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Heroes Die (Acts of Caine #1) by Matthew Woodring Stover - $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MYA38W/ The Bone Ships (Tide Child #1) by RJ Barker - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MPW3GMX/
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Jul 12, 2022 23:10
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Somebody asked for explicitly romantic sci-fi books a couple of weeks back. I missed it then, but ya'll should check out Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell.
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Jul 13, 2022 00:11
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Just a heads up. Woot.com has refurb Kindle Paperwhites for cheap. 30 for the base Kindle, up to 60 for the 32gb version. The 8gb version of the Paperwhite looks to be 45. Use your Amazon account and get free shipping.
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Jul 13, 2022 07:46
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Related to that I somehow lost my loving Kindle Oasis between walking my dog and coming home, I went to order another one and there's a pretty decent bundle that comes with the Oasis, case and charger for like $120 off. I know the Oasis is kinda overpriced but I really ended up liking it.
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Jul 13, 2022 12:06
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eyeing that 13" eink tablet some other company makes for reading really big pages, slowly, in black & white I'd like a half-size kindle, tbh, something the size of a mobile phone that only does small, crisp text. The regular small ebook readers are wider than I want as a dedicated device. I do most of my reading on my phone but the screen's a bit powerful.
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Jul 13, 2022 12:13
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90s Cringe Rock posted:eyeing that 13" eink tablet some other company makes for reading really big pages, slowly, in black & white I have an Onyx Boox and it's pretty nice. I mostly use it for reading technical pdfs, but it's good for fiction too.
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Jul 13, 2022 13:51
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pradmer posted:The Bone Ships (Tide Child #1) by RJ Barker - $2.99 Since I sort of was annoyed at the last over hyped book I bought without checking out the sample first, I decided to do that with The Bone Ships. Sample contains 6 chapters and I swear every second sentence has an expository clause that exists just for the purpose of making you aware of how very well developed the world building is. So far, it's also 6 chapters of the viewpoint character being completely passive, and also 6 chapters hitting the same world building, plot and character beats over and over. Yes I get it, Lucky Meas is a Big Deal and a Strong Female Badass Character, and Joron has a Mysterious Past and sucks, and the titular bone ships are made of very badass sea dragon bones and make for a very cool ~aesthetic~ okay, now can we please move on to stuff actually happening? MockingQuantum posted:
Can confirm the copy editing errors are still there, in the sample chapters to boot. Thanks for posting this, I think I'm gonna go pick up some Aubrey-Maturin instead. I don't feel particularly compelled to grab The Bone Ships or its sequels unless I happen to come across it the next time I'm at the library. Leng fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Jul 13, 2022 |
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Jul 13, 2022 13:56
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90s Cringe Rock posted:eyeing that 13" eink tablet some other company makes for reading really big pages, slowly, in black & white Xioami has a phone sized one but it looks like it may be mainly for the Chinese market, it's kind of hard to tell.
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Jul 13, 2022 15:41
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Leng posted:Since I sort of was annoyed at the last over hyped book I bought without checking out the sample first, I decided to do that with The Bone Ships. You made it three more chapters than me. If there's something consistent I don't like about the writing, I'm out. Boneships seemed to be taking the worst bits of Malazan. The plot barely inched forward as every internal narrative goes off into the modern fantasy equivalent of Shakespearean soliloquy.
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Jul 13, 2022 15:49
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I love Alastair Reynolds, the inhibitor trilogy is one of my all time faves and I've read a ton of his other stuff as well. However, the man is quite prolific and in between my last binge reading cycle and this one he's churned 'em out. How are: the Revenger series, Terminal World, and Eversion? I couldn't really get into his Blue Remembered Earth series, it's the only thing of his I've bounced off of. Also where does Inhibitor Phase fit in, it's been a while since I read absolution gap but doesn't it end with a far future epilogue in which the thing they invented to defeat the wolves is now itself taking over the universe
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Jul 13, 2022 17:24
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MartingaleJack posted:You made it three more chapters than me. If there's something consistent I don't like about the writing, I'm out. Boneships seemed to be taking the worst bits of Malazan. The plot barely inched forward as every internal narrative goes off into the modern fantasy equivalent of Shakespearean soliloquy. Well, to be fair The Bone Ships owe more to Robin Hobb than Steven Erikson. If you like Hobb, the bone ships was more of the same and excellent for the same reasons. I found the series to be one of the best trilogies I have read in the last couple of years. Also, I finished Weaponized by Neal Asher. Basically a version of Aliens the Movie ie survival horror on a extraterrestrial colony, where the aliens are creepy in a fashion that Asher is excellent at. Horrific xenobiology is really his strong suite.
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Jul 13, 2022 17:55
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zoux posted:I love Alastair Reynolds, the inhibitor trilogy is one of my all time faves and I've read a ton of his other stuff as well. However, the man is quite prolific and in between my last binge reading cycle and this one he's churned 'em out. How are: the Revenger series, Terminal World, and Eversion? I couldn't really get into his Blue Remembered Earth series, it's the only thing of his I've bounced off of. I initially liked Revenger but it kinda lost me in the second half. The first half was good enough to carry me through to the end but not enough to pick up the second book.
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Jul 13, 2022 17:55
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Speaking of Aubrey-Maturin, this lexicon guide is $1.99 for the ebook A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O'Brian by Dean King & John B. Hattendorf https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007DFUQ72/ I bookmarked it with all the Patrick O'Brian talk but haven't gotten to them yet so I don't know if this helps understand terms or the era, but also it is the kind of guide book I sometimes read by itself because it is full of interesting facts
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Jul 13, 2022 18:28
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It is fun to just flip through, many interesting facts.
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Jul 13, 2022 18:37
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Snagged it, thank you.
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Jul 13, 2022 18:50
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Tars Tarkas posted:Speaking of Aubrey-Maturin, this lexicon guide is $1.99 for the ebook FWIW, I read the first Aubrey-Maturin book without looking up a single thing and still enjoyed it immensely. If you just let the terminology wash over you, you'll either pick up the stuff that's important by context, or it won't be that important to the actual story. And one of the main characters is decidedly un-nautical, so the book does a good job of explaining anything immediately important. In fact I'd say it may be kind of detrimental to look up everything on a first-time read of the first book because you'll be spending a lot of time looking things up unless you have a fairly broad nautical knowledge to begin with, lol. I don't think it was until I was into the second book that I actually decided I should just look up what a backstay or a topgallant was. That's not to say you shouldn't get or use A Sea of Words, by all accounts it's great, but I do know a few people who haven't started Aubrey-Maturin at all because they were gearing themselves up for this big undertaking where they needed to have a reference book at hand to make heads or tails of Master and Commander, but that's really not the case at all IMO.
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Jul 13, 2022 19:11
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Just read A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers - sequel to A Psalm for the Wild Built. Really enjoyed both, but drat they’re short - it felt like crown shy wasn’t more than a couple of hours reading? Saying that, I love her world building and the interactions between Dex and Robot and simplicity of the question “What do you need?”. Solid recommendation for those who enjoy their sci fi to be about people.
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Jul 13, 2022 19:17
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zoux posted:I love Alastair Reynolds, the inhibitor trilogy is one of my all time faves and I've read a ton of his other stuff as well. However, the man is quite prolific and in between my last binge reading cycle and this one he's churned 'em out. How are: the Revenger series, Terminal World, and Eversion? I couldn't really get into his Blue Remembered Earth series, it's the only thing of his I've bounced off of. Revenger series is really weird (to me at least) because I wandered in thinking I was gonna get another hard scifi thing and while it technically is, it's more like an old school sailing/revenge novel that happens to be people sailing in space with solar sails around a sun. There are a couple "twists" but they mostly feel slapped on rather than well thought out payoffs. I'd say give it a shot and if you like the first book, the next two are basically the same. I enjoyed Terminal World and would easily recommend it if you like Reynolds. Inhibitor Phase feels like something he was told would sell really well rather than something he wanted to write. As far as the ending of Absolution Gap, he said a while ago that the weird greenfly ending wasn't canon and that he regretted putting it there - I think it was basically a short story he put in because he felt there should be some sort of epilogue. Can't find a source on that though so if I'm pulling that out of my rear end let me know. The actual book Inhibitor Phase goes almost nowhere and mostly felt like retreading old ground. That said, I still read it and I'm not sad that I did so.
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Jul 13, 2022 19:27
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Oh yeah, as much as he does deft plot work in Revelation Space and Chasm City, Reynolds is all about mood and setting for me. And hyperpigs.
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Jul 13, 2022 19:55
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No, the greenfly ending is matching up the ending of Absolution Gap to the later timeline of the setting established by his early short story Galactic North.
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Jul 13, 2022 19:56
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MockingQuantum posted:FWIW, I read the first Aubrey-Maturin book without looking up a single thing and still enjoyed it immensely. If you just let the terminology wash over you, you'll either pick up the stuff that's important by context, or it won't be that important to the actual story. And one of the main characters is decidedly un-nautical, so the book does a good job of explaining anything immediately important. In fact I'd say it may be kind of detrimental to look up everything on a first-time read of the first book because you'll be spending a lot of time looking things up unless you have a fairly broad nautical knowledge to begin with, lol. I don't think it was until I was into the second book that I actually decided I should just look up what a backstay or a topgallant was. In 2020 I yolo'd the audiobooks straight through and this advice holds up. Poke around on tallship wikipedia and google maps every now and then and you'll do fine.
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Jul 13, 2022 20:07
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General Battuta posted:No, the greenfly ending is matching up the ending of Absolution Gap to the later timeline of the setting established by his early short story Galactic North. Ahhhh I was thinking of the afterword from GN and somehow reversed it in my head, thanks.
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Jul 13, 2022 20:10
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Rule of thumb is that if you (the reader) need to understand some sailing jargon to follow the story then some sailor will come along and explain it to Dr. Maturin (you). Otherwise just go ahead and mentally substitute flux capacitors and warp conduits if you can’t figure out what something means from context. Traditionally it is your 2nd read-through where you come at it with a copy of "Sea of Words" or "Patrick O'Brien's Navy". withak fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jul 13, 2022 |
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Jul 13, 2022 20:20
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Ok, I'm running a science fiction magazine podcast now. It's called Deplorable Visions. The science fiction magazine for dangerous ideas and despicable thoughts. It's on Spotify and Pinecast. Deplorable Visions Podcast Feedback appreciated. MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Jul 13, 2022 |
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Jul 13, 2022 20:21
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zoux posted:I love Alastair Reynolds, the inhibitor trilogy is one of my all time faves and I've read a ton of his other stuff as well. However, the man is quite prolific and in between my last binge reading cycle and this one he's churned 'em out. How are: the Revenger series, Terminal World, and Eversion? I couldn't really get into his Blue Remembered Earth series, it's the only thing of his I've bounced off of. I like (most of) Reynolds too. I think his character work is at least a little better than he gets credit for. I think Eversion is the best of the books you've listed. I bounced off the Revenger series pretty hard.
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Jul 13, 2022 20:29
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General Battuta posted:No, the greenfly ending is matching up the ending of Absolution Gap to the later timeline of the setting established by his early short story Galactic North. How long after AG is Inhibitor Phase, I guess is my central question.
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Jul 13, 2022 20:37
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Leng posted:I'm gonna plug another goon book by Ccs that I was a beta reader on: I actually read this book totally independently from seeing it in the thread & enjoyed it, cool to hear it was written by someone in the thread! Will have to try these others next.
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Jul 13, 2022 20:57
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So I'm looking up Robin McKinley's stuff for reasons andquote:The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley is a fantasy novel that follows Angharad "Harry" Crewe as she adjusts first to life in the Homelander colony of Daria — called Damar by its native inhabitants — and then to being kidnapped by the Damarian king, Corlath.  
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Jul 13, 2022 21:52
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zoux posted:How long after AG is Inhibitor Phase, I guess is my central question. Not long, at least by Reynolds timescales. It's still set during the, uh, Inhibitor Phase.
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Jul 13, 2022 22:26
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Baudolino by Umberto Eco - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003PDMMYQ/ Numbers in the Dark by Italo Calvino - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E9FYU12/
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Jul 13, 2022 22:27
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MartingaleJack posted:You made it three more chapters than me. If there's something consistent I don't like about the writing, I'm out. Boneships seemed to be taking the worst bits of Malazan. The plot barely inched forward as every internal narrative goes off into the modern fantasy equivalent of Shakespearean soliloquy. Cardiac posted:Well, to be fair The Bone Ships owe more to Robin Hobb than Steven Erikson. But on the basis of it being similar to Hobb, I will go out on a limb and specifically request it at my library. EDIT: Tars Tarkas posted:Speaking of Aubrey-Maturin, this lexicon guide is $1.99 for the ebook
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Jul 13, 2022 23:04
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I quite liked The Bone Ships but I can't argue with anyone's complaints, really. It's a good example I think of how even someone else's bad review can be useful because it highlights what bothered them, and if you know it won't bother you, then it might be worth a read anyway. I have multiple books about the Age of Sail cuz I'm a big nerd and my favourite is Nelson's Navy by Brian Lavery. If you can find it in hardback it is absolutely gorgeous. e: there are multiple copies up on abebooks for just a few quid. Worth it if you're interested in the period. It's a lovely book
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Jul 13, 2022 23:19
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Leng posted:
The thing about Aubrey-Maturin is that every time you step back to the beginning it's a whole new series because you've learned so much from your last read-through. A crystal sphere that illuminates anew each time you turn to look through the next facet.
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Jul 13, 2022 23:23
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The thing about Aubrey-Maturin is that every time you step back to the beginning it's a whole new series because you've learned so much from your last read-through. A crystal sphere that illuminates anew each time you turn to look through the next facet. And that's thanks to the way O'Brian skillfully uses context and action to show you what each part of the ship does, or naturally leads into the world-building through Maturin being the comical fish out of water, or when the spy and doctoring stuff is going on, Jack being the out of place person. There's never a point where a character is doing nothing in the middle of nowhere, just thinkin' 'bout tacking against the wind and how it relates to the endless struggle of man.
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Jul 14, 2022 00:13
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I finished the Koli trilogy. I don't know that the ending stuck perfectly, but I was burning pages the whole way. Moved on to Between Two Fires. About 80 pages in and it's not gripping me yet. I shall persevere.
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Jul 14, 2022 00:27
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I've been really enjoying Red Rising by Pierce Brown. The first half of the book seems like it's willfully evoking every pop YA trope--there's a bit of Hunger Games, a bit of Harry Potter (in the division of "schools"), Ender's Game, and plenty more. There's a character that is almost a 1 to 1 copy of Haymitch, even down to his name being similar. But soon the setting adds enough tropes from cyberpunk and other genres that it starts to feel original. After the "game" begins, the story gets extremely grim dark. I mean, it starts out pretty grim, but I thought it was just a phase. Nope. Whole thing is wonderfully grim without being pessimistic. I hope it finishes strong and I can look forward to reading the sequels.
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Jul 14, 2022 00:48
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StrixNebulosa posted:So I'm looking up Robin McKinley's stuff for reasons and It's a good book, Bront. Edit: The Blue Sword, not The Sheik. I know The Sheik only by reputation.
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Jul 14, 2022 01:14
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StrixNebulosa posted:So I'm looking up Robin McKinley's stuff for reasons and Oh man, The Blue Sword - I have vivid memories of reading that and The Hero and the Crown by the side of a hotel pool when I was eight. My first D&D character was named Luthe. I hesitate to go back and read them again because I have a terrible suspicion they have not aged well, but they have a place of honor on my bookshelves simply because of how formative they were.
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Jul 14, 2022 01:22
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The main character is 16 and falls in love with an adult immortal wizard. Other than that all-too-common unfortunate bit the rest was pretty alright as I recall.
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Jul 14, 2022 02:34
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oh yeah no those books were great, loved the poo poo out of em
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Jul 14, 2022 03:15
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