|
A Game of Chess posted:A fantasy series, VIking and/or Anglo-Saxon culture based, got decent reviews from what I remember. One of the covers had a wolf on it, I think? Maybe one of the titles had 'oath' in it? It's been published in the last four years or so. Could it be this series? The second book has a wolf theme anyway.
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2013 23:59
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 14:32 |
|
|
I don't think that was what it was--I think it was more of a fantasy world that had Viking inspiration rather than actual Vikings--but this series looks interesting anyway, so thank you! 
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 02:50
|
|
|
A Game of Chess posted:A fantasy series, VIking and/or Anglo-Saxon culture based, got decent reviews from what I remember. One of the covers had a wolf on it, I think? Maybe one of the titles had 'oath' in it? It's been published in the last four years or so. If it had a female protagonist it could possibly be The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon, one of my favorite fantasy series of all time. One of the books had "oath" in the title.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 14:40
|
|
|
No, I've read and enjoyed that series and it definitely wasn't it. I'm fairly sure it was a male protagonist. I may have dreamed this series up -- yesterday I even went to the bookstore and the library to see if a spine caught my eye. Nothing!
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 15:37
|
|
|
Runcible Cat posted:George Alec Effinger's Marid Audran series? Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Arabesk trilogy? It was the Arabesk trilogy, thanks! Been driving me nuts.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 20:02
|
|
|
Kid's book I read in the 80s but I think it was fairly old, maybe published in the 50s (give or take a decade) where a couple kids befriend a weird looking astronomer kinda hermity guy. He's so weird looking because he's actually a mushroom man (??) and he takes them into space and maybe visits his home planet.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 22:00
|
|
|
regulargonzalez posted:Kid's book I read in the 80s but I think it was fairly old, maybe published in the 50s (give or take a decade) where a couple kids befriend a weird looking astronomer kinda hermity guy. He's so weird looking because he's actually a mushroom man (??) and he takes them into space and maybe visits his home planet. Eleanor Cameron, The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, book 1 of a series.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2013 23:38
|
|
|
A Game of Chess posted:No, I've read and enjoyed that series and it definitely wasn't it. I'm fairly sure it was a male protagonist. I think it might have been the Godless World trilogy by Brian Ruckley, but I'm still not 100% sure. Now that I've taken a closer look I don't think I actually want to read it. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2013 00:44
|
|
|
BatteredFeltFedora posted:Eleanor Cameron, The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, book 1 of a series. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2013 12:20
|
|
|
Food Guy posted:So I read this book like 5-6 years ago, and I have no idea when it was written. It was a fantasy book, and I think that the hardcover version had a black dragon or something on the front cover. It was set in modern times, and something happened and caused mythological creatures to come into our world. Either the main male character or the main female character was like a professor of mythology, I think, and I do believe that it was part of a series. The Dragon Knight Series, perhaps?
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2013 15:01
|
|
|
Zola posted:The Dragon Knight Series, perhaps? Sorry, it wasn't this, though now I really want to read this series.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2013 00:41
|
|
|
Food Guy posted:Sorry, it wasn't this, though now I really want to read this series. Any chance it was one of the Shadowrun novels?
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2013 00:53
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I read this maybe..10 or 15 years ago. Still haven't figure that one out, but I have a new one as well. I don't recall much about the novel, but it was a fantasy novel, and there were gods or god like people around with attendants who collected all kinds of fluids from em (urine, poop, blood, etc) and called em "humours". I don't remember if this is a second book I am mixing up with the above god poop collecting one, but I THINK there was some guy who had a big black handprint on his chest from when a god lady got killed by something, and it turned him into a godling kinda person, except when he broke a finger or bone some big loving dragon looking thing would rear out of the hand print and gently caress up the holy poo poo of whoever was annoying him. It was.. I dunno, some kinda bugfuck crazy mist dragon death thing. It first showed up when he got his hand broken by a hammer by a guard in jail during his sentencing or questioning. So.. either it's 2 books I am loving up by remembering them together, or it's one book (or part of a series of books) where people collect god poo poo and this guy has a magic dragon living in his handprint on his chest. No idea how old the book is, but I'd have read it in the last 5 years or so. EDIT - Found it. Godslayer series by James Clemens. Stupid_Sexy_Flander fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Jul 21, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2013 11:03
|
|
|
I don't remember when I read this but it was probably at least 10 years ago. It was about some kind of group/army of medieval English dudes, or maybe Vikings, who had been abducted by aliens and were forced to fight in like arena battles or something. The aliens used these arena battles to solve disputes I think. The aliens would bring anyone who died back to life, and I think the aliens got mad when the humans developed a new kind of bow or something, because they weren't allowed to advance too much technologically, due to the arena rules.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 22:07
|
|
|
^Sounds like Weber's The Excaliber Alternative probably; Could also be Drake's Ranks of Bronze. The former can be found in At All Costs CD, while the latter is in the Slammers CD, both available for free, fully legally as e-books from The Fifth Imperium, which hosts copies of the CDs that Baen occasionally distributes with their books; these CDs were distributed with full permission to copy them and redistribute them noncommercially.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2013 22:33
|
|
|
Great Gray Shrike posted:^Sounds like Weber's The Excaliber Alternative probably; Could also be Drake's Ranks of Bronze. The former can be found in At All Costs CD, while the latter is in the Slammers CD, both available for free, fully legally as e-books from The Fifth Imperium, which hosts copies of the CDs that Baen occasionally distributes with their books; these CDs were distributed with full permission to copy them and redistribute them noncommercially. I'm pretty sure it's The Excalibur Alternative. The first half of the plot summary is almost exactly what I remember, but weirdly I don't remember the second half at all. Thanks for the find and the links.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2013 02:00
|
|
|
Flame112 posted:I'm pretty sure it's The Excalibur Alternative. The first half of the plot summary is almost exactly what I remember, but weirdly I don't remember the second half at all. Thanks for the find and the links. That's a novelization of a short story called 'Sir George and the Dragon." the second half, which is the best part IMO, (And rather short at around ~40 pages) is new for the novel. I don't think the short story had anything about developing a new weapon though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2013 14:39
|
|
|
This might have been an essay and not a book, but in it the author writes about how the terminology of church architecture (naves, transepts, chancels) reminds her of human anatomy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2013 05:04
|
|
|
This was a childrens horror book about a videogame character that comes alive and tries to kill the kids playing it. Antagonists name was "Nexus" I think. Part of a Goosebumps ripoff series.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2013 09:00
|
|
|
Kevin DuBrow posted:This might have been an essay and not a book, but in it the author writes about how the terminology of church architecture (naves, transepts, chancels) reminds her of human anatomy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2013 11:03
|
|
|
I've got a hard one. My mom read a mystery book 3 or 4 years ago from the New Books section of the library. The book takes place in Pittsburgh PA, and features a female protagonist who, she thinks, goes around salvaging old architectural features from local homes that are being destroyed. A guy is killed at a house she is working at, but mom can't remember why/how the woman got involved in the murder. She also has a possibly semi-retarded assistant, a big guy who does the lifting and such. None of the google searches for books that take place in Pittsburgh have come up with an answer for me on this and she's bugging me about it. Any help?
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2013 01:42
|
|
|
That70sHeidi posted:I've got a hard one. Could this be it?
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2013 02:23
|
|
|
This is for a friend. It's a children's book. An old woman finds three strange seeds. She plants them all, but a bird steals one, and one gets washed away by rain/flood/storm. Each time one goes missing she says something like 'Oh well, I still have x number of seeds, we shall see what we shall see.' She builds up around the final seed, and the seed grows into a magical tree that grows presents. Lots of people come to get presents from the tree, and each present has some sort of beautiful object inside. Then one day, a princess comes along and picks a present from the tree, she gets some sort of golden or jeweled horse, and her response is along the lines of 'eh, I have lots of these in my palace' and picks all the remaining presents off the tree. On her way home, she begins opening the presents, and they are all empty due to her greed. The princess has tan/dark skin. The cover MAY have been the old woman tending her seeds.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2013 05:57
|
|
|
YES! And I even passed that by on the shelf at the library because none of the books my mom likes have fun covers OR fun names! YOU are a genius.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2013 03:01
|
|
|
That70sHeidi posted:YES! And I even passed that by on the shelf at the library because none of the books my mom likes have fun covers OR fun names! YOU are a genius. Well, congratulate yourself, too, for giving a description with enough unique detail that it could be found--the architectural salvage part was key.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2013 03:30
|
|
|
Short story. Probably one of the classic sci-fi/horror writers of the mid-20th century (Bradbury, Heinlein, Bloch, Matheson, etc) Maybe was made into a Twilight Zone or Night Gallery or Outer Limits episode. Scientists create a machine that lets them look at an alternate universe. The universe looks just like ours. They're watching a typical American-ish nuclear family from the mid 20th century. They are able to send something or someone into the machine, an animal or person. Maybe a cat? Then the people suddenly leap on the thing and rip it to shreds like animals. They turn on the people watching and start advancing forward, as if they can suddenly see them or had been able to see them the entire time and may be able to "get out". Driving me insane.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2013 23:00
|
|
|
I remember one like that, but it had some idiot guy fall in love with the girl in the family (it was a farm). He went into the field, and they ate him, then noticed OH poo poo NSA ALL UP IN MY BIDNESS and altered something to make it impossible to view them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 03:38
|
|
|
bengraven posted:Short story. This sounded familiar to me, too. I did some Googling and found an episode of an anthology series called Night Visions. The episode is titled "A View through the Window". edit: Full episode is on YouTube. ZoeDomingo fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Jul 30, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 12:56
|
|
|
bengraven posted:Short story. "Window" by Bob Leman
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 14:47
|
|
|
Thank you guys so much! I have no clue where I saw this short story at, but it was bothering me all day yesterday. Maybe it was in one of the Joshi collections from Penguin books, I'm not sure. I may have also seen the Night Visions episode!
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 19:31
|
|
|
The story is included in anthologies quite often.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2013 19:43
|
|
|
This is probably going to be impossible, but for a while I've remembered something from a book or a TV series or a movie. Someone in it starts describing fractals with a kind of strange nonsensical metaphor. That if one looked at a mountain, the shape of it and that, then looked at just the peak of the mountain it would be shaped the same, and it would repeat itself all the way down to the atomic level. It could be a Crichton or King novel, but I'm not so sure about it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2013 16:19
|
|
|
Iced Cocoa posted:This is probably going to be impossible, but for a while I've remembered something from a book or a TV series or a movie. Someone in it starts describing fractals with a kind of strange nonsensical metaphor. That if one looked at a mountain, the shape of it and that, then looked at just the peak of the mountain it would be shaped the same, and it would repeat itself all the way down to the atomic level. It could be a Crichton or King novel, but I'm not so sure about it. It's definitely Crichton since I remember that section and I didn't read much King as a kid. I think it's from Jurrasic Park where Malcolm "explains" chaos theory.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2013 17:41
|
|
|
Yeah it's Jurassic Park. There's even little fractals graphics throughout the book.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2013 17:51
|
|
|
Didn't the Lost World have more on it about fractals? Can't remember, but it's one of the two, definitely.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2013 00:11
|
|
|
Yeah Jurassic Park had the dragon curve fractal growing throughout the book and I think Lost World had the Sierpinski triangle. edit: I read the back cover of a novel around 2000 about cloning DNA from 0 AD, maybe even supposedly Jesus's DNA and something involving a virus from that time that the clone is immune to but is deadly to modern people? Google shows several books involving Jesus DNA and viruses but not exactly what I remember. Might have had 'Zero' in the title. Mammon Loves You fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Aug 1, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2013 17:09
|
|
|
Thanks. I was kinda eliminating Jurassic Park/Lost World mostly because for me fractals are part of rules and predictability while I figured that the overall theme of the novels was unpredictability, given all the Chaos Theory talk, and fractals had been tossed in just because. I guess I got to read those novels again since I think I was thirteen or something when I read them last time.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2013 21:29
|
|
|
Fiction book from the early 90s. (not sci-fi or pulp, "serious" fiction) It was about a bunch of programer people who left their cushy jobs to design a lego-type software program. Eventually it was used to make skeleton/human body type legos for the medical field. The main character's mother gets cancer and at the end of the book she can't talk, but can peck on a keyboard to communicate. Help?
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2013 23:21
|
|
|
Durette posted:Fiction book from the early 90s. (not sci-fi or pulp, "serious" fiction) Microserfs, Douglas Coupland?
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2013 23:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 14:32 |
|
|
Was Taters posted:Microserfs, Douglas Coupland? That's it! Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2013 00:17
|
|