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Kestral
Nov 24, 2000

Forum Veteran

mdemone posted:

John Bellairs was the poo poo. I wonder if those books hold up for an adult reader decades later.

They absolutely do. I came to his books as an adult after hearing that they were formative for one of my favorite horror RPG designers (Kenneth Hite), read The House With the Clock in Its Walls and fell instantly in love. I'd categorize it as "spooky" rather than outright horror, and while it's perfectly tuned for young readers, it's also enjoyable for anyone who can still read and enjoy something like Prydain.

For adults, Bellairs' The Face in the Frost is fantastic. It follows a pair of anachronistic wizards in the mode of T.H. White's Merlin who are being hunted by a nameless malevolence that has crept in under the skin of the world:

quote:

In the roadside towns, the wizards picked up stories and rumors. One man told how frost formed on the windows at night, though it was only the middle of September. There were no scrolls or intricate fern leaves, no branching overlaid star clusters; instead, people saw seasick wavy lines, disturbing maps that melted into each other and always seemed on the verge of some recognizable but fearful shape. At dawn, the frost melted, always in the same way. At first, two black eyeholes formed, and then a long steam-lipped mouth that spread and ate up the wandering white picture. In some towns, people talked of clouds that formed long opening mouths. One man in the town of Edgebrake sat up all night, staring at a little smiling cookie jar made in the shape of a fat monk; it stood on a high cupboard shelf, smiling darkly amid shadows. The man could not tell anyone what was wrong, or what he thought was wrong. Doors opened at night inside some houses, and still shadows that could not be cast by firelight fell across beds and floors. People who lived near forests and groves dreamed that the trees were calling to their children; in the daytime, pools of shadow that floated trembling around the trees seemed darker than they should have been, and when the children showed an unusually strong desire to play in the woods, panicked parents locked them indoors. Voices rose from empty wells, and men locked their doors at dusk.

God that book rules.

In a similar vein, I discovered recently that one of my favorite horror authors, Michelle Paver, author of the superb Antarctic horror novel Dark Matter, is best known for a series of children's books called Chronicles of Ancient Darkness - and it turns out those books are solid for adults too. I'm a sucker for Paleolithic fantasy, granted, but if you're a fan of Prydain and the like, the first book in that series, Wolf Brother is well worth your time.

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tiniestacorn
Oct 3, 2015

pradmer posted:

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DHJT92Q/

Book rules. It's narrated by a rock.

Kestral
Nov 24, 2000

Forum Veteran

tiniestacorn posted:

Book rules. It's narrated by a rock.

It's the closest thing we're ever going to get to a Dominions 5 novelization, a game where some of your protagonist choices include "big rock people worshipped for so long it started becoming a god," among others. Raven Tower is great, A+.

my bony fealty
Oct 1, 2008

Arsenic Lupin posted:

The Face In The Frost is another "there's nothing like it" fantasy book, like Lud-in-the-Mist.

With this and the TH White comparison this is going straight to the top of my list. Will be the first book I start in 2024 if I can find it.

cptn_dr
Sep 7, 2011

Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies


my bony fealty posted:

With this and the TH White comparison this is going straight to the top of my list. Will be the first book I start in 2024 if I can find it.

Ditto, just requested it at my local library, will pick it up once they re-open for the new year.

my bony fealty
Oct 1, 2008

I have found the ebook as my library only has it on audiobook. And anyways I am banned from checking out books because I lost a Gene Wolfe book from the library, A Borrowed Man of course, oops. I think I know where it is though.

big dyke energy
Jul 29, 2006

Football? Yaaaay

tiniestacorn posted:

Book rules. It's narrated by a rock.

Even though I was a huge fan of Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series, I put off reading The Raven Tower for so long just because I knew it wasn't a sci-fi space fantasy like I already liked.

Then someone told me the whole book was from the perspective of a rock and I read it immediately. It's incredibly good.

Also if you like The Raven Tower, you might like the short stories set in this universe:

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/nalendar/
http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/marsh-gods/
http://transcriptase.org/fiction/leckie-ann-the-god-of-au/
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-unknown-god/
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/beloved-of-the-sun-by-ann-leckie/

NoneMoreNegative
Jul 20, 2000
GOTH FASCISTIC
PAIN
MASTER




shit wizard dad

tiniestacorn posted:

Book rules. It's narrated by a rock.

lol went to check my Kindle, yes I must have bought this on a deal sometime past - open the book, first thing I see



I'm guessing I have weird 4am-brain as all I could think of was

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010

Interesting sf/fantasy I read this year:

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold - I haven't read a bad Bujold yet.

Babel by R. F. Kuang - Moving, with a really clever idea for magic, but a missed opportunity.

This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong/Jason Pargiter - Great fun. A smart guy using trashy horror to present his views.

Nova by Samuel R. Delany - I think this is held back by the weakness of the plot and the ineffectuality of the antagonists. Imagine this with a real verve and narrative drive! I think Empire Star is his best from the 60s.

Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky - nice nonhumans, but the rest was sentimental. Incidentally, for those of us who want to guess which animals you're writing about next, it was a tad unsporting to give the answers right at the start of the book.

Sorcery & Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer
Fantasy YA epistolary Regency romance. Doesn't quite get the setting, and the characters could be better, but good fluff.

Rogue Ship by A. E. van Vogt - Drivel on a sentence-by-sentence level, but some interesting ideas which van Vogt casts aside in favour of pulp tripe. He pats himself on the back for making the women plot-important, never mind they're paper-thin plot-movers even less substantial than the men. Chapter 35 starts like this:

quote:

In his excitement, Lesbee shook Tellier awake.
'Hey! I've figured out the true nature of the universe.'

Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell - Published as literary fiction, but seven of the eight are fantasies. Well written and suggestive. My favourite was the one about people supporting krill vs whales as if they were sports teams.

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler - The title story is incredible; the others look worse by comparison; either they don't live up to this one, or they're extended conversations.

SimonChris
Apr 24, 2008

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.
Grimey Drawer

NoneMoreNegative posted:

lol went to check my Kindle, yes I must have bought this on a deal sometime past - open the book, first thing I see



I'm guessing I have weird 4am-brain as all I could think of was



I started Master of the Five Magics, a classic of hard fantasy, and it has a great one of these:



Everything you need for a fantasy story!

SimonChris fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Dec 31, 2023

NoneMoreNegative
Jul 20, 2000
GOTH FASCISTIC
PAIN
MASTER




shit wizard dad

SimonChris posted:

I started Master of the Five Magics

ahaha was this what Moltar was referencing!?

quote:

In the Space Ghost: Coast to Coast episode "Curling Flower Space", during Space Ghost's story, Moltar exclaims that "Space Ghost has mastered the Five Magics!" right before Space Ghost uses an energy attack to disintegrate his nemesis, a loose ceiling tile named "C. Ling".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hyGV2X5-hg

lol you live and learn, that goes back a long way.

CaptainCrunch
Mar 19, 2006
droppin Hamiltons!

Kestral posted:

Face in the Frost

Does this book have a scene where one of the wizards pays for his tavern visit by magically embedding some coins in the brick of the fireplace?

If so, thank you! I've been trying to remember the name of the book for literal decades. Could remember reading it as a kid, but could never really dredge up a clear memory until I read the blurb you quoted.

Kestral
Nov 24, 2000

Forum Veteran

CaptainCrunch posted:

Does this book have a scene where one of the wizards pays for his tavern visit by magically embedding some coins in the brick of the fireplace?

If so, thank you! I've been trying to remember the name of the book for literal decades. Could remember reading it as a kid, but could never really dredge up a clear memory until I read the blurb you quoted.

It is indeed! It's a fun scene, too.

SimonChris posted:

I started Master of the Five Magics, a classic of hard fantasy, and it has a great one of these:



Everything you need for a fantasy story!

Holy poo poo, you are the only other person I've ever encountered who has so much as read Master of the Five Magics, let alone considered it a classic. I pulled that off of one of those rotating stacks of paperbacks at my local library as a little kid, and it embedded itself deep in my just-starting-to-play-D&D brain. poo poo, I might have to read that again.

Edit: Just looked up the author, and apparently he is both a physicist - which checks out, given the nature of that book - and an infamous prankster responsible for the Great Rose Bowl Hoax.

Kestral fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Dec 31, 2023

Doktor Avalanche
Dec 30, 2008

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkXAAHDIN7U

tildes
Nov 16, 2018

big dyke energy posted:

Even though I was a huge fan of Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series, I put off reading The Raven Tower for so long just because I knew it wasn't a sci-fi space fantasy like I already liked.

Then someone told me the whole book was from the perspective of a rock and I read it immediately. It's incredibly good.

Also if you like The Raven Tower, you might like the short stories set in this universe:

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/nalendar/
http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/marsh-gods/
http://transcriptase.org/fiction/leckie-ann-the-god-of-au/
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-unknown-god/
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/beloved-of-the-sun-by-ann-leckie/

I hadn’t seen these before! Thank you for the tip. I wish there were even more in the world.

Runcible Cat
May 28, 2007

Ignoring this post

SimonChris posted:

I started Master of the Five Magics, a classic of hard fantasy, and it has a great one of these:



Everything you need for a fantasy story!

Procolon definitely belongs on the map of the Alimentary Canal:

Major Ryan
May 11, 2008

Completely blank
Notable SF/F I read this year:

Station Eleven / The Ghost Hotel / Sea of Tranquility - I'd not even heard of Emily St. John Mandel and was recommended by someone I volunteer with who, to the best of my knowledge, isn't really much of a sci-fi fan. All just very well written, each gripped me very quickly.

Children of Time / Children of Ruin (Still need to read the last one) - Some Banksian Big Ideas spacey sci-fi that lived up to my expectations of it. Consistently being impressed by little details. Made me more tolerant of spiders.

A Half-Built Garden - A flawed and occasionally annoying book that nevertheless handled the questions of what first contact would mean better than anything else I can remember reading. Really thoughtful, definitely glad I got into it.

Gormenghast - Titus Groan didn't completely click for me, but I loved the lore and world-building so had to carry on and read Gormenghast. It's monumentally good. If you want beautiful, long, unnecessary prose about a crumbling castle and it's weird inhabitants, look no further.

The Sheep Look Up - Just terrifyingly right about basically everything. Depressing.

The Thessaly Trilogy - As mentioned recently, philosophy + greek gods + sci-fi = a book that was essentially written just for me.

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


Kestral posted:

It is indeed! It's a fun scene, too.

Holy poo poo, you are the only other person I've ever encountered who has so much as read Master of the Five Magics, let alone considered it a classic. I pulled that off of one of those rotating stacks of paperbacks at my local library as a little kid, and it embedded itself deep in my just-starting-to-play-D&D brain. poo poo, I might have to read that again.

We had Master of the Five Magics on the shelves when I was a teen and I read it a bunch of times. Picked up the sequels (Secret of the Sixth Magic and Riddle of the Seven Realms) at a book sale the other year and still haven't gotten around to reading Riddle.

NinjaDebugger
Apr 22, 2008


ToxicFrog posted:

We had Master of the Five Magics on the shelves when I was a teen and I read it a bunch of times. Picked up the sequels (Secret of the Sixth Magic and Riddle of the Seven Realms) at a book sale the other year and still haven't gotten around to reading Riddle.

You probably shouldn't, there's a reason the series lives in obscurity. Sixth magic was mediocre and seven realms was terrible.

His Divine Shadow
Aug 7, 2000

I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.
Well finished the Final Architecture trilogy and I thought it was overall good and engaging but drat all the hivers in the story got the short end of the stick. I was really rootin for Trine making a pseudo-resurrection, I really thought those units Idris had in his chest would play into bringing at least a part of the original Trine back. But nah. Kinda bittersweet that Idris mind got left in unspace too. Would've been nice if he just woke up and the novel ended there, bit more open ended that way.

There was also a part in the first book when Idris confronts the Uskaros as they try and get away from them and as he rages at them they comment on stuff around them creaking ominously. I thought that was a chekovs gun and Idris was gonna have some ability to influence physical stuff eventually. But nah just the guys imagination.

GhastlyBizness
Sep 10, 2016

seashells by the sea shorpheus
Reading Sam Miller's Blackfish City and it's good, maybe the best SF book I read this year. Vaguely cyberpunk noir set in a floating city in the Arctic circle, after climate change has done a number on sea levels. Got a real heart for its characters - a politician's aide, a fading MMA-style fighter who mostly does rigged matches, a delivery person/crimelord's gopher, and a wealthy nepobaby layabout - and pulling a sort of pulp fiction view of them bumping into or just missing each other as they orbit around the mysterious woman who's just showed up in town with a spear, a polar bear and a killer whale.

I like the interstitial chapters which are written in the form of a local citizen news release/podcast-thing. Strong vibe similarities to Lavie Tidhar's Central Station, if less optimistic and less wedded to the fix-up form.

pradmer
Mar 31, 2009

Follow me for more books on special!
Promise of Blood (Powder Mage #1) by Brian McClellan - $2.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0092XHPIG/

Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

Major Ryan posted:

Station Eleven / The Ghost Hotel / Sea of Tranquility - I'd not even heard of Emily St. John Mandel and was recommended by someone I volunteer with who, to the best of my knowledge, isn't really much of a sci-fi fan. All just very well written, each gripped me very quickly.

You should watch the Station Eleven miniseries. It's not a 100% direct adaptation of the book (a big part of it is almost like a "what if?" alternate take on the novel) but consensus from people who have seen/read both seems to be it's the better version of the story. There was an official podcast that went along with the show and one episode had Emily St. John Mandel talking with the showrunner about the differences between the novel and show. For what it's worth, the show aired late 2021/early 2022 and it was easily my favorite piece of TV from both years. Can't praise it highly enough.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


SFF books only, in reverse Kindle order

Most of the Susan Matthews Under Jurisdiction series (I blame one of you)
* All of Nicola Griffith's Hild series to date (ditto)
A massive Seanan McGuire binge, let's just say "everything I could get my hands on"
* S.L. Huang, The Water Outlaws
* Aliette de Bodard, A Fire Born of Exile: A Xuya Universe Romance
KJ Charles, A Charm of Magpies and A Case of Possession
* Nghi Vo, Into the River Lands, Mammoths at the Gates, The Brides of High Hill
* Krystle Matar, Legacy of the Brightwash Dark, but not grimdark. People trying to survive in a collapsing autarchy. One of the Amazon reviews: "Sam Vimes-but-dark character". Nailed it.
* Martha Wells, Compulsory, System Collapse
* Arkady Martine, Rose/House
Lee and Miller, Salvage Right (I am now reading Lee and Miller only to keep up with the characters)
* All of Victoria Goddard; start with The Hands of the Emperor
Kate Elliott, Furious Heaven (I don't remember a thing about this)
* Freya Marske, A Power Unbound (I heartily recommend the Last Binding trilogy, of which this is the last. Set in an alt-Edwardian era --yes, yes, I know-- with interesting worldbuilding and revolutionary politics.)
(reread) Ann Bishop, Black Jewels (These are absolutely terrible and absolutely compelling. The magic-cock-ring books.)
* P. Djèlí Clark , The Haunting of Tram Car 01
* Lois McMaster Bujold (binge reread of Vorkosigan books)
Jodi Taylor, Chronicles of St. Mary series. Starts out great, slowly seeps into "nobody is allowed to die" mode

Starred entries are books I passionately recommend; the others are good and/or fun, but I won't grab your ear and shout into it.

Also, drat, do I have a lot of books on my Kindle I need to read.

withak
Jan 15, 2003


Fun Shoe
We regret to inform you that Kindle storage usage only ever goes up, never down.

CaptainCrunch
Mar 19, 2006
droppin Hamiltons!

Kestral posted:

It is indeed! It's a fun scene, too.
Hot diggity, one tiny mystery of life solved.

Kestral posted:

Holy poo poo, you are the only other person I've ever encountered who has so much as read Master of the Five Magics, let alone considered it a classic.
Count me in to the Five Magic's club. That and the Cenotaph Road series were my tween year reads and re-reads. Recently gave CR another go and alas I just couldn't get into it. Ah well.

Major Ryan
May 11, 2008

Completely blank

Arsenic Lupin posted:


Kate Elliott, Furious Heaven (I don't remember a thing about this)


I read the first of this series and bounced right off it. I just found it very... flat. And at a year's remove, I equally cannot remember a thing about the first one.

And I was really poised to like that series based off the general premise!

Chairman Capone posted:

You should watch the Station Eleven miniseries. It's not a 100% direct adaptation of the book (a big part of it is almost like a "what if?" alternate take on the novel) but consensus from people who have seen/read both seems to be it's the better version of the story. There was an official podcast that went along with the show and one episode had Emily St. John Mandel talking with the showrunner about the differences between the novel and show. For what it's worth, the show aired late 2021/early 2022 and it was easily my favorite piece of TV from both years. Can't praise it highly enough.

Yes, good point. I really should.

Major Ryan fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Dec 31, 2023

cptn_dr
Sep 7, 2011

Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies


I managed to read 58 books in 2023, but found myself reading less SFF than I have done since I was doing an English Lit degree and didn't have time for anything other than assigned reading.

I'm feeling less and less in love with what's popular in the genre, I think — I understand why cozy fiction with invisible prose is popular, and I don't have any illusions about things being better "in the good old days", but using the Hugos and Nebs as a measure, I'm becoming a loathsome hipster.

That said, there's still plenty to read and love!

The best new SFF novel I read this year was The Saint of Bright Doors, and the best backlist SFF novel I read was Declare. They're both finding very high positions on the "favourite books of all time" list. I've got a couple of books by locals published last year that I'm going to read in the next couple of weeks, and then I'll come back and post about the best NZ SFF published this year too.

I have to say how much I appreciate this thread, it's been a fantastic way to find books that I might have otherwise missed. It's pretty unique among online SFF spaces, I reckon, with a good balance of new and old, mainstream and more obscure work, and my reading list is much richer for it (even if I'm poorer from spending all my money on books). Thanks, SFF mega-thread, and happy new year!

Doktor Avalanche
Dec 30, 2008

Arsenic Lupin posted:

(reread) Ann Bishop, Black Jewels (These are absolutely terrible and absolutely compelling. The magic-cock-ring books.)

same goes for her "the others" series, these are books i would admit to reading only anonymously, like now

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


I just realized that there's only one male author on my list and no, I did not plan that.

Lex Talionis
Feb 6, 2011
2023 reading (SF/F only):

Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - Didn't read this for a long time since it didn't seem like my kind of thing. I was right. Very well-written but meh.

Thessaly series by Jo Walton - Read the first two years ago, came back, re-read those, and finished the third. To me the series peaks about 80% of the way through the first book; the rest is interesting but not nearly as thought-provoking.

Curse of the Mistwraith by Janny Wurts - Read two-thirds after the talk on this thread but gave up. Some interesting things but couldn't get on with the way it's written and the way the characters are handled.

Inda Series by Sherwood Smith - Another series I hadn't finished previously; twice in the past I'd read the first three, now I read all four. Weird series, starts out with military school, then Ender's Game meets Sid Meier's Pirates!, then the big military campaigns and palace intrigue of epic fantasy but it gets increasingly disinterested in that stuff in favor of slowly disentangling the big cast's complicated relationships and putting them to rights. Glad I finally finished it. Very underrated, I think a lot of people struggle with the avalanche of names and terms at the beginning.

Empire of Exiles by Erin M Evans - Cozy epic fantasy murder mystery. Very competent debut novel, though I don't really think cozy and murder go together and I'm not really into cozy in any case.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jiminez - Incredible and innovative writing in service of a slightly silly plot. Thematically confused IMO but man this is amazing at what it does well. Huge improvement from the author's first novel.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco - Sort of SF/F adjacent. Has its moments but I thought it was overrated.

Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh - I liked this when I read it two decades ago and hadn't read much Cherryh. Hasn't really held up; despite the Hugo award, I think this is in the bottom third of Cherryh's science fiction output at best.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - Absolutely amazing character writing, wish it was doing something more interesting than a story/world that combined amounts to a simple metaphor.

Empire of Silence by Christopher Rucchio - Very lightly remixes and combines a bunch of much better books (e.g. Dune, Book of the New Sun, etc.) into a worse book. An author to watch when they are older and (hopefully) better and more original.

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch - "Inception meets True Detective". Yes but do these things go together? As with the actual Inception, kind of falls apart if you think about it too much. If you like cosmic horror you'll probably like it better than I did. Maybe I dislike this more than it deserves because I keep getting this title confused with The Gone-away World, which I loved.

Final Architecture trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky - Fun SF. Not as good as his Children books but that's a very high bar. Really drives home how rare it is to see space opera done well. Weird that David Brin was so popular in the late 80s yet these days only Tchaikovsky seems influenced by him. The demand still seems to be there.

The March North by Graydon Saunders - Fascinating world, fun Glen Cook-influenced military fantasy, and some really bizarre authorial choices. Well worth the effort to get it.

The Black Company by Glen Cook - Reread this to compare against the previous. My opinion hasn't changed from 15 years ago: you can see why this was amazing at the time, but it tries to have its cake and eat it too. Are these bad guys or not? Also, actual mercenaries are trying to get rich off loot and retire. No idea why these guys fight, the narrator doesn't seem to know either. Surprising amount of "found family" in here so maybe it was ahead of its time. This is one where the influenced book (March North) improves on the original in most respects.

The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell - Really enjoyed the historical fiction elements and the way the druids are depicted. Don't like Arthur stories much and didn't like Arthur here either and that's really the point, so...oh well. Maybe I'll try one of his non-Arthuriana series in 2024.

A Succession of Bad Days by Graydon Saunders - The military fantasy is gone, we're going to wizard school instead. Wizard school with a huge amount of wish fulfillment, but the wishes being fulfilled aren't the usual ("the kids at school are mean to me even though I'm smarter", "I am a horny man", etc.), it's the wishes of a construction worker who dreams of lifting and digging without hurting his back. Very long, bizarre writing tics, terrible pacing, no real ending to speak of. Glad I read it.

The Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky - Very fun fantasy/science fiction dichotomy and mental health material kind of wasted in a boring, over-simple story. Yes it's a novella, but with a bit more effort this feels like it could have been one for the ages. Still worth reading.

Locked Tomb series - Thought the last one was coming out so read these three. Oops. Still, probably enjoyed these more than anything else this year. If you're on the fence, don't be put off by the over the top fans or "lesbian necromancers in space", it's a Sanderson-ish "how does the world work?" mystery with a lot more attention to characters and some really cool literary pyrotechnics. Some rough patches of writing in the first book but gets stronger as it goes on.

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Arsenic Lupin posted:

Most of the Susan Matthews Under Jurisdiction series (I blame one of you)

Probably me!

You should finish the series, Warring States is great and the last two books wrap things up nicely.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

Lex Talionis posted:

A Succession of Bad Days by Graydon Saunders - The military fantasy is gone, we're going to wizard school instead. Wizard school with a huge amount of wish fulfillment, but the wishes being fulfilled aren't the usual ("the kids at school are mean to me even though I'm smarter", "I am a horny man", etc.), it's the wishes of a construction worker who dreams of lifting and digging without hurting his back. Very long, bizarre writing tics, terrible pacing, no real ending to speak of. Glad I read it.

I think of this as the first half of a book, with the second half (and the ending) being in Safely You Deliver, the next book.

Major Ryan
May 11, 2008

Completely blank
A The Library at Mount Char review for Secret Santa Rid:

I'm conflicted. I started out thinking it was kooky but generally fairly good, and then I noticed that it was the author's first book and that excused a few of the awkward things I'd not like with the odd piece of bad prose or strange choice of words. Not a fan of the excessive violence (which is just a me problem), but I was basically having a good time with it until Carolyn won, at which point the book didn't really seem to know what it wanted to do, wobbled about a bit and ended up with "it was Father's plan all along", which just seemed rather weak.

However, the world of the book is quite a neat take on god-like beings, especially anti-heroic ones, so bonus points for being original because that's often lacking. I'd have like to have seen more of the other 'players' - we got a lot of foreshadowing and then nothing really played out, but it make for some good world-building.

So basically, if it's supposed to be a love-it-or-hate-it book that's not where I fell, because I thought overall it was alright, and absolutely worth reading, because I doubt I'd have picked that up outside of being sent it for Secret Santa.

A shame there hasn't (yet) been a sequel, because another shot might iron out some of the issues and turn it into a really good work.

Precambrian Video Games
Aug 19, 2002



Lex Talionis posted:

The Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky - Very fun fantasy/science fiction dichotomy and mental health material kind of wasted in a boring, over-simple story. Yes it's a novella, but with a bit more effort this feels like it could have been one for the ages. Still worth reading.

I read The Jack Vance Treasury recently, not long after finishing Elder Race, and several of the stories in there - The Dragon Masters and The Last Castle in particular - made me think of it. Maybe it's just the superficial similarities of largely forgotten sci-fi tech in a low-tech world (of course there are many other non-Vance examples) but I wonder if Tchaikovsky was going for a retro vibe/homage with the plot of Elder Race. Anyway, the Treasury was worth reading and has an autobiographical afterword where Vance discusses some of his own influences which... well maybe one day I'll get to, I haven't really enjoyed much of the pre-WW2 SF&F for its own sake rather than just as context for later writing.

uber_stoat
Jan 21, 2001



Pillbug

Major Ryan posted:


A shame there hasn't (yet) been a sequel, because another shot might iron out some of the issues and turn it into a really good work.

only fiction book he ever published. rather good for that i'd say. wish he would get a chance to write more.

TOOT BOOT
May 25, 2010

Whether you loved it or thought it was meh, you gotta admit Library is fairly unique.

pradmer
Mar 31, 2009

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Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


This has probably been asked before in this thread but I just got an audible account and wondering which audio books I should check out. My favorite books tend to be fantasy, stuff like Abercrombie, Buehlman (Between Two Fires) and Pratchett.

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cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather
Literally anything written by Drew Hayes makes for great audio books.
Dungeon Crawler Carl is also really good, and basically everything narrated by Jeff Hays is noteworthy for his stellar performance.
Also the two short books Travis Baldree wrote and narrated. He's a good narrator in general and you may enjoy the Cradle series, or Beware of Chicken.
Personally, I also quite liked the Jade Pheonix Saga, but some people don't really love that one.

cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Jan 2, 2024

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