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The Gunslinger posted:I thought Tower Lord had a completely different tone and pace from the first book. It wasn't bad in it's own way but it felt like too much of a shift from Blood Song. I haven't read Queen of Fire yet and I'm not sure I'll bother, the reviews are absolutely scathing. Maybe I'll try the next Django Wexler book, Shadow Throne was a mess but at least I'm hearing better things about Price of Valour. Price of Valor: It is a large improvement over Shadow Throne, imo. It addresses most of the problems I had with Shadow Throne and it's the sequel to Thousand Names that I wanted to read all along. Queen of Fire: The problem with Tower Lord and Queen of Fire is that they seem like sequels to a completely different book than Blood Song. Blood Song was entirely about Vaelin, the greatest warrior of the Unified Realm and the internal difficulties he had with that position. Coming to terms with being ordered to perform political assassinations, dealing with the fact that he was leading his men to war over purely selfish reasons, the cruelty of his Faith towards the gifted and his own gift, his forbidden romance with Sherin, and ultimately his revelation that his Faith was founded on a lie. It was an extremely strong debut novel that was driven entirely by Vaelin. After reading it, I fully expected the followup novels to have to deal with, well, Vaelin and all those problems that I just mentioned. Dealing with his relationship to the Crown, his problems with his Faith, addressing the fact that the Faith was a lie, etc. Then Tower Lord came out and Vaelin got packed off to the north almost immediately. This could have worked out very well, but instead of dealing with his taking over command of an area in the name of the Crown and the Faith despite his problems with both of those institutions and dealing with the numerous issues and plot threads already existent, the book swerved wildly around them and took a sharp left turn out of nowhere, leaving them completely behind to deal with an invasion by the Comically Evil Empire led by the Comically Evil General while introducing Female Vaelin. It was a completely unexpected entirely what the gently caress turn of events that abandoned the Vaelin-centric viewpoint to add in a whole bunch of poorly fleshed out viewpoint characters that I gave absolutely zero shits about while simultaneously abandoning everything interesting about Blood Song. It was an incredibly weak followup to an incredibly strong debut and, in retrospect, it really is as bad as everybody said it was and if I ever implied that it was not I am incredibly sorry; I can only claim that I liked Blood Song enough to give a bad sequel a pass and for that I am, again, incredibly sorry. So, with that said, you're probably thinking "So why the gently caress did this guy read Queen of Fire if Tower Lord was that bad?" gently caress, man, I dunno. I wish I had an answer to that question, though, because Queen of Fire was pretty loving bad. I'm going to spoiler this section in case anybody is as masochistic as I am and wants to read the book, but I strongly advise that you don't do that because seriously it was pretty loving bad. Just read the spoilers to and save yourself the time and money. Lyrna goes goes from manipulative to Basically a Sociopath(which, granted, is not a very far step for her) and becomes a one note character on the subject of Vengence, Terrible. She personally leads her entire army on an attack of the Comically Evil Empire, where she manages to stick her nose into Stupid Trap after Stupid Trap because she only has one capable general and his advice is something other than "charge immediately to the capital via the shortest route" and she doesn't want to hear that. Vaelin takes a random trip to the Even More North to seek Bob the Faithless, the man who supposedly denied the Faith and was cursed to never die and enter the Beyond or some poo poo like that, because that man is related to the Ally, who is the Comically Evil Ancient Being behind the Comically Evil Empire. He learns a bunch of boring worthless history from memory stones that doesn't make any sense, blah blah blah, same old same old. He conveniently finds a shaman who can prevent the Ally's minions from fleeing a body after death and then he is conveniently attacked by all of those minions so that he can eliminate them before reaching the Comically Evil Capital. Which is somehow connected to the Far North Icelands close enough so that he's able to lead his Noble Savages to the capital to meet Lyrna, the Queen of Fiery Reva goes along with Lyrna, gets shipwrecked immediately, fights in the arena, blah blah boring boring. She's perfect and awesome and the Voice of the World Father and she can never be defeated because she's a Vaelin-class swordswoman despite never having the Blood Song and blah blah blah. Frentis gets sent ahead with his Forest Bros to lead a slave rebellion on one side of the Empire so they'll be focused over there when Lyrna arrives at the other side. Sadly, they failed to realize that the Evil Empress is still connected with him and can talk to him in his dreams, so the feint is completely loving worthless and he's outplayed by her every time he turns around. His army of rebellious slaves makes it to the capital but accomplishes basically nothing in battle; most of them get wiped out completely and they have to be saved by Lyrna's sailors in a melee battle, making his entire contribution to the effort basically pointless. He's seen as a popular hero and figure of liberation after the book is over, but those plot threads are never addressed at all after this revelation so it's basically meaningless. When all the heroes meet up in the capital they feed the Ally back to the stone that made him into the Ally, which is explained somewhat in Vaelin's memory-stone infodumps but it's basically just a Magic MacGuffin for Enemy Disposal. It has some other features that would be potentially important if they didn't up and destroy it immediately afterwards, rending all those other features useless, but fortunately that's exactly what they did! And here the story ends, with the heroes high-fiving in the Comically Evil Coliseum with the Comically Evil Empire shattered and under Lyrna's control, the Unified Realm an unmitigated clusterfuck of a disaster area whose queen has stripped it of soldiers and able-bodied men and then marched half of them into a blender, and no resolution at all to any plot threads aside from a checkmark next to "Ancient Evil Destroyed". It was awful. It has every problem that Tower Lord had plus a few more for good measure and none of that which made Blood Song so good. Skip it. Go read the Price of Valor, which is a much better example of how to pull up after a weak second book. Khizan fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Jul 12, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 10:27
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Crashbee posted:Today's UK Kindle daily deal includes a number of decent sci-fi books, including Ancillary Justice, Starship Troopers, Proxima by Stephen Baxter, a couple of Arthur C Clarke's, Metro 2034 (but not 2033), and Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds. Just picked up Proxima which I've had on my wishlist for a while, thanks for posting!
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Jul 12, 2015 10:38
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Autonomous Monster posted:I just finished the latest Django Wexler (Thousand Names, Shadow Throne) book, The Price of Valour. I have to say, I'm impressed. It's like Wexler took every single complaint I had with The Shadow Throne and tackled it head on. Eh, whats-his-face's lightning-fast decent from well-intention extremism to power-mad villainy was a bit pat, and crazy lesbian feels like a weak trope, even if it was well-foreshadowed, but otherwise, yeah. It was entertaining pulp again instead of being, well, not. On the other hand, it's been confirm as (at least) a five-book series now and uuuuugh. Why can't anyone ever just finish a story anymore? If an editor had cracked the whip and cut out 90% of 'let's be Revolutionary France with the names filed off', we probably could have been done by now.
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Jul 12, 2015 10:49
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Ceebees posted:On the other hand, it's been confirm as (at least) a five-book series now and uuuuugh. Why can't anyone ever just finish a story anymore? If an editor had cracked the whip and cut out 90% of 'let's be Revolutionary France with the names filed off', we probably could have been done by now. Anthony Ryan just did. I think I'd rather an author take his time.
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Jul 12, 2015 11:40
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Ceebees posted:Eh, whats-his-face's lightning-fast decent from well-intention extremism to power-mad villainy was a bit pat, Robspierre gonna Robspierre  I think you've got to just accept the fact that Wexler is going to retread the French revolution beat for beat or you're going to hate this series to death, so. And Maurist was already heading that way at the end of the last book, so his character arc here started and ended exactly where I was expecting it to. Well, not quite, I was expecting him to get not!guillotined, but other than that. Ceebees posted:and crazy lesbian feels like a weak trope, even if it was well-foreshadowed, but otherwise, yeah. Eh, I mean I guess you can read it that way. It never occurred to me when I was reading it, but that seems like a perfectly reasonable tack to take. On the other hand, Winter is both a lesbian and perfectly sane, as is Abby, which immediately reduces Jane from "exemplar for her entire sexuality" to "madwoman who happens to be homosexual". I also think it goes a ways beyond foreshadowing; it seems like the natural culmination of Jane's entire character arc up to this point. Her basic approach to problem-solving is to hit or shout at or otherwise attack the problem until it goes away- and if that doesn't work, escalate. She's never met a problem she couldn't bully into submission. When she finally does, in this book, she can't handle it- her response is to crawl into a bottle. A comparison with Winter is illustrative here. Both of them started in the Prison, and for both of them their response to that place determines everything that comes after. Winter ran away; she abandoned her lover when she needed her the most (whether there was anything she could feasibly have done is beside the point), and that moment of cowardice is her defining trauma. And she didn't stop running until she reached Khandar, where she spent- two? Three? Years hiding her sex from everyone around her. What she learnt from that (and military life in general) was how to navigate a hostile system and survive. Jane, on the other hand, went back; she threw the gates open and led the girls out of the Prison. Flash forward to now, and Winter's first response to an unwelcome reality is to try to negotiate with it, or accommodate it as far as she can without damaging herself; Jane's is to blow it up. And if she doesn't like the consequences, she'll blow those up too. And with Jane, there's a sense in which she's still trapped in the Prison, because there's a sense in which she never left. She took the girls out of the place, and then found she had to take care of them; in the woods, in the city, in the army. Her entire life is still about dealing with that place. Whereas with Winter, well- between hiding in the army, fighting a war, looking after her soldiers and fighting a demonic conspiracy, Winter just had too much to be getting on with to dwell on the past. At this point her world is much larger than Jane's, which means that she relates to Janus and the Royals and everything else in ways that Jane just can't understand. So of course Jane lost it in the end. She saw her worst nightmare playing out all over again and found herself powerless to stop it. Ceebees posted:It was entertaining pulp again instead of being, well, not.  Ceebees posted:On the other hand, it's been confirm as (at least) a five-book series now and uuuuugh. Why can't anyone ever just finish a story anymore? If an editor had cracked the whip and cut out 90% of 'let's be Revolutionary France with the names filed off', we probably could have been done by now. I'm pretty relaxed about it, to be honest. After Wexler sidelined the main plot for an entire book in Shadow Throne, my brain stopped treating the series as a single story with a concise beginning, middle and end and filed it as a serial, in the vein of Sharpe, the Aubrey-Maturin books, Swallows and Amazons etc. I'm happy to just follow these characters around until the stop being interesting to me. Also, as someone who read the Wheel of Time, I think I have basically infinite patience for authors spinning poo poo out. Khizan posted:Queen of Fire This is interesting to me. I guess because it seems this thread rates Blood Song much higher than I did? For me it fell into the same category as the Wexler books: enjoyable pulp. A solid B+ book. But from what I'm reading here it seems people found it almost revelatory? Tower Lord was definitely worse, but we're talking a B+ to a B- sort of fall; nothing to get upset about. Queen of Fire is next on my reading list, so we'll see how that goes.
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Jul 12, 2015 16:00
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It's clearly enjoyable pulp, so I'm rating it on a scale for pulp fantasy. It's not that the book was a revelatory experience or anything, I just don't see much of a reason to rate it against anything else. I rate Blood Song highly because it came out of nowhere as a very enjoyable book, albeit one that is classified as 'pulp fantasy'. I rate the sequels much lower because they took a sharp turn away from everything that I liked about Blood Song.
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Jul 12, 2015 16:58
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Khizan posted:I rate Blood Song highly because it came out of nowhere as a very enjoyable book, albeit one that is classified as 'pulp fantasy'. I rate the sequels much lower because they took a sharp turn away from everything that I liked about Blood Song. It seemed to go from a tight focus on one man who was part of something greater to actually focus on the something greater. But the something greater was only ever smoke and mirrors. The first one is still pretty good.
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Jul 12, 2015 19:31
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Nevvy Z posted:Has anyone read the books Red Rising and Golden Son by pierce brown? My friend really likes them but I trust you all collectively more than her. They're actually pretty good, despite what some people here contend (many without reading them whatsoever). They are NOT YA whatsoever. Much too brutal. Too much sex, too much violence, too much desperation. There are legitimate complaints about the sequence in the first book taking place at the Academy, which is somewhat Hunger-Games-y, but in reality the only similarity is that it's a competition with set rules. Beyond that its as different as can be. I can recommend both of them strongly. They are amazingly fast-paced and tightly-written, which I can always appreciate. There is no wasted space and no wasted exposition. The characters are three-dimensional and the plot twists are legitimately surprising. To be honest, I expected very little, I couldn't even remember where I had gotten Red Rising from. And at the start, I was not encouraged, it seemed a bit cliche. But it only rockets upwards from there. My recommendation would be to give it an honest try, if by halfway through the first book you despise it then it's not for you. I find that somewhat unlikely though. Got some more recommendations for you fools! Ever month I browse the "Fiction Affliction" articles (mainly in Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Genre Benders) and acquire anything that looks interesting. In this way I often come across books I've never seen mentioned here. So here are some interesting books for you to check out: The Library at Mount Char. Fantastic, bizarre book. I really have no idea how to describe it, it is utterly unique. I wouldn't want to spoil it anyways. In a gross summary, its a power struggle over a library which contains unimaginable power through the information stored therein. Emergence. Very B-movie style action thriller. Plenty of humor, plenty of cliche, but tightly written and enjoyable. An aging, balding rig safety manager who has made a mess of his family and his life attacks what looks like an orc with an enormous cock and finds himeself changed by the experience. Ghost Fleet. A yellow scare techno-thriller. Ludicrous in some ways, but written by defense contractors and so incredibly accurate in others. A fun read, don't take it too seriously just have fun with it. Then I've got a list of about ten books that are absolute poo poo, but for now I'm only posting good ones because I don't like to pass along negative feelings about a book and ruin the experience someone might've had  . Super excited to hear about new Blood Song and new Greatcoats!
Play fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jul 12, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 20:44
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Red Rising is actually another one of today's kindle deals oddly enough.
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Jul 12, 2015 20:56
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IXIX posted:What cases did you catch being reused? It's been a while since I read the rest of his stuff, so I only noticed Pauline. Well Freya is a name he used at least in The Martians. There's a page or two discussion about the "dome of the sky" and its apparent flatness (horizon looks further away than zenith), which I think was also in Antarctica. The call back to Scott's south pole expedition - "I am just going outside and may be some time." There's surfing, which is a funny sort of quasi-staple for him. One of the first individuals Ship names when it thinks that's what it has to do to recount the story is Temur, living in the Mongolia biome. The historical Temur was in The Years of Rice and Salt. Then there's his general solar system future history that he more or less sticks to - a city on Mercury that rides on expanding rails, the idea of Saturn/Titan getting rich by selling its excess nitrogen, the Earth pilgrimage that spacers have to make to stay healthy, the general theme of an overpopulated, struggling Earth. And of course the idea that starships are a flawed idea, and their missions doomed to fail, which turned up in Icehenge, the Mars trilogy, and 2312.
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Jul 12, 2015 20:57
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Play posted:Emergence. Very B-movie style action thriller. Plenty of humor, plenty of cliche, but tightly written and enjoyable. An aging, balding rig safety manager who has made a mess of his family and his life attacks what looks like an orc with an enormous cock and finds himeself changed by the experience.
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Jul 12, 2015 20:59
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Watership Down counts as sci-fi as rabbits cannot speak
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Jul 12, 2015 20:59
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Play posted:Got some more recommendations for you fools! Ever month I browse the "Fiction Affliction" articles (mainly in Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Genre Benders) and acquire anything that looks interesting. In this way I often come across books I've never seen mentioned here. So here are some interesting books for you to check out: I second this one. Definitely weird in a good way and pretty consistently good.
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Jul 12, 2015 21:04
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ulmont posted:I liked Dread Empire, but I recommend Instrumentalities of the Night over Dread Empire. I'm rereading Instrumentalities now, since I can finally afford the fourth book. And yeah, overall I really love the Dread Empire series and think everyone should read it… it does have its weak spots. I'd say the worst of it is that there's so drat much going on. Instrumentalities also has a lot going on but has the benefit of having fewer POV characters. I'd say take your pick of which faux-Europe setting you want to play with. Dread Empire: Medieval Europe during or just after the first wave of Islamic expansion. Complicating everything, China is a magical superpower and has something even better than the Roman legions. There are fuckoff huge battles with deeply scary magic going on that can be seen from hundreds of miles away. Lots of characters. Instrumentalities: Early Renaissance Europe during the Dual Papacy. All the gods are real, belief gives supernatural entities both form and power. The political situation is deeply complex with analogues for the Catholic Church, Holy Roman Empire, Spanish Reconquistas, Crusader States, a close replica of Salaladin, something Ottomans, and… There's drat near everything except England, because magic is getting weaker and that was keeping the glaciers at bay. So Scandinavia and England are under a mile or two of ice. Throw in to that mix a highly competent infantry officer as protagonist, and a wandering religious master for the moral center of the story. A big battle has numbers in the low thousands per side since nobody can afford much more and not-France hasn't re-invented the standing, professional, army yet. Oh, and a (newly invented) cannon loaded with iron and silver shot can kill any supernatural entity. The Instrumentalities of the Night don't take kindly to that. Read 'em both, pick which one you want to tackle first. While you're trying to decide, try The Tower of Fear. Here Cook is playing with a Roman occupation of a Jewish city. The city was conquered by betrayal. And there's an actual evil wizard in that tower. He's only mostly dead. It's all about the street-level, day to day existence of a neighborhood. Mostly. ToF doesn't get enough love, it's probably the best of his standalone novels, edging out The Dragon Never Sleeps by a remarkably small margin.
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Jul 12, 2015 22:09
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Read through the first chapter of Aurora. Feels like coming home. Heh, the AI is awesome, first attempt at making a story was great. thehomemaster fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 23:46
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Play posted:
To be fair, it is a life changing experience, seeing an orc. Either with a massive cock or without one. (read it, decent but kinda weird. Few plot holes, but a fun read)
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Jul 12, 2015 23:54
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Doesn't suck so far. SyFy doesn't have a good track record maintaining even mediocre quality.
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Jul 13, 2015 00:18
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Autonomous Monster posted:Robspierre gonna Robspierre Given that it opened with an adventure in Not-Egypt and most recently hit the fall of The Directorate to the machinations of the First Consul, i've always seen it more as retreating Napoleon's story beat for beat (if slightly out of order), which i am very much on board with. So, it kind of irks me that he devoted two-thirds of a book to the part of the story where Janus Bonaparte wasn't even there. To the other thing, you're quite right that's it's entirely fitting for the character in question. I'm still a touch sour that something that spanned three books smacked into a cliche i find tiresome, but in retrospect it's not like Jen "The Spy Who Loved Me" was exactly a fresh idea either. I guess i just need to adjust my expectations for the parts that don't involve muskets and flanking maneuvers
Ceebees fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 00:43
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mllaneza posted:I'm rereading Instrumentalities now, since I can finally afford the fourth book. And yeah, overall I really love the Dread Empire series and think everyone should read it… it does have its weak spots. I'd say the worst of it is that there's so drat much going on. Instrumentalities also has a lot going on but has the benefit of having fewer POV characters. I'd say take your pick of which faux-Europe setting you want to play with. Dread Empire also has some cool stuff that influenced Erikson for any Malazan fans thinking of reading it.
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Jul 13, 2015 01:41
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"Mad Max: Fury Road" was awesome and I'm wondering if there's anything out there in book form that's similar. I've read "The Road" but it's too slow, meditative, and morose for the sort of balls-to-the-walls, ultra-violent, post-nuclear wasteland insanity I'm looking for. Any reccomendations?
Benny the Snake fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 02:28
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Play posted:
Also, for anyone highly sensitive to bad exposition scenes, I'd stay away from this book for fear of it triggering a fatal allergic reaction. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 02:32
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Counter point - He punches a super orc in the nutsack during a fight.
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Jul 13, 2015 02:42
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Mod Hat On because I've gotten a few reports about this today: everyone please double-check the forum spoiler policy. quote:
This isn't a "specific" thread, so we should probably try to keep it relatively spoiler-free. lots of the titles people throw out in here are relatively esoteric and not things most people will have heard of, and people tend to come here looking for recommendations for new stuff. I consider this more a "courtesy" rule than a "enforcement" rule -- generally I just edit the post and don't queue anything -- but I haven't read everything and don't always know what to put tags around, so please err on the side of caution, if only so I don't have to spend a bunch of time looking up random_fantasy_series_01 just to figure out whether or not you're ruining my lands here. Thanks all. (On the other hand, if this thread is just turning into a swarm of black bars, maybe we can reconsider the rule or spin off new individual threads for the particular books in question). Mod Hat Off: Holy balls, Dinosaur Lords comes out this month! http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaur-Lords-Novel-Victor-Mil-n-ebook/dp/B00S52BU5Y/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid= I've never been more excited about a book purely based on the cover. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 03:43
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Man, gently caress reading that book, I just want a poster of the cover to put on the wall.
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Jul 13, 2015 04:04
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Kesper North posted:Good news, apparently the Expanse pilot doesn't suck: The crash couch design really bothers me for some reason. It makes me think the science is out the window other that a few micro g scenes.
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Jul 13, 2015 04:10
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Charles Stross released his first book of short stories for free - definitely worth a read: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/toast/toast-intro.html
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Jul 13, 2015 04:17
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Benny the Snake posted:"Mad Max: Fury Road" was awesome and I'm wondering if there's anything out there in book form that's similar. I've read "The Road" but it's too slow, meditative, and morose for the sort of balls-to-the-walls, ultra-violent, post-nuclear wasteland insanity I'm looking for. Any reccomendations? The Failed Cities Monologues? A little more urban fantasy, but still a bit post-apoc.. Dhalgren? Again, similar to Failed Cities.
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Jul 13, 2015 05:08
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Benny the Snake posted:"Mad Max: Fury Road" was awesome and I'm wondering if there's anything out there in book form that's similar. I've read "The Road" but it's too slow, meditative, and morose for the sort of balls-to-the-walls, ultra-violent, post-nuclear wasteland insanity I'm looking for. Any reccomendations? Here's a couple books...maybe(?)...that could slightly be somewhat like what you might be looking for. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239919.Damnation_Alley https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13596938-tentacle-death-trip https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/889284.The_Postman It's NOT LIKE Mad Max at all, but I've found Neal Asher writes space sci-fi in a very similarly active way that might be enjoyable for you. A lot of combat done pretty aggressively and cool. Good books, too. Check out Prador Moon maybe if it interests you. It's not deep sci-fi like Reynolds or whatever, but it's fun. Drifter fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 05:48
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Khizan posted:words words words You forgot about Weaver is now all powerful despite having no described personality! I thought Queen of fire was... ok. Again, most of the harsh reception is due to Blood Song being pretty great.
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Jul 13, 2015 09:24
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Benny the Snake posted:"Mad Max: Fury Road" was awesome and I'm wondering if there's anything out there in book form that's similar. I've read "The Road" but it's too slow, meditative, and morose for the sort of balls-to-the-walls, ultra-violent, post-nuclear wasteland insanity I'm looking for. Any reccomendations? I know these are game books, but the Freeway Warrior books by Joe Dever are sort of fun, interactive, and very Mad Max-y... They're not Shakespeare, but hey, they're free. http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Books (scroll down) Also, the novella On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks by Joe R. Lansdale is fun--it's a zombie story, but it's set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and it's pretty high-octane fun. I believe if you search around, Lansdale released it for free at one time on his website... Yes, here it is: http://web.archive.org/web/20020803155914/http://joerlansdale.com/stories.shtml tonytheshoes fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 18:13
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Play posted:The Library at Mount Char. Fantastic, bizarre book. I really have no idea how to describe it, it is utterly unique. I wouldn't want to spoil it anyways. In a gross summary, its a power struggle over a library which contains unimaginable power through the information stored therein. I read this and enjoyed it, blew through it in one sitting.
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Jul 13, 2015 18:15
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The Society of Actuaries apparently has a science fiction competition? Some of the entries are neat, even if the writing isn't all that good. Blockchain Insurance Company, for instance, was six pages of dire exposition followed by a pretty good ending. Have a look. It's not as good a use for bitcoin as Neptune's Brood, though.
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Jul 13, 2015 18:54
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I'm spoiled. I just can't get over the clumsy writing. My eyes started slipping off the page after reading the third "measured caution" in the winning entry.
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Jul 13, 2015 19:03
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Benny the Snake posted:"Mad Max: Fury Road" was awesome and I'm wondering if there's anything out there in book form that's similar. I've read "The Road" but it's too slow, meditative, and morose for the sort of balls-to-the-walls, ultra-violent, post-nuclear wasteland insanity I'm looking for. Any reccomendations? The Drowned World isn't post-nuclear but it has an antagonist with trained alligators. I Am Legend is also very good. A Canticle for Leibowitz is kinda meditative but its also the book that pretty much set the standard for almost all post-apocalyptic stories (the sequel goes full Mad Max though).
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Jul 13, 2015 21:28
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So I keep reading reviewers hating on this Ernest Cline guy someone fill me in on what his deal is
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Jul 13, 2015 21:50
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Mel Mudkiper posted:So I keep reading reviewers hating on this Ernest Cline guy someone fill me in on what his deal is He writes books about how nobody understands (thinly veiled self-insert protagonist)'s love of classic video games and 80s culture (which is when he grew up) that is literally pure wish fulfillment about his useless loving trivia actually being of use. He milks the nostalgia dollar like a Hollywood remake. It's crap.
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Jul 13, 2015 22:40
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I only read Ready Player One and it pretty much completely overfilled my nostalgia tanks for the next twenty years, when nostalgia will be for something different and some new wank will be cashing in.
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Jul 14, 2015 01:47
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Benny the Snake posted:"Mad Max: Fury Road" was awesome and I'm wondering if there's anything out there in book form that's similar. I've read "The Road" but it's too slow, meditative, and morose for the sort of balls-to-the-walls, ultra-violent, post-nuclear wasteland insanity I'm looking for. Any reccomendations? Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines books (there's a variety of series names) are solidly young-adult stuff, but I recall them being pretty good, and they definitely fit the ultra-violence thing.
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Jul 14, 2015 01:57
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Alhazred posted:The Drowned World isn't post-nuclear but it has an antagonist with trained alligators. I Am Legend is also very good. A Canticle for Leibowitz is kinda meditative but its also the book that pretty much set the standard for almost all post-apocalyptic stories (the sequel goes full Mad Max though). The only downside to A Canticle for Leibowitz is the author's crazed rant at the end about euthanasia. It's understandable as from what I've read it was written by a very devout catholic, but it just fits in so horribly with the rest of the book. Besides that though I loved it.
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Jul 14, 2015 02:19
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Kesper North posted:He writes books about how nobody understands (thinly veiled self-insert protagonist)'s love of classic video games and 80s culture (which is when he grew up) that is literally pure wish fulfillment about his useless loving trivia actually being of use. He milks the nostalgia dollar like a Hollywood remake. It's not high lit but I rather enjoyed Ready Player One, since I grew up on the tail end of the period he's nostalgiating (that's a word now). I don't need to read it again and I wouldn't want to read something that's just a reiteration of the same themes. If he keeps writing the same book over and over with different trappings then I probably won't bother picking anything else up.
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Jul 14, 2015 03:24
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