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Sailor Viy posted:The overall premise of why the school exists was fine, but all the explanations of class timetables and crafting mechanics felt like reading a strategy guide for a videogame. I loved reading strategy guides for videogames! And, also enjoyed a deadly education, you may be onto something here.
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Jan 2, 2022 12:53
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Sailor Viy posted:The overall premise of why the school exists was fine, but all the explanations of class timetables and crafting mechanics felt like reading a strategy guide for a videogame. 🤷🏻♂️ I didn’t feel that way about it, but certainly there’s a decent amount about how the school operates.
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Jan 2, 2022 13:01
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Wrote my annual blog post of the top books I read in 2021 (not necessarily published in 2021), 4/5 of which were SFF (and the other one was Aubrey-Maturin): https://grubstreethack.wordpress.com/2022/01/02/top-5-books-of-2021/
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Jan 2, 2022 13:46
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i didn't like a deadly education because it reminds me too much of those lovely manga/anime series where the MC is a teenager fighting his way through a menagerie of monsters with a gratuitous panty shot in every chapter of course reading sf and f makes it necessary for the reader to suspend disbelief but not indefinitely, and high schoolers fighting like jason bourne/magicking like john constantine breaks it for me
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Jan 2, 2022 16:50
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Happiness Commando posted:I do enjoy Max Gladstone's Craft sequence, but I tend not to like space operas. I enjoyed the poo poo out of Empress of Forever, though. I also enjoyed this, but I do like space operas (and loved Craft sequence).
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Jan 2, 2022 20:51
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I liked the Craft books, and I love Space Opera, and I didn't like Empress of Forever very much. I recall not caring for the characters much and something about the narrative voice annoying me. Did it have memes in it? I can't remember 
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Jan 2, 2022 21:00
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It probably did because of the narrator was from right now. It also had a super predictable final twist
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Jan 2, 2022 21:13
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I thought Empress of Forever was a decent version of some very cool ideas, but it wasn't quite as re-readable as the Craft sequence.
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Jan 2, 2022 22:16
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Aardvark! posted:I liked the Craft books, and I love Space Opera, and I didn't like Empress of Forever very much. I recall not caring for the characters much and something about the narrative voice annoying me. Did it have memes in it? I can't remember Seconded. I much preferred the craft sequence and his shared world series the witch who came in from the cold (cold war le Carre pastiche with magic) and bookburners about librarians who hunt down evil magic books. Neither of the series are classics but there's some fun to be had in them
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Jan 2, 2022 23:12
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Lex Talionis posted:I don't think there's a consensus but here's what I think having read almost every Wolfe novel, including Borrowed Man but not yet its posthumously published sequel. Personally I wouldn't recommend reading Borrowed Man unless you've read all of Wolfe's major novels: New Sun, Fifth Head, Long Sun, Short Sun, Soldier series, Wizard Knight, and Peace. If you've read all that and still want to dip into his less well-known work, his late novels have some really interesting stuff in them but often feel like a trip to the dentist where you're somehow working as hard as the dentist but still feeling like the patient (Wizard Knight has some sections like this already so you might know what I mean). I think Pirate Freedom and Sorcerer's House are probably better places to start. If you still like those, then read all his late novels, including Borrowed Man and Home Fires. Earlier minor stuff like Free Live Free, Castleview, and There Are Doors await the completist but in my view are failed experiments on his part with different styles and structures. Thanks for the effort! I have read all his major work (now) and have a copy of home fires and the borrowed man. I'll read em at some point in the next few months, noting the exertion required to enjoy bits, something I've found in all the Wolfe novels I've read.
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Jan 2, 2022 23:14
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Harold Fjord posted:It probably did because of the narrator was from right now. It also had a super predictable final twist
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Jan 2, 2022 23:20
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Leviathan Wakes (Expanse #1) by James SA Corey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0047Y171G/ The Last Wish (Witcher) by Andrzej Sapkowski - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0010SIPT4/ Foundation by Isaac Asimov - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1PWA/ The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085C71YG5/ The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003JFJHTS/ The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084FY1NXB/
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Jan 3, 2022 01:52
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Sailor Viy posted:A Deadly Education is really bad. I don't think I've ever read a book with a higher ratio of exposition to action, even amongst doorstopper epic fantasy novels. Every actual event is followed by 2-3 pages of explanations about the magic system and how the school works. I had some misgivings about the first but overall I enjoyed it, can’t get into the sequel though. I don’t really like the setting enough or the characters to want experience more of it,
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Jan 3, 2022 01:56
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Speaking of wizard schools, I powered through Commonweal #2 and #3 on a combination of fascination with the setting and sheer willpower, and positively glided through the first third of #4. Man, I am conflicted about these books. The March North is probably my favorite military fantasy since The Black Company. Dense with weirdness, engaged in a really interesting dialogue with The Black Company in particular, utopian and optimistic while still having meaningful conflicts and challenges. This is a setting where a genuinely good thing - the kind of egalitarian socialist utopia you can only get by literally having a wizard do it - has come into being in a terrifying world hell-bent on crushing it, and now we get to find out whether it can survive without compromising its principles. Great stuff, even before you get into sorcerous railgun artillery doctrine. A Succession of Bad Days + Safely You Deliver (which are functionally one very long book) is exceedingly, infuriatingly cozy feelgood slice-of-life fluff with occasional tantalizing nuggets suggesting something more. "Competence porn" is a wild understatement: nothing is a challenge or a struggle unless it's grappling with personal insecurities. Nearly everything is easy for these characters, and if it's not, it's over in a few sentences of the terse, sometimes nearly-indecipherable prose that worked in TMN, but doesn't contribute positively here because the subject matter is so much more arcane. All in all, I can unreservedly recommend Commonweal #2 and #3 to anyone who enjoyed To Be Taught, If Fortunate. And look, I'm not against upbeat stories where you know things are going to come out all right, I'm SA's resident ElfQuest fanboy for god's sake so I can't even complain too much about the hilariously idealized polycules. I've argued in this very thread for more stories where things aren't poo poo or inexorably trending toward poo poo, which is part of what makes the Commonweal books so appealing. You can do that and still have stakes, consequences, and meaningful challenges, even in something cozy-adjacent: the Tiffany Aching books do an excellent job of this, and even have the "growing into one's terrifying power in a rural setting full of people who don't understand you" thing! All that said, book #4, Under One Banner, is such an enormous improvement in prose style that it's almost hard to believe they were written by the same author, let alone within a year of each other; turns out style choice counts for a lot! I'm tempted to recommend that people with my allergy to cozy just skip books 2 and 3, unless books 4 and 5 starts relying a lot more on those books than they have so far. You'd miss some references and terminology, someone would need to explain what an illusion actually is and the difference between internal and external Power use, but you could fit that stuff on to one page and save someone a lot of time. Now that I've got that rant out of my system, two questions for folks who've read the series, especially those who have re-read it, and who may have picked something up that I'm missing. First, we're told that the Round House wizard team's external Power-use is like steering a barge: less precise than traditionally-trained sorcerers, feels less controlled than internal Power-use, but is capable of manipulating enormous volumes of energy. How does that square with the kind of exceedingly fine manipulation we see them doing? Second, how do we square the portrayal Blossom (and for that matter, Halt) in The March North with what we see of them in the rest of the series? We're told by Halt that the Round House team is "near enough a heavy brigade," and also that none of them are (quite) the equal of Blossom in power, and even several of them put together would have a tough time equaling her militant skill. But if we'd had, say, Strange Mayhem along for The March North, I expect it would have been a much shorter book: "And then we placed the whole valley in a singularity that stripped apart every atom inside it, drank some liquid vigor, and teleported home" the end. And that's not even considering what Halt might have brought to bear on the problem. Are we just looking at the literary equivalent of power creep here, with TMN being moved into something less than fully canonical once Saunders got a better idea of what he wanted sorcerers on the Short List to be capable of, or am I missing something?
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Jan 3, 2022 05:53
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Kestral posted:Are we just looking at the literary equivalent of power creep here, with TMN being moved into something less than fully canonical once Saunders got a better idea of what he wanted sorcerers on the Short List to be capable of, or am I missing something? you're probably right in general that there's some power creep but also March North is opaque enough exactly what each independent does comes through better on reread after you've spent more time with them in later books we don't see everything blossom does since we're not with her but there is that whole section where she's just killing the enemy wizards one by one and they're practically no challenge while she's simultaneously running the experimental battery that's nuking the opposing army. and i think separately Rust solos an army and Halt a million demons. also you'll be happy to know that book 5 is not very cozy at all eke out fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2022 06:21
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Kestral posted:Are we just looking at the literary equivalent of power creep here, with TMN being moved into something less than fully canonical once Saunders got a better idea of what he wanted sorcerers on the Short List to be capable of, or am I missing something? I interpreted it as the wizard team experiment working far better than anybody expected, and there's a few places in 2&3 where big shot Independents act as if their scouter just exploded.
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Jan 3, 2022 13:55
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One of my issues with Commonweal books is that apparently the world is incredibly dangerous and the Commonweal is beset on all sides to the point where the Creeks are forcibly separated from the rest of the Commonweal, but at least through book 3 nothing ever shows up that Halt (or Rust, or the Polycule, or presumably half the Short List) can't grind into a fine paste with about 15 minutes of sustained effort.
Patrick Spens fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2022 17:11
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I think that's the result of two things, a) the gigantic unstoppable flood of angry demons that none of the Independents, not even Halt can stop without basically walling off an area with voluntary human sacrifice is the thing that splits them from the first commonweal and b) they get more into this in later books but a major part of the Commonweal's survival strategy is stealth. Fighting with someone makes you known and entangles you (mystically and prosaically) and it's iirc outright stated that part of the reason they haven't had even more misadventures is because they aren't expansionist and have been doing their damndest to keep their heads down. Rust and Halt can nuke one large army with little trouble, but what about five? How about five each? Remember, Halt's extremely powerful and was literally a god but she's also been bound beneath the earth twice. She got beat by Laurel and that's why she's in the Commonweal in the first place. she would probably wind up fine but she can and has lost and if she loses again the commonweal wouldn't be around when she came back. Also, the Power is explicitly malicious, and note that despite their nuking powers in the first book they can't stop large parts of the small force with them from dying. How much collateral damage can the Commonweal take before it ceases to be the Commonweal? How does shifting to a war footing so that they can try to survive affect the Commonweal as a whole? Also also, they mention a couple of time that Laurel was only the first person to think of the banners and not the only person who could. Even if an enemy doesn't capture one and learn how they work directly enough exposure and they might figure out enough of the basics to do their own version, and all it requires is cooperative effort, not nice cooperative effort. The Commonweal was a weird accident in all kinds of ways. One thing I did think was kind of horrifying/funny re: the perfect poly whatever: It's clearly stated that the reason it works is because they all basically brainwashed themselves and each other into being the perfect poly whatever. The Power makes what you want real and if you're a powerful sorcerer and you've been explicitly told that you can't have a relationship of any kind with a normal person because you will brainwash them non-consensually, why not just consensually brainwash yourself into being blissfully happy with what you have? The death magic person, can't remember her name, didn't even like girls at first Benagain fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2022 17:30
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And in book 3, there's a brief mention of the auguries saying that the things they think of as the primary dangers (things that our main characters can grind to a paste + the unstoppable flood of demons that sundered the Commonweal as it was) aren't the actual real danger. The actual danger is some unknown presumably invading force that comes from the sea. Likely the antagonists that show up in book 5.
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Jan 3, 2022 17:37
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The Commonweal is I think the only "magic exists and suppresses steam power" take I've really liked because it's immediately followed with "and magic also wants things to suck rear end and will monkeys paw the poo poo out of everything you do given half a chance so the world is mostly a hellscape of people who wound up as sociopaths whether they started as one or not"
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Jan 3, 2022 17:41
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Patrick Spens posted:One of my issues with Commonweal books is that apparently the world is incredibly dangerous and the Commonweal is beset on all sides to the point where the Creeks are forcibly separated from the rest of the Commonweal, but at least through book 3 ever shows up that Halt (or Rust, or the Polycule, or presumably half the Short List) can't grind into a fine paste with about 15 minutes of sustained effort. suffice to say, books 4 and 5 are significantly different with regards to them having to deal with exterior threats. there's also quite a bit of discussion about how the issue isn't just whether they can prosecute a war, it's that their economy is too precarious to mobilize for war because they are essentially in the middle of a massive internal refugee crisis (and, later, a smaller external one too) and much of the work of the kids is attempting to ward off literal starvation of a double digit percentage of their entire population. sending desperately-needed labor off to die in combat is a recipe for slow, strangling economic death and they're quite conscious that they need to be even more insular than the first commonweal was and, as benagain mentioned, they're in kind of a dark forest scenario, they quite literally don't know what surrounds them and actively avoid scouting, the more power they project the greater the chance of someone powerful enough to gently caress them over learning they exist (at one point they even note that "armies die when they go to this part of the map" is probably enough for people to start noticing, but that part is basically unavoidable and they've only gotten lucky by basically being able to destroy the states that have attacked them entirely) eke out fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2022 18:19
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I started reading Commonweal this morning. The free preview on the google store anyway, which has up to chapter 6 so far. I'm not sure what I expected but a massive fire breathing sheep and a game of catch with artillery wasn't it.
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Jan 3, 2022 19:23
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Can’t those who are interested in discussing Commonweal create a thread for this? There are enough posts in this thread for that and more recent posts than the Malazan thread.
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Jan 3, 2022 20:11
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Cardiac posted:Can’t those who are interested in discussing Commonweal create a thread for this? Good call I think, yeah. Someone do that
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Jan 3, 2022 20:18
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Just started rereading The Black Company first 3 books. I'm on Shadow's Linger right now. Glen Cook writes some good fantasy.
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Jan 3, 2022 20:42
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Cardiac posted:Can’t those who are interested in discussing Commonweal create a thread for this? will you stop whining about that loving series
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Jan 3, 2022 21:26
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Cardiac posted:Can’t those who are interested in discussing Commonweal create a thread for this? IMO the Commonweal doesn't get enough traffic to support an entire thread of discussion; I'm pretty sure it's not even the most discussed series in this thread. Somehow it's the one that gets complained about the most, though.
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Jan 3, 2022 21:46
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Good call I think, yeah. Someone do that I would prefer to keep posting in this thread about it, but I also have an OP ready to go if you're absolutely sure about this.
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Jan 3, 2022 21:52
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Danhenge posted:I would prefer to keep posting in this thread about it, but I also have an OP ready to go if you're absolutely sure about this. Yeah I think it's time, hit that button. Doesn't mean conversation has to stop totally here just means the in depth stuff goes over there.
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Jan 3, 2022 21:56
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ToxicFrog posted:IMO the Commonweal doesn't get enough traffic to support an entire thread of discussion; I'm pretty sure it's not even the most discussed series in this thread. Somehow it's the one that gets complained about the most, though. People just can’t stop talking about the Commonweal series, written by me, Graydon Saunders, and complaining about the Commonweal series, also written by me, Graydon Saunders.
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Jan 3, 2022 22:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah I think it's time, hit that button. Alright, here you go: The Commonweal discussion: Just a bunch of Graydon Saunders sockpuppets - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3989735&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post520420566
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Jan 3, 2022 22:09
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So I got alerted this morning that KJ Parker has a new title coming out: A Practical Guide to Conquering the World which apparently wraps the trilogy begun by Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City I have not read How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It but I really enjoyed Sixteen Ways (thanks Ccs for the rec). At $9.99 for both those books however, I'm kind of tempted to get Jade Legacy instead, which is an  $14.99 for the ebook version but it is a beast of a tome at 737 pages. I've posted before how I really wanted to love Jade City and just...didn't (like it was fine?) and I had mostly the same reaction with Jade War (though I think it was a better book compared to the first one). Assuming that trend continues, I should, actually, end up loving Jade Legacy but I still can't wrap my head around paying $14.99 for an ebook (though if it had been published two half-length ebooks for $6.99 I would have paid that no problem, which is almost the same price).Pricing does weird things to my brain. Am probably going to buy Jade Legacy and then wait until pradmer spots another sale of Jade War to round out my ebook collection
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Jan 3, 2022 22:10
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Hollismason posted:Just started rereading The Black Company first 3 books. I'm on Shadow's Linger right now. Glen Cook writes some good fantasy. He really does. I reread Black Company last year, I should do Shadows Lingers again as well since I remember it being my favourite. Funny how the best character in the series isn't even a soldier but a hapless innkeeper.
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Jan 3, 2022 22:34
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Sailor Viy posted:A Deadly Education is really bad. I don't think I've ever read a book with a higher ratio of exposition to action, even amongst doorstopper epic fantasy novels. Every actual event is followed by 2-3 pages of explanations about the magic system and how the school works. Just want to agree with you. I powered through the first book by sheer interest in the tropes of the subgenre being rewritten, but as if the constant exposition weren’t bad enough, there’s just sooooooo much “Behold! I am tragic and broody! Whoopsy doodle I’ve alienated my friends again. Gosh aren’t I awful? Oh well, I’m destined to be an evil sorceress, so let me tell you about how I don’t want to do that but act like an rear end in a top hat anyway.” Plus, and I’ve probs complained about this before but it bugged the gently caress out of me, Novik is trying her damndest to write a British character and is really not up to the task. I generally am fine with lovely books being lovely, but this was such a marked drop in the quality of her output that I can only see it as a cynical grab for a certain market. I hate that I feel that way, but the negative shift from her prior work just feels sooooo tremendous.
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Jan 3, 2022 23:32
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Sailor Viy posted:He really does. I reread Black Company last year, I should do Shadows Lingers again as well since I remember it being my favourite. Funny how the best character in the series isn't even a soldier but a hapless innkeeper. Yeah Shed's story is amazing , I haven't finished Shadows Linger but I'm hoping he makes it out alive.
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Jan 3, 2022 23:55
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BurningBeard posted:Just want to agree with you. I powered through the first book by sheer interest in the tropes of the subgenre being rewritten, but as if the constant exposition weren’t bad enough, there’s just sooooooo much “Behold! I am tragic and broody! Whoopsy doodle I’ve alienated my friends again. Gosh aren’t I awful? Oh well, I’m destined to be an evil sorceress, so let me tell you about how I don’t want to do that but act like an rear end in a top hat anyway.” I'm morbidly curious about how she fucks up a British character beyond the "inappropriately cockney" you normally get.
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Jan 3, 2022 23:56
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I'm morbidly curious about how she fucks up a British character beyond the "inappropriately cockney" you normally get. hosed up is probably a bit overblown. But it’s just a sprinkling of superficial modifications, mum for mom etc. etc. Basically, there’s nothing about the character that requires her to be British, and yet it’s mentioned a lot more than it really warrants. I guess I’d just say it’s a clumsy stylistic decision with little consideration for how it defines the character. I think I’d not have cared if it wasn’t repeatedly mentioned like it matters when it doesn’t. The only pass I guess I could give is that there’s a ton of page-space given to a really diverse cast of characters from all over the world. That’s good, representation is excellent, but in this particular book, the representation felt dashed together and a little thoughtless, if that makes sense. Everyone ultimately talks the same, nothing makes the variety of people from their cultural bakcgrounds actually feel diverse.
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Jan 4, 2022 00:35
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Hollismason posted:Yeah Shed's story is amazing , I haven't finished Shadows Linger but I'm hoping he makes it out alive. Sorry man he gets decapitated by a railgun aboard the Donnager.
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Jan 4, 2022 01:04
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Leng posted:So I got alerted this morning that KJ Parker has a new title coming out: A Practical Guide to Conquering the World which apparently wraps the trilogy begun by Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City i just finished jade legacy and wasn't impressed. it felt more like a collection of short stories than a novel, and they weren't very good either
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Jan 4, 2022 01:04
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Oh I didn’t know that new KJ Parker was coming out so soon. I’ll pick it up once I’m done with Circe. Which is really good, I just keep getting distracting by spending hours reading about how all the hospital beds in Quebec are about to run out.
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Jan 4, 2022 01:21
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