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I just finished it! I posted my thoughts in the What did you just finish? thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=2175822&perpage=40&pagenumber=274#post442926575occamsnailfile posted:I almost didn't want Chavar to be involved in the attempted coup, in order to allow someone with radically different views to exist without acting out of malice. Wasn't that the purpose of, uh, what was that dude's name, one of the Cor... gently caress. I can't even remember half the terms and names of the book already. One big drawback. Anyway, I'm talking about the Witness dude in the main council, the one who was most opposed to the bridge idea. He kinda filled the role you wanted.
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Mar 19, 2015 05:08
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Hedrigall posted:I just finished it! I posted my thoughts in the What did you just finish? thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=2175822&perpage=40&pagenumber=274#post442926575 Yeah, he kinda did, and the dinner scene with him was well-executed in making clear his differences while still making him sympathetic instead of a blowhard. It was one of my favorite scenes so far. (Also he was lord Pashevar the Witness for the...Judiciate?)
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Mar 19, 2015 06:05
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Hedrigall posted:Q: What's good in recent (last 2-3 years), non-grimdark fantasy? I'm nearly finished The Goblin Emperor, and it was a delight! I've never read Goblin Emperor so I don't know the tone but the Palace Job is a light hearted Oceans Eleven style fantasy heist
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Mar 19, 2015 06:21
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It's a great book but I was kinda surprised at the violence. That was mainly because it was recommended to me as a Pratchett kinda book. Still, well worth a read.
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Mar 19, 2015 07:08
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Pratchett is gruesome as gently caress though. Just euphemistically.
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Mar 19, 2015 08:58
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Hedrigall posted:Q: What's good in recent (last 2-3 years), non-grimdark fantasy? I'm nearly finished The Goblin Emperor, and it was a delight! Somebody already recommended it, but City of Stairs is probably one of the best books I've read in a while. Great setting, wonderful characters, and the author has some dark-ish parts which end up making you sympathize with the person/situation in the end. I'd say there aren't any "evil" characters, just a lot of flawed people that have conflicting ideas/wants. You could say it's more "real" than other stories that are plain black and white, good and evil struggles.
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Mar 19, 2015 12:14
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Sounds good! I'm pretty sure I bought City of Stairs, I just need to find it. Seriously, this is becoming a problem in my house 
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Mar 19, 2015 12:24
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McCoy Pauley posted:Brian McClellan's Powder Mage trilogy is recent and not grim-dark. Traitor's Blade kind of wobbles on the edge of grimdark. It has just enough rewarded idealism not to be intolerable. It's certainly not as sunny as The Goblin Emperor.
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Mar 19, 2015 12:50
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Hedrigall posted:Sounds good! I'm pretty sure I bought City of Stairs, I just need to find it. That's why I stick to digital and only buy things I intend to compulsively loan out. I've bought books I loved and had them shipped directly to friends houses to make them read them.
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Mar 19, 2015 14:08
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I moved to a bigger apartment and now when I finally have enough space to have tons of books I've started to move into the e-book age instead. Additionally the library system where I live is so huge and great I can get things like the Powder Mage trilogy, Son of the Morning and Traitor's Blade from the library instead of having to ship them from abroad. I mean there's still some stuff I have to order, like Laundry books. So these days buying books in dead tree is more a question of collecting and loaning to others than actually buying to read. What a time to be alive.
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Mar 19, 2015 14:17
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Antti posted:So these days buying books in dead tree is more a question of collecting and loaning to others than actually buying to read. What a time to be alive. Printed books are the new vinyl records. edit: speaking of grim-dark fantasy - I'm looking for some quick reading, dark, visceral high fantasy current / ongoing series to get into to balance out complexity and confusion of The Quantum Thief trilogy. I like to balance my sci-fi with fantasy, and heavy reading with casual reading. I normally trog through the Wheel of Time or Game of Thrones, and I was about halfway through The Children of Hurin, but I'm looking for something more casual and also current (so I'm reading what others are actively reading and want to converse about, instead of reading through the classics). I want something that's less about historical lineage and keeping up with houses and alliances, and more about kicking rear end, but I don't want to read a straight up D&D campaign or something I would've thought was rad in high school (I'm looking at you, Drizzt). I was thinking that The Black Company might fill that hole - is that really what I'm looking for? tl;dr: I'm looking for a current Conan-type series to get into edit 2: The Fractal Prince: gently caress this is good. Fiendish Dr. Wu fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 14:53
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FastestGunAlive posted:I've never read Goblin Emperor so I don't know the tone but the Palace Job is a light hearted Oceans Eleven style fantasy heist It didn't really work for me, I didn't think the tones and scales of the sub-plots meshed together at all and it felt like just a bunch of stuff all jammed together.
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Mar 19, 2015 15:27
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Megazver posted:City of Stairs. Blood Song. The Thousand Names. I really really really enjoyed Blood Song but I've heard nothing but lovely things about the second book.
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Mar 19, 2015 15:30
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RisqueBarber posted:I really really really enjoyed Blood Song but I've heard nothing but lovely things about the second book. I thought it was really good. People got peeved about the change to multiple viewpoints for some reason?
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Mar 19, 2015 15:37
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:Printed books are the new vinyl records. The Black Company is great and basically what you describe. The Lies of Locke Lamorra are basically that plus a really good heist movie, so that'd be cool too.
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Mar 19, 2015 15:42
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the JJ posted:The Black Company is great and basically what you describe. The Lies of Locke Lamorra are basically that plus a really good heist movie, so that'd be cool too. Nice. Figured I was on the right path. I just signed up for goodreads -
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Mar 19, 2015 15:45
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:Printed books are the new vinyl records. Just read Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. Then go and read the classic Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series. And then when you have more time, check out Erickson's Malazan: Book of the Fallen series for your complex fantasy series. And after that Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. After Abercrombie and Leiber go for the lighter and fun series' like Bledsoe's Sword-edged Blonde, Brust's Vlad Taltos, Stover's Heroes Die, and I forget the last one I was going to recommend, but meh. Drifter fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 15:47
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Drifter posted:Just read Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. MMO in book form rather than DnD 
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Mar 19, 2015 15:49
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angel opportunity posted:MMO in book form rather than DnD 
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Mar 19, 2015 15:56
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RisqueBarber posted:I really really really enjoyed Blood Song but I've heard nothing but lovely things about the second book. It's not as good as the first one but it's still pretty good. And most people in this thread said the same.
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Mar 19, 2015 16:15
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I really enjoyed Tower Lord, but I had to re-read Blood Song first because I couldn't remember a drat thing. Not much of a problem, because Blood Song owns. Also, the final book comes out July 7th, which is amazing. I keep forgetting that some authors actually write their series at a reasonable pace. Daniel O'Malley's sequel to The Rook comes out the same week. Gonna be a good summer y'all.
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Mar 19, 2015 17:06
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RisqueBarber posted:I really really really enjoyed Blood Song but I've heard nothing but lovely things about the second book. I'm not sure where you've heard that bad stuff about Tower Lord, but it must not have been here, where people were pretty positive. It didn't blow me away quite as much as Blood Song, which came out of nowhere for me, but I thought Tower Lord was a perfectly solid sequel, which expanded the world building in interesting ways and offered some new viewpoints that were worth the time spent on them. Definitely worth checking out if you liked Blood Song.
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Mar 19, 2015 17:48
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I thought Tower Lord was ok but I had forgotten much of the worldbuilding from the first book which didn't help. Blood Song was nothing original but it was just really well executed and flowed nicely, I think I finished it in a weekend. The Shadow Throne (follow up to The Thousand Names) felt a bit bloated but despite that some of the characters are starting to seem under developed. I still enjoyed it but I wish the author would spend a bit more time on Janus who is starting to become a bit of a plot device. Wexler finally devotes some time to developing an antagonist but the character is a mustache twirler through and through which is boring. City of Stairs was one of my favorite recommendations from this thread.
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Mar 19, 2015 19:21
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I think there's like 40-50% chance Janus will end up being the Big Bad of the series.
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Mar 19, 2015 20:57
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What's everyone's opinion on the Jhereg series? I'm planning on reading the first book/trilogy now that I've finished the second Expanse novel (not looking forward to the lack of UN grandma in the next few books, btw).
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Mar 19, 2015 22:46
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BadOptics posted:What's everyone's opinion on the Jhereg series? I'm planning on reading the first book/trilogy now that I've finished the second Expanse novel (not looking forward to the lack of UN grandma in the next few books, btw). The Vlad Taltos books are fun and set up the world really well thereby allowing you to read the best of that universe's books, The Khaavren Romances.
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Mar 19, 2015 23:10
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BadOptics posted:What's everyone's opinion on the Jhereg series? I'm planning on reading the first book/trilogy now that I've finished the second Expanse novel (not looking forward to the lack of UN grandma in the next few books, btw). It's a great series, probably my all-time favorite in the fantasy genre and grossly under-appreciated.
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Mar 19, 2015 23:26
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Of the Vlad Taltos series I've read 1-5 and 8 (which was a prequel), and they're all pretty good. They have a rambunctious, Discworld-y feel to them. I really need to get back into that series. I actually own books 1-11. A thing to know about the series: there are two races, Easterners and Draegarans. Each of them calls themselves "humans" but in our terms, Easterners are the humans and Draegarans are pretty much elves. Both can use magic, with various distinctions. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 23:49
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A while back there was a thread for reading through the WoT as a group, with designated chapters for each week. (A "let's read"?) Anybody feel like doing something like that some sci-fi/space opera series? (Or should this go in the space opera thread)
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Mar 20, 2015 15:22
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Those things always peter out after a couple of weeks if not sooner
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Mar 20, 2015 15:28
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Darth Walrus posted:Traitor's Blade kind of wobbles on the edge of grimdark. It has just enough rewarded idealism not to be intolerable. It's certainly not as sunny as The Goblin Emperor. Traitors blade was just such a fun read for me. It had some dark moments but it just felt so upbeat. It was probably one of my favorite books of last year.
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Mar 20, 2015 16:49
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The Gunslinger posted:I thought Tower Lord was ok but I had forgotten much of the worldbuilding from the first book which didn't help. Blood Song was nothing original but it was just really well executed and flowed nicely, I think I finished it in a weekend. Blood Song didn't flow nicely for me, not at all. The plot moved fast enough, I'll grant you, but the actual prose needed a few more editing passes. I found myself getting caught on every other line, thinking, "this needs a comma in here," or, "this should be split into two sentences". The actual mechanical process of reading it was rather uncomfortable. I've been thinking about The Shadow Throne a bit recently, and I think I finally know what the problem is: a lack of coherence. In the first book, the narrative is split between Winter and Marcus' stories, but the framework of the military campaign allows Wexler to treat them as a single unit and so the narrative moves at a fair clip. In theory, the revolution in the The Shadow Throne performs the same function- in practice, everybody's off doing their own thing, with very little intersection. Winter's wrapped up in reuniting with Jane, Marcus is all about investigating the deaths of his parents/ferreting out the... I've already forgotten what they're called, the evil magic church guys, and so Raesinia is the only one actually focused on the uprising. Orlanko gets a lot of time too, though not so much I'd consider him a main character- and very little happens in his sections. It's almost all reaction shots- which are fun, but not so much when the rest of the book suffers from such pacing issues. Wexler is trying to do three, four times as much work in more or less the same pagecount, and as a result nothing really happens in the middle third. Even the storming of the not!Bastille feels oddly ponderous. There's a brace of lesser problems, too, like the entire supporting cast of the first book getting put out to pasture, or the Thousand Names not even being mentioned. The entire narrative through-line of the first book is put on hold here, which is a weird choice for the second book in the series. Plus, most of the best scenes in The Thousand Names revolved around Winter or Janus pulling some ridiculous rabbit out of a hat and saving everyone's hide, and there's not much of that here. Winter spends most of her time brooding (she manages to be even more passive as a semi-independent agent in a civilian setting than as a low-level officer in a military hierarchy, which is impressive), and Janus is off-screen for almost the entire thing. (Don't get me wrong, I liked Winter's arc in this book, I just wish it had progressed through the deer-in-headlights phase a little faster.) Still, I am looking forward to the third book. It looks like Wexler wants to reprise the Directory/War of the First Coalition, which might play more to his strengths.
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Mar 20, 2015 16:55
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You're right. Still enjoyed it, mostly, but it's a somewhat flawed book.
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Mar 20, 2015 19:44
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House Louse posted:Earth rotates the wrong way. The Puppeteers' ring of planets isn't stable either. and if luck were genetic, that's all that would ever be selected for. First contact books: does Redevous with Rama count? If so, that.
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Mar 20, 2015 22:05
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Red Mars So it starts out with Chalmers assassinating Boone by proxy, and half the book is then a flashback that builds towards this. But then after the assassination, it changes nothing, the situation is still the same. All the poo poo with the rebellion/civil war and the space elevator doesn't come into play until much later. Chalmers just fucks around with the transnats & the UN and then he dies in an accident and nobody even knows he killed his "friend". What was the point of it all??? I suppose he was trying to maneuver himself into a position to rule mars or some poo poo, but it doesn't really come through I guess it could be some sort of commentary that murder solves nothing, or maybe I'm just dumb???? pls explain it 2 me like i am a child.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:57
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Dilber posted:Traitors blade was just such a fun read for me. It had some dark moments but it just felt so upbeat. It was probably one of my favorite books of last year. This is a great description of Traitor's Blade; it doesn't break any new ground, really, but it's just a ton of fun to read. For those that care, the sequel, Knight's Shadow, came out earlier this month in the UK.
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Mar 21, 2015 02:16
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Snapchat A Titty posted:Red Mars Explanation: it's a really boring and tedious book.
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Mar 21, 2015 04:19
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Neurosis posted:Explanation: it's a really boring and tedious book. "Boring and tedious" sums up the whole series pretty well
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Mar 21, 2015 04:21
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Uh, no. I just automatically assume people who say that can't even hold the idea of a sharing economy in their mind, like it's repulsive. FYI you just read the chapters in the wrong order. thehomemaster fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Mar 21, 2015 |
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Mar 21, 2015 04:25
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thehomemaster posted:Uh, no. I just automatically assume people who say that can't even hold the idea of a sharing economy in their mind, like it's repulsive. Lol what
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Mar 21, 2015 08:42
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