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Silver2195 posted:(It helps that the individual books are pretty short – was that the norm for fantasy pre-Wheel of Time?) For that sort of mid-list fantasy and SF, yeah. For comparison, the Belgariad was a hugely popular series back in the day, and it still clocks in at fewer than 300 pages a book. You didn't really start seeing massive doorstop fantasy until the late 80s, although that wasn't just Robert Jordan's fault -- you can also throw Terry Brooks and Tad Williams in there too.
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Sep 13, 2021 14:48
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StratGoatCom posted:Remembering how batshit Heinlein went in response to that test bad, does anyone want to imagine how much 9/11 would have made him lose it? uh what test? please tell me more.
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Sep 13, 2021 19:15
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quantumfoam posted:uh what test? I assume "test ban"?
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Sep 13, 2021 19:24
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quantumfoam posted:uh what test? I think StratGoatCom meant "test ban." Heinlein opposed bans on nuclear weapons testing, IIRC.
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Sep 13, 2021 19:25
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Lawman 0 posted:
It's been many years since I read that story but IIRC all the things in that story are more or less commonplace meat and dairy production practices, though some of the might've been banned in US and EU due to the pressure from animal rights activists.
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Sep 13, 2021 19:34
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What the hell is wrong with people?
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The Two of Swords: Volume One by KJ Parker - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y5K2CK3/ Eon (The Way #1) by Greg Bear - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J3EU5RC/
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Sep 13, 2021 22:53
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avoraciopoctules posted:Would be kinda cool if there were more stories that had crazy shapeshifting stuff without it being a sex fetish thing. Might be interesting seeing someone live past the initial "inject T-virus, turn into a crazy giant tumor squid" boss fight and then have to actually figure out what they are going to do with their lives. I guess…I dunno. I always read Chalker as someone who really really REALLY wanted to be a woman and that’s why it is so common in his stories and the weird sex rape stuff was all about his repression because he was raised in a way and society that he never even let himself think about the possibility of gender change outside of science fiction and fantasy stories. I’m not trans so I am talking out of my rear end, but it would make a lot of sense to me. But maybe he was just a weird old creeper like the rest of the authors of that generation (and every other). Think horses not zebras, I guess.
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Sep 13, 2021 23:36
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Stubb Dogg posted:It's been many years since I read that story but IIRC all the things in that story are more or less commonplace meat and dairy production practices, though some of the might've been banned in US and EU due to the pressure from animal rights activists. I'm fairly certain loving (not artificially inseminating) cows has never been legal. You would need a step ladder and everything, the logistics are just not there.
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Sep 14, 2021 00:25
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Collateral posted:I'm fairly certain loving (not artificially inseminating) cows has never been legal. You would need a step ladder and everything, the logistics are just not there. I DO NOT CONSENT TO JOINDER!!!
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Sep 14, 2021 02:38
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freebooter posted:Just read Gypsies, one of Robert Charles Wilson's earlier novels, and it was fine or whatever but jeez... if the premise of your story is that a bunch of people discover they can travel at will between alternate universes, I would've like to see more than one or two alternate universes! A little bit late, but Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin might scratch that itch. Summary blurb: The misery of waiting for a connecting flight at an airport leads to the accidental discovery of alighting on other planes - not airplanes but planes of existence. Ursula Le Guin's deadpan premise frames a series of travel accounts by the tourist-narrator who describes bizarre societies and cultures that sometimes mirror our own, and sometimes open puzzling doors into the alien. Since you mentioned Sliders, you might want to give the anime "Kino's Journey" (2003) a try. Kino goes to different "countries" but it had a similar feel to Sliders/Changing Planes. The anime The Tatami Galaxy might also work, but that's less traveling to other multiverses and more about "how does this guy's life change when he joins different clubs in university?"
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Sep 14, 2021 02:42
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shoukd i read gormenghast or should i just put it on the shelf next to my other weird old fantasy bricks (dying earth, history if the runestaff, et al)
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Sep 14, 2021 03:17
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:shoukd i read gormenghast or should i just put it on the shelf next to my other weird old fantasy bricks (dying earth, history if the runestaff, et al) At least try reading it, it has fascinating… everything.
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Sep 14, 2021 03:24
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Zaphiel posted:A little bit late, but Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin might scratch that itch. There was a Heinlein one on this too, Job. Mostly just a weird retelling of the story of Job but did involve some alt universe stuff.
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Sep 14, 2021 07:13
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:shoukd i read gormenghast or should i just put it on the shelf next to my other weird old fantasy bricks (dying earth, history if the runestaff, et al) Read it, at least the first two books. The third is optional; it was written while Peake was beginning to decline into dementia, and is frequently incoherent.
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Sep 14, 2021 12:04
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Beefeater1980 posted:There was a Heinlein one on this too, Job. Mostly just a weird retelling of the story of Job but did involve some alt universe stuff.
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Sep 14, 2021 12:06
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navyjack posted:I guess…I dunno. I always read Chalker as someone who really really REALLY wanted to be a woman and that’s why it is so common in his stories and the weird sex rape stuff was all about his repression because he was raised in a way and society that he never even let himself think about the possibility of gender change outside of science fiction and fantasy stories. Maybe, but given how common the magically-forced-fatness and the changing-into-other-things-than-women stuff is too I lean more to the weird old creeper interpretation.
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Sep 14, 2021 12:16
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Selachian posted:Read it, at least the first two books. The third is optional; it was written while Peake was beginning to decline into dementia, and is frequently incoherent. Titus Groan and Gormenghast are among a very small number of books that I would consider to be absolute must reads for a fantasy fan. But Titus Alone and the fragment of the fourth book, Titus Awakes, are disturbing to read. I wouldn't call Alone incoherent as such, but Peake was also in an extremely unhappy state of mind when he wrote it. Peake was present at the liberation of Belsen and the trauma he suffered is written into the book.
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Sep 14, 2021 12:29
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Empire of the East was an earlier (late 60s/70s) series (a trilogy later revised into a single omnibus volume) that introduced the magical post-apocalyptic setting used in Saberhagen’s Swords series. It’s rather disappointing in some ways. Most of the backstory that’s alluded to in the Swords books turns out to be just one big infodump halfway through the third book of the trilogy. The leader of the Empire of the East and the sealed super-demon he usurped power from just don’t appear in the first two books beyond a vague mention of “the emperor.” The infodump itself is cool, it just includes a lot of stuff that should have been introduced earlier and then expanded on. The biggest problem with Empire of the East, though, is the characterization of the titular evil empire and the people working for it. The villains are just a little too simplistically evil. Wikipedia says, “Written in the 1960s and 70s, the books have a significant Cold War theme and the parallels between the American perspective of the evil east and the west are obvious.” But I’m not sure that interpretation really fits. The Empire of the East, unlike even the evilest real-world empires I can think of (and especially unlike the USSR), doesn’t seem to bother with propaganda; it’s purely “We’re stronger than you, so gently caress you.” (But perhaps that’s to be expected for an empire that gets its power from literal demons.) It comes across as inspired by a stereotype of “oriental despotism” that has more to do with (a simplistic narrative of) the Persian Wars than with the Cold War; the use of terminology like “satrap” supports this interpretation. (Although to be fair, the “East” and “West” seem to be about equally ethnically diverse, and it’s mentioned that the division between them isn’t really a literal geographic one anymore, if it ever was.) A few individual villains associated with the East are at least suitably creepy even if they don’t have very interesting motives, such as Som the Dead, who has made a bargain with demons to turn himself into a sort of zombie and makes use of his condition for a cruel and cunning bluff. Others I’m less of a fan of; the portrayal of the beautiful, scheming satrap’s daughter Charmian comes across as pretty misogynistic, frankly. The other big problem with Empire of the East is that large portions of the first book in particular are just dull. Too much wandering around a wasteland. But I don’t want to be too negative. Like the Swords books, the real fun of Empire of the East is seeing how the characters use the magic, technology, and other resources at their disposal, both in clever ways and in ways that lead to tragic consequences. The climax of the first book involves the protagonist fighting against a tank using a fire extinguisher. There’s a great scene in the second book when the protagonists, who don’t really know how air transportation worked before the rise of magic, have to figure out how to get a genie to construct hot air balloons for them without sabotaging them. There’s also a lot of interesting elements of the setting that work because they’re hinted at rather than explained. The infodump in the third book explains in general terms who changed the laws of physics and why, but it’s ambiguous whether things like demons came into existence because the change brought existing human concepts to life, or if humans have those concepts in the first place because the world had undergone changes previously and magic and demons really had existed in the past. The absence of maps in either Empire of the East or the Swords series creates tantalizing uncertainties regarding geography: is this just the same islands and mountain ranges in our era with different names, or did the big change reshape the continents? Are those eldritch entities beyond the Moon that even the archdemon Orcus was afraid of another product of the change, or are they the source of the forces that the architects of the change tapped into? Some mysteries like that improve the flavor of the setting, I think.
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Sep 15, 2021 03:48
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Out of This World (Worlds of Shadow #1) by Lawrence Watt-Evans - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007124H9K/ I haven't read this but LWE seems like a cool dude. The Novels of Samuel R. Delany Volume One: Babel-17, Nova, and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R Delany - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075KWTQNG/ Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XG6MG3Y/ The Assassins of Thasalon (Penric & Desdemona) by Lois McMaster Bujold - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094PLPFQH/ pradmer fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Sep 15, 2021 |
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Sep 15, 2021 22:40
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pradmer posted:Out of This World (Worlds of Shadow #1) by Lawrence Watt-Evans - $3.99 Don't go into this expecting stuff like Ethshar, it's very different and pretty dark. quote:The Assassins of Thasalon (Penric & Desdemona) by Lois McMaster Bujold - $0.99 Great series but not the best of starting points.
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Sep 15, 2021 23:30
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Picked it up because I started Paladin. LMB is my new fave, so I'll get to it someday.
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Sep 16, 2021 00:39
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Finished Artifact Space by Miles Cameron. Just what I was in the mood for - spacers on a big ship dealing with conspiracies, trading, and fighting, but not exclusively military. The afterword said it'd be completed in one more volume so hopefully not too long a wait. Competently written space opera is probably my favorite genre, but I've read so many at this point I have to dig forever to find new ones to read 
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Sep 16, 2021 17:55
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Aardvark! posted:Finished Artifact Space by Miles Cameron. Just what I was in the mood for - spacers on a big ship dealing with conspiracies, trading, and fighting, but not exclusively military. The afterword said it'd be completed in one more volume so hopefully not too long a wait. Sounds like something I'd read! What are some of your other favourites of the genre? 🙂
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Sep 16, 2021 21:21
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got some chores tonight posted:Sounds like something I'd read! What are some of your other favourites of the genre? 🙂 My personal favorites of Space Opera, totally subjective and in no particular order, though Banks is my #1 all time fave The Culture series by Iain M. Banks Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold (this one spans all sorts of genres over time) House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds Machineries of Empire series by Yoon Ha Lee Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo Hyperion by Dan Simmons Commonwealth Series by Peter Hamilton Lots more I'd probably list here if I remembered AARD VARKMAN fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Sep 16, 2021 |
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Sep 16, 2021 21:53
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Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEGHT6/ Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEGTI0/ The City We Became (Great Cities #1) by NK Jemisin - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MFKQDJM/
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Sep 16, 2021 22:57
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Aardvark! posted:Finished Artifact Space by Miles Cameron. Just what I was in the mood for - spacers on a big ship dealing with conspiracies, trading, and fighting, but not exclusively military. The afterword said it'd be completed in one more volume so hopefully not too long a wait. FWIW he said he's putting it on the backburner for a bit, will be out later next year.
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Sep 16, 2021 23:14
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Aardvark! posted:My personal favorites of Space Opera, totally subjective and in no particular order, though Banks is my #1 all time fave What, no Ringworld?  This is not an endorsement for Ringworld
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Sep 16, 2021 23:54
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Gormenghast is genuinely one of my favorite works of all time.
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Sep 17, 2021 00:11
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packetmantis posted:Gormenghast is genuinely one of my favorite works of all time. It's one of those books where "did you like this" isn't the right question. It's like fantasy Moby Dick: often a very difficult read but by the time you're done you feel like you've accomplished/experienced something incredible.
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Sep 17, 2021 09:11
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https://twitter.com/stavvers/status/1438444042568732676?s=20
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Sep 17, 2021 15:28
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Oh my god
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Sep 17, 2021 16:11
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Piranesi for $1.99 today. Absolutely fantastic book, great price.
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Sep 17, 2021 17:05
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silvergoose posted:Oh my god Le Guin either intentionally or unintentionally owning her interviewers and fans (in the most charming way, I should note) may be my favorite genre.
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Sep 17, 2021 17:28
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I've been doing a re-read of everything David Gemmell recently and despite some product of the time elements, it's still fantastic. I really miss his writing style, he had razor sharp focus on characters, themes and elements of story telling rather than pointless minutiae or heavy layers of descriptive detail. He had that rare quality among authors to let the reader's imagination fill in the blanks and always offered some closure. I really appreciate the latter in this age of door stoppers and never ending series. I ask this once every few years and usually come up short but has anyone found any newer authors who write in a similar style that I might enjoy?
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Sep 17, 2021 20:05
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The Gunslinger posted:I've been doing a re-read of everything David Gemmell recently and despite some product of the time elements, it's still fantastic. I really miss his writing style, he had razor sharp focus on characters, themes and elements of story telling rather than pointless minutiae or heavy layers of descriptive detail. He had that rare quality among authors to let the reader's imagination fill in the blanks and always offered some closure. I really appreciate the latter in this age of door stoppers and never ending series. Steven Brust might scratch that itch. I think he got metoo'ed recently though, if that's an issue for you. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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Sep 17, 2021 20:51
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Poldarn posted:Steven Brust might scratch that itch. I think he got metoo'ed recently though, if that's an issue for you. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks for the suggestion, that's a new one and I will check out some of his stuff.
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Sep 17, 2021 21:07
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The Gunslinger posted:I've been doing a re-read of everything David Gemmell recently and despite some product of the time elements, it's still fantastic. I really miss his writing style, he had razor sharp focus on characters, themes and elements of story telling rather than pointless minutiae or heavy layers of descriptive detail. He had that rare quality among authors to let the reader's imagination fill in the blanks and always offered some closure. I really appreciate the latter in this age of door stoppers and never ending series. Have you read Joe Abercrombie? He's a big name in the industry. Low on pointless minutiae or layers of descriptive detail. He's been a nominee fittingly for the David Gemmell Award for Best Fantasy, for his book The Heroes in 2012 and for a few other books in other years. Of course you've got to be a bit careful with the winners of that contest cause Rothfuss' sequel won one year and Brandon Sanderson has won sometimes even though pointless minutiae is why I stopped reading his work. Thread favorite The Traitor Baru Comorant was also a nominee in 2016. Also I really like KJ Parker but you definitely gotta avoid his earlier books if you're not big on minutiae and detail. His 2015 book Savages is like a distilled and concise version of everything he's written his whole career. Ccs fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 17, 2021 21:29
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Joe Abercrombie is decent schlock and I own most of his stuff. Good pick, I think I'll grab his latest. Didn't care for Traitor Baru Cormorant unfortunately. Oh man I totally forgot about Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind was awful and I can't remember if I read the follow up. Did he ever finish the series or just mary sue'd himself into a corner? Sanderson I just can't read anymore, its formulaic and his editor refuses to rein him in. I *think* I read a KJ Parker book about an engineer and sieges, I will have to check my Kindle later. I remember it being good but the ending was like a wet fart. I should probably check out some of his other stuff, Savages gives me something other than Brust to check out. Thanks for the recommendations guys.
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Sep 17, 2021 21:58
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The Gunslinger posted:I *think* I read a KJ Parker book about an engineer and sieges, I will have to check my Kindle later. I remember it being good but the ending was like a wet fart. That one has a sequel, How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, that is better, and there's a third coming out sometime soonish. As for Rothfuss, nope, and he'll probably never publish anything again.
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Sep 17, 2021 22:07
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Poldarn posted:Steven Brust might scratch that itch. I think he got metoo'ed recently though, if that's an issue for you. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. He did, one of my friends was one of the people Steven Brust stalked and harrassed via the 4th Street writer's group. Real scumbag tbh
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Sep 17, 2021 22:16
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