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I always thought the “time is a flat circle” speech came from McConaughey having read the Interstellar script right before the filming of True Detective started. Actually I feel like there’s potential in the sort of cold case story setup of True Detective being combined with the time dilation of Interstellar, is there any book that has a plot along those lines?
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May 16, 2024 11:31
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Kestral posted:Another fun "map inversion" is to swap the positions of land and water. You get a neat world map that way, with some really interesting climate and terrain. A number of projects have done this, but my favorite is probably Inversia, since it goes a step farther and inverts the height map of Earth, so that mountains become trenches and the trenches become new mountain ranges, etc. Then it starts seriously thinking through the implications of things like the huge basins this creates having bizarrely high air pressure that traps heat and creates climates unlike any on Earth. It's a good time and a relatively short read, hard sci-fi / alien planet enjoyers should give it a look. I really like this Inversia project, this person is odd in a way I deeply appreciate
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May 16, 2024 12:19
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HopperUK posted:I really like this Inversia project, this person is odd in a way I deeply appreciate I got lost browsing that website for a bit and suddenly realised I had been there before when I scrolled far enough to come across the writer's sexy centaur drawings that inexplicably inhabit every world they dream up.
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May 16, 2024 12:24
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Metis of the Chat Thread posted:I got lost browsing that website for a bit and suddenly realised I had been there before when I scrolled far enough to come across the writer's sexy centaur drawings that inexplicably inhabit every world they dream up. john varley?
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May 16, 2024 12:58
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Chairman Capone posted:I always thought the “time is a flat circle” speech came from McConaughey having read the Interstellar script right before the filming of True Detective started. THE GONE WORLD by Tom Sweterlitsch? 
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May 16, 2024 14:41
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Got through Elder Race by Tchaikovsky in two nights, and really liked it. It’s a quick read. The advice I saw said go in blind, so I won’t say anything else.
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May 16, 2024 15:55
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Metis of the Chat Thread posted:I got lost browsing that website for a bit and suddenly realised I had been there before when I scrolled far enough to come across the writer's sexy centaur drawings that inexplicably inhabit every world they dream up. lol the same thing happened to me ~20 years ago
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May 16, 2024 16:58
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I bet humanity was the elder race the whole time
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May 16, 2024 17:02
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I finished Red Rising. Yeah, that quenched my thirst for something good. Now to overflow that thirst with Golden Sun.
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May 16, 2024 19:55
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I guess I still have time to post unique deals that I rarely see. In Conquest Born (#1) by CS Friedman - $0.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002VXTB3G/ The Fractal Prince (Jean le Flambeur #2) by Hannu Rajaniemi - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007NJPRRM/
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May 16, 2024 23:31
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Jean le Flambeur loving own.
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May 16, 2024 23:38
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He's no Bob
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May 16, 2024 23:41
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Major Ryan posted:I'm about 50% of the way through at the moment and I know the book is good, I can appreciate what it's doing, but it's essentially sliding right off me. I can't remember reading a book that's so good that just isn't sinking its claws into me. *Nods Proustishly*
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May 17, 2024 01:52
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I just finished an ARC of an upcoming book I really liked, amazing that my crushing dread at the thought of my own work being perceived and discussed has now metastasized to a sort of secondhand anxiety about what SFF in general will do to any new author
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May 17, 2024 04:16
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General Battuta posted:I just finished an ARC of an upcoming book I really liked, amazing that my crushing dread at the thought of my own work being perceived and discussed has now metastasized to a sort of secondhand anxiety about what SFF in general will do to any new author I hope it was The West Passage because I really want that to be good edit: or Vajra Chandrasekera's second book, I also really want that to be good tiniestacorn fucked around with this message at 06:36 on May 17, 2024 |
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May 17, 2024 06:32
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pradmer posted:Great series, but have a cheery book on deck for when you finish. Finished the series, and it was very good, but yeah, that last book in particular was a series of gut punches. Even just seeing Wednesday, October 3 as the last chapter title in the table of contents was a hell of a way to start. The downward progression of society from book to book was really well done, though while I understand why it moved forward so quickly and appreciate the effect of it, I did want to spend a little more time in that era of the first book. That's not a setting you get a lot of in apocalyptic fiction, that period where society is still trundling along under the shadow of impending disaster, but the wheels are just starting to come off. The later books are technically still pre-apocalyptic, but with the further collapse of society start to have that more typical post-apocalyptic feel. There is always that ticking clock hanging over everything and the reminder that for as bad as things are, they can and will get worse, so it still has a unique feel and it's not really an issue in the greater scheme of things. Ending: I feel like a lot of this subgenre of "preparing for the inevitable end of the world" ends with a final get-together with friends and family, and I thought it worked well here too. Not really hope, but at least a sort of catharsis. And Hank got his dog back. I was really worried something terrible would happen there too, but that's like the one plot that doesn't go with the gut punch.
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May 18, 2024 01:20
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Lord Hydronium posted:That's not a setting you get a lot of in apocalyptic fiction, that period where society is still trundling along under the shadow of impending disaster, but the wheels are just starting to come off.[/spoiler] That’s just contemporary non fiction.
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May 18, 2024 10:51
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House of Open Wounds (Tyrant Philosophers #2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHHZL9KC/
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May 18, 2024 18:49
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tiniestacorn posted:I hope it was The West Passage because I really want that to be good It was METAL FROM HEAVEN by HA Clarke. I didn’t get on with the first few chapters at all but by the end it had turned into something like Disco Elysium, or China Mieville if he was a stone butch lesbian. It is not a cozy book about twee lesbian bandits or a romance, it’s about labor movements and rejecting liberal reform and communism and revolutionary violence. Agree with its politics or not, it’s a book of substance.
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May 18, 2024 18:56
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pradmer posted:House of Open Wounds (Tyrant Philosophers #2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky - $2.99 You can get by on that without reading City of Last Chances first, but they're even better together.
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May 18, 2024 18:57
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Thanks to whoever suggested Delta-V a while back, that was great fun.
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May 18, 2024 18:59
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General Battuta posted:It was METAL FROM HEAVEN by HA Clarke. I didn’t get on with the first few chapters at all but by the end it had turned into something like Disco Elysium, or China Mieville if he was a stone butch lesbian. It is not a cozy book about twee lesbian bandits or a romance, it’s about labor movements and rejecting liberal reform and communism and revolutionary violence. Agree with its politics or not, it’s a book of substance. I guess I say this because at first the plot is, an orphan with special powers is adopted by bandits and swears revenge on the man who killed her family. And you might think, I’ve read this one before! But you haven’t. You haven’t even read the bit where she goes undercover as a noblewoman to woo Not Baru Cormorant (she’s the adopted ward of the evil man and a wealthy liberal reformer) which is probably the part of the book people will get most excited about. It gets so much stronger and more confident as it goes, really stands up and belts it out. It was also clearly written by someone who knows a lot about lesbian culture and has (I assume) lived experience. Clarke doesn’t hide from the brutality of police or the way queerness lenses through class, but they also make room for some genuine knot-in-your-throat joy. I’m not sure it’s a book which believes paradise can be built without an apocalyptic spasm, but it’s certainly a book which believes it can be temporarily, locally approached - enough time for people to be happy for a while.
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May 18, 2024 19:05
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Lord Hydronium posted:That's not a setting you get a lot of in apocalyptic fiction, that period where society is still trundling along under the shadow of impending disaster, but the wheels are just starting to come off. That's one of the things that makes the original Mad Max so good, imo
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May 18, 2024 19:09
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General Battuta posted:It was METAL FROM HEAVEN by HA Clarke. I didn’t get on with the first few chapters at all but by the end it had turned into something like Disco Elysium, or China Mieville if he was a stone butch lesbian. It is not a cozy book about twee lesbian bandits or a romance, it’s about labor movements and rejecting liberal reform and communism and revolutionary violence. Agree with its politics or not, it’s a book of substance. well that's a buy
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May 18, 2024 19:26
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General Battuta posted:It was METAL FROM HEAVEN by HA Clarke. I didn’t get on with the first few chapters at all but by the end it had turned into something like Disco Elysium, or China Mieville if he was a stone butch lesbian. It is not a cozy book about twee lesbian bandits or a romance, it’s about labor movements and rejecting liberal reform and communism and revolutionary violence. Agree with its politics or not, it’s a book of substance. sold
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May 18, 2024 19:44
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PupsOfWar posted:That's one of the things that makes the original Mad Max so good, imo I know Seveneves is controversial, but the first part of it is this
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May 18, 2024 20:17
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withak posted:sold Same.
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May 18, 2024 21:52
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Awkward Davies posted:I know Seveneves is controversial, but the first part of it is this Also the middle part.
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May 18, 2024 22:04
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General Battuta posted:It was METAL FROM HEAVEN by HA Clarke. I didn’t get on with the first few chapters at all but by the end it had turned into something like Disco Elysium, or China Mieville if he was a stone butch lesbian. It is not a cozy book about twee lesbian bandits or a romance, it’s about labor movements and rejecting liberal reform and communism and revolutionary violence. Agree with its politics or not, it’s a book of substance. Sounds excellent and exactly like what I want to read, thanks
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May 19, 2024 04:10
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Read another Adrian Tchaikovsky novella, Ogres. Quick, fun, themes are sort of similar to Elder Race. I’d recommend it.
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May 19, 2024 05:49
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Finished The Spear Cuts Through Water without ever really falling for it. Damnably I didn't even get caught up in the last 50/100 pages like what happens with most books; the whole thing just happened around me. It's a good book - it's well written (arguably too well written, because it meanders all over the place adding depth/lore etc.), the characters are either likeable or hateable in the correct distribution, the overarching meta-story is quite clever and definitely unique. It's just weirdly paced and doesn't fell well defined somehow, which I think is just how much it wanders around and doesn't stick to whatever the current main thread is. I'm not disappointed to have read it, but I am disappointed it wasn't better considering the reception it has received.
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May 19, 2024 12:13
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I was one of the people who loved Spear Cuts Through Water, and I can totally see why it wouldn't gel with everyone (nothing works for everyone!). I think that this: Major Ryan posted:It's a good book - it's well written (arguably too well written, because it meanders all over the place adding depth/lore etc.), the characters are either likeable or hateable in the correct distribution, the overarching meta-story is quite clever and definitely unique. It's just weirdly paced and doesn't fell well defined somehow, which I think is just how much it wanders around and doesn't stick to whatever the current main thread is. is absolutely fair, especially depending on what sort of story you usually enjoy--and you could also use the exact same thing to describe Moby Dick (which I also love!) which of course also tends to garner kind of extreme reactions of either finding it incredible or borning as hell. They're books that are just going for a totally different approach and structure to storytelling and that won't work for everyone, and that's OK.
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May 19, 2024 14:22
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Wrapped up the entirety of The Dying Earth. Vance is a lot of fun, and as someone who entered fantasy by way of my dad buying Baldur's Gate 1, I've enjoyed seeing the origin of so many ideas I thought the short story collection was really good, and the first Cugel book was fantastic. The 2nd Cugel book took a bit of a dip mostly because it doesn't modify the schtick in the slightest and the formula wears thin. Rhialto the Marvellous was pretty poor, though. I was expecting "what if Cugel but a mage?" but he's much less interesting and the stories didn't do much for me.
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May 19, 2024 23:28
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Major Ryan posted:Finished The Spear Cuts Through Water without ever really falling for it. Damnably I didn't even get caught up in the last 50/100 pages like what happens with most books; the whole thing just happened around me. DurianGray posted:I was one of the people who loved Spear Cuts Through Water, and I can totally see why it wouldn't gel with everyone (nothing works for everyone!). I think that this: How'd you both feel about House of Leaves?
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May 20, 2024 00:22
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WarpDogs posted:Wrapped up the entirety of The Dying Earth. Vance is a lot of fun, and as someone who entered fantasy by way of my dad buying Baldur's Gate 1, I've enjoyed seeing the origin of so many ideas If you want more Vance, I highly recommend checking out the stories, The Dragon Masters, The Moon Moth, and The Last Castle. The Alastor sequence of novels, Emphyrio (his best single novel), and The Demon Princes series (which increase in quality as they go along but never stop being pulp revenge heist novels). There's also the Lyonesse trilogy which has an excellent middle novel and was very influential on Game of Thrones (Martin takes so much setting detail) but is Vance trying to do conventional commercially succesful post-Tolkein fantasy with all the pros and cons that implies.
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May 20, 2024 00:41
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Wow, Annihilation was fascinating, I couldnt put it down. Quite different from the movie so I was still surprised and not sure what was going to happen. My library didnt have the subsequent two books so I immediately ordered the 3 in 1 hardcover from Amazon which was not a bad deal at a bit over 20 bucks.
AcidCat fucked around with this message at 03:02 on May 20, 2024 |
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May 20, 2024 02:57
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AcidCat posted:Wow, Annihilation was fascinating, I couldnt put it down. Quite different from the movie so I was still surprised and not sure what was going to happen. My library didnt have the subsequent two books so I immediately ordered the 3 in 1 hardcover from Amazon which was not a bad deal at a bit over 20 bucks. I envy you getting to read these for the first time. Take your time and savor them, in my opinion they get better as they go.
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May 20, 2024 03:38
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Also, Authority and Acceptance are very different books from Annihilation, so don't go in expecting more of the same.
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May 20, 2024 04:25
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Authority is the best of the lot. Very curious to see what the next work will be. S&S and Jackie I suppose.
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May 20, 2024 04:26
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Found out that Neil Blomkamp was supposed to direct a film version of The Gone World but it fell through and now I’m sad.
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May 20, 2024 04:58
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