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I gave up on A Book of Tongues after the main evil villain was a gay preacher. Just seemed like overreach when I was reading it. Only got like 10% of the way through it before I bailed. Just wasn't clicking with me. I haven't read any of the others though.
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Aug 18, 2016 13:58
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Relatedly, are there any weird western books worth checking out? I read and enjoyed Belcher's Golgatha books and I remember Vermilion getting some mixed reviews, but that's about all I can recall in the thread.
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Aug 18, 2016 19:00
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Ben Nevis posted:Relatedly, are there any weird western books worth checking out? I read and enjoyed Belcher's Golgatha books and I remember Vermilion getting some mixed reviews, but that's about all I can recall in the thread. Joe Lansdale has done a bunch. Deadman's Road is probably the best place to start.
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Aug 18, 2016 19:16
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Vermillion is pretty bad. Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World is pretty good. Like I said before, I really enjoyed Haxan.
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Aug 18, 2016 19:30
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KSR has a new novel coming out in early 2017: https://twitter.com/WWEnd/status/766344810206629888
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Aug 18, 2016 20:44
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Megazver posted:Vermillion is pretty bad. Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World is pretty good. Like I said before, I really enjoyed Haxan.
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Aug 19, 2016 02:08
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Shitshow posted:KSR has a new novel coming out in early 2017: I want this NOW
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Aug 19, 2016 03:03
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Shitshow posted:KSR has a new novel coming out in early 2017: gently caress yes!
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Aug 19, 2016 12:17
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WarLocke posted:There are sequels to Coyote? Ben Nevis posted:Relatedly, are there any weird western books worth checking out? I read and enjoyed Belcher's Golgatha books and I remember Vermilion getting some mixed reviews, but that's about all I can recall in the thread.
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Aug 19, 2016 16:52
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Mars4523 posted:Sadly, The Girl with Ghost Eyes is set 40 years too late to be considered a "Western", because it has a premise similar to Vermillion (female Chinese-American psychopomp solves ghost problems) while actually having a plot that goes places and a character arc. I read that one. I enjoyed it, though you're right, not quite western. It was fun though.
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Aug 19, 2016 18:31
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I've made my way through about one third of The Big Book; I've skipped one story so far, The Last Question, since I've read it so many times I know it by heart by now. I'm really enjoying the slightly more obscure stuff. A few of the 1950s golden age stories left me pretty cold (maybe the style is just too outdated for me), but there are a lot of standouts in this collection so far. There are classics that I've never just gotten my hands on that blow me away, like Sturgeon's The Man Who Lost the Sea, which made me put the book down and just sit and appreciate it for its POV fuckery, masterful construction and a wonderful final line; and then more obscure things like Gerard Klein's The Monster, and then stories that are outright bizarre like The Microscopic Giants. One of my favourites which resonates even today is The Snowball Effect by Katherine MacLean, where a sociologist comes up with the perfect formula to exponentially grow a charitable society on a dare. It's also amusing reading the intros and the editors saying how this or that story wasn't really considered science fiction at the time because it was too literary or didn't have enough spaceships in it. A debate that never really goes away, but so far not a single story has left me with any doubt that it was science fiction front and centre.
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Aug 20, 2016 11:18
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Who all is watching the Hugo Awards? We're at The third was just the second again. Mystic Mongol fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Aug 21, 2016 |
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Aug 21, 2016 02:54
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That was much better than last year, no scorched earth but a few No Awards thrown around where needed. I do like that this year the usually-questionable Retro Hugos had two go to Heinlein, if only so I could throw this quote back in a few people's faces : "Robert Heinlein could not win a Hugo Award today.- John C Wright, 2014" The pressure Andy Weir would be under now is for Zhek insane. "Your first novel won you the Campbell, was turned into a $650 million dollar film and won Best Dramatic Long Form, how are you going to beat that ?" I'm glad that Tingle didn't win, although I did have a slight moment of sadness when I realised we wouldn't have a Zoe Quinn performance art piece quote:Best Novel: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
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Aug 21, 2016 04:06
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Good awards. Update the thread with meltdowns from Vox Day et al on social media, please.
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Aug 21, 2016 04:11
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I also liked Hao Jingfang's acceptance speech where she said something along the lines of "I just turned up because I wanted to go to George RR Martin's Losers Party, what do I do now"
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Aug 21, 2016 04:17
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The best novel won. Congrats to Vox Day for ensuring that there was no favouritism in the voting process.
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Aug 21, 2016 04:20
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evilbastard posted:I also liked Hao Jingfang's acceptance speech where she said something along the lines of "I just turned up because I wanted to go to George RR Martin's Losers Party, what do I do now"
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Aug 21, 2016 04:33
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Poor Alyssa Wong  More votes than Weir in the first round but the puppy votes obviously ranked Weir before her and they ended up pushing him ahead by the final round.
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Aug 21, 2016 04:58
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Ken Liu is a fantastic translator, he really deserves that award.
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Aug 21, 2016 05:06
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General Battuta posted:Poor Alyssa Wong Give it ten years, see whose career is looking better.
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Aug 21, 2016 05:18
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Reading through http://www.thehugoawards.org/content/pdf/2016HugoStatistics.pdf like the people above It makes me happy that the detestible "If You Were An Award, My Love" story got the living poo poo kicked out of it - the fewest first round votes of any of the major awards - just 157/2706 votes. It had 398 nominations from the original slate. Even with the thrown around numbers of 300 hard-core puppys and 500 hangers on this is still an arsekicking. Meanwhile Rachel Swirsky is making $628.72 from her Making Lemons into Jokes blogpost. So this might just be the low-point of the whole *puppy campaign and we turned that corner (to mix metaphors) a few months back.
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Aug 21, 2016 05:45
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Hedrigall posted:Good awards. Update the thread with meltdowns from Vox Day et al on social media, please. No thanks
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Aug 21, 2016 05:52
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 Hugo-nominated author Chuck Tingle
PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Aug 21, 2016 |
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Aug 21, 2016 05:57
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What's with all the No Award results in the less prestigious categories? Are the remnants of Sad Puppies screwing around with them again?
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Aug 21, 2016 06:05
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Who cares about the Hugos. What are people's thoughts on the Clarke Award this year? I'm going for Arcadia. By that I mean it better win because it is by far the best book on the shortlist.
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Aug 21, 2016 06:12
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Butcher was obviously the puppy pick in Novel this year and it crashed and burned in round one, too. I mean when you end up picking between Uprooted and The Fifth Season for best novel, something's gone right.fritz posted:Give it ten years, see whose career is looking better. Yup. The expectations on Zhek are going to be crazy because he black-swanned into superstardom and the letdown for fans is gonna be harsh. I am not envious of Weir (except for the fact he's probably pretty wealthy now), guy was just writing a fun story on a blog to geek out over space exploration and then the whole thing exploded.
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Aug 21, 2016 07:54
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evilbastard posted:Meanwhile Rachel Swirsky is making $628.72 from her Making Lemons into Jokes blogpost. So this might just be the low-point of the whole *puppy campaign and we turned that corner (to mix metaphors) a few months back. Swirsky's Grand Jete is a masterpiece and it's a crime it didn't get nominated for last year's awards. This year I think everything worked out really well. I have no problems with what won in the categories I cared about. Sandman: Overture, The Fifth Season, Binti and "Folding Beijing" were predictable wins but still the best in their field (though I think Perfect State was really good too). The Short Story category was this year's complete wash for me, because I got to it before "Cat Pictures, Please" replaced "The Commuter." At least Thomas Olde Heuvelt didn't get another nomination or undeserved win. I'm still sore about that. Antti posted:Butcher was obviously the puppy pick in Novel this year and it crashed and burned in round one, too. I mean when you end up picking between Uprooted and The Fifth Season for best novel, something's gone right. EDIT: I actually thought that Uprooted was just decent when I first read it, and then when I got around to The Fifth Season it just made Uprooted look even more trite and insubstantial by comparison. Butcher's novel was fun and I liked most of the characters, but I've only read a few of his books. I'm sure that if I actually kept up with his work I'd quickly get tired of it. Solitair fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Aug 21, 2016 |
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Aug 21, 2016 07:59
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Yeah, Butcher is not bad and he's not drunk the Kool-Aid himself, but he's like the only half-respected writer they could drum up for the novel category. I like the Pokemon + Roman Legion series and I tried to mainline the Dresden books but that's a very bad idea because he gets really repetitive in style. Bottom line is that the best novel in the slate won the Hugo, which is not nearly always a given.
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Aug 21, 2016 08:31
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Of note: No Award got twice as many votes as Vox Day in round 1 and soundly won third place while Vox Day did not place.Solitair posted:EDIT: I actually thought that Uprooted was just decent when I first read it, and then when I got around to The Fifth Season it just made Uprooted look even more trite and insubstantial by comparison. Butcher's novel was fun and I liked most of the characters, but I've only read a few of his books. I'm sure that if I actually kept up with his work I'd quickly get tired of it. Trite and insubstantial? Really?
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Aug 21, 2016 08:45
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edit: double post
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Aug 21, 2016 08:45
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the_homemaster posted:Who cares about the Hugos. What are people's thoughts on the Clarke Award this year? I'm going for Arcadia. Gentleman Bastards 4 got delayed from September to ???. I'm kind of annoyed since their announcement of September sounds like it was bullshit. Don't issue press releases claiming the release date is 4 months out unless you're drat near ready to go to print.
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Aug 21, 2016 09:46
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I enjoyed Uprooted but I found it pretty pedestrian myself. I went out of my way to read Fifth Season despite being pretty sure I wouldn't like it (that second person thing...) only to find that I really very much did, so yay. Best related work was a pain in the rear end category for me, I was waffling between no-awarding and the gene wolfe piece because for what it is, it's fine. But it's such a very niche piece and that publisher... couldn't do it. That Moira Greyland piece... yikes. I feel for the lady, but... yikes. Semi-pro zine was a legit hard call, and on fanzine, I'm glad Lady Business did well; I enjoy them. Sad Mad Max didn't take the dramatic presentation category. Not surprised. But sad.
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Aug 21, 2016 10:35
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UltimoDragonQuest posted:Gentleman Bastards 4 got delayed from September to ???. I'm kind of annoyed since their announcement of September sounds like it was bullshit. Don't issue press releases claiming the release date is 4 months out unless you're drat near ready to go to print. Eh he put a post about it. http://www.gollancz.co.uk/2016/08/an-update-from-scott-lynch/ Honestly I'm just glad he's got his poo poo together and is happy after poo poo he's been through, and that he's being open about it--unlike some other unnamed fantasy authors... Xaris fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Aug 21, 2016 |
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Aug 21, 2016 10:47
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"Why no I'm totally fine about being rejected by the navy" - Every milsf author before a career of writing about the space navy
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Aug 21, 2016 10:49
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The only people I've ever met who actually were in the Navy, are old men in those dumb hats with the name of their old ship on them, and two really weird 40-something dudes with molester mustaches, both of whom were D&D dungeonmasters.
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Aug 21, 2016 11:53
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coyo7e posted:The only people I've ever met who actually were in the Navy, are old men in those dumb hats with the name of their old ship on them, and two really weird 40-something dudes with molester mustaches, both of whom were D&D dungeonmasters. Checks out.
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Aug 21, 2016 14:20
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Looks like a good year for Hugos. And Puppies have now spent two years accomplishing pretty much nothing, which is nice. Has anyone read the Gene Wolfe book? Was it decent? I'm vaguely disappointed it was beaten by No Award, but that's basically a Pavlovian response to the topic. E: Hahaha holy poo poo, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius" lost a Retro Hugo to something by Asimov. And I thought The Ill-Made Knight losing was bad! Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Aug 21, 2016 |
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Aug 21, 2016 16:19
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House Louse posted:E: Hahaha holy poo poo, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius" lost a Retro Hugo to something by Asimov. And I thought The Ill-Made Knight losing was bad! Anyhow, I'd be pretty suspicious about anything talking about Wolfe when it's published by Castalia, it's likely to be focused on proving just how Christian all of his books are and don't you dare interpret anything in other ways.
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Aug 21, 2016 17:27
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Grimson posted:Trite and insubstantial? Really? If it weren't for the attempted rape scene near the start of the book, I would have classified Uprooted as YA fiction. That's not a bad thing and it's not a bad book; I loved how Nieshka's narration made magic sound like a beautiful work of art, the contrast between how she cast spells and how the magicians with titles did it, and how the book ramps up tension as the situation gets worse and Nieshka is often left impotent and frustrated because other people think they know what's best for her and won't listen. Then the scene where you find out where the Wood Queen came from happens, the tension is cut because people in power aren't belittling her anymore, and I could pretty much predict how the last act would go. Nothing else about the book was particularly impressive. The only reason I cared about Kasia is because Nieshka cared about her. I'd have a hard time saying what she's like as a person outside of the context of the story and her home, unlike Nieshka. I was kind of interested in the relationship between Nieshka and The Dragon until they started feeling a magically-induced attraction out of nowhere that never really developed, thank God. So when I read The Fifth Season, I noticed that it also made me feel tense in much the same way, but also a more adult way that deals with a more widespread sense of unfairness that happens no matter where orogenes go or what they do. More importantly, there are no easy answers, and The Fifth Season seems much less like wish fulfillment (as much as Nieshka suffers, she usually has just the right spell or insight to solve the problem). Maybe I'm falling into the cliche where a critic gives more attention to serious and tragic stories than breezy, light-hearted "kiddie" fare, but I genuinely feel that of all the noticeably flawed novels on the ballot (all of them except The Fifth Season), Uprooted held my interest the least. coyo7e posted:The only people I've ever met who actually were in the Navy, are old men in those dumb hats with the name of their old ship on them, and two really weird 40-something dudes with molester mustaches, both of whom were D&D dungeonmasters. My aunt was a navy XO. She seems pretty well-adjusted, especially compared to some other people on my mother's side. I should ask me about her old career sometime. anilEhilated posted:Anyhow, I'd be pretty suspicious about anything talking about Wolfe when it's published by Castalia, it's likely to be focused on proving just how Christian all of his books are and don't you dare interpret anything in other ways.  I can't possibly see what could give you that impression.  They tried to use my love of Book of the New Sun to trick me, but I knew better. Solitair fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Aug 22, 2016 |
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Aug 22, 2016 00:05
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From what I understand Aramini's not a Puppy and he had a crisis of conscience over whether or not to pull the Gene Wolfe book from nomination when he realized how it got there. Eventually he decided he'd worked hard on it so he was going to let it stay up there and stand on its own, which makes it getting beat by 'No Award' even more of a bummer for him. And yeah, that cover is loving dire, no pun intended.
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Aug 22, 2016 00:39
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