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coyo7e posted:I gave a lot more slack to hundred thousand kingdoms because on audible it has an excellent narrator who brings out the sassy trickster child in one of the immortals. It does come down in large part to having (iirc) slightly incestuous sex with Sephiroth but I had a good time with it, in large because it was not a big training montage before a boy became a wizard. YMMV drastically I guess however I wouldn't mind finishing the series sometime. It was the stupid goddamn prose that jumped back and forth between an indeterminate point in the future and the "present" with horribly stilted and short sentences every. single. time. that got to me. Also, what did Yeine actually do other than kind of move around so that we could view the actual plot happening around her? Plus, I mean, "young woman comes to town and is suddenly the most important person there, supernatural types try to entice the young woman, young woman fucks and finds out she has a connection to the supernatural" is the plot outline to Twilight, Southern Vampire Mysteries, Mortal Instruments, Buffy, basically any young adult story about a misunderstood secretly-pretty-but-she-thinks-she's-plain book ever. I give it props for putting a black woman in the driver's seat instead of just casting Kristen Stewart again but... eh. The whole book is just some poo poo happening around a YA Romance protagonist, only this time it's kinda darker and skews about four years older.
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Jul 15, 2014 14:51
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Just a heads up. Amazon's DOTD is a current gen refurb Paperwhite for 85$. http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/ref=pe_837390_121091160_dotd_h_t
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Jul 15, 2014 15:11
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Just finished Cibola Burn and it felt like a previously written and unpublished non-Expanse story had been taken off the shelf and had a few tweaks to swap some character names and settings to make an Expanse book. It was an okay story, but didn't feel or read like an Expanse story at all, nor does it really seem to have anything to add to future Expanse books.
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Jul 15, 2014 16:16
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I've gone into a kind of reading binge during the last week. I finished "Caliban's War" and "Saturn's Children", and I'm half the way into Chimera (the third and last book in the Subterrene war series). I have really enjoyed Caliban's war. More fast-paced than the first book, and a much fun read. The characters are still quite cartoonish and linear, but at least Holden starts to behave like a human being, not an ultra-righteous guy who farts flower aroma through his back end. The new characters are also a boom (and I wonder who could be casted to play Bobbie). The only thing that kinda pissed me: I hate cliffhangers, and the ending of the book is, well... an enormous and blowing cliffhanger. So I have to buy and read the third book (I was going to do it anyway). My feelings about Saturn's Children are mixed. After completing it, I have to say it was a good read. The setup is original, the writing is humorous and laugh-inducing. But the development is complicated and tortuous, and I have the impression that the very same author got confused sometimes about who is who (or what). The ending was also quite anti-climatic. How is the sequel like? (Neptune's Brood). Is somehow a continuation of the first book, or is it a different story set up in the same universe? I'll write about Chimera when I finish it. At this moment, business as usual in the Subterrene series, but it begins to be quite a bit repetitive. It is a relatively short book, so we'll see how does it develop and end.
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Jul 15, 2014 19:52
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Amberskin posted:My feelings about Saturn's Children are mixed. After completing it, I have to say it was a good read. The setup is original, the writing is humorous and laugh-inducing. But the development is complicated and tortuous, and I have the impression that the very same author got confused sometimes about who is who (or what). The ending was also quite anti-climatic. How is the sequel like? (Neptune's Brood). Is somehow a continuation of the first book, or is it a different story set up in the same universe? Different story, same universe. A forensic accountant digs into the underpinnings of interstellar finance and deals with communist space squid and piratical insurance companies. IMO, it's more fun than Saturn's Children and has 100% fewer sexbots.
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Jul 15, 2014 20:38
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How stupid do the Ender's Game books get, and how fast? I just watched the movie on a whim and it was interesting enough to want me to dig deeper, but I remember reading about it going off the rails really bad at some point.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:13
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Edmond Dantes posted:How stupid do the Ender's Game books get, and how fast? I just watched the movie on a whim and it was interesting enough to want me to dig deeper, but I remember reading about it going off the rails really bad at some point. I did like just the first book (Enders's game). The rest are a continuous wailing by Ender about the things he did in "game".
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Jul 16, 2014 18:36
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I really liked the first sequel. Speaker for the Dead, maybe? The next two were decent too, but not as good. Give it a try.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:38
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Edmond Dantes posted:How stupid do the Ender's Game books get, and how fast? I just watched the movie on a whim and it was interesting enough to want me to dig deeper, but I remember reading about it going off the rails really bad at some point. Some people do actually like the sequels but personally I think just about everything Card wrote went off the logarithmic cliff of horrible right after he finished Ender's Game.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:45
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Speaker for the Dead is some drat good sci-fi, though it is not particularly interesting as far as character drama goes. So it's good, but in a different way than Ender's Game. Xenocide and Children of the Mind are ~okay~ but nothing to write home about. don't read any of the spinoffs/prequels/whatever.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:56
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Some people do actually like the sequels but personally I think just about everything Card wrote went off the logarithmic cliff of horrible right after he finished Ender's Game. I'm seriously tempted to not read the rest just based on the beauty of this sentence. Thanks for the other suggestions; I'll probably file this under "maybe" and grab the second book if I ever run out of things to read, which considering I still have like 7 Malazan books to go through, it's nowhere near. 
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Jul 16, 2014 19:00
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Edmond Dantes posted:How stupid do the Ender's Game books get, and how fast? I just watched the movie on a whim and it was interesting enough to want me to dig deeper, but I remember reading about it going off the rails really bad at some point.
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Jul 16, 2014 19:01
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I personally liked Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide more than Ender's Game. I did not , and never will, read any of the side-stories though like Bean's stuff or Shadow of the Hegemon (or whatever it is called).
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Jul 16, 2014 19:04
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Cardiovorax posted:n Ender-Sibling 1 and Ender-Sibling 2 get crowned presidents of the Earth for blogging so awesome. I actually give Card credit for that because he wrote that pre-internet. Predicting politically influential blogging in 1985 counts as an achievement I think. I mean, it's silly to us now, but we're on the other side of that particular technological development.
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Jul 16, 2014 19:05
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Point taken. Still, visionary or not, it hasn't aged well.
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Jul 16, 2014 19:06
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I like how Usenet is the primary means of interstellar communication in A Fire Upon the Deep.  e: capitalization Clark Nova fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 20:06
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Cardiovorax posted:They're hideously stupid just on basic premise but I think the two worst things are the constant naked child wrestling in the showers and when Ender-Sibling 1 and Ender-Sibling 2 get crowned presidents of the Earth for blogging so awesome. Hey now, they weren't blogging. They were commenting on news articles and persuading people with their comments. Great prediction there, I mean who hasn't read a YouTube comment and gone "wow, 1DirectionSucksBalls87 has a take on race relations that really makes you think"
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Jul 16, 2014 20:19
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Clark Nova posted:I like how Usenet is the primary means of interstellar communication in A Fire Upon the Deep. It makes sense, barring a system built on quantum entanglement, a message board is the most likely system to develop for bi-directional interstellar communications. It's a pity that The Children of the Sky, along with Rainbows End, were such watered down tripe that they felt like they were ghostwritten. Vinge was really building a unique setting with Deepness in the Sky, and then he comes back ten years later with crap about psychic dogs and none of the depth or content which made Zones of Thought engrossing. Rime fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 06:17
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Clark Nova posted:I like how Usenet is the primary means of interstellar communication in A Fire Upon the Deep. Of course Vinge contrived to set up everything so that actually made sense, he's a smart guy. Was fun for those of us who were actually on Usenet back when it came out.
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Jul 17, 2014 09:08
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Rime posted:It makes sense, barring a system built on quantum entanglement, a message board is the most likely system to develop for bi-directional interstellar communications. Children of the Sky felt like he was just going through the motions and setting up the pieces for the third act when (I assume) the Zones slip again and the Blight rocks up to gently caress poo poo up.
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Jul 17, 2014 09:50
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Clark Nova posted:I like how Usenet is the primary means of interstellar communication in A Fire Upon the Deep. Almost as good as the LISTSERV in _Excession_
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Jul 17, 2014 15:22
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I'd argue that Vinge's setup was better than Banks'. I liked how he tied message routing to the plot.
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Jul 17, 2014 15:26
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shrike82 posted:I'd argue that Vinge's setup was better than Banks'. True. Banks, though, had the goons on the listserv that nobody else wants to talk to but they keep interjecting.
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Jul 17, 2014 15:45
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Just finished The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin.quote:When heavy, thick warmth pushed into me, I had no idea whether this was a penis or some entirely different phallus that only gods possessed. I suspected the latter, since no mere penis can fill a woman's body the way he filled mine. The characters, society, plot, structure, ethics, sense of wonder, and prose aren't much better, but none of that badness has the impact of the sex writing. For balance, here's my favourite bit: quote:I travelled in style the whole way, first by palanquin and ocean vessel, and finally by chauffered horse-coach. This was not my choice. The Darre Warrior's Council, which rather desperately hoped that I might restore us to the Arameri's good graces, thought that this extravagance might help. Surprisingly it's doing rather well over here (Taiwan), I've seen plenty of copies in bookshops, so good for Jemisin.
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Jul 18, 2014 07:12
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House Louse posted:Just finished The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin. And here I was considering reading that  .
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Jul 18, 2014 11:43
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Does Prince of Thorns and its sequels ever become less goony? Saw it in the bookstore and I was checking out some reviews for it that were talking about how it seemed to have a 14 year old GAMEFAQS forum poster's attitude towards race, women, and sexuality. Apparently the alluded to nuclear war in the backstory somehow selectively killed all non-white people and women who are not whores or nameless peasant rape victims living in Europe, or something like that.
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Jul 18, 2014 16:56
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Finished reading Blindsight by Peter Watts. Anyone know some scifi of similar '2spooky4me' caliber.
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Jul 18, 2014 18:09
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Dean of Swing posted:Finished reading Blindsight by Peter Watts. Anyone know some scifi of similar '2spooky4me' caliber. I don't think it's quite as good but 'Ship of Fools' by Richard Paul Russo is pretty drat spooky.
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Jul 18, 2014 18:14
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PupsOfWar posted:don't read any of the spinoffs/prequels/whatever.
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Jul 18, 2014 19:25
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General Battuta posted:I don't think it's quite as good but 'Ship of Fools' by Richard Paul Russo is pretty drat spooky. On that note have you completed your ARC review of Exchopraxia yet? Oh, and Watts has a novella coming out on the 29th The Colonel
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Jul 18, 2014 22:42
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I just got the ARC because I was in the Tor offices. I wasn't planning on doing a public review, but I did post some impressions earlier in this thread. Sorry to be lame  e: quote:It's very heady. Don't expect the same clear, mission-driven narrative as Blindsight: the protagonist is a baseline human and spends a lot of time with no idea what the gently caress is going on. But it's full of fascinating ideas and it makes an interesting companion novel. And it is unmistakably Watts, and I really go for his style. I want Watts to keep writing for a long time. I feel like it's really hard for him, and he cares a lot about having sharp, interesting ideas with a lot of research behind them. I hope he doesn't stop.
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Jul 18, 2014 23:07
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Mars4523 posted:Apparently the alluded to nuclear war in the backstory somehow selectively killed all non-white people and women who are not whores or nameless peasant rape victims living in Europe, or something like that. Welcome to the genre.
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Jul 18, 2014 23:17
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General Battuta posted:I just got the ARC because I was in the Tor offices. I wasn't planning on doing a public review, but I did post some impressions earlier in this thread. Sorry to be lame He talks a little bit about his writing process and what he thinks of the peter watts will to live semi-joke in the afterword to Beyond the Rift, it's worth reading i think.
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Jul 18, 2014 23:36
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Dean of Swing posted:Finished reading Blindsight by Peter Watts. Anyone know some scifi of similar '2spooky4me' caliber. I also recommend reading Ship of Fools. Its been a while since I read it but I remember one part in particular that was particularly. Creepy. Then after that try Hull Zero Three.
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Jul 18, 2014 23:53
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House Louse posted:Just finished The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin. Wow that's ... something. I recently read her other books ... The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun and they weren't anything like that. The first book doesn't really have any romance at all except an unrequited love between the two male main characters. I did like the first book much more than the second, and it could be read on its own. I thought the second book could have been much more interesting if so much of the end of it weren't devoted to the romance and there was some stuff in there that was really difficult to read involving a father molesting/abusing his daughter. It has a pretty neat pseudo-Egyptian setting with some magic stuff overlaid on it and there some really good characters. I think I wanted to like the books more than I did, because I really liked the setting, but I still found them enjoyable reads. I especially felt this way with the second book, which centers around a woman priest who is the first and only woman priest in this city and in order to fit in she has been raised to dress and act like a man in order to blend in and not distract people with her femininity. Once she is taken out of the temple she has to come to terms with the fact that she is in fact, a woman and has to essentially figure out who she actually is when she's not hiding behind her "priest" persona. I loved that concept, but ultimately I didn't really think it went anywhere super interesting, and I was pretty disappointed with the ending. Overall, the first book was good enough that I might read it again someday, but I probably wouldn't read the second book again.
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Jul 19, 2014 00:10
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Dean of Swing posted:Finished reading Blindsight by Peter Watts. Anyone know some scifi of similar '2spooky4me' caliber. Watts' Rifters/Starfish stuff is considerably Watts-y. Spooky and horrible and everything turns out bad forever-y.
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Jul 19, 2014 01:45
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General Battuta posted:I just got the ARC because I was in the Tor offices. I wasn't planning on doing a public review, but I did post some impressions earlier in this thread. Sorry to be lame I think Watts' real love is the science and the writing is just a vehicle to explore that. From following his blog it feels like when he writes he pretty much locks himself away for a period and works to the exclusion of all else then, but most of his time is just spent reading cool science stuff and making rough notes for possible stories.
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Jul 19, 2014 06:09
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fritz posted:Welcome to the genre.
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Jul 19, 2014 06:21
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I liked the Rifters stuff in a lot of ways but it's not as good as Blingsight was. Still generally great, however. This reminds me that I never finished the third book.
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Jul 19, 2014 07:05
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It's more than just incompetent writing, although it isn't a genre thing, despite what this thread might make you think...Lowly posted:Wow that's ... something. I recently read her other books ... The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun and they weren't anything like that. The first book doesn't really have any romance at all except an unrequited love between the two male main characters. I did like the first book much more than the second, and it could be read on its own. Actually I didn't mention the romance aspects of the book (which are major; my copy has a quote from the Romantic Times, though the sex isn't), just the terrible sex writing. I like love stories, but in this case it's out of place. The setup is for a novel about political intrigue with the heroine's life on the line, and then it ignores that in favour of a watered-down Byronic "hero" ripoff. It's interesting you say you didn't like The Shadowed Sun because it sounds interesting, although it might be that the execution fell flat. Why did you prefer The Killing Moon?
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Jul 19, 2014 07:07
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