thepopmonster posted:

FTFY

thepopmonster posted:

FTFY

Sham bam bamina! posted:

That comma is completely superfluous. The way to fix it would be to italicize the titles, which is the right thing to do anyway.

quote:

Magic has gone digital in the twenty-first century, and Ravirn is a sorcerer with a laptop - otherwise known as his shape-changing best friend.

These days, Ravirn's crashing at his girlfriend's place while she works on her doctorate in computer science. Only one problem: all of her research is in her webgoblin's memory, which is now in Hades along with its soul. To save Cerice's webgoblin (and her Ph.D.), Ravirn must brave Hell itself. But can he do it without corrupting the mweb - the magical internet - and without facing down the Lord of the Dead himself?

beats for junkies posted:

Hey, I just found this thread and I have a contribution to make. Sorry if it's been mentioned before. It's Cybermancy by Kelly McCullough, and I picked it up at a thrift store for fifty cents. It has a gloriously awful tagline: "Hades has a hell of a firewall." It's about a hacker/mage named Ravirn (his name was actually Raven but his grandmothers, The Fates, took that name from him when he did something bad, probably in the book this one is a sequel to - it's called WebMage but I haven't looked for it too hard), in a world where hacking and magic and Greek myths are all blended together in some kind of modern fantasy. I'll just quote from the back of the book:


There was one bit that I thought was kind of neat (still awful, but less so than playing cards with the three-headed hound who guards the underworld), and it's when he's in Hades, sneaking around the offices of the damned or something, and gets spooked by someone following him. Then a nearby computer lights up and a chat program starts sending him messages. It's Persephone, and she communicates through IM because her voice is too much for mortals (or near-mortals or whatever the gently caress Ravirn is) to bear. Ravirn begs her to say something to him, and she eventually relents and does so, and he immediately gets super-depressed and nearly suicidal because of it. I thought it was one of the few times the character actually seems like he's in trouble. Every other time, he's just cocky and sure that all of his unstated backup plans will work out (and they usually do). Of course, he gets out of that situation too, and soon returns to being a cocky rear end in a top hat.

I haven't finished the book, or even picked it up in a few months, but when I found this thread, I remembered it and thought it was perfect for you goons. I'm hoping at least one of you has either heard of or read this book (or the previous one).

Runcible Cat posted:

James Bond vs Cthulhu is loosely what Charles Stross' 2nd Laundry novel was going for (the first was Harry Palmer vs Cthulhu). The Laundry novels are fun, at least as far as I've read; I'm a couple behind.

Zore posted:

Oh yeah, I read both and the 2 or 3 sequels. There's some prime poo poo in there like;

His love interest is his cousin but she vetrays him.

...

His familiar is a laptop/imp and at one point he gets a huge powerup by becoming a quantum compter.

quote:

"All the usual pomp and circumstance," I said, referring to my late family's fixation on the proper protocols and fancy dress.
"Are you going to wear that?" she asked, pointing to my leather jacket.
"And the pants. One of the few benefits of being an outcast is that I no longer have to conform to my great-grandmother's fixation on courtly manner and garb. No more tights and doublets for this boy."
"But I like you in tights," said Cerice.
"All right," I said. "For you I'll wear tights. But not for this. With the Kevlar lining, my motorcycle kit is better armor than anything else I own. Especially now that I've got the matching helmet. Besides, I'm going to be way less conspicuous dressed like this than you are in your gear."
---
Just then, Cerice joined us. She wore a tightly fitted and fully articulated suit of lamalar armor, very light and reinforced with magic so that it could stop anything short of an RPG. It was red and gold, of course, and looked something like a Greek hoplite's gear as reimagined by a fighting-game designer. It had a heavily padded compartment in the small of her back for Shara in laptop form and a number of clips where she could attach various articles, including the rapier and Beretta semiautomatic pistol she'd already slung. She had a small pack as well, holding the diamond-shaped buckler she preferred to a parrying dagger, along with her T-faced helm. The helmet's horsehair crest was just poking out of the top."
"You ready?" I asked.
"No, but let's do it anyway."
I collected my shoulder bag -- now prepped with everything I'd need for making a faerie ring -- while she tucked Shara away. Melchior likewise assumed laptop shape and went into my bag. Once Cerice had whistled a spell of concealment, we were ready to go. It was a really elegant little piece of magic crafted by Clotho many centuries ago and refined and rerefined by her and her sisters until it was only a few bars long.
"Where do you want to set it up?" she asked, as we went out the door.
It was a good question. We wouldn't be able to close up behind us, and you never know when some poor soul might stumble into the ring, or worse, when something really nasty might come slithering out of it. Reality has diverged a great deal since Nyx laid the egg that became the Earth and sky, and not all the paths have been pleasant ones. There were some very dark places to be found among the infinity of worlds and even darker things lurking in them, so it had to be someplace isolated, where things that go bump in the night wouldn't be a problem.
Fortunately, I'd had time to think it through. "The river."

Bamabalacha posted:

I just thought Charles Stross was a mediocre writer until I very loosely scanned the Sci-fi subreddit a bunch of times for recommendation (stuff that was like "I want a near future novel set in North America" in terms of vagueness) and saw him popping in to pimp himself or fight someone who didn't like him in like 70% of the threads on the sub.

quote:

Prepare to be swept into a world of breathless fairy-tale romance, swoonworthy characters, glittering gowns, and fierce intrigue perfect for readers who loved Divergent, Delirium, or The Wrath & the Dawn.

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape a rigid caste system, live in a palace, and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon. But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her, and competing for a crown she doesn’t want.

Then America meets Prince Maxon—and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

taiyoko posted:

One I pulled for an order tonight at work, and I thought the blurb was so bad it belonged here: The Selection.

From the Amazon listing (bolding mine):


Like that main character's name.

Antivehicular posted:

If it's a competition... can't she just throw it? Do the Selection losers get Lottery'd to ensure a good corn harvest?

taiyoko posted:

One I pulled for an order tonight at work, and I thought the blurb was so bad it belonged here: The Selection.

From the Amazon listing (bolding mine):


Like that main character's name.

Sham bam bamina! posted:

One of their best.

Mr. Sunshine posted:

The Germans then round up every surviving member of the SS from old folks' homes from across the country, use friendly-alien-super-tech to restore them to youth, and reinstate the Waffen SS divisions complete with black uniforms, nazi symbols and banners, the loving works.

Cornwind Evil posted:

Not sure how, but you linked the wrong episode. Here's the actual one about that book.

Mr. Sunshine posted:

What is it with right-wing rear end in a top hat writers and portraying their ideological enemies as completely insane lunatics willingly and knowingly trying to destroy everything that is good and just? Okay, when your protagonists are the loving Waffen SS I understand that you have to bend reality to gently caress and back to make your antagonists look bad, but come the gently caress on!

Alaois posted:

that'd be Tom Kratmann, another guy who uses the same vanity press that Ringo uses and writes other not-at-all disguised Nazi glorification fiction

Comrade Koba posted:

So out of all the military formations of the 20th century, they went with the one that consistently got their asses handed to them when faced with any real opposition. Amazing.

chitoryu12 posted:

I've finished Handbook for Mortals. At no point does it get any better, and almost nothing of importance happens.

I'm going to do a new thread on the Furlites of Aroriel.

God help us all, for we sink into oblivion in the end.

hackbunny posted:

I wouldn't call him mediocre, I was pretty shaken by A Colder War. He can write supernatural horror in a way that's deeply unsettling. Live servitors under transient control, the vivid mental image of ancestral monsters being paraded on truck trailers on the Red Square like just another weapons system (covered with tarps as if it's not obvious to everyone that one, they're living beings, and two, that they don't belong in this world) has never left me

I disliked the Laundry series because it so often is an excuse to indulge in his worst writing vices. For example, while A Colder War is about scientists and military men lying to themselves that ancient evil magic can be rationalized, explained, controlled, bent to human will - exactly what, by definition, you cannot do to something that's evil or magic - the Laundry series is about those same character types, doing the same things, except here they're a hundred percent right and magic is just a branch of computer science, and magic artifacts are mass produced and weaponized, and you control demons by electrifying a pentacle like in the dumbest penny dreadfuls. That real life tragedies, like the death penalty in China or the Holocaust, are dragged into it is just the bad tasting cherry on top

Darth Walrus posted:

My chyric gland swells at this news.

chitoryu12 posted:

I've finished Handbook for Mortals. At no point does it get any better, and almost nothing of importance happens.

I'm going to do a new thread on the Furlites of Aroriel.

God help us all, for we sink into oblivion in the end.

Proteus Jones posted:

I need link.

DACK FAYDEN posted:

Is this the shartball book?

queserasera posted:

Has there been a book like Watch on the Rhine done competently? I'm a fan of "summoning the Deep Ones to stop Cthulhu" stories and they all suck. Like eating your favorite treat not realizing it's stuffed with something disgusting and now it's running down your shirt.

queserasera posted:

Has there been a book like Watch on the Rhine done competently? I'm a fan of "summoning the Deep Ones to stop Cthulhu" stories and they all suck. Like eating your favorite treat not realizing it's stuffed with something disgusting and now it's running down your shirt.

Jew it to it! posted:

The Milkweed Triptych by Ian Tregillis sort of fits the bill of what you're looking for.

Book blurb: When the Nazis start running missions with people who have unnatural abilities—a woman who can turn invisible, a man who can walk through walls, and the woman Marsh saw in Spain who can use her knowledge of the future to twist the present—Marsh is the man who has to face them. He rallies the secret warlocks of Britain to hold the impending invasion at bay. But magic always exacts a price. Eventually, the sacrifice necessary to defeat the enemy will be as terrible as outright loss would be.

It goes sort of how you'd expect.

Jew it to it! posted:

The Milkweed Triptych by Ian Tregillis sort of fits the bill of what you're looking for.

Book blurb: When the Nazis start running missions with people who have unnatural abilities—a woman who can turn invisible, a man who can walk through walls, and the woman Marsh saw in Spain who can use her knowledge of the future to twist the present—Marsh is the man who has to face them. He rallies the secret warlocks of Britain to hold the impending invasion at bay. But magic always exacts a price. Eventually, the sacrifice necessary to defeat the enemy will be as terrible as outright loss would be.

It goes sort of how you'd expect.

Inescapable Duck posted:

There's a running undercurrent in politics, which American liberalism hasn't really done anything to discredit, that conservatives, authoritarians and fascists are Hard Men who Make Tough Decisions and are Decisive in a Crisis Situation, who will sometimes do mean things and look scary but they'll have your back when the big scary bad guys show up, while liberals and pacifists are silly hippies who okay to tolerate when everything's sunshine and roses but are a liability whenever things get scary, so you need to shut them up so the Tough Men Can Take Charge.

chitoryu12 posted:

I've finished Handbook for Mortals. At no point does it get any better, and almost nothing of importance happens.

I'm going to do a new thread on the Furlites of Aroriel.

God help us all, for we sink into oblivion in the end.

Chuck Buried Treasure posted:

I'm sure there's a better way to seek penance for whatever horrendous sin against God you've committed than this public self-flagellation.

Jew it to it! posted:

The Milkweed Triptych by Ian Tregillis sort of fits the bill of what you're looking for.

Book blurb: When the Nazis start running missions with people who have unnatural abilities—a woman who can turn invisible, a man who can walk through walls, and the woman Marsh saw in Spain who can use her knowledge of the future to twist the present—Marsh is the man who has to face them. He rallies the secret warlocks of Britain to hold the impending invasion at bay. But magic always exacts a price. Eventually, the sacrifice necessary to defeat the enemy will be as terrible as outright loss would be.

It goes sort of how you'd expect.

Sham bam bamina! posted: