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https://twitter.com/bhvide/status/1355248775116300291
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Jan 29, 2021 21:24
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i stared at this for a minute until i realized that this was just books that this editor was involved with. havent heard of any of them other than the jemisin (and i know folks in here sometimes talk about wexler).
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Jan 29, 2021 21:34
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buffalo all day posted:i stared at this for a minute until i realized that this was just books that this editor was involved with. havent heard of any of them other than the jemisin (and i know folks in here sometimes talk about wexler). The wexler one is okay, he often has queer female protagonists. The O'Keefe one Velocity Weapon is one of the worst things I've read in years, especially one from a major publisher.
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Jan 29, 2021 21:53
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Most of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett - $4.99 each https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TYGGG76/ Baudolino by Umberto Eco - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003PDMMYQ/
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Jan 29, 2021 23:13
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pradmer posted:Most of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett - $4.99 each Hey that's great! Baudolino is amazing. I'm gonna pick up Pratchett's Fifth Elephant cause it's the first Discworld book I ever checked out and I haven't read one of these for years.
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Jan 29, 2021 23:25
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branedotorg posted:The wexler one is okay, he often has queer female protagonists. I picked up a sample of Velocity Weapon and bounced off it, so I'm glad to hear somebody else didnt' love it
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Jan 30, 2021 00:27
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The City We Became left me pretty cold. I like modern takes on Lovecraft that actually take a serious look at the racism and I generally like Jemisin, but I couldn't get past the fact that I just don't think New York is as special as everyone from New York thinks it is.
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Jan 30, 2021 00:33
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Yeah, that was originally a short story, and I enjoyed it, but being a short story there was only a room for a couple of paragraphs of NYC fluffing.
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Jan 30, 2021 00:39
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Ccs posted:Hey that's great! Baudolino is amazing. I'm gonna pick up Pratchett's Fifth Elephant cause it's the first Discworld book I ever checked out and I haven't read one of these for years. This was also the first one I ever read! And I just recently read it again as part of the slow, ongoing re-read I've been doing since his death. It really holds up as one of the best books in the series, certainly the second-best in the City Watch arc. And I picked up on a lot more of the very well-interwoven themes of multiculturalism, immigration and change than I did as a kid. Minor interesting point: the new Low King is a compromise candidate who comes from a less powerful clan in Llamedos, Pratchett's Wales stand-in, and clearly has a Welsh accent as he peppers his speech with "see" and "look you;" as an Australian kid that would've gone entirely over my head but as an adult I can see very specifically why that accent, considering what a provincial accent represents in Britain's class system, was chosen by Pratchett for that particular character.
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Jan 30, 2021 01:11
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Patrick Spens posted:Yeah, that was originally a short story, and I enjoyed it, but being a short story there was only a room for a couple of paragraphs of NYC fluffing. Is that the one about cities "birthing" from How Long Til Black Future Month? I just happened to read it last night. Thought it was good but I agree with the general sentiment of not caring about NYC exceptionalism.
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Jan 30, 2021 02:32
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Just read Red Dust by Yoss. A Raymond Chandler obsessed android policeman deals with crime. Good Cuban scifi
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Jan 30, 2021 02:47
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(The following text has appeared twice in the SFL Archives now. SFLer Donn Seeley posted it originally back in 1990 & then reposted again in 1993 as a followup response to people asking for lists of what Iain Banks has written/complaining about Banks work not getting nominated for Hugo/Nebula awards ********************* The interview (from May 1989) is fun and informative and you ought to track it down if you have an interest in Banks. Just in case you haven't ordered a copy of JOURNAL WIRED from Mark Ziesing or your favorite SF bookstore, I've typed up a summary of Banks's novels based on his enumeration of his works in the interview. The titles in this list should be in order by date of writing (NOT publication). Quotes from Banks derive from the interview. THE HUNGARIAN LIFT JET. Written in 1970, unpublished. '[A] spy story, absolutely full of sex and violence, neither of which I'd had any experience with at the time [laughter].' TTR. Written in 1972, unpublished. 'Just gigantic. ... It had a cast of thousands and was very silly.' Quasi-SF in the mold of CATCH-22 and STAND ON ZANZIBAR. THE USE OF WEAPONS. Written in 1974 or 1975, unpublished in its original version; apparently rewritten in the summer of 1989 for publication. SF; the first novel of the Culture. Like the later novels THE PLAYER OF GAMES and CONSIDER PHLEBAS, it apparently concerns a misfit or outsider in the interstellar utopian anarchy of the Culture. AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND. Written after WEAPONS; unpublished. SF but not connected to the Culture stories. THE PLAYER OF GAMES. Written three years after BACKGROUND, published in 1988 after a bit of rewriting. The second Culture novel. A story about the nature of competition and cooperation that takes place on a planet where society is built around an incredibly complex game. Fun, although the politics is a bit heavy-handed. THE STATE OF THE ART. Written in 1979, published in 1989 after some polishing. A novella about Earth and the Culture published as a book. A Culture starship discovers Earth and members of the crew have different reactions to our own culture circa 1977. How does a utopia like the Culture react to an ugly mess like Earth? Some interesting insights into the Culture but the story doesn't stand by itself. THE WASP FACTORY. Banks's sixth novel, first one published, in 1984. The first book 'that I did a second draft on.' As for content - to quote the author, 'Well, you can call THE WASP FACTORY a lot of things, but MEDIOCRE it AIN'T.' If you had to classify it, I suppose you could call it 'psychological horror'. FACTORY made a big stir in the UK when it came out - - some people found it pretty shocking. It's great fun even when it's being egregiously nasty... Highly recommended. CONSIDER PHLEBAS. Written after FACTORY; published in 1987, making it the first published Culture novel. A big and gaudy novel, written as a kind of send-up of or tribute to classic space opera. As space opera, it kicks rear end plus it's wonderfully funny. Says Mr Banks: 'CONSIDER PHLEBAS would make a f***ing BRILLIANT film...' It would, too. WALKING ON GLASS. Written after PHLEBAS; published in 1985. Very complex novel about the different ways people experience reality. Reminds me of Phil Dick and Christopher Priest. Hey, and it's funny too. I read this first and I still think it's great, but David Hartwell didn't like it and you might not either. De gustibus. O. Written after GLASS; unpublished. 'It wasn't very good...' THE BRIDGE. Written after O; published in 1986. Very strange fantasy about a man who finds himself in a world where civilization is built on an infinite bridge over an infinite sea. It contains some bits from the unpublished novel O. The editor had Banks cut some 40,000 words from the novel; Banks mentions the idea of publishing an unabridged BRIDGE someday. However, he says: 'I'm certainly very happy with the way it IS' - the book is still very effective. I liked it a lot. ESPEDAIR STREET. Written after BRIDGE; published in 1987. A novel about the career of a rock musician from Scotland who makes it big but falls from grace. I liked it but I wasn't overwhelmed; it's a nice character study with many details from the music business. CANAL DREAMS. Written after the rewrite of GAMES; published 1989. A short novel that combines a character study of a classical musician with nail-biting suspense. The musician is a woman cello player from Japan, so it's more exotic than it might sound. I rather liked it. Forthcoming: The rewritten WEAPONS for 1989; a new non-SF book for 1990 ('something more like THE BRIDGE, that complicated and intricate [but] a bit bigger, beefier, as it were, the size of PHLEBAS perhaps'); the rewrite of BACKGROUND for 1991. ********************* Even before starting the SFL Archives readthrough project, always felt that Iain Banks Consider Phelbas was way more polished (and better written) than the two Culture books that were published after it. Player had a Thomas Covenant style begrudging main character, while the only thing clever in Use to me was the split timeline book structure.
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Jan 30, 2021 03:14
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freebooter posted:This was also the first one I ever read! And I just recently read it again as part of the slow, ongoing re-read I've been doing since his death. It really holds up as one of the best books in the series, certainly the second-best in the City Watch arc. And I picked up on a lot more of the very well-interwoven themes of multiculturalism, immigration and change than I did as a kid. Minor interesting point: the new Low King is a compromise candidate who comes from a less powerful clan in Llamedos, Pratchett's Wales stand-in, and clearly has a Welsh accent as he peppers his speech with "see" and "look you;" as an Australian kid that would've gone entirely over my head but as an adult I can see very specifically why that accent, considering what a provincial accent represents in Britain's class system, was chosen by Pratchett for that particular character. Yeah I’m really enjoying it so far. I completely forgot Pratchett doesn’t use chapters and also writers very quick scenes. He breaks a lot of the established “rules” but his work is so readable.
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Jan 30, 2021 03:53
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quantumfoam posted:
Assume 'background' is 'against a dark background' which might be my favourite of his 'M' novels. It's not as good as his best culture stuff and the ending is a bit off but the world building is exceptional, would have loved to read more about the war and the geopolitics of Golter.
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Jan 30, 2021 04:24
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branedotorg posted:Assume 'background' is 'against a dark background' which might be my favourite of his 'M' novels. Yes it is that novel. Against a Dark Background was mentioned in the 5th paragraph of that interview-requote I posted. Here is Charles Stross's take on Against a Dark Background. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Aug 93 11:55:01 GMT From: charless@sco.com (charless) Reply-to: sf-lovers-written@Rutgers.Edu Subject: Re: Iain Banks rcj@engin.umich.edu (Rod Johnson) writes: >I actually don't think it's that bad a book, just not up to Banks' usual. >It certainly has many redeeming qualities - if nothing else, the setting >and the fantastic proliferation of social and economic systems on Golter, >and the sense of history compounded by the tragic isolation of the system, >made for interesting reading. Sorry, don't agree. Just reviewed Against a Dark Background for Nexus. I think it's a curate's egg. Bits are good, but lots of it are stinky-rotten and the background's responsible for a lot of that. The space operatic trappings of the Culture background doesn't translate into the run-down claustrophobia of Golter. In AADB the background defaults to 1980's-UK-standard wherever Banks can't be bothered to think of some whacky new eyeball kick. Take, for example, descriptions of clothing, transport, environment, cities, ... wherever he lost interest he used contemporary trappings or bits of gash Central Casing properties from the old SF cliche repository. I initially expected AaDB to be the big Banks SF breakthrough, where he transcends the self-imposed limits of the Culture universe and does something stunningly good (say, as good within the SF oevre as The Crow Road or The Bridge are within mainstream). But he didn't deliver, this time; all we got was some stunning set-pieces, heavy irony, a plot that read like a Mick Farren novel (only more simplistic), and a startling lack of character development and insight. AaDB is close to being his worst novel, although his worst is better-than-average by genre standards. I still believe he _will_ deliver the greatest SF novel of the 90's sometime soon, but this is definitely Not The One To Read. ObRumour: I heard that this was the first SF novel of his to see print that wasn't a re-write of something he'd first messed with during his teens. Charlie Stross charless@scol.sco.com charlie@antipope.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ My take on AaDB: It has amazing pieces of world building & future technology mixed in with utter stupidity. The main character of AaDB is pretty terrible on all levels, though you probably won't catch onto this until a re-read of AaDB.
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Jan 30, 2021 07:06
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Yeah I bought it on softcover release, read it quite a few times since. sharrow isn't exactly a great character, I just really liked the world building.
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Jan 30, 2021 10:22
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The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PI181JI/
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Jan 30, 2021 19:46
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NYC is exceptional but only in that it has the most comprehensive public transit in the continental US. It's cool to be able to live car-free and this is a really easy place to do it. That has some implications for functional density which are nice, too. No strip malls, no huge swathes of parking lot—you get to dodge a lot of the zoning troubles that blight a lot of American urban space (or so I learned from a YouTube channel about simcity). Or so I'm told, maybe I'm wrong. I went to LA once and it upset me.
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Jan 30, 2021 20:42
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Ccs posted:Hey that's great! Baudolino is amazing. I'm gonna pick up Pratchett's Fifth Elephant cause it's the first Discworld book I ever checked out and I haven't read one of these for years. Yeah, Baudolino is legit fantastic and great literary fiction for fans of fantasy and adventure.
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Jan 30, 2021 21:31
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pradmer posted:The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson - $1.99 This book owns.
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Jan 30, 2021 21:33
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General Battuta posted:NYC is exceptional but only in that it has the most comprehensive public transit in the continental US. It's cool to be able to live car-free and this is a really easy place to do it. That has some implications for functional density which are nice, too. No strip malls, no huge swathes of parking lot—you get to dodge a lot of the zoning troubles that blight a lot of American urban space (or so I learned from a YouTube channel about simcity). Yeah I dunno how anyone can live in a place with bad public transit. I’m in Montreal which has great public transit and also rent that’s like $500 a month. I’m still reading The Fifth Elephant and recognizing how much Pratchett influenced Joe Abercrombie’s authorial voice. Any of Abercrombie’s bits about the army could have been equally about the Watch. The main difference is Joe has more grit and swearing and important characters sometimes die.
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Jan 30, 2021 22:00
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Way back when I still used Discord, I tried asking a question but never got a straight answer back. The question was and still is: Why are SA book barn posters so obsessed with Patrick Rothfuss? Unrelated note: Made invisible ink from a Kristie Macrakis recipe. Doing so got me curious about the Voynich manuscript wondering if it had ever been tested for invisible inks after making that invisible inks. HD scans of the Voynich manuscript & the sections on stenographic encoding/hidden writing from Codebreakers 2nd edition are what I plan on studying the rest of the weekend. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Jan 31, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 23:35
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quantumfoam posted:Way back when I still used Discord, I tried asking a question but never got a straight answer back. Probably cause BotL spent an obscene amount of words deconstructing every chapter of Name of the Wind to explore why it was bad. This morphed into a fascination with why the books were so popular. It’s also because in other parts of the internet Rothfuss is still help up as a great, if slow, writer, and you rarely hear criticism of his prose. So this became a place for people to vent their frustrations with every aspect of his work.
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Jan 31, 2021 00:59
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Name of the Wind is basically Infinite Jest for fantasy nerds. Also the author's got a amazingly fedorable bio out there where he brags about giving relationship advice to girls in college before he'd had a girlfriend, and how he was a "class clown" and "skilled lover of women" and is a total renaissance man and etc. Or in other words, "that guy."
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Jan 31, 2021 04:54
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C.M. Kruger posted:Name of the Wind is basically Infinite Jest for fantasy nerds. what does this even mean?
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Jan 31, 2021 04:59
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Over on Twitter the tragedy-loving lesbian fan-artists have discovered the Baru books and they're producing just a wild amount of delicious art. https://twitter.com/Marceline2174/status/1355722603374145538?s=20 It looks like a lot of them are finding them after reading the Locked Tomb books. https://twitter.com/AnaKalashnikova/status/1303710400266018817?s=20 C.M. Kruger posted:Also the author's got a amazingly fedorable bio out there where he brags about giving relationship advice to girls in college before he'd had a girlfriend, and how he was a "class clown" and "skilled lover of women" and is a total renaissance man and etc. Or in other words, "that guy." So, his protagonist. lmao
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Jan 31, 2021 05:03
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awesmoe posted:what does this even mean? Exactly what it sounds like.
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Jan 31, 2021 05:04
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tiniestacorn posted:Over on Twitter the tragedy-loving lesbian fan-artists have discovered the Baru books and they're producing just a wild amount of delicious art. That is exactly what's happening. The tragedy loving lesbian fandom of GTN / HTN has found (or rediscovered) the Baru series and yes that includes the fanartists and it's a beautiful thing
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Jan 31, 2021 05:11
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Speaking of lesbians, the Nevernight Chronicles was surprisingly good for being an fledgling assassin series. Although the Pratchett estate should sue him for his footnote use.
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Jan 31, 2021 06:55
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tiniestacorn posted:Over on Twitter the tragedy-loving lesbian fan-artists have discovered the Baru books and they're producing just a wild amount of delicious art. LOL. https://twitter.com/AnaKalashnikova/status/1355420295734161408
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Jan 31, 2021 07:46
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quantumfoam posted:Way back when I still used Discord, I tried asking a question but never got a straight answer back. rothfuss is a big name in various niche nerd circles that overlap with goondom he's been a guest on a lot of big nerd podcasts, hammers the convention circuit really hard, pops up on youtube all the time and even on TV naturally people become annoyed by this if they think he is bad or even if they think he is good but are annoyed by him being even slower than GRRM also I know a guy who was in grad school with him and apparently he brewed a lot of noxious herbal tonics and forced classmates to drink them
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Jan 31, 2021 07:51
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Thought it said 'Bone Doll's Twin' at first and was about to rush to mention how disappointingly non-LGBT that one was despite the premise.
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Jan 31, 2021 10:53
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PupsOfWar posted:rothfuss is a big name in various niche nerd circles that overlap with goondom I'm glad that the Kusuha Mizuho Health Drink came from someone's real experiences. But yeah he made it big despite being a very mediocre writer and is extremely arrogant and stuck-up about how writing and how he 'crafts every letter perfectly' and so rejects minor things like being edited and also writes extremely sloppily because he's actually just cramming a bunch of short stories together, so in one bit the writing style completely changes and forgets that you actually know who Kvothe is because he put the first short story he wrote of Kvothe in the middle of the second book. EDIT: Quote is not edit.
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Jan 31, 2021 10:59
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bwahahahahahaha this is glorious
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Jan 31, 2021 11:04
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Ok. My definition of awful author behavior has repeatedly been reset by reading the SFL Archives. The Rothfuss behavior stuff that has been described feels like normal-day conduct poo poo from Isaac Asimov/David Brin/Damon Knight/Harlan Ellison/Jerry Pournelle/Brian Aldiss back in their era. So much awful author behavior flew back then that would not be tolerated today. The person most similar to Patrick Rothfuss in the SFL Archives is probably Daniel Keys Moran. DKM was similarly over-hyped and bragging despite a lack of output on already planned out stories.
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Jan 31, 2021 15:12
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https://twitter.com/SFRuminations/status/1355708781095759875 The preview didn't show the full cover and I was all "it can't be that bad" and lo
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Jan 31, 2021 15:23
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The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber is exactly that terrible and deserves that accurate cover. tldr summary of The Wanderer: alien cat-girls destroy the Moon resulting in 250 pages of by-the-numbers disaster porn. Definitely enjoying the weirdness of the Voynich manuscript. And if anyone likes real-life puzzles based on fiction, check out the KRYPTOS sculpture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos 4th segment is still unbroken.
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Jan 31, 2021 16:49
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I have a cart from book outlet filled with a bunch of speculative fiction and looking for thoughts on the following before I click buy. Anything stand out as particularly high or low quality? Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi Hearts of Oak by Eddie Robson The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander The Brotherhood of the Wheel by R.S. Belcher (this one seems the most dubious to me... I’m ok with trashy, but I have my limits) Waste Tide by Quen Qiufan Among Others by Jo Walton
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Jan 31, 2021 17:07
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Jordan7hm posted:I have a cart from book outlet filled with a bunch of speculative fiction and looking for thoughts on the following before I click buy. Anything stand out as particularly high or low quality? Summerland is sci-fi mixed with a Cold War spy thriller. Recommended.
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Jan 31, 2021 17:32
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quantumfoam posted:The person most similar to Patrick Rothfuss in the SFL Archives is probably Daniel Keys Moran. DKM was similarly over-hyped and bragging despite a lack of output on already planned out stories. I looked him up on Wikipedia and yup, that seems about right. Even his photo gives off similar vibes.
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Jan 31, 2021 17:36
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