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Xotl posted:For all that Eddings is called someone who repeated himself endlessly, I found Gemmell to be just as bad; most of his books have a really flat sameness to them. That having been said, Legend and his duology set in ancient Greece were fun. Gemmell certainly repeats themes and such however, it often comes out as a way to link one of his worlds to another one, via certain characters, philosophies, magical properties, cowards become heroes, bad men become repentant and are usually given a chance to spend their lives (often for a small and forgettable but ultimately humane one) and be redeemed, good and loving men become corrupted by power or strife and lose themselves, etc. I guess they do repeat themselves. Must be identical reading. Jedit posted:Except he didn't. In Legend it's openly acknowledged that Druss lies like a bastard. He even lies about his own legend being a lie - when he's asked in Legend if the story about him slaying a werebeast is true he replies "No, I just killed a lot of men in a lot of battles", but the later books show that not only was that story true he also did a heap of heroic deeds off the battlefield. The Iron Code was a later addition and not a consistent one. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Sep 17, 2015 |
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Sep 17, 2015 18:22
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The problem is he had like five of those last hurrahs and each one lasted a book. I don't terribly mind Gemmell but there's just no imagination or fresh ideas anywhere in there.
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Sep 17, 2015 18:31
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anilEhilated posted:The problem is he had like five of those last hurrahs and each one lasted a book. Uh what?
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Sep 17, 2015 18:32
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Right, on checking the wiki, there's apparently only four books. Feels like more. I still can't help thinking he just starts and ends on "I'm too old for this poo poo", it's probably been too long since I read it.
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Sep 17, 2015 18:42
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Khizan posted:Just finished Baru. To be quite honest, I really only bought the book because General Battuta wrote it and I was curious about a goon-authored book. Well, I'm not curious anymore. It's probably the best debut novel I've read since Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora. Lies is, of course, still the best book in the genre but I could comfortably put Baru into my top 5. Maybe top 3. Right, caved in and preordered this sucker. I've needed a good fantasy novel for a while anyway.
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Sep 17, 2015 19:36
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Really, I only had one problem with Baru: I spent probably the first 75% of the book wondering just how the Masks stayed in power. They're gigantic jerkbags, everybody in the world hates them, they do regular genital mutilation and have 'reparatory childbirth' as a concept , they practice eugenics, and they're generally as unsubtly evil as the progeny that would result from Skeletor hate-loving Mumm-Ra. So I never really see any benefits to joining them. They talk about soap and roads and dentists and medicine and all this stuff, but I never really see any of this and everybody who isn't a high Mask official basically hates the Masquerade and just goes along because they're afraid of them. This would work fine except for the part where I never really see a reason for people to be afraid of them. This niggled at me for basically the entire book and it bothered me more than it probably should have. Since the ending was "we wanted you to revolt, because it was our revolt, and it will always be our revolt" I can see why it couldn't show their might as a reason why rebellion was impossible, but I think the book could have benefited from showing me some kind of actual benefits the Masquerade brought with it, instead of just seeing homophobia and secret police. This would have bothered me a looooot more if the ending hadn't handled the "It's almost like they WANT people to rebel" feelings I was getting, but the ending gave me a pretty definite answer on that front. I still think the Masquerade came off as too cartoon-villain evil, though. A great book in spite of that, though, and I left a 5-star Amazon review. Khizan fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Sep 17, 2015 |
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Sep 17, 2015 19:53
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Hedrigall posted:I enjoyed Lies and I'm dying for my copy of Baru to come. What else is in your top 5? Hrm. I'll go with Peter Watt's Blindsight, Steven Brust's Jhereg, and Iain Banks with Use of Weapons. If I stick strictly to Fantasy, sub in China Mieville's The Scar and Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes for the two SF titles.
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Sep 17, 2015 20:58
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Picked up my copy of Baru Cormorant on my lunch break. Looking forward to adding on to the love-train.
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Sep 17, 2015 22:02
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I'm in the last fifty pages or so of the latest Robin Hobb Fitz & Fool story and I gotta say that I like it a lot more than the first installment in this latest trilogy. Not that I disliked the first one, it was just sorta plodding and lacking compared to the previous F&F books for me. This latest one pretty much has all the stuff I wanted that I thought the previous one didn't have enough of, though: better paced, more and better character interactions/development, much more plot and stakes driven, as well as the world building of the larger Six Duchies setting from all the various books before this one impacting the story a lot more. While some of Fitz's thoughts and reactions, etc could get repetitive, they actually pay off when Hobb wants to evoke those feels, which she did very well for me so far in this.
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Sep 18, 2015 00:01
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Khizan posted:Hrm. I'll go with Peter Watt's Blindsight, Steven Brust's Jhereg, and Iain Banks with Use of Weapons. If I stick strictly to Fantasy, sub in China Mieville's The Scar and Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes for the two SF titles. Cool, I have read all of those except Abercrombie. You have good taste goon sir. I guess I'll have to give Abercrombie a shot soon! (Should I read the First Law books before those three standalones?)
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Sep 18, 2015 00:37
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Yes. The first books sort of set the field for the stand-alones, and they're a solid read by themselves. They look like they're starting off pretty standard but Abercrombie's pretty good about subverting the usual expectations.
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Sep 18, 2015 02:48
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Most of the main characters of the stand alone novels all appear as minor ones in the First Law Trilogy, and several actually have character arcs that span all six books. Not the end of the world if you don't start from the beginning, but it's fun to see the characters develop and change over the years. I'm currently on the last one now (Red Country). They're all good solid books, so it's worth reading from the start anyway... although to be honest you'll see Abercrombie's "subversions" from a loving mile away, he's not all that subtle about it.
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Sep 18, 2015 03:02
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Abercrombie subverting expectations = Expected: good book Delivered: bad book 
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Sep 18, 2015 03:30
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anilEhilated posted:Right, on checking the wiki, there's apparently only four books. Feels like more. I still can't help thinking he just starts and ends on "I'm too old for this poo poo", it's probably been too long since I read it.
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Sep 18, 2015 03:46
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Oz goons, some Sci Fi and fantasy deals Weaveworld, Fahrenheit 451 and necromancer are 1.99. Assassins apprentice, little brother and the time ships are 4.99 Hammerfall, prodigal sun, shadows heir and magicians guild are 2.99.
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Sep 18, 2015 04:04
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Hyperion Cantos talk that I am late to the scene for so ignore me if you are sick of it: I can't decide whether to be impressed or upset with the twist in Endymion, but either way, holy poo poo is it a mean-spirited twist.  I'm assuming what the immortal space Pope reveals during the "inquisition" scene in the second book is true.
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Sep 18, 2015 05:52
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The anthology Alien Contact (the theme of the anthology should be obvious) edited by Marty Halpern is on sale for Kindle. I think it's $1.99 for US customers, but even for me in Australia it's only $2.59. http://www.amazon.com/Alien-Contact-Marty-Halpern-ebook/dp/B006QO19KO/ It's got a number of awesome stories, including "Kin" by Bruce McAllister which is one of my favourites of all time (a young boy makes a bargain with an alien bounty hunter) and a nifty story called "The 43 Antarean Dynasties" by Mike Resnick (a planet of a once-proud alien empire is now nothing but a cheapened tourist destination for bored humans). And there's a bunch of other A-list authors:  Excellent bargain, go get it!
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Sep 18, 2015 07:19
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I quite enjoyed reading The Last Wish back when Witcher 3 came out. I had a fair few problems with it, but the best bits really impressed me. For a simplistic story, it felt a lot smarter than a lot of fantasy I've been reading. And for whatever reason, I quite liked the very functional translated prose, even if it apparently lost a lot from the Polish. Not sure I'm ready to invest in the entire series, but I heard good things about the second (well, if The Last Wish is classed as the first) book? Wondering if it's worth checking out.
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Sep 18, 2015 08:29
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It mostly gets more complex as it goes. I don't know how the stories are grouped up in the English release but they start spoofing (and subverting) folklore and proceed to more interesting theme. The novels (starting with Blood of the Elves) start off fairly slow but it's definitely a great read.
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Sep 18, 2015 12:15
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anilEhilated posted:Right, on checking the wiki, there's apparently only four books. Feels like more. I still can't help thinking he just starts and ends on "I'm too old for this poo poo", it's probably been too long since I read it. Evidently, as in the First Chronicles he's 17 and in the Second he's 30. I might give you Skeln and White Wolf, where in both cases he wasn't looking for a fight, but in Legend he muses about how he'd been constantly active even though he knew there were men who could beat him and at Delnoch he refuses to slow down because he's old. He literally only retired when he knew he was about to die and even then chose to fight one more time so he could die on his own terms. "Too old for this poo poo" is pretty much the reverse of Druss.
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Sep 18, 2015 13:12
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VagueRant posted:I quite enjoyed reading The Last Wish back when Witcher 3 came out. I had a fair few problems with it, but the best bits really impressed me. For a simplistic story, it felt a lot smarter than a lot of fantasy I've been reading. And for whatever reason, I quite liked the very functional translated prose, even if it apparently lost a lot from the Polish. I'd recommend reading The Sword of Destiny before getting into the Blood of Elves which kicks off the novel series proper. If you have played the game you're probably familiar with a lot of the Ciri stuff already, but like The Last Wish it's another anthology that sets up more of the world. For whatever reason they initially held off translating it so going from The Last Wish to Blood of Elves which has a fair number of things going on at the onset was a little jarring.
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Sep 18, 2015 15:18
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I finished The Dark Forest and thought it was good. The translation was pretty stilted, though; I miss Ken Liu. The conflict with the Trisolarians is over, but there's still some loose ends. I guess Death's End will explain what happened with the mental seal, the fate of the Spaceship Earth people, how the probe works, and how they plan to make friends with all the other species out there.
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Sep 18, 2015 17:43
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angel opportunity posted:Abercrombie subverting expectations = It would really save a lot of time for yourself if you just changed your title over there to "I Hate Joe Abercrombie." You never miss a chance to mention it... Anyway, what's with 70s era Sci-Fi and exploring weird sex poo poo? I'm reading The Man Who Folded Himself right now (billed as some sort of classic of time travel fiction), and it's taken some really strange turns... All of a sudden, the main character ends up loving himself--literally--like, he falls in love with and has sex with his past and future selves. The even have an orgy... I guess it's a weird sort of masturbation, but... well, it just was really far off from what I expected.... In general, though, the book is pretty interesting... tonytheshoes fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Sep 18, 2015 |
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Sep 18, 2015 18:07
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tonytheshoes posted:It would really save a lot of time for yourself if you just changed your title over there to "I Hate Joe Abercrombie." You never miss a chance to mention it... Yes, because it pains me to see it recommended to people.
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Sep 18, 2015 18:19
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tonytheshoes posted:It would really save a lot of time for yourself if you just changed your title over there to "I Hate Joe Abercrombie." You never miss a chance to mention it... I went on a time-traveling binge (in terms of reading books about it, yet to accomplish the feat myself) and I definitely enjoyed this one a lot as a good example of... 'vintage' time travel? But yeah, some weird poo poo. Had to double-check it wasn't written by Heinlen or something.
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Sep 18, 2015 19:21
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It should have been obvious that Gerrold was into weird sex stuff when he created Tribbles... which may have been inspired by Heinlein anyway.
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Sep 18, 2015 19:50
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Yeah, Heinlein was a huge influence in more ways than one. It's gonna be most obvious in 70s SF because Heinlein peaked in the late sixties - early seventies. In some ways he defined his own little era.
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Sep 18, 2015 19:55
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Read Baru Cormorant, enjoyed it, will leave a favorable review. I didn't quite understand the function or significance of the main character's half and half problem at the end, anyone care to explain? Something I was thinking about while reading it is that I really enjoy single perspective storytelling. Doing it all with one character takes skill, having to use multiple perspectives to tell a story seems like a crutch. At least to me. Also, very loving annoying, when they are throw away viewpoints (RIP RJ). Anthony Ryan ruining Raven's Shadow sticks out in my mind as a recent example of this.
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Sep 18, 2015 20:12
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RndmCnflct posted:Read Baru Cormorant, enjoyed it, will leave a favorable review. I didn't quite understand the function or significance of the main character's half and half problem at the end, anyone care to explain? RJ didn't write throw aways. No, he stuck with them! Long after it was necessary! Like the guy who is introduced in the prologue of book 2, vanishes for ages (and isn't any of the obvious people in that book), until a few books later where a new character is introduced, wanders around s city for a bit, and is then revealed to be the same person as the first guy.
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Sep 18, 2015 22:28
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Crossposting from the "What did you just finish?" thread because most of the Aurora discussion was here: But yeah, I just finished Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. I would give it 4.25 stars. My review: KSR is a master of hard sci-fi and postulating realistically about humanity's future. This novel was written beautifully and was chock full of interesting science and futurism, but he did go a little pessimistic for my tastes in this one. The characters as a whole were alright, but the real draw for me was the brilliant concept behind the narration: the ship's AI is telling the story. It allowed big info dumps to actually have a place in the narrative, and led to some hilarious observations and gentle pokes at storytelling and human language. It took me ages to get into the plot though. Not a lot happens for the first third of the book, and even when events first started to move along (when they got to Aurora), it was still unfolding so somniferously that I was almost ready to put the book down. It seemed like that slow meandering of the story would continue indefinitely, and that the pessimistic message would swallow the book whole. But then about 45% through the book, things changed in a massive way — and the next 40% or so was tense, exhilarating, magnificent. The goal of returning to Earth returned some optimism to the story, and all of the events that followed were incredible to behold. The unrest that tore the ship's population apart, the revelations about the second voyage, the ship's decisions and actions, and the multitude of problems during the journey home, were riveting. After around 85% through, though — once they get back to Earth — the book shifted into a very extended denouement, and I found myself wishing prematurely that it would end. The very last sequence was nice, but still, most of the story after the 85% mark just felt a bit superfluous. Instead of hearing about beach-building projects, I wanted to know what had happened to those left behind at Tau Ceti. Nothing really came of the controversy surrounding the Cetians' return, either. I also really missed ship, who honestly had the most amazing character growth of the whole book. Its destruction was a real bummer for me. To sum up: masterful writing, compelling science, fascinating narration, and an exhilarating middle section; but not a perfect novel for me.
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Sep 19, 2015 09:28
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I burn through terrible science fiction and space operas at a quick rate so it's a bit hard to keep track of what is what in terms of quality, but I'd like to add that the Fighter Queen series is so bad that it's an offense to man, god, and the English language itself. It's not worth continuing past the first book even when it's free on Kindle Unlimited.
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Sep 19, 2015 22:12
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MrFlibble posted:Right, caved in and preordered this sucker. I've needed a good fantasy novel for a while anyway. I've just got the kindle version. Batuta being the author and the lot of five-star reviews in goodreads made me to buy it. I wonder how many of those five-star reviews are from goons 
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Sep 19, 2015 22:58
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Picked up Among Others by Jo Walton today. It's been on my radar for a few years now. I had Nick Cutter's The Troop in my other hand, but decided to go with the Walton. Please tell me I made the right choice.
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Sep 19, 2015 23:50
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RndmCnflct posted:Read Baru Cormorant, enjoyed it, will leave a favorable review. I didn't quite understand the function or significance of the main character's half and half problem at the end, anyone care to explain? The injury (hemiagnosia?) is a dangerous condition that would take a lesser person out of the game, but she adds it to her toolbox. It's important in other ways, but I'm not really into doing analysis. I realized about halfway through that there was no way the short story I read a few years ago was going to take place before the very end, which seems like an unusual decision, but knowing what happens didn't hurt anything, and the epilogue moves the story forward, anyway. I liked it.
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Sep 20, 2015 01:02
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Amberskin posted:I've just got the kindle version. Batuta being the author and the lot of five-star reviews in goodreads made me to buy it. I wonder how many of those five-star reviews are from goons It's not released it the UK yet - apparently they shortened the name to just 'the traitor' and used lovely cover art to cover the costs of a really good translator, who is taking his or her sweet time. I don't envy the bastard - you ask me to do an English(american) to English(queen's own) translation and i'd break out in a cold sweat.
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Sep 20, 2015 01:42
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MrFlibble posted:It's not released it the UK yet - apparently they shortened the name to just 'the traitor' and used lovely cover art to cover the costs of a really good translator, who is taking his or her sweet time. I don't envy the bastard - you ask me to do an English(american) to English(queen's own) translation and i'd break out in a cold sweat. Is this a thing publishers actually do, or are you being sarcastic?
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Sep 20, 2015 02:52
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MrFlibble posted:I don't envy the bastard - you ask me to do an English(american) to English(queen's own) translation and i'd break out in a cold sweat. Ornamented Death posted:Is this a thing publishers actually do, or are you being sarcastic? It's usually more tweaks than translation. Sometimes hilarious fuckups like "particitrousers" results. More details: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=21087 http://temporarilysignificant.blogspot.com/2014/09/why-leslie-plays-soccer-on-sidewalk.html
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Sep 20, 2015 04:02
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MrFlibble posted:It's not released it the UK yet - apparently they shortened the name to just 'the traitor' and used lovely cover art to cover the costs of a really good translator, who is taking his or her sweet time. I don't envy the bastard - you ask me to do an English(american) to English(queen's own) translation and i'd break out in a cold sweat. I've got to admit, I feel a little bit of schadenfreude about Baru coming out later in the UK after all the times I've had to wait for a book to hit the US after being released in the UK. RndmCnflct posted:Read Baru Cormorant, enjoyed it, will leave a favorable review. I didn't quite understand the function or significance of the main character's half and half problem at the end, anyone care to explain? It's "hemispatial neglect" following the head injury she received when a knight brained her with a mace, and it's a real condition. Basically, her brain just refuses to acknowledge anything on her right side. If dead-ahead of her is 12 o'clock, her brain just refuses to acknowledge anything from 12 to 6. If you stood ahead of her on her left side and threw a ball to somebody standing on her right side, it would disappear for her as soon as it crossed her midline. Note, she's not blind. Her right eye still works. She's still seeing everything on her right side, but her brain just doesn't pay attention to anything coming in from that side. Wikipedia has a decent writeup if you want to know more about it. Khizan fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Sep 20, 2015 |
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Sep 20, 2015 04:31
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Robot Wendigo posted:Picked up Among Others by Jo Walton today. It's been on my radar for a few years now. I had Nick Cutter's The Troop in my other hand, but decided to go with the Walton. Please tell me I made the right choice. Walton is a very nifty author; I haven't actually gotten around to that particular book yet, but it's highly unlikely you will have any regrets.
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Sep 20, 2015 06:00
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I've been sick and busy and so only just finished The Traitor Baru Cormorant. It is the best book I have read all year, and I've read some pretty good books in 2015. The General should be proud, and also write more so I can buy his next book.
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Sep 20, 2015 07:26
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