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I just put a hold on the ebook version with my library. But I am 6th in queue so I've got plenty of time to finish Left Hand of Darkness
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Jan 6, 2024 03:35
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11/22/63 is going to be my first King book ever, and it’s the only one of his whose premise really grabs me. It and Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life are the two “What if you could do it all over again?” stories that sound like they’ll give me what I want.
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Jan 6, 2024 03:43
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So I got excited and wrote up a giant wall of text reviewing one of my favorite books: Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow I love this book series. Keep that in mind as you read this: I adore what this author does with her world-building and character development. I'm rereading it instead of reading new books because it's comfort food for me. The main character is ADHD in ways I relate to. I've read ten books in the series, and eagerly await new releases whenever they drop. Currently, I'm in the middle of reading #2, Cast in Courtlight. The name of the series is Chronicles of Elantra. It is currently eighteen books long, with a nineteeth coming in August 2024, and it has three spin-off novels alongside a novella. It is a bizarre fusion of urban fantasy with epic fantasy, written by a veteran fantasy author who normally writes doorstoppers. She has been writing one of these yearly since 2005, alongside her work on said doorstoppers. (I feel, in some ways, that I am describing Tad Williams, but his foray into urban fantasy was a four book set of doorstoppers, not an ongoing episodic serial series.) The general story structure is that you could technically pick up any novel in the series and read a self-contained standalone story, but this becomes less and less true as it goes on. The author has stated that she has an ending in mind for the series, but no actual ETA as to when she'll get there - only an estimate that the final arc will be two or three books. (That said, she's been notoriously bad at estimating story length in the past, as one of her series ballooned from six books to eight!) In other words: start reading this series with the expectation that you're going to finish reading it before it properly ends, even if you're a slow reader, and there's a slim chance it may never finish at all. Finally, as a general estimate, each book (paperback and mass-market paperback) has been about 300-500 pages; they're not short, but they're not as long as her epic fantasy, either. The pitch of the series is: in a fantasy world, a dragon has won the preceding wars and become the Emperor, ruling over Elantra, the huge city that surrounds a mysterious inner ring of ancient structures and ruins. The city is populated by other dragons, elves, cat-people, angelic winged people, psychic alien-esque people, and humans. Our protagonist is a former street-rat turned police officer named Kaylin, and she is capital-S Special in that way of protagonists. Every book follows her adventures as she tries to stop serial killers, magical crime, elf nonsense, or other fantasy weirdness. Through her we meet and explore all kinds of fantasy weirdos and their cultures, and get to see the inner-workings of a fantasy police station. Now, what are the stereotypes of these genres? I'll give a quick refresher in case you're new to them. Urban fantasy (henceforth UF) goes first as it's less broad a topic. In a nutshell, if you laid out every UF and picked one at random, you would read a mystery story set in an urban environment with supernatural elements, usually tinged with a noir flavoring. The hard-bitten private detective who has to solve why someone offed a guy, except that the guy in question is a werewolf, and the murderer is a vampire and the detective had to do magical stuff to find out whodunnit. Often the ending contains adventure and/or violence, as the vampire won't come quietly. Finally, most urban fantasy series devote a decent amount of time to world-building, as they want to explain why there are vampires in New York City. -- Now, there's more to the genre, but that's the quick and dirty. (Last minute edit: UF usually is published as series, with each book being a separate case.) Epic fantasy (also known as high fantasy), by contrast, cannot be summarized in this manner. Too big and broad a genre. The plots and characters are all over the place. But the common elements are, generally speaking, these: first, set in a fantasy setting, i.e. not Earth. Second, a large scope - be it cast of characters or time scale or similar. Third, magic is present. Finally, the major conflict cannot be decided by force of arms alone. There are more common features, but you need those elements to qualify as epic fantasy - or rather, to differentiate it from low fantasy, or dark fantasy, or something else entirely. The most commonly referenced work in this genre is Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Elantra does a fusion I don't normally see: it's structured like an urban fantasy, in that it's a serialized story (each book is a separate case), follows one POV character who acts as detective, in an urban environment, and there sure are supernatural elements. But at the same time, the world-building is aggressively fantasy (none of the fusion of 'why are there vampires in NYC', but instead it's not Earth at all), there's no noir flavoring, and as the story goes on, the cases evolve from somewhat standard UF fare to full blown fantasy adventures. There's even a book where Kaylin goes on a roadtrip with the elves, and it's just straight fantasy for that entire book, no urban about it. But - more importantly - because it is so episodic, unlike most fantasy settings you actually get to explore all the nooks and crannies of the setting. Most epic fantasy novels are either novels or trilogies, almost never long-running series. This should explain part of the appeal: reading this series is a guided tour through an alien world, following a central cast I care about and get to watch develop. It's the Star Trek of fantasy novels, and I love it. Now, enough high-level view of the series! Let's look at the people, specifically our lead, Kaylin! Kaylin is twenty when the series starts, ADHD as hell, and immature. I have seen a lot of reviews mention that they dropped the series because of her: she's too immature, too stupid, too much of a doofus to be worth putting up with. I don't entirely disagree! Kaylin is infurating. She was born in the fiefs, the inner core of Elantra where the dragons do not go and there is no government outside of crime lords. She was orphaned young by a sick mom and raised by a slightly older child, and she is a street rat to her core. She's used to poverty, starvation, begging and thieving to survive, and holding no respect for high society. At some point in her early teens, she left the fiefs, was taken in by the Hawklord and effectively tamed in the way you'd tame a feral animal. Which is to say, weirdly enough, that she was raised by a police station? The Hawklord didn't treat her like a daughter, he basically told her that if she wants to be a Hawk, she'd have to complete these courses and do the training and join up, and she did... but only the bare minimum. When Cast in Shadow starts, I won't lie, she is effectively the station mascot and pet, not an actual officer, and she acts like a bratty teenager. But, weirdly, this also works? Kaylin is incredibly earnest about what she does and doesn't want. She wants, above all else, to protect children. Due to watching other orphans like herself get murdered in the fiefs when she was a kid, she has devoted herself to the Hawks specifically so she can protect and stop murderers. But she's also selfish about her life? Or short-sighted, shall we say, which is ironic given what she is. Kaylin wants to be a beat cop, effectively. She wants to patrol the city and stop criminals and go drinking with her friends and gamble and help out at the local orphanage. This is all she aspires to in life, and if not for the plot frantically dragging her into things, she would happily spend the rest of her life being a helpful presence in her community. She does not care about the history of Elantra, she doesn't care about magic, she doesn't care about elf politics, none of that. So the plot screams into her life over and over in multiple ways, and through Kaylin's proximity to the plot, she is forced to learn everything she's been ignoring: history, culture, magic, more. We, the audience, benefit from this as we get interesting infodumps from other characters telling Kaylin about the world she lives in, that she should know. In Cast in Shadow, this plot takes the form of serial murders targeting children and leaving evidence that directly ties it to the murders from her childhood. All the cliche elements are here: Kaylin is assigned to the investigation despite her personal ties to the case. The other two officers assigned are, well, similarly compromised (and Kaylin wants to kill one of them, for personal reasons.) They visit the scene of the crime, they interview the crimelord in charge of that area of the fiefs, they watch an autopsy, and so on. But while it has the structure of a police procedural, it doesn't have the heart of one. Kaylin's unprofessional as hell and basically unfit for this investigation. She's trying, bless her, but the book doesn't apologize about it: she's not on the case because of her skills, but because she is tied to the murders and her presence helps them figure out whodunnit. Yet, despite all of this, you're not reading this scoffing at her. You're reading it like a fantasy novel, rooting her on as she navigates this. Another angle that I've neglected is that Kaylin is a healer. She's one of the four people in all of Elantra who can use magic to heal as an innate gift, and it is only through the Hawklord's influence that she isn't chained up in the Emperor's court, waiting to heal him if he ever gets hurt. What she's doing instead - alongside working as a Hawk - is secretly-not-secretly working with the Midwives. She is always on call for any emergency, ready to drop everything and run to personally heal births gone wrong. Healing drains her, but she never ever turns someone down. The precinct treats her like a kid sister tagging along; the sarge is soft on her, the boss is soft on her, everyone likes her and supports her when they can, and in some ways this reinforces the image of her as a child. But it also creates a home-like atmosphere, where you know she's safe here, with these people, and she works drat hard, walking her beat or healing people or trying to keep up in the investigations. And, in a lot of ways, their gentleness with her pays off: when the stakes go high, she steps up. So - yeah, you as a reader are going to gel with her or you're going to run screaming. She's always late! She's rude! She's deliberately ignorant! Hell, she's even racist towards one of the species in Elantra, and it's an ongoing arc of her working through that and being a better person. In case you can't tell, I like Kaylin. I adore her arc as she grows into herself. Cast in Shadow is only the beginning, but even this mess is fascinating to me. Especially her ADHD things: she struggles to apply herself to subjects that don't interest her, she loses track of time, yet hyper-focuses on things she cares about. Things other people find easy frustrate her. At no point does the author diagnose her in or out of universe, but I can't help but see some of myself in her and want to root for her. The other big thing in the book I need to address are the elves. Ahem, they're called Barrani. Barrani are immortal people with beautiful white skin and black hair and they're stuck-up and fancy as hell. They disdain mortals for having such short lives, and they're so drat beautiful in the process of being massive dicks. Elves! I think the series has a cool take on elves, and I'm always a sucker for the pointy-eared bastards, so that's my bias. But, crucially to this book, early on we get a case of the plot reaching out to Kaylin and forcing her to learn. The fieflord is an outcaste Barrani named Nightshade, and he lives in a fancy magical castle and deploys his servants to kill his enemies and put them in hanging cages outside. He is a big ol' goth edgelord, and he inserts himself into the plot by marking Kaylin's cheek with a magical tattoo that she can never remove, even if she skinned herself. Kaylin hates this! Everyone around her hates this! But she winds up magically linked to Nightshade, and he is - through the rest of the series too - a fascinating, cruel ally. I'm going to just say it: the series has very very minor shades of romance, and the ghost of a love triangle, but it never really pursues this. Kaylin doesn't think about romance, she thinks about work, and she never really loses this. I appreciate it. It's a nice change of pace from what I usually read. Last bits: every non-human in this series has magical moodring eyes. Why? I don't know. The author likes it. When dragons are mad their eyes turn red, or some color, and the author will bring this up, but never provide a moodring chart. I just take it as colorful flavor text and keep going. Dragons are surprisingly prevalent in this series, in shapeshifted human form and as big ol' lizards. They're fascinating, old, powerful. I like how they're written. Okay that's everything short of a whole slew of spoilers! Cast in Shadow, and by extension the series it begins, is a personal favorite and I loving love it. It's weird and doing its own thing and in some ways clearly wish-fulfillment, but in a very earnest and wholesome way. Kaylin is special and kind of a mary sue but charming about it, and the world is filled with interesting people - and it becomes very funny that these fancy-rear end elves/dragons/etc have to lower themselves from their proper high fantasy lives to interact with this ratty-rear end street rat cop who failed all of her classes and refuses to respect them. I cannot wait until even more of these books come out.
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Jan 6, 2024 03:59
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mystes posted:That series still isn't finished? I think I read the first book when I was in high school pik_d posted:I looked it up and Jones had her entire life basically fall apart on her so she stopped writing for a good long while. Then when she was able to get back into writing, it had been too long so she had to write another book to get back to a point tackling Endlords. And yeah, I thought Endlords was gonna be the last book too, but I think book 6 (A Sword Called Loss) is actually the last one. The books are very, very good though and you should read them.
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Jan 6, 2024 04:14
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I enjoyed Tachaikovsky's Elder Race but I do agree the anthropology angle could have been handled better. But really what I think is happening here is you see that and you want him to be in dialogue with anthropology, the discipline as it has been practiced here for say the last fifty years. When I think although Tchaikovsky says anthropology, he is really in dialogue there with Star Trek and the Prime Directive. Even though I think the Prime Directive is a pretty dead horse at this point, I still enjoyed the way the "anthropologist" here starts out saying he really shouldn't interfere and kind of hand-wringing about how it would be bad to try to help the natives and it would make him look bad to his peers and then a little later he's like hmm yeah well lol I did gently caress a native queen and led a literal crusade like two subjective years ago lmao guess I slipped up. But just about everything could have been better with a little more time in the oven, it felt like.
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Jan 6, 2024 04:15
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The Liberal Baru Cormorant: Even in the first book there's a pretty good send-up of the Veil of Ignorance; say what you will about the book but it's not unaware of the problems and hypocrisies of liberalism. Hell, I remember reading book 3 back when it came out (2020?) and being a little sad, thinking "drat this is being pretty harsh on liberalism, I wish anybody still believed in it." Baru herself is very smart (refreshingly, not the only smart person in the world) but she has a lot of blind spots. You shouldn't take her as the last word on anything.
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Jan 6, 2024 04:54
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Well I bought Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow after skipping SkipNebulossa’s dissertation simply because that level of passion means it’s worth $10 I’m lucky enough to be able to afford. Also applicable to (goddamn amazing Baru), I’m on my (at least) third reread of Muir’s Locked Tomb, and a conversation I think we had in this thread came back to me; why, now that queer content is “allowed” are queer relationships in genre fiction almost always between women? At the time I believed it was because both queer and & female protagonists became “acceptable” at the same time. Coincidence! In reality though, I think it ties back to toxic masculinity again. Of course. Excepting David Gerald rereads, The Spear Cuts Through Water is the only true love story between two men that I’ve read in AGES, and they flirt by repeatedly beating the poo poo out of each other. Maybe it’s because in the new rules of genre fiction men can gently caress other men but they can’t have feelings about it.
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Jan 6, 2024 05:26
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I can't say I have a good explanation, but I have noticed the same thing. Where's scifi Jean Genet???
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Jan 6, 2024 05:32
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Fivemarks posted:Don't worry, I like Fantasy too, and had the exact same problems with Fantasy. And everyone was like "no you'll feel represented by these books about Necromancer Lesbians making bone puns" and wouldn't listen when I said I wasn't really down for that. I am super late but Evan Winters’ The Rage of Dragons and its sequel are epic fantasy based on Bronze Age Africa as opposed to Medieval Europe. They are pretty standard fantasy books in terms of plot and have so so many fight scenes. Overall enjoyed them both.
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Jan 6, 2024 09:18
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I get that you've retracted your statement to some degree and I really don't want to seem like I'm just piling further abuse on to you. But, there is a specific point that I feel a pretty strong opinion about, that I don't think any* of the other replies touched on, and so that I feel really compelled to bring up. Basically, there was such a strong negative reaction to your post for three reasons. Reason one was: you came out swinging pretty hard! those were fighting words at a very well-liked book (particularly given the author is personally a thread regular) Reason two was: assuming that there's a political consensus among your audience - like, using "lib-brained" as a self-explanatory negative is fine in purely leftist circles, but plenty of posters here self-identify as libs and understandably bristle at having their politics dismissed so breezily. (both of these were mentioned by others and you've accepted criticism on them.) But reason three, well, reason three is that the substance of your criticism is just plain wrong. I think a pretty decent argument can be made that Baru the character has, from the leftist perspective, a naively liberal view of the world. but presenting the narrative itself as supporting a primarily liberal worldview is misrepresenting the actual text! baru, the series, is both pretty intensely sceptical of the idea that baru's course is necessarily the correct path even for her specific situation, let alone in general, and extremely sympathetic both to the abstract ideal of more directly resisting falcrest's colonialism and to the concrete ideal that doing so is possible! look at, for example, how Baru's parents and their resistance movement are treated by the narrative when they show up in book 3. they lost their fight. not because they were fools or because revolution is for the foolish, but because the material circumstances were so strongly tilted against them. nevertheless their decision to resist is not portrayed as wrong or as having never been capable of success! baru herself has blind spots but her plan for most of Monster is to do a massive bioterrorist attack on falcrest and use this as a kicking off point for a violent empire-wide overthrow. when she does get the opportunity, she backs down from this plan (in the moment) not because the narrative says it's morally wrong or even because she thinks it won't work but because the individual, personal cost of doing so is too high for her - she's unwilling to intentionally die of cancer in order to get what she wants. later, she abandons that plan because she comes up with another one that she (and the narrative) think will be more effective.but again, this is hardly the same thing as "revolution is the wrong path, true progress can only be achieved through decorum and incremental change" that you seem to be framing it as. honestly it feels like you're just upset that baru (the character) did a really horrible betrayal to some pretty likable characters in order achieve her goals and you want the narrative to confirm that this was the wrong thing for her to have done, either by making her further goals fail or by making it clear that there was a better, less revolution-betrayal-filled path that would've succeeded in her ultimate goal of freeing taranoake. and i think you're unintentionally ignoring the actual political themes of the book in service of this. and like, yeah, falcrest does have an overwhelming practical advantage and so throughout the series, the circumstances are tilted pretty strongly against the possibility of revolutionary success! that's not liberal status-quo-worship, that's a realistic assessment of the challenges and difficulties facing a potential anti-colonialist resistnace movement versus a world-spanning empire! in real life, historically speaking, revolutions are rare events! many of them fail! circumstances, timing, and chance almost always play a massive role in their outcome. portraying this dynamic is perhaps less immediately emotionally satisfying than portraying the particular sequence of events via which the beautiful good socialists do manage to prosper and achieve their goals, but idk. its also okay to have a story be depressingly realistic. baru still has a core of hope! it's very much revolutionary hope. *(exception, it was brought up by the poster dreamless, but not really as a direct reply)
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Jan 6, 2024 09:31
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Remulak posted:Well I bought Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow after skipping SkipNebulossa’s dissertation simply because that level of passion means it’s worth $10 I’m lucky enough to be able to afford. Same. Having someone go to bat for a book in that way is great and I look forward to reading it now. The blurb on the Kobo site doesn't make it sound a tenth as interesting! Still got quite the booklog though, so it's going to be a while...
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Jan 6, 2024 10:47
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a computing pun posted:stuff about Baru This is an excellent response to a very literal ‘depiction is endorsement’ reading of the book
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Jan 6, 2024 11:05
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why am I even trying to be a writer when I'm so loving stupid that someone can write an essay on why I am so loving stupid, Christ
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Jan 6, 2024 11:17
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Every genius in history has had entire books written about why they’re stupid.
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Jan 6, 2024 11:23
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Whirling posted:why am I even trying to be a writer when I'm so loving stupid that someone can write an essay on why I am so loving stupid, Christ If you want to write, write. Writing is what makes someone a writer. May I suggest coming over to join us in CC? There's a whole fiction writing thread where we talk about how to write good and also the very excellent Thunderdome, a weekly short fiction contest where you can submit words that you write and get feedback from goons who read them. StrixNebulosa posted:So I got excited and wrote up a giant wall of text reviewing one of my favorite books: Yeah okay with an effort this epic, these are going on the TBR.
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Jan 6, 2024 11:43
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I want the audiobook of cast in shadow but my library doesn't have most of them on overdrive and hoopla only has starting with book 10 for some reason
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Jan 6, 2024 12:11
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I really liked Cast in Shadow, but felt the next two books took a downward turn by replacing the incompetent police procedural bit (which was, frankly, my favorite part) with steadily increasing amounts of bullshit magic-based plot points that come out of completely nowhere to reaffirm the protagonist is The Chosen One. And I think that undermines basically all of her character growth because suddenly nothing is earned.
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Jan 6, 2024 12:39
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Aw, thanks folks, I hope you like it. And here I was reflecting on the post thinking 'I need an editor'
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Jan 6, 2024 14:07
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Whirling posted:why am I even trying to be a writer when I'm so loving stupid that someone can write an essay on why I am so loving stupid, Christ that means you're winning, people engaging with and criticizing your writing is good
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Jan 6, 2024 14:26
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FPyat posted:Every genius in history has had entire books written about why they’re stupid. (so far)
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Jan 6, 2024 14:33
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my bony fealty posted:that means you're winning, people engaging with and criticizing your writing is good
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Jan 6, 2024 15:21
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Remulak posted:Well I bought Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow after skipping SkipNebulossa’s dissertation simply because that level of passion means it’s worth $10 I’m lucky enough to be able to afford. There’s pretty central gay romance in the Archive Undying, Everina Maxwell’s scifi series, Witchmark (the first book—the next two switch pov but the first book’s characters still have a role)… And yeah, I’m having a bit of trouble thinking of others that have actually been published because me and a few people in my writing group have written central gay characters without toxic masculinity issues, but getting them published…  It does feel like books with lesbian characters are having a big moment right now while their male counterparts are kinda being left to the side only getting passing notice
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Jan 6, 2024 16:55
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Whirling posted:why am I even trying to be a writer when I'm so loving stupid that someone can write an essay on why I am so loving stupid, Christ The important thing is that you have the capacity to learn and grow. That's all anyone can do.
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Jan 6, 2024 17:36
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Saint of Bright Doors is very gay with male characters. The Spear Cuts Through Water is a bit too.
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Jan 6, 2024 17:59
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Cast in Shadow was 99p on kindle so that's going on the backlog
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Jan 6, 2024 18:12
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HopperUK posted:Cast in Shadow was 99p on kindle so that's going on the backlog Ack bummer, is 10 dollars in my area. I'll keep an eye on it.
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Jan 6, 2024 18:33
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I put a hold on it at my library, but also did not make it very far into the dissertation posted above.
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Jan 6, 2024 18:36
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withak posted:I put a hold on it at my library, but also did not make it very far into the dissertation posted above. tl;dr I think that series is a fascinating urban fantasy/epic fantasy fusion and it uses the episodic format to really delve into the worldbuilding in cool ways, with an immature yet cool heroine you can root for. That said it's very much "this is my hole" kind of series so I won't mind if everyone in here tries it and hates it.
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Jan 6, 2024 18:51
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Whirling posted:why am I even trying to be a writer when I'm so loving stupid that someone can write an essay on why I am so loving stupid, Christ I thought your posts were fine, you can disagree with a character's choices and ideology and still enjoy reading about them. And it's not wrong to say that most genre fiction inherits the dominant ideology it's written in (neoliberal capitalism) even when trying to criticize it. I wrote the books you're talking about if that makes my opinion count any more or less. Remulak posted:Also applicable to (goddamn amazing Baru), I’m on my (at least) third reread of Muir’s Locked Tomb, and a conversation I think we had in this thread came back to me; why, now that queer content is “allowed” are queer relationships in genre fiction almost always between women? They're not.
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Jan 6, 2024 18:53
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Speaking (somewhat) of epic fantasy, has anyone read Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince trilogy? They've always been on my radar due to the Michael Whelan covers, but I've never gotten around to reading them. Seeing them just sitting there at Half-Price books the other day jogged my curiosity. Need to crack out if this "urban fantasy <> airport thriller" oscillation I've been on for the last couple years. (Also put Strix’s recommendation on my TBR.)
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Jan 6, 2024 19:07
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Whirling posted:why am I even trying to be a writer when I'm so loving stupid that someone can write an essay on why I am so loving stupid, Christ My dude people loving LOVE Elon musk even though he's objectively an idiot. The guy can lob out the most smooth brained takes on anything and he has fans that will almost fight to the death to prove him "right". Being considered a genius is not exactly a high bar to clear. Concentrate on what's important, which should be audience engagement and making a product they love, and less about worrying that someone thinks you are dumb, or smart. Look at the thousands of authors who passionately did not stick their dick into the wasp's nest that is Israel/Palestine. Just because you HAVE an opinion does not mean you need to SHARE that opinion. Write what you love and if you are lucky you'll sell a copy. If you are extremely lucky you'll sell 10. Leave the worries at the door. You got this.
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Jan 6, 2024 19:10
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General Battuta posted:them. And it's not wrong to say that most genre fiction inherits the dominant ideology it's written in (neoliberal capitalism) even when trying to criticize it. I'm reminded both of LeGuin's statement "it is easier to imagine the end.of the world than the end of capitalism" and the lines in Disco Elysium about how capitalism absorbs and commodifies all critiques of itself. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jan 6, 2024 |
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Jan 6, 2024 19:20
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CaptainCrunch posted:Speaking (somewhat) of epic fantasy, has anyone read Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince trilogy? I've read those! ... A long time ago, as a teenager. I barely remember them now. Uh. What I remember is that there aren't as many dragons as you'd want. It was mostly focused on fantasy politics, and in a lot of ways the dragons aren't characters or monsters, but rather a resource for the countries to dicker over. I don't remember if they were good, but I still have both trilogies because the cover art is bangin' (because Michael Whelan is a master)  ps while I remember liking Melanie Rawn's stuff in general, her Exiles trilogy is permanently unfinished and an early case of the GRRMs for a teenage me to discover.
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Jan 6, 2024 19:22
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CaptainCrunch posted:Speaking (somewhat) of epic fantasy, has anyone read Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince trilogy? I looked into it recently but it is apparently pretty goddamn rapey! I read it many years ago but have decided not to revisit it. Here's a snippet of what you're in for, per a Goodreads review. "I'm sorry, the entire concept of one of the protagonists I'm supposed to be sympathetic to hate-raping the daughter of his enemy is a massive big red X for me ... This goes double when the hate-rape involves the character also cheating on a wife they're supposed to be deeply in love with and utterly devoted to all so they can father an "heir of the body". Especially when the same character not long previously rejected taking a mistress solely to have an heir because they said it wasn't a big deal and was utterly repulsed at the thought of having sex with anyone but said wife, and has up to this point been an honourable and idealistic individual. The fact that the wife was so remarkably calm about her husbands actions and even planned the murder of the (admittedly pretty horrible) mother and to raise his bastard son as her own was another WTF-I-am-done moment. I forgot to mention this is after her husband tried to rape her in an "I have no idea what's going on anymore" scene." I don't remember any of that, but it fits with the era of fantasy novels, so I totally believe it.
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Jan 6, 2024 19:30
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Stuporstar posted:There’s pretty central gay romance in the Archive Undying, Everina Maxwell’s scifi series, Witchmark (the first book—the next two switch pov but the first book’s characters still have a role)… So if I pick up a book and there's romance in it, I'm only going to read it if it's gay in some way. And lesbian/female queer sexuality is more palatable to publishers, my guess is because publishers think straight males will not touch their book if the dicks do. But I have read some good books with non-hetero male protagonists so here's my list. I'm also not good at sticking to genres so some of this might be sci-fi adjacent. Emily Tesh - Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country Ryan La Sala - Beholder (I'm reading this right now and it's so good) Freya Markse - A Marvelous Light & A Power Unbound K.J Charles - Spectered Isle (Charles writes primarily historical gay romance and some of her books feature supernatural elements, thisismy favorite) Lynn Flewelling - Nightrunner series Natasha Pulley - The Kingdoms (Also The Watchmaker of Filigree Street series but I think those are just ok and that The Kingdoms is her best work, and and she has some gay space story coming out this year) Everina Maxwell - Winter's Orbit & Ocean's Echo Others I haven't read yet but have seen scrolling through libby/have in my to-read list: Seth Haddon - Reborn & Reforged Lee Mandelo - Summer Sons Allie Therin - Proper Scoundrels Alexandra Rowland - A Taste of Gold and Iron Foz Meadows - A Strange and Stubborn Endurance Ok good luck!! There's others that I've seen recommended like C.L Polk and Rainbow Rowell but I haven't really enjoyed what I've read of their stuff. big dyke energy fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jan 6, 2024 |
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Jan 6, 2024 19:32
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I finished the first Baru book recently and not to be a Futurama robot but... I thought there would be more accounting. In some seriousness, the scene where Baru offhandedly suggests simply inventing futures contracts* gave me strong grad school vibes, wherein the professor says "well just try this, I'm sure it's described in <book that doesn't exist, or describes no such thing>" and the this is left as an exercise to the reader. I was hoping for a scene where months later Bari gets a progress report and says "no you're doing it wrong, didn't I say to do <thing she never said, if you care to flip back>?" * notwithstanding the criticism in e.g. this thread that, lacking a regulated exchange, they are merely ho-hum forward contracts.
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Jan 6, 2024 19:39
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buffalo all day posted:I finally listened to the new translation of Solaris (I think it's only on Audible) which is the one that's approved by Lem's wife and son. Absolutely blew me away; I'm amazed this was written in 1961. It feels absolutely fresh and vital. Incredible stuff. Oh cool I'll track this down. I love Lem.
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Jan 6, 2024 19:44
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buffalo all day posted:is this what book discussion is like in cspam, because christ that post sucks The C-SPAM book thread covers everything, including nonfiction, and is sadly underutilized. On that note, if anyone wants to read about a character's development of "lib-brain", the Doomed City is an interesting read, since the main character starts off as ostensibly deeply ideologically motivated but... well... develops. Also he's an ABD PhD student which makes it even funnier to me. Fair warning, it has thick layers of misogyny. You'll probably get more out of it if you have a good understanding of Soviet history, which I do not, so I'm sure I missed many layers of allusion and metaphor.
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Jan 6, 2024 19:51
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StrixNebulosa posted:I've read those! ... A long time ago, as a teenager. I barely remember them now. Uh. God my biggest pet hate as a kid and teen was 'books that have dragon in the name but are not about dragons'
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Jan 6, 2024 19:54
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HopperUK posted:God my biggest pet hate as a kid and teen was 'books that have dragon in the name but are not about dragons' Jane Yolen's pit dragon trilogy is my mortal enemy for promising dragons and not really delivering 
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Jan 6, 2024 20:04
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