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Few things are as tedious as the relentless need to create categories out of fiction that are so microspecific that they try to retroactively fit fiction into them in order to justify their own existence
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Apr 1, 2020 14:25
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Eh, it's more fun to discuss than going in another circle about Dresden again. But let's try to spice it up - what UF are y'all reading currently? Anything new? Anything really comforting for pandemic times? Anything with some really hot werewolves in it?
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Apr 1, 2020 17:57
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Not sure if Worm counts, but I've been rereading through it.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:03
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I've been giving the Laundry Files a try. By the second book, I can't get through more than a few pages at a time without wanting to punch the incredibly smug "I look down on anyone not up to my lofty intellectual standards" protagonist in the face.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:05
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Gnoman posted:I've been giving the Laundry Files a try. By the second book, I can't get through more than a few pages at a time without wanting to punch the incredibly smug "I look down on anyone not up to my lofty intellectual standards" protagonist in the face. I enjoyed book 1 for ending with them fighting nazis in space, but something about book 2 just kept me wincing and I've never actually read it.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:06
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StrixNebulosa posted:I enjoyed book 1 for ending with them fighting nazis in space, but something about book 2 just kept me wincing and I've never actually read it. Are you counting the "death ray cameras" or "mind control powerpoints" as the second book?
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Apr 1, 2020 18:09
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StrixNebulosa posted:Eh, it's more fun to discuss than going in another circle about Dresden again. Not currently reading any actually. I'm still getting through Mark Greaney's latest Gray Man novel, One Minute Out. After that, though, I do have Mercedes Lackey's Silence which is the ninth from her SERRAted Edge series that featured good and evil elves, mages, race cars and occasional magically empowered social work on problems of cults and child abuse. I'd thought Lackey had pretty much dropped the series a while back, but apparently she has this and a sequel to it that's out in hardcover, so I guess not.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:10
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Gnoman posted:Are you counting the "death ray cameras" or "mind control powerpoints" as the second book? Book 1: Atrocity Archives, contains nazis in space, is fun despite its protagonist. Book 2: Jennifer Morgue, I just couldn't. I have no idea what you're talking about, it's been years since I read book 1 or tried 2. Everyone posted:Not currently reading any actually. I'm still getting through Mark Greaney's latest Gray Man novel, One Minute Out. After that, though, I do have Mercedes Lackey's Silence which is the ninth from her SERRAted Edge series that featured good and evil elves, mages, race cars and occasional magically empowered social work on problems of cults and child abuse. I'd thought Lackey had pretty much dropped the series a while back, but apparently she has this and a sequel to it that's out in hardcover, so I guess not. Mercedes Lackey co-wrote one of my favorite fantasy novels ever, the Black Gryphon. Unfortunately that trilogy seemed to be a standout, as I haven't cared for the rest of her works...but I remain curious about SERRAted edge because it's one of the earliest UF series out there, and since it's so early it does things in new and wacky ways that you wouldn't expect. I think. I've only read the summaries from it.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:17
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StrixNebulosa posted:Book 1: Atrocity Archives, contains nazis in space, is fun despite its protagonist. Then you stopped pretty much where I am. (The second half of The Atrocity Archives involved a project involving the British mass surveilance system being reprogrammed into basilisk guns to fight the Old Ones when the stars are right. The protagonist's boss sets up an early deployment of the system as a bureaucratic power play. Meanwhile the plot of Jennifer Morgue seems to be something about programming Powerpoint presentations to mind control people into buying a specific brand of business software.)
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Apr 1, 2020 18:27
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Laundry Files book 2 (Jennifer Morgue) is about Destiny Entanglement and some Capitalist Antagonist using the plot of James Bond books to guide his rituals (with the intention of severing the Bond ritual just before the point where Bond would kill him, thereby essentially leaving him unstoppable). The Laundry and The Black Chamber send in agents in the roles of Bond, Bond Chick and Bond Villain Chick-that-turns-on-the-Villain to put a stop to him. The joke is that Bob Howard is the one sent in as the Bond Chick and Mo is the one sent in as Bond later You can safely skip Book 2 and go straight to Book 3 because it suffers from "Book 2 in the series sucks" syndrome.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:50
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mastajake posted:Not sure if Worm counts, but I've been rereading through it. It's definitely UF-adjacent. What are superpowers but magic, after all? I've read it through two or three times. It's excellent, if rough around the edges. Could really use an editor, but hey, web serials. You gotta take them with the good and the bad. StrixNebulosa posted:Mercedes Lackey co-wrote one of my favorite fantasy novels ever, the Black Gryphon. Unfortunately that trilogy seemed to be a standout, as I haven't cared for the rest of her works...but I remain curious about SERRAted edge because it's one of the earliest UF series out there, and since it's so early it does things in new and wacky ways that you wouldn't expect. I think. I've only read the summaries from it. I loved the Gryphon trilogy when I was younger, and it sent me on a major Mercedes Lackey journey. Unfortunately, the rest of her works are far inferior, with one major exception. Brightly Burning is the rare standalone book in her series, and it's (IMO) the best of them all. I should re-read it sometime. lots of folks posted:Laundry Files Stuff A series with a rough start, a solid middle, and then another rough period. The second book as the best concept (I love the destiny entanglement and Bond stuff) with the worst execution. It's just frustrating to read. But the next several books after that are great. Watching Bob sort of flounder his way to real power was fun. Then the series moved onto having other folks as the main PoV characters, and it's back to being a middling series again. I honestly really haven't enjoyed the last couple books all that much. I kind of wish the world would just, you know, end and give me some closure.
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Apr 1, 2020 19:06
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Going through the first book of the King's Watch series that was briefly talked about here a couple pages ago. I'm leaning on the "uncomfortably Tory" interpretation from what I've seen so far, with stuff like the main character sadly remarking that very few breakfast places in London are not run by foreigners and so on. It honestly feels a lot like what would happen if Larry Correia was British and slightly less stupid. Not sure if I'll be finishing it. e: Unpopular take, I actually like The Jennifer Morgue a lot. James Bond stories are plenty magical and hosed up on their own, playing them as distubing is a great idea. The best part of laundry is Equoid, though. Most hosed-up take on the unicorn I've ever seen. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Apr 1, 2020 |
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Apr 1, 2020 19:07
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ConfusedUs posted:A series with a rough start, a solid middle, and then another rough period. The second book as the best concept (I love the destiny entanglement and Bond stuff) with the worst execution. It's just frustrating to read. But the next several books after that are great. Watching Bob sort of flounder his way to real power was fun. Yeah, I could've gone my entire life without reading about Mo' having sex dreams about her violin or totally unsympathetic vampire/elf love stories where everybody should have been soul-eaten. I kind of wish we could've seen Bob bring the Soul Eater hammer down on the cult party like he almost did at the airport instead of the New Management cluster-gently caress, though. I guess Stross couldn't do that though because that would've been too easy. I did enjoy M'hari punching Cthulu in the loving face and blowing it's avatar up though.
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Apr 1, 2020 19:12
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StrixNebulosa posted:But let's try to spice it up - what UF are y'all reading currently? Anything new? Anything really comforting for pandemic times? Anything with some really hot werewolves in it? Dunno if it's considered UF, but I'm rereading the Sookie Stackhouse series. It's dumb, but it's fun, easy dumb. In between, reading the Mercy Thompson series, but I keep having to wait for whoever else is reading it from my online library to return books (they have been keeping them for the entire 21 days without returning when finished), so that's been slower going. Last year I read the entire Malazan Book of the Fallen series (every single book. even the ICE ones) so this year I decided I was just going to read easy, dumb books that didn't require a lot of thought.
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Apr 1, 2020 20:32
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Just reread the last Patricia Briggs novel before this current one. I didn't find it memorable, literally, and had to reread to get some clarity on plot points in the latest. Going to restart the Midnight Mayor series now.
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Apr 1, 2020 21:56
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StrixNebulosa posted:Eh, it's more fun to discuss than going in another circle about Dresden again. I'm reading the Lady Trent books, which aren't really UF at all, but I'm definitely in the mood for some, so I've been lurking in this thread and collecting recommendations in the meantime. I've also got the complete run of Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate books as a result of some sort of ebook bundle a while ago, which might actually be what I read next, as they look like the sort of relaxing fluff I'm in the mood for.
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Apr 1, 2020 23:05
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StrixNebulosa posted:Hmmm, I like this. If Rowling could stop being a transphobe for 2 seconds and write a story about adult wizards in the HP 'verse doing spy stuff I'd be down for it. Read any of her post-Potter stuff? She's just not that competent as a writer. StrixNebulosa posted:Mercedes Lackey co-wrote one of my favorite fantasy novels ever, the Black Gryphon. Unfortunately that trilogy seemed to be a standout, as I haven't cared for the rest of her works...but I remain curious about SERRAted edge because it's one of the earliest UF series out there, and since it's so early it does things in new and wacky ways that you wouldn't expect. I think. I've only read the summaries from it. If you want another one that's a little weird because it's early, check out Gossamer Axe by Gael Baudino. I picked it up because I was curious about early LGBT works, since openly non-straight protagonists turned up in fantasy way before the mainstream. Whole thing is about the protagonist trying to win her lover back from the Fey with the power of Hair Metal, which is pretty fun.
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Apr 2, 2020 07:11
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I'm not currently reading any UF because I'm finally catching up on my Michael J. Sullivan backlog, and that's straight-up fantasy. I really wish another Rook novel would come out though. I very much enjoyed the first two. I did read Yahtzee Croshaw's "Differently Morphous" a few months ago and thought it was fairly interesting.
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Apr 2, 2020 09:51
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anilEhilated posted:Going through the first book of the King's Watch series that was briefly talked about here a couple pages ago. I'm leaning on the "uncomfortably Tory" interpretation from what I've seen so far, with stuff like the main character sadly remarking that very few breakfast places in London are not run by foreigners and so on. I don't remember that part but this is definitely wrong. I didn't really like the series so I quit after book 2 or so, but I didn't pick up any "tory" undertones, especially "uncomfortably Tory" ones.
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Apr 2, 2020 17:31
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Liquid Communism posted:Read any of her post-Potter stuff? She's just not that competent as a writer. I've read a couple of her Cormoran Strike novels, The Silkworm and Career of Evil. They seemed at least decent. I haven't read the first book, The Cuckoo's Calling yet and apparently fourth book, Lethal White is out with a fifth, Troubled Blood that's supposed to be published this year (though with the COVID-19 pandemic, who knows? On the other hand, I'm a pretty big Jim Butcher fan despite some of the... problematic aspects of his writing, so it's easily possible that my taste in writers is just indiscriminate to actively bad. Everyone fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Apr 3, 2020 |
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Apr 3, 2020 14:41
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Doctor Jeep posted:I don't remember that part but this is definitely wrong. I didn't really like the series so I quit after book 2 or so, but I didn't pick up any "tory" undertones, especially "uncomfortably Tory" ones. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Apr 3, 2020 |
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Apr 3, 2020 15:08
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Doctor Jeep posted:I don't remember that part but this is definitely wrong. I didn't really like the series so I quit after book 2 or so, but I didn't pick up any "tory" undertones, especially "uncomfortably Tory" ones. To note: quote:There are a lot of family run business in the City; few of them are run by English families. quote:What’s the Islamic view of magick in general?’ You’d have thought I’d dropped my pants, such was the response. All of a sudden, everyone was staring at Hannah. She drew a breath. ‘The Islamic view of magick isn’t dissimilar to the Christian one as it was a few centuries ago. Progressive Islam embraces it; mainstream Islam suppresses it as a weakness afflicting women; extremists consider it the work of Satan. If this was India, or some African countries, I’d say you were spot on, Conrad, but not in Britain. Not yet. Not again.’ quote:‘I took an oath, too. We’re on the same side, Clarke. Don’t forget, Wales voted Leave; we’ve more in common with you than you realise. Neither of you are from London, are you?’ ‘Village near Cheltenham,’ I said. ‘Newcastle upon Tyne,’ said Vicky. ‘As if you hadn’t guessed.’ ‘Then us three have got more in common with each other than we have with them in London. It’s a fact.’
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Apr 3, 2020 16:04
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As for a book i actually enjoyed recently I'd say The Last Smile in Sunder City. Interesting setting (humans killed magic which hosed up all the magical races) and it does lean heavily on the noir detective side which I like.
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Apr 3, 2020 16:08
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FairyNuff posted:To note: Oof, that is some decidedly Tory/right wing text. gently caress all of that.
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Apr 3, 2020 16:11
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FairyNuff posted:To note: Well, there's me told off. Don't know how I missed some of these.
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Apr 3, 2020 20:32
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Laundry Files book 2 (Jennifer Morgue) is about Destiny Entanglement and some Capitalist Antagonist using the plot of James Bond books to guide his rituals (with the intention of severing the Bond ritual just before the point where Bond would kill him, thereby essentially leaving him unstoppable). The Laundry and The Black Chamber send in agents in the roles of Bond, Bond Chick and Bond Villain Chick-that-turns-on-the-Villain to put a stop to him. Speaking as someone who almost noped out after Book 2, the next few are marked improvements- I think 3 and 4 were both pretty enjoyable, 5 was okay too. I stopped after 6 (the superhero one), partly because it was pretty bad, and partly because the series was visibly deviating away from the "Office drone hacks cthulhu" stuff I liked in the earlier stuff.
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Apr 3, 2020 22:58
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Omi no Kami posted:Speaking as someone who almost noped out after Book 2, the next few are marked improvements- I think 3 and 4 were both pretty enjoyable, 5 was okay too. I stopped after 6 (the superhero one), partly because it was pretty bad, and partly because the series was visibly deviating away from the "Office drone hacks cthulhu" stuff I liked in the earlier stuff. That was just a book about what would happen shortly before Case Nightmare Green that Bob mentioned multiple times before that book.
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Apr 3, 2020 23:47
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Not quite halfway through the Mercedes Lackey Silence book. There's a bit of a Twilight vibe to it that I think is being set up to be subverted in a way that kind of craps on the whole idea of Twilight.
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Apr 5, 2020 02:09
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Kindle editions of Skin Game and the first Mercy Thompson book are on sale today for three bucks each.
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Apr 6, 2020 14:51
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I agree that Laundry files 6 was weak, but I think it gets back on track after that. I like the next one where what's left of The Masquerade gets really busted and the consequences that spiral out in the next two are pretty good as well.
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Apr 7, 2020 14:01
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Silence was good enough that I've got the sequel in hardcover, Breaking Silence coming this Sunday. Even without death by fire and iron dropping like a flaming poo poo-hammer onto the "not-Cullens" I enjoyed the book. I've kind of missed this world. It's slightly more complicated than the usual good guy vs. bad guy, though only slightly. I also appreciate that the books delivers "messages" to potential teen readers without coming off as preachy. There's a bit where one of her friends tells Staci (the 16 year old girl who is the viewpoint character of the book) that "not Edward Cullen" being in her room watching her sleep was very much a sign of creepy, stalkery, controlling behavior and a Bad Thing (to be fair, Staci was laboring under a spell at the time and wasn't simply being stupidly naive.) Staci herself was likable with reasonable flaws and I liked seeing the world through her eyes.
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Apr 8, 2020 18:14
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Read Blood Vice by Angela Roquet. Entertainingly terrible. The idea of a police k9 expert vs werewolves and vamps is actually good, but since the author clearly doesn't know what K9 officers actually do, it doesn't go anywhere. The main lady lead is incredibly poo poo at being a cop and actively sabotages the one single investigation of the book . She gets her poo poo kicked in for her trouble. At least she gets to bleed on a 'tall white and sexy mystery man' with links to the dark side... It's not all trash. You get some skin deep exploration of grief and loss, the damage grief can do and a bit on how lovely sisters can be to each other. But everything is signposted well in advance and the vamp hierarchy/lore is not very well sketched out and a bit contradictory. There are so many books in this series how the hell??
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Apr 9, 2020 14:02
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Also this one: Frost Arcana book 1, what date portends. Better than blood vice by a long way... Dystopian future where fae are large and in charge. Has a strong Hollows vibe, with nice if thinly sketched world building. The supporting cast are stock characters but they are fun none the less. The main issue I have is with the protagonist, who has a very un mysterious 'mysterious background'. There is a whole "I cant use my whole power because bad things will happen" but since he then goes on to curb stomp fuckin everyone, it's a bit silly. I'm too powerful for my shirt kind of thing
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Apr 9, 2020 14:14
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The April Fools bit from the Jim Butcher site is a repeat from 2011 but honestly, I would read the hell out of some L'il Harry adventures: https://www.jim-butcher.com/
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Apr 10, 2020 15:46
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Everyone posted:The April Fools bit from the Jim Butcher site is a repeat from 2011 but honestly, I would read the hell out of some L'il Harry adventures: This year's April fool was a re-edit of the peace talks trailer with some gratuitous CGI hats
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Apr 10, 2020 17:11
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jivjov posted:This year's April fool was a re-edit of the peace talks trailer with some gratuitous CGI hats I haven't watched either the PT trailer or the April Fool's version of it, probably because I fear I wouldn't be able to tell which was which. L'il Harry, April Fool or not, is something that I'd unironically want to read.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:04
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In light of the problems in this thread last week (and in other threads over the past few months), we've implemented an update to the rules for this subforum.quote:[*] Similarly, intelligent discussion of sensitive topics-- race, gender, sexuality, etc. -- is encouraged, when relevant to the discussion of a book. However, being stupid or lazy or bigoted in discussion of such topics will be discouraged. Strongly.
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Apr 12, 2020 14:23
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I think that killed the thread LOL
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Apr 17, 2020 18:51
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Sloth Life posted:I think that killed the thread LOL This is where I'd usually bust in with opinions on whatever UF I've been reading, but classic epic fantasy overtook me and Anita Blake will just have to wait. I also asked people what they're reading and they answered. So now we're all sitting around waiting for dresden to drop.
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Apr 17, 2020 19:17
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Sloth Life posted:I think that killed the thread LOL It's because there is no such thing as UF that doesn't have bad presentations of those things. Or if there is, it hasn't been recommended recently in this thread.
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Apr 17, 2020 19:19
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