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I was thinking yesterday about some books that were probably bad but teenage me loved them. They were pretty much any books set in the Shadowrun world but in particular a trilogy about a guy who discovered he is a shaman whose spirit animal is dogs. I should dig those up. Please tell me I'm not alone in this.
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Sep 25, 2016 20:01
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vulturesrow posted:I was thinking yesterday about some books that were probably bad but teenage me loved them. They were pretty much any books set in the Shadowrun world but in particular a trilogy about a guy who discovered he is a shaman whose spirit animal is dogs. I should dig those up. Please tell me I'm not alone in this. Uhh, the Secrets of Power trilogy was amazing (back when I was 13). I read them maybe 10 years ago again and thought they held up pretty well under the caveat that they're tie-in novels and poo poo. I still own the paperback versions of those. Hahaha.
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Sep 25, 2016 20:18
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vulturesrow posted:I was thinking yesterday about some books that were probably bad but teenage me loved them. They were pretty much any books set in the Shadowrun world but in particular a trilogy about a guy who discovered he is a shaman whose spirit animal is dogs. I should dig those up. Please tell me I'm not alone in this. The Secrets of Power trilogy by Robert N. Charette. First one is Never Deal With a Dragon.
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Sep 25, 2016 20:18
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Echeveria posted:Hi. I like books. I don't know why I haven't wandered in here before. I'm into Fantasy more than SF, but I'm gonna lurk for a bit. Read Catherynne Valente and Carol Berg. You're welcome.
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Sep 25, 2016 20:27
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Echo Cian posted:Read Catherynne Valente and Carol Berg. In The Night Garden is one of my default recommendations to pretty much anybody who can stand fantasy.
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Sep 25, 2016 20:40
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quote:as soon as the Returners gave their ultimatum, the first thing I thought of was: Coordination Problem. Collectively, everybody benefits by cooperating, but individually each civilization has an incentive to hold back. Cixin Liu didn't give an explanation as to why everybody cooperated to the degree they did, just told us that they cooperated. This contrasts with how he talks about human decision making throughout the trilogy: we focus on our own lifespans and don't think beyond, leading to overall mood changes for each time period. I think it would have been interesting to encounter how other civilizations differ, leading to the ending we got. Maybe I misread it, but I don't think it was at all clear that anyone or everyone cooperated. All we saw was Cheng Xin and exposition man cooperating. The book ends when the pop out of their little universe, so there's no clear indication that sufficient people cooperated to prevent the universe from not having a big crunch. I think the ending worked as far as Cheng Xin's character. The previous two times she could have saved humanity as sword holder and with Wade, but she always followed her heart and did what felt "right" to the seeming detriment of the human race. Then, at the very end, when her decision could save the entire universe, she makes the same kind of decision she did before. I think the point was that if enough "people" in the universe are like Cheng Xin, then the universe will be saved. Even though this worked for me, it doesn't excuse or negate all the other really major issues I had with the final act of the book. angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Sep 25, 2016 |
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Sep 25, 2016 21:06
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I keep worrying Craig Schaefer is burning out his brain by writing books so fast. Or perhaps he merely made a... Faustian bargain. Either way, hell yes, I always look forward to his books.
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Sep 25, 2016 21:51
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Revenger was a great read. There's scope for a thousand more stories in the setting, but it's a solid swashbuckly revenge story, and Fura grows into a pretty sweet protagonist. Oh, and I should have been asleep an hour ago, but I just had to finish it.
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Sep 25, 2016 23:08
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angel opportunity posted:Death's End (Book three in the Three Body Trilogy) just came out in English a few days ago and I've now finished the series. Question about the book for others who've finished: From the fairytales: what is the real life analog of the magic umbrella? Is it a curvature bubble, or is it putting yourself in a black domain? What about the analog to the prince who doesn't follow the rules of perspective? And, from the end bit: what was going on with the "time vacuum" - is that supposed to be what happens when you are travelling faster than light?
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Sep 25, 2016 23:16
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Anyone have any experience with kindle unlimited? Is it worth 10 bucks a month and if so what are some of the better books?
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Sep 25, 2016 23:52
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vulturesrow posted:I was thinking yesterday about some books that were probably bad but teenage me loved them. Genellan. Actually, I'd be interested in knowing if anyone else hear has even heard of the series. And the Ann McCaffrey books. (Dragonsong is still cool though.) And, if I have to be totally honest, I have to admit that I read more than one Christopher Pike when I was a very young boy. You'll never get me to admit that I liked them, though! 
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Sep 26, 2016 00:19
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NiknudStunod posted:Anyone have any experience with kindle unlimited? Is it worth 10 bucks a month and if so what are some of the better books? I've been on it for a while. Daniel Faust books (and Harmony Black) are good. I enjoyed The Paper Magician series, though it's written from the perspective of a teenage girl so there is some relationship angst. The Frontlines series is decent military sci-fi. Of course it has The Hunger Games books too. It has a decent selection that expands even more if you're not very picky. You can definitely get a months worth of good reads out of it.
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Sep 26, 2016 00:47
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vulturesrow posted:I was thinking yesterday about some books that were probably bad but teenage me loved them. They were pretty much any books set in the Shadowrun world but in particular a trilogy about a guy who discovered he is a shaman whose spirit animal is dogs. I should dig those up. Please tell me I'm not alone in this. When I was a little kid my father had a collection of dozens of Shadowrun novels that enthralled me. I think it was my first introduction to cyberpunk, and the idea that you could have fantasy and science fiction in the same story blew my mind at the time. Sadly, I only got around to reading the first five before my dad sold them all.
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Sep 26, 2016 01:56
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angel opportunity posted:Death's End Completely agreed. Shortly after the humans figure out the fairy tale metaphors, the book drags through plot points. All those words could've been used to address less material in more detail rather than jumping from one info dump to another. The Dark Forrest remains my favorite in the series by a long shot.
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Sep 26, 2016 03:03
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vulturesrow posted:I was thinking yesterday about some books that were probably bad but teenage me loved them. They were pretty much any books set in the Shadowrun world but in particular a trilogy about a guy who discovered he is a shaman whose spirit animal is dogs. I should dig those up. Please tell me I'm not alone in this. I loved the gently caress out of the Shadowrun books when I was a kid, and I've been wanting to go back and reread, but I'm also aware that my taste was poo poo and I'm afraid I'm gona be amazingly let down. I also thought it'd be super-cool to live in a cyberpunk dystopia. WELL HERE WE loving ARE. IT'S NOT COOL.
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Sep 26, 2016 04:18
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Drifter posted:When you're done lurking, have you got a couple books you remember as having particularly enjoyed? Uhhrm. I am now worried that all the books I like are poo poo but whatev's. I just finished A Darker Shade of Magic and A Gathering of Shadows by Victoria Schwab. They were too short, but I enjoyed them. I dig Rothfuss, but I'm pretty fed up waiting for his third book. I like Guy Gavriel Kay, Joe Abercrombie, but not his lovely YA stuff. I recently read The Magicians by Lev Grossman and it was mediocre. I liked the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. I just looked him up and he's younger than me and that sucks. I read Game of Thrones but meh. I hate Glen Cook. Or at least, I tried to read Black Company and nearly killed myself. I also really found Steven Erikson boring as poo poo. I'm kind of going blindly by what people at the bookstore recommend, so I could use some guidance.
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Sep 26, 2016 05:52
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Abercrombie's "lovely YA stuff" is actually really good, and not at all "YA".
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Sep 26, 2016 06:02
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StonecutterJoe posted:I loved the gently caress out of the Shadowrun books when I was a kid, and I've been wanting to go back and reread, but I'm also aware that my taste was poo poo and I'm afraid I'm gona be amazingly let down. there are some that are not godawful. there was one i read about a wizard raised in the amerindian population (in which being a wizard rather than a shaman was shameful) who became an investigator that was okay. okay by a general standard, not 'okay for licensed fiction'. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Sep 26, 2016 |
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Sep 26, 2016 06:48
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vulturesrow posted:I was thinking yesterday about some books that were probably bad but teenage me loved them. They were pretty much any books set in the Shadowrun world but in particular a trilogy about a guy who discovered he is a shaman whose spirit animal is dogs. I should dig those up. Please tell me I'm not alone in this. I am lucky and have a cool nerd dad with lots of sci-fi/fantasy books so a lot of what I read as a teenager holds up, stuff like Elric and Foundation and of course Lord of the Rings. He also had a lot of D&D books and I loved the poo poo out of the Dragonlance trilogy, which I re-read a while ago and I am sad to say did not really hold up too well. I think I really wanted to play real D&D as a teen but all my friends just wanted to play Starcraft. The spin-off Raistlin/Caramon books fared even less well on rereading, although I still dig Raistlin's whole thing about trying to become an evil death god, that was a cool arc. And just now I found out there is a Dragonlance animated movie from 2008 with Keifer Sutherland as Raistlin and Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon. I know what I'm watching soon! My dad was also all about Gormenghast, which I never started reading until recently. I am glad of this because I don't think I would have been able to enjoy it much in my teens.
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Sep 26, 2016 07:11
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Echeveria posted:Uhhrm. I am now worried that all the books I like are poo poo but whatev's. What YA stuff did Abercrombie write? I've only read his First Law series. I wish I had my library on hand so I could do some better looking into things but I have to do this from basic memory, unfortunately. See if the summaries of any of these catch your interest: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127455.The_Lies_of_Locke_Lamora , http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/793297.The_Steerswoman , or http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/808670.Ash and http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68497.The_Scar . I'd say you'd most likely go for Locke Lamora and The Scar but  These were all really great.I'd recommend them since you're not put off of authors like Guy Kay or Abercrombie. If you like the YA stuff by Schwab and Brown and Rothfuss but don't like books like Grossman's Magicians, then maybe ... I say maybe, check out the summaries for http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/334123.The_Amulet_of_Samarkand or https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68428.The_Final_Empire or maybe even http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116563.So_You_Want_to_Be_a_Wizard Mistborn trilogy is generally really good and Duane's Wizard series is legit fantastic, but not nearly as punch-actiony. Discworld and Bridge of Birds, of course, are always recommended. It's too bad about your dislike of Erikson, in my opinion his Malazan series is one of the high watermarks of the fantasy Sword/Sorcery genre - but I totally understand why people wouldn't enjoy him. my bony fealty posted:And just now I found out there is a Dragonlance animated movie from 2008 with Keifer Sutherland as Raistlin and Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon. I know what I'm watching soon!  Raistlin bros for life. 
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Sep 26, 2016 07:18
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StonecutterJoe posted:I loved the gently caress out of the Shadowrun books when I was a kid, and I've been wanting to go back and reread, but I'm also aware that my taste was poo poo and I'm afraid I'm gona be amazingly let down. Don't go back to where you were once happy.
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Sep 26, 2016 08:30
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Drifter posted:What YA stuff did Abercrombie write? I've only read his First Law series. Half a King / Half the World / Half a War. Arguably marketable as YA because... poo poo, I guess because of the relative youth of the protagonists and relative paucity of cusswords and somewhat less detailed gore than his other books, maybe? People do die (a lot) and unspeakably nasty stuff happens and it's definitely not for kids. (Also it's obviously post-apocalyptic, set in the far future in and around Scandinavia and the Baltics, more or less.)
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Sep 26, 2016 08:34
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Echeveria posted:Hi. I like books. I don't know why I haven't wandered in here before. I'm into Fantasy more than SF, but I'm gonna lurk for a bit. Speaking of recommendations out of the blue, a couple weeks ago someone mentioned the Bartimaeus books here and I just finished the first one and loved it. Not sure if it counts more as YA or not, but it's a really fun ride with a magic system that's closer to the historical perception of magic than Tolkien/DnD stuff.
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Sep 26, 2016 10:38
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anilEhilated posted:My go-to recommendation is in the thread title. Seriously, go read it, it's funny and clever and touching and beautiful and all-around awesome. Bartimaeus was one of my favourites as a teenager - one of the few books to pull off sarcastic footnotes and not feel like a clumsy Pratchett retread. The evolution of Barty and Nathaniel over the trilogy is fantastic, and the climax is  incarnate.
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Sep 26, 2016 13:15
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Mars4523 posted:Abercrombie's "lovely YA stuff" is actually really good, and not at all "YA". I didn't hate it, but it wasn't my favorite. Some parts of the story were really strong and I really liked some characters, but over all I thought it fell flat. I think I liked the second one best. Drifter posted:I wish I had my library on hand so I could do some better looking into things but I have to do this from basic memory, unfortunately. Thanks! I'll check these out when I get home from work tonight. I've read the Lies of Locke Lamora. I loved the first one and liked the other two ok.
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Sep 26, 2016 16:42
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Groke posted:Half a King / Half the World / Half a War. Arguably marketable as YA because... poo poo, I guess because of the relative youth of the protagonists and relative paucity of cusswords and somewhat less detailed gore than his other books, maybe? People do die (a lot) and unspeakably nasty stuff happens and it's definitely not for kids. (Also it's obviously post-apocalyptic, set in the far future in and around Scandinavia and the Baltics, more or less.) At this point YA strictly refers to the age of the primary protagonist, yeah. It's the 13-21 marketing category. It's got issues of its own but most of what people snap to thinking when they hear the term YA is probably more a property of the middle grade category. Modern YA as a rule likes to avoid the appearance of being for kids. As I understand, the difference is that with middle grade, books are expected to be chosen and purchased by parents. With YA, they're not. And thirteen year olds are all edgelords so anything that seems the slightest bit "for kids" is to be avoided.
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Sep 26, 2016 16:48
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So I finished the first of the Malazan books because it was free and it was... okay? It felt like it would have been a good single book, or maybe the first book of two, but about 75% in the editor decided ten books was the minimum and mandated all kinds of random new plot threads Given that I don't feel strongly about it, I should just stop now, right? They don't get better? It doesn't turn into The Adventures Of Kruppe?
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Sep 26, 2016 19:08
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DACK FAYDEN posted:So I finished the first of the Malazan books because it was free and it was... okay? It felt like it would have been a good single book, or maybe the first book of two, but about 75% in the editor decided ten books was the minimum and mandated all kinds of random new plot threads The first book is the weakest in the series, written about 10 years ahead of book 2. I would recommend you continue to Deadhouse Gates, the writing improves a ton and the story is a lot more engaging.
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Sep 26, 2016 19:14
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Given that I don't feel strongly about it, I should just stop now, right? They don't get better? It doesn't turn into The Adventures Of Kruppe?
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Sep 26, 2016 20:39
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DACK FAYDEN posted:So I finished the first of the Malazan books because it was free and it was... okay? It felt like it would have been a good single book, or maybe the first book of two, but about 75% in the editor decided ten books was the minimum and mandated all kinds of random new plot threads I read them to book four or five before the names and plots got so loving redonk I just gave up. There's enough nonsense in every single book for three or four different series' and like you say it would have probably been better as a few different series of two or three books set in the same universe instead of this massive epic whatever it is.
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Sep 26, 2016 21:12
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Reason posted:I read them to book four or five before the names and plots got so loving redonk I just gave up. There's enough nonsense in every single book for three or four different series' and like you say it would have probably been better as a few different series of two or three books set in the same universe instead of this massive epic whatever it is. So you liked them, you just thought there was too much going on in each book to keep track of comfortably?
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Sep 26, 2016 21:39
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Drifter posted:So you liked them, you just thought there was too much going on in each book to keep track of comfortably? I think the best way to put it was, I liked parts of each, but felt the story became so overwhelming with how many different characters it was trying to keep track of over such a large period of time that I kind of gave up. It felt like I needed a flow chart to keep track of who was where and who was dead or alive or missing or whatever. I like a lot of the ideas and there were parts of each book that I did like, but each book tries to take on such a vast cast of characters and setting its just overwhelming. Thats why I liked his idea of a more condensed series of books that had a bit more focus.
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Sep 26, 2016 21:57
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I just finished up Seven Forges by James A. Moore. I can't decide if I want to continue or just leave it as is. While it was interesting the whole thing got a little too pulpy with the race of uber menschen who are total badasses at everything. Anyone have experience with the series?
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Sep 26, 2016 23:17
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Reason posted:I think the best way to put it was, I liked parts of each, but felt the story became so overwhelming with how many different characters it was trying to keep track of over such a large period of time that I kind of gave up. It felt like I needed a flow chart to keep track of who was where and who was dead or alive or missing or whatever. I like a lot of the ideas and there were parts of each book that I did like, but each book tries to take on such a vast cast of characters and setting its just overwhelming. Thats why I liked his idea of a more condensed series of books that had a bit more focus. I didn't feel it was so bad when I first picked the series up and could keep churning through books one after the other - not remembering this minor character also appeared along with this other cast or whatever didn't bother me, and I kept track of the important/semi-important characters well enough. However, once the finished books ran out (this was last decade sometime, can't remember exactly when) and I had to wait for new releases...yeah, didn't go so well. Still haven't grabbed books 9 and 10, and I probably won't unless I can work up the effort to do a complete re-read. And yeah the first book is definitely the weakest of the bunch.
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Sep 26, 2016 23:29
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Oh poo poo. New Craig Schaefer book comes out TOMORROW. He upped the release date since the reason it was scheduled for the day it was originally going to be released was pointless and dumb. Regarding the 7 forges books, I've read em all, and they are pretty entertaining. I'd recommend em if you are looking for a hack n slash sort of read with some weird mindfuckery going on with the gods of the forges.
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Sep 27, 2016 01:30
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Reason posted:I think the best way to put it was, I liked parts of each, but felt the story became so overwhelming with how many different characters it was trying to keep track of over such a large period of time that I kind of gave up. It felt like I needed a flow chart to keep track of who was where and who was dead or alive or missing or whatever. I like a lot of the ideas and there were parts of each book that I did like, but each book tries to take on such a vast cast of characters and setting its just overwhelming. Thats why I liked his idea of a more condensed series of books that had a bit more focus. The vastness and number of characters is one of the great things about Malazan in my opinion. It is a series that is as good on the second and third reread since you pick up all of those small things you missed in the first read. But I can see why some people would think it is too much. But hey, to each his own.
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Sep 27, 2016 07:19
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Given that I don't feel strongly about it, I should just stop now, right? They don't get better? Read at least the prologue of Book 2. Actually every potential Malazan reader should read book 2 prologue first. Then begin the series.
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Sep 27, 2016 07:30
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Oh poo poo. New Craig Schaefer book comes out TOMORROW. He upped the release date since the reason it was scheduled for the day it was originally going to be released was pointless and dumb. GODDAMNIT. I'm broke, too. Also out today is the new Johannes Cabal book. Really want to read that too. Again with the no money, goddamnit.
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Sep 27, 2016 08:16
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Abalieno posted:Read at least the prologue of Book 2. I accidentally started the Malazan series by reading the second book. It is probably the best introduction to the series.
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Sep 27, 2016 08:18
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I normally like long drawn out fantasy series with tons of books. My main gripe with the first Malazan book was I didn't know what the hell was going on even 50% of the way through it. When I get ready for a new series, I'd like to give it another try. Should I just attack book 1 again, or start with 2? Or maybe read the book 2 prologue and start over with 1 like suggested above? Perhaps theres even a small cliffs notes thing somewhere I can refer to to help me keep track of book 1 as I read through it. I think if I can just get a grasp on the series I would enjoy it.
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Sep 27, 2016 12:09
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