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Echo Cian posted:I lost interest in Bridge of d'Arnath, and Rai-Kirah was good but I don't like it nearly as much as the others. I'm holding off on Sanctuary until both books are out and my wife (she's the one who introduced me to Carol Berg in the first place) is ready to re-read Lighthouse, so we can both read all four books at once and compare notes.  Definitely going to check out Collegia Magica, though.
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Oct 31, 2015 00:18
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Are there any books about building up a kingdom or a settlement? Just a chill kind of fantasy book about building up a new village?
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Oct 31, 2015 04:21
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CaptainScraps posted:Are there any books about building up a kingdom or a settlement? Just a chill kind of fantasy book about building up a new village? If you want to read a book about how a polish engineer crushes the mongol invasion read The Cross Time Engineer by Leo Frankowski. It's basically a mary sue protagonist if that's your fetish. Otherwise the 1632 Series by eric flint was very  about how a small modern american village creates the United States in Germany, during the 30 years war. I'm not sure how chill it is but I liked reading it for how it was.
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Oct 31, 2015 04:33
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Chillyrabbit posted:If you want to read a book about how a polish engineer crushes the mongol invasion read The Cross Time Engineer by Leo Frankowski. It's basically a mary sue protagonist if that's your fetish. I actually liked that one and the sequel. 1632 is fairly straight forward adventure tale and like a serious Connecticut Yankee in Kind Arthurs Court, except an entire West Virginia mining town. 1633 gets more into the politics involved in carving out a federation in the middle of the Germanic states, and there's a lot of horse-trading and compromise between the "up-timers" and the existing dynasties. I also liked the focus on trying to build a 20th century style navy in the 17th century. The one thing I really liked was Flint manages to paint Richelieu and the other "antagonists" as something other than a black and white cardboard villain as readers of Dumas would expect. The villains really have believable depth and motivation, as well as the protagonists. But a lot of the subsequent books and collections increasingly felt like they were all written by committee since they more or less were. I've pretty much lost interest in all of them except the "main" storyline books.
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Oct 31, 2015 04:46
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CaptainScraps posted:Are there any books about building up a kingdom or a settlement? Just a chill kind of fantasy book about building up a new village? It's not fantasy but Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett is a pretty cool novel about a fictional English town in the 1100s which goes from a few houses and a priory, into a bustling city with a cathedral. It follows a few families over nearly a hundred years. It has a real Game of Thrones gritty medieval feel. Lots of murder, sex, politics, plotting, scheming, etc etc*. Also a decent TV series was made of it, but they cut a ton of the story out for that. * Note: As well as all of that, it's filled with tons of planning & architecture porn. So read it if you want many pages of drama about people designing and constructing the cathedral, the locating of resources, the planning of markets and festivals, the dealings of land titles and work contracts, and all that sort of stuff. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 04:55
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Hedrigall posted:It's not fantasy but Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett is a pretty cool novel about a fictional English town in the 1100s which goes from a few houses and a priory, into a bustling city with a cathedral. It follows a few families over nearly a hundred years. It has a real Game of Thrones gritty medieval feel. Lots of murder, sex, politics, plotting, scheming, etc etc*. Also a decent TV series was made of it, but they cut a ton of the story out for that. I really liked the TV miniseries so I should probably actually read the novel. I spent the last couple weeks trying to get into the "Book of the New Sun" series by Gene Wolfe. I think I'm 50 pages from the end of the 4th book and I just can't do it anymore. The whole series reads like one long run-on sentence. It's a shame because it's a cool idea but I don't think I can suffer through the writing style just for what I hope will be a decent pay off. I've seen a lot of people recommend "A Fire Upon the Deep" in this thread so I just started it today. Definitely good so far. I've heard mixed reviews on the rest of the series though. Also, not sure if this has been posted or not but someone did a 15 minute tribute kind of video to The Dark Forest that I thought was pretty neat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uopk_XFBAP0
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Oct 31, 2015 14:03
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johnsonrod posted:I spent the last couple weeks trying to get into the "Book of the New Sun" series by Gene Wolfe. I think I'm 50 pages from the end of the 4th book and I just can't do it anymore. The whole series reads like one long run-on sentence. It's a shame because it's a cool idea but I don't think I can suffer through the writing style just for what I hope will be a decent pay off. You describe pretty well how most people feel about Book of the New Sun. Is there actually a payoff in Book of the New Sun? mdemone posted:Basically Mount Char suffers from Debut Novel Syndrome: great ideas, erratic execution and pacing, mediocre characterization. If this had been the author's fifth novel, I bet it would have been much, much better -- and I say that as someone who enjoyed it well enough to look forward to a sequel, or other stories from the Char universe. The basic problem with this is that few authors can be truly original by their fifth book. There are many authors that can come up with one great story but have problems staying original 5 books in. Also, sometimes a more polished book sometimes loses the things that made the debut great.
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Oct 31, 2015 14:22
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johnsonrod posted:I spent the last couple weeks trying to get into the "Book of the New Sun" series by Gene Wolfe. I think I'm 50 pages from the end of the 4th book and I just can't do it anymore. The whole series reads like one long run-on sentence. It's a shame because it's a cool idea but I don't think I can suffer through the writing style just for what I hope will be a decent pay off. Of the three books in the Zones of Thought universe, only one is subpar, and it's mostly a setup book so I can excuse it. A Deepness in the Sky is as good if not better than A Fire Upon the Deep. Its big ideas aren't as cool and imaginative as A Fire Upon the Deep, but it is MUCH better written. As for Book of the New Sun... I thought the prose was beautiful, and that's what carried me through when I didn't understand any of what was going on. If you don't like the prose I can understand your attitude, since none of it makes sense until a reread.
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Oct 31, 2015 14:30
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Cardiac posted:You describe pretty well how most people feel about Book of the New Sun. e: Oh, didn't notice the above post. Neurosis posted:As for Book of the New Sun... I thought the prose was beautiful, and that's what carried me through when I didn't understand any of what was going on. If you don't like the prose I can understand your attitude, since none of it makes sense until a reread. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 14:49
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Kraps posted:All of this makes sense, I just don't see how this gets you to "ergo, sf/f protags are bad". I posted asking for recommendations, not accusing all sf/f authors of being irredeemable goonlords in everything ever writter. My premise is that I see a lot of books where the sure the protagonist has all kinds of feelings sure, but they basically only push forward by losing their temper. I listed a couple a couple posts ago, such as The jade mage, and the Warded Man, which are both just these boring slogs where the main dude sort of just powers up by being the angriest and most badass at everything, never experiences any repurcussions etc. As was alluded to by the post commenting about ROTC above, it's also prevalent among mil-sf as well, although usually they lean more toward "so stone cold badass he only gets angry when it'l make the scene MORE  )I am trying to remember the name of an author who had an interesting series that I picked up because I liked the title of the second novel, "Gather of Clouds"... Aha found it, The Initiate Brother series by Sean Russell would be an example of a series where the protagonist isn't an emotional child who solves all of his conflicts with violence, for instance! That's not so hard to do is it folks? The Magicians is a tricky one because at face it's entirely about all of the emotionally-undeveloped privileged goonchildren at once, which is both a really cutting statement and very hard to read for some people. I keep wanting to go back, but I think the "Dream Quest of unknown Kadath"-style ending of the first was a good place to leave the series for myself for a while. Kraps posted:Do you have any examples? I'm not at all sure what you mean, anger isn't the only emotion of protagonists in books I've read. Is it because a lot of stories deal with betrayal and revenge? Even then, anger may be appropriate and it still isn't the "only way" they deal with issues. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 14:59
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Not sure if this belongs in here since I don't see an e-reader thread anywhere, but I just want to say that the Kindle Paperwhite is loving awesome and I wish I would have gotten one sooner. It's very portable, has a high PPI and it no longer has the uneven lighting problem from the older models. Would definitely recommend.
Vorik fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 15:08
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flosofl posted:But a lot of the subsequent books and collections increasingly felt like they were all written by committee since they more or less were. I've pretty much lost interest in all of them except the "main" storyline books. To elaborate on this, after the first couple books Flint threw his universe open to other authors. So most of the later books are about minor characters from the earlier books (or new characters entirely) having adventures and whatnot in this alternate-past world. Some are pretty good (like the one where Stoner's family ends up in Venice and his daughter falls for a dude that's basically Inigo Montoya-as-Zorro) but a lot of them have a very different tone and pacing than 1633 and 1634. I'd definitely suggest reading those two, then try a couple of the spinoffs to see if they're to your taste.
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Oct 31, 2015 15:52
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Vorik posted:Not sure if this belongs in here since I don't see an e-reader thread anywhere, but I just want to say that the Kindle Paperwhite is loving awesome and I wish I would have gotten one sooner. It's very portable, has a high PPI and it no longer has the uneven lighting problem from the older models. Would definitely recommend. and you no longer have to deal with the disgusted look of the clerk as you buy porn novels over the counter, and I don't have to leave my den of diapers, it's amazing
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Oct 31, 2015 16:32
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Vorik posted:Not sure if this belongs in here since I don't see an e-reader thread anywhere, but I just want to say that the Kindle Paperwhite is loving awesome and I wish I would have gotten one sooner. It's very portable, has a high PPI and it no longer has the uneven lighting problem from the older models. Would definitely recommend. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3366619 is the general eReader thread
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Oct 31, 2015 20:08
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Vorik posted:Not sure if this belongs in here since I don't see an e-reader thread anywhere, but I just want to say that the Kindle Paperwhite is loving awesome and I wish I would have gotten one sooner. It's very portable, has a high PPI and it no longer has the uneven lighting problem from the older models. Would definitely recommend. The e-reader thread is in IYG rather than TBB. e: gently caress
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Oct 31, 2015 20:23
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CaptainScraps posted:Are there any books about building up a kingdom or a settlement? Just a chill kind of fantasy book about building up a new village? I like Leslie Fish's A Dirge for Sabis is an excellent example of exactly that. It follows the first person to develop a working cannon suitable for field use. Unfortunately it isn't ready when the barbarians come, so he and his team of journeymen, apprentices, and assorted hangers-on have to run for it. They set up shop out in the sticks somewhere and start community building. The whole shared world series that CJ Cherryh was trying to put together was a good idea; unfortunately Leslie Fish was the only writer who did much to flesh out Cherryh's outlines so it wasn't well received. And yes, I was expecting more from Mercedes Lackey's volume.
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Oct 31, 2015 20:32
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Crab Destroyer posted:Has anybody read Slade House yet? I haven't read all of David Mitchell's books so I'm not sure if the reader is supposed to know who Norah transferred her soul to at the end. Is it a character that has already appeared in an earlier book? Or is it a character Mitchell is saving for a future novel, since I guess Marinus' story isn't over yet. I think it's a loose end that he may or may not return to in a future book. I was surprised that The Bone Clocks didn't get showered with genre awards. As A Very Important Literary Novel it's kind of a bust, but I can't imagine many in the Hugo set who wouldn't be totally on board with an exuberant doorstop thick homage to Doctor Who, Susan Cooper, John Wyndham, the new-age wackiness of the New Wave, and Doctor Who. High Warlord Zog fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 23:23
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High Warlord Zog posted:I think it's a loose end that he may or may not return to in a future book. I really liked it overall, but the one chapter that was the most fantasy heavy part of the book was by far the weakest.
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Nov 1, 2015 01:14
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CaptainScraps posted:Are there any books about building up a kingdom or a settlement? Just a chill kind of fantasy book about building up a new village? KJ Parker's The Company is about a group of people building a village, though it's anything but chill. Still a good book though.
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Nov 1, 2015 01:25
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taser rates posted:I really liked it overall, but the one chapter that was the most fantasy heavy part of the book was by far the weakest. But wasn't it just tremendous fun to read?
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Nov 1, 2015 01:53
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Chillyrabbit posted:If you want to read a book about how a polish engineer crushes the mongol invasion read The Cross Time Engineer by Leo Frankowski. It's basically a mary sue protagonist if that's your fetish.
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Nov 1, 2015 02:24
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Oh yeah 1632. It's funny that the only thing that's scifi about it is the beginning, "80 million years in the future aliens mess around with spacetime and that's how Grantville gets transported". But anyway, I really really like the series, or the idea of it, but Flint and his fans and his helpers are tremendous spergs. It's not that noticeable in 1632 because of the initial setup, but in later books you have things like action sequences interrupted by tangents on the construction of ship cannons and the history of the kings of Denmark. Sometimes it's entire books, like after reading The Bavarian Crisis you can get a minor degree in the religo-politics of 1600s western Europe. The rest of it is really cool though, I've read 1632, 1633, The Baltic War, and The Bavarian Crisis, which a sequel to Baltic War but bad. There is so much cool stuff in the series, what with interacting with famous historical people and trying to find 17th century solutions to 20th century problems. Audible recently got a huge addition of books in the series and I'm wondering if you guys can recommend which ones are good.
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Nov 1, 2015 02:52
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taser rates posted:I really liked it overall, but the one chapter that was the most fantasy heavy part of the book was by far the weakest. James Smythe noted in his review that: "In the second-to-last section, there's rather too much exposition, and perhaps were this written for a more perceptibly forgiving audience (one that, say, has immersed itself in genre its entire life) that might have been avoided." http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2014/09/the_bone_clocks.shtml That stuck with me, because I agree that was the weakest chapter of the book despite, in certain ways, being the most important, and it's hard not to think that it came from Mitchell trying to please both camps. I think I would have preferred it if all the Horologist stuff was kept in the background - like, if it never took centre stage, but by the end of the novel you still had a very clear idea of what had happened and what their deal was.
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Nov 1, 2015 03:12
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Crab Destroyer posted:As someone who stopped at The Magicians, I don't know what people mean when they say that Quentin grows up or matures. Hahaha did you actually stop for even a moment here to think about what you were writing?
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Nov 1, 2015 03:14
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The third book, Magician's Land ties everything together and wraps everything up so beautifully. Such a strong finish to a series I already enjoyed. It makes me sad that people gave up on the first book.
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Nov 1, 2015 03:35
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bigperm posted:The third book, Magician's Land ties everything together and wraps everything up so beautifully. Such a strong finish to a series I already enjoyed. It makes me sad that people gave up on the first book. One of the few books that retroactively improves the earlier books in a series.
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Nov 1, 2015 03:50
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RndmCnflct posted:I'm halfway through the third book of this. It's mary sue as gently caress but, at the same time, incredibly entertaining. On the other hand, harem of fourteen-year-olds. I feel that this doesn't get brought up often enough as a caveat for CTE.
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Nov 1, 2015 03:56
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Darth Walrus posted:On the other hand, harem of fourteen-year-olds. I feel that this doesn't get brought up often enough as a caveat for CTE. I get what you're saying, but, technically, it's historically accurate. And the mc adapting to that timeframe is part of the story. Would you write a book set in Nazi Germany without some Jews dying? No, probably not.
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Nov 1, 2015 07:15
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High Warlord Zog posted:I think it's a loose end that he may or may not return to in a future book. I actually did see quite a bit of praise for Bone Clocks in the year it came out, more from mainstream sources than genre ones, though. I feel like it was one of those books that manage to hit the middle ground of genre and mainstream appeal. I think I would have liked Slade House a lot better had it not been related to Bone Clocks at all. I thought it was a great page-turner of a haunted house mystery, where you slowly learn more about what's going on in the house and successive victims open the way for the next to come closer to defeating the antagonists. But every time the two antagonists start spouting off all their capital letter terminology it just killed the momentum of the story, and the last chapter was really jarring and contrived for the sake of making a "twist" ending and also relating the story back to the Bone Clocks. I would much rather have had it be a completely separate story that just took place in the same 'universe.' I really wanted a final victim that actually earned a victory that built upon the efforts of those who came before, which is where the story was seeming to lead. Instead, the ending felt really cheap and unsatisfying for all that it was less expected. But it was also a poorly executed twist, since the point-of-view shift combined with the final person identifying themselves as Marinus fairly early on. makes it pretty obvious what's going on in that last chapter.
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Nov 1, 2015 07:29
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Echo Cian posted:I lost interest in Bridge of d'Arnath, and Rai-Kirah was good but I don't like it nearly as much as the others. Carol Berg is great, I love all her stuff (I especially love Bridge of d'Arnath but I am apparently in the minority) however, she definitely has one story she tells in very different ways: Powerful sorcerer learns that the foundations of his beliefs about the world and magic are untrue; Consequences. I think what I really enjoy about Berg is that her characters are varied and interesting and more complex than average. bigperm posted:The third book, Magician's Land ties everything together and wraps everything up so beautifully. Such a strong finish to a series I already enjoyed. It makes me sad that people gave up on the first book. Kalman posted:One of the few books that retroactively improves the earlier books in a series. I think this is especially true of the second book, which I used to find kind of weird and boring but after finishing Magician's Land I understood the necessity for it. Grimson fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 10:01
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Junkenstein posted:Luna: New Moon sure has a shitload of characters to keep track of for a 400 page book. Just finished this, I was a bit worried going in after glancing at the glossary but in the end I didn't find it too much trouble. Infact it's probably one of my favorite books of the year. Never read a McDonald book before and I'm pleasantly surprised. Some great storytelling, a fascinating look at a possible society on the moon and the whole 5 families theme running through was cool. Go read it! ed balls balls man fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 10:26
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ed balls balls man posted:Just finished this, I was a bit worried going in after glancing at the glossary but in the end I didn't find it too much trouble. Infact it's probably one of my favorite books of the year. Never read a McDonald book before and I'm pleasantly surprised. McDonald's great, I haven't had a chance to read the newest one yet, but the three or four others of his I've previously read have all been excellent. If you want to read something smaller scale/single protagonist from him then check out Sacrifice of Fools
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Nov 1, 2015 12:59
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RndmCnflct posted:I get what you're saying, but, technically, it's historically accurate. And the mc adapting to that timeframe is part of the story. Sorry, but that's a bullshit excuse used by paedophiles to self-justify. Medieval Europe had a lower minimum age of marriage, and there was absolutely nothing stopping someone from going 'sorry, I like 'em older'. The setting opens possibilities for paedophilia, it doesn't make it mandatory for the modern protagonist to indulge in it.
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Nov 1, 2015 13:18
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Darth Walrus posted:Sorry, but that's a bullshit excuse used by paedophiles to self-justify. Medieval Europe had a lower minimum age of marriage, and there was absolutely nothing stopping someone from going 'sorry, I like 'em older'. The setting opens possibilities for paedophilia, it doesn't make it mandatory for the modern protagonist to indulge in it. Nevermind that the only people who married young were nobles, the majority waited until they were actually able to support a family. Most people married in their twenties or early thirties.
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Nov 1, 2015 13:24
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Right. If we want to use the Nazi Germany parallel, this isn't like Jews getting killed as a background feature, this is our modern MC enthusiastically killing Jews because 'eh, when in Rome'. Which we'd agree is a mite weird, no?
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Nov 1, 2015 13:31
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What if the MC is literally Hitler
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Nov 1, 2015 14:28
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freebooter posted:Hahaha did you actually stop for even a moment here to think about what you were writing? That saying someone "grows up" is actually an incredibly vague way to describe character development? It works in most cases, but when a character has as many flaws as Quentin it's hard to believe the author intends to fix all of them. Quentin could find a way to contribute to society instead of being a privileged freeloader without dealing with any of his emotional or social issues and that would still be "growing up". Lowly posted:I actually did see quite a bit of praise for Bone Clocks in the year it came out, more from mainstream sources than genre ones, though. I feel like it was one of those books that manage to hit the middle ground of genre and mainstream appeal. I think for anybody who read The Bone Clocks the final chapter of Slade House was supposed to provide a different kind of thrill. As soon as the name Marinus appears you know the twins are going to die, and instead of waiting to see if Marinus is ever banjaxed you're waiting to see how long it takes Norah to realize she and her brother are going to die. Even if you read Slade House without The Bone Clocks there are a few really good sections where the tension is in waiting for the characters to realize things you already know. The "twist" was probably jarring to somebody who hasn't read the The Bone Clocks but it feels a little jarring anytime Mitchell puts in a reference to one of his previous books. High Warlord Zog posted:I think it's a loose end that he may or may not return to in a future book. Yeah I thought that was weird too. People seemed to talk about The Bone Clocks as a good, but somewhat "disappointing" follow-up to Cloud Atlas instead of one of the best fantasy books to come out in years.
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Nov 1, 2015 15:01
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Darth Walrus posted:Sorry, but that's a bullshit excuse used by paedophiles to self-justify. Medieval Europe had a lower minimum age of marriage, and there was absolutely nothing stopping someone from going 'sorry, I like 'em older'. The setting opens possibilities for paedophilia, it doesn't make it mandatory for the modern protagonist to indulge in it. Given that you acknowledge what was going on with nobles and their dicks during those times maybe what you are describing is something known as a "character flaw", apparently a large part of storytelling. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 1, 2015 15:13
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e: Wasn't adding anything productive to the thread, forget this was here.
WarLocke fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Nov 1, 2015 |
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Nov 1, 2015 16:28
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turn left
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Nov 1, 2015 16:33
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