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Clark Nova posted:Yeah, this is probably the best fit for the criteria. I enjoyed it, though it is definitely more guilty pleasure than high art. The main character is in charge by his own merits, because he is a complete Gary Stu who is the most bestest at everything. Yeah, Malazan is pretty top-tier for military high fantasy.
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Dec 7, 2017 19:01
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MockingQuantum posted:What are some good fantasy books or series that have war as either a major feature of the book or an extended backdrop? I'm thinking things like the first or second Black Company trilogy, or Grace of Kings? I know that's kind of a broad question, but there's a lot of fantasy out there where there's wars happening but really what's important is our hero faffing about doing his own thing. I'm talking series where the main characters are major players in big regional conflicts and actually feel like leaders that got to where they are because of their own agency (if not skill). Django Wexler's
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Dec 7, 2017 19:02
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MockingQuantum posted:What are some good fantasy books or series that have war as either a major feature of the book or an extended backdrop? I'm thinking things like the first or second Black Company trilogy, or Grace of Kings? I know that's kind of a broad question, but there's a lot of fantasy out there where there's wars happening but really what's important is our hero faffing about doing his own thing. I'm talking series where the main characters are major players in big regional conflicts and actually feel like leaders that got to where they are because of their own agency (if not skill). Glen Cook's The Dread Empire series has lots of warfare, big battles, and battlefield magic. I recommend taking it in chronological order, so starting with The Fire in his Hands you get a desert-based insurgency, a whirlwind of conquest and desperate holding actions, a little military stuff in Shadow of All Night Falling, then some cool campaigns and battles in October's Baby, and All Darkness Met is a huge conquest saga. Then there's even more military stuff in the sequels.
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Dec 7, 2017 19:07
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mllaneza posted:Glen Cook's The Dread Empire series has lots of warfare, big battles, and battlefield magic. I recommend taking it in chronological order, so starting with The Fire in his Hands you get a desert-based insurgency, a whirlwind of conquest and desperate holding actions, a little military stuff in Shadow of All Night Falling, then some cool campaigns and battles in October's Baby, and All Darkness Met is a huge conquest saga. Then there's even more military stuff in the sequels. This is honestly the most appealing, given it was nostalgia over Black Company that made me ask in the first place. I've been meaning to read Malazan forever so it's high up the list as well.
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Dec 7, 2017 19:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, this. The later books in the series especially are very much deconstructions of Heinlein-style "kick the bug-alien butt" SF, and real victory coming only through diplomacy.. Why is it always bugs? Finished Armor yesterday, and it is another iteration of Forever War and Starship Troopers. Still good, but that entire genre have been kinda beaten to death.
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Dec 7, 2017 19:15
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MockingQuantum posted:What are some good fantasy books or series that have war as either a major feature of the book or an extended backdrop? I'm thinking things like the first or second Black Company trilogy, or Grace of Kings? I know that's kind of a broad question, but there's a lot of fantasy out there where there's wars happening but really what's important is our hero faffing about doing his own thing. I'm talking series where the main characters are major players in big regional conflicts and actually feel like leaders that got to where they are because of their own agency (if not skill). I'd suggest The Practical Guide to Evil. I'll just quote the description from TV Tropes because it does a good job describing it and the trope thing fits the theme: quote:A Practical Guide to Evil is a Young Adult (Allegedly) Heroic Fantasy Web Serial Novel written by erraticerrata. Started in 2015 the book is presently (March 2017) entering the first arc of Book 3; there are 5 planned books. A key element of the setting is that many Heroic Fantasy tropes are enforced by the universe's laws. Black and White Morality is an objective reality with individuals, species and nations that are clearly and unapologetically Evil and Good. Individuals are able to gain superhuman powers and a certain degree of plot armor by embodying certain archetypes or 'Names' (Capital 'N'), most Names are clearly associated with Good or Evil though some are neutral and/or common. Named individuals are both more powerful than normal people (able to kill dozens or hundreds of nameless mooks or red shirts single-handedly) and more important to Fate (i.e. the plot). Fate tends to play out in predictable patterns that can be manipulated by particularly Genre Savvy individuals.
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Dec 7, 2017 19:45
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A big gently caress off war in which the main characters play major parts is a central plot point of the 3rd book in First Law. Now I know you might be thinking, "ugh, I got to read 2 books to get to it?" but the trilogy is pretty god drat great and you should be reading it if you haven't already.
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Dec 7, 2017 20:44
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Cardiac posted:Why is it always bugs? They're a thoroughly dehumanized stand-in for  , comrade.Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:A big gently caress off war in which the main characters play major parts is a central plot point of the 3rd book in First Law. Also, The Heroes, a followup book in the same setting, focuses on a single battle and is pretty good. You could probably just read this and not miss too much
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Dec 7, 2017 20:54
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ToxicFrog posted:At worst you could argue that the narration should have used "they" everywhere. Leckie said in a Q&A that I went to that she tried using "they" everywhere, but having no way to distinguish singular vs plural they got really confusing, especially when you're already dealing with a single consciousness inhabiting multiple bodies simultaneously. She also said she tried using existing gender neutral pronouns, but she wasn't comfortable writing with them at that time, although she's obviously gotten more so given "e/em/eir" in her latest book.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:00
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Is Leckie writing more Radch stuff or is gender neutral characters just a thing for her now?
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Dec 7, 2017 21:06
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Patrick Spens posted:Is Leckie writing more Radch stuff or is gender neutral characters just a thing for her now? I think Provenance deals with one of the other alien species in the setting so it very likely refers to them.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:31
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:A big gently caress off war in which the main characters play major parts is a central plot point of the 3rd book in First Law. I actually just finished them not long ago. I may give The Heroes a spin though.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:34
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MockingQuantum posted:This is honestly the most appealing, given it was nostalgia over Black Company that made me ask in the first place. Here you go, the El Murid Wars (yes, you want to start with book 2) https://smile.amazon.com/Fortress-Shadow-Chronicle-Empire-Bundle-ebook/dp/B006NZ9XD6/ref=sr_1_3 mllaneza fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Dec 8, 2017 |
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Dec 7, 2017 21:39
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Clark Nova posted:They're a thoroughly dehumanized stand-in for I thought it was more  than . Starship Troopers has a line that's uncomfortably explicit about it.Robert A. Heinlein posted:Every time we killed a thousand Bugs at a cost of one M.I. it was a net victory for the Bugs. We were learning, expensively, just how efficient a total communism can be when used by a people actually adapted to it by evolution; the Bug commisars didn't care any more about expending soldiers than we cared about expending ammo. Perhaps we could have figured this out about the Bugs by noting the grief the Chinese Hegemony gave the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance; however the trouble with 'lessons from history' is that we usually read them best after falling flat on our chins.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:39
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occamsnailfile posted:I think Provenance deals with one of the other alien species in the setting so it very likely refers to them. Provenance is in the Radch universe, but outside Radch space. It deals with a non-Radch human faction that has 3 genders, where the third uses the real-world gender neutral e/em/eir pronouns, even though they are a third gender, not actually gender neutral or nonbinary (as far as I can tell). There is also a Radchaai character, who gets tripped up on the pronouns a lot, but I don't recall which pronoun is used for them.
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Dec 7, 2017 22:00
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Christopher Moore was ok in the first book I read by him (blue something), everything I tried reading by Christopher Moore was really dumb, super saccharine, or a combination of really dumb + saccharine. The cheat code to Doc EE Smith stuff like Lensman series, Skylark series, etc is: EE Smith's main characters are ALWAYS cardboard stand-ins are perfect supermen, never lose, and are boring as hell. The really interesting people in EE Smith's books are villains or the side-characters, along with EE Smith's descriptions of big-rear end explosions as asteroids/cities/moons/planets/suns/star clusters/galaxies smash together....EE Smith defined the term "power creep" in pulp scifi stories. EE Smith Skylark series: Marc DuQuesne is best written human character EE Smith ever did, and DuQuesne is the villain in all the Skylark books. The Lensmen series has a lensman sidecharacter who invades a enemy fortress planet full of Darkseids + kills them all while the main character is busy doing gently caress-all stopping a smuggling ring on the other side of the galaxy. Depending on how much I hate someone, I'd advise checking out Christopher Stasheff's Wizard series not too bad, saint vidicon lurks in your future, the Sten series ahahahahaahahahaha i hate you ahahaha, or Dean Ing's Quantrill series ahahahahahaha holy sweet death I must really hate you.
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Dec 7, 2017 23:12
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Orbit Books is doing an AMA on Reddit with a slew of this years' debut novelists. More importantly, their novels are all $2.99/Ł1.99 in US and UK. I've only read the Fifth Ward one, it's a rock-solid meat-and-potatoes fantasy cop story that I thoroughly enjoyed, but the rest of them have very good buzz as well.
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Dec 8, 2017 01:09
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Man, I just saw an article headline about Netflix turning Old Man's War into a movie and got all excited, but then remembered it was Forever War that I really liked and was very disappointed.
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Dec 8, 2017 02:09
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Man, I just saw an article headline about Netflix turning Old Man's War into a movie and got all excited, but then remembered it was Forever War that I really liked and was very disappointed. Same
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Dec 8, 2017 09:12
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Hahaha, I too have confused Old Man's War (never read it!) with Forever War. So Forever War is the one I should have recommended in my last post. e: all I had to do was turn my head and look at my bookshelf too
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Dec 8, 2017 09:48
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Old Man's War doesn't sound very exciting does it? like what are they warring over, model trains?
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Dec 8, 2017 09:59
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They aren't all old men! There are old women too. And they get new young bodies. And have a massive orgy. Scalzi read a lot of Heinlein.
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Dec 8, 2017 11:37
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Megazver posted:Orbit Books is doing an AMA on Reddit with a slew of this years' debut novelists. More importantly, their novels are all $2.99/Ł1.99 in US and UK. There you go, for cheap Kings of the Wyld is worth looking at to see if it's your cuppa
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Dec 8, 2017 11:55
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NoneMoreNegative posted:There you go, for cheap Kings of the Wyld is worth looking at to see if it's your cuppa Yeah, to give you a full list of what you can get: Nicholas Eames, author of KINGS OF THE WYLD Nicholas Sansbury Smith, author of EXTINCTION HORIZON Antonia Honeywell, author of THE SHIP David Mealing, author of SOUL OF THE WORLD Dale Lucas, author of THE FIFTH WARD: FIRST WATCH Vivian Shaw, author of STRANGE PRACTICE Anna Smith Spark, author of THE COURT OF BROKEN KNIVES RJ Barker, author of AGE OF ASSASSINS Melissa Caruso, author of THE TETHERED MAGE Fonda Lee, author of JADE CITY
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Dec 8, 2017 12:36
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First Watch was pretty good, but I have a soft spot for fantasy police procedural books. Strange Practice is pretty good as well. Cover looks like a victorian era romance weirdness book, but it's a modern day urban fantasy about a doctor who specializes in non humans, and some weird poo poo goes down to get her involved in a mystery. I really liked it. Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Dec 8, 2017 |
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Dec 8, 2017 13:54
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90s Cringe Rock posted:They aren't all old men! There are old women too. And they get new young bodies. And have a massive orgy. The first three books are a direct refutation of Heinlein's Citizens-in-lockstep-with-a-fascist-authority. The lead character, by the 3rd book more or less forces everyone into a diplomatic solution as opposed to a war of extermination. The fourth book was kind of poo poo. He experimented with a tween POV (and basically re-wrote the 3rd book) and failed hard. Like any author he has hits or misses. (Red Shirts, is... ugh.) I don't get the hate he gets. I mean, I don't think he's the pinnacle of Science Fiction or anything. For example, his characters have one of three voices. Closed Minded Authoritarian, Strong and Competent Woman Who Has No Time For Your poo poo, and Slyly Clever Anti-Authoritarian Snarky McSnarkson. But he write perfectly enjoyable pulp science fiction. He has some interesting ideas. Nothing mind shattering, but kind of cool.
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Dec 8, 2017 14:54
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I'm quite enjoying the Malice so far. I read the Vagrant when it was cheap and forgot it had sequels! I also picked up something called Autonomous and it was compared to good authors but it's a piece of poo poo don't read it.
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Dec 8, 2017 14:55
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If you mean actual hate, I think most of it comes from the fact that Scalzi is a fairly progressive guy socially so when he was in charge of SFWA lots of vox day's followers decided he was king SJW the first, one edict away from declaring all strong white male science fiction writers be put to death.
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Dec 8, 2017 15:04
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andrew smash posted:If you mean actual hate, I think most of it comes from the fact that Scalzi is a fairly progressive guy socially so when he was in charge of SFWA lots of vox day's followers decided he was king SJW the first, one edict away from declaring all strong white male science fiction writers be put to death. His blog's got me to read a lot of cool books I otherwise would have missed.
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Dec 8, 2017 18:44
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Nevvy Z posted:I also picked up something called Autonomous and it was compared to good authors but it's a piece of poo poo don't read it. I read it as well and I'm still on the fence about it. I'm interested to know what ruined it for you, because drat the whole pharma-pirates working against a crushing world-encompassing corporate oligarchy had so much potential. It could have been good, but the author made so many questionable choices, I could see where one or more of them could completely ruin the book for someone. Especially the cringey sex poo poo. It managed to be more cringey than Heinlein's creepy-old-man sex poo poo, and that takes anti-talent. I can see why it got praise from her tech-blog buddies though, because it's so crammed with tech the protagonist can't even get into a loving kayak without paragraphs of exposition about how uber-tech this loving kayak is. It's a loving boat, and this book isn't Moby Dick. Get on with the loving story. After the 1/3 mark the book stopped slogging through landfills of technobabble and picked up speed, so I got through it ok, but looking back I wonder why exactly she kept thrusting us into the antagonist's pov. Was it supposed to be satirical, writing it from the bot's pov as a commentary on how toxic its psychopathic partner's entire worldview is? Or was she actually intending them to be sympathetic? Because gently caress no. The bot itself was only as innocent as an attack dog, and they both murdered merrily along the way. It was pretty loving disturbing, so giving them a happy ending as if we were supposed to have good feelies over that—WTF—because they have feelings? Because he let the protagonist go over those feelings? So do serial killers, Annalee, you idiot. This doesn't excuse them, and neither does their license to kill. E. It's Annalee Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Dec 11, 2017 |
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Dec 8, 2017 19:18
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Anyone started the new Expanse novel yet? That was one heck of a time jump.
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Dec 8, 2017 19:46
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Just finished it. It's Fine. Moderately thoughtful middlingly paced middle brow science fiction. Not a lot happens for a book in which a lot happens, if that makes any sense.
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Dec 8, 2017 22:18
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"Shadow Puppets" by Orson Scott Card is a good book
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Dec 8, 2017 22:18
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That'd be a first with him.
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Dec 8, 2017 23:06
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Kesper North posted:Anyone started the new Expanse novel yet? A 30 year jump and literally everyone is still alive. Even holdens parents
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Dec 8, 2017 23:34
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Stuporstar posted:I read it as well and I'm still on the fence about it. I'm interested to know what ruined it for you, because drat the whole pharma-pirates working against a crushing world-encompassing corporate oligarchy had so much potential. It could have been good, but the author made so many questionable choices, I could see where one or more of them could completely ruin the book for someone. Especially the cringey sex poo poo. It managed to be more cringey than Heinlein's creepy-old-man sex poo poo, and that takes anti-talent. You hit a lot of it. The setting had potential that went entirely unrealized. It touched on a lot of interesting sci-fi topics but did so very shallowly. The writing was not good, the story was not good, the characters were not good.
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Dec 8, 2017 23:45
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ianmacdo posted:A 30 year jump and literally everyone is still alive. Even holdens parents well it is the future
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Dec 9, 2017 00:50
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anilEhilated posted:That'd be a first with him. Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead were pretty good.
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Dec 9, 2017 07:49
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Stuporstar posted:I can see why it got praise from her tech-blog buddies though, because it's so crammed with tech the protagonist can't even get into a loving kayak without paragraphs of exposition about how uber-tech this loving kayak is. It's a loving boat, and this book isn't Moby Dick. Get on with the loving story. I think this was the novel I read an except from a month or so ago which was the ahem "nerve-racking" sequence where the robot discovers which of an antagonist's smart devices hasn't been patched and uses it to gain access to I forget what, something important I guess. It was something like 2 pages of an exploit on a smart garden sprinkler and I was reading it thinking, "this is what they picked to tempt people to buy the thing?" And now I see enthusiastic review quotes from Neal Stephenson, which explains a lot.
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Dec 9, 2017 12:15
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Stuporstar posted:I read it as well and I'm still on the fence about it. I'm interested to know what ruined it for you, because drat the whole pharma-pirates working against a crushing world-encompassing corporate oligarchy had so much potential. It could have been good, but the author made so many questionable choices, I could see where one or more of them could completely ruin the book for someone. Especially the cringey sex poo poo. It managed to be more cringey than Heinlein's creepy-old-man sex poo poo, and that takes anti-talent. Endless exposition about kayaks would be good if the author was a cool smart person but I'm guessing that's not the case here because all science fiction authors are the kind of people who think computer science is 'radical'
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Dec 9, 2017 13:56
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