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big dyke energy posted:Lavinia is really good. It really is. You just have to respect an author who takes a character from mythology who is mentioned, but never appears on-stage and makes them the central character of a novel in which she tells her own story. I will also recommend Doris Lessing's The Cleft for something else going back into even deeper mythology.
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Jan 8, 2023 06:13
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branedotorg posted:It was pointlessly gratuitous for me on top of writing I didn't particularly enjoy. The rape/dead kids was really more annoying to me than actively disgusting. "Yeah, Maberry, we get it. Your bad guys are really bad. We know this due to the bad things you have them do. Over and over and over again. Also, if you want you world to be taken "seriously" maybe come up with some original cosmic horrors instead of trying to beat us to death with H. P. Lovecraft's corpse."
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Jan 8, 2023 07:23
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Selachian posted:If you haven't read Earthsea just because it's YA but you like Le Guin, you should give it a try. If you haven't read anything just because it's YA, get the gently caress over yourself. If it's a good book it's a good book.
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Jan 8, 2023 10:52
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Jedit posted:If you haven't read anything just because it's YA, get the gently caress over yourself. If it's a good book it's a good book. YA books are seldom good though, so it's an understandable reaction. Le Guin rules though, and Earthsea doesn't really resemble a modern YA series at all
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Jan 8, 2023 11:17
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Earthsea is about as YA as The Hobbit, goddamn people
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Jan 8, 2023 15:22
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I think for a lot of people who don’t read much YA, YA is just an age category between kids and adults that Earthsea would fit into nicely. For people who read a lot of YA there are a lot of commonalities in writing style and presentation of YA stories that are largely missing from Earthsea.
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Jan 8, 2023 15:37
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LeGuin specifically described Earthsea as being for children and young adults. Saying that it can't be YA because it doesn't suck seems insecure.
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Jan 8, 2023 16:03
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Patrick Spens posted:LeGuin specifically described Earthsea as being for children and young adults. Saying that it can't be YA because it doesn't suck seems insecure. Nah I’m saying it because YA wasn’t a thing when she wrote it. It’s like calling anything by Dickens YA YA is a marketing term, and invoking it points to pretty recent styles of writing fiction for young adults E. basically this team overhead smash posted:I think for a lot of people who don’t read much YA, YA is just an age category between kids and adults that Earthsea would fit into nicely. For people who read a lot of YA there are a lot of commonalities in writing style and presentation of YA stories that are largely missing from Earthsea. Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jan 8, 2023 |
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Jan 8, 2023 16:08
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Yeah. Earthsea was written for children and young adults, but it isn't "YA". "YA" is a marketing genre that derives from Twilight and Hunger Games and a few other things and which no more fits Earthsea than it does the Hobbit or the Princess Bride.
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Jan 8, 2023 17:00
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I mean Fantasy wasn't a genre when Tolkien was writing either. I think it's fine to retroactively apply these labels.
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Jan 8, 2023 17:27
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Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0865TSTWM/ Shards of Earth (Final Architecture #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HLPZY6X/ Guards! Guards! (Discworld #8) by Terry Pratchett - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000UVBT7M/ The City We Became (Great Cities #1) by NK Jemisin - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MFKQDJM/ Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EFIH09G/ Skyward (#1) by Brandon Sanderson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BJLB5LY/ Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077WXP3KG/ Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer #1) by Robin Hobb - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBFMG6/ Interview with the Vampire (Vampire Chronicles #1) by Anne Rice - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004AM5R20/ Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LZWV8JO/ The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07M77XW56/ Recursion by Blake Crouch - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HDSHP7N/ Memory's Legion (Expanse) by James SA Corey - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096RSDCVK/ Foundation (#1) by Isaac Asimov - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1PWA/ Hyperion (#1) by Dan Simmons - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004G60EHS/ Red Rising (#1) by Pierce Brown - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CVS2J80/ Priory of the Orange Tree (Roots of Chaos #1) by Samatha Shannon - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DDGX4KY/ <edit> Missed a few. The Grief of Stones (Cemeteries of Amalo #2) by Katherine Addison - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09C4FJ851/ (Also Goblin Emperor #3) The City of Brass (Daevabad #1) by SA Chakraborty - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06VXWPMV5/ The Dragon Republic (Poppy War #2) by RF Kuang - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CRKXQ1Y/ Artemis by Andy Weir - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y55SB48/ pradmer fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Jan 8, 2023 |
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Jan 8, 2023 17:29
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pradmer posted:Guards! Guards! (Discworld #8) by Terry Pratchett - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000UVBT7M/ Three I'd recommend to those who haven't read them. That's the first of the City Watch books, so it's a very good entry point to Discworld. I also enjoyed the Assassin's series by Hobb, and mostly liked Seveneves.
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Jan 8, 2023 17:34
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pradmer posted:Recursion by Blake Crouch - $2.99 Thanks for reminding me - I read this and the short story Summer Frost by Crouch and hated both. Beyond everything about his writing, he namedrops brands like Thomas Friedman (Summer Frost features Boston Dynamics and a loving functional hyperloop). Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Jan 8, 2023 |
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Jan 8, 2023 17:39
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eXXon posted:Thanks for reminding me - I read this and the short story Summer Frost by Crouch and hated both. Beyond everything about his writing, he namedrops brands like Thomas Friedman (Summer Frost features Boston Dynamics and a loving functional hyperloop). i read Dark Matter by crouch and hated it as well. he used handwavey explanations of quantum physics to explain the magic poo poo in the book
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Jan 8, 2023 19:51
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mewse posted:i read Dark Matter by crouch and hated it as well. he used handwavey explanations of quantum physics to explain the magic poo poo in the book Leigh Bardugo's Hell Bent, the sequel to The Ninth House comes out Jan. 10.
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Jan 8, 2023 20:27
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah. Earthsea was written for children and young adults, but it isn't "YA". "YA" is a marketing genre that derives from Twilight and Hunger Games and a few other things and which no more fits Earthsea than it does the Hobbit or the Princess Bride. Libraries were sticking YA stickers on books and filing them separately from children and adult fiction 20 years before Twilight and Hunger Games were published.
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Jan 8, 2023 21:17
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pseudorandom name posted:Libraries were sticking YA stickers on books and filing them separately from children and adult fiction 20 years before Twilight and Hunger Games were published. This is why this discussion is always so problematic: there is a term, "young adult literature," that has been around a long time, and encompasses things like Earthsea and The Hobbit etc. Then there's what Hieronymous Alloy describes, a relatively modern genre using the exact same term because some bright sparks in marketing decided to hollow it out and inhabit its skin. The latter is full of absolutely atrocious writing nearly from top to bottom, so it's pretty fair to say "I don't want to read any YA because it all sucks" when the person making the statement means "I don't want to read anything from the modern genre called YA which encompasses Twilight/Hunger Games and their descendants."
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Jan 8, 2023 21:34
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we all know what ya means now and it's basically the publisher saying 'yeah this is sub airport novel on nearly every level, lol'
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Jan 8, 2023 21:45
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Larry Parrish posted:we all know what ya means now and it's basically the publisher saying 'yeah this is sub airport novel on nearly every level, lol' Usually with annoying teens snarking at each other
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Jan 8, 2023 22:07
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Stuporstar posted:Usually with annoying teens snarking at each other So Sharon Green's The Blending? Which you should read so Leng doesn't have to. Granted that Leng's "Let's Read" of that is fun but after a bit it's like watching someone smash their fingers with a hammer because the resulting curse words are creative and entertaining.
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Jan 8, 2023 22:16
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pseudorandom name posted:Libraries were sticking YA stickers on books and filing them separately from children and adult fiction 20 years before Twilight and Hunger Games were published. man c'mon, we're talking about stuff that's happened only within the past few decades, years that we've likely all lived through personally. It's not hard to trace through recent history and realize that "young adult" in 1993 does not mean the same thing as "YA" in 2023 and it's hardly the first time marketers have cynically coopted an existing genre
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Jan 8, 2023 22:24
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WarpDogs posted:man c'mon, we're talking about stuff that's happened only within the past few decades, years that we've likely all lived through personally. It's not hard to trace through recent history and realize that "young adult" in 1993 does not mean the same thing as "YA" in 2023 Ok, but the original post was about how the poster didn't want to read Earthsea because it was YA, and the point is that making that kind of broad sweep is silly and is a shallow understanding of what takes place under the umbrella of YA. It's also silly because a lot of different things are published under YA now and just because you don't want to read Twilight doesn't mean that there won't be anything worthwhile to read in that sub-genre. Frankly many "adult" SFF books have the annoying teens snarking at each other sensibility from ostensible adults so filter by what's "YA" doesn't really save you.
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Jan 8, 2023 23:22
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Leng posted:Reporting back. ...but drat, the way it transitions hard from kids trying to become the best magic samurai to flawed people in a faltering marriage struggling with grief is incredible. I can't think of too many other similar stories...Lord of the Rings has a pivot but it's pretty quick and also gradual, not super-sharp. The visual novel series Muv-Luv might be the closest thing. Anyway, things like this are basically impossible to recommend but it's interesting how the impact of the pivot is greater because of how silly it is at first, especially if you don't know the pivot is coming. Which yes I just spoiled but that's the trouble, no one would read it without knowing there was some change coming, but then that lessens the impact.
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Jan 8, 2023 23:31
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How do you guys feel about pre-ordering a book that is already out in another region and pirating it anyway? Does it damage the authors in any way? Obviously I feel fine about it, most recently about Children of Memory (nice big idea page-turner, an unexpectedly warm book from Adrian Tchaikovsky). I don't even feel it is much of a gray area, but in my background maybe there is a bit too much "poor student ethics" for a healthy perspective. edit: Seriously the book has the cutest planet killer apocalyptic entity I've ever seen in Sci-fi. Grimwall fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jan 8, 2023 |
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Jan 8, 2023 23:43
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Anyone in here read Chinese sff in the original? Having watched the drama adaptations of "Love Between Fairy and Devil" and "Reset", both of which are based on books that do not have official translations, I'm wondering how good they are and whether it's worth the effort to struggle through with my relatively basic amount of Mandarin.
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Jan 8, 2023 23:50
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Kestral posted:This is why this discussion is always so problematic: there is a term, "young adult literature," that has been around a long time, and encompasses things like Earthsea and The Hobbit etc. Then there's what Hieronymous Alloy describes, a relatively modern genre using the exact same term because some bright sparks in marketing decided to hollow it out and inhabit its skin. The latter is full of absolutely atrocious writing nearly from top to bottom, so it's pretty fair to say "I don't want to read any YA because it all sucks" when the person making the statement means "I don't want to read anything from the modern genre called YA which encompasses Twilight/Hunger Games and their descendants." I'm not sure it's a case of "marketing people coopted the name" as "the genre changed over time". I personally share other posters' dislike of modern YA, but there are lots of people who enjoy it, it's not like some faceless marketing team just shoved it down their throats. There are also plenty of continuities between the YA of the 80s and 90s and the new style: coming of age narratives, idealised romances, heroes discovering they have special powers, etc.
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Jan 9, 2023 00:20
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Lex Talionis posted:Sword of Kaigen is an interesting book because so much of it is just deeply silly. I mean, the setting is clearly Avatar: The Last Airbender with only half the serial numbers filed off. The housewife Leng mentions is literally a retired superhero who now lives in The Village of Brooding Anime Samurai. It's impossible to take seriously... This reason right here is why I think the book took off, because despite its flaws (and the rather abrupt development of the Misaki/Takeru relationship which could've used more page time because things resolved rather quickly on that front) it really hits that emotional spot quite well. Also on the point of: pseudorandom name posted:Libraries were sticking YA stickers on books and filing them separately from children and adult fiction 20 years before Twilight and Hunger Games were published. Kestral posted:This is why this discussion is always so problematic: there is a term, "young adult literature," that has been around a long time, and encompasses things like Earthsea and The Hobbit etc. Then there's what Hieronymous Alloy describes, a relatively modern genre using the exact same term because some bright sparks in marketing decided to hollow it out and inhabit its skin. The latter is full of absolutely atrocious writing nearly from top to bottom, so it's pretty fair to say "I don't want to read any YA because it all sucks" when the person making the statement means "I don't want to read anything from the modern genre called YA which encompasses Twilight/Hunger Games and their descendants." In a spectacular moment of self-own and foreshadowing: Leng posted:Perhaps I'm just sensitive to fantasy written by female authors being lumped into YA when it was not intended to be YA. Pretty sure both The Poppy War and Jade City were somehow shelved as YA by some places despite both of those books being very much NOT YA simply on the basis of "female author" and "young protagonist/s". Both written in third person too, not even the first person POV that is common across most YA books these days. Leng posted:Petition is new adult/adult but it doesn't stop people from classifying it YA for the abovementioned reasons. I asked my library if they would be cool with adding my book to their catalogue. They sent me a text and an email to let me know they ordered it. I went in yesterday to check it out. The label on the spine said: "YF / WAAN".    Anyway, to contribute: pradmer posted:Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0865TSTWM/ Piranesi, Skyward, and Spinning Silver are great. Arcanum Unbounded is for Sanderson completionists—the only major new thing in there that you can't already read/haven't bought elsewhere is Edgedancer, the Lift novella, which is just full of Lift awesome  . Priory of the Orange Tree is a good read if you want a well-done sapphic relationship but a meh read if you're expecting a standalone fantasy epic because it's literally Skyrim in novel format (complete with random wyrm attacks and killing Alduin at the spawn point as the final big battle). The City of Brass is a solid read and if you didn't like The Poppy War things don't get better in The Dragon Republic.Also on sale: The Eye of the World (Wheel of Time #1) - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002U3CCYM
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Jan 9, 2023 01:43
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err posted:I just finished Lathe of Heaven after reading The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness. I really liked it just like the others. Five Ways to Forgiveness and The Telling are two beautiful novels in the same vein as The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness. Also, count me among those who recommend the Earthsea books.
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Jan 9, 2023 02:15
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Grimwall posted:How do you guys feel about pre-ordering a book that is already out in another region and pirating it anyway? Does it damage the authors in any way? Obviously I feel fine about it, most recently about Children of Memory (nice big idea page-turner, an unexpectedly warm book from Adrian Tchaikovsky). I don't even feel it is much of a gray area, but in my background maybe there is a bit too much "poor student ethics" for a healthy perspective. I think it'd be fine. You are buying a copy to read, you just get to read it before it's available where you are at. The main thing any author is about is "buy my book I like food and shelter". Plus pre ordering a book is supposed to help it in some weird nebulous manner I can't recall at the moment. Feel free to describe the spoiler in a spoiler text. I'm not gonna read it but I have visions of hello kitty via züül going on. 
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Jan 9, 2023 03:02
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Leng posted:Priory of the Orange Tree is a good read if you want a well-done sapphic relationship but a meh read if you're expecting a standalone fantasy epic because it's literally Skyrim in novel format (complete with random wyrm attacks and killing Alduin at the spawn point as the final big battle). I know a lot of people liked it but I thought Priory was overall pretty tedious. As you note the depiction of that relationship is pretty good but the actual like fantasy adventure bits really dragged for me.
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Jan 9, 2023 04:26
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No Dignity posted:YA books are seldom good though yeah and neither are most adult books
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Jan 9, 2023 04:28
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Grimwall posted:How do you guys feel about pre-ordering a book that is already out in another region and pirating it anyway? Does it damage the authors in any way? Obviously I feel fine about it, most recently about Children of Memory (nice big idea page-turner, an unexpectedly warm book from Adrian Tchaikovsky). I don't even feel it is much of a gray area, but in my background maybe there is a bit too much "poor student ethics" for a healthy perspective. i feel absolutely no guilt pirating books when i can't buy it in my region or if it's insanely expensive like some manga series etc.
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Jan 9, 2023 06:58
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Lex Talionis posted:Sword of Kaigen is an interesting book because so much of it is just deeply silly. I mean, the setting is clearly Avatar: The Last Airbender with only half the serial numbers filed off. The housewife Leng mentions is literally a retired superhero who now lives in The Village of Brooding Anime Samurai. It's impossible to take seriously... Speaking of Avatar novels, I read The Rise of Kyoshi and... it was actually good ! It's Kyoshi's story, so people actually die. If you want more Avatar, this is a good way to get it. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GXPVBGP/
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Jan 9, 2023 07:11
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Sailor Viy posted:I'm not sure it's a case of "marketing people coopted the name" as "the genre changed over time". I personally share other posters' dislike of modern YA, but there are lots of people who enjoy it, it's not like some faceless marketing team just shoved it down their throats. There are also plenty of continuities between the YA of the 80s and 90s and the new style: coming of age narratives, idealised romances, heroes discovering they have special powers, etc. YA or the equivalent absolutely existed as a marketing or classification category back in the 80s, I should know, I read a ton of the stuff back then. Norwegian publishers mostly used terminology that would translate as "children", "youth", or "adult" to classify their books. Some had their children/youth books colour-coded to further indicate suggested reader age groups. What we did not have was the same expectation of a formulaic style and/or plot as in the post-Hunger Games era. At least in books from the 70s and 80s I recall a lot of weird twists, and not a little gory death, sometimes explicit sex scenes as well.
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Jan 9, 2023 08:32
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I think it'd be fine. You are buying a copy to read, you just get to read it before it's available where you are at. The main thing any author is about is "buy my book I like food and shelter". Plus pre ordering a book is supposed to help it in some weird nebulous manner I can't recall at the moment.
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Jan 9, 2023 11:56
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Everyone should read Piranesi. For that matter, just read everything Susanna Clarke writes.
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Jan 9, 2023 17:37
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I started reading the Prince of Nothing series, and I'm sort of immediately regretting it. The story nearly starts with a child being molested and if that's the tone for this series I might bail. Has anyone here read it? If I didn't like what's in the spoiler, am I going to hate the rest of this?
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Jan 9, 2023 18:08
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Chainclaw posted:I started reading the Prince of Nothing series, and I'm sort of immediately regretting it. The story nearly starts with a child being molested and if that's the tone for this series I might bail. Has anyone here read it? If I didn't like what's in the spoiler, am I going to hate the rest of this? You have judged correctly, turn back now
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Jan 9, 2023 18:14
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Chainclaw posted:I started reading the Prince of Nothing series, and I'm sort of immediately regretting it. The story nearly starts with a child being molested and if that's the tone for this series I might bail. Has anyone here read it? If I didn't like what's in the spoiler, am I going to hate the rest of this? You can stop now, and lose nothing of value.
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Jan 9, 2023 18:22
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Chainclaw posted:I started reading the Prince of Nothing series, and I'm sort of immediately regretting it. The story nearly starts with a child being molested and if that's the tone for this series I might bail. Has anyone here read it? If I didn't like what's in the spoiler, am I going to hate the rest of this? Yeah, that's the tone.
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Jan 9, 2023 18:24
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