|
Wapole Languray posted:Earthsea is notable because it came out in 1964. It's not really a terrific book no, but it's highly influential on the genre. There's also the cast of POC in what is sometimes a very white field, though I can't vouch for it as I got distracted 20 pages in. Everything beyond the trilogy is apparently garbage including the white-washed TV show and Ghibli film.
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2016 08:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 18, 2024 00:19 |
|
|
Anyone else read Timescape, by Gregory Benford? My god, it replaced King's The Dark Half as the worst book I've ever readwikipedia posted:The novel was widely hailed by both critics of science fiction and mainstream literature for its fusion of detailed character development and interpersonal drama with more standard science fiction fare such as time travel and ecological issues. This is completely false, it's by far the worst part of the novel. So poorly conceived, so badly bolted on. Who are these people, hailing this utter failure to "fuse character development with science fiction fare" (i.e. "write well")? It's also way too long for its substance, the last few chapters are the only good part, and even there it can be so stupid (why did it have to involve the Kennedy assassination? in such a stupid way, too?) Christ it was a hard book to finish
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2016 11:16
|
|
|
Wapole Languray posted:Earthsea is notable because it came out in 1964. It's not really a terrific book no, but it's highly influential on the genre. Also because it is extremely... friendly. It's a kind-hearted book about a nation full of people who want to be good to each other. I found it not particularly enthralling but very warming to read.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2016 11:22
|
|
|
Captain Candyblood posted:I was really disappointed when I finally read Earthsea. They're supposed to be major scifi/fantasy books and obviously le Guin is super well known, but I honestly couldn't tell why. I had 0 emotional attachment to the characters, no real investment in the story, and can barely remember the plot by now. I felt like she spent way more time talking about weird magical rules and whatever than she did actually telling a story. Not that I would call them BAD (as far as I can remember), they were just supremely uninteresting to me. Earthsea is a major scifi/fantasy book? I guess if by 'major' you mean most people read it as kids. It's far, far less influential than Left Hand of Darkness or even some of her short stories like Those who Walked Away from Omelas. Maybe I'm just bitter because I was similarly underwhelmed when I finally got around to reading the series. In general I think Le Guin's work suffers a bit from existing in a world it helped shape. You're just not likely to see anything groundbreaking in a decades-old novel, and worse you might have already read something similar from a more contemporary author who's style you appreciate more.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2016 12:26
|
|
|
there wolf posted:It's isn't, but is that the one where the adults all die/disappear and there's something about a pirate queen? Don't remember a pirate queen, per se, but the adults do die, and there is lots of robbery/proto-monarchy stuff. The book starts off great, but by the end the lesson I took away as a kid is that only the strong will rule, and then will be under threat from other strong people. Whoever can amass the most thralls to die for them by offering security to them in the meantime will be the ultimate victor.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2016 14:36
|
|
|
there wolf posted:Earthsea is a major scifi/fantasy book? It's credited with introducing the concept of "wizard school", that alone makes it pretty major.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2016 19:41
|
|
|
Inspector Gesicht posted:There's also the cast of POC in what is sometimes a very white field, though I can't vouch for it as I got distracted 20 pages in. Everything beyond the trilogy is apparently garbage including the white-washed TV show and Ghibli film. The film isn't actually bad, it just fucks with your expectations because it's got nothing to do with Earthsea and isn't a very Ghibli movie. It's essentially just a movie that the director wanted to make, and since he's the son of Hayao Miyazaki it got made by Ghibli.
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2016 23:26
|
|
|
Alhazred posted:It's credited with introducing the concept of "wizard school", that alone makes it pretty major. Yeah, but I always got the impression that wasn't that big a deal till Harry Potter came along and people started scrambling for way to call it an unoriginal rip-off. Some actual content, though: Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear. I'd read a few other books by him and while none of them blew me away, this one made me realize I actually don't like him as an author. It's one of those thrillers with a sci-fi bent that were so big in the ninties. An ancient disease encoded into our DNA is rising up to strike again! Follow cool, molecular-biologist Kaye Lang and manly archeologist Mitch Rafelson as they look into our past to discover the source of the illness and what it means for the future of mankind! It turns out the disease is an old retrovirus that activates every few millennia to push an accelerated evolution on humans; the disease basically adds a step onto pregnancy where you miscarry a deformed fetus that exists just to create a zygote of the new species. 3/4 of the book is figuring that out, with the last part being the reason I really dislike Greg Bear. When they realize that it's an evolution, the breeding pair get down to breeding which is illegal because there's some concern the new kids will bring some new illness with them. And with that our ostensibly hard scifi book about biology and epidemiology takes a hard turn towards woo. I feel like Bear has a weird contempt for science and analytical thought that crops up in his novels. This book has two sciency people solving a mystery about an illness and at the end it's their instinct guided by some vague spiritual connection with the universe that turns out to be the true wisdom, up against all that foolishness put out by the short-sighted government/academics. It's like the mad scientist yelling "I show them all" but swap the death laser for crystal healing. The ending is an epilogue with their homo sapien sapiens spawn, who is the worst kind of precocious plot moppet, and our leads still on the run years later but happy to be living free with their amazing daughter. Did I tell you she's amazing? The future of the race, and what an amazing one it is.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2016 19:42
|
|
|
there wolf posted:Yeah, but I always got the impression that wasn't that big a deal till Harry Potter came along and people started scrambling for way to call it an unoriginal rip-off. The Discworld series, which also have a wizard school, was a pretty big deal before Harry Potter. But even without that the book has influenced people like Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell and Hayao Miyazaki. I'm not a huge fan either but there's no denying it had a major impact.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2016 20:48
|
|
|
Alhazred posted:The Discworld series, which also have a wizard school, was a pretty big deal before Harry Potter. But even without that the book has influenced people like Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell and Hayao Miyazaki. I'm not a huge fan either but there's no denying it had a major impact. I can't think of any David Mitchell except the one who was a contestant on Numberwang. I don't recall reading any Pratchett that was outright bad but I do find it annoying in some of the later books how we're 200 pages in and he still keeps re-introducing characters he thinks are cute.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2016 21:36
|
|
|
Anyone bitched about Anthony Ryan's series Raven's Shadow? Because goddamn book one was one of the best fantasy novels I've read in a long rear end time and the third book was so bad I gave up 70% of the way through wondering if he had a ghostwriter phone it in for him. So. Bad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2016 23:47
|
|
|
Inspector Gesicht posted:I can't think of any David Mitchell except the one who was a contestant on Numberwang. I don't recall reading any Pratchett that was outright bad but I do find it annoying in some of the later books how we're 200 pages in and he still keeps re-introducing characters he thinks are cute. I personally think Unseen Academicals was the only "bad" Discworld book because it is the only one I didn't enjoy reading. Alright, in fairness, I liked the bits with the wizards trying to be a football squad, but that didn't feel like the focus of the book to me; I thought it was about the new characters and I didn't think they were very interesting alongside Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons et al. Maybe that's because I just don't like the football, though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 00:15
|
|
|
Wheat Loaf posted:I personally think Unseen Academicals was the only "bad" Discworld book because it is the only one I didn't enjoy reading.  Heh, I just flashed back to reading Terry Brooks' Sword of Shanarra a long time ago, it was good 70s Tolkien-revival high fantasy but it took me a year and several tries to get past the first 50 pages or so because they were so goddamn boring. But my dad kept talking it up, "just get past the first chapter and it gets better" so I skipped past the beginning until Main Characters started appearing and he was right, it was good. I never read another Terry Brooks Shanarra novel because he said they sucked in comparison, there's like 25 of them but from what I can tell he was right about that too. His Magic Kingdom for Sale series though, uhhh... its been a few decades but I seem to remember it not being good, lots of puns and meta but with some creepy peirsanthonyesque undertone. He's had dozens of bestsellers but he's a 1-hit wonder to me. Syd Midnight has a new favorite as of 15:25 on Oct 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 04:42
|
|
|
Thud! will always have a place in my heart solely for the scene in the caverns. When Vimes is hallucinating (fighting the Summoning Dark internally) and reciting his child's favorite book like a battle-cry to very confused bad-guy dwarves ("WHERE IS MY COW!"). That scene managed to be both chillingly dark and ridiculously funny to me at the same time. That book is Vimes reduced to a stone-cold killer, and he manages to step back from the precipice. But yeah, it was heartbreaking to see the decline in his work as his disease progressed. Proteus Jones has a new favorite as of 05:00 on Oct 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 04:51
|
|
|
The oldest wizard school I know about is Black School attended by Sæmundr fróði in the 11th century where the schoolmaster was literally Satan.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 04:55
|
|
|
hackbunny posted:Anyone else read Timescape, by Gregory Benford? My god, it replaced King's The Dark Half as the worst book I've ever read But the phrase "dark half" reminds me of Cell, because the first half of that book was some of his best flat-out action/horror, while the second half was so awful that I only finished it out of spite. Cell had me hooked from the beginning. King goes from zero to apocalypse in just a couple pages. No psychic retards, 20 page biographies of dead characters, magical black people, revoltingly awkward sex scenes, etc. Even his token gay character was a dignified portrayal. It was good fast zombie horror until halfway through, the moment someone looks out the window and sees the magic black person I stopped reading and physically examined the book because it was almost exactly halfway through, like within a couple pages of the literal middle of the book is when it all turned to poo poo. It wasn't even worth reading to the end because there's no conclusion. There is, however, a retarded boy with mysterious psychic powers. Man that pissed me off, It was turd-in-a-punchbowl funny how quickly it went from good to bad, like halfway through his wife or editor or someone said "Hey this is really good Steve" and he suddenly remembered "Oh right I'm Stephen King! Time to move this action to Bangor, Maine!", pulled down his pants, and shat on the keyboard, because he is his own dark half. And I say that as a former Number One Fan. ps. I first saw the word "shat" while reading Cujo in middle school. Stephen King taught me language, and my profit on't is, I know how to conjugate the verb "poo poo".
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 05:44
|
|
|
The Dark Half pseudonym murdering people is actually the author's fraternal twin that he absorbed in the womb. Parts of it were surgically removed from his brain when he was a child.wikipedia posted:The neurosurgeon who removed it found the following inside: part of a nostril, some fingernails, some teeth, and a malformed human eye. It's so hilariously insane that I can't forget it. That reveal was about where I stopped reading the book.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 06:47
|
|
|
Are we doing a bad sequel/later in the series theme? I was pretty pissed off with Well of Ascention. Mistborn makes it pretty clear who the hero of book two is/should be, and yet she's spends a good chunk of it totally paralyzed by self-doubt and indecision. And then an honest to god evil twin of her love interest shows up and she can't choose between them! Turned me off Sanderson completely.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 06:57
|
|
|
LibrarianCroaker posted:It's so hilariously insane that I can't forget it. That reveal was about where I stopped reading the book. That sort of stuff does happen.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 07:00
|
|
|
there wolf posted:Are we doing a bad sequel/later in the series theme? I was pretty pissed off with Well of Ascention. Mistborn makes it pretty clear who the hero of book two is/should be, and yet she's spends a good chunk of it totally paralyzed by self-doubt and indecision. And then an honest to god evil twin of her love interest shows up and she can't choose between them! Turned me off Sanderson completely. That is kind of her character. The evil twin thing was dumb but Well was actually fairly good outside that.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 09:14
|
|
|
30 Goddamned Dicks posted:Anyone bitched about Anthony Ryan's series Raven's Shadow? Because goddamn book one was one of the best fantasy novels I've read in a long rear end time and the third book was so bad I gave up 70% of the way through wondering if he had a ghostwriter phone it in for him. So. Bad. I loved the first book in that series and liked the second and haven't read the third, mainly because of goons saying it's very bad. Apparently he's started a new series now and people are saying he's gone back to being good again so who knows what the gently caress happened with that?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 09:25
|
|
|
Syd Midnight posted:I think Unseen Academicals is when his Alzheimers started to noticeably affect his writing. He had written worse, and Making Money was good, so I was hoping he was just off his game for that book but they started going downhill fast after that. The change was noticeable because he never really peaked, it took a few books for him to find his style but the next 30 were consistently entertaining. But by Snuff his style and subject matter had changed, like he knew he was writing Vimes' denouement. I couldn't finish Raising Steam because it felt like visiting someone in hospice. I don't think I read any of the books after Unseen Academicals, but my brother did and his report was, "It feels a bit like his last will and testament."
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 10:40
|
|
|
LibrarianCroaker posted:The Dark Half pseudonym murdering people is actually the author's fraternal twin that he absorbed in the womb. Parts of it were surgically removed from his brain when he was a child. It was the first book to come out after he went sober, it doesn't change what a turd the book is but it's a pretty good excuse.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 12:03
|
|
|
Wheat Loaf posted:I personally think Unseen Academicals was the only "bad" Discworld book because it is the only one I didn't enjoy reading. The first couple of Discworld books can be kind of hard to go back to just because of how he didn't quite have the setting down yet. So the whole thing feels more like it takes place in just a generic fantasy world.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 13:09
|
|
|
IMO all of mistborn is good except the evil twin I guess. Maybe it just clicked with me, but I enjoyed it way more than Sanderson's technically superior magnum opus stormlight doorstopper
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 13:51
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:That sort of stuff does happen. What doesn't happen is that malformed tissue rises as an angry murderous adult from a mock grave that it wasn't even buried in to begin with, going around and killing all of the people that led to him being outed as the protagonist's pseudonym, before rotting like a zombie and getting carried off into the sunset by a bunch of sparrows like some hosed up Mary Poppins pastiche. The Dark Half is really shockingly bad. I heard somewhere that he just wrote it to blow off steam when his Richard Bachmann pseudonym was revealed against his will and some dire, unforgivable villain convinced him to publish it. No idea if it's true, though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 14:06
|
|
|
spooky like this! posted:The first couple of Discworld books can be kind of hard to go back to just because of how he didn't quite have the setting down yet. So the whole thing feels more like it takes place in just a generic fantasy world. I imagine they might be - I'd need to go back and read them. I remember really getting into The Light Fantastic when I read it and being disappointed with Equal Rites for not having Rincewind and Twoflower (because in my mind they were the "main" characters) but then Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg became my favourite lead characters (my favourite Discworld book is Lords and Ladies).
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 14:41
|
|
|
Groke posted:I loved the first book in that series and liked the second and haven't read the third, mainly because of goons saying it's very bad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 15:11
|
|
|
I'm seeing a disconnect between this:food court bailiff posted:What doesn't happen is that malformed tissue rises as an angry murderous adult from a mock grave that it wasn't even buried in to begin with, going around and killing all of the people that led to him being outed as the protagonist's pseudonym, before rotting like a zombie and getting carried off into the sunset by a bunch of sparrows like some hosed up Mary Poppins pastiche. And this: quote:The Dark Half is really shockingly bad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 15:38
|
|
|
food court bailiff posted:What doesn't happen is that malformed tissue rises as an angry murderous adult from a mock grave that it wasn't even buried in to begin with, going around and killing all of the people that led to him being outed as the protagonist's pseudonym, before rotting like a zombie and getting carried off into the sunset by a bunch of sparrows like some hosed up Mary Poppins pastiche. If that's seriously your objection to the book then you need to reconsider whether you should be reading fiction at all.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 15:57
|
|
|
the dark half loving sucks dude
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 16:23
|
|
|
Seldom Posts posted:If that's seriously your objection to the book then you need to reconsider whether you should be reading fiction at all. It just comes across like two unrelated origins for the villain, but Stephen King liked both and went with it. The fake science demystifies the supernatural elements, but doesn't actually explain them satisfyingly. I'm guessing the book sucks in other ways, too. I didn't get far into the book, and I don't remember anything from the movie, though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 16:27
|
|
|
Seldom Posts posted:If that's seriously your objection to the book then you need to reconsider whether you should be reading fiction at all. My objection to the book is that it's a masturbatory garbage fire of bad prose and worse ideas, what the gently caress are you talking about? Maybe you should live up to your name.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 16:33
|
|
|
Goons are so bad at talking about books that aren't Discworld that they need to punch down at a man slowly dying of alzheimers in order to shoe horn them into absolutely every book thread
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 16:38
|
|
|
Inspector Gesicht posted:I can't think of any David Mitchell except the one who was a contestant on Numberwang. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:00
|
|
|
Apraxin posted:I think the problem was that he was a scientist who initially wrote the first book in his spare time and spent a few years polishing it and shopping it around. Then Penguin not only bought it but also gave him a three book contract, but they did so on terms that amounted to 'btw you have to become a professional author and start cranking out those sequels right the gently caress now', and he had to sacrifice quality for meeting the contract deadlines. The new book was pretty good, so hopefully he'as adjusted and will be able to keep it up from now on. I havent read it (I think I have "Blood Song", the first in the series on kindle when it was a daily deal, but I couldnt swear to that), and hopefully his second series doesnt tail off like that, but this reminded me of someone I dont actually think is a BAD author as such. Robin Hobb. She writes series of fantasy novels, mainly set in the same world, but they are by and large discrete series, usually 3 books I think. And in each and every case I do the same thing; I read the first book, really enjoy it, read the second and think its okay and then read about half the last book and lose interest entirely. I dont know what it is, and I'm not saying shes a bad writer (as I say I usually enjoy her book ones) but for me I guess some writers just cant stick the landing. The only one of her series I've actually read the last book in its entirely is the "Farseer Series" (had to look that up, I thought they were called the Assassin series), and that series disappears entirely up its own arse in the last novel. And I have a lot of tolerance for iffy fantasy series, particularly if the book is big enough to beat someone to death with. And yet even knowing this every now and then I see she has a new series out, pick up the first book and...
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 20:47
|
|
|
CharlestheHammer posted:That is kind of her character. The evil twin thing was dumb but Well was actually fairly good outside that. I did like the other plotlines. But it was infuriating that Sanderson had built up a heroine, then made her kind of useless, and then compounded her uselessness with a love triangle...between a guy and his evil twin. Someday I'm going to waste his time by asking how much Days of Our Lives viewing makes up his writing process.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 21:18
|
|
|
SiKboy posted:I havent read it (I think I have "Blood Song", the first in the series on kindle when it was a daily deal, but I couldnt swear to that), and hopefully his second series doesnt tail off like that, but this reminded me of someone I dont actually think is a BAD author as such. Robin Hobb. She writes series of fantasy novels, mainly set in the same world, but they are by and large discrete series, usually 3 books I think. And in each and every case I do the same thing; I read the first book, really enjoy it, read the second and think its okay and then read about half the last book and lose interest entirely. I dont know what it is, and I'm not saying shes a bad writer (as I say I usually enjoy her book ones) but for me I guess some writers just cant stick the landing. The only one of her series I've actually read the last book in its entirely is the "Farseer Series" (had to look that up, I thought they were called the Assassin series), and that series disappears entirely up its own arse in the last novel. And I have a lot of tolerance for iffy fantasy series, particularly if the book is big enough to beat someone to death with. I can see the ending of the Farseer Series being kind of an anticlimax, but it was kind of fitting. I did really like her ending of the Living Ships Series though, with every little subplot reaching its climax in a gigantic navy battle. I always saw that as the ending of the third Pirates of the Carribean, only not terrible. It just takes her ages to set up those pieces, which is what the second book was for. Guess which one I found a slog to get through...
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 21:26
|
|
|
The Vosgian Beast posted:Goons are so bad at talking about books that aren't Discworld that they need to punch down at a man slowly dying of alzheimers in order to shoe horn them into absolutely every book thread Wait, what?
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2016 01:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 18, 2024 00:19 |
|
|
That reminds me of some of Sherwood Smith's novels. The Sartorias-deles prequel quartet has a really weak ending. Book one has the main character get exiled in disgrace and sets up the threat of an invasion from the north, and in book three he returns home to warn of the invasion and help fight it off. Logically the enemy was only beaten back and they're still dealing with evil magics, but the protagonist's story is kind of over at that point so book four just feels like 300 pages or so of tying up loose ends.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2016 01:24
|
|