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The Supreme Court posted:Other than that, any authors who've made a world quite as cool as China Mieville's Bas-Lag, which is such a drat impressive mix of intriguing, totally weird and utterly immersive. Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World and Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead is what you need. Also, Jack Vance, duh. Try out The Moon Moth then, perhaps, the Demon Princes? The first DP book is a bit Early Vance, more straightforward pulp than the ones that follow but they're all excellent.
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Nov 30, 2013 12:37
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Cardiovorax posted:They're also like reading Every Anime Ever: The Novel. Perfectly fine if that's what you like, but fair warning. And a lot of people, me included, find the first novel nearly unreadable. (I didn't think much of the second one either and that's supposedly where it "gets good". But whatever.) Check it out by all means, but I wouldn't splurge on the complete collection before reading the first book.
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Nov 30, 2013 22:29
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nessin posted:Anyone read Jon Sprunk's Shadow Saga books? I made it through book 1 despite the completely contradictory main character and near Rothfuss levels of "romance" between the male and female protagnist, but I've got a soft heart for any sort of legitimate assassin type character in the hopes someone may write one as well as Brust. However book 2 is killing me, the main character goes even more brain dead, including forgetting some of the major revelations of his past he learns at the end of book 1, and I can only assume the author realized how ridiculous the romance was and is trying to right the ship but in even more ridiculous fashion. Is it worth finishing, or do I just chalk it up as a lost cause now? Dunno. I dropped them at book 1, roughly when the love interest got raped.
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Dec 2, 2013 21:05
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Radio! posted:I know it's kind of a long shot, but are there any Stanislaw Lem short stories that a little kid would understand? Like age 7-8. My mom is an elementary teacher doing a project on Poland and I thought it would be neat if she could find a story to read her class. The Cyberiad? I mean, duh. quote:Featuring quests and adventures and demanding royals and hermits and pirates and even the phrase “once upon a time”, alongside literary devices such as alliteration, punny phrases and nested tales, I quickly became desperate for a nerdy 8 year old to whom I could read these out loud to.
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Dec 17, 2013 02:01
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The Deleter posted:I just got Consider Phlebas for Christmas because I was starved for a decent sci-fi series so I followed that chart in the OP. Yeah, that's Phlebas in the nutshell. All the characters are unlikeable shits and you just don't really care about any of it. Read Player of Games instead.
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Dec 26, 2013 16:35
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sam16 posted:Does anyone have any recommendations for genre crossovers, e.g. heist books, spy books, private detective books and police procedurals in a sci-fi or fantasy setting? This is a recommendation post I wrote recently somewhere else for people with my taste in Urban Fantasy. I am reasonably sure you'll like at least some of these. I am listing first books, when there's more than one in a series: The Rook: A Novel by Daniel O'Malley. Slightly Whedonesque UF with an espionage bent. Excellent. Child of Fire by Harry Connolly. Rather dark, a page-turner, very inventive worldbuilding. I think this might actually be my favorite UF series. Midnight Riot/Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. A British cop becomes an apprentice of Britain's last wizard-slash-detective inspector. Dryly witty, in a British way. (US and UK releases got different names.) Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. A magician is back after spending eleven years in Hell and he's really, really pissed at the people who sent him there and killed his girlfriend. Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore. Modern day necromancer investigates the murder of his SPOILER. More noir than Twenty Palaces, somehow. Good, but it depressed me. Libriomancer by Jim Hines. Less derivative of Dresden Files than Iron Druid, but yeah, it's fluff like Iron Druid. Okay read. London Falling by Paul Cornell. A British Police Procedural. Cops desperately trying to figure out how to deal with a hosed-up supernatural threat. I found the first act a little hard to get into, but once poo poo hits the fan, it's a fun ride for the rest of the book. Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone. This is set in a secondary world, but it's very much UF to my taste. A [strike]mage[/strike]craftswoman has a few days to solve a god's murder and try to bring him back to life. Fantastic worldbuilding. Low Town by Daniel Polansky. Noir UF \ fantasy hybrid. Former guard and current drug dealer is forced to investigate a series of murders in a fantasy city. My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland. Awesome covers. Barely any romance, which is a plus for me in UF. A girl gets saved from death by a mysterious benefactor who also gets her a job at a local morgue. Then weird poo poo starts happening, not the least to her own body. The author spent a few years working as a coroner and it shows - I actually enjoyed the parts about her job a bit more than the supernatural bits. (I have to admit I stopped reading on book 3 when it slid down to the same RELATIONSHIPS poo poo as most other UF by female authors.) Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig. A psychic who can see when people die, sees her own death and now has to somehow try and prevent it, even though she never succeeded before. The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams. Angels and demons both send out their own to work among humans while wearing human bodies. The hero is an angel PI who investigates a disappearance of a soul. Tad Williams is a good writer, you guys. This is a good book. A few more off-beat suggestions that aren't strictly UF: Neil Gaiman's books. Duh. I'd say Sandman *starting with volume 2 is what I love the most, but *The Graveyard Book might be a good introduction. Gun Machine by Warren Ellis. Watch the trailer if "this is by Warren Ellis" isn't recommendation enough. The Alienist by Caleb Carr. New York, 1896. When a serial killer starts butchering boy prostitutes, Police Commissioner Roosevelt sets up a secret task force to help hunt him down with the power of alienism and forensics! (Alienism is what they called psychology back then.) Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis. Wisecracking gumshoe solves crimes and travels around Imperial Rome. A really entertaining mix of mystery, humor, adventure and romance. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Hardboiled post-cyberpunk, basically. The Yard by Alex Gracian. A really high-tension thriller about the newly formed Scotland Yard Murder Squad. (It was formed after the Ripper murders.) Frankly, this was actually a little too thrilling for my constitution but if you don't have anxiety issues like me you'll probably enjoy it. There's a few more series that weren't my thing, but hey, you might want to check them out anyway: Felix Castor series by Mike Carey. Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka. Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia. Red Planet Blues was a 2.5/5 at best.
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Jan 6, 2014 15:08
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The Gunslinger posted:I really liked your other recommendation post on martial fantasy, I read about 5 of the 7 you listed and thoroughly enjoyed them. Just wanted to say thanks a lot, I will check some of these out too. I thought that Anthony Ryan book was going to suck with its generic fantasy name and premise but surprisingly I thought it was the best of the bunch. To be honest, I don't recall recommending any martial fantasy in this thread. I suspect you mistake me for someone else. (Did that list have The Thousand Names, The Ten Thousand, The Black Company or Red Knight? That's probably what I'd recommend if 'martial' meant 'military'. If it was 'fantasy with martial arts' I'd be stumped.) On the other hand, I have recommended Blood Song here several times before, so thanks I guess? 
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Jan 7, 2014 15:36
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That... was not a problem I've had with it. I mean, it introduces the antagonists and has them explicitly do magic poo poo before it even introduces the protagonists. “Now,” she said, “we shall have some answers.” “This is Mother,” said Akataer, in a high, clear voice. “I charge you to answer her questions, and speak truthfully.” The corpse shifted again, drooling another skein of smoke. The glowing green eyes were unblinking. “You followed Jaffa here,” the old woman said, gesturing at him. “This man.” There was a long pause. When the corpse spoke, more smoke escaped, as though it had been holding in a draw from a pipe. It curled through the girl’s hair and hung oddly still in the air above her. Her voice was a drawn-out hiss, like a hot coal plunged in a water bucket. “Yesssssss . . .” Jaffa swallowed hard. He’d been half hoping Mother was wrong, though that meant the girl would have died for nothing. Small chance there, though. Mother was never wrong. “And who bade you follow him? Who are your masters?” Another pause, as though the dead thing were considering. “. . . Orlanko . . . ,” she said eventually, reluctantly. “. . . Concordaaaaaat . . .” “The foreigners,” the old woman said. She made a hawking sound, as though she would spit but didn’t have the juice. “And what were the raschem looking for?” “. . . Names . . .” The corpse groaned. “. . . Must . . . have . . . the Names . . .” She wriggled in Onvidaer’s grasp, and the green flared brighter. Akataer glanced anxiously at the old woman, who waved one hand as though bored by the proceedings. “Dismiss her,” she said. EDIT: Was this my rec post? Yeah, these are all drat good. Read the other two. All but Thousand Names and Blood Song have sequels out by now, too. Megazver fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 23:34
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The Gunslinger posted:Yeah you're right, I forgot about that. I guess I just got used to the seemingly grounded not-British musket style warfare that made up the majority of the book and was ignoring other foreshadowing and magical elements (healing, super powerful foes, etc) that hinted about what it was building up to. Yeah, I figured. By the way, if you want to chat about the other books or get more reccomendations you can hit me up on Gtalk (the Google IM thing). I'm megazver there as well. I always love hearing about what people thought about the poo poo I've recommended. (Most of my buddy list there is basically people who I bully into reading books that I liked. I have no regrets.)
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Jan 8, 2014 00:16
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crowfeathers posted:Haven't you ever wanted to read a randian dystopia scifi detective thriller novelization of an obscure adventure game written by an ex-businessman conspiracy theorist? That game was pretty decent, actually. Their ambition exceeded their budget and writing had rough patches, but it had a non-linear narrative set in a huge world, like The Last Express on steroids. That guy's writing in the excerpt is dogshit, though. Megazver fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Jan 16, 2014 |
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Jan 16, 2014 10:49
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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? Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise are probably something you'll get a kick out of.
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Jan 18, 2014 10:10
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Zola posted:Is Two Serpents Rise any good? I picked up Three Parts Dead on Kindle for $3.99 and I thought it was really fresh and original, but I'm not sure I liked it enough to pay $11.04 for the next one when I can probably pick both books up secondhand. Well, it's as good as the first one. Don't know what that tells you.
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Jan 20, 2014 09:50
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Cardiovorax posted:Wright is an insane Mormon who hates gay people with a passion, but The Golden Age is really surprisingly good about it. The protagonist occasionally points out how much he loves the free market, but he also continuously shits in his own shoes because of his smug sense of entitlement, so it kind of equals out. He's Catholic. He's very, very insistent about how Catholic he is. And the Golden Age was written before he had a heart attack and converted, so he was just a right-wing libertarian back then.
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Jan 20, 2014 17:58
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Cingulate posted:The way you're presenting your analytical statement, it conveys a connotation, something like "it is unrelatable to men (and some women) because there's no scene without women". Look at the statement's context; you're listing a bunch of reasons why it might be a hard read, like vocabulary/language change, historical knowledge .. and then, a female-dominated story. The implication being that women are as strange to men as people from a few hundred years ago are. That women and men are totally different. That's... not what he said?
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Jan 22, 2014 16:31
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For everyone who wants good space opera: You should read Saga. Yeah, it's a comic. No, I'm not in the wrong thread. It's that good. They're giving their first issue away for free on their site and on Comixology and probably everywhere else where they can, so I hope it's okay to link to it on Imgur to avoid the hassle of going through an online store to download something for free. Read it, it's fantastic. Megazver fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Jan 23, 2014 |
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Jan 23, 2014 11:00
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Neurosis posted:I have heard nearly universal praise for Saga but I have only found it passable to above average. A lot of the time it just feels like it's meandering and I don't really care about what's going on. What's it like to have no soul?
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Jan 23, 2014 18:15
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fookolt posted:Wait, for Saga, are we talking actual dicks or just people who are dicks or people who are actual dicks? An issue got briefly banned on Comixology for this:  There are also some brief sex scenes and nudity. And a brothel planet.
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Jan 23, 2014 21:15
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Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert are poo poo writers. The only book I've read by Robert J. Sawyer (Red Planet Blues) was a weak 3/5.
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Feb 1, 2014 18:09
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:I already asked this in the recommendation station, but could someone point me at books similar to Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and More? I blazed through it today and was disappointed to hear he hasn't published more collections. Just check Wikipedia to see what he wrote since 2002. I'm pretty sure it's all available online, somewhere.
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Feb 2, 2014 01:49
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ravenkult posted:Can you guys recommend any books that feature wilderness survival? Think Jack London. This is not exactly what you ask for, but Verne's Mysterious Island is pretty much Minecraft: The Book. The Russian translation that I've read is awesome. I hear Verne isn't as respected among anglophone readers as he should be because of lovely abridged translations, but apparently there are some recent translations that are faithful to the source material so if you're interested, look for those. There are also lists like this but I've read none of these books.
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Feb 3, 2014 00:21
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Forgall posted:That dynamite recipe is wrong! On purpose.  Don't be dissin' my man Jules. I will cut you, bitch.
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Feb 3, 2014 00:36
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Nevvy Z posted:Then the next game they had an ammo system where every heatsink burnt out and your pistol could only hold 10 heat sinks and your shotgun could only hold six or something stupid that didn't improve game play and made no loving sense plot wise. It did improve gameplay, though. Which is the only reason they needed, really.
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Feb 4, 2014 02:25
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Nevvy Z posted:There's probably a whole subforum you could take this discussion to. The first chapter of the one I've tried to read was bad even by tie-in fiction standards.
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Feb 4, 2014 23:41
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fermun posted:While this set of recommendations wasn't intended for me, Done. Agree with you almost every case (I liked Alex Verus series more than you did, White Trash Zombie less.). What do you got in a traditional Fantasy setting or a sci fi book? Do you have a Goodreads so that I may creep on your book recommendations more completely? Done... what? Anyway, thanks man!  I admit I've put down the first Alex Verus book after the first few chapters, which were kind of weak and never got back to it. I've been meaning to check it out again. With WTZ I enjoyed the production novel-esque aspect of working as a trainee at a morgue more than the UF (or, snort, the romance) bits. There was less of the former and more of the latter with each following book so I've stopped reading the series half-way through book three. I don't post anything on Goodreads, no. I get the social aspect of reading and recommending books through forcing a few of my online friends with similar tastes to read the books that I've liked. This way I actually get to discuss them with people whose opinions I actually (mildly) care about.  I've been meaning to write up a couple more repostable lists about fantasy and scifi, just in case, but that's not happening in a while. Meanwhile, if you want someone to chat with about books every once in a while hit me up on GTalk. The email is the obvious one.I've read a lot of classic SF when I was a teenager and liked it, but then again I've doggedly read my way through a ton of poo poo-rear end books back then so I don't quite trust the Teenage Me's judgement. Modern writers who would have written sci-fi that's more character-driven back in the day are writing fantasy these days, so that's most of what I read. Most of contemporary scifi seems to be some combination of a) borderline-autistic level of hard b) right-wing and c) high-concept word salad and I have a hard time getting into it. As for fantasy, I don't know about "traditional setting" but here's some recent fantasy I've enjoyed that wasn't UF: Blood Song by Anthony Ryan, The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman, A Thousand Names by Django Wexler, The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones and Heroes Die by Matthew Stover. Also, if you haven't yet, read The Bone Key by Sarah Monette. If you liked the poo poo on my UF list, you'll get a kick out of it.
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Feb 6, 2014 16:34
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nate fisher posted:Been looking for some new fantasy to read. Any thoughts on Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns? I am not a big fantasy reader, but I have read Martin, Abercrombie, Rothruss, and Lynch. I am tempted to try out Prince of Thorns or Sanderson's The Way of Kings. The Way of Kings worries me that it might be a little much too 'high' fantasy for me. I'm just on the fence about making a commitment to that series. Well, in the first scene the protagonist rapes someone then locks everyone in a village in a barn and burns them alive. Such edgy. Many misunderstood. Wow. And the author is somewhat of a pretentious, butthurt twat any time someone talks about how they were put off by that. Read Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. He's an excellent storyteller. vvvvv Yeah, not a lot of substance there. Megazver fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 21:56
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nate fisher posted:I saw that series recommended on Goodreads. I just put the first book in my Amazon cart. Let me be the wanker that self-quotes: Megazver posted:Robin Hobb's books are basically for people who get off on the self-pity and sense of superiority they receive when they identify with the protagonist's incessant victimization. That's my take.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:26
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Do The Evolution posted:Speaking of which... I wrote a UF recommendation post recently. A few people liked it. Try the first few books on that list. Personally, I thought the beginning of the first Matthew Smith book was painfully overwritten so I dropped it. The author described a wardrobe whose only function was to let the hero steal some clothes before escaping for, like, two pages. Megazver fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Feb 16, 2014 |
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Feb 16, 2014 00:47
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RVProfootballer posted:Whatever translation of Solaris I got through Kindle was great. If you want contemplative or literary or whatever the right term is, I'd definitely recommend it. I didn't notice any poor or stilted writing. There's a new 2011 one, apparently, but the only one that was out before that was actually a translation of a French translation. Michael Kandel's translations of Lem are considered to be really good, though.
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Feb 16, 2014 04:06
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Cardiovorax posted:That sort of stuff is what I meant when I said it's hard to get into. It drops off sharply after the first few chapters, though, so you might want to give it another chance at some other time. That's nice to know, but the thing with "oh it gets good eventually!" books is that I've got, like, a thirty page list of unread books on my Kindle and at least with some of them I won't need to slog through them, teeth gritted, to maybe-probably get to the good bits. Your story's beginning is important, guys. Edit it hard.
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Feb 16, 2014 12:04
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Linco posted:Can anyone recommend any good military fantasy? I just read The Red Knight by Miles Cameron and really enjoyed it. I also really liked The Black Company series. The Red Knight just got a sequel, I believe. I hear it's a bit sloppier, but whatever. You'll definitely get the kick out of The Thousand Names. Paul Kearney's Macht trilogy is a great fit. Finally, Joe Abercrombie recently wrote Heroes which is sorta that.
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Feb 18, 2014 02:38
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I believe there's already a place for that, the comments section of Requires Only That You Hate. Going to be as productive, too.
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Feb 20, 2014 01:32
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Nevvy Z posted:Holy poo poo I really like The Quantum Thief. Besides Stross, where can I find more cool poo poo like this? The Player of Games by Iain M Banks. The Golden Age by John C. Wright. Incidentally, he's totally bugfuck but this particular series is still good.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:49
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Darth Walrus posted:Right, and compiling a list of books with the notice 'hey, this poo poo's kinda sexist/racist/homophobic, so if you're not into that, you might want to skip it' is going to cause a thriving John Ringo black market because...? They weren't talking about a blacklist of Ringo/Card/Bell/Wright level crazies and bigots. (For one, there's just not enough somewhat-readable assholes to populate one. These four are the only ones I could come up with.) Their definition of racist sexist bigots to put on a blacklist expanded to everyone who's basically too old or conservative to have a Tumblr-level hard-on for identity politics. I'm a progressive myself, but this is seriously  .Like, go ahead, knock yourself out. It's not a free speech issue or is it going too far. It's just kinda sad and dumb and don't be surprised if most people will mock you for it even here on Something Awful.
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Feb 21, 2014 12:38
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SquadronROE posted:So I finished Deepness in the Sky a couple nights ago and picked up a couple new books to read: Diaspora, which I will start soon, and Old Man's War which I ended up staying up until 3AM reading. Holy hell, I love the writing style and the dude's opinions don't seem like poo poo! He had the hyper-racist dude just have a heart attack and die because he was a lazy gently caress. And then old people hosed like rabbits for a week straight. I feel like it's a very fun book, and that is exactly what I wanted. They're alright, yeah.
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Mar 11, 2014 17:34
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Groke posted:I just finished that as well (non-audiobook version) and yeah, it was pretty cool and I hope the guy writes more books. Fun fact: it's by the maker of Casey and Andy.
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Mar 14, 2014 11:31
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I don't really get it. The world is fascinating, but written with all the verve and colour of an accountant on prozac. I don't know how something that should be so interesting is such a total slog. I'm about 15% of the way in. Does it get better? Is there something else of his I should try reading first to get more used to the prose style? That about sums him up for me. Don't bother with anything else.
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Mar 16, 2014 16:50
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ravenkult posted:I read the Harry Connolly books in the Twenty Palaces series. What else is similar except Dresden Files? I wrote a UF recommendation post a while back. You'll probably enjoy a lot of books there. Man, I am seriously considering rewriting the list and just putting it up as a one page site to refer people to. Maybe put some Amazon referral links on it. Call it "UF for Guys" or something like that.
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Mar 21, 2014 00:01
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ravenkult posted:I'm sorry, but you have Chuck Wendig on there and that's a sin. (Shameful confession: That's the only one on that list I haven't read beyond the first few pages. Frankly right now I'm not sure why it's there.)
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Mar 21, 2014 00:26
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Haerc posted:I looked her up, her website says she doesn't really write much short fiction, and the list provided there didn't have anything I had read. Thanks though. That series is fantastic, but it's definitely not it. Martin and Dozois only did several anthologies. Just read the non-spoilery story descriptions in the Amazon reviews of each to see if that jogs your memories.
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Mar 24, 2014 23:25
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Carrier posted:Can anyone recommend any good fantasy (or sci-fi to a lesser extent) Bildungsroman novels? Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.
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Mar 25, 2014 00:24
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