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Less Fat Luke posted:There are a ton of official Kindle store books with awful formatting from the publisher. I've refunded a few of them for that reason Same here. I don't find it a problem with anything written recently, but anything else is a crapshoot - it's a roll of the dice whether a publisher took time and care with the ebook edition, or did a sloppy OCR job full of errors and formatting issues. I often will download a sample of an ebook and skim it for formatting and other errors before I buy. Reading the kindle version of The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay right now, and there's sometimes random hyphens inserted in one character's name, "Rod-rigo," and while annoying, that's all I've caught and that's nothing compared to others. I had bought Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell, and it was an awful OCR hack-job full of formatting errors and typos, misplaced sentences, but I didn't discover that until it was too late to return it. In the end I liked the story and would read more but screw paying anything more than a couple dollars for that kind of effort. I enjoy Kay's fictionalized history fantasy novels, and Al-Rassan has been good thus far, will probably finish it this weekend. If anyone else has been interested in it, it's only $6.99 on US Amazon right now, less than when I bought it: http://www.amazon.com/Lions-Al-Rassan-Guy-Gavriel-Kay-ebook/dp/B00851M70C
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May 29, 2015 17:20
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I like Malazan a bit but I don't think that's true. There are plenty of reasons it wouldn't be a good fit for a really active reader.
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May 29, 2015 17:21
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General Battuta posted:I like Malazan a bit but I don't think that's true. There are plenty of reasons it wouldn't be a good fit for a really active reader. And as an active reader I would say that you are wrong. Can we stop doing this by the way? The Malazan series is not for everyone, for very obvious reasons detailed pretty well here, and if you don't like it you don't have to defend why you don't like it. Azathoth posted:I agree with everything you wrote except for "memorable characters", as I don't think I've read a series with less interesting characters in my life. You can't have read much then. I just went through the Hawkmoon series by Moorcock, and those characters are pretty bland in comparison. Seldom Posts posted:I've read the first 4, and will probably read the rest. The series to me is frustrating because it has moments of good writing and compelling action along with moments of "here are the notes of my DnD campaign." I am sorry, I didn't know we were talking about Sanderson or Elisabeth Moon here?
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May 29, 2015 18:06
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The Ninth Layer posted:Malazan is a great series. It's full of action, has a large cast of very memorable characters, and takes place in a world with scope and history. There's a lot going on and it's all very thought-out. It has a "show-don't-tell" story which spawns several continents and has a satisfying ending that ties together all those disparate casts of characters people were talking about. The writing is good and there's a lot of humor. The people talking down the series by saying it's a GURPS campaign or DBZ are seriously underselling the quality of the series. Where did I complain about no resolution to the story? Also, I never said no one should try it or that everyone should ignore people who like it, so no idea why you think this was a good rebuttal or whatever. I think you're seriously overselling the quality of the series, but people should still take into account that some, like you, think it's awesome. I would really strongly disagree about it having strong characters or that it's all very thought out. To use an in vogue comparison (sorry Battuta!), ASOIAF has a similarly ridiculously complicated cast of characters and many intertwining plot threads, and feels almost infinitely more well thought out and with far more memorable characters. With Malazan, I can tell you there's a guy named Mappo who is a big strong Hulk-like guy, there are a bunch of interchangeable brooding military leaders, some human, some elf, some barbarian, etc, and there are random individual soldiers that are inconsequential. This was after I read like, what, 10,000 pages of this series, haha? Contrast that with the different Starks and Lannisters and even Baratheons (or obviously characters in books with much smaller casts of characters) and it's just no contest, for me. It might click differently for you, but given other people's reaction in this thread, I think you're probably in the minority in thinking the characterization is a strong point. People are comparing it to a GURPS campaign because that is literally how it started: Steven Erikson: The Malazan world originated as a roleplaying game, employing the GURPS game system. It isn't necessarily bad because of that, but that gives a lot of perspective on the series. As far as I know, multiple characters and plot threads were literally novelizations of roleplaying sessions Erickson and Esselmont did/GM'd. If you imagine someone writing novelizations of a bunch of roleplaying sessions that take place in the same setting and adding in details after the fact to tie those disparate roleplaying sessions together a bit more, that pretty well gels with my impression of or reaction to the plot. Cardiac posted:Can we stop doing this by the way? Yeah, sure, I'll shut up. It goes both ways though: no need to say "ignore anyone that says anything bad about it, actually it's awesome" when someone says something negative about it. sourdough fucked around with this message at 18:11 on May 29, 2015 |
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May 29, 2015 18:08
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You can reduce any story so that it sounds dumb and lazy, but that doesn't make it dumb and lazy. Ned Stark is just some northern noble guy. Robert Baratheon is a king and he drinks a lot.
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May 29, 2015 19:13
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The Ninth Layer posted:You can reduce any story so that it sounds dumb and lazy, but that doesn't make it dumb and lazy. Ned Stark is just some northern noble guy. Robert Baratheon is a king and he drinks a lot. Hold on, hold on. You're going too fast. Robert Baratheon is a what?
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May 29, 2015 19:17
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Drifter posted:Hold on, hold on. You're going too fast. Robert Baratheon is a what? I think he said Robert Baratheon is near!
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May 29, 2015 19:50
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I'm an active reader who likes big sweeping stories and I thought Malazan disappeared up its own rear end about 2/3 of the way thru the series. (Loved 'Gardens of the Moon' tho, primarily for the 'in media res' / 'what the gently caress is all this' stuff going on, and it's the only one of the series I kept after the last purge)
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May 29, 2015 19:54
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The Ninth Layer posted:You can reduce any story so that it sounds dumb and lazy, but that doesn't make it dumb and lazy. Ned Stark is just some northern noble guy. Robert Baratheon is a king and he drinks a lot. Sorry, by that comparison, I meant that I literally couldn't tell you much more about these characters beyond these relatively vague archetypes, so I literally didn't find them very memorable. Whereas I read ASOIAF shortly before Malazan (maybe immediately before, like 3-4 years ago), and could still tell you details about Tyrion and Jaime and Stannis and Theon etc etc. So I don't think it's a fault in myself that I can't tell you much about the characters in Malazan, as other similarly complicated casts stuck with me much more. Funnily enough, I could tell you more about the Malazan world than any of the characters: the warrens, the weird Master of the Deck thing, the K'Chain Ch'Mel'l'le (hah, something like that), skeleton barbarian tribes (yeah?), bridgeburners, the tiste, etc. I just didn't find the world especially deep or cohesive, more a collection of various fantasy stuff mashed together. Lots of action, though, I think we're totally agreed on that 
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May 29, 2015 20:24
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The stuff I liked in Malazan can be boiled down to three categories: 1) The Black Company-esque parts with the marines 2) Tehol and Bugg Comedy Hour 3) Zombie dinosaurs with sword arms and the other fuckin' rad creatures and floating castles etc. Beyond that, I just never really connected with any of the characters or plotlines. The disadvantage of the "figure out what's going on along the way" approach the books have is that it's hard to ever really care about what's happening and who's ascending and what spots are being filled in what House in the Deck because, for me at least, I have no idea what's at stake, so I had no reason to give a poo poo. It's probably why the second book was my favorite, as the big exodus had clear stakes and motivations for the characters involved. Even if you did have to piece the details together along the way, the big picture was clear and provided a reason to care. Contrast this with another subplot in the same book, the whole "convergence" thing. All the characters were mentioning it, building it up like it was some big deal, except I had no idea what it was or how it would affect any of the characters. Even after it was all over I still wasn't sure what the big deal was. But those sword-armed raptors were pretty cool.
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May 29, 2015 21:26
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RVProfootballer posted:Sorry, by that comparison, I meant that I literally couldn't tell you much more about these characters beyond these relatively vague archetypes, so I literally didn't find them very memorable. Whereas I read ASOIAF shortly before Malazan (maybe immediately before, like 3-4 years ago), and could still tell you details about Tyrion and Jaime and Stannis and Theon etc etc. So I don't think it's a fault in myself that I can't tell you much about the characters in Malazan, as other similarly complicated casts stuck with me much more. Funnily enough, I could tell you more about the Malazan world than any of the characters: the warrens, the weird Master of the Deck thing, the K'Chain Ch'Mel'l'le (hah, something like that), skeleton barbarian tribes (yeah?), bridgeburners, the tiste, etc. I just didn't find the world especially deep or cohesive, more a collection of various fantasy stuff mashed together. Lots of action, though, I think we're totally agreed on that I'm pretty sure you would have more to say about Mappo than "he's a barbarian" if you tried. In any event it's pretty clear from the thread that the series clicks with some readers and not with others. I really enjoyed the series and I think there are a lot of great themes represented in the stories, characters with memorable arcs and developments, and a very well-realized world that holds up against any other series out there in the genre. I'm glad that someone recommended the series to me and I'm glad that I read all ten novels. I personally didn't find it a slog at all. Hopefully this serves as a counterpoint to all the people saying they couldn't finish it because of reasons.
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May 29, 2015 22:20
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Mappo is a barbarian who is in a sort of one-sided bromance with Icarium, and feels loyalty to him despite being, essentially, his mobile jailer. And that's basically all I can remember about him. But he's not a character I'd pick if I wanted to talk about characterization in Malazan, because he's really sort of a side character. Comparing him to Tyrion or Jaime really isn't fair. If I wanted to pick examples to go up against them, I'd look at Kallor, Fiddler, Trull, Karsa, etc.
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May 29, 2015 22:39
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While Malazan can be a slog at times, I can't think of many other series that hold it together over so many books. Certainly not ASoFAI. It should also be noted his campaigns were held at archeology sites which gives credence to the incredible world he created.
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May 29, 2015 23:32
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There's a Malazan thread, guys.
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May 30, 2015 01:17
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The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb is excellent thus far (starting book 3) but Skilling is a concept that makes explaining fantasy an embarrassing task.
Alec Eiffel fucked around with this message at 08:19 on May 30, 2015 |
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May 30, 2015 08:15
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I just had a strange epiphany about my taste in books and I'm looking for some recommendations in a new direction. I've always been on the look for books that don't feature any kind of romance or don't feature any kind of love at first sight or some pair destiny style bullshit. However when I was laying out a list of books that I was thinking that showed off what I was after it hit me that the most memorable in my mind are the books that flawed relationships or series with relationships coming and going in a more realistic manner. Generally I focus on male protagonist stories, although that isn't a hard and fast rule. Probably just because there is so little out there in the field of straight forward stories with a lot of action. Seafort Saga (Remembering this is what tipped me over the edge, but for god sakes don't read it if you're thinking I'm offering it up as a worth reading series) by Feintuch Vlad Taltos series by Brust Seer King series by Chris Bunch You can take that all the way down to something like Conan or up a level with someone like Hobb (who in all fairness goes beyond just straight forward basic stories). What I'm really after are books/series you could imagine as an movie or video game with a strict focus on a protagonist (as in just one) and doesn't involve god awful magically love stories. I'm find with god awful relationships or even crude cheesy romance novel moments, just not as a central theme or core part of the drat book.
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May 30, 2015 09:26
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Not sure how it ranks on a romance scale but the rest of what you're describing sounds like you'd enjoy some urban fantasy. Maybe try the Harry Dresden series or Rivers of London?
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May 30, 2015 09:34
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Alec Eiffel posted:The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb is excellent thus far (starting book 3) but Skilling is a concept that makes explaining fantasy an embarrassing task. Having not read it, do explain! If it isn't spoilery
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May 30, 2015 14:16
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Alec Eiffel posted:The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb is excellent thus far (starting book 3) but Skilling is a concept that makes explaining fantasy an embarrassing task. Its really great, imo. It took me a book or two to really get into it, but youre in for a enjoyable ride. I just recently finished up the first book in her new fitz trilogy, and it did end on a pretty big cliffhanger, I think the next one is supposed to be out in a few more months. I only read the Fitz related trilogies, but I heard live ship is good as well, so I will probably go back to it one day. On another note, I'm about 150 pages into the first Belgariad book. I just got to the part where I learn Wolf is Belgarath It's alright so far but hasn't really grabbed me all the way yet. It seems like they are rushing through a lot of small events(like going from city to city, etc) to try to set things up it feels like. Also it's hard to keep track of all these different races of people, but I think once I get good and settled into the story it will be enjoyable. Drunk Driver Dad fucked around with this message at 20:41 on May 30, 2015 |
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May 30, 2015 20:39
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I keep seeing people mention The Magicians but I'm still a bit on the fence about getting it. Convince me to try it (or avoid it) goons.Khizan posted:The Daughter/Servant/Mistress of the Empire books show the other side of the Riftwar at roughly the same time as the Riftwar, and they are best books in that particular series. Downside is that these books are apparently borderline impossible to get in ebook format unless you go the :files: route, leaving you to either never read them or try to find decent physical copies on amazon or elsewhere if you're lucky. I gave up on them because ebooks are just infinitely more convenient, especially if reading in bed. Less Fat Luke posted:There are a ton of official Kindle store books with awful formatting from the publisher. I've refunded a few of them for that reason I think most if not all of the Riftwar ebooks have mangled text for names like Zūn because OH GOD NON-ORIGINAL ALPHABET  Alec Eiffel posted:The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb is excellent thus far (starting book 3) but Skilling is a concept that makes explaining fantasy an embarrassing task. Magic in general is weird in Hobbs' books for that world. Even the brief expansion you get about it in Tawny Man really doesn't say all that much. I'm only just in to book 3 of Rain Wilds though so maybe it'll get explained in detail in these or the recent Fitz-based trilogy that's still coming out. Drunk Driver Dad posted:Its really great, imo. It took me a book or two to really get into it, but youre in for a enjoyable ride. I just recently finished up the first book in her new fitz trilogy, and it did end on a pretty big cliffhanger, I think the next one is supposed to be out in a few more months. I only read the Fitz related trilogies, but I heard live ship is good as well, so I will probably go back to it one day. Liveships is good overall and makes some of the Tawny Man stuff click better (and vice versa) but holy loving god it has one of the worst and slowest starts I've ever seen to a series. The first 100 or so pages of the trilogy can be summed up as "Every Person* is a loving Idiot And I Wish They'd Die." Granted some characters you're clearly supposed to hate but basically the entire cast is insufferable as hell early on. I think things end up getting much better and fully underway when Wintrow and the liveship fall in to pirate hands. If you can make it through the rough and slow start it is worth it but man that start is grating at times. * except Selden who's just a little kid and Wintrow who is both a kid and treated like poo poo by his father for not being like him(and Kyle is the king of assholes).
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May 31, 2015 04:11
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Evil Fluffy posted:I keep seeing people mention The Magicians but I'm still a bit on the fence about getting it. Convince me to try it (or avoid it) goons. Did you like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? If so, you should go read those again.
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May 31, 2015 04:21
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I've only read the first two, but I very much enjoyed the Magicians books.
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May 31, 2015 04:30
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I'm the opposite. I didn't like the first book although I forced myself to finish it. The protag (and every other character) is a douchebag, and there's weird furry sex, and pretty much sweet gently caress all happens in the book. It's like someone took a Harry Potter novel and instead of having a mystery, they just made it more adult and weird, and left out all the parts involving any kind of action or adventure. I can understand why some people would dig it, but it just didn't do anything for me.
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May 31, 2015 05:04
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:It's like someone took a Harry Potter novel and instead of having a mystery, they just made it more adult and weird, and left out all the parts involving any kind of action or adventure.
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May 31, 2015 05:15
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Just started reading A Succession of Bad Days, the just-published second book in Graydon Saunders' Commonweal setting. It seems to start up not long after the events of The March North (which stands alone reasonably well, but clearly sets up a lot of stuff for an ongoing series to work with), and happily (to me) several characters from the first book are still present here. I had thought it'd be more disconnected due to an author blog post about it, stating:quote:This is not a Line book; it's a go-to-sorcerer-school book. The viewpoint finds out they're qualified to go to sorcerer school abruptly in a fashion not free from trauma, and things do not obviously improve for some time thereafter. It's available from an assortment of ebook vendors (including Google Play Store where you can download a DRM-free .epub version, convert to .mobi with something like Calibre, and send to your kindle, if you have a kindle, because it's not available directly from Amazon): http://dubiousprospects.blogspot.com/2015/05/committing-book-again.html
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May 31, 2015 09:01
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Evil Fluffy posted:I keep seeing people mention The Magicians but I'm still a bit on the fence about getting it. Convince me to try it (or avoid it) goons. This is the trailer for the upcoming TV series. It seems rather faithful. If you watch and think "hmmm, everyone seems an obnoxious rear end in a top hat... but I'd watch that", give the book a try.
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May 31, 2015 09:54
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Quinton posted:Just started reading A Succession of Bad Days, the just-published second book in Graydon Saunders' Commonweal setting. It seems to start up not long after the events of The March North (which stands alone reasonably well, but clearly sets up a lot of stuff for an ongoing series to work with), and happily (to me) several characters from the first book are still present here. I had thought it'd be more disconnected due to an author blog post about it, stating: The first book was excellent and I've been waiting for this ever since I read it. Thanks.
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May 31, 2015 11:27
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The new Paolo Bacilogucci "Water Knife" is really good. It's similar in setting, themes and structure to Windup Girl, but is easier to get into and moves a lot faster once you do imo.
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May 31, 2015 18:14
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RVProfootballer posted:Having not read it, do explain! If it isn't spoilery It's not spoilery and it's really not -that- bad, as far as fantasy elements go. It's basically a way the main character and another character communicate with one another. They can communicate telepathically but it suffers from having too many "rules" that make it seem as if straight out of a board game manual. The main character can also communicate telepathically with animals and sometimes it's just plain silly. And other times it's interesting and adds dimension and a unique perspective to the story. It just depends. Like I said, it's not that bad, but to anyone unaccustomed to fantasy it will seem stupid.
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May 31, 2015 20:01
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savinhill posted:The new Paolo Bacilogucci "Water Knife" is really good. It's similar in setting, themes and structure to Windup Girl, but is easier to get into and moves a lot faster once you do imo. I really liked this book and I totally want a Fallout: Phoenix game to come out so I can be a water knife.
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May 31, 2015 22:11
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"Water Knife" is the most believable post-apoc thing I have ever read. Anyone who chooses not to read it is dumb.
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Jun 1, 2015 04:52
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Alec Eiffel posted:The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb is excellent thus far (starting book 3) but Skilling is a concept that makes explaining fantasy an embarrassing task. I loved the original Farseer Trilogy, but just can't bring myself to read the followups. (Spoiler only confirms the name of a character still alive at the end of the trilogy: I'm too paranoid about Nighteyes eventually dying - I'm too attached to that stupid wolf  You should read the Liveships trilogy next if you have a lot of time, they're in the same world set directly after the Farseer trilogy, though the plot and characters are all totally separate, and I think you'll get spoiled if you jump to the next Farseer books first. I personally enjoyed them a little bit more than the Farseer trilogy.
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Jun 1, 2015 06:36
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Why, why must all of the Robin Hobbs characters be treated so brutally. It's pretty drat painful to read. It adds almost nothing to the story.
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Jun 1, 2015 07:14
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I'm the opposite. I didn't like the first book although I forced myself to finish it. I could handle the obnoxious rear end in a top hat part; I just couldn't handle that they were blatantly obnoxious rear end in a top hat for no reason. That and every single instance of world building was filled with so many inconsistencies you could have drowned all the characters with them. Probably would have come out with a better book in the end.
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Jun 1, 2015 07:15
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oTHi posted:It adds almost nothing to the story. It is the story.
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Jun 1, 2015 07:26
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Khizan posted:It is the story. Yeah, Hobb is all about making you suffer while enjoying it. Tad Williams do a fair job of it as well, but his character description is worse.
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Jun 1, 2015 07:32
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oTHi posted:Why, why must all of the Robin Hobbs characters be treated so brutally. It's pretty drat painful to read. It adds almost nothing to the story. I mean (character spoilers for Fitz Farseer) Fitz losing all faith in the people he ostensibly works for, and then slowly regaining it, is pretty much his entire character arc through two entire trilogies. That is not a story that makes any sense unless he has good reason to feel betrayed. And since he is betrayed by incompetence and imperfection rather than actual treachery, Hobb is going to dwell on how much his life sucks.
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Jun 1, 2015 07:59
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nessin posted:I could handle the obnoxious rear end in a top hat part; I just couldn't handle that they were blatantly obnoxious rear end in a top hat for no reason. That and every single instance of world building was filled with so many inconsistencies you could have drowned all the characters with them. Probably would have come out with a better book in the end. They are obnoxious assholes because that's the central analogy of the whole book. Magic=wealth/privilege.
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Jun 1, 2015 16:53
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Evil Fluffy posted:I keep seeing people mention The Magicians but I'm still a bit on the fence about getting it. Convince me to try it (or avoid it) goons. I ended up not liking the books and not continuing with the series after the second one, but I wouldn't actually tell someone else to avoid it. It's a neat concept - basically a subversion of Harry Potter/Narnia that's dark and cynical, and if you can handle most of the characters not being very likable and you're into the concept you might like it. That said, I would give the warning that the second book contains a pretty horrific rape scene and if you don't want to encounter something like that, I would stay away. I personally am not a "no rape in my fiction ever" type of person. I can handle it if it seems to serve a necessary purpose within the narrative and is not written horribly offensively, but in The Magicians that scene left a really bad taste in my mouth, and it also (in my opinion) really kind of cut a very interesting storyline and character short and made any further development in that story uninteresting to me. It was a real bummer and I just didn't feel much motivation to go on after that book. Especially when combined with the fact that after the end of the second book I found that while I had no idea what would happen next in the story, I also didn't care. I was fine with the story just ending after book 2 and I didn't really have any interest in seeing what else any of the characters did.
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Jun 1, 2015 22:44
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Lowly posted:it also (in my opinion) really kind of cut a very interesting storyline and character short and made any further development in that story uninteresting to me. I'm not sure if that's who you're talking about or not, because I can't think of who else it could be.
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Jun 1, 2015 23:13
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