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Just a heads up. One of my favorite authors is having a bit of a rough time this holiday season, so if you want to help him out, think about grabbing one of his books. His blog post - http://mouseferatu.com/index.php/blog/i-need-your-help/ Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...&pf_rd_i=507846 Smashwords - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/375197 It's the same guy who wrote the Conqueror's Shadow books (which I loved), and this is his self published book so he gets a bigger share of the royalties. I dig his writing, and plan on buying the book tomorrow. Just thought I'd mention it here in case someone else enjoys his work and wants to help him out.
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Dec 20, 2013 06:14
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Eh, I didn't dig em that much. Read the first one, and it took a while to get used to the moving from world to world, and having one of the antagonists be gay rapist superman was a bit weird. Tried the second book out, and it was just not my cup o tea. I can't honestly remember if I finished it or not. The story jumping from "AMAZING KID CAINE" to "poo poo just got real in fairyland" to "old pissed whiny caine" was just jarring. It's like, it wanted to be GRIMDARK but still be fantasy with elves and poo poo, and it didn't know how to really manage the crossover. I won't go out of my way to recommend em, but I won't say they are the best things ever committed to paper either. It's such a unique premise that it falls into the "Eh, ya gotta read em" trap.
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Jan 2, 2014 07:47
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BrianWilly posted:Buddy, when you're done putting words into my mouth could you also maybe stop jumping to conclusions and tripping over them? I said I used to enjoy these books, as in, "I have not finished one since 1999." I read through this new one while I was in Barnes & Noble because I was curious what the series was like now. I just took your post to be "Wow, I already knew this guy sucked, but apparently he found a whole new way to suck!", if that helps.
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Jan 4, 2014 03:50
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There's also Hard Spell and Evil Dark. They are both part of the Occult Crimes Investigation Unit series (the first 2 actually). Basically, imagine a world where it's like it is today, except there are witches and vampires and werewolves and whatnot. The main kicker is the "monsters" are legally protected same as humans. Basically if you kill a vamp that isn't currently trying to kill you, you end up with a murder charge. Both are pretty good. Quick note, I'm attempting to read Stone by Adam Roberts, and I am about 4-5 pages in, and the main character basically is going on and on about nanotech and how he's not sure he's a guy anymore cause his genitals all shrunk off, and he scratched his crotch enough to give himself a vagina. Has anyone read this, and if so, does it get better? The plot sounded interesting but this is just sorta... weirdly hosed up.
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Jan 6, 2014 11:45
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Piell posted:Nope, the second book isn't out for another couple months. January 30th brings the release of The Fell Sword, the much anticipated sequel to The Red Knight by Miles Cameron. The UK gets it first. We get it sometime in March.
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Jan 19, 2014 02:42
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WastedJoker posted:Does the political slant of a book really bother people that much? Depends on the book, really. I don't read Card cause he's a gigantic asshat, but mainly the whole "political" issue in a book (for me) is where it affects the plot or just makes the book more of a sounding board for the author's leanings, moreso than telling a story. Perfect example was a book I tried to read a year or two ago that sounded pretty fun by the description, but turned out to be just weird rear end right wing political rants about various things from evil muslims to rape bait women who don't know their place. It turned out to be a far cry from the fantasy novel I thought it was gonna be. When I discovered 2 different descriptions of the book on amazon (one for the kindle, one for the paper version) it all kinda clicked.
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Jan 20, 2014 15:17
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Think you might have the SciFi/Fantasy thread mixed up with the Reading Challenge thread...
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Jan 24, 2014 01:25
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Disenchanted by Robert Kroese was pretty good. A fate worse than dragons was pretty decent as well. By John Moore. I've been reading a lot of Tom Holt lately, and while it is sort of pratchett-esque it's not really fantasy per se. It's more of an urban fantasy. A Lee Martinez has some great fantasy books. Some are fantasy settings, some are "fantasy but set nowadays". All are pretty great. I wasn't a fan of Chasing the Moon though.
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Jan 31, 2014 16:54
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He does tend to redo the same story a lot, but if I can handle Eddings and his rehashes, I can handle Holt and his  I've been reading the J.W. Wells series, and it's decent so far. Little weird, but mainly I've just been laughing at the fact the main character guy dies multiple times in every book it seems. Doughtnut and When it's a jar were both fairly good. Beowulf was pretty decent, but yea, pretty dated. Ye Gods was kinda decent, but I thought the greek mythology hero quest fantasy/humor stuff was done better in Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest.
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Jan 31, 2014 17:32
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WastedJoker posted:I'm sad Didn't it turn out that was the pen name of some historical writer, or historical fiction writer? I think he wrote the Tyrant series.
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Feb 3, 2014 00:32
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Cardiovorax posted:What's the closest you can get to David Edding's Belgariad without actually being David Eddings? I know it's shallow and about the most generic fantasy you can get, but somehow I feel like I need to read something in that general mindset right now - wholesome, a large cast of characters who like and care each other, nothing really bad happens to anyone on screen and in the end the Bad Guys are defeated and everybody is happy forever. I've been having kind of a bad week, I needs me some brain fluff. Well, there's the sequel, The Mallorean. There's also the Polgara the Sorceress standalone. The standalone Belgarath the Sorcerer is pretty awesome as well. Both run parallel to both series. There's the Elenium and Tamuli as well. The Misenchated Sword was pretty cool, and it's by Lawrence Watt-Evans. Most of his series is good, only one book kinda went apeshit and only one book really sucked. The first one was pretty good though. Heroics for Beginners was decent, but The Unhandsome Prince and Bad Prince Charlie weren't that great.
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Feb 3, 2014 22:14
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The only one I thought was a waste of time was the dragon one with the kid. He was an annoying little poo poo and the story didn't go anywhere. The weirdest one just tone wise was the one with the girl and the enchanted dagger she hosed up, cause just the sheer amount of violence in it was so completely not like anything else in the series. All the others, while not perfect, were pretty good.
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Feb 4, 2014 05:34
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Yea, I kinda chalked that up to him trying a different writing style than he had been using. The only one that really stands out to me as written "oddly" was the one about the girl who could fly. I can't recall the title of it, but she was liked by everyone and it was this kid's first adventure into the world. The story kinda went nowhere in a weird, sad way, but the way it was told was just... off compared to the first couple of books I read by him.
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Feb 4, 2014 06:15
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ZerodotJander posted:I thought someone in this thread recommended The Hammer and the Blade by Paul Kemp but I'm not seeing it in the past few pages. In any case, avoid. Mediocre sword and sorcery, very tropey, with a heavy splash of rape. Yea the first one was quite a bit rapey. The second one is much better. I kinda like the idea of fantasy world treasure hunters out breaking into tombs and wrecking poo poo. It's an interesting premise.
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Feb 7, 2014 00:24
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They are pretty good. As mentioned, the author loves his pop culture references but there is a decent reason given in the books. Basically he's trying to blend in with regular society and if he talked like a thousand year old druid he'd be found out pretty quick. Still, if you like the Dresden Files you should dig the series. Nothing really porno about it. there are a few scenes in the books where he's distracted by a hot chick but I don't think there's any actual explicit sex. I was kinda worried about it to, the covers are sort of romantic trashy novel style.
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Feb 8, 2014 08:51
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ravenkult posted:Are the Alex Bledshoe books any good? Yup. Fairly decent, can't really remember a bad thing about em, which means it's probably time for a reread  Jedit posted:Legend by David Gemmell. It needed a bit of a tighter review in the editing process (a few errors made it to print), but it was a fantastic debut. Gemmell was and is the greatest writer of the muscular fantasy since Robert E Howard. EXACTLY. If you want to read a series that involves large men bashing the living gently caress out of other large men with giant axes and sword fights and maybe magic but gently caress it, it could be science who loving knows that guy just cut off half that dudes ribcage with his axe, then by god read this man. The only thing I don't like about his work, and the only thing, is his females all tend to be rape bait trope fantasy females who overcome blah blah and kill everyone. Also, the dude loving loves his irish fantasy folk. Dunno why I consider em irish, but I do. Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Feb 16, 2014 |
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Feb 16, 2014 05:01
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andrew smash posted:If you are, like me, bothered by an author being a massive shitlord don't read SM stirling. I don't read him, but I always love finding out how people have been shitheads. Please explain, and feel free to link me 
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Feb 18, 2014 06:40
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As long as the author keeps his or her horrible politics out of the books, I am cool with reading em, unless it turns out the author is a completely crazy shithead (OSC for instance) and then they go on a short list of "ain't buying crap from em". Political leanings of authors is about the same as actors. I don't give half a gently caress what the actor in a movie I like thinks, but if he or she gets on tv and starts spouting inane bullshit, that's the end of me bothering to have anything to do with em. There's way too many books in the world to justify having to put up with some crazy bastards political fanwank fiction, be it sci fi or historical or what. All these authors I see listed up on petitions and ending up in the blogs or SJW online ranting are authors I don't read anyway, so no loss there. I still can't see how most of these guys can write fiction about utopia based future society and still somehow keep their mental clocks set back in the 50s-60s.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:23
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At risk of causing a huger derail, what did John Ringo do? I know he wrote some truly horrible (OH JOHN RINGO NO) fiction, but it sold like crazy and he said "Eh, gently caress it" and kept writing. I wasn't aware he was a shithead, for lack of a better term.
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Feb 20, 2014 06:36
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Angry Robot is doing a reddit AMA in r/fantasy if you wanna ask em some questions or read about the publishing biz. Answers are starting at 4pm cst.
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Feb 25, 2014 20:35
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Is there a dog? I mean, I own the book, and I just haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but if there's a god damned magical dog that saves the day I'll just delete it and move it out of my to read list.
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Mar 4, 2014 06:34
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Portable Staplefrog posted:It looks like no one so far has mentioned Seanan McGuire's In-Cryptid series, so I will. Recommended if you like urban fantasy with mythology-inspired stuff. It's technically not YA, but also not very complicated. The third book, Half-off Ragnarok just came out. Didn't she just freak out about the possibility that a Hugo host might call her fat recently? That name looks familiar.
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Mar 7, 2014 19:04
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Yep, that's her. It's a clusterfuck of a situation, but I can't help but roll my eyes when I see someone post up something about "literally crying" because they don't feel "safe" about a host of an award show. Maybe I'm just being a hardass, but I don't think that the world needs to be this soft, padded, no sharp corners and Mommy is going to make sure you get no booboos kind of place. You'd think an author of all people, pretty much right below "public celebrity" on the "people will talk poo poo about you" list, would have a thicker skin about life in general and not be so... whiny I guess is the word. It's not like the dude is going to hop down off the podium and kidnap you for a rape dungeon. Yes I understand women have a hard time in scifi (especially lately) but breaking down in tears over an awards show host choice just seems a bit over the top reaction wise.
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Mar 7, 2014 19:47
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Yea, to be clear I think he is a pretty horrible choice for an award host, especially considering the poo poo storms that have been flying around regarding women in sci fi.
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Mar 7, 2014 20:08
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There's always the Sam Sykes option of "Magic totally fucks up the guy casting it if he overdoes it, down to the point where he's literally pissing fire"
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Mar 10, 2014 21:19
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For something completely different, I found a blade runner esque book on amazon for a buck. Silicone Man by William Massa The premise sounds kind of interesting, and hell, if it sucks it was only a buck.
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Mar 11, 2014 06:34
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Magic is one of the reasons that the Mallorean is one of my favorite series. Belgariad as well, but mostly Mallorean. In the Mallorean, Belgarion goes out with his giant gently caress off sword with the Orb as the pommel, the jewel that's basically the all powerful macguffin of the series, and causes lightning bolts to hit all over the place because he's trying to break up a retarded fight between some dumb knights. He goes home all happy and chills, until Belgarath (the main wizard character who's his great^6 grandfather) shows up and chews his rear end while he's sitting on the throne being all kingly and , feeling accomplished because he stopped the fight, except his loving with the weather caused all kinds of havoc across the planet with of his showing off with the bolts.Yes, I am spoilering a minor point in a book series that's pretty old, but I went into it blind and it had me laughing pretty hard.
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Mar 12, 2014 10:45
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I enjoyed the DOOM series, but it stopped after 2 books  It wasn't pro-jingoism or anything, but more like OH gently caress DEMONS ALL UP IN MY poo poo LET'S BLAST EM. On a side note, started reading a series by Spider Robinson called Callahan's. It's... well it's a weird sci fi series that basically is about a group of people at this bar, and so far it's told in short stories. Pretty decent so far. It was written in the 70s so there's a bit of a culture gap, but for the most part it's pretty good. Anyone have any recommendations for good, fun fantasy where no one dies and it's actually kinda funny? Pratchett style. but also going towards something like Disenchanted or A Lee Martinez's books. Just kinda getting tired of GRIMDARK WORLD IS ENDING QUICK LET'S RAPE SOMEONE AND THEN SET FIRE TO THE CITY BECAUSE WE HAVEN'T KILLED ANYONE IN 4 PAGES.
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Mar 16, 2014 01:58
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Wow... Changeover sounds like a great read but holy crap it's like 300$ for the hardcover and 60$ for the paperback. Think I am gonna have to wait a bit for that one I'll see if I can find the others though. MYTH is on my "to read" series, and I've already gotten through Jig (and it was great). The DOOM novels I was talking about came out a few years ago. They were based on DOOM3 and were surprisingly good, and unfortunately ended on a hell of a cliffhanger. I talked to the author and he said sales kinda sucked, so they cancelled the rest of the books
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Mar 16, 2014 02:40
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Kalenn Istarion posted:Has anyone ever read anything by Daniel Arenson? Website here: http://www.danielarenson.com/authorbio.aspx I have his Misfit Heroes books, but haven't gotten around to reading em yet. mdemone posted:And now I have exposed my knowledge of those other, probably much worse books for no reason at all. Don't feel bad man, I read em too. Space mormons and all. Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Mar 16, 2014 |
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Mar 16, 2014 08:38
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gatz posted:Are there any sci-fi novels that are about or predict surveillance technology similar to surveillance drones? Not entirely sure it's what you are looking for, but Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez is about drones that kill people without any human involvement and a soldier or the government trying to track em down and find out how/why. It's on my read list, but I haven't gotten near it, so I dunno if it sucks or not.
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Mar 17, 2014 03:22
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FastestGunAlive posted:I finished The Palace Job last night. Twas me. I bought the hell outta this book. It sounds fun
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Mar 25, 2014 11:19
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coyo7e posted:Aha, that was totally it, yeah! I liked Riyria better - the tough dude isn't basically "The Bloody Nine With a Magic Sword," like in the Eli Monpress series (that guy in Eli Monpress got so many sword holes in him and STILL would get up and go all berserk and win every fight "in his pursuit of becoming a better fighter" I dunno man, I haven't read the Riyria stuff but the whole ending to the Monpress books was about as logical as it could be. Remember, they were dealing with a crazy rear end God, who was ready to tear down the whole fabric of what was left of reality. The main characters granting "freedom" to spirits and leaving that one crazy loving thunderspirit guy to fight all the demons made a good kind of sense. Please note, I'm not saying it couldn't have been done differently, or better, but that it was done in a way that made sense. Josef just wanted to be considered the best fighter out there. He thought using the Heart of War was cheating. Kinda stereotypical anime style MUST BE THE GREATEST sort of plot thinking, but hey, it worked and was consistent across 5 books. The only thing I really hated about the series was the cover art for the first few screamed HORRIBLE ROMANCE NOVEL instead of DECENT FANTASY SERIES. Seriously, this was supposed to be the face of a demon possessed malnourished skinny girl? 
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Mar 28, 2014 23:44
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) he was just a badass. I really hated the ending of the Eli Monpress stuff.
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FastestGunAlive posted:Awesome, let us know what you think Finished it up today. Pretty damned good! A little more violent than I was expecting (was thinking Pratchett levels of violence when I first started), but overall it's a good book. I fully admit to busting out laughing at the guy's insult during the climatic endgame battle though. Only real downside is the author threw a LOT of various words around in the book and didn't have any sort of context to them until you had read a lot further. Took me loving chapters to realize what khava was  , although I fully admit that might just be me being slow on the uptake.Other than the lack of an appendix/footnote for the word salad he sometimes lobs into the story, it was fairly decent. Don't regret purchasing it at all
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Mar 29, 2014 23:36
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I'm waiting on the next book in quite a few myself, and my god it's annoying but eh, what can ya do? Unless a new series sounds AWESOME, I tend not to get the first book because it's hell waiting on the second, third, fourth, etc. Hell, one of the times I decided I'd alter that idea and just get the first one, the author decided not to write anymore  On the flip side, outside of maybe what I call "drama books" (because I never learned the official genre for the Oprah book of the month style life altering books that seem to be about pretty much white people problems), 90% of stuff written nowadays is written as a series. It's rare to find a book in any sci fi or fantasy genre that's a single, one off book. I think that's why I love Wolf Hunt so much. There's rumors of a sequel but it's so nicely finished off at the end that it doesn't NEED a sequel (oh god I want one so bad). Stuff like A. Lee Martinez, some Moore, some of Strand's work are all single reads that aren't even tied together in the same universe, but I'll be damned if I can remember the last techno-thriller or fantasy I read that was just one book set in that setting and that's it.
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Apr 9, 2014 00:30
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uberkeyzer posted:Ah yes, SF, which is so deeply rooted in the minority experience, truly speaks to the troubles of the poor and disadvantaged. For example, award-winning author George R. R. Martin's deep reflections on the treatment of the poor during medieval warfare, and his characterization of dusky Dornish whores. And furthermore: Didn't say it was a bad thing or a good thing, just that I didn't know the term for that particular genre of books besides "fiction". There tends to be a LOT of those books that are just one off singular contained stories. One that was mentioned to me had a dude finding the meaning of life while playing with literal poo poo, or something to that effect, and that's not something I really want to read or investigate. Or, to take the Austin Powers route, it's not my bag baby. If it's yours, more power to ya. My point was that it's rare to find a sci fi or fantasy book that is a singular book, not part of a series.
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Apr 9, 2014 02:04
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ravenkult posted:You guys read The Demon Squad books at all? By Tim Marquitz. I've read the first couple. Weirdly enough I bought the first one cause I was like "WTF is Lowtax doing on a book cover?" Welp, wasn't him obviously, but still an interesting read. Not the greatest and after the 3rd? or 4th book is kinda goes completely batshit off the rails (kinda like a king novel goes from a horrifying clown/monster to a giant alien spider that's killed by a preteen orgy and a slingshot), so I quit reading em. They don't really vary in "good" or "bad" levels of writing, so if you read the first one it's a good indication of how the rest read.
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Apr 9, 2014 14:58
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I kinda felt that way about Hull Zero Three. Sorta like Pandorum meets a worse plot idea.
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Apr 14, 2014 14:01
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Only one I finished reading was Warbound, but at least it was a pretty decent book. If it wins I'll be just as happy as I am now with it. If it loses, I will care just as much as I do now about it. To be honest though, I don't really follow em, just generally feel good for the people that got nominated I guess. edited to make me sound less hipsterish Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 00:15
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Yea, the MHI series is basically gun porn with some weird monster poo poo thrown in. The Grimnoir Chronicles is more of a alternate universe depression era x-men more than anything else. There's a bit of gun porn in there, but it's because John Browning is a character and he builds guns (he's some kinda technomutant whatchacallit). It's sort of... it's damned hard to describe. WW1/WW2 meets xmen meets depression era US with some McCarthyism thrown in around the corners. I dug it, and it was interesting enough to keep me reading 3 books worth.
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Apr 20, 2014 02:12
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