|
Can someone just post that wheeloftime.gif and we can forget about it for another few weeks?
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2014 21:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 09:11 |
|
|
uberkeyzer posted:
Yeah. I'm a big fan of TWoT for a lot of different reasons but the best thing you can really say about its take on gender is "extremely progressive by the standards of early '90's fantasy," which is both high and faint praise depending on how you look at it. Anyway, yeah, as requested, 
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2014 22:18
|
|
|
syphon posted:Just finished Blood Song. Thought it was really good. Anyone else enjoy it? I don't see a thread for it so I'm not sure where the best place to discuss it is. Blood Song was really good. I also finished it a couple of days back. Luckily, the sequel is releasing in a couple of months. For a first novel, I was surprised at how fluid it was. There were just no chapters where the plot seemed to drag or get unnecessarily convoluted. Good prose, good plot, self-contained enough to make you happy with this book, has enough mysteries to make you wait for the next.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 01:04
|
|
|
thecallahan posted:And you won't have to wait too long to read the sequel to Blood Song if you like it as it comes out in July! I'm really hoping the quality at least stays the same. I've been burned plenty of times by a first time authors follow up book. The last year or two has had some good first time fantasy authors. Just off the top of my head I can think of Ryan's Bloodsong, Cameron's the Red Knight, Luke Skull's Grim Company, Peter Higgin's Wolfhound Century and Brian McClellan's Promise of Blood. There's more too that I just can't think of right now.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 01:26
|
|
|
I went to look for some decent longform fantasy debuts by women from 2013 but it is actually surprisingly tough, someone point me at what I'm missing (if there's anything  )It was a great year for women in SF, though.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 02:05
|
|
|
Here's a really cool half-hour interview with Alastair Reynolds on the Sword & Laser video podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsZZu1WYo9k He mentions he's working on a new Revelation Space short story, too 
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 02:35
|
|
|
syphon posted:Just finished Blood Song. Thought it was really good. Anyone else enjoy it? I don't see a thread for it so I'm not sure where the best place to discuss it is. I listened to the audiobook version and loved it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 02:43
|
|
|
I just saw that the release date for Richard K Morgan's The Dark Defiles has been set for October 7. Looking forward to that. I didn't really like his Takeshi Kovacs novels all that much but have enjoyed the fantasy series a lot.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 08:48
|
|
|
syphon posted:Just finished Blood Song. Thought it was really good. Anyone else enjoy it? I don't see a thread for it so I'm not sure where the best place to discuss it is. This is the place, I suppose. Read the book a little while ago mostly because a bunch of goons had been singing its praises, and yeah, it was pretty drat fine. Probably nothing revolutionary in the fantasy genre, it hit a bunch of cliches, but it hit them so very well. Can't remember having seen anything quite like the underlying (non-)theology before, though; I'll be interested to see where the author takes it further.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 10:42
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:I went to look for some decent longform fantasy debuts by women from 2013 but it is actually surprisingly tough, someone point me at what I'm missing (if there's anything The Golem and the Jinni was astounding.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 13:01
|
|
|
Joramun posted:The Golem and the Jinni was astounding. I second that, what a great read.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 13:41
|
|
|
Zola posted:I second that, what a great read. Thirded. I couldn't put it down.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 16:38
|
|
|
Groke posted:This is the place, I suppose. Read the book a little while ago mostly because a bunch of goons had been singing its praises, and yeah, it was pretty drat fine. Probably nothing revolutionary in the fantasy genre, it hit a bunch of cliches, but it hit them so very well. Can't remember having seen anything quite like the underlying (non-)theology before, though; I'll be interested to see where the author takes it further. I picked it up about a year and a half ago since there was a lot of buzz about it and it was super cheap. For a self published book with a good amount of grammar errors and typos I thought it was really good. Probably one of my best purchases, actually.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 16:49
|
|
|
The Humble Ebook Bundle 3 contains much sci-fi and fantasy. Does anyone have opinions on any of them? From the previous bundle, I think Old Man's War was the only one I read completely, but it was worth it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 16:52
|
|
|
Portable Staplefrog posted:The Humble Ebook Bundle 3 contains much sci-fi and fantasy. Does anyone have opinions on any of them? From the previous bundle, I think Old Man's War was the only one I read completely, but it was worth it. Uglies and The God Engines are really good, Mogworld is an occasionally funny satire, Wheaton's book is whimsey enough to be enjoyable but those alone seems not enough for the 12 dollar the average currently is to be honest.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 20:13
|
|
|
Decius posted:Uglies and The God Engines are really good, Mogworld is an occasionally funny satire, Wheaton's book is whimsey enough to be enjoyable but those alone seems not enough for the 12 dollar the average currently is to be honest. Thanks. The one that I've been reading and greatly enjoying so far is To Be or not To Be by Ryan North, which doesn't go in this thread.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 21:17
|
|
|
I finally got around to finishing Michael Sullivan's Riyria Revelations series and rather enjoyed it, despite it being a fairly formulaic "buddy-thieves" fantasy series. The author seems to be fairly aware that he's treading on some well-worn ground and makes a few cute allusions to Lieber and the like (the little thiefy guy's gray horse is named "Mouse" in pretty much very novel, for instance) and it contains a few interesting and strong women characters as well. I can't say that there were many twists which caught me entirely unawares however it was a fun series and I'd recommend it for anybody who wants some fairly good-sized novels with a lot of politickin' and stealin' and assassinatin' going on. I think the series was originally six books however they've been condensed into a trilogy, beginning with "Theft of Swords". I recall reading another series a couple/few months on my kindle which was almost identical to Riyria however, right down to the big guy carrying around a big pile of swords but refusing to use his bigass sword most of the time, and his buddy was a (not much of a spoiler, pretty obvious from the start) half-elf thief. I can't recall that one's title, however, it wasn't nearly as fun as Riyria and I recall that it tied all the loose ends up by turning one of the protagonists into deux ex machina a la Hamilton's "Neutronium Alchemist" closing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 21:31
|
|
|
coyo7e posted:I recall reading another series a couple/few months on my kindle which was almost identical to Riyria however, right down to the big guy carrying around a big pile of swords but refusing to use his bigass sword most of the time, and his buddy was a (not much of a spoiler, pretty obvious from the start) half-elf thief. I can't recall that one's title, however, it wasn't nearly as fun as Riyria and I recall that it tied all the loose ends up by turning one of the protagonists into deux ex machina a la Hamilton's "Neutronium Alchemist" closing. That sounds a lot like the Eli Monpress books.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 21:55
|
|
|
Aha, that was totally it, yeah! I liked Riyria better - the tough dude isn't basically "The Bloody Nine With a Magic Sword," like in the Eli Monpress series (that guy in Eli Monpress got so many sword holes in him and STILL would get up and go all berserk and win every fight "in his pursuit of becoming a better fighter"  ) he was just a badass. I really hated the ending of the Eli Monpress stuff.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 22:50
|
|
|
Decius posted:Uglies and The God Engines are really good, Mogworld is an occasionally funny satire, Wheaton's book is whimsey enough to be enjoyable but those alone seems not enough for the 12 dollar the average currently is to be honest. I would've enjoyed God Engines a lot more if it were either half as long, or twice as long. It really hit this weird place for me where it was too long to be snappy, but too short to build any depth. Mogworld was amusing for the first two-thirds, until it remembered that it had to actually finish it's plot at some point
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 23:12
|
|
|
Neurosis posted:I just saw that the release date for Richard K Morgan's The Dark Defiles has been set for October 7. Looking forward to that. I didn't really like his Takeshi Kovacs novels all that much but have enjoyed the fantasy series a lot. Altered Carbon was/is one of my lifetime favorites but the other 2 were rather weak (IMHO). One of my cats, the lady of the house, is named Bellis (from The Scar) "Fang" (from Mortal Engines) Kovachs. That is how much I liked that book. The Steel Remains and The Cold Commands are great books and maybe in The Dark Defiles we'll finally get going on the journey we've been promised but never quite left on This made my day but October seems so far away.....
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 23:18
|
|
|
coyo7e posted:Aha, that was totally it, yeah! I liked Riyria better - the tough dude isn't basically "The Bloody Nine With a Magic Sword," like in the Eli Monpress series (that guy in Eli Monpress got so many sword holes in him and STILL would get up and go all berserk and win every fight "in his pursuit of becoming a better fighter" Eli Monpress was definitely a series that did a lot better before the scale got all cosmic and metaphysical. I'll have to check out the Riyria stuff, though, that does sound like it'd be up my alley.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 23:43
|
|
|
coyo7e posted:Aha, that was totally it, yeah! I liked Riyria better - the tough dude isn't basically "The Bloody Nine With a Magic Sword," like in the Eli Monpress series (that guy in Eli Monpress got so many sword holes in him and STILL would get up and go all berserk and win every fight "in his pursuit of becoming a better fighter" I dunno man, I haven't read the Riyria stuff but the whole ending to the Monpress books was about as logical as it could be. Remember, they were dealing with a crazy rear end God, who was ready to tear down the whole fabric of what was left of reality. The main characters granting "freedom" to spirits and leaving that one crazy loving thunderspirit guy to fight all the demons made a good kind of sense. Please note, I'm not saying it couldn't have been done differently, or better, but that it was done in a way that made sense. Josef just wanted to be considered the best fighter out there. He thought using the Heart of War was cheating. Kinda stereotypical anime style MUST BE THE GREATEST sort of plot thinking, but hey, it worked and was consistent across 5 books. The only thing I really hated about the series was the cover art for the first few screamed HORRIBLE ROMANCE NOVEL instead of DECENT FANTASY SERIES. Seriously, this was supposed to be the face of a demon possessed malnourished skinny girl? 
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2014 23:44
|
|
|
I read all of the Monpress books up until the last one and I thought they were well written enough, but I'd only recommend them to somebody if they didn't mind the anime levels of goofiness.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2014 00:15
|
|
|
I finally finished the Twenty Palaces books. I guess I understand why it got cancelled, book #2 especially is exactly the same as #1 but also worse. Bummer. What should I read in terms of cyberpunk, that's not William Gibson and Pat Cadigan? Short stories and novels are both okay. For something that the thread might appreciate, I'm currently running a Kickstarter for a magazine with new stories by Jonathan Maberry, Gemma Files, Tim Waggoner, Jeff Strand and Megan Arkenberg. I won't put any images here, but I think the art is pretty cool, so give it a look. http://kck.st/1iFl9IO
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2014 18:13
|
|
|
ravenkult posted:
The best (IMHO) Cyberpunk: The Continuing Time series by Daniel K. Moran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Keys_Moran Other pretty decent (and kind of obscure) Cyberpunk: The Bridge series by Gary Ballard The Street Series by Ryan Span Daemon and Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez Gideon's Fall by Eric Gabrielsen Softeare series by Rudy Rucker Not great but at least readable Cyberpunk Recursion series by Tony Ballantyne Bone Dance by Emma Bull
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2014 19:06
|
|
|
The Budayeen Series by George Alec Effinger in also pretty good, bonus points for middle-east cyberpunk.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2014 22:55
|
|
|
FastestGunAlive posted:Awesome, let us know what you think Finished it up today. Pretty damned good! A little more violent than I was expecting (was thinking Pratchett levels of violence when I first started), but overall it's a good book. I fully admit to busting out laughing at the guy's insult during the climatic endgame battle though. Only real downside is the author threw a LOT of various words around in the book and didn't have any sort of context to them until you had read a lot further. Took me loving chapters to realize what khava was  , although I fully admit that might just be me being slow on the uptake.Other than the lack of an appendix/footnote for the word salad he sometimes lobs into the story, it was fairly decent. Don't regret purchasing it at all 
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2014 23:36
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Finished it up today. Pretty damned good! Making up a new word for coffee is one of my pet peeves with fantasy and sci fi. Just call it coffee! Glad you enjoyed it, I hope he writes a sequel.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2014 15:20
|
|
|
specklebang posted:Altered Carbon was/is one of my lifetime favorites but the other 2 were rather weak (IMHO). One of my cats, the lady of the house, is named Bellis (from The Scar) "Fang" (from Mortal Engines) Kovachs. That is how much I liked that book. I'm most curious how blatant the sci fi elements will become. The Dark Court appear to be uploaded minds, Dakovash being Tak Kovacs, but I'm curious how oblique the science basis of the setting will be.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2014 16:44
|
|
|
FastestGunAlive posted:Making up a new word for coffee is one of my pet peeves with fantasy and sci fi. Just call it coffee! That's not a new word, it's coffee in Arabic.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2014 22:25
|
|
|
I'm currently reading Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor and it's really rather surprisingly good if you don't mind books that are all about politics/court intrigue instead of action. It's about a sixth or seventh son of an emperor, whose mother was one of many wives the emperor discarded, as it was a disastrous political marriage with a loathed foreign nation, and his mother was sent off to live in a manor in the boonies and raise her son in isolation, and then when she became sick and died, he's raised by an abusive cousin that loathes him. Then, the emperor and his whole family die in an airship accident, and this shy, naive, trodden-upon boy who's never even seen a major city, yet alone has any idea to act in a court, is suddenly the supreme grand royal emperor poobah of an empire, with a million different confusing formalities and rituals and duties that he's expected to know, with countless people expecting or wanting something from him and trying to manipulate him while secretly or not so secretly loathing him. It really does a good job at making you feel awful for the main character, hah. The whole 'goblin' emperor bit is because that the empire they're set in is entirely populated by elves, though they don't seem to look like, or act like, the bog standard fantasy elf, and the 'goblins' seem more like a dark-skinned race of elves that the pale white elves of the emperor tend to look on as uncivilized, his mother being one of them, so he's halfblooded. The closest thing that comes to mind is the dark elves from Morrowind, funnily enough.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2014 13:26
|
|
|
ravenkult posted:What should I read in terms of cyberpunk, that's not William Gibson and Pat Cadigan? Short stories and novels are both okay.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2014 17:02
|
|
|
Just finished The Emperor's Blades. Having just read Blood Song before that, this book is kinda underwhelming. Too many pages are filled with needless exposition, and a lot of the non-PoV characters are very one-dimensional. I liked all the 3 central PoV characters well enough to wait for the sequel, but I hope he spends more time on character development there.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2014 10:14
|
|
|
Has anyone started Felix Gilman's The Revolutions yet? Now that it's out I'm halfway tempted to set aside my current book, which I never do.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2014 13:52
|
|
|
Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:Has anyone started Felix Gilman's The Revolutions yet? Now that it's out I'm halfway tempted to set aside my current book, which I never do. There's another Gilman book out already? I had no idea. My other reading will have to be put on hold.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2014 13:58
|
|
|
Neurosis posted:There's another Gilman book out already? I had no idea. My other reading will have to be put on hold. Yeah, I didn't know that either. You've let me down, internet! (Not you, Corin Tucker's Stalker, we're cool)
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2014 14:13
|
|
|
It took about a third of the book but Fire Upon the Deep finally tied together dogs and space computers. I had to reread it a few times but the chapter I just finished was really abrupt and crazy. The man, Pham Nuywen, was speaking with the Voice of God, or a space power from the transcend, and was saying "do you believe in space wars? Nahhhh it'll never happen. That guy is a no-account bum. Never in a million years. Oh wait nevermind he is literally eating me right now. Okay I'm dying. I'm dying now. I'm dead. Avenge me please." Like he went from 100% sure the blight was nothing to worry about to 100% dead in the span of one paragraph of another character's thoughts so I couldn't understand the flow of it. Was the first thing he said from Pham the man and the second thing as the godhead? Did he get taken over by the space power during that paragraph, when the plant on wheels rolled up and asked "hey who's this?" At the time I took it that the good space computer wanted to apologize and sent pham in to do it but now I'm thinking it was that second thing I said. I'm guessing most of the rest of the book is going to be dog wars but I don't know. It was just neat to talk to a god as it died. It reminded me of Eternal Darkness, but death for lovecraftian gods has a different timescale than space computers, I think.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2014 17:12
|
|
|
I'm nearing the end of Arcanum by Simon Morden, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit--it's funny, the 12-year-old prince, Felix, is like the complete opposite of Joffrey Baratheon. Instead of becoming an insufferable douche, he's actually becoming a good leader...
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2014 18:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 09:11 |
|
|
Question about God's War: Does it ever stop using wacky far out sci-fi with cars exhausting bugs and people using bug magic and selling their wombs for bug cash? I won't criticize the series over it, but if there's anything that turns me off of science fiction books it's technology and society that's so completely unrelatable to anything we have that the author might as well be making up magic spells and setting the story in Azeroth.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2014 02:10
|
|
