|
If I wanted a book or series that was as close to the Dominions computer game series as possible, if not in content then aesthetic/feel, would there be any good options
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 13:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 21:52 |
|
|
The Chad Jihad posted:If I wanted a book or series that was as close to the Dominions computer game series as possible, if not in content then aesthetic/feel, would there be any good options Maybe describe the content/aesthetic to us, so we understand what the appeal to you is?
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 13:57
|
|
|
Finally finished my personal physical-book-to-epub creation project. It was harder than it should have been for a few factors. 1-Did not use any OCR scanning options, for various reasons (massive book damage/un-trusted smartphone OCR apps/loss of book via donation to OpenLibrary project/etc). 2-Tried to import the original formatting and typeface settings of the physical book into the epub version as much as possible. (bad time wasting call #1) 3-Physical book used outdated regionalized slang + outdated spelling variations of words, all of which were kept unchanged in the epub version. 4-Feel like I should emphasize how much of a pain in the rear end doing #3 was once I add in the onomatopoeia neologisms. 5-One of the stories was so unpleasant in main character/the sense of decay (intentionally) pervading it I could only transcribe one or two pages per session with loooong breaks in-between. on-topic posting: WARNING:John Barnes isn't a author who writes 'happy normal' stuff. :WARNING John Barnes can(and will) go extremely dark and messed the gently caress up, best comparison of John Barnes to a still active author is probably Peter Watts. Only invision a non-footnote obsessed + non-quasi-scientific grounding obsessed Peter Watts, with 3x the brain fuckery + rape inside Barnes stories.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 14:44
|
|
|
Megazver posted:Maybe describe the content/aesthetic to us, so we understand what the appeal to you is? Gods, who may be a super powerful wizard, a beefy dragon, a cthulhu, or a statue, warring over which god gets to ascend to be the big one and remake the world in their image. Each god has a nation made up of various fantasy archetypes, like knights and poo poo, tree-huggers, dwarves, deep ones, everyone's dead but don't worry we can summon a lot of skeletons, and so on. They alter the world around them as they spread their dominion, so if the frost giant rear end in a top hat's taking lots of ground then things get colder. They have a lot of strong magic, up to and including "all you other gods and nations liked having a sun, right?" But I'm not them. I don't even play any more. Edit: actually, The March North by Graydon Saunders. Ish. The sequels leave behind the military fantasy for students doing civic engineering while setting up a new wizard school because their magic potential was missed when they were young and they're probably going to have their brains explode if they can't figure out a new way of learning poo poo. This recommendation includes the opening to the first chapter, which may trigger your Dominions sense. 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Jul 29, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 14:51
|
|
|
90s Cringe Rock posted:Ancient-looking sprites, in bulk. Animated sprites? Nah. Based on that setting synopsis: Immediately remembered David Eddings Belgariad series. Then remembered the other 2 times Eddings rewrote his Belgariad series. Hey, authors have mortgages and medical bills and lawsuits to pay off like normal people too
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 14:59
|
|
|
NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Based on that setting synopsis: Immediately remembered David Eddings Belgariad series. Then remembered the other 2 times Eddings rewrote his Belgariad series. Was going to do an and Leigh edit to this and went to check how to spell her name and... quote:They adopted one boy in 1966, Scott David. They adopted a younger girl between 1966 and 1969. In 1969 they lost custody of both children and each were sentenced to a year in jail from separate trials after pleading guilty to child abuse. What the gently caress? I had no idea. Get your poo poo together fantasy authors from my childhood. With regards to the recommendation 90s Cringe Rock's description just screams Malazan to me.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:07
|
|
|
I swear I'll read Malazan one of these days and not just stall out in Book 2. It's not like I don't really want to.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:11
|
|
|
90s Cringe Rock posted:Ancient-looking sprites, in bulk. Animated sprites? Nah. Malazan is kinda a generic suggestion here. Otherwise I guess Dragonlance or WFB might fit the description. Or novelizations of Warcraft for that matter. 90s Cringe Rock posted:Edit: actually, The March North by Graydon Saunders. Ish. The sequels leave behind the military fantasy for students doing civic engineering while setting up a new wizard school because their magic potential was missed when they were young and they're probably going to have their brains explode if they can't figure out a new way of learning poo poo. Graydon Saunders is self published, which one painfully realizes in the sequels which are boring and tedious as gently caress. First book have clear first author book syndrome and clearly needed an editor. Also, the amount of times Saunders show up in this thread makes me wonder if someone here is doing selfpromotion.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:15
|
|
|
I just mention him whenever I remember he exists and is vaguely relevant to the current topic, because I like his books. Even the sequels.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:19
|
|
|
Gravy Jones posted:Was going to do an and Leigh edit to this and went to check how to spell her name and... Eddings had super creepy situations in all his books. How many had a goddess who appeared as a child and wanted all the kisses off the gruff manly heroes? Garions wife was described as tiny childlike flat chest etc. In the Elenium doesn't the gruff dishonoured knight dude save his charge who he had raised from child, but she was dtf and tried to put her off but she was just so darned hot. Also a jewish child goddess who loves him and yes, wants all the kisses. It's all right there.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:41
|
|
|
Gravy Jones posted:Was going to do an and Leigh edit to this and went to check how to spell her name and... Yeah. If you're gonna recommend Malazan which is super confusing at first, with most of the Dominion game style stuff existing in alternative dimensions the Malazan books rarely visit, then I get to recommend Palladium Games RIFTS novels + RIFTS sourcebooks. Dominion games are computerized RTS/TB versions of RIFTS world/region conflicts.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:45
|
|
|
And the Dryads. Holy poo poo they were problematic.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:46
|
|
|
I think David Eddings wrote his own Wikipedia entry before he diedquote:Eddings's call to the world of fantasy came from a doodled map he drew one morning before work. This doodle later became the geographical basis for the country of Aloria, but Eddings did not realize it until several years later. Eddings' story of this was that upon seeing a copy of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, in a bookshop, he muttered, "Is this old turkey still floating around?", and was shocked to learn that it was in its seventy-eighth printing. Eddings realized that the world of fantasy might hold some promise for his talents, and immediately began to annotate his previously forgotten doodle.Over the course of a year he added names to various kingdoms, races and characters, and invented various theologies and a mythology, all of which counted about 230 pages. Because Lord of the Rings had been published as three books, he genuinely believed fantasy in general was supposed to be trilogies. Which is why he intended The Belgariad to be a trilogy as well, and had it all laid out, when his editor Lester Del Rey told him the booksellers would refuse to accept 600-page books. my dad always tried to get me to read The Belgariad and I could never get past the first few chapters :/
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:57
|
|
|
The one Eddings fan I know asked me for recommendations once. I asked for some of their other favourites, and got MZB and Goodkind. I don't think my recommendations were well-received.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:59
|
|
|
90s Cringe Rock posted:The one Eddings fan I know asked me for recommendations once. I asked for some of their other favourites, and got MZB and Goodkind. Oh god, did they love Piers Anthony too?
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 15:59
|
|
|
Dammit Eddingses, you were my introduction to fantasy. Didn't want to start my day with that info.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 16:15
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Oh god, did they love Piers Anthony too? Possibly. No, middle-aged MBA housedivorcee can't possibly have been in that demographic growing up, I pray, increasingly nervously. gently caress, I'm going to have to assemble a physical reading package for Christmas this year, some of it might get read that way.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 16:21
|
|
|
Gravy Jones posted:Was going to do an and Leigh edit to this and went to check how to spell her name and... Welp I'm gonna tell myself that if it was just a one year sentence it probably wasn't sexual abuse at least, just good old fashioned physical abuse or maybe neglect.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 16:27
|
|
|
Cardiac posted:Graydon Saunders is self published, which one painfully realizes in the sequels which are boring and tedious as gently caress. First book have clear first author book syndrome and clearly needed an editor. Ironic because that wasn't his first book, which (The Human Dress), is the only non-Commonweal book of his. Also hard disagree on the boring and tedious descriptions, but tastes they do vary. Cardiac posted:Also, the amount of times Saunders show up in this thread makes me wonder if someone here is doing selfpromotion. Honestly it's a pretty good recommendation for Dominions. The Chad Jihad posted:If I wanted a book or series that was as close to the Dominions computer game series as possible, if not in content then aesthetic/feel, would there be any good options Steven Erikson's Malazan, at least a few books in when the Ascendants really start doing stuff, sorta hits that feel.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 16:29
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I'm gonna tell myself that if it was just a one year sentence it probably wasn't sexual abuse at least, just good old fashioned physical abuse or maybe neglect. Yeah, but not great.  
ulmont fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jul 29, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 16:32
|
|
|
ulmont posted:Yeah, but not great.  How was that only a one year sentence? I remember reading the Eddings' 'how-we-wrote-our-books' book as a kid, and in it there was a claim that David left a teaching job after the administrators got a pay raise but the teachers didn't. I uhhh guess there could have been other reasons, assuming the dates line up. If I recall right, they moved and he started working in a grocery store again. They made tens of millions of dollars on their books, judging by the bequests they left after David's death. How much fantasy is written by monsters? We have a whole thread on the subject. Maybe the third Baru book should be the Author Baru Cormorant.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 16:50
|
|
|
Sarern posted:I remember reading the Eddings' 'how-we-wrote-our-books' book as a kid, and in it there was a claim that David left a teaching job after the administrators got a pay raise but the teachers didn't. I uhhh guess there could have been other reasons, assuming the dates line up. If I recall right, they moved and he started working in a grocery store again. He was a bad to mediocre writer who found out that fantasy sold and thus wrote the Belgariad, then rewrote that story for the rest of his career. He lied a lot about his motivations and stuff. He admitted his venality at one point. I wouldn't be shocked to find out he lied about other things.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 17:13
|
|
|
ulmont posted:Yeah, but not great. I'm just gonna decide right now that that type is too small for me to read.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 17:26
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I'm just gonna decide right now that that type is too small for me to read.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 17:30
|
|
|
Turns out Torak was Eddings all along. In that light seems like Garion was actually the villain of the novels.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 17:43
|
|
|
Well, I wish I hadn't now. gently caress that poo poo. Some people will defend anything and the dialog around abuse and trial-by-internet can be pretty toxic, but it's hard to believe they would have had a succesful mainstream career as popular and beloved authors in a decade other than when local news usually stayed local. Pretty glad my kid didn't like the first couple of chapters of the first Belgeriad book and gave it a hard pass, now. Gravy Jones fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Jul 29, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 17:52
|
|
|
This is why I said "Kill off personal nostalgia, and re-examine your growing up fiction/game faves, and draw new conclusions."....and also why I wanted that new flashman fiction thread to have the "literalSexCrimes: no one published is without blame" alt text. Maybe two or three fantasy fiction series I'd read growing up has held up after a re-read in middle age. Amazingly, the freaking original Dragonlance books held up shockingly well while other later books/series by those same authors did not, aka the notStarWars series + D&D-deconstructed series because I'm not wasting braincells/energy looking up their real series names. Chris Stasheff's Wizard series + spinoffs also held up decently on a re-read because he kept things light + family/kid friendly as much as possible in those books. Third fantasy series that held up after a re-read was, uh umm hmmmm....Lord of the Rings?
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 18:03
|
|
|
The Chad Jihad posted:If I wanted a book or series that was as close to the Dominions computer game series as possible, if not in content then aesthetic/feel, would there be any good options The Raven Tower gave me a strong Dominions feel. The gods of that setting are very much in the Pretenders vein, and the chapters revolving around them are, at least IMO, the best part of the book. Hell, the narrator is straight-up a Pretender chassis, and made me want to do a game as a Strength and Patience of the Hills-themed big-stone-head.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 18:04
|
|
|
NoNostalgia4Grover posted:This is why I said "Kill off personal nostalgia, and re-examine your growing up fiction/game faves, and draw new conclusions."....and also why I wanted that new flashman fiction thread to have the "literalSexCrimes: no one published is without blame" alt text. I read a dragonlance novel as a kid because it was the largest slab of book in the library, and my chances of figuring out which book it was are approximately zero
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 18:16
|
|
|
ulmont posted:Ironic because that wasn't his first book, which (The Human Dress), is the only non-Commonweal book of his. I really liked the Commonweal books (even the less-interesting 2&3), not so much The Human Dress. There was a good core of vikings+dinosaurs+zombies in there but it needed someone to force Saunders to figure out just exactly what book he was trying to write.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 18:31
|
|
|
mewse posted:I read a dragonlance novel as a kid because it was the largest slab of book in the library, and my chances of figuring out which book it was are approximately zero My school library had the entire Dragons of Season Whatever series and I read them all. The solitary thing I remember from them now is the scene where a wizard falls off a tower and is halfway through casting Feather Fall when he splats, causing him to explode in a shower of feathers on impact.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 18:50
|
|
|
So now I'm investigating Dragonlance because it's been decades but I had fond memories and seem to recall the moral ambiguity (which I guess is what you get when you stick to D&D alignments) being a bit ahead of it's time for mass market paperbacks and stumbled across... WTF part II, but at least this one doesn't involve child abuse. Glad to find that Keifer was Raistlin. Fred Tatasciore, Dee Bradley Baker and Phil Lamarr in it as well. Gravy Jones fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Jul 29, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 18:58
|
|
|
Fried Sushi posted:In that light seems like Garion was actually the villain of the novels. The way I remember the books, the protagonists weren't exactly 'heroes'.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 19:18
|
|
|
Sarern posted:
1970. Do note the scare quotes around "child abuse" too.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 20:11
|
|
|
C.M. Kruger posted:1970. Do note the scare quotes around "child abuse" too. I think that was the stylistic equivalent to "alleged" to avoid being sued for libel if they'd been exonerated.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2019 23:59
|
|
|
Gravy Jones posted:So now I'm investigating Dragonlance because it's been decades but I had fond memories and seem to recall the moral ambiguity (which I guess is what you get when you stick to D&D alignments) being a bit ahead of it's time for mass market paperbacks and stumbled across... WTF part II, but at least this one doesn't involve child abuse. Huh, I remember Will Meugniot as a minor-league comics artist in the 80s. Looking him up, he's apparently got extensive animation credits as well, which would explain this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 00:15
|
|
|
Collateral posted:Eddings had super creepy situations in all his books. How many had a goddess who appeared as a child and wanted all the kisses off the gruff manly heroes? Garions wife was described as tiny childlike flat chest etc. In the Elenium doesn't the gruff dishonoured knight dude save his charge who he had raised from child, but she was dtf and tried to put her off but she was just so darned hot. Also a jewish child goddess who loves him and yes, wants all the kisses. Man, I remembered the like fantasy race science throughout the series but I totally missed this "subtext"
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 04:38
|
|
|
Pierce Brown good or bad?
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 13:33
|
|
|
Affi posted:Pierce Brown good or bad? I'd put them on the tier above airplane fiction. Fun reads but don't take it too seriously. That being said i've also preordered every release. Only thing I really dislike about the Red Rising series is is the loving name Mustang. It's so out of place. Reminds me when Ian Cameron Esselmont started writing Malazan novels and had a character named Kyle. Compared to people like Anomander Rake and Dassem Ultor it's just really jarring. I know it's a bit of a pathetic thing to moan about but it just erks me.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 14:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 21:52 |
|
|
Affi posted:Pierce Brown good or bad? Readable and entertaining without being anything special. Try Red Rising if you don't like it then don't read any further because although the storyline changes, e.g. Book 1 is very much an Enders Game style "Battle school for teenage prodigies" type book albeit set in an authoritarian universe with genetically engineered superhumans but this doesn't continue to other books, it won't really improve or get worse.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 21:05
|
|
