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DrProsek posted:I think the That's kind of you, but no, I was just an idiot.
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Nov 19, 2014 16:48
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was in regards to the HRE somehow kicking in France's poo poo without bankrupting itself 20 times over.
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I've started reading Wolf In White Van by John Darnielle and it's really good so far. I love the way the narrative's set up with these different stories within, around and about the Trace Italian game being slowly revealed and trying to puzzle out what happened/happens in them.
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Nov 21, 2014 05:50
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Just a reminder that Glen Cook's Instrumentalities of the Night series is set during a fantasy version of the Dual Papacy.
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Nov 21, 2014 05:53
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Just finished Words of Radiance, it was a really good read, I think I'll actually have to purchase a physical copy of it and whatever the first book in the series is called since the next iteration isn't slated to come out until 2016  and I'll probably forget dune if what happens during that time. I'm really impressed with the writing in this series, none of it feels like a slog to get through. I'm currently moving onto The King's Blood, at least there are 2 more books after this one. I've been in the mood for some fantasy lately versus sci-fi. Any other recommendations that aren't LOTR clones? Currently my reading list is pretty full thanks to me being unemployed for 2 weeks. I've still got Neuromancer (hopefully I'll actually finish it this time), City of Stairs, The Skinner, and the next 2 books in The Dagger & Coin series to read/renew from the library before I embark on anything new, but in a week or 2 I'll be in need of new reading materials. Edit: Is The Wheel of Time series any good? I tried reading the first book some time ago I'm my teens, but it didn't particularly captivate me at the time. dog nougat fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 06:26
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mllaneza posted:I'm continuing with reading the early Hugo winners (Demolished Man was awesome)… I've added Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, as well as Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang to my Hugo Winners checklist. Left Hand of Darkness is a damned good novel. It's sort of a travelogue, a lot of the page count is taken up with an epic journey above the local arctic circle. But the whole thing is indeed taken up with how gender issues in society vanish or change when everyone in the society alternates between male, female, and neuter roles. This is one of those novels where one reading won't give you everything in it. The Dispossessed, This is a goddamn good novel. I seriously believe that this may be the best novel to ever win a Hugo award. It was uplifting, sad, educational, deep, obvious, subtle, and… I can;'t even say. There's an awful lot in this novel. I was pulled back into it every time I had to put the book down to sleep, eat, get a job, anything. There is a human society in here that doesn't obey our rules, true anarcho-communism. The protagonist still finds ethical/moral fault with society after stumbling into conflict with an established power structure that simply shouldn't be. I've rarely been so forcefully drawn back to a book when I've had to put it down. Read this book, read it right now. Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang. Kate Wilhelm knocks it out of the park with this one. It's about cloning. It's about twins and their special bond. It's about the value of misfits and artists to a tight, survival-oriented community. It's about the apocalypse and what anyone might do to make a future for their people. I was as drawn back to this book as I was to The Dispossessed, but for very different reasons. WLTSBS is depressing, scary, sad, morose, and introspective where TD is the opposite of those things. Kate Wilhelm has a master-crafted piece of fiction here, it's all put together very well, and the ending manages to have far more hope in it than the preceding story would admit as possible. Also read this book as soon as possible. It has beautiful prose, interesting themes, and a compelling story.
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Nov 22, 2014 08:54
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dog nougat posted:Just finished Words of Radiance, it was a really good read, I think I'll actually have to purchase a physical copy of it and whatever the first book in the series is called since the next iteration isn't slated to come out until 2016 I enjoyed many parts of WoT but the middle several books are a slog. I would say try the first one. I read every book but in hindsight might have been happier if I'd just read synopses of books 8-10 or so. There's also some... odd... gender characterization but if that doesn't bug you too much you'll probably enjoy them overall.
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Nov 22, 2014 15:31
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dog nougat posted:
You know how the later Ice and Fire books get really over the top with the point of view characters, and it blows up from the original 8 to like 20? WoT has 146 point of view characters. I'm staring at the list now, and genuinely struggling to tell you anything about half of them, and of the ones I can remember there's maybe 30 I actually give a poo poo about. WoT is a huge, bloated and overblown mess. It is 4 million words long, and at least 3 million of those are entirely superfluous to the central story. Books 3 through 9 don't have any discernible flow or narrative purpose - people stumble around seemingly at random for hundreds of pages, then they teleport halfway across the world when Jordan remembers there's supposed to be a climax and have a big fight with some character who'd been barely mentioned so far. The prologue of book two introduces a minor villain who is given no characterization other than "is arrogantly evil" - we don't find out who this guy is until I think book 10. Say, two million words later. FOUR WAR & PEACES. What did this character do? hosed if I know, something evil. Or it could have been one of the other 70 characters to shout "surprise! I've sworn myself to satan!" before dying ineffectually. And Kalenn's "odd gender characterization" is best described as "80% of male-female interactions are emotionally/physically abusive from one or both participants". gently caress WoT. Burn it and salt the earth.
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Nov 22, 2014 16:03
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mllaneza posted:The Dispossessed, This is a goddamn good novel. I seriously believe that this may be the best novel to ever win a Hugo award. It was uplifting, sad, educational, deep, obvious, subtle, and… I can;'t even say. There's an awful lot in this novel. I was pulled back into it every time I had to put the book down to sleep, eat, get a job, anything. There is a human society in here that doesn't obey our rules, true anarcho-communism. The protagonist still finds ethical/moral fault with society after stumbling into conflict with an established power structure that simply shouldn't be. I've rarely been so forcefully drawn back to a book when I've had to put it down. Read this book, read it right now. Yeah, it's probably unnecessary to say and everyone knows this already, but I read The Dispossessed this summer and it was fantastic, cannot recommend it enough. I haven't heard of Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang, but I'll give that a shot next.
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Nov 22, 2014 16:17
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It might not be 100% relevant to the thread, but The Heart Does Not Grow Back by Fred Venturini is a pretty good novel. Check it out if you like Chuck Palahniuk but find his writing quirks tiresome.
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Nov 22, 2014 16:34
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Strom Cuzewon posted:You know how the later Ice and Fire books get really over the top with the point of view characters, and it blows up from the original 8 to like 20? Yeah, that sounds pretty awful and tedious. Sounds best avoided.
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Nov 22, 2014 16:37
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Who here has read Wilhelmina Baird's handful of novels? Crashcourse, Clipjoint, Psykosis and Chaos Come Again. A very modern set of books in a razor-sharp cyberpunk setting that later moves into posthumanist themes... written by a lady born in 1935.
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Nov 22, 2014 16:38
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Kesper North posted:Who here has read Wilhelmina Baird's handful of novels? Crashcourse, Clipjoint, Psykosis and Chaos Come Again. A very modern set of books in a razor-sharp cyberpunk setting that later moves into posthumanist themes... written by a lady born in 1935. I never read Chaos Come Again, as I kind of felt the magic had disappeared in Psykosis, but I enjoyed both Crashcourse and Clipjoint back in the day when they were released. I still recommend them when people want to read cyberpunk. Back in 1993, you didn't just google an author to see who he/she was, and I was always convinced it was an alias and only later learned it was actually an older lady who wrote them (she was 58 when Crashcourse was published). Definitely not something I would have expected, but I remember thinking it was pretty bad rear end. Definitely worth checking out if you need a cyberpunk fix.
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Nov 22, 2014 16:56
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Speaking of older Hugo winners, I recently read Gateway by Frederik Pohl and enjoyed it quite a bit. At first I thought it was meant to be more of a comedic Sci-Fi novel, since it starts relatively lighthearted and the writing reminded me of Douglas Adams, but boy oh boy does it get pretty dark in the later portions of the book. I was a little put off by the protagonist for a good portion of the time because he comes off as a pretty selfish rear end in a top hat, but considering it ends with him literally launching nine people, including the woman he supposedly loves, into a black hole to save himself, it probably would not have been appropriate to write him any other way.
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Nov 22, 2014 21:34
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:Speaking of older Hugo winners, I recently read Gateway by Frederik Pohl and enjoyed it quite a bit. At first I thought it was meant to be more of a comedic Sci-Fi novel, since it starts relatively lighthearted and the writing reminded me of Douglas Adams, but boy oh boy does it get pretty dark in the later portions of the book. I read that book quite a lot of years ago, but if I recall it correctly, the incident you refer to is the reason why the protagonist is taking counsel with that cyber-shrink, and at the end it was not really his fault, since both ships had 50% of probability to get sucked into the hole, and he was really trying to save the girl. There are some sequels. I remember the protagonist used the expression "gigabit space" to refer to an enormous, nearly unlimited cyber reality. He went wrong by several orders of magnitude.
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Nov 22, 2014 21:50
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mllaneza posted:The Dispossessed, This is a goddamn good novel. I seriously believe that this may be the best novel to ever win a Hugo award. It was uplifting, sad, educational, deep, obvious, subtle, and… I can;'t even say. There's an awful lot in this novel. I was pulled back into it every time I had to put the book down to sleep, eat, get a job, anything. There is a human society in here that doesn't obey our rules, true anarcho-communism. The protagonist still finds ethical/moral fault with society after stumbling into conflict with an established power structure that simply shouldn't be. I've rarely been so forcefully drawn back to a book when I've had to put it down. Read this book, read it right now.
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Nov 23, 2014 04:21
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dog nougat posted:Yeah, that sounds pretty awful and tedious. Sounds best avoided. I'll take the opposite stance as someone who started WoT about a year ago and finished it in six months. It was a good read and I knew by the end of the first book that I enjoyed the writing style enough to stick with it. There are definitely some lull books in the series and there are a LOT of characters, but if you're looking for a good long epic story to work on it's not too hard to keep track of people along the way. I'd agree that on reflection books 8-10 were skippable, but the end of the series was enough payoff to make the whole story satisfying. With that said I think Malazan Book of the Fallen is a better series to spend 3 million words reading.
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Nov 23, 2014 04:27
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The Ninth Layer posted:on reflection books 8-10 were skippable This is horrifying.
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Nov 23, 2014 04:30
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Happiness Commando posted:Apparently this is book 5 in a series. Is it ok to jump right in? It's completely standalone, not part of a series. It's in a setting a few other books share, but even more so than the Culture novels you can start anywhere.
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Nov 23, 2014 04:33
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I thought WOT book 9 was pretty good, but yeah 10 is like a 600+ page prologue to book 11 and book 8 has no Mat, so they are a slog to get through. I still really like the series, but if the first book or two is too slow for you, I wouldn't advise going any further.
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Nov 23, 2014 04:38
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WOT is one of those things where you'll know if you'll like it or not as soon as you hear about it.
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Nov 23, 2014 04:46
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General Battuta posted:It's completely standalone, not part of a series. It's in a setting a few other books share, but even more so than the Culture novels you can start anywhere. The Dispossessed is even set well before book 4, which is Left Hand of Darkness. And speaking of the Culture, I'm adding Le Guin's SF to the "so I'm all out of Culture books and want more". The protagonist in Left Hand is basically doing a Contact job, only it's a "normal" human visiting a society with radically different gender structure. The Dispossessed has a lot about anarcho-communism and a society with no laws, money, etc. I think they'll scratch the Culture itch for most readers. I'm on Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre right now. This is an amazingly plotted novel. About 20% of the way in I threw up my hands, gave up any pretense of having any idea what would happen next, and just settled in for the ride. There are no big twists, nothing anyone does is out of character, but nothing was predictable. Your mileage may vary. I'm on to Lathe of Heaven next after a comic book detour through Rat Queens (not Hugo winning quality, but a damned easy read).
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Nov 23, 2014 04:52
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dog nougat posted:
You should check out the second WoT book. The pace picks up a lot compared to the first one and I think it gets a lot more interesting with the characters engaging with the world and setting a lot more than they could in the first one. I actually started reading the series with this one and went back and read the first volume a long time later in between later books. I'm glad it worked out that way cuz I didn't much like the first one and probably wouldn't have bothered with the rest if I had started with it. savinhill fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 05:08
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dog nougat posted:I've been in the mood for some fantasy lately versus sci-fi. Any other recommendations that aren't LOTR clones? In terms of not being lord of the rings, I think China Mieville is a safe bet. I haven't read all of his stuff yet, but I'm definitely going to. There's magic and swords, but there's also cactus men and dirigibles. Really inventive stuff. If you want something a bit more grounded in tradition Joe Abercrombie's been writing some really good fantasy. It's not black and white good vs evil hero saves the day stuff. He writes solid characters, enough that you care when the fighting starts, and his fight scenes are where he really shines. When it comes to Wheel of Time, I'd say don't bother. If you're specifically looking for something absurdly long and complicated, I'd go with the Malazan series. It's got many of the same faults as wheel of time, while being better in almost every way.
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Nov 23, 2014 05:51
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I would say Abercrombie writes better than 'solid' characters. His worldbuilding isn't as good as other writers but his characters and the way they develop are top notch.
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Nov 23, 2014 06:58
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Strom Cuzewon posted:gently caress WoT. Burn it and salt the earth. You talking about World of Tanks? Cause it sure looks like it. The Ninth Layer posted:I'll take the opposite stance as someone who started WoT about a year ago and finished it in six months. It was a good read and I knew by the end of the first book that I enjoyed the writing style enough to stick with it. There are definitely some lull books in the series and there are a LOT of characters, but if you're looking for a good long epic story to work on it's not too hard to keep track of people along the way. I'd agree that on reflection books 8-10 were skippable, but the end of the series was enough payoff to make the whole story satisfying. Pretty much my opinion as well. WoT is a good read, pretty long, but the end was very rewarding. Malazan is better however, and there are probably no other fantasy writer which is as good at having multiple PoV and story lines and still managing to keep them together. I am on my third reread, so I guess I am kinda biased. mllaneza posted:Left Hand of Darkness is a damned good novel. It's sort of a travelogue, a lot of the page count is taken up with an epic journey above the local arctic circle. But the whole thing is indeed taken up with how gender issues in society vanish or change when everyone in the society alternates between male, female, and neuter roles. This is one of those novels where one reading won't give you everything in it. I was somewhat disappointed in Left Hand of Darkness, especially coming from her Earthsea series. Probably since I expected more scifi, whereas the scifi-element in LHoD is basically her way of putting an outside observer within a new culture. Could as easily have been a fantasy novel to be honest. But having long hard slogs through nature is probably one of the worst things with the whole scifi/fantasy genre (hello Tad Williams).
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Nov 23, 2014 15:20
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Speaking of Le Guin, I really don't like The Dispossessed either. My educational background is law/econs. My professional background is similar. Her casual dismissal of Western economics and dispute resolution is laughably facile. Her straw manning of capitalism is equally absurd. Given, the protagonist is from an anarchist background, so there's a plausible defence that it's simply based on the narrator. However, she shows no sophisticated understanding. The Left Hand of Darkness was okay though, if a little boring in parts.
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Nov 23, 2014 15:43
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I read WoT non stop in high school and college, re reading the previous books every time a new one came out but it eventually began to bore me as the plot slowed and the characters all became obnoxious idiots. I haven't read the last two or three nor will I ever. I truly did enjoy my time with the characters when it was good though. So my advice would be- Read WoT until you can no longer handle the slog, the war of the sexes, and the repetitive writing (so many skirts smoothed). Then put it down and never look back and spend the rest of your life thinking how much cooler it would be if it was just mat and his band of mercenaries running around fighting battles and other hi-jinx. In other books, finished the second book in the Space Elevator series. One of the new characters really annoyed me but there was plenty of action and exploration. Third book is out but I decided to take a break and read... Steel World. If you want military sci fi without the usual weird politics agenda pick this up. Plot and characters are paper thin but that's okay when your premise is "regenerating space marine mercenaries go to war with space raptors and t-Rex so that the galactic council doesn't destroy earth". I'll keep reading this series. About half way through the Prophecy Con. Not as funny as the first but just as enjoyable. Bonus points for taking a jab at reddit nice-guy types.
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Nov 23, 2014 18:51
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Neurosis posted:Speaking of Le Guin, I really don't like The Dispossessed either. My educational background is law/econs. My professional background is similar. I think you might have bought too much into the narrative in the story of the anarchists being some utopia. I read it not at all as anarchism > capitalism, but that the individual is going to struggle against any societal system.
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Nov 23, 2014 19:11
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RVProfootballer posted:I think you might have bought too much into the narrative in the story of the anarchists being some utopia. I read it not at all as anarchism > capitalism, but that the individual is going to struggle against any societal system. Correct. The whole point is that there will always be walls put up between people. That's Shevek's whole motivation.
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Nov 23, 2014 19:16
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FastestGunAlive posted:Steel World. If you want military sci fi without the usual weird politics agenda pick this up. Plot and characters are paper thin but that's okay when your premise is "regenerating space marine mercenaries go to war with space raptors and t-Rex so that the galactic council doesn't destroy earth". I'll keep reading this series. Hah, the undying mercenaries. When I read anything by Larson I feel myself a little bit guilty, just because I feel that enjoying something so UTTERLY BAD is not a Good Thing. Is a little bit like enjoying a lovely meal at a burguer place just because. Meh. Try the StarForce series. It is basically the same, but instead of that terribad galactic powers you'll find your hero fighting giant robots. dog nougat posted:I've been in the mood for some fantasy lately versus sci-fi. Any other recommendations that aren't LOTR clones? I was in your position some weeks ago and I went for City of Stairs (http://www.amazon.com/City-Stairs-Robert-Jackson-Bennett-ebook/dp/B00J1ISJFA). Definitely not LOTR-style, with a light steampunk aroma. I enjoyed it a lot.
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Nov 23, 2014 21:35
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Amberskin posted:I was in your position some weeks ago and I went for City of Stairs (http://www.amazon.com/City-Stairs-Robert-Jackson-Bennett-ebook/dp/B00J1ISJFA). Definitely not LOTR-style, with a light steampunk aroma. I enjoyed it a lot. City of Stairs is great.
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Nov 23, 2014 22:06
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Amberskin posted:with a light steampunk aroma. Love it.
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Nov 23, 2014 23:50
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FastestGunAlive posted:I read WoT non stop in high school and college, re reading the previous books every time a new one came out but it eventually began to bore me as the plot slowed and the characters all became obnoxious idiots. I haven't read the last two or three nor will I ever. I truly did enjoy my time with the characters when it was good though. So my advice would be- You're missing out actually because the last three books get their poo poo together again and resolve most of the straggling mess of poo poo Jordan left undone before he got too sick to continue.
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Nov 24, 2014 00:14
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Kalenn Istarion posted:You're missing out actually because the last three books get their poo poo together again and resolve most of the straggling mess of poo poo Jordan left undone before he got too sick to continue. I've heard that from a lot of people and maybe i will eventually but I just can't bring myself to put it high on the priority list. Amberskin posted:Hah, the undying mercenaries. When I read anything by Larson I feel myself a little bit guilty, just because I feel that enjoying something so UTTERLY BAD is not a Good Thing. Is a little bit like enjoying a lovely meal at a burguer place just because. Meh. Ha that's a great comparison. Definitely guilty reading, I burned through It on a flight. Thanks for the recommendation i like the idea of him doing cheesy robot fighting.
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Nov 24, 2014 01:07
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RVProfootballer posted:I think you might have bought too much into the narrative in the story of the anarchists being some utopia. I read it not at all as anarchism > capitalism, but that the individual is going to struggle against any societal system. I don't think the anarchist society was meant to be utopian, but the deck was stacked absurdly against the capitalist society and it was extremely grating.
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Nov 24, 2014 03:57
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In what sense? It felt like a fair portrait of a capitalist society viewed through the eyes of someone from a society specifically built to eschew its weaknesses and devalue its strengths.
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Nov 24, 2014 04:27
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Just finished the Elizabeth Moon Paladin's Legacy sequence (Oath of Fealty through Crown of Renewal). Pretty generic high fantasy, but good overall. The characters were reasonably interesting, the story solid, and the writing was better than the (much older) Deed of Paksenarion sequence that preceeded it. It felt less like a D&D travelogue than that series did, and overall was a nice break from the heavier fantasy (e.g. Martin) I've mostly read in that genre lately.
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Nov 24, 2014 05:22
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Anybody read Proxima by Stephen Baxter? I have a question about one part of ending: I assume Robert Braemann is Yuri's real name by Beth's reaction to it, but what does that mean for Yuri? Did his parents dump his mind into the AI before freezing him or something?
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Nov 24, 2014 07:35
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Borachon posted:Just finished the Elizabeth Moon Paladin's Legacy sequence (Oath of Fealty through Crown of Renewal). Pretty generic high fantasy, but good overall. The characters were reasonably interesting, the story solid, and the writing was better than the (much older) Deed of Paksenarion sequence that preceeded it. It felt less like a D&D travelogue than that series did, and overall was a nice break from the heavier fantasy (e.g. Martin) I've mostly read in that genre lately. It was really nice seeing Paks just chilling out with her old friends. I'm looking forward to finishing the series when I get ahead on bills again.
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Nov 24, 2014 07:38
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Neurosis posted:I don't think the anarchist society was meant to be utopian, but the deck was stacked absurdly against the capitalist society and it was extremely grating. This is class. Love a good ruffling of a conservative's feathers.
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Nov 24, 2014 08:27
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