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Just gonna join the echo that Raven Stratagem was great. Though I have to admit I was worried it would be another Ancillary where the sequels aren't as good as the original.
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Jul 2, 2017 06:20
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Finished The Delirium Brief by Stross. Stronger than the latter parts of the series, but ended (like the Unholy Consult) with somewhat of an anticlimax for the series. Still ok though, even though I think the series stretched out for 2-3 books more than necessary. How's Empire Games btw? I read that it is based on the Merchant Princes series and I dropped that one after 2 books.
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Jul 2, 2017 20:12
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Worth noting that the Delirium Brief isn't the final Laundry book. According to Charlie, it's roughly the 2/3 point.
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Jul 3, 2017 00:36
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C.M. Kruger posted:Just gonna join the echo that Raven Stratagem was great. Though I have to admit I was worried it would be another Ancillary where the sequels aren't as good as the original. I thought it was a much stronger book than Ninefox Gambit, but also I think both books suffer a bit from the lack of a real antagonist other than the hexarchy itself. I didn't really feel at any point that there was any danger of either Jedao/Cheris failing or the Shuos hexarch's plans not coming to fruition. Most of the tension seemed to be artificially generated from the fact that our POV characters are not privy to their full scheme. I know we've been set up over a couple of books for some kind of collision with the evil scientist lich but he was almost nonexistent in this book. That said, the ideas and imagery are so fascinating to make it pretty enjoyable throughout. Edit: The contrast with Baru Cormorant, which does manage to create a worthy adversary and thereby create dramatic tension despite pulling many of the same tricks as this book, is an instructive one. I'm honestly interested to hear what GB and YHL would make of the broad similarities between their books... uberkeyzer fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jul 3, 2017 |
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Jul 3, 2017 00:47
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Cardiac posted:Finished The Delirium Brief by Stross. Read this post and rushed to Amazon. You fucker DB doesn't come out for another week for normal people 
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Jul 3, 2017 01:17
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DigitalRaven posted:Worth noting that the Delirium Brief isn't the final Laundry book. According to Charlie, it's roughly the 2/3 point. Gotta link for that? Cause then he has updated his outline which used to say 8 books. Given the end of DB I don't see many conceivable ways to go further with the story which won't be either more of the same story or going full A Colder War. There comes a time for every author when it is time to kill your darlings and for Stross it would be a good time.
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Jul 3, 2017 06:51
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I'm reading something which has been making me think of the small Goodreads category I have called "not-fantasy-but-feels-like-fantasy," which is for me an interesting question about a) what we as a society classify as fantasy, and b) what I actually personally enjoy about fantasy. And I think what I enjoy about it most is two things: the sense of creation and wonder, and the sense of adventure. (I think there's a reason most fantasy novels involve long quests instead of hanging around in the same location, after all: the author wants to show off their world.) It's odd that I can't seem to clarify it any more than that, but then most fantasy readers I talk to can't either, and are just as happy to read a Wheel of Time novel as they are to read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, despite how different those books are. It's the unusual, the alien, the mysterious, that entices them. And so I've often been struck that Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin books are like fantasy - long voyages to strange places, death and disaster, adventure on the high seas - and so are Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove books. I know Lonesome Dove is some semi-legendary TV series that apparently every American dad loves, but I'd never heard of it until I read the books, which are really remarkable pieces of literature. I'd got it in my head that westerns involved train robberies and sheriffs and whatever, but the early Gus & Call books are set in the 1840s when Texas was basically the edge of some enormous unknown wilderness, and it feels like the characters are always setting out from their safe haven into this strange and foreign landscape full of dangerous people with bizarre customs. And of course the reader knows that this was a brief period in history and now Texas is just full of highways and Dairy Queens, but McMurtry's skill is such that you completely forget that, and feel like you're reading about a totally imaginary world i.e. a fantasy. Obviously both those examples are historical fiction, but I keep thinking about it, and would be interested to find examples that aren't.
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Jul 3, 2017 07:26
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freebooter posted:And so I've often been struck that Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin books are like fantasy - long voyages to strange places, death and disaster, adventure on the high seas - and so are Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove books. Patrick O'Brian has long been the canonical go-to recommendation for people who have read a few Hornblower ripoff space operas and want to scratch that itch even better. Lonesome Dove, you say; I saw the TV series way back and keep hearing good things about the books, maybe I ought to check them out one of these years. Another example I would recommend is Colleen McCullough's series about Rome (especially the first two volumes The First Man in Rome and The Grass Crown, set a generation or so before Julius Caesar did his thing). More intrigue and backstabbing and decadence and pitched battles and weird foreign cultures than you can eat. Coming up with something similar that's not historical fiction is... a bit of a brain-stumper, I'm afraid. Easier to come up with examples of historical non-fiction. For example Xenophon's Anabasis (world-famous eyewitness account of how a force of some ten thousand Greek mercenaries fought their way out of the middle of hostile territory after being on the losing side in a Persian civil war; widely ripped-off in fiction for the last 23 centuries or so). Or for something much more modern, James Palmer's The Bloody White Baron about this charming character: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_von_Ungern-Sternberg who went from being small-time Russian Baltic nobility to mass-murdering military dictator of loving Mongolia for a brief time.
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Jul 3, 2017 09:37
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If I was recommending poo poo to UF fans, I'd recommend the Marcus Didius Falco series to Dresden Files fans (historical mysteries, totally different) and Jack Reacher books to, say, Sandman Slim fans.
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Jul 3, 2017 10:58
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Cardiac posted:Gotta link for that? Hrm. I thought it was mentioned in an interview somewhere, but it looks like I was wrong. I know he's mentioned it in person, but no sources I can link.
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Jul 3, 2017 12:29
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freebooter posted:Obviously both those examples are historical fiction, but I keep thinking about it, and would be interested to find examples that aren't. The City and The City? I mean, it IS fantastical in certain senses, but certainly not in any usual way.
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Jul 3, 2017 13:02
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Junkenstein posted:The City and The City? Or The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which is an entirely fictional alternate version of Earth but also has no obvious genuine magic. Or Among Others which *might* have magic but is set in the world we know. Hmm
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Jul 3, 2017 15:23
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freebooter posted:And so I've often been struck that Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin books are like fantasy. You should read the biography of Thomas Cochrane.
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Jul 3, 2017 16:14
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Jo Walton's My Real Children and Among Others, I think, would fit what you're looking for.
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Jul 3, 2017 16:41
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Nevvy Z posted:Or The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which is an entirely fictional alternate version of Earth but also has no obvious genuine magic. There's the Mother of Storms, which Baru speculates may obey different laws of physics from the rest of the world. It's purely a sequel hook, though.
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Jul 3, 2017 17:12
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There's some weird poo poo in Baru's world but a lot of it falls under "could happen on Earth but didn't". I love eerie supernaturalish-feeling stuff like Dyatlov Pass or Lake Nyos, too. Really excited for the (just turned in first draft!) sequel to dive into some of that weirdness.
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Jul 3, 2017 17:34
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Nevvy Z posted:Or The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which is an entirely fictional alternate version of Earth but also has no obvious genuine magic. I don't see magic as requisite for calling something fantasy. As Asoaif for example is not famous for being fantasy, but rather for doing War of the Roses in a fantasy setting. Magic is hardly a dominating feature there. Btw the Traitor is firmly in the category fantasy since it fulfills the common tropes.
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Jul 3, 2017 17:37
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The good parts of ASOIAF (and the parts GRRM clearly likes the most) are nonmagical and historical, but people remember the books just as well for direwolves, dragons, white walkers, and long-rear end winters. "Oh yeah game of thrones khaleesi dragons!"
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Jul 3, 2017 18:51
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I remember that in ASOIAF, dwarves still get a bonus to axes and crossbows.
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Jul 3, 2017 19:58
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The Lions of al-Rassan probably deserves a mention in this discussion
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Jul 4, 2017 14:02
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General Battuta posted:The good parts of ASOIAF (and the parts GRRM clearly likes the most) are nonmagical and historical, but people remember the books just as well for direwolves, dragons, white walkers, and long-rear end winters. "Oh yeah game of thrones khaleesi dragons!" I still remember talking to people who dropped off of ASOIAF before finishing the first book/season because they were impatient to get to the white walkers and dragons, and disappointed that the series spends so much time on cutthroat politics instead.
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Jul 4, 2017 20:14
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Book 1 opens with a chapter about a white walker
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Jul 4, 2017 20:35
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ASOIAF would probably have been a much better series without any of the overt supernatural crap. It does some supernatural elements very well, all of which are the more subtle ones, not DRAGONS and ICE ZOMBIES!! Like the Maester's war on magic, whether or not any of the Gods have any actual power, do the Starks have an actual magical bond with wolves, that stuff is cool. Big dragons, nah.
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Jul 4, 2017 21:47
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The Dragons are great because they're rambunctious little fucks
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Jul 4, 2017 21:52
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I mean, they are dragons and everything but they're not d&d ancient red dragons with ten spoken languages and 2d6 5th level spells per day. The asoiaf dragons are animals with roughly the intelligence of dogs.
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Jul 4, 2017 21:53
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The stuff in the North are my favorite parts
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Jul 4, 2017 22:42
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my bony fealty posted:ASOIAF would probably have been a much better series without any of the overt supernatural crap. The warging is my favourite stuff because not only are Sansa and Arya's warging scenes insanely hosed up, but it implies the Starks are just as ancient and magical as the Targs, despite being the uncivilised hicks of westeros. Also the shows handling of Brans wolfdream after Neds death gave me absolute chills, and I wish they'd done more of that stuff.
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Jul 4, 2017 22:49
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The dragon stuff would be cool if, like the other magic/supernatural stuff, we got to see how this completely changes everyone's perception of the world and their beliefs. I mean, we get some of that, with people worshipping Dany and flocking to her cause, but we also get some unnecessarily detailed descriptions of diarrhea
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Jul 4, 2017 23:15
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Groke posted:Patrick O'Brian has long been the canonical go-to recommendation for people who have read a few Hornblower ripoff space operas and want to scratch that itch even better. Lonesome Dove, you say; I saw the TV series way back and keep hearing good things about the books, maybe I ought to check them out one of these years. You really should (but start chronologically with Dead Man's Walk). The other thing that makes them similar to Aubrey/Maturin is that pretty much everyone - whether they're literary snobs or only ever read genre - raves about them. Myself included I guess. It's ironic they became such a celebrated TV series in America's heartland when McMurtry's intention was to dismantle the mythology of the West as the lovely, violent, sexist place it was, but eh, what can you do? quote:Another example I would recommend is Colleen McCullough's series about Rome (especially the first two volumes The First Man in Rome and The Grass Crown, set a generation or so before Julius Caesar did his thing). More intrigue and backstabbing and decadence and pitched battles and weird foreign cultures than you can eat. That is interesting - I did not know mcCullough ever wrote historical fiction! Junkenstein posted:The City and The City? papa horny michael posted:Jo Walton's My Real Children and Among Others, I think, would fit what you're looking for. I've read The City & The City and My Real Children. I wouldn't hesitate to describe them as fantasy so I don't think they belong in this category, but I do place them (especially City & City) in another category I'm trying to fill up which I guess you could describe as "fantasy not based in any way on Tolkien or general folklore." For example Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is in no way Tolkien-inspired, but still takes place in a recognisable world of faery folk. I wouldn't include, for example, the Bas-Lag trilogy either because even though it's a very inventive alternate fantasy world it's still an alternate fantasy world - the kind of place that could have a map or an RPG campaign, if you get what I mean. I wouldn't include Little/Big because it's still based on folklore, just American folklore instead of European folklore. This sort of book bleeds over into magical realism a lot, but I'm more interested in the less whimsical and more solid examples like The City & The City, which are nonetheless fantasy in possibly the most fundamental sense of the word: somebody's imagination, creating something out of whole cloth. The City & The City is the perfect example of this sort of thing but also a very unique accomplishment, which makes things difficult.
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Jul 5, 2017 00:54
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ASOIAF was fine at first, but it's self-parody at this point. The show is much better than the books, and it's especially much better now that it's outpaced the books.
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Jul 5, 2017 00:54
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less laughter posted:Book 1 opens with a chapter about a white walker And then it doesn't come back to the white walkers for most of the book. It's that period that dampened the enthusiasm of the shmucks I'm talking about and made them quit. my bony fealty posted:ASOIAF would probably have been a much better series without any of the overt supernatural crap. I feel as though GRRM inadvertently set his series up to let people down because, despite all of the much-hyped "genre subversion" that comes from stuff like Ned Stark's execution and the Red Wedding (tagged for the benefit of like three people who haven't heard), the series is likely to end in a conventional way by the standards of fantasy from two decades ago..
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Jul 5, 2017 01:00
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Solitair posted:And then it doesn't come back to the white walkers for most of the book. It's that period that dampened the enthusiasm of the shmucks I'm talking about and made them quit. My ex was a massive GOT fan and got really stroppy at me because I refused to believe that Jon Snow wasn't really dead at the end of book 5, because she'd read all the fan theories (now confimed in the show as true) about him really being Ned's sister's son and half targaryen etc. So in her view he couldn't possibly be dead because he was fated to take the throne or whatever. Which in my view completely misses the point of the series up to that point, which was that nothing is fated, prophecies don't matter and anybody can die at any time. I maintain that it will be very excellent and very true to form if, after all these many books/seasons of faffing about over east, Dany gets killed in the very first battle after her army sets foot on Westeros.
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Jul 5, 2017 01:45
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Yeah my interest in the series took a nosedive when it turned out the prophecy that didn't come true is actually going to come true bigly, along with every other prophecy, just like every other fantasy
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Jul 5, 2017 02:13
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I hope Jon gets revived like 20 more times and turns into a shell of a man and also Tyrion rides a dragon. These things would be good.
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Jul 5, 2017 02:21
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:I hope Jon gets revived like 20 more times and turns into a shell of a man and also Tyrion rides a dragon. These things would be good. In the last book, Jon changes his name to Duncan Idaho. CROSSOVER OUT OF NOWHERE.
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Jul 5, 2017 03:21
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freebooter posted:You really should (but start chronologically with Dead Man's Walk). The other thing that makes them similar to Aubrey/Maturin is that pretty much everyone - whether they're literary snobs or only ever read genre - raves about them. Myself included I guess. It's ironic they became such a celebrated TV series in America's heartland when McMurtry's intention was to dismantle the mythology of the West as the lovely, violent, sexist place it was, but eh, what can you do? I think Lonesome Dove should be read first; it's the best one far and away, it gives all the backstory you need to know, and knowing the full backstory from the prequels will take the wind out of the sails of some of the heavier scenes and themes in the novel. There's also nods in the prequels to specific events in Lonesome Dove that will be completely missed if the prequels are read first. I just finished Comanche Moon and it was the weakest of the lot, the plot meandered back and forth, and I could see someone reading chronologically and stopping after that novel, missing the greatest one in Lonesome Dove. Also if you want a novel that "distmantles the mythology of the west" check out another novel with a celebrated film adaptation, Little Big Man.
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Jul 5, 2017 03:39
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IRT ASOIAF The further GRRM gets from his medieval western Europe Westeros the less good and believable his world building becomes. Also I agree with the comments the good parts of books 1 to 3 is how it subverts expectations. Although Danny eating a arrow the moment she sets foot on Westeros would almost be as batshit as the first draft of Metro 2033 where halfway through Artyom just eats a bullet escaping from the Nazi's and you get an epilogue of how he failed and his station and therefore the Metro is now doomed.
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Jul 5, 2017 07:07
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Jack2142 posted:IRT ASOIAF I dunno, I thought The World of Ice and Fire was more interesting on average than Feast of Dance, but I'm also hoping that my favorite parts of it aren't actually in the main story.
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Jul 5, 2017 07:16
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freebooter posted:That is interesting - I did not know mcCullough ever wrote historical fiction! It's some good poo poo, the first couple of volumes star Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Gaius Marius as main characters, amid political struggles as the increasingly decrepit Roman republic is threatened by barbarian invasions and foreign wars and its own corruption and so on.
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Jul 5, 2017 09:27
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Cardiac posted:Gotta link for that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross#The_Laundry_Files has The Labyrinth Index scheduled for publication in 2019. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/04/faq-the-laundry-filesseries-ti.html adds that it may be followed by a further 1-3 novels. Stross has said that the Laundry universe has "gone Discworld" on him, and may be self-sustaining.
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Jul 5, 2017 09:48
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