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Finished the 18th annual Year's Best Science Fiction (2000)collection edited by Gardner Dozois. Most of the stories in that years collection were depressing as hell, figure Dozois must have been going through rough stuff that year when picking out the stories. Only 1 Greg Egan story this time jello on a escalator/moving sidewalk won yet another challenge vs Egan's writing, Charles Stross had 2 stories, and Peter F Hamilton had such a lovely story I took a break after finishing it & re-read Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters just to clear away the mental funk. Rick Cook/Ernest Hogan had a interesting alternate history story involving a world where the Aztec empire never fell/fought off the Spanish invasion/didn't get wiped out by smallpox + a south america full of regular dinosaurs + near-human intelligence dinosaurs. Charles Stross's short story Antibodies predates his Laundry series, and was really strong. The Laundry series went a different way with the use of technology........ or did it? .
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May 15, 2018 03:04
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ToxicFrog posted:He's written a shitload of other books in that setting, most of which I haven't read, but I would recommend the Daughter of the Empire trilogy (co-written with Janny Wurts). Yeah the Janny Wurts trilogy owns bones. The Roo and Erik books (Serpentwar trilogy) I thought were pretty enjoyable but those are where I picked up the series in the first place so that probably colors my perceptions, and the Conclave of Shadows series started with a fun take on the Man in the Iron Mask story and finished with a follow up story of the guy that the main character of the first two books spent taking down. I think I read the third to last and second to last books and I got sort of put off them because when the book first came out Feist had accidently swapped out two major major characters (Pug and Magnus, his son) suddenly and unexpectedly and it made things make no sense. He later corrected it but I didn't go back because I thought they were pretty meandering in general and he had killed off a lot of the better characters by then.
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May 15, 2018 03:12
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BananaNutkins posted:I'm reading Raymond E. Feist's Magician right now. I was surprised at how solid the prose was, and the world and characters have more detail than anticipated. Very vanilla Tolkin-esque setting, though, and a typical coming of age/hero's journey style plot. I remember enjoying the first few books greatly back when I was a D&D-playing high school kid. No idea how well they would hold up today, think I'll let them stay in the fond memories box.
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May 15, 2018 12:49
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Seconding this hard although you might get somewhat more than you asked for.
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May 15, 2018 16:02
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YES. I love the Wizard Knight. It has some of Wolfe's standard obscure puzzles and narrator games, but also presents an upbeat coming of age story drawing on Arthurian myth in a cool Norse mythology setting. Its plotting is also a bit tighter than Wolfe's other work, though that's not saying much.
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May 15, 2018 16:23
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Tor's free ebook of the month is: The Quantum Thief
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May 15, 2018 16:27
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less laughter posted:Tor's free ebook of the month is: The Quantum Thief Read this if you haven't everyone. It's real loving cool.
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May 15, 2018 16:56
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I haven't read it but it is a bit of a running joke in our book store whenever someone picks it up to read the blurb and then we watch their faces.
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May 15, 2018 17:00
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less laughter posted:Tor's free ebook of the month is: The Quantum Thief Still the perfect example on why 100% show with zero tell can be a problem, I love it when half the mystery of the book is figuring out what the gently caress the characters are talking about. *This weird unique thing in just this story that I made up, that everyone in universe knows 0 description figure out from the context clues I'm dropping in bits and pieces all over the book so you have to reread the book to fully get whats going on. *Some chandelier with no major plot significance, lets give that a 3 paragraph description.
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May 15, 2018 18:07
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Still the perfect example on why 100% show with zero tell can be a problem, I love it when half the mystery of the book is figuring out what the gently caress the characters are talking about. If you like that sort of thing I'd strongly recommend Graydon Saunders.
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May 15, 2018 18:38
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cultureulterior posted:If you like that sort of thing I'd strongly recommend Graydon Saunders. The standards, in particular. And the weeds. And the wizards.
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May 15, 2018 19:12
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Finished the 18th annual Year's Best Science Fiction (2000)collection edited by Gardner Dozois. I enjoy reading anthologies and sometimes you can tell the editor's mindset from the types of stories selected. Also I want to say thanks for posting your thoughts on these! I'm currently going through Hartwell's The World Treasury of Science Fiction and... I discovered that I like Jack London's writing style, John Updike's prose is unbearable for me and a lot of the translated stories are amazing.
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May 15, 2018 19:34
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90s Cringe Rock posted:The March North is extremely good military fantasy where figuring out what the gently caress is going on in this quiet* little corner of a post-d&d apocalypse hellscape is part of the fun. well this is almost exactly the sort of thing I like. cheers!
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May 15, 2018 19:35
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Still the perfect example on why 100% show with zero tell can be a problem, I love it when half the mystery of the book is figuring out what the gently caress the characters are talking about. Yeah, I really enjoyed The Quantum Thief but if this sort of thing puts you off probably avoid it, nothing I've ever read throws you into the deep end with no help quite as hard as it does. Super cool universe though, it's very original.
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May 15, 2018 19:39
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Arcsech posted:Yeah, I really enjoyed The Quantum Thief but if this sort of thing puts you off probably avoid it, nothing I've ever read throws you into the deep end with no help quite as hard as it does. Yeah it was neat and I don't regret the read, I just really really wanted to love the book and even after I figured out what was going on it was just ehhh okay.
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May 15, 2018 20:34
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Yeah it was neat and I don't regret the read, I just really really wanted to love the book and even after I figured out what was going on it was just ehhh okay. It's been a while since I've read it, but I recall thinking the first few chapters were really bad about this, but then it was mostly fine after they got to Mars.
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May 15, 2018 20:59
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Nevvy Z posted:Read this if you haven't everyone. It's real loving cool. I loved it. Is he ever going to write more books?
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May 15, 2018 21:02
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Phanatic posted:I loved it. Is he ever going to write more books? The answer is right there if you click the link.
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May 15, 2018 21:05
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ToxicFrog posted:
I read the cobra books and they were boring, slow and overly long. Bland action and eye-rollingly bad "political intrigue". I.e not very fun.
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May 15, 2018 21:55
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cultureulterior posted:If you like that sort of thing I'd strongly recommend Graydon Saunders. Or Steven Erikson.
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May 15, 2018 23:05
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90s Cringe Rock posted:The March North is extremely good military fantasy where figuring out what the gently caress is going on in this quiet* little corner of a post-d&d apocalypse hellscape is part of the fun. I loved The March North so much I read sequels as well, which I didn't like nearly as much. Have you read The Human Dress? I'm trying to figure out whether I should pick it up.
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May 16, 2018 01:05
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Arcsech posted:Yeah, I really enjoyed The Quantum Thief but if this sort of thing puts you off probably avoid it, nothing I've ever read throws you into the deep end with no help quite as hard as it does. Challenge mode is listening to the audiobook of this, especially if you haven't read it before. That was a hosed up experience.
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May 16, 2018 01:09
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nessin posted:Challenge mode is listening to the audiobook of this, especially if you haven't read it before. That was a hosed up experience. I’ve listened to the audiobook version of this so many times (though only after having read it) I find it kind of meditative. The only other audiobook I’ve done as often is Dune.
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May 16, 2018 06:18
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Ghostmonkey posted:I loved The March North so much I read sequels as well, which I didn't like nearly as much. I haven't read The Human Dress. Keep considering it, but I'm more interested in more Commonweal.
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May 16, 2018 06:34
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cultureulterior posted:If you like that sort of thing I'd strongly recommend Graydon Saunders. Or not. March North is fantasy Black company Cook style, the sequels are utter poo poo Minecraft fantasies explaining why he is self published.
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May 16, 2018 07:35
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oh darn. that explains having not heard of him or these books.
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May 16, 2018 07:45
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Selachian posted:Or Steven Erikson. Or Bakker or Cook or Wolfe. One could almost call it generic fantasy.
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May 16, 2018 10:29
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Comedy option. Kevin J. Though I think that is because there is never any plot beyond the first few pages.
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May 16, 2018 11:29
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Cardiac posted:the sequels are utter poo poo Minecraft fantasies explaining why he is self published. For some reason I keep imagining this as a lit-RPG but with Minecraft as the game base instead. Hopefully with complete listings of the protagonists inventory every dozen or so pages.
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May 16, 2018 15:04
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It is nothing like that, it's basically wizard students doing civil engineering, but if you'd like I can find you some of that. There is a *lot* of that. Let's see... It's a self-insert too!  (dear god no I haven't read this, holy poo poo, even I'm not that desperate to feed nerd words into my eyes)
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May 16, 2018 15:36
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90s Cringe Rock posted:It is nothing like that, it's basically wizard students doing civil engineering, but if you'd like I can find you some of that. There is a *lot* of that. Let's see... It's a self-insert too! Then what are you doing posting here?
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May 16, 2018 15:37
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StrixNebulosa posted:Then what are you doing posting here?
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May 16, 2018 15:39
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90s Cringe Rock posted:It is nothing like that, it's basically wizard students doing civil engineering, but if you'd like I can find you some of that. There is a *lot* of that. Let's see... It's a self-insert too! Exactly. So if you buy into his sequels based on March North, you are sorely disappointed to say the least. March North is ok, nothing new really and could have used some actual editing, but there was clearly options to expand the universe. Which wasn’t done and I guess here is the reason why he is self published. The sequels are simply just boring with no progression whatsoever. Even latter books of GoT and WoT have more flow.
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May 16, 2018 17:48
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andrew smash posted:I’ve listened to the audiobook version of this so many times (though only after having read it) I find it kind of meditative. The only other audiobook I’ve done as often is Dune.
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May 16, 2018 19:31
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Think I'll give Gene Wolfe a try. I'll admit everything I've heard about his writing has intimidated me so I never tried.
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May 16, 2018 21:07
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Think I'll give Gene Wolfe a try. I'll admit everything I've heard about his writing has intimidated me so I never tried. Personally I find his work impressive on an intellectual level, but not something that I actually enjoy reading. Still, worth giving it a shot.
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May 16, 2018 21:37
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The first book of the New Sun comes off as gratuitous shock horror on first read, at least it did for me. I went in expecting the standard hero's journey fantasy tropes, with Severarian rescuing the captive princess he was assigned to torture. I was very, very wrong.
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May 16, 2018 22:51
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Think I'll give Gene Wolfe a try. I'll admit everything I've heard about his writing has intimidated me so I never tried. He's a pretty easy read. I'm serious. His prose is GOOD. It's a joy to read. Don't worry about all the "THE REAL STORY IS HIDDEN TEN LAYERS DEEP" bullshit. That may be true but it doesn't matter, Wolfe's stories also work fantastically on the surface level, even if sometimes they don't make a lick of sense (looking at you, An Evil Guest). I think Wolfe's biggest strength as a writer is his characters. They're so...human. Even the aliens and trolls and poo poo. There's one scene in The Wizard Knight that pops into my head frequently because it's so intensely, depressingly, moving. TWK SPOILERS when Able sees Disiri for what she really is, a shoddily-constructed creature of sticks and leaves and mud, who doesn't have a soul and isn't even "alive," really. But he still loves her. And then there's the entire Book of the Short Sun, which is probably the most emotional piece of fiction I've ever read. Oh man, the last few chapters of Return to the Whorl are insane. And the scene in In Green's Jungles where Horn clears the sewer on Green - it takes up like a paragraph but packs more thematic resonance into it than the entire body of most SFF authors's works. I like Gene Wolfe, and you should read him. Start with The Sorcerer's House if you want something fun, The Fifth Head of Cerberus if you want something more serious/intellectual, or just dive right into The Shadow of the Torturer.
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May 17, 2018 00:58
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Finished the 20th annual Year's Best Science Fiction (2002) collection edited by Gardner Dozois. Had read about 1/3 of the of the stories in this anthology from other sci-fi story anthologies so it was a quicker read than normal. Quickness of reading aided by the "Greg Egan hell no" apathy effect making me skip his story + the following 3 stories in the anthology. I will never know or care if the stories I skipped were good, Greg Egan just taints the hell out of things for me. Ian R. MacLeod, Nancy Kress, Paul McAuley, Molly Glass, Ian MacDonald, and Geoff Ryman all had interesting stories and/or good characters in them. Robert Reed dropped acid & tried to emulate Vonnegut(and failed) for his story, Alastair Reynolds story took place in the Revelation Space universe.
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May 17, 2018 03:28
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Any recommendations on books similar to David Eddings' Elenium and Tamuli? I am probably the minority, but I like them better than the Belgariad and sequel. I like the church knights characters more I suppose than the cast of Belgariad, what with them being of militant orders yet pragmatic and often humorous.
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May 17, 2018 04:21
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