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A Sneaker Broker posted:War, Drama, Action, epicness. Some more recs (and many of the ones already listed as well.) Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee. (Fighting space wars with time math). 16 Ways to Defend a Walled City (and the rest of the Siege series) by KJ Parker. (Siege warfare, drama, sarcasm.) Steel Frame by Andrew Skinner. (Mechs in spaaaaace plus corporate warfare plus general awesomeness.) Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone. (Space rebellion.) The Shadow Campaigns series by Django Wexler. (What if the Napoleonic Wars, but with magic and demons.)
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Jan 31, 2024 00:53
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thotsky posted:Ready Player One is better than the movie. I can't even conceive of how awful that movie must be.
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Jan 31, 2024 00:56
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Slyphic posted:No, unless you literally mean men. But also I don't deeply know the politics of every author I've read on this list, but would be surprised if a bunch I had were conservatives. Lois McMaster Bujold and Susan R Matthews certainly aren't, but that's the "men" thing again.
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Jan 31, 2024 01:09
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Last I looked I had a really hard time finding copies of all of those in English. It's been a good few years, I should check again. It showed up briefly in English after The Club Dumas took off; that's when I bought mine, which is in a box somewhere.
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Jan 31, 2024 01:21
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6% into Exordia. This book goes hard as gently caress. Incredible.
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Jan 31, 2024 01:21
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StrixNebulosa posted:Try reading Pride of Chanur by CJ Cherryh - it's short (200 pages!) and fun space opera, about space lion people finding a weird alien sneaking on their ship. He's pink, furless, and is nothing like anything they've ever seen.
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Jan 31, 2024 01:57
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that series has some classics
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Jan 31, 2024 02:01
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What's the most 888 themed science fiction you got (not the smaller bad number though)
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Jan 31, 2024 02:02
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A Sneaker Broker posted:War, Drama, Action, epicness. Joe Abercrombie's First Law series fits your criteria, and it's pretty approachable and gripping.
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Jan 31, 2024 02:05
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pradmer posted:The Book of Koli (Rampart #1) by MR Carey - $2.99 As the resident Carey fan: I enjoyed this one more than average. Has a lot of the Tripods feel to it.
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Jan 31, 2024 02:05
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uber_stoat posted:that series has some classics Imagine how weird it would be to meet an alien and their head was just a giant kitty-cat head. Not like, an anthropomorphic creature with strong feline characteristics, but literally a huge tabby cat head perched on some fluffy lady shoulders, without any attempt by god or man to blend the aesthetics together, or even give it a neck. (Pride of Chanur rules though)
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Jan 31, 2024 02:09
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VostokProgram posted:Drake and Flint were the only not-right-wing guys at Baen right? What does this mean?
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Jan 31, 2024 02:11
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gvibes posted:Just don't let your spouse see the cover. The mocking will be incessant. Fuckin lmao my wife calls fantasy lion people books now solely because of that I'm like noooo it's actually a gritty political thriller with blue collar workers dragged into machinations against their will and lion people Vv cherryh too vv
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Jan 31, 2024 02:13
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VostokProgram posted:Drake and Flint were the only not-right-wing guys at Baen right? I really doubt Lois "Ethan of Athos" Bujold is right-wing in any sense
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Jan 31, 2024 02:44
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mllaneza posted:Susan R Matthews extremely readable torture porn
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Jan 31, 2024 02:44
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Kesper North posted:I really doubt Lois "Ethan of Athos" Bujold is right-wing in any sense Mercedes Lackey, too.
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Jan 31, 2024 02:57
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Kestral posted:Imagine how weird it would be to meet an alien and their head was just a giant kitty-cat head. Not like, an anthropomorphic creature with strong feline characteristics, but literally a huge tabby cat head perched on some fluffy lady shoulders, without any attempt by god or man to blend the aesthetics together, or even give it a neck. It would be very hard to resist giving them a pet
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Jan 31, 2024 02:59
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Smiling Knight posted:Just read KJ Parker/Tom Holt’s The Belly of the Bow. The prose is fun and character work is good, any scene with the Loredan family is great, but my entire enjoyment of the book was severely undermined by the farcical military plot. Thats interesting, cause I don't know poo poo about military history so when i wrote a battle scene i tried to transpose as much as possible from a historical record, only reducing the complexity a bit to keep things focused. But Parker writes with such authority, and has such an obsession with how the weapons are constructed, and his short story collection "Academic Exercises" contains 3 essays about various types of military equipment, that I assumed that surely his research was impeccable and this was one area where he wouldn't strain credulity. So I gave it a total pass when I read the Fencer trilogy. It's not my favorite Parker by a long shot, but thats for different reasons (mostly I don't connect with any of the characters much. He got a lot better at writing characters with Engineer and his single volume works.) Zorak of Michigan posted:Did you read it in isolation, or after The Colors In the Steel? Not that being the middle book of a trilogy excuses anything, just curious. There was a time when I devoured everything KJ Parker wrote, but after the Fencer trilogy, the Engineer trilogy, and the Scavenger trilogy, I needed a long break from that worldview. In fact I'm still on that break. I'd encourage you to check out one of his newer series like the Seige trilogy because he became a lot more concise. The long tomes like the books in the Engineer trilogy seem like Parker really proving himself as a serious fantasy novelist and making a meal out of his research. With that research in hand, all his later books have been taking what he's good at and seeing how he can boil it down. He also gets better at writing female characters with the Two Swords set of stories, and some of his recent short fiction. My favorite Parker is "The Folding Knife" and my favorite of his long series is the Engineer trilogy, but if I were to recommend one Parker novel that seems to boil everything he's done down into one book it would be Savages. That book is the epitome of his writing, the ultimate collection of small things leading to unintended (massive) consequences. Ccs fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 03:01
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yeah that was a stupid thing to write, sorry e: to say something productive, I bought the ebook of Baru because I'm terribly impatient and couldn't wait for my library's one (1) digital copy to be available. It had a queue depth of 5 and it seems everyone holds onto books for the full 21 days Yaoi Gagarin fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 03:31
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Ccs posted:My favorite Parker is "The Folding Knife" and my favorite of his long series is the Engineer trilogy, but if I were to recommend one Parker novel that seems to boil everything he's done down into one book it would be Savages. That book is the epitome of his writing, the ultimate collection of small things leading to unintended (massive) consequences. That's actually the thing from which I wanted a break. So often, even trying to do the right thing in a Parker book means everything goes wrong. It feels very nihilistic. Try your best, try your worst, you can't get a good outcome either way.
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Jan 31, 2024 04:19
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Arsenic Lupin posted:And no, Rebecca and Wuthering Heights are absolutely not romance novels. hahahahaha, no Also thanks best forum on the site for negotiating an interesting conversation (even evoking P*A*) so adroitly. Excellent stuff and now I've links to follow up on!
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Jan 31, 2024 04:33
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General Battuta posted:What's the most 888 themed science fiction you got (not the smaller bad number though) as in the international labour movement? not the lucky number (Tết Nguyên Đán!)? ignoring the obvious McLeod et al the latest thing in my mind is City Of Last Chances and i remembered an old blogpost about it, this list is still being updated: https://hugoclub.blogspot.com/2018/12/organized-labour-in-science-fiction.html the Poor Man's Fight books by the otherwise erotica only author Elliott Kay (call back a few pages) is specifically about interstellar war to defeat corporatocracy so there's bit in there. Deep Black by Miles Cameron is one that gets mentioned a bit in here but the link is that is a market-socialist state (for profit business with a social safety net) across a huge number of worlds and the bad guys are mostly neo texan free-market capitalist libertarians - this is much clearer in the short stories published around the main book.
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Jan 31, 2024 04:41
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value-brand cereal posted:re c s e cooneys saint deaths daughter Really weird I forgot the Bad Stuff, I only recall the generalized threat towards women in general. I’ll buy their next novel, but IMO this is a sale/KU book.
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Jan 31, 2024 04:49
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SkeletonHero posted:Famous mystery novel The Eleventh Hour doesn't reveal the culprit in-story, but does reveal it in the appendix. The name of the swan is kept secret but an astute reader can figure it out on their own. Wasn’t it the mouse? It’s been like 30 years, idk. Graham Base for life though.
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Jan 31, 2024 05:06
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Yngwie Mangosteen posted:step 1: Do not read Ready Player One, if you started just put it down. It's absolutely objectively terrible and will turn you off reading because it's not a book it's just a list of cultural references and a guy screaming GET IT over and over in your ear. Despite popular advice, I am now through about a 1/3 of the book. It is a cesspool orgy love letter to the 80s with very little sense of direction. I am eagerly awaiting all the books I've purchased to touchdown so I can start something fresh.
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Jan 31, 2024 05:30
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So these trash Greyhawk Classics AD&D module series books are a land of contrasts. The first two books by Pauli Kidd? Fantastic, honestly. Nail the tone. Don't take themselves too seriously. Get downright goofy and involve a sentient hellhound pelt that's a good boy. The fourth book, Queen of the Demonweb pits, is also by her and has Lolth chewing scenery left and right with a very anime marilith secretary; it's great so far. The third book, Temple of Elemental Evil, was by Thomas M. Reid and, disappointingly for probably my favorite AD&D adventure... Dogshit. Too serious in almost all respects. Terrible plot. Transparently nonsensical timeline. Gratuitous torture scenes. Not good. Only funny part was one character dying and another randomly showing up out of nowhere to replace him, in true D&D fashion. I'm probably skipping the last two books if their tone is back to serious. None of these are serious fiction, but yeah, I'm at least happy to recommend White Plume Mountain and Descent into the Depths of the Earth.
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Jan 31, 2024 06:55
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A Sneaker Broker posted:War, Drama, Action, epicness. Passage at Arms by Glenn Cook is technically the 4th in a series but you really don't actually need to read the others beforehand unless you want to, it is essentially a high-stress submarine novel in a spaceship setting The Forever War by Joe Haldeman tells the story of a war between humanity and an alien species through the perspective of a soldier early in the war who also has to deal with the changes in society as time stands still for him when travelling to missions due to near-light speed travel but is passing back on Earth Armor by John Steakley a suit of power armor is discovered with the recorded memories of its former owner who participated in a war between humans and an insect-like alien species. It's focused on the psychological damage that violence inflicts
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Jan 31, 2024 08:55
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Yngwie Mangosteen posted:I can't even conceive of how awful that movie must be. Watch it and find out!
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Jan 31, 2024 12:02
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branedotorg posted:Deep Black by Miles Cameron is one that gets mentioned a bit in here…
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Jan 31, 2024 12:37
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mrs. nicholas sarkozy posted:Wasn’t it the mouse? It’s been like 30 years, idk. Graham Base for life though. Don't be ridiculous, one mouse could never eat it all! Unless he snuck in a hundred friends, of course.
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Jan 31, 2024 14:10
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Remulak posted:I read it like a month ago and don’t remember this at all. Mainly I remember a few great scenes surrounded by other forgettables.
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Jan 31, 2024 14:53
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Stuporstar posted:It would be very hard to resist giving them a pet I like how in Ringworld, when Speaker shows up to the party, all the attendees just want to scratch him behind his ears.
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Jan 31, 2024 15:00
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thotsky posted:Watch it and find out! No!
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Jan 31, 2024 15:17
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Ravenfood posted:Yeah I'm about halfway through and don't remember any of that. I want it to either be better or be worse. Every time I think I'm done a good scene comes along and I decide to keep reading. I believe they’re referring to the protagonist’s older sister enslaving by magical means and subsequently forcing into her bed the falcon shapeshifter guy.
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Jan 31, 2024 17:30
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Remulak posted:I read it like a month ago and don’t remember this at all. Mainly I remember a few great scenes surrounded by other forgettables. Ravenfood posted:Yeah I'm about halfway through and don't remember any of that. I want it to either be better or be worse. Every time I think I'm done a good scene comes along and I decide to keep reading. Major plot spoilers for Saint Death's Daughter by C S E Cooney. CW for marital rape, trafficking?, sex slavery, sexual abuse. There is a male character named Mak who is a shapeshifter. He had a consensual lover back in his home country, but Nita [the psycho in the summary] murdered his lover, mind controlled and kidnapped him to bring him back to her own home country. Nita made him her sex slave [in addition to regular slave] and forced him to marry and impregnate her under the threat of erasing all his memories of his home country and previous lover. Nita also forbade him from committing suicide after a first attempt, with mind control magic. So basically he's a imported house sex slave a la those house slaves in Dubai or whatever. Oh, Nita also seduced with mind controlled a person in some Bird court to rape him over several days and then murdered him when she was done. If there was more rape, I don't know. The character is a little repetitive in that trait. I quit at that point because I hated the quirky white girl writing. Sorry I can't do doctor who fanfic voice anymore. It's incredibly weird nobody had mentioned the vast amount of rape. I get that the character is a bad person, but man. That's still rape even if it's woman on man. Does the quirky writing make people ignore that? It's weird. And don't get me wrong, I've voluntarily read that poorly written Captive Prince book. I don't break out in hives just because there's poorly written rape in books. It's just man, is there other ways to make the character a bad person? Give me a lil variety. How about some more child abuse murder attempts? Bullying peasants? By the way someone else wanted stories featuring hosed Up Forests. I know it's too late at this point, but fwiw I know of two short stories. From 'Lost Places' by Sarah Pinsker, a single author short story anthology. Specifically the two stories 'Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather' and 'Science Facts!' The first one is my favorite of the two. I love weird ways of writing a story. In this case, it's in the form of a comment section / mini forum for a song on a music lyric website. The story mainly takes place in footnote type comments in between the song lyrics about a mysterious forest and its inhabitants. No wait please it sounds more interesting than how I wrote it!! Here's a small excerpt. In my epub version there's links back to footnotes and quotes. It's very neat imo. quote:→This song, included among the famous ballads documented by Francis James Child, is an allegorical tale of a tryst between two lovers and its aftermath.—Dynamum (2 upvotes, 1 downvote) The second story is about a group of campers and their camp counselors taking a trek into the woods, and stumbles across a piece of land marked forbidden. Also the fantasy gothic novel, In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey. Two honorary mentions as they're horror, not scifi or fantasy. Briardark by S. A. Harian This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer
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Jan 31, 2024 17:45
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uber_stoat posted:that series has some classics I am sad I couldn't find these volumes, I tried! I ended up going with the one below which I do absolutely adore. I usually go ebook as I've moved across the ocean and various other places since, so lugging around a library is kinda expensive... But having this around has made me laugh many times when I see it. Exordia has taken priority for now, but I think chanur is next.  Magnificent indeed 
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Jan 31, 2024 17:48
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I'm 80% through Shogun and if I stop now I'll never start again, but then I'm reading Exordia next because I hate skipping spoilers.
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Jan 31, 2024 18:26
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I finished Exordia and it was very much my kind of thing. Real good 👍 Starting Babel by R.F. Kuang now, but apparently my copy of Gateway by Frederik Pohl is finally getting here today after weeks of shipping delays so I hope that ends up being good too
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Jan 31, 2024 18:34
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fermun posted:Passage at Arms by Glenn Cook is technically the 4th in a series but you really don't actually need to read the others beforehand unless you want to, it is essentially a high-stress submarine novel in a spaceship setting It's more of a prequel to the other thing and is important to the third book. There's an incoming threat so bad that they're considering reactivating the Climber fleet. You get plenty of context, but if you've read PaA you know just how hosed up the Climbers were for their crews. Armor is a damned good book. Very psychological about, well, the psychological armor we put on to cope with trauma. There's also really badass power armor versus swarms of bugs chapters. Badass in that they're really well-written that is, there's no glory there.
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Jan 31, 2024 19:11
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Just finished Between Two Fires last night... I don't have much to say about it that hasn't already been said in this thread other than that I found it very moving. The concept itself was very appealing to me from the jump so I knew I'd like it but I couldn't really prepare myself for how much I'd love it. I guess here's where I ask for recommendations along the same vein even though nothing will probably hit quite like Between Two Fires did haha.
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Jan 31, 2024 20:23
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