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gently caress alt history and if you like alt history then gently caress you.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:52
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I just finished The Years of Rice and Salt, and it was pretty good. So gently caress me.
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Jan 19, 2015 04:42
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Sorry, is it some sort of revelation that KSR can write a good book?
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Jan 19, 2015 05:48
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Oh no, I love KSR, just responding to corn in the bible's post.
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Jan 19, 2015 05:53
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corn in the bible posted:gently caress alt history and if you like alt history then gently caress you. Harry Turtledove rape you in a dark alley one night?
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Jan 19, 2015 06:08
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corn in the bible posted:gently caress alt history and if you like alt history then gently caress you. What about my alt history where gay Nazi centaurs won WWII?
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Jan 19, 2015 06:10
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Prop Wash posted:What about my alt history where gay Nazi centaurs won WWII? then please see my avatar for examples
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Jan 19, 2015 06:15
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Prop Wash posted:What about my alt history where gay Nazi centaurs won WWII? I need to read this, what is it called please
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Jan 19, 2015 06:19
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Hedrigall posted:I need to read this, what is it called please Triumph and Tragedy by W. Churchill
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Jan 19, 2015 06:24
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Prop Wash posted:What about my alt history where gay Nazi centaurs won WWII? Dumbledore wasn't a centaur
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Jan 19, 2015 07:00
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General Battuta posted:Dumbledore wasn't a centaur We all do things we regret in our youth.
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Jan 19, 2015 17:26
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Neurosis posted:I haven't read his first two books but his most recent, City of Stairs, isn't much influenced by cosmic horror. It's really good though and I liked it more than American Elsewhere so I still recommend it. Not much influenced by cosmic horror? Did you read the same book I did? I mean, even aside from a tentacle horror containing alternate dimensions rampaging through a city you have inhuman elder gods warping reality through their mere presence. The body horror quotient is also rather high.
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Jan 19, 2015 19:25
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corn in the bible posted:then please see my avatar for examples Well strictly speaking the gay characters weren't actually Nazis, and the centaurs were fighting something more similar to WWI.
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Jan 20, 2015 13:34
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Munin posted:Not much influenced by cosmic horror? Did you read the same book I did? I dunno man the gods seemed pretty human to me - especially since they're heavily influenced by mortal thought and expectations. The monster can also just be a weird monster with tentacles without necessarily drawing from cosmic horror.
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Jan 20, 2015 17:05
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Neurosis posted:I dunno man the gods seemed pretty human to me - especially since they're heavily influenced by mortal thought and expectations. The monster can also just be a weird monster with tentacles without necessarily drawing from cosmic horror. I agree completely. The "horror" is just a small part of the novel, which is mostly a mistery tale and a culture crash history.
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Jan 20, 2015 18:03
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Craig Schaefer's new book is out in the Daniel Faust series. A Plain-Dealing Villain. Finished it last night. It's pretty damned good. I'd hold off on reading it if you haven't finished the original trilogy, because there are massive spoilers for the last couple books in there. First book I've read in a single sitting in a long time. One of the only ones I have 5 starred as well. Worth grabbing if you are a fan of the series, seems to be getting better with each book.
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Jan 20, 2015 20:32
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Craig Schaefer's new book is out in the Daniel Faust series. A Plain-Dealing Villain. Oh, thank you, you just made my day. I don't know how that guy has managed to write so many books of good quality in a short time frame. I mean, the first Revanche book only came out a month ago? Two? And iirc two of the Daniel Faust books came out in 2014 as well.
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Jan 20, 2015 22:24
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Craig Schaefer's new book is out in the Daniel Faust series. A Plain-Dealing Villain. Jeez, he's a fast writer. I still haven't read The Living End yet.
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Jan 21, 2015 00:08
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Kesper North posted:Oh, thank you, you just made my day. I don't know how that guy has managed to write so many books of good quality in a short time frame. I mean, the first Revanche book only came out a month ago? Two? And iirc two of the Daniel Faust books came out in 2014 as well. I think all 3 of the Faust books came out in 14, as well as the Revanche book. Dude can write fast.
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Jan 21, 2015 08:34
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I think all 3 of the Faust books came out in 14, as well as the Revanche book. That's crazy fast. He must have done some of that writing in previous years.
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Jan 21, 2015 16:07
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Just finished City of Stairs and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I guess I still like it. I started out loving it, the setting was pretty novel and well realized and l liked the characters at first (  Sigrud ) but somewhere around the end of the book I just kind of...lost interest?Shara turns into a Harry-Potter-spell-slinging-Deus-Ex-Machina with her miracles. "Oh no!, how will we get out of this one? OH! I KNOW A MIRACLE THAT WILL RESOLVE THIS!". I get that she's the most learned person regarding the history of the continent, but it was a bit much at the end. I also wasn't a huge fan of the ending. I get that it started as a standalone book, so I suppose its to be expected that everything is wrapped up neatly, but I like SOME mystery still left in my fantasy-scifi-trash. Vernor Vinge is still the master of the good-ending (ignoring "Children of the Sky", which was rubbish). I'm kind of curious where the author can take the setting, since everything wrapped up so neatly. I suppose delving into the one remaining mystery where the Divinities come from. Also, more of a nag why the hell didn't Shara open the briefcases as soon as she got them? You're trying to solve the murder and here's closest you have to a lead and you IGNORE it until its convenient? I suppose she's being loyal to her Aunt and Saypur, but I just didn't buy it. . I was all excited at first, cause I loved the setting, mystery and characters. Not happy with how it turned out.
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Jan 21, 2015 16:43
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Sci Fi goons, I'm depressed. I'm really running out of good ideas for what I should read next, and have switched to trash sci-fi for my evenings' reading. Over the past year, I read a couple of Vinge books, the Expanse series, the Old Man's War series, all the decent Hyperion books, a few Asimov (Foundation trilogy), and I've turned to the Honor Harrington series since it's fairly prolific. However, it's not terribly poignant or interesting. I like military sci-fi (I read Starship Troopers awhile back and have read some other books by Heinlein). I think my biggest problem is that I do almost all of my reading on my iPad, so I am limited to what I can find in iBooks. What are some other good sci fi books I can put on the list? Out of everything I've read I really enjoyed Old Man's War and the Vinge books, but I really enjoy military sci fi with political intrigue (The Expanse series was so good).
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Jan 21, 2015 16:53
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SquadronROE posted:Sci Fi goons, I'm depressed. I'm really running out of good ideas for what I should read next, and have switched to trash sci-fi for my evenings' reading. Try this. Amazon has a sample you can read to see if you like it before you spend money. http://www.amazon.com/The-Line-William-LJ-Galaini/dp/1481049453/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
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Jan 21, 2015 17:13
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SquadronROE posted:Sci Fi goons, I'm depressed. I'm really running out of good ideas for what I should read next, and have switched to trash sci-fi for my evenings' reading. Only because I've just now finished another re-read: have you got Blindsight? If not then close your browser window right now and go get it. Obviously this is a common recommendation around here, but there's always somebody who doesn't know about it.
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Jan 21, 2015 17:21
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SquadronROE posted:Sci Fi goons, I'm depressed. I'm really running out of good ideas for what I should read next, and have switched to trash sci-fi for my evenings' reading. The Dragon Never Sleeps, by Glen Cook, kicks rear end. It was reccomended earlier in this thread or the space opera one, and it's well worth it. It's sort of like Dune. If you haven't read Dune, you should read Dune. I've heard good things about Passage At Arms, also by Glen Cook.
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Jan 21, 2015 17:39
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I wrote a few paragraphs about it in the Space Opera thread.
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Jan 21, 2015 17:42
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SquadronROE posted:I think my biggest problem is that I do almost all of my reading on my iPad, so I am limited to what I can find in iBooks. There is a Kindle app which allows you to read any Kindle book from Amazon: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kindle-read-books-ebooks-magazines/id302584613?mt=8
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Jan 21, 2015 17:57
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The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a pretty good one to check out, also. If you dig it Forever Peace might be worth a check out, but despite the title it is unrelated and more terrestrial focused. I'm also partial to S. Andrew Swann's Hostile Takeover trilogy. You should be able to find all three together as an omnibus edition. It works pretty good as a standalone series, but if you want to go in chronological order there's the moreau trilogy+1 (the first three also came out as an omnibus). It's got lots of anthropomorphic animals if you're the sort of goon pathologically opposed to anything close to furries. Ditto for the final trilogy (Apotheosis) that closes the setting after Hostile Takeover. darnon fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 18:06
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Prolonged Priapism posted:Passage At Arms, also by Glen Cook. VERY good. Lots of tension. For me, at least, it was a bit of a slower read than Dragon, but still very compelling.
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Jan 21, 2015 18:22
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SquadronROE posted:I think my biggest problem is that I do almost all of my reading on my iPad, so I am limited to what I can find in iBooks. I'd recommend picking up Calibre which is a free ebook library manager, as it can convert various book formats, and (if necessary for your purposes) remove DRM, export them as .epubs, which you can then import into iBooks/iTunes and read on your iPad. The BaenCD collections have a ton of free books that may or may not interest you; there is a fair bit of chaff, but some good ones to be found - either peruse https://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx or check the archive of CD images, legally available here. Semi randomly, here are some of the mostly bad series which I've read, since you're reading trash sci-fi anyways! I'd recommend Neal Asher (Polity), Tony Ballantyne (Penrose/Agency), Iain M. Banks (Culture, which unlike most of this list is really amazing), Elizabeth Bear (Wetwired, Jacobs), Greg Bear (The Way), Gregory Benford, David Brin (Uplift), Jack Cambell (The Lost Fleet, it .. is pretty cheesy.), Bertram Chandler (Grimes), C.J. Cherryh (Foreigner, Company Wars), Micheal Cobley (Humanity's Fire), Ian Douglas (Star Carrier), Greg Egan (Orthogonal), Robert L. Forward (Cheela), Gary Gibson (Shoal), Joe Haldeman (Forever War), Peter F. Hamilton (Commonwealth Saga), M. John Harrison (Light), Chris Hechtl (Wandering Author Insert Superman), Nancy Kress (Probability), Randolph Lalonde (Spinward Frindge), Ken Macleod's (Fall Revolution), Jack McDevitt perhaps, Richard K. Morgan, Frederick Pohl (Gateway I liked, the series gets kinda eeeh), Alistair Reynolds (Revelation Space), possibly Kim Stanley Robinson (if you like long winded Mars geology chat), Joel Shepherd (Kresnov), John Varley, Elizabeth Moon (Vatta's War, because you proved capable of tolerating Harrington!), Walter Jon Williams (Hardwired is cheesy but I'm a sucker for silly mil-sci-fi-opera), Connie Willis, Robert Charles Wilson (Spin), John C. Wright (he has gotten pretty crazy, but I still like his earlier stuff), Timothy Zahn (I read Quadrail, still not entirely sure why), and I'm just going to add Vernor Vinge, Olaf Stapeldon, Stanislaw Lem, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Roger Zelazny, and Bruce Sterling as other possible entertaining authors of numerous books.
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Jan 21, 2015 18:57
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I was going to mention Calibre but was skittish about  Is it legal to remove DRM from a file you legitimately own?
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Jan 21, 2015 19:16
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mdemone posted:Only because I've just now finished another re-read: have you got Blindsight? If not then close your browser window right now and go get it. Obviously this is a common recommendation around here, but there's always somebody who doesn't know about it.
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Jan 21, 2015 19:24
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mdemone posted:Is it legal to remove DRM from a file you legitimately own? These days, I'm not really sure one owns files they've paid for so much as a license to use said files. And I would imagine stripping DRM out would be against most licenses/terms of use.
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Jan 21, 2015 19:42
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mdemone posted:I was going to mention Calibre but was skittish about Not in Canada, no. We're entitled to a backup in a usable format for personal use of any copyrighted work that has had fees paid on. It have to admit that I've not stayed on top of the ever changing copyright law, but it used to be legal to download an ePub of a book I physically owned, or a rip of a dvd that I had a VHS of. Sharing that is a copyright violation of course. You're probably right about violating terms of use tho - if it wasn't such a problem to read a book across multiple devices I'd not bother with the hassle, but having some books that can only be read on one device, other books only on the other was driving me crazy. The only really portable format that seems to work everywhere is ePub with no DRM - which is what TOR settled on, and Baen too.
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Jan 21, 2015 20:44
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Blitter posted:The only really portable format that seems to work everywhere is ePub with no DRM - which is what TOR settled on, and Baen too.
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Jan 21, 2015 21:03
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Barbe Rouge posted:I thought ePUB wasn't readable on Kindle? Seconded, my brother has to convert things to MOBI before his little Kindle can understand them.
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Jan 21, 2015 21:10
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darthbob88 posted:Seconded, my brother has to convert things to MOBI before his little Kindle can understand them. Ah, yeah - I should have added that I've only used android and iOS portable devices and computers (various os's) as book readers. You can output to .mobi from Calibre and I know they support syncing with Kindle devices too (although I have no experience with that).
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Jan 21, 2015 21:20
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epub-mobi conversion is as uncomplicated as it gets.
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Jan 21, 2015 21:36
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Looked to pick up a few books today and ran through my Amazon wishlist and ... what the heck?! The pre-order of Something Coming Through by Paul McAuley is currently $1.99 from originally $8.99. I have no idea if this a permanent drop in price, a temporary promo discount or an error.
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Jan 21, 2015 21:52
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Fart of Presto posted:Looked to pick up a few books today and ran through my Amazon wishlist and ... what the heck?! The pre-order of Something Coming Through by Paul McAuley is currently $1.99 from originally $8.99. I haven't actually heard of him before. Is the Confluence trilogy a good place to start? Any other authors that he's particularly similar to?
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Jan 21, 2015 22:14
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