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Just finished The Library at Mount Char and can heartily recommend it. It's brisk, charming and batshit insane.
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Jul 20, 2015 16:13
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Rather a good "dueling interview" between Max Gladstone and our own Seth Dickinson today: http://www.tor.com/2015/07/20/haves-and-have-nots-in-epic-fantasy/
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Jul 20, 2015 16:59
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bloodychill posted:I just finished Alistair Reynold's Revelation Space and thoroughly enjoyed it, the characters of Dan and Ilya definite favorites, while the Fermi paradox stuff and detailed scenes still haunt me. I've wondering what I should read next since I'm definitely chomping at the bit for more stories in the universe. I've read the short story about Clavain leaving Mars and I know Redemption Ark follows his journey, so that's where I'm thinking of heading next but I have some questions. To note, I prefer reading stories in publish order, not in-universe chronology. Huh. Revelation Space was mostly flat for me. Reynolds struggled to make most of the characters come to life. Even worse (to me anyway) was how bloated the story was. There was almost zero energy moving the story along, and I'd say that a lot of it was from his excessive prose. I feel like the book would've benefited greatly had it lost a 100-150 pages.
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Jul 20, 2015 19:00
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holocaust bloopers posted:Huh. Revelation Space was mostly flat for me. Reynolds struggled to make most of the characters come to life. Even worse (to me anyway) was how bloated the story was. There was almost zero energy moving the story along, and I'd say that a lot of it was from his excessive prose. I feel like the book would've benefited greatly had it lost a 100-150 pages. I liked the excessive prose. It added to the cosmic horror, Lovecraft-in-space vibe.
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Jul 20, 2015 19:44
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Antti posted:I was contemplating dropping it after book one because the villain was so cartoonishly moustache-twirly despite not having a moustache but I'm plowing through book two and still enjoying it so whatever. Maybe there's a place in my life for panto villains. I dunno, a fair number of villains are treated as products of a profoundly hosed-up system. Basically, nobles are people and everyone else isn't, so, say, if your cousin's a serial killer, it's just a funny little peccadillo provided they restrict themselves to peasants. It's the Westminster paedophile ring (don't google that if you want to sleep at night) writ large. The second book in particular goes into this with the prison hostage situation sequence. Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jul 20, 2015 |
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Jul 20, 2015 20:16
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Kesper North posted:I liked the excessive prose. It added to the cosmic horror, Lovecraft-in-space vibe. For me it killed whatever scant amount of energy Reynolds had in the plot, which was a shame. The bones of the story were interesting and the ideas (especially the Conjoiner ships) were extremely my poo poo. Most anything compelling came at such a plodding pace because of Reynold's tendency to deep dive on, what I felt, was excessive story beats. I think that one of Reynold's problems was that he kept asserting character traits through very on the nose dialogue. I said it before that I'm looking forward to reading Chasm City and the other RS novels to see how Reynolds develops.
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Jul 20, 2015 20:26
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Speaking of Reynolds, when the musk dogs were first introduced in Pushing Ice, I was convinced the author was trolling me.
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Jul 20, 2015 21:46
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Johnathan Strange was terrible, everyone lied to me
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Jul 20, 2015 21:52
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corn in the bible posted:Johnathan Strange was terrible, everyone lied to me Condolences on having bad taste.
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Jul 20, 2015 22:08
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withak posted:Condolences on having bad taste. He's right, though?
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Jul 20, 2015 22:17
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Kesper North posted:Rather a good "dueling interview" between Max Gladstone and our own Seth Dickinson today: Glad you liked it! It was a ton of fun.
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Jul 20, 2015 22:55
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Kesper North posted:I liked the excessive prose. It added to the cosmic horror, Lovecraft-in-space vibe. This was exactly why I enjoyed it. It was slow-moving but there was this gnawing alien dread that grew throughout that I enjoyed and I felt like the three main characters were sort of a perfect fit for handling it. Anyway, thanks for the recs. I'm going to go with Chasm City, Glacial, and then finish off the trilogy.
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Jul 21, 2015 00:05
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corn in the bible posted:Johnathan Strange was terrible, everyone lied to me I couldn't stand it either 
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Jul 21, 2015 00:39
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Just finished up Runner by Patrick Lee. He's the guy who did the Breach series that I liked. I thought with the description given, this would be less sci fi than the Breach series and more "airport fiction" style where the main guy is a one man army who has to blah blah blah brown people muslims WW3 blah blah THANK GOD FOR FREEDOMS, and I could not be more happy I was wrong. This one is a new series with a new lead, and as far as I know it's not set in the same universe as the Breach series. Pretty good though. He's good at keeping suspense up, and his main leads are the usual airport fictiony "Man who is good at a lot of things/ex military/etc" but he does keep em vulnerable. No one is walking around in this book like a superhero. I'm about to start on the sequel book to it, Signal. Well worth a read if you liked his other stuff.
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Jul 21, 2015 00:54
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Just read Aurora today after the reviews in the thread. It was a good book in terms of it's attention to detail and the wonderful character development of the AI; definitely a good book as I read it all in one sitting which I rarely do unless the book really grabs my attention. And yet I can't help but feel disappointed by the general story development and in particularly the ending. The books beginning and style where so good that maybe I set my expectations to high, and definitely the structure of the narrative made the ending the only logical end but it all just seemed so pessimistic. Spoiler regarding the ending: probably because I was far more invested in the Ship AI than Freya, the big strengths of the book where definitely seeing the development of the ships AI which was beautifully constructed through the increasingly complex and witty prose.. and then the drat thing just gets killed off and we're left with a past 10th of the book which just seems to drag on and brings closure to the part of the book I cared less about. I wanted closure on this development of the AI's self, and the long term meanings of the organic "evolution" of a strong AI. The ending wasn't bad, it just seemed to answer the wrong questions. EDIT: This is the first book I've read by KSR, so I don't know how it rates in comparison to their other work. d3c0y2 fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 01:46
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Gah, I'm 10% off the end of the book so I can't read your spoiler!
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Jul 21, 2015 01:53
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KSR's specialties are rich character development and attention to detail but he is weaker on overall stories. It can spoil you because there are few sci-fi writers who can write people as well as he can.
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Jul 21, 2015 02:00
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^^^his character work was the beating heart to Aurora. KSR has a knack for working character beats.d3c0y2 posted:Just read Aurora today after the reviews in the thread. It was a good book in terms of it's attention to detail and the wonderful character development of the AI; definitely a good book as I read it all in one sitting which I rarely do unless the book really grabs my attention. And yet I can't help but feel disappointed by the general story development and in particularly the ending. The books beginning and style where so good that maybe I set my expectations to high, and definitely the structure of the narrative made the ending the only logical end but it all just seemed so pessimistic. Spoiler regarding the ending: probably because I was far more invested in the Ship AI than Freya, the big strengths of the book where definitely seeing the development of the ships AI which was beautifully constructed through the increasingly complex and witty prose.. and then the drat thing just gets killed off and we're left with a past 10th of the book which just seems to drag on and brings closure to the part of the book I cared less about. I wanted closure on this development of the AI's self, and the long term meanings of the organic "evolution" of a strong AI. The ending wasn't bad, it just seemed to answer the wrong questions. Yea, I wished to have one final scene with Joche or whatever and Ship. Regardless, that was still an excellent bit of self-sacrifice on Ship's behalf.
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Jul 21, 2015 02:03
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holocaust bloopers posted:^^^his character work was the beating heart to Aurora. KSR has a knack for working character beats. Re: Aurora I think it's easily arguable that the Ship AI *was* the main character. Certainly the one I was the most invested in! Freya's final scenes on Earth just kinda let me down easily and slowly after Ship sacrificed itself. "and yet" HOLY gently caress IF IT HAD ENDED THERE
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Jul 21, 2015 02:08
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thetechnoloser posted:Re: Aurora I think it's easily arguable that the Ship AI *was* the main character. Certainly the one I was the most invested in! Freya's final scenes on Earth just kinda let me down easily and slowly after Ship sacrificed itself. It was bittersweet, but yes. Ship was with us the most, as we're hearing the story through Ship itself. The latter parts of the novel where Ship is feeding us info regarding their slow down maneuvers felt a lot like intentional foreshadowing on Ship's part. The AI seemed to be acutely aware that its luck was going to run out (a metaphor heh).
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Jul 21, 2015 02:12
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holocaust bloopers posted:It was bittersweet, but yes. Ship was with us the most, as we're hearing the story through Ship itself. The latter parts of the novel where Ship is feeding us info regarding their slow down maneuvers felt a lot like intentional foreshadowing on Ship's part. The AI seemed to be acutely aware that its luck was going to run out (a metaphor heh). Im glad other people have the same issues I have. The other issue I had was that the prose was distinctly written which obviously was the perspective of a non-human entity and it worked wonderfully. And yet after the ship dies the last chapter is still written in the same present-tense unusual style as the preceding chapters which left me thinking "Well the AI's got to survive because it's still being written in the usual character style of the AI" and then...nope. I fell for the trap of these novels that the protagonist must survive or at least somehow get his written record passed on before he goes. I imagine the ships narrative was included on the data banks on the lander, but the final chapter really felt off to me because of the continuation of the unusual writing style after the ship was clearly dead.
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Jul 21, 2015 02:18
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d3c0y2 posted:Im glad other people have the same issues I have. The other issue I had was that the prose was distinctly written which obviously was the perspective of a non-human entity and it worked wonderfully. And yet after the ship dies the last chapter is still written in the same present-tense unusual style as the preceding chapters which left me thinking "Well the AI's got to survive because it's still being written in the usual character style of the AI" and then...nope. I fell for the trap of these novels that the protagonist must survive or at least somehow get his written record passed on before he goes. I imagine the ships narrative was included on the data banks on the lander, but the final chapter really felt off to me because of the continuation of the unusual writing style after the ship was clearly dead. there was a quick sentence thrown out where it was noted that the a copy of Ship was included with the ferry. Although it's quickly corrected to be Ship's recounting of the events.
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Jul 21, 2015 02:26
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I'm thinking of giving Malazan another shot but the Greatcoats stuff sound pretty interesting. Any suggestions on which to go with first?
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Jul 21, 2015 03:31
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Evil Fluffy posted:I'm thinking of giving Malazan another shot but the Greatcoats stuff sound pretty interesting. Any suggestions on which to go with first? As between those two options? Go with The Greatcoats. You could read the two currently available books, and have a good time doing so, and if you had instead started with Malazan, in that time you'd still be trying to figure out what was going on with ascendancy, Tiste whoever, and the various invasions of the Malazan empire. And I say this as someone who liked the first 8 Malazan books. Go with The Traitor's Blade first.
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Jul 21, 2015 03:38
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McCoy Pauley posted:As between those two options? Go with The Greatcoats. You could read the two currently available books, and have a good time doing so, and if you had instead started with Malazan, in that time you'd still be trying to figure out what was going on with ascendancy, Tiste whoever, and the various invasions of the Malazan empire. And I say this as someone who liked the first 8 Malazan books. Go with The Traitor's Blade first. Plus, by the time he finishes all the malazan books, the new Greatcoats will be out, I'm sure. 
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Jul 21, 2015 04:54
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Evil Fluffy posted:I'm thinking of giving Malazan another shot but the Greatcoats stuff sound pretty interesting. Any suggestions on which to go with first? They're totally different beasts. The Greatcoats series is fairly straightforward dark fantasy, while Malazan is a vast, sprawling beast of a story in which you're invited to carefully puzzle out the history, politics, and so on of an entire world (or two). They're very different sorts of fun to read, and it depends what you're in the mood for.
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Jul 21, 2015 08:37
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Anyone know what's happening with Stiletto, the sequel to The Rook? I could have sworn it was out this week in the UK (it was definitely July) but it now gives a release of July 2nd 2020 (!), and the only pther dates I can find are January 2016, although that seems to be for the US.
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Jul 21, 2015 10:49
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Aurora is a challenging book. KSR more than any Science Fiction writer knows how to punch you in the gut and deflate your fantasies. I wish now I read this before The Martian. I will be depressed until Dark Forest comes out.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:27
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gohmak posted:Aurora is a challenging book. KSR more than any Science Fiction writer knows how to punch you in the gut and deflate your fantasies. I wish now I read this before The Martian. I will be depressed until Dark Forest comes out. Or do what I do and start Year Of The Flood immediately after Aurora. Aurora is a lot like The Martian except a billion times better in every way because KSR can actually write. The Martian was absolutely vile. I couldn't make it past the halfway point. What a miserable book.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:34
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holocaust bloopers posted:Or do what I do and start Year Of The Flood immediately after Aurora. The Martian was a fun book. MacGyver meets Castaway meets Apollo 13. Dark Forest doesn't come out until August 11. I need another book or two in the interim. Anything good from Vernor Vinge beside Zones of Thought and the Peace War? gohmak fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 17:42
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Why is it no one can simply dislike a book anymore? No, now we have to describe books we don't like as "absolutely vile," a phrase previously reserved for racist screeds and the like. That is so hyperbolic that it ceases to be meaningful in any way regarding the book, though it is useful in identifying morons that don't understand how to properly use language.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:50
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Because I actually think The Martian was absolutely vile? I hated it. But hey good job language police.gohmak posted:The Martian was a fun book. MacGyver meets Castaway meets Apollo 13. The overall plot was fine. It was the execution of literally everything that was awful. Andy Weir is one of the worst writers I've ever read.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:51
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holocaust bloopers posted:Because I actually think The Martian was absolutely vile? I hated it. But hey good job language police.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:54
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holocaust bloopers posted:Because I actually think The Martian was absolutely vile? I hated it. But hey good job language police. Seriously, I've seen some dire writing, and Andy Weir isn't even close to below average, nevermind the bottom. And the sad part is that a good chunk of these awful, incompetent authors have had books on the NYT Bestsellers List. At least Weir has a command of basic grammar.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:56
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holocaust bloopers posted:Because I actually think The Martian was absolutely vile? I hated it. But hey good job language police. I found Watney to be charming and optimistic. I can't wait for Matt Damon to science the poo poo out of the role.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:57
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Mars4523 posted:Then you haven't read many books. The Martian might be shallow writing, but it isn't awful writing. You're right. I haven't read many books. It's only been in the past year that I've been reading about two a month. I try to be very selective on what I devote my reading time too. So far it's been a lot of Arthur C Clarke, some PKD, and then whatever has been very popular in this thread like Reynolds, Scott Lynch, and Robin Hobb. gohmak posted:I found Watney to be charming and optimistic. I can't wait for Matt Damon to science the poo poo out of the role. I hope the movie can take the basic premise and deliver on it because it does hold a lot of promise.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:58
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chrisoya posted:I don't say this often, but it sounds like you need to read some Kratman. Solo-author Kratman at that. A Desert Called Peace, perhaps? sorryithoughtitfunny
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Jul 21, 2015 18:00
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Slow Bullets, that is some vile writing. AR is my favorite scifi writer and I enjoyed Poseidons wake but Slow Bullets was painful to get through.
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Jul 21, 2015 18:04
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Lowly posted:You could try House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. It has that same sort of weird mystery exploration vibe except it's about strange doors and a hallway that appear in a family's house instead of an outdoor area. It has a weird gimmick in that there's all kinds of typography tricks where there are different layouts and fonts and stuff. If you image search the title you can see some page examples. Anyway, I found the story compelling enough in this book that the typography didn't hold me back too much, but I tried reading another one of his books and I couldn't stomach it. Ah, thanks for the recommendation, but unfortunately I've already read that one. Anyway, I'm going to re-read a couple of old books that I might have missed things in--The Books of the New Sun, etc...
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Jul 21, 2015 18:08
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holocaust bloopers posted:I hope the movie can take the basic premise and deliver on it because it does hold a lot of promise. I finished The Martian last week and I agree, I think a competent screenwriter can fill out the holes in the story and turn it into a good one. (I didn't have your quite visceral reaction to it, but it definitely has deficiencies. I think of it in the same category as Tom Clancy before he went off the deep end after 9/11.) E.g. I saw the trailer for the first time after reading the book - I held off on it until then since trailers love to tell you so much these days - and I'm already optimistic about the movie because apparently Watney has a wife and a kid in it, which is an instant shortcut to rounding out his character and giving him a motivation for soldiering on alone for two years.
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Jul 21, 2015 18:09
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