|
Yorkshire Pudding posted:Anyone read the Powdermage Trilogy? Had it recommended to me and I’ll need something new after Abercrombie’s next book comes out on the 14th. I usually recommend it to Brandon Sanderson fans because the author is a protege of the Sand man, but they're pretty good
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2021 22:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 6, 2024 21:39 |
|
|
pradmer posted:Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (Siege #1) by KJ Parker - $2.99 This one is also 99p on the UK store https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07L3291CF?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tkin_0&storeType=ebooks
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2021 22:57
|
|
|
wizzardstaff posted:I don't remember where I came across it, maybe this thread even, but their story Lena is one of the most dry, clinical, terrifying things I've ever read. It's genuinely incredible.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2021 23:01
|
|
|
Yorkshire Pudding posted:Anyone read the Powdermage Trilogy? Had it recommended to me and I’ll need something new after Abercrombie’s next book comes out on the 14th. It’s very Abercrombie lite, much more like Sanderson. If you like Abercrombie can I interest you in KJ Parker’s Engineer trilogy?
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2021 23:21
|
|
|
Just read Gypsies, one of Robert Charles Wilson's earlier novels, and it was fine or whatever but jeez... if the premise of your story is that a bunch of people discover they can travel at will between alternate universes, I would've like to see more than one or two alternate universes! So in that vein, what is some good fiction about travelling throughout the multiverse? By which I mean not just portal fantasy where they visit a single world, but one where the premise involves the characters travelling across quite a lot of different worlds. (i.e. Chronicles of Narnia is technically a multiverse and from memory they even visit a third world in one book, but 99% of it is about our world and Narnia, so it's portal fantasy not multiverse fantasy in my book.) Stuff like: - His Dark Materials - Dark Matter by Blake Crouch - The TV show Sliders etc wizzardstaff posted:I don't remember where I came across it, maybe this thread even, but their story Lena is one of the most dry, clinical, terrifying things I've ever read. Yep I posted that a while ago - loved it a lot, although I tried reading some of their antimemetics SCP stuff and didn't care for it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2021 23:38
|
|
|
The Infinitive of Go, by John Brunner.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2021 23:45
|
|
|
freebooter posted:Just read Gypsies, one of Robert Charles Wilson's earlier novels, and it was fine or whatever but jeez... if the premise of your story is that a bunch of people discover they can travel at will between alternate universes, I would've like to see more than one or two alternate universes! The Long Earth series by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett. The premise is that someone invents a device that can be built from basic household items that lets anyone hop to alternative universes one by one. The first book is about someone setting out to see just how many universes are out there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2021 23:51
|
|
|
freebooter posted:Just read Gypsies, one of Robert Charles Wilson's earlier novels, and it was fine or whatever but jeez... if the premise of your story is that a bunch of people discover they can travel at will between alternate universes, I would've like to see more than one or two alternate universes! The Space Between Worlds!
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 00:07
|
|
|
Lives of Christopher Chant and Homeward Bounders, for some classic Diana Wynne Jones.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 00:13
|
|
|
Piranesi is $1.99 today: https://www.amazon.com/Piranesi-Spe...=piranes&sr=8-1
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 00:28
|
|
|
freebooter posted:Just read Gypsies, one of Robert Charles Wilson's earlier novels, and it was fine or whatever but jeez... if the premise of your story is that a bunch of people discover they can travel at will between alternate universes, I would've like to see more than one or two alternate universes! The Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire is portal fantasy with a ton of worlds that range from a literal Candyland to a rules-heavy Goblin Market to a classic Universal Classic Monsters Dracula/Frankenstein/Cthulhu world (and more!).
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 01:51
|
|
|
The Chronicles of Amber are not this thread's favorite Zelazney books but they are legitimately books involving a fair amount of multiverse travel.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 04:15
|
|
|
freebooter posted:Just read Gypsies, one of Robert Charles Wilson's earlier novels, and it was fine or whatever but jeez... if the premise of your story is that a bunch of people discover they can travel at will between alternate universes, I would've like to see more than one or two alternate universes! Cowboy angels Paul J McAuley John Barnes Patton's Spaceship Amber
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 11:43
|
|
|
I went in completely blind on Dune after seeing 1 trailer for the new movie. I haven't read something that has kept me this engage and interesting in probably 10 years. I highly recommend checking it out, I'm almost 80% through the first book and already ordered the new two.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 17:29
|
|
|
Dune rules but every book after declines in quality, feel no guilt about hitting a point when you check out of the series for good but enjoy as much as you can. I've lost count of how many there are now that the son is pumping them out and I think one is coming out this month too
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 17:47
|
|
|
Captain Melo posted:I highly recommend checking it out, I'm almost 80% through the first book and already ordered the new two. right up there with fighting a land war in asia...
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 17:48
|
|
|
I feel like if you enjoy the first Dune you basically need to read Dune Messiah since it deals with a lot of the direct consequences of the events of Dune. After that, uhh... yeah what Tars Tarkas said definitely applies, stop when you stop enjoying them because they don't really get better, per se. I think the first three are solid, God Emperor is a weird loving trip that I only kind of enjoyed, couldn't finish whichever one is after that. The Brian Herbert/KJA ones are loving dire cash-grabs, though. I wouldn't bother with those even if you enjoy all of Frank's books. Really, especially if you enjoy the originals, since they tend to just poo poo on or overuse whatever made the first run of books enjoyable.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 18:11
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:The Brian Herbert/KJA ones are loving dire cash-grabs, though. I wouldn't bother with those even if you enjoy all of Frank's books. Really, especially if you enjoy the originals, since they tend to just poo poo on or overuse whatever made the first run of books enjoyable. Yup. I enjoyed all 6 dune books but the ones by his son are truly, impressively terrible
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 18:36
|
|
|
Tars Tarkas posted:Dune rules but every book after declines in quality, feel no guilt about hitting a point when you check out of the series for good but enjoy as much as you can. I've lost count of how many there are now that the son is pumping them out and I think one is coming out this month too Not, I think, quite so much a decline in quality, but rather a sideways slide into weirdness. Similar end result though; when you stop enjoying it, stop reading.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 18:39
|
|
|
yeah the thing about dune is you're never going to enjoy it past when it stops being entertaining for you, whether you chalk that up to quality or tone shifts or anything, it will never go back to how it was when you were enjoying it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 19:03
|
|
|
I'm very fond of the Dune Encyclopedia too, if you can find a copy. It's basically an expansion of all the historical quotes in the novels in glorious loony proto-official-fanfic form and it's stupidly good fun.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 19:16
|
|
|
I idly looked up Sean Russell today and to my joy discovered: Moontide and Magic Rise as a duology on kindle for 7$ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074LTLP23/ The prequel duology on kindle for 12$: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078VWTMPX/ And the Initiate Brother duology ALSO on kindle for 12$: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CLFCOZQ/ It's been a long time since I read World Without End (Moontide #1) and a reread might be in order, but man, Initiate Brother looks interesting. Eastern flavored court intrigue... e: Aha, and his high fantasy trilogy is also on kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074CG7BS3 First book is a dollar, the rest rise in price.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 19:37
|
|
|
Sanctuary Dune
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 20:09
|
|
|
“Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now, it's complete because it's ended here.'"
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 20:33
|
|
|
Tars Tarkas posted:Dune rules but every book after declines in quality, feel no guilt about hitting a point when you check out of the series for good but enjoy as much as you can. I've lost count of how many there are now that the son is pumping them out and I think one is coming out this month too Am I good to stop after God Emperor of Dune?
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 22:49
|
|
|
Susan Clarke's Piranesi has won this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. Which is good, because it's excellent and comfortably the most fresh and enjoyable thing I read last year. I really need to get around to invested the time in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell...
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 23:02
|
|
|
Major Ryan posted:Susan Clarke's Piranesi has won this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. It's worth it if you don't mind a slow pace. I loved that book.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 23:08
|
|
|
Armauk posted:Am I good to stop after God Emperor of Dune?
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 23:25
|
|
|
branedotorg posted:Cowboy angels Paul J McAuley Stross’s The Merchant Princes series is good, especially if you want to be persuaded we don’t live in the darkest imaginable timeline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_Princes
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 23:42
|
|
|
radmonger posted:Stross’s The Merchant Princes series is good, especially if you want to be persuaded we don’t live in the darkest imaginable timeline. i was going to recommend that too but it's really only two alternate worlds right? It's awhile since i read them. Has anyone read the recent follow up series? i read up to where Washington gets nuked, i've bought the new ones but they never seem to get to the top of my pile.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2021 23:51
|
|
|
Armauk posted:Am I good to stop after God Emperor of Dune? you can consider that the end of the main body of the books. the next two jump forward in time a good bit, there's a bunch of extremely weird (and funny, to me) horny poo poo, and ol' Frank dropped dead before finishing the last book, so you'll never really know how it ends. the son's books don't count.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 00:03
|
|
|
branedotorg posted:i was going to recommend that too but it's really only two alternate worlds right? It's awhile since i read them. I’m interested in opinions the new series too - it’s been long enough I’d need to reread the older series but it’s Stross so I always find it an enjoyable read.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 00:26
|
|
|
Heretics of Dune was a chore to work through for me and I never finished much of Chapterhouse Dune. That was 20+ years ago but I don't think my opinion would change much. My friend who is Dune obsessed liked all six but hate read the books by the son until they got to bad even he couldn't stand to read them. I picked up the parody book Doon from a used shop years ago but haven't tried to read it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 00:46
|
|
|
branedotorg posted:i was going to recommend that too but it's really only two alternate worlds right? It's awhile since i read them. No, it has an infinity of worlds. Erasmus comes from a third Earth, which Miriam visits for a while. Remember, there was a long lost secret branch of the Family that was hell bent on revenge because they believed they had been abandoned by the rest of the Family, but in actuality the founder of this branch had lost his knotwork, redrawn it from incorrectly from memory, and accidentally ended up in a different universe. Also, one of the skunkworks projects by the younger generation (in addition to the fertility clinics substituting Family sperm for the regular donors and the genetic research laboratories) was coming up with viable variations of the knotworks and exploring random parallel universes, this is what led to the Earth with the stealth dome that had been pierced by a gamma ray laser from orbit that contained the wormhole to an asteroid field where an Earth used to be. The followup series is more interesting that the original, it is 20 years later, the obstinate Family leadership is all dead, the surviving Family traveled as refugees to Erasmus's world where Erasmus's revolutionaries have successfully established an American Communist Republic based on the Iranian constitution (because of Iran's demonstrated ability to survive against US hostilities), they're at war with the fascist French monarchy, and meanwhile the United Statues of America has declared world walkers non-humans without any rights, set up facial recognition and gait analysis cameras everywhere, cloned world walker neural tissue and started importing oil from parallel Earths and investigating the dome planet, and have also tracked down Miriam's daughter that she put up for adoption, recruited her into US intelligence as an asset against her mother, and activated her recessive world-walking genes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 01:50
|
|
|
If you want to really trip on Frank Herbert juice, try reading the Eyes of Heisenberg right after Dune. It's like proto-Dune, without any cool setting details. Nearly every concept appears in some form, most obviously the life extension stuff and the battle sign language. It's like Dune bingo.
MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Sep 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 02:52
|
|
|
For some reason I skipped the two immediate Dune sequels because what goes down with Paul sounded depressing and went for the really weird final books. Odd stuff. I’ll probably actually read Dune Messiah after the film comes out.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 02:58
|
|
|
Major Ryan posted:Susan Clarke's Piranesi has won this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. I started and finished this book today. It's good.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 03:01
|
|
|
pseudorandom name posted:
OK thanks, that'll make a nice change from when i finish WoT (23 days in, just finished Crown of Swords)
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 04:24
|
|
|
Ccs posted:For some reason I skipped the two immediate Dune sequels because what goes down with Paul sounded depressing and went for the really weird final books. Odd stuff. I’ll probably actually read Dune Messiah after the film comes out. Reading up to God emperor of dune (imo nearly as good as the original) is wise as that quatrology? Is a deconstruction of the messiah trope or super power trope of Paul. like he's a loving villain who wouldve doomed humanity to extinction or some hosed up predestination no choice universe and he didn't have the courage to fix it. only through a supreme sacrifice of his son and some 'light' genocide does it get fixed. The dune book in the light of the next 3 is a tragedy for the human race and the fremen. God I love the series. Now heretics and chapterhouse are just weird. Fun. But weird.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 06:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 6, 2024 21:39 |
|
|
I'm trying to find the name of a book or the series I read a while back. It starts with a trio of boys being raised in an extremely harsh religious order preparing for some war. Eventually the main character catches the attention of a senior researcher who recruits him to help with some secret female 'captives' who are basically living in lavish luxury and kept ignorant of anything. It ends up that the senior is killing them to harvest some kind of 'pearl' that grows in people from a life of decandant luxury. Eventually he escapes, takes one of the women (referred to constantly in bovine terms due to her massive chest) and flees the area to a nearby country's city that seems styled like Renaissance Italy, complete with a big class divide between nobles in commoners. There he rises in the ranks somehow and takes over from the nobility, ends up killing the former city guard captain noble in a duel. The culture he escaped from is some major theocracy claiming to be fighting against the end of the world and it's kind of true but things go bad and there's war/conflict. One of the hooks is how the main character has something wrong with him, something special, that makes it easy for him to fight and kill people, like something in his head. No actual magic or obvious powers, but his condition is why he got some much attention in the first place. I remember specifically that a ton of the names and locations were things like Sparta, London, Pittsburgh, etc. lots of names from a huge variety of places all in the same location, and in a afterword from the author he talked about how there's a 100 sq mile area in upper New York where you can find pretty much a similar diversity of names as proof it could be possible. It's set up like low fantasy but seems to be actually a post apocalyptic future. pentyne fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Sep 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2021 09:53
|
|
