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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah the terms are used to mean a lot of different things. I've seen them used to mean the "level of magic" in a setting, i.e., "high levels of fantasy" vs. "low levels of fantasy,"; I've seen the terms used to differentiate epic or mythological fantasy from pulp or horror; I've seen the terms used as synonyms for "highbrow" and "lowbrow," i.e., "high" fantasy is literary and artistic while "low" fantasy isn't. I think they can be handy if used correctly. Wikipedia has a pretty good definition
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Apr 20, 2014 21:27
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Cardiovorax posted:Just remember to stop after the first three. Tehanu is a steaming turd. That is not true. It is, in some ways, one of the most profound stories in the series. It is safe to say it's very different in tone from the first trilogy. There is a good discussion of why Tehanu was so jarring in the Ursula Le Guin Megathread. While you are absolutely entitled to your own opinion, something is not garbage just because you don't like it.
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Apr 27, 2014 18:22
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VagueRant posted:Ah, there's (probably) nothing wrong with being well read. But I do absolutely wonder where everyone finds the time to read all these series. ASOIAF took me a good six months and I was unemployed for most of that! I read in preference to watching TV. I watch an hour or two of TV a week rather than the average, which is 34 hours.
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Apr 28, 2014 16:42
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General Battuta posted:Hahahaha holy poo poo I just got a three book offer from Tor for The Traitor Baru Cormorant and whatever I do next. I'm stratospheric. I never thought this would happen so fast. Fantastic news! Congratulations!
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May 1, 2014 13:38
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General Battuta posted:It's your agenda too! Like you said earlier - a book should be recognized simply on the basis of its merit. Being a particular kind of person shouldn't give you a bonus or malus to your chances of getting recognized, read, and talked about. Octavia Butler is loving fantastic. I have several of her books in paperback, and a while ago, Kindle did a special on nearly everything she ever wrote and I got them all. The Parable of the Sower was one of the better dystopian novels I have read for a long, long time, in large part because it's a hell of a lot more realistic in many ways than a lot of the stuff that's come out more recently. I have one of those dystopian "box sets" on my Kindle, and most of them don't even come close. I read Parable of the Sower before I read McCarthy's The Road, and I thought Parable was by far the better book insofar as creating a plausible scenario goes. One female author who doesn't get much press and really deserves better is Melissa Scott. She has put a lot of her books on Kindle recently. The world-building of Five-Twelfths of Heaven is great, very original even twenty years after its original publication (and it's currently $2.99 at Amazon). Sometimes she's categorized as a "gay" author, but I found that while her books do often include LGBT characters, sometimes even as the main character, sexuality is an attribute, not a focus. Another unsung female writer is PC Hodgell. God Stalk is also wildly original. I believe the first two books, God Stalk and Dark of the Moon, are included in this Kindle edition. You have got to love a heroine who attempts to use a charm to speed the rising of bread and instead causes the loaf to develop rudimentary internal organs. I would love to discuss these authors if anyone else has read them. Edit: mixing up my parable titles Zola fucked around with this message at 12:16 on May 9, 2014 |
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May 9, 2014 02:17
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CaptCommy posted:Should I need to read Parable of the Sower before talents? Yes, I was talking about Parable of the Sower. Parable of the Talents is the second book, not sure why I mixed up the titles. 
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May 9, 2014 12:15
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Whalley posted:So are a bunch of us are all about to read PC Hodgell at the same time? I know that after I finish this NK Jemisin book, I'm getting started on God Stalk if I can find it. Abe Books has several copies reasonably priced There's also a hardcover on Paperback Swap if you use that site.
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May 9, 2014 19:41
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Cardiovorax posted:I know, so why ruin everybody's fun? Agreed. And I will also point out that the first book came out in 1982. Things that might seem like tropes NOW were actually original then. The cat, I might add, is a hunting cat and pet she has a bond with rather than magical happy treecat that makes her so much more preciouses.... It's not her perky sidekick who makes witty observations or anything.
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May 10, 2014 20:47
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JTDistortion posted:Can you recommend any other authors like this? I've been having a rather annoying problem with my local library system. Everything that it considers 'gay fiction' tends to be either poorly written smut or serious novels that try to get deep into the issues of gender and sexuality. Unfortunately, I do most of my reading on lunch break at work. I'm just looking for something light to relax with for a bit, but I would prefer any romantic subplots to be something that I can actually relate to. That sort of stuff certainly does exist, but if I want to get it at the library I have to either know what I'm looking for ahead of time or stumble across it through blind luck. I did a bit of poking around and Elizabeth A Lynn came up, I do remember The Sardonyx Net as being well written and interesting, although that one doesn't have a gay character per se. I think you would really like Scott's Point of Hopes, and I just discovered Wikipedia has a list although some of the inclusions make me roll my eyes because having a "gay" character does not a "gay" novel make... The later Liaden books (Sharon Lee and Steve Miller) have some same-sex couples, although I would call it more "LGBT lives in our universe" rather than "gay-positive". It's accepted as perfectly normal at least. I honestly can't name anybody else off the top of my head, as I am a pretty eclectic reader and am only interested in a decent story and don't really care much about who sleeps with who, unless it's germane to the plot. Books like Lauren Hamilton's drive me up a wall in fact, because I really don't care who wants to gently caress Anita Blake or (insert character here), and you take out those parts and there's very little left. Edit: Never make a post before finishing the first cup of coffee of the day Zola fucked around with this message at 19:21 on May 11, 2014 |
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May 11, 2014 16:35
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coyo7e posted:Well for what it's worth, I picked up the first couple books on kindle and am surprised by how well-written they are. I forgot a LOT about the series although it's coming back now. Tai-Tastigon is a really cool and well-written city which I forgot about almost entirely, and I'm looking forward to going through the books again and seeing what else Hodgell's written since. On her Live Journal site (I can't find the entry right now), she had visited a sanctuary and has a picture of her with a hunting ounce that she said was like Jorin  There is also a stab at a Kencyr Wiki She also said that there is going to be a Kothir short story up on the Baen Books Website as of the 15th of May Nurk Lurks In Doorways
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May 11, 2014 22:00
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Cardiovorax posted:A positive portrayal isn't a realistic portrayal, is what I mean. There are a lot of positive portrayals of gay people in modern fiction, but a lot of them aren't written by gay people or even people who know much about gay people. Women will probably understand what I mean. If you're talking in the sense that there are entirely too many female heroines who are simply men with boobs, then yes, I hear you. I hear you.
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May 12, 2014 15:52
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angerbot posted:I'm looking for some help in finding a series of books I read when I was in highschool - they were not good books but I was on a big scifi binge at the time and recently I've remembered enough to make me curious. Usually these kinds of questions are best posted to The identify that story/book thread. That being said, I suspect you are thinking of Jack Chalker's The Rings of the Master series, which has both the assassin and the base on the moon Melchior
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May 12, 2014 19:44
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In an attempt to keep the discussion going but perhaps get it refocused on books rather than personalities: Has anyone ever noticed that in a lot stories that seem to espouse some version of libertarianism, a lot of the "average" characters actually aren't ordinary people at all and a lot of times if you made a minor change in assumptions, it guts the entire story? For example, recently I picked up "A Taste of Tomorrow - The Dystopian Boxed Set" for Kindle, and it included a novel called Apocalypse Drift by Joe Nobody. The novel itself was decent insofar as it was fast-paced, well-written, and interesting--our hero survives via boat, which is at least a bit more original than your run-of-the-mill apocalypse tale. I probably gave it way more thought than it deserved, but I realized that what was bugging me about it was that the "average" people weren't realistic at all. (I'm going to spoiler this part in case you haven't read it and want to.) So our hero is living out at the marina when everything starts going to hell. There's a neighborhood nearby, and this scummy dude who lives there with his wife and kids comes to the marina and gets some food off of them. Scummy guy's family has pretty much gone through all their supplies which is the rationale for him going looking. Wife and kids sit in the house and do nothing. Scummy guy gets killed when he attempts to rob our heroes at the marina, and they figure out where he came from and bring the body back to his wife. Long story short, she and the kids are starving to death a few weeks later so she kills the kids and then herself. The author knows his trade, so while I was reading it, it seemed perfectly normal. But wait just a loving minute here. Am I supposed to believe that this mother loving sat in her house without talking to anyone for more than a loving month? I'm supposed to believe that everyone in the entire loving neighborhood sat in their drat houses the whole time? This is utterly outside the realm of my experience with people. I will speak for myself here, but there is no loving way I would let two little kids in my neighborhood starve to death. I am no drat leader by any stretch of the imagination, but I would never let that happen, and I am willing to bet that 99% of the people here wouldn't allow it either. While it's easy to theorize when it's some distant news story, I don't know of anyone who, confronted with an actual starving child, would go back into their house and close the door. So this novel is pretty much completely gutted if people just act like ordinary human beings. This is also true of Terry Goodkind's novels. First couple were okay, but then such stupid things had to happen to keep his hero the hero that I just got disgusted. Everyone has to chant our hero's name and let him rule their hearts? Are you making GBS threads me? I won't neglect Ayn Rand either, although she isn't thought of as a fantasy author. There are a bunch of what-if's that would destroy the whole narrative. Like... Hank Rearden getting into an accident and needing a wheelchair, say. In real life, that wouldn't stop him from inventing Rearden metal, but it would sure as hell gut the story. Or, while I'm on the subject of Rearden, what would have happened if he said "I won't cheat on my wife"? Maybe I'm just getting pickier as I get older, but if one little monkey wrench will tear down your entire structure, it's not a very solid structure.
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May 22, 2014 18:51
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Clark Nova posted:As a Rational Actor, mommy understood that her children has no economic purpose in the brave new post-apocalyptic libertopia and so liquidated their corporate personhoods. As I said, I just spoiled in case there are people who are planning to read it. Thanks for clearing that up that liquidation thing for me. 
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May 22, 2014 20:31
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Stuporstar posted:I have a whole rant in me about this, but I'll sum up. This is why some of the best post-apocalyptic fiction was written by John Wyndham, because he lived through the London Blitz in WWII and saw how real people act when faced with disaster. He also gave a drat about people. Disaster-fic written by basement nerds, whether it's zombie poo poo or whatever, almost always features themselves as competant libertarian heroes while "the mundanes" literally rot in the streets because it's essentially revenge fantasies of getting back at everyone who picked on them in school. It's loving pathetic. Oh, by all means, rant away. I agree about John Wyndham, Aldiss' complaints about it being a cosy catastrophe notwithstanding. Some of the scenes in The Day of the Triffids are haunting, such as when our hero and lady have dinner together and she dresses up and they realize that probably they won't see that level of civilization again in their lifetimes. I don't think an apocalypse necessarily involves a Social Darwinian battle. The strong can be felled by an accident just as quickly as the weak, which is why humans have developed the habit of banding together.
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May 22, 2014 21:18
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Chairchucker posted:Isolated incidents of horrendous and awful events happening over a period of weeks, months or even years in a house without anyone else knowing about it happens on a fairly regular basis and is semi-frequently reported on in the news. That is how child neglect, even in fairly highly populated areas, has occasionally gotten to the point of a teenaged child being literally unable to verbally communicate. That is how rape dungeons go unnoticed for long enough to raise a bunch of incestuous children and/or leave abductees' families assuming the worst. The example of a mother and her children starving to death may not seem likely, but given the fact that people starve and/or freeze to death on the streets of even developed countries on a daily basis, I don't think it's a massively unlikely picture being drawn. I have to disagree with you here. I am not saying it was unrealistic that people might starve to death. I am saying it was unrealistic that the mother wouldn't lift a finger to save herself and her children, and it was unrealistic that everyone around her would hide in their houses and not interact with anyone. I've been through some weather "disasters", both in densely and sparsely populated areas, and that's not what people do. The crimes you are thinking of tend to take advantage of anonymity and limited interaction, and the minute anybody gets wind of something going on, it's game over even in an area where people tend to mind their own business.
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May 23, 2014 14:15
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I meant both ends of the poo poo spectrum, with one end being great and wonderful, and the other end being, you know, poo poo. Oh, in my complaints about the book, don't think I wasn't saying that there wouldn't be people who did horrible things. It was the passivity and assumed "sheepleness" of the general population that I thought was BS. Realistically speaking, even in a neighborhood where folks tend to keep to themselves, if something dreadful happens, they talk to each other, if only to try to get a sense of what is going on. Years ago, when hurricane Bob struck, half the neighborhood went over to my next-door neighbor's house because a tree had fallen on it. Fortunately, everyone was okay and the house wasn't damaged, and the tree was immediately removed by all of us to prevent further problems. We got the tree out of the road too. Everyone would wander out periodically to see if there was any news. Everyone accounted for everyone. In this more rural area, we've had trees come down and block the road that didn't require any call to emergency services, just a couple of neighbors with chainsaws and some willing hands. After one windstorm, my elderly neighbor and I stationed ourselves at either end of the road and stopped traffic while others cut and removed the tree blocking the road. Same thing after the derecho did so much damage. There was an enormous tree across the road that almost killed a family in a van. The emergency vehicles arrived, as did a number of people with chain saws. A bunch of folk from nearby houses and waiting cars pitched in to move the trunk that was too big to be cut up without specialized equipment. Here's a pic for your entertainment:  . Over the five days without power, everyone made sure the neighbors were okay. Everyone spent some time chatting. Everyone made sure everyone else had food and water. I would surely not sit there in my house, not talk to anyone, and permit children to starve, and while I don't think it's unrealistic to say a couple of people might do just that, I find it highly unlikely that everyone in the neighborhood would be that heartless. I don't think they'd show up at the marina and talk about how they were entitled to stuff, either. I definitely prefer a more nuanced view of how humans act as opposed to horrid people as foils to make our libertarian superheroes look so much better than they actually are. I find myself wondering at how miserable people must be who really believe that all other people are that awful.
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May 24, 2014 02:50
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Azathoth posted:Actually, the one that I read is called The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, The Most Devastating Plague Of All Time by John Kelly, but thank you for the additional recommendations. The reason that I read it is that I read it is that I'd just read a couple "WHOLE WORLD COLLAPSES" books, and I was more than a little curious how people reacted historically when presented with, quite frankly, what must have felt like the end of the world. Well, there's always The Stand by Stephen King, or I am Legend by Richard Matheson. There's a short list on Wikipedia, I have Emergence (David Palmer) and that's pretty good. Mira Grant's Newsflesh Trilogy is fairly decent, I don't really like zombie stories but it was well written and was interesting. That's all I can think of off the top of my head though.
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May 24, 2014 03:55
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Lord Hydronium posted:I read about half of Red Mars before getting sidetracked, but I did enjoy it, and it's a series I'd like to try again. How is 2312, for anyone who's read it? I enjoyed it, personally, but more for the world-building than the characterization. I didn't much care for the protagonist, but the potential future was amazing.
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May 27, 2014 22:53
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Just a reminder for PC Hodgell fans old and new--her short story is up on the Baen website Although it is a stand-alone story, you will probably enjoy it most if you have gotten to the third book in the Kencyrath series, Seeker's Mask.
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May 28, 2014 02:02
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General Battuta posted:The Expanse just got extended to nine books. Ugh. I think I'm going to pass on the rest of this series.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:54
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Chinook posted:I know it's a weird request, and I'll let it drop after this, but if anyone has any decent suggestions that speak to what I'm looking for, I'd love it. You would have to hunt these down second-hand, but you might enjoy Midori Synder's New Moon trilogy. I always wondered why she wasn't better known, she's a good writer. Here's the first book If you like gently humorous fantasy, there's always Lawrence Watt-Evans. The Misenchanted Sword gets recommended by Goons fairly regularly. While they don't exactly fit your list, both authors do fantasy/magic but are not Tolkienesque in the least, which is why I recommend them.
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Jul 12, 2014 17:20
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Cardiovorax posted:I've read that on a goon recommendation recently and I can honestly say that all the Ethshar novels are really, really bad. Don't read them. I really wish you would not do this. Just because you disliked something doesn't mean it's bad, it only means you disliked it. I know one guy who hated to read that loved the Misenchanted Sword, he borrowed it from me so many times to re-read it that I made him a present of it. I'm certain that there's a lot of books I have read that you would think were poo poo. I'm equally certain that the opposite is true. I will never, ever get on your case for saying "I thought it sucked" because that's opinion, but please don't make the mistake of assuming that everyone will feel the same.
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Jul 12, 2014 17:49
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eriktown posted:I hate you all for tempting me with spoilers for a book I can't buy, aaaaaa What you do is hang around until Christmas and join the Book Barn Secret Santa. Put said book on your wish list or mention that you particularly want it when you sign up, and perhaps it will show up at your doorstep.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:24
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Kaishai posted:My go-to underrated author is Barbara Hambly, specifically for her Darwath Trilogy: Time of the Dark, Walls of Air, and Armies of Daylight. Although she's written two other books set in the same world, I can't recommend them with the same enthusiasm. She also wrote Silent Tower, Silicon Mage, and Dog Wizard, a trilogy mingling computers and magic circa the 1980s. Her Starhawk and Sun Wolf books (Ladies of Mandrigyn, Witches of Wenshar, and Dark Hand of Magic) are good too. Some of these might be difficult to find outside a used bookstore. One thing I like very much about Hambly is that when she develops romances between her characters, they're matches of equals, and the characters don't waste much time thinking about sex while they're fighting for the world. I also enjoyed Hambly's vampire novels, starting with Those Who Hunt The Night and Traveling With The Dead. There are now more, the series was picked up again and includes Blood Maidens, Magistrates of Hell, and The Kindred of Darkness. I find her vampires frightening, not romanticized in the least, and I love the Edwardian setting.
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Aug 29, 2014 15:20
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Neurosis posted:I just finished Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly. It was a good and enjoyable vampire book. I see she's written a number in this series. Should I be leery of a quality drop? I'm interested to see where she adds onto the mythos. I'll be honest and say I absolutely loving love a really elaborate vampire mythos like World of Darkness where ancient conspiracies, gothic horror, and elaborate vampire societies are everywhere, all treated without a hint of humour, so if it expands any way in that direction that would be cool. I have enjoyed all of them, Hambly's sequels don't tend to suffer the same kind of quality drop seen in many other series.
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Oct 6, 2014 19:45
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PlushCow posted:Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings is the beginning of an epic fantasy series that you might enjoy since you enjoyed the Malazan series, and the kindle ebook version is still free http://www.amazon.com/Way-Kings-Stormlight-Archive-Book-ebook/dp/B003P2WO5E There is a one chapter goon-described "tutorial" prologue that's unlike the rest of the novel and puts some people off, so if it does just try to read on and see if it hooks you then. I picked it up on Kindle and during that chapter, all I could think of was Bleach and Naruto and Pokemon when they explain stuff for the TV audience. I kept stopping to laugh at it. Now that I'm past it, it's not bad at all.
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Oct 26, 2014 04:15
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I didn't see this mentioned, forgive me if I missed it, but The Traitor Baru Cormorant is up on Amazon US for 2.99 on Kindle https://www.amazon.com/Traitor-Baru-Cormorant-Masquerade-ebook/dp/B00V351EOM
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Oct 3, 2018 01:39
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