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A little while back someone was asking about The Unbroken by C.L. Clark since they heard people liken it to Baru. I just finished it the other day and can say that there are some broad similarities. The main character is a lady who likes ladies. She was taken from her home country by the Not-French empire and raised to be a disposable soldier with a bunch of other kidnapped kids. The main plot is about the impacts of imperialism and rebelling against it. There's also a secret rebel council and secret magic. One big difference is that it seems to be a queernormative universe, so it's not a big deal that a bunch of the main characters are gay/bi (even the Not-French princess who is also a POV character is casually bi). It was a solid enough book but not the most amazing thing I've read recently. Some of the plot pacing felt a little uneven, kind of dragging in some parts and going a little too fast in others (basically just standard debut novel roughness). There's some interesting things going on with the worldbuilding that I wouldn't mind knowing more about, though. (There's a giant library in a cursed, abandoned city that gets mentioned a lot but they never actually get to go there so I'm sure it'll turn up in again. I'm a sucker for big fantasy libraries/archives.) It's the first in a series, but it also felt pretty wrapped up by the end at the same time, which I appreciated. I think if you wanted to treat it as a stand alone you totally could.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:00
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team overhead smash posted:Just googled this and sounds super cool. Please let me know how it reads. I really enjoyed it. Very well written and the prose is almost poetic in sections. It’s all narrated by a storyteller giving you oral histories of different events or periods of the empire. Lots of well done vague world building where the narrator throws out stuff like “and of course we all know what happened to the Blah dynasty” but not enough to tie any of the stories together in time or context.
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Apr 8, 2021 17:01
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StrixNebulosa posted:
Somehow Catherine Asaro's Skolian Empire came to mind when you asked this. I guess because the books have more of a romance bent than most sci-fi? Can't recall if it had optimistic themes, maybe put it in the back burner if you want something of that sort?
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Apr 8, 2021 17:38
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i recently finished a memory called empire and im surprised people are including it in the "cozy" genre the central argument of the novel, to me at least, is that cultural hegemony is an inherently corrupting structure and nothing one individual does can overcome it as evidenced by how ambassador dzmare goes home at the end, which feels like one of those bummer truths we want to avoid when we read escapist fiction. compare the archetype cozy novel the long way to a small, angry planet (which i have not read in 6 years so i may not remember all the details correctly) which has a bunch of alien races from various socioeconomic classes help each other with their personal issues in celebration of multiculturalism to a memory called empire where two people who are essentially both humans realise they are from too different cultures (the in race and the out race) to ever truthfully love each other so they go back to their home planets
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Apr 8, 2021 19:32
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the tyrant baru cormorant is cozier than a memory called empire because the noble dying emperor who gracefully sacrifices him/herself to preserve their empire at least gets to live in the end of tyrant
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Apr 8, 2021 19:37
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quantumfoam posted:Please stop replying to the thread troll, thanks in advance.
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Apr 8, 2021 20:38
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Zore posted:Long Way has 2 sequels that fit as well if you haven't read them. Final book in that universe is supposed to be coming out soon as well. Later this month IIRC. Chambers has a new series starting this year as well, Monk & Robot.
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Apr 8, 2021 21:00
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StrixNebulosa posted:- Huh. The Golden Globe is in my uncle's collection and I don't have any emotions when I pick it up, so I might be clear to just read it. Thanks! You're welcome  It's a "sequel" in the very loosest sense of the word to Steel Beach, but it's basically just a shared universe and I didn't recommend SB because it definitely doesn't fit your definition - a much darker story about suicide and depression - and you don't need to have read it at all to enjoy TGG.
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Apr 9, 2021 01:27
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It's not as intensely fantasy/sci-fi as a lot of books in here, but I just listened to the audiobook for Piranesi and man, what an incredible story. There's some books where I can just really visualise and picture everything perfectly, this was one of them for sure. The narrator does an amazing job as well and brings a great vibe to the character and cheery vibe/matter-of-factness in his descriptions about the House as well. I've been looking for some good self-contained stories for a while and this fit in perfectly. I've just gotten through the first quarter or so of Borne by Jeff VanderMeer and it's hitting a lot of the same notes for me. Some books I feel like I can just see everything perfectly, in a way that doesn't always happen. I had similar feelings about Book of the New Sun which just felt like a weird surreal dream world the whole time. I really need to get back to that series some time too.
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Apr 9, 2021 02:01
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StrixNebulosa posted:May I interrupt? I'm literally sitting here minutes from bed scrolling through books in my kindle wanting some kind of comfort sci-fi. Not fantasy, but sci-fi. There's the thread favorite Murderbot, and Long Way to Angry Planet, but...what else? Bujold kind of fits, kind of doesn't, Cherryh's Foreigner's later books are definitely cozy, and I think it might be time to read more of James White's space hospital series, but it's never a bad time to ask: Little late, but Mike Resnik's Santiago might fit the bill. A fair bit of the story is about "bad" characters realizing they're much better than they realize.
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Apr 9, 2021 04:10
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uber_stoat posted:finally got rid of 'em, god bless. ever thus to an-cap pedophiles. I am halfway through and while it is good, I keep thinking there is nothing new with the format. Reads more like a classic fable or thousand and one night story.
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Apr 9, 2021 04:46
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One of my favorite trilogies is The Coldfire Trilogy and I need new books to read. Any suggestions?
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Apr 9, 2021 05:29
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Invalid Validation posted:One of my favorite trilogies is The Coldfire Trilogy and I need new books to read. Any suggestions? It's been a long time since I read her stuff but I remember that trilogy being a bit hard to replicate because it's one of the classic examples of a series that straddles scifi and fantasy. The Goodreads "also liked" list isn't much help because it's basically a list of fantasy from the same era.
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Apr 9, 2021 05:55
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Guess I’m looking for something more that tone but newer? Fantasy preferred.
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Apr 9, 2021 06:03
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Invalid Validation posted:Guess I’m looking for something more that tone but newer? Fantasy preferred. A Land Fit for Heroes, the trilogy by Richard K. Morgan might work
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Apr 9, 2021 06:20
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Phobeste posted:This is ironically a very apropos thing to associate with the Alex Benedict novels Especially the first one. I can never remember which ones are Alex Benedict & Chase and which ones are Pricilla Hutch ones. They're all pretty good in a low stakes space detective way
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Apr 9, 2021 08:50
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Invalid Validation posted:One of my favorite trilogies is The Coldfire Trilogy and I need new books to read. Any suggestions? Have you read her other stuff? This Alien Shore is one of my favorite books.
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Apr 9, 2021 14:05
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Toast King posted:It's not as intensely fantasy/sci-fi as a lot of books in here, but I just listened to the audiobook for Piranesi and man, what an incredible story. There's some books where I can just really visualise and picture everything perfectly, this was one of them for sure. The narrator does an amazing job as well and brings a great vibe to the character and cheery vibe/matter-of-factness in his descriptions about the House as well. Yeah, I also really loved the book/audiobook! Normally never listen on audio book but I really liked it for this one. I think the other thing which makes it incredible how well you can visualize it is how bizarre the setting is - nonetheless I feel like I came away with a really clear picture. E: also i have now read a few more of the nebula books and I feel like Piranesi must be a favorite from that list. I realize though, I’m not like a professional author or critic or other designated good taste person, so maybe my opinions are idiosyncratic? Curious what others felt. At least for me: Piranesi - instant classic imo The City We Became- i really like NK Jemisin in general, but couldn’t finish this. Maybe I just need to give it another shot. It seems like I might be in the minority in this opinion though? Maybe this would be the one to bet on if any other book were to win? Black Sun- it’s a good book for sure, but it’s just not on the same level. Definitely executes a story pretty well in a cool world, but didn’t feel “best book of the year” exceptional. Network Effect- a very good book, but I didn’t feel it was quite on the level of Piranesi (or some of the other Murderbot stuff) for me. It felt a bit stretched out at points. Granted, I still really loved it. The Midnight Bargain- sort of like Black Sun for me- good, but not “win out over all these other books” good. Also a did not finish for me, though I probably will at some point. Mexican Gothic I haven’t read, so no idea there. Also surprised the third Baru book wasn’t nominated. I guess these things are pretty random, but it seems like a clear choice to me over at least 2-3 of the other books on the list, and competitive with basically any of them. tildes fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Apr 9, 2021 |
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Apr 9, 2021 15:00
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The Folding Knife by K.J. Parker is on sale for $1.99 https://smile.amazon.com/Folding-Knife-K-J-Parker-ebook/dp/B0035IICZO it's really good even if it does have one of the typical KJP sad endings, ish
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Apr 9, 2021 18:06
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From Darkest Skies This has been instantly enjoyable and I'm pretty gleeful that the next two parts are written and waiting.
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Apr 9, 2021 19:31
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Picked up Two of Swords based on the excerpt and I just can't put down. So many shady plots!
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Apr 9, 2021 21:17
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Yeah it might be the strongest of Parker's longer series I've read. I'm glad he was able to make the serialized format work. Gradually funneling the reader between characters gave vast scope to the conflict, and choosing to focus on one character in the last third prevented things from getting to disparate. And while parts felt aimless, there was never the overriding sense of "where is this going?" that I've felt while trying to read his other long series like Scavenger.
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Apr 9, 2021 21:25
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StrixNebulosa posted:- Greatship: uh, is this the Marrow by Robert Reed? What book is this! Yes, sorry, my bad! Marrow is IIRC the first one chronologically but they skip around a lot and it doesn't really matter what order you read them in. There's also The Greatship, The Well of Stars, A Memory of Sky, and a million loving short stories that I wish he'd put in a collection or something.
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Apr 9, 2021 23:11
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I just finished up Curse of Chalion. Book good. Every Saturday I go to breakfast by myself and I happened to finish it while I was there. The ending was surprisingly happy and made me tear up in the middle of the restaurant.
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Apr 10, 2021 14:13
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General Battuta posted:Are you a Shivan superjuggernaught named Naruto I was namechanged in one of the gbs 'post here to have your name changed' threads years ago.
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Apr 10, 2021 14:20
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tildes posted:E: also i have now read a few more of the nebula books and I feel like Piranesi must be a favorite from that list. I realize though, I’m not like a professional author or critic or other designated good taste person, so maybe my opinions are idiosyncratic? Curious what others felt. At least for me: I think Piranesi is easily the best. Of the others I've read, I'm with you—they're fine, but are up against a new classic of the genre.
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Apr 10, 2021 14:23
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packetmantis posted:Yes, sorry, my bad! Marrow is IIRC the first one chronologically but they skip around a lot and it doesn't really matter what order you read them in. There's also The Greatship, The Well of Stars, A Memory of Sky, and a million loving short stories that I wish he'd put in a collection or something. I'll have a look at them, thank you!
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Apr 10, 2021 14:27
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i havent had any luck when i asked last year, but has anyone here read any good Generation ships or interstellar colony novels in the last year?
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Apr 10, 2021 19:00
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PawParole posted:i havent had any luck when i asked last year, but has anyone here read any good Generation ships or interstellar colony novels in the last year? Children of Ruin is half generation ship half the development of alien intelligence on the destination planet. Tau Zero was okay and a bit dated but I enjoyed how absurd the time lag got. Freeze Frame Revolution is decent and has a different premise as people try and rebel against their AI overlord despite spending 99.999% of their time in cryo.
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Apr 10, 2021 19:23
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PawParole posted:i havent had any luck when i asked last year, but has anyone here read any good Generation ships or interstellar colony novels in the last year? What have you already read? There's Aurora, obviously. Chasm City and On the Steel Breeze by Alastair Reynolds have large parts of each set on generation ships.
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Apr 10, 2021 19:32
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PawParole posted:i havent had any luck when i asked last year, but has anyone here read any good Generation ships or interstellar colony novels in the last year? An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. It's literary science fiction, though, so if you're looking for a hard science fiction treatment of generation ships, it probably won't be for you. tiniestacorn fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Apr 10, 2021 |
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Apr 10, 2021 21:25
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I’ve smashed my face against To Sleep in a Sea of Stars a couple times now and I’ve bounced off. I’m like 150 pages in and looking at the little progress marker going 17% and I just absolutely cannot see that through.
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Apr 10, 2021 21:51
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Teddybear posted:I’ve smashed my face against To Sleep in a Sea of Stars a couple times now and I’ve bounced off. I’m like 150 pages in and looking at the little progress marker going 17% and I just absolutely cannot see that through. I made it to 63%, personally. First book I've ever quit over halfway through. The second one was NOS4A2
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Apr 10, 2021 21:55
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Isn't that writer known only for an exceptionally derivative and poorly written fantasy series anyway? Doesn't seem like something worth the effort 
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Apr 10, 2021 22:07
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Anyone own any Folio Society books? Saw the PKD short story collection yesterday just before it sold out and had to purchase it. https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/the-complete-short-stories.html
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Apr 10, 2021 23:05
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StrixNebulosa posted:Waking up to lots of recs is my favorite, thank you!!! If comics are in scope, also check out Always Human. Some of the stories in We're The Weird Aliens would qualify, but it's a short story anthology and the unifying theme is "humans are weird" rather than "humans are cozy", so sometimes it's like, human introduces alien explorer to the joys of curry, and sometimes it's more like human kills an entire shipful of space pirates bare-handed. It's a mixed bag, is what I'm saying, and I haven't read it recently enough to recommend specific stories. Invalid Validation posted:One of my favorite trilogies is The Coldfire Trilogy and I need new books to read. Any suggestions? The obvious recommendation is more of CSF's stuff. The Magister series has a lot of thematic parallels with Coldfire but is its own thing otherwise. Her SF work This Alien Shore, The Madness Season, and In Conquest Born are all good (although I'd skip The Wilding, the sequel Conquest absolutely did not need). For other authors, I'd consider The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron, Stories of the Raksura by Martha Wells, Dragonoak by Sam Farren, and Rogues of the Republic by Patrick Weekes to all be at least vibe-adjacent, although none of them share Coldfire's "fantasy setting with SF backstory" element.
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Apr 10, 2021 23:26
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Boody posted:Anyone own any Folio Society books? I own a number of individual titles and sets from Folio. I saw the PKD set, but I'm not a big enough fan of his work to justify the cost.
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Apr 10, 2021 23:36
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that Folio Dune calls to me. dare i heed the call.
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Apr 11, 2021 00:11
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https://twitter.com/jasonsanford/status/1380880918978658304
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Apr 11, 2021 01:39
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uber_stoat posted:that Folio Dune calls to me. dare i heed the call. That's one I have. It is absolutely gorgeous in person.
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Apr 11, 2021 03:11
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