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coyo7e posted:I dunno who Danny Pudi is offhand, but the new movie CHAPPiE has a lot of Stranger in a Strange Land going for it, fyi.. At least as much as the Robocop/I, Robot influences. Abed, the sperg on Community
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May 24, 2015 02:04
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May 24, 2015 09:48
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Paolo Bacigalupi has an interview up on NPR about his new book The Water Knife, out in a couple of days. It's a short interview but it goes over the "we're all going to be sweaty and thirsty and crammed together fighting for the bare minimum of survival" depressing stuff he did amazingly well in Shipbreaker, Drowned Cities, and Windup Girl. Also, the summary makes it sound like it has a Fallout: New Vegas vibe, which is kind of awesome:Amazon Summary posted:The American Southwest has been decimated by drought. Nevada and Arizona skirmish over dwindling shares of the Colorado River, while California watches, deciding if it should just take the whole river all for itself. Into the fray steps Las Vegas water knife Angel Velasquez. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority and its boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert and that anyone who challenges her is left in the gutted-suburban dust. I was really badly burned by his last book - The Doubt Factory - which was garbage except for a reasonably tense climax. I think he's got good action sensibilities when he applies them to a solid, realistic sci-fi foundation and I'm hoping this one's a return to form.
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May 24, 2015 17:56
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He's previously toyed with that kind of setting in one of the short stories in Pump Six.
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May 24, 2015 20:26
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The general consensus is that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is good, right? Is the new TV show worth watching?
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May 24, 2015 21:18
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mirthdefect posted:The general consensus is that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is good, right? It's kind of a love it or hate it thing. Personally, I heroically made it 1/3 into the book and deleted it. So did everyone I actually know who tried to read it.
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May 24, 2015 21:45
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Megazver posted:It's kind of a love it or hate it thing. Personally, I heroically made it 1/3 into the book and deleted it. So did everyone I actually know who tried to read it. I read the whole thing, because I was really bored. It was a tedious grind.
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May 24, 2015 22:24
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I think I stopped halfway through. It emulates this 19th century style of prose, and it is kinda cool for the first 200 pages, okay for 200 more and then rapidly turns very stupid.
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May 24, 2015 23:21
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I actually really liked it and never really found the prose style a problem.
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May 25, 2015 00:08
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mirthdefect posted:The general consensus is that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is good, right? Very much yes to both
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May 25, 2015 00:10
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I loved it and found the writing constantly delightful. It feels very 19th century British, and if you enjoy that style, you'll probably like it the whole way through. It's one of my favorite books of the last ten years or so.
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May 25, 2015 00:10
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I loved the book, but then I have a degree in Victorian literature.
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May 25, 2015 00:13
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Yes it's very good. Don't hate just because there isn't a sword in it.
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May 25, 2015 00:24
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Bear Sleuth posted:Yes it's very good. Don't hate just because there isn't a sword in it. I believe there actually is at least one sword in the story.
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May 25, 2015 00:26
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Crashbee posted:I loved the book, but then I have a degree in Victorian literature. I loved the book and hated every 19th century novel I've ever tried. There is hope if you're like me and want to try JS&MN.
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May 25, 2015 00:47
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mirthdefect posted:The general consensus is that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is good, right? I massively enjoyed the book, but some people (as observed above) find it completely unreadable. While there's magic and magicians, it's often more a book about books and conversations about magic rather than magic itself, and it's about the particular flavor of "English Magic" that's part of the book's alternate history. The narrator has a rather dry sense of humor and is prone to extensive footnotes (often multi-page self-contained stories unto themselves). I found it all very enjoyable, but can understand it not being everyone's cup of tea. I just finished the second episode of the (7 episode) TV series, and am enjoying that a bunch as well. It's much condensed, by necessity, but seems to be very true to the story in the book (though it's been a few years since I read it). I suspect it may appeal to people who found the book too slow-going. Quinton fucked around with this message at 02:42 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 02:38
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I'm pretty sure this is a record for a SFF writer Obvious caveat that the line of who is a SFF author and who is not is highly dodgy and doesn't even track for the same author in different countries (eg Rowling and Atwood aren't SFF, Butler's Kindred is SFF overseas but not in America, etc)
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May 25, 2015 03:27
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Fried Chicken posted:I'm pretty sure this is a record for a SFF writer Obvious SJW conspiracy! Kidding aside, that's crazy and you're probably right on a single-contract basis - I would imagine there are several authors that, if you added up smaller contracts over the same time frame, probably surpass that. On a different note, anyone else in here a collector? I recently bought this edition of Dune and would be interested in seeing what other people collect within the SF/F genres. Here's all the art in that book.
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May 25, 2015 03:35
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Evidently Scalzi's new $3.5M, 13 book deal with TOR includes new 'Old Man's War' books as well as a 'Lock In' sequel.
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May 25, 2015 03:49
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Great deal for him although I feel like that could put undue pressure on him to just pump out tripe unless it includes quality tests or minimum sales levels or something.
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May 25, 2015 04:14
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Kalenn Istarion posted:I feel like that could put undue pressure on him to just pump out tripe wait that hasn't happened yet!?
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May 25, 2015 04:17
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Ornamented Death posted:Obvious SJW conspiracy! Interesting, although most of the time I prefer to not see any "art of" books as it ruins the view I get from imagining the characters and/or settings. One of the reasons I'm not looking forward to the TV version of the Expanse series.
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May 25, 2015 04:51
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Ornamented Death posted:Obvious SJW conspiracy! I don't know. That comes to a little over US$250,000 per book. There are probably several writers earning similar amounts, sure, but I bet they're still in the top 1% - celebrities, basically. And some of those would be one-offs, not a publisher expressing their confidence that Scalzi will still be selling like hot cakes in a decade's time. The biggest sf advance I can think of right now was Alastair Reynolds getting US$1 million for ten books, and this is much larger. Really it's the "five figures per month" backlist that's more remarkable.
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May 25, 2015 05:09
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Silver2195 posted:I believe there actually is at least one sword in the story. 2? it's been a year since i last read it (listened to the audiobook, actually) but i thought both lascelles and the knight that guards the bridge in faerie that lascelles kills both had one. Also Lord Wellington probably has one even if nobody mentions it. FWIW the audiobook narration is great, the narrator really has the dry humor down.
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May 25, 2015 05:26
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Sanderson got a $2,5mil advance for the first four Way of Kings books.
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May 25, 2015 08:12
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andrew smash posted:FWIW the audiobook narration is great, the narrator really has the dry humor down. Seconding this -- if you have trouble getting through the book, the audiobook is worth a try, really a fantastic (though long) listen. Granted, the first third of the book is probably drier than the rest, but it's necessary to set the stage for the rest of the book. Also it can be pretty cool to see the book progress through Romantic literary genres from a comedy of manners to Gothic lit. If you're into that kind of thing, at least.
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May 25, 2015 08:38
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House Louse posted:I don't know. That comes to a little over US$250,000 per book. There are probably several writers earning similar amounts, sure, but I bet they're still in the top 1% - celebrities, basically. And some of those would be one-offs, not a publisher expressing their confidence that Scalzi will still be selling like hot cakes in a decade's time. Aside from the previously-mentioned Sanderson deal, Jim Butcher got seven figures for the first three books in his steam punk series. Hell, Mark Lawrence got a mid- to high six figure deal for his next trilogy. So yeah, I think the length of the contract is the bigger deal here.
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May 25, 2015 11:40
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XBenedict posted:Evidently Scalzi's new $3.5M, 13 book deal with TOR includes new 'Old Man's War' books as well as a 'Lock In' sequel.
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May 25, 2015 13:25
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Ornamented Death posted:Aside from the previously-mentioned Sanderson deal, Jim Butcher got seven figures for the first three books in his steam punk series. Hell, Mark Lawrence got a mid- to high six figure deal for his next trilogy. So yeah, I think the length of the contract is the bigger deal here. The money is a really huge deal too. Scalzi is important because his work crosses over from genre into mainstream sales. Old Man's War blew up because it had a clever hook and simple style that you could read without any background in SF.
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May 25, 2015 14:40
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I'm listening to Old Man's War as an audiobook. I read it in 2011 (I think) and this is my first revisit. It was pretty drat enthralling during the "old man" part and all the way through training, etc. But now they're actually involved in the war and it's just so dull. The actually-interesting premise of the book is gotten out of the way by about 40% through and the rest of the book is just cut & paste mil-SF trash like a thousand other novels. It doesn't help that the writing is just so bad. I also kind of hated Redshirts but jesus, Scalzi is such a great guy and I'm glad he's getting a good contract, I guess. I just don't know if I'll read another one of his novels myself. Maybe try to convince me that the rest of the OMW series is any good? If you're curious, the narrator of the Old Man's War audiobook is excellent. He actually puts some life and emotion into the Scalzi-est of Scalzi dialogue. But you can hear the narrator grimace every time he has to slip another "he said" in after each line.
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May 25, 2015 15:08
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I listened to Redshirts and between Scalzi's trash-can prose and Wil Wheaton's amateur narration it was the most unpleasant audio experience I've encountered. But then it won the Hugo so what do I know.
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May 25, 2015 16:34
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You win the Hugo by being popular among Hugo voters. SF/F fandom is tiny so social effects are really big. I hope I win a Hugo still 
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May 25, 2015 16:37
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"Poor at writing, really good at social media" is probably the most apt description of Scalzi I've seen.
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May 25, 2015 16:42
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Hedrigall posted:I'm listening to Old Man's War as an audiobook. I read it in 2011 (I think) and this is my first revisit. Some guy online said that big problem with Old Man's War is that it had an awesome half and an okay half... in that order. Ornamented Death posted:Aside from the previously-mentioned Sanderson deal, Jim Butcher got seven figures for the first three books in his steam punk series. Hell, Mark Lawrence got a mid- to high six figure deal for his next trilogy. So yeah, I think the length of the contract is the bigger deal here. I'd say Sanderson and Butcher are in the 1% there, although I'm surprised to hear about Mark Lawrence! I was also thinking of Peter F. Hamilton and R. A . Salvatore. The average novel advance is about $10-20,000, afaik.
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May 25, 2015 16:56
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Bear Sleuth posted:But then it won the Hugo so what do I know. One of the heroic achievements of the Puppies is that 'the Hugo is too literary' somehow wasn't the silliest claim they made about SF.
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May 25, 2015 16:58
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Bear Sleuth posted:I listened to Redshirts and between Scalzi's trash-can prose and Wil Wheaton's amateur narration it was the most unpleasant audio experience I've encountered. Yeah what the hell was up with Wheaton and that Audiobook. He made no attempt whatever to differentiate between characters. Which I had previously assumed, based upon every audiobook fiction i've ever listened to previous to that, was a basic requirement of a narrator. Especially in a book with a lot of snappy back and forth dialogue between multiple characters. But no. Man, woman or Alien. Young or old. Same slightly sarcastic Wil Wheaton voice. It genuinely puzzled me. Can he just not do voices and got the gig because he's a pal of Scalzi. Did they tell him not to do it for some bizarre reason?
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May 25, 2015 18:08
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Bear Sleuth posted:I listened to Redshirts and between Scalzi's trash-can prose and Wil Wheaton's amateur narration it was the most unpleasant audio experience I've encountered.
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May 25, 2015 18:15
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I recently read Red Rising and was pretty disappointed. It felt like a bait and switch. After the nice and emotional opening the last three quarters of the book devolved in to Lord of the Flies in space. I enjoyed it but was bothered by the limited scope of the events. Is Golden Sun worth reading? Does the milieu grow to something that feels more significant?
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May 25, 2015 18:30
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When I told a pal about all that Hugo kerfuffle he didn't know about the awards, so I told him how the vote and he said "Oh it's the kid's choice awards but for genre books" and, well, I wish I came up with that.
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May 25, 2015 20:59
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Well it's never lord of the flies school again. There's no third novel yet.Fried Chicken posted:Obvious caveat that the line of who is a SFF author and who is not is highly dodgy and doesn't even track for the same author in different countries (eg Rowling and Atwood aren't SFF, Butler's Kindred is SFF overseas but not in America, etc)
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May 25, 2015 21:01
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