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Blurry Gray Thing posted:Discworld is kind of a series you don't want to start at the beginning. I would say the best first Discworld book is either Guards! Guards!, Mort, or Wyrd Sisters. A lot of the earlier books are kind of weird and half-formed, like the series and the setting just isn't quite sure what it's doing yet. With those three, you don't need to know anything that came before, you get a solid story, and if you want, you can get direct follow-ups that remain completely consistent. Back to bad fantasy books. Terry Goodkind was featured on the cover, but the story in there wasn't my thing. From the sound of things, I had dodged quite a bullet?
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Aug 25, 2020 15:16
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There's a pretty fun Book Barn thread all aboit Pratchett, but here's a taste. A major earthquaking villain is an irate chicken
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Aug 25, 2020 15:25
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Looks like my dog when he's going to puke.
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Aug 25, 2020 15:42
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sweet geek swag posted:The cosmic loop was actually the whole point of the second series though. Like David Eddings absolutely was a lazy writer who reused the same plots for his first four series' of fantasy books, but at least with the Mallorean that was intentional. And if he hadn't done it again he would probably be remembered a lot more fondly. But the Elenium was the Belgariad set in a different universe with a middle aged main character, and the Tamuli was the sequel to the Elenium but was also a redo of the Mallorean, but without any of the cosmic destiny stuff that made the Mallorean palatable. I was going to post something like this last night but it was late, pretty much sums up my feelings about two beloved series. I mean, when I was in my very early 20s Belgariad and Elenium books were amazing and always invoked the fond feelings of winter of 2000 when I was reading book after book when it was snowing outside. That being said, I agree that both Mallorean and Tamuli was quite underwhelming and repetitive but young me didn't care about that poo poo because I was a voracious reader (which led to reading more books, so I agree with the "let kids read" posts) and couldn't get enough of that. I enjoyed the Belgariad for more diverse world but Elenium had more interesting characters and settings. Tamuli now feels like simply the same three books with different color paint. Re: Terry Pratchett I think I tried to read him, starting from Guards! Guards! but somehow it didn't click with me at all. People reading him can be a little bit fanatical about when I say that, dunno why but it was like "YOU SHOULD READ BOOK X Y Z BUT IN REVERSE ORDER WHILE HOLDING THE BOOKS DIRECTLY TO THE FULL MOON"  sort of conversations with fans.I think I'm more of a Douglas Adams guy. Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I really found the death of Sturm impactful as a youngling and I still think it is This might be a "trap sprung!" post but I legit had tears when it happened in the books. I know I would groan like the jaded boomer I am today if I get to read them again but for 18 year old me, I was there bro.
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Aug 25, 2020 16:12
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Galewolf posted:I was going to post something like this last night but it was late, pretty much sums up my feelings about two beloved series. I mean, when I was in my very early 20s Belgariad and Elenium books were amazing and always invoked the fond feelings of winter of 2000 when I was reading book after book when it was snowing outside. I'll defend the Mallorean a bit because it had some good setpieces like the plague city, the war between two demon lords and Garion and Zakath pretending to be knights on the island of Vo Mimbre 2. But yeah, it is far weaker because it is a lot further away from the Arthurian source material that it is mimicking, but is still very much the same story. Also there is way to much intentionally trying to get prophecy to happen. Tamuli is indefensible, especially the last book which felt like fanfiction. I will admit, Sturm's death was touching to middle school me. I have not touched Drangonlance for years, and this thread has convinced me to hold to that course. No need to disturb those memories.
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Aug 25, 2020 19:08
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I've been revisiting Terry Pratchett in form of audiobooks and the quality definitely is consistent. I've spent probably hundreds of dollars buying the paperbacks when I was a high schooler but I don't think I've read anything TP wrote in 5-10 years before his death. Can't wait to get there...
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Aug 25, 2020 19:20
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when i was a kid before they were all widely available in the US my parents let me go on amazon.co.uk and have about two dozen of them shipped over i was something of a fan
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Aug 25, 2020 19:36
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I won't hide my teenaged love for David Eddings books but I'm under no illusions what a hack the dude is. He didn't just reuse the same characters and plots over four series and two settings, he has reused them every single time he published something. One of his later works, The Redemption of Alathas I think? Was particularly agregious I seem to recall. The plot was different enough to enjoy, something about going back in time to relive events and alter them in ways that weakened the bad guy. But it was another Belgarath story in all but name right down to a wizard marrying a shape shifting wolf and a bunch of people learning magic becoming a weird adopted family. He found a formula that worked and ran with it I guess. My mother collected these fantasy stories her whole life and I had access to ridiculous libraries of this stuff with a huge range of quality. On the one hand I know I must have read this sword of truth stuff because the dominatrix women definitely rang an uncomfortable bell, I know we had some kind of dragon Lance omnibus that I never bothered with because it was far too thick and I read a bunch of Raymond E Feist stuff too. On the other hand she got me started with all this by lending me her massive hard back copy of the original Earthsea tribology.
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Aug 25, 2020 20:58
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The Bible posted:I read some of the Shadowrun novels once. i read Shaken: No Job Too Small and it was pretty good then i tried to read another and it was so bad i stopped reading for a while
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Aug 25, 2020 21:17
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and while we're on the subject of ttrpg tie-in novels Eberron: Legacy of Dhakaan is good (all others are trash) Pathfinder: Bloodbound is good (all others are trash)
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Aug 25, 2020 21:20
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CheeseThief posted:I won't hide my teenaged love for David Eddings books but I'm under no illusions what a hack the dude is. He didn't just reuse the same characters and plots over four series and two settings, he has reused them every single time he published something. I worked on the Turkish translation of The Redemption of Althalus and it was interesting in the beginning especially when he stole all those paper money/bonds from the merchant and left them there because he was a dumb idiot from the mountains and didn't knew about fiat currency. The rest is David Eddings book no 37, though, like you said.
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Aug 25, 2020 21:44
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Bro Dad posted:and while we're on the subject of ttrpg tie-in novels Aaa, this reminded me about M:TG novels which were all baaaaad. I kinda liked the Rath storyline in general but uggghhh.
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Aug 25, 2020 21:46
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My landlady has a massive collection of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Andre Norton novels. MZB was a child molestor and Andre Norton churned out a shitload of books about hot witches who lost their magical powers if they had sex. She also has a lot of CJ Cherryh and CJ Cherryh is pretty rad though. I will submit that the first Pern novel is pretty good but oh my God did they start getting worse and worse.
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Aug 25, 2020 22:21
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Speaking of David Eddings, dude and his wife kept a kid in a cage in their basement and abused him so badly CPS took him away. All that was before his writing career took off. Dude and his wife went to jail for it. Turns out that before the internet was a thing you could commit horrible crimes and basically no one would ever know outside the small town you lived in. That kids with doting father figures was such a trope for him just makes everything more horrifying. Ohthehugemanatee fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 23:09
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Ohthehugemanatee posted:Speaking of David Eddings, dude and his wife kept a kid in a cage in their basement and abused him so badly CPS took him away. All that was before his writing career took off. Dude and his wife went to jail for it. another victim of cancel culture
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Aug 25, 2020 23:13
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Mad Hamish posted:My landlady has a massive collection of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Andre Norton novels. MZB was a child molestor and Andre Norton churned out a shitload of books about hot witches who lost their magical powers if they had sex. This was enough of a thing to be a trope, I think. In college, we knew a guy who really liked the Black Jewels novels, he loved them so much that he gave me the first one to read and it is just a bunch of poorly disguised pedo-porn about breaking young virgins for fun. We stopped letting him hang around after that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Jewels quote:Rank can only decrease when a person has been "broken". When a person is broken, one or more of their Inner Webs are pierced and they are permanently separated from the power in their Jewels. This can be done either during a Virgin Night when a woman is especially vulnerable or through a blast of power. The former is far more common than the latter. Breaking a virgin is a widespread act used for profit and enjoyment and is part of the recurring theme of sexual violence in the series. Broken individuals are still able to use some Craft. If the woman conceives a child from the rape they still have the ability through craft to abort the child, but will be rendered infertile after they do. They do not lose their caste. Edit: This was not a fun string of words that I had to google to figure out WTF this was called.
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Aug 25, 2020 23:39
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Ohthehugemanatee posted:Speaking of David Eddings, dude and his wife kept a kid in a cage in their basement and abused him so badly CPS took him away. All that was before his writing career took off. Dude and his wife went to jail for it. Yikeseroo, indeed. I don't know if this was known when he was famous pre-internet? I usually enjoy reading about writers but probably never came across with this until now. Horrible stuff and it seems like they lost custody of two adopted children. gently caress. 
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Aug 25, 2020 23:49
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CPA Hell posted:I recognize the kender, but I can’t figure out who the other two are supposed to be. The barmaid turned fighter and the half-sister once she went full Darth Vader? Left to right: Tasslehoff, Goldmoon, Kitiara
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Aug 26, 2020 01:04
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DarkSoulsTantrum posted:Left to right: Tasslehoff, Goldmoon, Kitiara Pretty sure that's, what's her name...elf princess, not barbarian princess. Lauren...a...Laurana. Man, that was always an eyeroll of a name for me.
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Aug 26, 2020 01:08
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That's Lauralanthalasa, you casuals 
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Aug 26, 2020 01:31
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Mad Hamish posted:My landlady has a massive collection of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Andre Norton novels. MZB was a child molestor and Andre Norton churned out a shitload of books about hot witches who lost their magical powers if they had sex. it's easier to make a list of fantasy authors who weren't pedos, than to list the ones that were
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Aug 26, 2020 01:44
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Colonel Cancer posted:I've been revisiting Terry Pratchett in form of audiobooks and the quality definitely is consistent. I've spent probably hundreds of dollars buying the paperbacks when I was a high schooler but I don't think I've read anything TP wrote in 5-10 years before his death. Can't wait to get there... nightwatch was his best work, after that the quality plummets, but the next two books, monstrous regiment and going postal, are still readable
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Aug 26, 2020 01:49
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Galewolf posted:That's Lauralanthalasa, you casuals
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Aug 26, 2020 01:53
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Galewolf posted:Yikeseroo, indeed. I don't know if this was known when he was famous pre-internet? It was extensively reported locally when it happened, but that was years before he got a publishing deal I guess. It only became known outside North Dakota after he died from what Wikipedia said about it. Well that sucks, but I guess there is no way I could have known about it.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:17
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By the way, this has been already said some pages ago but I wanted to congratulate the OP for this Laser Guided JDAM of a honeypot thread, outstanding job.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:25
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sweet geek swag posted:It was extensively reported locally when it happened, but that was years before he got a publishing deal I guess. It only became known outside North Dakota after he died from what Wikipedia said about it. Well that sucks, but I guess there is no way I could have known about it. my guess is that the incident got publicity only because the small local paper digitized its archives, and some fan wanted to search more about him
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Aug 26, 2020 02:26
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Galewolf posted:I think I tried to read him, starting from Guards! Guards! but somehow it didn't click with me at all. People reading him can be a little bit fanatical about when I say that, dunno why but it was like "YOU SHOULD READ BOOK X Y Z BUT IN REVERSE ORDER WHILE HOLDING THE BOOKS DIRECTLY TO THE FULL MOON" You really don't need the moon. It's just that some of his earlier books aren't great. They're okay, but it takes him a bit to really hit his stride. Since it's not one, continuous series about the same people, you don't really need to read those and can jump in on one of the good ones. But if Guards! Guards! didn't do it for you, yeah, Pratchett is probably not your thing, and I view it as a personal failing on your part.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:31
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Empty Sandwich posted:
Galewolf posted:Re: Terry Pratchett but i'm not much of a Douglas Addams guy either; the Hitchhiker's Guide was entertaining but each sequel was worse than the one before, at least to my teenage self. looking back i guess the later books were a bit more middle-aged and that might've been why i failed to connect with them. i loved the Pern books as a child even though I could tell they were formulaic as hell. i missed all the problematic poo poo and was just like "oh holy cow the green riders are gay" without recognizing the problematic part of that either lol the Chronicles of Prydain were good, right? DId that guy turn out to be garbage too? i sure hope not.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:33
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Lloyd Alexander better be a cool guy. I loved his books as a kid. I sometimes get the urge to reread them
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Aug 26, 2020 02:46
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not liking pratchet is like not liking rick and morty or the big bang theory, most people just don't have enough iq to appreciate high art
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Aug 26, 2020 02:46
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seems like a weird coincidence that there are so many of these writers are sex criminals...
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Aug 26, 2020 02:47
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loving hate Terry Pratchett and I'm the biggest nerd who ever nerded
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Aug 26, 2020 04:58
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I've read all 9 books of the goddamn Lost Regiment series. Though I'm not sure what genre they are. Military fantasy?
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Aug 26, 2020 04:59
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there are a NUMBER of military fantasy series out there where, like, a US Civil War or WWII battalion somehow gets time-travelled or some poo poo.... some dudes just can't get enough of jerking off about the idea of shooting ancient people with guns
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Aug 26, 2020 05:03
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ChubbyChecker posted:nightwatch was his best work, after that the quality plummets, but the next two books, monstrous regiment and going postal, are still readable Last ones I've read is unseen academicals and uh the wintersmith and they were still good.
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Aug 26, 2020 05:05
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:loving hate Terry Pratchett and I'm the biggest nerd who ever nerded hate is a p strong word, but his fans are kinda strange. like, they're not creepy like most fans of nerd poo poo are, but they do overrate his works, especially the later books
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Aug 26, 2020 05:17
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I've read all 9 books of the goddamn Lost Regiment series. Though I'm not sure what genre they are. Military fantasy? glenn black? or was the army unit black something? that's the only military fantasy poo poo i've read. iirc i read one book, and then checked from wikipedia what happened in the rest of the series. i think that it had a magic princess too. and people didn't use their "real" names because of magic
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Aug 26, 2020 05:20
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InediblePenguin posted:there are a NUMBER of military fantasy series out there where, like, a US Civil War or WWII battalion somehow gets time-travelled or some poo poo.... some dudes just can't get enough of jerking off about the idea of shooting ancient people with guns "Carthage must be destroyed," said Cato as he lifted an M1 Garand, "With this motherfucker!"
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Aug 26, 2020 05:22
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"Sic semper tyrannosaurus", Rock Beefcake exclaimed, unloading the entire magazine of his high powered assault rifle into Caesar as the assembled would-be assassins clapped in admiration.
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Aug 26, 2020 05:32
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ChubbyChecker posted:glenn black? or was the army unit black something? that's the only military fantasy poo poo i've read. iirc i read one book, and then checked from wikipedia what happened in the rest of the series. i think that it had a magic princess too. and people didn't use their "real" names because of magic
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Aug 26, 2020 05:58
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