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Groke posted:MacLeod himself is pretty goddamn far from libertarian though, or at least he was twenty-odd years ago when I got drunk with him & some other people at a con. Old Trotskyite, more like it. It's been years since I've read anything by him, but I remember the libertarian dystopia planets run by a bunch of genius CEO inventor types seemed to get a lot more sympathetic treatment than the actual existing socialism planet in Star Fraction(?), but then that might just be Trotskyism.
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Jul 23, 2023 22:44
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The Let's Read part sorta fell apart (I worry what happened to that guy sometimes) but the thread has been going for years and years now. After a 12 year break he started posting on SA again a couple days ago 
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Jul 23, 2023 23:56
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The Wee Free Men (Discworld #30) by Terry Pratchett - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000R33QWY/ The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009NFHF0Q/ Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003RRXXMA/
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Jul 24, 2023 00:38
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General Battuta posted:After a 12 year break he started posting on SA again a couple days ago Yay!
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Jul 24, 2023 00:55
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genericnick posted:It's been years since I've read anything by him, but I remember the libertarian dystopia planets run by a bunch of genius CEO inventor types seemed to get a lot more sympathetic treatment than the actual existing socialism planet in Star Fraction(?), but then that might just be Trotskyism. The communists warn the libertarians that the aliens are bad and will destroy them and the libertarians said, “No, we’ve got this, we will innovate!” and then they were immediately destroyed by the aliens in exactly the way the communists predicted.
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Jul 24, 2023 16:59
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The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1) by NK Jemisin - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005SCS4IK/ The Last Astronaut by David Wellington - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K6HNF46/
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Jul 24, 2023 23:16
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pradmer posted:The Last Astronaut by David Wellington - $2.99 Any relation to Beef?
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Jul 25, 2023 01:34
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:I've advocated for them before in this thread but if your local library has a copy of 'Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming' and the sequel 'If at Faust You Don't Succeed' give them a borrow. (I don't think they've ever released as an ebook) Just to follow up on this, I was curious as to which of his books were on Kindle and found The Last Defender of Camelot https://www.amazon.com/Last-Defende...ps%2C200&sr=8-1 This is an absolute banger of a collection, I'm pretty sure I read this one so many times the spine broke. only down side it doesn't seem like the Kindle version has Zelazny's commentary on the stories that I remember from my edition.
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Jul 25, 2023 04:45
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pseudorandom name posted:The communists warn the libertarians that the aliens are bad and will destroy them and the libertarians said, “No, we’ve got this, we will innovate!” and then they were immediately destroyed by the aliens in exactly the way the communists predicted. drat face-eating space leopards.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:41
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Sharp Ends (First Law) by Joe Abercrombie - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013HA6W92/
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Jul 25, 2023 16:57
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Selachian posted:How does Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty stuff stack up? I've only read The Grace of Kings and I liked it all right, although I found the characters and world a bit dry and sketchy. Leng posted:I haven't read it yet because bizarrely my library doesn't have The Grace of Kings, only the other books I have now finished The Grace of Kings: Baudolino posted:Just here to drop my recommendation for the Dandelion dynasty books. The world and the story is clearly heavily inspired by chinese history and folklore, but the world of "Dara" is certainly not fantasy china either. The first book "Grace of Kings "is a excellent tale of heroism, derring do, wild battles and tragic misunderstanding with a bitter sweet ending that i really liked. tildes posted:If you’re looking for Silmarillion vibes Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings felt similar to me in tone. Cacto posted:I’ve been reading Ken Liu’s Dandelion series and really enjoying it. Its ‘classical Chinese style but woke’ approach is neat and there’s some great stories within the story. I’m early in book 2 and the zodiac creation myth is enjoyable and even a bit moving. So The Grace of Kings is to the Chu-Han Contention period of China's history as The Poppy War is to the Second Sino-Japanese War. Characters and events are ripped wholesale from real world history into an Asian-inspired fantasy setting, with an added narrative featuring the gods. It is abundantly clear which characters and events correspond to which real-life analogues: Mata being a stand-in for Xiang Yu (項羽) & Kuni for Liu Bang (劉邦), etc. Liu sticks VERY FAITHFULLY to historical facts, right down to the exact number of surviving horsemen in a certain scene towards the end. I liked it better than The Poppy War though.  There was a cohesion to the overall narrative and a more rounded exploration of the themes that I think is probably attributable to the style of the narrative. (Kuang went for single POV third person limited POV while Liu went for a historical style of narration.)Baudolino posted:The second book "The Wall of Storms" is also very good, maybe not quite as good as the first book tough. It has some really great emotional storylines and quite inventive and exciting battle scenes. Overall a very different feel from book 1. It was much less bittersweet, personally i missed that. The drawbacks are; genius Mary Sue-like super articulate children, a bit too much declaring and speechifying that felt unnatural, a male rape scene that i think was supposed to be funny( but i am not sure) I'm probably going to continue with the series because I'm keen to see how the second book pans out, especially if it diverges more from history and becomes its own thing. The other thing I finished recently was Kaikeyi, which is marketed as a feminist retelling of the Ramayana from the POV of Kaikeyi. As someone who isn't familiar with the Ramayana, it was a meh read with readable prose. There's very little tension in most of the book. The first half, or two-thirds is pretty much just Kaikeyi running around, "oh here is a thing that might be a problem for me" and going "hmmmn, let me try this" and whatever she tries generally working, so scene after scene unfolds with very little conflict, following a pretty standard "Strong Female Protagonist with Special Magic Powers Undermining the Dominance of the Patriarchal Culture" narrative. I don't really feel like the magic added much to the story; it's just kind of there and she does use it, but when it came to the end where I thought she could really use it she...doesn't which left me hella confused. The main thing that kept me going was that I went in expecting a tragedy so I was just waiting for the axe to fall. It eventually does? But then it 180s from the tragic ending to get to a somewhat "happy ending" that was kinda weak. Anyway, I wanted to know what own voices readers thought of the book and went to read a bunch of Goodreads 1-star reviews and wow, it sounds like there was a deeper, more nuanced narrative that could have been explored.
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Jul 26, 2023 05:38
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so I'm waiting for it to come in. Will report back when I get through it!
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The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CWGBZ4R/ The Tower of Fools (Hussite #1) by Andrzej Sapkowski - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZZ22J48/ The Waking Fire (Draconis Memoria #1) by Anthony Ryan - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016JPTQ68/
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Jul 26, 2023 16:40
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pradmer posted:The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein - $2.99 The Tower of Fools any good? I ended up enjoying the Witcher books quite a bit.
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Jul 26, 2023 17:11
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genericnick posted:The Tower of Fools any good? I ended up enjoying the Witcher books quite a bit.
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Jul 26, 2023 19:16
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in fairness, the OG Ramayana is not exactly as deep as one would hope 
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Jul 26, 2023 22:28
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Guys, I started reading the first book in Coldfire, Black Sun Rising, and I like it, it seems pretty good, but I am hopelessly confused about the worldbuilding and magic and stuff. I don't think it needs spoilers but I will anyway, I'm about 30% into the first book for anyone else reading - So, what's the deal with "night" and it being dangerous? Firstly, it seems like there might be a regular night, and then a sort of more rare "night" that only happens sometimes? Sometimes the book will act like people absolutely need to be inside and warded up, then other times people are out and about all casual? There was even that one town that wasn't able to have wards but it seemed to be doing just fine. The forest. That first main city they were in, it acted like "the forest" was kind of a super magical, super dangerous unknown type of place. But then when they begin their quest and they are traveling and speaking with Gerald, the spooky forest man(I listen to audiobooks so I may mess up names) he mentioned something about trade and goods from the forest. Is there an established civilized society in the forest or something? What is "the core"? is it just the milky way starlight? It seems like all the stars go away sometimes. This might be that "special night" they seemed to allude to, but I'm not sure. I could be mixed up. There were a couple of other things in regards to the fae/magic system in general that I was confused about yesterday, but I forgot the details. I'm definitely not really sure the difference between sorcerers and adepts and stuff. From what I can glean, it seems there is only just the one kind of magic, the fae. Am I missing obvious things or does the book do a poor job of explaining this stuff at first? Normally I can find read alongs, or even wikis to figure stuff out, but there's nothing good out there for this series.
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Jul 26, 2023 23:09
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:Guys, I started reading the first book in Coldfire, Black Sun Rising, and I like it, it seems pretty good, but I am hopelessly confused about the worldbuilding and magic and stuff. I don't think it needs spoilers but I will anyway, I'm about 30% into the first book for anyone else reading - You're going to make me reread it, it's been a million years. I don't remember those being significant issues if you just keep going though.
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Jul 26, 2023 23:24
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It's been a decade easy but I think true night means the sky is black, as opposed to nights where the core or moons (there are moons, aren't there?) give people some light. Night is scary because the fae respond to fear. Someone's afraid of the dark? They get something to be afraid of. Then something bad happens to them, and more people are afraid of the dark. It's a vicious circle. I can't remember the text but I the trade with the forest is not like going to Canada to shop at their grocery stores and get some poutine. There are interesting things that grow there, and some "interesting" creatures making things, but I think it's more a cross between a black market and a dungeon crawl.
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Jul 27, 2023 00:35
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The Core is the Milky Way, yes, but they are far closer to the...well, Core, so it ends up being brighter. Maybe they are further out from it so it is visually denser? Or it's a lot denser for some other reason, I can't remember. Not sure. Also, there are at least two moons that I can remember, so True Night is when the Core, moons, and sun have all set and it's as dark as it gets. And that matters because, well, people are afraid of the dark, which manifests creatures who attack people, so people get afraid of the dark, etc. Compounding this is the existence of "dark fae" which is basically just very powerful fae who can only manifest when it's dark enough, who make things worse because the manifestations they create are exceedingly powerful (and fragile and ephemeral). There are settlements in and near the forest, who trade for esoterica, but they are small and maybe temporary. E: Adepts see the fae naturally. All adepts are sorcerers, but not all sorcerers are adepts. Adepts also work the fae much more naturally than sorcerers, who have to train it to do it and have to essentially actively Work to even see the fae. I don't think there is a reason a sorcerer couldn't be as capable as an adept, but it's the difference between a naturally gifted savant who has been seeing and probably Working since birth and someone who had to learn everything from a book. E2: none of this is particularly required and some does get elaborated on later. The Forest settlements are always a bit vague though. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jul 27, 2023 |
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Jul 27, 2023 01:46
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All of this does get explained as you read on, but the books do sort of expect you to roll with the punches for a while. Regarding the fae, there are a few kinds, named for the natural forces that generate them: earth fae is an ambient field generated by seismic activity, basically Earth's magnetic field if it listened to the human subconscious; solar fae comes from sunlight and is incredibly powerful but also hard to use without many humans all working in concert, which is why it's associated with massive works of faith; dark fae is fragile and fades in sunlight, but is very powerful, can be worked by individuals if they're willing to deal with the consequences, and is associated with really spooky stuff. There being multiple moons also makes the planet's tides and tectonic geology super hosed up. It was a really bad idea to colonize that planet!
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Jul 27, 2023 02:33
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genericnick posted:The Tower of Fools any good? I ended up enjoying the Witcher books quite a bit. I'd recommend this book as well, if you have any sort of interest in history. It covers a time period that is usually skipped over, which is a shame because the Hussite Wars were basically a dry run for the 30 years war and featured the use of cannons and firearms. Plus, if the idea of a phalanx of catholic crusaders wielding primitive matchlocks while marching on a wagon fort sounds appealing, then these are the books for you.
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Jul 27, 2023 03:06
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Finished Throne of Jade (Temeraire #2). That may be where I leave off in the series. Surprisingly little happens for most of the book. It didn’t make any sense to me that the British would be like “oh sure you can have our powerful and extremely rare dragon in the middle of a war where we were almost invaded and this specific dragon is the only reason we stopped the invasion”. They got rid of them so quickly solely to aid the plot I guess, but it felt thin. The antagonism from Prince Yongxing and the clash with the diplomat Hammond all felt pretty rote. The attack at the end by the gang felt random, though I guess obviously orchestrated by Yongxing (I was skimming at this point). Also they kill scores of people and destroy a palace and everyone’s just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯? The end gets wrapped up too neatly. Yongxing’s death felt too easy, and incidental. Also it feels like Temeraire’s intelligence is confusing. He’s super smart when required to be, but then sometimes seems to be clueless? I guess he’s smart without wisdom, being so young, but something feels off about the way it’s handled. I read the excerpt from the next book and the overland journey does sound more interesting. Maybe I’ll get it from the library and see how it goes. Anyway, then I read Valuable Humans in Transit, which was very good. Lots of the stories left me with the desire to get to spend more time in the universe described.
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Jul 27, 2023 13:01
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Awkward Davies posted:Finished Throne of Jade (Temeraire #2). That may be where I leave off in the series. Surprisingly little happens for most of the book. What a neat idea for a setting/theme [...] this book isn't well paced, there's a lot of gaps between parts that move the plot [...] a lot of things in universe aren't well thought out and don't make sense now that I think about it.
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Jul 27, 2023 13:52
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ok charlie stross, I accepted your constant references to poop but making your heroine get naked and jack off a sore ridden psychopath to disarm a bomb is too loving much
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Jul 27, 2023 16:17
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quote:Announcement: https://fairwoodpress.com/contact.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://kateelliott.substack.com/p/the-history-of-the-world-begins-in
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Jul 27, 2023 16:17
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AARD VARKMAN posted:ok charlie stross, I accepted your constant references to poop but making your heroine get naked and jack off a sore ridden psychopath to disarm a bomb is too loving much Yeah that bit kinda drove me off Iron Sunrise.
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Jul 27, 2023 16:32
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American Gods (#1) by Neil Gaiman - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YW4L5K/ Blitz (Rook Files #3) by Daniel O'Malley - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HQLMKMZ/ The Rage of Dragons (Burning #1) by Evan Winter - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L2VKFP5/ The Penultimate Truth by Philip K Dick - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MZN172/
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Jul 27, 2023 16:52
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I felt Blitz was a significant downgrade from the previous two Chequy books. The two narratives are only barely linked and it doesn't really matter that they are even presented as such, and the world building which was a fun part seemed a lot less present.
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Jul 27, 2023 18:23
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pradmer posted:The Rage of Dragons (Burning #1) by Evan Winter - $2.99 I continue to be unconvinced that this book isn't some kind of SEO victory scam. I've never seen it, never heard of it, and it's got all these awards? Uh huh. Sure.
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Jul 27, 2023 18:35
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I read it. It’s fine I guess. As close to a litrpg character progression fantasy as it’s possible to be without actually being that. The character just trains and trains and trains until he surpasses all limitations. The one thing that separates it out is that it’s set in a vaguely African setting but not a particularly well researched one. You could do a word swap for some of the major things and it’d be the typical European fantasy world again. But that did cause it to gain some attention, in addition to the addictive power fantasy aspect.
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Jul 27, 2023 20:17
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StrixNebulosa posted:I continue to be unconvinced that this book isn't some kind of SEO victory scam. I've never seen it, never heard of it, and it's got all these awards? Uh huh. Sure. It's pretty all right! I think Ccs pretty much has it right. I was impressed by how good it was as a first novel especially. The sequel is also out at this point apparently.
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Jul 27, 2023 20:36
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zerofiend posted:I felt Blitz was a significant downgrade from the previous two Chequy books. The two narratives are only barely linked and it doesn't really matter that they are even presented as such, and the world building which was a fun part seemed a lot less present. I was pretty lukewarm on it as well. In addition to the two narratives being unrelated (save for a passing mention at the very end) it also felt a lot more meandering than usual -- I'm all down for the asides about the Chequy but there felt like there were too many of them and they were left too unresolved. I admit I might be totally off on this as a filthy Yank, but I also feel like the Chequy series holds a lot of veneration for British history and institutions which O'Malley suddenly found himself trying to steer through increasingly troubled waters.
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Jul 27, 2023 21:26
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StrixNebulosa posted:I continue to be unconvinced that this book isn't some kind of SEO victory scam. I've never seen it, never heard of it, and it's got all these awards? Uh huh. Sure. Author is one of the earliest instances of a self-pubbed author finding an audience and then getting picked up by trad pub. In this case, it was traction from r/Fantasy: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/cdvmnn/comment/etxeguk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
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Jul 27, 2023 21:47
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I think I read the first chapter or so of The Rage of Dragons, probably at the recommendation of r/fantasy's top X list. It's not written very well. I just finished Too Like The Lightning. I'm surprised I missed not only this book when it was released, but the fact that the entire quartet has been completed. You can tell a historian (in the PhD sense) wrote it, but I find it all enjoyable. It forces me to use parts of my brain I rarely use in both SF and my science-y life. I'd be very impressed if the second (and third and fourth) book are as good/better than this one.
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Jul 27, 2023 23:40
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To be fully transparent, I was thinking about Rebecca Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning when I started reading Ada Palmer's Too Like The Lightning and was fairly surprised to find a book set into the far future (but also the Enlightenment). Hmm, now that I'm looking at Rebecca Roanhouse's Wikipedia biography, I note a fairly complicated reaction to the book by the Diné people so I might continue to pass on that book for a while.
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Jul 27, 2023 23:45
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RDM posted:naomi_novik_review_*.txt I will go to the mattresses for Uprooted, Spinning Silver, and probably Scholomance
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Jul 28, 2023 00:43
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Google Jeb Bush posted:I will go to the mattresses for Uprooted, Spinning Silver, and probably Scholomance I think I missed Uprooted, but I vastly prefer Scholomance to Spinning Silver.
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Jul 28, 2023 01:23
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Statholme is my favorite Classic dungeon. Wait, what forum am I in again?
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Jul 28, 2023 01:29
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AARD VARKMAN posted:ok charlie stross, I accepted your constant references to poop but making your heroine get naked and jack off a sore ridden psychopath to disarm a bomb is too loving much I got a little Tired of how there always seems to be a shlubby self insert Charles Stross character that gets with the super hot secret agent lady
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Jul 28, 2023 01:40
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Kchama posted:Statholme is my favorite Classic dungeon. I unironically liked wailing caverns
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Jul 28, 2023 01:41
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