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I have a cart from book outlet filled with a bunch of speculative fiction and looking for thoughts on the following before I click buy. Anything stand out as particularly high or low quality? Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi Hearts of Oak by Eddie Robson The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander The Brotherhood of the Wheel by R.S. Belcher (this one seems the most dubious to me... I’m ok with trashy, but I have my limits) Waste Tide by Quen Qiufan Among Others by Jo Walton
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Jan 31, 2021 17:07
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I assume Richard Morgan, who in addition to whatever political leanings he may have also has some transphobic ones. I’ve got a stack of his books in my giveaway pile. Anyway while looking for anarchist sci-fi I came across this website. Oddly specific. https://www.anarchysf.com/
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Feb 15, 2021 20:04
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StrixNebulosa posted:
Fionovar Tapestry, read as a whole in that big blue edition they put out, was one of my favorite books as a teen. My brother, who dislikes fantasy, loved it too. I haven’t read it in a decade and am kind of worried it won’t hold up. I used to read every GGK book that came out, but I haven’t read anything of his since Under Heaven. I need to catch up…
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Dec 31, 2021 15:46
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Larry Parrish posted:boy with a foreword like that i bet googling and reading that isn't going to be an incredible mistake Reviews of it seem pretty positive, not being weird pedo apologia.
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Jan 5, 2022 23:53
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I’ve been picking up books in the Tor essentials imprint lately and just finished The Dragon Waiting by John Ford. A bit clunky at times but it was a real enjoyable alt history / fantasy read. Ford asks a lot of his readers, and it feels like this is one that would really hold up well to a reread. It also feels like the kind of thing that in a lesser, or at least different, author would turn into a series.
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Jan 12, 2022 05:29
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I read some of the first book maybe a year ago and yeah those books do not hold up... But there's a local used bookstore that has soooo many of them and I just want to buy them for nostalgia purposes. Book collecting is brainworms for me.
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Jan 18, 2022 15:12
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So I won an auction for a ton of old sci-fi, fantasy, alt history, and military thriller books. The lot I really wanted was full of Wheel of Time (I wanted to switch from hardcover to ppb, with the original ppbs if possible) and Jack Whyte books, but I ended up losing it at the last minute. Instead, I got a lot of... random stuff. I started looking book names up, but I'm really excited to actually dig in and see what's there. A lot of Harry Turtledove. My guess is I'll keep maybe a third of it, donate a quarter immediately, and use the rest to stock up a little library I plan to put up this spring.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:57
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Thanks for this. I loved the hell out of the first TV movies when they first came out, but haven’t seen them in two decades, and never saw the later ones. I’m halfway through the first one, and yeah, it rules.
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Jul 2, 2022 22:52
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I bought books 2 and 3 in that series a while back but finally picked up The Traitor yesterday and have burned through it today. It’s super good, nice drat work GB. I’m almost done and had to tear myself away. Looking forward to finishing it tonight and moving on to the second one shortly.
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Jul 10, 2022 22:42
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MockingQuantum posted:I don't think I have ever once been convinced to buy a book based on review quotes, though I think there have been a few times where I have been warned off a book based on who they get pull quotes from. And yeah the first chapter in the item description is idiotic. I don't understand putting either of those before the blurb, it's usually the blurb that pushes me over the edge into buying a book if I'm on the fence. I can understand including that other poo poo for SEO reasons or whatever, but I don't understand why it's put first. I’ve definitely bought books off of pull quotes from authors I like. If it’s a problem I ignore pull quotes from that author in the future, but generally it’s been effective for finding new stuff when I’m just randomly browsing. Particularly in fantasy and sci fi. Can’t imagine caring about review site / publication pull quotes though.
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Sep 23, 2022 23:01
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SimonChris posted:https://amazingstories.com/2023/06/every-quiver-of-each-of-them-by-simon-christiansen-free-story/ I read this. It’s an interesting idea and I’d be curious to see it taken further. e: I also read Gateway by Pohl earlier this week. Fuuuuck that protagonist. Also the therapy framing story didn’t work for me. I have the third Heechee book on my bookcase but I tossed both of them into the giveaway bin. Too bad, I liked the concept of the world. Jordan7hm fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Jul 4, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2023 14:30
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Lex Talionis posted:Though looking back I did come up with Steph Swainston as one of the suggestions. Apropos of nothing, but I am reorganizing my library and came across the Castle Omnibus and goddamn I remember loving that book, and never hearing anyone say a word about it. I wonder if it holds up to a reread.
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Jul 15, 2023 22:37
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anilEhilated posted:Were there more than three books? I remember the first two being decent and the third one basically going nowhere. The omnibus has 1-3, and then there’s a prequel called Above the Snowline which I picked up but never finished. And apparently one more called Fair Rebel that came out fairly recently.
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Jul 15, 2023 22:59
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Finished CJ Cherryh’s The Dreamstone yesterday. It’s the first of her books that I’ve read, and I really enjoyed it. Very flowery language, felt like reading a Celtic myth or something. I also picked up her book Foreigner, and am excited to start in on that.
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Jul 17, 2023 20:37
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Ccs posted:I was sent this excerpt from Brian Herbert and Kevin J Andersons new Princess of Dune book. Look I know you guys rag on Andersons writing a lot but I think he’s on to something here. He’s jus’ a li’l ol’ kid
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Jul 17, 2023 23:45
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Is Carrion Comfort science fiction or fantasy? I dunno. I thought it was real loving good though. Definitely makes me want to read more Simmons.
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Jul 29, 2023 03:30
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MockingQuantum posted:What else would you recommend for S&S comics? I have no real awareness of what's out there and I think I've been missing out, I love the Elric and Fafhrd/Grey Mouser books, and I really enjoyed a lot of the Conan stories, plus I'm reading a bunch of Clark Ashton Smith and the Zothique stuff in particular has a lot of that kind of vibe, I feel. I'd love to see that sort of stuff in comic form. Basically every Conan comic starting with the original Marvel run is good. Some of the highest hit rate of any comics property. Everything from old Marvel to new Marvel, to the Dark Horse run, to public domain based European stories (published by Titan in NA in the last few years). Jim Zub (guy writing Conan right now) wrote Skullkickers which is a fun S&S comic. There are Fafhrd/Grey Mouser comics by Mignola worth grabbing. Also by others, though Mignola / Chaykin are the standout.
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Sep 14, 2023 12:59
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A couple months ago I leant my buddy The Traitor Baru Cormorant. He finally got around the reading it. His texts last night: In the final pages now HOLY MOTHERFUCKING gently caress Still have like 10’pages to go Fuuuuuuuck me I am not happy But I was wondering how did they continue this after ….. and then HOLY poo poo I’m still in shock And then today HOLY MUTHER loving gently caress THAT THING loving ENDING I HATE THAT BOOK I should have stopped reading on episode 29 Those last two chapters hosed me up Thanks for the rec He’s keeping the book so his partner can read it too. So uh, it was a hit.
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Sep 15, 2023 22:15
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I hated Victorian literature in school but loved Strange & Norrell. I should probably read some Victorian fiction as an adult. I’ve been reading lots of random SF lately, and really liked this story (Ginungagap) from a Nebula anthology: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/1596061781/1596061781___3.htm It’s a first contact / exploration story, about souls and cloning, kind of. It’s by Michael Swanwick, who I had never even heard of but is definitely on my radar now.
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Sep 17, 2023 20:08
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That seems way up my alley. Will keep my eyes out.
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Sep 17, 2023 20:17
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Burned through a couple older SF books the last few days. The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester goes like a mile a minute and deals in Big Ideas. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and unlike the last book I read with a terrible protagonist (Gateway) this one didn’t bother me as much probably because he was so clearly not a real person but rather a vehicle for Bester to get his ideas to the reader. I also thought the world was really cool, Bester did a good job explaining how jaunting would completely flip society on its head and because of that it felt pretty modern. After finishing it last night I picked up Le Guin’s Planet of Exile and got through it in a pretty quick sitting. It’s got some basic racism allegory stuff but it’s also just a tight little romance with just enough SF to be interesting. I didn’t realize that she was building the Hainish Cycle world up so early in her career, I thought it was like a retcon thing or something like Asimov did.
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Nov 5, 2023 14:17
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This genre based book club podcast I listen to does a list of BIPOC authors for their different genres. They’ve done a bunch of SF sub genres. They don’t call out which group each author represents though so you’d need a dig a bit. https://bookclub4m.tumblr.com/booklists
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Nov 10, 2023 15:17
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In terms of folks I haven’t read beyond maybe a short story or two, there’s lots (Heinlein, Brin, Bear, Zelazny, Bujold, Delany, Vance, Moorcock, Vinge, Wolfe, Brunner, Watts). And that’s just looking at my shelf which probably has 100 books by those authors. There’s simply too many books. And lots of great authors I’ve only read maybe one thing. Bradbury, the Sturgatsky brothers, Wurts, Poul Anderson, Pohl, Lieber… I think I’m going to knock about Delany tonight though. Ballad of Beta-2 is real short.
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Nov 26, 2023 02:26
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Ballad of Beta 2 was a pretty good first contact story. Nothing earth shattering. It’s very short, a novella I’m surprised was published as the sole story in the paperback I have it in. Still curious to read Delany’s more well regarded books.
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Nov 26, 2023 13:01
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I read that Beowulf translation to my kids, I love it. It just sounds so good out loud. The Seamus Heaney one is also great and the first way I experienced Beowulf, but you can just do what I do and own both. Or more if you want. Lots of choices.
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Dec 12, 2023 02:13
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This was a year of getting back into reading in a much bigger way. Including graphic novels and manga collections I’ll top 60 books this year, prose will be around 45 by Sunday. A lot of that was driven by a renewed interest in science fiction, especially vintage SF. I like the idea of ranked lists. Here’s my top ten sci-fi/fantasy that I read this year. Honourable mentions to go City by Simak, the early Hainish cycle books by Le Guin, and CJ Cheryh’s Dreamstone. Dishonourable mention to Gateway. Interesting ideas, just couldn’t stand sitting with that character after the domestic violence turn. 10. Ginungagap by Michael Swanwick (Nebula Award stories 16). This one comes in at number 10 because it’s one story from a collection, and the rest of the collection is just ok. This one story, which is a first contact story with interesting traversal science, is great though, and makes me want to read a lot more of Swanwick’s work. Seems like a forgotten gem of the 80s-00s. 9. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Mostly this surprised me by how readable it was. ERB is racist as hell, as was the style of the time, but he writes a compelling and fast moving adventure yarn. This happens and then this happens and then this happens but it all hangs together really well. 8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K Dick I liked it, but I think I expected more… and also less of the weird religious stuff. I need to read a lot more PKD and get a better handle on where he’s coming from. 7. The Time Machine by HG Wells A classic that I had never read. I like Wells quite a bit, The Island of Dr Moreau rates really highly for me. This one was pretty good too, though it resembles A Princess of Mars in that the plot kind of just moves forward (and the racist undertones, a bit more muted here but still very present). I’m sure there’s a well established throughline between Wells and ERB, but even without looking that up at all you can kind of sense it. I have a nicely illustrated version of War of the Worlds that I’ll get to next year. 6. Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel by Kathryn K Rusch I read a short story by KKR in an Asimov magazine I picked up earlier this year and it was pretty good. Then I dug through a lot of sci-fi I won in an auction and found a stack of these Retrieval Artist novels she wrote. They’re about a private investigator on the moon. This one deals with a biological weapons attack. It’s a fast grimy read in the tradition of noir mysteries, but has a nice sci fi twist. I have more of these I’ll get to next year. 5. The Shadow Rising & The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan Late summer when the new WOT tv season hit I lost myself in books 4 and 5. One day I’ll get to 6. Once I start I find it so easy to just spend hours reading these, but actually starting is always a challenge. 4. The Stars my Destination by Alfred Bester Wow, this hit me like a brick. It feels like it could have been written this year, and speaks to the timelessness of fiction. Like an anti Ayn Rand, Bester explores the Individual Man but cuts out everything that doesn’t need to be in the text. CW for a pos rapist main character (the writing itself is sparse and does not describe the event. I read that he was a pos but the rape scene happened without me even realizing that’s what it was until later in the book when the event is referenced.) 3. Planetes Vol 1-4 by Makoto Yukimura I picked up the two book omnibus edition of this at a St Vincent de Paul charity shop for like 2$ and didn’t expect anything. The first volume starts off as a slice of life style sci-fi manga about a group of garbage collectors in space. It’s good. As the book goes on though it shifts gears and becomes about family and love and duty and purpose and by the end it was one of the most impactful and beautiful books I had read all year. 2. Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons My buddy recommended this to me and I happened to already have it on my shelf from a random pickup a couple years ago, so I took the plunge. Man this books goes places. Vampire nazi horror places. Extremely compelling. 1. Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers I travelled to a friend’s wedding a couple months ago and the night before, while my wife was luxuriating in the big hotel bath, I burned through this book. Like The Stars My Destination, this feels like it could have been written this year. Beautifully paced, trusting in the reader to fill in the gaps and made the connections themselves. I’m so curious to watch Stalker now. That’s something I’d like to get to before the end of the year. I also NEED to read more of these guys.
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Dec 27, 2023 19:53
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Bilirubin posted:Mercerism, and the overall human societal relationship to empathy (come late of course, since the animals are all gone now), and how the synthetic animals were treated in contrast with the replicants, which also kinda puts a lie to that societal relationship to empathy, is the central point of that book, and the part that most resonated with me. Unfortunately it was basically unfilmable and I think Ridley Scott made the right choice to cut it out IMO Oh I agree, I think it’s the core of the story. I just didn’t realize it would be going into it. I think I prefer blade runner as a story, though obviously different mediums make it tough to compare.
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Dec 28, 2023 00:51
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fritz posted:Qouzl, also by Alan Dean Foster, is incredibly furry. I read this at a formative age and I’m shocked I didn’t become a furry.
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Jan 4, 2024 00:20
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Whirling posted:then again my sheer displeasure at baru's continued existence after what she did in the first book is skewing my perceptions Love being reminded of that ending though. I’m not sure I can think of a more memorable ending to a fantasy book.
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Jan 6, 2024 03:12
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I picked up some old paperbacks of Patricia A McKillip’s Riddle Master of Hed trilogy a few weeks back. It’s three short books that basically need to be read together, released in the mid 70s. So far I’ve read books 1 and 2, and both were great. It does the whole chosen one thing but has a different spin on it. The prose is spare but pretty good, way more competent than works that have remained in the public consciousness since then. She also does a great job building this increasingly fantastical world, hinting at things but not getting bogged down in the details. The last year or two I’ve been reading a fair amount of older sff, and this is the top of the pile in terms of things I’ve never seen recommended by anyone. Going to read book 3 shortly, and unless it drops off a cliff this is a strong recommend from me.
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Mar 17, 2024 01:47
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Selachian posted:The whole series is very much worth reading; I don't think I've ever read a bad McKillip. I never see her stuff in used bookstores but she’s absolutely on my watchlist now, and I’ll probably end up buying a bunch of her stuff new. It’s really good.
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Mar 17, 2024 01:54
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Mikojan posted:I was told to avoid the tangential books at all cost because of the lousy writing, should I reconsider? If so, do I skip anything in the chronology? Read them all and post about it.
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Mar 18, 2024 19:24
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 05:26 |
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I never read his fiction as a kid but he wrote a book about writing that I absolutely adored. Eventually I read Ender’s Game and I thought it was fine but it didn’t stick with me.
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Mar 27, 2024 03:41
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