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The first time through just enjoy the wonderful prose and weird imagery. You won't understand large parts of what's going on but some of it will be cool. Wolfe does have more digestible novels which are also good, like Peace and The Fifth Head of Cerberus.
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Jul 7, 2014 10:39
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| # ? May 17, 2024 07:45 |
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I should clarify that I'm really early on. He just got handed his punishment to go be a torturer out in the villages. He keeps saying he has a perfect memory, does that mean he is clearly full of poo poo or is that just to emphasize that there' s a ton of poo poo happening that he just doesn't know about and we'll never know for sure because this is very very strictly his POV?
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Jul 7, 2014 12:34
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That moment when you realise you bought a book you have already read/purchased  Can I get a refund you think?
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Jul 7, 2014 13:48
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WastedJoker posted:That moment when you realise you bought a book you have already read/purchased Yeah I've had no problem returning things Actually though amazon usually doesn't let that happen so pointing it out should be easier
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Jul 7, 2014 13:57
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Yeah, looks like they sorted it out for me!
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Jul 7, 2014 14:24
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I had a similar problem with the Book of the New Sun trilogy, but the imagery and prose was enough to keep me in even though I wasn't enjoying the plot. Somewhere in the last half of the second book it clicked for me a bit and I was much more into it. I'd really like to reread all three soon to see if all the 'so much better on a second reading' hype holds up. Since I'm reading Sanderson right now, I would say that Wolfe is completely opposite a writer like Sanderson. Sanderson's plots hook you in, but he has the absolute blandest prose and a total lack of imagery or details that make you feel you are in a real place. For all the credit he gets at world building, it's more just magic building, because his worlds feel flat and lifeless. Sanderson's engaging 'try/fail cycles' he puts his characters through, strong pacing/plotting, and spergy RPG-like magic leveling up keep many people reading despite the faults. For me the try/fail cycle and pacing he does is engaging enough that I can stomach the cardboard prose; it feels mostly like watching a solid action movie that isn't trying to be anything more than just an entertaining movie. Wolfe's worlds feel completely alive, and the prose reinforces that. There is no try/fail cycle or standard plotting going on in Wolfe's books, and this is what makes people unable to get into them or sometimes unable to even follow what is going on. You are expecting a specific convention, but it never happens. When Severian finds the Claw of the Conciliator he just stumbles around with it and never quite knows how it works. In a Sanderson book there would be some scientist character who explained exactly how it worked, and Severian would slowly uncover new abilities with it. Reading the book and seeing him find the Claw, you expect this kind of thing to happen to at least some extent, and when it doesn't you ask questions like, "Didn't he find the Claw like 200 pages ago, what is going on with that?" Even after he starts healing people with it, it only works sometimes, and the best clarification you get is Severian explaining that he's confused, then seeing him try it here and there with mixed results. Somewhere in the third book some alien ship shows up, and when it leaves Severian describes that it moves in an impossible direction. This type of small detail is what makes the world feel so alive. Wolfe doesn't throw out giant paragraphs explaining "cool poo poo he thought of" and breaking down every little detail of how it works. He instead shows you how this idea he thought of looks through a character's eyes and perception, and that gives you just enough detail that--if you want--you could think more about it and realize what kind of technology and propulsion the ship is using. Severian gives a very cold and clinical account of most of the story, but it makes sense given that what you are reading is written down by him for historical purposes rather than to entertain. Severian also mentions specifically that he rushed and wrote the whole account down in one or two nights, so it explains a lot of glossing over he does. Severian is not writing the story to put you into his immediate frame of mind during high stakes situations or conflicts, and you could potentially fault Wolfe for choosing this framing device in the first place. I do think I'd have to read all three books again to really understand why he did it this way. My gut reaction is that having a framed first-person POV like this (which he also does in The Knight) helps the world to feel much more realistic since you have a reason to not explain everything to the reader as you would have to in a more standard POV.
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Jul 7, 2014 16:00
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PupsOfWar posted:Conrad Stargard No thank you.
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Jul 7, 2014 16:54
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It's been a long time since I read a book in one go, but I ripped through Defenders by Will McIntosh yesterday. It's an alien invasion story where humanity is getting destroyed by giant mind reading starfish so we invent something to fight back and well you know what happened to the old lady who swallowed the spider to catch the fly. Any recommendations for other good invasion stories? I prefer stuff written in the last ten years and yes I've read Footfall.
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Jul 7, 2014 18:13
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Quite a few of the alien invasion stories that get published unfortunately fall under the frequently-lovely purview of MilSF, so it's easy to go wrong there. Maybe try the Chtorr series, if you'd like an interesting sort of invader and don't mind skimming through long, wild-eyed libertarian screeds periodically. Better than Ringo, at least. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 18:34
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PupsOfWar posted:Quite a lot of the alien invasion stories that get published unfortunately fall under the frequently-lovely purview of MilSF, so it's easy to go wrong there. Yeah I'm more interested in stories of small groups or whatever dealing with the situation as opposed to the hard rear end earthling Marines who kick the invaders back into space.
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Jul 7, 2014 18:35
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The Breakers series of books by Edward Robertson is pretty good alien invasion stuff. Each book (7 so far?) are interwoven standalone. A small alien invasion fleet launches a tailor-made virus that wipes out most of humanity before 'landing'. They, in turn, lose their mother ship, which leads to a huge power vacuum full of both alien and human factions. The books jump around, with familiar faces popping up.
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Jul 7, 2014 20:02
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I just finished City Beyond Time by everyone's favourite mentally addled born again Christian John C Wright. It's pretty good. It is an anthology with stories relating to a city which exists at the end of time and which is controlled by a faction who can move through time at their whim. Paradoxes are rife. As paradoxes mount, they increase the unlikelihood of certain futures occurring, and if abused time travel really fucks up the timeline. If a future becomes too unlikely a person or area affected by it can simply vanish (notably, the city itself is founded on these mists). The Time Wardens who control this are, unsurprisingly, not depicted sympathetically. Some of the logic involved was a little confusing, hardly surprising in stories premised on time travel, but overall the stories were interesting and I'd be keen to read more in the setting. The John C Wright moralising was to a minimum, and characters overall didn't seem to assume the antiquated morality that some of his protagonists do. His only real comment was that having a large degree of control over time and being able to repeat events results in morality becoming meaningless - because any consequence can be obviated. I don't have any issues with this assertion. The prose was a surprise. Wright is prone to very florid and anachronistic language. Sometimes it works, as with the far future of The Golden Age and to an extent Count to a Trillion. Sometimes you get poo poo like the Orphans of Chaos books, which read horribly. That kind of language is muted in these stories. A couple of them have it, but the protagonists rooted in contemporary or near-contemporary settings speak in the style you'd expect. Slayer of Souls was particularly noteworthy in this respect, since it seemed to involve a protagonist from the modern day, or close enough to, who spoke quite naturally. This was a welcome improvement, and shows he's diversifying his skills as a writer. The last two books of his I've read, this and Awake in the Night Land, have been anthologies, and have been really outstanding.
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Jul 8, 2014 09:02
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zoux posted:Yeah I'm more interested in stories of small groups or whatever dealing with the situation as opposed to the hard rear end earthling Marines who kick the invaders back into space. It looks like "The Killing Star", by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski could fit there. It is not exactly an "invasion" story (the actual intention of the aliens is not to invade earth, but to completely wipe humanity from existence) but the small pockets of survivors is all there. By the way, Pellegrino is if I'm not mistaken the designer of the interstellar ship featured in the "Avatar" movie, which is based in his Valkyrie starship design proposal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Valkyrie). Disclaimer: I have not read that book, so I'm pointing at it just basing on reviews.
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Jul 8, 2014 11:00
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Harry Connolly released a short story collection, including a new Twenty Palaces novelette. There's some really good poo poo in there you guys: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LHDTSHK/
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Jul 8, 2014 11:10
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The 20p novella is pretty awesome. Haven't read the other stuff yet, had to get my 20p fix first.
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Jul 8, 2014 12:49
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So I'm reading Bloodsong by Anthony Ryan, which is good but pretty predictable sofar. I have started to get tired of the current vogue of grim-dark fantasy with not much magic in the vein of GRRM and Abercrombie. So I'm looking for some high fantasy with a lot of magic and no story about a young kid growing up to become powerful warrior/wizard/whatever. I am thinking about something in the same vein and scope as Malazan, WoT, Bakker, Leiber and Elric. I get bored by Sanderson, so he is out. Anyone got any suggestions? The Hawkmoon series by Moorcock seems interesting, and I have always had a soft spot for Elric. Or maybe I should just get down to reading Conan.
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Jul 8, 2014 20:57
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WastedJoker posted:That moment when you realise you bought a book you have already read/purchased I've done this too many times with comic book TPB's but never kindle books but like others said, Amazon shouldn't let you but Blood Song is a special reason. Quick question though, how are you getting those different covers than what's on Amazon?
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Jul 8, 2014 22:36
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thecallahan posted:Quick question though, how are you getting those different covers than what's on Amazon? They're from Amazon UK
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Jul 8, 2014 23:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0FLB6ovfVE Is it August 28th yet?
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Jul 9, 2014 00:12
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Cardiac posted:So I'm reading Bloodsong by Anthony Ryan, which is good but pretty predictable sofar. Check out the Sunsword series by Michelle West. It's huge in scope like Malazan as well as sharing some other similarities with it.
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Jul 9, 2014 00:46
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savinhill posted:Check out the Sunsword series by Michelle West. It's huge in scope like Malazan as well as sharing some other similarities with it. Looks kinda interesting. How good are the characters done ie how stereotypic? How much magic is present in the series, and to be specific I am talking about fireballs and other forms of highly visible magic? I'm not necessarily looking for a series that is huge in scope like Malazan or WoT, but something with a good story, magic, fantastical creatures, good battle scenes and good characters. Not knowing how it is all going to end after the first half of the book would also be a bonus.
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Jul 9, 2014 08:05
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Cardiac posted:Looks kinda interesting. If this is what you want then I cannot give enough love to The Broken Sword. It has all of that in a single, self-contained a book.
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Jul 9, 2014 15:18
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There is a new bundle of sci-fi books. Are any of these actually good?
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Jul 9, 2014 19:53
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Cardiac posted:So I'm reading Bloodsong by Anthony Ryan, which is good but pretty predictable sofar. Legend is more of a stand-alone however, half of the other books in the Drenai series are a bunch of badass dudes taking on all comers in a world full of magic and telepathic powers and multiple parallel universes (I think it eventually nearly reaches World as Myth levels), the magic system is pretty unique, and there're dozens of Gemmell's books to choose from. The Drenai are his fantasy highlanders and they're all pretty fun, and they have the added bonus of all being set in drastically different periods of time in the same culture's history, so sometimes the Drenai are the scrappy underdogs and sometimes they're a crumblind, decadent empire. If you want to really  the poo poo out of things, you could instead go with Gemmell's 'Jon Shannow' (Jerusalem Man) stuff, which is kind of a western fantasy novel in the vein of Mad Max or The Dark Tower. There are no young boys growing up in these, because the loving world ended and sacrificing said kids to the blood god is way more  but Jon Shannow  is a bible-quoting  with a crazy streak a mile wide.Just don't start with the Waylander stuff. They're good but pretty far out there in the kooky department imho, and if you begin with them it's going to be about a hundred times more crazy and grimdark than you might want, as it starts off by throwing gigantic werewolf mutants around left and right, whereas starting in most of the other novels which might have the same/similar creatures, would give you a way to ease into the waters before people are shooting out monster eyes with one-handed mini crossbows. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 20:02
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quote:Blood will curdle in Calcutta! In the most crime-ridden city, nightmares become real and evil is defined by frightening occurrences. When an American family finds themselves encircled by the terrors of this land, lurid events befall them and life takes on a new meaning—death. lol Dan Simmons
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Jul 9, 2014 20:03
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Rusty Kettle posted:There is a new bundle of sci-fi books. Are any of these actually good?
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Jul 9, 2014 20:09
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Rusty Kettle posted:There is a new bundle of sci-fi books. Are any of these actually good? The Reluctant Swordsman is a super-cheesy guilty pleasure portal + power fantasy about a terminally ill guy who ends up in a buff, young body of an elite swordsman with all of his skills intact, is told by Gods who summoned him into this world to own poo poo and totally does by effortlessly loving up who he wants to gently caress up with his leet sword skills and masterminding the hostile locals until he's in command. Oh and there's a hot slave chick that he totally wins over through not being an rear end in a top hat and they fall in love and have hot sex. It's not exactly a literary masterpiece but I found myself enjoying it. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is a really good short story. You can read it in the third link Google gives you when searching for its name. Song of Kali won the World Fantasy Award, but I haven't read it.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:26
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Been a while since I read it, but as the synopsis lets on Spellsinger is about a college student who gets teleported to another reality full of anthro animals and the occasional human where he gets to go on a hero's journey to save the world through the power of 60's and 70's rock bardic magic. The story arc of the first book carries on to the second so expect to pick that one up you want the full experience. Kind of like a comedic, much bawdier Redwall with magic 'n rock'n'roll (and no two page long feast descriptions). A few plot inconsistencies come up in the later novels, but this is the sort where you need to remind yourself it's just a story and you should probably just relax.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:35
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Spellsinger is silly fun. Maybe the best thing Alan Dean Foster has written, which is very, very faint praise, but it's solid fluff. There's a whole series of sequels.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:38
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Rusty Kettle posted:There is a new bundle of sci-fi books. Are any of these actually good? To add to what's already been said, The Time of the Dark is a pretty good story about two normal humans switching places with a wizard from a fantasy world; the normals fight evil invading monsters and the wizard discovers six-packs of bud. Bear's The Forge of God is a good end of the world story, though pretty bleak.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:42
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Hobnob posted:Bear's The Forge of God is a good end of the world story, though pretty bleak. I had never heard of Ralph Nader until I read this book. So, there's that.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:18
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Fried Chicken posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0FLB6ovfVE  Guess I'm re-reading Blindsight this summer.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:55
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Cardiac posted:Looks kinda interesting. I'd say characterization is one of the stronger points of West's writing. There's some archetypes(it is fantasy), but she does put a strong effort into giving lots of character development beyond whatever role a character fills in the plot. There's a lot of magic but iirc, it isn't overexplained and systematized like Sanderson's stuff, it's explained enough that you understand what's going on during a battle, or if its important to the ploy or whatever, but lots of it's left mysterious. While this series is huge in scope, it had some great battles, especially some told from a small military squad's POV like Malazan. I remember there being good, complex political intrigue and it had a cool race of some demon creatures. It was like ten years ago that i read it, so maybe some of the story beats, etc. have been done a lot since then, but I remember it being very good and unpredictable.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:16
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The Dave Duncan is the first in a trilogy that I remember as being reasonably popular back in the 80s, I didn't really care for it but 'our-world protagonist transported to secondary-world, is powerful and important' isn't really my favorite subgenre, especially when there's engineering. fookolt posted:lol Dan Simmons Don't read Dan Simmons except maybe Hyperion.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:34
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bonds0097 posted:I had never heard of Ralph Nader until I read this book. So, there's that. Wait, was Nader mentioned in Forge of God or are you mixing it up with the Naderites from Eon? (And/or Eternity, I forget which one they're in.)
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Jul 9, 2014 22:47
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Spellsinger is silly fun. Maybe the best thing Alan Dean Foster has written, which is very, very faint praise, but it's solid fluff. There's a whole series of sequels.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:51
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fritz posted:Don't read Dan Simmons except maybe Hyperion. I'm well aware. That book summary just restates your point.
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Jul 9, 2014 23:12
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savinhill posted:I'd say characterization is one of the stronger points of West's writing. There's some archetypes(it is fantasy), but she does put a strong effort into giving lots of character development beyond whatever role a character fills in the plot. I'll second the West recommendation, she has three series in that universe and is currently my favorite series/author. If you are hesitant to jump into the 7 book Sunsword series there is the Sacred Hunt duology (starting with Hunter's Oath) that contains some of the characters and takes place before the Sunsword series begins. I feel characterization is one of her strong suits and while it is high fantasy with a lot of magic its not super generic and she has an interesting writing style where she kind of writes around the action sometimes rather than explaining each little detail. For me at least it leaves more to the imagination and helps me visualize the scene more.
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Jul 10, 2014 00:13
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fritz posted:The Dave Duncan is the first in a trilogy that I remember as being reasonably popular back in the 80s, I didn't really care for it but 'our-world protagonist His historical novels aren't bad, depending on your tolerance for Stephen King endings and your interest in the setting and people being written about (Simmons did research for those novels and by gum does he want you to know it and by gum you will read every tiniest factiod that he found out about Hemmingway/ Dickens/ Artic Exploration/ Dying of scurvy/ 1930's climbing equipment/ And more!). Carrion Comfort is one of the best Epic Horror and Balls to the Wall action/adventure novels ever written. The 100ish page Most Dangerous Game inspired climax is really something. Summer of Night is an It knock off but it's pacey and has lots of cool monster bits.
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Jul 10, 2014 00:26
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I think it's more like "Don't read any statement Simmons has made since 2001, and also don't read Illium/Olympos"
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Jul 10, 2014 00:28
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