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Finished Startide Rising. I still like the story and pacing, and sense of mystery, but it still felt pretty cringe-ey a lot of the time. Finished Freeze Frame Revolution. I enjoyed it. Trying the new Richard Morgan now.
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Dec 11, 2018 03:55
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uberkeyzer posted:Good goal post moving from all fantasy to “genre fantasy,” which I guess means bad fantasy? It seems pretty clear that 'genre fantasy' is what was meant in the first place, you seem to be using a definition where like the Iliad or something is fantasy because it has gods and magic and stuff like that in it. Like you're looking at content first and then saying it's fantasy based only on that, in which case fantasy is such a wide ranging term as to be meaningless.
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Dec 11, 2018 05:37
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NmareBfly posted:Tonight I got a few books from my Dad as belated Hannukah presents and they were: Baru 1, The first murderbot novella, and an ancient book of Cordwainer Smith short stories. I'm 100% positive he does not read this thread or even know what this forum is so it was very weird. Hmm. I've never seen that one before and I thought I knew most of Smith's publications. *checks Amazon for contents* "No, No, Not Rogov!," "The Lady Who Sailed the Soul," "Scanners Live in Vain," "The Game of Rat and Dragon," "The Burning of the Brain," "Golden The Ship Was -- Oh! Oh! Oh!," "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," and "Mark Elf." That's a pretty decent collection. Seems to be mostly his space travel stories -- I'm surprised they didn't include "The Colonel Came Back from Nothing-at-All" or "Drunkboat."
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Dec 11, 2018 05:43
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gvibes posted:Finished Startide Rising. I still like the story and pacing, and sense of mystery, but it still felt pretty cringe-ey a lot of the time. Just chiming in to say I finished FFR too and liked it a lot, just wish it was longer
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Dec 11, 2018 08:38
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not sure why neal stephenson (could end here) decided to make his next work a follow up to one of his worst books reamde and also make it a post death exploration on metaphysics in a virtual world. i mean i'll buy it but i'll probably hate myself for it.
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Dec 11, 2018 13:35
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branedotorg posted:not sure why neal stephenson (could end here) Even in the worst case, the digressions will be worth reading.
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Dec 11, 2018 13:36
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branedotorg posted:not sure why neal stephenson (could end here) The publisher's summary makes it sound pretty lame, and it's 880 pages. Unless it gets rave reviews, it seems safe to skip.
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Dec 11, 2018 14:50
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branedotorg posted:not sure why neal stephenson (could end here) Is it Snowcrash?
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Dec 11, 2018 16:01
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gvibes posted:Finished Startide Rising. I still like the story and pacing, and sense of mystery, but it still felt pretty cringe-ey a lot of the time. Why is it cringey? Not disputing that it is, just haven't read it in 20+ years and a lot of stuff sailed over teenage me's head.
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Dec 11, 2018 16:56
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A human heart posted:It seems pretty clear that 'genre fantasy' is what was meant in the first place, you seem to be using a definition where like the Iliad or something is fantasy because it has gods and magic and stuff like that in it. Like you're looking at content first and then saying it's fantasy based only on that, in which case fantasy is such a wide ranging term as to be meaningless. I agree that it is meaningless, more or less. Which was kind of my point in responding to your pronouncement that fantasy (not genre fantasy) was juvenile. If you think adolescent power fantasy should be reserved for middle schoolers and that grown ups should grow the gently caress up, I don’t necessarily disagree with you. But China Mieville’s New Crobuzon books, The Book of the New Sun, and, Jo Walton’s Among Others are so different from one another and from, say, Terry Goodkind that lumping them in together as fantasy with the same “purpose” and then dismissing them makes no sense. I’m assuming you’ve read none of these books (or The Buried Giant, or NLMG) based on your steadfast refusal to actually engage on something more interesting than a “what is genre” slap fight.
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Dec 11, 2018 17:28
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uberkeyzer, A human heart's only reason for posting is to be as abrasive as possible.
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Dec 11, 2018 17:43
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branedotorg posted:not sure why neal stephenson (could end here) I liked reamde 
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Dec 11, 2018 18:08
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The expanse is on sale for the first three. Worth it?
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Dec 11, 2018 18:14
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This month's free Tor.com eBook of the Month is Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald https://ebookclub.tor.com/
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Dec 11, 2018 18:34
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Fart of Presto posted:This month's free Tor.com eBook of the Month is Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald If you haven't read this before, I can't recommend it enough. I know it's a loving tired phrase but it's ASOIAF in space. It's up there with KSR or Stephen Baxter's stuff.
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Dec 11, 2018 19:12
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ed balls balls man posted:If you haven't read this before, I can't recommend it enough. I know it's a loving tired phrase but it's ASOIAF in space. It's up there with KSR or Stephen Baxter's stuff. It's better than that! I have never enjoyed either of those dudes and I found this one to be great reading - inventive, great characters, and the concept of having to pay for your oxygen on the Moon is wonderfully horrific and realistic.
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Dec 11, 2018 19:23
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Yeah that series is great and the last book in the trilogy is due out in a few months. I think McDonald is probably the best prose stylist in contemporary SF. He also writes really, really great setpieces - the coup/uprising/war that spreads across the moon in the second book, initially told from the POV of a character who's isolated and cut off and not quite sure what's happening, is superbly put together.
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Dec 11, 2018 23:55
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mewse posted:I liked reamde I liked it too, up to the point where Stephenson got bored. Some great action scenes, though.
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Dec 12, 2018 02:45
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reamde was the Neal Stephenson book with the ultra-smug protagonists responsible for 90% of the deaths in the book and a literal deus-ex cougar. Wouldn't recommend reamde to anyone, even Neal Stephenson fans.
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Dec 12, 2018 04:17
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Stephenson has the distiction of being the only author whose books I've failed to finish twice. I could not get through Reamde or Snowcrash. They both bored me to tears. Like even when I hate a book I'll usually press through, to mock it if nothing else (see also: everything Rothfuss writes). I couldn't even hateread his poo poo. It was so dull I can't even muster up contempt for the story or quality of the prose.
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Dec 12, 2018 04:45
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:R. Scott Bakker - Prince of Nothing Learned Good post. Thanks for writing it.
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Dec 12, 2018 06:17
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Amethyst posted:Good post. Thanks for writing it. FYI, you are citing a poster that have been kicked out of almost every thread he has participated in. In actual thread things, McDonald is great and the Luna series is not even the best he has written. He hits that niche that Gibson stopped doing long ago. Also, the latest Morgan was enjoyable. While certain parts of Morgan’s writing is rather cringe-worthy I have always enjoyed his utter rage and cynicism.
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Dec 12, 2018 06:50
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Cardiac posted:FYI, you are citing a poster that have been kicked out of almost every thread he has participated in. Yeah SA is full of oversensitive fans, tell me something I don't know.
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Dec 12, 2018 07:05
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When BOTL actually criticizes genre books and writes posts like the one above, it’s good and funny. I completely agree with his analysis of Bakker, although I’ve read and enjoyed the series BOTL dismembers in the quoted post above. Unfortunately, BOTL prefers low effort nerd baiting that only brings drama to the forums. That’s why he’s probed 90 percent of the time.
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Dec 12, 2018 07:46
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:When BOTL actually criticizes genre books and writes posts like the one above, it’s good and funny. I completely agree with his analysis of Bakker, although I’ve read and enjoyed the series BOTL dismembers in the quoted post above. Unfortunately, BOTL prefers low effort nerd baiting that only brings drama to the forums. That’s why he’s probed 90 percent of the time.
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Dec 12, 2018 11:05
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mewse posted:I liked reamde So did I! I mean, I thought it was absolute trash, in the very It was dumb semi-coherent pile of setpieces which read very much as though he'd taken to heart the old Chandler adage of "When you don't know what to do next, have a man burst through the door with a gun." And sometimes that's just what I want out of a book. 
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Dec 12, 2018 12:52
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anilEhilated posted:I'm finding the difference mostly comes down to "do I like the book he's roasting Y/N". I mean, I like Wolfe, I think some of the points he used against him were unfair but it was pretty funny so whatever; some people will poo poo on genre fiction no matter what. Basically, don't take him seriously. I mostly ignore him, since he doesn't actually say anything interesting. Then I again, I don't consider literary critic as something worthwhile. In the end a book is just a book.
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Dec 12, 2018 13:36
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mewse posted:I liked reamde Man I'm not current. I thought people kept misspelling remade and wondered how you remake a book.
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Dec 12, 2018 13:38
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How's Robert Jackson Bennett's latest? I was really looking forward to it after enjoying the whole Divine Cities trilogy but but it kinda got pushed back in my list and it doesn't seem to have come up here much.
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Dec 12, 2018 14:11
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Just finished DWJ's The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which is a sort of Devil's Dictionary of epic fantasy, written with the framing that all epic fantasy is, basically, a guided theme park tour of "fantasyland" (which explains its formulaic repetition and why no-one is allowed to kill the Dark Lord until they've paid for the third Like The Devil's Dictionary and The Devil's D.P. Dictionary, it runs out of amusement before it runs out of material; it's probably better read in short bursts interspersed with something else. It can be a fun game to read each entry and see if you can figure out if it's ripping on a specific book or author (and if so, which one) or just a recurring cliche or genre convention. I've now started in on The Dark Lord of Derkholm, a novel of hers which is basically the same premise turned into a story rather than a glossary; it opens with the Generic Fantasy Council discussing (a) who has to be the Dark Lord for the upcoming tourist season, (b) how best to mitigate the damage from dozens of tourists marching through waving their magic swords and each one thinking they're the saviour of the world and (c) whether it's possible for them to exit the tourism business entirely, because it comes with a lot of collateral damage and is seriously loving up the economy. Take the plunge! Okay! posted:When BOTL actually criticizes genre books and writes posts like the one above, it's good and funny. I completely agree with his analysis of Bakker, although I've read and enjoyed the series BOTL dismembers in the quoted post above. Unfortunately, BOTL prefers low effort nerd baiting that only brings drama to the forums. That's why he's probed 90 percent of the time. BOTL may exist solely to burst into threads about enjoying Thing in order to say "actually, Thing is Bad and you shouldn't enjoy it", but at least they sometimes put in the effort to explain why Thing is Bad. That's often interesting or funny, and has substance you can engage with if you care to. In contrast, I'm pretty sure you could replace A human heart with a cron job that posts "book is poo poo, don't read it" to a random TBB thread once a day and it would take at least a month before anyone noticed.
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Dec 12, 2018 14:17
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a human heart is a demon created specifically to torment me with posting about tantalizingly attractive books that are unavailable on Kindle and don’t ship to my country
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Dec 12, 2018 15:03
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Got Luna from Tor club and the guy really knows how to write a hook. The space run that opens the book is great. Library at Mount Char was $2 on kindle yesterday so I’ll finally be getting around to reading that too.x
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Dec 12, 2018 16:16
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Has this thread ever brought up God's War by Kameron Hurley before? Or anything by her? I didn't realize I was missing a bug-infested sci-fi thriller until it walked into my life and told me that the main character sold her uterus in the first sentence of the book. I'd call it more cultural-focused sci-fi than hard, as it wants to spend way more time exploring the ramifications of a society where 96% of all men are off at war, so it's women everywhere, and privileges have been flipped on their head. The author is definitely a feminist, which I'm digging.
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Dec 12, 2018 16:29
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StrixNebulosa posted:Has this thread ever brought up God's War by Kameron Hurley before? Or anything by her? I didn't realize I was missing a bug-infested sci-fi thriller until it walked into my life and told me that the main character sold her uterus in the first sentence of the book. It was a recurring thread favourite a while ago -- I think last year when her stand-alone novel The Stars Are Legion came out. Try searching for [threadid:3554972 "God's War"]. I bounced off God's War less than halfway through the book but loved TSAL.
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Dec 12, 2018 17:37
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I just finished up Vita Nostra, a translation of a novel written in Russian by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko. It's in the same genre as Harry Potter/The Magicians etc. where a girl attends a secret magic school but I think only terms of the broad plot elements. It's pretty different, "dark" is what the reviews keep saying but I'd call it grim? Or maybe stark? Stark is probably not the right word, because it's not without optimism, either.
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Dec 12, 2018 18:01
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ToxicFrog posted:It was a recurring thread favourite a while ago -- I think last year when her stand-alone novel The Stars Are Legion came out. Try searching for [threadid:3554972 "God's War"]. Thanks! Grimson posted:I just finished up Vita Nostra, a translation of a novel written in Russian by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko. It's in the same genre as Harry Potter/The Magicians etc. where a girl attends a secret magic school but I think only terms of the broad plot elements. It's pretty different, "dark" is what the reviews keep saying but I'd call it grim? Or maybe stark? Stark is probably not the right word, because it's not without optimism, either. What do you like about it?
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Dec 12, 2018 18:15
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ToxicFrog posted:BOTL may exist solely to burst into threads about enjoying Thing in order to say "actually, Thing is Bad and you shouldn't enjoy it", but at least they sometimes put in the effort to explain why Thing is Bad. That's often interesting or funny, and has substance you can engage with if you care to. I thought they existed solely for Clevin edits
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Dec 12, 2018 19:22
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StrixNebulosa posted:What do you like about it? It's way closer to the Magicians than Harry Potter, but the ways that Sasha is self centered aren't quite so hate-able and upper-middle class white boy eunni as they are with Quentin. I say this as someone who has in the past had an unfortunate amount in common with Quentin. I really love and identify with parts of The Magicians trilogy but I recognize their narrowness at the same time. I also like that unlike lots of other books that do this thing there's a real sense of mystery about why they students are there. The place these students go is called The Institute of Special Technologies and the tasks they're given start out nonsensical, but the reason for them being there and the end goal of their "education" unfolds slowly and interestingly as the book goes on. As a reader of the genre we have a little more insight into what's happening then the students, but not that much so I kept wanting to read to understand what was going on. Sasha isn't a character whose life I identify with that closely, but none the less I really feel for the ways that she struggles.
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Dec 12, 2018 21:08
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juliuspringle posted:wondered how you remake a book. https://www.amazon.com/Night-Land-Story-Retold/dp/0615508812/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
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Dec 12, 2018 22:54
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I've been reading a lot of upbeat, optimistic sci-fi lately, but I'd like a change of pace. What are the best books that involve first contact with an alien species that maybe doesn't really go as planned? I'm sure there's tons, but the only one I've read in recent memory is Blindsight.
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Dec 12, 2018 23:08
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