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That one isn't on sale though haha.
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Apr 27, 2017 20:55
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I say if you're aching for big fantasy stuff that doesn't (often) succumb to the usual fantasy trappings give Gardens of the Moon ago. I think it's a fine book and enough of the larger threads of the series are introduced or foreshadowed to make it worth reading as opposed to skipping to Deadhouse Gates. Caveats: as mentioned, it is probably the worst book in the series; Erikson does not stay with the characters introduced in Gardens of the Moon for the entire duration of the series (though they do reappear); the books can be very dark. If those things don't really bother you, dig in. It's a great set of books.
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Apr 27, 2017 21:59
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apophenium posted:I say if you're aching for big fantasy stuff that doesn't (often) succumb to the usual fantasy trappings give Gardens of the Moon ago. I think it's a fine book and enough of the larger threads of the series are introduced or foreshadowed to make it worth reading as opposed to skipping to Deadhouse Gates. Caveats: as mentioned, it is probably the worst book in the series; Erikson does not stay with the characters introduced in Gardens of the Moon for the entire duration of the series (though they do reappear); the books can be very dark. If those things don't really bother you, dig in. It's a great set of books. I actually thought Gardens was one of the better books in the series. Yeah it's confusing, and over plotted to hell and back with all the different characters going back and forth from the inn, but it's got the tightest focus of any of them, and gives you the most complete view of what's going on. All the books let you see multiple sides of the conflict, but gardens is I think the only one to show you clearly ALL the sides.
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Apr 27, 2017 22:36
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Don't know about "clearly" given the retconning and reretconning of Tayschrenn and to a lesser effect Lasseen by both SE and ICE. Definitely worth a try, though; if Malazan clicks with you, it usually clicks hard. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Apr 27, 2017 |
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Apr 27, 2017 22:45
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anilEhilated posted:Don't know about "clearly" given the retconning and reretconning of Tayschrenn and to a lesser effect Lasseen by both SE and ICE. Ah but they're not directly involved in the bulk of the plot - Gardens is very much Bridgeburners vs Daru vs Tiste, and treats all the sides and the minor players pretty evenly. Midnight Tides is similar, following both the Edur and Letherii evenly, and owns. Compare to Deadhouse Gates or Memories of Ice which have equally huge casts, but have more of a distinction between protagonist and antagonist - there's a diverse group that have point of view chapters, and they're mostly opposed by a group that doesn't.
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Apr 27, 2017 22:54
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After finishing the Malazan series I read John Scalzi's Collapsing Empire, and while good, he uses the terms "gently caress date" and "gently caress session" almost one million times by my count. And am I going mad or is the dialogue in his books becoming more and more... twee, for lack of a better word? Its distracting as all hell.
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Apr 27, 2017 23:02
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I went all the way down the rabbit hole that is B.V. Larson's Undying Mercenaries series because it turns out that he wrote five more since I forgot about how bad they were. It's got the standard progression where the protagonist levels up to a new rank each book, and I'm proud to say that there actually is a female character who he never has sex with (it was in Metal World - the commander of the other mercenary troops.) One. The books get progressively less balls-to-the-wall mil scifi bloodbath and more space conspiracy/politics and mission/caper-oriented as it progresses, but the protagonist continues to be such a terrible human being that I'm still not sure how to think about the author himself, because the other series of his (the Swarm one, iirc) also has a terrible douchebro protagonist who doesn't give a gently caress about morals or consequences and also has sex with all the ladies. I tried to look him up and he's a "professor" apparently, although unspecific in what. By book 5-7, it seems like Larson is tossing in a lot of filler where he repeats stuff that was already explained 2 or 3 chapters previously, often more than once. The series isn't complete but at this point I don't really care. I wasn't kidding that there is only one woman character in the entire pile of books which does not gently caress the protagonist (besides his mom. Did I mention the badass space marine lives with his parents because he can't handle keeping a lease on a rental or anything?)
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Apr 27, 2017 23:13
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apophenium posted:I say if you're aching for big fantasy stuff that doesn't (often) succumb to the usual fantasy trappings give Gardens of the Moon ago. I think it's a fine book and enough of the larger threads of the series are introduced or foreshadowed to make it worth reading as opposed to skipping to Deadhouse Gates. Caveats: as mentioned, it is probably the worst book in the series; Erikson does not stay with the characters introduced in Gardens of the Moon for the entire duration of the series (though they do reappear); the books can be very dark. If those things don't really bother you, dig in. It's a great set of books. When I first read GOTM I haaaaated it. I remember physically tossing the book over my shoulder when I finished it. Took me years to actually pick up Deadhouse Gates, and it was a vast improvement in my eyes. I ate up its bleakness and never looked back. Malazan sure isn't for everyone, though. Weird and thoroughly bleak and with a prose and structure that will seem quite off-beat for people used to more typical fantasy. I agree with reading Deadhouse Gates first, that'll be the best way to know whether you want to read the rest.
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Apr 28, 2017 00:08
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coffeetable posted:If anyone's looking for some new steampunk, Senlin Ascends is a quiet gem. I'm reading it right now and it's decent enough, and that's coming from someone that hates Steampunk. Not really a ringing endorsement I guess but I'm only 1/3 of the way through so we'll see how it goes.
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Apr 28, 2017 00:58
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Does it actually grasp the punk part of steampunk? That's the biggest reason I dislike most steampunk I've read.
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Apr 28, 2017 02:13
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Biplane posted:After finishing the Malazan series I read John Scalzi's Collapsing Empire, and while good, he uses the terms "gently caress date" and "gently caress session" almost one million times by my count. And am I going mad or is the dialogue in his books becoming more and more... twee, for lack of a better word? Its distracting as all hell. I've only read Redshirts and afterwards I resolved never to read any other fiction he wrote.
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Apr 28, 2017 05:14
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taser rates posted:I've only read Redshirts and afterwards I resolved never to read any other fiction he wrote. Haven't read his latest stuff (stopped at Fuzzy Empire), since his protagonists just became insufferable. His early stuff is good though, and of his shorter fiction, The God Engines was especially good.
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Apr 28, 2017 06:45
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I think scalzi is in the "churning poo poo out for $$$" phase of his career these days. His best stuff was his first few books, when. I suspect he was spending more work hours per concept.
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Apr 28, 2017 06:49
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think scalzi is in the "churning poo poo out for $$$" phase of his career these days. His best stuff was his first few books, when. I suspect he was spending more work hours per concept. Which makes me sad about The God Engines, cause that book deserved to be a proper book. It is actually rather dark for being Scalzi, where usually most of his books are rather light-hearted in tone.
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Apr 28, 2017 06:53
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think scalzi is in the "churning poo poo out for $$$" phase of his career these days. His best stuff was his first few books, when. I suspect he was spending more work hours per concept. I'd blame his contract for that. Tor basically said "We're gonna give you three and a half million bucks, write a dozen books for us." Not much motivation to do his best work when he's got retirement-level cash in hand and his publisher just wants to bank on his name for the next decade.
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Apr 28, 2017 12:34
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StonecutterJoe posted:I'd blame his contract for that. Tor basically said "We're gonna give you three and a half million bucks, write a dozen books for us." Not much motivation to do his best work when he's got retirement-level cash in hand and his publisher just wants to bank on his name for the next decade. At most it exacerbates an existing trend. Redshirts, which also stopped me from ever reading him again, was 2-3 books before the contract. Collapsing Empire is the first delivery on the long term contract.
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Apr 28, 2017 12:54
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Cardiac posted:Which makes me sad about The God Engines, cause that book deserved to be a proper book. God Engines was rad, and a major shift from his usual PG13 stuff, yeah  but I think it stands well enough as it is. I'm sure he'd gently caress up some aspect of it if it was a proper novel. More gently caress sessions etc. I'm actually kinda pissed because I went back to Old Mans War and I had to put it down after I kinda noticed for the first time how ridiculous a lot of the major characters sound, its nowhere near Collapsing Empire but the tweeness is vertainly prominent among these 80 year old people.
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Apr 28, 2017 16:43
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andrew smash posted:Does it actually grasp the punk part of steampunk? That's the biggest reason I dislike most steampunk I've read. Sorta? It's hard to give a better answer in my opinion, it's honestly a pretty unique book. I read the first and second, and it's very much a story about a kinda goony schoolteacher changing in the response to adversity and experience with the wider world. The steampunk is just a (pretty decent) backdrop for that.
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Apr 28, 2017 16:54
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Fair enough, I might give it a look when I'm done with Seven Surrenders.
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Apr 28, 2017 20:58
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Did we know Altered Carbon is getting 10 episodes on Netflix with lots of casting announced? Because until today I did not.
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Apr 28, 2017 21:35
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Cardiac posted:Haven't read his latest stuff (stopped at Fuzzy Empire), since his protagonists just became insufferable. I thought Lock In was pretty decent. Didn't seem churned out at all.
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Apr 28, 2017 22:45
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Did we know Altered Carbon is getting 10 episodes on Netflix with lots of casting announced? Because until today I did not. Knew it was happening, wasn't aware of the most recent news. I hope they don't "Iron Fist" the show.
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Apr 29, 2017 06:51
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Did we know Altered Carbon is getting 10 episodes on Netflix with lots of casting announced? Because until today I did not. That adaptation is going to interesting to see. Hello hyper violence, awkward sex, rape and torture. Wonder how many main characters there will be. Is Morgan involved in the screen play? He has been involved in other productions if I remember correctly.
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Apr 29, 2017 07:56
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I liked the original Old Man's War trilogy but haven't enjoyed the newer stuff to the same extent. Fuzzy Nation was okay from what I remember of it. Redshirts was bad, taking a interesting idea and wasting it on what is essentially a trekkie puff piece. Anyways, I recently gave Ken Liu's Grace of Kings another shot and finished it this time after trying it last fall but only getting about a 1/4 of the way into it. Decently written but I would say that once you get past the novelty of a fantasy novel in the style of the Chinese classics (Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, etc) it's mostly just another variation of the current popular "high fantasy (but limited magic)" story. I'll probably give the sequel a shot considering I've heard it improves on the rough parts.
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Apr 29, 2017 08:05
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Cardiac posted:That adaptation is going to interesting to see. The cast list has "Stronghold Kovacs" and "O.G. Kovacs" which I'm assuming means we're actually going to get some sleeve-switching going on, and that fills me with excitement. quote:Based on Richard Morgan’s award-winning 2002 cyberpunk sci-fi novel, Altered Carbon is set in the 25th century when the human mind has been digitized and the soul is transferable from one body to the next. Takeshi Kovacs (Kinnaman), a former elite interstellar warrior known as an Envoy who has been imprisoned for 500 years, is downloaded into a future he’d tried to stop. If he can solve a single murder in a world where technology has made death nearly obsolete, he’ll get a chance at a new life on Earth. It looks like they're chopping the backstory around a bit, and one of the casting announcements said that Quellcrist was a (former?) lover of Kovacs, which changes his relationship to her and her ideology quite a bit, not really anticipating good things from that.
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Apr 29, 2017 09:44
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It's weird that Quellcrist Falconer is even a character, from what I remember of the books, she's only sayings in the first novel. I don't think she even appears until the 3rd?
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Apr 29, 2017 10:19
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Loving Life Partner posted:It's weird that Quellcrist Falconer is even a character, from what I remember of the books, she's only sayings in the first novel. Read book 2 over xmas and she wasn't in that.
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Apr 29, 2017 12:15
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Was able to glean some details about Altered Carbon's Netflix show from Deadline's casting articles. Some changes from the book - -The Hendrix has been changed to an Edgar Allen Poe-themed hotel. -Reileen Kawahara is Kovacs' sister for some reason. -Victor Elliott seems to be a badass ex-Marine and more of a sidekick to Kovacs rather than a beaten-down old dude. I think every major character is has been cast save for Trepp (unless they changed her name). I've never seen Joel Kinneman in anything so I've no idea whether he'll be good as Kovacs, but James Purefoy is always great. The show is supposedly pretty backstory-heavy and has a huge budget (Kinneman's claiming it's larger than the first 3 seasons of GoT combined).
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Apr 29, 2017 17:24
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coyo7e posted:I went all the way down the rabbit hole that is B.V. Larson's Undying Mercenaries series because it turns out that he wrote five more since I forgot about how bad they were. It's got the standard progression where the protagonist levels up to a new rank each book, and I'm proud to say that there actually is a female character who he never has sex with (it was in Metal World - the commander of the other mercenary troops.) I really like the basic concept of "alien overlords force every world to have one unique export- earth's is war" but literally everything else about the series is bad. I only read the first two but yea, obnoxious characters and loads of obligatory (even tho it shouldn't be!) weird military sci fi sex
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Apr 29, 2017 17:26
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I'm gonna watch the hell out of the terrible Black Company and WoT series for as long as they take to get cancelled Also, no one told me Mark Lawrence's new book came out  I hope it doesn't suck 
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Apr 30, 2017 03:56
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i notice the mark lawrence new book synopsis on goodreads refers to a 'dying sun' - has he stepped foot into the dying earth subgenre? this piqued my interest, though i've gotta admit the first two paragraphs of the summary were throwing up bright red flags; 'Sweet Mercy hones its novices' skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist'.
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Apr 30, 2017 04:39
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andrew smash posted:Does it actually grasp the punk part of steampunk? That's the biggest reason I dislike most steampunk I've read. I've read the first and about half of the second, and I think it kind of does. There is a lot of emphasis in the main character's arc on the difference between the propaganda he has read and reality, learning about how the world really works, how the wealthy gently caress the poor, and how those with power mistreat and exploit those without it. Some of the major themes I have noticed in my reading of it include the sort of "you are paying to get screwed, delighting in it, and asking for more" sentiment that I associate with "-punk" literature. It is definitely the main character as a small powerless dude fighting against the overwhelming forces of the governing powers. It is definitely not all of the fantastic parts of Victorian England with none of the lower class dirtying things up. It's mostly peasants, serfs, etc. Heavy on the characterization, with many divergences to explore characters' pasts and world features (not in the awful fantasy worldbuilding "here's several pages of elvish poetry" kind of way, they actually serve the plot and characters). On first read I feel like the plot and adventures are less focused on the excitement of the action than they are on the impact that events are having on the characters and how they are changing as a result. Not that there isn't plenty of action and clever plots, etc, I just feel like they serve a purpose past "oh this guy is cool and he does this cool stuff". Several of the reviews on Amazon complain about the main character being a wuss at the beginning, but I feel like they're missing the point; we aren't reading about the adventures of Badass McGee, who was pushed too far by the man, we're reading about the slow painful evolution of a good but timid man that believes in the world to someone who is still good but understands that sometimes you can't let people push you around, and that the actiony bits are just there to serve the characters. It's barely steampunk from an aesthetic standpoint, IMO, based on the modern "steampunk" genre. There are airships and clockwork mechanisms, sure. Reading it reminds me of a fable or fairy tale. Our protagonist encounters a series of challenges, mostly not martial in nature, and has to navigate his way through a sort of confusing magical land by befriending or fooling various other characters in search of his goal. edit: Just went back and looked at the first post about it: coffeetable posted:If anyone's looking for some new steampunk, Senlin Ascends is a quiet gem. Especially for a $3 self-published first novel. I sample these kinds of books compulsively and they're usually crap, but it's absolutely worth it for the rare one like this. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, because I loved it. I very much disagree with your quibble, and seeing the transformation of the main character makes the book for me. nightchild12 fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Apr 30, 2017 |
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Apr 30, 2017 05:26
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Neurosis posted:i notice the mark lawrence new book synopsis on goodreads refers to a 'dying sun' - has he stepped foot into the dying earth subgenre? this piqued my interest, though i've gotta admit the first two paragraphs of the summary were throwing up bright red flags; 'Sweet Mercy hones its novices' skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist'. Honestly after reading through the New Sun books by Gene Wolfe, its pretty clear to me at least that Lawrence drew a ton of inspiration from that series in his Broken Empire books.
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Apr 30, 2017 08:12
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Neurosis posted:i notice the mark lawrence new book synopsis on goodreads refers to a 'dying sun' - has he stepped foot into the dying earth subgenre? this piqued my interest, though i've gotta admit the first two paragraphs of the summary were throwing up bright red flags; 'Sweet Mercy hones its novices' skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist'. I haven't actually read his previous books, but it's my understanding that they take play on a post-apoc Earth in a distant future. The new book takes place in the same setting.
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Apr 30, 2017 09:08
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Megazver posted:I haven't actually read his previous books, but it's my understanding that they take play on a post-apoc Earth in a distant future. The new book takes place in the same setting. I wasn't impressed by the books as a whole, but going in blind I thought he did a great job drip feeding the setting. Especially the realisation that the castle is made out of concrete
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Apr 30, 2017 12:05
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Megazver posted:I haven't actually read his previous books, but it's my understanding that they take play on a post-apoc Earth in a distant future. The new book takes place in the same setting. i'm aware of that but that's nothing to do with a dying sun
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Apr 30, 2017 15:16
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Neurosis posted:i notice the mark lawrence new book synopsis on goodreads refers to a 'dying sun' - has he stepped foot into the dying earth subgenre? this piqued my interest, though i've gotta admit the first two paragraphs of the summary were throwing up bright red flags; 'Sweet Mercy hones its novices' skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist'. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Apr 30, 2017 |
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Apr 30, 2017 15:59
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nightchild12 posted:I've read the first and about half of the second, and I think it kind of does. There is a lot of emphasis in the main character's arc on the difference between the propaganda he has read and reality, learning about how the world really works, how the wealthy gently caress the poor, and how those with power mistreat and exploit those without it. Some of the major themes I have noticed in my reading of it include the sort of "you are paying to get screwed, delighting in it, and asking for more" sentiment that I associate with "-punk" literature. It is definitely the main character as a small powerless dude fighting against the overwhelming forces of the governing powers. It is definitely not all of the fantastic parts of Victorian England with none of the lower class dirtying things up. It's mostly peasants, serfs, etc. Heavy on the characterization, with many divergences to explore characters' pasts and world features (not in the awful fantasy worldbuilding "here's several pages of elvish poetry" kind of way, they actually serve the plot and characters). On first read I feel like the plot and adventures are less focused on the excitement of the action than they are on the impact that events are having on the characters and how they are changing as a result. Not that there isn't plenty of action and clever plots, etc, I just feel like they serve a purpose past "oh this guy is cool and he does this cool stuff". Several of the reviews on Amazon complain about the main character being a wuss at the beginning, but I feel like they're missing the point; we aren't reading about the adventures of Badass McGee, who was pushed too far by the man, we're reading about the slow painful evolution of a good but timid man that believes in the world to someone who is still good but understands that sometimes you can't let people push you around, and that the actiony bits are just there to serve the characters.
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Apr 30, 2017 18:59
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coyo7e posted:I'd say it always has been a "dying earth" world. In the Red Queen trilogy (and it was also mentioned in the first or second Thorns novel, haven't read the third yet) iirc, it's made fairly clear that everything is getting worse rather than better - presumably because of a Large Hadron Collider or thermonuclear war, which apparently broke the bonds of reality and thus peoples' imaginations began to create bullywugs and bugbears etc, with no way to repair anything. I especially liked Loki in the Red Queen trilogy, iirc he was a scientist who accidentally became immortal because others believed he was Loki The nuclear war happened because reality was breaking from too many people all fueling magic with beleifs, so the human race was essentially culled to stop reality from breaking down. However enough survived and rebuilt civilization to start the doom counter all over again.
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Apr 30, 2017 22:08
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A lot of it is just alluded to and teased at in the prince of thorns series, but in red queen they spell out what exactly happened. I thought it was a nice little touch, since I went in blind as well. The gradual reveal was done well, IMO.
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Apr 30, 2017 23:11
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