven't, especially not novelizations. Actually yes! http://www.amazon.com/Crysis-Legion-Peter-Watts/dp/0345526783 Peter Watts did the book adaptation of Crysis 2. It is surprisingly good. He does it in the style of the after action briefing of the marine wearing the suit, which lets him gloss over most of the tedious "you do this this and this in this level!". Being Watts, he also goes into musings on microbiology, neurology, the self, and the mind. The N2 has a brain interface with the wearer so that lets him go on some tangents about it. He also rips apart the usual "aliens invade earth!" idea and tries to come up with some possible explanations for why they fight like us, have exposed fleshy bits, invade earth in the first place and the like. And he also loads it up with his usual wicked sense of humor and dark take on things, which really shines through in the form of the marine talking poo poo about everything. Think 2 parts Archer, 1 part Blindsight. Surprisingly good, though not as good as a book that was a straight collaboration between Watts and Morgan probably would have been.
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Feb 5, 2014 05:57
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DontMockMySmock posted:Has anyone ever read a book based on a video game/movie/etc. that wasn't awful? I sure haven't, especially not novelizations. Years ago, yes, I read the first two books in the Darth Bane series of star wars books, as well as the mass effect books. The first Bane novel, Path of Destruction, was really good. Not just the story, but also Karpyshyn's writing style and character development. The second one was not worth reading; Karpyshyn was under a heavy time constraint and it shows. All three of his Mass Effect novels were good, but the third one (Retribution) stood out as being fantastic, at least years ago when I read it. Same as the first Bane novel, it had great character development and a good writing style. I kind of want to read his newest novel (Children of Fire or whatever), thinking about this, but I don't really read fiction books any more.  Oh, I suppose I should mention that I read Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan. It wasn't very good, so don't bother reading it. gatz fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Feb 5, 2014 |
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Feb 5, 2014 06:14
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Cardiac posted:
This is sadly true for most of the other books in the series. Some descendent of a certain family starts out on his farm, meets elf-girl, goes off, meets druid / half-druid / elf-druid-sorceror, discovers vast unrepentant evil threatens world but can be defeated by THIS ULTIMATE MACGUFFIN WHICH HAS BEEN HIDDEN FOR 1000 YEARS, retrieves MacGuffin after loss of elf-girl / druid +/- childhood friend, and becomes / marries druid / elf. If you only ever read the Sword of Shannara you'll probably enjoy it, but the further you go the worse it gets. His later "trilogies" are also basically the same amount of content as the Sword of Shannara but split across 3 books which is annoying as poo poo, so I haven't read any of them in about 5 years. Brooks actually has a related series (generally referred to as Word & Void) which has a different and arguably more mature feel, although he sadly tied it in to the Shannara series about 8 years ago. The first book in this series is called Running with the Demon if you want to look it up. Feist was mentioned above. I honestly enjoy most of his books, although some of them (not all of them) suffer from some of the same issues that the Shannara books do. There are some side series that have a decidedly different tone and are an interesting twist on the universe. For example, there's the series co-written with Janny Wurts with a lot of political intrigue and social dynamics, also written by a woman from a woman's perspective, and then there's the 4-book set with Tal Hawkins which among other things has an interesting take on Fantasy Lloyds of London and food porn. Also anything with a character called Nakor is pretty good. The later books in the series get a bit darker but there's 20 books of relatively light-hearted fantasy in front of that if you're looking for uncomplicated stuff. I also generally like his characterization a bit better than Brooks but the main characters are still mostly archetypes. Kalenn Istarion fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Feb 5, 2014 |
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Feb 5, 2014 20:03
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There's always the Sword of Truth series 
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Feb 6, 2014 00:41
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Megazver posted:I wrote this recommendation post a while ago for someone else, might as well post it again for you. I'm reasonably sure you'll find _something_ new here to read. I'm listing first books, when there's more than one in a series: While this set of recommendations wasn't intended for me, Done. Agree with you almost every case (I liked Alex Verus series more than you did, White Trash Zombie less.). What do you got in a traditional Fantasy setting or a sci fi book? Do you have a Goodreads so that I may creep on your book recommendations more completely?
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Feb 6, 2014 08:43
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Kalenn Istarion posted:This is sadly true for most of the other books in the series. Some descendent of a certain family starts out on his farm, meets elf-girl, goes off, meets druid / half-druid / elf-druid-sorceror, discovers vast unrepentant evil threatens world but can be defeated by THIS ULTIMATE MACGUFFIN WHICH HAS BEEN HIDDEN FOR 1000 YEARS, retrieves MacGuffin after loss of elf-girl / druid +/- childhood friend, and becomes / marries druid / elf. If you only ever read the Sword of Shannara you'll probably enjoy it, but the further you go the worse it gets. His later "trilogies" are also basically the same amount of content as the Sword of Shannara but split across 3 books which is annoying as poo poo, so I haven't read any of them in about 5 years. I've had enough of Brooks for a lifetime. Although Magic Kingdom for Sale:Sold was actually kinda neat and had some enjoyable moments. Shannara was too much high fantasy, ended up grimdark, while Magic Kingdom was more like a fairy tale in the same vein as Stardust by Gaiman. Speaking of Gaiman and authors going with the same story all the time, Gaiman is more and more ending up in that category. Probably that is why he is sticking to youth novels nowadays.
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Feb 6, 2014 12:38
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fermun posted:While this set of recommendations wasn't intended for me, Done. Agree with you almost every case (I liked Alex Verus series more than you did, White Trash Zombie less.). What do you got in a traditional Fantasy setting or a sci fi book? Do you have a Goodreads so that I may creep on your book recommendations more completely? Done... what? Anyway, thanks man!  I admit I've put down the first Alex Verus book after the first few chapters, which were kind of weak and never got back to it. I've been meaning to check it out again. With WTZ I enjoyed the production novel-esque aspect of working as a trainee at a morgue more than the UF (or, snort, the romance) bits. There was less of the former and more of the latter with each following book so I've stopped reading the series half-way through book three. I don't post anything on Goodreads, no. I get the social aspect of reading and recommending books through forcing a few of my online friends with similar tastes to read the books that I've liked. This way I actually get to discuss them with people whose opinions I actually (mildly) care about.  I've been meaning to write up a couple more repostable lists about fantasy and scifi, just in case, but that's not happening in a while. Meanwhile, if you want someone to chat with about books every once in a while hit me up on GTalk. The email is the obvious one.I've read a lot of classic SF when I was a teenager and liked it, but then again I've doggedly read my way through a ton of poo poo-rear end books back then so I don't quite trust the Teenage Me's judgement. Modern writers who would have written sci-fi that's more character-driven back in the day are writing fantasy these days, so that's most of what I read. Most of contemporary scifi seems to be some combination of a) borderline-autistic level of hard b) right-wing and c) high-concept word salad and I have a hard time getting into it. As for fantasy, I don't know about "traditional setting" but here's some recent fantasy I've enjoyed that wasn't UF: Blood Song by Anthony Ryan, The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman, A Thousand Names by Django Wexler, The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones and Heroes Die by Matthew Stover. Also, if you haven't yet, read The Bone Key by Sarah Monette. If you liked the poo poo on my UF list, you'll get a kick out of it.
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Feb 6, 2014 16:34
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Been looking for some new fantasy to read. Any thoughts on Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns? I am not a big fantasy reader, but I have read Martin, Abercrombie, Rothruss, and Lynch. I am tempted to try out Prince of Thorns or Sanderson's The Way of Kings. The Way of Kings worries me that it might be a little much too 'high' fantasy for me. I'm just on the fence about making a commitment to that series.
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Feb 6, 2014 21:45
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There seems to be tons of debate about that series. If you like Grimdark (it's a buzzword I know, but it conveys a feeling) then you might like it. If you don't... I'd recommend staying away. Personally, I stopped reading about 5 chapters in. This Amazon review perfectly captured why.
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Feb 6, 2014 21:53
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nate fisher posted:Been looking for some new fantasy to read. Any thoughts on Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns? I am not a big fantasy reader, but I have read Martin, Abercrombie, Rothruss, and Lynch. I am tempted to try out Prince of Thorns or Sanderson's The Way of Kings. The Way of Kings worries me that it might be a little much too 'high' fantasy for me. I'm just on the fence about making a commitment to that series. I would recommend trying out some Robin Hobb. The first series I picked up from her was the Assassin's Apprentice, which I loved, and then I went on to Ship of Magic, which I adored. I mean, the open sea. Come on son.
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Feb 6, 2014 21:55
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nate fisher posted:Been looking for some new fantasy to read. Any thoughts on Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns? I am not a big fantasy reader, but I have read Martin, Abercrombie, Rothruss, and Lynch. I am tempted to try out Prince of Thorns or Sanderson's The Way of Kings. The Way of Kings worries me that it might be a little much too 'high' fantasy for me. I'm just on the fence about making a commitment to that series. Well, in the first scene the protagonist rapes someone then locks everyone in a village in a barn and burns them alive. Such edgy. Many misunderstood. Wow. And the author is somewhat of a pretentious, butthurt twat any time someone talks about how they were put off by that. Read Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. He's an excellent storyteller. vvvvv Yeah, not a lot of substance there. Megazver fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 21:56
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I thought someone in this thread recommended The Hammer and the Blade by Paul Kemp but I'm not seeing it in the past few pages. In any case, avoid. Mediocre sword and sorcery, very tropey, with a heavy splash of rape.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:03
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syphon posted:There seems to be tons of debate about that series. If you like Grimdark (it's a buzzword I know, but it conveys a feeling) then you might like it. If you don't... I'd recommend staying away. I had to google grim dark. I don't mind reading dark and disturbing things (heck I read Cows by Matthew Stokoe), but when I read fantasy I am not looking for something that dark. Part me is tempted to try it, but I might wait. Mercedes posted:I would recommend trying out some Robin Hobb. The first series I picked up from her was the Assassin's Apprentice, which I loved, and then I went on to Ship of Magic, which I adored. I mean, the open sea. Come on son. I saw that series recommended on Goodreads. I just put the first book in my Amazon cart. Megazver posted:Read Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. He's an excellent storyteller. Sounds right up my alley. I went ahead and pre-ordered the paperback version.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:21
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nate fisher posted:I saw that series recommended on Goodreads. I just put the first book in my Amazon cart. Let me be the wanker that self-quotes: Megazver posted:Robin Hobb's books are basically for people who get off on the self-pity and sense of superiority they receive when they identify with the protagonist's incessant victimization. That's my take.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:26
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ZerodotJander posted:I thought someone in this thread recommended The Hammer and the Blade by Paul Kemp but I'm not seeing it in the past few pages. In any case, avoid. Mediocre sword and sorcery, very tropey, with a heavy splash of rape. Yea the first one was quite a bit rapey. The second one is much better. I kinda like the idea of fantasy world treasure hunters out breaking into tombs and wrecking poo poo. It's an interesting premise.
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Feb 7, 2014 00:24
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Neurosis posted:The Crysis 2 novelisation by Peter Watts is not bad at all. I cant believe this sentence was written unironically  E: not that its good, but that he wrote a novelization of loving Crysis.
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Feb 7, 2014 00:36
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Anyone read Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer? It came out a few days ago and I snapped it up though I'm currently working through Americanah, a book in an entirely different genre. Apropos to the current discussion, I've posted before how I love that Jeff Vandemeer, back before he became New Weird darling, wrote an apparently very well reviewed Predator book
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Feb 7, 2014 00:48
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Yea the first one was quite a bit rapey. I might give the second one a try but even the better parts of the first book were basically like the more readable D&D novels. Which makes sense because Kemp's best sellers are some of those. The whole thing is constructed in a very D&D quest type storyline, and the dungeon exploration and combat feels like it's lifted straight out of a tabletop game.
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Feb 7, 2014 00:49
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RoboCicero posted:Anyone read Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer? It came out a few days ago and I snapped it up though I'm currently working through Americanah, a book in an entirely different genre. I finished reading it last night. It's pretty short and enjoyable. If I had to think of one phrase to describe the book it would be oppressive and paranoid, in a way which the Ambergris books never quite are. The expedition in the novel breaks down pretty quickly and the members do not trust each other. There are basically no positive human interactions shown in the book. Part of that is due to the narrator, who is herself a reticent type who is quite poor at human contact. It's pretty light on explanations and the thing I will most remember about it is this general malaise. The explanations will presumably come in the sequels - there's one due out in May and another out in... August, I think.
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Feb 7, 2014 02:41
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Mr.48 posted:I cant believe this sentence was written unironically A man's gotta eat.
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Feb 7, 2014 02:53
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I'm a little over two thirds through Dream London, and I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned here before. It starts a year after London began changing into a fantasy author's version of early 1900s London, bit by bit, and no one knows exactly why. Technology slowly stops working, streets change locations, buildings and houses grow taller and migrate, people are changing a little bit every day, and according to aerial photographs taken by American spy satellites, all the parks are migrating towards a central location, but no one's been able to actually find a way into any of them. In this environment, Captain James Wedderburn is an ex-soldier who's now a small-time pimp, and suddenly a person of interest to an organization that calls itself the Cartel as well as another criminal known only as The Daddio, who's been rapidly expanding his empire. The Cartel wants Wedderburn to find out who's behind all the changes in London, while The Daddio wants Wedderburn to work for him and stop all interactions with The Cartel. While trying to find the root of all the changes in London for The Cartel while simultaneously trying to convince The Daddio that he's a loyal employee, he comes into contact with an American spy whose interests are aligned with that of The Cartel and who wants to find out what's going on so that she can stop it before the Pentagon decides to nuke London, an Indian spy holding an accountant prisoner who's convinced that in order to understand the changes people need to stop thinking of it as fantasy and start thinking of it as science fiction, and an amphibious man who came to London to become human. It's an incredibly original and engaging take on urban fantasy and the new weird, and I love how self-aware it is and how aware the characters are that the changes conform to fantasy tropes; for instance, the Cartel tells Wedderburn that he's chosen because he's a handsome rogue, and in the new London good looks and charm are more important than competence. I also came from reading New Amsterdam, but had to stop a third of the way through because the main character has too much graphically described sex with a vampire, along with two or three other key male characters, whereas in Dream London everything is sexualized but it's never described and it's building up to be an important part of the story.
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Feb 7, 2014 04:26
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Megazver posted:Robin Hobb's books are basically for people who get off on the self-pity and sense of superiority they receive when they identify with the protagonist's incessant victimization. That's my take. I'd disagree. Not saying there's some truth in what you say; but basically her books start with flawed people in really bad situations. They go through a lot of poo poo, but at the end of the day they're better people and get stuff done. Yeah there's a lot of 'woe is me my poo poo is hosed', but that makes it all the better when they finally turn things around. It's a nice change from 'hero troubled by a dark past, but he makes some quips and kills a shitload of people with amazing skill and has sex with the beautiful ladies'. At least in my opinion, YMMV. I do feel that her Liveship Trilogy is a fair deal better than her other series, the Assassin books do get a bit victim-heavy.
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Feb 7, 2014 06:08
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So I read Justin Cronin's The Passage and thought it was pretty good and well written in parts. Goons don't seem to care for it, but I continued on and picked up the second book in the series, The Twelve. If you got through The Passage but didn't like it, I suggest giving Cronin another chance reading The Twelve. It is quite a bit better. The first book really suffered from a few things. 1) A gripping narrative that is suddenly shifted forward with new characters and 2) a really weak middle third (the colony is boring as gently caress and most of the characters don't matter). The second book fixes that because 1) he adapts the time shifts a lot better and you move much more easily forward and backward through time (plus you are used to it) and 2) both narratives, past and future (present) are very good.
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Feb 7, 2014 06:27
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Anyone actually finished the Prince of Thorns trilogy? Curious whether there's any kind of payoff for the violence/unlikable protagonist in the first book.
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Feb 7, 2014 06:35
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Blog Free or Die posted:I'd disagree. Not saying there's some truth in what you say; but basically her books start with flawed people in really bad situations. They go through a lot of poo poo, but at the end of the day they're better people and get stuff done. The Tawny Man followup to the Assassin books, and partially to the Liveship ones does eventually fix them up a bit. It helps drag the main characters out of the absolute gently caress-up low he gets to and has him reclaiming the life he should have lived. And he gets the fact that he's being a dumb idiot fuckup by running away and living in the woods for a decade drilled into his head. Though it does have something that really skeeved me out His surrogate father hooked up with his girlfriend and raised his son as well as having a bunch of other kids. And it has to deal with the creepy results of 'I let my king take over my body so he could bang his wife before he totally turned into stone. And now I have two children who don't know that I'm really their biological father. Zore fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 06:37
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I've been trying to read the first book of Kate Elliott's Crown of the Stars series. The very first chapter luridly describes a slave girl being beaten so hard by the priest who owns her that she loses his rape baby. I'm not sure I want to continue.
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Feb 7, 2014 11:49
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Cardiovorax posted:I've been trying to read the first book of Kate Elliott's Crown of the Stars series. The very first chapter luridly describes a slave girl being beaten so hard by the priest who owns her that she loses his rape baby. Mediocre books. You won't be losing much by giving up now.
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Feb 7, 2014 11:53
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What's the best of her stuff? I really appreciate her on twitter, but I never felt inclined to pick up Crown of Stars for some reason. I'd like to buy something though.
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Feb 7, 2014 12:08
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I think I'll take the advice and just return it. If they all continue being as lovely as they started, I really don't want to be stuck with the thing.
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Feb 7, 2014 12:16
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Neurosis posted:Mediocre books. You won't be losing much by giving up now. I read them but can only remember one plot point from the entire series. Entirely forgettable and boring "dark" fantasy.
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Feb 7, 2014 12:21
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TOOT BOOT posted:Anyone actually finished the Prince of Thorns trilogy? Curious whether there's any kind of payoff for the violence/unlikable protagonist in the first book. Yeah, I've read the entire trilogy. Second book was the best, and the third was just weird. Although I don't know if the payoff in the second book was that great. I read the entire trilogy picturing the characters being in an anime movie/TV series. The whole "Look at me, I'm so bad" kinda wore me down after a while. Writing a character explicitly bad is really not that interesting after a while. In comparison, Geder in The Dragon's Path is someone who think he is good, but end up doing horrible things out off spite and ends up a much more evil character. Geder's development is however the only interesting part about that series. cheese posted:So I read Justin Cronin's The Passage and thought it was pretty good and well written in parts. Goons don't seem to care for it, but I continued on and picked up the second book in the series, The Twelve. If you got through The Passage but didn't like it, I suggest giving Cronin another chance reading The Twelve. It is quite a bit better. The first book really suffered from a few things. 1) A gripping narrative that is suddenly shifted forward with new characters and 2) a really weak middle third (the colony is boring as gently caress and most of the characters don't matter). The second book fixes that because 1) he adapts the time shifts a lot better and you move much more easily forward and backward through time (plus you are used to it) and 2) both narratives, past and future (present) are very good. I don't know, I felt the second book was worse than The Passage, mostly due to having a thinner plot and being more mysterious. Making the vampires less horrible was not really the way to go and overall the characters were less interesting. The rebellion was pretty badly done as well. The series is good however, and I liked it more than the Strain series(first book was enough). Zore posted:The Tawny Man followup to the Assassin books, and partially to the Liveship ones does eventually fix them up a bit. It helps drag the main characters out of the absolute gently caress-up low he gets to and has him reclaiming the life he should have lived. Fitz is such an emokid. The ending of The Tawny Man was kinda bad even though he got the girl in the end.. Hobb is really not that good at writing endings, sadly. Her characters are great however, and I felt sad when Nighteyes died. I think the Assassin's Apprentice series ended in a good way, since it is good not to have a generic ending ie get the girl and the kingdom and live happily ever after. I'm a little afraid of how the next series is gonna be since Fitz is apparently involved. I actually don't know how Hobb should advance her world however. In the current state, the Elderlings and dragons have returned, and some organic progress from there would be interesting to follow. The Rainwild Chronicles was good, and I liked it more than the Tawny Man series, albeit weaker than Liveships and Assasin's Apprentice.
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Feb 7, 2014 13:13
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A friend gave me books 1-6 of Dresden Files about 2-3 days ago and I'm now up to book 9 with books 10-14 sitting on my kindle. Send help  I'd just finished off reading all of the Iron Druid series and a friend told me Dresden had basically inspired the genre of urban fantasy. Having read Atticus first and Dresden second, I can see how much inspiration it took from the latter. I like a fair bit of Iron Druid but some of it is so cringeworthy I wanted to stop reading.
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Feb 7, 2014 13:20
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Do The Evolution posted:Dresden had basically inspired the genre of urban fantasy. He really, really didn't.
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Feb 7, 2014 13:29
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The Martian by Andy Weir comes out on Tuesday. It's a near future hard sci-fi that's basically Hatchet (Gary Paulsen's book Hatchet, not the horror movie) set on Mars with an astronaut MacGyver as the main character. It was very fun to read and I blew through it way more quickly than I usually read books. The setup is, on one of the first manned Mars missions, something goes wrong and one of the astronauts gets stranded. The setup sounds kinda ridiculous but it gets going strong right away and sounds a lot more plausible as it's explained in the book. The majority of the book is him trying to survive alone on Mars as things go wrong and he has to MacGyver his way out of them, which as a botanist and engineer he often comes up with some pretty cool solutions that seem well grounded scientifically. The main character is a cheerfully pragmatic smartass that is also really fun to read, as the majority of the book is told in first person by him.
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Feb 7, 2014 14:25
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RightClickSaveAs posted:The Martian by Andy Weir comes out on Tuesday. It's a near future hard sci-fi that's basically Hatchet (Gary Paulsen's book Hatchet, not the horror movie) set on Mars with an astronaut MacGyver as the main character. It was very fun to read and I blew through it way more quickly than I usually read books. That sounds really really familiar, was it a self-published ebook at some point?
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Feb 7, 2014 14:32
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Antti posted:That sounds really really familiar, was it a self-published ebook at some point?
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Feb 7, 2014 14:36
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TOOT BOOT posted:Anyone actually finished the Prince of Thorns trilogy? Curious whether there's any kind of payoff for the violence/unlikable protagonist in the first book. yes. yes. I'd argue that the payoff is at the end of the first book, and it improves rapidly from there. But if you finished the first and still don't like it, might be a sign. BrosephofArimathea fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 14:38
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cheese posted:So I read Justin Cronin's The Passage and thought it was pretty good and well written in parts. Goons don't seem to care for it, but I continued on and picked up the second book in the series, The Twelve. If you got through The Passage but didn't like it, I suggest giving Cronin another chance reading The Twelve. It is quite a bit better. The first book really suffered from a few things. 1) A gripping narrative that is suddenly shifted forward with new characters and 2) a really weak middle third (the colony is boring as gently caress and most of the characters don't matter). The second book fixes that because 1) he adapts the time shifts a lot better and you move much more easily forward and backward through time (plus you are used to it) and 2) both narratives, past and future (present) are very good. I would disagree strongly with this. The Passage while not a great book is competently written and actually contains an interesting underlying idea about the treatment of race and class in the United States. The Twelve by contrast throws the ideas in The Passage out the window for a bunch of vampire mysticism garbage and a weak sauce critique of Bush-era politics.
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Feb 7, 2014 15:15
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Do The Evolution posted:...a friend told me Dresden had basically inspired the genre of urban fantasy. Oh, hell no. People like Charles de Lint were writing urban fantasy in the 1980s.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:50
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