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fritz posted:There's "The High House" and "The False House" by James Stoddard but they're kind of Christian in the CS Lewis sense. I tried the first one years ago and got exceedingly bored with it. But the only thing I can remember about it is noticing it had no female characters that weren't personifications/aspects of ~Cooonnncepts~. I think he's trying to be Jack Vance, but he just doesn't have the chops. Kind of surprised Vance never wrote a Big Creepy Ritualism-Filled Building novel that I can remember; it should have been jam for him. William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land might scratch the itch too, though for the sake of your sanity and your stomach lining skip the first (contemporary) chapter and fast-forward to the far-future narrative.
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Mar 27, 2021 19:50
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my bony fealty posted:I thought maybe I'd re-read The Night Land recently but noped out after a few pages of the intro chapter. I'll probably try again and skip it, it's so dreadful. Mirdath the lovely. Yeah, it has by far the worst start of any of his novels. Got to be that. Lemniscate Blue posted:James Stoddard, "The Night Land: A Story Retold". It's on my to-read stack and came recommended but I haven't read it yet either. Given that he wrote the book I just dunked on in my last post I wouldn't get too hopeful!
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Mar 28, 2021 02:40
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Haha, I didn't even notice. Well then! I was looking at it thinking, "I've seen that name somewhere else recently, now where..."! Back to the huge-weird-structures theme, Catherine Fisher's YA Incarceron is another one; an apparently-infinite Piranesian prison with added CCTV and mad AI. I quite liked it, but the sequel had such a stupid name I've never quite brought myself to find out how it ends. (It's called Sapphique. I just can't read that title as anything other than something about faaabulous decadent lesbian nightlife, written by Angela Carter or Tanith Lee or suchlike.) Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Mar 28, 2021 |
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Mar 28, 2021 14:56
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cardinale posted:Agreed, although I haven't read the novellas. Paladin's protagonist's bitterness and desire to escape her trammeled life rang really true. It also had more of the Bastard, and the Bastard's one of my very favourite gods.
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Mar 30, 2021 11:46
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Johnny Aztec posted:Hello friends. I've recently picked up a bunch of older 1970s-1980s SCI-FI novels, and I think I would like to share reviews here, as I finish each one. Those are nice covers on the Foundations!
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Apr 1, 2021 22:08
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freebooter posted:Wait what did Mieville get cancelled? Why is Mieville haunting every thread I'm on? Piss off Mieville! Gats Akimbo posted:http://bidisha-online.blogspot.com/2012/12/emotional-violence-and-social-power.html (Yes, it's Mieville she's talking about, his name was removed due to his legal threats. Which is also why you can't find much about it.)
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Apr 6, 2021 10:18
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buffalo all day posted:Not sure what other threads you're reading but this is probably the main (only?) thread to discuss his books? The post I linked to is in the PYF terrible books thread (though he came up there in the context of hot authors who are terrible people). I just enjoyed the chance to do my Korg impression.
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Apr 6, 2021 16:00
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General Battuta posted:Link me to the discussion of hot authors please Pretty much ended there; I don't think anyone could think of any others. (Why is there no Muttley snicker emoji?) Carnival of Shrews posted:This is a question for the ages. Which would I rather be told by someone I myself fancied:
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Apr 6, 2021 18:01
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artism posted:Oh also I read past master and it ruled. any other Lafferty recommendations welcome Any of his short story collections will see you right. I'm also possibly most fond of Space Chantey, at least today. Or maybe Arrive at Easterwine; the more Epiktistes the better.
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Apr 8, 2021 10:04
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Fivemarks posted:It's super not fun when you're reading old sci-fi, like Space Viking in my case, and you're kinda swimming along and going "okay no it was written by a white dude in the 50's, that's why everyone smokes and the main characters are from a feudal system that empowered them that's why it seems so fond of them," only for the book to toss in SPACE JEWS who EVERYONE HATES because of their INSCRUTABLE SPACE JEW WAYS and how every really civilized world is a feudal monarchy and how democracy is portrayed as foolish but not AS foolish as socialism. My "favourite" bit is in Uller Uprising when the protagonist and the Hot Chick Who Turns Out To Not Be A Bleeding-Heart Liberal Do-Gooder Like He Thinks She Is bond over the hi-larious fact that they both had Nazi ancestors who fled to Brazil. I would say that REALLY didn't age well but that might imply it wasn't loving awful at some point. 
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Apr 27, 2021 21:19
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I mean I have a vague impression of him as a person that existed and was probably popular in 1930 Um. No. It doesn't. A couple of them can just about get by on ideas, but I'm being very generous on "just about". Dude drank the Scientology kool-aid and it really shows. 99% of his protagonists are super-rational superhumans who've figured out The Secret Of The Universe and are exactly as boring as that sounds unless you're into nerd teenager power fantasies.
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May 2, 2021 11:31
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Hell, I still like Edgar Rice Burroughs.
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May 10, 2021 21:05
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quantumfoam posted:Bester's novels after Demolished Man & Tiger Tiger aka The Stars My Destination was extremely terrible/racist even by the standards of when they got published. He wrote some awesome short stories too, but yeah, it's definitely best to believe he only ever wrote 2 novels.
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May 11, 2021 20:16
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MockingQuantum posted:oh I see, his novels after those two are terrible, I misunderstood. I was really scratching my head to remember what in TSMD would have been very objectionable. The rape scene's pretty awful, but I excuse him that for the awesomeness of the rest.
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May 11, 2021 20:31
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Selachian posted:"Fondly Fahrenheit" is still one of my favorite SF short stories. The Flowered Thundermug or GTFO. I love that idiotic story so much. Still surprised no-one's ever done an adaptation, though I suppose there aren't many directors who could go as gonzo as it deserves.
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May 12, 2021 16:03
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quantumfoam posted:Going to laugh hard if the CryPilot author turns out to be Ernest Cline or Wesley Chu. Yeah, Schmitz is usually fun. I could do without male characters commenting on Trigger Argee's arse, but Demon Breed is terrific and anything with Telzey Amberdon is going to be entertaining.
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May 13, 2021 16:43
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tokenbrownguy posted:Finished the EarthSea trilogy, by Le Guin. Very good, but a bit... remote? Distant? The characters are compelling, compassionate, and even praise worthy, but they're almost beyond reproach. Hard to empathize with. Have you read the 3 post-trilogy books?
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May 18, 2021 10:34
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tokenbrownguy posted:Nah, are they worth checking out? Was feeling a little tired of austere greatness by the end of the of the series. Like mllaneza says they get a lot less like that at that point. Tehanu is "retired ex-wizard trying to figure out non-celibate relationships and deal with his gf's adopted daughter's abusive psycho family", Tales of Earthsea is some fun short stories (well, apart from Dragonfly because my god Irian is boring) and The Other Wind is, well, let's say enjoyed by people who aren't me. (Though I do like Seserakh.)
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May 20, 2021 12:59
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Groke posted:Huh, I thought I was the only one who liked that book. Was he deliberately using the Valve logo as the secret symbol of the whatsiznames? I couldn't figure that out (but it was hilarious anyway).
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May 24, 2021 10:21
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It's people with a birthmark/whatever the hell it was shaped like a six-spoked ship's wheel on the back of their heads, isn't it? Or have I inadvertently switched realities again? Berenspoon Bears, right? I never forget things; it's reality that's wrong. 
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May 24, 2021 13:36
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uber_stoat posted:oh yeah, i liked it and want to check out the author's other stuff but man it goes some places. His The Enterprise of Death (about a depressed ex-slave alcoholic necromancer and her exceptionally pissed-off dead ex-girlfriend (also a necromancer)) is amazingly good.
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May 24, 2021 22:32
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GreyjoyBastard posted:hot take: tyrathect in fire is transgender-analogous I was kind of irritated by his take on how gender works for Tines when I read Fire years ago. How come entities that are pack-minds of 4-5 creatures consider themselves one of 2 genders? How does that even work? The one who always made sure he was all males to make himself extra aggressive was kind of amusing, and the 2-gender thing allowed for a nice subtle pronoun switch when Flenser took over, but basically it just came over as laziness on Vinge's part.
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Jun 3, 2021 12:01
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HopperUK posted:You don't see as many fantasy short stories, I feel like. Are there some good collections anyone knows that I could pick up? Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling edited a series of fairy-tale influenced anthologies that had a good number of hits for me, and Datlow's done some fantasy anthologies by herself too.
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Jun 4, 2021 19:42
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:https://www.amazon.com/Cthulhu-Reloaded-Collected-Harrison-Stories-ebook/dp/B093G7SS37/ Also on the Kobo store for £1.99 for us Amazon-avoiders, so I'll give it a go. The next two are available for pre-order there too. https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/cthulhu-reloaded
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Jun 26, 2021 21:36
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a foolish pianist posted:There’s definitely a libertarian-type political system behind the Polity. Well, it's socialist enough to have some sort of post-scarcity/universal basic income thing going on, at least.
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Jul 24, 2021 21:49
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:UBI is a beloved libertarian concept, it has nothing to do with socialism. OK, possibly a stupid question, but how do they square that with the whole no-government personal-freedom the-world-doesn't-owe-you-a-living etc poo poo? Is it because they're mostly basement-dwellers living off mum and dad?
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Jul 24, 2021 21:58
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Yeah, I guess you’re right on track here. Also, the libertarian opinion leaders, extremely rich tycoons, want to introduce UBI and kill off all other social programs simultaneously. Ah, that was the bit I was missing.
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Jul 26, 2021 21:48
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StrixNebulosa posted:The single coolest thing that came out of Bakker's stuff is the concept that - it's been years since I read this theory, pardon errors - is that the elder god or "outside force" that destroyed an army was like, helicopters with missiles. Of course, that's not what Bakker ultimately did with that because he's a hack, but I ADORE the idea of a low-tech setting going "wow this must be strange magic" and no it's just modern military tech. There's a bit in Robert Westall's timeshift YA novel The Wind Eye where a horrified Dark Ages random in a boat is confronted with a GIANT! MONSTER! DRAGONFLY! (aka a coastal rescue helicopter). He liked that kind of stuff: Devil on the Road is a bloke on a motorcycle called back to the past by a witch.
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Jul 26, 2021 22:04
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BananaNutkins posted:I've read a lot of female authors. Try Frances Hardinge. She and Ursula Vernon/T Kingfisher are the closest thing to Diana Wynne Jones writing today.
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Aug 14, 2021 14:20
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Doctor Jeep posted:Frances Hardinge's books are YA but great despite it. DWJ's books were marketed as kids books/YA-before-YA-was-a-thing too. Don't let publishing categories put you off; Sturgeon's Law applies to all of them.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:01
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Groke posted:As a concept it's loving difficult to google because you just end up with a poo poo-ton of conspiracy crap about fake moon landings and whatnot. As well as ones where the generation ship got where it was going and no-one's realised, or the crew decided they liked things as they were. Chad Oliver's The Winds Blows Free is the latter, from 1957. I can do you a 60s Sexton Blake pulp novel where humans are being adapted to different planets (trad-pulp Mars and Venus) in labs on Earth and don't realise, if that's close enough?
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Aug 31, 2021 19:48
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Ccs posted:So I'm gonna promote an author probably no one has heard of unless they remember the time several years ago when I posted about him and got mocked by BotL. Rhys Hughes has a new book out, "Cthulhu Wants You!", filled with short stories clowning on the Lovecraft mythos in various ways, sometimes very tangentially. Isn't he the guy who wrote a sequel to Maurice Richardson's The Exploits of Engelbrecht? It's been sitting on my Kobo for about 3 years while I summon up the courage to see if it's so disappointing that I have to murder the writer in some hilarious and surrealistic manner.
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Sep 2, 2021 22:55
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Ccs posted:Google says yes. I haven’t read any of Rhys’ novel length work cause I think his style is better suited to short stories. Ridiculous premises work well in small doses, over the course of a novel length narrative the basic joke of each could wear thin. Engelbrecht is short stories, about various surreal sports events and sportsmen (and a Dogs' Opera). I assume Hughes' version is too, but like I said I haven't nerved myself up to see if Hughes can live up to Richardson's lightning in a bottle.
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Sep 3, 2021 21:11
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Ccs posted:Yeah no idea, but I might check out the original. Apparently Hughes is responsible for publishing the kindle version of Richardson’s book through his publisher, because before that all the copies were super expensive hardcovers. Well worth your time, and the time of anyone else who enjoys weird witty stuff: A Quiet Game of Chess posted:It was the Boxing-day after the last Christmas before the End of the World, and, together with a sizable handful of my fellow- members, I was lounging away the remaining shreds of the tattered epoch in the Trance-Room of the Surrealist Sporting Club. If you can get hold of the Savoy hardback it has an extra non-Engelbrecht story about the wedding of Dracula's Daughter and the Son of Frankenstein, attended by a ton of fictional villains, as well as the original and some new illustrations, but, well, can't blame anyone for not wanting to give money to Savoy...
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Sep 4, 2021 18:58
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Louise Cooper's Time Master series?
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Sep 6, 2021 12:29
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NinjaDebugger posted:There was one I can't remember the title of right now where it's literally a party of villains (and a druid) questing d&d style to keep law from winning and locking down the world forever, it was so heavily d&d that there's literally a scene where the assassin makes the party hire him to turn on his class features. Eve Forward's Villains by Necessity?
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Sep 6, 2021 15:25
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Jedit posted:Is that any good? I've read the Indigo Saga multiple times, but never those. No idea, sorry, tried reading the first as a teen and got bored a few chapters in.
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Sep 7, 2021 07:57
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I'm very fond of the Dune Encyclopedia too, if you can find a copy. It's basically an expansion of all the historical quotes in the novels in glorious loony proto-official-fanfic form and it's stupidly good fun.
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Sep 8, 2021 19:16
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pentyne posted:I'm trying to find the name of a book or the series I read a while back. It starts with a trio of boys being raised in an extremely harsh religious order preparing for some war. Eventually the main character catches the attention of a senior researcher who recruits him to help with some secret female 'captives' who are basically living in lavish luxury and kept ignorant of anything. It ends up that the senior is killing them to harvest some kind of 'pearl' that grows in people from a life of decandant luxury. Left Hand of God?
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Sep 9, 2021 09:59
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navyjack posted:I guess…I dunno. I always read Chalker as someone who really really REALLY wanted to be a woman and that’s why it is so common in his stories and the weird sex rape stuff was all about his repression because he was raised in a way and society that he never even let himself think about the possibility of gender change outside of science fiction and fantasy stories. Maybe, but given how common the magically-forced-fatness and the changing-into-other-things-than-women stuff is too I lean more to the weird old creeper interpretation.
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Sep 14, 2021 12:16
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