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For urban fantasy companion animal, there's Beukes Zoo City.
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Nov 25, 2020 22:46
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90s Cringe Rock posted:https://twitter.com/thelindsayellis/status/1331655456691867648 I can't believe Lindsay now has to make a third video in her wolf porn copyright troll saga, only now it's about Ernie Cline...
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Nov 25, 2020 23:17
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The Road by Cormac McCarthy - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OI0G1Q/
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Nov 26, 2020 00:08
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90s Cringe Rock posted:https://twitter.com/thelindsayellis/status/1331655456691867648 With the extra added irony that the central theme of Ready Player One is how bad corporate ownership of pop culture is.
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Nov 26, 2020 02:13
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nine-gear crow posted:I can't believe Lindsay now has to make a third video in her wolf porn copyright troll saga, only now it's about Ernie Cline... Hot drat, only one Tweet in the whole thread gets DMCA'd and it's the one that shows the horrible lack of awareness.
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Nov 26, 2020 02:14
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JagerNinja posted:Hot drat, only one Tweet in the whole thread gets DMCA'd and it's the one that shows the horrible lack of awareness. It's also hilarious how the book telegraphed this happening. In that tweet thread, there's a segment where the protagonist starts suing and DMCA'ing all the people who make fun of him online because he's mad about it and can't process it in a healthy way and it leads to even more people mocking him for being a stupid rear end in a top hat.
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Nov 26, 2020 04:06
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Also yeah Cline is going to town DMCA'ing basically everyone posting any screenshots of his prose period https://twitter.com/clastowka/status/1331108031850029057 https://twitter.com/laura_hudson/status/1331442182314717185
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Nov 26, 2020 05:33
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I will never read this book but why is the 80s nostalgia guy suddenly into an anime from the 90s.
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Nov 26, 2020 14:08
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fritz posted:I will never read this book but why is the 80s nostalgia guy suddenly into an anime from the 90s. Because he had to write about fandom that girls are into to fit the character who made the "world" they're exploring and Sailor Moon was one of his first choices. And as his poetry tells us, Ernest loves him a geek girl.
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Nov 26, 2020 14:15
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Martha Wells just won a French SFF prize (the Prix Julia Verlanger), so I've now learned that the title for Murderbot Diaries in French is Journal d'un AssaSynth and I'm delighted.
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Nov 26, 2020 14:16
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DurianGray posted:Martha Wells just won a French SFF prize (the Prix Julia Verlanger), so I've now learned that the title for Murderbot Diaries in French is Journal d'un AssaSynth and I'm delighted.
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Nov 26, 2020 14:25
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fritz posted:I will never read this book but why is the 80s nostalgia guy suddenly into an anime from the 90s. Because, like the movie, he's expanding his nostalgia era to sell more books.
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Nov 26, 2020 14:26
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fritz posted:I will never read this book but why is the 80s nostalgia guy suddenly into an anime from the 90s. No idea. From the one tweet thread I’ve read summarizing the book, the first book was all about the protagonist going up the rear end in a top hat of his weird TechBro idol’s childhood nostalgia to win a cool prize. The second book I guess is the protagonist going up the rear end in a top hat of his weird TechBro idol’s object of incel lust’s childhood nostalgia to win a cool prize. Hence all the Girl Nostalgia this time. nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Nov 26, 2020 |
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Nov 26, 2020 15:52
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DurianGray posted:Martha Wells just won a French SFF prize (the Prix Julia Verlanger), so I've now learned that the title for Murderbot Diaries in French is Journal d'un AssaSynth and I'm delighted.
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Nov 26, 2020 16:17
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anilEhilated posted:That's actually pretty good. In the Czech version I have, it basically translates into "robocutioner". lmao this is also very good
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Nov 26, 2020 16:27
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https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1330142369438715906?s=20
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Nov 26, 2020 16:29
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nine-gear crow posted:Also yeah Cline is going to town DMCA'ing basically everyone posting any screenshots of his prose period I read that bit about Wade proudly crushing people who said mean things about him on the internet, and thought maybe it was a setup for some kind of big redemption arc, like maybe he descends into Notch-level assholery and madness but finds a way out and becomes a better person. Nope, Cline just wishes he could do that poo poo.
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Nov 26, 2020 19:48
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Cline's been trying to do that for years. He DMCAed a bunch of stuff related to his creepy poems years ago, and before that I found out he namesearched when he started liking tweets I made bashing him within minutes. Spielberg giving him legitimacy is darkest timeline stuff
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Nov 27, 2020 06:07
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nine-gear crow posted:No idea. From the one tweet thread I’ve read summarizing the book, the first book was all about the protagonist going up the rear end in a top hat of his weird TechBro idol’s childhood nostalgia to win a cool prize. The second book I guess is the protagonist going up the rear end in a top hat of his weird TechBro idol’s object of incel lust’s childhood nostalgia to win a cool prize. Hence all the Girl Nostalgia this time. Jenny Nicholson already did the Ready Player One But For Girls  Edit: I'll go ahead and add the link https://youtu.be/bWPMJwHrWFU Happy Landfill fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Nov 27, 2020 |
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Nov 27, 2020 08:29
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anyone got any recs for good xenofiction (books from the point of view of aliens?), just read the latest Spiral Wars book and it had a scene with an alien commenting on humans that got me interested
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Nov 27, 2020 14:58
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PawParole posted:anyone got any recs for good xenofiction (books from the point of view of aliens?), just read the latest Spiral Wars book and it had a scene with an alien commenting on humans that got me interested Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Spiders. C.J. Cherryh's Pride of Chanur
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Nov 27, 2020 15:05
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PawParole posted:anyone got any recs for good xenofiction (books from the point of view of aliens?), just read the latest Spiral Wars book and it had a scene with an alien commenting on humans that got me interested It’s a tiny bit dated, but Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles bounces back and forth between human and Martian POVs and both sides have some very strong things to say about humankind and colonialist Americans in particular.
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Nov 27, 2020 15:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Spiders. A Fire Upon the Deep goes in this list too, in terms of classics
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Nov 27, 2020 16:13
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Spiders. read both of them. I'm reading Stephen Baxters Ark, and that's a pretty good generation novel, probably in my top ten. eke out posted:A Fire Upon the Deep goes in this list too, in terms of classics I don't read Vinge, just don't vibe with their writing style, but my brother says he's a good writer, so that's a good rec too!
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Nov 27, 2020 16:15
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Bro you just posted Vinge
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Nov 27, 2020 16:56
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House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0819VSLF9/ Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016CQUL4U/
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Nov 27, 2020 17:45
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pradmer posted:House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds - $2.99 His best book by some distance IMO, if you haven't read it and like big scale long time scifi then you should get this and read it!
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Nov 27, 2020 18:28
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StrixNebulosa posted:Does anyone in here know of any lists of fantasy novels that have companion animals? Think Mercedes Lackey and/or the Pern series - the main character is chosen by a magic animal and then they go on adventures. Jennifer Roberson's Cheysuli Chronicles. I vaguely remember there being companion animals. After looking it up more, the companion animals are lir. There's a lot of rape/threats of rape in the series, which might be triggering. Even then, I liked them enough to buy them when they came out in paperback in the 80s and 90s.
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Nov 27, 2020 20:57
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I got "Look to Windward" in a sale the other week. Is it possible to start there without reading the other Culture books? Or do I need more background?
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Nov 27, 2020 22:11
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:I got "Look to Windward" in a sale the other week. Is it possible to start there without reading the other Culture books? Or do I need more background? There isn't really any real need to go in publication order with Culture books. It might be slightly better as far as how the setting develops to the reader, but you honestly can just go however you want, the novels are self-contained enough to my opinion. Do go back to early ones rather sooner than later anyway.
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Nov 27, 2020 22:19
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Carrier posted:His best book by some distance IMO, if you haven't read it and like big scale long time scifi then you should get this and read it! Agreed. It was his first book that I read, and it was disappointing to discover that nothing else of his I wrote measured up to it. 
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Nov 27, 2020 22:37
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:I got "Look to Windward" in a sale the other week. Is it possible to start there without reading the other Culture books? Or do I need more background? It's a loosely connected sequel to "Consider Phlebas", but I don't think you'd lose out on anything by reading it first. The only order I'd suggest reading the culture books is "Surface Detail" after "Use of Weapons". Beyond that you're not going to really run into any issues.
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Nov 27, 2020 22:51
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PsychedelicWarlord posted:I got "Look to Windward" in a sale the other week. Is it possible to start there without reading the other Culture books? Or do I need more background? It was my first culture book and I loved it. Very slow and sad and contemplative.
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Nov 27, 2020 23:04
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jng2058 posted:Agreed. It was his first book that I read, and it was disappointing to discover that nothing else of his I wrote measured up to it. I thought Pushing Ice was up there with it.
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Nov 27, 2020 23:36
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I finished Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey - and it made me very angry. Before I go further: there's non-graphic rape, abuse, and sexism everywhere in this book. To this day I remain deeply uncomfortable with the dynamic between F'lar and Lessa, even if it's presented as romantic. Especially as it's presented as romantic. In sum, the setting and concept for this book is outstanding, and the entire reason for the four stars. It should be five stars, except - oh gods, except that the characters are hosed up. So, with that warning in mind, please read this carefully - and for the love of pete, don't treat it as YA, or at least not unsupervised YA. I wish preteen me had been able to talk to my folks about what I was reading, but alas. So! Why the four stars? Because the concept of a planet menaced by plant-destroying acid arriving on a regular basis that's defended by dragonriders is amazing. Mix this with the decision to start the novel not in the middle of these wars, or at the beginning, but in a sense at the end - when the threat has been gone for so long that no one remembers it or respects him - is amazing. The two protagonists have to fight to get their culture to recognize the incoming threat and respect it. They have to scour old books and ballads for clues on how to win, and more. But let's back up: the book starts personal. The protagonist is F'lar, a dragonrider who is an arrogant, canny jerk who is unfortunately the last best hope for Pern. The Weyr has been run by a lazy coward of a man and F'lar cannot take leadership until he finds a new dragon queen his dragon can mate with, and then he can start getting them ready for the main threat. To do this, he searches for a candidate, and finds our other protagonist: Lessa. She's presented as the main character and is the best one in the book, but unfortunately F'lar is the primary mover and shaker in the book. He convinces her to leave her home to try becoming bonded with a young dragon. He guides her through taking power and dragon culture. He's in charge of organizing the fighting wings and everything else. Which sucks, because Lessa is a smart, stubborn woman who could do everything - but F'lar lies to her and hides information from her and more. Here's the rant: the only reason they're in a romance at all is because their dragons mate, and this affects them. Lessa and F'lar have no choice but to have sex with each other during this, and it's described as so rough that she's afraid of him and F'lar even acknowledges that it's rape. But he's also certain she'll come around because he's just that good in bed. So there's that. There's also how Lessa comes back from her giant triumph at the end of the book terrified of F'lar shaking her, which he does when he's upset with her. And I mean terrified, truly terrified. That's hosed up. Their entire dynamic is them being rude to each other and worrying about each other and it's disturbing on many levels. Ugh. Rant over, because - ugh. Even as I hate that, the rest of the book, the posturing of the Holds, the weyr culture, the dragons themselves... I love it! Tell me more about psychic time-traveling dragons! Tell me of their adventures and the wrenches the time traveling throws in it. It's just a delightful concept that's bizarre and great and it's marred by such an awful abusive mess of character drama. And yes, of course, the rest of the book remains deeply patriarchal and anti-woman from almost everyone in it. It's a reflection of the culture, but the author didn't have to set it up that way. Honestly it's a fascinating counterpoint to Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, written twenty years later and occupying the same nostalgic area for me - long fantasy series I read in my preteens with bonded magical creatures and strong heroines (mostly.) This one was written in the 60s and has intense problems, similar to Jo Clayton's works. I remember the series later has queer rep and it's... not great. Valdemar meanwhile has its share of problems, but is nowhere near as problematic, and it's got actually great queer rep. What a difference twenty years makes! In sum: I recommend this book, but only if you can work past its problems. Please, someone else write a copy of this setting and make it better and more diverse, that's all I want.
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Nov 27, 2020 23:40
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1989 is shaping up to be amazing in the SFL Archives. The 1989 Hugo Awards have another consecutive case of shady internal vote counting manipulation(something extremely similar happened in 1988). Posting open letters on the internet suddenly becomes a thing, with SF-F fans & SF-F authors using open letters to declaim & debunk all sorts of divisive defamatory things. Diane Duane's identity thief-imposter has re-emerged and is active again.
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Nov 28, 2020 03:31
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Thanks all. Looking forward to starting my first Culture book
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Nov 28, 2020 04:12
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StrixNebulosa posted:I finished Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey - and it made me very angry. Oh boy, I read a handful of Pern books when I was in middle school including this one (the only other ones my middle school library had were some of the Harper Hall of Pern books). I'd definitely mostly blocked the horrible 'romance' out of my memory but I remember thinking it seemed pretty weird or off even when I was like, 11 or 12. It was definitely the worldbuilding more than the character arcs that kept me reading them. And dragons. Actually, it was probably mostly the dragons. I also remember one of the Pern books to be the first time that something just viscerally threw me out of a story because of how unexpected/tone-breaking it was to me. I don't remember the exact book but there's a part toward the beginning of it where the characters find a (spoiler I guess?) computer that explains what the Thread is. Nothing in the books I'd read before that made it seem like the setting was anything other than fantasy-medieval-ish, so it came across as very 
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Nov 28, 2020 04:13
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Pern has always been a sci-fi setting first, even if the author couldn't make it work so it's science fantasy, so seeing that spoiler isn't unexpected. I've always loved that angle! It's even hinted at in the first novel with the continued mentions of ancient Pern settlers having better preserved archives, and then their use of the word "spores" and other tidbits in writings Lessa found incomprehensible.
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Nov 28, 2020 04:18
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Oh yeah, I definitely appreciate that sort of worldbuilding a whole lot more now, but all the little clues that it was actually scifi/science fantasy before that moment just totally flew over my head at the time. I do wish kid-me had had some better dragon books to read, though! I read a lot of them back then and most, unfortunately, were not very memorable. I can't even remember any titles besides some of the Pern ones.
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Nov 28, 2020 04:37
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