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Man that Baru cover is... not representative.
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Aug 25, 2021 23:03
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packetmantis posted:Man that Baru cover is... not representative. It's a cool cover though, that's one of the reasons I bought it. I know we're not supposed to judge books by their covers but an attractive cover is definitely a plus for me.
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Aug 26, 2021 00:52
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I think it’s cause the masks they wear in Falcrest are porcelain according to the book. So it’s her features but in cracked porcelain. I dunno if the features themselves aren’t representative of the kind of island Baru’s people are supposed to be from.
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Aug 26, 2021 01:00
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sci fi books have a long tradition of covers having very little to do with their contents.
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Aug 26, 2021 01:19
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packetmantis posted:Man that Baru cover is... not representative. You could always print out a bunch of accounting spreadsheets and wrap it in those instead. e: Just remembered how different the UK edition is (including the shortened title): 
DurianGray fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Aug 26, 2021 |
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Aug 26, 2021 01:54
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DurianGray posted:You could always print out a bunch of accounting spreadsheets and wrap it in those instead. I have this in my Amazon basket and it's payday tomorrow. Going to find out what the fuss is about! ...also I read the preview and the words are very good.
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Aug 26, 2021 02:30
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I finally finished KJ Parker’s Engineer trilogy. I think I liked it. I definitely enjoyed reading it in a way I didn’t quite enjoy Fencer. The characters are clearer in their motivations, the pacing is better, and the world feels more established. The ending... hmmm. I’ll have to think about it.
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Aug 26, 2021 04:05
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I forget which baru it was, but one had an awesome cover of a cracked mask on fire. Hell, I bought it just for that. Wish they'd offer prints.
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Aug 26, 2021 05:09
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I forget which baru it was, but one had an awesome cover of a cracked mask on fire. Hell, I bought it just for that. Wish they'd offer prints. It's good. 
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Aug 26, 2021 05:23
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Ooh I like that one. It actually looks like a mask.
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Aug 26, 2021 05:30
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i'm on the 2nd book of the paksenarrion series and i hope she doesn't become a paladin of gird, these people are loving insufferable
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Aug 26, 2021 10:05
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DurianGray posted:You could always print out a bunch of accounting spreadsheets and wrap it in those instead.
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Aug 26, 2021 10:24
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Makes game of thrones look like... what? They made that up, right?
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Aug 26, 2021 10:38
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So, I finished with Redemptor and I appreciate so much of it, including baby’s first introduction to parts of Marxist theory and the meditation done deconstructing a lot of ‘monarchy good’ default fantasy bullshit. Those are important things to include in YA fiction, I think. I love the examples of art, fashion and songs that she included in the description, especially since the audiobook narrator actually sang some of it. (in a good way) It’s one of the reasons I like Tolkien and it was refreshing to get it from an African base instead of Nordic/Western European. The audiobook definitely helped me get a feel for the accents that I don’t have as much cultural context for. I kind of wish she had spent more time on the recruitment of her council and the emotional and societal impacts of that but there were already times where it dragged and there was a lot more to get to. I also feel like she didn’t give Tarisai’s anxiety enough space, but see above comment. I do like how the main take home about the human villains is “People can be evil, but it’s usually more complicated”. And the ending was satisfactory. There were some things not examined to their fullest extent, I feel, including the ramifications of Blueblooded-ness, but it is YA.
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Aug 26, 2021 12:02
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It saddens me that publishers seem to (or seemed to for about 10 years) require every second fantasy book to have some reference to GRRM on the cover. Traitor was a cool book and I enjoyed the heck out of it but at no point was I really reminded of GRRM's works on an aesthetic or thematic level moreso than any other epic/dark fantasy novel in recent memory (I guess the bow you could draw is that GRRM has become synonymous with bleak, complex fantasy). I mean, 15-20 years ago every book cover had something about LOTR on it so this is nothing new. I think it annoys me because it's a silent nod to the industry inertia naturally drawing itself back to the safety net of 'the last thing that worked'. Those who know more about this than me, has this trend died off since GoT S8 was a huge disaster and GRRM is now a meme because he refuses to leave his cave for anything except a new WILD CARDS release? What's the new spice for front-cover comparisons? The Witcher?
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Aug 26, 2021 12:08
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Doctor Jeep posted:i'm on the 2nd book of the paksenarrion series and i hope she doesn't become a paladin of gird, these people are loving insufferable Spoiler for later on: The series was literally inspired by D&D, she's making a contrast between the newer "start as a paladin, have a very stringent code" style vs the older "Start as a fighter, become a paladin, have a much looser code" style. The Deed of Paksenarrion is great overall, Paladin's Legacy is a little less good, but still pretty good. It just suffers a bit from the many simultaneous mostly separate plotlines.
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Aug 26, 2021 14:18
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Doctor Jeep posted:i'm on the 2nd book of the paksenarrion series and i hope she doesn't become a paladin of gird, these people are loving insufferable That series is good because it makes Paladins interesting. Those dudes sure are insufferable though, aren’t they?
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Aug 26, 2021 14:22
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Alright, time for some thoughts on KJ Parker's Engineer trilogy. This was an absorbing series. The protagonist, Ziani, is immediately sympathetic because he's wronged by an absurd rule about not altering any designs, known as Specifications, which are the source of the Mezentine Republic's economic dominance. And he's a family man! He loves his wife and daughter, he just wants his life to go back to the way it was before a bit of technical tinkering led to his conviction. The first book is the most satisfying because the characters elicit the most sympathy and the twists, while sometimes cruel, all seem to be about bringing two people who are in love back together. Well, this is Parker, so things don't stay that way for long. Subsequent books reveal our protagonist's wife set up the whole thing because she was cheating on him and wanted him out of the picture. To an extent she was being manipulated by her lover, but still. Now the whole enterprise is tainted. And our other main character's love interest ends up not loving him after he loses a duel, due to a complicated set of reactions to do with duty vs protecting her. That whole situation had me thinking of the sketch in I Think You Should Leave where a man's wife turns on him because a magician makes a joke at his expense. It's just... I don't buy it. Maybe some people's emotions do work that way, people are complicated, but this was just a comical turnabout. This brings me to a problem I have with a lot of especially early Parker material. The women feel underserved by the narrative. It's not that they're more cruel than the male characters. There are plenty of men in this trilogy who are monsters. But one of the major themes in Engineer is how love is connected to evil. And in both of the major relationships, the women initiate the actions that lead to so much evil being perpetrated, yet get far less coverage in the narrative compared to their male counterparts. The narrative slyly comments on this as Veatriz spends most of the narrative embroidering, a hobby she hates but is basically consigned to by her station as the Duke's wife with no real responsibilities. At the end after she has decided she can no longer love the Duke, she says she'll just go back to doing nothing, which has been her entire life. Meanwhile at one point in the book the Duke is in an arranged marriage with a highly educated woman who suggests sensible policy to him. He can't stand her. He thinks of her as some kind of creature. It's like the narrative is trying to erode our sympathy built up in the first book as fast as possible in subsequent volumes. The resolution of the two major relationships do provide a nice contrast. Even if her motives for falling out of love seem silly, Veatriz is honest with the Duke that she can no longer love him. Meanwhile, Ziani's wife professes that she does love him even though he knows its a lie. But he accepts her lie because he feels its a compromise he has to make. The last image in the book is that her eyes are like stones. Hard to say who is in the worse situation, both people trapped in loveless relationships, but one who is honest about it and the other trying to live a lie. Aside from all that I thought the books had a lot of cool stuff to say about industrialized society vs feudal society, how economic dominance in one area can be turned against neighboring countries to make them poor (kind of reminded me of the debt issues between certain successful and unsuccessful EU economies) and the lies a civilization tells itself in order to keep its policy consistent and its population content. Also there's some really cool scenes where characters have valuable insight in the process of constructing something, and the way the imagery of forging and engineering is connected to the mechanics of their realization is really well done.
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Aug 26, 2021 15:03
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finished Tehanu (Earthsea book 4). I really enjoyed it, but it was pretty different from the previous books. Kind of unexpected to have a navel gazey look at parenthood and aging in the same series I previously lauded for its extreme economy in storytelling
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Aug 26, 2021 15:53
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Aardvark! posted:finished Tehanu (Earthsea book 4). I really enjoyed it, but it was pretty different from the previous books. Kind of unexpected to have a navel gazey look at parenthood and aging in the same series I previously lauded for its extreme economy in storytelling Well it’s almost twenty years between The Farthest Shore and Tehanu. The change in focus and tone is not surprising really, given that writer has had two decades of life and experience to reflect and build on.
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Aug 26, 2021 16:15
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You can tell a lot about a person by how they feel about Tehanu. Unfortunately the Aardvark must now be given to the nameless ones.
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Aug 26, 2021 16:17
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buffalo all day posted:You can tell a lot about a person by how they feel about Tehanu. Unfortunately the Aardvark must now be given to the nameless ones. Because I... Liked it? Are you anti Tehanu? 
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Aug 26, 2021 16:19
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90s Cringe Rock posted:BBC kids show where someone just sits there and reads a story.
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Aug 26, 2021 16:21
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I forgot to ask, since I liked Tehanu, should I read the short stories book before book 5? I'd heard Tehanu talked about a bunch of times and actually thought it was the final book until I looked it up after I finished. I hope that doesn't mean these other 2 books are bad 
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Aug 26, 2021 16:36
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Yes, read the short stories.
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Aug 26, 2021 16:38
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Aardvark! posted:Because I... Liked it? Are you anti Tehanu? Oh no I love Tehanu, sorry I missed the fact that you enjoyed it and focused on the navel gazey and not economical part. As a compromise you may become the eaten one.
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Aug 26, 2021 16:44
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Not that there's anything wrong with Jackanory - Kenneth Williams reading the Agaton Sax stories when I was young was a real treat.
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Aug 26, 2021 18:04
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drat! What a bunch of insane libertarian bullshit. I liked the setting of War against the Chtorr but I don't really want to read through that author's delusional ramblings just to get through the rest of the story. Oh well, going by some of the comments about the latter books (Book 3 in particular) what I read of this series was probably the peak anyways. There's some extremely disturbing stuff later on. Can anyone recommend some alien apocalypse books similar to this?
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Aug 26, 2021 19:49
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Hobnob posted:Not that there's anything wrong with Jackanory - Kenneth Williams reading the Agaton Sax stories when I was young was a real treat. Yeah Jackanory was fantastic as a kid back in the day. They did a great version of The Hobbit over 2 weeks with multiple cast members.
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Aug 26, 2021 21:40
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Velius posted:That series is good because it makes Paladins interesting. Those dudes sure are insufferable though, aren’t they? if this is snark you'll have to spell it out for me
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Aug 26, 2021 22:21
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The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087X6Z1GS/ A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1) by Naomi Novik - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083RZC8KQ I'm brand new to Novik. Is this a good one? The Eon Series: Legacy, Eon, and Eternity by Greg Bear - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071YMZ3RT/ pradmer fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Aug 26, 2021 |
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Aug 26, 2021 23:25
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pradmer posted:The Eon Series: Legacy, Eon, and Eternity by Greg Bear - $3.99 Bad book, good book, pretty mediocre book, worth $3.99
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Aug 26, 2021 23:26
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I'm reading those right now and they're all right. I like the concepts more than anything else tbh.
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Aug 26, 2021 23:49
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pradmer posted:A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1) by Naomi Novik - $1.99 I enjoyed it, but I’d probably start with a different Novik like Uprooted or Spinning Silver. (Also how much you like this one depends on your tolerance for wizard school books.)
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Aug 26, 2021 23:53
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pradmer posted:The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin - $1.99 Sweet was this on .ca as well, got it as well as Three Body Problem for, as observed on the discord, a "loonie a problem" For deciding to not buy any new books this year I'm not doing so well
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Aug 27, 2021 00:14
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DurianGray posted:You could always print out a bunch of accounting spreadsheets and wrap it in those instead. Yeah I'm very hype about finally getting around to reading the series, but I'm irrationally bummed at how...generic the UK version looks. The original cover art is so beautiful and evocative, and the UK ones just look like turbo generic fantasy book covers. Even just missing Baru Cormorant from the titles makes it seem less evocative  I mean not that it really matters because it's the same book at the end of the day, but these are the things I care about!
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Aug 27, 2021 00:15
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pradmer posted:The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin - $1.99 I quite enjoyed ADE, and thought it was much stronger than the Napoleonic dragon books.
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Aug 27, 2021 00:23
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Yeah I enjoyed A Deadly Education too. I’ll probably read the sequel when it’s out. I’ve exhausted my supply of KJ Parker books, so I need to find a new author. Someone mentioned “The Aching God” being good so I might try that. But if anyone has recommendations for authors similar to Parker I’d like to hear them. I’ve already read Abercrombie of course. Ccs fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Aug 27, 2021 |
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Aug 27, 2021 01:11
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Ccs posted:Yeah I enjoyed A Deadly Education too. I’ll probably read the sequel when it’s out. not exactly similar but if you're looking for some gritty-ish fantasy alex marshall's the crimson empire trilogy is OK, robert jackson bennett's divine cities trilogy was a thread favorite at one point, michael woodring stover's caine series is good as well, and christopher buehlmann is the current thread favorite (I've read the blacktongue thief and liked it quite well, between two fires started off a bit too unpleasantly for me so I'm holding off right now)
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Aug 27, 2021 01:26
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Kalman posted:I enjoyed it, but I’d probably start with a different Novik like Uprooted or Spinning Silver. (Also how much you like this one depends on your tolerance for wizard school books.) Counterpoint: Uprooted never grabbed me enough to buy and Spinning Silver bored me to the point of not finishing it... ...but I really liked A Deadly Education.
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Aug 27, 2021 05:05
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