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I've seen the light. I will choose books to read entirely by diceroll henceforth. No more will my flaccid Canadian dollars support artists upon whom I wish success. vvv god I'm sorry that my preferences when choosing between comparable options offends your delicate sensibilities. Have you considered growing a thicker skin? neongrey fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Nov 15, 2016 |
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Nov 15, 2016 08:43
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lol if you think the software you are running was written by morally virtuous people.
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Nov 15, 2016 09:09
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After Atlas (murder mystery on the Earth side of the Planetfall universe) is pretty good 1/3 through. The detective was abandoned as a baby when his mom left on the generation ship. The victim was the leader of a luddite cult and kind of falls short of the genre MacGuffin I prefer in genre mysteries. There's also a time capsule left 40 years ago by the generation ship crew but that appears to be coming regardless of anything the protag does. It feels a lot like The Water Knife with less travel and violence.
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Nov 15, 2016 10:10
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neongrey posted:I've seen the light. I will choose books to read entirely by diceroll henceforth. No more will my flaccid Canadian dollars support artists upon whom I wish success. It's amazing how susceptible this thread can sometimes be to low effort gbs style trolls like the one above.
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Nov 15, 2016 10:16
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I'm in a grumpy mood and that gets me fighty. v vSo Strange Horizons finally redid their website. RIP, 2000-chic design, we hardly knew ye.
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Nov 15, 2016 10:42
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I really enjoyed A Closed and Common Orbit. The ending was just what I needed today. A good book. I don't think it would be as good without having read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, despite it pretty much being a side-story sequel and barely touching on the events of that book, but fortunately both books are good.
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Nov 15, 2016 12:00
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90s Cringe Rock posted:I really enjoyed A Closed and Common Orbit. The ending was just what I needed today. A good book. I don't think it would be as good without having read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, despite it pretty much being a side-story sequel and barely touching on the events of that book, but fortunately both books are good. Nice to hear that, the first one was possibly the most feel-goody book I've read this year.
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Nov 15, 2016 12:59
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I'm listening to Angry Planet again on audiobook before I pick up Common Orbit. It's so feel good. The perfect comfort food.
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Nov 15, 2016 13:03
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Wasn't John C Wright also heavily involved in trying to gamergate the Hugos last year?
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Nov 15, 2016 22:34
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freebooter posted:Wasn't John C Wright also heavily involved in trying to gamergate the Hugos last year? He supports the Sad Puppies (at least) and blogs about it, but I'm not sure how involved he is beyond that. He does benefit tremendously from the whole thing, though; I think he held 4/5 positions in the short story category last year (or was it this year?) before one was deemed ineligible because he put it up on his website for free the previous year, then published it with minor/no changes during the eligibility year in question.
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Nov 15, 2016 22:46
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freebooter posted:Wasn't John C Wright also heavily involved in trying to gamergate the Hugos last year? More the year before last, when the Sads/Rabids were really a big thing. Wright was Vox Day's #1 guy, and Vox worked hard to game him all over the ballot. And Wright somehow managed to simultaneously insist the Puppies couldn't be gaming the vote, that the SJWs magically WERE gaming it, and also the only way he could get a hugo (which he was totally entitled to) is if the puppies gamed it to stop the SJWs gaming it because SJWs something something something. Liberals are evil because they want free stuff, now give me my trophy because I want it and I said so (also known as "The Larry Correia Maneuver").
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Nov 16, 2016 00:25
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I been meaning to read the Robin Hobb books. From the description/summary it kinda sounds generic but most people say good things about it. I am just not sure what this is about. Is it like an adventure fantasy series? It certainly doesn't seem straight up epic fantasy like GOT or Malazan. Is there anyone who has read it and can tell me what kinda of series this is? I am talking about the Farseer Trilogy btw.
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Nov 16, 2016 01:02
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Ulio posted:I been meaning to read the Robin Hobb books. From the description/summary it kinda sounds generic but most people say good things about it. I am just not sure what this is about. Is it like an adventure fantasy series? It certainly doesn't seem straight up epic fantasy like GOT or Malazan. Is there anyone who has read it and can tell me what kinda of series this is? I am talking about the Farseer Trilogy btw. It's mainly a coming of age story about court politics and teenage emotions and some light magic in the middle of a slowly happening apocalypse. I quite liked it. I've only seen the TV version of GOT but I think the Farseer books can be thought of as a more self-contained version of that with just one protagonist. Fangz fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Nov 16, 2016 |
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Nov 16, 2016 01:14
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Ulio posted:I been meaning to read the Robin Hobb books. From the description/summary it kinda sounds generic but most people say good things about it. I am just not sure what this is about. Is it like an adventure fantasy series? It certainly doesn't seem straight up epic fantasy like GOT or Malazan. Is there anyone who has read it and can tell me what kinda of series this is? I am talking about the Farseer Trilogy btw. It most definitely is not an adventure fantasy series. There are adventures, but only occasionally, and always in service to something else. The adventure is never the point, not even for the reader. Similarly, there are fantasy elements, but they're peripheral to the main thrust of the narrative. You might more profitably describe it as a political thriller, given that a great deal of the action revolves around scheming and political manoeuvring, but that doesn't quite fit either. Again, the schemes are not the point; we're not here to see Fitz outplay Regal in a game of wits. And it invites comparison to A Song of Ice and Fire, which doesn't hold up either- aSoIaF has a large cast and tends to be quite cavalier with them. When Martin wants a character to suffer, he has them suffer extravagantly. Hobb, by contrast, keeps a much smaller stable, and wants you to feel Kettricken's inability to connect to her husband as keenly as Nosy's death. The focus of the story is on Fitz, or more specifically Fitz's internal life and his relationships with others. His emotional landscape, so to speak, and how it develops. That might make you want to call it a coming-of-age story or a Bildungsroman, as Fangz does. That's probably closer than anything else- it's definitely the story of how Fitz grows into a man- but it doesn't quite work for me. The arc of the classic Bildungsroman is, well: quote:A Bildungsroman relates the growing up or "coming of age" of a sensitive person who goes in search of answers to life's questions with the expectation that these will result from gaining experience of the world. The genre evolved from folklore tales of a dunce or youngest son going out in the world to seek his fortune. Usually in the beginning of the story there is an emotional loss which makes the protagonist leave on his journey. In a Bildungsroman, the goal is maturity, and the protagonist achieves it gradually and with difficulty. The genre often features a main conflict between the main character and society. Typically, the values of society are gradually accepted by the protagonist and he/she is ultimately accepted into society — the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments are over. In some works, the protagonist is able to reach out and help others after having achieved maturity. Which I don't think describes the series very well. At best, Fitz ends up finding a way to coexist with society that doesn't involve the total destruction of one of them, and Hobb is gracious enough to call that a victory. Personally, I think the label that fits best is "survival horror". As in a classic survival horror story, our protagonist is dropped into an intensely hostile, alien environment, and has to navigate it with only his wits and whatever limited resources or allies he can find in the blasted wasteland of his life. It's even got zombies, of a sort. The difference between this and your standard zombie apocalypse story is that the threat isn't physical, at least not primarily- it's emotional. The challenge is not to survive, it's to survive as a sane and emotionally healthy person. Which means the closest point of comparison is probably the Thomas Covenant books. Oh, and a couple of dogs die in the first book and coyo7e thinks this is the height of emotional manipulation. KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Nov 16, 2016 |
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Nov 16, 2016 01:53
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You should probably edit that post to use more spoiler tags.
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Nov 16, 2016 02:06
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Fangz posted:You should probably edit that post to use more spoiler tags. Ah, alright, fine. I didn't think anything in there was particularly spoilery, but I'm bad at judging these things.
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Nov 16, 2016 02:22
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Autonomous Monster posted:It most definitely is not an adventure fantasy series. There are adventures, but only occasionally, and always in service to something else. The adventure is never the point, not even for the reader. Similarly, there are fantasy elements, but they're peripheral to the main thrust of the narrative. Oh that kinda fits the bits and pieces I've heard of it, something about the protag going through an emotionally journey of sorts. Sounds interesting enough to atleast give the first novel a try and see how it goes. Thanks.
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Nov 16, 2016 07:36
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The closest comparison I'd compare the Fitz stuff to is Stephen King's Eye of the Dragon. I kinda liked the Madship stuff insofar as it was Barbie's Magic Friendly The Fitz stuff I remember was Fitz' dog that he has a magical bond with, gets killed by his dad. He's sad. He ends up apprenticed to an assassin for some reason, but he's still really sad. He has another magically bonded dog/wolf, it eventually dies. There's some stuff involving the king (surprise surprise, everybody and their cat are bastards connected to the royal line!), and Fitz gets assigned to kill somebody. He's really sad about it.. I think he eventually doesn't kill them, but I do know he manages to get poisoned nearly to death, and somewhere his dog dies again. At the end of it he's in his like mid 20s and has Parkinsons and poo poo from the poison, the end. I'm sure there's way more after that from what I've heard, but I have absolutely no interest in going back to the emotional rollercoaster of the worlds most conflicted and self-loathing assassin who never kills anybody. Cardiac posted:Counterpoint: coyo7e fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Nov 16, 2016 |
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Nov 16, 2016 19:02
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coyo7e posted:Because books contain a lot more ideas than your general piece of sculpture or paint on canvas, etc, and it's generally not advisable to consume things without knowing their source and contents to some extent. This whole derail started because someone recommended what he thought were pretty good books and someone else basically saying that it didn't matter if the books were good, they were written by John C Wright so you shouldn't read them. If a lovely person writes a good book, you can and should read and enjoy the book even while acknowledging that the author is a shitstain. Refusing to read the book does nothing but keep you from enjoying a good book.
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Nov 16, 2016 19:12
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WarLocke posted:If a lovely person writes a good book, you can and should read and enjoy the book even while acknowledging that the author is a shitstain. Refusing to read the book does nothing but keep you from enjoying a good book. I'll tell you what. I'll read Wright's ouevre once I've read all the other good books written by people that aren't shitstains. Then I'll move on to Card. Sound good?
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Nov 16, 2016 19:16
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You can probably skip Card anyway, Ender's Game is the most overrated book of the 20th century IMO.
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Nov 16, 2016 19:19
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Ornamented Death posted:I'll tell you what. I'll read Wright's ouevre once I've read all the other good books written by people that aren't shitstains. Then I'll move on to Card. Sound good? Only if the books sound interesting to you, man. Nobody is forcing you to read them, or telling you not to because of who wrote them. 
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Nov 16, 2016 19:19
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tooterfish posted:You can probably skip Card anyway, Ender's Game is the most overrated book of the 20th century IMO. I thought it was pretty awesome when I first read it, something like 20 years ago. It tends to fall apart pretty fast, though, once you get move beyond the "nerdy teen that reads a lot" part of life. WarLocke posted:Only if the books sound interesting to you, man. Nobody is forcing you to read them, or telling you not to because of who wrote them. Haha, fair enough.
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Nov 16, 2016 19:21
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Ornamented Death posted:I thought it was pretty awesome when I first read it, something like 20 years ago. It tends to fall apart pretty fast, though, once you get move beyond the "nerdy teen that reads a lot" part of life. I used to see it at the very top of recommended reading lists all the time, and I always thought "have any of the people rating this actually read the loving thing recently?" Not that it's terrible, I just don't think it's that great (and I'll read any old poo poo).
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Nov 16, 2016 19:42
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tooterfish posted:You can probably skip Card anyway, Ender's Game is the most overrated book of the 20th century IMO. I haven't read it like 15 years, but his The Worthing Saga was really enjoyable.
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Nov 16, 2016 20:45
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Ender's Game is on the Commandant's Recommended Reading List for junior enlisted Marines, which is hilarious because the book has the explicit message to challenge existing doctrine and to avoid falling back on outdated paradigms.
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Nov 16, 2016 21:21
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The climactic chapter of Ender's Game always seemed to me like it was written as a standalone novelette, then left unedited as the entire rest of the novel was built around that. It felt weird to read. Can't remember how the book as a whole held up. I think I liked it when I was younger, because that's when people like a book with this subject matter.
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Nov 16, 2016 23:08
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Internet Wizard posted:Ender's Game is on the Commandant's Recommended Reading List for junior enlisted Marines, which is hilarious because the book has the explicit message to challenge existing doctrine and to avoid falling back on outdated paradigms. Isn't "Adapt Improvise Overcome" a Marine thing? That seems to fit in.
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Nov 16, 2016 23:14
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Solitair posted:The climactic chapter of Ender's Game always seemed to me like it was written as a standalone novelette, then left unedited as the entire rest of the novel was built around that. It felt weird to read. This may be the case - the book was expanded from a shorter work. All of that was before my time, and by the time I found out about this, I had sworn off Card, but I'm sure you can poke around the internet and find out if your guess is actually the truth.
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Nov 16, 2016 23:18
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flosofl posted:Isn't "Adapt Improvise Overcome" a Marine thing? That seems to fit in. The book is also pretty broadly in favour of using excessive force and ignoring collateral damage to eliminate potential threats pre-emptively. 
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Nov 16, 2016 23:22
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What are some good sci-fi novels that have truly weird aliens or non-Earth planets/ecosystems? I'm fine with stuff that isn't particularly "hard" sci fi. I've really liked books that are willing to let go of scientific rigor for the sake of really neat ideas. For example, I really dug the aliens in A Fire Upon the Deep (and to a lesser extent, A Deepness in the Sky), and some of the creatures in Hull Zero Three.
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Nov 17, 2016 00:15
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MockingQuantum posted:What are some good sci-fi novels that have truly weird aliens or non-Earth planets/ecosystems? I'm fine with stuff that isn't particularly "hard" sci fi. I've really liked books that are willing to let go of scientific rigor for the sake of really neat ideas. For example, I really dug the aliens in A Fire Upon the Deep (and to a lesser extent, A Deepness in the Sky), and some of the creatures in Hull Zero Three. I remember quite enjoying His Majesty's Starship. Don't know how it holds up, though.
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Nov 17, 2016 00:21
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MockingQuantum posted:What are some good sci-fi novels that have truly weird aliens or non-Earth planets/ecosystems? I'm fine with stuff that isn't particularly "hard" sci fi. I've really liked books that are willing to let go of scientific rigor for the sake of really neat ideas. For example, I really dug the aliens in A Fire Upon the Deep (and to a lesser extent, A Deepness in the Sky), and some of the creatures in Hull Zero Three. Blindsight/Echopraxia, Embassytown.
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Nov 17, 2016 00:22
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MockingQuantum posted:What are some good sci-fi novels that have truly weird aliens or non-Earth planets/ecosystems? I'm fine with stuff that isn't particularly "hard" sci fi. I've really liked books that are willing to let go of scientific rigor for the sake of really neat ideas. For example, I really dug the aliens in A Fire Upon the Deep (and to a lesser extent, A Deepness in the Sky), and some of the creatures in Hull Zero Three. It's early 80's scifi, but "Sentenced to Prizm" by Alan Dean Foster has this in spades. Something of a rescue mission to a newly discovered planet with an ecosystem that's 70% silicon based, 40% carbon. Leave your scientific rigor at the door, however.
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Nov 17, 2016 00:33
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MockingQuantum posted:What are some good sci-fi novels that have truly weird aliens or non-Earth planets/ecosystems? I'm fine with stuff that isn't particularly "hard" sci fi. I've really liked books that are willing to let go of scientific rigor for the sake of really neat ideas. For example, I really dug the aliens in A Fire Upon the Deep (and to a lesser extent, A Deepness in the Sky), and some of the creatures in Hull Zero Three. China Miéville's Embassytown is the recent one that comes to my mind. I found that really cool and unique setting, told as beautifully as he can. Edit: Re: Card-chat, I read those books in the previous century so memory ain't the clearest, but I do remember being way more impressed with Speaker for the Dead than Ender's Game.
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Nov 17, 2016 00:43
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flosofl posted:Isn't "Adapt Improvise Overcome" a Marine thing? That seems to fit in. Also they big on the whole small unit leadership and self initiative thing
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Nov 17, 2016 00:54
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MockingQuantum posted:What are some good sci-fi novels that have truly weird aliens or non-Earth planets/ecosystems? I'm fine with stuff that isn't particularly "hard" sci fi. I've really liked books that are willing to let go of scientific rigor for the sake of really neat ideas. For example, I really dug the aliens in A Fire Upon the Deep (and to a lesser extent, A Deepness in the Sky), and some of the creatures in Hull Zero Three. Its trashy but Neal Asher does weird echosystems well, the Spatterjay series is probably the best. Starts wth The Skinner.
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Nov 17, 2016 01:11
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flosofl posted:Isn't "Adapt Improvise Overcome" a Marine thing? That seems to fit in. Yes but any junior enlisted that actually tries to question doctrine and come up with better solutions will usually be punished, in practice. "It doesn't matter if this is the right way or the wrong way, it's the Marine Way" is something that's unironically said a lot.
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Nov 17, 2016 01:12
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CaptainCrunch posted:It's early 80's scifi, but "Sentenced to Prizm" by Alan Dean Foster has this in spades. Foster enjoys that stuff. Most of the Humanx novels that don't feature Flinx have some weird planet or species. The Icerigger trilogy is pretty good.
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Nov 17, 2016 01:28
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What about Olaf Stapledon's Starmaker (or whatever it's called)? Stapledon's pretty baller. I've not read these, but The Mote in God's Eye, or Asimov's Gods Themselves. You could watch episodes of Rick and Morty.  The Eye of the Queen by Phillip Mann. I hate to say it, but Gordon Dickson's The Magnificent Wilf had some pretty cool extra-dimensional beings and aliens. I liked it when I was 14. Maybe it holds up? It's probably at least "okay" these days. I don't know who wrote it off the top of my head, but Flatland would be really good.And in that vein, the (I think) Baxter's Xeelee books, or Forwards' Dragon's Egg.
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Nov 17, 2016 04:28
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