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The whole novel slate this year seems pretty low-key.
Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Feb 20, 2019 |
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Feb 20, 2019 22:40
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The Tea Master and the Detective is great and I wish she wrote more stories about them. The novel category seems pretty weak, though. e: Does Bandersnatch even count as game writing? anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Feb 20, 2019 |
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Feb 20, 2019 23:02
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anilEhilated posted:The Tea Master and the Detective is great and I wish she wrote more stories about them. The novel category seems pretty weak, though. It is a FMV game, so, yes.
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Feb 20, 2019 23:06
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anilEhilated posted:The novel category seems pretty weak, though.
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Feb 20, 2019 23:13
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Lunsku posted:I think I need Novik's Spinning Silver. I really enjoyed Uprooted and that might be in same spirit if I'm looking right. It's very much in the same vein as Uprooted and I liked it more, so yeah, would recommend.
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Feb 21, 2019 01:50
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Spinning Silver is pretty much the only fantasy book on my to-read list right now. I gave it to my mom for Christmas since she and I both loved Uprooted. She just finished Spinning Silver and liked it even better than Uprooted, so I’m pretty stoked. My mother is a woman of exceptional taste.
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Feb 21, 2019 05:14
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pseudanonymous posted:It probably would be a pretty good trilogy if it only followed the protagonist, instead of following him, his friend, his ex, his other friend, a girl who likes him, the town witch, the other girl who likes him, his teacher, his friends' wife, his fencing teacher, the other other girl who likes him, and his ex's beau, and those are only the POVs with more than 20 chapters. This is why I still like the first two books and wish I could finish that series, and not the mess it became from book 3, and especially book 5, onwards.
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Feb 21, 2019 07:59
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ToxicFrog posted:It's very much in the same vein as Uprooted and I liked it more, so yeah, would recommend. sold then
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Feb 21, 2019 08:25
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Sham bam bamina! posted:The whole novel slate this year seems pretty low-key. I must still be buried in the previous year's reading list. I haven't heard of any of these but "The Calculating Stars".
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Feb 21, 2019 16:34
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Lunsku posted:I think I need Novik's Spinning Silver. I really enjoyed Uprooted and that might be in same spirit if I'm looking right. Spinning Silver was decent but not as good as Uprooted IMO. Edit: Regarding the nominations, I'd probably put The Calculating Stars at the top of the stack, although I haven't read The Poppy War, Blackfish City or Witchmark.
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Feb 21, 2019 17:32
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Of the ones I haven't read, Blackfish City is at the top of my list, probably because of the one guy here who was hyping it. It sounds fairly awesome.
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Feb 21, 2019 17:46
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I'd put Spinning Silver at the top - Uprooted is better IMO but Naomi Novik's writing is just so extremely my thing and this is my favourite from this year's nominations. The Poppy War was really good. I was expecting it to be a reasonably cliched and tired story but I tore through it in a day. The Calculating Stars is a fun, well-written alt-history. I'd recommend it but I wouldn't encourage you to rush out and buy it. Trail of Lightning is a refreshing take on the urban fantasy/monster hunter story but the writing is just decent. I'm still keen to see where the author goes from here. I haven't read the other two but they've crept up the list. Blackfish City sounds rad as hell.
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Feb 22, 2019 00:08
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Captain_Person posted:The Poppy War was really good. I was expecting it to be a reasonably cliched and tired story but I tore through it in a day. I was really excited about The Poppy War when it was first announced, I ended up giving up on it about 65% in. Felt really YA/immature to me, and the writing a little bland and lacking in depth, but twitter (especially women) seemed to love it, a lot of posts about trigger warnings and how people really connected to it about how dark it was. I think its just because i'm a big dumb bloke and not 'getting it' rather than it being bad if i'm honest with myself. ed balls balls man fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Feb 22, 2019 |
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Feb 22, 2019 13:41
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Some of y'all are probably wondering if you should go read A People's Future of the United States. You probably should. In addition to a killer list of authors (NK Jemisin, G Willow Wilson, Catherynne Valente, Seanan McGuire, Malka Older, Hugh Howey, Leslie Nneka Arimah, Charles Yu among others), it's really a good collection.
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Feb 22, 2019 16:55
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Ben Nevis posted:Of the ones I haven't read, Blackfish City is at the top of my list, probably because of the one guy here who was hyping it. It sounds fairly awesome. On the other hand, it's one of the few modern cyberpunk novels that actually get the "punk" part of the genre.
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Feb 22, 2019 17:05
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Hey I finished Foundation and had mixed but overall positive opinions of it. I liked the grand sweep of history and the stuff about a decaying empire with the periphery degenerating into warring kingdoms, and the stuff about attempting to keep technology alive was kinda neat, but the 'psycho-history' concept is kinda silly and it has that kind of elitist technocratic vibe that kinda puts me off turn of the century scifi. Given these opinions are any of the sequels worth reading or should I just go straight to Dune
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Feb 22, 2019 17:11
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The original trilogy is good, F&E is the best one because The Mule kicks rear end. Second Foundation is neat. The rest by Asimov are spotty and skippable unless you're invested in the Robot/Empire/Foundation universe. The prequals are meh. The ones by other authors are all no good, from what I recall.
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Feb 22, 2019 17:57
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StashAugustine posted:Hey I finished Foundation and had mixed but overall positive opinions of it. I liked the grand sweep of history and the stuff about a decaying empire with the periphery degenerating into warring kingdoms, and the stuff about attempting to keep technology alive was kinda neat, but the 'psycho-history' concept is kinda silly and it has that kind of elitist technocratic vibe that kinda puts me off turn of the century scifi. Given these opinions are any of the sequels worth reading or should I just go straight to Dune I think it's worth continuing on. I actually found the first book the most uninteresting because the stories were just problem-solution, problem-solution. The sequels shake things up a bit and make it more interesting.
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Feb 22, 2019 18:14
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my bony fealty posted:The original trilogy is good, F&E is the best one because The Mule kicks rear end. Second Foundation is neat. Brin's has a really cool moment at the very end, but getting there probably isn't worth slogging through the other two.
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Feb 22, 2019 18:18
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Brin is really good, no matter what genre he writes. Been reading some of Brin's short stories/novellas. Temptation was a good novella peek back into Brin's Uplift universe, and I'm fully down for whatever/wherever/whenever the next Uplift story takes place. Qualifier: I disavow the previous statement if Brian Herbert or KJA ever get involved in Brin's work.
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Feb 22, 2019 18:52
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Brin is really good, no matter what genre he writes. Been reading some of Brin's short stories/novellas. I'm a huge fan of Brin! I haven't yet read his latest collection, though. Do need to re-read Existence. I like his experimenting with different writing styles.
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Feb 22, 2019 21:48
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StashAugustine posted:that kind of elitist technocratic vibe that kinda puts me off turn of the century scifi. If you really dislike that kind of thing, Asimov in general probably isn't for you. Moorcock was going too far when he implied that Asimov was one of several SF writers who were "crypto-Stalinists," but Asimov was consistently very ... anti-anti-intellectual, I guess. Edit: But it definitely comes up more in the Foundation books, as opposed to the Robots stories where the characters are dealing with smaller-scale problems. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Feb 22, 2019 |
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Feb 22, 2019 22:45
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Popping in again to say I've tripped over a gem in my Kindle sample slush pile: The Gutter Prayer. It's historical-urban-fantasy a la Locke Lamora/Perdido Street/City of Stairs/Three Parts. Like those it's reasonably well written, with an unusual universe and a plot full of factions and schemes, but unlike those it's recently published and seemingly beneath everyone's radar still. 4.2 on Goodreads, 4.4 on Amazon, and I've just burnt through it in two successive evenings.
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Feb 23, 2019 00:31
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coffeetable posted:Popping in again to say I've tripped over a gem in my Kindle sample slush pile: The Gutter Prayer. It's historical-urban-fantasy a la Locke Lamora/Perdido Street/City of Stairs/Three Parts. Like those it's reasonably well written, with an unusual universe and a plot full of factions and schemes, but unlike those it's recently published and seemingly beneath everyone's radar still. 4.2 on Goodreads, 4.4 on Amazon, and I've just burnt through it in two successive evenings. I've heard good things of this.
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Feb 23, 2019 00:46
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Silver2195 posted:If you really dislike that kind of thing, Asimov in general probably isn't for you. Moorcock was going too far when he implied that Asimov was one of several SF writers who were "crypto-Stalinists," but Asimov was consistently very ... anti-anti-intellectual, I guess. Asimov typified the phrase "miles wide, inch deep" author. Dude churned out so much stuff in so many different genres that peak productivity/cocaine-era Stephen King looked like a slacker in comparison. Don't expect deep characterization in Asimov books, Asimov didn't have time for writing that stuff. IE, definitely remember Asimov on Shakespeare/Mathematics/Physics/Religion books, not counting Asimov's editorship of dozens of scifi collections/Hugo Award winner collections. Half suspect there is 60% complete drafts of Asimov on: Cowboys/Metaphysics/Cooking moldering in the archives of Asimov's literary estate.
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Feb 23, 2019 02:07
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Has anything come out since Traitor Baru that also has "What the gently caress" moments? Alternately, whats a popular scifi standalone/short series atm. I've read the first 3 books in the Expanse series recently, and 3 Body Problem trilogy before that which was incredible. It may be my favorite scifi I've read.
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Feb 23, 2019 10:56
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coffeetable posted:Popping in again to say I've tripped over a gem in my Kindle sample slush pile: The Gutter Prayer. It's historical-urban-fantasy a la Locke Lamora/Perdido Street/City of Stairs/Three Parts. Like those it's reasonably well written, with an unusual universe and a plot full of factions and schemes, but unlike those it's recently published and seemingly beneath everyone's radar still. 4.2 on Goodreads, 4.4 on Amazon, and I've just burnt through it in two successive evenings.
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Feb 23, 2019 11:59
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^^ I'll be interested to hear if you don't, because to me it felt triangulated by those books. goodness posted:Has anything come out since Traitor Baru that also has "What the gently caress" moments? coffeetable fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Feb 23, 2019 |
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Feb 23, 2019 12:07
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Anyone read the Bobiverse books? Other than the stupid title and some occasional really cringey nerd humor, I really like the concept and like the first book so far. Do they stay decent?
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Feb 23, 2019 13:12
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Anyone read the Bobiverse books? Other than the stupid title and some occasional really cringey nerd humor, I really like the concept and like the first book so far. Do they stay decent? Yeah, they're pretty much what it says on the tin. Also the trilogy does not overstay its welcome.
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Feb 23, 2019 13:21
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Anyone read the Bobiverse books? Other than the stupid title and some occasional really cringey nerd humor, I really like the concept and like the first book so far. Do they stay decent? Yeah, they're pretty good.
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Feb 23, 2019 13:25
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Ehhhh bobiverse is "ok". It pays the barest lip service to the metaphysical questions raised and sidestepped what could have been interesting ideas. You're going to end it thinking it was a really shallow take on a cool idea that deserved a better writer.
Bhodi fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Feb 23, 2019 |
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Feb 23, 2019 16:11
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coffeetable posted:Popping in again to say I've tripped over a gem in my Kindle sample slush pile: The Gutter Prayer. It's historical-urban-fantasy a la Locke Lamora/Perdido Street/City of Stairs/Three Parts. Like those it's reasonably well written, with an unusual universe and a plot full of factions and schemes, but unlike those it's recently published and seemingly beneath everyone's radar still. 4.2 on Goodreads, 4.4 on Amazon, and I've just burnt through it in two successive evenings. I finished this one a few days ago. It was pretty good.
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Feb 23, 2019 16:30
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goodness posted:Has anything come out since Traitor Baru that also has "What the gently caress" moments?
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Feb 23, 2019 17:06
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Blackfish City and Trail of Lightning should have been short stories not novels. Poppy War was YA garbage. What a sad Novels slate that is.
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Feb 23, 2019 19:06
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coffeetable posted:Popping in again to say I've tripped over a gem in my Kindle sample slush pile: The Gutter Prayer. It's historical-urban-fantasy a la Locke Lamora/Perdido Street/City of Stairs/Three Parts. Like those it's reasonably well written, with an unusual universe and a plot full of factions and schemes, but unlike those it's recently published and seemingly beneath everyone's radar still. 4.2 on Goodreads, 4.4 on Amazon, and I've just burnt through it in two successive evenings. Just picked this up, will roast if bad. ShutteredIn posted:Blackfish City and Trail of Lightning should have been short stories not novels. Poppy War was YA garbage. What a sad Novels slate that is. I'm glad it's not just me who thought this about The Poppy War.
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Feb 23, 2019 21:05
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ed balls balls man posted:I'm glad it's not just me who thought this about The Poppy War. It feels like Nebulas has been struck by whatever is affecting Hugo nominees these days.
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Feb 23, 2019 23:00
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Granted that the Nebula slate is pretty lackluster, are there better books being passed over? Or is the field in a rut these days?
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Feb 24, 2019 06:47
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Patrick Spens posted:Granted that the Nebula slate is pretty lackluster, are there better books being passed over? Or is the field in a rut these days? Maybe Gnomon, depending on whether it's actually eligible. (UK publication was late 2017, US early 2018. Hugo rules let it compete this year, not sure about Nebula rules.) Otherwise, not sure. The Monster Baru? Red Moon?
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Feb 24, 2019 07:24
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Seems we have a discussion about the disappointing nominations for major awards every year. Starting to think they should be run every 3 - 5 years instead of one. Or that there should be a biennial or quinquennial award in addition to the annual award.
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Feb 24, 2019 09:02
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