|
Megazver posted:http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-biggest-fantasy-debuts-in-past.html Oh sweet, super helpful. Thanks!
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2019 21:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 10:15 |
|
|
Nae! posted:I did read Baru! I actually didnt think that was within the last five years, but I am poo poo at tracking time so maybe it was. Tor has put a bunch of Gideon the Ninth chapters up on their site and it isn't particularly memey. Just your standard space lesbian necromancer court intrigue dramedy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2019 21:04
|
|
|
pseudorandom name posted:Tor has put a bunch of Gideon the Ninth chapters up on their site and it isn't particularly memey. Just your standard space lesbian necromancer court intrigue dramedy. Seconding this! I don't know why they thought insulting the book would be a good way to sell it, but it's fantastically written. It has an irreverent tone which I guess could provoke the meme thing but urgh, no. It has a heart.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2019 21:41
|
|
|
I've first in line for Gideon at the library once it gets in and I'm pretty hype.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2019 21:44
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Seconding this! I don't know why they thought insulting the book would be a good way to sell it, but it's fantastically written. It has an irreverent tone which I guess could provoke the meme thing but urgh, no. It has a heart. Yeah I'm not really sure what Forbes was thinking but they didn't phrase it as an insult: quote:If you enjoy browsing memes or joking with friends, you’ll enjoy this prose. (A few memes do actually slip in; someone makes a “studied the blade” joke that works pretty well given that everyone in this universe tends to solve their differences with sword fights). The end result of the plot and prose combo is just a totally goony fun page-turner that really needs to be on everyone’s reading list this fall. If you want the full Forbes experience and you love the word Goony, you can read the rest of the interview with the author here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamro...y/#f431e3384927
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2019 21:49
|
|
|
occamsnailfile posted:I think folks here largely already know this but prices are set by the publisher so complaining to the author on Twitter or whatever just makes them sad. I agree Murderbot was a bit stiff but I’ve read it at least twice already so there’s that. I don't do it but i understand the impulse. Ebooks in australia sold by Hachette often cost more than a hardback, even for older books (city of stairs is US$14, HC US$12.98, stranger in a strange land [1961] 8.23 pb 6.89). Lately there's been some big releases that aren't even released on kindle because of here including the second baru book, the new kameron hurley book and some others. I can't get them via amazon.com or .com.au I don't pirate books but its shocking that due to licencing i'm meant to pay up to 5x the price that you pay in the US. I understand that they don't make the choice but i think the author should know if they're losing customers because of the publisher.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2019 23:48
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Sometimes I miss the 70s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Qm_UJML54
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 00:37
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Gideon the Ninth, Gideon the Ninth, Gideon the Ninth. It's SO GOOD, and it's by Tamsyn Muir! The hype for this books was enough to make me spring for the limited edition before actually reading it so it better be as good as everyone is saying!
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 00:57
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:I've only ready one, American Elsewhere, which is a real doorstopper and kind of modern cosmic horror. I remember really liking it when I read it the first time, but that was a while ago. I was going to re-read it pretty soon here, I'd be happy to post my thoughts once I do. I really love The Troupe and put it in the fantasy pile rather then horror - RJB is one of my favorite writers from the last decade and the thing that's always impressed me is that he gets better with each book. City of Stairs was wonderful but the first book of his new series, Foundryside, somehow managed to be even better. In terms of first fantasy novels from the last five years I really liked Curtis Cradock's An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors but the follow up was meh. I think Rebecca Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning was a good start (like the second book more though), as was Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw. Oh and Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown is entertaining but kinda fluff. Going through my book list just now has made me realize that while I've read a lot of fantasy I've enjoyed in the last five years the first novels that I've fallen in love with were all science fiction (...or at least had spaceships) .
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 01:38
|
|
|
Recently re-read a bunch of Jack Vance short stories + books...I wanted memories of something good in advance in case the challenge I made in another book barn thread failed. Vance's NightLamp was 85% setup + 15% actual story, yet it works better than it has any right too. NightLamp set the stage for typical Vancian 'villain escapes and needs to be put down' shenanigans, but subverts that entirely with the villain getting a Socrates style death and then getting shot in the back of the head 3 times by the 2ndary lead character" just to be sure". Meanwhile I rooted for the villains yet again while reading Vance's 3-book Cadwal Chronicles series because the hero/good guy characters were such smug 'do-as-i-say, not as-i-do' pro-slavery douchebags. Vance's 5 golden bands was both terrible and semi-interesting....terribleness factor mostly came from the main character reminding himself at least twice a chapter that he was an Irishman from Cork County Ireland and that Earth NEEDED spacedrive technology and saying so out loud in a terrible irish accent. Augmented Man short collection was strong. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Sep 11, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 02:00
|
|
|
Best Vance short is "The Moon Moth."
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 02:29
|
|
|
Nae! posted:I'm in the process of trying to get back into reading more fantasy, and I'm looking for some good fantasy novels that fit the following criteria: Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen. It's got elements of westerns, dark fantasy and even post-apocalypse in it and it's a damned good read with an unusual protagonist.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 05:50
|
|
|
Ornamented Death posted:The hype for this books was enough to make me spring for the limited edition before actually reading it so it better be as good as everyone is saying! I have been burned so hard in the past few years by hyped books (Looking at you Dinosaur Lords and River of Teeth). Especially anything that touts how “queer” it is, which seems to be shorthand for “not well written, but has representation.” If the thread opinion is that it’s decent, I’ll give a look at the free chapters. Fake edit: oh and it has a cool cover which is often the kiss of death. Get some Darryl K Sweet garbage on the frontspiece if you want my money
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 06:49
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:I've only ready one, American Elsewhere, which is a real doorstopper and kind of modern cosmic horror. I remember really liking it when I read it the first time, but that was a while ago. I was going to re-read it pretty soon here, I'd be happy to post my thoughts once I do. Not getting ruthlessly mocked would be achievement on these forums. Sounds interesting and I'll check it out. It also puts a perspective on his City of Stairs series, where the gods and other supernatural things have Lovecrafty vibes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 07:09
|
|
|
Library at Mount Char is a trip. Where can I get more like this?
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 10:36
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Seconding this! I don't know why they thought insulting the book would be a good way to sell it, but it's fantastically written. It has an irreverent tone which I guess could provoke the meme thing but urgh, no. It has a heart.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 10:51
|
|
|
Beefeater1980 posted:Library at Mount Char is a trip. Yeah, I'm only about 20% through it myself at the moment and it is one WTF after another. Me like.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 11:02
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:How much focus is there on the romance? The book sounds great but the descriptions keep hammering it in as a selling point and fantasy romance and sex scenes are generally pretty insufferable, or at least for me. No sex scenes and like zero romance. They are lesbians but not with each other.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 12:46
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:No sex scenes and like zero romance. They are lesbians but not with each other.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 13:01
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Gideon the Ninth, Gideon the Ninth, Gideon the Ninth. It's SO GOOD, and it's by Tamsyn Muir! I'll second that. Just finished Gideon the Ninth and it was an immensely fun read. I suspect people will either absolutely love the rude, snarky, sarcastic POV character or intensely dislike her (what's wrong with you?). The book itself mixes sci-fi, fantasy, horror, locked-in-a-mansion-murder-mystery, etc -- got your undead/undying space emperor, nine houses of different types of necromancers, ancient seat-of-the-empire planet, etc. Gideon's hate/hate relationship with Harrowhark, the heir of her house, powerful necromancer, and sort of horrific younger sister figure is quality fun too. Regarding LGBT content/romance, the author had this to say over on GoodReads... Tamsyn Muir posted:It's hard to quantify how much LGBT content is in the book -- the plot contains arguably very little romance, and conflicts/issues surrounding being LGBTQIA+ don't come up at all and never will. Hilariously, the word 'lesbian' comes up in the blurb, but is never used in the book. Quinton fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Sep 11, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 16:20
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:The other two I can think of are The Troupe and Mr. Shivers but I haven't read either. It's possible I dreamed this and it's not at all true, but I'd swear that RJB was a goon once upon a time and got ruthlessly mocked in FYAD after he posted an excerpt from The Troupe somewhere on the forums, so that tells you something, I suppose, but I'd be hard pressed to say what it tells you Oh! I remember the author of Mr. Shivers being a goon (mostly for the silly name of the book, I never read it) but I didn't tie that to the Divine Cities books at all.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 16:27
|
|
|
He has a pretty recent story called Vigilance that's great too. I thought Mr shivers was better than he got credit for
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 16:36
|
|
|
Nevvy Z posted:He has a pretty recent story called Vigilance that's great too. I thought Mr shivers was better than he got credit for I read Vigilance and I'd give it a Pretty Good, I think. Great seems an oversell.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 17:11
|
|
|
Nevvy Z posted:I thought Mr shivers was better than he got credit for He won a Shirley Jackson award for it. Goons aren't the be-all and end-all of opinions.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 17:14
|
|
|
Ornamented Death posted:He won a Shirley Jackson award for it. Goons aren't the be-all and end-all of opinions. Oh without a doubt, and I didn't mean to imply that I thought they were. Plus this would have been probably pre-2010, which was a very different sort of SA than we have now. There was definitely a span of time where you were relentlessly ridiculed for trying hard at anything, though I don't remember if that's when it was. I will say that despite my spotty memory of American Elsewhere, I liked it a whole lot when I read it, and it was, if nothing else, distinctly different from anything I'd read before.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 18:00
|
|
|
American Elsewhere is good, if a bit overlong. It also won a Shirley Jackson award 
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 18:12
|
|
|
American Elsewhere had a genuinely eye-catching cover, good thing the book was also enjoyable. I agree with folks who say Bennett has progressively gotten better over time though. I haven't gotten to read his newest yet, but I definitely want to. Also I ordered this Gideon the Ninth thing out of budget, god drat you all.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 18:33
|
|
|
I liked American Elsewhere a lot. RJB used to write for the front page but it was like 07-08 timeframe maybe? I don't recall his screen name.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 19:40
|
|
|
Quinton posted:I'll second that. Just finished Gideon the Ninth and it was an immensely fun read. Thirded. Absolutely excellent, and I'm really interested in how Harrow is going to work as a protagonist in the next one.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 20:31
|
|
|
Spiny Norman or something like that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 22:20
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:My friend bought me Murderbot! It is extremely charming so far and I'm probably gonna finish it tonight. https://twitter.com/jruoxichen/status/1171889732818821122
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2019 23:55
|
|
|
I asked this in the recommendation thread but didn't get any responses so I'm hoping you guys will be able to help. One thing I really like about Ted Chiang is his ability to take outlandish ideas and flesh them out into fully functional worlds - I'm thinking particularly of his stories "Hell is the Absence of God", in which miraculous visitations by angels are a common occurrence and "Omphalos", in which there's ample evidence that the Young Earth creation story is correct. Another example of what I'm looking for would be the show The Leftovers. The show starts with a wacky premise and then delves into how different groups would react to it - the preachers, the scientists, the government, the grifters, etc. I'm looking for other speculative fiction that does this. Stories about a flat earth about ship captains navigating to the edge of the planet, for example. I'd prefer fiction that doesn't include aliens, wizards, or dragons for the most part. Stories with humans as the main characters. Any suggestions?
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 00:46
|
|
|
bowser posted:I asked this in the recommendation thread but didn't get any responses so I'm hoping you guys will be able to help. One thing I really like about Ted Chiang is his ability to take outlandish ideas and flesh them out into fully functional worlds - I'm thinking particularly of his stories "Hell is the Absence of God", in which miraculous visitations by angels are a common occurrence and "Omphalos", in which there's ample evidence that the Young Earth creation story is correct. Read Stanislaw Lem's Ijon Tichy short story collection the Star Diaries. There are aliens present in about 40% of the stories, but nothing is perfect friend. Love the sentient lurking in asteroid fields killer potatoes throw-away idea, love the entirety of Lem's Eleventh Voyage more.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 00:59
|
|
|
Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence has a couple of stories I know of that might fit: Flux, which takes place inside a neutron star populated by humans translated into an appropriate form who are a micron tall but as massive as a normal human, who see heat that propagates as an exotic form of sound and smell light that diffuses gradually through the ultradense fluid they live in, etc., and Raft, not Rift, which is about people who escaped this universe into a different one with a higher gravitational constant where they live in a planet sized nebula full of tiny stars. Also Greg Egan has a number of books with settings where some basic aspect of physics is different, but "not for everyone" is the best way I can think of to describe them at the moment. e: vv right, thanks eszett engma fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Sep 12, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 01:57
|
|
|
Raft, and IIRC the short story was better but it's still interesting. Egan is a beautiful artist but maybe don't start with something like Dichronauts.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 02:05
|
|
|
bowser posted:I asked this in the recommendation thread but didn't get any responses so I'm hoping you guys will be able to help. One thing I really like about Ted Chiang is his ability to take outlandish ideas and flesh them out into fully functional worlds - I'm thinking particularly of his stories "Hell is the Absence of God", in which miraculous visitations by angels are a common occurrence and "Omphalos", in which there's ample evidence that the Young Earth creation story is correct. Nina Allen, Jeannette Ng, and specifically the Folded World books by Cat Valente all kind of fit into what you're describing. The "weird fiction" end of fantasy tends more towards this sort of setup, where a normal world is twisted in some way and then often treated as unremarkable. It's more Latin-American focused but the specifically named "Magical Realist" authors might also interest you. Gabriel Garcia Marques, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, several others--they're often trying to make some underlying point, but they tend to involve a supernatural element that is simply addressed as part of the world.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 02:14
|
|
|
I'm reading Yellow Blue Tibia with some surprise. I didn't expect it to be so funny. The interrogation scene had me chuckling quietly on the bus. For those unfamiliar with it, it's about a sci fi writer who was part of a group of USSR writers who dreamt up an absurd alien invasion plot for Stalin. Later, it starts to become true.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 02:35
|
|
|
bowser posted:I asked this in the recommendation thread but didn't get any responses so I'm hoping you guys will be able to help. One thing I really like about Ted Chiang is his ability to take outlandish ideas and flesh them out into fully functional worlds - I'm thinking particularly of his stories "Hell is the Absence of God", in which miraculous visitations by angels are a common occurrence and "Omphalos", in which there's ample evidence that the Young Earth creation story is correct. gvibes fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Sep 12, 2019 |
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 04:44
|
|
|
(Gideon the Ninth spoilers)cultureulterior posted:Thirded. Absolutely excellent, and I'm really interested in how Harrow is going to work as a protagonist in the next one. Agreed. Seeing the world from Gideon's POV was extremely enjoyable, and I suspect Harrow will also entertain but differently. And there's the open question of "is Gideon really, truly gone?" -- on one hand the NecroLord says you can't un-Lyctor, but on the other hand we have bodies unaccounted for and the NecroLord strikes me as maybe not entirely infallible as gods go. I'm a little bummed that a number of characters I liked were killed off, but enjoy that "nobody's safe" feeling and am hopeful that the second book will introduce some equally enjoyable secondary cast members. Going to be a long wait until next June (per Amazon) for the second book!
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 09:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 10:15 |
|
|
bowser posted:I asked this in the recommendation thread but didn't get any responses so I'm hoping you guys will be able to help. One thing I really like about Ted Chiang is his ability to take outlandish ideas and flesh them out into fully functional worlds - I'm thinking particularly of his stories "Hell is the Absence of God", in which miraculous visitations by angels are a common occurrence and "Omphalos", in which there's ample evidence that the Young Earth creation story is correct. Borges is exactly who you're looking for. Very similar style. Both are among my favourite writers, not sure whose better. Start with ficciones.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2019 12:58
|
|