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Ivoryman posted:I'm looking for some reader recommendations of Fantasy series with three or more books. I have already read Wheel of Time, all of David Eddings works, and all of Terry Goodkins works. That should give an idea of my focused reading. I am still going through this thread making some notes. Also I guess congratulations for surviving through Goodkind are in order...?
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Jul 27, 2019 15:55
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anilEhilated posted:Malazan. Seconding Malazan. I only managed one Goodkind before becoming extremely bored with predictiveness of the book. Also Bakker I guess (:worms:) or Morgan or Williams or Abercrombie or McClellan or (I lost track here)
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Jul 27, 2019 17:15
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Ivoryman posted:I'm looking for some reader recommendations of Fantasy series with three or more books. I have already read Wheel of Time, all of David Eddings works, and all of Terry Goodkins works. That should give an idea of my focused reading. I am still going through this thread making some notes. If you want to step up your game a bit while keeping it entertaining, try Zelazny's Amber series. If you want it similarly pulpy, Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.
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Jul 27, 2019 18:18
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Cardiac posted:So finished some thread recommendations. Personally, I like The Anubis Gates better than Declare, and Last Call is good too. I can take or leave the rest of his work.
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Jul 27, 2019 18:40
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coffeetable posted:I was going over the genre fiction I've read from the past year to make recommendations to a friend, and while I've mentioned it before it's worth a re-mention: Rage of Dragons is really loving good. Far better than the title suggests it is. Self-published, first-time black author This book is already on my to-read list and I'm looking forward to reading it, but this also made me randomly think: what if there was a magic system with types of authors being different colors, like in Final Fantasy or M:TG: white mage, black mage, blue mage, etc. Terry Pratchett would obviously be a white mage and the grimdark authors black. I'd say Max Gladstone is blue: his stuff feels very head over heart to me. Red is one of those books where a true-blooded ex-marine shows those loving liberals what's what when poo poo hits the fan because of them.
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Jul 27, 2019 18:51
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Hello friends, what do you all think about Peter F. Hamilton's book, The Reality Dysfunction? I am considering reading it but it's huge so I want to make sure it's worth the commitment.
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Jul 27, 2019 22:11
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Megafonzie posted:Hello friends, what do you all think about Peter F. Hamilton's book, The Reality Dysfunction? I am considering reading it but it's huge so I want to make sure it's worth the commitment. Hamilton does space opera well. There are some laughable recurring themes of sex with ridiculously good looking young women, but they don't tend to really matter much to the plot. The Reality Dysfunction is imo a decent take on a perplexing topic of human experience. It's not fully explored, sadly, but at least it makes you think. The prose is workmanlike. Overall I'd recommend it, especially if you like space opera. If you want to dip your toes so to speak, the collection of short stories called "Second Chance at Eden" is set in the Universe, and covers some of the time between now, and the setting of the Reality Dysfunction. One of them was used for Sex and Robots on Netflix.
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Jul 27, 2019 22:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If you want to step up your game a bit while keeping it entertaining, try Zelazny's Amber series. I like Zelazny a lot, and the Amber Chronicles are good, though you can skip the second set (the books 6-10) since they're mostly just a retelling of the same story with the son of the original protagonist. Though if you get into the cosmos he sets up a lot you might enjoy them. I find Butcher to be absolutely unreadable formulaic trash, and I love the concept, so I slogged my way through the first three books before just giving up. I have heard they get better around the SEVENTH book. I guess you could just skip to it.
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Jul 27, 2019 22:22
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Ivoryman posted:I'm looking for some reader recommendations of Fantasy series with three or more books. I have already read Wheel of Time, all of David Eddings works, and all of Terry Goodkins works. That should give an idea of my focused reading. I am still going through this thread making some notes. If you made it through all of those, Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen) and Adrian Tchaikovsky (Shadows of the Apt) are easy recommendations. I see someone else has already recommended Wurts. (N.b. I didn't finish either of those series, but I also didn't finish Jordan, Eddings, or Goodkind, so...) Megafonzie posted:Hello friends, what do you all think about Peter F. Hamilton's book, The Reality Dysfunction? I am considering reading it but it's huge so I want to make sure it's worth the commitment. Eeeeeeehn. I enjoyed it when I originally read it, and the premise is fresh, but it also goes steadily downhill over the course of the trilogy and the ending is a damp turd.
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Jul 27, 2019 22:51
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Reality Dysfunction has one huge advantage going for it; Hamilton can write an action scene or an exotic alien landscape and make you see it. I want an animated adaption so very badly. Just the imagery of the drive plumes of the mercenary flotilla decelerating into orbit over Lalonde is a classic SF moment. Closer to the middle of the series, tracking down Mzu before an asteroid lands on your head rate very highly on my list of fictional action scenes. So yeah, the series has multiple flaws (I don't hate the ending, but ti could have been better) but it's also chock fool of cool poo poo. If nothing else it'd be a fantastic setting for an SF RPG (minus the returning dead).
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Jul 27, 2019 23:45
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Robin Hobbs doesn't seem to get recommended much around here, but I really enjoyed her first two trilogies. Haven't read farther than that.
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Jul 27, 2019 23:45
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coffeetable posted:I was going over the genre fiction I've read from the past year to make recommendations to a friend, and while I've mentioned it before it's worth a re-mention: Rage of Dragons is really loving good. Far better than the title suggests it is. Self-published, first-time black author, and it's gotten a ridiculous 4.7 on Amazon and 4.4 on Goodreads. It's swords and sorcery in an African culture, and has the protagonist progress through hard work rather than just being Chosen. Dunno, I liked the first 80% of Rage of Dragons but the ending is so extremely stupid I'd have a hard time recommending it to people. I mean, the ending manages to both completely break suspension of disbelief (not just the ridiculous "it's just a flesh wound", but also simply the choices people make) while at the same time being overly predictable in a stereotypical "set things up for the 2nd book" way. The first 80% is pretty cool though!
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Jul 28, 2019 00:06
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ToxicFrog posted:If you made it through all of those, Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen) and Adrian Tchaikovsky (Shadows of the Apt) are easy recommendations. I see someone else has already recommended Wurts. Can you really claim that "the ghost of Al Capone attempts to conquer the galaxy" is fresh?
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Jul 28, 2019 00:17
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Anyone else read A Crown for Cold Silver? It's a pretty fun novel about a Queen trying to reclaim her crown, and all of her hosed up former courtiers. It's anime as poo poo, and wonderfully descriptive and stupendously dumb in equal measures. Very fun trashy novel. But man, I just can't get into the sequel, it just spends so much time on the worst character and love triangle from the first book, and refuses to get back to the trashy action.
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Jul 28, 2019 00:18
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pseudorandom name posted:Can you really claim that "the ghost of Al Capone attempts to conquer the galaxy" is fresh? It's certainly not a concept I've seen done anywhere else!
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Jul 28, 2019 00:35
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Ivoryman posted:I'm looking for some reader recommendations of Fantasy series with three or more books. I have already read Wheel of Time, all of David Eddings works, and all of Terry Goodkins works. That should give an idea of my focused reading. I am still going through this thread making some notes. Have you tried any Terry Pratchett? He's not really like any of those authors because he's very good, but his Discworld novels have like a billion in the series. (I snark, but I actually kinda liked Eddings.)
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Jul 28, 2019 02:05
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Chairchucker posted:Have you tried any Terry Pratchett? He's not really like any of those authors because he's very good, but his Discworld novels have like a billion in the series. Pratchett's quite good, but he's not really writing a series so much as a series of novels which are interconnected by places, characters, and themes, and though there definitely are some arcs, you can pretty much pick up any random Discworld book in any order without losing much if anything. I guess the Guardsmen ones are a bit more like a series but very different.
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Jul 28, 2019 02:59
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pseudanonymous posted:Pratchett's quite good, but he's not really writing a series so much as a series of novels which are interconnected by places, characters, and themes, and though there definitely are some arcs, you can pretty much pick up any random Discworld book in any order without losing much if anything. Yeah, you can mostly pick them up in any order, but I think they're a little better if you do them in publishing order, and especially don't do what I did which is read The Light Fantastic first before reading The Colour of Magic. EDIT: The Nomes books (I think it might be called the Bromeliad?) is more of a series. Kind of aimed at a younger audience but still great. Chairchucker fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Jul 28, 2019 |
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Jul 28, 2019 06:35
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pseudorandom name posted:Can you really claim that "the ghost of Al Capone attempts to conquer the galaxy" is fresh? At least fresher than the protagonists going looking for god and finding him making the ending of the series a literal Deus Ex Machina. I always saw the Al Capone as a minor part of the story compared to other plot elements like the satanist. Hamilton does some things very well (alien environment, action scenes) and some things less so (notably sex scenes and over the top characters). Also this is a thread where serious debate happens about Rob S Pierre. Cardiac fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Jul 28, 2019 |
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Jul 28, 2019 08:17
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Megafonzie posted:Hello friends, what do you all think about Peter F. Hamilton's book, The Reality Dysfunction? I am considering reading it but it's huge so I want to make sure it's worth the commitment. There are three PoV characters in the book, two protanogists and one antagonist. I immediately pegged one protagonist at the more interesting one, and of course it turns out the other one was more important to the plot, or else was implied at the end of the first book to be the main character of the trilogy. I forget which. IIRC the aforementioned antagonist just straight up cops to being Satanist in his first chapter, so the book's a little goofy. I did ultimately enjoy it, though. Oh, and I haven't read parts two and three of the trilogy yet. I took a course on sci-fi and fantasy books, The Reality Dysfunction was on the course list but we didn't get to it presumably because it's so drat long, so after I graduated I had it around and figured I might as well read it. That's also how I read Bakker's The Darkness That Comes Before.
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Jul 28, 2019 08:53
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pseudorandom name posted:Can you really claim that "the ghost of Al Capone attempts to conquer the galaxy" is fresh? It's one of the more worn-out plots along with 'Al Capone vs Belisarius' and 'Al Capone is sent back in time, has to re-invent Prohibition, also all the ladies fall in love with him'.
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Jul 28, 2019 10:33
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Solitair posted:Oh, and I haven't read parts two and three of the trilogy yet. I took a course on sci-fi and fantasy books, The Reality Dysfunction was on the course list but we didn't get to it presumably because it's so drat long, so after I graduated I had it around and figured I might as well read it. That's also how I read Bakker's The Darkness That Comes Before. 
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Jul 28, 2019 11:56
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If you want to step up your game a bit while keeping it entertaining, try Zelazny's Amber series. That series looks very interesting. It is now on my list of "To Read". Thank you!
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Jul 28, 2019 12:56
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The Iron Dragon’s Mother was quite good. I’m not sure the plot entirely makes sense, but it succeeds as a constantly moving tour through new areas of Faerie with plenty of delightfully odd passages. Definitely avoids the abrupt change that always made me struggle with The Iron Dragon’s Daughter. I gather from the online Dragons of Babel summary, a book I read once and remember not at all, that some of the secondary characters in Mother have a link to that book.
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Jul 28, 2019 15:14
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fritz posted:It's one of the more worn-out plots along with 'Al Capone vs Belisarius' and 'Al Capone is sent back in time, has to re-invent Prohibition, also all the ladies fall in love with him'. I've never encountered either of those.  In fact, I think The Reality Dysfunction is the only "Al Capone, but in a different time/setting" thing I've ever read, now that I think about it. Anyways. As Cardiac said, the whole Al Capone subplot isn't really the main thrust of the book -- "what if contagious rear end in a top hat ghosts in an interstellar society" is more what I was referring to. Sadly the actual answer to that question turns out to be a shitload of people die, then the plucky band of heroes literally, physically find god floating out in space, which waves a wand and makes it all better.
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Jul 28, 2019 15:38
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ToxicFrog posted:
Seems like back in the 90s half the books on the shelf were trilogies about 'prophecy says young farmboy is either descended from or is a reincarnated Al Capone or both'.
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Jul 28, 2019 16:24
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Drone Jett posted:The Iron Dragon’s Mother was quite good. I’m not sure the plot entirely makes sense, but it succeeds as a constantly moving tour through new areas of Faerie with plenty of delightfully odd passages. Definitely avoids the abrupt change that always made me struggle with The Iron Dragon’s Daughter. I gather from the online Dragons of Babel summary, a book I read once and remember not at all, that some of the secondary characters in Mother have a link to that book. I haven't read Dragons of Babel and am gonna do that before Mother. Iron Dragon's Daughter is such a great book that I have high expectations. Swanwick's faerie is the best faerie there is in fantasy. Iron Dragon's Daughter is the most "I thought from the summary I would hate it" to "actually I loved it" book for me.
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Jul 28, 2019 16:39
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Well I'm about 130 pages into The Reality Dysfunction now and it's pretty interesting but also I hate all the characters. The Edenists especially (well, a lot of them) are basically euphoric atheists and I get the feeling the book is trying to have me agree with them.quote:You may, if you wish, practise the worship of any god. The major reason no Edenist chooses this action is that we have extremely stable personalities. We can look at the whole concept of God and spirituality from a vantage point built on logic and physics. Under such an intensive scientific scrutiny, religion always fails. Our knowledge of quantum cosmology is now sufficiently advanced to eliminate the notion of God altogether.
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Jul 28, 2019 22:08
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Dragons of Babel is the one with the fae Al Capone sideplot, wasn't it? Did he follow up on that in Mother?
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Jul 28, 2019 22:19
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Megafonzie posted:Well I'm about 130 pages into The Reality Dysfunction now and it's pretty interesting but also I hate all the characters. The Edenists especially (well, a lot of them) are basically euphoric atheists and I get the feeling the book is trying to have me agree with them. The Edenists are kinda the series good guys. However they don't stay that smug for long after poo poo hits the fan. 90s Cringe Rock posted:Dragons of Babel is the one with the fae Al Capone sideplot, wasn't it? Did he follow up on that in Mother? Yeah, and setting up and running a fae speakeasy totally killed the middle of the book. When the main plot picked back up I was left a little cold to the previously sympathetic characters we'd seen either smashed drunk, taking kickbacks from Capone, or both. The thematic elements still come together, and are probably stronger for the speakeasy digression, but it all seemed... I think anti-climactic is the word I'm looking for.
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Jul 28, 2019 22:26
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Holy gently caress! I can't tell if any of this is a joke anymore.
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Jul 28, 2019 22:55
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ToxicFrog posted:If you made it through all of those, Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen) and Adrian Tchaikovsky (Shadows of the Apt) are easy recommendations. Both great series although long. I preferred Shadows of the Apt but it does get a bit samey if you read all of them back to back. It's a steam level fantasy world populated by (mostly) insect human hybrids, with each type of insect having a special power.
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Jul 28, 2019 23:57
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Megafonzie posted:Well I'm about 130 pages into The Reality Dysfunction now and it's pretty interesting but also I hate all the characters. The Edenists especially (well, a lot of them) are basically euphoric atheists and I get the feeling the book is trying to have me agree with them. They get owned pretty hard later on. It turns out that Souls actually do exist and the Eden mind backups/resurections are just lovely copies
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Jul 29, 2019 00:23
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ianmacdo posted:They get owned pretty hard later on. It turns out that Souls actually do exist and the Eden mind backups/resurections are just lovely copies yeah, their smug attitude about how they've got everything figured out gets turned around on them pretty quick. let me +1 to the poo poo Ending club. I haven't read anything else by the guy since.
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Jul 29, 2019 00:40
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uber_stoat posted:yeah, their smug attitude about how they've got everything figured out gets turned around on them pretty quick. I mean I think he's worth reading but endings are definitely not his strong suit. The same kind of stuff goes on at the end of the nanoflower and the commonwealth series(s).
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Jul 29, 2019 00:43
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pseudanonymous posted:I mean I think he's worth reading but endings are definitely not his strong suit. The same kind of stuff goes on at the end of the nanoflower and the commonwealth series(s). Endings aren't his strong suit, intra-series cliffhangers are. best advice for Hamilton is don't touch anything of his unless it's a standalone or a completed series.
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Jul 29, 2019 00:46
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mllaneza posted:Endings aren't his strong suit, intra-series cliffhangers are. best advice for Hamilton is don't touch anything of his unless it's a standalone or a completed series. Great North Road is hella good, as is Fallen Dragon (to support your self-contained statement) but you miss a ton of great ideas and characterization if you avoid the rest of his oeuvre. Can't really argue against it overall, but I slogged through the rest of the shite to find the diamonds. And yes, the shite is _really shite_ tbf. I'm a big Hamilton fan and even I have problems recommending him to most people. thetechnoloser fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jul 29, 2019 |
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Jul 29, 2019 02:18
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Cardiac posted:So finished some thread recommendations. You've read Stross' A Colder War? It's at least on a par with Declare (which I also loved) and is not even a novella in size. It's not brought down by attempts at humour. Also the sequel to Kaleidoscope Century, Candle, is a great chaser to Kaleidoscope in that you see good people in the setting and some reprieve from the endless bleakness.
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Jul 29, 2019 03:25
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Neurosis posted:You've read Stross' A Colder War? It's at least on a par with Declare (which I also loved) and is not even a novella in size. It's not brought down by attempts at humour. Thanks. A Colder War is good, although after reading it too many times it feels more like a historical horror reading than an actual story. Candle is on my list, so I think I will pick it up. Kaleidoscope country was good, but the concept of meme wars was not as good as I expected. Also time travels are in general a bad storytelling device. ianmacdo posted:They get owned pretty hard later on. It turns out that Souls actually do exist and the Eden mind backups/resurections are just lovely copies On the other hand the Edenists have some of the coolest battles scenes and technology in the series. The scene where one habitat does mass production and owns Al Capone’s navy is cool as well as the stuff with the serjeants.
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Jul 29, 2019 05:39
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thetechnoloser posted:but you miss a ton of great ideas and characterization if you avoid the rest of his oeuvre. No no no ! "Avoid his incomplete series" doesn't mean don't read the one's he's finished ! I just hate waiting a year or two to find out what happens after some colossal cliffhanger like going over a waterfall into loving outer space!
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Jul 29, 2019 07:00
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