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House Louse posted:I thought that revelation showed Yag's cultural differences from the New Crobuzoners (there's something similar with the city garuda, and the cactusfolk, I think), though I'm not sure how it ties into the book's other concerns, or his character. There's this, that the cultural differences between Isaac and the desert garuda make it impossible for Isaac to judge Yag by the garuda's standards ie the crime as choice theft and not as rape, but I also read his character as a bit of a piss take on the whole fantasy archetype of the mysterious noble savage.
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Jul 7, 2013 17:00
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systran posted:Speaking of Blindsight, I can't wait until the new book in that universe comes out. Haven't read the other one, but Ancillary Justice I enjoyed a lot. Really interesting take on AI, transhumanism and imperialism.
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Jan 31, 2014 16:01
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Phummus posted:I feel like I'm out of things to read. I sit in a lab twice a week with a needle in my arm and have a lot of reading time. I like escapism. KJ Parker maybe. They write in a setting that's vaguely fantasy (sometimes not really even fantasy) notRome, with a narrator that's always somewhat cynical with dry humor.
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Aug 26, 2014 16:49
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Finished The Bone Clocks the other day. Amusingly enough, the chapter that was the most fantasy-oriented was probably the weakest part, but still a beautifully written book all around.
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Sep 23, 2014 14:54
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Book of the year for me is probably a tossup between The Revolutions or The Bone Clocks.
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Dec 26, 2014 23:09
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Station Eleven is a good runner up for me as well, almost forgot about that one.
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Dec 27, 2014 22:38
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Megazver posted:And occasionally because they look baller as gently caress: 
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Feb 25, 2015 15:42
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Rusty Kettle posted:How are the books in the humble bundle? I have heard of one of them. Are the $15 tier books any good? Academic Exercises makes it worth it singlehandedly imo.
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Feb 26, 2015 06:35
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I hadn't heard of KJ Parker before, but I'm really enjoying his writing. Hers? Literally just googled it and nobody knows. Of their novels, I've only read Colors in the Steel, but yea, it's pretty gut punchy.
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Mar 1, 2015 01:31
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anilEhilated posted:Is it? I kind of waved over that one after not being able to finish The Revolutions but it might be worth a try. Does it actually continue the story from Half-made World? It takes place chronologically afterwards and has a few scenes with the original characters, but it's really more of a side-quel or something than a straightforward sequel. I liked it a whole lot though, it still touches on the frontier mythology of the original, but it's also really American Dream(tm)-ish.
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Mar 31, 2015 19:14
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I had suspected KJ was a guy ever since reading Academic Exercises and Colours in the Steel, but that is hysterical.
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Apr 21, 2015 15:12
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I'm pretty sure all of the short stories from Academic Exercises are in the same world, though a lot of the details across stories are, almost certainly on purpose, not consistent.
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Apr 22, 2015 21:23
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Just finished the third Two of Swords installment, the monthly wait is going to be agonizing.
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Apr 30, 2015 16:17
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Kesper North posted:Whoever decided to release the Hannu Rajaniemi short story collection as a limited edition hardcover with no ebook version is an rear end in a top hat. Huh? I still see it in stock on Amazon, unless you're talking about some other short story collection he did.
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May 13, 2015 17:22
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Kesper North posted:It's in stock - as a physical book. I don't want a physical book. I actually dislike them. Haha yea, fair point, I was assuming your complaint was more about the limited edition part than the no e-book part, I can definitely sympathize with that.
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May 13, 2015 20:09
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I just hope it's better than Reamde
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May 20, 2015 22:02
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Amberskin posted:BTW, returning to the book, it has a big WTF moment when the american Wallfacer, Tyler, goes to Afghanistan to find noone other than Ossama Bin Laden. I wonder if it is just a "gently caress you, reality" or if the chinese censorship keeps that guy from knowing that OBL is dead. Just the same with the Chavez successor, which is already in charge, but that could be interpreted as the "real" successor, since the guy in charge now in Venezuela is a freak prick who did get messages from El Comandante delivered by a tweeting bird - and it is not the blue one in the internets. TDF was written in 2008, before bin Laden was killed.
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Aug 17, 2015 04:49
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KJ Parker's latest thing, The Last Witness, was definitely a KJ Parker novella.
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Oct 13, 2015 04:55
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trip9 posted:Hey all, don't normally post in here but figured now's a good a time to start as any. Just finished Blindsight by Peter Watts. I definitely enjoyed it, as lacking in compelling characters as it was. I may get crucified for it in here, but I often find hard sci-fi authors are really loving good "idea" people, and those are often strong enough to carry me through a novel, but I'm never super emotionally invested in them. Is Echopraxia worth reading as well if I go in expecting something similar to Blindsight? Kim Stanley Robinson. His latest, Aurora, would be a good start.
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Oct 15, 2015 16:28
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anilEhilated posted:Oh, nice, I didn't realize the fourth one was out. I wouldn't really describe it as "Lovecraft Detective", but they are fun books. Cabal is such an adorable rear end in a top hat. Study in Emerald was the only one worth reading out of that whole collection imo.
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Oct 20, 2015 13:42
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Is anyone reading Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits? I'm about a third of the way in and enjoying it a lot, probably the best of his books so far.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:22
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High Warlord Zog posted:I think it's a loose end that he may or may not return to in a future book. I really liked it overall, but the one chapter that was the most fantasy heavy part of the book was by far the weakest.
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Nov 1, 2015 01:14
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General Battuta posted:I think Baru Cormorant is on sale, you can get the hardback for the same price as an e-book. If I'm thinking of the same thing you are, a bunch of authors participated in that yea, though I don't remember it having the exclusivity of the Wu-Tang album. They'll just be locked up until the time period ends, then they can be published.
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Dec 17, 2015 20:46
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freebooter posted:I wrote a thing about the 10 best books I read this year, 7 of which were SFF: Man, I guess I'm breaking out that illustrated Gormenghast I got for Christmas next then.
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Dec 31, 2015 04:32
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The worst for me was Redshirts, endless lines of "he said" "she said". The first and last Scalzi fiction I've read.
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Jan 8, 2016 15:42
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flosofl posted:Really? I find the exact opposite pisses me off when reading. Especially when they use -ly words, I said furiously. The problem wasn't the lack of adverbs, it was that, at least as far as I recall, literally every line of dialogue was followed by a "X said".
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Jan 8, 2016 15:58
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Felix Gilman used to post here as well, though I think he just drifted off more than anything.
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Jan 25, 2016 05:56
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RVProfootballer posted:Yeah, I remember that. Half-Made World was good, though I didn't read the sequel. Rise of Ransom City was fantastic, and his standalone The Revolutions was great as well, definitely recommend those.
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Jan 25, 2016 14:58
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goodness posted:Any great short stories available freely online? Working an overnight shift and need something I can read in the iPad safari browser https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine also has a lot of good stuff.
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Feb 5, 2016 15:00
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AEMINAL posted:I've asked this before but here goes again: Aurora is very hard scifi-ish on generation ships and interstellar travel. Not really any technobabble if that's what you want though.
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Mar 1, 2016 15:23
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All The Birds in the Sky was alright, but that cover quote it got from Chabon probably raised my expectations for it higher than they should have been. Declare was awesome, I really need to read some more Powers.
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Mar 24, 2016 17:42
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Solitair posted:Okay, see, it took me a while to realize what bugs you were talking about, and even then I chalked that up to a lovely coincidence or some sort of symptom of the main character's mental illness. I didn't connect the proliferation of maggots with the super-suicide hotline. In one of the older boardgame threads, there would be this recurring thing every hundred pages or so where people would start talking about AH and realize they had been playing it wrong the whole time because they missed a rule somewhere, it was pretty great.
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Mar 30, 2016 02:50
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Oh hey, incoming sidequel to Planetfall. https://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2016/04/coming-soon-atlas-emma-newman-sequel-planetfall/
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Apr 6, 2016 16:47
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Holy poo poo, the ending of The Belly of the Bow.
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Apr 7, 2016 08:51
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ulmont posted:Yup. That's K. J. Parker for you. Yea, I really should have been expecting something like that by now with how much Parker I've read, but drat. And really, it's Gorgas's response as much as the act itself.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:56
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freebooter posted:I virtually never give up on books but I got about 80 pages into John Crowley's Little, Big and decided it was going nowhere fast. Someone tell me I'm wrong? I love Little, Big but yea, it's extremely dense textually and slow moving beyond that.
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Apr 9, 2016 04:06
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pokie posted:I am looking for a modern sci-fi novel which features interactions with strange aliens, as in not readily comprehensible. I have read most pre-'70s major authors. My favorites are PKD, Iain Banks, Alfred Bester and Larry Niven. Blindsight/Echopraxia and Embassytown come to mind. Both are about the difficulty of communicating with or even comprehending alien life.
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Apr 20, 2016 06:54
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Amberskin posted:I've got Blindsight in my e-reader but the word "vampires" in the summary is preventing me to read it. There is just a kind of story I hate more than one which contains vampires, and that is one which contains zombies. There's only really one vampire featured in the story, and he might as well be an alien for how he's characterized.
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Apr 20, 2016 16:53
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Solitair posted:Yeah, that's part of why I enjoyed it so much. Aside from Worm, which is found online and not a novel, I can't think of any other good superhero novels at the moment. Am I missing anything? Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem maybe.
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Apr 22, 2016 23:34
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AmericanGeeksta posted:This was the main reason I loved The Quantum Thief. It grabs you by the face and unapologetically never lets go. I have never heard of the Neuromancer though, would you recommend it? Neuromancer is a classic and is insanely influential on modern culture, you should absolutely read it.
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Apr 28, 2016 17:36
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