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navyjack posted:They’re Urban Fantasy in the sense that they take place mostly in cities, but they’re secondary world UF where magic is economics and “I owe my soul to the company store” is literal and WHERE IS MY SOCIALIST REVOLUTION GLADSTONE?!? I hate that the series is marketed as UF. It seriously bugs me. It's Urban Fantasy like Space Opera is about astronauts warbling arias - not at all, except in the most literal sense. If I had to classify it with a genre for "if you like X you like Y" purposes, I'd go with New Weird.
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Jun 26, 2019 20:14
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the craft sequence's genre is post-punk, you fools
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Jun 26, 2019 20:53
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Solitair posted:I'll give the series another shot one of these days. I came out of The Eye of the World quite irritated at it, from counting the similarities to The Fellowship of the Ring to the out of nowhere climax and deus ex machina ending. at least with Eye, the parallels with Fellowship are a deliberate mirror rather than a fallback opening for an author who couldn't think of anything else. like the first...half (two thirds?) of Eye run in such perfect beat-for-beat tandem with Fellowship that it is impossible to imagine there isn't some conscious intent there Jordan is faithfully aping Fellowship in the beginning so that the contrasts are even clearer once WoT fully unfurls I can respect that
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Jun 26, 2019 20:57
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Glad y'all posted that about the Craft series, the cover of the first one (lady wielding a knife in a modern street, looking mysterious) coupled with "Urban Fantasy" gave me zero interest whatsoever in reading the series. I will definitely give it a shot now.
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Jun 26, 2019 20:58
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I found 1 interesting, 2 disappointingly worse than 1, 3 painful to read, 4 I stopped very shortly. My god I hated 3's protag. What a stupid gently caress. Could just be the character writing style, like how everyone's internal monologues in the expanse show how unbelievably stupid they are.
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Jun 26, 2019 21:17
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:I found 1 interesting, 2 disappointingly worse than 1, 3 painful to read, 4 I stopped very shortly. 3's problem is that the inciting incident for the actual plot is, like, 50+% into a thick book and everything before that is just "hey look at my fancy worldbuilding occasionally interspersed with a bit of set-up!"
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Jun 26, 2019 21:21
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I binged the first five Craft Sequence books hard but then bounced equally hard off of the newest one, not sure why. I think the series as a whole suffers a bit from having neither a single narrative throughline nor a unifying single protagonist. It's just "bunch of stories in setting" and then some books the story and the characters click and some they don't.
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Jun 26, 2019 21:28
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Yeah I was the same, I just finished 3 and I can't say I enjoyed it. If it had been half as long I might have been more on board, but there was so much time spent just worldbuilding Kavekana, and if that doesn't click with you (and it definitely didn't with me, I found the idea of the island and the idols interesting in like, a brief mention kind of way) the whole book falls pretty flat on its face. I thought the second book was okay, but I've since discovered that I can remember almost nothing about it, so I'll drat it with the faintest of praise. I'm going to try book 4 sometime soon, but I needed some time after slogging through Full Fathom Five. I do think Gladstone might have mis-stepped by throwing a new protagonist and setting at you with every book (or at least the first three, I'm to understand later ones return to some established characters), because it makes what might have otherwise been interesting and fairly natural worldbuilding into something that feels much more intrusive that sometimes interrupts the story rather than supporting it.
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Jun 26, 2019 21:36
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PupsOfWar posted:at least with Eye, the parallels with Fellowship are a deliberate mirror rather than a fallback opening for an author who couldn't think of anything else. Alright, I'll keep that in mind. The ending still feels like Jordan realized he wasn't getting anywhere close to his intended climax in one volume and decided to just make one up so the book doesn't just stop, without making it jive with the rest of the book. I also made the mistake of reading it a chapter per day the first time around, only to lose patience and finish it off as fast as possible.
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Jun 26, 2019 21:40
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Honestly, I felt like ending WoT after book three would have been a lot more satisfying than reading the next seven pieces of garbage and then giving up before Sanderson, which is what I actually did, so don't do that.
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Jun 26, 2019 22:18
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I binged the first five Craft Sequence books hard but then bounced equally hard off of the newest one, not sure why. Don't feel bad I disliked the last two books in the shapeshifting city and Island resort town with a weird twist. I kind of liked the fantasy New York / LA with the immortal Lich lawyers more. DACK FAYDEN posted:Honestly, I felt like ending WoT after book three would have been a lot more satisfying than reading the next seven pieces of garbage and then giving up before Sanderson, which is what I actually did, so don't do that. This has always been kind of my thought too, the first three books make a decent mostly self contained trilogy. I am one of the people who gave up in like book 6 or 7 though. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jun 26, 2019 |
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Jun 26, 2019 22:30
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Cardiac posted:One funny thing about this is that Jordan went on a plot thread killing spree in his last one, probably due to him knowing he didn't have much time left. I was 12 when i started reading it, about 26-7 when knife of dreams came out and I bought the trade paperback edition every time - i think i just decided that not only was it not worth my money, it wasn't worth the time either anymore. clearly my tastes didn't improve that much since 1990, I'm still posting and reading in here after all. Seven Hundred Bee posted:Time to post about my favorite fantasy series that nobody has read: The Monarchies of God by Paul Kearney. I just finished the first omnibus (books 1&2) and it's quite a bit better than I remembered. Thanks for the necromancy, I doubt I would have dragged it up on my own. If I have a criticism, it's that it's the anti-WoT, Kearney really moves the plots along quickly with resolutions and implicated plot off screen and some of the story lines I wanted to read more of. Some I was less interested in, particularly the new world stuff, which is odd as it's the only bit I'd remembered from the last time I read the first book.
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Jun 26, 2019 23:13
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Made the dedicated Mil-SciFi thread. Honor Harrington, Schrodinger's WarCriminal: the Mil-SciFi Fiction Thread. Hmm, yes. I'm sure fans of military sci-fi will be flocking to a "Schrodinger's WarCriminal" thread. ElBrak posted:Having read every wheel of time book having a new author come in at the end was like a breath of fresh air. Also having some call out the Aes Sedai for trying to force him to do something by threatening him with their powers like schoolyard bullies was really nice to read. I'm not sure it's the new author so much as the new author coming in around the inflection point in the series where plot lines stop expanding and you start getting payoff. The series runs into an issue where there's so many plot lines to follow that you are jumping all over the place for different points of view that things seem to drag to a stop, culminating in Crossroads of Twilight which spends around a thousand pages covering I think around 48 hours in-world time. I think Knife of Dreams, the next book following Crossroads was pretty good at progressing the plot and starting to narrow down the various plots and it was written solely by Robert Jordan. It was also the last written solely by Robert Jordan since he announced his cardiac amyloidosis diagnosis the year following Knife of Dreams release and died a year and a half later.
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Jun 26, 2019 23:13
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I binged the first five Craft Sequence books hard but then bounced equally hard off of the newest one, not sure why. I love the new one. On rereads my least favorite is 2 (in title/chronological order), even though I liked it a lot the first read - too much of the quality is in the mystery in this particular case. they all own though, max gladstone is probably one of my top ten current authors
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Jun 27, 2019 00:22
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MockingQuantum posted:I really enjoyed the first two books in that trilogy, I'm currently about a quarter of the way into Assassin's Quest and it feels much slower to me than the first two books. It might be that I preferred the direction the story was going before the end of book 2. Does the third book pick up eventually? Right now I feel like they've been on the road for ages. E: her gvibes fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jun 27, 2019 |
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Jun 27, 2019 02:18
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The only Craft book I've read is Last First Snow, and while there were a lot of neat ideas, it just didn't grab me for some reason.
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Jun 27, 2019 06:02
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Assassin's Quest is pretty slow in the first half. Really, from there most of Hobbs' stories in the series start to grow a bit long and meandering. I nearly bounced of the Liveship books because they're some thick doorstoppers and the first is mostly all setup.
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Jun 27, 2019 11:04
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Selachian posted:The only Craft book I've read is Last First Snow, and while there were a lot of neat ideas, it just didn't grab me for some reason. The whole reading order thing is weird with the Craft Books. Publication order is the way to go and that’s the 4th or 5th one while being the first chronologically.
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Jun 27, 2019 12:21
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The_White_Crane posted:I just finished Velocity Weapon by Megan O'Keefe, per Yoon Ha Lee's recommendation. I bought this after misreading your post as echoing yoon ha lee's recommendation. I'm 20% in and alright is generous, for a full priced book, it reads like a first time self published. I'll finish it but I'm not really enjoying it.
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Jun 27, 2019 14:30
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branedotorg posted:I bought this after misreading your post as echoing yoon ha lee's recommendation. I'm 20% in and alright is generous, for a full priced book, it reads like a first time self published. It does get better, and as I said, the midbook twist is pretty cool. Not mind-blowing, but well above the usual "twist" in genre fic. But it's certainly not a great book. Most damningly, the characters just aren't that interesting as people.
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Jun 27, 2019 15:12
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Anyone know where to read The Message by Ken Liu?
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Jun 27, 2019 16:32
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fordan posted:I'm not sure it's the new author so much as the new author coming in around the inflection point in the series where plot lines stop expanding and you start getting payoff. The series runs into an issue where there's so many plot lines to follow that you are jumping all over the place for different points of view that things seem to drag to a stop, culminating in Crossroads of Twilight which spends around a thousand pages covering I think around 48 hours in-world time. Yeah, and don't think his fandom let it go. If you think you have a problem, you should have tried reading in real time. It was worse than Game of Thrones - not only did one character disappear for five years, books were still being published. Reading after the fact is a lot smoother because you can at least see how Jordan was doing what Martin has proven unable to do: writing himself back into position to finish the story.
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Jun 27, 2019 16:42
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I just finished up Hexarchate Stories, which has a lot of good-to-middling short fiction, like flash fiction short, and then the last bit of it is a short story that sort of wraps up the trilogy. I think the thing that stood out to me the most was actually Yoon Ha Lee's afterwords for each piece, which really highlighted what a, and I say this with affection, what a real weirdo they are.
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Jun 27, 2019 16:52
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StrixNebulosa posted:It's like Jordan read Tolkien, decided that the Ringwraiths hunting Frodo in the forest and the entire underground sequence were the best bits and duplicated them almost exactly, but even scarier and with new twists. I haven't even mentioned Shadar whatever it was called, the ghost town filled with maleovolent fog - that was also great horror. Shadar Logoth/Mashadar (and, later on, Machin Shin) are two of my favourite parts of WoT and I might have been more inclined to stick with it if that sort of thing made up more than like 1% of the entire narrative. Both were also used to great effect in the better-than-it-had-any-right-to-be WoT FPS. Traveling the Ways, encountering Machin Shin, turning around and loving bolting through the nearest Waygate only to find myself back in the middle of Shadar Logoth was tense as gently caress. ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jun 27, 2019 |
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Jun 27, 2019 17:28
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darnon posted:Assassin's Quest is pretty slow in the first half. Really, from there most of Hobbs' stories in the series start to grow a bit long and meandering. I nearly bounced of the Liveship books because they're some thick doorstoppers and the first is mostly all setup. I like the Liveship books a lot for pulling off something that's not too uncommon in real life, but which you almost never see in fiction: A spoiled, lovely brat who eventually really understands proper behavior/responsibility. it doesn't even happen in a big dramatic way, or fueled by any single major event, she just... stops being insufferable after seeing the shitstorm she's becoming.
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Jun 27, 2019 18:47
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John Lee posted:I like the Liveship books a lot for pulling off something that's not too uncommon in real life, but which you almost never see in fiction: A spoiled, lovely brat who eventually really understands proper behavior/responsibility. it doesn't even happen in a big dramatic way, or fueled by any single major event, she just... stops being insufferable after seeing the shitstorm she's becoming. 
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Jun 27, 2019 19:18
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StrixNebulosa posted:Huh! It didn't read as cozy to me at all - while early on they can work for farmers and play pipes and juggle at inns, soon they're locked in an inn, trapped between the innkeeper who's gonna rob them and a Darkfriend, and they only escape because Rand can do magic (surprise!) - and it descends into nightmarish paranoia for the entire rest of the trip. Mat was being paranoid before, but now even Rand gets on it and there are Darkfriends everywhere and in one scene Rand is sick and a woman tries to stab him with a hissing dagger. It's awful and great. I kind of feel like Mat was super great at just... ruining all things potentially enjoyable about the first book. Like it's been a while so my memory is rusty, but I'm pretty sure his first response to being trapped in Shadar was "Hey guys I know we were told specifically not to take anything but that means THERE'S STUFF TO TAKE SO LET'S RUN INTO THE EVIL CITY AND LOOT IT!". And his response to meeting the Children of the Light was to immediately pick a fight with them right after being told exactly why he shouldn't pick a fight. What I'm saying is, Mat ruins everything.
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Jun 27, 2019 21:28
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I think Rand picks the fight with the Children, doesn't he? Of course we get the explanation for that sudden bout of insanity later.
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Jun 27, 2019 21:31
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think Rand picks the fight with the Children, doesn't he? Of course we get the explanation for that sudden bout of insanity later. Yeah, that was Rand being high as a kite. Mat was dumb as hell for the whole treasure thing. e: The Mountain of Dhoom. Is Jordan serious
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Jun 27, 2019 21:34
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StrixNebulosa posted:Yeah, that was Rand being high as a kite. It was? I could have sworn it was him for the whole barrel thing. Thanks for the correction, though. EDIT: Also, you're gonna have to get use to it. Because he is.
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Jun 27, 2019 21:55
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StrixNebulosa posted:
The map is the first thing you see when you open the book You see "Mountain of Dhoom," you know what kinda ride you're boarding
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Jun 27, 2019 21:57
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think Rand picks the fight with the Children, doesn't he? Of course we get the explanation for that sudden bout of insanity later. Matt uses his amazing sling skills to release some barrels from the 2nd story of a shop, Rand is standing in the street and laughs about it. They can't see Matt so they think it's an accident and blame Rand because everyone else is afraid of them and isn't laughing. Sad I can recall this from memory.
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Jun 27, 2019 22:25
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The map is the first thing you see when you open the book It's also the only mountain range I've ever seen that turns at a right angle. Maybe it was created with the one power or something.
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Jun 27, 2019 22:26
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pseudanonymous posted:Matt uses his amazing sling skills to release some barrels from the 2nd story of a shop, Rand is standing in the street and laughs about it. They can't see Matt so they think it's an accident and blame Rand because everyone else is afraid of them and isn't laughing. Sad I can recall this from memory. Yeah that's what I remembered. Mat's the worst. pseudanonymous posted:It's also the only mountain range I've ever seen that turns at a right angle. Maybe it was created with the one power or something. I think 'made with the One Power' is pretty much the answer to all those questions.
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Jun 27, 2019 22:37
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Kchama posted:Yeah that's what I remembered. Mat's the worst. What I read was Robert Jordan didn't really want a map and the publisher insisted so he was just like whatever.
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Jun 27, 2019 22:39
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pseudanonymous posted:It's also the only mountain range I've ever seen that turns at a right angle. Maybe it was created with the one power or something. Yeah, and it also trails off into the ocean in a way that's geographically impossible. Jordan said in interviews that those are both deliberate signs of the Breaking.
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Jun 27, 2019 22:41
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Said with a straight face I'm sure.
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Jun 27, 2019 22:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, and it also trails off into the ocean in a way that's geographically impossible. Jordan said in interviews that those are both deliberate signs of the Breaking. Nice to have that excuse to fall back on. One thing I never really liked about the WoT is I never got a good sense of the scale of the world. How far really is Andor from Cairhien? How much of the world is actually whatever the region is called, the Westlands is that right? For a while, people are slogging everywhere on horseback then people start traveling and waygating and things...
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Jun 27, 2019 23:13
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Grimson posted:I think the thing that stood out to me the most was actually Yoon Ha Lee's afterwords for each piece, which really highlighted what a, and I say this with affection, what a real weirdo they are. I'm only a short ways into it, but  it's some pretty good fiction, some of it with a very tin veneer of being Hexarchate stuff, but I'm enjoying it very much.
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Jun 27, 2019 23:31
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, and it also trails off into the ocean in a way that's geographically impossible. Jordan said in interviews that those are both deliberate signs of the Breaking. Eh, fantasy maps always have terrible geography. I've always been fond of the original map from The Sword of Shannara...  See if you can make any sense of how the Mermidon River (in the west) runs.
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Jun 27, 2019 23:40
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