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I didn't like the Martian movie at all. It felt like a comedy more than anything...
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Oct 4, 2015 19:20
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angel opportunity posted:I didn't like the Martian movie at all. It felt like a comedy more than anything... Considering the book was rather full of quips and quite funny overall that seems a good adaption then.
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Oct 4, 2015 19:23
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Reason posted:Just finished Library at Mount Char and thought it was pretty weird. Excellent, I picked that up for my ereader not too long ago. I know absolutely nothing about it going into it, which is a refreshing change from most of the books I've read lately. tiniestacorn fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Aug 24, 2018 |
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Oct 4, 2015 21:34
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I don't why, but I'm in the mood for generic D&D novels. Can anyone recommend ones that don't suck beyond the Dark Elf trilogy and War of the Spider Queen?
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Oct 5, 2015 00:11
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City of Ravens is a stand alone book, swashbuckling thief type as the protagonist. I remember enjoying it even after out growing most the rest the d&d books.
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Oct 5, 2015 00:23
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Kalenn Istarion posted:I'm personally excited for the video game sex fairy segment I haven't read Rothfuss' stuff. Is this bit more or less weird than Lev Grossman's fox sex bit in The Magicians?
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Oct 5, 2015 00:36
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60 pages left in Ancillary Mercy, loving it thusfar and kind of want to stay up late enough to finish.
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Oct 5, 2015 01:03
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Argali posted:I don't why, but I'm in the mood for generic D&D novels. Can anyone recommend ones that don't suck beyond the Dark Elf trilogy and War of the Spider Queen? Azure Bonds is fun. With the caveat I read it when it came out 25 years ago, and reread it maybe 15 years ago. It may or may not hold up?
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Oct 5, 2015 01:46
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Nephzinho posted:60 pages left in Ancillary Mercy, loving it thusfar and kind of want to stay up late enough to finish. Does it go back to Justice, or is it more of Sword? Oh, also, does it actually finish as a trilogy, or is she going to have to invent some new classes of ship for books 4+?
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Oct 5, 2015 07:39
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Argali posted:I don't why, but I'm in the mood for generic D&D novels. Can anyone recommend ones that don't suck beyond the Dark Elf trilogy and War of the Spider Queen?
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Oct 5, 2015 08:54
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tiniestacorn posted:I haven't read Rothfuss' stuff. Is this bit more or less weird than Lev Grossman's fox sex bit in The Magicians? Less weird. It reads like Rothfuss' sex fantasy instead of reading like his furry sex fantasy.
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Oct 5, 2015 08:57
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Ceebees posted:Does it go back to Justice, or is it more of Sword? I'd say that the first eighty or so pages are Sword, and the next two hundred are Justice, though I ended up sleeping and still have to finish. Will post some thoughts later.
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Oct 5, 2015 09:44
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GrandpaPants posted:
I'm also heartbroken that Chiang has written so little, Stories of Your Life was my favourite collection of Short Sci-Fi I've ever read and I'm legit sad from time to time that he hasn't written another collection yet.
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Oct 5, 2015 11:37
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, doubly so if you know what Harry Knowles looks like.
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He's written a book's worth of fiction since and it's mostly available online. He just hasn't collected it yet.
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Oct 5, 2015 11:38
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Nephzinho posted:I'd say that the first eighty or so pages are Sword, and the next two hundred are Justice, though I ended up sleeping and still have to finish. Will post some thoughts later. Some thoughts on Mercy, spoilered but not actual spoilers: Act 1 gets rolling a little slowly and very much could've been part of Sword. Act 2 comes about naturally and is some of the best 200 pages of the trilogy. The conclusion to Act 3, much like the abrupt end of Sword, felt a little anticlimatic after having such momentum built up. The "post-game" of the book does a good job of resolving threads of the story while keeping enough balls in play that there could be more books that take place "10 years later" and see where things go. I really, really enjoyed the book, but at the same time find myself wishing that books 2-3 had been edited into one and that there was a more final end to the trilogy coming - hopefully after a short break we find ourselves getting more stories in this universe because there is still so much ground to tread and some very interesting conversations started that I'd love to see through. tl;dr If you liked either/both of Justice/Sword, you should probably go out and buy Mercy. If you read Justice and Sword, go buy Mercy. If you didn't read Justice, what's wrong with you go read it.
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Oct 5, 2015 11:41
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General Emergency posted:Less weird. It reads like Rothfuss' sex fantasy instead of reading like his furry sex fantasy. Eh. That bit was weird, but at least it served a purpose narratively. All sex fairy escapades is there to do is turn Kvothe into a sex god.
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Oct 5, 2015 12:10
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Autonomous Monster posted:Eh. That bit was weird, but at least it served a purpose narratively. All sex fairy escapades is there to do is turn Kvothe into a sex god.
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Oct 5, 2015 12:14
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...well, okay, yes you could, but that's a terrible narrative  I was still thinking it was about the Chandrian, more fool me.
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Oct 5, 2015 13:56
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Argali posted:I don't why, but I'm in the mood for generic D&D novels. Can anyone recommend ones that don't suck beyond the Dark Elf trilogy and War of the Spider Queen? There was a book called Horselords by David Cook that I liked way more than other DnD books when I was a teenager. It's about not Ghengis Khan and the monk who decides to follow him.
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Oct 5, 2015 16:18
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Can anyone recommend some books "like The Martian," for someone who loved it (and the film) but doesn't really read SF, or much at all? Ideally semi-recent paperbacks that I could find easily. Yeah, it's my mum's birthday. I just shrugged and bought another copy of The Traitor because she liked Game of Thrones and it's good, but I have no idea what sort of books might qualify. I read too much terrible junk and overly nerdy stuff to begin to guess. Maybe Aurora?
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Oct 5, 2015 19:04
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Autonomous Monster posted:...well, okay, yes you could, but that's a terrible narrative It was never about the Chandrian. It's always been about Kvothe and the events that led to him being some kind of folk hero. The Chandrian only ever mattered in that they were a motivating factor for him.
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Oct 5, 2015 19:07
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I've just finished the trilogy, and I have never been so disappointed in a series. Not because it's bad, it's actually pretty decent, but because it starts so strong, has such an absolutely fantastic premise, and then completely fails to deliver on all that potential, and instead serves up utterly generic fantasy schlock. Yeah it was a frustrating series, the first book was interesting but it never really goes anywhere after that. Brain dead characterization, ridiculous plot and utterly predictable. In retrospect its not surprising that the author was a student of Sanderson, all of the usual bullshit from his books - hollow characters, overstays its welcome and overly concerned with its "magic system". I gave up towards the end of book 2 and moved onto The Grim Company by Luke Scull which was fairly generic but at least well executed.
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Oct 5, 2015 19:23
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chrisoya posted:Can anyone recommend some books "like The Martian," for someone who loved it (and the film) but doesn't really read SF, or much at all? Ideally semi-recent paperbacks that I could find easily. You could try giving her... *clenches teeth* maybe give her... *starts breathing heavy* perhaps she'll enjoy... Reader Player One. *squeezes eyes shut*
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Oct 5, 2015 19:24
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I dunno...Ready Player One IS sort of the same kind of pop-sci-fi genre, but it's just WAY too nerd-centric. You have to be into all the retro-game poo poo, and some SA poster's mom probably isn't.
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Oct 5, 2015 19:26
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Megazver posted:You could try giving her... *clenches teeth* maybe give her... *starts breathing heavy* perhaps she'll enjoy... Reader Player One. *squeezes eyes shut*
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Oct 5, 2015 19:26
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Three Body Problem, maybe?
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Oct 5, 2015 19:31
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Deptfordx posted:Azure Bonds is fun. With the caveat I read it when it came out 25 years ago, and reread it maybe 15 years ago. It may or may not hold up? Did that come out before or after the old goldbox PC games, which I'm guessing follows the same story?
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Oct 5, 2015 19:54
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tiniestacorn posted:I haven't read Rothfuss' stuff. Is this bit more or less weird than Lev Grossman's fox sex bit in The Magicians? It's not weird per say, but people have a beef with it because it has a flimsy narrative purpose. It's highlighted by the fact that the author and/or narrator gloss over a part of the trip that sounds like it would be interesting in less than a paragraph and then spend almost a third of the book in fairy sex land. The author maintains that there's a narrative purpose to this whole thing and there are a whole range of discussions about the narrative reliability and whatever but it ultimately is just not great reading after a better first book. There's a whole thread on the books here if you want to look into it in more detail.
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Oct 5, 2015 20:30
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Well, Rothfuss discussing narrative reliability is him saying "the narrator tells 100% truth". Like, he might have been able to get away with that after the first book but sure as hell not the second one.
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Oct 5, 2015 20:54
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Evil Fluffy posted:Did that come out before or after the old goldbox PC games, which I'm guessing follows the same story? The game came out after, inspired by the book.
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Oct 5, 2015 20:59
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Seldom Posts posted:There was a book called Horselords by David Cook that I liked way more than other DnD books when I was a teenager. It's about not Ghengis Khan and the monk who decides to follow him. Kinda like how the Maztica books weren't about a mash-up of Cortes and Pizzaro's conquests! I remember Azure Bonds being pretty cheesy...read it a long time ago.
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Oct 5, 2015 23:12
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Mars4523 posted:The Brimstone Angels series by Erin M Evans is pretty great. Accidental warlock becomes a bounty hunter and gets mixed up with spies, devils, and the forces of the goddess of sorrow. The books are more modern in the sense that Evans actually understands some things about human psychology, espionage (Evans" Harper's are more covert spooks than the swashbuckling adventurers of older books), and so on. Sounds groovy, thanks! 
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Oct 5, 2015 23:15
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I used to be really into Forgotten Realms as a child/teen, started trailing off after I had started reading more "real" fantasy and sci-fi, and completely quit around the time they did that whole 100 year time jump where the goddess of magic died and blew everything magic up for the 3rd or 4th time. Anyway, are there any "required" books to read since then? I never actually read how the whole cataclysm happened, or how the world had changed or anything, I just read that they were skipping the timeline forward, went :welp:, and dropped the whole series/whatever you call it. Edit: jesus, I just read some stuff and they did it AGAIN in 2013? 
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Oct 6, 2015 00:14
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Haerc posted:Edit: jesus, I just read some stuff and they did it AGAIN in 2013? New edition of D&D means all the rules for magic change, so you need an in - universe reason for why your favorite 2/3.5/4E race/class is no longer being written about.
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Oct 6, 2015 00:29
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Yeah, I guess I was reading mainly during the DnD 2/3/3.5 days, and I don't think they really changed anything enough to warrant a big in universe cataclysm or whatever.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:19
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The 5e 'official story reasons' killed off all remaining interest in Forgotten Realms for me. I miss Mystra, the godess who who pop in to bone Elminster in a giant floating bubble above a city.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:21
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chrisoya posted:Can anyone recommend some books "like The Martian," for someone who loved it (and the film) but doesn't really read SF, or much at all? Ideally semi-recent paperbacks that I could find easily. Kim Stanley Robinson is great but definitely not for a casual reader. It's heavy prose and heavily scientific. I haven't read The Martian but I've heard that for all its science, it's a light and easy read (which is why it was so successful). edit - it's been a long time since I read it but I think Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park is quite a good example of casual science fiction and the plot of the book differs significantly from the movie (in particular it has a very cool alternate ending) so it's still worth reading. freebooter fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 02:31
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freebooter posted:Kim Stanley Robinson is great but definitely not for a casual reader. It's heavy prose and heavily scientific. I haven't read The Martian but I've heard that for all its science, it's a light and easy read (which is why it was so successful). The Mars series was heavy on science (from what I remember?) but Aurora mostly just covers broad scientific concepts without actually getting into detail about anything. I'd say it's lighter on science than The Martian but way heavier on sociology and "big ideas".
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Oct 6, 2015 02:44
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Granted. But compare Robinson's writing style: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/42742263-aurora With Weir's: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/21825181-the-martian I'm not a literary snob and I'm not saying Aurora is better than The Martian (which I still intend to read) but they're not actually similar books. Someone who doesn't read much but enjoyed The Martian is not likely to enjoy Aurora.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:59
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Autonomous Monster posted:Eh. That bit was weird, but at least it served a purpose narratively. All sex fairy escapades is there to do is turn Kvothe into a sex god. Y'all are not selling me on this book.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:59
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