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General Battuta posted:It's not exactly funny but I would really recommend The Orphan's Tales. Dizzyingly baroque and intricate and then at the end it all comes together with unbelievable grace. I felt warm for a week after finishing. Seconded. The Orphan's Tales is phenomenal although it takes some getting used to the nested storytelling technique.
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Mar 16, 2014 10:34
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I'm making my way through Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, which people kept recommending because I like Mieville. I don't really get it. The world is fascinating, but written with all the verve and colour of an accountant on prozac. I don't know how something that should be so interesting is such a total slog. I'm about 15% of the way in. Does it get better? Is there something else of his I should try reading first to get more used to the prose style?
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Mar 16, 2014 11:16
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I cannot believe I just spent money on the Belgariad and Malloreon.  I read both as a teenager and somehow since then I've managed to forget how remarkably lazy David Eddings' writing/world-building is. The racial stereotypes are just so goddamned awful, I had to put the Belgariad down this morning and just shake my head. I deleted the whole collection off my ipad. Can anyone recommend me some fantasy/scifi that's not stymied by its terrible racism/sexism? I'm a huge huge huge fan of Le Guin and Octavia Butler (and to a lesser extent, Cherryh—imo she's one of the best character writers out there, but she can have her dumbass moments too) for setting out to make books that will appeal to more than terrible white nerds. I mean, I can stomach a lot of awful viewpoints—it's how I manage to be a Conan fan—but this poo poo gets tiresome and when it's blatant "THULLS ARE ALL DUMB; TOLNEDRANS ARE ALL GREEDY" I'm just gonna throw in the towel cause clearly the writer's not even trying. MLKQUOTEMACHINE fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Mar 16, 2014 |
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Mar 16, 2014 16:45
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nutranurse posted:I cannot believe I just spent money on the Belgariad and Malloreon. Try The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's set in a fantasy version of reconquista-era Spain, and has multiple characters of varying ethnicities.
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Mar 16, 2014 16:48
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I don't really get it. The world is fascinating, but written with all the verve and colour of an accountant on prozac. I don't know how something that should be so interesting is such a total slog. I'm about 15% of the way in. Does it get better? Is there something else of his I should try reading first to get more used to the prose style? That about sums him up for me. Don't bother with anything else.
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Mar 16, 2014 16:50
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nutranurse posted:I cannot believe I just spent money on the Belgariad and Malloreon. Catherynne Valente, NK Jemisin, Ellen Kushner, Tobias Buckell. Probably some really obvious ones I'm missing too.
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Mar 16, 2014 16:58
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nutranurse posted:I mean, I can stomach a lot of awful viewpoints—it's how I manage to be a Conan fan—but this poo poo gets tiresome and when it's blatant "THULLS ARE ALL DUMB; TOLNEDRANS ARE ALL GREEDY" I'm just gonna throw in the towel cause clearly the writer's not even trying. That's a little unfair, because it's explained more than adequately. Tolnedrans tend to be acquisitive and fond of money because that's the way their god encourages them to be. The Thulls are similar, except in their case it's because they've literally been bred to be stupid. In fact, they're not even a race at all; Torak divided the Angaraks in the West by social class and his priests have been keeping the labourer class - the Thulls - suppressed by killing off anyone who showed signs of intelligence or independent thought.
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Mar 16, 2014 19:06
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I enjoyed the DOOM series, but it stopped after 2 books I'd recommend Grunts! by Mary Gentle It's the eve of the final battle between good and evil and our protagonists are a vicious band of orcs sent to knock over a dragon and steal his magic weapons. Unfortunately for the forces of good these weapons are different from your usual +3 sword of paladin slaying but are instead stamped with M-16 property of the United States Marine Corps. Now the final battle between good and evil is about to get more interesting. It's a fantastic and wickedly funny send up of both the vietnam era US Marines and standard high fantasy and well worth a read in my opinion. Edit although lots of people do die in it. But most of them are nameless cannon fodder. Ferrosol fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Mar 16, 2014 |
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Mar 16, 2014 19:23
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Jedit posted:That's a little unfair, because it's explained more than adequately. Tolnedrans tend to be acquisitive and fond of money because that's the way their god encourages them to be. The Thulls are similar, except in their case it's because they've literally been bred to be stupid. In fact, they're not even a race at all; Torak divided the Angaraks in the West by social class and his priests have been keeping the labourer class - the Thulls - suppressed by killing off anyone who showed signs of intelligence or independent thought. I was oversimplifying it because Eddings chose to oversimplify his entire world via sweeping stereotypes. Even if ~the gods willed it~ it's kind of just lazy writing. Clearly he didn't put much thought into it, so I'll do the same.  e:I mean, I might argue that since it's young adult it's ok to write so poorly, but I dunno if I'd want a young adult to read Eddings' stuff (he has a lot of problems with sweeping stereotypes in his other novels too) because they normalize the terrible thought process that leads to racism. MLKQUOTEMACHINE fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Mar 16, 2014 |
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Mar 16, 2014 19:42
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Jedit posted:That's a little unfair, because it's explained more than adequately. Tolnedrans tend to be acquisitive and fond of money because that's the way their god encourages them to be. The Thulls are similar, except in their case it's because they've literally been bred to be stupid. In fact, they're not even a race at all; Torak divided the Angaraks in the West by social class and his priests have been keeping the labourer class - the Thulls - suppressed by killing off anyone who showed signs of intelligence or independent thought. I'm not sure 'the world is written to explain vast sweeping stereotyping' is all that much better. Substitute the real-world stereotype of your choice into the all-x-are-y-but-it's-okay-because-their-god-encourages-y to show off just how ridiculous it is. Like there's work done in the Malloreon to sort of backpedal on this some but it's really too-little too-late.
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Mar 16, 2014 21:16
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I'm making my way through Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, which people kept recommending because I like Mieville. I was really let down by it for similar reasons, and the rest of the plot only serves to tell you again and again just how mysterious that mysterious place is. Mysteriously. His earlier stuff was more postmodern and metafictional, which I thought he did well, but lately it seems like those qualities served to obscure the fact that his regular prose isn't that interesting. He's actually quite competent as an editor along with his wife, and their anthology The New Weird has some pretty good alternatives since most folks use New Weird to mean "kind of like Perdido Street Station if you squint a bit" anyways. Steph Swainston or Felix Gilman are probably the closest things if earlier Vandermeer doesn't grab you either.
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Mar 16, 2014 23:39
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Are there any sci-fi novels that are about or predict surveillance technology similar to surveillance drones?
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Mar 17, 2014 00:32
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gatz posted:Are there any sci-fi novels that are about or predict surveillance technology similar to surveillance drones? I seem to remember that there was a fair bit of evading a satellite and drone-based panopticon in "The Man Who Never Missed" by Steve Perry. It is action-adventurey, rather than a deep musing on the subject, but worth reading if you like superpowered rebel assassins against corrupt bureaucracy. 80's vintage.
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Mar 17, 2014 00:38
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gatz posted:Are there any sci-fi novels that are about or predict surveillance technology similar to surveillance drones? A deepness in the sky deals with this (arguably)
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Mar 17, 2014 01:26
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gatz posted:Are there any sci-fi novels that are about or predict surveillance technology similar to surveillance drones? As usual, Roger Zelazny and Philip K. Dick got there. http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science_List_Detail.asp?BT=Surveillance
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Mar 17, 2014 01:38
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The Light of Other Days, by Stephen Baxter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days quote:The wormhole technology is first used to send digital information via gamma rays, then developed further to transmit light waves. The media corporation that develops this advance can spy on anyone anywhere it chooses. A logical development from the laws of space-time allows light waves to be detected from the past. This enhances the wormhole technology into a "time viewer" where anyone opening a wormhole can view people and events from any point throughout time and space. Less about government use and more about all of society having the capability, though.
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Mar 17, 2014 01:41
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David Brin's Existence also deals with a near-future hyper-connected panopticon, but it isn't a very good book.
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Mar 17, 2014 01:51
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Slo-Tek posted:David Brin's Existence also deals with a near-future hyper-connected panopticon, but it isn't a very good book. It's true. There's an awful lot of interesting ideas in the book, but the narrative and characterizations are thin at best. I still say it bears attention for anyone looking for an interesting take on the near future.
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Mar 17, 2014 01:55
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Try The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's set in a fantasy version of reconquista-era Spain, and has multiple characters of varying ethnicities. Thanks for this recommendation. I just finished the book and it was really good historical fantasy! It's cool to see genre fic dealing with bigotry and cross-cultural interaction in a not-stupid way. I recommended it to my one friend who got turned off from genre fic because it's populated by so many shitlords. Are his other books any good? Looking at wikipedia they seem to also be historical fantasy fiction as well.
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Mar 17, 2014 02:10
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nutranurse posted:Thanks for this recommendation. I just finished the book and it was really good historical fantasy! It's cool to see genre fic dealing with bigotry and cross-cultural interaction in a not-stupid way. I recommended it to my one friend who got turned off from genre fic because it's populated by so many shitlords. Most of them are fairly good or at least ok but that's my favorite. The only ones I'd avoid are his Fionavar Tapestry trilogy -- they were his first books and they're just awkward. Interestingly Kay was also the author Christopher Tolkien picked to help write the published version of the Silmarillion.
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Mar 17, 2014 02:23
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gatz posted:Are there any sci-fi novels that are about or predict surveillance technology similar to surveillance drones? Not entirely sure it's what you are looking for, but Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez is about drones that kill people without any human involvement and a soldier or the government trying to track em down and find out how/why. It's on my read list, but I haven't gotten near it, so I dunno if it sucks or not.
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Mar 17, 2014 03:22
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Most of them are fairly good or at least ok but that's my favorite. The only ones I'd avoid are his Fionavar Tapestry trilogy -- they were his first books and they're just awkward. They're definitely less polished than his later stuff but I wouldn't say avoid them. Pretty enjoyable read having just dusted them off after a discussion earlier in the thread. They're also the ~purest~ fantasy that he wrote; much of his later writing is historical fiction and some of it loses the fantasy elements entirely afaik.
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Mar 17, 2014 04:13
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Kalenn Istarion posted:They're definitely less polished than his later stuff but I wouldn't say avoid them. Pretty enjoyable read having just dusted them off after a discussion earlier in the thread. It's been many years since I read them but I recall them as being pretty drat good. Remarkable for managing to stuff in just about every fantasy cliche you can think of, without quite bursting at the seams.
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Mar 17, 2014 13:31
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Groke posted:It's been many years since I read them but I recall them as being pretty drat good. Remarkable for managing to stuff in just about every fantasy cliche you can think of, without quite bursting at the seams. Yeah, that's what I really didn't like about them. They're just college kids! In a fantasy world! Oh, look, for some reason it's Lancelot? And not like a Lancelot analogue but the dude himself, just like wandering into the story? GROAAAAN. It might've been ok if I hadn't read his later works first, but since I had, I came in expecting a lot more; I was used to Kay as a gourmet chef and got a dish of discount Easter candy instead.
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Mar 17, 2014 13:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, that's what I really didn't like about them. They're just college kids! In a fantasy world! Oh, look, for some reason it's Lancelot? And not like a Lancelot analogue but the dude himself, just like wandering into the story? GROAAAAN. But that's the point of the story? The land is where stories originate, so it's supposed to be the origin point for cliches and legends. Taking that as the theme, I thought it was good as well.
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Mar 17, 2014 13:42
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Seldom Posts posted:But that's the point of the story? The land is where stories originate, so it's supposed to be the origin point for cliches and legends. Taking that as the theme, I thought it was good as well. Yeah, the thing is even that concept has been heavily done by prior authors -- Zelazny, Moorcock, etc. The whole thing just seemed really derivative in a way that none of his other stuff has been. It probably didn't help that I've read a lot of King Arthur inspired stuff so I'm pretty picky when it comes to Arthurian treatments. I mean, I guess it's enjoyable fluff if that kind of thing is what you're looking for. But his later work is so much better there's no comparison. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Mar 17, 2014 |
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Mar 17, 2014 13:43
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There's so much of good Kay to read (Lions of Al-Rassan, Tigana, A Song for Arbonne, Under Heaven, the Viking one whose name eludes me) that I don't think there's a point to reading the Fionavar books unless you're a Kay enthusiast or a completionist.
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Mar 17, 2014 13:55
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Worth noting that River of Stars is a bit of a step down from Under Heaven, particularly in its treatment of female characters (rather than a diverse and sympathetic cast offering a variety of interesting perspectives, we get a single fantasy-standard Exceptional Woman and that's it), even if I did appreciate the Water Margin lift.
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Mar 17, 2014 13:58
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Yeah, while I haven't read River of Stars, I consciously left it out based on what I'd heard. Under Heaven was good but it wasn't Al-Rassan good, either. I think Tigana and Al-Rassan are necessities as far as his oeuvre goes.
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Mar 17, 2014 14:03
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Antti posted:Yeah, while I haven't read River of Stars, I consciously left it out based on what I'd heard. Oh yeah, Tigana's my favourite. It just feels like a more complete and satisfying story than Al-Rassan - don't get me wrong, that's a good book, but it just doesn't feel quite as beautifully structured.
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Mar 17, 2014 14:09
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, the thing is even that concept has been heavily done by prior authors -- Zelazny, Moorcock, etc. The whole thing just seemed really derivative in a way that none of his other stuff has been. It probably didn't help that I've read a lot of King Arthur inspired stuff so I'm pretty picky when it comes to Arthurian treatments. I can appreciate it if people don't like it, but calling it "meaningless fluff" sounds more like you missed a lot. The scene with the Dwarves and the carvings alone is like 30 years of aesthetic philosophy nicely encapsulated into a couple of vignettes, with a great thematic payoff for one of the main characters.
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Mar 17, 2014 19:37
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It's nice to hear in not the only one who liked a lot about the series. On my re-read I could definitely see a few spots where the prose got a little bit over-wrought but overall still a really good story. I think Paul's story is still probably my favourite part of the whole thing, although the stuff with the dwarves is good as well and I like where it ends up with the secret of the lake. Part of my enjoyment of this is that it was probably the first thing I read that contained much Arthurian legend. I didn't pick it up for that but it was neat when it was introduced. Having read some since then, I feel like the angle Kay took on it is still pretty unique, although I'm far from widely versed.
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Mar 17, 2014 20:12
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Seldom Posts posted:I can appreciate it if people don't like it, but calling it "meaningless fluff" sounds more like you missed a lot. The scene with the Dwarves and the carvings alone is like 30 years of aesthetic philosophy nicely encapsulated into a couple of vignettes, with a great thematic payoff for one of the main characters. It's certainly possible there was stuff in there I missed, I read it almost 20 years ago now. The main thing that irrated me was the relentless wave upon wave of Fantasy Archetypes wandering into the story. So many authors have tried to redeem bad novels by jamming King Arthur into the mix that it's a pet-peeve issue of mine. Kalenn Istarion posted:
I really need to do a King Arthur megapost at some point, covering the historical Arthur theories, Monmouth, Mallory, the victorians like Tennyson, and modern treatments like T.H. White and Marion Zimmer Bradley. The problem is I've read so much Arthurian stuff I'm more than a little burned out on the story itself, but I still find the story of the story immensely interesting, if that makes sense. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Mar 17, 2014 |
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Mar 17, 2014 20:12
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I've only read a tiny sampling of Arthurian stuff and I'm right there with you; the core story isn't nearly as interesting as how many people the story has snared. I would really enjoy seeing that megapost.
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Mar 17, 2014 20:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:
I would really like to read this.
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Mar 17, 2014 20:38
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Seldom Posts posted:I would really like to read this. I even have a draft of it in my head, just a matter of laying it all out. Because I'm a giant Wheel of Time dork I have it separated into sections for "historical" (like three scraps of roughly contemporary text and host of modern academics of varying quality), "legendary" (monmouth, mallory, some Celtic treatments, some Saint's lives)), "mythical" (Tennyson, other Celtic treatments), "fictional" (modern authors like Zimmer Bradley, Mary Stewart). That's probably too artificial a division and some authors will be hard to place, of course, especially ones like C.S. Lewis or, well, Kay, who just sorta insert Arthur into their own existing story like he's a particularly ornate lego brick or salad dressing >_< Like I said, pet peeve! I'll try to get it put together this week and throw it up for debate and discussion etc.
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Mar 17, 2014 20:51
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I even have a draft of it in my head, just a matter of laying it all out. I did a big paper on the Holy Grail aspect of it, I will have to see if I can find it.
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Mar 17, 2014 21:27
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I think Gemmell's Ghost King is my favorite Arthurian rewrite.
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Mar 17, 2014 22:25
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I liked Under Heaven and River of Stars better than Al Rassan because they had less of Kay's tendency of withholding someone's identity, or some other detail, during pivotal scenes so that it can be revealed later as a twist or surprise.
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Mar 17, 2014 22:33
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I've been reading this series: http://www.goodreads.com/series/53675-under-jurisdiction An Exchange of Hostages (1997), ISBN 0-380-78913-2 (number 1 in series chronology) Prisoner of Conscience (1998), ISBN 0-380-78914-0 (number 2 in series chronology) Hour of Judgment (1999), ISBN 0-380-80314-3 (number 4 in series chronology) Angel of Destruction (2001), ISBN 0-451-45849-4 (number 3 in series chronology) The Devil and Deep Space (2002), ISBN 0-451-45901-6 (number 5 in series chronology) Warring States (2006), ISBN 1-59222-094-0 (number 6 in series chronology) I don't know if I can "recommend" it. I like it, but I don't know why I like it. I can only suggest you take a look at it. I also just finished http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Silver...+of+the+silvers which has some time travel and some parallel worlds aspects. I think I found this book on SA but I don't remember where. I suggest again that it's worth a look.
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