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I've kept that list bookmarked ever since Hieronymous brought it up. I think the author I'm most interested in checking out is James Branch Cabell, since I live near a college campus where the library is named after him. Is he any good?
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Feb 27, 2019 22:34
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I will never get over how weird it seems that Cabell Library is named after Cabell, granted it makes sense given that the man was from Richmond, I used to live right down the street and loved going there Jurgen has been on my to-read list forever and I think ill pick it up next thanks for the reminder
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Feb 27, 2019 23:57
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Solitair posted:I've kept that list bookmarked ever since Hieronymous brought it up. I think the author I'm most interested in checking out is James Branch Cabell, since I live near a college campus where the library is named after him. Is he any good? He's weird. He's not really a fantasy writer in the sense we think of today. BotL would probably like him.
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Feb 28, 2019 00:22
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anilEhilated posted:Anyone actually read anything by Ernest Bramah? Going through this guy's description it seems to be a set of horribly Orientalist farces in the best retrotradition of Bridge of Birds, but he rates it at five stars while Hughart got two... Consider my interest piqued. I read a bit of one of the Kai Lung books. I don't know if I really gave it a fair shake; it was something I was reading in my downtime at work, which probably wasn't the best way to engage with it, but I certainly wouldn't rate it as highly as Bridge of Birds.
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Feb 28, 2019 11:22
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Reddit is doing an AMA with the Small Angry Planet author : https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/avtcb5/hi_reddit_im_becky_chambers_author_of_the_long/ The_White_Crane posted:I read a bit of one of the Kai Lung books. I don't know if I really gave it a fair shake; it was something I was reading in my downtime at work, which probably wasn't the best way to engage with it, but I certainly wouldn't rate it as highly as Bridge of Birds. Yeah, it's older and has a neat flowery prose style and you can see the influence but it doesn't have the warmth or characterization that makes Bridge of Birds such a perennial charmer. Basically it's really, really hard for a white Western dude to write that kind of thing without coming off badly and it's a miracle Hughart managed it as well as he did.
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Feb 28, 2019 18:38
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Old book but I'm reading pattern recognition right now and I didnt realize you could make a spy novel about supermechagodzilla posts
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Feb 28, 2019 21:22
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StashAugustine posted:Old book but I'm reading pattern recognition right now and I didnt realize you could make a spy novel about supermechagodzilla posts The whole blue ant trilogy is interesting but weird. I think Gibson has gotten stronger as a writer but at the same time, he takes fewer risks in his projections. The Sprawl trilogy is a crazy complete vision of the future, it's wrong, but it's daring. Blue ant is far less of a leap, and in some ways more believable I guess, but I found it kind of sad.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:15
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pseudanonymous posted:The whole blue ant trilogy is interesting but weird. I think Gibson has gotten stronger as a writer but at the same time, he takes fewer risks in his projections. The Sprawl trilogy is a crazy complete vision of the future, it's wrong, but it's daring. Blue ant is far less of a leap, and in some ways more believable I guess, but I found it kind of sad. I viewed it as kind of a tempering of youthful vision. In the 80s the future was going to be a really advanced technological dystopia with corporatemen vs the rest of the world. In the 90s, it was a significant disaffected population with enhanced technology and VR idols dominating the airwaves. In the 2000s, we know the future kind of sucks, not in a way that inspires wonder, but marvelling about "influencers" jockeying for military pants.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:55
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And in the 2010s we know that the klept will kill us all.
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Feb 28, 2019 23:04
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Nigerians in Space was nothing like I was expecting, but it was pretty good. Has anyone read After the Flare?
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Feb 28, 2019 23:12
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pseudanonymous posted:The whole blue ant trilogy is interesting but weird. I think Gibson has gotten stronger as a writer but at the same time, he takes fewer risks in his projections. The Sprawl trilogy is a crazy complete vision of the future, it's wrong, but it's daring. Blue ant is far less of a leap, and in some ways more believable I guess, but I found it kind of sad. Loved the entire Blue Ant series, great aesthetic.
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Mar 1, 2019 01:05
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pseudanonymous posted:The whole blue ant trilogy is interesting but weird. I think Gibson has gotten stronger as a writer but at the same time, he takes fewer risks in his projections. The Sprawl trilogy is a crazy complete vision of the future, it's wrong, but it's daring. Blue ant is far less of a leap, and in some ways more believable I guess, but I found it kind of sad. I also really liked the blue ant books.
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Mar 1, 2019 04:06
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how come none of you fuckers told me a Ruthanna Emrys sequel to Winter Tide came out it is extremely good; still very personal and intimate, but also delves into some real interesting ethics and sociology questions i might actually like it more than Tide
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Mar 1, 2019 07:02
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GreyjoyBastard posted:how come none of you fuckers told me a Ruthanna Emrys sequel to Winter Tide came out anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 09:24 on Mar 2, 2019 |
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Mar 1, 2019 12:37
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Is it worth reading the Stormlight books by Sanderson at the moment? A friend of mine gave me his GraphicAudio versions but even the Graphic abridged versions are still super long, longer than I'm willing to invest blind. I know it's an unfinished series, but are the three books out now a reasonable story arc on their own, or is it just going to be annoying as hell to reach the end and feel cheated?
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Mar 2, 2019 01:50
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nessin posted:Is it worth reading the Stormlight books by Sanderson at the moment? A friend of mine gave me his GraphicAudio versions but even the Graphic abridged versions are still super long, longer than I'm willing to invest blind. I know it's an unfinished series, but are the three books out now a reasonable story arc on their own, or is it just going to be annoying as hell to reach the end and feel cheated? The Graphic Audio versions are completely fantastic, and the books don't end on any major cliffhangers in my opinion.
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Mar 2, 2019 02:30
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I’ve got up to ringworld on my sf masterworks list, always thought people were probably indulging in a bit of hyperbole with regards to the sexism, but nope, Larry Niven seems to actively hate women. Book definitely goes out of its way to drive home that women are figuratively and often literally a lesser species. Tedious.
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Mar 2, 2019 22:28
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Read Ann Leckie's the raven tower, would have enjoyed it 300% more if it wasn't in second person (you really hate that literary device, because you find it ruins immersion) but it was still good, and I'd love to see more in this world - I've read some of her short stories set in it, too.
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Mar 3, 2019 14:13
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coolusername posted:Read Ann Leckie's the raven tower, would have enjoyed it 300% more if it wasn't in second person (you really hate that literary device, because you find it ruins immersion) but it was still good, and I'd love to see more in this world - I've read some of her short stories set in it, too. I look forward to her next novel, where after bravely experimenting with gender and person, she writes the entire thing in Third Conditional. (It'll probably be a time travel story.)
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Mar 3, 2019 15:49
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Leckie chat: Tea drinking ceremonies are probably much easier to describe/write via the second pesrson narrative. Anyway thinking of doing a book donation drive for the Open Library project. OLP is pretty cool, disabled people get first dibs on stuff, and OLP non-destructively scans donated books to create lendable pdf/epub docs. Have a few cryptography books, some classic scifi-paperbacks, the horrifying oral history of japan at war, and a few other things collected
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Mar 3, 2019 16:06
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Megazver posted:I look forward to her next novel, where after bravely experimenting with gender and person, she writes the entire thing in Third Conditional. (It'll probably be a time travel story.) If she had used a different narrative device, the book would have been more enjoyable for me, and she wouldn't have had such mixed reviews if she hadn't used that new technique. She could have had a more generic novel but had she had done that, I would have had a lot of surprising feelings due to my expectations that she would have done something different. I would have appreciated the second person warning before I had bought the book on kindle, but I hadn't looked it up before the payment was done.
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Mar 3, 2019 16:14
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From an obnoxious rules lawyer perspective there isn't even any second person in Raven Tower, it's all in first person. The 'second person' sections are the first person narrator addressing another character. I liked it, but like the pronouns in Ancillary I suspect it'll dominate the conversation around the book while actually being a fairly minor stylistic choice.
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Mar 3, 2019 17:41
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Just finished the Vorkosigan Saga. Jesus, what, 17 books? Not counting the short stories? All since mid January. Fantastic series, loads of variation in the novels' genres. Cryoburn's ending was rough for me, but favorite book had to be A Civil Campaign. Second place probably goes to the Ivan book. Edit: or Barrayer. Loutre fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Mar 4, 2019 |
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Mar 4, 2019 00:23
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Loutre posted:Just finished the Vorkosigan Saga. Jesus, what, 17 books? Not counting the short stories? All since mid January. Fantastic series, loads of variation in the novels' genres. Those three are really hard to choose between. I think Civil wins on pure writing craft since it's made up of lots of cool references to Regency-era novels. Alliance wins because gently caress yeah, Ivan got to do something ! And it was cool ! And Tey is awesome ! And bored Illyan screwing up ! But, Barrayar wins for Cordelia. As a parent doing anything, anything for a child she transcends. She's the greatest character in the series, and on the short list for fiction as a whole. Welcome to the club, and enjoy your first re-read !
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Mar 4, 2019 00:53
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mllaneza posted:Those three are really hard to choose between. I think Civil wins on pure writing craft since it's made up of lots of cool references to Regency-era novels. Alliance wins because gently caress yeah, Ivan got to do something ! And it was cool ! And Tey is awesome ! And bored Illyan screwing up ! I wish there had been a book after Miles' birth showing Cordelia's growth in to this political super-shark. She is for sure a great character, but I think she got mis-used by her becoming some kind of genius political manoeuvrerer with only slight foreshadowing, like her ability to shephard a lot of scientists as a captain.. We saw Ivan's mom go from random hanger-on to Head Of Polite Society much more smoothly.
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Mar 4, 2019 01:49
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coolusername posted:Read Ann Leckie's the raven tower, would have enjoyed it 300% more if it wasn't in second person (you really hate that literary device, because you find it ruins immersion) but it was still good, and I'd love to see more in this world - I've read some of her short stories set in it, too. Yes re: device. You have a link to some of the short stories - I hadn't seen those? General Battuta posted:From an obnoxious rules lawyer perspective there isn't even any second person in Raven Tower, it's all in first person. The 'second person' sections are the first person narrator addressing another character. You are technically correct (the best type of correct), but I still found it annoying. The first person narrator is, in those scenes, addressing another character who is not present in the room. That's functionally equivalent to a second person omniscient perspective. You are correct that it will dominate the conversation around the book because it's the most annoying part of it.
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Mar 4, 2019 02:34
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Just finished the new Django Wexler thing. Boy he loves his lesbian protags. It's a fun magic user stuck on a hunger Games sort of oil tanker / aircraft carrier in a medium tech fantasy world.
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Mar 4, 2019 11:00
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mllaneza posted:But, Barrayar wins for Cordelia. As a parent doing anything, anything for a child she transcends. She's the greatest character in the series, and on the short list for fiction as a whole. Absolutely. Barrayar has the "shopping" scene which has to be one of my favourite bits in any fiction whatsoever.
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Mar 4, 2019 11:03
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coolusername posted:If she had used a different narrative device, the book would have been more enjoyable for me, and she wouldn't have had such mixed reviews if she hadn't used that new technique. She could have had a more generic novel but had she had done that, I would have had a lot of surprising feelings due to my expectations that she would have done something different. I would have appreciated the second person warning before I had bought the book on kindle, but I hadn't looked it up before the payment was done. why's reading a book in a very slightly different style such a bother for you?
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Mar 4, 2019 11:11
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A human heart posted:why's reading a book in a very slightly different style such a bother for you?
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Mar 4, 2019 12:33
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I'm much less bothered by the 2nd-person thing because it's one character talking to another, and understood to be such by the reader. It's the 2nd-person explicitly addressed to the reader that drives me crazy.
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Mar 4, 2019 17:52
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Leckie chat: Tea drinking ceremonies are probably much easier to describe/write via the second pesrson narrative. I generally like her stories, but her writing style(s) are so gimmicky.
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Mar 4, 2019 20:23
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A human heart posted:why's reading a book in a very slightly different style such a bother for you? You read the book, and it keeps confusing you as to whether the speaker is breaking the fourth wall and talking to you, the reader, as if the speaker was an omniscient narrator, or talking to you, another character in this constructed narrative. You find the continual implied question jarring.
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Mar 5, 2019 04:41
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All these slams/references versus the 2nd person narrative in Leckie's Raven Tower read like Infocom text adventure messages....and make me want to play Infocom text adventure games. Those games are crack-cocaine mixed with crystal meth. Although reading a novelization of A Mind Forever Voyaging would be dope, novelization of Starcross kinda interesting, while a novelization of Trinity would be 
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Mar 5, 2019 05:18
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:All these slams/references versus the 2nd person narrative in Leckie's Raven Tower read like Infocom text adventure messages....and make me want to play Infocom text adventure games. Hitch-Hiker's Guide has a pretty good novelisation.  Joking aside, I'd read a novelisation of The Lurking Horror or Planetfall for sure.
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Mar 5, 2019 13:32
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Although reading a novelization of A Mind Forever Voyaging would be dope, novelization of Starcross kinda interesting, while a novelization of Trinity would be There were some books based on the games, both novels and cyoa. The way I remember it, most didn't have much to do with the originals (most notably George Alec Effinger's Zork book) and some were just bad books (like why would you put vagina dentata in a Planetfall/Stationfall novelization)
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Mar 5, 2019 14:51
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Solitair posted:I've kept that list bookmarked ever since Hieronymous brought it up. I think the author I'm most interested in checking out is James Branch Cabell, since I live near a college campus where the library is named after him. Is he any good? drat, you know, I don't think I ever realized JBC was a sf/f/prescifi author. I just assumed he was a Confederate rear end in a top hat, a Gilded Age son of Confederate assholes, or a modern day descendent of Confederate assholes who gave VCU a lot of money, like everyone else whose name is everywhere here. To be fair, he was more or less the second thing too. I should find something of his to read.
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Mar 5, 2019 16:01
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Quorum posted:drat, you know, I don't think I ever realized JBC was a sf/f/prescifi author. I just assumed he was a Confederate rear end in a top hat, a Gilded Age son of Confederate assholes, or a modern day descendent of Confederate assholes who gave VCU a lot of money, like everyone else whose name is everywhere here. To be fair, he was more or less the second thing too. I should find something of his to read. His most well-known work is Jurgen and it's the best of the stuff of his that I've read, mostly because it has the most internally consistent structure -- a lot of his other works are a bit disjoint but Jurgen is a single story with a unifying theme. It was a Book of the Month back in 2011: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3452510 The best overall description is probably something like "what if H.L. Mencken wrote a bunch of extremely cynical fairy tales." Cabell's interesting because he's not just pre-Tolkien, he's pre-Dunsany, very literary, very witty, explicitly allegorical but without the dull simplicity of Lewis's Christian allegories. He's this whole other direction fantastic fiction could have gone in, but didn't. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Mar 5, 2019 |
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Mar 5, 2019 16:08
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:All these slams/references versus the 2nd person narrative in Leckie's Raven Tower read like Infocom text adventure messages....and make me want to play Infocom text adventure games. AMFV is already novel-like enough that I don't see what a novelization would add, other than maybe addressing some aspects of the plot that don't hold up to scrutiny very well. Starcross is my least favorite Infocom game, writing-wise. It's just so...lifeless. The aliens that look exactly like real-world animals, the sterile big-space-object setting, and the narration style that's terse and humorless to the point of being rude to the player (the response to examining most objects is "the [object] is as described"). Also, while this has nothing to do with novelizations, having to touch a skeleton to find an object on it instead of searching the skeleton is a worse puzzle than the Bank of Zork and the Oddly-Angled Room combined. Maybe the right novelist could come up with something decent based on it, but it would probably be at best a pale imitation of classic big-space-object stories. Trinity is cool, though. I like how Trinity and Spellbreaker created the "crazy quilt" genre/setting that's still used in a lot of recent IF. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Mar 5, 2019 |
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Mar 5, 2019 18:05
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I never did well at the game, but the Wishbringer novelization does have platypi.
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Mar 5, 2019 18:55
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