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flosofl posted:That's a ridiculous argument and doesn't change in any way it's a try-hard novel. It's like he had a check list titled Vietnam War Novel and by god he made sure every box was ticked including transitioning-back-to-the-world-Normals-don't-understand-me. This is stupid.
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Jan 2, 2016 00:18
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goodness posted:It's a cool idea and we just like absorbing nerdy details of things, even if they aren't the best quality. Same reason one could spend days on wookiepedia. By absorbing nerdy details, you forfeit your humanity.
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Jan 2, 2016 00:27
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Shab posted:I legitimately offended somebody last night by saying Ready Player One is trash. I truly do not understand the attention--let alone the diehard love--that that book gets. I haven't read it but I still greatly enjoyed this hatchet job review of the sequel Armada, describing it as "everything wrong with gaming culture." http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2015/07/armada_by_ernest_cline_follow_up_to_ready_player_one_reviewed.html boom boom boom posted:it turns out the dad was right about everything. He's incredibly competent and did everything right. If he has a flaw at all, it's that he's too flawless, character's openly remark. Also, every woman wants to gently caress him. Including his daughter. Especially his daughter. Not implied, it's directly stated by the daughter. This is an accurate summation of every novel Heinlein ever wrote.
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Jan 2, 2016 02:31
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flosofl posted:Hahahaha. That's rich, coming from you. It made me lol too, goddamn
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Jan 2, 2016 02:53
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flosofl posted:Hahahaha. That's rich, coming from you. this is stupid
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Jan 2, 2016 07:29
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For those of you who don't wade into the mire of the GRRM thread,George R. R. Martin posted:Here it is, the first of January. The book is not done, not delivered. No words can change that. I tried, I promise you. I failed. I blew the Halloween deadline, and I've now blown the end of the year deadline. And that almost certainly means that no, THE WINDS OF WINTER will not be published before the sixth season of GAME OF THRONES premieres in April. http://grrm.livejournal.com/465247.html
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Jan 2, 2016 13:53
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lol
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Jan 2, 2016 13:58
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quote:I took advantage of the visit to have another sit down with my editors and publishers and told them that I didn't think I could deliver by Halloween. I thought they'd be sick about it... but I have to say, my editors and publishers are great, and they took it with surprising equanimity. (Maybe they knew it before I did). They already had contigencies in place.  How can someone be so lacking in self awareness.
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Jan 2, 2016 15:05
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the show has been kind of garbage even compared to the lacklustre last couple of novels. it's impossible to tell how much of that is due to the tv writers being on a frolic of their own, but it doesn't bode well. i'll still read the next books because i'm a stupid nerd.
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Jan 2, 2016 15:59
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Ditto. I wish that fat bastard would die already so I could stop giving him my money.
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Jan 2, 2016 16:35
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Neurosis posted:the show has been kind of garbage even compared to the lacklustre last couple of novels. it's impossible to tell how much of that is due to the tv writers being on a frolic of their own, but it doesn't bode well. More stuff like Hardhome stuff would be nice next season. We're probably going to get Dorne 2.0 and more god awful Sansa/Ramsay stuff though. 
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Jan 2, 2016 16:46
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Edit: This isn't the GRRM thread and I wanna keep it that way.
Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jan 2, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 17:03
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"I blew these deadlines because I'm old, rich beyond my wildest dreams, and just don't care anymore..." On another note: I'm 40% through Baru Cormorant and love it. What a twisted, yet totally plausible world. I can't remember a time that I've been filled with this much dread about the ending of a book this early in the book.
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Jan 2, 2016 17:21
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xian posted:On another note: I'm 40% through Baru Cormorant and love it. What a twisted, yet totally plausible world. I can't remember a time that I've been filled with this much dread about the ending of a book this early in the book. I finished it last night after all the nice words about it in this thread and want to add my congratulations to General Battuta, it's really good. I'll be recommending it to others. The only thing that felt a bit weird to me was (major spoilers) Baru's "unhygienic" tendencies seem at times to be basically common knowledge among all the important Masquerade characters but, despite that, keeping it secret is portrayed as a massive deal. Even right at the end when the committee clearly is aware of them and say as much to her face, the fact that she was able to destroy the written evidence is really important to her, even beyond confirming Lo and Purity's loyalties. I suppose that there's a difference between "everyone knowing" of her sins and hard evidence of them existing, but surely if they really wanted to move against her a lack of legitimate documentation wouldn't prevent them? It'd be easy enough to fabricate a pretext and present falsified statements. Certainly Xate Yawa has had no problem pulling similar stuff in the past, and it looks like she will shortly be ascending also. I also wondered whether Baru might not have been safer to have Hu live and give the others the feeling that they had a means of controlling her. Then they'd be less likely to band together against her in future and if they ever did try and use Hu as a lever she'd be able to surprise them by ignoring it. Given her ruthlessness, desire for control and self sufficiency, and sometime inability to recognise the agency of others though it makes sense that she wouldn't do that.
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Jan 2, 2016 17:42
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Re: Baru's big secret: Itinerant and the others behind the Masquerade know she's a lesbian, but as long as she's useful to them they won't do anything to her. They can use that knowledge as leverage to turn her, and if she balks at any point then they have ammunition to get her disappeared. Hesychast was trying to break her with Tain Hu at the end specifically because they only had circumstantial hearsay evidence of her tendencies; a living Tain Hu is something concrete they can use to force her to fall in line, but even if Hesychast 'knows' she's a lesbian, without that notebook it's just his word versus hers, and not taking lovers is not the same thing as loving women, so Baru could theoretically at least stonewall an 'official' investigation/accusation. At least that's how I read it.
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Jan 2, 2016 18:00
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Not mousing over those spoilers is taking so much self control. Time to do some reading. Of the book. Not of the spoilers.
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Jan 2, 2016 18:08
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Yeah, I'm about half-way through it myself (just got to "Warlord" - I like how after seeing "Accountant" I began to wonder what the next appellation/title would be). One thing I've already thought about was how Aminata talks about how hereditary science says all women are better at geometry and mathematics than men, and I thought about how there's at least one person out there who read that and instead of going "yeah, 'science' like that sure is crap", thought "wow, this must take place in an alternate universe where women are naturally good at math!"
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Jan 2, 2016 18:18
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Ha that's exactly where I stopped last night. How drat good were the chapters leading up to the duel
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Jan 2, 2016 18:22
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xian posted:Not mousing over those spoilers is taking so much self control. Time to do some reading. Of the book. Not of the spoilers. It is A Good Book. Like, I don't normally talk about what I read with people around here, because nobody else really reads and trying to explain whatever SF/F I'm reading at the moment is always awkward. But I am actively recommending Baru to people, it's that drat good and I don't think you even need to be interested in the 'fantasy' angle to appreciate it.
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Jan 2, 2016 18:24
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Pretty cool to have our own do so well. There's even a laudatory NPR review. It's on the bookshelves at my local independent bookstore. I'll grab it next time I go in.
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Jan 2, 2016 18:27
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WarLocke posted:I don't think you even need to be interested in the 'fantasy' angle to appreciate it. Agreed. I think it's the most relevant-to-our-time fantasy books I've read in the past few years. Super interesting and timely takes on gender / sexuality / and a ton of other things.
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Jan 2, 2016 18:46
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I love reading these posts, I don't want to be insufferable but this is far away the best part of writing. Thanks!
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Jan 2, 2016 19:07
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I don't think it's insufferable at all. If anything I think it's a privilege to be able to actually have a conversation with the author!
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Jan 2, 2016 19:19
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Oh poo poo it's january? I need BOTM recommendations, more of them. For this month and next.
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Jan 2, 2016 19:31
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Me too! I'm excited to post my thoughts once I finish and know that the author might respond to em! (Best book club ever)
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Jan 2, 2016 20:40
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Oh poo poo it's january? I also just finished Hard to be a God which has some interesting bits about humanity and how you can't just fix all their problems for them. It takes place a couple hundred years in the future where Earth has all their problems sorted out, so they start exploring space and find other planets with humans on them in various points of development. The main character, Anton, is a historian pretending to be a nobleman in a city under the grip of a Pol Pot esque advisor to the king. The book is old and Russian so there are some quirks to it but I really liked it. Also it's only two bucks for the kindle version right now.
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Jan 2, 2016 21:03
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If you haven't read City of Stairs, now would be a good time, as the sequel is meant to be coming out imminently.
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Jan 2, 2016 21:04
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muscles like this? posted:I also just finished Hard to be a God which has some interesting bits about humanity and how you can't just fix all their problems for them. It takes place a couple hundred years in the future where Earth has all their problems sorted out, so they start exploring space and find other planets with humans on them in various points of development. The main character, Anton, is a historian pretending to be a nobleman in a city under the grip of a Pol Pot esque advisor to the king. Just heard about the movie today, one od those end of the year lists. Planning to read it BOTM or not.
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Jan 2, 2016 21:25
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Oh poo poo it's january? The Bands of Mourning comes out January 26th and considering how good Shadows of Self was it should also be really good.
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Jan 2, 2016 21:40
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xian posted:If you haven't read City of Stairs, now would be a good time, as the sequel is meant to be coming out imminently. Thursday!
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Jan 2, 2016 22:01
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WarLocke posted:Re: Baru's big secret: The guy at the end is Apparitor, who appears several times while Baru is in Aurdwynn. He's also the missing Stakhieczi prince!
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Jan 2, 2016 23:12
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blue squares posted:You had me interested until this. The Forever War is loving awful. The writing and characters are garbage omg no you are wrong, sorry
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Jan 3, 2016 04:01
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angel opportunity posted:The fifth season was pretty solid, but it also left no lasting impression on me. It's weird because it was well written, had pretty good characters, and wasn't "bad fantasy" that I am so against...but I also can't see myself recommending it to anyone, and I'm not super excited about book two. Probably I'll pass on it? On the other hand, I loved it to pieces by the end despite kind of hating it at the start. I've never had an author swing me around so hard in the span of a single book, much less making me retroactively love the parts that almost made me put it down (the narrative gimmick being one of those things). It doesn't cheapen uncomfortable subjects by flinching away even slightly, turns situations that would be cringeworthy in another book into punches in the gut, and I'm dying for the sequel. I'd only recommend it to some people, though, given some of the subject matter.
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Jan 3, 2016 04:03
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Oh poo poo it's january? One book that I'm currently reading, Chimpanzee by Darin Bradley, would make for a great choice for a BOTM discussion thread, as it's full of all types of new, interesting, original and complex n cool ideas, has an unreliable narrator thing going on, and has one of the more unique great takes on a near-future dystopian society, with heavy implications and commentary on current real world issues, that I've read in a long time. I still say Germline would be a better choice though.
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Jan 3, 2016 04:13
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Probably everyone already has these books, but I just picked up Kindle editions of The Windup Girl, The Sirens of Titan and The Dark Forest (the second Three-Body book) for 99p each as daily deals on Amazon UK. Rare that I see decent scifi deals there so I thought I would share.
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Jan 3, 2016 06:49
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big scary monsters posted:Probably everyone already has these books, but I just picked up Kindle editions of The Windup Girl, The Sirens of Titan and The Dark Forest (the second Three-Body book) for 99p each as daily deals on Amazon UK. Rare that I see decent scifi deals there so I thought I would share. Seriously thanks for that, I've been waiting for Dark Forest to drop in price.
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Jan 3, 2016 10:18
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Evil Fluffy posted:The Bands of Mourning comes out January 26th and considering how good Shadows of Self was it should also be really good. It's this month already! Great, for some reason I thought it was supposed to be released in February. Can't wait for more Wax and Marasi stuff.
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Jan 3, 2016 15:45
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General Battuta posted:I want to write one more because I think it's interesting to have two books that argue with each other. The first book is very cold and ruthless, so I'd like to write a book that asks whether ruthlessness is actually a good way to get things done in the long term. This part of this post, from a few pages back, reminded me about the Morrigan stories and the insane levels of hype I experienced seeing you'd written a sequel to the first. Anyway, they're real different from TTBC, but those are some good SF and anyone in the thread who's hyped on the good General's work who hasn't read those needs to get on that stat. Here, please enjoy links to Morrigan in the Sunglare and the follow-up Morrigan in Shadow. There's some thematic similarities between those two and TTBC, of which this post reminded me. It's a loose thread, but ... matters of exigency and the best methods of dealing with those, cultural difference leading to conflict. If I weren't busy feeling sick as a dog I'd try and pick that apart a little more, but I think it'd require a reread of Baru Cormorant, which'll take a while. Mostly I just really like that set of stories and want more people to read them. There's even cool space fights! 
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Jan 3, 2016 17:14
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I am going on a trip which will have lots of plane and car rides so I will add those and some other stuff from this thread to my reading pile (which is currently 200 or so books long)
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Jan 3, 2016 17:59
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Just finished up Harmony Black, and it's pretty damned good. Strong female lead that actually comes across as human and not some weird cardboard cutout, spooky loving villain, and the usual creepy factory found in the Faust novels. Only downside is there's a somewhat minor/major spoiler for one of the Faust books in there, but honestly if you haven't read that series it won't be apparent. Gotta say, I am digging this series idea, and I've already got the second one added to the wishlist. It's not as NOIR as the Faust series, and since it's about an FBI agent it's not nearly as Ocean's 11 as the Faust series, but at the same time he hits the same high marks and even better, doesn't have the lead be some weird hosed up "bad poo poo happens to me but I'll be ok" rape bait sort of character like I've read in a lot of other novels with a woman main character.
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Jan 3, 2016 23:54
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