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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think Dianna Wynne Jones wrote some decent bronze age stuff but I can't remember titles. I think you're thinking of Power of Three.
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May 23, 2017 14:35
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Anyone read KSR New York 2140?
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May 23, 2017 14:40
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Neurosis posted:as for the mining magnate thing, working in tax law, i can say that wa hits above its weight in terms of aggressive 'everything i make is the sweat of my own brow and i shouldn't have to give up any of it' clients so it sounds like the villains for luna are properly sourced. I have often thought that WA is a more concentrated and enhanced version of Australia itself: an isolated and parochial backwater with an economic over-reliance on mineral sources, great beaches but no real culture, very white and fundamentally conservative, and full of self-entitled idiots who rode an economic bubble to noveau riche success and are confident it was because of their own prowess. Robot Wendigo posted:I recently read The Falls: A Luna Story in The Year's Best Science Fiction 32nd Annual Collection, which was my first introduction to McDonald. I often bounce off hard SF, but McDonald still managed quite an impressive emotional punch. Ah yes - I'd forgotten why I read River of Gods in the first place, which is because I read one of McDonald's stories in an otherwise forgettable collection, and it really stood out and was clearly a precursor for the novel. Another thing I forgot to mention, which is similar to River of Gods, is how much McDonald enjoys his futurism. The last book I read before this was New York 2140, in which apart from the flooded city, Robinson's characters are still pretty much using the same technology and behaving the same way they do in 2017. Whereas McDonald recognises that every single aspect of technology and society is always in flux and enjoys trying to predict what will happen. So we have a totally gender-fluid society, everybody dressing in fabulous designs from decades past because they're just 3D-printing their clothes anyway so the only cost is carbon, everybody has a little digital "familiar" who acts as a personal AI and takes the form of some animal or bird or whatever floating around them, et cetera. It feels like a real glimpse into a society 80 years from now which just happens to be set on the moon, rather than a sci-fi writer doing a moon story but having everything else stay more or less the same.
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May 23, 2017 14:50
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So interesting side note from my tasting tour. I am extremely anal about preserving the spine on paperbacks. I have come to hate the tiny dimestore binding a lot of scifi novels use because it is impossible to read them without breaking the spine. I actually bought a second version of neuromancer because I was getting exhausted of trying to read it without bending the spine and bought a digital version to finish.
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May 23, 2017 15:19
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Mel Mudkiper posted:So interesting side note from my tasting tour. There is a hardcover edition of Neuromancer out right now as a special edition, although I suppose it's too late for that.
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May 23, 2017 15:47
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Kalenn Istarion posted:There is a hardcover edition of Neuromancer out right now as a special edition, although I suppose it's too late for that. I am a petulant child who refuses to buy things online and wait in the mail for them, so unless a local store is selling it I am stuck with the choices. Trying to hunt down a copy of aurora in non-poo poo binding
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May 23, 2017 15:59
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You're a little neurotic about 10 dollar books.
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May 23, 2017 16:27
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:You're a little neurotic about 10 dollar books. Yup!
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May 23, 2017 16:32
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C.M. Kruger posted:Anybody got thoughts on Dave Hutchinson's "Europe in Autumn" series? I saw a review on Strange Horizons a while back for the second book and thought it sounded interesting. Just so this doesn't get lost, I'd love to know this too. They sound very "The City and the City"-ish.
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May 23, 2017 17:23
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Trying to find the Ready Player One video review posted earlier in the thread, so I can more eloquently describe to friends how much I hate it.
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May 23, 2017 17:31
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Snuffman posted:Just so this doesn't get lost, I'd love to know this too. They sound very "The City and the City"-ish. I read the first book. It's a good but not great espionage book. The science-fiction hook is that Europe has fractured into any number of tiny principalities, which also means that the spy scene has become an insanely complex field of warring agencies. It's handled pretty well for most of the book. Unfortunately, at the end it devolves from a pretty good Le Carre novel into a Da Vinci Code-style wildly implausible conspiracy that breaks immersion. I guess to set up for the sequels? The main character is likable enough but is a ultimately a stock Stoic Spy Who Wonders Why He Does It. 3.5 stars. The ending really hurts it hard. This book came out a few years ago, and part of the background plot is that Great Britain is one of the few countries fighting hard to keep Europe together. Whoops!
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May 23, 2017 18:23
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gohmak posted:Anyone read KSR New York 2140? I could only get about 1/4 of the way through it. The only person I'm aware of that's finished it in these forums didn't speak too highly of it.
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May 23, 2017 19:18
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Yup! I'm with you, drives me batty to wreck the spines
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May 23, 2017 19:45
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I used to be super anal about keeping my paperbacks pristine but over the years I realized that it meant I couldn't loan books to my friends without quietly feeling butthurt about the condition of my books when they came back (if they did). I eventually gave it up and now I revel in the creased spines. I've got an elderly 1st Edition copy of SHogun which I got from my dad, which was already kind of dog-eared to the point that I had to basically laminate it with packing tape to hold it together. I'm proud of how ratty that paperback is - and it smells good too, like old book smell. 
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May 23, 2017 21:06
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I don't have any friends who read nerdy paperbacks so this was never a concern for me
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May 23, 2017 21:35
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Furious Lobster posted:Trying to find the Ready Player One video review posted earlier in the thread, so I can more eloquently describe to friends how much I hate it. I don't know the video, but how about a podcast?
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May 23, 2017 22:31
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gohmak posted:Anyone read KSR New York 2140? It was meh. KSR clearly wanted to write a book about modern day finance and his editor made him shoehorn it into an SF setting, so you have all these ordinary laypeople in 2140 talking about the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash. First third is fine but it really loses steam halfway through and the last 200 pages or so are a slog. It wasn't outright bad, and there's good parts in it, but very disappointing after Aurora.
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May 23, 2017 23:39
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What do you guys think about The Traitor Son Cycle? I've been looking for a fantasy series with multiple books in it for a while. For some reason I have a hard time getting into the really "PG rated" series like Belgariad, although it doesn't have to be super grimdark either. I think I'm a little over 100 pages into the first book and so far is seems pretty cool. It has things I like such as PoV chapters, visceral combat and all that jazz. I'm really not super picky other than things like that. I think after I finish this I might try Prince of Nothing again. I tried the first book a few years ago, but I bounced off of it. I didn't exactly dislike it, I think I just didn't get far enough in to understand what was going on, and wound up getting distracted by another series.
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May 24, 2017 11:34
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Mel Mudkiper posted:So interesting side note from my tasting tour. it's neurotic as gently caress and i suffer from the same problems. i try to keep the corners neat too. we are very high on the orderliness personality subtrait i guess.
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May 24, 2017 12:55
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coyo7e posted:I used to be super anal about keeping my paperbacks pristine but over the years I realized that it meant I couldn't loan books to my friends without quietly feeling butthurt about the condition of my books when they came back (if they did). Never loan books to anyone, you are functionally giving them away
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May 24, 2017 14:00
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Never loan books to anyone, you are functionally giving them away That's the way I look at it. I pick up cheap 2ndhand copies of books I love to lend out.
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May 24, 2017 14:16
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:What do you guys think about The Traitor Son Cycle? I've been looking for a fantasy series with multiple books in it for a while. For some reason I have a hard time getting into the really "PG rated" series like Belgariad, although it doesn't have to be super grimdark either. I think I'm a little over 100 pages into the first book and so far is seems pretty cool. It has things I like such as PoV chapters, visceral combat and all that jazz. I'm really not super picky other than things like that. I think after I finish this I might try Prince of Nothing again. I tried the first book a few years ago, but I bounced off of it. I didn't exactly dislike it, I think I just didn't get far enough in to understand what was going on, and wound up getting distracted by another series. i liked the first more and each progressively less, i think because the scope broadens each time. i like the over-arching story and world though. for added point check out the author portraits on amazon.
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May 24, 2017 14:17
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You guys are weird, I try to avoid damaging a book the best I can and don't shatter the spine like most readers but if a little bit of spaghetti sauce and chocolate milk get on the latest Chuck Tingle book it's all okay. Loaning out my books the primary reason I buy books in the first place outside of special editions. The books getting damaged or dogtagged is often proof that they got read and loved.
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May 24, 2017 14:47
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There's nothing weird about wanting to take care of things you've paid for.
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May 24, 2017 14:56
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I almost never reread books so I am mostly OK with giving them away.
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May 24, 2017 15:03
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Never loan books to anyone, you are functionally giving them away I have actually purchased like six copies of both Blindness by Jose Saramago and Love in the Time of Cholera by GGM just so I can let people "borrow" them.
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May 24, 2017 15:17
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Runcible Cat posted:That's the way I look at it. I pick up cheap 2ndhand copies of books I love to lend out. Same, usually dirt cheap used paper backs. They have character, damnit. And there's a certain unique pleasure in giving someone a good book and when they really enjoy it, letting them keep it. I changed one of my best friend's favorite books from Harry Potter to The Postman that way. It's an advantage physical copies have over ebooks. drat I should read The Postman again.
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May 24, 2017 16:01
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I usually prefer to buy ebooks because I don't have a lot of space, but I have a pile of unread hardcovers that I can probably give away once I'm done with them.
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May 24, 2017 17:36
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Books are my external hard drives. Giving them away is like giving away a piece of my brain. . . . It's not hoarding if it's books
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May 24, 2017 17:42
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I try to keep my books neat but I don't ultimately care if I get a beaten-up used copy. I also give away/donate/trade pretty much all my books once I've read them as I'm trying to reduce my inventory by like, a lot, so I can't complain if they fall into unclean hands. I wish I could just accumulate all the books but alas, housing in this city is way too expensive to allot me that much space.
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May 24, 2017 18:20
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Solitair posted:I usually prefer to buy ebooks because I don't have a lot of space, but I have a pile of unread hardcovers that I can probably give away once I'm done with them. I tend to use my Nook for new release hardcovers because its like a 10-12 dollar savings. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Books are my external hard drives. Giving them away is like giving away a piece of my brain. The secret is that you can claim books are decoration!  About to buy my fourth 5-shelf bookcase. Cannot figure out where to put it. Anyways, finished Neuromancer It took me awhile, but it is excellent. My only two complaints are that Gibson struggles with depicting the flow of action and justifying behavior. He has a habit of having things happen, and then explaining why they happen, rather than explaining intent from the start. He also needs to give a bit more tangible detail, especially in his set pieces, because it was very hard sometimes to visualize where everyone was in a scene or what exactly was happening. I also found the Space-Rastafari really bad. He takes all this time to imagine lingo and culture of a society many years in the future and then has the cast of Cool Running steering the ship. I have no problem with the idea of space rasta, just wish he had imagined them more thoroughly. Anyways, I, Robot next.
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May 24, 2017 18:21
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Mel Mudkiper posted:
After a certain point you have to start worrying about the structural stability of your house, though. Bookshelves add a lot of weight . .. . My wife thinks I have a problem, and she's a librarian. I've had to mostly shift to Kindle just due to space issues. Your critiques of Neuromancer are spot on but I think it's easy to judge it by modern standards due to how forward thinking the rest of the book is. Do we ding him for including the Rasta stereotype, or praise him for having minority characters ahead of the curve? Remember it's a 1984 book -- Cool Runnings came out seven years later. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 18:34 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 18:30
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Books are my external hard drives. Giving them away is like giving away a piece of my brain. A very real consideration for me in picking a place to live is "does it have a room with sufficient wallspace for my 5 5-shelf bookshelves
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May 24, 2017 18:42
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:After a certain point you have to start worrying about the structural stability of your house, though. Bookshelves add a lot of weight . .. . My wife thinks I have a problem, and she's a librarian. I once dated a girl whose upstairs bedroom literally had a one foot deep sinkhole because she owned too many books Sleeping over at her place was terrifying
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May 24, 2017 19:04
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Never loan books to anyone, you are functionally giving them away
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May 24, 2017 20:39
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But I want to get paid
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May 24, 2017 21:09
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General Battuta posted:But I want to get paid Wow sounds like someone has never heard of something called "exposure" Its even better than money!
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May 24, 2017 22:02
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I donate my old books to thrift stores, AKA enabling theft
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May 24, 2017 22:23
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coyo7e posted:I've got a request though. I was wondering if anyone knows of any interesting fantasy and/or historical fantasy novels or series which are set in a pre-Iron Age setting? It could be egyptian warriors or assyrian pirates or even just flat cave people (read clan of the cave bear and one or two of the sequels, it was pretty alright but I forgot most of it.) I'd even settle for a western that mainly oriented around the natives either before or after white people showed up, etc. A lot of Robert Holdstock's work... approaches? Orbits? Is not about, exactly, but is commonly adjacent to, pre-iron or pre-bronze societies. Technically speaking, Mythago Wood and its sequels are set in modern times, but mostly as a framing device I think. It might have something to do with how I was raised and the setting in which I first encountered them, but every time I read a Holdstock book I can smell peat. They're very earthy books. Other stuff that might qualify but I cannot guarantee the quality of because it's been so long: Tom Holt's Olympiad, Stephen Lawhead's Song of Albion, Bernard Cornwell's Stonehenge book, I think just called Stonehenge? My main memory of the Stonehenge book: Stonehenge was seriously hard work and whoever commissioned it must have been a total nutter. By the by, I'm sort of fascinated to see someone just out and say they liked the Earth's Children books. Even the people who did usually won't cop to it, or will try to downplay it.
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May 24, 2017 23:53
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I also found the Space-Rastafari really bad. He takes all this time to imagine lingo and culture of a society many years in the future and then has the cast of Cool Running steering the ship. I have no problem with the idea of space rasta, just wish he had imagined them more thoroughly. Haha steer clear of the sequels then
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May 25, 2017 00:00
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