|
Wheat Loaf posted:Hey, this isn't exactly urban fantasy, but can anyone sell me on Jasper Fforde? Don't. Unfunny, uninteresting, unoriginal. biracial bear for uncut posted:This other book by the same author sounds a lot more interesting. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Dec 6, 2017 |
#
?
Dec 6, 2017 22:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 05:24 |
|
|
This is not a book, but it's Urban Fantasy. If you enjoy Wadjet Eye Games' Blackwell point-and-click adventure series, you'll probably like their new title, Unavowed.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2017 23:21
|
|
|
Fforde is pretty funny, but I find the drama in the Thursday Next books somewhat overblown and they don't land as well. His Nursery Crime series is closer to pure farce and much more enjoyable.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2017 02:04
|
|
|
Megazver posted:This is not a book, but it's Urban Fantasy. If you enjoy Wadjet Eye Games' Blackwell point-and-click adventure series, you'll probably like their new title, Unavowed. Yeah, I've been looking forward to that for awhile.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2017 03:37
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:The top positive review on goodreads is by Patrick Rothfuss; if that doesn't warn you off, I don't know what to tell you. Prior to the posts in this thread I had no idea who the author was and I don't recognize the name you list here. I was just commenting on the summary blurb in the linked page.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2017 13:34
|
|
|
biracial bear for uncut posted:Prior to the posts in this thread I had no idea who the author was and I don't recognize the name you list here. I was just commenting on the summary blurb in the linked page. Patrick Rothfuss wrote the book The Name of the Wind and it's sequel, which are 2 parts of a trilogy, and refuses to write the 3rd book. He's the very definition of a neckbeard and spends all of his time blogging or making whiny twitter posts. Sometimes he evens wanders into a book store and signs OTHER AUTHORS' books. Seriously, maybe one day you'll purchase Way of Kings and you'll open it up and it'll have Patrick Rothfuss's signature inside it with a little note that says "I think this book is the bees knees!" If this is the kind of person whose opinion you would trust, only you can decide, but most people can't stand him.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2017 23:39
|
|
|
I mean, he seems like a perfectly adequate nerd as a person, fairly personable, with some perfectionism/anxiety issues, but people are super salty about the third book. (I'm not, mostly because I didn't bother finishing the first one.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2017 23:43
|
|
|
Looking for series recommendations. Three series I really enjoyed and why: Repairman Jack: Liked the epic high stakes and history/lore behind the overarching story Sandman Slim: Loved the epic heaven and hell thing going on, really like how goofy and fast and loose it is and I'm a huge suckers for L.A. as a setting. Dresden Files: Like the setting, the characters and the world/lore building. I hope that provides a good idea of what would appeal to me? Not looking for anything particularly unique or beloved by the majority or anything, as I'm relatively new to the genre. I just love high stakes, epic (after a build up) urban fantasy with a good world/lore and characters that aren't insufferable. I also just want to say that I think the Sandman Slim series is underrated.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 02:10
|
|
|
Mr Scumbag posted:Looking for series recommendations. I love me some Sandman Slim! I always recommend Stephen Blackmoore's Eric Carter series (3 books so far). Start with his City of the Lost first, though - it's a stand-alone that takes place in the same "universe" with a different protagonist. It's noir LA done really well The tone is more grounded than Kadrey's operatic gonzo shenanigans in the Sandman Slim stories, but the stakes get high (at least one deity get involved) and I don't think anyone writes today's LA better than Blackmoore. Wizchine fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Dec 8, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 08:04
|
|
|
Megazver posted:I mean, he seems like a perfectly adequate nerd as a person, fairly personable, with some perfectionism/anxiety issues, but people are super salty about the third book. (I'm not, mostly because I didn't bother finishing the first one.) Basically imagine he wrote a Twilight.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 09:02
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Part of the problem is that a lot of people are salty about the first two as well. They're bestselling poo poo and propagate a lot of negative stereotypes about fantasy that way. Also, the books have been optioned into a TV series by Lin Manuel Miranda, so we’ll get to a GRR Martin situation where the TV outstrips the books.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 10:19
|
|
|
navyjack posted:Also, the books have been optioned into a TV series by Lin Manuel Miranda, so we’ll get to a GRR Martin situation where the TV outstrips the books. Can't, the TV series is apparently a prequel. Which is unfortunate, I was kind of hoping for a Martin situation so we could actually get the end of the books.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 20:09
|
|
|
Wheat Loaf posted:Hey, this isn't exactly urban fantasy, but can anyone sell me on Jasper Fforde? I enjoy the Thursday Next series, he's built an interesting world that works off of other pieces of fiction well.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 02:44
|
|
|
Mr Scumbag posted:Looking for series recommendations. The Daniel Faust series is solid and ramps up to some pretty great moments. It doesn't go as epic as Slim (yet) but he's not super Dudley Do-Right like Dresden either. You could do worse.
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2017 23:52
|
|
|
Apparently there's a dresden files Coop Card game on the market today, with several expansions for new characters. Anyone played it? Is it any good? Are tehre any other games one could compare it to?
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 03:05
|
|
|
Finished Jennifer Morgue. I liked some of the concepts, liked Mo, but... Again with the anti-climax? Like they raise a squid-God of War, and just as he starts his rampage- it ends. What the gently caress? Isn't this a big deal? Why wasn't defeating the God the climax? You choose to handle THAT off-screen? With another character? What the gently caress. Bob should have been involved, and the resolution should have been shown. I feel like a number of the hooks ( like the leak ) needed a little more work, ditto the characters. Like it isn't bad, but I was left feeling like it should have been better. I liked seeing Mo do her violin thing, though. She's more interesting than Bob. 5.5 - 10. Didn't hate it, but only really liked bits and pieces and ideas. Could have used another draft and some punching up. Man that book would have been loving rad if Jim wrote it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 05:18
|
|
|
NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:Finished Jennifer Morgue. I liked some of the concepts, liked Mo, but... Keep going through the series. Things get really loving intense after The Fuller Memorandum sets up a lot of the plot elements for later books. Mo gets her own solo book where we get to read about how hosed up things actually are whenever she plays the violin (and the poo poo she puts up with when not playing it). Just keep in mind that this universe is not going to have a happy ending. The most recent book makes that really loving clear in the climax to that book's apocalypse-avoidance situation.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 13:58
|
|
|
biracial bear for uncut posted:Just keep in mind that this universe is not going to have a happy ending. The most recent book makes that really loving clear in the climax to that book's apocalypse-avoidance situation. While Stross has said they're not set in the same universe, I assume the end of the series is going to look a lot like A Colder War, where even suicide is pointless, there is no escaping eternal despair and soul-devouring for everyone.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 14:11
|
|
|
ConfusedUs posted:Apparently there's a dresden files Coop Card game on the market today, with several expansions for new characters. I've played it. It's very difficult (which is good) but very random (which is bad). There can be certain arrangements of your player decks and the enemy decks which make the game unwinnable, for example. Overall, I don't think it's very good. There's plenty of other great games out there to buy instead.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 15:46
|
|
|
StonecutterJoe posted:While Stross has said they're not set in the same universe, I assume the end of the series is going to look a lot like A Colder War, where even suicide is pointless, there is no escaping eternal despair and soul-devouring for everyone. I'm contemplating starting the other series Stross has written, but don't know where to start. Any suggestions?
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 16:20
|
|
|
biracial bear for uncut posted:I'm contemplating starting the other series Stross has written, but don't know where to start. Any suggestions? The Merchant Princes series is decent fluff. The Singularity Sky series is excellent space opera SF; the problem is that it incorporates actual scientifically accurate relativistic time in its space travel, with the result that the series includes functional time travel, and he's said he'll never finish it because he wrote himself into a corner. Also it will ruin all other space opera for you for a while because once you understand why FTL travel == time travel, it's *really* hard to forget that when reading other fiction. Accellerando is a neat little one-off book and free download.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 16:23
|
|
|
Blasphemeral posted:I've played it. It's very difficult (which is good) but very random (which is bad). There can be certain arrangements of your player decks and the enemy decks which make the game unwinnable, for example. Overall, I don't think it's very good. There's plenty of other great games out there to buy instead. Have you also played the Arkham Horror card game? It's heavily focused on being hard, and can nearly be unwinnable at times...but it gets around that by having stages and levels of success/failure in each scenario. The ultimate example is the second one in the core set. You have to root out 6 cultists in town, but it's nearly impossible to get them all. There are different resolutions based on how many you do get. Then, if you're playing it as a campaign, your level of success affects the next mission also.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 16:26
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:The Merchant Princes series is decent fluff. Okay, Accellerando and Singularity Sky to start with. What about the Halting State and Freyaverse books?
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 16:33
|
|
|
Halting State was weird. Not bad as such but he wrote it in second person. Freyaverse stuff is decent considering that it's a novel narrated by a literal sex robot, but it's still a novel narrated by a sex robot; you both can and can't judge those books by their covers.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 16:50
|
|
|
You really want to enjoy Halting State, but second person is awkward, grating. Second person in present tense is somehow worse. You put the book down.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 16:56
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Halting State was weird. Not bad as such but he wrote it in second person. A sex bot whose raison d’ętre has been gone for centuries and has the appropriate amount of sex considering this. It's a lot better than the setup sounds.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 16:58
|
|
|
Decius posted:the appropriate amount of sex considering this. I vaguely remember a scene where she somehow has sex with a . . . car? rollercoaster? Lots of things in that series are robots with sex drives that you wouldn't necessarily expect to be either But yeah it's well-executed given the premise
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 17:15
|
|
|
Saturn's Children is pretty explicitly a tribute to Robert A Heinlein's Friday, and if you're familiar with that book it shows a bit too much. The US cover is absolutely hilarious though - it's absolutely boggling that someone was paid to create that and that several people looked at it and said "yes, that's the image that will sell this book!"
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 17:49
|
|
|
ookiimarukochan posted:Saturn's Children is pretty explicitly a tribute to Robert A Heinlein's Friday, and if you're familiar with that book it shows a bit too much. The US cover is absolutely hilarious though - it's absolutely boggling that someone was paid to create that and that several people looked at it and said "yes, that's the image that will sell this book!" Yes! It's the worst cover!
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 17:54
|
|
|
Sort of related question. People recommending the Daniel Faust series, presumably you're reading it on some flavour of Kindle. How is that? I'm somewhat reluctant to make the jump.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:05
|
|
|
Beachcomber posted:some flavour of Kindle. How is that? I'm somewhat reluctant to make the jump. From paper books? Kindles are great and if you don't mind reading out-of-copyright books the single most cost-effective bookpurchase you can make. There are zillions of free books in the kindle store so long as you like reading stuff published before 1930. Get one with buttons though the pure Touch is kinda annoying.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:06
|
|
|
My kindle is my single most-used device (more than my phone, even) and I couldn't live without it. I regret nothing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:11
|
|
|
And there's no eyestrain?
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:12
|
|
|
Beachcomber posted:And there's no eyestrain? Less than with a paper book. You can easily adjust the font size upwards when your eyes get tired. There might be eyestrain if you had some sort of medical condition maybe but visually it's akin to a printed page, not an illuminated screen.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:15
|
|
|
To add to that, even the models with a backlight have a soft diffuse light that feels more like you're reading a perfectly lit regular page than staring at a glowing screen.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:31
|
|
|
Yeah, don't go for the Fire - go for the other ones geared 100% for reading. They're worth every penny. I do prefer some books bound: Reference - old-school books are still easier to just pick up and go to a pot Books with high-quality illustrations Poetry Everything else is on Kindle. Wizchine fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Dec 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:43
|
|
|
Yeah, annotated editions and comics are best in hard copy. Kindle is best for things you'd read in paperback. Other ereaders are presumably good also
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:48
|
|
|
Beachcomber posted:And there's no eyestrain? None, it's not like a screen. It is tiny ink balls suspended in liquid that are turned black or transparent by applying a short burst of electricity. It's very much like reading from a very smooth paper.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:52
|
|
|
But absolutely get the Paperwhite or better editions of the Kindle. At 300dpi it's like a high quality print edition. It's a warm blanket of words set in softly glowing sea for your eye-orbs.
Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Dec 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 18:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 05:24 |
|
|
Proteus Jones posted:But absolutely get the Paperwhite or better editions of the Kindle. At 300dpi it's like a high quality print edition. It's like a warm blanket of words for your eye-orbs. This. The Paperwhite is fantastic, a dream to read on both in terms of eyestrain and has stuff like bookmarking, word look-up, notes, it's just a great little electronic buddy. Also, less expensive than the Kindle Fire tablet.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2017 19:04
|
|