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Collateral posted:Speaking of lovely books that give you a warm fuzzy feeling. I just finished library at Mount char. Such a feelgood book. Eeek. I liked Library at Mount Char a lot but would strongly disagree with it being a feelgood book. While it doesn't focus on such things entirely, it does include someone being raped and killed (then resurrected), a boy being roasted alive over the course of a day in a giant metal oxen or whatever it was, a few instances of being being torn apart by superhumans and a worldwide apocalypse happening in the background.
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Oct 9, 2019 06:28
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There's no Rivers of London specific thread. Urban Fantasy thread is https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3636466&pagenumber=281#lastpost I liked Rivers of London. Nothing that blew my mind but a good solid read unlike Dresden Files which I found myself slogging through. Both were read long enough ago though that I can't remember why I had those opinions though  .
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Oct 26, 2019 15:29
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Is Interference good assuming I liked Semiosis? Want more emotional journeys with rainbow bamboo and friends.
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Nov 1, 2019 23:48
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MockingQuantum posted:I was considering Malazan since a friend offered to lend the first couple of collections to me, but yeah admittedly I might need something lighter. I'll check out Shadows of the Apt though! I have really liked a lot of what Adrian Tchaikovsky has written (Children of Time/Ruin, Dogs of War, Cage of Souls, After the War) so I went back and bought the entire Shadows of the Apt series thinking I'd enjoy that too but found it incredibly mediocre at best. An anti-recommendation from me. I got a good way through them but just couldn't force myself to finish the last book and a half and I've read the entire Wheel of Time trilogy so it's not like I'm able to slog through long series when the writing dips. My recommendation would be: The World of the Five Gods series by Lois Bujold. 3 main books and 7 (I think now) novellas. Book 3 and the novellas are their own separate stories in the same world. If you've read pretty much any Bujold then hopefully you enjoyed her and you'll enjoy her here because she is very consistently good. If you've never read Bujold, read goddamn Bujold. If you're after something a bit punchier maybe the First Law books by Abercrombie. Imagine Lord of the Rings if most of the Fellowship are flawed assholes. Earthsea is probably more traditional that the above two, following a famous and great wizard from his early beginnings to his retirement. N.K. Jemisin Hundred Thousand Kingdoms trilogy is a fantasy trilogy which combines the adventures or trials of the main characters with a focus on love, redemption, forgiveness and revenge. The two Mistborn Trilogies and then the rest of Sanderson's work in the same universe. He just writes fantasy that is pretty consistently decent doesn't really push boundaries. If you just want fantasy stories you can plough through with all the stuff from fantasy stories you'd expect done to a decent standard, he's your guy. He did the last couple of Wheel of Time books so if you've read WoT and want more like it, which is what you're asking for, then he seems like a very obvious choice. He's a goon favourite and he has his own thread on the Book Barn Comedy Option: There's this great series called A Song of Ice and Fire...
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Nov 12, 2019 00:32
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Lester Shy posted:Was anybody else frustrated by the Broken Earth trilogy? It's probably I didn't really get that at all. Some people can do earth magic. Some people can do earth magic better than other by thinking super hard about rocks or whatevs. There are statue people that can do earthagic. There are a few macguffins that interact with earth magic and do special stuff. If anything I really liked the bit where some knowledgeable character was set up to reveal the secret behind how all this actually works and basically just goes "It's fuckin' magic".
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Nov 13, 2019 23:38
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to complain about a magic system, and I'm not saying every story has to have strict, Sanderson-style rules, but the magic in Broken Earth piles so many different, weird things on top of one another that the whole thing falls apart under its own weight.
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The_White_Crane posted:I think there's a difference between "military capabilities" and "children can accidentally level a city if they lose their temper" which undermines the metaphor. I don't know if you got to book 3 but is also reveals: A: They had already used their powers countless times to stop global extinction events. B: The entire situation with multi-apocalypses every few hundred/thousand years was set off by normal people's plans and slavery of earth wizzzards. I mean yes the idea of people with vast powers you don't have is scary, but that doesn't mean you start cheering for the guy building sentinels in X-Men and it is also a thing we have already called Capitalism.
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Nov 14, 2019 17:40
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Megazver posted:Full Fathom Five basically has the inciting incident about 50% into a not-very-slender novel, which is quite a few pages without the reader understanding what the gently caress the actual story is about, and just kind of meanders showing author's precious worldbuilding before that. I like the guy and I liked the first two books, but I am not sure I'll ever get around to reading the rest of the series. Does't it have it right at the start? A god dies under mysterious circumstances and the heroine decides something is up and needs to investigate as they cotton on that more goes wrong while side-character linked in to the plot have their own goings on? MockingQuantum posted:Yeah Full Fathom Five was kind of miserable for me, I skimmed a lot of it and I'm glad I did. I think I agree that part of the issue is the worldbuilding-- I think Gladstone is pretty good at writing a decent plot, but at least for me personally, his world isn't quite interesting enough (or maybe just not quite specific/fleshed out enough) to justify the time he takes on worldbuilding. Like FFF especially, I felt like the whole idea behind the island and the penitents and the idols were cool, but extremely half baked in such a way that all the cool ideas in the world wouldn't ever hang together nicely, in a way that felt coherent and engaging. I had the same problem with Two Serpents or whatever it was, the setting was kind of meh, but the story was engaging. Last First Snow was still the same meh setting, but with a disproportionately slow, bland story that could have been written more engagingly in a lot fewer pages. I've got to say I disagree completely and and loved all the books. I will say that the themes the first one touches on which could simply be considered twists of the plot are hammered home more-so throughout the series, that it isn't simply about lawyer magical necromancers getting into scrapes but about the dialectics between labour and capital as seen through this weird magical economic system where both labour and capital are tied into gods and necromancy. Remembering back to Full Fathom Five which I probably read a year or two ago, the main plot basically is revealed to be a CEO of a bank in a tax haven commits murder to protect the bank's profits, with everything tied into this magiic-capitalist framework like the bank being a conglomeration of quiescent artificial gods that people invest in. That permeates the setting like I'm sure it's pointed out how the entire economic system of the island has distorted and prostituted the culture of the islands to make it a tourist attraction and the CEO's rationale for committing murder being that subservience to capitalism is the best way to keep the island afloat and that if not for that they'd need to play host to a military base from a world power (which in this case would be a massive cult of worshippers of a mind-controlling squid god). You have the juxtaposition of the wealthy tourist areas and the impoverished native children, one of whom is a POV character. You have the broken system which protects children from jail (magic golem jail) while simultaneously leaving them in poverty and almost no options but some form of crime. I think the book and the writing stands well enough on it's own, but I think people will get a lot more enjoyment out of it if they're interested in sociology, economics or are basically the kind of person that pays attention to people like Sanders or Corbyn. Empress of Forever I enjoyed didn't think was quite as good as the Craft sequence, but then it was also a much more straightforward story.
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Nov 21, 2019 00:18
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Megazver posted:No. Whatsherface breaking into the bank is the inciting incident and, as far as I recall. Everything before that is pretty much all the characters ambling around while you're thinking "why the gently caress are we shown these people and when will the story start?" The fired magic financier mopes, gets drunk, gets interviewed about her firing. The hobo girl just kinda reactively lives her life and until it ties into the other story like 2/3 into the book, it just has zero relation to it or apparent point. Okay, I've flicked through it and I feel like there's some difference in how inciting incident is being understood here. You were saying "Full Fathom Five basically has the inciting incident about 50% into a not-very-slender novel," but as far as I'm concerned the inciting incident happens at the end the very first chapter where one of the two main characters against orders almost kills herself trying to save a dying god. This completely changes their life and sets in motion the events of the rest of the book. That's the exciting incident as far as I'm concerned and it's at the start, like you'd expect Your complaint that "hobo girl just kinda reactively lives her life" is wrong for sure seeing as her inciting incident in Chapter 4 (her second chapter) is intervening in a fight between the super-powered priestess spy of a moon god and the island's implacable law golems which again upends her life and sets her arc in motion. The issue you actually seem to be having, as you describe it, is that the effect this has on their life is very low-key until the poo poo really starts hitting the fan and it goes into action mode later in the book. What I don't get is how really it's that different from either of the first two books. Maybe that the magic is less overwhelming in how it effects the narrative? By which I mean has less stuff like that scene in the first book where the main characters are fundamentally just checking a paper trail but the way that manifests when applied to a magic system is the weird magical autopsy of a city sized god that they're standing on top of while it slowly rots?
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Nov 21, 2019 01:26
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Look Sir Droids posted:You are correct and I get that, but when it was being explained what the spiders released in the ships air system, and how Kern advised them to kill humans, it was said what the spiders really wanted was to “control” humans like they had learned to do with ants. Domestication is a fair characterization, but my interpretation from the book is that the ants were also an uplifted species. Uplifted by the nanovirus. Either way, then it’s arguable spiders domesticated the humans. Point being, humans did not come to accept spiders of their own free will. It can be interpreted as heart warming or sinister what the spiders did. Obviously heart warming is the author’s intent. Imagine that you could release a magic virus that destroyed racism and caused people to judge each other on the content of their character, not the colour of their skin. Would that be sinister and count as people not accepting each other of their own free will?
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Nov 28, 2019 21:55
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occamsnailfile posted:This is an interesting question and there is evidence that some brain structures are more prone to racist/fearful behavior, to the point that certain brain diseases or injuries can change those attitudes so I wonder if we can be considered to always be 'choosing' acceptance or not of free will now. Of course changing someone's biology without their consent is also pretty uncool and I think it's a fair debate. It's war. You're allowed to kill someone in self defence which is the ultimate change to their biology. I don't think curing specieisism is comparable or something where much thought is needed over which is worse as an alternative.
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Nov 28, 2019 22:20
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Look Sir Droids posted:That’s exactly what I find interesting about the ending. It’s a good philosophical question that I’m not sure was intended since it gets handwaved as having no downsides. The thing is this wasn't an issue of whether it's good or bad in isolation. It's a question of whether it's better or worse than the alternative, which in this case is genocide. The obvious answer is "of course it's better".
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Nov 30, 2019 14:21
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Ferrosol posted:How has no one recommended Bujold yet if we're discussing good female sci-fi authors. Also seconding the Chambers nomination. Bujold is amazing and I really got into her this year. I prefer the fantasy Challion series to the Sci-Fi Vorksagian Saga but it's the difference between rating books 10/10 or 9/10.
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Dec 25, 2019 17:38
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StrixNebulosa posted:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250260256/ Never heard of it and seem to be hardly any reviews. Goon opinions?
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Jan 6, 2020 21:49
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StrixNebulosa posted:It's here! Well if people are going this hard in on an overpriced novella, I guess I'll give it a try (for £2.44 from the UK kindle store)
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Jan 7, 2020 21:59
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freebooter posted:Hmmm OK maybe I'll stick with it. I've resolved to read 60 books this year and those ones are conveniently short. It's basically more of the same. If the character doesn't click for you and give you any warm and fuzzy feelings, the other books aren't massively different.
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Jan 7, 2020 23:48
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my bony fealty posted:a real legend, the fantasy genre owes sooo much to him. Christopher Tolkein? Not J R R Tolkein? I read the Silmarillion back in the day and a couple of the other historical Middle-Earth things he put together from his fathers unpublished work and enjoyed them as a nerdy young teenager and sorry to see Christopher go, but I don't think his work had a significant impact on fantasy unless I'm missing something?
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Jan 16, 2020 20:32
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freebooter posted:OK, granted that it sometimes happened, but the reason it's an amusing story is that it's unusual. Whereas Abercrombie presented it (IIRC) as the only reasonable expectation of some sort of effete noble class trying to go into battle against the Real Men (TM) of the North. It's not really an amusing story and it's not that uncommon. You have to remember that for most of history, military leadership hasn't been a meritocracy and there are entrenched interests which push people into positions of power beyond their competence. Even looking back to the US Civil War, a country which at the time was far more based on meritocracy than contemporaries and was not that long ago, it it universally accepted that there was a notable proportion of generals who were elevated based on their political clout rather than military competence and that's in a country without an aristocracy. For around 200 years in the UK between the 17th and 19th century you could literally purchase a commission as an officer with more money getting you a higher rank which was in fact part of what got Elphinstone his command. Also the answer to "How did this empire become so big and powerful if it's putting pampered princelings in charge of its field armies?" is it was secretly lead by a loving wizard. I mean I can understand the criticism of not liking the style as Abercrombie's style is somewhat distinct and he does eschew realism to rely on a self-knowing use of archetypes, but history is full of stupid, arrogant, cruel, dumb generals so that part of it doesn't really stick as criticism. I'd also say that the grimdark aspect of his writing doesn't rely so much on the violence, but on the overall story arc and emphasises that will be picked up on throughout. The First Law Trilogy could easily have been far less grim while still containing every instance of violence if the ending and where characters landed had been tweaked slightly so everyone had managed to scrape a happy ending.
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Feb 19, 2020 21:24
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Cythereal posted:Can't think of any reason I'd have read any post you've made, much less about CJC. I was prompted to give her a look by a different thread. I think you're reading ToxicFrog's post as them berating you for not reading their posts, when actually they were just agreeing with you about it while also saying it's not representative of her work or a good starting point.
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Feb 20, 2020 01:00
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tildes posted:Is Lock In worth reading? It’s my last Scalzi book more or less apart from a few random Old Man’s War ones. I read the sequel, Head On, without reading Lock In and thought it was so poo poo I gave up a third of the way through. For contrast I liked his Old Man's War, Interdependency and even that Red Shirts books he did to varying degrees.
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Apr 18, 2020 09:37
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Dammit. After caving and buying the overpriced but good Murderbot novellas, Tor are handing them out free. https://ebookclub.tor.com/ Edit: Guessing we all just got the same email
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Apr 20, 2020 14:08
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Couple of Kindle reductions in the UK store for books that have been mentioned in this thread. Middlegame which is Hugo nominated and a few people have been talking up - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07HF2ZK75 Engine Summer, which I have on my wishlist list because someone in here recommended it at some point - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AJ1ZO7Y/
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Apr 28, 2020 10:40
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Safety Biscuits posted:UK, so that might be it. I'm in the UK too and had issues with ordering Monster on Kindle, it didn't show up to buy until a couple of weeks after the US release.
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Apr 30, 2020 07:54
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Black Leopard, Red Wolf is 99p in the UK Kindle store at the moment. I've been waiting for it to drop and just picked it up.
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May 6, 2020 10:54
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biracial bear for uncut posted:I tried reading the first book when Tor offered it as a giveaway and I'm having trouble getting past all the "Lesbians are unnatural!" poo poo. Well, no, that sticks around because that's a large part of what Baru's fighting against as she herself is a lesbian raised by bisexuals. If Falcrest was suddenly not super messed up about a whole load of things, there wouldn't really be much of a plot. You did get that the "Lesbians are unnatural" was presented as the thing the bad guys thought, right?
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May 15, 2020 17:22
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freebooter posted:Murderbot chat has sunk back a bit, and anyway I was lukewarm about the first novella which is the only one I've read, but I remember people talking about how they generally loved the vibe of this unfeeling AI which nonetheless dedicates itself to protecting "its" humans. And I was just discussing Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora with someone and remembered that this was the aspect of that novel I really loved the most. They're totally different kinds of stories, but if you liked Murderbot and liked the idea of an emotionless yet benevolent and powerful AI that develops a duty of care to human beings, check Aurora out. I got the exact opposite impression from Murderbot, that it's very emotional but also introverted and doesn't show it easily. It can be very calm in the face of danger like the initial scene in the first novella where it's complaining about rescuing someone from some alien beastie, but it can have very strong emotions towards people even if it then has trouble processing or showing those emotions. It gets more obvious the further you go throught he books as Murderbot develops more attachments to people. For instance, in the fifth book it thinks its ship friend has died and goes on a bit of a berserker rampage and is traumatised over it.
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Jun 7, 2020 18:17
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General Battuta posted:Early reviews of Tyrant Baru Cormorant are starting up, it's out next week. Unless you get the ebook in the UK in which case it's two and a half weeks 
team overhead smash fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Aug 4, 2020 |
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Aug 4, 2020 20:23
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Jedit posted:And if you want to order a physical copy, they won't tell you how much it costs. Or they didn't when I looked yesterday, at least. Genereal Battuta, truly history's greatest Pre-ordered on the 1st of March and just really really want to read it ASAP
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Aug 5, 2020 09:43
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Ccs posted:I’m 50% into Tyrant. Great so far. loving weird UK release dates
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Aug 13, 2020 14:56
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Kesper North posted:New Adrian Tchaikovsky just dropped. It's book season, I guess! 2 days until it releases over here in the UK. Any good? If it's Children of Time level of writing I'll happy buy it. If it's more Shadows of the Apt, I will skip it.
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Aug 18, 2020 12:24
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BadMedic posted:I have a terrible memory for names, so maybe someone else can figure out the title: Tau Zero by Poul Anderson.
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Sep 11, 2020 14:04
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Tars Tarkas posted:Baru shoutout on Tor https://www.tor.com/2020/10/21/9-complicated-female-narrators-who-will-surprise-you/ Can't believe they would spoil the title of the fourth book like that. "Traitor, monster, tyrant, hot mess—Baru cannot keep track of who she is supposed to be, not even when she’s alone"
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Oct 22, 2020 08:33
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Just started Rage of Dragons because it's been on my Kindle recommendation list for ages so thought I'd test how good Amazon's algorithms are. I'm about 20% in and wondering if anyone confirm, does it at any point take a look and say "Hey, maybe us invading this country and trying to kill all the natives and steal their land is bad????"
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Nov 5, 2020 14:38
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Evil Fluffy posted:I have this in my backlog and haven't started it yet so I'll be interested to hear how good/bad it is. Finished it. Pretty generic. Feel free to read it if you want something fairly mindless. It did turn out that the country the protagonist was fighting for was intentionally portrayed as pretty awful.
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Nov 5, 2020 21:27
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UK Kindle daily deals includes The Fifth Season for 99p.
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Mar 5, 2021 18:16
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Harold Fjord posted:Does Chalion keep being good? I liked curse Yes it keeps being good and once you’ve read the 3 main books there are a whole series of great novellas.
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Mar 30, 2021 07:13
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Kestral posted:Since we're on Bujold-chat, to what extent could Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and Penric be described with words like "comfy" and "romantic" ? I had to bail out of Vorkosigan after struggling with Shards of Honor and then having folks tell me, "yeah, the series gets much better but you never get away from the persistent romance component," so I've been gunshy about her fantasy work. I’d say sometimes characters can feel like they’re in danger and thinks can get a little dark, but it never indulges awfulness for its own sake and the characters and their relationships can certainly be cosy. Nothing like the first two Vorkosigan books.
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Apr 4, 2021 18:44
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uber_stoat posted:finally got rid of 'em, god bless. ever thus to an-cap pedophiles. Just googled this and sounds super cool. Please let me know how it reads.
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Apr 8, 2021 15:50
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PawParole posted:i havent had any luck when i asked last year, but has anyone here read any good Generation ships or interstellar colony novels in the last year? Children of Ruin is half generation ship half the development of alien intelligence on the destination planet. Tau Zero was okay and a bit dated but I enjoyed how absurd the time lag got. Freeze Frame Revolution is decent and has a different premise as people try and rebel against their AI overlord despite spending 99.999% of their time in cryo.
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Apr 10, 2021 19:23
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Ccs posted:Not saying ADE is cultivation, it just had an element of needing to do a repetitive task or expend a certain amount of time to charge up the power meter. This serves to add a cost to the magic system so the characters can’t just pull anything they want out of thin air, which is fine. It just gets tiring to read about characters worrying about their magic supply and having to plan time to replenish their magic supply, etc. And it sounds like cultivation is that but where the goal of storing up this power is more amorphous. Though there’s presumably some stakes and consequences if the character fails to train or else its not really a story Kind of, but instead of cultivating to regen your mana bar it’s more cultivating to level up and reach new levels of power you’ve never had before.
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May 2, 2021 09:43
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Marshal Radisic posted:Think of it this way: in the first two books Bardas is presented as someone with a normal system of morals and ethics well within the baseline of his society, while his brother Gorgas is a sociopath. At the end of The Belly of the Bow, Bardas learns that his brother was not only responsible for the sack of Perimadeia, he had done so as part of a series of manipulations to get the family back together. Bardas, seeing the untold death and destruction Gorgas has wrought with his actions, decides that Gorgas needs to face some sort of punishment for his crime, and thus set his mind to hurting his brother in the most personal, intimate manner possible. Unfortunately, since Gorgas is a sociopath, the act means nothing to him, and he forgives Bardas. I see the that part of the story as a comparison of the evils committed by the moral and amoral. Cold utilitarian calculation can destroy millions in the name of accomplishing an objective, but passions and ideals of traditional morality can foster exquisite cruelties in the name of righteousness. From what we know of his time in the military, Bardas was involved in the slaughter of non-combatants. He wasn't going around indiscriminately killing for fun, but he had shown himself to have little compunction about getting involved in killing innocents when it's judged as being needed.. Hell, his career as of the time we're introduced to him in the books is legally fighting people to the death for money. team overhead smash fucked around with this message at 12:04 on May 19, 2021 |
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May 19, 2021 12:02
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