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PupsOfWar posted:Will probably do The Ninefox Gambit next, owing to previous good experiences with Yoon Ha Lee's short fiction.
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Jul 14, 2016 18:41
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Forgot to post this interesting offer in this thread too.Fart of Presto posted:A pretty good offer for all US and Canadian citizens: Tor.com eBook Club Hedrigall posted:Just putting it out there, the most it does is ask for an email address and "Are you from the US or Canada?"
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Jul 14, 2016 21:02
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Thanks for the tip Fart of Presto!
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Jul 14, 2016 21:09
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So, does anyone here have any opinions about David Wingrove's Chung Kuo books? I had a friend who was reading the first series back in the early 2000s, but I never picked it up. I'm just asking since I'm picking up his new "Roads to Moscow" trilogy and I just want to know what he's like.
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Jul 14, 2016 21:23
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navyjack posted:Oh no gently caress that guy! First book was so bad, 2nd is shot on sight. Yeah, I try not to be too negative when talking about books and authors, especially if I haven't read a lot of certain ones, but I could tell that book was straight up lovely trash one chapter in. I know someone a lil while ago itt was looking for a good fantasy audiobook without sex scenes that's also not one of the more well known usual suspects around here and I can recommend Guy Haley's The Emperor's Railroad. It has a unique and interesting setting with good pacing n writing and no sex at all. Only drawback might be that it's short, I think novella length. Audiobook is quality too though, with a very good and fitting narrator.
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Jul 15, 2016 01:30
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Hey General Battuta, I just read "Testimony Before an Emergency Session of The Naval Cephalopod Command" and it was awesome! Really cool descriptions of how "alien" it's way of thinking was. I'd love to read a full length novel by you along those lines.
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Jul 15, 2016 05:06
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Marshal Radisic posted:So, does anyone here have any opinions about David Wingrove's Chung Kuo books? I had a friend who was reading the first series back in the early 2000s, but I never picked it up. I'm just asking since I'm picking up his new "Roads to Moscow" trilogy and I just want to know what he's like. If the new series has significantly less hideous sexual violence, go for it.
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Jul 15, 2016 05:39
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That short reminded me oh so very much of Peter Watts (in a good way). Edit: the Cephalopod one.
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Jul 15, 2016 05:39
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coyo7e posted:That game is way too good, stop playing and go enjoy the summer. Man, summer blows. It's like 100F outside with high humidity where I am. gently caress summer, play video games.
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Jul 15, 2016 06:55
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Khizan posted:Man, summer blows. It's like 100F outside with high humidity where I am. gently caress summer, play video games. Alternatively play Pokemon Go. Apropos of the original suggestion, I was enjoying Ark until I realized I was on a server dominated by 4Chan and had my experience ruined. I got my own server and have yet get back into it but that's just because of my mood and other things going on lately, and other games.
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Jul 15, 2016 15:41
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There's gotta be a blog out there somewhere about sci-fi cover art far too awesome for the lovely writing within. Or the reverse, I remember picking up some sci-fi stuff from the late 70s/early 80s at Half-Price and the covers usually had gently caress-all to do with the content because the artist apparently only had the title to work with. Some of the books were fine, but the stupid covers certainly delayed my reading them to check it out.
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Jul 15, 2016 17:57
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Is it better to read Discworld in publication order or by sub-series (e.g. Mort, Wyrd Sisters, etc)?
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Jul 15, 2016 18:09
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.Z. posted:Is it better to read Discworld in publication order or by sub-series (e.g. Mort, Wyrd Sisters, etc)? You can read Discworld in any order really. The continuity between books isn't that important, back in the day I just read whatever looked good to me at the time. If you really do want to read in a set order I'd recommend subseries. IMO the first few books aren't the best representations of Pratchett's later writing, I also don't think they're as good as his later stuff.
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Jul 15, 2016 18:46
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There is continuity, even as just nods, so I would advocate publication order. Especially anything to do with Death. I guess you could read the Death books first, but then you miss a lot of setting details because the Death stuff tends to be pan-setting and not as detailed as the Witch or Watch books are about their particular areas. As an example, Death of Rats starts showing up a lot after Reaper Man so you could easily pass it in a subseries without understanding why that happened. Not that this derails anything outright, you can still read Small Gods not knowing about it, but it's easier to appreciate if you understand where it came from. EDIT: Also officers of the Watch often show up in books set in Ankh-Morpork and knowing when and how they joined the Watch is kind of important if they're not the main group of Vimes/Carrot/Nobbs/Colon. Nakar fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Jul 15, 2016 |
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Jul 15, 2016 18:53
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Marshal Radisic posted:So, does anyone here have any opinions about David Wingrove's Chung Kuo books? I had a friend who was reading the first series back in the early 2000s, but I never picked it up. I'm just asking since I'm picking up his new "Roads to Moscow" trilogy and I just want to know what he's like. I was a big fan back in the day and still enjoy them. Based on the original publication order, I found (as did a friend of mine who picked up the series as well) that the first three books were excellent. A fantastic world, lots of stuff going on, decent pacing. It really helped if you read them when they came out, when the idea of China accomplishing anything whatsoever other than "being poor and Communist" was absolutely laughable outside of some foreign policy specialists. Unfortunately, the sheer scale of the series gets away from him. More characters, more subplots, larger scale of events: the usual series bloat occurs. Whole new sections appear that I couldn't care less about, and the plots that I did enjoy took bizarro turns. To pick one example, I was hideously bored, in particular, following an incestuous genius and his attempts to make art real again in a stifling Confucian environment. The concept could have been interesting, but I didn't find the execution so. That he was pretty much invincible due to his connections with the rulers of the world made it rather blah. The series ends in a gonzo yet meh sprint where declining sales forced him to combine two books into one. I wound up getting rid of the other books and keeping the first three, which end on a set-up for further fun but also marks a natural break point. It's like stopping a run-through of BSG after season 2. As for the recent re-releases, he added two entirely unnecessary prequels that only succeeded in being anticlimatic, explaining things the original opener did just fine in a paragraph. The remaining six books that were published are, IIRC, just books one to three of the old series. For the early ones he was just interested in minor touch ups to his writing and making sure continuity errors were fixed, though I haven't done a side by side check yet to see how accurate that claim is.
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Jul 15, 2016 18:54
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Nakar posted:There's gotta be a blog out there somewhere about sci-fi cover art far too awesome for the lovely writing within. I'm sure there's a blog about the reverse case (glad Bujold's finally getting some re-prints with passable cover art)
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Jul 15, 2016 22:33
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So about six months back, I read Mieville's The Scar and loved it, tore through it in a little more than a week while I had downtime at work. Now I'm reading through Perdido Street Station and it really feels like it drags, by comparison. Does the book ever really pick up to the same degree that The Scar does? If the Kindle app is to be believed, I'm 51% through the book, and things are finally happening, but it feels glacially slow. I don't know if I just have less patience for repeated descriptions of how much of a shithole New Crobuzon is, or what, but I'm having a hard time continuing.
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Jul 16, 2016 00:41
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MockingQuantum posted:So about six months back, I read Mieville's The Scar and loved it, tore through it in a little more than a week while I had downtime at work. Now I'm reading through Perdido Street Station and it really feels like it drags, by comparison. Does the book ever really pick up to the same degree that The Scar does? If the Kindle app is to be believed, I'm 51% through the book, and things are finally happening, but it feels glacially slow. I don't know if I just have less patience for repeated descriptions of how much of a shithole New Crobuzon is, or what, but I'm having a hard time continuing. PSS is basically a book about New Crobuzon, and the city is the main character. It will never "pick up" to Scar levels. Iron Council might be a better fit for you.
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Jul 16, 2016 00:49
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MockingQuantum posted:So about six months back, I read Mieville's The Scar and loved it, tore through it in a little more than a week while I had downtime at work. Now I'm reading through Perdido Street Station and it really feels like it drags, by comparison. Does the book ever really pick up to the same degree that The Scar does? If the Kindle app is to be believed, I'm 51% through the book, and things are finally happening, but it feels glacially slow. I don't know if I just have less patience for repeated descriptions of how much of a shithole New Crobuzon is, or what, but I'm having a hard time continuing. It builds a little speed exponentially toward the end of the book as he starts bringing the disparate plot threads together and tying things off, but as said above it never comes close to the pace of his other Bas-Lag novels. It's much more him meandering around the city, introducing you to its inhabitants, almost stringing together a series of vignettes to show off the weird-rear end world he's created - something that I think he improved upon with both of the following books. It's still my favorite of the trilogy because it was the first one that I read and such a nice change of pace from the pulpier fantasies I'd been reading, but I have a hard time suggesting people start there for just that reason. If you're already more than halfway through it I would say stick with it though, there are a few small bits at the end that tie into The Scar and will show up again in Iron Council and you're pretty close to the point where it does begin picking up. Plus if you ever end up reading The City & The City you'll really be able to compare it and appreciate how much he's honed his ability to give a tour of strange, urban locales since 2000.
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Jul 16, 2016 00:57
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Okay, I'll tough it out. It's not as though it's like pulling teeth to get through, I think I just expected something much more like The Scar. In general, the consensus among my friends who have read both is that I would have enjoyed it much more if I had read PSS first. Oh well!
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Jul 16, 2016 01:18
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Not really. I mean the only thing that connects the plots of PSS and The Scar is a couple of sentences about why Bellis had to leave the city. Maybe the sense of development of Miéville as a writer since he seems to have learned a lesson about coherence and pacing between those two books, but that's fairly minor. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Jul 16, 2016 |
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Jul 16, 2016 08:28
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MockingQuantum posted:Okay, I'll tough it out. It's not as though it's like pulling teeth to get through, I think I just expected something much more like The Scar. In general, the consensus among my friends who have read both is that I would have enjoyed it much more if I had read PSS first. Oh well! I think it's true that if you're not expecting the narrative flow of The Scar, then it's easier to just sit back and enjoy the trip around the city in PSS for what it is, and if PSS is your first look at Bas Lag, then the original feel of the place masks the plodding somewhat. That said, it definitely picks up in the second half, so keep at it. If you're at 50%, I don't think you've even seen any Weaver antics yet.
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Jul 16, 2016 11:34
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If you're having trouble with PSS I wouldn't even bother with the Iron Council, to be honest. The Scar is the best one of the bunch, anyway.
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Jul 16, 2016 12:24
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Megazver posted:If you're having trouble with PSS I wouldn't even bother with the Iron Council, to be honest. The Scar is the best one of the bunch, anyway. false
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Jul 16, 2016 14:05
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Eh, they all have their upsides and downsides. The thing is those are different for each book.
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Jul 16, 2016 14:20
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Junkenstein posted:I think it's true that if you're not expecting the narrative flow of The Scar, then it's easier to just sit back and enjoy the trip around the city in PSS for what it is, and if PSS is your first look at Bas Lag, then the original feel of the place masks the plodding somewhat. That said, it definitely picks up in the second half, so keep at it. If you're at 50%, I don't think you've even seen any Weaver antics yet. The Weaver was just introduced, and the moth plotline is finally going somewhere, so yeah, it's starting to pick up.
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Jul 16, 2016 17:42
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Just finished up the Copper Cat or Copper Coin or Black Feather Three trilogy by Jen Williams. It's referred to as all 3 names in various places so I dunno what the gently caress to call it. It's, an odd set of books. I liked them, but they were a bit weird to me as one of the main protagonists is gay, and apparently falls in love in the last 2 books. The world it's set in doesn't really like gay people, so he's a horrible outcast from his knights and whatnot, and the books tend to beat you over the head with the "OMG HE WAS TREATED SO BADLY AND THE PEOPLE HE HOOKS UP WITH ARE TREATED SO BADLY MY GOD THE GAYS ARE TREATED SO BADLY", but on the other hand the first book was pretty good. I don't really care about the sexuality of the characters, but when it's just repeated a ton and apparently a BIG ISSUE to the author it gets a little annoying. The third book I had to buy off amazon.uk as it's not out in the US yet. It's also the worst in the series for about 75% of it, but the last 25% is pretty good. It's, I really don't know how to explain it. It's worth reading but there's gonna be irritations at how poo poo is handled. All in all, decent fun, but if you are after an action/adventure kinda book you can read the first one and not worry about the others. It kinda all goes downhill from there.
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Jul 16, 2016 20:14
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MockingQuantum posted:Okay, I'll tough it out. It's not as though it's like pulling teeth to get through, I think I just expected something much more like The Scar. In general, the consensus among my friends who have read both is that I would have enjoyed it much more if I had read PSS first. Oh well! Mieville's Kraken. Which is CM writes a modern Urban Fantasy noel is also pretty good I thought.
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Jul 18, 2016 21:03
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navyjack posted:Oh no gently caress that guy! First book was so bad, 2nd is shot on sight. That's at least his fifth book, since Victor Milan wrote a loose trilogy of BattleTech books back in the nineties. Unless this is a different Victor Milan? What happens then, do they Thunderdome it out for rights to the name?
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Jul 18, 2016 21:34
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WarLocke posted:That's at least his fifth book, since Victor Milan wrote a loose trilogy of BattleTech books back in the nineties. Same dude.
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Jul 18, 2016 21:38
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Deptfordx posted:Mieville's Kraken. Which is CM writes a modern Urban Fantasy noel is also pretty good I thought. Kraken is really boring until the end, but if you make it that far you might believe the last 20% makes up for the drugery that came before. You'll be wrong, though. WarLocke posted:That's at least his fifth book, since Victor Milan wrote a loose trilogy of BattleTech books back in the nineties. gently caress me, I was able to dredge this name up from the depths of my memory as one of the many "who the gently caress is this guy" contributors to Wildcards.
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Jul 18, 2016 22:10
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Neat, the Caverns and Creatures series by Robert Bevan is on amazon for 99 cents. It's one of those week long deals, and includes books 1-4. Less than a quarter per book!
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Jul 19, 2016 02:03
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Neat, the Caverns and Creatures series by Robert Bevan is on amazon for 99 cents. It's one of those week long deals, and includes books 1-4. Less than a quarter per book! Hah, I've been wanting to check these out. Can't go wrong at $.99! Thanks for the heads up.
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Jul 19, 2016 03:57
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The first isn't as good as the later ones, stay the course if you're on the fence afterwards.
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Jul 19, 2016 04:55
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I loved reading Dune in high school but I tried listening to an audio book of it recently and all the made up sci fi words were so bad. Or at least gom jabbar was. I couldn't get passed gom jabbar. Gom jabbar, over and over. It sounds like it came straight out of the Star Wars expanded universe. I hate it because I really really like Dune, or at least, I thought I did.
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Jul 20, 2016 00:51
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WickedHate posted:Gom jabbar, over and over. Do NOT get it confused with gulab jamun.
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Jul 20, 2016 01:50
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PupsOfWar posted:Unless negative portrayals of imperialism, fascism and feudalism are innately libertarian, I don't see what that has to do with anything, even at a stretch. I think the person calling it libertarian propaganda took issue with the frank discussion of monetary policy. They took acknowledging that fiat currency can be used as a tool of oppression as advocating a return to the gold standard in real life.
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Jul 20, 2016 15:08
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Silver2195 posted:I think the person calling it libertarian propaganda took issue with the frank discussion of monetary policy. They took acknowledging that fiat currency can be used as a tool of oppression as advocating a return to the gold standard in real life. Yeah, it was a very dumb criticism.
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Jul 20, 2016 18:17
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Finished up The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, and frankly, I wouldn't recommend it. The premise sounded kinda cool, which is a guy gets murdered and comes back to life, and tries to figure out why and how. What the book ends up being, though, is a walkthrough of how horrible of a person he is while bouncing back and forth through IMPORTANT HISTORICAL ISSUES AND TIMES, and then the book basically stops and says HAHAHAHAH fucker, you wanna know the answer to the only reason you read this piece of poo poo? THERE'S A BOOK 2! MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! So, yea. Weird book, hosed up things going on. The main character is a whiny sociopath, and you don't even find out why or how he came back to life. Also, worst sex scene ever.
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Jul 20, 2016 18:25
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Going through the recently released Big Book of Science Fiction compiled by the VanderMeers. My favourite story so far is 'The Doom of Principal City' by Yefim Zozulya. I had to share this part:quote:There had been a few uprisings in Principal City, all of them brutally suppressed. In two cases small riotous areas were surrounded by a steel vise of vehicles and troops and then mercilessly cemented.
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Jul 20, 2016 21:00
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