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Khizan posted:I read that as "loving everything up and creating chaos" is a libertarian thing, which is pretty much true. Well, sort of. That's definitely a libertarian thing, but there's one key difference. Baru did it intentionally.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:54
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Kalman posted:Well, sort of. That's definitely a libertarian thing, but there's one key difference. She's just the sort of disruptive startup that the Imperial Venture Capitalists love! 
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Dec 5, 2015 07:30
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WarLocke posted:This sounds familiar. Protagonist is a wizard dude with magical tattoos? World was broken up into elemental versions (ie, a 'water world', 'fire world', etc)? I think I read one book of this years ago. Ha ha, yes! Man, these were my favourite books as a teen. They probably don't stand the test of time. I do remember they had a tendency to over explain the entire setting, leaving little to no mystery by the end of the series, something I hate in my scifi fantasy now.
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Dec 5, 2015 20:12
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Khizan posted:I read that as "loving everything up and creating chaos" is a libertarian thing, which is pretty much true. I am curious to as how did you reach the idea of "the Liberal Agenda" from reading the same book I read. You must be an Olympian mental gymnast.
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Dec 6, 2015 03:30
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Grimwall posted:I am curious to as how did you reach the idea of "the Liberal Agenda" from reading the same book I read. You must be an Olympian mental gymnast. Where did you get "the Liberal Agenda" from that post?
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Dec 6, 2015 05:28
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Megazver posted:Brits do seem to have a huge stiffy for it as The City. As a Russian, at this point I wouldn't mind reading an urban fantasy that wasn't set there. Surely there are other cities in the UK?
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Dec 6, 2015 22:31
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coyo7e posted:How do you feel about Night Watch Day Watch, etc? I'm curious how they scratch your urban fantasy itch. They are on kindle US sale for 2.99. I want to know how people like them too. I watched the movies but I feel like they had too much info crammed into that format.
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Dec 7, 2015 02:28
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FowlTheOwl posted:They are on kindle US sale for 2.99. I want to know how people like them too. I watched the movies but I feel like they had too much info crammed into that format. 
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Dec 7, 2015 02:31
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Megazver posted:Brits do seem to have a huge stiffy for it as The City. As a Russian, at this point I wouldn't mind reading an urban fantasy that wasn't set there. Surely there are other cities in the UK? I think that a fair part of this is that they've also got to keep in mind their non-British audience, Americans in particular. We've seen London in movies and on TV and in books, we've covered the history of it in classes, etc. We've got at least some familiarity with it. You can say "This is in London" and we have a mental image. If you told us "This is in Manchester", most of us would just be picturing London anyways. It's like how urban fantasy set in America tends to roll with cities like Chicago and New York and Vegas and LA and San Francisco and Seattle, instead of Oklahoma City, Dallas, and Phoenix.
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Dec 7, 2015 03:10
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So Children of Time is good. EDIT: Also, The Traitor. EDIT: Oh yeah Luna sucked, try that for some libertarian buuuuuullshit. the_homemaster fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 09:08
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I don't think it has anything to do with urban fantasy as a genre - all kinds of UK-based fiction is mostly set in London because London is simply the UK's primate city. Same reason that, say, sitcoms in America are almost always based in New York.
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Dec 7, 2015 10:06
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WarLocke posted:Is Terry Brooks' Shannara stuff worth reading? Someone reminded me about it being made into a miniseries or whatever and I realized I've never actually read the books. I bought every one for a long time, through university, having started with the first one. I probably have at least 15 on my shelf. I tried reading one a few years ago and couldn't get into it. I think I would say you'll enjoy the first several, because they introduce new things (new to brooks anyways). After the 7th or so book, most of his series devolve into very repetitive bildungsroman where he takes the elements he's previously written about, throws them in a sack (Ohmsford kids getting chased off their farm/house/inn/castle, Druids, elf stones, wishsong, a perky elf prince(ss) chafing at royal responsibilities, a smuggler, tripping across a servant of the void / terror of the old world / rogue Druid who wants to murder everyone), and writes in the first three things he picks out. I would say that his Magic Kingdom for Sale and Word and Void books (first three) are worth reading and probably have held up better over time. He eventually ties in the word and void stuff to the Shannara stuff, but the connection is unnecessary and you can also ignore it if you don't make it that far in the books. Jedit posted:Baru undermines the plans of the evil hegemonic government who want to control everything by returning Aurdwynn to the gold standard. Actually, the gold standard torpedoes the rebels, who had counterfeited a bunch of fiat money, not the hegemonic government. The economy actually survives because she uses micro finance to commoners in hard commodities to ensure the general population aren't hosed when the fiat currency disintegrates. . That said, things like that are at the root of my only real complaint about the book. Sort of spoiler, in the sense that it could ruin some tension for someone who hasn't read the book yet: It seems, at this point, like some of the outcomes are a bit too 'pat'. I kept expecting poo poo to come off the rails at some point, and I guess it sort of does, but Baru always had another trick. I don't recall a moment where she's run out of tricks and is only able to resolve the situation through the grace / ability of others. Perhaps that's deliberate but I started to lose my sense of her being at risk because she always found a way to MacGuyver a solution.
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Dec 7, 2015 10:32
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There is one: the duel with Cattlson, where Baru is up poo poo Creek until Vultjag bails her out. Re: the Watch books - I've read all five, and they're definitely interesting. It's good to see a series where the guys in black aren't strictly evil and the guys in white aren't all good. There's some truly crazy metafiction going on at one point, too.
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Dec 7, 2015 10:52
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Kalenn Istarion posted:That said, things like that are at the root of my only real complaint about the book. Sort of spoiler, in the sense that it could ruin some tension for someone who hasn't read the book yet: It seems, at this point, like some of the outcomes are a bit too 'pat'. I kept expecting poo poo to come off the rails at some point, and I guess it sort of does, but Baru always had another trick. I don't recall a moment where she's run out of tricks and is only able to resolve the situation through the grace / ability of others. Perhaps that's deliberate but I started to lose my sense of her being at risk because she always found a way to MacGuyver a solution. The already named duel, the near discovery of her homosexuality by Xate Yawa early on, Tain's self-orchestrated capture and sacrifice to remove the hold over her.The traitorous priest. Aminata saving her by warning her off could be counted too. And the whole plot by Heingyl Ri, which totally blindsides her and nearly destroys all her own plans shouldn't be forgotten either.
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Dec 7, 2015 14:05
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RVProfootballer posted:Oh, btw, is the Shadowmarch set of books anything better?
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Dec 7, 2015 17:01
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I've read the Watch books but they get really loving predictable. And not in a good way - everything's part of everyone's master cunning plan, by the third one you can safely predict who's behind it all because it's always the same. Not a fan of the random pop music injections either. They got some interesting ideas but the execution I found really lacking. Also I vaguely recall there having been a fair bit of Communist apologia but I'm probably oversensitive on that.
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Dec 7, 2015 17:37
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It's really great to see people digging into Baru, thanks everybody. Love reading this stuff. 
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Dec 7, 2015 18:06
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anilEhilated posted:I've read the Watch books but they get really loving predictable. And not in a good way - everything's part of everyone's master cunning plan, by the third one you can safely predict who's behind it all because it's always the same. Not a fan of the random pop music injections either. Isn't communism explicitly portrayed as a misguided plot by the Light others that went disastrously wrong? And then liberal capitalism is their latest attempt? Obviously there's a lot of cold war imagery in the books, but it felt less like apologia and more "a plague on both your horses"
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Dec 7, 2015 23:02
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anilEhilated posted:I've read the Watch books but they get really loving predictable. And not in a good way - everything's part of everyone's master cunning plan, by the third one you can safely predict who's behind it all because it's always the same. Not a fan of the random pop music injections either. Communism, and pop music, is good.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:56
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Lukyanenko, being a Russian, is generally pro-Russian. This might shock some people.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:05
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I just finished Use of Weapons. It was quite a good book until the end. I'm not really sure how the editor let that twist pass. I think having him kill the sister as a USE OF WEAPONS would have been fine, but the whole chair of bones and skin thing is too much. There was no scene to show how he went from doing something so twisted, to being full of regret.
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Dec 8, 2015 02:29
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anilEhilated posted:I've read the Watch books but they get really loving predictable. And not in a good way - everything's part of everyone's master cunning plan, by the third one you can safely predict who's behind it all because it's always the same. Not a fan of the random pop music injections either. 'The wealth of the West amounts to a old tourist with a video camera' - something almost word for word from the watch vooks
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Dec 8, 2015 02:32
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angel opportunity posted:I just finished Use of Weapons. It was quite a good book until the end. I'm not really sure how the editor let that twist pass. I think having him kill the sister as a USE OF WEAPONS would have been fine, but the whole chair of bones and skin thing is too much. There was no scene to show how he went from doing something so twisted, to being full of regret. I don't think he is really full of regret. Zakalwe is a monster, that he is useful to the Culture doesn't stop him being one.
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Dec 8, 2015 02:38
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Fangz posted:I don't think he is really full of regret. Zakalwe is a monster, that he is useful to the Culture doesn't stop him being one. I thought his regret was caused at least in part by the fact that the Culture doesn't want him to stop being one, and makes sure he remains one.
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Dec 8, 2015 02:42
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angel opportunity posted:I just finished Use of Weapons. It was quite a good book until the end. I'm not really sure how the editor let that twist pass. I think having him kill the sister as a USE OF WEAPONS would have been fine, but the whole chair of bones and skin thing is too much. There was no scene to show how he went from doing something so twisted, to being full of regret. I haven't read it in years, but isn't that what the entire preceding book, the pov sections after that event, show? I guess you're right that that is showing the aftermath of that change in opinion/feeling, but I don't remember thinking anything was missing; it seems trivial how the years in between could affect that change, and anything more concrete seems like it would've taken away from the weight of the act.
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Dec 8, 2015 02:46
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If he had killed Darckense painlessly to use her as a tool in the war, it would line up--to me--with all his regret. Say he shot her or slit her throat and delivered the body to Zakalwe. I feel that would have done the job. Or he could have contrived something that was a bit more cruel, and it would still have worked. Alternatively, he would have needed to show the frame of mind in Eleth's (can't remember how to spell the full name) head when he decided to do what he did. Constructing an entire chair out of her bones, and putting the skin and hair on it, that isn't something you do in a fit of rage, and it's not something you do in a cool and calculated manner--unless you're so broken that you can never truly be repentant. Calculated cruelty or murder of someone he used to care for, and later regretting that is realistic. Doing something so monstrous is basically irredeemable, and I simply don't buy that the character we saw throughout the story did that. The character we see throughout the story has regrets and is guilty, and he's definitely haunted by the whole chair thing, but without seeing exactly how he brought himself to turn her into a chair, and without seeing how he felt immediately after that, I really cannot connect that person with the protagonist of the story. There's just too great a divide, and it makes it feel like Banks was more interested in the shock value and the twist than the novel itself. I think that without this twist, or with it more subdued, the novel was really great in both theme and execution. I still enjoyed it a lot, but the twist's lack of logical character development cheapened it for me.
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Dec 8, 2015 03:32
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Hey if anyone in the US hasn't already gotten Baru Cormorant, Barnes & Noble has it on sale for 50% off through Christmas.
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Dec 8, 2015 06:55
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Just finished Planetfall, what a book. The way it walked you through the corridors of Ren's mental illness so subtly that you don't even realise anything is wrong was such a  moment. The only thing that doesn't sit right with me is the ending.The book made such a point of condemning the little privileged bubble worlds people constructed both on Earth and in the colony. Then we come to the end, where the colony is in ruins because of one autocrat's lies, while the original crash survivors have to try to build the society they were always promised from stolen scraps. In the face of that, ascending to godhood by being the first person not to blunder though God's city demanding it give up its secrets, and having nothing to say about the terrible suffering happening right now other than 'those corporeal folk are all so broken and scared', seems like the most indulgent privilege of all. Strategic Tea fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Dec 8, 2015 |
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Dec 8, 2015 13:00
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Planetfall Obviously once Deirde's built the Voice of Planet and scored a Transcendence victory she leaves all the other peons to squabble
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Dec 8, 2015 13:10
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angel opportunity posted:I think that without this twist, or with it more subdued, the novel was really great in both theme and execution. I still enjoyed it a lot, but the twist's lack of logical character development cheapened it for me. On the topic of Use of Weapons, I wanted to say that I do agree with you. That kind of act requires a level of dehumanization and hatred that's only barely achieved against anonymous strangers during genocide, or Actual Jigsaw from Saw-Level Crazy. It's much more a product of Banks' twisted tendency to create imagery of outlandishly ghoulish scenarios (The Hells in Surface Detail, the cartoonishly evil villain in The Algebraist, the scenes of literally torture porn being televised, but only to the elite in The Player of Games). It's a kind of "This is the dark in the human heart that the selfless liberals are up against" thing he likes to go back to, and obviously Use of Weapons is about how the selfless liberals use that darkness for their own supposedly selfless and liberal ends, but to say it's believable character development is absurd.
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Dec 8, 2015 15:58
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Use of Weapons I buy the twist, and love the book dearly, but at the same time I do agree it leaves a huge amount to the imagination — enough to strain credulity for some readers. Personally, I find it satisfying to try to imagine what drove Elethiomel first to make the chair, and then to unmake himself: to flee down the only psychological escape available, becoming someone else who had never made the chair and never would have attempted to. But he was fleeing from the center of the book (and the reason I accept the twist wholeheartedly): that Zakalwe-who-was-Elethiomel is utterly utilitarian, 'only alive while falling', eternally driven to select the most successful tactics even at inhuman cost. He is willing to bend everything so that he can go on, can move onward and decide, and keeping moving and keeping deciding, knowing that — if nothing else — at least he lives. He has two shadows, he is two things: he is the need and he is the method. The need is obvious: to defeat what opposes his life. The method is that taking and bending of materials and people to one purpose, the outlook that everything can be used in the fight; that nothing can be excluded, that everything is a weapon, and the ability to handle those weapons, to find them and choose which one to aim and fire; that talent, that ability, that use of weapons. Here I think I see the central quandary of the book: is the flight from being Elethiomel to being Zakalwe his ultimate failure, or his ultimate success? Is it proof that there was finally one weapon whose use he could not survive? Or is becoming Zakalwe only another pragmatism, going on, moving forward, clinging to nothing except the fact that he lives in some form? What a dope book.
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Dec 8, 2015 23:23
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Looks like I need to watch a TV series in the future: Spike TV orders 10-episode series for Red Mars written by Babylon 5 creator Please don't suck.
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Dec 9, 2015 14:02
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Has Stracyznski written anything good this century? e: that's a serious question, if he has I would like to know.
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Dec 9, 2015 15:02
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neongrey posted:Has Stracyznski written anything good this century? Grounded... jk Some Spider-Man stuff was good. Otherwise it was a disappointing decade-and-half for his stuff.
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Dec 9, 2015 15:06
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neongrey posted:Has Stracyznski written anything good this century? People, including me, liked Sense8. Kinda slow to start but not bad once the plot got rolling.
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Dec 9, 2015 15:17
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Just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's newest book and I liked it. It's SF with mainly spiders, but there are other bugs. Considering the fact that his fantasy series is about humans with bug deities/powers, is he an entomologist by any chance?
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Dec 9, 2015 17:54
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General Emergency posted:People, including me, liked Sense8. Kinda slow to start but not bad once the plot got rolling. The closing scene in the last episode of season 1 had me more excited to see more of a show than I have been in a long time.
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Dec 9, 2015 18:51
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General Emergency posted:People, including me, liked Sense8. Kinda slow to start but not bad once the plot got rolling. Oh, he was in on that, too? Might check it out. And that's recent enough that it leaves hope for this adaptation.
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Dec 9, 2015 19:46
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I'm reading the Void Saga and I find it pretty good. No more interstellar trains and much less enzime-bond concrete, but the interspersed fantasy story is nice. And quite intriguing. The whole thing is a refreshing return to the "big ideas" science fiction, with some decent character building and writing. And it has big space battles too 
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Dec 9, 2015 23:44
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neongrey posted:Has Stracyznski written anything good this century? The Book of Lost Souls was alright. Supreme Power was good then turned to poo poo as it got melded into the main Marvel stuff. There's something he did about a bunch of heroes being in stasis since WW2 then coming out in the new world and readjusting which I remember being alright. Rising Stars was okay but uneven. Particularly some of the later preaching. His understanding of politics is... Child-like.
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Dec 10, 2015 13:19
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