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Malazan, unless you already have. Erikson have explicitly named Cook as one of his biggest influences. For example, mocker is a clear inspiration for Kruppe.
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Apr 16, 2018 20:33
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Cardiac posted:Malazan, unless you already have. Malazan has been on my list for a long time now. I started Gardens of the Moon and bounced off it pretty early on, I don't remember why, but a good friend of mine is reading them now, and pushed me to at least read the first book and start Deadhouse Gates before I write off the rest of the series, so maybe I'll tackle it later this year.
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Apr 16, 2018 20:39
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MockingQuantum posted:Malazan has been on my list for a long time now. I started Gardens of the Moon and bounced off it pretty early on, I don't remember why, but a good friend of mine is reading them now, and pushed me to at least read the first book and start Deadhouse Gates before I write off the rest of the series, so maybe I'll tackle it later this year. A lot of people suggest starting with deadhouse gates, and then going back to gardens of the moon later on at some point. Its much easier to start that way
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Apr 16, 2018 22:42
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Ubiquitus posted:A lot of people suggest starting with deadhouse gates, and then going back to gardens of the moon later on at some point. Its much easier to start that way Oh, well maybe I'll do that then. When is a good time to double back and read Gardens?
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Apr 16, 2018 22:52
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MockingQuantum posted:Oh, well maybe I'll do that then. When is a good time to double back and read Gardens? Almost immediately, it introduces the Bridgeburners - and it's actually pretty good once it gets going.
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Apr 16, 2018 22:58
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Ubiquitus posted:A lot of people suggest starting with deadhouse gates, and then going back to gardens of the moon later on at some point. Its much easier to start that way Weird, I got through Gardens and bounced hard off Deadhouse.
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Apr 16, 2018 23:11
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Major Isoor posted:Speaking of which, we need a "Simpsons quotes only" thread, if we don't have one already - I'm certain that I (among others I know) could converse with only Simpsons quotes, given the opportunity! haha https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3573863
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Apr 16, 2018 23:46
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Alright that's going on my list of bookmarked threads!  (Also, I think I actually recall someone mentioning/recommending Malazan a little while ago...might have to keep my eye on that, too)
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Apr 16, 2018 23:52
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:mean things i am literally shaking i actually read all seven of the novels in that universe and I wonder if some of your criticisms are the reason why i was left so underwhelmed by the finale in The Unholy Consult i kept slogging along because because i think i just really wanted to reach some sort of understanding about the inchoroi and Anasurimbor Eugenic's designs for them, always assuming that there was going to be some revelation. especially since, in the latter books, the emperor becomes more of an abstraction and is only really experienced through the eyes of the other characters i was... disappointed, it's poo poo-turtles all the way down. it didn't help when i learned more about the author and his interactions with the fan base, yeesh i like demon rape as much as the next guy, but no need to be so weird about it IMHO
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Apr 17, 2018 03:37
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Major Isoor posted:
https://imgur.com/gallery/ZsACh
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Apr 17, 2018 03:52
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Ubiquitus posted:A lot of people suggest starting with deadhouse gates, and then going back to gardens of the moon later on at some point. Its much easier to start that way Starting with deadhouse is a good idea, since it is one of the best books in the series, with little crossover from garden. Garden, deadhouse and Midnight Tides can all serve as entry points to the series. I guess Garden can be off-putting since it does the whole feed thousands of names in the first chapter that fantasy is prone of doing. On the other hand that have been a thing since at least LotR. I like the concept since it makes a book a discovery where you for each part understand more and more. Helps having an excellent memory though.
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Apr 17, 2018 06:28
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I pondered the question of how to approach the Malazan books and fell down a rabbit hole that lead to this chart (which doesn't even include the Path to Ascendancy prequels):
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Apr 17, 2018 07:13
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Solitair posted:I pondered the question of how to approach the Malazan books and fell down a rabbit hole that lead to this chart (which doesn't even include the Path to Ascendancy prequels): Anything by esslemont is optional and while some are good, others one can pretend never have been written (Iron Bars!)
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Apr 17, 2018 08:21
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Cardiac posted:I guess Garden can be off-putting since it does the whole feed thousands of names in the first chapter that fantasy is prone of doing. On the other hand that have been a thing since at least LotR. Please don't lump in that huge name drop start with the rest of the genre, sure yes the rest of the genre can get a bit bad at the start but Gardens is not just on another level it's on another level after that.
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Apr 17, 2018 15:59
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Cardiac posted:Anything by esslemont is optional and while some are good, others one can pretend never have been written (Iron Bars!) I read an Esslemont novel while waiting for The Crippled God to come out and that made me lose all will to even finish the main series.
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Apr 17, 2018 15:59
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Please don't lump in that huge name drop start with the rest of the genre, sure yes the rest of the genre can get a bit bad at the start but Gardens is not just on another level it's on another level after that. Gardens is just a way overly ambitious first novel where the author tried to include EVERYTHING without regard to pacing or structure.
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Apr 17, 2018 16:45
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Malazan's a bit like Uplift, one of those series where you read in publication order, but sometimes skip the first book for a while if it's one that was written much earlier. Reading orders are silly, but fun to argue about if you can come up with an unusual one and a way to justify it.
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Apr 17, 2018 16:55
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Cardiac posted:Starting with deadhouse is a good idea, since it is one of the best books in the series, with little crossover from garden. The actual Darujhistan stuff is pretty great, and the shotgunning of names at the reader works kind of well, as it's supposed to be a completely clusterfuck. It's the Pale/Malaz city stuff that I think is the problem. He goes completely overboard on not having his characters explain anything, and even on a re-read its incomprehensible. There's a handful of scenes that boil down to "oh no, there's some plans being made" "good thing we also have our own plans" "and your contingencies?" "got them too!" I get the appeal of books that don't hold you by the hand, and the later Malazan books do a much better job of dropping you into the middle of things (Forge of Darkness does it pretty well, Midnight Tides even better). But the start of GotM is mostly people talking about the fact that there's a plot going on instead of actually giving us the plot.
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Apr 17, 2018 17:55
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GotM is the best book in the series in large part because it throws you in the deep end.
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Apr 17, 2018 18:00
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GoTM is a confusing 1st time read. 1st time readers of it should stick with one of the 3+ main characters until everyone arrives in Darujhistan. The good friend Kruppe chapters are a acquired taste, do not worry if you have a hard time getting through Kruppe's material. Also, I have been slowly reading my way through 101 Science Fiction Stories @1986 ISBN 0-517-606669-0. A few of the stories in it have had "because.....God", or God being arrested by mankind, or variations on the Heinlein created universe idea as the closing stinger. So far my favorite story in the book has been a extended "why did the chicken cross the road?" sci-fi riff.* The answer to why the chicken crossed the road is industrial corporate espionage, as per The Homesick Chicken by Edward D. Hoch.
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Apr 18, 2018 01:34
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I got most of the Malazan books from a classmate who graduated last year and was like "Hey you like scifi stuff? I'm going to be moving and you can have these for free!" I guess I should actually read them at some point. mllaneza posted:I like the Shadowline/Starfishers series, warts and all. The first one is about mercenaries and pirates told as if it were Norse myth, down to the one-eyed general with ravens. The next two follow an incidental character from Shadowline and his partner in Naval Intelligence on a deep cover assignment that gets a little weird. I think why I classified it as "not good" is that IMO it's not at the peak of his writing and I don't think it would really be a good entry to his stuff, but it's still worth reading if you like Glen Cook.
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Apr 18, 2018 03:06
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I finished malazan disappointed. I think memories of ice & house of chains were the peak of the series and although I liked it enough to finish, the other plotlines never really captured the magic for me. I think part of it was that because it was so dense I really missed a lot of the plot threads and because I never connected it all it didn't feel like the series had been building to anything in particular. Because of this, there wasn't a huge payoff at the end for me and the things I ended up being invested in never really had a conclusion.
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Apr 18, 2018 04:25
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C.M. Kruger posted:I think why I classified it as "not good" is that IMO it's not at the peak of his writing and I don't think it would really be a good entry to his stuff, but it's still worth reading if you like Glen Cook. It just occurred to me this evening that everyone is missing out on Tower of Fear. It's one of Cook's standalones. It's a very personal story set in a vaguely Eastern Mediterranean city under occupation by an empire from farther west. Children are disappearing. We follow a few fathers, and a mad dwarf stealing children who might be the reincarnation of an evil sorcerer (or possibly the hero who gave his life to bring down the sorcerer. Except they're maybe in stasis and not really dead). It's not a swords & sandals novel, except in a very few parts. What it is about is the street level, day-to-day struggle for survival in an occupied city. It's one of his best.
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Apr 18, 2018 04:55
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The new John Scalzi book is out, Head On, in his Locked In Series. I downloaded a copy on Audible and...it's narrated by Wil Wheaton. gently caress.
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Apr 18, 2018 08:24
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:GoTM is a confusing 1st time read. 1st time readers of it should stick with one of the 3+ main characters until everyone arrives in Darujhistan. Gotm is great on the third reading of the series and having read Fod/Fol. Mind you, that is just 25 000 pages or so. 
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Apr 18, 2018 08:29
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Jew it to it! posted:The new John Scalzi book is out, Head On, in his Locked In Series. I downloaded a copy on Audible and...it's narrated by Wil Wheaton. gently caress. I mean... 
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Apr 18, 2018 10:26
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Jew it to it! posted:The new John Scalzi book is out, Head On, in his Locked In Series. I downloaded a copy on Audible and...it's narrated by Wil Wheaton. gently caress. Return it and get the Amber Benson narrated version: https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Head-On-Narrated-by-Amber-Benson-Audiobook/B07BGFWRMZ
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Apr 18, 2018 11:30
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Jew it to it! posted:The new John Scalzi book is out, Head On, in his Locked In Series. I downloaded a copy on Audible and...it's narrated by Wil Wheaton. gently caress. Audible does full credit returns of their audiobooks for any / no reason up to and including “I didn’t like this”.
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Apr 18, 2018 13:47
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Jew it to it! posted:The new John Scalzi book is out, Head On, in his Locked In Series. I downloaded a copy on Audible and...it's narrated by Wil Wheaton. gently caress. Is Wheaton actually a person nerds love, or has he just positioned himself as such? ‘you know Ernest Cline says so so it must be true’ 
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Apr 18, 2018 13:55
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I know a couple who love him but they are the type of people who are very vocal signposting their love of Geek Culture and stuff. Everybody else I know can’t stand the guy.
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Apr 18, 2018 14:02
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I think it's more like there are two extremes of nerd-signaling, one that loves him, one that hates him, and most people don't notice him at all.
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Apr 18, 2018 14:11
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NoneMoreNegative posted:Is Wheaton actually a person nerds love, or has he just positioned himself as such? ‘you know Ernest Cline says so so it must be true’ Wheaton's in this weird place where it's a little bit of both. His return from obscurity came mostly from a sense of humility about the failings of Westley Crusher and his frankness about his time on TNG, both positive and negative. And the peeks behind the curtain he gives about being a C-Lister in Hollywood can be pretty interesting. That said, he's clearly cultivated the "I'm just a geek" concept into his personal brand and pushes that image fairly aggressively, which can rub people the wrong way.
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Apr 18, 2018 14:12
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I'm aware of him and don't have a strong opinion of him. I guess I kinda like him because he's played a dickish version of himself, and I enjoy it when actors do that kinda thing. Don't think I'd rush out to buy him narrating anything, though.
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Apr 18, 2018 14:17
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I mean I don't hate Wil Wheaton and I don't know how good he is as a narrator. I might watch one of his videos if I were looking for a demonstration of a boardgame but his whole persona is so milquetoast that I don't really see anything there to hate--there isn't much there at all.
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Apr 18, 2018 15:07
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occamsnailfile posted:I mean I don't hate Wil Wheaton and I don't know how good he is as a narrator. I might watch one of his videos if I were looking for a demonstration of a boardgame but his whole persona is so milquetoast that I don't really see anything there to hate--there isn't much there at all. I think he gets a decent bit of hate because he is "milquetoast" but will sometimes get praised as THE BEST THING EVER!!!
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Apr 18, 2018 15:12
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occamsnailfile posted:I mean I don't hate Wil Wheaton and I don't know how good he is as a narrator. I might watch one of his videos if I were looking for a demonstration of a boardgame but his whole persona is so milquetoast that I don't really see anything there to hate--there isn't much there at all. i actually strongly dislike his boardgame videos and don't care about him much otherwise because they get the rules wrong!
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Apr 18, 2018 15:26
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andrew smash posted:I know a couple who love him but they are the type of people who are very vocal signposting their love of Geek Culture and stuff. Everybody else I know can’t stand the guy. this is also true of scalzi so they're a good fit imo
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Apr 18, 2018 15:40
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mllaneza posted:It just occurred to me this evening that everyone is missing out on Tower of Fear. It's one of Cook's standalones. Huh. The cover looks familiar but I don't remember it and certainly haven't read it in a decade, so downloading now.
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Apr 18, 2018 15:42
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Wil Wheaton is a friend of Scalzi so he's narrated a bunch of his books. He's mostly fine as a narrator because he meshes perfectly with Scalzi's particular type of snark. There are narrators I like better but plenty I like worse. I guess I'm saying don't automatically dismiss him because of the name.
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Apr 18, 2018 15:47
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I don't like the way he narrates audiobooks because the way he says everything sounds really smug and satisfied which takes me out of the story
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Apr 18, 2018 16:46
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