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Safety Biscuits posted:Of the Chrestomanci books: Lives of Christopher Chant, Charmed Life, and Witch Week - Lives last, I think. It's more serious than the other two, and makes a good comparison to Charmed Life. Also since nobody else mentioned them, A Tale of Time City and Eight Days of Luke. Like, well, you can't go really wrong with Jones has been my experience. Some of her books are definitely better than others but I can't recall any that I really just didn't like, though at the time I was reading her most there were some that were out of print and hard to come by.
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Aug 11, 2019 00:07
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Most of her later stuff was pretty weak, honestly. But she has a huge number of massive hits. (It's worth hunting down her adult fantasy novel, A Sudden Wild Magic, to read a very standard DWJ book only the people in it have sex.) Meanwhile, apparently Lud-in-the-mist finally has an audiobook, but it's unavailable in the USA, which is ridiculous given that as far as I can see it's public domain.
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Aug 11, 2019 03:58
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Still reading The Reality Dysfunction. I'm about 500 pages in now and stuff has actually happened which is nice. I like the meme of Quinn getting tricked by ultra-satan into thinking he's just normal satan Also thanks to this thread the next thing I will read once I finish one of the things I'm reading now is going to be either Revelation Space or Ash: A Secret History. They both sound very good.
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Aug 11, 2019 04:18
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occamsnailfile posted:Also since nobody else mentioned them, A Tale of Time City and Eight Days of Luke. Like, well, you can't go really wrong with Jones has been my experience. Some of her books are definitely better than others but I can't recall any that I really just didn't like, though at the time I was reading her most there were some that were out of print and hard to come by. I don't remember A Tale of Time City well; Eight Days of Luke was OK but slight, more for children than some of her other books. Rand Brittain posted:Most of her later stuff was pretty weak, honestly. I don't think I've recommended anything she wrote after about 2000. The Howl sequels were especially disappointing. I finally read Throne of the Crescent Moon and god how was it nominated for a Hugo. It's a mess.
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Aug 11, 2019 04:29
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Safety Biscuits posted:I don't think I've recommended anything she wrote after about 2000. The Howl sequels were especially disappointing. Regarding the Hugo question - have you seen the ballots for last couple of years?
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Aug 11, 2019 08:20
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Safety Biscuits posted:
Yeah, I didn't like that either. Howard Jones's Desert of Souls books are a pretty good take on a similar theme though.
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Aug 11, 2019 09:07
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https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1160566576791347200 edit: hahah steven brust retweeted me Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Aug 11, 2019 |
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Aug 11, 2019 16:00
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Safety Biscuits posted:I finally read Throne of the Crescent Moon and god how was it nominated for a Hugo. It's a mess. It got a lot of buzz on release because, as far as I could tell, it's an Arab fantasy written by a Muslim Arab. It's kind of why I gave it a go as well. I thought it was an obvious first novel from someone who already wrote decent short fiction, but didn't quite succeed at his first attempt at longform.
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Aug 11, 2019 17:25
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1160566576791347200 Yeah, that's always looked like it would be amazing but also much more of a pain in the rear end than I am willing to put up with for coffee.
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Aug 12, 2019 01:26
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ulmont posted:Yeah, that's always looked like it would be amazing but also much more of a pain in the rear end than I am willing to put up with for coffee. In the books, Vlad is VERY serious about food and
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Aug 12, 2019 07:50
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ulmont posted:Yeah, that's always looked like it would be amazing but also much more of a pain in the rear end than I am willing to put up with for coffee. It's not so bad once you've gathered all the components, but yeah, it's not weekday morning practical. Takes about six eggs' worth of shells.
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Aug 12, 2019 12:41
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anilEhilated posted:
What were some titles that you think should have gotten a nomination but didn't?
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Aug 12, 2019 19:27
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wrong thread
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Aug 12, 2019 19:36
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Moment that made me laugh in The Reality Dysfunction:quote:Louise’s young sister tagged along with them for the entire afternoon, giggling the whole time. Joshua wasn’t used to children that age, in his opinion she was a spoilt brat who needed a drat good smack. If it wasn’t for Louise he would have been mighty tempted to put her over his knee. Instead he suffered in silence, making the most of the way Louise’s dress fabric shifted about as she moved. Louise is 16. We are ostensibly supposed to like Joshua (who is 21 here), but what a perfect confluence of bad things all in one paragraph.
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Aug 13, 2019 01:14
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joshua calvert is really, really bad yeah hamilton mentioned once that he also thought jashua was bad but that's like... you didn't have to write the books that way if you didn't want, pete nobody made you invent a world where this man's behavior is rewarded
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Aug 13, 2019 02:00
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anilEhilated posted:Were they? I honestly consider Castle in the Air one of my favorite Wynne-Joneses. Each to her own, but I found them a disappointment after the brilliance of the original. quote:Regarding the Hugo question - have you seen the ballots for last couple of years? Ah, this reminds me of the time I worked out how experienced* Best Novel nominees were. Turns out the average nominee was about five books into their career, which I found surprisingly small - there were quite a few debuts, too. *in terms of how many books they'd previously published
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Aug 13, 2019 15:41
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Just finished The Luminous Dead on this thread's recommendation and really enjoyed it. Got that paranoid, claustrophobic feeling down pretty well.
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Aug 13, 2019 15:52
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Disclosure: This may have been asked, but I'm too lazy to search the thread. Has anyone read Empire of Silence? I got a spamz from Penguin this morning that a second book in the series was coming out and I had somehow missed this one. The description sounds really promising... Edit: link
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Aug 13, 2019 16:26
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XBenedict posted:Disclosure: This may have been asked, but I'm too lazy to search the thread. It came up a while ago here and iirc the judgment was it's bad with a plot ripped off wholesale from Dune and writing plagiarized from Name of the Wind
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Aug 13, 2019 16:42
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PupsOfWar posted:joshua calvert is really, really bad yeah If you want the really bad age difference, Broken Dragon, North Road and the Commonwealth series all feature young females and old men. Special mention goes to Misspent Youth where a father become young again and fucks all the female friends of his son.
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Aug 13, 2019 17:00
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XBenedict posted:Disclosure: This may have been asked, but I'm too lazy to search the thread. I'll link my review once again, but yes, it's staggeringly derivative.
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Aug 13, 2019 17:06
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The_White_Crane posted:I'll link my review once again, but yes, it's staggeringly derivative. Jesus Christ. This motherfucker is the Vanilla Ice of SFF. Thanks for the relink, goon.
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Aug 13, 2019 17:18
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I was in the mood for sci-fi Roman Empire when I picked it up and it became Gladiator + Dune as told in Rothfuss-voice. For what it's worth, I still kind of liked it.
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Aug 13, 2019 17:59
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Campbell posted:I was in the mood for sci-fi Roman Empire when I picked it up and it became Gladiator + Dune as told in Rothfuss-voice. For what it's worth, I still kind of liked it. I enjoyed it enough to pick up the sequel, which I thought was less derivative. Not everything I read needs to be great.
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Aug 13, 2019 18:58
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Oh dang, I thought the sequel wasn't due for another year. One man's genre trash is another man's genre treasure!
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Aug 13, 2019 22:22
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The_White_Crane posted:I'll link my review once again, but yes, it's staggeringly derivative. Well you know what they say, if you're going to steal then steal from the best and then also Herbert and Rothfuss. Was a little confused at first as thought this had got good reviews, then realised I was mixing it up with A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan) which is on my wish list. Also if you ever are going to get rid of a bunch of books then let me know as I go through Leamington every day and crave cheap second hand sci-fi books.
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Aug 13, 2019 22:42
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I thought Empire of Silence and sequel were great. Yeah there are a lot of obvious homages in it but where aren't there in sci-fi/fantasy.
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Aug 13, 2019 23:19
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I never read Vorkosigan Saga and am finally getting around to reading it. It's next on my list after someone suggested it to me in this thread. Publication order, series order or author's recommended reading order (https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/293438-the-vorkosigan-saga-reading-order-debate-the-chef-recommends?chapter=2) ?
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Aug 13, 2019 23:39
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Xtanstic posted:I never read Vorkosigan Saga and am finally getting around to reading it. It's next on my list after someone suggested it to me in this thread. Bujold's reading order is basically what I'd suggest.
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Aug 13, 2019 23:48
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Xtanstic posted:I never read Vorkosigan Saga and am finally getting around to reading it. It's next on my list after someone suggested it to me in this thread. It's very good and I'd highly recommend it. When I first read them I thought the initial few novels in the series were a little rough compared to the world of the five gods books by Bujold I'd read just beforehand, but that's understandable as the first Vorksagian books were much earlier novels in Bujold's career and still stood up well, although I'd say it really picks up when Miles takes over as the protagonist. I'd go with the author's recommended reading order myself, which is almost the same as the series order anyway.
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Aug 13, 2019 23:53
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I feel like Empire of Silence starts off super derivative but eventually finds its own beats. It isn't amazing, but it's solid cosmic fantasy. The framing is the worst part and it's still way better than Name of the Wind. I just finished Raven Tower and it was amazing! I thought the Ancillary series was great so I expected to like it but it surpassed my expectations. I'm betting the second person narrative will bug some people but I enjoyed it (I also really liked the Broken Earth trilogy). I have some spoiler questions/musing from finishing it So when the bird was killed by Claudius that was the final death of Raven? Everything that followed was actually Strength and Patience? I know S&P had been providing the practical protection of the area, but Raven was still a weakened but still active player till that point. Did I miss where it explicitly spelled out the spinning? I was thinking it was either S&P channeling the kinetic energy of spinning into whatever miracles it was doing or that circumambulation is a common form of worship and so that acted as low level worship. There were very few concrete details about the Ancient Ones but it did mention they ran around and traveled frequently so perhaps movement could've been tied into whatever pre-worship method they used to generate power. I recall there was an offhand line near the end about how the far North gods liked to use trans people as high priests, was that indicated previously when exploring S&P's past and I just missed it or was that the first mention?
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Aug 14, 2019 00:21
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FuzzySlippers posted:Did I miss where it explicitly spelled out the spinning? I was thinking it was either S&P channeling the kinetic energy of spinning into whatever miracles it was doing or that circumambulation is a common form of worship and so that acted as low level worship. There were very few concrete details about the Ancient Ones but it did mention they ran around and traveled frequently so perhaps movement could've been tied into whatever pre-worship method they used to generate power. It's been a while, but the impression I got is that there was no particular meaning to the choice of motion. It was just the terms of its bargain with the coalition: the stone, having spent an entire book warning us about the danger of open-ended promises, wanted something that required conscious effort to activate. It made a bad choice.
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Aug 14, 2019 01:19
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dreamless posted:It's been a while, but the impression I got is that there was no particular meaning to the choice of motion. It was just the terms of its bargain with the coalition: the stone, having spent an entire book warning us about the danger of open-ended promises, wanted something that required conscious effort to activate. It made a bad choice. Before it made the agreement and it was just providing food it was spinning so it seemed like it was part of the process. It definitely got out lawyered on the agreement
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Aug 14, 2019 04:13
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XBenedict posted:Disclosure: This may have been asked, but I'm too lazy to search the thread. most here hated it because of the dune rip off. i enjoyed it because it reminded me of dune
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Aug 14, 2019 04:53
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bought ASH years ago but only got around to reading it today after seeing it come up here regularly - what are Mary Gentle's other books like? Black Opera or Golden Witchbreed would be the ones that appeal most i think
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Aug 14, 2019 04:57
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FuzzySlippers posted:Before it made the agreement and it was just providing food it was spinning so it seemed like it was part of the process. It definitely got out lawyered on the agreement gently caress, I totally missed/forgot that part. That does make it a little more ambiguous, though maaaaybe it's already suspicious and trying to sell that spinning's an important part of the process? When it was just answering individual petitioners it was pretty contentedly stationary.
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Aug 14, 2019 05:33
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Grunts. Both the comedy answer and a serious one.
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Aug 14, 2019 05:40
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branedotorg posted:bought ASH years ago but only got around to reading it today after seeing it come up here regularly - what are Mary Gentle's other books like? Her other stuff (that I've read) is just as detailed and brutal and interesting.... ...and then there's Grunts, which is black comedy at its bleakest. She wrote it while recovering from a car crash for fun and it shows.
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Aug 14, 2019 11:22
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FuzzySlippers posted:I just finished Raven Tower and it was amazing! I thought the Ancillary series was great so I expected to like it but it surpassed my expectations. I'm betting the second person narrative will bug some people but I enjoyed it (I also really liked the Broken Earth trilogy). I have some spoiler questions/musing from finishing it she also has a few stories set in the same world and they're good as well, check them out: Beloved of the Sun Marsh Gods The God of Au The Nalendar The Snake's Wife The Unknown God I believe they're all available online
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Aug 14, 2019 16:31
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In Raven Tower it was explicitly stated at one point that Strength and Patience was confident it could stop anyone from spinning it if it didn't want to be spun. The problem was that it was unconscious in the aftermath of the Raven's victory, so it wasn't able to prevent getting set up to automatically spin. Once it woke up it was too late and it was caught in the terms of its promise.
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Aug 15, 2019 02:16
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