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Munin posted:Any good non-bleak and/or uplifting scifi or fantasy? given my excessive news consumption I need a palate cleanser. Literally any Becky Chambers book
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Oct 7, 2019 07:55
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big dyke energy posted:So I read Priory of the Orange Tree recently and thought it was loving phenomenal. I also realized that I've barely read any fantasy novels, apart from Terry Prachett and the one time I read the Hobbit. I'm looking for more sweeping epic fantasy written by women/lgbt folk, especially ones featuring women/lgbt characters. i know it's sci-fi but I've also read all of Becky Chambers' stuff as well, which I also love, and I think Record of a Spaceborn Few is my favorite of her Wayfarer's triology. Haven't read her new one yet, but I have a hold on it at the library. This is pretty hard to narrow down because IMO that describes a lot of the best recent fantasy/sci fi. If you only read one thing from this list I think NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth series should be it. If you read two I’d probably add Anne Leckie or Naomi Novik. The Goblin Emperor specifically reminded me of The Priory of the Orange Tree. - NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth series (also basically the best fantasy series of the past five years imo) - The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie (based on yr description you should really read her book ancillary justice as well— sci fi but gender is a huge part of it. Also it’s crazy good) - Uprooted by Naomi Novik - The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - The Poppy War RF Kuang - City of Brass SA Chakraborty - Under the pendulum sun by Jeannette Ng - Jade City by Fonda Lee (Less epic maybe but good) - All the birds in the sky by Charlie Jane anders — I actually haven’t read this yet but would be remiss not to include it, it won a ton of awards Less recent but Tamora Pierce? Sci fi but also good - Murderbot by Martha Wells (there’s a reason the last thread title recommended it). She also wrote some previous fantasy novels which play w gender roles. Though I don’t think they are quite as good overall as Murderbot, still maybe worth it if the themes interest you - the aforementioned Ancillary Justice by Leckie and sequels. - Gideon the Ninth (fantasy? Sci fi? Idk) - a memory called empire, arkady Martine (sci fi) - maaaaaaaybe too like the lightning by ada Palmer but it’s not exactly accessible Edit— if anyone has any recommendations for other books like the above I’d also appreciate more recommendations! tildes fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Oct 9, 2019 |
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Oct 9, 2019 08:59
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ToxicFrog posted:I liked both a great deal but I think I'd also be hard pressed to point at two more different recent fantasy novels, Priory is a world-spanning multi-viewpoint fantasy epic about dragon wizards trying to prevent the end of the world and Emperor is a cozy personal story about one dude getting dropped into the deep end of court politics and trying to make friends and not drown. On further reflection you’re probably right. I guess the beginning of Priory is what really reminded me of Emperor, but Priory then expands out a ton and Emperor doesn’t/Priory doesn’t have much of the initial phase. Belay that specific recommendation.
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Oct 9, 2019 19:45
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MockingQuantum posted:I'm looking to start a long(er) fantasy series for the holiday season because that's when I'm simultaneously my most mentally taxed at work and have the most free time. ... Echoing that any of the big Brandon Sanderson series pretty much fit this. Max Gladstone’s craft sequence is decently long urban fantasy (not *really* modern) at this point, thought depending on what your work is it might be too real. It’s also more interconnected books instead of one continuous plot. https://www.maxgladstone.com/series/the-craft-sequence/ NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth is incredibly good but maybe not the chill out and don’t think too much style of fantasy series, and not anywhere near as long as those examples.
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Nov 13, 2019 05:09
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This is not really a spoiler but I just finished Planetfall and my semi spoiler recommendation is to only read the first 50% of the book and then stop. Don’t read anymore. Just continue to imagine it could end any way you want. E: that’s probably too harsh but wow the book’s pacing is just not good. The start is fine, but then the middle section drags on way too long without much plot happening, leaving way too little time for the ending. It is very well written from a prose sense though, and the characters are good. The ending wouldn’t be so disappointing if the rest of the book didn’t raise expectations so high by being good.
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Nov 13, 2019 09:20
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quantumfoam posted:I've never read the Broken Earth series so all the snippiness/looming meltdowns about WarCriming and MasterRaces in it has me confused/not over-inclined to read it. I am confused where they are getting some of these takes from and I wouldn’t let it color your opinion of the books. There’s a reason every book in the trilogy won the Hugo for best novel and IMO you’d be missing out if you don’t read it.
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Nov 14, 2019 22:31
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quantumfoam posted:This is Emma Newman's 2015 story Planetfall you're talking about, correct? Yeah the 2015 one. That slow reveal was fine for me, except I really didn’t like the ending and it feels like it would need to be a longer book or advance the plot faster to avoid an ending which felt rushed to me. Maybe there’s an ending I’d have found satisfying which they could’ve arrived at with that same pacing beforehand, but it’s hard for me to imagine. That said I totally agree that the main character’s development/reveal was really good throughout and the spoilered bit you mention was excellent.
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Nov 15, 2019 20:48
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Megazver posted:No. Whatsherface breaking into the bank is the inciting incident and, as far as I recall. Everything before that is pretty much all the characters ambling around while you're thinking "why the gently caress are we shown these people and when will the story start?" The fired magic financier mopes, gets drunk, gets interviewed about her firing. The hobo girl just kinda reactively lives her life and until it ties into the other story like 2/3 into the book, it just has zero relation to it or apparent point. I’m not sure we are using the word inciting in the same way, but the reason that she does this is set up at the very beginning of the book when the god dies. The pacing is definitely slower than some of the other books, but I’m not sure where you’re getting this from.
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Nov 21, 2019 23:35
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NotWearingPants posted:Hi, I don't post in this forum much but I feel compelled to tell people that I am around 100 pages from finishing Provenance by Ann Leckie and I think it's really bad. I read and enjoyed the three Ancillary books but this one just feels like people sitting around talking about what's happening, like the characters are telling me about a book they read or a show they watched. I didn’t think it was bad at all, but yeah definitely not up to the standard set by the ancillary books imo. I did think The Raven Tower was better than Provenance if you want to try another Anne Leckie book, though it’s quite different both in setting and the POV of the characters.
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Nov 22, 2019 19:12
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tokenbrownguy posted:Finished the first powder mage book. My favorite part was where they fondly reminisced about bonding while sneaking around the sewers so they could watch women in the bathrooms
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Dec 3, 2019 08:01
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Evil Fluffy posted:Serpentwar had at least one potentially interesting woman (the woman from the Mockers who Erik marries in secret) but the are completely written out in a later book, though probably because Feist forgot they exist, because he did it with another character's sister who's mentioned in 1-2 lines in one book and then the character's an only child in a later one. The first Serpentwar book is good, though it's also a pretty shameless rip-off of The Dirty Dozen which is probably why I liked it. The second one is whatever, the end of the last one screams "I'm out of time and ideas." I think I'm getting a bit lost w/ these series. If I haven't read anything by Raymond Feist, what is the first series I should read?
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Feb 9, 2020 20:54
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fez_machine posted:really defending the idea that easily mocked fake as hell Old-timey hobo dialect horror is unreflective of a person's writing This has involved an awful lot of talking about someone’s debut novel from literally a decade ago. People actually often get better at things when they do them for ten years. The City of series is good. Foundryside was solid as well. Those are 10000% more representative of his current writing than his first novel since, you know, they literally are his current writing.
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Feb 18, 2020 00:59
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scary ghost dog posted:i suspect bear guy only read the first book and maybe didnt notice that i was specifically praising the last one. frankly its impossible to imagine anyone who has read that book describing it as derivative. Are the main differences between the early and later books the amount of character/plot development that has had time to happen, or is the writing/theme different? Bounced off the first book but maybe I should go back to it. Also: 90s Cringe Rock posted:shakespeare was a coward hack who was afraid to use ents
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Feb 19, 2020 04:28
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What book slash chapter should I begin foreigner in?
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Feb 24, 2020 03:55
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StrixNebulosa posted:3. Bren wakes up to assassin in the night. Thank you! E: wow this is way more accessible than my previous attempts starting from the start tildes fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Feb 24, 2020 |
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Feb 24, 2020 04:30
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A human heart posted:That sounds good rather than bad Too like the lightning is like an 18th century costume themed BDSM club. It’s very, very present in the first book but doable, but the sequel takes it up to a whole different level.
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Mar 1, 2020 09:41
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StrixNebulosa posted:Vague, pretentious question: as I read the Silmarillion I want to read similar epic fantasy, but not LotR/Hobbit yet. So far I've only encountered two authors who give me the same sense of depth and majesty as Tolkien's works do: Janny Wurts and Michelle Sagara/West. In my opinion no other author hits the same beats without getting caught up in their own styles - too grounded, not grounded enough, not well-written enough, etc. If you’re looking for Silmarillion vibes Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings felt similar to me in tone.
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Mar 7, 2020 21:19
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freebooter posted:Also the purpose of lists like that are generally to encourage people read fewer white men and bring attention to minority writers, so telling someone to gently caress right off and die seems a bit of an overreaction. Yeah it sucks that they were misgendered, but the intent behind it seems good. I bet if the creators were contacted they'd update it correctly, I am pretty sure they didn't intentionally misgender them. e: StrixNebulosa posted:This is a bit confusing as Foz Meadows still uses she/her pronouns...? Right. I'm not an authority, I suck at gender. Meadows probably shouldn't be on that list, but it's still worthwhile to look at, as it has a lot of good authors on it and I don't want us to throw the baby out with the bathwater. According to twitter they are a "Jack of all pronouns, master of none", which I am a huge fan of as a description.
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Mar 10, 2020 00:06
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mewse posted:Came here to ask if this is good, haven't read anything by Scalzi It wasn’t bad but I liked old man’s war better in terms of scalzi books.
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Mar 18, 2020 01:43
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Came here to post how on the nose of an analogy for climate change Scalzi’s new book is. Almost such a close match to the real world that it feels repetitive maybe? Still enjoying it so far though. quantumfoam posted:Spoil it for those of us wary of Scalzi (raises hand, fires off airhorn). Wary of Scalzi or weary of Scalzi (not trying to be pedantic just curious why you’d be wary of him)?
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Apr 18, 2020 02:21
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Is Lock In worth reading? It’s my last Scalzi book more or less apart from a few random Old Man’s War ones. Also book 3 ended up being decent, it definitely wraps up the story.
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Apr 18, 2020 07:48
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Depends on how much leeway you give the concept of the plot. There was exactly one interesting character in the series so far and it wasn't the protagonist. Definitely Scalzi's biggest turd series. team overhead smash posted:I read the sequel, Head On, without reading Lock In and thought it was so poo poo I gave up a third of the way through. For contrast I liked his Old Man's War, Interdependency and even that Red Shirts books he did to varying degrees. Hm ok sounds like I should finish the one or two remaining old man’s war books and skip this one
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Apr 18, 2020 17:53
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How does Foreigner compare to it’s sequels? I don’t mind it so far but it’s not totally gripping me and I’m not sure if I’ll finish the last 40% if the sequels aren’t at least as good or ideally better.
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Apr 24, 2020 03:33
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tiniestacorn posted:I know 10% of you guys go feral when I mention Robert Jackson Bennett, but if you liked Foundryside and want more action fantasy fun in your life, Shorefall is out and it's good. Even got misty-eyed at a couple of character send-offs. If he follows through on some of the stuff set up in the final act, the next book promises to be maximally sapphic, and that's reason enough for me to keep reading. Oh ty for the reminder, totally missed this releasing!
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Apr 29, 2020 09:22
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Science Fiction Fantasy Megathread 3: 1 kg = 2.2 lb = .157 stone Also have been working through the foundry side sequel and at the 1/4 mark it seems promising? Not having the experience of learning the world for the first time makes it a bit less exciting, but it’s also nice to be able to just start with that knowledge assumed right away. E: didn’t think this would be changed, but I love it tildes fucked around with this message at 06:05 on May 1, 2020 |
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May 1, 2020 00:47
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eke out posted:i feel like the Aztec thing is heavily overstated just because of the naming system and the obvious bit about blood sacrifice. describing it as fantasy client state Armenia makes me want to go back to this book. E: rip actually investigating my ereader shows that I already finished this and forgot ><
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May 4, 2020 08:09
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Murderbot the Novel was great, really nice to have such a big chunk of murderbot at once. I feel like the next book in the universe could switch characters at this point and go deeper on some other part of the world, but idk if it would be as good without murderbot’s very specific POV.
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May 7, 2020 00:53
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So basically you’re looking for the Becky Chambers Murderbot novel. E: are jack Vance novels any good? Curious since they seem to have inspired d and d, but I am skeptical of most fantasy which is that old. tildes fucked around with this message at 04:34 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 04:17
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16 ways to defend a walled city was solid! It is set in basically exactly the later Roman Empire except with some names changed. You also have to be down with the snarky main character who narrates everything/the continuous unlikely success of his unorthodox/irreverent methods. Still would recommend though.
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May 12, 2020 00:08
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awesmoe posted:I enjoyed the book but I found the lack of character development or growth was a bit disappointing. That’s a pretty accurate description of it for sure.
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May 12, 2020 00:27
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No posting is great, keep it up!
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May 19, 2020 07:54
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uber_stoat posted:Cordwainer Smith wrote about a planet where an immortality drug is harvested from the bodies of giant mutated sheep. naturally such a place would be a fine target for invasion, so it is protected by an army of insane psychic minks which destroy any would be invaders with a telepathic death ray. I genuinely can’t tell if minks is a typo here or not given the context
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May 21, 2020 01:50
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Safety Biscuits posted:
I was thinking monks, but now that I’ve seen where he went with minks honestly maybe sinks could have worked too uber_stoat posted:haha This is wild, I might pick this up
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May 21, 2020 07:14
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MockingQuantum posted:Any opinions on To Be Taught, If Fortunate? I really liked Chambers's Wayfarers books, and enjoyed the sort of sci-fi slice of life feel, but with this one I'm honestly pretty bored. I think maybe it's because the subject matter is just less appealing to me, but I feel like absolutely nothing engaging is happening. I'm admittedly only about a third of the way through, but none of the interactions are really grabbing me, but I'm curious to hear what others think of the book. Yeah I’ve been about a third of the way through for a really long time now and totally stalled out for similar reasons. I liked the wayfarer books but this one really hasn’t done it for me.
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May 26, 2020 02:00
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Has anyone read the Great North Road by Peter Hamilton? I am like 2/3 of the way through and the creepy male writer fantasy sex stuff seems to have really ramped up. There are like half a dozen middle aged, slightly out of shape men with much younger, hot wives (or mistresses, harems, whatever). We get really detailed discussions of exactly how sexy and taut random women are. There’s a ton of random sketchy stuff like this. But then.... There is an entire POV character where we just learn about how he uses his access to police databases to stalk women he wants to date in really violating ways. That character is presented more as a single young dude’s fantasy, not a complete creep. These POV sections; as far as I can tell, almost overwhelmingly have nothing to do with the plot and don’t advance it at all, so I’m not even really sure it needs any spoiler tags. E: does this somehow turn around and someone else realizes how lovely it is? Like, I get that someone can write a character who is an rear end in a top hat and does things they don’t agree with, but I’m struggling to see that here. Like, I actually like the book on a high level, this stuff very very much excepted. But wtf? tildes fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Jun 12, 2020 |
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Jun 12, 2020 10:55
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Ok some characters do poo poo on him for this stuff not that long after, so I guess it’s not thaaat far gone but still ...
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Jun 12, 2020 11:11
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^^ also this- it’s so hard to tell what is just supposed to be a character’s opinion which we the reader are supposed to reject, and what he just legitimately believes. Urcher posted:The SF world is amazing, the ideas are incredible, the adventure/mystery is exciting, there's average middle aged men having sex with hot young women, and the ending is Deus ex machina. OK, having now finished Great North Road, this is an incredibly accurate summary. I really wish he would cut the creepy sex stuff, and that the ending lived up to the promise of the first part of the book.
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Jun 12, 2020 14:33
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If he has a book with minimal creepy sex stuff I think I’d probably be interested in that?
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Jun 12, 2020 14:38
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TheAardvark posted:Agreed. Publishers should probably stop letting poo poo like this get away with it so I can continue having some fun and not taking things too seriously. Really though, this stuff seems like such an easy editorial fix. It’s never ever actually related to the plot, and basically just involves excising some spotty parts of the book. E: lovely. Some lovely parts of the book.
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Jun 15, 2020 21:28
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Hedrigall posted:Wtf is that Praxis by Walter Jon Williams? I have that and was looking forward to reading it It does! Not as creepy as some apparently, but I found it pretty distracting coming from a bunch of books with zero sex weirdness.
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Jun 16, 2020 10:04
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