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Since you like T. Kingfisher already, have you checked out A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking?
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Apr 1, 2024 18:16
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Haha yeah both that and one of the other ones she did in the same vein, Illuminations. Both were more kid-oriented but still fun reads. Kind of weird; I feel like I’d put Zen Cho’s short stories in a similar category in that they’re very slice-of-life (if you’re a mythical undead Malaysian vampire) and character-driven.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:09
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Just finished Quarantine by Greg Egan and wanted to thank the thread again for the recommendations. That was definitely more like what I was looking for and now I don't whether I'm smeared or just killing myself over and over.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:32
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Stuporstar posted:I actually have Burning Chrome in my kindle library, and it’s been bumped up to the top of my tbr pile. the books are better, but yeah certainly the first half of the series is very true to the books - it's hard-boiled af.
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Apr 1, 2024 21:06
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The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018SIYVAU/ Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003GK21XK/ The Rook (Rook Files #1) by Daniel O'Malley - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004QX07EG/ The Sword Defiant (Lands of the Firstborn #1) by Gareth Hanrahan - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BD4HJCPZ/ Artifact Space by Miles Cameron - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092DV697H/ The Kingdom of Copper (Daevabad #2) by SA Chakraborty - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076P8TD5Y/ The Iron Dragon's Daughter (#1) by Michael Swanwick - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E6HYNGE/ The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5X5LVQ/ The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5X5M42/ Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089JY53S7/ Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PDDKVXK/ Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PDDKVW6/ Witch World: High Hallack Cycle (#1-5) by Andre Norton - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GQLD8TX/ Knight's Shadow (Greatcoats #2) by Sebastien de Castell - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TV1V7SW/ All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PI1858A/ The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DCGJ6XQ/ The Novels of Alexander the Great: Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy, and Funeral Games by Mary Renault - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DIRC81G/ Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071K7TSYV/ Selected Stories by Theodore Sturgeon - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CADHJEU/
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Apr 1, 2024 23:19
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idiotsavant posted:Haha yeah both that and one of the other ones she did in the same vein, Illuminations. Both were more kid-oriented but still fun reads. Kind of weird; I feel like I’d put Zen Cho’s short stories in a similar category in that they’re very slice-of-life (if you’re a mythical undead Malaysian vampire) and character-driven. Have you read the sequel to Legends and Lattes? I thought it was good. It's a prequel, actually. Maybe also check out The Goblin Emperor and the sequels if you haven't. I also read the Wizards Guide to Defensive Baking and it was decent, but I agree it definitely skews younger than I normally look for. I also think Priory of the Orange Tree is going to be a DNF on the audiobook for me. Both the writing and the narration are not clicking with me at all. Which means I need to figure out what to listen to now, I'm all caught up. Any thoughts on The Tainted Cup? I really liked Robert Jackson Bennett's City books. A Proper Uppercut fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 23:30
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A Proper Uppercut posted:
I DNF Priory. The language just did not work for me. I just finished The Tainted Cup. Overall, I liked it. The world is neat, tho borders on close to so improbable it can’t be born. It was a perfectly fine way to spend a few hours.
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Apr 1, 2024 23:52
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idiotsavant posted:Just re-read Lev Grossman’s The Magicians cause I forgot I read it before I started it again, and am I totally off-base in feeling like Quentin is a full-blown Holden Caufield baby bitch rear end in a top hat protagonist? I remember not liking him much the first time I read it, too, and this time around it turned into a hate-read like halfway through. It really did feel like “what if The Catcher in the Rye was a magic school fantasy but with an even more unbearable character” He definitely sucks. I have a soft spot for it because of when I first read it, but coincidentally I happened to be about the same age as the character and suck in similar ways.
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Apr 2, 2024 00:36
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I had insomnia last night and a stomach bug today, so I basically read all three volumes of Scholomance in one sitting. It was good! The narrator was right at the edge of my tolerance for “heart of gold, exterior of spikes” sometimes, but stayed within it. Ending was a little unsatisfying with the way she was able to save Orion after all, IMO, but nothing to cast a retrospective pall over the series. Thanks to whoever’s grudging “I can’t believe she did a good job with this poo poo” review finally got me to give it a shot at 7pm last night.
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Apr 2, 2024 00:46
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idiotsavant posted:Just re-read Lev Grossman’s The Magicians cause I forgot I read it before I started it again, and am I totally off-base in feeling like Quentin is a full-blown Holden Caufield baby bitch rear end in a top hat protagonist? I remember not liking him much the first time I read it, too, and this time around it turned into a hate-read like halfway through. It really did feel like “what if The Catcher in the Rye was a magic school fantasy but with an even more unbearable character” Haven't read it in years, but my general impression was that reading about people with very boring and self-centered depression is just not very fun. Woe is me, I can throw fire balls now, but I'm still not happy.
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Apr 2, 2024 01:00
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eighty-four merc posted:Have you read The Gone-Away World? If so, what’d you think? I haven’t but you should probably check it out, especially if noir tropes are a comfort food for you. I think the ending sort of undermined the themes and the plot got a little too convoluted but some good prose and ideas.
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Apr 2, 2024 02:30
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Stuporstar posted:I need some recommendations for cyberpunk noir. The kind where some kinda cyberspace figures into it. I can only remember reading Neuromancer, Snow Crash and maybe a few short stories in anthologies. two jumped out at me, both slightly less cyberpunk and more kidnapping/dark money. Stuff that isn't the usual recomended in the thread. Warren Hammond KOP and Maureen McHugh Half the Day is Night. The McHugh one doesn't get great reviews but i rember liking it a lot when i read it as a new release. Post societal colapse, in an undersea city a military veteran is hired to be the bodyguard of the scoin of an old money family. The hammond one is about planet, previously rich that has become desperately poor with society breaking down and anyone who can leaving for a better life on another planet. protag is a dirty cop, feeling his age and it's a very dark noir double crossing detective novel. has a couple of decent sequels too. he also wrote a water planet based novel Tides of Maritinia, about a deep cover operative with multiple personalities, sent to put down military junta who doubts his orders.
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Apr 2, 2024 02:40
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idiotsavant posted:Haha yeah both that and one of the other ones she did in the same vein, Illuminations. Both were more kid-oriented but still fun reads. Kind of weird; I feel like I’d put Zen Cho’s short stories in a similar category in that they’re very slice-of-life (if you’re a mythical undead Malaysian vampire) and character-driven. Sunshine by Robin McKinley, maybe? It gives me some of the same vibes I get from T. Kingfisher. Also, if you haven’t read them, T. Kingfisher’s ‘horror’ novels also have a weirdly cozy/existential dread vibe that I dig.
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Apr 2, 2024 03:11
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The best scene in the Magicians is how just exactly when I, as the reader, want to punch Quentin in the face Penny randomly walks up and does the needful.
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Apr 2, 2024 04:11
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i just read the synopsis for the Magicians sequels and lol noping out of this while the noping's good. For some reason I can't remember if I read the sequels when I first read it and I can't remember a single thing about them so it feels like there's a good chance I noped out on the original read, too lolA Proper Uppercut posted:Have you read the sequel to Legends and Lattes? I thought it was good. It's a prequel, actually. I'm on the hold list right now so hopefully the 10 ppl ahead of me finish it fast. I did like The Goblin Emporer but never got around to the sequels so I'll give those a go
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Apr 2, 2024 04:45
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Just finished Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. I believe it was recommended the last time we came around to fantasies without epic world-ending plots. And I thank whoever brought it up because I did enjoy it. But there were a lot of metaphors and analogies. Every single conversation seemed to include one that imparted a great lesson and that reflected throughout other portions of the story. And is that just normal? Maybe I am just missing them all the time in regular conversation. But it felt like there was a big sign over the book saying "even though this includes demons and aliens, this book is still a metaphor for life." And stupid question about Astrid (if that's how you spell it. listened on audio) Was her relationship to Satomi ever explained beyond she's her housekeeper and enjoys Satomi's music? Was there a deeper, historical/plot-related connection that I missed the explanation of? Doesn't matter either way. Just thought there might have been more to it.
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Apr 2, 2024 12:56
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gurragadon posted:Just finished Quarantine by Greg Egan and wanted to thank the thread again for the recommendations. That was definitely more like what I was looking for and now I don't whether I'm smeared or just killing myself over and over. There aren't a lot of books like that, Egan's a hell of a writer/comes up with interesting concepts and explores them. I've never met anyone IRL who had read Quarantine! For a similar authorial style (cardboard cut out characters exploring an odd universe), try Stephen Baxter? His first book Raft could be a good start, or if you have any interest in the Roman Empire's history in Britain and emergence theory/eusociality, jump into one of his oddball series with Coalescent. Isolationist fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 2, 2024 13:16
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idiotsavant posted:i just read the synopsis for the Magicians sequels and lol noping out of this while the noping's good. For some reason I can't remember if I read the sequels when I first read it and I can't remember a single thing about them so it feels like there's a good chance I noped out on the original read, too lol
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Apr 2, 2024 13:32
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DACK FAYDEN posted:the shame is that the sequel has some interesting stuff in it (not the rape, although I'm glad that fucker gets it in the end. mostly the underground magic scene that get tattoos indicating the number of spells they can do, passing spells around by lovely xeroxes in binders, working their way up from a single light to reversing entropy) and it's just like, entirely backburnered to focus back on The World's Saddest Boy
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Apr 2, 2024 14:13
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The Magicians is one where I think the TV series manages to transcend the books in a number of ways. Still has its problems and the first season is rather rocky, but 2nd and 3rd seasons are pretty good stuff. 4th and 5th get a little muddled but still have some great episodes. Overall it moves away from being Quentin-centric more rapidly than the books, which is not a bad thing.
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Apr 2, 2024 18:01
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pradmer posted:The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J5X5LVQ/ Buy these books. The Bruner stories are fantastic proto-cyberpunk. Sheep is one of the bleakest books I’ve ever read in a good way. Schismatrix is my absolute favorite novel, Heavy Weather smells like the future, and Islands is weird but good in an early 90s end of history way.
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Apr 2, 2024 19:05
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Oh hey, it's our regular once-a-season yelling of opinions about Magicians. I still find myself rereading the whole series every few years. Quentin feels like a more real and sincere character than 90% of the protagonists of this thread's most beloved books, which I can appreciate is emphatically not what many people want out of SF.
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Apr 2, 2024 19:31
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Is anyone reading the Sun Eater Series? I've been seeing it show up on my Book-focused TikTok account and on my YouTube feed, with multiple creators dubbing it the next "epic" space opera.
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Apr 2, 2024 19:32
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A Sneaker Broker posted:Is anyone reading the Sun Eater Series? I've been seeing it show up on my Book-focused TikTok account and on my YouTube feed, with multiple creators dubbing it the next "epic" space opera.
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Apr 2, 2024 19:55
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Slyphic posted:I read the first book in the before times. It's a purée of Name of the Wind, Wheel of Time, and a random Star Wars EU trilogy. I felt no compulsion to read further, but but if you're into any of those things, you'll probably get something out of it. It becomes more of it's own thing, which is a big scale space opera with genocidal war and a self important main character prone to melodramatic and histrionic outbursts. Having said that I've read them all - similar to Red Rising in some ways, the space opera bits are pretty good, the action scenes are pretty good but the main character spends a lot of time on whining about how hard done by they are.
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Apr 2, 2024 20:41
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Biffmotron posted:Buy these books. The Bruner stories are fantastic proto-cyberpunk. Sheep is one of the bleakest books I’ve ever read in a good way. Schismatrix is my absolute favorite novel, Heavy Weather smells like the future, and Islands is weird but good in an early 90s end of history way. Seconding this. I haven't read Shockwave Runner, but I'll recommend it based on how great The Sheep Look Up and Stand on Zanzibar are. Schismatrix is excellent wild-rear end post-humanism in which the protagonists' girlfriend turns herself into a space station, and he turns himself into a lobster rocket. Heavy Weather is gonna end up being more prescient than Gibson. And Islands in the Net is the beautiful satire of libertarian utopia you wished Jennifer Government would be.
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Apr 2, 2024 21:10
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A Sneaker Broker posted:Is anyone reading the Sun Eater Series? I've been seeing it show up on my Book-focused TikTok account and on my YouTube feed, with multiple creators dubbing it the next "epic" space opera. Go ahead and read them if you have the time, I've enjoyed them.
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Apr 2, 2024 21:30
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Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) by Terry Pratchett - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000TU16OU/
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Apr 2, 2024 22:18
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pradmer posted:Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) by Terry Pratchett - $1.99
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Apr 2, 2024 23:56
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idiotsavant posted:Just re-read Lev Grossman’s The Magicians cause I forgot I read it before I started it again, and am I totally off-base in feeling like Quentin is a full-blown Holden Caufield baby bitch rear end in a top hat protagonist? I remember not liking him much the first time I read it, too, and this time around it turned into a hate-read like halfway through. It really did feel like “what if The Catcher in the Rye was a magic school fantasy but with an even more unbearable character” Yeah. He has an arc but it takes 3 books to resolve. I enjoyed the books but he is whiny or morose or generally troubled.
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Apr 3, 2024 03:56
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Nuclear Tourist posted:Going to admit that The Gone-Away World ended up on my DNF pile, I think I've tried to get through that book like three times now. I think someone ITT described it very accurately when they said that the prose was like "Vonnegut but with more lol random". Yeah it's definitely a certain flavor and you have to be in the mood for that. I thought it was just okay, nothing outstanding.
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Apr 3, 2024 16:13
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pradmer posted:
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Apr 3, 2024 19:19
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Admiralty Flag posted:If you need any further enticement to read this, it's the one with the famous line about extra pronouns in Ankh-Morpork.
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Apr 3, 2024 19:24
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Finished up Children of Time earlier today. Pretty good overall. Some great sci-fi concepts, a few likable characters, and the prose was solid enough. To contrast with another recent poster, I absolutely loved the spider civilization chapters. As for complaints, I thought that some problems were resolved in a very quaint fashions. For example, fixing gender norms because a male spider scientist used his world-changing discovery as a bargaining chip. Or how neatly the ending is tied up: spider civilization is above genocide, but we don't mind rewriting a species' consciousness and self determination. I would've loved to see the morality discussed on that. Very pleased to have read it, and some of those world building concepts will stick with me for a while!
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Apr 3, 2024 20:59
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Valis (#1) by Philip K Dick - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LVQZ98/
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Apr 3, 2024 22:29
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DarkLich posted:Finished up Children of Time earlier today. the gender thing is never fully solved and is still expressed variously in the later books, though I definitely agree somewhat about your second point, they get around it a bit with saying all it did was remove the phobia of spiders and decrease the human tendency toward Otherization and because it was, technically, voluntary after the first few people, there's even a colony of people that refuse it.
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Apr 3, 2024 23:19
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gurragadon posted:I just finished The Three-Body Problem on a recommendation from someone working at the bookstore and it didn't really satisfy what I was looking for. I asked for something very heady and philosophical like His Master's Voice by Stanislaw Lem and while The Three-Body Problem raised some questions, I felt it was too reliant on story and not enough philosophical dives. It hasn't really given me that much to think on. I found the book satisfying and may read the sequels if they are the same quality but maybe you all can help me out more. Several days back, but Anathem by Neal Stephenson has a lot of philosophy in it. Weaponized philosophy, even.
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Apr 4, 2024 02:21
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^^^ Good timing on the post. I'll check this one out too.Isolationist posted:There aren't a lot of books like that, Egan's a hell of a writer/comes up with interesting concepts and explores them. I've never met anyone IRL who had read Quarantine! I liked how malleable the Nick was. Nick starts with no allegiance, is forced to another, convinced to follow another group, then finally thinks for himself somewhat. But influenced by mods the whole time by choice. It's represented well in the smearing and choosing quantum eigenstates. He was even malleable to the quantum level. I liked the timing on the bubble reveal too, it was a galactic scale solution to a quantum problem. Not a huge fan of the epilogue though. pradmer posted:Valis (#1) by Philip K Dick - $1.99 Just finished reading this. Curious what other people's thought on it are? I thought that every male character was a split of the authors personality like Horselover Fat. This was until almost the very end when the Rhipidon society visits Sophia on the farm and then looking at the wikipedia. I still lean toward Kevin and David being the author though. David is his devout Catholicism and Kevin is his extreme cynicism. Horselover Fat is his personal religion heavily influenced by Gnosticism, believing in a God based on wisdom and knowledge. I kind of saw the women as splits on the author's personality as well and their deaths were kind of like the authors loss of faith. Gloria dies and he loses his secular cynicism and turns to Catholicism. Sherri dies when he loses faith in Catholicism and turns to his Gnostic ideas and VALIS. Sophia is his budding theology dyeing, but its durable and the author continues as Horselover Fat in the end. gurragadon fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Apr 4, 2024 |
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Apr 4, 2024 02:27
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habeasdorkus posted:Several days back, but Anathem by Neal Stephenson has a lot of philosophy in it. Weaponized philosophy, even. His best book by some margin imo.
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Apr 4, 2024 02:57
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branedotorg posted:His best book by some margin imo. Some might say his last good book. Me. I say that.
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Apr 4, 2024 04:18
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