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RFC2324
Jun 7, 2012

http 418

Jedit posted:

So it's a bad book, then. Condensing the plot of a whole novel into one chapter is as bad as stretching out one chapter's worth of plot into a whole novel.

Its best read as a prologue to the book, or at least thats the way it always came off to me. Kind of a 'This is how we got to where we are'

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Victorkm
Nov 25, 2001

Mandragora posted:

I read it in one sitting today. With the caveat that I've been a huge Gaiman fan since I was a mopey teenager and stumbled into Sandman, I think this might be his strongest novel yet. It isn't broad and sweeping like American Gods and that's really to its benefit, it's an extremely intimate and personal tale and I love how it's told from the perspective of a child, but by that child as an adult reminiscing. Short read but totally worth picking up if you've enjoyed any of his previous work. It's equal parts whimsy and horror, and since it's approached from a childlike perspective I found that the horror had a lot of weight to it (that crushing sense of absolute helplessness you get when you're a kid and you know no one is going to take you seriously on something), but so did the sense of wonder and awe and acceptance at all the fantastic stuff happening over the course of the story.

This review captures it perfectly. I also read right through it in less than a day and I thought it was pretty amazing.

PlushCow
Oct 19, 2005

The cow eats the grass

Play posted:

You know it's funny, because I couldn't disagree with you more. I actually adored the very beginning of the black company series, because of its brusqueness. Often I really appreciate writing that is a bit aloof, where things happen quickly and there is little unnecessary exposition and description. In contrast, I feel like over time the Black Company books became more like an infinite number of other mediocre fantasy series.

I am one of those who always will highly recommend Passage At Arms as Glen Cook's finest book, but then I'm a sucker for sci fi and naval battles and submarine epics and when they're all combined, so much the better (:

I think it really needed more description and exposition in the short part that I read, because:

mllaneza posted:

Cook's talent for plot is readily apparent in the first few books of the Black Company series. How does this sound for a novel:

A mercenary company investigates an insurgency, puts down a rebellion, plots with a foreign wizard to betray their employer, hunts a were leopard, assassinates their employer, fights their way out of the city, and takes service with a dark wizard of formidable power and subtlety. That's chapter one of The Black Company.

That's how it reads, like it's a novel of bullet-points for the plot, never expanded upon; a good outline of a novel but not fleshed out. That blurb sounds exciting, but when Cook only devotes a couple paragraphs to a couple pages to each of those plot points it feels hollow and not compelling at all to me.

Azathoth
Apr 3, 2001

PlushCow posted:

That's how it reads, like it's a novel of bullet-points for the plot, never expanded upon; a good outline of a novel but not fleshed out. That blurb sounds exciting, but when Cook only devotes a couple paragraphs to a couple pages to each of those plot points it feels hollow and not compelling at all to me.
Cook's style is pretty polarizing. When I read the first book, it immediately hooked me, but if you don't like his sparse style and gloss-over of events, then it's just going to be an infuriating series to read. I enjoy an unreliable narrator and have a high tolerance for not knowing what is going on at a high level, and I enjoyed how narrow the perspective of the world was. It was a refreshing change from some of the high fantasy that I'd been reading. However, if the series does not grab you within the first 100 pages, I'd say put it down and don't pick it up again, as it's only more of the same.

mareep
Dec 26, 2009

Just another to say Neil Gaiman's latest is exceptional and very captivating. It's a shorter book and took me about four hours to get through, but it definitely weighs on you--I came to TBB looking to see if anyone was talking about it. The only other Gaiman book I've read is Coraline (and Good Omens I guess) so I can't say I'm a huge lifelong fan or anything (definitely going to read more now though), and this book was incredibly surprising.

Arglebargle III posted:

I would like to put in a plug for Garth Nix's Sabriel. It's YA fantasy with superb pacing, just enough wold-building to intrigue without dragging things out, decent characterization and a dash of mystery. It just hangs together superbly and is a good 1-2 night read because you will be turning those pages. If you like stories about the undead and undeath that are completely original and have nothing to do with vampires or werewolves or zombies then it's a must-read. It's also very much "all ages" YA, most of the people I've talked to who have read it were adults.

Sabriel also has a sequel and a "trilogy" with the last book basically just being the end of the sequel which are good but never quite match the craftsmanship that went into Sabriel. You'll probably read them anyway and enjoy them if you like Sabriel. Nix has a lot of other YA fantasy out there but Sabriel is by far his best work.

Totally agreeing with this too, I've always loved this series. I actually ultimately prefer the second book, Lirael. The characters are fantastic and world building is great and refreshingly original in a lot of ways. Just unique, I guess, there aren't any series I'd place in exactly the same category.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I'm like halfway through book 2 of Hyperion and am not much feeling it any more. Should I keep going?

I really was into the first book, especially the beginning. The whole "world" always felt a bit thin, but I hugely enjoyed the narrative structure of essentially five short stories. The first short story with the people of the cruciform being my favorite.

Everything relating to the cybercore feels totally fake and stupid to me. The whole Keats thing is feeling like the author's favorite poet shoe-horned into the story. It was somewhat bearable in the first book but now he's pushing it further in the second along with more cybercore stuff.

Everything happening now with the shrike, tree, and the timetombs is starting to strain plausibility and I'm doubting the author's capacity to come up with anything satisfying to bring the plot back to something that isn't just weird for the sake of weirdness.

Am I off base or should I just stop while I'm ahead?

Play
Apr 25, 2006

Strong stroll for a mangy stray
It's kind of your call, if you're not enjoying that plotline at all feel free to stop. I definitely liked the second one, but its definitely not as good as the first one and its... different. The plot, in my opinion, never really wraps up in a very satisfying manner, but I felt that this was unsurprising.

Jedit posted:

So it's a bad book, then. Condensing the plot of a whole novel into one chapter is as bad as stretching out one chapter's worth of plot into a whole novel.

Well that's a really simplistic way to look at it. There isn't a right or wrong way to write a novel and to think so is silly. Like someone else said, it serves as a prologue and is meant to be the logs of a mercenary company and so it is mimicking the style of a ship's log, which obviously is not written like a novel. In my opinion it works beautifully and its an amazing hook to get you started on the book. Some people prefer more endless exposition but for me that would just make it the same as almost everything else.

Play fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Jun 23, 2013

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010

I didn't realise the new Gaiman was out yet; I was expecting more publicity. I'll have to take a look at it.

systran posted:

I'm like halfway through book 2 of Hyperion and am not much feeling it any more. Should I keep going?

I was going to say that I liked the ending, but my reactions at the time were actually pretty negative, although it seems I liked the Shrikestuff. Though if you didn't enjoy those two, I'd definitely say not to pick up the Endymion pair.

Fiendish Dr. Wu
Nov 11, 2010

You done fucked up now!

systran posted:

I'm like halfway through book 2 of Hyperion and am not much feeling it any more. Should I keep going?

I really was into the first book, especially the beginning. The whole "world" always felt a bit thin, but I hugely enjoyed the narrative structure of essentially five short stories. The first short story with the people of the cruciform being my favorite.

Everything relating to the cybercore feels totally fake and stupid to me. The whole Keats thing is feeling like the author's favorite poet shoe-horned into the story. It was somewhat bearable in the first book but now he's pushing it further in the second along with more cybercore stuff.

Everything happening now with the shrike, tree, and the timetombs is starting to strain plausibility and I'm doubting the author's capacity to come up with anything satisfying to bring the plot back to something that isn't just weird for the sake of weirdness.

Am I off base or should I just stop while I'm ahead?

I'm probably about where you are and almost feeling the same way. I tore through book 1 and I agree the narrative structure was highly enjoyable. It made for a nice variety in story telling. But I am showing down immensely in book 2.

To anybody who finished book 2: does it continue in the same narrative style throughout the rest of the book? (awake cybrid / dreaming cybrid)

my bony fealty
Oct 1, 2008

Just finished reading Arthur C. Clarke's last novel, written with/finished by Frederick Pohl, The Last Theorem. I did't like it very much at all. The characters are all flat and boring, the plot doesn't make much sense and follows a bunch of random events that don't make any sense connected to each other. The actual "sci-fi" parts just made me roll my eyes and are a mishmash of tired cliches that both of those authors, and many more, have presented far better. Avoid this one!

coyo7e
Aug 23, 2007

by zen death robot

Play posted:

Like someone else said, it serves as a prologue and is meant to be the logs of a mercenary company and so it is mimicking the style of a ship's log, which obviously is not written like a novel.
My problem with them was that they quickly became a somewhat ludicrous series of 'penthouse pet' letters to Playgirl magazine, from one veteran scribe of middle years, writing said "log".

All of the power levels jumping to 11 and epic battles and silly premises are fine but the series quickly turns into a mildly boring weird fantasy of an author having sex with Athena or Kali or something while huge battles go on around his sex life.

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer
Just finished up Grim Reaping by Anthony Lund.

Pretty damned good. LONG, but pretty good.

Basically, if you like Pratchett's Death, this book is basically him.

andrew smash
Jun 26, 2006

smooth soul

systran posted:

I'm like halfway through book 2 of Hyperion and am not much feeling it any more. Should I keep going?

I really was into the first book, especially the beginning. The whole "world" always felt a bit thin, but I hugely enjoyed the narrative structure of essentially five short stories. The first short story with the people of the cruciform being my favorite.

Everything relating to the cybercore feels totally fake and stupid to me. The whole Keats thing is feeling like the author's favorite poet shoe-horned into the story. It was somewhat bearable in the first book but now he's pushing it further in the second along with more cybercore stuff.

Everything happening now with the shrike, tree, and the timetombs is starting to strain plausibility and I'm doubting the author's capacity to come up with anything satisfying to bring the plot back to something that isn't just weird for the sake of weirdness.

Am I off base or should I just stop while I'm ahead?

Not really. There isn't a particularly satisfying conclusion to much of the plot threads so you should just drop it when you feel like stopping. There is a big reveal about the time tombs at the end of the book which is nice I guess. Also, the segment when kassad fights moneta is fairly well-written. The rest of it is mediocre.

Axel Serenity
Sep 27, 2002
Throwing in more love for Gaiman's newest (honestly surprised there isn't a Gaiman thread, really). I've been a fan for quite some time, but was actually a little off-put by how short it was when it arrived in the mail. The prose styling is very simple, more along the lines of his children's novels than his adult work, but once you start to "get it," the book really hits a stride. He says a lot without needing a ton of difficult wording, and it fits the narrative of a young boy. It's not a huge novel with a grand scope, but it is very effective at what it sets out to accomplish. Gaiman's really hit home with his concept here.

Think of it more along the lines of Coraline, but with a few segments that are maybe a little too adult or scary for younger readers. There are a ton of Gaiman staples in it for long-time fans, as well. I'm not sure I would quite put it above American Gods or Neverwhere, but looking back, I think I enjoyed it more than Anansi Boys. A very satisfying read after a nearly decade wait for a new adult novel.

savinhill
Mar 28, 2010

Axel Serenity posted:


Think of it more along the lines of Coraline, but with a few segments that are maybe a little too adult or scary for younger readers. There are a ton of Gaiman staples in it for long-time fans, as well. I'm not sure I would quite put it above American Gods or Neverwhere, but looking back, I think I enjoyed it more than Anansi Boys. A very satisfying read after a nearly decade wait for a new adult novel.

I really liked both American Gods and Neverwhere, while not liking Anansi, so I'm going to have to listen to you and read his new one real soon.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
Could someone with an ebook of Hyperion do a ctrl+f for "lapis" and "lapis lazuli"? I'm pretty sure it will be over 25 times for "lapis". Every time he starts describing scenery you know you are in for something being lapis. In the second book he once even said something like, "hinting at lapis". He can only describe colors in terms of how close or far they are from lapis.

Joramun
Dec 1, 2011

No man has need of candles when the Sun awaits him.

systran posted:

I'm pretty sure it will be over 25 times for "lapis".

14, by my count.

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer
Well, poo poo. Richard Matheson has passed away.

I think I have seen more of his books and stories made into movies and twilight zone episodes than any other author I have ever read.

Shonagon
Mar 27, 2005

It is impervious to reason or pleading, it knows no mercy or patience.
Brits: Kate Griffin A Madness of Angels is 99p on Kindle daily deal today. I love these - urban fantasy, a sorceror returns from the dead half-possessed by the blue electric angels that line in phone lines, and all his powers are based around urban living, specifically London. I prefer these to any other urban fantasy, and there's no godawful cheesy YA stuff, romance or snarky vampires.

Some people hate the writing style, which is quite disjointed, but it's a first person narrative from a half-mad possessed dead sorceror, so.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Lawrence Watt-Evans is doing a kickstarter to publish his next novel:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/217993880/publish-lawrence-watt-evans-vikas-avenger

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010


That's interesting, as in "interesting times". Someone with a backlist the size of that, who can't sell a book that looks rather easy to sell. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but it's interesting the target is so low - he's figuring a print run of 200 copies. It's nice that the reward tiers are named after aspects of the novel, too.

MartingaleJack
Aug 26, 2004

I'll split you open and I don't even like coconuts.

House Louse posted:

That's interesting, as in "interesting times". Someone with a backlist the size of that, who can't sell a book that looks rather easy to sell. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but it's interesting the target is so low - he's figuring a print run of 200 copies. It's nice that the reward tiers are named after aspects of the novel, too.

Maybe it's a bad book. The dialogue snippet certainly isn't doing anything for me.

InsomnicIneptitude
Jun 25, 2013

TY for no bm
Has anyone read the recent Orson Scott Card prequel to the Ender/Bean books? Earth Afire. It was out the first week of June and is the sequel to Earth Unaware. They're both about the first Formic war (Ender's Game is the story of the third Formic war). I thought the two books were both pretty solid. They're cowritten by Aaron Johnston.

FastestGunAlive
Apr 7, 2010

Dancing palm tree.

coyo7e posted:

I was never impressed with the prose either, it's very "workmanlike", I guess is the term for when some random veteran writes a bunch of books with arguable skill at writing prose. I see it a lot in pulp military novels, which is why I mention veteran, specifically - I assume their target audience's not too finicky about that stuff most of the time.

The story itself was OK but I quickly lost interest when he brought the silly romance stuff in and left it front-center for the following books, and changed the focus of the books a bunch. It just felt like some kind of power fantasy where the author dreams of seducing the queen of the Amazons.

Just finished this series last night. Cook really needed an editor or two and maybe some help organizing his ideas and plot because the Black Company is all over the place. The closer to the end it gets the more he rambles and goes off on random loose ends instead of wrapping everything up.

He starts killing off characters at a high rate, and very casually, towards the end but you don't really care because they are rarely fleshed out- In the last book the Prince who once ruled the land the Black Company has been operating in for much of the series is killed. He has been hyped up as potentially reclaiming his throne for two or three books and he is randomly killed by a magic spell/ability/whatever ricocheting off a rock and taking his head off. Everyone else is shocked for 2 pages and then carries on.. These kind of deaths are very common.

This series is not really targeting towards or particularly appealing towards veterans. Only the first book is focused on a group of soldiers fighting in a war, the rest of the series alternates between your fantasy standard (more or less) small group of heroes fighting evil and main characters controlling huge armies. There isn't any particular authenticity to the military aspect of this series nor did I find myself relating to it. In fact, the author blends more modern terms and ideas like "commando", "battalion", etc with your fantasy standard pseudo-medieval Europe armies and technology, which ends up not feeling right.

Read the first book, its a good break from your normal fantasy but don't bother with the rest. And if you do decide to read the rest, do not read The Silver Spike, I could write paragraphs about how that is one of the worst books, of any genre, I've ever read.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

House Louse posted:

That's interesting, as in "interesting times". Someone with a backlist the size of that, who can't sell a book that looks rather easy to sell. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but it's interesting the target is so low - he's figuring a print run of 200 copies. It's nice that the reward tiers are named after aspects of the novel, too.

WAtt-Evans has a long history of doing alternative publishing -- his publishers have told him they want him to write Epic Trilogies because that's what sells, but most of his stuff is more character driven. I've read most of his books and enjoyed almost all of them (although one or two were outright bad, but that's any author with that many books; even Pratchett has a few missteps) but I can totally see why his books aren't huge sellers.

For a while now he's been publishing his Ethshar books serially online under a tip jar model, releasing a chapter each time the jar fills up, basically. So kickstarter is a natural transition for him. He's got a small coterie of devoted fans but isn't a mass market author really.

Drakyn
Dec 26, 2012

FastestGunAlive posted:

Read the first book, its a good break from your normal fantasy but don't bother with the rest. And if you do decide to read the rest, do not read The Silver Spike, I could write paragraphs about how that is one of the worst books, of any genre, I've ever read.
Well now, don't just tease us like that. Please, go for it!

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010

Seriously, interesting and/or passionate talk about books you hate is cool, too.

BananaNutkins posted:

Maybe it's a bad book. The dialogue snippet certainly isn't doing anything for me.

Let me tell you about a little million-selling author called Dan Brown.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

WAtt-Evans has a long history of doing alternative publishing -- his publishers have told him they want him to write Epic Trilogies because that's what sells, but most of his stuff is more character driven. I've read most of his books and enjoyed almost all of them (although one or two were outright bad, but that's any author with that many books; even Pratchett has a few missteps) but I can totally see why his books aren't huge sellers.

For a while now he's been publishing his Ethshar books serially online under a tip jar model, releasing a chapter each time the jar fills up, basically. So kickstarter is a natural transition for him. He's got a small coterie of devoted fans but isn't a mass market author really.

OK, cheers, makes sense. It looks like this is doing really well for him (two days in, he's over $4,200) and it does look like he's getting dedicated support - the mean donation is about $30, which is more than the trade paperback level, i.e. most people are tending to go for the limited-edition, autographed, or whatever book. And that's taking into account that over a third of the pledgers are in the $5 ebook level.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

House Louse posted:

OK, cheers, makes sense. It looks like this is doing really well for him (two days in, he's over $4,200) and it does look like he's getting dedicated support - the mean donation is about $30, which is more than the trade paperback level, i.e. most people are tending to go for the limited-edition, autographed, or whatever book. And that's taking into account that over a third of the pledgers are in the $5 ebook level.

Yeah, I'm really tempted by the $75 level actually, because I'd really like a signed hardback of Ithnalin's Restoration. A magical accident spreads a wizard's personality out over all the living room furniture, which all then runs away, and his apprentice has to recollect them all to restore her boss.

It's a weird little book that would be a one-line background note in most fantasy series; the hero would just see someone chasing a magically animated couch down the street or whatever in the background while the Important Story was happening, and in fact it takes place at the same time as one of his other Ethshar books and nobody important can help the protagonist because they're all busy dealing with the events of that other book. It's just a nice little slice-of-life-in-high-magic-fantasy-setting-story that you don't very often see. Everybody else writes Epic Problems, Watt-Evans writes about ordinary people who happen to live in magical worlds. It's really refreshing.

I mean, don't get me wrong -- Watt-Evans is not the world's best prose stylist or anything. But he is a really solid B-list writer and nobody else bothers writing precisely the same kinds of stories as he does.

Victorkm
Nov 25, 2001

Victorkm posted:

Last time I bought a 3 dollar self published book that was hyped in this thread I got Blood Song so I am willing to give this a shot.

Re: From Hell by Ian Fraser:

I'm about halfway through now and I would seriously recommend against this book. The writing itself is decently done but the content is pretty dumb. So far there has been projectile explosive diarrhea used as a life saving device, male on male rape treated tongue in cheek contrasted with male on female gang rape treated seriously, and a male character who has changed himself to female and is exploring lesbianism. All in all, it's the last bit that has been the most exasperating. It smacks of author self-insert wish fulfillment.

I'm going to end up finishing the book but I would not recommend it to others.

Shonagon
Mar 27, 2005

It is impervious to reason or pleading, it knows no mercy or patience.

House Louse posted:

Seriously, interesting and/or passionate talk about books you hate is cool, too.


In that case can I put in an early complaint about THE BONE SEASON, Samantha Shannon. This is the new Next Big Thing by some 21 year old genius, who has nailed a seven-book deal on the strength of this being the next Twilight. It's YA/NA crossover (if you care) and is a fantasy about future London with illegal clairvoyants and who gives a gently caress because I died by the end of the first chapter.

In the UK edition, we begin with a double page spread in tiny font laying out the incredibly detailed hierarchy of magic users, presumably because the publishers have realised nobody will be able to take that poo poo on board from the writing. Then, three pages of maps. No excel spreadsheet, sadly.

The book itself starts with backstory. Six pages of backstory. I think the first line of dialogue came on p.7, and by p.8 we had the first 'As you know, your father, the King...' infodump line. Then followed what would have been quite an exciting scene in other hands, but since the narrative voice is a drab, affectless, personality-free drone, it wasn't. I died of boredom, was reborn, lived through the subsequent rotations of the Great Wheel to become a 39-year-old editor once more, and was still only at the end of the first chapter, so I gave up.

Seven book deal with major publishers on both sides of the Atlantic. There's no justice.

specklebang
Jun 7, 2013

Discount Philosopher and Cat Whisperer

Victorkm posted:

Re: From Hell by Ian Fraser:

I'm about halfway through now and I would seriously recommend against this book. The writing itself is decently done but the content is pretty dumb. So far there has been projectile explosive diarrhea used as a life saving device, male on male rape treated tongue in cheek contrasted with male on female gang rape treated seriously, and a male character who has changed himself to female and is exploring lesbianism. All in all, it's the last bit that has been the most exasperating. It smacks of author self-insert wish fulfillment.

I'm going to end up finishing the book but I would not recommend it to others.

Sorry. I thought it was hilarious and I bought a number of other books by the same author. That's why it's difficult to make recommendations - peoples tastes vary wildly.

Look at any book on Amazon and you'll see the same book get 5 star and 1 star reviews. How is this possible? One of my all time favorites was Altered Carbon. I loved that book. I read it once. Read it out loud with a friend. Listned to the audio version with 2 other people. That's 4 times for one book. And yet....

quote:

I rarely stop reading books part way through, but I couldn't continue with Altered Carbon. The writing is a dreadful imitation of the noir style, with sentences that clunk and burp, filled with superficial and unsatisfying details. The central character is a juvenile's sketch of an action hero: utterly without personality, banal and psychotic. The minor characters are so unconvincing I wonder how much life experience the author had before putting them to paper.

quote:

What promises from the reviews to be a complex and intriguing story turns out to be 500+ pages of superficial scenarios that are poorly stringed together. I only bothered to finish the book because I assumed events would come together for a grand finale, but the ending was just as blasé as the rest.

quote:

After about 100 pages I couldn't even read it anymore. The writing was poor and disjointed and the story is totally uninteresting. I would never guess that someone could make sci fi this boring and take any kind of wonder out of it.

are just a few of the comments about Altered Carbon.

Now, here are some reactions to From Hell:

quote:

Brilliant that hell has a disco & the waiters are infamous characters from history. Witty dialogue and really interesting situations that the characters fine equally unique and interesting ways of getting out of during the course of their adventures. I'm so glad I picked this book up which is truly a blend of Tolkien & Pratchett.

quote:

Despite the title, which I'm not sure really captures the essence of the book beyond it, this is a brilliantly constructed work, with excellent narrative, rounded dialogue and some truly inspired world building.

This is why it's challenging to make recommendations. I've seen suggestions here for books I found unreadable. I've also seen suggestions that inspired me to discover a new book or author.

On other forums, I usually post the Amazon link because that's where I do a lot of my "research". I did so with this book because it was Kindle only. I can only recommend that any book should be sampled before purchase.

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.
Not all tastes are created equal. Some books are actually better than others, independent of individual taste (though not independent of critical discourse).

One of the reasons this thread has always worked pretty well is that people are willing to speak up when books are bad as well as when they're good. These opinions can be engaged with and the substantive ones sorted to the top.

General Battuta fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Jun 28, 2013

Play
Apr 25, 2006

Strong stroll for a mangy stray
I just finished Takeshi Kovachs one and two (Altered Carbon and Something Angels) and I am partway through Woken Furies. I am really quite impressed with these books. They're not perfect, and they're a bit like airport fiction, but damned if they're not tons of fun. Altered Carbon was good, most of the second one was great (the ending I thought fell off a bit) and so far Woken Furies is the best of them all. So I would strongly recommend for sure. I had read The Steel Remains and The Cold Commands and really liked them so I guess it's no surprise that I like these, but I would say they're quite a bit better than that series, although apart from being gay Ringil Eskiath is absurdly similar to Takeshi Kovacs making it seem like Morgan can only create one kind of hero.

Well I don't really care, the Takeshi Kovacs series is brilliantly realized sci-fi noir and there should be more like it. It makes the Expanse series (recently Abbadon's Gate) look like a joke.

torgo
Aug 13, 2003


Fun Shoe
Can anyone recommend some sci-fi books about contact with incomprehensibly alien aliens? Blindsight is a good example of what I'm looking for. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson is another book that touches on this theme, but I have the feeling if I read the rest of the trilogy, the aliens' motivations will be revealed to be pretty "human" in the end.

Haerc
Jan 2, 2011

torgo posted:

Can anyone recommend some sci-fi books about contact with incomprehensibly alien aliens? Blindsight is a good example of what I'm looking for. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson is another book that touches on this theme, but I have the feeling if I read the rest of the trilogy, the aliens' motivations will be revealed to be pretty "human" in the end.

The Gap series by Stephen R. Donaldson has aliens that are completely alien. The human are all terribly broken though (this is a Stephen R. Donaldson series we are talking about).

Rurik
Mar 5, 2010

Thief
Warrior
Gladiator
Grand Prince

ZerodotJander posted:

That was Promise of Blood, by Brian McClellan.
Thanks, that was it. I'll post my thoughts about it when I get to reading it sometime. :)

specklebang posted:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Martian-ebook/dp/B009IEXKXI/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1371767996&sr=8-1 is about an astronaut that gets left behind alone on Mars. Seems to be unavailable on Kindle for some strange reason but I own it and would be happy to loan it to you.
Too bad it's unavailable on Kindle. :( That would be really friendly, but I'm not sure how practical it'd be, since I live in Finland. Postal fees might be quite expensive.

Play posted:

Why wouldn't it? The old thread had a crappy OP, was hundreds of pages long, and was beginning to go into about the 50th cycle of the exact same thing. I'm of the humble opinion that its nice to renew things every once in a while, give people a chance to actually read the thread.

As for your request for recommendations, I would put out A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge wherein a expedition to a mysterious star system which has some very unique features faces a lot of challenges and has to adapt in order to survive and continue with their objectives. There's a lot more to it, obviously, but I've read Pushing Ice and the two books are not entirely dissimilar. I'll have a think and see if I can't bring up any more.
Yeah, I suppose. I just didn't expect this kind of topic getting a new thread, because it's a lot more timeless than some topic at Games that gets a new thread when a sequel or DLC comes out. I've never been bothered by a large number of pages either.

I read A Deepness when I was a teenager, but I didn't like it. It felt a bit out of place or I just didn't grasp it. There was too little science for a space opera in it (I had just found Alastair Reynolds and he was the model for space opera I wanted). Granted, I was a teen back then and maybe I'd like the book more now, but there's still way too many books I haven't read yet, so I doubt I'm rereading books anytime soon.

Megazver
Jan 13, 2006

House Louse posted:

That's interesting, as in "interesting times". Someone with a backlist the size of that, who can't sell a book that looks rather easy to sell. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but it's interesting the target is so low - he's figuring a print run of 200 copies. It's nice that the reward tiers are named after aspects of the novel, too.

Harry Connolly of the Twenty Palaces fame couldn't sell his newest fantasy novel to the publishers because it's, quote, not grimdark enough, so he's probably going to Kickstart it sometime soon.

Harry Connolly posted:

Speaking of which, if you’ve read this far you’re entitled to a little news. Here it is:

THE WAY INTO CHAOS, aka A Blessing of Monsters, aka Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts, has gone the rounds of New York publishes and found no takers. The very last rejection came this morning, which is why I dredged up this post from the pile of unfinished ones in my dashboard.

The reasons giving in those rejections are interesting if not instructive. Today’s pointed out that the current market favors fantasy that’s very dark, while TWIC is not. (So much for being ahead of the curve).

In any event, yes, I will have to finish the book, then self-publish it (with some crowd-sourced help to pay for editing and cover art). That’s some weeks away still, but drat.

There are no guarantees.

It sounded really fun from what he's mentioned of it on his blog. I am probably going to throw him a lot of bucks for it.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

torgo posted:

Can anyone recommend some sci-fi books about contact with incomprehensibly alien aliens? Blindsight is a good example of what I'm looking for. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson is another book that touches on this theme, but I have the feeling if I read the rest of the trilogy, the aliens' motivations will be revealed to be pretty "human" in the end.

The Story of your Life by Ted Chiang. I found a link to the PDF of it on google, but I don't feel like it's legal. I would buy the whole short story collection on Kindle because it's cheap and the rest of the stories are good. The Story of your Life is specifically about contact between humans and an incomprehensible alien race.

John Charity Spring
Nov 4, 2009

SCREEEEE

torgo posted:

Can anyone recommend some sci-fi books about contact with incomprehensibly alien aliens? Blindsight is a good example of what I'm looking for. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson is another book that touches on this theme, but I have the feeling if I read the rest of the trilogy, the aliens' motivations will be revealed to be pretty "human" in the end.

Embassytown by China Mieville. The aliens are truly alien and one of the book's major strands is about humanity's efforts at communicating with them and living alongside them.

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Victorkm
Nov 25, 2001

specklebang posted:

Sorry. I thought it was hilarious and I bought a number of other books by the same author. That's why it's difficult to make recommendations - peoples tastes vary wildly.

Look at any book on Amazon and you'll see the same book get 5 star and 1 star reviews. How is this possible? One of my all time favorites was Altered Carbon. I loved that book. I read it once. Read it out loud with a friend. Listned to the audio version with 2 other people. That's 4 times for one book. And yet....




are just a few of the comments about Altered Carbon.

Now, here are some reactions to From Hell:



This is why it's challenging to make recommendations. I've seen suggestions here for books I found unreadable. I've also seen suggestions that inspired me to discover a new book or author.

On other forums, I usually post the Amazon link because that's where I do a lot of my "research". I did so with this book because it was Kindle only. I can only recommend that any book should be sampled before purchase.

I don't hate the book but I could see where others would be very frustrated or turned off by it. I mean, I have read most of the Xanth books unironically but I wouldn't tell others to read the one where the 13 year old seduces the 20 year old dude and changes into an 18 year old version of herself in order to have sex with him.

In fact, to highlight something I really enjoyed about this book: The personification of the two magic spells the queen cast at the beginning. The first spell backfires and the author described the actions of the magic as being performed by an elderly former British general projected into this plane as a ball of lava.

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