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Alhazred posted:Finished the Dragons of Babel and I really like Swanwick's industrial faerie world. I like how he takes his time to take detours like a marble lion talking about his life and liked the joke about how sex with centaurs is considered bestiality by both parties. That brick joke at the end of the lion monologue is great
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Nov 9, 2020 13:33
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 11:54 |
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I'm honestly shocked that people think the whole lesbian romance thing was even veiled in Gideon, but otoh I've missed plenty of obvious poo poo in my day. It's your standard "raised together/hate each other/also Feelings" thing. Edit: i have not heard of that author and I'm interested in giving it a shot but years of exposure to Warhammer have melted my brain to the point where anytime I see "brutal" i reframe it in Gork/Mork terms. Is the book brutally cinematic, or cinematically brutal?
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Jan 19, 2021 17:29
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Naomi Novik is a good enough writer that I think she kind of trapped herself with the Temeraire series in that it obviously started out as 'what if ships were dragons' and no one including herself expected it to take off. You can see the swerve where she actually starts thinking about some of the issues like 'how are these dragons fed' and 'what effect would it have on world history if air forces existed before industry of any kind.' You can also see from her later works that once she struck it big she stayed away from the long drawn out series and focused on tighter, focused, single volume works because she probably felt burned by that whole experience. She's obviously way more at home with fable inspired fantasy that's for sure.
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Feb 10, 2021 17:03
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freebooter posted:I agree that's one of the book's weaker aspects. The fact in particular that it was a police detective rather than one of Piranesi's loved ones or another former acolyte of the professor just seemed thematically... off. It exposes the world to the Real World in a particularly humdrum way in that it implies there's been an entire police procedural story about a missing person going on in the background, with an ordinary person discovering an extraordinary world, that we've missed out on. Making the Stranger, the person who's searching for Piranesi, be somebody who was already part of the history of that world in some way would have felt neater to me. ooooh I'm gonna hard disagree here but I think we took different things away from the book. one of the best scenes in the book, to me, was when the teacher dude was being interrogated by the detective and straight up said "uh, no, I say these things because I can do magic. Wanna learn how?" AND IT WORKS. The idea that there's strange weird beauty in the world that gets into your skin and it's not you going insane, there is something out there that you can touch...I don't know, it hit me. Plus to me the whole end of the book is signalling that they're not, y'know, out. They know it's there and they're being gradually drawn back. Because why wouldn't you be? And I don't think having it be someone who knew him find him would work because he, as is pointed out several times, isn't who he was anymore. None of his family or friends can find him because in a very real sense he died. Our narrator for most of the book was his...child? replacement? and whoever he winds up being back in London is someone else entirely. It's starting to happen with the detective.
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Feb 17, 2021 05:06
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I read every single gotrek and felix omnibus and one of the new books in the Age of Sigmar setting over quarantine and they own. Gotrek gets more and more pissed off that nothing can kill him and then winds up in an entire new setting where he channels everyone annoyed that the company tanked The Old World setting and grumps about how everything sucks and the gods are lying assholes.
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Apr 22, 2021 20:15
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packetmantis posted:Harrow was confusing and lovely. Unlike the end of the first book, which was just lovely. We have very different opinions about this and that is okay.
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Apr 28, 2021 15:13
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packetmantis posted:Because now I'm emotionally invested in this poo poo-rear end series thanks to one loving scene in the first book and I hate it and myself. You have a great gecko av. Digging that gecko.
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Apr 28, 2021 22:22
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The memes were very jarring for me even as the target audience but I loved the books so 
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May 6, 2021 19:01
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Worth a read then?
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Jul 23, 2021 01:42
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and her other one, Spinning Silver I think, I'd put that in there.
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Aug 7, 2021 03:44
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There's a deeply weird roleplaying game called Nobilis where you play minor deities, and there are many factions, Light, amd Dark among them. The Light wanted the survivial of Humanity as a whole but didn't care about individuals or morals, the Dark wanted to convince every sentient creature to commit suicide of their own free will.
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Sep 7, 2021 02:00
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Alhazred posted:On Arrakis the conditions are so harsh that the fremen have to recycle their own body fluids. But they still have water enough to brew coffee. In the sealed environment of the sietch which is tight enough they relax water discipline
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Nov 13, 2021 15:33
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I am one of the rare people who really enjoyed the entire bug people series, apparently.
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Dec 2, 2021 02:56
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Honestly? I read the first book while tripping balls and formed a strong emotional attachment to the characters. Plus I enjoy the hell out of weird rear end world building in general and 'bug people' had me sold from the word go. I have also started to read Too Like The Lightning twice and cannot get past the talking army guys, what is this the magic cupboard? I enjoy the hell out of her blog so I know she can write Benagain fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Dec 2, 2021 |
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Dec 2, 2021 04:01
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oh I read that, didn't like it as much but still fun.
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Dec 2, 2021 17:16
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nessin posted:I only recently finished Piranesi and since it's came up in the thread I have to ask, did everyone who enjoyed it just ignore the contradiction between the way Piranesi was essentially re-written as a person by the House and the rest of the story? I think I would have enjoyed it if the entire basis for the story wasn't essentially retconned as the book progressed. Every reveal of the book became another example of how the effect of the House was less than it needed to be to justify the behavior, feelings and thoughts of Piranesi before the reveal. Maybe it was just the expectation of a Sci-Fi/Fantasy book instead of a more direct murder mystery book probably ruined it for me. I don't really agree with that, I mean magic is demonstrably factually real and can be learned plus from my understanding he was literally living in abandoned and forgotten beauty This is the kind of stuff that would break down a person on its own, so to speak.
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Dec 21, 2021 22:51
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StrixNebulosa posted:Temeraire has an incredible premise and starts even okay but then immediately tries to shoot itself in the foot over and over and OVER again to the point that I cannot trust the author with anything else, no matter how much praise she gets She definitely learned a shitton from the Temeraire series and all of her later standalones are really good, would recommend. One shot fairy tale influenced stories with complete character arcs.
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Jan 1, 2022 17:45
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I think that's the result of two things, a) the gigantic unstoppable flood of angry demons that none of the Independents, not even Halt can stop without basically walling off an area with voluntary human sacrifice is the thing that splits them from the first commonweal and b) they get more into this in later books but a major part of the Commonweal's survival strategy is stealth. Fighting with someone makes you known and entangles you (mystically and prosaically) and it's iirc outright stated that part of the reason they haven't had even more misadventures is because they aren't expansionist and have been doing their damndest to keep their heads down. Rust and Halt can nuke one large army with little trouble, but what about five? How about five each? Remember, Halt's extremely powerful and was literally a god but she's also been bound beneath the earth twice. She got beat by Laurel and that's why she's in the Commonweal in the first place. she would probably wind up fine but she can and has lost and if she loses again the commonweal wouldn't be around when she came back. Also, the Power is explicitly malicious, and note that despite their nuking powers in the first book they can't stop large parts of the small force with them from dying. How much collateral damage can the Commonweal take before it ceases to be the Commonweal? How does shifting to a war footing so that they can try to survive affect the Commonweal as a whole? Also also, they mention a couple of time that Laurel was only the first person to think of the banners and not the only person who could. Even if an enemy doesn't capture one and learn how they work directly enough exposure and they might figure out enough of the basics to do their own version, and all it requires is cooperative effort, not nice cooperative effort. The Commonweal was a weird accident in all kinds of ways. One thing I did think was kind of horrifying/funny re: the perfect poly whatever: It's clearly stated that the reason it works is because they all basically brainwashed themselves and each other into being the perfect poly whatever. The Power makes what you want real and if you're a powerful sorcerer and you've been explicitly told that you can't have a relationship of any kind with a normal person because you will brainwash them non-consensually, why not just consensually brainwash yourself into being blissfully happy with what you have? The death magic person, can't remember her name, didn't even like girls at first Benagain fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2022 17:30
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The Commonweal is I think the only "magic exists and suppresses steam power" take I've really liked because it's immediately followed with "and magic also wants things to suck rear end and will monkeys paw the poo poo out of everything you do given half a chance so the world is mostly a hellscape of people who wound up as sociopaths whether they started as one or not"
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Jan 3, 2022 17:41
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Nae posted:I couldn't tell you why, but the Wizard's saliva is the line that sticks out to me as the most egregious. Who is the Wizard, and what makes his saliva so fertile??? The wizard is a she, and her saliva is integral to the process because the giant brain god space station she crashed on wanted to mess with her basically. Why the hell do I have trouble with names but that poo poo is still in my mind.
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Jan 4, 2022 23:06
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:technically it's science fiction (the science is the boat) Star Trek with wood and opium, thank you.
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Jan 24, 2022 04:51
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Going from polity to anything else Asher's written gives me serious whiplash.
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Jan 29, 2022 18:45
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zoux posted:Son of the Morning by Mark Alder is historical/fantasy fiction set at the beginning of the 100 years war. The premise is that all the "divine right of kings" stuff from the middle ages was true, that God set up class order, ordained that there were those to rule and to be ruled. Angels are real, they are weirdo beings that are entranced by beauty so kings build huge cathedrals to entice them to come live there and fight on the side of that king. So there are angels and demons all over the place, but what's interesting is that it still largely follows the actual history of the period, the battles of Sluys and Crecy still happen, the whole Despenser conspiracy is a major factor, Edward III, Phillip VI, Charles V, Charles the Bad of Navarre and Isabella of France are all major characters. It's also quite satirical and very funny at times. I accidentally read the second book and Between Two Fires almost back to back, which was an interesting comparison.
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Mar 30, 2022 15:54
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Have you heard of my books, published under the name Graydon Saunders on Google Books. Probably the best example of 'this is self published because it's too deeply weird to be successful' rather than the more normal 'self published because it kind of sucks'.
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Apr 11, 2022 19:16
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Copernic posted:Other orks shunned Widdashunz Hall. The humie stink was too baked in, the rooms foul with the molder of their clothes, beds, bodies. Jehn loved it -- there were always surprises, a passageway popping open to reveal a cache of plasma grenades, an entire cellar of skellies, just visible through gaps in their still-impenetrable armor. Nice
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May 18, 2022 17:33
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Once you hear Kvothe as Zap Branigan you can't hear him any other way.
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May 24, 2022 02:15
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drat I need to re-read watership down and see how that holds up, one of those "burned into my brain" books. "Mister Pigvig! Ees rabbits come!" drat that scene ruled. There was a sort-of sequel too that was set during the winter and was just shittons of El-Ariah stories. Also "You will have a thousand enemies, and if they catch you they will kill you. But first they must catch you." remains one of the all time great lines. edit: has anyone else read the author's other stuff? I was just looking on Goodreads and he has way more books than I would've thought, might need to try a few.
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Jun 15, 2022 14:31
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Oh my god how many different mil sci fi books jack off the marine corps. Why is this such a common trope
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Aug 20, 2022 04:15
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Khizan posted:A lot of it is just that people like to jerk off the marines for some reason, probably because they've never actually met anybody who served in them. Oh yeah but I just read an intro where a bunch of naval spaceship people are frantically trying to get ready for a dress parade after two years of deployment and it's mentioned three times in five pages that without the cool competent Marines they would never have been ready on time.
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Aug 20, 2022 17:44
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Is there any author more retroactively horrifying than piers Anthony
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Sep 26, 2022 23:39
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General Battuta posted:It inspired some EXTREMELY niche shitposting though Dammit you're gonna make me hot back and read the Iliad
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Oct 13, 2022 04:27
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Legends and lattes is completely aware of what it is and also good at it. It's a nice comfort read.
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Nov 16, 2022 02:08
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Larry Parrish posted:i can't speak to the author in question cuz I haven't read any of their stuff but lol if true. you're right that's such a spit in the face to the Aubrey/marturin books. More importantly it's a spit in the face to the reader- I don't want to read what I want to happen. I want to read a damned narrative. The dragon series collapses under the weight of her sitting down and thinking "wait wouldn't most of world history be different if everyone has an air force" and then just winging it. I would stop short of describing that as a spit in the face to readers or the Aubrey maturin books, also it's more Hornblower fanfic imo. She then went on to do a series of awesome one off fairy tale inspired novels and the scholomance series
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Dec 28, 2022 15:03
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I am in fact a cozy bitch, I will admit that.
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Dec 29, 2022 02:19
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I enjoyed the two books for what they were but it's very 70s sci fi with the sexism. Properly retooled it'd be a hell of a movie I think. The second was better than the first imo
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Jan 5, 2023 01:07
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I read Mazalan and felt that the first half of the series was good but the last half just went way up its own rear end and started both explaining things that didn't need to be and spending way too much time on rape.
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Jan 13, 2023 01:10
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It's one of my favorite series ever but I read the first book while tripping balls and that gave me a lot of positive emotional attachments agreed that his more recent stuff is better.
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Jan 15, 2023 18:52
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That certainly is a series of thoughts you had
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Jan 29, 2023 15:40
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:Just the other day I had the thought that Starship Troopers (the book) can be read in the orthodox way. Sorry just to come back to this again, you realize that the guy who wrote it was 100% serious and by putting this interpretation on it you're throwing out the source material as much as veerhoven did right?
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Jan 29, 2023 16:37
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Just read Zero Sum Game, good stuff!
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Feb 9, 2023 16:38
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