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Cardiovorax posted:Don't feel bad, a lot of people feel the same way (me in particular.) Wolfe writes some awesome but also loving dense prose and he couldn't plot his way out of a wet paper bag. The order of events doesn't really make sense to most people until you've read the books at least twice or so. It's funny, because after reading his more recent poo poo like Home Fires and The Land Across, I finally understand how the people who make this complaint feel. Those books have some fantastic prose, but just feel like scattershot messes.
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Jul 12, 2014 21:37
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Popular Human posted:It's funny, because after reading his more recent poo poo like Home Fires and The Land Across, I finally understand how the people who make this complaint feel. Those books have some fantastic prose, but just feel like scattershot messes. 
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Jul 12, 2014 22:51
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Wolfe does love his meandering plots. I remember even giving up on a shortstory of his when it took a detour into what felt like just weird, dense nothing happening after he introduced some really cool and interesting stuff at the beginning of the story.
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Jul 13, 2014 01:12
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Popular Human posted:I don't think it's been mentioned in the thread yet, but the World Fantasy Award nominees for 2014 were announced a few days ago. The books up for best novel are: I enjoyed The Golem and the Jinni quite a bit as a low key inversion of the urban fantasy genre (a golem and a jinni find themselves in New York and are forced to adapt). It's lower on action or political thrillmance, but functions as a solid character-driven plot. I'll check out some of these other books too, though everything I've heard about The Ocean at the End of the Lane makes it sound disappointing.
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Jul 13, 2014 01:15
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Anyone got opinions on "A Natural History of Dragons?" It sounds like the kind of silly fake-serious Discworldy kind of fantasy I enjoy, but the title doesn't really say much by itself.
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Jul 13, 2014 01:21
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I just finished all three Ambergris books by Jeff Vandermeer, and I enjoyed them unlike anything I've read in quite some time. In searching for something new to read in the same vein (not quite ready to tackle the Southern Reach books yet), I ran across this bundle: StoryBundle's Weird Fiction Bundle I've heard very good things about Jagannath, but that's about it. Has anyone read any of these? Azathoth fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 02:05
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No, but I'm gonna pay money for it so you don't have to. Just wait a week.
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Jul 13, 2014 02:07
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I remember enjoying a snippet of The Third Bear, but yeah, I just bought the pack too.
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Jul 13, 2014 02:10
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Cardiovorax posted:No, but I'm gonna pay money for it so you don't have to. Just wait a week.
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Jul 13, 2014 02:29
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It's cool, I already have it. I was gonna read it all anyway, so if you can't be arsed just wait a moment.
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Jul 13, 2014 02:36
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Sorry, just to direct briefly back to the Gene Woolfe chat: If I loved "Book of the New Sun" and "Fifth Head of Cerberus", will like enjoy "Lands Across"? The premise sounds like something I'd enjoy... For the record, I also liked Ghormengast, so I don't mind my prose dense.
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Jul 13, 2014 04:03
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The Expanse TV series has its first cast member. Thomas Jane will be playing Detective Miller: Personally I pictured Miller as Stephen Rea: 
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Jul 13, 2014 14:16
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Yeah, in the books he has a "sad basset hound face" so your suggestion fits, but I'm sure Jane will be an awesome Miller
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Jul 13, 2014 14:24
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Just a heads up for fans of urban fantasy. Finished up The Long Way Down by Craig Schaefer and it was surprisingly good. Bad guys are irredeemable assholes, good guys are kinda sorta good guys but not halo wearing jerks, and the flow of the book is surprisingly good. Weirdly enough, when I started the book I was thinking "This... this kinda sucks man." but I kept reading through and once the plot officially kicked in it was a hell of a ride. Just bought the sequel. Worth checking out if you are looking for something more like Stephen Blackmoore than Jim Butcher.
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Jul 13, 2014 14:26
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Hedrigall posted:The Expanse TV series has its first cast member. Thomas Jane will be playing Detective Miller: We don't like TV-watchin' types round these parts, son 
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Jul 13, 2014 14:30
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House Louse posted:We don't like TV-watchin' types round these parts, son And I hear these homos even have 'e-readers' to read their books? I only read the finest vellum and store my 8 000 books in my family library in the west wing of our manor. What Philistines.
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Jul 13, 2014 14:32
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My first reaction was 'He's too good looking to play Miller', although I'm sure he'll do a great job! 
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Jul 13, 2014 14:41
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Azathoth posted:I just finished all three Ambergris books by Jeff Vandermeer, and I enjoyed them unlike anything I've read in quite some time. In searching for something new to read in the same vein (not quite ready to tackle the Southern Reach books yet), I ran across this bundle: I haven't read Tainaron and I've only read Leena Krohn in Finnish but she's a cool author and writes some really great and unsettling weird fiction.
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Jul 13, 2014 14:41
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anathenema posted:There's a couple of links out there, but Chuck Wendig has some good write-ups on the subject. Wendig is a loving idiot and loves talking poo poo about selfpub authors and Howey in particular. gently caress Wendig and his stupid writing advice is basically what I'm saying.
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Jul 13, 2014 17:25
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That petition is pretty stupid, though.Neurosis posted:And I hear these homos even have 'e-readers' to read their books? I only read the finest vellum and store my 8 000 books in my family library in the west wing of our manor. What Philistines. Vellum? Family library? Manor? Watch out when the revolution comes, comrade 
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Jul 13, 2014 17:38
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ravenkult posted:Wendig is a loving idiot and loves talking poo poo about selfpub authors and Howey in particular. I don't know about his stances on other things (and quite frankly I can't really bring myself to care about bad things said about self publishing) but that writeup sounded good to me. I mean, I use Amazon a lot but dang that petition really makes me cringe. It's really embarrassing.
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Jul 13, 2014 17:44
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Srice posted:I don't know about his stances on other things (and quite frankly I can't really bring myself to care about bad things said about self publishing) but that writeup sounded good to me. I mean, I use Amazon a lot but dang that petition really makes me cringe. It's really embarrassing. It's probably not within the scope of the thread, I just find Wendig's multiple posts about it smug and devoid of value. He puts self publishing down, clearly sides with Hatchette and then ends every post with ''Let's just all get along!'' and his readers eat that poo poo up. Anyway, I'm part of a new book bundle type thing, which also includes a box set of the Demon Squad books someone mentioned upthread. http://arcanebundle.com/ e: wrong link ravenkult fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 18:08
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ravenkult posted:Anyway, I'm part of a new book bundle type thing, which also includes a box set of the Demon Squad books someone mentioned upthread. This needs, I dunno, clickable links with descriptions and writing samples? Like that Weird Fic bundle? It's such an obvious omission I am amazed they didn't do it.
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Jul 13, 2014 18:45
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Megazver posted:This needs, I dunno, clickable links with descriptions and writing samples? Like that Weird Fic bundle? It's such an obvious omission I am amazed they didn't do it.
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Jul 13, 2014 21:09
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Hedrigall posted:The Expanse TV series has its first cast member. Thomas Jane will be playing Detective Miller: oh god they're making this into teevee
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Jul 13, 2014 22:29
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Finished up The Long Way Down by Craig Schaefer and it was surprisingly good. Bad guys are irredeemable assholes, good guys are kinda sorta good guys but not halo wearing jerks, and the flow of the book is surprisingly good. This fits with my assessment. I was honestly suprised by how not terrible it was.
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Jul 13, 2014 23:33
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Yea, it kinda surprised me as well. The synopsis sounded like it would either be good, or horrible. Most of the time that leads to horrible. Just finished up the second one, and it's better than the first. Can't wait to see what's going to happen with the world this dude is building.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:16
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I was also suprised because it is, as far as I can tell, entirely self-published.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:56
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Neurosis posted:And I hear these homos even have 'e-readers' to read their books? I only read the finest vellum and store my 8 000 books in my family library in the west wing of our manor. What Philistines. After humanity abandoned scrolls it was all downhill anyway. Scrolls you were forced to read from beginning to end. Nowadays everyone can just jump anywhere inside a book at any time, by simply selecting a page. That destroys the flow and sequence of a story! How should anyone learn anything any more if they don't know the beginning from the middle and the end from the begining? And then, how easy you can transport a light, small book compared to a 10-20 kg scroll! This just means everyone can simply walk into a library and steal his heart's content. I tell you, books lead to crime, books will mean the youth will all become reckless thieves. A Greek philosopher from Damascus has clearly has proven this. No sir, civilization went out of the window at around 100 CE when these deplorable Romans and Egyptians insisted on cutting up scrolls and binding them together instead of keeping them on one long sheet like the gods intended. Decius fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 05:57
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eriktown posted:I was also suprised because it is, as far as I can tell, entirely self-published. I think the secret is he actually uses an editor, and has an actual artist for the cover as opposed to some weird clipart thing. I mean, it's a great book, and the second one is better, but it's actually professionally edited. That I can dig more than anything. Maybe it's the internet grammar nazi in me, but when I pay cash for a book and I see typos and homonym problems, I just want to give up and get a refund. When you make your living writing, you need to do a good job of it. That being said, he's also got a pretty nice world setup, and a pretty eclectic but awesome set of background and side characters that don't really "feel" like the same ol' same old generic types like "Oh he's an irish guy with red hair and a fiery temper!" or "Oh, she's a hippie chick that only wants peace and love and is a pacifist". Maybe the best thing about the book so far is that for a storyline involving a succubus, there doesn't seem to be any "only exists to be fuckable" characters. Normally I hate, hate HATE sex in books because it isn't well written and tends to just be dumped into the story for the hell of it, ruining the flow. Didn't happen here. Gonna be keeping an eye on this dude's work. I haven't been this happy about a new series since the 20p series.
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Jul 14, 2014 10:26
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Was that book you're taking about in any of the bundles? It sounds interesting.
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Jul 14, 2014 10:28
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Not that I know of. It's only 3-4$ on amazon though. The Long Way Down is the first book. I'd check out the sample and see if it's something you'd dig. It started out kinda "meh" for me, but I got pretty involved with the plot by the 3rd chapter or so.
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Jul 14, 2014 10:40
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Hedrigall posted:The Expanse TV series has its first cast member. Thomas Jane will be playing Detective Miller: Huh, I didn't even know that was a thing. Seems pretty ambitious to do on a TV budget, I would imagine that a lot of stuff is going to have to go out the window (most if not everything taking place in zero-G, all the Belters having weird skinny bodies, etc.) Jane is a pretty big name to pick up, though it seems that he might be a bit better suited to Holden than Miller.
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Jul 14, 2014 19:18
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colonel_korn posted:Huh, I didn't even know that was a thing. Seems pretty ambitious to do on a TV budget, I would imagine that a lot of stuff is going to have to go out the window (most if not everything taking place in zero-G, all the Belters having weird skinny bodies, etc.) Jane is a pretty big name to pick up, though it seems that he might be a bit better suited to Holden than Miller. He's a cool guy but he's not that big, especially for TV in 2014. Besides, he already did TV - remember Hung?
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Jul 14, 2014 19:33
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Any recommendations for Sci-fi horror, specifically in some kind of Space setting? I've read Hull Zero-Three, Blindsight, and Ship of Fools. Doesn't necessarily need to be horror, merely creepy/dark also works. Space Archaeology/exploration recommendations would also be cool too, I've read the first few of Jack McDevitt's Priscilla Hutchins series but they seemed to get worse as the series went on, though I really enjoyed The Engines of God.
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Jul 15, 2014 05:20
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Mustang posted:Any recommendations for Sci-fi horror, specifically in some kind of Space setting? I've read Hull Zero-Three, Blindsight, and Ship of Fools. Doesn't necessarily need to be horror, merely creepy/dark also works. Try dipping in and out of this list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/17148.Space_horror You've read the major recommendations for that subgenre though. Have you read any Alastair Reynolds?
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Jul 15, 2014 05:25
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Whalley posted:It's popular, but I had a really hard time getting through it. It has really choppy, stilted prose that doesn't really add anything to the book, only distract you from the realization that all you're reading is a sex book about a totally misunderstood dark and steamy guy. I also was not tragically scarred in my pubertal years by reading Twilight though so maybe that's a big hang up for some. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 05:34
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Yep, have read all of his stuff, wish he would revisit the Revelation Space universe. Thanks for the link, I think I might check out Hyperion and Leviathan Wakes on the list. Surprised to see a Star Wars novel on there though.
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Jul 15, 2014 05:35
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Mustang posted:Surprised to see a Star Wars novel on there though.
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Jul 15, 2014 06:43
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Mustang posted:Yep, have read all of his stuff, wish he would revisit the Revelation Space universe. Then be sure to check out Subterranean Press Magazine for Summer 2014 (it should be coming out in the next month or two) for "The Last Log of the Lachrymosa", a new, 15,000-word Rev Space short story! Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 06:57
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