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Every weird thing in The Library of Mount Char suddenly clicks together roughly 80% of the way through the book. Maybe earlier.
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Oct 21, 2015 20:46
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Welp, Kraken Rising was pretty cool. Worth it if you are a Greig Beck fan, and wanna deal with a creepy otherworldly monster that does horrific things. Writing COULD be better, but on the other hand it's an airport fiction book about a psychotic Captain America, so I dunno what the hell. Go buy it, cause this series is awesome.
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Oct 21, 2015 21:03
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gvibes posted:I'm about 25% through, and jesus, what the hell is going on. This is the correct reaction. It is a good book, keep with it.
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Oct 21, 2015 22:03
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anilEhilated posted:Oh, nice, I didn't realize the fourth one was out. I wouldn't really describe it as "Lovecraft Detective", but they are fun books. Cabal is such an adorable rear end in a top hat.
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Oct 24, 2015 03:24
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He's kinda supposed to be an rear end in a top hat though. You are supposed to not like him. He's like House in that regard. To be fair though, I really did not like the first book. Subsequent books were pretty good though.
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Oct 24, 2015 04:08
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On a related note, I really enjoyed Carter and Lovecraft. The ending was a nice surprise and in retrospect the book did pretty much lay the groundwork for the ending to happen. Hell, the thing driving the plot in the book is literally called "The Twist", which may or may not be on-purpose clever in the naming. I'm anticipating future installments of what I'm sure is his new series.
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Oct 24, 2015 05:10
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I'm really impressed with the Ancillary books so far. I read Justice and it was great but I thought Sword was better. Sounds like Mercy is good too, so can't wait to read it.
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Oct 24, 2015 06:09
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Rusty posted:I'm really impressed with the Ancillary books so far. I read Justice and it was great but I thought Sword was better. Sounds like Mercy is good too, so can't wait to read it. I actually just finished Sword myself, and loved it. It didn't go in the obvious direction of the large-scale civil war but I really enjoyed where it did go. My main question with the story is why they still had (or were supposed to have) so many Valskaayans in suspension, like why did they bring in so many extra people that they didn't need--these were citizens who had signed up to work rather than slaves. I also wasn't entirely clear on Why Sirix was so displeased with Breq's justice--she had helped the workers strike in the past, and then was angry when their oppressors were actually struck down, and when the Undergarden people were treated with respect. Did she feel that some of those conditions should be alleviated, but the social status quo should be maintained with Samirend overseers being favored, Xhai being rulers, and Ychana kept off to the sidelines?
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Oct 24, 2015 06:14
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Almost to the end of The Year of Our War. Fairly enjoyable. On the surface a fairly generic fantasy world in which a bunch of unoriginal fantasy races live under an imperial overlord while pressured by an inhuman insect invading race. However, the emperor is an immortal who maintains a loose confederation via the influence of 50 immortals. The immortals we deal with all have massive character flaws. In addition, the world is part of a multiverse, the rest of which can only be accessed by taking heavy doses of a drug. The area that can be accessed by ODing is bizarre. One feature of the area that can be easily accessed is bull-like aliens who craft the flesh of people they take hold of (still alive, because physics doesn't quite work normally here) into perverse shapes. Other oddities exist such as jeopards which have square spots and can only see straight ahead or at right angles to themselves, and people made of thousands of worms. The protagonist is an immortal junkie. He has some principles, but he is physically kind of weak compared to his other immortals, so gets pushed around a lot, and will change allegiances as required. What makes it enjoyable for me is the character flaws of the immortals; they've lived centuries but repeat the same mistakes most people do while young in their lives. The action sequences are kind of weak and aside from the other dimension area, which is used sparingly, the worldbuilding isn't good. However, still good enough for me to check out the next novel.
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Oct 24, 2015 07:01
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Can someone recommend me good sci-fi mystery? I don't care about mystery stories when it's "who murdered someone," but love creepy scifi or fantasy mysteries. Examples of what I mean include: - The first three Harry Potter books, especially the second - The Priest's Tale in Hyperion by Dan Simmons - Inverted World by Christopher Priest - The Giver by Lois Lowry
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Oct 24, 2015 07:47
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freebooter posted:Can someone recommend me good sci-fi mystery? I don't care about mystery stories when it's "who murdered someone," but love creepy scifi or fantasy mysteries. Examples of what I mean include: Cixin Liu's Hugo winning Three Body Problem is a great mystery novel. Best start reading it without looking anything up. I did, and it was awesome for me. Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon is a noir whodunnit set in the future. It's really pulpy, but fun. Alastair Reynolds' Chasm City is also cool. It's part of a wider universe, but works really good as a standalone. Even saving it's a mystery novel spoils it a little bit.
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Oct 24, 2015 08:11
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For a contrary opinion, Three Body Problem blows with lovely cardboard characters and ugly language (yeah yeah I know it's a translation).
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Oct 24, 2015 08:18
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Neurosis posted:For a contrary opinion, Three Body Problem blows with lovely cardboard characters and ugly language (yeah yeah I know it's a translation). I've read Three Body Problem and Dark Forest. The books were decent, I'm not getting all the rave reviews. It's a solid three-star rating on Amazon. While the characters get somewhat better in the 2nd one, it's still pretty flat and lifeless. There are some great ideas in there, but great ideas should serve a great story instead of the story looking like a vehicle for "look what I thought up!" as these do. That being said, I'll probably still get 3rd one. The ideas are enough to keep me coming back, but the story is dull enough to keep me from putting it on must read list.
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Oct 24, 2015 08:25
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occamsnailfile posted:I actually just finished Sword myself, and loved it. It didn't go in the obvious direction of the large-scale civil war but I really enjoyed where it did go. My main question with the story is why they still had (or were supposed to have) so many Valskaayans in suspension, like why did they bring in so many extra people that they didn't need--these were citizens who had signed up to work rather than slaves. I also wasn't entirely clear on Why Sirix was so displeased with Breq's justice--she had helped the workers strike in the past, and then was angry when their oppressors were actually struck down, and when the Undergarden people were treated with respect. Did she feel that some of those conditions should be alleviated, but the social status quo should be maintained with Samirend overseers being favored, Xhai being rulers, and Ychana kept off to the sidelines? It's been a while but on your latter question, Sirix is clearly prejudiced against the Ychana. I remember there's a few scenes where she says something equivalent to "they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Her position can be summarized as "We shouldn't treat those people in such an awful way, but they should also remember their place." Maybe something like an Imperial official in the British Raj. Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 08:52
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:He's kinda supposed to be an rear end in a top hat though. You are supposed to not like him. He's like House in that regard. As for creepy SF mystery, it really sounds obvious but have you tried Blindsight? anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 09:32
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Neurosis posted:Almost to the end of The Year of Our War. Fairly enjoyable. On the surface a fairly generic fantasy world in which a bunch of unoriginal fantasy races live under an imperial overlord while pressured by an inhuman insect invading race. However, the emperor is an immortal who maintains a loose confederation via the influence of 50 immortals. The immortals we deal with all have massive character flaws. In addition, the world is part of a multiverse, the rest of which can only be accessed by taking heavy doses of a drug. The area that can be accessed by ODing is bizarre. One feature of the area that can be easily accessed is bull-like aliens who craft the flesh of people they take hold of (still alive, because physics doesn't quite work normally here) into perverse shapes. Other oddities exist such as jeopards which have square spots and can only see straight ahead or at right angles to themselves, and people made of thousands of worms. The rest of the series continue on the same pattern and style. It gets slightly worse in the final book, but a pretty original series. Totally worth checking out. Neurosis posted:For a contrary opinion, Three Body Problem blows with lovely cardboard characters and ugly language (yeah yeah I know it's a translation). The best parts of TBP was the parts about the Cultural Revolution in China.  Also the main reason why I am not interested in the rest of the series, since it apparently turns into humanity versus alien invasion. The Gunslinger posted:It definitely overstays its welcome and the latter half of the book feels like an entirely different story but I still ended up enjoying it somehow. I've read few books like it, the combination of quasi-historical and supernatural elements was interesting. Simmons can't end a book to save his life but I'm used to that from other authors While Simmons is a loony and The Terror is too long, it was a truly enjoyable and terrifying book. The combination of desolate Artic waste and supernatural horror is very well done. In some ways one could call Simmons a modern day HP Lovecraft for several reasons. UltimoDragonQuest posted:The first 15% of Library At Mount Char is good but has a lot of dumb abuse as backstory. The main story in Library at Mount Char is how everything fits together, not the actual storyline.
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Oct 24, 2015 20:06
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Cardiac posted:The rest of the series continue on the same pattern and style. It gets slightly worse in the final book, but a pretty original series. Totally worth checking out.
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Oct 24, 2015 20:27
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In defense of Three Body Problem, book two has a very Foundation-like vibe going. I really enjoyed that aspect, much more than the bits Cixin lifted straight from Murakami.
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Oct 24, 2015 20:36
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:He's kinda supposed to be an rear end in a top hat though. You are supposed to not like him. He's like House in that regard. Yeah, I know he's supposed to be an rear end in a top hat. He's not at all adorable, he's just an rear end in a top hat. I don't know anything about House, so that means nothing.
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Oct 25, 2015 02:54
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freebooter posted:Can someone recommend me good sci-fi mystery? I don't care about mystery stories when it's "who murdered someone," but love creepy scifi or fantasy mysteries. Examples of what I mean include: Great North Road - Peter F Hamilton. It starts out as "who murdered someone" but it gets stranger from there.
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Oct 25, 2015 03:55
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Urcher posted:Great North Road - Peter F Hamilton. It starts out as "who murdered someone" but it gets stranger from there. To be fair a *lot* Peter F Hamilton starts out "thing happened" and then gets weird in pretty quick order.
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Oct 25, 2015 03:57
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flosofl posted:To be fair a *lot* Peter F Hamilton starts out "thing happened" and then gets weird in pretty quick order. That's why I love it
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Oct 25, 2015 04:02
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Re: Hamilton, Pandora's Star starts out with a Rendezvous with Rama-like mystery, then folds in a conspiracy theory, then a detective story, then a disaster-readiness scenario, then a Zelazny-esque adventure romp spanning multiple unknown worlds, and then and then I'm glad I read it but that book could have easily been half its length. I'm curious about his other books (the other Commonwealth books especially) but there was a staggering amount of fluff. Anyway the main mystery in it is really cool.
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Oct 25, 2015 05:26
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freebooter posted:Can someone recommend me good sci-fi mystery? I don't care about mystery stories when it's "who murdered someone," but love creepy scifi or fantasy mysteries. Examples of what I mean include: I don't really know SF mysteries, but Carol Berg's books all tend to have fantasy mysteries of some sort. The Collegia Magicka series in particular gets some rather creepy stuff going on.
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Oct 25, 2015 05:51
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xcheopis posted:Yeah, I know he's supposed to be an rear end in a top hat. He's not at all adorable, he's just an rear end in a top hat. I's probably better to start off second book: the sequels place him in even more absurd circumstances where the quirkiness of the character starts to shine properly. I reread the first one recently and enjoyed it a lot more that way: you can see the character is perfectly consistent with his quirks and later actions, but that much more sinister. So yeah, I'll stand by "adorable" here and suggest reading the second one. Then again, obviously no book is for everybody. e: Ooh, sci-fi/fantasy mysteries. Embassytown and The City & The City by China Miéville. First one has one of the most fascinating alien cultures I've ever seen and the second an utterly amazing twist about the nature of the world it takes place in. Also a bit of a classic whodunit but have you read The Demolished Man? anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 09:42
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Mind you, TCATC does seriously stretch the definition of fantasy. It might be better to think of it as noir in a very, very unusual setting.
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Oct 25, 2015 09:48
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Sssh. You might even want to spoiler that. Although I admit the setting owes more to Kafka than any actual fantasy writers.
anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 10:27 on Oct 25, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 09:49
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anilEhilated posted:Gotta add that the second book is probably the best one and third easily the worst, but it's a great obscure series. I'm surprised this is the first time I'm seeing it mentioned here, honestly. I've mentioned it a couple of times in recommendations but I would completely agree with you with regards to the second and third books. Beyond the Snowline is fine but nothing too special. Steph Swainston has been working on a couple more for a while now according to her twitter.
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Oct 25, 2015 12:02
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Thanks for the mystery recommendations. Going to pass on Hamilton though - I read The Reality Dysfunction this year and thought there was a half-decent 300 pages of story lost somewhere in the middle of the 1300 pages that took me three weeks to read.
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Oct 25, 2015 12:19
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anilEhilated posted:Sssh. You might even want to spoiler that. Although I admit the setting owes more to Kafka than any actual fantasy writers. Not even Jack Vance?
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Oct 25, 2015 12:51
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It's kind of the opposite of the Vance story, though.
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Oct 25, 2015 13:04
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A couple of people some pages back recommended the books Red Rising and Golden Son, which I then read. They are definitely not going to win any rewards for high literature and are probably verging on being YA stuff, but are absolutely addictive page turners and I devoured both books in two days. Frustratingly it is now a long wait for the final part of the trilogy with the second having ended upon a gigantic cliff hanger.
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Oct 25, 2015 13:45
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xcheopis posted:Yeah, I know he's supposed to be an rear end in a top hat. He's not at all adorable, he's just an rear end in a top hat. Think of that as his starting place. The character grows and loosens up as the series goes on. In The Brothers Cabal, be confesses to his brother Horst with considerable embarrassment that he has started to do good works. I dunno, maybe you have to have grown out of being a pompous, stuck-up martinet yourself to find Cabal sympathetic, but it worked well for me. I'm about 60% through Carter and Lovecraft right now after inhaling Katya's World and Katya's War (submarine warfare on an alien planet? hell gently caress yeah). It's pretty great. If you're wondering, Cabal is the exception for Howard's leads, not the rule; most of his characters are pleasant folks. As a writer he kinda reminds me of a more prolific Nick Harkaway, very much in the British humanist style.
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Oct 25, 2015 19:19
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flosofl posted:I've read Three Body Problem and Dark Forest. The books were decent, I'm not getting all the rave reviews. It's a solid three-star rating on Amazon. While the characters get somewhat better in the 2nd one, it's still pretty flat and lifeless. There are some great ideas in there, but great ideas should serve a great story instead of the story looking like a vehicle for "look what I thought up!" as these do. I think it's just that most modern SF writers aren't doing that kind of Big Idea SF any more, so it stands out, while also hearkening back to golden & silver age classic SF. And the Chinese focus gives it just enough difference to be fresh, where the same story with western protagonists would seem a bit already-done. I really liked the cultural revolution bits in the first novel and the post-revolutionary motivations of the "villains". I also liked that it didn't try to dodge lightspeed limitations like most alien invasion s SF.
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Oct 25, 2015 19:35
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freebooter posted:Thanks for the mystery recommendations. Going to pass on Hamilton though - I read The Reality Dysfunction this year and thought there was a half-decent 300 pages of story lost somewhere in the middle of the 1300 pages that took me three weeks to read. This is pretty much my experience with every Hamilton; there's a good book in there but it needs significantly more vicious editing. That and the dude just cannot write endings, or at least he couldn't with either the Mindstar or Night's Dawn trilogies. In the latter the whole thing is solved by a literal deus ex machina activated by a ragtag group of heroes out chasing an alien legend that somehow happens to point to exactly what they need for christ's sake.
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Oct 25, 2015 21:23
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Patrat posted:A couple of people some pages back recommended the books Red Rising and Golden Son, which I then read. They are definitely not going to win any rewards for high literature and are probably verging on being YA stuff, but are absolutely addictive page turners and I devoured both books in two days. Frustratingly it is now a long wait for the final part of the trilogy with the second having ended upon a gigantic cliff hanger. I just finished them as well. Really amazing books, ruined my life for a few days as I stayed up way too late to finish them. It's brutal and heartbreaking and action packed. I dont think the beginning of February is that long of a wait.
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Oct 25, 2015 22:40
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freebooter posted:Can someone recommend me good sci-fi mystery? I don't care about mystery stories when it's "who murdered someone," but love creepy scifi or fantasy mysteries. Examples of what I mean include: mcustic posted:Cixin Liu's Hugo winning Three Body Problem is a great mystery novel. Best start reading it without looking anything up. I did, and it was awesome for me. The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds
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Oct 26, 2015 07:14
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Amortal by Matt Forbeck was pretty good. Sorta like alerted carbon but not the same.
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Oct 26, 2015 11:20
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ToxicFrog posted:This is pretty much my experience with every Hamilton; there's a good book in there but it needs significantly more vicious editing. The Great North Road is exactly that - a typical Hamilton novel edited into a single volume. I really enjoyed it although I quit space Al Capone before the end of the first book.
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Oct 26, 2015 15:30
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Probably for the best. The second and third book of Night's Dawn had more flat moments than good, meandering around with too many characters. There are moments of interesting ideas (how do a society of linked minds handle the crisis when faced with it directly?) but with very little focus to keep it directed on the main plot until the unsatisfying ending.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:07
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