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Speaking of lovely books that give you a warm fuzzy feeling. I just finished library at Mount char. Such a feelgood book. Eeek. Why did C not ask the massive shithead how he reversed time 8 times if he was dead and David lost to the monster? Like the idea of the cosmic horror scoobie gang tho.
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Oct 9, 2019 04:13
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Is this one of those deadpan reverse irony things the cool kids do these days?
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Oct 9, 2019 07:12
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:The Copper Cat trilogy has a gay protag. He gets romanced in the books, but it's nothing like, horrendously graphic and badly written. Just dudes who like dudes. It was wrote by a lady? Not pulling some biotruths thing, but men are total slags. Evidence? History.
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Oct 11, 2019 05:56
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Having finished the Bob books I had wondered if the author intentionally made Bob an arrogant idiot with terrible skills and judgement. The reason I had for realising it was unintentional was that trite ending. I was really hoping the damaged transport stopped communicating and started heading towards the others system, after all the humans were onboard. The shear god drat arrogance of it, but ofc it wasn't it was his brilliance in shepherding the forever stupid humans who would just kill themselves without him. If I were a human in this universe I would be 100% behind the extermination of all Bobs everywhere before the got us all killed. This was somehow worse than RP1 with its pop culture references.
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Oct 30, 2019 03:50
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You monster.
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Oct 30, 2019 14:59
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Started The Second Sleep, not sure if post apoc priestly murder mystery is a genre yet but it probably should be.
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Dec 4, 2019 06:27
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Finished listening to The Second Sleep, very interesting take on post apoc, very abrupt ending but that reflected the apocalypse that was mostly only indirectly referenced. My first Harris and will probably read his Pompeii eventually.
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Dec 5, 2019 20:17
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Embers was decent, but nothing spectacular. Big Smart Object? Is the next one, Fleet of Knives, any better?
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Dec 22, 2019 20:58
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Wasnt the recent test failure cover up exactly this? The whole idea is insane. Though from an "earth could do with more wilderness where no human can set foot" perspective, it could have unforeseen benefits like the area around pripyat.
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Dec 26, 2019 11:26
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Bhodi posted:https://twitter.com/dril_gpt2 is terrifyingly good It's still human curated. If they could teach an AI to curate them, then I would be impressed.
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Jan 6, 2020 19:06
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Depression sucks Indeed it does, and anti-depressants make you fat. It is a land of contrasts. Currently on Book 2 of the Merchant Princes, and other than the "Mills and Boon" sections I am really enjoying it. Sisters are doing it for themselves.
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Jan 15, 2020 15:10
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This whole toilet argument going on on the interwebs and which sometimes leaks in to real world sometimes is so loving stupid. I am tempted to post the image macro of "not this poo poo again."
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Feb 15, 2020 13:06
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Where is a good place to start with Craig Schaefer?
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Feb 21, 2020 17:38
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Why would you post that, it has nothing to do with books? This post is an empty swimming pool.
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Feb 24, 2020 17:13
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I haven't read his larest series but his absolute rock bottom sex weird was mr bovey, though there are so many, I dread to think how he will explain them to his children when they are old enough to read his books. He toned it down towards the end of his commonwealth saga. I hope he stopped writing with one hand after that.
Collateral fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Jun 14, 2020 |
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Jun 14, 2020 23:03
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What about Flashman?
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Jun 18, 2020 16:08
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rmdx posted:dinosaurs riding dinosaurs. Sold, and sold. Also, thanks thread for bringing Tom Holt/K.J. Parker to my attention. John Wellington Wells and Co. books, what a grand concept.
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Aug 25, 2020 16:53
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When the wind blows. The Cold War, especially 80's Britain, was an amazingly bleak period to grow up in.
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Aug 25, 2020 17:15
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Ahaha, who thought that was a good idea.
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Nov 24, 2020 15:17
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How to train your dragon. Seriously. I don't know, asking for dark age Scandinavian culture without the nasty poo poo they based their identity on is like asking for Rome without slaves, fascism and snobbery. Though I'm sure there is a ya author out there who has tried. Or perhaps I am misunderstanding what you mean by tremendously problematic? I always thought that was the point of the glorification of these happily dead cultures. Like if someone goes on about the virtues of spata it is a massive red flag that they are a rightwing shitbird.
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Dec 5, 2020 10:17
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I don't think I've ever in my entire life met anyone who cares other than perhaps around the time of the World Cup, maybe? It always gives me a sensible chuckle when I see an England fan all done up as St George whenever we play Germany.
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Dec 8, 2020 17:04
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Player of Games, but anything culture really.
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Dec 15, 2020 19:23
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"Recline, Harlequin!" Said the Sofasalesman.
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Dec 20, 2020 20:36
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General Battuta posted:I was supposed to have one out with them next year but they've totally blanked me. I don't think it'll make it out before 2022 Do you not have a "for food" job?
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Jan 4, 2021 17:05
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The Sweet Hereafter posted:I had something important to procrastinate over for the last two weeks, so I've been catching up with about 150 pages of this thread. I had intended to continue lurking, except that somebody (probably about a year ago in real time) mentioned a book that makes me really angry whenever I think about it and I can't let it go. Nope, you are right. Though I think it was just an exercise in post apoc world building asking interesting questions and that's about it. Pretty much everybody in it was loathsome, except landholder lady, she was ok. The Bishop turning up as a surprise 3rd act villain, immediately getting mucked, then The Priest and Landowner Lady seal themselves in an airtight room (because they don't know what it is, but who would?). Fin. Why would the survivors have built an airtight room, for any reason? The fall is foreseen as technological collapse not a pathogen. It's like the book ends at the start of the 3rd act, but Harris didn't have any ideas for the 3rd act, so just ended it there. I listened to an interview he did while promoting it and it is entirely based on the concept that people in days of yore used to have 2 sleeping periods per night and that 7-8 hours is relatively new thing and if people after the fall of modern civilization would revert to that. Thus things happening in the intersleep period that are spooky or mysterious. That's it. Thus the name. The reason is that there was fk all to do in the old times when it got dark. Literacy was nonexistent and candles were an expense you don't need when you can hardly feed your massive family because the one thing you can do in the dark that costs nothing and can keep you warm in the middle of the night, is sex. I feel he didn't latch onto this.
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Jan 10, 2021 20:04
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PupsOfWar posted:you can't escape gendered implications whenever you post a take about fanfic, I feel. I've heard that fanfiction is very bad though, with its own structural rules, social hierarchy and general hive mind consensus for each fan area of it. I could be wrong, so please correct me if so. That said, aspiring writers should just write write write, the more you do it the closer you will get to your optimal ability. That it is fanfic just means you don't have to bother coming up with your own characters or setting, which seems a bit lazy and you will miss out on that aspect of creating your very own fiction, but it is still writing, of which you should do a lot of. Advice given to me: *Read a great deal, and outside of your interest subjects. Write about what you know first. Do lots writing exercises. Rewrite everything, the first draft of anything tends to be poo poo, don't publish poo poo. If you can't make it work, put it on the shelf and start again.* Oh yeah, and take a notebook with you everywhere, you never know when a neat sentence, verbal exchange, or exciting scenario will occur to you.
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Jan 17, 2021 15:08
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Cardiac posted:Aren’t all WH40k/Warcraft novels essentially fanfic? More licensed fanfic like Star Wars EU. Have you considered that KJA stories are hot derivative garbage, and exercises in how to shoehorn the most ridiculous deus ex contrivance into 1000 chapters of flimflam. Who came out of the star wars EU fanfic mill. Has any ex EU writer become big in their own right?
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Jan 18, 2021 07:44
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Strategic Tea posted:And as got pointed out, now it even seeps into mainstream marketing - Gideon being explicitly marketed as enemies to lovers, which I would be furious to have read beforehand even though it's fairly predictable I never thought they were enemies at any point at all, they acted more like sisters. When did the second bit happen?
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Jan 18, 2021 12:27
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Interweb jokes, in my fantasy novel? Get out.
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Jan 18, 2021 15:11
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fritz posted:I thought that too at the start but at some point the contradictions kept adding up and I figured there was no way it could have been Gideon, but didn't know who it was until later I heartily recommend the Audiobook read by Moira Quirk. Collateral fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 20:06
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StrixNebulosa posted:jesus! I know right? People still use reddit.
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Jan 26, 2021 21:22
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a foolish pianist posted:The Sanderson Stormlight books are fun, but they're also super weird, in that the characters are in a solidly medieval world (where actual magic exists, and spirits and poo poo), but they're also pretty much fairly progressive early 21st-century Americans in terms of their worldviews and psychology. The contrast is jarring. I have the opposite view when it comes to modern fantasy, though if they were all that way with no range of social views, then yes, that would be insufferable. Now historical fiction that has its cypher with modern sensibilities, then that can be hard to swallow, but if the author goes for fidelity you get instances like Maturin (of Patrick O'Brien) commenting that he is ok with the pederast because he was a gentle sort. Also historical accuracy can be coda for racism or fascist love letters, wrapped up as "That was what it was really like!" Flashman is the opposite in some ways, a nasty character who has genuine insight into the events he I'm named after the most famous paladin, and the middle of my surname is truth 
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Feb 3, 2021 14:15
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navyjack posted:Not Queer, but The Wolfs Hour by Robert McCammon is basically “what if James Bond buy a werewolf?” He would have a nice doggo/assistant? Who sells werewolfs anyhow? This has slavery undertones, no?
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Feb 27, 2021 10:35
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Humans will always want for something that they cannot have, it is an essential component, and the central tragedy, of the human condition.
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Mar 6, 2021 22:30
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Cardiac posted:Suffice to say, socialists of that age are different from the socialists of today, mostly since the world is drastically different. This is magical thinking. The outcome would be no different.
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Mar 6, 2021 23:29
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The central conceit is that no human could ever rule over/organise a society that wants for nothing, than can have anything it wants. The humans of the culture cannot have anything they want. The humans of the culture created the AI so that they didn't have "the human problem." Only the AI are just as human as the humans, only much more capable and sophisticated that the wants and needs become more sophisticated by the nature of the being who wants it. Which is why Banks uses outcomers as a mirror (perhaps cypher would a better word) to criticise the nature of the Culture itself.
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Mar 6, 2021 23:38
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Are there any Culture books that do not have a duck-out-of-water?
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Mar 6, 2021 23:43
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awesmoe posted:excession maybe. hydrogen sonata maybe. The excession itself? its a bit of a maguffin but still central to the plot. Hydrogen Sonata, the main protagonist lady goes around unfamiliar social groupings looking for the maguffin man. Ice Phisherman posted:Playing around with ideas conveyed in books is the mark of good science fiction and sometimes if you play with it for long enough, some nerd wants to make it real. Sometimes these things become the internet and smart phones and those ideas reshape the world. Sturgeon's law in action.
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Mar 6, 2021 23:52
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ulmont posted:Surface Detail. My favourite phrase from Surface Detail has got to be "Theme-park of woe."
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Mar 7, 2021 20:27
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mllaneza posted:You also left out Against A Dark Background Funnily enough...
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Mar 7, 2021 23:13
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