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I'm looking for something that I guess would best be described as cyberpunky, which I know was discussed a little in the last page, though I have some caveats/additions. Basically, my job is incredibly reactionary so I have time to read occasionally. I'm looking for something light-ish, by which I mean anything short of the hyper-dense, philosophical tomes that some people put out. They're fine, but I don't want to have to reread the last handful of pages when I have to read in short bursts. It doesn't need to be some piece of OH MY GOD NONSTOP ACTION novel, but a little escapist. I say I'm looking for cyberpunk because I tend to have a fondness for the noir vibe and I have a preference for near-to-mid-future stuff that's based on Earth, or at least not extremely space opera stuff. One way that I'd describe what I'm looking for is urban fantasy with tech instead of magic. Also, I like transhumanism/cyborgs/genetic engineering stuff, some AI stuff, etc. Not a big fan of aliens and spaceships. I just finished reading the Petrovitch Trilogy by Simon Morden and it fit what I'm looking for really well. I read Altered Carbon and liked it and have read the notable stuff from the '80s and '90s as far as original cyberpunk stuff goes. Again, I'm reticent to strictly say cyberpunk so much as cyberpunk influenced, perhaps.
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Jul 1, 2013 17:17
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Hey, guys. I was hoping I could throw myself at the mercy of your recommendations. I work in a library so I've been reading a lot and have kind of hit a wall with the vast amount of potential books to read. I tend to like cyberpunk stuff like Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels, despite their flaws, and the classic Gibson/Sterling/etc. stuff. I like non-romance urban fantasy stuff like Paul Cornell's London Falling. While I'd like some depth, I'm not intrinsically opposed to YA stuff. I generally prefer SF to fantasy and, as a rule of thumb, I'm not into things where technology is masic a la Dune. It'd be cool to find SF crime stuff. These are just general preferences so don't be afraid to go outside the box they paint. Thanks, guys!
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Jun 16, 2014 12:45
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Could any of you fine folks direct me to some books in the vein of Stross' Laundry Files, Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, and Cornell's Shadow Police series? Basically, anything sci-fi or fantasy that has a noir/detective/crime vibe. I've read most of the classic cyberpunk stuff.
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May 10, 2015 22:10
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Thanks for all your recommendations, guys. I appreciate it! Out of curiosity, if you guys were to recommend a fantasy novel to someone that doesn't particularly care for fantasy, what would it be?
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May 11, 2015 19:45
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fritz posted:In my experience, libraries take everything that's not: That's because we generally sell them for dirt cheap prices during periodic used book sales and eventually toss the rest. Rarely, if ever, do we keep donated books for circulation. The problem mostly is that we're regularly getting in new books and have a surprisingly finite amount of space. I was pretty surprised when I started working there. At least that's what we do at the seven branches I work at; it could be different elsewhere, I suppose.
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May 14, 2015 17:44
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Amberskin posted:That's an easy one. It is the same logic for netflix and similar services not being allowed to operate in some parts of the world, while the pirated material is easily reachable via Let us not forget also the different laws of various countries as well as the fact that a lot of them are handled by different publishers in different companies, whose policies, motivations, and ability to see reason vary. But also, yes, copious amounts of greed and stubborn stupidity.
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May 14, 2015 20:34
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So, on a whim, I've begun the Iron Druid books. I'm most of the way through the second one and, by and large, it's decent popcorn fiction with accessible prose. His repetition of certain phrases ("I drew power from the Earth," ad nauseum), frequent wordy descriptions about stuff you've either already heard before or stuff that has no bearing on the story (like long winded details about the food they're eating), and then constant, repetitive gags (oh, the dog thinks French Poodles are hot, this elderly Irish woman drinks whiskey and hates Brits) all have me thinking I'll stop after this book. I guess my question is: do the books get any better as he gets more experience writing?
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Jun 3, 2015 19:35
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coyo7e posted:No you will hate it. Oh, yeah, sorry. I meant it more as an example of constant extraneous detail, but he discusses the fish and chips at Rula Bula a bunch of times, there's a scene where he's cooking breakfast for another character and he goes into detail. But like I said, just a subsection of my main complaint, which extends to excessive physical details about character and location and describing every road they go down to get some place and things of that nature. Maybe I'm just being too sensitive to it. I just started the third book, which at least seems different thus far, so I guess I'll reevaluate after I finish it.
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Jun 4, 2015 17:33
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coyo7e posted:"These r sure the best fish n chips in the state!" "I added some chives n stuff from my garden to the omelette.". I'm not really pressing hard for it. I was just explaining. As I stated before, it's just an example of the sort of needless description of the series. Those just stuck out to me, the prose equivalent of the idiots that spend ten minutes taking photos of their food in restaurants instead of eating it. I admit I'm bringing personal baggage to it and it would be a silly overall criticism of the book if it was A) the only example I provided and B) framed as anything other than personal opinion. And I'm not upset at it, per se, I was just trying to adequately convey examples of the sort of prose that irritated me when reading it. And I'm not criticizing it nor people that really love it so much as saying it's against my personal taste. I've not read the Dresden books so I can't comment on that. In any case, I've kept reading through that distaste. It's a nice, easy read that I can read piecemeal on smoke breaks at work or when I'm idly sitting outside with the dogs. I ain't lookin' for literature. If I was actually scrutinizing the tests, I'm sure I'd provide more "sane" critiques, or at least feel motivated to scour the text in search of further examples.
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Jun 5, 2015 12:18
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