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Rurik posted:This needed a new thread? That was Promise of Blood, by Brian McClellan.
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Jun 20, 2013 19:47
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Okay.
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I read a lot of fantasy but I mostly find new authors through this thread, I rarely browse in bookstores and never check out awards lists. I have never heard of Mira Grant until this page of the thread. She's not even recommended in the OP. That probably has something to do with why she lost a popularity contest. Now that I'm aware of her, those Newsflesh books sound really interesting and I will look to check them out, but she's definitely not well marketed.
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Sep 4, 2013 17:54
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Yeah, Guns of the South is amazing, but a lot of what he writes is pretty run of the mill. I like his Videssos and the WorldWar books but I don't think they are really "good" - just fun reads.
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Sep 16, 2013 20:03
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mllaneza posted:His Lost legion series is pretty decent: a Roman legion departs our world for one in which something like Byzantium reigns and magic is real. If you don't mind the LBGT issues too much it's a solid four book series. Yeah, that's the first set of Videssos books.
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Sep 17, 2013 14:46
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted: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. FYI this is Ari Marmell - I skipped over at first but just read the blog post while waiting at the airport and realized who it was, and bought his short story collection.
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Dec 23, 2013 00:37
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Ringo's early Aldenata books have some good powered suit action. In general his SF books are decent pulp airport fiction. Stay far away from his admittedly terrible Kildar pedo poo poo. Also, John Steakley's Armor is a real classic.
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Dec 30, 2013 02:05
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Recently read Consider Phlebas and then Player of Games. I definitely liked Player of Games a ton, while Consider Phlebas had good scenes but didn't really engross me. So pretty much right there with the goonsensus. In Player of Games, any theories on whether Chamlis is part of the set-up to trick Gurgeh into signing up?
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Jan 10, 2014 20:31
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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.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:03
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Yea the first one was quite a bit rapey. I might give the second one a try but even the better parts of the first book were basically like the more readable D&D novels. Which makes sense because Kemp's best sellers are some of those. The whole thing is constructed in a very D&D quest type storyline, and the dungeon exploration and combat feels like it's lifted straight out of a tabletop game.
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Feb 7, 2014 00:49
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The Martian is a really fun read. Great pacing, very good roller-coaster tension, surprisingly funny.
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Feb 12, 2014 22:03
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Read the new Mira Grant Parasite book this weekend. It was OK but way too many parallels/callbacks to the Newsfeed trilogy that really diminished it for me, in many ways it really feels like the same story just in a setting with a different premise. Kind of disappointed, I hope the rest of the trilogy will be better.
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Mar 3, 2014 20:25
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Cardiovorax posted:In fiction like Branderson's, where every capability is detailed up-front and there's a clear "who can beat up who" pecking order, there's so much less tension in conflicts, because it's a lot easier to predict who is going to come out on top in any match-up. I'm mostly on your side in this discussion and tend to prefer less explicitly mechanistic writing but I don't agree with your evaluation here. I like Brandon Sanderson and I think his books are very entertaining to read. Also agree that his writing ability is just OK. In a recent discussion with a friend we agreed that Sanderson puts more emphasis on writing something cool than something good - but it's OK, because it's cool, you just have to have the correct expectations. To me, the dramatic tension and fun and cool factor of mechanistic, clearly defined magic systems like this comes from the character's applications of their explicitly spelled out and limited powers. In fiction like Sanderson's, every capability is detailed up front and there is a clear "who should beat who" pecking order - the fun of the book comes from the MC figuring out how to use his clearly defined powers in a more creative way than his opponent expects, therefore upsetting the pecking order. In Sanderson's books, his characters are often clearly less powerful than some of the opponents they face, and everybody expects them to lose. But they overcomes challenges by using their powers more creatively and doing new things with limited resources. It's the characters' ingenuity that makes them interesting.
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Mar 12, 2014 22:33
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I thought The Goblin Emperor was pretty OK but ultimately had no real tension. I was hoping for something more like Arcanum (by Simon Morden) but from the child/unprepared ruler's POV and maybe more upbeat. Instead it was a nice story, refreshing in contrast to all the grimdark stuff out there, but kind of unexciting. Edit: After thinking about it a little more, maybe my issue is that I didn't get a sense of real character development. He does gain some more confidence over the course of the book, but I feel like at no point after the very beginning does the character really change the way he thinks about or approaches the world. Instead he just has a series of challenges that he overcomes with the help of his companions. He refines his approach, but I didn't feel like there was a major evolution. Instead, everything is just another obstacle that he gets past by figuring out who he can trust to help him with it. ZerodotJander fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 18:59
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Remember, Peter Brett wrote The Warded Man on his Treo phone on the subway on the way to his investment banker job.
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Apr 30, 2014 19:17
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Just read Ancillary Justice, it was really good and I loved how the gendered pronouns thing worked in the book.
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May 19, 2014 19:36
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That's Ringo's original series that built him the fan base. It's not quite the same trope and is more about combat and powered suits, much more action oriented series. Personally I think if you leave out his creepy rear end thrillers Ringo is a very above average pulp/action airport fiction type SF writer. No new concepts, not great prose or anything, but fun action movie takes on classic SF ideas.
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Jun 9, 2014 19:10
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thespaceinvader posted:FWIW, I really enjoyed the Troy Rising series. It's mega-jingoistic in places, but it's fun and I really enjoyed the 'holy poo poo space is BIG and if you really use it it's scary-powerful' bits. And the idea that sci-fi nerdery can save the world. The ridiculous racism in the third book was so disappointing and I wonder if that's why there haven't been any further books in the series.
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Jun 10, 2014 02:16
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GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:Is Corey actively trying to sink the series? I'm really curious how the balance of writing/plot duties has fallen between Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck since the series started.
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Jun 11, 2014 01:17
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systran posted:My guess is that it would be considered more like general fiction with scifi elements since it takes place in the present day but just adds in a thing that isn't really possible. Yeah I'd consider Jurassic Park a thriller with a couple of sci-fi plot elements.
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Jun 30, 2014 19:49
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Yeah, I read Tower Lord this weekend, it was decent. More of an ensemble cast though instead of being single character POV which didn't match my expectations. I was fine with it but I can see how some people would be disappointed. Overall I don't think it was as good as Blood Song but I still liked it and I'm looking forward to the next one.
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Aug 5, 2014 02:02
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RVProfootballer posted:I'm almost done with the second book in the Fionavar Tapestry. For some reason, after finishing Fionavar, I now have the urge to read...Dragonlance. So, re-reading Chronicles for the first time in 15 years, plus adding some weird trilogy from the early 2000s placed in between books 1 and 2, good idea or great idea? Can't be worse than picking up and slogging through Words of Radiance, right? If you think Sanderson is a bad writer and a slog to get through I have no idea why you think it wouldn't be agonizing for you to read Weis and Hickman. IMO Legend of Huma and then a few comedy-oriented books are the only readable ones.
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Aug 14, 2014 18:31
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Cardiovorax posted:Weis and Hickman aren't so bad when they aren't writing lovely D&D fanfiction. Darksword was pretty okay. I remember thinking those books actually were worse than the original DragonLance trilogy when I read them as a teenager. In any case I don't see how someone who sneers at Sanderson would find any of their works readable. Sanderson has lots of faults if you hold him to a high standard but he's still leaps and bounds better than most genre authors who have bad prose, dull characters, boring plots, and uninteresting worlds.
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Aug 14, 2014 19:05
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savinhill posted:The concept for the bad guys in this just works less and less for me the more it gets stretched out and the whole defeating them by inventing paper currency is very underwhelming and sorta nonsensical imo. Really? I like it a lot, I felt like this book took the overarching plot and made it much more interesting for me. Previously this was a story about a group of adventurers - albeit ones that don't fit typical fantasy archetypes - on a typical fantasy quest to defeat the evil goddess of lies. Now it's the story of Cithrin and friends trying to overcome humanity's innate urge toward self destructive tribalism (accelerated and powered by the spider disease of fanaticism) by building a global economy and web of self interest. And there's still dragons and sword fights. I like it.
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Sep 2, 2014 13:20
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For some reason I really like Modesitt, I think I've read almost everything he's written, but he really does write the same book over and over. His SF is more interesting and varied than his fantasy IMO.
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Sep 3, 2014 20:02
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Wolpertinger posted:Yeah, a lot of the interesting bits with Modesitt's fantasy books are how (like previously mentioned) most of his protagonists are some sort of craftsmen, and a huge part of their story is, as often as not, them being scientists and discovering ways to use the magic in that world to do things better, more efficiently, safer, faster. Sometimes (but not always) this includes war, however, and discovering increasingly brutal and efficient methods of killing/moving/managing/supplying/using armies. His magic is pretty much an analogue for the advance of technology - in his Imager series they're practically one and the same - Imaging is used to create or use increasingly delicate and sophisticated machinery or architecture or proccesses that would normally require much more sophisticated equipment or techniques or materials than would ever be normally available in that sort of setting. His books often also generally also revolve around the politics and repercussions of the things the main character discovers and how it ends up changing the world in some way. Yeah this is a great summary of Modesitt's fantasy.
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Sep 4, 2014 13:55
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When I was a teenager I thought Ender's Game was great because of how Ender outsmarted everybody. Today I think Ender's Game is even better than I did back then but for the way it presents ideas about war, fear, hate, morality, and perspective.
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Sep 13, 2014 06:33
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Who knew that Alzheimer's would lessen your ability to turn out great books 
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Sep 15, 2014 18:38
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Rabbit Hill posted:I'm hoping someone can identify this book (series?) for me.... It was written in the 2000s and is about a young woman, possibly a servant in a castle (probably with a Secret Destiny) who has a scarred up face and doesn't speak. I believe the author's last name begins with a letter early in the alphabet, like A-D, and is a man. Does this ring any bells? Is this it? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/232102.The_Ill_Made_Mute
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Feb 21, 2015 01:45
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I was thinking about holding off on 3-body until all 3 books are out. But everybody raving about it makes me want to read it now. Is the first one stand-alone enough that I won't be mad about waiting for the next 2?
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Mar 12, 2015 01:52
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I went ahead and read 3-Body Problem. Wow, that was amazing. No regrets but drat I need the next two books ASAP.
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Mar 17, 2015 02:25
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I think because there are already professionals working on it toward an announced release date it's not kosher to do a fan translation. I would love to see more fan translations of serious Chinese SF/F though, most of the translation work being done is either classic Wuxia or super pulpy web novels.
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Mar 17, 2015 19:12
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Velius posted:Why is "never before published" somehow a worthwhile blurb to put on the cover of a novel? I'm trying to figure it out but it doesn't make sense. The first book was originally self published before it got picked up and rereleased.
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May 8, 2015 02:53
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Darth Walrus posted:Nah, if you want a kung fu epic, Journey to the West is the way to go. It's a bit repetitive, so should be read in short chunks at a time (it's one of the original adventure serials), but if you want sweet-rear end ancient Chinese action, that's where you want to be. Water Margin is mostly just a poor man's Romance of the Three Kingdoms with an entire cast of raging dickbags (and yes, I say that knowing what assholes the cast of Three Kingdoms can often be). It's why I have sympathy for the abridged, bowdlerised seventy-chapter version where all the bandits get rounded up and executed by the government at the end. Haha, what? That's like telling someone who is interested in European fantasy "Nah, skip that Tolkien stuff, if you want a real fantasy epic, Beowulf is the way to go." Also Water Margin is about as much a "poor man's romance of the three kingdoms" as the Aeneid is a poor man's Odyssey, they're pretty much totally different works.
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Aug 29, 2016 22:15
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I'm trying to remember if this is an actual book I've read or is just an amalgamation of plot points from a larger number of books. In the story, the gods have always taken a very active role in the world, with a lot of direct communication with their worshippers. People go to the temple and sacrifice and ask the gods for advice on literally everything in life - where should I build my home? Which business deal is a better investment? Is this a good person to marry? The good/human gods are in a constant struggle with the evil/non-human gods, and have finally come to an agreement that they will stop taking an active role in the mortal world. Suddenly, with no real warning, sacrifices and prayers are no longer answered and people have to make decisions on their own. The world is largely paralyzed by indecision as suddenly people have to really consider the consequences of their actions without supervision and a safety net. Then things happen from there. Does this ring a bell for anybody as a specific story? The general concept of "the gods leave and leave men to their own devices" is pretty generic, the unique part of it is how heavily divination had become a part of every day life and the scale of the impact when it suddenly went away.
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Nov 17, 2016 22:42
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