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a foolish pianist posted:Anyway, I've gotten most of the way through Gideon the Ninth, and it really reminds of me a Gene Wolf story told by one of Stross's Laundry Files protagonists. ok you've finally sold me on Gideon I will get it. what would you say is Wolfe-like about it? relatedly I have been thinking recently about how Gene Wolfe was unique among genre authors in that his stories and books work on multiple levels - you can read one three times and come away with five different stories. what other SFF authors do stuff like this?
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Oct 7, 2019 21:17
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 23:11 |
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did you just discover TBB or
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Oct 8, 2019 02:00
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a foolish pianist posted:The Rook is incredibly aggravating in a men-writing-women-badly sort of way. There's lots of poo poo like this: how is this real. like I read all sorts of male-authored sci fi that's sexist/dated as hell (hey Jack Vance) but somehow none of it ever manages to reach this level of "women are aliens," even in a story where women are literally compared to aliens.
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Oct 14, 2019 16:15
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StrixNebulosa posted:Here is my review of the Blind Worm by Brian Stableford: this sounds good and more creative than 99% of SFF. I think i will read it!
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Oct 19, 2019 18:36
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:Yes, it would definitely be a reasonable assumption that in a book whose most notable quips are all stolen from internet pop culture that a touching bit of poetry recited at a climactic death was an original piece. Thus the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke. yeah if you don't recognize every single reference in a sci fi book you should just not read an incredible self-own of a post
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Oct 23, 2019 20:28
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Fall of Hyperion is decent and offers some closure to the story while also being frustrating and bad in many ways. the Endymion books are...I wish I had not read them. there are some good bits but the story and main character is awful. Raul Endymion is the worst protagonist in science fiction.
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Oct 23, 2019 20:42
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I'm going to venture a guess that most Western readers of T3BP have little familiarity with Chinese history
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Oct 25, 2019 16:05
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:Like a chick flick, it's of interest largely to women and assumes a certain psychological viewpoint. Yes, the emotional stuff was the biggest turn off. I was flabbergasted by the motivations of the mastermind and appalled by the reactions of the protagonist. I couldn't even imagine a "normal" person (which I belatedly realized meant male viewpoint) behaving in such a fashion, but could just about stretch my imagination to cover some of my more vapid girlfriends doing that. you wanna rethink this post maybe
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Oct 29, 2019 21:06
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Larry Parrish posted:[sets down book of the new sun] what the hell... the main character is a torturer? i cant read this lovely backwards book, theres no hero you joke but it's pretty funny how many readers identify with noted piece of poo poo Severian Wolfe is good at making you like bad people, its neat
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Oct 30, 2019 00:36
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Larry Parrish posted:I always rate books based on my attention span. If they take me more than a day or two to read, they're mediocre at best. Like I burned through steel frame in like 8 hours, broken up by work and sleep. Goblin Emperor was good but kind of boring and flowery (although that was the point) so it took me about twice as long. this is not a good system friend some of the best work the genre has produced are lengthy complex books!
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Nov 6, 2019 15:56
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I mean it makes more sense when you consider that the only books that guy is reading are self-help and business books
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Nov 8, 2019 18:32
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theres no explicit rape per se but when I read Jirel of Joiry a while ago I was taken aback by the relationship of Jirel and the male antagonist. he conquers her kingdom and sexually assaults her and then knocks her out, and then on her quest to get revenge she realizes she's actually in love with him? poo poo's weird
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Nov 12, 2019 19:08
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I liked Ancillary overall, there were a few parts that stuck out as being very clumsy - the plot with the gun cache and politics of the world Breq was assigned to and the part on the ice world when Breq fell off the bridge thing? and then was rescued somehow and ended up ok? I didn't get the point of any of that. I enjoyed the conclusion and thought Mianaai was a great character, but don't have much desire to read the sequels. A friend of mine said he couldn't help unconsciously gendering the characters while reading and it's funny to come across online discussions of "what gender do you think character REALLY is?"
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Dec 5, 2019 18:09
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navyjack posted:If you dig the Roman stuff, they aren’t fantasy but the SPQR books and the Roma Sub Rosa books are good fun. I know gently caress all about ancient Roman history so I can’t vouch for their accuracy but they’re fun detective stories. I read the first one of those and it was indeed good fun. I don't think they're particularly historical but it's fun to see Decius cross paths with like every major figure from the late Republic era.
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Dec 12, 2019 20:04
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Iron Dragon's Daughter is kinda the first 2/3 of that and also a very good book
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Dec 15, 2019 08:12
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the dumbest thing is people who actually research sex will tell you that it's very much not a clear cut binary. all these fuckers hiding behind science when the actual science says the opposite of what they use to justify their bigotry uh anyhow I finished a reread of Book of the Long Sun and it's real good and now want more generation starship stories. Got KSR's Aurora and Rivers Solomon's An Unkindness of Ghosts to read, what are y'alls favorites?
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Dec 20, 2019 16:40
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:Let me blow your mind: it's true to say that "human beings have five fingers per hand" not withstanding some fringe cases of six fingered people. We don't need to take the six-fingered lobby seriously and waste time changing social definitions to make them happy, even if we shouldn't be rude to them about their unusual condition. lol gently caress off scum
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Dec 20, 2019 18:35
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fritz posted:Who needs the pups for hugo drama when the wsfs is doing it their own drat selves : http://file770.com/the-meaning-of-it-all/ I don't understand any of this but it makes "fandom" seem like a real no fun zone well I made the mistake of going to Archive of Our Own and choosing a random story got me erotica about 11 year old girls from "Dance Moms" gonna nope outta there my bony fealty fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Dec 21, 2019 |
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Dec 21, 2019 17:49
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love 2 compare queer and trans identity to literal animals
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Dec 23, 2019 08:08
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Reddit rec threads are like 75% Sanderson and Abercrombie and Erikson, even when the OP mentions they've already read those lol I picked up the Vandermeer's Big Book of Classic Fantasy which is weird as a paperback but excited to delve in, anyone have any favorite stories from it? It has my fave Fafhrd & Mouser story which is cool and a good selection
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Dec 24, 2019 18:49
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I burst into the thread and say, "Read Joanna Russ! The Female Man is an underrated classic! It should be as well known as The Left Hand of Darkness!"
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Dec 27, 2019 17:43
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Libertarian propaganda is not appropriate for any age. When I read Illuminatus I recall Hagbard Celine coming off as a "not someone to emulate" type but maybe I was just projecting my own beliefs  It's a fun read regardless and not just straight up Rand-style right wing apologetics at least!
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Dec 28, 2019 02:47
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Finished Jeff Vandermeer's latest Dead Astronauts and it certainly is odd. Definitely one of those "gonna have to reread this to make any sense of it" books. For the most part I liked it. Haven't read Borne so should probably do that now.
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Dec 29, 2019 22:31
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eke out posted:i'm re-reading his Ambergris trilogy for the first time and feel obligated to recommend it again. it's just as impressive as the first time through and practically all the people i've talked to that liked Southern Reach/Borne/his short stories didn't know that the older books exist you could say the same about The Fifth Head of Cerberus and that came out in 1972! I think Vandermeer has acknowledged FHoC as an influence too. I only ever read the Area X books and some short stories before so definitely gonna delve more into his back catalogue. Ambergris looks like the place to start.
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Dec 30, 2019 17:55
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I finally got around to reading Gold Fame Citrus and half-way through am not very fond of it. The characters are incredibly boring. The protagonist doesn't do anything, stuff just happens to her to which she reacts with barely any emotion. The vision of Southern California ruined by climate change is pretty cool but the way it's communicated in the text - several pages of Solaris-style infodumping about the ~dune sea~ - is just awkward. Much of the characterization is conveyed the same way, with pages and pages of backstory disconnected from the actual narrative. There's this annoying writing thing the author uses where she sets up something open-ended and then immediately resolves it in the next sentence. Like "He said he would be back. But he wouldn't." in more flowery language. Removes any sense of suspense for moments that should carry a lot of emotional weight. I dunno, recommend me good climate change fiction please? I'll probably finish this but I had hoped to like it a lot more 
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Jan 6, 2020 21:03
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StrixNebulosa posted:Now that's a valid reason to hate him. He has a style for better or for worse. for sure but he's got a lot of variation in that style, Count Zero for example reads very differently from Neuromancer despite being a more-or-less sequel. I don't love Gibson all that much but I think he's the kind of author where you can love or a few books and not the rest. one thing I'll say is that I never got much desire to re-read his books. I think I've read Neuromancer twice in 15 years and that's plenty.
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Jan 15, 2020 07:22
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gently caress. knew it was just a matter of time but that sucks. a real legend, the fantasy genre owes sooo much to him.
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Jan 16, 2020 19:20
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team overhead smash posted:Christopher Tolkein? Not J R R Tolkein? sure, the Sil and History of Middle Earth etc. ensured that the well of Tolkien lore will never run dry and for better or worse set a precedent for exhaustive "worldbuilding." I dont have stats or anything but surely many fantasy writers have found themselves more deeply immersed in Middle Earth thanks to Christopher's work. some influence on other media too, loads of Rings-related or inspired video games that draw on non-trilogy material.
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Jan 16, 2020 20:45
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avoraciopoctules posted:I'd like to read a fantasy novel with a wizard protagonist. Flashy magic, hopefully something they had to work for rather than being born with. At least a little smug and self-absorbed, but not a total jerk. I would rather avoid stuff with torture or sexual violence. You might enjoy Jack Vance's Rhialto the Marvelous, it's a series of 3 stories and not a novel but it's funny as hell and very good wizard reading.
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Jan 21, 2020 17:55
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lol who does she support then, Elizabeth "capitalist to my bones" Warren? at least she doesn't have a terminal case of liberal centrist boomerism like William Gibson and Jeff Vandermeer seem to
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Jan 31, 2020 01:36
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I like Reynolds but yeah he seems to have no idea how to write organic relationships and conflicts between characters. He even somehow blew the most obvious setup in the history of sci-fi to bring to characters full circle in House of Suns by not making the Air swarm thing the kid from Abigail's childhood. Iirc people have asked him if they were the same character and he said "uh I never thought of that but yeah I guess could be so." Still a good book but c'mon!
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Feb 4, 2020 04:24
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the Witcher books are definitely firmly in the sword n sorcery tradition what are y'all folks on about, they're pretty good examples of the genre done outside of its golden era. in related news I found the last 2 Fafhrd and Mouser collections I was missing yesterday so now I've got all 7 hooray!
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Feb 18, 2020 19:18
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PawParole posted:give me a book about either first contact, or generation ships. Book of the Long Sun is a generation ship story that has a low-key first contact subplot
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Feb 27, 2020 21:25
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quantumfoam posted:Rest of thread: I read it without reading either of the two in the same world (Borne and Strange Bird) and enjoyed it. it doesnt really make much sense on a first read but I dont think it would make any more if you had read the other two. Definitely ok to read it first then the others later if you like it.
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Feb 29, 2020 21:02
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I read Gideon finally. It was very fun and I look forward to seeing where Harrow goes. The meme things were fine and the only one that felt forced was the died on the way to her home planet but its forgiven for being a good reference. some serious first novel syndrome though. way too many characters I could care less about, extremely uneven pacing, overwrought prose. like how many times do you need to tell me this guy has beautiful slate grey eyes. Muir just loves writing about eyes eh. pretty interesting book in that the plot and writing were mediocre but the characters were interesting enough to keep it going.
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Mar 4, 2020 08:33
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I'm in the minority who did not care for Station Eleven, found the characters and story rather boring and the central "because survival is insufficient" theme stupid and offensive. Decent writing, sure.
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Mar 19, 2020 21:18
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Selachian posted:By the way, on the post-apocalypse front, I forgot to also mention Riddley Walker, although it's post-nuclear rather than post-plague. So, read Riddley Walker. I'm reading this right now and it's real good snagged the one copy in my library system the day before they all shut down 
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Mar 20, 2020 20:09
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if any of y'all are Jack Vance nerds with disposal income rn several books from his estate (his personal collection I think?) are being auctioned off an ebay
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Apr 3, 2020 18:18
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freebooter posted:The Stand update - holy poo poo Stephen King has skirted up against some weird racist stuff in the past but the uncut edition has a scene where, as society is crumbling, a bunch of black soldiers wearing loincloths publicly execute a bunch of white soldiers. King is really very not good at dealing with race at all like every black character in a King book is either a feral savage, noble savage, or magic negro
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Apr 9, 2020 06:45
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 23:11 |
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Gene Wolfe was first published in 1965 and has a novel coming out in June He's dead but still technically active 
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Apr 20, 2020 23:20
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