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There's also a super-fancy leatherbound edition from Easton Press (gilt edges, ribbon bookmark and all that) that you can find from resellers for a couple hundred, though I think that might be just the first book instead of all five.
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Oct 19, 2013 22:01
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Stuporstar posted:Can anyone recall any stories that use the premise "man turns out to be a spaceship" or vise versa? One of the focal characters in M John Harrison's Light is horrifically vivisected in order to become the implanted controller of a gently caress-off planet-scorching spaceship, but there's quite a bit more to the book than just following her around. I've only skimmed Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, but I think the protagonist is a spaceship's AI who was confined to a human body if that's close enough for you.
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Nov 10, 2013 06:21
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The Supreme Court posted:Request for awesome worlds I'd second/third/etc the Jeff Vandermeer and Felix Gilman recommendations. Most authors associated with the vaguely-defined New Weird movement seem to have interesting, irregular worlds and cityscapes as a common element, so people like Steph Swainston or Michael Cisco may also be up your alley. BigSkillet fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Dec 1, 2013 |
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Dec 1, 2013 00:51
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fookolt posted:Just finished Felix Gilman's Ransom City (after devouring The Half Made World). It scratched a nice bit of the Bas Lag and Ambergris spot. Any more recommendations for a weird fiction series that delves into issues of colonialism/race/gender/leftist things? Have you read Steph Swainston's Year of Our War series? I wrote it off originally because all the summaries I'd read of it made it sound like bog-standard fantasy fare (The protagonist has a super unique ability AND he doesn't play by the rules? Yawn.) but it's actually pretty clever about fantasy tropes and super surreal, in the Max Ernst/Salvidor Dali sense, at points. The first book doesn't feature any leftist issues as part of the plot, but the portrayal of its ruling class seems in line with leftist arguments -- it's no secret that the aforementioned protagonist only gets to be one of the elite because of the coincidental circumstance of his birth, and outside of that he's a stupendous gently caress-up. I'm sure someone with a better grasp of theory could find more to it than that. There's a prequel to the series, Above the Snowline, that drops the surreal elements but does involve colonialism rather heavily. It has quite a bit of fun subverting the "noble savage" archetype as well.
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Jan 19, 2014 02:14
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Darth Walrus posted:Doesn't the Marxist revolution fail miserably, though? Yeah. I rather liked how overdetermined their failure was.
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Mar 4, 2014 23:36
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I'm making my way through Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, which people kept recommending because I like Mieville. I was really let down by it for similar reasons, and the rest of the plot only serves to tell you again and again just how mysterious that mysterious place is. Mysteriously. His earlier stuff was more postmodern and metafictional, which I thought he did well, but lately it seems like those qualities served to obscure the fact that his regular prose isn't that interesting. He's actually quite competent as an editor along with his wife, and their anthology The New Weird has some pretty good alternatives since most folks use New Weird to mean "kind of like Perdido Street Station if you squint a bit" anyways. Steph Swainston or Felix Gilman are probably the closest things if earlier Vandermeer doesn't grab you either.
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Mar 16, 2014 23:39
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Cardiac posted:So I just finished Rise of Ransom City by Felix Gilman. The world peripheral to the major conflict is the more interesting part for me because it's not just more of what you expect from a genre novel. You can imagine whatever big showdown you want to the Gun/Line conflict--Liv holding the magic plot device above her head as holy light shines down on her, Creedmoor facing off with an Engine as it sprouts a Transformers-ish face and gives a big villain speech--the book doesn't forbid any of that from having happened. But you don't actually need a second book for that, you can easily fill in your own satisfying conclusion by the end of The Half-Made World. What I found far more fun were the depictions of misguided attempts to achieve those dramatic climaxes like that would-be revolutionary who got blown away by the Engine and Harry Ransom's failed powwow with the Folk, or hucksters exploiting others' fear and uncertainty like Alfred Baxter (and probably Harry Ransom,) or people with genuine talent and goodwill who can't catch a break like you really want Ransom to be. I think it's to the book's credit that it isn't another plucky-outcasts-save-the-world story. Or rather it is, but it acknowledges you've read that setup dozens of times and there are other people with their own things going on regardless of what the heroes are doing. Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:Has anyone started Felix Gilman's The Revolutions yet? Now that it's out I'm halfway tempted to set aside my current book, which I never do. BigSkillet fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 15:17
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I'd edited the bit about The Revolutions into my post without noticing there were posts afterwards, so he's not at fault there. Sorry about that.
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Apr 3, 2014 16:48
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My understanding of the Book of the New Sun is that there is a big overarching plot which most of the events are a part of, the books are just narrated by a pawn in that plot who's too dim to ever realize it. There are a handful of thesis-length books written about what's actually going on in the series, but I don't think they're necessary to enjoy it. Just keep in mind that Gene Wolfe is pretty much a Proust-reading version of the Coyote figure from Native American folklore.
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Apr 22, 2014 03:20
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holocaust bloopers posted:Hhmmm alright. So I like Game Of Thrones. Haven't read the books, but am caught up on the show. What fantasy series is up there with GoT that would be worth reading? Steph Swainston's Fourlands books are a non-Tolkieny fantasy series that buck a lot of tropes, and are super fun about it. They're not "gritty," per se, but their battle scenes don't pull any punches, there's sufficient intercharacter conflict without anybody really devolving to mustache-twirling caricatures, and the narrator is a hilarious rear end at times. I think the trilogy is about the same length as a single Game of Thrones book, so there's that too. Along similar lines, I just picked up "The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars" by Steven Brust without knowing who he was and really enjoyed it. Are his Vlad Taltos books interesting in any way, or is it just another look-how-cool-my-RPG-character-was fantasy series? The book summaries sound like they could go either direction.
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May 23, 2014 05:45
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andrew smash posted:cardiac never wastes an opportunity to smug out at china mieville for being a stupid dumbdumb leftist. Mieville has been very vocal in his support for drum 'n bass music. We really don't want that sort of worldview to spread and corrupt fandom, now, do we?
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Oct 16, 2014 20:45
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Azathoth posted:I'll toss in a recommendation for Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World. It has a unique world and strikes a good mix between page-turning action and layered meaning. It goes in interesting directions and doesn't beat you over the head with symbolism and allegory, while still managing to make some thought-provoking points. It's not Gene Wolfe, but it scratches a very similar itch. Seconded, and the sequel is actually somewhat Wolfeish with its narrator and frame story. If it's weird narrators you're in to and don't mind left-leaning satire, Sensation by Nick Mamatas is excellent. And not part of a series.
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Oct 26, 2014 04:10
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Neurosis posted:Anyone have an opinion on the Deepgate Codex books? I had a recent playthrough of Planescape Torment and I'm looking for something literary in the similar vein that isn't crap. If it's multiverse-type books you're looking for, Vellum by Hal Duncan is either the most ambitious or most pretentious use of that concept depending on how you take to its unusual narrative structure. Probably worth experiencing either way.
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Dec 22, 2014 01:55
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