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field balm posted:Hi thread, thank you for all the responses! Polish I think actually? Yeah, you're reading his stuff in translation so that's a factor. quote:I have read and enjoyed Perdido Street Station (and promptly forgot about the author somehow) and the Dune series but not any of the others, thanks a lot! I will check out The Wasp Factory and Zelazny. Zelazny is far and away my favorite SF author. The thing with Zelazny is that he wrote everything from deeply complex and allusive metafiction to straight up dime novel pulp, and so almost every book is different. He's playful and experimental and takes gambles with his fiction that sometimes work and sometimes really don't. My personal favorite of his is Isle of the Dead. Mieville can be really brilliant but sometimes he doesn't know when to put down his thesaurus or his lit crit textbook. Some of his stuff gets really, really heavily Marxist preachy, like an inverse fantasy Heinlein, but most of the time it works well with the story he's telling since steampunk-victorian settings work well with Marxist themes. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Feb 16, 2014 |
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Feb 16, 2014 02:12
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Grimwall posted:Which books that you read while a teen hold up well after 15 years? Legend by David Gemmell. It needed a bit of a tighter review in the editing process (a few errors made it to print), but it was a fantastic debut. Gemmell was and is the greatest writer of the muscular fantasy since Robert E Howard.
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Feb 16, 2014 02:18
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Lem wrote in Polish and I understand the translations are considered quite choppy. I still got a lot out of him though.
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Feb 16, 2014 03:15
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Peel posted:Lem wrote in Polish and I understand the translations are considered quite choppy. I still got a lot out of him though. Whatever translation of Solaris I got through Kindle was great. If you want contemplative or literary or whatever the right term is, I'd definitely recommend it. I didn't notice any poor or stilted writing. I also recently read Gateway by Pohl and it was quite good too. Interesting ideas, funny at times, and well written. I'm working through some classic scifi I never got around to reading and those are two of the best so far (Babel-17 and Last and First Men were both OK and interesting in their own ways, but not nearly as good).
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Feb 16, 2014 03:26
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From what I've been told it's not that the English translations are bad but more that Lem's polish is extremely witty and a lot of that specifically doesn't survive translation.
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Feb 16, 2014 03:39
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RVProfootballer posted:Whatever translation of Solaris I got through Kindle was great. If you want contemplative or literary or whatever the right term is, I'd definitely recommend it. I didn't notice any poor or stilted writing. There's a new 2011 one, apparently, but the only one that was out before that was actually a translation of a French translation. Michael Kandel's translations of Lem are considered to be really good, though.
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Feb 16, 2014 04:06
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I'm about halfway through Ancillary Justice, but still don't understand the significance of what happened on Ime, and whether that was the station Seivarden woke up on. Can someone explain?
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Feb 16, 2014 04:15
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regularizer posted:I'm about halfway through Ancillary Justice, but still don't understand the significance of what happened on Ime, and whether that was the station Seivarden woke up on. Can someone explain? Keep reading a little further and both questions will be answered.
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Feb 16, 2014 04:43
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ravenkult posted:Are the Alex Bledshoe books any good? Yup. Fairly decent, can't really remember a bad thing about em, which means it's probably time for a reread  Jedit posted:Legend by David Gemmell. It needed a bit of a tighter review in the editing process (a few errors made it to print), but it was a fantastic debut. Gemmell was and is the greatest writer of the muscular fantasy since Robert E Howard. EXACTLY. If you want to read a series that involves large men bashing the living gently caress out of other large men with giant axes and sword fights and maybe magic but gently caress it, it could be science who loving knows that guy just cut off half that dudes ribcage with his axe, then by god read this man. The only thing I don't like about his work, and the only thing, is his females all tend to be rape bait trope fantasy females who overcome blah blah and kill everyone. Also, the dude loving loves his irish fantasy folk. Dunno why I consider em irish, but I do. Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Feb 16, 2014 |
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Feb 16, 2014 05:01
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Cardiovorax posted:I've read those and really enjoyed them. A Madness of Angels is fairly weird and at first you'll have trouble understanding what's going on, but that's intentional and meant to set up a revelation later. Everything about the pronoun confusion suddenly makes more sense once you understand that Swift is not, in fact, just one person. The Neon Court is probably the weakest of the three I've read, but it's also the last so you'll have plenty of time to decide whether you enjoy the series. I really like this series and generally agree with you but there's a fourth book, The Minority Council, now. The author seems to be taking a break and it kind of ties up some of the loose ends from the series.
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Feb 16, 2014 06:35
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Megazver posted:Personally, I thought the beginning of the first Matthew Smith book was painfully overwritten so I dropped it. The author described a wardrobe whose only function was to let the hero steal some clothes before escaping for, like, two pages.
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Feb 16, 2014 11:45
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Cardiovorax posted:That sort of stuff is what I meant when I said it's hard to get into. It drops off sharply after the first few chapters, though, so you might want to give it another chance at some other time. That's nice to know, but the thing with "oh it gets good eventually!" books is that I've got, like, a thirty page list of unread books on my Kindle and at least with some of them I won't need to slog through them, teeth gritted, to maybe-probably get to the good bits. Your story's beginning is important, guys. Edit it hard.
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Feb 16, 2014 12:04
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EdBlackadder posted:I really like this series and generally agree with you but there's a fourth book, The Minority Council, now. The author seems to be taking a break and it kind of ties up some of the loose ends from the series. She didn't take a break, she wrote two books with a new protagonist but in the same universe with Swift as a supporting character so if you enjoyed those I'd definitely recommend checking out Stray Souls and The Glass God.
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Feb 16, 2014 15:59
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Ursus Veritas posted:She didn't take a break, she wrote two books with a new protagonist but in the same universe with Swift as a supporting character so if you enjoyed those I'd definitely recommend checking out Stray Souls and The Glass God. Sorry was phone posting on the toilet this morning, I meant a break from the Swift series. I had seen those books but hadn't realised they were within the same setting. I'll definitely put them on the 'to read' list, thanks.
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Feb 16, 2014 20:19
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Is Vinge's Children of the Sky worth reading? The first two books were great but this seems to be disappointment based on reviews.
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Feb 17, 2014 05:42
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It really isn't as good as either of its predecessors. Very little happens, and most of what does is left open, to be resolved in yet more sequels.
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Feb 17, 2014 07:36
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It is worth reading only as a part of the series. There's precious little space opera going on in it and a lot of poo poo to do with the tines. The next one will probably be better.
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Feb 17, 2014 07:47
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Can anyone recommend any good military fantasy? I just read The Red Knight by Miles Cameron and really enjoyed it. I also really liked The Black Company series.
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Feb 17, 2014 23:18
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Linco posted:Can anyone recommend any good military fantasy? I just read The Red Knight by Miles Cameron and really enjoyed it. I also really liked The Black Company series. When you say military fantasy is there a specific sub-genre you're looking for? Otherwise I'd say check out the Malazan books. They're mostly about characters in various militaries although there's other types of prominent characters as well.
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Feb 17, 2014 23:32
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Linco posted:Can anyone recommend any good military fantasy? I just read The Red Knight by Miles Cameron and really enjoyed it. I also really liked The Black Company series. The series goes beyond this and becomes less military-oriented, but Sheepfarmer's Daughter is a favourite of mine. It's pretty 80s, but it's very nicely written all the same, I think.
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Feb 17, 2014 23:38
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neongrey posted:The series goes beyond this and becomes less military-oriented, but Sheepfarmer's Daughter is a favourite of mine. It's pretty 80s, but it's very nicely written all the same, I think. The full "Deed of Paksenarrion" by Elizabeth Moon is very solid. Not as sold on the other books in the series, but the Phelan and Free companies worked in through the Deed trilogy is solid and well done.
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Feb 18, 2014 01:41
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GrannyW posted:The full "Deed of Paksenarrion" by Elizabeth Moon is very solid. Not as sold on the other books in the series, but the Phelan and Free companies worked in through the Deed trilogy is solid and well done. I'd add the caveat that that series is very obviously the story of her 1st edition AD&D paladin's campaign with the numbers filed off. She even gets her warhorse at fourth level and everything. It's still better than most things of that ilk but if that kind of thing bothers you be aware.
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Feb 18, 2014 02:34
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Linco posted:Can anyone recommend any good military fantasy? I just read The Red Knight by Miles Cameron and really enjoyed it. I also really liked The Black Company series. The Red Knight just got a sequel, I believe. I hear it's a bit sloppier, but whatever. You'll definitely get the kick out of The Thousand Names. Paul Kearney's Macht trilogy is a great fit. Finally, Joe Abercrombie recently wrote Heroes which is sorta that.
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Feb 18, 2014 02:38
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GrannyW posted:The full "Deed of Paksenarrion" by Elizabeth Moon is very solid. Not as sold on the other books in the series, but the Phelan and Free companies worked in through the Deed trilogy is solid and well done. I read those books when I was a wee lad and I am convinced that the unbearably long and pointless torture sequence in book 3 is the reason I am so viscerally opposed to most fantasy to this day. It really is a first edition dungeons and dragons game outside of that though - now that you point it out I'm reminded of my longstanding theory that Game of Thrones is another such game in the process of conversion. Since that's literally what he did for Wildcards originally it wouldn't surprise me. As to recommendations, I bought Peshawar Lancers on a recommendation from this thread (I think) recently. It's an interesting postapocalypse - the entire world order is destroyed by a meteor strike in the 1870s I think it is, and all the Atlantic civilizations are destroyed. The British Empire is relocated to India and they manage to survive the ensuing comet-winter, remaining the dominant power, while the Tsarist Russians turn to ritual cannibalism and the worship of the Peacock Angel, an aspect of Tchernobog. It's excellent genre fiction from S. M. Stirling, but hampered by the usual problems (casual racism, a creepy obsession with female virginity and sex) but the book itself actually stunned me when I got (embarassingly late in the book) its central joke which is white european cannibals eating East Indians, an inversion of the classic trope of cannibals and civilized people
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Feb 18, 2014 02:46
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GrannyW posted:The full "Deed of Paksenarrion" by Elizabeth Moon is very solid. Not as sold on the other books in the series, but the Phelan and Free companies worked in through the Deed trilogy is solid and well done. I like the whole set, including her recent stuff-- with the noted caveats about Deed-- but the first one is where the heaviest military emphasis is, which is what he was asking for. It's never absent, but I'd say it does take a back seat. Hieronymous Alloy posted:I'd add the caveat that that series is very obviously the story of her 1st edition AD&D paladin's campaign with the numbers filed off. She even gets her warhorse at fourth level and everything. It's still better than most things of that ilk but if that kind of thing bothers you be aware. I dunno, she swears up and down that it wasn't, but that it was based on other people's anecdotes of play. Like Paks's deffo the 1e Paladin, straight-up, but Moon's forthright enough about the origin of the story I see no reason not to take her at her word.
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Feb 18, 2014 03:35
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neongrey posted:I like the whole set, including her recent stuff-- with the noted caveats about Deed-- but the first one is where the heaviest military emphasis is, which is what he was asking for. It's never absent, but I'd say it does take a back seat. Ok I wasn't aware of her quotes, I could just tell reading it that it was definitely somebody's 1e Paladin.
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Feb 18, 2014 03:40
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If you are, like me, bothered by an author being a massive shitlord don't read SM stirling.
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Feb 18, 2014 03:51
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andrew smash posted:If you are, like me, bothered by an author being a massive shitlord don't read SM stirling. Everybody's* coming up shitlord in the SFWA debacle over this past week  *not literally everybody, but a fair few authors I thought were chill
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Feb 18, 2014 04:18
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General Battuta posted:Everybody's* coming up shitlord in the SFWA debacle over this past week Oh yeah? I don't follow this drama particularly, fill us in.
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Feb 18, 2014 04:32
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andrew smash posted:Oh yeah? I don't follow this drama particularly, fill us in. It's pretty much the same debate that's been going on since the summer (longer?) with maybe some new names involved.
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Feb 18, 2014 04:48
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This is an aftershock of the eruption last year over sexism in the SFWA Bulletin (which is, mind you, the trade publication of a professional organization). The Bulletin was suspended, its editor fired, and a council proposed to keep oversight on the Bulletin to make sure it didn't (for example) ship issues with bikini barbarians on the cover and columns discussing which women in the industry were the hottest. Recently an old white guy launched a petition to prevent 'censorship' of the Bulletin, and this led to a lively debate in which Mary Robinette Kowal, winner of the Campbell award for best new talent and now vice-president of SFWA, was called out by said anti-censorship faction for her obvious incompetence and ANTI-FEMINISM because someone had seen pictures of her in a white dress on a beach. (If you can't follow the logic here, well, good.) When the person who made this particular comparison quote:“It just occurred to me that MRK seems to be deeply involved in this whole anti-sexism matter. I remember seeing her posing with Hines and Scalzi on one of their very scary cover parodies, and I know she chimed in with a snipe at the petition signers on the Radish thread. I find it very funny and ironic that she would jump on this bandwagon. For a long time, her website featured an array of photos of her in a diaphanous white outfit, posing on a beach. No metal bikinis or such, but they were not innocuous writer headshots either. One of them, with her recumbent on the sand with legs exposed, made her somewhat attractive. I also recall she’s fond of wearing tight-fitting gowns and plunging necklines when she attends cons and award ceremonies. I’ll have to add “phony” to “incompetent” and “arrogant” in the mental tags I’ve assigned her.” was called out, he started threatening to sue people for libel, and that's pretty much when I stopped following the whole kerfuffle. More choice quotes from the whole affair. The long and short of it is that a sizable faction of SF/F writers are genuinely terrified that their cozy organization is being taken over by feminists, POC, and other undesirables, and they believe they have to push back against this culture of ~fascist thought control~.
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Feb 18, 2014 04:53
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Ornamented Death posted:It's pretty much the same debate that's been going on since the summer (longer?) with maybe some new names involved. Considering, as I mentioned, I don't really follow it, i appreciated GB's summary. Edit: who was the old white guy? Jerry Pournelle? andrew smash fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Feb 18, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 05:02
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andrew smash posted:If you are, like me, bothered by an author being a massive shitlord don't read SM stirling. Is this the dude that wrote stories where society collapses and all pretty young girls are enslaved and it rings a little like a nerd revenge fantasy or am I thinking of someone else?
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Feb 18, 2014 05:14
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anathenema posted:Is this the dude that wrote stories where society collapses and all pretty young girls are enslaved and it rings a little like a nerd revenge fantasy or am I thinking of someone else? Same guy. Except not a little bit at all, the world is literally taken over by SCA dorks because they know how to swing swords around and poo poo.
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Feb 18, 2014 05:23
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andrew smash posted:Considering, as I mentioned, I don't really follow it, i appreciated GB's summary. Uh someone named Truesdale, I believe.
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Feb 18, 2014 05:24
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Hines' parody petition is funny!
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Feb 18, 2014 06:25
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andrew smash posted:If you are, like me, bothered by an author being a massive shitlord don't read SM stirling. I don't read him, but I always love finding out how people have been shitheads. Please explain, and feel free to link me 
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Feb 18, 2014 06:40
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General Battuta posted:
The Cherryh-stuff is some disappointing poo poo. I thought better of her.
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Feb 18, 2014 07:07
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andrew smash posted:Same guy. Except not a little bit at all, the world is literally taken over by SCA dorks because they know how to swing swords around and poo poo. That seems like a benign nerd thing. Did the sex slave thing happen in his books or am I thinking of another creepy dude? And I echo the demands to know why he's a shitlord.
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Feb 18, 2014 10:55
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andrew smash posted:If you are, like me, bothered by an author being a massive shitlord don't read SM stirling. I'm not bothered by it, "death of the author" and all that. In the case of SM Stirling, though, I wish death of the author applied literally so he wouldn't write any more lovely books. "Excellent genre fiction" is not a sin of which he can be accused.
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Feb 18, 2014 11:28
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