General TBB Chat/questions thread - I'm on Earth in 2023.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > General TBB Chat/questions thread - I'm on Earth in 2023.

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StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

MrSlam posted:

I mean to say, what would the effects be on the plot of the Harry Potter series? He might be friends with Ron but wouldn't be friends with Hermione for instance who probably would've died or been seriously injured by that troll. He probably would've lashed out at Snape eventually. Assuming he still somehow gets a hold of Dobby he would've had a personal slave. Without his friends he probably would've been uninvolved in the big mystery plots. Whatever, it was a stupid question without an answer.

I guarantee you that somewhere out there on the internet, someone has not just thought about this, they've written (likely unfinished) fanfic about it. Possibly with a romantic subplot included to boot!

# ¿ Jun 15, 2016 11:18

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 13:08

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

mcustic posted:

The Looming Tower is probably the best non-fic I've read during the last few years, comparable only to Wright's Scientology book. I'd go with that one.

And that's another book checked out of the library on my end. Thank you both for the description and rec, it sounds like it's worth a look!

# ¿ Jul 15, 2016 09:05

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I got books for Christmas! A Matter of Oaths by Helen S Wright, and The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook and they're both A+ sci-fi that appeals to me greatly through interesting world-building. :toot:

# ¿ Dec 25, 2016 09:52

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Powaqoatse posted:

Did u already read them!?

24 and 30 pages into each one respectively due to slow reading + holiday stuff keeping me busy!

# ¿ Dec 27, 2016 01:44

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Powaqoatse posted:

Ah ok, it just seemed like you'd already read them by mentioning the world building as if you knew it

but do post back if theyre good

Will do!

The reason I'm impressed with the worldbuilding so far is that in A Matter of Oaths, I can already tell the author put thought into how their weird starship piloting method works, and how it creates a culture of pilots outside of the standards you see in most sci-fi. They pilot ships through 'webbing', which seems to be.... I'm not even sure yet. Full body linkup with the ship, I think? It's weird, and I love it when sci-fi goes weird.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2016 05:18

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Hi, I hated it. It felt disjointed in a way that kept me from getting interested or invested. It also has the feel of something someone wrote for NaNoWriMo, and even with the editing it just...shows? It needs to be tighter.

Also, regarding the pronouns, I got annoyed at how the main character would figure out genders and then slap everyone with one anyways. I mean, it's absolutely fine to go with she as the default, but ignoring the preferred gender just smacked me as rude. That's a personal gripe, though.

Another peeve: the starship character ultimately felt human. I know every single alien a human writes will have an element of that, but it felt too human, if that makes any sense? It made it difficult to - again - get invested when I could tell it was a written story, and not a great one at that.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 07:55

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Powaqoatse posted:

their language only has one gender, so ��The Ancillary themselves hardly understands the disitinction & thus comments on their judgments through the book.

also she didnt feel human imo

Fair on both counts: it's been a while since I read it, and the alien-ness thing is highly subjective.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 08:19

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

chernobyl kinsman posted:

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > General TBB Chat/questions thread - ongoing chat about some rando goodreads troll!

well what do you want this thread to be about instead?

# ¿ Mar 18, 2017 06:12

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

chernobyl kinsman posted:

"Relentless and heartbreaking, primal and redemptive"

This sounds like peak emotional novel and really not my style as I like to read for escapism purposes.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2017 06:18

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I've had this copy of Ben Bova's Mars floating around for a while - haven't read it myself as the stars haven't aligned for it - but my dad asked for some good sci-fi to read now that he's retired and has time to read again, and now I have this wonderful problem where he won't stop telling me about how cool this book is. :allears:

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 22:30

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Avshalom posted:

reading is for hosed up dweebs and nerds

objection, have you ever met anyone who isn't a dweeb or nerd

# ¿ May 4, 2017 11:30

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

RC and Moon Pie posted:

Colonel Sanders - yes, the Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken - now has a romance novel for Mother's Day.

It is called Tender Wings of Desire and is free for Kindle.

why

# ¿ May 7, 2017 07:50

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

vortmax posted:

Ugh, nothing specifically for Laundry Files or even Stross in general? Come on Goons, you make me sad.

e: Convince me to read the Jennifer Morgue, I keep putting it off.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 07:27

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Influx Press is having a sale for a ton of their ebooks - I'm bringing this up here because my favorite book about cities, Imaginary Cities by Darran Anderson - is on sale. It's delightfully weird and informative and probably one of my favorite works of nonfiction.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2017 18:56

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Video game novels are generally generic genre fiction but if you know what they're based on, you know exactly what flavor of genre fiction you're in for. And sometimes I want to read terrible Shadowrun fiction - it's like having a bag of doritos

Not every book you read has to be good

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 17:24

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Fair 'nuff!

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 17:33

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

A human heart posted:

can't say i know this feel to be perfectly honest

Try reading Never Deal with a Dragon by Robert N Charrette sometime, it'll broaden your horizons

# ¿ Nov 1, 2017 00:50

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Two of the top reviews on amazon both go "Terrible writing and characters, but setting is cool"

It's stupid, it's fun, it'll really make you appreciate good writing. Which helps sometimes? I write, I get into moods where I'm super critical and it's... Well, Twain said it best. When he learned the river, he couldn't have the innocent admiration of how pretty it was. Instead he'd spot every rock and eddy and he'd know the best route for his riverboat.

When I get too far into analyzing sentences instead of chilling and having a good time, mediocre genre fiction is there for me. And to an extent it makes my imagination work better - if I were rewriting this, I'd do it better...

# ¿ Nov 1, 2017 02:15

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

chernobyl kinsman posted:

fun, though

# ¿ Nov 1, 2017 23:31

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Mel Mudkiper posted:

You never answered if you were the one who recommended cherryh to me

I was. That whole discussion got frustrating so I left the thread for a while.

Cherryh writes some of the finest sci-fi if not the best sci-fi I've ever read, and Cyteen is one of my all-time favorite novels for how it looks at human psychology, how future tech might impact society, realistic politics, and so on.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2017 00:37

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Mel Mudkiper posted:

She has some interesting scenes and ideas (I liked the weird drugged out woman on man rape scene) but holy christ does she need an editor

What would you have had her cut?

# ¿ Nov 2, 2017 02:19

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Mel Mudkiper posted:

The explicit world-building, the overlong dialogs that serve only to establish the rules of the world, the intricate political details of a wholly imagined world, the lethargic pace of her descriptions.

I would not have cut scenes as much I would have her take Hemingway's shears to her prose in general.

I feel like there was very little in the first hundred pages that couldn't have been equally accomplished in 20 or so.

I'm a sucker for world-building, fantasy politics, and her writing style, so I disagree - but thank you for the breakdown! I'm going to reread Cyteen again in the next year so I'll look at those pages again from a new perspective.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2017 02:26

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Mel Mudkiper posted:

As I've stated before, I loathe world building as a concept and as a goal. I feel sometimes like sci fi authors spend all their energy on the setting and forget that their characters are not simply vehicles for the plot

This is a problem that's prevalent in genre fiction, but when you can find an author who uses the world building to create genuinely interesting plots and conflicts, it's worth it.

Jane Fancher's Groundties is another example of this being pulled off, in my opinion - but she writes like Cherryh so I don't know if you'd like it. Peter Watts' Starfish is in the same vein, but written very differently. Have you read his stuff?

Also, if the world building is fun - like in Shadowrun - I enjoy reading it just for escapism reasons. The characters become my vehicles to see the world, and if they're bad tour guides, oh well.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2017 02:42

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

What does this forum think of Barbara Tuchman? I got Guns of August as a Christmas gift amongst other things and I want to hear what goons think of it.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 19:15

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

We did that as a book of the month a few years ago, so check those threads.

Thanks!

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 19:18

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

"This thread is marked for archival and cannot be modified."

... I have archives and I can't see it.... :sigh:

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 19:21

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Are you using the phone app? Try a desktop browser.

I'm using chrome on a laptop, it should work.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 19:31

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Update: using the archives to go back to the forum in 2014 worked and I'm reading the thread now.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 19:35

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Take the plunge! Okay! posted:

I once got yelled at by a mod for recommending Tuchman�s A Distant Mirror as an overview of medieval life since it was about a rich white dude. Me insisting that we don�t really have many sources about how poor women of color lived in the Middle Ages to write books from didn�t go down that well either. Thanks for reading my story about a Dutch Marxist moderator of the Something Awful forums.

I'm not quite sure how to take this, because H. Alloy is the only mod in The Book Barn and they're a cool person.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 19:35

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

alnilam posted:

Would it be too specific to start a George Saunders thread?

I mean, we have a bunch of specific author threads. :justpost:

# ¿ Jan 29, 2018 15:58

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

In the community college Freshman English II I'm taking, the book list is:

Hamlet
Maus
Their Eyes Were Watching God

I'm down with everything but Hamlet, because we did Hamlet for an entire semester in High School along with other Shakespeare for like every year so I am sick to death of him.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2018 16:29

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

learnincurve posted:

I will argue quite hard for a midsummer night's dream being the best introduction to Shakespeare�s works. Especially from a language point of view, once you explain what the words in the play within a play actually mean* and tell the kids that the rest of the play is scattered with other dirty words a lot of them suddenly find it not so boring after all.

*for example hole = Vagina and stones = bollocks

�That I, one Snout by name, present a wall.
And such a wall, as I would have you think,
That had in it a crannied hole, or chink,
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe,
Did whisper often very secretly.
This loam, this roughcast, and this stone doth show
That I am that same wall. The truth is so.
And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper�

�O Wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
My cherry lips have often kissed thy stones,
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.�

Of course, this is one of the Shakespeare things we never touched. Hamlet, MacBeth, Romeo and Juliet were the big ones that we studied. :sigh:

# ¿ Feb 16, 2018 16:52

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

How about embarrassment at my own relative lack of success? It's not possible for me to look at a photo of this dude without thinking "this loving dude made zillions of dollars writing a litrpg"

I feel your pain: if trash that's just fanfic with the names reskinned like 50 Shades of Gray and Twilight can sell and get movie deals, why... why do I even write....

# ¿ Mar 6, 2018 20:52

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

# ¿ Mar 27, 2018 14:48

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

You could try selling the collection on bulk on ebay or craigslist - "here's some photos of the boxes and some titles, the rest is a grabbag, buy 200 books for 40$"

# ¿ Apr 30, 2018 15:35

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

FirstAidKite posted:

I finished reading Fat Cat At Large and I can safely say that Fat Cat doesn't do a damned thing.

Not a damned thing.

Hell, it's kinda funny how pretty much every instance of Quincy the cat's involvement actively damages the main character's attempts to be seen viewed as not the prime suspect, and it is in spite of the cat and his owner's involvement that the hot detective is able to figure out who the murderer is. The only thing the protagonist does is successfully lead the detective to her location once she ends up getting held hostage by the murderer.

Lol what a dumb book, I enjoyed it though and I've started on the sequel, Fat Cat Spreads Out.

I'm so glad this book series captures essence of cat perfectly.

# ¿ May 15, 2018 12:09

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Star Man posted:

How on earth did I end up with a degree in English comp/rhet yet reading a book on my own volition and free time is the single hardest thing for me to do? I get about a fifth of the way through a book and just stop reading.

I deserve to be killed and it drives me loving crazy that I can't read.

I don't finish books either. You don't deserve death for this.

As I understand it all of the forced reading for school will kill the desire to read for pleasure, so don't worry it.

I rec going to a library and browsing in different sections from your usual places. Try some YA, try looking at literally everything in the new books section. Read a few pages of everything, see how you feel.

Last bit: the book the Ghost Map, about the plague in London, was both well-written and interesting that I devoured it in a few days, which is rare for me.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2018 03:10

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I never know what to do, as a mod, when someone recommends a Piers Anthony novel

I'd say quote the books at 'em but god, opening one of those again...

# ¿ Jun 28, 2018 14:46

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

MockingQuantum posted:

You could always just link them this, it's got some choice morsels that can't be unread (given that it's Piers Anthony's actual, for real writing quoted there I feel like it goes without saying but it's probably depending on your personal standards for such things) https://hradzka.livejournal.com/392471.html

"man could not force a woman, unless he was married to her; he could only do what she wished"

No! No no no! Not how marriage works!

# ¿ Jun 28, 2018 21:35

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 13:08

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

In fact, they were lovers, in the truest sense, age no barrier.

She's loving five!

# ¿ Jun 28, 2018 21:37

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > General TBB Chat/questions thread - I'm on Earth in 2023.

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