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I'm reading Ted Chiang's latest story collection, Exhalation. Turns out I've already read quite a few of the stories in this one but that's fine, they're good stories! The title story remains absolutely fantastic. The simple image of looking inside your own skull through a series of mirrors and essentially operating on yourself is incredible.
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Oct 4, 2019 13:32
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quantumfoam posted:Next up on my reading list are Nancy Kress's Tomorrow's Kin and R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War, both randomly grabbed from the fiction section of a local library. Most recent non-fiction read was Margalit Fox's Riddle of the Labyrinth, which was about Linear Script B/Linear B and how Linear B was discovered and eventually translated. Pretty interesting read, got into mathematic probablities and databasing/gridding. 😬 Please post your thoughts on that book once you've read it, it's a book I always want to read more discussion about.
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Nov 15, 2019 00:25
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quantumfoam posted:This is Emma Newman's 2015 story Planetfall you're talking about, correct? I've enjoyed all of the Planetfall series (such as it is) except for the most recent, which I really hated. I think it had interesting ideas, but executed them in the worst way possible. But the other ones are all really good! Kangxi posted:I missed this post earlier. I'd be happy to talk more about it, I have the second volume on the way from the library. Oh I'm curious how the second one is! Entirely possible that Kuang grows into her writing a lot over time, but I found the first one to be very clumsy in its use of historical inspiration. Events are lifted straight from very different eras and forced into occurring at the same time, and I felt that using a fictionalised Nanjing Massacre as motivation for a fictional character to commit a ficitonal genocide is.... Well, perhaps it could be done well, but it felt almost cheap to me.
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Nov 15, 2019 05:24
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fritz posted:Haven't read the book but in this world 9/11 was enough motivation for real people to want to commit real genocides and actually get a start on same Absolutely true, but just because things can and did happen in real life doesn't mean that when they happen in a book it's necessarily well written. Like, I get the logic, but in this book it was not good. (In my opinion etc etc) That's basically what the book was to me -- "this happened in real life! and now it's in this book! isn't that AWFUL" Drone posted:I started reading China Mountain Zhang yesterday. Right now I'm only up to the first perspective change, but man I'm liking this thing so far. now this, this is a Good Book
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Nov 16, 2019 03:12
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someone find a stray dog to take a message to avshalom
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Nov 20, 2019 13:38
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What I enjoy most from Ann Leckie is her non-human protagonists observing humanity and coming to care for humans in spite of their flaws. I think that's why Provenance was lacking in comparison to the Ancillary trilogy and the Raven Tower. And again, I much preferred the interludes in the Raven Tower than the present day chapters.
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Nov 23, 2019 02:47
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Mr. Peepers posted:OK. About a year ago I decided I wanted to read more female SF authors. Since then I've read some novels by Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed) and Murderbots, of course... and that's about it. Help me get back on this train. I prefer harder SF but will settle for anything good. I've been meaning to check out Cherryh since she's brought up regularly but have no idea where to start. read China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F McHugh. Octavia Butler is also fantastic.
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Dec 25, 2019 12:29
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:My boredom and bemusement with those emotional irrational women is at this point shared by quite a few people who have posted. The inner emotional lives of girls rock climbing turned out to be of as much interest and import as a good hair braiding and gossip session, just with a higher body count and budget. a good hair braiding and gossip session is of great interest to me, so thank you for the recommendation.
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Jan 11, 2020 05:27
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cptn_dr posted:Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.
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Jan 13, 2020 05:06
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Ooh, that's on Kindle Unlimited in Australia! Gotta read it in.... 3 days before my trial runs out! Sounds up my alley.
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Feb 23, 2020 04:56
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Octavia E Butler's Parables of the Sower and of the Talents books are both really good books that aren't exactly post-apocalyptic, but mid-societal breakdown. The main character is a young woman who goes on the road and meets different people and builds her own philosophy of what she thinks society should be like after collapse.
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Apr 4, 2020 23:59
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StrixNebulosa posted:
I really enjoyed Kalpa Imperial, it's a great collection. Also at one point during the final story it made me laugh so hard I started crying, which was not something I had expected going in. edit: I'm going to reread it now, I need that kind of joy in my life again.
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Jun 12, 2020 15:09
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cptn_dr posted:Also my local bookstores still can't give me a confirmed release date for Baru 3, so I'm probably going to have to resort to Amazon skulduggery to get my hands on it. Yeah I'm not sure of the best way for me to buy it here (Australia), especially given all non-essential retail stores are basically shutting down after today. I guess I'll have to fiddle with my amazon account settings so I can order the ebook through US amazon.
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Aug 5, 2020 00:53
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First of all: massive congratulations. Second of all: god what a disaster!! Huge sympathies to you for having such an important moment seemingly covered up for no good reason..
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Aug 5, 2020 10:55
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It's the same map, but the notes are different.
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Aug 11, 2020 09:39
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god I want to read those spoiler bars so bad... must finish book first
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Aug 15, 2020 01:41
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quantumfoam posted:-An arthurian series focusing on Gawain using the Welsh spelling of his name comes out, and people mistake the Welsh spelling as being a new self-insert character into the Arthurian Mythos and got very angry. This is very funny
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Aug 27, 2020 23:55
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minema posted:I'm packing the house for moving and I found my old copy of Last of The Sky Pirates, one of the Edge Chronicle books. Did anyone else read these as a child? I think they were one of the founding influences of my love of fantasy and flicking through them now and seeing the illustrations gave me such a vivid jolt of nostalgia. I don't think I have the rest of them any more but I'm sort of tempted to buy the full set again since they're definitely going to be better in physical copies due to the illustrations. Just such an inventive and we'll realised world. Yeah I loved those! Such a vivid and cool setting. I loved how horrifying and hosed up everything was.
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Oct 12, 2020 02:05
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Light fantasy romances are exactly what I've been craving lately, so thank you very much for the rec.
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Nov 22, 2020 00:18
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I picked it up based on that recommendation too but found it really boring  . The main pairing just didn't have enough chemistry for me to get past the infodumping and lack of stakes in the first half of the novel. edit: oh, having a look at the series, they seem to be standalone, so I might try out the second one and see if I like that better. Metis of the Chat Thread fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Nov 28, 2020 |
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Nov 28, 2020 07:19
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If I say a book reminds me of Lost, that's a compliment. I loved Lost.
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Dec 7, 2020 04:09
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Sibling of TB posted:I almost bought earthseed because "hey a full series!" but "A multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner’s powerful saga of survival and destiny in a near-future dystopian America." and I'm not sure if I want to read dystopian future America right now. It is a fantastic series but it also feels VERY accurate to current day America, so it might be a tough read. It doesn't wallow in misery or anything like that, and it does have a lot of hope in it too.
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Jan 14, 2021 02:19
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General Battuta posted:If only we could set the discourse gauge to somewhere in the middle. This is the dream.
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Jan 17, 2021 23:06
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I'm glad I had no compulsion to finish the series after reading the Poppy War then.
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Jan 18, 2021 04:01
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I don't know how you can read Gideon and not think the characters are falling for each other under about forty layers of repression. Maybe it's my lesbian brain, but that subtext is very obvious to me.
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Jan 19, 2021 04:56
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awesmoe posted:but 'romantic under 40 layers of repression' is textually indistinguishable from 'learning to be family/platonic love' so its just guessing based on what people are predisposed to think so you're saying it is the lesbian brain?
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Jan 19, 2021 05:31
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That's gorgeous!
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Jan 21, 2021 05:27
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Django Wexler's The Thousand Names series has a lesbian protagonist. It's basically a low-fantasy retelling of the French Revolution and Napoleon's campaigns. I also fourth or fifth the recommendations of Gideon and Baru Cormorant in particular.
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Apr 12, 2021 00:29
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Ccs posted:I found Gideon and Harrow fairly fun reads but their success probably helped The Unspoken Name get published because it’s also about lesbians and Necromancers (though this time the lesbians aren’t also the necromancers) and I really enjoyed that book. I’m still mad the top Goodreads review for that book is a 2 star rating from someone who didn’t even finish reading it. I went and looked the goodreads page up because this made me curious and I have been annoyed by that person's reviews before! I remember they were the top review for Gideon the Ninth before it really blew up, and they were really negative about that too so I was motivated to leave a good review. Their reviews are so overwritten and annoying. quote:The premise of “queer orc assassins and magical intrigue” had me clamoring to read “the Unspoken Name”, but the novel’s offerings left me unmoved, and about a quarter through the story, that initial cheeriness fell from my face, like a person slipping into sleep. Once my mind started to meander and the boredom glazed my eyes and I had to squint the words into focus, every page feeling like a heavy stone lifted with terrible effort and dropped again and again to the ground, I knew I had to call it a DNF (at 67%). Relax with the similes! Anyway, you've pushed The Unspoken Name up my priority list for sure.
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Apr 29, 2021 06:57
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General Battuta posted:I love Sabriel, I want a Sabriel movie
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Aug 21, 2021 04:54
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I quite like The Ends of... for breaking the pattern. Gives it a bit more finality, while Terror feels a little too similar to what came before. I still like Terror though!
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Aug 28, 2021 02:30
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A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe is a good one for that. It's about crew of scavengers looking for, uh, a big ship at the edge of the universe! It has sequels but I haven't read them, not because I didn't like the first book, I just never got around to it.
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Oct 14, 2021 07:29
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I loved the Edgeworld Chronicles at her age and if she likes Pratchett I think she'd like that. I also strongly second the Sabriel, Earthsea and Diana Wynne Jones recommendations - The Lives of Christopher Chant is a great one in particular from Jones but you can't really go wrong with any of her books imo.
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Nov 5, 2021 00:00
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Comedy answer: Deptford Mice. The purpose of children's literature is to scar children, right? I loooved imagining living in that world as a kid, despite how frequently cruel and grotesque it was. The illustrations were such an important part of bringing you into the fantasy, I loved the partnership of author and illustrator.
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Nov 5, 2021 01:08
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Garth Nix has a new book out in the Old Kingdom series, called Terciel and Elinor, about Sabriel's parents. I would say it's much better than Goldenhand was, and I liked it a bit better than Clariel, but it still doesn't reach the heights of the original trilogy. Elinor was a great character and really brought the early 20th century charm of Ancelstierre, but Terciel was lackluster and felt extraneous a lot of the time. He felt a lot like a retread of Sam as the reluctant Abhorsen-in-Training. I think it might have been better if Elinor was the sole perspective and you only see Terciel through her eyes. The climax came very quickly, and the fact that this is a prequel took a lot of tension out of the narrative for me. The end is a foregone conclusion and the book didn't play on that in any interesting ways. It does feature a very old woman as the Abhorsen, though, and I always like seeing old ladies as major characters in fantasy. I do have unfairly high expectations for the Old Kingdom probably, as I don't think I can ever again have the same reading experience as when I was a lonely preteen girl obsessed with dogs and books reading about the lonely preteen Lirael becoming an adventure librarian and summoning a magical dog companion. Metis of the Chat Thread fucked around with this message at 11:10 on Dec 9, 2021 |
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Dec 9, 2021 11:08
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Aardvark! posted:I'd just like to apologize to myself, Graydon Saunders, because I gave up on Commonweal about halfway through book 3. Curious to hear your thoughts on that, I ended up quite disappointed with it despite the fun premise.
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Dec 13, 2021 04:34
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For Butler, the Parables are my favourites from her, as well as her short stories. I haven't read Lilith's Brood personally so can't comment on that.
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Jan 12, 2022 02:44
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Ccs posted:I always get this and the 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle confused. Anyway I picked this one up. If I don't like it maybe I'll try the other one. Add the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and you've got a real confusing mess.
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Mar 8, 2022 00:21
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I'm glad to know that, I'd been thinking along the same lines about trying book 2. Guess I won't bother then.
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May 13, 2022 03:13
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Congrats General, that's really cool! I have like forty hours in the original Subnautica but have never reached the end because the deep ocean is too scary, so I may never be able to read what you write for them, but still! Cool!!
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May 26, 2022 02:09
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