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Consider Phlebas (Culture #1) by Iain M Banks - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013TX6FI/ The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn #1) by Peter F Hamilton - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004VO4J0I/ Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077RG422Z/ This is the author who posted some of his writing on FYAD that everyone was making fun of pages back. Compare and contrast.
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Mar 10, 2020 01:34
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pradmer posted:Consider Phlebas (Culture #1) by Iain M Banks - $2.99 Foundryside was really good and on the same level as the City series. Also, just finished Shadow Saint by Hanrahan, the continuation of Gutter Prayer. Probably the closest to the Bas-Lag series by Mieville I have read in terms of world building. Definitely less puissance though.
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Mar 10, 2020 07:40
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tildes posted:Yeah it sucks that they were misgendered, but the intent behind it seems good. I bet if the creators were contacted they'd update it correctly, I am pretty sure they didn't intentionally misgender them.
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Mar 10, 2020 07:58
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Aw. Well that's nice.  I was rather vitriolic, but that's why I did my ranting here rather than at the listmaker. It's just very tiresome. There aren't many successful NB authors, and AFAB NB people in particular have to deal with being seen as "woman lite" an awful lot.
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Mar 10, 2020 12:27
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Cardiac posted:Foundryside was really good and on the same level as the City series. We talked about back thread a bit. Seemed split that its as you say or pretty run-of-the-mill YA (my take). Still, it's worth that sale price.
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Mar 10, 2020 22:54
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Recursion by Blake Crouch - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HDSHP7N/ Elysium Fire by Alistair Reynolds - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073P43TMS
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Mar 11, 2020 01:04
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https://www.humblebundle.com/books/celebrating-25-years-scifi-fantasy-from-tachyon-books contains, among other things: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan The Last Tsar's Dragons by Adam Stemple and Jane Yolen
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Mar 11, 2020 20:04
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Willful Child by Steven Erickson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ILY5BY2/ Heard it described as a comedy parody of star trek. Seems strange from the Malazan guy. 84K by Claire North - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y178M4C/ I really liked her other book The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, but I haven't heard anything about this one. Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by KJ Parker - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078W5M7DB Basically I know the authors but nothing about these books. Anyone willing to give a recommendation?
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Mar 11, 2020 22:47
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pradmer posted:Willful Child by Steven Erickson - $2.99 I’ll give an anti-recommendation, avoid Willful Child. I gave it a shot because I enjoyed the Malazan series but it was terrible, not funny at all. I checked the sample to remind myself and it’s bad right off, and never improved.
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Mar 11, 2020 23:56
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PlushCow posted:I’ll give an anti-recommendation, avoid Willful Child. I gave it a shot because I enjoyed the Malazan series but it was terrible, not funny at all. I checked the sample to remind myself and it’s bad right off, and never improved.
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Mar 12, 2020 01:07
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pradmer posted:Willful Child by Steven Erickson - $2.99 16 ways is good, but I'm a KJ Parker fan so anything in his style would be fine by me. ymmv.
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Mar 12, 2020 01:20
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Doctor Jeep posted:16 ways is good, but I'm a KJ Parker fan so anything in his style would be fine by me. ymmv. If you haven't read Prosper's Demon go go go go
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Mar 12, 2020 03:09
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PlushCow posted:I’ll give an anti-recommendation, avoid Willful Child. I gave it a shot because I enjoyed the Malazan series but it was terrible, not funny at all. I checked the sample to remind myself and it’s bad right off, and never improved. Doctor Jeep posted:16 ways is good, but I'm a KJ Parker fan so anything in his style would be fine by me. ymmv. I'll skip Erickson and take a chance on Parker then. Thanks all!
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Mar 12, 2020 04:05
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I like Erikson generally, but yes, Willful Child is a complete misfire. As Star Trek pastiches go, it's not even as good as Redshirts.
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Mar 12, 2020 04:50
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I can't remember which Parker book I read, but it wasn't that great. It was about some guy who was an alchemist and something about how he figured out a way to make a synthetic version of a blue color that was crazy expensive due to being hard to make, or find the ingredients. To be honest though, I might be getting part of the story mixed up with another book where the protag may have invented immortality and somehow encased this lady in honey before blowing up a castle. Point is, he can make the mundane and batshit crazy sound mundane. It's a lil weird.
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Mar 12, 2020 06:49
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Yeah making the mundane interesting is definitely Parker's forte. It looks like the sale's done, but I'd still throw out a recommendation for 16 Ways. It's sort of a fantasy/roman legion-esque "competency porn" kind of story, since it's literally about a guy trying to defend a city against a siege (and politics, and... just about everything else). I enjoyed it a lot, and it was a nice diversion from standard fantasy fare in a lot of ways.
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Mar 12, 2020 20:43
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I've been reading Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly because Brandon Sanderson said it was one of his formative reading experiences, and it is really good. I read on Goodreads that I should ignore the sequels, though.
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Mar 12, 2020 20:49
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MockingQuantum posted:Yeah making the mundane interesting is definitely Parker's forte. It looks like the sale's done, but I'd still throw out a recommendation for 16 Ways. It's sort of a fantasy/roman legion-esque "competency porn" kind of story, since it's literally about a guy trying to defend a city against a siege (and politics, and... just about everything else). I enjoyed it a lot, and it was a nice diversion from standard fantasy fare in a lot of ways.
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Mar 12, 2020 21:40
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picked up Recursion and I'm absolutely loving it, but authors really need to stop describing stuff like hair color at–let's see–the 49% mark of a book. in case anyone wants to create a mind picture or facecast of Helena starting out: the character has red hair.
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Mar 13, 2020 01:59
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anilEhilated posted:How depresssing is it, for a Parker? Below average depressing, I'd say.
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Mar 13, 2020 02:02
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Today would have been Harry Harrison's 95th birthday. RIP creator of the 'Soylent Green is people' meme. Most of his work aged pretty well which is rare for scifi.
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Mar 13, 2020 02:45
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Groke posted:Below average depressing, I'd say. Yeah for Parker it practically has a happy ending.
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Mar 13, 2020 04:47
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http://ogres-crypt.com/Kindle/ Couldn't remember if I ever posted this link. Basically just free books on kindle (either KU or just free). Lots of crap, but some good stuff in there sometimes. Updates a few times a week.
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Mar 13, 2020 11:58
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quantumfoam posted:Today would have been Harry Harrison's 95th birthday. RIP creator of the 'Soylent Green is people' meme. There is a very warm spot in my heart for the adventures of "Slippery Jim" diGriz.
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Mar 13, 2020 16:22
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XBenedict posted:There is a very warm spot in my heart for the adventures of "Slippery Jim" diGriz. 
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Mar 13, 2020 16:56
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XBenedict posted:There is a very warm spot in my heart for the adventures of "Slippery Jim" diGriz. The high stakes in the later stories kind of degraded the character, I think. I liked his clever thieving and improvised counters to relatively petty bad guys better than when he got into things like saving existence itself.
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Mar 13, 2020 22:07
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Spellslinger by Sebastian de Castell - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079DNTPRK/ Same author that wrote the Greatcoats series.
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Mar 13, 2020 23:14
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pradmer posted:Spellslinger by Sebastian de Castell - $2.99 Not great but fun.
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Mar 14, 2020 02:51
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Peter Watts, master of self-infection, has views on the COVID-19/Coronavirus outbreak: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=9224 Kim Stanley Robinson turns 68 in 10 days. Despite my best efforts still bouncing off KSR's work hard. On the other hand, thanks to my recent KSR read attempt, re-stumbled across Alice B. Sheldon's (pen-name James Triptree Jr) "The Only Neat Thing to Do" novella and kind of confused/sad it hasn't been included in more scifi anthologies. 'TONTTD' would have fit nicely inside Neil Clarke's 2018 scifi anthology "The Final Frontier". quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Mar 14, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 03:10
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quantumfoam posted:Today would have been Harry Harrison's 95th birthday. RIP creator of the 'Soylent Green is people' meme. "Soylent Green is people" is from the film, not the novel; it's named after what it's made from. VVV Didn't mean to sound like a jerk, just pointing it out. Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Mar 14, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 04:14
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Safety Biscuits posted:"Soylent Green is people" is from the film, not the novel; it's named after what it's made from. Without the book, no movie. Sci-fi book based movies were Heston's thing for a little bit in the late '60s/early '70s, Omega Man, Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes.
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Mar 14, 2020 04:42
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https://nightworms.com/blogs/news/free-books-from-authors-and-publishers-for-your-coronavirus-social-distancing Free ebooks from publishers due to the whole coronavirus plague. Might be something cool that catches your eye, might just be hot garbage, I've found a few that sounded interesting.
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Mar 14, 2020 16:08
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:https://nightworms.com/blogs/news/free-books-from-authors-and-publishers-for-your-coronavirus-social-distancing Would love recommendations from this. I'm aspiring to keep my kindle relatively neat instead of downloading everything, as long as it lasts.
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Mar 14, 2020 19:43
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Forward (individual novellas collection) by NK Jemisin, Blake Crouch, Andy Weir, etc. - $0.99 each or $2.94 for all six https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WK7PVFT I haven't seen it before and don't know anything about it, but I'm guessing the NK Jemisin entry must be pretty good.
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Mar 15, 2020 18:40
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pradmer posted:Forward (individual novellas collection) by NK Jemisin, Blake Crouch, Andy Weir, etc. - $0.99 each or $2.94 for all six All free with Prime as well, in the UK at least.
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Mar 15, 2020 23:12
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quantumfoam posted:Peter Watts, master of self-infection, has views on the COVID-19/Coronavirus outbreak: Maybe dude ought to stick to space vampires.
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Mar 16, 2020 01:35
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fritz posted:Maybe dude ought to stick to space vampires. why?
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Mar 16, 2020 01:56
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I shouldn't be surprised but seeing Watts talk down hopepunk a couple of posts prior to this, in the context of all his shiny new Bulgarian friends who are also convinced that nothing can ever be better and that humans are fundamentally evil, makes me worry he's gonna go full Solzhenitsyn on us and start shilling for Putin.
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Mar 16, 2020 02:20
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Kesper North posted:I shouldn't be surprised but seeing Watts talk down hopepunk a couple of posts prior to this, in the context of all his shiny new Bulgarian friends who are also convinced that nothing can ever be better and that humans are fundamentally evil, makes me worry he's gonna go full Solzhenitsyn on us and start shilling for Putin. watts has been despairingly grim since forever, he's sci fi cassandra
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Mar 16, 2020 02:23
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quantumfoam posted:Peter Watts, master of self-infection, has views on the COVID-19/Coronavirus outbreak: Aurora was the book that got me into the right headspace to like KSR's books, always bounced off them before that.
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Mar 16, 2020 02:28
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