Ryoshi posted:

Just thought of another one: Seven Deadly Wonders by some guy I won't honor by looking up but I think there was a Matt in his name or something.

A friend recommended it to me and so I gave it a shot. And don't get me wrong, on some levels it's fun because of how goofy it is. But...the main character is a grizzled dude with a hawk and a mechanical super arm who needs to go raid the trap-filled seven wonders of the ancient world to Do Magic poo poo at the great pyramid. And he quizzes his adopted magic daughter on Lord of the Rings trivia, which saves both of their lives at one point. Even looking past all that, if you can, the writing is just flat out bad.

(And I still kind of want to read the sequel.)

Nutsngum posted:

Blowing up Krondor was kind of cool I must say

Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted:

Pro-click right here

It was dark, yo.

It was blue, yo.

"The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City" posted:

Night had come to the city of Skalandarharia, the sort of night with such a quality of black to it that it was as if black coal had been wrapped in blackest velvet, bathed in the purple-black ink of the demon squid Drindel and flung down a black well that descended toward the deepest, blackest crevasses of Drindelthengen, the netherworld ruled by Drindel, in which the sinful were punished, the black of which was so legendarily black that when the dreaded Drindelthengenflagen, the ravenous blind black badger trolls of Drindelthengen, would feast upon the uselessly dilated eyes of damned, the abandoned would cry out in joy as the Drindelthengenflagenmorden, the feared Black Spoons of the Drindelthengenflagen, pressed against their optic nerves, giving them one last sensation of light before the most absolute blackness fell upon them, made yet even blacker by the injury sustained from a falling lump of ink-bathed, velvet-wrapped coal.


With the night came a storm, the likes of which the eldest among the Skalandarharians would proclaim they had seen only once before, although none of them could agree which on which one time that was; some said it was like the fabled Scouring of Skalandarharia, in which the needle-sharp ice-rain flayed the skin from the unjust of the city, provided they were outside at the time, while sparing the just who had stayed indoors; others said it was very similar to the unforgettable Pounding of Skalandarharia, in which hailstones the size of melons destroyed the city’s melon harvest; still others compared it to the oft-commented-upon Moistening of Skalandarharia, in which the persistent humidity made everyone unbearably sticky for several weeks; at which point they were informed that this storm was really nothing like that at all, to which they replied perhaps not, but you had to admit that was a pretty drat miserable time.

Which is to say: It was a dark and stormy night.

Antivehicular posted:

Oh, man, was this one of J.D. Robb's In Death books? I kind of love those trashy pieces of poo poo, but the main characters are the worst loving things about them, especially Omnicompetent Billionaire Hacker Boyfriend/Husband. Some fictional characters just need to be taken out behind the back of the barn and put out of everyone's misery.

EDIT: Also, the main couple both have Extremely Sad Backstories that we go over in every. loving. Book. Like loving clockwork. (Sexy Badass Future Cop in particular has terrible nightmares related to her murder cases and her Extremely Sad Backstory, which kind of makes me wonder if murder investigation is really an ideal career for her?) These backstories are hilariously overwrought, and we get to hear about them constantly. I swear to God, these books are about 60% moderately fun trash featuring characters who aren't completely wretched to follow around, and the other 40% is all the loving protagonists.

Pinball posted:

Better than Marion Zimmer Bradley, though, who ended up being a pedophile.

loquacius posted:

- All the Grand Moffs fly around on a ship together. That ship is called the Moffship. On the Moffship they have conferences. Those conferences are called Mofferences.

xiw posted:

I really enjoyed this takedown of Anathem.

http://gmfbrown.blogspot.co.nz/2010/05/why-anathem-sucks.html

Reached the end of the book, was very unsatisfied, and this really crystallized a lot of why for me.

Just Offscreen posted:

What's your beef with Stephenson? I really enjoyed Seveneves, but i'll admit it was pretty weak after the timeskip.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

The best part of it is that Richard takes to wearing an instrument of torture around his neck as a symbol of resilience or something.

The very same, instrument, incidentally, that a dominatrix shoved up his rear end.

The Saddest Rhino posted:

i do remember one thing though: there was a hot supermodel. this super hot supermodel was on tv and he's like "imma go and teleport to where she is, kidnap her and then when she's stuck alone with me with nowhere out, i'll seduce her with my charms and make her LOVE ME" which is of loving course exactly what he did.

anyway that was how jumper had a story involving a young man who threatened a beautiful lady with his powers and made her a sexual victim

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

Has anybody read the Iron Druid books? Amazon kept recommending them to me for ages and they looked like hot garbage.

Stick Insect posted:

Little Brother, also by Cory Doctorow.

It's an instruction guide that is presented in the form of a story, told from a first-person perspective. About maintaining privacy, subverting surveillance and using technology to your advantage. Even contains instructions on how to make your own pepper spray device, and it's suggested rather bluntly that it can be used for more than just making food evenly spiced.


Cory knows what he's writing about when it comes to these topics. This is the good part. The bad part is how he writes about it. Like the scaremongering style in his articles on Boingboing, his fiction style is pretty bad too.

The book reads like his personal fantasy, where his worst nightmare (country turning into a police state) happens to a younger version of himself, who then starts to fight back. The main character comes across as a total self-insert who would agree 100% on everything with the author.

Also the sex:

Tiggum posted:

I just read an excellent terrible book. It's called Americosis volume 1: The Savior Cometh and it's by Haydn Wilks. I posted [url=https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1393462788]a full review of it on

Klaus88 posted:

Are there any sci fi books that don't descent into loving deviant art level sex fic bullshit.

Domus posted:

See, this is a dilemma I've run into recently. Do the "sexy" parts of a story matter? If it was good otherwise, would it be OK for him to have a kneecap dick? What about the opposite? My sister-in-law asked me to edit her werewolf romance/erotica. If someone is writing a book that is mainly about the sex, does it matter if the rest of the story is good? Because part of me wants to go "You never explained this, this, and this, these mythical creatures aren't from where you say they are, the creation story you told is horrible, and the whole Indian thing is frankly offensive". And then the other part of me says "It's freaking werewolf porn, make sure penis is spelled right and move on".

Jerome Agricola posted:

Not meaning to start poo poo. It's just weird to me. Everyone I know (or at least have talked about the issue with) has fallen asleep reading often.

Postal Parcel posted:

Not as bad as others, but Larry Correia's Monster Hunter series hits a sort of sweet spot for me. It's been a while so I'll give a quick synopsis of what I remember.

The main character is this "fairly stupid" mountain of a man, like, 6'4+ with a tank-like body and whatnot, and he reminds you of this almost every other page. For some reason, I think he was trying to join the marines or something, he gets recruited to a monster hunters group and kicks all kinds of rear end. Honestly, it was okay pulp fiction, nothing really too terrible. Problem I had with it was that the main character was a Gary Stu and basically took down all monsters he faced. He also had problems with his superiors/seniors that not only did he show up, he also kicked their asses, easily. One in particular was the boyfriend of "good friend" of the woman who initially recruited him(I think). The guy is an awful intellectual who is also a coward when the going gets tough, obviously. Anyway, he fucks up badly sometime around and after the chaos has ended, pisses of the main character and gets his poo poo kicked in. I also think the MC gets the girl, but like I said, it's been a while.

It's really not as bad as some of the masturbatory military stuff presented, but for some reason, it just leaves a bad taste when the main character is hyped up so much and has the personality of white bread.

Gabriel Pope posted:

Wasn't he the guy that basically started the whole Puppies thing because obviously the only reason his masterpieces weren't winning Hugos was because the awards were rigged?

DavidAlltheTime posted:

Hey, someone else knows it! And knows the title better than me. Here's the cover:



I feel like mine was enhanced by a grocery sticker right in the middle of the cover that said 'MEAT $2.00'

DavidAlltheTime posted:

And he's the co-author of a game, not even a book.

This game:



"...first rate science-fiction programmer.."

outlier posted:

My predominant memory of Stranger in a Strange Land is that the school library had it and I read it when I was 15. Thought it was kinda stupid at the time but was unsure if I just didn't get it.

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Seeing an EU display in the library, kid-me was intrigued by the idea of more Star Wars and checked out Truce at Bakura and the Dark Empire comic. Kid-me did not give the EU a second chance.

Senior Woodchuck posted:

Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco did a comic called Arrowsmith, which is set in WWI but with magic instead of tech. There's trolls and pixies and other such things. It's pretty dope.

Cumslut1895 posted:

What? Did you read the comics or the novels?

pentyne posted:

So I read a book series that started strong but wow did it lose the plot. The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman. At best I'll say it really messes with the conventional fantasy tropes and is fairly unique but gets really....fanfiction-y after book 1.

Samfucius posted:

Samfucius posted:

Gabriel Pope posted:

I think you accidentally posted this before you got to the part of the book that's terrible, because everything you've said makes it sound awesome.

SurreptitiousMuffin posted:

The best takedown of Dan Brown remains this gem.

quote:

The 190lb adult male human being nodded his head to indicate satisfaction and returned to his bedroom by walking there. Still asleep in the luxurious four-poster bed of the expensive $10 million house was beautiful wife Mrs Brown. Renowned author Dan Brown gazed admiringly at the pulchritudinous brunette’s blonde tresses, flowing from her head like a stream but made from hair instead of water and without any fish in. She was as majestic as the finest sculpture by Caravaggio or the most coveted portrait by Rodin. I like the attractive woman, thought the successful man.

canis minor posted:

edit: I also haven't seen mentioned The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice. While I've not read the book, the reviews make it seem delightful read. And apparently it's being adapted as tv series. Yay!

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Hey they made a movie of 50 Shades of Grey

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

gently caress I think I gotta read this now

Sham bam bamina! posted:

...the tome called the Lexicon.

quote:

... a carbon-based sac of human flesh

Lamprey Cannon posted:

And that isn't even mentioning the thing that's the titular 'Foundation's Fear', in that there are aliens living inside the Trantor computer network. They gave up their physical forms and uploaded themselves to their second life accounts, or something, because humans were going to bulldoze their planet. I don't think they even show up until the last fifty pages, and then they don't really *do* anything.

wallaka posted:

You're in luck, then. She's not going to write any or allow any to be written.

bringmyfishback posted:

Harry Potter and the Sexy Centaur Who Punches Dragons

Sham bam bamina! posted:

there wolf posted:

Ever read the Toxic Spelldump one? Only Turtledove I ever read because when I went looking for more a helpful librarian pointed me to the alternate history genre in general and I picked up some book about literal fascists who started their own country and it quickly became the most powerful, best, advanced country because of the inherent superiority of the master race. Ugly stuff and it left me totally uninterested in reading anything by that other guy with all those books about how the civil war/WWII could have gone differently.

Wheat Loaf posted:

I believe S.M. Stirling was banned from alternatehistory.com a number of years ago for making comments which were interpreted as advocating genocide against Muslims. (Keep in mind that whether he's doing that is the administrator's interpretation of them.)

BrigadierSensible posted:

Yeah. My post was badly phrased. My uncle went to NA (Narcotics Anonymous).

I meant it was bad and sneaky of Narconon/ the Scientologists to steal the name from a more reputable organization, and as such perhaps have people who need and want help with their addiction coming in and getting Hubberd-ed.