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InFlames235 posted:Hey everyone. I had read when I was younger but stopped for a time until Game of Thrones on HBO made me read the books. It really brought back my love of reading and after I finished Dance I picked up World War Z yesterday and have started reading that. Going to give you the standard recommendation of the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie, darker fantasy, grounded in reality (although magic is maybe slightly more prevalent than in ASOIAF), well written, enjoyable characters.
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May 28, 2014 07:28
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Antti posted:Going to give you the standard recommendation of the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie, darker fantasy, grounded in reality (although magic is maybe slightly more prevalent than in ASOIAF), well written, enjoyable characters. And don't forget thread favorite Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, which is best described as Ocean's 11 in a fantasy Venice-like city and is fantastic. It's the start of what will one day be a 7 novel series (as of right now anyway), but is stand-alone enough for you to enjoy it and not feel pressured to continue, since it doesn't leave a lot of its plot points unresolved. The sequels get mixed review around here. I enjoyed the second book Red Seas Under Red Skies but haven't gotten around to the third book yet.
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May 28, 2014 14:58
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InFlames235 posted:Hey everyone. I had read when I was younger but stopped for a time until Game of Thrones on HBO made me read the books. It really brought back my love of reading and after I finished Dance I picked up World War Z yesterday and have started reading that. Pretty much every book that has it's own thread would be right up your alley.
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May 28, 2014 15:16
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Antti posted:Oh crap, I need to get my hands on that, I loved London Falling (though I like to point out it was very English what with football fanaticism being a key plot device). Heh, just wait until you see what the plot entails in this one. The book opens with a supernatural assassin shaped like Jack the Ripper using anti-austerity protesters as cover to get close to a Lib Dem minister and murder him. Things escalate from there.
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May 28, 2014 15:39
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Finished up Leviathan Wakes. It's alright. The plot gets heavily nonsensical right as "vomit zombies" become a thing. I really didn't care for any of the characters. I started American Gods immediately after. We'll see how that goes.
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May 28, 2014 15:43
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Are any of the books in the Humble Book Bundle current any good? Mostly wondering about Lovecraft's Monsters and maybe The Sword and Sorcery Anthology.
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May 28, 2014 19:27
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Bolverkur posted:Are any of the books in the Humble Book Bundle current any good? Mostly wondering about Lovecraft's Monsters and maybe The Sword and Sorcery Anthology. Was just about to post about this. The Terry Goodkind is awful bit the rest I don't really know about. Probably worth a punt and it can all be for a good cause of you want to split the money that way.
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May 28, 2014 20:50
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I just read one of my favourite Alastair Reynolds short stories again and I thought I'd share it: "Feeling Rejected" It's very short. Basically it's reviewer's notes on a journal article about the discovery of a new alien civilisation, in a future when science has become rather blasé about such discoveries. It's hilarious. And really sad. An excerpt: ...the authors dwell on the construction methods used in the Dyson sphere that the aliens have erected around their star, despite the fact that broadly similar planet-dismantling, reforging and gravity-control methods have been used by at least 138 other Kardashev II cultures (see, for instance, Takahe and Smew, 2045). In the very first sentence of subsection 3.2, the authors state that there is "nothing particularly novel about the construction methods", before nevertheless embarking on a blow-by-blow account of those selfsame methods. I agree with the first sentence. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 05:11 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 05:09
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Hedrigall posted:I just read one of my favourite Alastair Reynolds short stories again and I thought I'd share it: "Feeling Rejected" The Takahe? I didn't know that small flightless birds from New Zealand built a dyson sphere. I guess you learn something new every day!
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May 29, 2014 06:56
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Lobsterpillar posted:The Takahe? I didn't know that small flightless birds from New Zealand built a dyson sphere. I guess you learn something new every day! Takahe and Smew are fictional authors that this fictional report is referencing. Author names and year is an inline referencing style.
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May 29, 2014 08:25
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It's really hilarious if you're familiar with the peer reviewing process at all, because goddamn that's right on the nose.
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May 29, 2014 09:21
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Stuporstar posted:It was badly edited though, full of the kind of tiny continuity errors I don't blame an author for missing, but I do blame a professional editor for not catching. I know people always want to explain away every possible mistake as a joke or some clever piece of literary trickery, but I think this is genuinely a sly joke about superheroes' endlessly retconned backstories. I really liked SIWBI, for the record. Not revolutionary, but novel enough, definitely (superheroes not being a genre that turns up in prose very often), and it managed to really humanise the mad scientist in a way you don't see very often, even as he was working his way through the most cliche super villain tropes. EDIT: oh wait, I think this conversation is two days old. Never mind! 
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May 29, 2014 11:22
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Cardiovorax posted:It's really hilarious if you're familiar with the peer reviewing process at all, because goddamn that's right on the nose. I see that in 2050 astronomers still name their things in just the same way - Obscenely Large Gravity Array (OLGA) Lobsterpillar fucked around with this message at 12:29 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 11:54
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Bolverkur posted:Are any of the books in the Humble Book Bundle current any good? Mostly wondering about Lovecraft's Monsters and maybe The Sword and Sorcery Anthology.
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May 29, 2014 14:17
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Hedrigall posted:Takahe and Smew are fictional authors that this fictional report is referencing. Author names and year is an inline referencing style. I'm not sure about this but maybe he was making a joke. Let's keep an open mind here. Bolverkur posted:Are any of the books in the Humble Book Bundle current any good? Mostly wondering about Lovecraft's Monsters and maybe The Sword and Sorcery Anthology. The anthologies are from big names (Dozios and Kushner) so there should be some good stuff there. I'm not sure about the rest (Paolo Bacigalupi got loads of attention a few years back, but I don't think is such a big name now) except that the Goodkind is the first of a legendarily bad series, but FROM HELL is probably Moore's magnum opus, a brilliant comic that's worth beating the average for alone.
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May 29, 2014 15:42
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Autonomous Monster posted:I know people always want to explain away every possible mistake as a joke or some clever piece of literary trickery, but I think this is genuinely a sly joke about superheroes' endlessly retconned backstories. Eh, the thread has slowed down a bit, so why not. You could argue continuity errors are meant as a joke when they're major details, but when it only happens to poo poo so minor that it doesn't actually matter, like a character eating popcorn and having it be chips a page later--and for the rest of the scene--or the sentences in the "don the cape" scene being ordered in a clumsy way, it doesn't add to the humor. It just looks like it wasn't edited properly. If the writer had made more continuity errors, major ones, kept having the error flip from one thing to another (like the coffee/shovel/coffee/shovel scene in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace), or done anything whatsoever to call attention to them, it could be a joke, but none of those things happened, and the sloppy bits were so tiny that only someone who's edited fiction might pick them out at all. Truth is, they don't matter much, even as a complaint, but since you brought up the idea of it being a joke, it might have been better if the errors did matter--that has potential to be pretty damned funny. It's too bad he didn't do that. Also, if you want to see the unreliable narrator done to the extreme in a superhero novel, Minister Faust's From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain does it well. His narrator (and other characters) are so utterly unlikable it can be pretty hard to take though. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 20:16 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 20:02
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Autonomous Monster posted:I know people always want to explain away every possible mistake as a joke or some clever piece of literary trickery, but I think this is genuinely a sly joke about superheroes' endlessly retconned backstories. I think you're giving the author too much credit. It started out pretty interesting and it had some original ideas, but the execution was terrible in every respect. I ended up skimming the last third just because I didn't want to have made it that far in and then not finish. It was probably one of the worst books I've ever read. Darth Walrus posted:Heh, just wait until you see what the plot entails in this one. The book opens with a supernatural assassin shaped like Jack the Ripper using anti-austerity protesters as cover to get close to a Lib Dem minister and murder him. Things escalate from there. I'm about halfway through The Severed Streets and I think it's far better than the first novel. Its tone is a lot lighter too, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've laughed a few times so far, particularly when Quill meets Neil Gaiman at a Sighted bar and has an awkward conversation. His later appearance makes me think Paul Cornell is a lot more open about his major influences than most other authors.
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May 30, 2014 01:58
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From literally two weeks ago, but...Megazver posted:Roadside Picnic? A lot of Strugatsky books are probably something you'd enjoy, but I'm not sure if you can find them. fritz posted:you have to be careful with Chalker because of the whole transformation / mind control fetish thing.
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May 31, 2014 19:22
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A couple new ones in the quiver.. To begin, A Thirst for Vengeance (The Ashes Saga Book 1) . Wow, this one was worse than I've sat through in a while. I guess it was so short and ended where I would usually assume act 1 was picking up or moving into act 2,so.. Bonus points for one of the worst author bios I've seen on amazon. Most of the reviews compared this one to Rothfuss from what I could see. Primarily because its got an insufferably smug protagonist who begins by forcing someone to listen to their monologue in an inn. Everything else falls short of Rothfuss.. Like subtlety. Or one-sentence paragraphs in first person for pages at a time. This one was so full of its own poo poo that I was kind of amazed, its the kind of thing I'd expect someone to read in high school creative writing. It cost 99 cents so I would feel bad taking my money back after reading it and being so remarkably unimpressed. Maybe the kid will learn to write when he gets over selfies in black t shirts and his own gorgeous hair. Second, Seven Forges by James Moore. I guess Moore has been fairly prolific and the polish shows in this. It has a pretty original world and the political twist a bit in was satisfying. The sorcerer Dash reminds me a bit of Abercrombie's Bayaz, with a retinue of Fates to do his legwork. This one was full of strong world building, fairly subtle foreshadowing, interesting fight scenes, and goddamn it the sequel won't come out for a month! 
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Jun 1, 2014 06:41
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Is there any relatively new good tolkienish fantasy with elves, dwarves, orcs etc? I've read a lot of the popular fantasy Abercrombie, Martin, hobb, Sanderson, which I like. I'm just kind of in the mood for some elves, dragons, magic, and atuff.
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Jun 1, 2014 07:53
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I'd look at Elizabeth Moon's stuff, her current series has pretty much all of that. The only caveat I ever usually give to her stuff is that it's conventional in that way, and, welp, there you go.
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Jun 1, 2014 08:20
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The first series is better than the second. Starts with Sheepfarmer's Daughter, I believe. It's basically an AD&D paladin's quest.
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Jun 1, 2014 08:54
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Yeah, but the second is actually recent, so...
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Jun 1, 2014 09:23
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Can someone here please compile a list of non problematic fantasy/scifi authors that I can read with a magic system makes sense to someone with aspergers? I need some fantasy/scifi to read but I do not want to worry if some one wrote some sexist or problematic things and I also need a deep and intricate magic system like it was some sort of 3rd edition D&D manual.
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Jun 1, 2014 09:35
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Stravinsky posted:Can someone here please compile a list of non problematic fantasy/scifi authors that I can read with a magic system makes sense to someone with aspergers? I need some fantasy/scifi to read but I do not want to worry if some one wrote some sexist or problematic things and I also need a deep and intricate magic system like it was some sort of 3rd edition D&D manual. Sanderson?
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Jun 1, 2014 10:09
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Read all the Terry Pratchett.
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Jun 1, 2014 10:31
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Stravinsky posted:Can someone here please compile a list of non problematic fantasy/scifi authors that I can read with a magic system makes sense to someone with aspergers? I need some fantasy/scifi to read but I do not want to worry if some one wrote some sexist or problematic things and I also need a deep and intricate magic system like it was some sort of 3rd edition D&D manual. Huh? We haven't had a derail about this for at least three days, dude. Stop taking the piss. Also if you want a good D&D magic system you need 4th edition.
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Jun 1, 2014 10:43
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Stravinsky posted:Can someone here please compile a list of non problematic fantasy/scifi authors that I can read with a magic system makes sense to someone with aspergers? I need some fantasy/scifi to read but I do not want to worry if some one wrote some sexist or problematic things and I also need a deep and intricate magic system like it was some sort of 3rd edition D&D manual. R. Scott Bakker 
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Jun 1, 2014 14:48
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He's trolling. Good lord.
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Jun 1, 2014 17:47
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Y'all might be sick of Larry Correia talk but apparently he wrote this in what I have been led to believe was all seriousness: quote:“One of the reasons the whole drat hydrogen-filled ship wasn’t a complete death trap walked past him carrying a tray of food. He could tell that the diminutive Japanese girl had to resist the urge to bow when she saw him. Old habits die hard, but Pirate Bob’s Marauders weren’t big on any habits born in the Imperium. “Hello, Mr. Sullivan.” http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/A9781451639087/A9781451639087___5.htm
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Jun 1, 2014 18:10
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fritz posted:Y'all might be sick of Larry Correia talk but apparently he wrote this in what I have been led to believe was all seriousness: square-jawed American heroes and mysterious tricksy foreigners or is the author just really confused and dumb?
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Jun 1, 2014 18:43
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fritz posted:Y'all might be sick of Larry Correia talk but apparently he wrote this in what I have been led to believe was all seriousness: Seriously, what is the offensive part about this? It is hardly as bad as Brent Weeks in The Blinding Knife where the main protagonist throws a young woman out of the window since he mistakes her for another woman and have sex with her when the love of his life walks in. Then his guards lie to cover up for him and he marries the love of his life after explaining the situation for her and she forgives him. Also between that and the marriage he has sex with his slave mistress who is in love with him. Oh, and during this he also kills his brother whose identity he has stolen and who he has kept alive and hidden for 15 years. You can't make this poo poo up.
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Jun 1, 2014 21:06
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Cardiac posted:Seriously, what is the offensive part about this? It's about a diminutive Japanese girl (check) who is so subservient she must resist the urge to bow (check) and looks like a porcelain doll (check) and speaks broken English (check) and our fedora-wearing protagonist calls her Mrs. Origami because he doesn't know her real name and that is a Japanese word (I have like four bingos) (the game is creepy racism bingo) Maybe it's some kind of joke?
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Jun 1, 2014 21:25
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General Battuta posted:It's about a diminutive Japanese girl (check) who is so subservient she must resist the urge to bow (check) and looks like a porcelain doll (check) and speaks broken English (check) and our fedora-wearing protagonist calls her Mrs. Origami because he doesn't know her real name and that is a Japanese word (I have like four bingos) (the game is creepy racism bingo) The joke is that anyone would read any part of that and think, yeah this is some great writing and worth my time.
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Jun 1, 2014 21:29
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Stravinsky posted:The joke is that anyone would read any part of that and think, yeah this is some great writing and worth my time. I tip my fedora to you, good sir.
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Jun 1, 2014 22:21
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General Battuta posted:It's about a diminutive Japanese girl (check) who is so subservient she must resist the urge to bow (check) and looks like a porcelain doll (check) and speaks broken English (check) and our fedora-wearing protagonist calls her Mrs. Origami because he doesn't know her real name and that is a Japanese word (I have like four bingos) (the game is creepy racism bingo) Not going to try to defend the guy here, but you are missing some of the bits of the story. It's set in the 20s-30s as a noir steampunk xmen series. It's written, you know, like a noir book would be written. She's a porcelain doll cause, well, have you ever read a noir style novel? Any small asian woman is going to be called that. It's like saying "she had legs that wouldn't quit" or "a smile that lit up a room". She's called Mrs. Origami because that's how she is introduced to him. The guy didn't walk up and go "OH gently caress, IT'S A WEE NIP LADY, I DUB THEE LADY ORIGAMI BECAUSE LADY ANIME HASN'T BEEN INVENTED YET". If it helps, he learns her name later in the book. Lastly, he wears a fedora because he's a guy in the 20s-30s. He's sort of a private eye, and that's what the gents wore at the time. I'm all for bashing bad writing, but getting your hackles up and getting irritated because a BAEN novel written like a noir detective novel wasn't written as a progressive tumblr blog is kinda dumb.
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Jun 1, 2014 22:28
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Jay Lake died today. gently caress cancer.
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Jun 1, 2014 23:11
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Otto Von Jizzmark posted:Is there any relatively new good tolkienish fantasy with elves, dwarves, orcs etc? I always see copies of this book, Orcs, in every Barns & Nobles I walk into, and wonder who the hell has actually bought it. http://www.amazon.com/Orcs-Stan-Nicholls/dp/B008VJIYK0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401664631&sr=1-1&keywords=orcs
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Jun 2, 2014 00:18
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:She's called Mrs. Origami because that's how she is introduced to him. The guy didn't walk up and go "OH gently caress, IT'S A WEE NIP LADY, I DUB THEE LADY ORIGAMI BECAUSE LADY ANIME HASN'T BEEN INVENTED YET". If it helps, he learns her name later in the book. "OH gently caress, IT'S A WEE NIP LADY, I DUB THEE LADY ORIGAMI BECAUSE LADY ANIME HASN'T BEEN INVENTED YET" is precisely how she got the name, though; it just wasn't that character who came up with the name.
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Jun 2, 2014 00:26
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Argali posted:I always see copies of this book, Orcs, in every Barns & Nobles I walk into, and wonder who the hell has actually bought it. Guiltily raises hand. In my defense, it was cheap and I had a flight to catch. It wasn't bad bad, just a regular sort of time wasting not good.
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